The man jerked to one side, evaded the porter’s grasping hands and raced down the stairs.
The porter, utterly bewildered, gazed at Michael clutching at the door frame. ‘Here,’ he called, coming towards him. ‘What’s been going on?’
He stopped short as he saw Warren’s body. ‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’
Sir Charles lit a cigarette and looked sightlessly at Anthony, his eyes clouded with worry. It was Sunday evening and they were in Anthony’s rooms.
He’d been summoned back to London by a telephone call, supposedly from the War Office. He knew something must have gone badly wrong. He’d just found out what.
‘That poor devil, Warren,’ said Sir Charles. ‘He didn’t have a chance. When I think we set this up, Brooke . . .’
‘We couldn’t know the thief was a killer,’ said Anthony uneasily. ‘He could have walked in, demanded the goods and Greenwood would have handed them over. I think Greenwood’s had a very lucky escape. Warren’s killer sounds a real swine.’
‘He’s a cold-blooded murderer,’ said Sir Charles with feeling. ‘It’s a pity Greenwood didn’t get a good look at him. I’d like to know who we were dealing with. He’s not a professional crook. No professional would rob a hotel room in that way. He obviously didn’t know how to pick a lock, so simply waited for Greenwood to come and open the door.’
‘Can’t Greenwood tell us anything?’ Anthony demanded.
Sir Charles shook his head. ‘Not much. The killer had a clipped, well-spoken voice, expensive shoes, fair hair and manicured nails and both Farlow and the hotel porter thought he was tall, well-built and wore a soft hat and a dark coat. Greenwood says he didn’t have any accent to speak of, certainly not an Irish one. It’s not much to go on, is it? He was certainly going to murder Greenwood, even though he’d got both the diamonds and the maps. Warren simply got in the way.’
‘Where’s Greenwood now?’ Anthony asked.
‘He’s still in the St George’s, but in a different room, of course.’ Sir Charles got up and stretched his shoulders. He looked very tired. ‘I’ve tipped the wink to Scotland Yard that it isn’t an ordinary murder, if there is such a thing.’ He sat quietly for a few moments, then stirred. ‘One thing Farlow could tell me about was the failed burglary.’
‘Failed burglary?’
‘Yes. The successful theft was the second attempt. The first one was at half eleven this morning. Eleven thirty-two, to be exact. The interesting thing is that the first attempt was obviously by a different man. Now he did sound like a pro. He was armed with either a long-bladed screwdriver or a chisel and he was just about to get to grips with Greenwood’s door, when a porter came round the corner and chased him off. See if this rings any bells. Farlow describes him as a thin, nondescript man of medium height with a small moustache and a scar on the side of his chin. Farlow got a good sideways view of him.’
Anthony sat up. ‘He sounds like my thief, Talbot. The one who pretended to be a club servant.’
Sir Charles nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. So we’ve got one attempted robbery by someone who sounds like a real crook, followed by the successful one by someone who isn’t so much a crook as a killer.’
‘The employee and the employer in fact,’ said Anthony. ‘That’s how I see it, anyway. The Weasel bungled the job, so the fair-haired chap took a hand.’ He paused. ‘The second chap – the well-spoken one – sounds like a gentleman, doesn’t he?’
Sir Charles gave an irritated sigh. ‘But we’d placed the gentleman at Starhanger, or thought we had. Talking of Starhanger, do you think there’s any chance Veronica O’Bryan did have a riding accident? I only ask because it seems odd, if she was planning an escape, that she left the letters.’
‘I wondered about that, said Anthony, reaching for the cigarette box. ‘I think she must have acted on impulse. Once she’d decided to run for it, she couldn’t risk coming back to the house. In any case, she probably thought the letters were safe in the jewellery box. It was a pretty good hiding place, Talbot. It took me some time to find it, and I’ve done that sort of thing before. She must have had some money on her because, somehow or other, she got up to London and told whoever about the diamonds.’
‘Couldn’t she have telephoned?’
‘I wouldn’t like to give a message like that over the phone, I must say. She could have phoned and arranged to be picked up in a car, I suppose. That’s something we could probably check. The trouble is, she vanished a long time before the alarm was raised. With a good horse she could’ve got a long way from Starhanger.’ Anthony tapped his cigarette on the ashtray. ‘Did you manage to get “Frankie’s Letter” read?’
