It was, of course. But it was also very enlightening. “Japan.” Margot nodded and recalled the look of the board he’d been using. It had been exquisite—lovelier than the one on which Gottlieb had taught her. He’d probably acquired it in Japan and brought it back to England with him. Though the game originated in China, it was so ubiquitous in Japan that most of the terms of play were Japanese rather than Chinese. “That makes sense.” Not a German connection—a Japanese one.
It ought to make the unease settle. But it didn’t, exactly. It just inspired her feet to move away from Dot and Holmes and toward the hunched figure of John Williams. The last time she’d tried to speak to him, he’d barely even looked at her. That was all right.
She slid into the seat opposite his and didn’t look at him either. She looked at the board, at the game he was playing with no one, and took a moment to take in the positions of the pieces. He was even then taking his fingers off one of his black stones after moving it. She rested two of hers onto a white.
It was cool and smooth and familiar, sucking her back three years in time with that single touch. She sat across from Gottlieb instead of Williams, in the warm home of Madame Dumont, who had taken them in as if they were family, though they’d never met her before that long, grueling march from burned-out Louvain to occupied Brussels. The crisp London air disappeared, the babble of voices was French in her ear instead of English.
But in Brussels, she wouldn’t have made the best move she saw, not often. She’d had to pretend she wasn’t as smart as she was, pretend she wasn’t the daughter of her father, pretend she wasn’t the “crypotography machine” he’d apparently bragged to too many people about having created.
Today she was just one more cog in the machine of Room 40. Allowed to be who she was. Able to play however she pleased. Today Maman certainly wouldn’t be hovering behind her, glowering warnings with wide eyes.
Margot blinked away the pain of that and moved the stone under her fingers.
Williams grunted. She darted a glance up at him, expecting protest to be upon his face. But the corners of his lips had turned up. Just a bit. He still didn’t look at her, but he looked at the board in a new way.
A few minutes must have marched by, though she hadn’t cared to mark them. Then Holmes appeared at her side with a softly cleared throat. “Beg your pardon, Miss De Wilde.” Dot must have filled him in on her last name. “I’m going to see Miss Elton home. And don’t worry.” He pitched his voice low. “I’ll find a way to bow out of your dinner party.”
“Nonsense. Come.” Eyes still on the board, she reached into her handbag and pulled out the scarf that was taking up much of the space inside. “My mother knitted this for you.” Maman hadn’t known it, but it was nonetheless true. “And if you meet me back here in an hour, I’ll take you to my brother’s house. He’ll ensure you have the proper attire for this party, if that’s your concern.”
“Very kind, miss, but I oughtn’t . . .”
She looked over, up, into his eyes. “We all fall on hard times, Mr. Holmes. The kindness of a stranger saved my life once, and my mother’s. Please. Let me do for you just a portion of what she did for us. It is a small enough gesture. Lukas will not miss one suit of clothes.”
Though one suit of clothes wouldn’t solve this man’s ultimate problem either. The missing variable in his equation was surely equal to a larger number than that. But it could help. Could perhaps put his feet—organic and artificial both—on a path toward restoration.
She watched him wrestle with his pride though. It took the form of his hands twisting in the knitted length he still held. He didn’t want to take it, any of it. Didn’t want to need to. But he also apparently didn’t want to go on as he had been. He shoved the scarf into his pocket—leaving one end trailing out—and nodded. “Anything you need me to do, miss, you just ask. Anything at all.”
Williams drew her attention back to the board when he slid a black stone to a new position. One not entirely stupid.
Margot pursed her lips and considered her next move. “Very well. At the moment, I need you to see my friend safely home, if you would.”
Even without looking, she could see his smile. “A real hardship, that, but I’ll manage it. And be back here in an hour.” He moved half a step but then stopped. “Will you be all right here alone?”
It was her own park in her own neighborhood. Moreover, she didn’t intend to move for the next hour. “We will be quite busy until you return. Isn’t that right, sir?”
