Letters for a Spy (19 page)

She regarded me sympathetically.

“Well, sir,” she said, “all I know is I saw the film myself—when was it, now?—I think it may have been in August or September-time. Summer, anyhow. Me and my better half; we saw it at the Queen’s in Bays water. Or it may have been the Regal, Harrow Road. So I reckon it would have finished here in June. Maybe July.”

At least she had given me a moment to recover.

(To
recover
?)

“And no revival of it since then?” I asked. “No revival at all? None, say, in early March this year?”

“Not at the Empire, sir. Nor at the Ritz next door, which is our sister cinema, although of course it’s a good deal smaller…”

And she proudly informed me that she hadn’t missed a single day’s work in her full six months.

“So a revival couldn’t just have slipped me by, as it were. Besides, sir, it isn’t any part of our policy to hold revivals.”

I had the impression she might now have been willing to forestall the manager by leading me step by step through all the intricacies of the MGM release and distribution system. But I thanked her as courteously as I could and—feeling as though I might actually need to vomit—turned away and headed for the pavement.

Where, after a while, beneath a blown-up and violently tinted picture of airman John Wayne, I took out the serviette which Sybella had given me. She had written her address in longhand rather than in block capitals. I took out her letters, too.

Allegedly
her letters.

But the writing wasn’t hers. (As if I’d really believed any more that it could be!) Enough said.

Absolutely
enough! It furnished undeniable proof of deception. What did it matter that the film hadn’t been showing at the Empire when she’d said it had?—Sam Spade could have saved himself
that
little effort of investigation. Not to downgrade it, however—purely on its own, it would also have furnished ample evidence of deception.

Not quite so comprehensive, maybe, but still pretty damning.

I wiped my lips on the serviette. If this was meant to be vengeance, though, it didn’t work. King Pyrrhus would surely have sympathized.

Besides all of which, my glance was now drawn to a single fragment of sentence in the second letter. (That crossword puzzle syndrome: one delayed solution sparking off another.) The words might have been illuminated.

I read again: “Wolverhampton—Wolverhampton for one night only…”

Ostensibly written during her first week with ENSA: the time, supposedly, of the play being cast and of everyone’s lines being learnt and of frenetically intensive rehearsal.

And no more than just two days into that chaotic first week … already a preview in Wolverhampton? Really? No!
What
an achievement for our long-suffering Lady Producer!

Another fragment of a sentence—this time from the earlier letter. I read again: “Panting for Monday so that I can get back to my crowd of silly females.”

Sweet Jesus!

Was it possible?

How in the name of God could I have seen it so many times and yet still never have noticed?

That one little adverb.

Back, she had said. (Had allegedly said.) B
ack
.

No, I didn’t like loose ends. And—who knew?—perhaps I even felt that strange compulsion to punish myself still further. I telephoned ENSA and this time, on my first shot, found the number unengaged. The
Nine Till Six
contingent had been performing in the play since January.

And yes—right from the start—Miss Sybella Standish had certainly been a member of the cast.

“Oh, and a most
valuable
member of the cast!” gushed the tactful and obviously well-intentioned woman to whom my call had been transferred. “I hear that she always gives a remarkable performance—yes, a truly remarkable performance!”

24

First I sat absent-mindedly in some snack bar, over an untasted cup of tea, until the soldier who was sharing my table felt driven to exclaim, “Sorry, mate, but don’t you think you’ve stirred that long enough? You’re giving me indigestion!”, and I put down my spoon with a start of apology, wondering how anyone could ever kill a man in close combat … when simply the idea of ruining his pleasure in a poached egg was sufficient to induce strong guilt.

(By ‘anyone’, of course, I meant myself. And yet I had joined the Abwehr! And yet I had become a spy!)

Then I caught a taxi back to Abbey Road, but in the taxi the same dull ache continued … the same agonizing refrain.

The former involved Sybella.

The latter involved her, too.

But more obliquely.

Explicitly, all it asked was: Why
me
? Repeatedly—why
me
?

