The Bells of Hell

by Michael Kurland

  ‘Funny,’ Welker said. ‘I am truly glad to see Captain Lord Saboy – or is it Lord Captain Saboy? I can never remember, but a fuss was somehow not called for.’

  ‘The occasion of our last association was not one that leads to boisterous reminiscences,’ Geoffrey agreed. ‘But it is good to see you again. And it isn’t either of those horrible appellations. It would be either “Lord Geoffrey”, or “Captain Saboy”, or “Captain Lord Geoffrey Saboy”. Or if it’s a state occasion—’

  ‘Spare us,’ Patricia said.

  ‘You’re right, dear, of course.’ He turned to Welker. ‘Let us drop the ranks and titles,’ he said. ‘I’m done with ranks and have no need for titles.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Welker agreed.

  Patricia noted the head waiter standing silently by the table holding the menus and ostentatiously not clearing his throat. ‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, ‘we should consider the food?’

  Taking his cue, the head waiter stepped forward and pulled out the chair for Welker before handing the menus around. ‘Chef Martine has two specials this evening,’ he announced. ‘Ris de veau aux champignons and Osso bucco à la Milanese. And he told me to mention to his lordship that he could do for him a lobster with drawn garlic butter if he desires. And also tonight we have the pommes soufflée.’

  ‘Thank you, Arnold,’ Geoffrey said.

  Arnold bowed and retreated, and Geoffrey turned back to Welker. ‘Patricia tells me you’ve become a private ’tec.’

  ‘For a while,’ Welker told him, ‘but now I’m back in government service.’

  ‘The old game?’

  ‘You could say that. Which is what I want to talk to you about,’ Welker said. ‘But later.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Geoffrey said carefully, ‘there is something to discuss. But it will require a bit of, ah, discussion.’

  ‘Go over that again,’ said Welker.

  ‘Later,’ Geoffrey said.

  The waiter came and spoke and asked and suggested and nodded agreement through the moments of dinner-ordering, and it was decided that Geoffrey would indeed have the lobster while Welker opted for the sweetbreads and Patricia chose the filet of sole meuniere. Then Geoffrey spent the next few minutes in a deep discussion with the sommelier over what wine went most pleasingly with the entrees. A white certainly, but which? A Sauvignon Blanc? Perhaps, but … Geoffrey ran his finger down the wine list and suddenly stabbed an entry. ‘Aha!’

  ‘Monsieur?’

  ‘This is new.’

  ‘The Bourgogne Aligoté? Mais oui. We now have two cases which came off the boat last week. The wine, it has a fruity—’

  ‘I know what it tastes like,’ Geoffrey told him. ‘I spent three happy nights in, I think it was August of ’17 in the wine cellar of a chateau outside Mezières avoiding a German artillery barrage and drinking Aligoté with the eighty-six-year-old count who owned the place. He refused to leave. He wanted to be there in case the Boche broke through the line so he could destroy every bottle in the place before they could get at it. We will have a bottle of that to celebrate. We will discuss the dessert wine later.’

  ‘Very good,’ the sommelier said, and retreated.

  Patricia frowned at Geoffrey. ‘You could have consulted our guest as to the wine choice,’ she said.

  Welker laughed. ‘As I remember your husband,’ he said, ‘he does not consult, nor does he suggest, he asserts.’

  Geoffrey looked hurt. ‘As I am the host, I select,’ he stated. ‘Keeping in mind the delicate palate of my lovely wife and the fact that my guest’s tastebuds were shot off during the Battle of the Somme.’

  ‘What,’ Patricia asked, ‘are we celebrating?’

  ‘I suppose the fact that I am here to drink the wine. And Jacob also. And the fact that you are with us, my dear. After all, think of all the other places you could be.’

  Patricia put her hand over his. ‘There is no other place,’ she said.

  ‘How long have you two been married?’ Welker asked.

  ‘Fifteen years, is it?’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘Fourteen,’ Patricia corrected. ‘It just seems like fifteen.’

  Geoffrey smiled at her and then turned back to Welker. ‘Would you believe,’ he said, ‘that when I met her she was on the stage?’

  ‘The stage?’

