2

       'I had not expected this to happen,' Doctor Percival told them.

       To Castle it seemed an oddly indifferent phrase for him to use, a phrase as cold as the poor body which lay in crumpled pyjamas stretched out upon the bed, the jacket wide open and the bare chest exposed, where no doubt they had long since listened and searched in vain for the least sound of a heartbeat. Doctor Percival had struck him

       hitherto as a very genial man, but the geniality was chilled in the presence of the dead, and there was an incongruous note of embarrassed apology in the strange phrase he had uttered.

       The sudden change had come as a shock to Castle, when he found himself standing in this neglected room, after all the voices of strangers, the flocks of china owls and the explosion of corks at Mrs Daintry's. Doctor Percival had fallen silent again after that one unfortunate phrase and nobody else spoke. He stood back from the bed rather as though he were exhibiting a picture to a couple of unkind critics, and was waiting in apprehension for their judgement. Daintry was silent too. He seemed content to watch Doctor Percival as if it were up to him to explain away some obvious fault which he was expected to find in the painting.

       Castle felt an urge to break the long silence.

       'Who are those men in the sitting-room? What are they doing?'

       Doctor Percival turned with reluctance away from the bed. 'What men? Oh, those. I asked the Special Branch to take a look around.'

       'Why? Do you think he was killed?'

       'No, no. Of course not. Nothing of that kind. His liver was in a shocking state. He had an X-ray a few days ago.'

       'Then why did you say you didn't expect...?'

       'I didn't expect things to go so rapidly.'

       'I suppose there'll be a post mortem?'

       'Of course. Of course.'

       The 'of courses' multiplied like flies round the body.

       Castle went back into the sitting-room. There was a bottle of whisky and a used glass and a copy of Playboy on the coffee table.

       'I told him he had to stop drinking,' Doctor Percival called after Castle. 'He wouldn't pay attention.'

       There were two men in the room. One of them picked up Playboy and ruffled and shook the pages. The other was going through the drawers of the bureau. He told his companion, 'Here's his address book. You'd better go through the names. Check the telephone numbers in case they don't correspond.'

       'I still don't understand what they are after,' Castle said.

       'Just a security check,' Doctor Percival explained. I tried to get hold of you, Daintry, because it's really your pigeon, but apparently you were away at some wedding or other.'

       'Yes.'

       'There seems to have been some carelessness recently at the office. C's away but he would have wanted us to be sure that the poor chap hadn't left anything lying about.'

       'Like telephone numbers attached to the wrong names?' Castle asked. I wouldn't call that exactly carelessness.'

       'These chaps always follow a certain routine. Isn't that so, Daintry?'

       But Daintry didn't reply. He stood in the doorway of the bedroom looking at the body.

       One of the men said, 'Take a squint at this, Taylor.' He handed the other a sheet of paper. The other read aloud, 'Bonne chance, Kalamazoo, Widow Twanky.'

       'Bit odd, isn't it?'

       Taylor said, 'Bonne chance is French, Piper. Kalamazoo sounds like a town in Africa.'

       'Africa, eh? Might be important.'

       Castle said, 'Better look in the Evening News. You'll probably find that they are three horses. He always bet on the tote at the week-end.'

       'Ah,' Piper said. He sounded a little discouraged.

       'I think we ought to leave our friends of the Special Branch to do their job in peace,' Doctor Percival said.

       'What about Davis's family?' Castle asked.

       'The office has been seeing to that. The only next of kin seems to be a cousin in Droitwich. A dentist.'

       Piper said, 'Here's something that looks a bit off-colour to me, sir.' He held out a book to Doctor Percival, and Castle intercepted it. It was a small selection of Robert Browning's poems. Inside was a book plate with a coat of arms and the name of a school, the Droitwich Royal Grammar School. Apparently the prize had been awarded in 1910 to a pupil called William Davis for English Composition and William Davis had written in black ink in a small finicky hand, Passed on to my son Arthur from his father on his passing First in Physics, June 29, 1953: Browning and physics and a boy of sixteen certainly seemed a bit strange in conjunction, but presumably it was not this that Piper meant by off-colour '.

       'What is it?' Doctor Percival asked.

