Half a Crown (26 page)

“How did you see her, if you were sent away?”

“I hung around in the hall to see her, out of curiosity,” I said. “She didn’t look anything like the way I imagined an assassin, so I went to have my bath.”

“What would you have done if she had been an assassin?” Bannister asked.

“Screamed for the guard, I suppose,” I said. “But Uncle Carmichael was armed, so I wouldn’t have needed to.”

“How did you see her hair if she was wearing a hat?” Bushy Eyebrows asked.

“She was taking it off when I saw her,” I said.

“You didn’t speak to her?”

“No, I just saw her and went off to the bathroom. Then later I heard them talking.” I felt like a fool. “Can I go now? That’s everything.”

“If that’s all, why didn’t you tell us before?” Bushy Eyebrows asked. “I’ve been at you for hours, and before that Bannister asked you last night. If that’s really it, why didn’t you let us know right away?”

“I love my uncle,” I said, and to my disgust started to cry.

“What do you think?” Bushy Eyebrows asked Bannister.

Bannister shrugged again. “I think that’s probably it,” he said.
“It’s hard to be sure, but it holds water, and she’s very naïve, no tricks at all.”

I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hands. “You believe me? Then can I go? You said I could go home if I told you. Can I go?”

“Go?” Bannister asked. He laughed. “Certainly you can go. But I’m surprised you’re in so much of a hurry. I’ll be taking you to Finsbury right now.”

“Can’t you see it has to be a trap?” Jacobson asked. “They won’t hurt her. They want you to try to get her, because they’re suspicious. They want you to reveal the Inner Watch. That’s what this is about.” The office door was firmly closed. Jacobson was calmer than he had been earlier, but no less definite.

“They’re going to take her to Finsbury,” Carmichael said. “For God’s sake, Jacobson!”

“We have never done this kind of operation, and there’s a good reason why we haven’t. It’s just too dangerous. And if she vanishes on the way, they’re going to know you’ve got her.”

“But at that point, I’ll have her. I can hide her—we have enough safe houses.” Carmichael was frantic. “They’ll know I took her, but they won’t be able to do anything about it.”

“In that case, go and get her with the power of the Watch, go down sirens blazing and guns visible and tell them to stuff their law. That would send a message about not messing with you. I’m sure Normanby doesn’t want us to be at open war with the Mets and the Yard. What it wouldn’t do is give everything away and ruin everything we’ve been trying to do for the last ten years.” Jacobson started pacing again, though the office wasn’t big enough.

Carmichael considered his suggestion. “There are enough Watchmen
who know her and who’d come along on something like that. I needn’t use anyone from the Inner Watch. Though I have some of our people watching the streets already, to let us know if she moves.”

“You could just order them to do it. And if they want to make you desperate enough to step outside the law, it’s better if you do it openly. Otherwise it’s a clear admission of guilt, and you’ll probably be lucky enough to swing for it while I’ll end up as a bar of soap.”

“They think she knows something,” Carmichael said. “Normanby said so. He said she’s holding out on something, and it’s something about me.”

“They’re lying, to get you to try exactly what you want to try.” Jacobson was at the end of his pacing space, with his back to the desk. He sounded impatient.

“I’ve been trying to think what she could know. I’ve been very careful. But there must have been something sometime that made her suspicious. I don’t know what it was or when it was. We’ve never talked about anything like that. I’ve tried to keep it all from her, the work side of my life. I wanted her to grow up with advantages. She’s going to Oxford, you know.”

“She won’t be going to Oxford if she’s in hiding. She’ll be going to Ireland, or maybe Zanzibar.” Jacobson came up short against the desk and stopped.

“She wouldn’t have to stay in hiding. Just for a day or two, until the Duke of Windsor is gone and everything has calmed down. That reminds me, hang on a moment….” Carmichael reached for the phone and dialed. “Ogilvie?”

“Yes, sir,” Ogilvie said. “There are reports of more riots this morning, sir, and the press want to know what we’re doing.”

“Jacobson’s managing the riot situation,” Carmichael said. “What I wanted to say was, from now on, house arrest for the Duke
of Windsor, Prime Minister’s orders. No visitors, no leaving the hotel except for the procession on Wednesday and the opening of the conference afterwards, and then closely escorted. No telephone, no outside contacts.”

