The Dagger Affair - McDaniel David (читать хорошую книгу полностью .TXT) 📗

A wry grin decorated his face, he started up the long flight of steps that ran up the side of the street, back to the top of the hill. It was a long climb, and his legs were tiring when he reached the top, but the pleasure of doing something to the enemy for change could not be dampened. He stood at the top of Russian Hill almost five minutes before he saw what he wanted — a cable car climbing up the hill toward him from the waterfront.

He stood like a passenger near where it would stop, and the car squealed to a halt in front of him a minute later. He leaned forward with a mildly frustrated look while his left hand slipped under the high framework and left the tracer. He said to the grip man, "Sorry. I'm expecting someone."

"That's okay," said the grip, and battered his bell as he caught hold of the cable and rumbled away, carrying the DAGGER tracer on its way by a devious route downtown — and eventually back — and a steady nine-point-five miles per hour.

Back of the bottom of the hill, Illya had a few things in sealed envelopes carefully labeled.

"What have you been doing while I was out taking some healthful exercise?"

"Why you were playing around with the toy trains, Napoleon, I was collecting some genuine clues. And that little car had quite a collection." Illya indicated the envelopes. "Some metal dust from the floor of the back seat. It looks like aluminum. Here are a few pieces of a fabric I couldn't identify. And here is something quite hopeful." He held the last envelope up. It bulged.

"Rain is the best ally of the detective ever invented. I have here some bits of hard mud, wedge-shaped, as though they had been between the heel and sole of a shoe. They are dry, but unbroken, which means they wouldn't have been kicked around the floor very long. There has been no rain on the peninsula for a week, but it rained across the bay just three days ago. Perhaps a competent geologist would be able to give us a definite location."

Irene spoke up then. "In case you're interested, I checked the registration on the car. Its home is in Berkeley, and its owner is the tall one with the sullen expression. By the way, they were becoming abusive, so I sealed the back seat and pumped in some knockout gas. They'll be quiet while we take them back to our place."

"Fine," Illya said. "Now let's get back to somewhere I can get an analysis run on these. Can you drop me off at the U.N.C.L.E. office?"

"Certainly. But can you spare some of that mud for Ward? I'm sure he'd love to see it, and he might be able to tell something about its origin."

Illya nodded and handed her an envelope. "There were wedges from both shoes," he said. "This is the more complete one. Now," he said, fitting himself into the front seat next to Napoleon, "let's go."

They went.

Chapter 14: "Such A Sloppy-Looking Thing To End The World With."

Supper was on the table when Napoleon came in. He hung his topcoat on a rack in the hall and joined the rest of the group. Robin was with them again, and rather to his surprise so was Garnet.

Waverly looked up. "Ah, Napoleon. Report?"

"Nothing much. The address in Berkeley was a dead end. An apartment; he'd been living there about five months. I was unable to get into his rooms, but we can pick up a warrant and examine them tomorrow if necessary. I think, however, that we're getting close to the finish of this problem."

"Why?"

"Oh, call it a hunch. Perhaps inspired by the grenade that was pegged at me as I left the apartment house.... It was tossed from a speeding car, late model, dark blue. I didn't get the license. Speeding cars are fine for protection and a quick get away, but they're rotten for accuracy. The bomb hit a telephone pole and went off in the street. Fortunately it wasn't a fragmentation type."

Waverly nodded. "Your hunch would appear to be correct. Miss Keldur here has brought us another piece of information of great value, which dovetails with data supplied by Illya and Mrs. Baldwin earlier today. It seems not unlikely that we may be involved in a permanent sheathing of this DAGGER tonight. But here comes your salad — Illya, fill him in while he eats."

Napoleon attacked the tossed greens with an appetite, while Illya began. "The mud I found is not from the peninsula, but is as I suspected from somewhere in Alameda County."

"Specifically, from one of about a dozen possible locations in Alameda County," Baldwin interpolated. "The areas are not small, but restrict the location somewhat. Also, if you recall, that most annoying incendiary that landed in our front room the night you arrived was packaged in a bottle of Oak Barrel Muscatel — this is packaged only by a small winery in Oakland, and is sold at comparatively few stores. There are only three spots in Oakland where this particular type of mud could have been picked up.

"Now, Miss Keldur, tell us again your news. Mr. Solo, Miss Keldur has pulled a bit of forgotten conversation from the depths of her memory, and the world may well be thankful for it. Tell him, my dear."

Garnet stammered a little bit, and Napoleon remembered all she had been told about Thrush before. But she caught her breath and repeated what she had obviously told several times before this evening.

"I remember...I remember Kim complaining about the noise I made while I was vacuuming. He said it was almost as noisy as the other place — that was where he was working half the time, up here I guess — with the airplanes buzzing overhead all day and half the night." She looked around at Baldwin and Waverly, and then at Robin, who was watching her intently. "And when I remembered this, I thought it was something you should know, and I didn't want to phone or wire, so I came myself."

"And a fortunate thing it was," said Baldwin, "because..." He paused as Irene set a platter of spaghetti before him. "Gentlemen, no more business. My wife's spaghetti sauce takes full attention and appreciation. The fate of the world must wait until after dinner. In the meantime, eat well. We may have a large night ahead of us." And so saying, he addressed himself wholeheartedly to his platter.

With a smile and a reassuring wink to Garnet, Napoleon did the same. And only idle conversation was permitted for the next half hour.

* * *

Later, in the library, Baldwin brought out an Ordinance map of the Oakland area, and spread it out on the oak table. Certain areas had been carefully cross-hatched.

"Here is our area," said their host. "The Oakland Airport is so located that few of the flights go low over occupied land areas. But it is indeed open, as Miss Keldur's memory indicates, all day and half the night. There are no scheduled flights in or out between 12:30 and 6:30 a.m. You will notice this entire artificial semi-island on which the airport is located is cross-hatched. This indicates that it is made of the same sort of soil which Mr. Kuryakin so cleverly retrieved."

His long forefinger glided along Earhart Road, indicating a row of large buildings, all numbered. "There are in this area quite a number of airplane hangars of various sizes. The evidence indicates that we may have been blinding ourselves by looking for a warehouse. An aircraft hangar could draw a great deal of power, could be locked securely, could be convenient for unobserved comings and goings, and right here" — he touched a small point of land — "is a large public boat ramp, where supplies of material too large even to be easily trucked through the streets could be brought ashore under cover of darkness. And finally, it has more space for the construction of something gigantic and devilish than any but the largest warehouse."