Johannes Cabal the Detective

advance.”

“What?” The sweating man saw the ticket in Meissner’s hand. “Please, sir. Would you be willing to sell that billet? My daughter … There’s rioting in the city. I simply want her to get to safe …”

“Sell my ticket?” snapped Meissner. “The impertinence, sir! Even if I were at liberty to sell this ticket — which I am not, it being government property — I very much doubt that I should feel disposed to …” But the man had more urgent matters to attend to than listening to how important Meissner was, and had already gone. Meissner pulled himself up to his full height, a little over six feet, and looked dignified, an expression lesser mortals could assume only with the aid of lemon juice and alum. The woman at the desk thought that he could almost have been attractive if it weren’t for what his personality did to his face. He noticed her attention and she smiled, politely but without warmth. “When does the ship depart?” he demanded.

“In two hours, sir. If you’d care to check your luggage in now, you’ll have some time to relax aboard before she lifts.”

“Relax?” he snorted. “I shall work!”

Having emphasised his innate superiority to the herd, he walked away.

Meissner went to the handling building — a capacious hangar split into many small bays with padlocked gates — to check his luggage. On his way back out, he was accosted by a serious-looking man dressed in black and white. “Excuse me, sir,” said the man. “Might I have a word?”

“If you’re trying to buy my ticket, my good man, I must — ”

The man looked around, leaned closer, and said, “State security, sir. It is a matter of some urgency. The well-being of Mirkarvia may be at stake.”

Meissner blinked and swallowed. He hadn’t lost that paperwork, he assured himself, he’d only misfiled it. It would turn up eventually. He’d been intending to look for it the very day he got back. It wasn’t even important. Or, at least, it had seemed unimportant to him. Perhaps it was important to somebody. They wouldn’t send security after him for that, would they? Would they? “You … have identification?” he stammered, trying for time.

The man smiled grimly. “I’m with intelligence, sir. We don’t tend to carry around papers that say we’re spies. I do, however, have this.” He showed Meissner a signet ring, worn face inwards. He turned it on his finger and showed Meissner the crest there.

“The crest of Count Marechal!” gasped Meissner, who had seen it on enough execution warrants to recognise it instantly.

“The same, sir. If you think you could keep your voice down?”

“Yes … yes, of course, I’m very, very sorry.”

“I understand that you’re a government official, sir? I overheard you at the departures desk.”

“Yes, Gerhard Meissner — Docket Clerk First Class, Department of Administrative Coordination. I’m a loyal citizen!”

“Precisely, sir. That’s why I need your help. A first-class docket clerk? Excellent. I need a man of your calibre. There is a certain … situation developing here at the aeroport that concerns me greatly. By the time my colleagues arrive, it may well be too late. In short, Herr Meissner, I need your assistance.”

“Of course! Of course! I am at your disposal. How can I help?”

“This way, sir.” The secret agent directed Meissner to an empty and unlocked bay. “Just in here.”

Meissner blinked in the gloom. “Now what?”

“If you’d be so kind as to give me your papers,” said the agent, extending his hand.

“I … um … well, yes, I don’t see why not.” He handed over his passport, visa, and other documentation in a neat bundle.

The man rifled quickly through them. “I shall need your ticket as well.”

“My ticket? But why?”

“So that I can escape the country, of course,” said Johannes Cabal.

Meissner bridled. “What? But … you are from Count Marechal, aren’t you?”

“I come directly from the count,” replied Cabal. “In fact, I borrowed this from him.” He drew the count’s handgun and levelled it at Meissner. “Now, time is pressing. Your ticket, Herr Meissner.”

* * *

Later, in the departure lounge — heaving with people running from tales of massacre and riot in the capital city of Krenz — Cabal studied Meissner’s documents. They were of a height, both blond, both lean. The photograph wasn’t very good, either. If Meissner had tried looking like a person instead of a civil servant, there might have been more of a problem. As it was, Cabal had only to purse his lips and give the impression that everybody he spoke to was dung on legs and he wouldn’t have any difficulties. He practised his impersonation on several small children and, when he’d got it to such a pitch that any child under five burst into tears at the sight of him, he relaxed, satisfied.

He’d left the unfortunate Meissner tied up and gagged in the bay and hoped and trusted that he wouldn’t be found until the Princess Hortense was well on her way. In the last few months, he’d found himself prey to strange twinges that, after some research, he had discovered to be his conscience. This unwelcome quality took exception to many of the perfectly logical actions he had previously committed with the regularity of habit. In the present case, however, Cabal’s conscience had apparently taken account of Herr Meissner’s occupation as a civil servant and remained as quiet as a church mouse while Cabal stuffed a dirty rag in Meissner’s mouth and trussed him up with little concern for his comfort. Even a conscience knows its limits. There might have been a slight moral tremor when he injected Meissner with a variant of the same anti-deteriorant he had used on the emperor. It caused a deep comatose state for perhaps a week in four cases out of seven. The other three would be as dead as Sanskrit long before that week was out. It was a considered risk on Cabal’s part but, after all, he wasn’t the one who’d be dead if it didn’t work properly. These were odds he could live with.

As for the gun, he had regretfully dumped it in a drum of waste oil in a supply shed. He doubted that the customs and excise officials would recognise his sword cane for what it was and would hardly care if they did, Mirkarvia being Mirkarvia. He had found his switchblade tucked unmolested into the corner of his Gladstone and had transferred it to the roll of surgical instruments for safety. It and they would barely raise an eyebrow. A revolver, however, might excite comment. Especially one with the Marechal coat of arms inlaid in the butt. There was no easy way he could explain its presence, so he didn’t even intend to try, and the gun ended up under three feet of filthy waste. Besides, it had only one round in it.

He roused himself and went to the dispatch desk to check on the details of the flight, and also to make sure that his Mirkarvian accent was as convincing as he believed it to be. He was basing it on Marechal’s own aristocratic drawl, the effect he was reaching for being that of a third son to landed gentry having been dumped into civil service after his elder brothers got the plum jobs.

The woman there checked his ticket and, despite having dealt with Herr Meissner earlier, had managed to expunge the event from her mind in sufficient detail to accept one supercilious, tall, blond man for another. She also seemed entirely at ease with his accent, which was comforting. “The flight takes two days to reach Senza, sir, where there’s a pleasant evening stopover. You will arrive in Katamenia around noon the following day. I can’t be more accurate than that, I’m afraid; the meteorological bureau reports changeable headwinds.”

“Senza, you say?” Cabal stirred around in his memory for anything relating to the place. He seemed to recall some ugly border squall a few years ago.

“It’s quite safe, sir. The state of detente remains secure.”

Did it? Cabal wondered. He remembered something about export controls between Mirkarvia and its allies in Katamenia. He doubted that some “pleasant evening stopover” was their reason for touching down in Senzan territory. More like a fine-tooth-comb search by the local authorities to make sure no military aid was making it through their territory. As if he cared. Still, it was a handsome bit of serendipity; he didn’t really want to end up in the hands of the Katamenian secret police, who would, no doubt, send him straight back to their cousins in Krenz. In Senza, he could disappear into the shadows, sneak across a neutral border, and be home in time for tea, metaphorically speaking. Splendid, things were finally starting to look up.

He thanked the woman with civility but without warmth and moved on. A step away, he paused and asked, “Is it permissible for me to join the Hortense? The lounge bores me, and I would prefer to be settling in.”

She checked the time and the departures board and nodded pleasantly. Cabal almost forgot himself and