A Dandy in Aspic

by Derek Marlowe

  “What you said about not caring …” said Pavel. “It’s the wrong word, but I can’t think of a better.”

  “Well anyway,” Pavel added, “I won’t say anything about it.”

  “I had to tell you.”

  “Yes, I appreciate that, but I think it wise if I … forgot all about it. I’ll tell Kuzmich that you would like a transfer back home and advise him accordingly, but I must say this–I don’t think he’ll agree. You’re too valuable here.”

  “Or not, as the case may be,” uttered Eberlin with a trace of bitterness, and switched off the radio.

  “I’m sorry,” said Pavel after a pause.

  Eberlin glanced across at him. “I wish I didn’t have to involve you in this.”

  “I’d be hurt if you didn’t,” and then: “Oh by the way–how was Caroline?”

  “Caroline who? You’re driving too fast.”

  “Didn’t you attend her party tonight–or is it yesterday now?

  Yes, yesterday.”

  “Oh. Oh yes. Did you know Copperfield would be there?”

  “I wasn’t sure. There’s a frantic turmoil there, as you’ve probably gathered. Might be something to do with your killing Nighingale.”

  They were now approaching the outskirts of Central London and leaving the main highway.

  “He wore a toupee.”

  “Who? Copperfield?”

  “No. Nightingale.”

  “Oh yes? Have you met that Negro fellow recently?”

  “Brogue? No, not for a week or so.”

  “He’s an interesting man but unlikely to go very far. A desk man. Weak. He’s a pederast, you know.”

  “So you told me.”

  “They’ve been making inquiries about you,” remarked Pavell casually. “Oh, pretty harmless, but with probings here and there. You know the sort of thing.”

  “Heston-Stevas took me for a drink for the first time in years. I rather like him.”

  “Interesting. Out of simple curiosity, what did you think of Caroline Sue Hetherington?”

  “Why? Do you know her?”

  “No. But I’ve met her mother, who is adorable.”

  “You’d better leave me near Kilburn.”

  “As you wish.”

  They arrived in the small dark streets of North London at one fifteen in the morning. The car stopped in a quiet side street and the engine was cut.

  “When will I hear?”

  “I’ll talk to them first thing tomorrow. You will know in the morning.”

  “Edwards?”

  “Yes. Krasnevin–”

  “I know. The answer will be no.”

  “I can’t promise otherwise.”

  Eberlin pulled the coat from the back of the car onto his lap. “Still the dandy,” remarked Pavel with a smile.

  “My only vice,” replied Eberlin, “and all on Ministry salary.” “I should hope so. Anyway, if you ever do return east, you’ll be a rich man.”

  “Ah, but there I won’t be able to advertise it so easily.”

  He held out his hand to Pavel and they shook hands warmly. “I’ll do all I can,” Pavel said quietly and turned away to start the engine of the car. Eberlin looked at the long-nosed profile of his friend, then opened the car door quickly and closed it behind him without looking back. The Volkswagen drove off abruptly and Eberlin stood in the chill August night for a moment, then put on his coat, glanced around and walked casually toward Marble Arch. After fifteen minutes he took a taxi to Charlotte Street and then another–God! how he missed having the car–back to Park Lane. From there he walked the few yards to South Street. In ten minutes he was undressed and in his large double bed, and slept soundly for all of half an hour of the remaining night. Coming out of a sweat of irritation and into the dryness of oncoming slumber, he was brought fully conscious by the penetrating jar of the telephone, nine inches from his ear. He opened his eyes and was horrified to find not only that it was eight thirty-five, but that it was sunny as well. He picked up the phone.

  2

  80E 944776

  Copperfield is a pathetic creature. I swear if you

  trained him as a cobbler, children would be born

  without feet.

  –ALEXANDER EBERLIN

  THE voice on the other end of the line was high-pitched and asthmatic. Eberlin recognized it at once.

  “What do you want, Copperfield?” he said irritably. “Eberlin?”

  “Yes.”

  “At last. I phoned you three times last night.”

