Colonel Butler's Wolf Read Free Page A

said Dingle reflectively. But he could be that old, thought Butler. “Johnny Tyldesley flogged him all over the ground.”
    Johnny Tyldesley! It was like hearing someone casually remember the Duke of Wellington—or King Arthur!
    “Lancashire scored over 500 in five hours. Frank missed him twice—and then scored a duck.” Dingle’s face suddenly cracked in an unmistakable smile. “That was the first innings though. In the second Frank flogged Walter Brearley just the way J.T. had flogged him—64 in 60 minutes. That was the start of it.”
    Dingle nodded at him happily, and Butler realised that he had allowed his own mouth to drop wide open.
    “And just what was it that you desire to know about Smith?” said Dingle. “A dark-haired boy, rather stocky. I wouldn’t have said he was quite as clever as you have suggested—if I have the right Smith. In the top ten per cent, perhaps—beta double plus rather than alpha. What has he done to offend the Ministry of Defense ?”
    “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, sir.”
    “Hmm … I rather expected that. But if he’s become one of these student revolutionaries I must tell you that I don’t approve Government action against them. It’s the Government and the Press and television that has made them what they are, or what they think they are. Publicity is like power, Major Butler—it’s a rare man who isn’t corrupted by it. Better to leave them alone.”
    “What makes you think he’s a student revolutionary? Have you met him recently?”
    “Not since he left Eden Hall. That would be ten years ago this July. But we like to keep in touch with our old boys, particularly the ones who do us credit later on. Their names are inscribed on the honours boards. Your Neil Smith—that would be Smith N. H. ?”
    “Neil Haig Smith.”
    “That would be he. In his time at Eden Hall he was known to his fellows as ‘Boozy’ because of that ‘Haig’, though I’m sure he had never drunk any whiskey in his life then. But he subsequently won an exhibition to the King’s College, Oxford—in English. I recall being somewhat surprised by the news. It was not his strongest subject when I taught him. He should have graduated by now though. Did he fulfill his promise?”
    Butler was conscious that the crafty old devil was attempting to approach his earlier question from a different direction. But now he had thawed out it might be unwise to call a halt too abruptly. In any case there was nothing of value to let slip—nothing known to Butler, anyway.
    “He was awarded a First.”
    “Indeed!” Dingle’s creased forehead crinkled even more “I would have judged him a safe Second, and there’s nothing further from a First than that. One must assume that he was a late developer!”
    He nodded to himself doubtfully, then glanced up at Butler. “And you say he was involved in student protest of some sort?”
    “I really don’t know, sir,” said Butler—the words came out more sharply than he had intended. Perhaps if Roskill had been well enough to take this job they would have told him somewhat more, but as it was it was the exact and humiliating truth.
    “But you do know enough to know what it is you want to know?”
    “We wish to know everything you can remember about Neil Smith, sir. What he did, what he said. What foot he kicked with. Which hand he bowled with. What he liked to eat and what he didn’t like. If he had any illnesses, any scars. Everything, sir. No matter how trivial.”
    Dingle considered him dispassionately, “Scars,” he murmured. “Scars—and the past tense. Every time you refer to him you use the past tense. So he is dead … or rather someone is dead—that is more logical—someone is dead, and you have reason to believe that it is Smith, our Smith of Eden Hall. Is that it?”
    Butler took refuge behind his most wooden face. It was at such moments as this that he missed his uniform. In a uniform a man could be stolid, even stupid, with a