Tommy took a slender silver cigarette case from her outstretched hand, noted the inscription engraved in her own handwriting, ‘Francis from Tuppence’, opened and shut the case, and nodded approvingly.

‘You do throw your money about, Tuppence,’ he remarked. ‘I’ll have one like it, only in gold, for my birthday next month. Fancy wasting a thing like that on Francis Haviland, who always was and always will be one of the most perfect asses God ever made!’

‘You forget I used to drive him about during the war, when he was a General. Ah! those were the good old days.’

‘They were,’ agreed Tommy. ‘Beautiful women used to come and squeeze my hand in hospital, I remember. But I don’t send them all wedding presents. I don’t believe the bride will care much for this gift of yours, Tuppence.’

‘It’s nice and slim for the pocket, isn’t it?’ said Tuppence, disregarding his remarks.

Tommy slipped it into his own pocket.

‘Just right,’ he said approvingly. ‘Hullo, here is Albert with the afternoon post. Very possibly the Duchess of Perthshire is commissioning us to find her prize Peke.’

They sorted through the letters together. Suddenly Tommy gave vent to a prolonged whistle and held up one of them in his hand.

‘A blue letter with a Russian stamp on it. Do you remember what the Chief said? We were to look out for letters like that.’

‘How exciting,’ said Tuppence. ‘Something has happened at last. Open it and see if the contents are up to schedule. A ham merchant, wasn’t it? Half a minute. We shall want some milk for tea. They forgot to leave it this morning. I’ll send Albert out for it.’

She returned from the outer office, after despatching Albert on his errand, to find Tommy holding the blue sheet of paper in his hand.

‘As we thought, Tuppence,’ he remarked. ‘Almost word for word what the Chief said.’

Tuppence took the letter from him and read it.

It was couched in careful stilted English, and purported to be from one Gregor Feodorsky, who was anxious for news of his wife. The International Detective Agency was urged to spare no expense in doing their utmost to trace her. Feodorsky himself was unable to leave Russia at the moment owing to a crisis in the pork trade.

‘I wonder what it really means,’ said Tuppence thoughtfully, smoothing out the sheet on the table in front of her.

‘Code of some kind, I suppose,’ said Tommy. ‘That’s not our business. Our business is to hand it over to the Chief as soon as possible. Better just verify it by soaking off the stamp and seeing if the number 16 is underneath.’

‘All right,’ said Tuppence. ‘But I should think—’

She stopped dead, and Tommy, surprised by her sudden pause, looked up to see a man’s burly figure blocking the doorway.