“Exactly—luckily for us. What do you find there?”

“The stamp of the authorities at Dieppe and the date—13th November.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes—there’s something here. Boulogne, and a date in August—that must be the real Mr. James’s trip.”

“Anything else?”

Frant scanned the passport closely.

“Nothing else,” he announced.

“Nothing else,” Mallett repeated meditatively. “Just what does that indicate to you, Frant?”

“That James went to France, as we knew already, and didn’t come back—as James.”

“Yes.”

“He came back under his own name, or at any rate another one, for which he had another passport.”

“Of course, he may be a professional passport stealer, for all we know.”

“Then”, went on Frant, “having no further use for the James identity, he threw the passport overboard just as the boat reached harbour. He may have been afraid of being searched at Dover, and wanted to make sure it shouldn’t be found on him.”

“In short,” said Mallett, “James is in England. His trip to France was nothing but a blind. As soon as it had accomplished its purpose, back he came. But when, Frant, when? As the Chief Constable says, this passport may have been in the water for days—or for a few hours only.”

“Perhaps Fanshawe knows the answer,” suggested the sergeant.

“But we have no particular reason to think that they crossed together this time. It is a possibility, of course.”

“There is another possibility. James may not have returned from France at all, but given his passport to Fanshawe or to some other confederate, with instructions to plant it on us, just to make us think he had come back.”

Mallett shook his head.

“No,” he said. “If he had done that, then he would have taken care to see that we did find the passport—left it on board, for example, where a steward would be sure to see it. As it is, it was only by the merest chance that it was discovered. I repeat, James is in England. There can be no more unloading responsibility on to the police in Paris. It’s up to us to find him.” He pulled at his moustache, and then added: “But I shan’t feel a bit like doing it if they don’t bring me some tea. I’m famishing!”

17
SEEING A DOG ABOUT A MAN

Saturday, November 21st

“What’s all this nonsense about?”

Susan Jenkinson, her delicate tongue poised on the flap of an envelope which she had just addressed, looked up from her writing-table.

“About what, Father?” she asked. “And do come in, instead of glowering in the door like that. There’s a horrible draught. I’m sure it will give Gandhi a chill.”

Major-General James Jenkinson, C.B., C.I.E. (Rtd.), in spite of his fiery complexion and parade-ground voice, was a well-trained parent. He meekly entered the room and closed the door behind him.