The next day—after spending more money to buy myself fancy
clothes and hire a fancy carriage, so I'd look like a gentleman—I rented the townhouse from the agent handling the property. Very nice place, too, the Trio were right about that. But it wouldn't have done them any good since the place was completely empty. It turned out the owners had moved to a country estate and the townhouse was up for sale. So that meant spending still more money to provide us with minimal furnishings, and two extra days to obtain it.
But the lost time was probably a blessing in disguise. By the time the townhouse was ready, the costumes were done to perfection and McDoul had had plenty of time to perfect his accent. Angela was even able to remember enough of the Cardinal's voice to get McDoul to a fair imitation of it.
Then we all got some sleep, so we'd be rested up for the long two days and nights ahead of us. Well, I didn't get a lot of sleep. Angela and Jenny saw to that. After they'd worn me out, they kissed me on both cheeks and said, "We love you too, Ignace." Then it was an odd thing, really. I cried for the first time since I was a kid. But I slept better than I had since then, too, even if it was only for a few hours.
The next morning, the game began.
Not long after sunrise, Greyboar and the Trio and I were lurking in the bushes next to the Cardinal's mansion. Oddly enough for someone with his vices, Fornacaese was one of those weird early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise types. Was but a moment later that the Great Man of the Cloth emerged from his mansion. Eager to spend the day doing the Lord's work, no doubt. But he hadn't taken three steps before Jenny and Angela popped up from somewhere, calling out to him.
They really looked stunning, there wasn't any two ways about it. Somehow they'd designed their dresses so they conveyed an impossible combination of demure innocence and barely repressed lust. Wasn't two seconds after they came up to the Cardinal that His Grace's tongue was hanging out.
We could hear their voices as clear as bells.
"Oh, Your Grace, we're in such a horrible situation," moaned Jenny.
"We thought—it's forward of us, we know it is, you being such a great holy man and all, but—" This from Angela.
"Speak, my children," slavered the Cardinal. "Unburden your troubled souls."
"Well, you see, our parents have gone off to the spa."
"Left us all alone."
"Instructed us to behave properly."
"But we're troubled by the devils."
"They come to us in our dreams."
"Filling us with—with—with—"
"Speak, children, speak!" I swear, even from where I was hiding I could see the foam on his lips.
"—with thoughts of lust and depravity!" moaned Jenny.
"So we were wondering, Your Grace," murmured Angela sweetly, "if you might come to our house and pray for us today—and maybe even through the night."
"We don't live far," Jenny hastened to add. "Just a three-minute walk."
Well, to sum it up, the Cardinal agreed that he would meet them at their house in a quarter of an hour. Anything to save two young and innocent souls, don't you know?
Jenny and Angela left, sauntering down the street. The Cardinal raced into his mansion. Practically bowled over the doorman on the way in. Wasn't but five minutes later that he came charging back out—and this time he did bowl over the doorman. And there he went, scuttling down the street like a crab, a holy book in one hand and two bottles of wine in the other.
We waited until he disappeared around the corner before we made our move. Then we went up to the front door. McDoul was in the fore, dressed identically to the Cardinal. Greyboar and I came behind, clothed in the red robes of the Inquisition. Erlic and G.J. brought up the rear, dressed like servants, bearing on their shoulders an enormous chest. They were huffing and puffing as if the chest were full of who knew what, instead of being almost empty.
The door opened. McDoul pushed his way in, with Greyboar right behind so as to pin the doorman against the wall with his shoulder.
"Your Grace!" gasped the doorman. "But—but—you just left but a moment ago!"
"Knave!" hissed McDoul, his face hidden in the cowl. "How long have you been in my service now?"
"Six years, Your Grace."
"And you could be fooled by that impostor? He's my double, you idiot!"
The doorman's jaw was agape. "Your double, Your Grace?"
"Of course, my double! The enemies of the Church must be kept off guard! Imbecile!"
McDoul's act was pretty much wasted. Because Greyboar had transfixed the doorman with The Stare, and after that the poor man was lost. McDoul hissed some vague nonsense about dark plots and foul machinations, and instructed the doorman to forget everything he'd just seen. By that point, I think the fellow had forgotten his own name.
Then McDoul pointed to Erlic and G.J. "Show these varlets to my bedchamber," he hissed. And to them, he hissed: "Drop that chest and you'll answer to the Inquisition!"
