With that, she slipped off the fence to the other side. By the time he reached it and looked over, she had already disappeared among a jumble of large boulders that covered the slope below. Apparently she had taken shelter beneath some of the great stones. The rain was coming fast and heavy now, and he decided his best course would be to get to the castle as he’d originally planned.
As he turned back, he heard the madwoman’s song filtering through the rain:
“The cat and the dog and the little puppee
Sat down in a sieve on the sands of the sea.
The sand was so green and the sea was so gray
That the three brave explorers were all rinsed away!”
Chapter 3
The Map
In a bookshelf-lined chamber deep within the castle, a young man in Regency attire picked up a dagger with an ornate Florentine handle and a blade of Spanish steel gleaming blue in the firelight. Feeling through the cloth of his waistcoat, he placed the dagger’s well-sharpened point in the furrow between the two ribs he judged most immediately over his heart. He then leaned back in his armchair, waiting for the courage to drive home.
After a few minutes, with a sigh and a shudder, he lifted the dagger away, tossed it on the small table beside his chair, and rubbed one fingertip over the frayed threads in his waistcoat. Someone, he sensed, might be coming—someone who could possibly help. He took another drink from his goblet and picked up his book once more.
* * * *
Chuck found a footpath of sorts on the other side of the sheep pasture, but already it was a channel of mud, and he kept as much as possible to the slippery grass and weeds beside it. The trail led straight through the small graveyard. He wondered whether relevant clues might be found on the tombstones, but those nearest the path were lichened over, the inscriptions all but obliterated; and he did not stop to investigate the monuments farther away. The castle should be at least equally fruitful in clues, as well as drier.
There was neither moat nor drawbridge. He mounted about a dozen cracked stone steps to a Gothic arch, and found the massive oak door standing two feet ajar. Was someone trying to draw him inside? Drenched as he was, before entering he lifted the heavy iron knocker and let it fall several times. Its echoes gave the impression of long hallways and empty chambers. The knocker was shaped like a herring, and when he took his hand from it, his fingers were smeared with a brownish-red stain, like rust or dried blood.
He rinsed the stain off by rubbing his hands in the falling rain. Then, no one having answered his knock, he pushed open the door, stepped inside, and pushed it almost shut again, listening to its squeaks and being careful to leave it ajar as he had found it. Stumbling on a loose piece of masonry in the hall, he moved the chunk into place to prevent the door from closing all the way.
With little light seeping in from the murky day, and no kindled lamps on the walls, it might as well have been night in the vestibule. He dug his virtual flashlight from his virtual backpack, glad of the waterproofed canvas that kept the pack’s inside safe from the virtual rain. Virtuality could be very realistic. Aiming the beam of light around the vestibule, he located and lit a number of candles in wall sconces.
The walls were covered with medium-large pictures in gilt frames. He examined them by the light of the candles, using his flashlight whenever he wanted a closer look at some detail. The pictures were theatrical costume designs, unexpectedly airy and colorful in this gloomy hall.
He looked over several costumed figures—English village girls, Peers of the Realm, fairy-tale princes and princesses, gaudily melodramatic pirate captain, quaintly old-fashioned London bobby, Japanese costumes with exaggerated fans on suspiciously non-Oriental-looking people, a pair of gondoliers posed in imitation of Siamese twins, a vaguely Wagnerian fairy queen…all Gilbert and Sullivan characters. Of course.
And here was the picture of a thin, sallow-faced fellow in velvet knee breeches, his hair wildly bouffant and an oversized lily in one hand. Bunthorne, from the operetta Patience. Steve Davis had played that part in Antique Terra’s repertory the first couple of years after Liftaway and again in the revival two years ago. When Lozinski also had tried for the part.
This time around, in Antique Terra’s Yeomen of the Guard, Lozinski had the part he’d wanted. The part both he and Davis had wanted. The late Steve Davis, who—according to Deuteronomy Osborne, had had bigger things on his mind. Had Bob Lozinski?
Just as Chuck headed for the archway leading to the rest of the castle, he saw a picture of the woman he had met in the sheep pasture. Yes, there was no doubt: the same ragged garments, the same tangle of red-brown hair, the same piquant face with its abstracted yet curiously alert eyes. But which operetta did she come from? Dr. Falcon couldn’t quite remember. One Antique Terra hadn’t done yet?
He entered a long hallway, came to its end, found another, climbed up a flight of stairs, emerged in yet another hallway. Ever keeping a mental map of the way he had come, he followed the same procedure in each hallway—turn off the flashlight and try to spot a line of light seeping out from underneath one of the doors. At last, in the fourth passageway, along the bottom crack of the sixth door, he found such a line. Softly he turned the large gilt doorknob and went in, to find himself in a library, surrounded by the oiled spines of leather-bound books which gleamed in the light of candles and fire.
In a cushioned, highbacked armchair near the stone fireplace sat a smallish, black-haired young man in knee-breeches and a cutaway, swallowtail coat.
Glancing up at Chuck Falcon, the youth gave an exclamation of pleasure, closed his book and put it down between a half-drunk goblet of milk and a fancy dagger on a small table. Then he rose to greet his unexpected visitor. “Your servant, sir! Delighted to make your acquaintance! Mother of pearl, man, you’re drenched! Beastly weather in these parts—come over to the fire and dry yourself.”
He poked it up with a fire-iron and threw another log on the blaze. Chuck needed no further urging. The worst of the excess rainwater had dripped off in the passageways, but the warmth of the fire was still gratifying. He slung off his backpack and turned first his face, then his back, to the flickering heat.
His host straightened, looked at him, and hesitated a moment, still holding the poker uncertainly in his hand. Then, thrusting it back into its stand beside the fireplace, he went on, “Sherry? No—no, I think brandy, to take off the chill.”
“Brandy will be fine, thanks.” Studying the young man’s face, pale and haggard-eyed as it was, Chuck wondered if he had found Bob Lozinski.
* * * *
While his host was pouring the brandy, Chuck Falcon picked up the book the young man had been reading. It was a collection of poems by Swinburne and Morris, with a calling card inserted as a bookmark. The card was printed with the name “Sir Despard Murgatroyd, Baronet,” but the “Despard” was lined through and the name “Ruthven” printed neatly above it. In small Gothic letters beneath the name was printed, “Villain-at-Large. Abductions, Burglaries, Assassinations, & Other Assorted Criminal Activities.” In the lower right-hand corner was the simple address, “Ruddigore Castle.” Yes, all this sounded like Gilbert and Sullivan’s way of looking at things. But which operetta?
Chuck’s host turned with a snifter of brandy in each hand, and saw him reading the card. Noticing a slight blush spread through the young man’s cheeks, Chuck replaced the card, having kept his finger between the pages where he’d found it, and laid the book back on the table. “Sir Ruthven?” he asked conversationally, accepting his snifter.
“Rivven,”