'It's a bar, not a dive. There's no entertainment except Gigi.'

I was told there was a Greek tart there.'

`Gigi's a bit flashy but she's not a tart.'

'The long and the short of it was that what he took to be a bum in a bar turned out to be Captain Struan Weddell. Ex-Navy.'

Emphasis on the ex:

'I told you not to be a bloody fool and quit because of the Walewska affair. But you wouldn't listen. You gave me the V-sign and vanished.'

I can look after myself. If this is your idea of putting me on the carpet, I don't buy it. The hell with it! The hell with you too!'

`Stop getting up! You've stretched your craving for being a loner just about to the limit at Santorin. There aren't such things in this modern world as blissful isles of escape. Once I'd located you I had a check made. Soft, boozy, aimless. Women. Just enough to live on. Toying with archaeology. That sort of crap.'

'Your dossier's spot-on.'

'A purposeless layabout.'

'So what? It's my life,'

He spoke into a pale pink intercom,

'Has he arrived?'

He nodded at the answer, apparently satisfied.

'As you rightly say, so what? I knew I'd be wasting my time if I cabled asking you to come back. I had to winkle you out of Santorin-and I've done it'

He eyed me through the cigarette smoke like a strategist who's pulled off a clever trick against the enemy.

'Again, so what?'

I'd got all set to take a dim view of another penny-lecture broadside from him when he said in a completely changed voice, 'I brought you here because I want your help with a problem, Struan.'

'You must be joking! Me!'

'You. You were meant for a somebody, not a bum,'

His eyes were distant and only half friendly.

My retort didn't have the range. 'The moral cat-o'-ninetails again.'