AtD, p. 856-857 "pretend to be fascinated"

[Michael Bailey]

also, this whole episode seems to be fairly huge in AtD...

Austrian takeover, not just of, umm where are we again...
some city...
but also, it seems, there's been an Austrian takeover
of the Theign branch of Naval Intelligence,
with Theign acting on their behalf, rather than within his remit
in HM's Royal Foreign Service, nicht wahr?

Double-agenting.  As Cyp noticed when Moistleigh mentioned
translating copies of his decodings into German...

British Empire's functionaries abroad
losing their grip (Halfcourt), opting out to become balloon-boys (Prance),
going over to the Other Side (Theign)...

upcoming Uskok revenge on Theign also huge...

reading this book is like working an abacus, maybe,
beads of action, depiction, characterization,
add up in one column, and then at some point you move a bead in
the "symbolic structure" column