Secret Ministry: A Johnny Fedora Espionage Spy Thriller Assignment Book 1

by Desmond Cory

  There were several dozen cars arranged untidily across the gravel enclosure; he considered it likely that the place would be fairly crowded. When he opened the door he found that this deduction was perfectly correct.

  He worked his way over to the bar, found a small space between an Army major and a small man in evening dress and eased himself into it. He caught the barman’s eye, ordered a whisky and began to look around him in a desultory way.

  He liked the room, which had recently been decorated in grey and white plastic; he didn’t like the people, who had recently been decorated with far less taste and style. There were the usual number of women of indeterminate age and apparently unlimited clothing coupons; a somewhat greater number of oldish, disillusioned-looking males, and a sprinkling of uniforms. Everybody appeared to be talking at the tops of their voices and drinking a great deal of whisky. He couldn’t see Murray anywhere, but then he didn’t really expect to. Murray was probably up in the roulette room, losing money and making love to the manager’s wife.

  Johnny finished his drink, pushed his way across the room and walked out through the door at the end of the bar. He went down a soft-carpeted corridor and found himself, as he had hoped, in the entrance hall and facing the dance floor.

  A hat-check girl was standing in one corner of the hall wearing a green uniform of the sort that made the wearer cold round the legs and the observer hot under the collar. Johnny examined the legs with a kind of dispassionate appreciation, walked over and handed her his hat.

  He said, “Where can I find Miss Kane – Davida Kane?”

  The girl said, “She’s in the dance hall now, sir. That’s her singing.”

  Johnny said, “I thought it might be. Thanks, sugar.” He walked across the hall; took out his cigarettes and lit one. He went through the open door, surveyed the room and then leant against the wall on one side of the door. His arms were folded and the cigarette was drooping from his mouth in a vaguely artistic manner. The band dais was about thirty feet away on his left, and Davida Kane was standing in front, singing into the microphone.

  Johnny watched her with interest; his expression hardly altered but his eyes had opened slightly wider than usual. If he had realized this he wouldn’t have been at all surprised. He had good reason for it.

  … She was a good vocalist, too. Maybe her breath control wasn’t up to the standard of Adelina Patti, but she had one of those soft husky voices that you listen to without noticing what the song is – or caring much, either. She sang as if she didn’t give a damn what she sounded like, anyway; Johnny thought that showed either no technique or else the hell of a good one. And if you didn’t like her singing, so what? You could always just look.

  She was wearing a black dinner-frock with capelet sleeves, cut puritanically high around the neck so that a necklace of tiny seed pearls fell just across the collar. She had sheer beige silk stockings and black georgette shoes strapped around perfect ankles. Her eyes were a soft brown and as eloquent as a spaniel’s; her hair was the colour of warm liquid honey and had been dressed by somebody who could rule the waves a darn sight better than Britannia. Johnny felt that he could eat her as she was, without the mint sauce; which was curious, because he didn’t feel that way very often. It took quite a lot to get him excited these days.

  Johnny saw a chair about ten feet away that didn’t have anybody sitting on it; he moved over to it and sat down, resting his elbows on the top of the table. Davida finished her song and he looked up again; she smiled at the audience and bowed, and there was a considerable amount of applause. She stepped down from the dais, moving in just the way that Johnny considered a woman ought to move, and sat down at a table just opposite the platform. It was laid for two, and had a “Reserved” card on it; she was apparently expecting company.

  She looked once around the room as Johnny watched her, then took a silver cigarette-case from the handbag on the table and lit a cigarette. She inhaled the smoke deeply, as if she didn’t smoke much but enjoyed it when she did. Johnny got up as the band started its next number and walked over to her table. She was contemplating the end of her cigarette and didn’t see him coming; she didn’t look up until he moved a chair back and sat down facing her.

