Swords Made of Letters

[edyzmedieval]

Chapter VII.

Elbe's character is slowly being shown, and he has some unexpected links too.


----
9th of December 1938, 10:00 PM
Obergruppen Aachen HQ
Aachen
Germany

Tap, tap, tap.

Tapped again, and again, and again. Synchronised, coordinated, honed at the military academy which he quite despised but was obliged to attend. Elbe's glazed leather jackboots tapped repetitively against the wooden planks of the child like office of his. The echo of the taps reverberated inside the headquarters, over the heads of the radiomen and link men hurriedly working to dispatch orders and coordinate the spying and sabotage groups. The flurry of activity rose a humdrum of noises, creaks and occasional shouts up towards his office but it made no difference to him. Just as the taps of his jackboots barely made an impact on the men below. Elbe was lost in his labyrinthine mind and the headquarters was bustling with the coming and going of men. In both cases, they were working for the same goal.

The Motherland.

Elbe had mixed feelings about his duty, however. Born in a Prussian junker family but with a French mother, this whole duty to the motherland seemed both honourable and quite off putting at the same time. He avoided combat, gradually rising through the ranks of the paramilitaries due to this father's connections and an exceptional organising skill. The military superiors who knew about the Obergruppen knew this; so did Elbe, who took advantage of every inch, connection and link afforded to him. Four months ago he met one of the leading figures of the brown shirts working for the party and for the country. That meeting left him with a sour taste but he laboured onwards with his task. His only hope was for this war to be quick.

Oh yes, war.

Elbe smiled to himself. This incoming war, because a war it will be, has already made it difficult. Spying on your country, your family, your adoptive country, in his case being France, your friends and even your mistresses. Elbe suddenly reminded of Mathilda, his brother's wife. She was in love with him, and then with his brother, and now she was working to extract secrets from a British MP. Elbe smirked, only to himself, alone in the office. He had plenty of these movements as he waited for information, orders and... letters.

Lost in his myriad of thoughts, Elbe did not hear the knocks on the door.

"Herr Elbe?"

Elbe shook his head and turned around. Karl, dressed in a customary Heer uniform but with notable missing pieces due to their unofficial status, brought him a white envelope. Elbe however noticed the rank patch on the side, which Karl never wore. He took took the envelope and held it up.

"What's this?"

Karl raised his eyebrows, the corners of his lips twisting sideways. He tilted his head slightly leftwards, as if avoiding Elbe's gaze.

"Well?" said Elbe.

"Orders, Herr Elbe."

"Orders?"

"From the headquarters."

"We are our own headquarters."

"Headquarters, Sir."

"Obergruppen is an HQ, Karl."

Karl shifted awkwardly. "From Munich, Herr Elbe."

Elbe lowered his gaze to the envelope. "Take care of the duty in Colmar, Karl."

Karl nodded in acceptance and left Elbe's office.

A white envelope. Elbe tapped it against his left palm, looking at the symbol on the top right corner and the symbol that held the two lips of the envelope together. He turned on his heels and sat down at his desk, bringing the yellow lamp closer to the envelope that now turned brown in the light. With calm movements, he slid his index finger underneath the seal and opened the envelope. A cursive, black ink writing flowed neatly on the white paper.

Herr Elbe,

You are kindly expected in Munich. With the exception of your closest of men, do not inform anyone of this.

We expect your presence upon the fourth day after the deliverance of this letter.

Our warmest wishes,
Oberkommandant

They never signed these letters of envelopes. Nobody had any names on them. For the best part, it could have simply been a forgery to deceive him but the symbol on the right hand corner indicated the special unit from which this envelope was sent from. Elbe rose from the desk and headed to the fireplace where the logs crackled playfully in the hearth. With one swift movement, he threw the envelope in the fire.

And just as the fire engulfed the envelope, he noticed another note which somehow he missed. Elbe quickly plucked the envelope from the fire, scattered the ashes on the sides and unfurled the fire-crumpled note that was somehow hidden in a flap inside the envelope. A simple word stood written in big letters, stamped underneath it.

SABOTAGE.

Elbe nodded. "That's it, I guess."

Turning again on his heels, he threw the envelope again in the fire, took his cap and left the office.

[edyzmedieval]

Chapter VIII

Horace's story arc slowly blends in. It's part 2 of Clouds of Smoke.

