Unlikely Traitors

by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

  She had a vision of her mother lying ill in a dimly room. She saw her father’s eyes as he looked up at her as he died. Her memories were fragile and glassy. She could still see their faces, still feel the sensation of loss smooth and cold against her heart—yet the feeling that she might easily clasp too tight, shatter those memories with the mere pressure of her fingers alone, remained. Ursula woke up to find her pillow wet with tears.

  Ask me no more, she heard Lord Wrotham’s voice, thy fate and mine are sealed. Ursula squeezed her eyes shut, remembering him reading that poem to her aloud. His words had been like a stream that carried her gently along, but her sweet reminiscence now offered no comfort. She opened her eyes and gazed up and the ceiling. She thought of the rest of the stanza—

  I strove against the stream and all in vain

  Surely it was not as easy as that?

  Let the river take me to the main:

  No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;

  Ask me no more.

  Ask me no more. How could she of all people been so blind?

  Ursula jumped out of bed and, pulling on her silk robe and slippers, hastened out of the bedroom and down the stairs to her study.

  The book code was not based on anything in Lord Wrotham’s library. It was based on the first book of Tennyson’s poems he had ever given her. That she should have failed to realize until now that she had never seen that particular edition on his bookshelf seemed dull-witted in the extreme. She grabbed the book from the shelf and opened up its soft burgundy leather cover. From the teal and gold leaf pattern front-piece to the pages edged with gold, the 1899 edition was a beautiful book that included plates from Gustave Dore’s famous drawings. Ursula hunted for the poem The Princess and then, on page 210, she found the passage she was looking for. Sitting at the desk she then counted the words, and after a few minutes of trying different permutations—first line number then word number, the first lines of Lord Wrotham’s field book were finally clear.

  “My orders require the re-opening of old wounds. Possibly it is my own despair that allows such reckless disregard for the pain that will no doubt be inflicted as a result. Betrayal is never something to be taken lightly. McTiernay may believe himself to be the penitent thief but the Count will always play the true role of Judas. A man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.”

  Ursula turned to the second page but as soon as she tried to apply the rules she had used to decode the first, she realized the code had changed. The cipher key no longer worked. She turned back and stared at the paragraph she had deciphered. Surely if Lord Wrotham had thought she would decipher this, he would have given her another clue? She read and reread the paragraph, her dressing gown pulled in tight around her, for the study was cold and the fire in the grate as yet unset. Finally realization dawned and with a swift look at the mantel clock—it was now nearly five o’clock in the morning—she knew exactly where she must go that day.

  Oxford.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD

  “Miss Marlow!” Professor Prendergast exclaimed. “This is a surprise.”

  “Is it?” Ursula asked with a smile. She folded her motoring ‘duster’ over the chair and unwound the scarf from her hat. “Surely you must have suspected I would work it out.”

  Professor Prendergast sat down and pulled his pipe from his jacket pocket. He slipped a box of matches out of his waistcoat and smiled as he tapped the box lightly on the desk top.

  “Perhaps I merely hoped,” he answered with the barest hint of acknowledgement.

  Ursula laid Lord Wrotham’s field book out in front of him. “I deciphered the first entry—that was easy once I realized it came from the copy of Tennyson’s poems that Lord Wrotham had given me—one he did not possess anywhere in his library. I guess he chose that particular edition as he knew that if anything happened no one would ever find it in his library or chamber—that it would be in mine was a clever twist. But of course that wasn’t all was it Professor?”

  “No,” Professor Prendergast conceded.

  “Because although I could decipher the first entry, the rest no longer followed the pattern—initially extremely frustrating, I have to admit, at four o’clock this morning. But then I reread the passage I had managed to decode and it all became so very clear.”

  “Did it indeed,” Prendergast replied, tilting back in his chair. Ursula’s eyes narrowed—she was piqued by the amusement she detected in his tone.

