Benjamin and Cecily had met while Benjamin was working for Professor James Moriarty, who was perhaps best described as a scientist who dabbled in crime, and was admittedly one of the most brilliant men in Britain. Barnett had founded the American News Service as an information gathering agency for the professor, and Cecily had answered an advertisement for the position of office manager.
A little over four years ago Barnett had quit the professor's service to marry the woman he had come to love, taking Moriarty's blessings and the American News Service with him.
Barnett chuckled at his memories. "The professor used to describe himself as the world's first consulting criminal," he told Cecily. "Moriarty planned ingenious crimes, for a fee. He said it was to support his scientific research, but I fancy he enjoyed the challenge. It was his way of tweaking the nose of a society that he found stupid, intolerant, stodgy, and dull. Looking back on my time as his associate, I certainly cannot condone his actions, but they kept life interesting."
"Mr. Holmes has called Professor Moriarty the 'Napoleon of crime,' " Cecily said.
"I myself have heard Holmes say that," Barnett admitted. "My belief is that, for all of Holmes's genius in solving crimes, he could never catch the professor. And this so upset and unnerved him that he blamed Moriarty for every crime that happened within a hundred miles of London. But he was known to call upon Moriarty himself when he was out of his depth in a problem."
Barnett finished his breakfast silently, deep in memories of the years he had spent with Professor Moriarty. Cecily, a truly wise woman, did not disturb him, but read her magazine and ate her buttered egg. Curiously the article she was reading, an illustrated study of Abdul Hamid, the sultan of Turkey, brought back memories of the time she had first met Benjamin. It was shortly after Moriarty had helped him escape from a Turkish prison, where he was being held for a murder he did not commit. She had thought him awfully proper and straitlaced then, for a newspaperman, and had been mildly shocked as, gradually, she came to realize that Barnett was Professor Moriarty's trusted right hand, and that the stern, fatherly professor was probably the most brilliant criminal mind of the nineteenth century.
Cecily closed the magazine and allowed the young waitress who hovered about their table to pour her a cup of coffee. She watched as Frau Schimmer escorted a couple into the breakfast room, brushing aside their apologies for being so late, and seated them at a table directly across from the Barnetts. Judging by their dress, it was the couple they had last seen docking a sailboat. And, now that she saw him at a reasonable distance, Cecily recognized the man. "Look," she said softly to Barnett. "The mystery is solved."
Barnett looked over at the table Cecily indicated. "Aha!" he said, acknowledging the nod of the newly seated gentleman. "It's our friend Signor Buleforte. And the lovely lady must be his wife. I didn't know he was a master mariner, along with his other talents."
Ariste Buleforte had been at the villa for the past two days, awaiting the arrival of his wife. He had met Cecily and Benjamin over the bridge table the night of his arrival. He was well traveled, a pleasant conversationalist, and a keen bridge player.
Deciding that a mere nod was insufficient greeting, Signor Buleforte rose and bowed to Benjamin and Cecily. "A pleasure to see you this morning," he said in his precise English. "Allow me to present to you my wife, Diane Buleforte. My dear, these are the Barnetts; that English couple I mentioned to you. They are avid bridge players."
Barnett rose in turn and bowed slightly over Signora Buleforte's hand. "Delighted," he said, deciding not to dispute Buleforte's belief that he was English. "We watched you arrive on the sloop a little while ago. It made a charming picture. You are an excellent sailor, Signor Buleforte."
"Please," Buleforte said. "Ariste. I insist. Ariste and Diane. And we will call you Benjamin and Cecily." He said it as though he were conveying a special favor on them instead of being slightly rude. But somehow, when he said it, it was charming.
Benjamin found deep within his soul a touch of jealousy at this man whose mastery of the social graces was so smooth that he could smilingly ignore them. Barnett was sure that if he walked up to some comparative stranger and said, "Ho Mr. Smith—let me just call you 'George' from now on," the stranger would reply "not on your life," and stalk off. But if Buleforte did it, George would feel grateful and hand him a cigar. There was something about the man. Barnett did feel grateful, even as he was annoyed at himself for doing so.
"Ariste, then," Barnett agreed. "And is your lovely wife as avid a bridge player as you are? If so, perhaps we could get in a couple of rubbers after dinner."
"What could be nicer than a bit of mental stimulation after a day's physical stimulation?" Ariste Buleforte asked. "A morning of tennis, an afternoon dip in the lake, and an evening's auction bridge. Surely no prince could spend a better day. Or princess, either. What do you say to that, my princess?"
"It will be most relaxing," Diane Buleforte replied, smiling a winsome smile. "Mr. and Mrs. Barnett—Benjamin and Cecily— would perhaps like to join us for tennis. We could perhaps play doubles."
And so they did.
-
Herr Lindner left the breakfast room while the Barnetts and the Bulefortes were discussing their future. Thoughtfully, as though considering a matter of the greatest importance, he made his way up to his room. Once inside, he locked the door and opened wide his window, which faced out upon the lake. The last of the haze had lifted, burned off by the late morning sun, and there on the lake, as far out as he could see, was a black dot that, with the aid of a pair of binoculars that he kept on the window ledge, resolved itself into a small boat with its single sail furled. Lindner was gratified by the sight, but it was not with the eye of an artist that he regarded it.
