Charity turned to Niven.
“And forgive me for not quite remembering,” she said, “but I cannot quite put my finger on why is it that I find you so very familiar.”
Ed Stevens heard that, too—and laughed out loud.
Charity quickly looked at him.
“David is an old friend of Stan Fine’s,” Stevens said.
“Really?” she said to Stevens.
She looked at Niven. “Then you were in Washington as well?”
“An old Hollywood friend,” Stevens clarified.
Charity’s eyes grew larger as she suddenly made the connection. She put her hand over her open mouth.
“I am so sorry,” she said warmly.
“As am I,” Niven replied with a grin. “As a rule, I tend not to collect barristers among my friends. But as a skilled barrister will tell you, there are always exceptions to the rule, and, with Stanley, I’ll certainly make one.”
“No,” Charity said, softly putting her hand on Niven’s forearm, “what I meant by that was that I am so sorry that I did not recognize you as David Niven the actor. I loved you in Bachelor Mother. Very, very funny. And that Ginger Rogers—what a delight!”
Niven looked her in the eyes—trying to keep his from drifting down to her breasts—and nodded.
“Yes,” he said, his tone mock-saddened, “I am painfully aware that that was your meaning. I was trying to move past the fact that I am no longer so well known nor working with the likes of Miss Rogers. I suppose we all make sacrifices for this war, and that, alas, must be my contribution.”
There was polite laughter from around the table.
“In actuality,” Fleming said, “we all know that David’s plight is not quite so terribly dire. One visit to the bar at the Claridge—where, I might add, Sir Down-on-His-Luck here maintains a suite—proves my point. He, in fact, still has his work, one job in particular being the reason we are here.”
“Really?” Charity said.
“We need to use David’s talents,” Fleming went on, “as well as yours.”
“Mine?” Charity said. “I understand David’s, but what can I possibly do?”
“It has to do with our friend,” Fleming said, “the one we brought in the ambulance.”
“Oh, yes!” Charity said, suddenly remembering. “I’ve been meaning to get to that.” She paused. “I do apologize for my behavior when you arrived. I must have looked half raving mad.”
“Quite possibly completely raving mad,” Niven said, smiling brightly, clearly in jest. “But how were you to know? Frozen patients are not exactly a common occurrence. I’ve been frozen stiff on stage, but nothing like that.”
Charity smiled warmly, flashing her beautiful teeth.
“I do appreciate your saying so, David,” Charity said, again using her finest Philadelphia socialite voice. “If you’ll pardon the phrase, I was afraid I’d made an ass of myself, especially with your driver.”
Charity thought she’d noticed Jamison react to that pronouncement, but when she glanced at him he just smiled politely back at her.
She looked at Fleming.
“You mentioned David’s talents,” she said. “And mine? What would that be?”
“For starters, Charity,” Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens said, “we probably will need you to write a love letter or two.”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“For the man,” Niven said.
“What man?”
“Our friend in the box,” Niven said.
Charity looked as if she could not believe her ears.
“You want me to write a love letter to…a frozen dead man,” she said, clearly not believing what she was hearing.
“Actually, letters plural,” Niven said. “I’d have Ian here do it—he fancies himself the writer, you know—but I suggest that he’s not exactly skilled at writing from a woman’s point of view. And certainly nothing remotely involved with lustful prose”—he paused and grinned at Fleming before finishing—“from the viewpoint of either the female or the male.”
Commander Fleming made an obscene gesture with his hand at Major Niven.
“I do hope you’ll pretend that you did not see that, Charity,” Fleming said. “I like to believe I’m above such acts, but Niven here unfortunately brings out the Sandhurst lad in me.”
There was more laughter around the table.
Charity said, “You two were at the Royal Military Academy?”
Fleming nodded.
“We both attended Sandhurst,” he said, “but I did not fare as well there as David. We met elsewhere.”
Niven laughed.
“Indeed we did,” Niven put in. “Would you like to hear the story?”
