As Time Goes By (13 page)

Sam ignored him.
      

"What do you intend to do about it?" asked Renault.

"I intend to dine out on his nickel," Rick replied.
"Tomorrow night. I'm invited to a dinner party,
chez
Lumley. In South Kensington." He looked around the
room. "With an invitation like this, how can I refuse? I may need my passport again someday."

"Better you than I, my friend," said Renault. "The state of English cooking leaves much to be desired."

"I'm not going there for the food, Louie," said Rick.

"Indeed you are not," stated Renault with certainty. "I know precisely why you think you're going there. You're going there to find out more about the where
abouts of our mysterious M. Laszlo. Before you get
carried away with your prospects, though ..." He fin
ished his drink. "South Kensington you say? What's
the house number?"

"He didn't tell me," replied Rick. "He said he'd
send a car."

Renault looked at his friend gravely. "I wouldn't be
taking that ride if I were you. Not after this—although,
luckily for us, I fear they may have overplayed their
hand."
       

"Why not?" asked Rick.

"Because, if we're talking about the same house,
I've already been there," replied Renault. He let the
effect of his words sink in.

"I'm all ears," said Rick.

Renault asked for another drink and lit another Play
ers while he was waiting. "Thank you, Sam," he said,
taking a sip. Leaving out any reference to Raoul, he
narrated his discovery of the address of the house that
Laszlo had been seen entering by members of the Re
sistance. How he had taken a cab across London, from
the worst of the bomb damage in the East End to the relatively unscathed precincts of Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, to see the place for himself. How he had walked around the neighborhood, hoping
to discover some way in which the house distinguished
itself from those elsewhere on the street. How he had
noticed lights on in the upper floors, but only darkness below, long after the feeble daylight had waned. How,
about an hour after sundown, in a flurry of activity, a
number of men in suits, several of them carrying brief
cases, came and went through the front door—which, as far as he could tell, was the only entrance from the
street—but still no lights were to be seen on the parlor
floor. How, after spending all night and part of the morning running up a fortune in cab fees, he had finally caught a glimpse of what he had hoped all along
to see.

"Laszlo?" asked Rick.

"No," said Renault. "Ilsa Lund. Leaving the house and getting into a taxi."

Rick was up and out the door before Louis had a
chance to stub out his cigarette. Renault caught up with
him just as he jumped in the cab.

"Number Forty-two Clareville Street," Renault told
the driver. He looked over at Rick. "I thought you
might like to know where we're going before you get there."

"You're full of surprises, Louie."
        

Renault bowed. "It's part of my charm."
        

"I bet you say that to all the girls," replied Rick.
  

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

In less than fifteen minutes they reached the house in
Clareville Street, just off the Brompton Road. A big
white row house of five stories, it huddled indistin
guishable from its brethren in a row of what the British
called mansions. A small sign that read "Blandford"
was its only distinguishing characteristic. On either
side of it were dark houses that bore signs reading "To
Let." In New York
you generally knew where the rich people lived just by looking at their houses. Not here.
Here, you didn't know anything. Rick had long be
lieved you should never trust people, but he'd never
before realized that you shouldn't trust houses, either.

Rick's heart was hammering as he and Renault
alighted from the taxi. "The direct approach has gotten
us this far," he said. He walked up the stairs and
punched the doorbell.

To his surprise, it was answered almost immediately
by a little old lady.

"Good evening," said Rick, raising his hat.

"Good evening to you, sir," replied the woman. Her white hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she wore
an apron around her waist. She eyed the pair of them
with just a hint of interest—or was it suspicion?
"Would it be rooms you two gentlemen might be want
ing?" she asked politely.

A rooming house? That would explain the men com
ing and going, the activity upstairs, and, to a certain extent, the lack of same downstairs. Had Renault just fed him a bum steer? "As a matter of fact, we were,"
said Rick. "The hotels around here are full up."

The woman shook her head. "I'm afraid we're fully
booked at the moment as well," she informed him re
gretfully. "You might try Mrs. Blake down the road
at number Sixteen. She's often got a room or two to
spare."

