Gavin Lyall - Flight From Honour

Ranklin wanted to say “Sorry, old boy, but that isn’t my department” but it was so exactly what a real War Office desk-hussar would say that it sounded a parody. So he said: “God and generals both have mysterious ways, but only God actually moves.”

Andrew snorted. Falcone smiled and said: “So, I must be here on Thursday.”

“After lunch. Only I’d get here before – you’ll find me around here. Are you coming, Corrie?”

“Maybe.”

“Captain?”

“It’s a working day. Depends what my superiors want me working at.”

They ate for a few minutes, then Falcone asked: “Your machine – what happens to it now?”

Andrew shrugged, a large, slow movement. “Don’t know. Farnborough’s at least agreed to test it, to see if the British Army could use it. I’ve got to deliver it there next week. But they’re very old-maidish about monoplanes after just a few accidents . . .”

“You do not think of flying it in the Gordon Bennett race in France next week? That would be good advertising.”

Andrew smiled wryly. “Coming in last? No, they’ll be going forty miles an hour faster’n the Oriole. She’s a working airplane, not a racer. No, when Farnborough’s turned it down, I’ll probably tinker with it some more, then ship it back to the States and see if anybody’s interested.”

Falcone chewed thoughtfully for a while, then said: “I believe someone in Italy would like to show it to our army.”

Andrew brightened up. “No fooling?”

“I will send a cable today . . . But you say it must go to Farnborough next week?”

“Yes, that’s official now. I’m sure they’ll turn it down, but it’s got to go.”

Falcone nodded. “I understand. We can talk some more – you are always here? – but if you would please write for me the performance figure, speed and distance . . .”

“Right away.” Andrew began searching his pockets for pen and paper.

“I do wish,” Corinna said frowning, “you’d built a peaceful airplane.”

“Who for?” Andrew demanded without looking up from his scribbling. “Airplanes cost money. And who’s got money? – governments. And what do governments spend money on? – weapons. Not flying omnibuses and taxi-cabs, I’d be building those if anybody asked, but the way things are . . .” He shrugged and went on writing.

After lunch, the party split up. Ranklin would have liked to have had a long quiet word with O’Gilroy, but that might make Falcone suspicious of him. It was one thing for the Senator to be in touch with the Bureau, but a mistake to let him know he was quite so much in touch. So he stuck to Corinna.

“Were you planning to invite me to dinner?” she asked casually.

“I was. I thought-”

“In that case why don’t we have it at my apartment?” This was an annex to her father’s flat in Clarges Street, which she had insisted be self-contained except for sharing a kitchen and servants – only two when Sherring himself wasn’t there. “I kind of think the staff have run up a cold supper and then taken the evening off.”

Ranklin suppressed the warm surge of anticipation as they strolled towards the car. The chauffeur was waiting, holding the big envelope Falcone had picked up at the hotel and then forgotten. “I took the liberty of looking after this, sir, rather nor leave it laying in the car. These days you can’t trust-”

“Thank you, thank you.” Falcone took it, wondered whether to tip the man, and properly decided not. “Will you permit it-?” He began opening the envelope. “I do not know what it is, I expected nothing . . .” And that was about what he’d got: a couple of rough-printed sheets of paper. He shrugged and looked around for somewhere to throw them away.

Suddenly Ranklin remembered his real job. “D’you mind if I see those?”

The papers gave the times of services and other information about the Italian church of St Peter in Back Hill, Clerkenwell – just the sort of thing to be handed out to a new immigrant or Italian visitor. At the Ritz ? But there was no address on the envelope, just Senatore G. Falcone. The handwriting could have been Italian.

“Do they expect me to go to confession in Clerkenwell?” Falcone said jovially. “These priests, all they want is more money.”

But an Italian priest would have anticipated that attitude and taken the trouble to write a personal note of welcome. Ranklin turned to Corinna: “Would you forgive us?” and he urged Falcone aside, annoyed that O’Gilroy wasn’t here to handle this and leave his War Office character unbesmirched. But he had no choice. “I’m afraid it looks as if you aren’t safe in England. I think you’ve been followed here.”

Falcone was surprised, but Ranklin wouldn’t have said scared. Nor was he used to this sort of thing, because he still looked puzzled.

“No address,” Ranklin explained. “Somebody hawked the letter around the leading hotels until one accepted it. Now he knows where you’re staying.”

Falcone took this without argument, beyond: “It would be more quick to call by telephone.”

“For you or me, yes. But probably these people don’t have a private telephone, or don’t speak English well enough . . . Do you have any idea of who they are?”

Falcone hesitated, looking at Ranklin carefully. “You say you are from your Ministry of War . . .”

“We’re one big happy family and we try to be good hosts. Do you have any idea about these people? – this suggests they could be Italian.”

“I may guess who sent them – but not whom they sent.”

“You could go to the police again. They’d have to take this seriously.”

Falcone wasn’t used to this sort of danger. The reality of it had taken time to sink in, but now his eyes flickered side to side and he wore a thoughtful frown. “Yes, that is possible . . . but it would be a trouble for them . . .”

He presumably didn’t want to be murdered, but – Ranklin guessed – he didn’t want British officialdom watching his every step, either. And Ranklin was in no position to insist on anything. But neither could he abandon Falcone now.

“Then I suggest you move out of the Ritz as soon as we get back – and leave no forwarding address. I don’t know how easy it is to register under a false name in London hotels . . . You don’t belong to a London club, or an Italian one with a reciprocal arrangement with one here? Or would your ambassador put you up?”

“No.” Presumably Falcone was answering the last question first: he didn’t want his embassy looking over his shoulder, either. “Perhaps I am going to a hotel by here?”

Why not? The Hound and Spear probably didn’t meet the Senator’s standards, but there must be others within easy motor-ride. Probably Corinna had a guide book in the car. Corinna! – Ranklin suddenly realised that if Falcone was in danger then so, until they got rid of him, was Corinna. His own eyes started flickering and he wished he were armed.

But, once they were in the car and with the window to the chauffeur firmly shut, he had to explain as much as he could. “It seems that somebody’s stalking the Senator and they’ve pinpointed the Ritz. We have to assume they were watching, this morning, and saw him get into this car and they’ve pinpointed it, too.”

She took it quite calmly. Which was useful but a little disturbing, as if she expected Ranklin to move in an aura of trouble like a permanent garlic breath. “Then,” she suggested, “we could stop before the hotel and Senator Falcone could switch to a taxi. Or there must be some back way.”

“No,” Ranklin said firmly. “The other way around. We’re going to try and unravel any association between him and this car, and you, by delivering him back to the main entrance in plain view. I am not ,” he went on, looking at Falcone, “having your problems spill over onto Mrs Finn. That is my first concern. We can start playing taxi-cab games after that.”