----
8:45 PM
Court Road, London
United Kingdom

For more than twenty minutes, Horace Benningham kept his eyes fixed on the entrance of that red-bricked block of flats, a typical English working class building down by the infamous Court Road. In it's heyday, Court Road was the average working class neighbourhood. But as the country grew, so did the neighbourhood. It was no longer the quiet neighbourhood it once was, particularly in the restive Friday and Saturday nights. Now that the threat of war was looming, spies from all places gathered around in quiet London neighbourhoods to do their work. From the intersection with the Circus, which was behind Horace, the whole street was lined with small houses or small blocks of flats, no more than three stories high, with exterior railings that dubbed as stairways for whenever it was needed. It took him no more than a fifteen minute drive from the White Club, a casual stroll in his nimble Citroen Traction Avant he got as a gift from Lord Beckett. He was after all looking for Mathilda
now.

Horace narrowed his eyes and scanned the cars down the street. By chance, one of Ryan's men gave him a vital piece of info, simple happenstance as the man walked by just as Horace was about to leave. Mathilda was no longer alone in the apartment she owned on the second floor. Horace smirked. He made a mental note of that detail and holstered the Colt pistol underneath his suit jacket. He got out of the black Traction Avant and gently closed the door, careful to make as little sound
as possible, just as a gust of wind slapped his face. Taking one last glance around the empty street, Horace casually strolled down to the block. The four storied building had a simple wooden door entrance with horrid cast iron railings by the stairs, about as ungainly as an abandoned house. Horace slid inside, his polished patent leather shoes touching the red carpeting that blanketed the stairs.

"Good, no noise," he whispered to himself.

He gently went up the stairs and slid to the edge of the dark brown door where he knew Beckett's mistress lived. He was about to knock on the door when he heard the shouts booming from inside.

"I knew it! You're seeing someone else, aren't you? I knew it! How much did it take for that to happen, how much time? 6 months? How long have we been married? Not a lot it seems, and it looks like you've been marrying me just so you can have someone to impress!"

Horace narrowed his eyes. He had no idea who the man was, but he was sure this was Mathilda's apartment so the idea of her being married added to the difficulty of the whole Mathilda affair. He didn't have much time to think it over when he heard the woman scream in terror as she struck some sort of object, causing a chorus of other sounds of breaking objects to follow suit. The man screamed at her again, echoing throughout the stairwell of the block.

Horace breathed. He had to act before someone noticed him.

Using a small silver clip attached to his jacket pocket, he slid it inside the golden lock of the apartment door and fumbled his way until the lock clicked with an audible sound. Horace gently opened the door, sliding sideways inside the apartment, closing the door behind him just as stealthily as he opened it. The apartment in itself was not large by any means. A small hallway from the door, if it even was a hallway, led directly into a large room that dubbed as a bedroom on the left side and a living room on the right side, with a small bathroom just beside by the door. The room was split into two sides by a sliding door.

And at the bottom of that sliding door, with her back against the wall, stood Mathilda, gazing in horror at the man that towered above her with his arms pointed at her.

"Six months we've been married, six months, and all you did was use me!" yelled the man, clenching his fists as close to her face as possible. Horace couldn't see anything but his back and the uniform the man wore.

Beckett's man would have wanted the man to stay attentive to Mathilda, yelling at her as hard as he could, but it was Beckett's mistress who gave him away as she noticed his presence. The husband turned, almost by instinct when he noticed Mathilda's expression change, glimpsing Horace's silhouette as the Englishman approached him. For a couple of brief moments, they analysed each other, weighing their options as they faced a stand off in Mathilda's living room. Horace faced a rather tall, handsome husband, dressed in a black military unifom with golden tresses on the right shoulder and a small airplane insignia on the left hand side of his chest. But what drew his attention was the symbol on his left arm, the symbol embroidered on the uniform. The man was a foreign spy. And Mathilda most probably fed him the secrets Lord Beckett gave to her while drunk.

Before Horace had a chance to react, the man leaped at him and smashed him against the living room wall with such force that the Englishman thought his bones had broken into fine pieces. The man did not stop, smashing a fist into his ribcage and a subsequent jawbone punch that nearly knocked Horace out. Horace crashed sideways onto a small padded chair, struggling to regain his composure. Before he managed to do the man took him by the suit and threw him accross the living room, sending him crashing into a wooden table. Horace's crash destroyed the table into the pieces, collapsing him on the ground right at Mathilda's feet.

