The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy

by H. B. Lyle

  But he wasn’t there to follow Basil.

  The preening under-clerk’s flash clothes certainly came at a heavy price, well beyond the man’s salary. But Wiggins had followed him home the week before, to the Deptford cottage Basil shared with his blind mother. Wiggins went back the next day, took tea with the kindly Mrs Basil and listened while she boasted about her son’s important work for the government. ‘He’s got a job at Woolwich,’ she said. ‘Working for my brother at the Arsenal.’

  Wiggins congratulated her on the good fortune. As she talked, he examined the blind Mrs Basil’s parlour. It didn’t take long to dismiss Royston Basil as a suspect. A mean and despicable man, yes; a traitor, no. Wiggins noted the missing knick-knacks, the empty dust-lined oblongs on the wall, the depleted silver canteen and – most damning of all – the collection of unredeemed pawnbroker tickets on the top shelf of the dresser. Royston Basil had been pawning his mother’s possessions to fund his taste in expensive clothes. It took Wiggins a couple more days to confirm this hypothesis, but it proved to be the case. Basil was a fashion-struck dissembler, a poltroon and exploiter of the most reprehensible kind. But he was no traitor.

  That day, as the factory workers swarmed the streets, Wiggins waited for a different man. He had planted a set of documents in the design room, carefully left to look careless. Kell had instructed a draughtsman to draw up plans for a flying bomb – the impossible dream of military expansionists everywhere – and Wiggins waited for the mole to take the bait. It was too tasty a morsel to ignore.

  Sure enough, a couple of minutes after the klaxon, he saw the shape of his man cutting through the throng, his club foot swinging around him like a scythe. Milton the runner headed straight towards the railway station.

  A runner? A nobody?

  That’s what Kell had said – surely he can’t be the mole? It didn’t surprise Wiggins. The runners could go anywhere in the factory, see anything and not be noticed – they were meant to be everywhere. And they were paid a pittance. Any of them could have been spies – but it was Milton, poor foolish Milton. The way he kept his family was impossible on his pay packet. The dead father, ruined by the British Army, supplied additional motive – not that it was needed in Wiggins’s eyes. It was no sin to need money. And Milton’s nature was so open, easy and biddable – a perfect mark for someone of an altogether more devious mind to take advantage.

  Wiggins followed Milton onto the London-bound platform at Woolwich Station. The boy jiggled and jumped as he waited for the train. Wiggins hung back at the far end of the platform and boarded a different carriage. He changed hats, from a sailor’s cap to a large worsted flat cap, an old trick. A man looking for a tail always looks at hats.

  At each station, Wiggins got out and walked up the platform to the next carriage. Milton did not get off the train. Wiggins suspected that the young runner would stay on until the end of the line and sure enough, Milton got out with everyone else at London Bridge. Wiggins followed him onto the concourse and watched as Milton used the public telephones. As he came out, he glanced at the huge station clock and then hurried towards Borough.

  The rain fell heavier now and Milton ducked into the Bunch of Grapes in the shadow of Guy’s Hospital. Wiggins waited in a doorway opposite. He could see nothing through the cloudy pub windows but as the night closed, they shone ever brighter. A streetwalker sashayed past. ‘Want company?’

  ‘Not tonight.’

  Half an hour later, he became unsure. The Grapes didn’t have a back exit, but Milton could be doing the deal inside – yet Wiggins knew the barmaid (he knew many), and it would be a risk to go in now. He stepped forward, hesitated. At that moment, the doors swung open and Milton appeared; he swung right, past the hospital, his gammy leg scraping on the ground.

  Switching hats once more, Wiggins kept going. Milton looped under the railway arches, crossing Bermondsey Street then Tooley, towards the dark warren of streets south of Tower Bridge. Knife territory, Wiggins thought as he felt the cosh in his pocket.

  Finally, when it was full dark and the alleyways barely lit, Milton stopped by a small deserted dock. Wiggins hid in the alcove of a warehouse. A single lamp swung from a wharf house doorway and Wiggins could see the outline of the dock, almost an inlet off the Thames. Milton clasped his hands together and jiggled from foot to foot. His head swivelled this way and that, and though Wiggins was too far away to see his expression, he could feel the boy’s fear. Raindrops jumped off the flagstones. No good man would be out on such a vile night.

