Part II - You Shall Go...
The door slid open and Illya glanced up in surprise.
"Good evening Mr Wisheart" he said politely. The janitor grinned amiably back at him. Mr Wisheart was, officially, the oldest member of HQ staff (no one ever dared question Mr Waverly's eligibility for the title). A wiry veteran of both World Wars, very few events in the steel-lined corridors seemed to escape his sharp grey eyes.
"You're working in here tonight Mr Kuryakin? I thought you'd have gone with Napoleon to keep that lady scientist safe." Clearly Mr Wisheart was on top form.
Illya shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I had a lot of paperwork to get through, so Napoleon, um, decided to go alone."
Mr Wisheart looked at him sympathetically. He liked Illya. Okay, the guy was quiet, very quiet, but he was polite and considerate, the sort who always held the elevator and wiped his feet. These qualities were worth encouraging, if you were the one who had to polish the floors.
"You could catch 'em up, no trouble. They'll barely have started yet." It was time the poor guy had some fun. Always so pale; you could hardly believe the old man let him see the sun.
"I'm afraid I haven't any idea where they've gone for the evening." Illya responded.
"It's that little Italian, you know, the one he takes all the girls to lately."
"Oh... Just a moment, how do you know where Napoleon takes his dates?"
Mr Wisheart grinned, wickedly. "Those girls ain't stupid you know. They like to compare notes. And sometimes they appreciate a little fatherly advice."
Illya's eyebrows rose. The kind of girl Napoleon liked to date was well past the point where 'fatherly advice' was going to do any good, surely. He realised that Mr Wisheart was still looking at him expectantly.
"I'm afraid I don't have a jacket to wear. My last one didn't survive our trip to London. So I can't go in any case." Napoleon had told him to replace that jacket, but it had never seemed urgent.
"Stay right there!" Mr Wisheart vanished through the door, leaving Illya bemused. After a couple of minutes the janitor was back, clutching a dinner jacket and shirt, hung neatly on a hanger.
"There's a tie in the pocket and everything. It ought to be just your size."
"But where did it come from?"
"Mr Le Brun in Section Three has a trip to Paris scheduled for early tomorrow morning. He asked me to pick it up from Del and leave it in his office. He'll swing by to collect it about twelve thirty, so as long as you bring it back by midnight he'll never know. He's pretty much your size."
Illya thought for a moment about the likely reaction of Dominic Le Brun to this little scheme. The courier was not his favourite colleague by a long stretch. Apart from his immaculate tailoring his main distinguishing feature was his temper, always unleashed at his full (extremely impressive) volume, but only on his cringing junior staff. Temptation fought briefly with Illya's natural reluctance to risk a pointless public confrontation. Prudence lost and Illya stretched out a hand to take the hanger.
"Thank you" he said. "I'll be sure and bring it back in plenty of time."