  Ursula opened the field book and began to read aloud the last two lines of the passage she had deciphered.

  “A man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous. I recognized the last part as a quotation from Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan—which meant, of course, that I immediately thought of you.”

  “Bravo, Miss Marlow.” Prendergast’s tone still suggested amusement but his eyes remained watchful. “And what, pray tell, do you intend to do with such knowledge?”

  “Nothing at all,” Ursula replied. “Except to ask you to produce the rest of the code I need to complete my decryption.”

  Professor Prendergast fell silent.

  Ursula leaned forward. “I need your help, professor,” she urged. “You must understand the gravity of the situation—no matter what you promised Admiral Smythe and Lord Wrotham, their notebooks may provide the only clues as to what is really going on. Surely the fact that Lord Wrotham intended for me to decipher the first part of this indicates he wanted me to know what his field book contained.”

  Prendergast lit his pipe with deliberate slowness.

  Ursula sighed. “But of course, when this was written, Lord Wrotham was probably thinking I would be the one to discover it. When he started these entries—back I assume in mid-1911 he had not hidden it. Nor, of course, had he been charged with treason.”

  “If Lord Wrotham had wanted me to provide you with the rest of the information you need to decipher the rest of his field book, he would have sent word,” Professor Prendergast said. “As it is, he had not…”

  “So you won’t help me then?!” Ursula cried, slumping back in the chair. Her body felt suddenly sluggish, weighed down with the combination of lack of sleep and frustration.

  “Look,” she said. “I know Lord Wrotham’s mission in Germany was part of Admiral Smythe’s plan to monitor the activities of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and to discover who in Germany was willing to supply armaments to them. Part of the Admiral’s plan required Lord Wrotham to heal the rift that had occurred between himself and Fergus McTiernay after the death of Bernice Baldeo in Guyana. I know all about the Imperial Gold and Diamond Mining Company and the court case brought against it, alleging fraudulent activities by directors such as McTiernay and Count von Bernstorff-Hollweg. I also know that Lord Wrotham was part of the cover up of all that occurred…and that it was the Count who was willing to testify against Lord Wrotham and have him charged with treason.”

  Prendergast continued to watch her closely.

  “But don’t you see, what is happening now has moved beyond the mere question of Wrotham and Admiral Smythe’s objectives regarding the Irish Republican Brotherhood? McTiernay has murdered the Count. He has abducted and, more likely than not, killed Lord Wrotham—but to what end?” Ursula drew breath. Prendergast remained motionless in his chair—his pipe idle on the desk.

  “If McTiernay was responsible for Admiral Smythe’s death, why would he have left files that implicated himself?” Ursula said. “Lord Wrotham believed there was another ‘game’ being played here—one behind the scenes—and I intend to discover exactly what this game is. I need to know what’s in Lord Wrotham’s field book if I’m to have any chance of figuring out what is really happening. Please…without your help we may never know who has been orchestrating these events all along.”

  Prendergast raised his hand lightly. “Sit my dear,” he s
aid. “Sit…” He relit his pipe and sat in quiet contemplation. Ursula opened her mouth to implore him further but he waved her aside, demanding silence. After what seemed an eternity, he got to his feet with surprising speed. “You will have to wait here for a minute, my dear,” he said before he wrapped his academic cloak about him and hurried from the room.

  Ursula placed her head in her hands. Was the professor mad? Had he listened to anything she had said?

  When Professor Prendergast returned a few minutes later, he was carrying a pile of manila folders all stuffed full of papers.

  “We can use the Professor Bingley’s room—you’ll need to root around and find us some paper, pencils, oh, and the charcoal biscuits are in the top drawer, I think. I’ll ask one of the scouts to get us coffee. I warn you this is going to take us both many hours, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you have there?” Ursula asked, getting to her feet. Her heart had started beating furiously as soon as she realized that Professor Prendergast intended to help her.

