by Jack Murray
Then I made the fateful resolution to try and make my own way across to our lines myself. The information I had on German movements and reserve strength was time critical. I made my decision in the early evening when it was dark. As luck would have it, I spotted some cavalry up ahead watering their horses near the farmhouse. I crept over and climbed up onto one of the horses, which was separate from the pack and unattended. I shouted, ‘Quick he’s getting away!’
The men quickly returned to their horses and we gave chase to some unknown and completely non-existent British spy. It would’ve been funny had I not been so scared. At an opportune moment, I peeled away from the group and rode through the lines to a point where I could go no further. I dismounted and handed my reins to a soldier standing guard and ordered him to water my horse. The poor fool took one look at my rank and obeyed when he really should’ve been checking my papers.
From there I strolled along the trenches, guts churning, I may tell you. I finally came across a couple of chaps, one was a sniper the other an officer. He was the only one to stop and ask for papers. After that we started chatting, it turned out he’d been to Heidelberg University before me. Would you believe we had acquaintances in common? This helped, I can tell you, because it was touch and go for a moment.
My accent was passably from Heidelberg. Anyway, we had a coffee and then I continued my ‘patrol’ along the front line. I was looking for the shortest stretch to pass in No Man’s Land, also with enough craters for me to dive into if need be. Luckily for me there was a lot of cloud cover that night. It was very dark out there which I was banking on.
After ten minutes chatting about our time at the University, I said auf wiedersehen and moved along the trench. I was happy to get away from them at this point. I didn’t like the way the other chap was looking at me. He seemed a lot more suspicious than his commanding officer.
My next stroke of good fortune was the way they had designed the trench. It turned at an angle, a bit like a turret you would say. The reason for this was to provide covering fire to other parts of front line if they were about to be breached. It meant that the chaps I’d just spoken to would not have such a good view of me, at least until I’d made some progress into the middle. I came to a group of Berliners about thirty yards up the line. One of them went to make a coffee and I joined him, on the pretext of being shown around. I slipped a ‘mickey’ into the coffee pot, a generous amount of it I should add, and stayed with them for a few minutes.
I moved down to the next post and repeated the trick, there was only one man there, so I think that some of the other fellows had left him to join the Berliners. Do you know, if we’d launched an attack at that moment, we’d have inflicted, considerable damage. I waited for ten or fifteen minutes. It felt like hours, believe me. Then I slipped over the top about midway between the two posts. Every so often a flare would go up and I was scrambling into a crater. I’ll never forget how cold it was. My hands were numb, my bones were frozen, and my heart was beating like a steam engine. I knew I was making good progress and then…
And then I don’t know what happened. An explosion I suppose. I kept slipping in and out of consciousness. I accepted I was a goner. Then, through the ringing in my ears, I heard some damn fool speaking to me.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll have you back soon.’
The End
I hope you enjoyed the second Kit Aston book. Please consider leaving a review so that others may find it and, hopefully, enjoy also
A Note from the Author
I have made every effort to ensure historical authenticity within the context of a piece of fiction. Similarly, every effort has been made to ensure that the book has been edited and carefully proofread. Given that the US Constitution contained around 65 punctuation errors until 1847, I hope you will forgive any errors of grammar, spelling and continuity. Regarding spelling, please note I have followed the convention of using English, as opposed to US, spellings. This means, in practice, the use of ‘s’ rather than a ‘z’, for example in words such as ‘realised’.
This is a work of fiction. However, it references events that happened and real-life individuals. Gore Vidal, in his introduction to Lincoln, writes that placing history in fiction or fiction in history has been unfashionable since Tolstoy and that the result can be accused of being neither. He defends the practice, pointing out that writers from Aeschylus to Shakespeare to Tolstoy have done so with not inconsiderable success and merit.
I have mentioned a few key real-life individuals in this novel. My intention, in the following section, is to explain a little more about their connection to this period and this story.
Notes
Winston Churchill
Churchill was Secretary of State for War between 1919-21. He sent a naval British military intervention in mid-1919 to protect British supplies and equipment held at Arkhangelsk and other Russian ports. Britain’s involvement went further due to Churchill’s passionate opposition to and fear of communism.
British troops were fighting the Soviets far into the Russian interior using the most modern aircraft, tanks and even poison gas. British forces were also in against the German 'Iron Division' in the Baltic. The last British troops killed by the German Army in the First World War were killed in the Baltic in late 1919.
Alexander Kerensky
Kerensky was a lawyer and revolutionary. A brilliant orator and, at first, a vastly popular figure, he became Prime Minister of Russia from July 1917 up to the Revolution when he was toppled by the Bolsheviks. It is entirely true that he escaped on the day of the Revolution from the Winter Palace in an American Embassy car. He fled to France then went to Britain before spending the rest of his life in the US.
Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith Cumming
Cumming helped found the British Secret Service in 1909, then known as Special Intelligence Bureau. Over the next few years, he became known as “C”. Like Kit Aston, he lost part of his leg following a motoring accident before the War.
Oswald Rayner
Rayner’s role as the final assassin of Rasputin may never be known. A BBC documentary, ‘Who Killed Rasputin: The British Plot’ from 2004 points the finger at him as being one of the conspirators and perhaps the deliverer of the coup de grace. Rayner was part of the ‘Far-Reaching System’ a clandestine group working in Russia, separately from the official agents working under Sir Samuel Hoare.
George Lansbury
British politician and social reformer who in early thirties led the Labour Party. He was editor of the Daily Herald between 1914-21. Campaigned against Britain’s involvement in the Great War and the Russian Civil war.
Sir Nevil Macready
British Army officer who became Commissioner of police for the Metropolis in 1918. He took over the police at a time when morale was low, and they were on strike over pay. Instituted changes that proved popular with the force. A popular leader he was transferred to Ireland in 1920 to command troops in the counterinsurgency against the IRA.
Acknowledgements
It is not possible to write a book on your own. There is a contribution from so many people either directly or indirectly over many years. Listing them all would be an impossible task.
First, a mention for key references used in this novel. I have been lucky to have access to great research material such as Giles Merton's 'Russian Roulette: A Deadly Game: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Global Plot. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to read of the extraordinary men who were the original MI6, including Reilly 'Ace of Spies'.
Another excellent source was the 2004 BBC documentary, ‘Who Killed Rasputin: The British Plot’.
Other sources included: F.M. Bailey’s ‘Mission to Tashkent’ and Edwin Thomas Woodhall’s ‘Spies of the Great War’. Extraordinary accounts of extraordinary men and women.
Special mention therefore should be made to my wife and family who have been patient and put up with my occasional grumpiness when working on this project.
&nb
sp; My brother and Clare Trowbridge have also helped in proofreading which has been a great help.
My late father and mother both loved books. They encouraged a love of reading in me also. They liked detective books, so I must tip my hat to the two greatest writers of this genre, Sir Arthur, and Dame Agatha.
Following writing, comes the business of marketing. My thanks to Mark Hodgson and Sophia Shaikh for their advice on this important area.
Finally, my thanks to the teachers who taught and nurtured a love of writing.
The Phantom
The THIRD Lord Kit Aston Mystery
Jack Murray
Copyright © 2019 by Jack Murray
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed ‘Attention: Permissions Coordinator,’ at the address below.
[email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is either purely coincidental or used in a fictitious manner.
Prologue
February 9th, 1920: London
The policeman ambled along the street with the unhurried gait of a man who had no particular place to go nor any reason to rush there. The only noise he could hear was the sound of his own breathing. It was robber-dark. The stars were hidden behind a thick black cloud. Light was provided by the lamp posts rising from the pavement every thirty yards. The policeman took pride in the fact that all the lights were in full working order. None had been vandalised. Of course, this wasn’t really the area for such misbehaviour unless some young ‘nob, aided and abetted by a skinful of gin, had been unable to resist a primeval temptation to test the strength and accuracy of his spear-thowing arm.
Such incidents were rare, although not wholly without precedent. They were also, paradoxically, both a welcome break from the blissful monotony of patrolling such a wealthy area as well as an opportunity to supplement his calamitously low wage by dealing with these young offenders with a profitable leniency. That he might be transgressing in spirit the law he had sworn to uphold never clouded his conscience.
It would be another couple of hours before the sun came up and he could finally go to bed. His feet ached. His back was hurting, and the cold had invaded his bones and taken up residence for the winter. Perhaps he could risk a call to Miss Diana’s house before returning home. There was always a welcome for a man there.
Tonight, the policeman was a lot nearer a serious crime scene than his career had, thus far, blessed him with. From inside the large mansion, the policeman was being watched. The thief looked at the constable walk towards and then away from the house until he was like a distant silhouette in an Atkinson Grimshaw painting. The watcher resumed the search using a small desk light.
The walls were covered with the extraordinary art collection of the mansion owner. The thief examined each expensive painting on the wall not for its beauty nor for the name of the artist but for what it may be shielding.
A rather slap dash Renoir proved to be the one. The thief looked at the painting with something bordering on incredulity. The brush strokes seemed lazy, the draughtsmanship non-existent and the model’s face betrayed either boredom or the unhappy realisation that her state of undress would provoke the old dog into seeking an amorous conclusion to their work session. More likely still, the model suspected the artist would end up making her look positively bovine. If the latter had been the objective, thought the thief, then take a bow, Auguste Renoir. The painting was placed carefully on the table as thief looked at the previously concealed safe.
