by Desmond Cory
Squires said, “He’s twenty-six years old; five foot eleven; good-looking; first-class shot. He’s unmarried and an orphan; used to be a professional pianist in Chicago.”
Holliday said, “I’d heard he was a gunman there.”
“That as well – but we’ve forgotten about that. If it doesn’t worry the F.B.I. I can’t see it worrying us.”
Holliday said, “No. What’s his background?”
“Curious,” said Squires reflectively. “He was born of a Spanish father and an Irish mother, so he got mixed up with the I.R.A. on one side and the Spanish civil war on the other. I think he used a gun instead of a rattle… Anyway, when he was still a kid and his parents were off on one of their usual trips to Spain, the Falangists caught them and, in view of Señor Fedora’s marked Republican tendencies, behaved most unpleasantly to them. When young Fedora found that he’d become an orphan he was, not unnaturally, pretty wild about the whole thing; in fact, he still is, though he’s managed to even up the scores quite a bit these last few years.”
Holliday chuckled. He said, “Go on.”
“Well, he later emigrated to America, somehow, and I became a pianist in a Chicago honky-tonk, or whatever they call it. He also moved in on a rather rough crowd that was cashing in on the last of the gang wars, and left America in the hell of a hurry, with a few thousand dollars and a reputation. He went to France and stayed there until the collapse, when he came over here and got into Intelligence through Faraday’s group – that was. Then he came to my section, and I sent him to the F.B.I. for two years and to the Maquis for one, apart from various confidential missions. At the moment, he’s instructing the agents I’m supposed to be training and shooting lines about the Resistance. If you want him, you can have him – right away.”
“He sounds as if he might do,” said Holliday. “At a pinch. Was he any good as a pianist?”
Squires said mournfully, “Only two things really matter to Fedora. One is killing Nazis and the other is playing music. At both these things he has what amounts to genius.”
“I’m fond of music myself,” said Holliday. “But I’ve never had a musician in my department. Had a ballet-dancer once,” he remembered. “She wasn’t too bad an agent. They shot her all the same, though.”
There was a moment’s silence, then he said, “Can I see him?”
“By all means,” said Squires. He picked up the telephone on the table and said, “Margaret? Will you send Mr Fedora up here, please?… Thank you.”
He replaced the receiver, took out a pocket notebook and a fountain pen. He said, “What shall I transfer him to? Ministry of Information?”
“That’s right,” said Holliday. “The executive branch. The branch nobody’s ever heard of… thank heaven.”
Squires smiled. He said, “Your department ought to have a special ministry of its own. With a really melodramatic name, for a change… How about Ministry of Secrets?”
“Not bad,” said Holliday. “Secret Ministry with a secret minister – that’s me. The way the blasted country’s going they’ll be having all the ministers secret, for fear of assassination.”
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Eighteen months after the surrender of Germany, a great deal of the barbed wire and concrete of wartime Britain had been removed. Already most of the military camps all over the country were empty, and most of the large country houses requisitioned by the War Office had been handed back. But not Alverton House, which, though few people knew it, had become the exclusive property of the War Office early in 1941.
It stood at the end of a long, leafy drive, swathed in the mists of early November and surrounded by a quite unsurmountable wall. Around it, notices of a brilliant red announced that the wires criss-crossing the walls were charged with an alarmingly high amount of electricity, and young men in unobtrusive khaki uniform patrolled the area, carrying Sten guns in the crooks of their arms. Few people remarked its presence in that uninhabited part of Kent; and those who had noticed it believed it to be a Government research station, filled with intricate chemical equipment and top secrets of bacteriological and atomic warfare.
In actual fact, the interior of this building was scarcely dissimilar to any other country seat, lately returned to civilian hands. The lounges and dining-hall were carpeted and comfortably furnished, the walls hung with tasteful pictures – there was even a complete and well-appointed library. Up the thickly-carpeted stairs, apart from what looked like a lecture hall and several rooms closely resembling city offices – in one of which Squires was talking to the ministerial figure of Holliday – apart from these, the bedrooms and bathrooms were as normal as those of an average hotel’s. The reason for the secrecy surrounding this apparently ordinary house was that Alverton House had become the permanent training centre for agents of that sometimes over-glamourized body, British External Intelligence.
