by Seb Spence
The question seemed to soften Grace. “He’s doing a bit better. He’s on some new medication now, and the doctors hope he will improve. Thank you for asking.” Grace looked at him for several seconds and then continued. “A couple of weeks after our last meeting, I was up in town and chanced to run into an old tutor of mine from Cambridge.” Grace had actually met him at one of the lunchtime concerts at the National Gallery. In the weeks after her break-up with Barton, she had gone to the lunchtime concerts on several occasions in the hope of seeing him there; but she did not feel like revealing this to him now. “He’s left Cambridge and is currently working for the Ministry of Labour. The conversation turned to the topic of employment, and he happened to mention that the Government is planning to introduce conscription for women soon. Single girls of my age are likely to be called up for the auxiliary services, or put to work in factories or on the land. In many cases, this may mean women moving to other locations. I need a job where I can stay at home to look after my father. Entertainment is a reserved occupation – if I’m a stage artist, they won’t direct me into these other jobs. There is plenty of entertainment work in and around London, so there should be no need for me to move away.
“Roy was desperate for an assistant,” she went on. “Since the Bramlington show, he asked me several times to join the act. At first, I kept turning him down, but after the conversation with my tutor, I decided to take up the offer. The work’s not too bad, I get a steady income, and I can stay with my father. Everyone benefits. So here I am, treading the boards.”
“What’s it like working with Miller? I get the impression he likes his drink.”
Grace shrugged. “He’s harmless enough. He does drink a fair bit, but most of the time he can handle it. I’m trying to get him to cut down, and I think he’s getting better.” Grace wanted to believe this, but deep down she doubted whether she was having much effect on him. It was true that since she had joined the act he drank less before each performance, but she suspected that to make up for this he consumed more afterwards, when he was outwith her watchful eye.
“So are you just here for the week?”
“That was the original plan, but the management have asked us to stay on for another three weeks. We seem to be going down quite well with the audiences.”
“Yes, the act is really good – I mean it. It’s improved a lot since Bramlington. I notice you’re more involved with the tricks yourself.”
“Yes, Roy’s very generous; he’s not one to hog the limelight.” In the first few weeks of their partnership, there had been some near disasters on the stage when Miller was too inebriated to work some of the tricks. In fact, the trick with the top hat and cane that she now did in the act had arisen from one of those moments. Miller had been too drunk on this occasion to work the mechanism for the cane, which consisted of a black telescopic tube with many joints and a strong spring in the centre. With the spring compressed, the telescopic structure collapsed to a few inches in length, easily concealable in a top hat. When the spring was released, it expanded rapidly, extending the telescope. That particular night, Miller had given up on it and passed the top hat onto Grace in exasperation, forgetting he needed the cane for the next trick. She had reached into the hat, sprung the cane and handed it to him. It had gone down well with the audience, who assumed this was all part of the act – the incompetent conjuror and his clever assistant.
“Well, Mr Barton, if that’s all, I need to finish changing: I’ve got a train to catch.”
He looked at her silently for a while and then came out with: “You didn’t reply to my letter.”
“I don’t think we should dredge up what’s in the past.”
“I just wanted to apologise again for what happened and–”
“There’s no need,” she interrupted. “I’ve forgiven you. I accept it wasn’t entirely your fault.”
“Then is there any chance we could–”
“No, Mr Barton,” she interrupted again, seeing where the conversation was leading. “Things have changed since we parted in Bramlington. We can’t go back and pick up where we left off. Now if you’ll please leave, I have to finish getting ready.” There was an air of finality in the request.
“Can I see you to your station?”
“Thanks, but that’s not necessary. I’m getting a lift straight to Victoria with one of the other performers.” She got up, walked by him to the door and then stood there, holding it open and watching him. It was a clear message that she wanted him to leave.
“Goodbye then, Grace. All the best with your act,” he said, pressing his lips into a feeble smile as he went out past her.
It looked to him as if this was really the end. Walking down the corridor towards the stage door exit, he wondered what these ‘changes’ were to which she referred. Was there an involvement with someone else? Miller perhaps?
#
As he sat on the Underground train back to Stanmore, mulling over his conversation with Grace, Barton’s glance happened to fall on a crumpled sheet of newspaper lying on the floor near his feet. He guessed it had been used to wrap someone’s fish and chips, for in places it bore the characteristic translucent stains of cooking fat. A headline caught his eye: ‘TWO ENEMY AGENTS EXECUTED’. He picked up the sheet and, trying to avoid the fat stains, gingerly smoothed it out on the seat next to him so that he could read the article:
“The Home Office has issued the following announcement:-
Two enemy agents, acting for the German intelligence services, were executed at Pentonville Prison yesterday, following their conviction under the Treachery Act 1940, at the Central Criminal Court on November 22nd ...
... They were caught in possession of a wireless transmitting set which they were to set up in fields at night, and also had a considerable sum of money in £1 notes. They had instructions to pose as refugees from enemy-occupied territories ...
... The wireless belonging to the two agents was contained in a small leather bag, about 8in by 8in, and was extremely light.”
