CHAPTER 25
Alec was knocked back into the wall, which wobbled from the impact, the bolts not having been thrown back in place. I stared wide-eyed at the two men, braced for them to come to blows. But instead of continuing to pummel him, as he’d clearly caught the other man off-guard, Sidney backed away, shaking his hand twice before lowering it to his side.
Alec regained his balance and pressed a hand to his lip, which was stained with blood. “Don’t blame the messenger, old chum,” he drawled, perfectly sanguine about the entire altercation. He rolled his jaw. “I didn’t know you were unaware they’d torched your car.” But in the silence that fell, his eyes darted first to mine and then Sidney’s, dawning with understanding. “Ah. I guess you told him.”
I nodded.
“Sorry, old chap,” he replied affably, as if he were apologizing for beating him at cards and not adultery with his wife. “She never would have looked my way if we hadn’t believed you were dead.” He shrugged, checking his lip for blood again before reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief. “Even then, she was still in love with you.”
My cheeks heated at the realization my feelings had been so evident. Having this discussion was slightly akin to a nightmare, and I was eager to be done with it.
Fortunately, so was Sidney. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “And what is this information you have that is so important you tracked us down to tell us?” He didn’t bother to hide his mistrust.
I thought Alec might take offense at that, but he brushed it off like all the other slights. I supposed spending four years posing as a German officer had taught him how to ignore insults quite effectively.
“After I separated from you in Liège, I couldn’t stop thinking about the matter, so I decided to do a little investigating of my own.” His expression turned serious. “And what I discovered convinced me you might be in danger.”
“How did you know where to find us?” Sidney charged, still dangling his pistol at his side.
“You kept tabs on us through Captain Landau’s office?” I guessed, having already deduced that was how he’d known where to send his last message.
He nodded. “I was already on my way to find you when I checked in with the office in Brussels and discovered you were headed to Tourcoing. I saw the flames from the road, and decided it was too much of a coincidence not to investigate. And then when I saw the state of that beautiful Pierce-Arrow . . .”
Sidney winced.
“Well, I knew something must have happened to you. But if you escaped, you would likely make your way here.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, scrutinizing his features. “I didn’t know you were aware of this house.”
His lips creased into a tight grin around the handkerchief still pressed there. “I’m aware of a great many things.” He tilted his head. “Like the fact that Monsieur Dewé and Monsieur Chauvin do not trust me. I suppose because of the role I played during the war. And that is why Monsieur Chauvin pretended he wished to show you his orchids so that he could tell you what Madame Moreau discovered about the Germans’ wireless-controlled aeroplane.”
I dropped my arms to my sides in surprise. “You knew about that?”
He nodded. “But what Chauvin and even Captain Landau don’t know is that the British Royal Flying Corps had already successfully developed such an aircraft and tested prototypes earlier in the war.”
“What?”
“But why did we never hear of such a thing? Why wasn’t it put to use?” Sidney demanded.
“Because the craft was never perfected.” He removed the handkerchief from his mouth, stuffing it back into his pocket. “And because the top brass lost interest.”
Sidney huffed as if that explained a lot. “Then why was British Intelligence so anxious for Madame Moreau to uncover more information about the Germans’ invention?”
I already knew the answer to that. “They needed to know how far along the enemy was in developing it. Whether it was a cause for concern or little more than a concept.”
Alec held up his hand. “Don’t get me wrong. The concept is still valuable, no matter where it comes from. Especially if the inventor was able to work out the difficulties the British scientists and engineers were struggling with. Someone could sell that information for a pretty penny.”
My gaze lingered on Alec’s face, somewhat surprised to discover he was more knowledgeable of intelligence matters than I’d realized. That or he had a lot of highly placed friends. Though they were both captains, he certainly outranked Landau in some unilateral way.
“Is that what you believe happened?” I asked him. “That someone is after that information, and they think Emilie has it?”
“I’m only saying I’m guessing that’s one of your suspicions given your visit to Havay, and that it’s possible. Though not necessarily for the reason you think.”
I glanced at Sidney, wondering what he thought of this disclosure. He still glowered at Alec, but he appeared to be mulling over the matter.
However, Alec’s revelations were not complete. “I also thought you would find it interesting that Landau was in London the morning Madame Zozza, one Mona Kertle, was killed.”
A sinking feeling began in my stomach. “That’s something he failed to mention. Though not incriminating on its own. After all, weren’t you there as well?”
His eyes sparked with amusement. “I was not.”
My and Sidney’s gazes met in confusion.
“I take it that’s one of the reasons for your charming welcome,” Alec drawled flippantly. “The fire happened the morning of the eighth, did it not? Well, I was in Paris until the evening of the ninth when I traveled back to London, where I chatted with your friend, the Earl of Ryde, in the War Office the afternoon of the tenth.”
I supposed that meant he couldn’t have been the one to kill Madame Zozza. At least, not directly. After all, we knew that somehow the man masquerading as the author Jonathan Fletcher and a compatriot of his were involved, whether as the main culprits or henchmen.
