They crossed the last of the lawn under his gaze and went through a narrow gate. On the gate, written neatly on an old slab of wood, was the name: Standfast. As they approached the door into the house the small man came forward to greet them. Over his shoulder Jane could see into a pleasant room beyond, one side glass, the other books – thousands of them. On the floor, instead of tables or chairs, there were glassed-in display tables of the kind she expected to see in a museum.
‘Hello,’ said the man pleasantly. He was in his late fifties or early sixties, oval-faced, with a narrow chin and a patrician nose. He had dark eyes and hair fanning back in a widow’s peak that showed a large, intelligent forehead. The hair was black as pitch without a hint of grey. He was wearing a dark three-piece suit and a shirt with an old-fashioned detachable collar. An odd choice of clothes to be wearing in the middle of a desolate Scottish moor. When he spoke it was with a faint Scots burr, overlaid with a much more pronounced upper-class English accent. ‘My name’s Tweedsmuir. How can I help you?’ He sounded reasonably sincere so Jane decided to reply in kind.
‘Well,’ she began, ‘we haven’t eaten in a while and we’re being chased by the police if you want to know the truth.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Tweedsmuir. ‘Perhaps you’d better come inside then.’ He stepped aside and waved them through the doorway. As she passed him Jane caught the faint smell of cigarette tobacco on his clothes.
He led them through the room full of books into a small study or sitting room beyond and gestured towards a pair of club chairs flanking a small hearth with a bright coal fire burning in the grate. Over the mantel there was a black-lacquer-framed watercolour of a large fish.
‘Archoplites interruptus. Otherwise known as the Sacramento Perch,’ said Jane, looking up at the painting before she sat down. ‘Its habitats are the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers in California. I’ve caught it there.’ She turned to their host. ‘How come you’ve got a picture of it here?’
‘I’ve fished for it there myself.’
‘In California?’ asked Jane, somehow a little shocked that the small, almost delicate little man had travelled anywhere.
‘It’s the only place one can catch it,’ the man said with a gentle smile. He remained standing. ‘Can I get you anything? A drink perhaps.’
‘Och, now that would be fine!’ breathed Angus.
‘A fellow countryman, I see,’ commented Tweedsmuir, heading for a small bar set up on a rolling drinks trolley on the far side of the pleasant, wood-panelled room. He turned to Angus. ‘Will The Macallan do? I’m afraid I’m a single-malt drinker, although I’ve got some Kentucky bourbon here if you’d prefer. Old Crow.’
‘Oh no,’ said Angus loftily. ‘The Macallan will do, thank you. Neat if you’ve a mind.’
‘There’s no other way I’d serve it,’ said Tweedsmuir and poured two tall glasses, a good three inches in each. ‘For you… madam?’ he said.
‘A cigarette if you’ve got it.’
‘I do,’ said Tweedsmuir. He handed Angus his drink, then brought down a tin of Du Maurier from the mantel and set it on a little table beside Jane’s chair, along with a box of Swan Vestas. Jane opened the tin, eased a cigarette out and almost reverently put a match to it. She took a deep drag then sighed contentedly. She looked back over her shoulder at the painting over the mantel. ‘Pretty,’ she said, ‘but not quite what I expected to see in the middle of a Scottish moor.’
‘You’re an American, I take it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘New York from the accent.’
‘Right again.’
‘So is the artist, although for the past number of years he’s been living in California.’
‘It looks Japanese.’
‘You have a good eye.’ Tweedsmuir nodded. ‘His name is Hashima Murayama. He used to be a staff artist at National Geographic magazine. He’s in an internment camp now.’
‘Aye,’ said Angus. ‘Like the one on the Isle of Man for Jews and such like.’
‘Yes,’ said Tweedsmuir sadly. ‘I’m afraid we can’t profess to taking any higher moral ground on that score. The Americans seem to have gone at it a little more enthusiastically however.’ He smiled benignly in Jane’s direction. ‘What I can’t understand is why they weren’t as enthusiastic at rounding up Germans and Italians.’
‘That’s simple enough,’ said Jane. ‘If they did that all the restaurants in New York would close and we’d starve.’
