Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  “So you’ve heard.”

  “Sir John has a gentleman in his employ at the Orkney house. He passed the news to us. He also mentioned a visit by some American military officers. Would these be…?”

  “Well, the poor fellow was an American, you know.”

  “I didn’t know. How does this relate to Sir John?”

  “Might I call you Gordon? As we do know each other.” Before he could object, “Understand, Gordon, the fellow was killed practically at Sir Johnnie’s door.”

  “I’m not aware that anyone has made any connection with Sir John —”

  “Ah, well, Gordon, one thing leads to another, eh? And in the course of the investigation into the poor lad’s fate, it appears that someone may be misusing Sir Johnnie’s property thereabouts.”

  “Really.”

  “It’s not hard to suppose that maybe the one has something to do with the other.”

  “Actually, I find it quite hard to suppose that, and even more difficult to see you bringing Sir John into the affair. Sir John hasn’t been to the Orkney property since it was acquired years ago. How is it, Mr. Owen, that you and your publication have come to be involved?”

  “Well, it’s a juicy story, isn’t it? Someone of Sir Johnnie’s —”

  “Sir John, please.”

  “— apologies, Sir John, someone of Sir John’s position involved —”

  “As I said, I don’t think the circumstances constitute involvement.”

  “Well, that’ll be for our readers to decide, eh, Gordon?” Gordon Fordyce allowed a slight wrinkling of his brow He turned to the Yanks, sighted Harry’s major’s leaves, and addressed him, assuming him, as senior officer, to be leader of the gang. “Major, I wasn’t aware that your service had become so lax in sharing military information.”

  “Well, you see, Gordon, in a strict manner of speaking, this is not exactly a military matter,” I explained. “Our American friends are looking at this as a criminal matter. No different from some American johnnie getting himself knocked dead in a pub brawl. No reason for Official Secrets and all that. I heard about the lad from one of my contacts at the Yard. A good reporter has an ear everywhere, Gordon, you should know that. In the process of looking into it, I bumped into these gentlemen who were pursuing the same line of inquiry; we thought we’d pool our resources, and voila.”

  “Voici.” Fordyce sighed. “There seem to be quite a few of you for a routine criminal inquiry.”

  “No one said it was routine, eh, Gordon? The thing of it is, we really should talk to Sir John before something goes into print that shouldn’t. Maybe the squire can put this right for us, clear up any misunderstandings. You wouldn’t want a misunderstanding on the front page.”

  “Front page? This?”

  “It may not seem much to you, not in the grand scheme of things, but it is, as I say, a juicy story, a real mystery in the grand manner. You know how the reading public loves their true crime: Sweeney Todd, Jack the Ripper, Dr. Crippen —”

  “This hardly seems of the same caliber, Mr. Owen.” Fordyce drew a gold watch from his trouser watch pocket, opened the watch cover, then closed it with his thumb, slowly. The click echoed in the high-ceilinged vestibule. “Sir John will be home shortly. Perhaps you should speak with him. This way, please.”

  We were led to a large, bright solarium at the back of the house, overlooking a slate veranda and thereafter the gravel paths and fallow beds of a garden nearly half as wide as the house. As we entered, Harry caught up with me and held out his hand for the note I’d sent Fordyce. Fordyce pulled a bell rope to summon the butler. “I think you’ll be comfortable here. Alden, take their coats, and I think some morning refreshment would be in order for our guests.” Then poor little Alden departed, struggling under the weight of our coats and headwear; Gordon Fordyce followed him out, closing the high glass doors behind him.

  The Yanks had all done a fair job of maintaining their composure up until then. The grins blossomed.

  “Well, day-um!” Woody Kneece blurted. “My momma taught me not to brag, but I’ll tell you that back home, we live all right. I thought our house was something. But this… He turned toward Ricks, now lighting up a cigarette on the settee. “As I remember from doing some homework on you, Lieutenant, factually speaking your family lives pretty good, too. The law pays good out there in the Golden State.” “Captain, there’s money and there’s money.” Ricks let his unbandaged eye roam round the room.

  “And this is money!” Kneece agreed. “You wonder why with this kind of dough this fella doesn’t get himself a secretary with better-looking legs. Eddie, where do you know this Fordyce fella from?”

