Riptide

§ 78

Cal left Troy sitting in his car in Grosvenor Square while he went into the embassy. Ten minutes later he came back, sat in the passenger seat and handed Troy an envelope addressed to Captain Cormack.

‘Where was it?’

‘Would you believe I have an in-tray?’

‘What did your colleagues have to say to you?’

‘Nothing. The place was almost deserted. If I’d run into Major Shaeffer, well, things might have been said. He’s the guy who dumped me into the tender care of Chief Inspector Nailer. I’d have a bone worth picking with him.’

Troy held the envelope up to the windscreen.

‘Well-it hasn’t been steamed.’

He examined the edges, sniffed the paper, then he tore it open and let the letter sit on the palm of his hand. It looked to Cal like a comic-book impression of a private eye. More Hercule Poirot than Nick Charles.

‘Observe the way it curls.’

‘That mean something?’

‘Yes-whoever our man is, he extracted the letter without breaking the seal by inserting two small knitting needles into the top seam and rolling the letter around them until it was small enough to pass through the gap at the top where the gum has failed. When he’d read it he put it back the same way. It’s as old a trick as they come. I’m surprised you didn’t learn it in spy school. Alas for you spooks, the tension thus exerted remains in the paper rather as it would in a watch spring. Hence it curls. Would you care to read it?’

Cal read it. It was exactly the same as the other one.

‘Does this really get us anywhere?’ he asked.

‘Yes-of course it does. For one thing, it backs up what Stahl said. We’ve moved from odds-on that it was someone from the embassy to it being a dead cert, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I guess I would. But-what now?’

‘Now, a short list of probable suspects would help.’

‘Why not start with Shaeffer?’

‘Why not start without obvious prejudice? How many people work in that section of the embassy?’

‘A lot. Twenty, maybe thirty. A lot more than did before the war. I don’t even know some of their names.’

They sat an hour or more. Hardly anyone entered the embassy.

Cal said, ‘I hate to slow us down, but we’d have better luck if we came back and sat here from six until seven. Catch ‘em as they leave.’