The Lost Empress (14 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Originally opened in 1865 as the Clarence Hotel, the Burlington Hotel, as it had later been named, stood in a prominent position in Dover Bay, facing the seafront directly in line with Promenade Pier. Alice had hired a bicycle as soon as she got off the train, and after she’d asked for directions, the hotel had been easy to find. She was standing in the breeze on the pier. The white cliffs of Dover rose in the distance to either side of the bay, with the medieval fortress that was Dover Castle, ‘the key to England,’ sitting atop the cliffs to her right, the Western Docks and tidal harbour to her left. It was already late morning, and the sky was patchy with high, bright clouds that Alice thought posed no threat of rain. For the past fifteen minutes, she had been gazing across Clarence Lawn, up at the letters that spelled out the hotel’s name, telling herself every now and then that everything would be all right and that she really could do this.

On the train journey she’d had plenty of time to think about the events surrounding the deaths of Admiral Waverley and his wife, and during that time, with nothing else to do but watch the countryside speed past her compartment window, she had formed another theory. If she was right about Florence Waverley having been kidnapped and about her husband having been forced to hand over secret naval documents for her safe return, she supposed that whoever was behind the plot was now trying something similar with her and her family. In Waverley’s case, his patriotism had proven too strong, but surely even the most patriotic mother could not allow harm to come to her children if by her own actions she could prevent it. Was that what Raskin had in mind for her? Did he now mean to use her to obtain the same kind of naval intelligence they had previously tried to get from Admiral Waverley? Alice was sure of it.

The breeze whipped up suddenly, tugging at her skirt and threatening to steal away her new straw boater. She held on to it and took a deep breath as she set her bicycle against the pier railing. Then she collected her handbag from the handlebars and made her way between the kiosks that fronted the pier, towards the hotel, crossing Marine Parade and then Clarence Lawn, not daring to stop until she was inside the hotel; otherwise, she thought she might lose the courage to go on again.

Inside the Burlington Hotel, the lobby was colonial in style, with latticed wainscoting and parlour palms here and there in brightly coloured ceramic pots. Alice made straight for the reception desk and asked to see Mr Raimund Drescher, the head waiter, as Raskin had instructed. A few minutes later, a man wearing a black suit and a light-grey tie came into the lobby and presented himself to her. His thin face wore a quizzical expression.

‘I am Drescher,’ he said with a clipped German accent. ‘How may I be of service?’

He was a short, thin-lipped man with a balding pate, who looked older to Alice than she thought he probably was. She moved closer so that her softly spoken reply could not be overheard, noticing as she did so that he was missing his right earlobe.

‘How is your mother?’ she said, remembering the lines Raskin had given her. ‘I hope she is well.’

Drescher drew an audible breath through his teeth. Then in an equally low voice he said, ‘Come with me.’

Alice followed Drescher through a set of double doors and then along a panelled corridor before entering through another door marked ‘Private.’ Part way along the narrower corridor on the other side, Drescher stopped.

‘In here. Quickly.’

Drescher opened another door, and Alice stepped through into a cramped, windowless room—a storeroom, judging from the shelves and crates she could just about distinguish in the low light. Drescher flicked a switch as he closed the door behind him, and an electric lamp came on.

‘What is your name?’ Drescher asked.

‘Alice.’

‘Well then, Alice. Did you bring a notepad and pencil with you?’

Alice nodded.

‘I must say. You are far prettier than any of the others who have come to enquire about my mother.’

Alice feigned a polite smile, not wishing to offend. That Drescher did not smile as he spoke made her all the more nervous now that she was alone in such a confined space with him.

Drescher edged slowly past her, brushing his arm against her as he went. She watched him go to the back of the room, where he slid one of the crates out from a lower shelf. Then he dropped to his knees and reached for something at the back of the shelf. A moment later he returned with a sheet of paper.

‘Raimund Drescher is too smart a man to keep this sort of thing in his room,’ Drescher said, handing the paper to Alice.

‘What is it?’ Alice asked, studying what was clearly a series of crude drawings of ships with letters and numbers written beside them. She put it in her handbag beside her notepad.

‘It is a simple identification aid and code sheet. You will use it to identify the ships you see coming and going in the harbour. You must not let anyone else see it. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, quite clear.’

‘Very well. Write down the identification number from the sheet, followed by the location of the ship and any markings you see. You will also observe the area in general and take note of anything you feel could be of benefit to our cause, come the day.’

‘Come the day?’

Drescher grabbed Alice’s arm and cast a suspicious eye over her. ‘You are either very new to this, or you are not all you seem.’ He shook her. ‘Which is it?’

‘New,’ Alice offered. ‘I’m very new. You’re hurting my arm.’

Drescher gave a condescending scoff as he let her go. ‘I refer to the day of the invasion of England,’ he said. ‘Never forget it.’

The thought left Alice cold. ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘Never.’

‘Good. I’ll show you back to the lobby. You must be discreet. Keep moving so as not to draw attention. The Admiralty Pier to the west and the Prince of Wales Pier will give you the best vantage points. When your task is done, go home and prepare your report for your agent in the usual way.’

‘Music sheets and lemon juice,’ Alice said. ‘And Raskin showed me a cipher—’

‘No names!’ Drescher interrupted. ‘And especially not that name.’

He rubbed at the lower edge of his right ear, where his earlobe should have been, and Alice knew she was looking at the Dutchman’s handiwork.

‘Be careful around that one,’ Drescher said. ‘He is not someone you want to cross.’

Alice swallowed dryly. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘How will I know when my task is done?’

‘You will be finished when it is too dark to see,’ Drescher said, making for the door.

