My dear Voulee,
I asked you to move Mr. West, not caress him.
And of course, in the fullness of time,
Mr. Gordon can also be expected to put in an appearance.
We'll reserve this square for him.
What was that, Artie?
I know. I'm just as shocked as you are.
"Almeric the Great,
"one of the world's great prestidigitators
"and more adept at clowning than at feats of magic,
died during a stage performance in Watertown last night."
Poor devil. We'll miss him.
Wait a minute. There's more.
"Among those present, witnessing the tragedy,
"were his friends James West and Artemus Gordon,
"who made desperate but unavailing attempts
to save him."
That's not a very good joke,
but I'm glad that's all it is.
If you think that's a joke, take a look at the date here.
July 12th.
That's an interesting date,
but it happens to be tomorrow.
All the news that's yet to happen.
Listen, I know Almeric is one of the great comedians of our time.
You think he'd pull a joke like this?
No, Artie, you know better than that.
Besides, we're gonna be in the capital in an hour.
We're passing Watertown right now.
So the joke is on-
Yes?
Thank- Thank you!
Engine malfunction.
We're pulling up at a siding in Watertown tonight.
It occurs to me as long as we're going to be in Watertown,
why don't we attend Almeric's performance tonight?
No, no. The rabbit.
If I told that assistant once,
I've told him a thousand times:
rabbit, right sleeve.
Oh, well.
Talk about your money buying nothing these days.
Three-for-a-nickel cigar
and it still smells like burlap burning.
I don't remember that bit being part of his act.
Well, relax, Jim. He's gotta add something new
from time to time. It's probably all right.
You know, folks, for a little while
I thought it was gonna be one of these days when-
Almeric never harmed a soul.
No one could benefit from his death.
Why did someone want us to know about it ahead of time?
Well, we'll find out soon enough, Jim.
Ah...
This newspaper had to be made
by some small print shop especially for our benefit.
I've been studying that typeface.
It's the only thing we have to go on.
Soon as I-
Spontaneous combustion...
delayed-action type.
Another charming device of our unknown friend.
Let me get that.
Well, here we go again. You ready?
It's getting to be a habit. Tomorrow's newspaper.
Right, predicting what'll happen tonight. Look.
"Colonel Arnette dies from gun wound.
"Colonel Royce Arnette died late last night
"from a pistol wound
"received while cleaning his French dueling pistol.
"With the colonel during his final moments
was Mr. James T. West."
Like two puppets on strings...us.
Right.
You realize whoever wrote that article
is perfectly capable of making it come true?
Exactly, and he expects me to try and prevent the accident.
What do you mean? You're going?
Artie, I have to.
We're being pushed step by step.
Until I find out why,
we have to go where we're pushed.
Yeah, you're right. Of course.
All right, I'll start checking
the small print shops in an effort to find out
where this might have come from.
As many as there are, you realize,
it'll take me over a week to...
Jim.
Look at that. It's a shop mark.
It's what they use on handbills and posters,
kind of a signature from the shop.
You don't suppose it's just oversight
that made the printer put that in the corner, do you?
Somebody wants us to find them, Artie.
Exactly.
I bet the Washington bureau has something on this.
I'll check them.
And I'll go to the colonel's house.
Right.
Yes, Voulee. It's time for another move.
We will move our Mr. West
onto the same square as the knight.
Those two will have a most interesting meeting...
shortly.
Who the devil's making all that racket out there?!
I said, who's making that racket out there?!
What racket?
I didn't hear anything, sir.
I'd recognize that voice anywhere.
West. Yes, sir.
I was out walking my dog and the little dickens
led me right to the doorstep of my ex-company commander.
Good evening, sir.
Well, you better get in here
before you wind up on a casualty list.
Yes, sir.
Sit down. Sit down, my boy.
Thank you, sir.
By the way, eh,
what happened to that dog you were out walking?
I knew there was something I forgot.
Heh, heh. You're still the same impossible West,
but I am glad that you dropped in.
Oh, uh, there's something that I wanna show you
that was sent to me.