  “A professional encounter.”

  “That was no love note you sent him,” Ricks said.

  Harry turned the note over to Ricks, then faced me with a puzzled smile. The note read:

  What’s the going price of peace in our time?

  I parked myself in a winged wicker chair across from Ricks and cadged one of his cigarettes. “It was the fall of 1938,” I began in my best once-upon-a-time sonority, “right after Chamberlain had returned with the Munich Pact. You remember… ‘Peace in our time.’ In commemoration of continued amity on the Continent, Sir Johnnie hosted a celebratory soiree here at Belleville. His good chum Ambassador Kennedy was in attendance, the Astors were here, and —”

  “That Cliveden set you were telling me about,” Harry said.

  “Aye, all saluting Chamberlain’s triumph over the warmongers. Well, obviously, it was quite the féte soignée, as our little froggy amis across the Channel might say, fair game for my society column colleagues. I managed entry on the coattails of the lady who scribbles my paper’s column and she has yet to forgive me for that night.”

  “This sounds like it’s going to be good,” Kneece said.

  “So, there arises that time in the evening when Sir Johnnie feels the call to raise his glass and toast the renewed peace. Some sentimental lass bemoans the fate dealt out at Munich to the poor Czechs, and Sir Johnnie says, with grave sympathy for our eastern brothers, ‘‘Tis a pity, but peace comes at a high price.’ Perhaps I’d too much to drink, or perhaps I was simply galled at how serenely they’d all written off the Czechs. In any case, I couldn’t let such an opportunistic choice of imagery go unused. I raised my hand: ‘Um, pardon, Sir John, a question? Purely a financial concern.’ ‘Certainly, lad, let’s have it.’ ‘Sir John, this price of peace: Is that a fixed fee? Or will we have to give Adolf another slice of Europe at a later date to keep pace with inflation?’ Of course, that went over so delightfully, I couldn’t leave off just then. ‘Or is this an installment arrangement? Will we be giving Adolf a fresh slice of Europe every first of the month?’”

  “Should’ve quit early,” Ricks advised. “You started to beat it to death there.”

  “Mr. Fordyce sicced two rather bulky doormen on me to escort me out. ‘Sir John! Sir John! The next payment to Adolf — will you ask for volunteers, or will they be conscripts like the Czechs?’”

  “I’m surprised they let you get all that out,” Harry said.

  “They were pushing me toward the door, but I had two good legs under me then. However, after that last bit, they became positively rude and out I went. Tore the sleeve on my dinner jacket, ended up costing me another ten quid to the chap at the to-let shop. Wasn’t long after that my boss thought it might not be a bad idea if I spend some time at one of the foreign bureaus. And that is how I wound up in Singapore.” I patted my wooden leg.

  Alden returned just then, pushing a teacart ahead of him. He told us to help ourselves and exited. We served ourselves, and I lingered over the cart with Harry.

  I pointed out to him the freshness of the melon and strawberries. I dabbed my fingertip in my mouth —”Pardon my poor manners” — and touched it to the contents of the full sugar bowl, then licked my fingertip. “It’s not saccharin.”

  I knew he was thinking of the contents of the burned-out C-47 hulk back
at Kap Farvel.

  “Hey!” Kneece called from the windows. “Is that him?”

  “No,” I said.

  From a far wood topping a knoll descended a horse-drawn wagon and a pair of outriders. As the party drew closer I could make out the features of the men on horseback: Both looked to be in their thirties, one dark, the other fair, both possessed of the same square-jawed good looks. On the bench of the wagon sat a man and woman. As they drew up to the far side of the garden, Gordon Pordyce hurried toward them from the house. While one groom took the two saddle horses after the riders had dismounted, another held the dray horse while two more slid a large fir from the back of the wagon. Fordyce grabbed the fair-haired man and pulled him aside.

  At first, Fordyce seemed to be doing all the speaking. The other man stood by, head bent, as if listening and considering intently He said something brief to Fordyce which agitated the secretary The fair-haired man waved a good-bye to the other members of his party and began moving toward the house. Fordyce interposed himself again.

  “Do you recognize him?” Harry asked me.