She started to close the door. Rick had spent part of
the conversation trying to see into the house beyond
her, but she was standing in a small anteroom, beyond
which a pair of very solid-looking wooden double
doors shielded the rest of the place from view.

"Are you quite sure, madam?" Louis asked in his
most ingratiating manner. "We have traveled a great
distance, and have heard that your establishment is
without compare." To complete the continental effect,
he bowed deeply.

"Oh, my," said the woman. "It's terrible, the lack of
space in London these days. With all the Yanks arriv
ing, it's awfully difficult finding a proper place to lay
one's head."

Renault spoke up again. "I wonder if we might come
in and have a look around? Just in case you were to
have an unexpected vacancy in the next few days." He
clicked his heels together. "An ally from Free France would be most obliged."

The woman's face brightened considerably. "By all
means," she said. "Blandford is the finest bed and
breakfast in this part of London, and I'm happy to
show it off, especially to two fine gentlemen such as yourselves."

She opened the front door wide, and they stepped
inside.

They were in the parlor of a well-to-do home. The
room boasted fresh flowers in the vases, bookshelves
along the side walls, and a picture window whose pros
pect was of a lovely summer garden, now faded and
wan in the winter darkness. In the center of the room
stood a grand piano, its top down and covered by a lace cloth, on which stood various family photographs. Rick
looked them over, but the faces didn't mean anything
to him. Just more strangers, half of whom were probably dead.

"I was given this address by some friends who I
think may be staying here, Mrs. uh . . . ," said Rick, f
umbling for an opening. The house certainly looked
like what it purported to be. Neat as a pin, in the British
way, with a tea service laid out in the parlor and pic
tures of cats interspersed with idealized portraits of the
royal family on the walls.

"Mrs. Bunton," the woman replied. "At your service. Widowed going on twenty-six years, and not a
day goes by that I don't think about the second Somme,
and my poor Bertie, killed at Amiens and victory so
close. Won't you please sit down?" She indicated a
sofa. "May I offer you some tea?"

Rick would have preferred something more substan
tial than tea, but Renault was agreeable. "That would be very nice, Mrs. Bunton," he said.

Rick and Renault sat down as she poured the tea. "Just who might these friends of yours be?" she in
quired politely.

"Mr. and Mrs. Victor Laszlo," Rick replied.

Mrs. Bunton occupied herself with thinking for a
moment. "Mr. Laszlo?" she repeated. "That would be
a foreign gentleman, I expect."

"Yes," said Rick. "He's a Czech. His wife, who also
goes by the name of Ilsa Lund, is Norwegian."

"I'm quite sure there's no one by that name here,"
she said, pursing her lips.

"Maybe they're registered under another name,"
Rick suggested.

Mrs. Bunton seemed to take offense at the thought.
"I'm quite sure everyone who stays here is who he says
he is," she retorted. "The management insists on it."

"Just who might this management be?" Rick asked idly. Mrs. Bunton did not reply but instead tugged on
an old Victorian bell pull. Practically in the same mo
tion, she drew a small pistol from the folds of her apron
and trained it on them expertly. Rick and Louis held
their teacups in midair, feeling ridiculous.

"That would be Mr. Lumley," she informed them.
"He'll be along shortly. Now, if you gentlemen
wouldn't mind keeping both your hands where I can
see them, it won't be a moment." She gave another
hard tug on the bell pull.

Sure enough, not two minutes later into the room
strode Reginald Lumley. "If it isn't the inquisitive Mr.
Richard Blaine," he said. "Unless I'm very much mis
taken, you're a day early."

"I wanted to make sure the menu was to my liking,"
said Rick. "My stomach, you know...."

"And this must be Louis Renault, former Prefect of Police in Casablanca," continued Lumley.

Renault nodded slightly. "At your service, sir," he
said.

"Well, then," said Lumley, "since all the guests of
honor save one are here, I see no reason why we can't start the party. Won't you follow me, please, gentlemen?"

