Read The Secret Generations Online
Authors: John Gardner
On the next day, Charles heard that they were still receiving Seagull
’s messages, sent from Berlin to Switzerland.
‘
You’ve been having me on a piece of string,’ his voice raised at her for the first time. ‘Madeline, you’re still working for
them
. The Seagull signals are coming in more regularly than ever. You fool, Madeline, there’s little I can do to save you now…’
‘
And what happens to you, my darling?’ There was no trace of threat in her voice. ‘You’ve kept me here. I’ve already passed information to you. They’ll have you in prison for assisting the enemy. Probably shoot you. If you had gone to your people straight away, it would have been different. You’ve left it too late. Don’t you see, my darling, we’re in the same boat. My masters threaten me; yours will stop you in your tracks.’
‘
I know where my duty lies.’
‘
Do you? We can help each other, and enjoy one another at the same time. Our respective masters can be kept happy. Nobody need ever know. Then, when it’s over, we can come to an arrangement.’
‘
Madeline, my dear. I’m a Railton…’
‘
So is our daughter.’
His jaw dropped, and the colour went from his face.
Madeline Drew gently explained the situation, with the aid of photographs she had brought with her. In an hypnotic horror he stared at the pictures. Even though the child was so tiny, the Railton characteristics were plain for all to see.
When Charles left the Hans Crescent house that night, he did not even see the two Special Branch officers, in the shadows across the road.
*
October rolled into November, and then December. On the Western Front the guns stifled silence. Men died, and hung on barbed wire. Villages changed hands. Earth was fought over, won, and then recaptured. The
uncertain weather that had persisted all summer began to change, and winter was upon them.
On a November night, Giles, his head stuffed with secrets and intrigues, came down from the Hide, where he had been moving Napoleon
’s forces in the early stages of Waterloo, and saw Denise, caught in the lamp light as she tidied the drawing room. She was rapidly growing into a beautiful young woman.
‘
Sit down for a minute, my dear.’ Giles smiled fondly at his granddaughter.
‘
What do you wish, Grandpapa?’ She spoke English well. ‘I’ve been thinking.’ He smiled. ‘Are you happy, here?’
‘
Oh yes. I am safe. I have everything I want, and the family are so good to me. Think, Grandpapa, I am to be Sara’s bridesmaid at Christmas. It’s so exciting.’
He nodded.
‘I wondered,’ a pause to the count of six. ‘I wondered if – say, next year, you might like to do me a favour.’
‘
Anything.’
‘
Would you like to go back to France, for a few weeks? Just to deliver some messages to friends of mine.’
‘
If you say I must.’
‘
We’ll see. We’ll talk about it again.’
*
Sara Railton was married, in the Parish Church of SS Peter and Paul, Haversage, to Captain Richard Farthing RFC, on 23 December 1915. In order to show economy, and with a complete disregard for superstition, she wore the dress in which she had been married to John Railton, a fact which caused a deep division of argument among locals and family.
On the night before the wedding, Dick stayed at the Bear Hotel in Haversage, and had a small dinner party to which all the Railton men were invited. All accepted, apart from Giles and Malcolm. They made reasonable excuses, but everyone knew they would be closeted, together with Bridget, in The General
’s study for most of the evening. There, though nobody was to know, they came to certain strategic decisions which were to affect the Irish situation during the coming year.
Andrew got drunk at the dinner, and Charles
– looking a little peaky, everyone said – had to put him to bed. Charles was to be Dick’s best man on the following day, as no Farthings had been able to make the journey to Europe. In his speech at the dinner, Dick said he made no apologies for the fact that James should really have been his best man, and they all remained silent for a minute’s prayer and hope that James might still be alive.
Certainly Margaret Mary was still convinced of her husband
’s safety. She was to be Matron of Honour, with Denise as bridesmaid. It was easy enough to make it a happy occasion, though Sara was a shade cross when Caspar arrived and almost stole the thunder, by announcing that he and Phoebe would need a double room as they had been married, in secrecy, the previous week.
Billy Crook and Bob Berry had contrived leave, and the whole town turned out.
Even Mildred looked better, though few had the temerity to mention Mary Anne.
The couple left Redhill late in the afternoon to spend their Christmas quietly at a hotel near Torquay. This left the Railtons in command of the Manor for their own traditional Christmas festivities. For the second year running, Giles took over The General
’s study, and played little part in the holiday games. Yet he also thought much about James Railton.
*
They had kept him in the same cell, in the place where they had taken him immediately after his arrest in Wilmersdorf.
For the first week there had been little sleep. The questioners came in teams, with about one hour
’s rest between the interrogations. James did as he had been instructed, and told the story about really being Gustav Franke but working for a Swiss firm under the name of Grabben.
