When the PM had finished reading he put the papers down and walked to an escritoire in a corner. He fished a single sheet of paper out of a drawer and scribbled rapidly on it J, watching, saw the flourish of the signature. They had it! And if they had this they would also get the million pounds.
J was quite unprepared for what the PM did next, though he knew the man was rumored to have an odd, elfin sense of humor.
The PM took a candle from the desk, lit it, and walked back to the long table. He put the slip of paper on the table and dropped hot wax on it just below his signature. Into the cooling wax he pressed a massive seal ring which he wore on his left hand.
The PM smiled at J and at Lord Leighton, who was now alert and watching with interest.
'This whole thing has a medieval flavor,' said the PM. 'Witchcraft, alchemy, spies behind the arras, what you will. We may as well carry it the whole way, eh, gentlemen?'
He handed the sealed and signed bit of paper to J. 'There you are. Let it be done! I'm sure it will be honored in most parts of the kingdom, what is left of it. Except, possibly, Wales and parts of Scotland.' The smile was a trifle sour. 'And I hope you aren't planning to work in Africa.'
Lord Leighton stood up. He snatched the bit of paper from J's hand and stared at it, then nodded to the PM. 'Thank you, sir. That's all we need... and the million pounds. Good night, sir.'
His Lordship walked out of the room without looking back, his hump swaying, his gait crablike as a result of the polio that had struck him long ago.
J made a more gracious exit. Even tried, in some measure, to explain Leighton's rudeness.
'He is very tired, sir. And he is in constant pain. He...'
The PM waved it away. 'No matter. No matter at all. If I had his brain I daresay I would be insufferable. Just get on with it. Luck to you. But if this is a hoax, any sort of flummery, then God help us all. I am as committed as you are.' He picked up the sheaf of papers from the table. 'These go into the fire tonight, as soon as you leave.'
As J was leaving the PM called after him. J turned.
'I should like,' said the PM, 'to meet this Richard Blade one day. When the time is right. He must be quite a man, this dimensional wanderer. Rather makes space walking seem like a Boy Scout Drill, doesn't it?'
J nodded and smiled. 'It does, sir. And Richard is indeed quite a man. Good night, sir.'
Richard Blade was, at the moment, a man who was losing his girl. They had just made love for the last time. To Blade, forewarned of the termination of the affair, the lovemaking had been especially bittersweet He did not want to lose Zoe. There was a distinct possibility that he was in love with Zoe. There was no doubt at all that Zoe was deeply in love with him.
Which was why she was leaving him.
They were in the cottage in Dorset, near the tiny village of Burton-Bradstock. The air was sweet with hawthorne and rose and wild thyme, somewhere a last sleepy cuckoo called, and the moon was a high silver scythe over an amethyst Channel. Blade lay on the wide bed, still rumpled from their lovemaking, and watched Zoe dress. She was determined to drive up to London tonight.
Blade wore only a pair of white shorts. His body, so recently drained, was at ease, if not his mind, and he looked like a huge brawny tanned cat against the white sheet. He was well over six feet and built in proportion, with an awesome symmetry about him, so perfectly in scale, that a stranger did not realize how massive the shoulders, how oaken the thighs, until a stranger had occasion to see, or to feel, Blade in action. Zoe, who was an amateur artist and something of a connoisseur of bodies, had painted him many times in the nude. They had done many things in the nude, he and Zoe, and now she was leaving him.
Blade did not doubt for an instant that she meant it. Zoe was like that. She meant things she said, especially things she said in the tone she had just used with him.
He watched idly as she pulled on long black stockings and gartered them high on her firm white thighs. Zoe had a milky skin that never tanned. She stayed out of the sun and in consequence was always a little like a glistening alabaster goddess. Blade wondered, not for the first time, if women - decent women like Zoe - understood the aphrodisiac effect of black on white. He supposed not. Women, he had read, did not respond to psychological stimuli as readily as men. With them it was more a matter of touch, of tactile stimulation. Blade sighed and dismissed the new urge that was rising in him. Zoe wasn't going to let him touch her. Not any more. Not ever again.
Zoe slipped a gossamer pair of panties up her long legs and over the white garter belt. She leaned forward - Blade was getting a double image in the mirror on the dressing table - to fit her small pointed breasts into the cups of her brassiere. Blade felt an almost physical pain. New desire, bound to be thwarted now, began to gnaw at him.
'Zoe.'
She slipped a blue linen frock over her head and straightened it. She picked up a silver backed brush and began doing things to her hair. She was watching him in the mirror.
Blade reached for a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table. He lit one, expelled smoke, and said again: 'Zoe.'
She was doing her mouth with a brush. She never used a stick. Doing that red moist mouth that he had kissed so many times.
Zoe dabbed at her mouth with a tissue. 'Yes, Dick?'
'You've really thought this out? You know what you're doing? You really want to leave me this way?'
Her smile was a phantom in the mirror. 'Yes. Yes. And no. I have thought it out, I do know what I'm doing, and I do not want to leave you.'
Blade frowned. 'That's women's logic, which means no logic at all. You love me and you don't want to leave me. But you are going to leave me. That's more than a mere man like me can understand.'
Zoe twisted her leg to contemplate her stocking. Her lovely mobile face, with the generous mouth and wide set eyes, was impassive. She kept her face averted because she did not want Blade to see the sheen of tears in her eyes. Ladies, and Zoe was most distinctly a lady, did not cry at moments like this.
