He wasn’t. A pity. He’d have thought staff would be more diligent when they’d almost been bombed just over a week before.
* * *
Sadie was buttoning her coat at the end of her shift when Olga came up to her in the staff lounge. Olga glanced at the thin gold band and engagement ring on Sadie’s ring finger.
“Did you really marry him?” her supervisor asked.
“Yes. He purchased a special license.” She twisted the lovely diamond engagement ring so that it lined up perfectly with the front of her finger. It would be better to leave it at home and just wear her wedding ring, but she’d had it for such a short time. “I think I should buy a chain and keep my rings around my neck at work.”
“Your tips will be better if gentlemen guests think you are single,” Olga said.
“I suppose so. But I’m not really working for the money. Les wants me to make friends. He’s afraid I’ll be lonely. Alecia is so busy with that Mrs. Plash and I don’t know anyone else.”
“Doesn’t your husband have friends?”
“We’ve been to tea with his friend Robbie, but he’s single. Another man came to our wedding, but he’s Les’s supervisor. Then there’s a married couple we’ve spent time with, but they live in Hull apparently.” Sadie fidgeted. “We met another couple who seem nice. They live in Acton. Maybe I can invite them to dinner soon.”
Olga nodded slowly. “I am glad to hear these things, but my heart tells me that your Les is a bad man.”
Sadie’s fingers tingled, pins and needles, as her shoulders froze into an odd position, tightening her muscles. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Please don’t be offended,” Olga said. “We were betrayed, my maid and me, when we were escaping my fiancé’s murderer in Russia. By a confidence man. My maid, she sacrificed herself to save me. I am afraid Les is like that man.”
Sadie’s heart thumped in her chest double-time. As much as she hated to admit it, Les did have some odd characteristics, the Russian aspect being only one of them. “Why?”
“He has an insincere look in his eyes. A cold look.” Olga stared hard at Sadie.
She resented Olga’s words, but the woman did have life experience she lacked. “If you are right, what should I do?”
“If you need help, see Peter Eyre,” Olga said. “He’ll protect you as if you are family, assuming you do a good job here. No more late mornings.”
Sadie nodded. “I didn’t think I’d be working again, you see.”
“It’s time to behave like you are grown,” Olga said. “No more childishness. Face your responsibilities and your realities.”
“What am I going to do about Les?” Sadie asked.
“I assume you love him,” Olga said. “I imagine you do what every wife does, hope for the best, behave impeccably, and hide away a bit of cash so if he leaves you flat, you’ll be able to get by.”
“Glory, what a cynical attitude.” Sadie forced a laugh.
“These are uncertain times. You can have everything and lose it all.”
Sadie knew Olga referred to her lost life as a Russian princess, but what came to her, really, was the sight of Les, crumpled on that dock in Hull. Her handbag gone, and them both far away from home. The situation had worked out for them, but what about next time? “I don’t think he needs my salary. I’ll set that aside for emergencies.”
“Smart,” Olga said. “Don’t quit your job here until it is absolutely necessary. I don’t trust that man.”
Sadie wanted to confess everything to Olga in that moment, but she kept her own counsel. Surely she would learn to understand Les in time. After all, he must love her. He’d married her.
After her shift, she took a bus to a department store and used the money Les had given her to buy two new pairs of shoes. It would have been even nicer if he’d been there to help her choose them. Both pairs she bought were low-heeled and comfortable. One black and one gray, not very exciting really, except that it was fun to buy something new. At least she’d have something to report in her letter to Alecia that night.
Instead of going to dinner alone, she went home, hoping Les would be there and awake. She did have to work in the morning, but after that, they had an entire day and a half to celebrate their marriage properly.
As she opened the front door, she wondered if she should have bought something wedding-night appropriate instead of the second pair of shoes. Her hand trembled as she closed the door. What was she afraid of? Marriage night jitters were common, but almost every girl had a wedding night and lived to tell the tale.
