The German Agent

by J Sydney Jones

  Then to Appleby as he opened the door: ‘And I would stay indoors until returning to England if I were you, sir. Pesky cold out it is. Bad for the health. Try the gum, won’t you? I’ll let myself out.’

  And he was gone.

  ‘Stupid little man,’ Lewis muttered. ‘Ought to stick with his prostitutes and interstate bookies.’

  ‘Word seems to travel fast in Washington,’ Appleby said. ‘Perhaps this Bureau can be of help.’

  ‘Believe me, Sir Adrian, those fellows are not the ones you want on your side. They couldn’t detect a flea on a dog. All flash and no substance. It’s all about climbing, getting their precious Bureau more prominence. It may seem unprofessional for me to mention it, but it needs to be said.’

  Agent Niel had left a bad feeling in the room; Fitzgerald understood now just how silly had been their grand scheme at the National Theater, how spurious their thoughts of handling the affair quietly.

  Inspector Lewis dispelled the atmosphere somewhat by becoming quite practical: arrangements were made for an all night watch to be set up at Poplars. Five men would be on duty outside, five inside.

  ‘We’ll see Wilson in the morning,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘We’re scheduled for eleven. Then this whole thing will be over.’

  Lewis nodded. ‘No going out, Sir Adrian. Not without a couple of my men at your side. Understood?’

  Appleby nodded glumly, ready for a refill of his cognac.

  ‘I’ll be here first thing in the morning,’ Lewis went on. ‘We’ll arrange for a safe route to the White House. And home safe after that.’

  Catherine wanted to put the events of tonight out of her mind; wanted to forget that evil looking figure at the door who made her feel so vulnerable. There would be no sleep for a long time, she knew, her body was full of adrenaline, her heart still pounding violently in her chest.

  What a world, she thought. A terrible world we’re tolerating, where families are enslaved in tenements, where wild men roam the streets hunting down loveable old men like Uncle Adrian.

  She began to feel a helplessness overcoming her and set her jaw against it. Tomorrow I’ll work; I’ll photograph the slums and thus begin my own Jacob Riis documentation of Washington. In my own way, I’ll battle against the darkness overcoming the world.

  She felt better after making this decision; she would take control of her life once again. She got up from bed, wrapped a dressing gown around her shoulders, turned the small lamp on at her writing table by the window, and recorded some of the events of the day in her green, leather-covered journal. The mere act of writing soothed her nerves. Finished, she climbed back into bed.

  Soon afterward Edward came into the room, quietly changing into his pajamas, considerately leaving the lights off as he did so. This simple gesture touched her profoundly. He slipped under the covers on his side of the massive four-poster, and reached out to pat her shoulder as he did every night when he thought she was sleeping. A tender gesture as she lay there night after night feigning the regular deep breaths of sleep so as to avoid physical intimacy.

  But tonight she took his hand in hers, surprising him, pulling him to her.

  ‘Hold me,’ she whispered as he slid expectantly over to her side under the covers. ‘Hold me tight.’

  SIX

  Next morning, Max went out at first light and found both a neighborhood drugstore and haberdasher’s open; bought a razor and scissors in the one and some clothes in the other. On his way back to the hotel, he purchased a morning paper from a boy in a red-checked mackinaw who’d just appeared on the icy street.

  Back in his room, standing in front of the cracked mirror, Max worked for fifteen minutes, carefully trimming and shaving, until tufts of reddish brown hair lay curled around his boots.

  Looking at himself in the mirror now, he was startled at the transformation. The face that grinned at him in the reflection was no longer the gaunt wounded soldier he had grown accustomed to. Instead, with his face clean-shaven and his hair close-cropped, Max looked much younger, vital.

  He then changed into the clothes he had purchased at the haberdasher’s: baggy green corduroys, new and stiff; a blue roll-top sweater; brown leather jacket; and a tweed cap.

