Morgan gave him his ONI card. He was dressed in civilian clothes. “I should like,” he said, glancing toward the clerk to his right, “to ask you a few confidential questions.”
Van der Meer studied the card and his foot pressed a concealed buzzer. “Ah, yes. Of course, in that case we had better go into my private office.”
Just then the door of that office opened—it was directly to Morgan’s left and he had noticed the door—and an elderly woman stepped out. “Excuse me, Mr. Van der Meer. Your call from Amsterdam has just come through.”
“How inconvenient. But you must excuse me, sir. I have been trying to get this man all week. It will be five minutes, ten at the most. Henryk, show Mr. O’Neill that new string of stones we just received…” and with a friendly smile Van der Meer slipped past O’Neill, closing the door behind him.
Henryk laid a blue velvet mat on the glass-topped counter and spread on it a necklace of yellow diamonds. They were truly captured sunlight. “Very rare to find yellow diamonds that well matched,” he murmured offhandedly.
Morgan was sure the old woman had been summoned by prearranged signal. Maybe he was on the trail of something. Waiting for Van der Meer, he gazed in awe at the golden beauty before him.
Meanwhile, Van der Meer had dismissed his secretary from his plain private office and dialed a number. “Van der Meer, here.”
“Go ahead, Van.”
“Is there an ONI man named Morgan O’Neill? Nice-looking kid. Easy to describe. One blue eye, one brown.” The jeweler, used to studying the colors of stones, had quickly seen that.
“Yes. He’s okay. He’s on Stern. I’ve got Trilling, ONI, here. I’ll put him on.”
It was the FBI speaking.
Trilling said, “We didn’t want him to go to you. Tell him I am angry. But it doesn’t matter, because we’d decided to move anyway. Tell O’Neill to call Nurse Smith ten minutes after the end of this conversation and make an appointment to meet her someplace in New York at seven. I’ll call the hospital to be sure she is cleared to go. Then tell O’Neill to come to my office at Ninety Church for further instructions. Here’s your boss.”
“All right, Van. We wind up everything tonight. There’s nothing for you to do. We’ll send the girl to Stern’s apartment after O’Neill’s broken the news to her and see which way he jumps. Have you anything new to report? No telephone numbers? Anything in your files? No idea still of the leader?”
“No, I never call him. He calls me every two hours or so, from booths all over the city. And I’ve got no files. I carry everything in my head. When my head ceases to be accurate, I’ll quit. G’by.”
Van der Meer opened the office door and summoned Morgan.
Van der Meer had indeed listened willingly to St. Georges’ blandishments and gladly had acted as go-between. He had never seen fit, however, to inform that gentleman that he reported everything he did or was asked to do to the FBI. But now, unwittingly, he had.
On a whim, or more precisely as a precautionary measure which prompted him to tap his associates’ telephones once every four or five months, St. Georges had put a monitor on Van der Meer’s phone only a few days ago. He was flabbergasted at what he learned and called the Big One.
Van der Meer succinctly explained the situation to Morgan. Morgan telephoned Alice at the hospital and was surprised when she came to the instrument, for he had not said it was official business. “I’ll meet you,” she said, “at The Pub, as you suggest. Seven sharp. I have a date at eight. Okay?” She sounded puzzled.
“Okay,” Morgan said and his stomach constricted.
“I suppose I’ll get a bad report for having come here,” he said perplexedly to Van der Meer. “I was told to lay off diamonds. But somehow I had to come…”
“Personally, I think it was a good idea you did. Simply because they wanted you to. But espionage work is tricky stuff. You don’t let your leftist hand know what your rightist is doing.” He laughed. “It wasn’t till a short time ago that even ONI knew I was on this case. We’re pretty sure there’s a head of this gang and I at least think I have spoken to him, but I have no clue. So we’ll grab what we can and see what happens. It’s like the lizard who, losing his tail, grows a new one. Maybe the new one will lead us to him. Maybe even this one. He’ll have to grow a new tail anyhow. It doesn’t matter. We’ll get him in time.”
