Gavin Lyall - Honourable Intentions

They were passing one of many cafes on the Avenue d’Allemagne, and Ranklin called on the driver to pause. “Here,” he asked Berenice; “will this suit you?”

She got out slowly and didn’t shut the taxi door. “Are you looking for Dr Gorkin?”

Remembering how she worshipped the man, Ranklin shook his head firmly. “We think he’s back in Paris, but we’re not looking for him.”

More boldly, Jay said: “He’s privileged, being an intellectuel. The Paris police daren’t touch him.”

She ignored him and asked Ranklin: “Do you think he was arranging . . . things? Like kidnapping me?”

The honest answer was Yes, but it suddenly occurred to Ranklin that she could have decided to do some spying for Gorkin. He temporised. “We can’t prove anything.”

Her rather blotchy face folded into a frown. “The men who were going to kill me, they said . . . and it was the auto Dr Gorkin got from the drunken Englishman . . .”

Ranklin sighed. “ Alors, get back in. We can talk about this later.” Whatever she thought, it would be a good idea to stop her passing it on.

“Mrs Finn is going to love this,” Jay said in English. “Why are we going to see her, by the way?”

“It may be the quickest way to get hold of a motoring map, perhaps a motor-car, and she may know where we can hire or buy a couple of bicycles.”

“Bicycles? Why bicycles?”

“I don’t imagine you and O’Gilroy want to run along the tow-path searching for that barge.”

At that time of day, the Paris streets were full of growling, hooting, rattling traffic. But inside the taxi there seemed to be a deathly hush.

Corinna had brought forward her visit to Paris after finding that Ranklin had gone there already, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see him right then. What she wanted to do was spread out the evening dresses she had packed hastily in London, compare them with those she had left in the Paris apartment, decide she had nothing suitable for a royal night at l’Opera, and make an appointment with Paul Poiret on Monday.

But here he was, smiling apologetically, and behind him Conall O’Gilroy, of course, and that Lieutenant Jay who looked too handsome to be trusted and – dear God, not again! – Berenice Collomb. She instinctively looked at Berenice’s hands: no absinthe bottle.

She summoned up a welcoming grimace. “Come in, come in, make yourselves at home. Jules will bring you some coffee. Or drinks?”

“No time for that, I’m afraid,” Ranklin said. “D’you know where we can hire a motor-car?”

“I could lend . . . How long for?”

“Until tomorrow, say.”

“Then you’d best rent one. Jules, telephone the garage and tell them to bring round a tourer of some sort.”

“Your garage doesn’t do bicycles, does it?”

“Bicycles? I don’t know anything about bicycles.”

“Never mind, O’Gilroy thinks he remembers a place. And d’you have a motoring map showing the roads outside Paris?”

“There’s probably one in Pop’s study.”

Ranklin followed her in there and, at her gesture, closed the door. She tossed a handful of folded and worn maps on the table, then let rip. “She isn’t a little lost dog you have to bring back whenever you find her! I thought I was done with her for life when she went off back to La Villette.”

“I know, I know. But she was some help and then I didn’t want her telling anyone what we’re up to.”

“What are you up to?”

“Looking for Mrs Langhorn. We think they’ve taken her outside Paris . . . Tell me, did Berenice say anything about young Grover? She seems to have gone off him.”

This time, Corinna’s grin was real. “Oh yes, she’s through with him.”

“But he’ll probably have all the charges dropped and be free in a couple of days.”

Her grin widened. “That’s the point. She’s realised he’s innocent. It seems that night she wasn’t – well, she put it rather crudely -”

“Yes, she used some New Woman expressions with me, too.”

“- but she assumed he really had been a big bold anarchist, setting fire to that police station-house. To prove his love for her, probably. So when she realised he’d been tucked up with a good book instead, naturally she dropped him.”

“Naturally,” Ranklin agreed dazedly. “Then it was nothing to do with his performance as a lover?”

“She got graphic with you, too, did she? Oh no. That’s just kicking him in the balls – metaphorically – after the event.”

“I see . . . And did she say anything about Gorkin?”

“She may be cooling on him, too. I guess she’s been figuring who wanted her bumped off, and it obviously wasn’t those hoodlums who were going to do it. She was pretty quiet on the train and boat over – thank God. I think she was thinking.”

Ranklin chose one of the maps. “If I can borrow this?”

“Sure. What are you going to do? – and what d’you want bicycles for?”

He hesitated, then decided it didn’t matter, so told her.

“And what are you going to do with Berenice?”

“Well, unless you feel like-”

“No. Absolutely no. Pop’d have a fit and disinherit me if he came back and found her here. I truly am not going to do it.”

“Quite, quite. You’ve done more than your share already. Actually, it may not be a bad idea to take her with us. Keep her from talking to anyone, and if she’s really gone sour on Gorkin she may help persuade Mrs Langhorn to feel the same way.”

“I wouldn’t bet on her and Mrs Langhorn being best chums. Any mother’s going to think her son can do better than Berenice Collomb.” She led the way out.

Ranklin followed, recalling that Berenice usually referred to Mrs Langhorn as “that old cow”.

In the drawing-room Jules had, after all, found time to provide coffee and drinks. Ranklin gave the map to O’Gilroy and asked him to work out where they should start, then helped himself to coffee and went back to Corinna.

“There’s another thing you might help on. You know journalists and their ways: is there anything we can do to stop the story being published?”

“By Dr Gorkin, you mean? How much does he know?”

“Most. The Grover-being-the-King’s-son bit and a lot about us and the Palace trying to snooker it.”

“A good up-to-date peg to hang it on.”

“That’s rather what I-” But then a voice-pipe whistled in the hallway and after a moment Jules came in to announce that the garagiste was downstairs with a new DSP tourer.

“Never mind,” Ranklin told Corinna. “Later, if there’s time.”

He saw the indecision in her expression and said nothing. O’Gilroy had folded up the map, Jay had put down his cup and was putting on his charming-farewell smile. Berenice was sitting slumped with half a glass of something.

“Oh, bugger it,” Corinna said. “I didn’t come last time, I’m coming this one.”

“Look, I’m not-”

“Shut up. I was in on the first scene, I may as well be in on the last.”

Half an hour later they had passed through the Porte de Pantin and were speeding up along the Chalons-sur-Marne road, O’Gilroy driving. Ranklin had automatically let him do that, knowing the man believed in mechanical things, but Jay wasn’t so happy. He was prepared to defer to the back-street Irishman on back-street matters, but his family had owned motor-cars since they were invented. He sometimes doubted O’Gilroy’s family had owned so much as a bath.

But he had the sense to say nothing.

The taxi driver had been right: the map showed Meaux to be about forty kilometres by road, but the canal twisted around in the valley of the Marne itself and looked longer. There were locks, too, which should slow things up. They had no fear of the barge already being at Meaux: the question was where they should start looking. As a preliminary strategy they decided to divert and cross the canal wherever there was a bridge that might give a viewpoint.