‘I did. It was difficult to crack but simplicity itself once the code people had tumbled to it. The code changed with every “Letter”. D’you know what the key was? The bridge problems in a completely different part of the magazine. Once that was spotted, it was easy. The numbers on the bridge scores gave the relevant words in the “Letter”.’
Anthony nodded. ‘Bridge problems ties it to Veronica O’Bryan, all right. Tara O’Bryan told me that setting bridge problems was one of her mother’s skills. What was in the “Letters”?’
‘Dynamite.’ Sir Charles drew a deep breath. ‘My people went back over the whole run of the magazine. It started before the war. The first few issues are innocent enough, and then the information starts. There’s reports of armaments at Woolwich Arsenal and proposed troop movements by train. There’s notes of which ships are in the Chatham Dockyard and how the mouth of the Thames is guarded. It details which regiments are bound for active service and an unbelievable amount about who’s who in the government – and whose mistress is whose, as well. The private lives of the senior ranks of the army and navy are recorded in some detail, too.’
Anthony’s eyebrows shot up. ‘My God! Is the information accurate, Talbot?’
‘As far as we can tell, yes. Some of it even we don’t know. When we said that someone at the heart of society was the worse sort of spy, I must admit even I had little idea of how much they could pick up. Perhaps the “Letter” which is of most interest to you is the one concerning Cavanaugh. It says he’s in Kiel and asks for him to be taken care of.’
‘And so they took care of him,’ muttered Anthony.
‘If that wasn’t bad enough, it seems as if there’s something big planned. It’s hard to make a guess what it is, but it could be a bomb attack or even a full-scale shelling of the coast, as happened on the east coast in December.’
Anthony winced. The bombardment of the east coast had been an act of sheer brutality. There had been no military target. Eight German battleships turned up out of the mist of the North Sea and opened fire on Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool, wounding and killing nearly six hundred civilians from a six-month-old baby to an eighty-six-year-old lady. The attack had been celebrated in Germany with the singing of the Hymn of Hate. ‘We will never forgo our hate; hate by water and hate by land . . .’ That was occasionally played by British military bands as a joke. Some joke.
Sir Charles looked, thought Anthony, more than tired. He suddenly seemed grey with worry. ‘All we do know is that some particular person or persons are the target, concealed in the general outrage. It says the party in question will be in place on the fourteenth of June.’
‘The fourteenth?’ repeated Anthony. ‘That’s less than a fortnight away. Isn’t there any other clue?’
Sir Charles shook his head. ‘No.’ He got to his feet and stretched his shoulders. ‘So you see, Brooke, we simply have to find Veronica O’Bryan.’
‘Why the devil can’t we arrest Sherston? After all, it was his paper the wretched “Letter” appeared in.’
‘Where will that get us?’ Sir Charles’s voice was thin with impatience. ‘I’ve been warned off Sherston. I saw the Home Secretary earlier and was left in no doubt as to what I can and can’t do. We have to get this right.’
So that was why Sir Charles looked so tired.
Anthony was prepared to bet he’d had damn all sleep last night and to top things off, he’d been hauled over the coals by a politician.
‘Unless there’s real rock-solid evidence,’ continued Sir Charles, ‘real evidence, proving Sherston’s the gentleman and knows about “Frankie’s Letter”, then he’s in a position to make the biggest stink there’s ever been. Sherston is friends with half the cabinet, for heaven’s sake. If we get this wrong – if I get this wrong – not only will my head be on a platter but the whole service would be torn apart. We’d never recover and in the meantime the Germans, who’d know all about it, would have a field day.’
He leaned his arms on the mantelpiece, choosing his words carefully. ‘There’s another reason, too. You know how hysterical the spy mania is. Ironically enough, Sherston’s helped to create it. If he’s innocent, he’d never live it down.’
He turned and looked at Anthony. ‘That’s wrong, you know. I still care about that. He’d be ruined and perhaps worse, as some half-baked patriot would be bound to take a crack at him. Besides that, if we arrest Sherston, it tells the enemy we’re onto them.’