Yet at least I could acquit myself. It wasn’t a phrase prompted by self-pity. Rather, it arose out of mystification; out of the basic need to know.

Where had I gone wrong? In what totally unwitting way—in what desperately stupid, woefully amateur way—had I managed to announce my presence over here as an enemy agent?

During our progress up Regent Street, I made myself try to review everything I had done since my arrival at Holy head—not even excluding the few words I had exchanged with other passengers on board the boat before my conversation with the neighbourly woman who had informed me about Mold being her birthplace.

Review
everything
? In fact I didn’t feel as though I had actually done much.

And what little I had done … at the moment it required a fierce effort of will simply to keep my mind on it.

Surely nothing had happened in Wales which could have implicated me without my knowing?

No.

No—definitely not.

Basically, I had just put up at an attractive small hotel and looked through its register. Not even stealthily but with the help of a kindly receptionist. (Who certainly—certainly?—wouldn’t have recognized my fountain pen as being German. And even if she had … well, what of it? More than likely ‘Orthos’ had been purchasable over here in the thirties. Failing which, there had never been any law forbidding holidaymakers from bringing back souvenirs…)

Nor, upon leaving Wales, had there been anything underhand about my interview with Mr Gwatkin. Again, at Waterloo Place, I had been greeted by a kindly receptionist who…

I stopped.

Yes.

Who had changed in her attitude towards me.

Who had most
assuredly
changed in her attitude towards me.

But it was only now that I began to pay this proper attention. At the time I had naturally been aware of it, yet it just hadn’t seemed important. She had started off by being friendly; by greeting me with a pleasantry to which I had responded, and a jokey remark about the other Mr Gwatkin being absent. But then she had altered—I had vaguely supposed she must have received a ticking off.

Yet try to think, I told myself. Did you
hear
her being ticked off? No, you did not. You merely assumed it.

But why did you assume it? Try to think. Isn’t this what occurred?

I had given her my name, of course. Earnestly requested to see Mr Gwatkin. Told her that I needed to get in touch with a client of his—a Mr J.G. Martin.

Nothing wrong so far.

The woman had passed on this information. The connection had been poor. She had needed to repeat several points. It was as though she were talking to someone a little hard of hearing.

But Mr Gwatkin wasn’t hard of hearing. And the woman had grown flustered. “Yes, very well. Yes, of course, Mr Gwatkin. Yes, I will.”

I had asked whether I myself had been responsible for her discomfiture. But no, she had assured me, oh no, the trouble had been to do with something else entirely. Yet she still found it difficult to look at me. Before the call she’d been relaxed; now she appeared harassed. Was it even fanciful to say she suddenly seemed fearful?

“Yes, of course, Mr Gwatkin. Yes, I will.”

Will what?

Will nothing … apparently. Other than confirm I would be able to see the solicitor after his present client had departed.

She had also offered me a cup of tea—which I had declined. However, she had then gone off with the declared intention of making one for herself. It had admittedly struck me as a little odd that this should be considered a good enough reason for leaving the switchboard unattended.

Odd, too, that when she came back she had forgotten her cup of tea. But I hadn’t really thought about it. Why should I? I had vaguely supposed she might have gone to the lavatory—whilst there, had remembered something important which required her immediate attention.

I hadn’t
at all
supposed that on leaving reception she had hurried straight into the office of Mr Gwatkin. I hadn’t
at all
supposed that her suggestion of tea could have been merely a subterfuge. To indicate normality. To cover up confusion.

But what if the solicitor had said something like this on the telephone? “For Pete’s sake, woman, stall! Say I have someone with me, then get in here fast! But calmly … we can’t afford to make him suspicious. Why not offer him some tea? And if he says yes—well, he’ll just have to wait for it, that’s all.”

Or was I simply imagining things again? After all, what had I done?

Nothing. Nothing but mention the name of J.G. Martin.

