“Hey, I’m not Sanforized!” he gargled next change he got, and immediately regretted it as Apis started to dunk him again.
“Let’s stop this foolishness, shall we? I’ll ask a question or two, and you will answer, and then we can both be about our business.” Porpoise sounded slightly hurt that
Illya wasn’t cooperating. Illya was too busy breathing to answer, so Porpoise went on.
“Now, how did U.N.C.L.E. get Napoleon Solo out of here?”
Illya opened his eyes in amazement. “Out of here?” Before he could say aught else he was in the pool again, and then hauled roughly up, gasping. He shook his head, trying to clear the water from his eyes and nose, but it didn’t help, for just as he was about to speak again, Apis dunked him.
“This is ridiculous,” he finally managed to gasp. “Even if I could answer you, your tame derrick here wouldn’t let me. How about if I sit in the chair and he dangles you for a while? I don’t know what happened to Napoleon. I just followed him in here, and you clobbered me. What am I supposed to know?”
“That won’t do, Mr. Kuryakin. That won’t do at all. We destroyed Solo’s tracer device, and searched him thoroughly for another. We took a variety of no doubt useful devices from his person, just as we have from yours. We shut him up in the very maze you so recently walked through with my help, and he managed to escape. Now you will tell me how!” Porpoise raised his voice to a squeak on the last sentence, and Apis took that as a command to plunge Illya into the pool almost to the ankles, head foremost.
Illya digested the information about Napoleon, wishing fervently that there had been just a whit more coordination on this project. Finally he could hold his breath no longer and was forced to exhale. Apis snatched him from the depths and snapped him once, clearing the water from his throat, and nearly popping the eyes out of his head. Illya managed a strangled breath before his next dip.
“Do you have the answers I desire, Mr. Kuryakin? Or shall I let Apis continue his little game?” Porpoise had once more regained full control of himself, and Illya was losing his own swiftly.
“I suppose I must tell you. Napoleon traveled through the far east as a young man. While there he saved the life of an ancient Guru, who among other things taught him
full mental control of his surroundings.” The completely incredulous look on Porpoises face so confused Apis that he allowed Illya to continue uninterrupted. “When Napoleon returned to this country he had the power to cloud men’s minds, and so I suspect he didn’t actually escape your maze. He’s probably-”
The rest of Illya’s answer was interrupted by more water. Porpoise had finally reacted sufficiently to give Apis the proper cue. Illya, caught short of breath, kicked and bucked while small pinwheels went off behind his eyes. The trouble with Porpoise was definitely linked to an atrophied sense of humor. Finally, bending at the middle into an upright position, he managed to get enough air to keep alive. He spat a mouthful of water straight into Apis’s eyes, and miraculously was dragged completely free of the water while the giant regained his sight. Illya took a deep breath and was plunged back under the surface; he was learning how to breathe safely, even with a mouthful of chlorine. Despite the growing discomfort, he was far from drowned when Porpoise signaled for a stop to the dunking.
“You are probably trying to wait until Apis tires, so you can use a change of hands to kick away free.” The fat man smiled broadly up at the giant. “I trust you are. willing to wait quite a while. You see, Apis just doesn’t tire.” There followed a rapid succession of immersions, which proved that Apis could move the Russian’s weight around with no more trouble than Illya would have had turning the pages of a book. Illya would have congratulated him on the workmanlike display of strength, had he had the breath. Water and air seemed to run together, and it hardly mattered which he breathed. By the time his seesaw ground to a temporary halt, half the swimming pool was in his lungs and stomach, his eyes were ready to burst with the continued strain of holding his breath when there was no breath, and he’d built up a violent, grinding cough.
“Now if you please,” said his host, “can we get down to business? You U.N.C.L.E. people all seem to take us of Thrush for dunces. I assure you that I am not a dunce, and that if you once more play the fool with me, Apis will continue dunking you until your head turns soft. Have I made myself clear?” The he managed to escape to float before his eyes like a rubber vall, and despite his half drowned condition, Illya wanted to laugh.
“We will table the question of Solos escape for the moment. You might know no more about it than I do, but you did not just follow Mr. Solo in here on speculation, not with this newspaper in your coat pocket.”
The first part of the tirade had gone into Illya’s ears through a great deal of water, and the playful Apis had punctuated his chiefs main points with more dips, so Illya wasn’t quite sure if he had been asked another question or not. He opened his mouth to ask, when his eyes finally cleared and he recognized the newspaper waving back and forth over the floating mound of humanity. Illya closed his mouth with a snap, remembering the fire below the pier, and wishing he had succumbed to the temptation of warming himself over it. The paper, open to the crossword puzzle, was probably going to cost him his life.
“Hey,” he managed at last, “that’s my crossword puzzle. I haven’t finished it yet. Don’t get it all soggy, or I’ll never get ‘The longest word’ in six letters.”
“You simple idiot, you don’t expect me to believe that you have half worked my puzzle, have circled my name, and to put the tin cap on it, have underlined the chief clues all by accident?” Porpoise bobbed before the Russian like a pink cork, getting more and more agitated as he spoke. “Between you and Solo I have learned enough to tell me that U.N.C.L.E. knows a lot and still very little. You can’t hope to stop my operation, even if you should manage to capture me. If you don’t show a bit more sense than you have shown to date, I feel we can dispense with you entirely.”
“I didn’t come here to be insulted,” Illya answered with a straight face. “What’s this about half working your puzzle? -that’s my puzzle, paid for with my dime. I’ll mark it up any way I see fit, if I get enough of it back to mark on.” He was trying to convince Porpoise that, despite all evidence to the contrary, his possession of the puzzle was quite innocent. With a less vain man it would have been a ludicrous attempt, but Porpoise snapped at the bait.
“I am sure you spent your good money for this copy of my puzzle, Mr. Kuryaldn,” Porpoise explained as if to a child. “I am Avery D. Porpoise. I constructed this puzzle for my own purposes, as I am quite sure you know.” Despite his words, his tone and expression belied him. Porpoise wanted to believe that his communications system was too clever to be discovered, and Illya was perfectly willing to let him convince himself that it was so.
“You are Avery D. Porpoise?” Apis, suddenly aware that Illya was drying out, managed to drown out the last few syllables. Porpoise signaled him to let Illya continue, and the Russian came up spluttering, “You write the most fiendishly difficult puzzles in the world. There have been times when I have tom my hair trying to get past one of your strange definitions.”
“Oh, bother the compliments,” said Porpoise, obviously pleased. “You didn’t come here to talk puzzles. Solo’s try to crack one of our brokers in Manhattan and your own follow-up moves are obviously too hostile to me and my project to make me believe that U.N.C.L.E. is unaware of my puzzle.” Porpoise was almost pleading to be reassured.
“What do you mean? What sort of weapon is a crossword puzzle? Outside of causing U.N.C.L.E. to lose maybe a hundred or so man hours daily while we try to solve them, I don’t see that your puzzles can be much of a threat to us at all.” Illya was pulling out all stops, and Porpoise was beginning to doubt the evidence of his own eyes. The Russian completed the ruse by asking in his most innocent tone, “What is the secret of your puzzle? I’m not likely to tell anyone from here, and you’ve certainly got me curious enough to ask.”