‘But Veronica O’Bryan will tell them that anyway,’ protested Anthony. ‘She knows Frankie is a busted flush.’
Sir Charles shook his head. ‘We can’t be certain. It looks that way, I grant you, but she only knows what she overheard. We don’t know what she did hear. What if we apparently do nothing? They must expect us to raid the offices of the Beau Monde. Say we don’t. Won’t that look as if Veronica O’Bryan went off at half-cock and panicked unnecessarily? Publicly speaking, Veronica O’Bryan went horse riding and never came back. It was an accident. Let’s play along with that for the time being. They might even think we believe it. We’re supposed to, when all’s said and done. After all, we don’t know how far the ramifications of this thing spreads, especially with the Irish angle. I’m not sure who’s involved, but there’s a good few politicians and public men who are sympathetic to an Irish National State. The Home Secretary was worried about that. Frankie might just be the tip of the iceberg.’ He glanced at the clock and rubbed his face with his hands. ‘It’s getting late. Let’s see what turns up tomorrow.’
Anthony leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette, sitting thoughtfully for a few moments. ‘All right. I agree. In the circumstances doing nothing will confuse the enemy and I’m all for that. I’ll tell you something, though. I’m going to make a prediction. Warren’s murderer, our fair-haired friend, sounds like the man at the top to me. He’s ruthless and efficient. We’re going to hear from him again.’
TEN
Sir Charles Talbot leaned forward attentively to the woman across the table. It was lunchtime on Monday and they were in the Criterion on Piccadilly. Under the influence of a bottle of hock, faultless service and excellent food, served amongst marble pillars under the ornate gold mosaic ceiling, the editor of the Beau Monde, Miss Rowena Holt was becoming confidential.
‘So you’re thinking of starting a new magazine,’ she said, finishing the last of her chicken pie. ‘It’s not the right time, you know, what with the price of pulp paper and the war soaking up all the really decent staff. We keep going, but we’re a well-known name.’
‘A household name,’ murmured Sir Charles.
She smiled at the compliment. ‘You could say that, I suppose. What you’ve got to be certain of is your intended audience. Who are your readers?’
Sir Charles was ready with the answer. ‘Ladies of some wealth and standing, ladies who, despite wanting to do the very best, both for their homes and their country, still have enough means, leisure and inclination to want to dress and live smartly in accordance with the prevailing modes.’
Miss Holt digested this, together with the chicken pie, as the waiter deftly cleared the plates. ‘Hmm. The same readership as the Beau Monde, in fact.’
‘Exactly,’ said Sir Charles smoothly. ‘Which is why, of course, I’ve come to you.’
Miss Rowena Holt, he thought, didn’t look as he imagined the editor of an expensive journal for the upper classes would. She certainly didn’t emulate the languid beauties who adorned the pages of the Beau Monde. She was short – dumpy in fact – and businesslike, with a sensible, well-worn grey alpaca coat and what were referred to as walking shoes.
‘Well, you could do worse than talk to me,’ she granted. ‘At least I’ll tell you the real facts and not some flannery. You say this American wants to extend his press to England?’
This was the story Sir Charles had worked out. He had presented himself at the offices of the Beau Monde in the guise of a scout for a New York newspaper magnate, and managed to charm Miss Holt out to lunch. He nodded in response to her question.
‘I wouldn’t mind knowing who it is,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Mr Sherston would be interested. I don’t suppose . . .?’ She saw his expression.
‘He would like to remain anonymous for the present,’ said Sir Charles regretfully.
‘Well, he’s probably well-advised at this stage,’ she agreed. ‘To be honest, I’d tell him to find another readership. What about factory girls? They’ve got quite a bit of money to throw around nowadays, what with munitions and so on. The top end is very crowded, you know. Vogue is the one to beat, but there’s plenty of competition. We hold our own, I’m glad to say. Pudding? Oh, thank you. Perhaps one of those strawberry tarts. They looked delicious and marvellously early as well. The thing is, Mr Hargreaves –’ Sir Charles had dropped his name and title for the purposes of the interview – ‘every magazine needs its own personality, something that will draw the readers back time after time.’