But Alec had never struck me as the type to involve others in what must be done unless it was necessary. More people meant more loose lips, loose ends, and potentials to be caught. For instance, when we’d copied that codebook, he’d only asked for one person to assist him, though a dozen could have copied the book in one night. The thought of that bumbling Mr. “Fletcher” being employed by suave, careful Alec was laughable.
When the silence stretched too long, some of the humor faded from Alec’s eyes to be replaced by something hard. “There were numerous witnesses, should you need to speak with them.”
I shook my head, brushing aside the matter for the moment. “What else did you discover about Captain Landau?” I asked, knowing him well enough to tell there was more. Otherwise he would never have raised the guise of Landau having been in London the day Madame Zozza died.
He dipped his head, as if in approval. “I always did like that about you, Verity. You never let me dither around the point.”
I arched a single eyebrow, indicating that’s exactly what he was doing now.
His eyes flicked to the pistol in Sidney’s hand, his voice strained at the edges. “Are you going to put that away now?”
He narrowed his eyes in challenge. “Does it make you nervous?”
“My good nature lasts longer than most, but there gets to be a point when having another chap feel the need to have his weapon drawn becomes an insult.”
Sidney looked to me, asking my opinion, and I nodded. I didn’t think Alec meant to harm us. At least not here, not now.
He studied the man across from him a moment longer and then slid the pistol into the pocket of his coat.
Alec seemed to relax by a degree. “Landau never reported the threats to the members of La Dame Blanche. He also scarcely mentioned the potential for reprisal by German loyalists in his dispatches.”
“And yet he seemed to make a particular point to mention that to me,” I murmured, thinking back over our conversation in his office in Brussels.
“I noticed that as well.”
I dipped my head to stare at the hay-strewn floor. Could Landau be behind all this? Madame Zozza’s death, the attempts on Emilie’s life and mine, Emilie’s subsequent decision to go into hiding? It seemed impossible. The man I had known and worked with upon occasion in Rotterdam during the war had not seemed capable of such deception, of such cold-bloodedness. But then again, it was often those who seemed least capable who proved to have the greatest aptitude at it. That had certainly proved true during our last investigation.
“So, he needs me to find Emilie so that he can obtain whatever information she has on the Germans’ wireless-controlled aeroplane?” I speculated aloud. “But then why did he try to kill us last night when he was content to merely follow us before? We haven’t found Emilie yet, so why the sudden escalation to violence?”
I felt sick at the idea that my former commanding officer, a man I’d considered a friend, had been the second man outside the barn. Or that he’d ordered such an action. But I also couldn’t help but note that he had not been in his office in Brussels either of the last two times I telephoned him. He easily could have caught up with us in Maubeuge, where he predicted we would need to spend the night.
Alec shrugged. “Perhaps he was worried you were too close to the truth. People under the strain of detection often make mistakes.”
“Or maybe he was anxious we’d discovered something he hadn’t planned on. Something at Havay.” The grave look in Sidney’s eyes made it clear he was thinking of something in particular.
“That crashed aeroplane?” I asked.
“Yes, but more specifically that something was missing from it.”
“The wireless equipment?”
“Maybe.”
But the hesitancy with which he spoke and the look he shared with Alec told me there was something I hadn’t deduced yet.
“What else was missing?”
His gaze met mine squarely. “The bombs.”
I shook my head in confusion. “I assumed the aircraft must have already dropped them, otherwise wouldn’t it have exploded when it crash-landed?”
“Not necessarily. There have been plenty of aeroplanes that managed to make distressed landings without detonating their incendiaries.”
“But how can we know?”
“We can’t. Not for sure.”
The room seemed to echo with that knowledge as a new and more horrifying possibility opened before us. If there were bombs missing from that plane, then where were they? And if someone was willing to kill to keep that knowledge secret, then what were they intended for?
Naturally my thoughts went to the bombing at the Blanken-berge Police Station, which I assumed had been done with a small incendiary considering the low number of casualties. The explosion caused by a shell the size the aeroplane would have carried would create a crater.
“I was led to believe there were still unexploded shells all over at the front,” I said, still trying to come to terms with it all.
“There are,” Alec confirmed. “But many of them are buried, and likely to go off at the slightest touch. And the ones that are known of are monitored, as are any still left in the towns and villages stretching across the area. However, Havay is not.”
For someone looking to cause trouble, the situation couldn’t be more ideal. But how did that connect to Landau? Or didn’t it?
“We need to get to Tourcoing and find Emilie,” I stated decisively, a sense of urgency surging through me.
“I have a motorcar out front,” Alec offered, reminding us that Sidney’s beloved Pierce-Arrow would not be taking us anywhere. “I would be happy to give you a lift.” His eyes dipped to the skin exposed above Sidney’s socks. “I can also lend you a pair of trousers, mate.”
Sidney started to scowl, but then relented almost wearily as he tugged at the seat of his trousers in a rather ungentlemanly manner. “Yes, I would be most grateful.”
