Ron Goulart - The Prisoner of Blackwood Castle

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The Prisoner of

Blackwood

Ron Goulart

CHAPTER 1

Zevenburg in the spring of 1897 was a magnificent. and glittering city.

Capital of Orlandia, that small sovereign nation on the eastern fringes of

the vast Habsburg Empire, Zevenburg was known worldwide as a

metropolis where existence is more beautiful, joy more easily obtained

and trouble more quickly thrown away than anywhere else. Its overall

mood was especially festive that spring, because its splendid

Quadricentennial Exposition had opened only three weeks earlier, and

eager visitors were flocking to this gleaming city on the River Fluss from

all over Europe and beyond. True, benevolent old King Ulrich was rumored

to be slowly dying in his shadowy chambers in the ornate palace on

Mariahilferstrasse. But he had had a long happy reign and would be

succeeded by the popular and beautiful Princess Alicia. Business, in

everywhere from the great hotels to the tiny shops, had never been better,

and the weather had held pleasant and serene for nearly a full week.

And so nearly everyone in Zevenburg on the tranquil spring evening on

which our story commences was content and happy, with the exception of

old King Ulrich, who was justifiably downcast about his imminent death,

and Harry Challenge.

Harry had just been thrown out of the palace, thrown out by two gilded

and overdressed footmen on the explicit orders, so they claimed as they

tossed Harry onto the hard cobblestones of the twilit Mariahilferstrasse, of

Princess Alicia herself.

"Well, damn," remarked Harry, rising up from beside a curbside border

of freshly bloomed flowers and glancing around for his bowler hat.

"Your hat, swine!" called one of the burly brass-buttoned footmen as he

pegged the dented headgear out through the high wrought-iron gateway

of the palace grounds.

"Much obliged." Harry caught the sailing hat out of the air, poked out

the most conspicuous dents and tapped it onto his head.

A closed carriage went clopping by, heading for the Ulrichplatz and

trailing light feminine laughter.

Harry was a man of middle height, lean, cleanshaven and a shade

weather-beaten. He was not quite a year beyond thirty, and in the course

of pursuing his profession he had killed several men. In fact, beneath the

coat of his dark suit he wore a Colt .38 revolver in a snug shoulder holster.

It was one of his rules, however, never to shoot anyone in anger.

Besides which, the two louts who'd heaved him out into the growing

dusk had apparently been acting on orders from the fair Alicia.

"Women are changeable," Harry reminded himself as he brushed the

dust of Mariahilferstrasse from his clothes and started walking away from

the high-walled palace grounds. "No reason for the princess to be any—"

Slowing, he glanced back over his shoulder. The new electric lamps were

late in coming on tonight, and the darkness that stretched out behind him

was thick. Harry narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing one particular linden tree

some hundred yards behind him.

After a few seconds, he decided there wasn't anyone watching from

behind that tree after all. He lit one of the thin black cigars he favored and

resumed walking.

"Things sure can change one hell of a lot in just over a year," he said to

himself as he thought of the lovely golden-haired princess.

Zevenburg was noted for its profusion of sidewalk cafes, and one of the

most popular, as many know, was Penzler's. Located in a twisting lane off

Prinz Rollo Strasse and bordered by a row of lilac trees, it was always

crowded with a mixture of discriminating local denizens and well-to-do

tourists.

At a few minutes past the hour of seven on the evening in question, a

portly man in a gray suit, flamboyant double-breasted waistcoat and

astonishing green silk cravat was pointing impatiently at three overturned

demitasse cups that rested on his small table next to one of the lilac trees.

"Come, Rudi, my boy, it's painfully simple. Don't dawdle so."

The small frail waiter hunched, shifted his feet, tugged at his black bow

tie, rubbed his perspiring palms once again on his long white apron.

"Well, Herr Lorenzo, I think maybe perhaps—"

"My boy, what did I tell you my name was?"

