“What kept you?” she said.
“You got away okay?” I asked.
“Sure. Gott could hardly walk, let alone run. Himmell was in better shape.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “He was.”
Lauren sighed. “Well, that was a waste of time,” she said. “We didn’t learn anything.”
I thought back to the food department, to the things I had seen. And suddenly I understood. It was as if I’d known all along, only someone had to sock me on the jaw to make me realize it. I smiled. Johnny Naples must have smiled that way. Lauren saw it. “Come on . . .” I said.
The same taxis and the same buses were jammed in the same place as we crossed Oxford Street again. We got back on the subway. It would take us to South Kensington, where we’d get a bus.
I knew. But I had to be sure.
INFORMATION
“The bar code,” I said.
“The what?”
“Those little black-and-white lines you get on the things you buy.”
“What about them?”
I pulled the Maltesers out of the shoulder bag and showed them to Lauren. “Look,” I said. “You see? It’s got a bar code.”
“So what?”
“That’s what they were using in Selfridges. The girl was passing her products over a scanner and the scanner was telling the cash register how much the products cost.” Lauren looked blank, so I went on. “Maybe if you pass
this
bar code over a scanner, it’ll do something different.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. That’s what we’re going to find out.”
I needed a science lesson in a hurry and for once in my life I was sorry school had shut for the holidays. But I had another idea. Journalists write about technology and things like that. They know a little bit about everything. And I knew a journalist: Clifford Taylor, the guy who’d interviewed Herbert and me. He’d been at the Falcon’s funeral, too, so I figured he must still work on the same newspaper, the
Fulham Express.
That was where we were heading now. I had to be sure that I was right.
Nobody reads the
Fulham Express,
but everybody who lives in Fulham gets it. They don’t have any choice. It’s one of those free newspapers that come uninvited along with a shower of plumbers’ business cards, taxi telephone numbers, and special offers from
Reader’s Digest.
It’s delivered every Wednesday in the morning. And you can see it every Wednesday, in the afternoon, stuffed into trash cans or drinking up the dirt in the gutter.
We took a bus all the way down the Fulham Road, past Herbert’s flat, to the bottom—Fulham Broadway. This was the Fulham Road at its worst: dirty in the rain, dusty in the sun, always run-down and depressing. I’d occasionally walked past the office of the
Fulham Express,
but I’d never been inside before. It was on the main road, next to a bank. Lauren and I climbed up a flight of stairs and found ourselves in a single, rectangular room with a printing press at one end and a photocopying machine at the other. In the middle there were two tables, piled high with newspaper clippings. The room must have been a dance studio at one time because it had mirrors all the way down one wall, making it seem twice as big as it was. Even so, it was small.
Clifford was there, feverishly working on a story that in a few days someone would use to wrap their fish and chips. I coughed, and when he didn’t respond, I walked up to him. He was the only person there.
“Clifford . . .” I said.
“Yes?” He looked up.
“You don’t remember me?”
“If you’re from the dance class, you’re too early. The newspaper has the room until five—”
“I’m Nick Diamond.”
He took his glasses off and wiped them. There were sweat stains under his arms and his acne had grown worse. He was a mess. I doubted if he could even spell “personal hygiene.” “Nick who?” he asked.
“Diamond.” I glanced at Lauren, who shrugged. “You interviewed me,” I reminded him. “My brother’s a private detective.”
Now he did remember. “Of course! Absolutely! How’s it going? There’s not much call for private detectives in Fulham—”
“I know,” I interrupted. Clifford liked talking. When he interviewed us, he’d talked more than we had. “I was wondering if you could help me,” I said.
“Sure. Sure.”
“It’s a sort of scientific question. Do you know anything about shopping?”
“Shopping?” He frowned. “I don’t think I know anyone called Shopping. There’s Chopin . . . but he was a composer, not a scientist.”
“No.” I sighed. “I’m talking about shops. And about bar codes. I want to know how they work.”
Clifford ran a hand through his hair. There wasn’t that much left for him to run it through. In fact, he had more dandruff than actual hair. “Okay.” He leaned back and put his feet up on the desk. “Technology is mainly about one thing: information. The electronic storage and transmission of information. Computers store information. Satellites send information. But all this information isn’t written out like a book. No way. It’s turned into what’s known as digital information.
