LITMIR.BIZ

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work, apparently. You call them, and if they like you they send for you to be evaluated.”

      “To Monteine Castle? Just like that?”

      “Oh no. Interviews in London first, then a meeting with the British directors. After that they said I’d need to be vetted by their tame headshrinkers.”

      “So you rang them?” I prompted.

      “They said I probably fitted the bill at the interview.”

      “And they told you to come here? It’s more like a hotel than a set of offices.”

      “That’s where they’re so subtle, Anne,” yawned Richard. “They watch you. You’ll see, love. When we go down to dinner, you’ll meet the rest of the team—the headshrinkers. Don’t you know how they operate?”

      I’d heard something of selection procedures, but I’d never had occasion to be involved at this level before.

      “Tell me,” I said.

      “Falco Jensen, Eric Fitch, and Monica,” he said. “They’ve so much brain between them they’re top-heavy. And they watch, Anne, by God, they watch!”

      I looked around as he said it, and for a moment I had a return of that unpleasant, bewildering sensation I had experienced when I first caught sight of Monteine Castle.

      I had to examine the room to see if anyone was watching. It sounds crazy, but I was sure that there was another presence in the room.

      “Now what?” asked Richard, as I padded about the clinging carpet.

      “You know how I am about strange rooms.”

      I opened the wardrobe and looked under the bed. I pushed aside a sliding door in a cabinet, and saw a smooth blank screen.

      “Every comfort,” said Richard. He showed me the recess behind the bed-head board. “Any strange men?”

      “All right, I’m a fool,” I apologized. I didn’t want to spoil his pleasure, for he was pleased about the job.

      “It can be a bit creepy in the dark,” he said. “And along the cliffs at night you sometimes get the feeling that you’re at the end of the world. It’s as lonely out here as anything I’ve known at sea. There’s something about the cliffs at night that’s positively eerie.”

      I shivered and went to the window again. I didn’t want to know about the cliffs at night. In the gathering gloom of evening, the sea had a slow and surging emptiness that was disturbing. I turned back to Richard.

      “Who’s Monica Sievel?”

      “Monica’s an expert on psychotic traumas, so Falco tells me. I can’t tell you much about him, but I’ve heard of this character Fitch before, and I know for a fact that he’s an expert in his field. But you’ll see them soon—and be seen, Anne,” he warned. “Oh, there’s no secret about it, old girl,” he said, laughing. He had noticed that I didn’t like the idea at all.

      “Look, stop being so serious about it all! They have to compare notes about my reactions to everyday events—they showed me the charts they make up. Everything goes down: the way I walk, the things I say when they ask me questions, the way I begin a conversation, what I eat, how I dress, everything. I bet they’re talking over your arrival right now, Anne. It’s the way they work,” he insisted as I began to say how much I disliked the idea of being on trial. “Look, it’s a joke, Anne. It really is funny!”

      “All right, it’s funny—so long as you get the job.”

      “It’s in the bag!”

      “Well, that’s all right.”

      It wasn’t, of course.

      “A couple of gins will put you right, love. Let the shrinks look into our souls—they’ve nothing better to do, so we might as well let them have their fun.”

      “You go down,” I said. “I know the way.”

      It sounded absurd, but I didn’t want to appear before the staff at Monteine Castle arm in arm with Richard, as if we were a married couple.

      Richard waited a moment.

      “I’m getting a shower—I’ll be half an hour. Don’t drink too much.”

      After Richard left I took time over my toilet. Then I made my way downstairs.

      I had no trouble in finding my way through the corridors and passages until I came to the working-lounge which served as a sitting room and library, and then I must have taken a wrong turning, for instead of passing through the arched passageway which led to the imposing iron-work stairway, somehow I found myself in a dark, narrow, brick-lined tunnel, which wound downwards very steeply.

      I had to be very careful, since I was wearing a pair of high diamanté-starred sandals without backs. I knew I’d gone wrong after I’d descended about the height of two storeys, which put me somewhere near ground level. However, there was no sign that the passageway gave on to the ground floor, so I thought I’d better turn back.

      There were small, narrow windows. I could see recessed lights, but I hadn’t found a switch and the windows were too high for me to see out of them. But the slits let in a little light, quite enough to see by, and if it hadn’t been for the wretched sandals I would have been fine. As it was, I missed a rather worn step on a sharp turn and twisted sideways, banging my arm sharply on the brickwork. I clutched at the wall, and twisted on the high heels.

      The air whooshed out of my lungs, I teetered crazily for a moment or two and then somehow recovered my balance, but my right ankle had been badly wrenched. I had to sit down after that to get my breath back and to clear the tears from my eyes.

      I wanted to yell out for help, and I suppose if I’d been in any other situation I would have done just that, but it seemed so ludicrous that a grown woman should first have missed her way and then her footing. I felt I should make a complete fool of myself in front of prying strangers who would be only too happy to score a few points in their notebooks.

      My head cleared after a minute or two, and the pain became tolerable. When I tried to put the foot to the floor I knew the damage wasn’t serious. So I got to my feet and I turned back.

      I had gone up two steps before it occurred to me that I was a diamanté sandal short. I went down again and, now that my sight was accustomed to the semi-darkness, I saw what I had missed before, a doorway.

      It was around the next bend, and my sandal gleamed as a few rays of light came through the warped panels of a wooden door. I stepped down with great care onto the wrenched foot and at once heard the sound of voices.

      “She could be a thorough nuisance, I’m sorry,” someone was saying over a murmur of protest. I knew the voice. It was the woman who had invited me to stay at Monteine Castle, Monica Sievel. One of the other voices had me puzzled, for I had heard it before, and recently at that; instinctively I stopped. “I know about the degree of control the woman exerts,” the man’s voice went on. “She’s an aggressive and assertive personality, but that isn’t necessarily an adverse factor. Now that the New York operation is complete, we move on to the critical stage. Ulrome may well need her support. Why not involve her at the beginning. It can’t be kept from her—and we can’t arrange another major settlement. I think we have to keep this in perspective. She could even prove a catalyst in this situation. Fitch, what’s your reading of her state of mind?”

      I was listening to a conversation about myself and Richard. I felt cold at the thought. I had no qualms at all about eavesdropping. If others talk about me, then I have the right to listen in. The thought that was uppermost in my mind was the damage I might do to Richard’s new career if they found me listening. Had they heard me? Or had they heard the tumble down the stairs?

      “Aggressive. Assertive. Yet herself an unrealized psyche,” said another man. I almost decided to retreat silently, but I stayed to hear more. An effeminate man’s voice was answering, talking about me. I strained

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