Ambrose nodded. "Just a game." He opened the fist that Merdenne then tapped, revealing the White Queen. "Your move."
The pieces were quickly arranged in their places, and Merdenne pushed his queen's pawn forward. Ambrose met it with his own, but before Merdenne could con tinue his opening, a crash of dinnerware sounded beside the table.
"Excuse me, sirs," mumbled a red-faced waiter, gather ing up his spilled tray. "Don't know what I come to stumble over." He shot a suspicious glance at Ambrose's feet, but they were both under the table once more.
Merdenne looked annoyed as his hand moved toward one of his knights. "Not exactly the most conducive atmos phere for concentration," he muttered. "Suleiman would have had the noisy lout beheaded."
"The noise at least is easily taken care of." Ambrose closed his eyes, drew a deep breath and held it. When he exhaled and opened his eyes the restaurant was empty except for the two of them. Silence flowed over the unoccupied chairs.
"That's quite thoughtful of you," said Merdenne. "Now we can have a proper game. Finish off the Latour, if you wish."
Ambrose's pale hand tilted the bottle over his glass, but only a whisper of dry dust emerged. His opponent didn't notice.
"Now where'd they go?" said the waiter who had first noticed them. "Them two look-alikes, I mean. I'm blowed if they haven't up and vanished!"
"So?" said the other. "It's not one of your tables, is it?"
I drew out my pocket watch and checked the time. "Ambrose has been gone for half an hour," I whispered to Tafe.
She nodded, standing beside me in the dark alley that ran alongside Merdenne's clinic. From under her coat she drew the coil of rope Ambrose had given us to use. As I followed her to the railings of the high iron fence surrounding the clinic's grounds, I fervently hoped that Ambrose's plans for diverting Merdenne's attention had gone off smoothly. The sight of Ambrose's uncanny double leaving an hour ago for his favourite restaurant as we crouched in our hiding place in the alley had unnerved me more than slightly. As Tafe and I had waited per Ambrose's instructions, the dark shape of the clinic had seemed to grow ever larger as it sat hulking under the moonless sky.
Tafe threw the rope's looped end over one of the fence's sharp-pointed finials, then deftly clambered up and dropped on the other side. A little more clumsily, my hands barely keeping purchase on the rope's knotted length, I came after her, landing ungracefully upon the manicured lawn.
"Quiet!" whispered Tafe. We huddled by the fence for several anxious seconds, until we were sure that no one in the clinic had heard us. "Come on." Tafe jerked the rope free from the fence and wadded it under her coat again as she darted hunched-over toward the clinic.
She reached the side of the building without incident, but before I was more than halfway across the ground, a large shape, snarling viciously, bounded from the other side of a hedge and bowled me over. The red eyes of the largest mastiff I had ever seen glared at me as its slavering jaws snapped inches from my throat. The dog's spittle trailed in threads across my face. Pinned to the ground, only my forearms and knees brought above me kept the dog's lunging bulk away from its fatal goal. I knew, though, that only a few seconds more would leave me exhausted and open to the slashing teeth that strained toward me.
Suddenly, the beast's weight lifted from me and fell to one side. I rolled away from the scrabbling paws, then raised myself up to see Taft throttling the animal with the knotted rope. I quickly drew my breath, then threw myself alongside the desperately thrashing bodies of woman and animal, and clamped my hands about the mastiff's grimacing muzzle to prevent it from making any noise as it struggled.
Between us the dog could make no escape. and finally stiffened, then relaxed into death. A bubble of red burst through my fingers underneath the poor brute's white-rimmed eyes. We got to our feet and dragged its carcass with us into the complete darkness at the base of the clinic.
Valuable seconds had been lost in the struggle with the guard dog. Without waiting for us to gather our strength again, Tafe cast about for some means of forcing our way into the building. We both saw immediately that there was no way of gaining entry directly through the window of the room on the upper floor where Arthur was being held. There were no footholds available for climbing up to it, and no projections near the window itself sufficient for casting the rope upon. Tafe pointed to one of the windows of the darkened ground floor, indicating the route we had to follow.
From my belt I drew the short iron crowbar that Ambrose had furnished us, and handed it to Tafe. Whether the device had powers beyond those possessed by the ordinary burglar's tool I do not know, but combined with Tafe's manual dexterity it quickly snapped the window latch. She carefully pulled the window open, drew aside the drape on the other side, then lifted herself over the sill and into the unlit room.
I waited until she signalled for me to follow. Once inside, my ears detected the slight scraping noise of a patent safety match being struck. Tafe's face and hands, lit yellow by the match's sputtering glare, came into view. As the flame steadied and my eyes adjusted to the light, I could distinguish as well the outlines of the room – bare, except for some hastily stacked chairs and boxes in one corner. Tafe crossed to the closed door on the other side, with myself close behind. She put out the match before turning the knob.
With the door opened only an inch, we surveyed the interior of the building. The room we were in was adjacent to the clinic's grand foyer, lit by bare gas mantles along the walls. To the rear of the space a curving staircase led upstairs and to our captive goal. There was no indication of anyone in Merdenne's employ being about. While he, our greatest hazard, was, we hoped, distracted at the moment by our conspirator Ambrose, caution yet governed our moves, as the assistants to such evil – the human counterparts to the dead mastiff outside – could be dangerous enough to us and our plans. Slowly, Tafe drew the door open wide enough for us to slip through.
As we crossed the foyer, treading as lightly as possible, it was soon evident to us that Merdenne had not gone to any great effort to maintain his fiction of operating a medical clinic. The floor was made of rough, unfinished planks and the walls were rudely plastered by the workmen who had raised them. Obviously the landscaping outside the building was as thick a sham as Merdenne had felt necessary to fool the London public as to the nature of his operations in their midst.
We halted at the foot of the staircase. Tafe craned her neck, trying to peer up into the unlit gloom at its head. The steps curved away as they rose from the side of the building where Arthur's room lay. I wondered how circuitous a route we would have to follow in order to reach his room once we were upstairs.
Our moment of hesitation was broken by the sound of footsteps approaching the staircase from above. Tafe thrust her forearm across my chest and pushed me behind her into the shadow of the stairs' massive newel post.
From our hiding place we watched as a woman's shoes and skirts appeared at the head of the steps. She was dressed in a nurse's uniform, complete to the small cap made of starched linen set upon her tightly pulled-back hair. The images of comfort associated with her costume contrasted oddly with the forbidding aspect of her face – long, tight-lipped, with a cruel haughtiness about her slitted eyes. In her hands she carried a silver platter with the cold remnants of a barely touched meal upon it. Arthur's dinner? Be he general or warrior king, I could well understand a loss of appetite when served by a Hecuba like this one. Tafe and I both held our breaths as she descended the stairs.
The grim nurse reached the bottom step. Tafe darted from around the newel post and with her forearm got a throttlehold about the woman's neck. The loaded tray clattered to the floor, sending fragments of crockery across the wood planks. The woman's hands flew up to Tafe's arm and sank their nails into the flesh, but I managed to pull them away and pin them to her sides.