Nina had noticed his frown, his slow step as he mounted the stairs. She glanced over the white banister at the kitchen door, which was ajar. “These shoes are a hideous mistake. They’re far too narrow.” She slid her feet out from them. “Now that feels good. This carpet is divine.” Have I given a good excuse for our early return? It sounds vapid enough: the kind of remark Mrs. Whosis on the ground floor would expect from me. Why is it that strangers believe, if you’re blond and twenty-three and wear a black chiffon nightgown, that you are a nitwit? “Do you think we should get a red carpet like this one? I rather like it. Of course, we’d then have to have a white staircase, too.”
Renwick, having followed her glance, made no comment as he climbed after his barefoot wife. In the living-room—two rooms, actually, knocked into one giant—Nina had chosen a central couch. He closed the door, said, “Has she been inquisitive?”
“No. Just a little critical—a slight sniff when she came to collect the breakfast tray and found I was still in bed. But I suppose she must wonder who we are and where we come from. Only natural, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was only natural. He came over to sit beside her, slipped his arm around her, then disengaged it. “Can’t think straight,” he told her as he kissed her and rose. He pulled forward a small chair, faced her. “Hard to know where to begin. Look, honey— tomorrow morning, early, we’ll leave for Washington. No, I don’t know how long we’ll be there. But my business in New York is finished. And there could be trouble if we stay.”
She was about to speak. He leaned forward, kissed her lips lightly. “Hear me out, darling. Yes, I could be in some danger— and there was an attempt to waylay me today. No, no, nothing much. Just a warning—which I’m taking seriously. Because if I’m threatened at all, then the danger could spread to you. An unpleasant type, I’m up against. He has a long reach. Tried to have Claudel killed in Djibouti.”
“Pierre?” She was aghast. “Was he hurt?”
“Not badly. A knife wound.”
Nina drew a deep breath. “Will you be safe in Washington?”
The question was, would she be safe? “We’ll have no contact with anyone linked to the O’Connell name, no one linked to the Renwick name, either. We’ll call ourselves something original— like Smith.”
“Where will we stay—in another friend’s house? Or a hotel?”
“A motel to start with. Some place anonymous, where you won’t run into any of your father’s friends.”
She said slowly, “Would it be better for you if I just cleared out? Went back to London?”
“No. Not that!” He quietened his voice. “The unpleasant type I mentioned—well, he knows about Interintell. You see, there’s an informer connected with our outfit—no, honey, not in the London office, somewhere else. Don’t worry, we’ll find him.” He took her hands in his. “Don’t worry,” he repeated, “or else I’ll regret telling you all this.”
“Don’t, please don’t. I wanted to be told—yesterday I pestered you with questions until you shut me up completely.”
“I what?” He tried to laugh. “I must be worse than I thought.”
“No, no. It wasn’t you; it was what you said. About Austria four years ago, about the...” Her voice trailed off. About the girl who was killed there. And Bob, she saw, knew perfectly well what she had almost said aloud. She gathered her wits. “Well—if I can’t go back to London, what about Connecticut? Aunt Eunice is there—Mother’s sister—so there’s no O’Connell in her name. Besides, she’s Mrs. Williams now.”
“And there are three sons and a host of friends. How are you going to keep Renwick unmentioned? They’ll never introduce you around as Mrs. John Smith, will they?”
She remembered her cousins. “Not without a wink or a nudge or a mysterious look,” she admitted. “I’d be lucky if they didn’t go off into a fit of wild jokes. The trouble is—they’ve never had to face anything like the dangers you face. Or Pierre. Or Ron Gilman. They just can’t imagine—”
“Got it! I know someone who’d help us in Washington,” he said, and then added more slowly, “if he’s there at this time of year. He goes off to Europe in summer, looking at paintings— possible acquisitions. He’s a museum director.”
Yes, Colin Grant had known threats and hidden danger and the grief they could bring.
“Museum?” That caught Nina’s interest.
