“You’re certain you can’t stay a bit longer?” Joan asked.

“Afraid not. Thanks for all your help. Do any of you happen to know—” But before he could ask whether they knew a Gerald Phipps, they began giving him directions to the Bell. “And if it hasn’t any rooms, the Milton’s two streets down—”

“Watch out for Turing on your way there,” Joan cut in.

“And for Dilly,” Elspeth said. “He’s even worse about not watching where he’s going, and he has a car! Whenever he comes to a crossing, he speeds up.”

“Dilly?” Mike said hoarsely.

“Captain Knox,” Mavis said. “We work for him. He has some sort of mathematical theory that by going faster he’ll hit fewer people, because of being in the crossing a shorter time.”

My God, First Alan Turing and now Dilly’s girls. He was smack in the middle of Ultra, and he’d only been in Bletchley half an hour. “I refuse to accept lifts from him anymore,” Elspeth was saying. “He forgets he’s driving and takes both hands off the—are you all right? You’re pale as a ghost.”

“Turing did injure you,” Mavis said. “Come sit down while we phone for the doctor. Elspeth, go put the kettle—”

“No!” he said. “No. I’m fine. Really.” And he left before they could protest. Or Dilly Knox showed up.

“But we don’t even know your name!” Mavis called after him.

Thank God for that at least, he thought, pretending he hadn’t heard her. And thank God he hadn’t asked about Phipps. He hurried off toward the Bell. What next? Would there be an Enigma machine in his room?

If you can find a room, he thought. But surely they’d have saved a hotel room or two for people passing through, billeting or no billeting.

Wrong. The desk clerk hooted when he asked.

“You don’t know of anywhere?” Mike asked.

“In Bletchley?” the clerk said, and turned to the young man who’d just come up to the counter. “Yes, Mr. Welchman?”

Gordon Welchman? Who’d headed up the team which had broken the German Army and Air Force Enigma codes? Christ, he thought, retreating hastily. At this rate he’d have met all the key players by morning. He headed for the Milton, wondering if he should go back to the station right now and catch the first train going anywhere.

No, with his luck, Alan Ross would be on it with Menzies sound asleep in the luggage rack. But it didn’t look as if he could stay here either. Neither the Milton nor the Empire had a room, and going back to the Bell was out of the question. “You might try one of the boardinghouses on Albion Street,” the clerk at the Empire said, “but I doubt you’ll find anything.”

He was right. Every house had a No Rooms Available or No Vacancy placard in its front window. Maybe the reason the Germans never found out about Ultra was because their spies couldn’t find anywhere to stay, Mike thought, crossing the street—after first looking carefully in all directions—and starting down the other side, peering through the dark at the signs: No Rooms, Full Up, Room to Let.