by Joel N. Ross
“I was upstairs,” Inch said. “The siren suddenly stopped and Earl was yelling in my ear.”
“From the hallway?” Tom asked.
“Wasn’t in the hallway—was upstairs. My room’s the Maltese. Needed a place in town, away from . . . Well, a bird with clipped wings sharing a cage with—”
“You were outside,” Tom said. “And the door wasn’t quite closed, and you heard what, exactly?”
“Told you seven times.”
“Tell me eight.”
“Heard Earl bellowing about gent’s apparel. Always dresses to a snap, the Earl. Man could wear a Turkish rug to Mouflet’s.”
“That’s all? Nothing about Hyde Street Misfits?”
“Gent’s apparel, told you seven—”
“With whom was he speaking?” Harriet asked.
“Haven’t a notion. Imagine it was one of the girls.” Inch blanched. “The chars, I mean.”
Harriet’s gaze was steady. “I know why he took a room, Flight Lieutenant. This is more important than my injured pride. He said nothing about Hyde Street Misfits?”
“Joke of ours, Hyde Street Misfits, but the Earl said ‘gent’s apparel.’ Thought he was addressing me. Then realized he’d been talking to the, er, char, and slunk past quiet as a velvet church mouse. Days later, Vee was storming about, looking to boil him in paste. Then you came asking—”
“Why did she want him?” Harriet asked.
“Venus? Well, could be for one reason, could be for another. Could be for— Oh!” Inch nodded toward the red-and-gold stairs. “Horse’s mouth, I mean to say.”
Audrey descended the last two steps to the floor. It hadn’t been fifteen minutes, and she was transformed. Her glossy black hair was a silken crown, and her face was flushed, her lips ripe. Her breasts were high and full, her waist was a hand span, and her hips flared beneath her tight dress.
Tom caught himself staring, and realized that Inch had finally shut up. The two men rose and watched the girl approach. It was better than any show on the stage, but Harriet didn’t rise and didn’t stare. She asked Audrey why she’d been looking for Earl.
Audrey said she’d been upset with him.
“About what?” Harriet said.
“A personal matter.”
“And what personal matter might that be?”
“A personal matter of the sort that will remain personal,” Audrey said.
“Well!” Inch said, casting nervous glances at the women. “I heard the Earl say ‘gent’s apparel.’ Didn’t catch more than that.”
“‘Gent’s apparel . . .’” Tom tapped a finger against his glass. “And nothing else?”
“Wait,” Audrey said. “Wait. ‘Gent’s apparel’?”
“Brought to mind Hyde Street,” Inch said, “on account of Pongo McCormick.”
“Remember my lessons, Tommy? How to speak Yank in three days?” Audrey put her hands over Inch’s eyes. “I’ve an idea.”
She leaned to Tom and whispered in his ear. It took him a moment to realize what she was getting at. He shook his head. “It can’t be that simple.”
“And mumble,” she whispered.
“That’s swell, dollface,” Tom said, his voice coming from somewhere in Brooklyn. “But I gotta see a man at Regent’s Canal.”
Audrey removed her hands from Inch’s eyes. “Sound familiar, Inch?”
“‘Gotta see a man at gent’s apparel,’” Inch said. “Odd moment for the Earl to repair his wardrobe, but I applaud the intent. Would you mind terribly, telling me what you’re on about? I mean to say, my pleasure, charming company, happy to oblige, but you’re all barking mad.”
“Regent’s,” Tom said. “Canal.”
SONDEGGER ENGAGED IN cursory antisurveillance when Tom and Harriet Wall emerged from the Waterfall. The chalk artist was gone, chased by the rain. The large man remained, as did the man at the lamppost, picking his teeth. They drifted after Wall in a loose pincer. Sondegger followed the followers. He would whisper, and be gone.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 5, 1941
TOM TIGHTENED HIS BANDAGE as he and Harriet crossed Baker Street. Something was wrong with his hand, the dull ache now a sharp burn, but he didn’t have time to stop. The sky was featureless, gray and drizzling, a hopeless sky for a hopeless task.
