Gavin Lyall - Spy’s Honour

“Yes. Damn. But I suppose it fits: him in Paris on a temporary attachment to meet Hornbeam and see him doing his lecture at the Embassy, then coming here for the Grand Finale – No, of course, you don’t know about that. Talking to Klapka the lawyer …” He brought O’Gilroy up to date on the morning’s doings and discoveries, ending up: “So there’s no hope of any advice from Uncle Charlie. We’re on our own.”

“Ye think so?” A car crunched the gravel below and Ranklin peeked cautiously around the window frame to see the Baroness and the lithe, moustachioed Major step down from the hired Benz.

“You know the Baroness Schramm,” Corinna said, “but I don’t think you’ve met Major Stanzer. Her cousin .” They didn’t know Corinna well, so Ranklin hoped they hadn’t caught the disbelief in her tone. He bowed to the Major across the table and sat down.

“Have you come to hear Professor Hornbeam speak tonight?” he asked to keep the conversation going while he looked Stanzer over. A man of action was the first impression: muscular and restless. A handsome face with a quick smile and a fair moustache that was as well tended as any Englishman’s lawn. He wore a hairy country suit that showed his opinion of Budapest.

“That is so,” he said. “I have heard him in Paris, but now I understand more about international law, so perhaps I ask him a question, no?”

Ah, Ranklin thought, is that how Hornbeam’s announcement is going to be triggered? He said: “I hope he knows the answer.”

“I am sure the Herr Professor knows all answers,” and Stanzer gave his quick smile that didn’t seem to mean much.

“Is Conall lunching?” Corinna asked Ranklin.

“He’s still working on the tariff figures. I asked for something to be sent up to him.”

While Corinna was being baffled by this return of her own fiction, the Baroness muttered to Stanzer: “Herr Ranklin und Herr Gilroy sind Kaufleute.” She didn’t need to emphasise that “businessmen”: Stanzer’s smile showed he forgave Ranklin for having crawled from under his rock before nightfall.

But Corinna’s hearing and German were just as good. “Major Stanzer,” she beamed, “makes his living by riding horses. Isn’t that clever of him?”

Ranklin cringed inside; we should ask the waiters, when they come, to save us trouble by throwing the food for us. And he was quite content to be despised by the cavalry officer: you aren’t suspicious of those you despise.

Well, well, he thought; my attitudes really are changing.

“We believe there are great business opportunities in Hungary,” he announced. “Primarily it’s a matter of increasing efficiency in the fledgling industries you already have. Take pig iron production, for example. Here you produce only sixty pounds a year per worker, while in Germany the figure is over five hundred and in the USA …”

By the time the first course arrived he had lowered the emotional temperature to near zero. And nobody could fail to despise his devotion to business.

They were halfway through the main courses – stuffed pepper, for Ranklin – when a young man came round the corner of the building, paused to look around the tables, then hurried over to Stanzer. From his deference and stiffness of pose, Ranklin reckoned he was another Army officer.

Stanzer stood up, bowed to them all, and said: “I am most sorry, please excuse … It is urgent …” He murmured something to the Baroness that Ranklin couldn’t catch, and hurried off.

“Dear me,” Corinna said brightly. “I do hope his horse isn’t feeling unwell.”

The Baroness gave her a look that was pure paprika – but she was worried. After picking at her lunch for a minute or two, she threw down her napkin and walked back into the hotel.

“Any more of this,” Corinna said, “and the chef’s going to have a nervous collapse. Have you any idea what that was about?”

Ranklin shook his head. “I think it may be time for what your original countrymen would call a pow-wow.”

Corinna nodded. “Cousin, my ass.”

“Meeting of the British Secret Service, House of Sherring branch, will come to order,” Corinna announced brightly.

“For God’s sake …” Ranklin winced.

She grinned, then called: “Conall, are you with us?”

O’Gilroy was standing at one of the windows of the billiard room, staring up at the tops of the thunderclouds moving in from the north-west. He was always fascinated by their detail, by the exquisite fineness of every last curl, that existed simply to cloak a drifting inferno. Perhaps it gave perspective to his thoughts – only the thoughts swilling around him were pretty big and awesome already.

“I’m with ye.” He turned back to the room.

“And we all know what Dr Klapka said, what Matt deduced and what he’s done and been told?” She sat in a high wing chair against the wall by the marker board, occasionally and impatiently swatting the soggy air with her fan. The room was low-ceilinged, dark and smelt of dust. From the cafe by the baths a military band was marching the late lunchers through their pudding and coffee.

“And about this Austrian Major Stanzer?” Corinna added.

“He’s part of it,” Ranklin said. “The next link in the chain up from the Baroness, we assume. But we don’t know why he went tearing off in the middle of lunch.”

“There was a couple of fellers in a car come to pick him up.” O’Gilroy had been watching from his bedroom.

“Really?” Ranklin considered this. He had abandoned his jacket and perched himself on the billiard table, rolling a ball off two cushions and back to his hand, over and over.

“D’you want to sum up, Matt?” Corinna offered.

Ranklin hesitated, then began abruptly: “The plot begins at a very high level, perhaps in the Army, certainly the Army’s involved. That’s where Major Stanzer comes in.”

Corinna made a face; Ranklin looked to O’Gilroy: “What would you say of him?”

“He’s more’n the fancy boy he looks,” O’Gilroy admitted, and when Corinna looked puzzled, went on: “I had some dealings with him in Paris; business, ye might say …” His voice trailed off.

Corinna smiled lopsidedly. “So that’s why you were lunching alone.”

Ranklin took over: “I assume he’s Army Intelligence, from the way he can jump from place to place.” He smiled suddenly. “If he is , I wonder if it’s occurred to him that Colonel Redl must have had a say in his selection. And since the Colonel was working for the Russians, he wouldn’t be selecting the best and brainiest … However, if all Stanzer’s here to do is ask a question at the lecture, he should manage that without tripping over his moustache.

“ Anyway , I think the idea isn’t so much to stop the Archduke becoming Emperor as to discredit him right now – just temporarily – when the Emperor’s taking advice on whether or not to accept the Bucharest peace treaty. Whether to opt for war or peace, in effect. And I’m told the Emperor thinks highly of the Archduke – and, presumably, his advice – at this moment. And, though I’m less sure about this, I think the Archduke may be advising peace – on purely military grounds.”

“That bastard,” O’Gilroy muttered.

Corinna frowned as she worked through this. “So we’re not just talking about who gets the big part in the next Habsburg play, but a whole European war? – that’s what you believe, isn’t it?”

Ranklin nodded, and she looked at O’Gilroy. “Conall?”

O’Gilroy shrugged. “Whatever the Captain says. I’m way over me head in matters this size.”

She looked back at Ranklin. “Well, last night you thought things would be simpler if it were a nice big plot. Today it seems it is. Only we aren’t quite sure where the Archduke stands; do we need to be?”