N or M?

CHAPTER 3

On the sheltered terrace outside, Miss Minton was knitting.

Miss Minton was thin and angular, her neck was stringy. She wore pale sky-blue jumpers, and chains or bead necklaces. Her skirts were tweedy and had a depressed droop at the back. She greeted Tuppence with alacrity.

‘Good morning, Mrs Blenkensop. I do hope you slept well.’

Mrs Blenkensop confessed that she never slept very well the first night or two in a strange bed. Miss Minton said, Now, wasn’t that curious? It was exactly the same with her.

Mrs Blenkensop said, ‘What a coincidence, and what a very pretty stitch that was.’ Miss Minton, flushing with pleasure, displayed it. Yes, it was rather uncommon, and really quite simple. She could easily show it to Mrs Blenkensop if Mrs Blenkensop liked. Oh, that was very kind of Miss Minton, but Mrs Blenkensop was so stupid, she wasn’t really very good at knitting, not at following patterns, that was to say. She could only do simple things like Balaclava helmets, and even now she was afraid she had gone wrong somewhere. It didn’t look right, somehow, did it?

Miss Minton cast an expert eye over the khaki mass. Gently she pointed out just what had gone wrong. Thankfully, Tuppence handed the faulty helmet over. Miss Minton exuded kindness and patronage. Oh, no, it wasn’t a trouble at all. She had knitted for so many years.

‘I’m afraid I’ve never done any before this dreadful war,’ confessed Tuppence. ‘But one feels so terribly, doesn’t one, that one must do something.’

‘Oh yes, indeed. And you actually have a boy in the Navy, I think I heard you say last night?’

‘Yes, my eldest boy. Such a splendid boy he is—though I suppose a mother shouldn’t say so. Then I have a boy in the Air Force and Cyril, my baby, is out in France.’

‘Oh dear, dear, how terribly anxious you must be.’

Tuppence thought:

‘Oh Derek, my darling Derek… Out in the hell and mess—and here I am playing the fool—acting the thing I’m really feeling…’

She said in her most righteous voice:

‘We must all be brave, mustn’t we? Let’s hope it will all be over soon. I was told the other day on very high authority indeed that the Germans can’t possibly last out more than another two months.’

Miss Minton nodded with so much vigour that all her bead chains rattled and shook.

‘Yes, indeed, and I believe’—(her voice lowered mysteriously)—‘that Hitler is suffering from a disease—absolutely fatal—he’ll be raving mad by August.’

Tuppence replied briskly:

‘All this Blitzkrieg is just the Germans’ last effort. I believe the shortage is something frightful in Germany. The men in the factories are very dissatisfied. The whole thing will crack up.’

‘What’s this? What’s all this?’

Mr and Mrs Cayley came out on the terrace, Mr Cayley putting his questions fretfully. He settled himself in a chair and his wife put a rug over his knees. He repeated fretfully:

‘What’s that you are saying?’

‘We’re saying,’ said Miss Minton, ‘that it will all be over by the autumn.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Mr Cayley. ‘This war is going to last at least six years.’

‘Oh, Mr Cayley,’ protested Tuppence. ‘You don’t really think so?’

Mr Cayley was peering about him suspiciously.

‘Now I wonder,’ he murmured. ‘Is there a draught? Perhaps it would be better if I moved my chair back into the corner.’

The resettlement of Mr Cayley took place. His wife, an anxious-faced woman who seemed to have no other aim in life than to minister to Mr Cayley’s wants, manipulating cushions and rugs, asking from time to time: ‘Now how is that, Alfred? Do you think that will be all right? Ought you, perhaps, to have your sun-glasses? There is rather a glare this morning.’

Mr Cayley said irritably:

‘No, no. Don’t fuss, Elizabeth. Have you got my muffler? No, no, my silk muffler. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I dare say this will do—for once. But I don’t want to get my throat overheated, and wool—in this sunlight—well, perhaps you had better fetch the other.’ He turned his attention back to matters of public interest. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I give it six years.’

He listened with pleasure to the protests of the two women.

