The Tide Can't Wait

by Louis Trimble

  She inhaled deeply and blew a thin cloud of smoke. “It wouldn’t be dangerous for me, Leon. I couldn’t do enough to get myself really involved, anyway. But I can help like I did before.” Her voice became more intense. “I may not be a part of your country, but I am part of you. Can you deny me the right to go on being part of you?”

  Sitting up now, he could no longer hide his expression. She saw a wariness there. He was not the actor she hoped she was being.

  “Even your knowing me is dangerous—for you, Lenore.”

  Her answer was quick, “Who knows about me? Whom have you told?”

  “No one, Lenore. Why would I tell anyone?” He was on the defensive. The indication was subtle, but it was there in the timbre of his voice.

  She relaxed. “Then I am in a position to help, Leon. And in a fairly safe position, too.”

  His reluctance was plain. She could see that he did not quite know how to approach this opportunity. She reasoned that he knew she had been ordered to watch him, to work against him, and he also reasoned that she did not know that he knew about her. Obviously, he must maintain their relationship; therefore, he could not deny her too much or appear too reluctant.

  It was a pretty problem, she had to admit. She rather enjoyed seeing Leon work on it.

  His expression changed slowly. “Yes, what you say may be true. It may even be the answer.” He turned so that he was looking into her face. “Lenore, you must be careful. For your sake, I must be careful. We cannot afford to see each other too much. You must go away from London, make our next meeting appear only casual.”

  “Our next meeting?”

  “Yes, I will come to you soon. I want you to go to a certain place and work for me. It is also a place where you can work on your studies. I will come to find out what you have learned.”

  Her first thought was that he was trying to get rid of her. Then he would be free to act. But the thought did not stay long. The Chief had explained that Leon was not ready to act; otherwise, he would not have tried to kill a man in order to have the freedom he needed. No, Leon still had to wait. And, judging from the anxious expression in his eyes, she had the feeling that her decision would be important to him.

  She said, “Go away—when we’ve just come together again?”

  He smiled gently and his hand reached out to touch her reassuringly. “My dear, I promise that it will not be for long. A few days. A week at the most.”

  “But how can I help—if I’m not with you?”

  The veiled look crossed his face. Had she gone too far? Sounded too naïve even for the Lenny Corey he had known in San Francisco?

  “But you can. As I told you, you must work for me. I want you to go to a certain seaside village. There you will find a woman who calls herself Portia Sloane. She is an artist. She is also a very dangerous woman.”

  “Dangerous to you, Leon?” There was just enough mockery in her tone to make him flush.

  “It is not what you think. Once—perhaps. But no longer. Not for some time—years.”

  “Leon, darling, do you think I’m jealous of the women you used to know?”

  He realized that she was teasing him. But the quickness with which he suppressed his anger told her clearly how much his new plan included her. He said, “She will do anything to hurt me. I must know whom she sees, what she does.”

  “Do you really believe she wants to hurt you, Leon? Has she told you so?”

  “That is a strange question, Lenore.”

  “I am a woman,” she said carefully. “If I were angry with you, I might say something like that to you. But once I got over being angry, I wouldn’t mean it. I’m trying to ask, ‘Does she still love you?’”

  “I do not know. But I cannot afford to take chances. You must watch her for me. If you will do this for me, Lenore, you can help more than you think.” His smile was soft and gentle as he bent to kiss her.

  “More than you think,” he repeated in a murmur.

  CHAPTER IV

  Barr sat with Stark in the dimmest part of a smoke-filled pub in Hammersmith. They were dressed in workingmen’s clothes, cloth caps, and each with a pint in his hand. It was just after the evening opening and the place was filled.

  “She spent the day sight-seeing,” Stark said. He was a sawed-off man, with the long trunk so common among the Welsh. His face was sallow and he wore a drooping yellowish mustache. When it was necessary he could mimic any accent from Northern Scotland down to Cornwall and across to Ireland. Now he spoke in his normal voice which bore the remnants of a Kansas twang. “I’ve seen more damned historical monuments than I thought existed. Two days in a row.”

