"Better late than never. The amount owed and payable has now risen to fourteen million pounds. Put it aboard a private plane and fly it to Geneva. You will receive further instructions as to what bank to contact for deposit, Don't fail — you're running out of time."
"Here, what have you got there?" a plainclothes policeman said beside me. "I'll just take that" He reached for the note stiffly and I let him have it. It had looked like the same handwriting to me but of course the handwriting expert would have to confirm it.
I moved from the desk to get another look at the body. There were reporters in the outer room now, trying unsuccessfully to get past the military guards there.
As I walked around the desk closer to the body, I spotted a scrap of paper on the floor just about where the killer might have been standing when he took the note out of his pocket and placed it on the desk. I picked it up; it appeared to be torn from a piece of stationery, just a corner of the sheet. There was a phone number written on it, in pencil. A part of a printed emblem remained on the tear-line.
Studying the scrawled digits, it seemed to me that they might have been written by the same hand that wrote the assassination notes. It was a long shot, certainly, but we needed one right now.
A burly man moved toward me and I slipped the paper into my pocket.
"You there — who are you?"
"SOE," I said, showing the I.D. again. He hadn't seen me hide the paper.
"Oh. Right. Just keep out of the way, my lad."
"I'll make every effort to." I said, straight-faced. I moved over to the body for a last look at the mess that had been the Secretary.
It was another unnecessarily bloody killing. The garrotte, composed in this case of two metal handles with a length of piano wire running between them, was a familiar weapon to military men. The attacker merely looped the wire over the victim's head and pulled. The wire cut through flesh, muscle, tendon and bone until it separated head from body. At least it was a fast way to go. I remembered, suddenly, that Augie Fergus had served in the commandos. Was that how he came to know the assassin? If, in fact, he had known him. Now I was playing a guessing game and there was no time for that, I turned and quickly left the room.
I found Heather at the Home Secretary's office nearby; she hadn't heard about the latest slaying. "I just ran into Elmo Jupiter," she said lightly. "He insisted that I call him. Are you jealous, love?"
"I wish I had the time," I said. 'The Foreign Secretary has just been assassinated."
Her lovely blue eyes widened in shock.
"Does Brutus know?" she asked.
"I called him on the way here. He was in quite a state."
"It's bloody awful, isn't it?" she said.
"If we don't improve on our batting average soon," I told her, "the British government will cease to exist as a viable institution. There was total panic at the Ministry."
"Does Brutus have any ideas?" she asked.
"Not really. We're pretty much on our own now. The Prime Minister has already been notified, I hear, and wants to deliver the ransom immediately."
"He is probably afraid he may be next."
"He's a logical target," I said. 'The killer left another note, demanding payment. And I found this at the scene." I handed her the scrap of paper.
"It's the telephone number of the Ministry," she said, puzzled. "Do you think the assassin wrote it?"
"It seems unlikely that an employee at the Ministry would need to write the number down," I said. "And the scrawl seems similar to the handwriting in the assassination notes. What do you make of the emblem?"
"There isn't quite enough of it showing," she said. "But somehow I think I've seen it before. Let's go up to my flat and have a closer look."
Heather leased a small apartment on London's West End. It was a three-flight walk up but once inside it was quite a charming place. She made us a cup of English tea and we sat at a small table by the window sipping it. I pulled the scrap of paper from my pocket again.
"Whoever this fellow is, he likes to play rough," I said, turning the paper over in my hand. I had given Heather the details of the killing. "Rougher than Novosty. And he's probably more dangerous because he enjoys killing and because he's probably not rational."
I held the paper to the light from the window. "Hey, what's this? There's the impression of some writing on here, under the digits."
Heather got up and looked over my shoulder. "What does it say, Nick?"
"I can't make it out. It looks like a capital «R» to start, and then…"
"An 'O' and a 'Y'," Heather said excitedly.
"And then — 'A' and maybe 'L. Royal. And there's something else."
"It might be 'Ho, " she said, "and part of a TV There is a Royal Hotel, you know, at Russell Square."
"Of course," I said. "Royal Hotel. But is this hotel stationery?"
"I don't think so," Heather said. "I told you that I've seen that emblem before, but I don't associate it with a hotel. We'll check it out though."
"If it isn't hotel paper," I said, "we have a double clue. Royal Hotel and the organization or idea represented by the symbol."
"Exactly," Heather agreed, excitement showing in her face. "Maybe this is our break, Nick."
"If the paper belonged to the killer," I reminded her.
After tea we took a taxi to the Royal Hotel and spoke to the assistant manager at the desk. He looked at the scrap of paper and denied that it belong to the hotel. He took out a sheet of hotel stationery and showed it to us for comparison.
"Of course, it might have belonged to a guest," the man said. "Or to one of the many conventioneers who meet here."
"Yes," I said heavily. "Well, thanks just the same."
Outside, Heather said, "I think we'd better bring Brutus up to date."
"All right," I said. "Maybe he can offer some ideas on our emblem." We hailed a cab and went directly to Brutus's office.
When we got there, after marching briskly through the long corridor with the uniformed security guards, we found Brutus poring over old police records. He thought there might still be some chance that the assassin was a convicted felon with a grudge against the Establishment. I showed him the scrap of paper, but he shook his head.
"I can't make anything of it," he said. "I can make copies though and show it around the department. Maybe somebody will recognize it."
"That might be worthwhile, sir," I said.
"We've checked out this janitor chap you saw leaving the Secretary's office," Brutus told me. "Nobody can identify a person of that description working in the building."
"That figures," I said.
"He's probably our killer," Heather said. "You were close enough to grab him, Nick."
"Don't remind me," I said glumly.
"Don't blame yourself, lad," Brutus said, lighting his pipe. "If it weren't for you, we'd have nothing."
"We may still have nothing," I said. "If it's of any use to you, I have a hazy memory of seeing blond hair under the dark, as if the man might have been wearing a wig."
Brutus made a note on a slip of paper. "Probably the mustache was false too."
"Probably. I know I thought so when I saw it."
Brutus rose from his desk and moved around it, sucking at his pipe. He looked very tired, as if he hadn't slept in days.
"At the moment," he said, "despite the clues, we're a long way from solving the assassination plot. The third note found at the scene tells us nothing more about our man. Or men."
"If the assassin had accomplices," Heather said, "he seems to make sparing use of them."
"Yes, the killings certainly appear to have been accomplished by the same man — although they could give that appearance if directed by one man. At any rate, the Prime Minister has confided to me that he is arranging for payment of the sum demanded."