Gavin Lyall - Honourable Intentions

St Claire abandoned any lecture he was about to give and said in a subdued voice: “I’m supposed to be over at the Quai d’Orsay approving the arrangement of Their Majesties’ apartments. Perhaps you’d care to come along and tell us what’s been going on as we do that?”

Again, St Claire was treating him as a brother officer. It wasn’t clear that Harland seconded the motion, but it was the Palace in charge. “Fine. Let me go first. I’ll take a taxi and wait round the corner in Rue St Honore. You stroll out in five minutes and jump in with me.”

St Claire looked puzzled. Harland, quicker on the uptake now, said sourly: “This is for the Captain’s sake, not ours. He assumes that anybody watching the hotel knows us, and he doesn’t want to be associated with us. But only in the criminal mind, I’m sure.”

“They’ve completely redecorated and refurnished these rooms,” St Claire murmured as they were led up the wide marble stairway of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “so what they want is admiration, not fair comment. I may manage to get an ashtray moved, but that’s about all. But one of the first things royalty learns is to take what they’re given. The least hint of criticism brings dismissals, ruin, suicide. Ah me, the problems of monarchy.”

The big double doors were too heavy to be flung open: a flunkey leaned hard and got them to swing apart, St Claire stepped inside and immediately went into well-prepared raptures of appreciation. Ranklin fell into place beside Harland, a few paces behind St Claire and the Grand Whoever who was showing it all off.

The decor was apparently Louis Quatorze and the furniture First Empire, and to Ranklin it all looked chokingly lush and crowded. But perhaps he was getting seduced by Corinna’s taste, and royalty found this perfectly normal. The air they breathed was almost pure lavender, presumably to mask the smell of paint and wallpaper paste.

“So the lady in the case was definitely not Mrs Langhorn,” Harland muttered.

“No. She did head for La Villette as we expected, but for a different address, not the cafe they use as an HQ.” He had decided not to mention the barge, even to his own allies. “Putting off her followers was where the shooting came in. Luckily one of our chaps does a very good tramp act, and he got through and followed her to earth.”

“But the police got involved.”

“That does tend to happen with shootings. But they were anyway. Remember, this whole thing started with someone trying to burn down a police station.”

“But you said it’s now thought that wasn’t young Langhorn himself.”

“Well, we think not. It may take a little time for Bow Street and the Paris police to catch up.” If, that is, the Prefecture had ever believed it and weren’t just trying to get Langhorn within the jurisdiction of their thumb-screws, as O’Gilroy believed.

They were now in the King’s bedroom and staring at the bed: set in an alcove and fashioned like a Roman couch from mahogany, with gilt trimmings.

“Too many things to look at,” Ranklin muttered. “And too many eyes looking back,” he added, looking at a tapestry of idyllic rural life. “I doubt I’d sleep a wink in this place.”

“If you tried, it would probably come under the Treason Act,” Harland commented.

The writing table (it looked like a small desk) had apparently been Napoleon’s, and the symbolism of putting it in an English King’s bedroom could hardly have been accidental. Perhaps His Majesty would carve “Wellington” on it. Alas, probably not.

They trailed back into the “Green Room” between the King’s and Queen’s bedrooms. This would be where their Majesties met visitors, and St Claire could be more authoritative – though still elaborately polite – about some minor rearrangement. The High Official listened, nodding, and went off to find some furniture-movers, leaving just a flunkey at the door.

St Claire sat down in a thick padded-and-buttoned chair. “Protocol,” he sighed. “We could have made the changes ourselves in a couple of minutes. So: I understand you found neither Gorkin nor the real Mrs Langhorn?”

They also sat; the chairs felt as if they were supposed to be comfortable, and Ranklin said: “My chaps are trying to track down Gorkin and we think they’ve got Mrs Langhorn at a new address in La Villette.” When you thought about it, a barge made an excellent prison, easily guarded and short on neighbours. And better still if the police didn’t know of it.

“Then what should we do next?”

“I would prefer it if you did absolutely nothing.”

“Come now, Captain -” was St Claire beginning to pull rank? “- we can still offer Mrs Langhorn a pension if-”

“For God’s sake, just don’t make it any worse!” And rank be damned. “You knew we were following this up but you went right ahead having ideas of your own without telling us. It’s only by the grace of God and the Navy that I got here in time to stop you offering a pension to the wrong woman providing she kept quiet about a liaison with the King. Don’t you see that’s exactly the sort of thing Gorkin wants?”

St Claire looked huffed but mystified. “What d’you mean?”

“I mean that if he just wanted to publicise the King’s affair all those years ago, he’d have done it a dozen times over by now. But he wanted something more up-to-date and befitting the anarchists’ cause, and we’ve given it him. And he’ll have the royal bastard heir-to-the-throne story as well.”

“A bastard cannot be heir to the throne,” Harland said firmly.

“What law says so?”

“I’m not exactly sure, perhaps it-”

“But you expect a French newspaper reader to know?”

St Claire said: “What d’you mean we’ve given it him?”

Ranklin took a deep breath. “Just think how we – all of us – have behaved since we knew of this claim: exactly how an anarchist would say we’d behave. They gave us an opportunity to prove what a corrupt society we arc, and we’ve gone right ahead and proved it. We’ve concealed facts, nobbled the judiciary, shot a man in Stepney, tried to bribe the key witness. All they need do now is get it published, and that should happen at the beginning of next week.”

There was a shocked silence.

Harland said: “But the King arrives on Tuesday . . . They wouldn’t, the French are in favour of this visit, the papers wouldn’t spoil it . . .”

But his years at the Palace had taught St Claire something about the ways of newspapers. He shook his head heavily. “They might not want to, but they’ll have to – as they see it. Each one’ll suspect that another will, and they daren’t be left behind. They’ll print it . . . But print exactly what?”

“I can’t say precisely, but all that I said and probably try to blame us for Guillet’s murder as well.”

“Was that your people?”

“No. It’ll all be one-sided and a lot of it unprovable, but people will believe it.”

St Claire said to Harland: “Could we bring a libel suit?”

The solicitor pulled a long face. “In a French court? And we could only do that after it’s been published. And we’d have to be specific. We might get them to retract some details – months later, if that’s any help.”

“Then is there nothing you can do to stop the man?”

Ranklin shrugged. “We might kill off Gorkin, but even if we did, I’m sure he’s thought of that himself and arranged that it would do more harm than good.”

Another silence, then: “Very well, then, I shall prepare a bulletin we can give to the Press once this appears in print.”

Ranklin nodded, but sighed as well. “I suppose you have to, but I doubt it’ll undo one-tenth of the damage. The French will still believe Grover is the rightful heir to the throne and that the British government and the Palace were prepared to sanction murder to do him out of his rights.”