‘You dear ladies are just indulging in what we call wishful thinking. Now I know Germany. I may say I know Germany extremely well. In the course of my business before I retired I used to be constantly to and fro. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, I know them all. I can assure you that Germany can hold out practically indefinitely. With Russia behind her—’

Mr Cayley plunged triumphantly on, his voice rising and falling in pleasurably melancholy cadences, only interrupted when he paused to receive the silk muffler his wife brought him and wind it round his throat.

Mrs Sprot brought out Betty and plumped her down with a small woollen dog that lacked an ear and a woolly doll’s jacket.

‘There, Betty,’ she said. ‘You dress up Bonzo ready for his walk while Mummy gets ready to go out.’

Mr Cayley’s voice droned on, reciting statistics and figures, all of a depressing character. The monologue was punctuated by a cheerful twittering from Betty talking busily to Bonzo in her own language.

‘Truckle—truckly—pah bat,’ said Betty. Then, as a bird alighted near her, she stretched out loving hands to it and gurgled. The bird flew away and Betty glanced round the assembled company and remarked clearly:

‘Dicky,’ and nodded her head with great satisfaction.

‘That child is learning to talk in the most wonderful way,’ said Miss Minton. ‘Say “Ta ta”, Betty. “Ta ta.”’

Betty looked at her coldly and remarked:

‘Gluck!’

Then she forced Bonzo’s one arm into his woolly coat and, toddling over to a chair, picked up the cushion and pushed Bonzo behind it. Chuckling gleefully, she said with terrific pains:

‘Hide! Bow wow. Hide!’

Miss Minton, acting as a kind of interpreter, said with vicarious pride:

‘She loves hide-and-seek. She’s always hiding things.’ She cried out with exaggerated surprise:

‘Where is Bonzo? Where is Bonzo? Where can Bonzo have gone?’

Betty flung herself down and went into ecstasies of mirth.

MrCayley, finding attention diverted from his explanation of Germany’s methods of substitution of raw materials, looked put out and coughed aggressively.

Mrs Sprot came out with her hat on and picked up Betty.

Attention returned to Mr Cayley.

‘You were saying, Mr Cayley?’ said Tuppence.

But Mr Cayley was affronted. He said coldly:

‘That woman is always plumping that child down and expecting people to look after it. I think I’ll have the woollen muffler after all, dear. The sun is going in.’

‘Oh, but, Mr Cayley, do go on with what you were telling us. It was so interesting,’ said Miss Minton.

Mollified, Mr Cayley weightily resumed his discourse, drawing the folds of the woolly muffler closer round his stringy neck.

‘As I was saying, Germany has so perfected her system of—’

Tuppence turned to Mrs Cayley, and asked:

‘What do you think about the war, Mrs Cayley?’

Mrs Cayley jumped.

‘Oh, what do I think? What—what do you mean?’

‘Do you think it will last as long as six years?’

Mrs Cayley said doubtfully:

‘Oh, I hope not. It’s a very long time, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. A long time. What do you really think?’

Mrs Cayley seemed quite alarmed by the question. She said:

‘Oh, I—I don’t know. I don’t know at all. Alfred says it will.’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s difficult to say, isn’t it?’

Tuppence felt a wave of exasperation. The chirruping Miss Minton, the dictatorial Mr Cayley, the nit-witted Mrs Cayley—were these people really typical of her fellow-countrymen? Was Mrs Sprot any better with her slightly vacant face and boiled gooseberry eyes? What could she, Tuppence, ever find out here? Not one of these people, surely—

Her thought was checked. She was aware of a shadow. Someone behind her who stood between her and the sun. She turned her head.

Mrs Perenna, standing on the terrace, her eyes on the group. And something in those eyes—scorn, was it? A kind of withering contempt. Tuppence thought:

‘I must find out more about Mrs Perenna.’

Tommy was establishing the happiest of relationships with Major Bletchley.

‘Brought down some golf clubs with you, didn’t you, Meadowes?’

Tommy pleaded guilty.

