Captain Hall glanced at the wooden prosthesis, lying on the table beside her. The memory she wished forgotten clung steadfast and fresh as if it were yesterday. Why did I agree to go on that hunting expedition? The flashback, raw and painful, assaulted her as she relived stumbling and shooting herself in the leg. Sullenly, she stared at the inflamed stump below her knee. The past to her way of thinking should stay where it was, in the past, but it kept seeping into her life. She neither liked nor wanted how it made her feel. Vulnerable. Emotion of any kind made her uncomfortable. A cerebral person, she prided being in control. And she feared its loss. It wasn’t that she eschewed empathy, quite the contrary. It was more that she never connected it to herself. She applied the soothing cream to the stump. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. Feeling sorry for oneself was a luxury ill-afforded. Especially now with war more imminent. She rubbed in the cream. Strange. I’ve never closely examined my stump before. My eyes have always been either closed or directed elsewhere. Why did I do that? But she already knew the answer in its fullness. Placing the lid on the jar, she stopped what she was doing and sat back in the chair.
Time washed through her until no more tears could flow. She glanced at the wall clock. Two hours had passed. Gathering several tissues, she wiped away the tears, throwing the soggy ball into the wastebasket. With a deep sigh, she rewrapped the stump and attached Cuthbert. Standing at the bedroom window and seeing her reflection she smiled. “I’m okay now.” And she meant it.
A light knock at the door startled her. At first, she thought it was her imagination until it came again. It was three in the morning. Have I awakened Inspector Collier and his wife? They had been kind enough to open their guest room overnight. She felt her face flush with embarrassment. “Yes?”
The door opened slightly, and Lila poked her head into the room. “Are you alright, dear? I don’t mean to be nosey but I…thought I heard you crying.”
“Everything’s okay, Mrs. Collier, I didn’t mean to—”
“Shush, no need to apologize.” Tucking her dressing gown across her chest and readjusting the waist strap, she broadcast a large smile. “I’m often rumbling around this house at the strangest hours, especially when Sandy’s not home.” She fell into a brief silence. “Nasty stuff about our niece. Whoever would do such a thing?” Sadly, she shook her head. “I’m going downstairs to make myself some tea and have one of those custard tarts. Should I count you in?” Captain Hall nodded. “Jolly good then.” She rubbed her hands together. About to leave, she stopped herself in mid flight. “Would you mind starting the coal fireplace in the living room?”
“Consider it done, Mrs. Collier.”
“Lila. Please call me Lila.”
Lynn was stoking the fireplace when the front door opened and closed. The rattling of dishes and the high-pitched whistle of the kettle suddenly stopped. Splintering floorboards and low exchange of whispers melted away along the hall toward the kitchen at the far end of the house. Unable to decipher whether the exchange was happy or sad, she forced herself to concentrate on the fireplace. Hopeful that the news about their niece would be good, she crossed her fingers and poked at the fire. The tray of goodies being placed on the table behind her startled her. “Oh!” She almost lost her balance attempting to stand. A sharp burning sensation traveled up her stump leg and briefly settled in her hip. She smothered the instinct to flinch.
“We didn’t mean to startle you.” Lila proffered her hand. Inspector Collier stood at the ready in case he was needed.
“I’m alright, really I am.” She fussed with her clothing. “It’s so not like me to let my mind drift off like that.”
“We have good news,” Lila said. “Diane is alright. The doctor thinks it's best to keep her in the hospital a few more days. Diane is alright.” Lila wrapped her arm around Sandy’s and gave it a tearful hug.
The explosion at the Cricketer’s Arms had taken an emotional toll on the Colliers. The moment the inspector had learned that his niece had been found among the rubble, he had never left her side.
Captain Hall hesitantly and with some degree of awkwardness embraced them.
Happy tears flowed between them until Lila, stepping away and wiping her face with her apron, said, “I’d better finish what I was doing. I've decided we're going to have a picnic right here in front of the fireplace to celebrate."
“Picnic—at three thirty in the morning? You’re daft, girl,” replied Sandy.
