“Do we?”
“We do indeed, sir. There is the matter of the black bird.”
I had heard stories about the black bird since I was a kid.
Rumor was the original was worth anywhere from five hundred to five million dollars depending on condition and how badly you wanted it. “Where does the Trade Winds Foundation fit in?” I asked.
“The Trade Winds Foundation, and I dare say I’m not telling you any more than you know, is a front for…”
He never finished the sentence. The phone rang and we were informed by an anonymous tipster that police had entered the restaurant and were looking for a suspicious person.
“This is the work of our friend Sol(l)ness,” he said. “I suggest, sir, that we, in the parlance of our profession, take a powder. Unless of course you welcome an interview with the law.”
Perhaps the police weren’t there but couldn’t take the chance of finding out, followed Stockholm and his two henchmen through an opening in the teak-paneled wall and down a winding stairway into an underground passageway. We went in single file, the bodyguards, Wilmer and Fritz (or Fritz and Wilmer), followed by the fat man wobbling delicately on his toes like a ballerina, pulled up the rear, rod in hand, directing traffic. “How far is it?” I asked him.
“If your gun is too heavy, sir, give it here,” he wheezed. “Fritz or Wilmer will be glad to carry it for you.” The fat man laughed, the sound reverberating.
“Just keep walking, fat man. If I want any advice, I’ll write to Miss Lonelyhearts.”
I heard footsteps coming from behind and turned, gun cocked, though saw nothing. The tunnel had crazy acoustics. Sounds in front, I realized, echoed as if coming from in back. But then what did it mean if you heard footsteps in front of you? The fat man’s laugh was getting on my nerves. I stumbled but recovered without falling.
There was a steel door at the end of the passageway and Wilmer or Fritz opened it with a tiny steel key. On the other side of the door was a room almost identical to the one we had just left. Fritz (unless it was Wilmer) went in first, followed by the other, followed by the fat man. My turn never came. “You have had weapon long enough,” a woman’s Oriental voice purred into my ear. “Please throw rod into room.” I hesitated. “I am perfectly willing to shoot you down like dog,” she hissed, “if you leave this foolish woman no other choice.”
“What guarantee do I have if I throw the gun away, you won’t kill me anyway?”
“You have word of Dragon Lady,” she said. I gave up the ghost of my gun.
“I’ll ask only once,” Stockholm said, pointing the gun while the Dragon Lady tied my hands behind me; “where, sir, is the black bird?”
“It’s just a story,” I said. “There is no black bird.”
The fat man laughed. “You are a character, sir, or my name isn’t Heinrich Stockholm.”
“Trust me,” the Dragon Lady whispered. And then she was gone, the steel door slamming shut, the echo reverberating through the long hollow chamber. Stock-holm Stock-holm holm holm holm holm holmmmmmmmmmm. I felt as if the lid of my head had been flapped shut.
It looked bad for a few minutes, and I regretted a lot of things I had done in my time and a lot of things I hadn’t done, and I regretted regretting them, when I heard footsteps front and back and Marlowe appeared on the dead run and untied me. We went back through the passageway to Stockholm’s office in the Scandinavian Pavilion.
“How did you find me?” I asked when it was clear that we were out of danger.
“It’s a long story,” he said and proceeded to tell it.
Marlowe had followed Sam’s assailant — beefy man in gray suit — to the Chelsea Hotel, room 9C, which according to the desk clerk was a suite rented to a man named Hans Seeley. Marlowe was waiting in the hall for Seeley, if that’s who it was, to come out when he heard a muffled shot. Five minutes later another man, slight, with horn-rimmed glasses, came out of the room in a hurry, carrying a package wrapped in newspaper under his arm. Marlowe asked him if he had a match. The man, mistaking Marlowe for a confederate, handed him the package and said: “The boat thails tonight.” “What boat?” Marlowe asked. The Little Man, discovering his mistake, asked for his package back. Marlowe was too quick for him. Before Little Man could get to his pistolero, Marlowe had his arm wrenched behind his back.
Marlowe took the Little Man, who said he was Seeley, into room 9C — there was no sign of the other — and fired questions at him. What happened to the man who came in here? What boat thails tonight and what does it mean?
At first Seeley insisted he knew nothing, but under pressure of inquiry, he admitted to being a double agent in the employ of both Stockholm and Sol(l)ness, willing to sell out either or both for the right price, an ideologue of the necessary. Stockholm had hired Seeley to infiltrate Sol(l)ness’s organization. It didn’t take Sol(l)ness long to discover what Seeley was up to — perhaps Seeley even wanted him to find out — and so to stay alive Seeley was persuaded to betray Stockholm to Sol(l)ness. It was further possible that Stockholm had discovered that his agent was now in the employ of the enemy and had “persuaded” Seeley to betray Sol(l)ness in the guise of betraying Stockholm. Perhaps there was even a third force to whom Seeley betrayed both Stockholm and Sol(l)ness. Marlowe never got to find out. A shot from the window silenced Seeley’s lips forever.
Seeley’s assassin, bleeding profusely from a wound in the left shoulder, escaped down the fire escape, taking the last four stories in a final step.
Seeley’s last words, stammered in Marlowe’s ear, were something like (last words are often deceiving) — “The thoul is the heart’s hostage;”
“Thollness?” Marlowe asked, trying to decipher the message, but Seeley had no more words to speak.
The next thing Marlowe did was to tear open the package he had acquired from Seeley. Inside were a pair of brown men’s shoes, size 10—1/2D. On the sole of one he discovered what was apparently a treasure map drawn in childlike scrawl in red crayon.
Marlowe was studying the drawing when hit on the head from behind. When he came to, Seeley was gone and so were the shoes. He questioned the desk clerk, who insisted he knew nothing but remembered, after Marlowe slipped him a tenner, that he had seen a man dressed as a woman come through the lobby in a hurry, carrying the body of a mug who resembled Seeley.
“Just as Marlowe thought.” Marlowe said, and he went back to the Scandinavian Pavilion to find his friend Sam. where indeed, as we have seen, he did just that.
“For a long story it could have been longer.” I said. “How did you find the tunnel?”
“It’s an extraordinary example of devious planning,” he said:
“One admires it grudgingly.”
“What I mean is, how did you get to it?”
“Same way you did. Through the paneled wall in Stockholm’s office. What you really want to know is how Marlowe found out you were trapped in the tunnel. Am I right?”
“That’s what I wanted to know.” I admitted.
“It’s Marlowe’s view that we’re into something unbelievable here. Sam. Something really incredible. We are dealing with a conspiracy so intricate, subtle and diabolic, that it is beyond the invention of language to conceive. -6##-7&………/:……/-(&) = ++ = +……/,#9#9#9 &&&&&&&&&&&) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$/