The flat was silent as only an uninhabited space could be. She could even hear a single car going by outside, and rain on the pavement in the small garden space. While she was quite sure Les wasn’t home, she checked his bedroom anyway. Empty.
She ran herself a bath and put on his dressing gown after, surrounding herself with Les’s scent. He was probably going to eat out, but with whom? And why wasn’t he taking care of himself, so he’d be prepared for their proper wedding night? Shaking her head, she went upstairs to fix herself the last of the eggs.
A few hours later, she was dozing in an armchair next to the popping and hissing but warm radiator when the front door opened. A couple of minutes later, Les came up the stairs.
Caught in a vague dream that drifted from the Hull docks to Primrose Hill to that party in the Chelsea basement flat, Sadie was startled to see the outline of his broad shoulders appear in the doorway.
“Who were you with so late?” she demanded, still confused from her dream. “Another woman?”
“Of course not, darling,” he said, coming closer, bringing cold and the scent of coal dust and rain. “Why would you say that? Have you ever seen me look at another woman?”
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “I’m sorry. Bad dream. What are you doing out so late?”
“It’s only eight. I had a quick bite at a pub with Robbie.”
“Why?”
“I happened to be right where he lives at the end of my day.”
“Where is that?”
“Camden. Are you working tomorrow?”
“Yes, the chambermaids work five and a half days. I have half-Saturday and all day Sunday off.”
He nodded. “We’ll have to do something fun tomorrow. Dinner and dancing? A film?”
She yawned. “A film, I should think. You aren’t well enough to dance.”
“All that twirling wouldn’t do me any favors. Anything to eat around here?”
“You just ate with Robbie,” she said.
“Right,” he said with an air of distraction, making her wonder if he was quite all right.
She sat up, yawning again. “There is a packet of biscuits in the cupboard.”
He brightened at that. “Tea and biscuits?”
“Yes. You sit down and I’ll fix us up a tray. We’ll have a quiet little chat together and then go to bed.” She saw his look of alarm. “Separate bedrooms again, I think. You’re all done in. I can see that.”
He smiled and held out his hand to help her up from the chair. “I’m sure I’ll be better soon, love.”
She walked away smiling. He’d never called her “love” before.
* * *
“You’re sure you can get in?” Detective McCall folded his newspaper and put it under his arm.
Les leaned against the tree in Hyde Park that McCall stood under, looking out toward Marble Arch. “I know where the employee entrance is. The shift starts in five minutes and there seemed to be a lull between one ending and one starting. If we get through the door exactly five minutes from now, I think we’ll be fine.”
“Excellent.” McCall rubbed his hands together. He wore a nondescript suit today, his working uniform. No overcoat, but they’d have nowhere to stash coats when they were in.
“What do we know?”
“Ivan Salter, the security man for the Grand Russe, the only bloke we have not had under arrest who has seen Konstantin, thinks he was at the Grand
Russe a couple of days ago right about this time of day.” McCall ran an index finger down the side of his nose. “Now, Konstantin was in the Coffee Room.”
“What’s the importance of that?”
“Free food. I don’t know how they keep out the transients. I expect anyone well-dressed can get in there. It’s meant to have coffee and toast for guests and there are waiters who presumably know the guests.”
“Konstantin has a helper among the waiters?”
“Could be. Or he’s around a lot and staff is used to him, think he’s a guest. Or he is one.”
Les sighed dramatically.
“I know. You’ve memorized the sketch?”
“It’s worthless. All the focus on the beard. Salt-and-pepper beard that’s too young for the rest of his face.”
“He looks like everyone else,” McCall said, baring his teeth. “A Bolshie bomber who looks like everyone else.”
“Is Salter one of ours?”
McCall shook his head. “He is the hotel’s man. Salter is much too Russian to trust the government.”
“He’s engaged to Sadie’s sister.”
