“Well, maybe they’ll let me sleep in the lobby,” Mike said, and went to the door.
“You’re certain you can’t stay a bit longer?” Joan asked.
“Afraid not. Thanks for all your help. Do any of you happen to know—” But before he could ask whether they knew a Gerald Phipps, they began giving him directions to the Bell. “And if it hasn’t any rooms, the Milton’s two streets down—”
“Watch out for Turing on your way there,” Joan cut in.
“And for Dilly,” Elspeth said. “He’s even worse about not watching where he’s going, and he has a car! Whenever he comes to a crossing, he speeds up.”
“Dilly?” Mike said hoarsely.
“Captain Knox,” Mavis said. “We work for him. He has some sort of mathematical theory that by going faster he’ll hit fewer people, because of being in the crossing a shorter time.”
My God. First Alan Turing and now Dilly’s girls. He was smack in the middle of Ultra, and he’d only been in Bletchley half an hour. “I refuse to accept lifts from him anymore,” Elspeth was saying. “He forgets he’s driving and takes both hands off the—are you all right? You’re pale as a ghost.”
“Turing did injure you,” Mavis said. “Come sit down while we phone for the doctor. Elspeth, go put the kettle —”
“No!” he said. “No. I’m fine. Really.” And he left before they could protest. Or Dilly Knox showed up.
“But we don’t even know your name!” Mavis called after him.
Thank God for that at least, he thought, pretending he hadn’t heard her. And thank God he hadn’t asked about Phipps. He hurried off toward the Bell. What next?
Would there be an Enigma machine in his room?
If you can find a room, he thought. But surely they’d have saved a hotel room or two for people passing through, billeting or no billeting.
Wrong. The desk clerk hooted when he asked.
“You don’t know of anywhere?” Mike asked.
“In Bletchley?” the clerk said, and turned to the young man who’d just come up to the counter. “Yes, Mr. Welchman?”
Gordon Welchman? Who’d headed up the team which had broken the German Army and Air Force Enigma codes? Christ, he thought, retreating hastily. At this rate he’d have met all the key players by morning. He headed for the Milton, wondering if he should go back to the station right now and catch the first train going anywhere.
No, with his luck, Alan Ross would be on it with Menzies sound asleep in the luggage rack. But it didn’t look as if he could stay here either. Neither the Milton nor the Empire had a room, and going back to the Bell was out of the question. “You might try one of the boardinghouses on Albion Street,” the clerk at the Empire said,
“but I doubt you’ll find anything.”
He was right. Every house had a No Rooms Available or No Vacancy placard in its front window. May be the reason the Germans never found out about Ultra was because their spies couldn’t find anywhere to stay, Mike thought, crossing the street—after first looking carefully in all directions—and starting down the other side, peering through the dark at the signs: No Rooms, Full Up, Room to Let.
Room to Let. It took a moment for that to sink in, and then he was up the steps and pounding on the door. A plump, rosy-cheeked old lady opened the door a sliver, smiling. “Yes?”
“I saw that you have a room. Is it still available?”
She stopped smiling and folded her arms belligerently across her stomach. “Did the billeting office send you?”
If he said yes, he might have to produce some sort of official form, and if he said no, she was likely to tell him all her rooms had already been co-opted. “I saw your notice,” he said, pointing at it. The smile came back, and she motioned him to come in.
“I’m Mrs. Jolsom,” she said. “I didn’t think you looked like one of them.”
Polly and Eileen won’t be happy about that after all their efforts, he thought, wondering what was wrong with his appearance.
“I don’t let rooms to that lot at the Park. Unreliable. Coming and going at all hours, scattering papers everywhere, and when you try to tidy up after them, shouting at you not to touch anything, like it was something valuable instead of a lot of papers covered with numbers. Ten and four.”
For a moment he thought she was talking about the numbers on the papers, then realized she meant the price of the room. “Paid by the week. In advance,” she said, leading him upstairs. “Room only, no board—the rationing, you know. I ask two weeks’ notice if you’re leaving,” she said, leading him up a second flight, “so the room won’t stand empty.”
She apparently hasn’t heard about Wendy having to sleep in the pantry, Mike thought, following her down a hall. The room was the size of a closet, but it was a room and in Bletchley. “I’ll take it,” he said.
“I’ve had them go off without a word,” she said indignantly. “Or not come when they said they would. And after I’d saved the room for them. ‘There must have been a miscommunication,’ the billeting officer said. ‘Miscommunication!’ I said. ‘What about this letter? And what about my four weeks’ rent?’ ”
Mike finally stopped her by handing her the week’s rent and asking if she had a telephone. “No, but there’s one at the pub two streets over,” she said. “Claimed he hadn’t sent the letter, he did. ‘Well, then, that’s the last one you billet here,’ I told him. ‘What about your patriotic duty?’ he says. ‘What about their patriotic duty?’ I says, ‘lazing about here messing with multiplication tables like a lot of schoolboys when they ought to be in the Army?’ ” She looked at Mike suspiciously. “Why aren’t you in the Army?”
