The Anti-Death League

"It's true, though."

"I know. What did Dr. Best say was basically the matter with you?"

"He kept telling me I subconsciously wanted to sleep with other girls."

Churchill burst out laughing.

"I don't, though."

"Of course you don't. I'm sorry. I was laughing because he told Max Hunter the same thing, that he was a repressed homosexual. If you knew Max… But you will soon. When's your day off?"

"Monday."

"That's too far ahead. I'm only going to be round here another five weeks or so."

"That's not at all long, is it?"

"Then I'm being sent abroad, but only for a short time. I'll come and see you as soon as I get back."

"You're not being sent to fight anybody, are you?"

"No. Not fight anybody. It isn't that sort of thing."

"That's not too bad, then. But Monday's still a long way off. I'm free for bits of tomorrow, the first part of the morning and the afternoon."

"I'm free in the afternoon. I'll come and fetch you and we'll drive somewhere. It's a pity you live so far away. Where is it exactly?"

She told him.

He drove on to a level piece of ground by the side of the road, stopped, and switched off the ignition. There was a faint sighing in the air which she thought at first was just the sound of silence, but then she felt a gentle breeze on her cheek. She started being afraid.

"What's the matter? Why have you stopped?"

"Cathy. So you're Lucy's friend."

"Is that bad? Don't be angry with me."

"I'm not angry with you. The other night one of the other chaps and I drove over to Lucy's place. He went up and went to bed with her and then I did the same."

"I don't do that, though. I'm just her friend and I just live there. She's got them all organized so they don't even make passes at me. I just help her with the drinks when I'm there, that's all. I don't sleep with any of them. We're company for each other. I haven't got many friends in this country because I spent eight years in Australia when I was married to my first husband. When I left Casement she was the only person I could really go to. She doesn't try to make me go to bed with any of them. She helps me not to. I haven't been to bed with anybody since I went to live there. Honestly."

"Don't you mind my having been to bed with her?"

"Are you in love with her and do you want to go to bed with her again?"

"No, neither of those."

"Then I don't mind at all. Do you believe me?"

"About not going to bed with those chaps? Of course I do."

"Well, in that case…"

"There doesn't seem to be anything for either of us to mind, does there?"

"No."

Catharine was not afraid when he put one arm round her shoulders and the other hand on her breast and kissed her. It is now, she thought. It is you.

"I love you," said Churchill.

"I'm going to love you too, probably by tomorrow. But I'll have to have just a little time. I thought I'd stopped, you see. Loving people. So it'll take me just a little time to start again. Is that all right?"

"Yes."

He kissed her another once and then started the engine.

Churchill parked Ross-Donaldson's jeep in its space and made towards the front door of the Mess. One of the D4 sentries, grateful perhaps for the smallest novelty, turned towards him and came to attention. Acknowledging, Churchill wished him good night and went indoors.

Hunter's room was on the first floor. It had one very comfortable chair in it, the seat of most of the drinking-bout which had ended in his admission to hospital. He had adopted it after becoming dissatisfied with the more usual procedure of drinking in the ante-room downstairs. It had seemed to him uneconomic to keep a Mess waiter up until four A.M. serving him with whisky, and twice running he had found himself, a couple of hours after that time, lying in the grass somewhere near the house and resisting the efforts of a member of the camp patrol to pull him to his feet. Even the chair had finally proved inadequate by being too easy to fall out of, and he had had to take to his bed, where, after a twenty-four-hour absence from the general scene, he had been found by Churchill.

When Churchill entered, Hunter was sitting in his chair drinking a glass of soda-water. Naidu was sitting opposite him, on the edge of the bed, a heavily diluted whisky in his hand.

"Willie not back yet?" asked Churchill.

"No," said Naidu.

"Pour yourself a whisky," said Hunter. "On the dressing-table. You'll notice the cap is off. Don't put it back. In fact throw it away. Having no cap saves time, the loss by evaporation is trifling, and there are probably figures to show that a bottle's more vulnerable to being spilled or dropped when the cap's being removed and replaced. Like aircraft when taking off and landing. I must get Ross-Donaldson to give me the statistical breakdown. Look, you need more whisky than you've got there if you're going to be a satisfactory drinking companion to a man who isn't drinking. Moti's hopeless at that. He only drinks to be sociable, which is no use to anybody."

"It's the taste of the beastly stuff which is such a snag," said Naidu.

"No, it's a blessing. We'd all be dead if it were palatable. At least James and I would be. And Willie. Well, you're back early. It's only twenty to one. What didn't keep you?"

Churchill had taken his place on a heavy wooden chair with a high back, moving a pile of motoring magazines to do so. He lit a cigarette. "It was quite late," he said. "And she was tired."

"So you cut short the final embraces. Very considerate of you."

"There weren't any embraces to speak of."

"I'm sorry to hear that. How hard did you try?"

"I didn't try at all. She's not the sort of girl you want to rush things with."

"Every girl is that sort of girl."

Naidu took a quick pull at his drink.

"You don't know anything about it, Max," said Churchill.

"Oh yes I do, my dear boy. I could see the way you were looking at her in the pub, and the way you weren't looking at anything in particular for the rest of the evening, except at your watch every ten minutes or so. She's very beautiful and that's a danger in itself to somebody like you. Before you know where you are you'll be falling in love with her. If indeed you haven't already."

"I can't see anything against that."

"You will, James, you will. All emotional attachments are bad. Get what there is to be got out of somebody without undue effort and then pass on to the next. It's better for everyone that way."

"If I may come butting in here," said Naidu, "I dislike hearing James's romantic sentiments trampled underfoot in this manner. It's right and proper that a young man should hold these views and be respectful towards womankind and so on. He should not be laughed at, Max."

"I'm not laughing at him. I'm trying to warn him. It won't do any good, I suppose. Well, who is she, James? I haven't seen her behind the bar there before. Where does she come from?"

"You'd seen her before, Moti. That day at the hospital when we went to visit Max."

"Of course. Standing on the path. I remember your being… struck by her then. But what a remarkable coincidence."

"That's not good," said Hunter. "He'll start thinking it's fate and all the rest of the rigmarole. So she's another of Dr. Best's clients. Did she say anything about him? What was his diagnosis of her?"

Churchill grinned. "I'll give you one guess."

"Oh, no. Not suppressed lesbianism? You know, there must have been something in that man's childhood that gave him a morbid dread of the obvious. Anyway, come on. You still haven't told us about her."

"I don't know what you want to know. She's got a husband but he isn't around. She's staying with this Lady Hazell woman you've probably heard about. But she doesn't, my girl, she's called Catharine, she doesn't join in the orgies."

Churchill looked defensively at Hunter, who made to speak but remained silent.

"Even so," said Naidu, "not a very salubrious environment, from all I gather."

"Ross-Donaldson was telling me about that evening the two of you were there," said Hunter. "It sounds fascinating. Why don't we all four drive over some time? You could call on your light of love, James, and you could inspect the architectural layout and grounds, Moti, and Willie-surely there must be something for Willie to look at."

"There's a library nobody's been near for God knows how long, Catharine says."

"The very thing. He could write an article about it for this newspaper of his or magazine or whatever. Has he had much stuff sent in, do you know?"

"It's early days yet."

"I suppose so. You'll have to write him a sonnet to Catharine."

"I wouldn't know how to start. What would you do over at Lucy's?"

"Me? Oh, I'd go to bed with her. What else? It would probably be an experience. And my sex-life hasn't been very full recently. I don't like that. A chap tends to brood, and that's unattractive. Look at poor Brian Leonard. He'd be so much better company if he could get his end in occasionally. And probably better at catching spies too. Oh. Now that is a thought."

"What is?"

"The Colonel's always saying he's got his money on some local temptress-seductress type as the most likely sort of spy. Of course, the old devil's building up to going over to Lucy's himself and giving her an official inspection. But why can't we introduce the idea to Brian? All we need is one of her friends tipping him off that while reclining voluptuously on her divan she got curious about what's going on up here. Ross-Donaldson would do it if you won't."

"What would be the point?"

"My vivid mental picture of Lady Hazell's set-up convinces me that it's the very place for Brian. It would do him good. I can just see him with a parrot stuck to his shoulder, cross-questioning Lucy about her political affiliations."

A car could be heard approaching the Mess.

"This will be Willie now," said Naidu.

No more was said while the car came nearer and stopped, footsteps sounded outside and the front door shut. Hunter frowned at his glass of soda-water and drained it. After a moment Ayscue came into the room. He looked tired.

"He's dying," he said, and went to the dressing-table and helped himself to whisky. "In fact it's quite possible he's dead already. They said it was just a matter of hours, if that. He's been in deep coma since this morning."

"Have they decided what it is?" asked Hunter.

"They didn't seem too definite, no. Some type of meningitis. Not a type that responds to drugs, apparently. There was a specialist there of sorts. He told me he was satisfied they'd done all they could."

"I.e. they'd put him to bed," said Churchill.

He too went and poured a drink, glancing inquiringly at Naidu, who shook his head slightly.

"He looked like somebody sleeping," Ayscue went on. "Very flushed, that was about all. There was nothing I could do for him. Young Pearce said he wanted to stay, so I wrote him a twelve-hour pass. I'll square it with the Adjutant in the morning."

"How was he taking it?" asked Hunter.

"Pearce? Very well indeed. He was refusing to break down and cry, though it was absolutely all he could do not to. It seemed the best thing to leave him so that he could cry all he wanted. I asked him if he thought I could be of any help to him, and he said very tactfully that he was afraid not. So I came away."

