He puzzled over his feelings as the taxicab drove him to Marylebone, rain dotting the windshield, the February wind blowing tree branches on the sides of the road. His claim of love for Sadie to Peter Eyre hadn’t accounted for anything. His heart was as barren as the trees, where she was concerned. There wasn’t a single soul alive on this earth whom he loved. Precisely the best way for a secret agent to live. Not for him the tangles of Lord Walling’s family. He only had memories.
But it was the memories that taunted him, as always. And Sadie, when she was gone, would taunt him too. If he’d been a different kind of man, they might have been good together. Instead, she’d had her first night of carousing, and he couldn’t claim that frustration with him wouldn’t lead her down the same path again, no matter her apology yesterday. Especially with this Emmeline Plash in Alecia Loudon’s orbit. He wondered what sort of man Alecia’s fiancé was, to think it a good idea for Alecia to work for the Plashes. Not very strong, or perhaps Alecia had an entirely different kind of character than Sadie.
“Just a quick word today,” Glass said when Les walked into the flat. He didn’t have tea brewed, although he was seated at the usual table.
“What?” Les asked, sitting down across from him.
“I want you to move into the Grand Russe.”
“Why? I’ve got Sadie.” Surely the break with her didn’t have to happen so soon.
Glass’s eyebrows lifted. “What does that matter? Take her with you. We need to watch Ovolensky’s group more carefully, especially in light of the weapons cache.”
“What are you looking for specifically?”
“I want you listening,” Glass said. His fingers touched the table as if hunting for his missing tea cup. “Take Peter Eyre into your confidence. I liked the sound of your conversation as you reported last night. He sounds like a reasonable chap.”
“You want me to tell him I’m Secret Intelligence Service?”
“It won’t be the first secret the man has kept,” Glass said. “His family has served the crown for nearly fifty years in one way or another.”
“What about Sadie, is she to know?” Les stared out the window, but nothing caught his attention.
Glass cleared his throat. “No. Say you are going to have your flat redecorated and you can have a honeymoon at the hotel.”
“Redecorated? She thinks part of the reason she has to work is because I don’t have the money to keep her.”
“You got a bonus.” Glass grinned and tugged his ear. “Selling magazines.”
“A bonus? I’ve only been out of hospital for a week and a half.”
“A bonus for work before that,” Glass said. “What does she know about it? Tell her it’s too much of a bachelor domicile and you’ll move into the hotel while she chooses wallpaper and paint.”
“Pushing the bounds of credibility,” Les muttered.
“She’ll believe anything you tell her,” Glass predicted. He splayed his fingers on the table. “You’re the husband. What you say, goes. She’ll hear more living there, besides.”
“She’s given me nothing so far. She’s cleaning the lowest floor with the most transient guests.”
“It takes time to develop a source, but we need to move more quickly. So you’re in. Go.” Glass closed a folder that had been open in front of him.
Les rolled his eyes. “What about the basement?”
“Now, that’s a problem, and we need to know if Ovolensky’s men are abetting the local Bolshies. Of course, one thing may have nothing to do with the other, if Konstantin was getting in through tunnels. The hotel was closed for quite a while there after the Starlet Murders a few years back, so people could have been exploring.” He shrugged. “Why not the Bolshies?”
“Do we have any idea where Konstantin is holed up? Who is helping him?”
“No. We don’t even really know what he looks like, or if that was truly him you saw.”
“It was dark and I only saw the back of the man,” Les reflected.
“Prowl the hotel,” Glass said. “Link up with your future brother-in-law, Ivan Salter, the security head, and develop him as a source. Get to know every inch of the Grand Russe, and all the players. But mostly, get a microphone into the wall of the Russians’ suite and listen.”
“Am I still a salesman?”
Glass cocked his head. “I’m promoting you to management, and your first job is to restructure the sales force. So you can stay in the hotel and think.”
“Sadie will love that,” Les said dryly. And he worried about all the additional contact he would have with his beautiful bride. How was he going to stop himself from making love with her if he couldn’t escape at will?
