Codeword Golden Fleece (59 page)

‘There isn’t one—not in this ship.’ Richard laughed almost hysterically. ‘But the Ruskies have got some Vodka. Let’s buy a bottle off one of these toughs and drink it to this new Golden Fleece that we’ve brought out of Rumania.’

Hardly knowing what they were doing, so great was their relief, they drifted forrard, and two bottles of Vodka swiftly changed hands for some Rumanian
lei
. They fetched some glasses and taking the bottles up to the afterdeck sat down to savour their victory in advance. The evening sunlight was gilding the domes of the great mosques to the south of the Golden Horn, and the surly wrangling between the Russian crew and the Turkish officials, which was still proceeding in the waist of the ship, no longer held the faintest interest for them.

So great had been their anxiety and distress during the past three days that they had not even thought about their appearance; but now they realised that, owing to their long hours in the fishing-smack and their hectic time securing a passage from Varna, they had not even shaved. So, that evening, they took pains to make themselves presentable for the morrow with all the resources that the Soviet tramp had to offer.

Next morning they were up betimes, and by eight o’clock, freshly shaven once more, they were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the immigration officials. But it seemed that the Turks were in no hurry at all to accommodate their Russian visitors, and the three friends had to possess their souls in patience as best they could until a new party of Turks boarded the ship at half past ten.

It was eleven o’clock before they were at last allowed to enter the cabin in which the Turks had installed themselves to transact their business. Even then the officials proved far from friendly and showed all the leisurely disinterestedness in time typical of Orientals. They did not seek to disguise the fact that they believed the British passports of Richard and Simon to have been forged in Moscow, and at the sight of Rex’s emergency chit from the American Consul in Constanta they showed even more open distrust.

Their questions were endless and often entirely irrelevant; they showed little intelligence and not one spark of imagination. They were typical of the underpaid, low-ranking employees of every Government; just quite harmless men of very limited ability,
but having ingrained in them the knowledge that pensions were to be earned only by sticking to the rules and that they had a definite duty to perform.

Time was still marching on. From sanguine confidence, when they had woken up, the friends had gradually once more passed through the stages of uneasiness and worry until, with the flying minutes, they were now acutely anxious again.

At length, as the ship’s bell struck for midday, Rex voiced the feelings of his party by saying to the interpreter who was acting for the Turks:

‘See here! You’d better tell this bunch of small-time bureaucrats that if they don’t let me go ashore right now I’ll have their scalps. I’m an American citizen, and I demand to be taken to my Embassy. My old man is Channock van Ryn of the Chesapeake Banking and Trust Corporation. He’s done business with Ataturk in person. Ismet Pasha and all the rest of your big shots take off their hats to him. What the hell’s it matter who my grandmother was, or any other of your fool questions? I’ve got urgent business with my Embassy, and if they waste one moment more of my time I’ll see your Government have the pants off them and that they’re out of their jobs for keeps.’

The interpreter gave a, probably, much modified version of this outburst, and almost before he had finished speaking Richard added, with one of the rare spates of cold fury which he so very seldom let go:

‘That stands for me too. I’m British, and you can send me to my Embassy under guard if you like. But if I’m not there in half an hour I’ll have you people sacked. I’m nobody in particular, just an ordinary English gentleman; but I happen to know our Foreign Secretary, and when I get home I’ll see to it that his life is not worth living until I’ve had redress, if you hold me for another five minutes on this ship.’

Again the interpreter muttered; his audience was now visibly scared. They talked rapidly among themselves, shrugged eloquently and signed permits for the three friends to go ashore.

By a quarter past twelve they were landed at the Galata Bridge, at twenty past they had secured a taxi, by half past it was carrying them swiftly through the traffic in the Gran’ Rue de Pera, a couple of minutes later it turned out of Hamal Bachi Street into the courtyard of the British Embassy.

To their consternation they learned that the Ambassador was out and not expected back until four o’clock, but their urgent
importunity in the Chancellery Office, secured them an interview with one of the Secretaries.

