Ranklin thought: I love you. Well, actually I don’t know whether I do or not, but right now I love you. He said: “Perhaps the Inspector already told you, but he’s looking for a man called Gorman.”
She knew the name as O’Gilroy’s usual alias. “Who’s he? What’s he done?” Behind her, two of Andrew’s mechanics began taking down the flimsy shutters and stacking them to one side.
Jeffries would rather be asking than answering, but Corinna tended to have first choice in these matters. And Jeffries couldn’t turn his back on her, either. “He was in custody, madam, in London, charged with murder.”
Corinna’s eyes widened. “Gee! Of whom?”
“I’m not clear about that myself, madam, but the important thing is that he was in custody and he escaped. Aided by a group of men who stormed a police station in the early hours of this morning-” Jeffries turned his sombre look on Ranklin, not noticing, or perhaps caring, that the Oriole was being gently manhandled out of the shed; “-speaking in stage-Irish accents and who shot at and nearly killed a constable.”
Suddenly Corinna was taking this seriously. “You mean really hurt him?”
“He wasn’t actually hurt – by sheer good luck. The bullet went through his helmet.”
The equally sudden bathos was too much for Corinna, who tried to stifle a giggle, and managed to choke out: “Yes, I guess that counts as pretty close.”
“We don’t regard it as a laughing matter, madam.”
“No, no, of course not. And so you’re looking for him. And for the whole gang, too, I guess?”
Jeffries hesitated, looking at Ranklin again. “We’d like to catch the whole gang, and we have some idea of who they are. But they regard themselves as untouchable.”
“You mean they’ve got some political protection, just like our New York gangs? Didn’t know you were so modern . . . Hold on a moment, I’ve got to see Andrew off.” The Oriole was well onto the grass, with Andrew, in his calf-length leather jacket, superintending the preparations for start-up. There was already another figure in the cockpit, but under the shadow of the wing and wearing goggles, so even Ranklin couldn’t tell who it was.
Corinna went up to hug Andrew and, judging by the resigned way he kept nodding his head, give him a sisterly lecture about keeping to the proper side of the sky and wrapping up warm. Then he swung himself up into the cockpit, making the machine rock stiffly.
Jeffries asked: “Where’s he off to?”
“I’ve no idea.” Which was more or less true. As long as it was abroad . . .
The propeller was swung, the engine caught first time in a swirl of smoke, and settled down to the now-familiar buzz. Two mechanics seized the wing struts and helped steer it away across the grass, swung it into the light breeze and stepped aside. The buzz hurried a little, the aeroplane moved, its tail came up and, after a couple of long bounces, swayed into the air.
Ranklin should have felt a sag of relief, but the departure had been too casual to merit it. He reckoned himself well-travelled, but ‘going abroad’ always meant a fuss of steam-whistles, men shouting orders and crowds waving. He couldn’t yet believe a little aeroplane scuttling across a hundred yards of grass in a few seconds had actually gone abroad. And neither, of course, could Jeffries. People didn’t yet think of aeroplanes as going anywhere.
Perhaps there was a lesson for this island race in there somewhere, but it was too big to worry about now. He put on a bland expression. “You were saying, Inspector?”
Jeffries said reflectively: “Just that these people seem to think they can hide behind some cloak of national secrecy.”
Ranklin nodded gently. “That’s what they’ll have been told to do, no doubt.”
“And hide even their mistakes.”
“Especially their mistakes. I imagine.”
“I dare say you’re right, sir.” Jeffries looked pensive. “It’s a real problem, that, when you’ve got two organisations, both on the same side, both doing their duty as they see it, and meeting head-on as you might say. Somebody really ought to sort it out – for the good of the nation.”
Instinctively sympathetic, Ranklin might have grown confiding – which was probably just what Jeffries wanted; he was no simple flatfoot.
But then Corinna returned wearing a rather set grin. “Whoof! Always a strain watching your brother being a daring bird-man. Any more revelations about underworld London?”
Jeffries looked enquiringly at Ranklin, who smiled vaguely.
“It doesn’t look like it, madam.” He raised his hat to her. “I’ll bid you good day.”
She watched him well out of hearing, then turned to Ranklin. “Sounds like you had an exciting night after I dumped you at Esher. Who did Conall kill?”
“The man who stabbed Falcone.”
“Ah. It’s kind of tough, the way you give Conall all the dirty work.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Is that Signora Falcone?”
“Come and say hello.”
All Ranklin had seen, at a distance, was the tailored tweed suit in the soft grey-blue and green of Donegal’s rain and meadow, and an elegance of movement. But closer . . . She must once have had a flawless, delicate beauty. But it had been a beauty that relied on perfect detail. Now, although she could hardly be fifty, the years had roughened the detail and Juliet hadn’t grown into Cleopatra. Corinna had once said that “beyond a certain age, a woman needs either intelligence or cheekbones”, knowing smugly that she had both. Ranklin found himself hoping the Signora wasn’t intelligent, either: it must be terrible to know you looked as if you had once looked beautful.
But she had kept her figure, and the elegance at least was ageless. She smiled, showing good teeth, and murmured: “Delighted to meet you, Captain.”
“My pleasure, signora. May I ask how the Senator is?”
“Tired. He’s lost a lot of blood. But he should make a full recovery. I believe you were there, yesterday?” Her voice had no trace of the Irish, but probably never had. Plenty of Dubliners saw themselves as ‘West Britons’ and Dublin as just down the road from London.
“I was. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to stop . . .” Ranklin spread his hands helplessly.
“It wasn’t your fault, he should have asked for police protection. He knew he was in danger.” You wouldn’t have realised her husband had nearly been knifed to death less than a day ago, but perhaps her control was part of the elegance. “And he wants . . . ah, things to go on as if nothing had happened.” She glanced at a little gold wristwatch. “I need to send a cable saying the aeroplane’s on its way . . . and get a ticket for Paris myself . . . It looks as if I shall be missing lunch.”
“My office can fix your ticket,” Corinna said. “And if you want to go to the hotel to do something about the Senator’s things, you can cable from there and I can order some lunch while you do it. And take you back to town after.”
Signora Falcone already had the grateful smile in place before she had decided to accept. “That’s most kind of you, my dear. Then – do you mind if we . . . ?”
To the casual bystander, Corinna was just being helpful to a lady with problems. To Ranklin, she had her teeth into the Signora and wasn’t going to let go until . . . he couldn’t guess. As he handed them into the Daimler, already crowded with Signora Falcone’s luggage, Corinna said casually: “Sorry we didn’t have time to chat, Captain. Do call some time soon.”
Dagner might not like it, but it looked as if the only way to Signora Falcone was now through Corinna. He’d better get back to Whitehall Court; this couldn’t be explained on the telephone.
Oatlands Park, the hotel where Falcone had taken refuge, stood on the site of a royal hunting lodge and now looked like several yellow-brick-and-stone country houses run together. It was fronted by a wide lawn studded with huge old cedars and, on a day like this, a dozen small tables and clumps of chairs. Among the late lunchers and early tea-sippers, the two women twirled their parasols on their shoulders and picked over tiny sandwiches in an atmosphere as delicately rigid as china lacework. Neither knew quite what to make of the other or how she fitted in.