Andy Luke's Blog, page 9

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

From Hill Close House to Hummersknott, Darlington was Pease territory, but that would change. Away from the electric trams of Northgate, the Liberal ‘s Albion Hall was full of working men. With accent he spoke fluently, the curls gone from his now straight parted hair , his belly filled out.

“I want you to see for yourself the ordinary Belgian’s struggle under tariff laws. Their long hours. Our trip to Antwerp will be educational. I am looking for volunteers to find the facts, and...

The Watch Thief, Chapter 11

26 January, 1910. Budapest.

They burst from the station. Trebitsch with three bags angled round paused rears, over-took dawdlers. Among familiar steeples and grand boulevard monuments, he saw the hotels with their open arms.

The house door was opened by Sandor the home-bird. He and Simon, the youngest, took the bags. His anya entered the living room and pressed cheeks around him, then poured the coffee.

“Oh, Ignacz! Now, there are two politicians in the family!”

Trebitsch was to digress but t...

The Watch Thief, Chapter 10.

Budapest, 23rd September, 1909.

Esme Howard led him through the foyer while the man went on and on about an Anglo-Hungarian Bank, Mister Rowntree’s expansion plans and Howard promised he‘d “look into it,” though the damned fool didn’t seem to grasp what he was really saying was,  “get out of my building now.” Prattling on about his visit to the embassy in Belgrade and an Anglo-Serbian bank! At that point it was all just noise. Howard wondered how if the Prime Minister intended to force throug...

Reading Week

I got three primary sources for WATCH THIEF including a trip underneath Trinity College Dublin to the Early Printed Texts department, through cavern and flaming torch to a 1931 manuscript. They could have let me see the 1971 reprint, but no, red carpet for moi. No photos of course, but an experience I hope to repeat.

Chapter 10 next week, or now on Patreon. Here’s a thing I made for it.

A lot of events going on behind the scenes at Castle Luke, the closest being an open mic night for writers...

Live interview incoming

I’m being interviewed by Captain Ashley Sanders for the Who’s This? podcast in a few hours. You can tune in live and compliment Ashley on her skill handling me, have an eased ole time, and ask a few questions if you like. We’re up around 8:30pm GMT, 3:30pm ET at https://www.facebook.com/CaptainAshleysHappyPlace

I aim to be talking Watch Thief, but Absence, Axel America and conspiracy theories have also come up. So who knows? Ashley seems like a vibrant person so fingers crossed for me.

The Watch Thief. Chapter Nine.

he British embassy in Budapest was on Harminad, where Ignacz Trebitsch was booked to meet the ambassador. The street had little else to it. Across the way, Erzsébet Square boasted a hotels and outdoor cafe, where the brothers Trebitsch sat.  Lajos balked at the prices. Ignacz assured him he could cover the bill on business expenses. They were joined by Simon, now seventeen, and Alexander Krausz, their cousin. There was much excitement over Lajos’s role as secretary of Hungary’s Socialist Dem...

8.5 Paris – Round Three

Christmas was coming, and as Trebitsch walked towards the Paris embassy he recalled the scene a few months earlier. Lister had his head in the diary when he’d slapped the two letters on the counter in front of him.

“Inform Sir Bertie he has a visitor,” said Trebitsch.

Sir Bertie had arrived full of himself. “Oh, he’s come back for more!” he bellowed. He tore them open coolly with an ominous smile.

Inglis was with him. “After your last visit, Mr. Lister wrote to Mr. Ponsonby about your prepost...

8.4 The Vienna Cafe

The Danube waters stroked the tender senses of the street-side passers-by and cafe patrons. Sigmund said the study on the fear of horses and their penises would be called ‘Little Hans’.  Max told him and Alfred he was grateful for the diagnosis of his son’s neurosis. It would help others, though he had misgivings.

“Thank you for introducing me to Vienna, Mr. Goschen. I have been to Berlin, you know. Munich too.  You will enjoy your new post in Berlin though we’ll be sad to lose you!”

Sigmund...

8.3 Banking in Bucharest

On that August morning, Trebtisch was in no great hurry to reach the embassy on Bucharest’s Jules Michet. The British ambassadors were a tight group despite their geographical dispersal. Gripped by paranoia that Sir Bertie had somehow tainted their attitudes of British ambassadors, he thought long on bailing out of his appointment with Conyngham Greene. He wandered the halls of the Drama in the University of Bucharest, and in and out of the Religious Studies department. He found the library,...

8.2 Sir Bertie

Pleasure cruisers in the rippling Seine float under the Eiffel Tower. The people walk under her, and the hansom cabs drive out to Rue du Faubourg and Le-Saint Honore with cremerie moderne and beurre fromages in the cool afternoon air. Inside the embassy at number 35, the air was hot. Sir Francis Bertie seethed from his office to the foyer. Strutting like a peacock, his shoes gripped the carpet as the bull he’d been nicknamed after. Ahead, Trebitsch Lincoln was shouting down Berite’s aides; Tr...