Chapter Twenty

IT WAS NEARING MIDNIGHT IN the Buckingham Hotel, and Maynard Charles needed a drink.

The body of Ansel Albrecht lay in the Benefactors’ Study, where in a few short days the hotel board would gather, again, to discuss the matter of Hélène Marchmont. Problems like Hélène seemed so trivial tonight. Maynard closed the door on the dead boy, turned the key in the lock, and studied the time on his watch. Soon, the final song would be played in the Grand Ballroom – and, after that, he and Maximilian Schank would have to gather Jonas Holler, Karina Kainz and all of the rest. It would be Maynard who broke the worst of all news to them, for the boy had died in his hotel. Nothing else would have been right.

There had been other deaths in the Buckingham, over the years. There was always some old fool who’d drunk too much, or cavorted with his mistress in one of the palatial suites, ignoring the fact that his heart was no longer the heart of a young man. Deaths like these, though, were more easily accounted for. Maynard could shrug and say, ‘the world keeps turning’, and diligently organise their removal so that no scandal was spread. There had been measles, once, on the second storey; three had fallen victim to it, and each one of them made to vanish from the hotel before the rumours started to take hold. He’d never felt this aching sadness about any of them – but, then, Ansel Albrecht was so young, so full of vigour and promise.

Yes, he sorely needed that drink.

He opened his office door, ready to reach for the brandy decanter, only to find that two glasses had already been poured. The first sat untouched by the Olympia Elite typewriter on his side of the desk. The other was being swirled in the hands of the middle-aged rake of a figure who lounged in the upholstered chair on the desk’s opposite side, his dark Bollman trilby crumpled up on his lap.

‘You choose your nights perfectly, Mr Moorcock.’ Maynard sighed as, without complaint, he went to the desk and drained his brandy in one. ‘You’ll forgive me for being distracted this evening. We’re dealing with bad news.’

Moorcock nodded vaguely. ‘I’m afraid I’m about to make your evening much worse.’

Maynard slumped at his desk. He was in no mood for this tonight. He kept thinking, not only of Ansel, but of all the other young men he’d seen perish, across Flanders and France. His mind always took him back there, to those dugouts and foxholes in the ground. A whole generation of men had died there, but sometimes it seemed that those who survived had been born there too. Maynard himself recollected so very little of the golden years before.

‘You look ragged, Mr Moorcock.’

‘I feel it, too.’

Maynard poured them each a further two fingers of brandy.

‘Then let’s dispense with the small talk, this evening. I’ve spent my year doing all that I can. When the Bechsteins and von Hessens were here this summer, I sent you dispatches. When they dined with Lord Edgerton, I gleaned what little I could. There is always tittle-tattle, Mr Moorcock. I had a letter sent out to you just this morning, to tell you that the Duke of Coburg dined with our friend Conte Grandi from the Italian embassy.’ He stopped. ‘The talk is changing. I dare say it is of little value to your Office, but since the agreement in Munich last month – well, people are speaking of growth and peace. They understand the British Lion is sleeping, and it makes them happy.’

Moorcock stood, his hands turning to fists. It was quite the most remarkable sight Maynard had seen – for never before had he seen Moorcock betray an ounce of emotion, not unless it was sneering dismay.

‘Mr Moorcock, if this is the demeanour of the British intelligence services this year, might I politely enquire if we are, all of us, in just a spot of .?.?. bother?’

Rarely, in history, had anybody made the news of impending war sound quite so understated.

‘Mr Charles, you’ll remember our conversation of springtime – how His Majesty is sleepwalking to disaster, and it’s our appointed task to stop it. My superiors have finally formalised their conclusion that His Majesty’s taking up arms against his Germanic cousins is no longer a question of if, but a matter of when. Whether we prevail in this war will depend on British pluck and perseverance, as ever it has, but you and I do not belong in a children’s story of valiant soldiers and brave, loyal infantrymen. You and I know war, and let us not pretend it is anything other than brutish, nasty and hard. We must seek what advantages we can – and the principal advantage, as we see it now, is in choosing when and where the first salvos in this battle will be fought. Do you follow me, Mr Charles?’

Maynard whispered, ‘You had me searching for gossip to try and waylay a war. Now you mean to propagate it?’

