Chapter Three

“I am well aware,” said Luke, “that the traditional female spy is willing to be seduced by enemy officers in order to wheedle vital secrets from them. But I’ll be everlastingly damned if I was going to let myself be buggered by a German cruiser captain.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Hubert Daines. “A really keen intelligence man—”

Luke looked around for something to throw, but finding nothing suitable, contented himself with grunting.

“In any case,” he said, “I doubt if von Holstern could have told me anything useful. He was a typical Prussian, solid brass from the neck up. I passed on to Captain Hall the only snippets I’d gathered while listening to him and his junior officers.”

“What did you make of Hall?”

“Astonishing personality. I did wonder if he was 100 percent fit.”

“Ah, you spotted that, did you? The doctors say that it’s asthma that makes him so breathless. It may mean him losing an active command. But it won’t mean the navy losing him. No, sir. he’ll be put into the place where he’s really wanted – in charge of Naval Intelligence. They’re waiting for him in the Admiralty with open arms. Tell me: did you get onto anything really useful?”

“I’m not sure,” said Luke slowly. “Maybe I did catch the tail end of something that might be important. There’s a man who calls himself Major Richards; I say, ‘calls himself.’ For all I know, it may be his real name. The main thing against him is that he’s got a house that is ideally situated to watch all that goes on in Portsmouth Harbour.”

“Nothing suspicious in that.”

“Not by itself. But there were three other little things. His friendship with von Holstern and his fluency in German. And last but not least, the flicker of interest that Judge Rosenberg showed in him.”

“Rosenberg being one of the Americans you were telling me about?”

“A leading member of the party and high up, now, in their judicial system, but he may have been a criminal lawyer once. A lot of their judges come up through the district attorney’s office.”

For the first time, Luke seemed to have captured Hubert’s whole attention and interest. He said, “You call them three little things. It’s just possible that they might add up to a big thing.” He thought for a moment, then said, “So I’m going to tell you something that is known, at the moment, to only a handful of people. It’s a curious story – really almost unbelievable – and I need hardly say that it stays under your hat.”

He stared at the traffic that a policeman was holding up at the point where Cromwell Road crossed Queen’s Gate. Then he said, “Think back to 1907. No doubt you remember the fuss there was in London—”

“Please bear in mind that in 1907 I was fifteen years old and my time was spent in helping my father look after Sir George Spencer-Well’s pheasants.”

“I expect that you sometimes had a moment to read the papers.”

“Occasionally.”

“Then it cannot have escaped you, even in your rural seclusion, that in the autumn of that year our good King Edward – lover of peace, we called him – invited the Kaiser to pay us a state visit.”

“Yes. I remember reading about the state visit.”

“Good. Well, the Kaiser arrived, accompanied by a pantomime troupe of aides, secretaries, courtiers, and camp followers, all duly observed by Superintendent Patrick Quinn. Have you met him?”

“Once. Short, pointed beard and looks like an archdeacon.”

“He’s a very shrewd operator, who’s been in charge of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard for ten years or more and knows all there is to know about guarding notable visitors. He soon concluded that one or two of the Kaiser’s gang were almost certainly involved in intelligence operations.”

“Were spies.”

“Not in the accepted sense of the word. No. But one of them, Captain von Rebeur-Paschwitz, might have been described as a spymaster. He was known to hold a top post in German intelligence, and so Quinn kept an extra-sharp eye on the gallant captain. He soon discovered a curious fact about him: it seemed he had no duties to perform. Not even ceremonial duties. He spent his days in hearty eating and drinking and his evenings in visiting music hall performances and entertaining the performers to supper.”

“The female performers?”

“Oh, yes. His tastes seem to have been entirely normal. And so it went on until the official visit ended on November 18. After which the Kaiser, who must also have been enjoying himself, stayed here for several weeks in a private capacity as a guest of Colonel Stuart-Wortley, in Highcliffe Castle, near Bournemouth. Rebeur-Paschwitz stayed on, too, but he seemed to prefer the attractions of London.”

“But surely,” said Luke, “if he was in attendance on the Kaiser—”

“The point did not escape Quinn, who was now sure that he was on to something. Being chronically shorthanded, he had roped in helpers from MO5. I was one of them. In the end, there were four of us on the job. One evening, toward the end of his visit, the captain dined at the Army and Navy Club – he’d been made an honorary member – and set out after dinner apparently to do some sightseeing, in the Oxford Street area. And if there had been any doubt in anyone’s mind about what he was up to, the captain’s subsequent movements would have set it at rest.”

Luke had stopped interrupting. He could see that Hubert was reliving the wild November evening when four sweating investigators had clung desperately to the coattails of one German officer.

