Merlin at War

by Mark Ellis

  “My gut feel is that he was a straight shooter. Well educated sort of fellow. Not your average chauffeur. I think the constable agrees.” Robinson nodded.

  “All right. Now tell me about your visit to the Ritz.”

  “Well, we hit gold straightaway with a barman we spoke to in the upstairs bar. He recognised Bridget from her photograph and said he’d seen her in the bar several times, always with a crowd of people.”

  “Any names?”

  “No.”

  “Civilians or military? Men or women?”

  “A mixed bunch mostly.”

  “And the military men, what nationality?”

  “Some British, some Canadian, some French, some he wasn’t sure.”

  “Would he recognise any of them?”

  “He said he’d try if we went to the bar in the evening and any turned up. Said, if he remembered correctly, the lady and her crowd were usually latecomers, arriving after ten.”

  “Well, it seems we’ll have to endure an evening in the Ritz. Tonight, I think. Friday night is my delight. I’ll have a think about what numbers we go in.”

  * * *

  The same café. The same time of day. The only difference this time was that Rougemont had not troubled to get himself a shoeshine. As before, there were only two other customers when the captain joined his spy.

  “Nice day.”

  “Some improvement. What do you have for me?”

  “A couple of things. The British police visited Carlton Gardens yesterday.”

  “Did they?”

  “I don’t know who they met.”

  “Don’t worry, I can find out.” The captain added some sugar to his tea. Normally he took it without but this morning he felt the need for something sweet. Probably something to do with the plentiful cheap champagne he had drunk with the commandant the night before. He had unwisely agreed to accompany Angers on a double date with his two English showgirls. After watching the girls in their revue, they had all gone on to a club in Soho. He had not taken to the girl Angers had allocated to him and had drunk too much in compensation. That was the first and last time he’d do that for the commandant. “What else?”

  “I can give you the identity of the civilian your officers met in the park.”

  “Yes?”

  “A fellow called Vorster. Rupert Vorster. He was the man who met with Beaulieu, Dumont and Meyer.”

  “And who is Vorster? How did you identify him?”

  “Beaulieu is away, as you know, so…”

  “I checked out his story by the way. He turned up at Oxford as planned. The fellow Beaulieu’s been visiting is whiter than white.”

  “Very well. So the two other officers I’m tailing met up with Vorster again, this time for drinks in a St James’s pub. Another customer called out Vorster’s name. It was noisy but I could hear Vorster’s response. He has a South African accent – I shared digs with someone from Cape Town once and recognised it. I didn’t hear anything of particular interest. They seemed to be talking about mining companies and the stock market mostly. After a while, they all moved on to the Ritz. I followed but wasn’t really dressed for the place. I stood outside until 11 o’clock then called it a day. I did see one other thing, by way of coincidence.”

  “Yes?”

  “I saw your boss go into the Ritz as I was leaving.”

  “Angers?”

  “No, the colonel.”

  “Aubertin?”

  “You’ve never introduced me but I’ve seen him with you and Angers from afar. Yes, Aubertin.”

  “Well, he likes to enjoy himself as much as the next man.”

  “Perhaps he was meeting up with the other two?”

  Rougemont frowned. Could that be possible? Would there really be anything wrong with that, if he did?

  “Or perhaps he has decided to do a little investigating of his own?”

  “Perhaps, Mr Harp, but probably meeting up with another friend, I should think. Anything else?”

  Devlin shook his head. “I followed the two men in alternating blocks of four or five hours. Most of the time they were both at the office. Meyer went out somewhere around lunchtime yesterday but my time was allotted to Dumont then. Then there was the meeting with Vorster. Nothing else of note except that Dumont appears to have a girlfriend, who visited him in his digs on Wednesday night.”

  “Hmm. Very well, let’s keep it up with the three of them for a few more days. You needn’t worry about Meyer for the rest of the morning as I’m going out riding with him. Maybe I’ll learn something more. You don’t mind working the weekend, I suppose?”

