Merlin at War

by Mark Ellis

  Meyer finished his drink and reached into one of the desk drawers. He took out the note he had made of the telephone conversation earlier with Anton. His poor, obsessed brother. How many times had he told him that it was best to forget the past and get on with life in the present? Anton was lucky enough to be well away from the war in New York. He had a pretty and loving young wife and had won the lottery. The lotto winnings would have set up the young couple nicely. They could have moved out to Long Island or Connecticut, bought themselves a little suburban house and started the family Ruth so fervently desired. Instead they were living in a dingy Manhattan apartment while, as Ruth had explained in her many desperate letters, the lotto money was being steadily frittered away on unnecessary legal fees and she was being turned into a demented shrew by Anton’s compulsive determination to set ancient wrongs to right.

  Meyer read over his notes. Anton wanted Felix to find out if the general manager of Enterprisas Simal, Alexander Pulos, was in London and, if so, why? Despite his better judgment, he felt obliged to help. He loved his brother even if he were mad. And this was just a question of information. He knew Sackville Bank was the affiliate of Enterprisas Simal in London. Presumably someone there would be able to provide the required answers. How to find that someone? He had a contact who worked in the City. A friend for whom he had done some favours. Rupert Vorster. Perhaps he knew someone at Sackville?

  Then again, if he got the information about Pulos, would that be enough for his brother? Would some sort of action be required? If Pulos was in London, would Anton want him to meet or do something to the man? That might not be so congenial. The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and sat up in his chair. He resolved to speculate no further. He would have a word with Vorster and see if he could help. He would pass what he learned to his brother, who could deal with it as he saw fit. That was all he would do. Felix Meyer had enough on his plate without having to worry about settling old scores, big as those scores might be.

  * * *

  WPC Robinson pressed the bell of the elegant end-of-terrace house just off Eaton Square. A young maid opened the door and invited her into a large marbled hallway. The telephone number BEL5468 on the Healy file had been unlisted but she now knew it belonged to this house. She had called the number an hour earlier, given her name and told the man who responded that she had urgent police business to discuss. Shortly after, a woman had come on the line and asked her the nature of that business. The constable had simply replied: “Bridget Healy.” There had been a moment’s silence before the woman, who had an authoritative voice with the hint of an Irish accent, told her to come to 14 Belgrave Place at two-thirty. She terminated the call before Robinson had a chance to ask her name.

  Robinson waited on an uncomfortable antique chair by the door. She was not kept there for long. The clatter of high heels on the marble staircase to Robinson’s left announced the arrival of a striking and expensively dressed young woman. Her hostess had high cheekbones, sparkling green eyes, a warm, full-lipped mouth and a long mane of chestnut hair. She wore a dazzling diamond-and-sapphire necklace with matching earrings. She looked like a film star and Robinson felt distinctly dowdy by comparison.

  “Constable Robinson?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Pleased to meet you, Miss…”

  “Mrs Lafontaine. Patricia Lafontaine. Please follow me.” Mrs Lafontaine led Robinson through double doors into a large drawing room, decorated in warm pastel shades of blue and yellow. As she walked ahead, Mrs Lafontaine’s coppery brown tresses swung in almost perfect equilibrium behind her.

  “Please be seated,” said the hostess as they reached two armchairs, furnished in eggshell-blue fabric and positioned either side of a small marble table. The room was filled with beautiful antiques and works of art and two Siamese cats lounged by a fireplace to their right.

  Mrs Lafontaine came straight to the point. “You mentioned Bridget Healy on the telephone. What have you to tell me of her?”

  “She is dead, I’m afraid.”

  Initially Mrs Lafontaine’s face registered no emotion but, after a moment’s silence, her mouth turned down and a large tear rolled from one eye, leaving a trail on her heavily powdered cheek.

  “I’m sorry. She was…”

  “My sister. My poor deluded sister. How did she die?”

