.

It was late afternoon and sunlight made patterns on the carpet, moving across the room until the bright bars slimmed to fine rods and one by one disappeared. The DG went across to the bookcases to switch on the large table lamps. On the panelled walls there were paintings of horses which had won famous races a long time ago, but now the paintings had grown so dark under the ageing varnish that the strutting horses seemed to be plodding home through a veil of fog.

      ‘Just how much gold was four-fifths of the German gold reserves?’ Stuart asked.

      The DG sniffed and ran a finger across his ear, pushing away an errant lock of hair. ‘About three hundred million dollars’ worth of gold is one estimate. Over eight thousand bars of gold.’ The DG paused. ‘But that was just the bullion. In addition there were three thousand four hundred and thirty-six bags of gold coins, many of which were rarities – coins worth many times their weight in gold because of their value to collectors.’

      Stuart looked up and, realizing that some response was expected, said, ‘Yes, amazing, sir.’ He sipped some more of the whisky. It was always the best of malts up here in the DG’s office at the top of ‘the Ziggurat’, the curious, truncated, pyramidal building that looked across the River Thames to the Palace of Westminster. The room’s panelling, paintings and antique furniture were all part of an attempt to recapture the elegance that the Secret Intelligence Service had enjoyed in the beautiful old houses in St James’s. But this building was steel and concrete, cheap and practical, with rust stains dribbling on the façade and cracks in the basement. The service itself could be similarly described.

      ‘The American officers reported their find through the usual channels,’ said the DG, suddenly resuming his story. ‘Patton and Eisenhower went to see it on 12 April. The army moved it all to Frankfurt. They took jeeps and trailers down the mine and brought it out. Ingenious people, the Americans, Stuart.’ He smiled and held the smile while looking Stuart full in the eyes.

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘It took about forty-eight hours of continuous work to load the valuables. There were thirty crates of German patent-office records – worth a king’s ransom – and two thousand boxes of prints, drawings and engravings, as well as one hundred and forty rolls of oriental carpets. You see the difficulties, Stuart?’

      ‘Indeed I do, sir.’ He swirled the last of his drink round his glass before swallowing it. The DG gave no sign of noticing that his glass was empty.

      ‘They were ordered to begin loading the lorries just two days after Eisenhower’s visit. The only way to do that was simply by listing whatever was on the original German inventory tags. It was a system that had grave shortcomings.’

      ‘If things were stolen, there was no way to be sure that the German inventory had been correct in the first place?’

      The DG nodded. ‘Can you imagine the chaos that Germany was in by that stage of the war?’

      ‘No, sir.’

      ‘Quite so, Stuart. You can not imagine it. God knows what difficulties the Germans had moving all their valuables in those days of collapse. But I assure you that the temptation for individual Germans to risk all in order to put some items in their pockets could never have been higher. Perhaps only the Germans could have moved such material intact in those circumstances. As a nation they have a self-discipline that one can only admire.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘As soon as the Americans captured the mine, its contents went by road to Frankfurt, and were stored in the Reichsbank building. A special team from the State Department were given commissions overnight, put into uniform and flown from Washington to Frankfurt. They sifted that material to find sensitive papers or secret diplomatic exchanges that would be valuable to the US government, or embarrassing to them if made public. After that it was all turned over to the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency.’

      ‘And was there such secret material?’

      ‘Let me get you another drink, Stuart. You like this malt, don’t you? With water this time?’

      ‘Straight please, sir.’

      The DG gave another of his ferocious grins.

      ‘Of course there was secret material. The exchanges between the German ambassador in London and his masters in Berlin during the 1930s would have caused a few red faces here in Whitehall, to say nothing of red faces in the Palace of Westminster. Enough indiscretions there to have put a few of our politicians behind bars in 1940 … members of Parliament telling German embassy people what a splendid fellow Adolf Hitler was.’

      The DG poured drinks for them both. He used fresh cut-glass tumblers. ‘Something wrong with that door, Stuart?’

      ‘No, it’s beautiful,’ said Stuart, admiring the antique panelling. ‘And the octagonal oak table must be early seventeenth century.’

      The DG groaned silently. It was not the sort of remark expected of the right sort of chap. Ryden had been brought up to believe that a gentleman did not make specific references to another man’s possessions. He had always suspected that Boyd Stuart might be ‘artistic’ – a word the DG used to describe a wide variety of individuals that he blackballed at his club and shunned socially. ‘No ice? No soda? Nothing at all in it?’ asked the DG again, but he marred the solicitude by descending into his seat as he said it.

      Stuart shook his head and raised the heavy tumbler to his lips.

      ‘No,’ agreed the DG. ‘With a fine Scots name such as Boyd Stuart a man must not be seen watering a Highland malt.’

      ‘Not in front of a Sassenach,’ said Stuart.

      ‘What’s that? Oh yes, I see,’ said the DG raising a hand to his hair. Stuart realized that his father-in-law wore his hair long to hide the hearing aid. It was a surprising vanity in such a composed figure; Stuart noted it with interest. ‘Oxford, Stuart?’

      Stuart looked at him for a moment before answering. A man who could commit to memory all the details of the Kaiseroda mine discoveries was not likely to forget where his son-in-law went to university. ‘Cambridge, sir. Trinity. I read mathematics.’

      The DG closed his eyes. It was quite alarming the sort of people the department had recruited. They would be taking sociologists next. He was reminded of a joke he had heard at his club at lunch. A civil service candidate made an official complaint: he had missed promotion because at the civil service selection board he had admitted to being a socialist. The commissioner had apologized profoundly – or so the story went – he had thought the candidate had admitted to being a sociologist.

      Boyd Stuart sipped his whisky. He did not strongly dislike his father-in-law – he was a decent enough old buffer in his way. If Ryden idolized his daughter so much that he could not see her faults, that was a very human failing.

      ‘Was it Jennifer’s idea?’ Stuart asked him. ‘Sending me to California, was that her idea?’

      ‘We wanted someone who knew something about the film trade,’ said Sir Sydney. ‘You came to mind immediately …’

      ‘You mean, had it been banking, backgammon or the Brigade of Guards,’ said Stuart, ‘I might have been trampled in the rush.’

      The DG smiled to acknowledge the joke. ‘I remembered that you studied at the UCLA.’

      ‘But it was Jennifer’s idea?’

      The DG hesitated rather than tell a deliberate untruth. ‘Jennifer feels it would be better … in the circumstances.’

      Stuart smiled. He could recognize the machinations of his wife.

      ‘Little thought you’d find yourself in this business when you were at Trinity, eh Stuart?’ said the DG, determined to change the subject.

      ‘To tell you the absolute truth, sir, I was hoping to be a tennis professional.’

      The DG almost spluttered. He had a terrible feeling that this operation was going