The Disappearance of Alistair Ainsworth

by Leonard Goldberg

  “Yes, ma’am,” Wiggins said obediently. “Shall I toss it into the pond at St. James?”

  “No need. Simply place it in a rubbish bin.”

  “Done, ma’am. And your second request?”

  “You are to return here to this very spot and await my return with Toby Two.”

  “Here I will be.”

  Joanna held the vial under Toby Two’s nose for only a few seconds, which caused the dog’s excitement to increase even more. Then, in a quick movement, she gave the vial to Wiggins, saying, “Now be off!”

  Toby Two extended her head out of the carriage window and watched Wiggins trot away. Only after the lad had disappeared beyond the Admiralty Arch did she lose interest. Joanna gently pulled the half spaniel, half bloodhound back into the carriage, then patiently allowed for more time to pass.

  “Why do we wait?” Beaumont asked.

  “For the scent Wiggins carries to completely dissipate,” Joanna replied, then held her hand out of the window. “Ah, good! The wind is against us.”

  “Which means?”

  “A great deal to Toby Two,” Joanna said, then permitted Toby Two to again sample the air outside the carriage, but away from the Admiralty Arch. Suddenly the dog stiffened, her nose rapidly sniffing the cool air. Then her tail went straight as an arrow and remained perfectly still.

  “What does she point to?” Beaumont asked.

  “Alistair Ainsworth,” Joanna replied.

  26

  The Trap

  With the help of Toby Two’s nose, we caught up with Dunn’s hansom that had been slowed by heavy traffic. A moment later the hansom did the unexpected. Rather than head north, it turned southward and entered Whitehall before stopping in front of the building that housed the Office of Naval Intelligence. Without so much as a glance about, Dunn hurried up the steps and disappeared behind a set of imposing doors.

  “Surely you do not believe Alistair Ainsworth is situated within the Office of Naval Intelligence,” Beaumont grumbled.

  “You are correct in that assumption,” Joanna said.

  “But Dunn’s hansom has stopped here and your dog continues to point keenly in the direction the lieutenant has taken.”

  “It is not his direction that so attracts Toby Two, but the scent that Dunn carries with him.”

  “Which scent?”

  “That of a carcass, which all dogs find irresistible.”

  While we waited for the traitor to make his next move, Joanna told us of the trap she had set for Dunn. During the group’s meeting with Lestrade, she had pretended to sneeze and require a handkerchief, which gave her an excuse to visit the coatrack where her handbag hung. Unnoticed by us, she reached into her handbag and, after opening the glass vial containing the smell of carcass, allowed its vapor to seep into the hem of Lieutenant Dunn’s naval topcoat. Thus, wherever Dunn went, the scent went with him and so did Toby Two’s nose.

  “Will Dunn not detect the malodor?” Beaumont asked.

  “He will not notice the faint odor, but Toby Two, whose nose is a thousand times more sensitive than Dunn’s, will follow it with ease.”

  “Curious behavior, that,” Beaumont said, obviously interested. “Why does the smell of carcass attract dogs so powerfully?”

  “No one is certain of the cause, but there are two likely answers,” Joanna replied. “First, it may represent a source of food. Secondly, it may well be a clever way to disguise their own aroma. You see, when dogs find the source of the smell, they will often roll about in it. This behavior is believed to be a holdover from primitive dogs that had to hunt for food and wished to hide their scent, so as not to alert their prey.”

  “Must it be a rotting carcass?”

  “That seems to work best.”

  “Might I inquire as to the source of your carcass?”

  “I journeyed to our local poulterer whose shop had a goose that had hung too long and ripened too much. He was happy to oblige me.”

  Beaumont stared out at the closed doors to the ministry building and said, “Dunn remains inside too long for this simply to be a hasty visit. And the longer he stays in the building, the more my doubt grows that he is the traitor. It may be that he is innocent or, if guilty, has outfoxed us.”

  “He is not and has not.”

  “But the passing minutes say otherwise.”

