by Ann Bridge
‘Quite a possible idea’ Philip said. ‘Bernardin’, with his tremendous local reputation, might be rather an embarrassment to Philip’s own people in Pamplona if he stayed there for long. ‘Actually I expect we could employ him ourselves; but a base in Scotland could be useful between jobs’ he said reflectively. Then he enquired after his tiny son.
‘Oh, he’s terrifically tough! The old head sage-femme had him brought in before lunch and put to the breast; of course there won’t be any milk for 24 hours, or more, with a prem. baby; but if they suck it’s supposed to stimulate it, and bring it along quicker. And he sucked like absolute mad! He was furious when nothing came.’
‘What is he getting?’ Philip asked, laughing.
‘Oh glucose, or Cow-and-Gate or something, from the bottle’ Julia said easily. ‘They really do know all the answers here—and the old sage-femme says he’s as greedy as a pig!’
Philip Jamieson laughed again. All his eager, and ignorant, anticipations concerning paternity were being fulfilled to the most delightful degree in this modest little place outside Pau: his wife so determined to breast-feed the child, his son himself already possessing sufficient vigour to be both greedy, and furious. But then the tiny old sage-femme came in and said that now Madame really needed repose; Philip bent over the bed and kissed Julia.
‘Bless you. Just have Colin’s telegram sent across when it comes. I’m going to get some sleep—I had precisely two hours-and-a-half last night!’ He went away.
Chapter 9
Colin‘s telegram only reached Philip after a certain delay. It came in time to be delivered at the Clinic soon after 8 p.m., but Professor Martin was then paying his evening visit to Julia, so it was only after he had left her that the old head sage-femme took it in. Julia read it with interest. The office of origin was given as Jaca, and the message, in French, read: ‘Not arrived but time probably still insufficient stop propose remain for present if you agree stop R.S.V.P. Colin.’
Julia was puzzled at first as to why Colin should be telegraphing from Jaca; then she realised that he could not have got to Pamplona by the time he wired—he would have rung up from Jaca on his way through, made his enquiries, and telegraphed from there. She asked for her despatch-case; she wanted to write a note to Philip, but the little old sage-femme, whose firmness was in inverse ratio to her size, said ‘Not at present!’ It was time that the child should be put to the breast again, and Madame must not exert herself, or it would be bad for the milk. So once more the swaddled infant was presented with the still milkless breast, sucked and tugged in vain, and wailing with rage and frustration was borne off to get his bottle. Only then did Julia address an envelope for the telegram, scribble a note explaining where Jaca was, and add some words of love. She rang her bell, and asked to have the note taken round to the Colonel Jimmison at the Victoire—‘It is to be given to Monsieur le Colonel personally,’ she insisted. ‘To no one else.’
Philip had finished his unexhilarating dinner in the equally unexhilarating salle-à-manger, and was sitting smoking under the acacias in the garden of the Victoire in the warm September night, when under the arc-lights he saw a nurse come trotting up the drive—he went over to her.
‘I am Colonel Jamieson’ he said. ‘Do you bring a letter from Madame my wife at the Clinique?’
The nurse was nervous and flustered.
‘You are surely le Colonel Jimmison? Madame said I was to give the letter to him personally.’
‘Certainly. How else should I know that Madame is at the Clinique? How is le petit? Has the milk come yet?’
That did it. With the agent hanging watchfully about Philip did not particularly want to take the young nurse into the hotel and get the patron to identify him; he was relieved when she replied, smiling, that they expected the milk in yet some hours; Madame’s breasts were swelling. Then she handed over the letter, and pattered off again down the drive. Philip returned to his chair; the light over the front door just enabled him to read the telegram and Julia’s covering note.
