Under Surveillance Instead I began to try to work out
the scale of the resources which the security authorities would need to deploy if they wanted seriously to impair anyone's chances (my own, for instance) of vanishing behind the Iron Curtain. I reckoned that it would involve three full-time sleuths, each doing an eight-hour shift, plus three colleagues to relieve them at week- ends. They would need at least two cars, both equipped with wireless and both therefore manned by an operator. One car would be actually on the job, the other waiting to take over. The operators, like the detectives, would have to be in triplicate, and if my telephone-line were tapped a twenty- four hour watch would involve three monitors. Leaving out week-ends and assuming that the detectives drove the cars themselves, I should already be monopolising the attention of twelve highly trained men; and that does not take into account the specialist who steams open my correspondence and photostats the more suspicious letters. I live in a very isolated country house, and with the onset of winter the police would, I think, find it necessary to erect a small but or shelter for the use of their vedettes; this would involve renting a site from me and getting planning permission from the Rural District Council. . . . And even then, as far as I can see, and as long as I kept on the right side of the law, there would still be nothing to stop me from buying a ticket, getting on an aeroplane and proceeding to Switzerland and points east.
When I reached the office a policeman was looking medi- tatively at my car, which was parked outside it. I nipped into the building feeling a shade less like Sir Percy Blakeney than I had a moment before.
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