The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “Otherwise, you’ll gas yourself to death, Gladys,” he said, “and we certainly don’t want that. You’re one of me best customers!”

  She was, too. Just last year, she’d bought the icebox from him.

  When Gladys had the potatoes boiling and the peas opened and on the stove, she set the table. Then she turned her attention to the day’s post. There was a bill from the gas company and something from the savings and loan about buying war bonds. There was another envelope, too—a small buff-colored one with her name and address on it and nothing else, no return address. The postmark was from Camden Town. It had been mailed yesterday. Puzzled, Gladys opened it. She gave a small cry when she saw what was inside.

  “Gladys? Was that you?” her mother called from the sitting room. “Are you all right?”

  Gladys swallowed hard. “I’m fine, Mum!” she called back. “Just burned myself on the pot handle, that’s all.”

  “Be careful, love.”

  “I will.”

  Gladys stared at the ugly photograph in her hand. It was of her. Max von Brandt had taken it nearly four years ago. In a boarding-house in Wapping. Feeling sick to her stomach, she turned it over. There was nothing written on the back of it. There was nothing else in the envelope. There was no message at all, but there didn’t have to be. It was a warning. Something had gone wrong. And the person who’d sent the photograph was telling her she’d better put it right.

  But what could have gone wrong? Whatever it was, Gladys was certain it involved Jennie Finnegan. She immediately thought back to last night, and the conversation she’d had with her on the bus on their way home from the suffrage meeting; she’d been able to think of nothing else the entire day.

  Jennie had wanted to know about Max. She’d wanted to know what was in the envelope Gladys had given her. She’d even talked about going to the authorities. Had she actually done so? Could she have been that foolish? Gladys had warned her. She’d told Jennie to not open the envelope, to deliver it just as she’d always done, or she’d find out exactly what Max von Brandt was capable of. Surely Jennie had listened to her.

  But if Jennie had listened, then why had this picture been sent?

  Maybe, a small voice inside her said, someone else had been listening, too. There had been other people on the bus—a handful of men. Was it possible one of them was working for Max, had been told to watch his couriers, and had overheard them? Yes, Gladys realized with a cold dread, it was. Anything was possible where Max von Brandt was concerned.

  The photograph was a warning, all right—a warning to her to keep Jennie Finnegan in line.

  “My God, what am I going to do?” Gladys whispered, numb with fear.

  If Jennie decided to open the envelope, and discovered what was really in it, she would certainly go to the authorities. And when she did, government men would come for her—Gladys. She would be arrested, tried, and found guilty of treason. If she wasn’t executed, she would spend her life in jail.

  To prevent this, she would have to frighten Jennie. She’d have to intimidate her into continuing to deliver Max’s envelopes. But how? She believed that Jennie honestly hadn’t known she was helping German spies smuggle British military secrets to Berlin. Jennie was an innocent; Max had told her he was on Britain’s side and she believed him. But for some reason, she now no longer believed him. And what was she, Gladys, supposed to do about that? Force an innocent woman to betray her own country? Even if she had an idea how to go about such a thing, she had no stomach for it. She would not do to someone else the dreadful thing Max von Brandt had done to her.

  Just as she had the first time Max had shown her the pictures, Gladys once again thought of killing herself. But now, as then, she could not bring herself to do it, because she did not want her mother to be taken to a home where no one would look after her properly.

  “What am I going to do?” she whispered again, in despair.

  Moving woodenly, she tore the picture into bits and put the pieces into the rubbish bin. She opened the tin of pineapple rings, took the gammon steaks out of the icebox, put them in a bowl, and poured the juice from the tin over them. While they sat in their marinade, she mashed the potatoes, drained the peas, then added butter and salt to both. Next, she put the kettle on for a pot of tea, struck a match, and lit the grill. As the gas hissed, then whooshed into bright orange flames, she found her answer.

  When she finished grilling the steaks, she put them on two plates and decorated them with the pineapple rings. Then she put the mash and peas on the table, followed by tea made in the best teapot. The meal looked very inviting. She thought her mother would like it very much.

