by Lynda Wilcox
Tilly had answered the knock on the door and came back with a face like thunder.
“Major Armitage to see you, my lady.”
Eleanor struggled to keep her own face grimace free. “Thank you. Tilly, please show him in.”
The two women had first met Peter Armitage, who worked for Military Intelligence, during the war. With their respective skills, Eleanor and Tilly had been recruited into his unit for a daring espionage raid across the Channel. More recent contact had come only a month ago when Eleanor, with her maid’s assistance, had helped to thwart a couple of spies intending to intercept a secret steel-making formula before it reached the British government.
Eleanor sighed. Whatever he wanted now would not be good news for her peace of mind.
“Good evening, Lady Eleanor. I trust you are well?” The major handed his hat and coat to Tilly.
The maid sniffed, closing the door with a bang as she went out and left her mistress and the major together.
“Fine, thank you, Peter.” She indicated a chair by the fire. “May I get you a drink?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks, but don’t let me stop you.”
“You won’t,” she said, and crossed to the drinks trolley under the side window. She splashed a little cognac into a tumbler. “To what do I owe the...pleasure?”
“I need your help again, seeing as you are already mixed up in this business.”
“Which business, pray?” Her tone was glacial.
She resumed her seat and stared across the space between them. His handsome face appeared haggard, the scar on the left side of his chin showing livid on his clenched jaw. The dark hair that sprang up from his forehead and curled around his ears badly needed a trim.
The man was trouble writ large. Wishing she’d had the sense to send him away, or to tell Tilly that she wasn’t at home, she waited, ignoring the thrill of excitement she always felt when he was near.
“Please don’t play games with me, Lady Eleanor. There isn’t time. We have ten days to prevent a man’s death, an incident that could plunge us into war again.”
Was the man raving? She had no idea what he was talking about, nor was she happy about him using the word ‘we’. Was it a reference to the department in Military Intelligence that he worked for, or something more personal?
“I’m sorry to to hear that, Major, but what has it to do with me? I’m not clairvoyant. Explain yourself.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
It took every ounce of Eleanor's self-control and impeccable breeding to stop her from pounding the arm of her chair. “Damn it, Peter. You come here asking my help, then expect me to divine it for myself? I know you work for Military Intelligence, I know you deal in secrets that cannot be shared with outsiders, but if you don’t share with me, if you don’t trust me, then I’m in no position to help you.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and scowled at her. He gave a brief nod, as though he had come to some decision.
“You're right, of course. It's just that it goes against the grain, you see?"
“Perfectly. Now, what is it you'd like me to do?”
Armitage took a deep breath. “We’ve suspected for a long time that Sir David Bristol was passing on state secrets and information to our enemies. We just don’t know how. He occasionally hosted meetings with both German and Russian businessmen at his home in Berkshire.”
“Then there’s your answer.” It was obvious, but Armitage was not a stupid man. There must be more to it than that. “Surely, though, with Bristol’s death that problem has been removed?”
“Perhaps. Frankly, whoever killed him did us a favour, in one sense. However, we still don’t know who was passing him the information from our side. That’s where you come in.”
Biting back her first angry retort that if he thought he could make her dance to his own tune then he had better think again, Eleanor gazed into her brandy glass. “I do?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Yes. I’d be interested to know your thoughts concerning Sir Oswald Brain, Gerald Hope-Weedon, and Sir Robert Lancashire.”
Surprised that Armitage had included Lady Barbara’s husband on his list, and that Hope-Weedon was a name on the list of attendees for that lady’s soirée, the hand in which Eleanor held her glass shook, splashing liquid onto her fingers.
“You know the names?” he asked.
“Yes, of course I do. They are all senior civil servants or government ministers working in the Foreign Office. That doesn’t mean to say that I know them well, or even at all. The aristocracy aren’t forever in each other’s pockets, you know, much as you seem to think they are.”
Unperturbed by her frosty reply, he said, “So, what can you tell me about them?”