They made no physical threats. He was not charged with espionage. Then, after a week, they simply left him alone.
Every other day they marched him along stone corridors, into a yard so that he could walk for an hour. This was always done at three in the afternoon, rain or shine.
James started to learn the art of remaining sane under these solitary conditions. He scrat
ched the days off, with a thumbnail, on one of the softer stones of the cell wall. He kept to a rigid routine, including modified physical jerks in the small, cold room. Each morning, he quoted as much Shakespeare as he could remember. Each afternoon he flew, in his mind, taking an aircraft up from Farnborough, and flying precise distances, closing his eyes, and going through the entire business, exercising his thoughts. At night, he worked on his German and French.
They would allow him no paper or writing materials, so all things had to be performed within himself. Eventually, he knew, they would come back to question him.
He did not know it was Christmas Eve – though he was aware that the festival was near at hand – when the Judas squint slid open and closed at an unusual time, early in the morning, almost before he was up and about. They had opened it normally only half an hour before.
James was intrigued; memories suddenly came back unheralded, and a scent seemed to have penetrated the cell. It was pleasant, the scent of spring flowers, and he knew it from somewhere, but could not quite put his mind on it.
*
Major Nicolai waited at the prison, early that morning of Christmas Eve when the woman arrived. He showed great courtesy, and they had coffee together in a small office before he took her deep into the bowels of the fortress.
It was a damp and miserable place. Later, she thought to herself that it smelled of despair.
Walter Nicolai and Steinhauer had both explained what would be done, and they stopped in f
ront of the cell door. She positioned herself directly in front of the Judas squint. When she was ready, she nodded.
It took about three seconds. She nodded again, and the little metal door was closed.
Within minutes, she faced Nicolai – alone – in the same office in the main building.
‘
Well?’ he asked, ‘You recognize him?’
She nodded.
‘Oh yes. He’s neither Swiss nor German. He’s English. His name is James Railton. Does that amuse you?’
Slowly, Nicolai shook his head.
‘No, but it interests me. We can do much with a man called James Railton.’
And in his cell, James sat, quoting aloud from
The Tempest
. There was the scent of English flowers in his nostrils, and his heart shook with fear. His cousin, Marie, had used a scent which smelled just like this. He knew it well.
‘
A solemn air, and the best comforter
To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,
Now useless, boiled within thy skull. There stand,
For you are spell-stopped
…’
Hell was about to come down around his ears, and the solitude would have been sanity by comparison.
*
On 30 December,
HMS
Natal
blew up, in a great ball of fire, with no warning, at Cromarty in Scotland. ‘The Fisherman’ had spoken yet again, and was drawing closer to those with whom he would soon become, unexpectedly, involved.
It was on Giles Railton’s personal instructions – passed by Basil Thomson – that a Special Branch watch on Charles was kept within a tight circle which did not include Vernon Kell. Giles had spent too long among the shadows himself to allow it to become what he would term public knowledge. It was this surveillance which first led them to Hans Crescent.
Unknown to either Madeline or Charles, some of the Special Branch officers quietly forced their way into the rooms in Hans Crescent, and rigged up their own listening device
– built from telephones, and bits and pieces of army communications equipment. It was rough and ready, but the military had learned a great deal from the enemy on the Western Front. The Germans had been listening in, regularly, not only to the field telephones, but also by placing microphones near trench breastworks. The latest listening gadget was now concealed behind the metal flanges of the Hans Crescent bedroom’s air vent.
It was not wholly successful, but eighty per cent of the conversations which took place in that bedroom were heard, written down in shorthand
– using several different listeners – and transcribed, again by many hands, into reports seen in their entirety only by Basil Thomson and Giles Railton.
Giles took little pleasure in reading page upon page of these documents. As it came straight from the bedroom there were, naturally, entries which simply read:
The subjects appeared to be indulging themselves sexually for the following hour. No reliable conversation could be heard.
But there were some conversations of immense interest, and one such took place very early on in January.
They were in the bedroom when Charles taxed Madeline over the question of important information. Somehow she did not seem to comprehend the seriousness of the situation into which they had both become inextricably dovetailed.
‘
I’m giving you all I can – all I know,’ she complained. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘
Of course it’s not. Can’t you see, what you’re giving me isn’t possible to use in these circumstances. You’ve pleaded for me not to go to my people, and, like a fool, I’ve agreed. Now, it’s too late. I have to go sooner or later…’
As always, she became nearly hysterical when he spoke of telling the authorities.
‘Steinhauer’s men will get to me,’ she sobbed. ‘I promise, Charles, this is the only safe way. Put me even in the Tower of London, and he’ll get to me. For God’s sake, if you love me, please don’t have me taken in.’
