Mediterranean Nights (2 page)

She stood there in the doorway telling the crowd what she thought of them. Her French was appalling, and I doubt if they understood one-third of what she said. They seemed half apologetic and half surly as they stowed her baggage on the racks and seats.

When they had gone she suddenly put one hand to her tummy and half closed her eyes. I thought she was going to faint and made a move to steady her, but she shook her head and sank into the other corner on the same side as myself.

As the train moved off she sat up and turned a large pair of angry eyes on me. ‘You are not French?' she said.

‘English,' I answered, gazing back. Her eyes were a queer tawny colour flecked with green.

Then she looked at the other fellow. ‘And you, monsieur?'

‘Norwegian,' he told her with a little bow.

‘
Ach, Gott sei danke
—these French are horrible,' she exclaimed.

She was an unusual type and obviously intelligent, so I inquired her nationality, although it was already pretty certain what it was.

‘I am a German,' she shot at me with an angry lift of her chin, ‘but I might be a leper from the way they treat me here. You speak German perhaps?'

I nodded and she broke into a violent diatribe in her own tongue. She was on her way back to Germany apparently and should have caught the train that left ten minutes earlier than mine. On account of her nationality the French had put her passport aside to be dealt with last, and gone through her luggage with a tooth-comb. In consequence she'd missed her train and, worse, her sleeper on the Berlin express. That meant she'd have to spend a quite unnecessary night in Paris, and her long tapering eyebrows went up into her bronze-gold hair as she scowled over the iniquities of the French. To crown it all, she said, she was only just recovering from an operation and hardly fit to travel—yet, in spite of that, they'd kept her standing on the platform in agony for over half an hour.

The Norwegian had been busy with his papers all the time, and when she suddenly swung on him and asked: ‘Do you not also think it is disgraceful of them?' he looked up with a puzzled stare.

‘Excuse please, Fräulein—my German is not much.' So she turned back to me exclaiming: ‘
Ach
! I feel so ill.'

I suggested that she might like to put her feet up, and moved over to the other side of the compartment to give her room; for the first time her face broke into a smile.

‘What about a little cognac?' I went on. ‘I've got some in my bag—it will do you good.'

Those curious eyes lit up her face in an extraordinary manner as she thanked me, and I got out my flask. Then she
gave me another little smile—said she would try to rest a little, and wriggled down to her full length.

After that I sat staring out of the window for a bit—somehow I'd lost all interest in my book. Then I began to study the Norwegian in an idle way.

I had been facing him before, but now that I could see him in profile it struck me that there was something familiar about his face. It was his nose that reminded me of someone—a long, thin, knife-like affair, but for the life of me I couldn't think where I'd seen a beak like that before.

‘
Ein bischen nehr Branntwein bitte
?'

It was the girl speaking of course, and I fumbled for my flask. ‘More brandy?' I asked stupidly. ‘Oh yes, of course—here you are.' I gave her the cup, but my mind had flashed back fifteen years to a hovel in the slums of Cairo. Those very words had been spoken then by a man whose nose was the twin of the ugly proboscis in the corner.

The girl closed her eyes and I was free to regard the pictures in my brain. Essenbach had given us endless trouble in the old days, fermenting discontent all over the Levant. Towards the end of the war a chap, whom we'll call Manning, and I had run him to earth in Cairo. He fought like a devil when we cornered him, but Manning broke an earthenware pitcher over his head, and it was while we were bringing him round that he asked for more brandy.

He broke prison, and got away—the Armistice came soon after and I hadn't heard a word about him since.

I took another look at the ‘Norwegian'. His build was right. Then I glanced at his hands—and that settled the matter. Hands are a marvellous index to character, and almost impossible to disguise—this bird was Essenbach all right.

I should have assumed him to have been out of the game for years—just like myself, but the story about his being a Norwegian set me thinking. He had come from England—and he couldn't have been up to any good.