"He's having a whale of a time round about now, isn't he?" said Churchill vivaciously. "That dispatch-rider last week. Fawkes today. Shaping up nicely, don't you think?"

Ayscue said in a weary tone, "Probably a million people have died all over the world in that period. There hasn't been any-"

"Oh, sorry, I was overlooking that point. That makes it all right, of course."

"James, I suggest you try to reconcile yourself to what can't be changed."

"Why? Why should I? I can see no reason for ever stopping minding what's happening to Fawkes tonight. No good reason. Lots of bad ones. Laziness and cowardice. Inability to concentrate on what's important. Vulgar and unthought-out ideas about everything surely having to make sense and be all right in the end. Because if it doesn't and won't be, where does that leave us?"

Naidu said tentatively, "If you will allow a word from one of a different and, I think I'm right in saying, older religion than yours, I would suggest-"

"I have no religion," said Churchill.

"Oh, but a moment ago you were referring to some person, a lie,' who in your view was having a fine time with the deaths of certain people. I must confess I took this to refer to your God."

"That was an anti-religious remark."

"With the very greatest respect, James, it seems to me not suitable that you should be doing anything so trivial as attacking your religion at such a solemn time as this. The thought of the impending death of Corporal Fawkes should, I submit, be filling you with sorrow."

"It does. But it fills me with anger too. Just this one thing is enough to show that we live in a bad world."

"There are no bad things in the world." Naidu got up from the bed. "Even what might seem to us most horrible can be rendered endurable by wisdom."

"With just as much respect, Moti, I think you're talking about sentimentality and the servile acceptance of a wish-fulfilling tradition. Not wisdom."

"Perhaps I am. Wisdom is hard for most of us to obtain. If sentimentality and your servile acceptance will render endurable what seems horrible, let us by all means take recourse to them."

"Yes," said Ayscue violently. "And lies too if necessary."

Churchill rounded on him as violently. "Well, you ought to know, Willie. That's what you trade in, isn't it?"

"I'm going to bed," said Ayscue after a short pause. "Coming, Moti?"

"Yes. Good night, James. Good night, Max. Thank you for the whisky."

"Well, well, well," said Hunter when he and Churchill were alone. "You seem to be getting nasty in your drink these days. It's a stage we all go through. The trick is to drink much faster, especially early in the evening. Then the stuff attacks your brain on a steeper acceleration. You become inarticulate with dignity. That's the state to aim for, dear boy."

He rose thoughtfully and strolled, hands in pockets, towards the dressing-table. "I seem to have been expressing myself too vividly for my own good. I've often suffered because of that. Anyway, self-converted or not, this is the moment when I fall off the wagon with a resounding crash."

He picked up the whisky-bottle. Churchill went over and put his hand on Hunter's shoulder.

"Don't be silly, Max. It's too late for that tonight. You'll get no sleep if you start now. You'll still be at it at breakfast-time."

"Oh, jolly good, I'll be able to pick up another bottle when the waiters arrive."

Hunter had poured a third of a tumbler of whisky and added water. He held it close to his body untasted.

"Look, don't do it. Not now. You said you were going to stay off it altogether for a month after leaving that place. Till the end of your probation period. It's only been two days. Give yourself a chance. Take a pill and get into bed. I'll stay and chat to you for a bit."

"I'd need so many pills I'd be falling about the place all day tomorrow. And I don't want to sleep, I want to be drunk. And it isn't really a sudden decision. When I promised everybody I wouldn't touch it for a month I put a little secret clause in the treaty. A mental reservation. It said that it would be all right for me to get drunk if a certain kind of thing went wrong. It has. So here I go."

He drained his glass and refilled it, then refilled Churchill's. They went back to their chairs.

"Do you mean the Fawkes thing?" asked Churchill in a puzzled tone.

"Not as such, no. He's all right now. It's a matter of some delicacy, really. To put to someone like you, that is. From my point of view it's quite crude, in the sense that its impact on me is strong and unsubtle. But it does connect with Fawkes. As we heard just now, the Fawkes business is hitting Signalman Pearce hard. For some time, understandably, he won't be able to pay a lot of attention to anything else. And I was beginning to hope quite seriously that I might get him to pay a certain amount of attention to me."

"You were going to make advances to him, were you?"

"I'd already started. Well, let's call them approaches. Nothing overt. But I feel there's a fair chance he knows the sort of thing he's in for, or knew what he was in for, I suppose it'll turn out to be now this has happened. Which made it slightly encouraging that he agreed to let me take him into town and give him dinner tomorrow night. But, you see, that'll all be off. Hence my alighting from the wagon."

"He was probably just going to soak you for an expensive meal and lots of champagne and then turn all shocked or nasty when you showed what you were after."

"There's nothing cynical or mean about Andy. At the very least he was looking forward to an evening out with a kind friend. He's a very nice, open-hearted, unassuming boy. You don't know him."

"How do you know him? You sound as if you and he were old buddies."

"We had no fewer than three chats when he came over to see Fawkes at the hospital. We got on absolutely splendidly, Andy and I."

"I shouldn't have thought he was your type, Max. I ran into him the other day. He's a nice-looking kid, I can see that myself, but not in the least effeminate."

"Oh, I don't like them when they're effeminate. There's a kind of delicate handsomeness and physical grace that's not the slightest bit pansified, but is only found in young men. It's all gone by the time they're about twenty-five. Andy's got a lot of it. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes, I think so. But somebody like that would be basically heterosexual, wouldn't he?"

"Basically, yes. But having that type of good looks often means that he'll have been got at a bit in adolescence, when he was going through the phase of being drawn in that direction or at any rate wasn't averse from a bit of experimenting. So he'll have some idea of what fun it can be. On the other hand, he's had girls in the meantime and he knows by now he's attractive to them. So he's not in any doubt about his masculinity. Then I come along and suggest in the nicest possible way that just one more spot of what he used to get up to with his mates at school won't do him any harm. In fact, I tell him, it'll be more of a treat than it was then, because it'll take place in luxurious hotel bedrooms and such instead of behind the gasworks. I make a great point of laying everything on in style. French meals under crystal chandeliers, drinks in exclusive bars, theaters, trips to socially okay sporting events, I thought you'd look nice in these shirts so I got you half a dozen, I'd noticed you'd broken your wrist-watch so please say you'll accept this one. Well then, when his successor appears we've both had a lovely time and he goes back to his girls with a light heart and an intensified awareness of the possibilities of human nature. More whisky?"

"I'm all right with this, thanks."

"I think perhaps just a tiny spot for me, not more than a quarter of a pint." As he stood at the dressing-table, Hunter said reflectively, "You know, describing my methods to you like that makes me see how closely they resemble those of your school of thought. As you probably know, a lot of homos are keen on squalor. Or they're deliberately undiscriminating about who they go with. Or they enjoy paying for it or being paid. But with one important exception I'm just like you. I wonder whether Dr. Best may not have got on to a sort of mirror-image of the truth about me. Could I be a repressed heterosexual, do you suppose?"

"Christ, how would I know?"

"It might explain my feelings about women." Hunter sat down again. "As far as going to bed with them is concerned-something I've been known to do between affairs-I've always found them surprisingly pleasant considering they're not boys. Less interesting anatomically, true, but the main outlines of their shape strike me as all right, if a bit eccentric. It's the details I can't really do with. I don't like the shape of their hands. Little narrow claws like that never did anything of importance. And those finger-nails. There's something precious about them. And when did you ever see a good-looking woman with a decent firm nose? Little puggy snouts. Well. Doesn't it strike you that I'm sort of cooking up excuses for objecting to them? I mean, if I were as dead against them as an honest-to-goodness, middle-of-the-road, God-fearing queer ought to be, what I'd be taking against would be things like their breasts. Which in fact I'm definitely for. Do you see what I'm driving at?"

"Yes. So much so that you must be on the wrong track. From what I know of Dr. Best's line on things, if you were a repressed heterosexual things like breasts would be exactly what you would take against, so that you could go on concealing from yourself your basic heterosexuality."

"Whereas if I were a repressed homosexual the reason I'd take against things like breasts would be that my concealed hatred of women was fastening on one of their most obvious womanly attributes. Yes, I see. I must say I really shall have to do something about Dr. Best. I'm beginning to feel quite strongly on the point."

"What sort of thing have you in mind for the doctor?"

"A nasty sort of thing. That's as far as I've got with the project at the moment. But I've plenty of time to map out a scheme before we all finish here and go our respective ways."

Churchill said, "I think I will have some more whisky after all."

"Help yourself. You're a bit up and down tonight, aren't you?"

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about Fawkes. I told you, he's better off than any of us."

"It's not only that. It's… the Army."

"Why, what's it been doing to you?"

"I seem to have got completely fed up with it. I don't believe in it any more."

"Christ," said Hunter, "did you ever?"

"Oh yes. I thought it did very good and necessary things. That's why I joined."

"My dear, you never cease to amaze me."

"Well, why did you join?"

"Just the uniform. My favorite kind of young fellow looks at his best in it. I'm told that opportunities for the side of life we've been discussing are better in the Navy, but they make the lower deck wear such silly trousers. Whereas khaki really brings out the… I remember the very day I decided I must take the Queen's shilling. My parents had dragged me along to look at and be looked at by a new school, a thing I'm sorry to say they had to do at more than one juncture. We were wandering round some gloomy bloody cloister in the wake of the Head, when there appeared from nowhere the most theatrically gorgeous child you ever saw in your life-wearing his Training Corps uniform. That's for me, I said. To myself, of course."

