The German Agent

by J Sydney Jones

  The lady looked the young fellow up and down with an appraising eye and said, ‘You should be there making it happen, is what I think.’

  She winked at Max when she noticed him. ‘What do you say? You think Sergei belongs in Petersburg or here?’

  Max shrugged. ‘Long ago I gave up such advice. Only Sergei can know that. What will happen will happen.’

  ‘A fatalist,’ she said merrily, rubbing her hands together.

  Meanwhile Sergei beat a hasty retreat to a corner chair where he took up reading an English edition of Marx’s Das Kapital.

  ‘Lots of textbook revolutionaries about,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe what is intended to happen will happen with or without our intervention.’

  The library, the former dining room of the house, was a small chilly room with a bay window.

  ‘I’m Annie McBride,’ she said, getting up and shaking Max’s hand with a firm grip.

  ‘Voetner,’ he said. ‘Maximillian Voetner, representative of the Union of South Africa to the league. I need a room for a few days.’

  ‘You’re welcome here, Mr Voetner. Even if you are a fatalist.’

  Max could see his breath as he spoke. ‘Such a philosophy does not rule out direct action. Neither does it prescribe it.’

  She sighed. ‘If my John had thought that way, he might be with us today.’

  She sat again, a sadness coming over her. ‘My son, you see. Died ten years ago this very day. He was a union organizer, a Wobbly, in the Virginia coalfields. There was an accident, they said. A cave-in while John was on an inspection tour. A handy accident for the company, as it turned out. It broke the union, did John’s death. Ten years ago today.’

  She looked up at Max again quite suddenly, a film of moisture in her eyes. ‘It’s a bit of a coincidence you coming here today, Mr Voetner. You see, you’re a dead ringer for John. That is, if you had twenty more pounds and a few more inches of hair. John was very particular about his hair. Brushed it fifty strokes each night. His one bit of vanity. I used to tease him about it.’

  She looked down at the table, cutting her eyes from Max. The young Russian left, giving them both a curt nod of his head. Mrs McBride did not even notice his departure. They were now alone in the chill precincts of the tiny library.

  So I remind her of her son, he thought. That makes things easier.

  She looked him up and down a moment, her sadness turning to sudden shrewdness as she sat up straight in her chair.

  ‘You know, Mr Voetner, you seem a pleasant fellow. And there is something about you that reminds me of my son, that’s true. But you really should wear a bulkier jacket if you are going to carry a weapon. It bulges unseemly like under your left arm. And I ask myself, what does a fellow who says he is representing the Union of South Africa at the World Peace League need a gun for? And, being a British dominion still, I wonder also why the Union of South Africa would be sending a Boer – by the sound of your accent – instead of a good Oxford-educated boyo. And I decide that maybe he is not being altogether straightforward with me. I decide that maybe he is in Washington for some entirely different reason than meeting other Peace League members or doing research in the Library of Congress. Am I right?’

  ‘You may be,’ he said, beginning now to think that he had grossly misjudged the cunning of Mrs McBride, feeling the sweat break out on the back of his neck. Will I need to kill her? Is she a threat? What will I do with the body?

  She paused for a moment, searching his face. Finally: ‘I am a great believer in faces, Mr Voetner, or whatever your name is. And I like yours: I see a kind of purity in it, as well as pain. Not for you the happy, easy life, I think. And that’s like my John, too. None of the simple pleasures of hearth and home for men like you. Are you out to do mischief, Mr Voetner?’

  ‘No.’ He said it simply, honestly. There was no need for subterfuge with this question. ‘I’m out to prevent mischief on a grand scale.’

  He did not want to kill her, but knew he would if he had to. There were many things he did not want to do, but would in order to complete this mission.

  ‘But then –’ he spread his hands in a shrug – ‘I can’t expect you to believe that.’

  ‘Oh, yes you can. And I do. Provisionally.’

  Max thanked her. He was, with one part of his mind, quite unable to believe his good luck; with the other, suspicious of her still. Yet there are times when you have to play the odds, he told himself; when you have to gamble on a person. This is one such time. He felt his body begin to relax.

