Come at once, it said, in a self-assertive script. It was unsigned, but with it the Grand Cairo had sent a massive silver signet ring which he treated nightly in powdered sulphur to maintain its tarnish. Ashlyme sighed, but he set out immediately for Montrouge.
The night was quiet and dry. A wind had got up and was scattering dust over the surface of the puddles. In Montrouge the Barley brothers had fallen out over a white geranium in a pot, which they had stolen in some midnight adventure along the Via Gellia. They were rolling about in the moonlight among the half-finished brick courses of the dwarf’s municipal estate, kicking over stacks of earthenware pipes and biting one another when they got the chance. Ashlyme found himself watching them silently from the shadows on the other side of the road. He could not have said why. Presently Gog Barley got on top of his brother and gave him a punch in the chest.
“You bit of snot,” he said. “Give us me rose back.”
He twisted Matey’s arm until he got the geranium. It was more foliage than flower. He jumped up and made off with it, but Matey gave him the “dead leg” and he fell into a trench. They scuffled stealthily in there for a minute or two, then bolted out of it with enraged howls. Suddenly they spotted Ashlyme.
“Oh, gor,” said Matey. “It’s the vicar.”
He dropped the flower and stood there breathing heavily, wincing and squinting and shading his eyes as if Ashlyme had unexpectedly held up a bright light. He nudged his brother in the ribs and they both ran off shouting in the direction of the Haadenbosk. After a moment the night was quiet and empty again. The geranium pot rolled slowly across the road until it came to rest at Ashlyme’s feet. He bent down to pick it up and then thought better of it. One ghostly white floret remained among the leaves of the geranium, luminous in the moonlight; a musty smell came up from it and surrounded him.
He got into the tower by showing the dwarf’s ring.
Pride of place in the salle had been given over to a delicate little drawing by Audsley King. It was of boats, done in charcoal and white chalk on grey paper, and Ashlyme had not seen it on his last visit there.
He found the dwarf pacing impatiently to and fro, dressed with a kind of ignominious majesty in a studded black jerkin. A pair of spectacles gave him a judiciary air. His hair gleamed with Altaean Balm. Despite his new acquisition he was in a dangerous temper, and he greeted Ashlyme brusquely. “Begin drawing,” he said, taking up immediately a stiff seated pose which threw into prominence the tendons of his ageing neck. Confused by the lateness of the hour and the vertiginous spaces of the old building, Ashlyme made some attempt to set up his easel. The dwarf watched disapprovingly, fidgeting about in his chair as if the pose had already become intolerable to hold, and said as soon as Ashlyme had settled down,
“What fresh secrets have you found it necessary to hide from me today, Master Backstabber?”
He gave Ashlyme no time to answer this accusation. “Say nothing for the moment,” he warned, with an irritable gesture. “Don’t bother to try and justify yourself to me.” Suddenly he gave a sly laugh. He jumped out of his chair and took off his spectacles. “I got these when I lived in the North,” he said. “But I can see very well without them. What do you think of this new drawing of mine?”
Ashlyme, unconvinced by this change of mood, swallowed. “I should not like you to think that I had deceived you deliberately-” he began. He saw the dwarf watching him with the patient, ironic eyes of the secret policeman, waiting for an answer. He could not organise his thoughts. “It is very good,” he said at last.
“And you recognise the artist, of course?”
Ashlyme nodded.
“Audsley King,” he whispered.
The Grand Cairo nodded. “Just so.” He sat down again. “Go on with your work,” he advised. “I think that would be best for you now.” But he was soon back on his feet, rearranging a display of sol d’or. He picked up one of his cats and stroked its greyish fur. Every time he said its name the animal purred loudly and poked its head into his armpit. “You are not a man for secrets, Ashlyme,” he said contemplatively as he opened the door and watched the cat run out into the corridor with its tail in the air. “Never imagine you are.” He listened for a moment at the door. “I am your man for secrets,” he mused. “They’re safe with me.” He went up to the Audsley King sketch, regarded it with his hands behind his back, then tapped its frame. “Why didn’t you tell me about your little scheme to smuggle this woman out of the quarantine zone?”
“I-” said Ashlyme. He was confused and frightened. “She is the great painter of our age. We-”
The dwarf studied him silently for a moment, head on one side. “ ‘She is the great painter of our age’!” he mimicked suddenly. “Do you know, Ashlyme, I can’t quite make you out. That’s not a very responsible attitude in the face of our present plight, is it?” He took out a leather notebook. “What about this other man, this ‘Emmley Buffold’, who is so fond of fish? He gave my man quite a fright, chasing him like that! What does he hope to gain from it?” He laughed at Ashlyme’s expression. “Oh, make no mistake. It’s all written here. I know who’s in it with you.” He shut the book decisively.
“I am the man for secrets,” he said. “You must always bring them to me. It is the only safe course.”
Ashlyme looked at him in dismay. “What will you do with us?” he said.
The Grand Cairo put his notebook away.
“Why, I’ll join you!” he answered, and winked.
Nothing would persuade him otherwise. He would listen to none of Ashlyme’s arguments. He had the romantic temper, he said. He needed action! Besides: Audsley King was the greatest painter of their age. Only a criminal oversight could have placed her in such jeopardy. She was a resource. He made Ashlyme sit down, poured out two glasses of bessen genever, and insisted they drink to their adventure. “Confidentially,” he admitted, “I am bored with all this.” His gesture took in the whole of Montrouge. “This morning I woke up wishing I was back in the North again.” He emptied his glass. “You can’t imagine how appalling it is up there,” he said. “Constant intrigue and backstabbing, and black mud in everything you eat. The wind never drops. Ruined cities full of cripples, and insects as big as a horse!”
He shuddered. “Even the rain was black. But I’ll tell you something, Ashlyme: at least we were alive then! Our intrigues had bowels. A kingdom was at stake, even if it was a kingdom of mud!”
“But what about your own police?” appealed Ashlyme, who had understood little of this reminiscence, with its implications of habitual conspiracy in a country which could barely support life. “What if they catch you with us?” This was his last argument. The wine had made him feel sick but slightly less frightened. He was sure that the dwarf would never forgive him his deception; he suspected that his position was only slightly less insecure than it had been when he first entered the room. “Won’t that put you in wrong with your employers?”
The Grand Cairo laughed scornfully.
“Never mention those brothers to me!” he exclaimed. He shook his head, staring into space. “I argued all along against us coming down here, even in defeat-” He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Look at them now!”
He refilled Ashlyme’s glass, emptied his own.
“Oh, it was hand-to-mouth in those days, it was catch-as-catch-can. You should have seen some of the lads I had with me then; they’d kill a cow with their bare hands! It’s all very well for you to be frightened of those imbeciles downstairs: after all, they’re here to frighten civilians. But not one of them would have lasted a week up there. Not one of them.” He examined this idea with morose satisfaction. “Don’t you worry about them. This is a scheme that can’t go wrong!” He leaned forward enthusiastically and took Ashlyme’s hands. “Imagine the scene “Three muffled figures, heavily armed and disguised, support a fourth. (She is unable to walk unaided. Her face is pitiable, pinched, almond white, framed in a great collar of wolf’s fur. Under her skin are fine mauve veins like those the clematis sometimes displays beneath its flower. Her eyes are as blue as phosphorus in the gloom.) Like ghosts they cross the end of an alley, passing in silence in the deep night, and make their way stealthily from gravestone to gravestone across Allman’s Heath, down to the waters of the Pleasure Canal. Will the boatman be waiting, as he promised? Or has he been enlisted by their enemies? They are almost home now. But wait! Out of the mist at the water’s edge comes the pursuit! Now they must fight!”