‘’Course you was.’
‘I was certain that it was a man from the FO.’
‘From your office? Don’t the buggers ever let you go on ’oliday? They ain’t always got to keep an eye on you, ’ave they?’
‘No, of course not.’ Vernon took off his hat and ran his hand through what little remained of his hair. His face was red and he was perspiring freely. ‘But I am not, strictly speaking, “on holiday”, as you put it. My friends in the FO are unaware of our excursion to the Continent.’
‘So, we’re on the scoot, are we?’ Hetty laughed and put her arm through her companion’s. ‘We’d better ’ave some fun and frolics, then. Where’re we going? We going to Paris? I’ve always fancied going to Paris.’
The girl continued to chatter cheerfully as, arm in arm, she and Harry Vernon were carried along by the throng of passengers making their way to the boat train. Vernon said nothing but kept twisting his neck to look behind them, as if still half convinced that someone would be following. Suddenly, he came to a halt. A gentleman in a black frock coat walking a few steps to his rear nearly collided with him. Muttering imprecations under his breath, the gentleman sidestepped and moved on. Vernon remained rooted to the spot, the crowds flowing around him like water around a rock.
‘What is it, ’Arry?’ Hetty Gallant tugged at her companion’s sleeve. ‘What the ’ell’s the matter?’
‘My bag!’ Vernon was distraught, looking frantically about him. ‘Someone’s stolen my bag!’
‘What bleedin’ bag? Ain’t the bags all gone to the luggage van? You paid that porter to take ’em twenty minutes back.’
‘No, my brown leather case! I had it with me a few moments ago. Now it’s gone.’ Vernon was in a state of near panic, so vociferously distressed that other travellers were beginning to stare at him as they passed.
‘You ’ad it when you was worriting about the cove with the paper.’ Hetty spoke gently, as if to a child. ‘You must’ve put it down and left it there.’
‘Oh, my God, my God! We must go back at once and find it.’ Vernon was close to hysteria, and more and more people were taking notice of his agitated behaviour.
‘For Gawd’s sake, ’Arry. Stop making such a bleedin’ ’ullaballoo. We’ll go back and get it.’
‘Is this yours, sir?’ A uniformed porter emerged from the crowd, holding out the missing case. ‘I thought I saw you leave it behind when you and the lady was chatting together back there.’
With an inarticulate cry of joy, Vernon seized the leather case. ‘Thank the Lord!’ he said. ‘Thank the Lord! I thought it was gone.’ He now seemed as overwhelmed by relief as he had previously been plunged into despair. It was left to Hetty to find a sixpence from her own bag and press it into the hand of the porter, who touched his finger to his forehead and left. Passers-by were still staring curiously at them. Vernon was clutching the case to his chest like a mother holding a child rescued from a blazing building. He was making odd, gulping noises, as if he might be about to burst into floods of tears.
‘What the ’ell you got in there, ’Arry? The Crown bloody Jewels?’
Vernon shook his head, still unable, it seemed, to speak. ‘Papers,’ he gasped eventually. ‘Important papers.’
‘Important? They must be. You was dancing around like you’d eaten a live chicken.’ Hetty looked at her companion with concern. ‘You feelin’ better now?’
Vernon nodded.
‘You certain sure about that?’
‘Yes, I am recovered.’ Vernon made a noticeable effort to regain the self-control he had lost. ‘I must apologize, my dear, for my outburst. My work has been a burden to me of late. My nerves are not what they should be. But, as I say, I am now myself again.’
Hetty looked at him as if she was uncertain whether or not to believe him. ‘Well,’ she said with slightly forced jollity, ‘we’d best be off.’
After presenting their tickets to a guard positioned at the gate leading to the platform, Harry Vernon and Hetty Gallant made their way to the train for the Continent.
* * * * *
‘Harry Vernon has disappeared.’
Adam had returned from his visit to Mrs Threave to find that he had been summoned once again to the Honourable Richard Sunman’s room at the Foreign Office.
‘Disappeared?’
