"All right, can you do it?" There was a short, deep line between Klaus’ beautiful eyebrows. It looked as though it got a lot of use. He was using it now in a frown of rage that did not fool Eroica for a moment. Klaus was terrified, as well as angry.

"I’m afraid," said Dorian hilariously, "that I can’t." He waggled his left hand, which was free, and attempted an airy gesture with his right. The gesture was somewhat spoilt when Klaus’ left hand followed along, a measured six inches of heavy-duty chain behind the graceful arc.

Klaus, thrown off balance, jostled him and stepped on his right foot. Dorian suspected that it was not quite an accident, but he was beyond caring. It had been a lovely party even before the Major walked in, and Jakie’s little challenge appealed to him even now.

"Stop that!" said his partner in the handcuffs. "And unlock these ridiculous things immediately!"

"Darling," said Eroica, sweetly regretful, "that’s the problem. I can’t do it left-handed. I think Jakie knew it when he lined us up like this."

"You can’t?" Klaus did not seem to believe him.

"No, darling. Can you? If either of us opens them, we win the bet."

Klaus frowned harder, glanced at the handcuffs and then back into Eroica’s eyes. Dorian was too drunk to quail, but it occurred to him that Klaus was more annoyed than he wanted anyone else to think. "Don’t call me that, you idiot. What will happen if we lose your stupid bet?"

"Then," said Dorian blissfully, "Nigsie and Jakie will want a forfeit." He draped himself artistically over the reluctant Major and whispered in his ear, "They’ll make us spend the night chained together."

At that, Klaus turned an even lovelier shade of crimson and began swearing in German, very slowly and clearly. Dorian listened in fascinated incomprehension. Any of the Eberbach servants, he thought, would have been petrified. Nigsie and Jakie, listening from the center of the room that Dorian and Klaus occupied a rather busy corner of, seemed to follow it. Nigsie was by now a rather white-green tone that clashed with his paisley smoking jacket. Jakie seemed more interested than frightened, but he wasn’t smiling any longer.

Dorian didn’t understand the words, which sounded like the Goths invading Rome, but he understood Klaus rather well. He hoped. Klaus was enraged, naturally—that was the fun of it—but why was he afraid, and of what? "Du bist schön, wenn du zornig bist," Dorian said, experimentally. He’d had Nigsie recite that one for him until he could repeat it perfectly.

It seemed to work. Klaus choked on a throatful of double gutturals and swung round, dragging Dorian’s right hand, to face him. "I understand you," he said tightly in his perfect English. "I hope you like this because you’re going to see a lot of it tonight." He was whiter than Nigsie. "I can’t take these things off. Who can?"

Dorian shrugged, more carefully, again. "Ask Nigsie."

Even through high emotion, Klaus stared at him in disbelief. "‘Nigsie’? Do you mean Sir Nigel Farrington?"

"Our host," nodded Dorian, grinning. "He gives delightful parties, don’t you think?"

"I think you’re an addle-brained drunken lecherous frivoller who can’t even steal a pair of handcuffs," said Klaus, slowly and clearly, into Dorian’s face. "If we are fated to spend the night chained together, I do not wish to do it here. We are leaving."

That was more like it. Dorian wrapped his free arm around his unwilling companion in bondage and staged a showy kiss for the roomful of guests. Klaus, predictably surprised, couldn’t manage to push him off and merely shuddered a little. Dorian rated it a stalemate, which was better than he usually got from Klaus—the man hadn’t drawn the sidearm that Dorian had felt during the embrace. "I like that idea, lover. Yes, let’s leave now."

"Don’t call me that, either!"

Dorian looked around the party. Most of the revellers had gone back to their own conversations, although Nigsie and Jakie still watched them. "We’re going now," carolled Dorian. "Thanks for the party favor. We’ll bring it back in the morning."

Jakie frowned. "Oh, no. The wager said you had to get yourselves free in this room. No tricks, Dorian darling." He was between them and the door in a flash.

Dorian, chained to a reluctant but quiescent Klaus, didn’t like the predatory tone. A bet was a bet, but a gentleman didn’t inquire too closely about what two other gentlemen might do in the course of one. "No tricks, Jakie, sweet," said Dorian, spreading his hands and Klaus’ left arm. Klaus snarled something under his breath. "We give up. We won’t even try to open your toy. We just want to be alone." Klaus snarled something else in Dorian’s ear. It didn’t sound like German this time, but it didn’t sound happy, either.

