A large truck had backed into it, breaking the glass, and even as the guards came running, the high-ceilinged waiting room was suddenly filled with a confusion of darting blackness. The truck had released scores — perhaps hundreds — of flying, chirping, swooping birds into the room.
Nick stepped back and simply stared. There were blackbirds and crows and ravens and martins and grackles, and in that moment of supreme confusion they had only one thing in common. They were all black, all of varying intensities of night. Within minutes the waiting room was swarming with guards and detectives and servants, all trying to capture the birds or at least drive them outside. It was a fantastic, mind-bending sight, like something out of Kafka, and Nick could only stand in one comer and let the vision of it almost hypnotize him.
Finally, when the room had been cleared of all but the most persistent birds, Anson Gibellion remembered the ravens in their covered cage. He lifted one edge of the satin drape and peered inside, then shouted. “Velvet! Haskins! Come here! My ravens are gone!”
Nick looked past him into the large square cage. It was indeed empty.
During the next hour Nick found himself being questioned by a variety of Scotland Yard and government investigators, and there were moments when he imagined himself wasting away in a British prison for the rest of his days. The driver of the truck that had broken the window and released the birds was arrested as he tried to escape from the Palace courtyard on foot, but he proved to be a dim-witted foreigner who could barely speak English. He told of being hired and instructed the previous night by a bearded stranger, and furnished with a Gola Embassy pass to get him through the gate.
As the Scotland Yard people took him away for further questioning, Nick heard one detective on the phone, ordering checks of London pet shops for recent purchasers of black birds. Nick began to realize that the case was being treated with all the importance of a multiple murder. Only a few inexpensive birds had been stolen, but they’d been stolen from Buckingham Palace.
Presently Harry Haskins reappeared, looking grim from his own bout of having been questioned. He sat down next to Nick and said, “Well, I’ve got you off the hook, Velvet, but it took some doing. It seems Scotland Yard has a complete dossier on you, dating from the time you stole a toy mouse from a film studio in Paris. They were convinced this was your job, too, until I explained that you’d actually been hired to protect the birds.”
“I wasn’t too successful at that,” Nick admitted.
Anson Gibellion joined them then, his round face a weary web of wrinkles. “I am undone,” he told them sadly. “The President of my country is outraged that such a thing could happen under my very eyes. I am being recalled to Gola in disgrace.”
“I still can’t understand how it was accomplished,” Haskins said. “Were the ravens simply released to fly away with the others?”
Nick nodded. “Seven extra black birds weren’t even noticed in that mob scene.”
“But someone had to open the cage,” Haskins insisted.
“Of course.”
“But who?”
Nick shrugged. “Perhaps someone who entered from outside in the confusion.”
“It sounds so simple,” the Englishman said.
“It seems simple because it worked,” Nick assured him. “But a great deal of careful planning must have gone into it”
Anson Gibellion gave Nick a curious look. “You talk as if you know how it was planned.”
“It’s a business with me,” Nick told him. “I can admire another man’s work.”
He stood up, anxious to be out of there before more questioners arrived on the scene. “Where are you going?” Haskins asked.
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Needless to say, Velvet, you failed to earn your ten thousand pounds.”
“Needless to say.”
The girl was waiting for Nick at the place they’d agreed on, the bandstand near the zoo in Regent’s Park. She wore a trim yellow raincoat as protection against the overcast skies, and her face was even more glowing than he remembered. “Hello,” he said, coming up to her with a grin; he was dangling a large package from one hand.
“You’re late. I didn’t think you were coming.” But he could see she was pleased by his arrival.
“Your British police are quite tenacious.”
“Please! They’re not my British police.” She glanced around to see if anyone was watching, but there were only two elderly ladies chatting on a bench some distance away. “Did you get them, Nick? The ravens?”
He set the package on the grass and untied the string. Pulling away the paper he revealed a small square birdcage. “Seven ravens, as ordered.”
She stared at the black birds in their crowded quarters and listened to their complaining cries. “I heard about it on the news,” she told him. “It must have been quite a sight!”
“It was fun,” Nick agreed.
“But once you released the ravens into that blizzard of birds, how did you ever sort them out again and recapture them?”
“That’s a trade secret,” he told her. “Do you have my money?”
“Mr. Stavanger has it.”
“You mean I’ll finally get to meet him?”
She smiled and shook her pretty head. “He’s waiting in a car. I’ll take the birds to him.” He knelt on the grass to cover the cage and retie the string.
“Just what sort of man is Stavanger?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I like to know who I’ve been working for. And why.”
She sighed and picked up the packaged birdcage. “Stavanger is a revolutionary. Specifically, he is attempting to overthrow the government of Gola as a step toward establishing the country as a haven for other revolutionaries. He has built quite an extensive underground force in Gola, all ready to follow his lead.”
“And how did you get involved with him?”
“I told you — he’s a revolutionary like myself. He’s anti-British, like myself. We have that much in common.”
She led him along Broad Walk to Chester Road, where a closed black limousine stood waiting. “Is that Stavanger?” Nick asked.
“Yes. Please remain here while I take the birds to him. I’ll return with your money.”
“Can I be sure of that?”
“I’ll be in plain sight all the time. I won’t even get in the car. Now just you wait here.”
He did as he was told and watched her cross the street to the waiting car. She opened a rear door and placed the packaged birdcage inside. The back windows were covered, so Nick could see only the uniformed driver. He suspected it might be a rented car and wondered if there was really anyone in the back seat at all. Perhaps Pat McGowan was merely a clever actress.
After a few moments of seemingly, earnest conversation she closed the door and walked back across the street to his side. The limousine pulled slowly away from the curb. “Here’s your money,” she told him, holding out a bulging brown envelope. “Mr. Stavanger was surprised that you were successful.”
“I’ll bet.” Nick ripped open the envelope and riffled the comers of the ten-pound notes.
“Where will you go now, Nick? Back to America?”
He nodded, finishing his quick count of the money. “Why do you ask?”
“We could use you here, to fight for the Irish.”
“Sorry. I never get involved in political disputes.”
“Perhaps I’ll see you again, nevertheless.”
He smiled down at her eager eyes. “I hope so,” he told her, and they parted.
Anson Gibellion was working at his desk when Nick entered through the window, dropped silently to the thick carpeting, and closed the window behind him. The Ambassador turned, startled, and demanded, “How did you get in here, Velvet?”