"The dirty—!" Dawson began, and then words failed him.
He put a hand to his forehead, and closed his eyes tight for a moment. Like Freddy Farmer, he was almost inclined to believe that all this just hadn't happened. That he was having a wild, crazy dream, and that he would wake up soon to find that everything was all right. But it wasn't a dream; it was cold, stark truth, incredible as it seemed. Three Nazis of no less than Herr Himmler's brood, yet two carried perfect identification as Englishmen. And the third, definite identification as a colonel serving in the U. S. Army Air Forces.
"But it just doesn't make sense!" Dawson muttered, and stared at Herr Baron's picture with the official Air Forces stamp imprinted on it. "How in the world did he get away with it? If I could tell that his face was faked, anybody else could have spotted the same thing. I don't see how the—"
He cut the rest short as something peculiar about the man's left tunic lapel caught his eye. He reached out a hand and felt of the lapel. His heart leaped, and in the next instant he had whipped out his jackknife and was slashing at the lapel seams. When he had cut an opening big enough, he thrust his fingers inside and felt a thin inch by inch and a half leather-covered book. He pulled it out to see that it was a worn address and memo book that had several pages missing. And when he thumbed through those that were left it was to discover that they were filled with countless numbers. Some of them in groups, and some of them but a single number. All were written in a fine hand with a needle-sharp indelible pencil.
"Code, of course," he grunted. "British Intelligence will break it down soon enough, and—"
Dawson stopped and sat up straight.
"Speaking of British Intelligence," he grunted, "what's Freddy doing on that telephone? Making a date with the operator?"
As there was only one way to get the answer to his question, he got to his feet, went over to the side door and pushed it open.
"Hey, Freddy, what—?" he began, and stopped short.
The room beyond was a well furnished bedroom. Included in the furnishing were twin beds with a little night table between them. On the night table there was a French phone, but the instrument was in its pronged cradle. Most important of all, though, there wasn't hide nor hair of Freddy Farmer. Dawson gaped for a moment as though he couldn't believe his eyes. Then he shook himself out of his trance and leaped into the room.