THE CROSS OF GOLD AFFAIR

Fredric Davies

The clown leered at the slender puppet-girl. His caperings rang silvered bells, and he spoke.

“My sorrow, my love, is that the world understands me, and what the world understands, it despises.” Her eyes followed his expectantly, waiting for release. He laughed at her, deciding to leave her in her doll’s posture. He capered away, tinkling, jingling with every gesture.

“And now, my friends,” he departed from the play, “do gather round, for ‘tis time to broach the wine.” He mimed a long drink. “The price, pray good sirs, do not mind the cost, for at twenty-two and ten I’ll buy all day.” He glanced again at the girl and laughed at the anger showing in her eyes.

“But perhaps you are right to think of price, for wine may come dear. At twenty-two and ten I’ll buy all right, but at twenty-two and twelve-I’d rather sell than buy, good sirs. Aye, twenty-two and twelve is much too high, for this Medoc white. So send it back. Aye, sell the lot and refuse to buy. And why?-why, because a birdie told me so. Aye, a birdie, and who but a fool or two would refuse such sound advice?”

The clown prepared to continue, his facile mind forming new monologue. Suddenly the puppet came to life. Acting as if she had received a cue, the girl pirouetted across the stage, paused to remark, “Poor fool!” and exited.

Alain, the actor-clown, was enraged. How dare she? How dare she? he silently stormed as his capering and prancing won back the audience’s attention.

A tall, tanned young man chose that moment to leave. The quiet exit from his orchestra seat went unnoticed by all but Alain.

They can’t do that. They know they’re not to leave until the final curtain. His rage grew to encompass both of his enemies.

Somehow he finished out the scene. Even without the doll-girl as a foil he managed to retrieve the thread of the play. The final curtain came down to more applause than the play, or the players, deserved. Alain stepped back into the wings, bowing, smiling, and looking for the girl who played the dancing puppet. He would flay her flesh.

He found them together, outside the dressing rooms, the puppet-girl and the tanned young man. Some inner cunning warned him not to push too soon. Instead of wrath he turned a clownish smile on them both.

“Introduce us, Jenny luv,” he addressed the girl. Somewhat coldly she replied.

“Kim, this is the Great Alain.” Her accenting of “Great” was almost sarcasm. “And this, Alain, is Charles Kimberly-Phelps.” Then, with more warmth: “If you’ll excuse me, Kim, I’ll change and be right back.”

“And what do you think of my play, Mr.-er, Phillips was it?” asked Alain as he stepped into his own dressing room.

“Phelps,” he was corrected with a smile. “Kimberly-Phelps. I was puzzled by it rather.” Kim paused to take in the collection of photos clustered around the mirror. All of Alain, all markedly posed. The odor of old clothes and greasepaint filled the room.

The clown moved to his dressing table, and peeled off one eyebrow. “Puzzled?” he said to the reflection in the mirror. “My dear chap, is that why you left so early?”

Alain was ready to start his flaying. Reaching for the cleansing cream, he caught the reflection of Kimberly-Phelps leaning forward. The young man’s jacket had fallen open, and nestled at his shoulder was a luger-like U.N.C.L.E. Special. Alain felt a stab of fear.

“Not really, but now that you’ve mentioned it, what was that nonsense about the Medoc white? You couldn’t have been serious, and yet, Lord knows, no one seemed to be laughing.” Kimberly-Phelps continued to explore the dressing room.

“Nothing at all, just lines in the play.”

“Jenny told me you were ad-libbing, though. Was it a rib, or what?”

Alain’s clever fingers removed the rubber nose. As he wiped away half of his face of red and white, he spun to reveal the blue steel of a weapon hidden till then. Two bullets ripped into the U.N.C.L.E. agent’s stomach.

Conditioned response put his U.N.C.L.E. Special into Kim’s hand. A mercy bullet tore open Alain’s cheek as the agent slumped to the cluttered floor. The clown’s half-real, half-fantasy face tried to show both pathos and amazement at once. The mercy bullet took effect and he slumped, unconscious, into the paints and creams before the mirror.

The U.N.C.L.E. agent pulled out his communicator, thumbed it urgently, and whispered with dwindling strength, “Open Channel L, please. Emergency, open Channel L. I’ve been gut-shot.”

The world started to disappear, just as the beautiful puppet-girl ran into the room. She saw her courtier fade as the small radio replied, “Channel L is open.” The girl took in the two still forms, the blood, and the repeated words, “Channel L is open; come in, please. Channel L is open.” As she bent over the communicator, she did everything she could to stifle a scream of terror.

Chapter 1

“An Arctic Oil Source.”

Napoleon Solo swept his rented Corvette Sting-Ray off the West Side Elevated into the mismated streets of Greenwich Village. The tall brunette sitting beside him looked bored.

“We aren’t going slumming, are we, Napoleon?” she asked with a touch of the uptown sophistication that had first attracted him. “I’ve had several craws full of Village deli food and ethnic African wildebeest. One hopes your clothes and car are signs of better taste than that.”

Solo’s eyes took in her gown, jewelry and fur, and crinkled in quiet amusement. He said nothing, but his expression told Beth Gottsendt, “You’ve let me choose dinner, and I promise you we’ll have the best meal you’ll ever eat on this island.”

Two quick turns of the powerful car, and a surprise bonus presented itself: a parking place-unheard of!-just off MacDougal Alley. His dark eyebrows raised to salute whichever Fate had blessed him, and a moment later he was escorting his lady into the quietest of the many dining areas in The Jumble Shop.

“It’s a remake of an historic old house,” he explained as they were seated at a table already served with two glasses of Dry Sack. “There’s a rumor that no one knows just how many dining alcoves they have here, and Edgar

Allan Poe is said to have gotten drunk many a night by betting he could take a different drink in each room, and never repeat.”

But she was not to be so lightly awed. “Yes, this is where they have the original Wanamaker Stable.” She beamed at him and looked about in a proprietary way, sipping her sherry. “I’ve heard the food is superb, especially anything from the charcoal broiler.”

“Uhmmm,” said Solo, covering his squashed pride with sudden interest in a painting of Washington Square. “Yes, the broiler. Something wonderful.” He grinned boyishly all at once, and added, “And the fudge here is terrific.” He toasted her with a click of meeting glasses, and they laughed together.

The evening continued most adequately, amid the low noise-level of a congenial restaurant, with fine Italian wine and the couple’s chatter over dishes heaping with beef and accessories. The Solo brow wrinkled in satisfaction as the courses progressed and this delightfully feminine creature repeatedly delighted him with her beauty and ready conversation.

Coffee and tortoni were just being finished when the maitre d’ came to their table escorting a blond sweatered man with a newspaper folded under one arm.

“Illya!” exclaimed Napolean, rising to perform introductions while their waiter brought a chair. Napoleon wondered how his partner planned to explain this meeting, but his heart sank a bit over the reasons he suspected.

Illya Kuryakin, blandly not noticing the gentlemen who wore ties to The Jumble Shop, made himself comfortable and seemed to become part of the group at once. His open, fair smile made it hard not to like him; he had the looks and manner of a gentle intellectual.