  “Be patient, for he will shortly appear.”

  “What makes you so confident?”

  “He has ordered his hansom to wait for him,” Joanna said, and pointed to the taxi a half block ahead.

  We continued to wait somewhat uneasily, but Joanna showed no concern whatsoever. She rested her head back and closed her eyes as she seemed to drift off into one of her pensive moods. Toby Two suddenly yelped as her tail began to wag.

  “He comes!” Joanna cried out as Dunn appeared. Quickly she rapped on the ceiling of our carriage to alert the driver. “You must follow at a discreet distance and remain a block or so behind at all times. Do not be concerned if you lose sight of the hansom, for I shall be able to guide you.”

  My father asked, “Why do you believe he bothered to visit the Office of Naval Intelligence?”

  “To arrange for the marine sharpshooters that he knows will not be needed,” Joanna replied. “He is a very clever man who is covering his tracks. He performs his duty for all to see, then, like a chameleon, turns to a different color.”

  With a sudden thrust our carriage began its journey through the crowded streets of central London. As ordered, our carriage stayed well back of Dunn’s hansom in the distance. But the wagging of Toby Two’s tail told us we were on the correct track. I gazed out at the motorcars passing our carriage and wondered if the odor of burning petrol would interfere with the dog’s keen sense of smell. But the same concern had crossed my mind earlier and Joanna had assured me that Toby Two would have no difficulty distinguishing between the two odors. As a matter of fact, scientific studies had shown that dogs could easily differentiate between a hundred different aromas when all were presented simultaneously, thus proving that the nose of a dog was one of nature’s most sensitive instruments.

  “I am having difficulty believing a British naval officer would be a traitor,” Beaumont said, breaking the silence.

  “Come now, Admiral,” said Joanna. “I am aware you suspected a spy long before Alistair Ainsworth went missing.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I know of your clandestine meeting with Lady Jane Hamilton and her husband, who was supposedly at sea but wasn’t.”

  Beaumont raised his brow. “Who informed you?”

  “I have my sources,” Joanna replied evasively. “In the dark corners of our mind, we wondered if Lady Jane and Roger Marlowe had become romantically linked, while her husband was away. Marlowe’s close association with the Germans in the past would make him a prime suspect in the disappearance of Alistair Ainsworth, and perhaps he had persuaded Lady Jane to join him. But we learned it was not Marlowe whom Lady Jane was visiting secretly, but her own husband who was residing in Knightsbridge while he was supposedly out at sea. Then, to our surprise, you show up unhappily at the residence late one evening. Putting everything together, Admiral, you were searching for a spy, using Lady Jane as a conduit and her husband as the source of information. You see, with her husband supposedly away, Lady Jane would be free to associate often with Roger Marlowe who, if the traitor, might confide in her or perhaps make a mistake that would confirm your suspicions.”

  Beaumont breathed heavily. “You would do well in our Office of Naval Intelligence.”

  “I already have a position, thank you,” Joanna said. “Allow me to continue, but do not hesitate to interrupt if my conclusions are in any way incorrect. You too suspected Marlowe and had Lady Jane feed him naval intelligence that of course was given to Lady Jane by her husband, all under your supervision. Whether Lady Jane and Roger Marlowe were romantically involved I do not know and do not care, but she was the perfect conduit a
nd could lure Roger Marlowe while he believed her husband was at sea. Am I correct thus far?”

  “Quite.”

  “Your visit was occasioned when you learned that the secret information being gathered by the Germans was not coming from Marlowe, but from another source. Thus, the traitor was still concealed within the Admiralty and continued to give away sensitive information.”

  “It was the damned Exodus plan on which so much depended,” Beaumont groused. “Of course, Ainsworth could not be the spy and our suspicion of Marlowe had diminished considerably, but not disappeared altogether. With Mary being as innocent as the driven snow and Montclair dead, we had run out of suspects. We never suspected Dunn in the least. He himself was not privy to the coded messages, you see.”