* * *
“Sadie did arrive on time to work this morning,” Peter Eyre said, setting his cigarette in his ashtray. His desk had been straightened, the picture of Emmeline moved to a less precarious spot. “Did you feel the need to check on her?”
Les shifted in his chair in front of the desk, wondering at the impression he’d given the Grand Russe Hotel manager. At least the man had agreed to see him, frankly confusing his reception desk man, Hugh Moth. “No, in fact, she is probably off shift by now. I didn’t come to speak about her.”
There was a knock on the door jamb and a tall, dark-haired man of about forty years with deep circles under his eyes entered the room.
Peter Eyre stood. “Detective Inspector Dent.”
The man nodded and shook Eyre’s hand, then sat down next to Les. Eyre glanced at Les, looking the faintest bit uncertain for the first time.
“Always a pleasure, Mr. Rake,” Eyre said, “but I’m afraid we’ll have to conduct our business another time.”
“Actually, Mr. Rake is the business,” Dent said. “We’re going to need a suite on your seventh floor for him.”
Eyre reseated himself, picked up his cigarette and took a deep drag. He double-blinked as he processed the information, but his mouth didn’t twitch. “Mr. Rake is Special Branch?”
Dent shook his head slowly. “You don’t need to know what he is.”
“Nor does Sadie,” Les added, capturing Eyre’s gaze.
A pained expression crossed Eyre’s face, then vanished, leaving his features blank. “One moment.” He left the room, leaving the door open, then returned with a ledger. After returning to his chair, he set the ledger down and flipped through pages. “Do you know how long you’ll need a suite, Detective Inspector?”
Dent glanced at Les. “The Russians are here until May, correct?”
Eyre nodded, keeping one finger on a page. “As long as that?”
“We’ll need a suite that shares a wall with the Russians,” Les said. “I don’t know for how long.”
Eyre flipped through several more pages. His hands were slow, deliberate. The fingers didn’t shake. “The Artists Suite will open today. It is booked again on the fourth, but it’s your best option. We’ll have to do something different with the American film star who was meant to be moving in.”
“Yes,” Dent said dryly.
“I need to get ears into the suite Ovolensky is in,” Les said. “Is there a vent or anything in between these two suites?”
Eyre pulled a different ledger from a shelf behind him. Les could see it contained carefully drawn schematics. “The Piano Suite, where Ovolensky is, and the Artists Suite, do have a connecting door between the sitting rooms. Can you work with that?”
Les nodded. “It gives us a place to start. We’ll need to have our technicians ready to go as soon as Ovolensky leaves next.”
Eyre closed the ledger. “Very well. Have your men in place. I’m sure we can make the Artists Suite available in an hour or two.”
Dent leaned over Eyre’s desk and selected a cigarette from an open case. “As few people as possible need to know about this.”
Eyre closed the case. “Ivan Salter works nights. If your men can wait until evening, Ovolensky never dines in his room. We can have Salter keep an eye out and notify your m
en so they can make the changes.”
Les appreciated how easily Salter had fallen into his lap. His future fake brother-in-law, soon to be a source whether he knew it or not. “Make sure Salter understands that he can’t tell Alecia Loudon anything. And all of the installation work needs to be done when Sadie isn’t around.”
“She doesn’t know the truth about you?”
“No,” Les said, in a do-not-ask-questions tone.
“What are you going to tell her?” Eyre asked. “Bloody hell, I should have known something about you was off.”
Les shrugged. “It’s the honeymoon we didn’t have. Also, you’ve been told I’m a commercial traveler?”
Eyre nodded.
He frowned. “I’ve been promoted to management. We’ll move in late tonight. About nine P.M.?”
“If your men can install the listening device by then,” Eyre agreed.
“It’s quite a new technology, but our chaps know what they are doing,” Les said. “We’ll stay out of your way and you stay out of ours.”
“I’ve no choice,” Eyre said. “But I hope you know what you’re doing, for Sadie’s sake.”
