The Great Game (42 page)

             
"Four-eleven."

             
Madeleine wrote that immediately after the first number.

             
"And you, madame?"

             
"Oh my, let's see now.
Eight-sixty-three."

             
"And you, sir?"

             
"Three-zero-seven."

             
"Let's have three more.
You sir?"

             
"Five-ninety-one."

             
"And for the last three?"

             
"Eight—no, six-four-nine."

             
"Very good.
Thank you all. Madame Verlaine, do you have all that?"

             
"I do, Doctor Sandarel."

             
"Fine.
Without looking back at the blackboard, I will now tell you fine ladies and gentlemen that the number—the entire number—is two hundred and ninety-six quadrillion, four hundred and eleven trillion, eight hundred and sixty-three billion, three hundred and seven million, five hundred and ninety-one thousand, six hundred and forty-nine. Is that right?"

             
Madeleine had been underlining the numbers as Sandarel called them off. "Exactly right," she said.

             
The audience was not sure what to make of this, but there was a slight smattering of applause.

             
"Now, Madame Verlaine, please step forward and face the audience."

             
"Yes, Doctor Sandarel." Madeleine stepped to the front of the stage.

             
"Do you remember the number?"

             
"Yes, Doctor Sandarel."

             
"Please recite it for us—backwards."

             
"Yes. The number, backwards, is," Madeleine paused for a second and closed her eyes. She slowly recited: "nine-four-six-one-nine-five-seven-zero-three-three-six-eight-one-one-four-six-nine-two. Is that right?"

             
"Exactly right!"

             
This time the applause was stronger. The audience was beginning to realize they were seeing something different.

             
"Now, Madame Verlaine, please take this pad and go out into the audience and have them create for you another long number. Take one digit from each person you speak to. Write the number down as it's created, but don't tell me what it is."

             
Madeleine left the stage and moved among the audience, pausing to hear a whispered number and write it down, keeping up a seemingly meaningless patter to fill the silence. "Perfect, monsieur," she murmured to the first man. "Take your time," she told the second. "Marvelous!" she encouraged the third, and so on for twelve different people. While she gathered the numbers, Sandarel had someone from the audience come up and twist a scarf around his head to blindfold him.

             
"Would all those who have given numbers to Madame Verlaine please stand up," Sandarel said, facing the audience. "The blindfold is to help me concentrate, and to assure you that Madame Verlaine is not passing me any sort of secret signals."

             
The people Madeleine had spoken to stood up, looking bemused. "We're ready, Doctor," Madeleine told him from the audience.

             
"Very good.
Now, if you will concentrate on the numbers, Madame, I will try to read them from your mind and the minds of the ladies and gentlemen who gave them to you, in the order in which you received them." Sandarel looked sightlessly around the room. "Those of
you
who are standing, when you hear your number called, please take your seat. If you do not hear your number, if by some chance I get it wrong, please remain standing in mute testimony to my failure."

             
The audience chuckled.

             
Sandarel pressed his hand to his forehead. "Please concentrate, madame. Ah, good, I am getting something. It's fuzzy—
try
to make a clearer picture in your mind. Yes, yes, thank you; very good. The number is—" he paused and then spoke clearly, pausing before each number "—nine-one-three-one—no, that's a seven—four-six-eight-six-nine-five-six."

             
As he said each number, one of those standing sat down, until there was but one man left. Sandarel whipped his blindfold off and appeared to be surprised that there was still a man standing. He pointed at the man. "You're still standing," he declared. "Ah, yes—yours is the last number." He closed his eyes and his left hand searched the air in front of him for the number, his right hand remaining pointed dramatically at the man. "Two!" he said.

             
The man sat. The audience applauded. Sandarel bowed.

             
For the next ten minutes Sandarel did a series of miracles with birth dates—

             
"What date were you born, sir?"

             
"December third, eighteen forty-one."

             
"That was a Tuesday, sir."

             
"Damned me if it wasn't, sir!"

             
—and divining the names of cities and countries, and, while blindfolded, naming objects that Madeleine borrowed from audience members.

             
"Now," Sandarel said, coming to the edge of the platform, "if I can prevail upon the staff to lower the gas lights, except for the spotlight that is illuminating me now,
we
will use our remaining time to investigate the spirit world. I assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of, ladies, nothing will occur that the faintest heart among you cannot observe with complete safety. But please remain seated and be very quiet while this demonstration continues. Madame Verlaine, who is a noted medium, will be working through her spirit guide, and any interruption while she is in a trance might prove harmful to her health."

