'A well-known paper on the effects observable when a subject's fantasies seem to be confirmed by something in his experience,' said Mann. 'As when, let's say, a man with a neurotic fear of being poisoned by his wife finds real arsenic in his soup.'
'You mean he thinks I'm mad,' murmured Leonard.
'Loosely, yes.' Mann glanced over to where Dr. Best was talking up into Minshull's face. 'But he's always… But you don't have to put up with this, you know. Say the word and I'll take you out to a pub.'
'Thank you, but I'll have to stay now. What we've just had isn't an unfamiliar line of defense, you know. Discrediting the motive of inquiry is always preferable to answering it.'
Mann drew in his breath slowly. Then he said, 'You mean you think he's a spy?'
'There are strong grounds for not ruling out the possibility. You said yourself you thought that was reasonable.'
'I merely said your theory of the-'
The rest of Mann's remark was drowned in the pealing of a large brass hand-bell at the hand of Dr. Best, who spread his arms and urged the other three towards a table laid for lunch in the window alcove. Leonard found himself placed with his back to the window. He was thus in a good position to take in fully the entrance a moment later of two tall girls, a fair-haired one in a skin-tight suit of black leather and a dark one wearing a similar garment in white. The former approached and set down on its stand a silver ice-bucket with an open bottle of wine in it, the latter handed round plates of smoked salmon.
'They must find it very hot in those clothes,' said Leonard when the girls had retired. 'Especially this weather.'
'Oh yes, they do, very,' said Dr. Best, evidently pleased that this substantial point had been grasped. 'They're always complaining. May I pour you some hock?'
'Why do they wear it, then? Thank you.'
'They asked to, and I saw no reason against it. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was perhaps something of a coincidence that their respective fantasies proved to be reconcilable in such totally complementary forms. At any rate, I took advantage of the situation to test the possibility that the opportunity to act out a fantasy without social or other penalty might not bring about an alleviation of the condition giving rise to the fantasy, or at least make them happier.'
'And has it?'
'No,' said Dr. Best. 'But the clinical implications are of interest. Minshull here is writing up the experiment. This is a rather amiable wine, don't you agree? It's a 1963 Durkheimer Schenkenbohl. I prefer to drink it when it's young and fresh.'
When the girls returned at the summons of the hand-bell, they brought a 1959 Chateau La Bridane and a saddle of lamb with French beans and new potatoes. The blonde moved round to Leonard and poured him claret. A stitch or two had given in the seam at her hip, revealing a small patch of bare skin amidst the black leather. He felt proud of himself for noticing this, and grateful to Lucy for giving him back the capacity, on the decline in him over the last few years, for noticing it and things like it. In itself it could mean no more than that the blonde, and by inference her companion too, had found a simple way of not adding to the heat engendered by unventilated outer garments of leather. But it produced in him a firm resolve to ring Lucy up at the first opportunity and arrange to visit her. That, however, must wait. For the moment the matter to concentrate on was that of introducing plausibly the information he had come here to divulge.
He held back until Mann asked him a casual question about the amount of co-operation Security officers commonly got from those in their charge. Leonard made sure Dr. Best was listening before he said,
'I've always found people very understanding. Especially when it comes to rising to any sort of occasion. For instance, on Friday the unit's putting on something called Exercise Nabob. It's not really an exercise in the full sense, not much more than a demonstration and practice in the use of certain new weapons, but it does entail cordoning off part of a valley and denying access and observation. That's a mere matter of mechanics-the tricky and bothersome part is setting up search procedures and snap checks to make sure nobody walks off with some vital… piece of wherewithal in his pocket, or a miniature camera full of film. When you start organizing that sort of thing, you might expect to find yourself coming up against the old Army mentality, red tape and obstructionism and all that. Not a bit of it. All possible facilities were immediately placed at my disposal. The Commanding Officer issued an order that any officer or other rank who failed to accept my recommendations on the spot would be responsible to him personally. The Adjutant himself accompanied me on my various rounds and visits whenever his other duties allowed. The officer in charge of-'
Dr. Best interrupted this recital, which had been designed merely to put a bit of circumstantial flesh on the bare bones of the central facts Leonard wanted to convey. 'It must be agreeable to find oneself the center of so much attention.'
'Oh, I don't know. You just take it as part of the job.'
'You must enjoy giving instructions to colonels and such and seeing them rushing off to carry them out.'
'That's where the regulations are so helpful. In Security matters the normal gradations of rank don't-'
'Would you say that the prime satisfaction of your post was the sense of sitting at the middle of a vast web or machine and manipulating people by pressing buttons?'
Aware now of where this was tending, Leonard drew in a lot of breath to pronounce a negative, but was again interrupted, this time by the radio-alarm buzzer on his wrist. He jumped to his feet. 'I'm wanted on the wireless,' he said, and hurried from the room, hearing Minshull's laugh behind him as he shut the door.
After a fifty-yard trot in the sun across the car-park, he was sweating rather and peering through misted glasses as he fumbled through his keys. At this moment a man in denim overalls came out from behind a bush and sidled up to him, spade in hand.
'Acting on your instructions, I-'