“Maybe so, Sandy Collier, but nevertheless it’s going to happen.” She grabbed a large multi-colored knitted blanket from the back of the couch and thrust it in his direction. “You, two, move the coffee table back and place this rug neatly in front of the fireplace.” Satisfied that it had been done to her liking she turned to Sandy. “Remember, Sandy, what you agreed to in the kitchen. You've got five minutes. I’ll set the timer to keep you honest. Make your minutes count.” With a large smile, she scurried down the hall to the kitchen.
Flummoxed, Lynn searched the inspector’s expression for clarification. During the last twenty-four hours, uncharacteristic bags had formed under his tired eyes.
Lila bellowed from the kitchen, “You’re on the timer now, Sandy Collier.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pipe and pouch of tobacco. After filling the pipe, he lit it. “Does the name Pavel ring a bell? A balding, possibly Eastern European, heavy set fella in his early forties…"
She stared at him long and hard before answering. “Pavel Sudoplatov comes close to that description.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a NKVD operant. Up to recently, he worked only out of the Rotterdam area. But about a month ago, one of our agents sighted him in London. We put a tail on him, but he shook it off a week ago.”
“Any idea why Pavel would have been with the hospital administrator, Klaus Becker?”
“Is Becker alright?”
“No, Captain Hall, he isn’t. Klaus is very much dead.”
A brief silence reigned between them.
“Do you remember me telling you, Inspector, that the NKVD and British Intelligence are often at cross purposes? He nodded. “Well, this is one of them. And it’s a doozy SNAFU.”
The timer in the kitchen went off.
“Otto Imhoff,” she continued. “Remember, I mentioned his name during the drive home from Lambton Manor the other night?”
“The coded signature?”
“That's right. Klaus was a double agent and he had discovered Otto’s identity. On the day of the explosion, he was supposed to transfer the dossier on Otto to me. Earlier that very same day, I received this envelope. In it was a letter with a riddle.” She handed him the envelope.
He examined it. “Do you normally open at the side?”
“Yes. Why are you asking?”
“This envelope has been opened and resealed. As you can see here there are two distinct glue lines along the seal. By the way, how did you know it was from him?”
“By these triangular three dots, Inspector, in the upper right corner of both the envelope and note."
He scrutinized the riddle:
You have everything you need to solve this. There are 100 lockers each hiding a single word. You and 99 others are each assigned a number 1 to 100.
# 1 opens every locker
# 2 closes every 2nd locker
# 3 will change the status of every 3rd locker (that is if the locker is open, it will be closed; if the locker is closed, it will be opened.)
# 4 will change the status of lockers 4,8,12,16,20,24, etc.
#5 will change the status of lockers 5,10,15,20,25,30, etc.
# 99 will change the status of locker 99
#100 will change the status of locker 100
The words in the lockers that remain open at the end will help you crack the combination lock on my locker.
“Was this his normal manner of communication with you?” asked Inspector Collier.
“No, it wasn’t.”
"Have you already solved this riddle?"
"I have, Inspector."
“Hmm…combination lock on my locker." Then, do you know where the locker is?" he asked, returning the envelope and letter to her.
She shrugged. “First time I’ve heard about it. I’ve been his contact barely a year. And the few meetings—four to be exact—were at carefully chosen out-of-the-way places.”
He chewed on the end of his pipe. Pulling aside the curtain on the living room window, he peered through the slit. Waving for her to join him, he stepped aside so she could survey the street.
The figure, as if on cue, disappeared into the shadows of the alley beside the house opposite. After a short wait with the hope that he may re-appear, she returned to the couch and sat on its arm. “Let’s assume they’ve seen the riddle and have cracked it. Then, the only thing missing is the locker location. Klaus was too careful to leave that kind of information lying around in his apartment.” The rattling of dishes along the hall drew closer. “If Otto was onto Klaus then—"
“Then, there’s good likelihood that both the NKVD and Otto have you under surveillance." Collier tapped his pipe on the ashtray and returned it to his pocket. "And they think you will lead them to the locker."
"If Klaus knew that he had been found out by Otto, and the riddle supports that, where did he conceal the information about the whereabouts of the locker? He must have thought it would be obvious for me to find. And something else, Inspector. Why did Pavel kill him?"
“Times up, Sandy Collier, open this door," Lila called out.
"I fear that I may have put you and Lila in harm's way.”
“Maybe so. But if I don’t open that door right now, they’ll be hell to pay.”