I may?'
'What question?'
Carrandish closed his eyes as if in silent prayer.
'With your permission, sir. Once again - I have isolated some three million pounds. What we on the committee refer to as vagrant funds.'
'I like that,' said His Lordship. 'Vagrant funds. Very well stated. Good use of language. Maybe I did you young people an injustice.'
Carrandish raced ahead, his eyes glazing and a dew of perspiration on his pale brow: 'Some of the vagrant funds quite naturally gravitate to Secret Funds, sir. That is well known and is not questioned. But there are vouchers and they must be signed and the entire process of vouchering must be carried out to its final conclusion so that Her Majesty's books can be balanced: I am sure, Lord Leighton, that you see this.'
His Lordship, who hated shaving, stroked a stubbled chin with fragile, liver-spotted hands. He smiled. And when this old man, this high boffin, this chief of all Britain's scientists, smiled, he could be very charming indeed.
He nodded. 'I can see that, Mr. Carrandish. Indeed yes. Any fool, and I am not quite that yet, can see that we can't have all those pounds lying around unaccounted for. What I don't see, Mr. Carrandish, is why you come to me?'
Mr. Carrandish pounced. J admitted his error. The man was no rodent. Mustela furo. The weasel family.
'Over a million and a half pounds of the vouchers in question, sir, have been signed by you.'
His Lordship sighed. 'I am getting senile. Signing things and not remembering it.' He glanced over at J. 'You may have to see about putting me away, old man. Straight off to the looney bin.'
J, by herculean effort, kept his face straight. He shook his head, said nothing, and the uneasiness grew in him. He was beginning to get a professional feeling about this little farce.
Carrandish, stern, looking as much like Britannia determined as his thin features would accommodate, patted his forehead with a square of handkerchief and forged ahead.
'You do understand, sir, that I am as much bound by the Official Secrets Act as y - as anyone. I would have to be, to have access to the accounts, the bookkeeping, relevant to the Secret Fund. You do understand that, sir?'
The old lion was growing surly again. 'Of course I understand it,' he snarled. 'What in the bloody hell has it got to do with me?'
Carrandish kept charging into the cannon. 'But the vouchers, sir! You signed them. Over a million and a half pounds' worth. For what, I haven't been able to find out - the purchase orders appear to be coded, so masked that the nature of the materials, or services, whatever, are hidden. I run into a blank wall every time I come anywhere close to finding out what that money was actually spent for. Your own signature, sir, is barely legible. But it is your signature. I had it carefully checked by an expert. So, in sum, and putting it as simply as possible, Your Lordship, you have spent a million and a half pounds of Her Majesty's money for something that I cannot find. Something that cannot even be explained. Money that has, apparently, gone down a drain and even the drain has vanished. I have a right to know, Lord Leighton. I am empowered to - '
Lord Leighton stood up. He clung to the table for a moment, to give aid to his polio ruined legs. His gaze was lethal, but his voice was level and courteous.
'And I, sir, am empowered to ask you to leave now. I can't answer your question. Good evening, sir.'
Carrandish had also risen. He nodded sullenly, glared at J as though he were the real malefactor, picked up his briefcase and marched to the door. He bowed slightly to the old man and ignored J.
'I can,' he said, 'ask the same questions in the House, you know. And you, Your Lordship, can be called upon to answer them under oath. Good evening, gentlemen.' The door closed just a bit harder than was necessary. J stirred the fire with a poker. He said, 'He might do that, you know.'
Lord L, in his chair again and already working on some papers he had taken from a desk, snorted. 'He won't. I can see to that. I'll get on to the Prime Minister tonight and see that our little man is put on a false scent. Harry will cooperate to the fullest. He knows how important Dimension X is to us.'
J dropped a few lumps of coal on the fire. He replenished his glass with a splash of soda. He went to a tall window and stood gazing out at Prince's Gate Crescent. Street lights were on and macintoshed pedestrians drifted in and out of the nimbi like damp ghosts. A few last stubborn leaves hung despondently from stark branches moving in the wind like dark mobiles. J dropped the heavy drape into place and went to prowling the room.
The table top was already littered with sheets of paper. Lord Leighton scratched industriously away with his pen. J prowled back and forth over the worn Oriental, crossing and recrossing before the fire, wishing he had his pipe. He concentrated better with his pipe. But his favorite was in the shop, being repaired, and he had forgotten to bring a spare from Copra House.
His Lordship glanced up from his work. 'For God's sake, man, stop pacing like a tiger. And stop looking so worried. I told you - the Prime Minister will put a spoke in the Carrandish wheel. More than likely Harry will have the man in for a little chat. They'll have a sherry or so and Harry will tell him to keep his long nose to himself and that will be that.'
J stopped prowling long enough to chunk up the fire. He scowled at the flames. 'I doubt it will be that simple, Lord L. The Prime Minister will have to tell him something - '
The old man chuckled. 'Harry will think of something. He's a good liar. Made it to the top in politics, didn't he? Now do be a good fellow and let me concentrate. I may be getting senile after all - I have a simple nanosecond equation here that a babe should be able to solve and I'm having trouble. Very upsetting, that Carrandish type, very.'
J regarded the old scientist with affection and exasperation. England's top man of science he might be, but in certain matters he was a babe in arms. He knew nothing of the jungle in which J and Richard Blade must work and survive. Lord Leighton reigned high in his Ivory Tower, lost amid his giant computers, thinking in symbols that only a few men could understand, enmeshed in cybernetic jargon, screened from the real and dirty world of plot and counterplot. The world of bullet and knife and noose and poison. 'I don't like it,' J said.