‘Ha! I can tell you, my eyes don’t miss much. Splendid. We must have a game together. Ever played on the links here?’

Tommy replied in the negative.

‘They’re not bad—not bad at all. Bit on the short side, perhaps, but lovely view over the sea and all that. And never very crowded. Look here, what about coming along with me this morning? We might have a game.’

‘Thanks very much. I’d like it.’

‘Must say I’m glad you’ve arrived,’ remarked Bletchley as they were trudging up the hill. ‘Too many women in that place. Gets on one’s nerves. Glad I’ve got another fellow to keep me in countenance. You can’t count Cayley—the man’s a kind of walking chemist’s shop. Talks of nothing but his health and the treatment he’s tried and the drugs he’s taking. If he threw away all his little pill-boxes and went out for a good ten-mile walk every day he’d be a different man. The only other male in the place is von Deinim, and to tell you the truth, Meadowes, I’m not too easy in my mind about him.’

‘No?’ said Tommy.

‘No. You take my word for it, this refugee business is dangerous. If I had my way I’d intern the lot of them. Safety first.’

‘A bit drastic, perhaps.’

‘Not at all. War’s war. And I’ve got my suspicions of Master Carl. For one thing he’s clearly not a Jew. Then he came over here just a month—only a month, mind you—before war broke out. That’s a bit suspicious.’

Tommy said invitingly:

‘Then you think—?’

‘Spying—that’s his little game!’

‘But surely there’s nothing of great military or naval importance hereabouts?’

‘Ah, old man, that’s where the artfulness comes in! If he were anywhere near Plymouth or Portsmouth he’d be under supervision. In a sleepy place like this, nobody bothers. But it’s on the coast, isn’t it? The truth of it is the Government is a great deal too easy with these enemy aliens. Anyone who cared could come over here and pull a long face and talk about their brothers in concentration camps. Look at that young man—arrogance in every line of him. He’s a Nazi—that’s what he is—a Nazi.’

‘What we really need in this country is a witch doctor or two,’ said Tommy pleasantly.

‘Eh, what’s that?’

‘To smell out the spies,’ Tommy explained gravely.

‘Ha, very good that—very good. Smell ’em out—yes, of course.’

Further conversation was brought to an end, for they had arrived at the clubhouse.

Tommy’s name was put down as a temporary member, he was introduced to the secretary, a vacant-looking elderly man, and the subscription duly paid. Tommy and the Major started on their round.

Tommy was a mediocre golfer. He was glad to find that his standard of play was just about right for his new friend. The Major won by two up and one to play, a very happy state of events.

‘Good match, Meadowes, very good match—you had bad luck with that mashie shot, just turned off at the last minute. We must have a game fairly often. Come along and I’ll introduce you to some of the fellows. Nice lot on the whole, some of them inclined to be rather old women, if you know what I mean? Ah, here’s Haydock—you’ll like Haydock. Retired naval wallah. Has that house on the cliff next door to us. He’s our local ARP warden.’

Commander Haydock was a big hearty man with a weather-beaten face, intensely blue eyes, and a habit of shouting most of his remarks.

He greeted Tommy with friendliness.

‘So you’re going to keep Bletchley countenance at Sans Souci? He’ll be glad of another man. Rather swamped by female society, eh, Bletchley?’

‘I’m not much of a ladies’ man,’ said Major Bletchley.

‘Nonsense,’ said Haydock. ‘Not your type of lady, my boy, that’s it. Old boarding-house pussies. Nothing to do but gossip and knit.’

‘You’re forgetting Miss Perenna,’ said Bletchley.

‘Ah, Sheila—she’s an attractive girl all right. Regular beauty if you ask me.’

‘I’m a bit worried about her,’ said Bletchley.

‘What do you mean? Have a drink, Meadowes? What’s yours, Major?’

The drinks ordered and the men settled on the veranda of the clubhouse, Haydock repeated his question.

Major Bletchley said with some violence:

‘That German chap. She’s seeing too much of him.’

