e one complete set of ten-by-eight prints. he felt a sense of elation as he saw the images gradually appear in the bath of developer. damn, he had done a good job! there was now a major decision to be made.

the problem had been in his mind all day, and now that the pictures had come out he was forced to confront it. what if he did not make it home?

the journey ahead of him was, to say the least, hazardous. he was more than confident of his own ability to make the rendezvous in spite of travel restrictions and coastal security; but he could not guarantee that the u-boat would be there; or that it would get back across the north sea. and, of course, he might walk out of here and get run over by a bus.

the possibility that, having discovered the most important secret of the war, he might die and his secret die with him, was too awful to think about.

he had to have a fall-back stratagem; a second method of trying to ensure that the evidence of the allied deception reached the abwehr.

there was, of course, no postal service between england and germany. mail had to go via a neutral country. and all such mail was sure to be censored. he could write in code, but there was no point; he had to send the pictures; they were the evidence that counted.

there was a route, and a good one, he'd been told. at the portuguese embassy in london there was an official, sympathetic to germany-partly for political reasons and partly, faber worried, because he was well bribed-who would pass messages via the diplomatic bag to the german embassy in neutral lisbon. from there, it was safe. the route had been opened early in 1939, but faber had used it only once before, when canaris had asked for a routine test communication.

it would do. it would have to do.

faber felt angry. he hated to place his faith in others. they were all such bumbling... still, he couldn't take the chance. he had to have a backup for this information. it was a lesser risk than using the radio and certainly less than the risk if germany never learned at all.

faber's mind was clear. the balance of argument indisputably favoured the portuguese embassy contact.

he sat down to write a letter.

frederick bloggs had spent an unpleasant afternoon in the countryside.

when five worried wives had contacted their local police station to say their husbands had not come home, a rural police-constable had exercised his limited powers of deduction and concluded that a whole patrol of the home guard had not gone awol. he was fairly sure they had simply got lost. they were all a bit daft, otherwise they would have been in the army, but all the same he notified his constabulary headquarters just to cover himself. the operations-room sergeant who took the message realised at once that the missing men had been patrolling a particularly sensitive military area, and he notified his inspector, who notified scotland yard, who sent a special branch man down there and notified mi5, which sent bloggs.

the special branch man was harris, who had been on the stockwell murder. he and bloggs met on the train, which was one of the wild west locomotives lent to britain by the americans because of the shortage of trains. harris repeated his invitation to sunday dinner, and bloggs told him again that he worked most sundays.

when they got off the train they borrowed bicycles to ride along the canal towpath until they met up with the search party. harris, ten years older than bloggs and fifty-five pounds heavier, found the ride a strain.

they met a section of the search party under a railway bridge. harris welcomed the opportunity to get off the bicycle. "what have you found?" he said. "bodies?"

"no, a boat," said a policeman. "who are you?"

they introduced themselves. a constable stripped to his underwear was diving down to examine the vessel. he came up with a bung in his hand. bloggs looked at harris. "deliberately scuttled?"

"looks like it." harris turned to the diver. "notice anything else?"

"she hasn't been down there for long, she's in good condition, and the mast has been taken down, not broken."

harris said, "that's a lot of information from a minute under water."

"i'm a weekend sailor," the diver said. harris and bloggs mounted their cycles and moved on.

when they met up with the main party, the bodies had been found.

"murdered, all five," said the uniformed inspector in charge. "captain langham, corporal lee, and privates watson, dayton and forbes. dayton's neck was broken, the rest were killed with some kind of a knife. langham's body had been in the canal. all found together in a shallow grave. bloody murder." he was quite shaken.

harris looked closely at the five bodies, laid out in a line. "i've seen wounds like this before, fred," he said. bloggs looked closely. "jesus christ, it looks like-"

harris nodded. "stiletto."