Touchstone

by Laurie R. King

“Well, we’ve got a ways to go before we reach that point, but yeah, the bud is the place to nip these things.”

  “Here, it has gone far past the bud stage. One might even say the flower threatens to bear fruit. Forgive me if this is traveling familiar ground, Mr. Stuyvesant, but you know this country had a little, hmm, flirtation with Communism two years ago?”

  “You mean your Labour government? Sure, I read the papers—our papers, anyway. You went Socialist for most of 1924—Red anthems in Parliament, rumors that you were changing from the pound sterling to the ruble, doing away with the royal family and the institution of marriage, all the rest. It didn’t last long.”

  “No, it did not. The British voter came to his senses.”

  “So, what, you think maybe Labour’s going to be voted back in?” After a week of being lectured at by one bureaucrat after another, Stuyvesant thought he might vote Red himself, if they’d promise to trim some of the damned governmental deadwood.

  “Actually,” Carstairs said, “they may not bother with an election this time.”

  The American glanced sharply across at his companion. Carstairs’ face was deadly serious.

  “What, you honestly believe this talk about an actual…revolution?” In England?” He laughed in disbelief, but Carstairs just held his eyes until Stuyvesant’s laughter faded, then he picked up a second sandwich.

  “If the possibility surprises you, Mr. Stuyvesant, I can only say you have no idea of the state this country is in. Since the War ended, pressures have been mounting. Our government have been, to put it bluntly, preparing for war. A class war. On the one side are the ruling and middle classes, the backbone of Britain, who look to the eastern horizon and see the nightmare of Russia, slaughtering their aristocracy, handing over all property to the worker, swallowing up their neighbors, stretching out greedy fingers for Britain. On the other side stand the workers, who have received generous privileges and subsidies during the War years and insist that, despite the current tight economy, those privileges are rights. The economy is coming off its artificial wartime boost and settling down. We’re going back onto the gold standard, which will narrow the profits on exports. The bottom line is, we all must tighten our belts.”

  This was a phrase Stuyvesant had heard dozens of times over the years, and frankly, although his job required him to back the owners, with him it only went so far. He knew from experience which belts got tightened in the end.

  But if Carstairs wasn’t just talking through his hat about the threat of revolution, it was no wonder London was in such a state. He’d feel a little tetchy, himself.

  “You’ve heard of the Zinoviev letter?” Carstairs mused.

  “Wasn’t that—” Stuyvesant began, but the man seemed to be thinking aloud and did not wait for his response.

  “Two years ago, in October 1924, Labour lost the vote of confidence and an election was called. It was clear to everyone that the fate of the country hung in the balance, that the Socialists absolutely had to be evicted from Downing Street. A second vote in their favor, or even in the favor of their partners, the Liberal Party, might well have tipped this country into the arms of the Bolsheviks. You may doubt it, but those in Britain who mattered knew that it could happen, that in the blink of an eye, the entire continent of Europe would turn Bolshevist.

  “A day or two after the vote of no-confidence, a letter arrived at the Foreign Office, intercepted by a government agency. It had come from Grigori Zinoviev. You know the name?”

  “Zinoviev is president of the International Communist Party.” He was remembering this letter now.

  “Precisely. The letter amounted to a set of instructions from Moscow, with Zinoviev urging his British comrades to push for the proposed treaty with Russia—a treaty that, among other gestures of support, would include a substantial ‘loan’ to the new Bolshevist state. The letter went on to address the possibility of armed insurrection. It spoke for the establishment of Communist cells among British working men—particularly munitions workers—and among British troops, especially those stationed near cities. The words class war figured prominently in the letter, standing against the military preparations of the ‘bourgeoisie.’ Two weeks after it was received, four days before the general election, this letter appeared in the Daily Mail.”

  The U.S. of A. doesn’t have the corner on the dirty politics market, Stuyvesant thought. The current Teapot Dome scandal was only money, after all, not an entire country’s political fate.

