Gavin Lyall - Flight From Honour

Signora Falcone controlled herself and called for Matteo. He took one look, started explaining the problem and its solution, but then saw her expression and vanished to the garage.

She turned to Corinna, smiling professionally. “And you, my dear, perhaps you’d care to bathe before dinner? I want to go over a few details of tomorrow’s demonstration with Mr O’Gilroy.”

There wasn’t much Corinna could do but accept graciously. But she dawdled her way and managed to hear Signora Falcone saying: “Giancarlo – the Senator – will be back on the sleeper early tomorrow morning, so he will tell . . .”

Well, Corinna reflected, now Conall’s finding out whether I, a mere woman , had deduced the truth about tomorrow’s demonstration’. And as she turned along the gallery to her room, she ran into a distinct whiff of lavender water. So d’Annunzio had arrived, she’d been right about that, and walked slower until her nose and the sound of movement identified his room – next to hers. Probably that corner was all guest bedrooms; still, she’d remember to lock her door.

She took her time with bathing, dressing, and sorting out her hair – she now didn’t want a strange maid distracting her – and thinking. With Andrew safely out of any plot, it really wasn’t any longer her business. Conall could look after himself, might even be acting under orders – though he’d seemed genuinely worried – and Ranklin wouldn’t thank her for interfering in British policy, if that were involved. It might be wiser to think of the House of Sherring’s good name, since London had a way of having a quiet word with itself that could leave you suddenly out in the cold. But those schemers downstairs had still, she believed, planned to talk Andrew into something dirty. He’d probably have let them, too. She wasn’t in a hurry to forgive that.

She came out of her bedroom wearing a royal blue evening dress and carrying just a small purse. The scent of lavender was still there, perhaps renewed. She paused, standing back from the balustrade of the gallery, and listened. There was a gentle babble of conversation in Italian from the big hall below. That was the hub of the house, onto which all the ground-floor doors opened and where both staircases began. People naturally gathered there and it had little Italian formality: chairs and small tables scattered in a way that would have been cosy if you couldn’t have thrown a party for a hundred people in the space. D’Annunzio would be down there by now, and if she couldn’t see anybody, nobody could see her. She stayed back by the wall and sidled towards his room, trying to remember just what a New York detective had told her about how a skilled burglar worked.

Probably Novak wasn’t even in the Castello; certainly he would want to hear Pero report first and alone. Meanwhile, Ranklin was kept waiting in a room that was only slightly more office than cell, watched by two large soldiers. They regarded him with some awe, but also as if they could overcome that if he gave them an excuse. So he sat quietly, at first wondering if he were really betraying the Count and deciding, a little surprised, that the question was a waste of thought. What mattered now was working out just what Novak would believe.

At last he was called through into a slightly larger, military-style office with sheaves of printed orders and a couple of maps hung on the walls. Novak had placed himself behind someone else’s table, Pero on a chair at one side.

“So.” Novak glowered heavily and launched into his own brand of German; it was a good language for climactic speeches. “So we have an agent of the famous English Secret Service. Odd, but you look like any other slimy little spy to me. And Pero here has told me everything, everything , that you and the Count plotted together – see?” He flourished two pages of notes. “So your pitiful denials will be useless, quite useless. Your one hope – and it’s a thin one, I warn you – is to make a complete confession. Because even more than wanting to watch you rot into fungus in some forgotten cell, I want to see the Count on the gallows. Twenty years he’s spent plotting treasons at his cafe table, and now I have him in my hand. So: make your confession complete enough to hang the Count for treason and I might perjure my immortal soul to let you off lightly. Begin.”

“Yes, that’s fine, but it isn’t what I wanted to see you about.” Ranklin helped himself to a cigarette from the packet on the desk. “Actually, I need your help-”

Novak leaped to his feet, roaring: “I did not say you could smoke! Especially not my cigarettes! You want my help? Dear God, for that I’ll testify that you called the Emperor a fornicating old fossil and hang both of you for treason.” He sat down and his tone made a chameleon change. “What made you think Pero here was an informer?”

“He was good,” Ranklin lied, “but his teeth were too good for the rest of him. Just staining them isn’t enough.”

Pero smiled, then hastily shut his mouth and worked his tongue at the stains. “It feels horrible,” he murmured.

“Was that all?” Novak demanded.

The honest answer was that Pero had to be an informer. There was no point in bringing himself and the Count together without someone to overhear. After that, everything about Pero, from the excessively greedy way he ate to the impersonal raggedness of his clothes, had seemed stagey, convincing from the back row of the stalls but not close to.

But honesty would only help them improve the act for the next British agent they nabbed. Ranklin shrugged and conceded: “His feet, too. Down-and-outs let their feet rot.”

“Ach!” Novak’s act became one of melodramatic delight. “You betray yourself! Such careful observation confirms you are a snivelling spy.” He jerked his head at Pero. “All right, you can go and clean yourself up. Also, you might be sickened to watch what I may do to this disgusting maggot. You did well enough.”

Pero clicked his heels at Novak, gave Ranklin a sympathetic grin, and vanished. Novak lit a cigarette and slumped in his chair. “Go on, say something. I’m beyond surprise. Help , Dear God.” Behaving like an erratic fuse was obviously intended to keep Novak’s victims off balance, worrying that he might explode. But behind it, Ranklin guessed, was a shrewd, nasty, and committed mind. But committed to what?

He took a cautious drag on his own cigarette, which tasted of perfume-soaked hay. “I assume you know that Senator Falcone has bought an aeroplane in Britain and plans to provoke a violent strike in the shipyards here. Naturally, the British Government dislikes having such plots hatched on its territory, so I came here to discover more. And, since you were kind enough to lock me up with the Count, I did discover more – but unfortunately not everything. Perhaps together, we can work out what’s missing.”

“Together?” Novak made a wild gesture of despair. “Now I’m expected to collaborate with a loathsome creeping spy . . . But go on, go on.”

“Tomorrow, they’re going to fly-”

“Are you sure about tomorrow? Pero reports that you were trying to beat that out of the Count, but-”

“It’s tomorrow: I could see the Count’s face, Pero couldn’t. Is it some anniversary of Oberdan?”

“This whole damned time is the anniversary of Oberdan,” Novak grumbled, “but tomorrow has no special meaning. Continue.”

“Tomorrow they’ll fly over in the aeroplane and do something to try and stir up the strike – or worse, possibly. And I’d guess they’re planning to spray the city with machine-gun fire.”

“Guessing? You’re guessing? You can’t guess with me, you vile cockroach. You may cheat your English masters with your idleness, but with me you’re pleading for your life! Remember that.”