October Men

It seemed to Richardson that the British Museum itself hadn't changed much in fifteen years: the foyer was still jammed with the little monsters. That last and only time he had been inside the hallowed portals he had been one of the monsters himself, but unlike the present crop he had been a monster regimented and controlled into silence. The crowds through which he had just passed had obviously been just as bored as he had been (the BM probably ranked a poor third dummy2

to the Imperial War Museum and the Science Museum now, as then) but they were as belligerent as a football crowd.

'Professor Freisler.'

There was no doubt about the identification, even though he had only seen the old man once before: the huge close-shaven head was unmistakable—it might have served as a model for those old Punch cartoons of square- headed Prussians stamping on the bleeding body of Gallant Little Belgium.

The head froze, and then began to revolve on its jowls until Freisler was facing him.

'Sir?' A hairy hand adjusted the spectacles. Then the little piggy eyes brightened with recognition.

'It is—it is Captain Richardson—is it not?'

'Plain 'Mister' nowadays, Professor.'

' Mister Richardson—I beg your pardon!' The old man flashed a hideous steel- toothed smile. 'Mr. Richardson—so!'

Richardson returned the smile.

'There was a notice on your door saying you were here. I hope I'm not disturbing you in the middle of something important?'

Freisler dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. 'There is no disturbance. The notice—it is for my students. They come to me when it suits them, and I come here when it suits me. Then they come here and we talk just as well, perhaps better.'

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'You come here often, then?'

Freisler nodded. 'Indeed so! To live so close to all this beauty and not live with it, I think that would be foolishness, eh?

And who knows—one day you British may decide to give it all back to the Greeks. That would be an even greater foolishness of course, but these are foolish days, I am thinking, are they not?'

The eyes bored into Richardson. Thinking—he was thinking right enough, but not about the marbles and their ultimate fate. That was merely what he was talking about while he took stock of the situation.

Richardson stared round the gallery, pretending to consider the question for a moment.

'I reckon they're safe enough for the time being, you know—

no one even wants to give the present lot in Greece the time of day.' He grinned at Freisler. 'Not that I'm any sort of judge of such things.'

'No, of course.' The old man nodded seriously. 'It is not your field of interest—of business. And you have come to—see me, not the marbles, is that not so?'

'That's right, Professor.'

'About your—business?'

'In a way, yes. But not officially.' Richardson dropped his voice. 'I need your help and I need it quickly.'

'My help?' The eyes were expressionless now, as blank as dummy2

pebbles. 'And in what way can I help you, Mr. Richardson?'

'You're a friend of David Audley's.'

'I have that honour, yes.' The tone as well as the words had a curious old-fashioned formality about them, and the guttural quality was suddenly more pronounced—the 'have' had an explosive, Teutonic sound which had been hitherto absent.

'And so have I, Professor. That's why I'm here.'

No reply. Prove it, Mr. Richardson, prove it.

'David's put up a big black, Professor—'

'A big black?' Freisler frowned. 'A big black what? That is an idiom with which I am not familiar, no.'

'Hell—a black mark. A faux pas.'

'Now I am with you. An error of judgement, yes?'

'That's it. And somehow I've got to get him off the hook.'

'I understand. That is to say I am able to guess your meaning, Mr. Richardson. But I beg you to stop using these unfamiliar figures of speech, or I shall not be able to help you quickly. . . . Now, what was this error he made?'

'He went abroad without telling anyone.'

'That does not seem to me so very—erroneous.'

'In our—business—there are rules, Professor.'

'Rules?' Freisler shook his head quickly. 'For a man like David Audley rules are made for other men. I would say—