"Hello, Oscar." Dr. Nyet made a kitchy-koo motion toward the child.
"What are you doing with a baby?" I blurted out to Highman.
"He's my son. Since his mother's demise, he has no one but me. Don't look so surprised, Mr. Victor. All kinds of people become parents. And I'm a good father, too. You should see me change a diaper."
"I'll bet. The question is, how do you find time between changing diapers and making formulas to go about taking over the world?"
"Fatherhood keeps few men from their work, Mr. Victor."
"Okay then, back to business. Hand over that formula."
"All right," Highman agreed.
"All right?" Dr. Nyet broke in. "Just like that? You're just going to hand it over to him?"
"The man is pointing a gun at me, Dr. Nyet. I never argue under such circumstances."
"But what about S.M.U.T.? Are you going to throw away everything we stand for just like that?"
"I don't believe in being a martyr," Highman told her. "I owe it to my child to survive as best I can." He set the baby down on a chair and reached inside his jacket pocket for the formula.
Singh and I were both looking at him, and Dr. Nyet made her move before we could stop her. She shot off the table with the steak knife in her hand and plunged it into Highman's chest. It left a nasty smear of black caviar on his white shirt. She grabbed the papers from his hand as he fell, pulled out the knife, and scooped up the baby.
"Victor," Highman said, blood bubbling to his lips. "Look out for Oscar." He pitched forward on his face. He was dead.
That dying request was going to be hard to grant. Dr. Nyet held the squalling orphan slung over one arm now. In the other hand she held the steak knife poised at the infant's throat. "Stay where you are, Mr. Victor," she said. "Or I'll kill the baby."
"Isn't it enough that you've made him an orphan?"
"That was only half my doing. You can blame his father for the other half."
"Surely you wouldn't hurt an innocent baby. Where are your motherly instincts?" Singh asked.
"S.M.U.T. comes first. Highman may have forgotten that, but I haven't. Either this baby and I go out of here together with the formula, or neither one of us goes out alive. Don't cry, Oscar," she added automatically, rocking the child.
"See. You do have womanly instincts." Singh pounced.
"Of course I do. But S.M.U.T. is more important to me."
She was standing alongside the stove now, and I had a sudden inspiration. I put the gun down and slapped my hands together sharply. The gamble paid off. A frypan shot out of its niche in the wall and dropped on the stove. En route it clipped Dr. Nyet's wrist and sent the knife flying from her grasp.
She darted out the kitchen door and into the living room, still holding the baby. She opened the French doors and poised on the small balcony outside them. But Singh was right behind her, and he grappled with her there. He wrested the infant from her just as I came to his aid. He stepped backward as I stepped forward, bent on grabbing the formula from Dr… Nyet's hand. She pulled away from me violently.
Too violently. The motion carried her over the edge of the balcony. Her scream seemed to echo in the air long after the splattering sound that said she'd hit the sidewalk fifteen stories below.
Singh and I bundled Oscar up and got out of there. Downstairs I elbowed through the crowd starting to gather around Dr. Nyet's body and removed the formula from her death-grip. Then Singh and I took Oscar back to my motel.
I called Putnam from there. He said he'd make arrangements for the child to be looked after in New York. He was pretty sarcastic about it. "I send you after a Russian scientist, and you come up with a baby," he snorted. "In all my espionage experience, you are the only man I know who could be depended upon for something that outlandish. Come back to London immediately. I'll want a full report."
I caught a plane the next morning. Singh and I said goodbye at the airport. He was going back to Nepal with his jeweled phallus. The eunuch returns with golden gonads, I thought to myself as I watched his plane take off. A few minutes later I took off myself.
I didn't call Charles Putnam immediately when I set down in London, though. I had some unfinished business to take care of first. I dialed Gladys' number from a booth at the airport.
"Well, fancy 'earin' from you, Yank. Hi'd given you hup for fair."
"Can I come over?" I asked.
"Not now. Hi'm hoccupied now. Han holder gentleman. A real toff 'e his too. But you might drop by lyter hon. Say hafter midnight. Hi'll leave the latch hoff so you can just let yourself hin."
"All right," I agreed. "It'll give me a chance to check into my hotel and get spruced up, anyway."
"See you lyter then, ducky." She hung up.
I did as I told her and arrived at her flat in Soho a few minutes after midnight. I let myself in as she'd suggested and headed straight for her bedroom. Gladys was lusciously nude and sound asleep on the bed. She was sleeping on her stomach.
"Gladys, I'm here." I shook her shoulder gently.
She opened her eyes and looked at me without moving. "Oh, hullo." She was still half asleep.
What's that?
"What, luv?"
"That." I pointed, but she couldn't see what I was pointing at. I had spotted a neatly folded sheet of paper sticking out from between the luscious globes of her derriere. I removed it, opened it, and read it.
"Oh, hisn't 'e ha caution." Gladys giggled. "Such ha gentleman, hand so much henergy for ha man 'is hage. Knocked me out properly, 'e did. Just like 'im to leave ha note hin a place like that. Wondrous frolicsome, 'e his. What does hit siy?"
"It says you were great," I lied, folding the paper up again and sticking it in my pocket. "Just great."
"Aow, hisn't that nice."
She may have been pleased, but I wasn't. I was pretty damn miffed at the note. You see, what it really said was, S.M. U. T. on rampage again. Come immediately. And it was signed,Putnam!
Damn him! I tore off my clothes. I grabbed Gladys. I did what Putnam said. Immediately! Both times! Then – and only then! – I left to report to Charles Putnam.