"Regret inability to accept," he said coldly. "I am otherwise engaged at present."
"Hi, Haut, is that you? Switch on your vision, you? I thought I was talking to that creepy butler you keep around.''
He complied, permitting her to observe the stem set of his visage, but repeated his refusal in obdurate terms.
"I am considering two commissions at the moment, S.I.S. Torsche," he said, eyeing her stonily. Then, adding a lie, continued: "And have in fact accepted a retainer on one. Hence I fear my schedule is too occupied at the moment to undertake any further—"
She shaped her warm pink mouth into a tiny moue.
"Oh, aren't we hoity-toity, Hautley! But this one will interest you. The Lord Commissioner of Internal Security himself!"
"I am busy!"
A stormy look entered her undeniably lovely eyes.
"Hautley," she said between her teeth, "busy or not and retainer or no, you can't refuse a commission from a member of the Crown Cabinet! You'll just have to set your other case aside for the nonce."
He ground his teeth sourly. She was right, of course; he couldn't rebuff a Crown commission. Article XIX of his Criminal Charter was quite explicit on the point. Hautley's Charter, by the way, which licensed him as a fully accredited brother in the thieves' Guild, was issued by the Alphard Chamber of Commerce. The Alphard Anarchate was, of course, the famous star system in whose culture criminality was fully legal and honest employment not only against the law, but punishable by disembowelment with electric needles. An interesting society, in many ways—virtualy unique. The Anarchate had been, of necessity, recognized diplomatically by the Imperial Commonwealth a few lustra ago, when its cooperation became tactically valuable during the explosive Comalte Crisis.
Hautley viewed Barsine Torsche bitterly, his silvery pupils mirroring distaste. As the immortal Sherlock of legend had his feminine nemesis in Miss Irene Adler, so Hautley Quicksilver had his Barsine Torsche. It was a pity such a wench had to be so lucious a wisp of girlish charm—it would be easy to loathe a withered spinster given to orthopedic footwear and health tonics. It was distinctly not easy to react in any other than a glandular manner to the voluptuous Miss Torsche! She had skin like magnolia petals and thick, silky, fluffy hair of metallic indigo, filled with tiny witch lights. Her lips and eyes were dyed a watermelon pink. And between the strategically arranged interstices of her frock (a wispy thing of floating gauze in melting opal hues), could be glimpsed firm curves of tender white flesh.
Well ... she had him.
"Oh, very well," be rasped harshly. "I suppose I'll have to take a look at the commission." His thin, superbly expressive lips creased in a sardonic, mocking grin. "Just what does the Lord High Panjandrum want me to do?" A short bark of dry laughter escaped him. "Steal the jeweled Crown of Stars from the Crypts of the Cavern Kings of Thoth, I suppose?"
He knew the jesting reference would elude her, since she had not been apprised of the two attempts in the past hour to secure his services for precisely that exploit. Hence he was unprepared for the violent reaction which met his gaze in the phone's screen.
Her dewy eyes widened incredulously. Her perfect lips parted in a strangled gasp of sheer amazement. Her pallid complexion paled to an ashen hue.
"Hautley ... have you been taking ESP shots, or have you always been telepathic? How on earth did you know what the Commissioner wanted?"
11
ONLY QUICKSILVER'S habit of iron self-control kept his jaw from drooping halfway to his knees. Luckily his disciplined features retained their accustomed impassivity, even though inwardly he blenched from the shock of astonishment. Mastering himself, he permitted one lean hand to trigger a proximity switch.
''The b-beacon's on, Barsine. I'll guide you down."
While the radiobeacon piloted the police ship through the whirling meteor-moat of Quicksilver Castle, the lord of the manor tossed back a stiff snootful of Old Space Ranger and felt the knotted tension of his solar plexus dissolve as the potent beverage ricocheted off his tonsils and sloshed comfortingly into his abdomen. He had recovered his usual aplomb by the time Smeedley, the butler, ushered Barsine Torsche into his tower chamber.
Smeedley, nine feet tall, cadaverous and gaunt as a Zulu assegai, bowed creakily, and said in a rusty quavering voice of aristocratic accent: "Miss Torsche, Ser Hautley. Will there be anything further, Ser?"
"I think not, thank you, Smeedley. Wait. Yes. A drink, Barsine?"
She arched one eyebrow. “At nine o'clock in the morning? Oh, well. Why not?"
He deliberated. A connoisseur of the most discerning palate, he riffled through a mental selection of appropriate beverages, finally selecting a mild little liqueur, exotic but amusing.
"Two tots of Rissoveur '32, Smeedley, I think. The glasses to be chiled to 72° and the liqueur, of course, served at blood heat. A sprig of crabgrass, fresh cut, in each glass."
A slight, approving smile spread Smeedley's bloodless lips In a rictus of admiration.
"At once, Ser."
The gaunt butler in formal black creaked his way out.
"Really hitting the old rotgut these days, aren't you, Haut?" Barsine cracked, distinctly unimpressed. "Doesn't it hit you in the old reaction time? Are you still the fastest gun in the Carina-Cygnus Arm, or getting trembly from the booze you slosh up?"
A pained expression flitted across Hautley's features.
"Please ... a morning tot of Rissoveur is a social ritual in the finest circles," he said. She grinned hoydenishly.
"Yeah. Where I come from, it's a straight gin! But never mind. To business, before that vampire butler of yours comes flapping in. I don't know how you stumbled on it, but the Commissioner picked you to lift Crown thing—I've got all the poop right here in this dossier.” She slapped it down on his desk, as it happened, right beside a similar dossier which Hautley had received only thirty-two minutes before from Herveret Twelfth.
"And, speaking of that, Haut—how the clabberdoxing scintillation did you know what the Commissioner wanted? You don't have an Ear planted in the Depot offices, do you, or a spy-eye?"
"Of course not! It was ..."
"Well?" she demanded curiously. He smiled coolly.
"It was elementary, Barsine. Pure deduction. I couldn't explain how we professionals do these things—sheer intuition."
Her expression was skeptical but resigned. Her pink lips pouted and parted to ask another question, but just then Smeedley came wobbling into the chamber on insecure and doubtless arthritic joints, bearing two frosty drinks on an iridium salver. They toasted each other. Barsine, no epicure, tossed her drink down with a casual dip of the wrist, but Hautley savored the delicate bouquet with first the left tonsil, then the right, accepted four drops into his mouth to stimulate the salivary glands, then consumed the exquisite beverage with tranquil sips, meditating briefly on the Eleventh Proposition of Monsalietsin's Quantuum Philosophy.
Barsine watched him with a dubious look as he made a little ritual over drinking the aromatic fluid. She looked adorably lovely in her lime-green boat-cloak and opaline frock, standing against the crystalline pane through which the ruddy skies of Carvel glimmered. Pity she was so insensible to the finer things in life, Hautley mused. Of course, the poor thing was obviously madly in love with him, and fighting it every inch of the way, which explained her rude remarks and pretense of impatience at his aplomb. Ah, well. Her affectation of dislike added a certain piquance to their relationship, but Hautley's keen eye clearly saw through the mask to the depth of her quite understandable passion for him.