Colonel Butler's Wolf

Then the taxi decelerated sharply and cut in towards the kerb. The door was jerked open—

'Good God Almighty!' Butler barked. 'I should have known!'

Audley rapped on the driver's window and sank back into the seat beside him.

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'Should have know what? That it was me? They didn't tell you, then?' Audley sounded satisfied rather than inquisitive.

Butler nodded his head, but more to himself than to the man at his side. The armed truce between them was no special secret so perhaps they'd reckoned that even his celebrated obedience might have baulked at this.

'And why should you have known?' Audley repeated mildly.

They would have been wrong, of course. Personal likes and dislikes didn't come into it. Only a man's capabilities mattered, and no one doubted Dr David Audley's capabilities. If anything, Audley was just a shade too capable for his own good.

But there was a question to answer-—

'It had your mark on it, what little I've been allowed to pick up so far,' he said.

Audley gave a short laugh. 'I'm complimented!'

'Don't be! It's another damned devious concoction you've mixed up!' Butler gestured in the darkness.

'Even this.'

'Ah—now you must understand that I'm not supposed to be in London at all. As a matter of fact I'm in a cinema in Carlisle at this very moment, watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid I believe—an excellent film. The RAF kindly gave me a lift in a Harrier trainer—they do enjoy showing it off still —'

'For God's sake, man!' spluttered Butler. 'What the devil are you up to ? And what are we up to ? I tell you, you may be having great fun—I'm sure you are—but I was damn near burnt alive this morning!'

Audley's head nodded soberly. 'Yes, so I hear. And I'm sorry about that, Butler. But it wasn't on the cards I do assure you,though.'

'So did Sir Frederick, but—' Butler checked the run of tongue. Apologies and assurances of sympathy were the last things he wanted of Audley. 'Damn it, I don't object to the risk—it was my own fault.

What I dislike is being in the dark.'

'Naturally. My dear chap, that's exactly why I'm here. Fred could have put you in the picture, but I wanted to do it myself. Tell me first though—did things go well this evening?'

'I've been invited to Castleshields House, if that's what you mean. Or Colonel John Butler has, if that's what you mean.'

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'Hah—very good! That's exactly what I mean! And my congratulations on your promotion, Colonel.'

Butler snorted bitterly. 'I presume that I've Hugh Roskill's game leg to thank for that. He was your first choice, wasn't he? Were you going to put him up to Group Captain?'

He despised himself for the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. The plain fact was that Roskill's public school accent would have gone down better in academic circles than his own bark. It was childish to object to being second choice, when the first choice was self-evidently correct. As usual he was letting Audley nettle him, and if they were going to work in tandem that was something he would have to curb.

Starting now—with no excuses.

'No—I'm sorry, Audley,' he forced the words out carefully. 'That was a half-baked thing to say.'

'It was rather,' Audley replied ungraciously. 'In view of the fact it isn't strictly true. We were sending Hugh down to Eden Hall because we thought that was routine—and thank God it was you who went, because Hugh might have bought it with his leg. But Castleshields House is all yours. You have to admit, Butler—your namesake makes you the obvious candidate.'

'That was your idea?'

'It was. I met the man five years ago, when I was getting material for my book on the kingdom of Jerusalem —he took me through the Cilician Gate. And I tucked him away in the back of my mind for the future.'

It had the ring of truth, for that was the sort of man Audley was; a man who filed names and faces and facts in his prodigious memory, marking them for future use as Wellington had marked the ridge at Waterloo long before Napoleon had set Europe ablaze again.

'Besides—' Audley paused, and then continued with a touch of diffidence—'I need a man I can rely on with me up north now Smith's dead.'

Butler frowned. 'He was one of ours?'

'He wasn't. . .' Audley sighed. 'Indeed he wasn't. But it rather looks as though he might have been in the end. It's a damn shame—a damn shame!'

He fell silent for a moment.

'Just who was Smith, then?'

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'Who indeed!' Audley gave a sad little snort. 'He was a junior lecturer in Philosophy at Cumbria, and a good one too.'

'How did he die?'

'He was drowned—or we think he was drowned. He rode his motor-cycle into a little lake—no more than a