The header at the top of the sheet indicated it was from an edition for Wednesday, December 11, 1940. Barton tried to remember what he had been doing around then and wondered how he could have missed a piece of news like this. He must have been up in Hednesford working on the case, he concluded.
There was a second sheet stuck to the first, fused to it by the chip fat. Barton peeled them apart and glanced through the rest of the articles on the two sheets to see what other news he might have missed, but there was nothing of interest to him. Near the bottom of one page, opposite a recruiting ad for the RAF, a section with theatre advertisements caught his eye and he scanned down the list:
Coliseum, Charing X, Aladdin ...
Wyndham’s, Diversion, Edith Evans, Joyce Grenfell ...
Bellevue, Affairs and Graces, Vivian Adair, Mitch Robertson, …
Non-Stop Revue, Windmill Theatre, Piccadilly Circus ...
Cobalt, he thought, might have been playing at any of these venues, and suddenly it occurred to him that perhaps Roy Miller and Grace could help him in tracking her down: if they were working the London circuit, they could tip him off if they came across any performers matching Cobalt’s description. He would, of course, have to warn them that she was dangerous and they should not engage with her, but provided they just alerted him without getting involved, they should not come to any harm. Besides, he thought, he could use this as an excuse to see Grace once more. Meeting her this evening had rekindled his interest, and despite the finality of their parting, he wanted to see her again.
When he got back to his billet, Barton gathered up all the recent newspapers lying around and began to go through them, circling the names of the theatres and music halls that lay within a few miles of Wilson’s Palace of Varieties. He decided he would spend tomorrow afternoon going round as many of them as he could, making his usual enquiries, and then would call in on Grace and Miller around 7pm to ask for their help in searching for Cobalt; they should ha
ve finished their act by that time. Accordingly, the following afternoon he informed his CO that he had once again been called away on ‘Air Ministry’ business and was expected to be absent for the rest of the day.
3.
Friday, 10th January, 1941, London
Although it was only 6pm, it was dark outside the Bellevue Theatre, or rather, it would have been were it not for the nearly full moon. Because the bombing raids were mainly at night now, the Bellevue’s management had taken the decision to put on only matinee performances, and the show had finished almost half an hour ago. The staff and performers were winding up, their day’s work now over.
Bob Mitchell came hurriedly into the dressing room that he shared with Elliott and DaSilva. He was carrying a pile of letters and seemed agitated. “Listen, this may not be significant, but I was just collecting our mail from the stage doorman – there was an RAF officer talking to him; he was asking questions about a brown-haired actress in her twenties.”
DaSilva was seated in front of a dressing table mirror, removing his make up. He looked toward Mitchell briefly but then turned back to the mirror, ignoring the remark. Elliott had already finished changing out of his stage gear and was sitting reading the latest copy of ‘Picture Post’, waiting for DaSilva to finish getting ready so that they could go for dinner. “It’s probably just some stage-door Johnny,” Elliott remarked, smiling reassuringly. “Some lonely serviceman looking for female company.”
“Yes, you’re probably right. It’s just that I remembered that other RAF snooper we had to deal with.”
DaSilva suddenly stopped swabbing off his make up and turned towards Mitchell. “Wait a minute, what does he look like, this RAF man?”
Mitchell shrugged. “They all look the same in uniform. He’s a Pilot Officer I think; medium height, dark hair, mid twenties I guess.”
“There was someone like that asking questions about a brown-haired girl when we were playing at the King’s a few weeks ago. I overheard him speaking to the doorman as I went out. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
The smile froze on Elliott’s face. He stood up straightaway, went over to the dressing table and, taking a key from his pocket, unlocked one of its drawers. He took out the small automatic that was concealed in a cigar box inside and slipped it into a side pocket of his jacket. “Just to be on the safe side, I think I will investigate our RAF friend,” he told them and walked smartly out of the dressing room.
By the time Elliott reached the stage-door box, the RAF man had left, but on going round into the street at the front of the theatre, he could just make out in the moonlight a figure in a raincoat and officer’s cap walking away from him, heading north in the direction of Oxford Street.
“Just as well the moon’s out,” he thought, as he set off swiftly after the receding figure, “tailing someone in the blackout could be tricky otherwise.” By the time his mark entered the Northern Line station at Goodge Street, Elliott had caught up to within 30 yards of him.
#
Suddenly, the lights in Barton’s carriage went out, and the tube train he was on came to a halt in the tunnel. Like Barton, most of the other passengers carried torches for the blackout and many were now brought out. He could glimpse faces down the carriage as beams momentarily flitted across them. A man sitting diagonally opposite him three or four seats away shone his torch directly at Barton for a few seconds, but when he held up his hand to shield his eyes the man swung it away.
The consensus view of the people round about Barton was that a raid must have started and had perhaps disrupted the electricity supply. “Looks like the power’s down,” someone observed. “Maybe the Lots Road generating station has been hit.” After a while, the guard appeared carrying a flashlight; he was walking up the train from carriage to carriage telling everyone to stay put and not to try to get out – the power could come back on at any minute. The passengers did not seem to be much worried. “Well, at least we’re safe from the bombs,” a man next to Barton remarked. Some people further down the carriage had started to sing one of the songs from a recent musical, ‘Me and my girl’: the strains of ‘The sun has got his hat on’ floated through the darkness.
