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'You're the only one in the squadron who knows I'm a C.I.D. man,' he confided to Major Major, 'and it's absolutely essential that it remain a secret so that my efficiency won't be impaired. Do you understand?'
'Sergeant Towser knows.'
'Yes, I know. I had to tell him in order to get in to see you. But I know he won't tell a soul under any circumstances.'
'He told me,' said Major Major. 'He told me there was a C.I.D. man outside to see me.'
'That bastard. I'll have to throw a security check on him. I wouldn't leave any top-secret documents lying around here if I were you. At least not until I make my report.'
'I don't get any top-secret documents,' said Major Major.
'That's the kind I mean. Lock them in your cabinet where Sergeant Towser can't get his hands on them.'
'Sergeant Towser has the only key to the cabinet.'
'I'm afraid we're wasting time,' said the second C.I.D. man rather stiffly. He was a brisk, pudgy, high-strung person whose movements were swift and certain. He took a number of photostats out of a large red expansion envelope he had been hiding conspicuously beneath a leather flight jacket painted garishly with pictures of airplanes flying through orange bursts of flak and with orderly rows of little bombs signifying fifty-five combat missions flown. 'Have you ever seen any of these?' Major Major looked with a blank expression at copies of personal correspondence from the hospital on which the censoring officer had written 'Washington Irving' or 'Irving Washington.'
'No.'
'How about these?' Major Major gazed next at copies of official documents addressed to him to which he had been signing the same signatures.
'No.'
'Is the man who signed these names in your squadron?'
'Which one? There are two names here.'
'Either one. We figure that Washington Irving and Irving Washington are one man and that he's using two names just to throw us off the track. That's done very often you know.'
'I don't think there's a man with either of those names in my squadron.' A look of disappointment crossed the second C.I.D. man's face. 'He's a lot cleverer than we thought,' he observed. 'He's using a third name and posing as someone else. And I think... yes, I think I know what that third name is.' With excitement and inspiration, he held another photostat out for Major Major to study. 'How about this?' Major Major bent forward slightly and saw a copy of the piece of V mail from which Yossarian had blacked out everything but the name Mary and on which he had written, 'I yearn for you tragically. R. O. Shipman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.' Major Major shook his head.
'I've never seen it before.'
'Do you know who R. O. Shipman is?'
'He's the group chaplain.'
'That locks it up,' said the second C.I.D. man. 'Washington Irving is the group chaplain.' Major Major felt a twinge of alarm. 'R. O. Shipman is the group chaplain,' he corrected.
'Are you sure?'
'Yes.'
'Why should the group
chaplain write this on a letter?'
'Perhaps somebody else wrote it and forged his name.'
'Why should somebody want to forge the group chaplain's name?'
'To escape detection.'
'You may be right,' the second C.I.D. man decided after an instant's hesitation, and smacked his lips crisply. 'Maybe we're confronted with a gang, with two men working together who just happen to have opposite names. Yes, I'm sure that's it. One of them here in the squadron, one of them up at the hospital and one of them with the chaplain. That makes three men, doesn't it? Are you absolutely sure you never saw any of these official documents before?'
'I would have signed them if I had.'
'With whose name?' asked the second C.I.D. man cunningly. 'Yours or Washington Irving's?'
