Enigma

phrase, that could have stirred it into life. Diana, Hubertus, Magdeburg, picket line, radio silence, contact signal . . .
    Contact signal.
    'Guy, where d'you keep the keys to the Black Museum?'
    'What, old thing? Oh, in my desk. Top right-hand drawer. Hey, where're you going? Just a minute, I haven't finished talking to you yet. . .'
    It was a relief to get out of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the hut and into the cold, fresh air. He trotted up the slope towards the mansion.
    He seldom went into the big house these days but whenever he did it reminded him of a stately home in a twenties murder mystery. (' You will recall, inspector, that the colonel was in the library when the fatal shots were fired . . .') The exterior was a nightmare, as if a giant handcart full of the discarded bits of other buildings had been tipped out in a heap. Swiss gables, Gothic battlements, Greek pillars, suburban bay windows, municipal red brick, stone lions, the entrance porch of a cathedral—the styles sulked and raged against one another, capped by a bell-shaped roof of beaten green copper. The interior was pure Gothic horror, all stone arches and stained glass windows. The polished floors rang hollow beneath Jericho's feet and the walls were decorated with dark wooden panelling of the sort that springs open in the final chapter to reveal a secret labyrinth. He was hazy about what went on here now. Commander Travis had the big office at the front looking out over the lake while upstairs in the bedrooms all sorts of mysterious things were done: he'd heard rumours they were breaking the ciphers of the German Secret Service.
    He walked quickly across the hall. An Army captain loitering outside Travis's office was pretending to read that morning's Observer, listening to a middle-aged man in tweeds trying to chat up a young RAF woman. Nobody paid any attention to Jericho. At the foot of the elaborately carved oak staircase, a corridor led off to the right and wound around the back of the house. Midway along it was a door which opened to reveal steps down to a secondary passage. It was here, in a locked room in the cellar, that the cryptanalysts from huts 6 and 8 stored their stolen treasures.
    Jericho felt along the wall for the light switch.
    The larger of the two keys unlocked the door to the museum. Stacked on metal shelves along one wall were a dozen or more captured Enigma machines. The smaller key fitted one of a pair of big iron safes. Jericho knelt and opened it and began to rummage through the contents. Here they all were, their precious pinches: each one a victory in the long war against the Enigma. There was a cigar box with a label dated February 1941, containing the haul from the armed German trawler Krebs: two spare rotors, the Kriegsmarine grid map of the North Atlantic and the naval Enigma settings for February 1941. Behind these was a bulging envelope marked Munchen—a weather ship whose capture three months after the Krebs had enabled them to break the meterological code—and another labelled 'U-110'. He pulled out armfuls of papers and charts.
    Finally, from the bottom shelf at the back, he withdrew a small package wrapped in brown oilcloth. This was the haul for which Fasson and Grazier had died, still in its original covering, as it had been passed out of the sinking U-boat. He never saw it without thanking God that they'd found something waterproof to wrap it in. The smallest exposure to water would have dissolved the ink. To have plucked it from a drowning submarine, at night, in a high sea ... It was enough to make even a mathematician believe in miracles. Jericho removed the oilcloth tenderly, as a scholar might unwrap the papyri of an ancient civilisation, or a priest uncover holy relics. Two little pamphlets, printed in Gothic lettering on pink blotting paper. The second edition of the U-boats' Short Weather Cipher, now useless, thanks to the code book change. And—exactly as he had remembered—the Short Signal Book. He flicked through it. Columns of letters and numbers.
    A typed notice was stuck on the back of the safe door: 'It is strictly forbidden to remove any item without my express permission. (Signed) L.F.N. Skynner, Head of Naval Section.'
    Jericho took particular pleasure in slipping the Short Signal Book into his inside pocket and running with it back to the hut.
    Jericho tossed the keys to Logie who fumbled and then just caught them.
    'Contact signal.'
    'What?'
    'Contact signal,' repeated