Rudi smacked himself on the temple with the heel of his hand. "Forgive

me, my mind was wandering," he apologized. "Well, Herr Great Lorenzo, I

think maybe the cube of sugar must be under . . ." His hand, trembling

slightly, hovered over the center cup in the row of three and then darted to

the one on the left. ". . . yes, under this cup."

"Ah, what a pity," sighed the Great Lorenzo. "You're wrong once again,

Rudi, and that makes six more free brandies you owe me. Plus the five

eclairs from our earlier round of fun."

At a nearby table a handsome red-haired woman in a satin dress began

giggling over something her thickset gentleman companion had said. Her

fluffy feather boa nearly slipped from her shoulders as she swayed in her

chair.

"Might I," inquired the waiter tentatively, "see for myself it isn't under

there, Herr Loren— Herr Great Lorenzo?"

"Eh? You doubt my— Ah, but of course. I am a stranger in your land."

The Great Lorenzo fluffed his graying muttonchop whiskers. "To you I am

merely a wandering minstrel who happens to be starring, twice nightly, in

a magical extravaganza at the nearby Rupert Theater. Were this America,

my boy, were this my own, my native land, you'd be fully aware that the

Great Lorenzo is a man of unimpeachable honesty and unassailable

integrity. Two years ago in Chicago, in fact, I was prevented from running

for a prestigious public office on the grounds that I was simply too

honest." Giving a shrug, he lifted the cup the waiter had tapped.

There was nothing beneath it but crisp white tablecloth.

"Forgive me, Herr Great Lorenzo, for ever doubting—"

"Think nothing of it, my lad." The Great Lorenzo made a dismissing

gesture with his plump beringed right hand. "Now, rather than cringing

here and delivering any further tearful apologies, why don't you instead

trot into that inspired kitchen of yours and fetch me the first of my

hard-won eclairs, eh?"

"At once, at once, Herr Great Lorenzo."

"Good thing this isn't New York." Harry Challenge sat down opposite

the magician. "They'd have given you the heave-ho long ago for trying

such an obvious flimflam on—"

"One of the chief advantages of an outdoor bistro, Harry, is that there

are no swinging doors to be flung through," observed the Great Lorenzo.

"Speaking of which, you look as though you've had the proverbial bum's

rush applied to your person not long since."

"I got tossed out of the palace."

"Serves you right for trying to mingle with your betters." The portly

magician uprighted the trio of cups he'd been using in his shell game. The

sugar cube wasn't beneath any of them. "Since you won't be spending the

evening in amorous pursuits, why not, as I earlier suggested, join me for

dinner at some—"

"Nope. Believe I'll just head back for the hotel."

"To sulk?"

"I might do a little of that," admitted Harry.

The Great Lorenzo waved his right hand through the air and a bright

yellow theater ticket appeared between his fingertips. "Take in my second

show at the Rupert, my boy. I'm planning a new variation of sawing a lady

in half, and dear Sara may—”

"I've told you a little about the princess, haven't I?"

"A little? When I encountered you last year in Manhattan, you poured

gallons of syrupy reminiscenses into my sympathetic ear," replied the

magician. "Of course, you'd just returned from last year's visit to this

jeweled city in the crown of European real estate and were bubbling over

with—”

"I was last over here late in the winter of ninety-five," said Harry,

puffing absently on his cigar. "A government minister wanted the

Challenge International Detective Agency to handle a case for him and my

father sent me—”

"How is your dear papa these days?"

Harry frowned. "Ogres usually don't change much," he answered. "At

any rate, I met Alicia, she was just twenty-one then and—”

"I know, I know. A great and wondrous romance blossomed, but in the

end, alas, duty forced you to return to American shores, and the fair

princess, with heavy heart, turned her attentions once again to the

demands of her kingdom."

"You make it sound like a dime novel, Lorenzo."

