by David Garth
“We asked Mr. Hardesty to sponsor our introduction to you, Miss Rhodes,” he said. “Having the Army and the State Department descend on you out of a clear sky might seem rather startling. It isn’t, I assure you. We wish only your co-operation in answering a few questions.”
Little Miss Melissa Rhodes smiled. “Why, gladly,” she said. “Although, to be utterly frank, I have spent more time on crocheting than on army tactics in recent years.”
The men laughed, then at her invitation seated themselves. Hardesty asked the Intelligence officer if they wished to speak to Miss Rhodes privately.
“No, sit down, Hardesty,” said Major Barnes. He tuned to the little maiden lady. “Miss Rhodes,” he said directly, “through Mr. Corcoran here who has just returned by Clipper from State Department work abroad there has been established the possibility that your nephew, the late Lucian Rhodes, might have had vital information concerning this country before his untimely death. As I say, this is not definite, it is a possibility. And there is also the possibility that he may have been able to pass this information along in time.
“We understand that Lucian Rhodes had applied for leave, and it occurred to us that he might have sent some things ahead of him. For example, one smart correspondent got off a detailed story of the collapse of a French army corps by mailing his heavily censored copy ahead of himself in Lisbon instead of filing it on the cable in France. I mention that simply with the idea that Lucian Rhodes may also have tried to preserve his information in some such way.”
Miss Melissa pondered and then shook her head. “Nothing has arrived here of Lucian’s or for him,” she said.
“I see,” said Major Barnes. “Not even any personal effects?”
“We hear that Lucian’s personal effects have not yet been released from Germany,” said Miss Melissa. “He worked through a Central European press bureau, you know.”
Barnes looked at Corcoran and inquired if there was any question he might like to ask.
“No,” said the State Department agent. “We simply took a chance that we might turn up something. That a man should die in possession of information vital to his country seems a tragedy—I beg your pardon, Miss Rhodes—it is a tragedy any way you look at it, of course.”
Miss Melissa still sat very straight, although from the way she twisted her hands tightly together she plainly was fighting an inward battle.
“I prefer not to look at it,” she said positively. “Lucian could handle himself like a cat on a fence. He came into this world with the same keen reflexes and nerveless fighting temperament as the men who handled those weapons over there,” she nodded toward the cases, “in Indian fights, duels, and our country’s battles. He was a fine foreign correspondent and he was going to be one of America’s great writers someday, but inwardly he had the frontier senses that could hear a twig snap a mile away. A man like that lives to have grandchildren, gentlemen. I prefer to believe that no vital information about this country he might have had is lost.”
Corcoran and Major Barnes looked at each other nonplussed. The stubborn, bright flame of Miss Melissa Rhodes’ conviction was entirely unknown to them.
Hardesty spoke quietly from the depths of a wing chair. “Tell them about Lucian’s picture, Miss Melissa. That’s an interesting little slant.”
“It certainly is interesting!” exclaimed Miss Melissa. “And extremely annoying, too.”
Major Barnes and Corcoran looked at her attentively.
“You see,” she explained, “I’ve kept this study as Lucian left it, except that I put a picture of him on the desk. Two mornings ago I found that it had disappeared. It was there the night before when I came into this room to check the door and windows as I always do. But between then and the next morning—someone took it.
“No sign of entry was found. Mr. Hardesty brought a state trooper up with him to make an examination. They probably thought I was silly to make such a fuss over a picture. But the point is,” she declared vigorously, “that somebody must have entered the house and the fact that only Lucian’s picture was gone does not change the principle of the thing.”
Corcoran rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“And there is no one you might suspect?” he asked.
“There is some reason to suspect a new yard man to whom I had recently given work,” she returned. “He had asked for a week off to visit a sick relative and had left just before this thing happened. The state police are looking for him now, although to suspect him of stealing a picture seems absurd.” She sighed and then arose. “Be that as it may, I can offer you gentlemen some refreshment,” she said hospitably.
Hardesty accompanied her when she left the room, alone in the study, the two men looked at each other, standing before the fireplace.
“Major,” said Corcoran, “it’s no use. Whatever Lucian Rhodes knew, if anything, must have died with him.”
The officer nodded. “Do you think that British agent, Rogge, was off his topper?”
“Rogge is a sound man. One of the best. I talked with him a great deal in Lisbon before I caught my plane. He showed me the Nazi confidential report from the States that the British Intelligence had intercepted and decoded. Something had gone wrong over here and the Nazis were trying to trace the reason. One section of the report was devoted to the possibility that an American correspondent, Lucian Rhodes, may have passed on his information before he died, as he was definitely known by the Nazis to have gotten a line on their plans.”
There was a silence. The fire crackled smartly against the chill sound of the night wind through the trees around the house and the feathery swish of evergreens.
The State Department agent lighted a cigarette and exhaled a long stream of smoke.
“Funny sort of fellow, Rogge. Makes you think of a busy little squirrel. But he has a brain like a clock. And one reason he is so good is because he has a peculiar insight into events. When I talked with him in Lisbon he was sure that the greatest tragedy of his life was in failing to spot a dangerous man in Valleron—a man posing as an American with a soundly established background, but who had been trained in the special secret section of international psychology of the German Military Intelligence Bureau in the Prinz-Friedrich-Karl-Strasse in Berlin and who had done deadly work in Poland and France.”
