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thought the whole thing wasmadness. Nigel damn well knew it was madness, and took great delight in it.
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    And now, pouring us each a second cup of tea, he said, “This is madness, you know.” But he wasn’t talking about the shape of the earth.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œIt’s bad enough looking through haystacks for needles, but you don’t really know that it’s a needle you’re hunting, do you? I was thinking about that letter, Evan. Somehow I don’t think a travel agent—”
    I nodded. “I’ve been keeping busy, that’s all.”
    â€œQuite. And employment bureaus—oh, that’s possible, of course, but somehow I don’t think you’ll have much luck. It’s rather a case of going around Robin Hood’s barn, isn’t it?”
    â€œIt is,” I agreed.
    Julia drew up a chair and sat down between us. “Have you thought of going to Baghdad?”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous,” her brother said. “Where would he begin looking in Baghdad?”
    I closed my eyes. He was right—it would be quite pointless to try looking for Phaedra in Baghdad. And Julia, for her part, seemed able to read minds, because I bad been thinking of doing just that, ridiculous or no.
    Nigel stroked his moustache. “Perhaps I’ve been seeing too many films, but—Evan, let me see that letter again, will you?” I quoted it to him by rote. “Yes, I thought so. You know, I get the impression of some sort of cloak-and-dagger operation here, don’t you? Spies and such, midnight rides on the Orient Express. What do you think?”
    â€œMmmm,” I said neutrally. The same thought had occurred to me, but I had tried to suppress it. Some time ago I found myself working for a nameless man who heads a nameless U.S. undercover operation. I’m not being coy—I don’t know his name or its. Since then he’s been under the impression that I work for him, and now and then I do. For that reason, thoughts of cloaks and daggers come to mind rather more often than they ought to, and in this case I had discounted them.
    But—
    â€œEvan?” I looked up. “Now here you have a girl who’d come to London, where as far as we know she didn’t know a soul. She might make friends, but—”
    â€œBut they wouldn’t make her,” I said.
    â€œPardon?”
    â€œNothing. Go on.”
    â€œQuite. Now I can’t see MI 5 knocking on her door in Russell Square, can you? Nor do I think she’d have gone the rounds of the employment agencies, and I don’t suppose she had much money—”
    â€œProbably not.”
    â€œâ€”so I wonder if she mightn’t have answered a Personal in the Times. Had you thought of that?”
    â€œNo.” I straightened up. “I should have thought of that myself. We would want the issues for the first two weeks in August. I suppose the newspaper offices have them on file, or is there a library that—”
    â€œCourtney,” Julia said.
    â€œWhy, of course,” Nigel said. “Courtney Bede.” He turned to me. “There’s an old fellow who keeps every issue of the Times. And all the other papers as well. He’swhat you would call a character. Quite daft, actually, but not a bad sort. Do you want to go round there?”
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    The English have certain words that are better than ours. Daft is one of them. Such American alternatives as flaky don’t quite do the job.
    Courtney Bede was daft. He was a short, round man who might have been anywhere from fifty to ninety—it was quite impossible to tell. He performed some backstage function in the theater and lived alone in a basement apartment in Lambeth not far from the Old Vic. There, in four sizable rooms, he existed as a rather orderly version of the Collier brothers.
    He saved things. He saved string, and empty bottles, and bits of metal, and theater programs, and