  “She was pregnant. There was an attempted abortion. Mother and child died.”

  Mrs Lafontaine nodded and raised a finger to wipe away the teardrop.

  “A back-street abortion, was it?”

  Robinson nodded. “In a West End hotel, just off Oxford Street. We found her last Thursday. Three men were observed at the scene. One was the abortionist. We have identified him but not the other two. The abortionist is now himself dead.”

  Patricia Lafontaine looked away. “She was always stupid, just like my idiot brother. I knew she’d end up in a bad way.” She reached into a black box on a table to her right and withdrew a cigarette.

  “May I ask you when you last saw your sister?”

  Mrs Lafontaine lit her cigarette with an expensive-looking lighter. “About two months ago. I can’t remember the exact date. She came over from Ireland in January. Penniless, of course. Turned up on my doorstep looking for a bed and a contribution. Despite my better instincts, I let her in and allowed her to stay here for a while.”

  “How long was she here?”

  “She came in early January and left at the end of March.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “I had pretty much had enough of her by then but I suppose the main reason she left is that she found somewhere else to stay.”

  Robinson turned a page in her notebook. “And where was that?”

  Mrs Lafontaine uncrossed her long legs and reached out to drop ash into a nearby ashtray. “She never told me. Look, Constable, let me be completely candid. As you can probably tell, I didn’t really like my sister. I put her up out of a misconceived feeling of family loyalty. I let her have a spare room in the servants’ quarters, gave her a back-door key and £5 a week spending money as well as all the food and drink she wanted. I encouraged her to get a job but she made no effort to do so, as far as I am aware.

  “I saw as little of her as I could but my staff kept me posted on her comings and goings. According to them, during the first weeks of her stay she was out frequently during the day and infrequently at night. Gradually her daytime outings decreased and her nocturnal ones increased. Latterly, when she went out in the evening she seldom returned. I dined with her once or twice just before she disappeared. She drank a lot but remained tight-lipped about what she was getting up to. However, from a few passing remarks she made – and the fact that she seemed to have acquired some new items of jewellery – I deduced that she had found herself a man.”

  “Did you find out who that was?”

  “No.”

  “Did she say anything that might give us a clue?”

  Mrs Lafontaine closed her eyes in concentration for a moment. “She did mention going to the Ritz bar. Which one, I’m not sure. Said she’d been there a few times and liked it. The Ritz is the only place she mentioned.”

  “Any hints about what she got up to in the daytime?”

  “None. Got together with some of her Republican friends is my guess. For all I know my idiot brother might be over here, stirring up trouble. I assume from the fact that you have tracked me down that you know all about our family?”

  “If you mean do we know of your sister’s and brother’s suspected involvement with the IRA, the answer is yes.”

  “Suspected, my foot!” Mrs Lafontaine snorted a mirthless laugh.

  “Did Mr Lafontaine ever have conversations with your sister?”

  “There is no Mr Lafontaine, Constable. I am a widow.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “You needn’t be. He lived to be 82. He had a long and enjoyable life. His wealth provided him with many beautiful and desirable things, right up until his swift and pain
less end. I was one of those beautiful and desirable things.”

  She registered Robinson’s look of surprise. “You don’t move from a two-room shack in County Wexford with only a bucket to do your business in to somewhere like this…” she waved a hand at their opulent surroundings “without making some sacrifices. I sacrificed myself in marriage to an ancient French businessman. There are greater sacrifices, I can assure you. Marcel was spectacularly rich, charming, intelligent and attentive. Of course, as a man in his late 70s there were downsides but, all in all, it was a bargain worth making. Look at me now. He disowned his only son, had no other living relatives and left it all to me.”

  “What was your husband’s business?”

  Mrs Lafontaine extinguished her half-smoked cigarette. “He was an arms dealer. The 30s were, of course, pretty good for arms dealers. He sold to all and sundry, including the fellow with the moustache in Berlin.” She smiled wryly. “I assure you he never did anything illegal. All licensed and above board. My husband had the very best of contacts. He dined with the likes of Mr Chamberlain and Mr Baldwin.”

