Heathersleigh Homecoming (40 page)

 80 
Missing Clue

Antwerp was not high on the list of places Hartwell Barclay would have desired to visit.

Especially tonight. It was miserably cold and a light rain had begun to fall. A storm appeared likely, and he did not relish what lay ahead—an underwater channel crossing beneath a turbulent sea.

He pulled his coat up tightly around his neck, walked across the street from the hotel, and lit a cigarette as best he could in this drizzle. They ought to have thought of some better signal.

Behind him a black stooped figure exited the same hotel he had just left.

An impulse caused Barclay to glance back.

What was that old woman there about? It couldn't . . .

But it looked uncannily like the old hag he had seen in the train a day and a half ago. Come to think of it, he had seen a remarkably similar woman even before that . . . all the way back in Paris. It couldn't possibly be the same woman, although . . .

As he looked, the striking similarity seemed more and more than could be accounted for by mere coincidence. What in blazes could she be doing in a first-class hotel like this!

The sound of an automobile approaching interrupted his thoughts. He spun around. He had apparently been seen. There was no more use for the cigarette. He threw it into the street. The auto slowed and stopped in front of him. The back door opened. He got in, and the car sped off.

“I take it you are Barclay,” said a figure out of the blackness.

He nodded.

“I am Wolfrik. Are the arrangements made?”

“We will depart within the hour. Tell the driver to take us to the south harbor.”

The remainder of the twenty-minute ride was silent. When the car stopped again, Barclay got out, followed by the man called Wolfrik, then another. Barclay glanced warily at the silent man, who was apparently accompanying the Prussian, short of stature and slightly balding. He did not look physically imposing, but the glint in his eye was menacing.

“I was told to arrange transport for one other than myself,” said Barclay.

“He is with me,” replied Wolfrik. “One extra man will change nothing. It would not be advisable to leave him behind.”

Barclay took in the words with silent annoyance. He did not like being left out of a change of plans like this, but judged it better to say nothing further.

They walked toward the docks in silence. The rain had by now begun to come down in earnest. There was no wind, however, and in the quietness of the night their voices carried farther and with greater clarity than they might have expected had they paused to consider the possibility that someone might be listening. The engine of another automobile sounded somewhere a block or two away, but they paid little attention, nor to the footsteps coming their way in the shadows a few moments later from the same direction.

“Has Colonel Spengler been apprehended?” asked Barclay at length.

“Not yet,” replied Wolfrik, “but the trap is set. It is vital we get across the Channel ahead of the
Dauntless
.”

Barclay stopped and glanced about. They were at the edge of the quay. He had to get his bearings briefly to see which pier was the one he had been told. A few silent ships were about and hundreds of fishing vessels were moored nearby, but this was not the main section of the Antwerp harbor where most larger oceangoing vessels and naval ships docked. It was nearly entirely deserted at this time of night.

Confident of the direction again, Barclay led the way, moving along to the sound of the water slapping against shoreline, hulls of boats, and quay.

“A U-boat is waiting to take us to England,” he said as they walked across the quay toward the pier. “We will arrive at Hawsker Head.”

“I may need to go to London to carry out the remainder of our assignment,” added the Prussian. “I have been told you have contacts that will enable us to move freely.”

“It can be arranged,” rejoined Barclay. “But why London? I thought you only needed to retrieve Spengler.”

“There is one other matter involved. That is why my friend here is along.”

“What kind of matter?”

“It is top secret. Can your people get him to London?”

“The Fountain has friends,” said Barclay, liking the direction of this mission less and less. “Our network can take you anywhere in England with relative anonymity.”

He certainly had no intention of taking them there himself, thought Barclay silently. London was the last place he was about to show his face!

They walked out across the planked decking toward the waiting vessel, which had put in only two hours before for the express purpose of this clandestine rendezvous. Behind them they still saw nothing. But they were not alone.

Minutes later they stepped onto the deck of the sub. Barclay took once final glance back.

There was that old woman again, standing halfway out on the quay! Just standing there staring at him! Had she followed them all the way from the hotel? What was the old crone's game?

His eyes narrowed. But he could do nothing. Already a German officer was shoving him along to the hatch and pushing him down into the bowels of the undersea craft.

On the pier, Amanda waited until he had disappeared, then turned and hurried away. It was time to retrace her steps and get out of this city. She had finally heard the missing clue she had followed Barclay to learn. They were on their way to someplace called Hawsker Head, with some other secret matter to follow involving London.

She wouldn't even go back to the hotel. She had told the cabdriver to wait out of sight. She would go straight from here to the station and make for the coast of France by whatever route would get her there.

Hawsker Head
 . . . she had never heard the words in her life. And what was the
Dauntless
?

Whatever it was all about, one thing was clear—this part of her work was done. She had to get to London as fast as she could. It was time to get the information to England.

From here, maybe she might be able to go to Calais and cross from there. It would be much faster than going all the way back to Paris and then to Cherbourg.

What about the things she had left at the hotel in Paris?

She couldn't worry about that now. She would contact the hotel later.

