Then what? That the affair had its comic aspects was not lost on Malory. But his conviction that Dikeston's manuscript was of enormous importance was undiminished. His developing 'feeling' for Dikeston now told him that he was involved in a hunt and that like all good hunts it would be exciting and probably dangerous, and that there would be blood to be spilled at the finish. They would just have to pull the walls down - knock 'em down and take the consequences. And what consequences they would be: suits for civil damages from the Abrahams; prosecution by the local authority. Etcetera, etcetera.
Horace Malory suddenly discovered he was holding his head in his hands, and frowning so hard that his forehead felt stiff. He sat up and looked around the room: that damned Cheshire cat grin was here somewhere.
He said aloud: 'Just have to face it, that's all. Just have to face it.'
A week later the furniture was expensively in store; so were Mr and Mrs Denis Abrahams; and the early morning calm of the leafy crossroads which had given Carfax House its original name was mildly disturbed by young mothers taking their offspring to school in French and German estate cars, and making way for a bulldozer which turned clumsily in at the side gate of Cavendish House, shoving the gatepost pillar aside.
Sir Horace Malory and Jacques Graves were there to meet it, with Smithson the consulting engineer, and a small gang of workmen.
As they stood watching they were joined by a neighbour whose presence had not been requested and who would certainly have been invited to leave had she not been an exceptionally handsome blonde in her mid-thirties. Malory tended to be gallant to handsome women.
'Of course it's very pretty,1 she observed. 'But it's manicured half to death1. In any case, hardly any of it's original. Why are you doing this, anyway?'
'Out of need, madam,' Malory muttered.
'Yes, well . . .' The woman looked round her with a critical eye. Graves guessed she could price everything in sight to within a pound or two. '. . . I wouldn't really want any of it, myself. Ours is authentic Georgian, of course.'
'Nice for you,' said Malory.
'Except the sundial. 'I'd love that. Done long before they came here, naturally. Have you seen it?'
'I believe not.' Malory's gallant habits were warring now with a growing dislike of her manner.
'It's in the garden at the rear. Beautiful thing. A cockatrice. Highly imaginative.'
Malory merely nodded, his attention on the now roaring bulldozer as it manoeuvred; but Graves frowned as a little bell tinkled in his mind. He turned to her. 'Did you say cockatrice?'
She smiled. 'That's right. If you're interested, you should have a look.'
'Some kind of heraldic animal, right?' Graves said. And when she nodded, he asked her, isn't there another name? Seems to me I've heard -'
'Oh yes,' she said, it was also called a basilisk. That's the other name. Do you know about it?'
But Graves, now with*both arms held high in the air, was signalling the bulldozer driver to halt. As the diesel's noise subsided he said, 'Sir Horace, this lady says there's a kind of special sundial. A basilisk.'
interesting word,' Malory said. 'Tell me more, if you will, madam.'
It was all she needed. 'Come on, I'll show you.'
'By all means.'
She led them to it. It was a big sundial, on a massive wrought-iron base in the form of a cage with the animal in it. The morning sun was pale and the shadow faint, but later in the day that shadow would fall upon the wall.
'Evil, you see.' She pointed to the wrought-iron animal. 'The embodiment of evil.'
Malory looked as she rattled on: its glance was fatal to any man - and to any animal except a weasel. Its breath was poisonous and killed all vegetation except the rue. It could only be killed by -'
Basilisk. Basil, Malory thought. Basilisk the embodiment of evil. Oh, Dikeston, Dikeston!
He held up his hand. "We can start here, I think, where the shadow's on the wall. And I hardly think we'll need the bulldozer.'
CHAPTER FOUR
-------------------Second instalment of the account, written by LtCdr H. G. Dikeston, RN, of his journeyings
in Russia in the spring of 1918
So they had been promised weapons, these Bolsheviks, that much was plain! And what a figure: fifty million sterling, in arms\ It was no wonder I had seen eyebrows raised in pleasure and surprise on those hard, determined faces. For Lenin, then trapped in a nutcracker between the White Russians and the Germans, it was the gift to save both his revolution and his Tartar hide. Trotsky, commissar for an army near empty-handed in the field, beamed like a child in a chocolate factory, and Yankel Sverdlov, Head of State to a tottering conspiracy, must on the instant have felt the ground grow firm beneath his feet. Not Zaharoff the war-monger now: Zaharoff the Saviour!
All haste was made at once to propel me along on my journey.
I was in Sverdlov's hands, and busy hands they were! No sooner had I been waved from his presence with the admonition that I must on no account be late next morning, than I was approached by a male secretary. I saw this man on that one occasion only, and for but a moment or two, yet I remember him, clear as can be, as though there were a camera in my brain. He had a tall, narrow head without a hair upon it anywhere, a white imperial beard upon his chin which reminded me of Zaharoff s own, and pince-nez upon his nose, attached to his lapel by a wide ribbon of brilliant crimson silk. If I waste time here upon the man, it is only because in Moscow it was the only item of striking personal adornment that I saw: in that great city, a mere two feet of silk ribbon! He called a man with a camera and my photograph was taken.
The man passed me on to a messenger: a sailor in uniform who said in a curt manner, 'Follow,' and set briskly off. Striding behind him, I left the Kavalersky Building and after some five or six minutes' brisk walking, was brought to another, the name of which I do not know. The sailor said only, 'Enter,' and left me there.
Inside I was greeted by what I judged to be some kind of petty officer in the Fleet. 'From Comrade Sverdlov's office?" he demanded.
I nodded.
'This way, then.' He pointed to a door. 'And help yourself. It's all there. Take what you need. Oh, and here -take this.' He handed mea valise and turned away.
I raised my hand. 'One moment. You have instructions about me?'
He looked round in surprise. 'Naturally.'
"What are they?'
The man took a paper from his pocket. There was handwriting on it, somewhat grubby and likely I guessed to be his own. He read slowly, 'Officer's uniform, winter journey east.'
I said, "What rank?'
'No ranks in there, Comrade. Help yourself, I told you.'
I did as he bade me and passed through the door to which he had pointed. Inside, in a dim-lit chamber of some size, I was struck first by an overpowering smell of wool, sweat and human bodies. Great racks of dark clothes stood everywhere: and when I came to examine them it was at once apparent that all were naval officers' uniforms.
I wondered soberly, as my hands moved over the heavy, soft, navy-blue doeskin, where the men might be whose garments these were. It was hardly a thought to offer reassurance, for there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. I sniffed cautiously at one or two and without exception they had been much worn and little cleaned.
Still, it was my task here to outfit myself and I began to hunt among them for jackets and trousers of a size appropriate. I tried clothing on, then boots, for though my own were excellent, no man ever came to harm by equipping himself with good spare boots. And I know that I was struck, standing there in the gloom amid all this second-hand rag-merchant's stock, by the contrast between this dingy outfitting and that splendid efficiency at Gieves' the night before I left London. I did not trouble to seek out a greatcoat, for it was doubtful whether in this odorous hall there would be the equal of mine from Gieves, with the full Guardee cut. At last, my valise full of cast-offs, I left the hall. The petty officer awaited me. 'Put them down on the table, Comrade.'