The Great Game (22 page)

             
"Sniggle?"
Cecily asked.

             
"Well, 'snick' if you prefer. So I snicks into 'is room and finds myself a place of concealment."

             
"Perched atop the clothes-press, no doubt," Cecily said.
"Disguised as an old leather suitcase."

             
The mummer smiled patiently at her. "The ladies will have their bit o' fun," he said.

             
Cecily looked abashed. "Sorry, Mummer," she said.

             
"No need," he told her.
"Fun's fun, after all."
The mummer smiled broadly to show that he could take a joke and tapped the side of his nose significantly. Barnett wondered what that was supposed to signify, but he decided not to ask.

             
"After looking around for a place of concealment," the mummer went on, "I
slides
myself under the bed, which may not be original but is adequate for the purpose, and I waits to see what occurs. Shortly 'e returns from '
is ablutions
and changes 'is clothes. Then 'e sits on the bed, and 'e sits and sits. 'E's reading over some notes and talking to 'imself, but I can't make heads nor tails out of it, cause 'e's doing 'is muttering in German, in which language I is very poor. The professor 'as taught me a bit of it, so I can understand some of the singing in
Tristan und Isolde,
and a few other of Wagner's operas, of which I am inordinately fond.
But not enough to follow Herr Lindner's muttering."

             
"You like Wagnerian opera?" Barnett asked, trying not to sound surprised.

             
The mummer nodded. "Very jolly," he explained.

             
"Yes," Barnett agreed, "that's how I'd describe them."

             
The mummer took another bite of baguette. "After a while 'e takes that helio-stat of 'is out of the drawer and puts it together by the window.
And then for a while 'e's clicking away sending a message to someone out on the lake.
And then 'e's peering into the telescope and scribbling into 'is notebook, by which I figure 'e's getting
a
answer." Mummer took another bite of baguette. "And then 'e says a couple of impolite words of a religious nature, and starts scurrying around the room and throwing everything into suitcases. And in a short order after that, 'e 'as vacated the room and is on 'is way."

             
"Sounds like whoever was on the other end of that helio-stat gave him his marching orders," Barnett commented.

             
"I was thinking some such thing myself."

             
"Let's hope he keeps marching," Cecily said. "And marching and marching. Let's hope they're done with us, whoever they are."

             
"Let us hope so, but let's keep a watchful eye on the surroundings nonetheless," Barnett said.

             
"That's what I've been saying all this time," Cecily reminded him.

             
"So you have," Barnett agreed.

-

             
Four days later the Barnetts left the Villa Endorra, taking a
vapore,
one of the little paddle-wheel steamboats that traveled the length of Lake Como, to Gravedona, at the north end of the lake, where they would get a train for Switzerland.

             
It was, according to Benjamin's pocket-watch, just ten minutes past ten in the morning when the green-and-white
Monte Bollettone
huffed into sight around the curve of the lake shore. It was twenty-five past ten when the tubby sternwheeler pulled alongside the dock and two burly boatmen hopped onto the dock and tied it off.

             
"Two and a half hours late, by the most liberal interpretation," Barnett said, snapping the gold lid of his watch shut and stuffing it back into his waistcoat pocket.

             
Cecily, who had been sitting on one of their steamer trunks, closed her parasol and allowed Benjamin to help her down. "The most liberal
British
interpretation, dear," she said.
"You forget, we are in Italy."

             
"I'm not likely to forget that," Benjamin replied. "These people have no sense of time.
None at all!"

             
"We are not in a hurry," Cecily reminded him. "Our train doesn't leave Gravedona until tomorrow morning, so we have all day to go a little over thirty kilometers. Even an Italian steamboat ought to be able to do that."

             
"Let us hope," Barnett said, and watched as four sailors staggered up the gangway with their two steamer trunks, six suitcases, and assorted smaller pieces of luggage.

             
The captain of the
Monte Bollettone,
resplendent in a light blue uniform laced with enough gold braid to ransom a king and a couple of dukes, leaned out from his second-story perch and yelled something at them through his silver speaking-trumpet. Whatever it was did not carry over the chug of the idling steam engine, and so, with an annoyed grimace at their shrugs of incomprehension, he pointed several times at them and then at the deck of his ship.

             
"I think we are to get on board," Cecily suggested.

             
"In a hurry now, is he?" Barnett asked. "Come along, my dear." He shifted his cane to his left hand and held out his arm for Cecily, escorting her at a deliberate pace up the gangway. He
still walked with a slight limp, and his wound still troubled him slightly when he stood for any length of time, making Prince Ariste's gift a most useful addition to his wardrobe.

