Frankie's Letter (19 page)

The clerk looked relieved. ‘Thank you, sir. No hotel likes having the police called in. It doesn't do us any good, sir. The guests don't like it.'

Michael shook his head. ‘There seems precious little you could tell them anyway. Thanks for letting me know and –' he reached in his wallet for a ten shilling note ‘– if you could let the porter have this. Tell him I appreciate what he did.'

The clerk took the note. ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much indeed.'

Michael walked up the stairs with a frown. It looked as if things were starting to happen. He could wish that O'Dwyer hadn't been so assiduous in his protection of the hotel property, but he could hardly explain that to the clerk.

Maybe Bertram Farlow and Peter Warren could add to the porter's description. They should have seen what happened from their vantage point across the corridor. He just hoped that the man hadn't been scared off completely. Unless the thief went for the maps in his trunk, any burglary could be nothing more than coincidence.

Still deep in thought, Michael turned the key in the door to his room. From the corner of his eye he saw a figure detach itself from the shadow of a pillar next to the door. He half-turned, then there was a sudden thump in the small of his back and a voice whispered close to his ear.

‘I have a gun. It is only a small gun and will not make much noise. It might not kill you, but it will certainly cripple you. Open the door.'

Michael froze. He knew that Farlow and Warren were watching from across the corridor and, at the far end of the corridor, a porter was unloading bags. His instinct was to lash out, calling for help. As if the man read his thoughts, the gun jabbed painfully into his back.

‘Don't be stupid.'

Michael swallowed and decided not to be stupid. The voice chilled him. He'd expected a thief, not an assassin. There was something horribly compelling about the man's even, articulate, unexcited tone. Michael had no doubt that the man would leave him sprawled in helpless agony, while he walked away. Besides that, he was
supposed
to be burgled. Farlow and Warren must think it was all going according to plan, but it shouldn't have happened like this. He had no idea how scared he would be.

He heard the man's hiss of satisfaction as the key turned in the lock and the door swung open. Then they were inside the room, the door shut behind them. Michael wanted to turn, to see his assailant, but the gun remained in the small of his back. ‘What now?' Michael asked. There was a crack in his voice. He wished there wasn't. ‘What's all this about?' he tried, and this time his voice stayed steady.

There was a sigh close to his ear. ‘Diamonds, Mr Rycroft. Somewhere in this room are your maps charting where you discovered diamonds. Find them for me.'

‘Diamonds?'

‘Do not waste my time,' the man said in a snarl. ‘Your government does not believe you. I do. Get the maps. And don't turn round!' The last words were punctuated by jabs of the gun.

Michael's lips were very dry. He didn't have to act scared, he
was
scared, but more than that, he was angry. ‘They're in the trunk under the bed,' he said sullenly.

‘Take out the trunk.'

Michael walked across the room, the gun still pressed against his spine, and stooping under the bed, drew out the brass-bound trunk.

Kneeling on the floor, he could see the man's feet and trouser legs. The shoes were long and slim, with thin soles. Expensive shoes, he thought, desperately trying to find something he could describe to Colonel Brooke later. But the shoes were just shoes. There was nothing unusual about them. He unlocked the catch on the trunk and took out his briefcase with the maps in it.

‘Stand up,' said the man. ‘Slowly.'

Michael stood up and felt the briefcase taken from his hand. There was a click as the briefcase was opened, followed by a rustle of papers and a little breath of satisfaction.

‘Good. Now the diamonds, Mr Rycroft.'

More than anything in the world, Michael wanted to lash out. He restrained himself with a physical effort. This is
supposed
to happen, he repeated to himself. This is what we
hoped
would happen.

The gun was anchored in his back. ‘The diamonds are in my pocket,' he said.

There was a soft, humourless chuckle. ‘Very wise. Take them out.'

If only this wasn't supposed to happen he could have used the bag of diamonds as a weapon to give weight to his fist, struck out with it, kicked backwards, risked the blasted gun. Anything rather than be robbed by this swine with his expensive shoes and clipped voice.

