The american agent, p.6
The American Agent, page 6
“Just tuck the table napkin into your collar—it’s not very ladylike for an English rose, but it’ll save that silk blouse.”
Maisie raised an eyebrow at his comment, but followed the advice. “The other thing is the sharp pencils, because—”
“Sharp pencils? Saxon wasn’t killed with a pencil, Maisie, despite Dr. Ferguson’s demonstration,” said Scott.
Maisie looked at him, drew the edge of her napkin across her lips and set down her fork. She leaned forward on her elbows. “Mark Scott—whilst I know you are a very good agent, and from experience I know you can break into just about any room to find what you want, I also think you hit the nail on the head when you said you knew nothing about a murder investigation. But surely even you can see the link between a sharp pencil and the whereabouts of the blade used to bring the lead to a point?”
“Very funny,” said Scott, taking a mouthful of his food. “This is the best spaghetti.”
“Have you tried Bertorelli’s?”
“No—but let’s have lunch there next week,” said Scott.
Maisie cleared her throat. “I wasn’t trying to be funny, Mark—she used a very sharp knife or blade, and it’s missing. It could be the murder weapon.”
“Right, yes.”
“So we have to find out what happened to it.” She reached for her glass of water. “Did Mr. Murrow say anything of note?”
“Just what we know already—that he was considering her for his crew here in London. He liked what she’d done before, her reporting from Spain and the stories she’d filed from London for various newspapers in the States. He said she had a strong voice when it came to human interest—and that’s what he needed.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, Maisie gauging Mark Scott’s remarks.
“Did he know of anyone who was put out by her work—had she upset anyone?”
“Frankly?” Scott took a spoon and scooped up the last of his tomato sauce, then reached for a slice of bread and tore off a piece, holding it above the plate as he spoke. “Murrow’s reporters could have been upsetting a lot of people—but not here. The tide is beginning to turn in America—the statistics show that more people are becoming sympathetic to what Europe is enduring and how Britain is fighting back. It’s a compelling story—poor little Britain is holding the fort against the Nazis, and her boys in the air have been giving the Luftwaffe a run for their money. Or as you Brits might say, they’ve ‘given them what for.’”
“How would that upset people—our RAF doing their bit, or your statistics?”
“There’s a new organization—called America First. Well, it’s not exactly new, but let’s say it’s been given a new lease on life. Charles Lindbergh—you know, the hero aviator—he’s at the forefront, along with other big names. They are set against helping Britain, and they advocate taking America’s isolation even further than it is already. The president is facing another election, so he has to watch his step. He’s with Churchill all the way—well, all the way as far as he can venture right now, though on a personal level, I’m not sure he likes the guy. But every time another of those broadcasts is heard in American homes, the America First sympathizers get upset all over again.” He folded the slice of bread, drew it through the last of his sauce and popped it into his mouth, wiping his lips with his napkin before speaking again. “Then you get Catherine Saxon telling the story of a woman burning the flesh off her hands as she cries out for her daughters who have just been blown to shreds, and on one hand you have more and more Americans with a deep sympathy for the old country weeping into their dinner, and on the other there are those who believe that it’s all a fabrication to draw us into another European bloodbath and they’re yelling, ‘Lies!’” He looked across to Maisie’s plate. “Gonna finish that?”
“Go on—I hate to see food wasted, and I’ve lost my appetite.”
Scott reached for Maisie’s plate, swapping it for his. “You could say I am here to monitor communications between my country and yours. I have a job at the embassy that involves . . . it involves diplomacy.”
“Given that it’s an embassy, one would hope so,” said Maisie. “But I have to say, you’re a funny kind of agent.”
“Takes all sorts.”
“Did you find out if Miss Saxon had any particular friends among the other correspondents here in London?”
“I have a couple of names—here.” Scott reached into his pocket and drew out a folded piece of paper. “One was a sound engineer guy at the BBC. Apparently she’d known him before her interview with Murrow—don’t know where they met, but you can find out. He’s an Australian. Been over here since the end of the last war—married an English girl and decided to stay.” He looked up at Maisie. “And I bet it was the weather that did it!”
“Oh, very funny,” said Maisie. “Who else?”
“The other one is a woman, a friend from home. Lives in London and is married to a banker. They were at Vassar together. Jennifer Barrington, formerly Jennifer Standridge of Greenwich, Connecticut.”
“Very nice indeed,” said Maisie.
“Know the place?” asked Scott.
“I was in Boston a few years ago—just for a short time, and I traveled a little, though I don’t remember much about it.”
“That was after—” Scott stopped speaking. “Sorry.”
“Yes, I almost forgot you knew,” said Maisie. “You were going to say, ‘After your husband was killed.’” She looked at her watch. “I really must be going soon. I’m meeting a friend for the journey down to Kent and we’ve got to find each other!”
“A gentleman friend?” Mark Scott grinned.
