Poor Imogen
P OOR I MOGEN
O LIVER, THE CHILDREN, AND Major Bryant all were seated in the study.
Oliver had passed out warm blankets before settling in a comfortable chair in front of a roaring fire, courtesy of several pieces of wood provided by Major Bryant’s men.
Bryant began by saying, “Now, just to be clear, there is not much we can tell you. The law and all.”
“That’s rubbish,” blurted out Charlie. “You owe us the whole bloody truth, you do.”
Bryant began in a severe tone, “Now see here, young man, while I understand—”
“They’re right, Scott. I know you can see that,” interjected Oliver.
“What I can see, and what my oath of secrecy dictates, are two very different things, Ignatius,” Bryant countered.
“Still, we can tell them something . They’ve been through a truly horrific experience. They deserve to know certain things.”
Bryant let out a sigh. “Oh, all right. But you both must swear to carry all that I tell you to the grave.”
Molly and Charlie quickly nodded.
Bryant settled back and began. “I operate an intelligence program with the Security Service called the Double-Cross, a counter-espionage and deception scheme. The Germans have continually dropped spies into our midst, by plane, boat, submarine. Almost all of them were ill-trained, inept—worthless, really. We had broken the German Enigma code and other ciphers before Germany started sending spies here. Indeed, we’d often pick the gits up as they walked ashore! So the Germans got very little out of it. But we began exploiting that advantage by turning those very same agents and feeding to the Germans false or, more accurately, some truthful intelligence mixed in with enough tosh so that it looked like their spy effort was working. And we gained quite valuable intelligence on the German spy network in the bargain. But that’s not to say the Germans didn’t keep trying. And this Cedric bloke was better than most. In fact, we’d never have gotten on to him without help.” He looked at Oliver as if to say, Okay, mate, I’ve done my bit .
Oliver took up the account. “When the war started, Imogen was as loyal as anyone to her country. Then, when the Blitz happened and so many died, including some of her dearest friends, something changed inside of her. When Paternoster Row with all its books was incinerated, that change became complete. I don’t know why that particular event did it, but I think she saw the collapse of all she loved in the destruction that happened that night. And she began going to meetings, and those meetings led to her consorting with certain people, who were determined to exploit connections that she had.”
“What sorts of connections?” asked Molly.
Bryant said, “Her father, John Bradstreet. Before he retired and bought this bookshop, he was a long-serving statesman of the top tier, including at the War Office, the author of serious political works, and a welcome visitor in the homes of many distinguished public servants. After he died, Imogen was still very much a welcome guest in those places. She was astonishingly bright and as engaging a conversationalist as you would ever encounter.” He looked once more at Oliver.
“Yes, well, it got to the point, you see,” said Oliver, “that she began working for the Germans.”
When Molly looked shocked, Oliver said quickly, “Oh, she had no love of Hitler and his disgusting fascism, Molly. She had convinced herself that she was doing the right thing by England . By helping Germany so that the bombings and the destruction and the dying… would stop. Remember, this was before the Americans entered the war, and we were fighting virtually alone. She truly believed that England would remain free and autonomous even if the Nazis took over all of Europe.”
“I see,” said Molly. “But this information helped Germany. People died because of it.”
“Yes, they did, Molly, a fact that Imogen had to eventually confront. Anyway, she performed this work for quite some time. And I was apparently too much of an idiot to see it. But she was ever so much smarter than I am.”
“You probably could never believe that she would do that,” said Molly quietly, watching him closely.
“I certainly couldn’t equate the loving, caring, highly intelligent woman whom I loved dearly being complicit with the Third Reich.” He paused and rubbed a hand over his forehead. “And then one day she had me come in here and sat me down in this very chair. And she took my hand and she told me… everything. All of it. Her spying, her treachery, all of it.”
He looked up at Bryant, who stared stolidly back at him.
“A shock for you, old man,” the major said.
“And incredibly painful for her to confess,” noted Oliver.
“What did you say to her?” asked Molly.
“I don’t quite remember, Molly. It’s all rather a muddle in my head.”
“What’d you do , guv?” asked Charlie.
“It was not so much what I did, Charlie. But what Imogen proposed that I do.”
“What was that?” asked Molly.
“Help her spying efforts.”
“I… don’t understand,” said Molly, clearly taken aback by this statement.
Oliver glanced at Bryant.
The major said, “Imogen was one of only a very few British spies working for the Germans, at least that we knew of. And the Germans needed people like her. They exploited her, but now Imogen, having gained their full confidence, was going to exploit them back .”
“That sounds like a very dangerous scheme,” said Molly.
Bryant said, “It was. But Imogen could be a very formidable opponent in her own right. We all attended Oxford together. In fact, Imogen was in the first class of women to be awarded a degree from there. We would hold informal debates at university, the ladies against the gents. Imogen regularly wiped the floor with us. Right, old man?”
Oliver smiled weakly and said, “Yes, quite regularly in fact. She used these skills to convince Cedric and others that I had been working with her all along. We met with them and they became convinced of my loyalty, because Imogen knew exactly what she and I needed to say to make them feel that way. You see, she had read the Germans like a book, just like she read all other books. So I began ‘working’ for them, too.”
Bryant said, “But the difference was that Imogen also came to me and explained the whole plan.”
“Including what she had done previously?” said Molly.
