Sir Frederick turned to Richardson.
'Well?' he said heavily.
'What's the description?'
'Grey-brown hair, moustache, blue eyes, prominent—'
'Not the face.'
Cox didn't bat an eyelid. 'Aged fifty, height five feet ten inches, weight 168 pounds. A photograph won't help then?'
'It won't.' Richardson tried not to imagine the face of Charlie Clark's victim. They had been ready to let him see it, but he had managed not to have time to take up their offer. He had already seen one face like that in his career, and he didn't want to seem greedy.
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'Dark grey suit, white shirt, maroon tie, brown suede shoes.'
Cox was watching him intently. 'Well, we've got Hemingway's prints on file. That is, if—' he slowed down judiciously, 'if you can provide anything for comparison.'
He was almost there, thought Richardson, looking questioningly at his master.
Sir Frederick nodded. 'Go on, Peter.'
Richardson met the Special Branch man's gaze. 'It could be.
The general description's about right—height, age and so on.
And the clothes are about right. It could very well be.'
Cox relaxed. 'I take it you have a body?'
'That's right.'
One lost and one found. At least the books balanced.
'Suicide or foul play?'
'The verdict will be misadventure, Superintendent,' said Sir Frederick. 'As it happens that is not far short of the truth.
But officially we shall fail to establish an identity. It will be an unknown intruder for the public record.'
'Might I ask where he was intruding, sir?'
'Dr. Audley's place down in Hampshire.'
Cox's face went blank—the books had unbalanced themselves again—and then clouded with surprise.
The change in expression was not lost on Sir Frederick.
'Audley had nothing to do with it, Superintendent—at least not directly. He's ... on holiday with his family.'
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'I'm relieved to hear it.'
'Relieved?'
'Yes, sir.' Cox was feeling his way circumspectly now; he hadn't yet been warned off, but he recognised the signs. 'I understood he was not a violent man. Off the rugger field, at least. He's never had a weapon booked out to him.' He paused. 'But we do have a security problem now, sir.'
'If the body is Hemingway's, we do—I agree,' Sir Frederick's eyes shifted to the Archivist. 'What was his security category?'
'Hemingway, sir?' The Archivist looked startled.
'Yes, Mr. Benbow.'
'Grade Four, sir.'
It was Sir Frederick's turn to look surprised: Grade Four was hardly a security category at all. If the man who delivered the morning milk to the building had needed a category, that would have been it.
'I didn't know we had any Grade Fours here.'
'He didn't handle anything requiring a higher clearance, sir.
And he wasn't authorised to go above the ground floor.'
Benbow was now pink with embarrassment. 'His appointment was quite in order.'
'I'm sure it was. But who the devil agreed to it?'
The Archivist braced himself visibly. 'You did, Sir Frederick,'
he said.
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'I did—did I?' Sir Frederick scowled reflectively.
Neville Macready, who had drifted away from the group to continue his examination of the carpet's pattern, gave an irreverent snort.
'So I did, so I did!' Sir Frederick muttered at last. 'I remember now: you wanted a Grade Two Deputy and I wouldn't let you have him. You're quite right, Mr. Benbow—I apologise.'
'It was a matter of finance, sir, as I recall.'
