He frowned. ‘I just don’t know about Sherston. In light of what you’ve told me, Veronica O’Bryan has to be our chief suspect, but I’m not dismissing Sherston yet. I hope it’s not him, though. I can’t help liking the man.’
Anthony crushed out his cigarette. ‘He seems agreeable enough, I grant you.’ And that, he thought, with a dull ache twisting his stomach, was about as much enthusiasm as he could honestly manage.
After breakfast the next morning, Anthony was gathered in politely but firmly by Sherston to be interviewed in his study.
The study was a pleasant, book-lined room, with French windows leading onto the sun-filled garden with the waters of the lake sparkling through the trees. There was a collection of box files on the shelves, each marked with a name of a newspaper or magazine, a solid oak table with the cigarette box agreeably close at hand, some comfortable chairs and a desk which held a neat and crisply new stack of magazines and a serviceable-looking typewriter. Elstead, the secretary, sat waiting, ready to make a shorthand record of the interview.
Sherston, Anthony was surprised to find, was conducting affairs himself. ‘There’s very few things associated with the newspaper business I can’t do, Colonel,’ he said with assertive pride. ‘Although I say it myself, I’m the best man for the job. You see, I know the entire range of the Sherston Press and I’ll think of questions it wouldn’t occur to anyone else to ask.’
Or which, thought Anthony, it might be useful for their gentleman to know, but, as the interview progressed, he became more and more convinced that Sherston wasn’t their man.
If Anthony refused to answer a question, Sherston moved on, remarking that he didn’t want to publish anything that would endanger British interests. He might have one eye on the censor and another on the Defence of the Realm Acts, but he didn’t, as Anthony half expected, press him or try and get the information ‘just between the two of us’.
However, there was his attitude to Cavanaugh to account for. So far, the idea that Cavanaugh had been smitten with Tara O’Bryan was nothing more than a theory. To try and draw him out, Anthony brought up the treatment of neutrals in Germany, using Cavanaugh as an illustration. That led onto an entirely fictitious story of Cavanaugh’s death. To Anthony’s disappointment, Sherston listened, frosty-faced but without comment.
It was odd, sitting in that quiet room, with sounds of early summer drifting through the open window, to cast his mind back to those desperate months in Germany. The events he was recalling seemed so far away it was as if he was describing another man’s life.
After a thorough grilling, during which Anthony thought he had given Sherston enough material to write a three-volume treatise on Germany, laced with some of his more memorable exploits, his host was in an expansive mood. ‘I’m very grateful to you, Colonel,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. He turned to his secretary. ‘Get those notes typed up, Elstead. The Colonel will want to read them through, I’m sure.’
Anthony wasn’t sure he wanted to do anything of the sort. The whole point of a secret agent, he thought ruefully, was to remain secret. The preliminary article had been bad enough but the interview he had just given constituted a spectacular burning of his boats. Still, this was what Sir Charles wanted. ‘What happens to the notes now, Sherston?’ he asked. ‘Are you going to publish them as they are?’
Sherston smiled at this innocent abroad. ‘Oh no, my dear fellow. After you’ve looked the notes over, I’ll give them to Lissett, the editor of the Sentinel. He’s a very sound man. I propose to run a series of articles. We’ll drum up some really good publicity and I’ll be very much surprised if the Sentinel doesn’t knock every other newspaper into a cocked hat.’
His air of eager anticipation increased. ‘D’you remember the series of invasion stories we ran before the war, Elstead?’ he asked, turning to his secretary. ‘That was only fiction, of course,’ he added to Anthony, ‘but my word, it was a stunt and a half.’
‘It certainly was, sir,’ agreed Elstead with a reminiscent grin. ‘We had all our street vendors dressed as German soldiers,’ he explained, turning to Anthony, ‘with the banner, “This Could Be True”, emblazoned on every stand. We had to put out extra editions, it was so successful.’
‘We’ll go one better with this,’ said Sherston happily. ‘We’ll run the story over a couple of weeks, then put all the articles together and print it as a separate magazine. We’re thinking of transforming a few streets into a replica of a German town, based on the information you’ve given us. We won’t have any problems with the authorities, as long as we make the entrance fee payable to a good charity. What d’you reckon, Colonel? The Red Cross should fit the bill, unless you’ve got a pet charity of your own.’
