The Velvet Voice Affair

by Robert Hart Davis

  By now a bright moon had risen and the visibility was excellent. When they neared the castle, April suggested that the driver cut his lights.

  "Senor Moreno is not expecting you?" the man said.

  "No."

  The driver shrugged and cut his lights. A moment later he halted just before a curve.

  "The road ends at the castle," he said. "It is just ahead. You wish me to wait?"

  "Yes, please," April said. She climbed out.

  "Senorita."

  "Yes?" she said, peering at him through the window.

  "Would you mind paying now?" She was mildly amused. The man had exhibited no curiosity as to the reason for her stealthy approach, but he must have suspected she had something illegal in mind. Apparently it didn't bother him to transport a passenger who might be a jewel thief, or even an assassin, but he didn't care to risk losing his fare in case she happened to be caught.

  "Of course," she said. “How much?"

  "Thirty pesos."

  The Lombodian peso was currently worth ten cents American, which made the fare the equivalent of three dollars.

  "Is that round-trip?" she asked. "Oh, no, senorita. Only one way."

  She handed him a twenty and a ten peso note, considered a tip, then decided that the promise of a tip would be better bait to assure his waiting for her than giving him the money now.

  "I will add a tip when we get back to Vina Rosa," she said.

  "Gracias, senorita. I will maneuver the car around to face the other way so there will be no delay when you wish to depart."

  His implication was that he assumed she might want to depart in a hurry, perhaps one jump ahead of pursuers. It intrigued her that he was so casually willing to assist in a conspiracy without knowing any of the details.

  She couldn't help asking, "Don't you wonder what this is all about?"

  "I am descended from caballeros, senorita," he said with a touch of pride. "One does not question the motives of a beautiful lady in distress. One merely offers what assistance one can." Then he grinned his Bugs Bunny grin. "Besides, I do not like Senor Moreno. He is the sort of man who treats waiters and cabbies like dirt. I will not desert you."

  Since he was being so gallant, April decided to use him to copper her bet in case something went wrong at the castle. "What time is it?" she asked.

  "Just midnight, senorita."

  "If I have not returned within a half hour, don't wait for me any longer. But will you do me a favor?"

  "Of course, senorita."

  "When you get back to Vina Rosa, phone the Hotel La Paz and ask for either Mr. Napoleon Solo or Mr. Illya Kuryakin. Can you remember those names?"

  "Napoleon Solo or Illya what?"

  "Kuryakin."

  "Kuryakin," the driver repeated. "Mr. Napoleon Solo or Mr. Illya Kuryakin. I will remember."

  "They should check in there some time around one. If they have not yet arrived when you call, keep trying until you reach them. Tell them where I am and that I'm in trouble. My name is April Dancer.'"

  "Ah, a pretty name to fit a pretty girl. I am Frederico Feliz, Senorita Dancer."

  "Glad to know you, Frederico.

  Remember now---wait only a half hour."

  She gave him a smile and moved on toward the curve in the road. Behind her she heard the taxi back and turn to park headed the other way.

  The road came to an abrupt end only a few yards beyond the curve. It ended at the edge of a moat which surrounded the castle. On the other side of the moat, before a gate wide and high enough for a box car to pass through, a drawbridge had been elevated by its chains until it angled outward at about a thirty-degree angle.

  Perched on a cliff overlooking the bay, the castle was square, with a round, three-story, flat-topped tower at each corner connected by thick stone walls about twenty feet high. Light came from the narrow windows of the right front tower on the ground floor and the second floor.

  The water in the moat was about twelve feet across. April saw no choice but to swim it.

  Kicking off her shoes, she stripped and wrapped everything, including her purse, into a tight package in her dress. She set the package on top of her head and used the belt of her dress to tie it firmly unto place, passing the belt under her chin and knotting it.

  She was on the verge of slipping down the sloping bank of the moat into the water when there was a slight movement just below her. When she paused to peer downward, a set of enormous jaws yawned open not two feet from her bare toes.

  The giant alligator surged up over the bank. April leaped backward a second before the powerful jaws closed with a snap, missing her legs by inches. Spinning, she ran a dozen yards down the road, then paused to stare back.

  The reptile had given up the chase after only a few feet. He raised his head to emit a frustrated bellow, then heaved his heavy body around and slid back over the edge of the bank to lie in wait for another victim.

  So that was what Sancho Moreno meant by his "pets," she thought. And he intended to feed Mark Slate to them! Suppose he already had?

  Shuddering, April Dancer put her clothing back on. Swimming the moat was out. She would have to find some means of bridging it.

  Cautiously she approached the edge of the water-filled ditch again, picking a point some yards to the right of the drawbridge. She drew a handkerchief and at perfume atomizer from her purse as she neared, then slipped the strap of the purse over her wrist in order to leave both hands free.

  There was some debris lying along the edge of the moat: a few sticks of wood and some fallen tree branches from the gnarled mountain oaks spaced here and there around the castle. She wasn't exactly sure of what she was looking for, but she vaguely hoped to find a piece of log large enough to float her across the water.

