Our Man in Camelot (13 page)

It wasn’t the moment to catch Shirley’s eye, Mosby decided. Not because she might burst into hysterical laughter, but because she might see her own doubts reflected in his face. Dropped in a steaming Asian jungle full of communist insurgents he knew exactly what he ought to do, the Fort Dobson training had seen to that; and she was no doubt ready at a moment’s notice to mingle unobtrusively with the Saturday housewives of Novosibirsk. But the Fort Dobson familiarisation instructors had failed signally to prepare them for cucumber sandwiches in the Cotswolds with Sir Someone, in pursuit of the Once and Future King.

Which, to be fair to Fort Dobson, was hardly surprising.

They followed Handforth-Jones into the house. Nothing surprising there, anyway: well-heeled upper middle class English, still rubbing along in English-style comfort despite swingeing taxes, fast depreciating investments and the envious eyes of their new Trade Union masters. Rugs, maybe Persian, on the oak floorboards; pictures, maybe original, on the walls; delicate china on delicate furniture.

The only thing out of place here was Handforth-Jones himself, clumping along in his heavy boots with the dog at his heels, both equally oblivious of their surroundings.

But that only served to remind Mosby of what Audley had said of the man, half admiringly, half warningly, entirely without rancour: a sharp fellow, Handforth-Jones, a great raiser of funds for his archaeological projects; a sharp fellow who, wearying of raising money, had solved his problems permanently by marrying it (“David, that’s a gross, slander! It was true love”—“I didn’t say it wasn’t my dear”—“I mean Margaret, not her money”—“And I mean Margaret
and
her money. The two are not mutually exclusive”); above all, a sharp fellow who could add two and two and therefore must not be supplied with enough facts now to make that addition.

They passed through an arched door, down an antique-timbered passage towards another door, with the tinkls of teacups beyond…

And Sir Somebody beyond, too.

Like the man said, the Fort Dobson man,
the jungle, the desert, the sea, you fight
‘
em and they
’
ll beat you every time. So Lesson One is
—
you don
’
t fight
‘
em
.

But the Fort Dobson man had never come down in the Cotswolds.

Handforth-Jones held the second door open for them, and over Shirley’s shoulder Mosby caught sight of David Audley popping the last fragment of a sandwich into his mouth. There was something about the action—maybe it was the way Audley examined his fingers in search of stray crumbs— that suggested it was also the last sandwich. But then with the relative sizes of Audley and the genteel English sandwich that figured.

Faith Audley rose from the chair beside which her husband stood, relief at their arrival plain on her face.

“You made it!” she exclaimed.

“In the end we did,” Shirley admitted.

“Margaret—“ Faith turned to a dark-haired replica of herself who had also risen at their entrance “—Captain and Mrs Sheldon—Shirley and Mosby—“

Lesson One in Cotswold survival had to be Good Manners, but it took every last bit of his willpower to keep his eyes on his hostess and not on the mountainous figure standing behind her. It would have been easier if she’d been outstanding in some way, or at least different from his preconceived idea of what this setting ought to produce. But it was like she’d been designed to blend into the scenery.

Shake hands and murmur-murmur.

“I don’t believe you’ve met Sir Thomas Gracey,” she said at last.

Blessed relief: he could look at the mountain at last.

“No,” said Mosby. That was for sure, because once seen, never forgotten. “I don’t believe we have.”

“Thomas is the new Master-designate of the King’s College at Oxford,” said Faith helpfully.

Of course he was: Mosby held on to reality with the convulsive grip of a drowning man. The ringers here were only Audley and Shirley and himself, the three who looked like what they said they were, but weren’t. Or were something else very different first and last. Dr Anthony Handforth-Jones only
looked
like a migrant worker, and Sir Thomas Gracey only
looked
like he’d stepped out of the pages of Raymond Chandler.

“Hi,” said Shirley, smiling up at an angle of sixty degrees, offering her small hand to be engulfed by Sir Thomas’s hairy paw.

It only made things worse: Velma was meeting Moose Mulloy for the first time.

Moose Mulloy shook him by the hand in turn.

“Captain—“ the grip was firm and gentle “—or should it be ‘doctor’? When I was over in the States at UCLA I had the misfortune to fall into the hands of some of your colleagues, and I recall that American protocol says ‘doctor’.”

