His people were shocked. The reticence of the bulletins had drawn knots instead of crowds to the Palace railings. The King had worn the crown of scandal, but earned the affection of his easygoing, race-loving, self-indulgent subjects as deservedly as his nickname 'Tum-tum.' He was crowned with France and Russia his country's implacable enemies. He died leaving them enduring friends.
'You'll enjoy the royal funeral,' Eliot told Nancy that Saturday evening. 'We do those sort of things terrifically well.'
Eliot heard the doorbell. There were hurried footsteps on the stairs. The door flew open without a knock. Ruston appeared with Wince, who carried a brown attachй case. Both stopped, staring at Nancy. She sat on a stool between the fireplace and Eliot, who stood unmoving, hands in pockets, resentful of the interruption.
'We're just going out to dine. Can I offer you fellows a b and s?'
Ruston's gesture brushed aside brandy and soda. 'I want to speak to you, Eliot. In confidence.'
'Miss Grange's discretion is as remarkable as her intelligence.'
'I must insist on seeing you alone.'
Ruston sounded angry. He called every week, his business trivial-generally chiding Eliot on not distributing the movement's tracts among the doctors, lawyers, ministers of religion and similar professional men who might afford him confidence. Eliot objected that he was too busy patching the sick poor to ring middle-class doorbells. He knew that Ruston himself wrote the tracts, and thought them intellectually powerfully persuasive.
Nancy stood. 'I've anyway to see Frau Ebert about our Sunday dinner,' she said accommodatingly.
'Why must you keep company with that woman?' asked Ruston peevishly as the door shut.
'Marat was married and even the incorruptable Robespierre was not celibate.'
'Women interfere.' Wince laid the attachй on the table, unlocking it with a key on a bunch from his trouser pocket. 'And talk.'
'What we are to say musn't reach another ear, Eliot, even in a whisper. You'll swear to that?'
'I can hardly give my sacred oath if we regard the Bible as capitalist propaganda. You can't have it both ways.'
'It makes no difference if you agree or not,' Ruston told him impatiently. 'The only way to keep a man's mouth shut is assuring him that his head will come off if he opens it. You know we can do that, don't you?' he asked menacingly. 'Remember what happened to Thompson.'
Thompson was a young schoolmaster Eliot had known in the movement before leaving for Champette. While Eliot was in Switzerland, Thompson's body had been found in Hackney Marshes with a bullet in the brain. Neither Eliot, nor seemingly Ruston, nor certainly Scotland Yard, had a precise notion of the murderer or the motive. But the reference was enough to make Eliot uneasy.
'I'd never tell my old woman so much as the time o'day.' Wince was spreading on the table the yard-long sheet of an Ordnance Survey map. 'She'd always look out someone to pass the news to.'
'Well, Eliot, now's a chance to show what you're made of.' Ruston's smile was more sarcastic than inspiring. 'His Imperial Majesty Kaiser William II will soon be within our shores. Our fat King's funeral is May 21, a fortnight today. As his nephew, the Kaiser's importance in the ceremony will be separated only by our new King George from that of the corpse.'
Wince nodded, producing his curly pipe and tobacco-pouch.
'I don't think anyone knows at the moment when the Kaiser will leave Berlin, not even the Kaiser himself,' Ruston continued. 'He's due to attend a lecture next week by the outspoken Mr Theodore Roosevelt at Berlin University, and he won't miss the chance of presenting himself as a man who can appreciate American politicians. Particularly one demanding Britain to get out of Egypt. What we're pretty sure about is our friend's route. The Imperial yacht Hohenzollen will berth here at Sheerness, on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey.'
Eliot looked obediently at the map. The oval island in the Thames Estuary, some ten miles by five, was separated from the north Kent coast by a narrow reach of sea choked with sandbanks. To the west lay the mouth of the River Medway and Rochester, reminding Eliot of Charles Dickens. To the east, the tiny port of Whitstable, reminding Eliot of oysters.
