The Labyrinth Makers

'Steerforth didn't have the time or opportunity to move them far.

We've covered his movements between the flights fairly well. He was duty officer on the Wednesday and he went to London with you and Flight Lieutenant Wojek on Thursday. Did he say anything about them then?'

Maclean was staring at Faith, who was absent-mindedly polishing her glasses. He turned slowly back towards Audley.

'I beg your pardon? We went to London? If we did I can't think why! It was a beastly journey there, and even worse coming back.

A day trip was hardly worth it.'

He spoke absently, and Audley could sense his interest slipping. Or rather, not slipping, but shifting to Faith.

'Miss–Jones–I can accept irrational coincidences, but I have a good memory for faces, and I don't see how you can be a coincidence.'

Faith started to put on her glasses, and then stopped, returning Maclean's curiosity coldly.

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'Steerforth had a baby daughter,' continued Maclean. 'She'd be just about your age now . . . You have your father's eyes and forehead, Miss Jones, and some of his disdain too, I think. A stronger chin and mouth, but the resemblance is quite striking nevertheless.'

'It's been remarked on before — you're memory is very accurate.'

Maclean gave her a satisfied nod, smiling at her.

'I was at your christening, Miss Jones–Miss Steerforth. As a matter of fact I was a proxy godfather. I remember the occasion quite well.'

'It's a pity you can't remember what my father did with his stolen treasure,' said Faith icily. 'It's a pity you weren't able to keep him on the narrow path with you in the first place. It would have saved a great deal of heartache.'

Maclean's face clouded. 'You think I was the Pharisee who passed by on the other side? That's not quite fair, my dear. You ought to know that young people don't interfere with their friends' private affairs–only the old and the middle-aged do that. And I was worried about your father; I said to him . . .'

He stopped, and then swung to Audley again, nodding in delayed agreement.

'You're quite right: we did go to London. My sister had tickets for a Myra Hess concert. Johnnie and Jan Wojek were going up on their own, and I just tagged along for the journey. We met up again to get the last train from King's Cross.'

He tailed off, but Audley didn't dare to prompt him for fear of breaking the chain of remembrance.

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'I'd been sitting there thinking about your father, Miss Steerforth, and thinking about his boxes. And when he got in I asked him if he'd got rid of them all right.'

He paused. 'He said 'Forget you ever saw those boxes of mine, old boy. You've had your chance'–or something like that. And he laughed and said that the German would be turning in his grave. I said 'What German? You haven't been fraternising, have you?'–

because we weren't supposed to have anything to do with the Germans then. He nearly fell off his seat laughing at that–and he said his private German had been dead for ages. 'The joke is it would take someone like him to find it now' he said.'

He gazed at them both rather sadly. 'Perhaps that means more to you than it does to me. It was a private joke to him, but that's more or less what he said. And whatever you may think, Miss Steerforth, I did care. But your father went his own way — we even had some more of his boxes on that last flight, as a matter of fact.'

'He was with Wojek when he came to join you on the train, was he?'

'He was, yes–but I doubt that Jan Wojek will remember anything.

They'd both had rather a lot to drink, but Jan was in the worse condition . . .'

In the end Maclean had become rather fed up with his inebriated comrades, the Englishman full of excitement and misplaced elation, the Pole full of sadness, still fighting the well-founded suspicion that he had won his war and lost his country. So Maclean had settled back in his corner seat listening to his sensible conscience, which told him it was high time to stop flying and start dummy4

his real career. To him, unlike the other two, the war had never been the great adventure, and now it was over anyway.

Audley crunched away down the well-tended drive beside Faith, once more in a gloomy world of his own. He was aware that they had been less than gracious to Maclean at the conclusion of the interview. Faith had rebuffed the man's conventional questions about her mother with short answers; his own equally conventional gratitude had been short and insincere. And each was merely projecting personal feelings.

With typically feminine unfairness, Faith obviously blamed Maclean for everything. He could have been the cohesive force in the crew, tipping the balance against temptation. Instead he had left well alone, saving his strength for himself, so it must seem to her.

But human relations were never as simple as that in reality.

His own disappointment was better founded, for that feat of memory which Faith's disapproval had stirred had thrown the whole question of the boxes' whereabouts into confusion again. If that private joke of Steerforth's had been recalled with any accuracy the boxes were below ground again, where Schliemann had found their contents in the first place. And that would make their rediscovery appallingly difficult, even impossible.

He was tempted to throw in his hand–to insist that the whole idea of tracking down long-lost treasure was a nonsense for which he had neither the aptitude nor the experience. His bouts of confidence seemed in retrospect as misplaced as Stocker's dummy4