The Thief of Thoth

26

"DUGAN, OLD BOY," Hautley began without preamble, "you are the one man in the galaxy who tried to turn the Crown of Stars trick and came back with his throat uncut, even though you didn't manage to snaffle the gemmy thing. What I want to know is very simple. To Wit:

(1) How is the Crown guarded?

(2) How far did you get before you got caught?

(3) Why did you fail to get the Crown?

(4) How did you get caught at all, and you the snorpest scraggling fizzler that ever flad a flid in neck of the galaxy?"

The Motley paunch heaved alarmingly with a series of seismic chuckles that wreaked havoc with cheek, jowl and upper torso in general. Hautley patiently waited while the mirthquake slowly subsided. As it did, at length. Wheezing and wiping tears of honest laughter from his bright twinkling eyes, the fat old man tossed off a last goblet of Chateau Moskowitz '022 as lightly as if it were nothing of higher potency than a beaker of carrot juice.

"So, my japer, that be's the caper, heh? The great Quicksilver planning to 'crown' a bee-youtiful career by snipping the Crown o' Stars itself, heh, me bucko? Oh, har har har!"

"That's it, all right," Hautley said firmly. “And the question is, Dugan, will you help me by giving me all the dope I need to make a try? You're the only one that tried and got caught and still got away with an un-laser-broiled epidermis. I'd sure like to know what sort of guards I face, and exactly how you pulled off so brilliant a coup. Will you help me, Dugan?"

"Yes, yes," the old man grumbled, wagging his head dolefully, pendulous jowls a-wobbling. "Yes ... old Dugan tried, the poor fat old feller ... tired and failed, dog rot the frazzled luck o' the Motleys! But better luck and all success, sez I, to me friend, the so great Quicksilver, on top of whom's shoulders the cloak o' fame I worn so long has passed!"

Hautley's mirror-bright eyes flashed eagerly.

"Then you'll help me, Dugan?"

"Aye, me spruce young bucko!" the old pirate beamed, triggering off another series of seismic chuckles that went joggling and jiggling down his monstrously fat facade. "Happily I be to tell to you all the ins of this dog-rotted Crown, and especialy the, har har, outs!"

"Great! "That's fantabulous, Dugan! Let me get my aoundscriber.” Hautley dug out of his "business suit" a miniature tape-recorder and snapped it on.

"Well, to beginning with, mine friend the great Quicksilver," Dugan began pompously, "you see, the Crown is—is—"!

"That's enough free gas, Gutsy, hold it right there/"

Dugan's voice broke off with an astounded snort.

Quicksilver's hand flew towards his concealed weaponry, but the hard, cold, level voice from behind them said:

"Freeze, Blue Boy, unless you want a ventilated duodenum. Everybody stay nice an' quite, 'cause I got a itchy trigger-stud finger, and this thing might go off. That's right!"

The steely-hard, ice-cold voice came from approximately seven feet three inches behind him, Hautley's keen sense of hearing told him. That would place its point of origin directly in front of the third in the series of French doors he recalled seeing when first he had entered this first-floor room. Secure in the knowledge that no criminal could recognize him in his current disguise as one of the Blue Nomads of Cordova 6, Aristocrat Class, what with his indigo-hued facial pigmentation, his scalpwig of scarlet bristles, his padded pneumatic suit, etc., Hautley froze motionless and stared straight ahead of him into the mirror behind the wall of liquor bottles. There he could see the reflections of the intruders who had so rudely broken in upon his colloquy with the Master Burglar of Capitan.

His heart sank, momentarily. He saw—as he had half-expected to see—a grey-complexioned Orgotyr in fluorescent scarlet tights slashed with dead-black piping and puckered ruffs, a kind-faced Wollheimian in severely tailored spray-on slacks with triple-gathered dockets down the cuff, a plum-skinned Schloim from Pazatar 9, and a white-furred and dual-headed entity from Wolverine 3.

This, he reflected, philosophically, was certainly not one of his better days.

But he had no one to blame but himself. For he had carelessly neglected to take a precaution both elementary and extremely vital to one employed in his precarious profession—a precaution so natural to his thinking, that he had once put it down on paper for the delectation of future versicle-lovers in this meaner:

Observed: he who would die in bed

Keeps one eye fixed behind, one fixed ahead!