for Kent. But not many do it the other way round. The last time I saw it was years ago, a chap named Robbie Smeaton in the Lancashire League, a spin-bowler.'
'No, you were damn good.' He smiled patronisingly into the young man's frowning face. 'A little clumsy at times, maybe. But you even held the croquet mallet like a lefthander when you swung it between your knees.'
He gestured casually at the shotgun. 'Do we really need that now, lad?'
The muzzle didn't move. 'Go on, Colonel.'
Butler shrugged. It had been bad luck, that rare variety of left-handedness. But then the false McLachlan had dropped every game where it showed—cricket and golf and hockey— and concentrated on rugby, where it didn't show.
Every game except croquet. And in that he had schooled himself to play as the real McLachlan would have played.
'You made me think about you. You see, we had a file put together quickly on you, but it didn't mention that. It wasn't important, I suppose they thought—if they even thought about it.'
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The rain rolled down McLachlan's white face. There was a strained, blank look about it now which made Butler uneasy. For the first time he found himself measuring the distance between them. It was no more than four paces, but there rose a sharp little outcrop of rock in the middle of it, like the tip of an iceberg thrusting through the turf. He hadn't noticed it before because it hadn't mattered. Only now it seemed to matter.
He shook the rain from his face, stamping his feet and edging to the left of the rock.
The shotgun jerked peremptorily. 'Just stand where you are, Colonel. . . And stop talking in riddles.'
'Riddles?'
'You didn't see anything. But you saw something. What did you see ?'
'You could be on your way home now. This isn't getting you anywhere.'
Again the gun lifted. 'What did you see?'
The boy was frightened: for some reason he was scared rigid. That pinched look was unmistakable.
'What did you see?'
And the fear was catching. To be at the end of a gun held by a frightened boy wasn't what he had expected.
'I saw the reason why your man set fire to Eden Hall,' Butler growled. 'I never could understand why he did it— Smith's records weren't important any more—we knew who he was, and he was dead. So killing me didn't make sense.'
'But when I saw you playing croquet out there on the lawn, it was then I realised that your files would have been in that attic too—that if I'd known about you then, I'd have looked at them too. Then I really saw you and Smith together for the first time, as a pair, and that was all I needed, really.' He paused.
'Just what was there in those records?'
McLachlan looked at him blankly for a moment. Then his lips twisted.
'We never did know. It was the only piece of his life we never properly covered, because the man we sent down originally, back in '68, couldn't find any of those old records. But when Smith was killed we reckoned someone might go down, someone of yours. We couldn't risk you seeing what we hadn't seen.'
'What made you think we'd check on Smith?'
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'He said he was going to give himself up. Just himself, not me. He hadn't the guts to be a traitor. But we weren't sure how far he'd gone with it.' McLachlan checked himself suddenly. 'It doesn't matter now, anyway.'
Butler shrugged again, elaborately. 'It never did matter. We were on to you from the start. I tell you, boy, you've been lucky.'
'Lucky?'
'Aye. Luckier than most. You're young—it isn't the end of your career. You've had a valuable experience, you might say. And it wasn't your fault you failed. They won't hold it against you.'
McLachlan looked at him narrowly, a little of his old self-possession reasserting itself.
'I wonder about that—whether you really were on to us.'
Butler snorted derisively. 'Think what you like. If you think a man like David Audley would waste his time ...'
'Audley?'
'You young fool, do you think Audley's been at Cumbria all these months chasing shadows?' Butler snapped. 'Put that bloody fool gun down and be thankful we don't take you seriously. Go back home and tell 'em not to send a boy to do man's work.' He ran his hand over his head and shook the rain from it.
'Just go home and stop being a nuisance. There's nothing else you can do now.'
The gun came up convulsively from Butler's stomach to his face.
'Oh, but there is—th-there is!' McLachlan stuttered. 'The boy can still do m-man's work.'
Butler stared into the twin black holes, trying to show a contempt which he didn't feel.
'What man's work?'
'I'll be a nuisance.' McLachlan's voice was eager now. 'If that's the only thing I can be, I'll be that then.'
