'I think I'll be getting down to the ante-room,' he said.
'Funny, that dispatch-rider getting chopped just up the road from here. It was an accident, I suppose?'
'No doubt about it. I was at the inquest. Nothing wrong with him the smash wouldn't account for, or his bike, or the road. Why?'
'That packet he was bringing must have been pretty important, to send a special with it like that, and the regular DR run coming in at eight the next morning.'
'It duplicated stuff I've had for nearly a fortnight,' said Leonard, lying with his usual ease. 'You don't know the Ministry.'
'Some of the lads were saying the date of Operation Apollo's been brought forward. I don't know where they got that from.'
Leonard felt as if a hot sponge had been pressed against the back of his neck. The information mentioned, together with the many detailed changes of plan necessitated, was what the special packet had contained. 'I wish they'd tell me these things now and then,' he said, exactly as easily as before. 'Funny my chief didn't think to mention it when he had me on the scrambler that night.'
'I told them it was all rubbish. Thought you ought to know, though. I could probably get their names if you want.'
'Don't bother. You get this sort of thing all the time. Well, I must be off. Gloves.'
Deering went to the tallboy and produced a pair of white cotton gloves ironed as thin as wafers. He handed them to his master, who made no attempt to put them on. This was sensible of him, for their evolution resembled that of the sleeves of a hussar's dolman, and no hand bigger than an eight-year-old child's could have entered them. Leonard grasped them lightly in his fist.
'Hat.'
The scarlet-piped ultramarine forage cap was produced with similar formality, but proved to be designed to go on Leonard's long head, and to fit there well enough. He needed it and the gloves for the thirty-yard indoor walk to the ante-room.
'That's all, Deering, thank you.'
'Good night, sir. See you in the morning.'
Left alone, Leonard felt almost calm again. It had been a bad moment, but no more. Deering brought him rumors at the rate of a dozen a week, and only time had been needed for one of them to hit the mark by chance. Nobody but himself, he was certain, had seen the contents of that packet.
To restore his morale finally, he turned and gazed at a large oil painting which, like the tailor's glass, he had started to take with him everywhere. Partly illuminated by the late sun, it made a handsome and cheering sight. The plate at the top described the subject as Uniforms of His Majesty's 17th Regiment of Horse, the Duke of Staffordshire's Dragoons ('The Sailors'). The picture showed five men on mounts in varying stages of hysteria. The lower plate identified the riders as Trooper: 1810-Lieutenant: 1850-Trumpeter: Field Service Order: 1901-Corporal of Horse: Service Dress: 1915-Major: Full Dress: 1929.
Leonard's attention fixed, as usual, on the last-named. This was a slim, youngish figure, clean-shaven, gazing-unlike the others-directly at the observer with just discernibly blue eyes. His real-life analogue would have seen action in the last year or two of the first war, might well have commanded a brigade or a division in the second, would by now, if tradition held, be fretting at his uselessness in a south-coast resort or spa. In Leonard's fancy, this predecessor of his in the Sailors was saying to him, I did what I could in my way: I enjoin you to do what you can in yours.
There had been a lot of opposition when Leonard, coming across the picture in the Sailors' regimental museum during his sole visit to them, had set about acquiring it for the duration of his Army or pseudo-Army career. His insistence that it was vital to his cover as a serving officer had finally turned the wheels that secured it for him, but it had been a near thing. If the Commandant of the Sailors had behaved more tactfully at his interview with the relevant Minister, had as much as refrained from calling him a grubby little upstart, the issue might well have gone the other way.
To learn of this would have surprised Leonard. He had guaranteed in writing that, as soon as his job was done, the picture would be returned to its owners, and this, he would have thought, was enough. Now, drawing himself up, he snapped a salute to the blue-eyed major and left the room.
'Ah, here's our spy-catcher. What are you drinking, Brian? Spot of pink gin?'
'Dry sherry, please, sir,' said Leonard.
'Of course, should have remembered, never touch the hard stuff, do you? Quite right for a man in your position. Can't have you getting tight and blabbing secrets all round the place. What about you, Willie? More of the same, or are you going to take a leaf out of Brian's book?'
'Not this time,' said Ayscue. 'I'll have another whisky, if I may.'
'Let it be so. Anybody else? Oh, come on.'
Colonel White had been selected as Commanding Officer of the unit on several grounds. His standing as a reliable, orthodox professional soldier fitted him for a post where above all, it had been felt, nothing fancy was needed. It had been further felt that he would guard the secrets put in his charge as closely as, by purely military means, they could be guarded, nor would he be concerned to know himself just what these secrets were. Service psychologists had recommended a personality of his outgoing, socially oriented type to preside at a Mess where various tensions could be expected to emerge. And a man in the Ministry who had been with him in North Africa had thought that old Chalky White, whom a German mine had deprived of half his left foot and thereby of most of his chances of promotion, could do with a full colonelcy and its extra pay.
At the moment, the Colonel was displaying his psychological qualifications for his post. Leonard's isolation from most of the other members of the Mess had not escaped him, and he lost no opportunity of throwing conversational bridges across this gap, of inviting the majority to see that even a Security man was a man and his job a job. White now took up the job half of this task.
