Act Four, Part Four

Professor Montague gaped. "I thought he didn't speak English!"

"But of course!" Koch replied. "You were all to think that, Herr Professor. When no one expects the foreigner to understand, no one bothers to guard his words before the foreigner."

"So you were after the Phoenix as well," said Jim flatly.

"For yourself?" asked Artie.

Koch smiled. "Ach, nein! For my employer."

"Employer," Jim repeated. "But not, I take it, Gaspar Kutman."

"Nein, Herr West. Herr Kutman hired me to be his, shall we say, muscle. He never dreamed I had so arranged events as to ensure I would come into his employ. I needed him, you see, to give myself standing, a reason to be in the game, as you Americans might put it." His face sober, he added, "But then the man fell ill, almost tossing me out of the game." He glanced at Artie.

"Ah!" said the fake Kutman. "But then there I was pretending to be Kutman, a pretense that offered you an entrance right back in, hmm? The sparrow in the hand that was worth the dove on the roof?"

"Precisely, Herr Gordon. I knew once I looked into your eye that you were neither Kutman nor sick - nor even unconscious, I think?" Once Artie shrugged modestly, Koch went on with, "And being back in the game, I needed only to ensure that I would be the last one standing - as we now see. This I assured by allying myself with you against the others."

"A temporary alliance, I'm sure," put in Jim.

Koch smiled. "Indeed. And now that your usefulness to me has passed, I will take the Phoenix and be gone."

"To take it to your real employer."

"Jawohl, Herr West. Not Kutman, but the one to whom my true fealty lies."

"And to whom might that be?" asked Artie.

With a slight bow and a click of his heels, Koch replied, "Allow me to introduce myself: Oberst - or as you would say it, Colonel - Richard Horst, representative of the rightful heir to the Phoenix."

"Rightful?"

"Ach, ja! The heir of the original owner, the one who commissioned its creation. Who, meine Herren, has a better right to own the Phoenix?"

Jim shot a glance at Artie; if anyone would know off the top of his head who the current rightful heir of the Margrave of Brandenburg from the late fifteenth century would be, certainly Artie would know.

And clearly he did, for Artie's eyebrows rose and his jaw dropped. "Oh, you're kidding me! The top man himself? The Deutscher Kai…"

"Ah-ah-ah!" Koch - that is, Horst - shook a finger at him. "My employer prefers his name and title not be brought into this."

Montague's eyebrows knitted. "Of whom are we speaking?" he murmured to Jim, who only shook his head in reply, for Artie was talking again.

"If your employer wants the Phoenix back so badly, an heirloom treasure of his forebears four centuries ago, why doesn't he simply negotiate with Bosnia for its return, as one head of a sovereign state to another?"

"He has attempted such, Herr Gordon," Horst snapped. "His indisputable claims were rejected out of hand in the diplomatic equivalent of 'Finders keepers.' Accordingly I have been dispatched to attend personally to the matter of the Phoenix's return to its homeland."

"Ah. Leaving Bosnia to be the 'Losers weepers,' eh?"

"Precisely. And now once more I request of you, meine Herren," and Horst held out his hand again, "give me the bird."

Artie snorted. "Don't tempt me!" And as Horst turned upon him an exceedingly puzzled look, Artie's partner spoke up and said simply, "No."

Horst gazed at him coldly and made a threatening motion with the hand in his pocket.

"No," Jim repeated. "Col Horst, you are getting the same answer that we gave Kutman two days ago. The Phoenix isn't ours to give to anyone, no matter how good his claim on it may be."

"Yes, you'll just have to fall back on the proper diplomatic channels," said Artie.

Horst scowled darkly. "Proper dip…! I am the proper diplomatic channel henceforth!" He pulled out an envelope and handed it to Artie. "My credentials. As you can see, I have full diplomatic standing." He waited for Artie to read through the paper.

"Well, he's right, Jim. Full diplomatic standing." Artie handed back the paper.

"Including diplomatic immunity, of course," said Jim.

"Jawohl. I am at my own discretion to obtain the Phoenix by any means necessary. Mein Kai… that is, my employer will have that which is rightfully his, and Bosnia may content herself with your clever substitute. And as my employer will rejoice in his treasure in great secrecy, no one need ever know an exchange was made."

"Ah. Well," said Artie. He rubbed at the back of his neck and glanced at Jim. "When you say, Col Horst, that no one need ever know about the exchange, ah…"

"Exactly," said Jim. "We will know. And we'll have no part of it. You don't get the Phoenix."

Horst sighed heavily. "Then you leave me no choice." In one fluid motion he brought from his pocket a small gun, pointed it at the countess, and pulled the trigger.

The woman yelped and sank to the floor.

Jim's own gun was in his hand in an instant, even as Artie hurried over to check Zorana. It didn't take long. He stood up again almost immediately with a small dart in his hand. "Tranquilizer, I take it," Artie growled as he held it up. "At least, it had better be."

"Jawohl. I would do no harm to a woman, particularly one who is handcuffed. But as you can see, I am determined to have the Phoenix. You will not stop me." He met Jim West's gaze steadily, the tranquilizer gun equally steady in his hand.