  “Tea’s ready, Mum!” she shouted as she went down the hall to get her mother. “It looks good, if I do say so myself. I hope you’ve an appetite tonight.”

  Gladys helped her mother down the hallway to the kitchen and eased her into her chair.

  “Sit down now, Gladys,” Mrs. Bigelow said. “You must get off your feet for a bit.”

  “I will do, Mum. It’s drafty in here. I’m just going to close the window so we don’t get a chill.”

  She did so, and then kicked a floor rug up against the bottom of the back door. Just before she sat down, she turned the gas on for all four burners, the grill, and the oven, pretending, as she did, that she was turning them off. She knew that her mother, with her bad ears, would never hear the hissing.

  “This is lovely, Gladys!” Mrs. Bigelow said, as she struggled to cut her steak with her trembling hands. “It’s just the thing to take the gloom off a miserable, rainy night.”

  “Thank you, Mum. I’m glad you like it,” Gladys said.

  Mrs. Bigelow must’ve heard the sad, strange note in Gladys’s voice, for she suddenly looked up. “You all right, Gladys?” she said.

  Gladys nodded. She smiled.

  She had wiped away her tears before her mother could see them.

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  “Shall we try again, gentlemen?” Joe said, wheeling himself into Sir George Burgess’s office. Sid Malone came in behind him. “Can hostilities cease for the duration of this meeting?”

  Sid nodded. Burgess, standing behind his desk, did the same. “Please sit down,” he said, gesturing to the two chairs on the opposite side of his desk.

  Sid pulled one of the chairs out of the way of Joe’s wheelchair, then sat down in the other. Burgess poured tea for both of them from a big silver teapot. He splashed some on Joe’s saucer as he did.

  “Forgive me. I usually have a girl to do this—you know her, Joe—Gladys Bigelow—but she hasn’t come to work today. Most unlike her. I hope it’s not the Spanish flu. Just sent my man, Haines, around to her flat to see what’s going on. I hear your sister-in-law’s laid up with it.”

  “She is, indeed,” Joe said. “She’s in hospital.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear it.”

  “Thank you, Sir George,” Joe said. He paused, then said, “All right, then. Let’s get down to business. We’ve a spymaster, von Brandt, whom, it seems, we can’t touch, and we’ve a courier, Flynn, whom we can catch. We know where to find him, and when. What we don’t have is our inside man. The person inside the Admiralty who’s getting the information to the courier. Are we agreed on that much?”

  Both Sid and Burgess said that they were.

  “Good,” Joe said, relieved. “That’s a start.”

  He had brought Sid to Burgess’s office at the Admiralty two days ago so that Sid could tell Burgess everything he’d told Joe about Max von Brandt and the man called Flynn. Without naming him, Sid had also told Burgess about his friend John, who’d been ferrying Flynn to the North Sea, and who’d saved Sid’s life.

  Burgess, alarmed, had wanted to immediately take John in for questioning and to nab Flynn, too. Sid had told him they could not immediately nab Flynn, for he only came to John’s boatyard every fortnight. He’d also informed him that he would not allow John to be taken in or questioned, because to do so might endanger hi
s life. He explained Billy Madden’s role in the proceedings and told Burgess that Madden had threatened John and his family.

  Burgess, however, made it clear he didn’t care about Billy Madden or his threats; he wanted John, and he wanted him now. Sid refused to give John up, and the meeting had devolved into a shouting match.

  “God only knows how much havoc this network has wreaked, how many deaths it’s caused!” Burgess had yelled, banging his fist on the table. “I must have the name of your contact, Sid. I demand that you give it me.”

  “You what?” Sid said, leaning forward in his chair. “You demand it?”

  “I do indeed.”

  Sid laughed. “I’m giving you nothing. No names, dates, or places,” he said.

  “I could have you arrested. It’s certainly within my power.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll deny everything I’ve told you. You’ll look even more of a git than you already do.”

  “Now, see here!”

  “No, you see here. You’ve no understanding—none at all—for the hardship that drove my friend to do what he’s done,” Sid said. “I’ll not have him sacrificed.”