  She looked at him curiously. Johnny was studying the tablecloth attentively, but could sense her eyes examining his face. He looked slowly up at her, slouching slightly back in the chair as he did so; she was looking straight at him without a trace of annoyance or even amusement, but merely with a detached curiosity. Eventually she blew a thin cloud of smoke past Johnny’s right ear and said,

  “That’s someone’s place.”

  She said it quite matter-of-factly, as if commenting on the weather.

  Johnny said, “I thought it must be.”

  She looked down at her plate. She said, “I don’t mind your sitting there. But you’ll have to go when my friend arrives. And I don’t particularly want to talk to you.”

  Johnny grinned. He said, “I’m sorry, Miss Kane. I hoped we’d have quite a bit to talk about.”

  “You seem to know my name. Ought I to know you or something?”

  Johnny said, “I don’t think so. I think I ought to know you.”

  She said in a rather bored voice, “Oh? I wonder why?”

  Johnny said, “I’d better explain that I’m a private detective. They call me all sorts of things, but I think you could call me Johnny – if only till your friend arrives. The other name is Fedora.”

  She said, “It doesn’t mean a thing to me.” But she looked slightly amused.

  Johnny said casually, “But we have a mutual friend. Jimmy Mandeville.”

  He saw her eyes suddenly widen. She said, “Jimmy Mandeville is no friend of mine. I don’t… oh!” She stared at him speculatively. “I think I know who you are. Or who you might be. Are you the detective who helped me at that time?”

  Johnny smiled and said, “I might have done. Now you mention it, I seem to remember seeing your name on a few letters that I chanced to find.”

  She smiled back at him. She said, “So that’s who you are! I spent a lot of time trying to find out who you were – after the case had come up. Pritchard wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

  Johnny, who had spent some time after dinner with a file of somewhat racy newspaper cuttings, recognized the name as that of Miss Kane’s barrister in the case of Kane v. Mandeville. He said, “There were reasons why my name had to be kept out of it. Until the end of the war.”

  She said, “Well – it’s nice to meet the mystery man at last. I think.” She smiled at him again. “I’m very grateful to you, you know. I might not have won the case without those letters.”

  Johnny said, “You should worry. Eight hundred and fifty pounds, wasn’t it? Not bad for mere breach of promise. Especially when you knew he was married all the time.”

  She gave her mouth a wry and definitely charming twist, and twinkled at him wickedly. She said, “No use trying to fool you, is it? And anyway he could afford it.”

  Johnny said, “I should say it was cheap at the price.”

  “Tell me… why did you wait so long before you came to see me?”

  “They sent me overseas,” said Johnny. “To France. An’ I’m afraid I haven’t come just to see you. I’m here on business.”

  “Oh,” she said. “How disappointing. So you went to France? With the Germans still there?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Johnny, “I can’t talk about that. He could, of course, but it wouldn’t pay him. He thought that she might respond to a slight atmosphere of mystery, and, anyway, this was working better than he had hoped. The fish had taken the bait at a single gulp.

  She put one beautiful-manicured hand to her hair; anything looking less like a hooked fish would, he felt, be hard to imagine. She was superb. She said, “This air of mystery is quite deliberate, of course. But it’s rather intriguing. You’re rather different from all these other people, anyhow.” She looked around the room petulantly. “Sometimes they mak
e me feel sick.”

  Johnny didn’t say anything. He stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray, then took out another and lit it. His movements had a quality of completely unself-conscious economy that interested Davida; she noticed that since he had sat down only his hands and his face had moved their position. His muscular control was almost perfect.

  She said, “They told me you had to burgle Jimmy’s house to get that stuff for me. Did you?”

  Johnny nodded; wondered why she had asked that one. He said, “It wasn’t very difficult.”

  She said, “I think we’ll get on very well. I know all sorts of good houses around here to burgle; and we’ll split the profits fifty-fifty.” Her voice had an edge of laughter to it that gave it all the beauty of a violin note. Johnny thought that she had a really wonderful speaking voice; one of those soft-toned voices that has only to say, “Number, please?” to cause a congestion on the enquiries line. He grinned and said, “I was hoping you’d be able to help me, Miss Kane. Is there anywhere else where we could talk?”

