Nunn went out of the room, closing the door meticulously behind him. Goldwasser sat down. His knees were shaking. A gun! He could not possibly . . . He would have to explain to Nunn . . . Surely there was just time to fetch someone else . . . ? Oh, God, he felt sick. He wouldn’t be much use if he felt sick. He’d be happy to do it if it wasn’t for feeling so horribly sick.

His panic passed, and was replaced by resignation and despair. He was a coward. It no longer mattered whether he was cleverer than Macintosh or not, or whether he was Cerebrum dialectici or Cerebrum senatoris, or whether he read books from back to front or inside out. When the moment came to translate that undoubtedly vast intellectual dynamism into physical action, and the penalty for failure was to be hurt, the whole cerebral machine at once seized up. What a painful contrast with Nunn! Undoubtedly Cerebrum ridiculum, but when it came to taking snap decisions, to carrying them out on the instant and facing the consequences, Nunn could, and he could not. He felt a warm rush of admiration for Nunn.

Suddenly he looked at his watch. It was three minutes to three. Where was Nunn? What were they going to do? They would have to be in the handshaking line in three minutes’ time or there would be the most total confusion. He leapt up. Nunn had told him to sit. He sat. Twenty seconds went by. It was insane to sit here doing nothing. He forced himself to remain for another twenty seconds. He looked at his watch again. It was almost two minutes to three! He leapt up, hesitated for a moment, and then strode to the door.

It was locked.

33

33

As Nunn made his way swiftly but without hurrying back to the foyer he felt very happy. He had not lost his touch. He was fifty-four years old and for the last nine he had lived among the mind-softening niceties of civilian life. But thanks to regular exercise – to playing games, to changing into and out of games clothes, to strapping on boxes and fumbling with the buckles of pads, to pipeclaying and dubbining and linseed-oiling, to showering and towelling, to cranking tennis nets up and cranking them down, to hammering in stumps, to hunting out tennis balls from the shrubbery and golf balls from the gorse, to remembering how many runs Gloucestershire scored in the second innings against Lancashire at Old Trafford in 1926, and, above all, to talking about playing, changing, linseed-oiling, showering, remembering, and watching – he was in as good shape as ever. He had scored again. To all the terrorists, trouble-makers, and bad security risks he had sent for the high jump in our overseas territories – to M’Lowowo, Papaloizou, Habdullah, Ram Singh, and Mendelssohn—was now added Goldwasser, knocked off in this scepter’d isle itself.