‘Why the hell didn’t you alert us by phone?’ Lewis demanded. ‘The bastard could already be here by now.’
‘Oh, I don’t think there’s much worry on that score,’ Niel said, again smiling.
The smile was beginning to irritate Fitzgerald. It was the sort of cockiness he did not at all like. His thoughts went momentarily to Catherine. A sudden and paralyzing fear overcame him. What if the fellow had harmed her? Kidnapped her? Attempted to force the whereabouts of Appleby from her? How ignorant I’ve been, leaving her virtually unguarded in Washington while we sit here at Brantley surrounded and protected by over a hundred police and soldiers.
‘What’s not to worry about?’ Lewis said.
‘I mean simply, Inspector Lewis, that I have seen to laying roadblocks on every conceivable entry route to Brantley. The local constabulary here on the grounds have been alerted as to a new description: our man is possibly wearing an army uniform.’
‘Won’t that be a bit confusing?’ Fitzgerald said, stirring himself from his evil thoughts. ‘Seeing as how we have a unit of the home guard here as well?’
‘What would you have me do, Mr Fitzgerald? Tell the men to strip down to their skivvies? It may be warming up outside, but underwear is still far from seasonable attire.’
Fitzgerald noticed only now that in fact it had been getting warmer outside. The dripping sound he’d been subliminally hearing this afternoon was obviously the melt from the roof.
‘We’ve got to move Adrian again,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘We can hardly risk staying here now that M knows our location.’ He found himself discussing Adrian as if he were not present; in fact Adrian was only marginally there, standing apart from Lewis, Niel and himself almost in a daze. The news had sent a film over his eyes; his jaw was slack.
‘Hold on now, Mr Fitzgerald,’ Lewis said. ‘We don’t want to go off half-cocked scurrying for a safe house about the countryside. That’s exactly what M would want. Give him the opportunity that he needs. We keep Sir Adrian under wraps and inside the house with all these men outside and inside, and there’s no way the German is going to get to him.’
‘Unless he torches the house,’ Niel said.
‘My God!’ Fitzgerald said.
‘Or bombs it,’ Niel added cheerily. ‘Though there is really little likelihood for either of those circumstances. After all, the man would have to gain proximity for either maneuver. And if our men posted outside remain alert—’
‘If?’
‘They’re only human, Mr Fitzgerald,’ Niel said.
‘We’re not talking about an eternity of vigilance. All we need is one night! I say we move Adrian. Now.’
‘It’s just not on, Fitzgerald,’ Lewis said, obviously warming to his argument.
‘Stop!’
The three turned to Appleby.
‘I believe I have some say in these matters,’ he said, regaining his poise. ‘And I have had enough of running. I’m damned if I will allow one German to send me scurrying any longer. Here I make my stand. I want a gun, Edward.’
‘Certainly.’
‘Do you think that wise, Sir Adrian,’ Niel said.
‘I was handling a shotgun while you were still at your mother’s teat.’
Which was patently a lie, Fitzgerald knew, but it was good to see Appleby regain his bluff façade.
‘I take it you have a root cellar in this old house, Edward.’
‘Yes, but I hardly see—’
‘Fine,’ Appleby went on blithely. ‘I shall make my bed down there tonight. Let the rotter burn us or bomb us. I shall be below ground impervious to his assaults, like my fellow countrymen when the Zeppelins fly over London. Here I am and here I shall remain. Besides, we have to finish our rubber. Are you a bridge man, Niel?’
‘Afraid not, Sir Adrian. I have my work cut out for me outside, anyway.’ He looked meaningfully at Lewis.
‘I guess I might as well join you,’ the inspector said to Niel. Then turning, he called down the hall, ‘Scott, Paxton.’
Two blue-uniformed policemen who had been designated personal bodyguards to Appleby came out into the hall from the sitting room doorway where they had been respectfully waiting.
‘I’ll be in the grounds for a time,’ Lewis said. ‘What are your orders?’
‘To stick with Mr Appleby here like glue,’ said Scott, the shorter, thicker of the two, who was built like a wrestler with a neck stouter than Fitzgerald’s thigh muscle.
