“It’s over, then,” Corinna said.
“The siege, anyway.” Ranklin passed over the newspapers. “But it ended too late for these papers, so they had to make do with what they’d got by the time that . . . what’s the phrase?”
“Newspapermen talk of ‘putting the paper to bed’.”
“What a lovely thought.” Ranklin hadn’t been near a bed in forty-eight hours. They drank coffee and Corinna skimmed the papers. O’Gilroy offered a cigarette to Ranklin. Corinna half-raised her head to complain, then decided the world was full of worse things, and went on reading about them.
Then she said: “Connelly. An Irish renegade called Connelly. I don’t think I know anybody of that name, so tell me why it sounds so dreadfully familiar.”
O’Gilroy smiled his twisted smile and Ranklin said: “I couldn’t say. You know so many strange people.”
“I do seem to, don’t I? Well, you appear to have taken mama’s advice and got your story in first.”
“Yes . . . d’you think it’ll do?”
Her face showed hopeful uncertainty. “Newspapers hate saying ‘Sorry, we got it all wrong, let’s start again’. But what will your cafe proprietor and his pals be saying?”
Ranklin shook his head. “Nothing. They do tend to fight to the end – anarchists.”
After a while, she asked: “Were you counting on that?”
“A gentleman always gives up his seat to someone who wants to be a martyr. But will this stop Gorkin publishing his version?”
She thought about this while she drank more coffee. “You can’t really ask me what that man would do . . . But at least you’ve put him in a difficult position. He can’t say that all of ‘Connelly’s’ story is rubbish because the Press knows it isn’t. And he’d be asking for trouble if he started quibbling about details, saying ‘Yes, I did this but the Secret Service did that’. If he admits he was involved at all, he can’t tell how much he’ll get sucked in . . . But then again, if Mrs Langhorn is still ready to back him up saying Grover’s the King’s son, I can’t say how much it’s worth to him as a trouble-maker to risk himself in stirring up more trouble.”
“And Mrs Langhorn’s got her own row to hoe,” Ranklin reflected sombrely. “Even if she now thinks Gorkin’s a bad hat, she may still be dreaming of eating off gold plates in Buckingham Palace. Is she here?”
“Good God, no. Pop’s here.” To O’Gilroy’s amusement, Ranklin flinched, though as far as Corinna’s father went, his conscience had been clear for over a week. In a manner of speaking. “He came home good and late; he’ll probably sleep till noon, it being Sunday. No, I got her and Berenice in at a hotel down the street. What are you planning for Mrs L?”
Ranklin shook his head. “That’s up to the Surete. When they let us go, they were still trying to prise control back from their army, and what with wondering how an Irish renegade was also a British agent, and telephoning St Claire to confirm there was a plot against the King – so all in all, they hadn’t got any sort of clear picture. But this morning they’ll start putting things together and when they realise we spirited Mrs Langhorn away, they’ll want to hear her story. That’s her chance to start dropping matches in the powder magazine.”
Corinna finished her coffee and refilled her cup, then added milk and sugar. Her actions were deliberate and thoughtful. At last she said: “Perhaps it’s a pity a stray bullet didn’t take her out of the reckoning.”
Ranklin and O’Gilroy didn’t look at each other.
“And the same goes for Gorkin,” she went on. “But if anybody were to bump him off now, it would make him a victim.”
“A martyr,” Ranklin agreed. “I was warning Berenice of that. Probably unnecessarily, but God knows what she might do. She’s decided that Gorkin is a traitor to the great cause. He’s been trying to manipulate future history and apparently that’s unsporting.”
Corinna gave an unladylike snort. “What the hell else are we put in this world to do?”
Ranklin nodded. What else did anybody form a Secret Service Bureau for? Then he levered himself stiffly to his feet. The moment he let himself relax, every bone in his body started to a che. “Well, I suppose I’d better find this hotel and do what I can to manipulate history for myself.”
“I’ll show you.”
One of the Paris papers had brought out a two-page late extra edition covering the end of the siege, and Ranklin bought a copy as they walked down the Boulevard des Capucines. It was another sunny morning, with the street empty except for a few scurrying churchgoers responding to the call of the bells.
The hotel was a small family place just off the Boulevard, with no restaurant but a small breakfast-room in the vaulted basement. This was for residents only, of course, but as usual, Corinna assumed this didn’t apply to her, and as usual the hotel agreed.
So they sat down to more coffee while Ranklin tried to work out just how late the special edition had gone to press. About six o’clock, he reckoned, since it covered not just the army patrol finding the bodies but had the journalist himself tromping among the ashes and fire-tarnished cartridge cases, smelling burnt flesh and wood-smoke, and feeling the warmth still in the iron door-hinges. There was too much of that sort of guff, but it sounded genuine. The rest was a reprise of the earlier Connelly background story.
Of the bodies found, Kaminsky had been identified, and a Raymond Cuchet, and-“Good God,” Ranklin said softly, and put the paper down to think.
Corinna said: “What is it?” but O’Gilroy, who either knew Ranklin better or was less impetuous, shook his head at her. Ranklin went on staring, luckily unseeing, at a mural of beach and palm trees which the hotel had thought would improve the vaulted wall.
Mrs Langhorn came in, wearing a skirt and blouse of Corinna’s, the blouse too tight and the skirt hem trailing several inches on the floor like a ball gown. She smiled confidently at them and sat down. A waitress hurried over with a fresh cup and poured her coffee.
“Is Berenice up?” Corinna asked.
“Don’t know. Shouldn’t think so.” Then she added: “Little trollop,” but as automatically as she might have said “May she rest in peace”. “What happened last night after we left?”
Ranklin held up the newspaper for her to read the headline, but from her frown and the moving of her lips, she wasn’t too good at French journalese, so he read it for her. “ ’Four anarchists dead in flames of besieged cottage – plot against the King of England – Irish revolutionary confesses all.’ Don’t trouble yourself with that last one, it needs some explanation.”
O’Gilroy reached for the paper and Ranklin handed it over, tapping a paragraph halfway down the first column.
Mrs Langhorn asked: “Is it all over, then?”
“Perhaps, but that’s up to you.”
She understood exactly what he meant. “When you said Grover would be let free, did you really mean it?”
“Oh yes. It was sure enough before, but last night made it even more certain. What are you planning to do then?”
O’Gilroy gave a sudden cackle of laughter, shook his head, and looked at Mrs Langhorn with new interest. She blinked, disconcerted both by him and because this time she wasn’t sure what Ranklin had meant. So she chose for him to be asking where she’d g o. “When he’s free, I don’t fancy staying in Paris. I only come because of him, and now, well, there’s going to be too many of his anarchist friends around probably blaming me . . .”
“That does seem likely,” Ranklin agreed politely.
“We’ll have to get back to the United States.”
“Are you an American citizen?” Corinna asked. The question surprised Ranklin, who’d assumed it was automatic for a woman marrying an American. But Corinna should know.
“No, I never did. But Grover is. I shouldn’t have any trouble.”