by Kate Parker
“As dry and unimaginative as our Christian neighbors. That’s why they are so successful with their stores,” David added.
They had to be successful to live in a house as large and magnificent as the one we’d visited in Blackheath.
“Not all of our Christian neighbors are unimaginative,” his father said and gave Sir Henry and me a smile.
“I meant no offense,” David immediately said, coloring slightly.
“None taken,” I told him. “I need you to speak freely if I’m to understand where to look for the leak.”
“Tonight’s meeting chairman, along with a successful heart doctor, leads the Zionist movement in London. They want all of us to pack up and move to Palestine,” Mr. Nauheim said.
“That sounds like he has an imagination,” I replied, looking at David. “I can’t imagine that you’d want to, but can new arrivals resettle there?”
“The British government is against it, not wanting to upset the Arabs in the area. The only people arriving there must sneak in,” Mr. Nauheim said. “And with our efforts focused on getting as many out of Germany as possible, our group doesn’t want the extra burden of smuggling people into another land thousands of miles away from here.”
“I’m sure you heard Abram Mandel speak at the meeting tonight,” David said.
“Oh, yes. He seems to have a very clear picture of what the Nazis plan to do.” I shivered, despite the warmth of the clear September evening. “I hope he gives them more credit than they deserve.”
“There’s no end to Hitler’s ambition. I agree with Abram there. His solution is to rescue as many young people as possible, on the theory that they will make good soldiers to fight the Nazis in the coming war,” the elder Nauheim said.
“And we’ll need all the warriors we can find when the war starts. From the rumors I hear at the paper, Germany has a several-year head start on us in building planes and tanks and munitions factories.” I glanced at Sir Henry, who nodded.
“Abram Mandel and his family have a chain of pharmacies. He served in the British army in France during the war and saw the effects of the gas attacks. He’s never forgiven Germany,” Mr. Nauheim said.
“Not someone likely to aid a Nazi assassin,” I said.
The older man shook his head. “None of us are, but Abram is the least likely.”
It wasn’t until we were leaving that I was able to ask Leah, “Were you able to follow our conversation? I don’t know how fluent you are in English.”
“I had to study it in university. It is my fourth language. I understand it, but I have trouble forming the words to speak. It wants to come out in German. Or French, or some combination,” she added.
“But you’re glad to be here?”
“Of course.” Indignation poured out in her tone. “I’m not a fool. I am safe here in England. I don’t want to go back. Ever.”
Esther walked over and gave Leah a hug. “There’s no reason for you to go back. We’re very glad you’re here.”
“Thank you, Esther.”
I stood there a little awkwardly, ignored by the other two. These were questions I had to ask if I was to find one traitor in a group strongly opposed to the Nazis.
On the other hand, the traitor might not be part of the committee. Reina, Mimi Mareau’s head seamstress, seemed to know more than she was willing to say. I’d have to look closer into the ladies at Mimi’s couture house.
CHAPTER SIX
The next night, Friday, I was late leaving work, having once again made a mistake in my copy. I was looking forward to reaching my flat and kicking my shoes off, but when I finally walked the last blocks from the Underground stop and unlocked my door, I discovered the light was on in my drawing room, and I could hear men arguing.
I walked to the drawing room doorway and leaned on it as I pulled off my shoes. Captain Adam Redmond, my special friend, was facing my father, Sir Ronald Harper. They were standing toe to toe and their expressions said they were trying to kill each other with glares alone.
“I come home and find my two favorite men,” I said as I stepped between them. “Hello, Father. Hello, Adam.” My father got a peck on the cheek. Adam, who’d been gone for a few weeks, received a longer kiss on the lips that promised more later.
“He has a key to your flat!” my father exclaimed in horror, interrupting my welcome to Adam.
I turned to find him all gray-haired, black-suited, elegant Foreign Office indignation. “Of course. Otherwise, how could he have let you in?”
“Olivia.” My father was scandalized.
Adam kept a straight face, but when I glanced at him I could see a smile in his eyes.
“I came to ask you to go to dinner with me tonight, but now I suppose it will have to be the three of us,” my father said with an aggrieved sigh.
“I’d be very grateful, Sir Ronald. The food on base is beastly.”
“You’re very welcome, Captain. And then we can both ask Olivia what she is up to.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. “What are you up to?”
“Are you two going to dinner dressed like that? Then I won’t dress for dinner either. You don’t mind this suit? Good. The chophouse?” I suggested. I wasn’t sure how much my father had heard in his position in the Foreign Office, and I wasn’t going to give anything away.
“That will be fine,” my father said.
“What are you up to?” Adam repeated.
“Can it wait until after dinner? I’m starved.” I gave him a smile.
The edges of his mouth tugged up. “Yes, it can. I haven’t had a bite to eat since breakfast. Too busy trying to make my connections.”
That told me wherever he was stationed, it was in the middle of nowhere again. I was less confident that it was in Britain.
Adam and I looked bedraggled, he in his travel-smudged suit and I in my work-wrinkled outfit. Only my father looked pressed and pristine. We walked the few blocks to the chophouse and, since it was early, were seated almost immediately.
