Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

“What’s too late?” said old Mrs. Bishop sharply. “Why did you want a pencil?”

“Just an idea,” Mary Bishop said.

She was led next day up and down the cold, unheated corridors of a War Office in which half the rooms were empty, evacuated. Oddly enough, her relationship to David Bishop was of use to her now, if only because it evoked some curiosity and a little pity. But she no longer wanted the pity, and at last she reached the right man.

He listened to her with great politeness. He was not in uniform: his rather good tweeds made him look as if he had just come up from the country for a day or two, to attend to the war. When she had finished he said, “It’s rather a tall story, you know, Mrs. Bishop. Of course it’s been a great shock to you — this — well... action of your husband’s.”

“I’m proud of it.”

“Just because in the old days you had this — scheme, you really believe...?”

“If he was away from me and he telephoned ‘The fact of the matter is’ it always meant, ‘this is all lies, but take the initial letters which follow...?’ Oh, Colonel, if you only knew the number of unhappy week-ends I’ve saved him from — because, you see, he could always telephone to me, even in front of his host.” She said with tears in her voice, “Then I’d send him a telegram...”

“Yes. But still... you didn’t get anything this time, did you?”

“I was too late. I hadn’t a pencil. I only got this — I know it doesn’t seem to make sense.” She pushed the paper across. SOSPIC. “I know it might easily be coincidence — that it does seem to make a kind of word.”

“An odd word.”

“Mightn’t it be a man’s name?”

The officer in tweeds was looking at it, she suddenly realized, with real interest — as if it was a rare kind of pheasant. He said, “Excuse me a moment,” and left her. She could hear him telephoning to somebody from another room: the little ting of the bell, silence, and then a low voice she couldn’t overhear. Then he returned, and she could tell at once from his face that all was well.

He sat down and fiddled with a fountain-pen: he was obviously embarrassed. He started a sentence and stopped it. Then he brought out in an embarrassed gulp, “We’ll all have to apologize to your husband.”

“It meant something?”

He was obviously making his mind up about something difficult and out of the way: he was not in the habit of confiding in members of the public. But she had ceased to be a member of the public.

“My dear Mrs. Bishop,” he said, “I’ve got to ask a great deal from you.”

“Of course. Anything.”

He seemed to reach a decision and stopped fiddling. “A neutral ship called the Pic was sunk this morning at 4 A.M., with a loss of two hundred lives. S.O.S. Pic. If we’d had your husband’s warning, we could have got destroyers to her in time. I’ve been speaking to the Admiralty.”

Mary Bishop said in a tone of fury, “The things they are writing about David. Is there one of them who’d have the courage...?”

“That’s the worst part of it, Mrs. Bishop. They must go on writing. Nobody must know, except my department and yourself.”

“His mother?”

“You mustn’t even tell her.”

“But can’t you make them just leave him alone?”

“This afternoon I shall ask them to intensify their campaign — in order to discourage others. An article on the legal aspect of treason.”

“And if I refuse to keep quiet?”

“Your husband’s life won’t be worth much, will it?”

“So he’s just got to go on?”

“Yes. Just go on.”

He went on for four weeks. Every night now she tuned in to Zeesen with a new horror — that he would be off the air. The code was a child’s code. How could they fail to detect it? But they did fail. Men with complicated minds can be deceived by simplicity. And every night, too, she had to listen to her mother-in-law’s indictment; every episode which she thought discreditable out of a child’s past was brought out — the tiniest incident. Women in the last war had found a kind of pride in “giving” their sons: this, too, was a gift on the altar of a warped patriotism. But now young Mrs. Bishop didn’t cry: she just held on — it was relief enough to hear his voice.

It wasn’t often that he had information to give — the phrase “the fact of the matter is” was a rare one in his talks: sometimes there were the numbers of the regiments passing through Berlin, or of men on leave: very small details, which might be of value to military intelligence, but to her seemed hardly worth the risk of a life. If this was all he could do, why, why hadn’t he allowed them simply to intern him?

At last she could bear it no longer. She visited the War Office again. The man in tweeds was still there, but this time for some reason he was wearing a black tail coat and a black stock as if he had been to a funeral: he must have been to a funeral, and she thought with more fear than ever of her husband.

“He’s a brave man, Mrs. Bishop,” he said.

“You needn’t tell me that,” she cried bitterly.

“We shall see that he gets the highest possible decoration...”

“Decorations!”

“What do you want, Mrs. Bishop? He’s doing his duty.”