‘He has not been here for three days. His wife has not seen him since Saturday.’ Sunman was striving hard to maintain his sangfroid, but it was only too clear that he was agitated. He could not sit still and his fingers drummed on the baize of the desk. ‘If only I could speak to Waterton.’
‘He is not in town?’
‘He has taken leave and is travelling in Switzerland, I believe. This business with Harry has upset him greatly.’
Judging by his appearance, it had also upset Sunman.
‘Actually, I think I may be able to throw some light on Vernon’s recent whereabouts,’ Adam said. He held out the torn page from the notebook which he had found in the basement rooms near Waterloo.
Sunman reached out a slim, white hand to take it. He glanced briefly at the writing on it and then put the paper on the desk. ‘A time of day,’ he said, clearly unimpressed. ‘How the devil does this help us to locate Harry?’
‘I’m fairly certain Vernon wrote it.’
Sunman snatched up the paper once more and peered closely at it. ‘By Jove, I think you’re right. The seven is in the German style he used.’ He looked across at Adam, puzzlement in his eyes. ‘But how could you recognize Harry’s handwriting?’
‘I have seen a document he wrote. You gave it to me. Do you not remember?’
‘Of course.’ Sunman sighed. ‘I had forgotten. With all the worry of this business, I sometimes think I am losing my mind.’
‘The document included numerals. I noticed at the time that he put a small horizontal line through the upright stroke of a seven. It struck me as unusual. Not many Englishmen do, but it is common in Europe.’ Adam stared up at the ersatz rococo plastering on the ceiling. ‘Does he have connections on the Continent? I think the time might refer to the departure of the boat train. In fact, I am sure of it. I have looked at Bradshaw’s Continental. And the P followed by a three indicates the platform from which it departs.’
‘Harry’s mother was German. He was born in Berlin. He has hordes of cousins scattered across Prussia.’ Sunman was still looking at the page from the notebook. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘I found it tucked away in the pages of a song-sheet. In the room of a girl calling herself Hetty Gallant.’ Adam, still gazing upwards, paused briefly. ‘I believe her real name is Dolly Delaney.’
There was sudden silence in the room. Adam looked across the table. He was, he realized, rather enjoying the revelation of what he now knew or strongly suspected.
His friend, sitting behind his desk, looked stunned. His face was pale and he held one hand to his head like a barrister checking his wig was still in place.
‘Have you lost your senses?’ Sunman said eventually. ‘The Delaney girl is dead. You found her body yourself.’
‘No, Dolly is very much alive. The girl in York was someone else. Probably the real Hetty Gallant. I think the two girls exchanged identities some time before they were both employed at the theatre.’
‘But why should they do so?’ Sunman stared again at the paper with the train time on it, as if it might offer a solution to the mystery. ‘And what of Harry? Did he not even know the true name of his own mistress?’
‘Oh, I am pretty sure he did. I think he was even instrumental in persuading Hetty to call herself Dolly and vice versa.’
‘But why, Adam?’ Sunman sounded plaintive, as if the swapping of names had been an elaborate charade designed solely to make a fool of him. ‘In God’s name
, why?’
‘I cannot be certain. Although I do have my suspicions. Whatever happened, I do not think it looks very promising for Harry.’
‘No, it does not.’ The young aristocrat had dropped the page from the notebook. ‘It most certainly does not.’
Adam watched his friend, and was once again half-guiltily aware that he was relishing his discomfiture. ‘There is yet more to this, Sunman, is there not? This is nothing to do with compromising letters. There is something major that you are not telling me.’
The baron’s son, whose air of effortless superiority had long-since deserted him when he spoke on the subject of Harry Vernon, threw his hands in the air. ‘Oh, very well, Adam, you may as well know everything. Any letters Harry may or may not have written to his doxy now fade into insignificance.’
‘And yet you told me that they were of signal importance. “The future direction of our foreign policy rests on the recovery of those letters.” Those, I think, were your exact words.’