  “Back to your sister. Did she leave any of her belongings here when she moved out?”

  “I don’t think so. You are welcome to look at her room if you want.”

  “Do you have a photograph of Bridget?”

  Mrs Lafontaine thought for a moment before she rose and walked over to a large bureau at the other end of the room. She looked in several drawers before finding what she was looking for and returning to her chair.

  “This is the best I can do. Bridget is on the left.” The black-and-white photograph she held showed two pretty and cheerful young girls in Trafalgar Square with the base of Nelson’s Column and fluttering pigeons in the background. Bridget was darker than her sister, with almost Latin looks. Her hair was cut short. Like her sister she was very pretty but in a different way.

  “She came to visit me once before in London, a few years ago, just after I arrived here. I was 18, she was 16. She was different then, before Finian got his claws into her. I was in digs in Lambeth and she stayed with me for a week in the summer. We had a laugh.” Suddenly, Mrs Lafontaine’s eyes began to fill. She put both hands to her mouth but couldn’t prevent a couple of strangled sobs escaping. She bent over and began to weep. Robinson hurried over to her but was waved away. After an awkward minute or two, Mrs Lafontaine got up and ran out of the room.

  Robinson remained in her chair for a few minutes, not knowing quite what to do. Then a man appeared at the door. “I am Simms the butler. Mrs Lafontaine has asked me to show you her sister’s room, miss. If you’d care to follow me.”

  * * *

  “Bletchley, sir.”

  “Bletchley? What about Bletchley?” Merlin raised his eyes from a turgid paper on new police security procedures the AC had insisted he read.

  “Bletchley is where de Metz went. The railway ticket, sir.”

  “Are you sure? How did you work it out?”

  “You remember we had half a ticket.” Bridges put the ticket on the desk. “We have the letters B and L, the rest having disappeared with the other half of the ticket. We also have the train time – 11.23 – and then we have the colour of the ticket, which is red.”

  “Yes.”

  “Different railway companies use different colours for their tickets. There are a few railway companies that use red tickets but obviously we can eliminate those that don’t. Taking stations within an 80-mile radius of London that begin with BL and that are served by railway companies that issue red tickets, there are three results. However, if you add the 11.23 departure time, there is only one.”

  “Bletchley.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well done. So what do we know about Bletchley?”

  “Small Buckinghamshire market town about 50 miles from London. A busy railway junction. Pleasant place.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been there.”

  “As soon as I worked out that Bletchley was the place we were looking for, I got a taxi to St Pancras and caught a train. The journey takes about an hour. I interviewed the station manager and a couple of clerks, had a quick look round then caught a return train.”

  “Very resourceful, Sergeant. Get anything useful?”

  “A positive identification of de Metz. I described him to the younger of the clerks, a Mr Whitby. He remembered someone of that description coming to his booth and asking for directions to Bletchley Park. Said the man had a foreign accent. A few hours later, he saw him waiting for the return train to London. Whitby observed that there had been quite a few foreigners travelling to Bletchley in recent months.”

  “What is Bletchley Park?”

  “According to Whitby, it’s a large Victorian house not far from the station. It’s not a private residence and no-one knows for certain who occupies it. The gossip in the town is that it houses some branch of the civil service.”

  “A place of safety out of town for some London department?”

  “Very possibly, sir.”

  “I wonder what de Metz wanted there?”

  Merlin’s cuckoo clock came to life and announced that it was five o’clock. “Goodness, is that the time? Eddie Powell will be here any second.” There was a tap on the door and there he was. Bridges nodded to the visitor before slipping out of the room.

  “Sit down please, Eddie. Cup of tea? Or perhaps something stronger?” Merlin pointed to the bottle of J&B whisky on the shelf beneath the clock.

