N Or M? Part 5

"Yes. I don't need to tell you, Meadowes, that von Deinim's the one I'm most interested in."

"You think he's N?"

Grant shook his head.

"No, I don't. As I see it, N couldn't afford to be a German."

"Not a refugee from n.a.z.i persecution, even?"

"Not even that. We watch, and they know we watch, all the enemy aliens in this country. Moreover - this is in confidence, Beresford - very nearly all enemy aliens between 16 and 60 will be interned. Whether our adversaries are aware of that fact or not, they can at any rate antic.i.p.ate that such a thing might happen. They would never risk the head of their organization being interned. N, therefore, must be either a neutral - or else he is (apparently) an Englishman. The same, of course, applies to M. No, my meaning about von Deinim is this. He may be a link in the chain. N or M may not be at Sans Souci, it may be Carl von Deinim who is there and through him we may be led to our object. That does seem to me highly possible. The more so as I cannot very well see that any of the other inmates of Sans Souci are likely to be the person we are seeking."

"You've had them more or less vetted, I suppose, sir?"

Grant sighed - a sharp quick sigh of vexation.

"No that's just what it's impossible for me to do. I could have them looked up by the department easily enough - but I can't risk it, Beresford. For, you see, the rot is in the department itself. One hint that I've got my eye on Sans Souci for any reason - and the organization may be put wise. That's where you come in, the outsider. That's why you got to work in the dark, without help from us. It's our only chance - and I daren't risk alarm them. There's only one person I've been able to check up on."

"Who's that, sir?"

Grant smiled.

"Carl von Deinim himself. That's easy enough. Routine. I can have him looked up - not from the Sans Souci angle but from the enemy alien angle."

Tommy asked curiously: "And there's anything?"

A curious smile came over the other's face.

"Master Carl's exactly what he says he is. His father was indiscreet, was arrested and died in a concentration camp. Carl's elder brothers are in camps. His mother died in great distress of mind a year ago. He escaped to England a month before war broke out. Von Deinim has professed himself anxious to help this country. His work in a chemical research laboratory has been excellent and most helpful on the problem of immunizing certain gases and in general decontamination experiments."

Tommy said: "Then he's all right?"

"Not necessarily. Our German friends are notorious for their thoroughness. If von Deinim was sent as an agent to England, special care would be taken that his record should be consistent with his own account of himself. There are two possibilities. The whole von Deinim family may be parties to the arrangement - not improbable under the painstaking n.a.z.i regime. Or else this is not really Carl von Deinim but a man playing the part of Carl von Deinim."

Tommy said slowly: "I see." He added inconsequently: "He seems an awfully nice young fellow."

Sighing, Grant said: "They are - they nearly always are. It's an odd life this service of ours. We respect our adversaries and they respect us. You usually like your opposite number, you know - even when you're doing your best to down him."

There was a silence as Tommy thought over the strange anomaly of war. Grant's voice broke into his musings.

"But there are those for whom we've neither respect nor liking - and those are the traitors within our own ranks - the men who are willing to betray their country and accept office and promotion from the foreigner who has conquered it."

Tommy said with feeling: "My G.o.d, I'm with you, sir. That's a skunk's trick."

"And deserves a skunk's end."

Tommy said incredulously: "And there really are these - these swine?"

"Everywhere. As I told you. In our service. In the fighting forces. On Parliamentary benches. High up in the Ministries. We've got to comb them out - we've got to! And we must do it quickly. It can't be done from the bottom - the small fry, the people who speak in the parks, who sell their wretched little news-sheets, they don't know who the big bugs are. It's the big bugs we want, they're the people who can do untold damage - and will do it unless we're in time."

Tommy said confidently: "We shall be in time, sir."

Grant asked: "What makes you say that?"

Tommy said: "You've just said it - we've got to be!"

The man with the fis.h.i.+ng line turned and looked full at his subordinate for a minute or two, taking in anew the quiet resolute line of the jaw. He had a new liking and appreciation of what he saw. He said quietly: "Good man."