“What does digital information look like? Well, in the old days it would have been a hole punched into a computer tape. There are holes in the modern compact disc, too—although they’re too small to see. And a bar code is another form of digital information. It’s as simple as that.
“All products have a bar code on them these days. If you look at them, you’ll see that there’s a number with thirteen digits underneath it. That’s all a bar code is. A number—a unique number that can tell the computer everything it needs to know.”
I’d taken out the box of Maltesers again while he talked. Clifford’s eyes lit up when he saw it. He leaned forward and took it.
“Take this box,” he said. “Here’s the bar code on the bottom.” He pointed to the strip of blue-and-white lines in the left-hand corner. “Part of it would tell the computer that this is a product made by Mars. Another part of it would tell the computer that it’s a box of Maltesers, that it weighs so much and costs so much. It could even remind the shopkeeper to stock up.”
“How does the computer read the bar code?” I asked.
“Well, that’s all done with lasers,” Clifford explained. “There’s a sort of little window built into the counter near the cash register. The person who’s sitting there passes the box of Maltesers—or whatever—over it. Now, behind the window there’s a laser scanner. The salesclerk could use a light-emitting diode, which is the same sort of thing, but either way, the light hits the bar code. Are you with me so far?”
I wasn’t sure, but I nodded anyway. If I’d learned one thing from science lessons at school, it was this. When scientific types start explaining things, it’s hard enough to follow. But when they start explaining the explanations, that’s when you really get lost.
“All right.” He nodded. “The light beams hit the bar code. Now, the dark lines don’t reflect light. Only the white ones do that. So only some of the light gets reflected. And somewhere inside that little window there’s a photodetector, which is a clever machine that produces a pulse of electricity whenever you shine a light on it. Do you see? As you slide the bar code over the window, the shining light hits the lines. Some of it is reflected back onto the photodetector, which gives out a ‘bleep’ for every white line. It’s the ‘bleep’ that’s the digital information sent to the computer. Almost like Morse code. And that’s how the computer knows what the product is!”
He stopped triumphantly and sneezed. Lauren reached out for the Maltesers and he gave them to her. She turned them over and examined the bar code.
“Could you use the bar code like a . . . a key?” I asked. That was the word the Fat Man had used. He had said he was looking for a key.
“Absolutely!” the journalist said. “That’s just what it is, really.”
“But could it open something—like a safe?”
“It depends how you programmed your computer. But the answer’s yes. It could open a safe. Play Space Invaders. Make the tea. And so on.”
They open the . . .
I’d asked the Professor what the Maltesers did, and that was what he’d said before he caught himself. It was all clicking together. A key. A code known only to the Falcon. A safe. Johnny Naples had guessed the day he went to Selfridges. Now I remembered the words he’d written down on the scraps of paper I’d found in his room.
Digital . . . photodetector . . . light-emitting diode.
Clifford Taylor had used them all in his explanation.
I’d always thought that it was the Maltesers themselves that were the answer to the riddle. But I’d been wrong and I should have guessed. When Johnny Naples had bought the envelope at Hammetts, he’d done something else. He’d bought a pair of scissors. Why? To cut out the bar code. That was all he needed. He just had to feed it into . . .
But that was one thing I still didn’t know.
“I do hope I’ve been helpful,” the journalist said.
“Sure,” I said. “More helpful than you’d guess.”
“Is there a story in it?”
I nodded. “An international master criminal, a gang of crooks, a fortune in diamonds? There’s a story all right.”
Clifford Taylor sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t use it. It’s much too exciting for the
Fulham Express.
But look out for the next edition. I’m doing a very interesting piece on the effectiveness of one-way traffic systems in Chelsea.”
“I can hardly wait,” I said.
We left him at his desk and went back down the stairs. It was only when we got to the bottom that Lauren’s hand flew to her mouth. “I’ve left the Maltesers upstairs!” she exclaimed. “Hang on, honey . . .”
I watched her run up the stairs and into the newspaper office. About a minute later, she reappeared, waving the Maltesers. “I must be out of my mind!” she said. “How could I leave them?”
