The Tenth Man

1

RICHARD TRIP IS THE AGENT OF SINGER SEWING MACHINES in some Baltic capital similar to Tallinn. He is a small inoffensive man of a rather timid disposition with a passionate love for postage stamps, Gilbert and Sullivan’s works and his wife, and a passionate loyalty to Singer Sewing Machines. Unofficially he is Agent B720 of the British Secret Service. The year is 1938/39.

Mrs. Tripp-Gloria-is much younger than Tripp and it is to give her a good life that he has allowed himself to be enlisted in the Secret Service. He feels he must spend more money on her than Singer provides in order to keep her, although she has a genuine fondness for her dim husband. She knows nothing, of course, of his activities.

At HQ in London Tripp is regarded as one of their soundest agents-unimaginative, accurate, not easily ruffled. He is believed to have a network of subagents throughout Germany and he keeps in touch with HQ through the medium of his business reports written to his firm. What HQ does not know is that in fact Tripp has no agents at all. He invents all his reports and when London expresses dissatisfaction with an agent he simply dismisses one notional source and engages another equally notional. Naturally he draws salaries and expenses for all the imaginary agents.

His active imagination, from which he has drawn the details of a large underground factory near Leipzig for the construction of a secret explosive, does on one occasion lead to a little trouble with the local police. From an independent source London learns that B720 is being shadowed, and they send him an urgent warning, but the warning arrives too late.

At the end of a program of Gilbert and Sullivan opera by the Anglo-Latesthian Society in which Tripp takes a leading part, the Chief of Police, who is sitting in the front row, hands up a bouquet with a card attached and the request that he may have a drink with Tripp immediately in his dressing room. There he tells Tripp that the German Embassy have complained of his activities. Tripp confesses to his deception.

The Chief of Police is amused and pleased that Tripp’s presence will keep out any serious agents, and he accepts the gift of a sewing machine for his wife. He will ensure that Tripp’s messages go safely out of the country-and to keep the German Embassy quiet, he decides, they can have a look at them on the way. London’s warning comes on the heels of the interview, and Tripp sends back a message announcing that he has appointed the Chief of Police himself as one of his agents, enclosing that officer’s first report on the chief political characters of Latesthia and requesting that as first payment and bonus the Chief, who he says is an ardent stamp collector, should receive a rare Triangular Cape, and when the stamp arrives of course he sticks it in his own album. This gives him an idea, and soon the Chief of the Secret Service is commenting to the HQ officer in charge of Tripp’s station, “What a lot of stamp collectors he has among his agents.”

“It might be worse. Do you remember old Stott’s agents? They all wanted art photos from Paris.”

“Stott’s at a loose end, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Send him over to take a look at Tripp’s station. He may be able to give Tripp some advice. I always believe in letting two sound men get together.”