  Eberlin pulled back the bedcovers with his foot and lay on the bed gazing at the ceiling. He tucked the phone under his chin, and reached for the cigarettes. What day was it? Must be Friday. He glanced at the bedside table. Friday it was. And the damn thirteenth as well. Ah, well.

  “Eberlin? You still there?”

  “What do you want?”

  Eberlin had a profound resentment for the telephone. One was compelled to look one’s listener straight in the eye.

  “Did I wake you … or anything?”

  “Copperfield–will you tell me what you want?”

  “Well it’s not me really. It’s Brogue. He wants to see you this morning.”

  “And?”

  “You’re sure I’m not disturbing you? You must have been out late last night, because I phoned at–”

  “What time does he want to see me?”

  “Ten thirty.”

  Ten thirty? Too early. He wouldn’t know by then. Perhaps eleven. No, that was cutting it too fine.

  “I’ll see him at eleven fifteen,” he said.

  “He rather hoped you could make it earlier.”

  “I’ll be in the office by eleven fifteen. Good-bye.” He put down the phone.

  Eberlin sat up and twisted his legs around, sat on the edge of the bed and stared at a Beardsley print on the far wall and considered the day. Two decisions or nondecisions lay in store. Both on the surface unfavorable, and yet perhaps of slight importance in the plan he had resolved on during the night, a decision of utter selfishness and consequently full of the purest integrity. He stood up and drew back the curtains. The sun hit him with the force of a tank, a situation that was not altogether favorable. And so he drew the curtains together again, put a record on of Les Temps Difficiles by Léo Ferré which some Parisian bore had sent him and which, much to his disdain, he found he liked, and began the morning ritual.

  Stripping off the white silk pajamas, he walked with growing confidence into the bathroom, and showered in ice-cold water, in a shower built to a design he had seen in Berlin. The bather sealed himself into a glass coffin and was impaled by bolts of water thrust at him, at infinite velocity, from every angle. After three minutes one felt fit for anything. Or nothing. After five minutes Eberlin felt fit, if not for anything, at least for Kuzmich and Brogue. He dried himself on a rough towel and began to dress. Normally the procedure of shaving, massage and clothes took seventy-five minutes, but today, due to the hour, Eberlin had to complete it all in half the time. At nine forty-five he was fully dressed, more composed and looking for his hat. He never breakfasted, since his metabolism was of a nature that denied him such a luxury, tending to make him feel sluggish and heavy after a first meal. He made do with one glass of pure orange juice, four cups of black instant coffee (paradoxically, though he was petty and particular over possessions and clothes, he never pruned his taste buds, considering food nothing more than a basic necessity to be completed as painlessly and quickly as possible), three cigarettes and one apple. By nine fifty he was in South Street and walking east into Farm Street, then through to Berkeley Square, and across around Grafton Street into Albemarle. By ten fifteen he was at the Bank in St. James’s fearing the worst.

  It was a small bank, with one of those odd exteriors, half-mock, half-genuine bizarre, that impressed on one the right air of guilt and self-consciousness as one entered the heavy swing door. In time the whole corner block was to be demolished and replaced by glasswalled offices, a
nd already various tweedy subordinates from the Council had visited the spot with note pads and cameras and studied the site from all angles, then gone away to prepare plans. Eberlin, when told of it, regretted the change, having acquired over the years a deep affection for the exterior of London. To him, there were two almost unique capital cities left in the Western world–Lisbon and Vienna, and perhaps Moscow, but then he hadn’t seen that for twenty years. He entered the bank.

  There were two men standing before the only available counter, one patiently watching the other being served. The teller’s name was written in gold capitals on the open window. It read: MR. J. K. EDWARDS, who, as Eberlin knew, was a small, sad-faced man who favored his hair parted in the middle and wore large white stiff collars and broad-lapelled suits. Together with his long face, seemingly perpetually in a state of wonder, he reminded one of a Mack Sennet bit player. Eberlin saw with comfort that the clock was now ten nineteen, so he walked to the queue of two and waited, gazing idly at the clerks on the far side of the second partition. Brogue came into his mind for no apparent reason, and he wondered for the first time why he was actually required. It all seemed slightly disturbing, especially since Brogue’s department was concerned with off-base direct action, an area he had so far, on the British side, been kept well away from. The prospect of entering into a field of British Intelligence directly complementary to his work for the K.G.B. was, if nothing else, slightly unnerving. But anyway, Brogue hadn’t the authority to put forward such a proposition. He was only–

  “Yes, sir?”

