AS SOON AS THEY’D all checked into the Nassau Palace Hotel, they gathered in Jake’s room.
“Basically my stratagem worked.” Gomez was standing with his back to the wide window that gave a sweeping view of palm trees, red-tiled rooftops, and golden beaches. “Jake and I were able to smuggle ourselves here safely by pretending to be journalists.”
“From what you told me about those hoodlums who jumped you,” put in Natalie from the wicker sofa, “your disguise as Newz staffers didn’t fool anyone.”
“Those goons just happened to be journeying up here on the same shuttle,” Gomez pointed out. “We met purely by chance.”
“I mentioned at the time that you first suggested this scheme that you weren’t alert enough looking, Gomez, to pass as a reporter.”
“What say we can this spatting?” suggested Sidebar, who was stationed near the door with metallic arms folded. “We’re supposed to be here to plot strategy.”
Jake, from his chair near the viewindow, said, “The lout that we persuaded to confide in us was en route here to report to a fellow named Elisha Clover.”
“Clover manages a hostelry called the Tropics Inn,” added Gomez.
“He seems to be tied in with the Teklords,” said Jake. “I’ll check up on him first.”
Gomez said, “I’ve already arranged for some local informants to have Dr. Danenberg’s gadding about monitored. Soon as she lights in an interesting spot, I’ll go take a look.”
“And you’ll go ahead with the King Arthur II interview,” Jake said to Natalie.
“It seems to me, and keep in mind that I’ve been expertly ferreting out important secrets for a good long while now, that I’d be of more use tagging along with Gomez.”
“Chiquita, this is a team,” reminded Gomez. “Your chore during this important initial phase of our joint operation is to create a small diversion.”
The robot inquired, “When did I volunteer to be part of this half-baked combo? I’m a star, not a mere—”
“Control your pride,” Natalie advised her cameraman. “If I can demean myself, so can you, Sidebar.”
Jake stood. “Let’s try to meet back here in, say, two hours.”
“None of you,” mentioned the robot, “may be in any shape for a rendezvous by then.”
A simulated breeze was blowing across the bright sunlit patio of the villa. It caught at the genealogical chart that King Arthur II was holding up, rattled the paper for several seconds before lifting the chart completely free of the king’s pudgy fingers.
“Jove, that’s annoying.” Arthur hopped clear of his wicker chair and went dashing across the mosaic tiles to snatch at the fleeing chart. “Gwenny, my dear, mightn’t we turn down that beastly wind a bit, do you think?”
“I find the breeze most refreshing,” said his wife, a plump blonde woman who was seated on a wicker settee. “As I’m sure Miss Dent does.”
“Well, I mean to say, my dear,” he said, catching the chart and clutching it to his chest, “a breeze is one thing, but a ruddy typhoon is something else altogether, eh?”
“I imagine,” said Gwenny, “that Newz didn’t ship one of its leading reporters all the way up here simply to hear you natter on about the weather, Arthur dear.”
“Deuced unpleasant having a hurricane blowing across one’s patio,” murmured the man who claimed to be the rightful ruler of Great Britain. Settling into his chair again, he frowned out at the simulated ocean stretching away beyond his patch of real-sand beach. “I assume, Miss Dent, that you’ll be able to edit this inane badinage between my dear spouse and myself out of our delightful little interview, eh?”
“We’ll make certain you don’t look foolish,” the reporter promised, nodding at Sidebar.
The robot was standing amidst a grove of authentic palm trees, his camera aimed at King Arthur II. “That’s going to take some doing,” he muttered.
Arthur, gripping the genealogical chart tightly, held it up to Natalie. “Now then, let’s go over this whole jolly thing once again, shall we? These facts and figures make it perfectly clear that I, and I alone, am the rightful heir to the throne of England, if there still were such a thing, don’t you know.” He traced a line down the middle of the page with his pudgy forefinger.
Natalie asked him, “How far are you prepared to go to see that the monarchy is restored?”
“I intend to pursue my rightful claim.”
“No, what I’m talking about is violence,” said the reporter. “Would you condone a revolution?”
“I’d prefer, dear girl, to rule England as the result of a bloodless coup, don’t you know.”
“But do you approve of bloodshed and revolution?”
“I wonder what’s become of our tea,” said Gwenny.
“I say, my dear, you ought not, really, to intrude these little domestic inquiries into an interview of this magnitude,” complained Arthur.
“You know we always have tea at this time each day, Arthur.”
“Well, then, old girl, trot off and see what’s delaying Rollo.” He made a dismissing gesture. “You’ll edit out all that last bit of foolishness, eh?”
“Nobody will ever view it,” Sidebar assured him, moving closer to the seated pretender to the throne.
“If you’ll forgive me for a moment, dear little Miss Dent, and you, too, Mr. Sidebar,” said Gwenny as she left her chair, “I must go see what’s detaining our servant.”
To King Arthur II Natalie said, “What about the Excalibur Movement?”
“One can’t always control one’s more fanatical followers, what? Obviously, dear child, I don’t believe in any sort of violence,” he assured her, tapping his knee with the rolled-up chart. “Should, however, overzealous monarchists succeed in getting rid of the current unworkable democratic system that blights my native land, why, I’d be a ruddy fool not to step forward and assume the crown.”
“Are you in contact with people from Excalibur?”
“Absolutely not, my dear. I mean to say, a chap in my position can’t fraternize with hotheads of that ilk,” replied the would-be king. “Frightfully harmful to one’s reputation and all that.”
“And you have no idea what their agenda is?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. They do, after all, send me all sorts of proclamations and manifestos. I have leafed through some of them and so their general aims and ... He paused, looked up, and blinked. “Jove, who’s that bloke with you, Gwenny?”
The plump blonde had returned from the villa in the company of a large gunmetal robot clad in a checkered suit. “I think you’ll find this most interesting, Miss Dent,” she said. “This mechanical chap’s just now delivered this most interesting snapshot to me.” She moved over to Natalie’s chair to hand her a small three-dimensional photo.
Somewhat blurry, it showed Natalie and Gomez walking arm in arm along a wintry Paris thoroughfare. “Oh, yes, this is my fiancé and I,” she said, dropping the picture to her lap. “He doesn’t, I’m the first to admit, take a very flattering photograph. Actually, as Sidebar will testify, he—”
“Nonsense, my dear,” cut in Gwenny. “That odious little Latin you were recently hobnobbing with in France is a well-known shamus. An operative for the Cosmos Detective Agency—and someone who’s intent on causing us no end of trouble and grief.”
Natalie nodded at her robot cameraman, but before Sidebar could produce a weapon the robot in the check suit fired a disabler at him.
Sidebar stiffened, then dropped to the patio stones and hit with a resounding bong.
Arthur jumped up, scowling from the fallen cameraman to his wife. “I say, old girl, what the deuce is the meaning of all this?” he asked, perplexed. “It rather, I mean to say, plays the devil with my interview, now doesn’t it?”
“Oh, Arthur dear, do be still.” Gwenny took a stungun out of her pocket, aimed it at Natalie, and fired.