Stone's Fall (35 page)

CHAPTER
9

The soirée was a great event; I could with only a touch of hyperbole say that it transformed my own position in France and (at the same time) added an important footnote to the history of the French courtesan. For much of the day I took my ease; reading the newspapers over my morning coffee, going for a walk along the beach, passing a few moments in conversation with recent acquaintances briefly encountered. And then, at lunch, I had my meeting with Wilkinson; we ate together at a restaurant in the town, and had a perfectly pleasant, though entirely useless, conversation. He went on at great length about some rare bird he had spotted in the mountains, and was so excited—apparently it had not been seen since some legendary Spanish ornithologist had recorded it in the 1850s, and Wilkinson believed that he had won undying fame in the world of bird lovers as a result—that he could talk of little else. I told him about the coal, which pleased him, but he quickly went back to his birds once he had absorbed the information. All he said was “Good, good. Very pleasing.” He had no requests about anything else the Government needed to know. Apparently I was beginning to be trusted to work that out for myself.

But it was pleasant enough and it saved me a good deal of weary memorandum writing later on, so I was satisfied. I also mentioned my remarkable meeting of the previous day, for I was aching to tell someone and knew that Wilkinson was about the only person in the world it was fair to confide in. He, after all, had been partly responsible for Virginie paying off her debts and launching herself on such a meteoric career. Besides, I was proud of her, and vain about my sagacity in spotting something that Lefevre had entirely overlooked.

“In that case, I must meet her,” he said gaily, and my heart sank. “A soirée, you say? Excellent, I will come with you.”

“I really don’t…”

“I have long desired to meet her; I feel as though I know her so very well.”

“I very much doubt she would want to meet you.”

“She does not know of our association, I hope?”

“Of course not.”

“In that case, what possible objection could she have? I would like to thank her, and I think I know the best way to do it. Don’t worry, Cort. I’m not going to ruin your mascot. Quite the contrary. She might at some stage prove very useful.”

He would not be dissuaded, and I heartily repented of my sudden garrulousness. I should have kept absolutely silent; but the levels of discretion I was forced to maintain were quite unnatural. I am not by nature a gossip, but all men need someone to talk to. I had no one in France, and the sudden appearance of Wilkinson made me treat him with more trust than he should have received. No harm came of it, but I had, nonetheless, made a mistake which stemmed from youth and naïveté. I never repeated it.

At nine in the evening I picked him up from his boardinghouse—one which cost less per week than mine cost per night, as he pointed out—and was at least consoled to find him properly dressed. I had feared he would arrive in tweed jacket and hiking boots, but from somewhere or other he had acquired the necessary garb and, although he was not a man who could ever look elegant, he was at least perfectly presentable.

Much to my surprise, he was a brilliant performer, for these sorts of occasions are little more than theatre. Whereas my style was to remain silent and listen, Wilkinson revealed an unsuspectedly ostentatious side to his character. He spoke French loudly and badly, with many gesticulations to make up for his grammatical eccentricities; he told anecdotes of doubtful taste to old dowagers which had them gurgling with pleasure, he leaped from topic to topic with gusto, recounted tales of horses to horsemen, birds to hunters and politics to politicians. He was, in fact, a great success; even more so when he left the party for half an hour, and returned with the Prince of Wales.

I realised later that this was the whole point; this was his thanks. I should have realised that he would have known the Prince, who had arrived only the previous day, and Wilkinson was, I am glad to say, very much more dishonest than I had been. His Highness had not been told anything about who this Countess really was. He would never have been seen in public with such a person had the faintest whiff of scandal been attached to her name, although whom he tolerated in private was, as all the world knows, a very different matter. But he came, and his arrival signalled to the whole of French society that Elizabeth was utterly, totally and completely respectable. Far more than that; she could invite the most famous man in the world to her parties and he would come. Wilkinson’s
coup de théâtre
propelled her into the stratosphere of European society. Whereas before she had managed much by her own efforts, there were some who doubted her credentials. If anyone doubted her after that, it no longer mattered. It was a generous gift, as long as that was what it was.

Even in those days, and even on holiday, the arrival of a figure such as the Prince was a matter of some pomp and ceremony; ordinarily, the fact that he was coming would be talked about for days; the hostess would make sure everyone knew about it, however discreetly the news was put abroad. Guests would wait to see whether the great man would be delivered; coaches and courtiers would drift in first to build up the excitement before he made his entrance. Would the Prince come? Would he be in a good mood? What would he wear? Such was the stuff of conversation as the clocks ticked away. And there was also the equally exciting possibility that he wouldn’t show up at all. In which case the standing of the hostess would collapse; the kindly would commiserate, the less kindly would scent blood and all would depend on how she dealt with such a bitter, public disappointment. Would it show? Or would she put on a brave face? All these details were noticed, and their sum total shifted the balance of power in the small but intense world of society.

