Our man in Camelot

'No consumer durables,' said Shirley brightly.

Audley flashed her a microsecond's worth of exasperation. Then he cracked. 'You mentioned the battle of Badon Hill.'

'You mentioned a miracle,' said Faith. 'That's what interested me. My husband doesn't believe in them

—he's got no romance in his soul, I'm afraid.'

Audley raised a finger. 'I have never said I don't believe in miracles, I've simply never seen one myself.

But I do believe in percentages.'

'Percentages?' Shirley cocked her head on one side, questioningly.

'What most people call good luck or bad luck, depending on how it affects them.' He stared at Mosby.

'I take it that you've had a slice of good luck.'

'A slice of good luck and a slice of bad luck… And maybe another slice of good luck now if you can help me.'

Audley pursed his lips doubtfully. 'I'm not an expert on A.D. 500, if that's what you're hoping.'

'Okay—but we'll see, huh?' Mosby shook his head. 'You can't be less of an expert than I am. I've read a lot of stuff—' he gestured to the piles of books '—but that just tells me how little I know.'

'Well, just show him the stuff, honey,' exclaimed Shirley with a hint of weariness. 'If it doesn't mean anything to him, he'll say so.' She smiled dazzlingly at Audley.

'All in good time, Shirl. Don't rush me.' Mosby waved vaguely at her. 'Fact is, David, I've always been interested by King Arthur—don't get any ideas, that's just the way it started—ever since I had to do an English course at College.'

'You have to do English as well as dentistry?' said Faith.

'This was in pre-dentistry. We don't specialize as early as you British—pre-dentistry's a liberal arts curriculum, because there's a philosophy in the States says you shouldn't go into medicine—or dentistry

—which is very limiting, straight from secondary school. They figure it makes for limited people, so everyone gets a pre-professional education… Me, I got a smattering of French and some biology, and bio-chemistry and elementary physics.'

'And English.' She nodded. 'It's a good idea.'

'And English, right. Only our English teacher was a nut—a Tennyson nut,' lied Mosby. 'We had In Memoriam and The Idylls of the King until they came out of our ears. And The Lady of Shalott—

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,

And flamed upon the brazen greaves

Of bold Sir Lancelot.

—not bad for a retarded doctor up to his ankles in other people's teeth, huh?' He grinned at Faith. 'Even if it is lousy poetry.'

Audley cleared his throat; there was only one thing he wanted, and they seemed to be getting away from it. 'And when did the light dawn on you—about Arthur?'

'When I got over here, not until then, to be honest.' Easy does it. 'There was this pilot in the recon.

support squadron, Di Davies. He was a real, expert—'

'For heaven's sake, honey—show him the stuff,' snapped Shirley. 'Let him make his own mind up.'

Mosby looked at her for a moment, as though undecided, and then shrugged. 'Okay. Maybe you're right at that. Seeing is believing, I guess.'

He brought the long shallow wooden box from its resting place on the oak chest by the door and placed it carefully on the coffee table.

Pandora's box.

With his thumbs poised on the metal catches he raised his eyes to meet Audley's. 'You just take a look at this.'

He lifted the lid and stripped away the glass-fibre covering gingerly. 'Glass fibre makes darn good packing, but it itches like hell if you get it on your skin,' he explained.

He watched Audley's face intently for signs of the same sense of anti-climax which he in his ignorance had felt at finding Pandora's box full of corroded scrap-metal. But no muscle twitched either with surprise or disappointment as the Englishman peered over his spectacles at the strange collection of objects nestling in their glass-fibre bed.

Then he leaned forward and gently lifted one of them.

'Brooch…' He squinted at it more closely. 'A bronze brooch… Celtic maybe?'

'That's very good.' Mosby didn't have to simulate pleasure this time: it was still a relief to find that the assessment of Audley was on the button. 'Go on.'

'That's as far as I can guess.' Audley replaced the brooch as carefully as he'd lifted it. 'There's another brooch, much the same as that one.' He shook his head.

'Two Celtic brooches,' Mosby read from the specification, 'one perannular, Plas Emrys type, with enamelled terminals; the other zoomorphic, R.A. Smith's Welsh type. Both late fifth century, early sixth.'