Even outside the Steyning Arms itself the coming siege was evident in a fresh notice:
NO VACANT ROOMS
CAR PARK RESERVED STRICTLY
FOR PATRONS AND GUESTS
ONLY
Audley pushed through the hotel entrance door and advanced towards the reception desk.
The girl sitting in the office behind the desk didn't bother to look up from her nail polishing. "We're all booked up until dummy5
Monday," she said to her left hand in a bored little pre-recorded voice.
"I don't want a room. I believe you have a Professor Stephen Nayler staying here," said Audley.
"Eh?" She stared at him as if he had made a lewd suggestion.
"What number room is Professor Stephen Nayler in?" said Audley conversationally.
"Oh . . . Number 10, up the stairs and turn left—" she answered before she realised what she was saying, then frowned at herself for being so unnecessarily helpful. It was a happy thought that next day several hundred rapacious cavaliers would be descending on her. He hoped they would behave with proper attention to historical authenticity, as they had done at Easingbridge, only more so.
The deep murmur of Weston's voice behind the door of Number 10 was stilled by his knock, but for a moment no one answered. Then another voice, high and familiar, answered.
"Come!"
The room had been a small one with no one in it. With Nayler it had grown smaller and with Weston it had become smaller still. But with the large detective sergeant who had accompanied Weston— a man with a marvellously brutal bog-Irish face which looked as if it had been carved out of soft stone and then unwisely exposed to the elements for a century or two—it must have been claustrophobic for those dummy5
ten long minutes.
And now, as Audley eased the door shut behind him, it was the Black Hole of Calcutta.
"Audley!" Surprise and relief were mingled fifty-fifty in the exclamation. And for sure the elephant was the right animaclass="underline" Nayler's aura was the shape and consistency of a Shrove Tuesday pancake.
"Good evening, Professor." Audley reserved his sharpest look for Weston. "Superintendent Weston—what brings you here?"
"Sir." Weston straightened up deferentially. "We're pursuing inquiries into certain matters."
This was a new Weston, subtly altered: it was Weston playing himself on television, not as he really was, but as the viewers might imagine him.
"Well, I didn't think you were paying a social call." Role for role, Audley played back. "The 'certain matters' are Sergeant Digby, I take it."
"That's correct, Dr. Audley."
Audley pointed towards Nayler. "And just what has Professor Nayler got to do with him, may I ask?"
"That's for us to decide, if you don't mind, sir."
"But I do mind. I mind very much." It occurred to Audley that he was overplaying more than Weston was, but there was no help for it. "I'm not having you trampling around in this matter like a bull in a china shop. And I'm not having dummy5
distinguished scholars like Professor Nayler bullied like this, either."
Weston gave a half-strangled grunt, the sort of baffled noise which Jack Butler produced in moments of excessive official stupidity. The brutish sergeant's face was a picture of perplexed ferocity: nothing like this had ever happened to him.
"I'm sorry, Professor," Audley turned towards Nayler. "There seems to have been some misunderstanding somewhere down the line. These officers will be leaving now."
Nayler was having the same trouble as the sergeant in adjusting to events; for once words failed him.
"Well, sir ... we have our duty to do." Weston was retreating in good order with his face to the foe, but clearly retreating nevertheless. "I shall have to consult my superiors about this . . . Sergeant!"
The sergeant gave him an appalled look and backed unwillingly out of the door which Audley held open for him.
"You do that, Superintendent," said Audley. "And you'd better tell them they should consult the Home Office before they try this sort of tactics next time."
He closed the door on them and lent against it thankfully, watching Nayler through half-closed eyes as he did so. This was the moment when the casting of his next role would be decided: it was up to Nayler to reward his deliverer or to remember old enmities.
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"What an extraordinary bizarre episode," said Nayler to no one in particular. "I wouldn't have thought it possible."
No sign of gratitude, thought Audley. The man was quickly adjusting his self-esteem again as though nothing had happened, putting Weston's visit out of his mind as though it had been no more real than a nightmare.
"Yes. ..." Nayler wrinkled his nose and compressed his lips.
"Quite extraordinary. And now, what do you want, Audley?"
No gratitude for sure. Time had dealt too kindly with the bastard: where better men had lost their figures and their hair, Nayler's lankiness had aged into an acceptable scholarly stoop to which his thick pepper-and-salt thatch added distinction. Only that petulant mouth and the words which came out of it were unchanged.
"Well, Audley?" Nayler raised an eyebrow interrogatively. "I haven't got all night."
The hard way, then. And it was going to be a rare pleasure.
"You haven't got any time at all." Audley came away from the door. "You're in trouble, Nayler."
"What?" Nayler frowned. "What?"
"I said you're in trouble. Big trouble."
"And I don't like your tone." The lips compressed tighter.
"You are beginning to sound like those—those two thugs masquerading as policemen, Audley."
"Oh, I'm not the same as them, don't make that mistake."
dummy5
"I don't intend to, I assure you. Now— say what you came to say and get out." Nayler waved his hand in a jerky, insulting little gesture of dismissal. "I have work to do."
"Very well. I believe you spoke to Henry Digby recently."
"I spoke to the fellow—yes—if that's his name."
"It was his name. Sergeant Henry Digby. He's dead now."
"So I gather. But that's absolutely no concern of mine. I spoke to the fellow about purely academic matters."
Audley felt his blood pressure rising, heated and reheated by the repetition of fellow.
"You spoke to Sergeant Digby about Standingham and the gold." With an effort Audley kept his voice neutral. "Now . . .
could you please tell me what you told him, Professor?"
Nayler gazed at Audley for a moment, old memories flickering in his eyes. "Frankly, Audley, I don't see why I should."
"I see." Audley nodded humbly. "Professor, I explained that I wasn't the same as the police—"
"You did indeed." Nayler came in before he could continue, his confidence now fully restored. "And in consequence I can think of no reason why I should give you even the time of day."
That was just about perfect, thought Audley. If Nayler had read the script for a classic hard-soft-hard interrogation pattern he couldn't have played his part better than that.
dummy5
"No? Well here's a reason, then." Audley looked at his watch.
"If you don't answer my question in one minute from now—"
he looked up "—I will arrest you —and I have ample authority to do that— and I will take you to the nearest police station, where you will be held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act until such time as I may charge you under the Defence of the Realm Act, or alternatively with impeding the course of justice. And I will further personally ensure that you are thereafter held in custody as being a person consorting, or likely to consort, with known agents of a foreign power engaged in a conspiracy to endanger the safety and security of the realm."
The colour drained out of Nayler's face.
"Fifteen seconds to go." Audley reached inside his jacket.