You return to the folded pants.

You return to the folded pants.

So PSEUDOPOD is wandering around Portofiro half-naked.

Almost definitely.

Good start.

Search the pockets again, thoroughly.

You discover a small extra pocket inside the front right pocket.

A pocket disguised as a pocket.

You slip two fingers inside and come away with a neatly folded sheet of paper.

Not normal paper. This is nitrocellulose, made to burn quickly and completely.

Hello there.

The page is notebook-sized and perforated along one edge. It reads:

THA 7LESAPR 032 WIFO 9W TBGFLW25

There it is, the missing half.

Totally meaningless, yet no meaning can be made without it.

This is a one-time key.

One that could be applied to the ciphertext you found in the cigarette packet.

Good to unlock a single enciphered message. You just need to locate the other half.

The pack of cigarettes on the desk. You missed something about them.

Yes! Now we're spying.

You'll be spying harder when you crack this thing.

Nice teamwork, PSEUDOPOD. (Give him a thumbs up.)

"..."

Half a cipher. The language of spies. You've carried papers like this, folded up and hidden away in secret pockets and compartments.

A PSEUDO-Secret...

Sneaky.

Examine the trousers.

Brown. Shapeless. Utterly unremarkable.

No accident. This is functional invisibility -- the wearer would have no choice but to blend in to a crowd.

Search the pockets.

The front and back pockets are completely empty except for a few pieces of lint.

Don't forget the coin pocket. Front right.

"Thnnuuughhh..."

Your hoisting must have compressed his lungs somehow... Unless...

Nothing but dead air from when you moved him.... Unless...

Why are they hanging in the bathroom?

One of the many mysteries concerning 'men's trousers'.

He was trying to smooth out creases with shower steam.

Step back from the trousers. [Leave.]

You leave the trousers as they were.

As you turn away, a stray thought passes -- they may never be worn again.

PSEUDOPOD's pants hang over the shower rail, abandoned by their owner days ago.

A sudden breeze slices through a man's skinny calves. There is a dim but dawning awareness of pain through the soles of his cotton socks.

A pair of men's trousers are hung delicately, yet stiffly, over the shower rail.

PSEUDOPOD's -- now even further away from him than before.

If PSEUDOPOD's pants were attempting to flee the scene, they did not make it very far.

They seem much better cared for than their owner.

The trousers are sad. Their owner has abandoned them.

Likely belonging to the man splayed, with much less care, in the nearby chair.

Your double's. They appear to have been here for some time.

A pair of men's trousers are hung delicately over the shower rail.