Dark Tales From the Secret War

by John Houlihan

  “What nonsense,” said Buckle, interrupting me before I had got to the real meat of the story.

  “It is the truth I tell you, every word of it!”

  Buckle sighed. “I’m not sure it is physically possible for you to tell the truth, Worth.” He tapped the file in front of him. “Your early years are well documented. It says here you were born in a lodging house in Dorset Street. Father unknown. Mother… known to all and sundry.”

  I hated the man from thereon in. There was no humour to the fellow, no warmth.

  “Drop the act,” he told me. “I want to know about you stealing from the secret stores.”

  At this my throat closed, sweat sprouted across my shoulders and my heart began to hammer in my chest, for this was the last thing I had expected to hear from him.

  You see, the Zeppelin raids of 1914–17 had shown air-combat to be the future of warfare. If another conflict broke out it would not just be fought on the front lines, but through bombs and rockets aimed at our cities, and this meant danger for Britain, for her people of course, but also her buildings and their contents. Plans were drawn up to ship the nation’s art treasures away from the capital and at the outbreak of war there was no hesitation. The National Gallery, the V&A, the Tate, the National Archives, the British Museum; each packed their exhibits into crates and shipped them off under cover of darkness to salt-mines in Wales, to tube-stations deep under the city and to country houses in Northamptonshire, Somerset, Cumberland, Wiltshire.

  How did I, a lowly criminal, come to know of this? It may have had something to do with a drunken curator from the National Gallery and a government report that went astray just long enough for a copy to be made. It hardly matters. What matters is that a man such as I, in possession of such knowledge, was only ever likely to do one thing.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re referring to,” I said, though my voice cracked as I spoke, betraying me.

  “Then let me remind you,” said Buckle. “Multiple raids on the nation’s art stores over a period of four months. Break-ins reported at country houses in Boughton, Drayton, Montacute, Mentmore. Items stolen include paintings, prints, tapestries, manuscripts, ceramics, sculptures, coins and silks. Most have already resurfaced on the continental black market, most likely lost to the country forever, never to be seen on these shores again.”

  I had to hand it to the man, it was a fair summary. Nonetheless, I was puzzled. I had been quite certain my involvement in these crimes had gone undetected. I had not once set off an alarm nor disturbed a guard and I was most scrupulous when it came to leaving behind no evidence of my trespassing. My dealings with the black-market were the notable weak-spot. To move such works quickly it was necessary to maintain a wide range of unscrupulous contacts, some evidently more trustworthy than others.

  Still, I had spent the last few months smugly satisfied with myself. I had a good amount of money and some unsold works well hidden on the outside and after a few years at the Ville, with the dust long settled, I would be released, safe to recover my fortune.

  Now it seemed I was discovered. I foresaw my happy future crumbling down all around me. “You have proof?” I said, my voice as small as a child’s.

  Unbelievably the man shook his head. “I hate to say it, but you can rest easy. There is no proof, only hearsay. Though who else could have done it? You said yourself, you’re the best there is.”

  No proof! I could hardly believe what I was hearing. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing, for this man Buckle was obviously a mere amateur, here to try his luck and to trick me in to admitting my crimes. Well, he was about to leave disappointed.

  “I’ll not be foolish enough to incriminate myself,” I said. “I have nothing more to say on the matter and nothing more to say to you. You can tell your superiors I’ll not play their games. Are we done here?” I moved to rise from my chair but Buckle held up his hand to stop me.

  “Amongst the items you stole is a book,” he said. “And it is a book we need back.”

  “And what sort of book are you accusing me of stealing?”

  “A very old one, in a language you would not understand. It is bound in black leather with iron hasps and was previously held in the stores of the British Museum. It disappeared from Montacute House, in Somerset. Sound familiar?”

  I knew immediately the item he was referring to. An ancient looking volume bound in dark leather with no title upon its front, the inside pages covered in an indecipherable scrawl. I had found it packed into a bomb-proof box in the Long Gallery room at Montacute after scaling a drainpipe and gaining access via a skylight in the roof. It had been an unremarkable job and an unimpressive haul given the risks involved.

  “It might sound familiar,” I said.

  “And you have not sold this book on? It is still in your possession?”

  “It might be.” It was. At least it was securely hidden on the outside. I had grown quite attached to it for some reason, had decided not to sell it, though for the life of me I could not now recall why I had decided to hold on to the dusty old thing.

  “I thought as much.” Buckle finally got down to business. “Look, here is our offer. Tell us where the book is and once we have retrieved it you will receive a reduction in your sentence. We’ll halve it, perhaps more. You could be out in less than a year, free to go about your business. As for the other items in your possession, the other things you stole? Well, that’s between you and Scotland Yard and no concern of mine. I only care about the book. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Quite,” I said. I eyed him over the Governor’s desk, studied that thin ashen face of his and watched a sheen of sweat appear on his upper lip. I knew then that Mr Buckle from the War Office would do just about anything to get his hands on that old book. A reduction in my sentence by a year? Why, it was a small thing compared to the longing I could see in his eyes.

