Remember Heidelberg, the city of spies? I had another interesting encounter there, during an opera at the famous Pallasa Musika. I was hoping for an evening’s relief from my usual challenges; even virtual
detectives need time off. But once the State Police found me in attendance, they naturally dragged me into another of their intrigues.
They were tracking Emile Buquet, the double agent, and knew that someone was going to pass the number of a secret bank account to him. It was a simple three-digit number.
So the police watched him like a hawk. But nothing much happened. He waited quietly on line at the ticket booth with all the other theatergoers. He removed his hat and checked it, just like everyone else, when the clerk at the booth explained that this was a new policy of the theater. Then he took the ticket he was given and went to his seat in one of the upper balconies.
The seats around him were occupied by undercover police and they swore that no one passed anything to him, or spoke to him, or signaled him in any way. He didn’t even get opera glasses.
Yet soon after the performance began, Emile left the theater in a hurry and the police knew he had gotten the code number. But from where?
When I asked the manager of the theater a very simple question, his answer suggested that the clerk himself was Emile’s accomplice and had given him the information.
Do you know how he did it?
Nano Solution_____________________________________________
“Did he give him a ticket with the number on it?” you ask, meekly.
“Quite direct and quite wrong,” Nano says. “Braintwiddlers are never that simple. Instead, I asked the manager if it was standard policy to have patrons check their hats. When he said it was a special policy for just that evening, I realized what was up. The clerk was giving bald men certain seats in the orchestra section. The pattern of their bald heads – like pixels on a screen – was spelling out the code number when seen from high in the balcony.
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