A Hundred Thousand Dragons

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  ‘Freya? Mrs Von Erlangen?’

  Her face paled and her eyes widened. ‘I . . . I think you must be mistaken.’

  She moved to get past him. Instinctively he reached out and put his hand on her arm. His senses flared. His memory hadn’t played him false; she was a lovely woman but her beauty was hidden by her fear.

  ‘Freya! Please. You saved my life. You saved me from him.’ She shrank away, her eyes darting round for an escape. ‘Please, Freya, don’t go. I don’t want to harm you.’

  ‘Who are you?’ The words were a frightened whisper.

  ‘I’m Jack, Jack Haldean. I was at Q’asr Dh’an. Don’t you remember? You stopped him from shooting me. You looked after me.’

  He saw a flash of recognition in her eyes. ‘You are the British pilot,’ she said wonderingly. She spoke with a soft German accent but her English was fluent. ‘I remember. You escaped in the aeroplane.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ He dropped his arm. ‘Look, I know you’re in trouble.’

  ‘You can’t know anything.’ She stepped back from him, looking for a way to escape.

  He felt as if he’d caught a wild bird between his hands. At any moment she might dart into the crowds and be gone. Bill Rackham’s guess came to his mind. ‘I know you’re Miss Kirsch,’ he said quietly.

  He thought she was going to faint. Once more he took her arm, but this time to stop her from falling. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I really do mean you no harm.’

  Her lips moved soundlessly but she couldn’t speak. She leaned against him for support and it was as if a flicker of fire ran through him.

  ‘Come over here,’ Jack said, gently ushering her to the side of the building.

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ she whispered.

  Jack nodded vigorously. ‘Of course you have a choice.’ He released her arm and stood back. ‘If you’d rather, I’ll say goodbye now. I’ll walk away, but all I want to do is help you.’

  Her breathing steadied and her eyes searched his face. ‘How?’

  ‘I can try. After all,’ he added, ‘if you are Miss Kirsch, you’re in trouble.’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was scarcely audible. She shook her head, like someone coming up from under water. ‘How did you know?’

  Jack took a deep breath. ‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t. It was a friend of mine, a police inspector, who guessed.’

  ‘You’re in the police?’ Her voice was very low.

  Jack took her hands, feeling her tremble. His mind was racing. There had been two women, Miss Kirsch and the woman in the Hammer Valley. If Freya was Miss Kirsch, she should be in New York but she wasn’t in New York. Unlikely as it seemed, she was in England and therefore, unlikely as it seemed . . . ‘You were there, weren’t you? You were there in the woods in the Hammer Valley, the night the car caught fire?’

  She gave a little cry. ‘Mein Gott! Who saw me? Did you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not exactly, but I know you were there.’ And he did know. Her reaction left him in no doubt.

  She clutched his arm. ‘And the man who was killed? Madison? The newspaper, it said it was a man called Madison. You know about Madison?’

  ‘I know Madison is your husband.’

  There was no mistaking her fear. She gazed at him wordlessly.

  ‘Freya,’ he said awkwardly. ‘When I say I want to help you, I mean it.’

  Her breathing steadied. ‘You – yes, you. I remember now. You were grateful to me. You were always grateful to me. Perhaps you can help.’ She looked around at the crowds and the traffic. Her hand tightened on his arm. ‘We cannot speak here. Will you meet me? Later on, I mean? Come to my hotel in an hour. We can talk there.’

  ‘All right,’ said Jack guardedly. It would, he thought, be remarkable if he saw her again, but what choice did he have? There was a policeman on duty a few yards away. As she had admitted to being Miss Kirsch, he could have her arrested as an accessory for the murder of the American prison guard, but his stomach turned over at the thought. ‘Which hotel are you staying at?’

  ‘My hotel? It’s . . . It’s the Stirling on Melbourne Street, off Tottenham Court Road. You know it?’

  Jack felt his heart sink. She’d had to think about that answer. If she was staying at the Stirling, he was a Dutchman. The hotel might exist but he was fairly sure she wasn’t a guest. ‘Who do I ask for?’

  ‘Miss Kirsch,’ she said, after a few moments’ hesitation. ‘Yes. Ask for Miss Kirsch.’

