Merlin at War

by Mark Ellis

  This morning, she felt a little guilty as she thought of Tommy Cole, who had shared with her the small room down the corridor from the chief inspector, in which she now sat. Robinson quickly shrugged off the feeling as she picked up the pile of new regional missing persons reports on her desk and got to work. An hour later, she had ploughed through them all. None was positive.

  She sighed before opening the note that had just arrived from the Knightsbridge telephone exchange. ‘Re your enquiry as to telephone number KNI 4897, I would be grateful if you could come round in person to discuss. Please feel free to call in any time today. Yours Faithfully, Miss E Brinton’. She took down a book from one of the shelves behind her. It contained, among other things, the addresses of all the London telephone exchanges. The Knightsbridge exchange was in a street around the corner from Harrods. She could get there in 20 minutes.

  * * *

  New York

  Anton Meyer woke early after another disturbed night in the small apartment off Washington Square he shared with his wife. He was finding sleep increasingly difficult these days. Meyer, a slight, dark young man with deep-set eyes, slid out of bed and went to the bathroom, where he splashed water on his face to the background accompaniment of his wife’s gentle snoring. He wanted to get out before Ruth woke up. Last night there had been another argument. Although he worked somewhere he was downtrodden, overworked and unappreciated, it was often a relief to escape to the office these days.

  Meyer brushed his teeth and shaved as quickly as he could. Ruth had stopped snoring but was still asleep, as far as he could tell. He dressed, picked up his briefcase and slipped through the front door. The office was on West 23rd Street, just around the corner from the Flatiron Building. It was not a long walk. He made good time and grabbed a coffee from a stall on the corner of Broadway and 23rd. As he drank, he watched a couple of tramps in Madison Square Park ease themselves out of their makeshift newspaper-and-rag bedding. He glanced at the old Swiss watch his father had given him long ago. It was just after seven o’clock and the building should now be open. As he entered, the Irish doorman greeted him cheerfully. “Hello there, Mr Meyer. Top of the morning to you.”

  “Same to you, Al.” Meyer smiled. The doorman’s jolly exchanges in the morning and evening were often the only friendly words he would hear all day.

  The elevator took him to the sixth floor, where he entered the glass-plated doors of accountancy firm Liebman and Sachs. The frizzy-haired receptionist was not yet in position to give him her accustomed severe glare of welcome. Meyer made his way to the small box-room at the back of the office, next to the toilets, where he had been working since he joined the firm a year and a half before. Stacks of audit files lay piled high on his desk. The room had a small window that looked out on the small window of another office in an adjoining building. Occasionally he saw a pretty young girl working there but the hour was too early for her to appear just yet.

  Meyer sat down and reached into one of the desk drawers. He took out the letter he had collected the day before from his box at the General Post Office Building opposite Penn Station. He had already read it many times. He took it out of its envelope and read it again. There was a decision to be made about the money. It was disappearing very rapidly and he was starting to think that Ruth might be right. From the outset she had said that he was on a fool’s errand and they were wasting money that could have got them out of their cheap hovel in the Village and into a decent apartment. Shaking his head, he put the letter back in its envelope. He stared for a moment at the blue-and-white Buenos Aires postmark before he heard the sound of approaching footsteps and stuffed the letter back in the desk.

  A dumpy middle-aged man with a pock-marked face came in with two thick files, which he dumped onto Meyer’s overflowing in-tray. “Better get a move on, Meyer. Mr Sachs wants all this work done by tomorrow. Looks like you might be burning the midnight oil again.”

  “Very good, Mr Kramer.”

  Kramer turned on his heels and disappeared, leaving the smell of cheap aftershave to linger in the air.

  * * *

  London

  “Pleased to meet you, Constable. Elizabeth Brinton. My office is over here.” Robinson followed the surprisingly young Miss Brinton around the busy banks of switchboard equipment and attendant operators into a small room well insulated from the noise outside.

  The two women seated themselves on either side of an oval desk. There was a strong smell of cigarettes and an open packet of Player’s lay between them. “I don’t know how I’d get through this war without a cigarette.” Miss Brinton lit up and smoke filtered out of her nostrils. “It’s better than being a drunk, I suppose. Would you care for one? No? Very well. To business. Sorry to put you to the trouble of visiting me but I thought it best to tell you what I have to say in person. Managing an exchange can make one a little paranoid about security. One knows that there are many ways in which telephone security can be breached.”

  “Not at all, Miss Brinton, although I would have thought that lines to Scotland Yard were pretty safe.”

  “You might think that, Constable. You might think that, but…” Miss Brinton gave Robinson an enigmatic look.

  “Is there a security concern here? I am trying to track down a number we found on a murder victim.”

  Her interviewee smiled coyly. Miss Brinton’s face was an odd amalgam of features. Attractive eyes and nose but a strangely tilted and heavy-lipped mouth. “The number you gave me is unlisted.”

  “I know that, but, as a policewoman, I am entitled to know the line-holder’s full details.”

  “I am afraid that’s only partly the case in this instance. I can tell you that number is one of a few allocated to the security services. I can also tell you that if anyone enquires about such a number, I have standing instructions to notify the secret services. I have already told them of your enquiry. They got back to me a few hours later and told me to tell you what I have just said. They also asked me to tell you that it is possible they might get in touch with you to discuss your case – or they might not.”