  Halfway between the drawbridge and the tower from which light shown, she came to something which in the moonlight resembled a log. Just in case it wasn't, she stopped a few feet away and stomped her foot.

  It wasn't a log. White-toothed jaws gaped wide as the monstrous reptile awakened.

  April didn't retreat this time. Pressing the specially treated handkerchief over her nose and mouth, she aimed the perfume atomizer and thumbed the valve upward instead of down.

  A stream of tear gas caught the advancing monster squarely in his widespread jaws. With a roar of surprise, he changed direction, slithered over the bank and into the water. April could hear him thrashing around in the water and emitting a hissing noise for several seconds before he finally decided to submerge.

  She moved on. She routed one more alligator with tear gas before coming to the point where the moat turned and ran along the right side of the castle, but she failed to spot anything which might serve as a raft.

  She was now directly across from the tower from which light came. Just left of the tower was an arched tunnel in the wall about six feet across into which water from the moat flowed. She was wondering what its purpose was when one of the huge reptiles swam from the tunnel, gripping something in its mouth. It swam directly across to where she stood and started to climb the bank.

  She waited until it was nearly to the top before squirting tear gas into its eyes from a distance off only a foot.

  With a roar of anguish the scaly monster's jaws parted, dropping what it had gripped in them, it slid backward into the water and began threshing around.

  April reached down and picked up the limp, water-soaked piece of cloth the alligator had dropped. Her heart began to thump when she recognized the checkered design.

  It was the left half of Mark Slate's vest, torn right down the middle. And it was soaked not only with water, but with blood.

  The piece of material fell from nerveless fingers and she stared at the tunnel again. By now the threshing had stopped and the alligator she had sprayed with tear gas had submerged. But five more were swimming from the tunnel. Their movement caused the still water to ripple, and in the moonlight the ripples suddenly seemed darker than the surrounding water.

 
April realized that the water surrounding the reptiles was stained with blood.

  One of the beasts had a piece of cloth gripped in its jaws. As it reached the bank and started to climb up. April recognized it as Mark Slate's suit coat.

  Her eyes brimming with tears, she turned and stumbled along the bank back to the road. She would have been easy prey for any of the monsters lying atop the bank in wait, but fortunately her previous passage had cleared the area and no new hunters had as yet taken the place of the ones routed by tear gas.

  When April Dancer reached the road, she put away the atomizer. After dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief, she put it away too. Squaring her shoulders, she clicked down the road on her high heels to the waiting taxi.

  "You were twenty minutes," Frederico Feliz said with a smile. "Did you accomplish your purpose?"

  "No," she said, climbing into the backseat. "Drive me to the CIX studio."

  Her tone caused him to peer around. "Is something wrong, senorita?"

  "Please," she said. "I would rather not talk about it."

  With a shrug he put the car in gear. They had no conversation on the way back to Vina Rosa. The cabbie once made a comment that he was glad he wouldn't have to report to her friends that she was in trouble, but when she made only a monosyllabic reply, he lapsed into silence.

  A block before the studio grounds April said, "This corner will be fine. Drop me here."

  Obediently he pulled over to the curb.

  Getting out, April said, "Is there a discount for round trip?"

  Even in her grief she couldn't suppress her inclination to bargain. April was the delight of U.N.C.L.E’s accounting section, because she was as frugal with other people's money as she was with her own. Her spending habits weren't as highly regarded by other agents, though, because the chief accountant had a habit of using her expense sheets as an example when questioning the expenses of her more free spending colleagues.

  The cabbie said, "No, senorita. But I do not charge for the wait. The fare is the same both ways.

  April handed him a fifty peso note and got the twenty she had previously given him in exchange.

  "I promised you a tip if you waited," she said, fumbled in her purse and handed him a coin.

  The cabbie examined it with a mixture of astonishment and amusement. It was a single peso, or the American equivalent of a dime.

  April braced herself for some withering comment of the sort she was used to her tips eliciting from New York cab drivers. But Lombodian cabbies were a politer breed.

  Exposing his buck teeth in a Bugs Bunny grin, the little man said, "Thank you, senorita. Now I will be able to go into business for myself."

  April braced her slim shoulders and thrust all thought of Mark Slate from her mind. There would be time for grief later. Now she had a job to do, and her U.N.C.L.E. training didn't allow the luxury of emotion until that was completed.

  She turned right for a block, then left, and came out behind the studio, grounds. Since the cab had dropped her on the opposite side of the grounds from the way she had previously approached, this brought her to the corner of the fenced enclosure opposite where the hole in the fence was.

  Staying on the far side of the street, she went past the rear gate by which she and Mark Slate had entered the grounds earlier, turned left again at the comer and eventually came to the hole in the fence covered by the piece of plywood.

  Peering through the wire mesh, she studied the grounds carefully. No one was in sight. She pushed the plywood aside, crawled through and set it back in place again.

  There were no lights showing on this side of the building containing the recording studio. She circled around to the other side and found that side dark too. She returned to the first side.

  The barred grill Mark Slate had cut from the window frame still lay on the ground beneath the window to the recording studio.

  Lifting it, April gently leaned it against the side of the building at an angle just beneath the window, the bars horizontal, so that it formed an improvised ladder. By climbing to the top bar, she was able to reach the upper pane.

