“He was off duty when the riot started up, but he knew I was out of town so he went to help out and got caught up in it. Nearest doctors could figure, he got knocked down and someone kicked him in the head. He lived, sort of. He can sometimes remember his wife’s name.”
Stuyvesant turned around to look at the other man.
“So yeah. I’d say there’s a personal element in my goddamned intonation.”
Chapter Nine
THE SILENCE HELD for a minute, then Grey said, “I’m sorry.”
Sorry about Tim or sorry to have asked? “Yeah, well, these things happen.”
“And you say you feel that bomb was linked to the others.”
“I did.” Stuyvesant shook off the guilt and grief that rode his days, and gave the coffee a stir. “Where was I? Oh yeah, the Englishman. I took the description we had and compared it to passenger manifests, to and from England, at the dates involved. And eventually I narrowed it down to one man.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“Understatement of the year.”
It had been a ridiculous amount of work, and of the kind Stuyvesant was least suited for—his forte was fists, not files. The worst of it was, because his boss thought he had a bee in his bonnet, most of it needed to be done in his off hours. First combing through what seemed like a thousand manifests covering the periods before and after the three incidents, poring over fine print by his desk lamp, looking for men with British passports traveling alone.
And he’d found them—a lot of them, but he’d gradually eliminated the possibilities down to a small handful of names, and then one, who had traveled in a first class cabin in July and January, and by second class in November. It took him another two weeks to track down the pursers for all three voyages, but when he did, the July employee gave Stuyvesant his first slim break: a group photo from the passage in July that included a man who more or less matched the description.
When he’d taken that photo to the January ship’s purser, the man had said yes, it looked like the same man. The November purser disagreed; however, it turned out that crossing had been rough, and the man in the second class cabin had stayed in bed most of the time, groaning and ill. The hotel maid’s friend said maybe, could be, hard to tell. The boy who’d carried the groceries in Chicago had been positive.
The passenger’s name was Richard Bunsen. A few phone calls, and he’d decided it was The Bastard’s real name.
The Director needed more than that to set an international investigation under way. But when Stuyvesant gave him more, when he described just who Bunsen was, Hoover had practically laughed him out of the office. And J. Edgar had a point: Why would an Englishman cross the ocean to bomb Americans, anyway? Were they talking about some international mastermind?
Stuyvesant had to admit it was unlikely. But he was haunted by that easy, self-satisfied face in the shipboard photo, and he’d been an agent long enough to know that motive was often the last piece of an investigation that fell into place. Hoover wasn’t convinced, but in the end he’d given way, and the Bureau had shelled out fifty bucks for the ticket, though nothing more. So here was Harris Stuyvesant, at the end of the world, listening to the sound of his savings going up in smoke.
“I couldn’t find much about him, but enough to suggest that one of the names he’d traveled under had been his own, and he was indeed English. So, long story short, some of us talked it over and decided it was high time for our two countries to pool our knowledge, and I drew the short straw to—”
“Mr. Stuyvesant,” Grey broke in, the cold edge back in his voice. “If you can’t give this to me straight, leave. Now.”
Stuyvesant felt a surge of anger, but the look in those green eyes had him turning his back to stir the coffee again. Okay, fine, more white lies, but what was he supposed to say? That he’d set himself on Bunsen’s trail because his pretty young sister-in-law had cried all over his shirt-front until he’d sworn to find the man responsible? That he’d come because he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing Tim’s slack features? That every time he looked at the scars zig-zagging over the kid’s head, he saw Helen’s features beneath them?
That it should have been him, there in that riot, not Tim?
“Okay, yeah. Carstairs doesn’t know this, but it’s true, my presence here is not a hundred percent official. You see, the Bureau’s Director and I, we had a little falling out about where the investigation was going. He’s got what you might call a personal interest, since it was him who would’ve got blown up in that room.
“I know what you’re thinking—that he ought to be kissing my feet that I saw the wire. And he is, or he’d have fired me flat instead of buying me a ticket for a little vacation. He thinks I’m going the wrong way with it. That I’m following…chance coincidences.”
