The chuckles threw Quinton off his stride and the Commander took the opportunity to say: “Most instructive. Now can-”
“Mylius got a year in jail,” Quinton muttered.
“Richly deserved. But if we can get back to the present day . . . We haven’t established that this anarchist puppy is the King’s son-”
“Probably impossible to do so.” Quinton bounced back fast; probably lawyers had to. “Presumably his birth certificate – have you dug that up yet?”
“He may have been born in America,” the Commander said. “What weight does a birth certificate have in court?”
“It’s accepted as proof unless it’s challenged. And even then, you can only show that the father named couldn’t be the real one – by reason of impotence, say, or that he was discovering the North Pole at the required time. But that tells us nothing of who the real father is. So, assuming that the birth certificate says the father is Langhorn senior, I’d say the King was not liable in law. But have you found out whether he did . . . ah, know the boy’s mother?”
“Dammit, of course he was poking her,” the Commander growled. “Every lieutenant who could afford it had a loose woman in Portsmouth. Place was stuffed with them. That’s not the point. It’s what the foreign newspapers will make of the lad’s claim to be a royal bastard if they get to hear of it. Now: is there any legal way of stopping that?”
“You – or rather, the Palace – could take out an injunction. That can be done secretly-but in the end, all it could do is bring the wrath of the law on Langhorn’s head if he spoke out. And if he wants to shout it out the next time he’s in court . . . well, I’ve advised him not to, but in the end I can’t stop him. And what he says in court is privileged, and could be reported even here.”
O’Gilroy said: “If he ups and says he’s the next king, surely everybody’ll laugh and say why not Julius Caesar or Napoleon?”
The Commander nodded firmly. “Yes, we should be concentrating on what the mother may say about the King – the Prince, in those days.”
Quinton asked: “Did he write her any letters?”
It was as if a sudden ice age had struck the room. Everybody held their breath and went quite still. Then it passed, leaving only shivers behind.
“God, I hope not,” the Commander said fervently.
In an even, reasonable voice, O’Gilroy said: “She didn’t pick this road until jest recent. She could’ve started causing this ruckus twenty-four years ago, when she found she was going to have a baby. But she didn’t. She married the American feller and started a new life in America. If she had any letters and such, probly she burned them then. Never thought she’d want to look back.”
“Thank you for that touch of common sense, O’G-Gorman,” the Commander said. “I just hope you’re right.”
Quietly, Ranklin got up, fetched the whisky decanter, and refilled the Commander’s glass. O’Gilroy and Jay shook their heads, and Quinton had taken only a couple of sips at his brandy.
“Do we know,” Quinton asked, “what the mother wants out of all this?”
“We haven’t had a peep out of her since that letter you saw,” the Commander grumbled. “But it seems to have been assumed by . . . certain others, that she’ll settle for a pension. They’ve put an advertisement in this afternoon’s Paris papers asking her to come in and get some good news from our consulate, which we take to mean money. Naturally enough, this has got the French police up in arms.”
“You know,” Ranklin said thoughtfully, “I don’t think we should necessarily assume that the woman will settle for a pension. She might just be taking this my-son’s-the-next-king stuff seriously and sees herself as the Queen Mother.”
Quinton said: “I’ve explained-”
“Not to her.”
“Well, I certainly have trouble envisaging Ma’mselle Collomb as our next queen.”
Ranklin shut his eyes and shuddered.
The Commander, who hadn’t met Berenice, smiled automatically. O’Gilroy looked disapproving on behalf of all fairy-tale milkmaids who reach the throne.
The telephone rang in the drawing-room and Ranklin got up to answer it. Behind him, Quinton was saying: “I’m sure Mrs Langhorn’s position will be explained to her . . .”
“I have a call from a Mrs Finn,” the office switchboard girl told Ranklin. “She says it’s very urgent. Should I connect her?”
“Please do,” and he listened as she wrestled with the “instant” communication that was going to change the world.
At last a very distant Corinna came on: “Matt? Matt? Get over here, Berenice has been kidnapped.”
10
Rolls-Royces might not zoom, either, but this one certainly surged when the Commander put his foot down. Ranklin felt the clenching of mechanical muscle like a horse preparing to leap, then the release as it soared off. But unlike a horse, it soared on and on as the Commander kept accelerator and horn depressed. Ranklin got the (fleeting) impression that other motorists turned angrily to see what frightful bounder was making that din, saw two tons of speeding Rolls-Royce behind, and chose to live long enough to write to The Times about it.
Looked at coolly, it was an odd way for the Secret Service Bureau to cross London, but by now Ranklin was praying that the Commander was at least looking, never mind coolly. They were all armed: Ranklin and O’Gilroy with their own pistols, Jay and the Commander with weapons grabbed from his collection in the inner office.
The steel-on-steel brakes screeched like escaping steam as they swung out of the Mall and up past St James’s Palace, barged into the traffic of Pall Mall, up St James’s, swerved into Piccadilly, and finally up Clarges Street. Corinna was waving energetically from the pavement.
“That Sackfield bitch from Bloomsbury Gardens called,” she panted, “and wanted to take Berenice for a walk and I couldn’t exactly stop them but I could go along, and your young guy following incognito. And near Hyde Park Corner an automobile pulled over and they shouted for Berenice to jump in and she did, and the Sackfield woman stopped me interfering but I stopped her getting in and her eye won’t be the same in weeks, and your guy came running but the automobile got away, and I think he may have got a taxi round in Constitution Hill, but I got one back here to telephone you.”
“What motor-car?” Ranklin asked.
“Dark red and a landau body.” The Yard might have felt inhibited about offending that car’s owner, but not so the Bureau.
“Go up and telephone the office,” the Commander told Ranklin. “See if P’s called in.”
Ranklin bounded up the stairs, leaving Corinna and her skirt plodding after. He had already rung the bell, rushed in and grabbed the telephone by the time she caught up.
“What happened to the Sackfield woman?” he asked.
“God knows. I wanted to get back here.”
“And you obviously didn’t have your pistol with you.”
Corinna travelled with an outdated but still handy Colt Pocket Pistol in her “purse” but: “In daylight in Mayfair?”
Then the office switchboard answered: yes, Lieutenant P had just called, he’d lost the red Simplex but it had been going up Shaftesbury Avenue and he’d called from the post office there. Damn - P wasn’t properly briefed, he didn’t know the Bloomsbury Gardens address.
“If he calls again,” Ranklin said, “tell him to get back to the office to act as co-ordinator.” Then he ran.
“What do I do?” Corinna yelled after him.
“Guard the telephone.”
“Don’t you want another automobile?”
Ranklin stopped.
In the street, the Commander was talking to two men, one in a sober suit and bowler hat, the other a derelict loafer – obviously Superintendent Mockford’s men.
O’Gilroy intercepted him and confirmed: “Coppers. Was watching the motor, but scared it off, more like. Drove away an hour and more ago. And of course the coppers didn’t have their own motor to follow in.”