Cyril was prepared. ‘The Bee’s Kiss,’ he said. ‘I’ll toast the Queen Bea with an appropriate potation.’
Harry deftly measured light and dark rum into a cocktail shaker, adding honey, heavy cream and ice. He shook it lustily and poured the golden foam into a cocktail glass which he presented, with a flourish, to Cyril.
Joe eyed it doubtfully. ‘Spoon? Are you having a spoon with that?’
Cyril took a sip and licked his lips. ‘Delicious! Looks so innocent, doesn’t it? Honeyed, frothing, inviting? But beware — there’s a sting in there! Too much of this and you’re on your back and feeling ill. Have one?’
‘No thanks. I don’t drink rum these days. I’ll have a White Lady.’
‘Ah, yes. Army, weren’t you? I expect it would put you off.’ His sharp eyes crinkled with humour. ‘Not a problem for me. Ex-Royal Flying Corps — they tried to keep us well clear of intoxicating spirits!’
They took their drinks to a secluded table.
‘Right, Cyril,’ said Joe, ‘that’s enough of the heavy symbolism. Get to the point, will you? I’m a busy man.’
‘Are you though?’ The tone was annoyingly arch. ‘You confirmed on the telephone information that had been put my way by an official source. You’re off the case. You’ve been left sitting twiddling your thumbs — just like you left me at the Ritz the other night.’ He gave Joe a forgiving smile.
‘Ah! That was you?’
‘None other. And I mean — none other. Everyone’s been discouraged from taking an interest but I’m not so easy to put off.’
‘And you have contacts.’
Cyril didn’t reply. Joe wouldn’t have expected it. Journalists were skunks but they all had honour when it came to refusing to name their sources. He was surprised when Cyril said, ‘The Irishman. I’d say — watch him, Commander. . if you were still allowed to watch him. He’s the link between my two areas of expertise, you might say.’
‘Not sure I follow you, Cyril.’
‘Well, covering this crime story, as I was — my headline was going to be “Mysterious Death of Wren at Ritz” — it occurred to me that I was particularly well placed to have insights, what with my society background an’ all.’
‘Do you have them often, these insights, and are you prepared to share them with me?’
‘You know about the Hive?’ Cyril’s voice had become businesslike and low.
‘I know it exists. Nothing more. Peripheral to my enquiries?’
Cyril shook his head. ‘I don’t believe so. Listen! These girls that buzz about getting ready to save the country, sharpening their stings ready for the Russian bear. . know who teaches them their skills? Down at the Admiralty building, there’s a room that’s been set aside for their use and one of their instructors is our friend Donovan.’
‘Skills? What sort of skills?’
‘Wireless training — intercepts, code-breaking, signalling. The sort of stuff the girls were good at in the war.’ He paused and sipped again at his cocktail. ‘It just occurred to my suspicious mind to wonder whether the bloke might have extended his brief somewhat.’
‘I am aware of the man’s extra-curricular relationship with the Dame,’ said Joe carefully.
‘Well, push the thought a bit further. Good-looking bloke. Heart-breaker perhaps? What do you say to him being the honey in this nasty little cocktail?’
‘Girls apt to develop a crush on the teacher, you mean?’
Cyril sighed. ‘This is more than the plot of a girls’ school story, Commander. Frolicksome larks among the Wrens. . I’m talking about sinister manipulation.’ He reached out and touched Joe’s arm to underline his earnestness. ‘Sinister enough to lead to death.’
‘Death? Whose death?’ asked Joe uncertainly.
‘Ah, well. This is where the lighter side of my job gives me that insight I mentioned. Not sure anyone else has made the connection. There’s only about six girls in this group. They’re crème de la crème — intended to form the core of any future organization. What would you say if I told you that two of them had killed themselves? Over the last two years. Committed suicide. Coincidence? Two out of six? I don’t think it could be. Hushed up, of course. I only took notice because they were both on my socially-interesting list and now, when I come across a third death connected with this little set-up, I begin to smell a rat — and perhaps a good story.’
‘Are they sure it was suicide?’ Joe asked awkwardly, uncomfortable to be professionally on the back foot in this discussion.
‘No doubt. There were valid reasons, farewell notes and all that. One jumped off a cliff in the middle of a family picnic, the other took an overdose of something no one suspected she had access to. They’ve been replaced with fresh recruits, of course. But it makes you think. You’d no idea, had you?’
‘Cyril, the Dame only died three days ago. I’d have got there.’
‘Never will now though, will you? You’ll read the official story of her death in tomorrow’s paper. The line we were handed is that her companion — ’
‘Don’t tell me! I practically dictated it,’ said Joe. ‘And don’t dismiss it. It’s certainly possible.’
‘Plausible at best.’ Cyril gave him a knowing look. ‘So you’re off the case and sent to Surrey?’
‘I’ve a few days’ leave lined up.’
A waiter approached and Cyril ordered fresh cocktails. When the man had moved out of earshot he said carefully, ‘And it mightn’t be a bad idea to be out of the capital over this next bit.’
‘The strike, you mean? It’ll affect the whole country. Even deepest Surrey.’
‘Not talking about whether the trains are running or the milk’s delivered to your doorstep — I’m talking politically.’
Joe was silent, afraid he knew where this was leading.
‘Word is you were something of a hot-head not so long back, Commander. Union man? If all this turns nasty, people will go about looking for bogeymen. Lists are being drawn up so that if heads have to roll the chopping will be done in an orderly way. . with military precision,’ he said with emphasis.
‘How would you know all this, Cyril? Home Secretary your cousin or something?’
‘I’ll just say I have a fellow pen-pusher on a grander sheet than mine who’s well connected. He occasionally gets hold of stories that he’d never be allowed to print in his august journal. But if another less hidebound paper with a forward-looking owner who’s not so impressed by the British Establishment breaks it first, he can then follow suit the next day — once it’s in the public domain. That’s how it works these days — regulated revelation, you might call it. But the upshot is — and I say this because you’ve done me a good turn in the past — ’ Joe couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was — ‘check your slate’s clean. Keep your head down until this has blown over. Someone’s got his eye on you.’
Alarmed, Joe decided he’d heard enough of Cyril’s ravings and prepared to leave. ‘Cyril, I actually think that’s good advice and I shall heed it,’ he said easily. ‘And thanks for the tip about the girls. Now how do I pay you for this? In cocktails?’
‘Thank you very much, Commander, but there is one more thing if you wouldn’t mind?’
He walked over to the bar, picked up something he’d left concealed behind it and returned to the table. ‘Just for my records. . to use next time you clear up a case. “Debonair detective, Joseph Sandilands, in his favourite watering-hole.”’
The flare of the magnesium flash caught Joe wide-eyed and resentful, cocktail in hand. An anxious waiter dashed forward, soda siphon at the ready.
Chapter Twenty
Joe strolled down the Strand, both intrigued and disconcerted by Cyril’s flourish. His recipe for good relations with pressmen was a measure of co-operation blended with a strong dash of scepticism and a twist of humour and, on the whole, it seemed to go down well. While resenting their ever more powerful presence in public life, he acknowledged that they did an essential job with some skill and he managed to stay on fair terms with the ones he encountered. And, occasionally, as now, he would be rewarded with a nugget of information. But it was the warning that troubled him.