Frankie's Letter (20 page)

Sir Charles shook his head. ‘No.' He got to his feet and stretched his shoulders. ‘So you see, Brooke, we simply have to find Veronica O'Bryan.'

‘Why the devil can't we arrest Sherston? After all, it was his paper the wretched
“Letter” appeared in.'

‘Where will that get us?' Sir Charles's voice was thin with impatience. ‘I've been warned off Sherston. I saw the Home Secretary earlier and was left in no doubt as to what I can and can't do. We
have
to get this right.'

So that was why Sir Charles looked so tired. Anthony was prepared to bet he'd had damn all sleep last night and to top things off, he'd been hauled over the coals by a politician.

‘Unless there's real rock-solid evidence,' continued Sir Charles, ‘
real
evidence, proving Sherston's the gentleman and knows about “Frankie's Letter”
,
then he's in a position to make the biggest stink there's ever been. Sherston is friends with half the cabinet, for heaven's sake. If we get this wrong – if
I
get this wrong – not only will my head be on a platter but the whole service would be torn apart. We'd never recover and in the meantime the Germans, who'd know all about it, would have a field day.'

He leaned his arms on the mantelpiece, choosing his words carefully. ‘There's another reason, too. You know how hysterical the spy mania is. Ironically enough, Sherston's helped to create it. If he's innocent, he'd never live it down.'

He turned and looked at Anthony. ‘That's wrong, you know. I still care about that. He'd be ruined and perhaps worse, as some half-baked patriot would be bound to take a crack at him. Besides that, if we arrest Sherston, it tells the enemy we're onto them.'

‘But Veronica O'Bryan will tell them that anyway,' protested Anthony. ‘She knows Frankie is a busted flush.'

Sir Charles shook his head. ‘We can't be certain. It looks that way, I grant you, but she only knows what she overheard. We don't know what she
did
hear. What if we apparently do nothing? They must expect us to raid the offices of the
Beau Monde
. Say we don't. Won't that look as if Veronica O'Bryan went off at half-cock and panicked unnecessarily? Publicly speaking, Veronica O'Bryan went horse riding and never came back. It was an accident. Let's play along with that for the time being. They might even think we believe it. We're supposed to, when all's said and done. After all, we don't know how far the ramifications of this thing spreads, especially with the Irish angle. I'm not sure who's involved, but there's a good few politicians and public men who are sympathetic to an Irish National State. The Home Secretary was worried about that. Frankie might just be the tip of the iceberg.' He glanced at the clock and rubbed his face with his hands. ‘It's getting late. Let's see what turns up tomorrow.'

Anthony leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette, sitting thoughtfully for a few moments. ‘All right. I agree. In the circumstances doing nothing will confuse the enemy and I'm all for that. I'll tell you something, though. I'm going to make a prediction. Warren's murderer, our fair-haired friend, sounds like the man at the top to me. He's ruthless and efficient. We're going to hear from him again.'

S
ir Charles Talbot leaned forward attentively to the woman across the table. It was lunchtime on Monday and they were in the Criterion on Piccadilly. Under the influence of a bottle of hock, faultless service and excellent food, served amongst marble pillars under the ornate gold mosaic ceiling, the editor of the
Beau Monde,
Miss Rowena Holt was becoming confidential.

‘So you're thinking of starting a new magazine,' she said, finishing the last of her chicken pie. ‘It's not the right time, you know, what with the price of pulp paper and the war soaking up all the really decent staff. We keep going, but we're a well-known name.'

‘A household name,' murmured Sir Charles.

She smiled at the compliment. ‘You could say that, I suppose. What you've got to be certain of is your intended audience. Who are your readers?'

Sir Charles was ready with the answer. ‘Ladies of some wealth and standing, ladies who, despite wanting to do the very best, both for their homes and their country, still have enough means, leisure and inclination to want to dress and live smartly in accordance with the prevailing modes.'

Miss Holt digested this, together with the chicken pie, as the waiter deftly cleared the plates. ‘Hmm. The same readership as the
Beau Monde
, in fact.'