Eleanor sighed and pursed her lips. “Well...Sir Oswald Brain hasn’t got one. A more stupid and incompetent man it would be hard to meet. Comes from a long line of landed gentry and likes to boast that he can trace his family as far back as before Cromwell’s time - Thomas Cromwell, that is — so they’ve had long enough to breed the brain out of the male line, at least.
“I’ve never met Gerald Hope-Weedon. At least, I don’t think so. A self-made man, so I hear.
“As for Sir Robert Lancashire, gossip has it that he was hoping to be the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, but MacDonald took on that role as well as Prime Minister. By sheer coincidence, I’ve just taken on a commission from Sir Robert’s wife. She’s a bore and so is he, though in a more bumbling sort of way than she is.”
She sipped her cognac. “Does that help?” She looked up and caught him laughing.
“You always were a wonderful observer. Your assessment of Sir Oswald is a little unkind ...”
“But accurate.”
“Granted.” He became suddenly serious. “Our problem is that we suspect one of the three to be responsible for the leak in information. Now, if it is Sir Oswald then, given what you say of him, the leak may be inadvertent. As for the other two...” He shrugged.
“I don’t know what you think I can do about it, Major. I can pay courtesy calls upon their wives, I can accost them if I see them at the theatre, or a party, or soirée, but I can hardly come straight out and ask them if they’re traitors. Nor do I intend listening at closed doors or entering private studies and reading their correspondence. I’ve told you before, I won’t snoop for you.”
When the Armistice had been signed in November 1918, Eleanor had sworn that she would never get involved with espionage again. She might be very attracted to Peter Armitage, his dark, almost saturnine good looks and piercing intelligence assured that, but she cursed his insistence on dragging her into his business.
“I’m hardly asking you to do that,” he said, in a placatory tone. “I’d merely like you to keep your ears and eyes open and report anything that you think relevant to me. Would you do that for me, please?”
His soft spoken polite request did not fool her. She could certainly comply with it, none of the three people he’d mentioned were her friends or bosom buddies. She might not feel so sanguine reporting them if they were. Besides, with the exception of the Lancashires, she was unlikely to encounter any of them, and wasn’t going to go out of her way to do so.
“Very well. Anyway, what has all this to do with ten days to prevent murder and war?”
“As you were the one to discover Bristol’s body, do you intend investigating his death?
“Certainly not. I shall leave that to the police.”
“Hmm. A pity.”
Eleanor gaped at him. “What on earth do you mean by that, Major?”
In answer he got to his feet and circled the comfortable armchair he’d been sitting on. Brows drawn down, he repeated the exercise before resuming his seat.
“Listen, my lady. In ten days the Prime Minister will have a meeting with a French politician by the name of Gaston Doumergue. Ramsay MacDonald may have the first ever Labour government in Britain, but it’s a minority one. A lot of people would like to s
ee the back of it.”
“But he’s only been in power for a little over a week. Can’t they give the man a chance?”
“Ha! You know it doesn’t work like that. Power, or the wanting of it, leads to all sorts of machinations.”
Eleanor’s face twisted in a sour grimace. “Go on. About the meeting with Mr Doumergue.”
“It’s due to take place at Chequers, though the date is a closely guarded secret, and we’ve received information that there is to be an assassination attempt.”
“Upon whom?”
“Doumergue. We think the idea is to discredit MacDonald, and force another election. Mr Doumergue’s party of radical socialists would not be too happy, either. He is expected to become the next President of France.”
Eleanor’s head was spinning with all these names and allegiances. “Bah! Politics. Damn all politicians to perdition.”
“It could lead to war.”
“What? Between Britain and France? Nonsense!”
Eleanor tossed her head. Armitage’s claim didn’t scare her. She was not to be coerced into meddling in matters she considered did not concern her just because the Major was unable to solve his own problems. Was his department so short of staff, or was there no intelligence in the Military Intelligence office?