He was a pleasant, youngish man, who insisted on seeing that they were comfortably seated and offering them cigarettes before he would listen to their business.

Richard acted as their spokesman and, once he started, a concise version of the whole story poured from him in an unbroken spate of words that occupied exactly two minutes.

‘May I see this—er—somewhat remarkable document?’ asked the young man.

Without a second’s delay Simon pulled the Golden Fleece from his pocket and pushed it across the desk behind which the Secretary was sitting.

He took it and, putting on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, began to read it carefully.

‘This is interesting,’ he murmured quietly, when he had reached the second page. ‘Yes, it seems that you had quite a useful idea.’

‘For the Lord’s sake …!’ Rex began, but Simon kicked him into silence.

Ignoring the remark and completely imperturbable, the young man read on to the end of the document, then he laid it carefully down on his desk, removed his spectacles and gave them a charming smile.

‘Really, I do take off my hat to you people. You’ve put up a magnificent show. It would have been a not altogether unprofitable little affair, if we could have pulled it off.’

‘What d’you mean—“would have been”?’ grated Rex. ‘You’ve got a telephone there, haven’t you? For Mike’s sake get busy on it!’

The young man glanced at the clock and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ve missed the bus. If I may say so I am—er—well, not unsympathetic. I gather that you have been at quite some pains to secure this thing. But unfortunately it is invalidated by the time factor. You see, this document and our comments on it could only be sent in “Most Secret” cipher, and, owing to its length, that would take quite some little time to do…’

‘Then, for God’s sake get down to it!’ ejaculated Rex.

‘I’m sorry,’ the young man repeated with his bland smile. ‘But, regrettable as we may find it, seeing that it is after one, my colleague, who handles that sort of thing, is now out at lunch. But that is entirely immaterial. Even if he began to encipher this
here and now, and all we busy people devoted ourselves exclusively to the drafting of a covering despatch, the results of our labours could not possibly reach London much before five o’clock. That, of course, would be with luck and the use of the highest priorities. Then the deciphering would have to be done and the Foreign Secretary collected from wherever he might be. And somehow I have an idea that even the Minister might consider consultation necessary. You see, the expenditure of quite a penny is involved, so no doubt the Treasury would have to be consulted. In fact, in my view, for what it is worth, a meeting of the War Cabinet would have to be called and the P.M.’s views sought. Then, after all that there would be the enciphering of another telegram to His Majesty’s Minister in Bucharest, and quite possibly his opinion, as the man on the spot, would be asked for before any final decision was taken. Even in the best case his people would have to spend at least an hour deciphering his instructions, and then he would need a little time to collect such Rumanians as may be involved from their evening occupations, before he could render any action that he desired to take effective.’

As he paused they all stared at him with undisguised disappointment and acute distress.

He went on again, very seriously now and a little hesitantly: ‘I really
am
sorry. I can guess what this has meant to you. It was a great idea; really great. But it would need an absolute minimum of twenty-four hours to make the wheels revolve sufficiently to put it across; and if His Excellency were here he would tell you the same. It was a very gallant effort, but I know beyond all question that it is too late. May I—may I offer all of you some lunch?’

In spite of the Secretary’s passion for understatement, none of his three visitors could doubt that he knew what he was talking about. They had been after game too big for any Foreign Office fund to pay. The Treasury
would have
to be consulted, and before agreeing to the expenditure of the huge sum involved they would rightly require an assessment of the benefits expected to accrue to the Allied war effort. Even if an emergency meeting of the War Cabinet could be called for that evening, or the cautious Mr. Neville Chamberlain took the quite exceptional step of authorising the expenditure on his personal responsibility as Prime Minister, the delays in getting instructions through to Sir Reginald Kent in time for him to act effectively before mid night were clearly insurmountable.

Their stupendous efforts, their endless journeyings, their plottings, wounds and worries, the frightful strain upon their nerves, had all been in vain. In spite of that last-minute reprieve of the extra day they were still a day too late.

They thanked the young man for his invitation to luncheon but refused it, as they were anxious now to see Marie Lou and Lucretia as soon as possible. Sadly and silently, they left the Embassy and took a taxi round to the Pera Palace Hotel.

