She dug her fingers into the earth and let the soil trickle out of her hand.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “But you’re also right when you say I don’t like it.”
“Our likes and dislikes as decisive factors have now pretty well disappeared,” I suggested.
“Maybe, but I can’t help feeling that there must be something wrong about anything that starts with shooting.”
“He shot to miss—and it’s very likely he saved fighting,” I pointed out.
The crowd had all gone now. I climbed over the wall and helped Josella down on the other side. A man at the gate opened it to let us in.
“How many of you?” he asked.
“Just the two of us. We saw your signal last night,” I told him.
“Okay. Come along, and we’ll find the Colonel,” he said, leading us across the forecourt.
The man whom he called the Colonel had set himself up in a small room not far from the entrance and intended, seemingly, for the porters. He was a chubby man just turned fifty or thereabouts. His hair was plentiful but well-trimmed, and gray. His mustache matched it and looked as if no single hair would dare to break the ranks. His complexion was so pink, healthy, and fresh that it might have belonged to a much younger man; his mind, I discovered later, had never ceased to do so. He was sitting behind a table with quantities of paper arranged on it in mathematically exact blocks and an unsoiled sheet of pink blotting paper placed squarely before him.
As we came in he turned upon us, one after the other, an intense, steady look, and held it a little longer than was necessary. I recognized the technique. It is intended to convey that the user is a percipient judge accustomed to taking summarily the measure of his man; the receiver should feel that he now faces a reliable type with no nonsense about him—or, alternatively, that he has been seen through and had all his weaknesses noted. The right form of response is to return it in kind and be considered a “useful fella.” I did. The Colonel picked up his pen.
“Your names, please?”
We gave them.
“And addresses?”
“In the present circumstances I fear they won’t be very useful,” I said. “But if you really feel you must have them—” We gave them too.
He murmured something about system, organization, and relatives, and wrote them down. Age, occupation, and all the rest of it followed. He bent his searching look upon us again, scribbled a note upon each piece of paper, and put them in a file.
“Need good men. Nasty business, this. Plenty to do here, though. Plenty. Mr. Beadley’ll tell you what’s wanted.”
We came out into the hall again. Josella giggled.
“He forgot to ask for references in triplicate—but I gather we’ve got the job,” she said.
Michael Beadley, when we discovered him, turned out to be in decided contrast. He was lean, tall, broad-shouldered, and slightly stooping, with something the air of an athlete run to books. In repose his face took on an expression of mild gloom from the darkness of his large eyes, but it was seldom that one had a glimpse of it in repose. The occasional streaks of gray in his hair helped very little in judging his age. He might have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty. His obvious weariness just then made an estimate still more difficult. By his looks, he must have been up all night; nevertheless, he greeted us cheerfully and waved an introductory hand toward a young woman, who took down our names again as we gave them.
“Sandra Telmont,” he explained. “Sandra is our professional remembrancer—continuity is her usual work, so we regard it as particularly thoughtful of Providence to contrive her presence here just now.”
The young woman nodded to me and looked harder at Josella.