The girl pulled her eyes from Jaro's, turned to Landovitch. "Yours," she said, "yours too."
"I give you my word, of course," he replied.
With a sigh of relief she sank back in her chair. "In there, boys." She motioned towards a door at the left of the chamber.
Jaro sprang forward, swung it open, revealed a large closet. Joan Webb, gagged, bound to a chair, regarded him from wide brown eyes. Behind him, the red-haired singer burst into laughter.
"She's been there all the time," she laughed. "You were bound to have found her. Jaro, Jaro, that was the most magnificent bluff I've ever pulled. And you fell for it. You, Jaro Moynahan, fell for it."
The abortive revolution had brought the Festival to an abrupt conclusion. The city of Acecia licked its wounds and fretted under the grip of martial law, but negotiations for Mercurian independence had been reopened. Landovitch's report had exploded a bombshell in the Earth Congress, and it looked very much as if the negotiations might be successful at last.
"How does it feel to be famous?" Jaro asked. He and Joan and the T.I.S. agent were sitting in his room, sipping Latonka.
Landovitch said: "I wish you would have let me give credit where it was due."
"Publicity in my line," Jaro replied, "is not very good for business."