a bit too much.’
The two men talked amiable shop for ten minutes or so, then Sir Stafford got up and went out.
‘I’ve got a lot of things to do this morning,’ he said. ‘Presents to buy for my relations. The trouble is that if one goes to Malaya, all one’s relations expect you to bring exotic presents to them. I’ll go round to Liberty’s, I think. They have a nice stock of Eastern goods there.’
He went out cheerfully, nodding to a couple of men he knew in the corridor outside. After he had gone, Chetwynd spoke through the telephone to his secretary.
‘Ask Colonel Munro if he can come to me.’
Colonel Munro came in, bringing another tall middle-aged man with him.
‘Don’t know whether you know Horsham,’ he said, ‘in Security.’
‘Think I’ve met you,’ said Chetwynd.
‘Nye’s just left you, hasn’t he?’ said Colonel Munro. ‘Anything in this story about Frankfurt? Anything, I mean, that we ought to take any notice of?’
‘Doesn’t seem so,’ said Chetwynd. ‘He’s a bit put out about it. Thinks it makes him look a silly ass. Which it does, of course.’
The man called Horsham nodded his head. ‘That’s the way he takes it, is it?’
‘Well, he tried to put a good face upon it,’ said Chetwynd.
‘All the same, you know,’ said Horsham, ‘he’s not really a silly ass, is he?’
Chetwynd shrugged his shoulders. ‘These things happen,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Colonel Munro, ‘yes, yes, I know. All the same, well, I’ve always felt in some ways that Nye is a bit unpredictable. That in some ways, you know, he mightn’t be really sound in his views.’
The man called Horsham spoke. ‘Nothing against him,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all as far as we know.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean there was. I didn’t mean that at all,’ said Chetwynd. ‘It’s just—how shall I put it?—he’s not always very serious about things.’
Mr Horsham had a moustache. He found it useful to have a moustache. It concealed moments when he found it difficult to avoid smiling.
‘He’s not a stupid man,’ said Munro. ‘Got brains, you know. You don’t think that—well, I mean you don’t think there could be anything at all doubtful about this?’
‘On his part? It doesn’t seem so.’
‘You’ve been into it all, Horsham?’
‘Well, we haven’t had very much time yet. But as far as it goes it’s all right. But his passport was used.’
‘Used? In what way?’
‘It passed through Heathrow.’
‘You mean someone represented himself as Sir Stafford Nye?’
‘No, no,’ said Horsham, ‘not in so many words. We could hardly hope for that. It went through with other passports. There was no alarm out, you know. He hadn’t even woken up, I gather, at that time, from the dope or whatever it was he was given. He was still at Frankfurt.’
‘But someone could have stolen that passport and come on the plane and so got into England?’
‘Yes,’ said Munro, ‘that’s the presumption. Either someone took a wallet which had money in it and a passport, or else someone wanted a passport and settled on Sir Stafford Nye as a convenient person to take it from. A drink was waiting on a table, put a pinch in that, wait till the man went off to sleep, take the passport and chance it.’
‘But after all, they look at a passport. Must have seen it wasn’t the right man,’ said Chetwynd.
‘Well, there must have been a certain resemblance, certainly,’ said Horsham. ‘But it isn’t as though there was any notice of his being missing, any special attention drawn to that particular passport in any way. A large crowd comes through on a plane that’s overdue. A man looks reasonably like the photograph in his passport. That’s all. Brief glance, handed back, pass it on. Anyway what they’re looking for usually is the foreigners that are coming in, not the British lot. Dark hair, dark blue eyes, clean shaven, five foot ten or whatever it is. That’s about all you want to see. Not on a list of undesirable aliens or anything like that.’
‘I know, I know. Still, you’d say if anybody wanted merely to pinch a wallet or some money or that, they wouldn’t use the passport, would they. Too much risk.’
‘Yes,’ said Horsham. ‘Yes, that is the interesting part of it. Of course,’ he said, ‘we’re making investigations, asking a few questions here and there.’
‘And what’s your own opinion?’
‘I wouldn’t like to say yet,’ said Horsham. ‘It takes a little time, you know. One can’t hurry things.’
‘They’re all the same,’ said Colonel Munro, when Horsham had left the room. ‘They never will tell you anything, those damned security people. If they think they’re on the trail of anything, they won’t admit it.’
‘Well, that’s natural,’ said Chetwynd, ‘because they might be wrong.’
It seemed a typically political view.
‘Horsham’s a pretty good man,’ said Munro. ‘They think very highly of him at headquarters. He’s not likely to be wrong.’
Sir Stafford Nye returned to his flat. A large woman bounced out of the small kitchen with welcoming words.
‘See you got back all right, sir. Those nasty planes. You never know, do you?’
‘Quite true, Mrs Worrit,’ said Sir Stafford Nye. ‘Two hours late, the plane was.’
‘Same as cars, aren’t they,’ said Mrs Worrit. ‘I mean, you never know, do you, what’s going to go wrong with them. Only it’s more worrying, so to speak, being up in the air, isn’t it? Can’t just draw up to the kerb, not the same way, can you? I mean, there you are. I wouldn’t go by one myself, not if it was ever so.’ She went on, ‘I’ve ordered in a few things. I hope that’s all right. Eggs, butter, coffee, tea—’ She ran off the words with the loquacity of a Near Eastern guide showing a Pharaoh’s palace. ‘There,’ said Mrs Worrit, pausing to take breath, ‘I think that’s all as you’re likely to want. I’ve ordered the French mustard.’
‘Not Dijon, is it? They always try and give you Dijon.’
‘I don’t know who he was, but it’s
