The Man from the Sea by Michael Innes Page A

in some low stage-play of adultery.
    She turned away. And then suddenly she had turned back again and put out a hand. It touched his arm, his chest, and then without haste withdrew. She was laughing – innocently and genuinely amused. “Dick – have you no clothes on either?”
    “Precious few.”
    “I’ll bring something – a pullover.”
    “Alex’s?”
    “No!” He was startled, bewildered by the sudden passion in her voice. But she laughed again. “Something of my own. It won’t be too bad a fit.”
    She was gone. For a moment he saw her as a mere white blur in the last faint moonlight filtering into the garden. But he saw her too in a sharp interior image, dressed for the moors – wholesomely broad at shoulders as well as hips. It was true that she could bring something that would fit well enough.
    From behind him in the summerhouse the man from the sea spoke composedly. “So far, so good. For me – and, I hope, for you.”
     
    “I’d have thought your chances were pretty thin.” Cranston spoke more from irritation than from any sense of a secure grasp of the affair. “You must be some sort of outlaw, I suppose, or you would already be taking steps to contact the police. And a helpless outlaw, too, as long as your eyes are out of action. What you have found, for the moment, is a very insecure refuge, indeed.”
    “One must look on the bright side.” The man from the sea was quite invisible, but he appeared to have found somewhere to sit down in the darkness. “Not that realistic appraisal is not always valuable. Were you ever under fire before?”
    “No – except for field-days. And with blanks.”
    The man from the sea laughed. “Then you did uncommonly well. But so, for that matter, did I.”
    “Have you never been under fire?”
    “Decidedly not. You mustn’t form, you know, too romantic a picture of me.”
    “I don’t find you in the least romantic.” Cranston spoke with conviction. “My guess is that you’re some sort of paid spy.”
    “It sounds ugly. And yet I suppose all spies get pay. Is it your idea that the chap with the gun was from – what is it called? – MI5?”
    “I don’t know. And I don’t know why he went off in that commonplace fashion.”
    “Because he wasn’t – for him – doing anything very out of the way. He could take no further effective action against us. So he simply passed on to the next thing.”
    “Which would be reporting failure? Would he go back to that ship?”
    For a moment the man from the sea made no reply. When he spoke again his voice was slightly muffled, and Cranston caught a gleam from his naked shoulders unexpectedly near the floor. He must be sitting on some low bench or stool, with his head buried in his arms, and probably his eyes were hurting him badly. “The ship? I don’t think so. It wouldn’t linger. He was simply shoved ashore from the motorboat before it went back to the ship, and told to do what he could. The people he will have to contact are now in this country.”
    “Doesn’t that give you time?” Cranston felt for something on which to sit down himself. “I find it hard to believe that he can whistle up a whole like-minded gang out of the Highlands.”
    “It’s an encouraging point.” For the first time, the man from the sea let something like weariness tinge his irony. “But how boring this is. All about me. Let’s talk about you – and the girl.”
    “Let’s do nothing of the sort – and damn your impertinence.”
    Cranston took some satisfaction in coming roundly out with this. But the response of the man from the sea disconcerted him. “I’m sorry. I oughtn’t to have approached it – or not in that way. But you’ve been rather a good show, you know, so far as I’m concerned. You’ve given me the deuce of a leg up – and for no earthly reason that I can see. So I didn’t mean impertinence – only sympathy.”
    “I don’t want sympathy.”
    “No more you do. I talk like an idiot. All