All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely unintentional.

Part of the Wine & Old Lace event, with a few literals corrected.

PROLOGUE

WE walked slowly, almost reluctantly from the warm and stifling waiting room across to Platform 7, to where the puffing engine had just dragged its train of carriages into the Paddington terminus from the countryside. The air was damp with mist, a thin fog that smelled strongly of ash and deposited a greasy, smoky film over everything the fine mist touched.

We stood waiting out of everyone's way as the train disgorged its sardine-packed cargo of mostly grey pinstriped-suited passengers onto the paved platform, and we watched them as they hurried further away from their relatively safe houses in the capital city's distant suburbs, each carrying their cardboard boxes of gas masks over their shoulders into the terrified city. Towards their darkened workplaces the herd of daily visitors went, to join its native inhabitants who were only now beginning to wake and wearily emerge from the underground shelters after another disturbed night of intensive German bombing.

The beautiful lady standing next to me tucked her arm into mine and pulled herself close, as if to assuage the cold, grey fog seeping into our bones after the steamy hothouse of the railway station café, where we had sat awhile as we awaited the arrival of the first train.

The timetables, so reliable before the war I assured her, now ran as a consequence of either the Luftwaffe or the whim of the War Office and their priority use for troop movements.

She clutched a small handbag in one hand, also holding taut the shoulder strap of her gas mask. All the rest of her luggage, consisting of two matching leather suitcases and a large trunk, had already been surrendered to the guardianship of the Great Western Railway porters and was no doubt being loaded into the baggage car under the care of the guard, while we waited for the wave of incoming passengers to wash away like a tidal surge into the city.

Bouyed by her touch, I felt little of the usual constant imaginary ache in my missing right foot as we walked slowly together towards the First Class carriage where she would recline for the first part of her long journey homeward, from Paddington to the Welsh ferry, that would take her across the Irish Sea, regularly swept for mines and U-boats, to the safety of neutral Ireland, one of the few European countries not yet drawn into conflict with Hitler's all-conquering Nazi Germany and its aim of world domination.

From western Ireland she would fly by Flying Boat back over Greenland, landing at Newfoundland and Canada before landing back home in the United States, a country still at peace in this world torn apart with hate, violence and irrational racial intolerance.

I was sure that, in the seclusion of her carriage, her mind would be full of the events of the past two weeks, as would mine as I returned through the Underground train and London red double-decker bus to my modest lodgings in Mile End, in the East of London, my town for a quarter century, ever since being released from hospital in 1916.

I opened the heavy door of the train carriage for her. As expected, the carriage was empty, few travelled First Class away from London at this early hour, still barely dawn. We faced each other by the pair of steps leading into the warm interior. I tried my hardest to smile as if this was not our final farewell and knowing that we would most likely never meet again.

Our last ten days together had been intense and emotional and I knew that I would miss her terribly, knowing, accepting as inevitable, that she would barely ever spare me a thought again, in the excitement of the gay life she led, culminating in her displays upon the bright-lit silver screen, in comparison to the indistinct grey foggy background of my mean existence. I cleared my throat in preparation of finally saying goodbye, but before I could open my mouth to speak she pulled me tightly to her, gripping both the lapels of my trench coat with one hand, the other hand spread behind and enveloping my head, and whispered "Love ya!" in my better ear before she pressed her fully ripe and rouged lips against mine.

I was in a daze, even after she pulled away from me and sprang up sprightly into the waiting carriage. All too soon, the carriage door was slammed shut behind her by me, reacting like a penny arcade automaton might. The guard's whistle blew shrilly to the new engine coupled at the front of the train, its sharp shriek overcoming the muffling fog. The train started to move down the platform, taking up the slake one by one of the reluctant carriages behind.

"But..." I stuttered through the open window, trying to keep up with the train, using legs that never worked too well at the best of times and now didn't seem to want to work for me at all any more after that searing kiss.

"Be seein' ya!" she said from the open window, smiling, her bright red lipstick smeared by her eager mashing of our lips in farewell, waving at me with one gloved hand, while she held on tight to the door frame as the departing train subjected the carriages to a succession of bumping jerks as they were pulled and bullied into motion and gathered speed taking her away from me, to another continent, a wide and deadly ocean away.

I watched helplessly, as the steam from below the carriages enveloped me in white vapour, and the engine chugged, dragging its precious cargo behind it out of the station. For a while I stood there as petrified as Lot's unnamed Wife, long after the train had departed, carrying Mary with it, with now nothing at all for me to see in the fog. But my mind was full of the image of her leaving, her smiling face and sad eyes perfectly framed by the open carriage window.

CHAPTER ONE

Ten days ago

WHEN I emerged from the Mile End tube station at ten to seven upon that icy cold early spring morning on 29th January 1941, I could see the black smoke rising from Wapping and Limehouse to the south west and south, and rather lighter smoke coming from Spitalfields to my west. The smell of burning was less intense this morning, the air still, the late winter ground frost testimony to the clear skies that had drawn to London yet another intense bombing raid from German-occupied Europe during the night.

According to my late father's trusty old fob watch, I pulled from my waistcoat pocket to check, I had ten and a half minutes to walk what was normally a six-minute journey in order to make my early appointment at seven o'clock on schedule.

Plenty of time, I had thought at the outset. But as I emerged from the tube station I could see we had also had a light dusting of snow overnight and the ticket guard announced that it was as low as 22 degrees or ten degrees of frost, "so look out for ice", he called out as a warning when I hobbled past him.

I soon found out that two of the sticks of bombs had landed in terrace housing in Southern Grove, leaving bricks and rubble strewn across the road directly across my route and this meant that, picking my way through the debris, my progress was exeedingly slow.

I regretted now that I hadn't carried a walking stick when I went out last night, mostly because of my damned stupid pride. As a consequence, I didn't reach my office in Hamlets Lane until five past seven.

So, I was late for my appointment and, due to my hurrying and the rough terrain, my missing right foot was bloody well killing me.

"Mornin', Mr Onslow," the old doorman greeted me with a cheery wave, adding with a nod of his grizzled head upwards and a knowing smile on his lips, "there's a young lady in yer office. She was waiting outside when I turned up, so I let 'er in an' lit yer fire for ya, 'bout 10 minutes since."

"Thanks, Bert."

I turned to climb the first of the three flights to my icy garret office, but Bert couldn't let me go without a final remark, "She's a right tutti that one, Guv. Her old man must be bleedin' fore an' aft, ter go cheatin' on 'er an' risk losin' everyfink over anovva ord'nry bit o' skirt! She definitely ain't nuffink like ord'nry, Guv."

I just waved my hat at him. Bert was at least thirty years older than my 42 years of age, but still as sharp as they come, or at least he was usually right on the button when it came to visitors to the various and diverse offices in the old office building. This time he had assumed that my new client was a wronged wife wanting to hire me to catch her "daft" husband in the act of his infidelity, usually with a girl younger and prettier than my client usually was. That was my usual cut of clientele, to be honest, but Bert was well out of his crease to a full toss on this one.

I knew that my potential client's husband was a volunteer in the military of a country no longer his nationality and had gone absent without leave, in unusual circumstances. I also understood that she just wanted to know the wherefore and why, and not yet aware if there was any "who with" involved in his disappearance.

As I laboured one by one up those 39 painful steps to my tiny office, I recalled our brief telephone conversation from last night.

***

The fog had come rolling in from the river as soon as it grew dark and the air was developing quite a nip in the air after a clear, dry and partly sunny winter's day. Due to the war, the public telephone on the corner of Mile End Road and Eric Street has become my office telephone from 6.15 to 6.30 the five weekday evenings each week, and had been thus for the past four months.

'Private Dicks' in London at the height of the Blitz, during the winter of 1940 to spring 1941, didn't always have the luxury of their own telephone line, or even shared party line. At least not a Dick who had been bombed out of two different offices in the previous five months and the military demanded first dibs on every new telephone line that was available, 'for the war effort'.

Besides, business in my line of work was so bad that, if truth be told, I could no longer afford the line rental, and incoming calls on the public call box cost me nothing. I was beginning to find that few potential clients cared much about such trifling details as spousal infidelity when they were being blown to smithereens every night and expected the invincible German Nazi panzers to invade on the very next tide under cover of darkness.

I had been so deep in my thoughts that evening that I had almost missed the call, and only answered the ringing telephone on the fifth ring, "Mile End 551," I answered automatically.

"I almost gave up ringin' yah," the woman at the other end of the line said rather tetchily, "Are yah'll the discrete private detective they call 'One Shoe Onslow'?"

I was well aware of my nickname at the Yard, so I was long past taking enough offence at the remark to slam the receiver down. Besides, most of my work came from personal recommendation and I needed the work, so I didn't hesitate to confirm my identity to the female caller.

"Yes, Madam, I am Mr Onslow. How may I help you?"

I almost straightened my back as if back on parade, one time the Army or until recently the Metropolitan Police. Her voice was unmistakably American, but carried with it an air of authority, and therefore a complete expectation of the immediate and satisfactory service of her yet to be specified requirements. This was no retiring mousey housewife in denial of her husband's moral shortcomings or depression because she suspected her husband of walking all over her, by having an affair of the heart, without considering the consequential damage to his own wife's heart.

"I am Marcia la Mare...." she started. Then she paused momentarily, like the name was supposed to mean something to absolutely everyone she thus introduced herself to. Maybe to others her name did mean something, but it rang absolutely no bells at all with me. I did regularly read the "society" pages of all the British national papers in the Public Library, and some of them were clients or potential clients at one time or another, but the name Marcia la Mare meant nothing at all to me in any social context.

I replied, "And I am Edgar Onslow, Madam, a private investigator. How may I assist you?"

"You do know who I am, don't yah, hey?" There was more than a hint of surprise in her voice.

"I understand that you're either a Miss, or more likely, a Mrs Marcia la Mare and I assume you are calling me to assist you with the investigation into a problem you might be having involving your husband? Perhaps he goes missing without adequate explanation from time to time and you want to know where he goes and who he spends time with?"

"Yeah, wanting someone to assist me with an investigation into a missing husband ... yeah, I guess that's exactly who I am," she replied, "Look, mah husband has been missin' here in London for four weeks now, but the damned authorities around here can't seem to help me none, so I need a Private Eye to find him, see. I spoke to some detective guys in New Scotland Yard earlier today and they told me that yah were the best possible unofficial investigation help I could rustle up round here at a moment's notice. They gave me yah number and told me that ya could only be reached in the early evenin' 'bout this time, a quarter after six."

"That's right. I find my work mostly starts out in the early evenings and sometimes takes me extremely late into the night."

"I guess that is the nature of yah business, Sir. Well, Mr Onslow, may I see yah later tonight about my ahhh ... problem? I assure yah it's a matter of some urgency."

"I'm afraid that I am already preparing to leave the office to work on a case tonight," I replied, "What about meeting up tomorrow morning?"

I was working too, despite how quiet business had become recently. The last two Tuesday nights I had been trailing an erring Colonel and his cute waitress girlfriend from a restaurant for dinner, a hotel for dancing and, after dancing, with absolute certainly, they would retire to one of the rooms the hotel had available to rent for an hour or two at the most. I knew that by the time I had negotiated a key from the night porter, so I could catch them in the act, it would be well past midnight if I was lucky. Sometimes the client, in this case the Honourable Lady Bletchley-Havering, one of the ancient and wealthy Sussex Haverings, wanted to be present at the moment the adulterers were discovered in flagrente. This meant a lot more hanging around by both the photographer and me while she was brought to the scene in her chauffeur-driven Bentley from whatever fancy West End hotel she was staying at for the night.

I didn't know it at the time that I was speaking to Miss la Mare about my prior engagement, of course, but it was the Luftwaffe that intervened between eleven and midnight so that my night was not only wasted, I also lost my only current paying client following a direct hit on her Bentley by 500 pounds of high explosive. A divorce from the dissolute Colonel was no longer necessary or, in fact, even legally possible, and I was unlikely to have my bill, including the photographer's time, settled by either the Colonel or his late wife's own vast estate.

"Okay?!" Miss la Mare on the line snapped, clearly frustrated by my negative response to granting her an immediate audience, "When is the earliest possible time that I can see yah at yah offices in the mornin'?"

I thought that if the same pattern as the last several nights similar to this repeated itself, I would be emerging from an Underground station about 6.30 in the morning and I could be at any one of the stations up the West End, then a bus ride home ... "Seven o'clock," I told the caller, "my office address is 67C Mile End Road, Mile End, any London cabbie will find it for you."

"Thanks, Mr Onslow, I will see yah there tomorrow, Wednesday morning, at 7 sharp, then."

Click, went the telephone as the receiver was replaced in the cradle at the other end.

Of course, I immediately called the Yard to gather information about the caller and what the facts were regarding her missing husband. A few of my old colleagues still worked at New Scotland Yard, several of them feeling that they owed me the odd favour from time to time. My old Sergeant, Bob Cummings, now promoted to Detective Inspector, was still in. He told me that he was just about to ring me about Miss la Mare.

Apparently, Miss Marcia la Mare had expected me to know that she was not only a well-known actress but currently one of the hottest properties that one of the larger Hollywood Studios had on their books. Her missing husband was a certain Captain Bradford Gold, an even more famous Hollywood actor, producer and director, a former pilot recently transferred from Bomber Command to a squadron operating fighters over south east England, where he had been a Flight Lieutenant. But, Bob said, this posting may well have been a ruse by the Military, as Cummings believed he was actually transferred to Army Intelligence and was so well thought of that he had been promoted to an Army Intelligence Captain in the last four months. This additional information was all off the record, of course.

The trouble was, that this Captain Gold was now missing, not exactly in action, but had last been seen in the East End of London whilst working on an intelligence operation about a month before, and was now several weeks late in reporting to his superiors.

The actor was an American citizen, but was born in the East End of London around 1895 and emigrated with his parents to the West Coast of America when he was about ten years old. Gold's family had made a fortune over there in the import export business in silver-plated cutlery and tableware and invested heavily in the motion picture industry during its infancy, well before the boom in that business since the early 1920s. Gold's father had thrown himself headlong into the business and invested everything he had into moving picture production and had therefore multiplied his original fortune many times over. Bradford Gold was Gold Senior's youngest son and had been indulged in film-making where he developed an enthusiasm for acting and subsequently had starred in a number of extremely popular films in the late Twenties and had been a rising star all through the Thirties until he was a major box office success.

Bob Cummings told me that the secretary in their office in the Yard had called Gold a "heart throb" and was considered a "true hero" for putting his lucrative career and his personal safety on hold to help save his old country from invasion by Nazi Germany. As soon as Britain declared war on Germany, and the United States of America decided to have nothing to do with the war, Gold had apparently been determined to take full part in the action. He had flown over the Atlantic on the earliest seaplane that he could catch. Gold had actually wangled a place on one of the trans-Atlantic mail carrying flights, between Newfoundland and Ireland, and joined the RAF as a pilot shortly after his arrival on these shores. In a press release that the film studio had issued to his adoring fans, Gold had stated that he couldn't let his old country down in their hour of need. It sounded much like a publicity stunt issued by the Gold Film Studio but, according to the AOC of his RAF station, Bob told me, he turned out to be a "damned fine pilot", and had completed a large number of successful bombing missions over enemy territory.

Bob told me that he had briefly spoken by telephone with Gold's last RAF commanding officer at a location in East Anglia. Gold been trained by the RAF on twin-engined bomber planes, in fact he actually owned a twin-engined plane in California that he regularly used to cross the North American continent to his various homes, in preference to taking the train or using chartered flights.
So he was welcomed with open arms to join Bomber Command for basic training and was such a good flier that he had no trouble converting to the larger Wellington bombers that his squadron was flying. In six months he had flown almost 80 missions and earned his first promotion from Pilot Officer to Flying Officer.

However, in the last months of 1939 and early 1940, during the period we were now calling the "Phony War", the bombers were flying into Germany and only dropping propaganda leaflets not bombs onto civilian targets. Although there was a lot of anti-aircraft flak coming up from some of these German cities, mostly they acted as though they were still at peace, especially after the fall of France in 1940, with no blackouts in place like we have had over here in London since the day war was declared, as well as all our other main cities and ports.

Also, incidents with enemy fighters had been a rare occurrence, as Germany seemed reluctant to escalate the war footing with Britain at that early stage in the war, so long as we were only dropping propaganda leaflets on their civilian populations.

Gold was a good officer and a lucky pilot, who had hand-picked an effective crew from those men available. After four or five months of dropping leaflets, he had become bored with the unexciting but exhausting routine and the lack of action, so he had applied for a transfer to fighter duty, hoping for a spell in Hurricanes or Spitfires.

However, soon after he applied for transfer, the war footing with Germany changed and the Blitz started in earnest, so the bombers began to retaliate by bombing targets in Germany and his application to transfer was put on hold. Of course, the German defences kicked into action and losses of bomber aircraft had mounted alarmingly, so much so that Britain were fast running out of both trained pilots and serviceable airplanes.

Gold may well have been a lucky flier, but just as his crew neared the time when they were due for a fortnight's well-earned leave, their luck ran out and they were hit by flak that killed two crewmen on board and wounded his co-pilot and another crew member. His plane was severely crippled and he limped back to the English coast over East Anglia before he decided he had to ditch in the Fens, as the damaged undercarriage refused to lower.

Then, by luck, they spotted another airfield. The fit crewmen landed safely by parachute, while he had circled the airfield for half an hour until he had exhausted the rest of the fuel before he landed heavily on the grass runway and saved the lives of his co-pilot and one of the severely wounded crew who had been unable to use the parachutes.

He was mentioned in dispatches, swiftly promoted to Flight Lieutenant and given immediate leave to recuperate from his ordeal.

While on leave he had been approached by the Special Intelligence Branch, Bob Cummings had managed to get someone from the military to admit off the record. Because of his action in saving most of his crew, as well as his celebrity status within the military, he had become noticed by the "Brass Hats" in the War Office.

For one thing Gold was a multi-linguist. One grandmother was a German speaker and he spent much of his youth with her as his family initially built up their business in London before moving to New York; so he apparently spoke German as if he was a Bavarian native.

Gold's maternal grandmother, who he also spent much of his youth with, was Italian and he had easily picked up that lingo as a second language too. He had been with the Intelligence Branch since late September 1940, for about three months before his disappearance four weeks ago. It appeared that the apparent transfer from Bomber to Fighter Command had been maintained as a ruse to cover his redeployment as an intelligence officer, probably because his public profile was so high.

I asked Bob if he had gone through the long list of unidentified men who were victims of the overnight raids. He admitted that they had started on them two days ago, had found nothing so far, but were still working through that list.

Bradford Gold's wife showed up at New Scotland Yard about three days after she had arrived in England.

Her husband's father, Alfred Gold, head of the Gold moving pictures studio in Hollywood, had received a telegram from the War Office, informing them that his son was missing, suspected of being absent without leave.

The Army were hoping that he had had enough and gone home to the States, but were informed by Alfred Gold that he hadn't returned, nor had the pilot communicated by air mail letter with his family for several weeks.

It was three weeks before her father-in-law got around to telling Miss la Mare that her husband was missing somewhere in London. She was furious with her father-in-law and the staff at the studio, and she immediately chartered a flying boat flight to England, via Newfoundland and Ireland.

Of course, Military Intelligence had kept Gold's disappearance very close to their chest, so New Scotland Yard didn't know anything about the case when she arrived and made initial contact with the police. Even after a couple of days of investigating they still had nothing to go on. So, when she made enquiries about getting a 'Private Dick' involved, Bob Cummings had quietly put her onto me. That was all Bob could tell me last night, before I had to dash off to my next job. Besides, I had run out of coppers to keep feeding the coin slot in the telephone box.

I climbed those 39 steps of the narrow staircase to my office slowly, my foot aching, so I gripped the rail tightly as I pulled myself up. It had been a long, frustrating and exhausting night, before we gave up on the client ever turning up in her Bentley, we never got any pictures and we gave up shortly after the Colonel and waitress waved each other fond farewell, while all around us the Luftwaffe were turning London into Hades. I only found out while dozing in the crowded Underground station the rumour that Lady Bletchley-Havering was blown to bits along with her lovely motor car.

When I opened my office door, the young American woman, who I had spoken to on the telephone the previous night, stood in front of the fireplace, the glowing embers from the evening before probably refuelled from the coal scuttle and agitated back into life again by Bert some ten minutes before me. He would do that for her, of course, but never for me. In the ten minutes I was delayed, the fresh coals were well alight and giving off a fair amount of light and heat.

She had her back to me, looking out of the office window, which was cross-crossed with white tape, as was every other window in London during the Blitz. She was tall and slim, maybe 5 foot 8 or 9 inches tall, slimmer than average but clearly very feminine in her curves. She was wearing a pale lilac jacket that hugged her curves, and matching skirt down to mid-calf, with a split part way up the back, to facilitate ease of walking. She wore sheer silk stockings with a thin black seam up the back of her legs, accentuating the eye-pleasing shape of her ankles and calves. Her matching lilac-coloured shoes had sensibly broad two-inch heels for walking and standing comfort. Folded over the chair in front of my desk was a long mink fur coat and a lilac pillbox hat, with a long peacock feather perched jauntily from a circular band of silk.

The standard issue gas mask, no doubt issued to her when she entered the country, that we were all legally obliged to have with us at all times, rested on the chair by her coat.

I cleared my throat to inform her of my arrival. She turned. I had never before seen such a vision of beauty before, even though her look, starting from her frown downwards, through her steely eyes and pursed lips, was obviously one of utter and contemptible displeasure with me, her servant.

Her auburn hair, with its highlights of gold and amber, was thick and hung in gorgeous waves upon her shoulders, the height of fashion for the hair of wealthy and sophisticated ladies in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She had a long, pale face, straight nose, with high cheek bones, and thin but well-defined eyebrows. I assumed she wore a little rouge on her cheeks, although the heat from the fireplace and the state of her temper might have been a more likely source of her rosy colouring in those areas. Her lips were a bright and glossy ruby red.

"Yah're late!" she snapped, revealing a set of evenly-spaced bright white teeth, in stark contrast to her glossy wine-red lips, "it is almost a quarter after seven."

Clearly, no-one was ever less than absolutely punctual in Miss la Mare's world.

"I am sorry, Miss la Mare," I said apologetically, adding by way of explanation, "my walk here from the nearest air raid shelter was blocked by a couple of bombed out buildings which were scattered across the road, necessitating the taking of several detours and one dead end, blocked by a fallen building and an unexploded bomb cordoned off by the ARWs. The snow covering and below freezing temperatures made the journey more hazardous and debilitating that I had been expecting. Would you care to take a seat?"

"I would prefer to stand by the fire, if yah don't mind, Mr Onslow. California was a lot warmer and the atmosphere much drier than over here this last few days."

"Of course," I agreed, although my knowledge of the Californian climate was one of hearsay only.

I sat down behind my desk and pulled out a foolscap pad from a drawer, picked up a desk pen, one of several plain nibbed pens on my desk, and dipped it into a bottle of Stephen's blue-black permanent ink, before scraping the nib of surplus ink on the lip of the bottle. "Now, what exactly can you tell me about your missing husband, Bradford Gold, such as his habits, his preferences?"

"Well," she hesitated, returning her gaze out of the window as she thought, "Bradford Gold was his stage name, of course, although he long ago adopted it as his only legal name. He was born Bernard Goldberg, in a place here in London called Popular, I think."

I smiled at her pronunciation of "Bernaaard", which made the London "Bernad" version sound plain and uninspiring by comparison.

"Poplar," I suggested for her husband's birthplace.

"Is that in east London?"

"Yes, not far from here, south east, just to the north of the Isle of Dogs."

I don't think that had made its geographic position any clearer to her, so she dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand.

"Brad likes to eat in restaurants, rather than at home, French and Italian cuisine being his favourite foods. His parents still maintain their home in California with a permanent kitchen staff, but Brad and I have no children and decided not to put up with servants around us, only to have a daily cleaner come in to do the necessary whenever we were both at home. Plus Brad always enjoys being out in lively company, and hates eating at home alone."

"Would that be male or female company?" I asked, looking for her reaction.

Her head snapped back from the window to stare at me. I noticed that her hand had involuntarily headed towards her mouth, but she contained herself and slowly lowered the hand again.

"By preference," I added by way of explanation of my question, "Does he prefer to enjoy the camaraderie of his male friends and colleagues, or would he prefer mixed company, or even mostly female company?"

"He is quite gregarious," she said evenly, looking down, examining her long red-painted fingernails on the partly raised hand. "Brad loves any kind of company, men or women, friends or strangers, especially when he is actually the centre of attention. He is athletic, was quite the team sportsman at school and college, particularly excelling in boxing, swimming, lawn tennis and golf. He is an accomplished horseman, using a western saddle of course, and does virtually all his own stunts in the movies."

"So, madam, are you currently estranged or legally separated from your husband?"

Her head snapped up again and she stared at me with her face pale, her eyes narrowed.

"Why ever would yah think that, Mr Onslow?"

Her voice was actually quieter than I expected in response to my pointed question.

"Well, you haven't seen each other for at least sixteen months, I understand; you are both in the acting profession when one or other of you is often away separately from each other and your home; plus your husband appears to have listed his father as his next of kin instead of his wife. So, are you estranged, Miss la Mare?"

I could see her mind ponder the thought although she had nothing to say at the moment, so I added by way of further explanation:

"The War Office contacted your father-in-law about Mr Gold being missing, I understand. They did not, as far as I and the people I spoke to at New Scotland Yard know, try to contact his wife directly, as one would ordinarily expect, Miss la Mare."

"Ah, that was possibly because I was on location shootin' a movie for just over four weeks until last week. They may have been unsuccessful in contacting me or, because my mail is often dealt with by a secretary at the Studio, she may have passed such an important message to my father-in-law first."

"So are you saying that you and your husband have a strong marriage? You were not concerned about his, shall we say, 'straying' while over here alone for so long?"

"Mr Onslow, are yah married at all?" she asked, her ice blue eyes bored into mine, this time she was putting me on the defensive.

"No, Miss la Mare, I am not married."

"Have yah evah been married?" she demanded, pressing on with her counter interrogation.

"No, I have not, ma'am."

"How old are yah Mr Onslow, may I ask, fifty, fifty-five?"

"Forty two, and before you ask, I do not even have a girlfriend, either now or in the recent past."

"Oh, sorry. So, are you temporarily in that state or is it that you've never entertained the thought of having a wife or girlfriend?"

"Well, yes I did, more than entertain the thought, once upon a time. Girls enjoy dancing and once upon a time I enjoyed dancing too, so I think I did entertain a girlfriend and with her the thought of marriage, only the one girl mind. I even thought at the time that ... but...."

"But she married someone else?"

"Yes, she did. We were childhood sweethearts, but ... she married my best friend. He had been best friend to both of us."

"Why was that?" she asked, her head slightly to one side, a faint smile painted by those ruby lips, "I may have demonstrated that I am hopeless at guessing men's ages, but you are a tall man with well-balanced features that carries himself with strength and confidence. Most women of mah acquaintance would call you ... handsome."

"We were very young when we were engaged but there was no time for us once the Great War was declared to get married before I was away to serve my country. I don't know why, but I tell everyone that I was called up as a reservist for the last war as soon as war was declared, but in fact a group of us who were only in the local Militia joined up even though we were not quite old enough to enlist. We all laughed at the prospects of the adventure of that war and we all thought it would all be over in a matter of months and we would be home again. None of us wanted to be left out of the ... fun, I suppose we thought it was. Two years away at war and I was wounded. I did not come back ... whole ... certainly not as whole as my fiancée hoped, or as she fully expected me to return."

"Ah, I noticed the limp as you crossed the room."

"Yes, I lost a foot in Flanders."

"Ah," she hesitated, glancing at where I had tossed my hat, at the pair of spare walking sticks hanging on the hat stand that she must have observed earlier, "hence the reason for your late arrival. You said you had to pick your way around the rubble. Mmm, I see now that you have come without a stick, and, belatedly, I understand now the significance of the spare canes in your hat-stand and the Yard's epithet for yah of 'One Shoe'?"

She was no empty-headed actress, but an intelligent, observant young woman.

"Yes, well, people can be cruel in what they say —"

"I'm sorry, I really hadn't realised. A Private Eye in the States is often referred to as a 'gumshoe' and I assumed yah were a wanna-be cop, not quite a full detective in their eyes and thus worthy of their respect. It was thoughtless of me."

"That is quite all right, I have long been aware of my supposed secret nickname at the Yard. I was based there for just over twenty-one years and couldn't help accidentally overhearing my nickname at one time or another. I am light on my feet and can move around quite silently when I have to, especially if the ground is firm and even, it is an advantage when eavesdropping is required."

"And yah were working last night on a case?"

I nodded.

"And how did that work out?"

"Not well. The husband was guilty as well but my client, I late found out, was a victim of last night's raid. I expect to read all about it in the later editions of the newspaper."

"Does this mean yahr'd be free to work on my case, If I wanted yah to?"

"Indeed, my undivided time would be yours."

She nodded. "I asked about marriage because last night you said you mainly worked at night. Like my profession, acting, our jobs take its toll upon a marriage or relationship. We're often working far from home on location, which can be for long periods of time. And we can be directed to pretend in front of the camera to be romantic with another man, continually pressed to take the illusion up a notch, or as far as the censors will allow. And male actors also pretend for the illusion of the audience to be in love with their leading ladies. As you can imagine, it is difficult in such close proximity scenes to disguise the natural attraction between people who are regarded by their fans as beautiful and desirable."

"I can imagine the difficulties." I remembered all too painfully clearly the frustration of courting between two people who desired each other but were constrained by proprietary pressures of family and, in my case, the double betrayal by my lover with my best friend.

"Absolutely. The pressure can be impossibly hard on an uncertain marriage, or on weak or selfish people. A strong marriage must have confidence in the trust that we place on both sides of the partnership. My husband and I are completely faithful to the loves of our lives, Mr Onslow, of that I am certain. I am confident in making that assertion, and the strength of our marriage has become a legend in our industry. I have never heard any rumours of his involvement with any other woman in the twelve years that we have been together and he would certainly have no reason to have any worries about fidelity on my part. Plus I have a lot of close friends in the Studio and in the show business at large, where infidelity is treated as a subject of much comment and speculation rather than ignored or overlooked. I am sure that if Brad was bein' over-friendly, shall we say, with another actress, I would have heard about it through the grapevine."

"But would you have the same sort of contacts in the Armed Services who would care about your feelings over here in England? In other words, if your husband did become attracted to an unknown British waitress, a barmaid or another officer's wife even, how would you get to know that at home in the States?"

"You are right, Mr Onslow, I do not have those same contacts over here but I would still know in my heart, as I believe I would sense it nonetheless. And I know that Brad would care enough for my feelin's to confess to any relationship rather than hide it, or have me find out about it from another source, perhaps someone that would not be kind enough to break it to me privately or gently. I know that whatever Brad did, he'd be brutally honest with me, even if it brought our marriage, somethin' which we both treasure, to an end."
"My apologies, Miss la Mare, I have no wish to upset you, but questions need to be asked and answered. If your husband had become disillusioned with the war, and I am sure the pressures on a bomber pilot flying deep into enemy territory without the benefit of fighter escort must be enormous, would he, perhaps, have attempted the journey back home to America?"

"I don't reckon so, Mr Onslow. Brad is no quitter, his strength of character is truly amazing. Obviously I don't know his mental state at the time of his disappearance, under the continual stress of mortal danger, as you say, but...." she briefly hesitated as if wrestling with her thoughts. "Brad is not only my husband, Mr Onslow, but he's also been my best friend for many years. We constantly write to each other, weekly if not more often, although because of the war and the U-boats, his letters can take some time to reach me, often arrivin' in bunches together, which was why I was unconcerned with the lateness of his recent letters while I was isolated on location in the desert for my latest movie."

She took a deep breath and relaxed.

"In his long letters to me, he is always positive about his contribution to the British war effort and, I'm sure, he plays down his personal risks. He has expressed boredom with the waitin' and the routine, but he has himself compared it in terms that I can clearly understand, like life on set, where there are long prep times learnin' lines or stuck in make-up or wardrobe, or even waitin' for the sun to come out or the rain to stop between scenes. There are all manner of things which hold us in check in the job we do, yet still be ready to perform instantly when the moment comes, moments that cannot be wased as so many are dependent on our performance. He is never maudlin' about what he feels he has to do for his old country in any of his letters."

"When did you last hear from him, Miss la Mare?"

"My assistant had the latest letters collected for me from the Studio office. They are usually forwarded onto me immediately they arrive from England, but when I was sure that I was returnin' home from the film location in a few days, I had especially asked for the most recently received letters to be held at the Studio, less we pass each other by in transit. In fact my personal assistant collected three letters for me, the latest dated four weeks ago, just before his disappearance, which was noted by him not returning to duty after a weekend pass."

"Do you have the letters with you here in London?"

"Of course, I have left the very latest letter on top, but all the letters I have received since this damned war started are on yahr desk, stacked in latest at the top to oldest at the bottom. They are personal and precious to me, Mr Onslow, and I would beg yah take good care of them, nor to share the contents with anyone, but yah may be able to see within them a pattern of behaviour that might not be so obvious to one so close to him."

She waved a hand, palm up, towards the far end of the desk, where my usually empty "in tray" lived. There was a large and fat Manila envelope sitting in the old wire and wood tray that had come with the office. I never use the tray myself, but the empty file in the bottom of it hides an unsightly row of cigarette burns which indicated my predecessor in this office was a left-handed and rather forgetful chain-smoker. I never smoked, as we had a history of lung disease in the family and my parents never encouraged the habit.

"Thank you, Miss la Mare, I will read them later today. Does your husband drink?"

"No, Mr Onslow, at least not habitually. Neither of us drink very much, but glasses of wine and bubbly are continually being offered to us at public or private parties or receptions where we are promoting our movies and we do need to be alert to the risk of not being seen in anything other than a bright and positive light. We have developed a strategy of sipping once, mostly just by dipping our lips into the glass, and then putting the glass down nearby where we can access it if need be. If we are noticed empty handed and offered another drink by our over-attentive hosts, we would indicate that we already have a glass and pick it up, otherwise say we have put it down somewhere and will find it again when thirsty."

"Do you have any photographs of your husband?"

"None about my person I'm afraid. The studio's agents have an office here in London, they are very efficient and will be able to supply some. I will ring them later from my hotel and have them run over a few copies for ya this afternoon."

"Thank you for arranging the photographs," I smiled, "I, er, spoke to my old colleagues at the Yard last night after our conversation on the telephone. I hope to arrange to see your husband's old Commanding Officer in Bomber Command tomorrow morning and any of his old crew."

"Ah yeah," she turned to face me fully, "the cops at New Scotland Yard told me that ya was probably my only hope of finding my husband. They said that if anyone could sniff him out, yah'd be the one to do it. Do ya think yahr are the man who could find him for me?"

"I hope so, Miss la Mare," I squared my shoulders, "I was a policeman for over twenty-one years and I used to be a detective inspector based at New Scotland Yard for most of that time. If your husband is still here to be found, then I'll find him for you."

"Now, about your fee?"

"I think it will probably take me a week or more, Miss la Mare, but I will do my best and keep the cost down."

She nodded slowly, as if she was making up her mind.

"So, yah are not just a wanna-be cop playing detective, then, huh?"

"No, Ma'am, all totalled, I've been crime detecting for almost 25 years."

She stepped towards the chair, where she had left her coat, picked up a clutch handbag, that was dangling off the back of the chair, and opened it.

"One of my friends needed a Private Eye once," she said slowly, "her husband was acting less than innocently when he went out to places of entertainment without her, so she had him followed by a professional." She pulled from her purse a roll of fivers. "I believe he charged her five dollars a day plus expenses. She told me that that private detective was worth every penny it took to find out she was being played for a fool."

She counted out a pile of ten crisp, white, five pound notes, fifty pounds in all, a small fortune, well for me it was a fortune.

"So," she continued, "that should see you through ten days or so. I have to return to Hollywood in two weeks when principle shootin' starts for my next movie. I would like to find my husband before I go, and take him home with me if I am allowed to."

"Actually, Miss la Mare," I said, "a US dollar is worth four to one of our pounds, so just four of those notes would more adequately cover wages and expenses for the next two weeks, I generally work Saturdays, too."

She hesitated momentarily, before picking up six of the notes and moving back to the warmth of the fireplace, stuffing the notes carelessly back into her small handbag.

"I would appreciate daily calls regarding your progress, Mr Onslow. I have written my hotel telephone number on the top of the envelope on yahr desk. Ask for room number 601 or for Mrs Mary Jones."

"Ah, is Mrs Mary Jones your personal assistant?"

"No, I came to London alone, and I did not want my fans or the press to know I was here in London. Sometimes, public fame makes it difficult to deal with private business."

"I understand, madam, you can rely on my discretion."

She nodded and stepped up to the desk, holding out her hand to me. I stood and shook it gently. A small tear suddenly appeared in the corner of an eye, which she swiftly swept away with the knuckle of her index finger.

"Find him for me, Mr Onslow ... please, please find my husband."

She gathered her coat and hat in her arms, spun on her heel and walked out through the office door.

CHAPTER TWO

Cold trail

I HAD a one to one conversation with Bob Cummings at a café near New Scotland Yard later that morning. He had already told me on the telephone when I arranged the meeting that the police had no time to investigate fully and he confirmed that Military Intelligence were now not even prepared to admit they were pursuing him as a deserter.

As far as the Yard knew, Gold was now a Special Branch agent because almost immediately Cummings' team began to make enquiries, he was dragged out of his office and questioned about Gold by those higher up in the Metropolitan Police chain of command. Meanwhile, the Military Intelligence actually denied he was one of theirs, while all the RAF were saying was that he was no longer one of their serving officers and had transferred to the Special Intelligence Service.

"This stinks to high heaven, Bob. Miss la Mare had her office send me some photos this morning, which arrived by cab about ten o'clock. They included several press cuttings from papers and magazines where the RAF were all over him as a hero from the day he signed until the day he saved most of his crew when he crash landed his bomber. Then suddenly, nothing."

"Look, Mr Onslow," Bob said, he never called me by my Christian name, "Gold's a bloomin' volunteer, an American citizen. That's a neutral country, for Chrissakes, even if they is helpin' us with war loans and utility ships in exchange for land leases for expanding their military options around the world. Whatever Gold says, he ain't really one of us even if he really was born in the East End as he boasts. An' if he's gone AWOL, then it seems like no bugger's int'rested in trackin' 'im down. They pumped 'im up so high when he joined up, that now he's gone an' done a disappearing act, they just want him to go quiet like, without fuss, without damaging the morale of those what's left behind still fighting the war. So, officially, he never was and until some crime is reported to us, then Gold definitely ain't currently a police matter."

He handed me some notes that he had made for me from the official files.

So, from a call box, at the nearest railway station, I briefly spoke on the telephone to the Air Officer Commanding of the bomber station where Gold had served for the longest period. It was clear from the conversation that what "missing" meant to the AOC was that Gold must've been shot down while serving with the fighter squadron that he believed he had been transferred to. He was initially cagey about why I was making enquiries, but I pitched him the rather lame line that the police investigation I was helping them with dated from before he went missing, and indicated that Gold had information that would help with our enquiries. I got him to believe that the police were following a lead and had brought me, a former Yard detective inspector, out of retirement to help find out what made Gold click.

I gave the AOC Bob's number at the Yard as a reference, but I doubted he would bother to follow it up. Since the start of the war, all sorts of retired people were being brought back out of obscurity, many of them pleased to be considered worthy to help share the burden of the war effort.

Bob gave me the last known address of Gold's digs that he had stayed in for the last month before he disappeared, so I followed it up that afternoon. I wasted a trip, involving a train and two bus changes each way, visiting the place deep in the East End. After two weeks with Gold missing, his shifty landlady admitted that she had assumed the man who had first turned up on her doorstep as a handsome RAF pilot, and then disappeared, "without a bye or leave, mind", had either been shot down or posted away somewhere. This left her keeping his room empty ready for his return, without leaving her anything to cover future rent and the arrears for the last week he was seen. She told me she was forced to sell all his effects, not that there was much more than a couple of changes of clothes, "to settle the rent wot he owed us". All she had left over was his rather worn, patched and mended RAF Flight Lieutenant uniform, which she couldn't easily find a buyer for.

The only other fact that she could tell me was that after that first day in the digs, he wore civilian suits when he went to work, although his hours were quite irregular, returning late or staying away for several nights at a time. This boarding house only provided breakfast and evening meals for a few regular guests, not for him, so she didn't even have his ration book. Gold's hours were too irregular for set meal times in the lodgings so he had elected to eat out. That was why she left it until she hadn't seen him for a week before checking with her daughter when the last time his bed had to be made up. I couldn't speak to the daughter, only a slip of a girl aged 13, because she was still in school. I left the landlady my calling card, in case the daughter had any new information to offer me.

It was quite late before I headed back towards my lodgings in Mile End, only a short walk from my offices. It was too late to attend my telephone "office" too. I did manage to pop into the public library, though, just before they closed for the evening at seven.

I asked the Librarian, a single young woman in her early twenties, if she knew anything about a film actress called Marcia la Mare.

The Librarian had her fair hair tied into a bun, pulled so tight that the skin on her face was squeezed of blood flow and looked like glazed porcelain. I had seen her a number of times but had never spoken to her in conversation, other than the usual polite monosyllabic exchanges when handing books over for stamping or returning. The library was empty this close to closing time and she looked bored, her blank listless look emphasising the plainness of her features.

"Oh yes, sir," she replied brightly, her features appeared much more animated at the mention of Marcia la Mare. She removed her reading glasses and suddenly, in her excitement and enlivened countenance, she looked quite pretty. "She's one of my favourites. Wait on sir, I believe she was on the cover of 'Picturegoer Weekly' about four or five months ago, I'll see if I can find it."

She went into a back room and emerged less than a couple of minutes later with a magazine. And there on the front page was a glamorous posed shot of my latest client. The Librarian flicked over a few pages and found a double page spread article, plus a further page and two out of three columns on a further spread, dedicated to Miss la Mare. It was approaching seven o'clock by then, near to the Library's closing time, so I really didn't have time to read it.

"May I take this magazine away with me, Miss?" I asked.

"Normally, sir," she lowered her voice even more than her usual whisper, even though the library was virtually deserted, "these weekly magazines are withdrawn to the store cupboard after a week and we then have them bound up in six-month volumes for reference, for people like yourself, who need to refer to old news. Normally, we do not let them out of the Library and risk the set being incomplete, but I know that you are a regular, I see you in here virtually every day. So, as long as you promise to return it within two weeks...."

I nodded.

She smiled, now looking quite attractive, continuing, "Do you have a library card with you, sir?"

I had several with me, so I handed over one and she scribbled with a pencil on a strip of paper, tucked it into my folded card and filed it in the tray behind the date a fortnight hence. She stamped the date on another slip of paper with her machine and tucked it into the magazine before handing it over. I thanked her and walked out.

I knew I was going to be home too late for Mrs McPherson's tea, which she held rigidly at six-forty-five in the evening, so I popped into a café for a cup of tea and, once there, convinced myself that some buttered toast covered with grilled sardines would adequately fill my supper requirements. The magazine article passed the time while I waited for my meal and made interesting reading.

Since the start of the last war, I had never watched films at picture houses, like I regularly used to as a child. Now the flickering lights disturb me, always taking my mind back to the time I was wounded and stuck in no-man's land with bullet wounds in both legs and the continual silent flashes of the guns.

My hearing had gone when a shell had landed close by, the blast and shrapnel ripping through my comrades and knocking me off my feet. I had one broken leg and a badly damaged foot in the other leg, along with other less troublesome wounds.

Furthermore, I was stuck at the bottom of an older, partially-flooded, shell hole and soon exhausted myself utterly while fruitless trying to climb out, the collapsing mud under my hands only serving to widen the hole I was stuck in. I was losing a lot of blood, so I tied a tourniquet around my lower leg before fainting away on and off throughout my remaining time in that hellish shell hole.

I was there all day and half the night before stretcher bearers reached me and carted me off to the medics. The doctor at the Field Hospital was unable to save my right foot, so he cut it off just above the ankle.

Sometimes, even nowadays in the dark at night, I close my eyes and am tormented again by those terrible silent flashes.

The article about Miss la Mare was written with very little depth and appeared to have been exclusively gleaned from heavily-biased press releases from her film studio. At least I was able to find out that she was aged 29 and had been married to Bradford Gold for ten years, after a two-year long engagement, although no children were mentioned. A list of her films and their dates of release showed a steady schedule of three or four a year throughout her marriage, so it was extremely unlikely that she had taken any time off for having children.

There was quite a bit of oblique reference in the article about Gold, as it appeared he was by far the bigger star, and much was made of his military career, joining the defence of the country of his birth in the first few weeks of the war and flying many missions over occupied Europe into the heart of Germany. No mention of his moving to a fighter squadron or joining Special Branch, of course.

They appear to have been happily married, with Miss la Mare only having an equal number of supporting and leading parts in a dozen films before her engagement, then she made steady progress and moved up to the top of the cast lists with a few years, no doubt aided by the studio that signed her being owned by Gold's family. Both appear to have happily negotiated the awkward transition between silent movies and talkies, the author said. They were a wealthy couple, with homes in California and New York, plus a ranch in the north of one of the farming Mid-West states near to the Canadian border, close to where Miss la Mare's family had moved to in the early Thirties from Eastern Texas and probably still lived close by the couple's ranch.

Miss la Mare played the romantic lead in most of her more recent films, a mix of mainly popular contemporary comedies and more meaty dramas, while Gold was the outstanding male star of the age as far as action adventure pictures were concerned.

The two photographs of Bradford Gold in the article showed him as a cowboy in one and stripped to the waist as an exotic Arabian pirate in another. The married couple had even appeared in a number of films together, including her first major film, which was released as a runaway success a month or so before they announced their engagement to the entertainment world.

Leaving the café, I decided to ring Miss la Mare at her West End hotel and get her up to date with what little I had discoverd so far and inform her that I was going to visit the East Anglian aerodrome, where Gold had been based, in the morning.
I almost asked the hotel telephonist for Marcia la Mare, having so recently read the article about her onscreen persona, but as I pressed Button A to commit my tuppence to the General Post Office coffers, I remembered in time to ask both for Mrs Mary Jones and her room number 601. With a click I was instantly connected to her room.

"Hello," she answered immediately, which threw me a little. Most of the people I call answer with the telephone number first. As a hotel guest she probably didn't know what that number was.

"Miss la Mare? It is Edgar Onslow here."

"Ah, Mr Onslow, thank yah, I've been waitin' by the phone about this time, expecting yahr call."

I reported that I had spoken to New Scotland Yard again, in more detail and had copies of their notes. I had visited Gold's last known address in the East End of London, but that everything in his room had been sold off by the landlady to pay the rent on his room, as he had not given any notice and had left some rent arrears since his disappearance.

There was no proper inventory kept, I said, but the landlady recalled it wasn't much more than a couple of changes of civilian clothes and very few personal effects. I expressed to Miss la Mare the possibility that Gold had planned to go AWOL before the weekend leave and could have gone anywhere. The landlady had now let out the room to a new tenant and she had assured me that everything that had been recovered from the room, other than his battered Bomber Command uniform, which I left there. I had checked the pockets of the uniform, which revealed nothing but balls of lint.

Miss la Mare didn't sound too upset by the theft of her husband's property, probably the fact that Gold had to travel light meant that he left nothing of much sentimental value to him in his lodgings.

While I was speaking to Miss la Mare at her hotel by phone, the pips reminded me to drop two more pennies into the slot from a pile of pennies I had placed by the phone for any additional minutes.

I informed her of my conversation with Gold's commanding officer, and his explanation that he had hardly got to know her husband due to his own recent posting to the airfield. However, I had arranged to go up by train to see him in the morning and, in the meantime, the officer had undertaken the task to try and round up any of his old crew mates for me to speak to. I told Miss la Mare that I doubted that they would be able to tell me much if anything, but it was a stone we had immediate access to that I didn't want to leave unturned.

"I wonder if it is at all possible, Mr Onslow," she asked, evenly, "if I could accompany yah to this airfield in East Anglia?"

I hesitated.

"Well," I started, but she interrupted me.

"Look, I am virtually trapped here in the hotel, Mr Onslow. A reporter from one of yah newspapers has either recognised me, or found out from an internal source, where I am staying and I am going mad just sittin' here and twiddlin' mah thumbs. I need to be out doing somethin'."

"Why would the press be stalking you? You've done nothing wrong."

"According to what this newspaper reporter told her, my maid Milly here says that they are speculating that I am over here intending to make a British propaganda movie with Brad."

"Well, it does sound like they don't know anything about your husband being missing, doesn't it?"

"No-one knows he has gone missing yet," she replied, "at least this seedy reporter seems to be expecting him to turn up here at any moment, which is why he is camped outside, camera at the ready. He is hoping for a scoop and if we are not too careful he may well sniff one out. That's what he's been askin' me over and over again whenever I have gone out, like a broken record, 'when is Brad comin'?', and how can I possibly answer him?"

"I am sure that no answer will ever satisfy the press, there's little in the papers at the moment but doom and gloom due to the Blitz and that we have been failing on the military front everywhere except the recent minor successes against the Italians in North Africa. So you coming here is probably a reporter's Godsend." I paused, while another set of pips went and I fed another tuppence in the slot. "By all means, Miss la Mare, I am happy for you to accompany me to the airfield, but I am also sure that you will find it much more tiresome and quite as boring as twiddling your thumbs in comparative comfort."

"I have never spent much time in your country before, Mr Onslow. It was quite dark when I travelled overnight by train from Wales to London. I was brought up as a country girl, so it would be nice to see what life outside of London is like."

"Of course, some underpopulated parts are almost unchanged by the war, Miss la Mare, no sandbags everywhere, or white tape criss-crossing every window, like London and the major cities. I wonder though, how the 'Fly Boys' will take it when I turn up with a famous and glamorous picture palace film star in the room?"

"I assure yah that no-one will know me as a famous anyone, Mr Onslow, they will only see me as ... yahr assistant."

"How come?"

"Well, I am hardly a mistress of disguise, but I am accustomed to playing any number of different characters, and I'm constantly assured by mah peers that I'm very convincin'."

"Mmmm," I replied doubtfully, the images of our meeting earlier sharp in my mind, how merely her presence had brightened up my dingy office like only a heavenly comet would; I couldn't honestly see how she could disguise herself as a lowly assistant to a private detective, if such a person ever existed in real life.

"Then I will see you tomorrow morning, Miss la Mare. The train leaves Liverpool Street Station at 6.45, platform 12. Er, I have already purchased a ticket for myself, though, it's only second class."

"Then I will see yah on Platform 12 at 6.45 am beside a second class carriage. Do ya know if the ticket office'll be open at that hour of the morning?"

"Yes, Miss la Mare, I stopped off as I travelled through Liverpool Street station on my way back from the Yard this afternoon, and I noticed when I obtained my own ticket that the ticket office opens at 6 am sharp. I could purchase a return ticket for you, Ma'am when I arrive."

"Yah better get used to calling me Mary then, Mr Onslow."

"Mary?"

"Mrs Mary Jones, she'll be acting as your assistant tomorrow."

"Ah, yes, your hotel alias. Should I not call you Mrs Jones rather than Mary?"

"If we were equal ranked colleagues, no doubt," she laughed, the first time I had heard her laugh, and must confess I liked it, "and if we were both men, I dare say I would call yah Onslow and ya'd call me Jones!"

I laughed at the silly formalities we have, ones that she had clearly noticed. Perhaps she would make a good detective's assistant after all?, I mused.

"Then Mary it is, Mary," I decided, "as for me, I am really not so important that you always need to call me 'Mr', when we are not in client-servant mode."

"I have no problem with our professional relationship, Edgar, we Americans are far less formal or God-damned stiff as yah Limeys are about how we address each other. I find it much preferable to be relaxed and comfortable with people I work with and it helps me to use the Christian names they were given."

Just then the pips went again. I only had a few seconds left to speak and there was really nothing else we needed to say to each other.

"Well, I'll sign off, Miss la Mare. I dare say I'll hardly know you in the morning."

"That's all right, although, of course, now I know you --"

With that, the call ended and the latest batch of pennies clattered into the telephone's coin box.

CHAPTER THREE

MRS JONES

I READ through all of Bradford Gold's letters from England to his wife in America that late afternoon and evening. They covered a period of about 17 months, about 72 weeks in all, and there were 59 letters, all of them were either two or four pages long, but mostly they said little or nothing.

There was certainly nothing of any meaning that threw light on why he would consider deserting from his commitments to the Military. He carefully avoided mentioning any airfields or even what counties he did his training or those he was posted to.

The first couple of letters, shortly after his arrival in London, were much more candid than the later ones, containing amusing accounts of his travel via Newfoundland, Ireland, a ferry across the Irish Sea and train journey onto London.

The letters rarely mentioned names, only a few nicknames, which I jotted down in my notebook to ask Miss la Mare about at some time.

All through the letters he underplayed what war work he undertook. He mentioned dropping leaflets over German cities early on, but when they switched to dropping bombs, as Bob had informed me they had, Gold simply led her to believe by omission that he was still delivering leaflets.

