“Oh, there is machinery in the chair. I operate it by pressure on the nailheads in the armrests. As for the voice.” The right hand slid into a pocket and emerged with a small metal object that resembled the miniature pipes of a pipe organ. “This fits my mouth. Not so comfortable, and yet a challenge. I had to learn to alter my breathing. It is designed to give the effect I wished.” He returned the mouth-organ to its pocket, and then he sat without moving or speaking for a time as if to demonstrate his ability to mimic a construction of gears and chains.
“I don’t…” Matthew shook his head. The fog was closing in again. Surely the gray kingdom had not followed him here. “Am I drugged?” he asked.
“Only by your own mind,” came the reply.
Matthew was trying to examine the voice. What age? It was hard to tell. Possibly a man in his late forties or early fifties? It was soft and smooth and entirely without malice. It carried the sheen of education and abundance. It was supremely confident, and had the power of pulling the listener toward the speaker as any warm flame would pull a moth from the dark.
This was the man who had wished to kill him, Matthew thought. This was the man who never forgot, who ordered death like a delicacy at dinner and who had organized a criminal parliament beyond Matthew’s comprehension. This was the destroyer of lives and fortunes and souls. This was Fear Itself, and Matthew felt terribly small in its presence…and yet…this was an educated and literate man behind that mask, and Matthew’s curiosity—his innate need for answers—had burst into an absolute conflagration.
“You remind me of someone,” said Professor Fell, quietly.
“Who might that be?”
“My son,” was the answer, delivered more quietly still. “Well…who he might have been, had he lived. Did you note the stained-glass on the staircase? Of course you did. That is a depiction of my son, Templeton. I named the village for him. My dearest Temple.” There was a soft laugh that held a sad edge. “The things a father will do, to perpetuate a memory.”
“What happened to him?” Matthew asked.
There was no immediate response. Then the masked figure released a sigh that sounded like the wind at the end of the world. “Let me tell you why you are here,” he said. “You call yourself a problem-solver. I call you a providence rider, for I need a scout to go ahead. To find the trail that shall be followed. Much depends upon this, Matthew. Much expense and…difficulty…has been paid to bring you here, as you certainly know.”
“I know many people have suffered.”
“They have, yes. But that was your doing. You declined an invitation to dinner, did you not? You must realize, Matthew…that no one says no to me.”
Spoken like a man who believed himself to be in no need of a greater god, Matthew thought…but he decided it unwise to turn that thought into words.
The professor said, “You are here now. That is the important thing. You’ve seen part of my world. What I have achieved. And me…from academic beginnings. It boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Sensibly agreed. I have brought you here because there is a fly in the ointment of what I have achieved. A small little fly that bothers me, day and night. Jonathan Gentry was not a traitor. At least, not to me. To himself, possibly, with his worsening addictions. I persuaded him some time ago to fill a notebook with his formulas for poisons and other drugs of usefulness, and therefore he became useless. Except…tonight, he was very useful.”
Matthew said nothing. Better not to walk upon a garden made of quicksand.
“He was useful,” Professor Fell continued, “in that his death may have made the real traitor think he’s gotten away with his sin against me. There is a traitor among them, Matthew. I suspect three men, one of whom is the irritating fly: Adam Wilson, Cesar Sabroso and Edgar Smythe. Any one of them had opportunity—and perhaps motive—to do what was done to me last summer.” The figure leaned slightly forward, gloved hands gripping the armrests. Matthew had the impression that behind the mask the face was still calm yet perhaps the mouth had drawn tight and the eyes held a seething ferocity.
“I need your abilities to uncover this traitor,” said the mouth, which fluttered the cloth ever so faintly. “I could in my rights as their lord execute all three of my suspects, but that would be counterproductive. Therefore…I need one name. Better still, I want to see some proof of this treachery, if it exists and is in the hands of its creator. So, as you ask…there is only one more head to saw off, and you will tell me whose head that is to be.”
Matthew almost laughed. Almost, but then he imagined his own head sitting on a table. “What you’re asking…it’s impossible. I would have to know so much more. And I’m not sure I want to know, just as I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to tell me.” In spite of his predicament, a sudden heat flamed his cheeks. He stood up. “I can’t believe this! You’ve brought me here to uncover a traitor, yet I have no way of knowing even how to begin! All right, then, tell me this: what did the traitor do?”
“He caused a ship to be seized off Portsmouth by the Royal Navy. It was on its way to a meeting at sea with another ship.”
“And I’m presuming the cargo was important? What was it?”
“You have no need to know that.”
“Of course not!” Matthew gave a half-crazed, half-terrified grin. “What was the nationality of the ship being met at sea?”
“You have no need to know that, either.”
“Oh, certainly not!” Matthew threw out a line, angling for a different fish. “What’s the Cymbeline you mentioned at the table? You said, This involves the Cymbeline. Was that the name of the ship?”
“It’s the name,” said Professor Fell, in his maddeningly soft and calm voice, “of a play by William Shakespeare. You know his work, perhaps?”
“I do. And that play, as well. But you see, you tell me nothing. How can I uncover a traitor without knowing the details of the betrayal?”
The fingers steepled again. The masked face aimed at Matthew for a long while without speaking. Then: “You call yourself a problem-solver, is that not true? And you indeed have solved quite a few problems in that little town of yours? Don’t you by now have an instinct for lies? Can’t you read a face or a voice for the truth? Can’t you read guilt or innocence in a man’s teacup? In the way he holds himself before others? In the way he handles questions, and pressure? I give you leave to ask questions and to apply pressure. Knowing, of course, that you must maintain your disguise as Nathan Spade, for your own safety.”
“My safety? I think the Thacker brothers would treat Matthew Corbett a shade better than they do Nathan Spade.”
“They’re testing you. That’s their nature.”
“Oh, all right.” Matthew nodded, with the distorted grin still on his face. “Just so they’re not killing me!”
“Their enthusiasm for bullying will pass, if you stand up to them.”
“I say this is impossible,” Matthew told him. “How long would I have for this traitor-uncovering? A week or two?”
“Three days,” said Professor Fell. “After the reports are given, the conference comes to an end.”
Three days, Matthew almost repeated incredulously, but he wished his emulation of a drunk parrot to cease. “Impossible,” he breathed. “No one could do what you’re asking!”
“Do you think Katherine Herrald couldn’t do it?” the professor asked, silkily.
Matthew was silent. He stared at the floor, which seemed their board for this grand game of chess they were playing. Unfortunately he could think of no brilliant move.