“I wish, since I’m in on it, it could be this time.”
“Ah, patience, patience. The old who have no time have it; the young who have all the time in the world lack it. Just do your job and remember you’re neither Dick Tracy nor Mandrake the Magician. And part of your job now consists of going to Ninety Church Street for instructions.”
* * * *
At two o’clock that Wednesday afternoon there was an emergency meeting at the apartment in the West Fifties. Henri St. Georges, Felix, and Antoinette sat in the dining room looking at the Louis XIV mirror.
The mirror said, “They’ve gotten on to us. At least to some of us. I, I believe, am safe. We will know soon. You, St. Georges, are to blame. It was Van der Meer.”
Henri cringed. The mirror knew that it, too, was to blame, for it had okayed Van der Meer, but it was not inclined to share blame.
“However,” the mirror went on, “you have been a good organizer and we may be able to give you a second chance. You three will leave the city tonight. I’ll take care of the others. Airports will be watched, so you’ll go by car to Philadelphia and fly from there. You have your emergency passports. Get them and report here no later than eight. Felix and Antoinette will go to Montreal. St. Georges, you will go to Mexico. Instructions will be given you about how long and where to stay. Act as if you were going to the country for a long weekend. Wear sports clothes. Questions?”
“What about Stern?” St. Georges asked.
“Forget Stern. He turned out to be a waste of money. But he still has one value. The girl is to go to him at eight o’clock. When she accuses him—that is their plan—he will say he can clear himself. He will call me. I have given him the number. He will ask if St. Georges is there. I will answer ‘No.’ Then he will ask where he can reach every name he has been able to get from her—by force, if necessary. That will give me the list—or part of it. I must know what names they have. If I should be among them, I’ll go with you to Philadelphia. By the time they have traced the call here, this apartment will be empty. They cannot move until the girl has seen Stern. They will not do anything until the girl has seen Stern. We are still comfortably ahead of them.
“Do you know O’Neill?” the mirror suddenly asked St. Georges.
“No.”
“You know the girl. He is to meet her at The Pub at seven. Be where she cannot see you and call me if you think it important. The rest of you be here by eight o’clock. You know how not to be followed. Use the usual route. Almost no luggage, of course.
“And don’t be afraid. The worst that can happen is the end of your usefulness to the Party and even that is doubtful. We are like beads on a string, joined, but separated one from the other by knots in the thread. Catch one, you do not catch all.”
The mirror was being poetic, but it felt a pep talk was in order because Felix and Henri looked scared. Even Antoinette, who hadn’t understood a word, was alarmed.
“We take care of our own,” said the mirror. “Be back here at eight.”
But in spite of the mirror’s encouraging words, the three who slipped out separately from the self-service elevator in the apartment were scared. As, indeed, was the mirror.
* * * *
At five o’clock that Wednesday afternoon Jan Van der Meer, as was his custom, closed up his shop and went home to Brooklyn. Much would happen tonight, he thought, but he didn’t dwell upon it. He was nothing but an exalted mechanical transmitter of information, much of which seemed insignificant. He wanted no part of heroics as did that nice
young ONI man who had called upon him.
Still he wished he could have given more clues as to the identity of St. Georges’ boss. And then the obvious came to him. It was St. Georges himself who was the boss. This blind of another man was a protection. He, St. Georges, could pretend to be taking orders from a pre-instructed stooge… That was it, of course. It was exactly like the devious thinking that would provide a deaf-mute mistress for one of the henchmen. And it would fool St. Georges’ fellow conspirators. Van der Meer didn’t know about the Louis XIV mirror, but he could visualize St. Georges hesitating to give an answer until he had spoken to the “boss” and then telling the boss what to say.
It was really amusing, he thought, as he walked toward his house on a short, tree-lined street in Brooklyn. He must report his hunch to the FBI.
There was a furry-sounding whoosh and suddenly Jan Van der Meer dropped to the street, a bullet in his head—the head which he had said, rather boastfully for one who was by training and nature reticent, was his file.
