Act Two, Part Three ~~~

Catalina led Señor Gordon down a corridor and stopped before a certain door. Glancing about to be sure they were alone and unobserved, she said, "Here."

"Ah," said Artie. He smiled at her and gave the door knob a turn. "But it's locked, querida. Do you have the key?"

She stared at him. "No, of course I do not have the key! Señor G… I mean, Don Pablo, this is the linen closet I told you of earlier. You remember that, do you not? The one you wished to investigate? The reason for which I was to get you inside the consulate?" She frowned. "And why are you looking at me that way?"

"What way, Catalina my dear?"

"Like…" She did not want to finish the sentence, for the expression on his face was that of a man making plans to draw a woman into his arms. It was true that he was supposed to play the role of her suitor, but even now? "Señor Gordon?" she whispered.

"¿Sí, querida?"

"The door!" She pointed at it emphatically.

"Hmm?" He turned his head slowly, so slowly, to look at the door. It was as if, she thought, he were reluctant to tear his eyes away from gazing upon her face. But why? Why was he acting this way? Earlier, after his arrival here, he had been attentive to her, it was true, but only when they might be seen. He had changed though. But when? and why?

Abruptly the man gave himself a massive shake and squeezed his eyes shut. He opened them again and blinked several times with the air of someone coming out of a trance. "Door," he said. "Right. Right, the door."

Artie reached into a pocket and produced a small device that looked very much like the wind-up mechanism from inside a music box. He cranked the key several times, then knelt down and fitted the device over the keyhole. "Warn me if anyone's coming," he said.

"." She looked around nervously.

In a matter of moments the device had done its job and the door was unlocked. Artie stowed the wind-up lock pick back into a pocket, then opened the door and looked inside. "Hmm…"

"What is it?" asked Catalina.

"Looks like a linen closet." There was room enough to step inside, so he did. Still standing outside, Catalina watched him as he made a swift but thorough search of the room, running his hands over the walls and under the linens.

"What are you looking for?"

"Some sort of switch to… ah!" He was feeling under the lowest shelf of all, and his fingers found a lever. He jiggled it.

Click! The entire wall swung outward, revealing a stairway descending into the darkness beyond. Artie grinned. "No wonder the architect wouldn't let the baron inspect things too closely. Come along, mi querida, and close that door behind you." Taking Catalina's hand, he led the way down the hidden staircase.

As the door to the nursery suite opened, Jim disappeared behind it, hiding in the angle the door made with the wall. A young woman dressed in the livery of a maid stepped in, curtseyed to the baroness' children, and spoke to them in Pterovnia.

"Dasda," Mireje replied, using a word Jim recognized as meaning "Yes."

And Andreshko added, "Thank you, yes, we are done with dinner. You may take it all away now."

With a frown in her voice, the maid spoke again, addressing herself to Andreshko. And he replied with a light laugh, "Oh, I am speaking to you in English because, ah… because Señora Reyes likes for me to practice my English, you see!"

His sister then spoke to the maid, presumably translating the boy's remarks. The servant curtseyed again and crossed to the table. Loading everything onto the rolling cart, she wheeled it all away, closing the door after her.

Jim stepped out from hiding. "Thank you for not giving me away," he said to the children.

"Oh no, we would not do that," said Andreshko merrily. "This is too much fun!"

"Fun!" exclaimed his sister. "You call learning that our mother probably had our father killed fun?"

"No, no, not that! But the spying, that is fun." With a twinkle in his eye, the boy turned to the American and said, "I should like to come with you, Mr West. I still want to help you. I know the building very well!"

"I'm sure you know this place like the back of your hand, Andreshko," said Jim, "but this is not a game of Hide-and-Go-Seek. This is a very dangerous business, and you need to stay right here with your sister."

The children looked at each other, and then Mireje, shyly, crossed to the American. "Oh, do be careful!" she said, her wide eyes looking up into his face. "I would hate for anything bad to happen to you."