He went on: "What about the women in this place? Anything strike you as suspicious there?"

"I think there's something odd about the woman who runs it."

"Mrs Perenna?"

"Yes. You don't - know anything about her?"

Grant said slowly: "I might see what I could do about checking her antecedents, but as I told you, it's risky."

"Yes, better not take any chances. She's the only one who strikes me as suspicious in any way. There's a young mother, a fussy spinster, the hypochondriac's brainless wife, and a rather fearsome-looking old Irish-woman. All seem harmless on the face of it."

"That's the lot, is it?"

"No. There's a Mrs Blenkensop - arrived three days ago."

"Well?"

Tommy said: "Mrs Blenkensop is my wife."

"What?"

In the surprise of the announcement Grant's voice was raised. He spun around, sharp anger in his face. "I thought I told you, Beresford, not to breathe a word to your wife!"

"Quite right, sir, and I didn't. If you'll just listen -"

Succinctiy, Tommy narrated what had occurred. He did not dare look at the other. He carefully kept out of his voice the pride that he secretly felt.

There was a silence when he brought the story to an end. Then a queer noise escaped from the other. Grant was laughing. He laughed for some minutes.

He said: "I take my hat off to the woman! She's one in a thousand!"

"I agree," said Tommy.

"Easthampton will laugh when I tell him this. He warned me not to leave her out. Said she'd get the better of me if I did. I wouldn't listen to him. It shows you, though, how d.a.m.ned careful you've got to be. I thought I'd taken every precaution about being overheard. I'd satisfied myself beforehand that you and your wife were alone in the flat. I actually heard the voice in the telephone asking your wife to come round at once, and so - and so I was tricked by the old simple device of the banged door. Yes, she's a smart woman, your wife."

He was silent for a minute, then he said: "Tell her from me, will you, that I eat dirt?"

"And I suppose, now, she's in on this?"

Mr Grant made an expressive grimace.

"She's in on it whether we like it or not. Tell her the department will esteem it an honour if she will condescend to work with us over the matter."

"I'll tell her," said Tommy with a faint grin.

Grant said seriously: "You couldn't persuade her, I suppose, to go home and stay home?"

Tommy shook his head.

"You don't know Tuppence."

"I think I'm beginning to. I said that because - well, it's a dangerous business. If they get wise to you or to her -"

He left the sentence unfinished.

Tommy said gravely: "I do understand that, sir."

"But I suppose even you couldn't persuade your wife to keep out of danger."

Tommy said slowly: "I don't know that I really would want to do that... Tuppence and I, you see, aren't on those terms. We go into things - together!"

In his mind was that phrase, uttered years ago, at the close of an earlier war. A joint venture...

That was what his life with Tuppence had been and would always be - a Joint Venture...

Chapter 4.

When Tuppence entered the lounge at Sans Souci just before dinner, the only occupant of the room was the monumental Mrs O'Rourke, who was sitting by the window looking like some gigantic Buddha.

She greeted Tuppence with a lot of geniality and verve.

"Ah now, if it isn't Mrs Blenkensop! You're like myself; it pleases you to be down to time and get a quiet minute or two here before going into the dining-room, and a pleasant room this is in good weather with the windows open in the way that you'll not be noticing the smell of cooking. Terrible that is, in all of these places, and more especially if it's onion or cabbage that's on the fire. Sit here now, Mrs Blenkensop, and tell me what you've been doing with yourself this fine day and how you like Leahampton."

There was something about Mrs O'Rourke that had an unholy fascination for Tuppence. She was rather like an ogress dimly remembered from early fairy tales. With her bulk, her deep voice, her unabashed beard and moustache, her deep twinkling eyes and the impression she gave of being more than life-size, she was indeed not unlike some childhood's fantasy.

Tuppence replied that she thought she was going to like Leahampton very much, and be happy there.

"That is," she added in a melancholy voice, "as happy as I can be anywhere with this terrible anxiety weighing on me all the time."