  “She’s at the hotel now?”

  “Yeh. But she’s leaving in the morning. It cost me a pound to find out where she’s going. To some little burg not too far from Brighton.” He gave Barr the name.

  Barr looked thoughtful. “There’s a Norman church there. She could be actually doing what she came here for.” His voice thinned out. “Portia Sloane also is there. At least she has a cottage near the place.”

  Stark grinned maliciously. “It couldn’t be that you told her to go there?”

  “Don’t be a fool. I haven’t seen Portia for a long time. I’ve never seen this Corey girl, except getting into a taxi at three a.m. That’s when she went to her hotel from Roget’s last night.”

  Stark sipped his beer. “You think she might be working with Roget?”

  “According to the Chief’s message, he scared all that out of her,” Barr replied.

  “Roget’s got it where some women are concerned,” Stark said. He cocked an eye at Barr and grinned nastily. “I’ve heard some of ‘em say you have, too, Rob. Maybe you should move in and give him some competition.”

  Barr said something rude. He was frankly annoyed with the arrival of Lenny Corey in England. As far as he could determine, she only complicated the affair, making them split forces to watch both her and Roget. Although, he admitted frankly, Roget didn’t need much watching these days. From reports given them by co-operative services, both British and American, no one who could conceivably be his contact was in England at the moment. The phase was now in what Barr called a period of waiting. When Roget moved out of that phase, then it would be time to keep a constant check on him.

  Stark broke the short silence. “Any news of Snyder yet?”

  Barr looked broodingly into his beer. “Our friends got nothing out of that Helgos.”

  It was a sore spot with Barr. It seemed years, not just four days ago, since he had landed on the Welsh coast with Helgos and turned the man over to his “friend” waiting to take the launch.

  Snyder had apparently vanished from the British Isles. His plane was where he kept it, untampered with. There was no sign of Snyder having been there recently, and no one had seen him in his usual haunts. After returning to London and finding out from Stark that Snyder had not been seen in his apartment or anywhere else of late, Barr put the search into high gear by including some of his “friends.” To date, there had been no results. He had just one remaining hope, and he voiced it now.

  “There’s a bare chance that he’s playing antiquarian and is potting about some obscure ruins, waiting for a chance to get back unobserved. I can’t imagine, though, what he could be hiding from. Hardly Roget.”

  “You underestimate Roget,” Stark said, “because you’ve never seen him in action. Neither have I, but I’ve heard stories …”

  “Like his sending an incompetent, terror-stricken refugee like Helgos to kill me off?”

  “Maybe killing you off wasn’t as important as putting you off balance,” Stark said.

  Barr grinned. “Touché.”

  Stark said, “Snyder’s too dependable a man not to have made some kind of contact with us, Rob. I’m afraid there’s another answer.”

  Barr disliked thinking it. It was not the answer either of them liked. He said, “If only we could get something out of that Helgos—but he doesn’t seem to know much of a
nything. He’s willing to talk but what he says isn’t worth a damn.”

  “He could be holding out, or lying.”

  Barr shook his head. Helgos hadn’t been lying, he was sure. Roget for once had been—to a point—clever. He had not made contact with Helgos himself but had sent someone else. A rugged-looking, very blond man, Helgos had said. He gave Helgos orders in acceptable French. No, Helgos didn’t know what nationality he was, although from his French accent, his native language seemed to be English.

  Barr said wryly, “So we look for an American, an Englishman, a Canadian …”

  “An Australian, New Zealander, or even a South African,” Stark said humorlessly. “And a few other kinds, too. Or do we just run around and pick up every rugged-looking blond male in England?”

  “No,” Barr said. “But we might turn Helgos loose and see if he can lead us to the man.”

  “If he knows how to find him,” Stark said.

  Barr swore at him. Stark was a stickler for detail and order, but a possible coup was beyond his scope.