“I have no intention of hurting her,” Les said, meeting Eyre’s gaze squarely.
“I’d like to believe that,” Eyre said. “But I don’t.”
* * *
“I just unpacked my things from the Richmond Inn,” Sadie protested, gesturing to the small chest of drawers in the Primrose Hill flat guest room. Why on earth was she still a chambermaid if her husband could afford a suite on the Grand Russe’s seventh floor?
“You had only one valise,” Les said. “And two dresses from our Hull adventure. It won’t take you ten minutes to gather your clothing.”
That wasn’t the point. “Why are we moving?”
“Lord Walling wants us to have a honeymoon,” Les said. “He’s paying for the suite for a few days.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sadie said.
Les shrugged. “It never pays to uncover the motivations of rich men. Just spend their money, I always say.”
“Ridiculous,” Sadie muttered again. “If he’d just give you the money, it would probably buy a motorcar. Or a new wardrobe for me. And your kitchen implements are decidedly lacking, Les.”
Les offered her a winning grin. “Just enjoy our bit of luxury, darling. A suite at the Grand Russe. Did you ever imagine you’d be able to stay in one?”
“Of course not. Did you?”
“It’s a promotion, darling. And a reward. Rich men don’t need money, so they don’t understand other people’s use of it. A stay on the seventh floor of such a storied hotel is a reward a rich man understands.”
“On a Tuesday? With no warning?”
Les sat down on Sadie’s bed. “Yes, on a Tuesday with no warning. Pack up, that’s what I’m going to do. And think of this. You can sleep in an extra half hour now, because you don’t need but to go down the lift to be at work. No cooking either.”
“How long do we stay?” Sadie asked, liking the notion of the sleep. She didn’t care so much about the cooking, having the idea that too much hotel food might add pounds to her already generous figure.
“I don’t know, but I will be around more. I’m going to be staring at charts, figuring out how to restructure the company’s sales force.”
“Olga is going to find this exceedingly strange,” she said.
“Think of it as an opportunity to spend time with your future brother-in-law,” Les suggested. “Ivan works nights, correct? So you’ve never even met him.”
“True. I don’t know when the wedding is going to be, either. Alecia is committed to caring for Mrs. Plash for the rest of her life.”
“It’s a real opportunity for us,” Les said with enthusiasm, pointedly ignoring her mention of a Plash. “This flat is too large for newlyweds. We need to be in tighter surroundings so we’re forced to see each other more.”
Sadie felt more troubled than pleased by that. Newlyweds shouldn’t need forcing to be together. What was wrong with her marriage? Was it simply that Les still didn’t feel well?
* * *
Les turned around, suitcase in hand. Sadie had disappeared again to wander the corridor of the Grand Russe’s seventh floor. While he had admired the vibrant art decorating both the corridor walls and the suite, she had kept a steady eye on the doors, hoping celebrities would pop out. She’d heard a rumor that the reclusive American film star Lon Chaney and his wife were in residence. Mae Murray had been seen in the halls as well, and the famed comedian Teddy Fortress with his starlet wife Honor Page had been guests for some time.
He set the suitcase on a shelf in the closet in the sitting room and went to check the adjoining door between their suite and Ovolensky’s. The technicians had discovered paintings on both sides to the right of the door, and concealed the microphone on the Piano Suite side and the recorder on the Artists Suite side. Les pulled the painting back, which had been reinstalled on a hinge, and checked to make sure that the disk was in place. It would be his job to change and check them.
He thought he heard a noise on the other side of the door. Ovolensky might be returning from dinner. He switched on the apparatus. The disk began to turn. He pushed the painting flat against the wall as Sadie opened the door of their suite.
“We have Russians next door,” she announced. “I saw Teddy Fortress in the hall. I wonder who else is staying here. I’m going to get an education in high society.”
“I thought we were going to stay in and enjoy our honeymoon,” Les said.
“I thought you were going to reorganize your sales force,” she said, looking grumpy.