  “No thanks, Frank. I shan’t stay long as after this I’ve got to go and speak to Celia. I’d better have a clear head for that.”

  “She’s reappeared then?”

  “Yes, wanting money, of course. But let’s not talk about her. Is that a young me I see in that picture?”

  “It is.” On the wall behind Merlin was a photograph of the 1924 Metropolitan Police football team. Merlin walked over to the black-and-white print and pointed out a dark-haired young man at the back on the right. “That’s me.” He pointed to a curly-haired man three places along. “And that’s you.”

  Powell laughed. “You’ve aged a lot better than me, Frank. That would be the year after we left the Police Academy, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes. A year or so before you left the force.”

  Powell gave a regretful shake of the head. “If we could only turn back time and make our decisions again. I liked being a policeman. It was just Celia…”

  Merlin nodded sympathetically. “Have you got the letter?”

  Powell produced a blood-spattered white envelope. Merlin picked it up and felt its weight. “Quite light. One sheet?”

  “Feels like it.”

  Merlin reached into one of his desk drawers and found his reading glasses. He studied the inscription on the envelope carefully before setting it down. “As you said. ‘Give to my s…’ The pencil mark falls away abruptly after the S and could be any letter. So you have to decide who the S is. The first candidate must be the son you mentioned. Philip, wasn’t it?’

  “Yes.”

  “Then there was a sister.”

  “Lucinda.”

  “Candidate two. Did he have a secretary?

  “He did have one for many years, someone close very close to him, but she died two years ago. There was no specific replacement, I was told.”

  “And then there must be a solicitor?”

  “Reginald Tomlinson of Titmus, Travers and Tomlinson. A well respected City firm.”

  “No doubt.” Merlin removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “Sweetheart?”

  “He didn’t strike me as the sort of man to address a letter to a ‘sweetheart’. It’s possible but not likely, I think.”

  “Well, let’s just say you have three prime candidates – son, sister, solicitor. For what it’s worth, I discussed the matter briefly with my boss, the assistant commissioner. I don’t think you ever knew Edward Gatehouse, did you?”

  “No. After my time. What did he say?”

  “Exactly what
would you’d expect from a seasoned bureaucrat. He said you should give the letter to Arbuthnot’s solicitor. It’s possible the family members might have conflicting interests. If the letter went to the sister when it was meant to go to the son, the son’s interests might be compromised in some way contrary to Arbuthnot’s wishes. And vice versa. You have to take a pretty cynical view of human nature to contemplate that but lawyers have to deal with such possibilities all the time, I suppose.

  “The AC said it was reasonable to presume the solicitor would be independent and fair and would wish to ensure that his client’s wishes were fulfilled, even if it turned out that the solicitor himself were not the intended recipient.”

  “Of course, that is the most obvious answer, Frank, but there was something about the intense way he looked at me. Something that suggested the letter was more than just a routine letter for his solicitor.”

  “The man was dying, Eddie. Chances are his intensity was more to do with that, don’t you think?”

  Powell nodded, picked up the letter and got to his feet. “You are right, of course. I’ll make an appointment with the lawyer and hand the letter over and that will be an end to it. Thank you for the advice. I don’t know why I allowed myself to get into quite such a dither.”

  “You had a hellish time in Crete, Eddie, and on top of that you returned home to find yourself with nasty personal problems. No surprise if you found yourself a little off-kilter. Just remember I’m here if you want to talk to someone. Come round to the flat one night to meet Sonia. She could cook for us or we could go out together for a bite to eat.”

  “That would be lovely. Thanks, Frank. You are too kind. Just let me sort this and Celia out and I’ll telephone you in a few days.”

  After the door closed, Merlin found himself eyeing the bottle of J&B again. It had been a long day. He poured himself a glass.

  * * *

  “Thank you, Brightwell. Very illuminating. I’d be grateful if you could keep all this to yourself at the moment while I consider the appropriate action.”