( Lighting himself an Egyptian cigarette: ) Give 'em enough rope and they'll hang themselves. Oldest trick in the book.

You sound unsure, Mr. Claus.

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At once he rushed back to the window, throwing it wide open and bending out to look for any further clues above or below. Nothing. Someone had been in the room and left him a gift, and hadn’t bothered to leave a return address. Rathore groaned. How impolite.

The note had been scented with an expensive perfume Rathore didn’t know the name of, but could recognize from rich, young socialite girls. Something about the writing felt playful to Rathore - perhaps the way someone had dotted their ‘i’s.

slanted enough to suggest motion rather than haste. Rathore noted that the first K was darker, suggesting that it had been written with a freshly uncapped pen. Each letter was clean and rounded, finished without hesitation.

taped over quickly in the image with two strips of white tape to form a loose X. It read: 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺 / 𝙲𝙾𝚂𝚃𝚂 𝙻𝙸𝚅𝙴𝚂. And below it, in the right-hand corner, had been added in red ink the words ‘𝒦𝒾𝓈𝓈-𝒦𝒾𝓈𝓈’. The handwriting was small and confident,

Something oblong and flat, folded over itself. He pulled it out, finding cheap, low-grade wood pulp paper. Thin and dry, not meant to last. Printed simply to be forgotten. He opened it up, finding a blue and white poster with two red lips pursed in a smirk in the middle,

he must go to whatever backwater idea of a tailor they had around here and acquire some clothing. He hung up his clothes on the back of the door to his room. He checked his Colt and tucked it beneath his pillow. As he stuck his hand under the pillow, he found something firm pressing back.

He tutted and shook his head, mentally scolding himself. He would check the fountain again tomorrow, but he suspected he would find nothing.
He undressed in the dark, sleeping in his underwear. At some point, preferably soon,

Anna Burgess had seen something which had cost her her life. At that moment, a thought occurred to Rathore: The fat accordionist had been singing about the very things which Rathore had been anxious about all day. Really, a ring that does not age - how had he not noticed it immediately?

All was dark and still; gone were the city lights he normally found beside his bed; the ambience of chatter and cars all throughout the night, swallowed up by the island. Somewhere not far from here, a U-boat had arrived out of the mist, Ray said. Somewhere near here,