  Only now did he allow himself to sit down on the bed and look through the morning paper. The front page was covered with war news and a story about Wilson’s new hard line vis-à-vis Germany. Max flipped through the pages hurriedly until he found a small article on page seven: ‘Violence at the National’ was the headline. He read the article eagerly.

  Prominent politician and diplomat Edward Fitzgerald was apparently the target of a lone assassin at last night’s Belgian Relief Concert at the New National Theater.

  Fitzgerald, accompanied by his wife Catherine, née Devereaux, was set upon in his private box during the performance by a man with a revolver who had earlier set a small bomb in the third-floor corridor.

  The assailant, described as a Caucasian male, forty, is about five feet ten inches in height and of normal body build, with brown hair and reddish-brown beard. When last seen, he was wearing a blue overcoat and fedora. The Metropolitan Police would appreciate the help of the public in tracing anyone fitting this description. An artist’s rendering will be available for later editions …

  Max went quickly through the rest of the article, concentrating on particulars about Fitzgerald. He must be the tall white-haired one, Max thought. And the screaming woman from last night was clearly his wife.

  There’s no mention of Appleby, Max noted. Nor of the nationality of the assassin; no conjecture that I’m German. Which means they’re playing that part down for some reason. Maybe they don’t want the public to know that they risked innocent lives laying a trap for me. And failed.

  But whatever the reason, Max finally decided, it means I still have a chance to kill Appleby before he gets to Wilson. He did not question his good luck, but immediately set about making plans for a new attempt.

  Cleaning up his hair from the floor, he wrapped it in the newspaper and stuffed this in the wastebasket. He left his old clothes hanging in the closet.

  I’ll be long gone by the time the police trace me to this hotel, he thought. There’s nothing they can learn from my clothes: no incriminating labels or laundry slips. He took off the sweater momentarily, strapped on the shoulder holster, and then put the sweater back on over it as well as the new jacket. He picked up the tweed cap and bent the bill, working it into a peak the way workingmen wore their caps in America, then pulled it low over his eyes and left the room.

  Downstairs he waited five minutes, concealed on the bottom step, for the clerk to leave the desk, then quickly made his way out of the hotel unseen. They may trace me to the hotel, he thought as he walked past a Negro throwing gravel from a bucket onto the icy sidewalk like a farmer sewing seed. But they won’t know what I looked like when I left.

  The train hurtled through the Virginia countryside. Woods to both sides were bare of leaves and carpeted in snow. Crows circled overhead, dropping occasionally to peck through the snow-crusted landscape for food.

  Such an inelegant bird, Mrs Woodrow Wilson, née Edith Bolling Galt, thought to herself as she sat in the train as it sped through the countryside.

  She did not know that there were those in Washington who might use the same expression, the same species, to describe her. The ‘big-breasted wood thrush’ was one nickname bandied about by the wags in Congress. The ‘protective mother hen’ another.

  Mrs Woodrow Wilson was benignly unaware of such soubriquets: she knew only that, as the president’s wife, it was her duty, not only to their union but also to the country, to look after Woody.

  Nobody outside our immediate circle knows how really vulnerable he is, she thought, as she took her gaze from the white and brown landscape rushing by outside the train and fixed it on her husband, napping in the window seat of the presidential car, his jaw slack, lightly snoring as he rested his head against the red plush headrest. His hands were claspe
d across his vest and watch chain. Before napping he had taken his glasses off, laying them on the pile of papers he had been working his way through all morning.

  Without the spectacles he looks strangely naked, Mrs Wilson thought. So vulnerable. So easily hurt by critics.

  And Washington is full of those these days, she thought. Full of would-be presidents second-guessing Woody. Men like Roosevelt, Cabot Lodge, and Edward Fitzgerald whose jibes in the press sting him, cause him sleepless nights. Men who know better, yet who persist in accusing the president of being disingenuous; who claim he is playing a calculated political game with his anti-war stand; accuse him of jockeying for votes under the guise of his ‘too proud to fight’ stance.

