Page 187

I tried to talk to him, to get his permission to accompany him on the secret mission that loomed on the horizon, or at least get some information out of him about what the centre of the world might mean, might be - what centre of the world was worth risking his life for.
To no avail. He remained silent.
Now there’s a surprise!
Well, it didn’t mean I was giving up.
‘Mr Ambrose?’ I knocked against his door. ‘I have file 38XI201 here, Sir. Don’t you want me to bring it in instead of sliding it under the door? It must be tedious for you to always have to stand up and get it from the door. Won’t you open up?’
I heard another plink from the desk. Without letting go of the file, I reached over and open the message container.
No. The file. Now.
You couldn’t get much clearer than that, could you?
Sighing, I bent to push it under the door. I was just about to rise again when suddenly, an idea struck me.
For a moment, I froze where I was. Then, a grin spreading across my face, I rose and knocked against the door.
‘Mr Ambrose, Sir? I need to talk to you. It’s important. You should open the door.’
Silence.
‘Really! I’m not just making this up. Something important happened, and you should know. Open up, please.’
More silence. A bucket full of silence.
I gave an especially dramatic sigh. ‘Oh well, if you don’t want to hear what Lord Dalgliesh said…’
There was a crash from the other side of the door. It sounded as if somebody had jumped up from his chair so violently that it had been hurled over and smashed onto the floor.
About half a second later, keys rattled in the lock, and the office door was ripped open. Mr Ambrose stood in the doorway, looking like a Beethoven bust on a bad day. Except for the weird hairstyle.
‘Ah, Mr Ambrose,’ I said, smiling at him with innocent delight. ‘How nice of you to honour me with your presence. I thought you were too busy for poor little me this fine morning.’
My comment didn’t improve his mood. With a sharp jerk of his hand, he directed me to enter his office.
‘Inside. Now.’
‘And so loquacious! My, I would hardly have known you if not for your customary cheerful smile.’
He didn’t dignify that with a reply. As I entered his stark office, he shut the door behind me with a click. It wasn’t loud, but somehow managed to sound like the gates of doom slamming shut behind a poor soul trapped in hell.
I sat on the visitor’s chair, figuring that if I waited for the invitation to sit in Mr Ambrose’s talkative mood, I could stand until kingdom come. Actually, I could probably stand until kingdom came, drank a cup of tea and left again.
I was right. Without a word, he walked around the desk, took a seat in his armchair and fixed me with his dark, sea-coloured eyes. Looking into those eyes, I felt a shiver go down my back. Not the same kind of shiver I experienced when looking into Dalgliesh’s eyes - one of fear - or another man’s eyes - one of revulsion.
No, this was a shiver of excitement.
Well, life as his secretary had been pretty exciting. So why shouldn’t I be excited? It had nothing to do with him, personally, after all, so it was perfectly all right.
His eyes were so dark… they seemed to draw me in, somehow making it seem as though he and I were moving closer together, though our chairs hadn’t moved an inch.
‘Dalgliesh!’ he ordered, his voice cold and hard. ‘Tell me everything,’
And I did. Well, not everything. I told him how I had gone to Lady Metcalf’s ball, and how Dalgliesh had surprised and questioned me there.
I didn’t tell him about picking out a young blonde lady to distract my sister’s suitor from the object of his adoration. I also didn’t tell him about my meeting and dancing with Captain Carter, for some reason. It just didn’t seem important enough to mention.
Anyway, it was Dalgliesh he was interested in, surely, not some army captain with a strange tiger-waistcoat and an even stranger sense of humour.
So I told all I remembered of my encounter with the suave aristocrat. By the time I had finished, Mr Ambrose wasn’t looking at me anymore, but concentrating on a stack of papers in front of him. Strangely, however, although he normally was a fast reader, he had already stared down at one page long enough to read the complete works of William Shakespeare.
When the last words had left my mouth, he said, without emotion in his voice:
‘You are fortunate that this young man, Edmund, appeared. Had Lord Dalgliesh succeeded in luring you into the garden, you would have gone on very long walk with him. One from which you would not have returned before you had answered all his questions, if at all.’
His words gripped my heart like a fist of frost. So I had been right in wanting to run. But…
‘But he seemed so friendly,’ I burst out. ‘Not threatening at all.’
A muscle in Mr Ambrose’s jaw twitched.
‘Of course he did. He never threatens. He never strikes. He never says a word against the laws of England. And yet, wherever he goes, things happen. A wink from him means ruin, a twitch of his fingers means death. When he nods, wise men turn and run.’
‘He nodded when he met you.’
‘I’ve never claimed to be wise.’
There was a spell of silence, that complete silence that I only ever felt in the presence of Mr Ambrose. Shivering, I remembered Lord Dalgliesh’s friendly, harmless expression, back in the ballroom. Could anyone really be that good an actor?
‘I still can’t really believe-’ I began.
I didn’t get any further. In a flash, Mr Ambrose was up and around his desk. Before I could move he had grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me out of my chair. Forcefully, I was thrust against the wall of the office, cold stone pressing against my back.
‘Believe!’ he hissed. ‘Believe anything and everything where Dalgliesh is concerned. He’s the man who invented the word ruthless. If you get in his way, he will step on you and crush you like an insect.’ His dark, sea-coloured eyes were burning into me with deadly intensity. Slowly, the grip of his right hand loosened and left my shoulder. He raised it, almost unconsciously it seemed, until it touched my cheek. ‘Stay away from him!’
His hand fell.
Yes! a voice inside me screamed. Yes, I will! I’ll do anything! Just touch my cheek again! And maybe lean a little closer…!