“All we ask is an inkling,” muttered Major Barnes. “Just a sniff in his direction.”
“If Rogge is right we had damned well better!” Corcoran’s voice was sharply emphatic. “That tough little British agent believes that this dangerous Nazi agent is the key man whose assignment may be the decisive factor in the whole world situation.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Major Barnes restlessly. “Hell, Corcoran, no one man can—I mean, it’s a long shot, that.”
“But is it such a long shot?” Corcoran flung out an eager hand. “This world is in a state of delicate balance. Any one thing, effectively conceived and executed, might destroy that balance. For example, Rogge believes that this key man’s work, when finished, will bring a secret treaty into execution—a secret treaty involving a sudden move in the Pacific, something that will bring tremendous pressure on America, weaken the Anglo-American interests in the Atlantic.”
He drew on his cigarette.
“We’d know better whether he was right if we knew the man Rogge was watching for at that hotel in Valleron and what his assignment was.”
CHAPTER 16
The E-24 financial file had been returned to the filing office. Budlong, Art Carney’s husky “fly-swatter,” brought it back a day or so later. And having delivered the file he remained to pass the time of day with Berkeley.
“You know,” he said, leaning indolently against a steel filing cabinet, “you ought to give me a little time, angel. I could help you plenty with the boss.”
At first she was about to give him a deft brush-off, as though she had flicked a beetle off her sleeve, and then stopped and realized she might play this muscular specimen more guarde
dly than that.
“That’s a thought,” she admitted gravely.
“Sure it is. A little dinner, a little dance—I’m not a bad guy to know.”
Berkeley privately subscribed to that, especially if there might be a job of fancy slugging to be done. Although outwardly he bore none of the marks of the slugger, there was that slight, tentative hunch to his shoulders, something catlike in the way he carried himself.
She rose and pulled out a file drawer, her slim fingers working quickly among the indexed folders. Budlong watched her leisurely. The sun through the office windows caught her rich chestnut hair with a lively vibrant touch.
“So how about it, angel?” he asked finally. “Want to prowl the town with me tonight?”
“How do you get so much time off?” she parried. “A fine fly-swatter you are. Suppose Mr. Carney wants some lies brushed off?”
“Don’t worry about me. Art’s taken a trip to New Orleans for a few days.”
Her flying fingers stopped involuntarily. Carney was already off to New Orleans. Slowly she glanced up at the “fly-swatter,” Budlong. Easy does it around here.
“That’s the life,” she said casually. “Take a trip to New Orleans. Why didn’t he take you? Don’t you rate?”
Budlong twisted a rubber band around two fingers. “He don’t figure to need me when he’s buying antiques.”
She repressed the surprised exclamation that rose to her lips. “Antiques?” she repeated. “I shouldn’t have thought Mr. Carney was interested in that kind of thing.”
He shrugged. “Antiques is as good as anything to cover whatever Art has on his mind,” he said briefly. “Who cares? I got time on my hands and things on my mind. So do I see you tonight, angel?”
“Call me in a day or two. We’ll see.” She laughed. “In the meantime my heart belongs to the Buckthorne campaign and Mr. Talbot is giving me a dirty look.”
“I should worry about Talbot,” said Budlong, but he finally contented himself with securing her telephone number and wandering on out of the filing office.
However, this casual statement that Carney had gone to New Orleans to buy antiques reverted again and again to her mind. At a time like this Carney running off to New Orleans to buy antiques was ridiculous. But he had left for New Orleans, that was certain. To meet somebody named Vokels. Berkeley returned to her room in the little midtown hotel with that queer-sounding name, Vokels, whirling in her thoughts.
What was it Carney had said over the phone that day in his suite? “Make it New Orleans, then. At Octave’s. This has to be done quick!”
Octave’s. It sounded to her as though it might be the name of one of New Orlean’s many fine restaurants. Carney making a dinner engagement with a Nazi contact, perhaps.
She sighed, switched on the light. Well, it was about over now. Almost time to start for Lake Truro and six weeks of vegetating while the divorce mill turned. Six weeks of waiting to divorce a man who had come into her life, materializing out of the shadows in a Spanish plaza, and departing, with a fierce uncompromising stride through the entrance hall of her home.
Lighting a cigarette, she walked slowly up and down her room, her level dark eyes pensive. It was a fascinating thing, this working so close to the one loose thread in the mysterious tapestry that seemed connected with the Ivory Tiger. Carney meeting a man named Vokels at “Octave’s” in New Orleans. Who was Vokels and what was “Octave’s” and why this sudden meeting? The questions gave her mind no rest.
But she realized that she had the integrity of her word to maintain to Luce and she was already late getting about it now. The Department of Justice was at work on this. She could tell them the little she had learned, her surmises and speculations thrown in for good measure, and then fade for Lake Truro and her country would be none the worse off. Lifting the phone she put through a long distance call to her Connecticut home. When the connection was made she spoke to her mother for two or three minutes. Then her father came on the wire.