  “Oh, but he was,” Joanna refuted. “He must have had the opportunity to see many of the messages in the late afternoon as they were being placed in the attaché case at the Admiralty Club. And those were the messages that were given over to the German agents.”

  “All he needed to do was look over Ainsworth’s shoulder,” Beaumont grumbled.

  “Exactly,” Joanna said. “Certainly with that in mind, you did not exclude him altogether.”

  “I am afraid we did, even after reviewing his dossier,” Beaumont admitted. “However, in retrospect, there were subtle hints on when and how he might have been turned.”

  “A woman,” Joanna said without inflection.

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “The most rigid are usually the most vulnerable to feminine charm,” Joanna replied. “But do go on.”

  “For four years Lieutenant Dunn served as a naval attaché at our Berlin embassy. He became deeply involved with an actress who happened to be the daughter of a high-ranking German naval officer. This occurred in the early nineteen hundreds when relations between our countries were far more cordial.”

  “Were there any signs that Dunn’s relationship with this actress continued after he left his post in Berlin?”

  “None that we were aware of, although he made quite a number of official visits to the Continent since returning to England.”

  “To Germany?”

  Beaumont shook his head. “To France and Belgium.”

  “From where he could have journeyed unnoticed to Germany.”

  “Ma’am!” the driver called down. “The hansom has come to a stop!”

  “Drive by at a steady speed and pay no attention to the hansom or its occupant,” Joanna called back. “Once past them, tell us the activity that caused them to stop, then turn right at the next intersection.”

  “Toby Two will bark,” I warned.

  “No, she will not,” Joanna said, reaching in her handbag for a large dog biscuit that she gave to me. “Feed her this as we approach Dunn’s hansom. And now, Admiral, I must ask you to crouch quite low, as shall I, so that our traitor cannot see us.”

  “Are you certain the biscuit will distract her?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, for to a dog nothing supersedes filling its stomach.”

  My father buried his face in a newspaper while I pretended to light my pipe and paid no attention to the stopped hansom. Toby Two’s eyes and nose were fixed on the dog biscuit, her tail barely wagging.

  “Now, John!” Joanna instructed.

  Toby Two quickly grasped the biscuit between her teeth and chewed on it vigorously. The part of her that was bloodhound caused her to drool excessively and this appeared to only heighten her appetite. The odor of a dozen carcasses could not have drawn her attention away.

  “The empty hansom is stopped in front of a tobacco shop, ma’am,” the driver reported.

  “But Dunn does not smoke,” Beaumont said worriedly. “Has he stopped to have a look about?”

  “Most likely,” Joanna replied.

  “Then he knows us.”

  Joanna shook her head. “I believe he is simply being careful.”

  “I am afraid he is on to us.”

  Joanna shook her head once more. “If he were, he would have immediately turned his hansom around and headed back to the ministry. Clever scoundrels like Dunn take no chances.”

  “Perhaps he will still do so, after leaving the tobacconist,” I wondered aloud.

  “I think not,” Joanna said. “He will have another look around and, seeing nothing suspicious, will move on to his destination.”

  As our carriage turned right, Joanna and the admiral sat upright and my father put down his newspaper. Toby Two had finished off her dog biscuit and was eyeing me for another.

  “Out the window your nose goes,” Joanna said, and reached over for Toby Two.

  At first, the dog demonstrated no particular interest, but then her tail began to wag again. Gradually the speed of the wag increased and, with her head now fully extended into the wind, Toby Two yelped happily.

  “Onward!” Joanna cried out. “With a right turn at the intersection!”

  “Why right?” I asked.

  “Because straight ahead narrows and takes a circuitous route before ending in an open park area,” Joanna explained. “Moreover, it is a strictly commercial area.”

  Joanna’s prediction proved accurate. We continued on course, using Toby Two’s nose and tail to guide us. Dunn’s hansom took only one evasive action, in which a complete block was circled before it again headed in a northward direction. Once past the theater district, we drove through Covent Garden and approached Great Russell Street where the British Museum was located.

