Mediterranean Nights (33 page)

W
ENDY
(
horrified
): But, Father, it was liquor!

C
HARLES
(
aghast
): And I put Urgot—in it. Urgot of Rye for Wendy.

R
OBERT
: Oh, Lord! That's done it! Think of Father's heart.

[F
ATHER
twitches, shuts his eyes suddenly, gasps, and falls forward dead
.]

C
URTAIN

STORY XXII

T
HIS
is a good little story; but how fantastic it seems that we had already been at war with Germany for some months when it was written. The proof that it is not unduly farfetched is that it was accepted and published by one of our great National newspapers; and the two things which in peace or war any such organisation is not prepared to do is to furnish readers with material which will enable them to say it is behind the times or being made a fool of.

The Editor knew, and innumerable other people knew, that enemy aliens were still holding key positions in our war industries with liberty to move about pretty well as they liked. One is entitled to wonder what the Minister responsible for our security thought his job entailed, and why certain crack-brained M.P.s still raise their voices in an imbecile endeavour to make more difficult the job of those now responsible for countering the activities of spies and Communists who consistently sabotage our industry. But for present purposes I am only a story teller and just presenting a yarn based on the official attitude to our less obvious, but none the less deadly, enemies at that time.

THE BITER BIT

L
ITTLE
Mr. Thompson went to Scotland Yard with the highest patriotic motives; but he was a very busy man, so he thought it distinctly tiresome that, having told his story to a sympathetic policeman, he should be kept in the bleak interviewing room for nearly an hour and then be asked to tell it again.

‘Queer sort of policeman too,' he thought, as he glanced
at the tall, stooping young man with absurdly long eyelashes whom the sergeant brought in. ‘Looks like one of those Hendon College chaps—university degree, I bet.' His suppositions were, however, completely wrong. Vivien Pawlett-Browne was not a policeman and had never managed to pass an examination in his life.

Having lit a cigarette Mr. Thompson re-told his story as briefly as possible. ‘It's my partner I'm worried about; my firm is the Thompson Radio Company, of Croydon. Started it myself in 1933, but I never had enough capital to launch out. Then last spring Jacob Bauer came along and offered to put five thousand pounds into the business. He's a German Jew, of course, but a clever engineer and a very decent chap, so I took him in. Well, now there's a war on. Bauer's very anti-Hitler—and all that—but he's not even naturalised British. The Government's just given me a contract to make the new miniature transmitters—highly secret. Naturally Bauer will expect to see the blue-prints when they turn up. Do I show them to him—or don't I? That's what I want to know.'

Vivien smiled slowly. ‘Thanks, Mr. Thompson. My name's Brown and I'll get in touch with you as soon as I've had a chance to check up on your partner.' A taxi took him back to his own office and half an hour later he was reporting to his Chief.

Sir Charles Forsyth—or ‘Old Frosty', as he was called by his staff—nodded the snow-white head which was only partially responsible for his nickname. ‘And Bauer, you say, is on that secret list of Reichstahl's that we managed to copy; so he
is
an enemy agent and probably passes on to Reichstahl anything he gets.'

‘We've got enough on Reichstahl to haul him in at any time, sir,' Vivien hazarded.

‘Yes. But he's much more useful to us as a lead. It's Bauer we've got to get, but as usual our hands are tied. There are scores of these Nazi agents who, having been vouched for by fools who know nothing about them, have been granted B Certificates. They put Gestapo money into munition works and have access to everything that goes on; yet without proof we can't even get a warrant to search either them or their
houses. You must not lay a finger on him but go and see what you can do.'

That evening Vivien rang up Mr. Thompson and arranged to be signed on to the factory staff under the name of Rudi Muller.

The following morning at eight he started work. At twelve, when the whistle went for lunch, he put his tools in a neat pile and was about to follow the other men towards the canteen when a white pudgy hand was laid on his arm.

‘You're a new man, aren't you? I'm Mr. Bauer.' The German's voice had only a slight accent. ‘What's your name?'