But the angered husband was not done.

The man leapt at Horace and lunged for his neck, an ill timed move which Horace easily deflected with a parry and a strike to his opponents' jawbone. Before the man could parry back, Horace reached for his pistol and slid it out of the leather holster, drawing it enough for it to threaten his opponent. Angered, the man leapt once more at Horace, ignoring the obvious threat of the Colt pistol directed at him. He lunged straight for Horace's arms, trying to block the pistol, only to make matters worse as the men struggled on the floor.

Two shots rang out from the Colt M1911.

----

[edyzmedieval]

Chapter IX.



------

Colmar, Alsace
9th of December, 1938
9:35 PM


10 minutes later, they left the police station and headed off back into the cold, the snow and the crackling sounds of white powder crumpling underneath their leather boots. Reythier said no word of their early departure, moving on without a word away from the police headquarters with Klaus trotting alongside him in silence. As they passed the petite boulangerie by the edge of the bridge over the Lauch, Klaus took a quick look behind him and patted Reythier slightly on his left arm.

“We left more than twenty minutes earlier than the train. It takes us at most five more minutes to get there.”

Reythier nodded, walking onwards without a side glance. “I don't believe Pernod.”

“Because of what I told you?”

“That too. But I have my own doubts. The story he told us is far too fantastic for me to even believe it.”

“What if he's right?”

Reythier shot Klaus a dubious glance. “What are you saying?”

“Pernod might be right.”

“The Lauch has higher chances of defrosting in a snowstorm than Pernod being right.” Reythier nodded over to the train station, slowly becoming visible in between the timber frame houses of Colmar. “No chance.”

“Then what are we doing here now?”

“Looking for three men.”

Klaus rose his hands in despair. “So you believe him!”

“Partly. He's got three accomplices, that's true.”

“How did you guess?”

“You'll see.”

“What are we looking for then?”

“Three men casting weird looks around this place. Should be easy to spot them.”

“In a crowd?”

“What crowd? Colmar doesn't even have five thousand people any more because of the threat of the war. What crowd? Who comes here in the middle of the winter? Ten people at most will come from the train. Look closely.”

“And if they're not there?”

“Then you keep looking.”

They arrived at the train station approximately one minute and a half earlier before the train arrived, allowing them to slide away from the station itself and into the waiting room. A dim light illuminated a small room on the side of the little house that dubbed as an office for the chief of the station and a waiting room, separated by a hastily constructed wall that was part white part grey because of improper finishing. A row of chairs were set on the right side as they entered, with their backs against the windows, which forced both Reythier and Klaus to take them and switch them around so they could see the incoming train. Both men stood down and placed their hands inside their pockets, clutching the grips of their pistols as they waited for the earlier train.

One minute later, already overdue even by their estimates, the black locomotive chugged along in the station and dropped off around twenty people who soon went to their business into Colmar. Because of the windows that overlooked the train tracks rather than the station, they could see neither of the passengers, forcing Klaus to protest with a measured gesture of his neck towards the train. Reythier watched his gesture but moved his head slightly downwards in disagreement. Unmoved, but fidgeting slightly, the two men waited for another thirty seconds in total silence until one man dressed in a black fedora and a woolen overcoat entered the waiting room.

“Bonsoir,” said Reythier, smiling slightly and inviting the man to sit down.

The man stopped for a brief moment, his hands still on the edge of the waiting room door.

“Bonsoir.” The man watched them from the edge of the entrance, somewhat confused and unsure of the two well dressed men sitting in the waiting room, chairs overturned towards the incoming train. “Are you waiting for the train?”

“Well, no. I am waiting for someone.”

“Ah. Well, everyone has left. It is just me now.”

Reythier moved his head. “Is it?”

Reythier's measured words somehow made the guest react hastily. Before he could pull out the pistol from the pocket of his overcoat, Reythier lunged at the man from the chair in one single swoop, smashing him against the wall of the waiting room. Immobilised, the man tried to react against the sudden fury of a tall Parisian who dealt two successive blows to his ribcage, shattering two ribs and forcing him to collapse sideways in pain. Overcome with pain and fear, the man could only watch as Reythier dealt a furious jab to his forehead, knocking him out cold right beside the entrance of the waiting room. The man slumped to the ground, inadvertently kicking the window of the waiting room door that was enough to alarm his friends.