Rick and Renault accompanied Lumley up three
flights of stairs. Rick noticed that the second and third
floors looked like a rooming house, or a small private
hotel, but as they climbed one story higher, appear
ances changed. The entire floor had been given over to
a kind of situation room: men pored over maps, women
talked on telephones and pounded typewriters. A few
servants moved quietly about the room, bringing food
and drink where and when needed.

Rick whistled softly as they stood in the doorway.
"Nice setup you got here," he said. "Reminds me of
the kind of thing we used to have back home. Except
not so fancy, of course."

"Glad you like it, Mr. Blaine," said Lumley. "We do
aim to make our guests comfortable. Even when we're
not sure they're entirely welcome." He knocked loudly to announce their presence, then ushered the two men
inside.

"Of course you know Victor Laszlo," he said, nod
ding to one of the room's occupants.

Rick and Laszlo looked at each other for the first
time since the tarmac in Casablanca. "Monsieur
Blaine," said Laszlo, extending his hand, "it is a very great pleasure to see you again."

"The pleasure is all mine," said Rick, lighting a cig
arette.

Laszlo took him by the arm and guided him into a
corner. "We had to make sure the time was right," he
said softly. "We had to be absolutely certain that our plan could work. And we had to know, really know, that you could be trusted."

Rick took a puff. "I think that you're here in one
piece is proof of that."

"Precisely," said Laszlo. "That's what I have been telling them since we arrived. The British don't trust
anybody. They had to make sure of your bona fides. I
regret it took so long."

"Which is why they paid my rooms a little visit,"
said Rick. "Look, Laszlo, I'm as good as my word.
You
know that. Any man who doesn't is not someone I want to work with. I told you back in Casablanca
when Louis had you in the holding pen that I was in,
and I meant it. Where I come from, a man's word is
his bond. Sometimes it's all he has. Right now, it's all
I've got left, and I don't intend to devalue it."

Laszlo nodded his head. "Agreed and accepted.
Let's get to work." He brought Rick over to meet a
mustachioed military man. "Major Sir
Harold Miles,
may I present Monsieur Richard Blaine."

Major Miles held out his hand and shook Rick's formally. "Welcome to London," he said. "Shall we sit
down?"

They sat at a large conference table: Rick, Renault,
Lumley, Laszlo, and Major Miles. An adjutant stood
nearby. A stenographer took notes.

"Gentlemen, I think we all know each other, at least
by reputation," said Major Miles, who seemed to be in charge. "I represent the Special Operations Executive, which, as you know, is charged with clandestine activ
ity. Mr. Lumley is here in his capacity as private secre
tary to Sir Ernest Spencer, the Secretary for War, who
has ultimate authority over the operation." He threw a
set of photographs on the table. "I trust you will forgive me if I dispense with the formalities, but time is short. This, gentlemen, is our target." The same cruel face that Rick had been looking at in the British Li
brary stared up at them: the face of Reinhard Heydrich.

". . . the commander of the RSHA and Protector of
Bohemia and Moravia," the major was saying. "Nietz
sche's 'Blond Beast' in the flesh. Handsome, cultured,
talented, a connoisseur of food, wine, and women. The
sort of chap one wouldn't mind entertaining at one's
club, if he weren't also a cold-blooded killer."

Rick studied the face in the photo, whose quality was
so much better than the picture in the newspapers. He
had seen that face a thousand times before, back in
New York. The face of an opportunist. The face of a
profiteer. The face of a double-crosser who would be
tray his own mother for a small personal gain. Rick
saw a hint of the bully, but whether he was also a cow
ard, Rick could not tell. You had to see a man in the
flesh before you could sense that.

"A real pretty boy, isn't he?" he remarked.

"Don't let his looks fool you," said the major. "Heydrich is perhaps the most dangerous Nazi official outside of Hitler himself. Goering is a posturing buffoon,
whose Luftwaffe can make our lives miserable for a while but won't be able to defend Germany when the
time comes. Goebbels is a partisan, but he's also just a
propagandist who will be singing a different tune
should circumstances change. Himmler is a nasty little
bastard with a chip on his shoulder. Heydrich is
smarter than all three of them, and because of that, ten
times as dangerous."