farrier of the Sailors would have felt on being hobnobbed with by an armored-car mechanic in oil-stained dungarees. The image of the Sailors swelled in his mind. Even more than a bath and a shave and a change and a meal, he needed something that would uplift his spirits as never before: taking the salute, perhaps, at a march-past of the whole strength of the Sailors in full ceremonials, preceded by their trumpet-and-drum band and regimental mascot-a bull seal on a trolley drawn by a color-sergeant.
'I'll be in the ante-room if anyone wants me,' he said, and went there.
Colonel White sat at a card-table in the middle of the room with Major Venables at his side, a telephone at one elbow and a bottle of sherry and a glass at the other, having decided that the location and amenities of the Mess made it a more suitable temporary headquarters than his office. Leonard came to attention before him and, at his nod, lowered himself rather slowly into a chair at the table.
'You look as if you could do with a drink, Brian, among other things,' said the Colonel kindly.
'I'd love some of that sherry, sir.'
'Press the bell, then, will you?'
'And what have you discovered, Leonard?' asked Venables.
'Nothing. The area from which the rifle might have been fired is a comparatively small one and it isn't there. We've beaten a broad path from that area back to the road and it isn't there. The sides of the road are being swept up to a depth of a hundred yards-they should be completing that any moment. But I'm convinced it isn't there. It's somewhere in that mental hospital or its grounds. I just know it is. The place is being searched as we sit here, but I've only been able to infiltrate three men into it and they may take an hour or two yet.'
Venables gave a groaning cough. 'Why do you not simply move your soldiery into this establishment and have them rend brick from brick until they find the missing weapon?'
'There are several objections to that, the chief of which is that it would almost certainly serve Best's turn. Whatever the exact reasoning behind this performance of his, attracting publicity to this unit and its activities as a means of embarrassing Operation Apollo must be a main consideration. So we've got to move as surreptitiously as possible. When the time comes for us to make an arrest we must attract the minimum of attention, so that we can release our own story about what's happened to him. I've a plan for that. As soon as the rifle's found and I receive my authority from my master, I shall act.'
By now a glass had arrived for Leonard and he had emptied it one and a half times. He already felt much better, very nearly certain that the missing NHW-17 would be found as he had predicted.
'It was by almost unbelievable good fortune,' said Venables, lighting one of his square-section cigars, 'that Dr. Best was near at hand during the only period, and that a short one, when the rifles were unguarded, by almost unbelievable skill in woodcraft that he was able to approach and depart unseen, and by almost unbelievable coolness of head that he managed to conceive and execute the stratagem of removing the weapon from its wooden container and placing a number of stones there in its stead, thus preventing immediate discovery of the theft. I would go further. I would say that what is almost unbelievable in three such radical aspects is quite unbelievable in aggregate.'
'There may be alternative suggestions about what happened in the lane, although I must confess I find it difficult to imagine one.' Leonard was rather tickled to find himself paying Venables back in his own coin. 'But the finding of the rifle where I expect it to be found will put an end to all speculation of that sort.'
Venables made a noise that seemed to have snarl as well as groan in it, but said no more for the moment.
The Colonel had entered the time of Leonard's return and as much as he had had to report in a large Service notebook with the words Incident Brickbat written on its covers in red ink. He now passed Leonard a sheaf of large photographs.
'These came through just after you'd gone out for the second time, Brian.'
They were views from various distances of perhaps half an acre of torn-up ground, with a crater in the middle and large fragments of newly exposed rock flung here and there. The longer views showed the affected area to lie on an almost flat but slightly tilted plateau.
'They're very good,' said Leonard. 'Who took them?'
'O'Neill. I shouldn't have credited him with the imagination you need for a good photographer. Never can tell, though. Fantastic business up there. Did you take a close look?'
'No, sir. They were still checking for radioactivity when I had to organize my men for the sweeps program.'
'Clean as a whistle, apparently, according to O'Neill's report.' The Colonel tapped a typewritten sheet clipped to a page of his notebook. 'Still, you did quite right to keep your distance without protective clothing. Well. That was St. Jerome's Priory, that was. It seems'-he tapped a gazetteer lying open on the table-'there's not been a lot left of the place for about three hundred years. Nothing whatever left of it now. Not so much as a flake of iron or a scrap of stone. Fellow Isaacs was highly delighted. Seems they haven't got as much detail as they'd like on what these atomic airgun slugs will do to buildings. Help him to fill in one or two gaps. Nice to think the business has been some practical use to somebody.'
'Because it can have been of very little to Dr. Best, assuming momentarily that he is the author of this affair.' Venables turned his great head towards Leonard. 'The man supposedly wishes to publicize this unit's activities. He does so by bringing about an atomic explosion in a remote corner of the hills, far from any human habitation, indeed topographically isolated from all but its immediate environs. Would not a strike at the village, with its attendant loss of life, have been more to his purpose? Better still, a strike at this very camp? The building in which we sit is an excellent target from several surrounding points, even for a flat-trajectory projectile.'
Leonard drained his glass and filled it again. Venables's objection had already occurred to him. It shook him not at all, reasoning as he did that Best's action had been improvised, not carried out to order, and feeling that it fitted perfectly into the picture he had already formed of the man's psychological patterning. But before he could do more than start trying to explain this the telephone rang.
'White here. Thank you. Why don't you come over and join us? Expect you could do with a little something after all that exertion, eh? Good… That was Max Hunter. The rifle isn't in the camp. Don't suppose anybody thought it was, but you can't afford not to confirm negatives, as they say these days. I asked him-'
