A beat of silence, then Hall snorted. “Well, they’ve failed in that. We’d know it if our codes had been compromised.”

They would, as they had been alerted when the minesweeping code had been. But it could be why this agent had been targeting her. The date on the telegram matched up with when he’d begun appearing.

She went to work on the next message, which was longer. The men chattered on about the mission while she decrypted, until she slid the sheet over toward Drake.

“This one is reporting the death of an Agent Regnitz in the line of duty. Requesting transport of body. . . . Regnitz? I don’t recognize that name.”

“It’s a river,” Camden said. “In Bavaria. Aside from that . . . it could be a surname, I suppose. Or a code name. Sir?”

Hall’s footsteps sounded, and then there was the rustle of paper exchanging hands. “I don’t recall seeing it in any of our other information.”

Nor did Margot, though she gave it only a passing thought. Her focus was already on the next telegram. A response to the first, it seemed. “Transport was refused. The recipient was instructed to dispose of the corpse however he saw fit and then implement plan A22.” She slapped that paper down too. “This next one is also from Berlin but seems to have been sent to England again, sir.”

“Where were the previous two received originally?”

“Madrid.”

She heard the hitch in Drake’s breath. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since we know it has something to do with Jaeger, and the train was bound for Madrid. I suppose A22 commanded him back here, somehow or another.”

“So it would seem. Though I would still like to know how an agent of the Central Powers managed to slip past us without my knowing it.” Hall’s irritation echoed off the marble stairs.

Margot scratched another word onto the page.

“Or was it two agents, even?” Drake asked. “We know Jaeger is here, given the phone call. He must be working with the man who attacked the girls last night. This bloke seems to have been here for a while—I would bet under the name Niall Walsh originally. Perhaps he helped secret Jaeger in somehow too.”

“Without our knowing it?” Hall huffed. “Not possible.”

Margot’s lips twitched. “The law of large numbers, sir. It’s possible someone has evaded your knowledge all this time, however improbable it may seem.”

“Statistics that don’t particularly help just now. What we need are some hard facts. Margot?” Hall stepped closer.

Her smile had stalled and faded. “This is the last one of those we found in the flat, and it just references another plan by alphanumeric designation. The others were sent to South America. Not to our man, I should think.” With a frustrated sigh, she set her pencil down. “Useless. All of it. You two put your lives in danger for nothing.”