He sat for some time and digested these tidings. It would have been a relief to know that Bonnecourt was safely at Pamplona, but Colin knew the district and the distances, with which he himself was unfamiliar—it might be all right, but one couldn’t be sure. And Bonnecourt had got to be got out, and to some place of safety. After some reflection Colonel Jamieson decided that he had better go up to Paris himself, put the situation to his colleagues there, and get the Sureté to lay off Bonnecourt—and Colin, come to that! He went into the hotel and asked for a railway time-table; as he did so the agent got out of Colin’s car, and watched him. Philip refused the patron’s help; he thumbed through the railway guide, and saw that there was a train to Paris at 10.50 p.m. It was now ten minutes past nine; heaps of time, but he would do well to ring the Office in Paris and arrange to be met—Philip knew about the shortage of taxis in Paris—and also get a telegram off to Colin, who had certainly better stay at Pamplona in case an emergency dash was needed in some direction or other. But he didn’t want to do any of this from the hotel; better from the Heriots. He would have liked to pack his small case and take it with him, but that would mean more delay; and if he tried to use Colin’s car, he would have the agent on his tail—really on his back! He handed the time-table to the patron, said he was going out, and set off on foot.
Jamieson had taken note of the way from the Heriot mansion to the Route de Toulouse when Nick drove him back to the clinic, and retraced it; he found the great house without much trouble. Lights were still burning in the first-floor windows, but there was another agent at the door, who asked him his business as he pressed the bell.
‘To see Milord Heriot,’ Philip said curtly.
As before, it was a twin who opened the door.
‘Oh hullo—come in. We’re answering the bell ourselves, so that the agents shan’t try to pump the staff—anyhow they’re asleep now, poor old things. What can we do?’ he asked, as they shot up in the lift. ‘And how is Mrs. J.?’
‘Doing very well, thank you—and the baby too. I’m afraid I really want to use your telephone—I hope that won’t be too much of a nuisance. The police are rather nosey at my hotel.’
‘Not a bit. His Lordship has gone to bed. Has Bonnecourt got out all right?’
‘Well no—at least he hasn’t got to Pamplona yet.’
‘Oh, so Colin’s wired, has he?’ the young man asked, as he spoke leading the Colonel into his Father’s study, and closing the door. ‘I’m Nick—may I know what he says?’
Philip remembered that Nick was the twin who had so intelligently removed Bonnecourt the night before; he handed him Colin’s telegram.
‘Well, he would have had to move pretty fast to get to Pamplona by the time Colin rang up from Jaca’ the young man said, handing back the telegram; ‘unless he managed to slip across the frontier and get onto one of the timber-lorries from Roncal.’ Unlike Jamieson, he had the whole Pyrenean countryside in his head, and knew all the means of transport. ‘So I shouldn’t think we need to worry yet. Now, what do you want to do next?’
‘Send a telegram to Colin, to tell him to wait at Pamplona for the moment.’
‘Can’t do that till tomorrow morning—telegraphs pack up at 8.’
‘Oh.’ Philip, accustomed to the all-night telegraph service in England, was rather irritated. ‘I’d like to put a call through to Paris, too, if I may’ he said. ‘I want to get our people there to cope with the French.’
‘The Sureté?’ Nick asked.
‘Actually, no—we usually work through the Deuxième Bureau. But they can pass anything on to the Sureté.’
Nick was interested. ‘Why not deal direct with the people concerned?’
‘Why have M.I.5 and M.I.6?’ Jamieson replied, with a dry smile. ‘The same idea—division of function, internal and external.’
Though Nick had been born and brought up in France, these nuances about its Intelligence Service had never come his way—as the differing funct
ions of M.I.5 and M.I.6 do not normally come the way of ordinary British citizens. But he refrained from asking any more of the questions which sprang into his mind. ‘Well, telephone away—there’s the machine’ he said.
Philip used the telephone on Lord Heriot’s big desk—neatly piled, he noticed as he waited for his connection, with papers concerning property, the Anglican Church, the Golf Club, and local charities. When he got the Office in Paris he said that he was coming up on the 10.50 train that night and that he was to be met next morning. ‘Tell the Major—I shall want to see him, and I may stay the night.’ After ringing off he got the Inter again and asked to be given the price of his call while he held on; but he was cut off.
Nick overheard Jamieson’s talk to Paris.
‘Where’s your luggage?’ he asked.
‘At the Victoire—I didn’t want to waste time packing, or to use Colin’s car, with that agent in it; I walked round.’
‘Oh. Well hadn’t I better put you up a razor and toothbrush and things? Plenty of spares here—people leave them behind, and Her Ladyship refuses to send them on; she has them disinfected, and keeps them for cases of emergency, like you!’
