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.”
“Know jest th’place,” interjected McDoul.
“Th’finest townhouse on its block,” added Erlic. “Aye an’ ’tis y’proper snooty block. Not far from th’Cardinal’s mansion, to boot.”
“We’ve been casin’ th’place,” explained G.J.
Another dagger in my heart!
“But that’ll cost money!” I fear my voice was shrill. “Lots of money!”
“We’ve got lots of money,” said Greyboar. “There was enough in Hildegard’s bonus to take care of everything we need. I know you’ve got it stashed away. So now’s the time to cough up.”
Well, I quit arguing at that point. As the wise man says: “You’ve got to know when to hold them, and when to fold them, and when you haven’t even got enough to ante up.”
Chapter 20.
A Plot Goes Awry
The next day—after spending more money to buy myself fancy
clothes and hire a fancy carriage, so I’d look like a gentleman—I rented the townhouse from the agent handling the property. Very nice place, too, the Trio were right about that. But it wouldn’t have done them any good since the place was completely empty. It turned out the owners had moved to a country estate and the townhouse was up for sale. So that meant spending still more money to provide us with minimal furnishings, and two extra days to obtain it.
But the lost time was probably a blessing in disguise. By the time the townhouse was ready, the costumes were done to perfection and McDoul had had plenty of time to perfect his accent. Angela was even able to remember enough of the Cardinal’s voice to get McDoul to a fair imitation of it.