"You see?" said Dorian, giving Jakie his best smile and shouldering past him, "He wants to be alone too. With me." They were at the open door, out in the foyer, Klaus following smoothly in Dorian’s wake. Jakie, looking alarmed now, wanted to follow them, but Dorian’s last view of Nigsie’s party was of Nigsie flinging some remark at his friend about letting Dorian have his fun. Dorian waved gratefully, remembering to use his left arm, just before Klaus dragged him toward the stairwell.

"Gottverdammt," muttered Klaus, as he led the way, Dorian following willy-nilly, out of the block of service flats to the nearly-in-Whitehall sidewalk.

"Hail a taxi for us, darling," urged Dorian. A square black car was just approaching.

"Not that one!" said Klaus. "Goddammit, Eroica, how do you get me into these situations?"

"Easily," said Dorian. "Why did you show up at Nigsie’s party?"

"I didn’t know," said Klaus through his teeth, "you’d be there."

"Then how lucky it was for both of us, darling."

"Stop calling me that!" screamed Klaus.

Eroica giggled. "I can’t. I’m drunk," he explained.

"I can tell, you thieving fool. No, that taxi won’t do either, but we can’t stand out here. This direction." Klaus set off, walking decisively, and Dorian had no choice but to stumble after. It was not, for a wonder, raining, but the streets at this late hour were nearly deserted.

Klaus led him briskly around a corner, then another, finding in both cases well-lit, empty streets. "Where are we going?" asked Dorian.

"I want a taxi."

"You let two go," Dorian pointed out. Whitehall was really somewhat too dull and respectable for his taste in entertainment, particularly with a captive Klaus attached to his wrist for the night.

"Don’t bother me just now," said Klaus, but he sounded, very slightly, in better spirits.

"Ah, but I want to bother you."

"Shut up." Klaus turned, and his eyes widened. His next words were low, urgent, and completely without animosity. "Can you run? Now?" He gave Dorian precisely as long as it took to get poised to run, before taking off at speed down a Whitehall avenue, the hapless Eroica in tow.

Dorian followed, swinging right and right again when Klaus did, nearly falling when they charged up a flight of stone stairs, hopping frantically back to his feet and nearly falling again when the stairs levelled. He was saved when Klaus halted abruptly, pounding on a door. "What are we running from?" he gasped.

Klaus ignored him, spewing high-speed German at the door. He pounded again, in a quick-rhythmed tattoo, and said something more, and finally the door opened to spill them both into a dark passageway. Wrist aching, Dorian followed Klaus and an unseen third person into the lightless depths of the building.

Klaus had no apparent difficult in finding his way around two corners and through a doorway, and another. "Sicher," said a voice—not Klaus’—and the lights came on.

They were in an office with clean gray walls, clean steel desks, and maps and notices in German on the near walls. Clean white light revealed the third person to be one of Klaus’ nameless agents, a gorgeous blond with the same strong grace Eroica admired in Klaus himself. It must be the Rhine air, or something.

The agent spoke to Klaus and Klaus replied, both in German and both with total disregard for Dorian and Dorian’s confusion. Klaus had relaxed somewhat, and even gave a bark of laughter at something the other agent said. He sat, almost casually, at the nearest desk, and Eroica perforce sat as well, using the desktop.

A twitch at his wrist drew his attention, and he saw that Klaus had taken out cigarettes and was reaching with his left hand into the pocket where he kept his lighter. Dorian smiled, a little nastily. Ignore him, would they? He followed Klaus’ motion and raced ahead of it to pluck the lighter neatly up, and was out of the pocket a split second before Klaus’ automatic gesture entered it. Klaus, talking non-stop with the unlit cigarette between his lips, groped for a moment, and another, and then leaned smoothly forward to let his subordinate light the cigarette. Neither looked at Eroica.

Dorian shrugged and pocketed the lighter himself, before clearing his throat. The nameless agent flicked an eyebrow in his direction, but Klaus ignored it, to go on speaking with great absorption. Dorian coughed, rather loudly.

Klaus glanced at him, then glared briefly. "Be quiet. I shall deal with you presently." He returned to German, and to ignoring Eroica.

Dorian sighed, and began playing idly with the small length of chain that joined them. The other agent hadn’t given it more than a glance, as though Klaus came in late every evening handcuffed to a somewhat drunk and more-than-modishly dressed partier. Now there was a thought… And why had Klaus walked in on Nigsie’s party, brought by a friend of a friend. Dorian had heard him being introduced to Nigsie, and had seen Jakie’s sudden interest. And then they’d had that rather silly bet about the handcuffs. And here he was, being ignored by the most beautiful stubborn man in Europe and a close runner-up in whom Dorian thought he might be persuaded to take an interest. If only Klaus weren’t monopolising him, of course.

