He got off the streetcar at 1st Street and felt suddenly quite chill. He took off his hat and rolled it up, stuffing it into his pocket, then continued down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, looming white and almost iridescent with the snow all about it. Tour busses were parked in front of hotels along this part of the avenue; local restaurants were Chinese and Italian. Only then did he remember that he had not eaten since breakfast, and he suddenly felt ravenous. He went into Wu Lee’s Chop House, had chop suey and fried rice with a steaming pot of aromatic tea, and felt much better. After paying, he went back onto the street and turned left, going north, on New Jersey Avenue. The first hotel he came to, the Central, he went into. He paid $1.75 in advance for one night, using the name Adrian Lee, the first to pop into his head: Lee for the Chinese food he’d just eaten, and Adrian for the man he would kill. He gave his address as 2321 Wood Avenue, Brooklyn, having no idea if there even was a Wood Avenue in Brooklyn, and if there were, whether or not it went into the two thousands. But the clerk, a sallow faced middle-aged man, did not care; so long as he had the money in hand and some name and address to put in the book.
His room was on the second floor, bath down the hall, an iron bedstead painted white, pictures of Washington, DC on the walls, a frayed rug on the wooden floor. Exhaustion overcame him now. He needed sleep. In the morning he would go out and buy a razor and shave; then he would make further plans. He locked the door and lay down fully clothed on the lumpy bed, the aged springs creaking loudly.
He was asleep in two minutes, a skill he had learned in the trenches.
Fitzgerald felt like a damn fool. Firstly, that the German had been able to gain entrance to the theater at all without raising suspicion. But the Pinkerton men had concentrated on patrolling the second floor once the street doors had been closed and had not expected their man to enter late. The theater staff was not looking for anyone suspicious: they had not been apprised of the situation for fear that the theater management would simply cancel the performance were they to learn of an assassin stalking the corridors. And then Fitzgerald himself, along with the Pinkerton agents he had hired, had been completely taken in by the firebomb the German had set as a decoy. Their attention had been diverted so that the fellow had actually been able to walk right up to the door of their box seats unmolested, brazenly open it and take aim at where Appleby would have been sitting had he come to the theater at all.
They were now back at Poplars and Catherine, fortified by two glasses of brandy, had gone to bed.
Brave girl, Fitzgerald thought. And I let her in for possible bodily harm by my carelessness. She could have been injured, even killed by that German madman. The thought sent a chill through his body as he stood by the fire in the music room. He could not imagine life without Catherine.
Yet she had seemed to bear up bravely. After the small fire had been put out in the third-floor corridor, and after the panic was over and he had returned from chasing the German, he found her still sitting in the box. The dummy made up to resemble Appleby was propped up once again in the chair next to her. The Pinkerton agent who had posed as Appleby for the arrival at the theater had switched places once inside the theater.
‘There you are,’ she had said brightly as he came running back to her, out of breath, fearful that she might have been injured in the crush of people. ‘This is the most entertaining evening of theater the National has ever seen, I am sure.’
But he could tell, once he took her arm, that this was bravado on her part; the cheeky Devereaux side of her at work to cover up a case of nerves. He could feel her trembling as he walked her out of the theater.
Now Appleby was sitting silently in one of the armchairs in the music room, his face ashen, forehead creased in thought. He had remained at the Poplars under Pinkerton guard while the fiasco unfolded at the theater.
In the other armchair, a snifter of brandy in his hand and damn the regulations, sat Chief Inspector Lewis of the Washington Metropolitan Police. A big man, easily 6ʹ3ʺ and well over 200 pounds, he looked uncomfortable in any enclosed space, and his legs stretched out drastically as he sat in the chair. He was one of those men of Scots ancestry who seemed to have hair growing in the most unlikely places: swirling out of his ears and nose, swooping horn-like up from his eyebrows. He wore a moustache clipped short in military fashion and salt-and-pepper hair combed from front to back. No uniform; a worn and baggy gray suit instead.
He had arrived not long before and was still looking rather flummoxed. Fitzgerald was considering his last question; Appleby looked up at Fitzgerald and shook his head.
‘I’m afraid we cannot divulge that, Inspector Lewis.’
