LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER IV

       Rude Awakening

      The man on the camp bed groaned, stirred, opened his eyes and found himself looking at a pair of trim, silk-stocking-clad ankles. He blinked and tried to raise his head. Pain leaped like a striking beast, clawing at the back of his head and neck. A little moan escaped him and he lowered his head and closed his eyes once more. The pain seemed to take an age to subside.

      When it did he opened his eyes again. The ankles were still there. The man realized at last that he was lying on his right side. He could feel a bandage round his head. He tried, more cautiously this time, to raise himself on his elbow, but at once the pain returned and forced another groan from him. As from a long way off, he heard a woman’s voice.

      ‘Ah,’ it said softly, ‘I think the inquisitive Major Benton is coming to himself again.’

      The man on the bed heard someone move towards him, and a hand rested softly for a moment on the bandage on his forehead. So, he thought, the ankles, the voice and the hand are real. He opened his eyes, moved his head slightly and this time found himself looking up into a face framed in dark hair. The face seemed vaguely familiar, but for the moment he could not place it. The voice, pleasantly melodious he noticed, spoke again.

      ‘Feeling better?’ it asked.

      ‘I could hardly be feeling much worse and still be alive,’ Roy heard himself saying, though the voice didn’t in the least sound like his. ‘Where the deuce am I? What happened? Was I run over by a tank or something?’

      ‘Not quite so bad as that,’ said the woman, who sounded a little amused, ‘though I must say Joe doesn’t go in for half-measures. He was a Commando, I believe. Anyhow, I thought you were supposed to be pretty tough.’

      ‘Oh, I am, am I? And who, may I ask, is Joe?’ inquired Roy, thinking he would like to get his hands on him – though not just yet. ‘And how do you know who I am?’

      ‘Joe,’ said the girl, ignoring the last part of the question, ‘is just one of the boys we keep here to make sure that too curious people don’t get poking their noses into something that doesn’t concern them.’

      That’s one for me all right, thought Roy. Well, he supposed it served him right for not staying at home and minding his own business. But, damn it, she might be a bit more sympathetic about it, instead of so cocky and self-assured, almost as if she were delighting in his discomfiture. Perhaps she was at that. He looked her over coolly. Pretty good-looking, he decided. Not exactly a film-star profile, but still, not bad …

      She looked as coolly at him and then spoke again. ‘I gather you didn’t see him.’

      ‘See whom?’ asked Roy absently. He had just decided he rather liked the tilt of her head, even if it did give her rather a haughty air; she could carry it.

      ‘Joe, of course.’

      ‘I did not. If I had, do you suppose I should be here like this? But I would very much like to see him sometime – when I’m feeling a little less like a mashed potato. Joe wasn’t the only one who had Commando training, you know. If I’d had a little warning, there’s just a chance I could have dealt with him.’

      The girl laughed.

      ‘It may be very funny to you,’ said Roy, as sarcastically as he could, ‘but at the moment I don’t feel exactly like rolling in the aisle.’

      ‘Well, it was your own fault,’ the girl retorted. ‘You shouldn’t have been so curious. I suppose it’s the newspaperman in you.’

      ‘I can’t say I care a lot for the contemptuous way in which you said the word “newspaperman”, even though I have retired from the profession, but we’ll let that pass for the moment. What I’m really curious about at the moment is how the devil you know so much about me.’

      ‘We make it our business to know all about the people who come near here. We knew all about you long before you moved into the chalet.’

      ‘Oh, you did, did you?’ said Roy rather lamely. ‘And you talk about me being curious. You’ve got a nerve, I must say. What business was it of yours or anyone else’s, might I ask?’

      ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little longer for the answer to that question.’

      ‘All right,’ said Roy with patient resignation, ‘I’ll play mysteries for a while, anyhow, but how about telling me where I am and how I got here and who you are? I think we ought at least to be introduced, don’t you? Seeing how intimately you know me, that is.’

      ‘You don’t remember what happened?’

      ‘All I remember is that I set out with my dog for a perfectly innocent walk and that, just as I was getting near the entrance to the old mine – the existence of which I’d almost completely forgotten, by the way – someone or something, I don’t know who or what, came up behind me and hit me good and hard for six.’

      He started up suddenly, forgetting his head. He winced and gingerly felt the bandage.

      ‘What is it now?’ asked the girl.

      ‘My dog,’ said Roy. ‘I’ve only just remembered. What happened to him? Where is he? If your damned Joe laid a finger on him, I’ll—’

      ‘Now don’t get impatient. The dog’s perfectly all right. He’s in the kitchen at the moment making crooning noises at the steward. As for Joe laying a finger on him, it was the other way round. Joe wasn’t at all pleased when he bit him in the juicy part of the calf.’

      ‘Good for Angus,’ nodded Roy with great satisfaction.

      ‘Angus.’ The girl repeated the name. ‘Rather sweet.’

      ‘A pity his master isn’t equally popular around here, then he might get a little well-deserved sympathy.’

      The girl ignored the remark. Roy gave her another long look. Despite her manner, which still annoyed him, he had to admit she was damned attractive. She was tall and slim and the business-like white coat she was wearing did not altogether conceal the by no means inconsiderable curves of her body beneath it. She returned his gaze coolly and then looked away again.

      ‘Well,’ said Roy after a pause, ‘at least I was right in one thing. They were a woman’s footprints. Yours, I presume?’

      ‘You presume correctly, but you should never have been given the chance even of seeing them. It was gross carelessness. The culprit has been suitably

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