‘
It’s both our necks, darling.
Both
of us. They can have you for espionage any time – and they won’t hesitate to shoot you, not after the Cavell woman. As for me… Well, it’ll look pretty bad,’ he took a deep breath, ‘They’ll have me on toast as well. Dawn, a wall, a post and a firing squad.’
‘
You don’t know what Steinhauer’s like. He controls all operations in England. He says his men are everywhere…’
‘
That’s rubbish. If we say you’ve just arrived, and keep you under a twenty-four hour guard, you’ll be fine…’
‘
He’ll have me killed.’ Her voice suddenly became very calm. ‘You’ve kept your side of the bargain. You know what they’re looking for…’
‘
What they’ve always looked for: dockyards; troop movements; ship movements…’ He paused, and the listeners heard noises of movements as Charles got out of bed, pulled the curtains closed and lit the gas. ‘Madeline, I
know
we could keep you safe. Why are you so certain you’d be killed?’
Softly
– it was only just audible to the listeners – she said, ‘Because Steinhauer has a man here, in England. He’s done it before, and will do it again.’
‘
How do you know? Tell me about this man.’
‘
I just know he’s here.’
‘
Who told you? Steinhauer?’
She did not hesitate.
‘No, Steinhauer’s said nothing. I’ve overheard him talking; and listened to others. Some speak openly about him, but he’s feared. They call him “The Fisherman”.’
‘
“The Fisherman”? Why?’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t know, only that’s what he’s called in Berlin – either “The Fisherman” or “Saint Peter”, because he fishes for souls. Listen, you remember there was a ship which blew up – when? 1914? November? Soon after the war began. Yes, November. Just blew up.’
‘
HMS
Bulwark
. Exploded with no warning. Sheerness. Yes?’
‘
He did that. “The Fisherman” planted the bomb that made the
Bulwark
explode; others – the one in December,
Natal
. Charles, there are plans for him to deal with other ships.’
‘
If that’s true, then he’s a saboteur. Yes, he’s killed people, but they are naval personnel…’
‘
He’s killed at least two men.’ There was fear in her voice, as though even talking about this man might bring death.
‘
Oh?’ Charles sounded alert. Unknown to the listeners, he had a sudden terrifying memory. The darkening street in Rosscarbery, Ireland. The blood and the axe. The huge man, limping towards him, on the opposite side of the road. Why? There was no connection.
‘
I know there was one man in Portsmouth; another in London; and a woman in Scotland.’ Madeline almost whispered.
‘
Two men and a woman. No names? Nothing else?’
‘
Nothing… Yes…’
There was a pause. Finally she spoke again,
‘Yes. I know how he killed. All three were strangled. A white silk scarf. That’s all I know about it.’
This particular conversation remained intact in the transcript.
‘I think we should begin to look through the files,’ Basil Thomson said to Giles.
Giles shook his head,
‘No. Well, yes, by all means look through the files with the Criminal Investigation Department, but I would counsel no action as yet.’
‘
If it’s true. “…more plans… to deal with other ships in a similar way.” We can’t risk leaving him loose.’
‘
For a day or so only. I may be regarded as a cold fish, but I don’t want to see my nephew brought to trial for espionage and treason. Give me a day or so. See if Charles takes any initiative.’
‘
A couple of days, then.’ Thomson thought the whole business was exceptionally serious.
So did Giles, which was why he happened by Vernon Kell
’s office during the late afternoon of the day on which he read the transcript, and was present when the first news concerning Mary Anne came in.
Kell always made time for Giles, and the conversation went back and forth for ten minutes or so, then Giles casually asked what Charles was on at the moment.
‘Heaven knows,’ Kell flung up his hands. ‘The man never stops. He’s got some bee in his bonnet about sabotage now; some strange lead; gone dashing off to Portsmouth – which reminds me, I’ll have to get hold of him, a friend of mine in Movement Control has news of Mary Anne. Girl’s turned up at her old posting – the General Hospital in Rouen. The RAMC Commanding Officer has asked for the paperwork, which doesn’t exist, of course.’
Giles hardly reacted to what was essentially good news for the Railton family. Instead, he continued with his questions about Charles
– what was this sabotage business? Where had the lead come from? What was Charles up to?
‘
Charles is an old hand, now. A very successful officer and doesn’t need me on his back twenty-four hours a day.’
‘
Well, at least he’s taking the business seriously,’ Giles told Basil Thomson the next day.
