'Vulgar curiosity,' said Hunter, nodding to the sergeant. 'The best kind, in fact. That's on my part. Willie seems to think he may have a professional interest in this League business. Or at least the Colonel thinks so. Or said he thought so. But what about you, Moti? Your attendance at this sort of caper is far more extraordinary.'
'Oh, no. I'm Orderly Officer today.'
'And it's part of your rounds to look in at all meetings convened by anonymous fanatics. Quite so. Brian thinks of everything, doesn't he?'
'Max, you're incorrigible. The truth is far simpler. The Orderly Sergeant here and I have survived the grim rigors of guard-mounting, and we're now on our way to the next port of call in our laid-down duties. We decided to dodge in here and lie doggo for a while before having to endure being asked to give a ruling on the edibility or otherwise of the meat pies now being consumed in the canteen. So we're here for utilitarian reasons. But what of all these others?'
Hunter ran his eye over the small remainder of the audience. 'I don't know anything special about any of these chaps,' he said. 'As regards the officers, it's mostly official interest, I suppose.' He lowered his voice. 'You know, if Alastair really wants to catch this anti-death merchant he's going a funny way about it. If I were he, the merchant I mean, I'd have been standing about outside for a good half-hour, reading the notices on the board and taking careful heed of anyone coming in here. I think the sight of the Adjutant arriving with a couple of armed men would discourage me from putting in an appearance myself. Alastair ought to have given him time to come on the scene first. We might as well go back to the Mess.'
'Let's give it a few more minutes,' said Ayscue.
'Actually,' said Naidu, 'I did notice a couple of guards outside, at a respectful distance from the entrance. No doubt they're keeping an eye on anybody who may be keeping an eye, as it were, on the place. Let me ask you,' he went on without perceptible quickening of interest, 'what you take the culprit's motive to be. What has he in mind, would you say?'
Naidu's inquiring glance embraced the Orderly Sergeant, who moved up and joined the group.
'Ah, you get your crackpots in any shower, sir,' he said. 'Pacifists and Communists and vegetarians and the rest of them. We had a brotherly-love king down the depot when I was there. Nasty piece of work he was. He never washed, either. Led us no end of a dance before we got him down-graded psychopathic and discharged him.'
'Is this man who may still favor us with his presence a brotherly-love king?' asked Naidu in the same tone as before. 'I'm merely asking for information, you understand.'
'I think perhaps he is, in a tortuous and tortured sort of way,' said Ayscue. 'And that's what makes it so sad. There's a genuine sympathy and love for humanity working away there somewhere.'
Hunter lit a cigarette. 'How dull,' he said.
'To me it's unmistakable.'
'Ah, they're all the same, sir. Just calling attention to themselves. You know, like children. Showing off. Cutting a dash, like.'
'Why are we all whispering as if we were in church?' asked Hunter. 'Oh well, never mind. I see your batman is in attendance, Willie. Does that mean he's President of the League, do you think, or did you ask him along in case you needed a shoeshine all of a sudden?'
'You decide that for yourself, old boy. As far as I'm concerned it's about as likely that I told Evans to come while I was having a heroin bout as that he could be mixed up in any enterprise that involves reading and writing.'
'A little harsh, I think. And he's reading now. That's a magazine he's got there.'
'You know what I mean.'
Naidu looked at his watch. Ross-Donaldson made the same movement, turned in his walk and came forward to the front of the stage.
'May I have your attention, please?' he said. 'I'd like everybody up there who isn't present either on duty or as an official observer.'
'What are we present as, Willie?'
'Shut up, Max, and sit still.'
After some hesitation and shuffling of feet, five men moved up the aisle and formed into a rough line along the stage. The Colonel, Venables and Leonard moved in the other direction and took seats in the front row.
'Stand easy, everybody,' said Ross-Donaldson, then continued in his flattest voice, 'Are any of you men connected in any way with the Anti-Death League?'
There was silence, during which a lance-corporal at the end of the line consulted the others by eye. Finally he came to attention.
'No, sir,' he said.
'Stand easy, corporal. I'd like to hear from each of you in turn.'
Ross-Donaldson, hands behind back, walked up and down the line a couple of times and gazed at one man after another. Coming to a halt, he suddenly said,
'You.'
'Sir.'
'Are you connected with the Anti-Death League?'
'No, sir.'
