Free Closed Circle by Robert Goddard Page B

account in London. I had every intention of pooling the money with our other resources in due course, but a good deal of dust would have to settle before I could.
    It was then only a question of awaiting developments. As Friday evening drew closer, Max and I both grew nervous, though for different reasons. He was eager to start for Dorking and proposed, to my dismay, that I accompany him. I resisted the idea at first, but could not afford to make him suspicious by behaving as if I knew something was amiss. Faced with his desire for company during the midnight vigil on the downs that lay ahead, I reluctantly consented.
    We dined at an hotel near Leatherhead, but still reached Dorking with more than four hours to while away before the rendezvous. Driving out aimlessly along the Guildford road, we stopped at a wayside inn and installed ourselves in the saloon bar. Several large whiskies later, Max's confidence was at a high and garrulous pitch, whereas mine was rapidly ebbing. How was he going to react to whatever form Charnwood's intervention took? What would he do when he realized Diana could not be his? And what, more to the point, would I do? The uncertainties multiplied in my head as alcohol leached away my ability to resolve them.
    Fortunately, Max was too intoxicated with his own optimism to notice any trepidity on my part. One of the other customers, by the look and sound of him an opinionated commercial traveller, had been flirting with the barmaid all the time we had been there. He had eventually persuaded her to call him by his Christian name, which he had claimed, somewhat implausibly, to be Hildebrand. The barmaid had laughed uproariously at this, but Max had taken it for an omen.
    "Remember the "dwarfish Hildebrand", Guy?"
    "In The Eve of St. Agnes, by Keats. I remember. What about him?"
    "He was Porphyro's sworn enemy, wasn't he? But he couldn't prevent Porphyro stealing off into the night with his beloved. Well, Charnwood won't prevent me stealing off with my beloved either."
    "Let's hope not."
    "Don't worry. Nothing can go wrong."
    But it already had, as I was hard put not to tell him. Our glasses were empty and, as I went up to have them refilled, the un-dwarfish Hildebrand was entertaining the barmaid with a conjuring trick that involved plucking a red silk handkerchief from the front of her low-cut blouse. How I wished I could practise some similar magic for Max's benefit and call up a happy ending to our night's work. But I had ensured it could not end happily. So there was nothing for it but to blame my sentimental regrets on the whisky and to order some more.
    We lingered at the inn as long as we could, but were eventually obliged to leave. Max had shown me the positions of Amber Court and the meeting-place on a map, but the reality of narrow lanes winding up thickly wooded hillsides beneath a starless sky was infinitely less clear-cut. Moths swirled in the headlamp beams and a fine drizzle smeared the windscreen. When we reached the point where the footpath from the house met the road, Max nosed the car in beneath the trees and turned off the engine and lights.
    It was nearly midnight, dark and silent enough to remind me of all the reasons why I distrusted the countryside. Not completely dark, of course. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out the gap in the trees where the path began. Nor yet completely silent. My ears began to detect faint rustlings and stirrings in the undergrowth.
    An owl hooted somewhere. A fox barked. Then Max struck a match and offered me a cigarette.
    "You reckon I'm mad to do this, don't you, Guy?" he asked with a chuckle.
    "I never said so."
    "No. But you came close. In your shoes, I might have come closer. So, don't think I'm not grateful, because I am."
    His gratitude was like a blow to the solar plexus. It was the last thing I needed. "What time is it?" I hastily enquired.
    He struck another match and looked at his watch. "Four minutes past midnight. Less than two hours to go. A