Hardcastle's Traitors (28 page)

‘Disappointing news with regard to Godalming, Mr Hardcastle. The house where Villiers and the others were living, not far from Charterhouse School, was rented by Villiers on the fourteenth of November last year. Doubtless it had been taken in case Villiers and company needed a bolt-hole. But, I'm sorry to say, Inspector Strange came back empty-handed. At least, empty-handed as far as my interest is concerned. One of his men did, however, find a revolver that had been hidden, although not carefully enough. I've arranged for it to be sent to Franklin for examination. I suspect that it might have been used in the murder of Stein.' Quinn relaxed into one of the DDI's chairs.

‘Mr Franklin already has the round taken from Stein's body, sir, and if we're lucky he'll be able to match that to the revolver Mr Strange's men found.'

‘Strange also found some burned clothing in the garden that you may care to have sent for examination.'

‘And Isaac Gosling was wearing good quality new clothing when he was arrested at Shoreham, sir,' said Hardcastle thoughtfully. ‘I think it's probable that Sinclair Villiers provided the cash for that; I doubt that Gosling could've afforded such a suit.'

‘Quite so. However, as I said just now, Mr Strange's search of the property revealed nothing of value to my Branch. It would seem that Villiers, Gosling and the woman merely kept the place as a pied-à-terre until they could escape in the
Carlson,
should the necessity arise. And it did,' he added, smiling.

‘I imagine that the burned clothing was Isaac Gosling's cast-offs, sir?'

‘He's already admitted that he was there, Mr Hardcastle, so I think that's quite likely.' Quinn gazed at the DDI, a slightly irritated expression on his face, as though rebuking him for not coming to that conclusion himself.

But Hardcastle sensed that the superintendent's irritation was not so much with him as with the fact that the search of the Godalming house had revealed nothing of value to Special Branch.

‘I shall interview the woman now,' said Quinn. ‘You may join me if you wish, but do not say anything unless I invite you to do so.'

Quinn and Hardcastle stood up when the bogus Mrs Wheeler was escorted into the interview room. She may well have been suspected of being a German agent, but neither man saw that as an excuse to abandon the conventional courtesies.

‘Please sit down,' said Quinn. ‘You are
Fräulein
Irma Glatzer, are you not?' MI5 had already confirmed that the document found in Sinclair Villiers's briefcase was genuine.

‘That is correct.' The slender blonde was perfectly composed. The fact that she was in a police station, and must have known why, did not seem to worry her at all. ‘May I have a cigarette, Superintendent?'

‘Certainly,' said Quinn.

For a moment or two, Glatzer stared at Quinn. ‘My handbag and all my belongings were taken away from me when I was arrested.' She seemed to accept that inconvenience as normal procedure.

Quinn crossed to the door and sent the constable to fetch the woman's cigarettes, and waited in silence until he had returned.

Irma Glatzer opened the small tortoiseshell case, took a cigarette from it and waited until Hardcastle offered her a light.

‘Why are you in this country, Miss Glatzer?

‘I am a refugee.'

‘From where?'

‘From Germany, of course.'

‘Whereabouts in Germany?'

‘Hamburg.'

‘Why was it necessary for you to seek refuge in England, Miss Glatzer?' Quinn knew that the German woman was playing a cat-and-mouse game with him, but he was a patient interrogator. And he had all the time it would take. ‘You're no better off here than you would have been had you stayed in Germany.'

Irma Glatzer gave an expressive shrug. ‘You would not understand,' she said. ‘The Jews are not popular in Germany.'

‘Why did you pretend to be Mrs Victoria Wheeler?'

‘I did not want to be identified as a German, not when your country is at war with mine.'

‘What made you select that particular name?'

‘It seemed like a very English name.' She leaned forward to stub out her half-smoked cigarette in the tin lid in the centre of the table.

‘You speak excellent English, Miss Glatzer. Where did you learn?'

‘I had an English boyfriend in Hamburg. I've always believed that the best place to learn a language is in bed with your teacher.' She stared at Quinn with a half-smile on her face, but showed no sign of embarrassment at her admission.

‘What was this boyfriend's name?'

‘Leonard Wheeler. That's what gave me the idea for my English name.'