In the hope of a line I looked up at his luggage and I saw ‘Felixstowe' on a railway label at one end of his bag.

Well, Felixstowe is only just across the water from Harwich, you know, but somehow there didn't seem much to interest a German of Essenbach's standing there. Then I got
another idea: what about Martlesham, the R.A.F. experimental station?—a much more likely spot than Harwich for picking up really important information.

The woman with the intriguing eyebrows sat up as we passed through Amiens. She was looking better for her nap, and after powdering her nose settled herself in her corner and started to chat.

I soon found that we had certain friends in common, mostly among the old ex-officer class in Berlin, and I began to wonder who she could be, but I couldn't lead her on to talk about herself at all.

We had slowed down and were rumbling through Asnières before I realised how time had flown, and in another few minutes we were all collecting our things.

I don't mind confessing that I should have liked to follow up my acquaintance with that interesting young woman, but I couldn't even offer to see her to a taxi—I had Essenbach to attend to.

I passed the barrier a good twenty yards ahead of him, and got under cover in a taxi before he appeared in the station yard.

He had a good look round before he jumped into a cab. I tapped on my man's window, and we set off after him down the Rue Lafayette. We nearly lost him at the Opéra, but spotted him again in the Rue de la Paix. As we entered the Place Vendôme I saw that he had pulled up at the Ritz.

I made my chap drive on through the square and then round to the back of the hotel—the entrance to the bar. I paid him off and walked slowly down that endless corridor lined with show cases. I wanted to give Essenbach time to register before I appeared. As I poked my nose round the corner a page was leading him to the lift. I went over to the desk and asked for a room, but I'd hardly spoken to the clerk when I heard a soft voice behind me, and there was the lady of the tawny eyes and intriguing eyebrows.

She gave her name to the other clerk as Fräulein Lisabetta von Loewring, but I hadn't time to stop and talk to her.

Five minutes later another taxi set me down at the gates of the British Embassy. I walked through into the courtyard and entered the block of office buildings on the right. I was in
luck. The office staff had gone of course, but little—well, let's call him Harvey—was still there.

‘Well, Thornton,' he grinned at me, ‘glad to see you—take a seat.'

‘Know who's come in on the boat train?' I asked.

He shook his head.

‘Kurt Essenbach,' I told him.

‘Essenbach?' he repeated. ‘You mean the chap who went Bolshie after the war and then returned to the German service in 1925? That's interesting—we haven't heard a thing about him for the last two years. What's he up to now?'

‘That's your job—not mine,' I told him, but I mentioned the Felixstowe label and suggested Martlesham as a possibility.

‘I'd better get through to London,' he said, and in a few moments he was talking to someone round the corner from Whitehall. When he put down the receiver his face was grave.

It seemed that I was right. Two days before one of the draughtsmen on the civil side had disappeared from Martlesham. Steady fellow—been working there for eighteen months. Essenbach of course—taking his time. The police had failed to trace him, so they set a watch on the ports and got our people to put a man on every boat. He'd slipped through at Dover, but the service man had picked him up half-way across—spotted the Felixstowe label—careless that, for an old hand. Anyhow they had wired from Calais and were following him to Paris.

I learned too that Essenbach had been working in the special room because one of the seniors had gone sick—just the chance he'd been waiting for—and although the blue prints were intact it was a hundred to one he'd got a set of tracings from the diagram of our new fighter. It looked serious to me.

Harvey said that a special man had been sent over by ‘plane, and in the meantime the chap who had spotted Essenbach on the boat would be sitting on his tail.

I felt a bit sick that I hadn't known they were on to him earlier—having hurried to the Embassy had spoilt my chances of what might have developed into something interesting, and as I stood up I told Harvey casually of my meeting with Fräulein Lisabetta.