‘Exactly,' said Sir Charles smoothly. ‘Which is why, of course, I've come to you.'

Miss Rowena Holt, he thought, didn't look as he imagined the editor of an expensive journal for the upper classes would. She certainly didn't emulate the languid beauties who adorned the pages of the
Beau Monde
. She was short – dumpy in fact – and businesslike, with a sensible, well-worn grey alpaca coat and what were referred to as walking shoes.

‘Well, you could do worse than talk to me,' she granted. ‘At least I'll tell you the real facts and not some flannery. You say this American wants to extend his press to England?'

This was the story Sir Charles had worked out. He had presented himself at the offices of the
Beau Monde
in the guise of a scout for a New York newspaper magnate, and managed to charm Miss Holt out to lunch. He nodded in response to her question.

‘I wouldn't mind knowing who it is,' she said thoughtfully. ‘Mr Sherston would be interested. I don't suppose . . .?' She saw his expression.

‘He would like to remain anonymous for the present,' said Sir Charles regretfully.

‘Well, he's probably well-advised at this stage,' she agreed. ‘To be honest, I'd tell him to find another readership. What about factory girls? They've got quite a bit of money to throw around nowadays, what with munitions and so on. The top end is very crowded, you know.
Vogue
is the one to beat, but there's plenty of competition. We hold our own, I'm glad to say. Pudding? Oh, thank you. Perhaps one of those strawberry tarts. They looked delicious and marvellously early as well. The thing is, Mr Hargreaves –' Sir Charles had dropped his name and title for the purposes of the interview – ‘every magazine needs its own personality, something that will draw the readers back time after time.'

‘You've got “Frankie's Letter”
,
haven't you?'

She laughed and reached for the cream jug. ‘You've put your finger on it. Frankie is the talk of London. She goes everywhere and knows everyone and there's always that little
frisson
when you think you might have talked to her. There's been lots of guesses who she is, but no one's managed to pin her down.'

‘It must be very difficult to keep a secret like that,' said Sir Charles with a smile. ‘You must have been tempted to let the cat out of the bag more than once. It must be nearly unendurable to see Frankie at work and be the only one in the room to know who she is.'

‘But I don't know,' said Miss Holt, meeting his eyes. Sir Charles looked startled. ‘No, honestly,' she said, sprinkling sugar on her tart. ‘I grumbled at first, as you can imagine, when Mr Sherston first proposed the idea, but he said it was a condition of Frankie, whoever she is, doing the “Letter” at all. I was very dubious, as it's one thing to make a newspaper stunt out of secrecy and quite another to really mean it. I nearly refused to run the first “Letter”
,
because of the conditions. I'm not allowed to edit them, you know.' Sir Charles's eyes widened. ‘I've got to print them as they are. Still,' she added with a shrug, ‘it's the first page everyone turns to and the copy's always good, so if that's what Mr Sherston wants, that's what Mr Sherston gets.'

‘So it was Mr Sherston's own idea?'

Miss Holt nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. He takes a great interest in the content of his magazines.'

‘But how does Frankie get paid? Surely she doesn't work for nothing?'

Miss Holt laughed. ‘I wouldn't have thought so, but I don't know who pays her. Mr Sherston himself, at a guess. There was some talk that it might be a lady-friend he wanted to oblige, but I scotched that right away. Mr Sherston isn't that sort, and I've seen enough to know. No, I've got a fairly good idea about Frankie, but if Mr Sherston wants to keep it to himself, that's his business.'

‘A member of his household?' asked Sir Charles quietly.

‘You didn't hear me say any such thing,' said Miss Holt stiffly, then laughed once more. ‘It's a good guess, but why spoil the fun? After all, it's not a state secret, is it? Yes, coffee would be very nice, thank you.'

Agnes Prenderville, senior assistant at Hampson and Quinns, the gentlemen's outfitters, walked through the entrance to Southampton Row tram station and down the steep stairs to the gloomy underground platform. The platform was crowded, as it always was at six o'clock, but she jostled her way through until she found a foot-square space relatively free from bags, umbrellas and elbows.

