suspicion or a degree in distrust to notice something unusual about those last two phrases, about someone having laid on the lovely morning deliberately, and especially the second phrase, about how it was bound to happen some time, ambiguities which were perhaps unwitting, perhaps unconscious, but, for that very reason, potentially even more dangerous and therefore worth contrasting with a detailed analysis of the tone of voice in which those words had been uttered, but, above all, with the range of frequencies they generated, we are referring here to subtones, which, if recent theories are to be believed, must be taken into consideration, otherwise, the degree of comprehension of any oral discourse will inevitably be insufficient, incomplete and limited. The spy who happened to be there had been given very precise instructions on what to do in such cases, as had all his colleagues. He must not allow himself to become separated from the suspect, he must place himself in third or fourth position behind him in the queue of voters, he must, as a double guarantee, and regardless of the sensitivity of his concealed recording equipment, commit to memory the voter's name and number when the presiding officer said them out loud, he must then pretend to have forgotten something and withdraw discreetly from the queue, go out into the street and phone headquarters to tell them what had happened, and, having done that, return to the hunting ground and take up another place in the queue. This activity cannot, strictly speaking, be compared to an exercise in target shooting, what they are hoping for here is that chance, destiny, luck, or whatever you want to call it, will place the target in front of the shot.
As the hours passed, information rained down upon the center of operations, but none of it revealed in a clear-cut and consequently irrefutable manner the intentions of the voter thus caught, all that appeared on the list were phrases of the kind described above, and even the phrase that seemed more suspicious than all the others, Well, I suppose it was bound to happen some time, would lose much of its apparent slipperiness once restored to its context, a conversation between two men about the recent divorce of one of them, not that they spoke of it explicitly, in order not to arouse the curiosity of the people nearby, but which had concluded thus, with a touch of rancor, a touch of resignation, and with a tremulous sigh that came forth from the divorced man's breast and that should have led any sensitive spy, assuming, of course, that sensitivity is a spy's best attribute, to come down clearly on the side of resignation. The fact that the spy may not have considered this worthy of note, and that the recording equipment may not have captured it, can be put down to mere human failure and to technological blips which any good judge, knowing what men are like, and not unaware either of the nature of machines, would have to take into account, even if, and, although at first sight this may appear shocking, it would, in fact, be magnificently just, even if in the documents bearing on the case there was not the slightest indication of the accused's non-culpability. Were this innocent man to be interrogated tomorrow, we tremble at the mere thought of what could happen to him, Do you admit that you said to the person you were with Well, I suppose it was bound to happen some time, Yes, I do, Now, think carefully before answering, what were you talking about when you said that, About my separation from my wife, Separation or divorce, Divorce, And what were or are your feelings about that divorce, Half-angry, half-resigned, More angry or more resigned, More resigned, I guess, Don't you think, in that case, that the natural thing would have been to utter a sigh, especially since you were talking to a friend, Well, I can't be sure I didn't sigh, I really don't remember, Well, we know that you didn't, How can you know that, you weren't there, Who