“Ready to come home?” he inquired.
“Westward-ho,” she agreed unenthusiastically.
“Try to have some fun out of it,” he urged. “It’s the newest thing for all of us.”
That was perfectly true. But somebody had blown a cold shipment up right under the Nazis’ noses and now a man named Vokels was working swiftly to repair the damage.
And then she had her idea suddenly, clearly, and straightened up purposefully. She could, at least, stop in New Orleans briefly on her way west and look around. Again, that old sense of following through.
“Dad,” she said quickly, “I’ll meet you and Mother out there. I’m going by way of New Orleans.”
“New Orleans!” he exclaimed. “Why not by way of Hudson Bay?”
“Perhaps it will all add up to that in the end,” she said briefly, “I have a slight lead I’d like to follow. I’ll take it in on my way west and join you in Palm Springs.”
He attempted to dissuade her. Berkeley pointed out the cost of long distance arguments.
“Besides,” she added, “I love New Orleans.”
After she hung up she sat in thought a moment, then dialed the receiver again and called the desk to secure earliest possible accommodations by plane to New Orleans for her. Finally, she wrote out a letter of resignation to the Buckthorne headquarters.
The next morning she was packed and ready. She cast a last look around the room and then went out and closed the door behind her. As she started down the hall she thought she heard the phone in her room ring. She stopped and listened a moment, decided she must have been mistaken, and hurried on to the elevator.
* * * *
New Orleans had a soul. Anyone could sense that entering the fine old Southern city at the delta of the mighty Mississippi. New Orleans with its bayous and levees and palms, its famous French quarter and old Spanish squares and grilled balconies and flowering inner courtyards, its mellowed air of gracious manners and good living and Mardi Gras, its hallowed memory of General Andrew Jackson fighting a battle behind cotton bales with the pirate, La Fitte, at his side.
Berkeley had been here before. She took New Orleans in sure stride, checking into one of the fine old hotels and straightway becoming one with the tempo of the courtly southern city around her. And immediately she set to investigating the name of “Octave’s.” Search of the phone book yielded nothing. Somehow she had not expected that it would.
But the next morning she fared forth with a definite idea in mind. Octave was a French name and Carney had given Budlong to understand that he was going to New Orleans to buy antiques. He wasn’t buying antiques, of course, but there must have been a reason why he had offered that. Either he had known New Orleans was famous for its antiques, or else there had been some connection with Octave’s in his mind. Anyhow, she crossed Canal Street and walked down the Rue Royale into the old French quarter.
It was different here. Back there on Canal Street it had been a great wide avenue in a modern cosmopolitan city. But here it was different. Here was old France, the narrow streets and sidewalks, the little shops closely wedged together beneath the covered galleries with their grilled-iron balconies above.
The girl browsed about through the narrow streets, glancing at all the shop names she passed. Her mother loved to do this kind of thing, wander through the Vieux Carré and seek out the little hidden shops and courtyards. They had done it together several times. Berkeley smiled at the memory and then, about to cross from one sidewalk to the opposite side, stopped and stared ahead of her. For a moment she could not believe her eyes.
But there it was, a faded wooden sign over a leaded-glass window full of antiques—“Octave.” The discovery of it came with a sudden stunning surprise that drove from her mind the thought that her reasoning had been correct and left her only with the pulsing realization that here it was—Octave’s of New Orleans, the mysterious rendezvous.
Slowly she crossed the street and then casually drifted along glancing in shop windows,
pausing here and there like a desultory window shopper until she came to Octave’s big leaded window. It was crowded with a conglomerate assortment of everything from swords to old silver.
She was strongly tempted to enter, but before she did she equipped herself with dark glasses and pushed her thick soft hair back behind her ears. There was no sense risking recognition by Carney. But when she entered the shop there was no one around except a thin elderly white-haired man who came toward her and made a graceful, ingratiating bow.
“May I serve you, Mademoiselle?” he asked.
“I’m just looking around for anything that might interest me,” said Berkeley. “May I browse?”
He spread his hands wide. “But, of course.”
He left her while he returned to the rear of the shop and resumed the arrangement of some china. The girl walked about, taking the opportunity to inspect the premises thoroughly. It was a genuine antique shop, there was no doubt of that, and chances were it was a long established one. It had the dim musty air of old things, shelves and counters of those omnipresent antique pistols, tables of fine glassware, rare old furniture pieces, portraits and old lamps.
The shop received its daylight from the big display window in the front and from a small window and door opening into a courtyard in the rear.
She finally became interested in a rare old print of New Orleans in the stockade days, priced it, and hesitated most expertly. Berkeley established that she desired it a great deal, but that the price had to be considered first. Another customer entered the shop, a man stopping at the counter of old guns. Berkeley decided she had better go.
“I’ll be back to let you know about the print,” she said, smiling. “Are you Octave, himself?”
He spread his hands again in familiar Latin gesture. “Oh, but yes, Mademoiselle. The third Octave to be here.”
As she walked along toward her hotel she took off her dark glasses and let out a deep breath.
“Well!” she murmured. “It’s beyond me.”
