The Golf, Cheese and Chess Society

by Jason Blacker

  “I do, that’s really the reason I came up here. I was unaware that three murders had been committed which were all related. Minnie’s last words, we believe, was calling out for me. Nisbet was there to hear them. It sounded almost like Marmalade. She also thrust a crumpled note into his hand that was for me. However, it was encrypted. I’ve come up here to have it decrypted, which these wonderful boffins had an easy time at.”

  “May I have a look at it?” asked Pearce.

  Frances nodded and handed him Alfred’s notebook.

  “You can see the first part is the jumbled cryptic message. Underneath is what it has been decrypted to.

  GERMANY INFILTRATED BP HE KNOWS I KNOW STAN MIGHT BE WITH GERMANS

  “And this sentence up here that begins with ‘Lady Frances’?” asked Pearce.

  “That was found on a note inside her purse which was inside her suitcase which was in the room she had rented from Nisbet,” said Frances.

  “And that was not encrypted?”

  “No, that was written in plain English as you can see it written in Alfred’s notebook.”

  “Right, so this was addressed to you and it points to the encrypted note for further information. Seems like Minnie believed that Germany, maybe the spy, had infiltrated Bletchley Park, and she believed Dowd was with them.”

  “With the Germans, yes,” said Frances. “I think she felt that Germany had infiltrated Bletchley Park because Dowd had been turned. That can be the only reason, because there isn’t much staff turnover here, is there?”

  Pearce looked at Brimley and Albutt. They both shook their heads.

  “And when I arrived this is the note I showed Brimley. He has a difference of opinion,” said Frances.

  “Of course I do,” he said. “The Golf, Cheese and Chess Society is a tightly run ship. Nobody’s infiltrated here and I don’t believe that Dowd had turned.”

  “The Golf, Cheese and Chess Society?” asked Pearce.

  “It’s what we sometimes colloquially call Bletchley Park. It’s another acronym for GC&CS, the Government Code and Cypher School.”

  “Really?” asked Pearce, still not understanding it.

  “Well, it captures, rather well, I think, the eclectic mix of people working here.”

  “Alright then. And you never had any concern with Dowd and his loyalties?” asked Pearce.

  “Absolutely not. As I said, he was one of the senior military men working out of here. I’m sure I’ve never met a more patriotic man before.”

  “Tell me, Walter, have you ever visited Group Captain Dowd at his London home?” asked Pearce.

  “I have not, and I fail to see how that’s important.”

  “But you do know where he lives?”

  “Of course, he has a home in Vauxhall,” said Brimley.

  “I see, then I’ll have to agree with Lady Marmalade that perhaps Dowd was not the loyal servant that you imagine him to be.”

  “You did not know him,” said Brimley.

  “But I know where I found him.” Pearce turned towards Frances. “I was just about to tell Walter where we found Dowd before you got here. Do you know where we found him murdered?” asked Pearce, now looking back at Brimley.

  “At his home in Vauxhall I imagine. You did say it was London. I can’t imagine where else he might be.”

  “We did find him at home in London. Perhaps he has two homes in London,” said Pearce.

  “I don’t believe so,” said Brimley.

  “We found him, Walter, at the The Muse’s Mark in Kensington in his one bedroom flat there.”

  “Those are expensive flats,” said Frances. “I don’t believe you can rent a one bedroom for less than twenty pounds a month.”

  Pearce nodded. Brimley was gritting his teeth and furrowing his brow. Seeds of doubt were now being planted in his mind. Albutt was amused. A small smirk lifted the corner of his mouth.

  “Can you explain that?” asked Pearce.

  Brimley didn’t say anything.

  “He was found on his bed shot through the chest in his pajamas. Nothing seemed to have been stolen for there was fifty pounds in notes lying next to him. In the kitchen sat two half emptied cups of coffee. He was clearly at home entertaining someone he knew.”

  Brimley stared at Pearce. Pearce met his gaze and for a few moments nobody spoke.

