"See. Even a dock laborer can make sense," said Chiun. "But for servants, no one beats a white."
"It's too hot to listen to this nonsense," said Remo.
"That means you're not breathing properly," said Chiun.
"Holding my breath, it'd be too hot to listen to this."
"I tend to agree with Mr. Remo," said Lord Wissex, sweltering in his tweeds. He was still waiting for the American to fall unconscious from the poison. Why didn't that bloke drop? There was enough poison in that tea to fell a platoon.
"Where did you pick up this servant?" Chiun asked Remo. "Talking without being spoken to. Next time, check references."
With all the trunks aboard the little sailing boat, and a commercial captain at the wheel, the three set out for St. Maarten's, in the distance. Lord Wissex slipped a thin needle from the lining of his coat. He moved first behind the American. He brought the needle smoothly up to the American's neck. Then, with a short lunging jab, he drove home the point.
Except the point went too far. It kept going. Which was the usual thing for a point to do when your whole body was behind it and there was nothing in front of it.
Wessex had never seen anyone move that quickly. It was instantaneous. The American had been seated in
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front of Lord Wissex, and now he was standing behind him. Now he knew how the giant black had been strangled so easily and why Bradford Wakefield III could so easily lose his two best killers.
Friend had been right. Anyone who could destroy Wakefield's killers had to be hired. Of course, as the sailboat moved noiselessly toward St. Maarten's, and the incredibly blue waters churned up beneath them, Lord Wissex knew that he had realized all of that too late.
"And you poisoned me too," said Remo. Wissex felt just the lightest of touches on his neck, but he could not move his arms and barely kept his balance. It was as if the man had discovered the exact nerves in his body that controlled his motion.
Wissex knew that a time like this had to come eventually. It was part of the business and something he could accept. And he had made plans for this. His lower right molar was a hollow cap. All he had to do was push it out with his tongue and then bite down very hard.
He pushed the tooth out, but he could not get his jaw open to crush it.
"Why did you poison me?"
"Blast you," said Lord Wissex. Well, his voice worked. That was something. The American had allowed his voice to work.
"Why did you poison me?"
"Why didn't you die?"
"From poison? My body won't accept it."
"I didn't see you spit it out."
"I didn't. I held it in my stomach. Now Til spit. See? See the spit? See how the nice man spits? Tell the nice man everything," said Remo, and let the gooey green slime up through his throat to his mouth, which launched it into the clear blue Caribbean. Fish popped up to the surface in the green wake of Remo's spit, white bellies skyward. A little pitiful waggle of flippers, and the fish were dead.
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"Who are you?" said Wissex through jaws that would not open.
"I am joy and life and the spirit of goodness," said Remo. "Now you do some talking or I'll feed your belly to the fish and use your sternum for a hook."
"That is vicious," Chiun said. "And we've never had a butler before. That's no way to treat a butler."
"He tried to kill me."
"Butlers are always murdering people," said Chiun. *'It is expected. But bad language, hostile language from an assassin is not. When you're done with him, save him. We've never had a butler before."
"We'll see," Remo said.
Lord Wissex tried to turn his head to see the two, but he couldn't. All he could see was the incredibly blue waters, and he heard the two argue about butler service, with the younger one accurately saying the butler would always be trying to kill them and the older one answering that one always had to expect some small problems with domestic help.
And then the incredible pain began. It came first in little notes, as he was asked his name, asked how his body felt, asked the color of his hair, and then built in a symphony of hurt that Merton found he could control. With the giving of truth, absolute and total truth. He told things he didn't even realize he had known.
He told of being penniless and being called one day at Castle Wissex by a man who understood how awful it was that Wissex lived in a country that no longer appreciated and rewarded courage.
"What do you want?" Wissex had said.
"I want the same services your ancestor provided for Henry the Eighth."
"He killed people for His Majesty."
"That is what I want," the voice said.
"No," he said, and slammed down the receiver of the phone.
The next day, he received a note. It read, "I only want you to do what is proper."
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And on the phone later that day, he asked the man, "How can this be proper?"
"Most proper. I am an international corporation not subject to national laws. Not above the law, mind you. But beyond it. And I have a tradition of hiring people to kill."
"Proper, you say? Tradition, you say?" said Wissex.
"Yes. And I want you with me as senior vice-president."
"In charge of what?"
"Tradition and propriety," the caller said.
Wissex thought for a moment. "You must give me your word of honor, sir, that everything will ultimately be for the good of Great Britain, and therefore mankind."
"You have it," said the voice.
And then Lord Wissex learned the man's name. His name was Friend. He had never seen him.
"Oh," came a voice from far away. "So you're the one. Your family. Henry the Eighth. What do you know?" It was the American talking, and he called to his companion.