"Everyone's life is a dime novel, my boy," the magician said with a

wistful sigh. "It's when one gets to thinking his life is a Shakespearean

tragedy that the trouble commences."

A gaggle of some half dozen street musicians, decked out in crimson

and gold, went marching lazily down the middle of the narrow street,

filling the gaslit air with brassy militant music.

Eventually Harry said, "Maybe I am making too much of all this."

"Would you care to join me in a brandy? Or an eclair?"

"The thing is," continued Harry, "when our agency was hired to escort

Mr. Katjang Otak and his crown jewels from New York City to the

Burmese Pavilion at the Exposition here, I let myself get the idea I could

pick up where—”

"Zevenburg has many another pleasure to offer, my lad," the Great

Lorenzo pointed out. "For example, I am doing two magnificent shows

nightly at the very threshold of the Exposition grounds. You're absolutely

certain you don't want even one eclair?"

"When I sent in my card tonight," said Harry, "these two louts came out

of the damn palace to throw me in the direction of the gutter."

"Are you and your dear old dad still using that business card with the

staring eye and the catchy slogan 'A Wide-Awake Detective Agency'

emblazoned upon it? That's been known to annoy some otherwise placid

individ—”

"Alicia's changed, I guess."

"Her father is said to be at death's door. Perhaps, Harry, that accounts

for—”

"Okay, King Ulrich's dying. She could still have sent a short note

explaining—”

"Would you like me to introduce you to my assistant, Sara? A charming

lass, titian-tressed and quite surprisingly well-read. She can actually recite

interminable stretches of Browning," said the helpful magician. "That

ability, coupled with her impressive bosom, might well distract you for a

bit."

"I've been thinking, Lorenzo, that there's no real reason for my staying

in Orlandia at all," Harry said. "The jewels are now safely on display inside

the Exposition and—”

"Stay on," advised the Great Lorenzo. "You've hardly even taken in any

of the sights and wonders of the Exposition itself."

"Excuse me, Herr Great Lorenzo." The frail waiter was again beside the

table, a pale blue envelope held against his narrow chest. "The boy

brought this for your friend."

"Which boy?" inquired the magician, glancing around.

"The lad over by the lady with all the feathers in her— Ah, but be seems

to have vanished, sir."

With a shrug the Great Lorenzo took the envelope and passed it across

the table. "Smells romantic, my boy."

Harry had recognized the handwriting on the envelope face before he

even took hold of it. Opening the envelope, he extracted a folded sheet of

blue notepaper.

Harry dearest: Please forgive what occurred when you attempted to

call. I do want to see you again, but not here. Can you meet me tonight

at eleven in the Pavilion of Automatons on the

Exposition grounds? I have much to tell you.

Love, Alicia.

The Great Lorenzo drummed his fingers on the table edge. "Ah, how

well I remember the last time I received an amorous missive penned upon

notepaper with a royal crest. 'Twas in Bosnia nearly a decade ago, shortly

after I had introduced my sensational Floating Lady illusion and the whole

of the nation was atwitter and agog over my—”

"She wants to see me after all." Harry folded the note, returned it to the

envelope.

"At the palace?"

"At the Exposition."

Nodding, the magician said, "Good, the ground is much softer

thereabouts. If you get heaved out again, aim for one of the flower beds or

a patch of verdant sward. Although—” He ceased speaking, a look of pain

suddenly spreading across his plump face.

His chair creaked as he sank back, bringing one hand up to press

against his chest.

"What's wrong?" Harry was on his feet.

The magician waved him down. "Nothing, my boy, not a thing." His

voice was a bit dim and throaty. He coughed into his hand before

continuing. "I keep forgetting I am but a stage illusionist and not a true

magician."

Settling back into his chair, Harry slipped the pale blue envelope into

the breast pocket of his coat. "You saw something?"