So the Prince’s entry to Elizabeth’s soirée was absolutely sensational. There was no warning, no prior gossip or announcements, he just strolled in, greeted her like an old friend, kissed her hand, and then talked to her in a friendly, respectful manner for a full fifteen minutes before circulating around the room, as everyone else there slowly but with deliberation jockeyed for position to be next in line for a royal word. Elizabeth later told me she reckoned it had increased her value by some three-quarters of a million francs, and she probably underestimated.

It also worked wonders for my social standing as well, for after her, I received the most attention. Not much, but I became instantly a person to know, and a person who was known.

“Cort, eh?
Times
?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Keep it up.”

“I will, sir.”

“Splendid.” And he gave me a huge wink, to indicate that he knew exactly who I was, but which was interpreted by all who saw it as communicating some personal intimacy.

“Charming woman,” he went on, indicating Elizabeth, who was discreetly now leaving him to his business. “Very charming. Hungarian, isn’t she?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Hmm.” He looked momentarily confused, as though he was mentally riffling through the
Almanach de Gotha
but was unable to find the page he sought. “Lots of people in Hungary.”

“I believe so, sir.”

“Well, well. It’s been a pleasure.”

And he strode off to take his leave, kissing Elizabeth’s hand with all the fervent attention of the true connoisseur.

She was, I must say, quite brilliant, and handled the situation with perfect balance. There was no shock on her face at all, though it must have been considerable; she did not react with an unwarranted air of familiarity, nor of surprise and delight. She received him with charm, leaving it to others to make of it what they would—did she know him, or not? What was the cause of his arrival? Was she so intimate in his circle that she could regard his arrival as that of just another guest? The shock waves spread out across Biarritz the next day (Princess Natalie, who had declined the invitation in order to keep Elizabeth in her place, was hard put to keep her grief to herself), then across France and Europe over the coming weeks as the season drew to an end and the temporary inhabitants of the town dispersed to their usual countries, taking with them news of the new star.

“That was an unusual thing to do,” I said to Wilkinson as we travelled back to Paris the next day. He smiled.

“The Prince does love the demimonde, and he does love beauty,” he said.

“He knows…?”

“Oh, good heavens no. And if he ever discovered, I would have a great deal of explaining to do. If he ever realised I had knowingly…”

“Then who does he think she is?”

“Lesser aristocrat, too low for inclusion in the
Almanach.
Lack of birth made up for by her radiant beauty. You told me she wasn’t beautiful.”

“Well, she wasn’t. Not when I first met her.”

“Anyway, it wasn’t really my doing. He invited me to dinner, I said I was going to this soirée, and he said he wanted to meet this woman. He’d heard of her, you see, and you know what he’s like. Tell her, by the way, not to get any ideas. If she goes anywhere near him, I’ll put a stop to it.”

I became quite indignant on her behalf. “You know quite well what I mean,” he said severely. “I know perfectly well how she makes her money. It doesn’t concern me, as long as she confines herself to continentals. The Prince is a man with a weakness, and he likes to visit Paris.”

“Is that why…?”

“It struck me that it might be a useful insurance policy. She is in our debt now, and part of the price is no scandal. Sooner or later they would have met in Paris; and he is like a child in a sweetshop when it comes to women. He really cannot resist. Certainly he would not have been able to resist her. You have no idea how much time the Embassy spends clearing up the mess from these affairs. I want to stop this one in advance. Tell her that, if you please.”

“Very well.”

“Besides, he is notoriously stingy. She will earn more from knowing him than from sleeping with him.”

“I’ll pass the message on.”

CHAPTER
10

If I am spending a great deal of time digressing on the subject of this woman, rather than recounting the excitement of life as a gatherer of intelligence for the British Empire, it is for two reasons. The first is that she is relevant to my story; the second is that she was very much more interesting than my daily routine. For example, on my return to Paris I spent some considerable time putting the finishing touches to my investigation of French naval policy, and that involved a good deal of time interviewing people (in my capacity as journalist) at the Coal Exchange, and poring over daily lists of bulk coal trades. Fascinating? Exciting? Do you wish to hear more? I thought not.

In fact, I would even say that coal itself is a more interesting subject than the people who trade it. Each commodity and financial instrument attracts different sorts of people. Dealers in bonds are different from dealers in shares; those who trade in commodities are different again, and each commodity and each exchange—rubber, cotton, wool, coal, iron ore—has its own character. Coal is dull, the people who buy and sell it duller still. Their world is black, colourless and without pleasure. The brash young men who are beginning to sell oil and create a whole new market out of nothing are much more interesting; they have a touch of the desert about them, while the coal dealers have infused the gloom of the Picardy coal mines, or the Methodism of south Wales.