McCall’s eyes widened, then he chuckled deep in his throat. “You espionage types. I have to admire how you manipulate people. You met him socially yet?”
Les shook his head. “It will come. We’ll make use of Salter whether he knows it or not.”
McCall glanced at his watch. “One minute to go.”
“Let’s cross the street.” They had to dodge a bus and a truck, but made it into the alley behind the hotel without any trouble, then went down the stairs to the employee entrance. As Les suspected, the door was unlocked.
“Now what?” McCall pushed open the door.
Les followed him inside. “I have the entire area mapped in my head. I can see why Konstantin would find it easy to get to the Coffee Room. The staff staircase lets out just before it on the corridor.”
“That’s why you think Konstantin might have a nest down here?”
“He’s not at his flat. And there are bathrooms down here.”
“What else?”
“What I’m really curious to see, is if there are any access points to the Metro or the sewers.”
“Shouldn’t be,” McCall said.
“I know,” Les agreed. “But can you imagine?”
“Give me the tour,” McCall said.
They took twenty minutes to traverse the main corridors. McCall knew the ground floor quite well, and announced what they were underneath at every key point. “No sign of anyone sleeping down here,” he said, after they closed the last of the four bathroom doors.
“Time to check those three oddball doors I’ve found.”
McCall nodded and they returned to an area underneath the reception area. “Door is locked.”
Les smirked and pulled out a set of lock picks. “Time me.”
“Forty seconds,” McCall announced when the lock snicked open. “Don’t switch to a life of crime anytime soon, mate.”
Les pulled a small torch from his pocket and pointed it through the door. “Looks clean.”
“And deep,” McCall said. “I heard a rumor that Peter Eyre lives in secret chambers behind his office. I’m starting to believe it.”
Les switched off his light and put up his hand. “Noise ahead,” he whispered in McCall’s ear.
“Rat?”
“Shadow,” Les said.
McCall unsnapped the holster under his suit coat and pulled out his Webley semi-automatic pistol.
Les put his hand over the bulb of his torch and switched it back on. He allowed a thin thread of light to escape, enough for them to both move forward on either side of the passage. Ahead of them, Les heard the sound again. Water dripping? A pipe, maybe, not a person at all. But then, he heard rustling. A rat?
After five more feet forward, he allowed more light. Another door.
“Must be right underneath Eyre’s secret lair,” McCall said.
Les put his torch between his teeth and turned the knob, expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t. McCall shook his head. Les agreed. He didn’t like it either.
He lifted his torch and swept it around the door.
“No cobwebs,” McCall said, putting his back against the wall.
Les opened the door in a smooth motion, then swept the space with his light.
“Hands where I can see them!” McCall said, seeing something Les could not.
No one spoke but Les heard breathing, then footsteps moving away.
McCall swore and dashed into the dark. Les followed him, keeping his torch trained on the ground. Twenty feet in, they found a wall. The passage went both ways.
“We have to stay together,” Les said. “Which way?”
“Toward the park. Metro that way, right? Sewers the other?”
“Hard to know sometimes,” Les muttered. They slowed down and continued forward. A door slammed ahead of them. Les sent his torchlight in an arc around the space and found two doors.
McCall sniffed the air. “What is that? Cordite?”
Les tried a door. “Locked.”
“Open it,” McCall said. “We might be chasing a bomber.”
Les had the lock picked in thirty seconds this time. McCall moved to the wall again, as he opened the door and swept the space with his flashlight.
McCall swore when he saw what Les had revealed. Boxes of supplies. And crates. Some of them marked Dynamite.
Chapter Ten
Les flashed his torch around the dark room, highlighting each box as the light settled on it. Hellfire, what evil had they uncovered in the Grand Russe’s basement?
“This looks more like a sodding storage cache than a bomb site.” Detective McCall put his pistol in his holster and pulled out a torch of his own. He swore again. “A cot. You were right. I think Konstantin was holed up here with his precious belongings.”