This time as he passed her, Alice pinned herself back against the shelving so as to avoid contact with him. He went for the light switch and paused, turning back to her, eying her up and down in a way that made her feel all the more uncomfortable.

‘Perhaps you need a job?’ he said. ‘I can find work for a pretty girl at the hotel.’

Alice immediately wondered what would be expected of her in return. ‘No, thank you.’

‘As you wish.’

Drescher went for the light again, and again he paused. ‘You know, if you would like to have dinner this evening, I can promise you the finest dining in Dover, and who knows, maybe a little champagne?’

‘I really don’t—’

‘If you are in no hurry to return,’ Drescher continued, cutting in. ‘I could even find you a comfortable room here in the hotel tonight.’

Alice felt her skin crawl. ‘No, thank you,’ she said again, a little firmer this time.

Without saying another word, Drescher switched the light off, and the small room was plunged into darkness. Alice gasped, fully expecting his hands to find her at any moment, knowing she would not be able to call for help and risk discovery. There was too much at stake. As it was, the door clicked open, and instead of Drescher’s hands, it was the light from the corridor outside that found her. Drescher poked his head out to make sure the way was clear.

‘Come,’ he said, and Alice followed him back to the lobby, where they parted company without further discourse.

As Alice reached the main doors, she became aware of a man in a tweed suit and bowler hat sitting by one of the lobby windows. She would have thought he was merely waiting for someone were it not for the way he seemed to study her, to the point of being rude, as she passed him. She was certain she had never seen him before, and his unwanted attention caused her to quicken her pace as she neared the main doors, thinking that she never wanted to set foot in the Burlington Hotel again.

Collecting her hired bicycle from the pier, Alice tied her hat beneath her chin and pedalled west into the wind, along Marine Parade towards the esplanade and the piers Drescher had suggested she use to best monitor the harbour activity. Although the day was generally bright, it was still cold enough to keep the crowds away. She saw people on the beach and others strolling along the esplanade as she passed, but not in the numbers she imagined would be there in the height of summer if it was anything like Margate. The people she saw were mostly wrapped in their coats, and she was glad of hers as she pushed her pedals harder and the wind began to bite.

As she circled the inner harbour by Granville Dock and came to Admiralty Pier, the longest of Dover’s piers at over four thousand feet, she slowed, thinking about how Drescher had referred to Raskin as her ‘agent’ and about how Raskin had told her she was now a ‘fixed post.’ She imagined that Drescher was another, and she wondered how many ‘fixed posts’ there were in England, and how many agents. She was now of the impression that a whole network of spies was abroad in England, all feeding information back to Germany and the kaiser through the chain of command that had been established. She wondered then who Raskin reported to. She didn’t imagine he reported direct to Germany himself. He was known to her and no doubt many others like her. She thought that anyone reporting direct to Germany would be as far removed from the front line as possible so as to reduce the risk of discovery.

Arriving at the pier walkway, Alice dismounted from her bicycle and leaned it against the iron railings before climbing the steep steps that now forced her to continue on foot. To her right, over a thick wall, was the English Channel, and to her left was the harbour. Immediately below her, she could see the train tracks that had been laid to serve the ships that docked alongside the pier. There was a cross-channel passenger steamer on the other side of the water, alongside the Prince of Wales Pier, but Alice supposed that was of little interest to Raskin and his company of spies. What she was there to record were the splashes of battleship grey—as her father had once told her the colour was officially called—that she could see further along the pier and out in the Channel.

She stopped walking about halfway along the pier and discreetly took out the chart Drescher had given her, using it to identify two types of cruiser and an armed yacht. After noting them down, she went out to the lighthouse at the end of the pier, where the wind became so strong she had to remove her hat altogether or risk losing it to the sea. Looking out into the Channel, she saw an easily identifiable destroyer, which she noted down along with the details of the other ships she had so far collected.

On her way back, the sight of at least three ships out in the Channel stopped her in her tracks. They were coming towards the harbour in a convoy from the west. They were too far distant, and she knew she would need to see them from the side to accurately determine their type, but she thought if she waited, she would soon be able to. She leaned over the wall and rested her chin on her arms, closing her eyes as the wind pinned her hair back. She would have been happy to wait like that for those ships to arrive, had a voice not startled her, reminding her of Drescher’s advice to keep moving.

‘Do you need any help, miss?’

Alice spun around and felt her cheeks flush with guilt.

‘What are you doing out here by yourself?’

The man was smiling at her, and Alice felt no alarm, but she had to think fast.

‘I’m planning to paint the harbour,’ she said. ‘I was just looking for the best composition.’

The man smiled broadly. ‘Well, you won’t find it looking out to sea.’

‘No, I’m sure I won’t,’ Alice said, meeting his smile. ‘I was just resting.’

She bid the man a good day and set off again, thinking that she would make her way to the Prince of Wales Pier and watch the convoy of ships come in from there. On her way back it seemed that every man she passed eyed her with suspicion, and she supposed it was a little unusual for a woman to be out on this particular pier unaccompanied. It wasn’t anything like Promenade Pier, where it was common to take casual strolls to the pavilion and back. She saw her bicycle again and descended the steps towards it. Then, halfway down, she froze when she thought she saw the man in the tweed suit and bowler hat from the hotel lobby earlier. He was standing beside a horse and carriage by the pier gatehouse. Alice looked away briefly, trying not to let on that she’d seen him. When she reached her bicycle and glanced over again, he was no longer there.

Alice laughed nervously at herself as she pedalled away, convinced that her imagination was getting the better of her. Just the same, she took a particular interest in looking out for tweed-suited gentlemen as she cycled back the way she had come by the Western Docks, taking only a few minutes to get there.