“And yet in many ways I became Gail’s mother,” said Martha. “Because, in a manner of speaking, I adopted her.” I thought of the tin in Chancery Lane that contained all of Martha’s important documents, which had, of course, belonged to the real Martha Prentice. “I’d gotten very specific information from Russ Hewett regarding a new naval base that was to be built on the island he’d helped to construct. I had to get this information across the water. But, of course, all communications with Japan and Germany are carefully screened by your government. On the other hand, a Japanese orchestra was going to be performing here very soon. No one in the government or from customs would question the most universal code of all: music notation. Could we find someone free from suspicion in the Bay Area to create what we needed?

“When we impound certain prisoners who have family in other countries, we encourage them to write home, so that we can learn where their relatives live. Here we have a composer imprisoned in Germany, writing to his equally musical daughter in Berkeley, California. Vollkommen. I hand-delivered her father’s letter to Gail myself.”

Gail said to me, impassioned, “Now do you see, Ray? They said they’d kill my father if I didn’t do what they wanted. The letter was clearly from him—I know his handwriting and his way of speaking. I had to do what they told me. After all, it isn’t like we’re actually at war with Japan or Germany. So I invented the Swing code and encrypted all of Russ Hewett’s information into my composition, knowing in advance that the judges in Japan had been told whose entry should win. I just had to have the code orchestrated and split into many parts, then destroy the original score myself, so that only someone with all the music for all the instruments could reassemble the message. That’s why I needed you.”

Martha took some fruity pleasure in outlining my pitiful gullibility for me. “You see, Gail had to report all your conversations back to me, not realizing how helpful some of what you told her was. Even before Russ learned about the daughter you lost, I’d heard that you’d been at the Claremont at just the right age, in just the right time frame, that you drank heavily back then and now had very little memory of your trysts, I realized I’d been given the chance to have a powerful hold over you and your loyalty.”

“So you stabbed me.”

I could see she enjoyed the memory. “Well, that was to lend credence to my story, as well as to help me align my fabricated tale with your real blood type. When Russ phoned and told me about your daughter’s death, that clinched the deal.”

“How did you know about the clarinet reed in my wallet?”