Free Spy and the Thief by Edward D. Hoch

remembering how ill the man looked. “He wanted to jump into the pool and he couldn’t” Rand said. “He knew he had only a short time to live—but he didn’t have the nerve to jump into the pool.”
    “You mean he wanted to die?”
    “Schultz was a top German agent during the war. And he knew from our talk that I was an expert on ciphers and secret messages. Do you really think he’d be foolish enough to use such a simple cipher when he knew I’d see the message? Do you really think he’d start the message with Rand— a name that would mean little or nothing to his Paris contact? He started with my name so I’d be sure to catch the message. He wanted me to read it. That address in Paris doesn’t even exist. I checked it late last night.”
    “But why?”
    “Because he was probably dying and wanted to spend his last days with his eels. But when I told him it couldn’t be, he preferred to die as quickly as possible. He didn’t have the courage to commit suicide, so he sent that message and ‘arranged’ to be killed.”
    Colonel Nelson walked to the window. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”
    “Because I couldn’t be absolutely sure, and because we couldn’t take even the most remote chance.”
    He knew that would satisfy Colonel Nelson—and besides, it was true. In this business can anyone ever be absolutely certain, or risk even the most remote chance? But Rand had another reason, which he added silently to himself: after all, it was the least he could do for another member of the profession—even someone on the other side.

THE SPY WHO PURCHASED A LAVENDER
    H IS NAME WAS PETER Smith, and he was a spy. Or at least he had been in his younger days. Now, past 50 and with an ulcer that occasionally acted up, he found himself confined to the less exciting but nonetheless necessary phases of intelligence work. He didn’t complain, because that was not his nature. He did the job that needed to be done.
    Peter Smith had made the flight from London to New York a good many times in the past, but never on such a mission as this. He was coming to America for the purpose of purchasing a Lavender Machine, a task he couldn’t have imagined a few years back.
    Smith was tall and gray-haired, and carried himself like a diplomat. He had a wife and two children somewhere, but she’d divorced him long ago, when he returned to the intelligence service after his first retirement. He couldn’t really say he blamed her, but intelligence work was the only life he knew.
    His plane landed at Kennedy airport, and he cleared customs in a few moments, striding quickly to the taxi stands in front of the International Arrivals Building. It was a sunny December day, more like early autumn than the beginning of winter, and he breathed deeply of the exhilarating air. Heathrow Airport had been almost fogbound when he left London.
    His first night in America was spent in Manhattan, but he was up early the next morning for the trip by rented car to the sprawling machine tool plant deep in central New Jersey. Here, in this strange smoky countryside of factories and marshlands, he found the home of the Lavender Machine. He met a great many people, smiling and shaking hands, and signed for delivery of one machine while a government representative looked on.
    “If you approve,” said Mr. Sine, the project manager, “we will pack the Lavender Machine in three safes for transportation to London. You may accompany them in our truck to the airport.”
    Peter Smith nodded, watching Sine’s graying head as it bent over the complex assortment of forms and export licenses. The Lavender was the latest American refinement in cipher machines, and as such its manufacture was closely controlled by the Federal government. This one, being carefully packed for shipment, was only the second the British government had been allowed to purchase.
    Sine pulled out a sheet of used carbon paper, crumpled it, and dropped it in the wastebasket.