Before Reythier had a chance to untangle himself from the battle, two men entered the waiting room from the opposite side, pistols at hand, aiming directly for Reythier's torso and head. But as Reythier had hoped, Klaus took out his own pistol in a clean arching maneouver, firing three successive rounds into the two assailants. Two of the bullets hit the first assailant in the right leg and right arm, forcing him to drop his pistol and collapse against the wall of the waiting room. The last bullet hit the remaining assailant in his left kneecap, throwing his face down against the cold pavement of the waiting room. All of them were still alive, but neither of the assailants were able to put up a fight any more.

Satisfied, Reythier motioned to Klaus who kept his pistol outstretched. The tall Parisian took the knocked out guest and dragged him over to the chairs in the wails of his comrades who were slowly bleeding on the waiting room floor.

“Shouldn't we get an ambulance, Alexandre?” asked Klaus.

Reythier looked at his watch. “Eight minutes. It's already on the way. I left a note for the junior policeman who helped me earlier.”

“Junior policeman? How come you trusted him?”

“Eager to serve the headquarters. The only one who could be trusted.”

Reythier sighed. The assailants were quickly searched and their pistols taken away, a precautionary measure to prevent any mishaps like four hours ago. He looked at the pistols and while two of them were of French origin, the last one, which belonged to the knocked out guest, was made by Walther Firearms. German. He raised the pistol to Klaus.

“Walther PPK. Foreign spies.”

Klaus looked at the two bleeding assailants. “How in the world did you guess, Alexandre?”

“Two details.” Reythier lifted up a finger. “Who knows the interrogation quarters of the police headquarters apart from Pernod or his close men? It's a random house hidden in the middle of a small town named Colmar. You want me to believe these foreign spies knew about it? Those two young men... Pernod knew about them. And the shooter was one of ours. Frenchman. Born in Alsace.”

Klaus muttered under his breath some words. “Second detail?”

“Pernod left the headquarters immediately after we spoke with him, instead of staying with his men to continue his investigation. That made me suspicious, along with what you told me, of him fidgeting during our quick conversation. So I figured out it had some connection with the night trains that come because of the note he gave us. But you would think of the night train that it would be the last one. Not the one before.”

“He tried to throw us off.”

“Correct.”

“Tres bien. I give up now. Tell me how you managed to notice the first one.”

“Pernod's police cap.”

Klaus rose an eyebrow. “His cap?”

“Constables wear a slightly different cap than the rank officers. And Pernod happened to be a reasonably important constable around here, so he had his own fashion touch to it. A blue and white ribbon.”

Klaus frowned. He took a glance around at the injured conspirators and took one of the hats lying on the floor, immediately noticing a small blue and white ribbon attached on the edge of the tip. Small, but noticeable. He showed it to Reythier.

“This?”

“Yes. That ribbon. It's their own mark of identification without having to talk.”

Silence quickly followed. Reythier watched as Klaus stood stumped with the hat in his hand, drawing his fingers slightly over the edge, right over the blue and white ribbon that somehow represented the flag of France. Or at least a portion of it. Reythier's friend held up the hat.

“And, what now? What happens with them?”

“Pernod left, but he will caught soon. I spoke with one of the policemen to deliver a note to the secret services in Lyon. Pernod is just a cog. We're in for bigger problems.”

Klaus threw the hat in one of the conspirator's faces and turned to Reythier.

“I'm worried.”

“You should.” Reythier adjusted his own hat. “Pernod is a little wave, something you feel when a wave touches your leg when you go to the sea in Biarritz or Saint-Tropez. We're in for a large wave, a destructive wave, that will sweep us away. Away, or sideways, either way it will be violent.” Reythier sighed. “Klaus, we're in for a war.”


---

Feedback welcome!

[edyzmedieval]

Chapter X.

Swords Made of Letters will be split into books, and this is the end of Book I.


----

Hurr, crackle, roar.

From the inside, it felt like a lazy afternoon stroll down the boulevard. But once in a while a double tailed exhaust grumbled behind, crackling and roaring on the dainty streets of Munich. Despite the mechanical whirring of the steel orchestra and the heavy weight of the car, the ride was remarkably smooth on the leather bench in the Mercedes limousine. With a soft hum in lower gears the Maybach V12 engine pushed the massive limousine forwards but the cylinders groaned heavily whenever the chauffeur pressed the pedal, unleashing a sudden burst of acceleration that felt distant, almost like in a movie replay on slow motion, on the soft leather seats. Elbe cushioned himself against the backseat, leg over leg, his arms outstretched and his eyes set heavy on the expansive Prinzregentenstrasse of Munich. There were no words between him and the chauffeur, only nods and simple pointing of fingers. That's all he got and he knew that was all he was going to get.