‘Oh, God, Adam, I no longer know.’ Sunman rested his head in his hands. ‘I was basing my remarks on what Harry had told me was in the letters. But I now find that he has been lying to me from the beginning. Perhaps there never were any letters. But this time there can be no doubt of the trouble we face.’ He paused. ‘Harry has disappeared and he has taken documents with him.’
‘Documents?’
There was another pause as Sunman raised his head from his hands and stared miserably at Adam. ‘They are plans – naval plans.’
‘And they are of great importance?’
Sunman nodded.
‘What plans are they?’
At first Adam thought that his friend had not heard him. He was about to speak again when Sunman looked up and said, ‘A submarine. They are plans for a submarine.’
‘An underwater craft?’
‘Precisely. There have been various attempts in the last ten years to create a craft that can travel beneath the waters under its own power. The Americans on both sides in the recent conflict tried to do so. So have the French. The results have not been encouraging.’
‘But we have been successful where the French and the Americans have failed?’
Sunman did not answer Adam’s question. Indeed, his next remark seemed at first to have strayed from the subject in hand: ‘I do not suppose that you have heard of a gentleman named Narcís Monturiol?’ he asked.
‘I cannot say that I have.’
‘There is no reason why you should have done. He is a Spaniard. Resident, I believe, in Barcelona. Six years ago, he built a craft which he named the Ictineo.’
‘From the Greek word for “fish”, I presume.’
Sunman nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘combined with some strange, Spanish version of “naus” for boat.’
‘And his fish-boat was a success?’
‘Up to a point.’
‘What point?’
The baronet’s son sighed, as if he could barely contemplate continuing the conversation, raising a hand to his brow like a man suffering from a hangover. ‘I do not pretend to understand these matters, Adam,’ he said. ‘Our education in Homer and Horace scarcely prepared us to fathom the miracles of modern science. Suffice it to say that the Spaniard’s craft was still not fully seaworthy.’
‘But we now have the plans for a submarine that is? Is that what you are saying?’
Sunman held out his hand, now a parent soothing a fretful child. ‘I am about to tell you, Adam,’ he said. ‘Happily for us, Señor Monturiol is something of an Anglophile. He was more than willing to entertain an English engineer we sent to his homeland to engage him in long conversations about his craft. The details of what was discussed are beyond the comprehension of those of us who are not engineers. However, our man returned from Barcelona with new insights into the problems facing him. He set about creating blueprints for a vessel which, unlike all such previous vessels, would actually work. Harry was the man here in the FO who was given the task of liaising with the engineer and with senior officers in the navy. He was one of a handful of people in the country who had access to the plans. And now he has vanished, and so have the plans from his office.’
‘How inconvenient.’
‘Inconvenient?’ Sunman snapped. ‘If these plans get into the wrong hands, the consequences will be far more than “inconvenient”.’
‘And German hands are the wrong hands?’
‘Very much so. Any hands other than British ones are wrong hands at present.’ Sunman had adopted the manner of a schoolmaster instructing one of his dimmer pupils. ‘Think of it, Adam. Prussia has just defeated France and her King Wilhelm has become the emperor of the unified German states. Everything now changes in Europe and the very last thing we want is for such, ah’ – Sunman paused for the briefest instant – ‘such sensitive plans to go astray. If there are to be craft developed capable of remaining underwater and eluding detection, then they must be British boats, not German. Or, indeed, French.’
Adam thought himself at least reasonably acquainted with recent events on the Continent and he was content to accept Sunman’s analysis. ‘In that case,’ he suggested, ‘you must inform someone else of what has happened. Granville himself, perhaps.’
The name of the Foreign Secretary made Sunman blanch. ‘I cannot involve my superiors at this late stage,’ he said. ‘How the devil am I to break the news to them that Harry has, in all likelihood, fled the country and intends to sell our secrets to the Prussians? No, we must bring the matter to a conclusion ourselves.’
‘We?’
‘You and I. I will authorize funds to be advanced to you so that you may travel to Berlin. He has clearly gone there, and he must be found.’
