Free 19 - The Power Cube Affair by John T. Phillifent

then looked out of the window. "Do you suppose we could find the actual place on the beach where she died?"
    "We can try. Johnny described it fairly well."
    "Please," she said, and Solo exchanged resigned glances with Kuryakin. They went out of the beach side door onto a small platform and then down a flight of wooden steps to the narrow concrete strip which ended just a yard beyond the house. She paused a moment to take in the scene, the headlands on either side, the sea, which was far out now.
    "Your man certainly likes to be isolated," she said, as they started to walk. "I gathered he was that type, just talking to him. We are all isolated, of course, from each other, but very few of us dare to face that fact. And don't quote Donne at me!"
    "No man is an Island—why not?"
    "Donne was talking in terms of responsibility. We have to feel some kind of responsibility for each other, or civilization would perish. But we are in fact, each one of us, isolated from the other. Napoleon, do you think I am morbid, actually wanting to see the very spot where Mary died?"
    "Let's just say I don't see how it will do any good."
    "But it will. It will help to keep me aware of the hard facts of life. I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't just a game, that people do get killed, and that it could be my turn any time I get careless."
    "It's a point," he agreed, then halted to raise an arm. "I think that must be it. A hollow in the pebbles where he crouched to watch, and there's the water line at high tide."
    Solo had to admit, if only to himself, that there was an unreal sense about this business. Here, with a breeze gently tugging at her little girl dress, the bright sunshine striking highlights from her pale blonde hair, it was hard to imagine that Miss Perrell was standing, then crouching, at the very spot where one of her colleagues had coughed up blood and died an inglorious death. Still harder was it to believe that John Guard, involved purely by chance, had been immediately attacked and left for dead. That kind of thing didn't fit this beach, the quiet sunshine. Miss Perrell stood up, looked out to sea, then turned and came back to him.
    "That will do it," she said. "Let's go back."
    They went up the slope to the concrete wall, and she scrambled up, disdaining his help, then stood and looked down at him.
    "Wait a bit," she said, and he waited. The breeze tweaked at her skirt, so that he saw for a moment the glitter of the buckle on her thigh strapped holsters. "I want some stones," she said, "About so big," and she indicated with a finger and thumb something the size of a tennis ball. "I think about ten or twelve. Pass them up."
    He shrugged, gathered up stones for her until she was satisfied, then climbed up to join her, took some of them. They started walking back to the steps.
    "Aren't you going to ask why?"
    "You'll tell me when you're ready."
    "That I will. You'll see."
    They halted at the foot of the steps. She moved to the upward edge of the concrete and arranged the stones in a row, about six inches apart, right on the edge.
    "Let's go and eat now," she suggested, and led the way lip the steps. Music met their ears as they went inside.
    "What on earth—?"she tilted her head to listen to the cascade of interwoven sound. "I'm sure I know that, but not in that form."
    "Bach," Kuryakin explained.
    "But that's keyboard music. Heavens, I used to play this thing once. They are ringing it!"
    "Haven't you ever heard the Swingle Singers?"
    She hadn't and was most intrigued. All through the meal she and Kuryakin talked music, and Solo got the impression that she was rather put out by the depth and range of the Russian agent's knowledge.
    She's obviously interested in music , he thought, but Illya's making her sound like a stumbling amateur, and she doesn't like it a bit . Guard had four Swingle albums in his record collection, and by the time they had been played Miss Perrell had had enough.
    "Leave the washing up a moment," she