The women keep referring to a "dead drop" to describe the hand-off of the envelope that Molly Blane witnessed. But in spy craft, a dead drop is a location where a message can be safely hidden and then later collected by another agent. The entire point is to avoid physical contact between the two agents so that they don't incriminate each other. This means that the envelope being passed hand-to-hand as Molly saw is literally the exact opposite of a dead drop, and the fact that the hand-off was witnessed and led to them acquiring a copy of the list is proof of why dead drops are used.
Gerhardt, posing as the Australian fighter Finlay, is slated to participate in a knife fight to the death. He is shown dropping his opened folding knife into a wooden box while his opponent practices with a fixed blade knife. No one would choose to fight with a folding knife as it sacrifices reach and is more likely to break under the stresses of combat.