Not a set of dueling pistols by any chance, sir?
Dueling pistols?
Well, who'd be sending me dueling pistols?
No, no, no, sonny. Much better.
Napoleon brandy.
And look at that date.
Much rarer than jewels, my boy.
Congratulations, sir. Who sent it to you?
Oh, it was delivered from the French embassy.
You know, I was posted at Paris as military attaché for a year.
Maybe old General Claremont himself sent it as a present.
And you know something?
You are going to sample it, my boy.
I, sir?
Yes, this blasted gout of mine
has me tied to a strict milk diet.
So you and your expert palette can try that out.
Come on. Come on. Drink it.
I beg pardon, sir.
This package was just delivered by special messenger.
Shall I unwrap it?
No, that will be all. Good night.
Good night, sir.
Another anonymous present.
Hmm.
Dueling pistols.
You have insulted my honor, sir.
Therefore, prepare to defend yourself.
How long did the paralysis last?
About five minutes.
Long enough for me to realize that
another friend was being murdered
in front of my very eyes.
The sequel to Almeric.
Worse.
This time I had to sit there,
knowing what was going to happen,
but unable to do anything to head it off.
All so delicately,
so meticulously planned
by someone I want very much to meet.
Any suggestions, Artie?
Well, I'm not guaranteeing anything.
That information that I wired for came from the bureau.
I've located the shop that turns out
those early-edition newspapers,
and I'm about to pay a little visit to it.
Care to come along?
I'll grant you your very personal pleasure
of moving Mr. West to his next position, Voulee.
Ah, splendid, splendid.
And now I think it's time to get ready, my dear.
Are you getting impatient, Mr. West?
Well, so am I.
But soon, very soon now,
we will have the pleasure of...
meeting.
You know, with Mr. X carefully planning
every single move we make, I'm sorely tempted
to do a little genteel double-crossing.
The trail would end, Artie, as you very well know.
Yeah...
unfortunately.
I think we're looking at Mr. Blackhurst.
Or should I say, used-to-be Mr. Blackhurst?
Excuse me, I-
By all means, say, "used-to-be Mr. Blackhurst."
Here's a shop-mark type matching the one
that we found in the newspaper.
Well, let's start looking around
for some carefully hidden clues
that we're supposed to find.
Suggestions, Mr. Gordon?
Well, I once read a book where the clue was deliberately hidden
in the hands of the deceased.
So much for your book. Mmm.
Print shop.
Where would the obvious place of concealment be?
Printing press.
It'll do for a starter.
How does this thing work?
Oh, it's very simple.
Ink up your plate with a roller.
Then you, uh...
lay on your paper stock,
being sure that you don't smudge it.
Then, uh...
put your frame down on it, so it holds it in place,
and slide it under the press.
Clamp the press down on it so that it makes a fine imprint.
Roll your plate out...
and presto.
"The mystery of the East unveiled to the West.
"Private readings in tarot by Voulee.
65 Jefferson Avenue, Washington, DC."
Well, there's your clue.
You're right.
A visit to Voulee is definitely indicated.
Well, I'm going. Well, wait a minute.
You're going to visit the lady?
Artie,
"The mystery of the East unveiled to the West."
Uh-huh.
That's almost like a command appearance.
Okay.
I'll stick around, talk to the police.
Good evening, Mr. West.
Good evening.
What else do your cards tell you about me besides my name?
For one, that you do not believe in tarot.
Oh, on the contrary.
I haven't the slightest doubt
that I'm about to look into the future.
If I must go, I'd much rather go a conventional way, such as-
I rather imagined you might give the show away,
my dear Voulee,
which is why I provided an alternate route.
Checkmate, Mr. West.
Allow me to introduce myself, Mr. West.
My name is Braine.
Eh, that- That's spelled with a small E at the end.
And how do you spell it to rhyme with "murderer"?
How do-? Oh.
Oh, that- That's very good. Very good.
Y-yes, yes, humor will play a part
in my scheme of things, Mr. West.
