The Liar [calibre]

'I'm still not quite sure how we score this,' he was saying.

'Excuse me?' said a Szabo.

'Well, it's Donald's victory again. No doubt about that,' said Nancy. 'Even if we take Lyre Bird out of the picture altogether. He was, after all, a shared resource. The same result would have been achieved without him. He merely added zest. You have to admit it, you failed to take Walton's Rules into account and you genuinely believed that you held one half of Mendax: you loused up, didn't you, David?'

'Bollocks to the lot of you,' growled the voice of Uncle David. 'Donald changed the game halfway through! Turned it into some half-baked fiction just so that he could put that dandiprat of a nephew of mine over his knee and give him a spanking. A spanking that he richly deserved, I will grant you.'

'Well, that's what gave you half a chance,' said Nancy. 'You were beaten all ends up and you know it.'

'Ha! You wait. Just you watch my smoke. If you're not all excessively nice to me I'll set the next round in Lebanon and then you'll know what's what.'

'What are you going to tell the department?' asked Humphrey.

'Nothing to tell. Wasted a tiny amount of cash on the surveillance of Stefan. A few flights to Salzburg. Activated our man Locksmith in Budapest. An idle bugger who needed a sharp toe up his totsie anyway. No harm done. The world knows you're my Moriarty, Donald. They let me have a fly at you once in a while, to humour the mad dog in me. They're relieved to see that I have a human flaw, is my view of it.'

'And when do you play your next game?' asked the other Szabo.

'We try to make each game run for at least two or three years,' said Trefusis. 'Like any decent real life engagement. We will take the next year off before starting again. David and I are the antagonists and it is up to us to recruit as we please. I nearly always have Humphrey and Helen on my side, and David likes to use Dickon. I am the spy and David the spycatcher.'

'Donald devises the scenario and I have to stop him. Which I did in seventy-four.'

'David is at liberty to use all the facilities of his Service, but at his own risk.'

'And at yours, old love,' said David. 'The fact that you are now branded a dirty lavatory loiterer is some kind of victory for me, I venture to think.'

'That's a point,' said Simon. 'You did nearly get yourself sent to prison, Donald.'

'An unlooked-for occurrence, I admit, but these things lend lustre to the reputation of a fading don, don't you feel?'

'Can't you do something about that, David?' asked Helen. 'A word in the right ear, a review of evidence, a retraction from the arresting officer . . . something?'

'Of course, of course,' Uncle David's voice murmured affably.

'Really David, there's no need . . .'

'When did you start all this please?'

'When the game proper ended,' said David. 'About twenty years ago life in the Service became dull, pompous, sordid and absurd. Bloody good bouillabaisse, Bob.'

'Thank you, sir. Got the trick of it in Marseille.'

'Yum, yum.'

'Tell me a thing,' said Trefusis. 'In the car driving over to Salzburg, Adrian told me what we might call his life story.'

'Oh ah?'

'He told me about you and Helen at school, Humphrey.'

'Yes, he came to a couple of our Friday afternoon teas, didn't he, dear?'

'He told me too, about bumping into you, David, at Lord's in . . . seventy-five or six it must have been.'

'Oh yes, that'll be the Aussie test. I remember. Don't know what he means by "bumping into me" though.'

'No?'

'His parents were going on holiday. Naturally they didn't want the little rat getting under their feet then. Shoved him onto me.'

'He hadn't. . . then . . . run away from home in any way?'

'Good Lord no! That what he told you? No, no. Pretty normal schooling he had as far as I can remember. Got slung out for nobbing half his house and circulating filthy drivel in a school magazine. Couple of years at the local college in Gloucester where he got his "A" levels. Taught at some prepper in Norfolk. Then St Matthew's. Why, tell you something different did he?'

'No, no. That was broadly the story as he told it me. One or two, er . . . embellishments perhaps. A lot of highly entertaining nonsense about Piccadilly and prison and so forth. I'm sure he never intended to be so insulting as to expect me to believe them.'

Adrian's foot slipped on the ledge. Scrabbling wildly to regain his balance, he kicked a toe through the window, knocked the dustbin from under him and fell backwards onto the ground.

Without stopping to see what damage he had caused either to himself or to the window, he picked himself up and ran out into the street.

Fourteen

Adrian brought the tips of his fingers together and smiled gently. The girl's voice continued to read.

'Othello is a tragedy of privacy, a phrase that itself expresses incongruity, for, as with most Shakespearean tragedy, success is achieved by a treatment unsuited to the form. And it is the lack of suiting which makes the theme perennial; the tearing-down of a privacy is a subject which fits our age, as it might fit any age. It lets in chaos, and lets out love.'

'Oh bravo!' cried Adrian. 'Memorably phrased, Shelagh.'

The girl flushed slightly with pleasure. 'You like it Dr Healey?'

'Indeed! I liked it when I first read it . . . phew, let me see . . . must be getting on for ten years ago now... nineteen eighty-one, I'm pretty sure it was . . . and I like it just as much now. If anything age seems to have improved it. John Bayley, Shakespeare and Tragedy, published, unless I'm very much mistaken, by Routledge and Kegan Paul.'

'Oh dear,' the girl flushed again, but not this time with pleasure.

'Too memorably phrased I am afraid, my dear.'

'Thing is . . .'

'I know you are . . . frantically busy. But believe me, I had far rather listen to that good essay than the bad one you would have contrived without Bay ley's help. All's well. I think you will manage to get yourself an adequate degree without my pestering you every fortnight for an essay, don't you?'

'Well '

'Of course you will!' Adrian stood and refilled Shelagh's glass. 'A little more malvoisie for you?'

'Thank you.'

'A smoky volcanic bite that cannot disgust. You act, I believe?'

'Yes . . . that's why I get so behind with work.'

'I don't know why I say "believe" you act, I've seen you in a number of productions. My wife is down from London this weekend, you may have heard of her?'

'Jenny de Woolf, the director? Of course!'

'Then why don't you come round to our house in Trumping-ton this evening and say hello?'

'Really? I'd love to.'

'All right, my dear. Seven o'clock, shall we say?'

'That would be fine. Thanks!'

Adrian watched with approval as the girl gathered her bag and her scarf and made for the door. 'By the way, Shelagh . . .'

She paused enquiringly in the doorway.

'I note,' said Adrian, 'that you are a member of the University Humanist Society.'

She looked back at him with a hint of defiance and suspicion.

'Yes?'

'You take it seriously?'

'Very.'

'You dislike religion perhaps?'

'I loathe religion.'

'Ah, now that is interesting. I think that tonight I shall invite old Trefusis along as well, you'd like him I'm sure, and I know he'll like you. We are currently working on a . . . on a problem that may interest you.'