‘Well, thank you—that would be very convenient’ the Colonel was saying, when Dick walked in.
‘Oh, good evening, Sir. I hope Mother and child are both doing well?’
‘Very well, thank you.’ Jamieson found the Heriot twins, with their absurd resemblance and their cheerful good manners, extremely engaging.
‘Colonel Jamieson’s going up to Paris on the 10.50’ Nick said. ‘Oh, have you got a sleeper, Sir?’
‘No—but that doesn’t matter; I’ll take a chance on it.’
‘If you tip the Wagons-Lits attendant heavily enough he’ll probably put you into one’ Dick observed. ‘Anything else we can do?’
‘Well yes. When it is possible to send telegrams again, tomorrow morning, I should like one to be sent to Colin at Pamplona.’
‘Oh yes. By the way, has Bonnecourt fetched up there all right?’
‘No—but there has hardly been time, your brother says.’ Philip glanced at his watch; it was ten minutes to ten—he had just an hour before his train. ‘If I could have a block, I will jot it down’ he said.
‘Put it in French’ Dick said, handing his guest a block and a pencil; ‘even so, it will get a bit garbled.’
The Colonel, wishing he knew the French for ‘stay put’, wrote carefully—‘Remain where you are for present stop Julia and child well stop telegraph any news to her P.’ He handed the block to Dick, who looked the telegram over.
‘They won’t take a wire with only an initial’ he said. ‘Better put “Phillips, care Heriot”. Colin will understand.’ He was greatly enjoying being able actually to lend a hand to a high-up member of the Secret Service. Jamieson made the alteration—at that instant the telephone rang loudly—it was the Inter, to give the price of the Paris call. A few moments later Lady Heriot appeared in a flowing flannel dressing-gown, a net over her grey hair.
‘Who was that ringing up?’ she asked her son. ‘Oh, good evening, Colonel Jamieson. How is your wife? Nothing wrong, I hope?’
‘No, Madame is fine.’ It was Dick who replied, briskly; as he spoke he shut the door, which Lady Heriot had left open. ‘Security!’ he said. ‘I never feel sure these days that a Sureté man hasn’t sneaked up in the lift to just below floor level to eavesdrop! Did His Lordship wake up?’
‘No, dear. I wasn’t asleep, so I heard. But what was the call?’
‘Only the Inter letting Colonel Julia know the price of a call to Paris,’ Dick said. ‘He’s going up on the night train.’
‘Oh, the 10.50.’ She glanced at a pretty mahogany clock on the wall. ‘Just time for a drink before he goes. Fetch some whisky, dear.’
Jamieson was longing for a drink; he loved Lady Heriot more than ever. She had sat down in one of the heavy leather armchairs in her husband’s study; seated there, so serene, in her old-fashioned dressing-gown and hairnet, giving thoughtful hospitality to a stranger in the middle of the night, he thought her almost perfect.
‘I suppose you are going to Paris to try to arrange about M. Bonnecourt?’ she said. ‘But what shall you do about the house at Larége? You realise that the baby can’t be moved for another two months, till it is à terme, the full nine months; and if your wife is going to nurse it herself, as I gathered from Luzia that she intends to do—I am very glad; that is so right—of course it is a matter of feeds every two hours. So Mrs. Jamieson won’t be able to leave Pau for the next eight weeks either. Oughtn’t something to be arranged about shutting up the Larége house, till the Stansteds come back? And if your wife and Luzia have left any belongings there, they should be fetched down; the Larégeois are apt to be rather light-fingered.’
Philip was rather aghast at all this. He had of course not had the faintest idea that premature babies could not be moved, still less that they must be fed every two hours; he had another urgent job abroad impending very soon, too.
‘I think this will have to be worked out when I get back from Paris’ he said. ‘Possibly tomorrow night; if not, the following day. Could the Police be asked to keep an eye on the house till then?’
Dick, coming in with a tray of decanters and glasses, overheard the Colonel’s last words—he laughed.