“Quite near Washington. Look, darling, let me telephone him—find out if he’s around.” Renwick had risen, was halfway to the door, “I’ll use an outside line.”
Nina made no comment about that. “Perhaps he won’t want us.”
“If he’s there, he will.” Renwick hesitated, then decided. “He was in Vienna four years ago—buying a painting. He wasn’t Intelligence. Purely amateur standing. But with his help, we uncovered a secret funding for terrorists. He met the girl who was working on that case with me. They fell in love, were going to be married. She was killed.”
The girl Bob had recruited... “So he won’t joke when we use the name Smith,” Nina said softly.
Renwick shook his head. “He will keep you safe,” he said, and left.
Nina rose, walked around the room, and tried to divert her mind from Bob’s last words. She concentrated on the outside call. Why use a public telephone near the corner of the avenue? There was nothing doubtful about Mrs. Whosis downstairs, except her natural curiosity. Or did Bob think the house phones could be tapped? Wanted his request for Washington Directory to be unheard by anyone? And a call to Washington tonight, followed by a hurried departure tomorrow, might—just might—give away their destination. Was that Bob’s reason? Nina wondered. And with that, his last sentence came sliding back into her mind. He will keep you safe.
That could mean only one thing. Bob must be faced with the possibility of leaving her with someone he trusted while he travelled. A job that had to be done, and too dangerous for her to share. Or was she—as Gemma Gilman would say in her precise English voice—just a bloody nuisance?
Yes, Nina decided, I could be just that. There are times when I’m a total handicap. And having reduced herself to tears, she went upstairs to begin packing.
11
Half an hour later, Renwick returned. “I had to find enough change, first,” he told Nina. He was relaxed and natural once more. “So I went back to that Italian restaurant and got it.” “And your museum friend was at home. Not travelling?” Nina seemed equally relaxed. She snapped the locks on her suitcase. All ready to go, she thought, but where?
“Not until August.”
“And he had no objections to having a lone female landed on him for three weeks?”
“Darling...” Renwick drew her away from the suitcase and with his arm around her waist led her to the chaise longue. “There, Madame Récamier,” he said and settled her comfortably. He sat down facing her, his hands on her knees. “He had no objections at all. In fact, when I told him we were coming to Washington, he insisted we should stay with him. Plenty of room, he said. So we’ll have lunch with him tomorrow, and I’ll look the place over.”
“Married?”
“No. He’s alone except for a housekeeper.”
“How old is he?”
“About a couple years older than I am—forty-three, I’d guess.” Renwick smiled. “Better looking, too. He’s quite a guy. I’ll tell you more about him on our way to the Basset Hill Museum. It stands in acres of gardens just outside Washington. And”—this pleased him—“it is well guarded. Valuable collection of paintings: seventeenth century, with French Impressionists in a new gallery he opened. You’ll have plenty of beauty around you—inside the museum, outside in the woodlands. And—” he paused to emphasise his next words—“I shan’t be away for three weeks, Nina. Three days perhaps, or ten at the outside. I may not have to leave you at all, and I won’t unless—well, let’s see how everything breaks. I’ll be with you for the first day, at least. Some meetings in Washington.”
She tried to keep her voice lig
ht. “How many problems left, darling? Only that man? The unpleasant type, you called him.”
Klaus of Klingfeld & Sons. “He’s the main one.” There was Klingfeld’s informant, too; the mole who had burrowed deep into Interintell. We’ll have to unearth him first, Renwick thought, end his threat to us all: that should help to defang Klaus as far as information about Interintell is concerned. And there was also a third problem. Lorna Upwood and the black diary she had stolen from Brimmer. That little note-book, Brimmer’s Plus List, could be the biggest challenge of all.
“Let’s give the unpleasant type a name,” Nina suggested. “One word. Something easy for me to memorise.”
“Snake.”
“That was quick. A snake in the grass, is that what he is?”
“A snake in long grass who needs defanging. But we’ll just call him ‘the opposition’, I think; keep the drama out of it.”