  Robinson was taken aback. What on earth could a dead abortionist have had to do with the security services? “Can you tell me if this is a number used at offices of the security services, or perhaps at an agent’s house or flat, or…”

  “Of course I can’t, Constable. I can tell you no more than I just have.”

  Miss Brinton’s cigarette smoke now filled the room and Robinson found her eyes watering. She stood. “Well, thank you. I suppose I’ll have to wait and see if I’m called.”

  “I suppose you will.”

  * * *

  There was little enthusiasm at Dorset Square for another meeting with the police but an appointment was eventually agreed for the early afternoon. Over a mid-morning cup of tea, Merlin was having an interesting discussion with Goldberg about alternative British and American policing, when the telephone rang.

  “Hello. Who’s that? Say again? Madre de Dios, is that really you, Eddie? How the hell are you? You don’t sound yourself.”

  “I’m very tired, Frank. But I’m alive, thank God.”

  “I heard you were in Crete. What was it like?”

  “Awful. Bloody awful, as you can imagine. On top of that I’ve had an exhausting journey home. And then to cap… but never mind. That can wait. I’d love to see you for a chat and a drink. Any chance of doing that today?”

  “I’ve got a meeting this afternoon. Why don’t you come to the office around six o’clock? I should be able to get away then. How’s Celia?”

  “That’s what I thought could wait but… she’s leaving me, Frank.”

  “I’m very sorry, Eddie. What can I say?”

  “Nothing, Frank. There is something I need to talk to you about. Nothing to do with Celia, a little advice I need. I’ll tell you about it tonight. Look forward to seeing you later.” The line went dead.

  “Something wrong, Frank?”

  “A friend of mine just got bac
k home. Edgar Powell. Managed to get out of Crete alive. That’s the good news. The bad news is that his wife just left him.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” They could hear the sound of aircraft in the distance. “There’s a lot of it about, I understand. Women letting down soldiers while they’re in action, I mean. Heard a few stories like that at the Embassy last night. A close friend?”

  “We were at the police academy together. He was from a reasonably well-off family. A good school and university education. There weren’t so many around like that then – or now for that matter. Despite our different backgrounds we hit it off, played football together, shared a couple of postings. Then he met this girl, Celia, a bit of a snob who didn’t really like the idea of being hitched to a policeman. Soon after they got married he packed it in. His family owned a large publishing company. Eddie had been determined to avoid working there but Celia nagged him and eventually he gave in and joined the family firm. We used to meet up as couples very occasionally, he and Celia and me and my… my late wife, Alice. He said he missed the force but he’d made his choice. He seemed happy enough with her then but now…” Merlin gazed through his open office window at the clouds banking up over the river. “Ever been married, Bernie?”

  “Just the once, Frank. It didn’t take and we only lasted about a year. Like Celia, Abbie wasn’t so happy about being married to a policeman but not for snobbish reasons. She didn’t like the hours or the danger. She would have been preferred a nine-to-five job of any kind for me. Luckily there were no children.”

  “Alice and I would have loved to have had kids. I suppose it’s a good job that we didn’t. If you haven’t yet picked it up on the office grapevine, I was married to Alice for a few years. We were very happy but she contracted leukaemia and died a year or so before the war started.” Merlin thoughtfully ran a finger over the Eiffel Tower paperweight on his desk. Alice had bought it for him on their last holiday together in Paris in the summer of 1938.

  “But now you have someone else…”

  “Yes, now I have Sonia, as you have learned on the Yard grapevine. Met her in a case at the beginning of last year. She’s Polish. Also part-Jewish. Luckily the family got out of Poland just in time and made it here. Penniless, of course. She had to cut a few corners to survive but ended up with a decent salesgirl’s job. Somehow or other she took to me and… so she’s with me in Chelsea.”

  “Too soon for marriage?”

  Merlin smiled awkwardly. “Maybe one day. She’s a lovely girl. We’ll see. And you, Bernie? Met any nice girls over here on your visit? I know you haven’t had much time but we understand you Yanks are fast movers when it comes to the opposite sex.”

  “There were a few beauties at the party last night but none had eyes for this ugly cop. The prettiest girl I’ve seen in London so far, though, is your Constable Robinson. She’s a real looker. I love that little beauty spot below her nose.”

  Merlin’s eyebrows went up. “Please, Bernie, don’t!” Merlin wagged a finger. “I’ve had quite enough trouble with office romances already. Hands off! She’s spoken for, anyway. If you’ve got time to find anyone while you’re here, make it anyone other than a policewoman – please!”

  * * *

  Cairo

  Lieutenant June Mason watched with increasing concern as the tall, middle-aged man in French military uniform paced up and down the chequered marble floor of the anteroom over which she presided. She had told him several times that the commander-in-chief would see him as soon as his officers’ planning meeting had finished. Mason had pointed out, in her very best schoolgirl French, that these meetings often went on for two or three hours and had suggested that her visitor return to his nearby hotel, where she would telephone him the instant the commander-in-chief became available.