“We haven’t turned up anything suspicious,” Ogilvie said. He sounded dubious.

“Prime Minister’s direct order,” Carmichael said.

“Yes, sir, right, sir. About the riots, are you sure—”

“Jacobson has that in hand,” Carmichael said, firmly. He put the phone down and looked at Jacobson. “I take it that’s correct?”

“I suppose so,” Jacobson said.

“What are you doing about them?”

“I’ve instructed local units to break up any that mention British Power or insult the Prime Minister, and arrest along the same lines as the Marble Arch riot, and otherwise to let peacefully demonstrating people alone. I’ve told the press there’s a difference between the affair in Sandwich, with broken windows and looted shops, and the peaceful business in Lancaster where people marched through the city center chanting ‘No British camps’ and ‘Free the Hyde Park martyrs.’ Quite honestly, we don’t have the manpower to clamp down on all of them, and it makes sense to leave the peaceful ones alone, especially when it does look as if people are finally getting unhappy about what’s going on.”

Carmichael hesitated. He wouldn’t have treated them quite like that. But he had given Jacobson the authority, and besides, there were more pressing problems. “All right. I’ll calm Ogilvie down about it later, after we’ve got Elvira safe.”

“You’d do much better to wait until they get tired of testing you,” Jacobson said.

“If she does know something, anything, and tells them, it could ruin everything. We have to get her out now.” Carmichael couldn’t
understand how Jacobson could be so calm about it, not sharing his urgent need to act that made it difficult for him to sit in his chair as if everything was normal.

“If she knew something, why wouldn’t she have told them already? There are posters on every street corner telling you to dob in your neighbors because anyone can be an anarchist.” He rolled his eyes. “She’d probably have told them before this, and certainly when they asked. Everyone talks, after all, that’s why we have the teeth, and why we make sure anyone only knows so much.”

Carmichael touched his jaw automatically, on the left side, where the poison tooth was. He always worried that he would set it off by mistake, though he knew that to release it he had to press his jaw hard and bite down at the same moment, and then once released he had to bite it again to crack it and let out the poison. It was supposed to kill in seconds. “Elvira doesn’t have a tooth. And she’s an innocent eighteen-year-old girl, maybe she’s been to the pictures and seen the brave Nazis holding out against the evil commissars one too many times.”

“Much more likely that they’re lying,” Jacobson said. “She’s probably tucked away in a comfortable cell while they wait for you to incriminate yourself. Why else would Normanby out and out tell you they’re moving her to Finsbury?”

“I have to get her away. If she does know something, we have to find out what she’s told them. We could all be in a lot of danger if she does know something and she talks.”

“All right,” Jacobson conceded. “But will you at least do it openly, as it’s going to be clearly traceable to you anyway?”

“Yes. I’ll put together a scramble team. I’ll have to use our network of safe houses though, to put her in. But that doesn’t matter. As far as they’re concerned, I have her and she’s vanished. Then, when it’s safe again, she can reappear.”

Jacobson frowned, but said nothing for a moment. “Don’t take any more risks than you absolutely must,” he said at last.

“You don’t need to come. Aren’t you getting off early today?”

“I need to be home for sunset, but that’s after seven at this time of year. You shouldn’t go to rescue her yourself. Send someone reliable. Send Sergeant Richards.”

“I need to go in case someone needs to be overawed with authority,” Carmichael said. “And to tell you the truth, I need to go because I’m useless here; I can’t think about anything else and I can hardly keep still.”

“I hate to see you taking risks like this that endanger everything,” Jacobson said.

“I’ll be all right,” Carmichael said, reassuringly. “You go and look after your riots.”

“My riots instigated by agitators and my completely separate peaceful marches for change,” Jacobson agreed. “Good luck.”

He closed the door quietly behind him. Carmichael took a breath and looked at his Grimshaw print, the street fading off into the twilight, the solitary figure. Then he reached for the telephone again. “Miss Duthie? Send Sergeant Richards in to me.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “There have been a lot of calls, but nothing on your list.”

“Just send Sergeant Richards, then,” he said.

His list that morning consisted of the Prime Minister, Penn-Barkis, and the Home Secretary. Miss Duthie’s hesitation sounded clearly over the line. “You don’t want to speak to Sir Guy Braithwaite, then? He sounded urgent.”

