He shaved and dressed quickly and had a scratch breakfast. He’d certainly overslept more than somewhat… and he decided that the juxtaposition of an urgent summons to the Chief, and the events of last night, was just a little too much to be due to coincidence.
It wouldn’t be long before he found out.
Slowly Shaw climbed the broad staircase of the old Admiralty building on the Horse Guards, feeling, as he always felt just before an assignment got under way properly, that cold nagging pain at the pit of his stomach, the legacy of the ulcer which had cut short his seagoing career as a very junior officer years before and had projected him into the atmosphere of intrigue and danger that surrounded the big jobs carried out by the Special Services agents of the Naval Intelligence Division.
Walking into the secretary’s room he met the impersonal stare of Miss Larkin.
She said, “Oh — Commander Shaw. Mr Latymer wanted to see you the moment you arrived. He’s been here for some hours himself.” There was a slight stress on the word “moment,” and she glanced at the green Connemara marble clock, her expression and the very way she held her stiff figure as she twisted round to look at it managing somehow to convey disapproval. She pressed a switch on the intercom box, spoke briefly and crisply, and then Latymer’s voice said; “Send him in, Miss Larkin.”
Shaw moved over to the door.
That door was marked simply: Mr G. E. D. Latymer. Shaw, who had been a party to the close secrets of state after a certain bomb had gone off years ago in Eaton Square and left ‘Mr Latymer’ scarred for life, often thought that a lesser man than the Chief would never have for so long survived the gall of having to pretend to civilian status in the Admiralty. The night of the bomb, a high-ranking officer of the Admiralty Staff had been blown up and left for dead by agents of the other side to whom he had become too dangerous to live. He had, in fact, been within a fraction of an inch of death when Shaw had found him; and it had been thought expedient, prudent in the circumstances of the time, to allow these men to believe that they had in fact made the kill. This had been done with the aid of sheer cunning and the Official Secrets Act under which, when the officer was out of danger, a certain plastic surgeon had worked his miracles of physical transformation… and Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Charteris, K.C.B., D.S.O. and two bars, D.S.C., youngest officer ever to attain that rank, had become ‘Mr Latymer.’ The fact that he had no family whatever living had made the thing, to that extent, easy. Only a handful of men apart from Shaw — men who had since all retired from the Service or politics — knew that Sir Henry Charteris lived on and had, under his pseudonym, returned, after months of illness and recuperation, to the Naval Intelligence Division, taking over again in due course his old job as Chief of Special Services — a job which few people even knew still existed at all.
Shaw knocked, and entered the sumptuous room, his feet sinking deeply into the thick pile of a fitted carpet. A bar of sunlight came through the big window, turned the old shagreen surface of Latymer’s vast, beautifully polished desk to green-gold. Latymer was sitting there squarely, hands flat on the desk before his thick, powerful body, arms straight as though he was thrusting himself backward. The pugnacious face was stormy, thunderous. That face seemed, and not for the first time, almost Churchillian — and the steely green eyes, so clear and direct, bespoke the seaman still. Or perhaps that was only because Shaw knew. The disguise, in fact, held good, would go on holding good to those who hadn’t known Sir Henry intimately in the old days.
Latymer’s deep voice rumbled out. “Well, Shaw. A very good morning to you — and sit down.”
Shaw took the chair opposite the desk. Latymer reached out for a big round ebony ruler, which he picked up and held like a sceptre pointed at the agent. He said abruptly, “I dare say you’ve guessed what this is all about.”
Hard eyes stared right into Shaw.
“Something that happened last night, sir?”
“Exactly.” There was a snap in Latymer’s tone. “I know all about it, so you needn’t explain. Scotland Yard’s been in touch and so has the Foreign Office — simply because you got yourself involved. It didn’t occur to you to make a report yourself, evidendy.” Thick white brows came down in a line over the scarred pink face, and the chin jutted, rock-like. “Why?”
Shaw flushed, recognizing the danger signals, but he met the Chiefs eye. He said evenly, “It didn’t occur to me because there was nothing whatever to suggest the department might be implicated, sir. As far as I was concerned it was either a suicide or an accident, and as such it was purely a police matter.”
“H’m. I see.” Latymer was still frowning; outwardly — and only outwardly, for it was all part of the act as a fussy senior Civil Servant — a little pompous. “And that’s all you have to say?”
“That’s all, sir.” It was always best to stand up to the Old Man.
“I see.” Latymer’s face relaxed into pink folds and he gave a very faint grin. “All right, my boy. Daresay I’m just being wise after the event, as a result of being contacted by the Foreign Office.” Slowly, he rolled the heavy ruler in his stubby-fingered hands, stared across the room towards the tall windows looking down on to Horse Guards Parade, where ordinary men and women went about their normal daily business, quite unmindful of the life-and-death decisions so often taking in this quiet, opulent room above their careless heads, decisions which had their effect throughout the world, spreading like a big ship’s wash from Latymer’s desk. There was, Shaw fancied, something strange in the Old Man’s eyes this morning, a kind of far-off look, and more than a hint of puzzlement. After a few moments Latymer turned towards
Shaw again, said, “That man who — died. Know who he was?”
“I gathered he was a man called Handley Mason. The police’ll be making the usual further inquiries—”
“Dammit,” Latymer broke in irritably. “Of course they will. And they’ll confirm he was Handley Mason all right. I, however, know a little more than the police, and I know that he was a Foreign Office man of sorts.”
Shaw raised an eyebrow.
Latymer picked up a sheet of paper from his blotter and studied it. He said, “I’ll explain. Up to three years ago, Mason had been the usual diplomat doing the rounds of the overseas Embassies with a bit of time in London in between. Last appointment as such was as a second secretary in Washington, where he was employed on information services. After that, for some reason which the F.O. people refuse to discuss even with me, blast ’em, his name disappears from the Foreign Office List. Now, nothwithstanding that omission, he turns up on attachment to the Moscow Embassy, still with the equivalent rank and pay of second secretary, but with certain duties which in the strict sense I’d call non-diplomatic and which I believe were only cover for — well, for other activities, activities connected with counter-espionage, in fact. After that, he goes on loan to the Commonwealth Relations Office and is appointed in an unofficial advisory capacity to Sierra Leone. Then he’s back again in the Foreign Office, but this time in the commercial section. Now, that’s' a somewhat curious record — at least, I think so.” Latymer leaned forward, jabbing the ruler towards Shaw.