Father ordered a bottle of red wine to go with our chops, potatoes, and green vegetables. As soon as the waiter walked away, he said in a low voice, “Olivia found the body of a dead German in the basement of Mimi Mareau’s new salon in Mayfair.”
Adam looked startled before he said, “Who was the dead man?”
“His nom de guerre was Elias.”
“Means nothing to me,” Adam said.
We all fell silent as the wine arrived until it had been poured and the waiter left again. My father took a roll and passed the basket to Adam. “He was a German communist and a Jew. We had word that he had developed a smuggling ring. Moving Jews from Germany through Poland and Sweden or Denmark and into Britain.”
“Any of this true?” Adam asked me, holding the bread basket out of reach.
“I’d like a roll.”
“I’d like an answer.”
I glared at him until he passed me the rolls. “It’s true as far as it goes,” I told him. “The Nazis had been after him for quite some time for stirring up the working masses.”
“Apparently, this Elias fellow was out in the open in London and so he was killed,” my father said.
As usual, my father had the story halfway wrong. “He knew the Nazis wanted him dead. He stayed out of sight.”
“Obviously, they found him.” My father made the whole problem sound so simple. Too simple.
“He was killed by blows to the back of the head. There was no place to hide in that basement, and he would never have turned his back on anyone he didn’t trust. I don’t believe he was killed by a German assassin.”
“She’s right about that,” Adam said to my father. “Nobody being hunted is going to turn their back on a stranger.”
My father glanced around and lowered his voice a bit more. “There’s a rumor about a Nazi assassin in London. We know nothing about this person. Young, old, male, female. Only that this person is very well trained and can blend in and go anywhere. Downing Street is worried abou
t this killer coming here to attack the cabinet.”
“Where did this rumor come from?” I was skeptical and didn’t try to hide it. A deadly killer who could transform himself or herself into an invisible man and go anywhere and do anything? It sounded like some of the other myths about the “master race.”
“The French.”
“That explains it,” Adam said with a grin.
My father ignored him. “They’ve been chasing this phantom for the past two years. This person, who’s believed to be French, has murdered half a dozen influential refugees and French politicians sympathetic to stopping German rearmament.”
“Why have they not at least written up a description?” Adam asked.
“This person uses poisons or explosives and strikes at a distance. The killings have been clever.”
Our meals arrived and we turned our attention to our food. It was quite a while before I could ask, “If they have no idea who this person is, why do the French think he, or she, has come here?”
“The Sûreté found the supplier of explosives. A chemist with underworld connections. Once they found the right pressure to apply, the chemist admitted he had sold explosive chemicals to a French person who had bought extra for a trip ‘across the Channel for work.’ The chemist claimed he’d handed off the chemicals and received payment at a distance and couldn’t describe any identifying features.” My father’s expression was grim.
“I understand why Scotland Yard is worried about this killer coming here,” Adam said.
“Or this chemist could have said those things to throw the police off the scent,” I suggested.
“We’re keeping an open mind,” my father said.
I couldn’t picture my father having an open mind, but I kept that opinion to myself. “Has this killer ever been suspected of sneaking up behind someone and hitting them over the head like Elias was?”
“No. I agree that this killing has nothing in common with the murders committed by this assassin, but we need to keep the presence of a Nazi assassin in mind. Not you, Olivia,” my father added, “you’ve had quite enough to do with murder and with smuggling people out of Germany.”
“I still haven’t heard how you got involved with this murder,” Adam said to me.
I gave him a shortened version, leaving out the Duke of Marshburn and my fascination with Mimi Mareau’s fashions.
Adam stared at my father. “You can’t fault her for that. She had no way of knowing what she was walking into.”
“But once involved, I’m sure she and that publisher of hers will not only walk in further, but jump, skip, and run into the middle of this murder investigation.” My father finished his glass and poured himself more wine.
“That’s not fair.” I knew it was true, but becoming involved was my choice.
“Sir Henry has sent you to Germany twice. He’ll probably find a reason to send you there again to help out more of his late wife’s relatives and Elias’s relatives, too.” My father was glaring at me now.
“Elias’s killer is here in London. I don’t need to go anywhere, unless you want me to chase after an unknown German assassin.” I glared back at him.
The look of horror on his face was almost laughable. “I would never dream of sending you after a killer. And especially not to Germany.”
He’d been furious when I went to Nazi Germany and then occupied Austria for Sir Henry in an effort to get Esther’s mother’s family, and their valuables, out safely. Sir Henry had me on a hunt again, but this one was in London.
“This was no unknown German assassin,” I told him. “The man known as Elias turned his back on his killer. He knew him.”
“Any idea what the murder weapon was?” Adam asked me.
“No. There was nothing obvious in that basement that could have been used as a cosh. Whatever Elias was killed with, the killer took it away with him.”
“Or her,” my father added. “No murder weapon. No fingerprints. And the killer wasn’t seen. Sounds like the French assassin working for the Nazis to me.”