“I’ll give him a call, thank you, Miss Duthie. Just send Sergeant Richards in as soon as he comes.”

He put down the receiver and took up the receiver on the other telephone. “Can I speak to the Foreign Secretary?” he asked. He gave his name, and waited for a moment, then heard Sir Guy’s plummy voice.

“Ah, Carmichael. Lovely having that drink with you last night. Pity you had to dash off. Maybe we could get together and have the other half sometime, eh?”

“Certainly,” Carmichael said. The door opened and Sergeant Richards came in. He came to attention. Carmichael waved him to relax and wait. He indicated a chair, but Sergeant Richards ignored it and stood at parade rest.

“Splendid, splendid,” Sir Guy was saying. “I just wanted to say, well, how about tonight? This evening, the same place? We can talk about the parade nonsense and all that.”

“Certainly,” Carmichael repeated. “That’s very nice of you, Sir Guy, I’ll look forward to it.”

“No, no, my pleasure,” Sir Guy said.

Carmichael exchanged unaccustomed parting pleasantries, and put the receiver down. He didn’t understand the exchange at all. His dealings with Sir Guy were usually strictly business. Was this a covert offer of support? Or no more than it seemed, an offer of a drink from a man who drank a lot? He looked up at Sergeant Richards, and kept looking up. He was a huge man, well over six feet tall, and broad shouldered in proportion. He had come to the Watch from a Guards Brigade, and he had never lost his military manner.

“Sergeant Richards,” Carmichael said.

“Sir,” Richards said.

“I want you to put together an armed scramble team, enough to stop a van transferring a prisoner from New New Scotland Yard to Finsbury. I’ll be coming with you. Get it ready to go at any moment, on my signal.”

“Yes, sir. How many men, sir?”

“Use your own discretion. I’m not expecting to have to fire, and in the first instance any shots should be aimed over heads. I’d like to have sufficient force with us that it doesn’t come to that. I want to
look intimidating. They have a hostage, and we want them to hand her over.” Looking up at Richards, Carmichael felt anyone would be sufficiently intimidated.

“Yes, sir. Do we know their route?”

“We don’t. But we will have warning when they move. I have men in place.” Carmichael glanced at his third phone, the one he rarely used, which connected to the walkie-talkies his men used on operations.

“Might be better to be out there ready, rather than starting from here. Can we get the move signal on the radio, sir? If we take a radio car?”

“We could, sergeant, that’s a very good idea,” Carmichael said. The thought of going into action, of actually doing something, being able to move, was a tremendous relief. “Get that organized, call me when you’re ready, and I’ll come up. Tell the radio operator the number of our radio car so that she can route the call there.”

“Yes, sir,” Richards said, and turned to go. “It’ll be about ten minutes, sir.”

“Miss Duthie!” Carmichael called, as Richards opened the door. Miss Duthie appeared in the doorway, hesitating on the threshold.

“You called me?” she said, tentatively.

“Yes, I did. When Sergeant Richards calls, let that through. Keep holding everything else. And is there any chance of tea?”

“Oh yes, certainly, right away,” she said, and scurried off.

Carmichael could not bear the thought of starting to work on anything. He picked up the
Times.
“Revelations on Television” he read, and moved on. He glanced through the reports of the riots, which did seem to be much as Jacobson said. “What Has Brought the People to the Streets?” the headline asked, over a picture of a smartly dressed blond woman pushing a perambulator with a sign pasted to the side reading
FREE THE HYDE PARK MARTYRS.

Miss Duthie returned with the tea, and a plate of custard creams.
“I didn’t know if you’d eaten anything,” she said, putting them down.

He hadn’t, and he couldn’t face anything now, but he appreciated her kindness. “That’s very thoughtful of you,” he said. “I’ll be going out with Sergeant Richards. I don’t know if I’ll be back in today, but you can tell everyone I’ll definitely be here tomorrow.”

“I will,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been praying for Elvira. I keep thinking of how she was when you first started bringing her in, before we had this building, when we were still on Jermyn Street. And she’s grown up to be such a young lady. I do hope she’s going to be all right.”

“She will if I have anything to do with it,” Carmichael said, as cheerily as he could manage. “But you keep right on praying, Miss Duthie—who knows, it might help.”