Chapter 23
R at followed the captain’s directions and came upon what he hoped was the secretary’s office. His sharp knock at the door was answered by a hearty “Enter!”
The consul’s private secretary was a cheerful-looking young man. He looked up from some papers as Rat entered and then stood. Rat approached the desk with an outstretched hand and said, “I am Matthew Sandworth. I believe that Consul MacLeod asked you to send a telegram on my behalf this morning. I am attending the dinner with my sister and thought I would pop in to see if a reply had arrived yet.”
The secretary shook the outstretched hand and said, “Alister Blackadder at your service. Good to meet you, Mr Sandworth. As it happens, I heard a telegram come through a few minutes ago but I was absorbed in some paperwork and did not have a chance to check.”
As he said this, Alister Blackadder pointed to a wooden table in the far corner of the room. Standing on the table was a classic telegraph machine with a polished wooden base, brass fittings and visible wiring.
Alister stood and moved toward the machine. “Have you ever seen one of these beauties in action?” he asked. Rat shook his head in the negative. “Well, we used to have to listen to incoming sounds and translate them into Morse code, but the modern ones have a paper tape recorder which inks the dots and dashes straight onto this paper strip here.”
Picking up the long paper strip, Alister brought it over to show Rat. All he could see were dots and dashes printed on the long strip. “Can you decode this?” he asked, hoping that the answer was yes. He didn’t want to have to wait to see what Lord Langley had replied.
“I can!” Alister said proudly. He went back and sat behind his desk, pulled a fresh sheet of paper out, took his pen and started translating the coded message. He gestured towards a chair in front of his desk and suggested that Rat take a seat. A few minutes later, Alister looked up and handed Rat the sheet of paper. “Done. Here you go.”
Rat took the paper and glanced over it quickly. It was evident that Lord Langley had replied to the coded message that Rat had sent with one similarly encrypted using the Playfair cypher. Rat knew that he should probably wait until they returned to the riad to decrypt the telegram, but he was too anxious to wait. Instead, he asked Alister for a pencil and paper, explaining that the telegram was encrypted.
Ever since Lord Langley had first started teaching Rat about cryptography as a child, they had always used the fourth word, whatever it was, as the keyword in their encrypted messages. The message on the paper that Alister handed him had the word birthday as the fourth word.
Just as he was about to write the keyword down and begin to decrypt the message, he looked over at Alister Blackadder and said, as almost an afterthought, “It is awfully rude of me to ask this, but…”
“But would I give you some privacy while you deal with the telegram?” Alister said, finishing Rat’s sentence. “Of course, old man. Nothing rude about that. Totally appropriate. I should have thought of that myself. Will ten minutes be enough time? I need to get a cup of tea anyway.” With that, Alister stood and left the room.
Now that he was alone, Rat concentrated on his task and had fully decrypted the message in little more than five minutes. While he didn’t regret the pivot he had made recently in his career, he would always find cryptography fascinating and got great satisfaction out of the puzzle-like aspect of the field. Looking at the decrypted message in front of him, he reread it to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.
It seemed that the murdered rogue operative’s name was Timothy Shandling. In 1910, it had been discovered that Mr Shandling was selling classified British information to the highest bidder, sometimes the Germans, sometimes the French. By the time it was discovered, he had disappeared. The telegram had one rather cryptic comment that Rat pondered for some minutes, trying to determine what Lord Langley meant. It said, “Be careful. There is a rumour that Shandling has a highly placed friend who may have helped him escape. I will send more information when I have it.”
“Highly placed friend,” What on earth did that mean? And when might Lord Langley have more information? Rat sat back in his chair and considered the rest of the news. What was particularly interesting was that the rogue operative had sold British secrets to the French. Was he still working for his French paymasters, perhaps in Morocco? Rat thought back to Melody’s theory that the French Government was behind Brett Rothnie’s disappearance and the attempt on Alessandro’s life. While he hadn’t given it a lot of credence when Melody had floated the theory, this new data point made it much more likely now.
As he was thinking through the possible ramifications of Melody’s theory being correct, the door opened, and Alister Blackadder came back into the room. “Is the coast clear?” he joked.
