Chapter 12
12
F EbrUARY 1915
Inga stirred a touch of nutmeg into the fragrant hot cider simmering on the stovetop. Nutmeg wasn’t her favorite, but Magnus liked it, so she always added it to the cider when they snuck out for a moonlit evening in the garden. It was almost ten o’clock, the time they’d been meeting, because most people in Alton House had gone to bed, and they could be alone. Germany was such a conservative society that it would raise eyebrows for an unmarried woman to waltz about town with a young man, so they snuck out at night whenever it wasn’t too frigid, and Inga always brought the hot cider.
A movement outside caught her attention. It was too early for Magnus to come, but someone was in the garden. She peeked out the window, surprised to see Magnus had already arrived. He sent her a guilty smile when he caught her looking at him.
She grinned back, holding up three fingers to let him know it would be a few more minutes. The cider was warm enough, and she poured it through a funnel and into a thermos bottle. The steel thermos had a leather carrying case and would keep the cider warm for at least an hour.
She screwed on the cap, hurried into her coat, then tiptoed to the back door leading outside. “You’re early,” she greeted him.
“And freezing!” He gave her a quick kiss, and yes, his nose was like an icicle. She pushed the thermos into his hands, and he cupped it gratefully.
“Why don’t you ever wear gloves?” she asked.
“Because real Norwegians aren’t supposed to be such weaklings.”
They huddled next to each other on the garden bench and shared a few sips of cider from the thermos. Larry would have the vapors at the prospect of drinking from the same thermos, but she and Magnus shared kisses, so it seemed harmless.
“Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day,” he said. “Tell me how Americans celebrate it, so I don’t do it wrong.”
There was no wrong way to celebrate Valentine’s. A girl ought to consider herself lucky if a man simply remembered the date. “Tell me how to say it in Norwegian,” she prompted.
“ Valentinesdagen ,” he said, then made her repeat it until she got it right. It was always like this when they met. Laughing and teasing. Magnus was the complete opposite of Benedict, who wouldn’t know how to laugh if she gave him an instruction booklet.
Magnus tipped the thermos back and drained the last of it. “Is there any more inside?”
“A little,” she said. She always made extra because she liked nursing a cup after he left, but he held the bottle out to her with such an eager expression she couldn’t resist.
“I’ll be back,” she said and hurried inside. Mrs. Barnes kept the stove warm all night, so it only took a few minutes to heat up the last of the cider and fill the thermos. By the time she returned, the garden was empty.
“Magnus?”
Some shuffling of leaves sounded from the side yard, and he quickly returned, a guilty look swamping his face as he tugged at his trousers.
“Sorry,” he said. “Too much cider, and it can run straight through a man.”
“Magnus! If you needed the washroom, I could have let you inside.”
“And risk running into Mr. Doom and Gloom? I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have shared her private nickname for Benedict because it would be hurtful if he ever got wind of it. She joined Magnus on the bench and glanced toward the side of the house. Could he have hidden something back there? Valentine’s Day was tomorrow, and he’d already said he wanted to do something nice for her.
He cradled the thermos between his hands, all red and chapped in the cold night air. It made her shiver just looking at them.
“Dear, you’re miserable. Go home and get warm. And wear gloves next time!”
Again, he gave her that lopsided, abashed grin that made him such fun. “You’re probably right,” he said. He gave her a quick good-night kiss, then let himself out through the gate, blowing in his hands as he scurried back to Little Bergen.
She daydreamed while cleaning up the kitchen. What sort of Valentine’s Day surprise was Magnus planning? He’d seemed embarrassed when he returned from the side of the house. Maybe he had truly been relieving himself like he claimed. It seemed a little tacky to use someone else’s yard for that, but he probably wasn’t the first to have done it. In the future, maybe she shouldn’t bring so much hot cider.
And yet ... something didn’t seem quite right. She would have to check it out in the morning.
Inga slipped out of the house early, just as the sun was rising and Mrs. Barnes opened the kitchen to begin breakfast. Benedict had already left on his morning ride, giving her the privacy to slip on a jacket and head to the side of the house to see if Magnus had been up to something.
If he had hidden some sort of Valentine’s Day treat, she would simply pretend she hadn’t seen it so as not to spoil his surprise.
She followed the slate footpath to the side of the house, where the scraggly vines were barren and bleak. Only the laurel shrubs along the side of the house stayed green all year. They’d grown so bushy they would make a good hiding place. She scanned the ground, covered in a light film of frost, but didn’t see anything out of place. She even pulled a few fronds back to see if anything had been hidden in the brambles.
Then she saw it. The metal sheath that covered the telephone wire leading into Alton House had been tampered with. The paint was chipped, and a joint was crooked, as though it had been pried open and pressed shut.
A chill racked her body, and she covered her mouth. Magnus had done this. It was why he came early to meet her, and it was why he never wore gloves.
How stupid she had been.
Stupid, stupid girl. Just like her father always said. The dented metal sheath blurred before her eyes, but when she reached out to trace the casing, her icy fingers felt every ridge and scrape in the paint.
Maybe Magnus hadn’t done it. Maybe a gardener or construction worker accidentally bumped into the sheath years ago. But even as she scrambled for an excuse, she knew it was a lie. Magnus almost certainly tampered with their telephone wire, and she’d have to tell Benedict so an expert could examine it.