  “Were you paying for his flat at The Muse’s Mark?” asked Pearce.

  “No,” said Brimley. “As I had mentioned, this is a small operation I was running myself. There was no money for it.”

  “Then I must assume that he was being paid by the Germans for selling our secrets. Unfortunately, I have no proof of that for there were no documents in the flat that were not supposed to be there. However, at this point I must surmise that perhaps there was a document exchange that took place before his murder. That would explain the fifty pounds.”

  Brimley still didn’t say anything. Things were just getting worse for him.

  “Tell me, Walter, was Dowd able to access any of the documents he might have wanted?” asked Frances.

  “He was the most senior military man who was regularly here, so yes, he could,” said Brimley, almost choking on his own words.

  “Then perhaps we should give some weight to Minnie’s concerns that Dowd was working for the Germans,” said Frances.

  “How is your records management here?” asked Declan.

  “Not as tight as you’d hope,” said Brimley, looking at Albutt.

  “To be fair,” said Albutt, “everyone who works here has been vetted thoroughly…”

  “But how easy would it be to make a copy of an important document?”

  “Very easy,” said Brimley. “Most of the documents are typed up in triplicate. One could easily take a copy without it really going missing. The original, and a copy go upstairs to MI6 and a copy stays in the hut where it was created. But that copy could easily sneak out.”

  “Yes, but we do check bags periodically,” said Albutt.

  “But how well and how often?” asked Declan.

  “Perhaps once or twice a week,” said Albutt.

  “Hardly,” said Brimley, “More like once or twice a month for quite some time now.”

  “Then I’ll have to revisit our procedures, it should be one to two times a week.”

  “And who usually checks?” asked Declan.

  “Any of the senior staff. Clyde will usually have one of his men check them, or I’ll have one of the MPs do it. Lately though,” said Brimley, pausing and swallowing, “Dowd’s been doing it.”

  “Then will you admit, Walter, that there is a chance that Dowd was not on our side, but had in fact changed sides in the last several months or so?” asked Pearce.

  “Yes, I suppose I’ll have to,” he said.

  “We’re not here to blame,” said Frances, “that’s for MI5 to assess. But we are here to try and get this German spy as quickly as we can. For if he has taken real secrets and real knowledge about what we’re doing here and taken it back to Germany, well then, we might as well shut Bletchley Park down right now.”

  Frances looked around at the somber faces.

  “I told them I was right,” said Brimley, more to himself than anyone else. “They should have supported me.”

  “They did,” said Albutt, “by letting you run an operation. Obviously they chose the wrong man to do it.”

  “What did you just say?” asked Brimley. “You’ve quite clearly been of no help yourself, letting documents grow legs and walk right out of here.”

  It looked like they might genuinely come to blows.

  “Have you not heard a word we’ve been saying,” said Frances, her tone that of an angry school headmaster. “We’ve got to work together to find Schmidt or whatever his name is.”

  “Has anything come up in your investigations so far that might be of some help?” asked Pearce, looking at Brimley.

  Brimley took a deep breath.

  “I’ve looked at Pelagia’s room at the Sm
alley farm where she and Minnie were staying. There’s nothing of note there,” he said. “However, Penny Smalley said something interesting. She said that Pelagia usually visited her son every few months. Perhaps quarterly. But she said that Pelagia had been up in late March or early April and then again just a couple of weekends ago to see him.”

  “Where is her son?” asked Pearce.

  “He’s at Rugby School in Rugby,” said Brimley. “That’s what Penny said.”

  “That’s an expensive school,” said Frances. “Do we know how she afforded it?”

  Brimley shrugged.

  “Perhaps she had family money. Perhaps she was working for the Germans too,” he offered sarcastically.

  Frances didn’t take the bait.

  “You said none of the women were aware of the details of the operation you were conducting,” said Pearce.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why do you believe she might have been working for the Germans?” asked Pearce.

  “I don’t.”