  I shook my head, but was no longer quite sure.

  The man flashed Fordyce a comforting smile, patted him soothingly on the shoulder, but the look on his face remained firm. Fordyce stepped aside to let the man by, then followed him toward the house.

  “I don’t know about you fellas,” Kneece said, “but I’m curious.”

  We heard their footsteps in the hallway, then the door to the solarium opened. Fordyce stayed by the door as the younger man entered. His wide, handsome face was lined and tanned from weather, but in a way that gave him a vital, athletic air, emphasized by his riding wear, the smile of even white teeth, the broad but light step of his walk.

  “Good day, sirs!” he declared jovially. “My friend Gordon Fordyce tells me you are here for Sir John.” There was a slight accent in his speech, a sibilance on the s’s, a hardness to the consonants. “I am Erik Sommer. There are so many of you. To whom do I introduce myself first?”

  I stepped forward and took his outstretched hand, introducing myself. “Mr. Sommer, have we met?”

  “Not that I recall,” he replied, but I saw something in his eyes, the same doubt I was feeling, the same vague tickling of familiarity. “I am rarely come to this country, and most always as Sir John’s guest. But” — a good-natured shrug, and that beaming smile — “who knows? And your friends, Mr. Owen?” I introduced the others. Sommer went from one handshake to the next, but took an extra moment with Peter Ricks, his light blue eyes drawn to the square of gauze over the lieutenant’s eye.

  “Not so serious, I hope?” he said to the lieutenant, still holding his hand.

  “Getting better all the time,” Ricks answered.

  “Ah, good. This was an accident? Or no? You have been in the fighting?”

  “The lieutenant’s on medical leave from Italy,” I said.

  An odd considered look crossed Sommer’s face, but it was fleeting and the smile returned. He clasped a second hand round Ricks’s. “It is good you are back safe and feeling well.”

  “Thank you,” Ricks said.

  “That also is from Italy?” Sommer pointed at the bandage on Woody Kneece’s forehead.

  “Travel mishap,” Kneece said.

  Sommer gestured toward the teacart. “I see that Gordon provides for you. Very good. That is how Sir John would prefer. Do you mind if I share? Warm the blood?” He poured himself a cup of coffee. “Gordon! Where is the chocolate? I know it is a gift for Sir John, but I think he would offer it to his guests. Especially on this chill day.”

  As Fordyce rang for Alden, there was some fuss in the hall. Through the open solarium door we could see two grooms wrestling seven feet of fir tree from the wagon down the main hall.

  “A Christmas tree?” Kneece guessed.

  “Ah, yes!” Sommer said. “It is something, a good feeling here” — he thumped his chest — “when you bring the tree down yourself. It was Sir John’s suggestion. ‘Go, find a tree, Erik,’ he says. ‘Get the winter air in your lungs! It is good to make the body work!’ Do you know Sir John?”

  “Not personally,” I said.

  “Ah, professionally,” he said, as if this were some sly conclusion. “He never grows old, Sir John. He knows: Make the body work!”

  “As we’d say in my part of the United States, Mr. Sommer, you don’t sound like you’re from around these parts,” Kneece commented.

  It took Sommer a moment to decipher the statement. “Pardon? Oh, yes, I see! No, no, not from these parts. My friends, they as well are not from these parts.”

  “Mr. Sommer and his party are guests of Sir John,” Fordyce interjected.

  “All these rooms,” Sommer said, indicating Sir John Duff’s mansion, “and he gives us our own house!”

  Again Fordyce amplified: “They have guest rooms in the carriage house.”

  Past his shoulder I saw Kneece and Harry exchange a quick word between themselves, finalized by a short nod of agreement from Harry.

  “Um, excuse me, Mr. Fordyce,” Kneece said. “You know, it was a long ride out here and I think maybe I drank a little too much of your coffee. Is there someplace where, as the saying goes, I can freshen up?”

  It was another turn of phrase that took Sommer a moment to interpret. When he did he laughed. “Yes, yes! ‘Freshen up’!” Alden had appeared. Fordyce whispered some instructions, then the butler led Kneece out.

  “Where is that young man from?” Sommer asked. “His English is like music!”

  Harry told him.