"I would hate that too, Mireje," said Jim. He gave her a big smile, and then, to the boy's embarrassment, Jim pulled the girl into his arms and gave her a big kiss as well.

"Good-bye, Mireje," Jim said to her after he let her go.

Her reply was an inarticulate squeak.

"And, you," Jim added to Andreshko, "stay here."

The boy nodded and Jim left.

Andreshko looked at his sister, who was standing with her head to one side, a happy, dreamy smile upon her face. "Ha!" snorted the boy. "Kissing!" He made a face, then opened the door of their suite and peered out into the hallway.

Seeing him do so snapped Mireje out of her reverie. "What are you up to?" she said sharply.

He grinned at her. "I too shall be a spy!"

"What? No, no, Andreshko! Did you not hear Merinko West? He said for us to stay here!"

The kid grinned back at his sister. "So?" he said, and he slipped through the door and disappeared down the hall.

"If I'm estimating correctly how far down we've come," Artie whispered to the governess, "I believe this staircase goes all the way down below the consulate."

"Into the basement?"

"Farther than that, I think. Unless this building has a very deep basement."

They reached the end of the stairs. Artie held up a hand for silence as he listened for a bit. "Do you hear anything?" he asked at last.

She shook her head.

"All right, Catalina my dear, let's see where we are, hmm?" He felt along the blank wall in front of them until he found a catch and flicked it.

As with the back wall of the linen closet upstairs, so here, the wall in front of them swung open. Artie took the woman's hand and they stepped through the door.

They were in an office. Pale beige paneling on the walls and ceiling reflected the gas light, making the room seem light and airy. A desk and chair stood near one wall, with other typical furnishings for an office - more chairs, a sofa, a few small tables, a globe, a tall clock, and some bookshelves - scattered about the room. There was an exquisite oriental rug on the floor, and some surprisingly expensive art work adorning the walls.

There was no other door in evidence. Artie went to the desk and began glancing over the papers upon it, being careful to disturb them as little as possible. After checking them, as well as taking a quick peek under the desk pad, he started on the drawers, picking the locks of any that were shut up against prying eyes.

While he was thus engaged in his little job of snooping, Catalina wandered the room, taking in the books on the shelves and the art on the walls. "I… I cannot believe this!" she said softly. "I had no idea she had all this here!"

"You're the one who believed she had a hidden office, querida," Artie pointed out.

"Hidden, yes, but…" She raised her hands in a wide gesture to encompass the whole of the room, "but not something like this! I imagined a little nook hidden directly behind the linen closet!" She came over to the desk as Artie closed the final drawer and stood up. "Think of it, Señor Gordon! If she has a room like this buried beneath the consulate, what else did she induce the architect to add to the building? What other secret rooms might she have?"

Jim made his way through the halls, checking rooms, looking for anything that might betray whatever plans the baroness had for the future. She surely hadn't inveigled the prince to come all the way out west with no object in mind. Jim looked into one room after another, finding that this upper floor was for the most part the realm of bedrooms, and most of those were unoccupied as of yet. He took advantage of the solitude to seek out the baroness' own suite.

At length he found it, but only after first discovering her late husband's rooms. These were all but bare already, all the manly articles in them neatly boxed up, ready to be removed. That hadn't taken long, thought Jim, but then if the man's wife had known beforehand that he was never coming back, she might well have given orders to pack his things away right after he left.

He closed the doors here and found that across the hall was the suite belonging to Baroness Gorashche. He entered quietly and scouted through the suite. She had a desk in here, but a cursory examination showed nothing that Jim could identify as helpful. He moved on to milady's boudoir and checked here as well, especially in the jewelry box; in his experience, women tended to hide things there, but no, he again found nothing here that was out of the ordinary.

A sound from the main room alerted him and Jim slipped over to the bedroom door and peered out. The baroness herself had just entered and was coming straight toward the room he was in!