  She said in exactly the same tone, “Now that is a good idea. This place is getting stuffy. Let’s get some fresh air.”

  Johnny stood up and said, “What about your friend? Can you leave a note?”

  “I can, but I won’t bother,” she said. “He’s five minutes late, so it serves him right.” She stepped back; Johnny picked up the coat that was thrown over the back of her chair and slipped it over her shoulders. It was a knee-length beaver coat, beautifully matched, that had cost somebody a whole lot of money. Johnny didn’t suppose for a moment that that somebody had been Davida.

  She touched his arm with a movement that seemed almost intimate, dropped her cigarette into the ashtray and started to walk across the floor. Johnny, following five yards behind, saw heads beginning to turn in their direction; and they weren’t looking at him – or admiring the beaver coat, either. And, although she must have been aware of the eyes upon her, she didn’t reveal it for a second. Lack of confidence in herself was obviously not one of her failings.

  She stopped in the entrance hall and turned round; an infinitesimal wrinkle above her right eyebrow indicated that she was thinking. Then she said, “I know. We’ll go up on the roof; I don’t think anybody’ll be there now.” She turned again and walked towards the wide staircase that led up to the first floor. Johnny decided that his agreement had been taken for granted and followed just behind her.

  When they reached the top of the stairs she said, “I think we’ll have to use the fire-escape to get there. There is a staircase that leads on to the roof, but it’s locked. You see, they only use the roof in the summer.”

  Johnny said, “Lead on. What’s this floor for, anyway?”

  “This is the manager’s office here.” She pointed to a door. “The roulette room’s at the other end of the corridor. Do you play?”

  Johnny said, “Sometimes.”

  She said, “Would you like to take me in afterwards?”

  Johnny said, “I should be charmed to take you anywhere, Miss Kane.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “And I think you ought to call me Davida. After all, we’re old friends really.” She opened the door at the end of the corridor and stepped out on to a wrought-iron fire-escape.

  “Say,” said Johnny. “This is a pretty solid erection.”

  Davida said, “Um. I suppose it is. I hadn’t noticed.”

  “It’s just as well,” said Johnny. “If it was rickety, somebody might have heard us and we’d have been arrested for burglary before we’d really got started.”

  She laughed softly, like somebody pouring cream down a wash-basin. She stopped on the top stair and fumbled for a switch on the wall; a shaded lamp suddenly clicked on, casting a ten-foot radius of light around a green-painted wooden bench. She walked over to it and sat down.

  Johnny’s eyes slowly grew accustomed to the darkness outside the circle of light. To his right was a large pile of lightweight chairs and tables, obviously in storage for the summer. The red parquet floor of the roof stretched away into complete blackness; there was a parapet running round the side about three feet in height, decorated at ten-foot intervals by enormous earthenware pots in which were growing either palms or ferns. He couldn’t be sure which. To the north lay the outline of the Downs, dead black against a clear and starry sky. He turned back to look at Davida, leaning back on the bench. For a moment he saw the black silhouette of the hills as if contrasted with the soft curves of her body; then he saw that she had a cigarette in her mouth and was holding the open case out to him.

  “Don’t go to sleep,” she said. “It’s a lovely night.”

  Johnny took a cigarette and sat down beside her.

  “Well,” he said, “what do you think?”

  She said, “I don’t think about anything, much. It doesn’t help a great deal.”

  Johnny said, “Perhaps not. But do you think we could get this little business chat over before we get on to more interestin’ matters?”

  Davida smiled. She said, “All right.” She crossed her legs and looked patiently resigned. Johnny thought that it must be difficult to look patiently resigned when showing the amount of leg that she was; nevertheless, she was doing it with an ease that almost amounted to effrontery.

  She said, “Just what is the nature of the business that you wish to discuss?”

