The Labyrinth Makers

'You're not even close to them, are you?'

'Not within a mile.'

'Well, you'd better pack things in and come on back to London.

Our friend Panin has put his schedule forward a day — he's flying in this morning instead of tomorrow.'

Somehow it didn't come as a surprise. He had been driven by events from the start and every time he had started to settle down to work Panin had popped up inconveniently to put him off balance. He had stopped his dig in Colchis to begin the whole mystery. Then he'd appeared in East Berlin. Then he'd announced his intention to come to England. And now he'd set them all by the ears by putting forward his arrival. If he'd deliberately set out to dislocate things he couldn't have phased his movements better.

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Audley lowered the phone on to his chest in a moment of perfect stillness, blotting out the insistent voice at the other end. What a donkey he'd been! What a complete donkey –hobbled and blinkered, led and driven, with an occasional carrot to keep him happy and the odd smack across the rump to keep him moving!

If Panin had deliberately set out to dislocate things, he couldn't have phased his movements better! The plain fact was that they'd known too much about Panin from the start, not too little.

He looked down at the angry phone in his hand, fresh and untested implications crowding into his mind.

Time now for his tafsir il aam. Time now to spoil the pattern, to cut the puppet's strings, to set the cat among the pigeons!

He lifted up the phone again: 'I can't possibly come to London today.'

'What? Where have you been?'

'I was disturbed. I said I can't possibly come to London today.'

'You're due to meet Panin at London Airport at 11. You've got to come!'

'You meet him. Send him on down here–he knows the way.'

'And what exactly will you be doing?'

'Well, for one thing I'll be busy finding Schliemann's treasure.

That's the whole object of this operation, after all, isn't it?'

'But you said you weren't even close to it,' Stocker sounded a little testy now.

'Not within a mile of it–but maybe within two miles. Maybe only a dummy4

mile and a half! Don't you worry, Stocker. I'll find your boxes. It's just a matter of a little time and trouble now.'

Stocker didn't answer this time.

'And for another thing—' Audley looked down at Faith, who was now wide awake and regarding him with proprietorial satisfaction

'—I've just got engaged to be married, and I've got a bit of private life to attend to.'

There was another short silence. Richardson hadn't reported the double bed, obviously.

'Well–congratulations, David,' Stocker finally rallied gamely. 'That does rather alter the situation. But I'm afraid your fiancee will have to take herself off when Panin arrives in Newton Chester–I'm sure he'll want to come and watch operations.'

'Oh, I don't think it will be necessary for her to disappear,' said Audley casually. This was the rabbit punch. 'The whole thing's going to be rather a family affair: it's Miss Steerforth I'm going to marry.'

He grinned down at Faith and savoured the renewed silence at the other end of the line.

'You're a bit of a dark horse, aren't you, David!' Stocker took his punishment like a man in the end. 'But no one can grumble if you deliver the goods, I suppose. I take it you'll need some help to conjure up the treasure?'

'I can lay that on–I take it I've still special priority?'

Stocker reassured him with a better grace than he expected. It could be that he'd made another important enemy in the last five dummy4

minutes. But the hell with it–he'd been kicked around enough.

He put down the receiver and turned to Faith.

'"Sock it to 'em",' she murmured. 'You certainly socked it to him, whoever he was! Was that the effect of a good night's sleep–or me?'

He swung his bare legs out of bed.

'Come on, now,' persisted Faith. 'One minute you were on the ropes, and the next minute you were beating the daylights out of him! And–my God–you talked as though you could just about put your finger on my father's loot! Do you really know where it is?'

'My dear Faith, I haven't the faintest notion where it is, and I don't know where to begin to look. But I do know one thing now, and that is that I've been humbugged.'

'Humbugged?'

Audley pulled on his trousers and sat on the unoccupied bed.

'There are a lot of things I've missed because I've been too busy hunting your father's treasure and sleeping with his daughter. Now I think I was meant to miss them.'

'Such as?'

'Such as how we learnt so quickly that Panin was still interested in your father.'

'Couldn't that be just a piece of luck?'

'We've never been lucky before with Panin. Every bit of information on him has been out of date by the time it reached us.

But ever since your father's Dakota turned up we've been fed with information about him.'

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'Maybe someone was efficient.'

'That's just it! But it's Panin who is the efficient one.'

'So what does that prove, David? I'm sorry to be a devil's advocate, but Panin wants his treasure and he doesn't trust you. You've known that all along.'

'All along I've been stupid–I know that. My sin's pride: everyone behaved as though I could find what was lost, so I really took it for granted that I could. But now I don't think anyone expected me to find it–not Stocker, and not Panin. And I clean forgot what every half-wit knows–that treasure-hunters never find treasure, not once in a thousand times. The only way treasure turns up is by pure accident!'

'But the treasure does exist?'

'I'm damn certain it exists–that's the one thing we have established.

And I'm sure Panin knows it, too. But I don't think it really matters to him any more. What matters is that I should be kept busy looking, with the minimum chance of success.'

'But, David, for heaven's sake–why?'

Audley recalled Jake Shapiro's reference to 'that goddamned Byzantine set-up', and shook his head sadly.

'That's where I'm stuck. It could be so many things. If it wasn't for what happened to Morrison–and what happened to us–I'd think the whole thing was a cover for something quite different. But all I know is that it doesn't smell right.'

'Well, what are you going to do? You practically promised to find the treasure!'

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Audley brightened. If there was no comfort in the long-term prospects, there was short-term enjoyment to DC had from mischief-making.

He rubbed his hands. 'Everyone's been pushing me about. Now I'm going to do the pushing. And the only way I can think of doing that is—'

'Is to make them think you're just about to do the impossible.'

Faith sat up sharply in bed.

'Just so. And I'd like to see Panin's face when poor old Stocker gives him the good news at London Airport. If I'm right he'll be down here like lightning.'

'But what will that achieve, David?'

'I shall enjoy it, for one thing. And it may baffle Panin somewhat.

He's not infallible, after all. In fact he's already lost us for a whole day, thanks to the incompetence of his agents–he doesn't know what we've been up to, and that may put him off a bit. Come to that, it may be the reason why he's arriving today instead of tomorrow.'

'So that was what the phone call was about! We're staying here to meet him?'

'That we aren't! We're going to London.'

Faith looked at him in surprise. 'But you said—'

'That was for Stocker's benefit. We're going to London because I've got some checking to do. I can leave instructions for Roskill and Butler to reconnoitre the area outside the airfield for suspicious dummy4

bumps and so on–that'll keep them happy.'

He moved over to their rumpled bed and stared down at her.

'And you, young woman, have got a trousseau to buy –and a toothbrush. Then we'll have lunch at Feyzi's and a quiet drive back to the Bull for a reunion dinner. Panin should be nicely on the boil by then!'