The smoking-room, usually the centre of any afternoon’s activity, was for once comparatively empty. Only one of the large number of armchairs standing untidily all over the room was occupied, and that by a short, plump, rosy-cheeked young man, wearing a pair of spectacles and reading the Daily Mirror. Or, at any rate looking at the comic strips. His name was James Fleming Emerald; he was thirty-two years old; his clothes were cut by an obvious master (whose name he refused to impart to anybody), and he was smoking a Players’ NO.3 in a short green cigarette-holder.
Slightly to his right, staring out of the window with an aggrieved expression on his face, was a somewhat older man, dressed in a threadbare pin-stripe suit that had most certainly never seen Savile Row. It looked as if it had been picked up second-hand at a Montmartre pawnshop; and that was exactly where it had come from. He had red-rimmed blue eyes that looked out of a deeply-lined, cadaverous face; his name was Jean de Meyrignac, but he was always addressed as “Nobby”. Nobody knew why, least of all himself.
Over in the far corner of the room a magnificent Broadwood piano was open. Seated on the piano stool was another young man; clean-shaven, with a cigarette slumping from peculiarly mobile lips. He was touching the keys with the religious softness of a Chopin, with a delicacy of touch that apparently required next to no concentration. His playing had a curious quality of magnetism, some curious combination of the inexplicable attraction of his face and of his fingers. His name was Sean O’Neill Fedora; his nationality, cosmopolitan; his profession, killer.
Reclining in his armchair, Jimmy Emerald subjected Garth to an envious scrutiny and laid the paper down on the arm of the chair. Waving his cigarette-holder gently and slightly out of time, he decided that he knew the tune Johnny was playing and began to hum it.
“And her tears flowed like wi-ine, her tears flowed like wi-ine,” he sang with complete lack of self-consciousness. “And she’s a… she’s a… oh, damn. How does it go on, Johnny?”
Johnny Fedora turned and grinned, his fingers still coaxing those astonishing bitter-sweet phrases from the piano. “Me, I just play the things,” he said. “Don’t get me handlin’ the vocals as well, or I’m sunk. I might even be a sad tomato… which is really somethin’.”
“That’s it,” said Jimmy pleasedly. “A sad tomato. What the hell is a sad tomato, anyway?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Johnny. “I never met one. It’s usually me that does all the weeping.”
He didn’t sound as if he meant it, reflected Jimmy. Curious accent old Johnny had… American tough-guy slang spoken in a soft, husky drawl that always seemed about to slip into a brogue, and yet never did. He stood up and looked out of the window, behind de Meyrignac; outside the house, the mists looked cold and chilly, emphasizing the comfort of the room and the warm liquidity of the piano tones.
“Dirty weather, Nobby, old horse,” he said. “Wonder how the lads’ll get on?”
“They will be olright,” said Jean. He moved away from the window. “They’re good lot… You see thees initiative exercise? The details? Yes, it’s tough… but I think myself that they will do it.”
“Oh, they’ll do it all right,” said Jimmy resignedly. “As you say, they’re a useful bunch. Keen as mustard – they make me feel stagnant. After all, that’s the third lot we’ve turned out since the war.”
“And the last, Jimmy.”
“And the last, Nobby. Looks like we’ll be back in Civvy Street before we know where we are. About time someone stepped in our shoes, anyway.”
“Civvy Street?” said Johnny, very quietly. “Seems funny to me.”
“You’ll settle down olright, mon ami,” said Jean amusedly. “Somewhere where you can have a wife an’ children without the Gestapo to worry you or the spies to catch.” He chuckled. “You will practise your Bach and your Chopin and your Duke Ellington, an’ you will give concerts, an’ I will come an’ listen. I might even pay to listen.”