Even writing about the crash landing he had was made light of, though it directly led to his promotion and transfer away from bombers. Nor did he mention thinking about or actually transferring to a fighter squadron, nor referred to his move to Military Intelligence, with Special Branch, although he must have written several letters during that two or three month period when I understood he was serving with them.

At Liverpool Street station, early the next day, Thursday morning, I really didn't recognise Miss la Mare at all, in fact I doubted she had managed to get here in time for departure.

I have always been considered particularly observant by my peers but none of the three- or four-dozen people standing around me, waiting patiently for the next train to come into this platform, looked likely candidates.

There was one mousey-looking girl, too young and too short to be Miss la Mare and very plainly dressed, with no make-up and wearing spectacles. I only noticed her because she was rather fidgety, flitting about the area like a nervous bird, and exchanging pleasantries with most people around, except me. Besides, if she was my client, she'd have approached me, as I looked exactly like I usually did.

Only this time, being unsure of the rural pavements, if they even existed at all in the middle of nowhere, I had elected to carry one of my stout walking sticks.

The train, when it came, reversed into the platform, belching white steam, and the twelve carriages bumped gently to a stop at the buffers, and the guard yelled out the familiar and unnecessary phrases, "mind the doors" and later, when ready to depart, "all aboard!"

The carriages were empty, clearly just driven in from the nearby marshalling sheds, with steam leaking from below the carriages as hot water was pumped to the radiating heaters warming up the carriages from under the seats. All the carriages were dripping, the exterior having just been washed, the windows sparkling. Ideal, I thought, to see out of for someone who had never seen the English countryside in daylight before.

I had a long last look around, but could see no sign of Miss la Mare, even though I had purchased her ticket.

It had been a relatively quiet night last night, overcast with thick cloud and the ground frost free for a change, the bulk of the German bombers were probably hitting ports along the south coast or the industrial midlands, where the cloud cover affected the aim of the defending ack-ack gunners.

The air raid warning sirens, triggered by the coastal watchers, had gone off in Mile End at about eight pm, shortly after I got home, but the lack of any action brought the all-clear signal at about five-past-nine.

That meant a full night's sleep in my own bed at my digs for a change after finishing off reading the last of Gold's letters. I had slept well.

This morning, instead of the air being filled with cordite and smoking wood, everything was coated in a slippery, dark grey sooty mess brought down by the low clouds, which at some point during the night must have almost rested on the ground. It is not for nothing that London is often nicknamed "The Smoke".

I finally resigned myself to travel to the countryside north east of London alone and was about to board the empty second class carriage I had selected, when the mousey girl in spectacles that I had seen earlier squeezed past me to be first into the carriage.

"Thank you so much for holding the door open for me, kind sir," she said, in one of those Home Counties' accents from some anonymous but pretentious ladies' finishing school in Hertfordshire or Surrey somewhere; you know the type, shrill high pitched voices, all rounded vowels and overly pronounced consonants.

"You're welcome, Miss," I replied, a little annoyed, both at her and myself.

I had rather looked forward to sharing the carriage with my client and, as I had no time to find another carriage before the train moved off, was dismayed to find myself facing the prospect of sharing up to two hours with a likely vacuous teenager. I proceeded to pull myself up the couple of steps, taking most of the strain on my arms and left foot.

"Mrs," she said, as she sat down primly, about three-quarters of the way across the carriage, her small valise and gas mask resting on her lap, "not Miss," she continued somewhat haughtily.

I looked up from the doorway. She was waving her left hand at me, showing her ring finger adorned with a modest thin band of gold reflecting in the dim electric lights of interior of the carriage. I was immediately reminded of the first war, when a lot of young and too immature girls hastily married their beaux before they went off to the Front, many never to return. It almost happened to me.

I supposed that this war was no different to the previous one.

"My apologies, Madam, I didn't realise," I began dismissively. But then the little mousey girl turned on her smile and those bright, evenly spaced white teeth were unmistakably the ones I had seen in my office yesterday. Only that time they had been surrounded by ruby red lipstick, now her lips were insipid, a plain pale pink.

"You!" I exclaimed.

"Indeed, Mr Onslow ... Edgar, it is I," she grinned, still using her affected 'English' accent. "Do you know, I have walked past you four times in the last 15 minutes, and even asked the couple standing quite close enough to you for you to hear every single word —"

"For change of a shilling for a couple of sixpences for the chocolate machine," I interjected.

"Quite. And still you didn't recognise me!" She had a very superior smile on her plainly unadorned face.

"But I had your ticket."

"I know, and I pointed you out to the ticket man at the barrier that you had my ticket and I wanted to sneak up to you, and he cheerfully waved me through."

"All right, all right. You certainly fooled me," I smiled as I stretched up to put my battered brown leather briefcase into the overhead luggage rack.

"Would you mind?" she asked, holding up her valise.

I shook my head, and swung the bag up using the handles, it was very light. As I was doing so, I heard the guard's whistle again and almost immediately the train lurched forward, pushing me away from the rack. I just hung onto the luggage rack until the motion evened out before taking my seat. I had my back to the engine and she faced the way the train was proceeding.

I sat down in the middle of the bench seat, not wanting to impinge on her space. I had noted that she had scooted up to the opposite door and windows, away from the door we had entered.

This was one of those suburban carriages, with no corridor, designed for short journeys and able to accommodate a lot more seated passengers than the express trains. This was a slow train, stopping at all of the small and large stations en route. We were eventually to alight at one of the smaller connecting stations, and take a further, even smaller train on to stop at a tiny station, nothing more that a single platform halt covering a couple of hamlets and the isolated RAF airfield we were seeking.

On arrival at the halt, I was told there was a public telephone box, from which I was to ring the AOC's office, especially if we arrived earlier than timetabled or unduly delayed, otherwise a driver would be waiting for us if by any chance we were on time.

Usually punctual in peacetime, railways in wartime have to contend with the effects of the night's bombing, additional unscheduled military trains carrying ordnance, sailors or troops having priority and there may well be delays on the way caused by the upsetting of the timetables and trains not being where they were supposed to be at the beginning of each day. Some trains were subject to being commandeered by the Military without notice if deemed necessary.

I could see the reflection of her face in the dark window. It was still before dawn outside and, in the blackout beyond, there was absolutely nothing to see. Suddenly, the dim lights in the carriage went out and I could see her flinch and hear her sharp intake of breath. She may have looked serene and calm as we embarked on our journey into the unknown, but underneath it she was as apprehensive as anyone would.

"It is because of the blackout, Miss la Mare," I explained gently, "the lights are only on while we are under the platform canopy to aid passengers' ingress and egress, the guard turns them off as soon as we move off."

"Thank you, Mr Onslow, that is reassuring, but you really must remember, I am not Miss la Mare, but Mary or Mrs Jones today. If we do not stay in character, as we perfect on our journey, one may not gather the information one wants to from the airfield commander and any of Mr Gold's former aircrew."

"True, Mrs Jones, I will remember to respect your chosen role."

"Now, scoot up opposite me, Mr Onslow, I want to look out of the window as soon as it gets light and we hit the countryside. I don't want to have to keep twisting my neck around to talk to you."

I smiled, unaccustomed to have company on the job other than my usual taciturn photographer, certainly not a paying client who looked more like a girl fresh from an English secretarial college than who she really was.

So I did scoot up as requested and sat opposite her. From there I looked at her more closely. Only because I knew that the girl was Marcia la Mare, her identity was quite obvious to me, especially when she smiled her million-dollar smile.

Today, certainly at first glance, she was totally different. She wore glasses, and no discernible make-up. It made her look more natural somehow, a lot younger, less worldly-wise or sophisticated, and more approachable than the actress I conversed with only yesterday. The word 'sweet' came to mind in connection with the girl detective assistant, whilst yesterday I would have described the actress as a 'rich bitch'.

Her former ruby-red lips were no longer the focal point of her face; her spectacle-framed eyes were instead, making the most of the blueness of her irises, even in the soft dawn light coming through the clear washed glass.

She had worn a nondescript brown beret on the cold platform, but had removed it, probably while I was stowing her valise. Under her now-discarded raincoat, she had on a brown tweed skirt with a thin pale blue thread running through it, down and across in roughly one inch squares. She wore a plain white blouse, or at least what showed above a light brown v-neck woollen jumper, which looked hand-knitted, in a cable stitch I thought, which made me smile, as that was a pattern much favoured by my own mother when I was younger and wore a continuous succession of sweaters that she had lovingly knitted for me.

Mary, as I thought I better get used to calling her, wore sensible flat shoes, which was why she appeared so much shorter, and above the shoes a pair of quite thick stockings, nothing at all like the sheer ones she paraded so spectacularly in yesterday. Probably a wise choice, for the exposure to the winter elements that I fully expected at the airfield, exposed to all the elements of the East Anglia fens so close to the cold North Sea.
When my gaze reached up to her face, I found she was looking back at me while I had examined her so closely. There was no squirming embarrassment nor the anger that might be expressed by ordinary girls when they are being closely observed by a member of the opposite sex.

No, she was actually smiling, as if she was mentally checking off each detail in turn just as I did, waiting for a response from me to the appropriateness or otherwise of her outfit, her clever disguise as a humble detective's secretary.

I could now see how she could easily play the role of a young student, as the magazine article had drawn attention to an award-nominated role in a recent film where she played the part of the first female lawyer in Ohio, America, from an age prior to acceptance as a student by the university, through her long career to her retirement and death by old age.

Oh, she couldn't hide how pretty she was, of course, any more than the pretty librarian that I saw yesterday had attempted to do by dressing down so plainly. That particular girl had dressed deliberately as a defensive mechanism, to deter unwanted men's attraction, her true beauty not emerging until she was enthused by a subject close to her heart.

But the actress Miss la Mare revelled in her ability to play whatever role it was necessary for the moment to play and was pleased to be looked at and, probably, hoped to be admired in turn for her skilled portrayal. There was no shame or embarrassment, the manipulated variation of her looks were a valediction of her stock-in-trade as a successful moving picture artiste.

"What do you think?" she asked, still using her acquired English accent, "do you anticipate that I will pass muster among those 'fly-boys' as your young and innocent assistant?"

"I believe so, Miss- er, Mary, I really do believe so." I smiled.

She beamed even wider, her eyes sparkled and she looked quite spectacularly beautiful again.

"Where did you manage to borrow the spectacles?" I asked, "or are they yours?"

"Oh, they are mine all right, but I don't need to wear eye glasses, these are theatrical props," she said, "just plain glass in 'em. I often wear these to sneak out of hotels, and that is exactly what I did this morning, only from the staff entrance at the back, as though I was a night worker going home."

"I bet that not many of their night workers can afford a cab from the West End across to Liverpool Street station," I remarked.

"Oh!" she chewed her lip and spoke more softly, but still in character, "that's probably why the cabbie kept looking at me strangely. I wondered if he knew who I was and I was damned worried that I would be less than convincing when you saw me. But maybe he thought I was someone from er ... some other role-playing profession." Her eyes lit up and the corners of her mouth gave way to a slight smile.

"I don't think so, Miss Jones, Mary, not wearing those clothes. You really do look the part, not too smart, nor too shabby, quite respectable working clothes for a young and, as you said, innocent woman. Sometimes the hotels do send their female staff home by cab, especially at times where they could be vulnerable, when there may be few respectable people about."

She stood up, holding onto the edge of the window as she spun halfway around and spun back the other way, posing for my full scrutiny, perectly in balance in the moving train.

"Not bad, eh? I got the clothes from my hotel maid Milly's sister. She is almost exactly my size and lives just a couple of tube stations away from the hotel and, as she is getting married next month, she needed some smarter clothes. It was a fair trade, I thought."

"So you swapped one of your outfits for one of hers?"

"Oh no, well, not quite. I took took two suitcases with me, about five different outfits in all, including shoes, actually Milly carried the heavier one for me. Sheila, that's the girl's name, is marrying a merchant seaman when he gets shore leave after the next trip across the Atlantic. The church is all booked, as well as a weekend honeymoon in a place called Margate at a boarding house. Some things in life don't stop, just because a war's on."

"True. So she was grateful for one of your outfits?" I enquired.

"Oh, I left her all five to keep, and the two suitcases, too. She'll appreciate taking them away for the weekend in a decent set of luggage."

"Remarkable," I said, "five outfits for one, plus luggage? Sounds like Sheila got quite a bargain."

"Two outfits I got," she grinned, "one light blue suit, skirt and jacket, with white piping around the lapels and hem of the skirt, plus this one. The blue one was her best outfit but it fitted me beautifully, looked fun to wear, and she insisted that I take it. She cried with joy over the clothes I gave her, so I could hardly refuse. She was generous but smart, having saved the suit for me to try on last, so it was easier to persuade me to leave with it on. It really is a cute little outfit and so I thought 'Mrs Jones' should also keep it for best. I carried this other outfit back in a paper carrier bag and Milly had to press it when we got back to my suite last night."

It was getting lighter outside now and soon the train passed out of the smoky city and entered the flat countryside that characterises the county of Essex. The rising sun, with its orange-red glow lit up her fresh face, while she eagerly soaked up her first experience of the British countryside.

She remarked on the smallness of the fields, the wide variety of unknown-to-her cow breeds and sheep and pigs on show and the lack of grain silos, and how impossibly green everything was, compared to her mid-western ranch and the area surrounding her house in California.

At some point she offered me half the bar of chocolate she had purchased at the station, which relieved a little of the weariness that long journeys tend to impose on one, even in such company as Mary.

She was a remarkable woman, I thought. Here she was looking for her missing husband, who she hadn't seen for at least seventeen months, yet she was enjoying the view out of the windows, engaging in conversation, sharing a little treat she had bought for sixpence, and was full of smiles throughout what might otherwise have been a truly tiresome journey for us.

She was, I decided, a joy to be with. Even once the carriage filled with passengers, she cheerfully engaged with them while remaining in character, as the train tediously stopped at every single large and small station along the line going north east from London.

We changed trains eventually and climbed aboard a small rural train going down the single track towards a few villages beyond the isolated airfield. We were once more alone in the carriage, and very soon we were comfortably referring to each other as Edgar and Mary, a team of two business-like colleagues who gave any observers the impression of having worked well together for some time.

CHAPTER FOUR

UP IN THE AIR

MID-MORNING on Thursday we arrived at the remote East Anglian railway halt, named after the airfield we were heading for, the bomber squadron base that missing pilot Bradford Gold had operated from for about five or six months the previous summer and autumn.

The halt could barely be called a station, we had been warned by the station master at the nearest mainline station that the platform was only long enough for the first of the two-carriage rural train to alight. The terrain was flat for miles around and on the edge of The Fens, nothing was higher than a low bush to stop the fresh cold wind whistling in from the North Sea, spraying that fine driven rain that seeps through, wetting anything and everything in its path.

There was a car waiting for us, driven by a smart WAAF Sergeant, who couldn't possibly be more than twenty years old. She was only expecting one passenger to take to the AOC, but she cheerfully accepted Mrs Jones as my secretary and told us that was no problem.

Neither would it be a problem at the gate, the WAAF Sergeant assured us, as apparently "Brass Hats" and Air Ministry visitors brought miscellaneous secretarial ladies along for the trip all the time.

The WAAF Sergeant informed Mary that she could quite safely leave her valise in the car after she had freshened up in the WAAF Mess, as she was scheduled to take us back to the railway halt once our business was concluded.

I left Mrs Jones, who sat up front with WAAF Sergeant Livings, chatting away quietly and conspiratorially together. They both spoke in the same precise English of the Home Counties Middle Class and appeared to share an infinity, however bizarre, knowing as I did that my colleague had never set foot in the Home Counties, other than pass through it twice by train in the last 72 hours!

I heard the odd snippet, as they talked about life on camp in general and relationships between flying officers and other ranks in particular, while I settled back, confident that Mrs Jones would report in full on the way back.

She had an easy way about her and, in her fake but unimpeachable English accent, had charmed several fellow passengers on the journey up thus far.

When we had a moment to ourselves I had asked how she could converse so freely, knowing how stiff I usually was with people. She replied that it was essential for her acting profession to thoroughly research her roles; if she was playing a nurse for example, she or the Studio would arrange for her to spend a week or two in a hospital, and a good way of finding out the real nitty gritty of any situation was by holding innocent conversations where people didn't even realise they were being studied and interrogated.

As soon as she said it, I recalled that by that same subtle process on our very first meeting I had told her more about my engagement to Mildred breaking down than I had ever told anyone in the last quarter of a century, including any of my own family.

The Air Officer Commanding was an athletic, upright chap in his middle fifties, called Bradley, with hair greying at the temples and a thick, dark brown handlebar moustache, clearly a veteran of the Royal Air Corps of the Great War. He greeted me tersely, while ignoring Mrs Jones' presence entirely.

"Quite honestly, Inspector Onslow, I think you may have had a completely wasted journey, what? As I explained during our telephone conversation yesterday, I was only appointed to the squadron for the final month that Flight Lieutenant Gold was here, so I never really got to know the damned fellow much at all."

"When you did meet him, Sir, what were your initial impressions?" I asked.

"Well, Gold seemed rather casual in his manner, like many from the former colonies in the Americas, you know. He didn't much like proper procedure, and was quite unorthodox in his behaviour towards the chaps under his command. Oh, he was bold and very brave undoubtedly; he was one of our best pilots, actually, but he was damned difficult to discipline. Much better suited to the fighters that he decided to transfer orff to. Jolly good move on his part, if you ask me, all glory without the grind. Still, I've asked around since our little chat on the old blower and found that our Squadron Leader Wentworth was his WingCo when Gold first showed up here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a Pilot Officer, so I have asked him to pop along and have a chat with us."

Apparently, WAAF Sergeant Livings was under instructions to fetch Wentworth as soon as she'd dropped us off, because just then came a knock on the door. Two men, an officer and an RAF squaddie walked in on the AOC's crisp "Come!" command and saluted the AOC smartly. Sergeant Livings remained outside the room and closed the door behind them. I assume she departed, no doubt for a deserved cup of tea and a warm somewhere by a hot stove.

"Ah, Wentworth, this is Detective Inspector Onslow, ex-Scotland Yard," the AOC bellowed, "he's been roped in from retirement to investigate some case or other and needs to get a handle on Flight Lieutenant Gold's life while he was here. Apparently he's an important part of some enquiry, but he's gone and got himself missing in action. You knew him when he first arrived as a wet behind the ears Pilot Officer, didn't you, Wentworth?"

The young officer nodded and turned to me, "As I explained yesterday afternoon to AOC Bradley, Sir, when Flight Lieutenant Gold first arrived here he was put with Blue Section B Flight where I was Acting WingCo, having previously been Red Section Leader of A Flight. Gold was rather old for a new flier, over 40, I think, but it was clear to us all that he was a bloody superb natural pilot, even though he'd never flown in a Wellington bomber before basic training. She's a tough old crate to fly straight if she gets hit and on that last mission 'Goldie' put in a jolly good show bringing the old girl back home in one piece."

"Goldie?" I asked.

"Sorry, all rather juvenile, I know, Inspector, but we all go by silly nicknames, mostly based on our surnames. Gold was 'Goldie'. Before becoming SL, I was always 'Worthy', and probably still am behind my back!"

Squadron Leader Wentworth looked as though he was still in his early twenties, fresh-faced with ginger hair, impossible to believe he held the rank that he was promoted to, which was an indication of the tragic losses our fly-boys were having to contend with in this war, defending our vulnerable shores from the deadly dangerous skies, or taking the fight to the enemy halfway across the continent as these bomber crews were doing night after cloudless night.

"How well did you know Gold?" I asked of the young officer.

"Not as well as I'd like, to be frank, Sir. He was a friendly enough chap, very funny, full of amusing stories in the Mess, you know, but everything about him was all on the surface, you know? He never let any chap get deep, although Stanton was quite close to him, his Flight Sergeant. As WingCo, I usually picked a different one of the inexperienced Pilot and Flying Officers to co-pilot with on raids. Not just the inexperienced ones, but also those who didn't appear to be coping well under the pressure, you know? They are mostly young chaps, many of 'em hardly out of university, you know? To have the WingCo or SL along on board was mostly to boost the confidence of the crew in their pilot."

"Did you ever fly with Gold?" I asked.

"Yes I did, but I only needed to fly with Gold once. I joined him on a leaflet dropping raid at night across some five or six German cities. I think it was on only his third or fourth sortie since he got here. After that I thought he was a perfectly sound pilot and top-ho captain of his crew. He was simply an excellent pilot and he navigated himself all the way over and back again without any assistance at all from me, although I was there at hand if needed. He also seemed to work well with his crew, most of whom he had only had under his command for a week or so. He was so competent coping with every task we threw at him that I felt no need to fly with him again, as there was always another pilot that needed a crutch to lean on far more than Goldie ever did."

"What was he like between flying missions when he was on the base?" Mrs Jones spoke for the first time.

"Ah. This is my assistant Mrs Mary Jones," I said, realising that Bradley had not bothered with any introductions, "she is helping me take notes to get this enquiry completed as soon as possible."

"He was very relaxed, Mrs Jones." Wentworth smiled easily at the girl, "You may not be aware, but being an American, like our pilots from the Dominions, he was much more at ease with the men of the ordinary ranks than English officers are, coming straight from university or a comfortable middle-class background."

His face went noticeably pink as he admitted so. "He didn't drink beer, I believe. We officers tend to use the larger pub on the main road, but you really need a motor or get a lift to reach it. Gold mostly drank coffee when it was available in the officers' mess and cold water rather than tea when it wasn't. He always had plenty of spare cash on him and he walked down with his crew to the village pub once or twice during the Flight A rest days. I never heard that this was to the extent of any detriment to their performance. Actually, Aircraftman Lilley here was telegraphist/gunner for a dozen of his flights."

He turned and waved a hand at a diminutive fellow, another airman probably in his early twenties, with light sandy hair and a ridiculously sparse sandy-coloured moustache. As the four of us turned our attention to him, he nervously saluted again and stood smartly to attention once more. I addressed the fellow.

"So, what did you personally think of Flight Lieutenant Gold?"

He nervously licked his lips before speaking, "Well, sir, I never wuz a full member of 'is crew, like, cos I replaced Murray what had the appendix-itus, so I wuz on'y roped in as a stand-in, like. Mr Gold tried a number of different crewmen to fill-in like, before he then settled on poor Jamieson."

"What happened to Jamieson?" Mrs Jones asked.

Lilley glanced nervously at Wentworth before replying.

It was the Squadron Leader who turned to Mrs Jones and answered for him, "Jamieson died of his wounds on Gold's last mission. Gold and his crew were only a couple of sorties short of a long rest, for 80 completed missions anyway, so they were disbanded and sent on leave shortly after Gold requested a transfer to Fighter Command."

"What happened to the rest of the crew?" I asked.

"In addition to Gold," replied Wentworth, turning to me, apparently speaking from memory, "there were five crew, Stanton, Jamieson, Arnolds, Petersen and Hardy. Flight Sgt Stanton was co-pilot, navigator and bomb aimer. After Gold left, Stanton was promoted to Pilot Officer but soon got himself shot down on a mission over Mannheim we believe. Jamieson the radio operator died of his wounds on that last sortie. The tail gunner Arnolds was killed outright by machine gun fire earlier in the raid. Petersen was forward gunner and he was wounded badly in the chest and leg and has still not yet returned to duty. The last one, Hardy, was the waist gunner and after his leave he returned to duty with another couple of crews without really settling down with either. He was lost when his plane went down in the Channel only three weeks ago."

"Is Murray, the radio operator that suffered the appendicitis, still around?" Mrs Jones asked.

"No, Ma'am," AOC Bradley replied, "He was shot down over Germany on his very first flight back from medical leave, but we have been notified by the channels of the International Red Cross that he is a prisoner of war. He was injured, although his wounds were not life-threatening."

"Goldie may have been lucky," Mrs Jones remarked, "but his crew apparently weren't."

"True." Wentworth replied. There was not much more he could say.

"Do you have an address for the injured gunner Petersen?" I asked.

"Yes," AOC Bradley said, "I'll have that noted for you before you leave, Onslow. Is that all?"

"You said that Gold never drank alcohol, so why do you think he went down to the local pub with his men so regularly?"

Wentworth and Bradley clearly had no answer, so both looked at Lilley.

Her nervously replied, "I think it wuz so that he could better know the men, Sir. We, er, ovver ranks don't get much chance to see the officers outside of the trainin' flights and sorties, Sir. Goldie, sorry Sir, that's what the blokes all called him, though not to 'is face like. Well, he treated us in the public bar, knowin' we'd be uncomfortable in the saloon with the toffs, beggin' your pardon, Sir. As for drinkin', while he wuz wiv us at the Stag & Hounds, well, I fink he wuz only drinkin' lemonade or ginger ale on the couple o' times what I was asked to join 'em wiv the rest of the crew."
"I believe that he was a married man, far from home for many long months. Did he have any unfortunate habits, like flirting or dating any of the local girls?" asked Mary.

Again, the three men looked at one another and it was Wentworth that ventured an answer.

"No, ma'am, I'm not aware of any vices Goldie had in that way. Some of the men do go to local dances in the village, and there is a degree of fraternisation with the local girls, impossible to stop completely, but I am not aware that Gold ever attended those dances. He was well-known as a film star and therefore received a lot of attention from a couple of the very few ladies here at the airfield, but he seemed always to be impervious to their advances. Of course, we know he was married to Marcia la Mare, probably the most popular actress here on the base; we do have a picture show once a month in the main hangar and Marcia's flicks are among our favourites. So, if you are asking was Goldie tempted to try rissoles, when he had fillet minion at home, well, it wasn't very blooming likely, was it?"

Bradley very generously treated us both to lunch in the officers' mess before we left, although it was Miss Jones' who absolutely captivated them with her light conversation and the rapt attention which she appeared to bestow on whoever was talking to her. I decided to keep quiet and simply observe. It was WAAF Sergeant Livings who brought to us the information we sought and Bradley had promised. Apparently Gunter Petersen was Danish and he was recovering from his injuries in a Mortlake recuperating hospital, down by the Thames in Middlesex, so I resolved to visit him the following day.

CHAPTER FIVE

DOWN TO EARTH

WAAF Sergeant Margaret Livings and my assistant Mary Jones appeared to have become firm friends by the time we reached the railway halt for our return journey. There was only a period of five minutes before the next train, there being no waiting room at the tiny halt, so we remained sheltering in the unheated car while the chilly driven rain beat down on us, until we could see the plume of smoke that heralded the imminent arrival of the tiny engine pulling its two mean and grubby carriages along behind.

We said our goodbyes, me shaking hands formally with an embarrassed Margaret, she and Mary embraced and exchanged a slip of paper from Margaret, while Mrs Jones handed her a printed card, on the back of which she had scribbled a message with her smart fountain pen.

On the short train, which was quite crowded with people travelling back to the nearest town, we managed to find seats next to each other.

I enquired with a whisper about the card. She laughed and handed me one from a small number in her purse. It was a thick, high quality, smooth white card with impressively embossed printing on it. I would say it was by far much better quality than my own business or visiting cards that I had printed up a few months earlier when forced to move offices. It was inscribed, "Mrs M. Jones, Assistant Detective", followed by my telephone number (yes, my public call box telephone number!), and "c/o" her posh hotel address.

"How?" I asked, marvelling how she could have this produced in time.

"Oh, the concierge at the hotel can get almost anything done for you overnight. Anything at all, no questions asked." She smiled sweetly, and rather innocently, which was completely convincing, even though she was still using that young middle-class English accent that I knew was false.

"But we only spoke about you accompanying me late last evening, and there you were at the station by 6.15 in the morning."

"I know, I had to put a rush on it, but these cards were waiting for me in a neat parcel outside my hotel door by 5 o'clock this morning, when the hotel receptionist gave me my morning call and advised when my cabbie was due to collect me. Do you know, this raised writing isn't properly engraved, though it looks really impressive. No, those engraved type of cards, even on a rush, would have taken at least two days because the soft steel die has to be sent off to Birmingham to be hardened in a furnace after engraving. But these cards are printed as normal flat ink, then covered in a special powder which sticks to the ink. Then they blow the excess powder off and a heater like a hair salon drier passes over the card, bubbles up the ink to this raised surface and dries it so the card can be stacked and packed for use immediately. Marvellous, isn't it? In the rush, though, I completely forgot to put on there the time slot for your public telephone box."

"My public telephone box?"

"I was in your office, freezing for 15 minutes because you were late, do you remember?"

"Yes, I am sorry."

"You've already apologised and I accepted your apology, Edgar. It is now my turn for apologies ... I am a woman, so naturally I snooped. I opened all your drawers except the locked one. By the way, you really should lock the drawer above where you keep your loaded revolver, you know?"

"My loaded revolver?" My head was spinning.

"Yes, Edgar!" she said in that same Home Counties accent, but now using a deeper, older voice, like an English governess might use, teaching a rather slow child, before reverting to her younger voice again, "An unlocked drawer can simply be removed entirely so that the locked drawer can be accessed from above, unless, of course, each of the locked drawers are completely enclosed in boxes. The drawers on that cheap desk in your office are not enclosed. As for your telephone, well, your office simply doesn't have one. I looked everywhere for it. So I checked the phone booth on the corner of your street before I hailed my cab, and immediately recognised your number."

She leaned back in the carriage seat and beamed with satisfaction, while I sat stock upright with my mouth open.

"I think now is the time," she said, "when I say, 'Elementary, my dear Onslow'!"

Then she laughed, yes, at my expense, but she swiftly deflected me from hurt feelings by tucking her arm in mine, using that and her other hand to pull me back into our seats, where she rested her lovely head on my shoulder.

"I had such fun today, Edgar. And we learned so much. Margaret was saying that a lot of the WAAF girls and the WAAF officers for that matter, threw themselves at Brad when he first arrived, but none of them got anywhere."

"Well, that eliminates one possible angle, which I assume you are pleased about?"

"I suppose ... yes, of course I am," she replied. "You know, Edgar, I have had a simply wonderful day today playing your assistant. Thank you for allowing me to accompany you."

She closed her eyes, resting, as if the effort of performing her rôle was exhausting. I guessed it was, as I too, felt relaxed and I closed my eyes for a minute or two until we stopped at the next station and more people got on.

While I looked around me, she serenely napped, looking innocently, effortlessly, beautiful. I felt like an old fool, old enough to be her father the way she looked, even thinking that she was beautiful and whatever was blurring our relationship.

I knew there was nothing more between us than the status quo of client/detective and even that was severely time limited to no more than a period of ten days at the very outside, before she returned to her normal life of movie stardom and the adoration of her many followers.

We must've looked an odd couple, me looking about 55, I remember all too clearly her over-estimating my age only yesterday (only yesterday! The very thought!) and Mrs Jones looking like a fresh secretarial college intern. But then I had to accept what was and simply enjoy the moment, so I nodded with a smile at the supposed knowing looks aimed our way and they turned away in their own embarrassment. Perhaps those who weren't embarrassed had assumed the sleeping girl was my loving daughter.

"Mary," I said softly in her ear, when we pulled into the mainline station, where we were to change trains and catch our train back to London, "we're here."

She opened her eyes and lifted her head, smiled, and when she spoke she was once more completely in character, as if she had only closed her eyes for a moment.

"Thank you, Edgar, I needed that nap. It has been a long day, but a lovely one."

At the station I checked the timetable with the Station Master, a gruff old gent who updated us without apology for the muddled service. Our train was supposed to arrive at the station in twenty minutes, but he'd heard on the telegraph that it was running an additional twenty-five minutes late.

'Mrs Jones' declared that she wanted to freshen up and, somehow, the mother hen of the Station Master's wife was delighted to take her next door to their modest house rather than use, "the station facilities wot is a bit rough for a gentlewoman, dear".

The Station Master rolled his eyes at me, while his wife and my assistant departed arm in arm, but he softened his earlier pomposity by inviting me into his office, warmed by a roaring coal fire, and brewed us each an enormous enamel mug of tea upon his stove, stirring in three heaped spoonfuls of sugar, no doubt obtained from a non-rationed source.

The carriages in our London-bound train had the same simple non-corridor compartments as before. As far as I knew, it may have been the very carriage we used to travel down the line earlier.

There were more people aboard than first thing this morning though. We selected a carriage that had three people in it that looked like they were together, a couple with a boy aged about ten years old. They spoke in hushed tones, but they were clearly returning home following a serious conversation with the boy's headmaster. The boy was sullen and looked defeated, certain that his next few days were likely to be a torture to endure. I knew they must therefore be local and, sure enough, two stops down the line they all got off and we were alone, sat opposite each other this time, again with my back to the engine.

"My 'loaded' revolver, Miss Jones?" I started, continuing our earlier conversation before she'd slept on my shoulder.

"Don't look at me like that, you are not my father," she said, even as I groaned inwardly at her stinging words, "I grew up on a ranch, so we carried guns whenever we rode out of sight of the ranch-house. I was in no danger of mishandling your handgun. I was pleased to see that, while it was quite an old pistol, and of a make that I've never seen before, it was clean and oiled and, when I emptied the chambers and tried the mechanism while it was unloaded, I felt that the gun has a sweet action and was exceedingly acceptable for a man in your line of work as a detective. I assure you I put it back exactly how I found it."

"Do you have a revolver, Mary?"

"Not here, no. Nor do we have one at our Burbank house, before you ask. And the reason for that is simply that Brad doesn't want them in the house. The theatrical industry is filled with artistes who have to live with many extreme highs and lows, and we have both lost friends who have permanently solved their temporary problems with an all-too-convenient handgun. Nor do we need guns in Burbank, it is well ordered and not a hostile environment."

"I am glad to hear there are no bears in Burbank."

"No, we do have snakes and wolves in my state. I do have several hand guns and rifles at my ranch, where Brad never goes, well hardly ever, as he is by nature a city person. He feels the loneliness of such a place quite acutely, while I am a country girl by nature and by choice. I suppose that is where I will desire to live and work once my short film career is over, whatever happens in the meantime between Brad and I. I assume that he does not have a gun in the New York apartment, where I rarely stay unless we have to do publicity. And I do have a hunting rifle, actually three, at my little hideaway cabin in the Sierras. There we do have bears. I am quite a good shot. My husband can use a gun, obviously, but I wouldn't say he was very good with it. I embarrassed him by my marksmanship at the first shooting range we went to together and he never accompanied me again. Because of his film rôles he has to handle a number of guns, some of them dummy weapons, and others capable of firing live or blank rounds, but even a blank can inflict some serious damage, so he has been well coached in the safe handling and use of firearms."

"So your husband is more comfortable living in a city?"

"Yes, he has a New York apartment near the Central Park in Manhattan and there's our house in Burbank, which is only a short ride into the city."

"It was quite wide open countryside around the airfield we have just visited. I'm sure all airfields are the same and he may have felt uncomfortable there. He was stationed there for five or six months and it was his choice to apply for transfer."

"You heard his fellow officers and one of his men, Edgar. Were they talking about a man who doubted his abilities, that felt he was a failure?"

"No they didn't, Mary."

"He was looking to a future in fast single-seater fighters with more challenges to stretch his flying abilities. As for that squadron base, well a city man stranded in cattle country with five people in it and fifty miles from the nearest town, in a state one-and-a-half times the size of Britain, with around 95-times smaller population, is one thing, a gregarious man unable to cope with life on a busy airbase, full of pilots and aircrew numbering nearly a hundred, a ground crew just as big plus all the guards, auxiliaries, cooks and cleaners and fire crews, is another. There must be in excess of 300 people on that base, plus the regulars within walking distance down the pub."

"I agree, you're right. I do not believe he is in danger of committing suicide."

"That's why I believe he is still alive." Her face looked full of hope.

I nodded. "I can't help noticing that both your lives are divided into compartments. You share the house close to your Studio work, which Mr Gold also uses for the same work. You called it a house not a home. He has his city apartment, where he appears to be more comfortable, that you do visit, but only occasionally. You have the ranch that you actually call your home, that he only visits rarely, and you said 'you', not 'we', when you said you have a cabin where you keep your favourite gun. Is that a place where Mr Gold never goes?"

"My favourite gun is a rifle, Edgar, a hunting rifle. What are you hunting with this line of questions?"

"Well, tell me, does Bradford Gold have the equivalent of a cabin somewhere, where you never go?"

"I, I really don't think so." Her brow was furrowed.

"I wonder more about the relationship between you and your husband, Miss la Mare." I began, thinking once more about how separate their lives were, it is almost as though they were two single people who meet now and then to maintain a marriage of convenience. I wondered what bountiful concessions the tax laws of America made to their married citizens, whether they were lovers or not.

"Gee, Mr Onslow, and we were gettin' on so well as Edgar an' Mary," she pouted, her American accent returning. "I guess yah can't let the detective in yah rest, can yah?"

"I am just thinking this through, trying to work out who Bradford Gold really is, Miss la Mare. I wondered if he too has a place of refuge? But I take your point. When we are alone I suppose we should adopt a professional relationship of client and detective," I said in a formal voice, before adding softly with a smile, "even though as an Assistant Detective back there you showed remarkable progress. Are you sure retiring to a lonely ranch is the right career move when you tire of the movies and all adulation and those bright lights?"

"Ha!" she laughed, "Who said I'd be lonely on mah ranch! No, I can 'play' at being anythin' and anyone of a choice of characters for a short while, but there is actually a person called 'me' livin' in here somewhere. Yah simply can't take the country rancher out of this country gal, because that's serious business. Yah can't play at ranching like yah can at being an assistant detective, yah'd get found out soon enough, usually in a way that gets yah killed. Yah have to work seriously at something that you have yahr whole heart invested in, otherwise it simply doesn't work."

"All right, Miss la Mare, answer me this, please." I looked at her straight in the eye. She didn't flinch at all and held my gaze.

"OK, ask me whatever you want, Mr Onslow."

"I notice how upbeat you are even though your husband has been missing for a month. He may be missing through misadventure, killed in London by an air raid, or he may simply have decided to run away and hide. He may have done something he is ashamed of, something that he wouldn't even tell you about in his letters...."

"You read his letters?"

"I did. Miss la Mare, ... Miss Jones, ... Mary," I said gently, stretching across to touch the back of one of her hands, which were gripping her knees. She relaxed her hands and allowed me to take them in mine.

"When did your husband consult you about joining in the defence of his mother country?"

"He didn't."

"In a roundabout way, more by reading through the written lines, he only informed you on his first letter home, didn't he?"

"Yes." Very quietly, she replied, looking at her feet. We sat there toe to toe, my shiny size ten police issue boots and her dainty but sensible shoes that she had swapped two full suitcases for.

"Your husband always tells you at the end of each rather polite and awfully tediously-worded and unemotional letter that he loves you and loves you dearly. Does he? Does he love you really? Or is he only echoing the sort of sign off that I assume you put on the end of your letters?"

She looked at me with little girl eyes, that were big and moist. She blinked and tears escaped, first from one eye, then the other, running down her cheeks.

"I only played the assistant detective today," Mary replied, so quiet that I barely hear her above the noise from the rails. "You're the real detective here, so you tell me, because I don't know if he loves me, Mr Onslow, anyway near as much as I love him, I really don't. I wish I did know. We can only be certain of how we feel about the people we love and hope that our lover loves us as much as we love them."

"But you do love him and perhaps right now you feel you are lost without him or his love?"

"Are you more worried," she asked, getting control of her emotions, like the superb actress she was, even managing the barest hint of a smile, "about the greater possibility of my suicide than his, Edgar?"

"Frankly, Mary, yes."

She smiled more expansively at that, but it still seemed forced, unreal. She sniffed and released her right hand, so in turn I released my light hold of her left hand but she gripped harder with that hand, not allowing me to go. She pulled a delicate folded lace handkerchief from her purse and shook it open with her one free hand and dabbed a corner on each cheek to dry her tears.

I noticed a tiny monogram on the corner of the hankie, saying "MJ". Was she really as thorough as this in her preparation to play my plain assistant "Mrs Mary Jones"?, I wondered.

"I do love Brad, my husband, very much, Edgar. He is the bravest, most honest man, or at least with me he is, and the most determined and steadfast person I know. OK, he is an actor, a performer, and may well prove to have feet of clay in real life. However, I believe we all have the potential to be cheats and liars if we relax our eternal guard on our feelings. I know that he has his own fears and doubts, but he faces them every day. That is why I know he is the bravest man I know, because he recognises he has those fears and he continually confronts them. He doesn't allow them to take control of his life. Brad is always in control of the situation. But he is not just self-centred. He is the best friend anyone can ever have. You know that from what that little man Lilley said; he tries to be every man's good friend, and he is sincere in that objective. He loves to be surrounded by people who he likes and admires and he needs the same response from them in return. Bradford Gold, my husband, is my best friend. He would do his very best to protect me from what the world could throw at me, and he knows I would do exactly the same for him. I do want to find him, Mr Onslow, Edgar, I want to find him and tell him not to worry, that he need not be frightened anymore, that he is not alone and abandoned, and that he is loved. And I need you to help me find him. You will, Edgar, won't you?"
"Yes, I will, Mary. I will find him for you."

"Thank you, I thank you Edgar with all my heart," she said, "And I know that together we will find him."

"Yes, we will. But I am not sure that he wants to be found, if even Special Branch have given up on him so soon."

"Yeah, that is strange, is it not?"

"Yes it is. What I want to know is the why. Once I have that, the how and the where will make sense. I know that wartime romances happen, but I really don't think this is the cause of Gold's disappearance. There do not appear to have been the opportunities since he enlisted. I also know that the pressures of continual danger play tricks with people's minds," I said, "I had many of my friends who were even more deeply affected by their war experiences than I, and one or two lost their minds completely. And one of my friends ... well, he brought an end to his inner torment himself, when it all got too much for him. I am just saying that we all have our own individual breaking point and it might be best to fear the worst and take it from there."

She tucked her handkerchief away and held out that spare hand by invitation. I took it and stroked it gently with my thumb, as I had to her other hand.

"I did come over here to England fearing the worst. It was all I could think of. But then I couldn't come up with a single reason, however terrible, that he would not tell me about it, if he contemplated anything so drastic. That is why I believe he is alive but unable to write. Maybe he is hurt or sick, caught up in the bombing, or held against his will."

"No, Mary, the police have checked all the casualties and seriously injured in the last month. Anyone in uniform wears metal dog tags around their necks, unlike the last war when our dog tags were cardboard and we ended up with so many graves marked "Unknown Soldier". Brad is too famous to be missed from that list. The Yard assures me that they could not find him among the dead or wounded."

"OK, I wasn't aware they checked. Still, if he wanted to commit suicide, I know that he would tell me first, he wouldn't just do it and let me find out or, even worse, leave me never knowing his fate. OK, It might be a month after he did the deed before I received his letter, but that last letter would definitely be sent. My personal assistant is under instruction to open all my letters and telegraph me at the hotel as soon as she knows anything of consequence. You are not so different from my husband, Edgar. Maybe that is why I feel so comfortable with you and around you. I hope you don't take offence at my words, but I think you do know yourself as well as Brad knows himself, and I believe that you also have that inner strength to overcome your fears and you demonstrate that daily, in spite of your disability. Brad also confronts his own disabilities head on and does what he can to defeat them, or at least hold them at bay."

"What does he fear, Mary?"

She hesitated. "Discovery. He is terrified that people will find out who the real Brad Gold is. Like I would be ashamed of being less than convincing playing the role as an assistant detective." She smiled at that.

"I didn't see any chance of that today." I smiled. So far today, the character of 'Mrs Mary Jones' Home Counties secretarial graduate had been maintained immaculately, even now as I probed so personally into her affairs.

"Bless you, Edgar. But Brad has the advantage that he never has to confront those fears alone, he always had someone to support him; firstly, his family, who love him unreservedly and then he added me as another stabilising prop. While you appear to have no-one in your life to give you the same support, to smooth away your frowns, to boost your ego, to make you feel whole again. Your words, 'whole' and 'not as whole as she expected' are telling. So, who loves you Edgar, and who in turn do you love? And," she added softly, her face suddenly sad, "don't say you love me, dear heart, because everyone does, it is one of those consequences and fears that I too have to live with."

"You are right, nobody loves me, and that is perfectly all right with me. You may think me morose, Mary. It really is Mary, not Marcia, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mary Jones is who I am, even my marriage certificate actually says Mary Gold née Jones. The Studio didn't think my real name had enough gravitas for a movie star. I suppose my handkerchief gave me away?"

"Yes."

"My mother embroidered a whole bunch of them for me all through my childhood. Every time I wipe my nose I remember back to when my mother used to wipe my nose for me. I can forget that I'm supposed to be a 'movie star' and I am completely grounded in my roots. Yeah, everybody loves me, as a Hollywood star, a character from a fairy tale. But I know the few people who really love Mary Jones, rancher's daughter, and that is most important to me. Who really loves Edgar Onslow, the boy who went to war and came back as a policeman?"

"Really no-one, well hardly anyone, I do still have one sister and we get along all right seeing each other every few weeks. But, as I was going to say, I may have no marital partner but I do have a family and do a job that involves really horrible deeds and causes pain to whole families, but I can reduce that pain to something of short duration and the truths I seek bring relief to people who otherwise would be eaten away by doubt or guilt."

"I know, Edgar. And my relationship with my husband means that if I did find out that Brad had taken a temporary lover, or even a permanent one, then I happily resolve to forgive him. I would take him back if there was any option to do so. But, I regret to say that if our relationship on those terms became common knowledge, our marriage could be so damaged that it might not survive."

So, I thought, would she then seek another marriage, perhaps a similar one of convenience like her current one appears to have been? Or would she wait until some rich and handsome young fellow swept her off her feet? Seeing how she had charmed everyone she met, including an old fool like me, I knew she could have the pick of virtually any man she wanted.

CHAPTER SIX

A POMPOUS PENGUIN

IT WAS quite late when we reached Liverpool Street station and I knew that by the time I got home to Mile End I would miss Mrs McPherson's evening meal, yet again. It was Thursday, which meant cold cuts and home-made pickles with watery mashed potatoes, made with margarine instead of butter under war-time rationing, followed by something like tinned peaches and Bird's powdered custard made with water rather than milk. It wasn't much of a meal to miss, even though I was quite hungry.

Miss Marcia la Mare, a supposedly self-absorbed mistress of the silver screen, noticed my quiet reflection and, without a word from me, offered a solution to a problem that I suppose she must have sensed I had.

"I guess it's pretty late for quiet little London town in the middle of a war, Mr Onslow?" she asked, back in her American accent. I nodded in reply.

She said this in the same assertive voice she had used in my office yesterday. As my client she was all too aware that she was also my employer.

"Do yah usually cook yahr own evenin' meal when you get home, or do yah have a house-keeper who does that small service for yah?"

"I live in a lodging house, Miss la Mare, my landlady has a number of guests and prepares a daily evening dinner for all her tenants, plus a cooked breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays."

"What did you eat last night, may I ask?" She knew before she asked, from the timing of my telephone call, that I was late getting home.

"I was too late getting home and missed the evening meal, so I adjourned to a nearby café and had some tinned sardines on toast."

"That don't sound nourishing enough for an active man, and yah're painfully thin for the size of yah frame. So I assume that yah meal is always served by yahr landlady at a given time in the early evening?"

"Six-forty-five sharp," I replied.

"It is gone six," she said, looking at her tiny wrist watch, "at my hotel I usually dine at eight, although they never actually demand their guests to be sharp about the time at all, so I insist you join me for dinner as my guest this evening."

"I am sure that for their guests they are not so strict on timing, ma'am, but they usually are in all other respects and I am hardly dressed for a West End hotel restaurant, where even in wartime I am sure that they require guests to dress appropriately for dinner, unless you are under wartime orders to dress in khaki, Navy or Air Force blue at all times, of course."

"Yes," she agreed, back in her Home Counties' English, "in wartime, some concessions must be allowed and they do, although the hotel managers are such a stuffy lot otherwise. So, Mr Onslow, Edgar, would you prefer to share a meal with me as my guest, served in my room or, alternatively dine with company in the hotel restaurant? My treat, you understand, and you must accept one or the other, or I will be exceedingly upset. I am sure you would not wish to upset your newest and, I hope, most valued assistant detective on her very first day of work for you. It could scar the poor girl for life, you know."

"I have no wish to be disagreeable at all, Miss la Mare." I did not like to admit that she was not only my first assistant detective since setting out on my own, but she was also my only client at the moment. "In that case, Mrs Jones, Mary, proprietary dictates that I must accept your kind invitation to dine in your hotel restaurant and hope they can find us a dark corner where my drab brown suit might look vaguely military, at least to those suffering from shortness of sight."

"Thank you, I respectfully accept your personal RSVP, Edgar. Come, I must find a phone booth, do you have any of your big copper pennies to spare? I swear this purse is designed for a lady of the night, as there is only room for a lipstick and a French letter!"

She grinned as she clutched my arm and we steered towards the main concourse of the terminus in search of a public telephone box.

The taxi we collected from the rank outside dropped us off at the rear rather than the front entrance of her swanky West End hotel, as directed by Miss la Mare.

It was now pouring with rain which was trying its hardest to turn to sleet.

Mary even allowed me to pay the cabbie's fare, while insisting that it appeared on my final bill as a justifiable expense.

A girl in a maid's outfit rushed out with a huge umbrella to escort us both relatively comfortably to the modest staff entrance. She must've been stood at the staff entrance waiting for us.

Once inside, she led us to a large and unmanned utility service lift and confidently operated the controls herself. She folded the umbrella and tried her best to melt into the background, as all the maids in the best hotels do, but there is nowhere to hide in a lift, particular one so unadorned with the usual mahogany cladding or wire work. The lift shuddered and moved slowly upwards.

"Thank yah Milly," Miss la Mare said to the girl, returning to her native accent. "May I introduce yah to Mr Edgar Onslow, my private ex-Scotland Yard inspector of detectives, and Edgar, this is my maid, all the while I am here in this lovely hotel. Milly is, as yah've seen demonstrated, a skilled lifesaver."

I reached over and offered the girl an outstretched hand, which she gripped tentatively with a couple of fingers and a thumb, curtsying while doing so.

"Pleasure to meet you Milly, I hope your sister Sheila is well and looking forward to her big day."

"Pleasure to meet you Sir, I'm sure," she replied, having shot a quick glance at Miss la Mare, "and yeah, me sister is very well, considerin' how nervous she is, an' all."

"We had a long and tedious train journey, Milly and, after all, he is a professional detective," Mary laughed and Milly, clearly more relaxed in her employer's company than mine, joined her in the amusement.

It was a pretty laugh, Milly was probably a very young girl of only 15, 16 or so.

"Well," the girl responded to her boss brightly, "he mus' be very good, ma'am, cos he ain't got room in that bag for none o' them bright lamps, like wot they question suspects wiv in the pictures!"

"Indeed, not, young lady," I said, "but, I usually find that just a glare and a slight lift of one of my eyebrows is enough to get any guilty scoundrel spilling the beans." I don't watch moving pictures, myself, as it hurts my eyes and therefore unsettles my mind, but unlike some, the guesthouse of Mrs McPherson is open to both gentlemen and lady guests and two of the young ladies currently in residence talk of nothing else but the moving pictures they see at the dinner and weekend breakfast table.

Milly giggled and, as the lift slid slowly to a stop, she opened the door and peered out, looking both ways.

"The coast is clear ma'am," she said and led us off down the corridor.

I waved Miss la Mare through to follow her maid before me and I brought up the rear. The door to her suite was only ten feet away, opposite only one other door in the corridor, by the time we reached it Milly had opened the door, presumably with a skeleton key, and ushered us in before she dashed away, no doubt to deal with the unmanned lift.

Inside we stood in a lobby leading to a hallway, off of which were several rooms. That lobby itself was bigger than any hotel room I had ever stayed in, or even entered with a photographer for the business end of my present occupation.

"This way, Edgar," Mary instructed, and I followed her through one of the first hallway doors into a lounge, where stood a small man of great age, immaculately dressed in a pin-striped suit.

I could tell he was a tailor simply by the long measuring tape about his neck. I could feel the shame of my shabby brown utility suit and big ex-copper's boots while he looked me up and down with a critical eye.

He smiled at us though, and nodded appreciably at some level of understanding with his mistress, Miss la Mare, that I couldn't quite fathom. Then he turned his full attention back to me.

"Good evening, Sir," he said, "I am Mr Sims, I wonder if you would kindly remove your coat and jacket for me?"

I looked at Miss la Mare with a glare and raised eyebrow, which proved totally ineffective, despite my earlier boast to the maid Milly.

She merely beamed at me with a smile that would melt concrete, tossed her beret and coat onto a nearby sofa and sat down, legs crossed, in a hard backed chair, already placed strategically, no doubt by her maid Milly, ready to be entertained by the proceedings that I had no doubt were about to be unveiled.

The thought occurred to me of the absurdity of an actress being audience to a show starring a talentless member of the public, me.

Resigned to my fate, in order to metaphorically sing for my supper, I removed my coat and jacket and looked for somewhere to stow them. Then I noticed a clothing rack, one with wheels, that had a selection of three dinner jackets and trousers, plus several dress shirts hanging, and several pairs of patent leather shoes on a bottom shelf. I dropped my outer garments onto another nearby settee.

With the minimum of fuss, the tailor took his measurements, lifting and moving what have you as appropriate, until he replaced the tape around his neck and put his notebook and pencil stub down. He bowed to the lady.