‘Look!’ cried Richard, just as the taxi was pulling up. ‘Look! There’s Lucretia.’

The others followed his glance and caught a glimpse of her as she stepped into a waiting car. They shouted to attract her attention, but she did not hear them, and before they could get out of their taxi her car had driven away.

‘Gee! I’ll say she was looking tops,’ remarked Rex as Simon paid off their cab.

‘Wasn’t she?’ agreed Richard, and indeed from the brief sight of her they had had she seemed an entirely different woman to the sad-eyed, black-clad girl they had all sorrowed for a month before in Bucharest. Today she had been wearing a sky-blue suit with flimsy ruffles of lace at her wrists and throat, and a
dashing little hat cocked at an angle on her burnished golden curls.

‘Looks as though she’s got over that awful business of poor Jan,’ said Simon.

Richard nodded. ‘Yes. Well, that, at least, is something to be thankful for.’

At the desk of the hotel they arranged about rooms and enquired for Marie Lou, but to Richard’s intense disappointment she was out.

They had a quick wash and lunched. Over the meal there seemed little to be said. Simon had secured a French newspaper published in Istanbul, and they tried to interest themselves in the war news, but the war seemed to have reached a stalemate, and nothing of sufficient consequence had happened in the past week to take their minds off their own dismal thoughts.

After lunch they went upstairs to unpack and enjoy the luxury of warm baths. Back in his old suite, Richard regretted Marie Lou’s absence more than ever. Her perfume was still in the air, and, although he knew it seemed silly, he lovingly fingered some of her things.

At four o’clock they went out to do some shopping, as all of them were sadly in want of new clothes. On their return they found that neither of the girls was yet back, so they went up to their rooms again and changed, into some of their purchases. The psychological effect of feeling really clean and neat once more had restored their morale a little by the time they gathered in the cocktail bar, but all of them were secretly fretting now over a new worry; they had yet to break to the girls the terrible news about the Duke.

When they had sunk three rounds of cocktails Richard suddenly voiced his thoughts. ‘They both adored him, you know. They’re going to take it hellish badly. We’d better hedge till after dinner, then break it to them separately. It’s going to be the very devil, but I’ll tell Marie Lou.’

‘Um,’ Simon nodded his beaky head. ‘Rex and I will take care of Lucretia.’

It was nearly eight o’clock before the girls returned, and they came in together. They had lunched with different friends but joined up afterwards to visit other friends who lived on the lovely little island of Prinkipo. Their delight at seeing their three cavaliers was unbounded, but Richard cleverly forestalled all questions by saying swiftly:

‘We’ve got simply masses to tell you, but we thought it would be best to save our Odyssey till dinner and afterwards. We three are famished, so if you want a wash you’d better run up to your rooms quickly, then we’ll be able to get down to it sooner.’

Marie Lou gave him a curious glance. She had naturally expected him to go up to their suite with her, but she knew that it could not possibly be indifference. Her quick intuition told her that he was trying to keep some bad news from her for the moment and knew that if they were alone together he would find it impossible to evade her questions.

‘Have you come from Bucharest?’ asked Lucretia quickly.

‘Ner,’ Simon shook his head. ‘From Varna and Constanta.’

‘Oh dear!’ she exclaimed. ‘As Greyeyes isn’t with you I’d hoped—’

‘We’ll tell you about him, too, when we’ve fed,’ cut in Rex. ‘Off you go now to powder your noses, while we fix a table.’

Both the girls saw that there was something wrong, but they accepted the situation and went up in the lift. Their anxiety to hear what had happened lent speed to their toilets, and they were both down again in fifteen minutes. Rex had secured a corner table away from the band, and they all went in to dinner.

‘Now,’ said Marie Lou, immediately they had ordered. ‘You are all worried silly about something. I know. That’s why Richard wouldn’t come upstairs with me just now. He couldn’t keep a secret from me for five minutes. It’s about Greyeyes, isn’t it?’