  “Walt is trying to be facetious,” said Albutt.

  “Right, well, let’s try and keep everything on the level shall we. If this man gets back to the fatherland we’re all in bigger trouble than we are now. In fact, England herself is in trouble,” said Pearce.

  “I’ll go up to Rugby,” offered Frances. “I know the headmaster there and I’ll see if Pelagia’s son has anything to offer. Perhaps his mother confided in him. There must be a reason she was up there twice so recently. What is his name?”

  “Sebastian,” said Brimley. “Sebastian Paterson. I’ll have one of the MPs take you to the Smalley farmhouse. There’s a photograph of the young lad in her room still.”

  Frances nodded.

  “I’ll wait here to speak with Lester when he comes up. And you said that chap from Cumbria was coming down too?” asked Pearce.

  “Yes, they both should be here soon,” said Brimley. “DCI Chester Milling should be here any moment too. If you’d like to come with me, Frances.”

  Brimley led them out of the hut and towards his office where there was bound to be one MP just sitting about who could do something for a change, like take Lady Marmalade to the Smalley farmhouse.

  TWENTY-SIX

  An Ugly Scrum

  THE trip to Rugby was over an hour and a half. This was thanks primarily to the Germans who had done a masterful job of bombing up sections of the road. It wasn’t as bad as it had been some years before when the Germans were more aggressively bombing. But still, with the war effort ongoing, the patching of roads was just that. A patchwork. Unless they were important for military reasons, which the road up to Rugby wasn’t, then the road was just made passable.

  And even though the Rolls Royce Wraith was a very fine piece of British engineering, it was not however, a tank, and so Alfred took it very carefully over the bumps and mounds of debris and what was allegedly called ‘finished roadwork’.

  It was after three when they arrived at Lawrence Sheriff Street and the inspiring Chapel Tower imposed a sense of order over the green lands of Rugby School where rugby itself was first dreamt up by idle schoolboys looking for a game that encouraged camaraderie, strength and courage. Some say football was inspired by this game. Meant for a less courageous boy, one not up to the task of traveling while wrestling.

  Just off the corner of Lawrence Sheriff Street and Barby Street was a small parking lot. This was on the northwest corner of Rugby School. School House was the building here, where the pepper-pot or Chapel Tower stood. The headmaster’s office was attached to the southeast end of School House. This House being the oldest of the Houses and was founded in 1750 when Rugby School moved from the center of town to its current location.

  Alfred parked the car and they all got out. The air felt warm on this spring afternoon and the blue sky was dotted with puffs of cloud as if God himself was smoking a pipe vigorously, just below the horizon. Frances led them inside the headmaster’s office. They were greeted by a matronly woman with gray hair in curls and tortoiseshell glasses. She had an air of authority and clearly suffered no fools.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “We’d like to speak with Headmaster Percy Lyon,” said Frances.

  “And do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “I’m afraid the Headmaster is very busy. You’ll need to make an appointment.”

  “This is very urgent,” said Frances. “We’re here on police business relating to Sebastian Paterson. Tell Percy, that Lady Marmalade and Admiral Branham would like to see him. I am certain you’ll get a very different response.”

  Frances stared at the woman for some time, holding her gaze. After a while the older woman broke and stood up.

  “Very well,” she said.

  She walked around her desk and down a short corridor. The Headmaster’s office was at the back. It was large and overlooked the very rugby fields upon whose soil the game had been founded.

  They didn’t have to wait long before she returned, followed by Percy Lyon himself. He was a man of average height with a thick build that was more fat than gristle. He had mostly gray, wavy hair that might have been ground from that very same pepper-pot that stood in the middle of School House. His eyes were gray and twinkled with kindness.

  “Frances,” he said in a friendly tone, as he reached out to shake her hand. “How good to see you again. It’s been too long.”

  “Indeed, it has,” she said.

  “Declan,” said Lyon, shaking his hand. “So you’re going by Admiral today are you?”