  “Not as long as I get a weekend rate, Captain.”

  * * *

  “Felix, is that you? It’s Rupert here. I’ve found your Greek for you.”

  Meyer had just returned to his office when the phone rang. He had enjoyed his ride with Rougemont in Hyde Park. He was a reasonably accomplished, if rusty, horseman. The captain’s purpose in inviting him did not seem, in retrospect, to be purely social. In between pleasantries and military gossip, Rougemont had interrogated him on several subjects. He had asked about Meyer’s own background, about what he knew of Beaulieu and Dumont, about Vorster, whose name he somehow knew, and had been particularly inquisitive when Meyer said he had spoken to the police on their visit to Carlton Gardens. He had been open in his answers on all these matters, saving his family background. The story of his family’s decline and the events precipitating it were still, he believed, a secret to his fellow officers and he intended to keep it that way.

  “Thank you, Rupert.” Meyer looked out at the sunlit back garden, where two blackbirds were noisily squabbling over a worm. “Where is he, then?”

  “He’s at the Ritz hotel. Got in from Argentina yesterday. Word is, according to Philip Arbuthnot and others, that the main players in the Arbuthnot business empire will be meeting in London to discuss the ramifications of Simon’s death and the management succession. Despite his lack of experience, Philip wants the top job. He says it’s his due. However, he thinks there may be some difficulties to overcome but wasn’t forthcoming as to what those might be.

  “Pulos runs the South American part of the business. It’s natural that he should participate in the management discussions although Philip was surprised that he had risked the journey. Anyway, I don’t have Pulos’s room number at the Ritz but it may interest you to know that the new chairman of Sackville Bank, Sidney Fleming, lives permanently in a suite there. Now is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “No. I’m very grateful, Rupert. Thank you.” Meyer put the receiver down and sat pensively at his desk. He would try to get hold of his brother later and pass on his news. Would that be all he should do? Or should he venture a meeting? In the changed circumstances, perhaps there was something to be gained from a face-to-face encounter with Pulos, or maybe even Fleming. He would see what Anton said. Meanwhile, there was work to be done. He had the latest cables from Syria and Lebanon to review and analyse. He also had a new summary of the proposed Special Operations Executive operations. He pulled his in-tray towards him, removed the top file and began to read.

  * * *

  Philip Arbuthnot had spent Wednesday afternoon and much of Thursday carrying out a thorough search of his father’s flat with the help of Mavis, the live-in housekeeper, who had all the necessary keys and combinations. He had not found what he was looking for. The new will and bearer certificates remained lost.

  The study safe had been empty, save for a photograph of his father as a young man in tennis kit with his arm around the shoulder of a pretty young dark-haired woman. His father’s desk had contained little more than routine bills and useless bric-a-brac. There had been, though, a mildly intriguing sheet of paper with a pencilled list of numbers and two initials. Philip had recognised his father’s hand and, before pocketing the note, had wondered briefly who or what PB was. Now, on Friday morning, as he sat in his kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, he began studying it agai
n.

  Apart from Mavis, he hadn’t seen anyone since his lunch with Tomlinson on Wednesday. The girls had been ringing incessantly but he hadn’t been in the mood. He’d chatted with Rupert a couple of times but had declined his suggestion of a drink. It had taken a few days but the true emotional impact of his father’s death had at last hit home. His initial shameful feelings of relief had given way to others more natural on the death of a loved one.

  Despite the recent strains in their relationship, Philip fully recognised that father and son had dearly loved one another. They had probably been closest and got on best during Philip’s mid-teens, a time when fathers and sons often rub each other up the wrong way. Philip remembered a fishing trip to Scotland, when his normally unemotional father had seemed on the brink of confiding something of momentous impact to his son.