  And Washington is also full of press people and caricaturists who do not flinch from portraying Woody as a bandy-legged intellectual, a naïf as world politician who is leading his country to ruin by his refusal to enter the war. They root out the tiniest scrap of information around which to fabricate one of their lurid stories. Why, they even implied impropriety at our marriage in 1915, less than a year after his first wife’s death, she remembered.

  There will come a time, she thought with great disgust, finally laying down James’s Portrait of a Lady, which she could not get into, when public figures will not be safe from the grossest calumny about their personal lives. When the politics of the bedroom will take precedence with the silly public over the politics of statecraft; when the term ‘foreign affairs’ will automatically imply sex rather than diplomacy.

  It’s good to be out of Washington, if even for a few days. Colonel House said it’s in the seventies in St Petersburg, Florida. That will be lovely, especially after the harsh winter conditions we’ve been having for the past few days. We can golf daily, she thought. That will be good for Woody considering the Washington links are under several feet of snow.

  The president stirred in his sleep, mumbled something incoherent, and then went back into deep slumber.

  Yes, she thought, again looking out to the snowy countryside under a low gray sky. We shall have a real vacation in Florida; quite incommunicado. No newspapers, no visitors, no telephone. Only Colonel House and a handful of Secret Service agents know our destination. We shall get right away from the world for a time. It’s not a luxury, but a necessity.

  Only I know how troubled Woody really is over this war issue, how it tears him apart inside to think of young American boys being sent overseas to kill and be killed in a foreign land. And for what? For national honor? It’s too cruel, she thought. Stupid, really.

  The world will still be there when we return to Washington on Monday, she thought; with all of its problems and all of its critics. And as Woody says, the capital could stand a period of cooling down its war fervor. The next days will be ones of absolute rest and relaxation, and no one shall disturb that.

  She picked up a leather-covered appointment calendar from the seat next to Wilson, opened it to today’s date, and using her husband’s fountain pen, carefully put a line through the eleven o’clock slot: Fitzgerald and Appleby.

  No one shall spoil Woody’s rest, she thought, closing the book.

  The train suddenly whistled through a small station; faces on the platform blurred past the windows, eyes wide, seeking a glimpse of the president in his special car. He awoke with a jerk at the sound of the whistle, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. He was disorientated at first, then he found his glasses, put them on, and smiled at his wife.

  ‘That was a lovely nap, dear. I was a million miles away. So quiet. So peaceful.’

  ‘There’s nothing for it then, but to wait,’ Fitzgerald finally said, breaking the silence caused by news of Wilson’s departure.

  ‘Confound the man!’ Appleby spluttered.

  Fitzgerald did not know if he were referring to the assassin or the president.

  ‘You’ll just have to stay indoors, Uncle Adrian,’ Catherine said. ‘Pretend you have a cold. It’ll be good for you, you’ll see. We’ll play whist together like the old days.’

  But Appleby would not be cheered up.

  We could go to other men in the government, Fitzgerald thought. To the secretary of state, Lansing, or to the vice president, perhaps. But in the end, that’s no good. We could talk until we are blue in the face, but without the president speaking directly to Adrian it will be a no go. Wilson as commander-in-chief is the only man who can rally the people at this point, who can make the Congress awaken to the German threat.

  Thomas opened the door to the music room. ‘Chief Inspector Lewis,’ he announced, and the police inspector entered the room, crossing immediately to the fire to warm his hands.

  ‘This is about the coldest February I can remember,’ Lewis said. ‘The streets are like ice.’ He looked at the other three, only now noticing their dampened spirits. ‘We’ve arranged the transport to the White House all safe and secure.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, Chief Inspector,’ Fitzgerald said, and quickly explained about the president’s unscheduled vacation; the need to wait five more days at least.

  ‘Right, then,’ Lewis clapped his beefy hands together, all business.

  His manner buoyed Fitzgerald. What’s needed now is practicality, he knew, not remorse.