Her shaggy-haired opponent steepled his hands, rested his chin against them, and stared at the board with bright eyes. His grunt this time clearly said, Your move.
She slid a white stone to a better position.
Williams’s smile bloomed full this time. He nodded his approval and studied his own pieces.
Holmes breathed a laugh. “Enjoy your game, Miss De Wilde. I’ll see you in an hour.”
Das Gespenst sat in the park long after the chill chased everyone else indoors and the gaslights turned on. The clouds had rolled in, bringing damp air. Cold.
He hated every damp breeze of this blasted island, but he was at least learning to control the ever-present cough. It was better if he didn’t try to talk. He could just grunt and let everyone think him an idiot.
His eyes wandered toward the park entrance where the girls had stood two hours ago. The thirst for revenge tickled his lungs, drowning him as surely as the waters of the Boynton had tried to do. He’d have his day. He must. And it could well be the same day he handed over the codebooks to his superiors. How perfect would that be?
Margot De Wilde and Dorothea Elton. He’d hardly been able to believe it when his research had led him back to them—and then when they’d come right up to him. Mother would say it was the hand of God, delivering his enemies to him on a silver platter.
More like a small world, this one of intelligence. Everyone was connected to everyone else. It hadn’t been surprise so much as certainty filling his veins when he’d learned her name. Of course they were connected. They were all connected. And now all he had to do was forge his own connection. To them.
To one of them, at least. One would do. Get one, and he’d have them both, as inseparable as they were.
Margot De Wilde. He traced a finger along the pattern in the iron of the bench. Who’d have thought she’d know how to play Go? It made perfect what had otherwise been sufficient. He could use the game to get to know her. Use her to get at his true enemies.
From what he’d seen, no one else in this part of London knew how to play. It would just be her. And him. A new game.
He had to know what kind of opponent she would be. How many strategies he would need to employ. How many uses he could find for each move, each play.
He’d soon know. With each move, he’d learn more.
He dug his fingers into his leg. His chest ached, all the way down to his soul. But he wouldn’t let it stop him. If anything, it must motivate him. He must succeed. He’d have his revenge, and he’d hand over everything the High Command asked for. Their targets. Their codebooks. And then he’d make a demand of his own—relocation.
He was ready to be finished with this godforsaken island.
A smile tugged up the corners of his lips. Heinrich would have enjoyed this ghost story. A tale of hauntings and recompense and evening the score. It wasn’t his brother’s usual type of yarn, but still he would appreciate it. Not every tale was one of glory. Of heroics.
What did playing the part of a hero ever really get one, anyway? Death, that’s what. An enemy’s bullet. A pathetic medal sent home to one’s wife.
Das Gespenst. He closed his eyes and drew the name close. Let every other name—and he’d had no fewer than half a dozen—fade away. He’d be no one. Everyone. Faceless. Nameless.
Heinrich had a name, and it would be carved for eternity in a slab of granite in the cemetery. Their mother and Ilse would take flowers every Sunday until they too were just a few letters carv
ed on other slabs.
All that nobility, all those stories of glory and feats of honor and bravery, forgotten.
Margot De Wilde had a streak of the heroic in her, too, trying to provide as she was for the crippled man. She, too, would learn that it was a weakness. And he would be the one to teach her. He’d use it, as surely as he used Go.
Das Gespenst opened his eyes again and stared into the world that lost its color a little more with every minute. Daylight fading, night oozing in, stripping it of green and pink and orange and leaving muted grey behind. She wouldn’t understand, she with that noble streak. Just as Heinrich had never understood.
It couldn’t be about nobility. Or honor. Or bravery. It could only be about the game.
16
Drake counted it a victory when, on Thursday, he managed to get himself out of bed before his sister left for work in the morning. It still hurt like the dickens if he made too abrupt a movement, but he’d not touched the pain medication in two days—not because the doctor hadn’t given him a stern look and told him to keep taking it, but because he couldn’t get a bit of the work done that the admiral had been sending home with Dot when he did. The stuff muddied his mind.