  Mr. J. K. Edwards was looking up at him with an air of pained interest. Eberlin realized that the queue was now behind him. He approached closer to the counter and said:

  “Could I have a check, please?”

  The teller replied, “I presume you have an account here, sir.”

  “Yes, I have,” Eberlin said and pushed two pennies across the counter. The teller glanced at them, then put them on one side, on their own. He handed over a blank check with a thank you, which Eberlin took with a counter thank you and a nod, and walked with it to a table. Using a bank pen, he filled in the check for ten pounds to be paid CASH to himself, and signed it Alexander Eberlin. Drying it, he returned to the counter and handed over the check, received ten single-pound notes from Edwards, and walked out of the bank. It was then ten twenty-three. The simple procedure had lasted three minutes only, and in a further fifteen Eberlin was back in his flat, locking the front door and the bathroom door behind him.

  With growing apprehension, he laid the ten pound notes on the bathroom shelf and checked the numbers, dismissing them in turn until he reached the eighth. The number of that was: 80E 944776. Eberlin returned the nine other notes to his wallet and took the selected one over to the sink. He slowly filled the sink half full with cold water, added some prepared hypo, and floated the banknote on the surface until both sides were lightly wet. Holding it by one corner, he then held it before the strong shaving light above his head, and studied the central circular design for Kuzmich’s answer. It was there, carefully hidden, but there, and Eberlin’s pessimistic fears were wretchedly confirmed. Printed in small neat capitals barely an eighth of an inch high, in the maze of repetitive BANK OF ENGLAND, was the simple and definitive word–NIET.

  Eberlin cursed loudly, emptied the sink, rinsed it out, destroyed the note, slammed the front door and strode angrily up South Street to No. 4 Chesterfield Street, staring straight ahead and acknowledging no one. When he arrived at eleven ten, Copperfield and Heston-Stevas were waiting in the outer office with silly grins on their faces, like two bashful suitors in the court of Du Barry.

  * * *

  Miss Heather Vogler was an appreciative girl at heart, a fact that was rather unfortunate since her body was designed by Praxiteles.

  Moreover, there was a sweetness about her face, a seductive texture that made her a cynosure, pleasant to be seen with at all but the most austere public and private occasions. She had discovered at an early age that men who were interested in women’s clothing were rarely interested in women, whereas men who really liked women never noticed what they wore. And so, she never peacocked herself with the latest fads and kinks of fashion, but dressed imperceptibly simply, and was never without a lover. An intelligent girl by any standard, she therefore never revealed her intelligence to a man, but cosseted him by being impartial, never flattered him for the sake of it nor praised him in public, never treated him with a laughing toleration nor embarrassed him by being too familiar before others.

  She could neither include him in talk of future days nor let him think that she would not be there, if he wished it. She respected his work, so never opened discussion on it, and respected his friends and so never demanded to be accepted by them. And for the time she was with him, whether it be one night or a thousand and one, she cared for him above all She gossiped never, talked little and never lingered over people known only to her, nor did she discuss ex-lovers, either hers or his, but always retained an independence that insured their security. She never, in a slump-shouldered pose, complained of being lonely, neglected, ignored or tired, nor, on entering a man’s apartment she had known intimately, did she inspect the dust. Conscious of being a woman, she had learned to cook, dance and make love with a sensible degree of aptitude; and when the affair was over, she never resorted to tears or threats, however subtle, or played on his weaker virtues, in order to further it for another second. She would instead leave without a grudge or offers of platonism, wash her hair and consider again. Mindless and unheeding of the accumulated grouses and misexperiences of woman, she viewed life and love with only the freshness of her own entity, and in that she out-Eved Eve. Miss Heather Vogler was a rare, rare creature.

