“The patron?”
She regretted having mentioned him, but it could hardly be a secret. “M’sieu Kaminsky.”
Ranklin would have liked to learn more about the man running the Cafe des Deux Chevaliers, but he didn’t see how it was relevant to the shenanigans in London. He swung the conversation back towards home. “The lady in Bloomsbury – Venetia Sackfield – she agrees that you came home at about ten o’clock. Were there others there?”
Shrug. “Some women, men – they’re just a bunch of children. But also Dr Gorkin.”
Tempting her, Ranklin was dismissive. “Oh, him.”
It was too easy. “He is a great man! A true champion of the workers, a real thinker. Did you read what he wrote about the Dreyfus case? No, of course you didn’t. And he is also a healer, not a fashionable two-hundred-franc doctor but a man who cares. He treats the poor who have the pox, when the nuns would just say it was the wrath of God for their wickedness!”
Corinna couldn’t help butting i n. “But does he know anything about medicine?”
“Of course he does. He studied for years, but he also worked for the Cause and the Russians drove him out.”
“Fine, fine. I just asked.”
Berenice stood up. “I am going back to the workers.”
“She means -” Corinna reverted to English as the door banged “- the kitchen and the absinthe. Have you met this great thinker and healer?”
“Had a drink with him, the first day at Bow Street. We talked about anarchism – he’s quite a good debater.”
She considered, then smiled. “You really couldn’t be further apart. In the red corner, the prophet of anarchism, in the blue corner the devoted officer battling to save the King from his youthful Dark Secret. I’m sorry: alleged Dark Secret.”
Ranklin scowled. But it always amused her, seeing his face attempt that expression.
She went on: “But you must admit a few minutes of royal romping more than twenty years ago is causing you and a lot of people a whole heap of trouble today, however honourable your intentions are.” She began moving about the room, tidying in a purposeless way.
Ranklin said: “You’d better not meet Dr Gorkin: it sounds as if you’re ripe for the plucking.”
“I doubt it, and I’ve had young Berenice softening me up all morning. But anarchism, communism, socialism, they all seem much the same as Christianity: fair shares, feeding the poor, loving your neighbours -”
“It also seems to be about upping the pace on such matters.”
“- but without Christianity’s saving grace, which is seeing that mankind is fallible. Very practical, that. I hate as much as anybody listening to a preacher telling me we’re all poor sinners – what does that bastard know? But in the end he’s right. We aren’t trustworthy, we do need laws and leaders – preferably elected leaders, so we can throw them out when they get too fallible. You try telling that to an anarchist: they don’t even believe in democracy, just agreement. They say you’ve got no faith in your fellow men, you’ve been corrupted. They’ve done away with God and they’re stuck with believing mankind’s perfectable – practically perfect already. All it needs is a revolution and you and me under the guillotine.”
“Well, you, anyway. I’m not rich.”
“See what I mean about the fallibility of man?” She stood above him, running a finger through his silky fair hair. “Are you let off the hook this evening?”
“With Berenice around?”
“She isn’t sharing my room. And it would be rather nice to have a man around. Then if someone rings up in the middle of the night with some smart-ass scheme, you can handle it.”
But then the telephone rang. Corinna answered it, smiled, and said: “Hello, Conall. You want the great man himself. He’s here.”
She tactfully faded away as Ranklin took the earpiece. O’Gilroy said: “Ye’d best be getting back. Things has happened in Paris. And did ye see a dark red Simplex landau parked outside there?”
“No.”
“Ye should’ve done. Coupla fellers in it. Anyways, I’m sending young P over to take yer place. He’ll keep the cab.”
Ranklin hung up and Corinna came across, her expression querying his worried look. This time, she had a right to know. “O’Gilroy says there’s a couple of men watching from a motorcar outside.”
She took it well – if a resigned sigh is well. “He’s usually right about these things.”
Ranklin peered through the lace curtains without disturbing them. He thought he could identify the car, but it was just a closed car like several others in the street. “Anyway, he’s sending over Lieutenant P – youngish chap, you haven’t met him – to stand guard. I’ve got to get back. Oh, and P doesn’t know about all this – yet – so I’d be grateful if you didn’t-”
The idea of herself hiding a Shocking National Secret from a Secret Service agent tickled Corinna. Still, for that reason alone, she’d do it.
Ranklin smiled ruefully. “I know: tomorrow the world, but until then . . .”
9
“Jay’s over at Scotland Yard,” the Commander said, “and he was on the telephone just now saying someone’s put advertisements in the Paris afternoon papers asking Enid Bowman to present herself to the British consulate, where she’ll hear something very much to her advantage.”
“The Palace again?”
“Who else could it be? We should never have told those stupid buggers.” Quite overlooking that it had been he who had insisted on it. He added grudgingly: “Though at least they had the sense to use her maiden name. Would’ve had French journalists swarming all over them at the mention of ‘Langhorn’.”
“Probably offering her a bribe to keep quiet,” Ranklin guessed.
“What they’re actually doing is getting the Paris police frothing at the mouth. The Prefecture cabled that French rozzer over here the moment they saw it, and he’s round at the Yard asking what the hell the perfidious English are up to. First killing their witness, now trying to bribe the mother of that anarchist fire-raiser. Naturally, he thinks it must be us – the Bureau – playing silly games. And he’s got the Yard, at least Special Branch, half believing it, too. And how can I tell them it was really those morons on the steps of the throne?”
“What d’you want me to do?”
But it seemed the Commander just wanted someone to complain to while he waited for things to get worse. So Ranklin went ahead and made it so: “Mrs Finn’s got the story out of Ma’mselle Collomb.”
“May as well shout the whole thing from the rooftops,” the Commander said bitterly. “Do you know what the devil is going on?”
Ranklin shook his head. “No idea at all, except that it’s more than we thought. You know about the watchers in Clarges Street? If this all adds up to some anarchist conspiracy, it’s something to get our teeth into.”
The Commander grunted something unintelligible. Ranklin took out his pipe, knocked out some encrusted old ash, reamed out some more with his penknife, then filled it carefully. After a while, the Commander started to do the same to the pipes in a little rack on his table.
About twenty minutes later, a telephone rang and the Commander gestured Ranklin to answer it. It was Jay at Scotland Yard. “It is respectfully requested that someone more senior than myself get himself over here and do some explaining.” His voice dropped. “Or bluffing.”
Ranklin relayed this to the Commander, who whispered raspingly: “If it’s to see Sir Basil, I’ll go. Anyone more junior and it’s your job. And I want you back by five: meeting of the Steam Submarine Committee, including Noah Quinton.”
Ranklin gave him a puzzled frown. The Commander had perked up a little, and was now smiling deviously. “How d’you get a man to keep a secret? – you tell him more. Take him into your confidence. Always works with the middle classes.”