"I salute you ma'am," he said, quite humbly, "your estimation of the best fit for the gentleman is perfect. Milly assured me, when she passed on your instructions that only one dining suit would suffice. Milly, and therefore you, ma'am, were right. Please accept my apologies for any doubts I had held in that regard."

She rose gracefully with a smile, and curtsied to the aged tailor, "No apology is necessary, Mr Sims, I thank you for your valuable service at such short notice and ... and at such a time as this."

"I am only grateful that I could be of some service to you, ma'am, to you both." He turned to me, "I will place the suit and a shirt on your bed, Sir. Would you like me to assist you in your dress, and help with your tie?"

"No thank you, Mr Sims, I think I can manage." I replied, thinking, 'my bed?'

Mr Sims unhooked the first dining suit off the rack and a dress shirt from the back and carried them through to what I assumed was a bedroom, assigned to me to change in. I turned to Miss la Mare, who rose from her chair. Just then Milly came in through the door and stood at the back by the wall to await further instructions.

"Well," Miss la Mare said with a smile, "I am off to have a hot and fragrant bath and get changed for dinner." She pointed to another door on her right where she would go. "If you go through the door where Mr Sims has taken your suit, you will find another bathroom, with appropriate bathing products and a razor, and I hope we can meet back here in, say ..." she turned and looked at Milly.

"Thirty-nine minutes, Ma'am, Sir," Milly smiled sweetly and curtsied.

"Thank you, Milly," I said, "I am most impressed by how you have accomplished all of Miss la Mare's instructions."

The girl giggled, and curtsied again, this time much more extravagantly, "You're very welcome, Sir."

As I turned, Mr Sims, the tailor, emerged from the other bedroom.

"Everything you will need is in there waiting for you, Sir, if you have any problems at all, just ring reception, I'll be around for the next thirty minutes, just in case."

"You are very kind, Mr Sims, thank you."

"Think nothing of it, Sir," he smiled weakly, with the slightest nod of his silver-haired head, "my only granddaughter Sarah was a great fan and friend of Miss la Mare. She has been of great service to us and anything we can do for her is no trouble."

As he wheeled his rack towards the door, preceded by the efficient Milly, who would no doubt operate the service lift for him, he turned to me.

"I have your measurements now, Mr Onslow, I would deem it a great honour to me and my family if I could be permitted to make a suit of day clothes for you, in thanks for your assistance in Miss la Mare's time of need."

"Thank you, Mr Sims, I really don't know what to say, the name of Sims & Butler of Saville Row is absolutely unimpeachable." I wondered at the "was" reference to his granddaughter, but was afraid to draw attention to the pain he clearly disguised by his professionalism.

"Then just say yes, Mr Onslow. I look forward to meeting you again in the near future."

I decided to shower and shave rather than draw a bath. The wall-mounted radiators meant this was the warmest bathroom I had ever been in and I may have been tempted to luxuriate overlong before donning the silk underpants and socks along with the marvellous evening suit that Mr Sims had supplied, before fitting my artificial foot into the shiny dress shoes that had been left by the side of the bed.

I was slowed in my progress of tying my bow tie when I discovered the neatly folded silk pyjamas under my dinner jacket. I also noticed that my old trousers, undergarments and boots had disappeared while I was in the bathroom.

A soft knock on the door dragged me from my reverie.

"Come in," I said.

Milly poked her head around the door, "It's almost time Sir, are you ready?"

"Yes," I replied as I pulled on my jacket and turned to face her.

Milly whistled softly, "Very nice, Sir, you'll do Ma'am fine as her escort tonight, though I say so meself."

"Thank you, Milly, but I know I look like a pompous penguin."

She giggled delightfully again, her colour deepening, "If you change that to a dashin' penguin, then I'd mos' certainly agree, Sir."

I followed the girl into the lounge. The main light had been turned off, used presumably for the benefit of Mr Sims and his measurement taking, the room now more subtly lit by a number of electric lamps on side tables around the room, mostly with peach tinted shades making the room feel warmer. Naturally all the thick black blackout curtains prevented any leaking of light to the outside.
Milly carried on through to the other bedroom, while I remained standing in the lounge, and within moments the most glorious creature on earth emerged, my dinner date for the evening or, more correctly, my dinner hostess. Notwithstanding the obligatory gas mask box dangling from her one bare shoulder, in that sheer silk evening gown, she was absolutely stunning!

CHAPTER SEVEN

TO DINE IS TO DREAM

"HOW did we meet?" Mary repeated my question, after the debris of the starting course, which was an acceptable brown Windsor soup, had been removed and while we waited unhurriedly for the main course.

We were sat at a table against a corner of the restaurant, in front of blackout curtains, which appeared to cover not just the windows, but lined the walls completely all around the room.

There were wide spaces between the occupied tables, so here we were quite private and free to talk comfortably without fear of being overheard. From far off, but only when the restaurant doors were open, we could faintly hear music from a small jazz band playing dance music, so a bar or a ballroom must have been close by.

"I know it seems an odd question, after we have chatted all around every other set of pleasantries without mentioning the elephant in the room, but my self-imposed exile from polite society has completely dried up my resources of polite conversation. Is your husband a completely taboo subject, as we sit in our, your, finery enjoying each other's company and the prospects of a delicious meal?"

"No, Edgar, he ain't a closed subject. How could he be? My whole purpose for being here, yahr reason for being at this table with me now, is because of him. It is just this situation is unlike anything I could ever imagine. Look at us sitting here: yah, a man looking as fetchin' as yah do, dining with me, looking at mah ravishing best, set in this romantic dining room, yet yah initiate this pleasant conversation with a question about my absent husband."

"We can just sit here quietly, you know," I replied softly, "I never go to picture houses at all any more, like I used to before 1914, so I have never experienced the magic of what you and your husband do. Over here most people still call the moving pictures 'the flicks', and with good reason, so I found long ago that I cannot sit comfortably in the dark and watch those flickering images."

"They are much smoother than they used to be in the handcranked days, Edgar."

"Yes, others have said so, but I much prefer looking at you in person, so our conversation could be about the craters of the moon, for all I care, I wouldn't enjoy our conversation any less. I can pick up the investigation into your husband's disappearance again in the morning."

Mrs Jones laughed. "That's more like it, Edgar! When you opened the conversation with a question about my husband, I thought I was starting to lose my touch."

"Hardly."

"How about if I tell yah mah story, and then yah tell me yahrs, about how yah fell in love and lost yahr gal, is that a deal?"

"Yes, a deal."

"How we met, mmm, where do begin? OK, yah may have already guessed that the film industry consists of wolves and lambs, and young starlets trying to get a part in a movie are innocent lambs there ready for the slaughter, and nearly all are sacrificed in the name of their art. The directors and producers of films have enormous power over the careers of actors, and we all know that such total power corrupts those that possess it. I am sure yah realise that, after dealin' with criminals most of yahr life."

"Yes, indeed."

"Well, back in 1927 and '28 I was just a simple, moderately pretty and totally unaccompanied young girl with dreams, who wanted to play leadin' characters in the movies. I had played rôles in theatre classes, getting great marks at school and, back in my sweet little home town, I threw myself into amateur dramatics when I could spare the time after school. I was told by mah drama teachers that I had talent as a player of many parts. So I moved to Hollywood and did manage to get a few itty bitty walk on parts in movies, but breaking into the big time was difficult, so, I did anything I could helping out around various studios."

"Including the costumes department, I presume?"

"Yes, of course, your tuxedo. Actually, we call the costume department 'Wardrobe' and I worked many hours in there, and my quick assessing of actors' sizes helped keep everyone movin'. I could have been a top wardrobe manager, I think, if I had settled for that, but I was there in Hollywood because I wanted to act parts and was sure I had enough raw talent, only lacked the experience in front of the camera."

"The difficulty getting started in many jobs, is that you can't get the right level of experience employers want, if you are constantly turned down for lack of experience."

"Exactly," she said, but paused as she looked behind me.

Just then our main course arrived with a herd of waiters, who placed our hot plates, and meat, vegetables and sauces on those plates with flourish and alacrity. They were there and gone in a matter of moments, although they were calmly deliberate in their actions and did not appear to rush. As soon as they departed and, between delicious forkfuls of hot food, Mary continued.

"Anyway, the big time continually eluded me, although I applied to audition for any and every suitable female part. Now, Edgar, some directors are notorious for forcing girls to provide ... shall we say, certain favours against their will, and some of those same directors tried it on with me too, but I wouldn't play ball, not at all. However, after a great audition I made for a part that had fourth or fifth billin', this well-respected director was really enthusiastic about my performance. His reaction seemed genuine. He promised that I had the part regardless and dismissed the remaining auditionees. He asked me, while he cleared the set, if I would I go into a certain room, where a young lady would be sent from the offices to take down my details and show me a contract to peruse, and he would catch up with us there later with the necessary contract witnesses in tow. I was so delighted to get the part, that I did what he asked and didn't realise that while I waited in this office, the director sent everyone home and came after me on his own. Brad was in the Studio nearby, heard me scream, and correctly surmised that I was being attacked by a potential rapist."

"I didn't know about that incident anywhere." I said, recalling the article from the library that I had read.

"No, you wouldn't, very few people know what happened, so...."

"I will never breathe a word," I said, "but I can understand it must've been frightening for you, especially as you must've been very young, over twelve years ago, was it, at the start of your career?"

"Yeah, I was 17, a year into my acting career, with very little to show for my efforts up till then," she said, smiling in recollection, "OK, I was frightened initially by the director's attack, but I was also no stranger to rough and tumble, being brought up on a ranch, ridin', wranglin' and ropin' cows, then birthin' and manhandlin' calves that were as big as me from cows who were three times bigger than me. I was young and fit, while he was old and fat. I ended up beatin' him up before Brad could put his shoulder to and break down the locked door and prevent me doin' real permanent damage to the creep."

"Ha! I think that is priceless."

"Well, there was a right to-do, because as son of the Studio owner Brad fired that director on the spot. He was known to be a famous letcher in the more elevated circles of the industry, although that little fact was unknown to me at the time. Mmm, this meat and sauce is delicious, isn't it? Anyhoo, this director was also hugely successful, which I was very well aware of, with a string of very profitable hits to his name. He attracted a lot of top actors to work with him, and was a particular favourite of the owner of the studio, who we all called Old Man Gold, who happened to be Brad's father, Alfred."

"I can see how that could be a problem for the Studio, quite some conflict of interest. How did your future husband-to-be happen to be there?" I noticed her wine glass was almost empty, "Would you like some more wine?"

"Yes, please."

I topped up our glasses, virtually finishing the bottle, prompting a waiter to appear at my elbow. "Would you like more wine, Sir?"

"Not for me," I said, "but...." I looked at Mary. She shook her head very slightly, so I replied to the waiter, "No, thank you."

After he walked away, I said, "Sorry, Mary, waiters always seem to approach the gentlemen in these places."

"I'm used to that, which is why I often have food sent up to mah room to eat when travellin'."

"So why go through all that you have done tonight to dine down here with me?"

"Why not? I had a great day pretending being a normal person again for once, and I wanted a normal dinner date to round off the evening. Also—"

"But this is hardly normal, Mary. You are a famous married woman and I am a complete unknown and a habitual bachelor." I was starting to raise an eyebrow again, this time minus the ineffectual glare.

She laughed, "True, but we actors, who live in make-believe most of the time, are suckers who really want to believe that while what we make up is fantasy, the lives we lead are true, so just humor me Edgar, please?"

"Of course. This is all rather unbelievable for me too, you know."

"I can imagine." She smiled, "So, where was I?"

"Your director was sacked and Brad was no doubt in trouble with his father over the matter. I can't quite see how Brad suddenly came into your story."

"It was both a stroke of luck, and testimony to the type of person that Brad is. It turned out that one of the cameramen on the auditions was one of Brad's friends. Brad makes friends indiscriminately of who they are or what they do. It is one of his most endearin' features. The cameraman felt confident enough in his friendship to go up to Brad's office in the same set of buildin's and told him that this unknown girl, me, had stolen the scene with my audition and had the rôle sewn up, but that the director was up to his old tricks again and had lured me alone and defenceless to his office on a pretext. So Brad came lookin' for me."

"No doubt he was impressed by the results of your latest dramatic performance?"

"Indeed. After the incident, Brad took me somewhere nearby for a coffee, where he was able to smooth my ruffled feathers. Meanwhile, the movie director took a really different story to Mr Gold, the owner of the studio. Soon, someone came lookin' for Brad in his usual haunts and he was immediately summoned to see his father at their home. Brad insisted I went along with him. I was more than willin' to explain to his father that his son came to the rescue of my honor. His father Old Man Gold and his uncle Bernie —"

"Uncle Bernie?"

"Yes, Bernard Cave, he's sweet guy, a minority owner of the Gold Studios, same age as Brad's father and also English, so they all were really good old friends. He and his wife Connie lived in the mansion right next door to the Golds. I think Brad must've been named Bernard after Bernie. They were a nice old couple, but childless, and sweet Connie passed only a couple of years ago, leavin' not just Bernie devastated, but the whole Gold family bereft."

"Including his namesake?"

"Sure. Bernie loves Brad like a son, and Brad was very fond of them both. Well, Bernie and Mr Gold saw us both together for a few minutes while they heard first Brad's side of the story, and then I told them my part and how I bit, gouged, punched and kicked Alfred's favourite director's sorry ass, and made them aware that I would do the same to any damned director who tried the same trick as he pulled on me."

I had to chuckle, the fire was burning in Mary's blue eyes even twelve years on.

"Old Man Gold, as I said, he's really called Alfred, told us that the director had told him that it was Brad who had beaten him up. Brad chipped in with, 'I never laid a finger on him Pops, it was all down to Mary here defending her honor'. So Mr Gold sent us to another room while he called the waiting director back in and confirmed his sacking, telling him that if even one word got out criticising either Brad or me, the press would get the full true report of the incident, that he got beaten up by the slip of a teenage girl refusing to be his unwilling victim and ensure that he'd never work in the industry again."

"I would like to have been a fly on that wall!"

"You and me both!" Mary continued, laughing, "by then it was quite late and Uncle Bernie went back to his place while the father and son took me out to dinner, after which the Old Man offered me a generous contract to appear in three movies in the next twelve months, and then Brad capped it all when he asked me out on a date at the end of the evenin'. Well, he was so indignant about the morals of what happened that I naturally felt perfectly safe with him and I have always felt that. We dated and he was a perfect gentleman on that date and every other date that followed closely behind that one. So, simply by datin' Brad Gold alone I became better known around the business, irrespective of the movie parts that my new contract secured. Then, when the contracted films came out, and I shared one of the two leadin' roles with Brad in the third of them, moviegoers found to some surprise that I could actually act. I soon became a star in my own right and other directors and leadin' actors insisted I consider their scripts."

"So you were an overnight success, and first choice date of the hottest heart-throb around, or so my ex-Yard sergeant's secretary says."

"Yes," she laughed, "it was an amazin' transformation in my fortunes. You know, Brad isn't at all one of those wolves we were talking about earlier, he has enormous respect for others, and that includes himself. Oh, he had previously dated all the top stars but each one never more than two or three times, and he never imposed himself on them, he told me so at the outset and I believed him, backed up by his behaviour towards me. As far as the press is concerned, there have been no 'kiss-and-tells' concernin' Brad at all. We soon became inseparable and met up every lunch and evenin' time, even breakfast, when we shared the same set on the same film. We became a recognised couple long before he asked me to marry him, then we had a long engagement for almost two years. Still the press and the gossip network made up rumours of splits, more in hope by desperate actresses than founded in any substance. We were married and everyone soon realised we had a strong unbreakable bond, and the pressures on us by those individuals who customarily use their attractiveness as a weapon to seduce, realised their efforts were in vain, and we could relax and enjoy both our professional and private lives."

"An amazing story," I said, "No wonder so many people draw attention to you both and draw inspiration from your enduring relationship."

"Yeah, durin' our long engagement, the Studio chiefs were wonderin' if Brad's popularity would suffer badly, especially with the added trauma of transition from silent to talkin' pictures. But we needn't have worried, so we brought the delay to an end and were married in a rather public and overly extravagant ceremony. So, now that we are about to have our coffee and mints, it's time to talk about yahr life. What of the young hero Eddy Onslow and the girlfriend yah lost, huh? Please, I want yah to tell me of what happened with her and yahr other friend, yahr best friend."

"I don't have a choice now, do I?"

"None at all. So spill the beans, Buster!"

"Maybe she never really was my girlfriend," I began, addressing those old wounds for the first time in forever, giving me a chance to analyse with less emotion. "The three of us grew up together in two side by side street of the small village we were born in and, well, we were just kids even when we broke up. What first brought us together romantically, I suppose, was when we three learned to dance. Tom was smart, certainly the more scholarly of the three of us, but less active and discovered on the dance floor that he had two left feet, while Mildred and I took to dancing like ducks to water and we were ... yes, we moved perfectly together because we trusted each other not to let the other one down. Dancing intimately, with our emerging hormones working overdrive, we realised that we were naturally attracted to each other and we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves, this had the effect of isolating our third friend, Tom."

"They do say 'three's a crowd'."

"I know. We were three childhood friends who grew up together and either combination of romantic pairing up between us could have emerged but me and Mildred mostly ended up together through our shared love of dancing. My other friend, though, was still my best mate and we still did lots of things together. Both Tom and I were Scouts first and then we drilled together in the local Militia and were dead keen to serve together with our other friends in the Great War campaign as soon as France was invaded by Germany. On the day war was declared, we went to join up for the duration in the volunteer army together, both of us lying about our ages. Tom was weeded out at the medical stage, with early signs of tuberculosis detected, while I was accepted and took the King's Shilling."

"That's a quaint way of putting it."

"It's true, you sign up and you are handed a silver shilling with the current King's head on it to make the bargain between the recruited and the Crown official. Then you're told not to spend that shilling all at once! On that first day of war, the recruiting sergeants had bags of freshly minted shillings ready to hand out to those that signed on short attestation papers."

"Short attestation?"

"Normally you sign up for periods of seven years, but the Short Attestation Forms committed you until the end of hostilities. We all thought we'd run the Hun off back to skulk in Germany and be home in time for Christmas."

"That didn't work out well."

"No it didn't, but thousands signed up that first day."

"Like Brad did this time around."

"Yes, he did." I sat quietly and finished up my vegetables and our plates collected.

"Go on, Ed."

"So Tom went home empty handed to bemoan my deserting both him and Mildred, while the very next day I went away to war, after giving Mildred my symbolic shilling to look after for me. I did go home for a weekend leave after six weeks' basic training, which was no more arduous than I imagined as I was already trained to the same basic level in the Militia. Even by then, in such a short timescale, I suspected that Tom was comforting Mildred while I was away. I said as much, but both denied they were anything other than the close good friends we all three always were. I went away again and was shipped to France and Flanders a month or two later to fight in the trenches for almost two years before I returned crippled. I exchanged letters with both my friends but gradually, with each letter I received from Mildred, I felt I was losing her, losing them both. Then came the battle of the Somme and me losing my foot."

Mary reached across and placed her left hand on my right one. She didn't have the engagement ring with its massive rock that she had on in my office yesterday, but she did wear her simple wedding band that she had worn throughout the day.

My feelings and emotions were tumbling and I forced my mind back 26 years to when my emotions were turned upside down; life was simpler then.

"I had already suspected that Mildred and Tom had become lovers during my posting and, it turned out, it was only my being away at war and our prior engagement that prevented them from marrying. Once I returned, and was safe home in England, even though I was badly injured, they admitted their love for each other to me in their first and only hospital visit and Mildred returned my engagement ring and King's Shilling to me."
"That is such a cold thing to do, Edgar, I'm so sorry."

"As soon as they came through the door, Mildred's obvious pregnancy heralded her betrayal. They needed to get married sooner rather than later."

"They should have been more careful and more honest with you."

"In a way, I can understand what they were thinking even if they didn't say it. If Mildred had sent me a 'Dear John' letter at The Front, and lots of people I knew had got them, it was often a death sentence. I mean, what were these men fighting for but their families, a loved one at home and a shared future together? Once all hope of reconciliation had gone, many of these jilted men became walking dead, waiting for the next bullet to put them out of their misery. At least they spared me that."

"Huh! I will give them a piece of my mind on that subject, if I ever meet them."

"Sadly, Mary, you can't, not both of them at any rate. They had three small children by the time Tom died in the early nineteen-twenties. They were always quite poor, as Tom had been sickly for some time and he couldn't hold down his drawing office job. And the poor damp housing they lived in, well, that worsened Tom's condition, even killed off two of their young children and affected Mildred's long term health too. Mildred moved back with her widowed Mum after Tom passed, and they brought up the surviving child alone, the kid would be about twenty now, I suppose, probably in uniform. As far as I know, Mild still lives with her mother. My folks and two eldest sisters have also gone, and my third sister was much younger than us and never really knew Tom or Mildred, so I've never hear news of them in recent years."

We had finished our coffee.

"Shall we finish this chat upstairs?" Mary said as she signed the bill to be charged to her suite of rooms.

"Should I not, for propriety's sake, take a cab home to my digs, Mary?"

"Nonsense," she snorted, "We are both grown up adults, sharing a suite of rooms containin' separate bedrooms and bathrooms, in a highly respectable hotel. If ya don't trust me to preserve yahr honour, Edgar, you have a very effective lock on yahr bedroom door, and further more, if ya have any doubts about yahr own morals, I will undertake in the name of this propriety ya speak of to lock my door too. Would that make ya feel both safe and ease yahr conscience, Edgar?"

"I feel a little silly even suggesting impropriety, Mary, I was merely trying to second guess what other people might think."

"Don't, it is a pointless exercise what others think, or don't you agree?"

"You are absolutely right. Would you care to take an old soldier's arm, Mary?"

"I would take great pleasure in doing so, Edgar."

CHAPTER EIGHT

TO DANCE TO REALITY

AS WE started to rise to leave the dining room, a waiter immediately came over and told us with a whisper that a bombing raid was imminent, the air raid warnings had been sounded above ground and we wouldn't be allowed to go upstairs to our rooms. I hadn't realised until that point that the restaurant had been relocated in a basement.

That is the problem with these lifts, I didn't notice the number of floors we took going down. My excuse is that I was blinded by my 'date'. Then I realised why the thick curtains lined the walls and not just the 'windows'; there were no windows, just brick walls to disguise!

The waiter offered us complimentary coffee, if we would remain in our seats for a while. I could see that we had little choice, and the setting was far more comfortable than any draughty underground station, which was my usual nightly bedroom!

It was nearly midnight when the hotel boiler was turned off and it quickly grew cold in the cellar. Mary soon felt the effects first through her thin shawl. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. By now, one could feel the vibrations of the bombs through the floor, while the crystal chandeliers swayed and rattled over our heads.

In the meantime, the basement room had filled with other guests and servants, who were evacuated from higher floors. They were dressed in various guises of bedroom or lounge wear, all carrying their regulation gas masks. They were joined by the band from the ballroom upstairs, carrying their instruments.

I spotted Milly in her nightwear and dressing gown among the staff and informed Mary of her presence. She called Milly over to join us. Apparently, the girl said, the four young maids shared a room in the hotel, so they were always on call, and Mary told her to fetch her roommates over to join us at our table, bringing spare chairs with them. One of our waiters who served us earlier brought around piles of blankets and pillows, and, after Mary had asked him to leave six of each, enquired if the kitchens were still open. Yes, came the reply, but apologised they were reduced to supplying hot drinks only during the air raid.

"Is a large jug or two of coffee or cocoa and six mugs possible, Jimmy?" she asked.

"Certainly madam. I will arrange it immediately."

The band that had come to the basement from the abandoned ballroom started to warm up and play their instruments, if only to keep warm and take everyone's minds off the Luftwaffe who were bombing the hell out of the West End. Soon they were playing odd snatches of dance tunes.

A guest from a nearby table stepped up and asked Mary if she would like to dance. She declined his offer with a gentle smile. The brash young man, who really should have been in uniform, I thought, pointedly looked at my walking stick hooked over the back of my chair, with what I took as a sneer, before he reluctantly walked away. I stood up.

"No Edgar!" Mary warned.

"No?" I replied. "In that case do you mind if I ask Milly for the next dance when she returns with her friends?"

"No ... Yes ... Yes, I do mind indeed Edgar, if you wish to dance, you should surely ask your dinner guest first."

I stepped around the table and bowed deeply to her, holding out my arm, "Would you give me the pleasure of this next dance, ma'am?"

"It would give me the greatest of pleasures," she replied graciously.

Mary rose and slipped my jacket and her shawl onto the back of her chair. Then she took my arm.

We stepped out onto the empty space in the middle of the room and made it a dance floor. We took up our positions and began to dance a waltz, regardless of whatever tuneless noise the band were making in their individual instrument tune-up.

Almost immediately, someone in the band noticed us and, after a "one-two-three", joined us on the right beat and I whirled my partner around the dance floor in time to the music of a proper dance band.

It was the first time I had danced in a ballroom, since my last week's home leave in late September 1914. That was my last dance before and my first since I lost my foot in a muddy shell hole at The Somme. Alone in my bedroom at Mrs McPherson's, when the radio played a waltz, I would sometimes shuffle alone about the room, but this was altogether something else, I was floating on a cloud.

Soon other smiling couples joined us in the middle of the room. Tables and chairs were moved over to accommodate the growing number of keen dancers. It wasn't a proper sprung wooden dance floor, this was a basement temporarily converted by the necessities of war, after all, but it passed the time amiably.

Even staff, waiters and chambermaids too, most of them garbed in dressing gowns with swinging boxes of gas masks over their shoulders, danced on, oblivious to the exploding bombs above that simply couldn't compete with all those carefree dancers vibrating that unusual dance floor.

We went back to the table as soon as the jugs of cocoa arrived on our table, summoned by Milly with one of her characteristic giggles. On the way back to the table, the lanky young man approached me and asked,

"Excuse me, old chap, would you mind having a quiet word, so I can apologise for my rather gauche approach to your table earlier?"

I waved towards a spare patch of curtained wall near the kitchen where we could converse. "Go ahead," I said.

"Until your daughter removed your jacket to get up to dance, one simply hadn't realised she wore a wedding ring. If one had known, one wouldn't have asked her to dance. Terribly bad form on one's part, what? Mind you, your daughter's a beautiful girl and one couldn't have been blamed for not being able to take one's eyes orff her."

I ignored his inference that I looked old enough to be Mary's father, that would've made me a Dad at about 13, and dismissed him with, "Apology accepted, young man, thank you." But he wouldn't let me go as easily as that.

"Is your son-in-law, her husband away, I mean, away in one of the Services, Sir?"

"Yes, her husband's an RAF pilot, a veteran of almost 80 sorties with Bomber Command actually, only he's been missing for the past four weeks and we have not had any word."

"Oh, I'm sorry, that makes me feel even more that I must've come across to you both as a frightful cad. That's why I am here, tonight, actually, I'm orff to the Royal Military Academy on Monday, to start one's course towards a commission. Old Pater and Mater always have their milestone celebrations here at this hotel and they decided one needs a jolly good treat before one goes orff and does one's duty for Old Blighty. Well, I must toodle-pip, please pass on one's best wishes in finding her missing husband to your daughter and once again my sincere apologies for giving any offence to either of you, old chap."

"Not to worry, no offence taken. Do enjoy your time at Sandhurst. Do you know where you want to be posted when you are commissioned?"

"Tanks definitely, that's the future of warfare, I think, like the knights of old. Thick armour all about you and a big gun instead of a sword up front. Yes, that'll do me fine."

He nodded to me before he walked off towards his parents' table, while I rejoined my party for a welcome cup of cocoa, anticipating following up by more dancing, that is, if my foot held up.

CHAPTER NINE

LIFE BEFORE MARY

"I JOINED the Metropolitan Police as a temporary officer helping typing up policeman's reports, bagging and processing Crown evidence," I said to Mary after the all-clear sirens had sounded and guests were permitted to return to their rooms or suites for the remainder of the night. We had changed into our bed wear and donned respectable dressing gowns supplied to the suite and resting in her sitting room.

Mary was curled up with her legs comfortably tucked under her on a chaise langue, and I had snagged one of the comfy armchairs in her suite. Before she retired for what was left of the night, Milly had obtained for us another jug of cocoa, real cocoa like I remembered from before the war, not the adulterated stuff we had become used to as imports became difficult to acquire and therefore too expensive for common folk to afford. Somehow, the hotel did not have to obey the rationing laws for foreign guests and appeared to have access to unlimited secret sources of everything somewhere, for a price, of course.

"For some reason, as I was typing up all this Police stuff, evidence, eye-witness reports, coroner's notes, etc, as part of my rehabilitation, I showed that I had an excellent eye for detection, seeing leads to follow up, solutions or other clues left out of the submission that would strengthen the case when it got to court. So, when my six month period of War Office-paid temporary work ended, a blind eye was turned to my disability and I was admitted as a police constable detective while the war was still on, two years earlier than I should have been allowed to had I joined conventionally during peacetime."

"Was that because they were desperate for police officers and prepared to bend the rules?" Mary said as she stretched her shapely legs out in front of her.

"Partly, but also because my War Office regimental 'discharged unfit' papers had my made-up birth date on it dating from 1914 when I had lied about my age, pretending to be two years older than my real age."

"Oh, that was neat," Mary giggled, pulling her feet up and hugging her arms around her knees.

"It may have been fortunate at the time, but when I was laid off from the Met in 1937, my compensation, according to the time I had left until my Police and state pension kicked in, was a couple of years short, so I had to get a print out of my birth certificate from Somerset House, that's where all the registers are kept for the country."

"Oh, I think that information is kept in each State capital in the United States because, for example, divorces can be easily obtained in some states, no questions asked, and impossible in others, even the youngest age to marry varies from State to State, there's no real Federal standard. So, tell me more about your life before you joined the police."

"You really want to hear about Mildred, Tom and me, even though it is well past our bedtime, don't you?" I grinned.

"The eternal triangle, Edgar, it has fascinated readers, filmgoers and listeners around camp fires ever since cavemen walked the earth."

"Like Adam, Eve and The Serpent?" I suggested.

"Something like that, we all need our regular doses of romance, intrigue, seduction, and scandal. It's the only thing that gets us up in the mornings, to read the celebrity pages in the local press."

"All right then, but it is all very plain and unexciting, not scandalous at all. We were just children who grew up together in a relatively small rural village in Kent, quite close to London. So close, that, as the factories for the Royal Ordnance at Woolwich grew, the houses for the workers spread out and our village was swallowed up by the larger town. This made the local children stick together more closely, I think. Mildred, Tom and me were always close, we went everywhere together, we did everything as one, like Dumas' Musketeers. When we reached puberty, it dawned on us that Mildred gradually became a lot less like us and relatively more attractive, and Tom and I turned into rivals for her affections. As you know, Mild and I became more intimate, mainly through the medium of dance."

"And you asked her to marry you?"

"I did, and she accepted, sort of."

"Sort of? What does that mean?"

"When we were about 13 and in our last year of school, the schoolteacher thought we should all learn to dance a number of common ballroom dances. After we left school, both Mild and I worked in a grocery store, while Tom got a better job, or at least better potential paying job, starting as an errand boy in a drawing office."

"So you saw a lot more of Mildred than Tom did?"

I nodded. "In a way, yes, but they still saw each other regularly and we all got on together well. They actually both attended evening classes together at Woolwich Technical College, Mild doing a secretarial course and Tom mechanical drawing, which balanced us up more time-wise as they shared the bus journeys both ways. I just worked extra hours at the store during those evenings, with my ambitions set on following my father into the Kent Constabulary, marking time until I reached twenty-one. But come the village dances every Saturday night, Mildred was mine for around eight out of ten dances. But I was still worried that I could lose her to Tom, who had better long term job prospects, so I asked her to marry me when I felt we were old enough to become engaged."

"How old were you?"

"Fifteen."

"And how old do you have to be to marry over here?"

"Sixteen, by special marriage licence, twenty-one without parental approval."

"And how old were you when you joined up at the start of the war?"

"Almost sixteen, short by a couple of months. Mild is three months younger than me. Tom was a month older than me. We had nowhere to live except my Dad's place, but being a police house, I would have had to ask him to apply for permission —"

"Why permission?"

"My father was the village policeman, and I had secretly examined the terms and conditions printed in the back of the rent book. If I had married and moved my wife into my old bedroom as a married couple, I would be interpreted as constituting a separate family and subletting a tied police house was particularly prohibited."

"Really? That seems harsh."

"It is, but I have since found out that in subletting to close family usually invokes the 'blind eye', like my long protection from disqualification through disability, but I didn't know that at the time. Besides, I had my only rival for her affections joining up beside me in the Army that day in August 1914, I thought, Mild was safe from him."

"And when you had your leave a few weeks later?"

"By then our relationship had changed, her feelings for me had already cooled I suppose. We argued about my new interpretation of her feelings, but she said I was being silly, they were just friends like we all three had been all along, and that we were still the happy couple that I expected. So she kept my ring and my shilling and I kept my hopes alive for as long as I could."

"A ring, aged 15? Where did you get the ring from?"

"It was my mother's, she died when I was ten. My Dad and my sisters insisted that I have her engagement ring, as the only boy in the family; my beautiful sisters quite rightly expected their own wedding rings to come from their suitors. Mild wore the ring on a gold chain that my favourite aunt, my Mum's sister, had left me to give to my future wife. Our engagement, if that is what it was, was a secret as we were so young when we agreed to marry. Then by the time I was 16 I was away at the War in France, fighting the war that was supposed to end all wars."

"My Pop took part in the war, too. Just for the year or two that the US were involved. He doesn't talk about it much, except when I sent my Mom and Pop on a luxury cruise to Europe, which included a few days spent in Paris. He wrote back long letters about his experiences, most of which seemed to be well away from the fighting and he appeared to be able to spend a few days in Paris every few weeks. Ranchers and farmers never get any time to take vacations, but when they do, they like to have a good time. I've been to Paris twice, just for two busy days each time, doing film promotions. I think, when this war is over and time permits, I'd like to see Paris at leisure myself."

"I never saw Paris. Whenever we were relieved from the trenches, and we never spent more than a couple of weeks at a time at the Front, then they would make us march for between six and twelve hours away to another village billet, then work us hard training ready for our next stint of trench warfare. It was a grind of two weeks on, one or two weeks off."

"You said you had 'sisters' earlier, but then that you have only one sister. What happened to them?"

"I had three sisters, two older than me and one baby sister. Joan was born in 1890 and married Joe Dunham, who worked in the Royal Ordnance factory at Woolwich. Both of them were killed in an air raid on Charlton six months ago."

"Oh, no, Edgar, I am so sorry. Did they have any children?"

"Yes, they had two grown up children, Margaret was a teenager who also worked at the factory. She was in the house with them and was killed outright too. The boy, Andrew had joined my old regiment, the Royal East Kent Regiment, the Buffs, and stationed up north somewhere, I think. My other older sister was Pat, Patricia. She was born in 1892 and was married to Paul Jackson, who also works in the Royal Ordnance factory. Pat was killed in that same raid on Charlton, as both families lived in the same street. Her husband Paul still works at the Royal Ordnance factory; he was at work on night shift when the bombs fell. They have one boy, Jack who is twenty, he joined the Royal Navy and is training for submarine work. The baby of my family is my sister Henrietta, 'Hettie'. She's married to Jack Morgan and they live in Morden, Surrey, not very far from where we are going in the morning to visit Brad Gold's gunner. She was born in 1901, so her two girls are a lot younger than our sister's children, and they've been evacuated to the countryside somewhere in Sussex well over a year ago. They started to evacuate the children from target cities almost as soon as war was declared."
"And you lost your parents too?"

"Yes, Mum first, then Dad, my mum in her late forties and my Dad passed in his sixties. What about your family?"

"Well," she laughed, "My family are Dutch and Danish on my Dad's side, and mostly Highland Scottish on my Mom's. Daddy wanted a boy as his first born, and if not, than for his second child, to inherit the ranch. They ended up with three girls! Oh, the family name's Johansson, but I changed it to Jones when I started acting. It was the Studio that changed it again to Marcia la Mare. I am the oldest girl, I was born in 1912, Linda was next, born in 1915, then a gap until 1921 when our baby Gloria arrived. Daddy raised me and Linda as wranglers, so when Gloria came along, Mom insisted that she was brought up as a princess." Mary smiled broadly at her memories.

"I would have thought she would have turned out to be the actress and you'd be running the ranch."

"Yeah, I still have that ambition to run the ranch full time, one day. And Gloria really wants to be a film star, but she is not prepared to work at it and do the necessary stage work and learn her craft. I have taken her on location with me a fewtimes but she don't want to do walk-ons and learn the business from the bottom up, she just wants to be a movie star."

"And she hasn't cottoned on that you had to put in all the hours of work in school drama study and amateur dramatics long before your talents were spotted?"

"No, she don't, and I don't think she will ever learn."

"Is she as pretty as you?"

"Oh, yah think I'm pretty, huh?"

"I've seen publicity pictures of you acting as a smouldering star of the silver screen, acting as a cute assistant detective, as well seen you in real life as a wealthy and powerful woman who treats maids and other people who work for you as valued individuals, even as friends. Not just pretty, Mary, but a beautiful person."

"I warned yah not to fall in love with me, Edgar, it is just something I can't help encourage, I like being loved."

"I can understand that," I said, smiling, "it's what you already told me you do, and it appears to be in your nature. I don't think it's an act and I know you don't intend breaking the hearts of anyone in your sphere, not even foolish old men."

"No ... breaking hearts is so sad, that's the last thing I want to do ... hey, where were we?"

"Gloria, your youngest sister, I asked is she as pretty as you?" I repeated.

"Prettier, oh yes, by a long ways, she's a real heartbreaker. Maybe I'll introduce you to her," she raised her eyebrows, "interested?"

"No, I am sure meeting just one of the Johansson girls in the flesh is more than enough for any ordinary mortal." I grinned.

"Hey, who's calling yah an ordinary mortal, this gal don't only beat up on fat movie directors, yah know!"

"I'm so ordinarily mortal, Mary, that if I don't go to bed now, I won't be worth a light tomorrow."

"Me too, I need some serious beauty sleep after all the lovely excitement today. Thank you Edgar, for making today such a wonderful day. It was a lovely diversion from my present problems."

"I should be thanking you for making this day one of the most interesting of my life."

"... so far, anyway. Well, goodnight, Edgar, do sleep well."

"You too."

CHAPTER TEN

MORTLAKE MYSTERY

OUR trip down to visit Gold's gunner Petersen in Mortlake, using the iconic red London double-decker bus system, was uneventful. We had to climb upstairs of course, and Mary was fascinated to see many London landmarks she knew from history and watching films, including those shot in London.

Before we departed her rooms we enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast brought up to the suite and served sizzling hot. Who knew that there was even a dining room and small kitchen in that fantastic hotel suite of hers?

I had never wondered before how the other half lived, but now I pondered how would someone who had known this life of wealth and privilege for most of his life be able to adapt to joining the RAF at the start of a world war, fighting for a country as ill-prepared for armed conflict as we were? My estimation of Bradford Gold the patriotic aviator went up several notches.

Petersen was staying in a convalescent home next to the river Thames. It was an idyllic place, converted from a Victorian mansion within extensive grounds, mostly laid to lawns running down to the picturesque river. It was a bitterly cold morning with a ground frost that persisted in the shade despite the bright sun that kept low in a cloudless deep blue sky. When we arrived we were informed by the reception that our quarry was resting in the sunroom and we were asked if would we like tea brought to us there?

"We would appreciate that very much," Mary confirmed, with her English accent that she seemed to have perfected as if it was her natural mode of speech. I must admit, she did look the part in her smart blue sailor suit that she wore. I was back in my old brown suit but, along with my underwear and shirt which had been laundered, repaired, smelled clean and freshly pressed so well that I hardly recognised it as mine at all.

The sun room ran along the complete eastern end of the side of the large house, catching the morning sun, with views down to the river across extensive lawns, weeping willow trees and what was possibly once a shrubbery. Now the shrubbery appeared to be dotted with leeks, the last of the winter's Brussels sprouts and several rows of winter cabbages, with threaded sticks marking off areas fresh dug for planting up as soon as the weather turned warmer, or at least frost-free, probably in a month or so.

Everywhere, all over Britain, parks and gardens were being dug up to grow a little of the tons of food that once daily used to come from all over the world in huge cargo ships that the German U-boats were presently sinking at alarming rates.

However hazardous flying across the Atlantic Ocean appeared to be to me, a man who had travelled no further in his whole life than the Front Line in Northern France and Western Flanders, it was appreciably safer than steaming across the Atlantic Ocean in a lumbering liner or cargo ship. I was grateful that, when Mary returned to being Miss Marcia la Mare, she would be flying well above the submarines, and well out of the range of German fighter planes from mainland Europe.

Gunter Petersen was a Danish national, a young fisherman, still in his early twenties, who had got himself caught up in the war by circumstances beyond his control and decided to put his effort behind the opposition to the Nazis by joining the British armed services. His fishing boat crew landed in Scotland just after Denmark was invaded in April 1940 and capitulated to the mighty German Army in just six hours. Petersen's crew voted to a man to fight the Germans by joining the British Army or Royal Navy. Petersen actually plumbed for the RAF, as he had always been interested in flying and desperately wanted an opportunity to hit the Germans in their own homeland.

It was warm in the sun room, and I removed my jacket as we walked through it, but Petersen just laid there listlessly, propped up on some form of wheeled stretcher and covered in warm blankets. It was obvious from the contour shape of the blankets over his lower body that his right leg had been removed just above the knee. It looked like Petersen's short war was over, just like mine was back in 1916.

After the initial confusion over our introductions, as a recently returned from retirement police detective inspector and his young female assistant, and why the police were calling on him, Mary took a different tack to the one we took at the airfield.

"Mr Petersen, your former pilot, Flight Lieutenant Bradford Gold, is missing and we have no idea where he is, even whether he is safe or in danger. We are exploring every single avenue to find him. We know you have been out of action for some months now, but we are hoping you can tell us anything at all about him. It is possible that you might know of some small detail that will help us find him."

"Missing, you say? Mr Golt? How?"

"We really aren't sure," I answered, "we are being told different stories by different sections of the military, which is why we are confused. The RAF and Military Intelligence really aren't helping us. What we understand is that, after your incident over Germany and the subsequent crash, Gold was given a week's leave, during which his transfer to Fighter Command came through, so he never returned to East Anglia. He then spent three or four months in London until he disappeared a month ago. His landlady says he wore an RAF uniform initially, and we've heard from his other crewmates at the airfield in East Anglia that he was joining a fighter squadron. Trouble is, we cannot find anyone who can tell us where he was posted —"

"Biggin Hill," Petersen said.

"How do you know?" Mary asked.

"Mr Golt come to see me, just after my first operation. I tolt him I'd be his gunner again in six months after I got my new leg, and he said he'd already received his posting to fighters. He told me he was joining a squadron of Hurricanes although he had been hoping for Spitfires. He joked that he was an old man for a flyer and needed a smart new plane for his image, not an old workhouse like the Hurries." Petersen laughed. "He vas a very good man, Mr Golt, but he vas vain like that."

Mary laughed with him. "I suppose all actors have to be vain, Mr Petersen."

"No, I don't thing so. You are pretty enough to be in the movies, Miss Jones, I thing."

"Really?" she exclaimed.

"Oh yes, if not Hollywood, then certainly you'd be a hit in Danmark."

"My grandfather is a Dane."

"Really?"

"Yes, he is retired, in his eighties now, but he speaks English in the same accent as you."

"So, you would be as big in Danmark as Seena Owen, or as much as Ingrid Bergman is in Sweden, only please stay as you are and try not to end up being vain."

"Oh dear," she said, "I should never have worn my best suit, today, should I"?

"No, Miss, that is quite all right, you loog very nice. You have really brightened my day."

"Thank you, Mr Petersen, you've quite made my day too. Now, you say that Flight Lieutenant Gold visited you? Was it here?"

"No, it vos vile I vos in the London Hospital. I vos put in the local hospital near the airfielt base but they said I neeted a specialist in London. They tried to save my leg, a couple of new method the surgeon said, but in the end...."

"I am so sorry," Mary patted him gently on the arm, bringing to s mile broadly.

"The var is over for me now, I thing. But I dit what I coult for as long as I coult. When we ported our fishing boat in Scotlant, ve vere worried that you would not be able to tell German from Dane, and would lock us up or shoot us as spies. But you English have always been goot to us and I am gladt I did my part as goot and as long as I coult."

"Did Mr Gold talk about anything else?"

"He came with Flight Sergeant Stenton, they must've come during the week after the crash. You lose all trag of time in these places, I don't even know what day off the week it is. I thing it is Friday?"

"Yes, it is," I said, smiling, "So you have not lost too much use of your senses."

"Only know it is Friday because it is the only morning we have smokt haddock for breakfast instead of bacon, aggs and kidneys," he smiled. "Back then when Mr Golt and Stenton were visiting, I was having a lot of treatment recovering from operations. I was uh wandering in and out of sleep during their visit, I was so tiret. But I remember them talking about someone callet 'Curly'."

"Who's Curly?" Mary asked.

"That's exactly vat I said when I voke up, 'Who's Curly?' I said to them, adding 'What's Curly mean?',

as I vas alvays asking the crew the meaninks of new English words. It vos Mr Golt vot got me this noteboog —"

He rummaged around in a bag that he had by the side of his chair and pulled out a folded-over notebook with an elastic band wrapped around it and a pencil held in place by the band.

"Ah here it is. In it I write down all the new vords I hear and their meaninks. And Mr Golt came back quick as anything on my question about 'Curly' and said 'Like hair, so thing that you can't comb it straight, rather like Ginger Jeffers in C for Charlie, his hair is so curly it's like a doormat.' And I said I still don't understant. Then both he and Stanton started laughing and I asked what the joke was, because I am often makink mistakes. And Mr Golt said that Curly was called Curly because he had no hair at all, he was balt as a coot!"

"So who was this Curly?" I asked.

"He was someone that Mr Golt told Stenton he needed to stop, because he was threatening his family —"

"His family?" Mary interjected, "What did he mean?"

"It was something in Mr Golt's past, I thing, or his family's past. He had said something about this Curly coult ruin his family and he had to stop him somehow. Stanton said he knew people in the Aast End who could help him."

"Can you remember this Curly's other name, Mr Petersen?" I asked.

"No, only Curly stuck in my mynt because of your English humour. It sounded a bit like Ginger Jeffers, you know, the same starting sound for both names, like Curly Kittens or Curly Carrots. Half the people on the camp had nicknames like that, mostly they didn't know them, like Stuttering Stanton, although no-one woult effer call him that to his face."

"Would you mind telephoning me or Mr Onslow, if the name ever occurs to you," Mary said, handing over one of her smart visiting cards, "it might be awfully important to help us find Mr Gold. We can leave you enough pennies for the call."

"Ja, I have lots of time to sit here and thing. Maybe it vas Curly Cave or Cameron, or something like that. Don't worry about the pennies, I am still being pait by the RAF and I have no visitors nor no-one else to ring."

"Thank you, Mr Petersen." I said, "What did you think of Mr Gold as a person?"

"Mr Golt was ver' goot to us all," Petersen said, nodding his head, "he vas very steady with me even though I did not speak English ver' well and was not vantet by some of the other crews. I vas radio operator in the fishing boats, but my accent meant that there vos too many misunderstandinks, so I learnt how to be a bomb aimer first in Lancasters but then the War Office they sent me to a Vellington squadron that had the co-pilot do the bomb aiming, so I had to learn a different type of gun to the one in the Lancaster that I had on'y a small knowing of. Mr Golt was ver' forgiving and so I enjoy workink with him."

"What did you make of his state of mind, Gunter, when you saw him last?" I asked.

"He vas always very steady, never lost his temper, even when we made mistakes." Petersen said, "If you did, he vould not bawl you out over the RT so that everyone would know you cockt up. No. He would speeg quietly to you in the pub afterwarts when everyone was relaxt and he woult quiet find out why I panigt and why didn't myself get calmt down. If you make one mistake and you panig, he once say to me, it makes you make two mistakes, then if you panigt more so you make three mistakes and then you get your crew killt. He askt me: What did you do as a fisherman if the net snaggt or the pump jammt or something happent, how would you get yourself to calm down and in the right frame of mind to solve your way out of the mess? I replied that I woult take a deep breath and then loog out across the sea and then I woult be all right. So, next time I jammt the gun, I woult see myself on the boat, look at the sea in my mind for a moment, then calm-like clear the blockage and continue firing."

"So Gold knew your background, knew that you had once been a fisherman?" Mary asked.

"Ja, he knew us air crew all ver' well, and he woult use what he knew. Such as when we had to fly over ports in Holland and northern Germany, he would get me to loog out for all the ports and shout out on the RT vhen ve got there. It helped when we started bombing too, as we woult compare the notes and air photographs ve were given about our targets and use my knowledge of what was actually there on the grount."

"Did he discuss with you his intentions to transfer to the Fighter Command?" I asked.

"Nej, not vith me, maybe Stanton, because they vas close mates. I heard that Stanton bought it, I was ver' sad. He vos my age, too young to die."

"Did Flight Lieutenant Gold say anything at all about London and where he might have stayed?" Mary asked.

"Mr Golt said he once had family in the East End, but he didn't say vhere or vhen, or at least I don't remember him saying vhere they ver. Vait. There are a couple of things. He sent me a postcard just after I was put in the nursing home here."

He fiddled around in a large, thick envelope of news cuttings by his wheeled chair and eventually pulled out a picture postcard of the London Monument, the commemoration tower of the Great Fire of London.

"He promised that when I got out of here with my new leg, ve voult walk together up the many steps to the top and loog out over Old London, the very place that we two foreigners, one from the east and one from the west had helped to save from the Nazis."

He was smiling now, alert and so much more alive than when we first arrived.

He asked the nurse passing by if it was possible to have a fresh brew of tea and the nurse's delighted face indicated that his current animation was a vast improvement on his previous sad demeanour.

When we had first arrived he declined tea, although the nurse had brought three cups and saucers and enough milk for us all. He had explained that he only drank the coffee and they rarely had it, just some liquid which he described as horrible. He turned back to his notebook and, flicking back through and scanning all the pages, with his tongue poking out in concentration, he eventually stopped and looked up in excitement.

"Danmark Hill Roat," he said, "here, see I write it down because I never thought that there would be a roat namt after my country. And here it is, door number 77."

"What does this mean?" I asked him, "What is this address?"

"It is the address that Mr Golt stayt in when he first came to London, vile he vos vaitink for the military men to make up their mind whether to send him away or sign him up for the RAF."

"This was when he first came over in 1939?"

"Ja, that is vot he saidt."

Mary looked at me. "The first letters I er ... that were sent from Brad Gold to his family instructed replies be sent to his return address BFPO 777. Later, when he moved to East Anglia, he changed his address to BFPO 93. I wonder if that is significant?"

I nodded, not wishing to say anything that Petersen might pick up.

"Mr Golt stayed in Danmark Hill throughout his training," Petersen said, "I know because I kept talking about it because it amoost me so much that I thought of it as a bit of back home in England and that my officer had lived there ticklet me. I knew this,but laying here feeink sorry for myself I forget"

"So how are your wounds recovering, Mr Petersen?" Mary asked, realising that we had reached the end of our enquiries, but I tuned out as he replied and described his operations, which forced my mind back to consider my own memories, of a time and place, which brought an abrupt end to a large part of my dreams, just as this man's had.

In as cheerful a manner as possible, after tapping my tin foot with the cap of my pen, I explained how I had managed to build a career, despite the petty fitness requirements of the Metropolitan Police; and the girl who Mr Petersen described as 'pretty' told him how we danced the night away on my tin foot, in a fancy hotel basement, to the accompaniment of a jolly band, in defiance of the Luftwaffe fruitlessly doing its damned best to spoil our fun.
Petersen became a brand new man that day, I believe. His body was damaged, but not beyond repair and he no longer felt that he was broken and not worth fixing.

All too soon, it was time to take our leave and return to London.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

77 DENMARK HILL

WE SAID our farewells to Petersen and headed down to catch the bus back up to Chiswick, where we would use the Underground from there.

"Are you alright, Edgar?" Mary was concerned. I suppose I had gone rather quiet while Petersen discussed the different operations carried out on his leg, before the doctors finally decided to take it off.

"Yes. I hadn't had the same problems as Petersen, Mary. You know, the series of operations, the hopes first raised and then dashed each time. I was dragged back to the field station almost completely out of it. They simply cut off the foot without a by-your-leave, and that was that. I hadn't had any reason to remember it for a long time, but now the memories are fresh again."

"And I suppose you were a similar age to Gunter?" Mary asked, as she tucked her right arm into the cruck of my left, as I subconsciously leaned more heavily on the walking stick in my right hand, feeling a little weary at heart.

"A little younger, I suppose. I would think Petersen is in his early twenties, while I was not yet eighteen."

"I suppose at that point you must've thought your world was at an end?"

"Yes, I did, or at least I did at first. But then I realised that nothing much had really changed. I had already lost Mildred almost two years earlier, the moment that I was shipped off to join the fight against the Germans and Tom was sent back home with his tail between his legs. I had sensed it at the time of my first leave. He was the one who needed the sympathy during those first few weeks, losing his pride by rejection and losing his best friend as well, while both of them believed I was heading for glory as a war hero."