Fitzgerald added, ‘Let’s just leave it at “informed sources”.’
Lewis nodded; the entire chair seemed to rock with the motion. He set the snifter down on the leather-covered table next to his chair, fixing first Fitzgerald and then Appleby with a determined look.
‘So let me get this straight. These informed sources of yours tell you that there is someone gunning for Sir Adrian. That he means to do his work, in point of fact, at the benefit affair. And instead of calling the whole thing off, or at least calling the police, you two go ahead and set a trap to catch the fellow. You bring those incompetent Pinkertons into it and almost burn down the New National Theater as a result.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Am I being too severe, Mr Fitzgerald? Am I stating it perhaps too baldly?’
‘No, inspector,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘I’m afraid you have it only too right.’
‘You’ll pardon me for saying so, sir, but amateurs should not meddle in these affairs. I do not attempt to advise the Congress on matters of diplomacy, if you take my meaning.’
Fitzgerald nodded. ‘I do.’ He felt like a damned ass, as a matter of fact.
Appleby, however, was not prepared for contrition. ‘We are not schoolboys, inspector. We had a plan, we engaged professionals for the task. Were we to have come to you with our bit of information, uncorroborated, what would you have told us? Fairy tales? Paranoia? If in doubt, cancel the event. None of which would have caught our man.’
‘And neither did your scheme get your man.’
Lewis stood now, an imposing figure, quite manfully built. Fitzgerald, tall enough in his own right, felt rather diminutive next to him.
‘What you managed to do, Sir Adrian, was to risk the lives of several hundred innocent people at that theater. What if our fellow was truly a madman? What if it did not matter to him how many he killed in the process of killing you? Why, that bomb he set as a diversion could just as easily have been a much larger one, or a series of incendiaries that could have burned down the entire theater, killing many of those inside, and you wouldn’t even have been there.’
‘You sound disappointed at that prospect, inspector,’ Appleby quipped.
Lewis ignored the remark, pausing dramatically and staring at Appleby, who sucked in air angrily. A moment of strained silence followed; the fire in the hearth crackled.
Finally: ‘Point taken, inspector,’ Appleby said.
‘So tell me,’ Inspector Lewis said almost jovially now that he was shown a degree of respect. ‘Who wants to kill you and why?’
Fitzgerald watched closely as again Appleby sought his eyes, a question on his face. Fitzgerald raised his eyebrows at him noncommittally. Let Adrian decide how much he tells the inspector, he thought.
The exchange did not go unnoticed by Lewis.
‘We know next to nothing about the assassin,’ Appleby began. ‘He is German and he means to kill me before I have an opportunity to confer with President Wilson.’
The inspector raised his bushy gray eyebrows at this revelation. ‘War business?’
‘Something like,’ Appleby replied vaguely. ‘A message of the greatest moment and secrecy.’
‘So why haven’t you talked with the president already?’
Lewis, Fitzgerald noted, was as naive of diplomatic affairs as he, Fitzgerald was, of police matters.
The one positive side effect of the fiasco at the theater was that it might help convince Wilson of the authenticity of Adrian’s Zimmermann telegram, Fitzgerald thought.
‘I’m sure nothing in Washington is simple, Mr Fitzgerald. But it appears that from this point what we must do is clear-cut.’ Lewis turned suddenly to Appleby. ‘We’ve got to keep you alive until you see President Wilson.’
‘Well,’ Appleby drawled, ‘I was rather hoping there might be life thereafter, as well.’
Lewis chuckled slightly at this.
‘The worst of it is,’ Appleby sighed, ‘I was hoping to feast on your lovely shellfish at an oyster bar downtown. To see the latest Chaplin film. Now I am beginning to feel rather like a shut-in.’
‘And that is exactly how you will remain until we get you to the president or until we catch this German.’
‘Do you really hold out much hope for the latter?’ Fitzgerald asked the policeman.
‘Well, we have a description of him now.’
‘I am afraid as eyewitnesses, I and my wife will not be able to provide much information. I told you, he had his hat pulled down low over his brow; I could barely see his eyes. He did have a beard. Reddish-brown. And he appeared to be slightly built, though it was difficult to tell under the bulky overcoat he wore.’
