She handed me a cup and offered the biscuits, which I ate because the lunch at Humber's had consisted of bread, margarine, and hard tasteless cheese, and the supper would be the same. It nearly always was, on Saturdays, because Number knew we ate in Posset.
We talked sedately about her father's horses. I asked how Sparking Plug was getting on, and she told me, very well, thank you.
'I've a newspaper cutting about him, if you'd like to see it?' she said.
'Yes, I'd like to.'
I followed her to her desk while she looked for it. She shifted some papers to search underneath, and the top one fell on to the floor. I picked it up, put it back on the desk, and looked down at it. It seemed to be some sort of quiz.
'Thank you,' she said.
'I mustn't lose that, it's the Literary Society's competition, and I've only one more answer to find. Now where did I put that cutting?'
The competition consisted of a number of quotations to which one had to ascribe the authors. I picked up the paper and began reading.
'That top one's a brute,' she said over her shoulder.
'No one's got it yet, I don't think.'
'How do you win the competition?' I asked.
'Get a complete, correct set of answers in first.'
'And what's the prize?'
'A book. But prestige, mostly. We only have one competition a term, and it's difficult.' She opened a drawer full of papers and oddments.
'I know I put that cutting somewhere.' She began shovelling things about out on to the top of the desk.
'Please don't bother any more,' I said politely.
'No, I want to find it.' A handful of small objects clattered on to the desk.
Among them was a small chromium-plated tube about three inches long with a loop of chain running from one end to the other. I had seen something like it before, I thought idly. I had seen it quite often.
It had something to do with drinks.
'What's that?' I asked, pointing.
'That? Oh, that's a silent whistle.' She went on rummaging.
'For dogs,' she explained.
I picked it up. A silent dog whistle. Why then did I think it was connected with bottles and glasses and. the world stopped.
With an almost physical sensation, my mind leaped towards its prey. I held Adams and Humber in my hand at last. I could feel my pulse racing.
So simple. So very simple. The tube pulled apart in the middle to reveal that one end was a thin whistle, and the other its cap. A whistle joined to its cap by a little length of chain. I put the tiny mouthpiece to my lips andblew'TSinly a thread of sound came out.
'You can't heakit very well,' Elinor said, 'but of course a dog can.
Juid you can adjust that whistle to make it sound loude^to human ears, too. ' She took it out of my hand and unBcrawed part of the whistle itself.
'Now blow.' She gave g(ack.
I blew again. It soynped much more like an ordinary whistle. ^r^ 'Do you think ucould possibly borrow this for a little while?' I asked.
'You're not using it? I… I want to try an experiment.'
' ' Yes, I should think so. My dear old sheepdog had to be put down last spring, and I haven't used it since. But you will let me have it back?
I am getting a puppy in the long vac; and I want to use it for his training. '
'Yes, of course.'
'All right, then. Oh, here's that cutting, at last.'
I took the strip of newsprint, but I couldn't concentrate on it. All I could see was the drinks compartment in Humber's monster car, with the rack of ice-picks, tongs, and little miscellaneous chromium-plated objects. I had never given them more than a cursory glance; but one of them was a small tube with a loop of chain from end to end. One of them was a silent whistle for dogs.
I made an effort, and read about Sparking Plug, and thanked her for finding the cutting.
I stowed her whistle in my money belt and looked at my watch. It was already after half past three. I was going to be somewhat late back at work.
She had cleared me with October and shown me the whistle: two enormous favours. I wanted to repay her, and could think of only one way of doing it.
' 'Nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul…' I quoted.
She looked up at me, startled.
'That's the beginning of the competition.'
'Yes. Are you allowed help?'
'Yes. Anything. But…'
'It's Marcus Aurelius.'
'Who?' She was staggered.
'Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Roman Emperor, 121 to 180 ad…'
'The Meditations?' I nodded.
'What language was it originally written in? We have to put that too.
Latin, I suppose. '
'Greek.'
'This is fantastic… just where did you go to school?'
'I went to a village school in Oxfordshire.' So I had, for two years, until I was eight.
'And we had a master who perpetually crammed Marcus Aurelius down our throats.' But that master had been at Geelong.
I had been tempted to tell her the truth about myself all afternoon, but never more than at that moment. I found it impossible to be anything but my own self in her company, and even at Slaw I had spoken to her more or less in my natural accent. I hated having to pretend to her at all. But I didn't tell her where I had come from and why, because October hadn't, and I thought he ought to know his daughter better than I did. There were her cosy chats with Patty. whose tongue could not be relied on; and perhaps he thought it was a risk to his investigations. I didn't know. And I didn't tell her.
'Are you really sure it's Marcus Aurelius?' she said doubtfully.
'We only get one shot. If it's wrong, you don't get another.'
'I should check it then. It comes in a section about learning to be content with your lot. I suppose I remember it because it is good advice and I've seldom been able to follow it.' I grinned.
'You know,' she said tentatively, 'it's none of my business, but I would have thought you could have got on a bit in the world. You seem you seem decidedly intelligent. Why do you work in a stable? '
'I work in a stable,' I told her with perfect, ironic truth, 'because it's the only thing I know how to do. '
'Will you do it for the rest of your life?'
'I expect so.'
'And will it content you?'
'It will have to.'
'I didn't expect this afternoon to turn out like this at all,' she said.
'To be frank, I was dreading it. And you have made it easy.'
'That's all right, then,' I said cheerfully.
She smiled. I went to the door and opened it, and she said, 'I'd better see you out. This building must have been the work of a maze-crazy architect. Visitors have been found wandering about the upper reaches dying of thirst days after they were supposed to have left.'
