October Men

yes, I would say that half his value lies in that alone. Do you not trust your friend then, eh?'

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'Damn it—it's because I trust David to hell and back that I'm here now, sticking my little neck out!' Richardson paused.

'What I mean—'

Freisler raised his hand. 'No. That I do understand. To stick the neck out is a very ancient gesture of trust and submission in the animal kingdom. You have no need to explain it for me. You trust David, but there are others who do not—or they wish to make trouble for him—that I can well appreciate. He is not a man who would be popular everywhere, I would think.'

'You're dead right there!'

'Of course I am right. But there is more to it than that I am thinking, eh?'

'How do you mean—more?'

'My good young man—' Freisler adjusted his glasses '—I am not in your business and I would not be if my life depended upon it—no! Only for David I have answered small questions from time to time. And on occasion I have asked questions for him in certain places back in my fatherland, where I am not yet wholly without influence-all out of friendship, you understand, and maybe a little out of gratitude for my quiet life here.'

'Professor. I—'

'Please to hear me out, Mr. Richardson. I am not in your business, but I am not stupid and I have studied for fifty years the way men think and act ... causality, Mr.

dummy2

Richardson, causality!'

Richardson blinked. 'You're losing me now.'

'Then listen. You say David makes a big black mark, breaking a little rule that is no rule to him. And I say that I believe you—that David is in trouble. But not for the breaking of any kleinliche rule. He is in trouble because he is ripe for it

—he has been ripe for it for months, ever since he settled the Zoshchenko affair of yours.'

Maybe not in the business, thought Richardson, carefully concealing his surprise, but too goddamn well- informed for comfort if he had had a finger in that pie. Indeed, if the Professor had aimed to impress him he could hardly have chosen a better name to do it with: the late comrade Zoshchenko was not buried under it, and the name he had used was not buried in the Dead Files either, but even deeper in the top secret Closed Active files of the department, like a bit of lethal radioactive waste. . . .

He thrust the memory into the back of his mind; there were more pressing matters now.

'Then you know what David's up to?' he murmured. 'Thank the Lord somebody does!'

The bullethead shook in violent disagreement. 'No, Mr.

Richardson—I indicated that it is no surprise to me that he is causing trouble. As to what kind of trouble, there I cannot help you.'

Richardson stared at him for a moment thoughtfully. 'I think dummy2

maybe you can, you know, Professor.'

Freisler frowned, his eyes almost lost in the overhanging folds of skin; it was, thought Richardson, a face of absolutely outstanding ugliness, brutality even. And yet everything the man said, and the aura he threw off, contradicted his appearance: so might the Beast in the fairy tale have aged if no Beauty had ever arrived to turn him back into his true princely shape, lonely and gentle—and dangerous only when someone imputed his honour, as he had seemed to do now.

'I don't mean you're holding out on me,' he said hurriedly.

'But tell me one thing first: what makes you think David's in trouble?'

The frown dissolved. 'Not in trouble—I did not say that—but ready for it, Mr. Richardson. You see, I know the symptoms of his condition.'

'His condition?'

'It is not infectious—do not fear!' There was the merest suggestion of a glint behind the glasses. 'At least, not to such a person as yourself. It is the scholar's sickness—the good teacher's too. Are you not familiar with accidie?'

'Ace—?' Richardson goggled. 'Accidie?'

'Accidie. It is the fourth cardinal sin.'

'You're joking!'

'I never joke, Mr. Richardson,' Freisler shook his head seriously. 'It is regrettable, but I have no sense of humour.

So I do not joke and I am not joking now. So—you do not dummy2

know of accidie?'

'You can say that again.'

'Again? I—Ach! Another of your little sayings! But I am being stupid. You are not an historian, as David is—or as he should have been. He knew!'

'You told him, then?'

'But of course! Friendship is for truth telling or it is nothing.