  “Do you believe he will turn for the museum and attempt to lose himself amidst the heavy traffic and swarms of tourists?” I asked.

  “Not at this point,” Joanna replied. “He cannot afford to waste any more time, for he now has precious little at his disposal.”

  “But, being the clever person he is, Dunn will certainly try one more evasive maneuver,” my father surmised.

  “It may not be necessary,” Joanna said. “The German house is in all likelihood in a residential area where traffic is light and views up and down the street unobstructed. He would have no difficulty spotting us or anyone else that chose to follow him.”

  “You seem to know his moves,” Beaumont said.

  Joanna shrugged. “I am simply putting myself in his place and how I would go about this sordid business.”

  “And what will his next move be?”

  “To alert his German friends so they can make a hasty exit and thus escape our grasp. Then he will hurry back to the Office of Naval Intelligence to firm up the arrangement for the marine sharpshooters before returning to the Admiralty Club.”

  “He is a very clever fellow who knows how to hide his tracks.”

  “Not quite as clever as you might think, for along the way there were clues that pointed to his guilt and that I ignored but should not have.”

  “What clues, may I ask?”

  “A surprising number that I will list for you,” Joanna replied. “First, how do we explain the Germans always being ahead of us by just a fraction of time? This occurred both at the house where they tortured Verner and at their next home in St. John’s Wood from which they were forced to depart in great haste. Obviously someone from within had to inform them that Scotland Yard would shortly be on their doorstep.”

  “That individual could have been any member of the Admiralty Club,” Beaumont argued.

  “Not so,” Joanna said. “No one in the group knew of our visit to the first house. But Dunn did. With that in mind, let us go to the next, overlooked clue. With the group now excluded as suspects, another insider had to point out Alistair Ainsworth as the master decoder to the Germans so they could follow him and learn of his habits in order to pick the most opportune time to kidnap him. In this regard, Dunn would have been most helpful. He would be aware that Ainsworth’s past had been thoroughly scrutinized before being allowed to join the Admiralty Club. Dunn could have reviewed Ainsworth’s dossier and learned of his visits to Ah Sing’s in the dark streets of East London. It was the ideal pl
ace to take a semidrugged Ainsworth captive.”

  Beaumont nodded grimly. “Dunn was in charge of vetting the prospective candidates.”

  “Which indicates he was perfectly positioned,” Joanna said. “And this brings us to the third clue that should have drawn our attention. I am referring to the strange death of Geoffrey Montclair. Only an individual known to him could have entered his office late at night without arousing suspicion. That person had to find his way behind Montclair’s desk with ease, then stab the poor fellow to death. And that person had discovered that Montclair was about to reveal the traitor.”

  I raised a hand and interrupted. “But wouldn’t Montclair’s discovery make him very suspicious of Dunn to say the least?”

  “I do not think Montclair knew the answer yet,” Joanna replied. “I suspect he was pointing out something in the message to Dunn that caused the lieutenant to believe he would shortly be revealed as the traitor. Thus, Dunn murdered Montclair to prevent him from deciphering the entire content of Alistair Ainsworth’s message.”

  “But how did Dunn manage to see this particular message?” Beaumont asked. “We had strict procedures in place that permitted only members of the Admiralty Club to read the classified material.”

  “I do not think that presented a problem to Dunn,” Joanna replied. “The lieutenant was trusted by all, you see, and could enter the various offices without suspicion and glance over the member’s shoulder at what was being deciphered. I suspect that was what Dunn was doing when he realized Geoffrey Montclair was about to expose him.”

  “It all seems so clear now,” Beaumont said.

  “It should have been clear earlier,” Joanna admonished herself. “I have been blind to the obvious, but it is better to learn late than never learn at all.”

  Our carriage was now entering the outskirts of St. John’s Wood, with its stately houses and lovely gardens. My jaw must have dropped as I realized we were approaching the area in which was situated the last known residence of the German agents. I quickly glanced over to Toby Two. She was still on scent, with her tail wagging happily.