"And was it?"

"Oh yes, it was, any time I cared to ask. But it was also for about forty other people any time they cared to ask. Unfortunately."

"That's good, though, isn't it, according to you? It ought to have taken care of preventing you getting emotionally involved."

"Yes, indeed it ought, but it didn't work like that. I was still feeling my way in those days. I'm in no such danger now."

Hunter stood up and slowly took off his jacket.

"What's this I'm in for?" asked Churchill. "A demonstration?"

"That takes at least two, and besides myself there's only you present, and you're not my type, I'm sorry to say. You're too mature. In looks, that is. No, I'm getting ready for bed. And don't say how sensible that is of me or I'll drink the rest of that bottle to put you in your place."

"I'll be off, then. See you in the morning."

"You will. Good night, James. Thank you for listening."

When Churchill had gone, Hunter sat down on his bed and looked jerkily about his room, like a man in search of something to smash.

"Now you're sure Evans knows which key it is?" asked Leonard.

Deering clicked his tongue and sighed. "I told you," he said. "There's only just the four on the ring. One's the key of the room. Evans knows that one because Ayscue's lent it to him dozens of times so he can pick up his laundry and the rest of it. Then there's one that must be the key of Ayscue's strong-box because it's too small to be anything else. Then there's a Yale key we don't know anything about, but it can't be the one we're after because the cupboard's not got a Yale lock. So the only other one must be the one. Okay?"

"And Evans can get it out of the room to you and get it back in again without being spotted?"

"Look," said Deering, shutting his eyes for a moment. "To start with he doesn't have to search high and low because Ayscue always puts his keys with his loose change and the rest of it on his dressing-table when he hangs up his pants at night. Now then. In comes Evans with the tea tomorrow morning, puts it down by the bed, picks up Ayscue's shoes and buggers off out again, whipping the keys as he goes. I'm standing by with my bit of wax and in ten seconds I've done my stuff and I'm on my way. Evans goes back with the shoes and dumps the keys before Ayscue's got his eyes open. Okay? If you can't trust me to take the impression properly you can go down to the huts and do it yourself."

"I'd be noticed. Nobody pays much attention to a batman wherever he is."

"Oh, thanks very much, I'm sure. Any other worries?"

"That's all, Deering, thank you."

The batman came to something not unlike attention. "Thank you, sir. Good night."

Left alone, Leonard paced the uneven floor of his room. He was feeling mildly uncomfortable, tense, short of confidence, a state he was growing familiar with. His walk brought him face to face with the major in his picture. A slight further decrease in confidence made him avoid that blue-eyed stare. It seemed to him to hold disappointment, perhaps reproach.

He was as far as ever from unmasking his spy; further, actually. Regular and searching inquiry among the S1 group showed that no officer still under suspicion had asked any of them anything whatever about Operation Apollo. Nor had anybody else, for that matter. A resolute incuriosity pervaded the camp. And the Ayscue thing, he felt sure, was a false trail, merely something he must factually and officially satisfy himself about. Meanwhile there was no news from the London end. The spy's new contact there, replacing the man recently arrested, was still untraced.

Then there was this new lead. He ought, he supposed, to be grateful for the least ray of light. But what it seemed to illuminate was as repugnant to his theories as if it had been specially contrived as such. And, with a prescience unusual in him, he could guess already that following it up would take a lot out of him, personally rather than professionally. He knew he ought to think that the last bit made it better, not worse, but could not manage to.

A knock came at his door. It proved to be from the hand of Ross-Donaldson.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Let's go."

They left the building and got into Leonard's car. This was fitted with a two-way radio set tuned to the frequency of the Command Post and the emergency station. Leonard switched it on and picked up the microphone. Conscious of Ross-Donaldson looking uninterestedly at him, he said,

"Hullo, Control. Padlock here. Over."

After some delay a north-country voice answered from the loudspeaker.

"Hullo, Padlock. Control receiving you. Over."

"Am leaving area for short period. Test personal alarm."

A puny buzz sounded from an instrument strapped to Leonard's right wrist.

"Hullo, Control. Okay. Out."

"What's that thing for?" asked Ross-Donaldson as they rolled down towards the gate.

"It tells me when there's something for me on the radio link. I always carry it when I move out of telephonic communication."

"There's a telephone where we're going."

"It may be insecure."

"Oh yes, of course it may. How silly of me to forget that."

"Security Officer and Adjutant," said Leonard to the guard corporal. "Operational."

"You must suffer a certain amount from training-action disparity," said Ross-Donaldson a moment later. "Especially in the absence of the usual action-surrogates."

"What are you talking about?"

"Things like parades, exercises, guards. Organized games don't help much because they aren't derived from training."

"I still can't understand a word you're saying."

"You see the phenomenon most clearly, of course, in troops brought to a high pitch of training for some specialized operation which is then unexpectedly canceled. Immediate plummeting of morale, indiscipline, drunkenness, petty crime, even medium-scale desertion. Not that I'm suggesting you'd go to those lengths. Tonight's expedition should help you a little to reduce tension."

"I think I see what you mean now," said Leonard. "Roughly."

After they had driven for some time he said,

"Don't introduce me as a Security man whatever you do."

"That might ruin everything, I do see."

"Just Captain Leonard of the Sailors."

"Right."

"If you could manage to mention casually that I'm on very secret work at the camp it might be very valuable."

"I'll see what I can do. Go left here."

"Wasn't that the Colonel's car that went by?" asked Leonard suddenly a little later still.

Ross-Donaldson rolled his window down and looked back the way they had come. "I believe it was, yes."

"Indicative. It would naturally be assumed that he knew more than his juniors."

"Logic plus inaccuracy in the pre-informed phase."

"That's right." Leonard, who recognized the expression from one of his manuals, was delighted. "I had no idea you were practiced in phylactological thought."

"I try to keep up with most things," said Ross-Donaldson modestly. "You can park next to these three."

"Isn't that your jeep there?"

"Indeed it is. Churchill asked if he might borrow it."

"Ah, there's no danger to be feared in that quarter. I wish everybody was like him."

"So do I."

Within another two minutes they were standing in a dimly lit room where a bald-headed man in his forties was reading a journal with the aid of a pencil-torch.

"Where's that man who let us in?" asked Leonard.

"Somewhere. It's often like that here."

The bald man looked up at them from ten yards away. With a deliberate movement of his wrist alone he brought the light of his torch round so that it illuminated in turn each of the soldiers from head to foot and back again. Then abruptly he returned to his reading.

Leonard was rather disconcerted. "Has that fellow been round the place before?" He spoke more quietly than usual, but just as thickly and urgently.

"I've never seen him. What about a drink?"

"I'd like some sherry if there is any."

"There won't be. Gin and tonic or nothing."

"Gin and tonic, then. Easy on the gin."

"Right." Ross-Donaldson raised his voice. "Can I get you something?"

The bald man continued to read.

While Ross-Donaldson was preparing the drinks, Leonard strolled across the room. His training had stressed the importance of attending to hunch and instinct, especially in what he had learned to call under-facted situations, and there was no doubt that hunch and instinct were telling him something now, though he could not have said quite what.

"Good evening," he said.

The bald man looked up again, but otherwise stayed as he was. Ten seconds later he said, "Good evening."

"Do you come here often?" asked Leonard helplessly.

"No. In fact this is my first visit."

"Mine too. How did you come to hear about it?"

"Hear about it? The fact of its existence is well known. As is that of its owner."

"Oh yes, of course, but I mean about what happens here."

"I think it possible that the two of us may have come here for different purposes."

"I think we probably have. What have you come for?"

The man raised the light of his torch briefly to Leonard's face, switched it off and put it in his pocket. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm an Army officer. I'm stationed at the camp not far from here. I expect you know the place."

"I know where it is."

"I'm engaged on some extremely important and very secret work there."

"Indeed?" said the man, becoming more friendly. "It seems as if it may not go on being secret very much longer."

"Oh? What makes you think that?"

"Logic. If those engaged on it go round telling total strangers they're on secret work, the secret itself is halfway towards being found out. Effective concealment conceals the fact of concealment."

This was so like something out of his manuals that Leonard needed all his conditioning not to start or exclaim. He took his drink from Ross-Donaldson without looking at him and sipped it with careful slowness.

"That's interesting," he said. "What suggested that idea to you?"

"My work."

"And what's your work, if you don't mind my-?"

"Let's just say that it consists very largely of uncovering what people would rather keep hidden."

"You make yourself sound like some kind of spy."

"A spy?" said the bald man gently. "Now what on earth can have put such a notion into your head?"

"Just the way you were talking. I hope I haven't offended you."

What with his vocal predispositions and his present mental state, the lightness with which Leonard spoke was very creditable. The man had reacted to his suggestion abnormally, no doubt of that. And-the thought came in an instant-if this Lady Hazell was getting information out of people there would have to be somebody to pick it up from her. In the pause that now followed, Leonard turned his face away and slightly up, as if glancing idly round the room. Then he looked out of the corner of his eye at the bald man, who proved to be looking at him in the same fashion. He shifted his gaze abruptly and found it held, also askance, by that of a parrot that was clinging uncomfortably to the bars of its cage.

