A Song Unheard

by Roseanna M. White

  Missing her was an arrow through his middle. He needed to see her hunched over her desk in that way of hers that always made their mother chide her for bad posture. He needed to feel that too-serious, too-heavy gaze upon him that was too old for her age. He needed to hear her complain about how stupidity made her itchy and writhe in that exaggerated way she did when someone said something foolish.

  He needed to know she was well.

  “I count Willa as a sister too. Be aware of that—you hurt her, you’ll answer to me.”

  Lukas nodded. A year ago, it would have been a dismissive gesture, had a brother said such a thing. Today it was a solemn oath. “I will never do anything to put her at risk, either in heart or body.”

  “Well now, I didn’t say no risk. If you risk nothing, you gain nothing.” He paused and indicated the street sign fastened to the side of the building. TAVISTOCK PLACE. “Here we are.”

  The street Cor Akkerman had indicated. Now to find the right building. He led the way down the avenue, eyes hunting for a sign that would proclaim a printer’s shop. There was nothing. But Wallonian-accented French caught his attention, pulling him toward a quartet of men standing halfway down the street.

  One of those, praise be to the Almighty, held a copy of L’Indépendance Belge. Even if it were not housed here, perhaps they would know where it was printed. He approached with a polite nod and a hesitating, “Pardonnez-moi, s’il vous plait.”

  The men all looked up, their welcoming smiles saying they recognized a fellow Wallonian. He indicated the paper. “I am looking for where this is printed and heard it was near here. Do you know where I can find their offices and Monsieur Allard?”

  They all nodded, one of them motioning to a building just behind him, another saying, “Oui, oui, it is just here—and he has not left yet for the night, so you can still catch him if you hurry.”

  With excited thanks, he motioned Barclay to follow him and led the way to the brick building. The familiar scent of ink greeted him at the door, along with the steady thwack, thwack, thwack of the press running.

  Had the men not told him where to go, these things would have done so.

  He pushed inside, praying with every step across the floor that this would not be for naught. That even if Allard didn’t know his father, he would be willing to help. He turned a bit so he could say to Barclay, “Je vous remercie pour me mettre sur le bon chemin.”

  Barclay blinked. “Uh . . . I can tell that was French. Beyond that . . .”

  “Sorry.” Excellent. He could speak plainly to the printer, then, without fearing Barclay would understand. “I was merely thanking you for showing me the way.”

  “Ah. No problem at all.” He motioned toward the back wall, where books and newspapers were stacked and shelved. “I’ll just entertain myself over here while you speak with your father’s friend.”

  Even better. With a nod of thanks, he followed a hallway out of the pressroom and toward what seemed to be offices, though the space was small and cramped. No doubt Allard had found it necessary to settle for whatever he could find, ideal or not.

  At the end of the hall, a door stood open, the clicking of a typewriter’s keys spilling out along with a lamp’s light. He knocked on the doorframe.

  The man at the desk looked up. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles, pomaded grey hair, and a mustache that looked as though he had twisted the ends in concentration all the day long. All of which dimmed in light of the way his eyes narrowed upon spotting Lukas, as if trying to place him.

  An excellent sign. Lukas may take after his mother in most ways, but those who knew his father well could always see him in Lukas’s features. “Monsieur Allard? I am Lukas De Wilde.”

  “De Wilde. Yes, that’s it.” His words were in French, and he motioned Lukas in and indicated he should close the door behind him. He didn’t smile. “I heard your family home was destroyed in Louvain. It would have broken your father’s heart to know that his private library had been burned along with the university’s.”

  Praise God. A friend. Lukas nodded and didn’t bother with a smile either. “You are right. And it would have broken it even more if he realized my mother and sister were forced from their haven. I do not know where they are.”

  Allard leaned back in his chair, fingers worrying one end of that mustache. “I am sorry to hear that. Are they in England perhaps, do you think? You can place an advertisement. Many have done so, occasionally with good results. Our paper has made it to all corners of the British Isles, into the hands of refugees everywhere.”

  “I cannot risk something overt. If you knew my father, you no doubt knew what kind of work he was involved in.”

  There, a bit of a smile, and a matching light in his eyes. “Ah yes, his puzzles. I never understood a bit of what he asked me to print, but I enjoyed knowing it was part of his research.”

  Puzzles. Was that all Père had called them? Perhaps a few knew of their import. Enough about it to be willing to help, at any rate. Lukas cleared his throat. “They were more than that—and the Germans have shown interest in finding his work.” A twinge bit his shoulder. “Would you be willing to print another puzzle for me? To help me get word to my family? They have his work, you see. I need to be certain they, and it, are safe.”

  Allard muttered his opinion of the Germans and sat forward again. “Yes, of course. Anything you require. Do you need a full article printed or choice words in certain places? Your father rarely requested the same thing twice.”

  “I have prepared a series of things, if you would be so kind as to run one in each edition you publish.” It had taken him most of the night to compose them, going back and forth from his writing to the key, transposing the letters, scratching it out and starting again.

  He had managed. But cypher work had never been his forte. He was no Margot. And wouldn’t have been able to manage even these short messages were it not for the key she had pressed into his hands before he left for his solo tour after the funeral.

