The German Agent

by J Sydney Jones

  He folded his arms over his chest.

  ‘I thought we’d put this argument behind us,’ he said.

  She suddenly felt rotten for acting this way. Here Edward was, nearly murdered and she was climbing all over him for being his usual closed self. Perhaps now was not the time for confrontation.

  ‘Let’s go to sleep, Edward. Close the world right out for the time being.’

  TEN

  ‘I say, Edward. This was a damn fine idea.’

  They continued walking down the sloping paths of Brantley, the country estate that old Mr Devereaux had settled on Fitzgerald and Catherine as their wedding present.

  ‘Makes one positively want to don a riding costume and take to the hunt.’

  Fitzgerald smiled. ‘You’ve never been on a hunter in your life, Adrian.’

  ‘Shh.’ Appleby held a forefinger to his lips. ‘Our little secret.’

  ‘Besides, I shouldn’t care to see this land run over by a flock of humans in hunter pink,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘I like it much better as it is.’

  They stopped at the farthest southern slope of the four-hundred acre spread. To their back, northward, the manor house lay enfolded in a copse of sycamore, its chimneys clearly visible above the trees, its porticoed porch peaking through the bare limbs.

  I’ll have to trim the trees back soon, Fitzgerald thought, though he detested the idea of cutting the noble old trees.

  All about them lay the rolling fields of Brantley’s experimental gardens: though bandaged in snow now, underneath everything from roses to rutabagas were cultivated here; one thirty-acre patch was even set aside as a model forest, planted in European pine, a fast-growing variety that some agronomists were claiming to be the fuel source of tomorrow. The general impression was of the rolling bucolic English countryside.

  Looking to the south they could just make out the broad gray swath of the Potomac in the distance. On a knoll above the river, Fitzgerald saw a tall sycamore under whose shade he loved to pass lazy summer afternoons.

  I’ll build a house there some day, he thought. Or have myself buried there. Make it the final resting place of the Fitzgeralds. To spend eternity above the peaceful waters of the Potomac seemed a fine idea to him.

  ‘It’s quite amazing what you’ve done with this place,’ Appleby said, bundling himself deeper into the heavy coat he wore.

  A biting breeze was up off the river; the sky overhead was low and gray.

  ‘It was a bit of a mess when we took it over,’ he admitted.

  Appleby laughed loudly. ‘Why else do you think old Devereaux gave it away?’

  Fitzgerald continued gazing out on the southward view, ignoring the implicit invitation to get digs in at his father-in-law. He cared not at all for the man, and thought him greedy and mean, but he was, after all, Catherine’s father and was due familial loyalty.

  It’s so like Adrian, he thought, to involve me in a name-calling orgy that he can later, quite subtly, hold over me vis-à-vis Catherine. Some people are born to power, he thought; they are forever maneuvering. Give me these acres to manage, and I’m quite content.

  In fact Fitzgerald would gladly give up the sordid world of shadow diplomacy to retire to the country and manage this small estate had Catherine shown any predilection for such a move. He would love to hear children’s feet on the main stairs at Brantley, his own children’s feet. He longed to walk these fields daily, examining the results of his labors, for the fields had been planted in the old manner, avoiding all use of artificial fertilizers which Fitzgerald believed to be a great danger. From the reading he had done, it seemed inevitable that the use of such substances would ultimately deplete the soil, allowing the fine top soil to simply be blown away. Someone had to hold onto the old agricultural methods so that they could be used again in the future: to such a mission Brantley had been dedicated.

  Looking back on it, such a direction for his life seemed quite absurd. From a long line of Boston shippers, Fitzgerald hardly had the soil in his blood. But once seeing Brantley, he had been drawn inexorably to it. Which was a fine sort of irony, really. Old Devereaux had indeed settled the estate on him because it was so run down and mismanaged. The gift had been left-handed; almost an insult. But Fitzgerald had turned the land into a showcase: he had begun reading books on agriculture and horticulture; had hired a small crew of men to do the heavy work while he arranged the layouts of plots and decided on crops. The foreman, Ned Blakely, a farmer from upstate Maryland who had sold off his own farm to developers, had stared dumbly at him when Fitzgerald had announced his intentions of ‘going about things naturally here’. The men took it as a bit of a joke that they should have to spread muck on the soil when other farmers round about were using the new chemical fertilizers with such amazing results.

