Inside the case were well-preserved papers, mostly ciphers and that sort of thing, of no importance by now, I should think. There were also letters bundled and tied. They appear to be a few rather touching notes from your sister, Ann, who was then about five years of age. There was also an item of immediate concern: a locked diary.
After some deliberation, I decided to open the lock to be certain it was your father’s diary and, if it was, to determine if there was anything inside that might be painful for you to read. As it turns out, there are references to me and to your mother. But I’ve decided to delete none of them. You’re quite old enough to understand love, loneliness, and war.
Most of the diary, however, is not of a personal nature. There are pages of notes of which I believe you and your government should be made aware.
Katherine paused in her reading. This was really too much to assimilate, she thought. Yet, it was not entirely unexpected. Eleanor Wingate was a name dimly remembered from her childhood, though she couldn’t recall the context. Now the memory and the context were clearer. And Randolph Carbury’s visit was not unexpected either, though he had been totally unknown to her fifteen minutes ago. She had known that some day Carbury, or someone like him, would appear out of the blue. It was inevitable that the ghost of her father would reach out to her. She read on:
The circumstances involving your father’s death in Berlin were, I think, quite mysterious, dying as he did some days after the end of the war. I never had much faith in the official version of what happened. Also, your father said to me once, “Eleanor, if I should die without at least a dozen reliable witnesses to testify that it was from completely natural causes, you’ll know the Russians finally got me.”
I replied, “Henry, you mean the Germans.” To which he responded, “No, I mean our sneaking, cutthroat allies.”
And there was something else. The American officer who came for Henry’s effects — I didn’t like his conduct or the looks of him. Why did he come alone to search this big house and recruit my small staff in this tiring business? Why did another officer come the next day on the same mission? This second officer seemed incredulous that someone had come before him. He said the Army had learned of Henry’s death only hours before.
At the time, I was too overcome with grief to make much sense of any of this, but some weeks later I tried to make enquiries. Wartime security, however, was still in effect, and it was quite hopeless.
Well, your father’s diary clears up a great many things.
Katherine looked at Carbury and said softly, “Talbot?”
Carbury’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes. Talbot and Wolfbane. I didn’t realize you knew. How much do you know?”
“Not enough.” She turned the page of the letter and continued.
Seeing Henry’s things in that dispatch case has brought back many memories and rekindled an old sense of guilt — not of our relationship, which was guiltless (my husband had died in Malta early in the war, and your mother was in the process of divorcing your father for some Washington bureaucrat), but guilt at not having contacted you at some point and telling you some of the good things about your father, who was a remarkable man.
Well, there’s little more to say. I’m going up to London to live with my nephew, Charles Brook.
These last few weeks have been rather strange — rather sad, too — closing up Brompton Hall, your father’s papers, the awakened memories of “the best of times and the worst of times.”
But the point of this letter is to advise you of the dispatch case and, more specifically, the diary, which names people who may still be with your government or who are highly placed in American society, and names them in a way that forebodes, I’m afraid, the gravest consequences for your country and for all of us. At least one of those named is a well-known man who is close to your President.
This letter is to be delivered by a trusted friend, Randolph Carbury. He will, I hope, locate you at the law firm with which he tells me you are associated. Colonel Carbury is an old military intelligence man and an excellent judge of situations and people. If in his opinion you are the one who ought to receive the diary, he will arrange with you for the delivery of same.
My first thought was to make these papers available to my government or yours, or both simultaneously, in photostat form. But Randolph seems to think, and I agree, that the material might well fall into the very hands of those it exposes.
O’Brien, Kimberly and Rose was, of course, your father’s firm, and many of the OSS intelligence officers who stayed at Brompton Hall were also associated with the firm. If I’m not being indiscreet, Colonel Carbury indicates that the firm still has ties with the intelligence community here and in America. Also, he mentioned that your sister, Ann, is somehow connected with American intelligence. Perhaps you ought to show the diary to her — or to trusted people in your firm — for critical evaluation. I pray that it is not as grave and foreboding as it appears to be — though I’m fairly certain and afraid that it is.
My best wishes
(signed) Eleanor Wingate
Katherine stayed silent for some time, then said, “Why didn’t you go directly to my sister?”
“She’s not easy to locate, is she?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Given the choice, I’d still prefer dealing with you.”
“Why?”
“Because, as Lady Wingate indicated, and as we both know, your firm takes more than a nostalgic interest in affairs such as this. It’s in your hands now. Distribute the information as you see fit. But please be cautious.”
“Should I ask Mr. O’Brien to join us?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Nearly all of us from that time and that profession are automatically suspect. Including myself, of course.”
Katherine stood and looked out from the forty-fourth-floor window of her office. Across Fifth Avenue, the intricate gray masonry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral spread out in the shape of a Latin cross. In the café below, the two dozen or so tables were empty. It was an unusually raw and overcast May afternoon, a day of gray vapor plumes and long gray shadows.
Colonel Carbury stood also and followed her gaze. “This view has changed considerably since these were the offices of British Security Coordination. I last stood at this very window in 1945. Yet, you know, the major landmarks are still standing — the Waldorf, Saks, St. Patrick’s, the St. Regis — and I fancy it is 1945 again, and I see myself down there, a younger man dashing across the avenue… ”
He turned from the window. “I see myself in this office again with my American associates — General Donovan, the Dulleses, Clare Boothe Luce, and your employer, Patrick O’Brien, who never arrived at a meeting without a few bottles of liberated spirits. Algerian wine in the beginning, then some Corvo from Sicily, and, finally, champagne… I met your father here one Sunday. He had a little girl with him, but that must have been your sister, Ann. You would have been an infant.”
“Yes, my sister,” Katherine said.
Carbury nodded. His eyes passed over a wall where vintage black-and-white photographs hung. “What brave and pure lads and lasses we were. What a war it was. What a time it was.” He glanced at her. “It was, Miss Kimberly, perhaps the one moment in history when all the best and the brightest were within the government, unified in purpose, with no distinctions of class or politics… or so we thought.”