Once the Professor had gleaned from him that he didn’t actually know the first thing about the Cirencester Group (beyond the fact that it existed and a few fairly fundamental conjectures that a moderately intelligent laboratory rat could work out for itself in about three minutes) he had explained the dilemma he was in. Quite illegally, he had kidnapped a BBC producer and imprisoned him, by force of arms, in a damp cellar with an alleged rat. All he had managed to achieve by this was to reveal to his captive rather more about the deadly secret organisation he had discovered than he knew already. So now either Danny must join the conspiracy and work for it in some undefined but lucrative capacity, or else…well, there wasn’t really an else, since even Danny could see that Montalban wasn’t going to order his cold-blooded execution; and here he was, taking up house-room and needing to be fed and provided with clean laundry. It was all most aggravating, and if Danny hadn’t been in a hurry to get out of there and start filming, he would have quite fancied the idea of staying put for a good long time and making as much of a nuisance of himself as he possibly could.
He was sitting on the floor thinking this over when Neville, the stockbroker who moonlighted as second murderer, appeared. He was holding his gun, as before, and also a large, scruffy cat. He seemed put out about something.
“Here you are, then,” said Neville, releasing the cat. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
Danny stared. “What are you doing?” he said. Although he didn’t know much about torture, he knew that it often happened to prisoners of diabolical conspiracies, and furthermore he didn’t like cats.
“You said there were mice in this cellar,” Neville explained. “So I was told to bring the cat down here. Satisfied?”
“Oh,” Danny said. “I see. Thanks,” he added, belatedly. But by that time Neville had gone, leaving the cat.
The cat roamed around for a bit, scratched at the door, mewed querulously, and then went to sleep. It didn’t seem interested in mice, and who could blame it? Danny, being of liberal views, was firmly opposed to racial and sexual stereotyping, and the principle presumably applied to species, too.
And that was it, for about half an hour. Then there were footsteps on the cellar stairs again, which Danny hoped had something to do with food. He looked round at his camera crew. They were all fast asleep, just like the cat.
The door opened, and a girl came in. Behind her was Harvey and Harvey’s gun.
“In there,” Harvey grunted superfluously. The girl gave him an unfriendly look and stepped in.
It was fairly dark in the cellar, and that would explain why Jane, in normal circumstances a careful person, trod on the cat’s tail. The cat woke up, screeched, and moved. So did Jane. She jumped about three feet in the air, lost her balance, and fell against Harvey. For his part, Harvey reacted according to the instincts of generations of chivalrous ancestors and caught her, in doing so dropping the gun. Please follow what happens next carefully.
The gun fell on the stone floor, landed on its exposed hammer, and went off, shooting the cat. Danny, hearing the shot, dived for cover, only to find that there wasn’t any. Harvey tried to let go of Jane, but Jane refused to be let go of and grabbed his ears, thereby rendering him helpless for a long enough period of time for Danny to wriggle over, grab the gun with his least trussed hand, and try and cover Harvey with it. Unfortunately, he was too trussed to be able to cover the right person, and Jane, observing yet another perfect stranger pointing a gun at her, shrieked and let go of Harvey’s ears. Harvey stayed exactly where he was. He had had enough of all this fooling about with guns and locked cellars, and was going on strike.
“Right then, Harvey,” Danny said, “the game’s up.”
“Oh for crying out loud,” Harvey replied, for he hated clichés. Danny, however, had seen far more spy films than were good for him, and felt sure that he knew what should come next. “Freeze,” he snarled. He enjoyed snarling it, and the fact that he was still pointing the gun at the wrong person was neither here nor there.
The recent spate of moving about had woken up the camera crew, who opened their eyes, took in what was going on, and started voicing their opinion that it was about time, too. Jane, feeling rather left out, introduced herself.
“I’m Jane Doland,” she said, “I’m with Moss Berwick, accountants. Who are you, please?”
“Danny Bennett, BBC Current Affairs,” Danny replied. “Pleased to meet you.” He wriggled his weight onto the funny bone of his left elbow and brought the gun level with Harvey’s lemon socks. That would have to do.
“Can we go now, do you think?” Jane asked.
Danny thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said.
“Oh good,” Jane replied. “Come on, then.”
Danny remembered something. “Perhaps you could untie me,” he suggested.
