“A recitation upon death? No, thank you.”
“Not just any recitation, Mr. Spade, but a grand affirmation of death. I am a great admirer of Shakespeare’s plays, sir. I am a great admirer of his mind and his voice, which unfortunately I only hear in my imagination.” He placed the volume down upon the desk again and drew a pull from his pipe. “This is how I’ve been keeping myself sane on this bloody island, sir. I have been dutifully copying passages from Shakespeare’s plays, of which the professor thankfully has a full set. Waiting for you to arrive has been a strain on all of us. Therefore…this little diversion of mine, which serves to heighten my appreciation of the master’s work. Do you have any complaint you’d care to commit to the air?”
“None.” Matthew was desperately trying to mask his confusion. Of course Cymbeline was a play, about the trials and tribulations of a British king—Cymbeline—possibly based on legends of the real-life British king Cunobelinus. But what this had to do with the professor’s problem, or the matter of the new weapon, Matthew had no clue. He decided he had better quit cutting bait and start to fish. “I’m presuming that’s the code name for the new device the professor has created?”
“Device? What are you talking about?”
“The new weapon,” Matthew said. “Which he is intent upon selling to Spain, and which was seized at sea by the British Navy.” He decided to add, “Due to Gentry’s influence.”
The pipe’s bowl spiralled its fumes. “Young man,” said the gravel-bottomed voice, “you are wandering into dangerous territory. You know that our businesses should be kept separate, by his order. I don’t wish to know anything about your use of whores to spear state secrets, and your desire to know about the Cymbeline is ill-met.”
Matthew shrugged but held his ground. “I’m curious by nature. And my curiosity has been sharpened after that pretty scene last night. I’m just wishing to know why it’s called Cymbeline.”
“Really? And who told you that Cymbeline is a weapon?”
“Sirki did,” Matthew said. “In response to my questions.”
“He also told you the first shipment to Spain was captured at sea?”
“He did.” Matthew thought that Nathan Spade was a very accomplished liar.
“What’s his game, then?” Smythe frowned; he had once been a handsome man in his youth, but now he was just harsh and ugly.
“Did he tell me untruths?”
“No,” Smythe said. “But he’s violating the professor’s decree. Why is that?”
“You might ask him yourself,” Matthew suggested, ever the gentleman.
Edgar Smythe smoked his pipe in contemplation of that remark, and when he was wreathed by the blue fumes he seemed to diminish in size and let any idea of confronting the East Indian killer slip away like the very essence of tobacco now floating toward the louvered doors. “You are incorrect,” he finally said, in a doomsday voice.
“How so?”
“Incorrect…in your statement that Professor Fell created Cymbeline. He did not. It was my idea. My creation. My unremitting labor of mind and resources. And I am very good at what I do, Mr. Spade. So that is your first error, which I am glad to adjust.” He blew a small spout of smoke in Matthew’s direction. “Your second error,” he went on, “is that Cymbeline is a device. Oh, did you believe it was some kind of multiple-barrelled cannon dreamt up by an eccentric inventor?”
“Not exactly.” Though the idea had crossed Matthew’s mind. He had experience with multiple-barrelled guns and eccentric inventors.
“Cymbeline,” said the weapons expert, “is the foundation upon which future devices shall be constructed. Whoever possesses it has a distinct advantage on any battlefield, and thus its immense worth to many countries.”
“I see that, but if many countries have it…wouldn’t that mean Cymbeline has become obsolete?”
“The nature of the beast,” Smythe granted, with a snort of smoke through the pinched nostrils. “There will always be something beyond Cymbeline, and something beyond that, until the end of time.”
Matthew brought up a thin smile. “It seems to me, sir, that your business ultimately hastens the end of time.”
“That will happen after I am long gone.” Smythe tapped a finger against the bowl of his pipe, whose flame had deceased. “Therefore it is not my concern. But I will inform you that it is the professor’s business, not mine. I am the hand, he is the brain.”
A simple way to seek escape from blame, Matthew thought. He wondered if indeed Edgar Smythe’s brain had not begun to believe treachery against England was not worth money in the hand. “The Cymbeline,” Matthew persisted bullheadedly, as was his wont. “Whatever it is…why is it called that?”
Smythe began to turn through the pages of Cymbeline. “Professor Fell titled it. After a line from the play. Just a moment, I’ll find it. Ah…here it is. Actually a stage direction: Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle; he throws a thunderbolt.” Smythe looked up from the page with an expression that could only be bemusement, though on that sour face it was hard to tell. “The professor enjoys his drama.”
“Yes,” Matthew agreed. “Undoubtedly.”
Smythe stood up. He gathered his sheets of parchment, took the volume and slid it back into its place on one of the shelves. “I will say good morning to you, then. And I hope your day is pleasant. I have a report to give to the professor this afternoon. When are you giving yours?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You’re an odd sort,” Smythe said, his head tilted slightly to one side as if seeing Nathan Spade in a different light. “Are you sure you belong here?”
“I must. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“So you are.” Smythe started for the doors.
“Let me ask you one more question,” Matthew persisted, and Smythe paused. “Who is Brazio Valeriani?”
“Someone the professor seeks. That’s all I know.”
“Is he connected to the Cymbeline?”
Smythe frowned; it was, in truth, a horrible sight. “I have heard things,” he said, quietly. “And no, Valeriani is not connected to the Cymbeline. It’s another matter altogether. But I have heard…” He hesitated, staring at the floor. “Unsettling things,” he continued, as with an effort. The face lifted and the gray eyes were darkly-hollowed. “This is not something you should be concerned with, young man. If what I have heard is true…if any part of it is true…you will wish you never heard that name.”
“Why does the professor seek him?”
“No.” Smythe shook his head. “You will get none of it from me, nor from anyone else here. That is as far as I go. Good day.”
“Good day,” Matthew answered, for Edgar Smythe the weapons expert was already going through the doors and gone.
Matthew was left alone in the library. Hundreds of books—large and small, thick and thin—were there before him on the shelves. Ordinarily this would have been a dream come true for him, but some element of evil lay coiled in this room and therefore it was an oppressive place, an atmosphere of dark brooding. But the books called to him nevertheless, and in another moment he was walking past the shelves looking at the titles stamped upon leather. He reached out a hand to accept Nicolaus Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, but his hand then moved to touch the red spine of Homer’s Odyssey. Next to it beckoned three thick volumes of English sea voyages and navigational studies, and next to that one…