Whitehall Court lay between Whitehall and the river, comprising mostly expensive service flats and small clubs. The Bureau also had its offices there, in a rambling set of attics and garrets on the eighth floor, rooms built originally for junk and servants.
Ranklin came in through the outer office and said: “Good afternoon, Miss Stella,” to the senior lady, and she looked up from her typing machine and said: “Good afternoon, Captain, did you have a pleasant Easter?” Ranklin lied politely back and the two other ladies smiled and bobbed their heads as he went on into the agents’ room.
By now this had itself taken on the air of a club, albeit a rather bohemian one. One side of the room had a sloping outer wall, pierced by two dormer windows. The floor was bare boards – quite good boards, since the building was only fifteen years old – with various rugs over the draughtier places. The Commander, whom everyone except Ranklin called Chief or even “C”, had donated some basic furniture, and the rest had accumulated on the principle of “if you want a comfortable chair, you’re welcome to bring one in”.
Beside one of the dormer windows Lieutenant P was rumpling through a stack of morning newspapers, pausing now and then to cut out an article. Like most men, he used scissors very clumsily. Standing by a small table was Lieutenant Jay. He was really Lieutenant J, but six months of token secrecy had actually worked and nobody could remember what his name really was, so he had become Jay. This had not happened to Lieutenant P. Jay was trying to brew coffee with a new infernal machine and spirit stove he had bought. No, not bought, not Jay – just acquired. Despite his family supposedly being very rich, Jay had a talent for acquiring things that would be the envy of any quartermaster-sergeant. Both agents paused to smile and nod at Ranklin and that was all.
The office didn’t look much; it certainly wasn’t the busy warren of panelled rooms that writers of shilling shockers imagined the HQ of the British Secret Service to be. But most of all, it wasn’t as old: probably the biggest secret that the Bureau kept was that it had only been founded four years ago.
Waiting for him on what by tradition had become his table was a parcel of books – Wer ist (the German Who’s Who) and the Italian Annuario Militare - which the Commander had grudgingly accepted they should buy. He put them in the glass-fronted bookcase that was their library, added their names to the exercise book that was their filing system, and sat down to fill and light his pipe.
The soundproof baize door to the inner office was wrenched open and the Commander stumped out, waving two sheets of paper. He headed for Lieutenant P.
“You say here the attache’s mistress is -” he read from the report “- ‘olive-skinned’. . . Was she green?”
“No, of course not, sir.”
“Black, then?”
“No, sir.”
“Those are the only colours I’ve ever seen on an olive. Did you mean she was swarthy?”
“Er . . . that sounds rather unshaven, sir.”
“Any reason to believe she does shave? – her face, anyway?”
Lieutenant P shook his head.
“Very well, then, she was swarthy. Say so next time.” He noticed Ranklin. “Ah, you’re back.” He pulled out his watch. “We’re due at the Cannon Street Hotel for tea at four. Your girlfriend wants us to meet that Jew lawyer Noah Quinton. Says it’s of national importance. It had bloody well better be.”
Ranklin puffed and nodded contentedly. He was home.
2
The Cannon Street Hotel wasn’t quite in the heart of the City but a bit south of that; say the liver. So it was geographically Corinna’s territory, and the hotel was prepared to overlook its City prejudice against women – save as rich widow shareholders at the many company annual general meetings held there – because she was the daughter of Reynard Sherring. And Sherring controlled a private bank that, even at the flood tide of joint-stock banking, was keeping its head a million or two above water.
Shortly before four, Ranklin and the Commander were sipping tea in the drawing-room of the hotel which, true to the current fashion, ran to a high ceiling, cushioned wickerwork chairs and potted palms.
The Commander looked at his watch. “She said four o’clock, didn’t she?”
“That‘s what you said.”
“Is she usually late?”
“I wouldn’t say she was, yet.”
The Commander watched five seconds tick by. “Dammit, she could perfectly well have told you whatever-it-is. No need for me. I’ve got things to do.”
Like keeping the Bureau from getting involved in the mess that was Ulster. There was a good case for this, but the danger was that the spring of 1914 was turning out to be rather quiet on the Bureau’s true international stamping-ground and they didn’t have enough to do.
Ranklin shrugged and another five seconds passed.
Then the Commander demanded: “I know she’s a partner or something in her father’s bank, but does she really understand banking and finance and . . . whatnot?”
“I imagine so. But I don’t, so I can’t judge.”
“She’s one of these clever women, then.”
“Certainly.” Ranklin realised they were passing the time with a little game of make-the-other-lose-his-temper-first.
“Handsome gal, though.”
“I didn’t know you’d met her.” Did he lose half a point for being surprised?
“Oh yes. At a dinner party at the Grenfells’. We got on rather well.”
Perhaps that was supposed to make Ranklin jealous. But he could well believe that Corinna had been intrigued to meet the Bureau’s Chief. Of course, his identity was a closely-guarded secret, but equally of course, that didn’t apply to Certain People. Moreover, the Commander – a genuine naval rank – fancied himself as a ladies’ man. By now in his mid-fifties, he was a stocky man with a face like Mr Punch, nose and chin seemingly trying to meet. He had a complexion that he probably hoped looked weatherbeaten-old-seadog, but was really just ruddy, and the Navy had long ago beached him for incurable seasickness. He had once been heard calling espionage a “capital sport”, but probably that was just a sop to the type of Englishman who took nothing seriously except games.
On the whole, Ranklin thought he was probably right for his job. He had a lot of enthusiasms – gadgetry, motor-cars, pistols – a love of secrecy, and apparently no scruples. Certainly he betrayed his rich wife, who lavished Rolls-Royces and yachts on him, as skilfully and naturally as he did foreign governments. Ranklin wished he thought these two talents weren’t connected.
When Ranklin hadn’t reacted, the Commander provoked further: “Bit tall for you, I thought.”
“I don’t know . . . Can’t have too much of a good thing.”
That gave the Commander the choice of being even more vulgar or pretending to be upright and shocked. Cannily, he did neither. “Ah, your intentions aren’t honourable, I see. Just animal passion.”
“As technically my commanding officer, would you give me permission to marry an American citizen?”
“Certainly, if it was just for her money. If I thought you were sincere, I’d sack you.”
Ranklin decided it was time for a change of subject. “What do we know about Noah Quinton?”
“As a man or as a lawyer?”
“Either.”
“I understand he doesn’t come of one of the academic-professional families. First of his line. Lower-middle-class East London Jew . . . Perhaps not very East London.” The Commander wasn’t speaking geographically. “It’s said he’s a good man to go to if you want to win and don’t mind how.”
In answer to Ranklin’s raised eyebrows, the Commander added: “I don’t say he breaks the law. Just got a reputation for sailing close to it.”