'If I might have a minute in private with you, Dr Audley,' he said courteously.
They drew aside from the group, to the foot of the corner mound of the old camp.
'I know that your instructions are quite clear, Dr Audley. I am to have what you find — Brigadier Stocker has made that plain, and there can be no misunderstanding about it. You have done brilliantly, and my government will not be ungrateful.'
Audley listened to the sound of the tractor, which now came loud and clear across the airfield.
'The Schliemann Collection is here, Dr Audley,' Panin continued,
'and we shall restore it to its owners as promised. But this first box I will have now–I will take it now, Dr Audley. Without fuss, without argument. It is necessary that I do this.'
So Steerforth's loot had truly been a Trojan cargo–what it seemed, but also more than it seemed. That had been the only logical explanation.
'I'm not sure that I can agree to that, Professor,' said Audley slowly.
'My instructions cover the Schliemann Collection. But I'm also bound by the Defence of the Realm Act, which gives me a wider obligation.'
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Panin nodded. 'I understand that. But this is a matter which does not concern your country, Dr Audley. It is an internal matter concerning my country alone. If there is any . . . irregularity in my position it arises simply from a crime committed many years ago by one of your officers. But I do not wish to make an issue of that.
And it would only bring pain and discredit on innocent people now–people like the young woman back there.'
Audley faced the Russian. 'You know as well as I do, Professor Panin, that I can't simply take your word in this matter, anymore than you would take mine. Miss Steerforth must take her chance, I'm afraid. And we must be the judges of what concerns us.'
'I think you are exceeding your instructions, Dr Audley,' Panin sighed. 'But fortunately it is of no real consequence. We will take the box now, and without further argument. That is how it must be.'
He turned on his heel with an uncharacteristically quick movement.
'Guriev!'
The gnome-like driver did not look round, but with a smooth, unhurried movement produced an automatic pistol from inside his coat.
'All hands in view, please,' he said in a surprising bass voice. 'No sudden movements, I beg you.'
'Sheremetev!'
The embassy man, with his inevitable return to Russia as a
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'We are not armed, Professor Panin,' Audley spoke with deliberate bitterness. 'We aren't gangsters.'
Sheremetev folded the donkey-jacket neatly on top of the tweed jacket and shook his head.
'I regret this action most sincerely,' said Panin. 'We are not gangsters either, Dr Audley. But we have wider obligations, too, as you have. You have my assurance that your country's security is not involved. And now you have my apology.'
He gestured to Roskill and Butler. 'If you two gentlemen will be so good as to place the box in the boot of the car . . .'
'No!' Guriev's deep voice cut off the end of Panin's words.
The pistol remained unmoving in his hand, pointing at nobody in particular. But now it pointed at everyone.
'The box remains here,' said Guriev. 'Sheremetev–you will empty the contents from it on the grass there. Then you will take a match from a box which I shall give you, and you will burn them. Then you will grind the ashes under your heel.'
His eyes flicked to Panin. 'And then, Comrade Panin, if you wish to recover the Schliemann Collection, I have no objection.'
Panin's face was stony, with the lines in it cut like canyons. He spoke quickly and quietly in Russian to Guriev, his voice deep and urgent with authority. Audley strained his ears, but could not catch the sense of it, beyond the words 'Central Committee' and the familiar initials of the KGB, coming over as 'Kah Gay Beh' in the vernacular.
Guriev cut him off short again.
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'Nyet,' he said with harsh finality. Then in English: 'Everyone stays still. Open the box, Sheremetev!'
Sheremetev gave Panin an agonised look.
'A hole can be a grave, Sheremetev,' Guriev growled. 'If you wish it to be. There is no help for you–we are all alone here.'
'Actually, you're just going to have visitors,' said Roskill conversationally. 'So be a good fellow and don't do anything hasty.'
He pointed across the airfield.
The noise of the tractor engines was much louder already. In fact there were two of them, one towing a grass cutter with an extraordinary raised chute like the head of some prehistoric monster, from the mouth of which wisps of grass were falling; and the other a trailer with tall netting sides bulging with fresh-cut grass. They were coming obliquely across the field, almost exactly in the tracks of Panin's car, straight towards the Roman camp.
