Fellow Passenger Read Online Free Page A

laugh like the bark of a small terrier enjoying itself - ‘that’s very good. And my poor room at the foot of the staircase. The chief eunuch. Ah, well!’
     
    Someone dashing down the passage shouted rudely that it was that little bitch of a metallurgist again.
     
    ‘Bitch?’ protested my rescuer thoughtfully. ‘Bitch? Well, I suppose we must admit it. But when you are my age, Mr ... er ... you will find that bitches are so much more polite to you than the others.’
     
    ‘And we must all remember,’ I added sternly, ’that she is an excellent metallurgist.’
     
    ‘You would really say so? Is that your branch, Mr ... er ... ? I am afraid that without my glasses I find it increasingly difficult to recognize faces.’
     
    I told him that, yes, indirectly it was my branch. He seemed satisfied. His rooms were highly civilized - a comfortable study lined with books, and a bedroom and bathroom leading off it. I had a feeling that he was a good deal senior to anyone else in the place: a sort of unofficial dean, perhaps, or an occasional and eminent visitor from one of the universities.
     
    Outside this pleasant oasis of scholarly peace, the hostel was humming. I have noticed that those who are bored with living by their brains usually seize upon any opportunity to prove themselves men of action. The scientists were baying and rampaging all over the manor. I did not hear the voices of any females. Possibly they had their own opinion about that burglar. My delightful little metallurgist was unlikely to be popular with colleagues of her own sex.
     
    ‘It all began,’ I explained to him, ‘with those two young idiots ghost-hunting in the attics.’
     
    ‘Ah,’ he chuckled, ‘the second law of thermodynamics! And did they alarm the harem?’
     
    ‘They did indeed.’
     
    ‘And so - forgive me if I jump to conclusions - you were compelled to decamp so hurriedly that you left behind a bedroom slipper with the Scheherazade of the moment?’
     
    This mixture of acuteness and wanton imagination was alarming.
     
    ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘I trust to your discretion.’
     
    ‘Sir,’ he replied with an echo in his voice of Dr Johnson and senior common rooms, ‘you might well do so if I knew your name.’
     
    I hesitated a shade too long over my reply. He had a window opening on the lawn, and all I wanted was to open it and run.
     
    ‘May I give you your glasses?’ I asked. ‘And then, I think, you will recognize me.’
     
    A bit mysterious, perhaps. After all, I was not very likely to be the Minister of Supply himself or the Director of Military Intelligence. Still, it kept the ball rolling, and gave me a chance to stroll in the direction of the window.
     
    ‘Certainly,’ he replied. ‘Thank you. They are on the ledge in the bathroom.’
     
    His voice sounded so courteous and natural that I actually went to the bathroom instead of the window. And then he slammed the door on me and locked it.
     
    He started calling for Peter. Peter again! This random personality dogged me. I might have guessed what he was. Who else would be checking up rats in the attics? Who else would have a perfect right to wander about the nunnery passages after dark? The security officer, of course!
     
    Peter let me out of the bathroom with a damn great pistol held unobtrusively - so far as it could be unobtrusive - in his fist. A fine figure of a man, certainly. But her impulsive guess that I was Peter could never have lasted more than a few seconds. Even in the dark he would have smelt of snooping. I am quite sure she could never have said a word which would allow him to think that on his nightly round he might open a door which had been left unlocked for a friendly and comparatively innocent chat with Horace.
     
    My dressing-gown and pyjamas seemed to bother Peter. He insisted on knowing where my clothes were. I was tempted by the vision of him searching very tactfully for my trousers through every blessed bedroom in the