Gavin Lyall - Honourable Intentions

Looking grim again, the Commander came in with a surprising knowledge of financial politics – surprising to Ranklin, anyway. “Madam, I can only see us needing to sell more Treasury bonds abroad in an exceptional circumstance – such as a European war. And a long one.”

“Is that truly so?” Corinna was an innocent little girl again. “Dear me. Still, it helps to be prepared, don’t you think? So you will remember?”

“Are you blackmailing us, Mrs Finn?”

“Me, sir? Blackmail? What a terrible thought. No, I’m just doing what is known in my humble trade as a ‘deal’. A quid - or dollar – pro quo.” She shifted her smile to Ranklin. “Yes, I sent our people to see Mrs Langhorn, but she’d gone, bag and baggage, and no forwarding address. It was just a pension, and a pretty lowly one, anyway. But another thing Grover told our vice-consul: she was born English, Miss Bowman.”

“Thank you. And would it now be too much to ask that you leave the rest to us?”

“Delighted. I must get back to the office. Thank you so much for the tea, and it was a pleasure meeting you again, Commander . . . Smith.”

Ranklin walked with her to the hotel lobby. “Thank you again, but . . . may I offer a word of warning?”

This was still her home ground; she nodded cheerfully.

“You held things up for at least a day sending your Paris people to see the lad’s mother because, if I know you, you wanted the full story before you came to us. So here’s the warning: don’t try to be clever when it comes to our monarchy. No deals. Just hope for gratitude.”

“I’ve heard you say things about your kings that I’d never dare.”

Ranklin nodded. “We all do. It’s fashionable. But there can be a very sudden closing of ranks, too. I’d hate to see you caught on the outside.”

When he got back to the Commander they sat in silence for a while. Then the Commander said: “Is she usually so . . .” He was obviously trying to think of a (relatively) polite synonym for “mercenary”.

“She has an instinct for doing deals; she’s a banker. But banking is a secretive trade, too.”

“Hm.” The Commander felt in his pocket and took out the violet-paper letter. “The woman’s spelling suggests she’s either daughter of a duke or a dustman. I’d guess the dustman. And obviously she’s in on it: tipping off the American Consul to start the ball rolling, and then vanishing. I presume it’s all to get us to let her son off . . . What else have we got?”

“D’you think we should be taking this seriously, then?”

“That’s the first thing to find out.”

“But we don’t even know what it is that the lad’s threatening.”

“Then that’s the first thing to find out.”

“And whether we’re really the right people to tackle-”

“Damn it, it was your girl-friend who dumped it in our lap. If we go to the police that’s just spreading it. And they probably wouldn’t do anything because he hasn’t committed any offence – over here, that is. And I don’t propose to give it to Kell and his people.” Relations with their sister counter-spy service had recently become a little strained.

Ranklin nodded unenthusiastically. “Well, I’ll go along to Bow Street tomorrow; I don’t know if I’ll learn anything, but . . . Should we ask O’Gilroy to have a look at back numbers of the Paris papers?”

“Good idea. Send him a telegram – but don’t let him know why we want to know.”

Ranklin let that slur pass; anyway, the Commander was still thoroughly irritated by Corinna and didn’t care about Ranklin’s feelings. “I know you’ve usually worked with him and trust him, but we want to keep this as small as possible. Anyway, as an Irishman he probably thinks royal scandals are a good thing.”

“Don’t we all – as newspaper readers? But do we want to get in touch with the lad himself?”

“How?” the Commander growled. “We can’t go along to Brixton and demand to see him, we’d have to go through Quinton or the American consulate-”

“- or we could try slipping O’Gilroy into his cell on a fake dynamiting charge, and let them swap grievances and brigandry techniques. There, O’Gilroy can be as republican as he likes.”

As Ranklin expected, the prospect of behaving dishonestly cheered the Commander up immediately. “Ye-es . . . All right: get him here by tomorrow night, bringing whatever he’s got about the arson, and if the whole thing hasn’t fizzled out by then . . . we’ll see.”

Ranklin nodded, hiding the uplift he got from prospectively having the Irishman back. O’Gilroy was, unofficially, their Man in Paris. He was there mainly because he had to be somewhere, and London was too full of other Irishmen who wanted to cut his throat. He wasn’t much good at French politics, but there was no shortage of self-styled experts on that; what O’Gilroy now knew was the Paris streets. Ranklin felt he himself belonged there, too: the Bureau’s job was abroad, and Paris was eight hours closer to anything happening on the Continent.

The Commander may have suspected how he’d been led to his decision, because he went on looking at Ranklin. “You know, you’re not a bad second-in-command.” Then added explosively: “But by God – you’ve got a bloody funny taste in girl-friends.”

“My name is Detective Inspector Thomas Hector McDaniel of Bow Street Police Station.” Ranklin was particularly glad to hear those words, the point being that he could hear them, after three-quarters of an hour of straining and guessing.

Popular myth has it that court-rooms provide scenes of natural drama. Not this one: most of that morning would have been upstaged by a public reading of the London Street Directory. He couldn’t even study Grover Langhorn. Jammed among the spectators at the back, Ranklin was facing the magistrates’ bench, but so was Langhorn, standing in the raised dock in front of him. By the end of the morning, Ranklin knew he would recognise that slight and shabby back view of baggy check trousers and dark blue donkey jacket for the rest of his life, but he had yet to glimpse the face.

Moreover, once Langhorn had agreed he was who he was supposed to be, he apparently became irrelevant to the routine going on around him. Documents were passed, mulled over and agreed upon, men in old-fashioned frock coats, one being Noah Quinton, bobbed up, murmured things, and sat down when the magistrate had murmured back.

Then came Inspector McDaniel (it was odd how many London policemen had obviously been born elsewhere; were native Londoners too finicky or too corrupt?). He was bald-headed, walrus-moustached, as well fed as any lawyer, and probably as familiar with court-rooms. He gave his evidence loudly and confidently, pausing after each sentence so that the clerk could write it down. “Acting on information received” he had proceeded to 29 Great Garden Street . . . He there saw a man who admitted he was Grover Langhorn . . . Yes, he is the man standing in the dock there . . . He then arrested said man on a warrant issued by the Bow Street magistrate on the second of April . . .

The slow delivery let Ranklin’s attention wander to the others crammed beside him in the public seats. He had thought carefully about how he should dress that day, but after dismissing the idea of posing as a Cockney as impossible, and a farmer-in-town-for-the-day from his native Gloucestershire as improbable, he had just dressed as himself. He knew he would look vaguely official – just how, he wasn’t sure, but he had to accept it – but hoped the case would attract vaguely official attention anyway. And so it had: those around and altogether too close to him were definitely official-looking; he thought he recognised at least one face from the Foreign Office. Indeed, the one man who stood out was wearing a non-London check suit. He was taking assiduous notes.