Perhaps he let something show in his face, because Gunther said quickly: “Perhaps I might talk to Captain Ranklin alone for a moment? As a young man, an officer of little experience, he does not have the instinct of duty and honourable behaviour that you expect. As someone closer to his age, perhaps I can persuade him where his duty lies.”
Ranklin was about to say in frozen terms that no rotten spy could teach him anything about duty and honour when he remembered that he was a rotten spy himself and that such words would mean nothing to Gunther anyway. And there was always a chance that Gunther didn’t know Ranklin was a spy and not an ordinary officer picked by chance for a courier’s job. Not that the amount of training he’d been given made that much difference, he thought sourly. But there still had to be a reason why they hadn’t just been scragged, and Gunther was the man in charge.
So he said: “If the General allows it, I will listen to Heer van der Brock.”
When they were outside the dining room, standing in front of the portrait of the Duc d’Orleans, who, Ranklin now realised, knew nothing of this affair, of Gunther and perhaps even the General, but had still been a bloody Greenjacket, Gunther lit a small cigar.
Then he said abruptly: “We know there should be three copies of the code and unless you show me two others, we must believe the one you left upstairs is false.” His English had improved, Ranklin noted, since he became a Dutchman.
“You are new to these matters,” Gunther continued. “So I will explain how they are conducted: the code is already compromised by your unfortunate delay. Would you trust the lives of men, of armies, to a code that has unaccountably vanished for a few hours? I think not. I think also it will not be of helping your career. So I will help you: you must sell me the code.”
Ranklin had been determined to keep a face of stone, but this offer chipped it badly. He may even have gaped.
Gunther smiled, leaking cigar smoke. “Consider the result: you will have the assurance that I will not betray you because it would be to betray myself. And I will have the assurance that you will not betray me because I can say you sold the code for money. It will be in both our interests to pretend that nothing has happened. No?
“You look worried. I know! You think I am a German spy. Ach, that I should be so insulted. They are as clumsy and incompetent as … as your own new Secret Service. Romantics, adventurers, the misfits of the officer corps – cads and bounders, you would call them.”
It seemed reasonable to suppose that Gunther did not think Ranklin was a spy.
“But I am a professional. You may choose to despise that, but be assured that your superiors do not. I have had many dealings with them, and they recognise work of quality.”
That, Ranklin knew, was at least partly true. The Bureau did shop for information in the mercenary markets, notably in Vienna and Brussels.
“Also, you are thinking I will sell the code to Germany, to Austria-Hungary. Most certainly that is my plan. But consider: your War Office knows the code is no longer to be trusted; they must make a new one anyway. What I sell will be genuine; my reputation, my business, depend on that. But it will not harm your country.”
“But they’ll still suspect me.”
“Because of the delay, what else can they do? The moving finger has written, the delay exists. But they will still prefer to blame the French Ministere than a British officer – and this way, you can tell of the General and his gang of royalist dreamers who are a danger to all secrets you share with France, not just one code. When you tell your War Office of them they will not suspect you of anything but a little foolishness. They should thank you – but perhaps that is to expect too much, no?”
“You’re ready to ditch the General?”
“Fools are dangerous people. Who knows what his next dream of chivalry will make him to do? You see already he plans to take the code from you. I offer to buy it for, shall we say, four hundred pounds?”
Ranklin saw that four hundred pounds – nearly two years’ pay – and he wanted it. But he also saw Gunther taking it back from his corpse, because he now knew for sure that he planned to kill them. No businessman would give up a prize like the General and the royalist network.
“There are two of us,” Ranklin said, and then realised that was a mistake. He had been trying to sound properly mercenary, but had forced Gunther to reconsider O’Gilroy’s position. Probably he had assumed Ranklin had brought him along as an innocent disguise: two pals out on a jaunt to Gay Paree. Now he was thinking of two couriers, and it must seem odd.
“There is only one code,” Gunther said, temporising.
Ranklin had to go through with it. “I must talk to him.”
Back in the dining room, the General looked up under his eyebrows with a stern, inquiring look. Gunther said: “Mon General, the Captain wishes to explain certain matters to his friend,” and Ranklin beckoned O’Gilroy over.
However, nobody was letting them out of sight. Sergeant Clement, still in his tight chauffeur’s jacket but with a large and heavy bulge in the right-hand pocket, stood blocking the door. They backed off into a corner shared with a plinth and a bust of (Ranklin guessed) Louis Philippe.
“Gunther claims he’s a mercenary spy,” Ranklin whispered. “He tried to buy the code off me.”
O’Gilroy nodded, unsurprised. “How much?”
“Doesn’t matter. If he’s telling the truth, it just makes it more sure he’s going to kill us. A mercenary spy won’t have any feeling he’s in jail for his country’s sake, no back pay waiting at home. He’ll just see his business going to pot and coming out to starve on the street.”
“Like enough. So what did ye say?”
“I’d talk to you. What I don’t see is why we haven’t been scragged already.”
“Ye think the General would allow it?”
It was as if a photographic flash had been set off, freezing the tableau so that Ranklin could see the relationships clearly for the first time.
He nodded gently. “You’re right, of course. The old fool may not know anything about codes, but he’d know a stab in the back if he saw it. And you don’t do that in a house of chivalry and honour – so Gunther’s got to get us out of the house first.”
“Mind, I don’t say the General wouldn’t have his fellas just take the code off’n ye.”
“Yes, I don’t think that would offend his honour. All right, I don’t know how we’ll manage this, but we know what we want.” They walked back to their places.
“So, mon Capitaine,” the General said, “have you understood where your duty lies?”
Ranklin took a sip of wine and touched his lips with his napkin, determined to do everything as slowly as possible. “Was it at your suggestion that Heer van der Brock should insult me by offering money for the code?”
The General frowned thoughtfully, and looked at Gunther.
“A simple test,” Gunther said easily. “To see if the Captain’s loyalty lay in his wallet. Unfortunately I failed to offer enough money.”
“That,” Ranklin said, “is the sort of lie one expects from a bourgeois cigar-peddler.”
Despite himself, Gunther stiffened and gave Ranklin a grim look. Unfortunately, the insult misfired with the General. “The lowness of birth is of no consequence in matters of loyalty. His Majesty has chosen M’sieu van der Brock as his loyal servant. I should not presume to argue with His Majesty’s choice.”
Gunther bowed his head to the General, and came up with a new idea. “Mon General, perhaps the Captain doubts that I truly am the servant of His Majesty. If so, it is a motor journey of only some hours for me to bring him before His Majesty. He cannot have any doubts about handing over the code to His Majesty in person.”
It was stupendously bold, and it left Ranklin speechless – partly with admiration. And it was a winner with the General. “Parfait.” He slapped a hand on the table. “You are most honoured, mon Capitaine. And surely you can have no doubts any longer. Sergeant Clement! L’automobile est preparee, n’est ce pas?”