Colonel Butler's Wolf

pond really. But deep enough to die in. He rode off into the night and eventually they found him floating face down among the weeds. Accident, they say—and maybe it was an accident, even though he was floating face down.'

'I beg your pardon?' What was the man driving at? He seemed almost to be talking to himself.

'Eh? Oh, yes—face down! Men should float face up—so Pliny says, according to Huxley.'

My Thames-blown body (Pliny vouches it)

Would drift face upwards on the oily tide

With other garbage . . .

Aldous Huxley, that is of course, not T.H.—and the female floats the other way—

Your maiden modesty would float face down

And men would weep upon your hinder parts.

'I do assure you there may be something to it, Butler. I had thought it nonsense, but a doctor I know says it may relate to physiology. Something to do with the relative density of fat and muscle—those 'hinder parts', I suppose. But he was afloat in the feminine manner, and there may be something in that. It's one of the things I'd like you to check for me.'

'The official verdict was accidental death?'

Butler did not quite succeed in curbing the impatience in his tone. If he let Audley tell the tale in his own way they'd be travelling the long way to the truth, no matter how interesting the scenery. Poetry, for God's sake!

'That's probably what they'll call it.' Audley nodded. 'He was drunk, you see, very drunk. No doubt about that: there were two hundred and something milligrammes of alcohol in his blood—way over the limit. I wasn't at the inquest, of course. No one of ours was, naturally, because we didn't know about him then ...'

'Didn't know about him? What didn't you know?'

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'We didn't know who he was.'

'He was disfigured? Or had the fish been at him?'

'The fish? No, he hadn't been in long enough for that—' Audley stopped. 'I'm sorry! I keep forgetting how very little you do know.'

Butler balled his fists and counted— one, two three, jour— 'Audley, I do not know a little'— five, six, seven, eight—'I know absolutely bloody nothing beyond the fact that I was sent to Eden Hall to get Smith's records. And having seen them I can't see what use they are to you if you already know you've got his body.'

As Butler turned to stare at the blur of Audley's face in the darkness the taxi pulled in to the side of the street. He caught a glimpse of stone steps and a stucco pillared portico.

Audley moved forward to the edge of his seat, waving his hand vaguely at the window.

'I've borrowed a flat for an hour or two—more comfortable than riding around in a taxi.' He turned back towards Butler. 'Yes—well, I'm afraid there never has been any question of whose body we've got, Butler. It belongs to our Neil Smith. But probably not to yours.'

'Not mine?'

'It rather looks as though your little Eden Hall boy was Neil Smith right enough. But our Neil Smith was actually a man by the name of Zoshchenko—Paul Zoshchenko. Somewhere between Eden Hall and the King's College at Oxford, the KGB appear to have slipped a ringer on us.'

VI

'HELP YOURSELF TO a drink,' said Audley generously, pointing to an alcove in the corner of the room. 'My invitation covers incidental hospitalities.'

Butler stared around him. Conceivably this was another of the department's properties, ready like the taxi to serve when the need arose. On the other hand, department flats were rarely so elegantly furnished and never kept their alcohol on view in cut-glass. And Audley was notoriously chary of using official facilities.

In the end he carried a medium-sized brandy and soda over to the fireplace. When it came to scoring off life it was hopeless to attempt to outdo Audley.

'Zoshchenko. Do we know him?'

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'No.' Audley shook his head. 'There's never been a mention of him.'

'Then how do you know who he was?'

'He told us himself.' Audley took several folded sheets of paper from his breast pocket. 'Strictly speaking he didn't tell us, we really don't know what he intended to do. But it looks as though he was in some sort of trouble and he turned to the only man he trusted.'

He passed the sheets to Butler.

Anonymous, greyish photocopying paper; the reproduction of a letter written in a small, meticulous hand, but with the leopards and lilies of ancient royalty on its crest—

The Master's Lodging, The King's College, Oxford.

Dear Friesler—

'Who is this Freisler?'

'A German scholar who lives in London.'

'How did we get hold of the letter?'

Audley regarded Butler silently for brief space.