would not have been visible unless the person doing the scrutiny was looking for it and impossible to spot under artificial light on a polished wood floor.
There was no shock attached to the discovery; he was an unknown quantity in a place where suspicion had to be rife for the sake of what they were trying to achieve. He assumed that Corrie’s room had likewise been done over while they were having their dinner and their promenade — at least one lucky person had avoided having to listen to Goebbels.
He was still not quite over the shock of seeing his supposed contact leading that parade but he had to assume that right now he was safe, just as he had to trust Veseli to make whatever moves he had in mind and they had to have been pre-planned. It was all very well being active, but sometimes passivity was the right strategy, as expounded by the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
A few things were necessary for a good night’s sleep: a heavy oak chair should be shoved under the door handle, which, if it would not stop anyone entering who really wanted to, would create enough noise and delay for him to react. His fountain pen, a Montblanc Meisterstuck, he put on the bedside table; you could get a good grip of the body, and the nib made a dangerous weapon. Next he rolled really tight a local newspaper he had brought up from the lobby, which jabbed end on into someone’s face would stop them dead and used in the right place could even kill.
Having been given a room overlooking the front of the hotel, but to one side, so he had a good view under the front canopy, Cal, busy doing his morning exercises to the sound of church bells, was drawn to the window by the sound of mild cheering and several vehicles entering the square below.
Really it was the small truck behind the big Mercedes that was making the noise on the cobblestones, open at the back and containing two files of rigid SA men in greatcoats, a dozen in number, all with rifles between their legs, while there was another car in front with what also looked like bodyguards.
The Mercedes in the middle stopped before the front door and another escort leapt out from the front to open the rear door. All Cal saw of the man who got out, to a raised arm salute, was the top of a soft trilby hat and a besuited arm responding with a lazy salute.
It had to be Konrad Henlein but the question uppermost in Cal’s mind was the size of the escort and its armament — if that was standard he would need half a company of trained infantry to ambush him, and Moravec and Veseli must know that.
Responding to the telephone he picked it up to find it was Corrie asking him if he was ready to go down to breakfast. ‘Why, do you need an escort?’
‘I just want somebody to talk to and no one speaks English.’
‘Maybe Fraulein Metzer will join you.’
‘That will not be a good start to the day, the stuck-up bitch.’
‘Maybe she’s shy,’ Cal replied, just to tease her.
‘Are you kidding me? She makes Garbo look like Mae West.’
‘Must be the hair.’
‘You know the question Mae asks? Well the gun’s in Metzer’s pocket.’
‘I’m just finishing my morning routine.’
‘No details please.’
‘And I think our man has just arrived. Ten minutes and I’ll knock at your door.’
Over breakfast Cal was given a written list of questions that Corrie thought he should ask, with Cal pulling out his fountain pen to make some alterations that changed the tone.
‘You got to sucker him, remember, be soft.’
‘After what we saw in that square last night that’s going to be difficult.’
‘It was never going to be easy.’
Next stop was a meeting with the Ice Maiden, who informed them that the leader had much on his plate — constant communications were coming in from Prague, other Sudeten towns and around the world — and he could only spare one hour at a time, but would do one in the morning and another in the afternoon.
‘It may take longer than that.’
‘Then more time will be found tomorrow.’
‘How’s your French?’ asked Quex as Peter Lanchester entered his office.
‘Not brilliant, sir.’
‘I have received this morning a communication from my opposite number in Paris, Colonel Gauche, the transcript of a conversation that was overheard between an external telephone and the chateau of a certain chap called Pierre Taittinger, dated August twenty-ninth, and it’s not about champagne.’
The paper was passed over and Peter looked at it, thinking it was much harder to read a foreign language than speak it, this as Sir Hugh continued.
‘Now it would be very easy for me to have this translated, as you know, but I think that might set running hares that would go in all directions, so as of now, I want this to be strictly
between you and I.’
Having got well past the bonjours and bien surs, as well as a long screed, which he suspected was general conversation about the state of the world, one word hit him very hard.
‘La Rochelle,’ Peter said, ‘hardly requires translation, sir.’
‘No,’ Quex said in a dry tone.
Peter was looking at other obvious words, such as je pense par camion, but the one that was most striking was his own name and what he assumed was a description, as well as the fact that he, avec deux autres hommes anglais, would arrivent par train le trente aout. Given those two facts, a watch on the railway station — La Rochelle did not have a mass of long-distance trains coming in — was all that was required to identify him.
‘The trouble is,’ Quex continued, ‘that though this tells us the communication came from outside of France, it does not say from where and it definitely does not identify the caller, who did not at any time use his name, and nor did Monsieur Taittinger.’
Peter went right to the top of the page, reading out the opening words, ‘ Bonjour, Pierre, c’est moi. Which means the voice was known to him, well known.’
‘Precisely, and does it not also imply that it is one which is quite distinctive, given the interference on such lines?’
‘What do you think would happen if we shoved this under McKevitt’s nose?’
‘He would deny all knowledge of it, quite apart from the fact that as of this moment he’s in Prague.’ Seeing the surprise, Quex added, ‘To shut the station down.’
‘That puts him awfully close to Jardine.’
‘Who has, according to your latest communication, gone up to Eger to meet with Henlein.’
‘It’s called Cheb now, sir.’
‘Don’t be a pedant, Peter.’
Sir Hugh went into a deep study, with a face that implied it would be unwise to interrupt his thoughts, and judging by his expression they were not happy ones.
‘You sure this could not have come from something Jardine did, some mistake he made?’
‘I cannot see it, sir. When I met him he was very confident he had kept things tight; he is very experienced in that game and I can tell you he is a hard character to follow and impossible to tail over weeks without him spotting something.’
‘Say you are correct, what could be McKevitt’s motive?’
‘Guns for republicans in Spain, sir, he is visceral about that.’
‘Peter, he does not know they were for Spain, nor does he know that Jardine was involved, because if he did, I would know about it, for the very simple reason he would have been letting things slip to his political friends.’
‘I did not know he had any.’
‘I did, and if I’d had any doubt, I certainly found out only the other day.’
Peter Lanchester had a look of curiosity on his face, to which Sir Hugh was not going to respond; the fewer people who knew he had been given a wigging by the PM the better.
‘Let us speculate that where we had a suspicion we now have confirmation that your problems in La Rochelle
