“Good Lord,” Jan murmured.

“Vasquez certainly has a sense of the dramatic.”

Ronny said, “He owns all this?”

“It’s not his,” Mathieson said. “He’s borrowing it. He told me that much.”

Vasquez appeared on the veranda, emerging through a pair of French doors. He walked along to the porte cochere as Mathieson parked under it. He gave them the benediction of his welcoming smile.

They all got out. “What an extraordinary place,” Jan said.

Vasquez said, “If it looks familiar you must be an old movie buff.”

“I had a feeling I’d seen it before,” Mathieson said.

“The studios used it for location work on at least a hundred pictures. All those movies about the racing gentry in Maryland and Virginia—they filmed them here. It doesn’t take a terribly keen imagination to picture Joseph Cotten crossing this veranda in jodhpurs.”

Vasquez came down around the car and reached inside to tap the horn: He honked it twice and the blasts startled Mathieson.

Ronny said, “Who owns all this?”

“It was the property of a man named Philip Breed—a Texas oil heir. He had several homes. At one time he produced a few motion pictures and he built this in the 1920s as his California headquarters—his company filmed a number of Tom Mix Westerns here. Breed maintained a stable of racing quarterhorses—he was one of the pioneers who built the sport up from nothing to its present level. This estate became a sort of retirement home for Breed’s quarterhorses after their racing careers were ended. Some of those horses are still here. Breed died four years ago and the will is still being contested by a bewildering assortment of claimants. A trust organization maintains the property—occasionally the organization lets it out to film companies.”

Mathieson said, “I’m making an effort not to think about what this is going to cost us.”

“Virtually nothing, really.”

“Oh?”

“The principal trustee is a former client of mine. He feels obliged to do me an occasional favor. Of course you’ll pay for your food, drink, laundry and incidentals. And I intend to bill you for Homer Seidell’s salary while he’s here putting you in shape.” Vasquez took the keys from him and opened the trunk of the car.

“Putting me in shape?”

Vasquez straightened. He turned a circle on his heels. “Where do you suppose he’s hidden himself?” He looked at his watch. “By ‘putting you in shape’ I mean subjecting you to a training program designed to teach you competence and confidence.”

Jan was listening quizzically. “What does that mean?”

“If you walk into a room with your enemy and you have absolute confidence you can beat him at any game he chooses to play, it’s going to make a decided difference in the way you handle the situation.”

“I see,” Mathieson said.

“I’m not sure you do; but never mind, you’ll find out soon enough. You could sum it up by saying we’re going to war and you need to be taught some of the warrior’s arts.”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I came to you.”

“You put yourself in my hands, didn’t you. You’re paying for my judgment.” Vasquez’s abrupt expression of amusement took him by surprise. “Never mind—I enjoy melodrama.” Vasquez went back around the car but before he could reach the horn Mathieson saw a man appear at the corner of the house carrying a golf club.

“Ah. Homer.”

The man walked forward with a sailor’s gait, shoulders rolling and head rocking, legs bowed, moving on the balls of his feet. He was no taller or wider than Vasquez but he had the chest and biceps of a weight lifter. He had the pitted narrow face of a street thug.

Vasquez made introductions. Homer Seidell wasn’t a knuckle-crusher but his grip was authoritative. He had an odd brief smile—as if the skin around his mouth was stretched too tight.

He lifted the suitcases out of the trunk. “We’re putting you in the Ronald Colman suite. It’s the best digs in the house.” It was the voice of a much bigger man—husky but powerful.

Vasquez held the door for them. Ronny dashed inside fearlessly. The vast center-hall foyer was hung with oil landscapes but they might as well have been Gainsborough portraits; the space was darkly paneled and dominated by an enormous pewter chandelier and a sweeping rosewood staircase.

Homer Seidell said, with amusement, “Welcome to boot camp, Mr. Merle.”

3

The suite had two huge rooms connected by a bathroom whose marble decor and gold-plated plumbing reminded him of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel.

Homer Seidell deposited the luggage on ottomans and Vasquez stood in the door with a proprietary air identifying the amenities and facilities: There was a Mrs. Meuth who would look after their housekeeping needs; there was a Mr. Meuth, the groundskeeper; there was Perkins who looked after the place’s mechanical needs and had charge of the livestock.

“Perkins can help you pick out a steed for your adventures. It would be wise if you confined your riding to the valley. It should give you enough elbow room—there’s an area of some thirty square miles to explore. Perkins prefers that the horses not be taken into the foothills. You’ll understand that—it’s very rocky terrain.”

Ronny gulped. “Yes, sir, I understand.”

Vasquez turned to Jan. “It’s an ideal topography for us. This house sits on the highest spot in the valley. On horseback the boy will be able to see the house from any point, and be seen from it.”

She took his meaning. Vasquez told her, “This will be your home for a while. Settle in, make yourselves comfortable. Incidentally you’ll find quite a good film collection in the library—prints of several hundred excellent motion pictures. Mrs. Meuth can help you with the projectors. There’s also television throughout the house, of course. Meuth does the shopping, usually twice a week, and he always returns with newspapers and magazines. The swimming pool is immediately behind the house. There’s an indoor pool as well, in the north basement, but it isn’t kept heated this time of year. If you prefer golf there are three holes laid out on the west lawn. Mrs. Meuth is employed to provide cooking for whatever guests are present but she doesn’t take offense if you care to do your own from time to time. If you’d like to choose your own menus you may give Mr. Meuth a shopping list—his next scheduled trip is tomorrow morning.”

“Are we confined to the estate?”

“You’re not prisoners here, Mrs. Mathieson, but if you elect to go off on excursions I should appreciate your giving me twenty-four hours’ notice so that I may bring down a few members of my staff to escort you.” He glanced at Mathieson: “Naturally such services will be billed to you. But you understand the necessity.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll take your husband off now. I’m afraid you and the young man will have to fend for yourselves most of the time.”

“We’ll manage. Thank you.” Her face came around toward Mathieson. “Good luck.” She was smiling but he couldn’t fathom what might be behind the smile. Unnerved he followed Vasquez down the corridor with Homer Seidell; they went downstairs and Vasquez strode right out the front door. “May I have the keys to your car?”

He passed them over and Vasquez handed them to Homer. When Homer pulled the car away Vasquez said, “If you want the car it will be in the garage beside the main barn. The keys will be in it—we don’t have thieves up here.”

“Are you trying to reassure me?”

“You’ll begin to feel like a prisoner of war here after a bit. It will be important that you realize that escape is dead easy. That knowledge, I think, will encourage you to stay and stick it out.”

“Stick what out? You still haven’t really explained the program.”

“Homer facetiously described it as boot camp but it was quite apt. We’re going to be rough on you. You’ve got to be conditioned out of some of your most comfortable habits. It will be modeled to some extent on the army’s basic-training techniques, although there’s one significant difference—we’re not concerned with inculcating obedience; quite the contrary. What needs development is your initiative. Essentially I want to see you become comfortable with a variety of methods and techniques that will strike you at first as unfamiliar and perhaps unpleasant. We’ll present you with challenges that you’ll be forced to meet with a combination of trained responses and imagination. Bear in mind you’re going to be fighting formidable antagonists who regard violence as an acceptable and even commonplace solution to nearly any sort of problem. I’m not forgetting your prejudices—you may not wish to initiate violence but you’ve got to know how to deal with it when you’re faced with it.”