Lewis pulled out a leather notepad from the breast pocket of his coat, flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for, and then began reading out to them.
‘Subject is approximately five feet ten inches, one hundred and fifty pounds. Bearded, with reddish-brown hair worn medium length, parted high on the right. Goes by the name of Per Walloon, posing as a Belgian.’ He looked up from the pad. ‘At least tonight he did.’ Then he continued reading: ‘Walks with a slight limp, according to one witness.’
He closed the pad and stuffed it back into his breast pocket.
‘I noticed no limp,’ Fitzgerald said.
‘You wouldn’t then, would you? Not if he were wearing an ankle length overcoat.’
Fitzgerald thought about this for a moment. The man had moved strangely, now he came to think of it. He had not remarked on it before because they had both been jostled through the crowded theater as Fitzgerald had chased the man.
‘The doorman gave us a pretty thorough description,’ Lewis said. ‘This Walloon, or whatever his real name is, came in late claiming to be with the press. Had a quite noticeable accent. It was the doorman who noticed the limp. One of your Pinkerton hires is the other witness. He saw our man up close, before he got his head nearly bashed in, that is. The fellow was feigning sickness, so the Pinkerton fellow is not too sure about the limp. He’s only sure about his own headache. I should say he’s lucky to be alive at all.’ Lewis paused and scowled suddenly. ‘Isn’t it about time we cut the bull?’
‘What do you mean, inspector?’ Fitzgerald tried his best to sound taken aback, but he knew he was not fooling Lewis, and he also knew suddenly why the big man was a chief inspector.
‘Look, this is not just any German, is it? This is an agent, probably a damn clever one at that. We found traces of the bomb: bits of lead tubing. That is a signature with the Germans, these tube bombs. So he’s a professional, not just a vengeful maniac. He’s a man with a mission. And we know he’s clever enough to figure out your Pinkerton set-up and to set a diversion of his own that allowed him to get past all the men protecting the dummy. And I am not referring to you, Sir Adrian, but to your stand-in. So please, let us talk like mature men. How much do you know about the assassin?’
He glowered first at Appleby, then at Fitzgerald.
Finally Appleby replied, ‘Truly not much more than I have already told you, inspector. He signs himself as “M”. That is his only name thus far. And he communicates personally with Berlin Military Intelligence.’
At this, Lewis let out a whistle. ‘Big enough.’
‘Yes,’ Appleby said. ‘Big enough.’
‘I suppose I should not ask how it is you came to know about the Berlin communication.’
Fitzgerald knew they were in good hands now with Lewis; he put things together quite rapidly.
‘No, you should not,’ Appleby said.
‘Is that why you hesitated to call in the police to begin with?’
‘Perhaps,’ Appleby replied.
A knock came at the door and Thomas poked his head in.
‘Another policeman to see you, Mr Edward.’
Fitzgerald glanced at Lewis who shrugged in answer to the silent question.
‘Did my men send him?’ Lewis asked the butler.
Thomas nodded, plainly irritated. ‘The man’s with the police.’
Only then did the enormity of the situation strike Fitzgerald: Lewis had asked the seemingly obvious because he thought it possible that M, the German, might have tracked Adrian to Poplars and might be capable of posing as a detective to gain entrance. An assassin here in our house. It’s part of what this telegram has brought into our lives.
Lewis seemed satisfied at Thomas’s answer, nodding at Fitzgerald.
‘Show him in, Thomas,’ Fitzgerald said.
He was already doing so, unbidden.
A short sparkling man was ushered in, hardly the typical looking policeman, Fitzgerald thought, wearing a loud checked suit cut in the jazzy fashion of a couple years ago: a wide shouldered jacket that hung down well past the waist, and pants tapered to cuffs ending a good inch above the man’s spats. A tiepin that looked to be diamond was affixed in the middle of his green tie, and a yellow vest completed the ensemble. His bright red hair was brilliantined back flat off his forehead.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Lewis muttered as the fellow sauntered into the room. Then louder: ‘Hello Niel. I didn’t think this was a Bureau case.’
The short man came right up to the inspector and shook hands energetically with him. Fitzgerald now saw that this man’s jaw was working, chewing quite avidly on gum.