  “What about all the other men who are being sacrificed? Right this very minute. Because of a spy ring that is operating in London. What about them?” Burgess had asked.

  Sid, glowering, said, “Well, we’d better sit down and hash out a plan then, hadn’t we?”

  And they’d tried, but they’d failed. Neither man would give an inch. Sid would do nothing to endanger John and his family. Burgess would give no guarantees that he would spare them. Sid had finally stormed out, disgusted. He and Joe had left Burgess’s office no closer to capturing von Brandt’s spy than they had been when they walked in.

  “We got nothing done, Joe,” Sid had furiously said afterward. “Bloody nothing!”

  “Welcome to the wonderful world of politics, old son,” Joe replied.

  Now, two days later, they’d decided to meet again in Burgess’s office, to see if they could work together to fashion a plan. Joe knew, as did they all, that they could not afford to leave the premises today without one. Too much was at stake.

  “So, chaps,” Burgess began now, “the question remains: How do we take Flynn without implicating Mr. Malone’s friend?”

  Sid, apparently, was ready for the question. “We don’t,” he said. “At least not right now.”

  Burgess raised an eyebrow.

  “Hear me out,” Sid said. “You don’t want Flynn by himself. Flynn’s low-hanging fruit. Take him and you break the pipeline from London to Berlin, sure … but for how long? Von Brandt, wherever he is, just puts another courier into play. There are probably a dozen of them in London right now, just waiting for the nod. If you want to stop the flow of secrets to Germany, you have to find out who the inside man is—the man in the Admiralty—and get him at the same time that you get Flynn.”

  “Go on,” Burgess said, intrigued.

  But before Sid could, there was a knock on the door.

  “Come in!” Burgess barked.

  A young man hurried into the room and closed the door behind him.

  “My assistant, William Haines,” Burgess said. “What is it, Haines?”

  “Sir George,” the young man said breathlessly, “there’s been a rather important development in the matter we were discussing earlier, and I—”

  “What matter would that be? We discussed several.”

  “Well, sir, it’s one of rather sensitive dimensions. …” Haines paused, glancing at Joe and Sid.

  “Speak freely, old chap,” Burgess said.

  “Thank you, sir, I shall. We have just received a communication from Haifa indicating that a person of particular interest—a Mr. Max von Brandt—is thought to have been killed in Damascus. By a person close to Lawrence. A chap by the name of Alden Williams.”

  “Well, that’s good news. One less spymaster to worry about, but unfortunately, his protégés are still at large in London. Thank you, Haines,” Burgess said, waving the man away.

  “There is one other thing, Sir George …,” Haines said.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “The matter of Miss Bigelow’s whereabouts. I’m sorry to tell you that Gladys has been found dead in her home.”

  “What?” Burgess said, shocked. “Gladys is dead?”

  “Yes, sir. We were all rather upset about it, I might add. It was gas inhalation. Given where she works—worked—the police notified us immediately. The press was already sniffing about. At our request, the police have put it about that she accidentally left the gas turned on. She’d just bought a new oven, you see. But they—and we—actually suspect she committed suicide.”

  “Good God, man. Why do you think that?” Burgess asked.

  “Because sir, all four stove burners were turned on. One doesn’t leave all four on accidentally. And the grill. And the oven. The kitchen window was shut tight, and there was a rug pushed up against the bottom of the door.”

  “I see,” Burgess said.

  “Miss Bigelow’s mother was with her in the kitchen. She, too, died from gas inhalation. Miss Bigelow left no note, but the two officers who found her also found this in the rubbish bin. They pieced it back together and gave it to us,” Haines said, handing Burgess a glued-together black-and-white photograph.

  “Bloody hell,” he said. “Thank you, Haines, that will be all for now,” he added, pushing the photograph across the desk to Joe and Sid.

  “Somebody was blackmailing her,” Joe said, as Haines closed the door behind him. “She looks drugged in this photograph. Or drunk. Somebody slipped her something, took this picture, then used it to make her do what he wanted—which was to smuggle secrets out of your office. Bet you a hundred quid it’s von Brandt. Or rather, it was von Brandt.”