Maisie rolled her eyes. “It’s Mrs. Partridge. Her son, Tim, was wounded during the Dunkirk evacuation, so she and her husband rented a cottage not too far from my house. Tim’s still there—trying to come to terms with his disability, though he’s rather in the doldrums at the moment. She goes back and forth to London because we are on an ambulance crew three or four nights a week.”
Scott waved to Pete, who came with the bill, which he paid with a single note. He pushed back his chair, not waiting for change.
“Come on, let’s get you to Charing Cross or Victoria, or whichever station you want to try.”
“Wait a minute,” said Maisie, turning to Pete. “May I use your telephone?”
“I’ll show you where it is, madam.”
Maisie returned to the table a few moments later. “I just telephoned my friend, and we’re going to try to catch a train at Victoria station after all. Apparently there’s not too much damage to Charing Cross, but the trains have been affected—and to make matters worse, the bomb that went into the Thames has made it difficult to use the underground. Anyway, I can catch a bus and—”
“Not a chance—I’ll get a taxi.”
“Really, Mark—it’s not—”
“I hate to keep interrupting you, but I insist.”
“All right—I’ll take a cab. By the way, you know we mostly use the suffix here. You say ‘taxi’ whereas we say ‘cab.’”
“Maybe I’ll hire you to be my interpreter every time I need a taxicab then,” said Scott.
“Oh, I think you’re doing well enough on your own,” said Maisie, as she climbed into the cab, which had screeched to a halt as soon as Mark Scott raised his hand outside the restaurant. “Shall we speak on Monday afternoon? I should have more to report.”
“No, you go ahead with the investigation. I’ll be in touch—I’m on embassy business for most of next week. Here’s a number where you can reach me if necessary.”
Scott handed a card to her, and without further ado slammed the door. Maisie looked back just as Scott was lifting his hat by way of farewell, and the driver moved out into traffic. She turned away and brought her attention to the road in front: to the sandbagged buildings, to the barrage balloons overhead, and as they neared the station, to buildings rendered nothing more than smoking rubble. She considered Mark Scott. Yes, he was amusing. Yes, she knew he was clever, and a very accomplished agent. But she was curious about his remit in London—in fact, she continued to wonder if the death of Catherine Saxon wasn’t providing Mark Scott with some sort of useful camouflage.
“I thought I would never catch this bloody train!” said Priscilla, clambering aboard and taking a seat alongside Maisie. “Elinor walked in just as I was about to leave, so of course I had to find out what she’s been up to with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. I don’t think it’s much like it was in our day—mind you, I was in France, driving ambulances through the mud.”
Elinor was the former nanny to Priscilla’s three sons. Such was the bond between the family and their former employee that even after she had joined the “FANY” for her national service, Priscilla had insisted the house remain Elinor’s home, and her room was always ready for her return. Having bumped into Elinor earlier in the spring as she was leaving the building where Robert MacFarlane’s office was located, Maisie suspected Elinor was involved in work that had the potential to be every bit as dangerous as Priscilla driving ambulances across the shell-erupted landscape of Flanders during the last war.
“And I almost went to Charing Cross,” continued Priscilla. “Then I remembered we’d just agreed it was best to come to Victoria, though I think this train will take ages. At least it’s early enough so we won’t be moving along in the blackout.”
“I don’t know about you,” said Maisie, “but I’m feeling guilty already about not being on duty tonight.”
Priscilla sighed, and looked out of the window toward the platform. The train was still not moving, even though the guard had sounded his whistle to signal the locomotive was about to begin its journey. “Me too—but we did the right thing in going back to London last Saturday, as soon as we knew it had started.” She looked down at her hands. “And don’t forget we said we’d return on Sunday, after lunch, to relieve another crew—I would imagine we might not get back down to Kent for days now, the way things are going, so we’d better make the most of it. And for me, that might not be such a bad thing, given Tim’s mood when I’m there. I really hope he’s a little better disposed to having his mother in his midst for a few days. And thank heavens Douglas has been able to work from the cottage, though we’re like ships that pass in the night, both of us making sure Tim isn’t alone in the house. It’s been four months since Dunkirk, but sometimes I wonder if he will ever truly recover. And needless to say, I’m always the one who seems to rattle his cage.”
“Andrew says it will take time,” offered Maisie, referring to Andrew Dene, the orthopedic surgeon—and Maisie’s former love—who had operated on Tim Partridge.
“That’s what his father said—and he should know, having lost an arm the last time around! But Douglas wasn’t given the chance to take time to get over his wounds. He had to buck up and get on with it—which seems to be the best way, if you ask me.”
“Priscilla, perhaps this is the moment I should remind you that you met Douglas in Biarritz, where you had both gone to leave the war behind. Your husband was probably in the same state of distress as your son, but you didn’t realize it at the time, because you’d just met each other and had fallen in love.”
“Oh, don’t be too kind, Maisie—let’s be truthful. I was sozzled, in an almost constant drunken state because I had lost three brothers to the war and my parents to the bloody ‘flu.’ If anything, saving me probably helped Douglas save himself. But Tim is not cut of his father’s cloth. Sadly, he is more like me.”
