got Audley figured right, that's for sure. They supply the box of tricks to play the next act with, like they promised, and I think we can get him moving the way they want us to.'
'But I still don't see—' She checked as the house came into full view; there was a large grey utility van parked beside Finsterwald's little British Ford. 'We have company.'
Mosby relaxed as he read the 'TV and Radio Repairs' legend on the utility. 'It's okay. That's Harry's Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
partner—he said to watch for the TV repairman, remember?'
Shirley stared at the utility. 'I wonder which one of them he is,' she murmured.
Mosby grinned at her wryly. They had intermittently shared a private game of trying to spot the other members of the Special Operations Unit at Wodden, but they had been dead wrong about Harry Finsterwald so there was little chance that they'd be right about his partner.
'Just so it's not General Ellsworth himself, I couldn't take that,' he murmured back. 'He hates my non- combatant guts.'
'So does Harry. Let's face it, honey: you're just not popular.'
'Harry's a creep—so's General Ellsworth. They don't sweat, neither of them. And you can't trust a man who doesn't sweat.' He reached for the door handle. 'So long as they don't like me I can't be all bad.'
He smiled to himself. She was right about Finsterwald taking an instant dislike to him, but it was an endearing blank spot in her understanding that she was quite unable to grasp the reason for it. And one of life's smaller ironies, too: that to a man who fancied his looks and talents as much as Harry did it was not only an error but also an injustice which had turned her into Mrs Sheldon, and not Mrs Finsterwald.
But it was a total stranger, or at least someone he could not instantly recognise from High Wodden, who greeted them in the hall of St Veryan's.
'Captain Sheldon—Mrs Sheldon. Good to meet you.' The stranger offered his hand to each of them in turn, Shirley first.
Civilian manners. And hair longer than General Ellsworth permitted, military or civilian. But hair cut as expertly as the British tweed suit, and neither the hair nor the suit fitted the face: hair black and shiny as a raven's wing and face swarthy as a Mexican bandit's.
'Howard Morris. UK Operations Control.' The voice was wrong too—anglicised mid-Atlantic, if not Ivy League. The man was a mass of contradictions.
'Hi, Doc.' Harry Finsterwald appeared in the sitting room doorway. 'How d'you make out then?'
Mosby sickened as Finsterwald gave him a comradely smile for Control's benefit, revealing some spectacular crown and bridge work as he did so. Typical fancy West Coast dentistry—the smile of a man who was willing to pay for his smile.
'According to Mose we're in business,' said Shirley.
Morris looked at her. 'But you're not so sure?'
She gave him back the look with interest. 'I don't know. But then I don't know what the hell's happening anyway.'
'So what's the problem?'
'Just Audley doesn't believe in the existence of King Arthur.'
'The devil he doesn't!' Morris turned towards Mosby. 'Is that so?'
Something stirred in Mosby's subconscious as he met the man's direct stare, but he had no time to identify it. 'You want Audley to look for Badon, like Major Davies was looking, not for King Arthur—
that's what Finsterwald here briefed us to set up. If that's what you still want—and if you've brought the stuff Harry promised—then I reckon we're in with a chance. But Shirley's right, the way she feels: it's time someone explained why we're doing what we're doing.'
Finsterwald emitted a derisive sound, half laugh, half snarl. 'Oh, come on, Doc, be your age. You don't expect the reason why to be part of the deal, do you? You different from the rest of us or something?'
Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
'Uh-huh. Not me, Harry. I'm not different.' Mosby kept his eyes on Howard Morris. 'But this deal is different. And for my money so is Audley.'
'I go along with that,' said Shirley. 'I don't know about King Arthur, but there's something not quite right about Audley.'
'You think he's suspicious of you?' Morris frowned.
'No, I wouldn't say that.' She shook her head slowly. 'I think he's bought us so far… It was just—I don't know— just the way he looked at each of us when Mose offered to help him fix the car. Like he was trying to recognise us…
It wasn't he was suspicious. He was more like kind of watchful.'
Morris stared from one to the other in silence for a moment, as though trying to gauge the accuracy of their joint impression. 'But you're quite sure he wasn't suspicious?'
'Why the heck should he be?' said Mosby. 'What's a Home Office statistical analyst got to be suspicious about when a couple of Americans give him a lift?'
Morris's lips parted. 'Always supposing he is a Home Office statistical analyst. Which he isn't.'
Mosby glanced angrily at Finsterwald, but before he could speak Morris intervened. 'Don't blame Captain Finsterwald. The Captain only did what he was told to do.'
'Oh, just great.' Only Shirley could get so much scorn in three little words. 'So now you're going to tell us what