‘I suppose that’s true,’ Tweedsmuir answered with a soft smile. Jane watched him; he was very pale, almost ghostly, and his occasional smile had a too-calm, ethereal quality that was almost frightening. Somehow she knew that behind that aristocratic forehead was a brain full of memories and experiences she could never hope to match. He took a thoughtful sip of his drink. ‘Have you ever eaten at Barbetta’s on Forty-eighth Street?’
‘The best zabaglione in the city,’ Jane said. ‘You really do get around.’
‘I’ve been here and there in my time. Unfortunately I was in England when war broke out. I thought perhaps I could be of some use in this war, but they won’t have me you see, and there’s only so much fishing that can be done on the River Test.’
‘You’ve fished the Test?’ said Jane, astounded. It was every fly fisherman’s dream, British, American or any other nationality. It was, in fact, the very place that the first brown trout had been carefully transplanted from to the Delaware River in Pennsylvania almost a hundred years before. A simple chalk-bed stream, cold spring fed and ‘clear as gin’ as the saying went. Expensive too; the rights to fish the river were all privately held and a licence to catch so much as one brown trout cost a month’s wages for most.
Tweedsmuir nodded. ‘Most of it. From the village of Ashe in Hampshire, where it begins, to Laverstroke and Whitechurch, then on to Stockbridge and Broadlands, my friend Louis’s place.’
‘I thought that was just for high-mucky-mucks, lords and knights and that kind of thing.’ She sighed again. ‘It was one of the things I wanted to do while I was here,’ she said.
‘Drop a line in the Test?’ asked Tweedsmuir.
‘Um,’ said Jane. ‘That would be a dream come true.’
‘Come back here after your troubles are over and perhaps I can arrange something. I think Louis would enjoy meeting both of you.’
‘Louis?’ said Jane. ‘That’s twice you’ve mentioned him. Can he sneak us onto the river?’
‘I should think so,’ said Tweedsmuir, smiling. ‘He’s one of those high-mucky-muck knights and lords you mentioned.’ Tweedsmuir took another sip of whisky, obviously relishing it even though he was drinking very slowly, almost as though the drink was medicine. He smiled. ‘His full name is Lord Louis Mountbatten.’
Jane vaguely recognised the name from news reports. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘And why do I think I should know you?’
‘There’s no reason why you should, my dear. I’m afraid my day, and indeed my war, is done. Let’s just say I’m a retired publisher and man of letters, in my own small way, and leave it at that, shall we?’ He put his unfinished drink down on the small table beside his chair and rose to his feet. For the first time Jane realised how dark the man’s eyes were: dark enough to put you to sleep forever. She shivered slightly. Tweedsmuir noticed. ‘Come along, then. You said you were hungry and you’re obviously chilled. Let’s get on to the kitchen and I’ll fix you a flitch of bacon and half a hundred eggs or so. When that’s done we’ll put you in hot baths and fix you up with new clothes.’
‘What’s wrong with the clothes we’ve got, then?’ argued Angus, swallowing the last of his drink.
‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ Tweedsmuir murmured diplomatically. ‘A little travel-worn and in need of a wash after your journey perhaps, that’s all.’
‘What about the police?’ said Jane a little more urgently.
Tweedsmuir offered his dark, fathomless eyes and that soft, secret smile again. ‘I’ll handle the police,’
he said. ‘I’m rather good at it, actually.’
They adjourned to the kitchen – a large, low- ceilinged and cosy room at the rear of the house, overlooking a small vegetable garden and the hills and dales they’d just traversed. So far there was still no sign of the police.
Tweedsmuir went to a surprisingly modern bottled gas Servel Electrolux refrigerator on the far side of the room and took out a large, brown paper-wrapped package of sliced bacon and a small basket of brown speckled eggs. He took out a pound of butter as well, laid everything out neatly on the yellow tiled counter next to a huge old Dutch oven and then took a fine, black, permanently oily cast-iron frying pan from a cupboard underneath the counter and set it on top of the stove. He found a plain white apron hanging on a hook behind the door and tied it on over his suit, then gently laid a dozen strips of bacon across the frying pan and began to cook. Angus and Jane sat down in a pair of slat-back, cane-seated country chairs arranged around a square table the colour of honey that stood in the middle of the bright, sunny room.
