Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

“What?”

“I could loan you this, if you’d take good care of it.” The agent brought out a square, black leather case. “Can you use one of these things?”

“I can fake it.”

“There’s a book of instructions that may help.” Prouty fished it out of the camera’s carrying case. “I’ll stick in some flash bulbs, too. You can say you’re from some news syndicate and you wanted to wait until you could get them in the appropriate surroundings. That’ll sound okay.”

“How many are there in this skating company?”

“Just four. Here—” Prouty pulled a folder out of his pocket. “Here’s a brochure I got up on ‘em. They’re really terrific. Best in the world. You look this over and I’ll answer any questions you’ve got, going up on the train.”

“Where’s the troupe now?”

Prouty glanced at his watch. “Just about pulling into Lake Placid. They took the sleeper right after they got paid off last night. There’s a train leaving about eleven tonight, gets us up there in time for breakfast.”

“First rate,” said Vine. “You take it.”

Prouty looked puzzled. “I thought you...”

Vine slung the shoulder-strap of the camera box over his head. “I’m going over to the airport. There’s a kid over there has a charter plane. He’ll put me up in the Adirondacks in a couple of hours.”

A worried crease showed between Prouty’s eyebrows.

“You act as if you had a grudge against my performers, Mister Vine,” he said.

The detective’s face was expressionless.

“Bill Corinth saved my life once by putting a slug through a guy who had a tom gun in his hands and a load of coke in his system.” He went to the door. “I’ll be looking for you up there, tomorrow morning.”

Prouty didn’t answer.

The investigator found his man at the flying field. An hour later, Vine was the lone passenger in a four-place cabin plane winging its way northward under a thousand foot ceiling of snow clouds. As the snaky length of the Hudson slipped beneath the plane, the detective ran through the booklet of instructions on the Graflex, practiced making a few adjustments so that he could bluff at being professional. Then he turned his attention to the brochure.

There were three men in the Troupe de St. Moritz, one girl. The featured performer was a short, stocky blond youth by the name of Wolf Rachau, referred to by Prouty as the “Neck-breaker.” According to the leaflet, Rachau had fractured his spine twice and received many other injuries in the course of a short but spectacular career as a stunt skater. It was Rachau who did the barrel-jumping on flashing steel blades, leaped through hoops of fire, raced over hurdles on the ice. He had the appearance of an irresponsible adolescent.

The girl in the troupe, Ilma Brant was the one who had been pictured on the advertising poster at the rink-side. By her photograph, she was a diminutive and graceful elf, billed as:

“Holder of more first awards for fancy figure-skating than any other woman in the world.”

Ilma’s features were those of a mannequin off the boulevards.

The picture of her partner, Jon Vezel, showed a short, dark man with a figure like the Winged Mercury and a sinister slit of a mouth, like that of a devil cheated of his victims. The eyes were deep-set in hollow sockets, the cheek-bones high and protruding, giving an effect of macabre gauntness. Gil Vine thought Jon Vezel would need plenty of make-up under floodlights.

But the face which held the investigators attention longest was that of Charles Lagand, featured as “The Daredevil Supreme.” This tall, handsome, mustachioed individual was advertised to skate blindfolded on a foot-wide, ice-covered beam twenty feet above the ice.

But it was not this publicity of Lagand which arrested Vine’s faculties — it was the recollection of a face which Vine had seen in the Federal Grand Jury room a dozen years before. Gil Vine was no “camera eye.” He depended upon accurately compiled files of “Wanted” individuals rather than his ability to classify types. But there had been something about the complacent assurance of that witness which had registered permanently on the film of his memory.

The plane slid to a stop in a spray of snow on the mountain-circled lake and he paid off his pilot. Yet it was not until he checked in at the Evergreen Club that Vine was quite certain about Lagand.

Down the rustic staircase into the log-walled lobby came the four members of Prouty’s skating troupe. The tall man holding Ilma’s arm was undoubtedly Charles Lagand. Just as certainly, a dozen years ago, he had been “Cherbourg Charlie,” youngest and most notorious of all confidence men on the trans-Atlantic liners.

Vine strolled over, accosted Lagand.

“Like to come along and take a shot or two, if you people are going to the lake, now. Mike Prouty said you’d be glad to run through a few routines so I can get some action stuff. Maybe a little leg art.”

He smiled sardonically at Ilma, who wore a chartreuse costume that was meant to show her shape.

“Marvelous.” Lagand beamed. ‘We make you welcome, eh? Any pal of Mike, he is a pal of us, also.”

Vine was made acquainted with Ilma, with Wolf Rachau and Jon Vezel.

“We do our new jitterbug number for you.” Ilma smiled with her eyes, “The man from the newsreel, he call it ‘Ice-Trucking’. It is ver-ee crazy. You will like it.” She clutched the black skate-bag under her arm gleefully.

Their equipment had not yet been set up, the Neck-breaker growled, they wouldn’t be able to demonstrate the hurdle race or the “tight-rope” skating until the evening. Vezel suggested slyly that the cameraman might like to take pictures of the intrepid Wolf Rachau going off a ski-jump on skates. Vine said it would be great. Rachau’s lips thinned. He made no attempt to conceal the sneer in his voice.

“But certainly. One picture of Rachau, he is worth a dozen of Vezel’s posing. Anyone recognize this. I will be glad to oblige.”

The Neck-breaker obligingly hurtled down the steep incline of the small ski-jump, rocketed precariously down an ice-encrusted runway of boards — while Gil Vine frantically snapped the shutter of a filmless camera...

Vezel and Ilma stood at the foot of the ski-run. He kept his back turned toward the hair-raising performance of his troupe-mate, but he paid plenty of attention to the girl.

Then Vine fiddled with shutter and focus adjustments for nearly an hour while Ilma and her partner executed rhythmic swoops and curvettes on the glassy surface of the lake. While this impromptu rehearsal went on, Rachau contented himself with caustic comments about Vezel’s appearance and ability. But he never once mentioned the lovely Ilma.

Vine observed Vezel angrily scolding Ilma under his breath as he started to whirl her about his head, by a grip on one wrist and ankle. Lagand did his best to make light of the poorly-concealed antagonisms but took the part of none.

Finished with his fake photography, Vine observed the troupe ending its practice. He was seated on a bench beside their equipment, watching the flashing blades cut gleaming furrows in the hard ice on abrupt turns and stops. But his eyes had a distant look, as though he was trying to puzzle something out, something that had little to do with the scene before him.

Then the four of them skated over to him, the rehearsal finished. He reached for the girl’s black skate bag and, holding it by the tubular runners of the skates within, handed it to her.

“The most beautiful skating I’ve ever seen, Miss Brant,” he said, grinning broadly.

“Thank you,” she answered, smiling graciously while her eyes searched his. I hope that the photos, they are good.”