"Nothing at all, no," said the Great Lorenzo. "I have to keep reminding

myself I can't really see the future and that these occasional flashes, these

unbidden peeks ahead, mean absolutely nothing. Merely, no doubt, the

result of mixing eclairs stuffed with clotted cream and rather inferior

brandy."

"Your latest vision had something to do with me?"

With a slow sigh his portly friend answered, "If you must know, my boy,

I saw you stretched out upon a floor of black and white mosaic tiles. That

assignation invitation was clutched in your hand, and there was a

handsome sword of some sort thrust into you in the vicinity of your

heart."

"Vivid," said Harry, exhaling smoke.

"As I say, not at all a dependable glimpse ahead," the magician assured

him. "Don't let me spoil your evening, my boy."

Harry grinned. "Why would your predicting my death spoil my fun?"

"Even so," the Great Lorenzo said, "it wouldn't hurt to be as careful as

you can this evening."

CHAPTER 2

The weather changed a few minutes shy of eleven that evening. A fine,

misty rain began to fall, and the thousands of lights of the Exposition

grounds became faintly blurred. The music and laughter and the babble of

hundreds of excited conversations seemed suddenly muffled, too.

Harry was making his way through the crowd circling the main

fountain when the rain started. The two arched dolphins were spouting

streamers of purple water, the single naked water nymph was spilling a

cascade of gold from her tilted horn of plenty. Cutting through a flower

garden and then double-timing along a path of slick white gravel, Harry

reached the Streets of Cairo Exhibit just in time almost to collide with a

plump matron riding one of the fair's hundred and some white burros.

"Please, whatever you do, don't annoy the brute," the gray-haired

Englishwoman pleaded. "Whenever he becomes annoyed, I tumble off."

Grinning and tipping his hat, Harry eased around the woman and her

mount. He'd been to Cairo once on a case for the Challenge International

Detective Agency and this crooked block-long alley, with its low white

houses and mosques, overhanging upper stories and multicolored

awnings, looked fairly authentic. But it smelled much better than the real

Cairo ever had.

A small ragged Egyptian boy of ten or so thrust a wooden bowl into

Harry's midsection as he passed the alcove the boy was huddled in.

"Baksheesh," the boy requested.

Harry fished out an Orlandian coin of modest denomination and flipped

it into the bowl.

"My mother tell your fortune for—” The boy had stopped talking and

was staring up into Harry's face, mouth slightly ajar.

"Aren't you going to finish your sales pitch?"

"It is of no matter." The boy dodged around him. "Don't waste your

money, for you have no future." He went scurrying away among the legs of

the tourists.

"Damn," reflected Harry as he continued on his way, "people are sure

going out of their way to predict dire things for me."

Well, maybe it wasn't all that damn bright to be pursuing Alicia again

anyway. She was Princess Alicia, after all, and fairly soon she'd be Queen

Alicia. Best thing to do would be to forget what had happened between

them over a year ago.

That wasn't altogether an easy chore, though. Alicia had been unlike

any other woman Harry had ever met. She was beautiful and—

"Dime novel stuff again," he warned himself. At the end of the Egyptian

lane there was a stretch of parklike land, dotted with trees and

wrought-iron benches. On the far side of this small park loomed the

Pavilion of Automatons, a large building with a domed roof. Its walls were

of pale imitation marble, its curving roof was made up of bluish glass

panels set in a fretwork of white metal.

The rain fell heavier now. Harry ran when he reached the grassy area.

At the doorway of the pavilion two British seamen were just turning

away.

"No use, guv," one of them informed him. "She's closed up for the

evenin'."" 'Ad me 'eart set on seein' that clockwork dancin' girl," muttered

his mate.Turning up the collars of their peacoats, they hurried

away.Harry, frowning, approached the closed metal and stained-glass

doors of the darkened pavilion.

Affixed to one of the glass panels was a hastily written note.

Temporarily Closed.

Hands in pockets, Harry stood with his back to the door. The rain hit

down on the metal awning that sheltered the doorway. There was no sign

of the princess anywhere.