  ‘And I think I might have one of John’s old jackets for you, as well,’ she said. ‘Something a wee bit bulkier. He had need of the extra roominess, like you.’

  They sat at dinner in formal attire, the eight-foot expanse of the rosewood dining table separating them. Sèvres china and Lobmeyr crystal delimited their place settings; off-white candles burning in the silver candelabras.

  Mrs Greer, the cook, had excelled herself, Fitzgerald thought. She’d prepared a delicious consommé. Thomas, in white gloves, was taking the soup tureen away and glanced reprovingly at Catherine for not eating hers.

  Catherine’s eyes went to the candelabra on the table, following the candles’ flames as they danced in the draft of air created by Thomas’s departure.

  ‘You seem particularly introspective tonight, dear,’ Fitzgerald said, now they were alone again. ‘Any reason?’

  She looked up at him with a gaze clearly distant. ‘I’m sorry. What were you saying?’

  ‘Introspective. Speculating upon something. You’re being awfully secretive about your photo session today. Whatever are you working on? Portraits of Washington’s monuments?’

  Her mouth formed a sardonic grin as she answered, ‘Yes, Edward. Washington’s monuments. It should be an interesting series.’

  Her expression bore the same sort of ironic grin that Bateson, his history master at Groton used to wear when he, Fitzgerald, would ask a particularly naive or thick question vis-à-vis global politics and political motivation. She’s hiding something from me, he knew. It’s unlike Catherine to play this sort of game; ergo it must be important. It must be something she needs to keep to herself. She’ll share it with me when and if she’s ready. ‘In the fullness of time,’ as Bateson was so fond of saying, rubbing the bridge of his nose where his glasses rested, as he did so. Fitzgerald inwardly shrugged at the memory.

  ‘Actually,’ she went on, smiling at him now, ‘I was thinking of poor Uncle Adrian.’

  Fitzgerald nodded. This is as difficult on Catherine as it is on us all, he thought, putting on a jovial air. ‘Poor Uncle Adrian, my foot. The man’s in the lap of luxury. A suite of rooms on the top floor of one of Washington’s finest hostelries; handmaids, in the guise of police detectives, at his beck and call round the clock; caviar upon request. Why, the old boy’s got it made. When I left him, he was already impressing one of the detectives with tall tales of his mission to Baghdad in ’88.’

  ‘He must be frightened beyond belief.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fitzgerald said, putting aside the merry facade. ‘He is that, as well. But Adrian’s a resourceful fellow. And he’s been in worse situations than this, I can assure you.’

  ‘He has? Why haven’t I ever heard of them?’

  ‘Well, government business, you know. He cannot very well go spreading it about.’

  ‘Telling his niece would hardly be considered spreading it about, would it?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—’

  Thomas entered with the saddle of lamb and mint sauce, catching the last words as he did so. Then they had to sit through Thomas’s slow and laborious cutting of the lamb and serving it, and all the while Fitzgerald was trying to determine what was bothering Catherine. It seemed much more than simple concern for her uncle. Like a child, he felt her concern: when Catherine was sad, so was he.

  I take so many of my moods from her, he suddenly realized.

  It seemed to Fitzgerald that Tho
mas was deliberately taking longer than required, but when finally he had served the meat and departed Fitzgerald went back to the matter at hand.

  ‘What is it, Catherine? Please tell me.’

  She lay down her silver and faced him with a determined chin across the length of the table.

  She looks damned lovely in candle light, Fitzgerald thought.

  ‘All right,’ she said emphatically. ‘I’ll tell you what’s bothering me. Why is it you haven’t told me what this is all about? Why is it I have no idea what Uncle Adrian wants to talk to President Wilson about? Why is it I can be trusted to risk my life for him, yet not trusted enough to be told for what purpose?’

  Fitzgerald looked at her with infinite fondness and compassion. She’s right, he thought. Absolutely right. ‘I apologize, dear. Truly I do. There is no excuse, other than that we were trying to protect you.’

  ‘Protect me!’

