The Empire of Night: A Christopher Marlowe Cobb Thriller (33 page)

It was my mother.

I opened the door.

“Quickly,” I said.

She slipped in.

She was wearing her shirtwaist but not her scarf. All the button-to-hole matches were off by one.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” I said.

“I didn’t know when I’d get to talk to you. No one saw me.”

“There’s a floor attendant.”

“He’s sleeping.”

“German agents on staff.”

“I’m telling you I wasn’t seen,” she said.

“I need pants,” I said.

“I’ll wait,” she said.

I left her in the dark and disappeared into the bedroom, pushing the door partly closed. I put on my pants from the wardrobe, cinched the belt tight, and took one step back into the sitting room. “Come in here, away from the door,” I said.

She entered the bedroom.

She sat at the dressing table and I sat in a side chair.

Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, fingers intertwined. Her upper arms were drawn tightly against her.

“You dressed in the dark,” I said.

She looked down.

She looked at me. She said, “He travels to Cologne on Monday.”

“He told you the details?”

“Yes. Of course. He didn’t think I’d make that fuss in public.”

“Did that compromise his trust?”

“I don’t know for certain. I don’t think so.”

“It was worth trying,” I said. “You did well. And Monday to Cologne is very good information.”

Her hands unclasped, her arms fell away from her lap. Her tension drained instantly, completely away, a tension I’d assumed was over her secret visit to my room under the sleeping nose of Albert and all the rest of the German secret service at the Adlon. In fact, she was tense because she was afraid I’d disapprove of her handling of his declared trip. I’d applauded. So all was right in her world.

Now she had to make a swift exit.

But I did need to speak with her privately, and here she was.

“Are you sure you weren’t seen?” I said.

“It’s three in the morning,” she said.

“Mother . . .”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. But I was careful. I came up the stairs. I saw no one.”

“It’s not just strangers I’m worried about,” I said. I nodded at her skewed buttons and holes. Dressing in the dark meant one thing. “Did you come from
his
room?”

She didn’t answer.

“You did,” I said.

She stayed silent.

“How did you expect to get back in?”

She shrugged a so-what shrug.

I repeated the question with a tilt of my head.

“I have a key,” she said.

“You took his?”

“No. That would be risky.”

I clucked at this.

“I have one of my own,” she said.

Of course.

“This whole complication is dangerous for us,” I said.

“‘O time, thou must untangle this, not I,’” she said. “‘It is too hard a knot for me to untie.’”

Whenever she began to speak with lines from her favorite roles—this one Viola from
Twelfth Night
—I knew the topic would drag on. But this conversation was not worth the clock tick of risk. I needed to say the critical thing quickly.

“Look,” I said. “This guy Albert Einstein may have some crucial information. He’s a Shakespeare fan. He may be an Isabel Cobb fan as well. Your man Barnowsky may know him. I need for you to see Einstein and I need to go with you and we need to do this as soon as possible. Before your Albert heads for Cologne.”

I was just trying to keep the Alberts straight. Mostly. But she played the phrase big, to tweak my nosiness. “
My
Albert hates that man,” she said. “If he found out . . .”

“He won’t. You won’t let that happen. It’s worth the risk.”

She looked down again.

She started to unbutton her blouse.

“Look away,” she said. “I need to fix this.”

I rose and turned my back on her. I walked to the bed and I sat down on the edge, very near the night table.

“He has a dinner tomorrow night,” she said. “At the Ministry of War. He’s talking that openly to me.”

“He didn’t want you on his arm?”

She didn’t reply.

I had to be careful how I spoke of him.

She cursed low. About the buttons.

I rephrased. “You’re not going?”

“I tried,” she said. “Boys only. You should come to the theater around seven. I’ll see about the other Albert.”

And from the dark at the far of end of the sitting room came four swift, hard knocks at the door.

I jumped up.

The following silence rang in the room. Only briefly.

Another two knocks. And Stockman’s voice. “Josef.”

I turned to Mother, who had succeeded merely in totally unbuttoning her shirtwaist, exposing a lacy vest brassiere.

She was wide-eyed. Her hands had fallen straight down at her sides.

I put my forefinger to my lips.

I looked in the direction of the door.

Two more knocks, louder still. “Josef,” he said, in English. “I’m sorry, but I must come in.”

I thought of the Mauser.

I turned to the night stand.

No acceptable solution presented itself in the maelstrom of my brain that involved my pistol and this hotel room at the Adlon in the middle of the night. I figured it would be best not to have that option.

“Sir Albert?” I called. “Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a moment.”

I looked at Mother.

She was standing now. I wondered if she’d played this scene before in one of those theatrical tour hotels.

She blew me a kiss, with a death mask face.

I breathed deep and stepped through the bedroom door, closing it behind me.

I turned to the desk, found the table lamp, and switched it on.

I moved to the suite door.

I looked through the peep hole and reared back. He was standing very near.

His hands were not in sight. But if he was holding a weapon, surely he’d have stepped back a little so he could at least raise his arm in preparation.

