I compared the two. There was no doubt about it. Blurred and half obliterated by the blood, the signature on the scrap of paper had the same flourishing characteristics as the specimen. I sat back, thinking of George Farnell — how he'd flung himself out of an express train and had then completely vanished. He'd worked with me once on some concessions in Southern Rhodesia. He'd been a small, dark man with tremendous vitality — a bundle of nerves behind horn-rimmed glasses. He was an authority on base metals and he'd been obsessed with the idea of untold mineral wealth in the great mountain mass of Central Norway. 'This means that he's alive, and in Norway,'
I said slowly.
'I wish you were right,' Sir Clinton answered. He produced a newspaper cutting from his briefcase. 'Farnell's dead. This was published a fortnight ago. I didn't see it at the time. My attention was draw to it later. There's a picture of the grave. And I've checked with the Norwegian military authorities that he did, in fact, join the Kompani Linge under the name of Bernt Olsen.'
I took the cutting. It was headlined — ESCAPED CONVICT IN HERO'S GRAVE. The letters of the name — Bernt Olsen — stood out black against the plain white cross in the picture.
In the background was a small wooden church. The story recalled how Farnell had been convicted of forging the name of his partner, Vincent Clegg, and swindling him out of nearly £10,000, how he had escaped from the lavatory window of a train while being transferred to Parkhurst and had then completely vanished. That was in August, 1939. Apparently Farnell, trading on his knowledge of Norwegian, had then enlisted in the Norwegian Forces under the name Bernt Olsen. He had joined the Kompani Linge and had gone on the Maloy raid in December, 1941. He was reported missing from this operation. There followed a paragraph marked with blue pencil:-. 'Recently the body of a man, later identified as Bernt Olsen, was discovered on the Boya Brae. He had attempted a lone crossing of the Jostedal, Europe's largest glacier. Presumably he had lost his way in a snowstorm. He must have fallen over a thousand feet on to the Boya Brae, a tributary of the main glacier above Fjaerland. He had with him divining rods and other metallurgical instruments. Papers found on the body proved the connection between Bernt Olsen, the hero, and George Farnell, the convict.'
The story finished sententiously: And so another of Britain's sons has found glory in the hour of his country's greatest need.
I handed the story back to Sir Clinton. 'That happened a month ago?' I asked.
He nodded. 'Yes. That's been checked. The body was found on March 10th. The grave is at Fjaerland, which is at the head of the fjord running right up under the Jostedal. Have you read the lines above the signature on that piece of paper?'
I looked at the blooded scrap again. The lines were too blurred.
'I've had it deciphered by experts,' Sir Clinton went on. 'It reads: If I should die, think only this of me…'