‘And where have you been for the past few minutes, then?’ he demanded, and Scott’s face went red.
‘We were just by the door, sir,’ the other policeman, Paxton, protested. His voice was surprisingly high for a man so large; everything about him was massive, even his fingers which now played nervously on the leather twine around his neck holding his whistle.
‘From now on there are no private moments. Even at the toilet, I want one of you inside with Sir Adrian, the other stationed at the door outside. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the two said in almost exact unison.
‘If anybody you have not been introduced to thus far attempts to approach Appleby, you two shoot first and ask questions after. And that is not just Wild West hyperbole, but an order.’
Lewis turned abruptly from the two to glare down on Niel. ‘Shall we be going? I want to double check our men before nightfall.’
‘Not to worry, Lewis,’ Niel said in his most ingratiating faux Irish brogue. ‘We’re after having this under control.’ Then his roguish smile vanished suddenly, replaced by a determined and menacing squint. ‘Let the fool come near here tonight. It’ll be the end of him.’
Fitzgerald watched the two bundle up and go outdoors to check on the deployment, and as the door closed in back of them he looked at Appleby. It was as if his old friend were someplace else once more; his unfocussed gaze drifted out through the narrow hall window to a strip of crimson light low on the western horizon. Sunset.
Max waited patiently outside the offices of Western Union Telegraph Company at 1401 F Street in Washington.
He knew that having tracked him to the City post office, yellow vest most likely knew Max had discovered Brantley.
So what? he thought. They won’t move Appleby, not at this late date, and they won’t risk moving him at night, not if they fear I may be lurking about in the bushes with a sniper’s rifle.
The worst that has happened because of yellow vest is that they will be expecting me, but then they have always been expecting me. I’ll have to be careful on approach roads, but I’ll get through whatever obstacle they put in my way. After all, this is now a matter of wills. Mine against theirs. So they have a cartload of police out there at the estate: how many of those will be willing to lay down their lives to save Appleby? That’s the real algebra involved here: not a hundred of them against one of me, but my will and willingness to die to accomplish this mission, against theirs to simply do their job and live to put their feet up on the hob at the end of the day.
A shiver passed through him; he had never made this ultimate calculation before, but knew now that he was willing to give up his life in order to stop Appleby from getting to Wilson with the Zimmermann telegram; in order to stop further carnage in Flanders and all up and down the eastern and western fronts.
He watched a motorcyclist in leather helmet, uniform, and goggles pull up outside the telegraph company, dismount like an equestrian, pull the motorcycle up onto its stand, and dash into the office. Lights were coming on now throughout downtown Washington and the streets, wet from thaw, shone translucently with the incandescent light cast through hundreds of windows. Max watched through this particular window as the young leather-clad messenger went to the back desk of the telegraph office and talked to an older clerk there wearing wire-frame glasses and a black suit.
The messenger’s motorcycle coughed in the evening air, running ragged. In his haste he had left it going, something Max had been waiting the last hour for. He quickly moved to the motorcycle
, mounted it and pushed forward off the stand. Revving the engine once with the hand throttle, he quickly took stock of the configuration of brake and clutch. The machine throbbed between his legs like a living thing. He stepped the gear into first, slowly fed the throttle and sped off down F Street to the west, toward the strip of sunset glimmering like a streak of blood on the horizon.
Step one accomplished, he thought, smiling at the ease of it all.
SIXTEEN
Catherine and Thomas sat in the red roadster at the main gates to Brantley, a surly home guard sergeant leveling his carbine at them.
‘I tell you,’ she insisted once again, ‘I am Mrs Fitzgerald. This is my home.’
‘They’ll be along presently, ma’am,’ the sergeant said. ‘You just sit tight. No sudden moves, please.’
‘But this is absurd.’
She felt a hand at her arm, and turned to face Thomas.
‘This is no time for decrees, Miss Catherine. You don’t reason with a gun; you just sit tight like the man says.’
