The Old Vengeful

'Well?'

She wanted to be reassured—to stop fighting, to stop dummy3

thinking . . . just to let go. 'Paul.'

'There! That didn't hurt at all—did it! Everything is going to be all right—don't be afraid, and don't worry.'

She knew that none of that could come true just by wanting it to be so. Nothing was all right, and she was still afraid.

But his voice was soothing. 'Paul . . .'

'Yes, Elizabeth? May I call you 'Elizabeth'?' He pulled a stool across the floor and sat on it, coming down to her eye-level.

'What do you want to know, Elizabeth?'

Although he was close to her it wasn't easy to focus on him in the feeble yellow light. Yet she felt absurdly grateful to him now, just for coming down to her level—for being human just for a moment.

'P-please . . . can you t-tell me . . .' she had to concentrate hard to hold her glass steady and to keep the coat wrapped round her at the same time '. . . why all this is happening?'

'Well... I should have thought you knew the answer to that much better than I do, Elizabeth,' he chided her gently.

'But I don't—I don't!'

'Well. . . somebody thinks you do. In fact, somebody is very sure that you do ... so perhaps you do.'

'But I don't—honestly.' She shook her head. 'I really don't . . . Paul.'

'I believe you, Elizabeth.' He nodded encouragingly. 'But, you know . . . sometimes we know things without knowing dummy3

that we know them. That's happened to me—oh, lots of times.'

Elizabeth grappled with the possibility. But it took her back hideously to the study.

'It's all right—they can't touch you now—' he started to put out his hand, and then draw it back quickly as though he knew not only what she was thinking of, but even sensed how her flesh crawled at the mention of the word 'touch' '—I'm here now, and you're safe.'

'Yes.' She rocked backwards and forwards, and then steadied herself, and took another warming gulp of brandy.

'Tell me what happened.' He leaned forward and poured her some more brandy. 'Telling helps, while it's fresh in your mind—it gets it off your chest.'

She tightened the old raincoat around her. 'They grabbed me as I came in—they just grabbed me ...'

'Uh-huh. And tied you up. But what did they want?'

'They said . . . he said ... he asked me questions.'

'About what?'

She frowned. 'It didn't make sense. They wanted to know about the Vengeful. . . and Father's trips to France.'

'So what did you tell them?'

'There wasn't anything I could tell them. He said he'd got Father's notes, but that they weren't any use. But I don't know anything that isn't in the typescript—and I didn't even dummy3

go to France with Father. . . I tried to tell him that. But he wouldn't listen.' She shivered.

'Yes?'

'Then he tore . . . my dress.' She drank again.

'Okay—forget that, Elizabeth.' He shook his head sympathetically. 'It didn't make sense because you couldn't tell him his answers—is that it?'

'It wouldn't have made sense even if I could have answered him.' Elizabeth tried to concentrate. 'Father was only researching for a chapter he was re-writing—that was why he went to France. I do know that much.'

'A chapter about the Vengeful?'

'Yes. But. . .' Concentration still didn't make for any better sense.

'If the man wanted to know about your father's ship—' Paul Mitchell stopped suddenly. 'What is the connection between his ship and France? I wouldn't have thought there was much

—1941 and 1942?' He frowned.

'That's the point. It wasn't his ship—it was for the chapter on Number Seven.'

'Number Seven?'

'The seventh Vengeful.' She nodded. 'We used to call them by their numbers. Father's was Number Eleven.'

'Which was Number Seven?'

'She was a frigate—a 36-gun ship in the Napoleonic War. She dummy3