  “Which led the ‘bourgeoisie’ to vote Labour out. By a landslide, as I recall.”

  Carstairs nodded. “The Tories would have won in any case, but with the looming threat of a Communist takeover, the vote was overwhelming. The proposed treaties with Russia were abandoned, loans were canceled, and the British government could return to the business of putting the country together.”

  “I also remember,” Stuyvesant interrupted, reaching for the wine bottle, “that questions were raised concerning the letter’s authenticity.”

  “That is true. Certainly the Communists themselves denied it.”

  “Because it was all pretty convenient, wasn’t it? The timing and all. And such an unlikely thing to land in the lap of the people it did.”

  “Also true. And that has led to a part of the current, hmm, problem.”

  “Your nice middle-class bourgeoisie voter is beginning to wonder if he’s been had?”

  “Shall we say, rather, that certain elements of society are playing up the letter’s more dubious interpretation.”

  “In other words, your Reds are pointing out to people that they were manipulated into voting Conservative.”

  “It is an underlying theme, in the Communist propaganda efforts.”

  “Well you know, when you fake evidence, especially inflammatory evidence, it has a way of coming back and biting you on the ass.”

  “Few would claim that anyone in the Conservative Party faked it.”

  “But they sure jumped on it in a big way.”

  “It was heaven sent,” Carstairs admitted.

  “If none of the Tories faked it, who did?”

  “It hasn’t been proved that anyone faked it. Only that it was leaked at a convenient moment.”

  “The letter came through your Intelligence people, didn’t it? MI6?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Is that who you’re with?” Stuyvesant asked bluntly.

  “Me? Heavens no, nothing nearly so flamboyant. Although I have worked with them in the past.”

  The American fiddled with his glass and decided not to bother asking point blank if Aldous Carstairs had been responsible for the Zinoviev letter. He would only deny it. In any case, as far as the government was concerned, someone had to do it, so it was done. “Is the letter about to blow up again?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. The uncertainty of its provenance has caused certain, hmm, problems, but those are generally both small and localized, and found among those who would mistrust anything the government had to say, no matter the evidence.”

  “So why the hell are we talking about it? What’s it got to do with Richard Bunsen?”

  “I am, in fact, coming around to that. The Zinoviev letter has, inadvertently, taught the agitators an invaluable, if painful, lesson: That a powerful, last-minute blow is nearly impossible to counteract.”

  “Are your people thinking about some last-minute effort to take the wind out of the General Strike? Another Zinoviev letter?”

  “Oh no,” Carstairs said, sounding surprised. “As I said, the government have been preparing for the Strike ever since ‘Red Friday’ last August, when Mr. Churchill extended the coal subsidy. And not just the government, but private citizenry have banded together in an organized resistance to any attempt at overthrowing the legally constituted order.”

  What had the papers called it, Stuyvesant asked himself—the Organisation for the Continuation of Order?

  “In that time, we have ensured the security of essential sup
plies”—(supplies, thought Stuyvesant—not order: Maintenance of Supplies, a name of such unadorned simplicity that a cynic begins to suspect some large, dark entity stirring below the surface)—“medical care, communications, peace-keeping forces—no, the government are fully prepared to outlast any strike. What concerns me is that, to all appearances, the Unions have made no preparations whatsoever. They appear to be blithely convinced that the government will back down again.

  “Now, this may be simply that they are confident that God is on their side, that the manifest rightness of their cause will win the day. However, there are some good minds in the Unions, and one cannot but wonder if they know something we do not. If perhaps the Union leadership might have a card up their collective sleeves, to be pulled out in a decisive, last-minute coup de guerre.”

  “A sort of reverse Zinoviev affair,” Stuyvesant said.

  “As you say, some last-minute revelation that would tip public sympathy towards the miners. Sympathy is building; a push in their favor could have a, hmm, disastrous effect. There is a tide in the affairs of men, the Bard says, and in this case, the tide is an industrial action that could be fashioned into the point of a wedge. A wedge aimed at a complete overthrow of the government.”

