As if divining his thought Cundell did not follow him into the taxi which rolled out of the London half-light and drew up at the curb beside them, outside the Institute.
"This is as far as I go, Colonel. Goodbye—and good luck to you!"
The door slammed and the taxi pulled away before he could answer, or give any instructions to the cabbie.
He slid back the glass partition. "You know where I want to go, do you ?"
"Yes, guv'—once round the square an' left an' right an' left again, an' pick up y'friend, an' Bob's y'r'uncle!"
He couldn't quite decide whether the fellow was trying to be cheeky or simply repeating what he'd learnt by heart— probably a bit of both. But evidently someone was still doing his thinking for him, and all he could do was to hope that this "friend" round the corner would lighten his darkness.
He shrugged and stretched—the grip of the tunic as well as the faint lavendery odour of mothballs reminded him how long it had been since he had worn it last—and sat back into the darkness.
Then the taxi decelerated sharply and cut in towards the kerb. The door was jerked open—
"Good God Almighty!" Butler barked. "I should have known!"
Audley rapped on the driver's window and sank back into the seat beside him.
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"Should have know what? That it was me? They didn't tell you, then?" Audley sounded satisfied rather than inquisitive.
Butler nodded his head, but more to himself than to the man at his side. The armed truce between them was no special secret so perhaps they'd reckoned that even his celebrated obedience might have baulked at this.
"And why should you have known?" Audley repeated mildly.
They would have been wrong, of course. Personal likes and dislikes didn't come into it. Only a man's capabilities mattered, and no one doubted Dr David Audley's capabilities. If anything, Audley was just a shade too capable for his own good.
But there was a question to answer-—
"It had your mark on it, what little I've been allowed to pick up so far," he said.
Audley gave a short laugh. "I'm complimented!"
"Don't be! It's another damned devious concoction you've mixed up!" Butler gestured in the darkness.
"Even this."
"Ah—now you must understand that I'm not supposed to be in London at all. As a matter of fact I'm in a cinema in Carlisle at this very moment, watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid I believe—an excellent film. The RAF kindly gave me a lift in a Harrier trainer—they do enjoy showing it off still—"
"For God's sake, man!" spluttered Butler. "What the devil are you up to ? And what are we up to ? I tell you, you may be having great fun—I'm sure you are—but I was damn near burnt alive this morning!"
Audley's head nodded soberly. "Yes, so I hear. And I'm sorry about that, Butler. But it wasn't on the cards I do assure you,though."
"So did Sir Frederick, but—" Butler checked the run of tongue. Apologies and assurances of sympathy were the last things he wanted of Audley. "Damn it, I don't object to the risk—it was my own fault.
What I dislike is being in the dark."
"Naturally. My dear chap, that's exactly why I'm here. Fred could have put you in the picture, but I wanted to do it myself. Tell me first though—did things go well this evening?"
"I've been invited to Castleshields House, if that's what you mean. Or Colonel John Butler has, if that's what you mean."
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"Hah—very good! That's exactly what I mean! And my congratulations on your promotion, Colonel."
Butler snorted bitterly. "I presume that I've Hugh Roskill's game leg to thank for that. He was your first choice, wasn't he? Were you going to put him up to Group Captain?"
He despised himself for the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. The plain fact was that Roskill's public school accent would have gone down better in academic circles than his own bark. It was childish to object to being second choice, when the first choice was self-evidently correct. As usual he was letting Audley nettle him, and if they were going to work in tandem that was something he would have to curb.
Starting now—with no excuses.
"No—I'm sorry, Audley," he forced the words out carefully. "That was a half-baked thing to say."
"It was rather," Audley replied ungraciously. "In view of the fact it isn't strictly true. We were sending Hugh down to Eden Hall because we thought that was routine—and thank God it was you who went, because Hugh might have bought it with his leg. But Castleshields House is all yours. You have to admit, Butler—your namesake makes you the obvious candidate."
"That was your idea?"
"It was. I met the man five years ago, when I was getting material for my book on the kingdom of Jerusalem—he took me through the Cilician Gate. And I tucked him away in the back of my mind for the future."
It had the ring of truth, for that was the sort of man Audley was; a man who filed names and faces and facts in his prodigious memory, marking them for future use as Wellington had marked the ridge at Waterloo long before Napoleon had set Europe ablaze again.
"Besides—" Audley paused, and then continued with a touch of diffidence—"I need a man I can rely on with me up north now Smith's dead."
Butler frowned. "He was one of ours?"
"He wasn't. . ." Audley sighed. "Indeed he wasn't. But it rather looks as though he might have been in the end. It's a damn shame—a damn shame!"
He fell silent for a moment.
"Just who was Smith, then?"
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"Who indeed!" Audley gave a sad little snort. "He was a junior lecturer in Philosophy at Cumbria, and a good one too."
"How did he die?"
"He was drowned—or we think he was drowned. He rode his motor-cycle into a little lake—no more than a pond really. But deep enough to die in. He rode off into the night and eventually they found him floating face down among the weeds. Accident, they say—and maybe it was an accident, even though he was floating face down."
"I beg your pardon?" What was the man driving at? He seemed almost to be talking to himself.
"Eh? Oh, yes—face down! Men should float face up—so Pliny says, according to Huxley."
My Thames-blown body (Pliny vouches it)
Would drift face upwards on the oily tide
With other garbage . . .
Aldous Huxley, that is of course, not T.H.—and the female floats the other way—
Your maiden modesty would float face down
And men would weep upon your hinder parts.
"I do assure you there may be something to it, Butler. I had thought it nonsense, but a doctor I know says it may relate to physiology. Something to do with the relative density of fat and muscle—those "hinder parts", I suppose. But he was afloat in the feminine manner, and there may be something in that. It's one of the things I'd like you to check for me."
"The official verdict was accidental death?"
Butler did not quite succeed in curbing the impatience in his tone. If he let Audley tell the tale in his own way they'd be travelling the long way to the truth, no matter how interesting the scenery. Poetry, for God's sake!
"That's probably what they'll call it." Audley nodded. "He was drunk, you see, very drunk. No doubt about that: there were two hundred and something milligrammes of alcohol in his blood—way over the limit. I wasn't at the inquest, of course. No one of ours was, naturally, because we didn't know about him then ..."
"Didn't know about him? What didn't you know?"
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"We didn't know who he was."