Lord L, in his chair again and already working on some papers he had taken from a desk, snorted. "He won't. I can see to that. I'll get on to the Prime Minister tonight and see that our little man is put on a false scent. Harry will cooperate to the fullest. He knows how important Dimension X is to us."

J dropped a few lumps of coal on the fire. He replenished his glass with a splash of soda. He went to a tall window and stood gazing out at Prince's Gate Crescent. Street lights were on and macintoshed pedestrians drifted in and out of the nimbi like damp ghosts. A few last stubborn leaves hung despondently from stark branches moving in the wind like dark mobiles. J dropped the heavy drape into place and went to prowling the room.

The table top was already littered with sheets of paper. Lord Leighton scratched industriously away with his pen. J prowled back and forth over the worn Oriental, crossing and recrossing before the fire, wishing he had his pipe. He concentrated better with his pipe. But his favorite was in the shop, being repaired, and he had forgotten to bring a spare from Copra House.

His Lordship glanced up from his work. "For God's sake, man, stop pacing like a tiger. And stop looking so worried. I told you - the Prime Minister will put a spoke in the Carrandish wheel. More than likely Harry will have the man in for a little chat. They'll have a sherry or so and Harry will tell him to keep his long nose to himself and that will be that."

J stopped prowling long enough to chunk up the fire. He scowled at the flames. "I doubt it will be that simple, Lord L. The Prime Minister will have to tell him something - "

The old man chuckled. "Harry will think of something. He's a good liar. Made it to the top in politics, didn't he? Now do be a good fellow and let me concentrate. I may be getting senile after all - I have a simple nanosecond equation here that a babe should be able to solve and I'm having trouble. Very upsetting, that Carrandish type, very."

J regarded the old scientist with affection and exasperation. England's top man of science he might be, but in certain matters he was a babe in arms. He knew nothing of the jungle in which J and Richard Blade must work and survive. Lord Leighton reigned high in his Ivory Tower, lost amid his giant computers, thinking in symbols that only a few men could understand, enmeshed in cybernetic jargon, screened from the real and dirty world of plot and counterplot. The world of bullet and knife and noose and poison. "I don't like it," J said.

Lord L dropped his pen. He pushed his papers from him. "Don't like what? Get it off your chest, man, then go away and let me work. Get on to Blade, for one thing, and tell him I want him here in two days' time. Now - what don't you like?"

J resumed his pacing. "Carrandish will go the Prime Minister, Lord L, and since he is already bound by the Official Secrets Act, and as nosy as a ferret and as slithery as an eel, my guess is that the PM will end up by telling him about Dimension X Project. As the most effective way of shutting him up."

Lord Leighton nodded. He pulled one crippled leg over the other and sought comfort for his hump. "So, J? You may be right. It would be the most effective way of stifling the man. But why worry - Carrandish may be a bother, I agree, but that doesn't make him a traitor."

J despaired of making the old man understand the laws of averages and permutations - as they applied to espionage. To J's way .of thinking only two men could really keep a secret, and even that was chancy. Bring in a third man and you no longer had a secret.

"My point is," he said gloomily, "that Carrandish will be just one more who knows about Project X. And there are far too many now. The thing is getting out of hand and I just don't know how much longer I can promise absolute security." If, he thought, there is such a thing.

His Lordship tut-tutted a moment, then agreed that J might have a point. "But you must have foreseen this, J. You knew that PDX was going to grow and need more money and more personnel and material. Even I saw that and I" - his smile was faint - "I am not a very practical man, as you know."

J nodded. "I have taken every bloody precaution I could think of. I know my job, Lord L, and I have done it. And it hasn't been enough - this Carrandish comes straight to you, like a hound after a hare, and starts blathering about vouchers and unexplained money. That shouldn't have happened, Lord L. Something was overlooked - there should have been a cutoff somewhere and there wasn't."

Lord L was sympathetic. "Someone in your organization made a mistake, J. It happens. I have to read off my assistants a dozen times a day. But don't let it fret you - you can't be everywhere and do everything."

"You can tell that," said J fervently, "to the bloody Horse Marines! Maybe I can't be everywhere and do everything, but I've got the responsibility just as though I could. I am responsible to you and to the Prime Minister and to Her Majesty - "

Lord Leighton clapped his gnarled old hands. "Hear-hear. The man is going to make a speech after all. But not here, J, please! Go down to Hyde Park corner and make it and let me get on working, eh?"

J smiled a little sheepishly as he went to the chair where he had left his bowler and mack and umbrella. He bent to tug on a pair of stretch rubbers, American made.

"Sorry," he told Lord L. "But I am nervous these days. I am in a nervous profession anyway and all this PDX, on top of my other duties, may just be a little much. I don't know, Lord L - maybe I'm getting on for work like this. I think more and more about retiring."

His Lordship snorted. He had heard talk like this before. "The thing for you to do," he said, "is to take a little holiday. Go down to Dorset and join young Blade. I'm sure he can find another totsy for you. That's it, J. Take a few days off. Get drunk. Knock off a policeman's hat. Have Blade find you a totsy and have an orgy. Then, when you're over your hangover and remorse, you can get back to your job."

It would not be overstating to say that J was a little shocked. He stared at the white-haired gnome, a look of doubt on his well-bred Establishment features.

Lord Leighton chuckled maniacally. "You look like you've just been goosed by the Queen, man!"

J's jaw dropped. His false teeth glinted in the firelight. The old scientist chuckled again.

"Blade is having a go with the totsies, isn't he? Ever since his girl, Zoe? Since she found another chap?"

J nodded. "I suppose so, Lord L. Really, you know, I don't pry into the private lives of my people. I - "

"The hell you bloody don't," said His Lordship inelegantly. "Don't give me that cock, old man. I'll bet you know every time they go to the WC."

By now J had regained his composure. "Not always," he smiled. "Now and again they manage to nip in without me knowing about it."

Lord Leighton, having seen J smile, scowled. "Then go and check, man. One of your agents might be doing number two now and you in the dark about it. Go find out. Let me work. And have young Blade up here in two days, remember. I've only a few more adjustments to make on the master computer and we can send him out again. His fourth time, eh! Should be smooth as silk this time. I'm looking forward to it."

On his way back to the dingy office in Copra House, while the taxi crawled through fog, J wondered if Richard Blade was also looking forward to his next trip into Dimension X. There was, sighed J inwardly, really no way of knowing. Richard Blade did his job, performed his duty, and let it go at that. He didn't talk about it.

As the taxi slowed and became jammed in traffic, as the fog seeped in a crack of window and spread tentacles like a dank brown octopus, J's mood began to sink once more. He did smile once as he recalled Lord L's bawdy attempt to cheer him - the old man did have prescience in other than scientific matters - then his mouth dropped. He was worried. Things had gone too well for too long. His stomach pained him and that was a sure sign. The truth was, J admitted as he stared at a flashing Bovril sign without seeing it, that the Project, PDX, was due for trouble. Law of averages. Inexorable. You could never get away from it.

How true. When J got back to his office in Copra House the proof was waiting on his desk.

Richard Blade had left Moscow.