“Yes, I’m done. You can have your office back,” Rat answered, folding the paper and putting it, the telegram tape, and the paper with Alister Blackadder’s decryption of the Morse code in the pocket of his djellaba. Better safe than sorry. He stood, shook the other man’s hand, thanked him again, and left the office. Fine man, Blackadder, Rat thought as he walked back up the corridor.
Back in the drawing room, Rat found that the rest of the guests were making their way into dinner, and he rushed to join them. He wouldn’t have an opportunity to share what he’d learned with Melody and Fatima for some time. He was also curious as to how Fatima’s introduction to the Grand Vizier had gone.
Dinner was long and tedious as far as Rat was concerned. Because of the lack of female guests besides Melody and Fatima, Rat found himself with a French government official on one side of him and Consul MacLeod on the other. The consul had insisted that Fatima sit next to him and spent the entire meal absorbed in his flirtation with her. The French official did not speak much English, so Rat concentrated on eating his meal and observing his fellow guests.
Captain Somerset had managed to get himself seated next to Melody, who looked as if she was very much enjoying the man’s attentions. Rat was glad. He knew what a blow to her self-esteem Melody had suffered when Xander Ashby’s true intentions had been exposed. And while he wasn’t sure what exactly had happened between his sister and Alessandro, Rat was astute enough to recognise his sister’s hurt feelings. It was lovely to witness her finding herself the object of such determined male attention. Captain William Somerset seemed like a fine, upstanding young man. Just as Melody had, Rat had caught the cultured tones of the man’s accent and assumed that he came from a good family, if not an aristocratic one.
As he watched his sister giggle at some new flirtation from the infatuated captain, Rat thought about the light that the telegram might have shone on this investigation. He looked around the table at the various French officials enjoying the tasty smoked haddock appetiser. Was it possible that the man responsible for engineering Alessandro’s arrest was in this room?
Colonel Henri Gouraud was sitting next to Captain Somerset, with the Grand Vizier to his left. From the snippets that wafted across the table to Rat, they seemed deep in conversation in French. Yet again, he wished he had more proficiency in foreign languages.
In deference to the Grand Vizier, Rat presumed, there was no wine served with the meal. In the absence of port with which to potentially enjoy a cigar, Consul MacLeod stood as the dessert plates were being removed, offered his arm to Fatima and said, “Shall we retire to the drawing room for some coffee or mint tea?”
Luckily, at least as far as Rat was concerned, the evening ended not long after when the Grand Vizier put down his glass of mint tea and announced his departure. Once the guest of honour had left, everyone else soon started trickling out.
Melody’s company had been monopolised throughout dinner and afterwards in the drawing room by the charming captain. As she sipped her coffee and listened to more of Captain Somerset’s amusing stories of growing up the youngest of a family of six boys in Hertfordshire, she caught Rat looking at her intently. He widened his eyes, raised his eyebrows, and slightly inclined his head towards the doors, indicating his wish to leave.
Reluctantly, Melody told the captain, “I believe that my brother is trying to tell me that it is time for us to make our thanks to our host and depart.”
As she said this, she stood and held out her hand. The captain stood and took her hand. Looking very serious all of a sudden, he asked in a tentative voice, “May I call on you, Miss Chesterton?”
“I would love that, Captain Somerset. I do not know how much longer we might be in Fes. It all depends on how quickly we are able to secure the conte’s release. However, I would be happy for your company during whatever time I have left here.”
Captain Somerset smiled. “When you put it like that, there seems to be a great incentive for me to ensure that Conte Foscari’s detention is of a long duration.” He said this lightly and laughed at the end, but Melody must have looked shocked at his words because Captain Somerset quickly added, “Not that I have any power to do so. And, of course, nor would I even if I did.”
Melody relaxed, gave Lahcen’s name and the general location of the riad to the captain and said she hoped she would see him soon. She then turned and joined Rat, who now had Fatima by his side. They found Consul MacLeod, who expressed great sorrow at seeing Fatima leave so soon.
Finally, they had extricated themselves and found the servants and mules who had brought them there that night. The streets were wide enough in the Batha district that two mules could walk side-by-side. Fatima rode next to Melody with Rat bringing up the rear.
“Oh my, but that man is a bore,” Fatima exclaimed when they were safely out of earshot.
“Who? Consul MacLeod?”
