Part 16 (2/2)

'May I look at your books?' I asked.

'Go ahead,' she said amiably.

I got up and looked along her bookshelves. There were the language text books Ancient Icelandic, Anglo Saxon and Middle English-and a comprehensive sweep of English writings from Alfred the Great's Chronicles to John Betjemann's unattainable amazons.

'What do you think of my books?' she asked curiously.

I didn't know how to answer. The masquerade was d.a.m.nably unfair to her.

'Very learned,' I said lamely.

I turned away from the bookshelves, and came suddenly face to face with my full-length reflection in the mirror door of her wardrobe.

I looked at myself moodily. It was the first comprehensive view of Roke the stable lad that I had had since leaving October's London house months before, and time had not improved things.

My hair was too long, and the sideburns flourished nearly down to the lobes of my ears. My skin was a sort of pale yellow now that the suntan had all faded. There was a tautness in the face and a wary expression in the eyes which had not been there before: and in my black clothes I looked disreputable and a menace to society.

Her reflection moved behind mine in the mirror, and I met her eyes and found her watching me.

'You look as if you don't like what you see,' she said.

I turned round. 'No,' I said wryly. 'Would anyone?'

'Well...' Incredibly she smiled mischievously. 'I wouldn't like to set you loose in this college, for instance. If you don't realize, though, the effect which you... you may have a few rough edges, but I do now see why Patty tried... er... I mean...' Her voice tailed off in the first confusion she had shown.

'The kettle's boiling,' I said helpfully.

Relieved, she turned her back on me and made the coffee. I went to the window and looked down into the deserted quad, resting my forehead on the cold gla.s.s.

It still happened, I thought. In spite of those terrible clothes, in spite of the aura of shadiness, it could still happen. What accident, I wondered for the thousandth time in my life, decided that one should be born with bones of a certain design? I couldn't help the shape of my face and head. They were a legacy from a pair of neat featured parents: their doing, not mine. Like Elinor's hair, I thought. Born in you. Nothing to be proud of. An accident, like a birth mark or a squint. Something I habitually forgot, and found disconcerting when anyone mentioned it. And it had been expensive, moreover. I had lost at least two prospective customers because they hadn't liked the way their wives looked at me instead of my horses.

With Elinor, I thought, it was a momentary attraction which wouldn't last. She was surely too sensible to allow herself to get tangled up with one of her father's ex-stable lads. And as for me, it was strictly hands off the Tarren sisters, both of them. If I was out of the frying-pan with one, I was not jumping into the fire with the other. It was a pity, all the same. I liked Elinor rather a lot.

'The coffee's ready,' she said.

I turned and went back to the table. She had herself very well controlled again. There was no mischievous revealing light in her face any more, and she looked almost severe, as if she very much regretted what she had said and was going to make quite certain I didn't take advantage of it.

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 Sat.u.r.days, because Humber 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 compet.i.tion, and I've only one more answer to find. Now where did I put that cutting?'

The compet.i.tion consisted of a number of quotations to which one had to ascribe the author. 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 compet.i.tion?' 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 compet.i.tion 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 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 rum-magging. 'For dogs,' she explained.

I picked it up. A silent dog whistle. Why then did I think it was connected with bottles and gla.s.ses 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 and blew. Only a thread of sound came out.

'You can't hear it very well,' Elinor said, 'but of course a dog can. And you can adjust that whistle to make it sound louder to human ears, too.' She took it out of my hand and unscrewed part of the whistle itself. 'Now blow.' She gave it back.

I blew again. It sounded much more like an ordinary whistle.

'Do you think I could possibly borrow this for a little while?' I asked. 'If 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.

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