  Wiggins heard a motor car approach.

  The headlamps from the car almost swung a yellow wash over him as he ducked behind a discarded tea chest. The car, a Daimler, pulled up ten yards or so away. A man got out and strode towards Milton. The car juddered and strained against the handbrake, the engine still running. Wiggins watched as the man, six three at least, stepped into the light. He wore a cap and a tight-fitting sailor’s jacket. His trousers barely reached his ankles; he looked like a child who had outgrown his wardrobe. Except there was nothing childish about the way he loomed over Milton.

  Milton pulled out a stacked envelope, the fake documents provided by Kell. The man snatched them from Milton, weighed them in his hands. At a distance, Wiggins couldn’t make out the conversation, but Milton nodded repeatedly, too eager.

  The man reached into his own pocket. In the same movement, he put his arm around Milton’s shoulder in an awkward embrace. Wiggins flinched – were they hugging? A blade flashed in the gaslight as the tall man pulled it free from Milton’s midriff and plunged it in once more, again and again. He held Milton. Wiggins stood, stunned, gaping in horror as the runner shuddered his last.

  The tall man dragged Milton’s body to the dockside. With one smooth, effortless movement, he tossed him into the darkness beneath. Then he splashed his way back to the car, paused and scanned the street. After a moment, he got into the motor, released the handbrake and sped off into the night.

  Seven miles north by north-west, across the dark metropolis, Kell looked out of a rain-streaked window and listened to the trees straining against the storm. His wife had not returned. She’d refused to listen when he forbade her attendance at the latest meeting of the Hampstead suffragists.

  ‘I will not be detained in my own home,’ she’d said tartly. ‘This is London, for heaven’s sake, I’ll be fine.’

  He loved her for it, despite his worries. Wiggins would be out tonight, too; his one agent in the field. He hoped the fake plans had found their mark.

  The bushes in front of his house shook. Kell squinted and rushed to the front door. ‘Did you see anything, Constable?’ he said. ‘Out there, in the laburnum.’

  ‘Nothing, sir. Wind.’ The young constable ruffled his rain cape. ‘No one would choose to be out on a night like this. If they had a choice.’

  ‘Are you sure? I could have sworn … Oh well, keep a weather eye out.’

  ‘A weather eye indeed.’

  Wiggins clung on. His muscles shook with effort, his palms burnt. His head barely cleared the road.

  He was holding on to the undercarriage of the car.

  Milton’s killer inches above him, Wiggins had jammed his feet above the rear axle and wrapped his upper arm around one of the pipes. But he couldn’t last much longer. The hot pipes singed his jacket and he could feel his hair catching on the road surface. His grip slipped with each jerk of the suspension. Pain blossomed from his right shoulder. But if he let go now, he had nothing; Milton would have died for nothing.

  They swung onto Westminster Bridge and his foot came clear, scraped the ground. Cold air numbed his fingers and he stifled a choke. He shot his eyes left and right, looking for markings.

  Wiggins recognised the wide expanse of Piccadilly Circus, busy even this late. Light spilled off the road. The Daimler pivoted right, then left down a side street and finally came to a stop. He waited, dared not breathe. His stomach, arms, legs, straining for stillness, for silence.

  The engine
died. After an age, the car door squeaked open. Wiggins saw the giant’s feet striding across the road to his right. He lowered himself to the ground. From underneath the car, Wiggins could see the man on the far pavement. He looked about quickly, then let himself into an unlit shop and disappeared from view. Wiggins let out a great sigh. He breathed in the smell of car oil, hot metal and horseshit. The road was smeared with sodden dung and Wiggins retched as he pulled himself clear. Shit caked his back and legs, but he didn’t care – his arms and hands tingled with relief.

  He stumbled to his feet, life slowly returning to his frozen limbs. Savile Row ran off to the right. Wiggins would be pinched for loitering if the coppers spotted him, especially in his condition. He crossed the road and peered into the shop window. There were a few flash antiques, but nothing to show where Milton’s killer had gone. The shop itself only had one storey, so there was no upstairs either.

