feeling back into his feet. ‘Don’t worry, Hilken, he’s perfectly capable.’
‘And he can be trusted?’
‘He’s a good German.’
And once you have taught him to culture your diseases you will leave your simple brother the brewer and your simple sister and return to Germany with your opera singer. Doctor, Hilken reflected as he watched Dilger walk to the station, you’re more cold-blooded than I thought.
‘The Secret Service wants to kick it into the long grass,’ Wiseman said to Thwaites in the grill room at the Astor that evening. ‘It’s made ’em look foolish. And the President’s people don’t want anything to raise the temperature with Germany this close to election year. They’re happy to leave it to the police.’ He put down his knife and fork and dabbed his moustache with his napkin. ‘How about your Captain Tunney?’
‘He wants help.’ Thwaites paused. ‘It may be awkward.’
‘Oh?’ Wiseman enquired, turning to catch the eye of the waiter. ‘Ask the sommelier to bring another, would you?’ he commanded, flicking his hand at the bottle.
‘Tunney’s lost one of his runners,’ Thwaites explained. ‘Chap called Kelly. Thinks he was murdered by Rintelen’s crew. Sore affronted.’
‘Perhaps Wolff can help—’
Thwaites interrupted. ‘Sorry, I should have been clearer. This fellow, Kelly, well, he was stabbed — through the heart apparently.’
Wiseman checked the glass he was raising to his lips. ‘Ah.’ It hovered there for a few seconds as he considered the implications, then he took a sip. ‘And he hasn’t any idea who—’
‘No. But he would appreciate our assistance. He’s a determined sort, I’m afraid. I think he’s going to worry away at it.’
‘Kelly, you say.’ Wiseman was gazing reflectively into the body of the restaurant, crystal twinkling in the candlelight, gentlemen in white tie, their ladies in satin, a murmur of contentment and money, punctuated by the ring of silver. ‘Wonder what it is like to kill a fella with a name,’ he remarked at last. ‘Have you? Don’t think we should mention it to Wolff. His conscience is a little fragile.’
26. Christmas Ceasefire
REST, THE DOCTOR ordered, so they moved Wolff to a boarding house on Lexington, Thwaites’ valet to play nurse. For a time he drifted in submarine darkness, babbling of home and a man in a derby hat. But by the third day he was well enough to hold his tongue and order his thoughts, turning his back on blue hills to stroll along Broadway, a free man, engineer, a speculator — he needed some risk — with his particular friend, Miss Laura McDonnell of Philadelphia. Head on pillow, turned to the bright window, he wanted her as a man desires a pretty woman, but for her faith too: in the pursuit of liberty and the ruin of great empires, a just and equal society; for her conviction that no other cause was worthy of great sacrifice. The nature of her brave new order didn’t impress Wolff as much as her belief that it would be built in time. ‘Bolshie,’ Thwaites and the wise men of the half-world they shared would say, but Wolff didn’t care for their opinion.
On the sixth day he discharged himself from their care to resume life as Jan de Witt, and he was pleased to.
‘You’re still here then,’ Laura said, when he telephoned.
‘I would have called but — well, you must have seen the papers.’
There was a long silence.
‘We could meet for lunch,’ he ventured.
‘I’m glad you’re safe. But my friends say I—’
Wolff interrupted. ‘You don’t sound glad.’
‘Oh, it’s so difficult on the telephone,’ she blurted in exasperation. ‘Our friends are anxious. Trust no one, they say, until we can be sure — and it’s been weeks since…’
‘I know. I’m sorry,’ he said, with complete sincerity.
Another silence, but when she broke it he heard the old mischief in her voice: ‘And I’m busy. Tomorrow I have a meeting in the morning, and I’m visiting Mrs Newman in the afternoon…’ she paused deliberately, ‘…at three o’clock.’
‘I see.’ He smiled. ‘Thank you.’
The windows of his East Street apartment were opaque with frost, the stove cold and his bed unmade. He scraped away a square with a penknife and examined the stiff faces of passers-by, the empty doorways and windows opposite. ‘Trust no one,’ the Clan had warned Laura. So they were still looking for their traitor. Wolff had toyed with the idea of moving to somewhere safer uptown for Christmas but standing in the bare sitting room in his overcoat he resolved to leave at once. Just two small cases and he clattered down the stair to his landlord for the last time, handed in the key, a few dollars, and as cover, a post office address for mail he wasn’t expecting to receive. Then he took a cab to Grand Central and another to the Plaza Hotel, where he paid for a comfortable six- dollar-a-night room with a bath.
The following morning he telephoned Casement’s sister. She was pleased to hear from him, but resentful that he’d neglected her. ‘So much to discuss… Roddy was asking after you… if you can come to tea…’
Punctual, at three, he lifted the broken gate in the picket fence and crunched down the path. Nina Newman was watching for him and opened the door as he was shaking the snow from his hat.
‘Laura is visiting, did I say?’ she asked, taking his overcoat. ‘She’s just arrived.’
Wolff had prepared with care: a sober grey suit and Tyrian purple tie — just a hint of something radical. Combing oil into his hair, he’d discovered a suggestion of silver at his temples that left him out of sorts, then ashamed of his vanity. She was so much younger, perhaps fifteen years.
In the middle of the little sitting room, the same dusty armchair throne, but this time Laura was to hold court. Still pink from the chill, she rose to greet him with an arch smile. ‘Quite a coincidence.’
‘A happy one,’ he replied.
‘So much has happened, Mr de Witt. So much,’ Nina Newman gushed, directing him to the chair at Laura’s side and taking the one opposite. ‘Roddy’s in despair. It’s the Germans.’ She leant across to the mantelpiece for an envelope she’d left in anticipation. ‘He writes that “…
‘I’m sure he’s safe.’ Laura touched her hand. ‘Don’t you think so, Mr de Witt?’
‘In Germany, yes,’ Wolff replied distantly, his thoughts still with a slippery bastard called Christensen. ‘If he doesn’t do something—’
‘And who can believe that, that… Norwegian — Christensen?’ Nina interjected, twisting the end of her handkerchief. ‘What does Roddy see in him? He’s a thief, duplicitous — that business with his wife… he’s in Berlin and Roddy’s too sweet-natured…’ She rattled on unhappily for a few minutes more before excusing herself to make some tea.
‘No one in the Clan trusts him,’ Laura observed, touching her hair, drawing his gaze.
‘Roger?’
‘No!’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘Adler Christensen. Only—’ she bit the corner of her lip, uncertain whether she should say more.
‘Berlin doesn’t trust Christensen,’ he prompted.
‘Oh?’
‘Von Rintelen said so. Asked my opinion.’
A sharp little shake of her head, auburn hair catching the light from the window: ‘First the brigade in Germany, then Christensen; some people are questioning his judgement. It was Roger who asked the Clan to help your German friends. Did you know?’
