The Old Vengeful

going to abort the trials, Miss Loftus.'

Her mouth closed, but her brain swirled. 'You spoke to ...

David Audley?'

'Yes.' He gestured urgently. 'Come on— at once means what dummy3

it says in our business. It means drop whatever you're doing and move— it means this instant, Miss Loftus. It means now

—' he turned on his heel and opened the door for her.

She couldn't think straight. 'But, Mr Aske—'

'Come on, Miss Loftus— now!'

She went through the door. The passage was dark now, no longer green-shadowed, with the feeble light of the distant chandelier in the hall blackening the windows.

He overtook her at the entrance, reaching past her to lift the heavy iron latch on the outer door.

She didn't want to go outside, even though outside was only blue-grey, and much lighter than the yellow gloom around her.

'Quickly, Miss Loftus—' He handed over her raincoat.

Cobwebs of rain drifted around her, and the wet smell of the countryside entered her lungs—the smell of growing things, sharpened by a distant hint of autumn to come.

Aske crunched past her on the gravel, reaching this time for the car door—swinging it open for her.

No!

He was already moving round the front of the car, as though he took for granted that the open door must suck her in, regardless of her own free will.

She straightened up. 'I can't go just like this, Mr Aske. I must say goodbye to Cathy.'

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She didn't wait for his reaction, but turned on her heel back towards the house.

Through the door again—then to the doorway into which Cathy had disappeared—through that door—

A waft of warmer air and light engulfed her simultaneously: the kitchen was huge and bright with the innumerable reflections of electricity on copper pots hanging in descending size from a great beam, and Cathy herself was bending over the kitchen table—a great expanse of ancient working surface which looked as if it had been not so much scrubbed as holystoned colourless like the old Vengeful's quarterdeck, only by generations of kitchen-maids under cook's eagle eye.

'Oh, Elizabeth!' Cathy half-straightened up over her own small area of chaos in the expanse. 'Something's gone wrong with Mummy's cremes brulees—they haven't bruleed properly, darn it!'

'Where's your father, Cathy?'

'He isn't back yet.' Cathy bent over the chaos.

'But you said he went somewhere with your mother?'

'Um—yes.' Cathy prodded one of the messes tentatively.

'They went to Guildford to look at curtain material.'

'Together?'

'Uh-huh. She's been on at him for ages—it's for his study, so she says he's got to like it. And when he couldn't go to France she said she'd got him at last.' The child looked up again.

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'He was waiting for you, but he didn't expect you so early—

he'll be back any moment, I should think.'

'He didn't go to London?'

'Why should he go to London?' Cathy looked puzzled. 'The curtain shop's in Guildford.'

'Could he have changed his mind?'

'Why should he do that? It's a super shop.' Cathy licked her finger. 'He didn't, anyway.'

'How do you know, dear?'

'Because he left the telephone number. He always leaves it, when he knows where he's going, in case an urgent message comes. So if he'd changed his mind he'd have phoned. That's the proper drill, you see, Elizabeth.' The child spoke with all the certainty of someone who knew her drill and was proud of being a Ranger's daughter. 'And he wouldn't leave Mummy in Guildford—there are no buses home . . . What's the matter, Elizabeth?'

The front door clattered.

'They'll be back soon,' Cathy reassured her. 'They must be caught in the traffic.'

Elizabeth walked quickly round the table and picked up one of the brulees.

'Miss Loftus!' said Aske sharply from behind her.

'You're right, dear.' She scrutinised the brulee closely.

'Could it be something to do with the sugar you used?'

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