Rand spent the rest of his time studying the others who roamed through the exhibition hall. One that he recognized at once was Simon Spalding, a columnist for the Speculator. He was an expert at digging up dirt on the Royal Family, and perhaps now he was widening his horizons.
On his way out Rand stopped in the office and requested a ticket to the auction itself. The young woman behind the desk informed him that no tickets were necessary. “Anyone may attend our regularly scheduled auctions,” she said. “However, if you think you might be bidding you should register at the door and receive a numbered paddle which you hold up to signify a bid.”
“I wonder if you could help me with one other matter. Could you put me in touch with a family member regarding this auction?” Apparently she was accustomed to such requests. “You may place an early bid with us for any item you wish.”
“This is more of a family matter,” he said, purposely vague.
She glanced toward the closed door to an inner office. “Just a minute, please.” She tapped lightly on the closed door and then entered.
After a moment she emerged with a dark-haired woman, perhaps in her middle thirties, wearing a bright summer dress that looked expensive to Rand’s untrained eye. She smiled and extended her hand. “I’m Magda Barnes. The items to be auctioned are from my father’s house. I came by today to see how they were being displayed. May I be of service?”
He accepted the hand, which was surprisingly soft. “Is there somewhere we could talk in private, Miss Barnes?”
“I was using their conference room to review the catalogue. Perhaps we could talk in there.” She glanced at the secretary, who nodded permission.
Inside the small room Rand introduced himself and came right to the point. “Your father was a respected journalist. I met him once and you may recall I was mentioned several times in his book on the Department of Concealed Communications. Some of us, now retired from the Service, are concerned that your father’s possessions might contain some hidden notes that could fall into the wrong hands.”
She smiled at the thought. “No, no — I’ve been over everything being offered at auction. I examined and searched each item at least twice. There are no hidden notes or journals. All his personal papers and manuscripts will be given to Cambridge University.”
“Miss Barnes, the feeling is that he might have come into possession of material he could not publish under the Official Secrets Act. Do you know what he was working on at the time of his death?”
The smile faded as she began to comprehend the people he represented. “Did that man Vestry send you?”
“I have spoken with Harry Vestry. He did not send me.”
“He knows my price.”
“One million pounds is beyond our resources.”
“Then the auction will go on as planned, even though I realize I won’t come close to that figure. Men like Vestry fought my father all his life. I owe him nothing.”
“When I was looking over the items just now I spotted a familiar face. Simon Spalding. You certainly don’t owe him anything.”
The news didn’t seem to bother her. “He knew my father years ago. I remember him visiting the house once around the time of Sadat’s assassination. It’s not surprising he’d be interested in the exhibition. Perhaps he might even bid on something.”
“Has he approached you about any particular piece?”
“No.” She stood up from the table and said, “I really must be going, Mr. Rand. We have nothing further to discuss. Tell Harry Vestry the auction will go on as planned.”
He sighed and left the room after a few polite words. Then he went downstairs into the warm July afternoon. He’d walked about a block when someone fell into step beside him. It was the bulletheaded former assassin, Shirley Watkins. “Didn’t do so well, did you, Mr. Rand? I could have told you that. She’s the sort of woman needs a little fright before she sees reason.”
The following morning, as she was leaving to deliver one of her summer lectures on Egyptian archaeology at Reading University, Rand told Leila he’d be going into London again. “Two days in a row?” she asked, somewhat surprised.
“Maybe three. There’s an auction at Sotheby’s tomorrow that I should attend. It’s part of Cedric Barnes’s estate, the fellow who wrote those insider books about British Intelligence.”
“I hope you’re not going to buy anything.”
“I’ll try not to,” he said with a grin.
This time only three of them were in the meeting room on the second floor of the Old Spies Club. Vestry and Colonel Cheever listened intently as Rand told them what had transpired the previous afternoon. “When I suggested contacting Magda Barnes I had no idea that Shirley would be dogging my steps. Did one of you send him after me?”
“Hardly, old boy,” Cheever answered. “You know Shirley. He has a mind of his own.”
“Look, the auction is taking place tomorrow morning. Shirley can’t stop it. You can’t allow him to threaten that woman in any manner.”
“Nothing could be further from our minds,” Vestry assured him. “We’re out of the game now, retired. I don’t break codes anymore and Shirley Watkins doesn’t kill people. Is that understood?” Colonel Cheever snorted. “I doubt that he ever did kill people. It was probably all a scare campaign to intimidate the other side.”
“Maybe he started believing the campaign himself. He spoke of Barnes’s daughter needing a little fright to see reason. I told him to leave her alone.”
“Did you look over the auction items?” Vestry asked. “Any likely hiding places for notes or a journal?”
“A desk or coffee table could have a hidden drawer or a false bottom. If it’s on microfilm or a microdot the possibilities are endless.” Rand decided it was time to bring things out in the open. “Look here, there’s something about this whole business you’re not telling me. You talk of spending upwards of a million pounds, of threatening Barnes’s daughter, of keeping the press away. From what? What’s in this journal that makes it so valuable?”
Vestry maintained an uneasy silence until Colonel Cheever started to speak. Then he interrupted to say, “You might as well know, Rand. Rumor has it that Cedric Barnes once interviewed a double agent, someone working for us who was on the verge of defecting to Moscow. This was to be the man’s swan song, his public rationale for his actions, not to be published until he was safely out of the country.”
“And—?”
“And at the last moment something changed. The double agent never defected, and Cedric Barnes kept his word. He never published the interview.”
“How long ago is this supposed to have happened?” Rand asked. Harry Vestry shrugged. “In some versions it was 1985. Other versions have it way back in the seventies when Barnes was still a relatively young man. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“And yet the dozen men around this table yesterday all believe it happened. Not only that, they believe the interview still exists somewhere. Why would Barnes keep it all these years? Why not simply destroy it?”