  “I’ll get Johnny Griggs to tail Helgos.”

  “And what do we do?” Stark asked. “Keep on sight-seeing?”

  Barr got up and went to a telephone booth and made two calls. The first was to Johnny Griggs and it took him three numbers before he located his man. Johnny Griggs was an Englishman, a product of London originally, but a depression and a war had given him the opportunity to travel and he knew his home islands well. He also knew the inside of several prisons. Ostensibly he made a living as a racing bookkeeper’s pencil man, but Barr had never seen a pencil man who lived as opulently—if as tastelessly—as Johnny Griggs.

  He finally located Griggs in one of London’s less reputable clubs. “Barr here. Busy?”

  Griggs’ inevitable answer: “What do you think, Governor?” came out as always, “Wot do you fink, Guv’ner?”

  Barr was succinct. “There’s a man I want followed.” He described Helgos minutely. “He’ll be coming out of the Sloane Square tube station with two men in about an hour. They’ll turn him loose. I want to find out whom he contacts.” He gave Griggs the description he had of the blond man and also of Roget. “I’m most interested in those two,” he went on. “Especially the blond. If Helgos does contact him, drop Helgos and go after the blond. You can reach me through Stark.”

  “I know ‘elgos,” Griggs said. He sounded aggrieved as he added, “And Roget. The job’s good as done, Guv’ner.”

  Next, Barr telephoned the warehouse and spoke to his friends there. Satisfied that Helgos would be delivered to Sloane Square within the hour, he hung up and returned to his table.

  “Now to this Corey girl,” he said.

  “She can be dangerous,” Stark said. “A girl like that.”

  “She’s already been dangerous,” Barr remarked dryly. “Whether she meant to or not, she gave Roget more help than he could have bought in ten years.”

  “Damned little fool.”

  “Maybe not,” Barr said. “She might be anything but a fool. There’s a chance that she’s diddling us all and that she’ll end up with a share of Roget’s profits.”

  “Potential profits,” Stark corrected him. “He hasn’t made them yet.”

  Nor would he, Barr thought, if they had any kind of luck at all. But, he admitted to himself, even though Roget might not be wise enough to outsmart his enemies, those who wanted what he had might step in if they became impatient. For them, Barr had a good deal of respect.

  If, as the Chief had written in the report that followed his telephone call concerning Lenore Corey, the girl really was innocent and had unwittingly helped Roget, then Roget had a definite weak spot.

  Barr said, “You’ve had a better chance to know her than I. What do you think?”

  “I never judge a woman by her appearance,” Stark said. “But I’d say the Chief’s estimate is right: she’s innocent enough—and pigheaded as hell.”

  “We’ll soon find out.” Barr grinned his wolfish grin. “I want you to keep tabs on Roget for a few days and at the same time watch for Snyder.”

  “Ah, and what will you be doing?”

  “I,” Barr said, “am going down to the seashore and write a novel.”

  “Now, look, Rob …”

  “If you think I’m going there because of Portia, you’re partly right. Once Roget did to her what he’s done to this Corey girl. I can keep an eye on both of them.”

  “And make it clear to Roget that you’ve spotted his latest recruit?”

  “Maybe that’s the way I want it.”

  • • •

  The seaside village was charming. To Lenny it was just like the travel folders but with something more. She was almost pleased with the strange little man with the blond mustache who had appeared and, oddly, ordered her to come here even after she had already made arrangements. At the time, of course, she had been quite angry because after Leon’s instructions, the other man—who had called himself Stark—had seemed so obvious. But she had to admit that a better place than this could hardly have been chosen. It even had a perfect gem of a little Norman church.