At least the ride was smooth.

He stopped in the Munich Train Station some six hours after he left Aachen, a train event as uneventful as it could get. No one stopped him, no one questioned him. As he exited the station, tucked behind a row of columns and hidden in a corner reserved for military cars stood the chauffeur with his Mercedes-Maybach limousine. The man stood in his military uniform and pointed two gloved fingers towards Elbe, indicating him as the package that needed to be... delivered. The limousine snaked its way from the train station and onto the royal boulevards of Munich carefully expanded by the Party. They left the main streets rather quickly to switch to quieter side roads where the whirring of the V12 was the only thing they were hearing. Forty five minutes after they left the station the car stopped in front of a four storied building on the outskirts of the city. Elbe recognised the neighbourhood because of the junction only metres away. The building sat at the junction between the Autobahns leading to Berlin and those towards Vienna.

Without any words, the chauffeur nodded his head towards the building.

Elbe got out of the limousine and headed to the entrance of the building. Four storied, and not particularly impressive, the building was a combination of eclectic end of 19th century design, adorned with stucco architectural details and large windows. He rose up a flight of stairs and entered the building where two officers immediately saluted him.

"Herr Elbe. Wilkommen. You are expected on the fourth floor."

Fourth floor. At the top of the building. Elbe returned the salute and glided up a massive marble staircase that adorned the middle of an expansive hall that doubled as the entrance but probably was a ballroom in the better days it had seen. First floor, second floor, third floor... fourth floor and silence. The whole floor was split into two parts, with the north-eastern side of the building occupied by eight rooms, four on each side of the corridor while the north-western side had just one single office. Elbe headed to the office on the north-western corner of the building, find the door to the study wide open.

It was expansive, to say the least, as Elbe noticed when he stepped inside the well-furnished study. Long, teak panelled furniture doubled as shelves for hundreds of books, adorning the beige coloured walls. The study was homely, inviting even and Elbe was not the least bit surprised when behind the main desk just underneath a window stood a small fireplace. The hearth was filled with crackling logs, orange leaps of fire jumping joyfully within the small enclosure. It smelled of burning wood but also of tobacco and oud, probably for the perfume of the commander. Which Elbe had not seen.

Lurking behind the door stood Oberkommandant Wilhelm, Prussian junker blood just like him but more devoted to the country and party phase than Elbe would ever be. Elbe turned around on his heels after Wilhelm coughed to get his attention, spotting a man in his late fifties in full military garb and a white moustache that seemed to copy Chancellor Bismarck. Oberkommandant Wilhelm wore glasses whenever he was on headquarter duty, giving him the look of a man who could easily replace Motlke the general in a World War I portrait. Elbe made the salute, which Wilhelm replied to with a customary salute, a nod and an invite to sit down.

"Make yourself at home, Richard. Prussians are always welcome in my home."

Elbe smiled. "I have never been to the headquarters when you were around. Every time it was either someone from the Heer or someone from the other branches, or even your lieutenants."

"I know, Richard, I know." Wilhelm sat down on the brown leather chair behind his mahogany desk. He took a brown cigarette from a gold-plated metallic box on the desk and placed it underneath his nose. "Say Richard, how is everything in Aachen going?"

"Well, Sir. We have some issues accross the border but we are

"Issues?" Wilhelm raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. I lost two men in Colmar because of inexperience."

"Ah." Wilhelm lit up the cigar. "Just that?"

"For the moment. We will see for the rest."

"I understand."

With economical movement, Wilhelm slipped a hand underneath his military jacket and produced a white sealed envelope with the same insignia as the one Elbe saw before in Aachen. Richard took the envelope and opened it, revealing a host of folded maps of the French defenses along the borders, information about strategic points and about informants.

"Your orders are simple Richard. Down the path of the Maginot Line and all of the defences of France down the Rhine, Ruhr and Saarland you will be tasked to find points of weakness. I want the weaknesses exposed and when you can expose them by yourself, do so. Your orders are immediate, you can carry out your own orders and you have full command of your men."

