Free The Prisoner (1979) by Hank Stine Page B

the sound echoing away into the house.
    A sheep bawed in the field behind and he caught its reflection in the great picture window just to the right of the walk. Then he heard the resonant silence of the wind as it rushed swift and cool across the earth. Down the road, near Kingsdown, a horn blared. All else was serene.
    Something moved in the house. There was the muffled sound of a door closing. Then footsteps came towards the front.
    The knob shook, rasped as if the other end were being turned. The door moved inward, opened the length of a chain. A short, white-haired man in a blue denim smock peered up at him.
    ‘Yes?’ the man said. ‘What do you want?’
    ‘Sir John Wilkinson, Bart?’
    ‘Yes.’ The repetition was shorter, harsher: impatient: ‘What do you want?’
    ‘I bear a message from Colonel Schjeldahl.’
    The eye visible through the doorway grew brighter. ‘Your identity badge?’
    He slid a hand into the cool lining of his jacket pocket, fingers closing on the stiff plastic card, and brought it out, pushing it forward through the crack of the door.
    Sir John took it (hands as smooth and pink as a child’s) and lifted it to his face, peering at it carefully. Then he looked up, eyes bright and penetrating. He stepped back and closed the door; there was a scrape of metal on metal, and the door opened wide.
    The hall was a sunny amber. An umbrella stand to one side of the door, a porcelain vase to the other. The pile of the carpet was thick and deep, yielding easily to the foot.
    He went into the living-room and turned to the baronet. Sir John offered him the card. He took it reading the familiar words as easily up-side down as right-side up: B Y COMMISSION OF H ER M AJESTY , T HE Q UEEN and pocketed it.
    Sir John’s face was kindly, softened by an amiable squint, flesh translucent and freckled. But there was something almost too companionable in its friendliness, as at the sharing of some off-colour Rotarian joke. Something too corrupt in his smile: the knowledge of some universal and unconfessed guilt.
    There were gold leather divans along the wall facing the window, and antique writing tables at either end of the room. The whole had the faint decadence of eighteenth century Paris: gilt and lacquer.
    Through the window he could see the damp countryside and the blue dome of sky. There was a rainbow over the road and the sun gleamed wetly in the grass.
    Sir John gestured vaguely towards the divan. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
    ‘I think we’d better have these shut,’ he said abruptly, walking over to the drapes, shoving them aside, and closing his hand on the cord. He drew it down and the fabric swung out along the track, shutting off the view.
    The old man gave him a sly, delighted grin. ‘You know, I thought you were the one. I really thought I remembered your number.’ He seemed to pause and consider. ‘Yes, it was sent to me on a telegram. I’ve got it around here somewhere.’ His head moved in little jerks, like a bird’s movement, more excited than nervous.
    ‘So it’s finally come, has it? You know, I’ve always thought it would.’ Sir John turned his head towards the divan. ‘Is it all right if I sit down? I mean: is there enough time?’
    ‘Sit down.’
    ‘Good.’ Sir John went over and sat down. He looked up, face relaxed, boyish. ‘I’ve always speculated about what kind of person it would be. Just exactly what they’d be like. I wanted it to be someone, you know’—his eyes had a bright, far away look—‘someone sensitive, intelligent, charming. Not a mindless, guttural assassin. Perhaps that’s only vanity. Maybe I just want to think I was deserving of the best.’ His eyes narrowed and he leaned back against the couch. ‘If it’s not asking too much: for which agency am I being hit? He seemed enormously pleased with the word.
    ‘None.’
    ‘But surely I am to be killed? I would hate to think my gesture had gone for nothing.’
    ‘If I kill you,’ he