* * *
Adam and I spent the rest of the weekend lazing about my flat, eating out, going to the cinema, and one night we attended a party where we danced the night away. Once he left at noon on Sunday after a fond farewell, I knew I wouldn’t have long to wait before I heard from my father.
It took half an hour. I answered my phone, knowing whose voice would come out at me. “Olivia, get dressed. I’ll come around to pick you up for luncheon at the Greenbrier.”
That required something smarter than anything in my work wardrobe. I chose a lavender and gray outfit appropriate for tea with the queen. Well, if it was a very large tea party, and if I wouldn’t be noticed. I paired the frock with gray heels, a matching bag, and a hat with a turned-down brim designed to be worn tilted to one side.
Father picked me up in a taxi and we rode to the Greenbrier, the elegant restaurant and hotel that hadn’t changed since Edward VII frequented its private salons with Queen Alexandra—or with one or another of his many mistresses.
Once we were seated, the first words out of my father’s mouth were, “You need to straighten your hat.”
“It’s designed to be worn this way.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fashionable.”
“Seems a bit slovenly to me.” Then he turned his attention to the wine list and the menu.
We were almost at the end of the meal before he said, “I’ve set up a meeting for you with General Alford for this afternoon.”
“General Alford?” I blinked. The general was or had been Adam Redmond’s commanding officer, and Adam worked on clandestine matters. “Because of the body I found?”
“Because of where you found it.” My father then tasted his coffee and said, “This is quite good. They’ve always made good coffee here. Even during the war.”
It was obvious I wouldn’t get any more out of him. That left me drinking my tea while wondering what Adam would make of me visiting his sometime boss on a Sunday afternoon.
After we finished, we took a cab to the area of Whitehall, Whitehall Place, and Whitehall Court, the streets around the War Office. I hoped General Alford was more imaginative than the men who named the streets.
The general met us in the lobby, led us to a small ground-floor conference room, and offered us seats. The chairs were solid and straight-backed, guaranteeing no one would fall asleep during a meeting. “Now,” he began, “tell me about the place you found Elias’s body.”
“It was toward the back of the basement of the building at number 31, Old Burlington Street. The basement is being used for storage for finished frocks and costumes for a play and who knows what else.”
“Can you be more specific?”
I tried to picture details without remembering Elias’s body lying there. “There were some trunks against the wall opposite the outside door. They possibly contain fabric and other things Mimi might need for her business. The door to the outside leads to a flight of cement steps going up to the pavement. There is also a wooden staircase halfway between the trunks and the outside door leading upstairs inside the building.”
Looking over, I found Alford nodding as if I’d made myself clear.
“Was the door to the outside open or closed?” he asked.
“Closed.”
“Locked or unlocked?”
That stumped me for a moment. “I don’t know. I opened it from the inside without any difficulty, and I didn’t see a key, but I suppose I wouldn’t have needed one from the inside. The bolt was off.”
“Will you be going back to the dressmaker’s shop?”
Calling Mimi Mareau a dressmaker was like calling the king a member of the aristocracy, but I let it go. “I’m going there tomorrow afternoon for an article I’m writing for the Daily Premier.”
“Good. You’re an intelligent girl, Mrs. Denis. We want you to look around. Talk to the staff. See if any of them are acting suspiciously.”
�
��Don’t you have people who can do this?” It sounded like I was about to be used, and I found that very distasteful.
“No. You speak French fluently, you understand fashion, and you know a number of their customers from your time at school. You’re perfectly placed to do a little snooping.”
At that, my father sat forward, his eyes widening in anger or horror. “I don’t want my daughter snooping like some American private eye in the cinema. It’s dangerous. It’s unseemly.”
“I wouldn’t ask her if it weren’t necessary,” General Alford assured him.
“Why do you want me to snoop around?” If I was going to be used, I’d like to know why.
The general leaned forward slightly. “This is in the strictest confidence. Elias, not his real name, was helping us. He was providing up-to-the-minute intelligence.”
“Elias was a British spy?” And he was murdered in Mimi’s basement?
“Well, he was spying for us. Not quite officially. And his name was Josef Meirsohn.”
I found that hard to take in. “I thought this Elias, or Meirsohn, was smuggling Jews out of Germany.” At least that was what Sir Henry believed.
“He was. It was quid pro quo rather than a cash transaction. We’d let in his groups of refugees and he’d bring us intelligence. On this last trip, he told us a French assassin working for the Nazis was, or would soon be, in London and he had an idea of how to find this person. No one had been able to identify this French assassin before.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I blurted out the first thought to cross my mind. “So he smuggled people into Britain and had identified a French assassin. Where did you meet? Here at the War Office?” That would destroy any cover he might have.
“Of course not. We met at his hotel.” The general appeared annoyed that I would think the army would be so foolish.
“How did he plan to find this unidentified French assassin?” I expected to discover I would become the bait to set the trap.
“He said he hadn’t had any better luck identifying the assassin than the Sûreté had, but he’d learned this person would arrive in England and get in contact with an English nobleman. The nobleman would provide details of the assassin’s next attack.”