Now, any other comments?
Yes, you certainly take the long way around
when you wanna meet someone.
Ah...
but not without reason.
You see, we two knew little or nothing
about each other to begin with,
but now you have proved to me that you are quite resourceful.
And I daresay I have proved to you
that I am quite competent.
So now we have gained that most felicitous of all states:
mutual respect.
I have respect for the artist
that created the mask the gentleman is wearing.
Ah, good, good, good, good.
I'm glad you approve. I thought you would.
Eh, permit me to introduce my lieutenant, Mr. Leeto.
Heard a lot about you, West.
Well, you know how people talk.
You don't look as tough as they say.
Oh, I don't know how that rumor ever got started.
Ta-ta-ta-ta. That will do, Leeto.
That will do. Y-you may leave us now.
Ha! You are wondering, of course,
why we have gone to such elaborate lengths to provide
for another Artemus Gordon?
Eh? Well, well, all right.
That too, in the fullness of time,
will be disclosed to you.
Oh, tsk, tsk, tsk, Mr. West, I wouldn't if I were you.
Splendid.
You see, like Zeus, I have
thunderbolts in my fingertips.
I was told that Zeus never missed.
When that is my objective...
neither do I.
Oh, Brundage.
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
I am saddened to see, Brundage,
that you are missing a button from your tunic.
Mr. Braine...
I-I must have ripped it off during a- A work detail.
Won't happen again.
It won't happen again!
No!
Mr. Braine, no!
I get your point.
Good. Good, good.
Then Mr. Brundage's departure from this veil of tears
will not have been in vain, eh?
Oh, come, Mr. West.
A little tour for your divertissement.
Precede me, please.
You're quite correct in what you're thinking, Mr. West.
Oh, really? What was I thinking?
You were toying with the idea of overpowering me,
and then it occurred to you that if you did that,
a mystery would be forever locked tight.
Am I correct?
By and large, yes.
A very impressive demonstration of deduction.
Thank you, sir.
Do you recognize this room?
Ah, it's a very clever duplicate
of the White House conference room
in the subterranean chambers.
That is quite correct.
Uh, the portrait of, uh, Jefferson
should be on the left of Lincoln.
Oh, dear, dear. My decorator has erred.
But do you recognize the gentlemen so engrossed
in world affairs there around the conference table?
Uh, Mr. Louis Bravo, prime minister of Spain,
Mr. Gladstone of England,
the archduke Maximillian, France,
Alexander of Russia,
and of course our president, President Grant.
All as bogus as $9 bills.
Ah. But if you had glanced at those same gentlemen
in the real executive chambers,
would you have doubted their authenticity, eh?
What do you suppose this little tableau means, eh?
Obviously a meeting of the five world powers.
And what do you imagine my interest is in all of this?
Impersonations.
That must mean substitutions.
Bravo. Anything else?
Aha.
You are beginning to hear
the whirl of mighty workings, are you not?
Excellent, gentlemen. Excellent.
But rise. Move around.
You, Mr. Gladstone, shuffle those papers there.
It's not enough to merely look the part.
You must be the part.
Come along, Mr. West.
There's someone I believe you'll be very interested
in meeting again.
Time is the more delicate element in my equation,
not that I anticipate any trouble on that score
when I actually come to grips with it.
You continue to astonish me with your modesty.
Those childish attempts at humor.
I thought humor was gonna have a place
in the scheme of things.
Your kind of humor, Mr. West, can be overdone.
I trust you won't argue the point.
I make it a point never to argue with Zeus.
The door.
Mr. West, if you please.
How do you like our incubating room, Mr. West?
My humorous term, of course.
This is where Artemus' double was born.
Yes...
as were they all.
That skin-like parchment there is a formula of my own,
and our talented Voulee here brings any and all to life.
A photograph,
and here, at my disposal, is that person.
Luncheon awaits us, Mr. West.
Is it, uh, miss? Can that be possible?
Yes.
That's beyond all understanding.
Jim.
Jim?
What are you doing in here?!
