The Thirty-One Kings

by Robert J. Harris

  As I walked towards my destination, a lorry rumbled past filled with young soldiers singing a ribald song I recognised from my own army days. I wondered where they were headed and hoped that the goal I had in mind for myself was the correct one and not a wild goose chase.

  On the journey south, as I pondered the cryptic words of the dying pilot, I became increasingly certain that his reference to ‘trails’ was in fact the name of a bookshop: Traill’s in Mayfair. I was well acquainted with the owner of the place, though his identity was unknown to almost everyone else. An eccentric bibliophile was the general opinion, and not entirely untrue, but still wide of the mark in many respects. He was, in fact, one of the most remarkable men I have ever encountered.

  I stopped outside the shop and looked up at the sign which was painted in faded red and green: Traill’s Book Shop, Dealers in both New and Antique Volumes. Casting an eye over the window, I spotted a pair of new mysteries by Agatha Christie as well as Household’s recent shocker, which I confess I rather enjoyed. What I did not see, of course, was a brand new novel by Dickens. Not even a new edition of one of his classics.

  A bell jingled above me as I entered, but the few customers inside were too absorbed in examining the bookshelves to pay any attention to me. I hesitantly approached the counter where the assistant, a tall individual with slicked-back hair, regarded me superciliously through his pince-nez.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  He looked so utterly respectable that I felt quite foolish saying to him, ‘Yes, I’m looking for the latest novel by Dickens.’

  He raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Do you mean Charles Dickens, the long-deceased novelist?’

  ‘Yes,’ I persisted. ‘I believe he has a brand new book out.’

  ‘Indeed, sir. Let me see if I can help you.’

  For a moment I thought by helping me he meant call for an ambulance to carry me off to a lunatic asylum. However, instead of reaching for the phone, he turned to the bookshelf behind him. He considered carefully for a few moments before taking down a slim, leather-bound volume which he handed to me.

  ‘Perhaps this is what you’re looking for,’ he said in a tone that was a mixture of condescension and pity.

  There was no writing on the cover so I opened the book and, in some confusion, flipped through the pages. They were all blank.

  I looked up at the assistant and saw that he was regarding me expectantly. I felt as though I had stepped into a scene from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and that the individual standing before me was some demented cousin of the Mad Hatter.

  I had no idea how to react, then I recalled the pilot’s words.

  ‘There’s a page missing,’ I said tentatively.

  He gave a curious frown and reached for the book which I gladly surrendered to him.

  ‘If you have a complaint to make,’ he informed me stiffly, ‘you will have to speak to the proprietor. I believe you know the way.’

  He inclined his head towards the stairway at the back of the shop, then reached a hand under the counter. I was quite sure he was pressing a button that would alert the man waiting upstairs to my imminent arrival.

  Confident now that I was on the right track, I climbed the steps to the upper floor. Here the walls were crammed with volumes on every abstruse subject under the sun and the tables were laid out with vintage maps and engravings. I glanced around to ensure that I was completely alone, then approached one wall which I knew concealed a secret behind its display of false book spines.

  Pressing the bogus copy of Walton’s The Compleat Angler, I felt a catch release and with a slight shove I opened the hidden door. As I entered the room beyond, the door swung back into place behind me. There, behind a desk covered in papers and playing cards, sat the large, unmistakable figure of John Scantlebury Blenkiron. In his hand was a pistol which was pointed directly at me.

  4

  THE ECCENTRIC BIBLIOPHILE

  I fixed a disgruntled gaze on the pistol. ‘You know, I’m delighted to see you, Blenkiron,’ I told him, ‘but if people keep drawing guns on me I’m liable to get testy.’

  Heaving himself to his feet, Blenkiron set the gun aside with an embarrassed grin. He manoeuvred his considerable bulk around the desk and strode towards me with an outstretched hand.

  ‘Dick, you old war horse!’ he greeted me in his pleasant American drawl.