  The village itself clustered around the church which was perhaps a quarter mile from the beach curving between two headlands. These headlands, like prongs of a cow’s horns, held an almost absurdly tiny bay of blue, whitecapped water. They were both bare of trees: the one to her right as she faced the water had a covering of soft grass and great rocks that looked as though they had been tumbled there in some ancient game. A pathway led up from the village and another went steeply along the inner side of the horn to join the pebbly part of the beach which was revealed at low tide. When the water was high, the path appeared to end in a jumble of great rocks lashed by spray. The bay itself, scarcely a hundred yards of curving beach, had no pier.

  The other headland was set with cottages, three of them in a row from near the tip almost back to the edge of the village. A good deal of space separated the cottages from one another and almost all this space was filled with well-tended flower gardens, even around the middle cottage that was obviously empty at the moment. A pathway from the village ran along the edge of the headland, joining the garden gates of the three cottages, and then dropped steeply to the beach. A narrow road ran along the far side of the headland, to give cars access to the cottage garages.

  Lenny noticed the fine details of her surroundings, naturally. Later, she was thankful that she had. To have been only vaguely familiar with the terrain could have proved fatal.

  The inn, the Dragon’s Head, where she had a room was set in the center of the curve of beach but well back. It was a Tudor-style building with leaded windows through which she had a view of the water. Lenny found her room old and austere but comfortable enough. Her one regret was that the windows did not also give her a view of the Norman church.

  She stood now before the opened window, looking at the sun sparkling on the bay. In this quiet spot all that had troubled her seemed dim and far away. The man in the hotel room—the Chief—and Stark, even Leon, all took on an air of absurdity.

  And then she saw the woman. She sat on one of the rocks on the barrel headland, bent over toward her own lap in what seemed to Lenny a strangely awkward pose. Then Lenny realized that the woman’s interest lay in a sketch pad balanced on her knee.

  Now Leon was saying, “… You will find a woman who calls herself Portia Sloane. She is an artist. She is also a very dangerous woman.” And Stark, the man with the yellow mustache, was saying, “You may be contacted by a woman there. She calls herself Portia Sloane. You’ll recognize her. She’s an artist and she spends a lot of her time sketching things. She is a very clever and dangerous woman.”

  Lenny wondered how many more strange men would come to her and announce that she must go somewhere and do something. The Chief had told her to expect some kind of contact. She was glad Stark had been such a pleasant one.

  He really did not seem at all sinister, nor did he fit any of the other patterns
vaguely formed in her mind when she thought of espionage. He looked very ordinary, dressed neatly, spoke politely. He had a frank, open face, really not bad to look at, except for the mustache that had a strong tendency to droop.

  At first, his orders had been brief and exact, and frighteningly like those Leon had given her. Even though it sounded as though he and Leon might have planned her orders together, all really went well until he mentioned Portia Sloane. Lenny said, “Is she—on our side?”

  Some of his ordinary manner went away and momentarily she could see the hard core of the man beneath. “What is our side?” He could as well have slapped her and said, “What is your side, Miss Corey?” That was what he meant. And after he left her, she was afraid again.

  Now, standing by the window and looking out over the bay up to the woman on the headland, Lenny felt the fear rise in her once more. Her own swift changes of mood—from confidence to this almost abject terror—annoyed her. She would have to get some kind of grip on herself if she were to do anything at all.

  The trouble lay, of course, in her knowing so little. Because the Chief had really not told her much. And the man with the yellow mustache—as she kept thinking of Stark—had told her even less. Leon had really told her a great deal, but it had all been about himself.

  It occurred to her with a shock that she really did not even know whom Stark worked for. He had simply come in and announced that he was the man she was expecting. She had assumed he worked under the Chief. But now, recalling how like Leon’s orders his had been, she was not at all sure. The whole affair could have been one of Leon’s devious schemes. Portia Sloane might be here to watch her.

  Her helplessness and indecision made her angry, and she turned away from the window. The Sloane woman could be working for the Chief, too, for that matter. Or for no one except herself. She sat on the bed and shut her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands against them. What was she supposed to do? What could she do when she did not even know what she faced, nor whom she could trust? Find Leon’s contacts—ridiculous.