The bell at the door of 2-C was silent; though Nash held his ear close to the paneling as he thumbed the button. Nor could he hear any motion from within.
The door, he noticed at last, was not completely closed. Perhaps he shouldn't push it open and take a look in and holler for Miss Woodson. But after all such conduct was only to be expected of the hell-raising Chevalier de Nêche.
"Alicia! Hein!"
That there was nobody in the apartment, he soon made sure. But somebody had been. Chairs were upset, the bed was pulled apart, and the large mirror over the dresser was broken. The room gave every evidence of having witnessed a battle as well as a robbery and ransacking.
Chapter VI.
"But, my dear old corn flake!" wailed Reginald Vance Kramer, "I tell you I don't want your damned kidnaping case! I'm filthy rich from my last one, and I want to work on my book!"
"Go on in!" roared Nash, pushing the tweedy astralite through Alicia Dido Woodson's doorway.
"There's the regular police—"
"I don't want to get mixed up with them! Anyway," he added in a more conciliatory tone, "don't they always have to call you in to solve the hard ones?"
"True," grumbled Kramer."You've got sound instincts, I'm afraid. Let's see. Hm-m-m." The detective began nosing around the room like a cat who smells a mouse."Notice the position of that overturned chair. It fits the psychological pattern of a sheik's retainer." More nosing, then: "I say, I hope you can pay for this. My minimum retainer is five hundred—"
"Not right away," said Nash."When I get a job, and in installments."
"Oh now really, look here—"
"You just said you were filthy rich," argued Nash, "so you can afford to wait a bit for your fee. You wouldn't let a little delay like that stop you from cracking a swell case, would you?"
Kramer's curiosity gradually overcame his cupidity."I'll do it, chevalier. But this time only, mind you. And don't tell anyone I've given you such easy terms." He silently scrutinized the room's tenant's hairbrush. At last he extracted one hair and held it up to the light.
"Blonde," he said."Golden blonde, five-feet-six, weight nine stone seven, fond of sports."
Nash frowned."The blondeness I can see, but how do you infer the other—"
"Sh! Perfectly obvious, but I'll have to tell you later, when the case had been solved. Oh, I say!" The last was a cry of delight as Kramer scooped up a small vase that lay on its side on the floor. He held up the object, turning it."From the Bang Dynasty! This is priceless! And look here; what would you call the instrument this undeniably mammalian wench is playing?"
Nash peered at the picture on the vase."Some kinda harp, I suppose."
"Ah, there you're wrong! That's a quarter-tone plunk-plunk. They weren't supposed to have been invented as early as the Bang Dynasty. That'll be good for a whole chapter in my book." Kramer got out his notebook and began scribbling.
"You can have the plunk-plunk; I'll take the gal," said Nash."Hey, how about the kidnaping?"
"Oh, bother the kidnaping! No, don't be wroth, old man. I'll get back to it as soon as I finish these notes. Run along; you make me nervous fingering your sword that way. I'll send you a report."
Nash protested, but Kramer insisted that he could not do effective work with the chevalier looming over him. Nash was frantic with curiosity to see how a real super-sleuth operated, but for the sake of Alicia Dido Woodson he gave in.
On his way back to the Dumas Club he reflected that the astral plane surely had libraries and scientists—Farnsworth, the blue-clad would-be Interplanetary Patrolman, had implied as much. And weren't there plenty of young men on the mundane plane who imagined themselves as Newton, Darwin, and Einstein rolled into one? He'd stop at the club only long enough to ask for mail and to inquire where one of the prodigies might reside. This time he would tackle the Shamir problem in the systematic, common-sense fashion that his mundane self would have used in running down an error in a trial balance.
The club doorman said: "Ah, M'sieur le Chev—" then broke off, staring woodenly.
"What's—" Nash looked around the lobby. The other cavaliers were looking at him curiously too, not so much with hostility as with excited expectancy. His surprised gaze flitted from face to face until it lighted on that of the Comte de la Tour d'lvoire. The last got up and came over to him, very serious.
"Mon ami," he began, "Athos de Lilly is here—"
"Who's that? And why are you all looking at me that way?"
"You don't know Athos de Lilly? My poor friend! Have your wits—"
"Perhaps the sight of me will refresh the gentleman's memory," said a tense, vibrant voice from the dining room doorway, in which stood a tall, pale, thin-faced cavalier. This person advanced catlike over the carpet. When he was quite close, he thrust his head forward and grated: "You, Jean-Prospère de Nêche, are no gentleman!"
Nash simply stared at him."Well?"
Athos de Lilly jerked his head back as if Nash had made a pass at him."Perhaps, m'sieur, you did not hear me. I said you were no gentleman."
"Sure, I heard you. So what?"
De Lilly's mouth fell open; he mastered himself and said thickly: "I did not think it would be necessary for me to call you a coward."
Nash was silent.
"Coward!" cried de Lilly, voice rising."Do you hear me? You are a coward!"
"O. K., I'm a coward. I knew that already," replied Nash amiably."But what's the idea? I don't know you, m'sieu—"
"You mock me!" screamed de Lilly."This is for you, fripon!" The enraged cavalier pulled off one of his embroidered leather gloves and slapped Nash's face with it.
"Say, m'sieur," growled Nash, taking a step forward and cocking a fist.
Before he could let fly, de la Tour d'lvoire caught his elbow."Ah, my God, Jean-Prospère, not that! After all you are a gentleman—"
"He doesn't seem to think so, so I guess I can take a poke at him... say, is this guy trying to challenge me to a duel?"
"But of course, my old! After all you killed his best friend—"
"I did? The hell you say! I never... I mean, if I did I'm sorry—"
"Not here! Not here!" shouted the club man-ager, running up."In back, and do not push cries to attract the police!"
Nash found himself caught up in a current of men and swept through doors toward the rear, with the Comte still glued to his elbow. The latter said: "It would do me a great honor to be chosen your second—"
"But... but—" expostulated Nash, Nobody paid any attention. The crowd whooped at the prospect of action. He was pushed and hauled out to the lawn behind the club. Athos de Lilly awaited him somberly with drawn sword, flexing his knees every few seconds to limber up.
"Look here, Comte," said Nash, "why have I got to fight this guy? I haven't anything against him—"
"Sh, my dear friend, you have made enough eccentricities for one day! No more, I pray you!"
Nash was about to add candidly that he was frightened, but decided that these stout-hearted and wooden-headed men of honor would misunderstand. They were all spread around the edges of the lawn now except for Nash, de Lilly, the Comte, a cavalier who was acting as de Lilly's second, and another cavalier serving as referee. The last was holding a sword out horizontally in front of him. Athos de Lilly extended his blade so that it crossed the referee's sword a few inches from its tip and lay horizontally upon it. They all waited for Nash to do the same.
Damn Bechard, damn Monty Stark, damn Prosper Nash for getting into such a fix! He tried to summon up the strength of character to tell the assembly that their code duello was archaic nonsense, and walk out on them. But he could not, quite, and presently his rapier crossed the referee's blade too, so that his and de Lilly's swords overlapped by about a foot.