  But after the first two seasons, they had changed their minds. Blakely had even become something of a fanatic about the subject of what he called ‘organic gardening’ after seeing and tasting the yield from test fields sewn both ways.

  A flock of winter crows flew overhead, landing on a field not far from them, black against the snow, strutting about like looters, pecking through the hard crust.

  ‘Yes,’ Appleby said. ‘A little corner of heaven you’ve created.’ His cheeks and nose were bright red from the cold, vapor bubbles appeared as he spoke.

  ‘We should be getting back,’ Fitzgerald said.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Appleby replied. ‘I love the fresh air.’

  ‘It wasn’t so much the air I was thinking of.’ He looked about them, suddenly remembering why they had come to Brantley in the first place. And perched on this bit of promontory with no cover, they provided marvelous targets.

  Appleby took his meaning immediately. ‘I’d almost forgotten that world,’ he said, as they began walking back to the main house.

  Two of Lewis’s men had accompanied them on their little walk, but if a sniper should take up position, Fitzgerald thought, there are no police in the world who could stop him.

  Suddenly the rolling fields took on a sinister aspect to him, and he hurried along the track.

  ‘Only a few more days,’ he said to Appleby, who was puffing along beside him. ‘No use pushing our luck. It’s inside for you for the duration, I’m afraid.’

  Appleby grunted in reply.

  Some two hundred yards from the house lay a duck pond in the cleft of two hillocks. In the spring Fitzgerald enjoyed the spectacle of the baby ducks learning to swim alongside their mothers. Now, however, it was frozen solid, the snow cleared away. Pairs of incised curved lines made an ornate, almost Celtic design in the ice. Local boys must have been skating on it recently, he thought, for he allowed the workers’ children access to his lands.

  Appleby stopped suddenly. ‘Now there is a winter sport I love,’ he said. ‘Have you ice skates?’

  The thought of Adrian on skates made Fitzgerald smile. ‘I think we have some, yes.’

  ‘Well, when this all over, I propose a skating party.’

  ‘Grand. We’ll bring Catherine down for it. She loves a good skate.’

  Fitzgerald was happy to see Adrian talking of the future. After the capture of his intended assassin had twice been botched, he had seemed to become fatalistic, pessimistic even. Quite unlike the Adrian whom Fitzgerald knew.

  As they neared the house, the dogs came running out to meet them, jumping up quite uncontrollably. Fitzgerald shouted at them, but the truth was he loved being around the animals, loved their obvious excitement at seeing him after long absences, for it meant that they should be taken on proper walks. Fitzgerald had hired a retired couple to look after the place in his absence, and the dogs got only the minimal amount of walking when he was not there. Mr and Mrs Monroe’s greatest asset was that they were nearly invisible. Fitzgerald never had the feeling of being overwhelmed by servants here. In fact, they were pretty much on their own in the country: Mrs Monroe managed a bit of cooking, and her husband answered doors if need be, but generally Fitzgerald just
looked after himself when in the country. That was the great fun of it for him. Perhaps it’s that which keeps Catherine away, he thought as he pushed the big lab, Queenie, down from licking Adrian’s face.

  Perhaps if she could have her precious Thomas here, she would want to come more often.

  They went up the wide arc of steps to the main door, the two policemen following a few yards behind. At the house were more guards, ten in all, and Chief Inspector Lewis promised near a hundred more from the local constabulary and home guards by tonight.

  We’ll have a regular fortress here, he thought, entering the front door and smelling rich stew smells throughout the house. Mrs Monroe is at her best when Adrian comes around, he knew. She likes to fancy things up for the ‘English gentleman’.

  Appleby smelled the fragrant aroma, as well, and began rubbing his hands together expectantly. ‘What do you say to a large whiskey before lunch, Edward?’