‘Inspector Lewis,’ he said, continuing to pump the large man’s hand. ‘Good to see you on the job so late at night.’
‘The Metropolitan Police never sleeps, Niel. Haven’t you heard?’
Fitzgerald could see that there was no love lost between the two. The mention of ‘Bureau’ by Lewis let him know why: Niel was obviously an agent for the fledgling Bureau of Investigation at the Justice Department. The Bureau did not sit well with most of Washington, for it had been rammed down the throats of lawmakers by presidential decree during a Congressional recess.
Niel snapped his gum and turned from Lewis. ‘You’ll be Fitzgerald, then, I suppose.’
Fitzgerald shook the tiny proffered hand with its cool palm. The man continued chewing gum at a furious rate.
‘Sorry to be so long in getting here,’ he said holding onto Fitzgerald’s hand and seeking out his eye. ‘Agent Niel’s my name.’ He pulled out an engraved card with a phone number under his name. ‘You may need to contact me. Anytime night or day.’
Fitzgerald pocketed the card; he found the little man quite ridiculous.
‘Sir Adrian Appleby,’ Agent Niel said turning to Appleby. ‘Am I right?’
Appleby grunted assent. Fitzgerald could see he did not much care for Agent Niel’s appearance; to Adrian he will appear an uppity Irishman, Fitzgerald thought.
‘I understand someone tried to kill you tonight.’
Lewis finally spoke up, ‘Really, Niel. I believe we have this investigation under control. There’s no question of interstate violations here.’
Agent Niel ignored Inspector Lewis’s statement. ‘It must have been a bit of a fright for you, sir,’ Niel said to Appleby.
‘Not really.’
‘Well now,’ Niel began in an effusive vein, ‘I’ve heard of the cold blood of the blue bloods, but I would think if a man tries to take a shot at you, it would put your hair up.’
Fitzge
rald could see that Adrian was not amused by Niel’s forced folksy approach.
‘Very little hair to get up, I’m afraid,’ he said, swiping a hand over his glistening pate.
‘Say, that’s good. I like that. You’ve got guts, and a sense of humor.’
‘Nothing to do with “guts”, as you so quaintly put it. I was simply not in attendance at the theater. One with more scintillating verbal skills took my place.’
Niel’s face made a wide-eyed expression of revelation. ‘Oh, I get it. Laying a trap, eh?’ He suddenly reached in a vest pocket and drew out a small green paper covered packet, pulled out a thin stick of gum and offered it to Appleby.
‘Here. Have one. Does wonders for the digestion.’ He patted a nonexistent paunch. ‘The pepsin in it, see. Helps break the food down wonderfully. Medicinal stuff, chewing gum.’
Appleby took the gum and stuffed it into a pocket of the silk smoking jacket he was wearing. Fitzgerald only now noticed the felt slippers Appleby had on: monogrammed on the toes with AA.
‘Thank you. I’ll save it for after my next meal.’ Deadpan.
‘Well,’ Lewis said. ‘Now that introductions have been made, I assume you’ll be going. We really do have things under control here.’
Niel shot him a look of contempt. ‘I’m sure you do, inspector. The Metropolitan Police have been doing wonders with foreign agents and saboteurs, I’m told. Quite a success record.’
For the first time, Fitzgerald began to suspect that Niel was more than just a loudly clad gum-chewing would-be policeman. There were obviously intelligent processes going on behind his beady little eyes. He took a quick look at Niel’s face as Lewis and he glowered at each other. The nose looked to have broken more than once; his brow was high, not just because of his hair style. On this second glance, Fitzgerald saw not a faux dandy, but a fighter, a street brawler whom he had underestimated. And there was cunning in his eyes as he fixed Chief Inspector Lewis with his squint.
‘I’ll let you gentlemen get on with your discussion,’ Niel said as he suddenly turned from Lewis to Fitzgerald, half-bowed and then went to the door. ‘Remember the number,’ he nodded to Fitzgerald’s pocket where he had placed the agent’s calling card. ‘You can get me any time. Leave a message. We’ll be seeing each other again, I’m sure.’
The German Agent Page 8