  “Tell me,” I said, “on whose authority do you act, that you can excuse the Governor of this prison from his own office, meet with an inmate and offer to halve his sentence?”

  “My authority comes from the very top.”

  The ‘very top’? Why, that could have meant almost anything. The head of the War Office? British Intelligence? Churchill himself?

  “In that case I want a full pardon,” I announced. “I want to be a free man before the day is out. I want a new pair of shoes from Foster and Son off Jermyn Street, and a new suit from Poole and Locks on Saville Row. I want a room at the Savoy, for a week, specifically the east facing Luxury King’s Suite. And I want room service, at your expense. I get all that, and you get your book. I’ll hand the blasted thing over to you myself.”

  * * *

  I did not expect him to say yes, but six hours later the deal was done and Buckle was standing by the open window in the Luxury King Suite at the Savoy, puffing away on a Dunhill and blowing streams of pale smoke out into the twilight. It was his fifth in the last hour. He had been trying his best not to show his impatience but he was failing miserably at it. Now he looked out over the city, followed the path of the Thames as it wound its way beneath the barrage balloons grazing amidst the low cloud, watched the lights winking out either side of the bridges at Waterloo… Blackfriars… Southwark… He sighed loudly then shut the window and pulled the heavy blackout curtains closed.

  Behind him I tried not to smile too broadly. I was at a table covered from end to end in empty bowls and plates, collectively holding the remnants of the many dishes I had ordered on room service. Bones and juices, smears of gravy and gristle lay everywhere. I hadn’t eaten off ration in what felt like forever and I was making the most of it. I sucked the marrow from a pork-chop, dropped the remains on my plate. Buckle turned at the rattle of bone on china, his pale eyes wide and hopeful.

  “Now?” he said.

  “Soon.” I pointed to the remainder of my meal and smirked my apology.

  Upon my release I had offered to retrieve the book and deliver it to him later that day
at a location of his choosing, but he had refused to let me out of his sight. He would be with me every step of the way until the book was in his hands, so I had decided to delay that moment for the sport of it, and because he had been mean about by mother and had denied my father was a great conjurer. I was delighting in how frustrated the wait was making him, and in having control over this thin grey man from the War Office. I had my suit, my new shoes, a very full stomach and my suite at one of London’s finest hotels. Surrounded by the plush furnishings, the giant soft bed, the huge fitted wardrobe and the Regency chairs, I was beginning to feel like a free man again.

  “Come on, Buckle,” I said, as I watched him set his head in his hands. “It’s not so bad is it? Here, have a pork-chop. It might cheer you up.”

  “No, thank you,” he said. His shoulders slumped then he stalked over to the sideboard, poured himself a generous measure from an expensive looking decanter of brandy and swallowed the lot down in two gulps.

  “War Office, eh?” I said. “Let me guess, not fit enough for active service? Sickly child, were you? Dodgy ticker, I bet.”

  He set the empty glass down, poured himself another. “I do important work, Worth,” he said. “Unlike some draft-dodging thieves I could mention.”

  Like I said, there was no warmth or humour to the man.

  “I’ll have you know, I’m a pacifist,” I told him. “I’m a C.O., category A, exempt from all military service.”

  “Conchie are you?” he said. “And who, I wonder, did you have to bribe for that privilege?”

  “Bribe? I bribed no-one. I stood before a tribunal in Fulham. It was all official. You can check you files if you don’t believe me. I don’t agree with violence. And I especially don’t agree with the working man fighting the wars of the upper classes. Always my sort first over the top, eh Buckle? Your sort tend to come a little later.”

  “Oh come now,” he said. “You’re a criminal, Worth. Violence and crime go hand in hand. You mean to tell me, in all the robberies you’ve been involved in, you’ve never knocked a security guard unconscious? Never fired a gun at a pursuing bobby?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m an artist, Buckle, not some common thug.”

  It happened to be the truth, though a man like Buckle would never understand. I was a thief and I operated on the wrong side of the law, but I did not believe in committing violence against my fellow man. And while I had on occasion carried a pistol, it was only for show.

  “What rot,” said Buckle. I shrugged, resumed eating and decided I would make him wait another half hour.

  Once I had finished the last of the coffee and was beginning to relish the thought of sleeping in the great soft hotel bed, I wiped at the corners of my mouth with my napkin, brushed the crumbs off my new suit, stood-up and made my way to the tall fitted wardrobe in the corner. I opened the doors wide, pushed the hangers out of the way and stepped inside. I could hear Buckle protesting: “Worth, will you please stop messing around. It is time, I tell you. We can wait no longer. If we are going to get to this hiding place of yours tonight, then we must leave now…”

  I examined the rear panel of the wardrobe, ran my fingers over the wood until I felt the faintest of ledges, whereupon I dug in my fingernails and pulled. A door, around a foot square in size, swung inwards on a set of hidden hinges.

  “Worth, for God’s sake man. Come out of there!”

  Reaching an arm through the little hatch I felt around in the darkness beyond, hoping to God that my hiding place had not been discovered. It had not. My fingertips grazed brown paper and a moment later I had hoisted the thing up from the depths.