  ‘You’re full of sound ideas today,’ Fitzgerald said, heading for the drinks table in the paneled living room. Mr Monroe had set a fire in the huge fireplace and the room looked quite baronial.

  Yes, it was a good idea to bring Adrian down here. It has cheered his spirits no end, and it’s the safest place for miles around. By tonight we’ll be like a little island quite cut off from the outside world by a cordon of police. Lewis has already posted men at the main gates and all around the house; the two personal bodyguards also lounged about inside. There’s no way that M can get to Adrian here.

  Fitzgerald poured out a stiff drink for Adrian, a lighter one for himself. After all, he would have to drive back to town after lunch to an interview with Chief Inspector Lewis.

  Outside the bay window he could see blue-uniformed policemen on the grounds trying to keep warm with hands in their pockets and caps pulled low. Usually he disliked seeing people about the place, but not now.

  ‘Here’s to long life and prosperity,’ Adrian toasted after Fitzgerald handed him his glass.

  Max lay propped up in the single bed. He was tired, worn out, his hand throbbed painfully, and he was utterly confused.

  The door to his bedroom opened and Mrs McBride bustled in, her hands holding a breakfast tray, a newspaper tucked under her arm.

  ‘Please, Mrs McBride,’ he said. ‘You embarrass me. I’m no invalid.’

  But in fact he partly was. Attempting to get up this morning to use the toilet in the hall, he had almost passed out. His head was dizzy and his body weak from loss of blood. It begged for rest and recuperation.

  ‘You just lie there,’ she said, plopping down the tray with a plate full of biscuits and gravy and a steaming mug of coffee. ‘A day of rest won’t hurt you any. Eat and get your body back in shape. You’ll need it.’

  He tucked into the biscuits, surprising himself with the appetite he had, and then she placed the newspaper, folded to page three, next to the tray.

  He glanced at the headline of a story she indicated.

  Outrage at New Willard

  He read on hurriedly:

  The New Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue was the scene of an attempted assassination last evening when an armed assailant, apparently German, set upon the British envoy, Sir Adrian Appleby.

  Sir Adrian, in Washington for unspecified reasons, was residing under guard on the hotel’s twelfth floor. The assailant, disguised as a bellhop, was at the envoy’s door when police, aided by Mr Edward Fitzgerald, an old family friend of Sir Adrian, stopped him. The assailant, taking one of the police, Chief Inspector Hapgood Lewis, as hostage, managed to escape the premises via the fire escape, but sustained a wound to his left hand in the process …

  Max stopped reading and looked up at Mrs McBride.

  ‘You have been a busy boy,’ she said. ‘That bellhop uniform you came home in last night was from the New Willard, wasn’t it? And that wound is to your left hand. So that’s what you’re about? Trying to knock off one of those damned meddling British who want to drag us into the war. Well, more power to you, son. I hope you succeed.’

  He read on, realizing that there would be a city-wide sweep going on to apprehend him. It would be impossible to get to Appleby now. Or I’ll surely die trying, he said to himself. Why go on? Why keep proving yourself and devoting your life to a country that despises you and your kind?

  ‘I’ll just leave you to your breakfast, then,’ Mrs McBride said, and closed the door softly behind her as she left.

  He felt tired, exhausted, really. It seemed he had been planning escapes all his life.

  The police would be after him with a vengeance now, he knew. Is there any way they could trace him to here? He thought of the tram ride home last night: some passenger may have remembered him. The ashen-faced bellhop in the back of the car? And then there were those sailors. With any luck they were too drunk to remember him, or too hung over today to bother reading the papers. But even with bad luck the police would only be able to trace him as far as Georgetown, and that was a sizeable community.

  He finished the breakfast, sipping down the last of the coffee, and leaned back against his pillows, feeling almost human again.

  A day of rest, he thought. Yes, I could surely use that. It should be safe enough here. As safe as any place in Washington for a man answering to my description. Mrs McBride is the only one who knows I’m here, and I know I can trust her now. Some pacifist, he thought. She’s happy enough to have me kill for peace.