“Should we go after him?” Les asked, glancing at the clumped blankets at the foot of the stained mattress. “Or get your men in here to clean this up?”
“See if there’s a direct way out of the hotel from this area,” McCall suggested. “Then get some help. We can’t run the risk of letting him get back in here to remove the goods.”
“You want to go?”
“You have a weapon?”
“Not a gun.”
“You go. I’m going to protect all this.”
Les nodded. “I’ll talk to the first constable I see, or just call Special Branch. Who should I ask for?”
“Detective Inspector Dent. He’s in charge of the Grand Russe investigation.”
Les patted McCall’s arm and returned to the passage outside of the room. His torch was just heavy enough to use as a weapon, and he had a couple of knives secreted on his person too. What he really wanted was a glimpse of Konstantin, if indeed that was who he was after.
* * *
Sadie hummed an old ragtime tune as she pulled the tray with three pork chops from the oven. She’d learned from her late grandmother to sear them in a pan first and then finish them off in the oven, which had dramatically improved the quality of her pork meals. She set the tray on the stove top then bent down again to retrieve her potatoes. The front door downstairs opened just as she shut the oven door.
She swept off her apron and slid her feet into her new black shoes. Not much other beautification was possible before Sunday. Tomorrow she hoped to retrieve her clothing. She and Alecia had agreed to meet at the train station in the morning and they had a busy day planned. Meanwhile, she had done her best with her new lipstick and powder, hoping that Les would see she’d made an effort.
Would he finally feel well enough to make her his wife in every way?
When he appeared in the doorway, she wasn’t sure what to think. “You have leaves in your hair!” she exclaimed.
He put his hand to his head and pulled a curled brown leaf from his hair. “Missed that.”
She stepped up to him and ran her fingers through his wavy bangs, dis
lodging a twig and a couple of leaf bits. “What happened to you?”
“Lost my hat.”
“And your coat.” He stayed still, allowing her to run her hands through his hair. She needed a comb. Her fingers caught on tangles. “Oh, dear. You need to wash it.”
His eyes fluttered closed. “Don’t stop. That feels delightful.”
She stroked his head, learning the narrow shape of his skull under his thick, wavy sand and mud colored curls. His hair was slightly damp too, and smelled like felt, cold, and something mechanical. “Did you sell a lot of magazines today?”
“No. I took a walk with Robbie. Trying to rebuild my strength.”
Odd choice. “You must have been in a park.”
“We were in and out of Hyde Park.”
“Just across from the Grand Russe? Did you come in to say hello?”
“I don’t think Olga would appreciate that. She didn’t seem to like me much.”
“She’s extremely reserved,” Sadie said. “But kind, too. She passes letters back and forth between Alecia and me every day.”
Les tilted his head away from her, effectively ending her ministrations. She let her hands drop. “Are you going to see your sister?”
“Yes. We’re going to take the train to Bagshot tomorrow, go to service at Grandfather’s church. Hopefully I’ll have time to pack up my things from the Richmond Inn. Will you come with us?”
“No. I played too much today. I need to catch up.”
“You can’t sell magazines on a Sunday,” she protested.
“My accounts, darling. I have paperwork up to here.” He put his hand to his neck as if to prevent her from touching him again.
Her enthusiasm dimmed, but she still had a great deal to look forward to. “I see. Well, I’m so happy to be seeing my sister. I’ll let you escape this time.”
“You should plan a dinner with her and her fiancé,” Les suggested. “Does Her Serene Highness have a beau?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure my cooking is up to royal standards anyway.”
“Let’s give it a try. Do I smell pork chops?”
She nodded and went to fetch the food and bring it to the table. She’d never understood why her grandmother wasted dishes by transferring food from the cooking vessels to prettier serving dishes, but she wanted to please Les so she attended to all the small details, even pouring him a glass of wine that she hoped went with her food.
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