was bothering her. Misplaced loyalty, I should say.'
'I would say so too,' Talbot said. 'If, that is, I knew what you were talking about.'
'Sorry. Turned out she wanted to know if Uncle Adam had been sending any radio messages. It seems — '
'Uncle Adam?'
'Adamantios Andropulos. His parents have a lot to answer for. Seems that she and her pal Eugenia — both sets of parents live in Piraeus, the two girls are at the University in Athens ? were in the habit of phoning home every night. She wanted their parents to know that they had had an accident, were safely aboard a Royal Navy ship and would be home soon.'
'I hope she's right,' Hawkins said.
'Me too, sir. I told her no messages had been sent and suggested that if Uncle was a businessman. I thought it better not to mention that we already knew he was a multimillionaire businessman ? he might naturally tend to be secretive and that he might also be reluctant to broadcast the fact that he had lost his yacht through what might have been
his own fault. She said that was no excuse for not informing the next of kin of the three crew members of the Delos who had died. I asked her if she had raised the question with him and she said no. She was a bit evasive on this point. I gather she either doesn't know very much about Uncle Adam or doesn't care very much about what she does know.' Van Gelder produced a paper from his pocket. 'I told her to write a message and I would see it was sent.'
Talbot looked at the paper. 'It's in Greek. Perhaps this Uncle Adam — '
'We share the same nasty, suspicious mind, sir. I called Jimmy from the breakfast table. Quite innocent, he says.'
'I have a better idea. Take the two young ladies to the radio-room. It's a simple matter to lock into the telephone land lines through the Piraeus radio station. They can talk direct to their folks.'
'With Jimmy just happening to be there?'
'We share, as you say, the same nasty, suspicious minds. Before you do that, however, I think we'll go and see how our latest recruit is getting on.'
'Ah! Our resident cryptologist. Theodore.'
Theodore. After we've seen him and the young ladies have finished their calls I want you to take Irene Charial aside.'
'And engage her in casual conversation?'
'What else? It would seem that she and her uncle are less than soul-mates and, of course, she will be feeling suitably grateful to you for having permitted her to speak to her folks. Find out what you can about Andropulos. Find out what she thinks of him. See what you can discover about his business or businesses. Find out who his business contacts and friends are and what she thinks of them, assuming, of course, that she's ever met any of them. And it would be very interesting to know where his travels take him — I'm not talking about his yacht cruises when she is with him ? and why they take him there.'
'You are asking me, sir, in effect, to ply Irene with cunning and devious questions, to entrap her, if you will, to engage in duplicity and extract unwitting information from a sweet and innocent girl?'
'Yes.'
'A pleasure, sir.'
Theodore was a cheerful, plump man in his late forties, with a pale face and thick pebble glasses, those last a very probable consequence of having spent a lifetime poring over abstruse codes.
'You have come to check on progress, gentlemen. I am making some, I'm happy to report. Took me quite some time to find the key, the connection between the code and the Odyssey. Since then, it's straightforward. These sheets are in three sections and I'm now about two-thirds of the way through the first one.'
'Found anything of interest?' Talbot said.
'Interesting? Fascinating, Captain, fascinating. Statements of his accounts, bank holdings, if you like. He has his money stashed away ? 'stashed' is the word? ? all over the world, it seems. As a matter of interest, I'm totting up the sum of his holdings as I go along. He's made it very easy for me, everything is in US dollars. So far, let me see, it's two-eighty. Yes, two-eighty. Dollars.'
'A man could retire on that,' Van Gelder said.
'Indeed. Two-eighty. Followed by six zeros.'
Talbot and Van Gelder looked at each other in silence, then bent forward over Theodore's shoulders to look at the figures he had added up. After some seconds they straightened, looked at each other again, then lent forward once more.
Two hundred and eighty million dollars,' Talbot said. 'On that you could retire, Vincent.'
'If I scraped and pinched a bit, I might manage. Do you know where those bank accounts are kept, Theodore? Cities, countries, I mean?'
'Some I do, because he's given names and addresses, some I don't. For the second lot, he may have another code which I don't have or he just knows them by heart. By heart, I would guess. I have no means of knowing where at least half the accounts are. Just the amounts, that's all.'
'Could you show us some of those?' Talbot said.
'Of course.' Theodore pointed to some entries, flipped over several pages and indicated several more. 'Just amounts, as I said. As you see, there's a differing capital letter after each entry. They mean nothing to me. Maybe they do to Andropulos.'
Talbot leafed through the pages again. 'Five letters, just five, recur regularly ? Z, W, V, B and G. Well, now. If you were a thrifty citizen and wanted a safe piggy-bank secure from the prying eyes of nasty parties such as police and income tax authorities, which country would you choose?'
'Switzerland.'
'I think the same far from original thought had occurred to Andropulos — for at least half his assets. Z for Zurich. W? Winterthur, perhaps. V? Off-hand, I don't know about that one.'
'Vevey?' Van Gelder said. 'On Lake Geneva?'
'I don't think so. Hardly what you might call an international banking centre. Ah! I have it. Not in Switzerland, but it might as well be. Vaduz. Liechtenstein. I don't know much about those things but I understand that once cash disappears into the vaults of Vaduz it never surfaces again. B could be Berne or Basle ? Andropulos would know, of course. G has to be Geneva. How am I doing, Number One?'
'Splendidly. I'm sure you're right. I hardly like to point out, sir, that we still don't have the names and addresses of those banks.'
True. Crest-fallen, but only slightly. We still have names and addresses of other banks. You have a list of those cities where those banks are located?'
'I don't have to,' Theodore said. 'I have it in my head. They're all over the place, west, east and in between. Places as different as Miami, Tijuana, Mexico City, Bogota in Colombia, Bangkok, Islamabad in Pakistan, Kabul in Afghanistan. Why anyone should want to hide away money in Kabul is quite beyond me. Country is torn by war and the Russians occupy and control the capital.'
'Andropulos would appear to have friends everywhere,' Talbot said. 'Why should the poor Russians be left out in the cold? That about the lot?'
'Quite a few other places,' Theodore said. 'Mostly smaller accounts. One exception, though. The biggest deposit of the lot.'
'Where?'
'Washington, DC.'
'Well, now.' Talbot was silent for a few minutes. 'What do you make of that, Number One?'
'I think I've just about stopped making anything out of anything. My mind has kind of taken a leave of absence. But my eyes are still working, in a fashion, you might say. I think I see a faint light at the end of the tunnel.'
'I think if we think a bit more it might turn into a searchlight. How much money?'
'Eighteen million dollars.'
'Eighteen million dollars,' Van Gelder said. 'My, my. Even in Washington, DC, a man could buy a lot with eighteen million dollars.'
