three pairs of black shoes, two of brown, six white shirts, four aggressively American suits. Poor man, lost to the bloody British, the colonial oppressor. The first thing he was going to do now he was home was get rid of the beard.
‘He came to stay at our house in Ireland, you see,’ Fitzgerald continued. ‘I liked him, admired him.’
‘Has the Chief sent a car to the station?’
Wolff hated Cumming’s club. It reminded him of a mausoleum, pompously ornate in the Venetian style, of the last century, a waiting room for old soldiers, some old sailors, a gallery for dusty weapons and portraits of Empire officers who had won their battle honours against spear-carrying tribesmen. Not a place where the ‘temporary gentlemen’ of the new armies were made to feel welcome: it suited C perfectly. The staff knew how to look after a fellow like C.
The porter took their coats and hats and arranged for a footman to escort them up the stairs to a private room on the first floor.
‘My dear chap, come in, come in,’ C bellowed, struggling to rise from a low chair. ‘We’re the reception committee. You look exhausted. Are you hungry, some sandwiches? Beef all right? And something to drink… see to it, Fitzgerald, will you.’ He advanced on his sticks to offer his hand. ‘Congratulations. Jolly fine work,’ and his voice shook a little. A good lunch, thought Wolff.
‘Sit down,’ C said. ‘Let’s begin. We haven’t much time.’
‘Oh?’
‘You know Admiral Hall.’
Yes, Wolff knew Hall; he’d served under ‘Blinker’ in Naval Intelligence. Naval aristocracy: his father had been director too. Bloody old Blinker.
‘Well done, Wolff,’ Hall said, peremptory as ever. He reminded Wolff of a Jack Russell. Short, balding, mid forties, never still, eyes darting about the room suspiciously, always blinking.
‘The bank told me you were alive,’ C remarked, easing back into his chair. ‘Good hotel, wasn’t it?’
‘Prices in Berlin keep rising,’ Wolff replied with a wry smile. They’d directed him to the leather couch, face to face like a review board, just the Persian rug and the empty grate between them. ‘Did you say there was a drink?’ he asked.
‘The report you left with Agent T in Amsterdam — you mentioned a brigade…’
‘I don’t trust Tinsley.’
‘Too late to worry about him,’ interjected Hall impatiently. ‘This brigade?’
‘It won’t come to anything.’
‘And a rising?’
‘I can’t be sure. He hears everything second hand, you see. My guess, for what it’s worth, not this year.’
‘Second hand?’
‘All his news of Ireland comes through America. I’ll help myself, shall I?’ he asked, gesturing to a bottle on the mantelpiece.
‘You’re forgetting yourself, Wolff.’ Blinker was losing his temper; it happened quite often.
‘Forgetting myself is how I stay alive, sir.’
They watched him pour a whisky. A few minutes later Fitzgerald returned with a plate of sandwiches and a bottle of the club claret. Then Wolff told them of Casement’s failure in the camps and of his fairy-tale hope that recruits for his brigade would be found in America. The Germans were using him for propaganda, he said. When the time came, they would let him have a few rifles for his rising, but they didn’t expect it to come to anything. ‘No, they don’t have much faith in the Irish.’ He paused to light a cigarette. ‘Actually, Casement says he isn’t sure they want a rising.’
C grunted incredulously: ‘Why on earth not?’
‘He says the Germans are like us — like him…’ Wolff gestured with his cigarette to the portrait of a cavalry colonel in foreign parts, hanging over the chimneypiece. ‘At first he believed they were enemies of the British Empire — God Save Ireland the same as God Save Germany. He’s very religious.’
‘Bloody fool,’ barked Hall. ‘Realises he’s made a mistake then.’
‘He’s been very low.’
C leant forward to peer at Wolff through his monocle. ‘Do you like him?’
Silence. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘Does it matter?’
‘No, it bloody well doesn’t.’ Hall shifted restlessly in his chair. ‘What matters is that we bring him down… anything, letters, bad habits, vices — women, does he drink? Anything useful…’
Wolff thought of Christensen.
‘Well?’
‘Only what I’ve told you,’ he replied coldly.
‘Sure?’ There was a glint of steel in C’s eyes.
Wolff picked up his glass. ‘Yes.’ He sipped his whisky slowly, then bent low to place it on the hearth.
‘Then we must talk about America,’ said Hall. ‘This German fellow, von Rintelen, you mention in your report — is he going to contact you?’
‘I don’t know. I am to be one of Casement’s representatives, that’s all we agreed,’ Wolff explained. ‘The Count said there might be an opportunity to make some money — wanted me to contact a Dr Albert at the Hamburg America Line on Broadway.’
‘Good, very good.’ Hall was blinking furiously. ‘We know Dr Albert, don’t we, Cumming? Holds the purse strings in America. Haven’t been able to get near him…’ He exchanged a glance with C.
‘Our chap, Gaunt, has been keeping an eye on him,’ he continued. ‘Says Albert doesn’t get his hands dirty, no, that’s why they’ve sent this man von Rintelen… marvellous opportunity, Wolff, marvellous.’
Wolff nodded. He wasn’t ready, not yet.
‘Yes, yes.’ Hall got up to stand on the rug in front of the fire. ‘Known for a while that they’re building a network in New York. Sabotage — all in the report you sent from Amsterdam,’ he declared, rattling it in incisive bursts like a machine gun. ‘We’re going to have to fight this war with American shells… not making enough of our own — scandal really. Not just shells… rifles, lots of things — horses. That’s what this fellow Rintelen is about. Looks as if he’s going to be able to count on the bloody Irish, and New York’s full of ’em.’ He took his cigarette case from his jacket pocket and stared at it distractedly for a few seconds, then put it back without taking one. ‘The thing is, Wolff, Rintelen isn’t the only man they’ve sent to America, there’s another. There are two of them,’ he said at last.
‘Two of them?’
‘Two of them,
‘No, sir.’
‘Your Count, well, someone in his Section P has sent him — top secret, highest classification, separate arrangements, separate contacts — he’s going to a lot of trouble — why? Like to hazard a guess?’
‘No idea, sir.’
‘You can see how important this is,’ Cumming interpolated quickly. ‘We can’t rely on the Americans.’
‘Amateurs,’ said Hall, shaking his head contemptuously.
‘We’re not supposed to be operating there,’ Cumming continued, ‘but we have this opportunity… a marvellous opportunity… safer than Berlin, of course.’
Wolff didn’t reply. He wasn’t going to make it easy. God, he was sick of their club-smoke intrigue, sitting there on the edge of their seats; sick of the Kipling talk they were preparing to give him on his duty.
‘You can have a little time, twenty-four hours all right?’ C took out his monocle and rubbed his eye with his forefinger. ‘Shore leave, if you like. Time to get a few things straight. The
Wolff nodded and drew on his cigarette. For a time no one spoke.
‘You might like to see your friend, Mrs Curtis,’ C said at last, putting his monocle back. ‘I believe she’s had, well…’
‘How do you know about this Delmar?’ interrupted Wolff.
