Authors: Edward D. Hoch
“Go on.”
“In college I drifted into the wrong sort of crowd. My politics had always been liberal, and before I realized it I was involved with a Communist cell.”
“No wonder Jimmy never mentioned you.”
She tossed her hair again. “It could have meant his job, I suppose. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I fell in love with a man named Peter Jentor, and that was the beginning of it. He was thirty-three, married, and a member of the Party. I thought it all very worldly and daring.”
“You became a Communist too?”
“Not entirely, but close enough. Until I got my senses back.” She sipped her tea. “I’d been seeing Peter regularly, and I soon learned that he and a man named John April were actually Russian agents, operating a spy network in London. It was something out of a thriller!”
Rand was alert now, sensing the break he’d been hoping for. “Did you ever meet John April?”
She shook her head. “I only saw him once, at a distance, with Peter. An older man, with gray hair and a little beard. He walked with a cane.”
“Yes,” Rand said quietly. Then, “How did you know my name?”
“Jimmy mentioned you once when we had dinner. He said he worked on codes, and things, but of course he never told me any details. Then when Peter told me that the house in Greenwich was a message center for Communists agents, I realized that my lover and my brother were working directly against each other.”
“This Jentor told you it was a message center? When?”
“A month or so ago. I did nothing at first, until he told me something else. Then I decided I should tell Jimmy what I knew.”
“You told your brother about the house in Greenwich? When?”
“Last night. He finished work at midnight, and I was waiting for him. I drove him there, telling him what I knew on the way. He told me to wait in the car and went in alone, through the back door.”
“Then what happened?”
“We both thought the place was empty, but after about fifteen minutes I heard him scream. I was terrified, but I had to find out what happened to him. I—I found him like that. Dead.”
“Who else was there?” She didn’t answer and he asked the question again. “It was Jentor, wasn’t it? He killed your brother.”
“
No!
It was John April who did it!
“All right. Tell me the rest.”
“Peter was there, but he couldn’t stop April. Before he could do anything, Jimmy was dead, stabbed with April’s sword cane. April ran out. He was gone before I got inside.”
“What about all those clocks? What do they mean?”
“I don’t know. Peter said April was a strange man.”
“So then you let Jentor escape too, before you called Scotland Yard.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I know he didn’t kill my brother.”
Rand reached out to grab her arm. He was afraid she would run away. “You phoned me because you felt responsible for your brother’s death.” Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes.
“I took him there, to that house. And now he’s dead.”
“If you really want to help, you’ll take me to Jentor.”
“No! He’d kill me.”
“Not if he loves you.”
“I can’t!”
“Think about it.” Rand studied her tear-streaked face. “Do you have any other brothers?”
“Jimmy was the youngest of four. I guess he was always my favorite.”
“Where is Jentor? What else did he say to you that suddenly made you go to Jimmy?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Think about it,” he said. “Think about your brother’s dead body.” He released her arm and watched her hurry away from the table.
Frank Malley was still at the blackboards the following morning. “I thought we had something,” he told Rand. “But it was a false alarm. Fool with enough combinations and you can make words out of anything.”
Rand grunted and inspected the night’s work with a sinking feeling. They were no closer to cracking the Bermuda Cipher than they’d been a week earlier. “Look,” he said, “we always assume that five-number groups are just that length out of custom, to aid in transmission and to disguise the real length of the individual words. But suppose the five-number groups are just that—with each group standing for one word.”
“You mean a code instead of a cipher?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“But no group is ever repeated, even in this lengthy message. Doesn’t that rule out a code?”
Rand gazed at the blackboard and thought about it. “A book code,” he answered finally. “A dictionary or Bible code—one using different page numbers even when it was the same word. Look—the first two numbers are the page, the next two the line, and the last is the word in that line. You’ll notice none of the groups ends in a zero.”
“Could be,” Malley admitted. “I considered a book code early on, but Jimmy tossed it out. Said the Russians wouldn’t trust their whole message system between London and Moscow to a single book that could fall into British hands.”
