The Old Vengeful

Mademoiselle MacMahon looked at each of them in turn again. 'Captain Mitchell—'

'No. Not 'captain'. That was strictly acting and temporary—

and unpaid, as it happens. If you want to be formal, Nikki, it's 'Doctor Mitchell' now—PhD, Cantab.' He shook his head suddenly, as though to dispel unreality. 'Only I just don't see why it has to be formal.'

She looked at him, almost sadly so it seemed to Elizabeth.

'Very well—Paul.'

'That's better!'

'It isn't better. I had hoped you would not be tiresome, Paul.

That is why they sent me—because we know each other, and you wouldn't try to play the innocent.'

'I'm not going to be tiresome, Nikki. But this is one time when I can't avoid being innocent. Because that's what I am—

what we all are.'

Nikki MacMahon sighed, and then indicated the table. 'Sit dummy3

down, please.'

They sat down facing her, examinees again.

'So you are innocent, Paul. Which means that you are not in France in a professional capacity, concerned with any matter of security?'

'No, I didn't say that.' Paul's face was expressionless. 'I am in France professionally. And I am concerned with a security matter.'

'What?' The delicately-pencilled eyebrows rose.

'A matter of the greatest importance to my country, in fact...

in 1812, that is.'

Nikki MacMahon's lips compressed into a tight line.

'In 1812, Nikki . . . if what Professor Belperron back there says is even half right—' Paul jerked his thumb over his shoulder '—your little Corsican Tyrant was planning to do our dear old Farmer George a terrible mischief. That's the security matter we're interested in— and I'm interested in it as a professional historian. And that's the beginning and the end of it—ask anybody—ask Miss Loftus here . . . It's her father's book I'm commissioned to finish, you see.'

'I know about the book, Paul.' Nikki MacMahon had recovered from that brief moment of irritation when she'd been outmanoeuvred. 'I know about your escaped sailors at Coucy—I know about Colonel Suchet—I know about all that.'

'Well, then—' Paul spread his hands '—if you know about all that, then what the hell are you doing here?' Then he dummy3

frowned again. 'You must have talked to my friend Bertrand Bourienne? Yes . . . well, I hope you didn't frighten the life out of him, that's all! But if you talked to him . . . and I suppose you were listening in the back there to what was said in Professor Belperron's study—of course you were!' He shook his head at her. 'I thought there was something funny about that—it just never occurred to me what it was . . . But—

okay—I hope you enjoyed what you heard! So ask poor old Bertrand, and ask Professpr Belperron anything you like too.

But I'm afraid they'll only be able to tell you the truth, plain and simple, Nikki.'

Whatever the truth was, it wasn't plain and simple, thought Elizabeth. And yet it was also the truth, that was the twisted strand of irony in Paul's display of injured innocence—the truth which he himself could make no sense of.

'I see.' Nikki MacMahon's smile was halfway into a sneer.

'So it is merely the year 1812 in which you are interested?'

'1812, yes. And maybe 1813 and 1811. And I could throw in 1805 and 1779 now, I suppose.' Paul shrugged, then turned to Elizabeth. 'We shall have to replace that whole chapter, of course. But we've got something much better already. And if I can argue Nikki here into clapping us in jail for a few days I shouldn't wonder but that we might have a best-seller, Elizabeth.' He came back to the Frenchwoman almost lazily.

'The Press would like that—on both sides of the Channel, Nikki . . . how you caught your wicked English spies 170

years too late—they'd really enjoy that.' Then he shrugged dummy3

again. 'Of course, it won't exactly polish up the image of the Direction de la Securite du Territoire . . . But you can't win

'em all.' He looked at his watch ostentatiously. 'So shall we just be on our way, then? It's lunch-time, and I'm more than ready for Humphrey's favourite restaurant.'

The green eyes blazed for a fraction of a second, then became ice-cold again, and Elizabeth warmed herself in the chill of their coldness. Whatever had happened those seven years ago, there was more rivalry between them than affection, and no rivalry for her to fight.

'No,' said Nikki MacMahon.

No, thought Elizabeth: this formidable woman would never let any mere man walk away from her unbruised, not if she could help it, and least of all an English man.