“Well, we must hope that it won’t come to that, but Bristol was involved in the plot. Someone was feeding him information.”
“But, surely, that is immaterial now that he’s dead. Chief Inspector Blount is a capable man, he’ll find your killer for you.”
“But Blount cannot mix with the high-and-mighty like you do. They’d close ranks on him and shut up tighter than a clam, yet it’s within those ranks that we need to look for both a traitor and a killer. That’s where you come in.”
“Really, Major! You are impossible. How many times do I have to tell you that I will not get involved? I cannot help you.”
He got to his feet. “Very well.”
Eleanor rang for her maid who brought Armitage’s hat and coat. Happy to be seeing the back of him, Eleanor showed him to the door.
“Good night, your ladyship.” He settled the hat on his head. “You’ll let me know what you find out, won’t you?”
With an unladylike display of temper, Eleanor slammed the door in his face.
Chapter 7
Tilly was waiting for her when Eleanor returned to the drawing room. She stood in front of the kitchen door, arms crossed, and with a furious scowl on her face.
“He’s got a nerve,” she said.
“Hasn’t he just? Did you hear what he wanted?”
Resenting the implication that she had been eavesdropping, Tilly’s scowl deepened. “Certainly not.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “I was in there ironing, with the door closed.”
Eleanor grinned. “That’s a shame. I was hoping you could tell me.” She took her seat and motioned for Tilly to join her. “I really don’t know why he came, or what it is he wants me to do.”
“As to why he came, that’s obvious.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, he’s sweet on you, my lady.”
“Nonsense, Tilly, old girl. He was telling me about some plot to assassinate a politician and start a war which he thinks I can prevent by solving the murder of Sir David Bristol.”
“Humph. Now that is nonsense. I hope you sent him away with a flea in his ear.”
“Oh, yes. You heard the front door bang.”
Tilly’s face lit up with a broad smile. “I should think they heard it in Piccadilly Circus. Well done, my lady.”
“Oh, I’m not proud of myself. Peter Armitage has a way of riling me like no other man I know. I wish he would leave me alone.”
Yet he wouldn’t. Even in bed that evening, searching for sleep, her thoughts were full of him.
She and Tilly had both been a few months short of eighteen when they’d enlisted. The maid had cut Eleanor’s long blonde hair and dyed the remaining locks black. When they had volunteered for Military Intelligence, Eleanor, fearing rejection if her true name and status were known, gave her name as Ella Rowsley.
They had been assigned to Major Armitage’s small unit and, in 1918, six of them had travelled to France and onwards into the forest of the Ardennes.
A series of dangerous missions followed, including the planting of false information, the rescue of an important prisoner, and acts of sabotage and vandalism. Three months of living on the edge when death may come at every turn and every false step, thrown together and living cheek by jowl, it was no wonder that she and the major had found solace in each other’s arms.
With their tasks accomplished, the group had split up. Tilly went north with two of the men, while Eleanor and the major and the other man in the party headed west, moving, always moving, waiting for the signal to pull out and the long trek across to the coast.
There, on the beach at the little fishing village of St Valery sur Somme, on a star-filled night, Eleanor and Armitage had made love again, before the arrival of the boat that would take them to safety. There might have been a third time, except for the sudden storm that blew up. In the cramped cabin, gripped by seasickness, Eleanor wanted only to lie on the narrow bunk and wait for death to claim her.
It hadn't, and once they'd reached London and made their reports, she had slipped away to find Tilly, whose group had also arrived safely a mere twelve hours before them. Then she had gone home, taking her maid with her, telling no one, for no one knew her true identity or where her real home was.
In the safety of Bakewell Park, they had re-built their lives, and moved on. If Peter Armitage thought he could draw her back into his seedy world, he was very wrong. The time she had spent with him had been thrilling, exciting, and terrifying, but it was over. Tomorrow she would forget all about him and concentrate on locating Barbara Lancashire’s pearls.
