The Labyrinth Makers

'Wash-out, I'm afraid, sir.' Roskill shook his head sadly. 'We couldn't track one of 'em at all. And the other one shut up tighter than a clam.'

Then he smiled. 'Actually, I rather liked the old boy Ellis. He was regular RAF. Joined as a boy when there were still Bristol Fighters around and his last station was supersonic. He'd seen it all!'

'He wouldn't talk about Steerforth?'

'Oh, he talked. But he didn't give anything away. I think Ellis knew dummy4

every racket that'd ever been thought of. But he liked Steerforth–

said he was a gentleman, which means that Steerforth always paid the rate for the job in advance. And he practically told me I warn't a gentleman for checking on another pilot!'

'Then Butler appealed to his patriotism and he just laughed at us.'

Roskill's eyes flashed. 'He said that he knew his pilots, and patriotism was one thing and a bit of smuggling on the side was another. He said he's been on an air-sea rescue station where the Warwicks ran a regular service from Iceland with the lifeboats under their bellies full of nylons and whisky and ham. That'd stopped when they had to drop a boat to a ditched crew, and the chaps were picked up roaring drunk, but if Steerforth had put one over on us, so much the better. He was a splendid old boy!'

So there was no help there. Panin was waiting and his bluff was in danger of being called. When Roskill had gone he stood silent, staring at the dried shaving soap on his face.

Faith put her hand on his shoulder. 'No good, David?'

He shrugged. 'We're simply running out of time, Faith love. We never had much in the beginning. But instead of playing for it I've just speeded it up. I'm rather wondering now if it was the right thing to do.'

Faith held up Theodore's gift. 'Well, don't give up yet. The Fellowship of the Ring did just the same in The Lord of the Rings -

they forced the Dark Lord to attack before he was ready, and he came unstuck. Maybe Panin will come unstuck too.'

Audley smiled at her. Woman-like, she had committed herself with dummy4

her affections. Panin was the enemy now, the Dark Lord, whoever he was. And the least he could do in return for such loyalty was to play the game out.

He watched her in the mirror as he shaved, and Panin faded into immateriality. Not just Panin either–Stocker, Fred and all the rest as well. At some stage since Saturday night they had all changed places in importance with this girl. The longer he was with her, the closer he came to reality. And whatever happened, the real world was Faith struggling with her zip-fastener.

She turned towards him at last.

'Will I do, then?'

The long white dress, slashed in front from the ankle to the knee, was classically severe, but the heavy golden earrings and elaborate necklace were barbaric–no, not so much barbaric as pre-Hellenic.

'Take your glasses off.'

'But David, I don't see so well without them. Don't you like me in glasses?'

'I like you better in them. But not tonight.'

She slipped them off and stared vaguely at him: Steerforth's daughter to the life now, almost as her father might have dressed her. Except that the costume jewellery was from Bond Street, not Troy.

'Now you'll do very well. Very well indeed!'

'I hope so! But I've got butterflies in the tummy, David. Don't ask me to play the femme fatale ever again–this is positively the last time.'

dummy4

Audley shared the same stomach-turning mixture of excitement and fear as he followed her down the passage. He had nothing with which to face Panin except pure bluff. Yet Panin didn't know it was bluff. And this was the home ground, for all its soft carpets and heated air: 3112 Squadron's home ground, where the Russian had been beaten once before. The ghosts were on Audley's side here.

A subdued murmur lead them towards the bar. The swarthy waiter smiled unselfconscious admiration at Faith and honest envy at Audley before sweeping open the door for them.

They had their entrance, anyway.

For Nikolai Andrievich Panin.

But he had his back to them, engrossed in watching Butler cut an imaginary cricket ball down past gully and third slip for four easy runs. Roskill stood politely at his elbow in the act of raising a tankard to his lips.

Then the tankard stopped, the imaginary bat was lowered and Panin slowly turned towards them.

Audley had known what to expect; that face was in a dozen pictures in the file. Yet it was a sickening anti- climax nevertheless: Faith's Dark Lord was a very ordinary little man, totally without any aura of power or menace. The sheep-face with its bent nose was greyish and deeply-lined like an eroded desert landscape. It was the file brought to life, giving away nothing–not even a raised eyebrow for Steerforth's Trojan daughter.

Audley put out his hand.

'Professor Panin.'

dummy4

'Dr Audley.'

There was hardly a trace of an accent. Indeed, the foreign-ness of the voice lay in its complete neutrality.

'This is Miss Steerforth.'