Regent’s Canal ran nine miles, through three tunnels dug under the city streets, through a dozen double locks with resident lockkeepers at every pair. Hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo a year were transported by horse-drawn barges and steam chain tugs, and old-time boatmen. The route ran from Paddington Basin through Regent’s Park, where it split, one branch curving south into a cargo basin surrounded by the houses and shops of Cumberland Market, the other running east past Islington, skirting Victoria Park, and heading south to Stepney and Limehouse and Regent’s Canal Dock.
“Nine miles.” Tom stepped off the curb into a puddle. “It’s almost two weeks since Earl headed for the canal—if he did. And we’re supposed to pick up his trail?”
Harriet brushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek. She’d hardly spoken since the Waterfall, withdrawn into herself; more than worried, she was afraid.
“Earl’s a cat,” Tom said, to reassure her. “He always ends on his feet.”
“It’s not him that worries me.”
“What, the Japs?” Cutting through the water toward Hawaii, if they were attacking. If it wasn’t a lie . . .
“Highcastle asked that I join you, Tom, and I’m happy to. From loyalty to you, not because I believe the microfilm.”
“You and your loyalty.”
“Despite what you pretend to think,” she said, “I never stopped caring.”
“Like the Fliegerkorps cared for Crete.”
The drizzle thickened and Harriet opened her umbrella. She didn’t ask Tom if he wanted to share. A rivulet streamed from the brim of his hat to his shoulder. A bus spat a billow of damp exhaust as he and Harriet headed toward Broad Walk—classic Regency houses, terraces shored up by rough timbers or reduced to a rubble of Bath stone and scraps of bronze. They entered Regent’s Park, where fat gray squirrels chittered in chestnut trees and wood pigeons beat the air with startled wings.
They passed flower gardens and barrage-balloon sites, and cricket fields converted to Home Guard training grounds. Harriet put her hand back on his arm and stayed close on the bridge over the canal. The water was sluggish and reflected the gray of the sky. Drizzle pocked the surface.
“Nobody knows him like we do,” Harriet said.
“Why was he here, then?” Tom said.
“Perhaps to disappear.”
“He’d been given the microfilm, right? He didn’t take it to the embassy; he hid it in a book. Why? Say he arranged to meet his runner here.” He shook his head, sending droplets of water in an arc. “Nix that. The microfilm was still in his room. Why come here?”
They turned left onto Prince Albert Road and Harriet said, “For the confirmation microdot.”
“Had to be. Earl would get the whole story before reporting in. So who was he talking to in his room?”
“One of his women.”
“Say it was Sondegger. He’d already given Earl the first microfilm, and they were setting a meet to hand over the second.”
“Why?”
“Operational flexibility.”
Harriet considered. “Possible. Sondegger meets Earl, gives him the bait but withholds the proof.”
“Yeah. Earl got the first microdot and came here for the second. . . .”
“If it was Sondegger in his room.”
“Say it wasn’t. Say it was . . . No, it doesn’t matter. The only lead we have to Earl is here.”
So they checked. They showed Earl’s picture at warehouses and the public gymnasium and a depot
for spare parts for buses. They asked at the block of recently constructed residential flats. They talked to the women running the boats, called “idle women” for their IW armbands. None of them had seen Earl, but more than one, eyeing his picture, said she wished she had. They spoke with a man watching the brush turkeys in the zoo, and another pushing a handcart past the empty zebra cages. They finished at the zoo offices, with nothing. They’d given too much weight to Inch’s memory, because there was nothing else.
A DOZEN WRENS sat around the table, young girls with fresh faces. Rupert would have charmed them speechless before he said a single word, but all Highcastle could think was that Duckblind wasn’t much older, and held a thousand lives in the palm of her unlined hand.
He cleared his throat, and the room went silent. He gestured at the stacks of incident reports. “It’s not glamorous work. Airless room, hard chairs. Tea like pond water. Nobody’ll ever thank you.” His voice deepened the hush in the room. “Lives depend on you today. I depend on you. Read each report; look for any mention of a young woman—a young woman, or a small dog.”