  “Your revolution,” Stuyvesant said flatly. How had Grey put it? The middle classes are teetering, waiting to be convinced. “You honestly believe the British people are so fed up with their system of government that they’d sweep it into the sea and follow the Bolsheviks?”

  “If you put it to them in those words, certainly not. But there is a pervasive and growing mistrust for authority in this country, which among some has reached open contempt for the entire parliamentary system. I believe,” Carstairs said, then corrected himself. “I fear, it would just take one powerful and carefully judged blow and, without intending outright revolution, the country would nonetheless find itself tumbling in that direction. The next three weeks could determine the well-being of the British state for the next hundred years.”

  Stuyvesant looked into the man’s black eyes, and for once did not doubt Carstairs’ sincerity: The man believed that his nation was in peril.

  If that was the case, and given the clear and fast-approaching deadline, why was he messing around with a trip to Cornwall?

  Unless he thought Grey might somehow help with the coming threat.

  Or…did his interest include Bunsen?

  “Mr. Carstairs, do I get the feeling that you’re taking Richard Bunsen more seriously than you did on Friday?”

  “Mr. Stuyvesant, I don’t think I need to tell you that in our business, one is forever watching for the unexpected. On the face of it, Richard Bunsen seems an unlikely candidate for the man to spark open class warfare on British soil. But now that my attention has been drawn to him, I will admit, he interests me. I find the possibility that he has been practicing his bomb-making skills at a safe distance from his own back garden distinctly troubling. Had I a plenitude of men at my command, I would insert someone into his organization, but my men are currently stretched in a number of directions that remain, to my mind, as likely a threat as this one.

  “However, if you like, I will assist you. Given, that is, the clear understanding that you will pass on to me anything of interest regarding Richard Bunsen.”

  “Sure. And what do you want in exchange?” One Cornish mind-reader, perhaps?

  “Merely that you keep me au fait with Captain Grey’s…situation.”

  “With an eye towards helping you get him back?”

  “‘Get him back’?”

  “For your Truth Project, I think it’s called.” Calibrating the machines that would take the place of torture.

  Carstairs’ inky eyes might have been holes in the night sky, bottomless and unreadable. After a long moment, his eyelids blinked slowly over them, and he looked to one side for the attendant. He said nothing at all to Stuyvesant, just glanced over the slip of paper and peeled money from his billfold.

  When the man had left, the Englishman laid his table napkin on the empty plate and braced his hands on his chair.

  “Mr. Stuyvesant, let me simply say this. I am impressed with how far you got Captain Grey to open up. He would not do that for many, and that you arrived with me did not assist your cause any, as no doubt you have seen. However, it is clear that you have joined the Friends of Captain Grey camp. It’s completely understandable. He is quite a, hmm, likable fellow. Let me warn you. Do not let Grey’s charisma and your shared experience of trench warfare blind you to the evidence before your eyes.”

  And with that, he drained his glass and left.

  Chapter Eighteen

  STUYVESANT WATCHED Aldous Carstairs disappear into the corridor, and wondered what the hell had just happened.

  That last little exchange had felt like a gauntlet thrown down, a declaration of war, which really, really wasn’t what he’d had in mind. Use the man, keep your distance, but do not make him an enemy.

  Jesus Christ, he thought, I must never drink in the vicinity of a man who pulls all my triggers like that man does.

  He walked down the corridor to his compartment and closed the door behind him. The hat and coat that he had tossed onto the bed earlier had been tidied away, the bed-clothes pulled down, but the space was so stuffy and cramped, the thought of climbing into bed was intolerable. He dropped his jacket on the foot of the blankets and kicked off his shoes before sidling around to wrestle the window open.

  That was better. Wet and noisy, but with his upper body outside, his head cleared. When he drew back inside he could feel the rain dripping from his hair, and there were smuts on his once-white shirt. He took it off, and sat in his undershirt with a cigarette, the squeals and rattles and wet air washing around him.

