Footsteps rasping now onto the stone floor of the enclosure.
I held my breath.
The door latch clacked.
I lifted my Mauser.
Over the past few minutes my eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. I turned my face to the left.
I heard the door open and close.
“Go that way,” Martin said. “No quick movements.”
And Jeremy appeared, moving off to the right at an angle heading inward onto the roof, toward the flagpole.
Now Martin followed, his right hand lifted into Jeremy’s spine. I saw the side of his face from a sharp angle to the rear.
I turned away from the wall and made one quick, soft step forward and another and I pressed the muzzle of my Mauser against Martin’s occipital bone.
“No movement at all,” I said.
He stopped.
Jeremy did not give him time to figure out the situation. He spun off from the pistol and grabbed Martin’s shooting wrist while I pushed the Mauser at the Hun’s head just for good measure. Albert’s boy wasn’t going to do anything stupid, even if he cared about his mission. He was figuring Jeremy and I would have our hands full downstairs. Which we would.
Jeremy had Martin’s pistol now and he stepped back in front of him.
I kept my Mauser where it was.
Martin still hadn’t gotten a glimpse of me, but I regretted letting him hear my voice. At least I should have spoken German. He probably knew who had the drop on him. I had to assume he did. Which was why I was supposed to have simply slipped away into the night.
Jeremy gave me a look. He shifted the pistol to his left hand, and he drew back his right leg, his body angling that way into a boxer’s stance. I knew what was next.
I pulled my pistol away.
And Jeremy threw a hell of an overhand right into Martin’s jaw.
The Hun flew back hard and was out cold even before he slammed down in front of the door.
The salon orchestra began to play.
Jeremy and I both briefly turned our faces to it.
“This will make things a little easier for you,” he said, lifting his chin toward the music.
“And for you.”
“We shall see,” he said.
He looked my way again, and I said, “Nice right hand. Were you a pro?”
He nodded a small, slow nod of regret.
“I bet you were good,” I said.
“I once went sixteen rounds with Tommy Ryan.”
“And?”
“He was prepared to go seventeen.”
“Jeremy what?”
“Miller.”
“Did you fight in the States?”
“You bet,” he said. “For a couple of years. Philly and New York and points west.”
This made sense of a little bit of American that sometimes crept into his mix of accents and phrasing and lingo.
“Chicago?” I asked.
“Never made it there.”
I liked this guy Miller. He stirred the reporter in me. I wanted to sit him down and talk a while and do a story on an ex-boxer who gave one of the greatest middleweights of all time a run for his money and then turned into a British spy. And I’d have bet good money that his family name was once Müller.
But he and I had other work to do.
“What about our boy Martin here?” I said, nodding toward him.
“How compromised might you presently be with Stockman?” Jeremy said.
“Remains to be seen,” I said. “There’s a big crowd. He’s got his own agenda. If he didn’t go looking for me and if I wasn’t observed sneaking around, I could have innocently been out of his sight all this time.”
Jeremy nodded. He looked down at Martin. “He knows too much about both of us.” He stepped nearer to me, and his voice turned as serious as that right hand. “You need to slip back into the crowd now, and then make certain Stockman sees you. After the music ends, stay visible and be patient. I’ll divert any possible suspicion from you.”
He paused.
He was waiting for my assent. I wondered what his plan might be, particularly for himself after an effective diversion. I thought about trying to help.
He figured that out. “You defied me once, Mr. Cobb. I won’t say I was not grateful. But we have to be professional now.”
He gave me only the briefest moment of silence to respond before saying, “We have no time for this.”
“I understand,” I said. I did.
Jeremy tucked his pistol away and moved past me to Martin. He bent and grabbed the Hun by the coat and shirt and lifted the man half off the ground, twisted him around, and flung him down again as if he were a gunnysack of lettuce greens.
I stepped to the door and opened it.
“Mr. Cobb,” Jeremy said.
I turned.
“Kit,” I said.
“Kit,” he said. “I’m grateful.”
“As am I,” I said.
And I was into the stairwell and circling downward.
14
I made it all the way into the Great Hall without seeing anyone. I wouldn’t chance crossing the courtyard. I needed to give the appearance that I’d been on the grounds throughout Isabel Cobb’s concert. I would trust that Sir Albert had delegated any suspicions to Martin and the boys and was keeping his own attention on his actress and his acting.
I crossed to the library, which remained dark. I slipped in and went to the casement and opened it gently. I looked out. This eastern lawn seemed empty. Jeremy had somehow kept himself hidden here. But he’d had inside information.
I climbed out and pulled the window to.
I strolled now. Casually. I went to the stone wall at the cliff’s edge. I followed it north, and the only Gray Suits that gradually became visible were far away, guarding the north entryways to the house. A distant passerby was nothing they would automatically care about.
I followed the curve of the wall past the service wing, past the high-tea tent, and walked toward the music.
The marquee was lit inside by electrical light, the seats packed and the place ringed by standees. Mother had begun her encores. The orchestra was playing a song she could overact to her hammy heart’s content. “Some of These Days.” It was ridiculous, accompanied by strings and a salon-tempoed piano. Her acting talent was being challenged, no doubt, so as to hide her murderous feelings toward her accompanists.
I could see now, above the heads, the back of the pianist and his upright in front of him. Not Mother, who would be at the center of the stage.
But I began to hear her voice.
Not the words quite yet but her voice, floating out of the tent on a cloying cloud of strings and trying to keep its honky-tonk edge.
The torches were blazing still.
The standees were a welcome sight. The crowd was large and disorganized at the edges. Stockman surely was in the middle of all that. From his limited vantage point he might be willing to believe I’d been around all this time.
My mother’s voice clarified now, as she moved into the chorus. She sang, “Some of these days, you’ll miss me, honey.”
I hesitated in the dark, just outside the torchlight.
“Some of these days, you’ll feel so lonely.”
I looked along the tent line in both directions. No Gray Suits.
“You’re gonna miss my huggin’. You’re gonna miss my kissin’.”
I moved past the torches now and approached the backs of the standees who were even with the stage.
“You’re gonna miss me, honey, when I’m far away.”
I peeked between the heads and there, in a front row center folding chair, sat Stockman, his face lifted to Mama.
I didn’t even have to shift around to see her. I knew she was singing straight to him.
I backed off, beyond the torches, and I waited for the show to come to a close, not really listening to the music, my mother’s voice familiar in the way that a twenty-year-old memory that hadn’t come up for about nineteen years would be familiar. Jeremy came and went in my head. He was a pro. He was doing what he knew best to do in the way he wanted to do it. I didn’t have to think for him, didn’t have to save him. Stockman wanted to come into my head, wanted to rehearse my imminent encounter with him, but if I started scripting myself for Stockman, I’d end up sounding scripted, sounding like a liar. I needed to improvise. As if with Mama and me on a train. I stood and waited and now the crowd was applauding and some of the standees were starting to peel off.