  Slipping off one of her clip earrings, she pressed the stone against the glass next to the inner latch and drew a half circle. Clipping the earring back in place, she tapped the glass lightly with her knuckles.

  The half circle of glass fell out in one piece. It made a small tinkling sound when it hit the floor inside. April waited, listening for a possible reaction. When there was none, she reached through the hole in the glass and unlatched the window.

  She pushed the lower half of the window upward. A moment later she had climbed inside.

  Stepping around the edge of the white velvet curtain, she struck her lighter and held it high. It didn't throw much glow, but it was enough to guide her past the camera and other equipment over to the black plywood screen before the door into the hall. She let the flame die before cracking open the door and cautiously peering into the hall.

  There was a dim nightlight set in the wall at either end of the hallway, just sufficient to barely illuminate the full length of the corridor. No one was in sight.

  She had no idea in which room the hairy Dingo slept, but it was possible he bunked with the mentally retarded jingle writers. On tiptoe she moved down the hall to that door. Pressing her ear to it she heard the sound of snoring in several different keys.

  The door was locked, but her spring-steel hairpin quickly solved that problem. Removing her perfume atomizer and treated handkerchief from her purse, she hooked the strap of her purse over her wrist and boldly pushed the door wide open.

  Enough light from the hall flowed into the room for her to make out the occupants dimly. The man with the whip wasn't among them.

  The four jingle writers lay on pallets near the left wall, leg irons clamped around their right ankles and chained to rings attached to the base of the wall. They were all asleep, but the light from the hall awakened one. The hulking Carlos rose on one elbow and looked around at April Dancer.

  April put a finger to her lips.

  Carlos gave her a vacuous smile.

  Going over to him, she knelt so that her lips were close to his ear and whispered, "I'm a friend, Carlos."

  His grin turned to a delighted smile. "Duh-Carlos like friends."

  "Shh!" she said. "Don't wake the others."

  He gave an abashed glance at his snoring comrades. "Carlos sorry," he whispered. "I talk low."

  "Do you want to get away from here, Carlos?"

  His expression saddened. "Carlos want to go back to state home," he whispered. "They treat Carlos good there. They no whip."

  Glancing toward the door, April said in a low tone, barely moving her lips, "How did you happen to leave the state home, Carlos?"

  "Man come to my room late at night. Skinny man with thick glasses. "

  "Barth," she said.

  "Yes, that the man. Promise Carlos candy. We sneak out window. We go to great big place in mountains. Great towers and stone walls it had."

  "Sancho Moreno's castle."

  "I no know its name. But they no give Carlos candy when we get there. Lock in dungeon, only let out to study and work. Then they bring here and all Carlos do is work."

  "So they kidnapped you out of a government-operated home," April Dancer said grimly. She nodded toward the sleeping men, who were still snoring in rhythm. "These others too?"

  Carlos nodded.

  "I'll get you out of this place and back to the home," April promised. "But first I have to do something else. Where does Dingo sleep?"

  "The whip man?" Carlos said with a shiver. "Just across hall."

  "I'll be back," April said.

  She tiptoed back across the room, out into the hall and eased the door shut behind her.

  The door to the room across the hall was locked. Picking the lock would almost certainly awaken Dingo, April thought. And she had no intention of barging into a room to face a man armed with an U.N. C.L.E. gun.

  She glanc
ed up and down the hall. Her gaze spotted a fire axe and hose hanging on the wan a few feet away.

  Beneath the axe was a glass covered recess in the wall. She went over to examine it. It was a fire alarm. Behind the glass was a large round bell with an electric clapper.

  There was a switch resembling an ordinary wall light switch next to the bell.

  Printed directions on a card above the recess said in both English and Spanish: In case of fire break glass and push bell switch upward.

  A few yards farther along the hall was a water cooler with an inverted bottle. Attached to the wall next to it was a plastic cup dispenser.

  April Dancer filled three of the flat-bottomed cups water and set them on the floor next to the baseboard. From her purse she took a package of mints and dropped a mint into each cup. Immediately a thick white smoke began to billow from the cups.

  Quickly she moved back to the fire alarm. Slipping off one shoe, she used the spike heel to smash the glass. She slipped the shoe back on before flipping up the bell switch. The bell started to set up an ear-splitting clangor.

  By now the smoke was so dense, she had to feel for Dingo's doorway when she reached it. She flattened herself against the wall alongside of it, her treated handkerchief pressed over her nose and mouth.

  She could tell when the door opened by the sudden glow of light through the dense smoke. She couldn't see the hairy Dingo when he emerged, but she heard him stumble past, coughing. Something brushed her hip lightly, and she realized it was the tip of the riding whip. Apparently the hairy man reached for his whip in emergencies with the same sort of instinct which makes children run for their mothers.

  She slipped into the room, closed the door and threw an inner bolt. It would have done her no good to pick the door lock anyway, she realized as she shot the bolt home.

  A ceiling light was burning. The room was hazy with smoke, but not enough had seeped in from the hall during the short time the door was open to obscure Vision. She glanced around.