XVIII

this potable aqua regia. I wasn’t saying no, and while I sipped at it I wondered what he was so upset about.

First the Count checked the locks on all the doors and sealed the single window. His ring key unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk and he took out a small electronic device with controls and an extendible aerial on top.

“Well look at that!” I said when he pulled out the aerial. He didn’t answer me, just shot a long look at me from under his eyebrows, and went back to adjusting the thing. Only when it was turned on and the green light glowed on the top did he relax a bit.

“You know what this is?” he asked, pointing at the gadget.

“Of course,” I said. “But not from seeing them on Freibur. They aren’t that common.”

“They aren’t common at all,” he mumbled, staring at the green light which glowed steadily. “As far as I know this is the only one on the planet⁠—so I wish you wouldn’t mention it to anybody. Anybody ,” he repeated with emphasis.

“Not my business,” I told him with disarming lack of interest. “I think a man’s entitled to his privacy.”

I liked privacy myself and had used snooper-detectors like this one plenty of times. They could sense electronic or radiation snoopers and gave instant warning. There were ways of fooling them, but it wasn’t easy to do. As long as no one knew about the thing the Count could be sure he wasn’t being eavesdropped on. But who would want to do that? He was in the middle of his own building⁠—and even he must know that snooper devices couldn’t be worked from a distance. There was distinct smell of rat in the air, and I was beginning to get an idea of what was going on. The Count didn’t leave me any doubt as to who the rat was.