  Wiggins calmed himself and slunk into a doorway. They knew. Why else would they kill Milton? Poor, foolish Milton died a dog’s death.

  No.

  Wiggins pulled himself up. He wouldn’t let Milton die in vain, traitor or not; the boy only did it for the money. Two young ’uns to keep off the streets, all he wanted was a decent living. It was no worse than theft and theft wasn’t really a crime if you needed the dosh, not in Wiggins’s eyes. Only the rich thought otherwise. And now Milton was dead.

  He rattled the shop door but it wouldn’t budge. Glancing around for the beat copper, he took a deep breath, braced his foot on the jamb and reached for the roof. The guttering held his weight as he levered his legs upwards and landed belly down on top of the shop.

  Ahead of him, stretching into the darkness, a long, high brick building, golden oblongs stamped here and there along its length: the well-lit windows of expensive apartments. They weren’t saving money on the gas. Probably electrified, given the constant glow. He crouched down on the shop’s flat roof and counted.

  One of the apartment lights went out. Just then, someone clattered through the shop beneath him. Wiggins dropped silently to his belly and peeked out over the edge. The giant had returned. Now sheathed in a billowing rain cape, he crashed through the door. Wiggins had no trouble recognising him – he hadn’t seen a man that big since ever.

  The man sauntered back towards the Daimler. Not a slope in his gait, no sign of nerves jangling – he’d just killed a man, as cool as you like. He cranked the car into action and then swung it around in an arc away from the shop and down a side road towards Piccadilly.

  Wiggins dropped down to the road and ran after him. In the distance, he could see the car turn right onto Piccadilly. He got there just in time to see the Daimler pull out. It veered in front of him, cutting up a cab. The horse rose on its hind legs and the cabby cursed above the noise. Wiggins saw the tall man at the wheel of the car and caught a glimpse of the passenger – a flash of a dinner jacket, a top hat and a black moustache. Then the car roared off into the night.

  He turned back to where they’d come from and looked up at the most famous bachelor pad in London. The Albany.

  ‘I’m still waiting.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve yet to prove a thing.’

  Vernon Kell regarded his wife across their Hampstead drawing room. He tried to hide his relief at seeing her home safe. She shook free her umbrella and continued. ‘About women’s suffrage – I’ve been waiting weeks now for your argument, for this great, watertight case. The evidence that women will ruin civilisation if they get anywhere near a ballot box, let alone Parliament. I’m agog.’

  ‘My mind is on more important matters.’

  ‘But given that your mind is so much finer and more elevated than a woman’s, surely you can think of more than one thing at a time?’ Constance’s eyes sparkled.

  He smiled faintly, enjoying her company. Perhaps the constable was right: no one would choose to be out on such an evening. ‘Would you like a nightcap? Something to calm you down?’

  Before she could respond, they were interrupted by a frantic banging on the front door. ‘I’ll go,’ Kell said.

  ‘You bastard!’ Wiggins shouted in his face.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the constable said. ‘This man says he knows you.’

  ‘Thank you, Constable. He does. Come in quickly.’ He pushed the door to. ‘Good God, man, look at the state of you.’

  Wiggins marched down the hall into the drawing room, glancing quickly at Constance, who gasped. Kell followed him in.

  ‘You didn’t need to kill him.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  Constance stepped forward. ‘Can I get you a towel, some hot water? Gosh, is that …?’

  Wiggins looked down at his dung-smeared strides and blistered hands. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am.’

  ‘Constance, I think some hot water might be a good idea – but best not ask Cook. Can we manage ourselves?’

  ‘Of course.’

  When she was gone, Kell turned back to Wiggins. He was angry at the intrusion. But Wiggins didn’t look as though he’d react well to a lesson on protocol.

  ‘What is it?’

  Wiggins took a breath. He stood in the middle of the room, dripping onto the carpet. ‘Milton’s dead. The poor blighter’s dead. You didn’t have to—’

  Kell raised his hand to interrupt. ‘I didn’t have him killed.’

  Wiggins shook his head, stared into Kell’s eyes for a moment, weighing up. ‘Then who did?’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘I give you a name and five days later he’s dead. Murdered.’ He shook his head again, but slower this time, gentler. He’d seen enough men die to know that once the anger was gone, only the sadness remained. ‘You got a horn?’ He looked up. ‘Get his body collected before the tide comes in.’

