New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940., 1940. First edition. First U.S. edition. Inked inscription on the title page to a well known bookseller: "James Pepper from Eric Ambler." Light offsetting to the front and rear pastedown sheets, top stain faded, else a near fine, bright copy in price-clipped dust jacket with minor professional restoration to the spine ends, corners, and extremities. Returning to his hotel room after a late-night flirtation with a cabaret dancer, Graham is surprised by an intruder with a gun. What follows is a nightmare for the English armaments engineer as he makes his way home aboard an Italian freighter. Among the passengers are a couple of Nazi assassins intent on preventing his returning to England with plans for a Turkish defense system, the seductive cabaret dancer and her manager husband, and a number of surprising allies. This is Ambler's sixth novel and it is the basis for the 1943 film noir directed by Norman Foster and Orson Welles (uncredited), and…