A Prince and a Spy

by Rory Clements

  ‘Closer to the first in my case. Look, Ron, you must have a full set of telephone directories in your office. Would you see if you can find me the number and address of a Hartwell – any Hartwell – in Clade, Suffolk? That’s our woman’s place of birth.’

  ‘Good thought. OK, this will take a couple of minutes. How did it go at the Dada Club?’

  ‘I got on rather well with Mimi Lalique of all people. It seems she owns the joint.’

  Christie laughed. ‘You certainly mix with the great and the gorgeous.’

  ‘You know, close up, she wasn’t so beautiful – and I’m afraid her breath stank. But she was a riot. Bought me drinks and said I was always welcome.’

  ‘Better not tell Lydia. One moment, Tom, I’ll see if I can find the Hartwell address and number for you. Hang on.’ A few moments later, he was back on the line. ‘Ah, here we are. Address in Clade and phone number for a Reverend H. Hartwell. Have you got a pen?’

  ‘Fire away, Ron.’ Wilde took down the details. It was obviously too late at night to call a stranger; he would do so first thing in the morning. Even better, perhaps, he would go to the town of Clade and introduce himself.

  *

  He slept for a while, but he woke before dawn, convinced there was someone in the room. He opened his eyes, but could see nothing in the unremitting darkness. He listened, but the only sound was the occasional growl of a car somewhere outside on the Strand or along Waterloo Bridge. Sleep came again and he woke at seven thirty. After a breakfast of kippers, toast, a mere scraping of butter and very weak coffee, he called Lydia.

  ‘Bill Phillips has been trying to get in touch with you.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘Didn’t say, but I heard that infernal click on the line again. What’s going on, darling?’

  ‘I’ll explain all. Kisses for you and Johnny.’

  He made one more phone call, to a taxi driver named Morrison in the little town of Helmsdale. The phone rang and rang; he was about to give up when a thin Scottish voice answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Morrison?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘I’m sorry to call you out of the blue, Mr Morrison. My name is Professor Tom Wilde.’

  ‘Ah yes, you must be the American who was looking for me. What time do you want your taxi? Is it for today?’

  ‘No, it’s not a taxi I’m after. I just wanted to ask you about one of your fares – a young woman you picked up at the Cameron Arms a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Aye, what of it?’

  ‘Name of Claire Hart, yes?’

  ‘That’s the one, Mr Wilde. I took the young lady to Perth. I recall I told her the train from Helmsdale would be a great deal cheaper and might even be quicker, but she was insistent, so I didn’t argue. A fare’s a fare when all’s said and done, and that should have been a good one.’

  ‘Can you remember where in Perth you dropped her?’

  ‘Why, at the railway station.’

  ‘Did you chat with her on your journey?’

  ‘She didn’t say a word. Just sat in the back with me in the front. I tried to ask her about herself and what she was doing, but she was as silent as the grave, so I let her be.’

  ‘What was her appearance?’

  ‘Well, Mr Wilde, I don’t like to speak ill of people, but I thought her a little shabby, truth be told. I couldn’t help noticing that her skirt was torn, her shoes were awful scuffed and she was wearing no stockings. But she was a good-looking lass. Aye, a real beauty.’

  ‘Anything else you remember about her?’

  ‘Oh aye – that’s easy. She had no money, or so she said. Didn’t mention it before she’d had the ride and got out of the taxi, but then she told me she’d lost her wallet and would have to send the money on to me. Now, Mr Wilde, I’m not a wealthy man and I can’t afford to be left out of pocket, especially with petrol so hard to come by and thin rations even for a professional cabbie. So if by any chance you’re a good friend of hers, perhaps you’d see me right because I’m two pounds ten and six short and nothing has arrived from her in the post yet, though she promised me she would send a postal order by day’s end.’

  ‘I’ll make sure I remind her when I see her.’

  ‘That would be much appreciated, Mr Wilde.’

