Colonel Cheever smiled. “Let me give you the tour.”
Rand admired the comfortable leather armchairs in the lounge, wondering if he’d ever be elderly enough to pass his afternoons in such a place. “The air in here used to be blue with cigar smoke,” the colonel explained, “but now the smokers have been relegated to a smaller lounge down the hall. Times do change.”
He led the way through the spacious billiard room and the card room, where green-shaded lights hung down over felt-covered tables.
“I imagine there are some wicked card games in here,” Rand commented.
“Wicked, indeed! I prefer bridge, but most players like faster methods of losing their money.”
The dining room, with its rows of neatly arranged tables, was quite inviting and Rand made a mental note to dine there sometime with Leila. When they’d reached the second-floor meeting rooms it was two o’clock, time for the colonel’s meeting. Rand started to excuse himself but saw another familiar face among those entering the meeting room. “Harry! Harry Vestry!”
The slender smiling man turned at the sound of his name. “Well, if it isn’t Rand! Good to see you, old chap. How long have you been gone from Concealed Communications now?”
“Too long, Harry. I’m old enough to qualify for this club, after all. And Double-C doesn’t even exist anymore under that name.” Vestry chuckled. Rand had been a close friend of Vestry’s when they were recruited together for intelligence work, but the vagaries of overseas assignments had separated them after a few years. “Look, why don’t you sit in on our meeting, Rand? It’s nothing really secret, and you may have some good suggestions to toss in.”
“I don’t even know what it’s about,” Rand protested mildly.
Vestry smoothed back his thinning gray hair. “Finding the truth, old chap. That’s what it’s about.” Then, acknowledging Cheever for the first time, he urged, “Bring him along, Colonel. It’s an open meeting.”
Cheever placed a hand on Rand’s shoulder. “You heard the man. Come along and join us.”
There were a dozen of them around the long oval table, though seats had been provided for twice that number. Rand had already observed that, like most London clubs, this one had not yet progressed to admitting women. Harry Vestry took his place at the head of the table, ready to conduct the meeting, and it was obvious he’d been within his rights when he invited Rand to sit in. Looking around the table at the other men, all about his age or slightly older, Rand was surprised that he knew so few. Cheever and Vestry were the only two he could have named, though a tall man with a red face and a bald head like a bullet seemed familiar.
“I think we all know the purpose of this meeting,” Vestry began when the others had quieted their conversations.
Rand raised his hand. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Of course, Jeffrey. I forgot. Well, you probably read in the papers last winter about the death of Cedric Barnes during heart surgery. He was the author of all those books on famous British spies, double agents, MI5, MI6, and Air Intelligence. I believe he even did a volume on Concealed Communications, your old department.”
Rand remembered. He’d read it when it came out, feeling a perverted sense of pride when he found sixteen references to himself in the index. Even in a top-secret organization it was nice to achieve some level of recognition. Oddly enough, he’d thought of Cedric Barnes just a few days earlier, after reading a news account from America that stated that the CIA had agreed to stop employing journalists in the gathering of intelligence data. “I had lunch with the man once,” Rand said. “He wanted an interview but it was forbidden by the Official Secrets Act. I don’t know where he obtained all his information.”
“It hardly matters now,” Vestry said. “What matters is that his daughter Magda intends to auction off the furnishings from his country house. Barnes’s wife has been dead about ten years, so everything went to the daughter. The auction is scheduled here in London next week, at Sotheby’s. Many of us believe grave danger can be done to the country if that auction is allowed to go forward.” Rand was a bit surprised when he allowed his gaze to circle the table and saw that the others were taking this seriously. “Do you really think he had some top-secret papers hidden in a piano leg?”
“Such things are possible,” the tall red-faced man said. “He worked at home with his daughter’s help, and we already know certain well-placed journalists will be bidding on select pieces. A diary or journal could be invaluable.”
Harry Vestry continued. “My proposal, gentlemen, is that we stop this auction by placing a preemptive bid for the entire offering. I have already spoken to Magda Barnes about the possibility and she is agreeable.”
“How much does she want?” Colonel Cheever asked.
“One million pounds.”
There were sighs and groans from around the table. “The club doesn’t have that sort of money,” someone said.
“We may be able to negotiate a lower figure,” Vestry tried to reassure them. “But we must all realize the importance of this matter.”
Rand spoke again. “If it’s so important, why doesn’t the government step in and take action?”
“We understand they have done all they can on an official basis,” Vestry answered vaguely. Rand wondered if he was implying that the government had appealed to the Old Spies Club for financial backing in the matter.
It was Colonel Cheever who seemed most vocal in opposing Vestry. “Are you saying you expect the members in this room to come up with the million pounds necessary to cancel the auction? Such a suggestion borders on the ridiculous!”
Vestry tried to remain calm against this attack, but the members around the table quickly chose sides. After most of them had spoken, it seemed obvious he was in the minority. “The money just isn’t there,” the red-faced man said.
“Do you have any other suggestions, Shirley?” Vestry asked.
At first the use of the feminine name jarred Rand, but then something clicked in his memory. Shirley Watkins, the man with a woman’s name. During his years of covert government service Shirley’s job had always been assassination. Few knew his name and fewer still had seen his face. Rand had met him just once in Berlin, twenty years ago, but supposed him long dead. Could this possibly be the same man?
“Let me talk to the daughter,” Shirley suggested. “Maybe I can make her see reason.”
It might have been an innocent remark, but coming from this man it could also have been a death threat. Rand knew his imagination was running away with him but still he raised his hand and spoke. “If you’ll excuse me, I wonder if I might be of service, gentlemen. As I said, I had lunch with Cedric Barnes a few years back when he wanted an interview for the Double-C book. His daughter might remember my name if she helped him with the book.”
“That’s very good of you, Rand,” Colonel Cheever said at once. “What say you all? Shall we take Jeffrey up on his offer?”
There were assents from around the table, and perhaps a sense of relief. Rand wondered what he was getting himself into.
Sotheby’s London auction rooms were located on New Bond Street, in a remodeled four-story building that probably dated from Georgian times. The building ran through the block to St. George Street, and the main entrance was around the back. It was here that Rand entered, stopping to purchase a pricey full-color catalogue of that week’s lots to be auctioned. The one that interested him was titled simply Items from the Country House of an Author and Journalist.
He went upstairs to the second-floor exhibition hall and spent the better part of the next hour inspecting an array of furniture including antique desks, chairs, tables, lamps, even a four-poster bed with a canopy. Barnes’s old manual typewriter was there with a shiny new plastic ribbon in place. A pile of books, neatly tied in manageable bundles of twenty or so, was being sold as a separate lot. Glancing over the titles, Rand recognized some of the Cold War classics, plus a few books on espionage in general and World War II in particular. David Kahn’s thick volume The Code Breakers was there, along with Hitler’s Spies, and Robert Harris’s recent novel Enigma. There was also a complete set of Cedric Barnes’s own books, many in foreign-language editions, leaving little doubt as to the identity of the “author and journalist.” An array of office supplies, a camera, and a tape recorder completed the lot.