  ‘Not literally at the moment. I actually met her in a pub, but she was, at the time, working as a magician’s assistant.’

  Patricia nodded. ‘The Great Mavini. He made me disappear, and had me tied up with ropes and otherwise abused me. It was great fun.’

  Welker leaned back in his chair. ‘I hardly know what to ask,’ he said.

  ‘I will explain,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I needed to show up at a family gathering with a woman – to avoid having a woman thrust upon me by various well-meaning relations. The woman that I usually used for such occasions, in exchange for my performing a like service for her, was otherwise occupied. So a friend suggested that I meet her friend, who she said was quite suitable. “What does she do?” I asked. “Never mind,” my friend said, “just meet her.” So I did.’

  Patricia laughed. ‘We met at a pub called the King’s Ars,’ she said.

  ‘The King’s …?’

  ‘It was the King’s Arms,’ Geoffrey explained, ‘but someone had obliterated the “M” the night before, and they hadn’t had time to repair it yet.’

  ‘Auspicious, I calls it,’ Patricia said. ‘So I was sitting in the lounge when this bloke walks in, stared down at me for a minute, and then says, “You’ll do. ’Ow much?”’

  Geoffrey laughed. ‘I did no such thing,’ he insisted.

  ‘Then he sat down and asked me what I did,’ she went on. ‘I told him that I appeared in a music-hall act, and he turned green.’

  ‘That is so,’ Geoffrey agreed. ‘Quite green.’

  ‘Then I told him that I was an “Honourable”, and he cheered up.’

  ‘The Honourable Patricia Sutherland, younger daughter of Viscount Mowbrey,’ Geoffrey expanded. ‘When I introduced her to my family as such there was no problem. No one would ever think of asking an “Honourable” what she did for a living.’

  ‘And his family liked me so much,’ Patricia said, smiling a cat-like smile, ‘that six months later we were married.’

  The food appeared and was eaten and remarked on and the conversation ebbed and flowed with tales of war and intrigue. Welker told amusing stories about his years as a detective for the Continental, and Geoffrey related his recent train trip with the Duke of Windsor to visit Herr Hitler, and how they had acquired a sixteen-year-old girl on the way back. Patricia soon noted that Geoffrey was not reticent about alluding to his amorous proclivities or his and Patricia’s ‘arrangement’ with Welker, which gave her an anxious moment until it was clear that Welker already knew of Geoffrey’s proclivities and neither disapproved of nor shared them. In either case she would have felt constrained from pursuing the handsome American should the time and opportunity present itself.

  It was during dessert that Chef Martine had arbitrarily chosen for them and sent over, wedges of New York cheesecake on a bed of confiture de fraise, drizzled with crème fraiche, along with a bottle of Tomàs Aguas Select 1903 Port, to firmly establish that there’s no food that the French chefs can’t make better, that Welker put his fork down and said, ‘Shall we talk?’

  Geoffrey took a sip of the port then put the glass down gently. ‘You talk,’ he said. ‘We’ll listen.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He thought for a second. ‘I head a small intelligence organization working nominally out of the State Department.’

  ‘Nominally?’

  ‘Well, actually we report directly to the President. When we have anything to report. And by “we”, I mean the six of us. Plus, of course, our secretary makes seven. As I said, small organization. We plan to expand. By the end of the year there may be an even dozen of us, if I can find the right men and women.’

  ‘What sort of intelligence are the se
ven of you interested in?’

  Welker thought that over for a second. ‘German, or I should say Nazi, doings in or around the United States.’

  ‘What about the FBI?’ Patricia asked. ‘I thought they—’

  ‘Hoover is not particularly interested in Nazis unless they wave swastikas in his face while singing the “Horst Wessel Lied”. He’s hot for Communists and fellow-travelers. And bank robbers. And getting his name in the papers. But Nazis not so much.’

  ‘So you are taking over where Hoover chooses not to tread?’ Geoffrey asked.