There was a longer pause, broken by the sound of voices. Leonard turned and recognized Hunter and Ayscue coming into the room with Ross-Donaldson. A car had presumably driven up and the front door been knocked at and opened, but Leonard had been too absorbed to notice.

Hunter approached and nodded to Leonard, then caught sight of the bald man.

"Well, this is a surprise," he said, on a higher note than usual. "Fancy running into you here. I see that you and Brian have got together already."

"We haven't been introduced. I was sitting here reading when-"

"Well, I must remedy that right away, though neither of you is the type to stand on ceremony, I know. This is Dr. Best, who runs the mental hospital down the road where I spent those few days recently-Captain Leonard."

"You and I have spoken together on the telephone," said Dr. Best to Leonard. "I thought I recognized your voice."

"You two have got a lot in common," began Hunter.

Leonard said quickly, "Something important has come up which I must tell you about at once. Will you excuse us, Dr. Best?"

"Certainly," said the doctor amiably, watching him.

"Would you like a gin and tonic, Hunter?" called Ross-Donaldson.

"Just a tonic, if I may. Well, Brian, why all the mystery?"

"I stopped you because you were about to reveal that I'm a Security man. You are not to do that under any circumstances. That's an order, Max."

"But you don't usually… You don't mean you think there are spies about or something, do you?"

"Just a routine precaution. Now I want to ask you something. That man, Dr. Best, I suppose he must have questioned you pretty exhaustively when he was treating you, about your life and your job and so on. Think carefully before you answer. Did he show any interest in what's going on at the camp?"

Hunter seemed to think carefully. Then he said, "Yes. Yes, he did. It struck me at the time, but so much else was happening that I haven't remembered until now. He must have asked me what the chaps were up to half a dozen times in different ways. Was it the sort of thing that could cause me anxiety, was I worried the program wouldn't be finished in time, it would help him if he knew more about it. He really kept on at me. I just said I didn't know, which you'll agree is true. And now I come to think of it, I'm jolly glad it is true."

"Why?" Leonard's habitual urgency was redoubled.

"I'll tell you in a moment… Thank you very much, Alastair. Do forgive Brian and me for being unsociable, but we have a certain rather urgent problem to solve."

"Right," said Ross-Donaldson. "Don't hesitate to call on me if you think I can be of the slightest assistance."

He went over to Ayscue. Leonard closed in on Hunter.

"Why? Why are you glad you don't know about Operation Apollo?"

Hunter looked about and lowered his voice. "Because Dr. Best questioned me under hypnosis," he hissed.

"And you can't remember what questions he asked you?"

"No. But I have a sort of feeling that they were put very… persistently. On and on and on at the same point without getting anywhere. Of course, I suppose I could be wrong about that."

"Mm. You've been most helpful, Max. Thank you."

"It's a pleasure, believe me, Brian. Anything else I can do?"

"As a matter of fact there is. I'll have this man investigated and watched, naturally, but there's often something to be gained from a frontal approach. I wonder, if we go back to him now, could you suggest to me and him that I go over to the hospital and he show me round?"

"Yes, okay, but why do you want to see the place, from his point of view?"

"Oh, I'm interested in techniques of questioning prisoners under drugs and so on. Leave that to me."

But in the event this stratagem was not needed. Hunter had barely finished making his suggestion before Dr. Best was leafing through his pocket diary.

"Would eleven-thirty next Tuesday be convenient?" he asked. "And afterwards I hope you'll allow me to give you lunch in my quarters."

Leonard thanked him and moved over to the other group. He was later to explain to Hunter that this withdrawal was aimed at allowing the doctor to comment freely and perhaps significantly on his prospective guest (and that pretending to welcome inquisitiveness or inquiry was a device as old as espionage).

For the time being, Dr. Best said nothing about Leonard. Instead, he asked Hunter how he had been and was feeling.

"Pretty fair, thank you."

"I see that at the moment, at any rate, you're keeping off the drink."

"As you observantly observe, at the moment, at any rate, I am."

"But on the other hand… Would you object if we resumed, just temporarily, the doctor-patient relationship we recently conducted?"

"Say whatever you like, doctor."

"Thank you, Captain Hunter. I was about to venture to suggest that, while it's heartening to find you refraining from alcohol, you're still evidently engaged in denying your true nature by the pursuit of women."

"Old Lucy? Yes, I thought I might look in and make use of the facilities. Is that bad?"

"Let's call it unhelpful. It'll only produce further tension and anxiety."

"I'll just have to learn to live with it. You're next, are you?"

"Next?"

"To make use of the facilities. Or did Brian and my other friend get here before you?"

"You should not assume that everybody is engaged in the same frantic and deeply disturbed and ultimately totally stultifying pursuit of mere physical release as yourself, Captain Hunter. I'm here for a quite different reason. It so happens that one of my patients is living in this house. She came out of hospital on probation the very same day as yourself. A case of cumulative psychic dystrophy which I think I've been fortunate enough to check and may even have partly reversed. I hope in due course to speak to Lady Hazell and find out something of how this woman's been getting on."

"Wouldn't it be simpler to talk to her rather than Lucy?"

"It's desirable that I avoid direct contact with her. She must learn to manage her life on her own resources. I don't want her to count on being able to see friends she can tell her troubles to and generally lean on."

"Friends like who?"

"Like myself."

"I see. I hadn't looked at it like that. Aren't you drinking, doctor?"

"It doesn't greatly interest me in this form. I'm not an abstainer, however."

"I suppose only suppressed alcoholics are that."

"That's oversimplifying matters a good deal, but there is such a tendency, yes, speaking broadly. I enjoy a glass of wine with a meal, a good brandy after. In fact I've a small but not ill-chosen cellar in my quarters. Which reminds me. This young man I'm entertaining to lunch next week. Is he a friend of yours?"

"Well, none of us have known one another very long, but I've seen a good deal of him over the last month or so. Why?"

"He seems to me a little… anxious. Does he strike you as a well-balanced, well-integrated personality? A lay opinion based on direct contact can be useful."

Hunter said nothing for some seconds. Dr. Best looked at him with a smile.

"Why are you hesitating, Captain Hunter?"

"I'm not hesitating, I'm trying to make sure I answer your question accurately."

"As you may have heard, students of the human mind set most store by a spontaneous, top-of-the-head reaction, but now that the opportunity for this has been lost, you may as well take your time."

"I've taken it now. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that Brian Leonard is a completely stable sort of chap. He likes his work and as far as I know he's good at it. Socially he's a little shy, perhaps, but gregarious enough. Not a drinker, not a solitary, not a depressive. If you're looking for a lunatic, Dr. Best, you're wasting your time with Brian."

"You speak with a good deal of warmth, Captain Hunter, more perhaps than the occasion would seem to warrant."

"I don't know about that. I'm getting pretty tired of all this not being able to take anything at its face value and seeing everyone as a case of something or other."

"Or could it be that your partisanship for Captain Leonard springs from some part of your mind that sees him as potentially… more than a friend?"

At this Hunter laughed so much that he slopped his drink and had to cling to Dr. Best's shoulder for support. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. When he spoke next it was with none of the suppressed or open animus towards the doctor he had shown so far.

"It's probably jolly sinister to laugh as much as that," he said, "but I simply couldn't help it. Well, that rounds things off nicely. Now I must insist that you break your rule just this once and take a drink. Come and join the others."

Dr. Best seemed quite touched at being thus invited. He allowed himself to be led across the room and given a gin and tonic-a weak one, as stipulated. He listened to the ensuing talk with great interest.

Using a rather peevish tone, Leonard was saying to Ross-Donaldson, "Aren't we sort of hanging about a good deal? How long can Churchill have been… upstairs by now? At this rate I'll be-"

"James isn't with Lucy, is he?" asked Hunter.

"He borrowed Alastair's jeep and it's outside now."

"Oh, I see."

"Even assuming he was commencing matters just as we arrived," said Ross-Donaldson, looking at his watch, "he's still about five minutes overdue already. But of course a margin like that isn't really significant."

"What computation are you using?" asked Ayscue.

"Well, naturally it's all very approximate, but the expected positive correlation between age and duration has shown itself to be experimentally verifiable. The interesting thing is that, whereas some parabolic function would seem likely, what you in fact get is something pretty linear. My guess would be that, with a broadened sample, you'd get a concave asymptote as you moved further along the age axis, though a convex one at the other end strikes me as unlikely. Anyway, I don't suppose we'll be able to plot that in practice."

"Who do those two other cars outside belong to?" asked Leonard.

"One would be mine, no doubt," said Dr. Best with a smile.

"And the other presumably belongs to whoever let us in," said Ross-Donaldson.

"But where is he?" asked Leonard.

At this point two men in civilian clothes appeared at the threshold. "Good night, all," they said, and withdrew.

Ross-Donaldson half closed his eyes and did a couple of very slow nods.

"Well, what happens now?" asked Hunter.

"We hang on for a bit," said Ross-Donaldson, again looking at his watch. "This is still Phase 1, wherein Lucy makes periodic reappearances. In half an hour or so we get to Phase 2, wherein she doesn't."

"In the meantime we'd better decide whose turn it is next," said Hunter.

"Dr. Best's, obviously," said Ross-Donaldson. "He was here before any of us."

"I thought I'd made it clear that I was visiting Lady Hazell in my professional capacity and in no other."

"You only made it clear to me," said Hunter. "Until this moment you hadn't a chance to make it clear to the rest of us."

Ayscue said, "I think I'd better make it clear too. I haven't come along for what I believe is the usual purpose either. Which I'm not criticizing for a moment, don't run away with that idea."