"Some glory, I bet the war was more horrific than heroic, Edgar."

"It was, but you do get used to the horror. So I think Mildred did her best to boost him up so he could find himself again, and in the process she lost herself in him."

"He must have been like a bird with a broken wing to her," Mary mused.

I wondered at that too, with this beautiful woman clinging to my arm. Was I a broken-winged bird to her?

"Remember, Mary, that Mildred already loved us both almost equally. We'd all been close ever since we learned how to walk and talk. I loved them both, also almost equally, and I know Tom loved me almost as much as he loved her. Mildred fell in love with him while she fell out of love with me, and I could do nothing at all about it other than read the signs in her letters from home, and wait for the axe to fall and cleave my heart in two."

"Loving relationships between men and women, can make other friendships difficult," Mary said thoughtfully.

"Sometimes," I said, pointedly, "the best of men can be both husbands and best friends."

"I know, Edgar, but I hope I haven't lost him yet as either. I really don't think so, and haven't thought so at any time, but I do feel sorry that you had lost yours."

"For a while I only thought I had, clinging onto hope that I was wrong. I didn't know for sure until they entered my room at the hospital holding hands and separated at the very last moment, thinking that it was before I saw them. Plus they hoped I wouldn't notice her little bump, but they were not to know that I dreamed of her every night and knew her every contour. Well, I had had my hopes, too. He may have won Mildred, but he really lost us both in the long run. So I set out my stall to break off old ties and make a career for myself alone and felt I made the best of it."

"I think you did. I feel sorry for Mildred, she lost her husband, two of her children, and most of all she lost the love of her life, she lost you."

"I'm not so sure that she has lost that much love. At least she has the love of her surviving daughter, who must be of marriageable age now, and she has the comfort of caring for her mother. I am sure she is not lonely or without lots of love in her life."

"Maybe that's more than she deserves but I believe it is much less than she must have dreamed of."

"True."

I was starting to get out of my reverie. It really shouldn't affect me that much, but being close to feeling some satisfaction of my lot.

"I remember that when we were children, and we discussed what we wanted to do with our lives, Mildred was a great follower of the suffragette movement. She wanted to be a nurse, work up to being a sister, than become the matron, all while bringing up a family. She made the conscious decision to accompany Tom on the bus to learn how to type. Now she is only nursing her aged and sick mother. She may well be dissatisfied with the way her life has turned out, but they were a result of her choices."

"What did you want to be when you grew up, Edgar?"

I smiled. I think my sore foot lost all its tiredness at that moment. Here I was, walking along a leafy suburban avenue towards the railway station, with a beautiful girl on one arm and the bright sun shone down on us from a cold but cloudless February sky with even some warmth in it, and I felt all right with the world.

"A policeman," I replied, my chest pumped out proud as a pigeon, "a policeman just like my father. I wanted to make people's lives better by putting away those that want to ruin lives, deterring others from following the same criminal path because they know there's a fair chance of getting caught, and making people feel better by taking away some of that fear of crime."

"And you did."

"I did. All right, my job has changed somewhat over the last few years and I do a lot more mundane marital cases, Mary, but I do still get asked to find people, or protect people's livelihoods by discovering who's taking the money from the till. So, yes, I have fulfilled what I set out to do. I may not have much love in my life, but I have pride and draw some satisfaction from that. Hey, why don't we take a look at Denmark Hill?"

"Why not?" she smiled and squeezed my arm.

"Yes, I felt all right with the world again and I looked to follow the only lead we had, so, from Mortlake station, we changed trains at Battersea and headed for Denmark Hill Station.

***

We walked up Denmark Hill with the sun behind us, staying on the warmer sunny side of the road. It was a broad avenue with trees lining the east side of the street, behind which were large three-storied town houses. This was suburban London, from where buses or the Underground would take men into the city to work. Most of the houses on this side seemed to be Regency, while the shops on the west side were late Victorian, I guessed. Then we passed Love Lane on the right and came up to a smart terrace of shops that probably dated from just before or just after the first world war. Number 77 Denmark Hill was one of these shops, a barber shop actually, with a two-storied flat above. Immediately opposite was a pub, the "Rose & Crown". Most of the shops looked as though they were shut for an hour or two for lunch.

The traffic was light, just a bus trundling towards us from some distance away, so we crossed the road at Love Lane to look at the exterior of the flat from a different aspect, standing just in front of the pub.

"Ooh, Ed," Mary said in her Home Counties voice, "are we casing the joint?"

"What?"

"Haven't you ever heard the expression 'case the joint' before?"

"No, I thought you were referring to the pub, that you were hungry, as in a sandwich made with a cut from a joint of meat."

"No, although come to think of it, it's lunchtime and we could have a sandwich and case the joint at the same time."

I must've looked blankly at her.

"Look, in gangster movies they say this all the time, oh, I forgot, you don't watch the movies. You should, you know, they can be very educational." She squeezed my arm, continuing talking but reverting to her normal American accent. "Hey, I could eat a horse, Ed, all this sleuthing makes a poor gal who ain't used to it hungry, so treat me to a sandwich, will ya, Hon?"

"You really want to eat in a pub?"

"Sure, I eat in pubs an' bars all the time, especially when I'm in New York. This place looks quite respectable, don't it?"

It did. I looked at my Dad's old silver fob watch, given to him after 25 years in the Kent Constabulary. It was twelve minutes past one o'clock and I felt hungry too.

And on this side of the street the pavement was shaded from the sun and felt chilly. Through the window of the pub I could see a roaring fire in a deserted little snug bar, perfect for viewing the building opposite.

"All right," I said, "that fire looks inviting, let's go inside, and check out the building opposite from this empty table by the window."

She grinned, flashing those impossibly even, and highly bright white teeth, "Yeah, case the joint, like I said, Ed."

"You'll need to explain that, only inside out of the cold."

The pub had a small snug to the right, labelled "Lounge Bar" on the door, where I had seen the blazing fireplace. It was warm, cozy and, best of all, empty.

"Good afternoon, landlord," I said to the jolly red-faced gentleman behind the bar, who had followed us round from the public bar as I guided Mary to the table by the window, "are you still serving sandwiches for lunch?"

"Certainly, Sir, I kin git the missus ter rustle sommat up. Wot yer fancy? We got beef'n'horseradish, 'am'n'mustard or a ploughman's, Sir, one an' fo'rpence a rand fur the first two, an' one an' six fur the ploughman's cos it comes wiv a bread roll."

"Ooh, what is a 'ploughman's'?" Mary asked in her English voice.

"It is a bread roll, a large chunk of cheese and pickles," I said, "either pickled onions, piccalilli or sweet pickle, usually. It can be quite a substantial meal."

"Aye, Miss, it's a good plateful wot me missus puts up, an' we've a choice of mousetrap, cheddar, sage Derby, red Leicester or we got a right nice bit o' Stilton wot on'y came in yesterd'y."

"What's 'mousetrap'?"

"Mature cheddar, Miss, it might be a mite bit strong flavour fer a lady, I would recommend the Stilton."

"That's what I'll have then, with the sweet pickle, if you have it."

"I'm sure we do, Miss. What kin I git you, Sir?"

"I'll have the same, and a half of bitter, please." I turned to Mary, "what would you like to drink?"

"Do you have a Heineken, or any light lager beer?"

"Nar, Miss, sorry. Ain't got nuffink imported like we did before the war."

"What beer do you have?" she asked.

"Bitter, best bitter an' mild on tap, Miss, or we 'av bottles of light and brown ales. 'Ow about a sweet milk stout?"

We could see through to the public bar, which was packed with shopkeepers, the aged butcher still in his bloody apron, and his companion, with his silver hair slicked back, the handle of a pair of scissors in view, the business end of which was stuffed into his top pocket. The public bar must have been hot, too, as they had removed their coats. The beers set in front of them, were pints of dark ale for the butcher and a light but quite reddish bitter for the hairdresser. Mary wrinkled her nose at the sight of either. The landlord noticed.

"We has a Bass pale ale in pint bottles, wot is quite popular wiv the gentlemen in the lounge bar and their ladies, Miss, or we have plen'y o' London gin, we even have our last bottle of Italian Vermouth, so we kin make a gin an' it if yer like."

"Oh, that does sound like, actually, do you also have crushed ice and an olive?"

"No, Miss, we ain't got no ice, nor no olives nyvver. I kin do yer a cherry on a stick, or slice o' lemin wiv a gin'n'tonic?"

"The pale ale sounds like that would just do the trick, actually," she said with her best actress smile, and she sat down by the window.

"I'll cancel my half of bitter then, landlord, and have one bottle of Bass with two half glasses, please."

"A pleasure, Sir, that'll be three an' fo'rpence. I'll just send yer order through to the kitchen ter git it under way, an then I'll bring yer beer over ter yer table directly."

I nodded and left a shilling and a half-crown on the counter. I had some coppers, but I always liked to keep some spare pennies handy just in case I ever needed to use the telephone.

"Don't forget, Edgar, this meal is on expenses," she smiled as I reached the table.

"Still playing my assistant, Mrs Jones?" I grinned.

"Well, somebody has to do a proper job of it!" she laughed.

We sat down by the window and peered through it to No 77 opposite. The street was pretty deserted at this time, shoppers knowing that the shops would be closed for an hour or two in the middle of the day.

"I believe the hairdresser's one of the chaps in the public bar," I said quietly.

"I know," she said, equally quietly, "he's next to the old butcher. Look, there's the butcher's shop on the corner."

The butcher had a prime site on the corner, but the flat above, being on the end, would doubtless be colder than the rest of the flats, and sure enough the shared chimney between 79 and 81 was belching smoke, while the one between 75 and 77 only had some light smoke coming through a single pot. No 75 had a sign up, "For Sale or Let, Freehold Shop and Flat, Will Separate, Cavenagh & Laws".

"There's only one chimney pot smoking," I ventured, "I'll bet that's the hairdresser's."

From where Mary sat, she could see further down the street and started to say something, when I saw the landlord walk towards us with the beer bottle and two glasses on a tray. I put one hand on her arm and said, "Ah, here's our refreshments, thank you."

Mary turned and gave him one of her brilliant smiles, enough to weaken the knees of any mortal man.

He set the tray down and handed me my tuppence change.

"The ploughmans'll be ready in a coupla minutes, Sir, Miss, an' I'll bring 'em froo directly. If yer need us fer anyfink, there's a little bell on the counter."

The landlord looked out of the window, he clearly didn't miss much.

"If yer int'rested in the Weston's ol' shop, the estate agents are about two blocks dahn," he pointed up the street, the opposite way we had come. "It wuz a neat enuff little shop, all right, but the owner got called up fer the war on reserve an' 'is poor missus didn't 'ave a prayer ter keep it goin' all on 'er lonesome."

He departed back to the bar and went around to the public bar area, which looked as though they would keep him busy for the remainder of the short lunchtime opening.

"That estate agent, Cavenagh & Laws, shall we go have a word with them?" She paused, waiting for me to react.

I picked up the bottle and three-quarter filled one of the half-pint glasses, setting it in front of her.

"I'm not sure what you're hinting at." I replied as I lifted and canted my glass in readiness to pour.

"We could go in there, enquire as if we are interested in acquiring the apartment for No 75 and, find out if they sold the one above No 77."

"Yes," I agreed, "we could always say we are really interested in No 77 and see what they say. You'd make a good detective, Mary."

"Oh, Mr Onslow," she said breathlessly in a squeaky voice, fluttering her eyelids, "are yah'all sayin' that little old me could be one bright lil' cookie?"

"I suppose I am." I started to pour my ale, being careful not to create too much foam. "Try your beer."

She sipped carefully, and smiled, "It's really OK, thank you, Edgar."

"We usually clink glasses and say, 'cheers!'"

We clinked glasses and drank, just as our ploughman's lunches arrived. We both found our appetites eager to enjoy the simple fare and soon decided to settle on a second bottle of Bass between us.

We took our leave of the Rose & Crown and proceeded along the road to where the estate agent's shop stood. My fob watch read just 2 pm by the time we reached it and inside a young lady was just turning over the 'Closed' sign to read 'Open'.

CHAPTER TWELVE

NUMBER 77

THEY welcomed us with open arms at the estate agents. I assumed that houses and flats were hard to shift with so much uncertainty about the future and the war going against the allies quite so badly. Also, all the breadwinners of new or growing families were being conscripted, so there were fewer opportunities for families to obtain mortgages from banks or building societies. Although the bombing had caused homelessness elsewhere, the war had bypassed this little corner.

We had peered through the windows of both the barbers and the closed shop as we walked down towards the estate agents' shop. While the barber's shop had an internal wall across his shop with a doorway, the empty shop was completely gutted of shelving and with no internal walls. You could just about see through a gap in the whitewashed window through to the back windows leading to the garden and see the outline of an external steel staircase casting a shadow over one of the windows, so somebody could access the flat above without having to go into the shop.

We wondered if that same arrangement was matched at the barbers, or if the stairs were inside the barber's back room. We agreed that Mary would take the lead and see what she could charm out of the estate agent.

The young lady who opened the estate agents' shop, at the end of their lunch hour, asked how she could help.

"I would like to see Mr Cavenagh, please," Mary said, loudly and imperiously. She seemed to swell from the mouse she had played the self-effacing Mrs Mary Jones in front of people who we were keen to question the last two days, and now she seemed bigger and sounded older, almost towering over the now timid lady who opened the shop, "Now!" she continued. The lady cowered, unable to answer.

A voice came from the other side of the room as a man rose from his desk.

"I am sorry, Madam, but Mr Cavenagh is more of a silent partner in this establishment. He looks in once or twice a month to check on his investment, but doesn't get involved in the day to day workings. I am his partner, Mr Laws, Stanley Laws. I am sure that I can answer any enquiries you have on any of the properties on our books. Would you like to take a seat over here, so we can see what kind of property you are looking for?"

The speaker was a tall, thin man, probably in his mid-fifties, stood behind his chair at the back of the office.

Mary marched over and introduced herself as 'Mrs E Onslow', proffered a hand for Mr Laws to kiss or shake as he pleased; he shook it nervously.

She sat down, turned to me and said, as imperiously and loud as she had to the cowering shop assistant, "Now, sit down Edgar, I know you don't want to make a fuss or move out of your old studio, but one really must move with the times, dear."

Then she turned her attention to Mr Stanley Laws, "Mr Laws, My husband here is an artist. Do you know much about art?"

"No, not really —"

"Well, it is something he has messed about with all his life and he is really rather good at it. Royal Academy shows and all that sort of thing. But, lately, he has been experimenting with ceramics, firing them in a small kiln we have in a wooden shed in the garden, but it really won't do at all, it is damp in there when the oven's off and he suffers terribly with his poor chest."

She turned to me, placing an affectionate hand on my chest, "don't you, dear?"

"Yes, dear," I said meekly, and coughed a couple of times, which actually set me off, choking, spluttering and setting off further involuntary coughing that sounded quite as painful as it felt and brought tears to my eyes, so that I had to pull out a hankie and dab at my eyes.

"See what I mean, Mr Laws, our present arrangements simply will not do any longer. Anyway, to the point of our calling on you, I saw a shop down this road, featuring your sign, No 75 Denmark Hill, which seems perfect for our purposes, but I do have one or two questions to ask about it, if I may?"
"By all means, Madam," he said, flicking his eyes momentarily in my direction without moving his head.

He looked like a crafty weasel, realising who wore the trousers in this 'marriage'. I just rolled my eyes in a gesture of resignation: clearly the lady was the one who was the person to deal with, my gesture intended to communicate, and that I was just accustomed to going along with whatever made the 'mem sahib' happy. He turned his whole attention back to Mary, who had continued talking through our wordless exchange.

"So, whilst Edgar is an exceptional artist, he can be rather careless, with the children you know, spraying paints around and heating objects to a thousand degrees in the very same room as our little mites are crawling around. Now, children and temperatures hot enough to melt off pudgy little fingers really should never mix, wouldn't you agree, Mr Laws?"

"Oh, definitely not, Mrs Onslow, the very thought!"

"Exactly, and it's not only Nanny that would be frazzled with the worry. So, the access to the flat above, would that be through the shop or a separate door at the back?"

"There's a very serviceable rear access madam, wide enough even for a motor vehicle. Just a rear yard, no garden I'm afraid, but there are several parks for recreation perfect for young families within a gentle walk, and schools with excellent reputations, too."

"Yes, yes, all very well Mr Laws, but would one have to come into the shop to go upstairs to the flat. I mean, we are all rather comfortable in Bayswater, so we may stay there and want to rent out the apartment above to the suitable family of, say, a professional gentleman."

"I believe you are in luck, that particular shop No 75 does have a modern outdoor staircase made in forged anodized steel, leading to a front door of the flat on the first floor. I understand that the previous to last owner leased the flat out to a relative, so you could come and go as you please. As you can see from the Specification," he handed over a mimeographed sheet with details typed on it, "the flat has a lounge, small dining room and a kitchen on the first floor, three good sized bedrooms and a bathroom with indoor facilities, on the second, and a bedroom and small sitting room, ideal for a nanny, on the top floor, with electric lighting fitted throughout. The shop is self contained with a separate electric meter, the whole building being wired for electric light as recently as 1938, supplied by the London Power Company, and hot and cold running water on demand with ascot water heaters precisely where you would expect them, and there's a modern outside privy for the shop."

"It all seems quite sound, would it be possible for my husband and I to have a viewing?"

"Certainly, I can arrange that now as the owners have left us with the key." He responded eagerly, yelling to his assistant, "Maggie, be a sweetheart and look out the 75 Denmark Hill keys for me?"

"Is there any reason that they left?"

"Oh, they are a young family, three of the cutest kiddies you ever saw, but hubby was immediately called up from Army reserve and the missus tried to keep the shop going, with her mother coming up from Weston-Super-Mare to help look after the little ones while she minded the shop. But once all the kiddies around here were evacuated and the local school virtually put into mothballs, she couldn't face living here alone, so she shut up shop only a week ago and moved west."

"What business were they in?" Mary said.

"Her husband was a cobbler, his hand-made boots are superb, this," he stood and lifted one of his legs, displaying a brown brogue shoe, "is one of his, fits as comfortable as a carpet slipper. Poor bugger joined up for square bashing in '29 after losing his job in the crash, did his seven years but was still obligated to serve on reserve when the call to arms came. His disappearance made the boot and shoe retail and repair a bit of a challenge, as Mrs Weston had to put all the repair work out, which made the profits marginal at best. But it's a great location, plenty of passing trade and plenty of wealth in all them villas to the south of the Hill, that'll lap up a bit of ceramic art. It could be a gold mine if you ask me. One thing though, as Mrs Weston was advised that while the flat might be snapped up quite quickly, with so much housing lost to the bombing, it might take some time to sell the shop, so she accepted an offer for the shop fittings, the counter, workshop bench, and all the cupboards and shelves, but at least it gives you and your husband a blank canvas to start with."

Maggie brought the keys over and whispered in his ear.

"I am reminded, I'm afraid I have another client coming, arriving in about five minutes to discuss an offer on a house overlooking the park, but you're welcome to take the keys and look over the place, I can answer any questions you have when you return. I er ... hate to ask for a deposit, but er ... I ... usually ..."

I got out my slim wallet and pulled out one of the fivers that Mary had given me only two days earlier and unfolded it slowly in front of his widening eyes.

"I usually ask for a ten bob deposit, 'cause sometimes people forget to bring back the keys, but in this case, there's no need to furnish a deposit, I can see that you are more than trustworthy."

"You seem to know your clients well, Mr Laws," I said, "do you know the people who live next door?"

"Old Gus the barber, or Julius the jeweller?"

"We were thinking more of the flat above the barbers," Mary interjected, "my sister and her family were interested in the property when it was up for sale a couple of years ago but it went before she could put in a bid. She put me onto the area, said this would be ideal for us." She smiled sweetly.

"Oh, that's a shame, it would be nice to have more families around here, because it ended up going to a single man who very much keeps himself to himself, so much so that we have never actually exchanged words, even though he moved into the flat for a few months until recently, in fact he was the last occupier. We handled the sale of the shop and flat through his agent. All the shopkeepers around here know each other, we are a really close-knit community, and help support each other if any of us gets into difficulty. Old Gus the barber has been there for years and he keeps his costs down for his regulars. He would have liked to have bought the place, but he couldn't afford to match what the new owner was able to offer."

"How much did it go for?"

"Well, it was just after war was declared, back in '39, and the market then was much more volatile. Before the war, and now it would have been £120 for the flat with 45 years left on the lease, but was offered at £100, and only £80 with sitting tenant instead of £100 if vacant, £180 altogether, but the offer was for £280 if free of tenants. I will say that our client was very interested in accepting. But we reminded our clies agent how we had all rallied around, Gus included, to help him when he had trouble with the previous flat tenants, and we persuaded him not to accept the offer." Mr Laws paused, smiling.

"So what happened?" Mary asked.

"The purchaser thought about it for a day and his agent came back to say that his client valued loyalty above profit and was prepared to remove the condition of vacant possession and was prepared to keep his bid the same price, so Gus could stay. Dick, the previous owner, who actually has the butcher's shop on the corner, passed £20 of his windfall onto Gus, for being a mate, and they treated us all to a liquid lunch in the Rose & Crown!"

"So, who is the new owner?" Mary asked.

"Ah, that's where the mystery is, madam," he said, "we thought it was bought by a Mr Cavenagh, no relation to my partner, but that is the only reason why I remember the name, but on the completed paperwork it turned out that he was only the agent not the new owner. Although Cavenagh had not been seen since the day he bought it for his client, and the rent from Gus had been collected by a series of short-term occupiers until about a couple of months ago, when Cavenagh turned up again and started collecting the rent."

"So, what is the mystery?"

"Well," he said conspiratorially, "we know that the bald man —"

"That is Cavenagh, is it, a bald man?" I asked.

"Yes, that's the fellow, a big man, in his late forties. Do you know him?"

"Not at all," I said, "it is just that an acquaintance of ours was only talking about a chap who he thought had a name like 'Cave' or possibly 'Cameron'. It could have been somebody different, it was only that he thought he was a nasty piece of work, and your vendee agent seems such a reasonable chap in his dealings with Old Gus."

"You know, we all thought that," Mr Laws said, his brow furrowed, "but when Gus's rent hadn't been collected for three weeks, and he couldn't get an answer from the flat, he took the rent home to store in a jar. Only the next morning, as soon as Gus opened, Mr Cavenagh was waiting for him, demanding his backlog of rent. Gus said he had left it at home but would fetch it in the next morning, but Cavenagh was insistent for his money. He's not only a big chap, but he revealed that he carried a gun in a holster under his coat. Gus had to give him his till float on account until the next morning when he brought in the balance of the three weeks' rent. Definitely a nasty bit of work, must be the same chap. What did he do with your friend?"

"He threatened his family," Mary said.

Mr Laws pursed his lips. "That's unacceptable. I'll get everyone at that end of the road to keep an eye on him and see if we can give him a piece of our mind when we next see him. This Cavenagh's bitten off more than he can chew this time, gun or no gun. Anyway, have a look next door at 75, let me know what you think, and do not worry about Cavenagh or anyone else, we look after our own around here."

I took the keys and shook his hand. "We won't give Cavenagh another thought. By the way, do you know the name of the owner, the one who Gus used to pay his rent to?"

"Nothing that comes immediately to mind, but I wrote it down in my notebook when Gus was telling me about it in the pub. Hang on, I'll look."

He flicked through a blue covered notebook on his desk, he soon found it.

"Ahh. Here it is, the last occupier was a Mr Gold, a Mr B Gold."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

BREAKING AND ENTERING

OUTSIDE the estate agents' premises I gently took Mary's arm, fearful that she might faint. She looked close to tears.

"Do you want to sit down? There's a tea shop open over there."

She shook her head, but seemed unable to speak.

"Do you still want to go to the shop and try and look at the flat next door?"

She nodded.

We were there in a minute or so and the mainly glass door covered in whitewash opened quickly using the key and I pushed her inside. As soon as I closed the door behind us she put her arms around my neck and cried with huge racking sobs onto my shoulder. I patted her back and stood there while she worked through her anguish.

She was a strong woman, and had held up well to the pressure she was under, but now she was confronted with finding out that her missing husband had been living here in this very street almost immediately before his disappearance a month ago.

It appeared to bring all her emotions to the fore. I gently rubbed or patted her back by turns while she worked her way through the released emotions.

After a while the sobs stopped and she asked, "Didn't you visit some lodging house where Brad was said to have stayed for a few months until he disappeared?"

"I did. That was the address that Cummings gave me at the Yard. I will have to check my notes, but I think it was the address the War Office gave as his last known address. It is possible, that her guest was a completely different Brad Gold and there has been a file mix up at the War Office."

"Odd coincidence, that this other Brad Gold was also a Flight Lieutenant, don't you think?"

"I do, and I even checked through the pockets of his uniform, but it could have been any officer of that rank. His landlady didn't supply Gold with meals as his hours were erratic and she noted that he never wore his uniform after his initial arrival some months before."

"Aren't enlisted men supposed to wear their uniform at all times?" she asked, "I'm sure that you mentioned that yesterday."

"I did. Usually that is the case during wartime, even for airmen on leave, but if he was at the time we believe transferred to Military Intelligence, and under their orders to work undercover for them in the East End to gather intelligence, so that rule would not apply. It could be that Gold divided his time between the East End and Denmark Hill, using his home here as a refuge against playing a challenging role of deception for several months. I think I will check that lodging house out again tomorrow, Saturday, when the daughter, who apparently does all the cleaning and bed-making for Gold's room, is not at school."

"Can, can I come too?"

"Of course, Mary," I said gently, "right now though, we now have a concrete lead, Curly Cavenagh."

"Why is Cavenagh not in uniform?"

"It could be that he was over the age of 41, the upper age limit on 3 September 1939, or he may have some disability. I was just short of 41 at the time, but with my foot I was not considered fit enoiugh for call-up. Cavenagh might have some physical defect, be in a reserved occupation, or have a friendly doctor prepared or bribed to sign him off as unfit for service."

"Isn't it curious that Cavenagh is still around since helping Brad get this apartment in '39?"

"Yes, this Curly Cavenagh fellow clearly knows your husband and not just for employing him to buy the barber shop and flat above to live in, probably while he was waiting for the War Ministry to decide to allow him to sign on for the Royal Air Force. Then, when he transferred to Fighter Command, he was based in Kent, which is only a short drive from here, so Gold must've moved back here and resumed collecting the rent himself. Now that this Curly Cavenagh chap has come back on the scene on a regular weekly basis, he has made himself a target for us to grab and interrogate, on the grounds he has information leading to the whereabouts of a possible deserter. It is possible that he may well know where Brad Gold is holed up."

"Yeah, you are probably right," she said, trying to hold herself together. "It is the best lead we have and I'm on board with it. What do we do next?"

"We check the shop next door, to make sure the barber is occupied with a customer and then we pay a visit to your husband's flat."

"But we don't have a key."

"I don't need a key, Mary. One thing about being a copper, that is being a fair copper who gets the respect of the villains he comes across..."

I showed her a little pouch sewn into my overcoat lapel, from which I pulled a couple of what looked like dental inspection tools. "I was given these by a retired old lag when I first became a private detective, and shown by an expert in how to use them. Actually, over the years, of dealing with goings on behind hotel doors, I've become quite skilled myself in how to use them. With these tools I can pick virtually any lock, not as quickly as a professional criminal, admittedly, but quick enough."

With the windows whitewashed so that people couldn't easily see into the shop, it made it quite dark. I tried the electric light switch near the front door, but it looked like the power had been turned off. We made our way through to the end of the shop. The second of the three keys on the key ring we'd been given opened the back door. It led out into a small paved yard, with a brick-built privy added to the back of the building. Against the outer wall of the yard was an empty coal-bunker. It had a clasp on it intended for a padlock, which was now missing but, as all the coal had been removed, any padlock was unnecessary and I assumed the owners had taken it with them. There were six-foot high brick walls between the shops.

"I'll take a look out the front door and see if the hairdresser is occupied," she said. She was back in less than a minute. "He's shaving a customer now and he has three men reading newspapers and waiting in line for their haircuts. He'll be occupied in the front of the shop for a while."

"Right, we'll go for it now," I said, "Let's see if we can get inside while the coast is clear."

The back gate for No 75 just had an inside latch, which was repeated on No 77. I was easily able to unhook it using one of my lock-picking tools, and I poked my head in to look around. All was quiet, so I waved for Mary to come in and we climbed quietly up the steel stairway to the front door of the flat.

"You pick the lock, Ed, while I act as look-out," Mary said.

I was pleased that she was sounding more like her usual self, after her brief emotional breakdown. I crouched down and swiftly moved the tumblers of the lock until they were all out of the way and I could release the mortise lock, after which the latch lock took less than a second.

We slipped inside and closed the door behind us. It was a light, airy flat, with a small hallway, off which were the sitting room, tiny kitchen and dining room on this level and three bedrooms and bathroom on the next, with an attic room at the top of the building.

Mary immediately started opening drawers in a sideboard in the lounge.

"What are you looking for?" I asked in a whisper.

"Clues," she said, keeping her voice low, "Anything that will identify this as Brad's 'home from home'."

"Check the pantry first, see if any food has gone off, or if there's anything fresh been put there recently. How recently could be important." I said, as I headed for the stairs.

"OK, where are you off to?"

"Just going to check up in the bedrooms, I'd rather do it alone, as I would like to use the evidence from my eyes first before touching anything, try and keep the scene pristine."

She nodded, "I did this crime thriller movie once, mostly filmed in New York, and we had this old detective with us as technical advisor...." She paused, her memories fuelling her emotions.

"I know what he would have told you," I said quietly, "many crimes involving people missing for any length of time occur in the bedroom. I know we are not going to find a body here, Mary —"

"— I know. We'd have smelt a body, even a week old, as soon as we came in through the door, wouldn't we?"

"Yes, it is a smell that you are in no doubt about what it is, and once smelt, it's one you never forget. You pay good attention to your advisors, I see."

"I am a professional actress, they only call me a star because doing so sells more tickets; I live my life as an actress, not as a star."

"Tell me," I smiled, "what were your first impressions entering this sitting room?"

"I'd really like to know yours, Edgar," she smiled back.

I looked at my fob watch, it looked like I was going to be missing Mrs McPherson's dinner again.

"The smell of new leather hits you as soon as you enter the front door." I waved my arm around the room, "this furniture is brand new and expensive. It is rather out of place, here in a modest flat over a barber shop. It's less like a domestic household and more like the hideout of a wealthy man who cannot bear to part with what he would consider the minimum of comfort."

"Yes! This is Brad's man-cave to a 'tee'!" she laughed, "go on, there's more, I'm sure."

"He's neat and careful, he respects the furniture," I said, her eyebrows shot up. "So my explanation," I continued, "the place is clean, there are three ashtrays in this room alone, so no excuse to leave a burning butt on the corner of the table to leave a burn mark, or stubbed out on the polished floor or one of rugs. The ashtrays are spotless, yet I can smell the atmosphere of stale smoke even permeating through the leather smell. He's fastidious to a degree, but practical rather than fussy for the sake of it, oh, and he wears hair cream or hair oil. He lives alone, while he's here and he's used to a warmer climate."
"OK, he's all of those, how can you tell?"

"The burr walnut hall stand is a thing of beauty that no-one would notice, covered as it is in a number of thick coats, which befit a man who is used to Californian sunshine. There are a number of men's shoes in the rack, mostly size 10, except two, one, the oldest and most worn, is marked size 11, presumably the American pair that Mr Gold wore travelling light across the Atlantic, and an Italian pair size 44.5, possibly bought here from old stock from before the war, or more likely brought over from the States in his luggage. I also noted that there was only one pair of carpet slippers, left handily by the door, so he could slip them on immediately he came in, to prevent soiling his carpets, also indicating a man living alone and cares about his living space. He has a linen doily on the back of one of the easy chairs, to protect the leather from hair oil staining. A woman would have placed the doilies on every chair not just one, for appearances sake, so no woman lives here, I think. Unless, of course, he lives with a bald man, who might be in his forties, who prefers thick socks to carpet slippers."

I grinned, expecting Mary to go along with the joke about Gold and Cavenagh, but she looked quite thoughtful for a moment, smiling wanly, then looked up and pointed to the kitchen.

"I'll make a start in here, then," she said as she strode off to the kitchen.

I surmised that her emotions were still too much on edge for my humour.

I climbed the stairs to the bedroom level. I opened the first door on the left and it turned out to be the bathroom. It was a modern room, the sort of bathroom that appears in Ideal Home brochures, a plumbed-in ceramic bath with taps, an internal water closet and a sink with hot water from an Ascot heater and cold water taps. There was even a new hot water radiator in the room, probably run off a boiler built in behind the fireplace in the sitting room. It was presently cold.

Spread over the radiator was a soiled hand towel that looked out of place, while other bath and hand towels were stacked neatly on a shelf next to the sink. The soiled hand towel was bone dry, so hadn't been used in at least one or two days.

The room opposite the bathroom was a small bedroom, containing a single bed, a completely empty but well-made walnut burr wall closet and another wall radiator.

I took note of the new electric light switches, which looked recently installed. Also, halfway up two of the walls, there were two wall-mounted electrical points, for the insertion of a two-pronged electrical plug, for the convenience of plugging in small electrical devices. I possess an electric iron at Mrs McPherson's boarding house, which I use to iron my shirt collars, which I have to plug in through a Bakelite adapter-connector, to the overhead electric light; an unfortunate inconvenience as it means I can only iron in the daylight, or attempt the task completely in the dark! The single bed looked as pristine as when it arrived from the showroom. I doubted anyone had ever slept in it.

The second bedroom next to the small bedroom was larger and contained a double bed, however, an inspection of the double-width wardrobe revealed no sign of any clothes. Both bedrooms so far were completely unadorned with any decoration.

The third bedroom was different. It had clearly been occupied, although neatly tidy. It was decorated with prints of Pacific island seascapes adorning the walls, and the double bed was made up. But the bed had not been remade with any care, which was again out of place with the neatness I associated with the occupier.

But what completely arrested my attention as soon as I saw it on the bedside table, was a silver-framed photograph of a much younger but easily recognisable famous and glamorous actress, one Miss Marcia la Mare. It was signed. I picked up the heavy silver and glass object and looked closer.

It read, "To my dearest sweetheart, with all the love I have to give. May we cherish each other for ever, yours always, Mary."

There, positive proof that this was the missing actor Bradford Gold's flat, and that he was either recently in residence, expected to return soon, or been abducted.

Knowing Mary, even from our short acquaintance, her husband would never have left here willingly for a whole month without taking the picture with him that he had clearly brought over all the way from the United States. The other thought occurred to me that he might have left it here when stationed in East Anglia; this was his property, his permanent home in England where he could return to on leave.

The digs in the East End was probably only somewhere to stay while he was working on whatever case he was doing for the Secret Service.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ENCOUNTER WITH CURLY CAVENAGH

MARY sat down on Gold's bed with me to survey what we had collected from our survey of the two-and-a-half floors of the flat, it really wasn't much at all. There was an empty trunk and two suitcases in the unfurnished bedroom up in what was once the loft; they were locked but I opened them and they were indeed empty.

All we had gathered was the framed photo, of course, a diary, a pair of reading glasses and an unmarked cigarette lighter that Mary thought she recognised.

"If you think I look really young in that photo, you are right, I was only 17 and we had been engaged a matter of weeks. We had to part our separate ways, each to a different film location, so he asked me for a photograph, I had a pile of them for publicity purposes. I put that message on it and he bought the frame while — what was that?"

We could hear heavy boots coming up the steel steps outside. Mary ran quickly to the small back bedroom, that had the single bed and empty double wardrobe in it. The window there overlooked the outside door to the flat. I followed a moment or two after her.

"It's the big man with the bald head!" she hissed, "What'll we do?"

''It's your husband's home, Mary," I said, "You have every right to be here."

"That's all very well, Edgar, but he carries a gun, has threatened Gus with violence, and he may have had something to do with Brad's disappearance."

She was right of course.

I said, "You stay in this bedroom, and I will go down and confront him."

"Do you have your gun?"

"No, I only take it when I am expecting trouble."

"We're in trouble now, Edgar, and I know you're a brave man but if he shoots you, he will have to shoot me, too, as a witness."

"All right," I decided, "you stay here and I'll gather the stuff from the master bedroom."

"No, Edgar," she put a hand on my arm, "I'm lighter on my feet and quicker. I think he is only here to collect his rent from the barber and to make a cup of tea. He may not come up here and has no reason to enter this unused bedroom."

Then she was gone.

Within a minute she was back with the diary, lighter and eye glasses and we stood behind the door, listening. The bedroom was close to the stairs, the walls quite thin, so if you were quiet you could hear the man, who we assumed was Curly Cavenagh, banging about in the kitchen.

"He's filling a kettle with water," in a low whisper, Mary kept up a running commentary of Cavenagh's movements and actions. "Now he's turned on the gas and struck a match. The gas is lit and that 'clunk' was the kettle being put on the hob."

She turned and looked at me. "While you were up here, I looked in the pantry, as you suggested, but there was nothing in there. I don't think Brad ever cooked anything while he was here, he always preferred eating out to home cooking." She smiled at that. "Even when he was living with his parents they dined in style because they always had one of the two chefs they employed on hand in the house who cooked everything. They never even had to put the kettle on for tea! Anyway, the sink had two teacups in it, and two spoons, no saucers. I expect Cavenagh will make his usual cup of tea, and leave. I doubt that he will even wash up, as there are six cups in that set."

"I think he uses the bathroom, too," I whispered, remembering the grubby hand towel, "l think we can find out who he is and his criminal history from the fingerprints on a cup, especially if we have several cups, we are bound to find one good print from them."

She grinned, "So all we need do is hide, whether he has a gun or not, and we'll get him anyway, without putting ourselves in danger."

"Sounds like a good plan to me."

While we stood there, quietly behind the third bedroom door, Mary flicked through her husband's diary.

"He never uses it as a diary as such," she whispered, "but as a calendar of future appointments, film schedules, etc. it was useful as a reminder so he wouldn't miss anything important.... it looks like he ticks things off when done, or crosses appointments out when they are cancelled or rescheduled. Wait —"

She paused, and we listened, as we heard Cavenagh come up the stairs, we presumed, heading for the lavatory, as was his presumed habit.

But he stopped outside, between both the bathroom and the small bedroom doors.

Without warning, there was a crash as he kicked our door in, which flew inward towards me.

Mary behind me screamed.

The door flew open and hit my artificial foot. The door seemed to bounce back off my solid foot and almost slammed shut again, as I saw a right hand coming through the door opening with a revolver gripped in it.

I threw my whole weight behind the closing door and it caught the outstretched hand between door and door jamb with a bone-crushing crack!

This time it was Cavenagh that screamed, and there was a loud report as the revolver went off with a mighty bang!

I wrenched the door open, to see the smoking gun fall from the attacker's senseless fingers, the hand hanging sickeningly unnatural at what was certainly a broken or dislocated wrist, Cavenagh reeling back against the toilet door.

"I caution you to stand still, Cavenagh." I warned him as I stepped forward, "I am arresting you in connection with the disappearance of the owner-occupier of this flat, Mr Bradford Gold, late Flight Lieutenant in the RAF...."

Before I could continue with the rest of the caution, about him saying anything that might be taken down and used in evidence, he retaliated by swinging his left hand in an arc towards my head.

I could hear the mechanism of the spring-loaded flick knife, and my eyes saw the six-inch blade unwind, that he venomously intended to hack at me, yelling a frightening bellow from his snarling lips, as the blade swept towards me.

I tried to halt my forward momentum and roll back on my heels to avoid the wicked steel from slicing through my throat, and barely managed to evade enough of his lunge so that only the tip nicked the edge of my chin.

Suddenly, Cavenagh's face disappeared, his forehead exploding like a soft-boiled egg hit overzealously by a careless heavy teaspoon. Blood and brains fountained from a neat hole as near dead centre of his forehead as made no difference, his eyes changing from a look of total fury to abject shock, and then to utter resignation as the power of sight, thought, and the ability to even stand up any longer abandoned him.

Almost immediately after this chain of events registered with me, the deafening thunderclap roar of the gun exploded next to my left ear, and the rest of the scene played out like I imagined one of Brad Gold's early silent movies would.

Just as the lifeless body slumped to the floor, I twisted my head to see Mary, gripping Cavenagh's own discarded revolver in both her tiny hands at the end of her outstretched arms, her left eye closed as her right eye sighted along the barrel to the point on the bathroom door, now covered in blood, brains and skull bone fragments from the back of what had once been Cavenagh's head.

She opened her left eye and calmly lowered the revolver, using a thumb to gently ease the hammer back in place safely without discharging the weapon for an unnecessary second firing.

I lip-read, "Sorry," she said, without remorse or any discernible passion, "I know you wanted to question him, but Daddy taught me to always shoot snakes in the head."

I didn't hear the policeman's whistle, summoned by one of the barber's customers, who ran up and down Denmark Hill Road until he saw a constable on patrol on his bike. Nor did I hear Mary call out to them, "Upstairs!", or hear them charge up the stairs in their heavy hob-nailed boots.

All I could hear was the deafening ringing in my ears.

I saw the policeman burst into the flat's master bedroom, where we had moved for comfort's sake immediately after the shooting, no doubt after he'd stepped over the grisly corpse in the hallway, truncheon at the ready, and Gus the barber following him close behind. Both were confronted by the scene of Mary and I sitting calmly on the edge of the double bed.

I must've looked a frightful sight, my face covered in blood and brains, and it might not have been immediately obvious to a casual observer that little of the gore was actually mine, but from the very recently deceased "Curly" Cavenagh.

There was a little of the blood dripping from my chin that was mine, which I staunched with a clean handkerchief mono-chromed "MJ"; my own handkerchief not being nearly clean enough for the purpose. I had urged Mary to calmly step down to open the front door, for our soon-to-be-expected company, and not to disturb the crime scene outside the bathroom.

I had noticed a small medicine tin was kept in the bathroom cabinet, in my earlier search, but I advised Mary not to touch the bathroom door.

I had brought to hand my own handkerchief, but hesitated to use it; it was two days old, having not returned to my digs last night, and there was little point in stopping the blood dripping onto my ruined coat, shirt and tie.

But Mary caught my movements and calmly retrieved a delicate and freshly laundered square of linen from her purse for me. Once she returned from the front door, I had us retire to the master bedroom, to await the plodding process of law enforcement.

While I was talking, I could only 'hear' my voice echoing to me through the bones in my head, once more projecting my mind back to the time when I lost my foot, deafened as I was then by an exploding mortar which had pitched me into the flooded shell hole, which fortunately protected me from further injury from the murderous machine gun fire from the German soldiers of a different, older war. It was back at the forward casualty unit that I rapidly learned the rudiments of lip-reading, as it was nearly a week before the ringing stopped in my left ear, but my right was permanently damaged and I had hardly heard anything above 10% in that ear ever since.

The policeman looked wordlessly at the pair of us sitting there, keeping a firm grip on his truncheon but clearly at a loss what do next. Just behind the policeman, came the barber. He also looked at us, then saw the photograph frame on the bedside table and he put two and two together.

"Blimey!" The barber exclaimed, "it's bloomin' Marcia de Myrrh, the famous actress! Look, Bert, it's only her blooming picture wot's on the table!"

The copper, a well-built fellow, who looked as though he fully enjoyed and never missed his dinners, with a full moustache that overflowed his upper lip, and red cheeks, furrowed his brow as he looked from the picture to the vision sitting next to me, "Blow me, it is Marcia la Mare, ain't it Gus?"

Gus the barber slapped the copper on the back and laughed, "It is an' all, Bert, it is an' all!"

The policeman turned to me and asked quite sternly, "Can you tell me what happened here, Mister?"

I was about to reply, when Mary must've answered for me.

"It wasn't Mr Onslow that shot Cavenagh, officer, it was me."

I couldn't see her lips from where I was sitting on the bed but, speaking later, I deduced that she said something along those lines.

The policeman turned to Mary when she started talking and then turned back to examine me when she said my name. He leaned further forward as if to search my features more carefully behind the sprayed gore.

"Mr Onslow? Blimey, it is! It's Mr Onslow!"

Suddenly, the policeman stood up straight and saluted, "Mr Onslow, Sir! PC Albert Coker at your service, Sir! Shall I send for a doctor to attend to yer, Sir?"

Even Gus the barber clicked his heels together and stood up straight, arms flat down to his sides.

"At ease, PC Coker," I said, hoping I sounded as though I was making sense, because my voice 'sounded' so different with my ears ringing so much, "there has been a violent death here and we must follow proper procedure, to ensure that the scene has not been unduly disturbed. You must stop anyone else coming to the scene. I am largely unhurt, although I may need a doctor to examine a possible punctured eardrum, as a result of the percussion from the weapon discharge, and also to stitch a wound in my chin, that was inflicted by the deceased's flick-knife before he was shot, but the doctor can wait. I can assure you that Miss la Mare discharged a weapon in self defence, and that the deceased, a man we believe to be called Cavenagh, had brought the weapon to the scene and threatened us with it and discharged his weapon once, fortunately wild, the bullet to be found somewhere in the ceiling. After I had disarmed him of his discharged weapon, Cavenagh came at me with a six-inch flick-knife, which you should find on the floor of the bedroom, possibly with a trace of my blood type on the very tip and only his fingerprints on the handle."

At that point he twisted his head, no doubt he could hear more heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.

"Escuse me, Sir," PC Coker spun on his heels, stepped into the hallway and bellowed something down the stairs with his mouth fully open. Sideways on, I was unable to read exactly what he said but as no-one came through, I assumed he was successful in stopping the new arrivals in their tracks.

"Constable Coker, if you have had any reinforcements arrive, perhaps you could dispatch one to a police telephone box and contact Detective Inspector Robert Cummings at the Yard, who is the senior officer that I am reporting to in connection with this case."

He saluted smartly again in response and bellowed down the stairs again. He was one of those old style coppers, much like my own dear father, who served as a policeman all his adult life and missed it terribly when he had to give it up through retirement. This copper looked a decade older than me and probably grateful that the war had extended his period of service, to leave younger men to fight the war, while older Coppers like Coker helped keep the peace.

I glanced at Mary, to see how she was coping with the events of the past few minutes, and it was but a few minutes from discovery and death to awaiting investigation of the fact, but she sat there calm and serene, and smiled at me as I turned, recognising my concern.

"I am OK," I read her assurances on her lips. "Really, Edgar, the guy meant nothing to me, and he was trying to kill you. After that, I know he would then have killed me too, being the only witness to your murder. I believe I did the right thing by taking his life and I am resolved to not let it affect my life by one iota."

I felt her grip my hand hard, I hadn't realised that she still held it and had done almost continuously since the death of Cavenagh. I squeezed it back and turned to face the doorway again.

The Constable was stood outside the door, his mouth moving, giving more instructions to one or more unseen colleagues standing at the top of the stairwell.

Also, standing inside the doorway was Gus, the barber, standing there still grinning at us. I noticed he wasn't carrying his regulation gas mask, something that we had all become accustomed to wear about our person from the very first weeks of the war.
"Where's your gas mask, man?" I asked, "You should have it on you at all times."

His smile slipped from his face and he stood to attention once again, "Sorry, Sir, I puts it dahn when I'm indoors workin', cos it bangs on the chair, or the customer, an' gets in the way, Sir. I'll go fetch it now, Sir."

"No, don't worry about it now, man," I said, "I don't want you to muck up the incident scene before the detectives get here. Stay here and think about strategies for remembering the damn thing next time you leave your place of work."

"Yes, Sir, thank you, Sir."

Mary pulled my arm, so I turned to face her so I could 'see' what she was saying.

"I took off my gas mask when I was in the kitchen, Edgar. It was getting in the way while searching and I'm not as used to wearing one as ... most of the rest of you are. Cavenagh must have seen it on the side in the kitchen and knew there was somebody in the apartment. This mess is all my fault!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

AFTERMATH

BOB Cummings eventually arrived with a couple of younger detectives in his investigating team, neither of whom I had actually seen before. I presumed the heavy bombing was taking its toll on policemen, stretched as they were with looting from private residences, as well as factories and warehouses damaged in the raids, and their contents 'liberated' under cover of the blackout.

Bob must've first spoken to PC Coker, who had remained outside the flat, guarding the stairs against the interested local crowd that had gathered outside, their imaginations running wild speculating on the reports of gunshots.

Occasionally, the portly policeman had bellowed news up the stairs, in particular regarding Bob Cummings being notified at the Yard, and that the Coroner and a medical doctor were on their way, all of which Mary faithfully and calmly repeated to me.

I have to say that Mary remained quiet but calm during our wait for the authorities to run through their due process in the event of a sudden violent death.

When she wasn't clinging onto my arm, or translating the words of people who were thoughtlessly not looking at me when speaking, or sounds from beyond the room, she was very attentive and thorough. Otherwise, she was keenly going through the diary her husband had left and discovered by me in the beside table drawer.

The doctor had arrived first, a bone-thin, ancient medical man, who was probably more than half again as old as I was, carrying by evident way of need, a silver headed walking stick. He had such trouble putting a couple of stitches into my wound on my chin with his shaky hands.

So much so, that Mary took over saying, with her tongue in cheek, that she'd sewn up wounds on scores of cows following calving and tears on barbed wire, and that one more "ornery leather hide" would be no trouble at all for her.

The old quack looked closely at the finished result, which he declared, "Ah hem, as neat a job as I've ever seen", his breath revealed that his lunch must have consisted of several large pink gins before embarking on his afternoon patient rounds.

As for my left ear, which registered no sound at all, he thought it was no doubt due to a perforated eardrum, that would take six to eight weeks to heal all by itself. He had no treatment for the condition other than advise me to keep it clean and clear of infection and that I was not to submerge my head in water during the next couple of weeks at least. Then he tied a bandage around my head with a huge cotton wool pad against my left ear by way of protection from invasion by dirt and other foreign objects.

What he did insist on was that I change into clean clothes, my current ones being quite disgusting and a potential source of infection for my ear and chin.

When I protested that the blood spatter pattern on the clothes and exposed body surfaces was evidence that needed photographing before cleaning up, he quite determinedly pooh-poohed my argument on medical grounds.

In addition, regarding the evidence, that the blood splatter would still be evident on the clothes if they were removed carefully and hung on clothes hooks, and there would be adequate testimony of the results from reliable witnesses, such as Constable Coker, Gus the barber and the doctor himself as to the validity of my testimony of the event.

There were bound to be suitable clothes in the wardrobe and clothing hooks aplenty, he suggested. And the detectives, he said, far more wisely than I had clearly considered, would prefer to be able to remove the clothes to a laboratory as soon as they could, so taking them, clothes hooks and all, would be a much simpler procedure for them.

Mary undertook to go through her husband's clothing in his wardrobe and eventually passed me a selection of spare clothing hooks on which to hang my blood-soiled overcoat, jacket, shirt and tie. Then the eagle-eyed minx noted that the splatter extended to below the knee of my trousers and consequently onto my shoes.

I removed my shoes reluctantly. My left was untied and slipped off first and lastly the right, the shoe which covered my artificial foot and the strapping associated with it.

Very few people of my acquaintance had actually seen it; my father, when he was alive, saw a range of wooden and metal ones as the technology of artificial limbs improved over time, given the impetus of the large number of people who had lost limbs in the Great War, plus curious nephews more so than nieces, who tended to be squeamish, had also requested to see it, so who was I, an investigating detective by profession and calling, to deny them their natural curiosity?

Mary was childlike in her fascination with the missing appendage. She soon pointed out in her Assistant Detective voice, "There's blood on both the socks, Edgar. I am sure they will have to be taken as evidence, too, as a pair. Then, of course, your pants, sorry, trousers, will have to be removed."

I was sure there was a fleeting little grin at that comment, but I couldn't be sure as her face instantly became about as revealing as a professional poker player might from the gaming tables of Monte Carlo.

"You'll have to turn your back, when I take off these trousers, Madam," I said as formally as I could. I was trying to make my voice commanding and assertive, but for all the reassurance I was feeling of the sound of my voice through my bones, was that I felt I sounded more like a demented Mickey Mouse than a former senior commissioned officer of the law.

"Well, Edgar, only five minutes ago I was your nurse, and nurses as you are probably very well aware, are quite accustomed to seeing gentlemen dressed down to their respectable undergarments. I think we can keep this process quite professional, like between nurse and patient. I trust your undergarments are respectable, Sir?"

The old doctor was enjoying this exchange between us, his yellow-toothed smile had probably never had so much light exposure in recent years.

"They are, thank you." I assured the little minx, "Don't tell me, I suppose you once studied nursing for a film rôle?"

"Well, as you pointed out the obvious, and asked me not to tell you, I won't disclose whether I have or not," she smiled innocently.

I sighed, stood up and undid my waist belt. I never was one for braces or, as Mary pointed out the lack of them earlier, what she called 'suspenders'.

Perhaps there was more fun for her in the teasing than the witnessing of my discomfort at the state of my undress, as she turned away to fetch the borrowed trousers and handed them to me, while continually looking me straight in the eye.

I thanked her, and she almost bobbed in curtsy, much like Milly had done for me the previous evening.