  Johnny carefully drew his cigarette alive and said, “First of all, I wonder if you’d like to tell me just how long you’ve been around here and exactly what it is that you do?”

  Davida said, “I don’t mind telling you that. I took a bungalow near here in the summer of 1945; I used to come here a lot and I was offered a job by Mr Trevor just before Christmas. He’s the manager, in case you didn’t know. All I have to do is sing a couple of songs every evening and generally act the hostess in the roulette room.”

  Johnny said, “Do you like the job?”

  She said, “Not much… not now. I get bored. But I can use the money. Does all this really concern – business?”

  Johnny said, “No, I guess not. But if you’ve been around here for a year or so then you might have run across the guy I’m lookin’ for.”

  Davida said, “Might I? Who is he?”

  “His name’s Winthrop,” said Johnny. “Anthony Winthrop. About five foot eight; straight brown hair; wears glasses. Does that ring a bell?”

  “I don’t know the name,” said Davida thoughtfully.

  “And there’s several people who come here who answer to that description. Does he come here regularly?”

  “I think so,” said Johnny. He took a photograph from his inside pocket and handed it to her. “That’s him.”

  Davida said, “My God! He looks unhappy, doesn’t he? I recognize him all right – I remember that tie he’s wearing. He plays the tables quite a bit, I think. I’ve definitely seen him around.”

  “That’s just fine,” said Johnny. “Do you know anything else about him?”

  “I never spoke to him,” said Davida. “In fact, I’ve never noticed him, particularly. He’s a quiet sort of chap; usually wears a grey suit – double-breasted, I think.” She wrinkled her brows in concen-tration. “Oh, he has plenty of money; he plays pretty high stakes and he wins quite a lot, now I come to think of it. That may be why I remember him; I always notice people who win.” She smiled wickedly.

  “Any idea where he lives?”

  Davida said, “I haven’t a clue.”

  “I see,” said Johnny. He took back the photograph and returned it to his pocket.

  Davida said, “Maybe it’s none of my business, but in that photograph he looks as if he might be dead.” She looked at Johnny curiously.

  Johnny said, “What do you care? You just said you didn’t know him.”

  Davida said, “I don’t care a bit. I was just being curious, and, in view of all these questions, I feel I’ve got a right to.”

  Johnny smoked in silence for a moment. Then he said, “All right, honey. I�
��ll tell you what you ought to know. That way I don’t lose… much. This guy Winthrop was a smuggler who got caught by the police. The coppers are takin’ up the case an’ they seem to have remembered a few triflin’ incidents in your career; they’re wonderin’ if you have anythin’ to do with this guy, seein’ he used this place so much.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “Me? I’m like you. I don’t. An’ if you don’t know the guy, then that’s all I’m worrying about.”

  “You’re nice.” She gave him a warm but rather practised smile and stood up. “Now let’s go down to the roulette room and lose a lot of money. There are people there who may be more helpful than I’ve been so far.”

  Johnny reached up and switched off the light. “… All right. Let’s do that.”

  -----------------------

  Davida pushed open a door on the left of the corridor and he followed her in. He had been expecting to see the conventional layout of roulette and chemie tables, and was mildly surprised to find instead a small but tastefully furnished ante-room. There was a glass-panelled door on the left through which permeated a subdued hum of conversation and an indistinct suggestion of expensive perfume. This was obviously the entrance to the main centre of the evening’s activity.

  The ante-room was empty except for a tall Bogart type with a lantern jaw who was sitting in an armchair and reading the Evening Standard, and who rose politely to his feet as Davida came in.

  He said, “So you’re honouring us with your presence at last, Davida? Well, we won’t ask any questions this time.” He grinned pleasantly at Johnny.

  “Nice of you, Paul,” said Davida. “But I don’t mind your asking questions. After all, I don’t have to answer them. This is an old friend of mine – Mr Fedora – who wants to play the tables for a bit. Johnny, this is Paul Gann; assistant manager and chucker-out. Don’t let that dinner-jacket fool you.”