Elbe glanced at Wilhelm's stern expression. "I carry out my own orders?"

"Sabotage the lines. That is all that is required of you."

"Only that?"

"And direct disinformation campaigns." Wilhelm put down his cigar and smiled. "Remember, swords are made of letters too, after all."

-----

[edyzmedieval]

New updates coming soon - and until then, feedback welcome!

[edyzmedieval]

Book 2 of Swords Made of Letters.

Chapter XI - House of Cards

----
10:30 PM
White Club
Mayfair, London
9th of December 1938


Horace placed his hands gently on the teak-paneled bar counter.

"Where's the chief?"

Martin, a rather burly bartender with a thin French moustache, gave Horace a curious glance. The bartender was washing the glasses, cleaning them meticulously with his hands running on every single inch and side of the crystal objects he had been handling for hours by now. He smiled to Horace. Martin knew better than to simply point in a direction or another in such a setting. With a curt smile, he dropped his head slightly downwards and to his left, indicating the little tables that stood by the edge of the staircase that led to this second floor of the White Club. There were eight tables, most of them with two plush chairs each, but only two of them were occupied. And one of them was occupied by Lord Howe, the chief of the intelligence services and Horace's very own superior.

Horace handed a five pound note to Martin and strutted with swagger towards Howe's table. He gave a curt but warm smile and shook Howe's guest' hand. Turning to Howe, he saluted in a military fashion, who was rather amused at the theatrical gesture. Almost bald, but with two piercing emerald green eyes, Howe was of a tall stature and always fitted in three piece pinstriped suits. Blue, as it was often the case, was the colour of the night. That was his own trademark and no one else around the White Club could match it or even imitate it. Howe smiled and rose his whisky glass, a touch of amber-coloured liquid swirling around the clear ice poured by Martin earlier.

"Horace! What a pleasure!"

Horace smiled. "Good evening, Sir. Please excuse my rather direct approach, but may I please request your presence in the Ivory Saloon in approximately five minutes? I say that this is of the utmost importance."

Lord Howe rose a thin eyebrow, placing his whisky glass on the wooden table. He brought his palms together and glanced at Horace.

"May I ask why, Horace? This is private duty after all, we're not at our offices."

"Sir, private duty is of no matter now. This is public duty."

Lord Howe glanced at his guest then back at Horace. "Very well Horace. I trust your judgement, I see you have a sense of urgency. But may I remind you this better be worth the time. I shall see you in five minutes in the Ivory Saloon."

Horace bowed and left Lord Howe with his guest.

***

Ivory Saloon, as it was labelled on the ivory-coloured door, had some connection to the ivory trade back in the old days but the saloon now was all teak wood, some marbling on the supporting colonnades and above all, a massive fireplace in the midst of it to bring warmth and cosiness to the guests. It held an oval table in it's midst with eight chairs around it, two of them at each "top" of the oval. The top of the table near the fireplace was empty but on one side, to Horace's left, stood Lord Howe, flanked by Lord Beckett, while on the other side stood Howe's guest, a bookish man at around forty years in a red suit jacket and two men clad in black suits which Horace presumed worked in the intelligence just as he did. Howe's guest in fact was a member of the House of Lords commissions on internal matters, which made all the more sense, Horace thought. From the other top of the oval, Horace brought his hands together and made a sweeping gesture.

"Sirs, I thank you all for coming. Lord Howe, Lord Beckett, Sirs, I have called upon you all to discuss a matter of grave importance I have recently found out." Horace made a pause for effect. "It concerns Lord Beckett."

Howe turned to Beckett. "What have you done, Beckett?"

Beckett shrugged. "I do not know, Sir. Maybe Horace here will care to enlighten us." Beckett pointed towards Horace as he spoke, shooting an icy glance when he finished his words. Horace nodded in return.

"Yes, Mr. Beckett, I understood that ugly glance. It concerns your mistress, should you be so interested to know about this."

Beckett snorted. "My mistress?"

"Yes, Mr. Beckett, your mistress. The English mistress you have been dallying with in the past months."

Beckett clenched his fist. "My personal matters is none of your concern, Horace."

Horace shook his head. "Sire, it is in fact."

Howe held a hand. "What is this, Horace?"

