‘I need to be able to explain certain matters; perhaps after we have left here?’
‘Of course.’
When Millie returned, she was carrying the coat. ‘I must thank you very much, Miss Grandison, for lending it to me.’ She handed it over with a longing look. ‘It’s new, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I bought it the other day. Now that winter’s coming, I realised I need something warm.’ Ursula placed it over her arm and couldn’t help caressing its soft Melton wool.
‘We’ll get out your hair, young Millie. But you can tell Pa that I’ll be back soon to see how things are.’
Ursula handed back the clown costume and was conscious of Millie’s look of frustration as she and Thomas Jackman left the caravan.
‘Hey, what about the money you promised me? For remembering where Albert wanted to live?’
He looked back, ‘After I know you haven’t been pulling a fast one on me.’
She stamped a foot in frustration.
‘You can trust me, Millie. If Albert’s there, you’ll get your money.’
With a swirl of skirt she disappeared back into the caravan.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Thomas helped Ursula into her coat then led her away from the circus site into the busy main road.
‘I’ve just read a most interesting book,’ Ursula said as he started to guide her through the traffic.
‘Wait until we are safely on the other side.’ He pulled her back as an errand boy on a heavily laden bicycle appeared from behind an omnibus. ‘Whoa!’ he added, taking a firm grip on her arm as an automobile came from the other direction, overtaking a cart drawn by a wayward horse.
‘What a dangerous business,’ gasped Ursula as they gained the safety of the other pavement.
‘I think Tottenham Court Road has to be one of the worst for traffic. Now that more and more automobiles are beginning to appear, we pedestrians take our lives in our hands.’
‘There isn’t nearly as much automotive traffic as in New York. Even the French are ahead of the English.’
‘When you think that we pioneered steam transport and railways run all over England, I suppose it is odd. But I am sure it won’t be long before we realise that the advantages of automobiles outweigh the disadvantages. Now, what was it you wanted to tell me? It can’t be just that you have read a book, however interesting!’
He liked hearing Ursula laugh, it had a companiable sound.
‘I don’t suppose you read much fiction.’
‘No time.’ But it wasn’t lack of time, more an instinctive dislike of storytelling. Perhaps it was because he had had to listen to so many fanciful tales from those he tried to bring to justice.
‘I can understand that, but this novel got me thinking. I was first attracted by the title, The Riddle of the Sands. But it wasn’t the tale of mystery I expected. It’s about two young men sailing along the North Sea coast and discovering a German plan to invade England. There’s a spy involved who has researched an English naval dockyard called Chatham.’
He was amused by the way Ursula split the name into two: ‘Chat’ and ‘ham’. He said, ‘“Chattum”.’
She smiled and repeated his pronunciation.
‘So, sounds as though it could be exciting but what has this book to do with anything?’
‘Am I wrong in thinking England fears Germany is planning an invasion? Or that there is a feeling that German spies could be checking out your naval preparedness?’
‘It’s something our newspapers certainly concern themselves with.’ Thomas guided her through a tangle of small streets and lanes. ‘Do you have a spy in mind?’
She said nothing for a little as they negotiated badly maintained cobblestones. He glanced at her shoes, worried they weren’t up to what he was putting her through, but they seemed sturdy enough.
‘It’s the count,’ she said as they gained a better surface.
‘Count?’
‘Have I told you that I have another job; that as well as working for Mrs Bruton, I am a sort of bookkeeper for the Maison Rose?’
Thomas heard the name with a jolt. He was suddenly conscious that, since he’d returned from his visit up north, he’d done nothing about the jar he’d found in Joshua Peters’ desk. ‘Maison Rose? Surely that sounds like the sort of establishment that …’ Thomas trailed off, feeling it didn’t sound amusing said out loud.
Ursula seemed unembarrassed, he had forgotten how straightforward she was. ‘Mrs Bruton thought the name sounded as though it was a fashion house but it turned out to be a beauty clinic. Madame Rose is an Egyptian, she has scientifically studied women’s facial skin and prepares creams and lotions to help them look beautiful. She has given me some and I really do believe that my skin shows an improvement.’
