Napoleon and Illya looked at each other, wondering which would have to ask the inevitable question.
Napoleon lost. His suit had been cleaned and pressed again after his long walk through the foggy dew and that hurricane ride to London, and neither grass stain nor flaccid creases could have betrayed the morning's activities. He finally opened his mouth and got as far as, "How could you have told it was a bicycle, though?"
Escott sighed politely, and pointed to Napoleon's trouser-cuffs. "The fraying of the right cuff on the inside is characteristic of cycling. The fact that you returned to London is again apparent in the appearance of your creases. By the way, would you unhook that slipper beside the fire and hand it over here? Thank you."
Illya performed the requested service, and they watched as Escott packed an aged meerschaum with a pungent mixture from the toe of the slipper. He handed it back, and then carefully set fire to his well-tamped pipe. Between puffs, he said, "But would you be willing to talk of your organization, and your opponent's? I have heard rumors many places of something called Thrush, and I would be most interested to see if it bears any resemblance to a network I had some hand in cracking many years ago."
For the next few hours, Napoleon and Illya described the nature of Thrush as well as they could. The satraps, the Supreme Council and the Ultimate Computer, the semi-independent operations that went on within this great hierarchy; the range of activities they participated in, always with an eye to their ends, which were, simply enough, the conquest of the entire world and its inhabitants.
Escott finished a pipe and began on another while they talked, and then told of his struggles against a prototype of Thrush. As it grew later in the evening, he brought out, refreshments and the conversation continued. They covered everything they had found out about the Rainbow Gang and its leader, and wandered afield into tastes in music and odd facts of life.
But in the relaxed atmosphere, Napoleon and Illya found themselves remembering little details. The type of caps worn by the men who drove his truck, or the odd smell about Johnnie Rainbow's borrowed country estate. And gradually pieces of a picture began to build up, with Escott's voice weaving the individual bits of evidence into a tapestry of circumstance that wound around men whose names were unknown, but whose presence made themselves felt everywhere. They saw the perfect simplicity of the lighthouse as a head quarters, safe, solitary, and well-defended. They saw glimpses of his network of representatives, strung out about the country, working independently but always available for an assignment; a network which fluctuated from moment to moment, evading a similar growing set being established by Thrush. Thrush had always had some difficulty establishing native agents in England, and to encounter this ready-made operation must have seemed a gift.
But in the course of their organizing drive, they occasionally ran into stumbling blocks. One such was Johnnie Rainbow, who wanted to keep England safe for the common burglar, and avoid foreign entanglements except those necessary to get loot out of the country. Escott made a comment that stuck in Napoleon's memory, to the effect that thieves were more deserving of prison terms than murderers. "A thief," he said, "is very hard to reform. By yielding to temptation once he has weakened his will to resist the next time. But a murderer, nine times out of ten, kills once, under a combination of circumstances that could never occur again, and then is punished so he may never repeat something he would be incapable of anyway." He paused, and sucked reflectively at his pipe. "But on the other hand there are those who would make murder a hobby - or a habit. These are the demons I most love to run to earth."
A small log in the fireplace snapped in the silence, and a golden shower of sparks spat onto the hearth stone.
"What are the things that drive men to murder, Mr. Solo? In my experience desperation of some kind is always evident. It may build slowly, like a banked fire, or it may blaze suddenly forth and destroy two lives - the victim and the killer." The old man's eyes shone in the light dancing from the fireplace. "These demons were my life's work, Mr. Solo. I had them catalogued, and could recognize a specimen by a single characteristic."
"Did you work alone, or were you part of a force?"
"Mostly alone. I was completely independent, except for a good and helpful friend. I made it my livelihood for many years, and prided myself that I had gained some measure of fame for my efforts. But now my talents are less in demand, and perhaps my grasp is slipping. It is not gone by any means - but could you please tell me, Mr. Solo, were you married at one time?"
Napoleon scarcely moved, but his eyes shifted first to Illya and then to the old man. "No," he said suddenly, with a quick grin. "Just a carefree bachelor." His glance turned to Illya, and grew very serious for a moment. "We ought to get back to the main problem, though. It's getting late, and there should be work to get done tomorrow."
He shifted position on the couch and addressed Escott again. "Do you have any ideas that might help us?"
The cue was not missed. Illya added, "It seems obvious to me that our course of action should be an invitation - ah, investigation, that is - of the lighthouse on Donzerly."
The old man nodded. "It must be the location. From Rainbow's speech it is obvious that Solo was being taken directly to where he was at the time, and his reference to the convenience of his headquarters indicates he would have been there. Unless he lives in a cave inside the cliffs, miraculously invisible to all the boats that pass, he must be on Donzerly. The only question that remains is will you take a small task force for a full-scale attack, or attempt an infiltration. The former would be safer and more effective, but the latter could net you invaluable data on his entire operation. How will you go about it, whichever you decide?"
"Stealth is our primary consideration," Illya said. "Don't you agree, Napoleon?"
Solo nodded. "The two of us should be able to sneak aboard that hunk of rock and pick out something valuable. It's a very helpful ability of ours."
"But Rainbow has all sorts of detection apparatus," Illya said. "We'd have to allow for anything he could try to find us with - infrared, radar, sonar, light-amplification devices, or something Thrush has given him recently. How can we hope to foul all of them? I don't relish the idea of swimming from the mainland in this weather, even with a wet-suit."
"Well, we can't fly. He'd see us in parachutes, and I'm not an accurate enough jumper to be sure of hitting such a small target."
"That leaves a boat, and they're easily seen," Illya said.
"Unless there's a fog," Napoleon said. "That would also kill the light-amplification."
"Infrared would work, but only with a short range," Illya nodded.
"A good heavy rain would blind it."
"But radar goes right through rain."
Napoleon shrugged. "A low-profiled boat in a high sea is completely lost in ground clutter on radar."
Illya sighed. "Sonar?"
"Wind, and turbulence on the surface. But they wouldn't cover the sound of a motorboat."
"In other words you want us to go across several miles of open sea in a full storm in a small, low-profile sail boat." Illya's voice did not change during this sentence, but there was a hint of raggedness.
"Essentially," Napoleon admitted.
"Now, I know you're an expert small-boat handler, Napoleon. You can do very nice turns around Long Island Sound in a skiff. But to take a small boat out in a storm..."