  ‘Let’s look at what we have here,’ Lewis said. ‘There are the usual feelers out for our man. The description is being routed to hotel and innkeepers throughout the district. After all, he’s got to be staying somewhere. We’ve doubled the watch at the German Embassy. Most of their fellows left a week ago Monday after we broke off diplomatic relations, but there’s still a skeleton crew there. They should be out by the end of this week. But if this M is among them, we’ll bag him. He won’t be coming in and out of that building without our knowing it. We’re also on to New York, liaising with the bomb squad there. From the description we have at the theater, our fellow’s got a healthy accent. Probably not a homegrown boy, then, and he had to come from somewhere. We’ve had no trace on anyone fitting his description at work in the district before. Maybe New York can give us a lead on him. Not much to go on with the fragments of the bomb, I’m afraid. Our lab fellows have examined the bits of lead tubing, but they’re too small to get any ID on. Could be adapted from commercial piping, or they could be produced here special for tube bombs.’

  ‘You mean the Germans actually have bomb factories here in the US?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘We suspect so, Mrs Fitzgerald. The number of these devices we discover before detonation would indicate as much. Anthrax culturing laboratories, as well.’

  ‘To kill civilians?’ Catherine said, appalled.

  ‘The horses, ma’am. We suspect they get some man inside government stables to infect horses scheduled for shipment to England. Kills the whole lot of them on board the ships.’

  ‘Bloody Huns,’ Appleby added.

  ‘I guess they would say that war is war,’ Lewis said philosophically.

  ‘Not as gentlemen fight it,’ Appleby said with great contempt.

  ‘Gentlemen or no,’ Lewis went on, ‘our boy’s a professional. And he may have more of these bombs at his disposal. Most probably does, in fact. Under the circumstances, it may be best if we removed Sir Adrian to another location. One both unknown and shall we say, more defensible.’

  He looked at Fitzgerald now. ‘After all, your name was mentioned in the news articles this morning. This M may put two and two together and come poking around here to find Sir Adrian. And the perimeter is just too large here. Until I can requisition more men, I need to narrow the field of play. One well-placed bomb …’

  Lewis did not finish the statement, but the suggestion was enough to send shivers down Fitzgerald’s spine. It was unconscionable that they put Catherine in this sort of danger.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I see your point, and I wholeheartedly agree. Do you have any place in mind?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ Lewis said.

  ‘Make sure there is room service,’ Appleby joked.


  ‘Oh, I think this place will suit your tastes, Sir Adrian.’

  After lunch Edward went back into conference with Uncle Adrian and Lewis, so Catherine retired to her room for a time, further writing in her journal. Then, ten minutes later, she did not bother the men with adieus. At the hall closet she put on her Persian lamb coat and matching hat she’d purchased in St Petersburg, and selected a pair of kid gloves. They would not be so warm as the lined ones, but she needed mobility to manipulate her lenses.

  A policeman on duty at the front door looked rather startled to see her come out, but finally tipped his hat at her when she greeted him. The day was bitterly cold and the sun had long ago retreated behind clouds.

  There’s still enough light for photography, she thought. Diffuse, but adequate. She did not, in fact, like high full sunlight that washed all modeling out of the pictures.

  Guilty feelings arose in her because she was leaving her uncle in the state he was in. But I cannot simply stay here holding Uncle Adrian’s hand, she told herself. That would be of no help to him or me.

  She had decided on public transport today; there was a streetcar stop not far from Poplars on Massachusetts Avenue. She had no desire to drive on the snowy streets, nor did she want to enlist Thomas as chauffeur, for she had a desperate need to get off on her own for a time.

  A half hour later the green Massachusetts Avenue streetcar line deposited her near the Treasury on Pennsylvania Avenue, where she transferred to another car for the Capitol. She felt good being out in the rush and bustle of humanity again; the atmosphere at Poplars was stultifying at times. Out here in the city, at the heart of the political life of the entire country, Catherine felt part of something much bigger than herself. Here were diplomats, congressmen, bureaucrats, workers, shopkeepers, school children, nannies, wives – a cross-section of the world, and this human tapestry never failed to take her outside of herself.