THE SCOTLAND YARD ROBOTS were extremely polite to Jake.
There were two of them, big gunmetal bots wearing plaid overcoats and bowler hats. When Jake hit the platform at the London subtrain station, they were waiting close to the spot where his compartment had come to a stop.
Tipping their hats in unison, they both stepped into his path. “Mr. Cardigan, isn’t it?” inquired the one on the left.
“Yeah, it is.”
They both pointed to their metallic foreheads. Small plates in each skull slid silently aside to reveal tiny viewscreens. On each appeared authenticated copies of their police credentials. After allowing sufficient time for Jake to read the material, the panels snapped shut.
“We trust, sir, that you enjoyed a pleasant journey from the continent?” inquired the one on the right.
“Trip wasn’t bad,” admitted Jake. “And I appreciate Scotland Yard’s sending you down to inquire. Now I’ll bid you farewell.”
“If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Cardigan,” requested the one on the left in deferential tones, “we’d be most gratified were you to accompany us.”
“Haven’t got the time, fellas.”
The one on the right said, “Perhaps if we were to explain the current statutes applying to formal requests for an interview, sir?”
“Yes, that might be a jolly good idea,” seconded the one on the left.
“I know,” cut in Jake. “You have the right to use a stungun on me if I don’t come along willingly. That’s a dimwit law, by the way.”
“Ah, but then, sir, we merely carry out the laws as they are written.” The robot on the right adjusted his bowler hat on his round metal head. “You are not, please understand, being arrested, nor are we implying in any manner or form that you might perhaps be a wrongdoer.”
“Not at all. We are simply inviting you to step around to the Yard, Mr. Cardigan.”
“To see who?”
“Our Inspector Beckford.”
“Beckford,” said Jake with a definite lack of respect.
“You’re acquainted with the inspector, I believe.”
“I know Becky,” admitted Jake. “He is, to use a technical term, a first-class jerk. Really, fellas, there’s absolutely no good reason why—”
“Since you’re familiar not only with Inspector Beckford, but with British law in all its richness and complexity, Mr. Cardigan,” said the robot on the right, “you must be aware that if you dawdle and stall much longer, we’ll be compelled to stun you and transport you to the Yard in a medivan.”
“Right, sure,” said Jake. “Okay, I may as well go there conscious.”
“Come along this way, sir.” The one on the left got a firm grip on Jake’s arm.
“We appreciate your spirit of cooperation, sir.” The one on the right took hold of Jake’s other arm. “Off we go to Scotland Yard.”
Gomez was lying again.
He was doing it while guiding his rented landcar through the crowded lower-level streets of Paris, glancing now and then at the vidscreen implanted in the dash.
An angry Natalie Dent was glaring at him on the screen. “But you weren’t at your darn hotel or anywhere in the vicinity,” she said accusingly. “It seems to me that when you make a date to meet someone for lunch, Gomez, you either ought to show up at the preordained spot or make other arrangements.”
“Chiquita, I left a message for you at the desk.”
“There wasn’t anybody at the desk except some nitwit robot chef who claimed he was filling in because the clerks were off taking a strike vote.”
“Nat, had not a sudden important situation come up, we’d be lunching right this minute in some ritz bistro and exchanging important info.”
“Where are you?” the red-haired reporter asked pointedly.
“En route to the American Embassy,” he assured her. “It’s a routine check of my travel papers.”
“That doesn’t, if you’ll pardon my mentioning it, sound like anything very serious to me, Gomez.”
“Not to you, not to me, sí, but to the embassy it is.”
“It seems to me that a man with your gall could simply have told them you had a lunch date.”
“It isn’t Cosmos policy to ignore official requests like this.” Gomez turned his car onto a quirky lane. “Ah, but I see the embassy looming up ahead, so I must bid you a reluctant adiós.”
“What I’m seeing—and granted I’m only getting a somewhat cockeyed view of what the phonecam is seeing over your droopy shoulder and out the dingy back window of that clunky vehicle you’re joyriding around in, but what I’m seeing looks an awful lot like the neighborhood down along the Seine. Where your present client happens to live. The embassy, on the other hand, is way over on—”
“Es verdad,” admitted the detective as he drove into a parking area. “But actually I’m meeting the ambassador himself down here. Don’t know why I said embassy, I meant I saw the ambassador looming up. It’s his custom, pobrecita, to take a stroll along the river after lunch.”
“How can you handle paperwork while strolling along the river?”
“I asked him the very same question, Nat, and he replied, ‘You simply have to trust your government, Mr. Gomez.’ I must rush off now.”
“I’m not the sort of person who likes to issue dire warnings,” said Natalie on the phonescreen. “But, Gomez, you darn well better get together with me before the sun sets on another day and be prepared to share some facts about the Bouchon killing with me. Otherwise my seldom-seen vindictive side will work out some very unpleasant consequences.”
“We’ll meet later in the day,” he promised, unbuckling his safety gear.
“Where? When?”
“Ah, those are excellent reporter questions, Nat. I’ll phone and set up a meeting,” he said. “Adiós.” He clicked off the phone, dived out of the car.
Their client had contacted him a half hour earlier and told him it was important that she see him at once. That was—well, it was one of the reasons anyway—why Gomez had ditched Natalie Dent.
He went hurrying out of the parking area, slowing only to grab the chit that came out of the slot in the chest of the mechanical attendant.
When he got to the gangway leading up to Madeleine Bouchon’s houseboat, there was no sign of the chrome-plated guard-bot. Not even his wrought-iron chair was there. Poking his tongue into his cheek, Gomez scanned the area along the river. A few plump pigeons were strutting on the imitation cobblestones. An android was sitting under a tree playing the accordion.
Uneasy, but unable to pinpoint anything else out of the ordinary beyond the absence of the guard, Gomez started slowly up the gangway. Less than halfway to the deck he noticed a beret floating down in the water. It looked a lot like the one the robot had tipped to them on their last visit.
He took a few more steps toward the boat, then noticed the wrought-iron chair underwater down in the river, its legs sticking up.
From the conservatory on the houseboat came the sudden cry of a woman in pain.