‘Getting sweet on him, you mean? H’m, that’s bad. Of course he’s a good-looking young chap in his way. But it won’t do. It won’t do, Bletchley. We can’t have that sort of thing. Trading with the enemy, that’s what it amounts to. These girls—where’s their proper spirit? Plenty of decent young English fellows about.’

Bletchley said:

‘Sheila’s a queer girl—she gets odd sullen fits when she will hardly speak to anyone.’

‘Spanish blood,’ said the Commander. ‘Her father was half Spanish, wasn’t he?’

‘Don’t know. It’s a Spanish name, I should think.’

The Commander glanced at his watch.

‘About time for the news. We’d better go in and listen to it.’

The news was meagre that day, little more in it than had been already in the morning papers. After commenting with approval on the latest exploits of the Air Force—first-rate chaps, brave as lions—the Commander went on to develop his own pet theory—that sooner or later the Germans would attempt a landing at Leahampton itself—his argument being that it was such an unimportant spot.

‘Not even an anti-aircraft gun in the place! Disgraceful!’

The argument was not developed, for Tommy and the Major had to hurry back to lunch at Sans Souci. Haydock extended a cordial invitation to Tommy to come and see his little place, ‘Smugglers’ Rest’. ‘Marvellous view—my own beach—every kind of handy gadget in the house. Bring him along, Bletchley.’

It was settled that Tommy and Major Bletchley should come in for drinks on the evening of the following day.

After lunch was a peaceful time at Sans Souci. Mr Cayley went to have his ‘rest’ with the devoted Mrs Cayley in attendance. Mrs Blenkensop was conducted by Miss Minton to a depot to pack and address parcels for the Front.

Mr Meadowes strolled gently out into Leahampton and along the front. He bought a few cigarettes, stopped at Smith’s to purchase the latest number of Punch, then after a few minutes of apparent irresolution, he entered a bus bearing the legend, ‘OLD PIER’.

The old pier was at the extreme end of the promenade. That part of Leahampton was known to house agents as the least desirable end. It was West Leahampton and poorly thought of. Tommy paid 2d, and strolled up the pier. It was a flimsy and weather-worn affair, with a few moribund penny-in-the-slot machines placed at far distant intervals. There was no one on it but some children running up and down and screaming in voices that matched quite accurately the screaming of the gulls, and one solitary man sitting on the end fishing.

Mr Meadowes strolled up to the end and gazed down into the water. Then he asked gently:

‘Caught anything?’

The fisherman shook his head.

‘Don’t often get a bite.’ Mr Grant reeled in his line a bit. He said without turning his head:

‘What about you, Meadowes?’

Tommy said:

‘Nothing much to report as yet, sir. I’m digging myself in.’

‘Good. Tell me.’

Tommy sat on an adjacent bollard, so placed that he commanded the length of the pier. Then he began:

‘I’ve gone down quite all right, I think. I gather you’ve already got a list of the people there?’ Grant nodded. ‘There’s nothing to report as yet. I’ve struck up a friendship with Major Bletchley. We played golf this morning. He seems the ordinary type of retired officer. If anything, a shade too typical. Cayley seems a genuine hypochondriacal invalid. That, again, would be an easy part to act. He has, by his own admission, been a good deal in Germany during the last few years.’

‘A point,’ said Grant laconically.

‘Then there’s von Deinim.’

‘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 Nazi 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 anticipate that such a thing might happen. They would never risk the head of their organisation 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 objective. 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 organisation may be put wise. That’s where you come in, the outsider. That’s why you’ve got to work in the dark, without help from us. It’s our only chance—and I daren’t risk alarming them. There’s only one person I’ve been able to check up on.’

‘Who’s that, sir?’

‘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 the result?’

A curious smile came over the other’s face.

‘Master Carl is 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 immunising 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 Nazi régime. 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 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 God, 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 fishing 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 Irishwoman. All seem harmless enough 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 round, sharp anger in his gaze. ‘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—’

Succinctly, 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 damned careful you’ve got to be. I thought I’d taken every precaution against 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 am 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…