“Yes, My Lord Ashley! A King’s Officer, my lord! Yes!”

“Very good, my lad. And you others. Here is a twelfth-bit apiece. If you come back with an Armsman within five minutes, you, too, will get another twelfth. And the first one to come back gets a sixth-bit for a bonus. Now run! Off with you!”

They scattered to the winds.

At half past two that afternoon, three men met in a comfortable, club-like room in the Admiralty Headquarters Building of His Imperial Majesty’s Naval Base at Cherbourg.

Commander Lord Ashley sat tall, straight, and at ease, his slightly wavy brown hair brushed smooth, his uniform immaculate. He had changed into uniform only twenty minutes before, having been informed by the Lord Admiral that, while this was not exactly a formal meeting, civilian dress would not be as impressive as the royal blue and gold uniform of a full Commander.

Lord Ashley might not have been called handsome; his squarish face was perhaps a little too ruggedly weatherbeaten for that. But women admired him and men respected the feeling of determination that his features seemed to give. His eyes were gray-green with flecks of brown, and they had that seaman’s look about them — as though Lord Ashley were always gazing at some distant horizon, inspecting it for signs of squalls.

Lord Admiral Edwy Brencourt had the same look in his blue eyes, but he was some twenty-five years older than Lord Ashley, although even at fifty-two his hair showed touches of gray only at the temples. His uniform, of the same royal blue as that of the Commander, was somewhat more rumpled, because he had been wearing it since early morning, but this effect was partially offset by the gleaming grandness of the additional gold braid that encased his sleeves and shoulders.

In comparison with all this grandeur, the black-and-silver uniform of Chief Master-at-Arms Henri Vert, head of the Department of Armsmen of Cherbourg, seemed rather plain, although it was impressive enough on most occasions. Chief Henri was a heavy-set, tough-looking man in his early fifties who had the air and bearing of a stolid fighter.

Chief Henri was the first to speak. “My lords, there is more to this killing than meets the eye. At least, I should say, a great deal more than meets my eye.”

He spoke Anglo-French with a punctilious precision which showed that it was not his natural way of speaking. He had practiced for many years to remove the accent of the local patois — an accent which betrayed his humble beginnings — but his effort to speak properly was still noticeable.

He looked at My Lord Admiral. “Who was this Georges Barbour, your lordship?”

My Lord Admiral picked up the brandy decanter from the low table around which the three of them sat and carefully filled three glasses before answering the Chief’s question. Then he said: “You understand, Chief Henri, that this case is complicated by the fact that it involves Naval Security. Nothing that is said in this room must go beyond it.”

“Of course not, my lord,” Chief Henri said. He was well aware that this area of the Admiralty offices had been carefully protected by potent and expensive guarding spells. His Majesty’s Armed Forces had a special budget for obtaining the services of the most powerful experts in that field, magicians who stood high in the Sorcerer’s Guild. These were far more powerful than the ordinary commercial spells which guaranteed privacy in public hotels and private homes.

Admiral Brencourt carefully replaced the glass stopple in the brandy decanter before he spoke again. “I’m afraid I must apologize to you, Chief Henri. Acting under my orders, Commander Lord Ashley has withheld information from the plainclothes Sergeant-at-Arms who questioned him about the Barbour murder this morning. That was, of course, for security reasons. But I have now authorized him to tell you the entire story. If you will, my lord…”

Lord Ashley tasted his brandy. Chief Henri waited respectfully for him to speak. He knew that certain things would still be omitted, that Lord Ashley had been briefed as to which details to reveal and which to conceal. Nevertheless, he knew that the story would be much richer in detail than it had been when he first heard it.

Lord Ashley lowered his glass and set it down. “Yesterday morning,” he began, “Monday, October 24th, I received a special sealed packet from the Office of the Lord High Admiral in London. My orders were to deliver it to Admiral Brencourt this morning. I left London by train to Dover, thence across the Channel by special Naval courier boat to Cherbourg. By the time I arrived, it was nearly midnight.” He paused and looked candidly at Chief Henri. “I should point out here that if my orders had been marked ‘Most Urgent,’ I should have immediately taken pains to deliver the packet to My Lord Admiral, no matter what the hour. As it was, my orders were to deliver it to him this morning. I give you my word that that packet never left my sight, nor was it opened, between the time I received it and the time it reached the Admiral’s hands.”

“I can verify that,” said Admiral Brencourt. “As you are aware, Chief Henri, our Admiralty sorcerers cast spells upon the envelopes and seals of such packets — spells which, while they do not insure that the packets will not be opened by unauthorized persons, do insure that they cannot be opened without detection.”

“I understand, my lord,” said the Chief Master-at-Arms. “You had your sorcerer check the packet, then.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” said the Admiral. “Continue, Commander.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Lord Ashley. Then, addressing Chief Henri, “I spent the night at the Hotel Queen Jeanne. This morning at nine, I delivered the packet to My Lord Admiral.” He glanced at the Admiral and waited.

“I opened the packet,” Admiral Brencourt said immediately. “Most of what it contained is irrelevant to this case. There was, however, an enclosure which I was directed to hand over to Commander Lord Ashley. He was directed to take a certain sum of money to one Georges Barbour. That was the first that either of us had ever heard of Georges Barbour.” He looked back at Lord Ashley, inviting him to take up the tale.

“According to my instructions within that sealed envelope,” Ashley said, “I was to take the money immediately to Barbour, who was, it seems, a double agent, working ostensibly for His Slavonic Majesty Casimir of Poland, but in actuality working for the Naval Intelligence Service of the Imperial Navy. The money was to be delivered to Barbour between fifteen minutes of eleven and fifteen minutes after. I went to the appointed spot, spoke to the concierge, went upstairs, and found the door partially open. I rapped, and the door swung open farther. I saw Georges Barbour lying on the floor with a knife in his heart.” He paused and spread his hands. “I was surprised by that development, naturally, but I had my duty to do. I removed his private papers — those on his desk — and I searched the room. The papers were turned over to the Admiral.”

“You must understand, Chief Henri,” said Admiral Brencourt, “that there was a possibility that some of those papers might have borne coded or secret messages. None of them did, however, and the lot will be turned over to you. Lord Ashley will describe to you where each item lay in the room.”

Chief Henri looked at the Commander. “Would you mind submitting a written report, with a sketch map indicating where the papers and so on were?” He was more than a little piqued at the Navy’s high-handed treatment of evidence in a murder case, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

“I will be happy to prepare such a report,” said Lord Ashley.

“Thank you, your lordship. A question: Were the papers disarrayed in any way — scattered?”