And wasn’t it more likely that Mr Gwatkin was indeed with a client but hadn’t been able to locate some crucial piece of correspondence? “Oh, yes, you may
claim
it hasn’t been misfiled, but would you please come in to show us—right away!” He could at first have been overriding almost everything she had been trying to tell him; which was why she had needed to repeat herself.

Yet—in that case—why the cup of tea?

No. I couldn’t make sense of it. It didn’t hold up.

But anyway. What next?

Well, the poor woman had returned to her position at the switchboard, that patient, undemanding switchboard. Currently, the office didn’t—not in any way—give off the air of busyness that her appointments book had promised.

And probably just as well. Even during a lull as pronounced as this one her agitation appeared unabated.

If not positively enhanced.

But then?

She had put through an outside call.

And, unexpectedly, this had soothed her. Not because of any actual conversation but because the individual she had wanted had proved accessible—she obviously hadn’t supposed her task was going to be an easy one. Transferring the call to Mr Gwatkin she had shown her relief not only in her face but in every detail of her posture. The metaphorical deep breath—the evident sense of relaxation—these had provided me with a gentle amusement. I’d scarcely given a thought to the indirect cause.

T
he individual she had wanted
…?

No, previously this person hadn’t held much interest for me. But now, during the course of my present taxi ride, every aspect of my visit to the solicitor’s had suddenly become of interest. Overwhelming interest. And now I endeavoured to concentrate on one specific moment passed in the reception area of Messrs McKenna & Co. I tried to rid my mind of every last hovering thought of Sybella and of the attendant mire of depression she had cast me into. I remembered—in connection with that name the receptionist had asked for—some chance association flitting into my head.

And just as swiftly out of it—tarnation! But I thought that in some way it might have related to clothing.

To tailoring? To outfitting? The image of a dog-eared receipt flashed upon me. Gieves was the shop in Piccadilly where the major had bought his handkerchiefs and shirts. But that lost association had nothing to do with Gieves.

My attempt at recollection faltered when I became aware (and did so for no reason at all which I knew of) that we were passing Lord’s cricket ground.

I had come here once with my granddad. That must have been nine years ago but I recognized instantly the slab of white stone commemorating the world of sport … with at its centre, amongst the golfers and the footballers and the cricketers, a near-naked athlete clearly symbolizing the link with Graeco-Roman times. It was strange to reflect that, on the last occasion I had viewed this, my life had been so vastly—almost, I would have said, poignantly—different. I could even recall the feel of Gramps’s arm lying companionably across my shoulders as we had stood there looking up with interest at the detail on the slab.
Play up, play up and play the game
. The sculpture had been extremely new then, and evidently in those days that slogan, so quintessentially British, had not appeared in the slightest bit risible. Only 1934?

But now the taxi had pulled away from the traffic lights.

So, all right, then. Not Gieves.

And not Austin Reed.

Nor Aquascutum.

Nor Montague Burton. Nor—

But—
yes
!

Yes! That was it!

Montague Burton. The fifty-shilling tailors.

That name she had asked for on the telephone…

Montague!

Montague! Montague! Montague!

And appended to some rank or other in the navy. Admiral, vice-admiral, rear-admiral? Captain, commander, lieutenant commander?

Oh, yes—again, yes! “I’m phoning on behalf of McKenna & Company, Solicitors. I should like to speak to Lieutenant Commander Montague, please.”
That
was what I had heard her say. There had been some other word attached, a word sounding remarkably like ‘mincemeat’ and I remembered wondering what she could actually have said?

In retrospect, I supposed that what I
should
have wondered was whether I myself could in any fashion be involved, instead of merely continuing to sit there and idly leaf through
Punch
. But service titles were everywhere at present. Why should this Lieutenant Commander Montague, whoever he might be, have stood out as being anything other than some perfectly ordinary client? What legitimate reason would I have had to feel alarm? I hadn’t been acting conspicuously: nothing remotely cloak-and-daggerish. All I had done was to ask for Mr Gwatkin and to mention knowing Mr Martin. How on just the strength of those two things could I possibly have thought myself involved?
That
would have been over-imaginative. Fanciful beyond question.