“Go on.”
“Then I remembered the boxes. All kinds of boxes and cartons on the sidewalk fronting 489. They were stacked to one side before the glass doors. When I ducked back, figuring Baroda had somehow planted the microfilm in one of those boxes when he saw me coming. I was too late. The boxes and cartons had disappeared.”
“Weren’t the boxes sealed and tied up or something?”
“Sure — but you know how it is when people are moving things. Some boxes are overloaded — they bulge — and they have spots where the flaps poke up. Baroda could easily have tucked the microfilm into one of those boxes. It’s the only place he could have stashed it.”
Seven stirred his coffee. “How can you be sure he didn’t ditch the film before he got to 489? He could have dumped it anywhere along the route.”
“Not a chance. I saw it pass over to him by his accomplice on the outside of the Chanin. I was five feet behind him all the way up Forty Two Street. Then he turned that corner on Fifth and I jumped him. If he had dropped it in a litter basket or anywhere along the way I would have seen him.”
“He saw you. He knew you were tailing him.”
“Sure,” Farmer smiled. “I was a redskin tracking a pioneer. He saw me all right. But forget that. Sam wants that film back. I’m sure I know where it is.”
“Dear lovely Sam.” Sam was Miss Samantha Follet, the lovely, intelligent woman who ostensibly was the business manager of the International Trade Experts. (She didn’t know that her two top agents referred to her as Sam. They were somehow certain she wouldn’t have cared for their flippancy. INTREX was Samantha Follet’s reason for living, having lost a husband and daughter to the Chinese Reds in the purge of ’59.
“So here’s what I got,” Farmer stared at Seven over the rim of his cup. The dark brown, finely boned face, was something you’d find on a coin. “I checked back. Those boxes belonged to The Saint Magazine — if you read mysteries, you ought to know. Seems the editor was moving from 489 Fifth to 508 Fifth.”
“Hey — that’s right next door—”
“Entrance on Forty Second,” Farmer concurred. “It’s sort of a one man operation. Fellow named Hans Stefan Santesson is editor. He has no secretary. He does everything but sweep out the place. He picks the stories for the issue, proofs them, edits them. Haven’t met him yet but the elevator starter at 489 was a fountain of information.”
“Definitely not the spy type, I take it?”
“Not at all! Besides, I checked him out. He’s clean. He’s a top editor, has a rep that goes back more than twenty years. He’s more inclined to fight for civil rights than to take them away.”
“Does he own the magazine or is there a publisher?”
Farmer scowled. “An editor own the magazine he works on? Where have you been, dear old David? The American edition is published under an arrangement with Saint Magazines, Inc., and runs an article or a Saint story by Charteris each month. The mag itself is clear. It’s just a case of our boy Baroda taking the first out that came his way. He had the film, he had to get rid of it. He saw the boxes and — you can take it from there.”
“I take it Baroda wouldn’t talk down at Headquarters?”
“A clam,” Farmer agreed. “You know Sam won’t let us Third Degree these characters. We tried some happy shots on him. The sodium penthatol but — all he did was get silly and make up a lot of nursery rhymes. I guess his bosses were ready for that one.”
“Who are his bosses? The Little Foxes again?” Seven was alluding to one of the international spy scene’s worst offenders; the Foxes sold anything and everything to the highest bidder, without a social scheme of their own.
“No, but we can guess. Since the microfilm is a picture of the missile sites in Cuba again, it doesn’t take much headwork to pick the interested parties.”
“Red China, of course.”
“Of course. More coffee?”
“No. Let’s finish up and call on Hans Stefan Santesson at 508. Maybe we can give him a hand unpacking all those boxes. Poor fellah. If he works as hard as you say he does, he must need ten arms.”
Miles Running Bear Farmer nodded and picked up his cigarette pack. It was then that he suddenly felt strange. There was a smell of burnt peanuts on the roof of his soft palate, reaching the passages of his nostrils. He blinked at David Seven, not surprised to see a funny expression in Seven’s blue eyes.
“Dave — the coffee—”
“Yeah — I think we’ve been had—”
They had.
They both started to rise. Abruptly, their movements were sluggish and uncontrolled. David Seven swore under his breath. He tried to reach across the short table to catch Miles Running Bear Farmer. He was too late. The architect toppled, the whites of his eyes showing. He took his chair with him to the floor.
Seven swayed and then he too, fell heavily, a sensation of spinning, popping noises in his head.
Somewhere in the Mayflower coffee shop, a woman customer cried out in terror.
The solitary drinker at the bar seemed suddenly in favor of leaving the vicinity immediately.
He was halfway to the front glass doors, moving rapidly, before anyone noticed him. Even then, all attention was centered on the table near the bar where two men had suddenly passed out.
The time was eleven forty five.
“Enjoy your sabbatical?” Miss Samantha Follet said cooly.
Cathy Darrow folded her steno pad over, sat down in the chair across from the executive desk, and smiled prettily. The golden fuzz of her head shone like a star in the sunlight pouring in through the windows of Miss Follet’s office. It was a beautiful day.
“Yes, thank you. Miami was fun. All I did was swim and sit on the beach all day.”
“Wouldn’t know that by the look of you. I thought blondes boiled like lobsters. You look as smooth skinned as ever.”
Coming from Miss Follet, that was more than a compliment. It was the mountain coming to Mahomet. Cathy Darrow always likened the female boss of International Trade Experts to Joan Crawford. Miss F. was just as smooth, gorgeous and perfectly turned out. The same crisp, every-hair-in-place look. Miss Follet’s voice was perfect, too. Level, controlled and utterly right for the way she came on.
“You’re in the typing pool I take it, Miss Darrow.”
“Yes, M’am.”
“Good. I jacked you out of David Seven’s office because he will be busy for a few days and there is a stack of reports that will need transcribing. In triplicate. Everything in triplicate. Then we’ll run it through the three Xerox machines.”
“Yes, Miss Follet.” The young blonde stared at the older brunette. A mischievous dimple toiled at Cathy Darrow’s mouth corner. “Did Mr. Seven miss me?”
Miss Follet’s eyebrows arched. A cool smile was her answer.
“Go get yourself some coffee, Miss Darrow. I’ll see you in twenty minutes. I’ll be ready then.”
Cathy got to her feet, nodded, and left the room. Almost meekly. Her office romance with David Seven, no matter how off-hand she had tried to make it seem, had not escaped the eagle eye of Miss Follet. Fat chance anyone had of hiding anything from her.
Samantha Follet stared at the door when she was gone. Then she revolved quickly in her chair and pressed an orange-hued button that nippled out from a long panel of colored buzzers on the right hand side of her big desk.
A voice sounded in the wide, plushy office, coming from nowhere, apparently.
“Yes, Miss Follet?” a feminine voice said. “Communications, here.”
“Any word from Mr. Seven and Mr. Farmer?”
“No. Last contact was at ten this morning. From Grand Central Station.”