  *

  He needed air and exercise, so he walked to Fleet Street to collect his bag, then on to Grosvenor Street. He arrived at the OSS’s new bureau before Bill Phillips, and the secretary rewarded him with proper coffee, imported from South America.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, sir, you look a little the worse for wear,’ she said as she handed him the cup.

  ‘Thank you, June, that’s very kind of you.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way, sir. I was wondering if I could help, that’s all. Maybe just brush down your coat. Perhaps find you a fresh razor blade.’

  He had been travelling light and hadn’t had a change except for a clean shirt since Caithness. He supposed she was right; things had started to slip. Not least his sense of where things were going; he was no longer quite sure what he was trying to do or what was expected of him. He put these doubts to Phillips when his boss arrived ten minutes later.

  Phillips listened to the whole story in silence then, when Wilde had finished, he took a few moments to mull it over. ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘Well, it’s possible the Brits are not being entirely upfront about the Duke’s mission, the nature of the crash, or the true details of those aboard the flight. But FDR’s interest in the matter notwithstanding, we have to be sensitive here. And if the Brits believe they have a reason for keeping a lid on this, then maybe that’s their prerogative. Anyway, you’ve done your bit, Tom, for which I thank you. You know, if they’ve got something to hide then perhaps we, as their allies, should not be looking too deeply into it.’

  ‘I thought that’s exactly what the President wanted me to do, Bill.’

  ‘The problem is, when you come down to it all you’ve got is the word of a simple shepherd boy and a trawlerman you met in a pub. Doesn’t really add up to much, does it?’

  ‘Hang on, there was nothing simple about Jimmy Orde. He knew exactly what he was talking about, and was troubled by it. I’d say he was pretty certain the Sunderland he saw flying towards Scotland was the one that crashed.’

  ‘But you just have his word for it. Anyway, I didn’t call him simple; that was the other fellow, the shepherd boy – and it was the way you described him.’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll get an affidavit from Orde. Would that convince you?’

  ‘I’d take a look at it. I’d even pass it on to FDR, but I can’t see what good would come of it.’

  A few hours earlier, Wilde had been utterly convinced that he had chanced upon something dark and hidden. So why now, in the sober light of day, was he listening to Bill Phillips’s doubts, and beginning to have some of his own? He tried to shake himself out of his scepticism. There was something going on. Had to be. ‘Look, Bill, I take your point. But wouldn’t you like me to dig just a little deeper?’

  ‘Not at the expense of embarrassing Churchill or the royals. Write a report for me and I’ll have it encoded and wired to FDR. If he’s still not happy, then we’ll take his steer on it. For the present I want you back here. I have pressing matters for you to attend to. More meetings. We need to get this operation up and running.’

  Wilde nodded. He understood. He took out Harriet Hartwell’s passport. ‘Just let me do this one last thing. I’m pretty sure I have found her family up in Suffolk. It’ll only take three or four hours for me to go up there, hand over the passport and perhaps discover what she or her family knows. I’ll go no further until I’ve reported back to you. And I promise I’ll do nothing to annoy the Brits.’

  Phillips looked at his watch. It was a little after nine. ‘OK, take a car from the embassy compound, but be back by three o’clock. The Baker Street boys are coming over to see how we can collaborate an
d ensure we don’t cut across each other. I’d like you here.’ The Baker Street boys were the chiefs of Britain’s Special Operations Executive, the organisation charged with sending men and women into occupied Europe to gather information and create havoc wherever they could. Few in this country or anywhere else knew of the organisation’s existence, yet they had been doing fine work these past two years. It was a good model for the sort of operations that America’s own OSS would now be doing. Wilde looked forward to the meeting.

  After he had completed this one last task.

  Chapter 13

  As he drove north-east out of London, he enjoyed the mellow countryside of East Anglia. It looked ridiculously peaceful in its ripe, late-summer apparel of harvested fields, heavy-laden trees, slow-moving rivers and gentle white clouds. Who could think there was a war on?

