'Hmm... I rather expected that. But if he's become one of these student revolutionaries I must tell you that I don't approve Government action against them. It's the Government and the Press and television that has made them what they are, or what they think they are. Publicity is like power, Major Butler—it's a rare man who isn't corrupted by it. Better to leave them alone.'
'What makes you think he's a student revolutionary? Have you met him recently?'
'Not since he left Eden Hall. That would be ten years ago this July. But we like to keep in touch with our old boys, particularly the ones who do us credit later on. Their names are inscribed on the honours boards. Your Neil Smith—that would be Smith N. H. ?'
'Neil Haig Smith.'
'That would be he. In his time at Eden Hall he was known to his fellows as 'Boozy' because of that
'Haig', though I'm sure he had never drunk any whiskey in his life then. But he subsequently won an exhibition to the King's College, Oxford—in English. I recall being somewhat surprised by the news. It was not his strongest subject when I taught him. He should have graduated by now though. Did he fulfill his promise?'
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Butler was conscious that the crafty old devil was attempting to approach his earlier question from a different direction. But now he had thawed out it might be unwise to call a halt too abruptly. In any case there was nothing of value to let slip—nothing known to Butler, anyway.
'He was awarded a First.'
'Indeed!' Dingle's creased forehead crinkled even more 'I would have judged him a safe Second, and there's nothing further from a First than that. One must assume that he was a late developer!'
He nodded to himself doubtfully, then glanced up at Butler. 'And you say he was involved in student protest of some sort?'
'I really don't know, sir,' said Butler—the words came out more sharply than he had intended. Perhaps if Roskill had been well enough to take this job they would have told him somewhat more, but as it was it was the exact and humiliating truth.
'But you do know enough to know what it is you want to know?'
'We wish to know everything you can remember about Neil Smith, sir. What he did, what he said. What foot he kicked with. Which hand he bowled with. What he liked to eat and what he didn't like. If he had any illnesses, any scars. Everything, sir. No matter how trivial.'
Dingle considered him dispassionately, 'Scars,' he murmured. 'Scars—and the past tense. Every time you refer to him you use the past tense. So he is dead ... or rather
—someone is dead, and you have reason to believe that it is Smith, our Smith of Eden Hall. Is that it?'
Butler took refuge behind his most wooden face. It was at such moments as this that he missed his uniform. In a uniform a man could be stolid, even stupid, with a suggestion of irrascibility, and civilians accepted it as the natural order of things, not a defense. A uniform meant orders from above and blind obedience, too, and British civilians of the middle and upper classes found this comforting because they took the supremacy of the civil power over the military for granted. It was a long time since Cromwell and his major-generals after all!
But better so, he reflected, mourning the mothballed khaki —doubly better so. Better that civilians should patronise the uniform—despise it if they chose to—than worship it or fear it as they did in less fortunate lands over the water. If this was the very last service the British Army did for its country, it would be a mighty victory.
He squared his shoulders at the thought.
'Don't equivocate with me, Major Butler,' said Dingle severely. 'Is Smith dead?'
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Butler gave a military-sounding grunt. A few moments before the old man had been almost on his side, but he was slipping out of reach again now. The wrong word would ruin everything.
He gestured to the photographs on the table. 'You are forgetting your own experience, sir—'
'I'm an old man now, Butler. To forget some things is one of the privileges of old age. And I'm remembering that I have a responsibility to my old pupils. Before I remember any more about Smith you must set my mind at rest.'
'I can't do that for you, sir,' Butler shook his head.
'Can't—or won't?'
'Can't.' Butler's eyes settled on the big leather Bible on the shelf beside Dingle's left hand. 'Remember the centurion in St Matthew—'I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth'.'
'Under whose authority are you, Major?'
'Under Her Majesty's Government, Mr Dingle, as we all are. But you miss my point. I'm not the centurion—I'm just the soldier he gave the order to.'
Dingle's lips, the double line of skin which served for lips, compressed primly and then relaxed. 'Very well, Major. But there's little I can tell you about him. What I can do is to tell you where to look.'
III
EXCEPT FOR A pedestrian fifty yards ahead of him and an empty van parked at the far end of it, the road was empty. Butler counted off the lamp-posts until he came to the fourth, dawdled for a moment or two playing with his shoelace to let the fellow turn the corner, and then ducked smartly into the evergreen shrubbery.
Beyond the outer wall of leaves he stopped to take his bearings. It was quiet and gloomy, and the light was green-filtered through the canopy above him, but it was the right place beyond doubt—he could see the path beaten in the leaf-mould at his feet. He followed it noiselessly, twisting and turning through the thicket of almost naked branches, until he saw the garden wall ahead of him.
It was, as Dingle had said, an incomparable piece of bricklaying: a craftsman's wall, as straight and solid as the
