Miss Sarah O’Rourke, in good time and safely through, spent anxious moments scanning the shifting crowd in the hope of seeing a familiar face, until her attention, like everyone else’s, was drawn to the scuffle at the counter. Willmott protested, sternly and with dignity. Several men, he claimed, had jostled him. One had knocked his case from his hand to the ground, whereupon it had mysteriously burst open. The officials, suspicious, listened with patent disbelief. They inspected the baggage, and then his person, carefully. They heard his disclaimer that those wrist-watches, and that whisky—actually in his pocket—were his own. Planted, of course, he said. They’d heard it all many times before. They invited him inside. But then Willmott changed his tune to a slightly different key.
“You’ll notice,” he pointed out silkily, “that I’m wearing gloves. If we could now have a fingerprint check on all those articles you’ve discovered and that I’m supposed to be trying to smuggle—and then compare the prints with those of certain parties I can point out from here?”
Sarah watched the scuffle as various people attempted to depart, and airport police attempted just as urgently to dissuade them, and sighed to herself. New York, she thought, was far too exciting a place to stay in for very long. In that respect, she was glad to be going home. But she felt disappointed, all the same. That nice Mr. Solo had said—And she started as a deferential voice intruded on her distress.
“We should be getting along to the plane, Miss. It will go soon. It will not wait for the crooked ones. Permit me to carry your bag, yes?”
The speaker was slim, not too tall, obviously trying to be friendly. By the sound of his clipped English, and to judge by his brief black moustache, neatly pointed beard and brilliant smile, he was Italian. Shielded by darkened glasses, his eyes seemed honest enough. “You’re very kind,” she said. “I had hoped to meet somebody, but I suppose you’re right; they won’t keep the plane waiting, will they?”
It wasn’t until her strange companion had gallantly escorted her all the way to her seat and stowed her personal baggage in the rack over her head that she realized she didn’t know his name. In response to her question he smiled his brilliant smile, sat himself in the seat by her side and said:
“Not yet. Not while we are still on the ground, eh? Once we are on the way, it will be different.”
They didn’t have long to wait. Doors slammed, the engines picked up power, and there came the familiar warning, “Fasten your seat-belts, please!” Sarah gave up her last lingering hope that Napoleon Solo would somehow make a dramatic appearance, and determined to forget all about him. She turned to see her companion in the act of peeling off his pointed beard with every evidence of relief.
“You didn’t really think I’d let you get away, did you?” he chuckled.
“Mr. Solo! But why—?”
“The opposition were on the lookout for somebody. So we put somebody there for them to see, and deal with—while I slipped by in the confusion.”
“That poor man at the Customs!”
“Jerry will know exactly what to do. Right now, three or four Thrush agents are having to explain how their fingerprints come to be all over the contraband he was supposed to be carrying. Do them all the good in the world.” Solo took a moment to glance round the seated passengers, and his smile was a shade harder as he brought it back to her. “Let us not start counting any premature chickens, however. They were smart enough to plant two more on this flight. Easy now; they won’t start anything while we’re in the air. They want you home safe and sound. It’s me they’ll try to get playful with, and they won’t try that until we’re at the other end.”
“You’re trying to scare me again!”
“Not for the world.” Solo smiled reassuringly. “I only want you to know it’s my neck they’re after, not yours. Isn’t that comforting to know?”
Sarah frowned dubiously.
TWO
“The Spirits of Me Ancestors Are Watching Ye.”
ILLYA NICKOVETCH KURYAKIN lay stretched out and soaking in sunshine on the heather-padded slope of a hillside, tinted glasses over his pale blue eyes and his straw-yellow thatch of hair hidden under a soft hat that was tilted to shade his face. He was untidy but comfortable in a faded check-shirt and battered old slacks. He looked half asleep. Close by his right elbow a stout staff stood erect, its lower end rammed firmly into the turf, a battered old tweed jacket apparently casually slung over its top to afford a measure of shade. The jacket adequately concealed a metal dish, at the focus of which hung a tiny but highly sensitive microphone. A thin wire crawled down the staff and fed into the canvas pack that was currently doing duty as a pillow. Within that pack the wire led into an amplifier. Another wire from the amplifier lay along the heather and stretched to Kuryakin’s right ear, and the tiny speaker hidden there. From time to time he might have been seen to reach out and touch the staff, to twist it minutely, just a fraction, in order to keep that snooping microphone accurately aimed at the two people down there.
They were almost a mile away. They were going through the motions of playing a round of golf over the Conway Club greens. They had the course to themselves, and thought they were secure from observation. Kuryakin could hear virtually every word they said, and found it most interesting.
In his brief term on the job he had accomplished much. U.N.C.L.E.’s man in Limerick had briefed him up to date. He had lodgings in Ennis to match his walking-tour guise. He had seen and identified Trilli and his two henchmen, Schichi and Foden, and had estimated them all accurately. Trilli might look like an inoffensive rabbit, but he was the real brain and as deadly as a snake. Schichi was big, burly, a typical Italian thug, handy with any kind of weapon but short on brains. Foden, now, was blond, Nordic, and smart. Also tough—he’d bear watching. He drove the hired Daimler that had brought Trilli to this unusual golf match. He and Schichi had been left to wait in the clubhouse while Trilli and his companion played.
It made sense, Kuryakin mused, awarding Trilli credit for using his head. If you want to meet and talk with someone in secret, avoid the dark corners, the deserted houses, the secret rooms or the concealing hedge. There you are just asking somebody to sneak up and listen in. Your best bet is to pick a place right out in the open, without cover, where you can see possible interference coming miles away and be warned. Trilli had chosen well. It wasn’t his fault that science had worked out a method of selecting sound vibrations over a long distance with all the accuracy of a telescope.
Kuryakin listened. What made this conversation particularly interesting was the fact that Trilli was doing his dickering with a woman!
She was too far away for Kuryakin to observe in detail. She wore a trim green cashmere sweater and short tweed skirt. He knew that she was Bridget O’Rourke. He also knew that she had a very pleasant voice, and by the skillful way she employed it that she was a very dangerous person indeed.
“I’m not blaming you for being careful,” she said. “If you want to insist that you’re just a representative of some big chemical combine in Europe—which you refuse to name—then that’s it and good luck to it. But if you stick with that then you’re stuck, you see? Because I’m telling you, straight out, that Uncle Mike positively will not deal with anything less than Thrush itself. That’s what he’s after, and that’s what he’s going to have. You see?”