“The whole plan, Molly,” interjected Oliver. “The last thing Imogen was trying to do was avoid the consequences of her earlier actions. She just wanted to make things as right as possible by now working for her country.”
“Why’d she change her mind?” asked Charlie.
“I actually think it might have had something to do with me,” said Oliver thoughtfully. He touched his arm where it had been burned. “As an air warden I very nearly died one night. I remember her sitting beside my bed in hospital while I recovered. Just holding my hand and saying how sorry she was. And when I was finally able to return home, she told me the truth. I can’t begin to imagine how much courage it took for her to do that.”
“You really must have been quite stunned,” said Molly.
“I was many things, Molly, and, yes, that was one of them. So working with Major Bryant here, we regularly fed false information to Cedric and he, in turn, communicated that to Germany. And Cedric would bring me and Imogen false intelligence with the understanding that we would pass it on to Major Bryant, who he knew we were close with. Which we did, but we also told him it was rubbish, of course. And we continued to disclose to the major all we knew about Cedric and his operation. After Imogen… died, I kept ‘working’ with them on my own.”
“We knew something was up before tonight,” said Molly.
Oliver shot her a puzzled look. “How could you possibly?”
Charlie said, “Like I told you, I saw that bloke, Cedric, here late that night when I come ’round. He gave you some papers. And when you come to my flat the next day I followed you, saw you meet with Cedric at his place. When you come out you had some papers you was puttin’ in your pocket.”
Molly added, “And very late at night we saw you slip an envelope in his letterbox when you were wearing your air warden uniform.”
“My God,” said a shocked Oliver.
Charlie added, “And I got into his place and found the book with the pages cut out, and this machine what looked like a typewriter, but ain’t.”
An amazed Bryant said, “It’s the device the Nazis use to send encrypted messages via radio signals.” He paused and smiled. “Blimey, if you were both a bit older we might just enlist you for MI5.”
Molly said, “We didn’t know what to do. But we couldn’t believe you were involved in anything bad. Or if so it was against your will.”
“Well, thank you for that. And I used the books with the pages cut out to hide secret documents,” said Oliver.
“I found one of ’em in Cedric’s flat,” said Charlie. “Con-sway-low.”
“Yes, Consuelo , by George Sand.” Oliver looked at Molly. “You were staring quite hard at Jacques that night. I wondered about that, though I never dreamed you two had penetrated my secret so deeply.”
“I had looked inside it when I was searching for you that day. Charlie had told me about Consuelo . And the pages were also cut out of Jacques .”
“It grieved me enormously to desecrate books like that,” said Oliver in a depressed tone.
“And Imogen?” said Molly. “Her death?”
Oliver looked at her. “She got me firmly established as a spy in my own right. And then told me she was going to Bristol. Instead she went to Cornwall and ended her own life.”
“Why do you think she did that?” asked Molly.
“’Cause she couldn’t live with what she done,” said Charlie, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Yes, Charlie,” said Oliver earnestly. “I believe you are quite right about that.”
“But you let Cedric go tonight,” said Molly. “Why?”
“We let him go only after he saw Ignatius die ,” said Bryant. “And we made it seem that it was simply the police that had seen them with children, and suspected the worst. That way he will believe that Ignatius’s status as a spy remains unknown. And he will tell his handlers in Germany that the intelligence just provided is perfectly good to use. But the intelligence won’t help Germany at all. In fact, we hope it will lead to one of the worst defeats the Nazis will suffer in this war and hasten its end. And when it’s time to pick up Cedric, we will. As I said, a short leash. He will not escape. His life will end on the gallows.”
“But how did you manage to show up so quickly tonight?” said Molly.
“We have a man who follows Cedric when he comes here. So when you left with Cedric, he reported it and we followed. They must have had someone else kill Mrs. Macklin, and used the cover of the bombing raid that night to do the deed.”
Oliver took up the story. “And the place I took us to is the prearranged spot when something is amiss.” He glanced at Bryant. “Secret communications do not always necessitate a machine or a series of esoteric numbers; sometimes it is simply what someone does while being observed.”
“Quite so,” agreed Bryant.
Oliver continued. “I was to be shot with a blank gun and Cedric would manage to escape.”
“But you was bleedin’,” said Charlie.
“Just a little capsule I keep for such occasions, Charlie. Slipped between my teeth and cracked open, and one has instant blood. And then I simply rubbed it across my shirt. Which means I’m down to just the one clean one now,” he added, ruefully looking at his ruined garment.
Bryant rose. “And now it’s time that I was off.”
He left them there in front of the now-dying fire.
Molly and Charlie came to sit on either side of Oliver as he continued to stare at the winking embers.
Molly said, “When you were ‘shot’ and dying you said ‘sorry’ to us?”
“Yes. I felt truly horrible for having placed you and Charlie in such danger.”
“I’m just glad you’re on our side,” said Molly, as Charlie nodded. “And I’m so very sorry about Imogen.”
He took their hands and squeezed them. “We all have each lost a great deal in this terrible war. But amidst all this destruction and despair, we managed to find one another. As a mathematician I can tell you the odds of that happening are staggeringly long. But here we are, together. As though it were somehow preordained. Now, I want you both to know that so long as I am here, you will always have a home. Never question or doubt that. Promise?”
They both nodded, and said together, “Promise.”