  Kell wrote down the directions and phoned through the details to the police. By the time he came back into the room, Constance had Wiggins sitting down, towels wrapped around him, his jacket hung on a chair and his hands resting in a bowl. Steam engulfed them.

  ‘They’ll find him,’ Kell said, his mouth set grim.

  ‘Vernon?’ Constance looked up sharply at her husband.

  ‘What? Oh yes. Introductions. Wiggins, my wife, Mrs Kell. Constance dear, this is, er, Mr Wiggins, an associate of mine.’

  ‘How do.’ Wiggins nodded his head as she sponged his hands.

  ‘Mr Wiggins must stay, Vernon. It’s positively vile outside, and he seems to have had rather a shock.’

  Kell poured three stiff whiskies and waited until his wife finished cleaning Wiggins’s hands. His trousers and shirt were surely beyond repair, Kell thought as he handed his agent the drink.

  Constance shook her head. ‘I won’t, thank you, dear.’ She gathered up the soiled towels. ‘I’ll leave you. But Mr Wiggins, please, there is a room free upstairs. Vernon will show you the way when you’re ready. It was interesting to meet you. Goodnight.’

  ‘Much obliged, ma’am. Goodnight. Here, I’ll have that if it’s going.’ Wiggins gestured to Constance’s undrunk whisky as they heard her feet on the stairs. ‘So if you didn’t have him killed, who did?’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  Wiggins did so, with the help of another whisky, while Kell smoked three cigarettes. ‘Did you get the registration number of the motor?’ he asked.

  ‘Course.’

  ‘And the killer drove to the Albany, you say?’

  ‘Though he came and went through a back way – there’s a shop, must have a secret door – the commissionaire would never have seen him. Then he left and picked up someone from the front. Someone who had rooms.’

  ‘A set.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rooms in the Albany are called a set.’

  ‘What I want to know is who knew. Who did you tell about Milton?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was tumbled. Someone spilt. Who knew?’

  ‘I can’t discuss that.
The distribution group is classified.’

  Wiggins crashed his glass down. ‘A man’s dead. And you’ve got a bleeding leak.’

  ‘You work for me, remember? It’s easy enough to change that.’ Kell took a deep breath. He disliked decisions made in anger. ‘Surely the man in the Albany must be behind it. That makes the most sense.’

  Kell lit another cigarette and watched Wiggins pour more whisky.

  ‘What we must do is find out who this man is. The “grinder”, as you put it. It is unfortunate that your man lost his life. But our task remains the same. I take into consideration the possibility that someone at the Ministry may have inadvertently divulged something untoward. Leave it to me to look into that. We will meet again once I’ve ascertained who owns the motor car. Did you manage to find out the number of the set – the rooms – in the Albany?’

  ‘I can tell which flat from the outside.’

  Kell raised his eyebrow.

  ‘From the lights. One went off just after the big man came out, then he collected the gent.’

  ‘Very good. In the meantime, I suggest you stay at Woolwich in a part-time capacity. To make sure we have our man.’

  ‘We have our man. He’s dead.’

  ‘Even so.’ They sat in silence for a time until Wiggins nodded. Kell stood up. ‘As my wife suggested …’ He gestured half-heartedly towards the door.

  ‘No, you’re all right, sir. I’ll take the Scotch though.’

  Kell saw Wiggins to the door then went up to his room. He got into bed as quietly as possible but there was no need. Constance was wide awake. ‘Is he staying?’ she hissed.

  ‘No. He wanted to go home.’

  ‘Did he? He was very unlike your other clerks.’

  Kell sighed. ‘He’s not a clerk.’

  ‘There was something, oh I don’t know, magnificent about him. Heaven knows what the ladies will say.’

  Kell raised himself up on his elbow and turned to his wife. ‘You will tell no one about this, ever.’

  13

  ‘When you first arrive anywhere, Wiggins, set the scene in your mind – the entrances and exits, the loafer in a doorway, the innocent-looking hurdy-gurdy man: the whole milieu. Then, when it changes, you’ll know.’