  “I have some things to tell you, my boy. To tell you and no-one else,” his father had said as he cast a line on one of the best salmon fishing stands in Scotland. “I’d like to relieve my conscience and you’re the only one I can… I just hope you won’t lose respect for…” The words had tailed off and, although Philip had waited expectantly over dinner that night for them to be followed up, nothing more had been said.

  There had also been jolly trips to rugby matches, the pictures, to Wimbledon for the tennis and more. However, father and son had seen little of each other in the past couple of years and, while searching the flat, Philip had realised with a shock that he had very little idea of what his father had done with himself during that period. There had been many women in his life after his mother had died but Philip had the impression that his father’s interest in the opposite sex had waned in recent years. Mavis had told him that she wasn’t aware of a girlfriend since a year before the war had begun. She did say that his father was never home much in the evenings and she often heard him coming in very late.

  Who had he been with and what had he been doing? Fleming and Tomlinson had also remarked how little they had seen of him, in the office or out, in the months before he signed up. They had told Philip that he appeared to have been similarly reclusive with his wider circle of friends. It was a mystery.

  The kettle came to the boil and he made his tea. He returned to his chair and his father’s note. He ran his eyes over the sheet again.

  14123

  12917

  16421 PB

  9856

  13876

  17182

  What on earth were these numbers? To what did they refer? Perhaps he should ask his aunt.

  * * *

  Tomlinson was bemoaning to himself the loss of his Saturday morning golf game when Rupert Vorster appeared before him with some papers to sign. He gave them a cursory look then penned his signature with a flourish. “There are some more to come, aren’t there, Vorster? When will I get those?”

  “Later today, sir. Thank you.”

  Tomlinson’s secretary Sylvia popped her head through the door to tell him that Sidney Fleming was on the line.

  “All right. Oh, and Sylvia, can you pop out and get me some sandwiches for lunch? Any flavour will do as long as it’s not corned beef. Thanks. Put Fleming through, then. That will be all, Vorster.”

  Vorster backed out of the room as Tomlinson picked up the phone.

  “Sidney, hello. What can I do for you?”

  “Have you heard from Powell?”

  “Yes, he called earlier to say he’s busy with family commitments today but he’s happy to meet me here at 10.30 tomorrow to give me the letter. He’s buggered up my morning. I was in a foursome at the club.”

  “Well, this is just a little more important than golf, Reggie. It could give us the solution to some big problems. Perhaps Powell, contrary to what he said, has opened the letter and knows what’s in it. Perhaps he’s now the one who knows where the will and the certificates are.”

  “I very much doubt it, Sidney. He seems the honourable sort to me. However, I share your optimism. I very much hope the letter will direct us to the will and the bearer shares. That, in the circumstances, is what I would expect a final letter from Simon to me to address. But we must now wait until tomorrow morning to find out.”

  Outside Tomlinson’s door, where Vorster had taken advantage of the secretary’s temporary absence to listen in to this conversation, the sound of approaching steps could be heard on the stairs. He couldn’t risk staying longer and hurried away. Vorster was smiling, however, because he felt he’d heard what he needed to. Now he’d have to decide what to do with what he’d learned.

  Back in the office, the conversation continued. “I finally saw Pulos today, Reggie.”

  “How was he?”

  “A pain in the arse as usual. I’m going to convene a meeting at the bank tomorrow at noon. I’d like you there. Hopefully, you’ll have Simon’s letter by then. I’m not asking Philip. I think it might be best for just the three of us to meet at first.”

  Fleming could hear Tomlinson’s deep sigh at the other end of the line. “Very well. My Saturday is pretty much ruined anyway. By the way, Philip rang me this morning. He’s searched his father’s stuff for the will and shares. No luck. He did, however, find an odd scrap of paper. Some figures and initials. PB mean anything to you?”

  There was a brief silence before Fleming replied. “Does Philip still have the list or has he given it to you?”

  “He has it at his flat.”

  “I think I’d better pay him a visit tomorrow morning before our meeting.”