* * *
On the chance that any of our belongings had survived the fire, we drove past the still smoldering wreckage of the Pierce-Arrow, but all had been consumed. So we pressed onward toward the north, pausing at a café in Tournai to eat, and find me and Sidney a change of fresh clothes. After scrubbing my hands and face, and donning a blouse with cobalt blue polka dots and a black serge skirt, I felt revived, and went in search of a telephone.
We had decided to risk calling Landau in Brussels, and that I should be the one to do it. For one, I wanted to discover if he was in the office rather than gallivanting across the Belgian countryside setting things ablaze. I was conscious of the possibility I would be tipping him off to the fact that Sidney and I were still alive, but I thought it more imperative we discern his reaction to hearing my voice over the telephone. There was a strong chance he might give himself away.
When the call connected, I expected his secretary to fob me off again with some paltry excuse. So when she asked me to hold, for a moment I vacillated between remaining on the line and hanging up. Landau’s voice came through the headset before I could decide.
“Verity, I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you yet on Miss Laurent.” He sounded bored, almost distracted. Papers shuffled in the background.
“Oh,” was all I managed at first.
“Apparently, they haven’t yet spoken with her. I’ll press them on it. Did you make it to Tourcoing? Is there an address I may ring for you at?”
I recognized that Landau could be a more gifted actor than I realized, but I didn’t think so. Not when so little time had elapsed between the secretary informing him of who was on the line and his answering. He was obviously in a hurry to end the call, his mind elsewhere. There wasn’t a trace of anxiety in his tone.
So I made the split-second decision to trust him.
“We’ve run into a bit of trouble here,” I said softly into the mouthpiece, turning my head so that the chemist who’d allowed me to use his telephone could not read my lips.
“What’s that?”
“Someone tried to kill us.”
This finally served to cut through the haze of his preoccupation. “Wait. What?!”
“I can’t go into the details now. The pertinent thing is that Sidney and I are both fine. But I need some information from you. And I need it now.”
Whatever he’d been fidgeting with before, he set aside, and I could sense his focus was fully directed at me. “Go on.”
“What do you remember about the wireless-controlled aeroplane Emilie reported that the Germans were developing?”
“Not much.” He seemed to exhale in frustration. “We asked her to uncover more information about it, but her next report said her informant had died.”
“Did she give his name?” I asked as the line crackled.
“She called him Zauberer, but I’m not sure that was his name. In fact, I’m fairly certain it wasn’t.”
Given the fact that “zauberer” was the German word for “wizard,” I suspected he was right.
“And she mentioned something about Buzancy.”
Something about those two words tugged at my memory, but I couldn’t recall why. “Wasn’t there a German aerodrome in the Buzancy commune in the Ardennes of France?”
“Yes. One that was difficult to penetrate given its location.”
“Right. I remember now. Once the Charleville platoon was established didn’t they send out a flying squadron trying to establish a new branch in that direction?”
“Yes. Though ultimately, most of the information that came out of that area came through the train-watching posts along the rails in neighboring Vouziers, whose reports ran through the Chimay company.”
It struck me then like a bolt to my brain why the words “Zauberer” and “Buzancy” seemed so familiar. They had been scrawled in the margin of one of the charts we’d pulled from that German aviator’s map case. The aviator I’d met coming from the Moiliens’ cottage north of Chimay. The same cottage where later we’d buried the map case and burned the papers we didn’t send on to Holland. The same Mademoiselle Moilien who traveled to Macon after the war to confront the priest and likely Emilie.
I wondered if Emilie had gone searching for the reason those two words were scrawled in the margin or if she’d stumbled upon it later and remembered. Either way, all of it seemed too much of a coincidence for there not to be some greater connection. Particularly when one had been privy to the German ace’s drunken rambling as I had.
As typical of men pleasantly oiled with alcohol, he bragged in a meandering manner about a number of things, including his skills as an aviator, the greatness of Germany, and how the war would be soon over, and the enemy would never know what hit them. At the time, I’d paid little attention to such boasting as most of the Jerrys were prone to do so from time to time, ever hopeful that each new push would crush the Allies. Just as I’d paid little attention to his mention of Havay, as I was already aware of the village’s use as a testing ground for the Germans’ bombers, and it was only natural an aviator would be familiar with it, too. I’d simply noted those things in my debriefing report when I returned to Holland and filed them away in the recesses of my brain.
But now I had to wonder if the pilot had known something about the wireless-controlled aeroplane, if somehow he’d been involved. Alec said he was dead, and I trusted his inquiry into the matter had been thorough. But there was one man connected to that situation we didn’t know the fate of.
“It would have been good to get a bit more information on their invention,” Landau was saying, oblivious to my thoughts. “But then the war ended. I suppose we may never know.”
“This may seem unrelated,” I said, cutting into this soliloquy. “But are you by chance cognizant of a man by the name of Moilien?”
At first this question was met with silence and I worried we’d lost our connection. But then over the crackle of the telephone line I heard his astonishment.
“If you’re referring to an Étienne Moilien, then yes, I am. And given your question, I’m guessing you won’t be shocked to hear there may be a connection to Emilie.”