  She walked off. Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw Isabelle and Arthur about to cross the road and, with a small gesture of his hand, motioned for them to stay where they were. As she turned to walk on to the Strand, Freya looked at him intently before disappearing into the crowd.

  He looked across the road to where Isabelle and Arthur were standing. With a slight inclination of his head towards them, he walked towards the Savoy. They didn’t speak until they were in the lobby and out of sight of the street.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Isabelle. ‘Was she Freya Von Erlangen?’

  ‘She’s Freya Von Erlangen, sure enough, and Bill was right. She’s Miss Kirsch. Not only that, she’s also the woman who was in the Hammer Valley.’

  Isabelle stared at him. ‘What are you going to do, Jack?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be meeting her in a hour’s time at her hotel. She said she was staying at the Stirling on Melbourne Street.’

  Isabelle and Arthur exchanged worried glances. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ asked Arthur.

  Jack shrugged. ‘What choice do I have? I couldn’t detain her by main force and she was as jumpy as a kitten. She was scared to death when I jumped out in front of her and she nearly had a fit when I called her by her proper name. I don’t know if she’s really staying at the Stirling, but I’ll give it a go. Thanks for staying out of sight, by the way. I don’t know if she was being watched, but I don’t want to draw either of you into it more than necessary.’

  ‘But who could be watching her?’ asked Isabelle.

  ‘Craig? Now I know she’s the woman from the Hammer Valley, she has to be associated with him in some way. Look, I’m sorry about dinner, but I’m going to have to skip it.’ He broke off, thinking. ‘Will you go into the lounge and wait for me there? I want to check something with the clerk at the reception desk.’

  It was nearly a quarter of an hour later before he joined them. ‘I was right,’ he said, sitting down. ‘I thought Freya must be trying to get hold of Madison’s stuff from his room and she was. She told the clerk she was a relative of Madison’s and asked if she could have his things. He told her they’d all been given to the police.’

  ‘D’you think she’s after the paintings?’ asked Isabelle.

  Jack nodded. ‘I’d say that’s certain. I can’t see her lusting after the alarm clock. I phoned Bill but his landlady said he’d left for this card party. I left a message and she promised to get it to him.’ He picked up his whisky and swirled it round in the glass. ‘I wish to God I knew I’d done the right thing. I told Freya I wanted to help.’ He looked at them wryly. ‘I don’t think this is what she had in mind.’

  ‘If she’s under Craig’s thumb, you are helping her,’ said Arthur. ‘I thought he was a brute.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ He drank his whisky unhappily. ‘I know that,’ he said eventually. ‘She was scared stiff of the police, though. Thanks for the drink, Arthur,’ he added absently.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Arthur. ‘We thought we might as well have something while we were waiting.’

  ‘Waiting?’

  ‘We’re coming with you, of course.’

  ‘Don’t be idiotic,’ said Jack shortly.

  Isabelle put down her gin fizz decisively. ‘Jack, listen to sense, for heaven’s sake. I know you’ve always thought she’s the bee’s knees, but we’re not elbowing our way into a date, we’re trying to keep you out of danger.’

  ‘Danger?’

  Arthur leaned forward. ‘You must think there’s s
ome danger, old man, otherwise you wouldn’t have rung Bill Rackham and you wouldn’t have been so leery about letting her know we were around. You can’t go alone. It’s not just her, it’s Craig. Having said that, I don’t see how you can possibly trust her.’

  ‘I don’t know if I do trust her,’ he said in irritation.

  ‘Well, act as if you don’t trust her, then!’ Arthur lowered his voice. ‘By her own admission, she’s been mixed up with two murders, one in America and one here. I don’t know why she was in the Hammer Valley, but it seems damned odd to me.’

  ‘I can’t understand that business in the Hammer Valley,’ said Isabelle thoughtfully. ‘Not unless she bumped off her husband.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s bumped anyone off,’ said Jack seriously. ‘I don’t think she could. Seeing her again brought it all back, you know?’ He intertwined his fingers and looked down at his palms, then shook himself and stood up. ‘Come on. If you are coming with me, it’s time we were going.’

