something, a great big something. However, our killer’s out there and we still don’t know what atrocity is planned for the fourteenth of June. That’s getting horribly close. If we can’t find out something soon, we’re sunk. We know it’s something to do with this Irish-German alliance. Incidentally, I’ve got confirmation of that from another source. We’ve got a contact in Camden Town who picks up gossip in the Irish clubs. He’s heard a whisper of something big planned.’
He tilted his chair forward. He looked, thought Anthony, so tired he was haggard. ‘I don’t know what they’re planning, but it’s evil, Brooke. I hoped Veronica O’Bryan would lead us to the truth, but she’s quite literally dead and gone. I wish to God I could work out what to do.’
Anthony pushed his chair back and, getting to his feet, walked to the window. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said at last. ‘I couldn’t carry it off for long, but it might work for a short time. You’ve been trying to find out what’s planned through the Irish end. What about the German angle? I can be a very convincing German. Let it be known, through your Camden Town man or whoever, that a German agent – me – has landed in Britain and is awaiting further instructions. Even if they guess I’m a phoney, they’ll still want to see who I am, but I think we can pull it off. I’d need a lot more information if I was going to pretend to be a German agent for any length of time, but it should be all right for a couple of hours.’ He looked at Sir Charles. ‘It might give us the break we’ve been looking for.’
‘You’re a brave man, Brooke,’ muttered Sir Charles. He swallowed. ‘A damn brave man.’ He drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘You do know this is dangerous?’
Anthony nodded. ‘Of course I know. You said we were up against something evil. That’s not a word you use lightly.’
‘No,’ said Sir Charles. ‘No, it’s not.’ Relief showed in his eyes. ‘It’s a chance. My God, it’s a real chance. We’ll have to think up a credible place for you to stay and a credible character for you to be. It won’t take long to put the word out that you’ve arrived.’ He gave a little grunt of annoyance. ‘What about the inquest?’
‘I’ll have to go,’ said Anthony after a few moments’ thought. ‘If I don’t, it’ll be noted, and we might as well tell the enemy I’m engaged elsewhere.’
‘Fair enough,’ agreed Sir Charles. ‘Now, what name shall we give you?’
TWELVE
Late on Friday evening, John Robinson, a tall, soldierly-looking man with dark hair greying at the temples, disembarked from the Maid Of Orford.
The Maid Of Orford, a little tub of a boat, regularly plied between the Hook of Holland and Harwich and had, on this trip, been carrying a mixed cargo of lard, chair legs, tallow, stair rods and, as a seeming afterthought, four passengers.
John Robinson had, as the other passengers knew, been in Holland and the Low Countries, buying pigs’ bristles for artists’ oil brushes. What John Robinson – not so obvious a name as John Smith but still commonplace enough for a German to think of as typically English – knew about artists’ oil brushes he owed to an intensive couple of hours with Nathaniel Burgh of Minsmere and Burgh, Artists’ Requisites, on Wednesday morning. He had been more than happy to share his knowledge with the other passengers on the Maid Of Orford.
The trip to the Hook of Holland for the express purpose of bouncing back across the North Sea in a wallowing tramp cargo boat had been Anthony’s idea. Not that he thought of himself as Anthony Brooke anymore. He was Günther Hedtke of Kiel, a German explosives expert pretending to be John Robinson of London. If his vowels were slightly too clipped and his manners rather too formal, that was Hedtke’s personality showing through. Anthony had begun to be quite fond of Günther Hedtke in the short time he had known him.
He booked in the Ocean Hotel and waited.
The busy Ocean Hotel was, he thought as he drank a glass of watery wartime beer in the bar that evening, a good choice. Most of the men in the bar were in groups of twos and threes but there were a couple of solitary drinkers.
A thin man in a drab raincoat interested him. There was a pianist in the bar, entertaining the