  “These are the final set of keys for the codes used,” Prendergast said. “They changed each month to limit possible exposure should either notebook be discovered.”

  “So I was right—Admiral Smythe and Lord Wrotham did entrust the key to their codes to you,” Ursula said.

  “Let’s just say some members of Naval Intelligence like to use me as a kind of secret keeper.” Prendergast said. “Though don’t think that means I’m divulging anything other more than what I must—and don’t get too excited, for these notebooks are likely to contain, in the most excruciating detail, all the observations made by Admiral Smythe and Lord Wrotham. They’ll be full of naval exercises and ship specifications—the sort of things likely to bore us witless without a doubt. But if you think they’ll be something in there that will help your investigations then—in light of the circumstances—we’d better get cracking…”

  Professor Prendergast was right. The task of deciphering the pages in Lord Wrotham’s field book was painstaking slow and the information covered, by and large, boring in the extreme. The entries did however form a clear picture of a man acting on behalf of Naval Intelligence—a man whose very rationale for attending the December 1911 meeting with McTiernay and the Count was clearly not to foment treason or rebellion in Ireland. It was sufficient, Ursula felt sure, to clear Lord Wrotham’s name…should she ever be able to get the evidence in court…

  But it was the entries right at the start that shocked both her and Professor Prendergast. Lord Wrotham’s mission was more important that she had ever suspected.

  Admiral Smythe is convinced that we have a German spy in our midst—for evidence of the most sensitive of Naval Intelligence dealings is now known within the German admiralty. Who this person is remains a critical question, and so our mission in December is all the more important. It has been deliberately set up to try and rout out the enemy within. Not even James is immune from suspicion—only the Foreign Secretary, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral Smythe and myself know the true nature of my mission.

  Prendergast watched Ursula’s reaction carefully.

  “At least now I understand why Lord Wrotham believed that without Admiral Smythe he could not defend himself against the charges laid,” Ursula said, remembering the day Harrison arrested Lord Wrotham. “Do you think anyone else in Naval Intelligence or the government knew there was a Germany spy in their midst?”

  “Only probably the Prime Minister. If the concern was of a German spy within the very highest circles of government then Smythe would have kept his suspicions very close indeed.”

  Ursula chewed her lip, ruminating on the implications of all she had read.

  “Well, this is certainly evidence that could possibly clear Lord Wrotham of all charges—though probably not without corroboration from Admiral Smythe’s encrypted notebook. The difficulty is…” Ursula’s voice trailed off.

  “We don’t know who is the spy,” Professor Prendergast finished.

  Ursula nodded. “It could be almost anyone—it could even be you…”

  Professor Prendergast laughed. “I assure you, I may hold some secrets but never any of the important ones. Naval Intelligence would never allow it!”

  “I can’t say I ever seriously thought it was you—not for a moment—but all this does pose a thorny problem when it comes to Admiral Smythe’s notebook.”

  “It does indeed, m’dear.”

  “Admiral Smythe may have been murdered because he discovered the identity of the spy. His notebook may therefore reveal all…and exonerate Lord Wrotham. But if we tell Sir Buckley or Chief inspector Harrison we also run a risk—firstly that the murderer finds out we have deciphered the book—he or she may kill again to keep it secret. The second risk is even more troubling…what if the German spy is in fact…”

  “Sir Reginald Buckley?” Prendergast inserted.

  When Ursula returned home a telegram from James awaited her.

  Am on McTiernay’s trail. STOP Do not leave London on any account. STOP

  The following morning Ursula finalized her plans to travel to Ireland. It was time to confront McTiernay.

  PART THREE

  IRELAND

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  FERRY TO KINGSTOWN, IRELAND

  The ferry left Holyhead just as the sun broke through the clouds. Although the crossing was relatively smooth for the time of year, Ursula still felt every dip and rise of the swell in the pit of her stomach. She had to stay on deck for fear she might be sick.