Uh, as a matter of fact, I-
How are you in the outfield?
I don't blame you.
If I looked like that, I'd cover it up too.
To your continued good health, sir.
No, Mr. West, I'm not lame.
It's amazing.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Yes, I know Heh-heh-heh-heh.
But it's really not as amazing as it seems.
It's a- A simple experiment
in the law of probabilities:
the extrapolation of a single known,
carried to its ultimate conclusion.
You must be the life of the party with that stunt.
But as long as you brought it up-
Why do I propel myself about in this contraption, eh?
Well, it allows me to conserve energy.
You see, eh, even the exercise
of thought processes expends energy,
so it logically follows that the less you use physically,
the more held in reserve for thought.
But why don't you ask me the question
that's really in your mind?
As long as I'm not boring you.
What is it that you want?
The world is in a very untidy state, Mr. West.
I wanna put it to rights.
No one can argue with that.
Yes, but in order for me to put it to rights,
I shall have to come
very, very close to destroying it.
There's where you're gonna run into a little opposition.
Do you like the condition of the world?
Well, I don't.
One massive case history of madness,
stretching back through the centuries.
Starvation, hatred, bloody wars, and no end in sight.
Depend on it, sir.
A surgeon is needed, not a sugar pill.
You with the surgeon's knife in your hand, of course.
As one particularly well-equipped?
Yes.
Let us assume that I am successful
in substituting those five men
in that locked, well-guarded Washington conference room.
Can you conceive that those men,
my men,
might make decisions that would affect every life
of every human being
in every corner of the globe?
Very soon, a series of great events
will begin to plague this troubled old earth.
The British fleet will bombard Holland.
Russian troops will invade India.
Spain will pillage Greece.
France will attack Germany.
And the United States will swarm ashore
on the beaches of every South American country.
It'll be a world gone mad...
with a vengeance.
A world battered, torn.
A world...on fire!
All that puts you in control of what's left.
Men powerful enough to destroy
can also agree to elect one world leader,
into whose hands they place complete authority
to dictate the future of mankind
for the benefit of mankind.
It's all very clear now, except one thing.
Apparently, I figure into your plan somehow.
You do. How?
Now, Mr. West,
you will have the opportunity of heading my secret service,
such position to be ranked number two
in the new world order.
But before you give me your answer, hear this.
I've neither time or patience to coax or wheedle.
Great events force me to force decisions.
Tell Leeto and Voulee to come in.
You will come, in the next few minutes,
to a decision,
not only to join me in my venture,
but to prove, without hesitation,
you have the kind of courage which is a rarity in man.
A courage distilled of all corrupting emotion.
In just one minute...
either this lovely girl will die or you will.
The choice is yours.
That's quite a problem. Suppose I choose neither?
In that case, you automatically choose death for yourself.
And just in case you're toying with any heroic notions,
let me warn you:
If you so much as flex a muscle,
there won't be enough of you left
to brush up in a dustpan.
Very well, Leeto, put the knife to her throat.
One...
two...
three...
Twenty-five...
26...
27...
28...
Goodbye, Mr. West.
Tell him to put that knife down.
I never meant to cut that lovely throat.
You too?
Y-yes, yes. Please, put that knife away.
Mr. West seems to have taken charge.
There must be much more you want of me
other than just to head up that security setup.
Oh? What do I want?
I don't know, but whatever it is,
you're not gonna waste me just because I won't respond
like a puppet on a string.
Of that, Mr. Braine, I'm sure.
Excellent, Mr. West.
Now more than ever-
Sir, the door to the tarot room has been opened.
Someone must be in the tunnels.
Unless the probabilities have all gone awry,
that would be your colleague Mr. Gordon.
Good old Artie. I look forward to seeing him.
Yes, yes, you may see him a little sooner
than you had anticipated.
There is one more probability that must be reckoned with
and that is that Mr. Gordon is already here
and has taken the disguise of Leeto.
To put it another way,
if that mask cannot be removed,
you will be quite suddenly and violently removed
from this earthly sphere.
