Once they finished their tale, Greyboar explained to them what
we wanted. The Trio pondered the problem deeply—three ale pots' worth apiece.
"Th'information regardin' th'layout o' th'Pile, now," mused Erlic, "aye an' that's no th'problem."
"Get it from Vincent, we will," explained McDoul. "Aye an' there's not a thing th'lad dinna know about th'plan o' th'Pile."
"Will he help us?" I asked. "I mean, why should he?"
So the Trio explained that after they'd been pitched back into their old cell, where they waited for the Angel Jimmy Jesus to arrive, who should pop up again but Vincent van Goph? It seemed the artist hadn't been fully satisfied with some of the detail work on his triptych. While he finished it up, the Trio struck up a conversation with him.
"Disgruntled, 'e is," said Geronimo Jerry, "at th'sorry state o' th'Queen's art stocks, which o' course ye'll be understandin', is where 'e obtains 'is own supplies. Quite th'proper thief 'e is ins'own right, Vincent."
Then they began quarreling as to the precise position occupied in the pantheon of thievery by the Underground Artist. But Greyboar brought them back to earth. The gist of what came out of it was that Vincent had offered, if the Trio would provide him with some good quality paints, to sketch their portraits on some appropriate wall in the dungeons. Not really thinking they'd ever follow through on the deal, the Trio had made certain arrangements for leaving a note for Vincent in the event they should obtain his supplies. In a corner of the ale cellar under The Trough, as it happened.
"No wonder Leuwen's been grumbling about somebody stealing his ale stock!" exclaimed Greyboar. "Must be this Vincent fellow, burrowing into the cellar from below and making off with the odd keg."
The Trio nodded their heads, their expressions showing great disapproval of the sorry moral state of the thief Vincent van Goph.
"Inexcus'ble conduct on 'is part, 'o course," intoned McDoul piously, "but ye canna 'ardly blame th'lad. Says th'Trough's ale is th'best in th'world."
"That it is," agreed Greyboar. "So you think if we provide him with good paints he'd find out for us the exact location of the Cat's cell? Well, let's try it."
Then Greyboar told me to go out and buy plenty of good artist's paints. I was tempted to argue the point—cost us a pretty penny out of the stash I'd been storing up, don't you know?—but I decided to let it pass. "Never try to reason with a love-struck man," the wise man says, "when he's got hands the size of bulldogs."
Within two days the Trio had made the contact with Vincent, and it took but two days longer for Vincent to return with the needed information. Interesting tidbits he'd picked up, too.
"That scumbag!" roared Greyboar, stomping around the room. "That lecher! That—that priestly vulture!"
The focus of the strangler's ire was upon Luigi Carnale, Cardinal Fornacaese. For, it now turned out, the Cardinal had apparently had an ulterior motive in demanding the immuration of the Cat in the heretics' quarter of the Pile. An ulterior motive, let me say, which cast a definite shadow on the Cardinal's vows of chastity. Admittedly, casting a shadow on Cardinal Fornacaese's vows of chastity was a bit like casting a shadow on a solar eclipse.
Vincent had reported that the Cat had been immured in a cell buried deep in the heretics' quarters. That much was expected, of course, although it was nice to have the artist's exact pinpointing of the cell's location. The more interesting tidbit, however, was that the Cardinal was having a tunnel dug from his own chambers—his bedchamber, to be precise—to the Cat's cell. True, his motives in so opening a line of communication with the Cat were unknown. Perhaps he simply wanted to be able to take her confession, so she could die in a state of grace. The various means of restraint which he was simultaneously having attached to his great bed, however, argued otherwise. Not to mention his long-standing reputation as one of the world's legendary satyrs. Not to mention his not-so-long-standing but not-so-recent-either lust for the body of the Cat.
"He was ogling her back in Blain," growled the strangler. "I should have choked him then."
The rest of us kept silent. Best policy around Greyboar in a snit, don't you know? Eventually the big guy calmed down and we started trying to work out a plan.
"How about Vincent?" asked Jenny. "Would he help us—you know, dig us a tunnel to the Cat's cell?"
Still on that "us" business, the two little imps. I'd tried to get our meeting place changed, so as to get the girls out of the picture, but Greyboar insisted that it was best to hatch our plots at their house. Less chance of being overheard by slobs who'd squeal to the porkers for a penny. The Trio had readily agreed, mainly—I suspected darkly—because Jenny and Angela made their depraved hearts go pitter-patter. And that was another thing I didn't like about the whole business!