He went to the bottom drawer of his bureau and withdrew from it an elaborate apparatus of brass and wood, folded about itself into a compact mass. Slowly and methodically, still deep in thought, Lindner unfolded the parts and fastened them together, until the apparatus was revealed as a portable heliograph sitting on a short, sturdy tripod.
Whistling tunelessly as he worked, Lindner set the device up on the far left-hand corner of the window sill, where it would best catch the direct rays of the sun. Then he carefully aimed its mirror so it would send flashes of sunlight to the distant boat.
Now, for a moment, Lindner paused and stared thoughtfully at a fading print of Beauty Unveiled on the wall next to the wardrobe. Then he opened his portmanteau and drew out a sheet of foolscap. Laboriously, using a thick leaded artist's pencil, he composed his message: "Der Herr Barnett und seine frau ..."
He carefully left a space between each line as he wrote it. He could have made the message shorter, leaving out the articles and the honorifics and such, but he had a strong distaste for the telegraphic style. When the whole was done, he went back and, with the aid of a thin length of brass and ivory that looked like a six-inch slide rule, but was scribed with letters instead of numbers, wrote an encrypted version of the message in the space between the lines.
Without haste, as the sun rose to its zenith in the noon skies, Lindner clicked out his recognition signal and waited for the boat's reply—just the merest brief sparkle of the Morse letters DK to assure him that he had the right target. Then, slowly and methodically, he tapped out his message to the waiting boat. When he had finished, and sent the final "SSS" that indicated "end of message," the boat raised its triangular sail and went on its way.
Lindner packed up the heliograph and put it away, and turned to his paints and easel. Perhaps, today, he would attempt a landscape on the rear lawn. He rather fancied himself as an artist.
CHAPTER SIX — CHARLES BREDLON SUMMERDANE
All'meine Pulse schlagen, und das Herz walk ungestüm ...
(How every pulse is flying, and my heart beats loud and fast ...)
— Friedrich Kind,
from the libretto to
DER FREISCHÜTZ
On Thursday evening Paul took Giselle to the opera. It
was her first chance to wear the new pink dress that she had just picked up from her dressmaker's. It was from a design that she had created herself, cutting and pinning it on one of her dolls until it looked just the way she wanted. Frau Ardbaum, the dressmaker, had realized the miniature in full, with the skirt flounced just so, and the bodice tightened just so. Giselle looked like a princess, lovely and pure, with just a hint of—well, no need to go into what there was just a hint of.
Paul had purchased tickets for aisle seats in the sixth row of the orchestra, feeling vaguely guilty, as though he were spending his food money for the month, as he did so. So well was he into his new bohemian persona that he had to remind himself that, as Charles Bredlon Summerdane, he could have bought out the entire orchestra every show and still dined well.
"I love this place," Giselle told Paul as they approached their seats. "Just think, we just walked up the Imperial Staircase. The emperor himself uses that staircase."
"As does everyone else," Paul pointed out, but Giselle didn't care.
The opera that evening was Der Freischütz, by Carl Maria von Weber, based on a German ghost story about magic and shooting, and the "Black Huntsman," who would give a hunter six perfect shots in return for his soul. It had a handsome hero and a lovely heroine and an evil villain and an occasional glimpse of the devil himself; who could ask for more?
Giselle clutched Paul's hand through the performance and was enthralled by the music and the magic. "You may take me to the opera any time," she murmured to him during the a scene change in the first act.
"I shall take you to the opera many times," he told her. "But it is very expensive!"
Paul laughed. "I have a friend who can afford it."
Giselle raised his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckle. "I do love opera," she told him. "I come here on occasion and get a standing room ticket. That is very cheap, but not as enjoyable as it could be; the opera police are very strict."
"The opera police?" Paul looked quizzically at her.
"Oh, yes. Those who stand must do so behind that railing," she pointed to the side at the rear, "and there are men with little opera patches on their coats who watch you to make sure you don't sneak in to take a seat, or even sit on the steps."
"For the whole three or four hours?" Paul asked.
"Even so. They are very firm."
"And they are not swayed by your beauty or the piteous glances that I'm sure you give them? They must be strict indeed."
At the second intermission Paul took Giselle back for a cold chocolate at the refreshment stand. He found a chair for her and then excused himself. "There is someone I must speak to for a minute," he explained.
Paul worked his way through the press of well-dressed people to where the man he had selected as the next subject to be approached was standing with his daughter. The man, a portly, balding gentleman with thick graying eyebrows over close-set eyes, a toothbrush mustache, and bristly beard that almost concealed a receding chin, was Hermann Loge, a middle-level official in the Foreign Ministry. His daughter, who appeared to be about seventeen, wore an expensive, fashionable gown in a shade of green that made her white skin look motley and diseased, cut so that it emphasized her thick waist and undeveloped bust. Her hair was coiffed to look as though it concealed a dinner plate carefully balanced on her head.