“Still,” Rand mused, “it’s worth thinking about.” He was remembering the room where Jimmy had died—the room his sister described as a message center. He was especially remembering the books in it. But which one? Which one out of all those hundreds? And he thought again about the 24 clocks, each showing a different hour of the day and night.
Rand went back to his office and sorted through the morning’s mail. There was a message to call Hastings with a progress report, but just then there was no progress to report—nothing but the meeting with Jimmy’s sister. He sat there instead and brooded about her. Peter Jentor had told her something—something other than the fact that the Greenwich house was a Russian message center. Whatever he’d told her had caused her to phone Jimmy almost at once.
He stared gloomily out the window. Somehow the 24 clocks were a key to the Bermuda Cipher. Jimmy had seen it right away, and had been killed. The clocks and the books, the books and the clocks. But which books? If
Bermuda
referred to Clock Number 20, what then? Could the book he sought be on the shelf beneath the clock? He remembered that the books were mostly from an old estate library, mostly unread. Window dressing, Stephens had said—except for the set of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
He stared across his office at the department’s own set. A to Anno, Anno to Baltic …
All 24 volumes.
24.
It just might be worth one more drive out to Greenwich.
The house behind the shrubbery was as he’d left it, and he used the key that Inspector Stephens had given him. Somewhere above him a bird chirped, but otherwise the street was quiet in the May sunshine. The 24 clocks were still there, still humming their messages, but this time he barely glanced at them. He went at once to the set of the Britannica and pulled out Volume 20. He remembered the numbers in the first five-digit group: 46093. Page 46, ninth line, third word.
Chinese.
He stared at it, holding his breath.
Maybe. Just maybe.
He got on the phone and called Frank Malley at Double-C. “Frank, I’m out at the house where Jimmy King was killed. I think the book we’re looking for might be an edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Can you read me a few number-groups? From the beginning?”
“Sure. 46093.”
“I remembered that. What’s next?”
“14871.”
“Page fourteen, line eighty-seven—that’ll be in the second column on the page—first word.”
“Got it?”
“Yes. So far it’s
Chinese agents.
Keep going.”
Five minutes later they had enough to be sure:
Chinese agents arriving London to establish power base for action in Middle East
“All right,” Rand said. “That’s enough. Jump in a car and bring the rest of the message out here with you—I know our office Britannica is a different edition. We’ll have to work here.”
“I’m on my way,” Malley said.
Rand hung up and lit a cigarette. The Russians, he decided, must have a great deal of patience these days to go back to using a book code. Even with the Britannica, their choice of words was limited. But the method did have the advantage of defying solution unless the precise code book was known. With 24 volumes of the encyclopaedia from which to choose, detection was almost impossible.
And the clocks were merely that—24, clocks. The secret of the code was on the cards tacked beneath each clock. If the first word of the message, in Russian plaintext, was
Hong Kong,
Clock Number 8, that meant Volume 8 of the Britannica was to be used.
Bermuda
meant Clock Number 20, and therefore Volume 20. Of course they were limited to the first 99 pages of each volume, but with 24 volumes from which to choose, almost any message could be sent.
There was just one thing he needed now. Peter Jentor and the final key to Jimmy’s killing. He picked up the phone and dialed Rita King’s number, hoping she was there.
“Hello?”
“This is Rand, Miss King. It’s very important. Do you think you could meet me at the house in Greenwich, and bring Jentor along?”
“He’d never come!”
“I think he would, if you talk to him. Tell him we just want April. If he turns April in, we’ll see that he gets a break.”
“Rand—”
“What is it?”
“I’m afraid for you. I’ve already caused Jimmy’s death.”
“How? What did you tell him?”
“I—”
“Tell me!” he insisted.
“Peter said—” She stopped, and he could hear her heavy breathing.
“What did he say? What?”
Then the words came out in a flood. “He was drunk one night and he told me there was a spy in Jimmy’s department. He told me that John April was really someone from Double-C.”
There was a noise behind him at the door, and Rand whirled to face the intruder. Frank Malley stood in the doorway with his brief case. “Well,” he announced, “here I am!”