Grey raised his head, distracted from the headache by that tiny pause. He listened to the echoes and saw the sudden rigidity in the man’s neck: The American was hiding something.
“Tell me about those chance coincidences.”
“There aren’t any.”
“Stuyvesant—”
“No.”
Grey sat slowly back, trying to ignore the throb of his pulse inside his skull. With that one flat word, the tension had gone clear out of the big man. Kick me out if you must, the American might as well have said aloud, but I’m simply not giving you that.
It would do Grey no good to press, that he could see. The line was drawn in the other man’s mind, and he would not cross it, not if Grey offered to serve his enemy up on a platter.
Open refusal was a thing Grey could live with.
“So, you and your Director had a falling out.”
Stuyvesant blinked. A clear lie, and Grey hadn’t caught it. After a moment, his stirring arm began to move again. “Yeah, we agreed to disagree. Of course, the Bureau’s got exactly no authority overseas anyways, so even if I was here officially, it wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel. But over the years I’ve made low friends in high places, and one of them arranged for me to be attached to the ambassador’s office here as a kind of advisor, for when I need some kind of official status. I’ve still got no weight to throw around, but at this point I’m after information, not an arrest.”
“The coffee sieve’s in the drawer.”
Stuyvesant found the sieve he hadn’t realized he was looking for, and set it over the first cup. “I arrived in London on April 1—which turned out to be appropriate, considering the fool’s game I’ve been playing—and spent last week working my way through one office after another, but nobody’d heard of any bombs set in clever containers, and nobody wanted to listen to my ideas. Of course, I didn’t exactly choose the best time for it, considering how every pencil pusher in the country has his eye on the Strike and nothing but the Strike.” He hesitated with the coffee pot suspended over the cup to glance at Grey. “I assume you do know about the Strike?”
“‘Not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day.’ The coal subsidy expires on the thirtieth, and the mine owners swear they will lock the workers out. Churchill’s ministry want revenge for being forced to give way last summer, the miners demand a living wage at their present hours, the Bolsheviks threaten blood running in the streets, and the right-wing are maneuvering to outlaw the Left entirely. Both sides are dug in and obstinate, both sides hate the other. If all the Trades Unions go out as they’re promising, there will be no trains; no buses; no coal dug, moved, or delivered; no newspapers; limited electricity; and only the most basic of foodstuffs. Do I have the gist of it?”
“That’s the picture that I have,” Stuyvesant agreed.
“The newspapers have tried to appear sanguine, but reading between the lines, and listening to the voices on the wireless, there is already considerable disruption.”
The understatement startled a laugh out of Stuyvesant. “You ain’t kidding, Jack. London feels like some fire-and-brimstone preacher’s End of the World, like there’s a volcano building under
the city and everyone’s tip-toeing around on the crust. Half the people think the Army will shove the miners back into their box at bayonet-point; the other half expect to see children starving on the streets and politicians dangling by their neckties from Westminster Bridge.”
“It’s been coming for years,” Grey said. “When the government agreed to extend the coal subsidies in August, the press heaped fury on their heads. At this point, the two sides are implacable enemies: The working class wants to topple the governing class to its knees, while the ruling class wants nothing short of utter defeat and demoralization of the worker. The middle classes could go either way—one compelling act, or one repellent outrage, and the battle is won.”
Stuyvesant shook his head. “And two weeks ago on the boat over I was thinking this Strike would be a tempest in a teacup, that I’d be in and out before the deadline came anywhere near. Instead, I’ve had to fight to see the assistants to the assistants, and even then they gave me distracted hums and haws and a cup of tea and here’s your hat—I’ve drunk more tea in the last ten days than in the forty years before. When I stumbled across Carstairs on Friday and told my story for what seemed like the hundredth time, I’d begun to think maybe this idea of some international conspiracy was just a brain-wave and everyone was too damned polite to tell me I’d gone crackers.”