I tried to warn the girls of the horrid reputations of the Trio—especially that goat McDoul—but they treated me like I was retarded.
"Now, now, Iggy," cooed Jenny, chucking me under the chin, "you know Angela and I aren't interested in any men."
"Except you, Iggy," cooed Angela, grinning like a hussy, "and that's 'cause you're just the cutest little thing."
Anyway, the Trio poured cold water on Jenny's proposal. As they explained it, Vincent wouldn't be any help except as a source of information. This, for two reasons. Point One: Vincent was practically a midget, so his tunnels weren't big enough for what the Trio called "normal-sized" men—translation: beer-bellied slobs. This part made me wince, because naturally Jenny and Angela started squealing with pleasure and right off proposed that the two of them and me carry out the rescue, since we were all small and could fit in the tunnels.
Fortunately, that plan fell through because of Point Two: Vincent was also a temperamental artist with his head in the clouds and wouldn't be bothered with digging any tunnels that weren't necessary for his art. Quite the rugged individualist, Vincent, as the Trio portrayed him.
So we were back to square one. And, now that it's all over, I'll admit that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to bring the girls in on the plotting and the scheming. Fact is, even though they were young as the morning and fresh as the dew and innocent as the lambs of the field, they had fiendish good brains. So it was Angela who actually came up with The Plan.
"You know," she said, peering at McDoul closely, "you look a lot like the Cardinal. He used to come over to the Baron's house now and then and I've met him up close. I mean, if you cut your hair decent and shaved off that horrid great beard you've got growing on you like moss on a tree. And even though the Cardinal's not a hunchback, he always walks all stooped over like he was being crushed by the weight of his sins, which he probably is, so if we cleaned you up and dressed you right, we could pass you off as the Cardinal and maybe that's how we could rescue the Cat."
McDoul was delighted with the plan. It appealed to his conceit, his much-vaunted (him doing all the vaunting, naturally) perception of the social graces. All of it except the barbering and shaving part, I should say, but his objections here became moot after Greyboar held him upside down and the girls went to work with their scissors. Then it didn't take long before the girls had a full set of Cardinal's robes made up, which fit McDoul like a glove.
"Not bad," mused Greyboar, inspecting the final result. "Not bad at all. He'd never pass a close inspection, of course, but we're fortunate there that the Cardinal always favors a cowl. To hide his guilty face from the righteous, no doubt. As long as McDoul moves fast, he should be able to get past the guards." Then he scowled. "Unless he gets questioned and has to talk. That'll blow the whole thing, that gutter accent he's got."
"I beg your pardon, my man?" came a strange, haughty voice from beneath the cowl. Greyboar was startled. I wasn't myself, I've heard McDoul impersonate the upper classes' accent before. He was really quite good at it—claimed it derived naturally from his unfailing perception of the social graces.
"Say that again!" demanded Greyboar.
McDoul drew himself up in the very image of Great Prelate of the Church, deeply offended.
"I'll have to insist you abandon that tone, my good man! I'm a forgiving soul, but still!"
"That's quite a trick," admitted Greyboar. "This just might really work."
"And what do you plan for him to do?" I demanded. "Just waltz on into the Cardinal's mansion? And then what? Suppose he gets past the guards at the front door—then what's he supposed to do? Finish digging the tunnel to the Cat's cell and carry her out past the guards? And all this in three hours, which is maybe about the most time he'll have before the Cardinal finds out there's something fishy going on!"
"Oh, he won't be alone," said Greyboar. "You and I'll be going in with him—and these other two thieves, as well."
Erlic and G.J. did not seem overjoyed at the idea, and began to say so in no uncertain terms. But Greyboar stilled their protests with a look. Yeah, that look.
"It'll work like a charm," he rumbled. "I figured it all out while Jenny and Angela were getting McDoul dressed up in his ecclesiastical finery. Oh, that reminds me—we'll be needing a couple of servant outfits for Erlic and Geronimo Jerry, and Inquisitors' robes for me and Ignace. And cut the Weasel's long oily ringlets while you're at it, will you, girls? They don't go with the image of your Cardinal's lackeys."
No sooner said than done. Jenny and Angela started working on G.J. and the Weasel immediately, ignoring the latter's complaints.
While they were working, Greyboar explained the plan. I was impressed, I've got to admit. I usually had to do the fine-filigreed plotting and such, but the strangler'd come up with as clever a scheme as I'd ever heard. Maybe all that philosophic rumination was oiling up the rusty gears in his head, after all. But more likely it was the image of the Cat wasting away in her cell which made him think better than he usually did.