Thomas was right, she knew, but still it rankled that she should be denied entrance to her own home. They sat for a few more moments in relative silence, the car engine still running and the headlights casting twin antennae into the night. The grounds of Brantley looked as if there were hundreds of fireflies flittering about, and she only slowly came to understand that these were campfires and hurricane lanterns of police and army men who had come to protect her uncle. The roads leading to the estate had been guarded as well; she and Thomas had had to go through two separate sets of roadblocks just to reach the main gates. They would all have a cold night outside, she thought, and then felt badly for her complaints to this sergeant. After all, the man was only doing his job, trying to keep Uncle Adrian alive. I should be grateful rather than complaining, she castigated herself.
Yet she could not help it: she was anxious to get to the house, to see her husband, to find out exactly what Agent Niel had told him. She could hear footsteps coming down the drive; saw the bouncing beams cast by hand-held lanterns and a group of legs illuminated in their globes of light.
‘Sergeant Carson?’
Catherine recognized Chief Inspector Lewis’s gruff tones.
‘Over here, inspector,’ the sergeant answered, never taking his eyes off Catherine or Thomas. ‘Lady here says this is her house. Got a colored fellow with her.’
‘Catherine?’
This was her husband’s voice, and as the men approached she could make out his tall, straight form.
‘Yes, Edward,’ she called out to him. ‘Do please save us from execution in the morning.’
‘Open the gate, sergeant. It’s my wife.’
She could see him clearly now, illuminated in her headlights along with Lewis and another policeman, and the sergeant fitted the key in the huge lock. There was a clinking and clanking of metal against metal and the gate opened. Edward trotted out to the car.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘I’ve been worried sick trying to call you at Poplars all evening and getting no answer.’
‘I wanted to be with you,’ she said simply and honestly. Then teasingly she added, ‘I brought Thomas along for protection.’
‘The police on duty in Washington should never have let you leave,’ he said. ‘After what Niel told me today about M being at Poplars, I didn’t know what to think.’
‘I couldn’t stay at Poplars alone. I belong here, with you.’ And saying it, she suddenly realized that it was true.
‘Yes,’ Edward said reproachfully. ‘But all the same, it was damn silly of you. You shouldn’t have let her do it, Thomas.’
‘Don’t blame Thomas,’ she said sharply.
‘How in the name of God did you get by the guards at Poplars?’
She smiled. ‘I told them we were off to an embassy party.’
A half smile crossed his lips at this, she noticed.
‘May we get to the house now, or do you want to search us first?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he spluttered. Then turning back to the gate, he called out to Lewis, ‘We’ve got a couple more visitors. Best alert the men in the house.’
Catherine put the roadster in gear. ‘Hop on the running boards,’ she said, and to her surprise, Edward did. They traveled up the drive like that, with Edward hanging on for dear life as she drove along. Lights were everywhere, she noticed again. There were men scattered so thickly about the grounds that not even a field mouse could get into the house tonight.
There seemed no way for Max to be able to get to Adrian.
‘I could use a nice hot toddy,’ she said, turning off the engine and climbing out of the roadster.
‘You need a good firm reprimand,’ Edward said, jumping off the running board and suddenly hugging her to him. ‘But it was marvelous of you to come,’ he whispered in her ear.
Later, after freshening up, Catherine sat at one end of the dinner table, Edward at the other. In between, on opposite sides, were Niel and Lewis. Appleby sat next to Lewis. Dress was country casual. At the door to the dining room were two massive policemen introduced to Catherine as Scott and Paxton, though she was unsure which was which. It was a relatively quiet meal, at least as far as Catherine was concerned. When meeting Niel again she nodded but turned away before he could make polite talk.
She smiled prettily for the men and picked desultorily at her roasted potatoes and veal.
‘This is a quite decent bottle of claret, Edward,’ Appleby said.
Fitzgerald looked up from his plate distractedly. ‘Pardon? The wine. Yes, it is drinkable, isn’t it?’
Catherine was surprised at his distraction; Edward is usually so attentive, she thought. Clearly all this has been affecting him as much as any of us. She cut a small chunk of the veal and forked it into her mouth. It had no taste for her; neither did the potatoes or the wine.
