The 9 by Madalyn Morgan (tools of titans ebook .txt) 📕

voice shaky. She looked the commander in the eye. ‘This is not my work. My work was not, as I first thought, sabotaged on the train, it was stolen and replaced.’

‘Stolen?’ he bellowed.

‘And replaced. If I could explain, sir?’ The commander gave a sharp nod. Ena swallowed, hoping it would lubricate her throat. It did, a little. ‘I know it isn’t usual. Well, it isn’t the done thing at all, but--’ Damn it! Ena said to herself. Just say the bloody words and get it over with. ‘I engrave my initials on the metalwork.’ The four men, having been eager to hear what she had to say, stood open mouthed. ‘All the girls who work on the wheels and dials personalise them with their initials. Which no one is able to see. Apart from not being visible to the naked eye, they are concealed by wires running over the surface of the disks. It is not done for fun,’ Ena said, which was only half true. The girls in the factory loved making their mark. Going down in history, they called it. Ena looked at each of the men in turn. Then, putting on her most serious face to make sure they believed her, she said, ‘It is done at my instruction. If I find a fault when I’m checking the work, I can see at a glance whose work it is. It’s a time-saving device. Instead of having to question everyone in turn, which is extremely time consuming, I speak quietly to the person whose initials are on the work. And,’ she waited a couple of beats for the men to digest the importance of the signatures, ‘the mistake is quickly and easily rectified.

‘You see?’ Ena handed one of the engineers the magnifying glass. ‘There should be a small ED beneath the letter D, but there isn’t.’ She took the magnifying glass from the first engineer and gave it to the second.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Commander Dalton’s secretary poked her head into the room and beckoned him out. Watching the commander leave, Ena breathed a sigh of relief. She had never been so in need of a distraction in her life.

A minute later, Dalton returned with two army officers. ‘Miss Dudley, would you accompany these gentlemen?’ Ena froze as she regarded the two giants standing before her. ‘Tell them everything that happened to you on the way here today.’

CHAPTER TEN

The two men, intelligence officers, Ena guessed, dwarfed her as they marched her out of the building and back to the mansion. On the left, along a short passageway leading off the main entrance foyer, one of the officers stopped and opened a door. He entered first, motioning for Ena to follow. The second officer entered after her, closed the door, and stood by it.

There was a young Wren in the sparsely furnished room. She saluted the two officers and acknowledged Ena with a nod. The officers retuned a hurried salute. Ena was so frightened, her face was numb, and could only stare.

The first officer waved the Wren to sit. She pulled a chair from under the large square table and sat down. There was a black Bakelite telephone on the table which the Wren moved to one side, pushing its braided cable out of the way to make space for what looked to Ena like a doctor’s bag. She then took a notebook and pen from the bag and placed them on the table.

‘Take a seat, Miss Dudley,’ said the officer who had entered the room first, pulling out the chair to the Wren’s right. Frightened and shaking, Ena did as she was ordered. ‘Ring when you’ve finished,’ he said to the Wren.

‘Sir!’ Pushing her chair away from the table, the Wren stood up and saluted again.

When the intelligence officers had gone, the Wren said, ‘My name’s Tilly Anderson. I’m a nurse.’ She pointed to a medical badge on the lapel of her jacket.

‘My name’s Ena Dudley, but I expect you know that already. What’s going to happen to me?’ Ena asked, her eyes brimming with tears.

‘Nothing you need worry about.’ Still standing, the Wren opened the black bag. ‘I’m just going to do a few tests.’

‘Tests? What sort of tests?’ Ena held her stomach. It hurt so much, because she desperately needed to go to the toilet, that she began to cry. And her head. She closed her eyes. Her head felt as if it had been hit by an axe. It had ached since she’d woken up at Euston.

‘It’s standard procedure when there has been a breach of security, especially when drugs are involved.’

‘Drugs? Thank goodness.’ Ena’s suspicions were going to be proved. Now Mr Silcott would know that she had not been irresponsible, that it wasn’t her fault the work went missing.

The Wren sat down and read her notebook. ‘You fell asleep on the train and missed your stop?’ Ena nodded. ‘When you woke up, did you have a headache?’

‘Yes, a blinder. I still have it. And I still feel fuzzy.’

Tilly gave a knowing nod. ‘Were you thirsty when you woke?’

‘Yes, and now I think about it, my mouth was really dry. I had two cups of tea on Euston station and I still felt thirsty. That reminds me, could I go to the lavatory before we start, please?’

‘Of course, it’s over there.’ Tilly pointed to a door on the far side of the room. ‘And, if you don’t mind,’ she said, stopping Ena when she leapt out of her seat, ‘would you use this?’ She produced a specimen jar from her medical bag and handed it to Ena.

‘I thought there’d be a catch.’ Ena wrinkled her nose and almost sprinted across the room to the toilet. ‘There’s no lock!’ she called, from inside the sterile white room.

‘Don’t worry, no one will