They needed this information in England and fast. If a trap was set, it meant someone was in danger.

There wasn't a moment to spare.

 81 
Beneath Channel Waters

Hartwell Barclay was no seaman.

It was the middle of the same night and sleep was useless. He would get all the sleep he wanted in the comfortable bed in his own room in the house with the red roof at Hawsker Head. They would arrive at first light of day.

If only the seas weren't too rough to prevent their being able to put ashore. At least beneath the surface the movement was minimal, although still sufficient to keep him awake and his stomach queasy.

The craft lurched starboard a few degrees. Negotiating a channel crossing on the surface, with the wind blowing twenty to thirty knots, would have been impossible. The rough water above, however, did little to disturb their crossing down here, which thus far had been as smooth as he could have expected. That didn't mean he had to enjoy it.

Knowing he was on his way back to England again filled Hartwell Barclay with strange sensations as it had earlier, reminders of his former life, and with them a growing unease about all this he had allowed himself to get involved in. It was not his conscience that was speaking. He had shut that up for good long ago, and its voice hadn't bothered him in years. But English blood was in his veins after all, and it was impossible altogether to dismiss the inconvenient nagging of duty, decency, loyalty, and all the similar attributes which stir in the inbred soul of the English psyche.

He had planned simply to run this fellow Wolfrik across to Yorkshire, spend a day or two at the lighthouse until the Spengler defector was taken care of, however he planned to do it, and then bring them back across and be on his way returning to Vienna—over and back under the Channel undetected—along with the young fool Halifax, who had better have taken care of that greater fool of a wife by this time.

Now Wolfrik was talking about London!

Barclay didn't like it. That's where he would put his foot down. He would absolutely refuse to leave Yorkshire.

What could be the other mysterious assignment? These two he had brought on board with him were a couple of rum customers, that much was certain. He could see it in their eyes. Who was this other seedy character with Wolfrik anyway? Why was he along? He had the eyes of an assassin if he had ever seen one. He reminded him of the madcap Princip, who had started this whole bloody war back in Sarajevo.

Gradually Barclay fell into an uneasy sleep.

When he awoke, he glanced at his watch. It was morning. They should be sitting off the Yorkshire coastline and getting ready to surface by now.

He would be in McCrogher's dinghy within the hour, and on land again shortly after that.

 82 
Channel Reflections

Amanda stood on deck of the channel ferry waiting for the lines to be cast off and to begin the voyage over the twenty-one miles of sea separating Great Britain from the mainland of Europe.

She had traveled most of the night between Antwerp and Calais, taking what trains were available and snatching catnaps while she waited in deserted stations. She was exhausted and still had a whole new day ahead of her.

Getting back out of Belgium and into France had proved a little difficult, especially with the war front so close. She doubted the French officers in charge believed a word of what she said about possessing vital information and needing to get to England right away. But it didn't matter. They let her through, and now here she was on board the first ship of the day.

She squinted through the morning's cloudy sky, as if hoping she might, even now, be able to catch a faint glimpse of the Dover cliffs. But it was no use. The storm had passed, but lingering haze and clouds still obscured the vision. Yet just knowing that England lay over there, and that in less than two hours her feet would feel English soil once again beneath them, was enough, in spite of the fatigue, to send tingles of excitement through her whole body.

Maybe she could find a chair inside and catch an extra few winks once they set off. But right now she wanted to savor the scent of the channel waters in her nostrils, and the thought of returning to her homeland.

She hadn't anticipated feeling this way. National pride was the last emotion she expected to rise in her breast. But after all she had been through, and the horrible months in Vienna, and the terrifying flight across Austria and Italy . . . all of a sudden she very much wanted to be back . . . back in
England
.

The very word rang in her mind with safety and hominess.

Her thoughts turned to her father. Why, she couldn't say, but she did not resist them. Strangely, for the first time in a long while, no anger or bitterness came with them. He was a patriot, she thought, who loved his country—more than she had in recent years.

What had come over her to allow her mind to be so clouded by all that ridiculous Fountain of Light talk? And that caustic pamphlet she had let them put her name on. What in the world had she been thinking!

Her father was ten times the man Hartwell Barclay would ever be.

A hundred times!

She had been gone from England not quite a year, and from her home for eight years. She had no one to blame but herself for all that had happened to her. Her parents had tried to warn her, but she hadn't listened.

What have I done with my life?
thought Amanda.

Over and over, it seemed, she had done one stupid thing after another, always leaving when the going got rough. She left home, she left the Pankhursts,' she left Cousin Martha's, she left Vienna, she left the chalet. Always leaving . . . always running away.

Again her father's face came into her mind's eye.

Actually, now that she considered the idea, it might be all right to see her father again. It might even be
good
to see him. Perhaps she was finally ready.

Maybe it was time she started growing up and facing some things. Like
herself
. Facing what she had let herself sink to . . . and maybe facing what she wanted to become.

Before her thoughts could go farther down that road, Amanda felt the boat jerking beneath her and the waves of the Channel beginning to rock it in a gentle, swelling motion.

They had cast off. She was on her way back to England!