Montagu was about to say something when Fleming replied, “Wild horses could not stop you from telling it again. You actors never quit. So out with it!”
Niven made a face at Fleming, then turned his attention to Charity.
“I’ll make it brief. I was visiting Boodles for my first time. They gave me a tour of the place, then let me loose. I decided to sit by the windows, to watch people walk past while I enjoyed my drink. I didn’t realize I was in the silence room.”
Yet another English item of note to add to my education, Charity thought.
She said: “The silence room? It must be the opposite of this place.”
“Quite. It’s where one may be left to his own thoughts,” Fleming explained. “The only speaking is with the waitstaff.”
“I thought this was my story!” Niven said, looking at Fleming.
Fleming shrugged but smiled, unapologetic.
Niven went on: “About the time I settled into a deep, soft leather chair and put my feet upon its ottoman, a large old gentleman with an impressively large walrus mustache came into the silence room. He appeared unhappy to have the company as he glared at me. He found a chair nearby and set about to stare at me—”
“Then began making a hurrrumph sound,” Fleming interrupted.
Niven picked up the story: “And hurrrumph after hurrrumph. He then set about to reading his newspaper, making all sorts of noise while flipping the pages. Finally, he called for the waiter, and as he again stared at me he said for the waiter to bring him the list of members. When he got it, and studied it, he made one last hurrrumph, glared at me, and left the room. I took advantage of this opportunity to also leave the silence room—only to run right into a rather rude gentleman who I found was laughing uncontrollably at me.”
He looked at Fleming, who now was laughing.
“True story,” Fleming said. “I stopped laughing long enough to say that I had waited an eternity for someone to be caught using the chair that the eldest member considered his favorite and thus his own! Oh, it was a sublime scene.”
“A true story indeed,” Niven said, shaking his head and grinning. “And ever since, Ian and I have had a history of running into each other. Such as now.”
Montagu looked a bit anxious.
“Yes,” he quickly put in, his tone serious, “can we get back to the matter at hand?”
Niven and Fleming made exaggerated motions for Montagu to take over.
“Thank you,” Montagu said, then looked at Charity.
“There’s much more to do than simply write the love letters,” he said. “We have to give our man a life.”
“A life?” Charity repeated.
Niven nodded. “Quite. Before we give him a swim.”
“A credible life the Germans will believe,” Montagu explained.
“One everyone will believe,” Niven added.
“Right,” Montagu went on. “We have our man. Now we need to create a cover for who he is…was.”
“Who…was…why…?” she said, confused, then looked at Niven. “Did you say ‘swim’?”
“Charity,” Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens said, “we brought the body here because what we’re going to do within a two-week time frame is absolutely critical to the success of the Allied landing in Sicily
. It requires complete secrecy, and we decided that a safe house such as Whitbey House was the best place we could hide a frozen cadaver and not have questions asked or covers blown.”
Stevens let that sink in, then, after a moment, decided not to go on. It was clear there was too much information being supplied at once—or, perhaps, not enough—and this really wasn’t the place to get into details. He noticed that even Bob Jamison looked confused.
“I realize this is quite a lot to consider. I know it took me some time to swallow,” Stevens said, finally. “Complete details to come tomorrow. In the meantime, welcome to Operation Mincemeat.”
“Mincemeat?” Charity repeated, and immediately had graphic mental images of her first haggis.
“Ah!” Major Niven suddenly said, looking across the room and starting to half stand and wave. “There he is—finally!”
Charity Hoche looked over toward the door. She saw the driver of the ambulance standing there. In his arms, he cradled what looked to be a very heavy brown canvas bag. He returned Niven’s wave, and began to make a direct line through the crowd toward them.
At the table, the private placed the bag before Niven with a thud. From inside the bag came the clank of heavy glass hitting together.
That, Charity thought, sounds like a booze bottle in that bag—booze bottles.