For a wild moment Anthony thought of saying the Sons of Hibernia, just to see how Sherston would react, but he quelled the notion. ‘The Red Cross seems very suitable,’ he agreed.
‘Excellent!’ said Sherston enthusiastically. ‘We can dress it up, have soldiers lording over civilians and so on, show them what it’s really like to live crushed under the Kaiser’s heel. We can even stage a rooftop escape,’ he added with a laugh. ‘That’ll make London sit up.’
Anthony winced. The chances of remaining anonymous after that were virtually nil. ‘That’ll take some time to arrange, won’t it?’ he asked hopefully.
‘No time at all,’ said Sherston, crushing Anthony’s hopes as effectively as any heel of the Kaiser’s. ‘You’ll be amazed at how quickly we can put it together. You, of course, will be our consultant on the project, Colonel.’
‘I’ll have to get permission,’ said Anthony, clutching at this fragile straw.
‘With any luck there won’t be any trouble about that,’ said Sherston heartily. ‘As well as the Sentinel I intend to run pieces in some of our other papers and magazines. For instance, Hearth and Home will get a lot a mileage out of the comparison between what a typical German can expect for dinner, say, and an ordinary British working man.’
‘What about the Citizen?’ put in Elstead. ‘Banks of the Citizen loves the scare stuff and a Hidden Hand Of Germany story. The Colonel’s insights will give them a lot of material on how to spot a spy.’
‘Well done, Elstead,’ said Sherston. ‘Note that down.’ His enthusiasm increased. ‘Why, even Market Garden and Allotment Times can run an article on German versus British food production.’ Anthony winced once more and Sherston turned on him sharply. ‘You mustn’t despise any journal, Colonel, no matter how trivial the subject matter may seem.’
That hadn’t been the reason why Anthony had recoiled but he didn’t feel able to explain himself. At this rate, he thought ruefully, Sherston might as well start a paper called Intelligence Agent News by Anthony Brooke, Esq., and have done with it. He didn’t make the suggestion; Sherston might just do it.
‘Let me show you the range of the Sherston Press, Colonel,’ said Sherston, walking to the desk to where the newspapers and magazines were. ‘I have all our papers delivered here, of course.’
He picked up the pile and handed it to Anthony. ‘These are today’s, together with the current issues of our weekly and monthly magazines. Why don’t you look through them? You might be able to see an angle for your story that I’ve overlooked.’
This seemed monumentally unlikely, but Anthony was anxious to get away. ‘Can I take them outside?’ he asked, scenting a way of escape.
Sherston opened the French windows onto the terrace. ‘By all means, my dear fellow. Be my guest. And may I say how very grateful I am for your cooperation.’ He beamed at Anthony happily. ‘My word, this’ll cause a sensation.’
Anthony, complete with his pile of unwanted reading matter, went into the garden. He made for the circular seat that encompassed the cedar tree. Here, in the middle of the lawn, under the rustling branches and sun-dappled shade, he was in full view of the house. He was hoping, he realized, to see Josette. His heart leapt as a girl came onto the terrace, but it was Tara O’Bryan. He hid his d
isappointment as she waved a friendly hand and came across the lawn to join him.
‘It’s nice to see someone,’ she said cheerfully, sitting down beside him. ‘The house is like a morgue. I don’t know where everyone’s got to.’ She looked at the pile of magazines and grinned. ‘You’ve seen Uncle Patrick, I take it.’
She picked up Woodwork And Practical Carpentry. It was illustrated with a picture of a brightly-smiling man in a khaki apron sawing a piece of wood big enough to be the keel of Nelson’s Victory. ‘I don’t know what he looks so happy about,’ she commented. ‘He looks like he’s got his work cut out, to me.’
She laughed. ‘Uncle Patrick better not hear me ragging about his magazines. He’s terribly proud of them. To be honest, I am too.’ She looked at him with a mixture of pride and awkward modesty. She suddenly seemed touchingly young. ‘I write, you know. I’ve always written. That’s what I’d like to do, but properly, I mean. I really want to get involved with the war but my mother nearly had a fit when I suggested it.’
