Our man in Camelot

'Gee, how did you guess?' For once Shirley had missed the warning signs, but Mosby could see a Grand Canyon opening up between them. In another moment Audley would be remembering a previous engagement for tonight, and all their good work would have gone down for nothing.

'Tintagel— yuk!' He flogged his brain to separate the legends from the facts. The trouble was that in forty-eight hours of concentrated study he had encountered damn few facts, far too few with which to cross swords with an expert.

'I didn't dig Tintagel too much,' he observed cautiously, playing for time.

'Too many tea shops and souvenirs?' Faith nodded under-standingly. 'David positively refuses to go there. But then he doesn't believe in King Arthur anyway, do you darling?'

Final confirmation beyond all doubt—and God bless you, Mrs Audley, ma'am.

Audley gave a scornful grunt. But as things stood that might well include Mr and Mrs Mosby Singleton Sheldon as well as King Arthur, so the sooner that short-lived alliance was broken, the better.

'Me neither,' said Mosby quickly. When it came to facts there was only one he was reasonably sure of, and although it had been planned to keep it for the second phase he judged now that it was the only bait that might recapture Audley. 'But I do believe in Badon Hill.'

'Badon?' Audley's tone was different at once, edged not with disdain but with curiosity.

The child on Faith's lap stirred, stretched and opened her eyes.

'What about Badon?' repeated Audley.

Mosby met his stare steadily. 'It'ud be one hell of a thing to find it—for sure.'

'It would be interesting, certainly… But impossible now, short of a miracle.'

Little Cathy looked around her, momentarily unsure of where she was until her mother's arms tightened around her.

'Mummy, I'm hungry,' she said loudly.

Mosby grinned at her, then back at her father. 'Come on up to our place tonight for drinks and I'll show Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

you something.'

'What?'

'A miracle, maybe.'

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

II

A YEAR OF proximity had sharpened Mosby's awareness of Shirley's meteorology; even before the front door had closed on Audley he sensed the fall in her barometer.

'So now we don't believe in King Arthur, huh?' she challenged him.

He glanced at her quickly before reaching for the gear shift, confirming the storm warning. But for once he felt no inclination to come out of the weather. 'Yep. As of now, he stinks.'

'Just because Audley. doesn't believe in him?'

He let the car roll forward slowly. 'You got it in one, Shirl honey.'

'Great. And what if he believes the moon is made of green cheese?'

'Then I should give the proposition very serious consideration. You want I should tell him he's crazy?'

'Is he crazy?'

'What do you mean 'is he crazy?' So he recites poetry to his daughter and builds sandcastles and writes books on mediaeval history—' Mosby broke off as he remembered the Englishman's eyes behind the spectacle lenses. Cold eyes not easily to be forgotten. 'You ask me, I think he's a whole lot tougher than he talks. Which you pretty well told him to his face, I seem to recall.'

'I don't mean that…' She trailed off uncertainly as they broke through the last belt of woodland at the head of the valley which stretched down to the sea. He caught a glimpse of the grey-white facade of St Veryan's halfway up the right-hand shoulder of the valley and beyond it the terrible black lines of jagged shark's tooth rocks which stretched out into the ocean as continuations of the headland. Far beyond them, though deceptively close, Lundy Island stood up high out of the white-topped rollers.

Lundy high, sigh of dry.

What was frightening about this beautiful coastline was its contrast: on one side the little green fields snug behind their high banks, and on the other the hungry sea rolling endlessly against the land.

'I don't mean that,' Shirley repeated herself. 'I know I'm supposed to be the dumb one, and you've read the books—'

So that was it, of course. He ought to have allowed for that uncongenial role playing the devil with her temper.

'—But at least I can read the titles. And I don't see how people can write whole books about someone who doesn't exist—according to Audley.'

Mosby shook his head. 'It isn't as simple as that. And besides, we're after Badon, not Arthur.'

'But Harry Finsterwald said Badon was Arthur's greatest victory. Now Audley says there was no such person —and you behave as though we're still in business.'

'You're damn right, we're still in business. You saw the way he sat up the moment I mentioned Badon?'

Mosby looked at her quickly. 'Harry Finsterwald may not know as much as he thinks he does, but someone's