             
After supervising the loading of the last of the suitcases, the mummer skipped on deck, tipped his cap to Benjamin and Cecily and disappeared somewhere below.

             
There were two classes of
vapore
travel:
primo
and
inferiore
;
which meant "first" and "everyone else." The difference seemed to be mainly the price of the ticket. A first-class passage was about five times the price of the other, and allowed the Barnetts to sit in wooden seats toward the front of the boat, which were identical to the
inferiore
wooden seats in the rear of the boat. They did have the advantage of being further away from the chuffing of the engine and the churning of the wheel. And, of course, sitting forward of the cabins (which could be made available to the
primo
passenger by paying a few additional lire to the purser) gave one an unimpeded view of the lake.

             
Lake Como and its surrounds were eye-fillingly beautiful. The eye went from the deep blue of the lake to the ever-varying shoreline of cliffs and beaches, rocky promontories and idle inlets; to the vineyards and villas and small towns above; and beyond that to the white-capped mountains which seemed to surround the lake protectively, and thence the impossibly blue sky. "They seem to have a much better sky here than we do in England," Barnett commented to Cecily as they sat holding hands and watching the passing scenery. "I must commend the government."

             
The two classes were separated by a white fence stretched across the deck and guarded by a stern-faced sailor. There were about twenty
inferiore,
a wild assortment of men, women, children, babes-in-arms, chickens, and at least one goat. The Barnetts had but three fellow travelers with them in
primo:
a solemn but well-fed prelate of advancing years who sat several seats down from them and was troubled, Barnett decided, by either distressing spiritual matters or indigestion, and a man and woman traveling together, sitting on a small bench to the side, who made a most distinctive couple. The man was a stocky, middle-aged aristocratic-looking gentleman of medium height, with a carefully clipped spade beard. His air of self-possessed authority was heightened by the small, twelve-pointed gold star, emblematic of some noble order, pinned to the lapel of his impeccably tailored gray suit. His companion was a strikingly beautiful woman in her early thirties dressed in an elegantly simple blue frock and gray traveling-cloak. She had an expression of quick intelligence, and was studying a paperbound manuscript which Barnett noted was a musical score of some sort.

             
"Yes, she is quite attractive," Cecily whispered, closing the
Baedeker
guide to Austria she was reading and leaning over to him.

             
"I, ah, was just wondering where they acquired those cushions they're sitting on," Barnett said.

             
"Of course you were," Cecily agreed. "I believe that if we wave a few coins at the deck steward, he'll bring us a couple."

             
"Of course.
Good idea." Barnett gestured to the white-coated steward, who came promptly over.

             
"Signore?"
The steward gave a little bow and waited expectantly.

             
"Cushions," Barnett explained, reaching into his pocket and bringing out some change. "We would like a couple of cushions for the bench,
per favore."

             
"Signore?
" the steward repeated.

             
Barnett turned helplessly to Cecily, who smiled sweetly and went back to reading her guidebook.

             
"Cushions," Barnett repeated firmly. He pointed to the red, stuffed objects his neighbors were sitting on.
"Cushions!"

             
The steward smiled, shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders. He would clearly, his manner indicated, love to earn even the few
centesimi
that the
signore
was
waving at him, but unless the
signore
could figure out how to communicate, they were doomed to never complete the transaction.

             
"What's the matter," Barnett whispered to Cecily, who remained immersed in her Baedeker, "forget all your Italian?"

             
The lady in blue leaned over toward Barnett. "If you will permit me," she said, and waved a finger at the steward.
"Inserviente!"
she called. "Il
signore"
—and she relayed Barnett's request to the suddenly obsequious steward. Her voice had a throaty, musical quality that was pleasant in English and truly magical sounding in Italian.

             
"Ah!
" The steward nodded happily when she paused.
"Desiderai cascini!"
and, giving Barnett a glance which clearly said, "Well, why didn't the
signore
say that in the first place," he grabbed a few copper coins from Barnett's hand and stalked off.

             
"Thank you," Barnett said, rising and trying to find the correct European approximation between a nod and a bow. "Thank you very much,
Signora.
But you're not Italian, are you? You sound English."

             
"How very perceptive," Cecily said under her breath.

             
"That's right," the lady in blue told him. "I was pleased to be of service to a pair of distressed countrymen." With a gracious smile, she turned back to her manuscript.

             
Cecily looked up from her book. "That's strange," she said.

             
"What?" Barnett asked. "And why wouldn't you help me with the steward?"