So, by the time Detective Inspector Bob Cummings of New Scotland Yard arrived at the crime scene, I was sitting in a very nice woollen suit of clothes, the quality of which was far beyond my meagre means, the label inside indicating the source of the suit was a bespoke tailors' shop just two doors away from Mr Sims of Sims & Butler, Saville Row. Mr Gold, was no doubt a man of impeccable taste, at least where it came to furniture, clothes and women.

Business-like, Bob organised one of his young tyros to take Mary into the second bedroom for initial questioning, as per standard procedure. She took the two paper carrier bags containing my old clothes with her. One of the local shops supplied the bags following a request by PC Coker.

Mr Laws was perfectly correct, the people who lived and worked round here rallied round and helped their neighbours.

"Well, Mr Onslow," Bob said with a snigger, after he had examined the body and satisfied himself of the train of events we had stated, "this is a right to-do and no mistake. We've been tryin' to tie down that toe rag Clarence Cavenagh for bleedin' years and within half a second of you meetin' the blighter for the very first time, you've 'turned him in', permanent like."

Even during the years we worked together and the several years since, Bob has never called me by my first name, maybe because I always outranked him by at least two levels.

He continued, "yeah, he's bin done a couple of times for petty theft an' a bit o' GBH, but that was in his much younger days, but nuthin's been pinned on the bugger fer years. We reckon 'e's been 'eavily involved in protection rackets and general violence for all his adult life, though we've never managed to pin anyfink concrete on 'im at all. I'm surprised to see 'im round here, though, this area is a bit off 'is normal patch."

"Where does he normally operate then, Bob?" I asked.

"East End, around the docks, we think. I would say the Isle o' Dogs is his centre of operations, but it's hard to pin him down, 'e turns up like a bad smell all over the East London manor. So, how did you track 'im down to this neck o' the woods?"

"Got a tip off from one of Gold's old crew mates that Miss la Mare's husband had a place here and also mentioned that he had dealings with this man that we only knew as 'Curly Cavenagh', using him as an agent to buy this place, and that Cavenagh had since threatened Gold and his family. So we came down just to have a look around and, well, you know the rest of the story."

The other detective came into the room, nodded to me in deference, and whispered in Bob's ear. Bob nodded a couple of times and turned to me.

"What we will do, Mr Onslow, if it is no inconvenience to you, like, we will take you and Miss la Mare down to one o' the local nicks and do this official like. You know the procedure as well as me, I'll get a statement from you both, agreed, signed and witnessed, along with the barber and a few others what heard the shots and saw the scene before the local plod got here. We've already got testimony from the Doc wot treated you, an' the Coroner's dealin' with the body now an' already arranged for collection by an undertaker. No need for an autopsy, anyone can see what the cause of death was!" He laughed. "So, as soon as the body's moved an' safely out of the way, we'll go past the scene down to the nick."

"That's fine Bob. Oh, we need to return the keys for the empty shop next door to the estate agents down the road —"

"Yeah, we already had a conversation wiv Mr Laws the estate agent over that, 'cos we've been traipsin' through 'is bleedin' shop all afternoon and the agent says he's happy to lock up after we've packed up an' gone. It's been easier to get through the shop than use the narrow alley at the back, cos it's packed with onlookers an' too tight to get any vehicles down there. Don't worry about how you entered these premises, we'll put it down on both your statements that you thought you heard sommink an' the door was already unlocked. It keeps the paperwork neat and tidy."

He grinned, showing teeth that were black at the gums. I was glad he kept his distance because I remember when we worked in close proximity that his breath always smelt revolting.

I reached into my empty jacket pockets for the keys that Laws the estate agent had given me earlier and remembered that Mary had folded up my old clothes ready for evidence gathering.

"Sorry, Bob, I meant to give you the keys to pass onto the estate agent, but they are still in my old pockets and probably bagged up for evidence now."

"No, Mr Onslow, we ain't bothering with that part of the evidence, it is perficktly clear wot happened. Miss la Mare has since emptied the pockets fer us and we've given the keys back to the estate agent. Miss la Mare's kept the clothes to get them cleaned for you at her hotel. I bet you will get 'em back first fing in the morning, pressed an' sweet smellin' o' roses, I'll be bound!"

"So, no problems for Miss la Mare or myself over this little incident, is there, Bob?"

"Nah, none that I can see, Mr Onslow, we know that you're innocent of any crime here. The purpose of your visit is completely in line with our police investigation, for which we had recommended your assistance to the young lady. We will write it up as if you was already part of our investigating team, an' that you wus following a lead, that you entered the unlocked premises which you believed to be belonging to Miss la Mare's missing husband in order to better discover 'is present whereabouts. In the carryin' out of your enquiries you was both threatened with a loaded revolver, shot at, an' actually suffered an unprovoked assault in an attempt on your life by Mr Clarence Cavenagh, a known criminal, with several convictions for violence, and wiv no known legal means of support for the past two decades. And further more, in self defence, Miss la Mare used the assailants' very own weapon to inflict a fatal wound upon 'im. Open an' shut case, Mr Onslow, not to be concerned about in the future by either of you."

"So just the formalities of the official statement to complete, Bob?"

"Yeah, an' while we're at it we'll put our 'eads together to get the missing person file on Bradford Gold up to date, but basically I'm just leavin' the investigatin' to you and Miss la Mare, because you seem to be makin' better progress than we did. We'll just get involved if anythin' develops wot looks criminal or you need extra back up. Just keep us in the loop, Mr Onslow, eh?"

"Of course, Bob. It goes without saying."

In the end we were taken separately to two different police stations, as the local stations were not equipped to take us all the witnesses in for questioning at the same time. By the time I had emerged from the final brief on the case, getting Bob's files brought from the Yard up to date with all we had learned in the past few days, Mary had already been driven back to her hotel, and I assumed that I was going to miss my evening dinner yet again.

Curiously, during our debrief after the statement, Bob had listed all the new evidence gathered and what he intended doing with each item. My blood-soaked clothes, that he had happily passed onto Mary's charge, while my personal items were returned to me in a large Manila envelope. There was no sign of my lock-picking kit so I hoped Mary still had them concealed within my coat. The reading eye glasses, cigarette lighter and the signed portrait were recorded as evidence noted for missing person information only, and returned to Gold's wife as the property of the couple.

However, there was no mention at all of Gold's diary. I could only assume that Mary had kept it and not informed Bob of its existence. I would find out tomorrow.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

BODY!

I MISSED my time slot at the public telephone box around the corner from my office on Friday night, due to my debrief with Bob Cummings, so my father's old fob watch informed me. I wondered if I had missed a call from Mary.

It was ten minutes past dinner time by the time I was dropped off by the police car at my digs at Mrs McPherson's lodging house, but she managed to rustle up something, no doubt to avoid rebating any of my weekly rent, which included a limited amount for laundry and daily hot meals. The rest of her guests were still at the dining table, dining on the remnants of smoked haddock and boiled cabbage. This fare was all that the landlady could gather from our collective ration books, which we had long ago surrendered to her control.

As I made my appearance, the two female guests' interest in men was suddenly piqued by the clearly bespoke quality of the handmade suit I was wearing, which amazingly fitted me like a glove. My height and build presumably close to Bradford Gold's, even down to size 10 shoe size. No wonder she had no trouble ordering my dinner jacket from Mr Sims.

Also obvious to even the most casual observer, was the huge pad of cotton wool wadding tied around my head, to protect my damaged ear.

Mrs McPherson was actually moved to apologise for distributing my portion of dinner amongst the rest when I failed to show up precisely at the allotted time.

This apology was almost a first for the stone-faced Scottish woman, perhaps it is true what they say about the apparel maketh the man.

She had previously put some boiled cabbage to one side, which she then married up with some cold boiled potatoes left over from the previous day and, in about ten minutes or so, served me what turned out to be a more than acceptable hot plate of bubble and squeak.

I took my place at the table and duly fended off questions about my envious apparel by stating, quite honestly, that it was all part of an ongoing Police enquiry and therefore a sub judicial subject not to be discussed in public or private with anyone.

Shortly following my afters, consisting of plum duff and reconstituted powdered custard, I retired to my room and washed myself down with a flannel dipped in cold water, as Mrs McPherson only put the hot water boiler on for baths on Saturday nights, before retiring early, quite exhausted from the experiences of the day.

It had been cold, but bright and sunny on Friday, so the evening continued dry and cloudless, with a heavy dew settling almost down to ground level, which froze as a hoar frost on every roof and leafless tree by midnight.

Not long past the witching hour, the air raid warnings sounded and we wearily pulled coats over our nightwear and dragged blankets and pillows down to the nearest garden or communal Anderson shelters or underground stations of choice.

While we assumed the war of attrition went on in the air over our heads, we were finally advised that no bombs had actually been dropped in our area. This time the heavy bombers hit the docks and wharves along the river, impossible to disguise on a cold clear starry night.

The bombers only had to follow the Thames up the estuary to find their targets.

In the relative warmth of the local underground station I had a really good sleep until about four in the morning, when the all-clear sent us back to our beds for the remainder of the night.

It was already light outside on the Saturday morning and I was thinking about getting up. It was warmer that it had been any time up to now this year. I had decided that I would do some sleuthing on Saturday morning, by visiting the Isle of Dogs to speak to a couple of dock workers who I knew kept their ears to the ground. I hoped they would be able to tell me or at least make enquiries how to find out about the activities of Curly Cavenagh. I wondered how it was possible that the petty criminal could have any kind of association with an American film star from Hollywood of the stature of Bradford Gold.

It was during my cogitation that a car pulled up outside the house and one of the local coppers apparently knocked loudly on the door and asked to see me.

I hadn't heard a thing because of my ear but was almost fully dressed by the time Mrs McPherson knocked on my door saying I was wanted downstairs in the front parlour. I hadn't put on Gold's suit, it was really was far too good for everyday wear.
"Mr Onslow," the local copper said breathless with excitement.

I had to slow him down so I could read his lips, pointing out the large bandage still covering my left ear.

"New Scotland Yard have sent a car over special like to pick you up, Sir. They called in at the station first, 'cos the driver, a cheeky young blighter called Rawlin's, didn't exactly know where you lived, Sir. He says they've found a body in the river, Sir, an' they wants you to go see it."

It was going to be cold by the river and my only warm overcoat was covered in blood and hopefully being cleaned by Mary's hotel cleaning service. I only had a light raincoat on Mrs McPherson's hall stand, so I returned to my room and pulled my warmest jersey over my shirt and vest, and hoped that four relatively thin layers would do to keep the damp cold of the river out of my old bones.

The police driver was of the taciturn type, a thin young man with a weasel face and longer than strictly regulation hair. After saying he knew "nuffink", just told to fetch me from my digs in Mile End, the driver never said a word as he picked his way through the dockland streets littered with debris from the previous night's bombing, so I was left with my own thoughts.

I would think there would be only one reason for me to be summonsed by New Scotland Yard to the bank of the river Thames to examine a body, it would have to be that of Bradford Gold.

I had thought yesterday, when we heard from Mr Laws, the estate agent, that Cavenagh was collecting the rent from his tenant instead of Gold, that this was a piece of opportunism by the criminal. Perhaps he had heard that Gold was missing and unable to collect the rent, or else he had a direct hand in the actor's disappearance.

This meant that Gold was still held somewhere and there was the risk that if Cavenagh disappeared too, that might precipitate Gold's early release or his murder, depending solely on the desperation of those who were left holding onto Gold.

To then hear the result was the actor's death and found in the river, be it by fair means or foul, was a likely outcome, but even so, I hadn't expected to hear of a body being found quite so soon. The muddy River Thames was notorious for keeping its secrets.

I felt for Mary, too. I knew that she would not only be very upset, but as much as she had played with my affections as she admitted she did with everyone, I knew that she loved Gold deeply and would be devastated by his tragic end.

As the car slowed, and I could see the river close by, it looked like the Press had been tipped off too, as the crowd of photographers and reporters was enormous, even the Pathé News film cameras were present, crowding the narrow streets leading down to the river bank.

The Press's presence at crime scenes was a subject that often rankled with me, as there always seemed to be some dirty copper who was willing to tip off the Press for a quid or as much as a fiver if something juicy, such as the death or arrest of a famous person, fell into a category of interest to the newspapers.

This part of the Thames, close to the docks, was definitely in Cavenagh's country, and, if the death proved to be a foul deed, was possibly close by where the actor had been kept since his disappearance, and disposed of once Cavenagh was killed. Cavenagh's accomplices possibly cutting their losses by disposing of their charge and hoping to get clean away.

On the other hand, of course, war takes its toll on the human mind and Gold could just as easily have jumped off a bridge upriver, and floated up and down on the twice daily tides, just under the surface, the cold water only holding off the natural decaying process within the body for a while, until it would bloat the body sufficiently that it could be buoyant and more noticeable. Or it could have become buoyant enough to be beached like a dead whale on the ebbing tide.

When I saw the body, I knew it was indeed Bradford Gold. I immediately thought that my latter theory was the most likely, that Gold had committed suicide. This was the plain clothed Police Sergeant from Bob Cummings' office's opinion too, as he expounded his theory by the side of that sad muddy beach next to the impenetrable grey water of the Thames as I arrived.

"... in summary," the Sergeant continued, nodding to me and, knowing I was deafened yesterday, he considerately kept his face in my full view, except where the way down looked dodgy, as we made our way down the slippery steps to the waterside. He continued, "that it appears the actor had found that his part in the war wus not the bed o' roses wot it looks like on the silver screen. I reckon that he found it bloody hard going, particularly after his aircraft crashed and he lost part of his crew. It looks like it 'ad played on his mind and, out o' guilt, remorse or his own failin's during 'is part in the war, he'd gone an' bleedin' topped hisself."

He stepped to one side and the Coroner directed his stretcher crew to the side of the body. Bob Cummings stood with his back to me and was in deep conversation with the Coroner's doctor. The new arrivals put down their empty stretcher and were about to roll the body onto the stretcher.

Well, I might have agreed with the Sergeant's summary, as certainly the body, lying on its back in the mud, looked as though poor Gold had been in the water for some time, with that waxy skin that was familiar to any copper that had his beat close to London's notorious river. I remembered all too vividly back during the financial crisis of the late Twenties and early Thirties, we were fishing poor buggers out of the water on a daily basis. And Gold was certainly had the look that one might have expected. But I instinctively felt something wasn't right.

"Hold up, men," I commanded. The stretcher bearers froze. "I want a look see before you move the body."

Bob Cummings turned at the sound of my voice and spoke directly at me.

"Hello, Mr Onslow, I bin expecting you," Bob said, "By all means, have a quick dekho, Sir, but I fink you'll find this is pretty much 'case closed' fer Mr Gold here. Nobody's a good enough bleedin' actor to play dead this long or this well!"

A few of Bob's New Scotland Yard cronies laughed at the gallows humour, while I made my way to the body and knelt down on the stretcher, hoping to keep my trousers relatively dry, at least for a few minutes.

Gold had been fully dressed when he entered the water, as an officer and gentleman would have been expected to dress when going out in the evening to dine, or after dining, especially during mid-winter in a London climate. He was in uniform, enveloped in a heavy dark blue overcoat, with his rank of Flight Lieutenant correct, even though I was led to believe he had since left the uniformed branch of the forces.

He wore his RAF number one uniform as if he had been to some official function. Naturally, his cap was missing, as would have been expected if he had jumped, fallen or been pushed into the river. On his hands he wore thick brown leather gloves, tight fitting around the wrists, which showed up as a restricted wrist mark of the raised threads on the bloated wrists. I was in no position to remove a glove, the Coroner's surgeon carrying out the autopsy would do that in the course of his investigation.

I lifted up his trouser leg. He wore sock suspenders which kept his thick woollen socks up. I loosened one of the suspenders and examined the skin immediately above his ankles. His ankles were nowhere near as bloated as his hands, so you could clearly see the skin was indented as if his feet had been tied together for a considerable time, including after death when the rest of the leg had begun the process of bloating. I checked the other ankle under the sock and found the same phenomenon.

"Look, Bob," I pointed out to the sceptical detective, and Mr Finlay, the medical examiner and surgeon who was part of the Coroner's team, raised his eyebrows. "You can also see where the chafing of the rope has worn the surface of the woollen sock and caused them to thin and clump the loose fibres into woolly knots. I don't think that a wealthy man, dressed formerly for some sort of shindig in his Number Ones would skimp on wearing socks that clearly needed darning, do you?"

"I suppose not," Cummings said, grudgingly.

"Accepting that," I continued, "the indentation on his wrists then becomes more obvious, and if you look closely, you can see that the stitches on the seams of these gloves have an unusual amount of external wear on them. It is obvious that this man has been held tied up against his will for possibly as long as a couple of weeks and then drowned, possibly as long ago as a week or more, depending on what the temperature was where he was kept. I bet at the autopsy they will find that his lungs are filled with rather more tap water than river water."

"I'll certainly check that out, Onslow," Mr Finlay, who had been nodding at each point I was making throughout my theorising, "Right, Inspector Cummings, old boy, we'll keep this blighter flat on his back, just as he's been found. and I'll see if this old detective here, who everyone with any sense knows was put out to grass well before his proper time, is right on the button!"

My driver took his sweet time driving to the hospital. I had assumed it would be Bart's, the nearest main hospital to Wapping, but he drove over the river to St Thomas's at Southwark. I had assumed he had heard where we were supposed to be going and equally assumed that I had missed reading anyone's lips over the destination.

I wasted twenty minutes there making enquiries before I found the useless police driver had taken me to the wrong blessed hospital. St Thomas's receptionist phoned around on my behalf and, after another ten minutes, found that I was right in the first place, the body had been taken to St Bartholomew's Hospital at Smithfield.

"Sorry, Guv," Rawlings the driver apologised, "but I lives 'round here an' its the on'y 'ospital wot I knows."

He didn't look sorry, though, just shifty. I wondered if he was the very policeman that had tipped off the newspapers. He had been instructed to leave the scene to fetch me from my lodgings, so he could easily have stopped at a telephone box along the way to call his press contact.

By the time we had got to Bart's and I'd made my way down into the depths of the building to the mortuary, where Mr Finlay was expected to do his work, it had all gone quite quiet.

Mary was already there, ashen of face and looking completely lost. She appeared totally different to her film star persona. She wore no make-up and was dressed in a plain thick cotton shirt and slightly faded blue trousers, the type referred to as 'slacks' and rarely worn by women in England.

"Oh, Edgar, I was frantic with worry," she silently mouthed directly to my face, in between great sobs on my shoulder, "I thought that now Brad had finally been found, that yah'd abandoned me."

I pulled her to me so that her head rested on my shoulder again and my lips were right next to her ear. "No, Mary," I replied in her ear with a voice so low that I imagine no-one within normal earshot could hear, "We will see this through to the bitter end, my dear. We'll find out who did this to your husband and, if it wasn't Cavenagh, then we'll get whoever it is that needs to be brought to justice."

Mary lifted her head and stared at me, silently mouthing, "But the Inspector said that Brad's death was clearly a case of suicide, by jumping off a bridge in remorse while his mind must've been in turmoil, presumably at losing part of his crew in the crash. I thought ... I don't know what I thought ... I was about to go back to the hotel, although I know the press are waiting for me there and I really can't face running that gauntlet now."

I wondered what Bob Cummings was playing at. I thought that we had agreed down there on that muddy river beach that this looked like a clear case of a kidnapping, a man restrained against his will for some time, followed by murder by drowning.

Either Cummings was just nodding in agreement with my theory to humour me or he had decided that searching for the perpetrator of a murder that could more easily be passed off as suicide by a troubled airman was not worth pursuing, especially where the victim was a foreign national.

As a Detective Sergeant, Cummings had been prone to cut corners through laziness; as an Inspector, unchecked by his present superiors who it appears were less thorough than I was, perhaps, he appeared prepared to let certain things go by the board.

I remembered how easy it was for Mary and myself to be relieved of any enquiry into Cavenagh's violent death. That would never have happened during my time at the Yard.

"Is Inspector Cummings in with the surgeon carrying out the autopsy?" I asked Mary.

"No, Cummings had to leave," she mouthed, "said he was on another case. I'm not even sure that the coroner's actually bothering in doing any autopsy. There's no serious work going on, here, it's as if this was a film set, they were even packing away the cameras and lights when I arrived. I think they must have been well prepared to cover his death in the newsreels."

"You wait here and I'll go see Mr Finlay and find out what's going on."

"Who's Finlay?" she asked.

"The surgeon who's doing the autopsy."

"No, I don't think so," she mouthed, "I am sure I heard that it's a guy called Vosel that is the only surgeon on duty down here today. He was particularly interested in meeting me, so I signed an autograph for him, although he said it was for his daughter."

I hurried along the corridor, and into the autopsy room. It was empty, the tables were clean and dry. There had been no autopsy at all that day.

So where was Gold? What had happened to his body and where did Finlay go or his late replacement?

I immediately went to the mortuary reception and spoke to the young lady sitting there about Mr Finlay's whereabouts. She went quite red with embarrassment and wouldn't look me in the eye.

"Mr Finlay isn't here, Sir, I'm sure. Can I get someone else for you?"

"No, just Finlay, I saw him down by the river early this morning. He was going to do an autopsy on a man who was drowned, a man called Bradford Gold."

"Oh, the actor. We heard all about him but we were not allowed to speak to him."

"Speak to him?!" I spluttered, "By God, nurse, the man was dead as a doornail!"

"No, no," she giggled, "That's all part of the hospital training exercise! You know, make it look to us and viewers as realistic as possible. With so many older and retired staff returning to work and new young staff starting here, the police organised a staged emergency, with a willing famous actor playing the body. We weren't allowed to speak to him, they warned us not to beforehand, but we did see him on the stretchers. No sign of Mr Finlay, though ... he ..." she dropped her voice to a whisper, "well, he wouldn't ever be allowed back in here any more, Sir, not since he was struck off the medical register."

"Why would Finlay get himself struck off?" I asked, "I thought he was a well-respected surgeon here."

"He was, at one time, but ..." The girl leant forward, dropping her voice even lower, although I was still able to lip-read every word.

"He was caught operating on girls, er, working girls, you know, ... doing ... abortions."

I collected Mary and steered her swiftly to the door. From the back of her chair, she grabbed her coat with fur trimming, in faded blue cotton that matched her trousers.

"What's going on, Edgar?"

"Something very fishy is going on, Mary. Not sure what is at the bottom of it really, but the surgeon I saw at the river was all part of an elaborate set-up. Whether Detective Inspector Cummings is involved or not, well, I am going to find out."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

IN WHO CAN WE TRUST?

RAWLINGS the driver was waiting outside for us. I did hesitate, because he had made a couple of mistakes already today, to my detriment, but he attempted to disarm us with an uncertain smile as he opened the rear door for Mary. Probably the smile he wore was more for Mary than for me. I supposed that I could hardly blame him for that.

I ordered Rawlings to drive us directly to New Scotland Yard.

We drove away from the Hospital and down through Smithfields, now empty of butchers and customers as it was getting so late in the afternoon. But instead of steering the police car right at the Barbican and westward towards Westminster and New Scotland Yard, he turned left and drove eastwards towards Tower Hamlets.

Mary was unconcerned, not knowing London at all and was still talking directly to me about the Smithfield Market, which apparently even mid-west ranchers had heard legend of.

Because I was concentrating on her lips, I didn't notice until we drove past St Paul's, down New Change and turned into Cannon Street, that I realised we were traveling east instead of west.

"Hey, Rawlings," I leaned forward and said over the shoulder of the driver, "I wanted to go on to the Yard," and leaned over further to try and see his lips move in reply.

"Inspector Cummings ain't back at the Yard, Guv. He told us earlier. He said I wus to bring you to where he would be, as soon as you an' Miss la Mare wus ready to go, that is."

"I am not sure I want to see Cummings, I would rather go to New Scotland Yard and speak to Cummings' boss."

"That ain't a good idea, Guv, after all, it's a Sat'day, an' there won't be none o' the senior officers there today."

"Well, that's where I want to go, Rawlings, so please turn the car around at the next turning. Look, we're just coming up to Queen Victoria Street."

"I got me orders, Guv, so I'm takin' yer both ter see me boss."

"Well, Rawlings, I told you that I don't want to see Cummings right now, so I'm giving you a counter order, take us to New Scotland Yard now, man."

"Bugger that fer a game o' soldiers," he said, accelerating up Cheapside, "I'm followin' the orders wot I got, see!"

"Rawlings, I may be retired, but I still outrank Cummings by a considerable degree, and the likelihood is that he will be suspended over this and you won't want to be suspended along with him, will you?"

"I ain't stoppin' mate, you can't order me about, you're nothin' but a washed up old gimp."

"So, you won't stop by my orders, is that correct?"

"Yeah, you got it, mate, I won't stop and that's about that."

I tried to grab both of his ears, but he managed to twist away and I lost the slight hold that I had managed on his right one, but I was able to keep a grip on one of his ears, the left, and I viciously twisted it up in a clockwise direction.

"Ow! You bastard!" he cried, adding what assumed were expletives, Mary told me later the gist of what he said that I couldn't hear.

Then, as I pulled his head up, and I could make him out to say something

"I'll flamin' well get you fer this, I will!"

He shook me off and hunched himself over the steering wheel trying to get as far away from me, reaching over the back of his seat, as he could.

"You stop and get out and I'll stop twisting your ear." I retorted.

"No! Let me go or we'll surely crash!" he snarled words to that effect.

I twisted his left ear harder, forcing his chin up and head back, then grabbed his right ear too and twisted that one vigorously anti clockwise, forcing his head up so he couldn't see where he was going any more, forcing him slow down.

"Fuck!" he shouted, "Le'go, or you'll be for it, I'll bloody well do fer you!" he threatened.

Then tried to nut me in the face with the back of his head, but I moved back and pulled him further back into his driver's seat.

"You wait an' see," he shouted, "I'll see you tortured until you're good'n'dead and as fer the lady, I am gonna have fun with her after she's nice an' compliant once she's been done a few times by me boss. If she's good, maybe we'll spare 'er 'ide, an' use 'er as a workin' girl."
This rant I got off Mary later.

His head came up even more and then I found I could get an arm round his throat and haul him back, but he held onto the steering wheel and pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator, the car careening down the street, narrowly missing oncoming cars in the gloom of twilight.

Then I changed tactic. I pushed him forward until we both hovered over the steering wheel.

Then, still with an arm locked around his throat, I threw myself onto the back seat with as much force as I could muster.

Our combined mass, concentrated on his neck, meant he had to release his hands on the wheel or surely suffer a broken neck, meaning paralysis or death.

Once he had let go of the wheel, I was able to drag him over the back of the seat. I dropped him onto the floor in the back of the moving car and furiously hit him with both my fists until he was unconscious.

Meanwhile, Mary leapt over into the passenger seat, slid across into the now vacant driver's seat and stopped the car. Miraculously, we didn't hit anything head on, but we did scrape a couple of parked cars along the way, slowing us down considerably. Fortunately, the streets were deserted of pedestrians by now, the shops having long sold out of their meagre stocks of wartime rations this late on a Saturday afternoon.

Then I hauled the unconscious Rawlings out of the car and opened up the tiny boot. I untied and took off his necktie and started to tie up his hands with it. As I did so, he suddenly woke up, leaped at me and we tussled again on the ground. He was soon free of the tie and discarded it to leave his fists free to thump mw with.

Calmly, Mary took up the tie from the ground and, out of the corner of my eye as we wrestled for supremacy, I could see her tie a loop in the end.

"Do you mind, Edgar?" she asked sweetly, as she tapped me on the shoulder, and I think she said something like, "but I think I've got this one covered."

It was the reverse of a 'Gentleman's Excuse Me' that you get at a dance hall. It felt such an odd request, but then the lady had surprised me at every other turn so far since we met, so I didn't immediately reject the notion out of hand.

"Really?" I asked, as Rawlings and I had appeared to reach an impasse. We were grappling each other without either of us getting a firm enough grip to dominate the other. Mary nodded that she was really sure.

"All right," I said and quickly let him go, while I rolled away.

Without hesitation, Mary fell on him, with the loop of the tie in her mouth. She sat on his hip with one knee pressed into his back and the other tight up behind his thighs, so he couldn't exert any leverage to break free. Somehow, she managed to grab his right wrist and put the loop of the tie over and pulled it tight, before using her weight to press the limb to the ground.

I think Rawlings was as shocked by the way the turn of events was going as I was observing it. At the same time she pressed his wrist to the ground, she grabbed the calf of his left leg, which was closest to the ground, and pulled it up to cross the right wrist, taking his right ankle with it, then wrapped the tie around both ankles once and wrist and ankles again with her right hand, freeing up her left hand, to pull the tie through the loop and hold the three limbs tightly tied together.

Then she leaned into him, so he possibly couldn't move an inch, pulled up the left wrist where his arm was uselessly pinned by their combined weight to the ground, and looped the tie round one last time, pulled the end through the loop and held it tight. His four limbs were completely hog-tied. And all it took was a couple of seconds. All her movements had been calm, measured and inexorable, almost effortless.

"Remarkable!" I said, and I really meant it. I had never seen anything like it.

"Yeah, I had to learn how to do that before they even let me go to school. The ranch work always came first in our family. But woe-betide if'n once I started my schoolin', that I ever fell behind in my studies!"

Together we picked the driver up and threw him into the small boot of the car as if he was light as a feather and I slammed the lid down on him. We both moved around the opposite sides of the vehicle, me towards the driving seat, and she towards the normal American driving side. We both sat in together at the same time.

"Are you able to drive?" she asked, "because I can drive if you wish."

"No, I'll drive," I smiled, "I'm not sure how you would cope driving on our side of the road, if right from the start you've automatically chosen the wrong driver's side!"

"I know," she giggled, "As the principle film star on set I generally get driven around everywhere, except home on the ranch, where we have a jeep and a couple of trucks to pick up supplies and don't encounter any traffic on the way to town and back. Mostly we rely on the horses to get around the ranch. So, do you often drive around London?"

"Never, to be honest. I first learned to drive in the Army Reserve, almost eighteen years ago, but had forgotten most of it by the time I had a refresher course about nine or ten years ago. The police went into vehicles in a big way at the time, and the detectives all had to learn how to drive. I never found my artificial foot any problem, once I had mastered hill starts using the clutch with my left foot."

"Well, where are we going now? New Scotland Yard?"

"Yes," I said, as I turned the car around, "We need to unload matey in the boot, get him locked up and questioned. Then I need to speak to Sir Leonard McLean, he's the Police Commissioner. If Cummings and some of his underlings are involved in murder, this corruption probably goes further, and I need to go above the usual chain of command and go right to the top."

"Really? Why would you think so?"

"Because Bob Cummings isn't bright enough to be the boss in whatever this is that he is involved with. He's also too lazy to organise anything complicated, and he's too sneaky for enough people to trust him to be in charge."

"So, even though he respects you and recommended to me that I see you, you still don't trust him?"

"Mary, Bob Cummings never respected me. He was one of several Sergeants I had over the years. He was the last and probably the least efficient of them. He was appointed at a time when I was openly being considered to being let go and other ambitious officers didn't want to be caught up as collateral damage when I finally got my marching orders. No matter how good a detection rate I was getting, there were senior officers making it more and more difficult for me to pass the fitness tests, whilst under previous commissions they had always turned a blind eye and simply ticked me off as fit for service. Honestly, Cummings thought that sending you to me would only waste your time and we wouldn't get anywhere with the investigation."

"Stop the car, Edgar, because we need to think about this before we dive headlong into a sea of trouble by seeing this McLean guy."

I pulled over to the side of the road and turned to her. She had taken a notebook out of her handbag and was holding it up to catch the dying rays of the orange sun. Darkness was approaching fast and there were no streetlights to break the blackout.

"Look, it's Saturday tea time, it is cold. The chances of us being able to do anything positive now is pretty slim," I said, "We're heading towards the West End, so why don't I drop you off at your hotel and we can resume the investigation tomorrow or even Monday?"

"I don't want to go back to the hotel now, Edgar. I told you the press are waiting for me there. Somebody probably tipped them off before I even found out that Brad's body had been found. Now his death is announced, I'll have no peace from the reporters."

"Yes, I suppose it was Rawlings that tipped them off. I need to do something about him."

"If he had anything to do with Brad's death, then I'd just as soon toss him over that bridge!"

"That's London Bridge, Mary, we can't do that ... not now anyway, too many witnesses."

"Are you suggesting, Mr Edgar Onslow, that we find a quieter bridge to throw him off?" I could see her grin in the gathering twilight.

"No, Miss la Mare, not at all." I couldn't help chuckle at the ridiculous situation that circumstances were leading us into. Despite my misgivings about our safety, we had made some sort of breakthrough in the case, even if it was hard to pin down exactly where it was taking us.

"Can we stop somewhere and have tea? I missed both breakfast and lunch," she appealed, "I can't think if I'm hungry."

"Me too," I grinned, "Look, it's getting so dark that soon I won't be able to see what you're saying. There's a Lyons Tea House on the corner, Let's go in there."

I drove around the corner and parked up by a dark alley leading to some rusty dustbins at the back of some shops, all closed up for the night. I opened the boot and pulled Rawlings out. He started to yell, so I shut him up with a well-aimed punch in his face. He went quiet again. I searched his pockets, he had a handkerchief on him, so I stuffed my dirty handkerchief in his mouth first and tied it in place with his own. I dragged him up the alley and dumped him beyond the dustbins.

"We can't keep driving around in the police car, otherwise someone will report it, and whoever Cummings is in league with could have us arrested." I explained to Mary.

"Or more likely, you'll be arrested and me deported."

I locked the car and we walked down to the Corner House. I asked one of the Nippy waitresses if she could find us a quiet corner, where we could talk. She smiled sweetly and guided us to a table by a wall.

"This is the quietest table in here," she said, "and it's in my station so I can keep these nearby tables clear for you if you like, ducks."

I slipped her a half-crown. She curtsied. "Tea for two and a selection of sandwiches?"

I nodded with a smile.

"Coming up, Sir." And she was off.

"She's quick," Mary remarked.

"That's why they call them 'Nippies'," I laughed.

I helped Mary sit in her chair. She smiled at my gentlemanly gesture, but she was clearly nervous and biting her lip. I was going to sit down opposite her at an intimate table for two. Clearly the Nippy kept this table for lovers or others that looked like they needed to whisper to one another without being overheard.

I thought that this was the point where Mary Jones, or Miss Marcia la Mare, I was not sure which of the two would start this next conversation, was going to sack me.

I supposed with actresses, especially the best of actresses, you never really knew who they were playing. Perhaps only Bernard Goldberg, the late Bradford Gold, was the only one who truly knew the real Marcia la Mare.

She had asked us to stop and talk, and she seemed far more nervous about what she was about to say than she had been up to now. One reason for sacking me would be for being as useless as Cummings thought I was in being unable to find her husband before it was too late to save his life, and that she would probably quite correctly ask for at least half of her money back.

I made a quick calculation as I moved around the table to sit myself down, and thought I might actually be a couple of quid light. Well, I had had Mrs McPherson's rent to pay and at the same time I had settled the three weeks' rent arrears that I owed due to lack of payment for recent business. I had no other clients on my books right now and things were looking pretty bleak for me.

"I suppose, in your business, you know," she began, "you are always catching people having affairs, or perhaps some of them are just simple business arrangements?"

"Yes, some of them are." I replied, wondering where this line of conversation was going. Perhaps she was aware that investigations for divorce by private detectives was becoming uneconomical, so she may be amenable to only ask for a third of the fee back. "In this country the divorce laws are quite strict, but proof of infidelity is one simple and guaranteed way of ending a marriage through the court process. I have met couples whose marriages were arranged for them at the outset, perhaps for family or business reasons, or who were lovers once, but had fallen out of love. All we needed to facilitate the end of a marriage by divorce was a hotel room, a girl strapped for cash willing to be discovered in her nightdress with a married man and snap, marriage ended, everybody happy. All quite moral, no affair, no sex, nothing actually going on, but all parties satisfied with the legitimate outcome."

"I can see that. Back home couples breaking up just go to Reno in Nevada, you can get a quickie divorce there in just six weeks."

"It's not so simple here, there has to be a court case, due notices given and posted for all the world to see, legal representation on both sides, costs imposed or awarded and it all takes a minimum of nine or ten months but can take years."

"Or," she said with more than a hint of bitterness, "your husband can simply jump off a bridge ... he could even be pushed."

She went quiet, and before I could say any more, our Nippy returned with an assortment of sandwiches and cakes, plus a pot of tea and jug of milk. I took the lid off the tea and stirred around the leaves to extract the flavour from the brew while the water was hot. Then I turned the cups over in the saucers and poured a little milk in each.

"Brad Gold didn't jump off any bridge, Mary," I said quietly. "I believe he was killed somewhere else, probably drowned in a bath, at least a week ago, before you even arrived here, and his body was brought to and left on that beach just before dawn. I think Cummings and his staff set up the whole thing, like a fairground tableaux for our benefit."

"So you've figured that much out," she said, "but you still don't know why?"

"No, I don't, but maybe you do?"

"Yes, Edgar, I do, or at least I think I do. I am sorry that I have misled you and now I want to own up my part in your deception."

I nodded without saying anything, after all I had met with female deception before, and I started pouring our teas. I put three sugar lumps in mine, but she waved her hand over her cup when I hovered the tongs with a single sugar cube. I assumed that actresses have to consider their weight for their success in winning starring rôles. She watched me carry out this ritual, knowing I was expecting her to speak first. She waited until we had both taken our first sips.

"Brad was kidnapped, Edgar," Mary said, looking me straight in the eye over her tea-cup, held by her finger and thumb of her right hand, and cradled in her left. "He was kidnapped for the quite small fortune of a ransom. We paid it, or rather the Studio happily paid it so we could get our Brad back safely, but then we heard nothing, no further demands, no message from a relieved released victim, nothing at all."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE DIARY

HOW much was your husband ransomed for?" I asked Mary, calmly.

"Thirty thousand English pounds. Actually they asked for twenty thousand pounds at first, but when the movie promotion agents based here in London didn't act fast enough, they raised the ante. The kidnappers sent them Brad's gold watch, the inscribed one I gave him on our marriage. They telegraph facsimiled a photograph of it to our New York office. So Brad's father paid the ransom, or rather our London agent did on the Studio's behalf."

"And you flew out when Brad didn't show?"

"No, I didn't know anything about him even being missing. I was on location shooting a film for the Gold Studios, remember?"

I nodded, remembering. She had told me that part of the story at the outset.

"Whenever I'm in Hollywood, I always go see Brad's father, Alfred, and his wife Caroline, as soon as I arrive. Bernie Cave would be there naturally, always with his devoted wife Connie while she was alive. They've always been good to me and my father in law has always said that he regards me as his daughter. Alfred's getting on now, Brad was his youngest son, so Alfred is well into his eighties, Uncle Bernie is too, I think, although he's not really Brad's natural uncle. I got home from location, to drop off my bags first, but Alfred was already waiting for me at our house in Burbank, he has a key, as we do to their place. He looked really old and frail, as if he knew he would never see his favourite youngest son again. And I suppose I've known that since then, too. But I had to come, didn't I, Edgar? I couldn't just leave him here alone with no-one to care if he was alive or dead?"

"Of course you had to come," I said, covering both her hands, which cradled her tea cup, "you loved him, you keep telling me that."

"I do, don't I?" she said. "I know that I am ridiculous, because I continually flirt with people. I don't mean to, but I still don't stop. I love being loved, I suppose. Yes, I did love him, Edgar, and in a way, I always will ... but, and for some reason I want to tell you something that I have never, ever told anyone ... Brad never loved me, never."

"Because he loved himself too much?" I managed to suggest.

"Yes, you are right, I guess he did. He was selfish. I guess we actors, we are all narcissistic creatures, cravin' recognition, adoration ... love."

"From what I understand, both of you are loved by millions."

"Not much consolation when you are not loved by that one man who you always regarded as your hero."

I released her hands and cradled my own cup. "Or one woman, or girl, as she was at the time." I had my own private grief too, I had just lived with it longer, that's all.

She reached out her hands for mine and we gripped each other's hands hard.

The Nippy appeared at our shoulder, "This'll never do, my ducks, you've not even touched your sandwiches yet, and I bet yer teas are cold too. Shall I fetch yer anovver pot?"

"Please," smiled Mary, "actually, I really am hungry and I think my appetite is coming back."

"There, maybe you'll want one of our famous cream teas when you're done with the sarnies. I mean, wot wiv the war'an'all the cream teas ain't what they used ter be, but they're still grand enough."

"In that case," Mary laughed, "we need cheering up, so bring us your cream teas as soon as you like!"

"I will," beamed the Nippy, "ahhh, you know, you two lovely people make such a wonderful and beautiful couple."

"Oh, we're not a couple —" I began.

"Edgar!" Mary said, using the same voice a governess might use while correcting a naughty boy who had spoken an untruth and out of turn, "don't trifle with this pretty girl and her emotions." She turned to the Nippy, and patted her hand. "He's a frightful flirt, dear, but honestly he'd run a mile if he was ever successful in turning a pretty head. He only does it when he's with me, to try and raise my ire, but I am used to his funny little ways. He's quite harmless, really, but some girls get all huffy about it, not you of course, my dear."

"No Ma'am, quite," she said, reaching down and whispering in her ear, but I was able to read her lips as she stared right at me as she did so, "but, never fear, Ma'am, I've seen the way he looks at you, he'll never look at anyone else like that," She had clearly seen her wedding ring, too. "You bin married long then, ducks?"

"Not long," Mary whispered, looking straight at me so I could read her lips, "we are still at that awkward 'getting to know one another' stage in a marriage. It's keeping us on our toes, though. I hope it goes on forever."

The Nippy, squeezed Mary's hand and nipped off with our cold teapot. There was nothing more I had left to say. I didn't even ask what the Nippy had whispered to her.

Mary wasn't finished though. She changed the subject, to my visible relief.

"Enough of our fun for now, we have serious business. I looked through Brad's diary last night and noted down all the people that he mentioned meeting, although he has identified them only by initials. We already know 'CC', Curly Cavenagh, don't we?"
I had to nod in agreement.

"There are a couple of dozen names, but most he only met once or twice, others more often. As well as the references to CC, there's mention of an RC, who I think might be your Bob Cummings —"

"Yes, his name on his warrant card is 'Robert Cummings'. So where does 'RC' fit in this diary?"

"The entries for 'RC' are never alone, Edgar, unlike 'CC', where Brad always met him alone, 'RC' entries are always linked to 'LM' and —".

"Sir Leonard McLean, perhaps?"

"I am only guessing. Do you know who 'AB', 'MM', 'AF' and 'WC' are? Who do you think might be connected with both Cummings and Cavenagh?"

"As far as the Yard is concerned, Sir Archie Bellows is the Chief Superintendent, he's the boss that had me thrown out for not beating the fitness test; he's Cummings' immediate superior and definitely one of McLean's cronies."

"That could be 'AB', then," Mary suggested, "are we considering some sort of police cover-up?"

"Possibly. And 'MM' could be Morely Makepeace. He's Superintendent of the uniformed branch. However, Makepeace and Bellows have always hated each other. Bert Finlay, the autopsy surgeon I told you I saw on the river beach, could be 'AF', Albert being his first name. 'WC' could be Winston Churchill, of course, but in the notes of someone investigating Nazi sympathisers, I think this could be Lord Carlos, the William Carlos that was before he was raised to the peerage. He was on the Police Commissioning Board, responsible for appointing McLean and Bellows, but he's currently out of favour in the War Cabinet as he was a former Blackshirt sympathiser."

"You mean he's a Nazi?"

"Yes, he was, and very open about it all through the Thirties, and he's a nasty one at that. Made his fortune through manufacturing heavy ordnance, supplying some of our naval ships with anti-aircraft guns. Apparently supplied Spanish fascists with cannons and rumoured that he helped Nazi Germany at the outset with his expertise when they began to rearm about a decade ago, against the Armistice Treaty's terms."

"So, we think we have identified CC, RC, AB, AF, and WC, who all sound as though they could be involved in some conspiracy, linking murder and perhaps a protection racket?"

"And possible prostitution," I said.

"Why vice?"

"The Coroner's receptionist said that Finlay was struck off the Doctor's list for performing abortions on girls."

"Sure she said 'girls'?" she asked, her eyebrows raised, "young girls?"

I nodded, "More in the context of 'working girls', she said."

Mary pursed her lips, then picked up a sandwich and chewed it slowly as she mulled things over in her head. I found a grated cheese sandwich. I hadn't had a piece of cheddar for weeks, and this one was a strong, tasty cheddar. Sleuthing certainly makes you hungry, after all the mind works from adrenaline and blood sugar, and the stomach responds by triggering your appetite.

"This Makepeace guy, the one that hates Bellows, is he someone you would trust if he didn't have any connection with Carlos?" she asked.

"We never really knew each other well, and being from completely different sections of the police, we rarely met. But I respected his reputation and treated him as he would expect to be treated by a senior officer in another branch, who appreciated the good things I had heard about him. When I was serving we were the same rank but he has been promoted several times since. And I remember he was always damned civil to me whenever we met socially through the Metropolitan Police."

"Well, Edgar, I actually don't believe that our diary 'MM' is whatever Makepeace's full name is..."

"Morely." I reiterated.

"I think 'MM' is more likely Mitch Mullinger."

"Who's Mitch Mullinger?" I asked. I had never heard of him.

"He's an American, with very strong views about race and segregation, he thinks the Indians should all be locked up in the Indian Reservations and all the Negroes should still be slaves."

"So, he sounds hardly a liberal. How would you know his views and why would he be over here in Britain?"

"Mah folks have a ranch in Montana, right next door to mah spread, in fact they run my ranch for me as I am away working so much. Now, mah Daddy is a Texan born and bred on a ranch, the youngest of a large family, so he was looking to being a ranch hand working for my eldest uncle, who has since inherited the Texas ranch. Mah Mother was a farmer's only daughter brought up in Montana and she inherited her family farm, so Daddy brought us all North when I was about about six years old. Daddy planted some better grass and started breeding horses and cows, switched some of the barley fields to oats, so we now have a good balance between ranch and farm. Mullinger visited the ranch with Brad a few times and loudly expressed quite unsettling views about our Mexican ranch hands from Texas and our local Native American Indian farm workers. As for why he is over here in England? Well, for the last twenty-nine years, seventeen years longer than the time I have known Bradford Gold," Mary said, staring me in the face to gauge my reaction, "Mitch was exclusively Brad's lover."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

REVELATIONS

"WHAT?!" I couldn't believe my eyes. I was staring at Miss Marcia la Mare, actress, Hollywood sweetheart, recent widow of wealthy actor and world wide heart-throb, clean-cut all-American hero ... and she was silently mouthing with her lips to me that her husband was a Queer, a homosexual, with a same-sex husband.

It simply didn't add up. They were the perfect Hollywood couple. Everybody said so. Both were respectively the dream man and dream woman of popular culture. She had even told me that she loved him, would always love him, even though death doth part, etc.

"Yes, it is true. Edgar, believe me. When we met I didn't know him that way, of course. Nobody knew then, nobody knows now. The night we met and I was attacked by some randy old movie director —"

"Whom you beat up, incidentally."

"Yes, I did. Ok, maybe I exaggerated a little, but with some scratching and well-aimed kicks with my high heels on. I certainly deterred him and he was definitely not going to attack any other young actresses in a hurry."

"And that was when Gold realised that you could look after yourself, and he also knew that created a problem for you, as presumably some Hollywood directors would close ranks and deny your film career a second chance?"

"That's absolutely right, if it got out that I was trouble and not willing to ... you know ... give out my favors for film parts in return, I was finished in my career before I got started. But Brad came lookin' for me because he had heard I was an innocent, with at least some potential, and was just about to become an unwillin' victim. I suppose when he saw that I was prepared to stand up for myself and not give in to the easy path, gave him food for thought about how he could help himself out of the position he was in."

"The fact," I deduced, "that in the promiscuous society of actors and actresses, his preferences would soon be discovered, and his image as the adventurous hero with a huge following of female filmgoers probably damaged beyond repair?"

"Yes, he had been a minor star of silent action movies for some time and, with his deep melodious voice and the attractive British accent that he was born with came through crisp and clear in his first talkies, which were just coming onto the screen at that time. So, he was being thrust even more into the limelight, and he and his father were becoming increasingly concerned about discovery of his sexual orientation."

"Ah, this where Alfred Gold became involved?"

"Yes. Alfred knew his son, and knew the problem future he faced as a queer, should his secret be exposed. After we had spoken together with Alfred about what had really happened and Alfred had dealt with the director, he took us both out to dinner."

"Even though they had a chef living in?"

"Yes, Brad and his father had clearly already spoken together about what Brad had in mind for me, while I was taken away to get cleaned up and found a suitable dining dress by Alfred's then recently new wife, Caroline. Caroline was about Brad's age and had also either discovered or been made aware of Brad's problem for the Studio. He was their biggest asset, in his mid-thirties, and had still not had a regular girlfriend, yet no real reputation for living a playboy lifestyle, despite having lots of single dates. The time was right for him to move from supposed rich young playboy to a rock-steady married family man. Rumours were probably already starting about his sexuality, but I knew nothing about that, of course, I was too new to the scene. That also added to my appeal. Caroline told me that Brad dated a lot of leading ladies, but for never more than a few dates, and that he was simply looking for the right girl."

"So, Caroline was setting you up for romance, but without telling you the full story?"

"Yes, I suppose that was partly so, as she was giving me hints about how put off he was by most women, particularly actresses ambitious beyond their talents. But I took her to mean promiscuous girls, not the female gender in total. Edgar, you have to consider that I was an innocent, a completely naïve young woman, a teenage country girl raised in Hicksville, and born in the Bible Belt. I was beginning to believe from Caroline's hints that I had a chance to make an impression on my heroic rescuer. Me, who had never had a proper boyfriend before, was trying on all these fabulous gowns, by a glamorous ex-actress who appeared to be in league with little old me, in order to impress her step-son, the most eligible bachelor in Hollywood."

"While you were thinking this, they were actually dressing you up to impress the rest of Hollywood at a popular restaurant," I said. "If they just wanted to feed you, they could have dined you at home?"

She nodded, as she finished the last mouthful of sandwich. The ever-attentive Nippy came in on cue to clear the debris, and fetch the scones, jam and cream. We waited until she departed before continuing.

"Exactly. It took me a few dates with Brad before I realised that it wasn't really a virgin he wanted as a bride, but a nun. By then we had already hit it off as friends and I was very comfortable in his presence. You could say he was a perfect gentleman, and in respect of my safety he was, but he was also attentive, funny, interested in me and my silly stories from childhood and home. So I approached Brad about what his intentions were towards me and by now he trusted me enough to come clean about himself. He was honest and explained how the arrangement of our engagement, followed by marriage, protected us both in our chosen industry to our mutual benefit. It was then that I realised that he was right, the plan he and his father proposed would work for me too, not having to be afraid of directors or pushy leadin' men. After all, who could possibly compete with the most beautiful man on the planet? And for Brad, he could pretend to all his leading ladies and predatory starlets that he was committed and totally in love with only one woman, me."

"Was your family happy about this arrangement; I mean, what about children?"

"My family never knew. And I see no point in telling them anything otherwise. Children? ..." she paused with a faraway look. "I thought I could retire to my ranch when I reached thirty or thirty-five, about the time when my bloom on the big screen finally faded, and didn't have need to deal with randy directors and frisky leading men any more. I thought I could quietly get a Reno divorce from Brad at that point, find myself a new husband, and raise my children as well as a couple of herds of cows and horses."

"And the Gold family encouraged this strange match?"

"Yes. It seemed to fit well with them, too. Alfred personally shunned self-publicity. He loved to be anonymous, especially after his first divorce. I later found out it was a very acrimonious affair and cost him a fortune. He had been having indiscreet affairs and Brad's mother took him to the cleaners. After his second divorce, he became almost reclusive. His third wife Caroline was a realist, she was a beautiful looking actress, but was a disaster as an ageing silent movie actress with a heavy New Jersey accent. She sounded OK in normal conversation, but when her voice was projected for acting on a sound stage, the recordings were very unkind to her, and made her sound shrill. So, when Alfred eventually sought a new young wife, Caroline gave up the acting struggle to become the loving wife of an old and wealthy film studio owner who had learned his lesson. The last thing she wanted was for their biggest asset, Brad Gold, facing a scandal that could pull the Studio down."

The jam with the cream tea was a damson, and quite tasty, I thought, as I took all this new information in. Of course I had come across queer men before in my experience. They tended to fall into two camps, either they were wealthy and powerful and relied on being able to prey on young men, rather like Mary's director had with young actresses, or they were poor and tended to become the victims of rape and degradation, like Mary could have been trapped into a system of being passed from director to director.

These poor victims were often part of the serious cases of murder or violence that I was involved in, either where the victim turned on the master, or the master went too far and killed his victim. I could see where Brad Gold and Marcia la Mare's 'happy marriage' arrangement was a good fit for both parties.

"So, the Gold parents and son took you out on the first evening to a high profile restaurant in front of a well-connected public for what looked like a family dinner?"

"A rather odd family dinner," she smiled. "Actually, Caroline apologised to me, saying that she couldn't possibly come with us. That lovely lady made me up expertly to look more glamorous than I could ever have managed on my own at that time. She had smiled as she told me that there was no way she would ever dress down to concede the focus of attention to another woman, me, so she stayed at home and probably had a better meal from their chef than we had in this swanky restaurant."

