CHAPTER 10
I stepped forward hesitantly to peer over Max’s shoulder. He was right. It was definitely a code, written in neat blocks of jumbled letters. Which meant only one thing. The late earl hadn’t wanted just anyone to read it. Not if he’d given it to his daughter before he died with such strict instructions for its delivery. Not if he was going to such lengths to mask its content.
“Code?” Livia stated in confusion. “Why ever would Father do such a thing?”
Whatever the contents were, they must be important. My heart quickened at the thought that this could be the information we’d been looking for.
My gaze immediately sought out George, who had been listening to this exchange with interest from the neighboring table. As one of the foremost cryptographers working in 40 OB for Naval Intelligence during the war, George would crack the code far quicker than I could. There wasn’t a code yet that had defeated him, no matter how canny.
He dipped his head once. “Whatever you need.” But when he began to rise to his feet, I urged him to remain seated with a gesture of my hand.
I turned to Max and held out my hand, the look in my eyes encouraging him to trust me. Although he was unaware of the actual role George had undertaken for Naval Intelligence, he did know that I had worked for the foreign division of the Secret Service. I’d been forced to disclose as much during the course of our investigation on Umbersea Island some months past, and he and my husband were still the only people outside of fellow Military Intelligence personnel who knew the true nature of my war work.
Max vacillated for but a moment, the depths of his eyes reflecting uncertainty and even fear, as if he had not yet fully confronted what it might mean if our suspicions proved true. But then his jaw firmed and he passed me the document with a sure hand. I felt the weight of his faith in me settle over my shoulders.
I swiveled to return to the table where my handbag lay, surreptitiously sliding the letter into the front of George’s coat as I passed his chair. “Put this in your inner pocket,” I instructed him, and then placed the empty envelope inside my beaded reticule, hoping that anyone watching us would think I’d maintained possession of the letter.
Meanwhile, Sidney had beckoned Crispin forward, clasping a hand on his shoulder and speaking into his ear. Like most artillery officers, Crispin had suffered some hearing damage from the repetitive percussive firing of the massive guns used to hurl shells at the enemy miles away. “I need you to escort Bentnick to our flat and stay with him there until we return. Can you do that for me?” The look the two shared was deathly earnest. “I’ll make sure Miss Wrexham returns home safely,” he assured him, referring to Crispin’s fiancée seated a few feet away.
“Aye,” he replied. “Just let me explain the situation to Phoebe.”
There was no need to caution him about discretion. He would tell her as much of the truth as he could and no more.
One look at George’s pale face told me he’d overheard their exchange. We weren’t taking any chances. Not when someone had broken into Max’s town house just a few days earlier. Making a show of trying to make it look natural that I was tucking my handbag securely under my arm, I returned to Sidney’s side.
Having observed all of this with wide eyes, Livia now stepped closer to her brother. “Max, what is going on?” she hissed. “Why did you give Father’s letter to Mr. Bentnick? Why are you all acting like there are spies all around us?” Her eyes blazed with fury. “And don’t even think about swinging the lead.”
It seemed so incongruous to hear soldiers’ slang emerge from her lips that I felt the sudden urge to grin.
It appeared Max felt the same way, for the somber lines of his face softened. “Come on, Liv. I’ll take you back to the town house and explain on the way.”
She appeared at first as if she would argue, but then agreed. Our parting was somewhat stilted, and while I was sorry to have upset her, especially after such a pleasant evening, I really couldn’t fault her for her sudden reserve.
Once Max and Livia and then George and Crispin were sped on their way, Sidney and I circulated among our remaining guests, attempting to extricate ourselves without revealing more than necessary. Fortunately, they all seemed to be having a splendid time, and though they protested our departure, I knew they didn’t really mind it. Rather than leave with us, Phoebe Wrexham even elected to remain with a group of her friends also dining and dancing at the Savoy.
Etta and her beau, Goldy, decided to depart when we did, for her first set at Grafton Galleries that evening was scheduled to begin soon anyway. She looped her arm through Sidney’s as they climbed the stairs toward the foyer, her mink stole dipping low to reveal the smooth mocha skin of her back. Goldy grinned and offered me his left arm before reaching over to secure it with his gloved right hand. Having suffered burns to the right side of his torso during an aeroplane crash, he never removed it in public.
