Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [45]
“Yes. It makes the whole thing so much more difficult. Maybe we should hand this over to Dadd and the Peep O’Day Boys.”
“Because of your barber?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. I suppose I’ve lost confidence after the whole Krongeitz business.”
“I think we should go to Cornet’s and you should get your beard shaved off,” said Susan. “I will wait and observe, making caustic comments, in the role of your fiancée.”
“I wish you would be my fiancée.”
“You know we’re not going to talk about that until you’re completely recovered,” said Susan. “As I was saying, this will allow us to get a feel for the place, and we may well sense any unusual vibrations that would confirm the location.”
“So we walk into what is probably an enemy lair and I sit down and ask to have a razor put to my throat,” said Magnus. “Besides, what do we do if it is the place?”
“I doubt the barbershop, or your Radziwill, is actually involved,” said Susan. “Think about it. They’ve been there too long, and it’s too public. I expect we’ll find they’ve a new odd-jobs man who lurks in the cellar, or something like that.”
“Maybe,” replied Magnus. “But it could be they’re all in it, a secret society of barber-illuminati.”
“Yes, it could,” admitted Susan. “In which case, I will give you the blue pill.”
Magnus looked at her very seriously. “I really would prefer it didn’t come to that.”
“Dadd is sure that occasional use of the blue pill will actually advance your cure,” said Susan gently.
“Dadd is sure of more things than he should be,” said Magnus. “But it’s you I’m worried about. You know I can’t control—”
“I have the necklace, and the antagonist. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t hand this over to Dadd?”
“Yes,” replied Susan, with considerable certainty. “Here we are. Do we go in?”
“I suppose we do,” said Magnus.
“YOU WISH ME to shave the beard?” asked Radziwill. “It has barely had a chance to begin.”
“Cut off in its youth,” sighed Sir Magnus. He rolled his eyes to where Susan was sitting primly on a chair, apparently reading the copy of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine that she had taken from her bag. “But it has to go.”
“Interesting place you have here, Mr. Radzorwell,” said Susan over the top of the magazine. “I’ve never seen anywhere like this.”
“Ladies do not usually come inside,” said Radziwill in a very dampening manner. He began to strop his razor, which both Magnus and Susan noted was silver handled, and possibly the blade was silver too. “It is a gentlemen’s establishment.”
“Where does that charming little stair go?” asked Susan. She pointed past the row of curtained booths to the far end of the room, where a brass-railed stair curled down beside a wall of massive, ancient stones.
“The cellar, ma’am, where we store our scents and oils,” said Radziwill.
“Oh, I should like to see that!” exclaimed Susan. She got up and started to walk towards the stair. But she had hardly taken a step when the curtains of every booth on either side slid back, to reveal twelve other barbers, each holding a silver razor. Radziwill made the thirteenth, and there were no customers in sight.
“Damn,” exclaimed Magnus, delivering a savage kick to Radziwill’s groin at the same time he leapt out of the chair. The barber grimaced and swung back with the razor, which Magnus countered with a swirl of the sheet that had been around his shoulders a moment before.
Susan sat back down and opened her bag with a click. Reaching quickly inside, she pulled out a large blue pill.
“Magnus!”
Magnus turned his head and opened his mouth. Susan threw the blue pill unerringly down his gullet and immediately reached into the bag to withdraw a necklace of shimmering blue stones, which she dropped over her head.
“I really wish you weren’t involved in this, Radziwill,” said Magnus, parrying another swipe. “You’re an excellent barber . . . argh!”
Radziwill looked at his razor in puzzlement. He had swung, but as far as he could tell had cut only the sheet which Magnus had been employing as something between a baffle and a main-gauche.
Magnus screamed