"Sir?" Yank's voice was diffident. "May I introduce Dr. Hemlock?"

The Vicar turned and with an open gracious smile of greeting took Jonathan's hand between his large hirsute paws. "This isa pleasure," he said, winking. "So good of you to come." His mellow basso wanned with practiced civility. "Just allow me to finish and we'll have a good natter." He drank off the last of the communion wine and wiped out the chalice carefully, while Jonathan studied his full puffy face with its tracery of red capillaries over the cheekbones and in ruddy abundance on the substantial amorphic nose. His hair had retreated beyond the horizon line of his broad forehead, but was long on the sides and blended with his full muttonchop sideburns.

"Odd ritual, this," the Vicar said, replacing the utensils. "The last morsels of consecrated bread and wine must be consumed by the priest. I suppose it arose out of some fear of contamination and sacrilege, should the body and blood of Christ find its way into the alimentary canal of an unbeliever." He winked.

"What is missionary work but the effort to introduce Christ to the uninitiated?" Jonathan commented.

The Vicar laughed robustly. "Precisely! Precisely! You, I dare to assume, do not avail yourself of the sacrament often."

"No form of cannibalism appeals to me."

"Oh. I see. Yes." The Vicar folded the last of his vestments carefully and set them aside. From behind, his formidable bulk seemed to fill the black flowing garment. "Shall we take a turn around the churchyard, Dr. Hemlock. It's quite lovely in the last light. We shall not be needing you, Yank. I'm sure you can find something to amuse yourself with for a few minutes."

Yank made a gesture akin to a salute and left the vestry. The Vicar looked after him with paternal warmth. "There's a very bright young man for you, Dr. Hemlock. Energetic. Zealous. We pulled him away from another project and made him your liaison with our organization because we thought you might be more comfortable working with someone who was au courant with things American." He put his heavy arm around Jonathan's shoulders and conducted him on a leisurely stroll down the nave of the Art Nouveau church. "Beautiful, isn't it? Quite unique."

"Is it yours?"

"God's, actually. But if you are asking if I am the regular vicar, the answer is no. I am standing in for him for a fortnight while he is on honeymoon in Spain. But the less said of that the better." He made a wide gesture with his arm. "When would you guess this church was built?"

Jonathan stepped away from the encircling arm and glanced around. "About 1905."

The Vicar stopped short, his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows arched high. "Amazing! Within a year!" Then he laughed. "Ah, but of course! Art is your province, isn't it." He glanced quickly at Jonathan. "That is, it is oneof your occupations."

"It is my only occupation," Jonathan said with mild stress.

The Vicar clasped his hands behind his back and studied the parquet floor. "Yes, yes. Your Mr. Dragon informed me that you had left CII in some disgust after that nasty business in the Alps." He winked.

Jonathan leaned against the side of a pew and folded his arms. This vicar evidently knew a great deal about him. He even knew the name of Yurasis Dragon, head of Search and Sanction Division of CII: a name known to fewer than a dozen people in the States. Obviously, the Vicar would prefer to approach whatever dirty business he had in mind through the gentle back alleys of trivial polite conversation, but Jonathan decided not to cooperate.

"Yes," the Vicar continued after an uncomfortable pause, "that must have been a nasty affair for you. As I recall the details, you had to kill all three of the men you were climbing with, because your SS Division had been unable to specify which one was your target."

Jonathan watched him steadily, but did not respond.

"I suppose it takes a rather special kind of man to do that sort of thing," the Vicar said, winking. "After all, a certain camaraderie must grow up amongst men making so dangerous a climb as the Eiger. Isn't that so?"

No answer.

The Vicar broke the ensuing silence with artificial heartiness. "Well, well! At all events, the little project we have in mind for you will not be so grisly as that. At least, it need not be. You have that much to be grateful for, eh?"

Nothing.

"Yes. Well. Mr. Dragon warned me that you could be recalcitrant." The tone of robust friendliness dropped from his voice, and he continued speaking with the mechanical crispness of a man accustomed to giving orders. "All right then, let's get to it. How much did Yank tell you about us?"

"Only as much as you instructed him to. I take it that your Loo organization is a rough analogue of our Search and Sanction, and is occupied with matters of counterassassination."

"That is correct. However, what we have on for you is a little out of that line. What else do you know?"

Jonathan began walking down the nave toward the vestibule. "Nothing, really. But I have made certain assumptions."

The Vicar followed. "May I hear them?"

"Well, you, of course, are Mister Loo. But I haven't decided whether this church business is simply a front."

"No, no. Not at all. I am first and always a man of the Church. I served as chaplain during the Hitlerian War and afterward found myself still involved in government affairs. We are, after all, a state church." He winked.

"I see." Jonathan passed out through the vestibule and turned up a path that led through the churchyard, cool and iridescent in the gloaming. Yank and The Sergeant were standing at some distance, watching them as the Vicar fell into step alongside.

"It is not uncommon, Dr. Hemlock, for C. of E. churchmen to have some hobby to occupy their minds. Particularly if their livings are of the more modest sort. Nature study claims a great number; and some of the younger men toy about with social reform and that sort of thing. Circumstance and personal inclination directed me along other paths."

"Killing, to be specific."

The Vicar's response was measured and cool. "I have certain organizational talents that I have placed at the service of my country, if that's what you mean."

"Yes, that's what I meant."

"And, tell me, what else have you assumed?"

"That this young lady-Maggie Coyne, if that is her real name-"

"As it happens, it is."

"...that this Miss Coyne is one of your operatives. That she set me up in that little affair of the man in my bathroom."

"My, my. You areperceptive. What brought you to this conclusion?"

Jonathan sat on a headstone. "In retrospect, the thing was too neat, too circumstantial. I seldom use the Baker Street penthouse. But your men knew I would be there that particular night. And it was Miss Coyne who proposed the restaurant a half block away."

"Ah, yes."

"And along with a rack of trumped-up circumstantial evidence linking me with the poor bastard, there must be some hard evidence-probably photographic. Right?"

"I blush at our being so transparent."

Jonathan rose and they continued their stroll.

"How did you get the photographs?"

"The young woman took them."

"When? With what?"

"The cigarette-"

"...The cigarette lighter!" Jonathan shook his head at his stupidity. A gold cigarette lighter in the possession of a girl who didn't know where her next meal was coming from. A camera, of course. And she had fumbled with it, unable to light her cigarette, as she stood there at the bathroom door.

He snatched a twig from a shrub, stripped the leaves with an angry gesture, and crushed them in his hand. "And the gun, of course, would be found in my apartment."

"Very well hidden. It would be found only after an extensive search. But it wouldbe found." The Vicar winked.