At almost the exact moment the Lockheed Hudson bomber cleared the runway at Croydon Airport, and went nosing up into the night-shrouded sky, a man entered the lobby door of a certain hotel in the West End section of London, and took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. There he got off, turned to the right, and walked along the corridor until he reached the sixth door on the left. He faced it, and hesitated a moment while he shot a sharp piercing glance back along the corridor. Satisfied that he was alone, he reached out a bony forefinger and stabbed the hotel suite button four times in rapid succession.
Thirty seconds ticked by, and then the door was opened a scant inch. There was no light to be seen through the door opening, only pitch darkness. And then a voice inside grunted, and the door was swung open wider.
"Come in quickly, please!" a soft, hissing voice commanded out of the darkness.
The man passed through into the darkness, and moved a little to the side so that the door could be closed. He heard the latch click. And then at a second click light flooded the suite sitting-room in which he stood. He turned his head and met the eyes of the man who had opened the door. He smiled coldly, and the corners of his mouth were a little drawn and tight.
"You are nervous tonight, Herr Kyoto?" he muttered thickly.
The one addressed as Herr Kyoto smiled broadly, but only with his lips.
"It is better to be nervous than to be a fool, my friend," he said in his soft hissing voice. "A fool dies soon. And a dead fool is of no use to his country, be he Japanese or German. You agree, yes?"
The man who had entered the hotel suite shrugged his massive shoulders, slipped out of his heavy coat and threw it over a chair as he let his big frame drop into another one.
"Perhaps yes, and perhaps no," he grunted, and watched the other glide across the rug and settle like a butterfly in a chair that would comfortably have held three of his half-pint size. "I cannot speak for you Japanese, only for Nazis. And a man who can be a fool cannot be a Nazi. At least, he can merely be one in name only. But I speak just words. You may have a reason for your seeming nervousness? It is possible that you are not so safe in London as you would like to believe, eh?"
The Japanese smiled again, and once again it was only with his lips. His eyes were still like those of a cobra on ice. He reached out his thin right hand and rubbed the ball of his thumb back and forth across the ends of his other four fingers.