Heh, heh. Seems you've gone to a great deal of trouble
for nothing, Mr. West.
Oh, dear.
Odd. I seem to have overestimated our Mr. Gordon.
See that a search is made of the entire cavern,
including the new tunnel.
And now, Mr. West,
to your future.
Leeto?
So I'm going to be handed over to posterity.
Yes, that is correct, Mr. West.
Your likeness will be useful to the cause.
Voulee, what do you get out of all of this?
Goals? You must have some.
Or do you find it rewarding
just having someone threaten to cut your throat?
He wouldn't have done it.
He's a wonderful man with wonderful goals.
Such as?
A world without injustice, without war.
Do you really believe he's working to that objective?
What other objective can he have?
I'll use this if I have to, Mr. West.
Braine's hunger for power will never be satisfied, Voulee.
He's a wonderful man.
You're being blinded, Voulee.
If he were a wonderful man,
he wouldn't have permitted anyone
to hold a knife to your throat to prove a point.
He's not interested in mankind.
Oh...
you're just not gonna believe this.
Talk about your Lillian Russell.
Just keep turning till she comes into focus.
Jim, it's me.
Artie, she's all right.
Knowing Mr. Braine's fun is for being a step ahead,
I'd started by being two steps ahead.
Voilà. My old handsome self.
Artie, I can't believe that Braine wasn't aware
that you were wandering around.
Well, we can double-check that soon enough.
He's aware.
I left Leeto locked in here securely.
He's taken a little stroll.
Braine mentioned the new tunnel. Do you know where it's located?
It's a forbidden tunnel, very well-guarded.
Voulee, darling, that's our favorite kind.
Going very well.
Going very well indeed.
Somehow, somewhere, this tunnel has got to end.
How 'bout that, Voulee? How much farther?
It's only a little farther.
Uh, may I have the gun now, please?
Thank you.
The end of the line.
I wish you wouldn't use that expression.
Hey, Jim, that's the real thing.
The White House executive conference room.
This must be a one-way mirror.
So this is where the big swap was scheduled to begin, huh?
A swap that could easily result in a world ruled by madness.
Our Mr. Braine isn't that invulnerable.
He might get his men around that security table, all right.
But there's one thing he doesn't know about the security setup.
Hmm.
Please, please, do come in...
Uh, without the gun.
Well, well, it seems we've come the full circle,
back where we started from.
In more ways than one, you will find.
Tell me, what adjustment must I make to my plans?
What, uh-? What particular security measure
were you about to mention?
Was I?
Mr. West, you will find that I have ways
of being extraordinarily... unpleasant.
As you must know by now,
there was only one bit of information
that I needed from you or Mr. Gordon
from the very beginning-
Yes, it's given me many sleepless nights.
-that there might possibly be some security measure
taken at the White House of which I am unaware,
one particular measure that would keep
the executive conference room inviolate.
I'm afraid you're just going to have to continue
to spend those sleepless nights, Mr. Braine.
I believe I spoke of unpleasantness.
I should have preferred to avoid a demonstration,
but since you insist...
We have hours at our disposal.
The brain can be destroyed by pain.
You will blabber answers to my questions
quite involuntarily if you persist in this stubbornness,
like so.
What follows may be painful, Mr. West.
We must make closer, more intimate contact, Mr. West.
No! No! No!
Oh, I declare,
it's just downright darling.
It's too cunning for words.
Well, it's a place
for Jim and I to hang our hat.
My, you two must be frightfully wealthy
to have all this.
No, actually, we're just a couple of working stiffs.
Yes. You see, we have this rich uncle
who just lets us, uh, use the train.
And from time to time, we have to do a few chores for him.
What kind of chores?
Oh, a little of this...
And a little of that.
I have a feeling you two
are trying to hide something.
Hide something?
Girls, if our work wasn't so downright boring,
we'd be delighted to tell you-
Oh!
Well, girls, I guess we're going to have
to tell you the sordid truth.
Artie, you tell 'em.
Jim and I are...
international jewel thieves.
Oh.