Johnny grinned again. “Thanks a lot, pal. But I don’t reckon the Old Man’ll let me go, y’know. He says I’m a menace. Yeah, a menace.” His hands bounced down the piano in a series of threatening chords and came to rest on his thighs. “We oughta find out any minute now, anyway. An’ I’ll bet he sends for me first.”
“He probably will,” said Jimmy pointedly. “He’ll be glad to see the back of you all right. No doubt about that.”
“I wonder,” said Jean to himself but aloud, “I wonder whether to go back to Paris or not. It might be a good plan.”
The door opened: a young A.T.S. sergeant appeared, and stood surveying the group.
“Mr Fedora,” she said. “Will you see Mr Squires now, please?”
Emerald said, “I knew it. Out he goes.”
Johnny walked across the room without a word. Then he said, “Where’d you get this Mr Fedora stuff, Jean? You forgotten what you called me last night… or what?”
“Nuts,” said the sergeant with dignity. “I’m on duty now. And you’d better not keep Mr Squires waiting.”
“No,” said Johnny. “That’d never do.” He closed the door behind him and started to walk up the stairs.
Chapter Two
MURRAY
HOLLIDAY turned towards the door as Fedora came into the room. He thought that he was certainly an unusual young man; a trifle lanky, but with beautiful shoulders and a hard, flat stomach. He moved with perfect muscular control, placing his feet on the ground like a cat, with a minimum of effort. His forehead and wavy dark hair were like a French film star’s, but his lower face was thin and almost schoolboyish, with a youthful and disarming grin. It was Fedora’s eyes that gave him away; eyes of an improbably light blue, finely lined at the corners. The eyes of a killer with an incorrigible sense of humour.
Squires said, “Come in, Johnny. Sit down.”
Holliday watched as Johnny walked across the room and sat down between them. His expression was speculative.
“Cigarette?” said Squires. “Johnny, this is Peter Holliday. He wants to have you in his department.”
Johnny’s cool blue eyes rested for a moment on Holliday’s face. Then he grinned and said, “You don’t say. An’ I thought this was to be the sack.”
“If you don’t want to go with Holliday,” said Squires dispassionately, “it will be. I’ve got no further use for you, and Holliday has. I thought we might talk it over.”
“Sure,” said Johnny. He lit his cigarette and sat back, looking slightly bored.
Holliday said, “I’ll explain the proposition to you. My department doesn’t do the sort of work that you’ve been doing lately; it’s rather hard to explain exactly what it does do, so I think I’d better make it quite clear, even at the risk of boring you. Savvy?”
“Uh-huh,” said Johnny. He crossed his legs and drew at his cigarette.
“We were formed shortly before the invasion of France,” said Holliday dreamily, “to do work for the Ministries of Information and Home Security – work that M.I.5 and C.-E. Central Office couldn’t handle at the time. We’re still doing that job, and we’re still responsible to nobody but ourselves; mainly because this job is of utmost importance even now the war is supposed to be over.
“As you probably know, after the 1914-1918 war the German espionage and sabotage groups were never completely rounded up. They went to earth, vanished from sight, and we didn’t worry over-much what had happened to them. Until, in the late 1920’s, we became aware of a German Intelligence Corps that had built itself up from apparently nothing and was now working under von Papen, hand-in-glove with the Diplomatic Service. And it wasn’t just the underground activity of a defeated country. It had become perhaps the most ruthless and efficient group of agents that the world had ever known.
“We’ll never know now just how multifarious were their activities, but we do know the results. In Europe, the fall of Norway; Holland; Belgium; France; the Balkan countries; almost of England. In America, the formation of the astonishingly influential Bunds – of the propaganda centres Welt-Dienst and Deutscher FichteBund, – and of the Chicago drug rings. They sent out diplomats and intriguers, men like von Killinger, Wiedemann, von Spiegel, Dr Scholz, all working and waiting for the coming of the Third and last Reich.