  “Here,” she had said, handing it to him as he practiced on his last day at home. It had been bound with a blue ribbon as if it were a gift. “Papa and I made this for you. Before he died.”

  He had looked at the lines of music and smiled. Even as he frowned. “You wrote me music?” Neither she nor their father had an ear for it. None whatsoever. It was sweet that she had tried, but he could tell even by looking at it that all sweetness would end there.

  Margot had smiled. “It’s not music. It’s mathematics.”

  A debate they’d had countless times. Music, she insisted, was all about the intervals and chords—mathematics. Music, he insisted, was about the aesthetic—feeling.

  It hadn’t been a desire to prove her wrong that had made him put the sheets on his stand and raise his bow. It was too soon after their father’s death to want to cause his sister even a minor grief. He had played it because he loved her, and he wanted to honor the time she and their father had put into making him something.

  But his expression had probably been exactly what Willa had worn last week when she’d pulled this paper from his crate.

  And Margot had laughed. “It isn’t meant to be played, Lukas! It’s a code.”

  “A code.” A game, he’d thought. But he’d play along. “Why do I need a code?”

  Her face had gone too serious. Too old, as it too often did. “Because we never know, do we? When things will change. When we might need you, or you might need us. This way, we can always get word to each other.”

  He opened his bag now and reached into one of the twin compartments. His fingers met only the change of clothes he’d packed. Frowning, he spun the bag around and tried the other side. There . . . but odd. He never put his clothes in the side with the outside pouch—they made it too bulky. He must have been distracted last night after working for hours to remember how to use that key.

  “It is a simple cypher,” Margot had claimed as she tugged him into one of the chairs at her schoolroom table. She’d pu
t the music in front of them, blank paper beside it. “Each note already has a letter anyway.”

  “But only seven of them.”

  “Twelve, if you count each black key as well. Seventeen, if you count sharps and flats separately, which I have done. That covers A through P. But they are all quarter notes. Longer notes indicate the subsequent letters. A half note A is really a Q. Et cetera. Do you understand?”

  He had rolled his eyes. “I am not a dunce.”

  “Good. Now, that is the simple alphabet, but of course that is too simple, anyone could crack that code. So each line of the music indicates a different transposition. On line one, the first note is an E flat—that means that our alphabet begins on J. J will equal A, K will equal B, and so on. Line two begins with a half-note C, which is a U. U is A, V is B.”

  “Very interesting, Margot.”

  She’d rolled her eyes at him. “Not really. It’s child’s play. Even Mozart encoded messages into his music with cyphers like this.”

  Lukas had huffed. “Did you just say even Mozart? As if he were a dunce?”

  “Well, he was no cryptographer, was he?” He could still see her grin. So condescending. So intelligent. So Margot.

  He’d mussed her hair, solely because it made her squeal like a normal girl. Not because she thought it didn’t look pretty—because, she said, it felt unorderly. Margot required order in everything.

  She’d explained, then, how to actually use the code. One would have to convince an editor to put the word Family in the headline somewhere. That was the signal to watch for a message. Then within the first sentence of the paragraph with the hidden meaning, include a number to indicate what line of the music they were using as their key. From there, it was a simple matter of beginning each word—or every other word, it didn’t matter so long as he was consistent—with the encoded letter. If he were trying to spell out Paris, for example, using the first line as their key, he could say, “Yesterday I jumped up again and I shouted, ‘Beautiful!’” The only letters that mattered were Y, J, A, I, B—which transposed to P, A, R, I, S.

  Very flexible, she had insisted. Easy to use. Simple to decode if she had to send him one. But no one else would be able to decipher it unless they had the key. The music.

  He pulled out the series of messages he’d devised and slid the papers across the desk to Allard. When he saw Margot again, he would have a few things to say about the supposed ease of this system. Sure, it sounded simple in theory, until one sat down to decide what one wanted to say and how to write a fake message around it. Then it became time-consuming, if not exactly complicated.

  Not for her, though. She would be able to compose a message on the spot, no doubt.

  Allard picked up the messages and read through them. “Very short. I should include them within a larger article as I have done in the past, yes? So long as the headline has La Famille in it.”

  “Exactly right, yes.” Assuming this paper made it into her hands, Margot would need nothing more to find his paragraphs and decode them. Although he would certainly have a harder time of it if—when—she sent a message back to him. He cleared his throat. “I am not certain what my father usually paid for this sort of thing.”

  Allard smiled, and this time it was warm and true and exhausted. “It is my pleasure to help your family, monsieur, at no cost. For your father’s sake. He was a good man. A good friend.”

  “Thank you.” He peeked inside his bag again, just to assure himself that he hadn’t been so exhausted as to forget to pack his music—the pieces he was memorizing for their first concert on the road as well as those sheets from Margot. The folder was there where it belonged, albeit in the wrong compartment, so he fastened it closed again and stood. “I am in your debt, monsieur.”

  “Nonsense. We must do what we can to help regain what was taken from us. I trust you will help another in need, when the time arises.”