Swiftly he hid himself inside a closet and with not a moment to spare. He heard the door open and close, then heard her footsteps cross the boudoir, though not coming in his direction. He cracked open the door and had a look just in time to see the baroness touch a piece of molding on the far wall. A panel slid open in front of her and she stepped through it, leaving it open behind her.

Jim abandoned the closet to follow the baroness. As he peered into the hidden room, he saw what looked like a cross between a lab and a kitchen, and in it sat a wizened old woman who would be perfectly typecast as one of the weird sisters from Macbeth. He watched as the two women spoke together for some time, but unfortunately for him, they spoke in Pterovnian. The old woman then took up a beautiful cut-glass carafe with a heart-shaped label tied around its neck and handed it to the baroness. She accepted it with a sinister smile, then left the hidden room.

The baroness closed up the sliding panel behind her, turned around, and paused. Frowning as if something were wrong, she looked all about herself, the carafe clutched protectively in both her hands. Ah! Her eyes glowing with anger, she strode purposefully over to her dressing table where the jewelry box was standing wide open. Setting down the carafe, she ransacked the box quickly, then slammed the lid shut. Now she strode from the suite, taking the carafe away with her.

After a moment's silence, the closet door peeped open and Jim came out. Obviously that carafe was important and he was determined to find out why.

Young Andreshko prowled through the halls of the consulate, dodging into nooks and crannies whenever anyone came along, thoroughly enjoying his own endeavor at spying. He reached his mother's office without being caught, listened at the door, then slipped inside and hurried to the desk. Oh, how exciting it would be if he were to find the evidence Mr West had spoken of! The boy riffled quickly through the papers on the desk top, not entirely sure what he was looking for. Frowning, he pulled at the drawers and, finding them locked, he scrunched down to see if perhaps there was a key attached to the underside of the desk.

There was. He was just leaning in under the kneehole of the desk when the office door opened and he heard his mother's voice speaking to Colonel Nevje.

Uh-oh! Having nowhere else to go, Andreshko crammed himself into the kneehole and prayed he would be not be caught.

Artie tucked something into his inside jacket pocket. "All right, we're done here."

"You have found what you needed?"

"Yes and no."

Catalina shook her head. "I do not understand."

He smiled and patted her cheek. "Don't worry about it. It's evidence against the baroness, but not very strong evidence, I'm afraid. We'll have to keep looking." He paused, then added, "But you've been calling me Señor Gordon again, querida mia! ¡Por favor, me llamas Artemus!"

She started, her eyebrows arching. Why was he using the familiar form of the verb with her? That was a bit forward. And why was he requesting that she call him Artemus? "Was it not Pablo that you wished me to call you?" she said.

He paused and frowned. "Ah… Er. Right. Yes, yes, call me Pablo." He frowned a bit longer and shook his head as if to clear it. He then took her hand again. "Come on, Catalina my dear. We'd better get out of here before we get caught… Cat." His eyes twinkled at the dash of word play he had just engaged in.

Frowning, Catalina echoed, "Cat? Why would you call me that?"

"Because I want to," he replied. "Because it's short for Catalina." His eyes still twinkling, he raised a hand to touch her cheek, brushing the tips of his fingers lightly over her skin. For an unsettling moment, judging from the smile on his face - for he looked distinctly moon-struck - she thought the man was going to kiss her. And so she leaned back from him.

The slight movement caught his attention. He blinked. Frowning, he blinked some more and finally gave himself a good head-clearing shake. "Cat…" he said. "No… no, caught. We need to get out of here before we get caught." And with her hand still held firmly in his own, he led her out of the underground office to start back up the long staircase to the locked linen closet.

Andreshko made himself as small as possible under the desk as he heard his mother come into the office. "Keep an eye on the governess and her guest," she commanded Colonel Nevje.

"Do you think the drink has worked?" said the chief guard.

"That is part of the reason I wish you to keep an eye on them!" said the baroness. "Now go!"