Behind him a door creaked and a thin piping voice called out, "We are

not closed to you, Herr Challenge."

It took Harry a bit more than ten minutes to determine he was the only

living person inside the dimly lit Pavilion of Automatons. He was certain

he was sharing the place with just the two dozen clockwork figures

arranged in alcoves and upon low pedestals. He'd long since noticed that

the floor was made up of black and white mosaic tiles that formed giant

serpentine patterns. He reminded himself that Lorenzo's predictions quite

often didn't come true.

Nearest the doorway stood the dancing girl the sailors had been anxious

to see. She was a little over five feet high, dressed in a spangled Gypsy

costume. She was poised on one foot with a tambourine raised high above

her kerchiefed head. In the flickering light provided by the two gas lamps

that had been left on she looked almost real.

"Almost," said Harry as he began another slow circuit of the long room.

Next to the immobile dancer sat a tiny golden-haired boy clad in a red

velvet lace-trimmed suit. On his tiny lap rested a tablet, and he held a quill

pen in his pink, pudgy right hand.

There was a clockwork flutist and a fortune-telling old witch, a caged

mechanical canary and a juggler. At the far end of the room two life-size

young men in fencing costumes faced each other holding sabers.

While Harry was studying the two realistic figures, the dancing girl's

tambourine rattled.

He spun.

She didn't appear to have moved.

The only sound he heard was the night rain hitting on the dozens of

glass panels high above.

Then he noticed that the feather pen in the little boy's hand was

flickering.

Harry went sprinting over there.

The mechanical boy had stopped writing by the time Harry reached

him.

Scrawled across the white sheet of paper was a message for him.

Leave Zevenburg. It is not safe for you.

Harry took a step back from the little automaton. Lifting off his hat, he

scratched at his dark, curly hair. "Well now, I'll tell you," he said aloud, his

voice echoing. "I was aiming on leaving the whole damn country bright

and early tomorrow. Now, though, I'm not so sure."

"Too bad, too bad." The old fortune-teller had spoken in a dry, rattling

voice. "Now you'll die, now you'll die."

Above the drumming of the rain Harry heard heavy footfalls. He turned

to see one of the fencers walking, quite gracefully, toward him. The blade

of his saber caught the light of one of the bracket gas lamps and sparkled

once.

"Clockwork or flesh and blood," Harry warned the approaching figure,

"you're not going to take a slice out of me." He reached inside his coat for

his revolver.

The gun was no longer there.

Somebody out in that crowd, the Egyptian beggar kid most likely, was a

damn good pickpocket.

Keeping his hand inside his coat, Harry started backing for the

doorway. "I'd sure hate to shoot up a valuable piece of machinery like

you," he told the swordsman, who was now less than twenty feet from

him.

All at once Harry tripped.

He fell over backward, arms flying wide.

The little velvet-suited boy had gotten behind him somehow, unseen

and unheard. Making a chittering, giggling noise over what he'd done, the

small cherubic automaton went scurrying away into the darkness at the

edge of the room.

Before Harry could scramble to his feet, the swordsman's blade, sharp

edge outermost, came swishing down toward his head.

Harry rolled.

Rolled right into the mechanical man, toppling him over.

The figure landed hard and made a rattling clang.

Harry dived to his left, got to his feet and ran for the end of the room.

The other fencer was still unmoving on the pedestal. Harry shouldered the

figure off his perch, at the same time grabbing the saber free from his

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ThePrisonerofBlackwoodRonGoulartCopyright©1984byRonGoulartCHAPTER1Zevenburginthespringof1897wasamagnificent.andglitteringcity.CapitalofOrlandia,thatsmallsovereignnationontheeasternfringesofthevastHabsburgEmpire,Zevenburgwasknownworldwideasametropoliswhereexistenceismorebeautiful,joymoreeasilyobtaine...

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