Invasion

The sudden tension in the room made Kydd think better of a grand gesture and he contented himself with the plain facts. 'By this little picture Renzi is reminding me of a poem he's got fastened to the bulkhead in his cabin above his desk. Taut hand with words, is Nicholas.'

'What poem?' the taller man ground.

'Oh, it begins—let me see:

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you'll grow double

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble... ?

Kydd tried to recall what went next but failed. 'I can't remember the rest.'

'Go out to your ship and get the doggerel! Now!'

'I don't see any reason why I should,' Kydd replied quietly, but at the man's reddening face he relented. 'We can find it at the bookseller just along by Beach Street here. It's by his friend Wordsworth, whom he much admires. Should you get an 1800 edition you'll no doubt find the poem in it.'

The proprietor was taken aback when three men burst into his shop, demanding urgently that precise volume of Wordsworth but hurriedly obliged. There was the poem: 'The Tables Turned.'

At the office the table was swiftly cleared and paper produced. The taller yielded to the other, who drew up his chair, sharpened his pencil and opened the book.

'Priceless!' He chuckled and read:

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There's more of wisdom in it.

'Damn you, sir! Get on with it!'

Patiently, a tabula recta for the tableau was constructed and the cipher-text applied. In a short time the man raised his head and, with a satisfied smile, said quietly, 'Gentlemen, we have a solution!'

Renzi returned to his rooms weary and depressed. It had been weeks of waiting and no reply—and the worst of it was that Fulton had disappeared. Renzi had sent him a short message saying that London had been contacted on his behalf but it had been returned unopened with the terse notation 'not at this address' and no further clue.

It had been maddeningly frustrating. Was Fulton taken by the authorities? Had he quit the field entirely, returned to America? Or was he in possession of a fine new contract from the French that now saw him in some palatial lodging and for ever out of reach?

As he flopped into his chair he noticed the vase back in the window. Nervously he lifted it—but there was no message. Then he saw a copy of that morning's Moniteur tossed carelessly to one side. And deep within it he found a substantial packet.

The superscription was in an unknown hand and, unusually, the packet was secured with sailmaker's twine instead of the usual ribbon. Inside, there were two parts, both ciphered. One was short, no more than a few sentences, Renzi guessed. The other was boldly inscribed even if in coded groups and on stiff, expensive vellum.

There was no key, no little drawing or textual hint. However, he guessed immediately the significance of the unusual fastening, for that would surely be:

Age! twine thy brows with fresh spring flowers, And call a train of laughing Hours . . .

He took the vellum first, a prominent '1' indicating the key-stream was to start with it and continue to the other. He set out his matrix. Soon finding himself correct in his assumption, the two pages were swiftly deciphered and then he sat back, satisfied.

It had told him two things: the first was that Kydd, knowing his penchant for memorising poetry, had correctly divined his key. The next was that Whitehall had accepted his difficult situation and taken positive steps to help him, for this was in effect a counteroffer from the foreign secretary of Great Britain himself. Renzi could prove it by decoding the vellum in front of Fulton.

The offer was interesting, but would it be sufficient? He turned his attention to the shorter message and applied himself. This was a very different document—and Renzi was shocked to the core. It was terse and to the point: if Fulton did not accept the offer he was to be killed.

Mechanically he burned his workings and stirred the ash carefully.

All he had feared was coming to pass. He was now being expected to perform the ultimate act of dishonour in this whole wretched business, that of mercilessly ending the life of an unsuspecting other.

Could he do it? He knew he must. This was the transcendent logical outworking of what he had undertaken to do.

The means? Silent but sure—a blade. He had none, but a quick foray produced a kitchen knife, thin-bladed but effective, the point honed to a wicked sharpness. There was, of course, the chance that he would never use it, for where was Fulton now?

The prisoner-of-war talks dragged on with no sign of an agreement, even though Britain held some four times as many prisoners as the French and was prepared to exchange at the rate of many for one. The unspoken obstacle was the reality that trained seamen were too valuable to return to duty in a navy that was so successful. There was every probability now that there would be no hope left to the wretches in Bitche and Verdun.

Utterly depressed by the futility of the situation, Renzi was unprepared for what met him when he reached his room after another week of tedium. As he entered, he was confronted by a grinning Fulton rising from a chair. 'Hail to you, Smith!' he declaimed dramatically. 'How goeth it?'

Recovering himself Renzi said, 'What the devil are you doing here? You're being followed, you fool!' Anger flooded over him at the careless attitude and jocular tone. Then he became alarmed. Was this part of a French trap?

'No, I'm not trailed,' Fulton said lazily, stretching. 'I'm only this day back in Paris, and nobody knows I'm here. Er, have you, by chance, heard anything from London?'

'Where have you been all this time, may I ask?'

'Oh, Amsterdam. Thought I'd like to see the canals—very interesting to me.'

Renzi bit off a retort and forced himself to be calm. If the French wanted to catch them together they would probably have made their move by now. 'Well, I'm pleased to tell you that I've been in contact with England—and at the highest level.' He moved to the other chair and smiled winningly. 'It seems that you've earned the attention of