  Then one morning, in late February, quite suddenly, that jewel, that quintessence of all things feminine, that unique girl, was crushed, made distrustful, something broken, a bitter scarred generalization of the mass. For on that day she met Emmanuel Gatiss, and that rare individuality was over. In three months with him, there was little left, and she was transferred, a tragic wreck, to Eberlin’s office and he took her in as a secretary, giving her his shoulder and nothing more. Emmanuel Gatiss, self-coded EPSILON/32/Y, highest-paid agent in British Intelligence, was sent by a concerned department to Istanbul and then to Munich, to pursue an operation the office boy could achieve. The trip was partly Eberlin’s suggestion, for he had begun to fear him, believing that if any man could reveal his cover and strike home, it would be Gatiss. Neither he nor Miss Vogler, as they stood in the outer office at eleven fifteen that morning, knew that Gatiss was to be back in London the next day. Copperfield knew it, however, and was smiling broadly as he said:

  “Good morning, Eberlin, and how are you? I’ve been talking to Vogler here. We’ve been having a chat. Heston-Stevas and I have been having a little chat. A little bit of a parley. Haven’t we, Vogler?”

  He fluttered his eyes, and Heston-Stevas, his face slightly flushed, said, “Hell, Eberlin. I’m afraid I pinched one of your cigarettes. Hope you don’t mind?”

  Eberlin, quickly glancing into the inner office, said, “Where’s Brogue?”

  Copperfield looked up, puzzled, then with a smile picked up a typewriter eraser from the floor where Miss Vogler had dropped it, and returned it to her, lingering with a hand on hers. Eberlin walked toward the door.

  “Tell Brogue I will see him this afternoon.”

  Heston-Stevas, flustered, glanced at his companion and put up one hand ineffectually to stop Eberlin.

  “He’s waiting upstairs now,” Copperfield uttered quietly, staring directly at the door, his face wiped clean of earlier pleasantry. “In his office.”

  Eberlin studied the two men for a moment, then said, quickly, “Vogler,” turned and left the office, with Miss Vogler hurrying after him, watched idly by the two men. Then they were left alone. Copperfield lowered his voice, put his arm around Heston-Stevas’ shoulder, glanced around and said in confidence:

 
; “There is also the question of Vogler. Tell me, Paul, who has her services if Eberlin goes?”

  Heston-Stevas replied self-consciously, “I already have a secretary. Haven’t you?”

  Copperfield laughed loudly, gulping for air, and left the room.

  * * *

  They took the manually controlled lift to the next floor, and then walked down the green and cream corridors, bearing left toward the southern corner of the building, she clutching a note pad and pencil to her Jaeger-covered breasts, he avoiding her eye, arms by his side. “Am I walking too fast?” Eberlin said suddenly.

  * * *

  v

  PRI MD WHI

  12. 8. 65 KSB 285

  FROM MD K FIN/CC/WTG/HOC TO FRAZER CHESTFLD. LP5/3 CC EBRL. /NB/LAJ

  REF YOUR TELEPRINT 800 128 KSB 268 QUOTE CONCUR PM CONCUR HEALEY UNQUOTE. LEAP FORTH. BEANTHALL. /532Z/K/LP

  * * *

  COL 268 4 4

  KSB

  PRI JJ LON

  “I must admit your references are excellent,” said Brogue, taking off his glasses and looking straight into Eberlin’s eyes. “You’d better sit down.”

  The office was large, painted green and devoid of any pictures, ornaments or other personal embellishments except for a portrait of Queen Elizabeth the Second by Annigoni and a print of Cowper Thornhill’s Ride Between Stilton and London. Behind Brogue’s head, Eberlin could see the small square outside filled with trees and no people, pleasant and inviting in the August sunshine. He stood in the center of the room looking down at Brogue who was sitting, swiveling gently from side to side, in the mahogany chair and toying with a bone cigar holder.