Illya stared rather apathetically into his water glass. "Sad but true. Well—as long as we're on expense account, perhaps I'll break my habit and indulge myself." He rose. "Excuse me, Napoleon. I'm going to try to locate a one dollar cigar. While I'm gone, try to think about Project Ahab. Come up with some thing original."
"Go get yourself a Beatle cut," said his friend with some distemper.
"But I already have one."
Illya vanished into the gloom. Solo called for another ale. The Costermongers finished their act, smiling and bowing like marionettes. Still no one seemed interested.
Solo perked up as a rather svelte young lady in a gold evening gown came onstage. A new placard by the side of the stage read, Cleo St. Cloud, Mistress of Mentalism. Solo toyed with the notion of asking her to read a few dozen THRUSH brains as a clue to what was in works in the way of a plot. He watched her twenty-minute turn with some interest.
Miss St. Cloud had liltingly upturned greenish eyes and a smooth delivery. She began by selecting several reluctant volunteers from the audience. She subjected them to a hypnotism susceptibility test, had them lace their fingers together with arms extended in front of the head. After appropriate syrup voiced mumbo jumbo with Miss St. Cloud, the writhing subjects seemed unable to pull their fingers apart.
Two of the victims were chosen for further hilarity. The girl held the audience's attention better than the other performers had. By the time she had finished, one of the volunteers had completely disarranged his suit, scratching imaginary insects and the other, a typical Colonel Blimp figure, had drawn mild titters from the audience—this was an enthusiastic response for Britishers, Napoleon Solo decided—as he attempted to wiggle in and out of an invisible girdle.
All through the hypnotist's act, Solo found himself staring at the girl's hair. Silken-yellow it was, with the lacquered metal look of a heavy dose of spray. Something about the whole performance bothered him, nudging the back of his conscious mind.
At the turn's end, Miss St. Cloud snapped her fingers. She kissed each volunteer on the forehead as he awakened, and thanked them both for letting her hypnotize them. Then she walked smartly off stage. The next turn was Clyde and Jasper. Jasper turned out to be a dachshund who jumped through hoops and rang bells with his paw to add simple sums.
Only then did he realize what was wrong.
Coming into The Rocker Shop from the drizzling fog, he and Illya Kuryakin had paused under the naked bulbs of the club front. They'd glanced briefly at the poster announcing the various turns. A female hypnotist was given prominent billing. Solo couldn't remember the posted name, but her photo, a black and white theatrical glossy mounted, registered now.
The girl vaudevillian whose face was displayed on the street was a brunette. She was rather pretty but pudgy-cheeked. She in no way resembled the blonde.
Napoleon Solo stood up abruptly. He gave his head one sharp shake to clear it of the fumes of the good English ale. He'd watched Cleo St. Cloud's whole act under the assumption that Illya had taken a stool at the bar, not wanting to disturb the silence which prevailed while the girl was on stage. With a crawling sensation on his scalp, Solo wondered whether he'd made a wrong assumption.
He turned quickly. Two RAE officers sat at the bar. There was no one else.
Illya Kuryakin wasn't in sight anywhere.
Apprehension began to gnaw Solo's gut. He barely remembered to put a few pound notes on the tablecloth. Then he started for the bar. The man on duty, a beefy fellow with a huge red moustaches, was cooperative enough:
"Funny thin chap, wasn't 'e? 'Air down in his eyes, right? I figured maybe 'e was a replacement for one of the Costermongers. They're always 'avin bloody fights over 'oo gets 'ow much of the take. One or the other of 'em quits every week or so. Yes, your friend was 'ere, right enough. Just about the time Miss St. Cloud came on stage. Didn't look 'erself tonight. New wig, I guess. I'm nearsighted, y'know. The missus is always nagging me to get eyeglasses—"
"I appreciate all that," Solo said. "Your missus must be a sterling woman."
"You wouldn't be givin' me some of your American 'ighbrow lip, would you, mate?"
"I am not. I just want to know when you saw my friend last."
"Told yer! Right around the time Miss St. Cloud come on."
"What happened to him? Where did he go?"
"If yer want to be blunt about it, 'a went to the water closet to wash 'is 'ands."
The barkeep jerked a well- fleshed thumb. Napoleon Solo charged toward the dim little stair way leading down.
In the small lower-level corridor, harshly lighted, the paint peeling from its orange walls, Solo stopped.
"Illya?" He said it softly. Some thing moved at the corner of his vision. He jerked around, hand going under his smartly tailored jacket for the butt of his ever-ready pistol.
But what had caught his attention was only his own reflection in the large mirror-glass front of a cheap American-style vending machine which sold combs, packets of tissues, headache and upset stomach remedies and similar items. Solo stared at his image in the mirror, which covered half the front of the chrome-knobbed machine. Mr. Waverly had sent them out to dine and think while he attended to paper work. Now Solo had blown the whole bit for fair.
"You bloody fool," he said to the mirror. "To coin a phrase."
Pulling out his pistol, he edged carefully through the door labeled Gentlemen's. Nothing.
He edged back into the hall and walked to its end, where there was another door. This he pulled open, dodging back.
Light spilled out ahead of him. Dampness tugged at his cuffs. He advanced cautiously up a short flight of concrete stairs which ended at the cobbles of an alley above. He sniffed the night air with its mixture of fish and petrol aromas. No one was in the alley.
On the Street taxicabs and private cars were passing, wet bonnets reflecting bizarre patterns of the multicolored Soho neons. Illya was gone.
Illya was gone and Solo was sure THRUSH had him.
Then, with an abruptness that made him jump there was a low, insistent beep from his inner left breast pocket. He whipped out his communicator, flicked a knob on the surface of the flat black box. The signal intensified.
Solo was switched onto the channel used for homing devices. Somewhere, somehow, Illya had managed to activate one.
In five minutes Solo had switched channels briefly, made an emergency call, summoned one of the U.N.C.L.E. vehicles at his disposal, a dilapidated-looking, high-powered taxicab, and was ripping through the London Streets. The man at the wheel drove at highly illegal speeds. Solo sat tensely be side him, the homing signal chattering loudly from where the receiver lay on the leather seat beside him.
What worried him was knowing that a homing signal going full force did not necessarily indicate that the person who'd turned it on was still live.
FIVE
STEPPING FROM the Gentlemen's into the seedy orange-painted hall, Illya Kuryakin's attention was caught by two things.
One was a spattering of applause. It indicated that the musically impoverished group known as The Costermongers had departed the stage. The other was his frankly jaunty appearance, visible in a mirror on the front of a garish vending machine.