“He took three different cabs, in succession, with a short walk between each. I can see, now, that if we’d attempted to do the same thing, we would have been spotted at once. However, we didn’t. We used our legs. A man who is in good shape can keep up with an unhurrying cab. Luckily, the streets were fairly crowded, and in the end we clung on to him long enough to find out where he was going with such elaborate precautions. It was, on the face of it, a simple answer. He wanted to get his hair cut.”

Luke was provoked into saying, “I don’t believe it.” To which Hubert said, “Nor did we. But there he was, in a barber shop, still open at ten o’clock at night. And in no very fashionable quarter of town. It was on Caledonian Road, number 402A, opposite Pentonville Prison. He wasn’t there long – hardly enough for a short back and sides. Then he came out, looking like a man who had done a good evening’s work. Quinn let him go. He had gotten the information he wanted.”

“We soon found out all about that barber, Karl Ernst. A very solid citizen. Half of his customers were guards or officials from Pentonville Prison, and the other half were local residents, mostly Germans. Nothing to raise any suspicions. Nothing at all, except for that one, curious, unexplained visit, which had aroused the highly developed suspicions of Patrick Quinn, who needed and happily possessed the patience to take the next step, which was to twist the wrist of the home secretary.”

“Winston Churchill,” said Luke with a smile. “Not an easy wrist to twist.”

“On this occasion he proved unexpectedly cooperative. He was persuaded to give the post office a blanket instruction to open all mail coming into and going out of that barber shop. Quite an operation. It meant employing a special section at Mount Pleasant to open and re-mail every letter that passed, and one of Quinn’s own men had the job of translating them. Before long they’d given us the whole framework of the German spy system in this country.”

“Totally fascinating,” said Luke and meant it. “But how does it fit in with something that I may – or may not – have stumbled on in Portsmouth?”

“The intercepted letters gave us the names and addresses of 95 percent of the German spies in this country. As soon as war’s declared, they’ll be taken in.”

“And shot.”

“No. They’ve been operating in peacetime. That’s not a capital offence. In fact, as our daft laws stand at the moment, I doubt whether they’ve been committing any offence at all.”

“So …?”

“So they’ll be interned – put somewhere where they’ll be of no further use to Gustav Steinhauer, their hardworking and not overly intelligent boss in Berlin. But – and it’s a big but – that still leaves the missing five percent. Two or three really dangerous men. We know they exist, just as a fever sufferer knows there are bugs in his blood even though he can’t see them. He deduces their presence from the results they produce. An indication of the importance of these men is the precautions our correspondents took. They must have been taught the old army rule ‘No names, no pack drill.’ One man who is mentioned regularly seems to have been of importance in the London circle – possibly in charge of it. He is referred to only as der Vetter – the cousin. When Steinhauer had a message for him, it was sent to one of the other correspondents, who was told to pass it on to him personally. Another man was operating somewhere on the south coast. On the rare occasions that he is mentioned he is called der Richt Kannonier – the gun layer. They praise the important work he is doing, but are careful to say no more.”

“And you think that Richards might be der Richt Kannonier?”

“If he is and if you can prove it, that’ll be a long step forward. Meanwhile, I can be doing two things at this end. I can ask the War Office to see whether they can identify Major Richards. And I can ask our New York contact to put through a very tactful inquiry to Judge Rosenberg. Meanwhile, you go back to Portsmouth and keep an eye on Richards.”

“He’s got an assistant – chauffeur, bodyguard, handyman – what you will. A bearded tough of unknown nationality – central European, anyway – who does the shopping and helps around the house. The locals call him the bosun. If an eye has to be kept on both of them, it’ll be a two-man job.”

“I agree. But in the limited state of our manpower, I’m afraid I can only offer you one assistant. He’s newly enrolled and somewhat wild and irresponsible. Nevertheless, I think you’ll find him helpful.” With a short pause for effect, Daines added, “His name’s Narrabone.”

“For God’s sake! You don’t mean—is it really Joe?”

“Yes. Joseph Narrabone. You seem pleased.”

“Joe!” Luke was almost speechless with delight and gratitude. “How did you work it?”

“It seemed to work itself,” said Daines modestly. He was pleased with the effect of his carefully nursed bombshell. “Losing a leg in that Leman Street explosion ended his career in the police, but it was no bar to his enrolment in MO5.”

“Joe!” said Luke. Joe, who had been to the same village school where Luke had been a shiningly virtuous head boy and Joe had been, without any near competitor, the worst boy in the school. Joe, who had joined the Metropolitan Police a few weeks after him and had been his prop and stay against the slings of bad men and the arrows of superior officers.

“Major Richards,” he said, “look out for your bloody self. Here comes the old firm.”