The Labyrinth Makers

It was also coals of fire on Audley's head, coals which glowed as Theodore beamed and shook his hand and became increasingly guttural, as he always did on the rare occasions when his emotions outran his vocabulary. Audley had fled in cavalier fashion from an unselfish and undemanding friend. His punishment was just and dummy4

appropriate.

As he drove away to meet Faith he resolved to invite Theodore down into the country for a week. Faith would approve of Theodore; not only because of his grave courtesy, but also because they could meet on the common ground of their own high sense of moral responsibility.

XV

But in the event Audley did not so easily extinguish the coals of fire. They glowed again even more brightly some hours later when Faith was excitedly unpacking her mountain of shopping in the bridal suite at the Bull.

'David, what on earth is this extraordinary parcel?'

She held up the carrier bag.

'It's our first present, from a very good and honourable man, my love.' He hoped desperately that she wouldn't laugh at it, and he couldn't bear to watch her undo it.

She ripped away the covering.

'How lovely! But I've read it, of course. Still, it's something you can read again and again.'

Audley looked in the mirror at his astonished face, half of it covered with shaving soap.

'It has written in it ' Ein Marchen aus alten Zeiten, Das kommt mir dummy4

nicht aus dem Sinn - but may you never be sad'. What does that mean?'

It would be from Heine, Theodore's idol. He turned round: Faith was sitting with the three volumes of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings on her lap–Theodore's own copies.

But before he could reply there was a light tap at the door.

Hugh Roskill entered gingerly, as though his feet hurt. Possibly his feet did hurt, if he had spent the whole day exploring the environs of the old airfield. But Audley somehow felt that it was because he had half expected to find some sort of orgy in progress. He seemed quite relieved to see Faith clothed and Audley engaged in the unexceptionable act of shaving.

But then poor Roskill had had rather a trying day, it transpired. It had been windy and cold, a return to the weather of Friday's funeral–odd, that, for it had seemed pleasant, if not exactly sunny, to Audley.

They had passed a tiring morning marking pimples and pock-marks on a large-scale ordnance survey map which Butler had brought with him. Roskill had given himself a shock on one of Farmer Warren's electric sheep fences and Butler had slipped into a ditch which was no longer wet, but still muddy.

In the afternoon Richardson returned from his assignment in Cambridge with the latest equipment for detecting buried metallic objects, the archaeological department's newest toy.

'DECCO,' explained Roskill, 'which Richardson claims is short for Decay of Eddy Currents in Conductive Objects. But it just looked dummy4

like a souped-up mine detector to me.'

Unfortunately, either Richardson had failed to master DECCO's intricacies or DECCO had developed some minor fault. Having lugged the device two miles or more across country to the most promising pimple they had had to carry it all the way back unused.

Richardson had returned with it to Cambridge and neither had been seen since.

Shortly after he had retired from the field Stocker had arrived with Panin, and Stocker had not been noticeably pleased to find that Audley was not present (though it could be simply indigestion, since the timing of his arrival suggested that he had not been able to linger over his lunch).

'I rather got the impression,' said Roskill, 'that he expected to find us at work with pick and shovel, with you standing over us with a rope's end. I'm afraid Butler was a bit short with him. We told him you'd been on the job continuously . . .' He paused fractionally as the other implications of that statement flashed through his mind, but recovered splendidly '. . . since Friday. I said you were probably chasing the Pole, anyway, and he cooled down a bit.'

It must have been a trying day for Stocker as well. After the early morning Panin call, the hitherto subservient Audley had turned awkward. Then Panin had rushed him out of London at uncomfortable speed, only to find two disgruntled but unintimidated operatives doing nothing in particular.

'Not to worry, though,' Roskill reassured him, mistaking his silence. 'Butler showed him his map, all covered with meaningless red and blue crosses and lines and circles–Jack could snow the dummy4

recording angel if he set his mind to it. He went back to London happy enough, I think.'

'What about Panin?'

'Our Russian colleague?' Roskill cocked his head. 'The Professor–

that's how Stocker refers to him, by the way–is still very much with us. As a matter of fact he's sinking beer with Butler in the bar at this moment. But I don't think Butler snowed him: I've got a feeling he's a downier bird altogether. He doesn't say much, but Butler's talking cricket to him at the moment, so he hasn't had much opportunity yet anyway–when I left them Jack was just launching into his favourite story, about the time Bill Farrimond played for England and Lancashire Second.'

'Is he alone?'

'Oddly enough he is. Or he appears to be. But Butler and I are going to have a scout round after dinner. If he's alone then he's top brass, isn't he?'

'Panin's top brass, Hugh. No doubt about that. But tell me how you got on yesterday.'