He was on me like a flash and cursed me for not having mentioned her before. You see, no first-class espionage man ever holds anything a second longer than he need. There is nearly always a messenger to meet him somewhere and relieve him of his stuff. I had left the compartment for a few moments just before we reached Chantilly, so anything might have happened then, and if I hadn't been so rusty I should have thought of it before. Harvey was insistent that she had been sent to meet him, and when I thought it over I felt it was ten to one that he was right.

‘We've got to get her, Thornton,' he said sharply. ‘You see that, don't you? Our people are after
him
, only you and I know about her.'

Well, I didn't like the job a bit, so I suggested that he should either get in touch with the London men or call in the French.

He told me that I ought to know that all London agents report direct—not to him, he wouldn't know them if he saw them—and that they didn't even know each other. As for the French, we were up against them just as much as all the rest in these days. If they laid hands on those tracings they would photograph them for a certainty before they passed them on to us.

‘Why not get on to London again?' I asked. ‘Tell them what we suspect and they can instruct their people over here.'

‘But, damn it, man, you know the woman already!' he protested. ‘Look at the lead you've got—give her some dinner somewhere. One of the porters at the Ritz is on my Paris list—he'll search her room while she's with you.'

I didn't like the idea, and I said so, but he began to plead with me.

‘Now look here, Thornton; this is really serious. If those tracings reach their destination they may do us untold harm. This woman's got to be separated from her luggage for an hour or two—and it's up to you.'

Well, it was a service matter and I had no alternative but to give in, so I told him I'd telephone if I could arrange it.

My talk with Harvey hadn't lasted more than twenty minutes, so I was back at the hotel in under half an hour, and directly I reached my room I sat down to write a very
formal and guarded note. I felt that was the best line and I was right.

Ten minutes after I had sent the letter to her room she telephoned; said how kind it was of me to think of her—that she was feeling better and would like to dine, provided I did not mind that she was not permitted to dance afterwards—then she asked what restaurant I suggested.

I mentioned one or two and we settled on the Tour d'Argent.

I took the opportunity of securing her room number by inquiring at the office to which room I had been talking, and I found that she was next to Essenbach—on the same floor as myself. That settled it in my mind that they were acting together. You see, it is so handy to have another room near your own into which you can slip, when you are liable to be beaten up at any moment.

I told Harvey what I had done, and he asked me to ring him again at a Passy number before I left the Tour d'Argent. He would have heard by then from his man at the Ritz.

When the Lady Lisabetta joined me in the hall an hour or so later, she looked more charming than ever.

I should have enjoyed that dinner if I hadn't known what was going on behind the scenes. In the war, of course, I'd become hardened to dealing with the actress-courtesan type who dabble in espionage, but this was a woman of distinction, so you can imagine how I disliked the false position I was in!

After we had finished dinner I excused myself for a moment and got Harvey on the ‘phone. ‘Well,' I asked, ‘all serene?'

But it wasn't—his man had drawn blank at the hotel, so she must have the goods on her, and my heart sank like a stone. You see, I knew what was coming next before he spoke.

‘You know the drill?' he said.

I knew the drill all right, but I told him I couldn't do it—he must send one of his Paris people along to take over—but he protested that anyone who didn't know her wouldn't have a chance—and wanted to know what sort of midsummer madness I was suffering from.

Then of course I realised where I was drifting. If she had
been old and ugly it would never have entered my head to kick at being asked to take the usual steps. As it was, I just hated the idea, but I had to go through with it.

‘All right,' I agreed reluctantly, ‘where?'

He told me he would send along a man in a red muffler and black cap to pick me up.

When I rejoined her I suggested another ration of the Old Original Chartreuse. I wanted to give Harvey's man time to reach the Tour d'Argent, and as we weren't going on anywhere she agreed, so we sat there for a bit drinking that marvellous liqueur, which the old monks made before they were kicked out of France. I lit another cigarette and endeavoured to make amusing conversation, but it was a poor effort. She pursed up that big generous mouth of hers with a humorous look and accused me of having spotted someone more attractive than herself when I went out to telephone.