"sorry," the elderly man clipped out. "No Sinjin Street in Oxford."
Remo watched him go, muttering, "I must have accidentally blundered into the Twilight Zone or something."
Deciding the old man might possibly have misheard him, Remo entered a dark musty pub.
"Sinjin's Street," he called out. "Anybody ever hear of it?"
"It's pronounced 'St. John's Street,' Yank," a gruff voice called back.
"I thought you Brits pronounced 'St. John' as 'Sinjin,' " Remo complained.
"That we do. But 'St. John's' we pronounce 'St. John's.' "
"Do you people have a rulebook for this stuff; or do you just make it up as you go along?"
"Do you want directions or do you want to hang about complaining?" he was asked.
"I'll take directions. I can always complain later."
"Up the street, walk east and it's at the crosswalk."
Remo found St. John's Street just as the rain began to slacken off: He was soaked to the skin and cold. He willed his blood to move faster through his system to generate heat. Steam actually began to rise from his shoulders and back.
Instead of cold and wet, he felt hot and wet. It was not much of an improvement, and Remo started to look forward to leaving Great Britain.
At Number Fifty St. John's Street, Remo found several nameplates. One said "Chiswick." That couldn't be it. The student had said the last name was "Chizick."
Remo canvassed the street in both directions twice before he realized that finding Sir Quincy Chizick wasn't going to be easy.
It was all he had, and so reluctantly he pressed the bell under the Chiswick nameplate at number fifty.
A mousy-haired woman with long yellow teeth and a faded housedress answered, her face peering around the door as if she'd been expecting the Grim Reaper. "Yes, what is it?"
"I'm looking for Sir Chizick."
"No Sir Chizicks hereabouts."
"Are you sure? I was told that Sir Quincy Chizick lived on this street.
Her face brightened. "Oh, Sir Chiswick. Yes, yes, come in. You have the right place."
The inner hall was dank with old wood and several hundred years of accumulated food odors. Remo noticed the phalanx of grandfather clocks as the woman called up the stairs, "Professor, you have a caller."
"He'll be just a mo," the woman assured Remo.
"You say 'Chizick' and the nameplate says 'Chiswick.' Which is it?"
"How does that little ditty go? 'You say "potato" and I say "potato." You say "tomato," and I say-' "
"Never mind," Remo said sourly. "I get it."
A querulous voice called down from the landing at the top of the stairs.
"Yes, what is it, Mrs. Burgoyne?"
"An American to see you, Lord Chiswick."
A head popped out of the doorway. "An American, you say? What about?"
"Why don't you ask me that?" Remo asked, mounting the stairs.
"And who are you?" demanded Sir Quincy Chiswick. He was a bookish man of indeterminate age, with his haired combed back like a 1930's movie star's. His funereal black gown made Remo wonder if the clock had stopped for him the day he graduated from college.
"Call me Remo. I'm here about the letters you've been sending to the British government."
Sir Quincy Chiswick perked up. "You have?" he said in delight. "At last! I had been wondering if the postal department had mislaid them. Come in, come in," he added, waving Remo in.
The room was what Remo imagined his grandmother's place might have looked like had he ever known his grandmother. It was neatly shabby, if vaguely effeminate. There was an electric heater in the much-painted-over fireplace, and one wall was all bookshelves.
"Don't mind the place," Sir Quincy rumbled. "The woman who does for me doesn't come until Saturday."
"Does what?" Remo asked, looking around.
The professor blinked. "My domestic," he said. Then, seeing Remo's expression go even more blank, added tartly, "My char."
" I only speak American."
"Oh, bother! Never mind. Sit down, sit down. Would you care for a cuppa tea?"
"No, thanks. Look, I don't have time to beat around the teapot. Are you the one responsible for this economic mess?"
"Dear me, no. It was a mess to start with."
"That doesn't answer my question," Remo said edgily.
"What is your question, dear boy?" the don asked.
"Are you the one who's been writing the chancellor of the checks?"
"Exchequer. A check is an instrument of payment."
"Spare me the classroom lectures. Are you him or not?"
"I am he. I trust all is proceeding satisfactorily."
"Are you crazy? Stock markets all over the world are disintegrating. "
"Really?" The thought apparently intrigued Sir Quincy Chiswick, because his eyes grew momentarily reflective.
"Don't you read the papers?"
"Dear me, no. Dreadful nuisance, those rags. Not one of them worth a bent copper anymore."
"Well, congratulations," Remo snapped. "You've just wrecked the world's economy, and before I snap your stuffy throat in two, I want to know if you can stop it."
"Stop it? Why should I do that?"
"Because the British economy is going down the tubes, along with everyone else's."
"It's taking the underground?" Sir Quincy asked, perplexed.
"I mean, down the john."
"Eh?"
"The loo! The loo!" Remo said in exasperation. "Everything's going down the loo. Do you understand that?"
"No need to shout, dear boy. Would you care for a scone? They're a trifle hard now, but still scrumptious, I think. "
"Why? Just tell me why you're doing this."
"Because I received the signal to put into effect the Grand Plan."
"Now we're getting somewhere," Remo said. "What Grand Plan?"
Sir Quincy blinked. "Why, King George's, of course."
"King George III!" Remo exclaimed.
"Ah, you know your history. Good. Yes, it was George III's idea. My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was entrusted to be the expediter of the plan. I, as his descendant, have had that glorious duty fall upon my shoulders. And frankly, at my age, I had all but given up that I would ever receive the signal."
"What signal?"
"Why, the signal to effect the Grand Plan, of course. What other signal is there?"
"Silly me," Remo said distractedly. "Of course, that signal. Who gave it to you, by the way?"
"The Duchess of York-indirectly."
"Isn't she the redhead with the freckles?"
"That's the one. Good chap. Yes, the duchess. Although they all had a hand in it, from the queen mother to the relatives in the Netherlands and elsewhere."
"The royal family is behind this?"
"I do not care for your tone of voice, my good man. Now, keep schtum and let me finish my story."
Remo stood up.
"Sorry. You've told me all I need to know. It's time to go bye-bye."
"Where are we going?"
"I'm going back to America. And you're going to the nearest boneyard. Sorry, old chap. But that's the biz."
Just then, Mrs. Burgoyne's voice called up from downstairs.
"Professor. Another caller. A doctor. Says his name is Smith."
"Smith?" Sir Quincy Chiswick said, blinking owlishly.
"Smith?" Remo said in disbelief.
Chapter 29
If it hadn't been an emergency, if the economy of the entire world had not hung in the balance, Dr. Harold W. Smith could never have justified it to himself.
But time was critical, and so after disembarking from the British Airways jet at Heathrow, Smith eschewed the cheaper Piccadilly Line tube and actually hailed one of the ubiquitous black London taxis that reminded him of what the British version of a mythical 1938-vintage Edsel might have been.
Smith directed the driver to take him to Victoria Station.