* * * *
At seven o’clock that Wednesday evening Alice Smith walked into The Pub. The doorman greeted her with more respect than he would have accorded the Duchess of Windsor, because he respected her uniform more.
Yes, Mr. O’Neill was waiting for her.
Morgan was waiting for Alice, with a briefcase before him on the table. St. Georges was not far from them where he could observe without being seen.
Alice was in her dress whites and Morgan’s heart went out to her in love and fear and pity. But Alice was angry. She slid into the banquette near him and, before he had a moment to speak a word, she said, “You’re quite a big shot all of a sudden, aren’t you?”
Morgan answered very calmly, very quietly, “Alice, I’ve something painful and delicate to tell you.”
Alice felt a chill. She was instantly contrite. “Forgive me, Morgan. I was sort of testy. I’m used to discipline in my hospital work, but this seemed something else again. Do you know I was practically ordered, no, I guess really ordered, to meet you?”
“No,” he said, “but I’m not surprised.”
“Tell me, Morgan dear. I’m supposed to meet Jacques at eight and I don’t want to be late. What is it all about?”
Morgan pulled the briefcase toward him and opened it.
St. Georges was speaking into one of the table telephones. “He has a briefcase with him. He is opening it. This must be it.”
“I want that briefcase. You have the car with you? Good. Get the briefcase, but no violence. Especially do not hurt the girl. We want her to meet Stern, because they won’t do anything until after that. And if my hunch is right the briefcase will have the names we want. We may not need Stern, after all. By the time they prevail on Stern to lead them here we will have disappeared.”
“You know, Alice,” Morgan said, “that you applied to the Navy for permission to marry an alien?”
“Of course. And we haven’t heard. But who doesn’t know about red tape? Anyhow, we’re not getting married for quite a while. By that time the papers will have been cleared.” And then, suddenly, “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“Yes,” Morgan said. “The Navy will not give you permission. Jacques Stern is suspect.”
The room seemed to shake under Alice as if there had been an earth tremor. “No, Morgan. It can’t be. There must be a mistake. He loves this country. He wants to become a citizen. And he was with De Gaulle!”
And then the dreadful, unbidden thought came to her, a detestable thought: could Morgan somehow have contrived this in order to dispose of a rival?
But almost as soon the thought left her. She looked at the honest face and the funny eyes and the sad, hurt expression and in that moment she loved Morgan more than she had ever before, for now the depth of his devotion was clear to her. He, no more than she, wanted her fiancé to be “suspect.”
“It has to be a mistake, Morgan. I’ll talk to him. You come, too, if you want. I know he’ll explain whatever it is.”
“Yes, we want you to talk to him. We believe he will tell you more—or at least more quickly than he would us. Perhaps he has been a dupe. We think he will panic when you face him and he will give you the names of his accomplices. I’m going to show you a few photographs. Do you recognize any of these men or women?”
Alice was in a daze. She identified only one. Henri St. Georges. He was a business associate. She’d met him a couple of times…and perhaps…wasn’t that somebody who went to the Pantheon Club?
And then Alice began to cry, very noiselessly, shielding her stricken face with her hands. With an effort she composed herself. “I want to call him. I must call him.”
“Yes, dear, call him,” Morgan said. He had dreaded this moment, but now that it had arrived he felt completely in control. It was something to be done. “Tell him something important has happened. That you can’t meet him until nine or nine-thirty, at his apartment. There is no danger, Alice. But we have to do this. Perhaps we’ll be proved wrong. For your sake, darling, I hope so. Before you go to his apartment I want you to come with me to Ninety Church Street.”
Morgan asked a waiter for a telephone and Alice made her call, as bidden, tremulously.
Henri St. Georges slipped out of the restaurant, suavely and unobtrusively. “They are leaving in a few moments,” he said to the chauffeur of his big black Cadillac. “We’ll follow them and if possible hold them up. It should be a taxi. I see no car but ours.”