I opened the door.

Stockman had dressed in haste and only partially: his black evening suit trousers with a braid stripe; his white shirt, properly buttoned, but no collar.

At his side, fisted in his left hand, was Mother’s apricot scarf.

I’d already observed that Albert was right-handed. To carry this in his off-hand was a conscious act. Was he keeping his pistol hand free?

“May I come in, old man?” he said.

A very friendly phrasing and tone for a presumptuous request at this hour.

Stockman felt very dangerous to me.

But the slightest hesitation would only make him more suspicious.

I stepped back instantly, opening the door wide.

“Of course,” I said.

He stepped in.

I watched his eyes. He rapidly checked every corner of the room. His gaze lingered for a beat on the closed bedroom door.

I shut the suite door behind him.

“Drink?” I said. “The Adlon attendant has kept the side table nicely stocked.”

“No thanks,” he said.

We were standing in the middle of the floor.

“Would you like to sit?” I motioned to the divan and the chair.

“I’m sorry to bother you like this,” he said, still in English.

I nodded at his left hand. “Isn’t that the scarf Madam Cobb was wearing tonight? Is she all right?”

His eyes had fixed on the bedroom door again. At my voice, he looked at me.

“I don’t know,” he said. “May I step into your bathroom?”

It was the one place where she could hide outside of the bedroom.

“Of course.”

As soon as he looked away and began his first step past me, I focused on the pockets of his trousers. Left front and then, as he crossed the floor, both back pockets.

He vanished into the bathroom.

The prime pocket, right front, had eluded me for the moment.

Water began to run in the basin.

It would be quickly obvious that she wasn’t in there.

After only a few seconds the water shut off again. He’d made a cursory attempt to hide his suspicion. But his patience had quickly run out.

He emerged from the bathroom. One step and he stopped.

He looked at the scarf in his hand. An anguished little gesture.

If he was not still actively drunk, his head was surely pounding with the afterclap of rye.

I had to believe, from the look of his right front pocket, that he was indeed armed with a small pistol.

He drew near me.

I knew he would have to search the bedroom.

I had two thoughts. If I let him initiate the search, he might draw the pistol first. And whatever my mother was planning for this situation, she was ready by now.

“Sir Albert,” I said, very gently. “My friend. You will not insult me if you’d like to look in my bedroom.”

His eyes focused on mine but in that restless way of darting back and forth, back and forth, from one eye to the other.

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you for understanding, Josef.”

It had been the right thing to say.

He moved past me.

I turned.

In my periphery something caught my eye on the floor, where he’d been standing. He’d dropped the scarf.

Stockman wanted both hands.

He opened the bedroom door. The light was still on.

He stepped in and I followed, as quietly as I could.

He went first to the wardrobe. I stopped in the doorway.

He twisted the handle and opened the wardrobe door. Slowly now. He was using his right hand, his pistol hand. Good. It would mean a few moments of delay for him to be able to shoot.

I took another small step toward him, determined not to seem threatening, ready to lunge at him.

The door was swinging wide.

No rustling in the wardrobe.

No words.

He closed the wardrobe door and turned.

We looked at each other.

I offered him a gentle smile. “Whatever you need to do,” I said.

He turned away from me. Looked across the room.

I followed his eyes.

The drapes at the balcony door.

He knew. I knew. The other likely place.

He moved past me once more.

I edged my way toward the night table and the Mauser.

He reached the drapes, hesitated.

The temptation in my fingertips was to ease the drawer open. But the room was quiet. The sound would make him turn and what he would see could be understood in only one way.

I stayed put. If he stepped out and there were sounds, I could have the Mauser pretty quick anyway.

He put his hand to the drape. Still he hesitated. He loved her. He did not want this to be true. But he loved her. So the possibility of this was roaring in his head.

He wrenched the drapes aside.

The door was open.

He stepped out.

He vanished to the right.

There were no sounds.

He crossed by the open window and vanished to the left.

Nothing.

He appeared in the doorway.

Even across the room I could sense the quaking in him.

My own mind was roaring now. There was only one other possible place. But could she even fit under the bed? I did not let my eyes go there. I knew that the sheets and the light quilt were untucked and hung low. I thought I even remembered a dust ruffle down to the floor.

Would Stockman go so far as to get down on his hands and knees to make sure about this last possible place?

He stepped into the room.

He stopped.

I tried to read his body. There was an aura of release about him: his shoulders had gone slack; his hands, which were prepared moments ago even to kill, hung limp at his sides.

“Can I get you that drink now?” I said. Very softly.

He hesitated.

Surely he wanted to believe what his hands and his shoulders already believed.

My last gesture of innocent confidence would be to step out of the bedroom before him. If he did energize his hands in a final burst of suspicion and he got down on his knees after I left, there would be sounds at the discovery—Mother would surely engage him—and only then would he come after me. I could maybe get back into the room in time to prevent his weapon coming into play.