‘
I know,’ Thomson sounded oddly bitter. ‘After our conversation two of my men checked through the files at The Yard. Your nephew had beaten them to it, and the idiots in the Criminal Investigation Department had failed to make any connection between the three murders. All quite obvious, but in different parts of the country, so they’re on the unsolved file.’
‘
And there are two men and a woman, as she said?’
‘
Exactly as she said. A Naval Lieutenant called Fiske, found in the dockyard, Portsmouth, November 1914; a fifty-year-old chemist, in the back of his shop – Camberwell – last July: name of Douthwaite; and a woman of thirty-two, a Mrs MacGregor, in a boarding house, just before Christmas: Invergordon. All strangled; white silk scarf; particular kind of knot; MacGregor’d recently had sexual intercourse – no sign of rape. Someone suggested the work of a naval officer. The white silk scarf, right?’
‘
You’re suggesting that our man
is
a naval officer?’
‘
Treachery isn’t confined to the other side, Giles. If German Intelligence had the wit to plant people on us years ago, then it’s likely they’ve already penetrated the Army and Navy. I want to put one of my best men onto this business. First we have to find exactly what Fiske, Douthwaite, and Mrs MacGregor had in common.’
Giles paused, giving the hint of a nod.
‘You already have Charles working on it.’
‘
Then, with respect, I really think we should haul Charles up in front of Vernon Kell, and arrest the Valkyrie of Hans Crescent. Get it into the open.’
‘
Give it twenty-four hours, Basil. Let’s see if Charles has really got anything. It could save us time in the long run.’ But twenty-four hours was too long by half.
*
Charles had told Madeline that she was only to go out if her people instructed her to do so. Always she must leave a note, tucked behind the picture above the main room’s fireplace, giving him some idea of where she might be. He did not know how long the investigation would take: after all he was not a trained detective. Yet, as Thomson later related, he beat the official CID and Branch people by a mile.
First he began with the chemist in Camberwell. His death had not been in the chronological order of things, but, as Charles was in London, then he must start in London.
The facts of the case were straightforward. Cecil Douthwaite had lived over his shop – five rooms, one of which he occasionally let out, a practice taken up after his wife’s death in 1913.
He ran the shop, which he had bought in 1899, with the help of his wife until her death, employing only a boy to take prescriptions to customers, or items to local doctors. Since his wife
’s death he had also employed a young woman – Dorothy Knapp – to help in the shop. She was the only person authorized to hold the second set of keys. The occasional lodgers were given a single key which admitted them to the side entrance, bypassing the shop, dispensary, and store room.
On the night of 16 July 1915, Miss Knapp had left the shop at her usual time, six-thirty in the evening. Mr Douthwaite gave her a cheery,
‘Goodnight, behave yourself, don’t be late in the morning.’ Apart from the murderer, Dotty Knapp, who was only twenty-two years of age, was the last person to see him alive.
The next morning, 17 July, she had arrived in the morning at eight-thirty, to find that her employer was not in his usual place, the dispensary. She was immediately alarmed. It was so unlike the man. The store room was locked, so she walked through to the stairs and called. No reply. She went up and found him, in his little sitting room. He was bolt upright in his favourite chair; the face was blue and the silk scarf had been knotted so tightly that his windpipe had been shattered.
The police officer in charge of the case had noted that the victim almost certainly knew his murderer, or, at least, trusted him. He was obviously taken by surprise, and there was evidence to suggest that someone had been seated, for a while, in the other, matching, chair.
Using a Metropolitan Police Warrant Card
– a common practice among senior officers of the Department – Charles started to sift local records and talk to people. In a matter of hours he discovered significant facts overlooked by the police: that the late Mrs Douthwaite’s maiden name was Gerda Erzberger, born in Hamburg, 1873. Her parents had emigrated, settling in London when she was seven.
Immediately he asked for a check on the parents with the DORA Aliens List, to find that they had both returned to Germany in 1911.
From Dotty Knapp, who turned out to be a pert and cheeky little brunette with large eyes, he learned that, towards the end of 1914, Mr Douthwaite had a regular lodger (‘He liked to call him a paying guest though,’ she rolled her big eyes, ‘sounded more genteel.’) This man was not there all the time, but kept up regular payments. ‘Well, he couldn’t be at Mr Douthwaite’s
all
the time, could he? Him being a seafaring man, like.’
No, she never heard his name. Yes, she saw him often enough. Of course she could describe him
– which she did. Charles felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. Rosscarbery, and the big, limping man climbed into his head. How did she know he was a seafaring man? She couldn’t say. Maybe Mr Douthwaite told her, she just could not recall.
Charles went off to Portsmouth, and looked at the facts, against those on file. In November 1914, Lieutenant Alexander Paul Fiske, aged thirty, was waiting to be assigned to a new ship.