Gavin Lyall - Flight From Honour

“An English businessman with connections to the House of Sherring.”

“That sounds as if it could easily be verified – or disproven.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm . . . I seem to be taking a long time to explain this dish, which is no more than rice and vegetables. Perhaps I should wave my hands in culinary gestures. I think we should meet more privately, most of the waiters here are police spies . . . Do you know the Galleria di Montuzza, the tunnel under the Castello?”

“I can find it. You could suggest other dishes instead.”

“An excellent idea. If you are just inside the tunnel at the Piazza Goldoni end at four this afternoon, my carriage will pick you up and nobody will see. More seriously, I recommend this dish: the scaloppa .”

“You’re most kind.”

“ Prego .”

Ranklin stayed and ate his scaloppa without another glance at the Count’s table. He seemed to have found the right man, and been invited to a Secret Meeting. He would rather it had been a mire secret meeting, but the Count’s flamboyance wouldn’t allow that. With contacts, too, you had to work with what you’d got.

Putting the Oriole together again at Veneria aerodrome was a much longer job than dismantling it had been. It was covered in smoke-smuts and with a couple of small rips in the wing fabric. These weren’t serious – such things happened all the time – but Andrew insisted on doing the patching himself, trimming the ripped area, sealing on a new patch with cellulose dope, then weather-proofing it with varnish. O’Gilroy was permitted to wash off the smuts.

After lunch they began the re-assembly. In principle this was straightforward; in practice it was a cautious procedure of reattaching wires, both for control and rigging, then tightening or loosening each one on turnbuckles to achieve what Andrew saw as just the right tension. Two experienced pilots could disagree on the last touches of rigging, preferring marginally different wing incidence or stiffness. As yet, O’Gilroy had no views; he hadn’t even touched the Oriole’s controls, since they were all on Andrew’s side. His job had been map-reading, keeping the engine log, and passing sandwiches.

But when he wasn’t doing any of these, he had studied Andrew’s hands as they coped with the ripples and bumps he could himself feel in the air.

Around what would have been tea-time if Italy had such a time, O’Gilroy primed each cylinder with petrol, spun the propeller, and saw Andrew off on a short test flight. As he watched the aeroplane bobbing and weaving around the local sky, a large cream-and-red tourer drove onto the field and the chauffeur released Signora Falcone.

“Is that our aeroplane?” she asked, looking up.

“It is, ma’am.”

“And is all well?”

“Seems to be.”

“Good. But it’s most annoying. I’ve just had a telegram-” she flourished it unnecessarily; “-from Gabri. D’Annunzio. It seems . . . No, I’ll explain to Mr Sherring when he gets down.”

She treated O’Gilroy with polite reserve, obviously puzzled by the way he seemed to crop up, first as her husband’s bodyguard, then as Andrew’s assistant. And perhaps the Irish accent reminded her of her own social climb. She must have been better born than O’Gilroy, but true Dublin society didn’t let its daughters go on the stage.

The Oriole drifted down to a smooth landing and O’Gilroy joined the mechanics in man-handling it over to the usual sheds. Andrew climbed down. “A little tightening up on the underside wires, they always work a bit loose after re-rigging. And I’ve put another twenty minutes on the engine, don’t forget that.” He turned to Signora Falcone. “All ready to go, Signora. When’s the-”

“I have just had news: that vexing man d’Annunzio now wants us to do the first demonstration in Venice – of all places. Some people there he wants to impress, and we’re really in his hands. So I’m going to have to ask you if you can fly there tomorrow, I think it’s only just over two hundred miles . . .”

“Fine, whatever you say.” Andrew was untroubled. “All we need is a map. Maybe we can make it part of the demonstration, a timed trial?”

“As you like. But luckily our main home is near Venice and Giancarlo did much of his flying from one of our fields, so you can land there. I don’t suppose Mrs Finn will want to come, it’s a dreary journey by train, and Turin’s much more a centre of things.”

I wish I dared ask her to bet on that, O’Gilroy thought.

After lunch, Ranklin sat in the hotel lobby and wrote out a cable that started “First impression” and included the phrase “apparently stable workforce with no inclination to strike and good economic reasons not to”, then had it sent to one of the Bureau’s accommodation addresses in London. He wasn’t yet ready to advise Dagner to back out of what might prove a fiasco (though possibly, thank God, an unnoticed one) but he could sound a warning. He still hoped to learn more from the Count.

So at four o’clock, he was loitering just inside the tunnel entrance, which was framed by operatic flights of stairs leading to the Castello, and feeling as obvious as an anarchist with a sizzling bomb.

A closed four-wheeler drew up beside him, the door swung open and he stepped up and in, rocking the little carriage like a dinghy.

“Excellently contrived,” the Count said from the companionable darkness beside him, and rapped on the front with his cane. The driver whipped the horse into a sedate plod. “Perhaps you have more complete news of matters in England? – I received only a guarded cable.”

“You know the Senator was attacked: it was by two Italian thugs, one of whom was killed that evening in London by certain new friends of the Senator. The other escaped. The Senator lost a lot of blood but otherwise it wasn’t serious, he’ll return to Turin as soon as he can travel. Signora Falcone arrived from Paris, so everything continues as planned. All right so far?”

He left the implication that there was more hanging and kept his voice unemotional, but his inner self pleaded for the Count to give him a lead.

And quite calmly the Count said: “I understand. And the aeroplane?”

My God, it is involved. But how? – how do you start a shipyard strike with a flying machine?

“It left for France the day I left London. I know nothing more, but it should be in Turin by now.”

“Ah, excellent.” Gas lamps stuck out on ornate arms from the walls of the tunnel and in their intermittent flares, he saw the Count’s head bowed as if brooding. One window of the carriage was open, letting in the echoing clip-clop of their own and other horses, along with a concentrated horse smell.

The Count raised his head and peered at him. “Are you permitted to tell me whom, apart from the House of Sherring, you represent? – so ably, if I may say so.”

“You recall that I said the Senator had certain new friends in London. Our assistance is entirely unofficial, you understand.”

“Ah, when was England’s interest in anything ever official?” the Count chuckled. “And you are here to report – unofficially – on the outcome, I presume?”

Ranklin made a noise that (unofficially) could have been agreement. “But I was talking this morning with some dealers on the Exchange . . . They had the impression that the shipyard workers were very content with their lot. At the moment.”

“Indeed. That has always been the problem, the selfishness of the working man.”

The Count would have been right at home in an Army mess. Ranklin said: “But you’re happy that this can be overcome?”

“Oh yes . . .”

Ranklin tried again. “I may be called home soon, going back through Italy. So if you have any message for the Senator – or perhaps the Signora . . .”