xt
wicket.

"Ten pound notes, if you please," said the graying man. "I think a
hundred notes will go into my brief case easily enough." He chuckled, as
though he'd made a clever witticism.

"Yes, sir," said the clerk, smiling.

Houston whispered into his microphone again. "Who is the guy?"

On the other side of the partition, George Meredith, a small,
unimposing-looking man, sat at a desk marked: MR. MEREDITH--ACCOUNTING
DEPT. He looked as though he were paying no attention whatever to
anything going on at the various windows, but he, too, had a microphone
at his throat and a hidden pickup in his ear.

At Houston's question, he whispered: "That's Sir Lewis Huntley. The
check's good, of course. Poor fellow."

"Yeah," whispered Houston, "if he is what we think he is."

"I'm fairly certain," Meredith replied. "Sir Lewis isn't the type of
fellow to draw that much in cash. At the present rate of exchange,
that's worth three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars American.
Sir Lewis might carry a hundred pounds as pocket-money, but never a
thousand."

Houston and Meredith were a good thirty feet from each other, and
neither looked at the other. Unless a bystander had equipment to tune in
on the special scrambled wavelength they were using, that bystander
would never know they were holding a conversation.

"... nine-fifty, nine-sixty, nine-seventy, nine-eighty, nine-ninety, a
thousand pounds," said the clerk who was taking care of Sir Lewis's
check. "Would you count that to make sure, sir?"

"Certainly. Ten, twenty, thirty, ..."

While the baronet was double-checking the amount, David Houston glanced
at him. Sir Lewis looked perfectly calm and unhurried, as though he were
doing something perfectly legal--which, in a way, he was. And, in
another way, he most definitely was not, if George Meredith's suspicions
were correct.

"Your receipt, sir." It was the teller at Houston's own window.

Houston took the receipt, thanked the teller, and walked toward the
broad front doors of the bank.

"George," he whispered into the throat mike, "has Sir Lewis noticed me?"

"Hasn't so much as looked at you," Meredith answered. "Good hunting."

"Thanks."

* * * * *

As Houston stepped outside the bank, he casually dropped one hand into a
coat pocket and turned a small knob on his radio control box. "Houston
to HQ," he whispered.

"London HQ; what is it, Houston?" asked the earpiece.

"