  “I used to be a much better sailor,” Ursula told Lady Winterton as she joined her at the railing.

  Lady Winterton eyed her curiously. “There is another possibility, you know.” Though there was no note of censure in her voice, Ursula still avoided meeting her gaze. “Have you considered the possibility…” Lady Winterton let the implication drift on the breeze.

  “Yes,” Ursula conceded finally.

  “And?” Lady Winterton asked.

  Ursula gazed out across the Irish Sea, her hazel eyes mirroring the seas tossing green and blue depths. She did not want to face the inevitable next question.

  “Are you?”

  A flock of gannets returning from the warmer southern oceans, dived and spun over the waves, allowing Ursula to feign distraction for a little while longer.

  Eventually Ursula said, “I saw my doctor in London last week and he confirmed it.” She paused, waiting for the wave of nausea to subside.

  “Do you know what you are going to do?” Lady Winterton asked.

  Ursula braced herself against the railing and shook her head.

  “You will have to decide soon,” Lady Winterton said, and her voice dropped until it was little more that a low murmur beneath the wind. “Grace already suspects, as I’m sure your staff do too…”

  “I know,” Ursula exhaled heavily.

  “You are showing very early, my dear. I suspected even in Germany.”

  “Did you?’ Ursula asked bleakly. “I had no thought of it myself…not until we returned to England. I just thought it was the shock of everything.”

  Lady Winterton lay a smooth gloved hand on her arm. “Take care,” she urged. “For your child’s sake as well as your own. All this dashing about and the strain of the case—it may take its toll.”

  Ursula hung her head. “You think I haven’t questioned what I’m doing?! Ever since I found out I’ve been worrying whether I should even continue with my investigations. But I can’t not know what’s happened to him,” she looked up at Lady Winterton. “I have to face the truth.”

  “Even if it means risking your unborn child?” Lady Winterton asked, “for likely as not Lord Wrotham is already dead.”

  Ursula remained silent. The wind whipped her coat, sending the hem billowing up, hitting the back of her calves with a ferocious flap.

  Lady Winterton turned and leaned against the rail. “Ursula,” she said quietly. “I know all too well what it’s like to lose a child.” She pushed back
a strand of golden hair that the wind had loosened from beneath her hat. “Believe me, you don’t want that on your conscience.”

  “Oh, Catherine,” Ursula said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I had no idea”—She couldn’t even say the words.

  “There are few who do. I miscarried a week after Nigel died.”

  “That must have been”—Ursula paused, her voice choking. “I cannot even begin to imagine how that must have been.”

  “I felt as though I had lost everything.” Lady Winterton swallowed quickly, turning away to hide her tears.

  Ursula laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so terribly sorry.”

  “Time heals some wounds,” Lady Winterton said, her voice muffled as she wiped her tears with a white handkerchief. “But not those that run so deep…” She inhaled deeply before continuing: “If you’ll excuse me. I think I’ll go below decks for a while.”

  “Of course,” Ursula murmured. She held onto the railing and found comfort in the feel of cold steel beneath her fingers. Even through her gloves the cold sinewy coils of the metal felt reassuringly durable—A reminder that the present still held hope. As Ursula pulled away to leave, her glove snagged on a rough piece of rail. A tear ripped and drew blood. She quickly pulled off the glove and sucked her injured finger. It felt like an admonishment for having the temerity to forget for even one moment the precariousness of the present.

  Though the crossing to Ireland was expected to take just under five hours, Ursula had booked herself and Lady Winterton adjoining first class cabins. Ursula came below decks to find Julia sitting in the cabin lounge, doing her embroidery. The servants’ quarters in Chester Square already had a multitude of samplers and seat cushions each bearing an apt bible or scripture quotation. Ursula was afraid Julia might be planning on expanding her collection to include the main house as well.

  “I’m sorry, but it looks as if you’ll need to mend my gloves,” Ursula said. “I snagged them on the railing outside.”