I thought no more of it. That was definitely a mistake.
We were near Herbert’s flat, so I decided to go in and get some fresh clothes. It was easier for Lauren to take the subway straight to Baron’s Court, so we parted company outside Fulham Broadway Station. It was a beautiful day. Cold but with a brilliant sun. Lauren stopped outside the station almost like she was afraid to go in.
“Nick . . .” she said.
“Yes?”
“What I said that night—I want you to know that I meant it. You’re a nice boy. You deserve the best.”
I stared at her, then laughed uneasily. “What is this?” I said. “I’ll only be an hour or so. You’re talking like I’m never going to see you again.”
“Sure.” She shook her head. “Forget it.”
She went into the station.
I walked all the way up the Fulham Road, past the cemetery, and on to the flat. As I walked, I thought. I understood so much now. What the Maltesers meant and why everybody wanted them. The only trouble was, if the Maltesers really were a sort of digital key, how was I to find the digital door? And there was something else that puzzled me. Who had shot Johnny Naples in the first place? My money was on the Fat Man. If it had been Gott and Himmell, they’d have told me when I was their prisoner. After all, they’d told me about Lawrence without blinking an eye. But at the same time, I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t see the Fat Man getting his hands dirty that way. It wasn’t his style. So if not him—who?
I checked the bag. At least the Maltesers were safe. Right now that was all that mattered.
It was around three when I reached the flat. I slipped in as quickly as I could. The fewer people who saw me go in, the better. I didn’t mean to stay there long—just long enough to pull on a fresh shirt and a new pair of socks and make a clean getaway. I went up the stairs. The office door was open. I went in.
There were four thugs in there waiting for me. One was behind the door. He kicked it shut after I’d gone through it, so when I turned around there was no way out. I’d have given my right arm for a way out. If I hung around there much longer they’d probably tear it off anyway. The four thugs were all wearing extra-large suits. That was because they were extra-large thugs. I was once taught at school that Man evolved from the ape and all I can say is that these four had a long way to catch up. They were big, heavy, and brutal, with unintelligent eyes and thick lips. They were all chewing gum, their lower jaws sliding up and down in unison. “Are you Nick Diamond?” one of them asked.
“Me?” I said. “No . . . no! I’m not Nick Diamond. I’m . . . er . . . the delivery boy.”
“What are you delivering?” a second demanded.
“Um . . .” I was having to think on my feet. Any minute now I’d be thinking on my back. If I was still conscious. “I’m a singing telegram!” I exclaimed, brilliantly. “Happy birthday to you, happy birth . . .” I tried to sing, but the words died in my throat. The four thugs weren’t convinced. “Come on, guys,” I pleaded. “Gimme a break.”
“Yeah—your legs,” the third one said.
They all laughed at that. I’d heard more cheerful sounds on a ghost train. They were still laughing as they closed in on me.
“You’re making a big mistake,” I said.
The man behind the door was the first to reach me. He grabbed my shoulder with one hand and lifted me clean off my feet. “There’s no mistake, sunshine,” he said. “The Fat Man wants to see you.”
IN THE FOG
I discovered that the four thugs were called Lenny, Benny, Kenny, and Fred. Lenny was in charge. He was the one with the driver’s license. He’d parked the car outside the flat. It was a Volkswagen Bug. After we’d all piled in it I was surprised it was able to move. I certainly wasn’t. I was on the backseat between Benny and Kenny. Things were so tight that if they’d both breathed in at the same time, I’d have been crushed. The Maltesers were still in my shoulder bag, but now the shoulder bag was on Fred’s lap. Lenny was driving. I was being “taken for a ride,” as they say. And I had a nasty feeling I’d only been given a one-way ticket.
We drove out of town, west toward Richmond. Lenny had made a telephone call before we left, so I knew the Fat Man would be waiting for me. It looked like he was going to have a long wait. These heavies really were heavy and the car could only manage thirty miles an hour on the level. Not that I was in any hurry. In fact, my only hope was that the engine would finally explode under the pressure. I could hardly see them “taking me for a ride” on a bus.