"You surely don't think, padre, that Lucy would want to see you in your professional capacity, do you?" asked Ross-Donaldson.

"Padre?" said Dr. Best. "Padre?"

"Yes, believe it or not I'm a member of the Army Chaplains Department. I know I'm not dressed as one, if that's what's mystifying you. But wherever possible I believe in not bringing the cloth into disrepute. If there'd been a crowd here tonight, as I understand there sometimes is, I might not have been able to get round to everybody and explain that my mind was on higher things than theirs was. Hence the incognito, doctor."

"May I ask what does bring you here?"

"I gather there's a room full of old books somewhere in this building. Stuff that hasn't been looked at for years. I thought I might make arrangements to spend a day or two over here seeing if there's anything interesting. I go for the eighteenth century mostly. You never know what you might pick up in that way."

"Quite so."

After a pause, Hunter said, "That doesn't leave many of us who are here for the usual purpose, does it? Just Alastair and me, it looks like."

"And me," said Leonard.

"Oh yes, sorry, Brian. Anyway, how shall we sort it out? There are still five people to be accommodated in various ways."

"It's perfectly simple," said Ross-Donaldson. "But before I indicate the lines to be followed I insist that we all have another drink. Hunter, would you give me a hand, please?"

"Sure."

The two moved away to the drinks table. On the others a short silence fell.

Dr. Best eventually said to Ayscue, "You're a literary man, then."

"Oh, not really. Just a dabbler. Music is more my line. Again, the eighteenth century is my thing on the whole."

"I've always myself thought there was a certain amount to be said for Bach, though his hysterical emotionalism is a grave limitation."

"I suppose you're talking about that stuffy old provincial four-in-a-bar organist. I must say I find his son Carl Philipp Emanuel far better value. All those wonderful tunes you can't sing. Not that there isn't something in Johann Christian as well, in a sort of Mozart-for-the-kiddies way."

"A deeply anxious mind. That of Mozart."

"Yes. Good in other ways, too."

"Do you play an instrument?" asked Dr. Best.

"Not to much purpose these days. I was a fair hand at the fiddle in my youth."

"And you, Captain Leonard. Are you of a musical cast of mind?"

"A what? Oh no. No, I'm afraid not. I don't seem to get much-"

"Here we are, chaps," interrupted Hunter, handing glasses. His demeanor was more excited than just earlier. "A weak one for you, Brian. There. Now everybody pay attention to Alastair. He's worked out the whole time-table."

"The padre's problem can be settled in one minute flat after Lucy appears," said Ross-Donaldson. "So that's him out of the way. Then I think that, by rights, Dr. Best should have the chance of seeing Lucy about whatever he wants to see her about, which leaves-"

"It's kind of you to be so careful of my interests," broke in the doctor, "but I'd prefer to talk to Lady Hazell after she's… I mean I'd sooner have her undivided attention."

"We'll put you last, then."

"I don't mind waiting around a bit," said Leonard. "Put me next to last."

"As you wish. You've made a good recovery from your recent fit of impatience. So now it's just you and I to sort out, Hunter."

"You go first if you like. Of us two."

"Right. So it's the padre, myself, Hunter, Leonard, the doctor. Everybody got that? Good. The only remaining question is the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2, and I'll deal with that when I take my turn. Just remember that in Phase 2 it's the responsibility of the outgoing man to advise the next on the list that the position is vacant. A couple of minutes' interval is all that's necessary… Ah, good evening, Lucy. I always admire your sense of timing. May I present Major William Ayscue of the Army Chaplains Department, Captain Maximilian Hunter of the Carabinier Guards, and Captain Brian Leonard of the Sailors? And, uh, Dr. Best. Gentlemen, this is Lady Hazell."

"What can I do for you, doctor?" asked Lucy at once.

"It's a personal matter, Lady Hazell. I'd like to defer it a little while, if it's all the same to you."

"It isn't quite. I'd like to get it over now."

"I really think, giving my professional opinion, that in the interests of all concerned it would be better to approach the question in private."

"If you say so, doctor.., Well, Major… Ayscue. Do I understand that you're a chaplain? A clergyman?"

"Yes, you do, Lady Hazell, in sheep's clothing as I am, but let me explain why I've come to call on you."

When Ayscue had finished, Lucy said, "Well, of course, please look at anything you like. It's nice to have someone taking an interest in the stuff. You can have a sort of first go now if you feel like it. I'm afraid things are in rather a mess in there, but Mrs. Stoker dusts round once in a way and there is a light. If you come with me I'll show you where it is."

She took Ayscue's hand and led him away.

"What I don't understand," said Leonard, "is where Churchill is."

Ross-Donaldson looked mildly surprised. "He's clearly not around," he said. "He understands the rules of the house as well as anybody. Either he'd be in here, or he's not around. He's not in here so he's not around."

"Well, where is he, then?"

"He's probably gone ages ago."

"I didn't hear him drive away. I'm sure I would have done. I'm going to have a look out the front."

"Is he always like this?" asked Dr. Best.

"I think it's just that he feels there are large parts of the world he doesn't understand. He likes to reduce them whenever he gets a chance. I can see his point in a way. I think in his shoes I'd probably do much the same."

"He suffers, then, from certain anxieties," said the doctor with a glance at Hunter.

"I wouldn't know about that, I'm afraid," said Ross-Donaldson. "Not one of my fields, what people suffer from,"

Leonard came hurrying back. "Your jeep's still there, Alastair."

"I dare say it is."

"Well then, where is he?"

"He may be in the lavatory, he may be making himself a cup of coffee, he may have gone for a walk. It isn't worth exerting oneself to find out which, because on one point we can be sure. He's not around. We know the answer to the only question the situation can possibly be taken to pose. Or rather"-Ross-Donaldson frowned slightly-"one of the only two questions."

"What's the other?" asked Hunter.

"It's only come up in the last thirty or forty seconds. Where's Lucy?"

"Showing Willie the library, I understood."

"The library opens off the far end of the hall, a round trip of perhaps fifty yards. Half a minute's march." Ross-Donaldson looked at his watch.

"But they've only been gone about three minutes. She's probably showing him round a bit. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"You don't know Lucy. She doesn't show people round libraries."

"You think they may be hopping into bed? You don't know Willie. Very chaste chap, Willie. He never stops setting an example."

"Lucy's a very attractive woman. In fact she possesses to a very high degree the most attractive characteristic of all: availability."

"You find that attractive, do you?"

"Don't you?"

"Not especially, no."

"In that case what are you doing here?"

"Let's leave that," said Hunter. "Anyway, even if they have gone off for a little while, what do you care? It'll be your turn next."

"Once made, arrangements should be adhered to. And I don't think Ayscue really grasped my point about the onset of Phase 2."

"Oh, surely he must have done. It sounded simplicity itself to me. Anyway, I see that the situation is restored at last."

On his way to the threshold, where Lucy now stood, Ross-Donaldson said to Hunter, "Wait for me here."

"Right."

"About that matter we were discussing," said Leonard, urgently even for him. "Will you excuse us again, Dr. Best?"

"By all means."

"Oh, for God's sake, Brian, what is it now?"

"Where's Churchill?"

"I can't think of any way of stopping you asking that except by either killing you or telling you, so I suppose I'd better tell you. But before I do, you answer me a question. Do you want to know where James is for Security reasons or do you just want to know?"

Leonard opened his mouth readily enough to reply, but slowly closed it again. Then he said, "I'm not sure. A bit of both, most likely."

"There are times, Brian, when I very nearly like you a great deal, though I'd better not say that in front of the good doctor. Now"- Hunter went straight on-"at this moment Lieutenant Churchill is upstairs in the bedroom, and in all probability the bed, belonging to a certain Catharine Casement, a friend of Lucy Hazell's and like me an ex-patient, or a patient, of Dr. bleeding Best, who, if he heard what was going on, would, I know jolly well, dash upstairs and pull them apart and start asking them whether they thought they were going the right way about bringing their repressed hatred of each other out into the open."

"Oh, surely not. You must be exaggerating."

"Well, whether I am or whether I'm not, I just don't want that bastard pawing and nosing and snuffling his way round those two. You see if you can use your imagination a little to think how unpleasant that would be. And if you can't, shut up about where Churchill is just the same."

"Of course, I understand. I'm awfully sorry, Max; I didn't know, you see. I do hope I haven't put my foot in it or caused any-"

"No no, dear boy, that's perfectly all right, I assure you. I merely wanted to head you off. But there's a more important point. You shouldn't be wasting your time wondering about Churchill while Dr. Best's around. Ask yourself this. If, as he says, he's only here to talk to Lucy about Catharine, why has he turned up now? Why not come during the day? Why pick a time when the place is full of other people? Including officers from the camp?"

Before Leonard could reply, Ayscue hurried into the room with a sheaf of papers in his hand. His face was less gaunt than usual.

"This is amazing," he said loudly. "Look at this, all of you. Found it stuffed between the pages of a Victorian biological encyclopedia, of all things. Must have been there for a hundred years."

What he was displaying was a number of sheets of music, creased, yellow and spotted, but quite legible. Leonard caught the words Vivace assai.

"Does the name Thomas Roughead mean anything to you?"

Hunter and Leonard shook their heads. Dr. Best said he was not sure.

"Late eighteenth-century chap. More or less the generation after Boyce. Chum of Jonathan Battishill. Organist at the Temple at one stage. And… pupil of the very same Johann Christian Bach you and I were discussing not half an hour ago, doctor. Absolutely fantastic!"