The next morning, Eleanor ordered her car brought around from the garage at the rear of Bellevue Mansions and drove her beloved Lagonda to an address in Maida Vale. She parked in front of a neat Victorian villa and knocked on the door.
Marjorie Arbuthnot bore little or no resemblance to her older sister. Where Barbara was thickset and well-corseted, Marjorie was slim and lithe with masses of chestnut brown hair that appeared to owe nothing to the hairdresser’s art. She wore it in a neat plait that stretched past her shoulder blades. It was not a fashionable style, and it marked her out as her own woman.
A pair of fine green eyes surveyed the card that Eleanor had just presented, then looked up and smiled.
“Do come in, your ladyship. I’ve just brewed a jug of coffee, if you’d like some?”
“That would be very kind, thank you.”
Eleanor sat on a roomy sofa and gazed around while her hostess fetched another cup and saucer.
Compared to the overstuffed room at Eaton Square, Marjorie’s living space was light and airy. The pastel coloured curtains and furnishings in yellow and pale green gave the room a springlike feel that was enhanced by the bowl of early hyacinths on an occasional table. The air was heady with their scent.
By the time her hostess returned with the coffee, Eleanor knew what she was going to say and, after a few pleasantries, broached the reason for her visit.
“Please forgive me calling on you like this, Mrs Arbuthnot. I appreciate that it is something of an imposition but, in my capacity as a private enquiry agent, I’ve been retained by Lady Barbara Lancashire to look into a matter of some concern to her.”
“Barbara?” Marjorie appeared startled at the name. “I trust she and Robert are well. I can’t imagine Barbara letting anything concern her, quite frankly.”
Eleanor sipped hot coffee and gazed at Marjorie over the rim of her cup. “Do you not get on with her?”
“Not really. It’s merely a matter of sibling rivalry. I take it you know we are sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in that case you should know that Barbara thinks I married beneath me, and I think sh
e is a snob. Robert may have a title, but he is only a civil servant in the Foreign Office, and a bumbling one at that. He is quite the most forgetful man I know, always leaving things behind or not locking things away. Anyway, Barbara and I have little to do with each other, which is exactly the way I like it.”
Not every pair of sisters liked each other nor every sister and brother. Eleanor thought of her own sibling, Michael, back home in Derbyshire and was suddenly grateful for the good relationship they had. It was a surprise, though, that Marjorie hadn’t even asked what problem beset her sister.
“I see, then it seems I may have wasted your time.”
“I cannot see that I can help you, my lady. Still, as you are here, I might as well hear what it is you thought I could do. What is it that is bothering Barbara enough that she should need a private detective?”
“It is a delicate matter, Mrs Arbuthnot, and I did assure Lady Lancashire of my discretion...”
“But too much discretion will get you nowhere, eh?” She threw back her head and laughed. “How typical of Barbara to employ someone and then effectively hamstring them. Go on, my lady, out with it. Barbara’s secret is safe with me.”
Eleanor smiled. There was something very appealing about Marjorie Arbuthnot. There would always be laughter and good humour in this house. There would be time for friends and neighbours, time to talk and be companionable, to share life’s trials and tribulations as well as its triumphs. Time, indeed, for people and not possessions.
A bigger contrast to Barbara and her residence was hard to imagine.
“Very well. It has to do with a pearl necklace. Unique and priceless, I understand.”
“Poppycock!”
Eleanor nearly dropped her coffee. To be on the safe side — Tilly would grumble if the dress became stained — she put the cup and saucer on the tray and threw Marjorie a questioning glance.
“Oh? How so.”
“For a start, it was not unique.”
“Then why —”
“I see that I had better tell you the whole story.”
Eleanor settled back prepared to listen and was surprised when her hostess got to her feet and with a murmured “excuse me”, went out of the room. She heard her footsteps going up the stairs and crossing overhead, but in less than a minute Marjorie returned with a framed photograph in her hand.