Adam understood that it was now not only Harry Vernon’s career that was at stake. The future reputation and career of the Honourable Richard Sunman were also at risk.
‘I will telegraph a friend at the embassy there,’ Sunman continued. ‘His name is George Etherege. He will help you.’
‘What will you tell him about me? And about my interest in Harry Vernon? You cannot vouchsafe to him the real reasons for my visit.’
‘No, of course not.’ The Foreign Office man spoke impatiently, as if Adam was being deliberately foolish and obstructive. ‘I shall concoct some story to explain your desire to find Vernon. But you must waste no time. Go and pack your bags for Berlin.’
PART FOUR
BERLIN
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Adam sauntered into the room the hotel had given to Quint. It was darker and much more cramped than the one he was occupying himself. The two men had travelled across the Channel to Calais by steamer the previous day and then on to Paris by train. In the French capital they had changed trains and made their way to Berlin. They had registered at the Deutscher Hof as man and servant and been shown to their rooms. Adam’s was on the first floor and looked out over the tree-lined boulevard known as Unter den Linden. Quint’s was in the rear of the basement and looked out over a stable yard.
‘There’s a strong scent of horse in here,’ Adam remarked, as he pushed back the faded curtain which hung crookedly across the room’s one window. He peered out. ‘Ah, that would explain it – I thought, for one terrible moment, it might be you, Quint. The hotel management does not seem to have given you the most comfortable of berths.’
‘I’ve slept in worse dosses,’ Quint said shortly.
‘So have we both. In Turkish Greece we dreamed of accommodation such as this.’ Adam let the curtain fall and turned back to the room. He began to prowl restlessly around it, picking up objects at random and examining them. A small round pot was sitting on the dressing table, its lid beside it. Adam sniffed at its contents. ‘Bear’s grease?’ he said. ‘What do you need bear’s grease for, Quint? Your tha
tch has almost disappeared. You’ve been balding as long as I’ve known you.’
Quint looked almost sheepish. He grabbed the pot from Adam’s hand and replaced it on the table. ‘Well, I got Bayley’s Bear’s Grease to thank that I’ve still got some left, then, ain’t I?’
Adam held out his hands, palm outwards, in a placatory gesture. ‘I had no intention of giving offence, Quint,’ he said. ‘Apply what unguents you like to whatever part of your anatomy you wish. We have other matters to consider. The purpose of our visit to Berlin for one.’
‘This toff that’s legged it, you mean?’ The manservant opened a drawer in the dressing table and pushed the pot of bear’s grease into it. ‘’E’s a pretty poor article, ain’t ’e? Lettin’ ’isself get bled by a dollymop? Then scarperin’ when word gets out.’
‘That may not be exactly what has happened. It seems that the gentleman in question – Mr Harry Vernon – may have been looking one way and rowing another,’ Adam said.
Quint closed the drawer and considered this for a moment. ‘You mean, ’e’s not so green as ’e says? ’E’s fooled ev’rybody?’
Adam nodded. ‘He’s been pretending to be the victim in the whole affair . . .’
‘But ’e’s been pulling everybody’s strings?’
‘Precisely.’ Adam rubbed his chin, as if checking on the effectiveness of his last shave. ‘There was something curiously theatrical about his extravagant expressions of regret on the one occasion that I met him. He sounded much more like Alfred Skeffington pretending to be a remorseful man than he did a man who was genuinely full of remorse.’
* * * * *
The Honourable Richard Sunman’s friend at the British Embassy had left his card at the hotel that morning and, after an appropriate interval, had followed it with a message that Mr George Calverley Etherege hoped to meet Mr Adam Carver in the Café Beethoven on Friedrichstrasse at 4 p.m.
Adam had wondered how he was to recognize his guide to the city, but one glance at the man who entered the main door of the café on the stroke of four o’clock was enough to dispel any concern. With his perfectly tailored suit, silk waistcoat and top hat, George Calverley Etherege could have been nothing but what he was. To complete the picture of the upper middle-class Englishman, he even had a copy of The Times tucked under his arm.
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