  The going was smooth to the pretty little medieval town of Clade in Suffolk. Just before arriving, he slowed down to crane his neck and watch a squadron of Hurricanes rising from a nearby airfield and thundering eastward. He drove on into the centre of the town, just past the church. He had no map to guide him through its myriad streets, so he stopped and asked a shopper for Old Cottage.

  She looked puzzled.

  ‘The Hartwells’ house,’ Wilde continued.

  ‘The Reverend Hartwell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t actually live in the town, you know. He’s out near the school.’

  ‘Ah, which school would that be?’

  The woman was well spoken, probably in her sixties. She was walking an old black bicycle with a basket full of groceries attached to the handlebars. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ she said.

  ‘Thomas Wilde. Professor Wilde.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s none of my business, but why exactly are you looking for the reverend?’

  ‘I have something to return to him. It’s a private matter.’

  ‘I see, well, you’ll probably find him there. He usually goes to the Lakes for the summer, but I imagine he’s back to get ready for the new term.’

  ‘The school?’

  ‘Athelstans, of course.’ She sounded exasperated. ‘He teaches Latin and Greek. There’s no other school here unless you include the elementary for the local boys and girls.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I live in Cambridge and I’ve never been here before. Could you direct me to the school?’

  She sighed, considering the request. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘You don’t look like a German agent, whatever they look like. You carry on along this road. Two miles north of here, you’ll see two rather grand and ancient gateposts. There’s no sign on them, but that’s the way into Athelstans. Opposite the gates, outside the wall, there is a narrow, unmade road. That’s the way you go to Old Cottage. It’s about half a mile along there.’

  Wilde thanked her and wound up the window. He was still reeling. He had always known that Athelstans was in Suffolk, of course, just as one knew that Eton was in Berkshire, but that was as far as it went. So the Reverend H. Hartwell was a teacher at Peter Cazerove’s old school. Might that explain the connection between him and Harriet Hartwell? Assuming there was a connection. It was only surmise after seeing the young man’s photograph on the wall at the Dada Club.

  He engaged first gear, and drove on out of town.

  *

  Wilde stood in front of Old Cottage, having parked the car fifty yards further back along the track. He looked at the building from end to end. It was on two levels, perhaps built at different times. The thatch was in need of attention but, that aside, it was breathtakingly beautiful, a straggling half-timbered building that must once have been the home of a well-to-do yeoman farmer. Wilde reckoned its age at 500 years or more, which meant it must have been standing here before anyone had even heard of the Tudors.

  The gardens all around were a mad profusion of flowers, not well tended, which could have been the result of the owner of the property spending the summer months elsewhere. That said, the colours and the heady mix of fragrances were quite spectacular. This was a proper English country garden. It really was quite exquisite, the sort of house he would love if he and Lydia and Johnny were ever to escape the smoke of Cambridge and move out of town.

  He knocked at the door and waited. He thought he heard a sound from within, but it was very faint. He waited half a minute then knocked again, slightly harder and louder. Still no one came.

  Perhaps the occupant was at the far end of the house or around the back. Wilde followed the flagstone path towards the rear. He could see no one outside in the garden so he knocked on the back door. Again, no one came. And yet he was sure he had heard something inside. He tried the door handle and it was unlocked. He called out.

  ‘Hello, anyone at home?’

  From somewhere deep in the house he thought he heard another noise, muffled and strange. Almost human, but not quite. A cat or dog perhaps? He called out again, louder. ‘Hello, Reverend Hartwell?’ And louder still. ‘Hello! Hello!’

  Now there was certainly a sound from within. A scuffling, a minor crashing of wood, like a small table or chair falling over, then another noise, a little like a cupboard door or window being opened. Wilde was alarmed. It sounded like a fight and he could no longer afford to observe the niceties of waiting to be invited in. He entered the house and found himself in a small and rather pleasant kitchen with pans, utensils and bunches of herbs hanging from hooks. The floors were broad, dark-stained boards which were worn with time and might have been there as long as the house had stood. As he made his way through the low-ceilinged rooms and dark, narrow corridors, he felt as if he was in some sort of medieval time capsule. On another day, the thought might have occurred to him that the house should be classified as a museum or national monument but for the moment, he was filled only with dread and foreboding.