Finally the blond agent said something brief and nodded at Eroica. Seeing that Eroica didn’t understand, he said, "Do you want me to take that device off you and the Earl, sir?"

Klaus, visibly mellowed after two cigarettes, looked round at Eroica again. "No need, Tzett." He raised his left hand so that Eroica’s right was dragged onto the surface of the desk. "You, hold still." Ten busy seconds later, Dorian was free and Klaus held the opened handcuffs.

"H-How… Could you have done that any time?" asked Dorian.

"Yes."

Dorian collected his wits and stood up to move back and brace himself against a different desk. "Why didn’t you?! Dragging me all this way… Away from Nigsie’s party… Why didn’t you do that earlier?!"

"I didn’t want Sir Nigel or his friends to see that I knew what that lock was. And I would prefer that you don’t tell them, Eroica." Klaus’s tone was matter-of-fact threat.

Dorian realized that he wasn’t drunk any longer. He took a deep breath. "You can rely on my discretion," he said carefully, "…if I know why I’m to be discreet." It occurred to him a moment later that he could have asked for a more tangible reward than knowledge, then shrugged mentally. Even lust could not be allowed to interfere with curiosity. And Klaus could only repulse him, in front of the other agent.

The other agent—Tzett? What letter could that be?—started to say something and stopped.

"Tell him as much as he needs to know," said Klaus.

"Yes, sir. Your lordship, the person you know as James John Trenton has been in Eastern pay for some years now. The Major hoped to identify him tonight, and it seems that—"

"But… I went to school with Jakie."

"We know you did," said Tzett patiently. "He may have been picked as an agent by the Eastern bloc even then."

"Oh."

"He seems to have suspected the Major tonight, if he tried to trap him with the gadget, and you."

"Me?"

"You were very happy to play that little game with me, weren’t you?" put in the Major. "Disgusting pack of queers."

Dorian sighed. There were times when Klaus’ hatred of everything he, Dorian, was, could be extremely convincing.

"If he’d shown he knew what the laser-lock on these wrist cuffs was, he’d have ‘blown his cover’. It’s a rather new and interesting application of some gadgets I won’t explain. It was likely Mr. Trenton was suspicious of the Major already; the Major had to get himself out of the situation before a trap closed on him. So he brought you here."

That explained a few things. "It sounds as if Jakie… Trenton, that is… shouldn’t have let the Major see the special lock at all, if the Major wasn’t to know how to open it," Dorian reasoned.

"Yes," said Tzett.

"And as it was, he got away with a prize, and maybe Jakie’s backers will be upset, won’t they?"

"We hope as much," said the Major. "I don’t plan to depend on them, however. Tzett, schicken Sie nun…" and he went off into a long series of instructions, to which Tzett listened attentively.

Dorian, after a moment, did not. With his free right hand he fished out his own cigarettes—a French brand he knew would annoy Klaus—and lit one with Klaus’ lighter. He wondered if he’d been in danger tonight, when he’d shown he knew Klaus, or after they’d been handcuffed together. It was, he supposed, possible.

Was this what Klaus did for NATO, when he wasn’t picking up microfilm hidden in the less mentionable anatomy of old Greek statues? So it seemed. He’d wanted to know Klaus better, and in a very unexpected way, the Houdini game with the handcuffs had given him what he asked for.

Not what he’d wanted, but what he’d asked for, in his private prayers with the deity. It was definitely time, Dorian thought, to get a new deity. This one showed a distressing tendency toward the literal.

"Major," he broke into the flow of German from the occupied desk.

"What is it?"

"May I leave now?" Rather ostentatiously he lit a fresh cigarette with Klaus’ own lighter, in front of Klaus’ eyes.

"No. Tzett will see to your safety, and you are not to leave this building tonight." Klaus frowned at the lighter.

"Lovely, darling, I’ve always wanted to spend a night with you."

Both Germans glared at him, one pained, one merely startled. Dorian focused on Tzett’s attractive form. "But you’ll do nicely," he continued.

"Sir?" Tzett sounded not at all flustered. Perhaps Klaus did receive importunate propositions from every visitor he dragged into his agency’s London headquarters. This evening was definitely not quite the success Dorian had hoped.

"Pay him no mind," said Klaus. "If he annoys you, handcuff him to something solid. With these." He held out the laser-lock cuffs in which Dorian had already spent a large portion of the evening. "Understood, Eroica?"

It was the only pair of handcuffs in the world Dorian couldn’t undo with one hand—either hand, at that. Damn.

"Agreed," said Dorian.

He always did like a challenge.

END