  We shook hands heartily and he slapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘Sorry about the reception.’ Blenkiron rolled his eyes in self-deprecation. ‘These days I reckon I’m as jumpy as a barefoot man on a rattlesnake farm. Why, if old Grandma Blenkiron herself walked in here, I’d have to frisk her before I let her sit down.’

  ‘And I suppose that’s the reason for all this nonsense about Dickens concocting a new bestseller from beyond the grave.’

  ‘I know all these code words are kind of foolish,’ he admitted, ‘but only a lunatic would walk into a bookstore expecting to find a brand new novel by Charles Dickens - a lunatic or somebody who’d got my message.’

  ‘So did you have your gun ready in case some crazed madman stumbled upon your secret room?’ I queried.

  Blenkiron’s brow darkened as he answered, ‘No, I was armed in case it wasn’t you but somebody else who’d intercepted the message and figured it out just the way you did.’

  ‘Intercept it? How would they do that?’

  ‘They couldn’t unless they were on the inside,’ said Blenkiron, ‘and that’s the most vexing part of the whole business. Look, let’s have a drink. I know I could stand one.’

  While he busied himself at the drinks cabinet, I surveyed his hidden lair. On one wall was a map of France and the Low Countries scrawled with a jumble of multi-coloured arrows that illustrated just how rapidly the situation there was evolving. The bookshelves were crammed with volumes on code breaking, military strategy and politics. On the desk a heap of files and telegrams surrounded a deck of cards laid out in a half finished game of Patience. It was somehow comforting to know that simple card games were still his favoured way of relaxing his busy mind.

  Like me, Blenkiron had a background as a mining engineer and we had been comrades in arms at Erzerum and in France in 1918 when he commanded a rag-tag unit that helped me to hold the line against the German attack. Logistics and intelligence gathering, however, had always been his strongest suits. In the years since the war he had confined his activities to business and politics so that his large frame had taken on the proportions of a man used to a more sedentary life.

  Once he had supplied each of us with a glass of Glenfiddich, we sat down in a pair of leather armchairs with a small round table between us. He set his glass down while he lit one of his thin black cigars.

  ‘Well, Dick,’ he said, taking a long puff, ‘when you make yourself scarce, you don’t kid around. Why didn’t you hole up in a nice, cosy hotel where I could reach you by phone or telegram?’

  ‘The point was to be out of touch,’ I said. ‘To be honest, I was in a bit of a funk from having so many doors slammed in my face.’

  ‘That man of yours at Fosse Manor, Godstow, is a tight-lipped son of a sea cook,’ said Blenkiron, ‘but he finally spilled where you’d taken off to. Given that you were hiking through the wilds, sending young Tommy Llewellyn up there in a plane seemed the best bet for tracking you down.’

  ‘You heard about the crash, I suppose.’

  He gave a grim nod. ‘I’d bet a gold mine it was no accident.’

  ‘You’d win that bet,’ I confirmed, and proceeded to tell him about my run-in with Barralty.

  Blenkiron got up and made a tour of the room while I spoke. He brought the bottle back with him and refreshed our glasses as he sat down.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you,’ he said, ‘that right now things are sitting on the edge of a very sharp razor. The newspapers are keeping up a confident front, as if any day now the French are going to make another stand, like they did on the Marne. But the truth is, we’re way past that
point. The game’s up and all we can do is grab our chips and run.’

  There was such gloom in his voice that I took a large swallow of Scotch and slumped back in my chair. ‘How on earth did it come to this?’ I wondered aloud. ‘I mean, the French soldier is as brave as any and their generals have been preparing for years for a day like this.’

  Blenkiron leaned forward and ran a finger around the rim of his glass. ‘Ever been to a bullfight, Dick?’

  ‘I can’t say that I have,’ I said, lighting my pipe and taking a tentative puff.

  ‘Well, forget all that baloney about courage and skill,’ said Blenkiron. ‘It’s trickery, pure and simple. You see, the matador makes a big show of waving a cape about on his left arm. Now the sight of that red rag gets the bull all riled up and he charges the cape, getting his horns tangled up in a big heap of empty air. The matador meanwhile has his sword in his other hand and stabs at the bull from his blind side. See how it works?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with the Germans.’