‘Where is he now? Still in Germany?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘Why did you select Victoria as a first name?' Quinn suspected, not only that Leonard Wheeler did not exist, but that Irma Glatzer had undergone an intensive course in English at one of the language schools run by the German Intelligence Service.

‘Why not? It was the name of your famous queen.'

‘Do you have any questions for Miss Glatzer, Mr Hardcastle?' asked Quinn.

‘The photograph in your house at Worthing, of a Scots Guards officer. Where did you get that from?'

‘I found it in a second-hand shop.'

‘So, your claim that the subject of that picture is your husband is not true.'

‘No, it's not. I don't have a husband.'

‘Thank you, sir,' said Hardcastle, deferring to Quinn.

‘I think we've played this little game for long enough, Miss Glatzer.' Quinn, tiring of the woman's prevarication, opened his file again and took out a sheet of paper. ‘This document was one of several seized from your house in Worthing on the evening of the day you vanished. Government scientists have examined it and found that it bore details, in code and written in invisible ink, of details of troop movements in France. There was also a document in your briefcase detailing the movement of certain Royal Navy ships in and out of Portsmouth harbour.' The SB chief did not say that that information was entirely false, and had been sent by British intelligence officers. ‘I am satisfied, Miss Glatzer, that you are a member of the German Intelligence Service and that you were sent here for the express purpose of carrying out espionage on behalf of the German government. Do you have anything to say to that?'

‘
Das hat nichts auf sich
,' snapped Irma Glatzer, her blue eyes blazing at Quinn. ‘
Daraus wird nichts
.'

It was a response that left Hardcastle looking puzzled.

‘She says that there is nothing in it, and it will come to nothing,' Quinn translated. ‘In other words, we can't prove that she had anything to do with it. Furthermore,' he continued, addressing the woman again, ‘you met the captain of the SS
Carlson
whenever his ship docked at Shoreham, and passed similar information to him for onward transmission to the German embassy in Sweden.'

Irma Glatzer just stared at Quinn with an unwavering gaze. ‘
Gott erhalt der Kaiser!
' she exclaimed vehemently.

Quinn did not bother to translate that. ‘You are a brave woman, Miss Glatzer.' He stood up and opened the door. ‘Take this prisoner back to her cell,' he said to the waiting SB officer.

‘Are you going to charge her now, sir?' asked Hardcastle, once Irma Glatzer had been escorted from the room.

‘Not until I have the Attorney-General's fiat, Mr Hardcastle.' Quinn spoke as though the DDI should have been aware of this necessary element of procedure. ‘Then she'll be tried by court martial at the Tower of London and shot by firing squad.' It seemed to the Special Branch chief that the outcome of her trial was a foregone conclusion.

‘It was bad luck for her, that she should have picked a name like Victoria Wheeler, sir, and having a photograph of a Scots Guards officer in her sitting room. Fortunately, Colonel Frobisher, the APM, was able to disprove her story, after which I confirmed it by visiting the real Mrs Wheeler in Esher.'

‘Lack of planning,' said Quinn with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Like carrying those papers with her that contained details of fictitious naval movements at Portsmouth. Incidentally, her fingerprints were found on the rather sensitive paper that she had written on. But she must have been mad to keep hold of her identity document, much less to have given it to Villiers.'

‘That was a bad mistake, sir.'

‘In my experience, Mr Hardcastle, German spies make the most elementary of mistakes. D'you know that last year the Scottish police arrested a spy who'd just been put ashore from a German submarine off Inverary. He was walking along a quiet country lane when he was stopped and searched by a constable on a bicycle. The fellow had a German sausage in his briefcase, and you can't get those for love or money in this country since the war started. He'd been in Scotland for less than two hours. He was executed, of course.'

DS Shaughnessy reported back to Quinn some time after DI Strange.

‘And I suppose you didn't find anything of importance in Wandsworth, either, Shaughnessy,' said Quinn.

‘I searched Isaac Gosling's room thoroughly, sir, but all I found was a load of literature about the setting up of a homeland for the Jews once the war was over. I've been through it thoroughly and I can't see that there's anything seditious about it. And certainly nothing that points to espionage.'

