Katherine turned her attention back to the file. She leafed quickly through the thin sheaf of memos, telegrams, and notes. She saw a long memo to Carbury from William Stephenson, the head of British Security Coordination in America, the man known as Intrepid and Carbury’s wartime boss. The memo seemed pertinent, and she made a mental note to read it later.
She scanned the remainder of the file, then looked at her watch. There was more here, much more, and she’d have to spend several days with it. She finished her tea and looked at Arnold over the rim of her cup. Arnold was reading a week-old copy of the London Daily Mirror. She closed the file. “Did you know Randolph Carbury personally?”
Arnold put down his newspaper. “Knew them all. Carbury stands out because he was more interested in Reds than Nazis. Had a different sort of job, if you know what I mean.” He winked in a way meant to underscore that meaning.
Katherine regarded Arnold in the dim light. The man was more than a vestige, more than an anachronism; he was a specimen forever imprisoned in the amber of the records room. Despite forty years in America, he retained an accent and manner that she imagined was that of a British noncommissioned officer of the war years. In the past he had spoken of a wife and grown child living in New York, but he hadn’t mentioned them in some time.
The man seemed relatively simple and open on the surface, but there was a complexity and furtiveness about him. And there were moments, she thought, when he revealed a presence, a bearing, and a refinement of speech that were more the officer than the sergeant. She remembered a line spoken by an actor in an old British spy movie: “My name is Sergeant Williams. Sergeant is not my rank, Williams is not my name.”
She said, “Is there anything against Carbury?”
“Not that I know of.” His tone was suddenly sharp. “Then again, we’ve been taken in by a good damned lot of bloody traitors, haven’t we?” He pulled the folder toward him and spoke apropos of nothing. “We won’t microfilm these — or computerize them. At least not while I’m alive. Do you know why? Well, miss, there is a special sort of feeling to old dossiers — odd scraps of paper, notes scribbled here and there, underlinings and dog-ears, even coffee stains. That sort of thing. The file develops a character of its own. It tells you things that aren’t plainly written. You understand.”
Katherine nodded. “The shadow outline on some of these pages, for instance, indicating where a smaller slip of paper lay for many years — yet the paper that made the shadow is missing… ”
Arnold nodded enthusiastically. “That’s just it. You do see what I mean.”
There was a silence, and Katherine realized that nothing further was forthcoming.
Arnold picked up the folder. “Is that it, then?”
“No. Wingate. Eleanor Wingate.”
Arnold concentrated on the name.
“Brompton Hall?”
“Ah! Yes, yes… Lady Eleanor Wingate — wife… widow of a Major Lesley Wingate. Brompton Hall… American intelligence billet…” He stood and carried the file into the murkiness of the far aisles, then returned with another folder and laid it on the table.
Katherine said, “How would it be possible for someone to remove something from a folder?”
“Someone would have to authorize that.”
“Who?”
Arnold sat down and poured himself more tea. “Well, that’s very complex, miss. Very complex. You see, these are not active files, as you know. These are only historical archives, kept for purposes of scholarly research — such as you do. But on occasion a bit of something becomes of interest again, and it’s whisked off to London. Mine is not to reason why… ”
“I see. And are you certain no one could actually steal something from these files?”
“Oh, I’d be a liar if I said that. It’s just not humanly possible to avoid that here. I’m all alone, and my senses are not what they used to be.”
Katherine opened the folder marked Brompton Hall. There was a brief description of the hall and the grounds, including a reproduction of an old print. Someone had put a tick mark beside a sentence that read, “The south tower holds an unusual and interesting muniment room.”
There was also a short biography of the Wingates and the cabled result of a security check on them that seemed to consist mainly of statements of good character from their peers. Very much, Katherine thought, like the letters one needs to join a good suburban country club. And in fact, she noticed, there was a listing of the clubs to which Major Wingate had belonged.
The British system of vetting was, she reflected, still rather quixotic to most American intelligence people. She looked up. “It’s simply not possible, is it, Arnold, for a man to be concurrently a member of Boodle’s and the Communist party?”
Arnold laughed. “Ah, miss, now you’re having a bit of fun with us.”
Katherine turned the page of the file and came upon a typed list of American intelligence officers billeted at Brompton Hall. Among the names, some of them familiar, she found her father’s. A handwritten annotation read: KIA—5/?/4.5. REF: Alsos Mission; REF: Hunter’s Moon.
She had heard of the Alsos mission — the joint American and British mission to recover German atomic scientists. Hunter’s Moon, she was certain now, was Wolfbane. She closed the file and looked at Arnold. “Do you have anything on Alsos or Hunter’s Moon?”
“Not anymore, miss. That’s long gone.”
“Where would I find information on those subjects?”
Arnold looked around the room as though trying to recall if he had a file lying about. “Don’t know. Moscow, I suspect.”
Katherine studied Arnold’s face but could not tell if he was being facetious. She stood. “Can you be here tomorrow and Sunday?”
Arnold stood also. “If you require it.”
“Fine.”
“What will you be needing, miss?”
“I don’t know yet. One thing seems to lead to another, doesn’t it?”
“It’s always that way with archives, miss. You can read a file a dozen times and nothing signifies. These files have been read a hundred times each. But then a month later you read another file — or someone says something innocentlike and”—he held out his hands and brought his fingers together dovetail fashion—“it fits.”
She stared at him for some time but didn’t speak.
Arnold raised his teacup and looked thoughtfully into the dark liquid. He spoke as though to himself. “It’s the sequence of the thing more often than not. Dates, especially. Always look at dates. A man can’t be in two places at the same time, can he? And background. Pay very special attention to a man’s background. I mean his youth. A person reveals himself early on. People seem to have these conversions from one kind of politics to another, but that’s a bit of nonsense, because the boy is father to the man, if you know what I mean.”
Katherine moved toward the door. “You understand generally what I’m looking for. Gather what you can.”
Arnold stood and followed her, carrying a large black book. “Miss?”
Katherine turned and faced the open book, a blind register with strips of paper covering the preceding names. Arnold’s fingers were positioned to prevent an accidental uncovering of the signatures. She noticed that two loops of the previous signature extended onto her line and could have been the loops of the signature of Randolph Carbury. She signed the open line without making the same mistake, then added the date and time.