  “Worth, this is your last chance…”

  I emerged triumphant from inside the wardrobe, threw the package down onto the bed where it bounced twice and flipped over on to its back.

  “There’s your blasted book,” I said.

  * * *

  Buckle did not immediately approach the package, a large dark rectangle with one curved edge wrapped in brown paper. He eyed it fearfully, took a step forward, reached out to take it then stopped himself, stepped back.

  “You’re quite certain this is it?” he said. He shot me a withering look, as if he had just remembered who he was dealing with.

  “It is the book. The book I took from Montacute House. Look for yourself.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I should.” Steeling himself, he strode over to the bed and picked up the package, plucked at the corner of the brown paper and tore off first a strip then the whole lot. The book tumbled out from within its wrapping and thumped down on to the blankets.

  To me it looked completely innocuous; an old, rather large volume, bound in black and worn in all the expected places. It may not have looked out of place in a museum, but would also not have looked out of place on a dusty library shelf or in a second-hand bookshop. I could not for the life of me recall why I had not sold it on sooner, why I had grown attached to the dirty old thing and decided not to find a buyer for it, but to hide it so I could reclaim it at a later date. Buckle most certainly saw things differently, for he circled around the book as if he found it equally enticing and repellent. He bent down and peered closely at it, prodded it with his finger and withdrew quickly as if he feared the thing might bite.

  Eventually he stood. “All right,” he said. “Looks genuine enough.”

  He poured himself another brandy and headed over to the desk and picked up the telephone receiver, dialled a number, then spoke. “Yes, it’s me. No… because it’s here. Yes, it was in the bloody room the whole time. Because he’s a bloody sneak, I expect…. Look, just bring him up will you.” He replaced the receiver.

  “Bring who up?” I asked, fearing that now Buckle had what he wanted he would go back on his word and I would be shipped back to Pentonville. I half expected the door to burst open and for the police to come charging in. I eyed the window as a possible escape route, tried to remember how many floors up we were.

  “Calm yourself,” he said. “We need to verify that it is not a fake. I have called in an expert and he will be with us in moments. We shan’t keep you for much longer.”

  Shortly there came a knock at the door. Buckle answered it and ushered in three men. The two at the rear lingered there, falling back into guard positions either side of the doorway and standing sentinel, backs straight, greatcoats bulging with either billy clubs or small arms. One of them had an attaché case dangling by his side.

  “This is Mr Heston,” Buckle said, and the third man stepped forward. He was average looking in all respects, distinguished only by his heavy brow and his sad eyes with which he spared me the briefest of glances before heading straight for the book. He struck me as somehow familiar from the moment I laid eyes on him. I tried to place the name. Heston? Heston? Where had I heard that name before? Then as the fellow passed by me, I recognised him. Six months earlier his picture had been all over the newspapers. It was the Nazi who had fled Germany in the hope of arranging a peace with the British. His name wasn’t Heston, it was Hess! Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy, was standing right in front of me in my hotel room! So shocked was I that I was rendered lost for words. I stood watching him, aghast. Whatever was the War Office doing with Rudolf Hess in London, in the Savoy Hotel no less? And why on God’s earth were they calling on him to authenticate an ancient book that belonged in the British Museum?

  Questions strained at my throat. For the moment I merely watched, fascinated by the scene playing out before me. How to describe the expression that came upon Hess as he got his hands on that old book? It was relief, above all, his eyes half closing, his limbs growing loose in the manner of man who has just arrived on his holidays. He took a seat on the edge of the bed, set the book on his lap, opened the cover and began to turn through the fragile pages.

  He muttered under his breath in German: “Endlich sind wir wieder zusammen.” Lord knows what he was saying.

  “It is the right one, yes?” said Buckle. “Mr Heston? It is the right on
e?”

  Hess nodded and raised his hand as if to shush an annoying child. He had the book open, a V resting across his knees and as he turned through the pages he stopped here and there to trace along the lines of script spidering from right to left, or, on some pages, bottom to top, reading so quietly that I could barely make out a word at first. His accent came though strongly and I struggled to tell whether he was speaking in German or English, or some curious mixture of the two.

  “Yog-Sothoth iz… ze guardian und iz the key…” he said. I turned my head so I could hear more clearly. “From all ov time. Ze distant past, ze present day, ze far future, all are Yog-Sothoth. He est ze von who knows vere de old ones come and ven dey come. He knows ven zey strode ze earth and that zey are striding the earth still and how ve shall see zem now.”

  “Stop this,” said Buckle, caught unawares by this sudden performance. He stepped forward, shook Hess by the shoulders, hissed at him, “Do you hear me? You must stop this now.” Hess did not respond but continued reading at a pace, his volume increasing.

  “Zey stride hidden und foul in ze low and ze empty places…”

  It was gibberish, clearly. The Nazi really was mad. His hands had begun to shake and he seemed to be at war with himself, unable to stop reading aloud, unable to tear himself away from the text before him.

  “Stop this right now!” cried Buckle. He reached down and snapped the book shut where it sat on Hess’s lap and only then did Hess fall silent after emitting a few desperate notes of protest. “…und ze rites howled und howled — Nein, nein!”