  Thomas poked his head in the door. ‘Did you call, Miss?’

  ‘No, Thomas,’ Fitzgerald answered angrily.

  Thomas’s eyes went to Catherine and she nodded for him to be off.

  ‘Yes,’ Fitzgerald continued, ‘a rather outmoded idea in the twentieth century, I’m sure. But neither of us wanted you to be overly concerned. You must forgive us; both Adrian and I are products of another century, I’m afraid. Of a time when ladies were hothouse species, to be kept in blissful ignorance of such male domains as politics and finance. This is not an excuse, but an explanation.’

  ‘But you don’t want an orchid sitting across from you at dinner, do you, Edward? Nor in bed next to you?’

  The last comment took them both aback momentarily; Catherine flushed after the words escaped her mouth, as if she had not intended them.

  ‘No, I do not,’ Fitzgerald said finally, feeling that they were on the threshold of real honesty with one another for the first time in their marriage. The thought both thrilled and frightened him.

  ‘Well, then, why don’t we begin by you telling me exactly what Uncle Adrian is up to? I promise I won’t swoon.’

  And so he did; he told her about the Zimmermann telegram and the desperate need to mobilize the country for war against Germany before she conquered the Allies and was able to encircle America.

  Catherine listened patiently, not interrupting, and when finally she asked a question, it went right to the heart of the matter, Fitzgerald noticed.

  ‘Is it for real? The telegram, I mean?’

  ‘I’m not so sure that matters, actually. The important thing is that Wilson receives it from Adrian, one Englishman whom he trusts. That will give it cachet enough. That will seal the fate of the anti-war parties.’

  ‘But my God, Edward. If the telegram isn’t genuine, then it would all be a lie, a mere pretext.’

  He began to wonder about his decision for forthrightness. I should have foreseen such a reaction, he thought: that of someone unaccustomed to the uglier side of politics. He began to back off on his statement.

  ‘It’s genuine. Of that I’m sure.’ Though he was not at all.

  ‘But how did they ever get their hands on it?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Catherine. If it were simply on my head, I would. But Adrian has strictly forbidden me to discuss that with anyone, even you.’

  She sat rigidly in her chair. ‘Fine. So much for trust, then.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘You needn’t be. I’m such a delicate little creature, such an ant brain, that such things would go right over my head, anyway. It must be my female inadequacy that makes the whole affair seem tawdry and deceitful. Uncle Adrian has come to America to scare the president into going to war with Germany because of some ridiculous telegram that the German foreign minister purportedly sent to Mexico, enlisting that country’s aid against the US in case of war. We’re supposed to believe that it’s genuine in spite of not knowing how the British got their hands on such a compromising bit of diplomacy. And moreover, on the strength of this mythical scrap of paper, we’re to send thousands of American boys over to France and Belgium to die in the mud.’

  ‘I had no idea you felt so strongly, Catherine. No one likes war, but there may be no way to avoid this one. We may be able to put it off for a few years, but not avoid it.’

  ‘Is that what the diplomats say? But then diplomats never fight in wars, do they?’

  The comment stung him, being a former diplomat.

  ‘I’m sorry, Edward. I know you’re not being cavalier about this. I’ve watched you deliberate and agonize over this for almost three years. You honestly believe that war is inevitable. And so did I, for a time. I even thought it was a glorious event at first. A nineteenth century cavalry charge, sabers drawn. I’m not so sure, anymore. This is the age of mechanized war; of tanks not horses. There’s nothing glorious about war, nothing romantic.’

  He had never heard her speak so eloquently before; had not, more is the pity, realized her capable of it. Though she disagreed with him, he was proud of her; proud as a father might be of a precocious child announcing its independence in matters of the intellect.

  ‘I could not agree with you more,’ he said. ‘And perhaps, by fighting this hideous war, the entire world will come to its senses. Perhaps we shall all see the futility of war, now that it’s stripped of any vestige of romance. The trenches are the metaphor for this war, not crimson trousers and black plumes blowing in the morning breeze.’

  ‘Yet meanwhile you’re willing to enlist America into this global insanity.’