He laid the sieve in the sink and looked around for an ice-box, finding instead a zinc-lined box with a jug of milk in it, which he took out, smelled for freshness, and put on the table.
“Now, I don’t know what agency Carstairs is with, since he didn’t exactly have a brass plate on his door, but it doesn’t much matter because nobody in law enforcement or Intelligence ever wants to share information—and for sure with someone from another country. What, admit we got problems? No, sir, everything’s just hunky-dory on this side of the Atlantic, thank you very much, and if you’ve got troubles, you can’t blame us, now please go away.
“So with Carstairs, I went through my speech, like I said, for the umpteenth time and waited to be shown the door with that English politeness that’s like a stiletto in a bouquet of roses, but he just looked at me with those black eyes of his, and then he said, ‘I might know what you are looking for.’ I nearly fell over backwards.” The big man carried the two cups to the table, along with the sugar pot and a couple of (yes, silver) spoons. He sat down, spooned in the sugar, stirred, and sipped: almost cold, what with all the gabbing.
“’Course, even then nothing happened too fast. He sent me away, told me to meet him in Hyde Park the next morning, and seems to’ve spent the hours in between checking my bona fides. And the next day, instead of telling me what I’d asked about, he said he wanted me to meet a man who could tell gold from gilt at a touch. His words. Which was just about all he’d say, except that you might be a link in the chain, and he’d give me more details after I’d met you. Oh, and like I said, that you weren’t a mind-reader.”
Grey stirred milk into his cup and said thoughtfully, “Gold from gilt.”
“Yeah. Frankly, I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything, although I imagine it would be a handy skill.”
“Not a mind-reader,” Grey said, still stuck on Carstairs’ words. Stuyvesant couldn’t tell if Grey was surprised because he would not have expected the judgment from Carstairs, or because he couldn’t believe he was discussing the subject at all. Whichever it was, it seemed to help him make up his mind. “On the other hand…” he said, and stretched his arm across the table, palm up. “Let me have your cigarette case.”
Obediently, the American took the slim silver object from his breast pocket and placed it on the callused palm. Fingers stained and rough with labor closed over it.
Not that hard use had made the hands clumsy. The fingers turned the object over and over twice, like a bar of wet soap, then worked the fastening at the bottom. The lid popped open, revealing the cigarettes, all but one of which were from a packet Stuyvesant had bought at the train station in London the day before. Grey ran the contents under his nose, then closed the cover. He flipped the case over and his work-thickened thumb-nail sought out the invisible, hair’s-breadth seam along the back. Stuyvesant raised an eyebrow as the back of the case came open. Grey glanced at the folded white paper tucked within, then pinched the cover shut without touching the contents and laid the case on the table.
“A woman gave this to you, ten or twelve years ago. A short, blonde, intelligent young woman with a quirky sense of humor. You loved her. She died. The hidden compartment holds her photograph, although she didn’t give it to you. You took the case to war with you, carrying it over your heart then as you do now. When you left New York you were in a hurry, and did not think to bring a supply of your favorite cigarettes. You have just a few left. You bought these others in London, probably at the train station.
“Shall I go on?”
Chapter Ten
STUYVESANT STARED at Grey, then picked up the glass he’d left in the middle of the table and took a swallow. This time he wheezed in reaction, a spasm that reached to his diaphragm, but did not cough. “How?”
“How do I know these things? I don’t know how I know. I never do, although sometimes I can follow—” Grey stopped and tilted his head, listening to something Stuyvesant had not heard. He raised his voice, slipping into the dialect he had used earlier. “Robbie, pard, tha may’s well come in, tha’ll get a crick in thy neck listenin’ loik that.”
After a moment, a cloth cap appeared in the door’s polished glass, followed by the tousled head, pale eyes, downy face of adolescence, and finally the red wool shoulders. The latch lifted and the simple lad came in, sidling up to Grey, picking at the loose threads of his jersey in a show of embarrassment.
“This is my neighbor, Robbie Trevalian,” Grey told the American. “He likes to keep me safe. Robbie, say ’ello t’ Mr. Stuyvesant.”
