It was Markins.

“You’ve been the hell of a time,” said Alleyn.

As seen when the remaining candle had been lighted, he was a spare bird-like man. His black hair was brushed strongly back, like a coarse wig with no parting. He had small black eyes, a thin nose and a mobile mouth. Above his black trousers he wore a servant’s alpaca working jacket. His habit of speech was basic cockney with an overlay of Americanisms, but neither of these characteristics was very marked and he would have been a difficult man to place. He had an air of naïveté and frankness, almost of innocence, but his dark eyes never widened and he seemed, behind his manner, which was pleasing, to be always extremely alert. He carried the candle he had lit to Alleyn’s bedside table and then stood waiting, his arms at his sides, his hands turned outwards at the wrists.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it before, sir,” he murmured. “They’re light sleepers, all of them, more’s the pity. All four.”

“No more?” Alleyn whispered.

“Five.”

“Five’s out.”

“It used to be six.”

“And two from six is four with the odd one out.”

They grinned at each other.

“Right,” said Alleyn. “I walk in deadly fear of forgetting these rigmaroles. What would you have done if I’d got it wrong?”

“Not much chance of that, sir, and I’d have known you anywhere, Mr. Alleyn.”

“I should keep a false beard by me,” said Alleyn gloomily. “Sit down for heaven’s sake, and shoot the works. Have a cigarette? How long is it since we met?”

“Back in ’37, wasn’t it, sir? I joined the Special Branch in ’36. I saw you before I went over to the States on that pre-war job.”

“So you did. We fixed you up as a steward in a German liner, didn’t we?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“By the way, is it safe to speak and not whisper?”

“I think so, sir. There’s nobody in the dressing-room or on this side of the landing. The two young ladies are over the way. Their doors are shut.”

“At least we can risk a mutter. You did very well on that first job, Markins.”

“Not so good this time, I’m afraid, sir. I’m properly up against it.”

“Oh, well,” said Alleyn resignedly, “let’s have the whole story.”

“From the beginning?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Well, sir,” said Markins and pulled his chair closer to the bed. They leant towards each other. They resembled some illustration by Cruikshank from Dickens: Alleyn in his dark gown, his long hands folded on the counterpane; Markins, small, cautious, bent forward attentively. The candle glowed like a nimbus behind his head, and Alleyn’s shadow, stooping with theatrical exaggeration on the wall beside him, seemed to menace both of them. They spoke in a barely vocal but pedantically articulate mutter.

“I was kept on in the States,” said Markins, “as of course you know. In May, ’38, I got instructions from your people, Mr. Alleyn, to get alongside a Japanese wool buyer called Kurata Kan, who was in Chicago. It took a bit of time but I made the grade, finally, through his servant. A half-caste Jap this servant was, and used to go to a sort of night school. I joined up, too, and found that this half-caste was sucking up to another pupil, a janitor at a place where they made hush-hush parts for aeroplane engines. He was on the job, all right, that half-caste. They pay on the nail for information, never mind how small, and he and Kan were in the game together. It took me weeks of geography and American history lessons before I got a lead and then I sold them a little tale about how I’d been sacked for showing too much interest. After that it was money for jam. I sold Mr. Kurata Kan quite a nice little line of bogus information. Then he moved on to Australia. I got instructions from the Special Branch to follow him up. They fixed me up as a gent’s valet in Sydney. I was supposed to have been in service with an artillery expert from Home who visited the Governor of New South Wales. He gave me the references himself on Government House notepaper. He was in touch with your people, sir. Well, after a bit I looked up Mr. Kan and made the usual offer. He was quite glad to see me and I handed him a little line of stuff the gentleman was supposed to have let out when under the influence. Your office supplied it.”

“I remember.”

“He was trying to get on to some stuff about fortifications at Darwin and we strung him along quite nicely for a time. Of course he was away a great deal on his wool-buying job. Nothing much happened, till August 1940, when he put it up to me that it might be worth my while to come over here with a letter from him to a lady friend of his, a Mrs. Arthur Rubrick M.P., who was keen on English servants. He said a nephew of Mr. Rubrick’s was doing a job they’d like to get a line on. Very thorough, the Japs, sir.”

“Very.”

“That’s right. I cabled in code to the Special Branch and they told me to go ahead. They were very interested in Mr. Kan. So I came over and it worked out nicely. Mrs. Rubrick took me on, and here I stuck. The first catch in it, though, was what would I tell Kurata Kan? The Special Branch warned me that Mr. Losse’s work was important and they gave me some phoney stuff I could send on to Kan when he got discontented. That was O.K. I even rigged up a bit of an affair with some spare radio parts, all pulled to pieces and done up different. I put it in a bad light and took a bad photograph of it and told him I’d done it through a closed window from the top of a ladder. I’ve often wondered how far it got before some expert took a look at it and said the Japanese for ‘Nuts.’ Kan was pleased enough. He knew nothing. They pulled him in at last on my information and then there was Pearl Harbor. Finish!”

“Only as far as Kan was concerned.”

“True enough, sir. There was the second catch. But you know all about that, Mr. Alleyn.”

“I’d like to hear your end of it.”

“Would you, sir? O.K., then. My instructions from your end had been that I was on no account to let Mrs. Rubrick or either of the young gentlemen get any idea that I wasn’t exactly what I seemed. After a bit your people let me know that there’d been leakage of information — not my phoney dope, but genuine stuff — about this magnetic fuse. Not through Japanese canals but German ones. Now that was a facer. So my next job was to turn round after three years’ working the bogus agent and look for the genuine article. And that,” said Markins plaintively, “was where I fluttered to pieces. I hadn’t got a thing. Not a bloody inkling, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

“So we gathered,” said Alleyn.

“The galling thing, Mr. Alleyn, the aspect of the affair that got under my professional skin, as you might say, was this: somebody in this household had been working under my nose for months. What did I feel like when I heard it? Dirt. Kuh! Thinking myself the fly operator, cooking up little fake photographs and all the time — look, Mr. Alleyn, I handed myself the raspberry in six different positions. I did indeed.”

“If it’s any satisfaction to you,” said Alleyn, “one source of transit was stopped. Two months ago a German supply ship was taken off the Argentine coast. Detailed drawings of the magnetic fuse and instructions in code were found aboard her. The only link we could establish between this ship and New Zealand was the story of a free-lance journalist who was cruising round the world in a tramp steamer. There are lots of these sportsmen about, harmless eccentrics, no doubt, for the most part. This particular specimen, a native of Portugal, visited most of the ports in this country during last year. Our people have tracked him down to a pub in a neutral port where he was seen drinking with the skipper of this German ship, and was suddenly very flush with cash. Intensive probing brought to light an involved story that cast a very murky light on the journalist. All the usual stuff. We’re pretty certain of him and he won’t be given a shore permit next time the Wanderlust drives him this way, romantic little chap.”