"Ah now, don't you be worrying yourself," Mrs O'Rourke advised comfortably. "Those fine boys of yours will come back to you safe and sound. Not a doubt of it. One of them's in the Air Force, so I think you said?"

"Yes, Raymond."

"And is he in France now, or in England?"

"He's in Egypt at the moment, but from what he said in his last letter - not exactly said - but we have a little private code if you know what I mean? - certain sentences mean certain things. I think that's quite justified, don't you?"

Mrs O'Rourke replied promptly: "Indeed I do. 'Tis a mother's privilege."

"Yes, you see I feel I must know just where he is."

Mrs O'Rourke nodded the Buddha-like head.

"I feel for you entirely, so I do. If I had a boy out there I'd be deceiving the censor the very same way, so I would. And your other boy, the one in the Navy?"

Tuppence entered obligingly upon a saga of Douglas.

"You see," she ended. "I feel so lost without my three boys. They've never been all away together from me before. They're all so sweet to me. I really do think they treat me more as a friend than a mother." She laughed self-consciously. "I have to scold them sometimes and make them go out without me."

("What a pestilential woman I sound," thought Tuppence to herself.) She went on aloud.

"And really I didn't know quite what to do or where to go. The lease of my house in London was up and it seemed so foolish to renew it and I thought if I came somewhere quiet, and yet with a good train service -" She broke off.

Again the Buddha nodded.

"I agree with you entirely. London is no place at the present. Ah! the gloom of it! I've lived there myself for many a year now. I'm by way of being an antique dealer, you know. You may know my shop in Cornaby Street, Chelsea? Kate Kelly's the name over the door. Lovely stuff I had there, too - oh, lovely stuff - mostly gla.s.s - Waterford, Cork - beautiful. Chandeliers and l.u.s.tres and punchbowls and all the rest of it. Foreign gla.s.s, too. And small furniture - nothing large - just small period pieces - mostly walnut and oak. Oh, lovely stuff - and I had some good customers. But there, when there's a war on, all that goes west. I'm lucky to be out of it with as little loss as I've had."

A faint memory flickered through Tuppence's mind. A shop filled with gla.s.s, through which it was difficult to move, a rich persuasive voice, a compelling ma.s.sive woman. Yes, surely, she had been into that shop.

Mrs O'Rourke went on.

"I'm not one of those that like to be always complaining - not like some that's in this house. Mr Cayley for one, with his m.u.f.fler and his shawls and his moans about his business going to pieces. Of course it's to pieces, there's a war on - and his wife with never Boo to say to a goose. Then there's that little Mrs Sprot, always fussing about her husband."

"Is he out at the front?"

"Not he. He's a tuppenny-halfpenny clerk in an Insurance office, that's all, and so terrified of air raids he's had his wife down here since the beginning of the war. Mind you, I think that's right where the child's concerned - and a nice wee mite she is - but Mrs Sprot, she frets, for all that her husband comes down when he can... Keeps saying Arthur must miss her so. But if you ask me Arthur's not missing her overmuch - maybe he's got other fish to fry."

Tuppence murmured: "I'm terribly sorry for all these mothers. If you let your children go away without you, you never stop worrying. And if you go with them it's hard on the husbands being left."

"Ah! yes, and it comes expensive running two establishments."

"This place seems quite reasonable," said Tuppence.

"Yes, I'd say you get your money's worth. Mrs Perenna's a good manager. There's a queer woman for you now."

"In what way?" asked Tuppence.

Mrs O'Rourke said with a twinkle: "You'll be thinking I'm a terrible talker. It's true. I'm interested in all my fellow creatures, that's why I sit in this chair as often as I can. You see who goes in and who goes out and who's on the verandah and what goes on in the garden. What were we talking of now - ah, yes, Mrs Perenna, and the queerness of her. There's been a grand drama in that woman's life or I'm much mistaken."

"Do you really think so?"

"I do now. And the mystery she makes of herself! 'And where might you come from in Ireland?' I asked her. And would you believe it, she held out on me, declaring she was not from Ireland at all."

"You think she is Irish?"