"Whatever happened to Caroline?" I asked.

"Oh, they are still happily married, they are good together and, when Alfred passes on, she will still be a wealthy woman and be free to do whatever she pleases. In some respects, we are very similar, and my mother in law Caroline has become one of my best friends, certainly my best friend in the movie business. We meet up all the time, obviously spending a lot of the time in full public gaze —"

"To help promote the myth of your happy marriage within a solid traditional family?" I interjected.

"Yes Edgar," she replied, her eyes sad but fully focused on mine so I knew the absolute truth of it, "my marriage was a sham, has always been so, and I am sorry that I didn't trust you enough to own up until now. I will always regret that, but you must be aware that no-one, not even the dearest people to me, my family, has any idea that my marriage to Brad was merely one of mutual convenience only. And yes, I did love him, although impossible as it may seem, and in his way I believe he was loyal and true to both his 'lovers', the woman he officially married but could never consummate his relationship with, and his male sweetheart, who also loved him strongly enough to never reveal their shared secrets."

"My dear, your earlier reticence on this highly personable subject sounds perfectly reasonable to me and I completely respect the reasons for your actions in preserving your privacy." I said, whispering to ensure the Nippy couldn't overhear. "And you can be sure that I will never reveal any secrets about yourself or Mr Gold, or his lover. The entertainment industry is not the only one seeded with homosexuals, Mary. I believe they are far more numerous than anyone truly suspects. As a disabled man working successfully in a highly charged environment, I was often approached by colleagues, regarded as someone with a reputation as a sympathetic and completely discrete adviser for all manner of personal problems, including homosexuality. In this country, practising male homosexuality is a criminal offence, yet there are no penalties for female homosexuality. I believe that for most queer fellows, they can no more help being what they are than if they were born left- or right-handed."

Mary squeezed both my hands in hers and smiled with the warmth reminiscent of a mother ... or even a lover.

She continued, smiling, "It was funny, I recall, that first evening of the rest of my life. There we were at this fabulous restaurant, a big Studio boss, rarely seen in public, his box office superstar son, and me, an inexperienced teenage want-to-be starlet that barely anyone knew the name of. We were being seen by everyone, dining and dancing together. I even danced one dance with Alfred. There I was, thinking this was a dream, dancing with the best leading man in the business, and being blissfully unaware that to everyone in Hollywood it looked like the eternal bachelor Bradford Gold was introducing his first serious girlfriend to his father for his approval. To all the world, and believe me Edgar, the whole world was watching every minute detail of what was going on, it looked like the girl was young and cute, the son was smitten and the father approved the match."

"So Gold was a very good actor even then?"

"They both were. Brad explained what they were doing, not then of course, but about a few weeks or so later when we sat down in his suite, had our first frank discussion and started to plan the engagement." She relaxed and laughed. "Oh! What a first week that was after that little dinner date! It was a whirlwind. I couldn't go back to my shared apartment that first night. Caroline insisted I stayed in the guest suite in their wing of the house, while Brad had a suite in the other wing. Talking of wings, Caroline took me under her wing and we have been firm friends ever since, as I said. The next day, she persuaded me to stay and move permanently into the guest suite. Meanwhile, Alfred was talking about me appearing in three movies, the first two quite small but important parts, that they were sure would get me noticed if I played them well enough, and the third movie would be the one that I had auditioned for, where I would play the female lead and Brad drafted in to replace the original intended male lead."

"I am sorry I missed those films, my trouble with the flickering lights in the dark." I said. "What parts did you play in those early films?"

"I suppose you didn't miss much. The first movie was an awful comedy set in a newspaper office and most of the actors were from the old silent days and played it very hammy, like the old ways; it looks very dated now and will probably never be shown ever again. I was still fresh from performing on the amateur stage, projecting my voice, and hadn't developed any bad habits of showing off, so I stood out as being much more natural than the other actors. I appeared in several of the general office scenes with just the odd one or two short lines, but then I had one important scene with the leading actress where I appeared sparky and funny and she was relatively flat and lifeless. It turned out to be her last leading role in a movie and I have never been able to get her to speak to me since! The second movie was a Western, where I played a chorus girl in a saloon bar, and the less said about it the better, although I did have a better singing voice than the saloon owner, who was playing a good-time girl and the star's main love interest."

"I get the impression that there is a lot of bitchiness in your industry." I said. "I read a lot of the gossip columns in certain newspapers in the public library, for research, and actor/actress rivalries often seemed to be mentioned."
"We're not all bitchy really, Edgar, or not as much as appears in the gossip columns. But there are a lot of egos that can get bruised all too easily. Too many actors forget that we are play acting more often than we are living normal lives and some get completely lost in that artificial world. Ten minutes into being back on the ranch and after some ornery mustang has unsaddled me onto my butt, all that unreal tinsel and glitter are nowhere to be seen!"

Just at that moment, thinking about her real home, among her real family, working with horses and cattle, she looked serenely at peace, the worries of the past week, the shooting and killing of a man who threatened our lives, and the death of her husband, a man who appeared to have led a double life, only part of which I understood, melted from her. She was indeed a very beautiful looking woman.

"Go on Mary, tell me how Brad Gold explained himself to you."

"Well, first off, I was immediately aware that my life had changed forever. When their chauffeur took Caroline and myself to my old apartment to collect my things, Caroline had insisted on accompanying me and settling my rent for the month, in fairness to the friends I shared an apartment with. I think she thought that if I went home on my own I might never come back to the Golds. My friends that shared the apartment were all fellow actresses, struggling to get parts like me. They were nice girls, but they were all older than me and I later gradually learned that they all had had to succumb to agents, producers and directors to become victims of the starlet system."

"Do you still see them?"

"Yes, I do, we meet up a couple of times a year, but they never made it to the big time. They were excited by all the attention then though. For a start, when we got there, we couldn't get near the place, the sidewalk was blocked to overflowing with reporters and cameramen, who had discovered where I lived. We shared a telephone in the apartment, so Caroline and I drove to a cheap restaurant just around the corner and I rang them from there. They sneaked out of the apartment and ate at the restaurant at Caroline's expense and they brought with them all the newspapers they had bought, which showed several photos of Brad and I dancing. We were the talk of the town that morning."

"I bet you were."

I remembered our dances, the other night. I am sure I would always remember our dances in that hotel basement, the shaking walls, the vibrating floor and the chandeliers trying to compete with the band trying to drown out the sounds of enemy bombing and the returning ack-ack artillery fire.

We had finished our little cream tea by then and it was time to leave our warm nest at the Lyons Corner Tea House. If Mary didn't want to go back to the hotel, because of the reporters, I thought of an alternative, a friendly house where she could at least spend the night, maybe longer, while I continued my investigations.

I settled up with our Nippy, leaving her a handsome tip; I felt as I hadn't yet been sacked by Mary as I feared, the money I had in my pocket was a bonus.

We fastened up our coats and ventured out into the cold night air, having to shuffle through two layers of blackout curtains to avoid allowing any light to escape.

I asked Mary to wait by the corner outside the café while I checked out the car, in case it had been discovered, or Rawlings had raised a hue and cry.

She took the opportunity to grab some of my pennies so she could call Milly at the hotel and let her know where she was and find out the lie of the land in that direction. It was dark and difficult for us to communicate, even the telephone box on that corner had had the light bulb removed because of the blackout.

I told her that I could probably find somewhere for her to stay for the night, if she didn't want to go back to the hotel. She nodded, and her smile was worth going to the moon and back for. She asked for the address, which she recited to herself a couple of times like lines she had to learn and I later found out she passed it to Milly, trusting her to bring a few of her essentials to her.

The police car was an unmarked one, it didn't even have a bell in it for emergencies. It was all quiet, with no sign of anyone hiding anywhere, so I got in and drove down to pick up Mary from the corner. I didn't want to stay in the vicinity for any longer than we needed, and phoning my sister with my current deafness would have been a complete waste of time, even with Mary's help, so I thought I would simply drive directly to my sister's house in Morden.

However, I had one more call to make along the way before we dumped the car.

"Is Bert in?" I asked of the girl who answered the door. She was silhouetted in the doorway, the hall behind her dimly lit by a gas lamp halfway up the staircase. She ushered both of us in, turned and said something that I was unable to hear. We entered the hallway.

Mary closed the door behind us and, holding my face towards her under the dim gas light, she mouthed with a grin, "She called out 'Grandad! Some geezer an' 'is missus to see you'."

She released my face after I nodded and we followed the girl down the hall and into a warm sitting room.

Bert, the deskman at the chambers where I have my office, was sitting in a fireside chair listening to a programme of light music on the wireless, opposite a short, plump lady who I assumed was his wife.

"Mr Onslow!" he exclaimed, standing up, "What brings you —"

I waved him sit down, which he did immediately, "Bert, I need you to do me a favour first thing on Monday morning. Would you mind?"

"What do you want us to do?" he asked, keenly, turning to his wife, "Ivy, this is Mr Onslow, wot woz a detective at New Scotland Yard; he's got an office where I works, you know the one wot I woz jus' talkin' about. Go put the kettle on, will yer, Ivy, love?"

The dumpy woman got up and extended me a hand, which I shook. I felt introductions were necessary. "Pleasure to meet you Ivy, I'm Onslow and this," I swivelled and swept my other palm to Mary, "is—"

"Oh, we all know Miss la Mare," Ivy smiled, "her pictures woz in the newspaper this evenin' and Bert recognised her as one of yer clients. We've talked about nuffink else since he got home from work. I'll just go pop the kettle on."

"I'm not really, er," I started, but Mary added, after putting a hand on my arm.

"If it's no trouble, Ivy, we've both just eaten, but yes, we'd both love a cup of tea."

"No problem dear, we usually have a brew about now, anyway. Come sit here by the fire, an' keep me chair warm for us. Mr Onslow, you take Betty's chair, she's our granddaughter. Come an' 'elp me in the scullery, can't you, Bet, love?"

Betty had stood with her mouth open, eyes transfixed by the beautiful film star moving to sit in her grandma's chair. Ivy rolled her eyes at me and pulled the poor dumbstruck girl out the door. I moved the hard-backed dining chair closer to Mary and, as I sat down, I put my hand down on the arm of her chair. She rested her hand on top of mine as if this was normal, while I felt like electricity was running through me.

I looked at her to see if she touched me to attract my attention and was moving her mouth to tell me something, but she just smiled quietly at me. Her then eyes flicked towards Bert, I turned and I could see he was saying something.

"Sorry, Bert, but could you repeat that? A revolver went off right by my ear this afternoon and punctured my eardrum, so I cannot hear a thing. I can lip read but only if you look directly at me when you're speaking."

"Gun going off? I wis wandering why you 'ad the bandage rahnd yer 'ead. Must be serious business, eh, Mr Onslow?"

"It is, two people have already died. There's some intrigue going on here, Bert. I believe it involves the Police, Military Intelligence, and even East End villains with criminal records for violence and murder are in on whatever is going on. We have already encountered a kidnap, two violent deaths, an attempted abduction, and attempts on the lives of both myself and Miss la Mare."

"Blimey!"

"We've both got to keep a very low profile, Bert, and we cannot trust either the Police or the Military but we do need help from people we do know and trust."

"What can I do to 'elp, sir?" Bert asked.

"You normally open up the chambers at 6.30 on Monday, don't you?" I continued after seeing Bert's nod. "If you could get there fifteen minutes early, and unlock my offices — you have the master key — and use this key to unlock the bottom drawer of my desk."

I handed him the small key that I had earlier removed from my key ring. "You will find an unloaded pistol, a shoulder holster and a half-full box of cartridges, plus a cheesecloth to roll them all up in for carrying out on the street without alarming anyone. Now, in the top drawer of the desk is a rather ancient black leather-bound address book held together with an elastic band. Wrap that up in the cloth too, along with a couple of notebooks. Please take it to the Blue Jay Café on the main road, and I'll pick it up from you there at 6.25, so you could still get back in time to open up the offices at 6.30."

He agreed, and assured me he would be careful to conceal the wrap under his coat and ensure he wasn't followed. The café operated a simple counter service he said and I told him I would be there early and get up and stand behind him while he ordered his tea, so I could collect the package from him without making it too obvious.

"The police will be looking for me, but I don't think they would suspect you. Just act as though you habitually call into the cafe for a cuppa."

"That's no problem, Mr Onslow, I've been known to call in there from time to time, only they ration you to one sticky bun a day since the war started."

We enjoyed a cup of tea and endured some homemade seedy cake with Bert, Ivy and Betty, before taking our leave, but not before Mary signed Betty's autograph book, the girl also insisting I sign my name on the same page. She promised not to show her friends the signatures for a week, and her grandmother Ivy backed that up by saying she would lock it away safely in a drawer until then.

We drove along in silence in the dark. We both had things on our minds to say, but Mary knew she had no opportunity for me to see what she had to say. We crossed the river onto the Surrey side and headed south-west into Morden.

CHAPTER TWENTY

PASTORAL

"WHERE are we exactly?" Mary asked when we stopped. She looked a little worried. We were outside a corner shop in a smart suburban avenue filled with a mixture of large detached and semi-detached villas, built only ten years earlier.

"My sister Hettie's house is just down the street." I said as we got out and started to walk, "I didn't want to leave the car right outside their door, so we have a two minute walk with a couple of twists and turns before we get there. Hettie's husband Jack Morgan is a motor showroom owner with garage workshops behind and a tearoom next door. It is a mile or so away from here on the busy main London to Exeter road. They have done quite well for themselves and have a nice house, but their two children were evacuated to the Sussex countryside last year, so the house is pretty empty. I stayed here in their spare bedroom when I was bombed out three times last year, and also for the last Christmas holiday, when we felt we needed to be close together."

I didn't need to say anymore, I had already told her about the recent deaths of my two eldest sisters.

As soon as we started walking, she tucked her arm in mine, and by the time I stopped talking we were standing outside Hettie's house. In the starlight, Mary still looked nervous, or maybe she was breathless. It was a cold clear night and our breath came out as white vapour.

Jack answered the door by the light of a hooded torch that he held in one hand. It crossed my mind that it would double up as a weapon if needed, if the door-knockers happened to be unfriendly.

"Hi, Ed," he said as he recognised me, "come on in. Het'll be more than pleased to see you."

I hadn't seen my sister since Christmas, six weeks earlier.

"I was hoping you could put us both up for a couple of nights, Jack."

"Yes, of course, no problem, Ed; have either of you eaten this evening?"

I could see he noticed someone next to me but without hesitation he ushered us in as soon as he recognised me.

"This is Mary ... a ... er —" I started to say by way of introductions.

Mary pulled on my arm and interjected with a smile, "I'm Mary Jones, Mr Morgan, a good friend of Edgar's."

I assume by her words that she was back to using her Middlesex English voice.

"Call me Jack, please Mary, come on in both of you, it's really cold out there. Close the door behind you, Ed, before I open up the sitting room and let the light out."

I waved Mary through ahead of me and closed the door behind us. It was pitch black behind the blackout curtains blanketing the front door once it was closed.

West London and North East Surrey was on the turning route back to Germany after the bombers had paid attention to Woolwich and the East London docks, so the total blackout was vital to maintain.

Jack opened the door into the sitting room and Mary could hear my sister say, "Who is it, Jack?" and his reply, "It's Ed, Hon, and ..." now his voice probably dropped to a whisper, "he's brought a young lady with him. They want to stay for a few days."

I didn't find out what was said until later, of course, when Hettie told me. At that moment, though, Mary did turn her face to me and, by the light from the sitting room, I could see she was smiling and relaxed.

"Edgar! Honey!" Hettie cried, already halfway out of her armchair by the fireplace, and throwing her arms around me.

Henrietta is my youngest sister, seven years younger than me, so in her mid-thirties. She's a tall, slim and attractive brunette; my parents long ago conceded that she was the cutest and smartest of their litter, and I always agreed. As an accountant and bookkeeper, she married her boss, Jack, after using her accounting skills to keep his garage business afloat during the financial crash a decade and more ago, and expanded the business into the next door tea rooms once the boom times returned. Jack was ten years her senior and was too busy during his youth building up his business to ever consider including romance in his life, but working closely with Hettie, helping him work through the troubled financial storms, he naturally fell for her in a big way. Luckily, Hettie was already in love with Jack.

"What's wrong with your ear, sweetheart?" she asked, noticing the plug of cotton wool when she squeezed me to her and kissed me on both cheeks. The huge bandage that the doctor had furnished me with yesterday, had been reduced to a simple small ear plug held in place with a plaster.

"I have a perforated eardrum, Het, and as you know I can't hear much out of my right ear anyway, so I am relying on lip-reading, or Mary here repeating what I have missed."

Henrietta turned to smile at Mary. "Oh, Mary, I'm Hettie, dear, Edgar's sister. He's hopelessly lacking in social skills, so we would have had to wait all evening through before he introduced us. I couldn't help noticing your wedding ring, so I'm wondering ...?"

Mary stepped in front of me on my right hand side, to embrace Hettie and they kissed each other on the cheek, Mary correctly assuming the previous exchange was the normal greeting in our family. She said something to Hettie, but I only picked up odd snippets, like "recently widowed ... assistant ... some men ... so dense ... I'll let Edgar explain."

Hettie refused to expand on that conversation when I asked her about it later.

Mary turned to face me with a quizzical smile on her face. Hettie and Mary were stood together, arm tucked in arm.

"I don't like the way you're ganging up on me, you two. I might need reinforcements, Jack," I said. I looked around for him.

He was leaning on the door jamb, saying, "I'm putting the kettle on", when what he really meant was, 'with these two, you're bloomin' well on your own, mate!'

"Well?" asked Hettie.

Just then both ladies moved their eyes sideways for just an instant, before looking directly at me.

Mary mouthed, "There's another knock at the door, Jack's seeing to it. I think it's for me, anyhoo. My maid Milly bringing my essentials."

Before I could say anything, Jack ushered in the said maid Milly, who was carrying a valise and a thick foolscap envelope clutched in one hand, and automatically curtsied to us all.

Behind her, Jack held up another suitcase, asking "where should we put these, dear? They are clothes, for ... Miss la Mare here." He grinned uncertainly, then he directed a wink at me.

"Miss la Mare, Miss Marcia la Mare?" Hettie looked straight at Mary, "but you don't look old enough, dear."

"She is an excellent, actress, Hettie, dear," I said, putting a hand on my sister's shoulder, "we didn't mean to confuse you, sweetheart, but we do need somewhere to stay for a couple of nights as Mary cannot remain at her hotel, or be recognised anywhere in public at the moment."

Mary said, "And I really am plain old Mary Jones, Hettie, at least to my dear friends, and the family of dear friends. Marcia la Mare is not the real me at all."

"I can see that, dear," Hettie embraced her again, "You can stay here as long as you like, Mary, sweetheart. You are the first girl that Edgar has ever brought home, and this will always be his home. And do accept our condolences for your recent loss."

Again, I couldn't "hear" any of this this because of the embrace, but Hettie instructed Jack and Milly to take the clothes "to Edgar's room," and then she turned to me and said directly to me, "you're sleeping in the office, Ed, the couch folds out to a makeshift bed. Sit down by the fire for now, sweetheart, we've got this covered."

I nodded my acceptance of whatever was going to happen in her house. Hettie was always bossy, particularly in matters where she was the queen bee, in charge of domestic, finance and errant sibling in this case, and they all swept out the door, leaving me with the silence.

I couldn't even hear the ticking of the clock or the crackle from the coal fire. I sat, waiting. At least I was getting warm. I wasn't aware until later, that the cabbie who had brought Milly was paid off by Jack and dismissed. Hettie told Mary that a proper lady needed her maid with her, so Milly had no choice, she was staying.

When Mary said she was more a rancher than a lady, Hettie insisted that she's practically Hollywood royalty and that Milly could sleep in the eldest girl's room, the child's bed being large enough for her.

Jack returned first, with a large tray of tea, cups, milk jug and plate of biscuits, which he placed on the table. Jack is a tall, well built man, in his early fifties, a good head of sandy hair, greying at the temples. He is always quick to smile, enjoys risqué jokes with male friends, yet completely charmingly attentive with ladies of any age.

"Sorry, Ed, that's the last of the milk, so just a splash each," he said to me after placing the tray and turning to face me so I could read his lips. "So, Marcia la Mare, eh? You've put the cat among the pigeons there, old chap, Hettie loves going to the pictures, especially that one last year when Marcia played the nurse...."

"I've never seen any of her films, Jack."

"Well, she seems as sweet and lovely as she is on the silver screen, and even more beautiful in the flesh."

Again, I nodded in agreement and looked at the floor.

He remained standing there, and I felt he must've said something. I looked up. "Sorry, Jack, I can't hear a thing, what were you saying?"
"Suicide, wasn't it? Her husband Bradford Gold's death? It was said on the radio news that he must've jumped off a bridge while suffering from remorse after losing his crew."

"No, Jack, it was no suicide, her husband was kidnapped for ransom and then murdered."

"Really?" he raised his eyebrows, "Why? He was the fatted calf to a kidnapper, wasn't he?"

"We don't know why or even who, yet," I admitted. "A ransom was paid by the family, and he was kept alive presumably for more money, but things are more complicated than simple kidnapping. It certainly seems that military intelligence and the criminal underworld are among the murder suspects. There are possibilities that some of the police at the Yard are implicated and even Blackshirts or Axis sympathisers may be mixed up in this thing too. It is a mess and there is no-one in authority that we can trust without question."

"How do you know what you know?" Just then he tossed his head back, indicating what the other house occupants were doing. "Hettie's getting your few clothing items moved down to the office, Miss la Mare —"

"Mary." I reminded him.

"Yes, Mary. Well, she's supervising the girl Milly to get your old room ready for her. Het's insisting that ... Mary ... should have her maid staying here to help her. And Milly piped up and said she may as well, as the hotel are paying her whether 'Miss Mary' needs her or not and Milly insists she would rather stay with Miss la Mare, sorry, Mary."

"Where's Milly sleeping?"

"Het says Monica's bed is big enough, but the room and sheets need airing before bedtime, because the bed hasn't been used since September '39. Miss er, Mary says that Milly can share her bed, it would remind her of sharing with her sisters back home on the farm."

"Ranch. She has a ranch with cattle and horses," I said.

"Oh, all right, ranch. Hey, she's nice, your Mary, really friendly and down to earth, not at all what I would've expected from a big Hollywood actress. Yes, Ed, I really like her ... and so does Hettie."

"Well, don't get any ideas above our station, Jack, she's just lost her first husband today, so she's certainly not in the market for another one immediately, and she's got to be back in Hollywood next week to shoot another movie so by then she will be out of our lives forever."

He smiled, "We'll see. Just so you know, you're both welcome to visit here at any time. Just wait until the girls hear about this! So, what's the lowdown on this murder?"

"Gold was drowned all right, but I believe he was kidnapped at least a month ago, held for ransom, which was paid pretty and then probably drowned in a bath over a week ago by the look of him."

"Oh no, the murdering bastards!"

"Yes they are murdering bastards and they will hang if I have my way and find the evidence to convict the buggers. And I think the finding of the body on the river mud a low tide was stage managed, involving the police from my own old department at the Yard and possibly organised crime in some collusion between them that I haven't figured out yet. It may involve protection racketeering and prostitution, and the possibility of treasonable association with Nazi agents and sympathisers. And then they tried to cover it up by keeping Mary and I out of the loop until the Coroner signed it all off neat as a whistle as suicide."

"I can't see Bradford Gold being involved in organised crime," Jack said, "he's a Yank, incredibly wealthy, and over here as a volunteer, I remember from the early publicity that he joined the RAF as soon as war was declared."

"Yes, it appears that he was a damned good pilot and had flown his fair share of bombing raids," I said. "You're right, I can't see any connection with organised crime, unless he was being blackmailed...."

"What for?" Jack asked, "he's been on active duty ever since he got here, hasn't he? And I can't see him carrying on with a barmaid or the like, not when he has the fabulous Mary at home."

"Well, he has been too busy for any affairs mostly, except for the last four months. Bomber Command say that he transferred within the RAF to Fighters, but Fighter Command say they have no record of him. There are hints from crew mates that he joined Military Intelligence, but MI6 are also admitting nothing. The flat he lives in appears to have been bought by him back in '39, with help from both Military Intelligence, who furnished him with a unique BPFO number, and a known criminal who acted as his purchasing agent. Maybe the RAF connection was arranged by the SIS while they decided how they were going to use him? Maybe the criminal associate involved is someone with connections to both SIS and Gold? We do know his property agent was involved in some East End protection racket and vice. Also, a forensic doctor who checked Gold's body, was involved in the prostitution trade and apparently struck off for carrying out abortions on working girls."

"My God! What have you got yourself into?" Jack seemed shocked by my revelations. "But think about it, honestly, Gold and crime? And getting involved in crime over this side of the Ocean after only being here for a few months, yet not a sniff in the press about previous connections with American crime syndicates? It doesn't make any sense. Where does that come from? I mean, Bradford Gold must be worth his weight in gold!"

We both smiled at that. "He must be quite heavily involved, as the agent chap he used to buy his flat tried to kill us both—"

"What, Mary, too?"

"Yes, Mary had to shoot him, dead," I said, Jack reacting in disbelieve. "We found a diary, which showed Gold had meetings with police, including my old Sergeant, now an Inspector, my old boss and his main boss at the Yard, plus other known criminals, and a high-ranking Fascist member of the House of Lords, who was part of the Government until Churchill became PM. Also, there are other names in the diary about who we know little if anything. What I want to know is, what was Gold getting mixed up in during those last four months of his life, out of uniform and mostly operating out of digs in the East End?"

I was more mulling things over in my head and staring into the fireplace than actually talking to Jack, so I didn't hear Jack warning me. He touched me on the back of my hand and mouthed, "Ed, they're coming back." I shut up.

The women bustled back into the room, carrying plates of sandwiches, buttered toast and jars of sweet and savoury preserves and soon settled in front of the fire, with an extra chair moved from the dining table for Milly to sit on.

Hettie and Jack fussed around passing cups and saucers of tea, plates of sandwiches and biscuits. I was handed a plate with one cheese and piccalilli sandwich, another sandwich filled with meat paste, and a slice of cinnamon-spiced fruit cake, which Hettie explained was made without the need of an egg, which were impossible to get any more.

It was only then that I realised I hadn't really eaten since the Lyons tea house, when I had been too much on edge to relax and enjoy the food. Then, as soon as I had consumed what was on my plate, sitting in front of that fire, I found that the day had caught up with me and my eyelids started to droop.

Mary noticed, God bless her, stood up and pulled on my arm.

"Come on, Edgar, it has been a long and stressful day for both of us. It's time we retired for the night. Finish your cake and tea, Milly, and I'll see you in a few minutes. Goodnight all."

Hettie apologised for no fires in the bedrooms or Jack's office, "as the coal rationing was reduced to two and a half-tons a year, that's less than a hundredweight a week and before the war we averaged out using two hundredweight a week to heat this big detached house. So now we only light this fire in here and the old range in the kitchen because the gas supply is too unreliable, the pressure if often too low to cook with."

As I got up she held my hand while we said our farewells, embracing our hosts and Milly. Hettie shooed us out the door, we knew where we were heading.

The Morgan's have two bathrooms, one upstairs, that Mary was heading for, and a smaller one at the back of the house next to Jack's home office, which was my next port of call. It was pitch black once the sitting room door was closed, but we were still holding hands. Mary put her arms around me at the foot of the stairs and kissed me on the cheek.

"If you speak normally, close up to my right ear, I might be able to hear you," I said, "especially as it is quiet here with no background noise."

"Sleep well, Edgar," she said, resting her cheek on mine.

"You too," I said. I could feel her cheek move and change shape as she smiled.

"I have helped make your bed, Edgar, where you're sleeping and I hope you won't be too uncomfortable on a mattress on the floor. I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight, sweet dreams, Mary."

We parted and she climbed the stairs, while I backtracked along the hall, past the sitting room, the kitchen, dining room, and the office, to the small bathroom. I could still smell her perfume on me.

I had stayed here several times before, as recently as Christmas, and comfortably knew my way around, even in the dark behind the blackout curtains. There was a blackout curtain across the bathroom window, which I checked was firmly in place, before I pulled on the light cord for the bright 60 watt bulb.

All my spare shaving and washing things that I had left here at Christmas, in what was the guest room, had been relocated there. Feeling Mary on my cheek a moment before reminded me that I hadn't had time to shave that morning and my stubble felt uncomfortable. So I ran some hot water from the Ascot and lathered up my badger-hair brush. Using my safety razor and carefully shaving around the plaster on the cut and stitches on my chin, gave me a smoother face. I slapped on some bay rum, before washing the rest of myself down with a warm flannel and brushing my teeth.

The mattress on the floor of the office didn't look that comfortable on initial inspection, but was made up with fresh sheets, and the bed was turned down like I'd seen in the hotel, probably a touch by Milly, I thought with a smile.

A change of clothing including underwear from the few clothes I had left here from my last visit, were stacked on a chair ready for the morning; I wasn't sure whether it was Hettie or Mary that selected them; I was fully aware that the underpants I left here were hardly the newest ones from my wardrobe, so I did feel a little embarrassed by their condition. I thought I might have to use a few clothing coupons and get some replacements.

Fortunately, my pyjamas were quite new, though, for which I was grateful; I had left them here at Christmas as Hettie had promised to launder them ready for my return.

The office was cold compared to the sitting room, the fireplace left unlit, and I had run naked from the bathroom, so I dressed quickly, put on the pyjamas and turned the light out. I was pleasantly surprised when I got under the blankets, a hot water bottle was warming up the bed; this must have been put in by Hettie while I was in the bathroom. I smiled in the dark, relaxed and warm, and, despite or possibly because of all the excitement during the day, was soon fast asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

AWAKE

I WAS woken up from a deep sleep when someone with extremely cold feet got in the bed and cuddled up behind me.

"Uh, Mary?" I asked in a daze, while I was trying to unglue my eyelids. I noticed that a 20 watt lamp was lit on the back of one of the side tables, but the mattress on the floor was blocked from direct light by the overhanging table.

"You'd wish," said Hettie, speaking loud enough with her lips close up to my almost deaf right ear for me to hear her, "now, shift yourself over and give me some space to get under the blankets. I couldn't get in the other side because the desk's in the way, and you were so deeply asleep you didn't even notice when I put the little table lamp on. So, big brother, I want some answers from you; I've already found out what you said to Jack, but Mary and Milly aren't really saying very much."

"What do you want to know, Sis?" I sighed, moving over, but holding my arm up so my baby sister could snuggle under my arm like she used to when we were kids.

"Mmm, you're the warmest person I know Ed, you always were like a huge cuddly furnace compared to ... our sisters," we both sniffed here, each of us missing them terribly, "even Jack isn't as warm in the body as you, as his feet get even colder than mine." Hettie had her iceberg feet tucked between my legs, one under my calf, the other over and between my knees.

After fidgeting for a bit until she got comfy, she said, "I love your Mary, Ed, she's so sweet, and she really thinks the world of you. Talks of no-one else."

"She's not 'my' Mary, Het," I said, "she loved her husband very much and she only lost him today."

"She may have loved him once, sweetheart, but he has gone and she loves you now. A woman can tell these things."

"She is probably just confusing our current camaraderie for affection, and she's far away from home, safety and family. She hardly knows anyone here, just me, Milly and Mr Sims."

"Who's Mr Sims?"

"He appears to be my tailor. Long story that I'll tell you about another time."

"You two've been busy these last couple of days?"

"Yes. We've shared the search for and discovered the loss of her husband, we were both attacked by a killer, which she clinically resolved, and I am the 'wounded hero' who tried to defend her and is thereby suffering from my actions on her behalf. A sympathetic reaction from her at such a time, along with a hint of transference from her lost husband is only to be expected. Since then she has been with me constantly, helped me dress, interpreted speech for me, and is probably adopting me as an injured bird fallen from a broken nest."

"No, sweetheart, I am sure she has more feelings for you than simply feeling sorry for you. Both girls told me all about the dancing, both of them quite impressed by your practiced moves."

"Well, I can't do the foxtrot any more, Het, my artificial foot is too rigid, but I even surprised myself with the rest of the dances. Look, Het, believe me, Mary's just my client, my only client in fact. She's paying me to investigate what happened to her husband, which we have done but now we're trying to find out why. She's not my sweetheart, so don't go all matchmaker on my behalf. Besides, I have only known her for four days. She even told me right at the outset that I was not to fall in love with her because everyone who meets her falls in love with her. Note, she did not tell me that she falls in love with anyone that becomes infatuated with her. It's an occupational by-product of the sweet and beautiful person she is."

"Ah, so you think she is sweet and beautiful then, sweetheart?" Hettie chuckled in my right ear.

"Of course, Het, I am not made of stone, none of us are. Take Milly, for example, she's only known Mary for a week and now she's so devoted to her that I am sure she would follow her into Hell if she asked. God damn it, I probably would too. Look at you, you're under her spell and you've only known her for a couple of hours. It's not a conscious thing that she tries to do, Het, it happens because she really is a chameleon, no more than that, she fits in comfortably, she genuinely cares about people and is open and respectful and easy to like. She is a truly lovely person."

"You do love her."

"Yes, all right, yes I do."

"So why are you here and not kicking Milly out of your old bed?"

"Milly's sleeping with her?"

"I haven't aired Monica's sheets, and, well, you should have heard them, Ed. Mary said that back on their ranch she slept with her two younger sisters all the time until she left home at 17, and Milly said she still sleeps in the same bed with her youngest sister and her eldest sister, the one that's getting married, and couldn't remember ever sleeping alone in her short life. It brought tears to my eyes."

"As I say, Mary is a lovely woman and that is why everyone loves her. But as for her feelings for me, any affection there is probably a lot more about sympathy on both sides than anything else; with me for her loss and her feeling sorry for my wounded chin and damaged hearing, plus some pity for my old lost foot."

"You are wrong, you know. You're thinking with your head, sweetheart, instead of your heart."

"I'm a confirmed bachelor, Het, who had his heart broken a long, long, time ago, and I'm too old to change, too set in my ways to think with my heart. On the other hand, Mary will fly off to Hollywood in less than a week's time to film a new box office success and, as an available wealthy widow, will be suited by every eligible male she meets until she falls for one of them and marries again."

"Well, I don't think she wants the limelight right now. Milly said that the crowd of photographers and newsreel cameras in front of the hotel, is spilling over the pavement, so she can't go back to face that. You know that you and Mary, and Milly for that matter, can stay here until she flies out, and you, my dear brother can stay here as long or as often as you like. We are all the family you have."

"I can't stay. I need to investigate this murder and the reasons behind it, Het. I owe Mary that much, especially as I've been paid until she leaves."

"Jack mentioned that her husband was murdered, that's awful, even worse than the suicide the authorities are passing it off as. Whoever did it mustn't get away with it. Do you want to tell me about it, Ed?"

I gave Hettie the full story, about the missing husband, the attack by Curly Cavenagh and Mary's killing in self defence, the discovery of her husband's body, the suspicious attempt by my former police sergeant to pass it off as suicide, the diary of meetings or telephone contact with suspects known only by their initials, and the attempt by the police driver to abduct us. We both have analytical minds, it helps me in my detection job and hers in balancing the books and assessing business opportunities. She gathered I wanted to follow up leads but needed to be mobile.

"I will get Jack to remove the police car to a lock-up, from where we can either return it when this mess is all over, or strip it for parts and contribute the scrap metal towards the war effort. New cars are not selling well, so Jack can spare you a new one or even a good second-hand one to use along with the petrol ration books that go with them. Do you need any money, Ed?"

"No, I've still got what's left from what Mary paid me and I still have my building society savings account to fall back on."

"Well, I'll get back to bed before Jack gets too lonely and his feet get too cold to warm up again before morning." She giggled.

We kissed and Hettie turned out the dim table lamp before leaving. I had hardly turned over on my left hand side again before I felt her come back. Blimey, I thought, the flagstones in the hall must be freezing, her feet were even colder than they were the first time!

"What have you forgotten, Het?" I asked in exasperation.

"It's not Hettie, it's Mary," she said loud enough in my right ear that I was able to hear her.

"Mary, what are you doing here?"

"Right now, I need warmin' up, Edgar, I'm damn freezing."

She pressed herself into me, so I lifted my arm and turned over onto my back. She half turned into me, tucking her left shoulder into my armpit and resting her head on my shoulder, placing her right hand on my chest and lifted her right knee onto my thigh. She sighed, wriggled a little and settled herself comfortably, though she was still shivering. She had sheer silk pyjamas on, compared to my thick cotton ones, so we were quite decent, no flesh touching, only my nose buried in her gloriously soft hair, which smelled wonderful to me.
"How'd you get so cold?" I asked.

"I sneaked out when Milly was asleep. I mean, we talked for hours about what we had been up to until the poor girl drifted off. Then when I got down here, I saw the light under the door and listened. With yahr deafness, Hettie spoke loud enough to hear almost every word. Then, when she declared she was getting up to leave, I hid in the bathroom until she had gone. It was really cold out there."

"Don't you think you're playing a dangerous game, sneaking into bachelor apartments in your nightwear in the dead of night?"

"We've faced more danger in these last couple of days, Edgar, than I ever have before, and I feel more than safe with you, nightwear notwithstanding. I am safe with you, aren't I, my dear?"

"I think you'll be safer here in my sister's house than anywhere else I can think of right now."

"Mmm, well I feel nice and safe ... and getting warmer." she said. "Hettie was right, you are a couple of degrees hotter than my sisters ever were."

The thought crossed my mind, 'what about Brad?' but I kept my mouth shut on that train of thought. Besides, she had said he was queer and maybe he really was one of those rare homosexuals that had sex exclusively with men; most of them that I had become acquainted with during my working life were also married with children, and concealed their preferences with devious skill until driven by their desires to break the law and risk discovery.

"What about Milly?" I asked.

"Oh, Milly. She's a really sweet child, and bright as a button. I enjoy having her around, I think involving her sister and telling her about our activities, we've created a unique relationship; still boss and servant, naturally, but also friends, confidents. I've never had a maid at home, just a cleaner who comes in every day at the Burbank house, usually while I am out. I send all my laundry out and, while out on location, the Studios look after everything else. Of course, maids come with the suite in some other hotels, but they are usually reserved and they melt into the background. Milly can't help being infectiously bubbly. I would be tempted to offer her a full-time job, but with Brad gone, I know that I would be open to sexual pressure again, not from directors, they wouldn't dare, but from leading men whose egos are too huge to listen to the word 'no'."

"I suppose if you knee them hard enough in the nuts as I know you are capable of, it might affect any future romantic scenes that you film." I couldn't keep the humour out of my voice, and she responded with a fit of the giggles, which caused her to rub up against me, giving me some concern about the instinctive response of my own body.

"So, I might just finish the next few movies that I'm contracted to do and then retire permanently to my ranch."

"Are you sure you would be happy staying away from all the glamour and attention?"

"Sure. As a young girl I wanted to act parts in movies. I was fascinated by the process and was driven to succeed in my ambition, but without being willing to pay the price that some actors and actresses were prepared to pay. I have achieved something now for thirteen years, which is a long time to be at the top of my profession, but now the novelty has definitely worn off and I am weary of continuing to run the gauntlet of such intense attention. More than half the roles I am offered now are simply regurgitating stuff that I've done before by better, fresher writers. I wouldn't get the really meaty character roles that I want to do until I'm much older."

I was sure I could feel her smiling in the dark. I added, "You could always go back to Hollywood, once you get too old to wrangle would-be kidnappers."

She giggled, "I could, but spending the day riding the range, breathing in the fresh air, and seeing nature in all her glory, I guess I could never tire of that. You ever ride horses, Ed?"

"Sure, I was brought up in a small village, so I never saw a motor car until I was about ten years old. We didn't keep a horse ourselves, my father patrolled his beat on foot or bicycle, but some of our neighbours kept a horse, my uncle was a blacksmith so I helped him in the forge sometimes, and there was a stable yard on the main road, where I got some work in mucking out the stables after school for a few pennies a week."

"Well, I might be able to employ an extra wrangling hand then, interested?"

"No, I think you have to be born in the saddle for that, or at least be young, fit, and prepared to work hard enough at improving proficiency to carry you for a lifetime of work. I'm too old to launch a new career. So, if you give up matinees, balls and glitzy parties, what would you do in your spare time when you weren't roping and branding cows?"

"I guess I would marry again, properly this time, to someone who loved me just as much as I loved him, maybe the local sheriff, raise as many kids as I could manage in the time left to an old broad like me, then join the local PTA, cook cookies, bake cakes, take part in amateur dramatics again, and keep my man loved up too much to ever be concerned that he'd look at another woman ... or man ... again."

"Yes, I am certain you could fill the breach," I nodded, "Now that you seem to have warmed up, what did you want to speak to me about that couldn't possibly wait until the morning?"

"Take me with yah, Edgar. Don't sneak out first thing in the morning when yah start making yahr enquiries. I know yah think this is dangerous and yah want to protect me, but I crave inclusion, even if I am only yahr getaway driver and theory sounding box. I owe it to Brad and his family to get to the bottom of this mystery and see that the culprits pay with their lives in the electric chair or at the end of a rope. Besides, you know we make a great team, Edgar."

"I don't know, I am used to working alone and I do sense grave danger. We're dealing with people who are ruthless and have friends in high places, and we don't know who to trust."

"Well, how are you going to hear what is being said with only a small part of your hearing? How will you hear if someone sneaks up on you, intending to do you in? I only have a week left here, then I have to go back, I'm contracted to be on set at that date, and I always fulfil my engagements. Please Edgar, don't shut me out, please, I'll go mad with worry about you if you leave me and go off doin' dangerous stuff."

"All right." I agreed, if the boot was on the other foot, I would believe I had a right to be involved.

"Thank you."

She kissed me on the cheek, lingering way beyond the peck I exchanged with my sister, before snuggling down again, burying her face in my neck and wrapping her right leg around me, so high I feared she would notice the effect she was having on me.

"Goodnight, Edgar," she said, without making any attempt to move away. I waited, counting to sixty in my head, listening to her even breathing, feeling the beat of her heart on the side of my chest.

"Are you not going back to bed?" I asked.

"Nooo," she said, so quietly that I could just make out what she said, "this is where I want to stay ... until the morning at least."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

SUNDAY 9th FEBRUARY 1941

I AWOKE to a soft kiss on the lips before Mary got up and the thick black curtains were thrown open to the morning light. I blinked and could make out a vision in front of me, a haloed silhouette of a female form in the bright white light of the window. She moved back to the side of the mattress where I lay on the floor of my brother-in-law's home office.

When my eyes focused better, I saw the unbelievably beautiful Mary Jones, even with tousled hair and no make-up, barely dressed in pale blue shimmering silk pyjamas, embroidered with two red dragons on the front and red tails curled around the wide elbow-length sleeves. She dipped gracefully, to collect a robe from where she had shucked it to the floor last night, and slipped it on, while peering down as she dipped her dainty feet into her silk slippers. Her mouth was moving, but it was clearly a tune she was partly singing, partly humming to herself, continually pursing and unpursing her lips as if she was kissing every syllable of whatever words or tune passed her luscious lips.

I didn't hear it, of course, but she reacted to a soft knock on the door, by lifting her head and moving smoothly to the door and opening it to her maid from the hotel, standing there expectantly. Milly smiled as sweetly as she could, smiling with her eyes as much as her lips, and the rheum clouding my eyes had cleared enough to make out that she said, "Mornin', you two sleepy heads, the tea and toast is nearly ready, an' Jack has left instructions that you could both share his bacon, as he'll be away in the filling station until at least an hour before lunchtime."

Mary gave Milly a welcome squeeze, turned to me and mouthed, "I'm off to wash and change, honey. You better dress warmly, it's trying to snow outside." And together they were gone.

Hettie was alone in the kitchen when I entered, washed and dressed. We embraced and greeted each other 'good morning'.

"Jack took the police car ignition key," Hettie explained, "and is quietly moving it into a lock-up behind our commercial garage up on the London Road. Fortunately, the snow is light and wet, only settling on the grass and bushes, not on the road, so there are no tracks to show where the police car has come from and been. The wet snow is likely to keep people indoors on this Sunday morning, except for the more desperate among the churchgoers. Jack will get one of the petrol pump attendants to run him back; they don't open the petrol station on Sundays until noon and only for a couple of hours. With petrol rationed there isn't the demand there once was, nor as much in the storage tanks as we used to hold."

After breakfast, I wanted to talk more with Mary about what she had discovered from the diary. We wrapped up warm, and I borrowed a long black oil cloth duster coat that Jack had hanging up on the hall stand that looked like he hadn't worn for some years and needed re-oiling, particularly along the creases and folds, but I thought it would keep the worst of the weather off.

Mary wore a smart tan gabardine Burberry trench coat that she had brought all the way over with her from America, yet, I pointed out to her, that they were made over here in England only about thirty miles from where we were walking, and the design was based on what I and a million other soldiers wore in the trenches during the Great War.

"You're a mine of knowledge, Edgar. It is a lovely coat, warm and waterproof, and a favourite of mine during the winter and I brought it here knowing it would be cold and damp at this time of year. Look, from the diary I've written a list of the initials Brad used to remind him of his appointments, there are more than thirty names in all." Mary said as we walked through a small park that I had perambulated on a previous visit to the area.

I could tell, from the lack of expelled vapour in the cold air, that she silently mouthed her words to me and sensed from the shortness of the vowels that she talked as my assistant Mary rather than my boss Marcia.

"I have grouped them in the combinations in which they appear to see if there were any patterns. Some combinations only appear with the same other names and never alone, some are regular every week. There is only one name that is described by a single letter, 'C'. Do you have any idea who that might be?"

"Yes, that's the head of the Secret Service, currently a civil servant called Sir Eric Desmond. He's just a pen pusher really, an administrator, not a former active agent."

"Mmm," she looked at her notes, "there is also an 'ED', but Brad only spoke with him once during the year up to 4th October, when he stops crossing out the names and times. But 'C' he speaks to on the telephone every Sunday at noon, in about two hours' time. Are they one and the same person, I wonder?"

"How do you know they speak on the telephone, does he write down their numbers?"

"No, Brad has one of those memories that easily remember telephone numbers. He finds them easier to recall than lines in his scripts. In the diary he marks them with 'call XX' or 'XX calls', to show whether he is expecting a call from them or whether he calls them himself. The rest are 'meets' or 'mtg'. With some initials he has venues hinted at, and these are also initials, but for three or four one-off meetings he has written out the full address."

"I will have a look later. Are there any meetings that stand out as odd or unusual?"

"Well, I know one of them personally, and I spoke to her using Hettie's phone this morning, while you were in the bathroom shaving."

"Who's that?" my interest piqued.

"I saw several entries for 'call JM', then one with 'call JMac', then a 'meet JM & WK at Emb'," she said, with a level of excitement in her voice. "Jennifer MacArthur is the main contact at the London offices of Gold Pictures Inc. Everyone calls her 'Jenny Mac'. And I suspected that 'WK' was Wilson Keppel at the US Embassy."

"You say you called her?"

"Sure. She's one of those professionals that many efficient offices of demanding clients like myself desperately needs, she's on call all day every day and has been for as long as I have been with the Studio. She knows I'm over here as I have called her a couple of times since arriving. She actually booked my hotel suite for me and turned my U.S. dollars into pounds. The U.K. is a big market for our films and I have briefly been over here a couple of times to help publicise movies, particularly ones that I've starred in. Jenny arranged for my smooth entry to the country through Keppel at the Embassy, and she tells me she helped with Brad's entry although I've never spoken with Keppel before. Your Immigration Officers have strict rules on letting Aliens from neutral countries in during war-time, even for short visits."

"Did she say why your husband was regularly speaking to your Studio office in London?"

"Yes, for regular feeds of small amounts of money, postal orders in particular. Have you ever tried to get money out of a bank when you were abroad? It's no trouble for Jenny Mac to arrange, and she has kept track of cash payments for Brad, wherever he was and sends accounts to the head office in Hollywood. This was why he always had cash for taking his crew down the pub, and other payments. She confirmed to me this morning that she had arranged for the agent Curly Cavenagh as agent to buy the Denmark Hill apartment and shop in Brad's name, as well as fund the furnishings right at the start of your war. And she told me that the silent partner of Cavenagh of 'Cavenagh & Laws' was Curly's cousin, who had inherited a fortune from his criminal father but had gone straight years ago and was living off the fat."

"I wonder if Laws was aware of the Cavenagh connection?"

"I don't think so, he seemed pretty honest in his description and dislike of him."

"Yes, he did seem genuine and that his partner was mostly the investor and wasn't involved day to day. What about Keppel and the American connection, can we go see him?"

"Well, it was Jenny that had arranged the meeting she and Brad had with Keppel and introduced them to each other, back in October, just after he left Bomber Command, but she left the meeting before they actually got down to discuss business, so she doesn't know why Brad wanted to speak to him, or why Keppel was keen to attend the meeting. I also rang the embassy this morning and someone was there, even on a Sunday. I spoke to the Duty Officer, who told me that as far as he knew Keppel would be in during normal office hours tomorrow."

"It would be interesting to find out what your husband was up to since leaving Bomber Command. Do you want to see Keppel alone?"

"No, I think we should go together, because if he was so keen to meet with Brad, I am sure he would want to see me. Maybe he's a movie fan?"

"Really?"

"Well, he was apparently happy to meet Brad in person at Brad's request, so we may be lucky and he'll agree to see me. I'll introduce you as my London adviser."

I was back at the house, sitting drinking tea, after helping to lay the table and waiting for Hettie to complete cooking lunch, with Mary's help. With my office telephone gone months ago and having to use public telephones, I had put my New Scotland Yard contact index card in my wallet to ring Bob Cummings from the corner call box. Milly returned my wallet when she brought Mary's valise to Jack and Hettie's. Also on that card of Yard contacts were a number of numbers that I had needed to call over my years as a copper, including the home telephone number of Sir Leonard McLean, the Police Commissioner.

I thought long and hard about whether I could trust him with a conversation about my fears about corruption in the Yard like Cummings and his police driver and criminals like Cavenagh.

Bradford Gold seemed to be a pivot at the centre with him speaking to a wide range of influential people and I really had no clue as to what the subject of their concentration was all about.

In the end I decided that I couldn't act on my own, I had been too far out of the loop since my retirement. I would have preferred to have rung C, the head of MI6 but, due to Gold's retention of phone numbers, I had no means to contact him nor knew anyone else who could.

So at noon I rang Sir Leonard McLean while Hettie listened in and mouthed his words to me. I didn't want to tell him about the diary but I told him that Miss la Mare had informed me that she was aware that her husband had rang some top man in the police every Sunday morning and had for some months until he disappeared, but didn't know who.

"Well, Onslow, it was a private matter that Gold contacted me about and wanted discrete investigating by the Yard, I was earlier approached by MI6 and asked to extend Mr Gold any assistance I could. So, after speaking to Gold, I put a top man onto it. Gold rang me at home rather than the other way around because on the airfield, or wherever he was, he had no base telephone line of his own. I can't tell you what that investigation was about other than it was to do with a missing person he wanted to trace from his childhood spent in London. It had nothing at all to do with his death by suicide I can assure you."

So, McLean was pretending that Gold was regularly speaking to him rather than C, which was interesting, although I didn't know how to contact C instead. I had to give McLean the benefit of the doubt without endangering Mary and anyone else helping me. I explained my suspicions about what I thought was going on involving organised crime with fifth columnists plotting to undermine our resistance.

"Are you sure, Onslow?"

Hettie conveyed the question to me. "Yes, Sir. I am."

"Well, this would be a damned fine mess if it were true. I must say that your evidence is all hearsay. You say Cummings and this doctor fellow were pulling a fast one on you over the cause of death of this actor fellow? If there's been no proper autopsy over the water in the lungs, either there was river water there all the time or they could have pumped the lungs out and refilled him with river water by now. Then there's this police driver that attacked you, but you dumped him with no witnesses. It would be then be the word of a serving policeman against a retired copper who was let go several years ago and may still hold a grudge to settle with the Yard. And then there's an actress who earns her living pretending things she says are true. Look, man, consider the way this would be seen in court."

"I know, all sensation and hearsay and lots of mud being slung and the truth gets buried along the way," I said despondently.

"Well, we are in a pickle, old chap. I mean, you were a damned fine officer in your day but rules were stretched to keep you in and the force had to become more professional. Well, they had to start enforcing the rules for everybody and you were caught up in it."
"I know, Sir, I'm not complaining, I had a good innings, but my copper's nose is twitching right now and this is not just a single open and shut case going bad but, looking at the people that Brad Gold was apparently talking to and meeting, along with my suspicions that our military intelligence and the U.S. Secret Service is possibly involved, this could be the whole country that will lose out."

"What's this about the Americans? You think they may come into the war on the German's side?"

"I've no idea, but Miss la Mare and her London office seem to think that the inside contact Gold was regularly speaking to at the American Embassy is one of their Federal intelligent officers."

"That's another cat among the pigeons I suppose. Look, Onslow old chap, leave this problem with me, sit tight and I'll get the ball rolling, rattling a few cages and see what's what. Just don't get involved until I can get to the bottom of it. Now, do you need anything or do you want me to get you to a safe house? I can get the johnnies from the Metropolitan Police Witness Protection Squad to look after both you and the girl."