"What about this Roughead?" asked Hunter.

"I have discovered," said Ayscue, "what I bet you anything you like is the only surviving copy of Roughead's trio-sonata in B minor for flute, violin and clavier. Hitherto known only in a transcription for two pianos by that awful old ass Cipriani Potter. Plus a couple of pages of a rather dull organ piece by John Stanley. I say, I wonder how much Lady Hazell would want for the Roughead."

"I should think she'd let you have it for what it's worth," said Hunter. "Viz, nothing."

"Oh, surely it'd be worth quite a bit," said Leonard. "It's not as if it's by anybody famous, I know, but it is old. You know, like an old master. You don't have to know who the old master is."

"This is music, you fool," said Hunter in his ordinary tone. "Worthless by definition. I remember sitting down to listen to a whole piece of it once. Somebody's symphony in four movements, it was. I couldn't make out what it was supposed to do for me. It seemed to be inviting me to run about, lie down and go to sleep, rush about, and then run about again. But I didn't want to do any of that."

"You were using it for the wrong purpose," said Dr. Best. "Except for martial airs and such, and in a rather different way music for dancing, the art is not concerned with action. It moves us to contemplation, which assists us in resolving our various conflicts. Through harmony we progress toward harmony."

"Well, I didn't, the time I was telling you about. I progressed in the opposite direction, thank you. That's another thing I've got against it. It introduced me to conflicts I didn't even know I had."

"Who was this monster?" asked Ayscue. "He sounds to me rather like Sibelius."

"No, he began with a B. But then most of them do, don't they?"

Hunter continued to disparage music in general, on grounds that became increasingly obscure, until Ross-Donaldson returned to the room.

"Phase 2," he said to Hunter. "I should go up in a couple of minutes."

"Let's fill in the time together."

They moved apart. Dr. Best looked as if he had got used to people doing that. Ayscue offered the music sheets to Leonard, who took them and turned through them with pretended interest. He tried to think of any comment at all.

"Where's the telephone?" Hunter was asking Ross-Donaldson.

"By her bed, I'm afraid."

"Not the only one?"

"Oh yes. There used to be one in here, she was telling me, but she got rid of it because she got fed up with having to come all the way downstairs to put it back on its hook after she'd left it off its hook while she went upstairs to take it in her bedroom."

"Thanks for putting it so cogently. But it leaves the problem intact."

"She'll cheerfully go into the bathroom if you tell her it's Army business."

Ross-Donaldson turned out to be right. Hunter was alone when eventually he picked up the telephone and sat down on the bed. The time he had spent in it with Lucy seemed to him much longer ago than the just-now it must really have been. What had taken place had been all right, but rather like trying to quench thirst by drinking a liqueur. The main difficulty had been to avoid catching himself pretending or fancying that he was with somebody else. This would have been far from unpleasant in itself, but not enlivening either. He had managed to steer clear of it nearly all the time.

He finished his telephone call and went and tapped on the bathroom door. Lucy came out. She had no clothes on.

"I'm off now," he said.

"Did you get through and everything?"

"Yes thank you. Sorry to have pushed you out like that."

"I was going in there anyway. Who's next on the list?"

"Brian Leonard. Then Dr. Best intends to have his word with you."

"Oh dear. Tell me-Max? Max-is Mr. Leonard sort of all right?"

"Captain Leonard. He'd mind dreadfully if you got that wrong. Yes, he's all right really. Treat him gently, won't you?"

"I treat everyone gently."

"I suppose it's possible. Oh. Willie Ayscue found a bunch of old music in your library. He wants to buy it off you. He seems to think it may be valuable."

"Tell him he can have it, but I'd like him to send some money to a charity I do things for. Tell him I'll ring him up about it."

"I will. Good night, Lucy, and thank you very much."

"It's a pleasure."

He put his arms round her and kissed her, wishing slightly that he could find this rather splendid, which it obviously was in fact, instead of just rather agreeable.

"Come and see me again."

"I'd like to."

Before Hunter had shut the door behind him Lucy was back in bed. She was sure that Captain Leonard would turn out to be all right really, but the qualification meant something like when you got to know him thoroughly or although there were hefty reasons for thinking him not all right. Something had seen to it so far that nobody who was not all right, even really, turned up at what she referred to, but did not think of, as her evening parties. One of her most faithful friends, a dentist who had motored up from the town every Monday and Thursday evening for two years, except when he was on holiday, had explained to her that the thing worked very much like a club. A new person was not invited along unless he was well known to the inviter and had been carefully considered in the two key aspects, as drinking-companion downstairs and, in so far as this could be estimated, as performer upstairs. It had all been a matter of making a sensible choice of people to start with, and this, no doubt mostly by luck, she must have managed to do.

She predicted to herself that, should Captain Leonard turn out to be not completely all right, this would take the form of his having too little of something or other rather than too much. Her brief look at him downstairs had been enough to suggest to her that there was nothing masterful about him. That could raise problems. The problems raised by over-masterful men were, in her experience, less troublesome. They were certainly less varied.

When, a couple of minutes later, Leonard knocked and came in, her prediction about him looked as if it was going to be justified. He kept fairly close to the wall, like a child at a new school. He smiled at her and said,

"Jolly nice room you've got here, haven't you?"

"The thing is," she said, "for you to take all your clothes off straight away and then come into bed. It's much easier like that."

"Oh, couldn't we have a little chat first? After all, we've only just met. We don't know each other."

"We soon will if you do as I say. And chatting afterwards is nicer."

Paying no attention to this, he sat down on the far corner of the bed and began polishing his pince-nez on a blue silk handkerchief that, she noticed, exactly matched his jacket.

"It's a great relief," he said, "to be able to come here and relax after a day on the sort of job I'm doing now. You get all wound up when you're engaged on vitally important, really very very secret work."

The degree of guttural emphasis he gave the last phrase, and the peering look at her that accompanied it, puzzled her faintly. But she said nothing.

"I can tell you," he went on after a moment, "that some of those gentlemen in the East and round the place generally would give their eye-teeth for just five minutes with some of the documents I was dealing with today."

He gave her another look, this time through the pince-nez. She still said nothing, feeling a little unkind, but knowing that total silence on her part would either pull him the more quickly into bed or push him the more quickly out of the door.

"Some of these new weapons we have are really quite terrifying."

Silence.

"They make the atomic bomb look like a firework."

Silence.

"Absolutely revolutionary."

Silence. After about forty seconds of it Leonard got to his feet and, with a faint but sharp sound, pulled the bow of his evening tie apart. Lucy relaxed. She knew where she was now. It was the ego build-up as preliminary. Even her dentist friend would still sometimes be telling her, at this stage, about his plans for the welfare of indigent ex-members of his profession, other people's plans for luring him back into teaching. It made no difference to what happened next.

When Leonard had nearly taken off his trousers a kind of metallic trickling noise began. Lucy could not make out where it came from and was startled. So was Leonard, clearly, but within a second he was pulling his trousers back up again.

"It's all right," he said abstractedly. "It's an emergency. But it may not be anything. Thing on my wrist tells me when they want to get through to me. Got to go and get through to them now. I hope I'll be able to come back, but if I can't I hope you'll understand. I did want to talk to you."

He ran oat, his jacket over his arm. Lucy turned onto her side. When the trickling noise started she had been very interested in where it came from, but already the question seemed boring. Forgetting Dr. Best, she thought this was probably the end of the evening and might as well be. She fell asleep, but soon woke up again two or three minutes later when Leonard ran back into the room and set about undressing as quickly as anybody she had ever met in her life.

"What was that funny noise that made you rush out in such a hurry?"

With a kind of plunging dance-step he trod off one shoe after the other.

"Was it a telephone sort of thing or something?"

The zip of his trousers whined briefly.

"But it's all right now, is it?"

A sound like the plucking of a very slack guitar-string came from the elastic waistband of his underpants.

"Oh."

Almost immediately after that Captain P. B. Leonard of the Sailors was demonstrating beyond possibility of error that as regards one side of life at any rate he was not just all right really, but all right. He went on with the demonstration rather longer than Ross-Donaldson's findings might have indicated as likely or average for the relevant age-group.

"Wow," said Lucy eventually.

"Did I do it properly?"

"Yes, you did. Very properly indeed."

"Honestly?"

"Yes, absolutely honestly."

"Good. I particularly wanted to do it properly because I think you're marvelous. You're so pretty. When Alastair told me about the set-up here it somehow never entered my head that you'd be pretty. And I certainly never dreamt for a minute that you'd be sweet as well. But you are. You're very sweet."

"So are you."

"But what I can't understand is this. Why, being so pretty and sweet, you have to go to bed with all these men one after the other when you can't really know any of them, very well."

Lucy broke her usual rule of not discussing this question, which everybody except Ross-Donaldson and one or two others got to sooner or later. "I don't have to do it. I just like doing it. I don't say I like sex any more than the next person but this is the way I like it. I know it wouldn't do for everybody."

"It certainly wouldn't for me-the corresponding business, I mean. But I don't want to sound as if… How did you get on to it, kind of thing?"