“Well done, Private!” Major Niven said loudly. “Now, you may go shine my shoes, brush down my wardrobe, and the sundry other noble tasks of a good batman.”
The private, who stood five foot nine, stared at Niven. Then his moon face changed to an expression of amusement. His eyes twinkled.
“With all due respect, Major,” the private replied, as he took an empty chair from the adjacent table and pulled it up to the table beside Niven, “you can shine your own goddamn shoes.”
Everyone at the table stared at the private, who was now reaching into the bag and pulling out a bottle of clear liquor.
Looking again at Niven, the private went on:
“I just drove that ambulance all the bloody way out here, just oversaw the securing of its frozen passenger in the bloody basement, and now I believe that I have bloody well earned a taste of Genever.” He paused. “SAH!”
Niven turned to everyone at the table and dramatically said, “You will please excuse him. As you must know, the war has made good help so very hard to find.”
At that point, the private looked at the major—and gave him the finger.
“And I mean that in the most respectful manner, SAH!” he said with a grin.
Major Niven laughed.
When he saw the look of shock on Charity’s face, Niven said, “Oh, everyone, please forgive my rudeness. Allow me to introduce my batman, Private Peter Alexander Ustinov.” He looked at Charity. “He too is friendly with one Stanley Fine, Esquire.”
It was a moment before Charity found her voice.
“You’re also an actor?” Charity said to Ustinov.
“A lousy one,” Niven answered for him, “if you consider how he plays the role of batman.”
Ustinov gave him the finger again.
“And I offer that one with quite a bit more malice than the first,” Ustinov said.
Niven made a dramatic, wide-eyed face and slapped his chest with an open palm.
“Well, then,” Niven said, “that must mean only one thing!”
“Precisely!” Ustinov said.
“Private, hand me the Genever,” Niven said formally. “I hereby declare this the commencement of Attitude Adjustment Hour. Make that Hours, plural!”
Charity saw that Commander Fleming was shaking his head. But she also saw that he was grinning widely.
Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens was smiling, too.
And Lieutenant Commander Montagu seemed resigned at this point to the course of events becoming out of his control.
Ustinov took the bottle of liquor he had pulled from the bag, placed it in front of Niven, then glanced over his shoulder at the bar.
“Appears to be a bit crowded over there,” he said to Niven.
Niven looked to see, then said, “Not a problem.”
He stood, walked over to the dashing suit of armor, and pulled the sword from its baldric. He raised the weapon above his head and pointed its tip across the room.
“To the bar!” he cried out.
This, of course, caught the attention of the crowd at the bar, as did the fact that he had started in their direction. They watched in rapt fascination.
But whether from the fog of booze or from the disbelief in what was happening—or, more likely, from the fact that everyone there was either a student or graduate of Dick Canidy’s Throat-Cutting and Bomb-Throwing Academy—no one moved from their place.
And this did not go unnoticed by Ustinov. He quickly got up from the table and went after Niven to intervene.
By the time Ustinov reached Niven, the would-be swashbuckler had stopped in his tracks and quickly brought down the sword.
“Damn blade is heavy!” Niven announced. “And Errol Flynn made it look so easy at the beach house. The sorry bastard must’ve used a prop.”
Ustinov grinned. He had heard the legendary stories of the wild parties thrown for the Hollywood crowd at the bachelor pad that Niven had shared with Flynn. Their wry neighbor, one Cary Grant, had dubbed the dwelling “Cirrhosis-by-the-Sea.”
“I can handle things at the bar,” Ustinov said.
Niven looked at the bar crowd. Most of the men had turned their attention back to their drinks and conversation. Then he looked at Ustinov and said, “Very well, Private.”
As Niven marched back and returned the sword to its baldric, Ustinov went to the bar—then behind it. Both returned to the table at the same time. Ustinov carried a tray, on which were a bucket of ice, two tall, heavy glass shakers, a strainer, and six martini glasses. He put the tray on the table.
