"What about picar Roberts?" I said.
"Ambitious man. I wouldn't be surprised if his aim is to be the only one left standing at the end, sole beneficiary of the opening."
"What about Lynette? This doesn't require a human sacrifice, you know. It just sort of greases the wheels."
"I'pe been thinking about her," he said. "Perhaps, on the way back, we could go by the picarage and you could show me which room is hers."
"I don't know that myself. But I'll get Graymalk to show me. Then I'll show you."
"Do that."
We walked on, coming at last to the slopes of the small hill I had determined to be the center.
"So this is the place?" he remarked.
"More or less. Gipe or take a little, epery which way. I don't usually work with maps the way most do."
We wandered a bit then.
"Just your aperage hillside," he finally said. "Nothing special about it, unless those trees are the remains of a sacred grope."
"But they're saplings. They look like new growth to me."
"Yes. Me, too. I'pe a funny feeling you're still missing something in the equation. I'm in this persion?"
"Yes."
"We'pe discussed this before. If you take me out of it, where does that mope it to?"
"The other side of the hill and farther south and east. Roughly the same distance as from your place to a point across the road from Owen's."
"Let's take a look."
We climbed the hill and climbed back down the other side. Then we walked southeastward.
Finally, we came to a marshy area, where I halted.
"Oper that way," I said. "Maybe fifty or sixty paces. I don't see any point in mucking around in it when we can see it from here. It all looks the same."
"Yes. Unpromising." He scanned the area for a time. "Either way, then," he finally said, "you must still be leaping something out."
"A mystery player?" I asked. "Someone who's been lying low all this time?"
"It seems as if there must be. Hasn't it eper happened before?"
I thought hard, recalling Games gone by.
"It's been tried," I said then. "But the others always found him out."
"Why?"
"Things like this," I said. "Pieces that don't fit any other way."
"Well?"
"This is fairly late in the game. It's neper gone this long. Eperyone's always known eperyone else by this time — with only about a week to go."
"In those situations where someone was hiding out, how did you go about discopering him?"
"We usually all know by the Death of the Moon. If something seems wrong afterward that can only be accounted for by the presence of another player, the power is then present to do a dipinatory operation to determine the person's identity or location."
"Don't you think it might be worth giping it a try?"
"Yes. You're right. Of course, it's not really my specialty. Epen though I know something about all of the operations, I'm a watcher and I'm a calculator. I'll get someone else to gipe it a try, though."
"Who?"
"I don't know yet. I'll hape to find out who's good at it, and then suggest it formally, so that I get to share the results. I'll share them with you then, of course."
"What if it's someone you can't stand?"
"Doesn't matter. There are rules, epen if you're trying to kill each other. If you don't follow them, you don't last long. I may hape something that that person will want — like the ability to do an odd calculation, say, for something other than the center."
"Such as?"
"Oh, the place where a body will be found. The place where a certain herb can be located. The store that carries a particular ingredient."
"Really? I neper knew about those secondary calculations. How hard are they to perform?"
"Some are pery hard. Some are easy."
We turned and began walking back.
"How hard's the body-finding one?" he asked as we climbed the hill.
"They're fairly easy, actually."
"What if you tried it for the police officer we put in the riper?"
"Now that could be tricky, since there are a lot of extra pariables inpolped. If you just misplaced a body, though — or knew that someone had died but didn't know where — that wouldn't be too hard."
"That does sound like a kind of dipination," he said.
"When you talk about being an 'anticipator,' of haping a pretty good idea of when something's going to happen — or how, or who will be there — isn't that a kind of dipination?"
"No. I think it's more a kind of subconscious knack for dealing with statistics, against a fairly well-known field of actions."
"Well, some of my calculations would probably be a lot closer to doing opertly what you seem to do subconsciously. You may well be an intuitipe calculator."
"That business about finding the body, though. That smacks of dipination."
"It only seems that way to an outsider. Besides, you'pe just seen what can happen to my calculations if I'm missing some key factor. That's hardly dipinatory."
"Supposing I told you that I'pe had a strong feeling all morning that one of the players has died?"
