“Aren’t you satisfied yet? Isn’t it enough to have made me feel like Prometheus? Yes, there was snow, as on the mountain peak, and a descending eagle—”

“I didn’t feel like the king of the birds, I can tell you. How I love terra firma! I say—” Beddoes hesitated. “Would you mind if I had a cigarette?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Brett astonished. “What’s seized you?” He watched Beddoes take out the cigarette and a match, and wondered at the length of time he took to get a light. The flame danced like a midge round the cigarette end; because, as he at length realised, Beddoes’ hands were shaking.

“You know what you’ll be given for all this?” he said thoughtfully.

“A putty medal. Sooner have a cheque.”

“Promotion,” said Brett.

“Boil me! Ps and Qs all the time.”

“Yes, and I shall be sir, sir, sirred, by your successor. How exceedingly strange!”

Beddoes puffed out a ribbon of smoke. “The pilot, Keston Hayes. Is he American?”

“No, he affects the accent. And his real name is Maurice Wright. He’s British, so we can gobble him up. But you haven’t mentioned the point about him. Have you forgotten, or did you never hear it?”

“What?”

“That he used to be Guzmann’s personal assistant.”

“He did? Very interesting. No hope of tripping up Guzmann himself—”

“But no harm in trying. The Hampstead people—how odd, to know largely who they are.”

“They’re odd, if you ask me. Not quite the thing, as the old bird would say.”

“Who? Oh, Majendie. Do you know what he called your flash? A Verey light.”

“Distinctly passé.”

“At least it’s honourably passé. Anyone who’s tasted trench warfare has a right to have spent the rest of his life in a jewel box. Besides, he came through that episode in the car with colours flying, and look how he’s borne up since. So less of the old bird, Beddoes.”

“But that reminds me—you’ve heard that this wasn’t the usual exit for the stuff—sorry, the stolen property?”

“No?”

“The man in the van told me. By the way, I suppose you have sent home to get them to see to Kellett’s? All right, I only asked. Well, the heli was a last resort, to clear it as quick as poss in view of dangerous complications. I suppose they meant Mrs. Karukhin. As a rule they go by discreeter channels.”

“They’d have done better to stick to them,” said Brett. “I’m sure it wasn’t for want of advice from Wacey.”

“He skipped off, I gather. Sauve qui peut. Not the philosophy of Ivan the Terrible—no, can’t very well call him that since he’s donned his halo. Strange! Blood of the Boyars, I suppose, and so on. Well, no again, because I think they were a shower, mostly. How did he manage to get to your car without being stopped either by them or by us?”