Before he could launch into a discussion of his latest efforts on behalf of his family’s aviation company and enthusiasm for the development of passenger air service, I seized the opportunity to ask him something I’d wanted to since Saturday. “Goldy, are you familiar with RAF Froxfield?”
“Sure.” He narrowed his eyes in contemplation. “It’s on the border of Berkshire and Wiltshire, isn’t it? They flew ‘Ninak’ light bombers out of there during the war.” He turned his head to regard me. “Why?”
“Do you know if they had more crashes than average?”
“You mean, in and around the airfield?”
I nodded.
He frowned. “Well, I believe they conducted quite a bit of training there, and crashes sort of come with the territory. Minor ones, that is. But . . . no, I can’t recall ever hearing anything particular about the place.”
I thanked him and was prepared to drop the matter, especially as we were now crossing the foyer, which echoed with the music of the orchestra, but then another thought seemed to occur to him.
“Wait! Is that the airfield where there are rumors it was built over some ancient barrow or tomb?”
“Yes. What do you know about it?”
He shook his head, but his chuckle of amusement belied his answer. “Not much. But I remember one of my buddies from the Ninety-ninth telling me how some of the locals had worked themselves up into a lather. Some woman claiming she was a druid priestess even tried to gain access to the site so that she could lay the spirits to rest, or so she claimed.”
Before I could respond, Etta turned to buss my cheek, and soon we were saying our goodbyes and waving them into the first taxi so that Etta wouldn’t be late. I fluffed my collar up against the chill and turned to speak to Sidney, when I felt a sudden sharp tug on my arm.
“Hey!” I shouted as a man in a dark overcoat and hat dashed down the pavement with my handbag.
Sidney turned in alarm, and then realizing what had happened, prepared to set off in pursuit. But I stayed him with my hand.
“Don’t bother. He’s long gone by now.” At this hour, the street would be filled with people bustling to and from their evening entertainments. “Besides, he’s going to be disappointed when he discovers the only thing inside is an empty envelope.” I sighed, glancing in the direction he’d disappeared. “Though I was rather fond of that handbag.”
“What about the rest of the contents?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “A lip salve and some face powder can be replaced.”
One of the Savoy’s doormen stepped forward to apologize about the thief loitering on their pavement, and Sidney assured him we bore them no ill will. It would be all but impossible to spot such a crook when he had been dining in their restaurant, posing as a regular patron. For how else had he known about the envelope stuffed in my handbag? It certainly wasn’t a coincidence I’d been targeted.
We climbed into our taxi and set off down the Strand. I wrinkled my nose in aggravation. “I’m more miffed I didn’t notice the fellow following us. I allowed myself to be distracted.”
“Did you? Or were you actually hoping Ardmore’s man would try something?” Sidney ruminated wryly, clearly anticipating the latter.
“Well, I admit the thought did cross my mind.” I smoothed my skirt over my lap. “What better way to discover if Ardmore is having us surveilled, and how extensively?”
“Don’t you mean, what better way to tweak his nose?”
I shot him a look from under my lashes. “Darling, if he’s in any way annoyed by this, it won’t be at me.” I sat back, crossing my legs at the ankles. “Sadly, I get the impression he enjoys the challenge I present. He’s far more likely to be pleased.” I frowned at the blur of lights passing outside the cab window. “And determined to heighten the stakes.”
Sidney’s hand clasped mine. “This isn’t a game, Verity,” he grumbled into my ear.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I snapped. “But Ardmore seems determined to make it so. It’s not as if I can refuse to play. Not with the death toll already this high, and the ending stakes, I fear, even higher.”
He scrutinized my face, seeming to try to study every square inch of it as shadows flitted in the depths of his eyes. “Well, then, perhaps Ryde’s letter will be our ace.”
“Maybe,” I murmured, unable to shake the uneasiness that had settled over me. “But somehow I fear we’re not playing at something as simple as pontoon or twenty-one. I don’t know if it’s possible to best him by simply holding the better hand.”
Sidney’s neck straightened, seeming to be much struck by this metaphor. “You think he’s playing something more like brag.”
I nodded slowly. “I’m not sure it’s possible to best him without drawing him out into the open. If we charge at him with all the information we possess, then he’ll fold and wait for a better hand. Unless there is irrefutable proof somewhere, something he cannot twist or deny . . .” I rubbed my brow wearily. “And the longer I contemplate all this, the less convinced I am that such a thing exists. Then I don’t know that there is a way to beat him without bluffing him first.”