  At the highest point of the house, in an ancient room that was being used as a bedroom, he found the source of the noise he had heard.

  An elderly man was lying on the floor at the end of a single bed. He was bound and bleeding. It looked as though his throat had been cut, but he was still moving, still alive, his feet twitching, his mouth gurgling. Blood was pouring from the wound, pooling on the floor like a crimson halo around his old white-grey head. The pool grew and seeped through the spaces between the boards.

  Wilde crouched at the man’s side, pulling and tearing at a bedsheet, bunching it into a ball to try to stem the flow of gore. But he could see it was hopeless. The wound was deep and deadly, cut savagely with a single, powerful strike that had almost certainly severed both jugular and carotid.

  The dying man’s eyes were open but empty. His lips were moving as though he had something to say, but no words emerged, just a ghastly frothing and bubbling of the incessant blood.

  The window was open. That must have been the sound he heard. That must be the way the assailant had fled, for someone did this to the old man. There was no blade visible, so it was reasonable to assume this wound was not self-inflicted.

  Wilde felt utterly impotent. His hands and clothes were drenched with blood as he cradled the man’s head, desperately trying to think how he could give him a little comfort in his final moments. If this was the Reverend Hartwell, then he was almost certainly Church of England. Wilde had been born and raised a Catholic, yet he could not remember the words to say and, not being a priest himself, he could not give extreme unction, but he had to say something.

  ‘Bless you, reverend. The Lord is with you . . .’ The pathetic emptiness of the words sickened him.

  The man had gone limp in his arms. The flow of blood had decreased to a trickle. Wilde held him for a few more moments, then gently lowered his head to the floor. The light had completely gone from the man’s eyes so Wilde closed them with his thumbs.

  As though weighed down by an anchor of solid iron, he slowly pulled himself to his feet. He went to the window and looked out. Somewhere out there a murderer was making his getaway. But that
was not Wilde’s concern at this moment. His first duty was to call the police and ambulance, though there was nothing that medical science could do.

  He despised his hypocrisy. Amidst the blood and horror, he had said those religious words to the man, but he believed none of them. They didn’t even serve as a bromide, for the dying man would have heard nothing. Wilde hadn’t believed since childhood and, if he was honest, he hadn’t really believed then. His visits to church and the confessional had only been performed at the behest of his mother.

  *

  As he moved about the house, he soon discovered that the telephone wires had been cut, so there was no way of calling for assistance. There was no hurry, for no one’s life was at stake, yet he felt compelled to act at speed. He looked around the rooms as quickly as he could and soon confirmed that this was, indeed, the home of Harriet Hartwell. There were several photographs of her, including a couple with the dead man, who was clearly her father. In one of them he wore a clerical collar, and they stood together, Harriet aged about seventeen or eighteen, on the forecourt of a large building. The words at the bottom of the frame said simply, ATHELSTANS, SUMMER 1935.

  On the bedside table near the body, there was a photograph from a former age of a rather lovely, though slightly serious-looking, young woman who must surely be Harriet’s mother. The absence of any further pictures of her suggested she might have died when Harriet was a child.

  It wasn’t ideal, but he had no option but to go and find a police station or a telephone. Perhaps the school would be the best port of call. He opened the front door and was relieved to see a woman in Royal Mail uniform appear at the end of the path on a bicycle.

  The look on her face changed in an instant from one of workaday nonchalance to a mask of sheer panic and terror. For the first time, he realised the sight he must present: covered in blood – hands, face, shirt, jacket. He put up his hands as though to say, ‘Look, I am no threat to you,’ but the postwoman’s mouth opened in a silent scream. In a frenzy, she tried to make a 180-degree turn, almost falling from her bike in the process. Regaining her balance, she pedalled off back along the path at breakneck speed.