"Well, like everything else, you find you've started before you've noticed you've started. To begin with, I just got married in the ordinary way, and it was literally years before I found out that my husband was having a lot of other ladies while I was going out of my way to be an absolute model wife from that point of view. So then I just started not being a model wife on a very tiny scale and he got most frightfully cross about it. He kept saying that that wasn't the point and that wasn't the same and surely I could see that. So I said of course I could, and the next time I started I really went to town on seeing to it that he remained in blissful ignorance throughout. Which you'd have thought would have solved everything. But it didn't at all, because the other person got frightfully cross because I was still living with my husband and not hating it all that much and not not sleeping with him into the bargain. Well then just for the sake of a quiet life I had a divorce, and then before I could turn round I was back in the same position, only it was much worse this time, because everybody knew what was going on. That wasn't my fault really. What happened was that my new other person got so cross with me for not hating my new husband that he rang up and told him what I was up to. So then both of them were cross. But soon after that my new husband, old Hazell, he got drowned in an accident, and I was free again. I didn't want to get married again straight off, and there was more crossness about that. So then I must have decided I'd just had enough of all that. I must have worked it out that if I started sleeping with everybody nobody could get enough of me to start wanting to have all of me and getting cross about not. But that's only me thinking things over afterwards. At the time all I noticed was that I'd started sleeping with everybody."

Leonard had listened to this as conscientiously as if it had been a lecture on Chinese eavesdropping techniques. He said, "Will you let me take you out to dinner one of these evenings?"

"I never go out in the evenings."

"Couldn't you make an exception?"

"I've just been telling you why making exceptions is the one thing I absolutely don't do anymore."

"I know, but… I promise I wouldn't get cross."

"That's what you all say, and then when you get cross and I remind you of your promise you say yes, but that was only a promise not to get cross about unreasonable things, it wasn't meant to cover things like this."

After a pause, Leonard said, "Could I take you out to lunch, then?"

"That's no better from my point of view, and I'm always in bed at lunchtime anyway. On my own, I mean."

"Could I stay the night, I don't mean necessarily tonight, but some night?"

"No you couldn't. I hate sleeping in the same bed as anyone. Please don't ask me. Why are you so set on this sort of thing, anyway?"

"I want to talk to you, that's all.''

"We've been chatting nineteen to the dozen for the last ten min- ‘ utes."

"But I want to get you on your own. Really on your own."

"Ah, there you go. What do you want to talk to me about? Not all that stuff about how awfully secret what you're doing is?"

"No, I'm sorry about that, I was on the wrong… I don't know why I said that. No, it isn't that I want to discuss anything in particular, I just want to talk to a woman, because I haven't for some time."

"Aren't you married?"

"No. I used to be. Well, technically I still am, but she went off about two years ago after we'd been married for six years. She just went off."

"Why?"

"She didn't say. I asked her several times but she didn't say."

"What sort of man did she go off with?"

"She didn't go off with any sort of man. She just went off."

"Oh, well that is a bit…"

"I haven't got a girl friend at the moment either."

"But of course you usually have one."

"Well, fairly usually. There don't seem to be as many girls about who like talking as there were just after the war. I find it difficult to get them to open up these days. But I knew straight away that you and I could talk about anything. But we can't really now, because of that Dr. Best fellow hanging about."

"Keep him hanging. He won't come in while you're here. He'd better not try."

"I know, but he might knock or… Just him being in the same house puts me off."

"He's horrible, isn't he? I've only met him for five minutes before, but I could tell he was horrible."

"He's…" Leonard stopped and looked for a phrase that did not contain the letter R. "… undoubtedly most unpleasant. But tell me-do any of your other friends know him? Particularly officers from the camp. Have any of them mentioned him to you?"

"I don't think so, no. Why?"

"I just wondered. Well no, it's more than that. It's my job to keep an eye on the contacts people have. It wouldn't do to have blokes on secret work being indiscreet in the wrong sort of company. So…"

"Wrong sort of company. So when you went into all that song and dance about how tremendously hush-hush what you were up to was you were seeing whether I was a spy or not, is that it?"

"Well yes, roughly," said Leonard, as Lucy started laughing. Her shoulders shook against his side. Presently he joined in, though without carrying complete conviction.

"But you mean you think Dr. Best might be a spy," said Lucy finally.

"Yes. What do you think of that idea?"

"Well… if I could swallow the idea of there being spies at all then I wouldn't have any trouble with the idea of Dr. Best being one. But as it is…"

"The spy is a uniquely characteristic and significant figure of our time," said Leonard, quoting from the introduction of one of his manuals and trying to make it sound casually thrown off.

"Oh, I thought it was molders of the communal mind by means of manipulation of the mass media who were meant to be that. So somebody was saying in the newspaper on Sunday, anyway."

"I suppose it depends on how you look at it. After all, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to have two characteristic and significant figures of our time at once. But we're getting off the point. Dr. Best could be a spy easily. Oh, I don't mean a Russian in disguise-what we call a non-transvasive defector. That means a man who goes over to the other side without actually going there. Our psychologists have done quite a lot of work on the personality patterns of people like that, and even their physical characteristics. Dr. Best corresponds pretty closely to one of them. To several of them, in fact," he added after a moment's reflection.

"Would you like me to sort of keep my ears open when he comes to see me? Lead him on, kind of thing?"

"Yes, I think it might be a good idea." Leonard got out of bed and began dressing in a preoccupied way. "Then you could let me know how you get on when I come over again. Tomorrow, perhaps."

"As soon as you like. Look, I've been dying to ask you. What was that noise that made you run out of the room earlier on?"

"This thing." He held up his right wrist. "It tells me when I'm wanted on the wireless."

"Wanted on the wireless?"

"I've got a wireless set in my car so that the camp can get in touch with me if anything urgent comes up. But I can't be expected to sit by it all the time just in case, so they buzz me on this thing."

"What did they want you for?"

"Nothing really. It was a mistake. The bloke at the camp said he fell against the thing that operates this thing. Skylarking about, I suppose. I'm going to give them a rocket for it in the morning."

"It sounds rather like a joke to me."

"A joke? I don't see any joke in it. Who would want to do a thing like that?"

"I don't know. No, it wouldn't be much of a joke, would it? I say, you have got dressed quickly."

"It's one of the things you've got to learn how to do in this job. You have to be ready to go anywhere at a minute's notice."

He finished tying his tie and came over to the bed.

"I'll see you tomorrow night, then. I do like you very much, Lucy. It's all right for me to call you Lucy, is it?"

"Oh yes, I think we know each other well enough now."

"I wish you'd be my girl."

"I am your girl."

"No, I meant just my girl."

"I'm sorry, Brian, but I explained to you about how I never be just somebody's girl. It isn't because it's you; I'd say the same to anybody."

"I understand. You got my name and you can't have heard it more than once."

"It's quite easy to get good at that if you get plenty of practice. You'd be surprised, honestly."

"Mm. Well. Shall I tell Dr. Best he can come up?"

"Tell him to give it five minutes. And tell him I'm tired and he's not to stay long."

"I'll remember. Well. Good night, Lucy."

"Aren't you going to give me a kiss?"

"Oh, sorry."

"Good night, Brian."

As soon as she was alone Lucy jumped out of bed and went into the bathroom. When she came back she put on a pair of silk pajamas and a black satin bed-jacket with a scarlet lining and got back into bed. She wished Dr. Best had chosen another time to come and see her; she was marvelously tired now and felt she could sleep the clock round. In fact she did fall asleep, in a half lying, half sitting position against the pillows, her arms spread out on the covers.

She could not have slept for more than a few minutes, because when she awoke it was to hear a car, presumably Leonard's, driving away from in front of the house, and Dr. Best speaking to her from close by.

"A most interesting type. Not unfamiliar, but interesting."

"What?" asked Lucy in a hoarser voice than usual.

"You needn't answer this, of course, but did he acquit himself satisfactorily?"

"Who? Do what?"

"Captain Leonard, who left you just now. Is he a person of average masculinity? I assure you most seriously I ask you purely in a scientific spirit."

"I don't care what spirit you ask me purely in, I'm not answering. You can go and…" Lucy checked herself. "Why do you want to know?"

"As I said, he interests me."

Dr. Best came forward and sat on the edge of the bed about where Lucy's knees were. She glimpsed a couple of inches of pale and apparently hairless leg between his trouser-cuff and the top of his sock.

"Did he say anything to you about this job of his that he evidently considers so secret?"

Without taking any decision whether Leonard's ideas about the doctor were fantastic or not, Lucy became alert. "A little, yes," she said.

"Did this little strike you as plausible? Or was he talking wildly? In your estimation, naturally."

"He's on secret work all right."

"Mm. Of what nature?-according to him."

Lucy was unfamiliar with Dr. Best's line of inquisitiveness. She said experimentally, "He didn't say exactly, but I gathered it was something to do with nuclear war."

"Oh." The doctor seemed delighted. "That has a very familiar ring. The number of people who believe themselves to be engaged on that type of activity would comprise a World War II division. Did he give any details?"

She remembered a phrase from a newspaper. "Tactical atomic weapons."

"Wonderful," he said, positively laughing now. "The technology of the unconscious is never less than a decade behind its frontiers in reality. All the people who were the victims of private poison-gas attacks in the era of the flying bomb. Any moment now the Red Chinese will have stolen one of those tactical atomic weapons and start boring holes in his brain with it."

The general drift of this escaped Lucy, whose temporary alertness had passed. But she would remember enough to pass a version of it on to Leonard the following evening. "I expect you're right," she mumbled.

"I didn't come here to discuss that, however. In fact I didn't come here to discuss anything," he said, throwing the bed covers aside and seizing her in his arms.