  “Looks like we’ve got our inside man,” Sid said. “Sooner than we thought we would. Only she’s a woman. And she’s dead.”

  Burgess was silent for a bit, then he shook his head and said, “No, it’s not possible. There is simply no way that Gladys Bigelow took those documents to Flynn.”

  “How can you be sure?” Joe asked.

  “Because we had her watched and followed. On numerous occasions.”

  “You suspected her?” Sid asked.

  “Not at all. In fact, if there was one person I trusted above all, it was Gladys,” Burgess said sadly, “but when war was declared, we watched everyone. As a matter of course. To be absolutely certain of them. I am quite sure that I myself am regularly followed. At least I hope I am.”

  Burgess paused to pour more tea, then continued. “I read the surveillance reports on Gladys myself. Her movements were as regular as the rain. She had her knitting club and her suffrage meetings. She did her marketing at Hansen’s. Bought her clothes at Guilford’s. On Sundays she took her mother to the park. There were no men in her life, not one. I can tell you with utmost confidence that Gladys Bigelow was not meeting German spies in smoky pubs or on the river-front in the dead of night or anywhere else. So how the devil did the documents get from her hands to Flynn’s?”

  “You think there was yet another person involved?” Sid asked. “Someone who took the documents from Gladys and got them to Flynn?”

  “There had to be,” Burgess said.

  “So we’re only slightly better off than we were ten minutes ago. We’ve got the inside man accounted for, but now there’s another courier to find. And we’ve no idea who he is,” Joe said.

  “I’m afraid so,” Burgess said. “I’m also afraid that we cannot wait to find out who he is. When we first spoke, Sid, you told me your friend is scheduled to depart on his North Sea run on Friday—tomorrow. Flynn undoubtedly reads the papers, just like the rest of us. He’ll find out that Gladys Bigelow is dead. Without her, he can’t get his information and has no reason to stay in London. He’ll go underground or leave England altogether. We’ll lose him, and more importantly, we’ll lose any information we could’ve squeezed out of him.” Burgess
looked at Sid. “We have to make a move. There is simply no other choice. I am asking for your help. Not demanding, asking.”

  Sid nodded. “Give me a few hours. I’ll come up with something,” he said. “Give me until tomorrow morning.”

  Burgess nodded. “Until tomorrow morning,” he said.

  There was another knock on the door. “I’m sorry to interrupt again, Sir George,” Haines said, “but we’ve just had an urgent message for Mr. Bristow, from his wife.”

  “What is it?” Joe asked, alarmed.

  Haines read from the piece of paper in his hand. “Mrs. Bristow asks that you meet her at the Whitechapel Hospital immediately. She says that your sister-in-law is in a very critical state and not expected to live much longer.” Haines looked up at Joe. “I’m so terribly sorry, sir,” he said.

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  “How is she?” Joe asked Fiona, as Sid wheeled him into the lobby of the Whitechapel Hospital.

  Fiona, her eyes red with tears, shook her head.

  “It won’t be much longer,” India said. She’d also been crying. She’d loosened the mask she’d been wearing on the quarantine ward; it was hanging around her neck. “She’s been in and out of consciousness for the last few hours. She’s been asking for you, Joe.”

  “Me?” Joe said, puzzled. “Why?”

  India took a deep breath, then said, “She says she needs to tell you something—something that concerns Max von Brandt … and the Admiralty.”

  “What?” Joe said, stunned. “What does Jennie know about von Brandt and the Admiralty?”

  “We’re not sure. At first the nurses and the ward doctor—Dr. Howell—thought she was delirious,” India said. “But she’s persisted in her claims, and earlier this afternoon, when I came to visit her, she made me fetch her carpetbag from home. She wouldn’t settle until I’d done it. There was an envelope in there. It contains carbons. She says they’re from letters sent by Sir George Burgess at the Admiralty.”

  “My God. How did Jennie get those?” Joe asked.