High Jinx by William F. Buckley Read Free Book Online Page B

appropriate door. Superintendent Roberts turned to Trust and said, ‘Under the circumstances, sir, you had better handle the questioning.’
    It transpired that ‘John Shroud’ had lived in the apartment for about a year, had paid his rent (twenty-one pounds per month) promptly. He was often gone, sometimes for as long as two or three weeks, sometimes overnight. A quiet gentleman. He used to have a lady friend who came in every now and then and once stayed an entire week, but she hadn’t been seen for several months. As for last Tuesday, the porter had been surprised to see him leave, a few minutes after six in the afternoon, because that very morning he had complained to her that his refrigerator was not holding the cold and he would be needing ice the following day in particular. (‘Suppose he was ’avin’ some people in,’ she commented.) He had come down the stairs, she said, carrying a suitcase, apparently in a hurry, had barely returned her greeting, waved at her, sort of, and she did so hope he wasn’t a criminal, but the room contracts had been very carefully made out by a lawyer, and the widow Longstrike had every right to repossess the flat in the event criminal charges were lodged.
    Superintendent Roberts thanked her, pointed pleasantly at the door, through which she soon passed, and, under supervision of the police, Anthony Trust began his search.
    He had established that Shroud had been in residence for over three weeks; therefore he must have arrived at about the time the cadre had left Camp Cromwell. The question, then, was whether he had left the apartment under pressure of imminent danger, or whether he had simply gone off to meet his next commitment, conceivably to undertake a new mission. As for Shroud’s background, Trust awaited the fruits of the extensive research being done under close supervision in Washington by the FBI, and in London by the CIA.
    The flat certainly didn’t look abandoned. There were two jackets in the closet, a few shirts in the drawer, magazines on the coffee table. And the refrigerator, as the porter had indicated, had been freshly stocked, including with perishables—milk, eggs, mincemeat. What was he doing with such goods if he knew that he would not be back soon? Or at all? It would depend, Trust reasoned, on how much of a hurry he was in. If John Shroud suddenly reappeared the next day, or for that matter later today, then what Rufus was worried about was of a completely different order. If he reappeared he would instantly be arrested. On the other hand, if he reappeared it would lay to rest the urgent question: might somebody have tipped him off between 11:30 A.M . and 6 P.M . yesterday?
    Anthony concluded his inspection. By the time he reached the safe house on James Street which Rufus had designated as the provisional headquarters of the ‘Sergeant Esperanto’ investigation, the mystery was cleared up.
    Or rather, it had deepened.
    Lufthansa, in answer to their inquiry, reported that yes, one man had appeared at the very last moment, asking for space on the eight o’clock flight to Berlin. He had paid for his ticket in cash. He carried a single suitcase, which he said he wished to take with him, as he had ‘a tight connection in Berlin.’ He gave his name as John Hightower, carried an American passport, and had filled out the customary immigration form before arriving in Berlin. A teletype to Berlin retrieved his passport number as set down on his landing form.
    A check in Washington quickly revealed that no such passport had been issued, in Washington or in an American embassy or consulate.
    John Shroud, aged thirty-eight, was an American mercenary, a radio specialist who had several times been called on to give training of a kind particularly useful to special missions. He was a member of a pool of technicians loosely affiliated with several government agencies that had been charged with a growing number