“Did he say anything else, then or at a later time, apart from confirming his name?”
“No, sir.”
Quinton sat down again. McDaniel stayed where he was while his evidence was read back to him, then the court relapsed into muttering over documents. Ranklin was looking at the time – it wasn’t easy to get his watch out in a crush like in a crowded underground train – when another witness popped up in the box and identified himself as Inspecteur Claude Lacoste of the Paris Prefecture attached to the eighth district, which included the nineteenth arrondissement - La Villette.
By contrast with McDaniel, this was a man with a clean-shaven round face who might have been chosen for his all-round averageness (and had been, Ranklin discovered later: French logic said that only men of average looks and height could become Paris detectives). But his manner was quiet and confident, someone who knew his job. He spoke English with a strong accent, but fluently enough to manage without an interpreter.
Yes, he could identify the accused as Grover Langhorn . . . He had been employed as a waiter at the Cafe des Deux Chevaliers since last autumn . . . It was a haunt of anarchists-
“I fail to see the relevance of that,” Quinton interrupted.
The magistrate looked enquiringly at the prosecutor, who was just another half-bowed back to Ranklin, but Lacoste beat him to it: “It is the only reason why I am familiar with the establishment, M’sieu.”
Quinton shrugged dramatically – by the dramatic standards of the day so far – and sat down.
Yes, on the night of 31 March there had been a fire at the police barracks . . . It had quickly been established that it was deliberate, caused by petrol . . . A fire-warped 5-litre petrol tin had been discovered at the scene . . . He had led the investigation . . . He had questioned certain persons . . . There are few places in La Villette which sell petrol, there being few motor-cars in the area . . . At one garage, however, he had learned that at about six o’clock in the evening four days earlier . . . Yes, 27 March . . . the accused had purchased a green tin of petrol . . .
There was a break while the prosecutor assured the magistrate that there was a sworn statement by the garagiste, one from the cafe proprietor, two from patrons, and one from an eyewitness, representing Lacoste’s investigation.
. . . As a result of all this, Lacoste had sought to question Langhorn . . . He could not be found . . . It had been suggested he might have fled to England . . . (there was something missing here, Ranklin thought: somebody had either volunteered the suggestion or been persuaded to volunteer it by method or methods unknown. Such thoughts wouldn’t have occurred to him eighteen months ago.) . . . Consequently, an extradition warrant had been sought . . .
In his own job, Ranklin demanded bare facts and came down brutally on colourful phrases. But here he felt cheated at being told of an arson attack followed by a police trawl of the local underworld, hasty flight and legal pursuit – and all made as dull as a railway timetable. Perhaps Quinton’s cross-examination would help . . .
“The fire at the police station – what part of the building did it damage?”
“The kitchen, M’sieu.”
“So it could hardly have been an attempt to free any prisoners held there, for example . . . Do you have any reason to believe that my client is an anarchist?”
“He is a waiter at a cafe of anarchists, M’sieu.”
“Just an employee – one who is paid to work there?”
“I know nothing of his pay, M’sieu.”
“But still only an employee?”
“So I believe, M’sieu.”
“And would you expect every waiter at – say – every poet’s cafe in Paris to be a poet?”
“No, M’sieu.”
“Has my client ever expressed anarchistic views to you or within your hearing?”
“No, M’sieu.”
Ranklin was not tempted to whisper to those beside him that here Quinton was paving the way to claim that this was a political crime and his client was not an anarchist. But he didn’t mind them noticing his knowing nod and smile. Then he remembered he was here on duty and trying to be anonymous, and shamefacedly went back to thinking about the case.
Probably Lacoste would have pointed out that in a scruffy, dangerous little cafe in the nineteenth arrondissement an anarchist clientele wouldn’t have tolerated for a moment a waiter who didn’t share their views. But Quinton had given him no chance to say so, and presumably magistrates weren’t allowed to think such things for themselves.
Once Lacoste had stepped from the witness box, the court returned to murmuring over documents. In front of him, Langhorn moved nervously from foot to foot, never quite standing straight. An Englishman might have stood to attention or he might have leant on the dock rail; he wouldn’t have stood in that loose, rangy way. Perhaps it was something to do with Americans walking with their hips thrust forward – Corinna had once demonstrated that for him, stark naked. It had been most instructive but not a suitable memory for a police court-
From what Ranklin could hear, the depositions from the cafe proprietor and patrons had Langhorn asking to go off duty at ten that evening and not reappearing until about one o’clock. Obviously it was not a cafe which relied on early-to-bed working citizens for its customers.
Several times Quinton bobbed up asking for clarification of some point, in a manner that looked to Ranklin like time-wasting. It apparently struck the magistrate the same way, because the last time he gave Quinton a sour look, weighed the yet-to-be-accepted depositions in his hand and said: “It looks as if we’re going to have to postpone hearing the next witness until after lunch. Perhaps that won’t inconvenience you too greatly, Mr Quinton?”
Quinton fawned decorously, and once they had polished off the depositions, they broke up.
Standing like a rock amid the hurrying crowd spilling out from the court was a man in dark-blue chauffeur’s kit asking people if they were Captain Ranklin. It was a distinct shock to Ranklin to hear his name used so publicly when he was working – it reminded him again of how far he had come in eighteen months – and he hurried to hush the man up.
“Mr Quinton’s just having a word with his client, sir, so he said would you care to wait in his motor?” He led the way to a spacious black Lanchester parked at the kerb, ushered Ranklin into the back seat, and opened a small built-in cabinet behind the driver’s partition. “Whisky, sherry or beer, sir?”
Quinton arrived nearly ten minutes later. But instead of driving off, the chauffeur handed in an attache case and spread a napkin over Quinton’s lap. From the case, Quinton took a china plate, then unwrapped a game pie and several small dishes of salad and pickle. His movements were quick and precise. The last item was an opened but recorked pint of claret. During this, he said: “Could you hear anything in court? What do you think so far? You talk while I eat.”
Privately, Ranklin thought that having your lunch in a parked car was a bit showy when you could just as well have been driven back to your office or a chop-house. Perhaps it was another form of advertisement, or perhaps it just came of being born poor.
“It seems,” he began slowly, “to be mostly what I think you call ‘circumstantial’ evidence – though unless you’ve got someone who saw Langhorn strike a match, I imagine that’s what you’d expect. So far, all we’ve got is that he bought the petrol-”
“He bought some petrol.”
“Sorry, some – and was off duty at the relevant time. I imagine this afternoon’s witness will implicate him more deeply . . . Is he the one you want to tear apart in cross-examination?”