at least, that's what Father thought." Something seemed to be confusing him. "They gave it to him."
"Who gave it to whom?"
Now she was confused too. "What?"
"The surgeon kept his instruments in it." He scratched his head. "But your father also kept his money in it. Did the surgeon give it to your father? Not that it matters—"
"Of course not!" How could he be so obtuse? "The surgeon's patients gave it to him—it says so on the inside of the lid.
Father kept his money in it—my money now." She caught herself slurring her words again. "I mean, it's just an old box
—an old mahogany box with brass hinges and the inscription plates on it, that's all."
"I see." He nodded. "And the surgeon gave it to him."
"No! I told you—"
He lifted his hand. "It really doesn't matter—"
"No! Father's crew gave it to him—the survivors in 1942.
They found it in an antique shop in Portsmouth, somewhere . . . not with the instruments in it, of course—it dummy3
was empty, but it just had room for a few bottles of very old wine—or port, or brandy, or something. It was their present to him—a sort of keepsake, the box was, after they'd drunk the brandy—you see?" she looked at him hopefully.
"Yes . . ." He listened as another car went by. "And that was why he called it his Vengeful box—I see."
"Yes— no—no . . . that was because of Dr Pike."
He frowned again. "What? Dr Pike?"
"The surgeon—I told you!" Elizabeth was consumed by a desire to get the facts straight, if that was possible. "Dr Pike was the surgeon on Number Seven—the old Vengeful. . . only he must have drowned with the prize crew when the Fortuné went down on the Horse Sands off Portsmouth—" She hiccupped suddenly. "Pardon! It's all in the Number Seven chapter in Father's book—he thought the box must have drifted ashore from the wreck ... It was really the box that gave him the idea of writing the Vengeful book, I think. Do you want to hear about it? Because Father thought—"
"That's all right—I can read about it, Elizabeth," said Paul Mitchell quickly. "And he kept his money in it—that's very interesting."
He didn't look as though he was very interested, thought Elizabeth. He looked as if he was listening to something else.
Suddenly she wanted to interest him. "Father was a gambler, you know— he gambled. . . And I never knew it—would you believe that?" It was almost a relief to tell someone at last.
dummy3
"He left me a letter—and he left me lots of money. Lots and lots and lots of money—would you believe that?"
Now he was interested. "Oh, yes?"
"Oh, yes—" After a brief moment of gratification, caution set in abruptly "—it's all ... quite safe. Apart from what's upstairs in the Vengeful box."
"That's good." He stared at her. "What was it—the horses? Or the football pools?"
"He didn't like football." Come to that, thought Elizabeth, he hadn't liked horses either. "But ... I don't really know—" she was about to add "Would you believe that?" when she remembered having said it several times before, and decided against a further repetition "—he didn't say, actually."
He stood up suddenly. "You stay here—just stay where you are, and don't move. Okay?"
She blinked at him, unaware that she had shown any sign of wanting to move. She didn't even think that she could move, even.
The front-door bell pealed out before he was half-way across the room.
In the doorway he turned back towards her. "It's all right.
Just you stay put, Elizabeth," he said soothingly.
She watched the door close. For a few seconds his words reassured her, then her brain began to work again, and she was no longer reassured.
He had heard something which she had missed—that was dummy3
why he had moved before the bell rang: she had been listening to her own voice—she had been talking too much—
God!
And— God! She couldn't just sit here like a dummy!
This was the reinforcement he'd been waiting for—it had to be that, because burglars' friends would surely never ring the bell. But even so, when she heard the safety-chain rattle before the clatter of the latch it was evident that he was still taking his precautions.
There came a faint murmur of voices, and then the chain rattled again as he released it. Elizabeth almost sank back into the chair with relief, but the spark of her curiosity refused to let itself be extinguished: she still couldn't be sure that it was relief she ought to be feeling, and this might be her only chance of confirming it on her own account.
Levering herself out of the chair was more difficult than she had expected, and her knees wanted to fold under her so that she had to support herself from one piece of furniture to the next for the first few steps, until she could stumble the last yard to reach the wall beside the door.
Leaning against it, she put her ear to the crack—
"I wish to God that I did!" That was Paul Mitchell's voice, but it was no longer soothing. "Only that's the least of our problems at the moment. You'd better send Bannen to the nearest phone—that's the one I phoned you from, about a mile down the road, just where the houses start ... I don't dummy3
fancy using the one here. We need an ambulance—gunshot wounds, two in the chest, one in the lung by the look of him . . . and one in the leg ... and Bannen must get on to the local Special Branch to get him put under wraps, wherever they take him—no, wait!"
"What?"
"We need a meat waggon too. And we'd better have that first."
"Christ!"
"For two. One's in the room there . . . the other's in the garden at the back, in the bushes by the back-gate—"
" Christ!" The second voice graduated from surprise to consternation. "What the hell's happened?"
"Sssh! I've got the woman in there. I don't want her to hear all this."
"You haven't shot her too, by any chance?"
"Don't be funny, Aske. Just tell Bannen to get moving."
Two?
Two! Elizabeth's knees weakened, and only the wall supported her. She wanted to get back to the safety of the armchair in case he came to check up on her, but her legs had mutinied.
She heard the car start up, and then the front door closed again. Relief flooded over her as she heard the second voice again.
dummy3
"What the devil have you been doing, Mitchell? You said this was just routine, damn it!"
Paul Mitchell half-grunted, half-groaned. "So it was! If I hadn't spotted Novikov . . . my God, man—I'd have walked in here like a lamb to the slaughter!"
There was a moment of silence. Then she heard the study door open with its characteristic squeak.
Again she wanted to move, but couldn't.
In the garden at the back, in the bushes—
Lamb to the slaughter— meat waggon—
The door squeaked shut. "Who the hell's that?"
"Don't ask me—I don't know any of them, they're not in any files I've ever seen." Paul Mitchell sounded as though he disbelieved himself. "They're all new to me."
"What about her?"
"You may well ask!" Pause.
"What d'you mean?"
Elizabeth held her breath.
"They were just about to do something very nasty to her when I crashed their party." Pause. "I tell you, Aske . . .
whatever they want here, they want it badly, and that's the truth."
"What sort of state is she in?"
"Not bad, considering what she's been through—and considering what I've done to her, filling her up with brandy dummy3
while she's still in shock. I wanted her to talk—and now I can't stop her."