If there was a sting there, then the smile removed it. True, it was rather like being smiled at by a gorilla, and yet it was oddly attractive and as gentle as the handshake.

“Doctor or Captain or mister—but for choice Mosby will do… They took you for a bundle, eh?”

“They did very good work.” The large head moved in a curious circular motion which was neither positive nor negative, but which was somehow expressive of qualified gratitude.

“They would. They’re the best, if you like their sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing is that?” asked Margaret Handforth-Jones.

“West Coast dentistry? That’s where all the big techniques are—the real high-powered technical gold work, and crown-and-bridge, and precision attachments, it’s all done in the West. They think they’re the best, and they probably are—technically.”

“You don’t sound as though you approve,” said Sir Thomas. “Yeah, well…” Mosby tailed off. It was a hell of a way-out thing to be discussing at this stage of the proceedings? and not at all what he’d expected.

“Go on,” urged Margaret, “it sounds fascinating.” “It does?” Mosby wondered at such politeness, but maybe it was the custom here to show an interest in one’s guest’s profession, even when it was a gruesome one like dentistry. “Well, I think maybe I have a prejudice… but to my mind they ignore the underlying physiology and pathology. I mean, they take the teeth, which are solid substructures, and they build complex and beautiful bridge work, but they ignore the physiology of the living substances which are supporting these teeth. And I have a feeling—I’ve no real evidence, but it seems like common sense to me—that if you overload the teeth with this sort of very expensive treatment, then you could be playing tricks on your mouth and there’ll be a price to pay at the end of it.”

“You mean the shortened life of the teeth themselves?” said Sir Thomas.

“You’re absolutely right, that’s exactly it. And I think—“

“Honey!” Shirley cut through his enthusiasm warningly. “You’re going to make everyone’s teeth ache before you’ve finished, you know you are—“ She smiled apologetically at the company. “He has this
thing
about the West Coast—he’ll talk about it obsessively for hours on end if I let him.”

Which was true enough, reflected Mosby, aware suddenly that for one happy moment he’d forgotten who and where he was.

“Then you really are a dentist?” said Handforth-Jones.

Mosby looked at him in surprise. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?”

“No real reason at all. Very useful thing to be… much more useful than an archaeologist, as my wife will no doubt remind us all.” The archaeologist grinned amiably. “We just didn’t believe you were, that’s all.”

“Why on earth not?” said Shirley.

“Oh, your husband isn’t to blame,” Sir Thomas hastened to reassure her. “It’s more the company he keeps. We’ve learnt to have the gravest doubts about anything David puts his hand to.”

“David?” Shirley frowned. “I don’t get you.”

“Actually, it was King Arthur who made us suspicious, as much as David,” explained Handforth-Jones. “The idea of David wanting to help anyone research Arthurian history—we just couldn’t swallow that at all.”

“Why not?” asked Mosby.

“Not his cup of tea.” Handforth-Jones wagged a finger at Audley. “I remember what you said about the South Cadbury excavation, the one that Sunday paper called ‘The Camelot Dig’… It was in this very room—and you said to call it that almost qualified for prosecution under the Trade Descriptions Act.”

Audley shrugged. “A man can always change his mind.”

“Not you, David, not you,” said Margaret.

“I’m always open to conversion, Maggie. You’re not being fair.”

“Fair?” Margaret echoed the word derisively. “Why, you’re the most unconvertible man I know—the original Doubting

Thomas. ‘Show me the marks of the nails’ ought to be your family motto.”

Mosby sensed, rather than actually saw, Sir Thomas stiffen.

“Ye-ess… the marks of the nails,” Sir Thomas repeated the phrase slowly to himself. “If I taught you anything years ago it was to be sceptical, and that was a lesson you learnt almost too well… Which does raise an alternative possibility. And a much more interesting one, don’t you think, Tony?”

Handforth-Jones met the glance. “An alternative?” His eye in turn switched first to Audley, then to Mosby, then back to Audley again. It was like watching a chemical reaction. “Yes, I take your point. It could be a case of ‘What has it got in its pocketses?’ And that would be much more interesting. More logical, too.”

“Are we playing some sort of game?” asked Shirley.

