I'm for the high jump!
They got the goods on me all right.'
It seemed incredible to Howard.
It was as if he had been listening to a play.
'We both seem to be in difficulties,' he said at last.
'Yours may be more serious than mine; I don't know.
But you can do one thing for me.'
He looked around.
'If I could get hold of a piece of paper and a pencil, I would redraft my will.
Would you witness it for me?'
The other shook his head.
'You must write nothing here without permission from the Germans; they will only take it from you.
And no document that had my signature on it would get back to England.
You must find some other witness, Mr Howard.'
The old man sighed. 'I suppose that is so,' he said. And presently he said: 'If I should get out of this and you should not, is there anything I can do?
Any message you would like me to take?'
Charenton smiled ironically.
'No messages,' he said definitely.
'There is nothing I can do?'
The young man glanced at him.
'Do you know Oxford?'
'I know Oxford very well,' the old man said.
'Were you up there?'
Charenton nodded.
'I was up at Oriel.
There's a place up the river that we used to walk to - a pub by a weir pool, a very old grey stone house beside a little bridge.
There is the sound of running water all the time, and fish swimming in the clear pool, and flowers, flowers everywhere.'
'You mean the
"Trout Inn," at Godstow?'
'Yes - the "Trout."
You know it?'
'I know it very well indeed.
At least, I used to, forty years ago.'
'Go there and drink a pint for me,' the young man said.
'Sitting on the wall and looking at the fish in the pool, on a hot summer day.'
Howard said: 'If I get back to England, I will do that.'
He glanced around the shabby, garishly furnished room.
'But is there no message I can take to anyone?'
Charenton shook his head.
'No messages,' he said.
'If there were, I would not give them to you.
There is almost certainly a microphone in this room, and Diessen listening to every word we say.
That is why they have put us here together.'
He glanced around.
'It's probably behind one of those oil paintings.'
'Are you sure of that?'
'As sure as I'm sitting here.'
He raised his voice and said, speaking in German: 'You are wasting your time, Major Diessen.
This man knows nothing about my affairs.'
He paused and then continued: 'But I will tell you this. One day the English and Americans will come, and you will be in their power.