"No, we're fine, Sir, I've everything sorted."

"Well, Onslow, you've reported what you suspect to the highest authority thatbyou can, so just relax and let the professionals get on with the job. Ring me in a couple of days and I'll fill you in with what we know."

"Thank you Sir. I'll be in touch."

Meanwhile Mary was upstairs with Molly, when Jack returned from the garage. He threw a car key on the table in front of me.

"Ed, I've got a brand new car sitting out front that you can use while you get to the bottom of this case."

"I only need a cheap runabout, Jack."

"I know, I thought about loaning you a second-hand one after our discussion last night, but Mary here spoke to Hettie this morning and Het rang me at work. She insisted we accept £295 for a brand new 2 door sedan, a Ford Anglia in black, of course, vehicle excise taxed and third party insured for the year, plus petrol coupons book specified for the car. I was told not to tell you it was brand new, to just act as though this was only a basic cleaned up second-hand hirer, but I really thought you ought to know."

"Where did Mary get the money from to buy a brand new car?" I asked.

"According to Hettie, Mary's brown paper bag, that Milly brought from the Hotel, is packed with bundles of fivers. She didn't even count what was in there, Mary just asked Hettie to take out what she thought was needed. Naturally Hettie started to estimate the rest of the contents, thinking there's probably another £200 in the bag, plus about £50 more stuffed into Mary's purse."

I shook my head. I thought that I should have to have a word with her about carrying all this cash around with her, but didn't want to get Hettie and Jack in trouble.

"I will make sure the police car is well hidden until after this thing blows over." Jack said.

"If it goes badly, Jack, make sure that car disappears, probably as car parts and scrap metal for the war effort."

"Don't worry, Ed, I've been thinking along the same lines, I can guarantee it'll be in bits and distributed to the four corners of Surrey by lunchtime tomorrow."

Over Sunday lunch, it was agreed that Mary and Milly would stay safely with Hettie and Jack on Monday, while I continued my investigations.

***

The snow was heavier in the early part of the afternoon, but it turned to rain by the evening. We listened to the news on the radio, but mostly it was doom and gloom on the war front as Germany consolidated their gains and rumours that Hitler was planning a spring invasion were often referred to.

Hettie spoke to Mary about evacuees, the children who had been sent out into the countryside away from the centres of bombing, like the capital city, industrial cities and major sea ports. Mary and Hettie also chattered in hushed tones about my relationships with my best friend and fiancée, revealing more information about my other sisters, who were killed in the blitz bombing.

We all spoke of our own futures, if there will be even be one for those of us in England under siege, when the outlook seemed so bleak.

Milly was full of the possibilities of a new life in a new country. "I'm lookin' forward to moving to Miss la Mare's Montana ranch and travelling with her as her personal maid when she goes out filming on location and in Gold's Hollywood Studios."

"That's a pleasant surprise," I said, "although I want you to know, Milly, that I have been impressed by the manner in which you have looked after Mary quite brilliantly."

"Thank you, Sir," Milly turned to me carefully, to ensure I could read her lips, "I appreciate bein' appreciated, 'specially by someone Madam regards as a special person."

It was only when Jack asked what she said, and Mary said that Milly had only spoken to me privately and soundlessly, that both Jack and Hettie raised their eyebrows about Milly moving to the States.

"I have had short term personal assistants during shoots, set up for each production, but I have never had a permanent one, someone who I could trust at home and on location," Mary told us, "I arranged this on the phone with Jenny Mac, the Gold Studio London Representative this morning, who would be speaking to Keppel on Monday morning to arrange all the necessary papers for Milly."

"So, changing the subject," Jack said, swivelling round in his chair so I could see his lips, "you think this corruption that includes Mary's husband, involves police, criminals and American spies?"

"I do," I said, "Both Mary and I are aware of the dangers from intrigues by the Police, Military Intelligence, and possibly German spies or traitorous Blackshirts, but we're both determined to find out who her husband's murderers are and ensure that they're brought to justice, whoever they are."

"Who can help you?" Jack asked.

"I agreed with Mary that we, or rather I, with Hettie's help as my ears-and-lips translator, called Sir Len McLean this morning. Brad Gold has called him in the past and I wanted find out what the connection with Gold was."

"Who's McLean?" Jack asked.

"The Police Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who is based at New Scotland Yard. He may be the highest-ranking copper in London but it is a political appointment from the Home Office once upon a time, now the War Office, Sir Len was a career diplomat not a copper. It appears Brad Gold has rung him at home at noon on a Sunday some time ago, so I rang him at the same time of the day. I didn't tell him that I had Gold's diary, or that it was actually the head of MI6 that Gold more recently regularly rings on Sunday but I don't have C's number."

"He sounded pompous," Hettie said, "full of bluster and came across as shifty."

"Sir Len didn't let on that he had only spoken to Gold once,"I added, "letting me believe he spoke to him regularly about an unrelated matter dating back 40 years when Gold was a boy. He wants me to keep out of the current situation while he investigates from the top. I have a feeling that Sir Len was lying through his teeth and up to his ruddy eyebrows in this plot, whatever it is."

"So, Ed, are you going to stay out of it?" Jack asked.

"No, Jack! Not on your nelly!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

NEAR THING MONDAY

WE drove to Mile End very early the next morning. I parked the car near the Blue Jay Café, just around the corner from my office, but didn't see anyone suspiciously hanging around. As agreed, I left Mary in charge of the car while I walked around the block, to approach the café from the opposite direction from where she was parked.

There were four people sitting inside the café, either eating breakfast or drinking tea, two young men in working clothes sitting at separate tables, and possibly a middle-aged married couple sitting in the window.

It was not a waitress service establishment. You ordered what you wanted from the counter and fetched it from there when they called it was ready. I consulted the menu and told the woman serving that I would just have a mug of tea while I sat down and made up my mind about breakfast.

When Bert came in, about five minutes later, he ignored me and walked straight up to the counter and also ordered a tea, exchanging pleasantries with the woman serving.

I got up and queued behind him with my mug in hand apparently ready for a refill or to place my breakfast order.

The woman on the counter turned to pour a mug of stewed tea for Bert from a huge paint flaked and dented white enamel pot.

Bert was about to pass the package he had hidden under his coat, below the level of the counter to me, when one of the diners sitting next to the little queue suddenly pulled out a revolver handgun and pointed it at us, waving side to side on each of us in turn.

"Put the package down on the counter and move away," he barked as he pushed the chair away with the backs of his legs as he stood up from the table.

Bert put the package down on the counter next to his tea mug and stepped away, leaving me in isolation.

If I had been an arresting officer in that café, I would have ensured there was at least a two-stride gap between us. This chap was only a foot to eighteen inches away from me, and he was mostly pointing the gun at Bert, assuming that he might still be armed.

I reached across and grasped the gun with my left hand, over the cylinder and gripping the hammer, so the gun couldn't be fired except if the firing pin went through the bone in my thumb, and I pushed the gun and hand downwards. Meanwhile, using the same directional momentum, I brought the heavy pint-sized china mug I held down across his temples. The mug shattered and he went down like a sack of damp flour, while I pulled his gun from his senseless fingers.

The other single male in the café, who had remained sitting, rose up from his seat. He reached into his inside pocket, but I dropped the remnant of the mug, collected the gun in my right hand and aimed the gun, which I recocked, at his right upper arm and waited momentarily.

As the handle of his weapon clearly emerged from his shoulder holster, I fired once, aiming dead centre of his upper arm, having no doubt that I broke his gun arm.

He dropped the gun and fell back across the table from the impact of the bullet at such close range.

The woman sitting in the window screamed, but her partner just sat and looked shocked. I grabbed the package from the counter, but instead of going out of the way I came in, I opened the counter flap, pushed past the café worker, through the kitchen and exited at the back of the café into an alley. I ran along the opposite way to the way I came and emerged close to where the Ford Anglia was parked. I dived into the passenger seat and Mary drove off.

"I ... heard ... the shot," she said, turning to me in alternate words or short phrases so I could read her lips, "were they ... waiting for us? ... And are ... you OK?"

"Yes, I am not hurt, Mary. There were two gunmen in the cafe, and I was able to overpower one and shoot the other. I don't know who sent them. They were not police, as they did not attempt to caution me," I said, "If they were secret service agents, then they were poorly trained and I shudder to think what chances we have against the SS Gestapo, should they invade. I can only assume they were aware of who Bert and I were and that they wanted me alive for questioning to see what I know. Can you stop at the next telephone box, please, Mary."

I rang Sir Leonard McLean's direct line at his office at the Yard. Mary spoke on my behalf. He was immediately aware of the trap set and was very angry at me.

"God damn it man, you shot a copper in the line of his duty and assaulted another." Mary mouthed the senior copper's words to me.

"They didn't act like coppers, no caution was given and both pulled a gun on me, Sir, even though I was unarmed. Why was that?"

"Look, those chaps are country coppers drafted in from regional forces so that the locals don't know them and they are probably not as used to this sort of case or gun procedures as the normal bobbies are in the East End of London. Every bloody copper's armed now, dammit, we're at war, man!"

"So why waste resources watching for me?"

"We put a watch on your offices, of course, and thought you might be in contact with either the doorman or someone from a neighbouring office because we did not want you to muddy up the waters and allowing you to be armed, which would make life difficult for everyone. We know that you have a gun licence and therefore own at least one gun."

I waited until Mary had mouthed Sir Leonard's words before talking into the speaker.

"Well, if they knew or suspected I was meeting Bert at the café to pick up my gun, they could've warned me or cautioned me long before I disarmed the first copper. The second one drew his weapon in a public place where and when it was ill advised to do so. This case has got bent coppers, criminals and undercover agents of foreign powers all over it and I really don't trust anyone any more."

"Not even me, Onslow?" Mary mouthed Sir Len's reply for me.

"After the trick you just pulled, Sir, quite frankly, no I bloody well don't!"

"Well the senior officers all put their heads together yesterday evening, Onslow, and we have a number of lines of enquiries and you're just a small part of it that we wanted to damp down ... and we take an exceedingly dim view of you still sticking your bloody nose into a current police investigation."

"I cannot sit idly by, Sir. A man has been murdered and an associate of his killed, while my life and that of a visitor from a neutral nation has been threatened. And all I see you doing is getting in the way of my legitimate investigation."

"Damn it, Onslow, if you don't take a back seat and leave this to the professionals, I'll have an arrest warrant made out for both you and the blessed American woman." Mary grinned as she mouthed the last part. Because Mary was silent, mouthing his words as he was speaking them, I think McLean had completely forgotten that she was conveying his words to me.

"Thank you, Sir, for letting me know exactly where I stand and where your priorities lie."

"What do you mean by that, Onslow?" Sir Leonard spluttered, Mary acting the part as a professional, with all the facial expressions to convey the officer's indignation at my mistrust.

"I wonder whether you can evder catch up with me or on my lines of enquiry, when you'd made such a cock-up of it so far."

"We have a damned sight more resources to call upon than you, Onslow. Turn yourself in man, and we can sort out the assault and wounding as a training exercise that went badly wrong. Otherwise, if you persist in this renegade action we'll throw the bloody book at you."

"Your resources are not much good to you if they are misplaced or misdirected, Sir. Unless we move quickly and decisively and get to the bottom of this case, it may be too late. Gold was murdered for a reason, either his usefulness had run out or he wasn't material to whatever their plan is any longer, which means that whatever their plan is, we're now into the endgame."

I dropped the phone in the rocker with a sigh and rejoined the car with Mary. This time I took the wheel and we drove on in silence.

***

Mary and I stopped at a tea shop. They had a radio playing the midday news.

On the news we heard that, after a gangland shooting in a London café, an elderly man had been arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon and withholding evidence in a serious case involving the assault and wounding of two police officers. After our tea, we walked down to a red public telephone box on the corner and I called a friend of mine.

"Henry Conroy, please," I mouthed to Mary, who repeated it using her perfect Home Counties accent to the secretary who answered the telephone.

"May I ask who's calling?"

'A female voice answered the phone," Mary mouthed.

I mouthed back, "I imagine that's his secretary, Peggy."

"Hello Peggy, I'm Edgar Onslow's assistant Mrs Mary Jones, unfortunately Edgar has suffered a perforated eardrum and cannot hear telephone conversations at the moment. He can talk but cannot hear. The condition will remain for a few more weeks yet, I'm afraid and he wishes to speak to Mr Conroy urgently."

"Oh, hello Mrs Jones, is Mr Onslow there with you?" came the calm reply.

Mary silently repeated what was said and how calm Peggy sounded.

I spoke into the mouthpiece. "Hello, Peggy, it's Onslow, I can speak but I cannot hear. Mrs Jones is listening in and can repeat to me what you say to her and I can lip-read pretty well. I lost the hearing temporarily in one ear during the last war, so I learned how to lip read at the time, and the more I do it the easier it is, which has proved useful since because only about half my hearing ever came back. Now I have only about ten percentum hearing in one ear only, nothing at all from the other, and it is almost impossible to hold a conversation over the telephone."

I passed the phone back to Mary.

"Oh, hello it's Mrs Jones again, Edgar has passed me the telephone."

"Welcome back Mrs Jones, it's Peggy here, you can tell him that it's been a long time since we saw Mr Onslow."

Mary repeated what Peggy said, "He is nodding so he agrees it has been a long time. By the way, Peggy, please call me Mary, hardly anyone calls me Mrs Jones." She paused and added, "he has just agreed that it has been a long time and asks how are you and Maurice doing?"

"Oh, we're fine, tell him Mary, that Maurice is out most of these frosty nights as an ARW, and has developed a frightful chesty cough, but he says he must serve and do his duty, even if he is sixty-eight bless him. He was too old for the last war but they seem to be roping everyone into the war this time around."

"Well, make sure he sees the doctor for that cough, he's no spring chicken any more!" Mary repeated for me.

"I try but he is so stubborn and the local surgery has closed down because the doctors are needed elsewhere. Henry's free now, so I will put you through."

"Hello, Ed, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Oh hi, Mr Conroy, I'm Mary, Edgar's assistant, he has a hearing problem at the moment, so he is standing beside me reading my lips."

"Sorry to hear that. So, business must be looking up, right?" Henry's words were conveyed to me.

"Not really," I chimed into the mouthpiece. "l've just the one major client, but I do need from you some legal work for a friend in some trouble with the police, trouble that I got him into."

"Go on," Henry replied, "I still owe you a couple of favours, I've done well from some of your referrals."

"You may have seen on the lunchtime news that an old gentleman has been arrested in connection with the shooting of a policeman at a café first thing this morning?"

"Yes, I did hear that. Didn't know that you were involved though. What do you want me to do?"

"Could I employ you to represent him and get the man freed on bail? He was only doing me a favour. He didn't shoot the policeman, I did."

"What have you got involved with, Ed?" Mary mouthed his question to me.

"I'm not absolutely sure, to be honest. He was only fetching my gun for me as I was sure my offices and movements were being monitored. There were two armed plain clothed policemen at the scene and I was forced to disarm one and wound the other in self defence, after not being cautioned. I believe there is some conspiracy going on, Henry, possibly more than one conspiracy. It is complicated because it involves the Secret Intelligence Services from both the U.K. and U.S.A., the Metropolitan Police and some element of the criminal underworld, possibly even the British Nationalist Movement."
"Messy. Look, I'll put you back to Peggy as she can take shorthand notes and type it up a lot quicker than I can. Tell her his name and what nick he's likely to be held in and I'll run along and see him this afternoon."

"Thanks, Henry."

After we had given the information to Peggy, Mary hung up the telephone and we walked quickly back to the car. We didn't think that the police would have a trace on my solicitor's telephone at the local exchange, but I wanted to get away from this phone sharpish, just in case.

"What do we do now?" Mary asked me directly before we moved off.

"If MM is Brad's friend Mitch Mullinger, then Chief Superindent Morely Makepeace may not be involved in this whatever-this-is. If that's the case, Makepeace may be able to help us. I am sure that he is out of the loop that has corrupted my old division at the Yard, from Cummings all the way up to the top. Just drive down the road to the next telephone box, please."

About a mile away I called Makepeace at the Yard from another telephone box.

Mary introduced herself as my assistant detective once more, this time to Makepeace directly and explained what had happened to us, why I couldn't hear and why she was conducting the calls. I narrated what happened after my two conversations with Sir Leonard McLean and expressed my belief that he was in league with whatever my suspicions were that Bradford Gold's kidnap and murder was being swept under the carpet.

"Of course I remember you, now Onslow," he said to Mary, which she silently mouthed to me, "You had the reputation of being a fine officer with an excellent track record in detection, without a single smudge on your methodology for twenty years. I was quite surprised when your department got rid of you, to be honest, and not called you back in the interim. Now, I have suspected some of the Detectives in your Division for quite a while. I know for a fact that Sir Leonard McLean is a Nazi who was once a senior diplomat in Italy and was a proclaimed German sympathiser during the early 1930s, and that he has since surrounded himself with a detective team that are doing very little detecting. In fact, Black Market crime is getting out of hand and I suspect that money from this activity is being used to influence disruption within the National Coalition Government. Trouble is, Onslow, we can't pin down any hard evidence. Now, this American actor malarkey sounds interesting and may be their undoing, especially if these chaps are involved in his disappearance and covering up his murder. They certainly appear to have a case to answer if I can get the right witness statements from the other uniformed coppers at the scene."

"I would welcome the involvement of the uniform branch, Makepeace," I replied.

"Jolly good, only too willing to get involved. Give me two days to look into it and then call me back. I'm in the office from seven in the morning, so best ring early when it's quiet. In the meantime, do not go back to where you were staying, and dump the car you're driving, they may have had another officer in the street who took down your registration number. I'll get you a car and driver, one that we know we can both trust, where do you want to rendezvous in say, an hour?"

I gave Mary a location, which she passed on.

She mouthed that she could hear Makepeace barking out orders and asking questions at the other end of the line, while we fed in a few more coppers into the coin slot. Within a minute, Makepeace told Mary that he had got us another car and one of his trusted drivers, a Scot and ex-PC, Jock McTavish, reassuring us both, "I know for a fact that he's not tied in with the East End crime gangs!"

I arranged for his driver to pick us up outside Aldgate Station in an hour, it is on the Central Line and would get us well away from involving Hettie and Jack.

Mary and I left the phone booth and headed for the nearest Underground station, leaving the car locked up where it was. As almost an afterthought, I rang Hettie at Jack's garage and told her where the car was. She assured me that Jack would have it collected within the next couple of hours and hide it in the garage.

"I know Jock slightly, Mary," I said as we walked towards the nearest tube station, "he was a highly decorated uniformed officer who was shot in the thigh during a bank robbery in the mid-'30s, severely affecting his mobility. I was at his medal award ceremony and spoke to him afterwards. He knew I had lost a foot and was worried that he might be signed off active duty immediately after his award and being a beat copper was his whole life. I recommended that he learned to drive and see if he could stay in the Met as a police driver. It looks like it has worked out for him."

It was Jock that arranged a cheap hotel room for us to stay for Monday and Tuesday night in south London. But first I got him to drive Mary and I to the East End to talk to the daughter of Gold's landlady after she finished school.

We saw the girl in the parlour of the small terraced house where Gold had stayed on and off for several months, after we asked her mother if we could speak to her privately. Her mother was doubtful at first, but Jock showed her his warrant card and assured her that I was the best detective in London and with Mary my assistant we would ensure that the girl would not be upset unduly. Her mother said we could speak to her in their front room.

Soon the girl was ushered in and introduced to me as "Patricia", before her mother left the room, as I had earlier asked her to. Patricia was tiny and thin, for a 13-year-old who would be leaving school in the summer and probably looking to labour in service or in a shop to scratch a living for herself and contribute to her family. Her hair was dark but lifeless, her complexion sallow. I suspected that she really got little food and precious little fresh air in this depressing and crowded part of East London, where poverty was ever-present.

With so many houses damaged or destroyed by the bombing, lodging houses were overcrowded.

"Please sit down, Patricia," I said, waving to the settee. I let her settle for a moment. She sat nervously as she had since she entered, looking down at the threadbare carpet, not looking at either me or Mary in the eyes.

"Hello, Patricia, I'm ex-Police Detective Inspector Onslow of the —"

"I ain't in trouble, am I, mister?" She looked up at me, fear in her eyes, eyes that looked far too big for her tiny face.

"No, Patricia," I said soothingly, "I just want to ask you a few questions about your one-time guest here, Flight Lieutenant Gold."

Patricia started crying. She bent over, her head in her hands virtually down to her bony knees. Mary immediately got up from the other armchair, sat beside her and put her arm around her. "There, there," she said.

"Sorry," Patricia sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks, "but 'e was such a nice man, 'e wuz me friend." Then she said more forcefully, "They're all wrong yer know. He never did kill 'imself, 'e wus too full of life to do ... it. He'd never —"

"We know. Patricia, sweetheart, we know Brad would never do that," Mary said softly and soothingly, "that's why we want to find the people that did this horrible crime."

Patricia raised her eyes and looked at Mary for the first time, put her hands up to her mouth and tried to push herself away across the settee, but Mary held onto her and the girl was too weak to put up much resistance.

"You're the girl in his photo! You're ... Mary."

"Yes, Pat, I'm Mary. Did you say you saw me in one of his photos?"

"Yeah, Miss, 'e allwus 'ad yer photo in a silver frame by 'is bed. It's signed by you, so I knew your name was Mary. I put it in a safe place because Mum wus sayin' she wus going to clear out 'is room to put anuvver lodger in there and sell orff 'is clothes wot to pay the rent wot 'e owed, an' I knew she'd nab the photo jus' fer the frame. She never went up there to the rooms, I allwus cleaned the room and changed the linens, so I 'id it in the space under the bottom drawer of the dresser in our bedroom. You kin 'ave it back, Miss, cos I've finished wiv it, so I'll go fetch it, shall I?"

"What do you mean you've finished with it?"

"Finished drawin' it. Sorry Miss Mary, I'm allwus drawin', but Mum finks it's a waste o' me time, but then Mr Gold incurridged me an' 'e bought us new pencils, an' crayons, an' paints, an' brushes, an' Indian ink, an' some drawin' pads. But Mum sold the paints and paintbrush set and one of the big pads cos I only used two pages while I almost filled up the ovver one she found."

"Would you mind bringing down your sketch pad so I could see it?" Mary asked softly, "are you normally called Patricia, dear? Because it is a bit of a mouthful."

"No, most o' me mates an' me Mum calls me Pat, but Mr Gold called me Patty, an' I liked bein' called Patty."

"Well, you shall be Patty to Mr Onslow and me too. I would still love to see your sketch pad."

The girl beamed, "I'll go fetch it, now Miss!"

"Call me Mary," Mary called as the girl jumped and ran out of the room and up the stairs.

After she disappeared, Mary turned to me, "She's so thin, I could feel her ribs and bony shoulders when I held her."

"We're at war, Mary, we cannot grow enough food on this crowded island to feed us all, we have to import a lot of food, almost two million tons a month, but the U-boats are sinking our ships faster than we can build them. Food is rationed to the point where we just have enough allowance to live on, but that only works if the food reaches the shops and again only if you have the money to pay for your allowance. Patty's mother is either a young widow or an unmarried mother who has little in the way of savings. This appears to be a three bed terrace house, so I imagine she lets out two bedrooms to lodgers, leaving herself and Patty to share the smallest bedroom."

When Patty returned, with a deep pile of paper, exercise books and small artists' pads, she handed over Brad's bedside photo of Mary, presented by her early in their marriage, simply signed 'Mary'. It was very similar to the one in Brad's Denmark Hill flat, I thought.

"Were you Brad's, I mean Mr Gold's friend. Patty?" Mary asked, while I was wondering how appropriately behaved the actor would have been towards the scrawny young girl.

"We wus best friends, Miss Mary but there wus no funny business. They're allwus tellin' us at school to watch out fer bogeymen but Mr Gold was allwus a perfect gentleman. He never tried nuthink, honest."

"Of course, Mr Gold was a perfect gentleman," Mary soothed, "that's why I married him. Did you recognise him from the movies?"

"Nah, we never go to see the pictures, but I've seen posters outside the picture houses and as soon as I saw his poster I knew it was him, but I never let on to no-one, not even Mum."

"So she didn't recognise him?"

"Nah, if she had she'd never'd stop goin' on about it. On cribbage nights, ev'ry other Tuesd'y, me Mum would go out for two or three hours to play cards at the Church Hall. So I used to sneak up to Mr Gold's room and he would tell me 'bout film makin' an' actin'. He wus funny and full o' int'restin' stories. Then he'd watch me while I drew stuff."

"Let's have a look at your drawings, Patty," Mary asked with a gentle smile.

I stood behind Mary so I could look at the drawings, mostly pencil on scraps of paper, portraits of cats and dogs, buildings, buses and people I didn't know. All were quite well executed I thought. There must have been more than a hundred loose drawings, besides the pads and exercise books.

"The one's in the pads are me best," Patty said, "I on'y 'ad stubs of HB pencils when I done most of me drawin's but Mr Gold got me a load of different pencils wiv softer an' 'arder leads wot 'elped me make better drawin's. He bought us a set of wa'ercolours, like wot we use ta use at school, but Mum sold 'em cos the box was too big ter fit in the false bottom o' the chest o' drawers in our bedroom, once I'd 'id the photo frame."

Mary set the loose papers to one side and opened the top pad. Page after page were drawings that showed Brad Gold's likenesses in various poses, she'd beautifully copied Mary's photo, in between more images of cats and dogs, bombed-out buildings, ack-ack guns, barrage balloons, people in uniform or long queues at shops for rations, where the locals had heard shops had taken deliveries of food or clothes. Some were still pencil, some were water-coloured or crayon shaded and some inked in by pen.

"These are lovely, Patty," I said, "you have real talent. You must be head of your art class in school."

"We don't do no art in school, Mister Onslow, most o' the kids wus evacuated, the school's got about ninety kids in it wot got left behind, but on'y two old teachers, the rest got called up or vanished like the kids to the countryside. There's 46 kids in my class and we don't do no art cos there's no money fer art materials left."

"You need to go to art school, to learn about technique and hone your skills," Mary said quietly, "these are real good, Patty."

"Mum wants me to work wiv 'er in Wilson's Laund'ry rahnd the corner. They let us leave school soon as we're fourteen, me birfd'y's on the fourth o' April."

"No, Patty, you working in the laundry would be a waste of your talents. I'm going to have words with your mother and I'll get my friend Jenny Mac to help, but you're going to art school."

I was starting to recognise Mary when she puts on her determined face. There was not going to be an argument from Patty and, later, once Mary had showed her mother a couple of fivers, drawn from her purse, and assured her that Patty would be safe in the provinces somewhere, her schooling and board would be paid for and that Patty would write regularly and let her know how she was getting on, the mother capitulated.

"I would love ...." Patty started to tear up, "but there's more."

From the bundle of exercise books she removed a buff covered notebook different to all the rest and handed it over to Mary.

"There's this notebook of Mr Gold's, wot's written in some sorta code."

Mary handed it over to me. It was a feint lined quarto exercise book, bought from W.H. Smith Stationers, full of random capital letters. I tried rotating the letters and they started to make sense.

"This is written in Caesar Cypher," I said, "it's not much of a secret code but is enough to make understanding tricky for anyone not used to codes. This may tell us what your husband was up to."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

WHAT'S GOING ON?

LATER that Monday evening I sat down in the hotel room and tried to figure out what I could from the information we had. That is what I was good at in all the years I was at the Yard. Brad's notebook was written in a rotation code of 13 letters, so written letter A was really letter M. It was originally a code used by Julius Caesar in Ancient Rome, which was then based on a rotation of 12 as the Latin alphabet had only 24 letters, without U and J.

The notebook was a sort of diary that filled in some of the gaps in Brad's story but frustratingly left out a lot of detail. I believed the notes were just reminders of conversations he had, so they were hints rather than specific facts.

Like the diary we had, the notebook was bought from W.H. Smith's bookstore but, unlike the diary which was for 1940 and ended tantalisingly almost a month before Gold's disappearance, the entries in the notebook, although undated, must have begun shortly after Gold arrived in London in September 1939. The last entry seemed to be just the day before he disappeared.

Bradford Gold appeared to have been the key around the bigger picture of what was happening behind the scenes. Firstly, the famous actor dropped everything and came to England to volunteer to join up within days of the declaration of war between Great Britain and Germany.

He arrived accompanied by an embarrassing blaze of publicity from his Studio, his fans and the Press. He realised the Military were flummoxed how best to use him and they ended up keeping him hanging around while they considered their best options.

His frustration at being baulked at the nearest recruiting office in Mayfair close to his hotel was clear. The RAF Sergeant at the desk stopped Gold filling in the attestation form and summoned his Group Captain, who in turn got on the blower to some bigwig in Whitehall. The upshot being that the military were happy to sign him on for the RAF, but had no clue what to do with him.

So, at his request, Jenny Mac at the Gold Studio's London office sorted out a flat for him to buy and furnish while he waited months for a decision by the War Office. He wanted to buy a home base to live as he knew the war would last for years and he was here "for the long term".

In the end the Military brass hats used him as an experienced pilot to send propaganda leaflets to Germany and get him out of their hair for a while until the hoo-ha died down.

Then, by the time the real war started, they seemed to have forgotten he existed and he was then left to continue just like all the other pilots, bombing cities, ports and factories and constantly being shot at. His notes were full of his frustrations that he had more to offer the war effort and he was clearly talking to Keppel at the US Embassy and trying to switch to working for the Americans.

The aircraft crash landing, that's what must've reminded the Military at the War Office of his presence. He said himself that he was perfect intelligence material, he could act a part convincingly, he spoke the lingo of two enemy states like a native. He felt a he should at least have been used to listen to selected communications from the enemy, and it appears there was a suggestion of that, but no, he still craved action, especially having tasted it by bombing German cities and facing hostile fighters and artillery barrage from below.

Now, Gold's long-time boyfriend Mitch Mullinger was back on the scene, as he was being mentioned in the notebook from the winter of 1940.

Where did Mullinger come from and where was he staying? Where was he now? We already knew he was not living in the flat in Denmark Hill, but then nor did Brad Gold, by then Gold was mostly living in digs in the East End like an ordinary person, once an airman but now clearly invalided out, while on some undercover mission.

Why was that, when he had a luxury flat in Denmark Hill sitting empty? And why was his former property agent Curly Cavenagh, who had been out of the picture for over a year now collecting his rent money?

Mary interrupted my thoughts by waving her hand and catching my attention. She had been busy at the tiny desk in our hotel room, translating Brad's notes into one of my notebooks, using her small neat handwriting with her smart and expensive-looking fountain pen.

"Ed, I mentioned Mitch coming onto the scene a few moments ago, well, it seems he came over to England by boat and is working directly for American Intelligence. And Keppel is definitely the U.S. agent that both men report to. Brad was maybe not transferred to British Intelligence as we were led to believe, he was already in the U.S. Secret Service, they both were."

"So that's why he is in digs in the East End, he is undercover and working as an agent ... maybe he's on loan to British Intelligence, or working directly for the American Intelligence here in London, or maybe he's a double agent."

Mary mouthed while I spoke in whispers as we had brought the girl Patty with us and she was fast asleep in the bed after probably the biggest meal she had ever eaten in her life. I was sitting in the armchair thinking, while Mary used the desk under a desk lamp to transcribe Gold's notes.

"I must speak to Patty in the morning," Mary said, "she used to clean Brad's room while he was staying there, check if she saw anything or what he may have said about what he was doing during the day."
"Why is Brad wearing his No 1 uniform for some military reception?" I wondered out aloud. "Why did somebody keep him tied up for at least a couple of weeks while held for ransom and then" very quietly, "kill him by drowning?" Then I spoke more normally, "Why did the police attempt to cover up the evidence of the drowning? Are they sharing in the ransom money? And why just £30,000? They could've held out for a whole lot more, he's not only a popular film star, but the wealthy studio owner's youngest son."

"Maybe they were holding him ready to make another demand, but my arrival and your enquiries may have forced them to make do with what they had already been paid." Mary suggested.

"No, Gold was murdered before you even got to London a week ago. Why are the police covering up for the criminals? And where do the Nazis fit into this? Bob Cummings was certainly no Nazi, he was a Socialist, a lifetime Labour supporter and was active in the Police Federation, the Police Officers' Union all the while he worked for me. There is absolutely no possibility of him being involved in helping the Nazis win control in Britain."

"Maybe the kidnapping and the spying are unrelated. He probably disguised himself when he was spying, but wearing his dress uniform to a dinner or reception, maybe he was simply going as himself and some opportunist criminal recognised him?"

"Yes, Mary, a valid point. Wish I knew where he was going, all dressed up to the nines as he was."

"We're meeting Wilson Keppel as the Embassy in the morning," Mary said, "we can ask him what Brad was doing for them. In the meantime, we need to get to sleep."

Mary shared the bed with Patty, while I used the rather lumpy pull-out from under the bed to sleep fitfully on. This room was nothing like Mary's hotel suite, The Met's expenses ticket didn't go anywhere near that, which is why we had to share. I protested at first, but Mary assured me that this would work and the presence of Patty made us look like a family, and whoever our enemies were, they certainly weren't looking for a family of three.

Just for once, the Luftwaffe gave London a break and the air raid sirens failed to disturb our night's sleep.

We took Patty with us when we met Keppel at the American Chancery in Grosvenor Square, we couldn't possibly leave her alone all day, but she stayed outside with Jock where the armed guards at the Embassy directed him to park the car.

While Mary had been playing plain "Mrs Jones" for the past couple of days, with the smart clothes that Milly packed and Jock picked up from Hettie's the previous evening, she was now dressed to intimidate every mortal man in existence and looked every inch the Hollywood actress she was in all her magnificent glory.

Keppel was a tall thin man in his early forties, his thin sandy hair receding and wearing a heavy sandy moustache that I felt was in dire need of trimming. He was clearly a fan of the moving pictures and was immediately smitten with Marcia la Mare as soon as he saw her, which was why we got in to see him in his office so quickly. I was introduced by Miss la Mare as the police inspector that New Scotland Yard had recommended work with her on her husband's kidnapping case and she insisted I attend the meeting as her advisor.

Keppel nodded, "I know very well who Mr Onslow is, Miss la Mare, ma'am, and I welcome his input. We're sorry for your loss ma'am, believe me when I tell you Brad Gold was a asset to our country's security that we were sorry to lose."

"We have Brad's coded notebook, Mr Keppel," Mary said, nodding her acceptance of Keppel's admittance, " that makes it clear that he was regularly reporting to you both by telephone and in person."

"Indeed, Ma'am, we indeed met often. I have no wish to hide the facts from you but clearly we would not want such knowledge generally known."

He turned towards me, "We are a neutral country, Mr Onslow, but our sympathies do not necessarily rest with military dictatorships who clearly demonstrate no respect for international borders."

"So Mr Gold was working for you all the while he was here, then?" I asked.

"Mr Gold was working for all of us, Mr Onslow, for victory over the Nazis and for peace between us and the restoration of normal trade between our two continents."

"So were you giving him his orders, or was it the British Intelligence that were pulling his chain?" I asked.

Keppel smiled at me as he replied candidly. "We controlled the parameters of the service he was providing for the Brits, Mr Onslow, but within those limits, he was working directly under their orders."

"But we, the U.S., are not at war with the Nazis, are we Mr Keppel?" Mary asked.

"No, we're not and we don't want to be, Ma'am but ... and I say this carefully and reservedly ... the Nazis have proved powerful and brilliant practitioners of the modern war machine. We don't want them as military enemies, but at the same time, we fear their future ambitions on the world stage. We are currently without an Ambassador here in London, because our last one was very pro-Nazi and was recalled by our President."

"So your policies here have been pro-Nazi until recently?" I asked. He turned to face me.

"Well, either that or he was anti-British, Sir, but that might have been by being of Irish descent. I'm of German descent, but my family have been 100 percent American for nearly a hundred years, but some immigrants forget who we are. Gold was born in England, so he had loyalties to both his countries. We expect the new Ambassador to be in keeping with the President, who is currently Britain's best friend. At the moment this tiny strip of water, and the Brits' fighting spirit, is keeping Herr Hitler at bay, with the U.S. and Canada doing all they can to keep you afloat. Herr Hitler has turned his attention to North Africa, unhappy with the Italian failures in Libya. Once he has two continents under his control, who knows where his ambitions will lead next?"

"Did Mr Gold report back to you in any detail about what he was doing for the British Intelligence?" I asked.

"No, not in so much detail, Sir. As I said, he had a free hand working for your guys, so long as his efforts for his country of origin did not damage his adopted country. I met up with him —"

"Here?" interrupted Mary.

"He would never come here, Miss la Mare, except during the Fall of '39 when he was desperately trying to get us to help him join the British Armed Forces, preferably the RAF. But since he stopped flying he'd meet somewhere different with me every week to ten days or so and give me an outline of what he was doing."

"Can you tell me anything of his activities that might help identify his killer or killers?"

"I know he was involved with helping the Brits weed out Fifth Columnists who were actively trying to hamper the war effort."

"In what ways?"

"There are some individuals, self-interest groups and politicians who wanted to take an active part in supporting the Nazi cause, mostly by sabotage, and by helping the night bombers to new targets. We believe Herr Hitler doesn't want to bomb landmarks, because he fully expects to win easily and already has visions of the Tower, the Palace, the British Museum being draped in German flags. No, he wants to destroy the British economy by forging British banknotes and flooding the markets with them. All to damage morale in the general populace."

"Did he mention any names of people he was spying on?" I asked.

"Yeah, Sir, he sure did. I brought his file up in case you asked." He pushed a Manila wrapped file an inch thick across the table. "You're welcome to look through it. Can't let you take any of it away with you, though, I'm afraid. I'm pretty familiar with the contents if you want to ask me any questions."

"What was he specifically working on at the time he disappeared?"

"Nazi sympathisers in high places. Something was keeping him in the East End a week after he should have left, he was starting to turn the focus of his attention on the City. Putting a few bogus five pound notes intothe economy would take time, these guys wereplanning on feeding them through the high street banking system, then when they had saturated the country with millions, they would release to the press how to easily tell the forgeries from real notes and send the country into an economic crisis, crippling every single transaction. You'd be surprised the kind of people he was dealing with, government ministers, judges, generals, bankers, businessmen. Some driven by political ideology, others by potential rewards of rank, position or wealth under a new regime. His fame and fortune helped him meet these people and some were trying to persuade them to their cause. All he was required to do was string them along and identify as many of the movers and shakers so the British government could monitor their activities and nullify them."

"What was Mr Gold's relationship with Curly Cavenagh?" I asked as Mary pulled on the cords tying up the file.

"Ah, Cavenagh was said to be a useful boxer in his youth, but threw a few fights for substantial bribes, he was later involved in a number of protection rackets. He used his prize and bribe money and bought up cheap housing to rent out and did quite well for himself. Due to some of his protection deals running out of cash, or proprietors dying young under suspicious circumstances, he picked up a couple of cat houses, one of them being quite high market, giving him potential to gain favours from important people. As far as we were aware he had no political interests. He worked for us as a go-between, because he had a lot of criminal contacts and sometimes it is useful to have someone on your books who could open doors for us. Cavenagh was a rat who had friends both in high and low places, which is why Brad knew him through us and had to deal with him more than he'd often said he liked."

"They didn't get on?" Miss la Mare asked.

"Nobody got on with Curly Cavenagh, Miss la Mare, he was a nasty piece of work, who had his uses but you only gave him so much information and allowed him little scope that he could use to take liberties."

"What about Mitch Mullinger?" I asked.

Keppel hesitated for a moment before appearing to come to a decision.

"He's one of ours, Sir, and has been since 1935 just before the Bureau of Intelligence became the FBI, which is similar to your MI5, Mr Onslow. We have nothing at all like your MI6, Sir, so we deal with international intelligence on an embassy-by-embassy basis. Mullinger recruited Brad Gold to the FBI a couple of months after joining us. The FBI had used both Gold and Mullinger to check organised crime influences in the movie industry in the late '30s and in building our intel files on individuals we were interested in back home. When Mullinger's best friend Gold came to England and joined the RAF, Mullinger asked to be transferred to the intelligence department here. Let me say clearly, Mr Onslow, the U.S. Chancery here will never admit to having any intelligence department in any embassy in a country which is one of our closest friends."

He looked at me directly until I acknowledged his candid confession with a nod and smile.

He continued to address us both. "Since early '40 Chancery here used Mullinger to work the East End of London, with Cavenagh as one of his first contacts, to introduce him as another former boxer involved on the edge of organised crime, and his story was that he was over here to avoid some criminals he had upset over in the States. He was plausible, well liked and soon successful enough to start feeding us intelligence about Nazi contacts, trying to identify who were in it for the money and possibly persuadable to work for us as double agents. When Brad Gold came back on the scene after his plane crash, it was logical that they work together. However, Mullinger's been missing for just as long as Brad Gold was and now we fear the worst. We really have no idea where he is or what has happened to him."

"When Brad Gold was found, he was wearing his RAF number one uniform, so we presume he was kidnapped the same night. Do you know where he was going dressed like that?"

"No, since your Police found him in that state on Saturday, and we were informed of the circumstances in which one of our citizens was found, we've made enquiries and so far have come up with zilch. That's another mystery, I fear." He stood up. "Look, I'll leave you both for say an hour, I'm supposed to tell you, 'don't touch anything', but ... well I won't."

We were left in the office by Keppel for about an hour while we went through the file left on the desk. We split it between us and went through taking hurried notes. Then we took our leave of the Chancery just before the hour was up.

When we got back to the car we found that Patty had fully occupied herself in drawing our driver Jock, the US Chancery and the other grand Georgian buildings in Grosvenor Square, including drawings of the WAAF crew that manned the anti-aircraft blimp above the Chancery, the first all-WAAF crew in London. I thought that we needed to get her some more sketch pads.

"These sketches are brilliant, Patty," I said.

"They're not finished Mr Onslow, they are mostly outlines and I will fill in the detail from memory later."

"I still think they're awfully good."

"How'd ye get on Sir?" Jock asked once Patty was engrossed in her sketching while we were still in the grounds. We were in no hurry to leave.

"Quite well, found out a lot of what he was up to. We still don't know why he was wearing his Number One dress uniform though."

"He wus goin' to the Palace to git a gong off o' the King," Patty interjected, still shading in details in her drawing of the embassy building. We didn't think she was listening.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Mr Gold got all dressed up in 'is best togs 'cos he was meetin' the King. They sent a car fer 'im an' ev'ryfink."

"I'll go fetch Keppel," Mary said to me, "They'll let me back in easier on my own than if you're with me."

She was right, of course, only gone a few minutes and she came running back with Keppel. He heard a repeat of what the girl said. Then he turned to Mary and me.

"If it was just the military, they would never bother to inform us what they ordered Brad to do, and so he would eventually tell us in his reports, but the Palace have different rules. With a foreign national is being awarded a medal from the King, they'd be sure of maintaining protocol and keep us posted all along the way. There was no notification from the Palace. Brad was tricked into walking into a trap."

Keppel changed the subject, leaving us with our thoughts, as he was really taken with Patty's drawings, he told us it gave him the idea to use artists with pads to spy out various scenarios, being less obvious than bulky cameras.

Patty showed Keppel the drawing of the car that collected Brad Gold on that January evening. Mary looked over his shoulder, gasped and waved me over.

Standing next to the car was a definite portrait of Rawlings, the police driver who tried to abduct us.

***

We met with Morely Makepeace on Wednesday morning at a large private house in its own extensive grounds some twenty miles outside London. Shortly after we arrived, and meeting Makepeace at the entrance, Keppel was driven up in a huge black limousine by his driver and dropped by the door next to us.

"Hope I'm not too late," Keppel said, "we had trouble getting down your narrow country roads in that monster."

"You're just in time," Makepeace said and directed that we follow him into the building.

"Only trusted people at this meeting, Miss la Mare, Onslow, and I agree with you, Onslow," Makepeace said as we walked along the corridor, "We believe Sir Len is a Nazi and German sympathiser, members of a group who want to set up an independent National Socialism regime in Britain, perhaps with Edward Duke of York brought back from exile in the West Indies as a puppet King, him being a Nazi sympathiser himself. There is already a joint MI6 and Met Police counter unit formed, with the help of British Army intelligence." He turned to Mary, saying something like, "Your husband, Miss la Mare, was a part of that investigation which was concentrated in the East End of London," which she mouthed to me when we sat down.

At the meeting with Makepeace were other officers and ex-officers, who were introduced around the table, including Detective Superintendent Jimmy Morris, who I knew very well and had been re-called from retirement, and Captain Geoff Jordan of SIS Secret Intelligent Service, who was new to me. The SIS was also known as MI6 and was intelligence based on international conspiracy.

"We have investigated Gold and," Jordan said, "we are aware of his originally being recruited by the FBI as long ago as 1935 and received his basic intelligence training from us back then but we understand he was little used officially at home in the U.S. The war between Britain and the German Axis, increasingly made him more valuable because of his German-Italian languages, although President Roosevelt wanted to avoid war at all costs. So, after we heard he had been recruited, we managed to get him over here and trained to our specification six years ago. We share a lot of intelligence with our American friends, which is why Mr Keppel is with us."

"Brad was in England for two months in 1935 making a movie over here. He wrote and said the weather was so bad that shooting the movie took almost twice as long as it needed to." Mary recalled.

"That was his fortnight training in spying techniques, I expect," Jordan noted.

Keppel added, "You have to remember, Miss la Mare, that the States has nothing like SIS, and we are sadly lacking in that area of international intelligence. The Chancery Intelligence gatherers here are ad hoc and usually ex-FBI, as I am. We work closely with MI6 and share anything that we think the other party might not know. So when the Brits offered to train Gold and Mullinger, my predecessor here at the time jumped at the chance."

"And he came over here for a week's holiday during the Royal Wedding in May 1937," Mary remembered, "He came over and back again on the Queen Mary."

"Yeah," Keppel admitted with a wry grin, "He was a guest of the American Embassy Chancery at the evening reception at Buckingham Palace, apparently the Royal Princesses are movie fans. I had only just arrived here as a junior posting, so I didn't get an invite."

"I was in Studio filming a light comedy in Burbank during May '37, so I wasn't invited either," Mary said.

"When war was declared, Miss la Mare," Jordan said, "Gold wrote to a contact he had made at the Palace, asking to be involved in the war effort in a practical way and a flight to Croydon Aerodrome London via Shannon in Ireland was arranged. I was appointed his handler by MI6 but, because of his fame, a month of indecision by those above my head went by. Frustrated, Gold asked for anything to keep him occupied while they vacillated, so we got him into the RAF and trained up as a pilot officer, posted to Bomber Command. He wanted fighters, but the instructors thought, while he may cope for a while, he was really too old for those machines and aerial tactics. Most fighter pilots are in their early twenties and need lightning fast reactions. Gold was happy flying bombers for a while but still wanted to be used as an intelligent agent."

"A spy," smiled Mary.

"Of course," Jordan grinned, "he wanted to be a spy. By then we knew he had some experience working for the FBI openly as himself. The few reports we were able to obtain spoke of his success in gathering useful information without discovery. He brought Mitch Mullinger with him, also a minor actor, who had a particular penchant for accents and we were able to use him straight away for undercover in East London. We thought at first that Gold was too readily recognised, while Mullinger turned out to be a natural intelligence gatherer. Mullinger had family in Kent, close to London, who were already heavily involved in the Black Market, so he was employed by them in that, but he appears to have been found out and he disappeared over a month ago, the same time as Gold. He was either murdered or has gone rogue." He shrugged, "It happens."
Mary checked her notes made from Brad's notebook and the diary and asked, "When did Mullinger disappear?"

"Twenty-third December was his last report," Jordan consulted his own notes, "and was due to report next on 28 December, but failed to show. We continued to keep an eye on his bank account; he had settled into a regular habit of cashing cheques every three or four weeks, leaving a sizeable balance to build up over the fourteen months he worked for us. Then on 1st January he cashed out virtually every penny. We paid him weekly for one more month, but then decided to freeze his account. He never got in contact to complain."

"According to Brad's diary it appears that he was meeting regularly with MM along with CC, Cavenagh, even after MM disappeared from your sight. He had several meetings with him in the first week of January, right up until his last entry the day before Brad disappeared."

"They were still paying wages into MM's bank account and monitoring it but nothing was being withdrawn from it, which was a mystery." Jimmy Morris spoke, "Captain Jordan's boss, 'C', suspected that some SIS were double agents and Mullinger possibly fell into this category. It was a mess. After Gold crashed his plane coming home from a raid on the Rhine in Germany, SIS were concerned about his safety and the waste of his talents so far into the war, so they pulled him from bombers, creating a story that he was transferring to a Fighter squadron based at Biggin Hill."

"That's what one of his ex-crew told us," I said.

"Yes," took up Jordan, "instead of flying for the RAF he was asked to infiltrate in disguise a cell of known Nazi sympathisers in the East End, mostly entertainers who had contacts with whore houses that had clients as bankers and movers in politics and the City, which he did for several months before he suddenly disappeared."

"How did Brad Gold get his letters and reports to you?" I asked.

"Anything posted and addressed to BFPO 777 goes to Mount Pleasant Sorting Office in Clerkenwell, and put on one side where we regularly collect it on Gold's behalf." Jordan said.

"All my letters to Brad were addressed to BFPO 777," Mary said.

"BFPO 777 was originally set up as a personal post box for 77 Denmark Hill," Jordan admitted. "When Gold suggested 77, we turned it down as it was already taken. When he came up with 777, I just assumed he was obsessed with 7s as a lucky number. Now, the late Curly Cavenagh, you'll be interested to know, was also SIS with connections to the criminal underworld, as was the Nazi cell. This Nazi cell was involved in printing rather good counterfeit five pound notes, with the aim to undermine the economy and bring about a collapse of the Coalition Government. This would therefore dissolve the War Cabinet, so that the House of Lords could take over the running of the country, which would be swamped by a majority of Lords who were committed to bringing a far right wing government in and control the British Empire which they felt was drifting away from Britain. Their aim was to sue for peace and form a united Anglo-German Empire that would dominate the world and together turn on Communist Russia to restore it to a capitalist economy."

"Well," Makepeace held up his hand to take control of the conversation, and when we quietened down, he spoke. "We have been over the history of how we got here, how we have gathered a significant amount of circumstantial knowledge of Nazi sympathisers and some of their activities, much of it through the agents run by both Jordan and Keppel here and their splendid agents."

He nodded his appreciation to the two named before continuing.

"Now, we need to arrest these named traitors, through Detective Inspector Morris here, and then search for the evidence we need to convict," as he handed out a typed sheet to each of us, "Now, this is what we are going to do at 5am in the morning tomorrow, Thursday. Each main team will have a Police CID leader, mostly detective inspectors or superintendents hand-picked from the counties of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Hampshire and Warwickshire, already on their way down and will be briefed this afternoon; a trusted Met Police Detective, Sergeant or Inspector from DS Morris's team to assist, a local Bobby for local info and advice, two or three arresting Bobbies, and between two to five detectives experienced in searching for incriminating evidence."

"How many teams?" asked Keppel.

"Well, one will be arresting Sir Leonard McLean at his London flat in Holland Park as well as a search team to his country house in Sevenoaks, Kent. Another team will wake up Sir Archie Bellows, Chief Superintendent of the Met in Maida Vale. A third team will collect Lord Carlos at his residence in Hampstead, with a search team to his company headquarters that was moved out of central London in late '39 to Abingdon in Oxfordshire. Those are the main culprits dealt with. We have five smaller teams led by detective inspectors to arrest smaller fry, including Detective Inspector Cummings and the fellow Rawlings who drove the car that collected Gold on that fateful night he disappeared. We will have a number of armed police officers and a company of the London Rifle Brigade standing by for support and Royal Engineers bomb disposal teams in case we find any booby traps."

"There will be a further briefing at 1600 hours today," DS Morris took over briefing, "when we will explain to all parties what's going on, then split up to finalise where each team is going, who we are arresting and layouts of each site and the particular problems we understand each one presents. The raids will be based on reasonably current surveillance, so that we can identify where everyone is at that time in the morning. A lot of flexibility is built in because so much depends on the air raids tonight. Mr Makepeace and myself will coordinate from here, we have banks of telephones with stenographers to ensure we keep good notes to inform the managing team exactly where our targets are, where we are, who has been arrested and exactly who has slipped through the net." Morris turned to Mary and I, "You can attach yourselves to any team but stress you must take orders from those in charge. Where you go though is up to you."

"I have agents that I would like to attend the arrests of Lord Carlos and McLean," Captain Jordan said, "they are experienced enough not to compromise evidence, but swift action by my men may prevent evidence destruction or warnings of discover sent to other persons. I am happy to have a presence here."

"Likewise, Mister Makepeace," Keppel said, "I want to be at the hub too."

"While Mary and I would like to be present at the arrest of Bob Cummings," I said, "as he seems to be directly involved in the death of Gold."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SPRING TRAP

"READY!" PC Brown hissed to us, but it was far too dark this early in the morning for me to read his lips. Mary tugged my sleeve twice, the signal that we had agreed and I was alert and ready.

Mary and I were given the opportunity to call on known criminal contacts of Curly Cavenagh, which Mary's husband, the late Brad Gold had identified as being connected with active Nazi sympathisers who were affecting the war effort resisting the Axis Powers' domination of Europe and North Africa.

