Work Text:
"Parade," said Murdoch.
Ogden gave him a tense smile over her newspaper.
"Yes, I saw that one," she said. "If you could find a word beginning with either this E or that E, that would be most helpful."
"Edam?" Murdoch suggested.
"It's against the rules, I'm afraid," Ogden said. "Five-letter words only."
"There's 'parts', of course. It looks like 'traps' backward - though of course it isn't exact - and therefore I know how to recognise it."
He sounded rather sad as he noted this, and Ogden laid her pen down on the desk as if waiting for a confidence that never came. Nor was likely to come, she knew, but it was the duty of a close friend in these circumstances to be receptive. She wondered what the priest knew, Murdoch's holy confidant. It was difficult to imagine Murdoch pouring out his soul to anyone, even a metal grille - perhaps especially a metal grille, knowing that there was someone on the other side, listening, and one couldn't know what they were thinking of you. Murdoch was a brave man.
"Traps," she said encouragingly.
"Yes. My father - well," Murdoch said, looking exceedingly uncomfortable.
Ogden waited a few more seconds, quite half a minute, before she said, "One can make 'padre' - look."
The glance Murdoch shot her was so relieved as to almost be abased. Ogden felt rather guilty.
"And here," he said, taking up her pen and gesturing slightly with the nib, "here is 'mended'."
He smiled at her, his shy, awkward half-smile, and she put her hand over his.