“That’s all you have?” Doc shook his head. “It’s not enough. Take him to gaol.”

“No, please.” Fergus frantically searched his memory for things to say, presents to give Doc so that the man might think better of him. “I met him at the Tamlyn Club once. He has a regular table there. I saw him meet ­another man there once.”

“Describe this other man.”

“A strong-looking redcap, a graybeard from the old world. He has a lowland accent.”

“Angus Powrie.” Doc thought about it for a moment. “Very well. That’s enough for us to start.

“Second.” The anger he turned on Fergus made his previous attitude seem like one of affection. “Why?”

Fergus felt his breath catch. The anger he’d held down for years threatened to surface. It wouldn’t do to vent it on Doc if he still had a chance to get away. But he couldn’t keep the resentment out of his voice. “It’s not my fault. You’re to blame.”

“Explain yourself.”

“Ten years I’ve worked for the Foundation. Every year I apply to be a full associate. Every year you turn me down, keep me chained in this hole.” He gestured at Jean-Pierre and the rest. “I could have been one of them, but you just wanted me to keep their cars running. I’m as good as they are. She—” he pointed at Gaby “—is here less than a week, and already you’re talking about taking her on, too. What about me?” His voice cracked on the last word.

“No doubt you’ve told this to others. At a pub, say, after hours.”

Fergus didn’t answer.

“And, no doubt, one day you found a friend in Goodsir Moon. He bought you drinks and told you, yes, you are as good as they are, but they hate you and laugh at you.”

Fergus felt a flicker of confusion. That was exactly what had happened. “Maybe.”

“They don’t deserve you, Fergus.” Doc’s tone was harsh. “You know, you could do your family a lot of good with just a few more coins every moon.”

The mechanic didn’t answer. His anger was gone, ­replaced by a cold sickness. If he concentrated hard, maybe he could keep from throwing up on Doc’s boots.

Doc stared down at him a long moment. “Alastair, take him to Galt Athelstane at the guard station. Tell them to hold him until his words prove true. Or forever, if they do not.”

The next evening, Harris and Doc walked into the Tamlyn Club with the confidence of the wealthy dilettantes they saw all around them. “Goodsir Cremm’s table,” Doc said, and the maître d’ led them across the crowded floor.

The club was huge, a vast expanse of tables dressed in gold tablecloths and decorated with fresh flowers, white china, and gleaming silverware.

Green-jacketed waiters served brightly hued patrons. On stage, Addison Trow and his New Castilians, in matching white jackets and blood-red pants, played for the dining audience. Their sound was like big band played entirely on strings and woodwinds. Harris decided that he liked it.

The maître d’ brought them to the table where Alastair sat. The doctor glanced up at them, looked away, and did a classic double-take, breaking into a wide grin. He waited for the maître d’ to leave. “I didn’t recognize you two.”

“That’s the idea, isn’t it?” asked Harris. He and Doc sat.

Doc’s skin was the color of a deep California tan, just slightly lighter than the suit he wore, and his short-cropped blond hair matched his tie. Harris was as dark as old wood and he knew the Van Dyke beard and mustache he wore dramatically altered the lines of his face.

“Where did you get all that?”

“Doc showed me to Siobhan Damvert’s old makeup kit. The makeups were mostly too old and dried up, so I sent out for more, but the hairpieces were mostly in working order.” Harris gingerly touched his beard; the spirit gum was holding fine.

“Harris has a fine hand for this sort of work,” Doc said.

“He does,” Alastair said. “Very well. If you’ll try not to be too indiscreet about it and take a look at the tables nearest the stage . . . The small round one with only one man at it. That’s Eamon Moon.”

Harris turned as if to watch the band and spotted the man Alastair described. Moon was a lean, handsome man with a pencil-thin mustache and a sophisticated look. He sipped from a wineglass while smiling at the musicians.

Alastair continued. “He’s been here most of the afternoon. Sitting alone, but occasionally people come up to talk to him. It looks like social contacts for the most part, and I’ve recognized a couple of royal ministers and one captain of the guard among those he’s spoken to. Others have the look of strong-arm men about them. They don’t stay long after he speaks to them.”

“Noriko and Jean-Pierre went through his flat,” Doc said. “It seems barely lived in. The talk-box was attached to an interesting device. A wireless transmitter made for cabled doubles to plug into. I think it must send his calls on to another site.”

“Not here. I’ve seen him take no calls.”

“Go home and get some rest.”

Alastair nodded. He drained the last of his uisge glass, made a face that suggested both pain and contentment, and left.

A waiter asked Harris and Doc whether they were here for dinner or drinks. Doc ordered wine.

Harris discreetly watched Eamon Moon. The man did little but listen to the musicians, sip his drink, and ­exchange words with other patrons as they passed his table. “Boring guy.”

“Where’s his fire?”

“His gun? I don’t know. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, where?”

“My point is that you should be able to tell me.”

“Oh.” Harris looked a little more closely. “This is where all these damned baggy fair world clothes are going to trip me up.”

“There’s no need to curse, Harris.”

After two more of the band’s songs, he said, “He’s a compulsive kind of guy. Does everything the same way. Lifts his wineglass the same way everytime. Checks his pocket watch every so often.”

“Yes.”

“Left armpit.”

“Yes. How do you know?”

“He checks it every time he pulls out his pocket watch, doesn’t he?”

“Very good. Where is his bodyguard sitting?”

“Bodyguard?”

The band’s instrumental number ended. The crowd applauded. A large, dusky-skinned musician stood and took center stage; at the back of the band, a bagpiper stood.

The piper began to play an eerie, unhappy wail. In an earthquake rumble of a voice, the other man sang,

He tells me again, “I can do you no more,

No work to be had,” and he shows me the door.

Long day of walking, I’m sore o’ the foot,

Naught to show for it but a hole i’ my boot.

The door to my flat does not yield to my knock.

The boy says my lady has changed out the lock.

And through the barred door all the world hears her say,

“From my room and my bed I must turn you away.”

The rhythm was wrong, the instrument was wrong, the setting was wrong, but Harris felt a sudden shock as he recognized what he was hearing. He put his head down on the table. “He’s singing the blues.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what we call it on the grim world. The blues.” Harris lifted his head to stare imploringly at Doc. “But, oh my God, on the bagpipe?”

“That’s the way it’s done. What else could sound so soulful?”

“Do you suppose anyone would get mad if I beat both of them to death?”

“I think it would spoil our watch.”

“Oh, yeah.” Harris suffered through eight more stanzas of the mournful musician’s troubles. He felt much better when the singer and piper sat to the audience’s inexplicable applause. Two other musicians rose and began a duel of hammered dulcimers.

Harris’ relief didn’t last long. Angus Powrie appeared at Eamon Moon’s side and leaned over to speak in the man’s ear. Harris stiffened.

“Better than I had hoped,” Doc said.