Enigma

desk, bent over the intercepts, knuckles to his temples, eyes closed.
    He stayed like that for three hours.
    At about six o'clock, Puck stopped by to drop on the table another forty encrypted signals, the latest batch of Shark traffic, and to enquire—not without a degree of sarcasm—if Jericho had 'solved it yet?' At seven, there was a rattle of step ladders against the outside wall and the blackout shutters were unfastened. A pale grey light filtered into the hut.
    What was she doing, hurrying into the Park at that time of night? That was what he did not understand. Of course, the mere fact of seeing her again after a month spent tiying to forget her was disturbing. But it was the circumstances, in retrospect, that troubled him more. She had not been in the canteen, he was sure of that. He had scrutinised every table, every face—had been so distracted he had barely even looked at what he was being given to eat. But if she had not been in the canteen, where had she been? Had she been with someone? Who? Who? And the way she was walking so hurriedly. Was there not something furtive, even panicky, about it?
    His memory replayed the scene frame by frame: the footsteps, the flash of light, the turn of her head, her cry, the halo of her hair, the way she had vanished . . . That was something else. Could she really have walked the entire distance to the hut in the time it took him to fumble for his pass?
    Just before eight o'clock he gathered the cryptograms together and slipped them into the folder. All around him, the cryptanaiysts were preparing to go off shift—stretching and yawning and rubbing at tired eyes, pulling together their work, briefing their replacements. Nobody noticed Jericho walk quickly down the corridor to Logie's office. He knocked once. There was no reply. He tried the door. As he remembered: unlocked.
    He closed it behind him and picked up the telephone. If he delayed for a second his nerve would fail him. He dialled '0' and on the seventh ring, just as he was about to give up, a sleepy operator answered.
    His mouth was almost too dry to get the words out. 'Duty Officer, Hut 3, please.'
    Almost immediately a man's voice said, irritably: 'Colonel Coker.'
    Jericho nearly dropped the receiver.
    'Do you have a Miss Romilly there?' He didn't need to disguise his voice: it was so strained and quavering it was unrecognisable. 'A Miss Claire Romilly?'
    'You've come through to completely the wrong office. Who is this?'
    'Welfare.'
    'Oh bloody hell! There was a deafening bang, as if the colonel had thrown the telephone across the room, but the connection held. Jericho could hear the clatter of a teleprinter and a man's voice, very cultured, somewhere in the background: 'Yes, yes, I've got that. Right-oh. Cheerio.' The man ended one conversation and started another. 'Army Index here . . .' Jericho glanced at the clock above the window. Now it was past eight. Come on, come on ... Suddenly there was more loud banging, much closer, and a woman said softly in Jericho's ear: 'Yes?'
    He tried to sound casual but it came out as a croak. 'Claire?'
    'No, I'm afraid it's Claire's day off. She won't be back on duty until eight tomorrow morning. Can I help?'
    Jericho gently replaced the receiver in its cradle, just as the door was thrown open behind him.
    'Oh, there you are, old thing . . .'

4

    Daylight diminished the huts.
    The blackout had touched them with a certain mystery but the morning showed them up for what they were: squat and ugly, with brown walls and tarred roofs and a premature air of dereliction. Above the mansion, the sky was glossy white with streaks of grey, a dome of polished marble. A duck in drab winter plumage waddled across the path from the lake looking for food, and Logie almost kicked it as he strode past, sending it protesting back to the water.
    He had not been in the least perturbed to find Jericho in his office and Jericho's carefully prepared excuse—that he was returning the Shark intercepts had been waved away.
    'Just dump 'em in the Crib Room and come with me.'
    Drawn across the northern edge of the lake, next to the huts, was A-Block, a long, two-storey affair with brick walls and a flat top. Logie led the way up a flight of concrete steps and turned right. At the far end of the corridor a door opened and Jericho heard a familiar voice booming: '. . . all our resources, human and material, into this problem . . .' and then the door closed again and Baxter peered down the passage