Opening a small black bag, the thief withdrew an instrument while offering a silent acknowledgement to René Laennec, the inventor of the stethoscope. Although a closer reading of the history of auscultation would have given the thief more chance to recognise the contribution of Irish physician Arthur Leared who developed the first binaural stethoscope. The thief duly placed a receiver in each ear and slowly began to twist the dial on the safe.
Within a few minutes the safe snapped open. The thief reached inside and removed a black velvet bag. A quick check inside the bag confirmed its contents.
Moments later the bag was placed back into the safe and the mediocre Renoir returned to its place on the wall. The thief placed an additional item inside. It was a small calling card. There were no words, only an image. It showed the silhouette of man with a fedora. The face and the hat were black save for two white eyes staring with undisguised evil intent.
A quick check at the window showed the constable was out of sight. The thief opened the window and stepped outside. Carefully, the thief closed the window and leapt from the sill, over the rail fence onto the pavement, landing like a prima ballerina on the stage at Covent Garden. In the blink of an eye, the thief had vanished into the cold night air.
Chapter 1
February 11th, 1920: Grosvenor Square, London
Night crept into London’s Grosvenor Square like a street urchin picking a rich man’s pocket - stealthily at first and then all at once. The square was comprised of grand houses surrounding a large garden. The very richest in the land chose to live in this location rather as a fish should choose to live in the sea. It was their natural habitat and always had been.
Building work began in Grosvenor Square around 1721 soon after the South Sea Bubble burst to spectacularly impoverishing effect on its numerous British investors. The square took to heart the idea that an Englishman’s home is his castle and made a jolly decent attempt at bringing this concept to reality. Perhaps an unintended after-effect, made manifest in Grosvenor Square, was the idea that investing in London property was rarely a bad idea.
On this night, young Ezra Mullins was, as his mum might have said, in a right state and no mistake. He was dressed in livery only marginally less stiff than cardboard, sporting a top hat that was one or possibly two sizes too big. The sight presented by the estimable young Mullins would almost certainly have induced paroxysms of pride in his mother and mirth in his father; such is the uncommon nature of women and the immaturity of men.
Ezra had recently been recruited as a doorman for an industrial magnate, one of the few men in England able to afford a mansion in one of the least affordable locations in London. Tonight, he was witnessing and bowing to a parade of the flushest and most powerful individuals, not just from Britain but from around the world.
A Rolls Royce Phantom attracted his attention as it drew up to the magnificent mansion. The chauffeur, another young man, stepped out from the front and opened the door. From the car emerged easily the most beautiful girl Ezra had seen all evening, if not ever. The lucky fellow with her, conceded young Ezra, was also a fine-looking gentleman. He couldn’t help but notice the man’s limp. It wasn’t difficult to guess the reason why.
As the couple walked up the steps, the young woman glanced at Ezra. His attempts to disguise his admiration were sadly undone by a mouth that had dropped open and an inability to tear his eyes away from her face. She looked back at him; her blue eyes narrowed faintly, then she smiled. Moments later she was away and moving into the hallway of the mansion.
Dominating the hallway was an enormous malachite staircase which led from a black and white marble floor to a second-floor landing which housed an enormous Van Dyck portrait of a Dutch woman overlooking the whole scene with all the patience, bonhomie and good spiritedness of a wife awaiting her lord and master’s return home from the pub.
The staircase was lined with footmen who smiled as the young couple walked up towards the drawing ro
om. Inside there was already a large crowd of men in white tie. There were relatively few women, observed the young man. The raised eyebrow of his beautiful young partner told him she was thinking along similar lines.
Lady Mary Cavendish surveyed the room for a few moments. She noted, without caring too much, that many of the men aware of her arrival were surveying her also. She looked up at the man who was accompanying her and said with a smile, ‘Two Prime Ministers, a former Prime Minister and a couple of cabinet ministers. Not bad. You do take me to all the best places, Lord Aston.’
Kit glanced down at Mary and returned her smile.
‘Well, cooped up in hospital all this time, I thought it was the least I could do.’
‘Lead on, Macduff,’ ordered Mary sweetly. Up ahead she noticed a distinguished man absenting himself from the company of Prime Minister Lloyd George to have a word with a servant.
‘He’s rather good looking for an older man,’ observed Mary.
Kit raised his eyebrow and replied, ‘I happen to agree with you. That is our host.’
Mary put her arm through Kit’s, looked straight ahead and said, ‘Introduce us, please.’
Across the room was Lord Peter Wolf, the joint owner of Lewis & Wolf, a large industrial conglomerate. They were inside the drawing room of Wolf’s mansion in Grosvenor Square. The room seemed to be the size of a small county. Overhead were two crystal chandeliers which competed unsuccessfully for attention against the objets d’art which included Renaissance paintings on the walls and a Canova bust situated at the end of the room.