‘It is not as dirty as it sounds. Mr Chamberlain, honourable man that he is, has made a grave miscalculation – and, at last, we in the intelligence community have found the courage to say so. It is as Mr Churchill has been pronouncing for too long now – by appeasing the German wolves, we make them stronger while, simultaneously, weakening ourselves. Were it to continue, we would one day find ourselves up against a Goliath we have no hope of ever slaying.’ Moorcock paused for breath. ‘You will recall that I told you about elements in the high German gentry who might be sympathetic to our causes. Well, we have now identified a coterie of men who believe they can make a difference. They see what we see – war is to come, and Herr Hitler must be defeated in open battle .?.?. or not at all.’

‘Mr Moorcock, what more aid I can give you, I scarcely know.’

‘This delegation of German gentry will make landfall in Britain in the first week of December. You will know them as among the von Amsberg and Wittekind lines. Families that trace their ancestries to high German nobility, and who are watching, aghast, as Herr Hitler invites ruin on their world. Outwardly, they come here for the wedding of a cousin, to take place at St Paul’s. But the true purpose of this delegation is to petition the Crown to effect a change in His Majesty’s government’s direction – to draw a line in the sand, to tell the Führer that enough is enough, and that Britain will no longer be cowed. Mr Charles, this delegation is to take residence in the Buckingham Hotel. Their mission must succeed.’

‘You fool, Moorcock.’ Maynard laughed. ‘Haven’t you and I been spying on the guests in this hotel for years, now? You know the manner of men who frequent my hotel. British fascists, continental fascists, and worse. Find your men a country residence from which to do their business. Find them a—’

‘They are not my men, Maynard,’ Moorcock snarled. ‘We know of their coming, but we do not direct it. We would rather they were sequestered in perfect solitude than in this hotel of yours – but, since this is the route they have chosen, we will turn it to our advantage. Your job is to ensure that their presence and purpose here in London is not communicated. To preserve the secrecy of this mission, until their work here is done. And if they are discovered, and worked against by elements seeking to continue Mr Chamberlain’s course of action, we would know about it too.’

‘And how am I to do that?’

Mr Moorcock sneered. ‘By controlling the flow of information, Mr Charles. By mastering your hotel. No letter is to leave this hotel unless it has been steamed open and vetted by you. Where other guests congregate, their gossip is to be recorded and relayed to me, in intimate detail. Do I make myself clear?’

Maynard nodded.

For a time, there was silence in the office. Then, at last, Maynard said, ‘Do you think there is any hope, Mr Moorcock? Great Britain is weary of war. We’re still in mourning from 1918. Is there any other way?’

Moorcock straightened out his trilby and planted it squarely on his head.

‘I am afraid not, Mr Charles. Count yourself fortunate that, this time, you are too old to take up a gun.’

After Moorcock was gone, Maynard poured himself another large brandy. The matter of breaking the news about Ansel Albrecht had flitted out of his mind while Moorcock prowled the office, but now it cascaded over him again. The brandy would steel him.

But first there was another job he had to do.

Reaching for the telephone on his desk, he dialled for reception and said, ‘Send Mr Brogan through directly.’ Then he placed the receiver back and waited for the opening of the door.

‘You wanted to see me, Mr Charles?’

Maynard looked at him. Young Brogan. He had a fleeting image of Billy, and Frank Nettleton, all the younger men of the Buckingham, dressed in fatigues and lined up at barracks for their first infantry training. Did it really have to come so soon?

‘Billy, I’ve a task for you. Consider this your last night as a concierge. From tomorrow morning, you’re to take up a new role as apprentice to Mrs Farrier in the post room. Now, I can see, by the look on your face, that you consider this a demotion. My boy, it is nothing of the sort. Communication, Billy. It’s the lifeblood of civilisation, and you’re to be at its centre. Mrs Farrier is old. She carries her department well, but it is unfair for her to do it alone. And, Billy .?.?.’

‘Yes, Mr Charles?’

‘I shall be needing extra services of you, once you’re installed in the post room. These extra services, of course, will come with extra remuneration, which I’m quite certain your family will appreciate, in the days to come.’ Maynard paused. ‘We have always worked so well together, you and I.’

Billy could sense, in Mr Charles, some air of unutterable sadness, but he dared not ask why.

‘I’m afraid there’s a task appointed to us. I had hoped we were finished. But we must return to our old trade, Mr Brogan. The trade of listening in. The trade of discovery. This terrible trade of secrets and lies.’