And two days a week I traded on my own account. Perhaps I should describe this, as it illustrates the true nature of espionage better than anything else can. I rented a dingy little office in the rue Rameau as soon as I arrived—chosen carefully so that there were several possible exits, and a clear view of the street below in both directions; I had learned from Arnsley Drennan better than ever he realised. It was bleak, uncomfortable and cheap, perfect for my needs. Then I registered myself as Julius de Bruyker, import-export broker, and under the name of that fictitious gentleman of uncertain Low Country origins, I wrote to a young man at the German Embassy who dabbled in intelligence matters. A pleasant but not particularly bright fellow, he came to see me, and I offered him information about the forthcoming British naval exercises. It was interesting, although entirely safe information, but he was delighted to get it. More information followed the next week, and the week after that, until the point came when he began to wonder what I wanted.

Nothing, I said, but any information he had acquired about French troop dispositions in North Africa I would consider a reasonable payment. Such information was of no strategic interest to the Germans, so after a short period considering the matter, they obliged.

Next, I contacted an officer at the Russian Embassy, the Austrian Embassy and in the French intelligence services and offered all of them the same information. All were keen enough, and in return from the Russians in due course I acquired information about a new French cannon, from the Austrians information about French and German diplomatic correspondence and the French gave me details of German armour plating—when complete, this information was passed on to John Stone’s companies, and helped make up for some of the inadequacies of British steel manufacturing.

And so it went on; I really was a broker, taking in information and selling it on. The good thing about information is that, unlike gold, it can be duplicated. One piece of information about shipbuilding in Britain, for example, could be traded for information from half a dozen different sources, and each of these could, in turn, multiply themselves many times over. So I supplied information about the new Vickers twelve-inch gun, and got in return detailed information about the German army’s new howitzer, the Austrian army’s requirement for horses, the Italian Government’s negotiating stance on North Africa and the French Government’s real policy towards British domination of the upper Nile. Details of the German howitzer were then traded for more information. The beauty of the system was that no individual was ever asked to provide information which would damage their own country—they were asked for material which on its own was harmless until blended with information from different sources, or which affected the security of a foreign rival. Spies are bureaucrats, by and large; they have masters to satisfy and must take that into account as they go about their lives; by supplying information I made their lives easier, and so they regarded me as a useful person to do business with. Of course, the utility of the system could only last as long as I had a monopoly of the method, otherwise the same information would have started reappearing time and again.

For a very small amount of start-up capital, so to speak, I began reaping handsome returns, and do not think that the similarities between what I was doing, and what Elizabeth was doing, escaped me. We were both trading in specialised goods, exploiting weaknesses in the market to sell the same thing to many different customers simultaneously. Success depended on each customer being unaware of the existence of the others. That was the danger which faced both of us.

So, in that period when I was trying to be fascinated by the Coal Exchange, my only real entertainment was provided by Elizabeth. I was curious about her shareholders. Not for any prurient reason, I hope, but for the sake of information only. Accordingly, when I returned to Paris I had Jules, my friendly, trained foot soldier, station himself nearby to watch comings and goings.

A useful lad, this Jules. He was the son of Roger Marchant, an exsoldier with an incurable hostility to the discipline associated with either the army or any more normal paid work, who was employed on a part-time basis by Thomas Barclay.

“As you are going to do all the energetic work, you must have Roger to help you,” Barclay begged, although one look at the man—who was swaying slightly when we were introduced—forced me to say that I could not possibly deprive him of such a useful man. It was not Roger who was the main problem—although absolute reliability was not his watchword—but his wife and several children, whose demands for sustenance far outstripped the poor man’s ability to provide for them. The petty-cash box of
The Times
was constantly being raided, first by Barclay and later by myself, in a desperate attempt to get the wretched woman out of the office, to which she resorted when she felt that death and starvation were only hours away. Roger was remarkably insouciant about it all. The duties of family life did not, as far as he could see, necessarily involve feeding it.

It was a flash of genius on my part to solve the problem by employing their son to be my assistant, thus guaranteeing a flow of income into the hands of the mother that could not be diverted into slaking the father’s thirst, and securing for myself the services of one of the most useful people I have ever known.

I do not usually spend time discoursing on the character of sixteen-year-olds, but as young Jules is now a grand man of influence throughout France, and, as I can claim some proud responsibility for this, I feel I should divert my story awhile to give a proper account of him.