It had to be done immediately. Even now somebody could be eavesdropping on their telephone calls. She moved like a sleepwalker back inside the house, listening to distant voices in the kitchen. Larry was annoyed because Mrs. Barnes had run out of cheese, and nobody liked omelets without cheese. He complained that the cook should have made waffles or oatmeal if there was no cheese.
Didn’t he know there was a war going on? Shortages were beginning to happen all over Berlin, and Larry had the nerve to complain. She ran up the stairs, desperate to hide until she could quit shaking in fear and embarrassment and dreading her coming confession to Benedict.
Benedict helped himself to a bowl of cold oatmeal and took a seat at the kitchen table, trying to ignore Larry and Silas complaining about the lack of cheese. Didn’t they know there was a war going on? The British POWs in Magdeburg would be thrilled with a platter of hot eggs.
Inga hovered in the doorway, looking unusually timid.
“Don’t be shy,” McFee said. “Come have some plain scrambled eggs. It’s all the rest of us are getting. Except for Cold Oats, of course.”
The nickname Inga slung around his neck was now so common that even the embassy chauffeur felt comfortable using it. He slanted an accusatory glance at Inga, but she didn’t notice his ire.
“I need a moment to speak with Benedict,” she said. “Alone.”
He set his spoon down. Inga rarely initiated any contact with him, and she looked strangely petrified. He stood. “The study,” he simply said, abandoning the kitchen table and walking down the hall. Inga followed.
He closed the door but didn’t bother sitting. He was due at the embassy in a few minutes. “What do you need, Miss Klein?”
She still hadn’t met his eyes. “I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake,” she said, staring out the window. “I’m afraid that Mag ... that Magnus may have been flattering me to get close to Alton House so he could do something underhanded. I met him in the garden last night after everyone had gone to bed.”
Benedict fought to keep his expression neutral. She already looked mortified, and he wouldn’t make a fuss until he understood what had her so upset. “Go on,” he coaxed.
“At some point he asked me to go inside to get more cider, and when I got back, he was around the side of the house. He made an excuse about needing to relieve himself, but when I checked this morning ... well, it looked like someone had tampered with the telephone wires leading into the house.” For the first time she met his gaze, and her lip trembled. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
He drew a steadying breath as anger began uncurling deep inside. If someone was spying on them ... if Norway was spying on them, this was a breach of diplomatic etiquette demanding immediate reprisals.
“Show me,” he said, carefully keeping the anger from his voice.
Inga nodded and headed for the back door leading to the garden. Larry tried to get his attention to talk about the cheese issue, but Benedict waved him away, following Inga into the cold morning air. The frost had melted, leaving glittering drops scattered across the grass. He pulled his collar up as they rounded the side of the house where the electrical and telephone lines were secured beneath a slim metal conduit that ran up to the roof.
He spotted the intrusion immediately. Unfolding his pocketknife, he wiggled it beneath the dented seam and pried it wider. It wasn’t easy, and he pushed farther into the damp shrubbery, ignoring the cold flecks of dew as he opened the seam wide enough to look inside.
A splice had been added to their telephone wire.
He pushed the metal flat to protect the split wire from moisture should the weather turn bad, then stepped away from the shrub, shaking the droplets off his coat.
“Well?” Inga asked.
“Yes, the wire has been spliced,” he confirmed. “Thank you for telling me this.”
“What are we going to do?” Her voice sounded pale and brittle in the cold morning air, but he liked that she’d used the word we . This was an offense against all of them, but especially Inga. Magnus had been hanging around this house for months, gradually sweet-talking Inga and gaining her trust.
He knew what it felt like to be betrayed and softened his voice. “You needn’t do anything. I will discuss this immediately with the Norwegian ambassador.”
“Are you going to tell everyone what happened?”
He had to inform Ambassador Gerard and Colonel Reyes. Someone from the Corps of Engineers would need to see it, but no one else needed to know.
“I’ll keep it as private as possible,” he assured her. “The only thing the rest of the staff needs to know is that Magnus is no longer welcome on Alton House grounds. There’s no need for additional details.”
Her lip started wiggling again, and she mouthed the words thank you , even though no sound came out.
Later that day, he summoned Lieutenant Carter from the U.S. Corps of Engineers to inspect the splice and confirm his suspicions.
It wasn’t hard. Their metal conduit had been tampered with in two places: the spot Inga identified, and then a few inches below the soil where a buried line went all the way through their backyard. They couldn’t investigate now, but Benedict would bet his bottom dollar that the wire ran directly to the house used by the Norwegians.
Lieutenant Carter eyed the gardens of the neighboring yards. “It would have been easy enough to bury this line in the dead of night, but he probably didn’t want to risk fooling around on the side of the house without an excuse. I gather that is where the young secretary came into play.”
Benedict nodded, still silently fuming.
“What I don’t get is why the Norwegians would be spying on us,” Lieutenant Carter said.
Benedict huffed. “It’s not like we aren’t spying on them,” he admitted. Norway was a brand-new country, finally throwing off the yoke of foreign rule less than ten years ago. Control of the sparsely populated country had been tossed between Denmark and Sweden for the past five centuries, so it was anyone’s guess how Norway would form alliances in the years to come.
One thing was sure. Benedict wouldn’t let this insult be ignored.