‘You’ve got “Frankie’s Letter”, haven’t you?’
She laughed and reached for the cream jug. ‘You’ve put your finger on it. Frankie is the talk of London. She goes everywhere and knows everyone and there’s always that little frisson when you think you might have talked to her. There’s been lots of guesses who she is, but no one’s managed to pin her down.’
‘It must be very difficult to keep a secret like that,’ said Sir Charles with a smile. ‘You must have been tempted to let the cat out of the bag more than once. It must be nearly unendurable to see Frankie at work and be the only one in the room to know who she is.’
‘But I don’t know,’ said Miss Holt, meeting his eyes. Sir Charles looked startled. ‘No, honestly,’ she said, sprinkling sugar on her tart. ‘I grumbled at first, as you can imagine, when Mr Sherston first proposed the idea, but he said it was a condition of Frankie, whoever she is, doing the “Letter” at all. I was very dubious, as it’s one thing to make a newspaper stunt out of secrecy and quite another to really mean it. I nearly refused to run the first “Letter”, because of the conditions. I’m not allowed to edit them, you know.’ Sir Charles’s eyes widened. ‘I’ve got to print them as they are. Still,’ she added with a shrug, ‘it’s the first page everyone turns to and the copy’s always good, so if that’s what Mr Sherston wants, that’s what Mr Sherston gets.’
‘So it was Mr Sherston’s own idea?’
Miss Holt nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. He takes a great interest in the content of his magazines.’
‘But how does Frankie get paid? Surely she doesn’t work for nothing?’
Miss Holt laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so, but I don’t know who pays her. Mr Sherston himself, at a guess. There was some talk that it might be a lady-friend he wanted to oblige, but I scotched that right away. Mr Sherston isn’t that sort, and I’ve seen enough to know. No, I’ve got a fairly good idea about Frankie, but if Mr Sherston wants to keep it to himself, that’s his business.’
‘A member of his household?’ asked Sir Charles quietly.
‘You didn’t hear me say any such thing,’ said Miss Holt stiffly, then laughed once more. ‘It’s a good guess, but why spoil the fun? After all, it’s not a state secret, is it? Yes, coffee would be very nice, thank you.’
Agnes Prenderville, senior assistant at Hampson and Quinns, the gentlemen’s o
utfitters, walked through the entrance to Southampton Row tram station and down the steep stairs to the gloomy underground platform. The platform was crowded, as it always was at six o’clock, but she jostled her way through until she found a foot-square space relatively free from bags, umbrellas and elbows.
Mondays always seemed longer than other days, for some reason, and she’d been run off her feet today. The place had been crowded out, full of people who’d come to gawp at the German Town being built for some newspaper stunt. They’d had some awkward customers today, too. Honestly, that woman who complained about her husband’s socks! On and on, as if it was Agnes’ fault they’d shrunk in the wash. Well, they were the right size when we sold them to you, madam. No, that hadn’t gone down well. It was dark, under the gloomy subterranean archways of the tram station and, despite the crowd, Agnes felt her eyes closing. She pulled herself together with a start and glanced at her watch.
Ten past six. She had a few minutes yet before the number 31 was due. The watch had been a present from Steve, a pretty thing with numbers picked out in gold. He was on good money now, what with the war and everything. Yes, she’d made the right choice with Steve. Even if the army said he wasn’t fit for them, he’d do for her. Steve was a steady worker who could keep a job. Mum said that was important and she was right. Even if there were better-looking men, looks weren’t everything. Take the bloke in front of her, now . . .
Partly to keep her eyes from closing again and partly from natural curiosity, Agnes studied the man standing to one side and slightly in front of her, summing up his clothes with a practised eye. The stick he carried was a gentleman’s cane of blackthorn topped with a silver handle. The overcoat slung over his arm was a fine wool that must have cost anywhere between seven and eight guineas, and his suit was another cool five or six guineas worth, topped off by a very smart soft hat.
She wished Steve would make more of an effort. Not at those prices, of course, but he could look like a real gent if he wanted to. This bloke was a real gent, of course. Agnes recognized the upright, arrogant stance, the air of one who gave commands, not took them. Good looking though, with fair hair and sharp cheekbones.
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