Michael took the wash-leather bag from his pocket and held it to one side. A man's hand, with fair hair on the back and neatly manicured nails, came forward and took it from his palm.

‘Very good.' The triumph in the voice was almost unendurable but what he said next startled Michael.

‘Stand against the wall.'

‘What?'

‘Stand against the wall.'

Michael stood with his face to the wall, senses tingling. The muscles in his arms tensed and his fingers bent, ready to spring. The man gave a little, quick breath. For the first time the gun left his spine. Almost immediately it was jammed against the side of his head.

Using his fingers as a lever, Michael hurled himself backwards, smashing his fist behind him wildly as the gun exploded next to his ear.

The man's chin jerked back as the blow connected. Michael threw himself on him. A powerful arm swept across his windpipe, knocking him back. He cracked his head against the edge of the chest of drawers and for an instant the room went black. The man scrambled for the door.

Michael, scarcely able to breathe, heard, through the roaring in his ears, someone knocking. The door opened and Peter Warren stood in the doorway.

‘Hold it,' he shouted, then the man raised the gun and fired at point-blank range.

Warren looked down at his ripped, bloodied, shirt front. He seemed about to speak, then he was thrust out of the way as the man leapt past him. Warren, thrown to the floor, clawed at his chest, juddered and lay still.

Michael staggered across to Warren and shook him helplessly. The sightless eyes stared back. He got to the door, in time to see the black-coated back of the man race down the corridor. The porter who had been unloading luggage stepped forward as if to stop him. ‘No!' yelled Michael.

The man jerked to one side, evaded the porter's grasping hands and raced down the stairs.

The porter, utterly bewildered, gazed at Michael clutching at the door frame. ‘Here,' he called, coming towards him. ‘What's been going on?'

He stopped short as he saw Warren's body. ‘Oh my God,' he said. ‘He's dead.'

Sir Charles lit a cigarette and looked sightlessly at Anthony, his eyes clouded with worry. It was Sunday evening and they were in Anthony's rooms.

He'd been summoned back to London by a telephone call, supposedly from the War Office. He knew something must have gone badly wrong. He'd just found out what.

‘That poor devil, Warren,' said Sir Charles. ‘He didn't have a chance. When I think we set this up, Brooke . . .'

‘We couldn't know the thief was a killer,' said Anthony uneasily. ‘He could have walked in, demanded the goods and Greenwood would have handed them over. I think Greenwood's had a very lucky escape. Warren's killer sounds a real swine.'

‘He's a cold-blooded murderer,' said Sir Charles with feeling. ‘It's a pity Greenwood didn't get a good look at him. I'd like to know who we were dealing with. He's not a professional crook. No professional would rob a hotel room in that way. He obviously didn't know how to pick a lock, so simply waited for Greenwood to come and open the door.'

‘Can't Greenwood tell us anything?' Anthony demanded.

Sir Charles shook his head. ‘Not much. The killer had a clipped, well-spoken voice, expensive shoes, fair hair and manicured nails and both Farlow and the hotel porter thought he was tall, well-built and wore a soft hat and a dark coat. Greenwood says he didn't have any accent to speak of, certainly not an Irish one. It's not much to go on, is it? He was certainly going to murder Greenwood, even though he'd got both the diamonds and the maps. Warren simply got in the way.'

‘Where's Greenwood now?' Anthony asked.

‘He's still in the St George's, but in a different room, of course.' Sir Charles got up and stretched his shoulders. He looked very tired. ‘I've tipped the wink to Scotland Yard that it isn't an ordinary murder, if there is such a thing.' He sat quietly for a few moments, then stirred. ‘One thing Farlow could tell me about was the failed burglary.'

‘Failed burglary?'

‘Yes. The successful theft was the second attempt. The first one was at half eleven this morning. Eleven thirty-two, to be exact. The interesting thing is that the first attempt was obviously by a different man. Now he did sound like a pro. He was armed with either a long-bladed screwdriver or a chisel and he was just about to get to grips with Greenwood's door, when a porter came round the corner and chased him off. See if this rings any bells. Farlow describes him as a thin, nondescript man of medium height with a small moustache and a scar on the side of his chin. Farlow got a good sideways view of him.'