He was, as I have said, the son—the eldest son—of a poor family, the father a lazy drunkard of amiable disposition, the mother a worrying fusspot, living permanently in a haze of crisis and despair. In one small room lived parents and five children, some of whom were amongst the worst-behaved and most revolting infants I have ever encountered. That they did not all end up in gaol or worse was largely due to the efforts of Jules, who took on the burdens of parenthood which properly belonged to others. He was, in fact, an accomplished criminal by the age of twelve, expert at filching fruit or vegetables from market stalls, milk from dairies, sausages and meat from delivery vans, clothes from department stores. He was also perfecting a good line in picking pockets until I persuaded him that this was an unwise career development.

“Very risky, and for only uncertain gains,” I told him severely, waving my wallet in his face. “And I understand that the penalties in France are exceptionally high for this sort of activity. You are too young to spend the next few years in prison and, on the whole, it is better to avoid spending time there at all.”

He was not entirely certain how to take my remarks; I had, after all, just caught him with his hand in my pocket and had grabbed his wrist hard to make sure he did not escape. He squealed in pain as he tried to wriggle free, attracting the glances of passersby in the rue de Richelieu, along which I was walking after my luncheon. I waited until he might realise that he was not going to get free of me, and calmed down.

“Good,” I said when the noise subsided. “As far as I understand these things you should never, ever work alone, but need someone operating with you to distract the attention of the person whose wallet you admire. Secondly, it is unwise to try and steal from a gentleman; they are far more violent and unpleasant than ordinary working folk, and do not hesitate to call the police. You are only a man of property if you are good at keeping hold of that property. Thirdly, like most well-dressed men, I keep very little cash in my wallet, and much more in the bank. If you want serious wealth, I suggest you address your attentions over there.”

I waved behind him at the façade of the Crédit Lyonnais, just visible on the boulevard beyond.

He continued to eye me with ever more doubt, and began to shuffle uneasily from foot to foot.

“Are you hungry? You have a sort of pinched look about you. Perhaps you were stealing to buy yourself a good meal?”

“No,” he said scornfully. “I mean, I am hungry, but…”

“In that case, young man, you must allow me to offer you a good bowl of soup and bread. The contents of this wallet were so nearly yours, I feel such proximity to triumph should not go without recompense.”

He looked at me with narrowed eyes once more, but did not object when I led him—still holding on to his wrist quite firmly—up the stairs to a
bouillon
on the other side of the road.

It was still quite busy, but there was no difficulty getting a table in the corner and I sat the boy against the wall, so he could not make a run for it with any chance of getting away. I ordered him a large bowl of onion soup and bread and water, and watched with satisfaction as he ate.

“I hope all this makes you realise that I am not inclined to call the police, nor even to inform your father of your activities. Do you wish to be like him when you grow up?” I asked gently.

He looked at me with a wisdom and sadness beyond his years. “No,” he replied with a touch of steel in his voice. “And I won’t be.”

I pondered this as he ate his soup. He was very hungry, and ate with both noise and relish; the offer of a second bowl was accepted with enthusiasm. It is remarkable how much you can find out about someone in a short time and a few words. The boy was courageous and defiant. He knew loyalty—even though its object was undeserving. He was prepared to take responsibility, to act where others might have sat and merely accepted their fate.

“Now, listen to me,” I said seriously. “I have not paid to pour litres of soup into you for no reason. I have been thinking, and I have a proposal for you. Do you want to hear it?”

He nodded cautiously.

“Can you write and count adequately? I know you can read.”

He nodded. “Course I can.”

“Good. In which case you are well to leave school. It has nothing else to offer you. You need a proper job, which I am offering you.”

He gazed at me in that same, steady fashion, not reacting at all, really. Just patient.

“As you may know, I am a journalist…”

“I don’t like the English,” he remarked, although without any personal animosity.

“Nor do you have to. In my work I need messages sent, letters delivered. I will occasionally need other tasks done. Following people, watching people without being seen. Perhaps even going into their houses and taking things.”

He frowned. “You do that?”

“It’s an odd job, journalism. And no, I do not. You do. Do you have any objection?”

He shook his head.

“The pay will be adequate, even generous, that is to say about a hundred francs a month. Does that suit you?”

He stared at me. I knew it was almost as much as his father earned.

“You will be punctual at all times, start work when I say and finish when I say. There will be no days off unless I say so.”

He nodded.

“You agree?”

He nodded again. I held out my hand. “Then we must shake on it. Present yourself at my hotel tomorrow morning at eight.”

He gripped my hand over the range of soup bowls and, for the first time, his face creased in a broad, happy grin.