The Cornishman kept his head lowered, but slid his eyes sideways to examine the guest. “Thet nahm’s tew long,” he complained.
“My other name’s Harris,” Stuyvesant told him. “How about using that?”
“Robbie, me ’ansum, Ah godda jawb fur thee,” Grey told him.
The head came up, the translucent eyes gleamed with joy. “Wass tha’?”
Grey pulled out his pocket-watch and laid it on the table, opening the cover. “Thee sawr that other gennlemun, went off daun the lane?”
“Th’ man in black?” Robbie’s voice contained an oddly fastidious note of distaste.
“That’s right. Ah told ’un ee cudden come back ’til four o’clock. Can thee show me where four o’clock is?”
Robbie bent over the instrument, face screwed in concentration. “Long ’and here, short ’and there.”
“Tha’s a beauty at clocks, all right. Naow, if ee starts to come up the lane afore that, you tell him Mr. Grey’s not home to him until four. Can you do that?”
“Mr. Grey’s not oam t’im unnil four,” he parroted, hitting Grey’s precise intonation.
Grey snapped shut the watch and held it out by the chain. The watch-dog carefully gathered it up and poured it into his capacious pocket, then tugged his cap brim at Stuyvesant and shot out the door, leaving it open to the chilly air. Grey rose to shut it, his balance only slightly compromised now.
“I take it that the kid doesn’t give you a headache?” Stuyvesant asked in amusement.
“No. Or at least, not the same kind of headache. Simple people, small children, the very old, they’re restful. I met a holy man once whose presence was so comforting I wanted to weep.”
Stuyvesant retrieved his cigarette case, opened the lid, and offered Grey one. Grey shook his head, so Stuyvesant closed the lid and turned the silver object over in his own, considerably less hardened hands. “You were telling me how you know those things.”
“I was telling you that I don’t know how I know them,” Grey corrected him.
Stuyvesant thought that was all he was going to get from Grey, but after a m
inute, the man seemed to come to a decision. He sat back and raised his chin as if meeting a challenge, and watched the impact his words had on his guest.
“I was injured during the War, in a way that stripped me of all barriers. Let’s imagine you and I are walking down a city street. You hear noise, but only as a background to the conversation we’re having; I walk beside you and hear what you’re saying, but only as one element in a flood of sounds and sights and smells: the precise beat of a hundred shoes hitting the pavement, the rub of each moving part of the five combustion engines going past, the sourness of the milk on a doorstep that wasn’t collected that morning, the tug of the breeze on a flag, a palimpsest of fifty conversations. I can tell you which shoe is loose on the rag-and-bone man’s horse, whether the bricklayer on the next street is left-or right-handed, and which of the door-frames we are passing have wood rot.”
He paused, studying the American’s face. Whatever he saw there satisfied him, because he went on.
“You ask how I know these things. How would you explain to a race of blind people that there was a horse on a hillside half a mile away? How would you begin to describe your perception of the shape and color of the animal, the motion the legs make, its progress against the landscape? They would only know the horse if they could hear its hoof beats, smell its skin, touch its body.
“I see a man handling a delicate silver cigarette case whose engraving has been worn down by years of rubbing one thumb across it in a gesture of affection and loss. I see his initials engraved on the front, in a highly original and overly elaborate font, which could only be a visual joke. I see the signs of long, hard service, and a furrow carved along the back, where the shrapnel that hit the man’s left face and shoulder cut into the silver. I see a faint, hidden seam in the back with a polished spot where it has been opened regularly. Inside I see a much-handled photograph, folded to fit the space, where a woman would have provided one trimmed to fit. I see a blonde hair pinned to the photograph. And I see a tough man with one vein of vulnerability running through his hard competence, a weakness for weakness. You’re the kind of man who would without a thought risk his life to rescue a kitten from a drain, and as instantly and without second thought, thrash half to death the man who threw it there. When you were young, you could only have fallen in love with a small, blonde woman.”
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