‘Very well, Shaughnessy.' Quinn sighed. ‘Give it to Mr O'Rourke and ask him to cast his eye over it.'

‘I interviewed the butcher where Gosling said he was employed, sir. He said that Gosling was a good worker, punctual and cheerful. In short, he never had any trouble with him. He was very surprised to hear that he'd been arrested for murder.'

‘It's always the way, Shaughnessy,' said Quinn.

‘'Ere, what's going on 'ere, then?' demanded a flame-haired trollop as Isaac Gosling, an escorting constable and Hardcastle, swept past her. The girl was at the head of a queue of prostitutes in the corridor of Number One Court at Bow Street. It was a long-standing custom that these ‘ladies of the night' appeared first in the calendar, and were only displaced when a serious charge was due to be heard.

Hardcastle stepped into the witness box as Gosling was directed into the dock by the constable.

‘Good morning, Mr Hardcastle,' said the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.

‘Good morning, Your Worship.'

‘Isaac Gosling, Your Worship,' cried the gaoler. ‘Two charges of murder.'

‘I respectfully ask for an eight-day remand in custody, sir,' said Hardcastle.

‘Will you then be ready for me to take a plea, Mr Hardcastle?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Very well.' The magistrate glanced down at his register. ‘Remanded to Monday the thirty-first of January.'

Hardcastle returned to Cannon Row aware that the hard part of the enquiry now began. In his view, the preparation of a report for the Director of Public Prosecutions often presented more difficulties than the investigation itself. But that, he decided, could wait until Monday morning.

‘Marriott!' Hardcastle shouted his sergeant's name through the open door of his office.

‘Sir?' Marriott appeared, buttoning his jacket.

‘What was the name of that woman whose telephone number you found in Sinclair Villiers's address book?'

‘It was a woman called Simone Dubois, sir. I traced the telephone number with the post office and the address is in Eaton Square.'

‘Simone Dubois? Sounds French, Marriott. We'll go and have a word, but not before we've had a lunchtime pint.'

The first person Hardcastle saw when he pushed open the door of the downstairs bar of the Red Lion was Charlie Simpson.

‘Hello, Mr Hardcastle. Anything for me?'

‘You don't waste any time in getting to the nub of the matter, I'll say that for you, Simpson. Perhaps you wouldn't mind if I got myself a pint first.'

‘Allow me, Mr Hardcastle.' Simpson ordered pints of bitter for the two detectives.

Hardcastle did not usually pay for his beer in the Red Lion, but saw no reason why a Fleet Street reporter should not put his hand in his pocket. He would probably charge it to expenses, anyway.

‘As a matter of fact, Simpson, I do have something for you. I promised I'd let you know when I'd made an arrest for Reuben Gosling's murder.'

‘And have you, Mr Hardcastle?' Simpson took out his pocket- book and looked up expectantly.

‘I arrested his son for the murder. Isaac Gosling appeared at Bow Street this morning and was remanded in custody for eight days.'

‘Oh!' Simpson looked disappointed. ‘And I suppose there was a load of hacks there writing it all down.'

‘Wouldn't have done 'em much good,' said Hardcastle, taking the head off his beer. ‘It was only a remand hearing; no names of the victims were mentioned. He's also charged with murdering a Peter Stein at Bow Road on the seventh of this month. Next appearance at Bow Street is on the thirty-first.'

‘Thanks very much,' said Simpson. ‘I reckon I owe you another beer.'

‘Yes, I reckon you do, Simpson.'

A
lthough wearing traditional maid's uniform, the woman who answered the door of Simone Dubois' house in Eaton Square was middle-aged. In Hardcastle's experience, housemaids were always in their twenties; by the time they reached thirty, they had usually been promoted or had married and left service.

‘Good afternoon, sir.' The woman paused. ‘Oh, there's
two
of you,' she said, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

It was a comment that left Hardcastle in little doubt as to Miss Dubois' occupation. ‘Yes, there are,' he said. ‘Is Miss Dubois at home?'

‘If you'd care to step inside, sir,' said the maid, ‘I'll enquire if the mistress is at home.
Two
of them,' she repeated, half to herself, and shook her head.