‘Muller, sir.'

‘Ah, of German extraction?'

‘Yes,' Vivien retorted stiffly; ‘but none the less British for that.'

Each day when Bauer made his round of the workshop he spoke pleasantly to Vivien, but the pseudo Rudi Muller remained non-committal and even seemed slightly embarrassed by the attention he received from his compatriot.

At the end of the week Vivien reported to his Chief and produced a typewritten slip. ‘I've arranged with Thompson that Bauer shall be given the blue-prints to take home tomorrow night,' he said, ‘and this, sir, is what I suggest. You've had Reichstahl's in and out mail watched, so we've got photostatic copies of his writing. I want the departmental forger to do this note in Reichstahl's hand and post it off tonight.'

The slip read:

This is just to let you know that I've gone down with flu so it would be best for you to keep away from me for a few days in case you catch it too. But I've arranged for my doctor to call and collect the book you promised me; it sounds very interesting
.

‘Then,' Vivien added, ‘Reichstahl must be kept out of the way from first thing tomorrow until midnight. Could you hold him for twelve hours on suspicion of complicity in some civil crime, and apologise afterwards?'

Sir Charles gave his frosty smile. ‘Very good. I'll see to both matters for you.'

At nine o'clock the following evening Vivien rang the bell of Bauer's flat. The German was a bachelor and lived alone so he opened the door himself, and his eyes widened with surprise as he recognised the factory hand—Rudi Muller.

Slipping quickly inside, Vivien seized the amazed man's hand and whispered: ‘
Heil Hitler
!'

Bauer's face went blank, but Vivien grinned. ‘Sorry I had to be stand-offish in the factory, but we can't be too careful.' He lowered his voice impressively. ‘Reichstahl's being watched. I'm the “doctor” and he sent me to collect the “book”.'

The German hesitated a moment, then beckoning Vivien into his sitting-room he produced a large envelope and said: ‘Here are the blue-prints. Get them photographed tonight. I must tomorrow have them back for certain.'

The ex-Rudi Muller took them with one hand and pulled out his gun with the other. ‘Thanks so much,' he smiled. ‘You know, of course, that I have no power to search your flat or to take these from you; but since you've
given
them to me believing me to be a Nazi agent, I
have
got the power to arrest you as a German agent yourself. It's curious that your name rhymes with Tower, isn't it, dear Herr Bauer, since it's at the Tower of London that we shoot people like you.'

STORY XXIII

T
HIS
story, once again, is ‘different' and an experiment. I have remarked earlier somewhere in these introductory notes that the commercial limit to a short story is a little over 5,000 words. For all practical purposes that is so, but I soon learned that there was an exception to this rule.

Clarence Winchester, the gifted author who was then editing the
Grand Magazine
, read some of my stuff and asked me to come to see him. He told me that he was always pleased to consider stories of up to 20,000 words—about a quarter the length of the average thriller novel—and he hoped that I would attempt this medium, which provided a field for people like myself whose plots were normally much too involved for them to be done justice in 5,000 words, yet some of which would not bear stretching to the full length of a book. He added that in his experience authors could always find a good story to tell if they drew on their own personal experience and, since I had been a wine-merchant, it would almost certainly ring the bell if I thought out a story which hinged upon something to do with wine.

The following story resulted from that conversation. Mr. Winchester did not buy it after all, and I certainly don't blame him. He was perfectly right in his contention that one grave fault in the story is that we see so little of the heroine and, another, that the coincidence which produced the dénouement is too far-fetched to meet the requirements of reasonable plausibility. The snag was, of course, that once he had turned it down the thing became dead-wood, because it far exceeded the length that any other editor would even consider.

However, I have no regrets at all for the time I gave to the writing of this story. By re-reading it I can recapture the sunshine and carefree joyousness of a vanished world—Biarritz at the height of the ‘Spanish' Season.