  They took a taxi, instructing the driver to drop them on the Tottenham Court Road at the top of Melbourne Street.

  Isabelle got out of the taxi, looked around her and shivered. Melbourne Street was a narrow passage leading off the Oxford Street end of the Tottenham Court Road. It opened out into a small cobbled square, intersected by alleyways.

  Two sides of the square housed cheap hotels, their lights glaring in the gathering dusk. The other sides of the square were blank with the blackened brick walls of warehouses. The Stirling was the second hotel on the right-hand side. It had obviously been a private house at one time, and its grimy, stuccoed porch and worn mock marble steps testified to how both house and square had once seen better days. A dog, sitting by the railings of the steps down to the kitchen, eyed them warily as they passed, before subsiding with a low growl. The air was dusty and still and a heavy silence hung over the square. Even the noise of the traffic on the Tottenham Court Road was deadened.

  Jack looked at his watch. He had five minutes to go before he’d promised to call for Freya. By common consent, they retreated out of the square and back into the narrow passageway.

  ‘There’s not enough cover for a mouse,’ said Jack in disgust, standing under an unlit street lamp. ‘I hoped you’d be able to come into the hotel and sit in the lounge, but these hotels are more like boarding houses. Anyone who’s not a resident would stick out like a sore thumb.’

  ‘I think our best bet is to stay put,’ said Arthur. ‘We’re in the shadows here and I don’t think anyone would notice us unless they were particularly looking.’ He indicated Isabelle with a sidelong glance. ‘I think we’re safe enough here. Off you go, Jack. We’ll be all right. If necessary, we can be back on the Tottenham Court Road in a couple of ticks.’

  As Jack approached the Stirling Hotel, rather to his surprise Freya came down the steps. She had changed out of black and was wearing a blue coat and a blue cloche hat that suited her fair skin. He smiled in involuntary appreciation and Freya smiled back with a shyness that took him unawares.

  ‘I thought you might not come,’ she said, taking the arm he offered her.

  ‘You needn’t have worried,’ he said, feeling her arm on his. ‘I wanted to see you again. Shall we have dinner or have you eaten?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I haven’t eaten.’ She gave a mock shudder. ‘English food is horrible but there’s a nice Italian restaurant in Soho I’ve been to before.’ To his relief she directed them away from the Tottenham Court Road and towards the bottom of the square. ‘There’s a road which will bring us out on to Oxford Street,’ she said. ‘It’s not very far from there.’

  Walking along with Freya by his side, Jack felt a sense of disbelief. This was Freya he was with. Freya Von Erlangen, for heaven’s sake, and she was talking about restaurants in Soho.

  He tried to force himself to listen to her, but his mind was buzzing. She had been his lifeline in Q’asr Dh’an. In his memory she was all that was good, an icon rather than a human being. But she was real. He glanced at her quickly, seeing how a strand of fair hair had escaped from the blue hat, falling over her cheek.

  She brushed the hair back and it seemed incredible that she should move so instinctively, that she should actually be here. He had treasured her memory, and now, confronted with the real woman, he wasn’t sure how she fitted into the space he had carved out in his mind. His time in Q’asr Dh’an had been a whip-sharp contrast of good and bad, and she had been all the good.

  His picture was too stark. He had been a boy who needed kindness. But now? He needed to add colour, life, intelligence – humour, for heaven’s sake. He needed to match up his venerated image with reality. He had loved her, missed her, thought about her, and now she was here he wasn’t sure if he loved her or the image he had made. Guilt shadowed his thoughts. Freya needed help. If Craig was around she must need help. And he had cared for her, he thought, feeling a sense of pleasure in the certainty of the memory. Her arm nudged his and the little physical touch took his breath away.

  She was trying very hard to seem at ease but it was artificial, a mere chatter of words to fill in the gaps. Any minute now and she’d start talking about the weather. He could sense her nervousness, and once again the sensation of holding a fluttering, frightened bird came to mind. He heard a faint footfall behind them and knew that Arthur and Isabelle were following. She gave a little start as if she’d heard it too.

  ‘Why are you calling yourself Miss Kirsch?’ he asked quickly, anxious to distract her from the sound. He was anxious, too, to get the conversation away from banalities and on to something he really wanted to know.

