Maunchaun nodded almost imperceptibly at the false Caillou, and he spoke as if obeying a signal. "Come in, Lieutenant." His voice was gracious, perfect in its imitation of the real Caillou. "This is my house guest, Dr. Lee Maunchaun, a psychiatrist, and a leading financial expert."
The police officer bowed, awed. Dr. Maunchaun merely inclined his head, without speaking.
The lieutenant, a slender, dark man, nervous and out of his depth, said, "We've been picking up these signals. We traced them here to your chateau, M'sieur Caillou."
The false Caillou nodded graciously and smiled. "It was only a short in our closed-circuit television." He waved his hand with studied negligence toward the bank of screens on the wall.
The police officer stared in awe. "How ingenious."
"Yes," the false Caillou said. "Protection against intrusion. As a matter of fact, these two prowlers—" he inclined his head toward Solo and Illya—"caused the short in the television sender."
"Prowlers?" The lieutenant straightened. This he understood. "Shall I arrest them, M'sieur Caillou?"
Caillou shook his head. "We have our own secret police to handle these matters, Lieutenant. A matter of security, you understand? We'll deal with them quietly. We have so much panic just now because of these money matters all over the world—we want no notoriety. You understand?"
Dr. Maunchaun insisted upon presenting the lieutenant with a rare Oriental box, filled with gold pieces, and then the police officer was gone. The police cars roared out of the drive.
Maunchaun gazed up at Illya and Solo in chilled triumph. Then he reached out, snapped the small signal cylinder between his fingers.
He pressed a button. When two guards entered, he ordered them to search the prisoners. The agents watched all their identification removed.
The effects of the colorless gas dissipated. Solo gazed at the false Caillou. "So you passed another test, eh? You fooled all Caillou's friends and associates this afternoon?"
Caillou merely straightened, did not reply.
Dr. Maunchaun could not resist boasting. He said, "Ah, no. Our friend here stayed discreetly out of sighs. The real Lester Caillou himself entertained his friends, said what we wished him to say, did what we wished him to do."
He smiled. "After being so pleasantly and temporarily paralyzed as you were, surely you find it easy to believe I can control the mind of a man like your old friend Caillou? Ah, he was present—the precious, perfect host—present in body at least. Only his mind has been kidnapped, Mr. Solo."
Solo stared silently at the parchment face, the sharp-honed features, black eyes, not daring to doubt any boast the doctor made.
Maunchaun smiled faintly. "Perhaps it is vanity, Solo, the need to demonstrate that I, the son of lowest peasants, have accomplished almost everything I set out to do. Or maybe it is because you defeated me once, when we met earlier, thinking even you left me for dead in an atomic misfire. I want you to see you have no hope of stopping me this time. I shall control international finance—"
"You and THRUSH," Illya said.
The enigmatic smile widened slightly. It was almost as if the doctor said it aloud. He would cross the THRUSH bridge when he reached it.
Maunchaun pressed a button. He sank back then, sitting almost as if he were asleep, his eyes hooded like a cobra's.
Presently the corridor door opened. Marie entered, carrying a machine pistol. The real Lester Caillou walked past her.
Solo stiffened, watching him. It was Lester, all right, except that he moved in the strange manner of a sleepwalker. He was correctly attired, his head tilted in that old way he had, but his eyes were disturbingly empty.
Until this moment, Solo had not seen how completely it was as Dr. Maunchaun said: Only Lester Caillou's mind had been kidnapped.
"Stand there, Lester," Maunchaun said. He inclined his narrow head toward where the fake Caillou stood, identically dressed as the banker was.
Caillou smiled faintly, nodded. He walked to where the ringer stood, paused beside him, watching Maunchaun with a dog-like obedience in his face.
Solo shivered.
"Some of your detractors feel you have made a gross error in forcing gold payments from free world nations, Lester," Dr. Maunchaun said in that level tone which seemed attuned especially for Caillou's hearing.
Caillou gave them a faint superior smile and engaged in an obscure soliloquy on the reasons why only gold could be accepted at the present, despite growing panic in the free world countries. It was his first duty to protect the interests of the international trade organizations against the spiraling inflation, the worth of paper currency— Solo didn't even bother to listen.
He was certain that leading financial experts had little argument that was persuasive against Caillou. Maunchaun was not only a brilliant psychiatrist, he was the outstanding financial expert of the far east.
He knew how to make even outrageous falsity sound logical.
He was speaking now through Caillou's brainwashed mind.
Solo said with a certainty he did not feel, "The least whisper of what you have done to this man—"
"Yes. The least whisper," Maunchaun agreed. "But who is to broadcast that whisper? You, Mr. Solo? Your accomplice in international capitalist crimes Kuryakin there? Perhaps our old friend Lester Caillou?"
Solo flinched, did not attempt to answer.
Maunchaun indulged a small smile. "Caillou will continue to speak and perform in rote, what ever I tell him to do, as long as I will it. This is deeper than hypnosis, Solo. Deeper than any waking-sleep you can understand. A drug-induced hypnosis. There are secrets of my poor land, Solo, older than your crude civilization—"
Maunchaun stopped speaking, as if bored with the mentalities of his auditors. He clapped his thin hands and the real Lester Caillou was led away.
Maunchaun watched his odd, somnambulistic gait until the door closed. Then he brought his chilled smile back to Solo and Illya.
"And now what shall we do about you gentlemen?"
"I don't know," Solo said. "But I suggest you do it quickly."
Maunchaun waved his hand. "Don't make threats, Solo. Do you mean that if United Network Command doesn't hear regularly from you and Kuryakin, other agents will doom us?"
Solo shrugged. "That's part of
"I assure you I've handled this contingency. Your reports are regularly going into your headquarters in New York––glowing lies about your progress, which I can assure you our old friend Alexander Waverly receives with relish."
Maunchaun pressed another button. Albert and three armed guards entered. "Since we cannot afford to kill them at the moment, I believe an hour in the sound chamber will teach them the error of attempting to cross me with such childish toys as bleep-signals."
Solo and Illya were marched along the corridor, past rooms converted into chemistry labs. They were shoved into a metal lined chamber twenty feet long, but less than nine feet wide.
The metal was cool to the touch. The room was bare of any furnishings. They found that the metal was perforated from floor through ceiling. Faint sound began to flare through the tiny perforations, already higher than a whistle, and steadily increasing in intensity and rising in decibels.
Solo sagged first. The sounds penetrating his ears were like lances. But when he toppled against the wall, the sound on this side increased unbearably.