  ‘Roosevelt and some of those close to him believe that Hitler is the bigger threat, at least for the moment, both in Europe and at home,’ Welker told him. ‘And he must make progress ever so slowly at letting the American people come to that conclusion on their own. If he comes out and says it, the Republicans will blast him for being an alarmist and trying to get us involved in a war. “America First” seems to mean “screw the rest of the world, we have these oceans between us and them”. So while no one else is looking or giving a damn, we have to work at preventing the Nazis from getting too large a toehold over here. You may remember that back in 1916 German agents blew up a munitions depot in New York harbor without bothering to declare war.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Geoffrey said. ‘The, what was it? Black Tom explosion. We were grateful to the Germans for that at the time, since we were already in the thick of it, and it helped pull you in the direction of joining us in the fight.’

  ‘And we have indications that they’re getting ready to do something over here once again. But at the moment it’s still just vague hints, and we have no idea what or when.’

  ‘You’d think they’d be doing their best to keep the US out of it,’ Geoffrey commented.

  ‘You would think that,’ Welker agreed.’

  ‘Curiously,’ Geoffrey said, ‘on our recent visit to Schloss Eichenholz, Herr Hitler assured me, well actually the Duke, that he had no warlike intentions. That was, you understand, two days before his troops marched into Austria to enforce Anschluss and create a greater Germany.’

  Welker took a sip of port. ‘I’m shocked,’ he said. ‘Lying to a royal personage. Shocked.’

  ‘Well, one thing – we now have a useful contact in Germany. A well-placed contact who, with a modicum of care, may prove very useful indeed. And a bit of his information may well pertain to the US. If so, I will pass it on to you, thus enhancing both of our reputations. Which reminds me, does “red cabbage” convey anything to you?’

  ‘Commie sauerkraut?’

  ‘Probably not. The contact gave our agent a newspaper and said don’t lose it, and when asked why, he answered “red cabbage”.’

  Welker stared off at the swinging door to the kitchen. ‘It rings a bell,’ he said. He stared off some more. ‘Ah, sure,’ he said after a suspenseful minute. ‘I remember. Secret ink. You write the message with a fine-tip brush so as to not leave any scratches on the paper, using a very dilute solution of lemon juice. When it dries it disappears. If the solution is dilute enough heating will not bring it out, but for some reason red-cabbage-soaked water will. I think you may have to boil the cabbage in the water first, but I’m not sure. It’s fast, it’s reasonably secure, and it doesn’t leave any incriminating di-ethyl mercurate of mumbo-jumbo or whatever around.’

  ‘Aha!’ said Geoffrey. ‘I will pass it on.’

  ‘Glad to be of assistance.’

  Geoffrey looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, ‘It occurs to me that there is something you could do for us, what with your friends in high places and the like.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘Sophie – our sixteen-year-old – has no papers and no way of getting any. Perhaps with your contacts in the State Department …’

  ‘Why not?’ Welker said. ‘I’ll see what can be done.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Patricia added, pulling a small envelope from her purse, ‘do you know anyone who knows anything about stamps? Postage stamps?’

  ‘You mean of the collectable sort?’ Welker asked.

  ‘Yes. That sort,’ Patricia said. ‘Sophie came with this packet of stamps tucked into the lining of her jacket. Presumably put there by her father, and presumably of some value. If this is so, she could have a little nest egg to put her through college or whatever.’

  ‘And until then?’ Welker asked.

  ‘Well, we’ve sort of decided that unless her missing uncle shows up we’ll keep her.’

  ‘She will become our niece once or twice removed, or something of the sort,’ Geoffrey amplified.

  ‘From the Jewish branch of the family?’

  ‘One never knows, does one?’ Geoffrey said. ‘I have a great-uncle or some such relative on my mother’s side who has a decidedly Semitic cast to his features. One hesitates to ask, after all, not knowing what the askee would think of the question. I have never heard him express his opinion of the Hebrew race one way or the other, but then I don’t believe the subject ever came up.’

  ‘What does Sophie think of it?’ Welker asked.

  ‘We haven’t had a chance to discuss it with her yet, we may have to give her up to the missing uncle. However, she’ll need the papers in any case.’

  ‘Of course,’ Welker said. ‘As to the stamps, I know just the man to ask.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. FDR is a noted stamp collector. Let me take these and I’ll wave them at him when I see him Thursday. Along with the lovely story that goes with them. If he doesn’t take them for his own collection I’m sure he’ll know someone who will. And at top price, whatever that turns out to be.’