  This enquiry had been dismissed with an imperious glare. Despite the pacing, the heat and the inadequate circulation of the room’s fans, the visitor’s face displayed no hint of perspiration. The lieutenant herself could feel two lines of sweat trickling slowly down the back of her neck. She returned to her paperwork.

  An hour later, the old English grandfather clock in the corner had just chimed twice when the large double doors opened and a troupe of English officers filed noisily out. The French officer stopped pacing and acknowledged with a curt nod one or two of the departing soldiers. Lieutenant Mason hurried through the doors and told her boss, Archibald Wavell, that he had a guest. Wavell, who was finishing one of the ham sandwiches left over from the officers’ lunch, agreed with a sigh that the gentleman should be shown in forthwith.

  The general greeted his guest in his serviceable French. “How are you, my friend? What can I do for you?” Wavell inclined his head to one of the chairs opposite him at the table. Charles de Gaulle seated himself carefully. “Care for a sandwich, Charles? They’re very good. I understand you have been waiting some time so I would guess you haven’t eaten.”

  De Gaulle declined with an abrupt shake of the head.

  “You know it really would have been more sensible if you’d have rung Lieutenant Mason for an appointment. It would have saved you all this waiting around. You know what these planning meetings are like.”

  “Should I not have been invited to the planning meeting myself, General Wavell?”

  “Archie, please Charles, call me Archie. No need to stand on ceremony here, old boy.”

  De Gaulle stared icily at his host and ran a long, bony finger over his moustache. “You do not think my point worth responding to, General Wavell? Why am I not invited to such meetings as a matter of course? Do I not represent the Free French army and, behind them, the true French nation? Are we not your close allies? Are we not fighting together at this very moment in Syria and the Lebanon?”

  Wavell shifted uncomfortably in his seat, before rising to walk over to the window. He looked out at the square and watched a group of soldiers being marshalled together by a sergeant major for some task or other. He could hear the rapid drumming of de Gaulle’s figures on the table behind him. This was not the first conversation of this sort he had had with Charles de Gaulle and no doubt would not be the last. Then again, he mused, perhaps he wouldn’t be around to hear him much longer. Rumours of his possible recall from Cairo were rife.

  This fellow Churchill, as his friend Field Marshal Alan Brooke often said, was like a runaway train. There was no doubting the man’s particular genius, but his claims to superior ability in military strategic thinking were dubious. Wavell’s long military experience had inculcated in him a healthy respect for caution and conservatism in military affairs. Churchill’s political career bore witness to a preference for recklessness over caution. It was inevitable that the two men would clash eventually and in such a clash the civilian master could be the only winner.

  However, the rumour mill was not always accurate and Archie Wavell had many friends in high places. He extracted a handkerchief from a jacket pocket and blew his nose loudly before returning to his seat. “Charles, we hold British military planning meetings for British officers. Then there are other military planning meetings coordinated with – and fully involving – our partners and allies such as your Free French. You, no doubt, have your own independent military planning meetings.”

  De Gaulle raised an eyebrow. “You know very well, General Wavell, that we are not in a position to plan and mount military operations ourselves. Such French-only meetings are accordingly pointless. I know that your supposedly all-British meetings include Australian officers. Why Australians and not French?”

  Wavell picked up another sandwich. This one contained some sort of local speciality he had forgotten the name of. It looked like fish paste but smelt nothing like it. Surprisingly, it didn’t taste too bad. He chewed it slowly and watched the muscles in de Gaulle’s jaw twitch. Eventually he swallowed and replied. “No doubt, my friend, you meet with your officers to plan what you think is the best way forward militarily and then bring forward those agreed views for discussion in our broader
Allied meetings. As regards the Australians, I need hardly remind you that Australia is part of the British Empire.”

  “You speak of empire, General. We too have an empire and our combined forces are now in action in part of that empire. To be more precise, on Sunday there were thrusts from north and south by the Allied forces into Syria and the Lebanon. Yesterday part of your dear Australian contingent was engaged in battle near the Litani River. And how do I have this information? I have it only from my men at the front. Have I been briefed by you, the commanding officer of the campaign? No! You have told me nothing. Why am I being kept in the dark? It is the same back in England. Churchill does his best to avoid telling me anything. You know it’s true.” De Gaulle’s hunger finally got the better of him and he reached out for one of the two remaining hummus sandwiches.

  Wavell and all the most senior British military commanders knew very well that Churchill was reluctant to pass on any meaningful military information to de Gaulle partly because of personal animosity and partly because MI5 kept on telling him that the Free French organisation in London was not secure.

  Wavell looked wearily back at de Gaulle, knowing that whatever he said would not placate the man. “I am sorry if you are put out by any apparent failings in the communication of military developments to you and your colleagues. I shall consult London about the appropriate protocols for liaison with you. Now, if you will excuse me, General.” He got to his feet.

  De Gaulle also rose, his face reddening. “I learned a new English phrase the other day from one of the American diplomats here – soft-soaping. Do I have that right? It is a useful phrase, I think. London will no doubt assist you in soft-soaping me but please know this…” de Gaulle moved around the table and stood within inches of Wavell.