  * * *

  It was Merlin’s first time in the Reform Club but he could see instantly it was cast in a similar mould to the various other London gentlemen’s clubs he had been obliged to visit before in the course of his duties. He had never been able to understand the attraction of these gloomy places, where upper-class, middle-aged and elderly men hid themselves away behind rustling newspapers or dozed in dark rooms full of heavy leather armchairs splattered with cigar ash and drink stains.

  On leaving his taxi by the club entrance, Merlin had paused to survey the hole in the ground next door, which had once been the Junior Carlton Club. The Luftwaffe had obliterated it with a direct hit at the height of the Blitz the previous October. He had been entertained there only a month before its destruction by the eminent pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury. Investigating the murder of one of Sieczko’s fellow pilots, he had discussed causes of death with the man who had convicted the infamous Dr Crippen with his forensic evidence. Merlin had heard recently that Spilsbury had not borne the death of one of his sons in the Blitz well and had become a bit of a recluse. He was sorry because he liked and respected the man.

  His lunch companion was awaiting him in the lobby. Harold Swanton was a former police colleague of Merlin’s. When Merlin had been a young sergeant in 1934, Swanton had held his current rank and he had worked under Swanton for a year. The two men had got on well. Merlin had learned a good deal from Swanton or ‘Sparky’ as he had been known behind his back (owing to his keen interest and proficiency in electrical engineering and radio technology). It was this particular expertise that had attracted the attentions first of the Special Branch, where he had moved in 1936, and then of MI5, which had recruited him just before the outbreak of war.

  Everything about Swanton was big. A large-boned man in his mid-50s, his head was covered with a thick brush of greying brown hair. He had wide grey eyes, a prominent square chin and a bulbous nose. At six foot five he towered even over Merlin. The only small thing about him was the little moustache that took up a modest amount of space on his upper lip. He lumbered over to Merlin and shook his hand firmly. “Frank, my boy. How are you? It’s been too long.”

  Merlin realised with a jolt that they had last met at Alice’s funeral. Swanton looked just as he had in the Brompton Cemetery on that miserable day. Perhaps there were a few more flecks of grey in his moustache, perhaps a few more lines beneath those intelligent eyes.

  “You don’t look a day older, Harold. What are they feeding you over t
here in St James’s?”

  “They give us a special diet.” Swanton lowered his voice to a whisper. “Spy food. There’s this place called Porton Down. Most people in the know think it’s working on chemical weapons but in fact it’s making superfood for us. Not for those bastards at MI6, of course! They can poison them at will.” He shook with laughter. “Oh dear, there I go again. Letting my prejudices run away with me. Come on, Frank, this way. I’ve got a small private dining room organised. I believe rabbit is on the menu.”

  Merlin followed his old colleague out of the lobby and into the Coffee Room, which Swanton explained was the traditional name for the club restaurant, on through a door, down a corridor and finally into a small, wood-panelled room looking out on to an attractive garden. A dining table in the centre was laid for two. Swanton moved to a drinks cabinet at the side of the room and reached for the Bombay gin.

  “Gin and tonic, Frank?”

  “I shouldn’t really, Harold.”

  Swanton poured two stiff ones and shrugged. “Inter-service liaison meeting, Frank. Alcohol permitted, nay required, in such circumstances.” Merlin took the proffered glass.

  “Chin-chin.” They touched glasses and drank. Merlin grimaced.

  “Too weak for you, Chief Inspector Merlin. Shall I top it up?”

  Merlin put a hand over the glass and laughed. “No thanks, Harold. The opposite, as you well know.” The two men stood by the window and watched as a gardener mowed the lawn. A side-window was open and they savoured the fragrance of newly mown grass.

  “It’s still possible, isn’t it, Frank, to appreciate the joys of nature, despite all the terrible things that are going on and the dreadful danger in which our nation finds itself?”

  “Life goes on. Bees make honey. Spiders spin webs. Grass grows. Hitler can’t stop that.”