She stopped walking and turned towards him as if she wanted him to judge for himself.
Thomas was having none of it. ‘If a woman asks me to comment on her looks, I can never get it right; I’m either accused of flattery or she gets upset because I haven’t complimented her enough. So, Ursula, I’ll take your word that you consider your more than passable good looks have been improved.’
Another laugh that sounded completely genuine. Most women in Thomas’s experience would have either pretended not to understand him, or taken offence. ‘And you say you don’t know how to compliment a woman! Thomas, you are a fraud!’
He felt a surge of delight that they appeared at last to have recaptured the easy friendship that had built up while they were working in partnership earlier that year.
‘You’re suggesting that a count could be a spy? Should I know who you mean?’ Even as he asked, Thomas remembered the name.
‘I don’t why you should. Count Meyerhoff is Madame Rose’s partner. I was helping Rachel distribute her women’s suffrage literature late one afternoon, in an area very near to Maison Rose, I think it is called Shepherd’s Market, and I saw the count come out of a public house followed by a shortish man who pulled at his coat sleeve in a most unwelcome way. As soon as she saw him, Rachel said it was Albert, who worked for Joshua Peters, her brother-in-law, and she couldn’t imagine what he was doing there.’
He nodded. ‘I remember, I was there too.’
‘You were? I didn’t see you.’
‘I didn’t intend anyone should. I’d followed Albert from the docks, after we’d had a short, very unhelpful, conversation. So the gentleman he seemed so anxious to chat to was your count?’
Ursula moved a little away from him. ‘Not a description I would accept.’
‘You don’t like him,’ Thomas said decisively. ‘He looked every inch the gentleman to me, yet perhaps a little too suave for my taste.’
Ursula flashed him a smile. ‘I’m glad you said that. Count Meyerhoff has great charm but it is only a veneer. Underneath he is a bully and, well, dangerous.’
Thomas was taken aback at the word. He viewed Ursula Grandison as practical; she approached problems and people from a logical point of view. Now she was betraying signs of what he would refer to as a feminine instinct, that judged from sentiment rather than relying on evidence.
‘What makes you think this Count Meyerhoff could be a spy?’
Ursula sighed. ‘If I hadn’t read that book, I have to confess the idea would never have occurred to me. I may not like the count but it seems to be he who is behind Madame Rose’s success with her beauty salon.’
Thomas began to be irritated. ‘Ursula, let me be the judge of your evidence, whatever it is.’
She glanced at him with the glint of a smile. ‘I’m being horribly feminine, aren’t I? And I’m sure you’re wanting to tell me to report as straightforwardly as one of your policemen. Well, I overheard the Count and Madame Rose having an argument. They were talking, almost shouting, in German. No doubt they thought no one would understand them but it was one of the languages I studied at my French school. They were arguing about the count’s right to dictate everything to do with the salon and I heard Madame s
ay to him, “You Germans want to rule the world”.’
‘That’s hardly branding him a spy!’
‘No, listen. Mrs Bruton met the count in Austria and spoke of him as a native. I expected the count to retort that he was Austrian, not German. It may be the language that is spoken there but it is not their nationality; they have their own Emperor and the Austrian-Hapsburg empire is huge. Austrians consider Germany little more than an extension of Prussia and to be called German an insult.’
‘So you now assume that he is German and has ambitions to take over the world?’
‘I don’t blame you for not taking me seriously, but there is more. A little time ago, I overheard him speaking on the telephone, saying he was to visit “Chat-ham”, using just that pronunciation, then he suddenly shut the door as though he didn’t want anyone to hear what he was saying. Well, it didn’t mean anything to me then and I’d forgotten all about it until I read this book and realised that it is a naval dockyard. And before you say anything else, the final little piece of evidence that made me wonder was that yesterday morning as I was approaching Maison Rose, I saw that valet, Albert, being booted out of the front door. It was slammed shut after him; then when I entered the salon, I found the count in a foul mood.’