‘All the local police seem to be occupied watching this house and the Victoire, or manning road-blocks, or patrolling the frontier for our dear B.’ he said. ‘Maman, a tiny whisk, with all these excitements?’ He arranged a minute glass for his Mother. ‘Please help yourself, Sir’ he said to Jamieson, who poured out a comforting tumbler.
Nick re-appeared, and handed a plastic wallet with several compartments to the Colonel. ‘Razor, shaving-stick, soap, wash-rag, a collar and some clean hankies’ he said. ‘That do?’
‘Splendidly. Thank you very much.’
‘Your Ladyship, what are you doing, up and drinking at this hour?’ Nick asked his Mother.
‘Talking with Colonel Jamieson. The telephone rang, so I came out; I didn’t want to disturb your Father by talking in the bedroom. He’s asleep. But it was only the wretched Exchange.’
This reminded Philip that he had not paid for his telegram to Colin or his call to Paris; he pulled out some notes. Lady Heriot made no movement to take the money.
‘I don’t really like your paying for calls which are only made to help dear M. Bonnecourt’ she said.
‘You’d far better let him. His Lordship will create when the bill comes in, if there are calls unaccounted for,’ Dick said, taking the notes. ‘You’ll hardly credit it, Sir, but my dear Father keeps a book in which all calls have to be written down, and a box to put the money in; and checks both with his telephone account.’
‘I will credit it; my own Father used to do exactly the same’ the Colonel said, with an embarrassed glance at his hostess.
‘The Scots are such thorough people’ Lady Heriot said tolerantly. ‘Dick, write up the call, and put the money in the box. Then I think one of you ought to bring the car round, if Colonel Jamieson is to catch his train.’
‘I will’ said Nick, and went off.
It now occurred to Philip that he ought to send a message to Julia to say that he was going to Paris—he mentioned this to the old lady. ‘Perhaps Luzia could let her know tomorrow?’
‘Yes, of course—or one of the boys can take a note round. Do write one—paper in the top right-hand drawer.’
The drawer of Lord Heriot’s desk was as methodical as the top of it: neat wooden partitions held three different sizes of writing-paper, with appropriate envelopes. Jamieson scrawled a note, ending ‘Probably back day after tomorrow. Dearest love. P.’—and put it in an envelope.
‘We will get that round early tomorrow’ Dick said. ‘Come on down, Sir.’ Philip thanked his hostess, and was taken down; Nick’s Dauphine was just drawing up as they went out of the front door.
‘Agents to right of them, agents to left of th
em, volleyed and thundered’ Nick misquoted irritably as the Colonel got into the car, and he drove off. ‘I hope you’ll be able to do something to quell them in Paris, Sir. They’re getting on Pierre’s nerves, hanging about the garage all the time.’
‘I’ll try’ Philip said. But he was still a little anxious about Bonnecourt. ‘You’re Nick, aren’t you?’ he asked of the young man who was driving him through the lamplit streets—‘The one who took Bonnecourt away?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘Well, if it weren’t inconvenient, it might be a good thing if you went over to this place that ends in ‘ETZ’ tomorrow and tried to find out what’s become of our friend. If we can contact him, we can get him out; if we can’t, we can’t.’
‘How would you get him out?’ Nick asked, curious.
‘By air, probably—but that can be arranged later. The essential thing is to know where he is.’
‘We might try’ Nick said, rather gloomily. ‘These people are frightfully cagey when anything’s going on.’
‘Well do try’ the Colonel said. ‘Everything may be all right; but if he could have got down to Pamplona by these timber-lorries that one of you mentioned, I’m rather surprised that he hasn’t.’
When Nick got back after putting Jamieson onto his train he let himself in with his latch-key; in the flat he found Dick still up, and reported what the Colonel had said about Bonnecourt. ‘He was a bit bothered, I could see that; though he didn’t actually say so.’
Dick reflected. He liked the idea of sleuthing to help British Intelligence very much; but he also turned his mind onto his knowledge of Bonnecourt’s character, and methods.
‘Well?’ Nick asked, as his twin remained silent.
‘I was thinking. Of course B. could cross the frontier anywhere, however much it’s being patrolled. But he’s a lazy old hound, and if his scouts have told him that there’s a lot of activity going on, he may have gone to ground somewhere in Tardets—after all, it’s his home town.’