The Hollow Crown Affair - McDaniel David (читать книги онлайн без .txt) 📗

Across the wide room a tall ebony clock cleared its throat and painfully and prematurely announced the hour. Neither of them moved until the last stroke faded. Only then did her eyes flick back to the proprietor. "But I'm to meet someone here in an hour..."

"Sorry, ma'am. My dinner'll be waitin'."

Napoleon would not have been Napoleon if he had not stepped into the breach at that precise moment. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but there's a small coffee shop at the end of this block where you could watch the street."

A bright, big-eyed smile glowed across her face as she turned to him. "Why, thank you." She batted her eyes exactly once, and turned back to the old man at the tall desk. "We'll be back tomorrow," she said sincerely and stepped lightly out the door with Napoleon Solo at her side. He wasn't quite sure how he got there, but they came out together and turned in the same direction. Just as he noticed this she said, "Are you just in from New York too?"

"Uh, yes," he said. "My name's Solo—Napoleon Solo."

"I'm Chandra Reynolds. I've been here a week. It's a lovely old town. Will you be here long?"

"I really don't know. I—uh—may be called away at any moment."

Her laugh tinkled lightly. "How terribly exciting! Are you on secret government business?"

"Oh no; just a very demanding business. Decisions—they're always calling on me."

"You've come to the right place, then. I'm not entirely sure this town can be reached by direct dialing. It's a wonderful place to escape from the rest of the world. Do join me for a cup of coffee?"

Winning the internal debate was the work of a second, and Napoleon accepted. Maybe she had seen Baldwin if she'd been here a week...but the photograph was still back in the car...but on the third hand it was after six, and he was off duty...

They chatted lightly of inconsequentials over a dinner that more than made up for lunch, and were sipping coffee when Chandra looked up and waved excitedly through the window. "Oh! There he is!" A moment later a long blue car pulled to the curb in the gathering dusk and a broad-shouldered, square-faced man in khaki work clothes got out and entered the restaurant.

As he approached, Chandra said brightly, "Hi, darling! This is Mr. Solo, from New York. The museum closes at six, honey, not seven. Mr. Solo, this is my husband, Ed. He was working out at the dig today while I went exploring the town."

"How d'you do, Mr. Solo," said Ed, and exchanged a firm and slightly callused handshake. He took a seat beside Chandra and they started discussing the remains of an ancient Amerind campsite they were excavating for some college in New England.

In the course of the conversation, Napoleon found himself almost at once on a first-name basis, and eventually invited to come out to the dig tomorrow for a look around.

"Oh no," said Chandra. "Mr. Solo and I promised the nice man at the town museum we'd be back tomorrow morning to take his tour. You won't have anything for me to translate for another day."

* * *

They had lunch together after seeing the museum, and Napoleon showed her the photograph of Ward Baldwin. She studied it intensely and said, "I'm not really sure. There was an old man sitting in the town square a few days ago—I noticed him because he looked almost like part of the decoration, if you know what I mean."

Before Napoleon, heartened in his doubtful quest, started on the afternoon's dreary routine, he promised to meet Chandra and Ed for dinner. The next day he did go out to the dig area, where he was shown a lot of apparently identical pieces of pottery and arrowheads and some charred wood. He was more than willing to extend his stay indefinitely as Chandra suggested, but that evening after he had returned to his motel, his communicator signaled.

"Good evening, Napoleon," said a familiar Russian voice. "How would you like to meet me in Philadelphia tomorrow afternoon about three? We've found Baldwin."

* * *

"You spotted him, tailed him and photographed him?" said Napoleon Solo doubtfully.

"That's right," said the slender girl with the intent, serious face. Her name was Terri Harris, and she was the local contact for UNCLE's seldom-employed Section A. "I'm sorry about the quality of the photograph—the only time I had a camera available was when I spotted him coming out of a building downtown while we were in the car. I grabbed my brother's Instamatic and shot from about fifteen feet as we went by."

"Mr. Simpson fed it to his computer, reduced the grain with a Fourier Transformation and took out the blur with something else. Then the computer was able to read enough of the image to identify it positively as Baldwin by comparison with the rest of our file," Illya explained. "It took about twenty minutes."

"But how did you know we were looking for him?" Napoleon persisted.

"His picture was in the monthly operations summary you sent out for July. I asked some of the kids at my school to notice if they saw somebody who looked like that. From what the report said I thought he might like a place like Philadelphia."

"You're fifteen, aren't you."

"I beg your pardon? Yes, I am."

"Illya," said Napoleon aggrievedly, "what are we doing bringing a girl into this? Ward Baldwin is dangerous. And he knows a lot of dangerous people. And she was following him around?"

"He's behaving himself perfectly," said Illya.

"I have his hotel and room number," Terri volunteered. "You can phone him, if you like."

Napoleon sighed and shook his head. "Will you want to come along on the stake-out tomorrow? I'd like to meet him face to face; if I phoned he'd probably hang up on me."

"I'd love to," she said, "but I have homework. I can take the afternoon off, though, if I won't be in the way."

"You needn't come armed," said Napoleon uncertainly.

* * *

They took up their positions at eight the next morning in a traditional parked car across the street and a few yards down. Terri joined them shortly past twelve and started learning about their operations, asking and observing, while they exchanged reminiscences. At twenty minutes to one Ward Baldwin stepped out of the main entrance to the hotel.

Napoleon reached across Terri and opened the curb door. "You get out. If he doesn't want us to see him he may get nasty."

"I'll wait here and watch," she said as she slipped to the curb.

"If he comes back without us," said Illya, "don't try to stop him. If he leaves again, call Headquarters at once and tell them."

"Right," she said, and ducked out of sight into a doorway as a gray Lincoln with its rear windows curtained drew up across the street and Ward Baldwin exchanged a few words with the driver. Then he got in and the car pulled away.

The starter whirred and the engine caught as Illya turned the key, and their own undistinguished-looking car with a most distinguished engine and certain other modifications made an illegal U-turn and rounded the next corner in time to see the gray Lincoln turn two blocks ahead into Broad Street.

Soon they were several cars back in medium dense traffic, heading south towards the City Hall. Soon the Lincoln shifted lanes to the right, and then turned on Race. Illya closed the distance between them gradually until only one car separated them when the Lincoln turned left on Sixteenth Street and accelerated. He let them go, making the turn at his leisure, and saw them brake at the second light ahead.