  As he drifted off to sleep, a troubling thought stirred him. He could not put his finger on what exactly it was: something to do with the bellhop’s uniform. But that’s all right, he reminded himself. Mrs McBride said she burned it. That evidence has been destroyed. Yet there was still something nagging at his unconscious mind as he fell into a fretting and confused sleep.

  Fitzgerald arrived at Metropolitan Police headquarters at one thirty, returning from Brantley in his Cadillac. He had never been in a police station before, and was surprised and amazed at the plethora of activity going on there. Lewis’s office was on the fourth floor, but the bottom floors were, it seemed, a normal precinct house with uniformed officers standing at a counter booking several undesirable looking people: an old vagrant in a hole-riddled jacket and greasy cap; a youngish fellow dressed in the sort of flashy suit that Agent Niel sported, his fingers fairly filled with rings, and his left wrist handcuffed to an officer who was talking of ‘safe-cracking’ to the amused clerk behind the counter; and three rather gaudily dressed women with feathered hats and rouged cheeks.

  Rouge in the middle of the day, Fitzgerald noted, as he went to the stairs. Only then did he realize that the three women at the booking desk must be prostitutes, and the thought astounded him. Prostitutes in Paris or London were to be expected, but that they should ply their trade on the streets of Washington was something unexpected for him, and he wondered how many other things about quiet old Washington he did not or would not know.

  He took the stairs quickly, and caught Chief Inspector Lewis in his office having a late lunch. A map of the District of Columbia filled one wall, pictures of the current three police commissioners dutifully hung on another, and the standard profile of President Wilson was on the wall in back of his desk. Fitzgerald took all this in quickly, averting his eyes for a moment from Lewis with his cheeks full of sandwich.

  ‘Come in, Fitzgerald. Make yourself at home. Sorry for the mess.’

  He got up, taking his hat and coat off the only available chair and throwing them over an oak filing cabinet.

  ‘Got to catch food when you can in this trade,’ Lewis said, resuming his chair.

  ‘Please eat,’ Fitzgerald said, feeling the interloper. He’d already had his lunch in the quiet comfort of the country.

  ‘Been a devilish morning,’ Lewis said between bites. He tossed a newspaper across the desk to Fitzgerald. ‘I suppose you’ve seen that?’

  Fitzgerald glanced at the story of the attempted assassination of Appleby.

  ‘No, I haven’t. I thought we were keeping
this sort of thing out of the press.’

  Lewis chewed hard, bit the inside of his mouth and cursed. Then: ‘We were. But somebody leaked it at the Willard. Damn hard to keep this sort of thing from the newshounds for long. And it makes me look a complete fool. The only mention I get is as a hostage to our German friend.’

  Lewis certainly looked abashed, Fitzgerald thought. He was not sure but that some of the man’s chagrin came from the publication of his first name, which Fitzgerald had never heard before. It had always been Chief Inspector Lewis, as if the title were part of his name.

  ‘The commissioner was on the phone this morning, I can tell you. But you don’t want to hear of my problems. What about Sir Adrian? Did you get him neatly ensconced out in the country?’

  Fitzgerald nodded. ‘Safe as a nun, I should say. Your men have the place well-guarded already. When you bring in the auxiliaries tonight, the place will be like an armed camp. Even if this German agent finds out where Adrian is staying, he’ll never be able to get to him. Not by Monday.’

  He spoke more sanguinely than he felt. The German, he now knew, was a very resourceful opponent. He seemed to be able to guess their moves even before they made them, as if he had inside knowledge of some kind.

  ‘I’ll just be very happy when the president returns and this is all over,’ he added.

  ‘Won’t we all,’ Lewis said effusively. ‘And meanwhile, we do have leads.’

  He picked up a sheet of foolscap, and read the brief messages there.

  ‘Seems our friend the bellhop was seen riding a Georgetown streetcar last evening at about the right time.’

  A sudden knock at the door interrupted them.

  ‘Enter,’ Lewis said in an alarmingly loud tone. A sergeant meekly looked in. ‘Sir? Sorry to interrupt, sir.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s about that clothing found in the employee locker room of the Willard last night.’

  ‘Right. What about them?’