'You think they may be hopping into bed? You don't know Willie. Very chaste chap, Willie. He never stops setting an example.'
'Lucy's a very attractive woman. In fact she possesses to a very high degree the most attractive characteristic of all: availability.'
'You find that attractive, do you?'
'Don't you?'
'Not especially, no.'
'In that case what are you doing here?'
'Let's leave that,' said Hunter. 'Anyway, even if they have gone off for a little while, what do you care? It'll be your turn next.'
'Once made, arrangements should be adhered to. And I don't think Ayscue really grasped my point about the onset of Phase 2.'
'Oh, surely he must have done. It sounded simplicity itself to me. Anyway, I see that the situation is restored at last.'
On his way to the threshold, where Lucy now stood, Ross-Donaldson said to Hunter, 'Wait for me here.'
'Right.'
'About that matter we were discussing,' said Leonard, urgently even for him. 'Will you excuse us again, Dr. Best?'
'By all means.'
'Oh, for God's sake, Brian, what is it now?'
'Where's Churchill?'
'I can't think of any way of stopping you asking that except by either killing you or telling you, so I suppose I'd better tell you. But before I do, you answer me a question. Do you want to know where James is for Security reasons or do you just want to know?'
Leonard opened his mouth readily enough to reply, but slowly closed it again. Then he said, 'I'm not sure. A bit of both, most likely.'
'There are times, Brian, when I very nearly like you a great deal, though I'd better not say that in front of the good doctor. Now'- Hunter went straight on-'at this moment Lieutenant Churchill is upstairs in the bedroom, and in all probability the bed, belonging to a certain Catharine Casement, a friend of Lucy Hazell's and like me an ex- patient, or a patient, of Dr. bleeding Best, who, if he heard what was going on, would, I know jolly well, dash upstairs and pull them apart and start asking them whether they thought they were going the right way about bringing their repressed hatred of each other out into the open.'
'Oh, surely not. You must be exaggerating.'
'Well, whether I am or whether I'm not, I just don't want that bastard pawing and nosing and snuffling his way round those two. You see if you can use your imagination a little to think how unpleasant that would be. And if you can't, shut up about where Churchill is just the same.'
'Of course, I understand. I'm awfully sorry, Max; I didn't know, you see. I do hope I haven't put my foot in it or caused any-'
'No no, dear boy, that's perfectly all right, I assure you. I merely wanted to head you off. But there's a more important point. You shouldn't be wasting your time wondering about Churchill while Dr. Best's around. Ask yourself this. If, as he says, he's only here to talk to Lucy about Catharine, why has he turned up now? Why not come during the day? Why pick a time when the place is full of other people? Including officers from the camp?'
Before Leonard could reply, Ayscue hurried into the room with a sheaf of papers in his hand. His face was less gaunt than usual.
'This is amazing,' he said loudly. 'Look at this, all of you. Found it stuffed between the pages of a Victorian biological encyclopedia, of all things. Must have been there for a hundred years.'
What he was displaying was a number of sheets of music, creased, yellow and spotted, but quite legible. Leonard caught the words Vivace assai.
'Does the name Thomas Roughead mean anything to you?'
Hunter and Leonard shook their heads. Dr. Best said he was not sure.
'Late eighteenth-century chap. More or less the generation after Boyce. Chum of Jonathan Battishill. Organist at the Temple at one stage. And… pupil of the very same Johann Christian Bach you and I were discussing not half an hour ago, doctor. Absolutely fantastic!'
'What about this Roughead?' asked Hunter.
'I have discovered,' said Ayscue, 'what I bet you anything you like is the only surviving copy of Roughead's trio-sonata in B minor for flute, violin and clavier. Hitherto known only in a transcription for two pianos by that awful old ass Cipriani Potter. Plus a couple of pages of a rather dull organ piece by John Stanley. I say, I wonder how much Lady Hazell would want for the Roughead.'
'I should think she'd let you have it for what it's worth,' said Hunter. 'Viz, nothing.'
'Oh, surely it'd be worth quite a bit,' said Leonard. 'It's not as if it's by anybody famous, I know, but it is old. You know, like an old master. You don't have to know who the old master is.'
'This is music, you fool,' said Hunter in his ordinary tone. 'Worthless by definition. I remember sitting down to listen to a whole piece of it once. Somebody's symphony in four movements, it was. I couldn't make out what it was supposed to do for me. It seemed to be inviting me to run about, lie down and go to sleep, rush about, and then run about again. But I didn't want to do any of that.'
'You were using it for the wrong purpose,' said Dr. Best. 'Except for martial airs and such, and in a rather
