The morning came quietly.
Too quietly for London.
By eight o'clock, Scotland Yard was already moving again. Files changed hands. Telephones rang. Detectives crossed corridors carrying reports that had been prepared during the night.
But Arthur Delbury remained at his desk.
The brass key lay before him.
W-17.
He had stopped asking what the letters meant.
That was the wrong question.
The right question was simpler.
Why had Henry Whitlock possessed it?
Arthur opened the last folder recovered from Henry's investigation.
He went through the papers again.
Not looking for a name.
Not looking for a confession.
Looking for repetition.
Henry had been methodical. Beside certain addresses, he had drawn small marks. Beside others, he had written numbers.
Arthur had initially assumed they were references to people.
Now he wasn't sure.
He took a fresh sheet of paper and began copying the addresses.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then he stopped.
The locations were not random.
