From it, Miss Teatime drew a metal frame within which was a photograph covered by glass.
“Careful—the back is loose,” warned Mr Rothermere. “Look inside.”
She turned the frame over and lifted out the backing of heavy card. Beneath was a pad of tissue paper. This, too, she removed, exposing the back of the photograph itself.
On this, there were four things to be seen.
The first was a row of nine numerals, set down with a leaky ballpoint pen in the laboured style of someone unaccustomed to writing.
Immediately beneath it was a number of only four figures.
Then came a metal disc, rather more than an inch in diameter, held in place by two strips of transparent adhesive tape.
Finally, near the bottom, a further inscription in the leaky ballpoint. The letters R.I.P., followed, in brackets, by three words. Ressicled injenius protene.
“What, do you suppose,” Miss Teatime asked, “is ‘ressicled’?”
“God knows.”
“He does not mean testicled, does he?”
“I doubt it,” said Mr Rothermere.
She studied the three words a little longer.
“P-r-o-t-e-n-e...that can only be protein.”
“Testicles are extremely rich in protein,” offered Mr Rothermere, helpfully.
“This middle word, I take to be either ‘ingenious’ or ‘ingenuous’, but the difficulty is not simply one of spelling. Neither makes sense in relation to protein.”
“None of it makes sense in relation to anything. You are on the wrong track, Lucy. What you have there is quite clearly a code. If only you weren’t quite so remote out here—there’s a chap at the Foreign Office I have lunch with occasionally...”
“Mortimer, I had the impression that it was me from whom you had hoped to obtain help.”
He struck his forehead, nodded emphatically, held up his hands in an attitude of contrition.
Miss Teatime reversed the photograph and looked at the young man wearing motor-cycling leathers who was half-turned from the seat in his machine to stare challengingly and with contempt at the camera.
“This is Mr Tring?”
“That is Mr Tring.”
She turned the picture over once again. “And what is the significance of all this?”
Mr Rothermere’s deflation of some moments previously was by now almost entirely corrected. He waved a hand and made little rumbles of pleasure and said ah, he believed that something extraordinary, something quite extraordinary, was to be deduced from what Lucy was holding.
“And why do you believe that?”
He grinned sapiently. “Look, you have read the story of Aladdin in the Thousand and One (incidentally, I’ve a very nice edition of the Burton translation: you must borrow it some time). Abanazar, you remember, is so excited about this useless old lamp that Aladdin has the good sense not to let him have it. My employers—quite predictably—don’t read books. They have allowed themselves to show excitement over Tring’s possession of something they have described to me variously as a medallion, a plate, a metal disc. That”—he pointed—“obviously is what they are after. And they are not going to get it until I know what its genie can do.”
Miss Teatime sighed and smiled. “How pleasant it is in these barbarous times to hear a well turned literary allusion. Tell me, though, how did you come by this?”
“Oh, quite fortuitously.”
“You mean you stole it.”
“No, no. I stole the photograph. The medallion happened to be taped to the reverse side—as you can see.”
Miss Teatime indicated the first row of numerals. “At least, there should be no mystery about this. It is a telephone number, surely, prefixed by the 01 code for London.”
Mr Rothermere nodded. “As you say, no mystery. But a little surprise, I think. I do happen to know that it’s the number of the head office of Parish-Biggs, a company of food manufacturers second only to my employers in size and rapacity.”
The brow of Miss Teatime rose delicately. “And what have you made of this second group of figures?”
“Nothing. I have not had time to think about it. Another telephone number, presumably.”
“There are only four digits, so the probability is that it is a local number. Were you not tempted to dial it?”
“Lucy, I have been extremely busy. In any case, what was I supposed to say when somebody answered?”
Miss Teatime did not pursue the matter, but turned her attention instead to the medallion.
She peeled back the strips of tape and examined first one side of the disc, then the other. There were several deep, irregular indentations in both surfaces, but parts of an inscription had survived. The circumference of the disc was also badly damaged, one section having been sliced away completely.
After fetching a sheet of writing paper and a magnifying glass from the bureau, Miss Teatime re-lit her cigar and began a systematic interpretation of such lettering on the medallion as was still discernible. She was watched, somewhat morosely, by Mr Rothermere, who tilted the residue of his whisky slowly from side to side of his glass in time with the hymn that reached them faintly from the choristers of Saint Lawrence’s.
At the end of five minutes or so, Miss Teatime handed him the paper.
She had set down, in bright blue ink:
WINSTON C or G—— ש —DWELL CL—E
Mr Rothermere stared at it for some seconds. He looked up. “Very illuminating.”
“Do you not know what this thing is?” Miss Teatime asked, holding the disc lightly between finger and thumb.
“No idea.”
“You are a poor sort of detective, Mortimer.”
“I am a tired sort of detective.”
Miss Teatime put a hand on his arm. “It is not kind of me to tease you after all your journeyings. Especially as you have yet another return trip to make this evening.”
“Oh, God!” He had started up in his chair and was wincing, as if in pain.
“I am sorry, Mortimer, but your staying here is out of the question. Stop somewhere on the road if you wish, but you must be clear of Flaxborough as soon as possible. Leave these with me”—she set to one side the photograph, frame and medallion—“and I shall see what they may be made to yield in the way of helpful information.”
Mr Rothermere was tenderly exploring something behind his back.
Miss Teatime looked concerned. “Anything wrong?”
A resolute head-shake. “Just my little Spanish souvenir.” He straightened and finished his drink.
“Sunburn?” inquired Miss Teatime.