THE COPPER-PLATED ROBOT CHEF set their breakfast plates before them. “Allow me to apologize again, messieurs,” he said, fluffing his crisp white chef’s hat. “In all my years at the Louvre Hotel, I assure you, the waiter androids have never before gone out on strike. Machines that put on airs ... Bah!” Turning briskly, he went striding away across the large, vaulted dining room.
Gomez picked up his knife and fork. “I’ve been meditating about Excalibur,” he said, gesturing with his knife. “It was King Arthur’s sword, sí?”
After sampling his soycaf, Jake said, “According to legend, yes.”
“My informative buddy, Limehouse, is what you might call an anglophile. A monarchist actually, who yearns to see a king back in place,” continued his partner. “The gent has his underground digs lavishly plastered with pics of British royalty.”
“And?”
“Yesterday, amongst the newer portraits, I glimpsed one of a chinless chap called King Arthur II.”
“When did he reign?”
“He hasn’t, amigo. Not yet, though he’s apparently standing by.” Gomez used his knife and fork on his fakbacon. “Should the present English system, with prez, vice prez and so on, collapse or be overthrown, then Artie would dig up the discarded throne, dust it off, and hop aboard. He’d rule as King Art II.”
“Wonder how many supporters he has.”
“Quien sabe? But I’ll find out,” he promised. “It could be there’s an Excalibur associated with this guy.”
“Sands is in England, so is this Arthur Number 2, so it—”
“A thousand pardons, Monsieur Cardigan.” It was the coppery chef again, cap in hand. “There’s an important phonemessage for you.”
“Can I take it in the lobby?”
“Oui, in Alcove 6.” He glanced down at Gomez’s plate. “What’s wrong with the crêpes?”
“Not a blessed thing.”
“I notice you’re toying with them and not eating them.”
“That’s my breakfast style. Don’t take it as a critique.”
“As you say.” Replacing his snowy white cap atop his copper-plated head, he walked away.
“Keep toying,” said Jake, leaving the table. “I’ll be back soon.”
Jake’s former wife frowned at him from the phonescreen. “Do you know where he is?” Her voice was touched with anger.
“Sands? Nope, I don’t, but—”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Jake?”
“Bennett Sands. He disappeared from prison late last night.”
She inhaled sharply. “That’s impossible. Nobody can get out of a place like that.”
“With the right sort of help you can get out of anywhere,” he told her. “Didn’t you know Sands was planning to escape?”
“No, of course not. Simply because I once worked for him, that doesn’t mean I’m involved with what he does now,” she said. “But that’s not why I called you.”
“Is it Dan?”
“Yes. They called me just now to say Danny’s run away from the Bunter Academy.” She started to cry softly. “Sometime last night, they think, Jake. I really am trying to be a good mother ... But Danny ... ever since you got out of prison ... I don’t know, he hasn’t been happy and there’s been trouble at every school he—”
“What about Nancy Sands? Has she turned up?”
“No, she hasn’t. That hadn’t occurred to me ... Do you think she and Danny might be together?”
“Kate, I don’t really give a damn how closely you’re tied up with Sands.” He leaned closer to the screen. “But if you know where he’s holed up, tell me. His daughter’s probably with him by now, and if Dan knows where she’s gone, he may try to join her.”
“For God’s sake, I’m not Bennett’s mistress—or his accomplice,” she shouted at him. “Danny’s my son, too, remember? Do you really think I’d let him get involved with something like this?”
“You don’t know where Sands is?”
“No, damn it, no! I just want to find my son,” she said, sobbing. “I contacted you because I thought you could help. But if all you’re going to do is criticize me and preach, I’m hanging up.”
“Okay, okay,” he interrupted. “I’ll come over to England, be there in a few hours. I’ll find Dan.”
“Can you come here first? I—”
“I won’t have time,” he told her. “But I’ll keep in touch with you by phone. I’ll let you know whatever I find out.”
She asked him, “You’re never going to forgive me for divorcing you while you were in prison, are you?”
“Probably not.” He hung up.
Jake’s first-class compartment on the Paris-London subtrain was mildly annoyed with him. “But, really, sir,” it was saying out of the voxbox implanted just below the phonescreen, “the complete luncheon is included in the price of your ticket, don’t you see? If you hadn’t wished to partake of the luncheon, why, may I ask, did you book first class?”
“For privacy,” explained Jake. “Now, please, shut yourself off.”
The voxbox went dead.
Jake moved across the small, blankwalled compartment and activated the vidphone. He punched out a London number.
Thirty seconds later a ballheaded gray robot appeared on the screen. “Hewitt Inquiry Agency here.”
“Jake Cardigan for Arthur Bairnhouse.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Cardigan. A moment, if you will.”
Bairnhouse was a pink-faced, moderately overweight man of forty, dressed in a tweedy fashion. His office, what could be seen of it on the phonescreen, was paneled in dark real wood. “Glad you’ve called, Cardigan,” he said.
“Anything on Dan yet?”
“Nothing thus far, I’m afraid,” replied the detective. “We do, however, have something fairly definite on the Sands girl.”
“It’s my hunch she’s going to join her father.”
“It doesn’t, actually, look as though that’s the situation.” Bairnhouse rubbed at his broad flat nose with his thumb. “We have reason to believe that she’s gone into a very rough, crime-infested section of London. An area dominated by youth gangs and not, I’d venture to say, a likely area for a man like Bennett Sands to go to ground.”
“Dan is probably following her. He may even have heard from Nancy and know where she is.”
“When we had our violent revolution some sixty years ago, Cardigan, a great deal of damage was done to large sections of London. The area around Buckingham Palace was especially hard hit,” the plump detective told him. “For various reasons, some of them symbolic, a goodly portion of that damage was never remedied. Now the children control the area and it is, to state the case quite simply, not a safe place for a decent young person to be roaming unprotected.”
“Soon as I reach London, I’ll have to head for there to start hunting for my son.”
“Drop by our offices first, will you, Cardigan? We should have more information by the time you arrive, and I can be of some help in preparing you for the pitfalls,” said the detective. “There will be, believe me, a great many pitfalls.”
“Yeah, I’m expecting that,” said Jake.