  Think, man.

  Okay, first thing was, Carstairs had a point. Normally—professionally—Harris Stuyvesant kept an amiable face over a watchful attitude: Only when he felt fairly certain about which way the wind was blowing—friend or foe—would he let down his internal fences and stick his hand over. With Grey, he somehow hadn’t bothered with the fences: From the moment he saw the man standing by the farm shed, it had been liking at first sight. By the time he left, he’d felt so close to the man, he’d even been considering how to keep Carstairs away from him.

  If Agent Harris Stuyvesant had played a witness the way Grey played him, he’d be proud of his skills.

  He didn’t think it had been a deliberate effort on Grey’s part. He didn’t feel he’d been manipulated; he was just responding to the force of Grey’s personality.

  Then again, it didn’t have to be deliberate. Grey could simply have perceived what it was this American would respond to, and—if his nerves were indeed “rubbed raw” by conflict—automatically shaped himself to fit. Come to think of it, wasn’t that more or less what Stuyvesant did every time he went undercover? See what his quarry wanted, and become it?

  A small town grew and faded outside the windows, most of its houses dark. A few minutes later, a set of head-lamps waited at a crossing, and a sudden flare of light behind the wind-screen revealed two people, heads together over the match.

  Aldous Carstairs, he thought: What was he after?

  Human beings assume that others share their preoccupations. Show a photograph of a family in a sitting room to a new mother, she will notice the children; show the same photo to a career criminal, he will point out the exits and where any valuables might be hidden; give it to a middle-aged salesman, and he’ll tell you all you need to know about the family’s income and interests.

  Show a suspected bomb-maker to Aldous Carstairs, and he sees Bennett Grey. Ask about mind-reading and he talks about interrogation. Remind him that you wish to lay hands on the bomb-maker, and he describes a convoluted path winding from a two-year-old piece of political chicanery to a would-be revolution, following it up with the danger of a “last-minute coup de guerre.” Ask him about a strike, he talks revolution.

  We have ensured th
e security of essential supplies, Carstairs had said. There is a mistrust for authority in this country.

  Sounded to Stuyvesant as if Carstairs intended to do something about the current state of affairs.

  Something that had to do with Bennett Grey?

  Or were the two matters on separate, although equally important, tracks?

  And why was it that the extreme opponents of Communist doctrine were every bit as bad as the Reds, as if politics was not a straight left-and-right but a line that looped around to blend at the fringes? That a fight against Bolsheviks might be a battle against those at the other end of the spectrum as well?

  Towns and stations came and went; telegraph lines rose and fell. Midnight came, then one o’clock, leaving Stuyvesant alone with the rain on the window and Carstairs’ words in his head.

  Long hours after pulling out of Penzance, the train left open countryside. The distances between the farms and hamlets shortened, then the villages grew, and soon were piling up on each other. Looking ahead at a curve in the tracks, Stuyvesant could see the glow in the sky that presaged London.

  He lit a cigarette and studied his silver case. He played with the clasp, invisible to anyone but a Bennett Grey, then popped the lid and took out the hidden photograph and its pinned-on lock of hair, unfolding it and laying it on the un-slept-in bed.

  It was an ordinary, unposed snapshot of the woman he loved. Or, rather, had loved, six years ago. He had taken it on the deck of a ferry, in August 1920, the day he first knew that he was going to marry her. The wind tumbled her curly hair, unfashionably long by today’s standards but considered short then. The same could be said of her dress, its hem pressed up against her leg to show more than she had intended.

  Helen had given him the snippet of hair, to wear close to his heart, but she had never seen the photograph. No one but Stuyvesant had ever seen it, since the film was in his camera when she died, and he had developed and printed it on his own in the Bureau darkroom. He wondered what he would have done, if Bennett Grey had moved to take it from its hiding place. He was glad Grey hadn’t tried.