The Philosophical Strangler(88)

No sooner said than done. Jenny and Angela started working on G.J. and the Weasel immediately, ignoring the latter’s complaints.

While they were working, Greyboar explained the plan. I was impressed, I’ve got to admit. I usually had to do the fine-filigreed plotting and such, but the strangler’d come up with as clever a scheme as I’d ever heard. Maybe all that philosophic rumination was oiling up the rusty gears in his head, after all. But more likely it was the image of the Cat wasting away in her cell which made him think better than he usually did.

Not meaning to make fun of the great brute here, mind you! If I could bend steel bars with the fingers of one hand, I imagine I would have let my brain cells wither on the vine, too. But built like I am—well, let’s just say that I had to rely on wit rather than brawn to get by. Helped having Greyboar for a client and friend, I admit.

But I don’t want to get too carried away, here. There was still a great gaping hole in his scheme, big enough to drive a wagon through. The Trio spotted it at once.

“An’ what’ll th’Cardinal be doin’ all this time?” demanded Erlic. His voice was sulky, caused, I’ve not a doubt, by the sight of his beloved oily ringlets lying on the floor. “E’en wit’ th’four o’ us t’do th’work, it’ll still take th’day or two t’dig the Cat out. Vincent said th’tunnel t’her cell was still th’good ten feet away.”

Greyboar scratched his chin. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I still haven’t figured that out. Somehow or other, we’ve got to get the Cardinal out of the picture for a couple of days. I’m stymied on that part of it, I admit.”

“Oh, that’s easy!” exclaimed Jenny, smiling like a spring day.

“We’ll take care of the Cardinal!” shrieked Angela, clapping her hands with delight.

I tried to cut them off, but it’s hard to advance the cogent voice of reason when you’ve got Greyboar’s hand the size of a dinner plate wrapped around your mouth.

Smart girls, dammit. Didn’t take the little rascals but three minutes to lay out a whole plan to keep the Cardinal out from under foot for as long as we needed. The plan was a good one, too. But I was thinking quick myself, so during the same three minutes I thought up two cogent lines of reasoning. Then I started mumbling as loud as I could.

Jenny looked cross. “Oh, let him talk, Greyboar,” she snapped. “We’ll have to listen to it sooner or later, anyway.”

“Fusses over us like a hen over her chicks, Ignace does,” added Angela. She glared at me.

My voice back, I laid it out:

“One. None of us’ll be here to help you tie up the Cardinal. Even with him out of the way, we’ll still be pressed for time. The rest of us will have to get into His So-Called Grace’s mansion as soon as he leaves. You’ll be alone with the monster! Helpless! At the mercy of his unbridled lust!”

“Pooh,” said Angela. Jenny stuck her tongue out at me. Then they refuted my argument.

“He’s just a wretched old man!” snapped Jenny.

“Can’t hardly walk!”

“Think we can’t handle him?”

“Sure we’re not big, but he’s not so big either!”

“And there’s two of us!”

“And we’re real strong for our size!”

“We really are! We’re really healthy and energetic and full of vim and vigor!”

Then, the unkindest cut of all, coming with a pair of evil grins:

“You should know, Ignace,” smirked Angela. “You never last more than an hour.”

“That’s why we always start with you,” cackled Jenny, “and finish with each other.”

I ignored the vulgar snickers coming from Greyboar and the Trio. Pressed on, undaunted, head bloodied but unbowed.

“Two. Sure and the Cardinal’ll come running with his tongue hanging out. But what do you think he’ll do when he sees this house? Not his type of place, don’t you know? Man of refined tastes, the Cardinal. Not that he’ll have any objection to sating his fiendish lusts on the bodies of two working-class girls, mind you—especially young and pretty ones. In a pinch, the man’ll hump a goat. It’s true—he keeps one in his basement for the odd rainy day. I heard it once from one of his servants. But he’ll certainly not agree to doing the dirty deed here, in the slums. He’ll insist you come back to his mansion. And then we’re in the soup!”

Ha! That did it! Wiped those evil grins right off their faces.

Until Greyboar put them back on, oh, maybe two seconds later.

“No problem. We’ll just have to rent some fancy townhouse in the hoity-toity part of town, that’s all. Plenty of ’em available at the moment. Half the nobility’s out taking the waters at the spas.”