‘Doesn’t she approve of young ladies working?’ asked Anthony guilelessly. ‘There’s plenty of ladies who do work, especially nowadays.’
Tara’s face fell. ‘It’s not so much working, as working for the English that she objects to. She feels Ireland’s wrongs very strongly, and, naturally, blames the English for them all. She . . .’
Tara hesitated. ‘I know she’s my mother, and you probably don’t think I should criticize her, but she’s a very black-and-white person, if you know what I mean. She takes everything personally. She thought the world of my father and he thought of Ireland and Ireland’s past in very romantic, poetic terms, but it’s not like that, is it? Real life’s a lot more complicated than she ever allows. She was bitterly disappointed when Uncle Patrick nailed his colours to the mast and came out in favour of the war. I’ll get involved somehow or other, but the war won’t last forever, will it? And in the meantime, I can write.’
‘Have you got an article in one of these?’ asked Anthony, laying his hand on the stack of magazines. Tara nodded.
Her earnestness was so beguiling Anthony couldn’t help teasing. ‘It must help having an uncle who owns a string of papers.’
‘It doesn’t!’ she said indignantly. ‘Well, I suppose it might, a bit, but Uncle Patrick won’t publish anything that isn’t up to scratch.’
‘Come on,’ he said, enjoying her sparky defence. ‘I bet your uncle ropes you all in to help out.’
‘It’s not like that, Colonel Brooke. Journalism is a proper business, you know. Josette used to be a writer but she hasn’t written anything since she got married. She said it was far too much like hard work and she’s right.’
‘Does your mother write?’
Tara laughed scornfully. ‘No. Not proper writing, anyway.’ Her eyes became abstracted. ‘It really isn’t as simple as you think, to make something interesting. My mother enjoys cards, you know, and tried to write about it, but it was very wooden. She sets bridge problems, but she can’t make the game itself sound enjoyable. I can do it, but I like people, you see.’
Anthony noticed the implied criticism of Veronica O’Bryan. Tara, it seemed, had few illusions about her mother’s social expertise. Ordinarily, he’d attribute Tara’s attitude to youthful cynicism, but, on this occasion, he thought it was a clear-eyed assessment of things as they really were. It was probably nothing more than sentimentality, but he felt distaste at discussing Mrs O’Bryan’s character with her daughter.
‘Let’s see this famous article then,’ he said, steering the conversation into easier waters.
Tara clasped her hands round her knees. ‘I’m going to make you guess. At the very least, you can guess which magazine it’s in.’
‘Do I have to?’ asked Anthony with a groan. ‘I’m feeling very lazy. I’ve been hard at work this morning.’
‘That’s not the spirit,’ she said. ‘Being interviewed by Uncle Patrick isn’t work. Writing the article’s the hard bit. What are you doing with all these papers, anyway? Just general interest or have you got a purpose?’
‘Mr Sherston asked me to look through them to see if I could find an angle, as he called it, for my interview,’ said Anthony with a rueful smile. ‘You know, how inferior German carpentry is to British carpentry and so on.’
She laughed and returned the magazine to the pile. Her face grew thoughtful. ‘Why on earth are you doing this, Colonel? You don’t seem like the sort of person who courts publicity.’
Her eyes were, as Anthony had noticed last night, uncomfortably intelligent. He chose his words carefully. ‘It came about by chance. I ran into your uncle in town. He realized what I’d been up to and asked if he could put a piece in the paper about it. He was so insistent, I asked my senior officers if it was all right and they told me to go ahead. Apparently there’s a lot of wild stories circulating about how efficient the German spy network is and they thought some genuine information about what we’re doing might provide a useful balance. Your uncle’s an interesting man,’ he added, hoping she’d take the bait. ‘I wouldn’t mind getting to know him better.’