Anthony sat up. ‘He sounds like my thief, Talbot. The one who pretended to be a club servant.'

Sir Charles nodded. ‘That's what I thought. So we've got one attempted robbery by someone who sounds like a real crook, followed by the successful one by someone who isn't so much a crook as a killer.'

‘The employee and the employer in fact,' said Anthony. ‘That's how I see it, anyway. The Weasel bungled the job, so the fair-haired chap took a hand.' He paused. ‘The second chap – the well-spoken one – sounds like a gentleman, doesn't he?'

Sir Charles gave an irritated sigh. ‘But we'd placed the gentleman at Starhanger, or thought we had. Talking of Starhanger, do you think there's any chance Veronica O'Bryan did have a riding accident? I only ask because it seems odd, if she was planning an escape, that she left the letters.'

‘I wondered about that, said Anthony, reaching for the cigarette box. ‘I think she must have acted on impulse. Once she'd decided to run for it, she couldn't risk coming back to the house. In any case, she probably thought the letters were safe in the jewellery box. It was a pretty good hiding place, Talbot. It took me some time to find it, and I've done that sort of thing before. She must have had some money on her because, somehow or other, she got up to London and told whoever about the diamonds.'

‘Couldn't she have telephoned?'

‘I wouldn't like to give a message like that over the phone, I must say. She could have phoned and arranged to be picked up in a car, I suppose. That's something we could probably check. The trouble is, she vanished a long time before the alarm was raised. With a good horse she could've got a long way from Starhanger.' Anthony tapped his cigarette on the ashtray. ‘Did you manage to get “Frankie's Letter” read?'

‘I did. It was difficult to crack but simplicity itself once the code people had tumbled to it. The code changed with every “Letter”. D'you know what the key was? The bridge problems in a completely different part of the magazine. Once that was spotted, it was easy. The numbers on the bridge scores gave the relevant words in the “Letter”
.
'

Anthony nodded. ‘Bridge problems ties it to Veronica O'Bryan, all right. Tara O'Bryan told me that setting bridge problems was one of her mother's skills. What was in the “Letters”?'

‘Dynamite.' Sir Charles drew a deep breath. ‘My people went back over the whole run of the magazine. It started before the war. The first few issues are innocent enough, and then the information starts. There's reports of armaments at Woolwich Arsenal and proposed troop movements by train. There's notes of which ships are in the Chatham Dockyard and how the mouth of the Thames is guarded. It details which regiments are bound for active service and an unbelievable amount about who's who in the government – and whose mistress is whose, as well. The private lives of the senior ranks of the army and navy are recorded in some detail, too.'

Anthony's eyebrows shot up. ‘My God! Is the information accurate, Talbot?'

‘As far as we can tell, yes. Some of it even we don't know. When we said that someone at the heart of society was the worse sort of spy, I must admit even I had little idea of how much they could pick up. Perhaps the “Letter” which is of most interest to you is the one concerning Cavanaugh. It says he's in Kiel and asks for him to be taken care of.'

‘And so they took care of him,' muttered Anthony.

‘If that wasn't bad enough, it seems as if there's something big planned. It's hard to make a guess what it is, but it could be a bomb attack or even a full-scale shelling of the coast, as happened on the east coast in December.'

Anthony winced. The bombardment of the east coast had been an act of sheer brutality. There had been no military target. Eight German battleships turned up out of the mist of the North Sea and opened fire on Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool, wounding and killing nearly six hundred civilians from a six-month-old baby to an eighty-six-year-old lady. The attack had been celebrated in Germany with the singing of the
Hymn of Hate.
‘We will never forgo our hate; hate by water and hate by land . . .' That was occasionally played by British military bands as a joke. Some joke.

Sir Charles looked, thought Anthony, more than tired. He suddenly seemed grey with worry. ‘All we do know is that some particular person or persons are the target, concealed in the general outrage. It says the party in question will be in place on the fourteenth of June.'

‘The fourteenth?' repeated Anthony. ‘That's less than a fortnight away. Isn't there any other clue?'