Their bag consisted of four persons: two gunmen, both injured. At the moment of arrest, one had a slash across the left cheek and a .22 bullet embedded in the muscle of his back, the other had a broken wrist.
A young lady passenger, hysterical but otherwise unhurt. She’d given her name and a Mayfair address and, after interview, had been released from custody, insisting on a police escort back to Park Lane. Lily had a clear impression from Superintendent Hopkirk’s dry phrasing that they’d been only too glad to lay on a squad car and driver to take her home. Anything to get her out of their hair.
Lastly, the taxi driver. Discovered slumped over his wheel unconscious and at first thought to be dead. Revealed by his licence to be a Mr Percy Jenner, ex-London Rifle Brigade, he’d been hit over the head with a blunt instrument, probably the butt of a gun. He’d been conveyed to St George’s hospital where his condition had been stabilized. A constable with a notebook was at his bedside.
The bodies of the admiral and the beat bobby who died trying to stop the taxi had been taken to the morgue and post mortems were under way. The work was top priority and in the hands of Dr Bernard Spilsbury himself. Report awaited.
Lily looked up from her task, stretched her back and considered. It seemed straightforward enough: successful assassination, bungled getaway, capture of culprits. But there were details that left her with an unease, a need to know more – and more precisely. She began to write a list of questions in her notebook. She was finishing her reading of the file with the last of the exhibits – a cutting from the previous week’s Times newspaper quoting the whole of Admiral Dedham’s rip-roaring speech in Dublin, a clear incitement to murder – when she remembered there was one important thing she had to do before Sandilands returned.
Lily looked at the clock. He’d been gone for almost two hours. Where were his rooms? How long did it take for a shave? He’d said ten minutes. Allowing for brisk walking time there and back to somewhere close by … Albany? … she’d probably left it too late, she judged. She listened. All on the third floor was silent. She crept to the heavy door and opened it an inch. She was reasonably certain that she would now have early warning of anyone approaching down the corridor, or the door of Miss Jameson’s office opening. Lily returned to the desk.
She sat for a few moments staring at the telephone and wondering if she dared. With the hurdle of her decision to resign successfully jumped, what had she to lose? She found the courage to lift the earpiece.
The operator at the switchboard answered in her precise but strangulated tone. They were all graduates, these telephonist girls, and renowned for the way they could torture the English language. Lily had applied for such a post with a laundry in Clapham advertised in the newspaper over a year ago but had given up at the first hurdle when she discovered that of the other eight hundred applicants for the position, many had a degree from a university and most had a cultured, upper-class voice.
‘An internal number please, miss,’ Lily said firmly. ‘Could you put me through to extension 371?’
A few mechanical noises were followed by a gruff male voice. ‘Yes?’
‘Hello. This is switchboard again,’ Lily announced in a fair copy of the telephonist’s voice. ‘Do tell me I’m through to Catering Supplies?’ She managed to insert a touch of uncertainty.
‘I can’t. You’re not.’ The voice was military. Uncommunicative.
‘Oh, no! I’ve done it again! Most frightfully sorry, sir!’ she gushed. ‘I do hope I’ve not disturbed you. Please forgive me. It’s my first day going solo, you see. I’m on test. I so hope you won’t tell? I think I’ve just inserted my toggle into the wrong slot and made a bad connection …’
A guffaw greeted this. ‘We’ve all done that, darlin’,’ said the fruity baritone, unbending suddenly. ‘Think nothing of it. Your secrets are safe with me. Well, they would be, wouldn’t they – this is the War Office here. Ho, ho!’ He seemed to find his remark hilarious but stopped slapping his thigh long enough to add: ‘And when you do finally plug into Supplies, tell them to change the tea. That Darjeeling they’re using this month is as weak as gnat’s pee.’
‘Assam? Shall I suggest Assam, sir?’
‘Yes. That the dark brown stuff? That should do it. Well – good luck with the test, Iris! This is Iris, isn’t it?’
‘I didn’t give my name, sir. That would be against the rules.’ Lily summoned up exactly the right touch of scandalized rebuke. ‘Goodbye, sir.’