It was against Lucy's principles, or at any rate her practice, to refuse to accommodate any man who had been properly introduced to her, but this proviso did not apply to Dr. Best. She was to work out later that only the depth of her unwillingness to think of him behaving like this had stopped her expecting him to. All she could think of for the moment was how much worse being in contact with his mouth was than just looking at it. She twisted her head aside.

"Get away from me," she said loudly. "Leave me alone."

He held her legs down with his own and started trying to pull her bed-jacket off over her shoulders. While he did this he talked quickly and quietly.

"One can see now what your much-vaunted enthusiasm for men amounts to. Like everybody else who purports to have dealings with large numbers of individuals you actually live at a low level of sexuality. Those like yourself who are victims of the Messalina syndrome have to hold in their mind the notion of an endless string of partners in order to render themselves capable of sexual intercourse."

"Get away. I don't want you. Leave me alone."

"Evidently a straightforward approach of this kind is less acceptable to you than you would pretend. Is your basic erotic impulse so feeble that you're compelled to energize it with adventitious aids?"

"Stop it. You're hurting me. Let go." Lucy was shouting now. The shoulders of the jacket were far enough down her arms to immobilize them partly. The doctor set about lifting her body in order to pull off her pajama trousers, still talking.

"What do you need to experience before you're able to receive the male? Flagellation by one party or the other? Or something even less conventionally acceptable? Or does nothing actually take place in this room at all? Is there an agreement to simulate a series of sexual encounters in order to raise the amatory status of those concerned? That would be… Ah."

He stopped talking as he drew the pajamas clear and flung them aside.

"James!" screamed Lucy. "I'm being raped! James!"

Her thrusting foot caught Dr. Best on the shoulder and sent him reeling sideways into the dressing-table. He slid along the front of this, dislodging several jars and pots, tripped over the wastepaper-basket and fell to one knee. In a few seconds he was up again and coming for her, but before he reached her the door was flung open and Churchill came in wearing a shirt and trousers. Dr. Best halted and began adjusting his tie.

Churchill took in the scene. "Out," he said.

"When certain women find their advances rejected they frequently avenge their loss of self-respect by making accusations of rape or attempted rape. An obvious-"

"I'm sure you're right, but that's not what was happening here. Out. Who are you, anyway?"

"My name is Best. I-"

"Best? Best! Out at the double! Can you manage under your own steam? Or would you like some assistance?"

"Certainly not," said the doctor in some indignation. "I welcome the chance of departure. Good night, Lady Hazell."

He left. Churchill picked up Lucy's pajamas and gave them to her.

"Are you all right? Would you like me to fetch Catharine?"

"No, I'm fine now he's gone."

"I'll just make sure he does."

He went out again. Lucy put her pajamas on. It was a hot night and she was sweating slightly. She went into the bathroom and, not looking in the mirror, sponged her face with cold water. She heard the front door slam.

Churchill watched Dr. Best's tail-light disappear. He did not immediately go back into the house. The sky had more color in it than any night sky he could remember and there were thousands of stars. The moon was nearly full. There were no other sources of light.

He went inside, shutting the door quietly, upstairs, and along the passage to a room diagonally opposite Lucy's, which he entered with some slight unnecessary noise. Catharine was lying in bed with the light on.

"It's all right," he said. "Some chap Lucy found she didn't like and cut up when she told him so. He's gone now. I'll just make sure she's okay."

"Don't be long."

"I won't."

Lucy was in bed too. Her hairline was damp from the water.

"I shouldn't have let him come up here," she said.

"Why did you?"

"He said he wanted to talk to me about a personal matter, but he never got round to saying what it was. Something about his professional services or something. It must have been to see how Catharine was getting on, don't you think?"

Churchill looked to make sure the door was shut. "Or that was just an excuse to come over here so as to get at you. By the way, we don't mention to Catharine that he was here, do we? It might worry her."

"Agreed. Hey, though, the cheek of him when he left. Quite as if he'd been trying like anything to get away gracefully for hours."

"He was just saving his face."

"James, the Army wouldn't let you come and live here, I suppose, would it? It'd be such a nice arrangement."

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid they wouldn't. I can spend a lot of time in the nights here, though."

"Good. You're doing wonders for Cathy, you know."

"I'm doing wonders for myself. If you're not sleepy I'll go and get her and we can all have a chat. You've only to say."

"No, honestly, I'm feeling marvelous now. You go off-she's waiting for you."

"If you're absolutely sure. Do you mind if I go in there?"

"Good God, help yourself. Good night, James, darling."

"Good night, Lucy. See you tomorrow evening."

He kissed her and went into the bathroom, where he used the w.c. As he did so he felt slightly sorry not to be using instead the one in the other and decrepit bathroom. Earlier that evening he had decided that the one he was in now, though very handily placed, had better be avoided. He had not wanted to run into the Colonel or Hunter, far less one of Lucy's civilian friends. The thought of tramping all the way across the house and back in the interests of discretion had not appealed to him. But in the event he had been fascinated by his walk. The outward journey, with carpet giving place to matting and thence to bare boards, wall coverings declining and vanishing, had been like some symbolic progress from the corporeal to the spiritual. And the return trip had introduced him to romance and unreality in one, as it might be a film set of a modern Rapunzel's castle.

Back in Catharine's bedroom, he took off his clothes and got into bed. He put one arm between her neck and the pillow and the other across her hip. Immediately they took up again the gazing at each other that Lucy's shouts had interrupted. He noticed as if for the first time, though in reality it was for the hundredth time, that she had hazel eyes with more dark flecks in the right one than in the left, hair the color of dark honey bleached in places by the sun and growing low down on a forehead which was not itself low, rounded and rather childish ears, square jaws, a fair complexion more white than red, a straight nose with a faint upward tilt, a straight mouth with a recess under the lower lip. He reviewed these facts for a period he could not have measured. Then he passed to others no less well known to him. Her cheeks were smooth with a tiny down on them, her hair at the hairline smelled of honey as well as being of its color, her lips were smooth and dry. With the spread fingers and thumb of his left hand he found out, as often before, the gentle swell of her skull above the nape of her neck; with his right he relearned the small firmness of her breast, the softness of her stomach and the incomparably greater softness between her thighs. When he moved above and into her he found the parts of his body not in contact with hers beginning to slip away from him, ceasing to exist. His thighs were nowhere except where they were between hers; his arms were only as real as their clasp of her sides and her back. All he could hear was her breathing and then her voice.

He felt the sheet on his back and the sheet under his forearms and knees and toes.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you."

"I know."

"That's nice as ‘I love you' really, isn't it? As nice a thing to say and to have someone say to you as well. Nearly as nice, anyway."

"Have you loved anyone before?" she asked.

"No. Only been fond of people."

"I've loved other people. Is that all right? You don't mind?"

"There's nothing about you or that you've ever done that I could ever mind."

"I know. But I could do things you would mind, couldn't I? I could stop loving you."

"No you couldn't."

"No, of course I couldn't."

Churchill got out of bed, went over to the washbasin and came back with a small towel which he handed to Catharine. Then he got back into bed again and put his arms round her.

"I'm sorry my breasts aren't bigger for you."

"That's just one of the things about you that I don't mind. I like them as they are. Anyway, I think they're bigger than they were when I first came across them."

"What, in a week? They can't be… Perhaps they are a bit. This is their worst time of the month, too."

He rested his head on the breasts under discussion.

"That's nice, like that. Little James. It's all right to say that, isn't it?"

"Yes. I'm big enough for it to be all right. Tall enough, I mean."

"You're big James most of the time. It's funny, I've never met anyone who was as gentle as you are, and yet you're more of a man than anyone too. Well, when you think about it perhaps it isn't so-odd, the two things together. I love the way you always make a noise when you're coming into a room where I am, so as not to suddenly be there and frighten me. How did you manage to think of that?"

"It didn't take any thought at all."

"Oh yes it did, it took a tremendous amount of thought. Or a tremendous kind of thought. Some people it simply wouldn't occur to, not in a thousand years."

"Well, soon I shan't have to bother about that sort of thing, if you go on not being frightened the way you have the last few days. I'll creep up behind you instead and give a blood-curdling scream and spring at you."

"You won't really, though. But it's quite true, I very nearly don't get frightened at all now."

"I wish you'd tell me what happened to you that started you off being frightened. It would make it much easier for me to help you stop being completely."

"I will tell you, my dearest love, but I don't want to tonight. We're having such a lovely time, and it wouldn't sort of refrighten me to tell you about it, but I think it would depress me a bit. Let's leave it until we're both in the White Hart and I'm serving drinks and giving change in between. That's the best way to do it. You're not to think about it or worry because of it: it's nothing very horrible or unusual, really it isn't."

He kissed her and said, "All right, we'll do it like that."

"I think I'd like to go to sleep now. I'm a bit tired. Mind you wake me up when you go. It was very nasty waking up the other morning and finding you not there."

"I'll have to be away by a quarter past seven at the latest."

"I don't care, you're to wake me. Good night, James. I love you."

"I know. Good night, Catharine."

She turned on her side and he turned with her. He put one arm round her waist and the hand on her breast; the other arm he had to fold up behind her shoulders. He felt her fall asleep. But for her breathing there was the absolute silence he had noticed on his first visit to the house and found vaguely disquieting. It did not disquiet him now. He thought of the dispatch-rider's death, Fawkes's death, Operation Apollo, and they did not seem terrible. He knew they were and tried to feel that they were, but they remained just facts, dead facts, infinitely distant.