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ought to be.’ The idea seemed to amuse him.

      ‘Does this often happen, did you find out?’

      ‘I don’t think it’s a matter of general occurrence. It could be. I suppose any person with a pick-pocket trend could notice a fellow asleep and slip a hand into a pocket, and if he’s accomplished in his profession, get hold of a wallet or a pocket-book or something like that, and hope for some luck.’

      ‘Pretty awkward to lose a passport.’

      ‘Yes, I shall have to put in for another one now. Make a lot of explanations, I suppose. As I say, the whole thing’s a damn silly business. And let’s face it, Chetwynd, it doesn’t show me in a very favourable light, does it?’

      ‘Oh, not your fault, my dear boy, not your fault. It could happen to anybody, anybody at all.’

      ‘Very nice of you to say so,’ said Stafford Nye, smiling at him agreeably. ‘Teach me a sharp lesson, won’t it?’

      ‘You don’t think anyone wanted your passport specially?’

      ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Stafford Nye. ‘Why should they want my passport? Unless it was a matter of someone who wished to annoy me and that hardly seems likely. Or somebody who took a fancy to my passport photo—and that seems even less likely!’

      ‘Did you see anyone you knew at this—where did you say you were—Frankfurt?’

      ‘No, no. Nobody at all.’

      ‘Talk to anyone?’

      ‘Not particularly. Said something to a nice fat woman who’d got a small child she was trying to amuse. Came from Wigan, I think. Going to Australia. Don’t remember anybody else.’

      ‘You’re sure?’

      ‘There was some woman or other who wanted to know what she did if she wanted to study archaeology in Egypt. Said I didn’t know anything about that. I told her she’d better go and ask the British Museum. And I had a word or two with a man who I think was an anti-vivisectionist. Very passionate about it.’

      ‘One always feels,’ said Chetwynd, ‘that there might be something behind things like this.’

      ‘Things like what?’

      ‘Well, things like what happened to you.’

      ‘I don’t see what can be behind this,’ said Sir Stafford. ‘I dare say journalists could make up some story, they’re so clever at that sort of thing. Still, it’s a silly business. For goodness’ sake, let’s forget it. I suppose now it’s been mentioned in the press, all my friends will start asking me about it. How’s old Leyland? What’s he up to nowadays? I heard one or two things about him out there. Leyland always talks 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

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