V.

"My friend." Signor Mantissa gripped him by the biceps. "For you," he said. Godolphin nodded. "You are in trouble. Of course. You need not even have asked. If you had come along even without a word, I would have slain the barge captain at his first protest." The old man grinned. He was beginning to feel at least halfway secure for the first time in weeks.

"Let me make up the extra fifty lire," he said.

"I could not allow -"

"Nonsense. Get the Judas tree." Sullenly the florist pocketed the money, shambled to the corner and dragged a Judas tree, growing in a wine vat, from behind a thick tangle of ferns.

"The three of us can handle it," Cesare said. "Where to?"

"The Ponte Vecchio," Signor Mantissa said. "And then to Scheissvogel's. Remember, Cesare, a firm and united front. We must not let the Gaucho intimidate us. We may have to use his bomb, but we shall also have the Judas trees. The lion and the fox."

They formed a triangle around the tree and lifted. The florist held the back door open for them. They carried the tree twenty meters down an alley, to a waiting carriage.

"Andiam'," Signor Mantissa cried. The horses moved off at a trot.

"I am to meet my son at Scheissvogel's in a few hours," Godolphin said. He had almost forgotten that Evan was probably now in the city. "I thought a beer hall would be safer than a café. But perhaps it is dangerous after all. The guardie are after me. They and others may have the place under surveillance."

Signor Mantissa took a sharp right expertly. "Ridiculous," he said. "Trust me. You are safe with Mantissa, I will defend your life as long as I have my own." Godolphin did not answer for a moment, then only shook his head in acceptance. For now he found himself wanting to see Evan, almost desperately. "You will see your son. It will be a jolly family reunion."

Cesare was uncorking a bottle of wine and singing an old revolutionary song. A wind had risen off the Arno. It blew Signor Mantissa's hair into a pale flutter. They headed toward the center of town, rattling along at a hollow clip. Cesare's mournful singing soon dissipated in the seeming vastness of that street.

VII

The Englishman who had questioned the Gaucho was named Stencil. A little after sundown he was in Major Chapman's study, sitting bemused in a deep leather chair, his scarred Algerian briar gone out unnoticed in the ashtray beside him. In his left hand he held a dozen wooden penholders, recently fitted with shiny new nibs. With his right hand he was hurling the pens methodically, like darts, at a large photograph of the current Foreign Minister which hung on the wall opposite. So far he had scored only a single hit, in the center of the Minister's forehead. This had made his chief resemble a benevolent unicorn, which was amusing but hardly rectified The Situation. The Situation at the moment was frankly appalling. More than that, it seemed to be irreparably bitched up.

The door suddenly burst open and a rangy man, prematurely gray, came roaring in. "They've found him," he said, not too elated.

Stencil glanced up quizzically, a pen poised in his hand. "The old man?"

"At the Savoy. A girl, a young English girl. Has him locked in. She just told us. Walked in and announced, calmly enough -"

"Go check it out, then," Stencil interrupted. "Though he's probably bolted by now."

"Don't you want to see her?"

"Pretty?"

"Rather."

"No then. Things are bad enough as it is, if you see my point. I'll leave her to you, Demivolt."

"Bravo, Sidney. Dedicated to duty, aren't you. St. George and no quarter. I say. Well. I'm off, then. Don't say I didn't give you first chance."

Stencil smiled. "You're acting like a chorus boy. Perhaps I will see her. Later, when you're done."

Demivolt smiled woefully. "It makes The Situation halfway tolerable, you know." And bounded sadly back out through the door.

Stencil gritted his teeth. Oh, The Situation. The bloody Situation. In his more philosophical moments he would wander about this abstract entity The Situation, its idea, the details of its mechanism. He remembered times when whole embassiesful of personnel had simply run amok and gibbering in the streets, when confronted with a Situation which refused to make sense no matter who looked at it, or from what angle. He had once had a school chum named Covess. They had entered the diplomatic service together, worked their way up neck and neck. Until last year along came the Fashoda crisis, and quite early one morning Covess was discovered in spats and a pith helmet, working his way around Piccadilly, trying to recruit volunteers to invade France. There had been some idea of commandeering a Cunard liner. By the time they caught him, he'd sworn in several costermongers, two streetwalkers and a music-hall comedian. Stencil remembered painfully that they had all been singing Onward, Christian Soldiers in various keys and tempi.