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could look at each other again. Embarrassed, they both looked up at the same moment. Clark seemed too shy to say something he wanted to say.
    'Er ... played at all recently, sir?' Ormerod asked to fill the void.
    'Played? Oh, golf. No. Well, not much. The war seems to be getting in the way. Just get a decent fourball arranged and dammit if there's not a red emergency from the coast or something. I'll wager if Jerry does turn up I shall be somewhere out on the fourteenth and by the time I get back the whole bloody show will be over.' He seemed relieved that Ormerod had given him a start. 'Ormerod,' he said. 'I've found out where your murderer chum is holed up. Wasn't all that difficult, actually.'
    The policeman felt his eyebrows rise and his jaw drop. 'You have, sir?' he managed to say. 'Where would that be?'
    Brigadier Clark pulled down a map of Europe on the wall
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    behind his desk. 'Right there,' he said pointing to the middle of Normandy. 'Bagnoles de l'Orne.'
    He turned from the map to see, as he expected, Ormerod's astonishment. It appeared to embarrass him and he went back to the map again.
    'Nice spot,' he mumbled. Then, more firmly, 'Was before the war anyway. Played golf there. Very genteel and so on, full of old ladies with bad legs and chaps with sticks, but that's what you get at a watering hole don't you? The water comes from the spring at a steady eighty-one degrees. Supposed to work miracles with various afflictions and aches. Story goes that years ago some farmer chap had a very old horse and rather than have it put down he sent it to die in the forest. Blow me if the brute didn't come back looking twenty years younger. He'd found the magic spring. The farmer followed him and bathed in the well with miraculous results. I took the waters there myself once, although I can't say it made me feel any younger. Very good for the feet though.' At once he looked directly at Ormerod across the desk. He said deliberately: 'You really ought to try it sometime.'
    Baffled, Ormerod stared from his chair. The Brigadier saw his expression and looked sorry. 'Look Ormerod,' he said, rushing to the point. 'The real reason I invited you here today was to ask you if you'd like to take a trip off to Bagnoles de l'Orne to find your murderer.'
    Now Ormerod was transfixed. He was certain the man had gone mad. 'Very nice idea, sir,' he said nervously. 'But ... the Germans. What about them?'
    'We won't tell them,' smiled the Brigadier triumphantly. He saw the policeman's look of overwhelming consternation and held up a reassuring hand. 'No, no, I've not gone off my rocker. It's a serious plan. You would be doing something you have quite urgently wanted to do and also rendering a service to this country and to France - in fact to the world.'
    Ormerod thought of the French officer going out. He remembered his sideways glance. Realization arrived coldly in his stomach. 'You want me to ... er go to France?' he said incredulously. 'Me?'
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    'Not alone,' said Clark. 'You'd be accompanied by a trained operator.'
    'But me! I'm a London copper sir. Don't you have experienced agents and that sort of thing?'
    'Trained, yes. A few. Experienced, no. There's not been much scope for experience has there? Europe's not been occupied up until now. The basic idea is that you are landed in France, Normandy or Brittany, and that you make your way to Paris by a prescribed route, contacting resistance groups, or potential groups, if any, and at the same time tracking down this man you so desperately want to apprehend.' He attempted an encouraging smile as though it were all simple. 'Your function would be almost one of bodyguard because the agent going with you is a young woman, a former schoolteacher from Normandy, who is a trained operator but needs some er ... well muscle ... she needs a man to go with her, although she won't admit that. We're trying to cobble together some sort of organization to operate in Europe, but frankly in the state we are in at