Sidney lifted his hand to cradle my chin between thumb and forefinger, dragging my gaze back to his. “Then perhaps all those games of brag I played while at ease behind the front, waiting to be called up the line again, weren’t for naught.” The corners of his lips twitched upward at the feebleness of his joke. Then his voice turned more serious. “We’ll get him, Verity. You’ll see. You don’t have to bluff him alone.”
I wrapped my fingers around the skin of his strong wrist where it emerged from his crisp white shirt cuff, staring up at him in gratitude. “Then let’s hope my gambit with the envelope back there was worth it, and whatever Max’s father decided to write in code is as important as he thought it was.”
* * *
When we returned to our flat, I was relieved to discover George and Crispin had arrived some thirty minutes earlier without incident. I peered into the study to find George with his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows and his dark head covered in tight curls bent over the desk as he worked out the cipher. I knew better than to interrupt him, and from the looks of the pot of tea at his elbow, it appeared Sidney’s valet, Nimble, was already seeing to his needs. So I slipped away quietly.
Upon learning it would likely be several hours before we learned anything, Crispin elected to return to the Savoy to rejoin his fiancée. I shook my head fondly at his departing figure. For all his capabilities and strengths, patience was not one of them.
Max joined us soon after, his face drawn and worried. I urged him into the drawing room and asked Nimble to prepare us our own pot of tea. Though he’d only been part of our household for a few weeks, I was already glad to have him. He’d served as my husband’s batman during the war, and contrary to his sobriquet, was far from nimble. Much of the time I knew where he was in the flat at all times, for I could hear his clumping footsteps, though I knew he tried to walk softly.
At first, this attribute drove our widowed housekeeper, Mrs. Sadie Yarrow, to distraction, but quickly she came to appreciate it. As a woman of somewhat of a nervous disposition, who hated to be snuck up on, she needn’t worry about that ever happening with Nimble. Once she looked beyond his large size and the scars blistering the left side of his face near his hairline and his partially missing left ear, and was able to appreciate his reserve and kindness, they’d seemed to settle into a mutual regard for each other. A few days earlier I’d even overheard Mrs. Yarrow teasing Nimble for letting his hair grow too long, and offering to cut it for him.
But Mrs. Yarrow left at the end of each day, returning to her own residence, where I’d long suspected she cared for someone else. From the beginning of her service, I’d promised her I would not pry. I valued my own secrets too highly to ever interfere in someone else’s without need. Though I admitted to an intense curiosity about whom she returned to each night, whether it was someone elderly, an invalided soldier, or perhaps even a child.
Once Nimble had returned with the tea, I prepared a cup for Max before pouring my own. I normally preferred something a bit stronger at this hour, but after all the champagne I’d drunk at the Savoy, I decided it would be better to keep some semblance of my wits about me for whatever that coded letter contained.
“I take it your discussion with Livia did not go well,” I said as I sank down onto the opposite end of the emeraldine sofa.
Max lifted his gaze from the spot he’d been staring at in our Aubusson rug for several minutes. “No, she wasn’t pleased.” He almost seemed surprised to find the cup of tea in his hands, but then he lifted it to take a drink.
My mother believed that tea was the remedy to all ailments, and while I didn’t entirely agree with her, I recognized how soothing a familiar ritual or taste could be to the senses. I’d employed the trick often enough during my time in the occupied territories when my nerves were strung too tight and my fear threatened to overwhelm me. Though then I often had to settle for the poor substitutes the Belgians and French living under occupation had to endure, things like roasted oat chaff and pea shells.
“I imagine it was a shock,” I coaxed gently, for he was visibly troubled, and I didn’t think it was purely his apprehension over the contents of his father’s letter.
He nodded. “She didn’t like hearing about the part our father played in the smuggling. Or the suggestion that he might have been poisoned.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “Rang a reverberating peal over my head at the mere suggestion.”
I offered him a commiserating smile, able to empathize with both of them. After all, not so many weeks earlier I’d dreaded telling Max that we suspected his father might have been murdered, dreaded his reaction. None of it was easy to hear.
“But then . . . once she’d calmed down . . .” He seemed to struggle with his words. “She . . . she said Father must have known.”