There was a titter from one of the girls, and the others strained to remain serious.
“I know,” he said, thinking what Rupert would say. “Sounds like The Wizard of Oz. But do you have a brother fighting? A father, cousin, a lover?” The girls laughed, and their warrant officer cleared her throat in warning. “You think the war’s fought far away? It’s fought here, today, at this table.”
He wanted to inspire the Wrens, to rally them. He gave them the details instead, and they got to work. Another long shot, but he’d take every shot available. He was still missing an important angle; he felt it in the hollow of his stomach.
Back in his office, Illingworth reported that the woman with the dog—possibly Duckblind—had walked a block or two, waited at the bus station, and then vanished. His men were speaking to the drivers.
“Anything else on Melville?” Highcastle asked.
“Nothing new, sir.” Illingworth slid a copy of his report across the desk.
Highcastle patted his pocket for his spectacles. Learned nothing, except that his bloody spectacles were broken again. “Started with the Hun turning himself in, to infiltrate counterintel. It worked, but he was stuck at Hennessey. So he sent Melville to Duckblind. That’s how she knew to rig a bomb.”
“Pardon me, sir—Melville was thoroughly vetted.”
Highcastle grunted. “Can’t vet for the Hun. Melville was recruited through a microphone, sight unseen. The Hun has . . .” He caught a thread of thought: “Melville was turned. Tipcoe’s arrested. Rupert’s dead. Who else listened to him?”
“The other transcriptionists?”
“Right.” Highcastle scribbled a note—Farquhar and O’Brien were to be brought in immediately, under guard. “Question is, Why the microdot? Why Tom Wall? Say the Hun is using Wall the same as he used Melville. To send a message.”
“What message?”
“Damned if I know. That bloody microphotograph. I’m still not sure if I was playing the Hun’s game, taking it to the Yanks. But can’t do more than—” He stopped. It was the angle he’d been missing. “Bloody hell.”
“Sir?”
“Did you see Rupert before he—before—”
“No, I—”
“He was wearing gray. A gray shirt. The cuff link we found? It was gold.”
TOM AND HARRIET passed Blow-Up Gate, talked to an old Hungarian man with a young boy, selling bread and bangers from a cart. The man had seen a dozen gentlemen who looked like Earl’s picture; the boy had seen none. Harriet bought a half loaf and they cut up to the canal, where they stood in the waning drizzle and extravagantly tossed crumbs to the ducks.
Tom was aching again, his face and hand. If the microdot was genuine, he needed someone to send a message to Japan, saying that they knew a strike force was sailing east toward Hawaii. The Japs could abort, or be met with a prepared force. If there was time to prepare. If it wasn’t yet X-1 Day.
He watched the ducks in the canal squabble over a crumb. Lucky bastards—at least they knew what they were after.
Harriet broke a long silence: “Earl really hasn’t any imagination, has he?”
“Never needed any.” Tom tossed the ducks another crumb. “When we played hide-and-seek, he hid the same place every time.”
“Did he?”
“In the linen closet with Maribeth Carlisle.”
“No imagination.” She tilted her umbrella back to reveal her pale face. “I have plenty, too much. I thought I needed someone solid, someone with no doubts, no fears. Someone impervious.”
Tom tapped a cigarette out of his pack and it was freckled by rain before he brought it to his mouth.
“Someone to dismiss my fears, to tell me”—Harriet almost smiled—“not to worry my pretty little head. An anchor. Earl’s that way, but you . . .”
Tom ruined two matches, trying to light them one-handed, and tossed them into the canal. The ducks drifted toward them and pecked disdainfully.
“I love Earl,” she said. “For what he is—and what he isn’t.”
Tom finally struck a match that caught fire. He let it die without lighting his cigarette and threw it after the others. The drizzle was ticking the ground; the sky was smudged and smelled more of earth than rain.
“But I wonder.” A lock of hair was plastered to Harriet’s forehead and she wiped it away. “I wonder what kind of frightened little fool chooses an anchor over a sail.”
The rain slowed, then stopped. A wisp of fog rose from the canal.