"Sire, Lord Beckett's mistress is in fact a German lady with a husband who is part of the enemy services, the branch of the airforce. Matter of fact, during your drunk escapades into her arms, all of the info that you have slipped to her without wanting, or perhaps wanting, has been regularly conveyed back to the enemy lines. She married this man because it was imposed on her, but you had no idea and yet somehow all of the information was leaking to our foreign spies. Your dalliances with her are of great concern to us because of the information leak."

Beckett slammed a hand on the table. "Horace, your mouth. Keep it sealed."

Howe swished his hand. He gave Beckett a sharp glance. "Go on, Horace. Beckett seal your mouth or else I will."

Beckett growled underneath his moustache but could not say anything. He waved off to Horace.

"Mr. Beckett has been seeing Miss Mathilda Muller for approximately four months, during which he has requested that I keep an eye on her at all times when I am off duty. I will not avoid the subject of that. Mr. Beckett has been most kind as a benefactor for me to earn more than my regular salary. However, my concerns about Miss Mathilda, despite them not being my business, have not been taken into consideration despite them being no longer a private duty but rather of public interest. I repeatedly told Mr. Beckett to be warned about her, to not say any private information to her, but it seems that it had no effect."

Howe cleared his throat. "How did you find out, Horace?"

"Mr. Beckett ordered me to follow her, but I had had enough, so I went to her apartment to inform her. I had enough of the spying."

"And?" asked Howe.

"As for that, well, during my encounter it turns out her husband was there. He attacked me when he saw me and the fight for my pistol turned into two shots. They hit him, but he survived. Four men came to pick him up twenty minutes later."

Beckett rose to his feet. "You shot Mathilda?"

"Her husband, Sir."

"Is he alive?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Horace!" shouted Beckett.

"Beckett! Sit!" growled Howe.

Beckett sat down in a chorus of mumblings.

"Where is the husband?" asked Howe.

"In a hospital in London."

"And Mathilda?"

"Outside, in my car, under close guard."

"Where was this?"

"By the Court Road, Sir."

Howe narrowed his eyes. "This happened in the middle of London?"

Horace nodded. "Yes Sir."

"When?"

"Last night, Sire."

"That's all that happened between you and him?"

"Yes Sir. I spoke with Mathilda afterwards, after I had taken her from the apartment and into my car to protect her. It was there that she told me everything, but I still have my doubts."

Howe flicked his hand. "Doubts on what, Horace?"

"She's not telling the whole truth. Mr. Beckett told her some confidential information because apparently her husband has been roaming around the country with access to all sorts of factories and industries that pertain to our own national defence."

Howe ran a hand over his face in despair. He stood like that for a couple of moments until Martin entered the saloon with a piece of paper in his hand. He bowed to Horace and showed him the scribbling.

"The man is fine Sir. He is under close guard."

"Thank you Martin."

The bartender exited, leaving Howe and Beckett fuming but for different reasons. Without any expectation whatsoever, Howe rose from his chair and tapped Beckett on the shoulder.

"Four men heard this story. You better come up with a good defence in Parliament, Beckett." Howe left the table and headed for the door. "Horace, you've got minutes to go downstairs. I will see you at the office and I need all of the details. Including Mathilda."

Horace could only nod in acceptance.


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I hope you enjoyed it and as always, feedback welcome!

[edyzmedieval]

Chapter XII - Paris Briefing

Continuing the story, picking off in Paris.



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12th of December, 1938
7:00 PM
Paris
France


Wisps of steam formed around the edges of his mouth, slowly evaporating in the cold area of a December night in Paris. Reythier wilted ever so slightly, his black leather boots clacking with a specific and rather satisfying sound on the cobblestones of the Parisian street. He always liked to hear that sound, for some odd reason. It made him smile, it made him feel in a position of power. Particularly when he walked towards a mission. That clacking sound was ever so recognisable by his subordinates, preparing their orderly salutes in fashion before he even arrived. One thing he did not like however was the direction his boots were taking him. After all, it took two days. Two days had passed since Colmar and all he got was a summoning to Paris. No other explanation. Reythier left his friend Klaus in charge of the little border town and took a red-striped train to Paris, arriving in a rather quick four hours in the midst of the French capital. After a rather short taxi drive to the 7th Arondissement, Reythier climbed out of the Citroen Traction Avant and headed up the street.

It took him a slow walk of fifteen minutes to arrive at the villa.