He could handle this amount of pain, though. He tired easily, yes, but that would only get better by pushing himself a little more each day. Today, that meant shuffling out of his bedroom while the scents of tea and porridge were still fresh.
He paused a step into the main living area of the flat. Dot stood in front of the door. Overcoat on, hat pinned in place, handbag looped over her arm. And rosary beads clutched between gloved knuckles. Watching her lips move, he could tell where she was in the prayer. When Jesus is twelve years old, He goes with His parents to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. Her lips paused for half a beat, and her fingers moved to the next bead. After the feast of the Passover, Mary and Joseph unknowingly set out for Nazareth without Jesus. . . .
He held his place while she finished, not wanting to disturb her. Were it anyone else, he might have thought she’d forgotten to say her prayers earlier and wanted to squeeze them in before she left home. But not Dot. Dot waited to say them until she was standing there before the door. She waited until she most needed the strength the familiar words imparted. Mary keeps all these things in her heart.
She drew in a deep breath, tucked the beads into her pocket, and lifted her chin. Her hand shook as she lifted it to the door’s latch, but she gripped it anyway.
His throat went tight. Margot was right. His sister was strong. Courageous. Every day she left this flat, she had to put on her armor like a knight errant and make herself slay the dragon of the world outside that door.
She was strong. She was courageous. But it never took away the fear. “Have a good day, Dot.” His voice came out quiet, barely audible in the room.
She didn’t look back at him. If she did, it would ruin her routine and she might not reach for the door again, he knew. It had happened before. But she nodded, pulled the door open, and stepped out without a word.
Drake sighed and continued his shuffle toward her small kitchen. He prayed that, eventually, routine would make it easier. And he was proud that she did it even when it was difficult.
As usual, a small pot of bland porridge sat on the stove for him. In days past, he’d reheated it whenever he managed to pull his aching body from bed. Today it was still warm, and he had only to spoon it into his bowl.
A few minutes later he’d fixed his tea as well and sat at the table, papers spread out before him. DID had sent a bit of everything home with Dot this week, obviously trying to discover what Drake could best do here at his sister’s house rather than in the field. This latest packet didn’t have any codes that needed to be cracked—he could muddle through when he had the key, but how they ever managed to break one without that he honestly didn’t know. But Hall apparently thought he did a decent enough job of analyzing what others had put into plain script, because there were quite a few decrypts here.
The challenge, as always, was determining what to do with them. What they meant—not in terms of what the words said, but in terms of what impact they could and would have on British operations.
Drake flipped through the first few pages as he ate a spoonful of porridge that might as well be tasteless. No butter, no sugar. What he wouldn’t give for a dollop of Mother’s favorite strawberry preserves to swirl through the gruel. Anything would help.
He tried not to think of the spiced sausage and eggs that would have been on Abuelo’s table this morning.
Dot had brought the newspaper in as well. When he moved a few of the decrypts aside, the headline caught his eye. ACE PILOT GROUNDED AND FACING COURT-MARTIAL. His eyes went wide when he saw the grainy photograph. He hadn’t seen his old school chum in years, but there was no mistaking the face of Phillip Camden. Or, as the article called him, Black Heart.
He read all the way through the piece before pushing himself to his feet and moving to the telephone. The article still clutched in one hand, he waited to be patched through to Admiral Hall.
“Yes?”
“Morning, sir. It’s Elton.” When his side protested his standing so long in one position, Drake granted it a reprieve and sank to the hard wooden chair Dot kept beside the telephone table. “Did you see that article in yesterday’s Evening Standard? About the ace who’s been grounded?”
“Mm. Camden, wasn’t it? I couldn’t quite make sense of what had happened from the article. Had half a mind to pull a few strings just to satisfy my curiosity.”