‘Now then,’ said Tweedsmuir, continuing to cook, easing the strips of bacon around in the pan. ‘Perhaps you’ll be so kind as to tell me your story.’
For the second time that day Jane told her tale, leaving nothing out, from the body in the London mortuary and the bloody railway junction in Letchworth to her discussions with Dundee about Charles Danby’s involvement. She told him about the revelations in Shepton Mallet prison, the missing Imperial Crown and the Great Sword and, finally, Dundee’s disappearance and the corpse of the woman in her bedroom. Tweedsmuir stopped her only twice, first to ask her about the actual items that were stolen and then about the odd man she’d met on the train.
‘Mendelssohn?’ he asked.
‘That’s right,’ she said as he placed a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs in front of her along with, to Jane’s surprise, the first bottle of Heinz, or any other, ketchup she’d seen since setting foot in England.
‘And he mentioned Fingal’s Cave? What was your reaction?’ asked Tweedsmuir.
‘I’d never heard of it.’
‘Interesting,’ murmured Tweedsmuir, putting some freshly sliced brown bread into a shiny Toastmaster.
‘Why?’ asked Jane.
‘Don’t you find it strange that, once stolen, your Mr Danby would transport the jewels so far north? He must have a purpose. I’m assuming it’s because he has to wait for something, transportation presumably.’
‘Transportation?’ asked Jane.
Swallowing the last piece of egg on his plate, Angus leaned back in his chair, put a demure hand over his mouth and belched quietly.
‘He’s right, lass,’ said the Scotsman. ‘It’s the only thing that makes any sense, ya see. He’s got to get yon jewellery off England and into the hands of the Germans if your theory is correct about their final destination. For that he’s going to need some privacy to make the exchange. There’s no way a German submarine or one of their fancy E-boats is going to come sailing into Bristol, bells and whistle doing a hornpipe.’
‘Your friend has hit the nail on the head,’ said Tweedsmuir.
‘What’s that got to do with Fingal’s Cave?’
‘At the best of times the cave is relatively isolated. Staffa, the island it’s located on, is only about a mile long and half as wide. These days, with no tourist trade and ten miles out in the Irish Sea from the nearest land, it’s a perfect spot for such an exchange. The cave can only be approached by boat from Mull. Once inside the cave they’d be completely hidden.’
‘How big is this cave?’ asked Jane.
‘Two hundred and forty feet long, forty wide and sixty-five feet tall at high tide,’ said Tweedsmuir. Almost the length of a football field and about as wide, thought Jane. Easy enough for a rubber boat launched from a submarine or more likely one of their fast attack patrol boats. She dug into her jacket and took out the old, worn Lady Amity wallet she’d carried for years. She carefully withdrew the matchbook cover she’d found in the basement of the cottage in Shepton Mallet and handed it across the table to Tweedsmuir. ‘Any idea what this means?’ she asked.
The small man looked at it carefully.
On the outside:
CURTISS & SONS REMOVALS
Fountainbridge
Glasgow
And then, on the inside:
Salem/h.t. 712/12
‘I have no idea about Mr Curtiss and his sons but I’d say the inside is telling you the mean high tide for Salen in Mull for the seventh of the month is midnight.’ He turned and looked over his shoulder at a calendar hanging from the wall. ‘Two days from now.’
‘Christ!’ breathed Jane. ‘We’re running out of time.’
‘You certainly are,’ said Tweedsmuir, looking over her shoulder and out the window. Jane turned and followed his gaze. A line of men had appeared on the crest of the farthest hill and were coming quickly down into the valley. The man in the hacking jacket remained on the summit, the flashing lenses of his binoculars almost certainly focused on the farmhouse.
Jane pushed back her chair and stood up. So did Angus.
‘Sorry to eat and run, Mr Tweedsmuir, but its back to playing hare and hounds for us.’
‘No,’ said the small man firmly. ‘Wait here.’
