There was a rustle of leaves beside them. Balancing on one stockinged foot, Frances turned towards the sound.
'Hullo, Frances,' said James Cable.
And in front of James Cable, she thought desolately. And there was someone else with him too; and beyond them both lay the prospect of reporting to Colonel Butler in the control centre.
'Too late, old man,' said Paul from ground level. 'Cinderella is mine.'
'Sorry you had to carry my can, Frances.' Cable ignored him. 'But the library was supposed to be clean.'
'Clean!' Paul grunted contemptuously. 'Fighting Jack is going to have your guts for garters, James - to use his own inimitable phrase .. . Give us the other shoe. Princess.'
Frances looked down at him. She was never going to be able to outlive that nickname now, not in a thousand years. Even when the exact details of her disgrace had been forgotten she would still be 'princess', Paul would see to that.
'I can do it, thank you.' She slipped her cold, wet foot into the other shoe.
'Suit yourself. One glass slipper is enough.' Paul returned the ruined handkerchief to his pocket and rose to his feet. He looked at the man who had accompanied Cable.
'You've got your chaps out round the pond, Jock?'
Frances put a name to the face.
Maitland.
'Aye.' Maitland considered Frances shrewdly. 'A black briefcase, Mrs Fitzgibbon.
Approximate weight?'
Maitland, Technical Section. Late Royal Engineers.
Weight?
A million tons, the ache in her shoulder advised her. Or was the pain in her imagination?
'About ten pounds - I don't know exactly. Maybe more.' She looked at him helplessly. 'It was heavy.'
'Not the way you were throwing it around,' said Paul. 'I thought you were going to heave it in, the way you were swinging it about ... I tell you, Jock - whatever there is in the case, it's certainly shockproof.'
'Oh, aye?' The shrewd eyes settled on Paul momentarily. 'Well, that's something then. And you just be glad it wasn't you that found it out the hard way, laddie.'
'Oh, I am, believe me.' Paul was unabashed by the jibe; it would take a lot more than anything Maitland could say to dampen him, thought Frances enviously. He wore his self-confidence like a wet-suit.
He winked at her. 'I've much too much imagination for a nasty job like that. In your shoes - or out of them - I'd have been running long before you. Princess.'
'Aye,' agreed Maitland. 'You might have been at that.'
'But that still wouldn't make it the real thing.'
'No, it would not.' Maitland eyed Paul thoughtfully for a couple of seconds before turning back to Frances. 'Ten pounds, you say. And the case would be three ... maybe three and a half pounds.'
'It could have been more.'
'It would be enough. And you left it by the water's edge as instructed?'
Frances's toes squelched inside her shoes. 'Half in the water, actually.'
'No matter.' He came close to smiling. 'It'll do no harm where it is for the time being, thanks to you. It will bide its time, and so shall we.' He nodded to her. 'Thank you, Mrs Fitzgibbon, for your help.'
'Aye,' murmured Paul as Maitland moved away. 'But Fighting Jack will no' bide his time for us - and especially for you, Frances. You remember where to find him?' He glanced at Cable. 'Or are you here on escort duties, James?'
'Me? No - I'm carrying the glad tidings to the library.' Cable gave Frances a lop-sided grin. 'I just came this way round to apologise to you, Frances.'
'It wasn't your fault.' She frowned suddenly. 'What glad tidings?'
'Ask Paul. I've got to go - ask him - ' he pointed at Paul as he started to turn away ' -
he's been in with the Colonel.'
Frances transferred the frown to Paul. 'What glad tidings?'
He shrugged. 'Oh ... owing to unforseen circumstances there will be no Sarajevo this afternoon. All assassinations have been postponed indefinitely, by order of Colonel Butler.'
'What d'you mean?'
He pulled his don't-blame-me face. 'I mean, dear Princess, that if James has overlooked any more infernal devices in the privies there, only innocent bystanders are now available to act as casualties.'
'Don't be - ' she bit off the word as she saw his face change.
'Flippant? I'm not being flippant. The Chancellor and the Lord-Lieutenant are already off the premises - in different directions. And I - I am on my way to the playing fields to check in the RAF chopper Fighting Jack has summoned for the Minister. 'Called away on urgent state business' - that's the official word.'
