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30
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Mort sat at a table in a long room in Fargas's house, both copies of 'The Nine Gates' opened in front of him at the engraving of the knight with a finger to his lips.
He looked up to see how Fargas was doing. Fargas was at the opposite end of the long room, sitting with his back turned to Mort in front of a window and staring out of it. He looked to be having a nice time, smoking a cigarette while lounging, and every so often taking a sip of Brandy from a glass on the table placed next to him.
Mort returned his gaze back to the books. He looked the two copies over with his magnifying glass. To him, they looked identical.
He turned several pages in each book until he came to the hermit with the keys, dog and lantern. He compared the two copies. Again, there seemed to be no apparent difference.
Mort turned each book to the third engraving: The peasant man approaching the bridge with two gate towers with the archer in the clouds aiming his arrow at the marching peasant. It was another seemingly identical pair.
He turned back to the last engraving of the hermit with the keys, remembering something.
That god damn John Shooter!
Mort looked each engraving over with his magnifying glass. Sure enough, Balkan's copy had the hermit's keys in the right hand. In Fargas' copy, they were in the left.
So what? He knew this already because of the little tip his special friend had left him.
But then, he remembered back at the Ceniza shop: The signature in the corner. Perhaps that played a role in this as well?
Mort peered closely, using his magnifying glass, at each signature. Balkan's read 'AT', Fargas's... 'LCF.' Hmmmm...
Mort turned to an engraving of a jester outside a maze with two entrances. Comparison of the two copies revealed that in Fargas's copy one of the doorways was open; in Balkan's it was bricked up. The signatures, too, varied : 'AT.' in one, 'LCF.' in the other. Mort was excited now. "Now we're getting somewhere," He said quietly to himself.
An telephone began to ring from somewhere inside the house. Mort looked up from his work. Fargas didn't seem to hear it.
The telephone rang again. Fargas picked up on something and listened with his head cocked to the side. The telephone continued to ring.
His chair scraped the floorboards as Fargas slowly got to his feet and limped out.
Mort opened his notebook and created a chart that consisted of two horizontal rows of nine boxes. One row was marked 'BALKAN', the other 'FARGAS'.
Mort was busy filling in the boxes with either 'AT.' or 'LCF' when Fargas came back into the room. Mort looked up to see Fargas giving him a friendly nod from the end of the room, and returned to his seat with the window in front and the small table to the side. Mort returned to his notebook and filled in the remaining boxes. Finished, he studied them for a moment, then took a pen and circled all the 'LCF.'s in red.