Suddenly, she was upset. “And you—”
“I’m not alone in the search,” he told her. “There’s Interintell. And there are the Intelligence agencies of at least twelve countries backing us up. We’re in constant contact. Keep that in mind, will you?”
“And you direct the traffic.”
He looked at her in surprise. “You overestimate your husband, my love.”
No, she thought, I don’t. Pierre’s words—she had quoted him directly.
“Business over for the day,” Renwick was saying, his arms around her. “Remember what George Bernard Shaw’s girl friend said?”
“How much of a girl friend?”
“Never could tell with old G.B.S. Mrs. Patrick Campbell— yes, that was her name. Now, where does this come undone?” He opened her blouse.
“Bob—you’ll tear it. My best—”
“All in a good cause.” He unfastened her skirt, pulled it off.
“What did Mrs. Campbell say?”
“Can’t recall the direct quote.” Who could, he thought, at a moment like this? “Something about the marriage bed being so peaceful after the hurly-burly of the chaise longue.” He threw aside the rest of her clothes, stood looking down at her. God, he thought, she’s the most beautiful woman. He was about to tell her that as he bent down to take her in his arms. The telephone rang.
Renwick straightened up, swore softly. It rang again.
It was Chet Danford, speaking against a vague background of voices and laughter. “Sorry about this. One moment—I’ll get the door closed.” There was a short struggle; the noise diminished. “That better? A man came to my office late today—just as I was leaving. Knew Frank Cooper had been one of my partners and thought I must know you as another of Cooper’s close friends. He had heard you were in town, wanted to meet you again, and where you were staying? He sounded quite sincere. Most plausible. Except that he hadn’t seen you since your last visit to New York three years back. You weren’t in New York then, were you?”
“No.”
“Then thank God I had some doubts. Told him I hadn’t seen you for the last two years, and if you were in New York—well, you hadn’t called me. Sent him away convinced I was telling the truth. As I was.”
“What was his name? His appearance?”
“Josh Grable. Medium height, thin, brown hair—a lot of hair. Heavy glasses. Seersucker suit. Late twenties, I’d guess, or early thirties. Ever met him?”
“This morning. He didn’t know me, thought I was someone else.” Until Al Moore’s name had been questioned and Klaus had decided the description he had been given fitted me. “Just a try-on for size. Glad you didn’t make it fit.”
“Anything I can do?”
“No. We’re about to take off, tomorrow. Sorry our stay has been so short. It was most comfortable.”
“If you’re anywhere near Washington, remember that Rosen is now heading our office there.”
Wallace Rosen, another of Frank Cooper’s partners and friends. Might be too much of a connection there, too. “Have you told him I’m here?”
“Not yet. I’ll call him to—”
“Don’t. I’ll get in touch with him myself.”
“Fine. Have to go—the intermission is just about over. Wish the play were, too: another clunker. Take care.”
“You, too. What about that little key—where do I leave it? In an envelope in the desk?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot about that. Or you could mail it to—” Danford had turned to speak to someone who had opened the booth’s door. “Just coming, my dear.” Then to Renwick again, “My wife. Bye.”
Mail it where? Renwick wondered, and shook his head over wives who yanked husbands away from telephones. “That was Chet. He’s as sharp as a carving knife, the kind of lawyer I wouldn’t like against me in court, but why the hell did he mention Washington and Rosen on a phone in a theatre lobby?”
“He must have thought it safe enough. We can’t be suspicious of everything.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not suspicious of everything. Just careful. There’s a big difference.”
“Bad news?” she asked, watching his face.
“A confirmation, actually. The opposition is trying to find out where I am in New York.” Messages from Klaus to his informant in The Hague must have been frantic this afternoon. “At least I don’t feel my hunch was so damned stupid about getting us the hell out.”
“When do we leave?”
“About eight o’clock. We’ll breakfast somewhere, then take a shuttle flight to Washington.”