  ‘For our country’s ultimate good, yes. What is right and just cannot always be defended by logic or reason.’

  ‘Well, I thank you for at least telling me about this telegram. I understand now why an assassin would be out to kill Adrian. He might very well be the most important target in the world at this moment.’

  They ate for a time in silence; the lamb had long since cooled off. Neither of them had much of an appetite.

  We were so close to another kind of honesty with each other, Fitzgerald thought regretfully as they got up to leave the dining room for brandy in the music room. Catherine’s comment about him not wanting a hothouse plant in bed had hit home; it had opened doors, however, that were immediately closed when the conversation returned to things political. Damn politics, he thought.

  Try as he might, there was no retrieving the intimacy so close to being established over dinner. It seemed their comments had driven them further apart rather than closer together.

  Catherine took up reading an article in the latest Scribner’s magazine, and Edward worked on the page proofs for his book, so that he did not have time to worry about Adrian and the assassin, nor about Catherine and her new-found independence and distance from him.

  They retired early that night; Catherine was asleep by the time Fitzgerald came to bed.

  EIGHT

  By eight a.m. on Thursday Max had set up watch at Poplars, having borrowed Mrs McBride’s electric car to enable him to follow anybody leaving the house. Keeping an eye on the Fitzgerald house was an easier affair now that the police had gone. No reason for them at Poplars any longer, he thought.

  At eleven thirty Fitzgerald came out the drive at the wheel of a long Cadillac. Max followed, keeping a half block behind him as Fitzgerald drove east on Massachusetts Avenue; there was no problem keeping up with the big car in town, especially with the snowy condition of the roads.

  If he goes out of town with it I’m lost, he knew. There’s no way I can keep up with his twelve-cylinders on the open roads; not in this electric car.

  But Max’s luck held. Fitzgerald went through Lafayette Square and past the Treasury Building onto Pennsylvania Avenue and then pulled to a stop at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Max parked a half block away and stayed in the car, watching Fitzgerald through his rear-view mirror as he got out of his car and crossed the street to enter a tall corner building.

  ‘New Willard Hotel’, the sign said over the pillar
ed entrance.

  A little more than an hour later, Fitzgerald re-emerged from the hotel, crossed the street once more to his car, started it and then drove off, checking over his shoulder as he did so. The Cadillac passed Max’s parked car, shifting into second.

  Max got out of his car, a smile on his face. He surveyed the tall building down the street from him: twelve stories, he counted, newish in construction, though it aped French Renaissance in style, with a row of two-story Doric columns in front, and a cupola along with mansard roofs on the top floor. It was a massive structure, he saw as he walked toward it. Quite the largest building around, filling the entire block along 14th Street to F Street, and fronting half a block of Pennsylvania Avenue, as well. There was a steady stream of people going in and out of the place, and two liveried doormen stood at the front entrance.

  Max stayed on the south side of the avenue, across from the entrance, as he strolled idly along, looking in store windows and examining the hotel across the street in their reflection.

  Ten minutes of such surreptitious watching told him the place was bristling with police: two at each corner of the building on Pennsylvania Avenue, another pair at the door itself. Plainclothes, all of them, but unmistakably police. How many more inside? This was confirmation and challenge, all in one. Police presence means it’s fairly certain that Appleby is here, he knew. But it also means that it will be extremely difficult to get to him.

  Max knew that this would take time. He had agreed to get Mrs McBride’s car back to her this afternoon. It seemed absurd, he knew, in light of what he was planning that he should be concerned with this triviality. Yet he had no desire to implicate the woman in this, and if he were caught in her car, she would be. The car had served its purpose, anyway. It could not go fast enough to be a getaway vehicle. So he returned it to Georgetown, taking a streetcar back to his watch post later that afternoon.

  He kept watch on the front of the hotel for a couple of hours, careful not to draw attention to himself as he did so. He was looking for patterns, schedules, something to give him a framework upon which to build a plan of action. The police in front never budged; there were no relief officers during this time; no regular patrolling of the block. Just sitting tight, they were.