  “It got me into Bletchley Park,” he said. “Which is where we’ve come from.”

  “Oh, that sounds ominous.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not a happy visit we make today.”

  Lyon turned to Alfred and shook his hand.

  “Please come in. Let’s talk privately in my office. Thank you, Ethel,” he said as he walked them down the corridor to his large office.

  Percy walked behind his desk and waited for Frances and her son to sit down in the two chairs that were available on the opposite side of the desk. Alfred stood off to Declan’s left. Behind them was an oil painting of His Majesty King George VI in full regalia. Next to that portrait was one of a similar size of an older man. This was Lawrence Sheriff who had founded the school in 1567.

  On the wall to Frances’ right was the coat of arms and motto of the school. The coat of arms had three griffin heads on the shield. Two above and one below a fess with a middle fleur-de-lys between two roses. A knight’s helmet on top of it, and upon the helmet is a lion’s gamb holding a branch of dates. The gamb itself is embedded with two pink roses. It was decorated with what might have been acanthus leaves. The motto was “Orando Laborando” translated as “through prayer I work”.

  The view behind Lyon was tranquil. Beyond the trees framing the window was the smooth, velvet green grass of the rugby fields. They looked untouched as if they had just this moment sprung up under the green thumb of God’s gardener.

  “Ethel said this had to do with Sebastian Paterson. It’s also police business, she said. That can’t be good,” said Lyon.

  On either side of the large window stood two bookshelves filled, but not to overflowing, with books. Frances saw the classics mostly and some books about school policies and education in general. Leaning up against the one bookshelf was a thin cane likely not thicker than a man’s thumb. Frances was fairly certain this was to mete out corporal punishment. A practice she found barbaric and would not have entertained for her own children.

  “I’m afraid it isn’t good news, Percy. But before we get into that, would you mind giving us your opinion on Sebastian Paterson?”

  Lyon nodded and took a breath.

  “There’s a lot one could say about Sebastian. I imagine one of the first things you might wonder is how is he afforded the opportunity to study here. As you might know, we aren’t an inexpensive school. Boarders pay seventy-five pounds a year to study and l
ive here.”

  Frances nodded.

  “That would have been one of my first questions,” she said.

  “His mother made quite the application almost two years ago when we admitted him. You probably already know all of this, but his father died in the Battle of Britain.”

  Frances nodded.

  “She applied in September of 1940. The month after Paul Paterson died. We interviewed her and her son and we spoke with previous teachers and the headmaster of the school he was at. Everyone had very good things to say about Sebastian, which I’m pleased to say have been borne out by our own experience.”

  “So he doesn’t pay to study here then?” asked Frances.

  “That’s quite correct. He’s on a scholarship. He’s a very bright student. One of our very best. He’s also on our First XV and First XI teams. He’s a great all round talent.”

  “And he gets along well with the other students?”

  “Oh yes. He’s a very well liked lad. We don’t allow for classism and that sort of thing here. Lawrence Sheriff was adamant about that when he founded the school many centuries ago. It was meant to provide a safe place to learn for the underprivileged children in the area at the time.”

  “Poor boy,” said Frances. “He’s done well with having lost so much.”

  Lyon nodded.

  “And I imagine this is not a happy visit today.”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  Frances paused for a moment and looked outside. Trees and green fields and buildings solid in their splendor and firm in their footing. Looking through this window that was behind Percy Lyon you’d be hard pressed to believe that a war was raging across Europe and across England.

  “I suppose there is no easy way to say this,” said Frances, “but Pelagia Paterson was found dead this morning at Bletchley Park.”

  “Good Lord,” said Lyon. “What happened?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t go into great detail, Percy,” said Frances, “due to the nature of Pelagia’s work. What I can tell you is that she was murdered not far from the farmhouse she lived at with Mr. and Mrs. Smalley. She lived there with a colleague who also worked at Bletchley Park. This young woman was found murdered this past weekend in the Lake District not far from where I have a home.”