“In charge of this group was Colonel Walther Nicolai, the chief of Section IIIB. In his way, Nicolai is a great man; but he’s one of the worst enemies that England has ever had… Now this war’s over. We’ve occupied Germany, and German Intelligence has been rooted out of its hiding-places. But, once again, not completely. There’s still half of the cream of IIIB who have got away, with millions of pounds worth of loot. There are still undiscovered German agents in almost every country, even in England; and they all intend to see this game right through to the end. And they’re doing it in a number of devilishly ingenious ways. The importance of finding these people and destroying them can not be overestimated.”
Johnny nodded slowly. He said, “Y’know, I read a book about all this once. Exciting, isn’t it?”
“Very,” said Holliday dryly. “May I continue? I’ve pointed out that the work of destroying these people – the work of my unit – is slightly different from normal counter-espionage routine. You see, when these agents really become organized their aims will be exactly the same again. To establish a deeply-rooted Fifth Column; to create dissension between the Allied Nations; to form Fascist unions in foreign countries; to strike at the armed forces and the general morale of the democracies – above all, of the old enemy, England. They’re going to cause us a lot of trouble later on; there’s going to be a nasty mess in Palestine, and, unless we’re very lucky, an industrial crisis right here in England. They’ll make the most of these things, in America and elsewhere. In the post-war world dissension between nations is going to be an established fact, and they’ll do all that they can to make it outright war…
“Sorry; I’m digressing. You’ll want to know how all this concerns you. Well, right now I believe they’re trying something here that formerly they’ve only done in America; they’re bringing in drugs, forming drug rings if you like.
“The crowd that’s doing this seems to be well organized, and they’re making no personal profit to speak of; which makes them twice as hard to find. Their line is, at the moment, to get rid of the stuff to young men who have heavy individual responsibilities; air-line and Air Force pilots, business men with connections in the industries, key draughtsmen, and so on. They pick their customers very carefully. We’ve got definite knowledge that the stuff is being handed out, but it’s the hell of a thing to get a line on. The poor devils want the stuff so badly that they won’t talk; then when they don’t get it, they crack up, and trains crash, planes vanish, man-hours are lost just when England is going to need them most, and the Boches can sit on top and grin. You see what I’m getting at?”
“Definitely,” said Johnny, “an’ if anyone tries to sell me any, I’ll let you know.”
“No such luck,” said Holliday. “They pick their men too carefully. But it’s a dirty game, and it’s got to be stopped. How do you feel about it?”
Johnny knocked the ash from his
cigarette. He said, “Count me in. All the way.”
“Good,” said Holliday. “Good. Can you start right away?”
“The sooner the better,” said Johnny. “That’s the way I like it.”
“Right,” said Holliday. “Now listen. You’re changing from External Security to the Ministry of Information; as far as anyone else is concerned, anyway. You’ve been granted a post in the Executive Branch with effect from to-day. Your dossier will be transferred from here to my London office, and from now on you and Squires have never met. All clear?
“Okay. Now I want you to get your things and get over to a place called Cootsbridge, not far from Lewes in Sussex. You’ll find arrangements have been made for your accommodation at the ‘Woodcutter’s Arms’, halfway up the village High Street. Your contact will meet you there; his name is Murray and he will be wearing an R.A.F. pilot-officer’s uniform. He’ll give you all the gen. on this affair; and I can recommend him to you as a dam’ fine operative.”
“All right,” said Johnny. He stood up. “I’ve got that.”
“Okay,” said Holliday. “That’s all.”
Johnny said, “Well, thanks, Mr Holliday. I’ll try not to let you down.”
They shook hands. Holliday said, “You won’t. Nobody has yet.”
Johnny said, “Cheers.” He walked over to the door and went out, closing the door behind him.
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“Well, there he is,” said Holliday, rather gloomily. “I hope Murray can make use of him.”
“He’s good,” said Squires thoughtfully. “And he’s lasted. But he’s highly-strung, like a racehorse. He puts all he’s got into a case and then blows his top afterwards. Thought I’d better warn you.”