Tang and Bier groaned. “Yes,” insisted Bullock, “it took two good hands to lace up Dr. Macpherson’s hammock. Your right hand, Bier, and your left, Tang. Like Krog the Crow and Lopti the Stork, though natural enemies, you joined forces to steal the tail of Chee-Chee the Peacock.”
Bullock really had their attention now. “But why you two? Why not Dr. Lane?
I’ll tell you why,” continued Bullock. “If I’ve learned one thing from my years on the Force it’s that your woman murderer never laces her victims up in cocoons of death.”
At that moment, Bier, who had been fighting to keep his eyes open, gave up the battle and slumped over, breathing deeply. Tang also lost interest.
“No,” yawned Bullock, “when my lady turns to murder you can bet she’ll choose a gentler way, something that goes with her natural role as a homemaker. Like poison.” Bullock’s cup clattered to the floor.
“Eh?” said Macpherson groggily. “What was that? Must have dozed off.”
Bullock swayed and tried to work his tongue.
Lotus Lane’s laughter was silver. She stood up, her arms crossed over her beautiful bosom. “You men,” she laughed, “what pompous Romeos, arrogant fools, and posturing ninnies you are! ‘Her natural role as a homemaker,’ indeed. For your information, Bullock, I was the one who tried the Mandalasian garotte. I had intended the armies to kill Macpherson. But I was afraid that with your help he might escape them.”
Lotus smiled and shook her head. “Tang and Bier weren’t trying to give themselves alibis for that afternoon. Each wanted to give me one. Why? Each thought I had tried to murder Macpherson out of love — because I was so impatient to run off with him.” She was laughing helplessly.
“But you don’t understand,” explained Bullock thickly. “You haven’t got a motive.”
“Motive?” said Lotus Lane. “Sic semper tyrannis. I hate all men everywhere because of their suppression of women from the beginning of time.”
Suddenly it was all clear. “I really believe you Women’s Lib people have got a point,” said Bullock. “And I speak for good old Mavis, my wife, when I say that. But why take it out on Dr. Macpherson?”
Lotus Lane uncrossed her arms and revealed the flare gun from Bullock’s survival kit. She pointed it skyward, through a gaping hole in the roof. “This will bring the Neutralists on the double. They’ll find you here sleeping like babies and kill you all, blaming Macpherson’s death on ‘foreign interventionists,’ their idiotic — but conveniently vague — male catch-phrase of the moment. Tomorrow Denmark, India, Rumania, and the other countries that venerate Macpherson as a great humanitarian will condemn the Americans, the Russians, or the Red Chinese — or all three — for the ghastly act. The day after tomorrow Japan, Chile, Albania, and the other countries that venerate Macpherson for his accordion wizardry will blame his death on ideology, on Capitalism or Communism — or both. A week from now the world will be one immense battlefield. Then, when the smoke of battle clears and there are no more soldiers left to die, it will be an immense no-man’s-land.”
“Hear, hear,” said Macpherson approvingly and pitched forward into a deep sleep.
“Then after a bit the world will fill up with womanly gardenlike things again,” continued Lotus Lane. “Grass to overgrow the iron things of war; flowers instead of shot and shell; song birds instead of bugles—”
“But without men you’d all die out,” Bullock insisted.
Lotus Lane gave him a pitying smile. “Thanks to science we don’t even need you for that any more.”
Bullock shuddered like a tree that feels the woodman’s ax. He swayed on his crutches.
“Pleasant dreams, Acting Sergeant Maynard Bullock of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” said Lotus Lane, knowing he would instinctively come to attention and throw his shoulders back. The crutches slipped out of his armpits and clattered to the temple floor. Bullock fell over backward, noting before sleep took him that the moonlit hole through which she was pointing the flare gun was shaped like Lake Huron and Georgian Bay.
Lake Huron and Georgian Bay were dawn-gray. Bullock pulled his crutches to him and struggled erect. A few feet away Macpherson was leaning over Lotus Lane’s body while Tang and Bier looked on.
“She’s unconscious,” said Macpherson. “A bruise the size of a four-bit piece over her right eye.”
“What happened?” asked Tang.
Bullock was examining the flare gun. “These babies happen to be a hobby of mine,” he said. “This one’s interesting. Watch.” When he pulled the trigger nothing happened. “Now what does any normal person do?” he asked.
“He looks down the barrel to see what’s stuck,” said Bier. Tang nodded agreement.
“Right,” said Bullock and did just that. A second later the firing pin clicked. “Heads will roll, believe you me,” said Bullock grimly. “This was a personal gift to yours truly from the Prime Minister. He even had the ordinance boys give it a special tune-up. Wait till he hears they botched the job.” Bullock looked at Tang and Bier. “All this means that I can’t arrest you guys.” He nodded at the flag. “But I can still deport you as undesirable aliens.”
“If we go, Macpherson goes,” said Tang. “The Hippocratic Oath says he can’t abandon a patient.”
Macpherson was bathing Lotus Lane’s temples. “You’re all fit as fiddles,” he said. “The casts were just to slow you down a bit. Three against one are stiff odds.” Tang and Bier cried out and scrabbled at the plaster with their fingers. Bullock stood stunned. Macpherson shrugged. “Anyone can rent a Mountie suit, Bullock,” he said.
Tang and Bier were bashing at their casts with rocks. Though Bullock’s leg quivered for attention he took time to advise them. “That’s too short range. Mr. Bier, you work on Mr. Tang’s cast and vice versa. May this be a lesson in international cooperation for you both.” He freed his own leg with a hammer from his survival kit.
A sandy-haired man wearing glasses and a tweed topcoat appeared in the temple doorway. Bay Den Pol and his Boy Scouts were peeking in from behind him. Bullock stopped scratching. “It’s Wickett. Hey, Wickett!” he shouted. They had met several years before while Wickett had been cultural and military attaché at the Canadian Embassy in San Marino. Wickett smiled weakly. His lips were blue.
“I see you ran into the Neutralists,” said Bullock.
Wickett made a face. “I was gagging on my ballpoint pen when the Boy Scouts sent them scurrying off with some crazy story about a secret Coca-Cola bottling plant in the jungle. I—” Wickett saw the flag. He turned dead-white.
Bullock lowered his eyes modestly. “Welcome to Canada East,” he said.
“Bullock,” whispered Wickett, “you didn’t claim this God-forsaken flood land for Canada?”
Bullock, grinning from ear to ear, nodded.
“But this makes us imperialists,” said Wickett, struggling to control his voice. “And we’ll have to build a post office and rent a gunboat to protect Canadian interests.” He whistled through his teeth. “Boy, wait till Ottawa hears this one!”
Crestfallen, Bullock mumbled, “Couldn’t we just unclaim it?” He made the motion of pulling a flagpole out of the ground.
Wickett shook his head. “We’re stuck with it. Geography books would be in a heck of a mess if countries could claim land one minute and unclaim it the next. Well,” he added, unslinging a camera, “I still need some pictures so the folks back home can see that no harm’s come to their beloved doctor.”
Macpherson was fussing around Lotus Lane. She was sitting up, her back against a worn statue of the serpent Naga. “This is Dr. Lane, an attempted murderer,” said Bullock, by way of an introduction.