Not meaning to make fun of the great brute here, mind you! If I could bend steel bars with the fingers of one hand, I imagine I would have let my brain cells wither on the vine, too. But built like I am—well, let's just say that I had to rely on wit rather than brawn to get by. Helped having Greyboar for a client and friend, I admit.
But I don't want to get too carried away, here. There was still a great gaping hole in his scheme, big enough to drive a wagon through. The Trio spotted it at once.
"An' what'll th'Cardinal be doin' all this time?" demanded Erlic. His voice was sulky, caused, I've not a doubt, by the sight of his beloved oily ringlets lying on the floor. "E'en wit' th'four o' us t'do th'work, it'll still take th'day or two t'dig the Cat out. Vincent said th'tunnel t'her cell was still th'good ten feet away."
Greyboar scratched his chin. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I still haven't figured that out. Somehow or other, we've got to get the Cardinal out of the picture for a couple of days. I'm stymied on that part of it, I admit."
"Oh, that's easy!" exclaimed Jenny, smiling like a spring day.
"We'll take care of the Cardinal!" shrieked Angela, clapping her hands with delight.
I tried to cut them off, but it's hard to advance the cogent voice of reason when you've got Greyboar's hand the size of a dinner plate wrapped around your mouth.
Smart girls, dammit. Didn't take the little rascals but three minutes to lay out a whole plan to keep the Cardinal out from under foot for as long as we needed. The plan was a good one, too. But I was thinking quick myself, so during the same three minutes I thought up two cogent lines of reasoning. Then I started mumbling as loud as I could.
Jenny looked cross. "Oh, let him talk, Greyboar," she snapped. "We'll have to listen to it sooner or later, anyway."
"Fusses over us like a hen over her chicks, Ignace does," added Angela. She glared at me.
My voice back, I laid it out:
"One. None of us'll be here to help you tie up the Cardinal. Even with him out of the way, we'll still be pressed for time. The rest of us will have to get into His So-Called Grace's mansion as soon as he leaves. You'll be alone with the monster! Helpless! At the mercy of his unbridled lust!"
"Pooh," said Angela. Jenny stuck her tongue out at me. Then they refuted my argument.
"He's just a wretched old man!" snapped Jenny.
"Can't hardly walk!"
"Think we can't handle him?"
"Sure we're not big, but he's not so big either!"
"And there's two of us!"
"And we're real strong for our size!"
"We really are! We're really healthy and energetic and full of vim and vigor!"
Then, the unkindest cut of all, coming with a pair of evil grins:
"You should know, Ignace," smirked Angela. "You never last more than an hour."
"That's why we always start with you," cackled Jenny, "and finish with each other."
I ignored the vulgar snickers coming from Greyboar and the Trio. Pressed on, undaunted, head bloodied but unbowed.
"Two. Sure and the Cardinal'll come running with his tongue hanging out. But what do you think he'll do when he sees this house? Not his type of place, don't you know? Man of refined tastes, the Cardinal. Not that he'll have any objection to sating his fiendish lusts on the bodies of two working-class girls, mind you—especially young and pretty ones. In a pinch, the man'll hump a goat. It's true—he keeps one in his basement for the odd rainy day. I heard it once from one of his servants. But he'll certainly not agree to doing the dirty deed here, in the slums. He'll insist you come back to his mansion. And then we're in the soup!"
Ha! That did it! Wiped those evil grins right off their faces.
Until Greyboar put them back on, oh, maybe two seconds later.
"No problem. We'll just have to rent some fancy townhouse in the hoity-toity part of town, that's all. Plenty of 'em available at the moment. Half the nobility's out taking the waters at the spas."
"Know jest th'place," interjected McDoul.
"Th'finest townhouse on its block," added Erlic. "Aye an' 'tis y'proper snooty block. Not far from th'Cardinal's mansion, to boot."
"We've been casin' th'place," explained G.J.
Another dagger in my heart!
"But that'll cost money!" I fear my voice was shrill. "Lots of money!"
"We've got lots of money," said Greyboar. "There was enough in Hildegard's bonus to take care of everything we need. I know you've got it stashed away. So now's the time to cough up."
Well, I quit arguing at that point. As the wise man says: "You've got to know when to hold them, and when to fold them, and when you haven't even got enough to ante up."