“They’re always playing games of one sort or another,” said Margaret. “What sort of game are you playing now, darling?”

“A logic game. David was down in Devon finishing off the great work on William Marshall. Not to be disturbed by his friends—right?”

“Right,” agreed Sir Thomas. “And David, as we all know, is likely to be exceedingly scornful of the Arthurian interpretation of early sixth century history—right?”

“And Dr Sheldon is exactly what he says he is.”

“So the peace and quiet of Devon is abandoned—“

“And William Marshall is abandoned—“

“And little Cathy is off-loaded on her grandma?” Margaret joined the game tentatively. “Would that be significant?”

“It would,” agreed Sir Thomas. “It signifies business, not pleasure. Not—“ he looked at Audley narrowly “—official business, because Faith is along for the ride, but business all the same.”

“Arthurian business,” said Handforth-Jones. “Because—“

“Because Dr Sheldon is what he says he is.”

“And a man can always change his mind.”

They were both grinning now, increasingly sure of themselves.

“A man who insists on seeing the marks of the nails. Only now he wants to know the latest score on Arthur: who’s writing, who’s digging.” Sir Thomas paused.

“Pure as driven snow,” murmured Handforth-Jones.

“Pure indeed… What have you got, David?”

Handforth-Jones nodded towards Mosby. “Or what has Dr Sheldon got. Something to change David’s mind, perhaps?”

“And that would have to be… quite something, I rather think,” agreed Sir Thomas. “What have you got, the pair of you? The Holy Grail?”

So the infallible Audley could miscalculate too, thought Mosby, taking a quick nervous look at the man. Or, if he hadn’t miscalculated the extent of their powers of addition, he’d underrated their ability to sum him up. The only reassuring sign was that at least he didn’t look much disconcerted at the way they played their little games.

“Christ, but we’re sharp this afternoon!” Audley acknowledged the look with a nod. “It’s exactly as Mr Toad said—The Clever men at Oxford know all that is to be Knowed’.”

“Not all, not quite,” admitted Sir Thomas modestly. “But we do know you, David, we do know you. So what have you dug up now?”

‘”Dug up’?”

“Figuratively speaking. I know you don’t soil your hands with work in the field.”

Mosby breathed an inward sigh of relief.

“Except that it would have to be dug up,” said Handforth-Jones. “Nobody’s going to turn up an Arthurian text now.”

“Are people digging any Arthurian sites?” asked Audley.

“Not that I know of. There’s some early Anglo-Saxon work going on, of course. There usually is.”

“On an Arthurian site?”

“All depends what you mean by Arthurian.”

“What do you mean?”

“God knows.” The archaeologist shrugged. “Not my field, as you know jolly well… But say, late fifth century, early sixth for argument’s sake.”

Mosby felt it was time he joined the fray. “Where would you look for an Arthurian site?”

Handforth-Jones regarded him silently for a moment, as though adjusting himself to a damn-fool question within the limitations of good manners. “
If
I did…” There were volumes in that
if
“… I suppose it’ud be anywhere west of Oxford, south of Gloucester, east of Bath and north of Winchester and Salisbury.” “Why there?”

Handforth-Jones worked some more at the adjustment. “Why there? Well, I suppose that would be the sort of area someone like Arthur would have to defend. The Anglo-Saxons started off in Kent and East Anglia—and they were already in the Middle Thames, of course. That’s where the early burial evidence is. And then they were coming up from the south, from Sussex and Hampshire, in the early sixth century, and north-east from Cambridgeshire.”

“But someone stopped them.”

Handforth-Jones pursed his lips. “Yes… well that’s the theory, and there is some evidence, I agree. But when they did finally break through in the second half of the sixth century, this is where they did it—battle of Dyrham, near Bath, in 577. The Britons were finished then: the West Country and Wales were split in two… So I see your Arthur as fighting somewhere in these parts, yes.”

Audley gave a grunt. “But the Arthurian place-name evidence doesn’t exactly fit that, does it.”

“It doesn’t fit anything. If place-names are anything to go by he must have been a superman. Place-names aren’t worth a damn, if you ask me—“

“They have their uses, Tony,” said Sir Thomas.

“Not for Arthur, they don’t.”

“Why not for Arthur?” asked Mosby.