Then came the minions of the law, very prompt and efficient, and all his precariously held picture began to fall apart into nightmare. The lieutenant was brisk and competent, his men alert. It took only minutes to verify what had actually happened, where everybody had been sitting and standing when the shot had been fired. From where had the sound come? What had it sounded like? Sarah managed to give her testimony with reasonable accuracy. Half-a-dozen onlookers backed her up. It all fitted. Shot in the back. From that direction. Who had been in that direction at that time? Solo grimaced as one witness after another declared that he had been “right there” when the shot had sounded.
And he had been the only one in the room who hadn’t seemed stunned into immobility by the killing. Even Sarah had to agree with that.
“I’m not armed,” Solo protested, more irritated than anything by the ironic twist of events.
The lieutenant ignored him. “Now where,” he mused aloud, “would you be most likely to ditch the gun?” He wondered, and looked, and pointed, and one of his cohorts went and looked, and found a gun clumsily hidden in a potted-palm. He picked it up and carried it strictly according to the rule-book, with a pencil inserted in the barrel. Solo shook his head sadly as he saw it.
“Let me save you the trouble,” he said. “It’s mine.”
There was no room for doubt. That gun, which looked something like a Luger but wasn’t, bore his initial, an “S” engraved on the butt. And it was unique in other ways, as the lieutenant’s expression showed when he inspected it. He was still staring as the police surgeon straightened from his quick inspection of the body.
“Damndest gunshot wound I ever saw, lieutenant. The man’s alive. Very little hemorrhage. But he’s completely out cold. Anesthetized!”
“My gun,” Solo repeated wryly. “May I show you?” He reached and took the weapon from the lieutenant’s hand, and four police positives appeared like conjuring tricks, all looking right at him. He smiled thinly, broke the magazine, and showed one of the cartridges with its needle-pointed capsule. Leading all the intent eyes in that direction, he managed to slip another one unseen into his pocket. He composed his features into a tight smile.
“Sorry about this,” he said to Sarah, who looked stunned. “It’s all a mistake, of course. I’ll explain, sometime later.” Then he offered his wrists to the law and shrugged. “Shall we go, gentlemen?”
The cell was clean and not too uncomfortable, all things considered. As soon as he was alone, Solo drew out his transceiver and put out the call.
“Open channel D.” As Waverly came on he steeled himself to recite the details in cold words, sparing himself not at all. Only at the end did he give way to a personal comment. “It must have been manna from heaven for Thrush,” he growled. “They were dying to find some way to silence Amazov, and I was the goat. Obvious, now that it’s too late.”
“It isn’t obvious to me, Mr. Solo, not yet. Why should they want to silence Amazov?”
“Because he was about the only person there who knew enough to understand the finer points of her paper. The way I see it, in its original form it gave away a little too much information. Thrush didn’t want that, so they got at it, altered it enough to make it meaningless, let her go ahead and run off a stack of copies, then doctored her drink so that she lost her voice, thereby making sure she wouldn’t read it through herself. Make sense? After all, there was no reason for her to read her own paper, otherwise. Once she lost her voice, and her scheduled lecture time, she just didn’t bother any more, naturally.”
“That’s very ingenuous, Mr. Solo.”
“Isn’t it? And it’s the only thing that fits. There’s obviously something pretty potent about those molecules as originally described. I suggest the laboratory make some more tests on that script, this time looking for erasures and alterations. They might even be able to restore the original version.”
“Yes. We’ll do that. Good thinking, Mr. Solo, if a trifle tardy. Now, I suppose, I shall have to pull strings to get you out of there!”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t like it. I shall have to ask favors. I remind you that we are supposed to come to the assistance of the duly constituted authorities, not to ask them to help us!”
“No, sir.”
“Very well. I think I can manage to ‘spring’ you, if that’s the word, in time to have you catch Miss O’Rourke’s flight.”
“To Ireland?”
“It seems to be indicated.”
“You think Thrush is going to let her get away?”
“Not ‘get away,’ Mr. Solo. To return home. If your thinking is accurate it will be to Thrush’s interest to see her safely onto that plane and off home without suspecting anything. They will of course try to stop you from going with her, or learning anything from her. That’s why you’re in jail at the moment.”
Solo put away his instrument and spent a bitter moment in thought. It was nice to think that he would be seeing more of Sarah, but, that said, the rest was sour to his taste. A night in the cells! What a comedown for U.N.C.L.E.’s top field agent! He could vividly imagine the insufferable grins and smirks there would be once the information leaked out, as it certainly would once he was turned loose. He could almost hear the uniformed men passing the word, the plain-clothes squads spreading the tasty tidbit of scuttlebut.
“Yeah, sure! One of those fancy U.N.C.L.E. agents tripped right over his big flat feet, and we had to pick him up, dust him off and send him back home to Uncle, safe and sound!”
He writhed at the acid thought, rejecting it as insufferable. In sudden determination he cast an appraising eye around the bleak cell. It shouldn’t be so hard to get out of, at that. He was debating ways and means, not wanting to do too much damage to taxpayers’ property, when he heard the stolid tread of feet approaching, and saw the uniformed figure of his host for the night. He was a burly and overly jovial man, his crooked grin showing that he had already heard something of the inside story.
“Sort of a change for us to have distinguished company here,” he said. “Sorry the imperial suite isn’t available right now.”
Solo smiled equably. “It’s not worth the trouble. I’m not staying.”
“That’s right—I heard we’re going to have to let you out.”
“With my property, trust?”
“The trick gun, you mean? I have it right here.” The officer produced it, passed it butt-first through the bars. “Kinda cute, but personally I prefer the Magnum. You hit a man, he stays hit, know what I mean? A man’s gun.”
Solo hefted the weapon, smiled again. “Empty, naturally.”
“Just one of those things,” the officer apologized. “Routine. You know? Wouldn’t want you to get ambitious or anything. No hard feelings, naturally. Like a cup of coffee?”
“That’s a kind thought. Thank you.” He watched the solicitous one tread away whistling, felt for the spare cartridge he had managed to sneak, and held it in his fingers thoughtfully. Load up? Hardly. He wouldn’t want to shoot the man without extreme provocation, and you can’t properly threaten a man with a gun that he believes to be empty. On an impulse he hurriedly unscrewed the capsule-end and secreted it between two fingers, then moved to sit on his bunk. The jailer came back with a jug and two paper cups, dragged out a key-ring and unlocked the door, pushing it open.
“I’ll join you,” he suggested amiably. “Easier than passing the things through the bars, and you’re not going to try any rough stuff, are you?”
Solo grinned and moved to the far end of the bunk to give safe room. “I’d be a fool to try rough tactics with you,” he murmured. “You’d probably tear my arm off and beat my head with it and never turn a hair. What do we talk about?”
“Tricks of the trade,” the officer suggested, pouring a cup and passing it with a long arm. “I bet you know a few, hey?”