So the doorman led us to the bedchamber. The man's wits were so addled that it never occurred to him to wonder why the Cardinal couldn't lead the way to his own bedchamber. Answer to that, of course, is that we had no idea where it was. That mansion was gigantic. It was nestled up against the Pile, the great ugly crag which overlooks New Sfinctr and most of whose interior is filled with the cells and tunnels of Grotum's most notorious dungeon. As it turned out, the bedchamber was all the way in the back, on the third floor, carved right into the stone of the Pile itself. Figured.
The whole thing really went as smoothly as you could ask. Of course, we must have run into a dozen other servants along the way. But they took one look at the terrified expression on the face of the doorman and disappeared in a flash. Not known for his kindly ways, the Cardinal wasn't. And it was as clear as daylight that every lackey in the place had long ago memorized the most profound of the sayings of the wise man: "Don't ask. Just don't."
So there we were, at last. In the Cardinal's bedchamber. McDoul hissed some final instructions to the doorman, to the effect that he would be occupied for some time with urgent business of the Inquisition. He did not want to be disturbed.
Disturbing the Cardinal, clearly enough, was the last thing the doorman intended to do. He was gone in a flash.
"All right, let's get to work," said Greyboar. He watched Erlic and G.J. slowly lowering the chest, grunting and groaning.
"Oh, cut out the act!" snapped the strangler.
"What act?" demanded the Weasel.
"Great crate weighs th'ton," gasped G.J.
"Filled as it is wit' th'needed supplies for our labor," explained Erlic. And so saying, he opened the chest.
Well, the plan had called for an empty chest, except for two shovels, a pick, and a lantern. The tools were there, all right. But the rest of the chest was full of ale pots.
Greyboar was not pleased, but he let it go after I pointed out that the Trio hadn't ever been known to do anything, not even steal, until they were full of ale. So we started inspecting the bedchamber, looking for the entrance to the tunnel which the Cardinal had been digging to the Cat's cell.
Didn't take us long to find it. The entrance was concealed in the floor of a closet. We lifted the trapdoor. A ladder led down to a landing below. Bringing the digging tools and the lantern, we climbed down, Greyboar leading the way.
And ran right into an unexpected complication. It was obvious, in retrospect. In fact, we all felt like total idiots.
Who had been digging the Cardinal's tunnel? Not the Cardinal himself—not the great prelate of the Church! No, he'd gotten hold of three dwarves somewhere, and made them do the work. And there we found them, chained up to the wall of the tunnel.
The poor little guys were scared out of their wits. But once they understood we weren't the Cardinal's men, they were ecstatic. They'd always known the Cardinal would have them killed after they finished the work, so they'd gone as slowly as they could. That had cost them plenty of whippings, but a whipping's better than the Big Cut.
Now they pleaded with us to let them escape. The Trio started making noises to the effect that "dead men tell no tales—dead dwarves neither." But one glare from Greyboar was enough to scotch that idea. The truth is, Greyboar had a soft spot in his heart for dwarves ever since he met Zulkeh's apprentice, the dwarf Shelyid. Actually, I'll admit to the same soft spot. Really a great kid, Shelyid. He was a little on the lippy side when we first met, but after I slapped him down he turned out all right. He and I got to be pretty good friends, actually. Greyboar and I spent quite a bit of time with the wizard and his apprentice on our way back from Prygg. Greyboar hung around the wizard, naturally, talking about who-knows-what philosophical nonsense. Me, I found Shelyid's company much more congenial.
So doing away with the dwarves was ruled out. On the other hand, we couldn't just let them go either. They'd be bound to raise the alarm trying to sneak out of the mansion. In the end, we struck a deal with them. If they'd help us dig out the Cat, we'd figure out some way to take them with us when we escaped.
Then, as it turned out, they did all the digging. Greyboar offered to help, but the dwarves turned him down.
"Shoulders like yours," explained one of them—Eddie, his name was—"be good for breaking rocks out in the open, where you've got room to swing a hammer. But this here's close-in work, like. You'd just get in the way."
Then Greyboar offered my help, and that of the Trio. But the dwarves turned him down again.
"By the looks of 'em," sniffed another—Lester, he was called; the last one, for the record, was named Frank—"they haven't done an honest day's work between 'em in the last five years."
I let it go, but the Trio were deeply insulted.
" 'Aven't never done no 'onest day's work," groused the Weasel.
"Aye an' do we look like idiots?" demanded G.J., red in the face.
"Not since we's little 'uns, anyhow," grumbled McDoul. "Not since we's sprung usselfs from th'sweatshop, after knifin' the o'erseer."