“He’s the very best of both of you. He just needs to find his place, now that his dream of going into the navy has been shot to pieces.”
The guard sounded his whistle again, and the train began to move.
“Oh, thank goodness—we’re off.” Priscilla glanced out of the window again, then back at Maisie. “Anyway, I shall brace myself and do my best not to rise to any bait my son throws into the waters of otherwise household calm. I feel as if all he wants to do is pick a row with me.”
“And that’s exactly what he wants, Priscilla—you must be able to see it. He won’t fight with his father, because Douglas is so easy-going. Tim reveres Tom, because in truth he not only adores his older brother, but he’s his hero—so he won’t goad him. And Tarquin is keeping his distance—which isn’t surprising for a younger brother who has not one, but two brave older brothers to look up to. So, you are the only person upon whom he can vent his anger.”
“I’m the one who comes out wounded though. I just want my toads back, my three little toads who used to be so much fun! And as for Tarquin, well, what can I say? He’s become the quiet one, when I always thought he would be the holy terror. My mother’s instinct tells me he’s up to something—fourteen is not a good age to be up to something. I should have spotted that with Tim, when he began going off to sail—but I was just grateful not to have him picking arguments with me.”
Maisie reached out and took the hand of the friend she had known since girlhood, when they met as students at Girton College, in Cambridge. “Let’s all have an early Sunday lunch at the Dower House before you and I have to go back on duty. Anna loves our big Sunday lunches. And I’ll invite Lord Julian and Lady Rowan. I think they would like a break from entertaining Canadian officers.”
“All right. Good idea. We might as well have some fun before venturing back into the fray.” Priscilla looked out of the carriage window, tilting her head to the sky. “They’ll be here soon enough, filling the sky. What do they call a flight of crows? That’s it—they’re like a murder of crows, those bloody Germans with their bloody bombs.”
“There’s a letter for you here, Maisie,” announced Brenda, waving the envelope in front of Maisie before she even had time to take off her jacket. “It looks important—from the Ministry of Health.”
Maisie dropped her bag and took the envelope from her stepmother. She ripped it open and removed the letter.
“Oh dear. I don’t know whether this is good or bad.”
“What is it?” asked Brenda.
“The adoption panel has been canceled due to the bombings. They’ve assigned me a new date—which they are saying will be ‘in October.’” She folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. “And I bet it gets pushed along the line again and before you know it, we’ll be into November and lucky if it’s sorted out before the new year.”
Brenda was thoughtful. “Let’s just imagine it’s good news—I mean, let’s face it, the way this war is going, those people will have more to worry about than one child’s adoption.”
At that moment, the kitchen door crashed open, and Anna, now almost six years of age, rushed into the house with Frankie and two dogs in her wake.
“You’re home, you’re home, you’re home!” she squealed as she jumped up to be swept into Maisie’s open arms. “Uncle Frankie says we must go down into the cellar now—they’re coming back from London, and we don’t know if they’re going to lay their spare eggs!”
“Their what?” asked Maisie, smiling. She kissed Anna on both cheeks, then her nose.
“I’ll explain when we’re down there. Maisie,” said Frankie. “Bren—come on, down into the cellar now.”
“I’ve got the flask and sandwiches ready,” said Brenda.
Still holding Anna, Maisie grabbed a flask from the table, and called the dogs to heel. The cellar door was beyond the kitchen, in the recess leading to the scullery—Maisie opened the door, switched on the light and began to descend the stone staircase. A single electric light bulb hung from a low oak-beamed ceiling, revealing a cellar the size of a cottage drawing room. A shaft of golden late summer evening light shone through a small window. In one corner a pile of coal had landed underneath double doors that opened to the ground alongside the house—each week the coalman would open the doors to shoot in two one-hundred-weight sacks of coke, and perhaps more in winter, for the stove and fireplaces. It was fuel that would have to be conserved now, because coal was needed for factories and power stations first. Brush marks were evident where Frankie had swept back the dust before constructing a wooden barrier between the coal and the rest of the cellarage—for good measure he had placed a tarpaulin over the mound so they would not breathe in the dust. At the opposite end of the cellar, three mattresses had been laid on the floor with blankets and pillows on top, covered with dust sheets to keep them clean during the day. Maisie drew back and folded the dust sheets, before taking her place on one mattress, with Anna alongside her. Frankie settled the dogs on blankets in the corner, and Brenda set three flasks of tea and a picnic supper on the table.
“I reckon they came from another direction today,” said Frankie. “I didn’t see as many going over, but they could have flown in from the east so they can follow the river in toward the docks again. Whoever planned this blitzing business was nobody’s fool, but our boys have been up there, taking them on, doing their level best to stop them before they reach London.” He paused and held out his hand to his daughter. “I didn’t want to ask about it, Maisie—but we’ve been on tenterhooks since you went back last time. We went upstairs on Saturday night—could see the red light of fires across London as we stood there at the bedroom window. It was like watching the sunset on fire across the horizon.”
