He took a last glance at the cold, mostly shadowed room with its little group bending to their jobs in the one pool of light. And I’m here for the honour of the King, he reminded himself. Then he followed McDaniel and Lacoste out.
It was quiet both outside and inside Whitehall Court. This part of London was mostly government offices by now, closed since five o’clock, and nobody could afford a flat in this building until they were past the age of noisy parties. The outer door to the Bureau’s offices was locked but that was usual enough. Ranklin let himself in and walked through the dark, deserted outer office to the agents’ room. That was dark too, but the door to the Commander’s office was open and spilling a little light.
“Ranklin?”
“Sir.” He called the Commander “sir” the first time they met each day, but otherwise only when he was tired and instincts for rank took over. There was a solitary green-glass-shaded lamp alight on the Commander’s writing-table; Ranklin flopped into the most comfortable chair and fumbled for his pipe.
“Was it the meat porter?” the Commander asked.
“Probably. But badly cut up by barges and tugs and things.”
“Was he pushed?”
“Again probably, but they may never find evidence.” They spoke softly and without hurry.
“Hm. It would be nice if it were a proper murder. It would be a fact and excuse all sorts of interest. Unless, of course, you did it yourself.”
“Bloody hell.”
“It would be quite understandable. The chap wouldn’t talk, you lost your temper, one shove-”
“The river’s half a mile away from-”
“The Bureau will have to stand by you – in spirit, anyway. I can easily find a couple of chaps to say you were dining with them at a club at the time. Absolutely honest, unimpeachable men, convince any court in the land. You haven’t got a thing to worry about.”
“The man was younger, heavier . . . a meat porter, for God’s sake.”
“Ah, but you’re cleverer. Well, remember you’ve got witnesses if you need them.”
Ranklin glowered. “And the police have got the Collomb girl for questioning about it.”
“Have they?” The Commander thought about this. “You don’t find that embarrassing? Good man. What will she tell them?”
“At a guess, nothing. Police are just the sheepdogs of capitalism to her.” He had a feeling he’d improved that phrase somehow. “And she doesn’t speak any English; that should help.”
“Could she get round to her lover’s alleged parentage?”
Ranklin shrugged. How could he know?
The Commander was fretting. “But if you didn’t do it, could she have done?”
Ranklin rested his head back and closed his eyes. “Same objections as for me. She’s just a slip of a girl. Tough as nails, I’m sure, but no match for Guillet. And the river’s just as far for her as for me – if she knew where it is.”
The Commander would be glaring at him, but he couldn’t be bothered to open his eyes and confirm this.
But there was a glare in the Commander’s voice. “But you know where it is.”
“Yes. Too bloody far.”
The Commander switched back to Berenice. “I suppose there’s no reason for her to mention the other thing.”
“I don’t see why the police should ask her. From their point of view the story’s complete without it. She loves Langhorn, Guillet was bearing witness against him, she killed Guillet. Simplicity begets convictions. You should hear O’Gilroy on the subject.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure . . . I just hate doing nothing.”
That made Ranklin, who felt he had actually done a day’s work, open his eyes. “D’you really want to save her from the jaws of the capitalist sheepdogs?”
“Can you do it?”
“I can try, if I can involve an outsider.”
“Involve anybody except us.”
“Are any of your telephones switched on?”
The Commander had four on his table; the agents had one between them all. “This one’s still alive.”
Ranklin called Corinna’s number. She took a long time to answer and then said a sleepy: “Hello?”
“Is that the beautiful Corinna Finn?” Ranklin asked.
“God Almighty, you.”
“Me. How’s your fund?”
“Jesus . . . Not a word for days, then you ring up in the middle of the night to ask How’s my fund. D’you mean of goodwill? At zero and falling, is what.”
“Sorry, I’ve been busy and it’s all your fault really. I mean the fund for hauling destitute Americans out of trouble. Does it apply to their girl-friends too?”
“What? What girl-friend?”
“A French lass called Berenice Collomb. She’s a bit of a guttersnipe, but Grover Langhorn loves her. At least she does him. And the police are questioning her about a missing witness who was hauled out of the Thames this afternoon, very deceased.”
There was a long silence. “This witness . . . was he testifying against young Grover?”
“That’s right. Not very well, I’d say, but Noah Quinton should tell it better.”
“Quinton? Who said anything about Quinton?”
“Sorry.”
Another long silence. Then she said “All right. Get off the damn line so I can call him-Oh, where’ve they got her?”
“Scotland Yard, or the little police station next to it, probably. I’ll call you tomorrow. And thanks.” Ranklin hooked the earpiece on again. “That’s the best I can do.”
The Commander, who had been unashamedly eavesdropping, grinned with satisfaction. “I don’t think we could have done better. You can sleep with a clear conscience, even if you did kill that porter.”
Ranklin ignored that but, as he turned to go, hesitated. And after a time, he said: “Just suppose, by the grace of God, that we bring all this off. Suppose we stuff the skeletons back into the cupboards; that’s going to leave us knowing what skeletons and which cupboards.”
“You know, that thought never occurred to me,” the Commander said, looking as if that were true.
7
Ranklin was waiting in Noah Quinton’s outer office when the solicitor bustled in at a quarter past nine the next morning. He stopped abruptly when he saw Ranklin, then said: “Yes, you’d better come in,” and bustled on through.
As Ranklin had half expected, Quinton’s office was not just grand, but self-consciously so. There was nothing in it that a long-established and successful solicitor might not have in the way of antique desk, Turkish carpet, silver ashtrays and client chairs covered in dark green plush, but they should have been stained and worn, as if the owner didn’t think or care about them. Quinton obviously cared, and you didn’t want to be the first to spill coffee or drop cigar-ash.
“I suppose,” Quinton said, unpacking papers from a briefcase on to his desk, “that I have you to thank for a new client. I’m getting a little too old to be hauled from my bed in the early hours, but the Mrs Finn connection is . . . welcome, shall we say?”
Ranklin, sitting uneasily in an easy chair, just smiled.
“I suppose you want to know what happened.” Quinton sat down and automatically shifted his chair by fractions of an inch to just how he liked it. “Well, it’s not privileged . . . The police haven’t charged Ma’mselle Collomb with anything, they’d only detained her but were clearly going to hang on to her for as long as they could. I got her released on bail, put up by Mrs Finn, who’s now looking after her.”
Ranklin frowned; he hadn’t expected that, and Corinna wouldn’t have, either. He was going to hear more about it. Considerably more.
“The police objected to Ma’mselle Collomb going back to her Bloomsbury address. They made it out to be a community -” a very suspect word, that, “- of intellectual depravity. My own brief impression of Ma’mselle Collomb is that she could teach any Bloomsbury intellectual more about depravity than he could stomach – but that’s neither here nor there. So she’s now officially in the care of Mrs Finn.”