  ‘Better than I had hoped,’ Patricia said, handing him the packet of stamps, ‘but welcome just the same.’

  ‘There is, as it happens, something that we can do for you,’ Geoffrey said. ‘That is if my assumptions are correct.’

  ‘I am all, or at least largely, ears,’ Welker said.

  ‘Two assumptions,’ Geoffrey said. ‘The first is that the Italian Embassy receives at least part of its communications with Rome through the overseas cable.’

  ‘I would also assume that,’ Welker agreed. ‘It’s much more reliable than short wave, but the messages would be heavily encrypted ’cause they’d think that we just might have a man posted at the Western Union office to read their stuff as it came in.’

  ‘And my other assumption is that you do intercept and keep copies of said communications.’

  ‘Reasonable,’ Welker agreed, ‘after all, they might one day accidentally throw out their code book with the trash. I could certainly find out. Why?’

  ‘They use a one-time pad,’ Geoffrey told him.

  ‘I won’t ask how you know that. But communications by one-time pad are, as far as I know, unbreakable.’

  ‘True,’ Geoffrey acknowledged, ‘but my clever wife has acquired pictures of about thirty as-yet unused pages of it.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Welker.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Geoffrey agreed.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Welker. ‘I have to get back to New York tomorrow morning, but I know a guy who’s in what’s left of the Black Chamber – now it’s the Signal Intelligence Service, very hush-hush. I’ll bet he would very much like to see those pages.’

  ‘If there’s anything interesting,’ Geoffrey said, ‘we get to see it. Fair’s fair.’

  ‘I’ll make sure they understand,’ Welker told him. ‘And I’ll be back here Thursday and I’ll call you after I see FDR. Back and forth twice in one week; I think I’m going to buy stock in the Pennsy Railroad.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A word is dead

  When it is said,

  Some say.

  I say it just

  Begins to live

  That day.

  – Emily Dickinson

  ‘May I sit at your table

  Will you buy me a drink

  Shall we become lovers

  Tell me, what do you think?


  We could make love tonight, just tonight

  And tomorrow never has to come

  Until it’s here.’

  The follow spot picked up highlights in the red dress clinging sinuously to Elyse’s slender body, the band played with unaccustomed subtlety as she sang:

  ‘What are a few marks

  To a spender like you

  Compared to my virtue

  Don’t laugh – my virtue.’

  Elyse paused and looked out at her audience, which had grown quiet as she sang, her gaze picking out individual members, men, women, and each knew the words were for them. And she went on:

  ‘You look to be lonely

  God knows I’m lonely too

  Shall we each warm the other

  Until the night’s through?

  Shall we make love tonight, all the night,

  And tomorrow never has to come

  Until it’s here …’

  The song ended but the band went on for a few bars as though it was loath to stop playing. Elyse stood there motionless as the music died out and the follow spot gradually dimmed to black. It took several seconds for the audience to begin clapping, but then the applause grew as the spot cautiously brightened again to find her still standing as she had been. She waited until the applause died away and then inclined her head slightly toward the audience and walked slowly to the back of the small stage and through the curtain. The houselights went back up, the band went back to playing happy oompah tunes, and the patrons in Berlin’s Kabarett der Flöhe (Cabaret of the Fleas) resumed eating, drinking, talking, laughing, and pretending – if just for the moment – that life was good.

  Neville Pekes, in what he thought of as his German disguise – a mud-brown suit, yellow dress shirt, and wide red, pink, and tan blotchy tie that he thought made him look a bit older than his twenty-eight years and sufficiently drab to blend in to the background – sat nursing his beer at a tiny table on the left side of the room, the not-too-new very ordinary looking suitcase by his feet. His view of the stage was constantly interrupted by the swinging doors to the kitchen as the waiters moved to and fro. What, he wondered, was he doing here? He would be approached. All well and good. He would pass the suitcase on to whoever gave the countersign. He should not allow the suitcase to be opened before he passed it on. How was he to prevent it if the police suddenly demanded to see the contents? What should he do if they stopped him, run like hell? Sir Roger, Undersecretary of Everything No One Else Wanted, either didn’t know himself or wouldn’t tell him. All will be revealed. Ha!