  “He comes a long way, this young man,” Sommer said, nodding thoughtfully. “All this way to talk to Sir John? It must be very… what is the word? Grave? Gordon says you are here for some trouble with Sir John.”

  “Just a few questions,” I said.

  “In what regard, may I ask?”

  “I don’t think it’s our place to share that with you,” Harry put in. “If Sir John wants to tell you, that’s one thing —”

  “Ah, I see, quite discreet.” Sommer nodded approvingly. “Oh, come now, Harry!” I declared. “We’ve just finished telling ol’ Gordon here that this may all very likely wind up on the front page of my rag! No sense being all sly and tricky now!”

  “The newspapers?” Sommer was as good at the game as Gordon Fordyce. There was no alarm to it, no indication of more than a casual curiosity. “It must be quite important.”

  “Oh, not so important,” I said. “But the sort of news that brings a few pence ’cross the counter. But I think your chum Gordon and I would probably agree that based on what we know, there’s nothing for you to be worried about. Eh, Gordon? It seems obvious, the matter doesn’t concern Mr. Sommer, eh?”

  “I only worry for Sir John,” Sommer said. “I do business with Sir John, but I think myself also a friend, you see? So I do have the concern.”

  “What kind of business would that be, Mr. Sommer?” Ricks asked.

  “Steel. My friends and I, we represent several makers — What is the word, Gordon? Manufacturers? Yes, several manufacturers of steel. In Sweden.”

  “I thought that was all tick when Norway fell,” I said.

  “‘All tick’?”

  “Done in. Finished.” I turned to Harry and Ricks. “When Sweden declared its neutrality at the beginning of the war, the understanding accepted by all sides was that Sweden would continue to sell steel both to us and the Germans. The closest port to the Swedish steel mills was Narvik, up in the Norwegian hinterlands. But when Jerry took Norway, well, it’s become something of a one-way arrangement since then, between the Swedes and the Germans. I trust that’s a fair and unprejudiced way of explaining the situation, Mr. Sommer?”

  “It is your country, Mr. Owen. However you choose to say.”

  “If you’re not doing business with Sir John anymore, what brings you to England?” Harry asked.

  Gordon Fordyce stepped forward. “Mr. Sommer is a guest, gentlemen, and as such, there�
�s no need for him to be pestered with your inquiry.”

  Sommer held up an assuaging hand. “Thank you, Gordon. But I understand. These men have a job, yes? In their job they must be thorough.”

  “No stone unturned,” Ricks agreed. There was a certain barb to it that Sommer either missed or ignored.

  “So I ask again,” Harry began, “Mr. Sommer, if you’re not doing business with Sir John anymore, what brings you here?”

  “The holiday! Sir John and I are long friends. Sir John should not sit in this big empty house by himself on Christmas!”

  “It’s nice Sir John has such good friends,” Ricks said.

  “I am curious,” Sommer said, “if you permit; this problem for Sir John, have you made any progress? Are you learning?”

  “All the time,” Ricks replied.

  Sommer set his coffee cup down and studied the lieutenant. His smile seemed to take on the same barbed edge as Ricks’s pronouncements. “Mr. Owen, you were going to say to me about this story your newspaper will have.”

  “Ah, yes, well —”

  We all froze. As if on musical cue, a single piano note drifted through the air from somewhere far off in the house. There followed a second, then a third, tentative initial notes all, then they began to flow with increasing smoothness in a gentle, bittersweet melody.

  Gordon Fordyce closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if restoking his infinite patience.

  I saw Harry smile. “Woody,” he said.

  We followed Fordyce out into the vestibule. Something ahead froze him and he moved deferentially to the wall. Beyond him we saw the open front doors of the house. Outside, parked beside our Army sedan, was a Bentley, its chauffeur standing by the open passenger door. On a bench across from an open door that led off the vestibule sat John Duff. There was a small smile on the baronet’s craggy face, a smile as bittersweet as the music issuing from the room across the hall.

  Though Sir John was in his seventies, there was nothing frail or failing about him. He may have had a thickened middle, but his chest was broad, his shoulders straight. The sweep of hair atop the leonine face was chalk white but full; the small green eyes surrounded by puffy folds of skin penetrating.