"Climb over," Lafayette urged. "It's wider here." His hands groping along the wall encountered glass, small panes set neatly in a mullioned door. "Hey," he called in a low but excited tone to Bother, now hulking at his elbow, "it's a regular door! No garbage here ..." He investigated, found an ornate wrought-iron latch, lifted it, and the door swung inward into darkness and the shriek of a female voice.
Lafayette blundered forward, uttering soothing words:
"There, there, take it easy, please, ma'am. No need for alarm. We're simply calling on the Lady Henriette in the Hill. Sorry to burst in on you, but it's dark out there, and we just sort of stumbled on the door."
After the first scream, the unseen female's response to the invasion of her lair was a barrage of small objects, thrown with surprising force and accuracy. Then a small and feminine voice said contritely:
"You startled me, sirrah, bursting in here in the dark into Her Ladyship's private withdrawing room, where even I, her faithful maid-of-all-work, am scarce allowed to dust. Forgive my fusillade if I did indeed score a hit upon thy persons. What manner of men be ye? One of ye, it seems, is made of metal, or so I judge by the clatter when my candlestick struck him."
"We're just ordinary fellows," Lafayette protested. "Of course the duke has his armor on, but that's only in case he has to do battle or something."
"Thou'lt find no battle here, sir knight," the now ladylike voice returned. "We be but two women, meaning harm to none." As she spoke, Lafayette could hear the sounds of flint on iron; then a spark glared, igniting a wick, and a bright flame glowed, flickering on a table-model cigarette lighter. It illuminated a shapely arm clad in gray cloth, leading up past a delightfully formed, though modest, bosum to a piquant face framed in golden-blond braid topped by a lacy cap.
"Adoranne!" O'Leary yelled. "That is, I mean, Your Highness! What in the world are you doing here" —he broke off as his gaze took in the spacious room behind her—"in Nicodaeus' old lab? And how did it get here? I had it figured the penthouse Frumpkin escaped into back in town was the lab!"
"Are you kidding, mister?" the girl returned. "Calling me 'Highness' ... hmmp! Why make ye sport of a poor serving-wench? You look disreputable, sir, for all your finery, mud-splattered as you are. Is this a proper fashion in which to call on milady?"
"Sorry," Lafayette said hastily. "I guess you're not really Adoranne, just her analog in this locus. Still, it's a good sign that such a close analog exists here: it proves we're not really far from Artesia. You're as like Adoranne as Swinehild was, and Melange was practically next door to Artesia—"
"Don't get excited, feller," the girl said. 'Til see if she'll see you at this unholy hour. Don't hold your breath." She put the lighter on a handy tabletop and turned toward the door.
"Wait!" O'Leary blurted. "Before you go, tell us about yourself—and Lady Henriette. How you happen to be here, where you came from—everything. By the way, what's your name?"
"I'm known here as Betty Brassbraid, though that be not my true name. And I'll leave it to my mistress to tell you what she deems well to relate." She left the room with a swish of woolen skirts, her feet quick and light even in the heavy wooden clogs she wore. As the door closed behind her, Bother spoke up:
"Zounds, Sir Lafayette, what fell den of the Black Arts be this, in sooth?" He was looking around suspiciously at the black crackle-finish wall panels set with a bewildering array of dials, oscilloscopes and idiot lights, the arcane astrological symbols scribed on framed posters, the alembics and retorts on the marble-topped benches.
"Stap me!" the duke continued his plaint, "this be no canny place for Christian men. Mayhap, Sir Lafayette, twere best we repair to yon balcony, there to await Her Ladyship."
"It's just Nicodaeus' old lab, as I said," Lafayette reminded the knight. "It's a pretty weird mixture of science and superstition, I'll agree. See those little jars over there beside the electron microscope? Eye of newt and best mummy dust. But Nicodaeus was an Inspector of Continua, First Class. He'd been in some strange loci, and he picked up a lot of mutually exclusive ideas along the way." Lafayette was idly eyeing the gilded skeleton dangling from a wire suspended from a rafter lost in the shadows above.
"Funny thing," he mused, "back in Aphasia, the bones were gone. Here, they're still in place. That probably has some heavy significance, if I were just sharp enough to figure it out. But every time I think I'm beginning to see a pattern, something like that pops up and proves I'm on the wrong track. If this room had been the one at the top of the scaffold back in town, as it should have been, I'd feel a lot better."
"Meseems twere passing strange, Sir Lafayette," Bother commented, "that ye be not all of a-maze to find such a chamber here in a rubble-heap. But instead, ye talk calmly of stranger riddles still. Still, I'm but a simple man of war, knowing naught of these matters."
"Don't kid me, Mobius, your groom told me you're an inspector yourself. It's time to drop the local persona and help me figure out what's happening before it happens."
"As to that," Bother said in a stiff tone, "doubtless you're aware that for me to divulge anything of a classified nature would be an LRC violation punishable by exile to uncontrolled space-time. Still, I shall do what I can to riddle me this curious circumstance. And a certain stable boy will rue the day he blabbed."
"Sure," Lafayette said soothingly, "I don't want you to tell me any secrets. And go easy on the horse-boy; he was trying to do his job—looking for some master criminal." Lafayette paused to look interrogatively at Duke Bother-Be-Damned. "Do you have any leads?"
"Not I," Bother replied impatiently. "I'm no gumshoe, my vital energies to expend in pursuit of fugitives from justice who are in all probability no more criminal than the beadles who so assiduously persecute them. Bah! What interests me just now is the woman of mystery, yclept Henriette in the Hill." The duke took a few clanking steps as if about to begin pacing the floor, but he halted as the lighter flame sputtered and went out, leaving the spooky room in darkness.
"How now?" the duke muttered, the words accompanied by the familiar swoosh of his sword being drawn from its sheath. Lafayette heard grunts and whistling sounds of the blade cutting air as the duke executed a few precautionary swipes at the surrounding emptiness. "I mislike me this," the warrior grated. "What fell influence snuffed yon candle without human hand nearby?"
"It's probably just out of fluid," Lafayette said, and groped his way to the table. He found the lighter, tried it without any effect other than a colorful shower of sparks, then dropped it to reassure the duke, who had responded to the unexpected display with a selection of colorful oaths and more swipes of the sword. Then a crack of light gleamed as a side door opened and the slim silhouette of a young woman appeared in the opening. She came in, followed closely by Betty, carrying a lantern which showed the deep-blue cloak about Lady Henriette's slim shoulders, then her piquant face and her glossy black hair.
"Daphne!" O'Leary yelled and started around the table toward her. Then, as the brunette beauty looked at him wide-eyed, he checked himself. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you, milady; for a moment I assumed you were my wife, Daphne, but I suppose you're just her analog in this locus, like the Lady Androgorre back in Melange, and for that matter Beverly and Cynthia. But it's wonderful to see you anyway, even if you aren't really Daphne."
"You speak strangely, sir," the Daphne-like woman said stiffly, and was abruptly thrust aside by the Man in Black, who had pushed past Betty and now stood blocking the doorway. He looked casually around and nodded in satisfaction.