Morgan and Alice walked across the lobby and toward the door. She was hanging onto his arm, her eyes glazed. Even if she had noticed St. Georges slip stealthily behind them, she would probably not have recognized him.
They hailed a taxi and St. Georges clearly heard the command, “Ninety Church Street, please.” He got into the front seat with his driver and said, “Follow. They are going to Ninety Church. We’ll stop them at the first dark street. We want that briefcase.” The driver nodded.
“I’ll take the cabbie and you handle them,” the driver said. “This will be easy.” Unconsciously, he had taken over, was giving orders. Holdups were his métier.
In the cab Morgan was trying to soothe Alice, who was alternately almost hysterical or icily calm. “It may be Jacques doesn’t know just what he’s been doing,” he lied. “But we know he’s been taking money from some very suspicious people. Before his father’s death he was living way beyond his means. And even his father’s death looks suspicious. So you see, this is serious. Now the FBI, who are really in charge, believe Jacques will panic, that he will make some telephone calls in front of you that he would not otherwise make. His apartment is under complete surveillance. You’ll be guarded. Tell Jacques you think it was not he who is to blame; it must be his friends. Urge him to telephone them. And remember everything. The reason we’re going to Ninety Church Street is to show you some photographs they wouldn’t let out of the office. And to get final instructions.”
He had been whispering so that the driver could not hear. Alice was weeping softly. What had she done? What could she believe? But one thing she believed: she would carry out her part as ordered. That was part of her duty and she felt within her the strength of her oath of loyalty, the unswerving strength of the Navy itself. And also bolstering her was the desperate hope that all this would turn out to be in reality the nightmare it seemed to be, that a foolish mistake had been made as mistakes often are…
The driver turned around. “Any chance you’re being followed, mister? There’s a Caddy looks like it’s chasing us.”
Morgan turned around and saw it through the back window. “Could be, driver. But we’re almost there. Speed up. There’s an armed guard at the door.”
Church Street is in the business district of Manhattan. At eight o’clock in the evening it is deserted, dark. The cabbie, who was no more than five blocks from his destination, stepped on his accelerator, but he was
too late. The Cadillac had decided to move, too. It drew abreast, then passed and swerved to the right. The cabbie had to swerve, too, and brake. The Cadillac’s chauffeur and St. Georges were out of their car in a second. There had, amazingly, been no collision.
The chauffeur had a gun pointed at the cabbie. “Just don’t do anything, bud, and you won’t be hurt,” he said, and reached inside the taxi and turned off the ignition and pocketed the keys.
“And I,” said St. Georges opening the side door, “would like that briefcase, if you please.”
It was on the floor where it had slipped when Morgan had thrown his arms around Alice to prevent her from pitching forward. Even at the moment of danger he had experienced a thrill at feeling the warm suppleness of her body pressed in fear against his. It was like making love in the millionth of a second. The gun in St. Georges’ hand was an anticlimax—something that had to do with nothing.
“Sure, you can have it,” Morgan said very calmly, and started to get out of the cab. He picked up the briefcase and handed it to St. Georges. “But it won’t do you any good. There’s nothing in it of value to you. And you’re a fool. This is going to make it worse for you when we catch you—and we will. We don’t like people who hold up officers of the United States Navy.”
Morgan was talking to kill time. He knew better than to tangle with two men with guns. But perhaps a car might come by, or maybe a cop, and scare them away. “Yes. You’re a fool,” he repeated.
There came to St. Georges then a bright white-hot flash of uncontrollable anger. There before him stood this man, good-looking, confident, and at ease. This man who had been an instrument of his undoing, who had helped—along with Van der Meer, but he had taken care of Van der Meer—wreck a neat little plan that would have brought him glory, promotion, and money. And now he was an outcast, forced to flee the country, maybe to be thrown to the wolves (who knew that the Big One had been telling him the truth?) as coldly and unconcernedly as they planned to sacrifice that elegant fop Jacques Stern. And this man was looking at him, insolently and unafraid, and calling him a fool. Nobody called Henri St. Georges a fool.
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