  Once again she shuddered, but this time it was genuine. ‘Lothar said it was necessary. When we went to New York, Lothar sold paintings, yes? He said it was better for business if I was not his wife. He had clients – rich clients – you understand? I had to be nice to them.’

  Jack was appalled. ‘You mean he used you as a bait?’

  Her face twisted, as if she had smelt something rank. ‘We had to live.’

  ‘The paintings were forgeries, weren’t they?’

  Her mouth tightened. ‘You know a great deal. It was necessary.’ Jack felt a jag of disappointment, but damn it, why should she conform to his image? Maybe it had been necessary. ‘I would tell the clients a story, how a picture had been stolen or looted in the war or sold for a fraction of its value afterwards, all the things which made these rich, fat Americans think they were getting a bargain.’ She shrugged. ‘What could I do? I spoke little English then and I was in a strange land. Lothar promised me that eventually we would have enough money to go back to Germany.’ Her face softened. ‘My home is near Freiburg, in the Black Forest. I wanted to see the mountains once more. My family was respected there. I wanted to go home.’

  Home? That was something he could sympathize with, but . . . ‘Why didn’t you? I know he went to prison. You could have gone home then.’

  ‘Gone home to what?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘In Germany, without Lothar, I had nothing.’ He winced as she said his name. He couldn’t help it. ‘Lothar had plans, great plans. Germany has suffered but there is a new movement that will change everything. You have heard of the Sturmabteilung?’ Jack shook his head. ‘In English they are called Brownshirts. Lothar said they are the future. He wanted to be part of it. Besides that, he was ill and needed me.’ She paused and spoke very quietly. ‘He never needed me before.’

  Jack swallowed. It was as if another piece of his icon had flaked away. He’d thought of Von Erlangen and Freya as opposites, and now it seemed as if they had far more in common than he’d ever wanted to believe.

  They turned out of the square and on to a high-storied dismal brick canyon of a street, where the dust swirled in the gutters and the gloom was broken only by lights from the occasional shop window. He thought of Isabelle and Arthur behind them. There were very few other people around, but there was, thank goodness, more cover than the square had provided.

  Jac
k shook himself. Yes, he was with Freya, but he was also with the mysterious woman whose footprints he had followed. He had to find out what had happened in the Hammer Valley. ‘Talking of need, why did your husband need Vaughan?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said quickly. Too quickly, Jack thought.

  ‘You see,’ he said casually, ‘I wondered if it had something to do with Q’asr Dh’an.’ She drew her breath in and shot him a scared, sidelong glance. That had gone home. Perhaps later he could find out just how right they were in their guess about the gold convoy. ‘Have you ever met Vaughan?’ She shook her head. ‘But you know Craig, though, don’t you?’

  She gave a little gasp. ‘Craig? I don’t . . .’

  She was scared. That much was obvious. ‘Please, Freya, tell me the truth. Tell me about Craig.’

  ‘I . . . I can’t,’ she said faintly.

  ‘Well, tell me what happened in the Hammer Valley, the night Vaughan’s car caught fire,’ Jack said, trying another tack. He tried to smile, to lighten everything up. ‘What the dickens were you doing there in the first place?’ He cut short her denial. ‘I know you were there. I don’t know why, though.’

  It was some time before she spoke. ‘Lothar liked to know where I was,’ she said eventually. ‘He wanted me there. He wanted someone he could trust in case things went wrong. He hired a car so he could take me with him. I waited outside Vaughan’s house in the car.’

  Von Erlangen had hired a car? ‘But Vaughan said Madison had come on the train.’

  She gave a short sigh of exasperation. ‘That’s what he said, yes. He always had another plan. Do you not see? It was dangerous for him. Vaughan knew Arabia. If Vaughan had guessed who Lothar was, there might have been difficulties. Lothar knew the English hated him. He thought he was safe with Vaughan, but he didn’t know he was safe with Vaughan, and he didn’t leave anything to chance. He wanted to have a way of escape, so he could get away quickly.’

  ‘But it wasn’t Vaughan who was the problem, it was Craig,’ Jack said slowly.