I would have liked to have kept Mary out of this but she insisted she take full part. The advisor from MI6 said we should continue as a team, as were those involved in the police and double agents in SIS.

Captain Jordan assured us that his cell was secure and that they were watching us like a hawk providing protection. Jordan indicated that they had identified several agents who were believed to be part of the double agent set-up but we had trusted Army and non-Metropolitan Police units on standby to arrest them when the time was right, basically 5am on Thursday morning on a freezing cold February day in foggy London Town.

Jordan explained that they had needed to give these agents enough rope to hang themselves, but allowing specific communications from Mary and I, naming suspects and what they were suspected of doing.

During the previous night's discussions after the briefings, Captain Jordan admitted that MI6 were very worried about the Afrika Korps being shipped to Libya on 12 February 1941 to shore up the Italian Nazi defences and use the area as a base from which to launch attacks on our bases in Egypt, the Middle East and our naval and Air Force capabilities in Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. At the same time the British, mostly through a Royal Navy blockade, were trying to support a campaign by the Greek Army to oust the Italian invaders of Greece, who in recent weeks, during January 1941, were the first army of the Allies to repel an Axis invasion. The concern was that if Greece fell, Cyprus would be in the jaws of the pincer between Europe and North Africa, including Egypt.

The problem for Mary and I's team was that Cummings' whereabouts had not been clearly identified as he hadn't reported into New Scotland Yard since last Friday, nor had he returned to his home address over the past couple of nights, although several options for where he might be were suggested. We had to split up into smaller teams to ensure that we hit all the known targets at 5am.

It was about two hours after the all clear from the night's bombing sounded that we gathered in front of Reg North's warehouse. It was still dark.

I was more accustomed to moving around London in the blackout than Mary was, but occasional kerbstones were marked with whitewash and each of the iron lamposts had three white rings painted round at eye level to reduce chances of walking into them.

There was no moon but the sky was clear with a crisp hint of frost in the air and the stars were out, so we managed to feel ourselves about well enough. It wasn't due to be dawn for another half hour.

Alongside Mary and I was an older local bobby, PC Brown in uniform and he looked like he had been brought out of retirement, and a younger Detective Constable from the South Midlands, called Doug Eggerson, who told us he had only transferred from uniform a few months ago. The rest of the team were spread thinly around four other addresses thought likely.

We were briefed that Reg North was a petty smuggler and Black Market trader who had a small warehouse behind his house bordering on the side of the Thames, with its own wharf. His known associates included Cavenagh and Cummings.

Of the five sites our team were spread thinly to hit their targets at 5am, this was only one that tied Cavenagh and Cummings together, so we asked to accompany this group.

So, at 5am, our small team knocked on the door of Reg North and were prepared to charge in as soon as the door was opened.

Rather than confronting a sleepy man in his pyjamas, however, we were pulled inside and found ourselves face-to-face with the missing Mitch Mullinger and the crooked Doctor Finlay, who both pointed revolvers at us.

The door was closed behind us by our former driver, Rawlings, who also showed us that he was armed, immediately after he coshed Eggerson and laid him out unconscious on the floor. Meanwhile Mullinger and Finlay covered PC Brown, Mary and I with their revolvers.

Rawlings grinned at me, "I said I'd bloody well get you, Onslow ... and your girlfriend."

I was asked to drop my cane and remove my revolver and also drop it on the floor, as was Brown. They seemed to know that Mary was armed with the revolver I had relieved from the policeman wen Bert was arrested, and Mullinger asked her to drop it on the floor.

I loosened my tie around my throat but left the knot tied as Mary and I were led through the house into the thirty foot by sixty foot warehouse behind it. The warehouse was full of stacked shelves of cardboard boxes and wooden packing cases. We left PC Brown behind to be tied up by Rawlings, who by then had already secured the unconscious DC Eggerson, leaving them in the house.

Finlay placed our revolvers in a table in the warehouse.

Mullinger roughly led Mary to a half-glazed office on the right hand side of the warehouse and pushed her through the door before returning to where Finlay and I stood.

Rawlings joined us carrying a hard backed wooden kitchen chair and roughly forced me to sit in it where he tied my hands behind my back around the back of the chair, and then tied my legs together at the ankles, the rough twine running over my socks, in the manner that reminded me of how Bradford Gold had been bound before meeting his fate, via bath and river. I shivered at the thought.

Through the office windows I could see Cummings rise from where he was sitting, but I could hear nothing except a heavily muffled fraction of what was happening immediately around me.

Once I was securely tied, Mullinger waved dismissively at Rawlings, turning to Finlay, asking, "We'll go get rid of the coppers, how long you reckon before Onslow starts singing like a canary?"

"At least half an hour," I read on Finlay's lips, "do you think you've got time?"

I couldn't see Mullinger by then, as he had walked level with me, laying a hand on my shoulder, so I didn't have a clear enough view of his lips, but I assume he had replied along the lines of something like, "Yeah. Plenty of time, I don't want to miss anything."

The doctor grinned and reminded him, "No more than half an hour then, remember?"

With that, Mullinger walked past me. I couldn't hear clearly, but I assumed Rawlings went with him, as they had two tied men to deal with in some way that I didn't at all like the sound of but could do absolutely nothing about.

I fidgeted a little in the chair but my hands and feet were paired up and bound securely at wrist and ankle but not to the chair leg. Finlay turned to say something, so I was unable to read what he said. I imagined that he had forgotten that I had been deafened the previous day, when I wore a huge cotton pad and bandage around my head; today I had a discrete ear plug secured by a little flesh-coloured plaster.

The office door opened and Cummings dragged Mary out by the arm, bringing her over to where I sat. Mary was otherwise unrestrained, but with me bound to the chair, she was outnumbered two to one.

Her mouth moved in anger but unclear words were uttered as she directed her vitriol at Cummings.

Her eyes were watery as if she was holding back from crying, our position looked pretty hopeless. I tried to smile at her, silently reassuring her that she would be all right. She looked at me blankly but wih her eyebrows raised as if in question, and I replied with a slight nod. She glanced at Cummings and Finley.

Cummings sneered at me. "Mr Onslow, Finlay will inject you in a moment and then you'll tell me everything. I just want to know what the police intelligence know about the extent of my operation. Don't worry, I know quite a lot already, most of it anyway. Like Mitch was working as a double agent, for the CIA and pretending to be Cavenagh's partner in crime. But what you didn't know is that he's also a Nazi supporter. As a racist he thinks that the negroes back in the States should be enslaved again as inferior beings and the white Ayrian race, to which he thinks he belongs, should be the dominant race by some god-given right. And I bet Keppel hadn't told you that Mitch'd been detailed to investigate the smuggling of silver bullion into the States by an East London gang headed up by Curly, the very bloke he was mates with? Did he?"

"No, he didn't," I replied.

"But Marcia here did tell you that Gold was as queer as a nine-bob note, though, didn't she?"

I nodded.

"And that Mitch was his long-time queer boyfriend?"

I nodded again, seeing Finlay out of the corner of my eye approaching me. Finlay pulled up the loose sleeve of my coat, undid and discarded on the floor the cuff links on my shirt sleeve that I inherited from my father and rolled the sleeve up to halfway up my forearm. The struck-off Doctor swabbed my skin with a cotton wad moistened with alcohol, judging from the cold tingle I felt, before returning back to his table to fill his syringe full of truth serum.

Cummings droned on, "I know you thought Gold's co-pilot Stanton was shot down over Germany, but I bet you didn't know that Stanton was also his lover ..."

I shook my head, "I wasn't certain but I suspected that might have been the case."

"... or that Stanton was another double agent who had landed his plane safely in German-occupied France rather than fly onto Mannheim, his crew arrested as POWs, and somehow had been smuggled back into England with forged papers and made his way back to London?"

"No, I didn't know any of that," I replied. "If I did, I would doubt that his crew would be allowed to become POWs with that information."

"Yeah, I think you're probably right, Mr Onslow."

"Did Mullinger or Stanton tell you that and you believed it, or have you at last started doing some proper detective work?"

"Ha! Fine detective you were, Onslow, you didn't even know that my family only had to grease a few palms in Recruitment to get me into the detective branch at the Yard, and then it was easy to become your sergeant, as anyone with any ambition knew you were on your way out and shunned you that last couple of years or so."

"I know that all too well, Bob," I taunted back, trying to put on a confident smirk of my own, "you were a bloody useless detective sergeant, but I couldn't find a replacement, so I could get rid of you, no matter how hard I tried."

He stepped forward a step and clenched and unclenched a fist.

Ha! I thought and laughed at him.

"It wouldn't do for you to knock me out just before you injected me with truth drug, now, would it, Bob?"

I couldn't have grinned wider if I had tried. I looked at Mary and nodded at her. she reacted with a small smile and I could see that she pushed her shoulders back and stood up a little straighter.

"I only acted useless when I worked for you, Cummings sneered back, "so I could avoid convicting family and friends, while informin' them of police operations, like today's fiasco, so I like to think I was a lot more useful to my people than useless."

"So our whole operation at dawn this morning is a waste of time, Bob?"

"Oh no, your bunch of bobbies'll pick up most of the traitors, those that want England to surrender to Germany. We don't want any o' that! Sure, we profit from these bloody traitors, but we're not with them. You've got nothing on me, Mr Onslow, so with all those high ranking police officers arrested an' gone to the gallows, I might even get promoted, perhaps get your old job."

"You mentioned Stanton, Gold's co-pilot. So what was Stanton to you, Bob?"

"Ahh! Now you're askin'!" he sneered, "He was a Gestapo officer who had come over here in the mid-1930s as a young man with some woman spy posing as his mother, pretending to have come direct from East Africa, where he had actually spent time as a boy when it was a German colony. While living in Germany before comin' here he had been an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth. He acquired forged papers which showed him to be a native Englishman, he was able to join the RAF and had a radio hidden at the base from which he boasted to us that he used to call ahead the routes the squadron was heading to bomb that night, so it was no wonder so many bombers were being shot down and Gold was unscathed until that last time."

"So how did you get to know about Stanton?" I asked, seeing Finlay approaching with a hyperdermic needle ready for use on me but was waiting until Cummings had finished telling me about how clever he was.

"Stanton was leading the project to flood the British economy with forged white fivers, so well executed and in such quantities that the economy, already teetering on the brink of collapse with trade at a standstill, would give Britain the kind of inflation that affected Germany in the late 1920s. My family have always invested our cash heavily in silver and gold bullion, so we would have had no problem with distributing forged paper money, and Cavenagh approached us to help with putting out the counterfeit notes through pubs, racecourse bookies and the like that we've used to launder the cash from Cavenagh's hen houses and others. With today's raids —"
"Wait, how did Gold and Mullinger get involved in all this?"

"They were both working independently, Gold on what the Nazis was up to in the East End for the British intelligence, Mullinger on silver bullion bein' smuggled into the States from here."

"And your family were tied into both the counterfeiting and the bullion smuggling?"

"You got it in one, Mr Onslow, you always was a bit sharper than the other detectives. You simply overlooked my activities because you thought me too bloody stupid in doin' the job so you tended to work around me rather than look close at what I was gettin' up to."

"So what happened to Stanton?"

"Mitch was jealous and suspicious of Gold, and once Stanton boasted about his 'special' relationship with Gold, he lost his temper an' he beat Stanton to death ... right here in this building."

"And who killed Gold?"

He didn't answer. It didn't like he would.

Mary started to struggle but Cummings held both her arms at her elbows.

"That's enough delay," Cummings barked, "Mitch'll be back any minute ... you ready, Doc?"

Finlay moved forward a step or two.

"What about Reg North?" I asked, "Who is he and where is he?" I asked, changing tactic.

Finlay stopped and laughed.

It was Bob Cummings that answered, "Reg North was well known to the criminals around here as a launderer of extortion money, and was needed by the Nazis to spread the forgeries. They knew of his reputation, but in fact he never really existed."

"Reg North was one of my old patients, an old man, worn out by venereal disease," Finlay grinned, "And when he died, without a single living relative, I simply took over his house and warehouse but, finding in a drawer an old birth certificate for his son, also called Reginald born in 1908 and disappeared, never to be heard of again, I thought I'd make use of it. I had a dodgy Will drawn up from Reg North Senior, leaving everything to Reg North Junior and I pretended to be him, signing the affidavit and had the Will probated all nice and legal, well, comparatively speaking."

"So, if this operation ever gets raided it'll only be 'Reg North' that carries the can?"

"Yeah. Clever, eh?"

"So, who killed Gold and why try to make it look like suicide?"

"Why do you want to know? What do you even care?"

"I'm a detective, I'm curious. Besides, using the quack here, you seem to want to know what I know, but you're also boasting that you're already one step ahead of me, and killing Gold just seems to me have been unnecessary, a mistake. Knowing what you know about his private life, you could have milked him and his family for years, that's what blackmailers do when they've got something on someone, especially someone whose popularity and wealth means they could keep on paying you and still maintain a comfortable lifestyle, that could collapse if their secret ever got out. So, why kill the golden goose?"

Cummings looked at struggling Mary, shaking his head. I think he told her something like, "It wasn't me."

"Look, Bob, whisper the name of the murderer in my ear, my good ear, my right ear. I won't tell her. I just need to know and I think you need to tell me. You know that Miss la Mare won't want Gold's adoring public to know, she won't want you to tell anyone either. She wants him buried with honour, and I'm sure she's good for paying you a reasonable regular payment for the next few years, until she is out of the business. You could have your Golden Goose again. What happens to me won't matter, she's only known me for a few days. I'd just like to know, you know?"

"All right, Mr Onslow, yeah, I would want to know, even if it was the last thing I would ever do."

He flicked his head at Finlay and the struck-off doctor walked behind my chair and up beside me, stretched out and grabbed Mary's left arm with his right hand, keeping the syringe well out of her reach in his left.

Cummings took a step forward, "It was —"

I pulled my leg out of the strapping, which I had worked on to loosen ever since Rawlings had tied my feet together at the ankle, below the point where my foot was amputated, and rocked back with all my force against Finlay behind me and kicked Cummings as hard as I could between his legs.

With my legs tied together, I could never have hurt him, his shins or knees or thighs might have been hit a glancing blow, but a single slim leg, unencumbered by a foot, a leg that had grown hard over 25 years of standing on, being stuffed in and out of various versions of artificial feet of wood and metal, I was able to deliver a kick as hard as Tommy Lawton of Everton ever did scoring one of his thunderbolt goals.

"Ooooph!" he expelled and, as he doubled over, I kneed him hard in the face with both knees. Then I stood up quickly, spinning anti clockwise on my left tiptoes, while dropping my right foot to the ground, which naturally had the effect of dipping the right side of my body. The chair connected with the back of Finlay's legs and, as I fell on top of him one of the chair legs broke and Finlay screamed as he was trapped by me and the broken chair, pinning him to the warehouse floor. I could see that Cummings had fallen to his knees and Finlay's left hand was still holding the syringe but held flat and immobile by the weight of the chair and me on top of him. Mary's arms had been released by both captors and she stood slightly dazed at the turn of events.

"Mary, my tie ... use it on Cummings!" I shouted at her.

"Okay ..." she quickly moved the three steps towards me, keeping well out of Finlay's reach, pulled my still-knotted tie over my head and approached Cummings with it.

When I saw her hog-tie Rawlings it was getting dark, I hadn't expected it, and she went through her motions so quickly I had no idea of the grace, balance and pure beauty of seeing my favourite ranch owner render a heavier, uncooperative, dangerous four-limbed creature immobile in a matter of a couple of seconds. This time I was relaxed, expected what was coming and could fully appreciate it.

"Bravo," I said, "Now use Cummings' tie to secure Finlay and then cut me loose before the other two return, there's a penknife in my right jacket pocket."

She pulled off Cummings' tie and looked over Finlay, who was screaming obscenities at the pair of us. Cummings was also yelling for Mullinger and Rawlings, but his voice was muffled.

"His leg's broke, Ed," Mary assessed what to do instead of hog tying Finlay. "I'll tie the loop on his right wrist hand, and when I tell you to, you roll away to your left and I'll tie his wrists together behind his back."

As she spoke, she kicked Finlay's left hand and the syringe spun away out of his reach. In a matter of seconds, out of my sight, but I could imagine her with all her weight on a knee in the small of Finlay's back.

"Roll," she commanded in my right ear. I rolled just a half turn while Finlay screamed in agony. I looked up and saw Mary twist his left arm up to where she held his other arm with her right knee and the necktie, then tied the two together at the wrist.

Satisfied that neither man was going anywhere or could use the syringe on us, Mary got up and moved to me.

"Are you hurt, Ed?" she asked softly.

"No, but I am worried about Mullinger's imminent return."

"Got it!"

She reached into my right pocket and pulled out my penknife, just a simple slim knife with a folded two-inch blade at one end, kept razor sharp for opening envelopes and string-tied parcels, peeling and coring apples when in season and for turning over objects at a crime scene without putting my fingerprints on anything that might turn out to be evidence.

In a moment I was free and able to reinsert my leg through the loosened strapping and retightening it. Meanwhile, Mary had collected Cummings' holster, which most policemen now carried since the declaration of war, and sat on her haunches pointing the gun at the doorway to the house, maintaining as small a target as possible.

I stood, rubbing my sore rope-bruised wrists, picked up the syringe and took it to Cummings, bent his tied arms, restricting the flow of blood so the vein in his wrist swelled, and pumped the liquid truth serum into him.

I collected my old revolver from Finlay's table, checked the cylinder was still fully loaded and returned it to my holster. I took a piece of the rope used to tie my hands and feet and forced it between Cummings' lips, tying the knot at the side of his jaw and forcing the knot around into his mouth much more roughly than I would ever do for a normal suspect. Then I repeated the exercise on Finlay. It didn't gag them completely, but cut down on the volume and made it impossible to move their tongues to form coherent words of warning. I assumed that Mullinger and Rawlings would already be expecting noise of pain and protest, so would not be expecting trouble aimed in their direction.

Mary and I moved up to either side of the entry door and waited. We were only just in time, the two villains came through the door within a few moments and we had the drop on them.

"Stop!" I called out, "I am arresting you, Mullinger and Rawlings, in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Bradford Gold. Take out your weapons using thumb and forefinger and place —"

That was as far as I got before Mullinger turned with his revolver in his hand. I fired aiming centre mass from a standing position and Mary fired at the same time from crouching low. My shot hit him in the chest while Mary's entered his right cheek and exited through the top of his skull. His death must've been instantaneous as he sank wearily, as if boneless to the floor.

Rawlings held his arms up aloft and shouted, "Don't shoot! I'm not reaching for my gun. I give up."

I walked around him, "Where's your gun?" I asked.

"In my raincoat pocket ... on the right."

"Take off your raincoat and drop it to the floor."

He obeyed.

"Do you have any handcuffs?"

"Cummings has, office desk, top drawer right-hand side."

"I'll get them," Mary volunteered, "If he moves, shoot him in the head."

"Of course, Ma'am," I replied, "Nice shot, by the way."

"Hey, I practice all the time, Mr Onslow, so I always shoot nice, but yours was text book. And Mitch had it coming, the family trusted him to look after Brad, not take part in crimes profiting from him and leading to his murder."

She returned with the handcuffs and handed them to me, while she covered Rawlings with Cummings' gun, and I secured his wrists with the cuffs and forced him to sit on the floor.

"Where're the coppers?" I rasped.

"In the ... river. They're gone."

I was tempted to pistol-whip him, but instead punched his lights out with a fist.

I moved to Cummings. "Now, where were we Bob? Oh yes, tell me truthfully now, who was it who killed Bradford Gold?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TWO FUNERALS

WE attended two funeral services together, Mary and I, one low key in terms of attendance but deeply emotional, on one morning and followed that by another higher profile one the following afternoon, that was more for public show than anything else. Mary insisted I attend by her side for both funerals. How could I deny her my full support at them both?

To be honest, I wanted to spend every moment of our shrinking allotment of time we had together.

Mary wore the same black outfit for both funerals, wearing a dark veil so she was only recognised by the press at the second public funeral, while I also wore the same dark suit delivered to me by Mr Sims for both funerals.

I had wondered a couple of days earlier why I was sent the suit.

The morning funeral was a small private church ceremony for family and friends. The funeral was for Sarah Turner, the granddaughter of Mr Sims, a 12-year-old fan of Mary's, who died of leukaemia only last Monday.

This was the real reason for Mary's hot-footed visit from the States to our war-torn islands, quite secondary to the disappearance of her husband.

It was only in the grief of her death that Mr Sims was prepared to do anything for Mary in his granddaughter's memory. I had not realised the family connection until I saw him at the funeral, because Sarah was the daughter of Mr Sims' daughter, Margery, married to Captain Simon Turner, a tank commander away serving in North Africa.

I looked the Sims family up in newspaper archive of my local library but Mary gave me most of the information. Little Sarah was always sickly and often bedridden, but was always an avid film fan. As most of Marcia la Mare's films were certified U for family viewing, Sarah saw all those films over and over again and developed an obsession with the beautiful and talented actress.

Sarah first wrote to Mary when she was only 6 and Mary was so charmed by her letter that she personally replied, setting up a pattern of writing to the child every few weeks, while Sarah wrote something almost every day into her weekly posted letters while frequently sickly in hospital at increasingly more regular periods. Mary was taken by her story and replied as often as she could, at least once a month. The London office of Gold Studios, under Jenny Mac, sent Sarah all the public photos of Mary they ever received.

Over the six years Mary knew her, she often sent her private snaps, of the Montana ranch, her parents, her sisters and of Mary on location. Sarah had stuck these in various photo albums that were on display at the family home for the few invited mourners to view.

These included photos taken of Sarah and Mary together at the Eastbourne seaside in the summers of 1936 and 1939 when Mary made day trips from France, where she was promoting her films, in order to visit Sarah. And the last few photos were taken in the children's hospice at Chichester on Mary's first day in England in 1941, the day before poor Sarah died in her heroine's arms.

The Turner-Sims family welcomed us as honoured guests, Mary as a virtual adopted Aunt to Sarah for half her short life and me for being Mary's protector and only other friend in England. Mary spoke with deep emotion and some humour about her long relationship with her greatest fan and severest critic, their letters and few meetings full of excitement, humour and fun. Sarah had worked herself completely into Mary's heart and Mary would never ever forget her.

The funeral and the period of reflection after was sad but uplifting, in celebration of a girl and family who had always known that she would never grow up but had packed so much into her life.

Bradford Gold's funeral was held in a synagogue in East London, a simple ceremony, where men and women were segregated, so I couldn't sit with Mary, so I preferred to stand outside the temple, watching for her emergence to protect her from the Press's attention. Gold wasn't buried in London, the place of his birth, but was sealed in his coffin and would sail back to the United States, under guard of honour as a serving officer of the Federal Government, killed while on active duty as an intelligence officer.

Mary would fly back without him, as scheduled, the show had to go on, but would later meet him on his arrival in New York and fly with him across the North American continent to Burbank, where he would be interred in the family vault in a multi-denominational cemetery, the first of the Gold family to be buried there.

Mary gave a much shorter speech, about how her husband Bradford Gold was not only her hero, but was truly a hero to his country of birth in their greatest need and a hero in putting his life on the line working to keep the peace for his adopted country.

At both funeral services there was not a dry eye in the house.

That evening was our first chance to relax and catch up on events after two emotion-filled days burying the dead.

I stayed in Mary's second bedroom in her hotel suite for the third night in a row, after Milly smuggled us in the back each time we returned. We sat together on her settee with me holding her hand to comfort her.

"Brad was murdered by mistake, you know," she said quietly.

"I know, for the sins of his father," I agreed. "All down to stolen gold and a twenty thousand pound plating and smuggling fee. And Gold knew about his family's involvement with smuggling vast amounts of precious metals into America disguised as silver plate. Both McLean and Keppel mentioned that Gold was investigating the smuggling and was concerned about a threat to his family"

"Well, yes, I guess Brad was aware, Ed. But he wasn't killed for his own sins or his family's, but it was worse than that. I think the murder was of the order of an eye for an eye, a life for a life, and it really wasn't like that at all."

"We now know the facts," I said, "under the truth drug Cummings told us everything he knew, how his extended family were long-time criminals, involved in burglary, extortion, protection and several bank robberies, usually using insider staff through blackmail, hence his easy infiltration into the police service. He was a cousin of Cavenagh and the families were all descended from Jimmy Cavenagh who managed to steal a cache of gold bullion bound for the Protectorate of Kuwait in 1899, which was supposed to foil Germany's plans to build a railway all the way from Berlin, through the Ottoman Empire to the Persian Gulf."

"You've been in your local library again," Mary smiled.

I was pleased to see her smile; she looked terribly tired after her recent ordeals.

"No," I grinned, "while you were getting your hair done yesterday I discovered they have a wonderful reference and lending library here in the hotel. Milly showed me."

"So, tell me what you found out."

"Germany had wanted to build the railway ever since 1892. Now, Britain wasn't that unhappy at first, but Russia and France immediately objected, as the railway threatened trade through French influences in Suez and Russia's planned railway from Moscow through Persia. Germany were originally going to use British and French banks to finance it, but in the end they sold sufficient bonds on the Berlin and the Baghdad stock exchanges to finance the scheme. However, The Sultan of Kuwait, the main port on the Persian Gulf, saw this political rivalry as an opportunity of establishing his tiny state's independence from the Ottoman Empire by appealing to Britain for Protectorate status within the British Empire, with a promise to the UK Government never to sell land for a railroad terminus in the only place possible."

"And," she smiled, "what did my smart detective make of that information?"

"Well, the Sultan needed payment for his part in ceding to the British Empire, in order to beef up his defences against the combined might of the German and Ottoman empires, and he wanted that payment in gold. Gold bullion in ingots which would be transferred from the Royal Mint in London."

"And this is where the Cavenaghs became involved?"

"Yes. There was a bullion robbery in London in 1899 that was downplayed by the Bank of England and the British Government to spare embarrassment all round, but ports were tied up tight for years. Even when I joined the police at the Yard in late 1916, the lost gold was still being spoken about because not one ounce of that gold ever showed up in London."

"But some of it turned up in New York?"

"Yes, you're right, it did. Around 1909 it turned up as a legitimate transaction bought by the Federal Government, in the form of gold ingots marked with Russian Eagles. On analysis, the eagles were clearly a forgery, and the analysis was only a close match to the original analysis of the missing gold but..."

"Too much silver in the 'but', Ed?"

"Yes, a tiny amount and thought by Fort Knox experts to be inexplicable, and now I think I know why. Bradford Gold's family were the Goldbergs, and they were famous silversmiths —"
"Famous for silver plated plates, trays and teapots?"

"Yes, they were but ... and this is the clincher, when Goldbergs silver plated the common base metals they used, like nickel-iron, they applied a very thin plate of pure gold, a few pennies-worth per item, to ensure the silver plating would be even and more lustrous."

"Which means?"

"Which means that theoretically they could silver plate solid gold just as well as a thin layer of gold plate. I found a book about silver plating that mentioned Albert Goldberg's father, Abraham by name, as perfecting the method in the 1870s. So, they could silver plate on solid gold, but why would any respectable silversmith cover a valuable metal with a cheaper one?"

"Unless your silversmith was not so respectable?" Mary suggested.

"Indeed, unless your silversmith wanted to hide the gold to get past the ports actively looking for gold, and avoid import duty. They melted down the gold, recast it in the form of plates, trays, teapots, whatever they could cast, plated it in silver and stamped it all up as cheap, electro-plated silver plate and shipped it to the States, paying a little import duty for such cheap low-price imports and their stock in trade for their new business in New York. Then melted it all down again and recast it into gold ingots. Then sat on it for a few years until the hue and cry went down and sold it anonymously through an agent to, of all people, Fort Knox."

"I think you're right, they did. Then they used that money on the other side of the continent and bought their way into the emerging film industry."

"They cheated the Cavenaghs and apparently killed Cavenagh's uncle who had accompanied them over to the States to keep an eye on their investment. That's where the 'eye for an eye' came in and poor Brad Gold was murdered."

"Only the Goldberg's weren't murderers, Ed, they didn't kill Cavenagh's uncle, I believe that he was in on the scam all along."

"Yes? What are you telling me, Mary?"

"Cavenagh's uncle was almost certainly a man called Bernard Cavenagh, who was probably Alfred Goldberg's main contact when the Cavenaghs were recycling stolen gold and silver through Goldberg's silversmiths. They could use small amounts of gold to improve the lustre of the silver plate on stolen goods, with the Goldbergs changing the assay stamps for resale, but the gold bullion stolen was too hot to handle and there was too much of it to dispose of and get a decent return. They must've mulled it over for years, as you said, the Yard were still looking for it in 1909 and still talking about it in 1916.

Emigrating the whole Goldberg family to New York, and taking their stock of cheap silver plate with them, was a perfect cover. If they were trying to pass off silver plate as solid silver, the customs people would be immediately suspicious of a relatively poor immigrant family. No-one would pass off expensive goods as cheap plate deliberately, so who would think of assaying something already apparently stamped as electroplated in London?"

"Yes, I can see that," I said, "and the gold was stolen, and the capital produced was turned into a moving picture empire that has entertained the public for years, so the only ones who lost were the Cavenagh family that stole it in the first place. The Goldbergs would be almost like modern day Robin Hoods, except that we don't know what the fate of the trusted Cavenagh uncle was."

"I do know his fate," Mary said, "or at least I'm 99% sure I do."

"How?"

"Brad told me that when they came into America as Goldbergs they wanted to become more American, so when they applied for US citizenship, which was an easy written test for English speakers, they changed their name to Gold. And, Ed, I'm guessing here, when my husband's namesake, his 'uncle' Bernard and his wife became US citizens they changed their name from Cavenagh to Cave."

"Bernard Cave? ... Bernie Cave?"

"Yes, Albert's best friend and next door neighbour, who has been a partner in the Gold Studio forever and who regarded Brad Gold as almost his son."

"Blimey, Mary, it makes sense, and Cummings clearly knew all about it, while Cavenagh was clueless during his earlier dealings with Gold, buying his flat, and must've found out once Mullinger, the lifelong friend of Gold, let slip what his birth name was and his history."

"Yes, and Brad must've suspected something when reintroduced to Curly Cavenagh by Keppel when he moved back to London from East Anglia and the briefing about looking for gold and silver bullion."

"Which is why he was in contact with 'C', to look into his family's East London connection without involving the Federal Government."

"Yes. So Gold was killed in vengeful rage for the death of an uncle, who was not only still alive and living more than comfortably as a wealthy Californian but, as you said, regarded the man that Cavenagh killed with as much love as if he was his own son."

"Yeah, and I will have to go straight to visit both Albert and Bernie as soon as I get back home to Burbank and explain why Brad was killed. I am not looking forward to that conversation."

"So Brad Gold really was a victim of the sins of the fathers."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

FAREWELL

THE train left the station in a cloud of white steam, taking Mary away from me forever, it seemed. She was about to throw herself back into the charged atmosphere of make-believe adventure and romance that is the movie business, as a single, unattached, desirable and very beautiful woman, in my mind to be surrounded by slavering wolves in the guise of leading men used to getting their way with any women they temporarily desired. While I returned to my life as a single and seriously unattached bachelor, who had been touched by love twice in my lifetime and already resigned to coping with the loss I felt heavy in my heart.

It would be hard to get over Mary, the lovely girl behind that highly public persona.

I know my pain was self-inflicted, but it would be all my own fault this time. I chided myself for being such an old fool, especially as Mary had warned me at the outset not to fall in love with her.

I know why she warned me, but who can really help having any significant influence over how we feel about someone special who has drifted into one's life only to be snatched back again in the realities of the different lives we lead?

I tried my hardest to be brave, to straighten my back, hold my head high and cheerfully wave her on her way home with God speed.

I tried, but at the end I was left confused and heartbroken.

Now she'd gone and I was alone once more, my shoulders slipped into a slump of depression that I had fallen into and I felt wearied by the effort of simply going on, however much I knew I had to. We both of us had obligations which kept us each side of an ocean.

She had slipped a brown envelope into the inside pocket of my jacket, I had noticed, immediately before we embraced on the platform.

I had already been paid well enough for my detective work and neither expected nor needed a bonus, but it would have been churlish to raise any argument at our emotional time of parting.

If it was in the form of a cheque or banker's draft I could always tear it up or ignore it. I really wanted for nothing that money would buy.

I didn't even feel like going back to the office after a week away, although I thought there might be some post there to deal with. Instead, I decided to go back to my digs to retrieve the magazine I borrowed over a week ago and return it to the library as soon as they opened at 9.30 this morning. Thus severing my last personal involvement with the Gold case.

With my recall to New Scotland Yard, confirmed to start next Monday, I had a few days yet to close down the Mile End office and get everything in order before commencing my new role as a Chief Superintendent of Detectives.

The young librarian was there in my local library as usual and she blessed me with one of her rare smiles when she returned my battered library card in exchange for the returned magazine, whispering, "Did you know that one of Marcia la Mare's newest films, from 1938, a Cowboy and Indian adventure romance, "The Western Frontier", was on at the Roxy all this week and they have a special matinee on early closing Wednesday afternoon?"

"Are you going to see it?" I asked quietly.

"Well, Mr Onslow," she leaned over the counter and I imagine she must have spoke in hushed tones, "yes, although I've seen it twice before when it came around the circuit the first time, but I would love to see it again. Wasn't it a shame though, what happened to Miss la Mare's husband? I think a lot of people will go to see it in sympathy of her losing her hero. And he wasn't just playing a hero, Brad Gold was a true real life hero, I think. I am going to go with my friend Mavis, would you like to come and watch it with us?"

The statement from both authorities of New Scotland Yard and Gold's family, was that Brad Gold was a hero, who returned from a bombing mission over Germany, and shortly after died of his wounds. There was a short private ceremony in a synagogue close to his birthplace in East London, which made the front page of all the national newspapers, before his body was flown back to his family in California.

I whispered back, that it was indeed a pity about Bradford Gold, but that, "I have trouble watching flickering films, as they give me such terrible headaches and I haven't been to the pictures for over twenty years. Besides that, I've perforated by eardrum and need to keep it covered up. Probably won't here a thing for another month."

I pointed to my discrete cotton wool bud in my ear.

"Oh dear, Mr Onslow, that's such a shame, but the new colour pictures are so much smoother and less flickery than the old black and whites used to be and the sound is like actually being there where the action is happening. Tell you what, Mavis and I normally go to the tea bar just around the corner immediately after the main feature finishes," she told me, "If you want to join us after the film for tea we would tell you all about the movie."

I agreed that that might be quite enjoyable. I probably needed to be more sociable and it would be nice to hear young people talk about Mary and her performances, and speaking honestly about their opinion of her, not knowing of my once tenuous connection with the movie star.

Out of habit, I collected a couple of the newspapers from the library stand, to start searching the gossip columns for possible clients and sat in the otherwise deserted reference section, thinking instead that I would check for any crime and court news instead.

I took my coat off for comfort in the warm building and, in doing so, felt the envelope that Mary had pushed with a triumphant smile into my inside pocket when we embraced at the station early that morning. I pulled out what turned out to be a thick package and laid it on top of the newspapers. I was intrigued as it clearly contained something hard and metallic, judging by the weight.

I peeled the envelope open and shook out a pair of keys on a keyring, with a metal tag engraved with the name of Gold Pictures Ltd. Inside the envelope were two sets of legal foolscap sheets stapled together, plus a folded quarto page. I pulled out the documents and examined them.

Unfolding the quarto sheet revealed it to be a curious typewritten letter from the London office of Gold Pictures Limited, signed in a bold signature by "Jenny Mac", consisting of an invitation to a London world premier of a motion picture sometime in September 1941, some six or seven months into the future, the actual date, time and title of the film to be declared in a letter to me nearer the time, followed by a black tie dinner dance reception at the same hotel that Mary had booked into over the last ten days. The invitation continued that I was to be in company at the Film Premiere and dinner following with Miss la Mare and included chauffeured transport from my home and back again. I was instructed to RSVP Mrs Jenny MacArthur at the Gold Pictures Limited London Office.

The foolscap documents proved to be two identical copies of a tenant agreement, for the "furnished flat at 77 Denmark Hill Road", for a period delineated from immediate vacant possession as dated above (which was today's date) until one complete calendar month after the cessation of hostilities between Great Britain and Germany and her allies, when further occupation by the sitting tenant would be subject to a revised agreement. The Agreement stated that the flat owner agreed to pay for all utility services provided and complete cleaning-up of the recent incident in the flat before the tenant occupies the flat. One provision is that the owner would need to share the three-bedroom flat with the owner from time to time during the period of the tenancy, with one week's notice of arrival given. The agreed rent was to be one penny per annum or part of a calendar year and any sub-letting restricted to prior arrangement with the owner, all correspondence to be forwarded and returned through her London office of Gold Pictures Limited via Mrs Jenny MacArthur. The Agreement was signed on the back page by "Mrs Mary Jones-Gold, widow, owner", and witnessed by "Mrs Jenny MacArthur, executor of the Estate of Bradford Gold" and a treacherous solicitor very well known to me by the name of Matthew Conroy, my own solicitor. I only had to sign both agreements, keep one and return the other Agreement to Jenny at her office.

Well, it was a wonderful gesture by Mary, a vast improvement on my present digs and the area certainly had a friendly community, and was better for me than any cash bonus, which might have proved embarrassing, and I supposed Mary could consider me to be a trusted tenant to keep the place looked after until the end of the war and Mary could then realise its proper market value in restored peacetime.

The envelope still feel like it had something else in the bottom of it. I tipped it up and out fell a square of cotton. I smiled, realising it was probably one of Mary's handkerchiefs that her mother had embroidered with "MJ". I already had one that I kept in my pocket at all times since she gave it to me in that very flat that was now to be my home until the end of the war, although when that welcome event would be God only knew.

I unfolded the handkerchief and found a small business card tucked inside, one of her "Mrs Mary Jones, assistant private investigator" cards that she had prepared through the concierge at her hotel, a memento of our partnership together these past few days.

So few days, I thought, not long enough for a silly old man like me to fall in love, right? Wrong, I fell for her in the first two days. On the back of the card she had written a message in her small, neat feminine handwriting. As I read the note my heart missed a beat. Under her ranch address and telephone number in Montana she had written:

"My dearest Edgar, I hope you'll write me often about your every day life (that's a strong hint by the way), & I'll write you about my every day on set or ranch. I wish I could take you away from danger like Milly, my darling man, but I know you want & need to do your duty & I realise your country needs you now almost as much as I. Meanwhile, I will try and keep people's spirits up by entertaining them on the silver screen so they know what they are fighting for. I hope you'll ask me the question I wish for, my darling, when I see you again in the Fall & not wait until the end of the war, or I promise I'll come gunning for you on Feb. 29, '44,War or No War. All my love, yours forever Mary xxx."

Then I noticed the embroidery on the tiny handkerchief in more detail. I wondered if Mr Sims or one of his tailoring acquaintances had a hand in the execution of the added embroidery.

Added to the "MJ" was a hyphen and an "O", "MJ-O".

It appears that I not only have a dancing date to look forward to after watching my first ever talking colour picture in the autumn, but a possibility of a new life in a brave new wonderful world at the world war's end.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Friday 28 September 1941

WHILE I waited for Mary's train to come into Paddington Station the events of the last seven months played through my head. The judicial system in England and Wales is a behemoth, tortuously slow and justice takes a long time. There are sound reasons for this, it allows better evidence to show up, more witnesses to come forward, better consideration of the facts and hopefully better judgements. And the accused too have longer to examine their consciences and reflect on the scales of justice.

During wartime, though, especially when the state is in peril and could collapse shortly after the next tide, the system is swift and vengeful.

McLean, Bellows and Rawlings, plus seventeen other guilty parties unknown to me, were hanged for treason before Easter, while Cummings and Finlay got twenty years' imprisonment and most of the others involved received anything between five and thirty years. Lord Carlos was stripped of his peerage and gaoled for twenty years.

Morely Makepeace was promoted to Police Commissioner and knighted for heading up the investigation leading to the eradication of the Nazi cell that threatened to bring down the Coalition Government, but no news of that ever reached the newspapers.

I was reinstated at New Scotland Yard as detective chief superintendent, and I gathered together a new team to investigate black market activities within the Metropolitan area. I asked for and had Jock assigned as my permanent driver, although I had Mary's little Ford to use that my brother-in-law Jack had collected and stored for us.

Bradford Gold was buried at home in Burbank with full military honours, having died during service with the Federal Government in a war zone. He was also posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by HM The King for bringing his damaged Wellington back from Germany and saving the lives of most of the crew.

I visited Gunter Petersen a couple of times in Mortlake and was pleased to see that he was much chirpier and making good progress with training in using his new false leg. His knowledge of Dutch, Danish, German and Norwegian fishing ports was extensive and I put out feelers with the few contacts I'd made in the intelligence service with Gold's case. When I last saw him, Gunter couldn't give me any details but he was involved in discussions with intelligence officers about helping contacting Danish trawlers at sea by submarines or fast torpedo boats, gaining intelligence and establishing a means of supplying radios and arms to resistance groups and provide channels for getting escaped or shot down aircrews out via the sea and get them back home.

Old Bert the caretaker was never charged with any offence.

Curiously no one ever asked what happened to Rawlings' police car, so my sister Hettie and brother-in-law Jack were never questioned about its disappearance. The little Ford motor car that Mary bought is stored in the yard at the flat in Denmark Hill and I use it occasionally when off-duty, although the petrol allowance only gives me about half to three-quarters of an hour's driving a week, and there are rumours that the petrol allowance for private cars will stop completely in a few months' time. Jack has offered to mothball it in one of his lock-ups until peacetime.

Pattie is getting on very well at her art school and she stayed with me in Denmark Hill at Easter and again during the long summer holiday. Her mother Martha was not a widow as I had supposed, but an unmarried mother, who inherited the tenancy on her lodging house from her mother's sister. Unfortunately, Martha was bombed out in March and, just before Pattie was due home from school at Easter, Martha rang me at the Yard and asked if I could put the girl up for the two weeks she was "home"; Martha had been rehoused in an old Underground tunnel, where she was sleeping in bunk beds in old disused tunnels, often 500 to 800 bunks per tunnel and she didn't want to subject Pattie to that environment where she didn't even feel comfortable herself. Apparently, a form of biting midge has adapted to the hot, humid and stuffy condition and the inmates were being bitten unmercilessly.
I agreed of course and suggested that Martha could move into the second or third bedroom at the flat while Pattie stayed with me. I called Jenny Mac while I was considering the arrangement and in my next letter let Mary know that Jenny had approved it pro tem until Mary could make her feelings known. Mary wrote back approving the temporary arrangement.

Martha stayed on as housekeeper after Pattie returned to art school, and saw to my meals, and kept the place tidy while I was at work. She was used to looking after more than just one lodger, but soon she got to know everyone in the local community around 77 Denmark Hill, and began taking tea and biscuits or cakes down to Gus in his hairdressing shop. She also took on extra work by cleaning the pub in the mornings after preparing my breakfast. It seemed that Gus became so friendly with Martha that he proposed to her in April and they were married in May.

Now they come to work on the bus together in the morning, after I've left for work. Martha makes my bed, looks after my laundry and tidies up after me, as well as clean the pub and generally keeps company with Gus during the rest of the day, making sure he never forgets his gas mask.

I promised Mary that I would write a letter to her regularly and I do send her one or two letters every week and, every week, I get one or two letters in reply from Mary.

Because of the war, sometimes there's up to two or three weeks go by with none received then I get several letters turn up together. Mary tells me it is the same at her end. Pattie told me she gets a letter a month from Mary and my sister Hettie also gets the occasional letter.

Mary is always upbeat and lively in her letters and I try to match her bright mood in my letters, making light of the poor cold, wet and dull weather we have had from when she left in February until the beginning of June, when the weather changed to hot and dry for a couple of months. August was wet but so far the first week of September has been good. I also make light in my letters of the bombing and the lack of progress on the war fronts but couldn't help but be pleased that Germany's unprovoked attack on Russia in June actually reduced the threat of German invasion from France across the Channel.

Mary wrote from her ranch about how well her horses and cattle were doing, and from her recent location how Milly and she were coping with flies in the desert and the continual waiting around for the weather to change or the light to be just right for the next scene she had to shoot. She used a lot of that waiting time to write her letters, once she was confident in learning her lines.

To say I missed her deeply is an understatement, but we both keep our personal statements to be light. Although she always started her letters "My Dearest Ed", I regarded this more as though I was just the most highly regarded of all the single "Ed's" she knew on a casual basis.

I always started my letters with "Dear Mary" just as I would a formal letter. When I got to the end of my first letter, written the evening of the very day we waved each other goodbye, I discovered that I was completely unaccustomed to write anything other than formal letters. The last letters written to someone I was in love with was during the First World War, when I happily addressed the letters to Mildred as "My Sweetheart" and the salutation along the lines of "Truly yours", "With all my love/devotion", etc, because we had an acknowledged romantic relationship, Mildred and I were engaged to be married. But what salutation should I use with Mary?

I looked closely at her card again. She was affectionate and had called me her "dearest" in the address, "darling" in the body of her inscription and "all my love" and "yours forever" at the end, with three added kisses. But then she had told me at the outset that she was a harmless flirt.

I opted to finish with "from your most devoted servant, Edgar", and hoped that would suffice.

Her next two letters when they arrived continued to address me as "Dearest" and end "all my love" and "yours forever" at the end, with three kisses.

That reminded me that I hadn't put any kisses at the end of my first or second letters, sent before I received her first, so this time I closed out the letter with a brief paragraph of how I still remembered her in my dreams, particularly the taste and tingle of that one solitary kiss that shocked me on our departure. I signed out that letter with, "All my kisses are yours, Mary, but I send you just the one until we meet again, even if such is but in my dreams, Edgar X".

It was two or three letters later, as letters crossed in between, that she opened with "My darling Ed" and remarked on our last kiss through the carriage window and looked forward to a repetition, signing off, "your loving Mary, storing up all your X's until we meet again".

Then we settled into a series of notes where neither of us referred to any relationship between us in the body of the letters but always used brief endearments at the top and foot of our letters. I thought perhaps she had cooled somewhat and believed that now she was back in her normal life that our brief acquaintanceship was just that, brief and of little consequence.

I wasn't surprised that the brief intensity of our close relationship had faded. It was born out of our partnership in a common aim, facing threats to our lives and each saving the lives of the other. We had been thrown together in high emotions, the disappearance and then murder of the husband she respected and loved, the threats to her life and the two lives she took to save my life and survive those threats, all far from home and the family she loved and was assuredly loved by, were emotions that inevitably had to come down to normal levels where the reality of our respective backgrounds and our hopes and aspirations are more easily seen in perspective.

Her mild and temporary infatuation with me, who was constantly with her and facing the same dangers, was understandable and, although I knew I loved her and was certain that I always would love her, I was reconciled to continue our relationship as friends would be maintained as long as possible. I looked forward so much to her wonderfully uplifting letters, they always brought smiles to my lips as I read and reread them. They always lifted my spirits. So, from about June onwards, I would sign "Your devoted friend, Edgar X", fully expecting our letters to drop off to one a week, then one a month before tailing off altogether, knowing that should they ever stop, I would be left with memories that would always warm my heart.

So, from about June onwards, I would sign "Your devoted friend, Edgar X", fully expecting our letters to drop off to one a week, then one a month before tailing off altogether.

***

I had a visit at the Yard from Jenny Mac late one morning in August. There she invited me to lunch at The Savoy, as her treat, so I got Jock to drive us both there. I assumed she was going to give me bad news about my continued tenancy or otherwise at the flat or that Mary was not coming over as we had expected the following month.

"So, Ed, when are you gonna get your head out of your arse and get with the plan?"

Jenny spoke plainly after we had given the waitress our luncheon orders and disappeared out of earshot. By this time my hearing in my left ear had returned to normal.

Jenny was a hell of a character, elegant and very well turned out for a woman in her mid-fifties, having been a successful publicity agent for over twenty years, with clients like Parisian fashion houses and parfumerie companies on her books before the war and was still thriving despite the current difficulties in London and beyond.

Jenny's husband was in the oil shipping business and his company had lost a quarter of his ships and half the ships' crews by August 1941, but the news on the greater numbers of U-boat sinkings was promising and he was still finding brave merchant seamen who were prepared to run the gauntlet of the Battle of the Atlantic to get at least part of the millions of tons of food, fuel and materials needed to keep the British Isles alive and resisting the might of Nazi Germany, who now had all Europe under its yoke, were making serious inroads into Russia and now had our North African army under siege and trapped.

"What plan?" I asked in all innocence.

"The plan to get Mary Jones and Edgar Onslow together as a devoted couple as soon as this damned war's over and live happy ever after for the rest of their natural lives."

"But ... Mary is ..."

"Beautiful, loving, passionate, rich —"

"Yes, yes," I said waving my hands around in front of me, "All of those things but she is also adored by millions, she's the sweetheart of whole families from children to grandparents. She is the fantasy of every hot-blooded male on the planet who has been unable to avoid her images that are everywhere. I didn't even know who she was seven months ago and, since meeting her, I now see her pictures and hear her name mentioned everywhere I go. Even the man who has everything they ever wanted desires her above all else. How could she possibly want me, when I have absolutely nothing to offer her?"

"You have the one thing that no other man in the world has, that no other man would ever have, Edgar," Jenny said softly, putting her hands on mine and clasping them together as if I was in prayer.

"And what might that be? I am only be able to make what little savings in the building society that I have because I'm living for free in her flat and driving her car like an Italian gigalo. What 'one thing' could I possibly have that no-one else has?"

"Her heart, Edgar. You have her heart, here in your hands. Her heart belongs to no other. You are a good man, Edgar Onslow, a very good man. You are smart, brave, loyal, resourceful and honest. A good copper, one who has earned lots of respect, not only from other good coppers, but villains that you have treated fairly, talented children, friends and neighbours and, last but not least, a woman who values your qualities above all others and wants to share the rest of her lifetime with you. She feels from your letters that she's losing you."

"I don't know what to say."

"Tell me how you feel about her for a start."

"I ... I love her, of course I love her. She warned me that I would fall in love with her and she told me not to."

"She didn't mean to tell you that. At least she might only have meant it on first meeting you, on first meeting any ordinary man, but later, when she knew you for who you are, she didn't mean it to apply to you and she certainly doesn't mean it at all now. You're breaking her heart, Edgar."

"Oh dear. What do I do now, Jenny?"

"Tell her how you feel about her. Tell her you love her and tell her just how much you love her. Then continue to tell her every day all the way through the rest of your lives together."

"I suppose I better get a ring."

"Yes, you better." She dug a card out of her clutch purse and passed it across to me.

I picked it up. It was a card from a well-known jewellers in Hatton Garden. I was a little disturbed at the little crest in the corner that read "By Appointment to HM King George VI", it looked like a ring from here might be well out of my financial reach.

"Speak to Jolyon at that address, he is expecting you today. He owes me a few favours, for introductions, persuasive arguments, you know, he'll see you right. I know from Mary that you have your mother's engagement ring, he can reuse the precious metal by melting it down and recasting it and use the original stone or as a compliment to the setting of a new stone. You might require a small loan to cover the cost but Jolyon is prepared to offer you that and I know you can cover it."

"She joked about marrying a Wild West Sheriff after the war. But I'm just a city copper, Jenny."

"A high ranking copper who is highly regarded and soon to be highly rewarded by his royal patron."

"But, I only got the letter from the Palace this morning, I'm supposed to keep mum about it for the next three weeks."

"Of course you must keep it mum, Edgar, and I know you will, but just think for a moment. You are allowed to bring a guest to the Palace. How fitting would it be to receive congratulations for you and your fiancée from the King and Queen, especially as the two princesses have long been devoted fans? Almost as nice as it will be to have your King's personal gallantry medal, pinned on your chest, I think. And, by the end of the war, Edgar, immediately upon your retirement from your long and distinguished career, before enjoying your final years on a ranch in the wide open prairie, my crystal ball tells me that you will be invited to the Palace again and this time a certain Lady Mary will regard that honour higher than any Oscar she might collect along the way."

"But you cannot know...."

"Of course I don't know everything Edgar, but I would never let my dear friend Mary Jones down, ever. Will you ever let her down?"

"No, I wouldn't. I won't."

"Well, eat up, Edgar, my driver is telling your driver exactly where the jewellers in Hatton Garden is and Jolyon is expecting you. And Edgar...."

"Yes?"

"Mr Sims is expecting you to collect your full dress uniform as a Police Chief Superintendent in two weeks in plenty of time for the medal ceremony and the film premiere, no need for a fitting, he says, he has your measurements."

***

So I wait on this draughty platform somewhat nervously for Mary's train to arrive, the Station Master has already come down to where I stand and told me that the telegraph has informed him that the Express was running eight minutes late at Reading General, but they should make up at least five minutes of that time on the final run into the capital.

I straighten my tie, check that my gas mask sits correctly in its smart new leather pouch which compliments my new suit, check the ring box in my right trouser pocket for the umpteenth time, knowing my shiny 1914 silver King George V shilling was slipped into the bottom of the box to signify my signing up to serve my future bride for the rest of my days.

Then I try to relax, waiting for my very own Mrs Mary Jones to arrive for the very first day of the rest of our lives.

The End