Warren Murphy: King's Curse

He invented his first game at age twenty-two. When no game manufacturer would buy it, he himself produced and sold the game to department stores. At twenty-six he was wealthy. At thirty he was "America's Puzzle Master," spinning out from his fertile mind game after game, all of them bearing the Edgemont emblem, a large block E set into the middle of a geometric maze.

For the maze had been the linchpin of Edgemont's success. While his early games had been successful, the first that had swept America in a craze had been a board game built around a maze. It was inevitable that the maze motif be built into Edgemont's life, and when he built his estate in Englewood, New Jersey, he copied a European idea for a maze of hedges on the grounds. Life Magazine had done a full color spread on it once: "The Mysterious Mansion of America's Puzzle King."

The story did not mention any of the more unusual aspects of Eliot Jansen Edgemont's life. Most specifically it did not mention the orgies that took place in the maze that separated the house from the road.

Then, on one fine summer day in the late 1940's, two male guests caught the same girl in the maze at the same time, and in the resulting argument over property rights, one of the men was killed.

The scandal could not be hushed up, and various legions aimed at preserving America from the godless hordes organized boycotts of Edgemont products. The puzzle and home game business had been on the downs anyway, slowly being destroyed by America's new toy, television, and so the old man took his games and went home.

He sold his business and retired to Europe, where people were more broad-minded, and he died there in the mid 1960's of a stroke suffered while tupping a fifteen-year-old girl in a haymow. It took the girl six minutes to realize he was dead.

She told police that Edgemont said something before he died, but she could not hear the word clearly. Even if she had, she would not have been able to repeat it, for it was the secret name of the stone god Uctut.

For Edgemont had been an Actatl.

In the disposition of his estate, the mansion in Englewood passed into the hands of a corporation that was controlled by the tribe.

It was usually seen only by workmen who kept the hedges trimmed and the buildings in good repair, except on days like this, when the Actatl needed a place to conduct some business.

Today there were no workmen on the grounds, and as Jean Louis deJuin looked down into the center of the maze that covered more than an acre, he smiled in satisfaction.

Everything was going very well.

He looked up as a blue Ford pulled up outside the spike-topped high metal gates two hundred yards from the house. Raising field glasses to his eyes, he watched as Remo, Chiun, and Valerie got out of the car. The two men, he thought, did not really look impressive. Except for the thick wrists on the white man, neither showed any indication of special physical prowess. But he remembered that the white man had gone through some of the Actatl's best warriors like a Saracen blade through flan, and he did not make judgments on appearances anyway.

The gate to the estate had been locked at deJuin's order with a new heavy-duty chain and padlock. As he watched, deJuin saw the padlock and chain fall away under the hands of the Oriental as if they were paper.

Then the two men and the woman were walking between the twelve-foot-high walls of hedge toward the house, which sat on a small rise two hundred yards away. The alley through which they walked was about six feet wide.

DeJuin moved back from the window, set down his binoculars, and glanced down into the main body of the maze. Everything was ready.

The three people had reached the end of the hedge-lined walkway. A wall of hedge prevented their going farther ahead and they must choose now to turn left into the maze or go back. The Oriental looked behind them at the gate. He spoke, but deJuin could not hear the words.

The white man shook his head no, grabbed the girl roughly by the elbow, and turned left. The Oriental followed slowly.

Then they were into the maze, turning right, turning left, the white man leading the way, following the small paths down blind alleys, then turning back, slowly, steadily working their way toward the center.

The telephone on the floor next to deJuin buzzed slightly, and he nodded for Uncle Carl to answer it.

He stared at the three, and when they were deep in the heart of the labrynth, deJuin pulled the sheer curtain back a few inches and leaned forward toward the open window.

He made a small gesture with his hand, then leaned onto the windowsill to watch. This was going to be interesting.

"Why are we here?" Chiun demanded. "Why are we in this place of many turns?"

"Because we are going to that house to get Bobbi back. Remember her? You let them take her because you were busy watching your television shows?"

"That's right," said Chiun. "Blame it on me. Blame everything on me. It's all right. I'm used to it."

"Stop carping and-"

"So it's carp again, is it?" said Chiun.

"Stop complaining," said Remo, holding Valerie tightly by her elbow, "and help me find our way to the house. I'm getting confused in here."

"You were confused before you got here," said Chiun. "You have always been confused."

"Right, right, right. You win. Now will you help me get to the house?"

"We could go over the hedges," Chiun suggested.

"Not with this one," Remo said, nodding toward Valerie.

"Or through them," Chiun said.

"She'd get cut. Then she'd probably start yelling. I couldn't take it if her mouth was going."

Remo reached a blank wall of hedge. Another dead end.

"Dammit," he said.

"If we cannot go through or over," Chiun said, "there is only one thing to do."

"Which is…"

"Find our way through this growth."

"That's what I'm trying to do," Remo said.

"Actually it is a simple little toy," Chiun said. "Once there was a master, this was many years ago in what you would call the time of the pharaohs, and while in the land of the Egyptians, oh, to what a test he was put with one of these labyrinths and it was only his-"

"Please, Chiun, no puff pieces for great masters you have known and loved. Bottom line. Do you know how to get through this thing?"

"Of course. Each master is privileged to share the learnings of all the masters who have gone before."

"And?"

"And what?" asked Chiun.

"And how the hell do we get through this thing?"

"Oh." Chiun sighed. "Put out your right hand and touch the wall of hedge."

Remo touched the spiny green bush. "Now what?"

"Just move forward. Be sure your hand is against a wall at all times. Follow it around corners, into dead ends, everywhere it takes you. You must eventually find the exit."

Remo looked at Chiun with narrowed eyes. "Are you sure this will work?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I thought you wanted to do it your way. Running down alleys until they disappeared and then yelling at the plants. I did not know you wanted to do this efficiently. It has never been one of the things you are most interested in."

"No more talk. Let's get to the house." Remo moved away at a trot, keeping Valerie close to his left side, his right hand extended, fingertips on the hedge wall.

Chiun moved along after them, seeming only to amble, but staying just a step behind.

"They found a telephone number in the room," Uncle Carl hissed to deJuin. "It is a number in the state of Maine for a Dr. Harold Smith."

"Smith?" mused deJuin, still staring into the maze. "Call Paris and have our computer run the name of Smith through its memories." He smiled as he watched Remo reach out his hand and touch the hedge. DeJuin had nodded. So the secrets of a maze were no secret to the old man.