"So if we don't give you the Phoenix, you'll tranquilize us and take it."

"Jawohl, Herr West."

"I could shoot you."

"A man who is not offering deadly force against you? I think you will not do that," said Horst.

West put up his gun. "Then I could beat you to a pulp," he offered.

"You could. But that also I think you will not do. You are too much of a - how do you say it? - a good sport." Horst's lips twitched into a slight smile. "And do remember, meine Herren," he added, "that my employer has the one true claim upon the Phoenix, a claim dating back centuries to the only man to have owned it without having obtained that treasure by means of theft."

West drew a long breath, then let it all out at once. "Artie?"

"Yeah, Jim?"

Again West drew a long breath, then nodded at Horst. "Give it to him."

Artie's eyebrows arched. "But…!" At a further look from Jim, though, Artie subsided. With a roll of his eyes to show what he thought of this, he reached into his pocket and…

"Ah-ah-ah, Herr Gordon! Not that one. I want the other Phoenix, the one you took from your associate's valise."

"But this one is the real… All right, fine. Here!" Artie reached into his other pocket and produced a gleaming ruby-stubbed orb which he quickly cupped in both hands. "Let me get the key also," he added and withdrew one hand again to fish in his pocket. "There! Now you have both."

"Put them in the carpetbag," Horst ordered, leading Gordon to the table. "You will find inside it a padded pouch. Put the Phoenix inside the pouch." Horst removed his Trauerdegen from the carpetbag, then held the luggage out to Herr Gordon.

With one last pleading look toward Jim, Artie did as he was told.

Satisfied, Horst returned the short sword to the depths of the carpetbag, then strapped the bag closed. With a nod and a click of his heels, he said, "It has been a pleasure doing business with you, meine Herren. Guten Tag." And off he went.

The three men stood there in silence for a long moment. Then Artie went out the door and checked. "All right. He's away."

"Good," said Jim.

Artie grinned and gave his partner a nudge on the shoulder. "Pretty good job there, James my boy. For a second there you even had me convinced."

Montague gawked at them. "Wait - you were acting?"

Jim shrugged. "I needed to get us out of the impasse one way or another, and as Horst pointed out, I couldn't just shoot him. And after all, the point of making that fake Phoenix was to be able to let someone steal it, right? I just had to trust Artie to make sure the bird he gave Horst was the fake. It, ah, was, wasn't it?"

"Well, of course! It was in my right pocket. 'R for right; R for real,' " said Artie confidently. "Um."

"Um?"

"Unless, ah, it was 'four letters for left, four letters for real'…"

"Artie, you didn't mix them up, did you?"

"Well, I, uh…" Artie patted at his pockets with an increasingly worried look on his face, then abruptly broke out in a huge grin and pointed at Jim. "Gotcha!"

Prof Montague looked back and forth between the two of them and grimaced. "Oh dear dear dear. Please, just to, ah, humor me, do wind up the only Phoenix we have remaining so I can see which one it is."

Artie obliged, producing both the Phoenix and the key as if out of thin air.

"You keep doing that!" Montague exclaimed. "You palmed the Phoenix when we were with Col Richmond, and now you've done it again here, what, three times? How can you do such a thing?"

Artie grinned as he used the key to wind up the machinery. "It's all in the wrist," he said proudly. "By the way," he added as he set down the Phoenix and the gears began to click, "you do realize who Col Horst was, don't you, James?"

Jim shot him a look. "I take it neither Horst nor Koch?"

"Mm-hmm. Now, I didn't catch on myself until just now, but it seems the name 'Horst' means 'aerie.' "

Jim nodded. "An eagle's nest. And?"

"And Merle - which never did strike me as being a particularly German name - means 'blackbird.' "

Jim's lips set into a straight line. "Eagle's nest and blackbird," he repeated.

"Yep. Not to mention the fact that a phoenix was involved - and the proverb about a sparrow and a dove."

Montague looked up from watching the mechanical treasure, a frown knitting his eyebrows. "And all these bird references mean something to you?"

Jim nodded. "They certainly do. Have you ever heard of Herr Vogel, Professor?"

"Vaguely, vaguely. The, ah, Rumormeister, I believe he's called? Some sort of master spy?"

Now Artie nodded. "Exactly. This has been Jim's and my second run-in with the fellow, and both times we didn't recognize him as Herr Vogel - or Mr Bird - until after he'd left." Artie scowled.

"Don't worry about it, Artie. We'll catch him some day." Jim watched as the Florentine Phoenix finished its cycle and the sound of the gears ceased. "Besides, we know for sure which Phoenix he has now. Once his employer sees what Vogel has brought him, he may well be out of a job - at the least."

Artie snickered. "Oh, you've got a good point there, Jim!" And as he wrapped up the Phoenix and stored it into its wooden case once again, he added, "Now, wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall when Vogel takes out the key and winds up his Phoenix?"

End of Act Four

Note: Herr Vogel first appeared in TNOT Unexpected Visit.