Sir Stafford Nye’s flat was a very pleasant one. It looked out upon GreenPark. He switched on the coffee percolator and went to see what the posthad left him this morning. It did not appear to have left him anything veryinteresting. He sorted through the letters, a bill or two, a receipt and let-ters with rather uninteresting postmarks. He shuffled1 them together andplaced them on the table where some mail was already lying, accumulat-ing from the last two days. He’d have to get down to things soon, he sup-posed. His secretary would be coming in some time or other this after-noon.
He went back to the kitchen, poured coffee into a cup and brought it tothe table. He picked up the two or three letters that he had opened late lastnight when he arrived. One of them he referred to, and smiled a little ashe read it.
‘Eleven-thirty,’ he said. ‘Quite a suitable time. I wonder now. I expect I’dbetter just think things over, and get prepared for Chetwynd.’
Somebody pushed something through the letter-box. He went out intothe hall and got the morning paper. There was very little news in the pa-per. A political crisis, an item of foreign news which might have been dis-quieting, but he didn’t think it was. It was merely a journalist letting offsteam and trying to make things rather more important than they were.
Must give the people something to read. A girl had been strangled in thepark. Girls were always being strangled. One a day, he thought callously2.
No child had been kidnapped or raped3 this morning. That was a nice sur-prise. He made himself a piece of toast and drank his coffee.
Later, he went out of the building, down into the street, and walkedthrough the park in the direction of Whitehall. He was smiling to himself.
Life, he felt, was rather good this morning. He began to think about Chet-wynd. Chetwynd was a silly fool if there ever was one. A good fa?ade, im-portant-seeming, and a nicely suspicious mind. He’d rather enjoy talkingto Chetwynd.
He reached Whitehall a comfortable seven minutes late. That was onlydue to his own importance compared with that of Chetwynd, he thought.
He walked into the room. Chetwynd was sitting behind his desk and had alot of papers on it and a secretary there. He was looking properly import-ant, as he always did when he could make it.
‘Hullo, Nye,’ said Chetwynd, smiling all over his impressively handsomeface. ‘Glad to be back? How was Malaya?’
‘Hot,’ said Stafford Nye.
‘Yes. Well, I suppose it always is. You meant atmospherically4, I suppose,not politically?’
‘Oh, purely5 atmospherically,’ said Stafford Nye.
He accepted a cigarette and sat down.
‘Get any results to speak of?’
‘Oh, hardly. Not what you’d call results. I’ve sent in my report. All a lotof talky-talky as usual. How’s Lazenby?’
‘Oh, a nuisance as he always is. He’ll never change,’ said Chetwynd.
‘No, that would seem too much to hope for. I haven’t served on anythingwith Bascombe before. He can be quite fun when he likes.’
‘Can he? I don’t know him very well. Yes. I suppose he can.’
‘Well, well, well. No other news, I suppose?’
‘No, nothing. Nothing I think that would interest you.’
‘You didn’t mention in your letter quite why you wanted to see me.’
‘Oh, just to go over a few things, that’s all. You know, in case you’dbrought any special dope home with you. Anything we ought to be pre-pared for, you know. Questions in the House. Anything like that.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Came home by air, didn’t you? Had a bit of trouble, I gather.’
Stafford Nye put on the face he had been determined6 to put on before-hand. It was slightly rueful, with a faint tinge7 of annoyance8.
‘Oh, so you heard about that, did you?’ he said. ‘Silly business.’
‘Yes. Yes, must have been.’
‘Extraordinary,’ said Stafford Nye, ‘how things always get into the press.
There was a paragraph in the stop press this morning.’
‘You’d rather they wouldn’t have, I suppose?’
‘Well, makes me look a bit of an ass9, doesn’t it?’ said Stafford Nye. ‘Got toadmit it. At my age too!’
‘What happened exactly? I wondered if the report in the paper had beenexaggerating.’
‘Well, I suppose they made the most of it, that’s all. You know what thesejourneys are. Damn boring. There was fog at Geneva so they had to re-route the plane. Then there was two hours’ delay at Frankfurt.’
‘Is that when it happened?’
‘Yes. One’s bored stiff in these airports. Planes coming, planes going.
Tannoy going full steam ahead. Flight 302 leaving for Hong Kong, Flight109 going to Ireland. This, that and the other. People getting up, peopleleaving. And you just sit there yawning.’
‘What happened exactly?’ said Chetwynd.
‘Well, I’d got a drink in front of me, Pilsner as a matter of fact, then Ithought I’d got to get something else to read. I’d read everything I’d gotwith me so I went over to the counter and bought some wretched paper-back or other. Detective story, I think it was, and I bought a woolly animalfor one of my nieces. Then I came back, finished my drink, opened my pa-perback and then I went to sleep.’
‘Yes, I see. You went to sleep.’
‘Well, a very natural thing to do, isn’t it? I suppose they called my flightbut if they did I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear it apparently10 for the best ofreasons. I’m capable of going to sleep in an airport any time but I’m alsocapable of hearing an announcement that concerns me. This time I didn’t.
When I woke up, or came to, however you like to put it, I was having a bitof medical attention. Somebody apparently had dropped a Mickey Finn orsomething or other in my drink. Must have done it when I was away get-ting the paperback11.’
‘Rather an extraordinary things to happen, wasn’t it?’ said Chetwynd.
