“Trilli, that’s your name, and you’re a chemist. A good one, too. At least, you were, until you were killed in a peculiar accident about four years ago. That’s strange now, isn’t it? But it fits the Thrush pattern. When they want a man badly, they arrange for him to ‘die,’ and then they have him, you see, body and soul. You’re in the crunch, Mr. Trilli. Either you are a Thrush agent, or you’re an imposter, take your pick!”
“You are very well informed,” Trilli muttered, no longer rabbity-looking. “If this is some kind of trap—a clumsy one—” And there was an evil-looking pistol in his hand all at once. Simultaneously Foden and Schichi stepped away, and they held guns too. All three stared steadily at O’Rourke. The old man’s caprine beard twitched, but his eyes were like spears and his smile satanic.
“The spirits of me ancestors are watching ye,” he said, very softly; and Trilli glanced aside…and stiffened. Six of the oil-paintings had slid aside. In the dark cavities revealed, three on each side, stood men, large and ruddy-faced and ready, each with a shotgun leveled. “A scatter-gun makes an awful bad mess at this range,” the old man pointed out. “Ye said I’m well-informed, and so I am. I remind ye, I’m King in these parts. I’m well-served. But I’m a fair man, and I’m satisfied that you are what I think you are. I’m ready to talk a bit of business with you, if you’ll put away the toys and be easy.” Trilli shifted his gaze slowly. from one pair of barrels to another, and then shrugged in defeat, slipping his pistol out of sight again.
“Very well, we don’t play games any more. We talk business.”
“That’s fine. Bridget me dear, will you bring the bottle and glasses? There’ll be high tea in a while. I make you welcome, good people, so long as you remember that I’ve a lot more handy buckoes like these scattered about the place. At one word from me they’d tear ye limb from limb and serve ye up as Mulligan, so they would. ’Tis a grand thing to be an absolute monarch.”
O’Rourke seated himself again and waved Trilli and his henchmen to come forward and take seats on either side of him. Bridget produced the bottle and glasses. The old man reached into his corduroy smoking-jacket to produce a visiting card for Trilli. “A token of goodwill,” he smiled. “There’s not many that has King Michael’s personal card, believe me.” Trilli scowled, put the thing away in his breast pocket. In the thick silence they heard a clock, close by, chime out the half-hour.
“Unless something’s happened to her,” Bridget declared, “Sarah should be home soon.”
“She will, she will. Sarah’s a reliable girl.”
“Your other niece?” Trilli wondered. “The one you sent to the convention in New York to talk? Wasn’t that foolish, giving away freely what you are trying to sell to me for a great price?”
The old man shook his head pityingly. “When I’m on the Supreme Council I’ll try to remember never to give you a job calling for intelligence. Think, man! D’ye think anybody will pay attention to anything announced freely and in public? Of course they won’t. That’s why I did it. And what did I give away, at all? Only the information that I know how to manufacture a new synthetic! That’s all. Not how to make it, but that I know how to do it. And I do!”
“But you have put your process on the market for bids!”
“So I have, at a price that will be out of sight for anything less than one of the major manufacturing houses. And d’ye think they’re going to rush to buy? Think again. They won’t buy until they have some direct idea what the stuff is good for, and they can’t know that until they make some to try—and they can’t do that without the process method. Which I have. So, if they give it any thought at all, they’ll shrug it off and forget it. Who’s interested in some chance discovery in a brewery, anyway?” O’Rourke chuckled. “But it will serve to stop nosy people sniffing round me heels, so it will.”
Trilli frowned. He didn’t like this one bit. The old man was beyond doubt insane. But he had no room for argument now. “Very well,” he declared. “Now you will tell me, and show me, just what it is so wonderful about this new molecule that you think you can dictate to Thrush.”
The old man shed his jocularity all at once, and there was an edge to his voice as he said, “I can hold the world to ransom, Dr. Trilli, not just Thrush, with what I’ve discovered. The whole world! And I will, if I have to! It would be a bit easier and quicker with Thrush on my side, but if I must, I will do it alone-and you can take that back to your superiors, with the compliments of King Michael of Clare in Eire!”
“It’s the truth, every word,” Bridget said. “As for giving away secrets in New York, you three must have left a trail a mile wide for that man to be snooping on us, by Conway.” She turned to her uncle. “A silly little man was skulking on the hillside watching us. We chased him into Kevin’s Hole. Right in. He’ll be no more trouble at all.”
“It is all very well!” Trilli objected angrily. “This is fine big talk. But nothing yet about what this precious chemical of yours can do. I must have evidence, proof, not just words. As you say, I am a chemist, a scientist. What I see with my own eyes, that I believe. Not talk!”
A soft footfall in the doorway brought all their heads around. Another large man stood there in an attitude of respect.
“Begging your pardon, your majesty, but there’s an airport car belting up the road, with Miss Sarah in it and a man with her. An American, by the look.”
“Hah!” O’Rourke struck the table with an exasperated palm. “Isn’t it always the same? The one curse of my life is what many another man would call a blessing that I have two of the prettiest girls in the whole country living here with me, forever attracting young men like bees at a honey-pot! But”—and a devilish gleam came into his sharp eyes—”perhaps this time I can turn a nuisance into good use. Perhaps this young man can be made to serve a good purpose. Donovan, make them welcome and take care of the baggage. Bridget me darling, down to the cellar with you and bring back a can of the special, with an opener, and a glass.”
She made a brilliant smile and hurried away. O’Rourke turned to Trilli, and his smile was full of glee. “You said you wanted evidence, some proof of what my synthetic can do to a man, didn’t you? Well now, just be still, let me do the talking, and you shall see for yourself.”
By the time the car reached the forecourt of the castle, Napoleon Solo was properly impressed by the pile. It wasn’t quite as big as he had imagined from the picture, but it looked respectably old and solid.
As he paid off the car, Sarah chattered, “I’m sure I don’t know what Uncle Mike will say about me bringing you home with me like this. He’s not much of a hand for company. He prefers to meet people professionally by appointment at the brewery, and not at all at home, not unless it’s something extra special. In a way, I’m breaking all the rules, just for you. But after everything you’ve told me about those wicked people trying to steal his discovery and everything, I’m sure it is the best thing for you to tell him all about it yourself and see what he says about it.” She paused for a rare breath and resumed, “I know he wouldn’t believe a word of it if I just told him myself. I’m not sure that I believe it myself, even if that poor man was shot and everything, at the dancing last night, poor Professor Amazov—”
Solo sighed inwardly and let the flood ripple over him. If she had a flaw, he thought, it was this regrettable tendency to chatter steadily on at great length. That, plus an equally unfortunate inability to believe anything he told her, particularly about Thrush. He hadn’t tried very hard to convince her about the two Thrush agents on the plane because he’d had his own designs on them, and they had called for innocence, on the surface. A long time ago he had learned certain bits of useful information from a master locksmith on how to make ordinary locking devices behave in most un-ordinary ways. That information, long unused but never forgotten, had proven most useful at the end of their uneventful flight. He had not known for sure whether those two agents had intended anything malicious towards him; he had just taken that for granted, and acted accordingly.