‘What is it?’ Appleby went on. ‘St Emilion? It has that sort of lime soil aftertaste.’
‘Californian, actually,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘The Napa Valley.’
Appleby held the wine glass out at arms length in shock. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘No,’ Fitzgerald said, smiling. ‘They’re beginning to put out some fine wines there.’
Appleby shook his head, holding the glass in front of the candles in one of the silver candelabra on the table, and examined the deep red color in the flame’s light. ‘Incredible,’ he said. ‘Next they’ll be making wine in Australia. Gold diggers and convicts become the great vintners.’
Thomas entered the dining room quietly, surprising them all by a sudden question: ‘Shall I clear for desert now, Miss Catherine?’
She quickly surveyed the plates. ‘Not yet, Thomas. I’ll call.’
‘Very well.’ He backed out of the room, a faint smile on his lips.
A violent pounding at the front door suddenly sounded. Scott and Paxton on duty in the dining room drew their weapons. Suddenly another policeman from the hallway rapped on the door to the dining room and Scott opened it carefully. The policeman at the door had wide eyes and was out of breath. He sucked in air and said excitedly, ‘They’ve got him, sir. Down by the front gates.’
Max drove north out of Washington on Connecticut Avenue, suspecting that the roads leading more directly to Brantley Hall, either along the Potomac or via River Road, would be closely watched, perhaps even blocked. He was amazed at how quickly he reached the countryside of Maryland. Here and there along the roadside were lights in the windows of the great estates, brick-pillared entryways in front. An occasional car passed, heading south into the city. No other traffic seemed to be going his way. The moon, low on the horizon, came out from behind a haze of clouds and lit the winter landscape all around.
Max was not dressed for a motorcycle, wearing only the army tunic and breeches he’d borrowed from Karl at the hobo camp. He had discarded the coat and derby he’d stolen this afternoon at Union Station, opting to keep the military uniform. After all, he reasoned, W
ashington is full of service men, and there are sure to be more at Fitzgerald’s estate. Why risk buying or stealing a new set of clothes when the military uniform could still be my best disguise?
But it did little to keep the chill out as he sped along the nearly deserted country road. A rabbit skittered across the road in front of him at one point, and he gripped the brakes, skidding across the road into the opposite lane. No traffic was coming, but the incident brought him out of his planning reverie and he realized he had traveled far enough north. He then headed west on small back roads, using the moon as his direction finder. In his mind was a fair reproduction of the road systems leading to Brantley Hall from the northeast, a direction from which the police would not, he hoped, be expecting him.
He was wrong about that, however. Some three miles above Brantley, Max caught a glimpse of brake lights ahead of him. He pulled over, cutting his engine immediately. It could just be a cautious driver, he thought. A sharp curve ahead. But he could take no chances. The night silence became profound after the noise of his engine died and his ears took a moment to adjust, like eyes to night vision. He heard the slamming of a vehicle door up the road, voices, then the gunning of an engine and the slow grind of a truck pulling away and going through its gears. More silence as the truck got further and further away. Then the sound of voices again from just up the road.
Max pushed the motorcycle off the side of the road into a thicket of bushes and concealed it under branches. There was nothing he could do about his footprints in the snow leading in and out of the thicket, but by the feel of the air temperature now that he was not moving, he knew there would be a melt tonight. Besides, he reasoned, who will be coming along with a light tonight to search for footprints in the snow? They’re looking for me on the roads, not in hiding. By the time it’s light, I’ll be long gone from here.
He made his way along the side of the road for a time, the puttees quickly becoming soaked in the calf-high snow. Ahead he caught the glimmer of lantern light, and the sound of voices was even more distinct. As he approached the light, he maneuvered further off the road, making his way now through a copse of bare trees that provided a modicum of cover for him. The moon was in front of him; there would be no backlight to silhouette him. He moved cautiously through the snow, careful not to step on branches or stumble in the dark. Soon enough he could see the source of the light: two policemen with a roadblock effected by their car turned sideways to halt traffic. One of the police was stumping up and down the road in front of the car, while the other crouched near a fire built out of scrub brush.
The German Agent Page 21