Seated opposite each other at the little desk, Rand and Malley decoded the entire message. Working together it took just under an hour, and when they finished, Rand read through the lengthy message.
“Chinese agents arriving London to establish power base for action in Middle East Chinese freighter bound for Mediterranean with cargo of rockets. Agents met Arab government officials in Aden two weeks ago. Contact regular sources for …”
Rand read on to the end of the message, then tossed it to Malley. “Hastings should be happy to see this one.”
“Damn right!” the Irishman replied.
Rand leaned back in his chair. “Frank, how many people are there in the department now?”
“In Double-C? Around fifty, I guess. You certainly know better than I do.”
“Any problems? Any security risks?”
“How would I know? You’re sure edgy today. What’s up? With the message solved, you should be happy.”
“It’s Jimmy’s murder. I was talking to his sister when you came in.”
“You sure jumped a mile! Bad nerves.”
Rand nodded. “She’s coming over here. Maybe with a man named Peter Jentor.” He watched Malley’s face, but there was no change in expression.
A few moments later they heard a car stop in the street outside. “Someone’s coming now,” Malley said.
Rand nodded and slipped the small pistol from his pocket. After a moment the front door opened and two sets of footsteps approached down the hallway. A handsome dark-haired young man of about 30 entered, closely followed by Rita King. “I brought him,” she said. “Who’s this?”
Rand kept the pistol out of sight below the desk top. “Frank M alley from my office. He worked closely with your brother.” He shifted his gaze to the dark-haired young man. “And you would be Peter Jentor.”
“That’s right.” Jentor brought his hands into view, and Rand saw the slender bamboo cane for the first time. His grip tightened on the pistol. “Rita said you wanted to make a deal.”
“Not exactly a deal. I want John April.”
“April’s gone. Out of the country.”
“Is he the one who killed Jimmy King?”
Jentor hesitated only an instant. “Yes. April killed him.”
“Who is John April?” Rand asked.
“A Russian agent. I don’t know any more.”
“Why did he kill Jimmy King?”
“King came here with Rita. He found this place, and April had to kill him.”
“Why didn’t you take the volumes of the encyclopaedia with you?”
“The neighbors would have seen us.”
Rand pressed his advantage. “In the middle of the night, in that fog? No, Jentor, the books had to be left here because there was only you to carry them away. No April, only you.”
“It was April,” Jentor insisted again. “He’s one of your own people, Rand. One of the Double-C people.”
“You told Rita that, and she brought Jimmy out here. She had a loyalty to him that she didn’t have to her country,”
Rita let out a soft sob, and Jentor moved forward a step to comfort her. “April killed him,” Jentor repeated.
But Rand was shaking his head. “No, you did, Jentor. Only you. April couldn’t have killed him because Jimmy King and John April were the same person. King was the spy in my department, but his sister never knew it.”
It was then that Jentor bared his sword cane and lunged forward.
Rand’s shot clipped him in the shoulder, but Jentor might have found his target with the sword cane if Inspector Stephens had not appeared in the doorway and tackled the lunging man with a flying leap. After that it was over in moments, and Jentor was handcuffed by one of Stephens’ men.
“A timely arrival,” Rand told the Inspector. “Thanks.”
“My man watching the house called me. He said there was a lot of traffic going in.”
It was Frank Malley who spoke then. “Good Lord, Rand, were you serious about Jimmy being a Red spy?”
“All too serious, I’m afraid.” Rand put the pistol away as one of the detectives bandaged the flesh wound in Jentor’s shoulder. “Rita was told they had a spy in my department. We have a lot of people there, but consider the evidence. April’s clothes showed he was the same size as Jimmy. You told me yourself, Frank, that it was Jimmy who discouraged the idea of a book code as a solution to the Bermuda Cipher. April’s gray hair and beard were an easy disguise, and no one ever saw him close up, including his sister. And consider the name—April. Jimmy King was the youngest of four brothers. With his interest in numbers and such, April—the, fourth month—is exactly the kind of pseudonym he’d pick.”