'We shall know when Kaiser Bill arrives with no more trouble than reading the newspapers,' Ruston resumed enthusiastically. 'We'll know the time his train leaves for London, because there'll be a reception committee in feathered hats at Victoria. That'll be announced in advance by the newspapers as well.'
Wince held a match over his pipe-bowl with one hand. 'Bin spyin' out the land for just this chance the past three years. Sheppey itself we can ferget. It's a military area, see? Barracks up there, at Garrison Point.' He indicated with a stubby finger of his free hand. 'Railway runs straight sahth for three and a 'alf miles, crosses the water at King's Ferry Bridge. It's all marshland, flat as yer 'and. They'll station a platoon up 'ere on Barrows 'ill ter keep a sharp lookout on anyone moving abaht.'
Wince seemed to Eliot an unlikely military man. Then he recalled some remark by Ruston of Wince in Dusseldorf on a month's training 'for active service.' Perhaps Wince's shambling personality was a careful disguise. Eliot knew that he spoke fluent German and French, and had a quicker head for figures than himself.
'The branch line joins the main London, Chatham and Dover tracks just 'ere, another three miles further sahth. It's still flat an' covered with orchards-as you'd expect in Kent-so you can't see far. Then it runs west for five miles, nearly all in cuttin's, 'ard against the old Roman road ter London. See that curved cuttin' there, ahtside a village called Cold 'arbour?' Puffing clouds of smoke, Wince tapped the map decisively. 'That's where we're going to do it.'
'Do what?' asked Eliot.
'You're being deliberately obtuse,' said Ruston irritably. 'Blow up the Kaiser.'
'You're mad.'
'What do you mean, Eliot?' he demanded angrily. 'Are you with us, or aren't you? You've known perfectly well that's our plan, since January. You chose to live here cheaply and in comfort, and now you're asked to do something in return you're showing up as a coward.'
'I'm not a coward. It's just that I'm not interested in murdering people.'
'Oh, damn you!' Ruston banged the table. 'We're going to change the history of the world. And you're no more serious about it than a cricket match.'
'I don't see why you should pick me to do your dirty work.'
'Let me explain our plan.' Wince seemed unconcerned with the argument. 'We've got a couple of blokes 'oo'll be in the firin'-line. Railwaymen, from the Great Northern.'
'Members for ten years, utterly reliable, both been to Dusseldorf and trained with explosives,' said Ruston warmly.
'There won't be nobody watchin' the line most o' the way. Stands to reason, don't it? They'd need 'arf the army. An' wot's the point? The Kaiser's a popular chap, the King's cousin. They'll send a tank engine ahead of the royal special, so if anyone's provided a rather generous detonator, or removed a rail or two on the sly, the driver and fireman'll get it in the eye, not 'is Imperial Majesty. Our men will set orf the charge as the train goes across, then run for it.'
'They won't run far,' Eliot said.
Wince continued calmly, 'There'll be a carriage an' pair with another of our blokes, getting them to Chatham along the main road in less than an hour. In Chatham, we've an 'ahse they can lie low in, as long as they like.'
'Where'll you get the dynamite from?' Eliot asked. 'You can't buy it at the Army and Navy Stores.'
Ruston smiled smugly. 'It's under your feet.'
'So far, there seems nothing for me to do, anyway,' Eliot pointed out. 'I don't care going along just for the excitement.'
'You are the hub of the operation, Eliot. Your orders are to take a room in the _Bull and Mouth_ inn at Sittingbourne for the week of the funeral. Sittingbourne is exactly where the two railway lines join. Our two railwaymen are heroes of the people, but they are unschooled. They can barely read and write. We need an intelligent man to pass messages, to free the snags, to extemporize should anything go wrong. A well-spoken fellow like you will create not a breath of suspicion. You won't use your own name, of course. Choose any you like,' Ruston ended generously.