wait till it grew into a tree. “I like apples, for a change.”
“That’s what they’re there for,” Vanderdecker said, and hurried away before the first mate could ask him to enlarge on his last remark. On his way to his cabin, he met Sebastian.
“Hello there, Sebastian,” he said, “how’s things?” Sebastian frowned. “How do you mean?” he said. Vanderdecker smiled. “You know,” he said. “How are you getting on?”
“Same as usual, I suppose.” Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at, skip?” he asked suspiciously.
“Nothing, nothing,” Vanderdecker reassured him. “How have the suicide attempts been going lately? Making any headway?”
“No,” Sebastian replied.
“Never mind,” he said. “Stick with it, I’m sure you’ll get there eventually. Not that I want you to, of course. Mind how you go.” Then he slipped past and leaped up the steps to his cabin two at a time. Sebastian stared after him, tapped his head twice, and got on with his work.
Had Danny Bennett been there, he would have sympathised. As it was, he was back down in the cellar, after an entirely fruitless interview with the Professor.
Once the Professor had gleaned from him that he didn’t actually know the first thing about the Cirencester Group (beyond the fact that it existed and a few fairly fundamental conjectures that a moderately intelligent laboratory rat could work out for itself in about three minutes) he had explained the dilemma he was in. Quite illegally, he had kidnapped a BBC producer and imprisoned him, by force of arms, in a damp cellar with an alleged rat. All he had managed to achieve by this was to reveal to his captive rather more about the deadly secret organisation he had discovered than he knew already. So now either Danny must join the conspiracy and work for it in some undefined but lucrative capacity, or else…well, there wasn’t really an else, since even Danny could see that Montalban wasn’t going to order his cold-blooded execution; and here he was, taking up house-room and needing to be fed and provided with clean laundry. It was all most aggravating, and if Danny hadn’t been in a hurry to get out of there and start filming, he would have quite fancied the idea of staying put for a good long time and making as much of a nuisance of himself as he possibly could.
He was sitting on the floor thinking this over when Neville, the stockbroker who moonlighted as second murderer, appeared. He was holding his gun, as before, and also a large, scruffy cat. He seemed put out about something.
“Here you are, then,” said Neville, releasing the cat. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
Danny stared. “What are you doing?” he said. Although he didn’t know much about torture, he knew that it often happened to prisoners of diabolical conspiracies, and furthermore he didn’t like cats.
“You said there were mice in this cellar,” Neville explained. “So I was told to bring the cat down here. Satisfied?”
“Oh,” Danny said. “I see. Thanks,” he added, belatedly. But by that time Neville had gone, leaving the cat.
The cat roamed around for a bit, scratched at the door, mewed querulously, and then went to sleep. It didn’t seem interested in mice, and who could blame it? Danny, being of liberal views, was firmly opposed to racial and sexual stereotyping, and the principle presumably applied to species, too.
And that was it, for about half an hour. Then there were footsteps on the cellar stairs again, which Danny hoped had something to do with food. He looked round at his camera crew. They were all fast asleep, just like the cat.
The door opened, and a girl came in. Behind her was Harvey and Harvey’s gun.
“In there,” Harvey grunted superfluously. The girl gave him an unfriendly look and stepped in.
It was fairly dark in the cellar, and that would explain why Jane, in normal circumstances a careful person, trod on the cat’s tail. The cat woke up, screeched, and moved. So did Jane. She jumped about three feet in the air, lost her balance, and fell against Harvey. For his part, Harvey reacted according to the instincts of generations of chivalrous ancestors and caught her, in doing so dropping the gun. Please follow what happens next carefully.
The gun fell on the stone floor, landed on its exposed hammer, and went off, shooting the cat. Danny, hearing the shot, dived for cover, only to find that there wasn’t any. Harvey tried to let go of Jane, but Jane refused to be let go of and grabbed his ears, thereby rendering him helpless for a long enough period of time for Danny to wriggle over, grab the gun with his least trussed hand, and try and cover Harvey with it. Unfortunately, he was too trussed to be able to cover the right person, and Jane, observing yet another perfect stranger pointing a gun at her, shrieked and let go of Harvey’s ears. Harvey stayed exactly where he was. He had had enough of all this fooling about with guns and locked cellars, and was going on strike.
“Right then, Harvey,” Danny said, “the game’s up.”
“Oh for crying out loud,” Harvey replied, for he hated cliches. Danny, however, had seen far more spy films than were good for him, and felt sure that he knew what should come next. “Freeze,” he snarled. He enjoyed snarling it, and the fact that he was still pointing the gun at the wrong person was neither here nor there.
The recent spate of moving about had woken up the camera crew, who opened their eyes, took in what was going on, and started voicing their opinion that it was about time, too. Jane, feeling rather left out, introduced herself.
“I’m Jane Doland,” she said, “I’m with Moss Berwick, accountants. Who are you, please?”
“Danny Bennett, BBC Current Affairs,” Danny replied. “Pleased to meet you.” He wriggled his weight onto the funny bone of his left elbow and brought the gun level with Harvey’s lemon socks. That would have to do.
“Can we go now, do you think?” Jane asked.
Danny thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said.
“Oh good,” Jane replied. “Come on, then.”
Danny remembered something. “Perhaps you could untie me,” he suggested.
Jane looked at the ropes, and then at her fingernails. She was not a vain person, but they did take an awfully long time to grow if you broke them, and the ropes looked rather solid. “I’m hopeless with knots,” she said. “Perhaps Mr…”
“Harvey,” Danny said.
“…Would do it instead. Please?”
Harvey nodded. “Hold on,” Danny said, “not so fast.” He was secretly pleased to have an opportunity to say that, too, although because of the angle his body was at he didn’t have enough breath to spare to be able to snarl it. “Here, you take the gun and cover him.”
With a tremendous effort, he handed Jane the gun, which was heavy and rather oily. She didn’t take to it much. Harvey untied the knots, and Danny got up.
“Here,” protested the sound recordist, “what about us?”
Harvey untied them, too, until everyone was completely back to normal and the gathering resembled nothing so much as an unsuccessful drinks party. “
“Hey,” he said. “That cat.”
“Which cat?”
“The cat you trod on. It’s still alive.”
Jane frowned at him. “I only trod on its tail,” she said.
“Yes,” Danny replied, “but when the gun went off just now, I’m sure the bullet hit it.” He stooped down and picked something up.
“Look,” Jane said, “I’m sure this is all very interesting, but shouldn’t we be getting along?”
“The bullet,” Danny said, displaying it on the palm of his hand. “This bullet hit that cat.”
“Really? How interesting.”
“Look at it, will you?”
When people are being tiresome, Jane’s mother always told her, it’s usually easiest just to agree. She looked at the bullet. Its nose had been flattened, as if it had hit a wall or something.
“Maybe it hit the wall,” Jane suggested.
“No,” Danny said, “it definitely hit the cat. Like the cat’s…invulnerable, or something.” Like the Professor was, in fact, he remembered.