“I’ll work when you work.” He faked a yawn. “Speaking of work, it is rather late. I think I’ll turn in.”
“Which bedroom is yours?” she asked.
“There is only one.”
Her lips parted, then she pressed them firmly together. “It is rather late,” she said in a squeaky voice.
“I’ll bathe,” he told her. “Just go to sleep when you’re ready. I’ll try not to disturb you when I come to bed.”
“I need to clean my teeth, wash my face.”
“Very well. I can wait.” He sat down on the bright white sofa in the center of the room and picked up one of the movie magazines. The cover model might have been the young woman in a fox stole and enormous hat he’d seen walking toward them in the corridor when they first arrived. He checked the name but it didn’t ring a bell, then held up the magazine to Sadie. “Recognize her?”
Sadie peered at the cover. “Not really, but I think she’s only done about three movies. British movies, not American.”
“I think she might be staying here.”
Sadie brightened. “What room?”
“We’ll find out tomorrow. Bed, Sadie. You have to work in the morning.”
Her feet dragged on the carpet as she left the room. He only had five years on her, but in some moments they felt like twenty. She wouldn’t work at the Grand Russe for long. Too flighty. The thought of what would happen when Glass told him to discard her and move on gnawed at the back of his brain. What a cruel thing to do to a girl. He hoped the disappointment didn’t change her.
* * *
The next morning, Sadie was dusting on the second floor when Olga checked in with her.
“You look out of sorts,” her supervisor observed.
“I didn’t sleep well. We moved into the Grand Russe last night, did you hear?”
“And you didn’t sleep well? On one of our beds?”
Sadie gestured at her to shut the hotel room door. Olga complied, then leaned against it.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Sadie asked.
“What?” Olga thrust her hands into her apron pockets.
“Last night was the first time we’d shared a bed,” Sadie said, tucking her dust cloth into her box. “I’d never shared a bed with anyone before, even my sister. The mattress kept moving, and he’d breathe in my ear. It was unne
rving. I don’t think my eyes closed all night.”
“What was the arrangement before?” Olga asked.
“I slept in the room next to his at the flat,” Sadie explained. “He hasn’t been well. The head injury, and being confined to bed for more than a week. He needed more sleep than I do.”
“Certainly.” Olga’s expression didn’t change.
“Yes, and I was quite irritated, getting out of bed while he stayed fast asleep. My alarm didn’t even wake him.”
“Poor man.”
Sadie frowned. She wanted the sympathy. She’d been doing the hard work of caring for him while he convalesced.
“Why did you move into the hotel?”
“He was promoted and this was a gift from his manager. I don’t know for how long. He has a strange relationship with his supervisor. He’s a real lord.”
Olga nodded. “Aristocrats can be very eccentric. Inbreeding.”
“Les has been promoted,” Sadie repeated. “Why can’t I leave my position? He keeps saying I need to make friends, but isn’t that more properly through our church, or others who live in our building? Do I really need to be friendly with chambermaids?”
Olga regarded her unsmilingly, and Sadie realized she might have offered the other woman an insult. “Not that I consider myself any better. I just mean, I ought to be friendly with other young wives, not single girls.”
“I think you ought to continue to cultivate your own independence.”
Sadie knew she’d insulted the woman again, but surely Olga could be married if she wanted, with her looks. “Why?”
“You never know what might happen. When I was eighteen, I was wealthy, part of an important family, and engaged to be married to a Russian prince equal in rank to myself. That was seven years ago. Everything collapsed under my feet. I lost my family, my country.”
“But this is England,” Sadie protested.
“At seventeen, I thought my world as secure as you feel yours is. Foolish, I admit, but I knew nothing about politics, even in a time as fraught as that.”
“What happened to your fiancé? Did he break it off?”
“He was killed. Many were,” Olga said simply. “What happens to you if your young husband dies? Do you have a source of money, a nice nest egg tucked away in case he’s been living on credit?”
I Wanna Be Loved by You Page 17