“Will he be at the ball?”
“Of course.”
She led him through a maze of passages and into a final great room that reminded him of a mammoth high school gymnasium. There were even rows of seats along one side, for resting between dances. The place was oddly plain, but already workmen were appearing with ladders and hammers.
“So this is it.”
She smiled at the flatness of his tone. “You won’t even recognize it by next Monday.”
Nick Velvet took out a cigarette. “I heard someone speak of a king, but you only mentioned Prince Baudlay.”
She brushed a hand, through the texture of her hair, loosening it a bit. “King Felix is the prince’s father. He is an old man, and very ill. No one ever sees him any more. He is confined to a hospital in Athens.”
“I see.” Velvet had walked up to the little stage that overlooked the empty dance floor, and now he stood upon it, visualizing the room as it would look with a thousand costumed a revelers crowded into it. “And I suppose the crown is up here.”
“That’s right,” she said.
“Do they guard it well?”
“Who’d want to steal it?” She seemed truly puzzled by the idea.
“I hear the Germans did once, during the war.” Velvet smiled down at her. “That’s what you told me, anyway.”
“That was different. So many things were different, during the war.”
“You could hardly be old enough to remember.”
“I was a child in London,” she said, breaking the contact with his eyes. “During the blitz.”
Nick Velvet jumped down from the platform. “Could you get me an invitation to the ball?”
“You really want to come?”
“I’d like to see it; for my article on New Ionia.”
“Just where is this article going to appear?”
“One of the big American travel magazines. It’ll be great publicity.”
She smiled then. “You may escort me if you’d like, I have two tickets.”
“It would be an honor,” Nick Velvet said, returning her smile.
On Sunday evening, Nick Velvet met with Vonderberg at a little waterfront cafe near the place where the Corfu ferry docked twice a day. For some reason, the monocled man seemed much more at home here than he had during their first meeting in New York. It shouldn’t have been strange, but it was Perhaps until now, Nick Velvet had not really believed him to be a part of the tourist business and the aging monarch and the rest of this strange little island.
“Are you ready?” Vonderberg asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be. Where shall I meet you?”
He considered the question carefully. “The last ferry leaves at ten for Corfu. That wouldn’t give you enough time, would it?”
Nick Velvet shook his head. “It’ll be almost ten when we arrive at the ball.”
“All right, then. I can’t risk being on the island when the robbery takes place. I’ll come over on the Tuesday noon boat from Corfu, and I’ll remain on the ferry. They can’t touch me there. You bring the crown on board for me.”
Nick Velvet smiled. “You mean I have to keep it till Tuesday noon?”
“That’s what you’re being paid for.”
“Just who is paying me?”
Vonderberg grunted. “That doesn’t matter. Let’s just say the next king of New Ionia. I’ll be waiting for you Tuesday noon with the money.”
“All right.”
Nick Velvet left him and walked back to the hotel. The island kingdom was still the vacation paradise he’d first seen, but now, after a few days, some of the gloss was wearing off. He noticed a beggar in a doorway, and perhaps a prostitute beneath a run-down bar’s neon glow. New Ionia was only the world, and he wondered why anyone would want to be its king.
Nick Velvet spent the early hours of the following evening preparing his costume, and when he called for Vera Smith-Blue in a rented car he was wearing the bright baggy overalls of a circus clown. It covered him from wrists and neck to ankles, and he’d taken some time carefully painting his face into a grotesquely grinning contour of clownish delight.
Vera Smith-Blue gasped as she opened the door, then relaxed into a smile. “That’s very realistic, Mr. Velvet. I didn’t recognize you at first.”
“Thanks. I figured I should go all out.”
Vera herself was wearing a somewhat standard ballet costume, which allowed her to show off the firmness of her well-shaped legs while remaining reasonably decent. On her face she wore a tiny domino mask that did nothing to conceal her identity.
“I’m almost ready,” she told him. “Come in.”
“You have dancer’s legs,” he commented admiringly.
“I went in for ballet a bit at school. But that was a long time ago.” She fluffed out her brief skirt as she spoke. Then she ran a comb through her hair and sprinkled a bit of sparkling stuff in it. “There! Shall we be going now? They always expect me to be among the first arrivals. I have certain duties.”
When they reached the summer palace it was a blaze of lights, a different world from the empty shell he remembered from his first visit. The walls and the gate were patrolled by uniformed royal guards, and colored footmen opened doors as each car rolled up to discharge its passengers.
The hilarity of the evening was already beginning as each arriving group added to the melange of knights and angels, warriors and wantons. Nick Velvet saw a near-naked nymph in the grip of a bearded pirate, but for the most part the females were modestly costumed, perhaps in deference to the presence of Prince Baudlay.
The prince himself made his appearance shortly before ten, interrupting the dancing and drinking with a heralding blast of trumpets. He wore a princely sort of jerkin, which for all Nick Velvet knew might have been his daily costume in the kingdom of New Ionia. He took his place on a sort of raised throne, and almost — immediately four attendants appeared carrying the glass domed case which housed the crystal crown.
There was a murmur soft as a whisper as the crown appeared, and then near silence. Nick Velvet and Vera Smith-Blue were near the platform, so he had a good view of it — a coronet of glassy spikes resting on a velvet pillow. It looked as if it would break at the slightest touch.
“Do they have an unmasking at midnight?” Nick Velvet asked, spinning Vera off into the intricacies of a Mediterranean folk dance. “Like in the fairy tales?”
“Of course!”
“I think the whole thing is a publicity gimmick,” he said. “New Ionia can’t be for real.”
“Does it matter?” she whispered, so close that he felt her smudge his makeup.
Just after eleven, when they were seated with a group of Vera’s friends, Nick Velvet excused himself and went off to the men’s room. He knew he had to be fast. He was allowing himself only five minutes for the entire operation.
Before the door had fully closed behind him, he was unzipping the clown’s costume and stepping out of it. Beneath it, he wore a tight-fitting devil’s suit in vivid red, complete with a tail that had fitted down the pants-leg of the clown outfit. From a pouch secured under his left arm he withdrew a rubber devil’s mask that fitted over his entire head, red gloves and a small pistol.
He slipped the mask over his head, careful to smudge the clown makeup no more than necessary. Then he slid a silencer onto the gun barrel. He didn’t really need it, but it made the small weapon seem bulkier. He opened the window and stuffed the clown suit into the waste basket next to it. The whole operation had taken just under two minutes.
Then he was out of the room and up the stairs. He came out near the raised platform and was onto it before anyone even noticed. Prince Baudlay turned in his seat to smile, and Nick Velvet brought the gun up from his thigh.
“Stay right there,” he said.
A woman nearby screamed, but no one else seemed to notice. He swung the pistol against the protective glass bell and felt it crack. Another blow and it shattered perfectly around the crystal crown.