Max in the House of Spies: Chapters 35–47

Chumley was shuffling a deck of playing cards, his willow-wand hands manipulating them into bridges and inverted bridges and rainbows and all sorts of other shapes Max had no name for.

“Max, never give away information if you don’t have to. As a card player and as a spy.”
Max frowned. He should have known that. Come on, he chastised himself.

Jean put two pennies in to match the bets before hers, and then added two half crowns.
The table erupted again:
“Well, that’s moxie for you!”
“Slow down, Jean! We’ve got all afternoon!”

“Are you sure you’ve never played poker before?” Lord Rothschild asked Max, as the stack of coins in front of the world’s richest man dwindled to nearly nothing.

Jean said, “You started with a penny bet, Max. You don’t have a good card under there. Are you sure you want to risk your whole stack on whatever that measly card is? Because I am going to call you, I promise. I’ll give you a chance to change your mind right now.”

Jean pushed herself away from the table like there was something revolting on it.

At last, he stopped mulling and spoke. “Sometimes I think, Max, that we Jews spend our lives tiptoeing on a borderline. Do you know what I mean?”

How ludicrous! I am indeed as rich as any man alive...and yet my role in the war effort is middle management in the British Intelligence Service! I make Nazi dummies for child spies and test explosives in my personal laboratory!

He used to be prime minister of France. Lovely man. He created the forty-hour workweek! Taxed the rich and gave the proceeds to the poor.

Once the five minutes of waiting had elapsed, Chumley had another ten minutes to track Max down.

Trying to alert Chumley to their location, Berg grabbed at a ceramic vase that stood in a large niche—but Stein tackled him and pinned him down.

As the immortal creatures grappled, Max slowly leaned forward to peer through the garden gate.

Chumley was upon him in a moment, upbraiding him and wagging one of his preposterously long fingers in Max’s face.

The writing desk, the floor, the living room sofa—they were all blanketed with sheets of paper with an infinity of permutations of Chumley’s name.

“Yes, Max. I want failures, too. I want the biggest, broadest range of emotions that I can get. So you feel miserable and worthless, Max? Well, good. Because when you’re older and you’re sitting in a box scribbling words that you don’t want to write and no one wants to read, you can think back on these powerful, tempestuous feelings you’re having right now and smile.”

I have to stay here, on the home front, and assist a bunch of pompous old men.

Suddenly, there it was.
Loping through the forest toward him.
The kangaroo.

“Am I to understand,” he began, “that you lured a kangaroo off the grounds of Tring Park? Into a road used by automobiles? Prompting the Military Police to abandon their posts in order to save the poor beast? The whole command is in an uproar! Sergeant Thompson might be fired!”

The Military Police detail had to make a split-second decision between the security of some highly sensitive documents that are being stored in the Mansion, and the life of Kathy Kangaroo! All because of some puerile prank that you decided to pull!

“YES!” Max shouted.
But only to Berg and Stein.
On the outside, Max remained as impassive as possible.

Chumley produced another photograph. This one was of a portly man with a bristle-broom mustache, sitting in a café sipping a small glass of schnapps.

He wore a Hitler Youth uniform, and he seemed proud of it, because his thick hands were gripping the lapels of the outfit like it might be taken away from him at any second.

Very subtly, Ewen shifted back in his chair.

The photo was of a man with a wide mouth, a prominent nose, and a reassuring confidence in his eyes.

Admiral Godfrey passed an ominous eye over the assembled spymasters.

“It’s typical that someone from my department would do an assessment of an agent before that agent was released into enemy territory. It is also typical that each of you would review our report before a final decision was made. What is not typical is that we are doing this review in person. But because of the unique nature of this agent, a higher standard of scrutiny has been set.”

Winston Churchill was still standing, but the file folder was behind his back, and for some reason he was now glowering at a wastepaper bin in the far corner of the room.

“November 11 is Armistice Day. The day Germany surrendered in the Great War.”

“The idea of sending him to Germany is, to put it bluntly, preposterous.”
“I think he’s saying no,” said Stein.

Speaking deliberately and very clearly, Max said, “Have you ever visited Munich, Dr. Brown?”

“I—I spoke with...with colleagues. With eminent doctors in various fields.”

And, for the benefit of the Old Wet, who looked thoroughly lost, Chumley said, “Head of the eugenics and euthanasia projects for Hitler. Murdering disabled people in the name of ‘purifying’ Germany’s gene pool.”

“What?! No!” Dr. Brown expostulated. “I mean yes! But it wasn’t like that!”

For the first time, Churchill slowly swiveled his large, jowly frown toward...
Max.

The military-issued Humber Snipe—Britain’s Jeep—rattled over the dirt road, through a wide heath as the sun set.

“No, Admiral, we are not equipping a twelve-year-old child with a pill for committing suicide.”
“Thought it might be prudent.”

If he gets caught he is to tell the Germans everything he knows. Which is nothing compromising.

A dozen aircraft were stationed in the middle of the heath. Three large bombers, and the rest smaller fighters. “You’ll go in one of the big boys,” said Ewen as they walked across the tarmac.

“Well, this is really spiffing!” he said. “Certainly a first for the RAF!” That meant the Royal Air Force. “A tandem jump with a child!”

We’ll get in the bomber, sit down in the bomb bay, and I’ll strap you to my chest! I’ll have the parachute on my back, of course!