  With a jerk of his thumb Blenkiron directed my gaze towards the map on the wall. ‘Well, that advance they made in northern Belgium, that was the red rag, and our bull went after it with troops, tanks and aircraft. Then Hitler sent his sword through our south side, through the Ardennes.’

  ‘The Ardennes? That’s a hard country for tanks.’

  ‘It’s a hard country for anybody, which made it twice as big a surprise. Even when the Germans poured through in force, most of our generals still thought that was the feint, not all the ruckus up north. Instead of cutting your guys off from the Dutch ports, their plan was to sweep along to the south, then turn north, and wrap up the whole caboodle in one tight noose.’

  When I studied the map more closely, the details confirmed Blenkiron’s analysis.

  ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I protested. ‘Surely the French will make a stand somewhere.’

  Blenkiron grimaced. ‘This isn’t nineteen fourteen. There’ll be no trenches this time because things are moving too damned fast. Sure, some of their boys have shown they have guts, but they’re scattered and demoralised now. They’re in no shape to organise a counter-attack.’

  I felt myself stiffen. ‘Are you telling me they’re going to surrender?’

  ‘They’ll call it an armistice,’ said Blenkiron with a shrug, ‘but it’s as like a surrender as a pig resembles a hog. The battle for France is all over, Dick. You Brits are on your own now and the only ally you’ve got left is that stretch of water that separates Dover from Calais.’

  I managed to summon a grin. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. We have you, don’t we?’

  Blenkiron chortled. ‘Yeah, whenever you’re in a bind you can always count on John S. to lend a hand.’ He raised his whisky glass in a kind of toast.

  ‘The fact is,’ he continued, ‘President Roosevelt saw the direction things were taking a couple of years ago and asked me personally to come over and renew some of my old acquaintances on this side of the ocean. So I had this place tidied up’ - he waved a hand about the room - ‘and started to build up a network of contacts, while selling a few books along the way.’

  ‘Well, you won’t sell many as long as that specimen downstairs is manning the counter,’ I said.

  ‘Old Henry puts on a good front for the customers,’ said Blenkiron. ‘It doesn’t pay to be too welcoming when the real business is being carried out behind the scenes. To look at him you’d never suppose he’s an expert in unarmed combat. And in case that isn’t enough, under the counter he has a Browning automatic hidden inside a hollowed-out copy of Vanity Fair.’

  ‘I have to say, you’ve taken your time bringing me into this network of yours,’ I said, trying my best not to sound peevish.

  Blenkiron favoured me with a wry smile. ‘As you well know, Dick, I’m accustomed to playing a lone hand - but I choose my cards carefully and keep them close to my chest. All along you’ve been the ace up my sleeve, and I wanted to keep you well out of the picture in the hope that people on both sides might forget all about Richard Hannay.’

  ‘It certainly felt to me like you succeeded,’ I noted drily. ‘So why now? What’s so vital that it was worth sending that boy at the risk of his life to summon me here? And who on earth are the thirty-one kings?’

  Leaning back, Blenkiron took a pull on his cigar and blew a circle of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘That’s the nub of it. We don’t know, and we only have a few days to find out.’

  ‘You’re not making things any clearer.’

  ‘Just let me tell you the story.’ Blenkiron tapped some ash from the end of his cigar as he gathered his thoughts. ‘A few weeks ago I started receiving coded messages from a fellow going under the name of Mr Roland. He included the names of one or two trustworthy individuals who would vouch for him without revealing his identity. A week ago he said he had vital information to bring to London about these thirty-one kings - said the whole future of the war could hang on it.’

  ‘Have you any clue as to what he was referring?’

  Blenkiron got up and fetched a Bible from his desk. ‘All I could come up with - and that’s only because I’m a solid Presbyterian born and raised - is here in the King James.’ He sat down and began flipping through the pages. ‘Book of Joshua, chapter twelve, verses nine to twenty-four. These verses list the thirty-one kings defeated by Joshua when he conquered the promised land.’