Geographically the story has no claim to be included in a Mediterranean series but, after all, during the last week in August no ordinary person dropped in Biarritz by parachute could have realised for quite a time that he was not staying at one of the millionaires' playgrounds in the South of France.

‘Millionaire' is the operative word as, when I was there in 1925, they were actually charging 800 francs a night for a bedroom and bathroom, without food, at the Hotel du Palais. I should add that I was staying at quite a comfortable little
pension
, up the hill out of the square, for a mere 80 francs a day, like the hero in the story.

On the other hand, it is not recorded that he shared my good fortune in having a mother-in-law then staying on the sea front at the Carlton whose zest for life was only equalled by her generosity, and whose true wisdom once caused her to declare: ‘I cannot take my money away when I die, and it is so much better for all of us that I should see you children enjoy it while I am here than leave it to you when you may not be able to enjoy it any longer.'

She was certainly well off but not rich in the sense that she could afford to disregard money; yet she was the sort of woman who would press a 1,000-franc note into the hand of one of her sons-in-law after a good dinner and whisper: ‘See to the bill for me, dear, and keep whatever is over for a taxi home.'

It is my firm belief that she has transferred her gold into a bank from which no customer ever needs an overdraft; and that when she goes to the place beyond the Shadows there will always be young people to make merry with her.

‘
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE
…'

I

I
F
I
HAD
not been a wine merchant I should never have been dragged into the affair—and as it turned out to be such a desperate business it was lucky for Toby Sinclair that I happened to supply his drink.

Have you ever been to Biarritz in the beginning of September?—that is
the
time, you know. They call it the Spanish Season, although nothing like so many wealthy Spaniards go there since poor Alfonso lost his job. Anyhow, last year I thought I'd have a fortnight's fun at Biarritz before going on to Bordeaux for the Vintage.

Johnnie Thornton was to have gone with me, but at the last minute he let me down because his partner underwent a nasty operation, so the evening after my arrival I was doing the round of the hotels, on the off-chance of running into someone that I knew.

I'd done the Carlton and the Angleterre, then I strolled into the lounge of the du Palais, although I hardly expected to find any of my friends there. It is the real top-notcher, where the millionaires and film stars stay—a guinea a minute for a bedroom and fifty a week extra for a bath—you know the sort of thing! Anyway, I was just making my way over to a vacant table when I heard someone exclaim: ‘Why, hullo, Brandon!—you're just the one man in the world I want to see.'

I suppose I looked a bit astonished—it was Toby Sinclair. You must have heard of him—his father left him a million a few years ago, and he has since become famous as a motor-racing ace.

He buys a lot of wine, and often comes to my office in Pall Mall, but apart from business I hardly know him—and when we've run across each other in London he has never given me more than a casual nod, so I was a little taken aback by his sudden warmth.

‘Come and sit down—that is, if you can spare a minute,' he said, drawing me over to his table, ‘and let me introduce you to the Baron de Selac.'

‘Sejac,' corrected the broad-shouldered Frenchman quickly as we shook hands.

‘Sorry.' Tony's rather boyish smile lit up his freckled face for a second as he beckoned to a waiter. ‘Have a drink, Brandon—what's it to be?'

I ordered a Gin Fizz, and he went on at once:

‘Look here—you must be wondering why I seized on you just now, but we're talking wine. The Baron is one of the big boys in Bordeaux—you'll probably know his firm.'

I grinned politely. It is a common delusion with laymen that their wine merchant must have done business at one time or another with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who lives within fifty miles of Bordeaux, or any city of the Rhine. Actually, of course, there are thousands of them, and we only deal with about a dozen or so in either case: the big people who cater specially for the English market, and whose wines have given us satisfaction for generations. Naturally I asked the name of the Frenchman's firm, although I didn't expect for a moment that I should know anything about them.

‘Sejac, Père et Fils,' he answered promptly with a little bow. ‘Our trade with England is not great, but it may be that our name is known to you, Monsieur?'