‘Well, it’s never happened to me before,’ said Stafford Nye. ‘I hope itnever will again. It makes you feel an awful fool, you know. Besides hav-ing a hangover. There was a doctor and some nurse creature, or some-thing. Anyway, there was no great harm done apparently. My wallet hadbeen pinched with some money in it and my passport. It was awkward ofcourse. Fortunately, I hadn’t got much money. My travellers’ chequeswere in an inner pocket. There always has to be a bit of red tape and allthat if you lose your passport. Anyway, I had letters and things and identi-fication was not difficult. And in due course things were squared up and Iresumed my flight.’
‘Still, very annoying for you,’ said Chetwynd. ‘A person of your status, Imean.’ His tone was disapproving12.
‘Yes,’ said Stafford Nye. ‘It doesn’t show me in a very good light, does it?
I mean, not as bright as a fellow of my–er–status ought to be.’ The ideaseemed 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 supposeany person with a pick-pocket trend could notice a fellow asleep and slip ahand into a pocket, and if he’s accomplished13 in his profession, get hold ofa 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 explana-tions, I suppose. As I say, the whole thing’s a damn silly business. And let’sface it, Chetwynd, it doesn’t show me in a very favourable14 light, does it?’
‘Oh, not your fault, my dear boy, not your fault. It could happen to any-body, 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 specially15?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Stafford Nye. ‘Why should they want my pass-port. Unless it was a matter of someone who wished to annoy me and thathardly 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 smallchild she was trying to amuse. Came from Wigan, I think. Going to Aus-tralia. Don’t remember anybody else.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘There was some woman or other who wanted to know what she did ifshe wanted to study archaeology16 in Egypt. Said I didn’t know anythingabout that. I told her she’d better go and ask the British Museum. And Ihad a word or two with a man who I think was an anti-vivisectionist. Verypassionate about it.’
‘One always feels,’ said Chetwynd, ‘that there might be something be-hind 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 daresay journal-ists 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’sbeen 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 thingsabout him out there. Leyland always talks a bit too much.’
The two men talked amiable17 shop for ten minutes or so, then SirStafford got up and went out.
‘I’ve got a lot of things to do this morning,’ he said. ‘Presents to buy formy relations. The trouble is that if one goes to Malaya, all one’s relationsexpect you to bring exotic presents to them. I’ll go round to Liberty’s, Ithink. They have a nice stock of Eastern goods there.’
He went out cheerfully, nodding to a couple of men he knew in the cor-ridor outside. After he had gone, Chetwynd spoke18 through the telephoneto his secretary.
‘Ask Colonel Munro if he can come to me.’
Colonel Munro came in, bringing another tall middle- aged19 man withhim.
‘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 thisstory about Frankfurt? Anything, I mean, that we ought to take any noticeof?’
‘Doesn’t seem so,’ said Chetwynd. ‘He’s a bit put out about it. Thinks itmakes him look a silly ass. Which it does, of course.’
The man called Horsham nodded his head. ‘That’s the way he takes it, isit?’
‘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 shrugged20 his shoulders. ‘These things happen,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Colonel Munro, ‘yes, yes, I know. All the same, well, I’ve al-ways 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. ‘Nothingat 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 concealed21 moments when he found it difficult to avoid smiling.
‘He’s not a stupid man,’ said Munro. ‘Got brains, you know. You don’tthink that– well, I mean you don’t think there could be anything at alldoubtful 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 allright. 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 forthat. It went through with other passports. There was no alarm out, youknow. He hadn’t even woken up, I gather, at that time, from the dope orwhatever it was he was given. He was still at Frankfurt.’
‘But someone could have stolen that passport and come on the planeand so got into England?’
‘Yes,’ said Munro, ‘that’s the presumption22. Either someone took a walletwhich had money in it and a passport, or else someone wanted a passportand settled on Sir Stafford Nye as a convenient person to take it from. Adrink was waiting on a table, put a pinch in that, wait till the man went offto sleep, take the passport and chance it.’
‘But after all, they look at a passport. Must have seen it wasn’t the rightman,’ said Chetwynd.
‘Well, there must have been a certain resemblance, certainly,’ said Hor-sham. ‘But it isn’t as though there was any notice of his being missing, anyspecial attention drawn23 to that particular passport in any way. A largecrowd comes through on a plane that’s overdue24. A man looks reasonablylike 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 thatare 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 listof undesirable25 aliens or anything like that.’
‘I know, I know. Still, you’d say if anybody wanted merely to pinch awallet 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,’ hesaid, ‘we’re making investigations26, 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, youknow. One can’t hurry things.’
‘They’re all the same,’ said Colonel Munro, when Horsham had left theroom. ‘They never will tell you anything, those damned security people. Ifthey think they’re on the trail of anything, they won’t admit it.’
‘Well, that’s natural,’ said Chetwynd, ‘because they might be wrong.’
It seemed a typically political view.
‘Horsham’s a pretty good man,’ said Munro. ‘They think very highly ofhim at headquarters. He’s not likely to be wrong.’
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1
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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callously
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raped
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| v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸 | |
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atmospherically
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| adv.由大气压所致地，气压所致地，气压上 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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paperback
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| n.平装本，简装本 | |
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disapproving
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| adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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archaeology
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| n.考古学 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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overdue
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| adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的 | |
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undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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