Principal Palace, in which all Grand Imperial Courts were held, was in Chicago; hence the Count of Chicago
had more real power than most Earls and Marquises. More, in fact, than many Dukes. (Manley, Feudalism;
Reel I, Intro See viii).
The Massagerie
In his private office the Head was talking with a greyhaired man who, while old, was in no sense decrepit. Grand
Lady Helena sat, shapely legs crossed, working on a twelveounce glass of cherry-ice-cream float.
“But what does it mean, Zan?” the older man asked. “Route the Circus to Durward-with instructions not to do
anything whatever except circus routine. Carlos and Carmen Velasquez will not report and nothing they do, how-
ever wild, will be of any importance. And now this beautyparlor business, right here on Earth! It doesn’t make
sense.”
“Not a beauty parlor, Bill. A massagerie de luxe. Or rather, “The House of Strength of Body and of Heart.”‘ “But
don’t you know what they’re doing?”
“Very little; and I don’t want to know more. I give them a job; they do it their own way. I would hazard a guess that
they have some reason to believe that a specific person they are interested in is likely to take an interest in
bodybuilding. This, you will note, implies that they have reached the point of being interested in specific persons …
but I don’t know who. That is to the good.
“As a recent event proved, the less I know of detail, the better.”
“That’s true. No trace of your missing person?” “None. There probably won’t be any until the d’Alemberts crack the
main case. While they’re working on it they get anything they want, with no questions asked.”
“As they should, especially since they want so little from us. I know that Circus taxes are rebated, but surely they
spend more than that on Empire business?”
“My guess is, they don’t. The Circus is so successful that its taxes are very high, but the Duke won’t say how high. I
asked him once if we didn’t owe him some money and he told me if I wanted to count pennies I’d better go get
myself a job in a dime store.”
The old man laughed. “That sounds exactly like him. But DesPlaines is a rich planet, you know, and Etienne
d’Alembert is a tremendously able man-as well as being one of my best friends. Well, I’ll leave you to your work. I
like to talk to you when I’m feeling low, Zan; you give me a lift.” He raised his glass. “Tomorrow, fellow and friend.
May we all live to see it.” They drank the toast and Emperor Stanley Ten, erect and springy, left the room.
Helena grinned up at her father. “You didn’t exactly lie, either; but if he knew as much as we do he wouldn’t feel so
uplifted.” .
“He has troubles enough of his own without having to carry ours. Besides, we don’t know who they’re after. It could
turn out to be someone outside those six, as well as not.”
The girl nodded. “If we had even a good suspicion, he’d get a shot of nitrobarb. All we know is that they haven’t got a
shred of evidence of anything. But bow under the sun and moon and eleven circumpolar stars can this glorified
gymnasium help solve anything?”
“I haven’t the most tenuous idea, my dear-and just between us two, I’m just as curious as you are.”
A ten-story gravity-controlled building in the Evanston district of Chicago had been remodelled from top to
bottom. All the work had been done by the high -grav personnel who now occupied the building. Over its splendidly
imposing entrance a triple-tube brilliant sign flared red:
DANGER-THREE GRAVITIES-DANGER
and on each side of the portal, in small, severely plain obsidian letters on a silver background, a plaque read:
duClos
For weeks before the opening it had been noised abroad that this House of Strength would cater only to the top-
most flakes of the upper crust; and that was precisely what it did. It turned down applicants, even of the nobility, by
the score. Its first clients, and for some time its only clients, were the extremely powerful Count of Chicago, his
Countess and their two gangling teen-age daughters. Since this display of ultra-snobbishness appealed very strongly
to the ultra-snobbishness of the high nobility of the Capital of Empire, “duClos” raised snobbery to a height of per-
formance very seldom seen anywhere.
“How’re you doing, sis?” Jules asked, one evening. “I’m getting a few bites, but nothing solid. But there’s a feel
about Sector Twenty that I don’t like-I’m sure we’re on the right track.”
“So am I, and I’m getting an idea. I wasn’t going to mention it until I could thicken it up a little, but here goes. You
know that Duchess of Swingleton? That snooty stinker that’s supposed to be the daughter of the Grand Duchess?”
Jules came to attention with a snap. “Supposed to be?” “Well, is then. Maybe I shouldn’t have put it quite that
way-but you know how I’ve learned to sneer, in my own inimitable ladylike way?”
“I wouldn’t put that ‘quite that way,’ either. If it was me on the receiving end I’d sock you right in the middle of your
puss.”
“She’d really like to. I’ve been giving her the royal snoot all along and she’s burning like a torch. But her mother,
Grand Duchess Olga, takes it in stride. So why wouldn’t Swingleton . . . unless she’s bursting at the seams with
something she’s bottling up?”
“My God, Eve! You think she’s the Bastard’s daughter?” “I’m not that far along yet, it’s just a possibility. Not
daughter; sixty-seven he would be; she’s only about twenty. Still in the silly age-which may account for her touchi-
ness and everything. She’s beautiful, athletic, rich, talented, noble and spoiled rotten. Her hobby is men. She works
hard at it. So my thought is this: if she gets the idea from somewhere that duClos. himself is the one and only
Mister Big in this business I’m positive that she’ll insist on you coaching her yourself-personally. You take her on,
but instead of bowing down and worshipping, you act like and say that you wouldn’t be caught dead with her at a cat-
fight, to say nothing of in bed. If I’m right she’ll blow up like a bomb and say something she shouldn’t.”
Jules whistled piercingly through his teeth. “Wowl” he said.
Three days later, Jules accompanied Yvette into the apartment of the Duchess of Swingleton, who proved to be a
tall girl-two inches taller than Jules-beautiful of face and figure, with dark blue eyes and a mass of wheat-straw-
colored hair piled high on a proudly-held. Jules, after being presented, walked slowly around her once, studying her
from head to foot from every angle. He scowled and then said, “Maybe I can do something with this, but there
doesn’t seem to be much of anything there to work on. Peel, you, and I’ll see.”
“Peel?” The girl’s head went even higher, her eyes blazed. “Are you talking to me?” she flared.
“I’m talking to a mass of fat and a little flabby meat that ought to be muscle but isn’t, he replied caustically. “Do you
expect a master sculptor to make something of a tub of clay without touching it? Wear a bikini or tights if you
like-although how you can imagine that I, duClos, would get the thrills over such a slug’s body as yours is
completely beyond my comprehension.”
“Get out!” Trembling with rage, she pointed at the door. “Leave this castle at once!”
He gave her his choicest top-deck sneer. “Madame, nothing could possibly please me more.” He executed a snappy
about-face and made for the door.
“Wait, you! Turn around!” “Yes?” he asked, coldly.
“I am the Duchess of Swingleton!”
“And I, madame, am duClos. There are hundreds and hundreds of duchesses, but there is only one duClos.”
She fought her anger down. “I’ll put on a swimsuit,” she said. “After all, I do want to find out whether you’re any
good or not.”
But when she came back, dressed in practically nothing, duClos was even less impressed than before. “Lard,” he
said, when his talented fingers had reported their preliminary findings to his brain. “Flabby, unrendered lard; but I’ll
see what I can do with it. Well go to your gymnasium now.”
“Why, aren’t you going to take me to your place?”
He looked at her in amused and condescending surprise. “Are you that stupid? You’d fall flat and could hardly get
up. It’ll take a month of work here before you’ll be able to work in the House of Strength. To your gymnasium, I
say.”
In the castle’s gymnasium, he said, “First, we’ll show you what we, accustomed to three Earth gravities, can do
easily here on Earth,” and he and Yvette went through a routine of such violence that the apparatus creaked and