when the craftsmen set their hands to it.
The interior was surprisingly bare at first sight and Butler resolutely blinkered his eyes against any second look : he had not come thus far to be seduced by the architectural glories of Oxford in general and any college chapel in particular—he had come to see a live Englishman about a dead Russian, no more and no less.
And the live Englishman was standing directly ahead of him, arms folded, gazing fixedly upwards and ahead, presumably at that east window.
'Sir Geoffrey Hobson?'
Tall, grey, slightly stooping. Tired, washed-out, droop-lidded eyes. And the suggestion of a once formidable physique which had not run to seed but had simply been overtaken by the passage of time.
'My name is Butler, Sir Geoffrey.'
'Ah, Colonel Butler! Delighted to meet you.'
The voice too was a disappointment, high-pitched, almost querulous. But this was the voice nevertheless which had given the orders for the attack on Tilly-le-Bocage, which the official war history had called 'a classic lesson in the employment of Sherman tanks against Tigers'.
'I regret having to disturb you like this, but I'm afraid my business is somewhat urgent.'
'Not at all, Colonel Butler. I have been expecting you, but I had no idea of your exact time of arrival so I took the opportunity of having another look at our east window. I fear its violent history is catching up with it at last, but after over three centuries I suppose we mustn't grumble.'
In spite of his resolve Butler could not resist staring down the choir at the mysterious window. But like its Master's voice it was a disappointment, with plain glass filling the elaborate stone framework.
'It wasn't always like that, Colonel,' said the Master, sensing his disappointment. 'In its day it was one of the glories and curiosities of Oxford—it purported to illustrate the Lord God welcoming St Edward the Confessor into Heaven, but the artist was said by some people to have deliberately confused the Confessor with King Edward the Martyr, who was assassinated a century before. Not that our Royal Founder minded, of course—he always intended that it should be generally associated with his own great-grandfather, Edward II, who was in his view more of a saint and martyr than either of the other Edwards.'
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'What—ah—happened to the stained glass then?' asked Butler, resigning himself to an inevitable period of small talk.
'Ah, Colonel, that was what you might call a war casualty. We've had our troubles here in Oxford, you know, down the centuries, and some of them make today's problems seem trivial.'
'You see, back in the 17th century we expelled from the college a certain young man named Bradshaw—
Deuteronomy Bradshaw—for his repulsive Puritan practices. But instead of emigrating to North America,as most of the drop-outs did in those days, he turned up again at the end of the Civil War with a company of soldiers at his back. Captain Bradshaw he was by then, and he used our East Window for target practice —
'Unfortunately his men seem to have hit the stonework as often as the glass, and I fear it will cost us a lot of money now!' He smiled ruefully at Butler. 'I'm afraid we nursed a viper in our bosom in Deuteronomy Bradshaw.'
'And in Neil Smith.'
The Master stared at Butler in silence.
'That may be,' he said softly at length. 'Yes, Colonel Butler, that may be.' He paused again. 'Except that Smith was no more Smith than Butler, I take it, is Butler?'
Butler reached inside his pocket for his identification folder. 'I am Colonel Butler, Master—' he passed the folder across '—though perhaps not the Butler you expected. Let's say that I'm a friend of a friend of Dr Freisler's. But if people think I'm an expert in Byzantine military history, then so much the better.'
'I see,' the Master murmured. 'Or I see a little, anyway. And I must say that I'm relieved—for more than one reason, too ...'
'More than one?'
'I'm heartily relieved that you aren't the other colonel, Butler. I took the precaution of obtaining one of his— er— treatises from Blackwell's this morning, and I found it quite excruciatingly pedestrian. But chiefly I'm glad that Freisler has acted promptly on my information . . . which I presume the authorities are taking really seriously now.'
'We took it seriously from the start, Master. But I'd like to hear just what aroused your suspicions in the first place— absolutely off the record, of course.'
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'You mean what I told Freisler at Rhodes House last year? I've no objection to repeating that, Butler—
off the record, as you say. But let us get out of this infernal draught first—go and sit in the back of the choir stalls over there. I'll just go and lock the door to make sure we aren't disturbed!'
Butler made his way into the body of the chapel. It was obvious where the Master intended them to sit—
the back stalls were sumptiously furnished with velvet cushions and padding, enough to make the dullest sermon bearable, as well as being tucked away from prying eyes. Except that with the doors locked there could be no eyes to pry: despite the false Butler cover the Master was taking no chances that anyone should see them talking together. It might even be that he was not quite so taken by surprise by his visitor's identity as he had indicated—that he had deliberately chosen this place for their meeting and that the tale of Deuteronomy Bradshaw was no more than a cue which he had obediently taken.
He leaned back on the soft velvet and fixed his gaze on the intricate fan vaulting of the ceiling far above him. Those terrible old men, that was how Audley had described this species, admiration balancing his fear. But Audley would have welcomed this confrontation because in a decade or so he too would be just such a terrible old man himself.