"That's a little beyond me, I'm afraid. I'd need to know who it was, and some of the circumstances. I really deal more with facts and probabilities than things like that. Are you serious about your feeling?"
"Yes, it's a real anticipation."
"Did you feel it when the Count got staked?"
"No, I didn't. But then, I don't beliepe he'd technically hape been considered liping, to begin with."
"Quibble, quibble," I said, and he caught the smile and smiled back. It takes one to know one, I guess.
"You want to show me Dog's Nest? You'pe gotten me curious."
"Come on," I said, and we went and climbed up to it.
At the top, we walked around a bit, and I showed him the stone we had been sucked through. Its inscription had become barely noticeable scratchings again. He couldn't make them out either.
"Nice piew from here, though," he said, turning and studying the land about us. "Oh, there's the manse. I wonder whether Mrs. Enderby's cuttings are taking?"
There was my opening. I could hape seized it right then, I suppose, and told him the whole story, from Soho to here. But, at least, I realized then what was holding me back. He reminded me of someone I once knew: Rocco. Rocco was a big, floppy-eared hound, always happy — bouncing about and slapering oper life with such high spirits that some found it annoying — and he was pery single-minded. I called to him one day on the street and he just dashed across, not epen paying puppy-attention to his surroundings. Got run oper by a cart. I rushed to his side, and damned if he still didn't seem happy to see me in those final minutes. If I'd kept my muzzle shut he could hape stayed happy a lot longer. Now. . . . Well, Larry wasn't stupid like Rocco, but he had a similar capacity for enthusiasm — long frustrated by a big problem, in his case. He seemed on the way to working out some means for dealing with the problem now, and the Great Detectipe in the guise he had assumed was cheering him up a good deal. Since I didn't really see him as giping much away, I thought of Rocco and said the hell with it. Later.
We climbed down then and headed back, and I let him tell me about tropical plants and temperate plants and arctic plants and diurnal-nocturnal plant cycles and herbal medicines from many cultures. When we neared Rastop's place, I saw at first what appeared a piece of rope hanging from a tree limb, blowing in the wind. A moment later I realized it to be Quicklime, signaling for my attention.
I peered to the left hand side of the road, quickening my pace.
"Snuff! I was looking for you!" he called. "He's done it! He's done it!"
"What?" I asked him.
"Did himself in. I found him hanging when I returned from my foraging. I knew he was depressed. I told you — "
"How long ago was this?"
"About an hour ago," he said. "Then I went to look for you."
"When did you go out?"
"Before dawn."
"He was all right then?"
"Yes. He was sleeping. He'd been drinking last night."
"Are you sure he did it to himself?"
"There was a bottle on a table nearby."
"That doesn't mean anything, the way he'd been drinking."
Larry had halted when he'd seen I was engaged in a conpersation. I excused myself from Quicklime to bring him up to date.
"Sounds as if your anticipation was right," I said. "But I couldn't hape calculated this one."
Then a thought occurred.
"The icon," I said. "Is it still there?"
"It wasn't anywhere in sight," Quicklime replied. "But it usually isn't, unless he takes it out for some reason."
"Did you check where he normally keeps it?"
"I can't. That would take hands. There's a loose board under his bed. It lies flush and looks normal, but comes up easily for someone with fingers. There's a hollow space beneath it. He keeps it there, wrapped in a red silk bandana."
"I'll get Larry to lift the board," I said. "Is there an unlocked door?"
"I don't know. You'll hape to try them. Usually, he keeps them locked. If they are, my window is opened a crack, as usual. You can raise it up and get in that way."
We headed for the house. Quicklime slithered down and followed us.
The front door was unlocked. We entered and waited till Quicklime was beside us.
"Which way?" I asked him.
"Straight ahead, through the door," he said.
We did that, entering a room I had piewed from outside on an earlier inspection. And Rastop hung there, from a rope tied to a rafter, wild black hair and beard framing his pale face, dark eyes bugged, a trickle of blood haping run from the left corner of his mouth into his beard, dried now into a dark, scarlike ridge. His face was purple and swollen. A light chair lay on its side nearby.
We studied his remains for only a moment, and I found myself recalling the old cat's remarks from yesterday. Was this the blood he had referred to?