“He loves you the best he can,” Tom said.
“Yes.”
Tom watched the water wend through the canal, a sluggish snake.
“There are men, Tommy,” she said, “who know how to love.”
“Harriet—I’ve been shot; I’ve been drugged. I’ve been beaten up and locked up and walking this city forever. There’s no time for crossword puzzles.”
The city noise was muffled in the damp gray world. Harriet bowed her head and was silent, and the fog rose around her. When she finally spoke, her voice came from a great distance: “I’m not sure I’d make the same choice again.”
He let it lie between them for a moment. “Because Earl takes lovers?”
“I never expected he’d do otherwise.”
No. She wasn’t that sort of fool. “I only ever wanted you,” he said.
She watched the mist rise from the canal. “Is she his lover?”
“No,” he said, knowing she meant Audrey.
“He pursued her.”
“Yeah.”
“We won’t find Earl, Tom. Not here. Not like this.”
“We have to.”
But the haystack was too big, and the needle made of straw. There were too many questions without answers, and the Japanese attack force was closing on the undefended base at Pearl Harbor, to kill young sailors who could have been his squad.
“Come home,” she said.
“I’m not Earl.”
“I know who you are, Tommy.” She lifted her face to him, rain-streaked and striking. “Does anyone know you better?”
Nobody did. “Then you know—I can’t.”
She put her hand on his cheek. “No,” she said. “You can’t.”
She left. He was alone. Without Harriet. Without Earl.
FINDING THE YANK was no trouble. Shepherd Market, the Waterfall, and he was found. But it set Rugg off, Tom Wall crossing the square with his fancy bint on his arm, not looking behind, not worried, like he was on holiday. He didn’t have the wit God gave herring. It set Rugg bloody off.
The chalk man had left an hour ago. His portrait of the dome was bleeding over concrete in the cold spitting rain, veins of color seeping into cracks and the gutter. Rugg stood still as a statue and watched without raising his
head. Wall’s bint had a death white face against her black gamp, eyes like frost.
Rugg specked Renard push himself from his doorway and wait a long count for Wall and the woman to cross the road. They turned the corner, and Rugg moved to where he could watch them, went still again.
Grab Wall and slip the parcel, take him by the neck and snap the bone. But the couple was never alone, first in the zoo and Albert Road, then knocking on doors and talking to shopkeeps. Walking the canal as if on parade, tossing bread for the ducks in a rainstorm.
Then the rain slowed, the bint left, and Wall was as alone as he’d ever been, standing near the wooden bridge at a meeting of two footpaths. There was no canal traffic, nobody walking the trails. The rain stopped. Fog rose from grass and gravel.
Rugg caught Renard gawking at him, and he scratched his chin. Renard nodded—he couldn’t speck nobody about, either. Rugg watched him fiddle his cuff, slipping his cutter into the fold of his newspaper. In one flash, the blade could cut through paper, through skin and meat, and nick bone.
Rugg and Renard angled in slowly through the pea-soup mist.
TOM TOSSED A spent butt into the canal. It swirled in the water, trapped between the bank and a cluster of broken reeds. He’d search in the East End, then. Earl couldn’t stay hidden forever. If only Tom knew how much time he had. It was eleven hours earlier in Hawaii, early morning. Sondegger was loose in the city; Davies-Frank was dead. Highcastle had to stop the Hun and Duckblind before they transmitted.
The cigarette butt broke free of the reeds and drifted in a lazy circle. What was Sondegger’s game? Hell, what was Harriet’s game? Something was gnawing at her, something more than she’d said. Well, it would have to wait. Everything could wait but finding that second microdot.
“Tommy?” Harriet’s voice sounded from the other side of the canal. “Tommy!”
Maybe it wouldn’t wait. He lifted his head and saw Audrey, not Harriet, enveloped by a ring of fog on the far embankment. She was waving or throwing something. No, she was pointing—at a man walking fast toward the narrow bridge lofting high over the canal. Renard. Who dropped the newspaper he’d been holding, revealing a sliver of metal in its place.