Colonel Butler's Wolf

'Joke over,' the young man groaned. 'Glad to meet you, sir—so, long as you don't believe anything Polly says.' He glanced down at Butler's glass. 'I don't rise to short drinks, but if you'd like a beer—?'

'Stingy,' said Polly brightly. 'I'll have that beer, Dan. But you must excuse me while I put my face back on. I'll only be a second.'

The fair-haired man watched her disappear into the Ladies before turning back to Butler.

'I wondered when it was going to hit her.'

Butler looked up at him. 'It?'

'Poor old Boozy—Neil Smith running out of road.' McLachlan shook his head. 'She's been bottling it up.'

Butler grunted neutrally.

'She should have got it off her chest.' McLachlan nodded wisely. 'Stiff upper lip doesn't become girls, anyway —did you know old Boozy?'

'Hah—hmm!' Butler cleared his throat. 'Friend of yours?'

'Boozy? Hell, Boozy was a great guy, even if he was a bit of a lefty. He wasn't my year, actually—

haven't seen him since he was made a baas in Michaelmas Term. But I was at prep school with him years ago.'

At school.

'Indeed?' Butler swallowed. 'Where would that have been?'

'Little place down in Kent.'

'Eden Hall?'

'That's it—do you know it?'

dummy2.htm

Grunt. 'And you were a friend of his there?'

'That would be stretching it a bit. Boozy was always a year ahead of me—I was a domkoppe in the Fifth Form when he was a prefect in the Sixth. I didn't even recognise him when we met again at Dick's a couple of years ago. Not until he told me who he was—then I knew him of course. Only one Boozy—

more's the pity!'

Of course—only one Boozy! And what a gift to be remembered by young McLachlan of the Fifth.

McLachlan looked at him seriously. 'But if you're a friend of Polly's, sir, it'ud be a good thing if you could keep an eye on her—at least until the day after tomorrow. She's taken this thing harder than she's let on, and she drives like a maniac at the best of times.'

'What happens the day after tomorrow?'

'Oh, I can handle it after that. We're both going up to her old man's place in the north. And she'll be OK

once she gets home.'

Steady the East Lanes, Butler told himself. 'You mean you're both going to Castleshields House?'

'Surely. Do you know that too ?'

'I rather think I'm supposed to be talking to you there, young man. If you're interested in Byzantine military organisation, that is.'

'Well—' McLachlan grinned disarmingly '—I'm a PPE man myself, with the emphasis on the middle P.

But say, have you come down to collect Polly? Is that it?'

'Not exactly,' replied Butler cautiously. 'But tell me, Mr McLachlan—'

'Dan—'

'Hmm—Dan, then—what exactly takes you to Castleshields House? I thought it was attached to the University of Cumbria.'

'So it is, sir. But Dick's is by way of being a shareholder in it. Young Hob and the high-powered Dr Gracey cooked it up between them, didn't you know?'

Butler made a great play of consuming the last of his whiskey. This was where Audley's cover plan began to look decidedly thin, when his institutional knowledge was shown to be deficient in such small dummy2.htm

matters as this. 'Dick's' was evidently the King's College, and 'Young Hob' was Sir Geoffrey, as distinguished from his long-dead grandfather and predecessor in the Master's chair at the college. But the relationship of the college with Castleshields House was still beyond him.

Yet it would be a pity, a great pity, not to take advantage of Daniel McLachlan's unexpected appearance.

Apart from what the young man might know about Neil Smith, his acquaintanceship would give substance to Butler's own false identity at Castleshields House in much the same way as the enemy had obviously intended it to do for Smith at the College.

Indeed, he might even be more useful than that if the scornful reference to Smith's left-wing politics meant anything. But he needed to know more about the lad before that could be considered seriously.

'Hell!' exclaimed McLachlan. 'Here's Polly and I haven't got the ruddy drinks.'

Butler followed his glance gratefully. She was smiling again now, but her face had a scrubbed, make-up free look.