             
While the lights were lowered Sandarel gave the audience a brief history of spiritism. "Madame Verlaine has retired for a moment to compose
herself
for the
séance
," he told them. "As you know, there is some dispute as to just what it is that happens during a
séance
. The Spiritualists and the Theosophists believe that the spirits of the departed can talk to us, or even interact in a more physical manner, through the mediumship of certain special people. The Rosicrucians and others believe that the past and future have been revealed to those with the talent through the intercession of ethereal powers ..."

             
While he held the audience captivated—or at least captive— with his talk, Madeleine was in the cloak room going through the overcoats of the guests and committing every bit of writing, every scrap of paper, every document she found, to her eidetic memory. For her it was like taking a photograph: she could memorize the appearance of a page of text and then retrieve it later from her memory to actually read it. She found the little leather slipcases holding the owner's visiting cards in many of the coats, so she could bring forth at need the names of many of those present. The scraps of paper she came across were like scraps of their owner's memories: with a little careful weaving and some bold deduction, the information on them could be made to provide seemingly miraculous insights into their lives and frightening glimpses into their future.

             
Madeleine left the cloakroom and came around by a connecting hall to the green room behind the stage. To her left was the stage, where she could hear Moriarty holding forth on the history of spiritism and the meaning of everything. The character of Dr. Sandarel, omniscient, didactic, and compelling, was one that Moriarty slipped easily into. He was good for another five minutes of lecture before the audience even noticed that Madame Verlaine had not yet appeared. There was time to do a little investigating. To Madeleine's right were two closed doors. She opened the first one, and found a small room that must have been the dressing room for the musicians. A row of evening clothes were hung up on a rack along one wall, and the few unused remnants of the sixteenth-century court dress the musicians were now costumed in were strewn along a rack next to the other wall. Madeleine retreated from that room and went to the other door. She turned the handle and found it unyielding.

             
Reaching down the neck of her dress with two fingers, Madeleine pulled up a cleverly contrived lockpick, which had been hooked over a small chain around her neck. In a few seconds she had the door open and she entered the corridor in front of her, pulling the door closed behind. The wall sconces in the corridor were unlit, and the dark was absolute, unrelieved by any hint of light spilling under a door or through a window.

             
Madeleine moved slowly along the corridor her right hand feeling along the wall until she came to a door, which pushed reluctantly open after she twisted the handle. She struck a match. The room was full of shelves, and the shelves were stacked with a variety of small boxes, jars, canisters, and sacks, holding the sort of detritus that isn't immediately useful but shouldn't be thrown away. The match went out, and Madeleine backed out of the room and closed the door. A second room further down the corridor contained chairs without backs, tables without legs, and assorted other furniture in need of repair, the sort of detritus that any castle is liable to build up over the centuries. A third door—was locked.

             
With a lighted match in one hand and the lockpick in the other, Madeleine worked at the keyhole. Now time was drawing short, so of course this lock proved difficult. Inanimate objects can be strangely perverse. She blew out the match, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, relaxing and letting her fingers do the work of clearing the wards the way the mummer had taught her. It seemed that the rooms along this corridor were used for storage, and she would learn little of interest in this locked room. But, as the professor often said, there is no such thing as useless information. She kept on working on the lock and an eternity passed, and then another.
And then her fingers felt the sweet feel of the wards clearing, and the lock rotated, and the door was unlocked. It had taken perhaps forty seconds.

             
Madeleine pushed open the door and lit another match. In its flicker she could make out sacks of grain, or flour, or perhaps sand, stacked against the far wall. Well, what did she expect? She turned to leave and waved the match out. As the light fled she caught, or thought she caught, a flicker of motion in a corner of the room. She held her breath and silently took two steps to the right, so she wouldn't be where the person had last seen her, if it was a person and if he or she didn't wish her well. It probably wasn't a person, she reassured herself. What would a person be doing in this locked room? It was probably a rat. After a long moment of listening and hearing nothing, she crossed her fingers and struck another match.

             
It was no rat. It was a woman in a brown dress, lying curled up on the floor, her feet and hands tied with heavy rope and her mouth gagged with some kind of rough cloth gag. The woman twisted her head and blinked at the light.

             
Madeleine spotted a candle set firmly on one of the sacks of grain and she lit it quickly before her match went out. Dropping to her knees by the bound woman, she worked at loosening the gag. The knot did not want to come loose, but Madeleine was able to stretch the fabric just enough to force it out of the woman's mouth and down below her chin.

             
"Ahhh!" the woman gasped.

             
"Hush!" Madeleine whispered. "If they hear us, we are undone!