‘Uncle Patrick’s an absolute dear,’ she said affectionately. She waved an expansive hand at the house and grounds. ‘He built all this, you know. The house was a ruin when he bought it. He was a penniless boy, you know. He didn’t have any advantages, and neither did my mother. He’s never forgotten his origins,’ she added, growing serious, ‘or tried to pretend to be anything he’s not. My mother does. She resents their early life in a way that Uncle Patrick never does. She’ll never talk about it. Mind you, my father was well off, or so she thought. After he died, she found all the money was gone, and she was left very hard up. It was just as well Uncle Patrick came to the rescue, or I don’t know what would have happened.’
She sat back and looked at Anthony appraisingly. ‘Uncle Patrick,’ she said with odd deliberation, ‘is a generous man, but it doesn’t do to cross him. He doesn’t like it.’
Anthony dropped his gaze. That was a warning, if he’d ever heard one. ‘Did Terence Cavanaugh cross him?’ he asked after a pause. ‘He obviously dropped a brick somehow.’
She drew her breath in. ‘You could say that. Yes, that’s one way to put it. Let’s just say that my mother discovered he wasn’t everything he appeared to be and Uncle Patrick agreed.’
Anthony tensed. He wasn’t everything he appeared to be? That didn’t sound like an attempted love affair with Tara. That sounded as if Veronica O’Bryan had discovered Cavanaugh was a spy. Surely Tara – Tara who appeared so honest and straightforward – didn’t know the truth? Veronica O’Bryan, yes. He could imagine her being a ruthless enemy. Sherston? Perhaps. He was a tough man, despite his geniality, and Anthony could well imagine he didn’t relish being crossed. But Tara? ‘Do you know what Cavanaugh did?’ he demanded.
She flinched away from him. ‘Not the details, no. I don’t want to know.’ Again, that didn’t sound as if a love affair was the root of the problem. She stood up abruptly. ‘Terry’s dead. That’s all that really matters.’ Her voice wavered. ‘Look, can we talk about something else?’ She shook herself and when she spoke, her voice was consciously cheerful. ‘After all, you haven’t even tried to guess which magazine I write for.’
He could have insisted; he knew that. He could have demanded that she tell him the truth about Terence Cavanaugh. But where would that get him? For one thing she’d probably walk away and, for another, he couldn’t ask the right questions without giving away the answer. She didn’t know the details . . .
So what the dickens did she know? Nothing, probably, he thought in disgust. No; force was useless, whereas if she simply chatted to him, he might find something useful.
‘All right,’ he said, tapping the space on the bench beside him where she’d happily been sitting before he started asking awkward questions. ‘Come and sit down again and I’ll play Guess the Magazine.’ He picked up Woodwork And Practical Carpentry. ‘Somehow I don’t think it’s this.�
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‘Correct,’ she said with a returning smile.
‘And then there’s the Sentinel.’
‘Uncle Patrick’s pride and joy? The Sentinel’s a bit above my reach at the moment.’
Anthony looked at the heap of magazines. ‘I can see this is going to be more difficult than I thought. The Grocers’ and Licensed Victuallers’ Intelligencer?’
‘I haven’t any intelligence a licensed victualler would be remotely interested in.’
‘Pig-Breeders’ Monthly?’
‘I’ve never bred a pig.’
‘Stamp Collecting For Boys, then.’
‘I was never a boy, either. And, before you ask, it’s not Market Garden and Allotment Times.’
‘Schoolgirl Chums?’ suggested Anthony.
‘That’s not a bad guess,’ said Tara. ‘I’ve written stories for them in the past but, no, that’s not the one.’
Her smile grew as he flicked through a pile of women’s magazines. She disclaimed Pip’s Paper, Our Lives, Hearth and Home and Elsie’s Own. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said, holding up the next magazine to hand. ‘Motoring and Practical Car Mechanic.’ He opened the cover and looked down the contents. ‘There’s a piece on fettling something I haven’t got a clue about. That’s surely yours.’
‘No,’ she said with a giggle, ‘but that’s the magazine, all right.’
‘Is it?’ asked Anthony in astonishment.
‘Yes, I do the maintenance section.’ She pointed to the article entitled, “Everyday care. This month; cleaning your contact breaker.” She laughed at his expression. ‘I like mechanical things and I get all the real information from Carey, the chauffeur.’
‘That’s cheating,’ said Anthony with a broad grin.
‘No, it isn’t. It’s research.’
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