  He passed me the open Bible and I glanced down the list. It began with ‘The king of Jericho, one; the king of Al, which is beside Bethel, one;’ and ended with the words, ‘All the kings, thirty and one’.

  ‘I’ve read that list over and over until I can recite the whole gang of them by heart, but I still can’t winkle any sort of message out of it,’ said Blenkiron.

  ‘Perhaps the whole thing is bogus,’ I suggested, laying the book down.

  ‘It’s not flummery,’ said Blenkiron. ‘Not by a long shot. The Germans got wind of this too and it set Berlin buzzing like a hornets’ nest. They’re just as keen to get their hands on Mr Roland’s little secret as I am.’

  ‘So where is your Mr Roland now?’

  ‘Well, I know he made his way to Paris and we were supposed to arrange a rendezvous there. But since then silence. He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.’

  ‘What do you suppose happened?’

  Blenkiron’s normally placid features darkened. ‘Most likely he’s fallen into enemy hands. For some time the Germans have had an agent in Paris they refer to as Klingsor. I’m pretty sure he’s put the bag on Roland and is holding him there.’

  ‘You don’t suppose they’ve killed him or spirited him off to Berlin?’

  Blenkiron shook his head and lit a fresh cigar. ‘If this information of his is so darned important they’ll keep him alive and try to get it out of him. And they don’t have to risk smuggling him out of Paris because in a few days’ time their own army will be goose-stepping down the Champs-Elysees.’

  I stared at him, aghast. ‘Do you mean the Germans are going to walk in without any resistance?’

  ‘That’s right. What passes for the French government are on the run somewhere around Bordeaux, and to save Paris from being obliterated they’ve declared it an open city. That means there will be no French troops there to defend it.’

  ‘It sickens me to think of Hitler getting his filthy hands on Paris,’ I said, ‘but I suppose it’s that or see the whole city bombed into ruins.’

  ‘So wherever Klingsor is holding Mr Roland, he only has to sit tight and the Reich will come to him,’ Blenkiron continued. ‘What we have to do is find Roland, bust him out and get him back to London pronto. And because of this open-city policy it can’t be a military operation.’ He eyed me squarely. ‘I need you to go in as a civilian.’

  Of all the roles I had envisioned for myself, this certainly wasn’t one of them. ‘I want to do my bit - you can have no doubts about that - but it’s been years since I got myself into this sor
t of a caper.’

  ‘Dick, this is such a damnably important business there’s only one man fit for it,’ Blenkiron said gravely, ‘and that’s the man I trust most in the whole world. Nobody else has your knack for pulling off this kind of a job.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’d call it a knack. It’s mostly sheer stubbornness and luck.’

  ‘Whatever’s at the bottom of it, somehow you always hit the target square in the bull’s-eye,’ Blenkiron asserted roundly. ‘Mind you, I’m not going to minimise the opposition, because they’re a pretty desperate bunch and there’s not much they’ll stick at.’

  ‘I take it you mean this man Klingsor and, of course, the full might of the Wehrmacht.’

  ‘Them too,’ Blenkiron agreed, ‘but right now I’m talking about the opposition smack dab on our own doorstep. By your own account you’ve already had a run-in with them and I can promise you they haven’t quit yet.’

  ‘You talk like the whole country is riddled with Nazi agents.’

  ‘If it was just a case of some Nazi spies, I could have them rounded up pretty sharply and tipped into a nice deep dungeon. But no, these characters aren’t Nazis, or even traitors, strictly speaking. They just want to scupper anything that might get in the way of a peace deal with Hitler.’

  ‘A peace deal with Hitler?’ I recoiled in spite of myself. ‘They can’t be serious!’

  ‘The way they see it, if we carry on with a war against Germany, we’re in for a hard beating.’ Blenkiron made no effort to conceal his distaste. ‘It’s the worst kind of fatalism, the kind that makes you give up before you’ve even taken the chance.’

  ‘But how many of them can there be?’

  ‘More than you might think, and they’re in every walk of life, including inside your Parliament. And they all think of themselves as patriots.’