‘And you remembered Albert getting the brush-off in Shepherd’s Market and thought he’d come back for more?’
‘Exactly. At first I couldn’t think what connection there could be between him and the count. Then I remembered that Joshua Peters was involved in shipping and that Maison Rose received consignments of ingredients for Madame’s creams and lotions by ship.’
‘So maybe Albert was arranging to deliver a new consignment,’ Thomas said slowly. He was by no means sold on the idea of Count Meyerhoff as a spy but that he could be up to some nefarious activity that Albert knew about seemed highly likely. And there was something about the name, Meyerhoff, that tugged at a memory he couldn’t for the moment identify.
‘But why should that upset the count? No, it seems to me that Albert must know something about him, probably because Peters did. I remember Alice saying that before she was married, her husband had spent some years in Egypt, that’s where he started to make his fortune, through trading. And Madame Rose is Egyptian.’
It still didn’t add up to the count being a spy.
Thomas thought through what he had heard. Ursula was right about the threat of Germany’s naval ambitions. And there was the matter of England’s North Sea fleet, or, rather, lack of one. Thomas had a well-versed contact employed in drafting legislation in the House of Commons. Over a drink one day, the contact had complained that it seemed essential to build up England’s naval defences against a belligerent Germany but that there was not any current policy to do so. However, it was a long stretch from there to branding a Germanic count, whatever his exact nationality, a spy merely because he wished to visit Chatham; it could hardly be counted a tourist attraction but he might well have a friend there. Thomas reckoned that if reading novels meant otherwise sensible minds such as Ursula’s could be persuaded to latch on to unsustainable theories, then he was right not to read them himself.
‘We need to talk to Albert,’ he said, unconsciously quickening his footsteps.
He saw Ursula biting her lip as though aware of the fragile nature of her theory but she kept up with his pace without comment.
Thomas had plodded these streets as a uniformed constable and he was able to guide them unerringly through a maze of small streets. Then he saw a hansom cab disgorging its fare and hailed it. ‘I think we are justified in more rapid transport,’ he said, assisting Ursula inside. ‘Dorset Square,’ he instructed the driver.
‘What number, guv?’
‘Anywhere in the square, cabbie.’
The cab was put in motion.
Ursula said, ‘So you think there is something in my theory after all, Thomas?’
‘I think the sooner we track down Albert, the sooner we may be able to find out exactly what his business with your count is.’
The Saturday morning traffic was busy but it didn’t take them too long to reach the pleasant square that was no more than a couple of streets away from Marylebone station. Nor was it far from Montagu Place, though that was in a slightly smarter area. Had Albert reconnoitred to find somewhere in the vicinity of where he was working that he felt could give him an upward step in the world while also being somewhere he could afford?
On arrival in Dorset Square, Thomas helped Ursula down from the cab then paid off the driver and made a note of the amount in a small notebook he carried. ‘Important to keep expenses straight,’ he murmured.
Ursula appeared not to hear him, she was studying the houses that lined the square. She pointed across from where they were standing. ‘They look as though they could be apartments,’ she said.
Together they approached. Sure enough, the first building Ursula had picked out had the sort of double door favoured by up-market apartment houses.
‘It looks too smart for a rat like Albert, however on the make he is,’ said Ursula.
‘We’ll check it out though.’
‘What did you say Albert’s other name was?’
‘Pond, Albert Pond. I obtained all the full names of the Peters’ servants at the start of my investigation.’ He led the way inside. A small porter’s lodge was on the left of the hallway, occupied by an elderly man in a sober uniform reading a newspaper. Immediately he noted the newcomers, the paper was put down.
‘Ex-army, I would take a bet on it,’ Thomas whispered, then, ‘I wonder if you can help us, we have come to visit a Mr Pond, I believe he is resident here?’
‘Mr Pond, sir? No, sir, no one of that name here.’ The porter had the air of a man who knew whereof he spoke.
