earn?”
“Drachmas, I should think,” said Munroe, sketching Chiltern in profile. None too flatteringly, at that. “That’s what they use instead of money over there.”
“No, no, no,” said Tompkinson, shaking his head emphatically. “I mean, What’s a Greek earn?” He looked around until he caught somebody’s eye. On this occasion, the poor unfortunate was Kay, the professor of chemistry. “About five bob!” said Tompkinson. Kay looked at him blankly. “It’s a joke,” Tompkinson explained. “What’s a Greek earn?”
“About five bob?” Kay ventured.
“No! You’re supposed to say, ‘It’s a bit of pottery’ or similar. It’s a pun! A … a … thingy.
“Homophone,” supplied Munroe.
“Well, good Lord, if you can’t take a joke,” said Tompkinson, and subsided into an aggrieved silence, for which they were all very grateful.
“One should be very careful with archaeology,” said Enright from where he stood by the fireplace. Everybody stopped and looked at him.
Enright was something of a mystery. Blakes was, as has already been intimated, a club of slightly unusual attributes, this slightness being of such a degree that nobody was sure exactly which attributes were specifically the unusual ones. There had been the incident of the whiskers in the water closet, and some of the members became very tight-lipped should the words “clockwork” and “Lord Palmerston” ever accidentally find themselves in the same sentence, but these were no more than the common eccentricities of any establishment. Enright, by comparison, was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a very tasteful Holland & Sherry suit. No one knew very much about him. He came highly recommended from a former member, and sailed gracefully and somewhat laconically through the selection committee. It seemed that the club was perhaps his only social indulgence, as he was never seen at any of the many parties that one attends in and about town. Attempts at gentle investigation into his past by having a word with his primary sponsor came to naught when that gentleman took a nosedive off Beachy Head after some share options turned out to be less than on the square. Even the committee had been reticent in discussing Enright’s background. Everyone made noncommittal noises about “salt of the earth” and “confidentiality” but seemed discomforted and eager to change the subject. Thus, it may be understood that all were intrigued about anything to do with Enright, and all listened attentively as he spoke on this occasion.
“Careful with archaeology?” echoed Chiltern. “What’s that supposed to mean? One might as well say, ‘One should be circumspect with ornithology,’ or perhaps ‘There are dangers incipient in accountancy.’”
“Here, here,” said Wilson, whose wife had run off with a chartered accountant.
“Sorry, Wilson. Still, what do you mean, Enright, ‘careful with archaeology’?”
“Just what I say. No more, no less.”
“Good heavens,” said Clifton, folding his newspaper and putting his reading glasses into his top pocket. “I do believe there’s a story here.”
“A story?” Enright took a spill from the pot on the mantelpiece, lit it from the fire, and used it to rekindle his cigar. “Perhaps there is. There is certainly a salutary warning to the curious.”
“Don’t be so dashed mysterious, Enright,” chimed in Kay. “Is there a tale to be told or isn’t there?” Perhaps it was the impatience in his tone, but Enright shot Kay a warning glance that the chemist didn’t like at all. It was too late for discretion, however; the others had the scent of a yarn and would worry Enright like terriers with a rat until they had it out of him. To his credit, he knew an impossible position when he saw one. He warmed the brandy in his glass and took a sip as he considered his words. Then he began.
I appreciate that I seem something of a dark horse amongst you,” said Enright. “Only the committee know anything of my background, and I swore them to silence upon their word. I fear I shall have to ask the same of you.”
This demand raised no eyebrows; if a shilling had been entered into a fund every time a member of the club agreed to tell a story only under the most sober promise of secrecy, it would by now contain two pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence (to cover Battersby’s tale of his cuckolding;
“I have seen a great deal of the world in my forty years, sometimes rather more than any Christian would want to see. I was at Panisha in the year ’85, I was in the Guasoir Valley shortly after the Desolee Suppression and, on the occasion I am thinking of, I was in Mirkarvia during the rioting after the assassination of Emperor Antrobus II. I should point out that, at all these times — and others too numerous to mention — I was acting as a private citizen. My loyalties, however, lie with the Crown in all affairs. I am, I like to think, a patriot and I believe it is my duty to see what is to be seen, and report it to the proper authorities.
“Good Lord!” interjected Chilton at this point. “You’re an amateur spy!” He looked around, aghast. “Another one!” He was always put out to discover that yet another fellow member was a spy, as he was about the only member who had never been one. He did, however, maintain hopes that one day a coded letter might accidentally make its way into his hands, or that a desperate government agent might hoarsely whisper some vital secret into his ear before succumbing to a knife between the shoulder blades. Then, he was sure, he would show his mettle and save the day. Towards this happy adventure, he read a good many yellow books, and bought a bowler hat containing a concealed camera. The others shushed him, and Enright continued.
“The rioting was very ugly and threatened to turn into civil war at any moment. I stayed as long as I could, but foreigners quickly came to be regarded as agents provocateurs by elements of both sides and I found it necessary to leave. My departure was neither as ordered nor as leisurely as I might have hoped, and I found myself on horseback with a few belongings heading for the neighbouring state of Senza in the wee hours of the morning.
“There was a …
“I’d venture to say that I am not a novice in the saddle, but that nightmare’s ride filled me with apprehension as she bore me through the closely packed trunks of ancient and twisting trees as if the Devil himself were at our heels. There was no hope of controlling her; her neck was iron and she cared little for the bit that I pulled fiercely back into her mouth. She was beyond fear of a mere man. I was no longer her rider but simply a passenger. I clung onto her as long as I could and, as she tore blindly through the forest, I could not help but think of the tales my old Scottish nanny used to tell me of the water horses of her country that tempted the unwary onto their backs and then ran insanely along the banks of the loch, terrifying their hapless victims before plunging into the waters and drowning them, the easier to feast upon their flesh. That started me worrying about the streams that crisscross the valleys there, running off the mountain ranges that delineate the many pocket states.
“And then, suddenly, it was morning.
“I have been knocked unconscious before and am familiar with the small loss of memory that comes with it, so I was not unduly concerned that I could not recall precisely how I had lost my horse. Indeed, a wound on my brow suggested that I had been swept off her back by a low bough. I was, however,
“As I lay there, I heard voices and, looking to one side, realised that I had been laid out in a clearing in the woods. My horse, that wretched beast, was tied up by a tree with two others and, by a small fire, two men were going through my saddlebags. I have a small gift for languages, but their parochial dialect of Mirkarvian German was difficult to follow — salted as it was with Katamenian words — and only with difficulty could I make out what they were talking about. What I heard filled me with anger but made me apprehensive for my safety. They appeared to be bandits and had happened across me — they consistently referred to me as the