Drake wouldn’t mind a few more answers either, but that was hardly his point in calling. “Sir, if you’ve the power, may I suggest you arrange to have him allocated to your command rather than put on trial? I know Camden rather well—we were at school together as boys. I think you’d find him just your sort of chap.”
Though it was a bit hard to tell over the static-filled line, Drake thought the admiral’s snort sounded amused. “You think a criminal is my sort?”
“He’s not a criminal. Just . . . unconventional. It does have a tendency to land him in hot water”—never this hot before, but with raised stakes came raised consequences—“but there’s nothing untrustworthy about him.”
“Hm.” Yes, definitely amused. “Perhaps I’ll pay the fellow a visit. Though what exactly makes you think he’d be an asset to me?”
Drake’s lips quirked up at the many memories that bombarded him. Phillip Camden had a way of getting into scrapes—and out of them—with flare enough that people tended to see his attitude more than his mind. But the mind was always what was behind them. “When we were twelve, he created a code and taught it to all the boys in our class so that he could give us secret messages as to when we ought to cause specific disturbances.”
A laugh crackled over the line. “Did he, now? Well then, perhaps I’ll bring him a few puzzles and see what he can do. Thank you for the tip, Elton.”
“You’re quite welcome, sir.”
They said their farewells, and Drake set the receiver back in its cradle with a bit of satisfaction. He didn’t have a clue what Camden had actually done to turn himself from one of their best pilots to someone the press was determined to make into a villain. But whatever it really was, Camden was too great an asset to the country for them to just toss him away. Drake didn’t trust them all to see that, but Blinker Hall would. Though whether the admiral could manage to get someone from the RFC transferred to Admiralty control rather than army, he really didn’t know. Why couldn’t he have joined the RNAS instead? Then he’d already be a navy man.
Drake spent some more time on the decrypts in need of analyzing and then, when the clock chimed the ten o’clock hour, put it all away and pushed himself back up and toward his bedroom. The doctor would stop by in another half hour, and it took Drake a ridiculous amount of time these days to get dressed. But he was determined to do so, just to prove to the doctor that he was well enough to handle the task.
He’d scarcely got
ten his shirt buttoned, however, when a knock sounded on the door. Scowling, he checked his watch. A full fifteen minutes earlier than the doctor had said he would be. “Coming!” he called. Not all that loudly, as volume required more muscles than he currently had to spare, but he could probably still be heard in the corridor. Maybe.
A glance through the peephole, however, made his brows rise. It wasn’t the doctor. He opened the door with a smile that he knew held a question within it. “Red. Good morning.”
Redvers Holmes offered a smile more sheepish than confident. “Sorry to drop by unannounced, Elton.”
“No trouble at all—I’ve certainly got time enough on my hands for a visit. Won’t you come in?” He stepped aside, holding the door wide. He’d been more than a little surprised on Monday when Red had escorted Dot home, but he’d been happy enough to renew their acquaintance.
“Thank you.” Red swiped his cap off his head as he entered. He walked slowly, but the oddity in his gait from the prosthetic was barely noticeable at that pace.
Drake could still barely keep up. “Sit down, please. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like some tea?”
“No, no, don’t go to any trouble on my account.” He darted a glance at the kitchen, however, in a way that said he’d like a cup, just didn’t want to ask for one.
Drake turned into the room with its still-warm kettle. He put it back on the stove to heat and spoke across the half wall separating the kitchen and living area—an arrangement that had probably horrified Dot when she first saw it. No maid, no cook, and not even a decent wall to separate the kitchen from the more formal part of the flat. “No trouble at all. I insist.”
He kept his tone casual, but his intent wasn’t. He’d tried to sound Red out the other day on where he was living now, what he was doing, but the fellow had been vague in all his answers, and it would have been rude to press. He had a feeling the truth wasn’t very rosy. All the questions he’d asked himself about his old acquaintance kept delivering up the same answers: he was hungry and cold and in need, but too proud to admit it.
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