‘We must have the number wrong,’ Thomas said apologetically. He took Ursula’s arm and exited the building, conscious of the porter’s gaze as they went.
The next building produced the same response.
The third one they looked at had a locked front door with a panel of bells beside it together with a list of names. ‘Look,’ said Ursula excitedly. Sure enough, at the top, in a copperplate hand there the name was: A. Pond.
Thomas pressed the bell and they waited.
‘If he has rooms on the top floor, it will take time to descend,’ said Ursula.
After several more minutes Thomas pressed the bell again. It was impossible to tell if it was in working order or not.
Still no one came. ‘If Albert’s not in, I’d like to gain access to his apartment,’ said Thomas. ‘We could surely find some clue as to what he’s up to.’
‘The bell at the bottom says Caretaker,’ Ursula pointed out and pressed it.
A door in the basement opened and a voice shouted up: ‘What you want, then?’
She was a middle-aged woman dressed in a soiled apron over a faded cotton dress, her hair roughly gathered into a mob cap, her face worn and set in depressed lines.
Thomas watched as, unprompted, Ursula dropped down the basement steps. ‘We’ve come to visit a friend, Albert Pond,’ she said, ‘but he doesn’t seem to be home. Would you know his whereabouts? Or is it that his bell doesn’t work?’
The woman hesitated for a moment then shrugged and said, ‘Wouldn’t know. Though he’d be sharp enough to tell me if it wasn’t.’
‘Then would you be aware if he has gone out?’
‘It’s not my place to keep tabs on the residents.’
‘I expect, though, said Ursula, ‘that they rely on you in all sorts of ways, doing their cleaning and such? Mr Pond was expecting us and it’s not like him not to be there when he says he will be.’ She smiled at the woman. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to tell us your name?’
The woman unbent slightly. ‘Ivy Duggan, Madam, and I does his cleaning on a Tuesday, and take up any deliveries and such like.’
Thomas joined Ursula, a hand in his trouser pocket jingling some coin. ‘Then, Mrs Duggan, I expect that you’
ll have a key to his apartment.’
‘I might have,’ the caretaker said slowly, flicking a glance at the pocket with its coins.
‘It’s just that Miss Grandison and I have become worried about our friend. It really is very unlike Mr Pond not to be on the doorstep looking out for us, let alone not answering his bell. At the time we made this arrangement, he did mention that he was worried about a return of his old trouble – heart you know. I wonder, would you be willing to take us to his apartment and check that he hasn’t collapsed?’ He withdrew his hand, a sovereign held between thumb and forefinger. ‘Such assistance would deserve recognition,’ he added tellingly.
The caretaker’s gaze latched on to the sovereign. Her hands twitched, then she snatched it out of Thomas’s hand. ‘Stan,’ she shouted back through her open door. ‘Stan, I’m going upstairs, you’re to mind the place.’
A shrunken man, older than the woman, with watery eyes and trembling hands, mean clothing hanging on his frame, appeared behind Mrs Duggan, who immediately spirited the sovereign away into a pocket. ‘Upstairs, you say? Where’s me tea?’
‘I’ll not be long. These people need to check on Mr Pond.’
Sam shuffled back into the apartment. The caretaker took a couple of keys from a board by the door, ‘Well, you’d better come up,’ she said and pushed past them up the steps.
Thomas and Ursula followed her as she opened the front door to the house, then led the way up to the third floor. Thomas noted the poor decorative condition of the hall and stairs, which sported a wide band of white paint in place of carpet. The higher up they went, the narrower the stairs and more dilapidated the doors that gave off each landing. On the mezzanine floors as they climbed Thomas noted first a lavatory, then a bathroom. At the very top, where the ceiling sloped attic-like, the caretaker stopped in front of a door and banged on it. ‘Mr Pond, folks to see yer,’ she shouted.
There was no response.
Thomas said nothing, nor did Ursula. The three of them were uncomfortably crowded on to the small landing. In the silence the sound of a train entering or exiting Marylebone station could be heard.
A Fatal Freedom Page 28