In the event, finding the dwarves turned out to be a blessing. Now that they were motivated to work as fast as possible, instead of stalling, they cut right through the rock. Work like moles underground, dwarves could. Not surprising, really, most of them did a stint in the mines sometime in their lives. It was one of the few jobs people would give to dwarves. And while the work was brutal, at least the poor little bastards didn't have to worry about pogroms as long as they were underground. Your average lynch mob had a fear of hunting dwarves down there. The tricky little devils had this way of making the tunnels real narrow. Not to mention the cave-ins that always seemed to inflict the few vigilantes who were stupid enough (or drunk enough) to chase dwarves below the surface.
So the dwarves did all the digging. Greyboar stayed down there almost the whole time, fussing and fuming and driving the poor little guys crazy. The Trio and I, on the other hand, being sane and rational men, spent the time up in the Cardinal's chamber. Good company, the Trio, especially with plenty of ale to keep their stories coming.
And there was another upside to the whole affair—a big upside. The Trio started prying up loose boards, more out of habit than anything else, and discovered the Cardinal's secret stash. A whole chest full of gold coins, gems and jewelry. All of it obtained illegally, no doubt, so the Cardinal could hardly report the loss to the authorities.
On the spot, we arranged a satisfactory split. A third for me, a third for Greyboar, and a third for them. It took me an hour to get the Trio to agree to it. Fifty-nine minutes of ferocious debate with me, them advancing the ludicrous proposition that we should split it evenly—a fifth apiece. One minute for Greyboar to come up and reason with them.
It only took the dwarves a bit more than half a day to break into the Cat's cell. Without them, it would have taken two days. And the cell was right where Vincent had told us. Yes, everything was working just according to The Plan. Except for one little problem.
The Cat wasn't in the cell.
We wasted two hours while Greyboar inspected the cell about ten thousand times. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The cell wasn't more than five feet by seven feet by four feet tall, with a small alcove added on where the hardtack was stored. And every surface was faced with hard rock, so there was no way to dig out if you didn't have tools. There wasn't any sign of digging, anyway.
The point here being that all it took was two minutes to figure out the Cat wasn't there and hadn't dug her way out. But still the big lummox spent two hours at it before he gave up.
Oh, she'd been there, all right. There wasn't any doubt about that. Every surface of the cell was covered with handwriting, scratched with a sharp stone. You couldn't mistake the Cat's hand—she wrote with big bold letters, probably because she was half blind.
You couldn't mistake the language, either. Pure Cat. The Trio were positively awestruck.
"Never seen sech command of y'profanity," marveled Geronimo Jerry.
"Genius, genius, th'Cat," whispered Erlic, in tones you usually hear in a church.
" 'Tis not alone th'mastery o' the curse," admired McDoul, "but th'beauty o' th'anatom'cal depictions—an' th'lass ne'er repeated herself the onc't! Imposs'ble, o' course, th'most o' th'acts ascribed to th'Judge—but th'imagination! Ne'er could've thought o' th'half o' them, m'self."
It was true enough. They'd gagged the Cat at the trial, but she'd wiled away her time in the cell completing her speech. He'd chosen the wrong time to say it, but you couldn't deny that O'Neal had been right. The Cat was not ladylike.
So, she'd been there, all right. But where was she now? It was a complete and total mystery.
It took me two hours, but I finally convinced Greyboar that we didn't have any choice but to leave. The Cat was gone, the Old Geister knew where, when or how, and that was that. Wouldn't do any good for us to linger around and get caught.
So we left, not without the strangler moaning and groaning and running back, oh, maybe two hundred times, to make sure the Cat hadn't magically reappeared. Once in the Cardinal's bedchamber, we waited while the dwarves sealed up the entrance in the closet so as to leave no trace of the tunnel. Then, the three of them crammed themselves into the chest—that was how we'd planned on taking the Cat out, of course—and we left the mansion.
Getting out was a piece of cake, even with us carrying the extra chest with the treasure. During our stay in the Cardinal's quarters, the servants had had plenty of time to terrify themselves with speculation about whatever horrid consultations were going on between the Cardinal and the Inquisition. As soon as they realized we were coming out, they disappeared. We marched through the mansion totally unobserved. We even had to let ourselves out.
Less than a day had passed. Sunrise was still just a hint on the horizon, so we made our way through the streets without being observed by anyone. Five minutes after leaving the Cardinal's mansion we were going through the front door of the townhouse we'd rented. And discovered again that the Cat was a strange, strange woman.