The ringing of the telephone broke Richard Blade's sleep. As always, he was awake in an instant. In his profession those who were slow to awake didn't last long. He reached one long tanned arm out of bed and picked up the receiver.

«Hello, Crawford here.» That was his cover name when traveling abroad on personal business. He was no longer an active field agent for the secret intelligence agency MI6. But here certainly must be people who remembered that a «Richard Blade» had been one of MI6's top agents for nearly twenty years. In those years he had done a good deal to give many people scores and grudges against him. If his name showed up nakedly on a Riviera hotel register, some of those people might be tempted to try settling those scores. And Blade preferred to take his holidays without interruptions or excitement. He got more than enough excitement on his new job.

«Ah, Francis,» came the familiar paternal voice on the other end of the line. Fuzzed and distorted as it was by the long-distance line from London, J's voice was unmistakable. The old spymaster had been Blade's chief in MI6, and was in an odd sort of way still his chief. «How are you? Riviera agreeing with you?»

«Very much, sir.»

«Have anything doing that you can't break off?»

«Nothing in particular, sir.» That was approximately true. There had been an American girl, on her way to Oxford. But she couldn't be called particular. Decidedly not. There was an impressive number of hours in that young lady's bedroom log, Blade was sure. «Has business suddenly picked up?»

«Not worth mentioning. But his lordship wants to call a conference on the twelfth to discuss one of the new lines. Number Nineteen, I think he said.»

«Very good, sir. I'll be there in plenty of time.»