Sidney turned from where he stood, gazing through the tall Georgian windows down at the square below, smoking one of his specially blended Turkish cigarettes. His gaze met mine as Max continued to speak.
“She said he’d acted oddly during the weeks preceding his death. That after he died she’d ascribed it to his declining health. His valet had said he’d been complaining of chest pains, and so she’d chosen to believe it was just another symptom.”
“How was he acting oddly?” I said as he took another fortifying sip of tea.
“She said he seemed anxious, unsettled. That he started refusing invitations to dinners and events, something our father had always thrived on. He even summoned her to London all the way from the Isle of Wight, partly she now believes to give her the letter she gave me tonight. That he told her no less than three times not to reveal to anyone that he’d given it to her. That it was to be a surprise for my twenty-ninth birthday and he wanted me to have it even if he wasn’t around to give it to me. That he didn’t want it spoiled.”
“That didn’t seem strange to her earlier?” Sidney questioned, crossing the room to join us.
He shrugged one shoulder. “We were used to following Father’s directives, no matter how inane they seemed. Livia in particular. He wouldn’t brook disobedience.” His mouth twisted sourly. “He often overlooked and discounted her in favor of me, his heir.”
Something that wasn’t uncommon among the aristocracy. After all, what good were daughters but to form dynastic alliances and breed the next generation?
“Your sister seems like a very intelligent, level-headed person,” I remarked, considering everything Max had told us. “You trust her impressions?”
“I do,” he affirmed.
“Then I find it rather telling. After all, my impression of the late Earl of Ryde was as a confident, commanding personality. He was not intimidated easily, or pushed around.”
Max nodded in confirmation.
“And yet in his last weeks she describes him as anxious and unsettled. That he seemed to closet himself away.” I glanced at Sidney to see if he was following. “Perhaps hoping to restrict access to his person.”
“To prevent someone from harming or killing him,” Sidney added, finishing my thought.
We all knew that “someone” was Ardmore, but since he preferred to utilize others to perform his dirty work, it was difficult to tell who had actually posed a threat.
“So you think he did know?” Max asked.
“It seems like he at least suspected it. Why else write that letter in code and give it to your sister with such strict instructions,” I pointed out.
His features seemed to harden as he brooded over this.
Sidney drummed his fingers against the arm of the chintz bergère chair across from us. “Have you spoken with your father’s valet?”
Max shook his head. “Not since he was released from my employ a few weeks after Father’s death.”
“Perhaps you should,” Sidney prompted. “He might know more than he realizes.”
That is, if he’s still alive, I thought cynically. Ardmore had a ruthless proficiency at tidying up loose ends.
Max inhaled a tight breath. “You’re right. I should track him down.”
The door to the drawing room opened, and we all swiveled eagerly in our seats to discover if it was George come to tell us he’d cracked the code. Unfortunately, it was only Nimble asking if we needed another pot of tea or the ice in the bucket on the drinks tray on the sideboard refreshed. Once I declined and thanked him, we settled in to wait.
The hours ticked slowly by, each one stretching our already taut nerves further. At two o’clock, I considered offering George the use of our guest bedchamber, but I knew him. He would want the task completed. And if he couldn’t keep his eyes open to do so, he would come tell me so himself.
So I made myself comfortable in the corner of the sofa, dozing in and out while Sidney and Max smoked and talked near the window they’d cracked open. As the night wore on, the sounds of the traffic below began to thin until at times the shush of the wind and the ticking of the clock were all that accompanied the low rumble of their voices. That they were able to find so much to discuss did not surprise me, but the amount of cigarettes Max burned through did. In the past, Max had seemed an infrequent smoker at best. Sidney was the one some months past I’d chided for smoking too much, and I’d noticed he’d taken my request to heart, halving his previous intake. However, in the space of several hours, Max had puffed through one fag after another, even if otherwise he seemed perfectly calm.
When George finally appeared in the doorway to the drawing room, it seemed to take all of us a moment to register that fact. I blinked wide my tired eyes and sat upright as Max hurried across the chamber toward him.
“Did you decode it?” he asked George, his eyes eagerly darting back and forth from his face to the papers in his hand.
George nodded, passing him what I presumed to be the decrypted text. The look on his face when he turned to look at me was resigned and grim, giving the caramel skin he’d inherited from his Indian grandmother a slightly sallow cast. My muscles tightened with anticipation and dread. Whatever that letter said, it wasn’t meaningless.