adequately," he said. "But though he came out of it all with his life, he came out of it with only part of his brain. It didn't take my agent long to see that Nikolsk went off the beam completely every now and then. He would be making sense, when suddenly his speech would start rambling all over the place. And even then, almost a year later, he had the certain belief that his friend would return to Tobolsk, and he would be able to see him."

"Did he tell your agent why he wanted to see his friend?" Dawson asked eagerly.

"No," Colonel Welsh replied. "That's one of the questions he wouldn't answer, though my agent asked it more than once as he heard more and more of the strange story. It's funny, but though Nikolsk had saved my agent's life, and believed him definitely on Russia's side, he couldn't get it out of his head that my agent might rob him of his great secret. Yes, you're guessing it. Nikolsk's secret knowledge of the Nazi war plan that he had learned while in Germany. Oddly enough, he told my agent every detail of his meeting with Agent Jones. Of how he had torn the secret information in half, given half to Jones, and destroyed the half that he kept. He told my agent all that, but he wouldn't tell him one word of what the information was about. And do you know why?"

"Didn't trust your agent, obviously," Freddy Farmer spoke up.

"Yes, that's my guess, too," Dawson added.

"No," Colonel Welsh said with a vigorous shake of his head. "True, he didn't tell my agent what his half of the information was because he was afraid of being betrayed. But he wouldn't reveal anything about the other half—because he had forgotten it!"

"Forgotten it, for cat's sake!" Dawson exploded. "But—?"

"Just what I am about to explain," Colonel Welsh cut in. "He swore blind that what he knew was of no use at all without the half that he had given to Jones. And to get it all together he had to see either Jones or his friend. He felt that Jones was dead, but—but he still held to the crazy belief that his friend would return to Tobolsk one day, and that together they would place in Joseph Stalin's hands something more valuable than a hundred armored divisions, or a thousand squadrons of aircraft!"

As the echo of the last died away, a tingling silence settled over the room. Dawson had the insane urge to pinch himself hard just to make sure he wasn't sleeping through a very cockeyed dream. He knew, and had seen for himself, many of the upside down things that come out of war. But this dizzy tale was a new high for everything. When he tried to mull it over, and gain some sense from it, it simply made his brain hurt.

"This is certainly something, sir," he mumbled, and gave the Colonel a searching look. "And you are going to say that your agent didn't learn a darn thing, and had to leave it that way? Gosh! I think I would have slung Nikolsk over my shoulder and high-tailed to Moscow as fast as I could, and counted on Joseph Stalin, himself, getting him to talk."

"Don't worry," the Colonel said, with a grim, smile, "my agent thought of that idea, too. But, of course, it was impossible. He even suggested the idea, but Nikolsk would have no part of it. He insisted that what little he might be able to tell Stalin wouldn't help at all. He had to wait for either his friend, or Agent Jones, to turn up. And he was going to park right there in Tobolsk, keeping out of the way of the Nazis, until either of those things happened."

"So I would say," Freddy Farmer spoke up as though talking to himself aloud, "that this friend was the third man who possessed part of the original information. Either that, or Nikolsk had sent another copy of all of it to him, in case something should happen to him. And Jones showing up with a torn half would prove to the friend that Nikolsk was finished. And—"

"No doubt the truth of the matter, Farmer," Air Vice-Marshal Leman took up the talking. "This friend was in the know about some of the business, if not all of it, no doubt. But Moscow had received not one single word, which proves what we fear. Namely, that Nikolsk's friend is dead, and will never return to Tobolsk."

"But there is still Agent Jones!" Dawson cried eagerly.

Colonel Welsh and Air Vice-Marshal Leman exchanged a long look. And it was the R.A.F. Intelligence chief who finally spoke.

"Yes," he said softly. "There is still Agent Jones."

CHAPTER FIVE

Doubling for Death

For a long, long minute Dawson waited for Air Vice-Marshal Leman to continue. But the R.A.F. officer seemed to have said his bit, and that was that. He lapsed into silence and stared fixedly down at his hands folded on the desk. Dave started to put the obvious question, but before his lips could form the words Colonel Welsh broke the silence.

"Yes, there is still Agent Jones," he said. "But it isn't so simple as all that. I mean, it isn't just a question of flying Jones over to Tobolsk and letting him get together with Nikolsk. Ivan Nikolsk has done the disappearing act again. And in addition, we have the very strong hunch that friend Himmler's Gestapo has entered into the picture."

"He's disappeared, sir?" Freddy Farmer choked out. "What blasted rotten luck! But isn't there something that can be done? I mean, have you any idea where Nikolsk might be? And—?"

"One thing at a time, Farmer," Colonel Welsh said with a chuckle, and held up his hand. "Not so fast, son. The thing's a mess right at the moment, but we have hopes."

"Sorry, sir," Farmer said, as the red rushed up his face to the roots of his hair. "But it was a bit of a let-down after getting all warmed up, you know."

"Well, that's the way with war," the American Intelligence chief said with a smile. "But to get on with my story. Just now I jumped ahead. So I'll go back to my agent in Tobolsk. Well, he stayed there in Nikolsk's cellar for four days. By the end of four days he had all his strength back, and falling down the empty well shaft was just an unpleasant memory. During those four days and nights Nikolsk was constantly with him, for the reason that a lot of Germans moved into the village. And from what Nikolsk could see they were there for some mysterious reason. I mean, they didn't camp, and they didn't have much equipment with them. Fact is, they were mostly Gestapo men in uniform.

"So for four days and four nights my agent and Nikolsk hugged that cellar and prayed to their gods that the Germans wouldn't stumble over them. And whenever he had the chance, my agent went to work questioning his new found Russian-friend, but, sorry to say, he didn't even get to first base. The instant those Germans showed up Nikolsk closed up like a clam. Matter of fact, my agent says that he was practically blue with fear most of the time. He seemed to think that the Gestapo boys were after him."

"Were they?" Dawson asked quietly as the other paused.

Colonel Welsh shrugged and dragged down the corners of his mouth.

"Yes and no," he said. "We don't know anything for certain. The next day Nikolsk left the cellar and didn't return. My agent waited a day longer, and then decided that it was time for him to be moving. He had some tattered peasant clothing that Nikolsk had given him, and he slipped out at night and continued his journey northward. In two days he was on the Russian side of the war. And as luck would have it, he bumped into a tank officer he knew. The rest was easy. A plane took my agent to Moscow. And after a day in Moscow he came on down here to London and reported to me. That was last night. When I heard his story I got in touch with the Air Vice-Marshal here. We went into a huddle, and—well, that brings us up to the present moment."

A hundred thousand questions had been leaping around in Dave Dawson's brain. So when the Colonel stopped talking he got the first one out as soon as he could.

"What about your Gestapo hunch,