Part 4 (2/2)

”Well?”

”It could be authentic,” admitted Hoddan.

”In other words,” said the amba.s.sador, ”you are not sure that it is a b.o.o.by trap--an invitation to a date with the police?”

”I'm not sure,” said Hoddan. ”I think I'd better bite. If I have any illusions left after this morning, I'd better find it out. I thought Nedda liked me quite a lot.”

”I make no comment,” observed the amba.s.sador. ”Can I help you in any way?”

”I have to leave the Emba.s.sy,” said Hoddan, ”and there's a practically solid line of police outside the walls. Could I borrow some old clothes, a few pillows, and a length of rope?”

Half an hour later a rope uncoiled itself at the very darkest outside corner of the Emba.s.sy wall. It dangled down to the ground. This was at the rear of the Emba.s.sy enclosure. The night was bright with stars, and the city's towers glittered with many lights. But here there was almost complete blackness and that silence of a city which is sometimes so companionable.

The rope remained hanging from the wall. No light reached the ground there. The tiny crescent of Walden's farthest moon cast an insufficient glow. Nothing could be seen by it.

The rope went up, as if it had been lowered merely to make sure that it was long enough for its purpose. Then it descended again. This time a figure dangled at its end. It came down, swaying a little. It reached the blackest part of the shadow at the wall's base. It stayed there.

Nothing happened. The figure rose swiftly, hauled up in rapid pullings of the rope. Then the line came down again and again a figure descended.

But this figure moved. The rope swayed and oscillated. The figure came down a good halfway to the ground. It paused, and then descended with much movement to two-thirds of the way from the top.

There something seemed to alarm it. It began to rise with violent writhings of the rope. It climbed--

There was a crackling noise. A stun-pistol. The figure seemed to climb more frantically. More cracklings. Half a dozen--a dozen sharp, snapping noises. They were stun-pistol charges and there were tiny sparks where they hit. The dangling figure seemed convulsed. It went limp, but it did not fall. More charges poured into it. It hung motionless halfway up the wall of the Emba.s.sy.

Movements began in the darkness. Men appeared, talking in low tones and straining their eyes toward the now motionless figure. They gathered underneath it. One went off at a run, carrying a message. Someone of authority arrived, panting. There was more low-toned argument. More and still more men appeared. There were forty or fifty figures at the base of the wall.

One of those figures began to climb the rope hand over hand. He reached the motionless object. He swore in a shocked voice. He was shushed from below. He let the figure drop. It made next to no sound when it landed.

Then there was a rus.h.i.+ng, as the guards about the Emba.s.sy went furiously back to their proper posts to keep anybody from slipping out Two men remained swearing bitterly over a dummy made of old clothes and pillows.

But their profanity was in vain.

Hoddan was then some blocks away. He suffered painful doubt about the note ostensibly from Nedda. The guards about the Emba.s.sy would have tried to catch him in any case, but it did seem very plausible that the note had been sent him to get him to try to get down the wall. On the other hand, a false descent of a palpably dummylike dummy had been plausible, too. He'd drawn all the guards to one spot by his seeming doubt and by testing out their vigilance with a dummy. The only thing improbable in his behavior had been that after testing their vigilance with a dummy, he'd made use of it.

A fair distance away, he turned sedately into a narrow lane between buildings. This paralleled another lane serving the home of a girl friend of Nedda's. The note had named the garden behind that other girl's home as a rendezvous. But Hoddan was not going to that garden. He wanted to make sure. If the cops had forged the note--

He judged his position carefully. If he climbed this tree,--hm-m-m....

Kind of the city-planners of Walden to use trees so lavishly--if he climbed this tree he could look into the garden where Nedda in theory waited in tears. He climbed it. He sat astride a thick limb in scented darkness and considered further. Presently he brought out his five-watt projector. There was deepest darkness hereabouts. Trees and shrubbery were merely blacker than their surroundings. But there was reason for suspicion.

Neither in the house of Nedda's girl friend, nor in the nearer house between, was there a single lighted window.

Hoddan adjusted the wave-guide and pressed the stud of his instrument.

He pointed it carefully into the nearer garden.

A man grunted in a surprised tone. There was a stirring. A man swore startledly. The words seemed inappropriate to a citizen merely breathing the evening air.

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