Hermann was in need of money. Keeping a wife and two mistresses on a minor minister's salary was a constant juggling act, and Hermann was beginning to lose control of the balls. Or so Paul had been told by Levi Davoud. Paul paused to look Hermann over. He looked weak and indecisive, not like the sort of man who would cultivate a wife and two mistresses. But perhaps many of us lead secret lives that would astound even our closest friends.
Paul approached his quarry and pulled a sealed envelope from an inside pocket. "Herr Loge?" he asked softly.
Loge swiveled to face Paul. "Yes?"
"My patron sympathizes with your need," Paul said, "and he asked me to give you this." He thrust the envelope into Loge's hand and turned around.
"Wait!"
Paul paused.
"Is this all?"
Paul turned back to Loge. The man had ripped open the envelope and was riffling through the bills inside. Obviously he could add up sums of money very quickly. There was five hundred kronen in the envelope. What did this high-living bureaucrat expect, and, come to think of it, why did he expect it?
"All?"
"There is, what, five hundred kronen in here. I was promised a thousand!" The words came sharply, but in an undertone that did not carry above the noise of the surrounding crowd. No one, as far as Paul could tell, turned to look at them to see what he was talking about.
Paul thought fast. "The rest will come later," he said.
"Well, it better." Loge took a folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Paul. "Here. Although what you want this for is beyond me. When do I get the other five hundred?"
"Soon," Paul promised. "Soon!" He thrust the paper into his pocket and stalked off as though he knew what this was all about.
For the rest of the opera Paul's thoughts dwelled on the paper.
What was it that serendipity had tossed his way, information concerning some minor intrigue, or possibly a state secret that would change the course of European affairs for a generation? It took an effort of will for him not to unfold the paper on his lap and try to read it in the light reflected from the stage.
Paul couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was watching him from somewhere in the dark seats behind him. But, if so, nobody did anything about it, and, as far as he could tell, nobody displayed the slightest interest in him or Giselle when they left the opera house and boarded one of the carriages pulled up along the curb to go home.
The night was clear and chill. Paul wrapped the carriage blanket around the two of them and stared up at the sky. He pointed out the constellation of Orion, the great hunter, chasing the Great Bear through the spring sky. "There's one of the problems we all face as we go through life," he told her, "determining whether we are the hunter or the bear."
Giselle examined his profile in the light of the street lamps. "Sometimes," she said, "I don't understand you."
"Sometimes," he agreed, "I don't either."
-
It was after two in the morning when Giselle left his top-floor flat and wafted down the one flight to her own so that she could wake up in her own bed surrounded by the assumption of morality. Paul carefully double-locked his door, made sure that the curtains on his sitting room window were fully closed, lit the gas ring on his side table, prepared himself a cup of thick black coffee with an excess of sugar, and relaxed. He sank into his easy chair, allowed the persona of Paul Donzhof, Bavarian bohemian, to drain away and permitted himself to become again, if ever so briefly, Charles Bredlon Summerdane, younger son of a duke, English spy. The only way he knew to play the part he had to play all day every day was to become the person he was playing. He had not made it too difficult for himself; Paul Donzhof was in many ways Charles Summerdane, or what Summerdane would have been had he been born into a middle-class German family. But it was still a welcome respite to think in English, and to think those things that Paul Donzhof kept locked away in the recesses of his mind.
It was Charles Summerdane who went to his closet and pulled the folded-up paper from the breast pocket of his evening jacket. He spread it open on the table in front of him. It was a numbered list of seven items that made no apparent sense to him:
-
1. 24 AND 26 APRIL
2. THAT WEDNESDAY
3. UNKNOWN
4. ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND RUSSIA
5. UNKNOWN
6. 3RD AND 4TH OUT OF 6
7. YES
-
Summerdane studied it for a while and the longer he looked at it, the less he knew. A glance at the calendar told him that the 24th and 25th of April fell on a Friday and Saturday. And so? But it must mean something, perhaps something important. Wel
l, he'd look at it again. For now he had other work to do.
Summerdane assembled the notes gathered from observations, discussions, and reports of his compatriots over the past fortnight, added to them with some insightful comments and observations of his own, and condensed them into one continuous message:
-
Greetings from Vienna. Austrian general staff has received reports on range and accuracy of new French 12cm short-recoil field piece. Suggests spy in place in French Army high command.
Two battleships in drydock in Pola. The Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolph for repair and refitting and the Tegetthoff for complete reconstruction.
I am now member 37 of the GVF. Last night I delivered envelope to man named Brommel at 578 Brandtstrasse. Was followed there by GVFers. Don't know whether I am suspected, or it was standard procedure. An assassination attempt is being planned, possibly more than one. Also something big in progress. Do not know what, we apprentice anarchists are told only what we need to know. But hints from several sources indicate major outrage is due soon.
The Great Game Page 7