       'Browning's poems. I don't see anything off-colour about them.'

       All the same he had to admit that the little book didn't go with Aldermaston and the tote and Playboy, the dreary office routine and the Zaire bag; does one always discover clues to the complexity even of the most simple life if one rummages enough after death? Of course, Davis might have kept the book from filial piety, but it was obvious that he had read it. Hadn't he quoted Browning the last time Castle saw him alive?

       'If you look, sir, there are passages marked,' Piper said to Doctor Percival. You know more about book codes than I do. I thought I ought to draw attention.'

       'What do you think, Castle?'

       'Yes, there are marks.' He turned the pages. The book belonged to his father and of course they might be his father's marks—except that the ink looks too fresh: he puts a " c " against them.'

       'Significant?'

       Castle had never taken Davis seriously, not his drinking, not his gambling, not even his hopeless love for Cynthia, but a dead body could not be so easily ignored. For the first time he felt real curiosity about Davis. Death had made Davis important. Death gave Davis a kind of stature. The dead are perhaps wiser than we are. He turned the pages of the little book like a member of the Browning Society keen on interpreting a text.

       Daintry dragged himself away from the bedroom door. He said, 'There isn't anything, is there... in those marks?'

       'Anything what?'

       'Significant.' He repeated Percival's question.

       'Significant? I suppose there might be. Of a whole state of mind.'

       'What do you mean?' Percival asked. 'Do you really think...?' He sounded hopeful, as if he positively wished that the man who was dead next door might have represented a security risk and, well, in a way he had, Castle thought. Love and hate are both dangerous, as he had warned Boris. A scene came to his mind: a bedroom in Lourenço Marques, the hum of an air conditioner, and Sarah's voice on the telephone, 'Here I am', and then the sudden sense of great joy. His love of Sarah had led him to Carson, and Carson finally to Boris. A man in love walks through the world like an anarchist, carrying a time bomb.

       'You really mean there is some evidence...?' Doctor Percival went on. You've been trained in codes. I haven't.'

       'Listen to this passage. It's marked with a vertical line and the letter "c".'

       ' "Yet I will but say what mere friends say, Or only a thought stronger: I will hold your hand but as long as all may..." '

       'Have you any idea what " c " stands for?' Percival asked and again there was that note of hope which Castle found irritating. It could mean, couldn't it, "code ", to remind him that he had already used that particular passage? In a book code I suppose one must be careful not to use the same passage twice.'

       'True enough. Here's another marked passage.'

       “Worth how well, those dark grey eyes, That hair so dark and dear, how worth, That a man should strive and agonise,"

       'And taste a veriest hell on earth . ." '

       'It sounds to me like poetry, sir,' Piper said.

       'Again a vertical line and a "c ", Doctor Percival.' -You really think then...?'

       'Davis said to me once, " I can't be serious when I'm serious." So I suppose he had to go to Browning for words.’

       ‘And "c"?'

       'It only stands for a girl's name, Doctor Percival. Cynthia. His secretary. A girl he was in love with. One of us. Not a case for the Special Branch.'

       Daintry had been a brooding restless presence, silent, locked in thoughts of his own. He said now with a sharp note of accusation, There should be a post mortem.'

       'Of course,' Doctor Percival said, 'if his doctor wants it. I'm not his doctor. I'm only his colleague though he did consult me, and we have the X-rays.'

       'His doctor should be here now.'

       'I'll have him called as soon as these men have finished their work. You of all people, Colonel Daintry, will appreciate the importance of that. Security is the first consideration.'

       'I wonder what a post mortem will show, Doctor Percival.'

       'I think I can tell you that his liver is almost totally destroyed.'

       'Destroyed?'

       'By drink, of course, Colonel. What else? Didn't you hear me tell Castle?'

       Castle left them to their subterranean duel. It was time to have a last look at Davis before the pathologist got to work on him. He was glad that the face showed no indication of pain. He drew the pyjamas together across the hollow chest. A button was missing. Sewing on buttons was not part of a daily woman's job. The telephone beside the bed gave a small preliminary tinkle which came to nothing. Perhaps somewhere far away a microphone and a recorder were being detached from the line. Davis would no longer be under surveillance. He had escaped.