Reythier arrived in front of a Parisian villa on the outskirts of the 7th rd Arrondissement, an edifice built in the 1890's with an air of merchant wealth surrounding it. Mildly imposing, with one story and an expansive attic, finished with Greek colonnades and round corners, the villa was used often as a conspirator safe house for those who had links with the Deuxieme Bureau. The Bureau, or what the foreign intelligence services were called in France, called him up for an impromptu meeting. Reythier had no choice but to duly oblige. Careful to conceal his identity before entering, Reythier rose his overcoat lapel, covering his ears. With one swift change of direction he entered the house.

It was warm, and the steam went away in an instant. He took off immediately his black hat just as he was greeted by an uniformed military policemen.

"Good evening, Mr. Reythier. In the saloon please."

The saloon was barely lit, being no more than an oversized kitchen built in one of the round corners of the house. The kitchen counter ran from end to end and all that was in it's midst was a small, four person table. A man stood with his back turned to Reythier, motioning with his hand in a circular motion as he turned around. He was in his sixties, having been born immediately after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. Rank by rank, he rose up to an important position in the Bureau, coordinating the efforts of the foreign intelligence along the eastern border of France. Of mid height, with greying and balding hair, Reynauld Chartier was the main link for Alexandre Reythier. Chartier came to the table just as Alexandre did.

"Good evening, Alexandre."

Reythier nodded. "Bonsoir, Reynauld."

Reythier was about to take off his coat when Reynauld stopped him.

"Don't. This will be brief."

Reythier fastened back his overcoat and slid his hands in his pockets. "I'm listening."

"You're going to meet someone in another safe house. In fact, it's going to take you a while until you solve that thing in Colmar. So your best bet is to find out from the underground what they know."

"Aren't we the underground?"

"Not quite. There's another layer between us."

"And they are?"

"The streets. The street sometimes knows details that we don't. So go meet the street."

Reythier narrowed his eyes. "I don't get it."

"Beggars. Street handlers. Local workers. The lot who stays on the street and knows every bit of gossip in town." Reynauld took a sip of the coffee. "And even about mistresses."

"You're asking me to meet beggars?"

Reynauld put down his coffee. "Not quite. You need to meet their chief. In the outskirts of Paris."

Reythier growled under his breath. He hated being given straight orders, particularly with no more info attached to them. Respectful, he saluted Reynault and left the house.

Fifty five minutes it took for Reythier to arrive outside a house on the southern side of the city, flanked by small two storied houses and surrounded by a small courtyard with an oversized gate. Reythier pushed the gate aside and entered the courtyard which to his surprise dabbed as a small farm, a smithing workshop... and a gun armoury. With the house to his right side and the workshop to his left embedded in the wall, the back of the courtyard displayed a wooden wall which had over thirty types of small guns, ranging from shotguns to rifles, muskets and even a small pistol. As he delved deeper into the courtyard, a mid-sized, wiry man with a slight moustache approached him. Well built, muscular, dressed in a white shirt and black pants, his green eyes gave Reythier a quick scan.

"You're Reythier?"

Reythier nodded. "Yes. I presume you're Alain Poitou."

Poitou extended his hand. "Good to meet you. Tell your boss Reynauld he owes me a good payment for this. Come inside."

They entered the house, a small, simple building inside that could have been replaced by any other typical French farmhouse. But this one was owned by an underground chief, one who housed thirty weapons inside his home. They sat down in a small, bookish room, flanked by books and the occasional smattering of heavy dust floating around in the air. A small fireplace crackled in the corner, bringing some much needed warmth and relief. On the table however were tens of dossiers, stacked together in a huddled mass that could have tumbled down at any minute. Poitou smiled and

"This. This is what you need."

Raising a thin eyebrow, Reythier took the dossier. "This? What's this?"

Poitou took another smoke from the cigarette. "The man you should be looking out for."

Reythier glanced at the name. Richard Elbe.

"Who's this?" asked Reythier.

"A local commando chief."

"Why are we interested in a local chief?"

Poitou grabbed him by the hand and led him to an extended, detailed map of the French - German border.

"Elbe leads the Aachen commando group, which is here." Poitou pointed to the city. "Not that far off. He coordinates things from there."

"So you're saying he dealt the whole Colmar attack to us?"

Poitou nodded. "That's what you're after, non?"

Reythier smirked. He pulled up a chair, sat down and beckoned for Poitou to do the same.

"Now explain to me why and how did you get this info."


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