  They shook hands, and Lukas let himself back out. In one respect lighter that this much, at least, was well accomplished. And in another respect, even heavier than before he entered, as he prayed that somehow, by some miracle, one of the papers with the coded message would make it into his sister’s hand.

  Barclay was still waiting in the pressroom, flipping through a book. At Lukas’s approach he looked up. His gaze was less welcoming than determined. Less friendly than decided. “Have you a hotel paid for already?”

  “Not yet, no. I was hoping someone could recommend a place.” Though he’d forgotten to ask Allard.

  Barclay snapped the book closed and put it back on the shelf. “You are welcome to stay with me. I’ve a room to spare.”

  Lukas opened his mouth, but no words came out. Not until he dragged in another breath. “Pardon me. It is a generous offer, but . . . why?”

  Barclay lifted a brow. “Because if you’re determined to get to know Willa, then I’m determined to get to know you. Come on.” He turned for the exit, apparently not considering that no, thank you was on the tip of Lukas’s tongue. “We’ll have to take the tube.”

  Lukas followed. No hadn’t really been on the tip of his tongue anyway. Getting to know Willa’s cousin who thought himself a brother was sure to prove more interesting than a night worrying over his family in a cheap hotel room.

  Eighteen

  Nothing. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Willa growled and kicked the bed—which was stupid and sent her hopping around on one foot until she finally sank down onto the mattress so she could rub her toes.

  The curtains were drawn, but even so she’d brought her own small electric torch. No one should come in here though. It was well past housekeeping’s hours, and Jules had gone out with Enora again—to a play, if she had overheard them correctly. So far as she could tell, no one else would really pay all that much attention to Lukas’s suite. Still, it paid to be cautious, and light shining from the window of an unoccupied room didn’t classify as cautious.

  But there was nothing to be found in here. Nothing, blast it. His clothes, none of which had anything worth noting on them. The patent leather shoes that she assumed went with his evening attire—no odd markings on the soles. A French Bible on the bedside table, which had surprised her—though if it contained a key, she wasn’t sure how she’d ever know it.

  She scooted toward it, though, and ran her fingers over the cover. It didn’t seem particularly well used, but a marker stuck out of the pages. Were it in English, she would have flipped it open, just to see what he had marked. But she’d not be able to read this.

  Her hand spread flat against the cool leather of the cover. They were so different. From worlds that were themselves worlds apart. This was just one small proof of it—even if he spoke English, spoke it to her, it wasn’t who he was.

  Even if he stooped to her level, left his world to spend time in hers, he’d never belong there. And he wouldn’t want to. Not if he knew what her world really was.

  She wouldn’t regret it. She hadn’t the time.

  There were no more drawers or doors in here to look through. She’d already checked under the mattress, felt around for loose boards or panels—nothing.

  Blast, but she hated to admit defeat. Couldn’t admit it. Mr. V had never indicated the possibility that the key simply wasn’t here with him. There had been no if. There had been simply find it.

  She had to find it. If she didn’t, then she would make an enemy of a man who had far too much knowledge of—and therefore power over—her family.

  And then there was the man in the brown jacket.

  Shuddering, she pushed up off the bed and smoothed out the counterpane. For a second—only one—it struck her. How odd and out of place she felt here in the bedchamber of a man she had kissed. Where he slept each night.

  Doing a job, that was all. Or failing to do a job, in this case. She picked up the electric torch from where she’d set it on the bed and exited into the sitting room again. This hotel had no private bathrooms, so there was no other room to check. She took a qui
ck turn through this outer room, but she saw nothing this time she hadn’t before.

  He must have it with him in London. That was the only answer. In which case, Barclay and the girls would have found it. They would run the job like they’d run other jobs before. Elinor to distract while Retta snuck up and slipped the contents from his bag into hers. Barclay to keep him occupied while Retta and Ellie looked through said contents. Then Ellie to distract again while Retta slipped her bag to Barclay and Barclay slipped it all back into Lukas’s.

  A simple Wimbledon, with the goods as a tennis ball, back and forth.

  She would go back to the Davies house. Risk one more phone call to Peter’s townhouse. The bill had to be adding up, but she would leave the Davies with pounds enough to cover it from what Mr. V had given her. A necessary expense, they’d call it.

  A quick exhale extinguished the lamp, a quick check through the peephole told her no one lingered in the hall, a quick step out and she had her skeleton key in hand to relock it. Half a minute beyond that and she was padding down the stairs as she had done before. A job not so well done in terms of findings, but with no hitches to the procedure at least.

  At the base of the stairs she paused to make sure no one in the lobby was coming this way, then slipped out the back door.

  Cool air greeted her. And so did a rough hand, pushing her to the bricks of the hotel. A body followed, and lips pressed to hers. Not bruising. But certainly with no actual feeling. She had the odd certainty that he kissed her merely to keep her silent.

  As if she were the type to scream when accosted in an alleyway—that was reserved for women who didn’t slink through them with stolen goods in their pockets on a regular basis. The last thing she ever needed was a bobby coming to the rescue.

  She could handle forceful men herself, in her own ways. Though this one she had only to shove away with a scowl. “Touch me again, Cor Akkerman, and you’ll find my knee giving you injury in a place you really won’t appreciate.”