"I can't do that until we're in California."
"I understand; we have to trust each other a little. We shall have to try to make it in one foul swoop—you and me and the Bruuns and their machine all together. Karen, too, if she wants to come. But don't fool yourself; getting away from Anker Gram won't be so easy as falling off a tree."
There was a knock on the door, and Ingeborg announced that Mr. Godwin's room was ready. In the hall Detective Malling waited to take up his old duty. He looked relieved that nothing had happened either to the king or to his charge.
IN THE suite turned over to the future prince-consort, Godwin found a valet, one Syv, waiting to serve him. Syv had laid out a gaudy costume of the sort that Godwin would have associated with historical movies; a garb similar to a diplomatic uniform, with a high-necked coat covered with gold lace in front. "Do I wear that?" he said.
"Yes, sir," said Syv.
By the time Godwin was regally clad, sounds without indicated that the festivities were imminent, though the sub-Arctic summer day still had several hours to go. Godwin said; "By Goldwyn, I could use a drink about now!"
"I vill get vun, sir," said Syv. "Vat vould you like?"
"How about a double Martini? And get one for Otto too."
Malling protested, but with little fire of conviction, and when Syv came back he let himself be persuaded to drink. Half an hour later Godwin was regaling his hearers with reminiscences, "...so the director says: 'Are you a stunt man or aren't you?' and the stunt man, he says: 'If you wanna wrassle that there octopus, you get in that there tank and wrassle him. I got a family.' So the director turns to me and says—what is it?"
It was Ingeborg with a message that his Majesty and her Highness were awaiting Mr. Godwin to accompany them in to dinner.
Feeling no pain, Claude Godwin, accompanied by a slightly weaving Malling, rose to leave. Godwin murmured; "Pull yourself together, Otto. They'd never believe you could control me if they saw you stagger."
The ill-matched pair made a reasonably smooth progress to a reception-room where they found the king and the princess milling around with early arrivals. Godwin, remembering his costume-pictures, half expected a liveried trumpeter at the door to blow a flourish and announce his name, but no such thing happened. The Greenlanders, even if they kept a king, were somewhat stingy with their pomp. Malling whispered; "Hold your left hand close to my right, Mr. Godvin, so the handcuff von't show."
"Hell with that," said Godwin. "If they're such dopes as to throw an engagement party they gotta drag the groom to with bracelets, damned if I'll help 'em out."
Godwin was introduced to various people, but as most of the talk was in Danish he could only give them glassy smiles of polite incomprehension. A servitor passed him with a tray of glasses containing a pale liquid that Godwin took for more Martinis. His first sip however showed that he had got hold of something stronger.
"Aqvavit," said Malling.
Karen was saying; "Father, how shall Mr. Godwin take me in to dinner with Mr. Malling attached to him?"
Godwin suggested: "The king could take Malling in, and I could follow right behind with you,"
"Nonsense," said Edvard. "I shall take my daughter in, and since you're joined to Malling you can take him."
Karen said; "Has not this foolishness gone far enough? I am sure we could trust Mr. Godwin not to dive through the window if he were freed."
The king shrugged. "No doubt, but he won't agree." He nodded towards where Anker Gram was talking to the British Minister Plenipotentiary. "By the way, I don't think you know Thor Thomsen, our leading industrialist."
Godwin saw that Thor Thomsen was old and potbellied with a jowly bulldog face. The Stuart Pretender glowered gloomily over the industrialist's shoulder.
"I have had that—ah—pleasure," said Werner von Wittelsbach.
As Godwin finished his drink it occurred to him that his unknown ill-wisher might have poisoned it, but he was too well lubricated by now to care. When dinner was announced he trailed docilely in behind the king and Karen, Malling shambling beside him.
AN HOUR later, Godwin had tucked away the last of the banquet and sniffed suspiciously at a glass of yellowish liquid set before him.
"Svedish punch," explained. Malling. "Used for breading."
"For what?"
"Breading. You know, ven we say 'skeal'."
"Oh, toasting." Godwin tried some and found it good though sweetish. Malling had already drunk half of his.
The chatter died as Gram finished his coffee and rose. He made a speech ending in "Skaal!" which Godwin took for a toast to the king. Godwin watched those around him and went through the same ritual motions. Gram made another speech with a "Skaal!" to Karen Hauch. When he did the same thing once more Godwin started to rise for the third time, but a jerk on his handcuff brought him down again. Malling hissed. "Sit down, stupid! That vas to you!"
"How should I know? He knows I don't understand Danish."
"Den you better learn, but fast."
Gram, ignoring Godwin's gaffe, went ahead to make another speech introducing somebody, who in his turn made a speech. Not being able to understand what was said gave Godwin an uncomfortable feeling of having been struck deaf, though he tried to laugh when the others did.
Two hours, five speeches, and uncounted Swedish punches later the banquet broke up. Godwin awakened Malling by jerking the handcuff, and together they wandered into the ballroom, where the king had started the record-player and was dancing with Thomsen's wife, a middle-aged dame with a battleship jaw. Through the broad windows on the north side the long Greenland sunset blazed in purple and gold. Godwin spotted Karen Hauch and dragged the now alarmingly unsteady Malling over to her, saying; "Miss Hauch, I hope some day when I'm not hitched to old Otto I can ask you for a dance."
"It is too bad," she replied. "If Mr. Malling could find a partner we could make a foursome of it ..."
"You mean like a square-dance, the kind I danced in Blood in the Ozarks? But it would take awful good shink —synchronization, and I don't think the guy's up to it. Matter of fact I'm not either."
Then Karen went spinning away in the arms of Werner von Wittelsbach, who gleamed triumphantly over her shoulder at Godwin. Maybe, the latter thought, the German had cherished hopes of not only acceding to the British throne, but also of becoming Karen's consort.
"Mr. Godwin." It was Sir Keith Lampson-Hart, the British minister.
"Yesh?"
"What's this rumor about your putting in a bid for the British crown, on some silly dynastic pretext?"
"Better ask Gram or the king," said Godwin. "They cooked it up, not me." He hiccupped.
"I just thought I'd say," said the diplomat, "that the British crown is conferred by the British people, you know. They make the rules of legitimacy and any time they don't like the result they can change them, you know."
"Thanks for the advice, Sir Keith." Godwin turned to Malling. "Otto, let's get outa here! If I don't get a breath of fresh air I'll pass out in front of all the bigshots of Greenland!"
He dragged the wordlessly goggling Malling through a door. Not knowing the layout of the mansion and being the worse for wear, it took him some time to find an exit ...
HE FOUND himself, not quite knowing how he had come there, leaning against the fieldstone wall on the west side of the house. He was standing on moss-covered ground dotted with waist-high dwarf willows and birches. Beside him, Malling had folded into a sitting position with his back to the house, his prominent blue eyes picking up highlights from the sun set.