She looked down at the chiffon negligee she had bought this morning. Bob hadn’t even noticed it. “When I was in Bloomingdale’s today, I saw...”
He was thinking about The Hague. Yes, he decided, that has to be our first objective.
“Bob...” She had caught his attention. “Let’s leave at eight, take a cab to a place where we can have breakfast at leisure, take another cab back in this direction—to Bloomingdale’s. I’ll only be a few minutes inside. The store can’t be busy when it’s opening. I won’t delay us, really I won’t. It’s just something I didn’t remember to buy today. And there are lots of flights to Washington, aren’t there?”
He was amazed but he only said, “Okay—if it’s important to you. As long as we leave this house early enough.”
“Leave at seven? Just drive around the park? That would be fun.”
That would be safe, too. “Okay,” he said again. “Couldn’t refuse you anything in that getup. New, isn’t it?”
The telephone rang. “Shall I?” asked Nina. “You weren’t expecting any more calls, were you?”
He shook his head. It couldn’t be Danford: the theatre wasn’t over yet.
Nina lifted the receiver. “Yes?” Then she broke into a relieved sigh, handed the phone to Bob. “It’s from London— Ron Gilman’s voice.”
Thank God, thought Renwick and took the phone. “Glad to hear from you. I was wondering if I could haul you out of bed.”
“I’ve just finished reading your letter.”
Pretty quick work. Renwick’s report had been sent out just before seven this evening; Gilman receiving it around midnight in London, decoding, reading, and now able to make some comment. “Interesting, wasn’t it?”
“I’d like to hear more as soon as possible.”
“Working late? You sound tired.”
“An all-night job, I fear.”
So Gilman was in his office, and communication would be easy. “I’ll write you at once. Goodbye for now.” Renwick cut off the call.
He turned to Nina. “Sorry, darling. I’ve got to go up to the study, discuss some business. Ron is still in the office.”
At half-past three in the morning, London time? Nina’s eyes opened wide. But she nodded, said, “We’ll be here when you get back.”
“We?” he asked as he kissed her.
“My new negligee and me.” That sent him off with a broad smile on his face. Well, thought Nina, wives may be a bloody nuisance some of the time, but not always. With that comforting thought, she lay back on the bed
and wondered about tomorrow.
***
Gilman was waiting for Renwick’s call. They used voice code where necessary, but their fifteen-minute talk decided several things. It began with the serious problem of Klingfeld’s informant.
Like it or not, Renwick insisted, they had to start with Johan Vroom at The Hague. First of all, Gilman had to find out if there was any close assistant to Vroom—one who might know about Vroom’s association with Interintell; better still, one who had even been sent on a special mission to London. “Let’s hope that is what we’re looking for,” Renwick said. “But if not...”
Then, like it or not, they had to make inquiries about Vroom himself. Was he in debt—had he received any large sums of money recently? Or was it a woman? An affair that could wreck his home life with wife and children if Klaus made it public? Or some photographs taken in a Rotterdam brothel, an unwitting connection with a Soviet agent that would ruin his career? “Either he’s being blackmailed or—and I hope this is true—he has an aide who is milking him of information,” Renwick concluded.
Gilman said unhappily, “I hope so. He is really a very decent man. Devoted to his family.”
“Where else do we start?” Renwick asked bluntly. “Believe me, I’ve been thinking about it ever since we received that information on The Hague. There’s no other solution.”
“I’ll begin a check right away.”
“We haven’t much time.”
“Yes, I felt that when I read your latest report. In fact, that is what I wanted to discuss with you now. I’m concerned—”
“Don’t be. We’ll be leaving tomorrow.” And Gilman knew his next stop after New York. “I’ve made safe arrangements for Beautiful.” Nina, of course.
“Thank God for that. The present climate isn’t exactly healthy, is it? Don’t forget to pay a visit to my aunt. She’s expecting you.”
“Always a pleasure.” Gilman’s aunt in Washington was an elderly gentleman with an upstairs room as nicely arranged as this study.
Cloak of Darkness Page 14