“Very good, Private,” Niven said. “Well done.”
He looked at the crowd at the table and intoned formally, “On behalf of the British Empire and Winston Churchill, I bring to you the Prime Minister’s personal martini cocktail recipe. Would you allow me the privilege of sharing it?”
Everyone was grinning.
Charity said formally, “As we have been instructed to interact with our British hosts in any and every positive way possible, I do believe it would be an honor.”
Niven smiled.
“Delightful,” he said. “Then, with the assistance of my batman, off we go.”
Niven lined up the six glasses in two rows of three. Ustinov held up the bucket of ice toward him.
“First, as I’m sure you’re aware, one must chill the glass,” he explained.
Niven then placed ice cubes in the glasses and spun each glass by delicately turning the stem back and forth between his thumb and forefinger.
With Ustinov continuing to hold the ice bucket, Niven then filled one of the tall, heavy glass shakers with ice. He uncorked the bottle of liquor and poured the shaker just shy of full.
“We keep a healthy stock of Genever in the closet of Private Ustinov’s room at the Claridge,” he said with a conspiratorial wink to Charity.
“Genever?” Charity asked, prepared to learn yet another new foreign item.
“It’s along the lines of gin,” Niven explained. “Wheat or rye is used as the spirit base of gin. Juniper berries flavor it. Genever is the Dutch word for ‘juniper,’ and so some overachieving Brit along the way decided to shorten that to gin. Which is not exactly correct, as Genever is actually a mixture of rye, wheat, corn, and barley. Our British gin, however, has accents of citrus—the peels of lemon and orange—its pale color coming from aging three months in charred oak barrels.”
“Fascinating,” Charity said.
“Don’t be too impressed. He used to be a booze salesman,” Fleming said drily. “In the States, of all places. Ever hear of Jack and Charlie’s?”
“In New York? Of course, the ‘21’ Club,” Charity said.
�
��That’s the one,” Fleming said.
Charity found herself going on: “Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns are cousins. They opened a speakeasy in Greenwich Village to pay for school. After a few moves, it wound up at 21 West Fifty-second Street.”
“Well done,” Stevens said.
Charity blushed.
The one damn thing I know about in all our conversation, she thought, and it’s the history of a bar my father took me to when he was in the city on business.
Charity looked at Niven, who now had covered the tall glass shaker that was full with the other shaker and proceeded to vigorously shake the liquor and ice inside.
“Coincidentally, the key to a perfectly chilled beverage is twenty-one shakes,” Niven announced. “Not twenty, not twenty-two. Twenty-one exactly.”
“So it is true you were the first bartender at ‘21’?” Charity said.
Niven shook his head. “Not bartender. I was a twenty-two-year-old chap fresh out of Sandhurst when I went to work as the first salesman for Charlie’s booze. He was calling it ‘21’ Brands. It was 1934, the year after the Yanks repealed prohibition. I was an aspiring actor who was exactly that—aspiring—and I desperately needed money. Used to be a photo of me on the wall.”
“Still is,” Ed Stevens said.
Niven separated the shakers and put the strainer on the mouth of the one with the chilled liquor in it. Ustinov dumped the ice from the martini glasses back into the ice bucket. Then Niven began pouring each glass three-quarters full.
“Glad to hear I’m still famous somewhere,” Niven said to Stevens, then looked down at the martini glasses. He turned to Ustinov. “Are we not forgetting something?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then Ustinov said, “Oh, yes.”
He produced a half-liter bottle of sweet vermouth from his trouser pocket.
“So sorry,” Ustinov said, a grimace on his moon face.
Niven held out his hand, waving his fingers in a mock-impatient I’ll take that motion.
“Now, this is the very critical part,” Niven said. “One Mr. Churchill was very kind as to instruct me.”
With great drama, he unwrapped the foil from the top of the bottle of vermouth, then quickly worked the cork free.
“Watch carefully,” he said.
The Double Agents Page 15