“Who else? I could barely stifle my yawns during dinner. At one point, I tried to turn to speak with the French gentleman on my other side, but the consul was having none of it. Honestly, one would think that there are only so many stories of salmon fishing one man had to tell, but it seems there is no limit!”
Melody was amused at the idea of Fatima’s legendary charms backfiring on her. However, more pertinent was learning about her conversation with the Grand Vizier.
“Well, he was quite charming and speaks fluent French. It seems that he had known my father when they were both quite young men. In fact, during his very first tenure as Grand Vizier, he had been the one to recommend my father for the posting to Paris.”
Impatient for Fatima to get to the critical part of her conversation, Melody said, “But what about Alessandro? Did you ask?”
Fatima shook her head sadly, “Al-Muqri refused to discuss Sandro. As soon as I tried, he shut down the conversation and excused himself from the group.” It was evident that Fatima was as frustrated by Melody at this news.
From behind them, Rat, who had overheard the conversation, said, “I have news. However, I don’t want to yell it out in the street like this. Before we go into the riad, let us talk for a few moments.” Once Rat had said this, Melody was so impatient to hear what he had to say that she was tempted to spur her mule on to move faster.
Soon enough, though it felt like an eternity, they were outside the riad and had dismounted from the mules. The servants led the animals away, leaving Rat, Fatima and Melody the privacy for Rat to tell them about the telegram. The one part he left out was Lord Langley’s vague warning. Until he had a better understanding of what was meant, he didn’t want to alarm the women. Instead, he focused on Shandling’s possible connection to the French Government.
“Do you think that I am right and that the French are behind this?” Melody asked.
“Yes,” Rat agreed. “The evidence certainly points in that direction.”
Given her earlier poohpoohing of Melody’s hypothesis, Fatima didn’t want to admit that she was wrong too quickly. Instead, she said, “What evidence is that? That the dead man once sold secrets to multiple countries, including France, hardly proves that he was working for them in Morocco.”
Melody was well and truly fed up with Fatima’s attitude and snapped, “Then do you have a better theory?”
Fatima was forced to admit that she didn’t, but she was still disinclined to accept Melody’s. Instead, she said, “And if you are right, then what? What is our next move?”
Neither Melody nor Rat had a good answer to that question.
As she undressed for the night, washed her face and then got into bed, Melody considered what Rat had told them. She’d had an immediate reaction to his news, but she wanted to reflect on it more to be sure that she wasn’t just seeing things the way she wished them to be. Finally, as she lay in bed, staring up at the ornate, highly decorated ceiling, she decided that her first instinct had been the right one: Lord Langley’s telegram ruled out Mustafa being anything other than the helpful, sweet child he seemed to be.
What had prevented her from immediately accepting this was the thought that Timothy Shandling could be all the telegram implied he was. Yet, even so, Mustafa might still not be the innocent he purported to be. Instead, he might have been in Shandling’s employ. If that was the case, then the seemingly lucky coincidence of him being in the right place at the right time to warn Alessandro about the attempt on his life had indeed been a ruse to ingratiate himself with their group.
However, one rule that she knew that Wolfie and Tabby Cat ran all their investigations by was that the most straightforward answer was almost always correct. While it was, of course, possible that a highly convoluted solution was right, it was rarely the case. Wolfie referred to this principle as Occam’s Razor. And if she applied this principle now, employing Mustafa seemed overly complicated for a seasoned operative such as Shandling. What would have been the point of inserting the child into their household? After all, it was beyond the bounds of reasonableness to assume that Shandling had planned his own murder. In which case, the point couldn’t have been to have Mustafa in place to lead Alessandro to the body.
Melody’s instincts told her that the young boy was all he seemed to be. She knew that she wanted that to be the case, but she also truly believed it was. She hadn’t seen much of Mustafa since they had arrived in Fes. The boy had been absorbed into Lahcen’s household, and she’d only caught a brief glimpse of him helping to serve breakfast the day before. Now that she had deduced that there was nothing to fear from the child, Melody was determined to call Mustafa up to her room to talk the following day.
While she was sure of his innocence, Melody still had some doubts about Omar and very much had concerns about Fatima’s men. Mustafa had now spent enough time in their group, mingling with the servants, that he might have overheard something. She knew well enough from her childhood that adults tended to underestimate how much children understood and absorbed what was being said in front of them.