The Prime Minister's Secret Agent(33)
“How would you characterize your relationship with him?”
“Relationship?” Sarah looked puzzled and blew her nose. Another coughing jag, this one even more violent, from down deep in her lungs, shook her slender body.
The officer’s eyes softened. “Are you all right, Miss?”
“Fine,” Sarah said dismissively, raising her chin. “And my relationship with Mr. Atholl is professional.” She lowered the handkerchief and twisted it in her lap. “I am a dancer. Mr. Atholl is a conductor. The orchestra under his direction that accompanies us is excellent.”
“Did you and he ever have a relationship that was closer? More …” Officer Craig looked almost embarrassed to have to ask. The tips of his oversized ears glowed red. “… intimate?”
“No!” Sarah cried. “He’s married, for heaven’s sake!” Then, realizing how naïve that sounded, she amended, “No, we were never intimate, we’re not even what you’d call friends. It’s a professional relationship. That’s all.”
“Were you aware of his having any extramarital relationships with any of the other dancers?”
Sarah folded the handkerchief in her lap and sat up straight, posture impeccable. She radiated dignity. “Officer Craig, I am a professional dancer in Britain’s finest ballet company. We work together, we travel together, we perform together, and, yes, sometimes people do sleep together.” She lifted her chin. “But I’m focused on my dancing. And pay no mind to gossip.”
Craig made another note, then set down his pen and stood. “Thank you, Miss Sanderson.”
Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. “May I go now?”
He shook his head and had the decency to look shamefaced. “We’re going to keep you in custody for a little while longer, I’m afraid.”
Sarah’s long, graceful hand went to her mouth, smothering another cough. “Are you—are you charging me with—” She couldn’t say the word murder, so she amended to “—a crime?”
“Since you’re under suspicion of murder, we can keep you, without arresting you, for three days.” Craig added, in gentler tones: “But no, for the time being, we’re not charging you with anything.”
“Three days?” Sarah whispered.
“If you’d like to confess something …”
“No,” she said, setting her jaw and standing, her spine ramrod-straight. “No. I have nothing further to say.”
A meeting had been called to discuss Bratton’s theory about a possible Japanese strike.
As Secretary of Defense General George C. Marshall was out of town, overseeing maneuvers in North Carolina, Bratton took his decrypts and his analysis for presentation to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.
The meeting was held at Stimson’s overheated smoke-filled office, with Secretary of State Hull in attendance. Stimson was unconvinced. “But do you have any actual facts, Colonel Bratton?” In the background, the radiator clanked and a French mantel clock ticked, then chimed seven.
Hull looked up from copies of Bratton’s memos and put down his pince-nez on the glossy wooden table. “Bratton’s analysis is on the nose,” he said.
Bratton’s usually sour expression lightened for a moment.
But Hull continued. “Henry, I’m washing my hands of the whole matter. From now on, it’s up to you and the Navy.”
Stimson crushed out his black cigarillo in a heavy aluminum Navy ashtray bearing the insignia of the USS Arizona and nodded. “I’ll call the President.”
Bratton was shocked, first that Hull was relinquishing all responsibility and also that Stimson wasn’t going to do more. “But what else can we do? Sir?” he added.
“The President will be informed, Colonel Bratton,” Stimson shot back. “But I know just what he’s going to say—he’s adamant that we maneuver the Japanese into firing the first shot. You’ll keep me appraised of any new developments?”
Bratton looked as if he were about to say something—then closed his mouth. “Yes, sir. I’ll keep you appraised.”
To pass the time, Maggie was knitting dark-blue soldiers’ socks she had stashed in her handbag, metal needles clicking in the silence. She nearly pounced on Craig when he appeared in the waiting room of the St. Leonard’s Police Station. “Is Sarah Sanderson under arrest?” she asked, slipping the half-finished sock in her handbag.
“I’m sorry, I can’t comment, Miss.”
“How long are you going to hold her?”
“I really can’t say, Miss.”