Tweedsmuir turned on his heel and left the room. A moment later they could hear his footsteps on the stairs. Jane stared anxiously out the window. The men were getting closer by the second.
‘We’ve got to go.’
‘Wait, lass,’ said Angus. ‘I think the man is on our side.’
‘Christ! I hope so.’
‘I’d refrain from taking the Lord’s name in vain if I was you, Janey. He has the look of a minister’s son. Wearing all that black and yon upright collar; Free Kirk if I’m guessing correctly.’
‘You are, sir,’ said Tweedsmuir, smiling as he came back into the room. He was carrying a mound of clothes over one arm and a pistol in the other, a familiar-looking Smith and Wesson hammerless .38 Police Special, much like the one her cop friend Hennessey carried. ‘Follow me,’ he added as he strode across the kitchen, pushing the pistol into the pocket of his jacket and lifting the latch on a plain wood door on the far side of the room. He disappeared and Jane and Angus followed.
They found themselves in a dark, musty storeroom with an uneven dirt floor that was obviously part of the original farmhouse. It was dark, the windows heavily shuttered, the walls lined with boxes and barrels and lumpy sacks of coal.
‘Change clothes. I’ll deal with the police; I know the local constable and he’ll believe me if I tell him I haven’t seen you.’ He smiled. ‘Or tell them I have seen you and you’ve gone in a completely different direction.’ He handed Angus the pistol. ‘Take this; you’re bound to need it more than I am.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Jane, her arms full of clothes.
‘Because I want to have one last adventure, I suppose,’ he answered, with that dark, secret smile. ‘My friend Hannay and myself.’
‘Hannay?’ asked Jane.
‘Never mind,’ said Tweedsmuir with a small laugh. ‘A little joke.’ He paused then snapped his fingers, a strangely modern gesture for a man who seemed to have stepped out of the past. ‘I almost forgot.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a flat, gunmetal grey cigarette case and handed it to Jane. The initials J. B. were scrolled ornately on the front. ‘I thought you might like these.’ With that he turned and left the room, the latch clicking loudly as he closed the door, leaving them in the dark. Jane shared out the clothes, and, turning their backs to each other, she and Angus began to take off their old clothes and put on the new.
* * *
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Danby, back in his proper uniform after his brief stint as a corporal in Shepton Mallet, smoked a Lucky and looked out over the River Cam. Directly across the narrow river a huge weeping willow hung down, reflected perfectly in the steely water, the reflection briefly blurred as some mufflered and woolly-hat
ted scullers slid up the river on their narrow craft like a giant water bug. A little way along to the right stood a huge oak that was probably an acorn in Henry VIII’s time, partially obscuring the castellated towers of St John’s College. To his left, the Trinity Bridge led across the river to the well-ordered and neatly trimmed fields known only as ‘The Backs.’ A fairy tale, which was appropriate, all things considered.
Danby spotted his quarry coming along the path leading down from Trinity Cloisters Library and watched him approach. The severe-looking man, hair swept back on a wide, almost arrogantly bulbous forehead that probably meant he had more brains than he needed, had a long nose with a face like a basset hound. He was tall, limp-wristed and wearing a dark blue Trinity blazer, a white shirt with an old-fashioned pin-on collar, a College tie and a worn-looking academic gown thrown over his shoulders against the chill of the early evening. Below the blazer billowed a pair of old grey flannels, his extremely large feet fitted into oversized brown shoes. Danby knew just about everything about the man, which was more than most people could say. He was a fellow of Trinity College and, according to Danby’s information, he’d been a Red since he was a student here but was never so foolish as to join the party.
‘Well, Colonel, we meet again,’ said Blunt, seating himself on the bench beside Danby. He reached into his blazer pocket and took out a silver cigarette case with his monogram etched into it and a slim, solid-gold Dunhill lighter. Danby remembered that Blunt was vaguely related to the royal family somehow, a cousin of somebody’s brother-in-law or something. Blunt popped open the cigarette case and removed one of his foul-smelling yellow-papered Broyard cigarettes and lit it, placing the fat, dark tobacco tube in the exact centre of his rather feminine mouth.
An American Spy Page 23