Mondays always seemed longer than other days, for some reason, and she'd been run off her feet today. The place had been crowded out, full of people who'd come to gawp at the German Town being built for some newspaper stunt. They'd had some awkward customers today, too. Honestly, that woman who complained about her husband's socks! On and on, as if it was Agnes' fault they'd shrunk in the wash. Well, they were the right size when we sold them to you, madam. No, that hadn't gone down well. It was dark, under the gloomy subterranean archways of the tram station and, despite the crowd, Agnes felt her eyes closing. She pulled herself together with a start and glanced at her watch.

Ten past six. She had a few minutes yet before the number 31 was due. The watch had been a present from Steve, a pretty thing with numbers picked out in gold. He was on good money now, what with the war and everything. Yes, she'd made the right choice with Steve. Even if the army said he wasn't fit for them, he'd do for her. Steve was a steady worker who could keep a job. Mum said that was important and she was right. Even if there were better-looking men, looks weren't everything. Take the bloke in front of her, now . . .

Partly to keep her eyes from closing again and partly from natural curiosity, Agnes studied the man standing to one side and slightly in front of her, summing up his clothes with a practised eye. The stick he carried was a gentleman's cane of blackthorn topped with a silver handle. The overcoat slung over his arm was a fine wool that must have cost anywhere between seven and eight guineas, and his suit was another cool five or six guineas worth, topped off by a very smart soft hat.

She wished Steve would make more of an effort. Not at those prices, of course, but he could look like a real gent if he wanted to. This bloke was a real gent, of course. Agnes recognized the upright, arrogant stance, the air of one who gave commands, not took them. Good looking though, with fair hair and sharp cheekbones.

A tram – a number 35, not hers – clanked into the station and he turned his face to look at it. She didn't like his mouth. No, she didn't like his mouth, she thought with a sudden chill. It was sharp with a cruel twist to it, not kindly like Steve's. Agnes had a faint sense of something wrong. Although the man was looking at the tram keenly, he didn't seem to want to board it. He didn't straighten his shoulders, readjust the coat over his arm and shuffle forward in the crowd. No; instead he stepped back, watching. That was it. Watching.

The crowd heaved round her, shuffling slowly forward towards the waiting tram. The man walked forward, not towards the tram, but diagonally across the platform. It was as if he was trying to catch up with a friend, but his face wasn't friendly. He shouldered his way through to stand behind a bloke in a bowler hat and paused. Agnes half-expected him to tap the bloke on the shoulder, but he didn't.

She saw his eyes narrow and focus, his lips flatten out to a thin line, then the arm carrying the coat raised up and, so quickly she couldn't work out what was happening, there was a sharp crack.

The gent dropped his arm, turned away, back through the crowd and towards the steps leading up to the street. The bloke in the bowler seemed to stagger and jump forward, clutching at the woman in front of him, his arms round the shoulders of her navy blue coat. She screamed in fright, trying to free herself, to shake off the clutching arms. The crowd heaved and eddied and there was a swell of excited noise as a space appeared around her and the man in the bowler fell to the floor.

The conductor on the tram leaned forward on the lighted landing stage, his voice carrying over the din. ‘What's going on?' he demanded. ‘Here, stand clear of the car, will you,' he added, getting down from the tram and pushing his way through the passengers. ‘What's that lady screaming about?'

‘A geezer attacked her,' said an eager-looking man in a cloth cap, over a rolling torrent of explanations. The woman continued to scream. ‘Disgraceful, I call it. Grabbed hold of her, he did. I seen it. Bold as brass.'

‘He's been took ill,' said a headscarfed woman. ‘'E collapsed. 'E must've had a stroke. Takes 'em like that, it does.'

The woman who had screamed was standing at the centre of a small circle, a man sprawled out on the platform in front of her. His hat, a bowler, was still jammed tight on his head, but Agnes caught a glimpse of an odd dark stain on the back of his neck.

The conductor broke through into the little circle and knelt on the ground. ‘Be hushed, mum,' he said with rough sympathy to the woman who screamed. She was standing with her hand crammed to her mouth. ‘No harm done.' He reached out, tentatively shook the fallen man, gasped and drew his hand away.