Question

Describe how did the department test barnaby?(The Gumdrop Affairs)

Answer 1



It is a busy life that we CON-noisseurs lead, but sometimes we ask ourselves: I have some spare time now; what do I do with it?

If Raj remembers correctly, The Gumdrop Affair was convered in a non-detailed textbook in Class XI.

THE GUMDROP AFFAIR

Ralph E. Hayes

The Gumdrop Affair was not much of a name for such an important assignment, but then the Department never had taken Addison Barnaby seriously.

It all started while secret agent Barnaby was stationed in Africa. Late one night he received a mysterious package. Inside was a coded message and a small, white paper bag filled with gumdrops. Barnaby started to eat one, but he decided to decode the message first. He was glad he did.

The message said that the gumdrops were sugar-coated lumps of a new jelly explosive. Barnaby was to take the gumdrops that is, the explosives to a contact man who would deliver them into the right hands. The contact's name was Brian Thompson, an agent who had spent most of his life in Africa and had made his living as a wild-game hunter and guide.

The next morning Barnaby took a taxi to the hotel where the contact man was staying. As Barnaby rode along, he thought about how the Department always sent him to out-of-the-way places. He knew why, of course. He was over forty and getting fat and bald. He had never been a cold-blooded secret agent, probably because he liked people too much. Even though the Department insisted that he always carry a gun, he would never think of killing anyone. Lately, in fact, he had begun to carry his .38 unloaded just to be sure he would not shoot somebody by mistake.

Barnaby liked to think he made up for his lack of killer instinct by being dedicated to his work. On every assignment he always spent extra time learning about the country and the customs of its people. And what he learned often helped him get the job done without the use of anything more violent than judo.

Barnaby's thoughts were interrupted by the taxi's arrival at the small African hotel. In the lobby Barnaby went up to the desk and asked for Brian Thompson's room.

"Room 315, sir," the girl said.

"Ahsante," said Barnaby, thanking the girl in Swahili. As he headed for the elevator, he carefully patted his coat pocket to make sure the small, white paper bag was there. No, he had not forgotten the sugarcoated explosives. He got off the elevator on the third floor and walked to Room 315. He checked his gun to be sure it was empty; then he knocked and waited. The door opened and a tall man said, "Yes?"

"I'm Addison Barnaby."

The man looked him up and down. "Is this some kind of a joke?"

Barnaby frowned. Nobody ever took him for a secret agent. "The password is kwaheri," he said patiently.

"Oh, yes, so it is," the man said. "I'm Thompson. Come in, come in."

Barnaby stepped into the room, and the African hunter quickly shut the door and locked it. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had expected a--"

"Larger man?" Barnaby smiled.

"Well, yes."

"Everybody does."

"You don't look like a secret agent," Thompson said. "In fact, you remind me very much of a barber that I used to know."

Barnaby did not mind the put-down. "Everybody looks like somebody else," he said. "What is the answer to the password, if you please?"

"Oh. Sorry. Hatari."

It was the right answer.

Barnaby pulled the white bag out of his pocket and handed it to the man. "It's all there," Barnaby said.

"Fine," said Thompson, looking in the bag. "Ngiri."

Barnaby looked up in shocked surprise. The man had just said "wart hog" in Swahili. Why would he say that-- unless he didn't really know the African language very well?

Meanwhile, Thompson had taken the bag and placed it on a little table near the bed. "Will you have coffee with me?" he asked.

"No, thanks, I just had breakfast," Barnaby said. "I did mean to ask you about your life as a hunter, though. It must have been an interesting way to make a living."

"It was." The man sat on the bed, lit a cigarette, and took a long drag. "Even now I miss the lions and rhinos and herds of water buffalo."

"Yes, yes," Barnaby said, nodding his head. But he thought to himself, Water buffalo? They're found in Asia, not Africa. A real hunter wouldn't make such a mistake.

Barnaby watched the other man smoke and glanced at the bag of explosives that was just a few inches away.

"Yes, I miss the tenting and the fresh air," Thompson was saying. He took another puff from the cigarette, and now Barnaby saw that he was wearing an elephant-tail bracelet on his right wrist.

"I see you have an elephant-tail bracelet," Barnaby said.

The man looked at his wrist. "Yes. Killed the poor devil. Stalked him for five hours. Two hundred pounds of ivory in his tusks."

"The bracelet is very nice," Barnaby said. But again Barnaby thought, A hunter wouldn't wear the bracelet on his right wrist if he'd killed the elephant. He'd wear it on his left wrist. The bracelet is worn on the right wrist only by tourists who don't know any better.