Barton, however, was becoming impatient. Time was dragging by. He looked at his RAF-issue watch, with its luminous dial: they had been stationary in the tunnel for thirty minutes now. He regretted his decision to take the underground to see Grace. He had expected it to be a quick journey – he was only going four stops. He should have taken a cab, he thought.
Eventually, the guard reappeared and issued new instructions: the power would be off for a while, he said, so they were to proceed to the front of the train, get down onto the track and walk along the tunnel to the next station. It turned out to be only a ten minute walk away, but it seemed a lot longer as they stumbled along the trackbed in the dark.
Barton arrived at the stage door entrance to Wilson’s Palace of Varieties an hour later than he had planned and once more found the doorman poring over a newspaper.
“Is it alright if I pop in to see Mr Miller again?” he asked the man.
The doorman glowered at Barton over the top of his glasses and then jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate that Barton had his permission to enter. Without a word, he then returned to his paper.
Barton knocked on Miller’s dressing room door, but there was no answer. Tentatively, he opened it and peered round. Miller, still in his tuxedo, was leaning back asleep in a chair by the dressing table, a tumbler and a half empty bottle of gin standing on the surface beside him. There was no sign of Grace.
#
Shortly after Barton arrived, another visitor appeared at the stage door box: a tall, fair-haired man, smartly dressed in a dark suit. “It’s like bloody Piccadilly Circus in ‘ere tonight,” the doorman muttered to himself as he put down his paper.
“Sorry to disturb you,” the visitor smiled apologetically, “I was wondering if you might be able to help me.” The doorman gazed at him in silence, noticing that he had a mole at the side of his neck. “I’d be very obliged if you could,” the man continued, taking out his wallet and producing a ten-shilling note. The doorman’s surly hostility evaporated immediately, and he became eager to accommodate.
“Certainly, sir, ‘ow can I be of assistance?”
“That RAF officer who just went in, what’s he doing here?”
The doorman hesitated. Elliott could see he was suspicious; he wanted to take the money but did not want to get involved in anything. He would need further coaxing.
“It’s alright, I’m not the law. The reason I ask is that he’s engaged to my sister, and I think he’s two-timing her. I suspect his visit here is to do with another woman.”
The doorman was assuaged by this tale. He took the proffered note and said with a smile. “You’re right there: I think he’s sweet on one of the performers, Miss Harrison. She left early tonight, so he’s missed her, but he’s in visiting the other half of the act.”
“Which act is it?”
“Professor Prospero and Miranda – it’s a magic act. Not keen on stage magic myself, but they say it’s a good enough turn.”
“This Miss Harrison, what’s she like?”
“Bit of a looker – brown hair, above average height, in her early twenties.”
Elliott regarded him pensively for a few seconds and then said, “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful. I had hoped to find them together tonight, but if she’s gone, I’ll have to try and catch them playing around another time. I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention to the officer that I’ve been here – it would put him on his guard if you told him.”
“Of course, sir, you can rely on my discretion. I don’t approve of this sort of goings on. I’m only too happy to be of assistance.”
Elliott went out and round to the front of the theatre, taking up position in the shadows of one of the entrance doorways. He felt it was beginning to look as if this might be a false alarm – just some chump cha
sing a girl – but he wanted to make sure. He would wait for the RAF man to come out and see what he did next.
#
Barton went over and shook Miller’s shoulder gently, just enough to rouse him. “Mr Miller, it’s me, Frank Barton. Is Grace here?”
Miller took a few seconds to focus his eyes and recollect where he was. “Frank, dear boy, of course it’s you. Come to see the act again, eh? Help yourself to a drink,” he said, sitting up and waving his hand towards the bottle of gin. He began to ramble on incoherently about that night’s performance. “Practically a full house, wouldn’t you say? We went down a treat tonight ... ”
Barton could see there was no point telling him about his need for assistance in tracking down Cobalt – Miller was too far-gone. That would have to wait for another time. He interrupted the meanderings. “Grace, Mr Miller, where’s Grace?”
Miller looked at him enquiringly. “Grace?” he asked back, as if the name were new to him.
“Yes, your assistant, Miss Harrison – where is she?”
“Ah, you mean Grace – where is she indeed, where is she indeed!” he said tapping the side of his nose. “Excellent girl! She picks things up so quickly, you know. Helps me a lot with the illusions. She even does one in the act – but of course, you know that, you’ve seen us perform.”
“Is she still in the theatre?”
“No, no – had to dash off – other commitments, dear boy.”
“What other commitments? Where has she gone?”
“Can’t say.” Miller smiled at him and winked. “Professional secret.”
Barton could see he would have to use some guile to get the answer from him. “Can I pour you another drink, Roy?” he asked, half-filling the tumbler with gin and passing it to Miller.