"Yes, my lady," said the colonel, and the boy heard the office door close.

His mother went to the liquor stand first and set down a beautiful cut-glass carafe. She stroked the bottle fondly, and whispered, "Ah, but if that drink has worked on the governess' suitor, here we have more from Ekatje's art! I can hardly wait to see… But first he must come to us. The fly must enter the spider's parlor, yes?"

Chuckling under her breath, his mother crossed to the desk and seated herself. Andreshko had to contort himself to avoid her feet. Unaware that she was not alone, the baroness pulled some blank stationery toward her, dipped a pen into ink, and began to write. The boy heard her speak a few isolated words as she wrote, words such as "all is safe" and "come at once." With a self-satisfied chuckle, she laid a sheet of blotting paper upon the note and pressed the ink dry. She then folded the note and slipped it into an envelope, adding a name to the outside. "There!" she said, and rang a bell.

One of the staff entered shortly. "Zernkje muje?"

Speaking to the woman in rapid Pterovnian, the baroness ordered her to have one of the guards take the note and deliver it to the finest suite in the finest hotel in San Francisco.

"Dasda, Zernkje muje," said the servant girl and left.

"Excellent!" the baroness said to herself. She leaned back in her chair and began to stretch her legs out to their fullest extent under the desk.

The door sprang open. "My lady!"

The baroness shot upright in her chair, making enough noise that she did not hear the sigh of relief from the kneehole before her. "What do you mean by entering without knocking, Nevje?" she growled.

"My lady, the man and Reyes are no longer in the parlor. They are in fact nowhere to be found!"

"What?" Baroness Vazilje leapt from her chair and strode toward the door. "They must be found! Call out the guard! Search everywhere!" And the door slammed behind the two women as they rushed out to ransack the consulate for the missing couple.

A few seconds later, a very shaken young boy emerged from beneath the desk, beginning to have his doubts that this spy business was as much fun as he had thought it would be a half an hour earlier. On the other hand, what was this drink his mother had spoken of? Who was Ekatje? Oh! and his governess had a suitor?

Jim continued to move quietly through the halls. He had lost the baroness, and was now on the prowl for her main office, which he was sure would be down here on the lower floor. He was finding it harder to dodge the guards now, which told him that something was up. He slipped into a room to avoid detection as another group of watchwomen came charging down a hall, calling out to each other in Pterovnian. He didn't know what they were saying, of course, but strongly suspected it just might have something to do with Artie.

They reached the top of the stairs and Artie, after a brief search, found the latch to open the back of the linen closet. They stepped through and he closed it again, then pressed his ear to the closet door. "Uh-oh."

"What is it?" asked Catalina.

"I hear voices out there, and not very happy voices either." He listened a bit longer, hearing the sound of the baroness snapping out orders left and right to search everywhere. Moments later a key clattered its way into the lock, and Artie pulled Catalina back from the door. "Someone's coming in!" he hissed. "And there's no point in going back downstairs, because there's nowhere to hide down there. So just… act natural."

"Act natural! We are in a closet! What is there about being in a closet together that is natural?"

"Well," he said, "there's this, for instance."

"Mrph!" exclaimed Catalina as to her great surprise, Artie all but swept her off her feet into a passionate kiss.

The baroness opened the door and stared, her jaw falling upon her breast. What should meet her eyes inside this closet, of all things, but the sight of the governess locked in a tight embrace with Señor Martínez! "Señora Reyes!" she exclaimed.

Artie glanced at the woman in the closet doorway, broke off the kiss long enough to say "Con permiso," took hold of the door knob, and swung the closet door shut again with himself and Catalina inside. "Now, Cat my dear, where were we when we were so rudely interrupted?" he said and kissed her again.

She pressed a hand against his chest, pushing him away. "What do you think you are doing?" she hissed.

"Taking shocking advantage of you, querida!" He grinned and bobbed his eyebrows at her, then gathered her in for another kiss.

The door sprang open anew.

End of Act Two