“That is undoubtedly why he put the special spell on the lock of his hotel room,” said Lord Darcy.

“No doubt, no doubt,” agreed Captain Smollett. “At any rate, yesterday morning he sent this letter to me by messenger from the hotel.” He handed the envelope to Lord Darcy. “You’ll notice it is stamped 7:45 a.m.”

Lord Darcy looked at the outside of the envelope. It was addressed to Captain Percy Smollett and was marked “Personal.” Darcy opened it and took out the single sheet of paper. “This is in code,” said Lord Darcy.

“Of course,” said Captain Smollett. He took another sheet from the file and handed it over. “Here is the clear,” he said. Lord Darcy read the message aloud:

“ ‘Sir: I have a special packet for you containing information of the utmost importance which I have just received. It is impossible for me to leave the hotel at this time, and I do not wish to entrust this information to a common messenger. Accordingly, I have given the envelope with my seal upon it to the hotel manager, Goodman Paul Nichols. He has placed it in the hotel safe and has been instructed to hand it over to your courier.’ ”

The note was signed with the single letter “Z.”

Lord Darcy handed the papers back to the captain. “I see, Captain. Pray continue.”

“As I said, the message arrived at 7:45. It was placed on my desk with the rest of my morning mail. Now — I didn’t arrive here at the office until a few minutes before ten. Hadn’t had time to even glance at my mail when Commander Ashley came in, bringing the news from Cherbourg that Barbour had been murdered — which was bad enough — and the further intelligence that Master Sir James had been stabbed to death only half an hour before. Since you already know of the importance we’ve attached to this affair, you’ll understand that for the next few hours I was a very busy man. Didn’t have a chance to look at my mail until well after two o’clock. When I decoded the letter, I sent Ashley, here, over to fetch the packet.” He looked at the Commander. “You’d better take it from there, Commander. I’m sure Lord Darcy prefers to get his facts as directly as possible.”

“Aye, sir.” He turned to face Lord Darcy. “I went directly to the hotel and asked to see Goodman Lewie, and told him that Sir James had left an envelope addressed to Captain Smollett in the safe, to be delivered to the Navy.

“He said he knew nothing of it, and I told him that it had been left with Goodman Paul.

“He informed me that Goodman Paul had made no mention of it when he went off duty at nine, but he agreed to open the safe and get the envelope out.

“I was standing by him when he opened the safe. It’s a small one and there wasn’t much inside it. Certainly there was no envelope addressed to Captain Smollett, nor any sign that there had ever been one. Bolmer swore that he had not opened the safe that morning, and both of the desk clerks substantiated that. Bolmer and his two assistant managers are the only ones who know the combination, and the security spell only allows the assistant managers to open the safe during the time they are on duty, that is, from three p.m. till midnight for the afternoon manager and from midnight to nine a.m. for the night manager.”

Lord Darcy nodded. “That does rather narrow it down to Goodman Paul. Only he could have removed that packet from the safe.”

“My thought exactly,” said Commander Lord Ashley. “Naturally, I insisted upon speaking to Paul Nichols immediately, and asked for his home address. It turns out that he lived there in the hotel; he has a room up on the top floor. Bolmer took me up and I knocked on Nichols’ door, got no answer, and Bolmer let us in with a pass key. Nichols wasn’t in. His bed was made and certainly didn’t look as though it had been slept in. Bolmer said that was odd because usually Nichols goes out to have a bite to eat after he gets off work, then comes back to the hotel and sleeps until around six o’clock.”

“Did you find out whether Nichols took advantage of the hotel’s maid service?” Lord Darcy asked.

The Commander nodded. “He did. Nichols quite often went out of an evening, and the maid had orders to make up his room between 7:30 and 8:30. I looked the room over and checked through his things. He didn’t seem to have packed anything. His suitcase, empty, was in the closet, and Bolmer said that as far as he knew it was the only suitcase Nichols owned.”

“That’s the advantage of being a counterspy,” said Lord Bontriomphe with a sigh. “If an officer of the King’s Peace tried searching a man’s room without a warrant he’d find himself in the Court of the King’s Bench trying to explain to My Lord justice how he had come to make such a mistake.”

“Well, I didn’t really search the place,” Ashley said. “I was just taking a look around.”

“So,” said Lord Darcy, “you found that Nichols was not there and apparently had not been to bed since the bed was made on the previous evening.”

“Right. I questioned some of the hotel servants. No one had seen him come back from his breakfast — or perhaps for him it was supper — so I instructed Bolmer to say nothing but to let us know as soon as Nichols returned. Then I came back here and reported to Captain Smollett.”

Lord Darcy nodded and looked back at the captain.

“Been looking for him ever since. Sent men over to the hotel, to wait for him to come to work at midnight; he didn’t show up. Still no sign of him. Not a trace.”

“You suspect then,” said Lord Darcy, “that the disappearance of the packet and the disappearance of Nichols are linked. I agree with you. The contents of that envelope would have been in code, would they not, Captain?”

“Yes indeed. And not the simple code used for that note, either. Furthermore, Zwinge always used ink and paper with a special spell on it. If an unauthorized person broke the seal, the writing would vanish before he could get the paper out of the envelope.”

“Obviously, then, Nichols did not remove it from the safe, read it over, and decide that it was valuable on the spur of the moment.”

“Obviously not,” agreed Captain Smollett. “Furthermore, Zwinge was no fool. Wouldn’t have given it to Nichols unless he trusted him. Also, since the envelope had that protective spell on it, the only way to read the contents would be to get it to a magician who is clever enough and powerful enough to analyze and nullify Master Sir James Zwinge’s spell.”

“Do you have any idea what sort of information might have been in that envelope, Captain Smollett?” Lord Darcy asked.

“None. None whatsoever. Can’t have been terribly urgent — that is, not requiring immediate action — or Zwinge would have brought it here himself, in spite of everything. But it was certainly important enough to drive King Casimir’s agents to murder to get it.”

“How do you think this ties in with the murder of Barbour, then? And with the Navy’s new secret weapon?”

The captain scowled and puffed at his pipe for a few seconds. “Now there we’re on shaky ground. Obviously it was discovered that Barbour was a double agent; otherwise he wouldn’t have been killed.”

“I agree with you there,” said Lord Darcy.

“Very well. But that leaves us several possible speculations about FitzJean and about the Poles’ knowledge of the confusion projector.

“If, as we hope, they know nothing of the device, then they knew nothing about FitzJean except the purely mendacious material which Barbour had passed on to them. When they discovered he was a double agent, they simply killed him and ignored FitzJean. Information on fleet disposition isn’t worth taking any great pains over.

“However, I am afraid that we would be unrealistically optimistic to put any faith in the notion that the Polish Government is entirely unaware of the existence of the confusion projector.

“Much more likely, they are sparing no effort to find out what it is and how it works — which would still indicate that they know nothing whatever about FitzJean. If they did, they would certainly not have killed Barbour until they could get their hands on FitzJean — which, of course, they may have done. Or again they may already have the secret and not give two hoots in Hell about FitzJean.