“Much better.”
“Involving Hamburg-Amerika, Norddeutscher-Lloyd, White Star and Leyland in Britain, and some American lines. Formed by the late J. P. Morgan and, oddly enough, not doing very well even before he died.”
“Your government made Cunard stay out.”
“Oh, dear. Anyway, with Morgan dead and perhaps a war coming, whither Immco? There’s talk of what your father might be doing talking to Ballin, whether he’s talking to Norddeutscher-Lloyd … It was put to me that any knowledge I picked up here would find a ready market. That’s all.”
“Thank you, Matt,” she said gravely. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll tell Pop right now.”
She made her way down the companionway – carefully, in that long ball gown – thinking: he pays what debts he can, anyhow. When he could have used what he learnt here to pay debts closer to home. An honourable man. She almost giggled; an honourable man and a reluctant spy. I wonder which he is alone in a lady’s boudoir?
Behave yourself, Corinna girl, she thought.
On the other hand, she thought, let’s just wait and see, shall we?
33
“And how did you sleep – apart from long?” Corinna asked.
“Rocked in the cradle of the shallows, very well, thank you.”
“This ship does not … oh, let it pass.”
It was another vividly bright day and the breakfast table was laid under an awning on the main deck. Corinna had long finished, but was lingering with coffee and a batch of American magazines that had just been brought off shore. Jake poured coffee for Ranklin and asked what he would like to eat.
“Bacon and eggs?” Ranklin suggested, more in hope than expectation, but Jake agreed and went away to organise it.
“Hah!” Corinna snorted. “The Englishman abroad. None of these native customs.”
“Just staying in character.”
“That’s your normal breakfast in India, is it?”
Ranklin remembered some ghastly attempts at English breakfasts in the Lahore cantonments and admitted that it wasn’t. “Let’s say it’s what I came home for. Tell me: do you think we can get ashore without being seen?” There was no hurry – the Sondenvind wasn’t due until around noon – but since he could think of no way to get aboard without walking up the gangplank, he wanted to be certain they weren’t being followed at the time.
“The launch is running around the harbour all day,” she said. “We could get you into her cabin out of sight of the shore – if you think they’re watching from there – and stay there until it touches at wherever you want to get off. They can’t cover all the landing places round the harbour. Is that good enough?”
It would have to be, and Ranklin accepted with more enthusiasm than he felt.
“Are you looking for the widow of the company promoter?” she asked.
Ranklin had almost forgotten about that, and admitted he wasn’t.
“Why not?” she demanded. “I’d like to hear her version of the story. And you’ve got all the excuse you need: that Reimers was talking about her, and the mysterious worthless bond. A real detective wouldn’t pass her up. D’you know her name?”
“On the bond it says Wedel, but I don’t know where she lives.”
“Then if I find out where she lives, will you go see her?”
Ranklin didn’t want to drag Corinna any further into the situation – but, damn it, who was doing the dragging? “Very well.”
“Promise? Spy’s honour?”
Ranklin winced. “I promise.”
The Sondenvind was about the same size as a Channel steamer, but single-funnelled and wider to accommodate the cargo that was now being unloaded. They stood in the shadow of a warehouse with O’Gilroy scanning the ship’s deck and Ranklin looking agitated, which was no problem, and explaining it by frequent glances at his watch.
“That’s him,” O’Gilroy said suddenly. “That’s the boy.”
The lad, of about twenty-five, was now dressed in a Third Officer’s uniform, so either he had been disguised when he went ashore selling artistic poses or O’Gilroy was wrong. But he seemed convinced enough, and Ranklin nodded him ahead.
O’Gilroy strode up the gangway, brushed aside a suspicious bo’sun, and handed the Third Officer a warship postcard as if it were a ticket. A few seconds later Ranklin followed, hoping his city suit made him look like one of those self-important officials who constantly bustle on and off ships in harbour but never go to sea. A minute after that they were in the tiny stuffy sea cabin of Captain J. Helsted.
Then, for a long moment, nobody said anything but probably everybody was thinking the same thing: if I say the wrong thing now, I may spend years regretting it in a German jail.
Captain Helsted was perhaps sixty, clean-shaven and with a thin face strongly lined with concern rather than age. He frowned at them, but looked as if he frowned at everybody and everything. And at last he said just: “Yes?”
“The night before last,” Ranklin said, “your officer sold my servant some photographs. He got one he did not expect. Personally, I preferred it to the ones he did expect.”
The Captain held the new postcard; now he turned it to glance at the number on the back, then to compare it with the ships in the picture.
He asked: “Did you write this number?”
Ranklin nodded.
“Who are you, please?”
Ranklin took out his – Spencer’s – card case and handed over a card. Captain Helsted dropped it on the little table unread. “Who are you really?”
Ranklin took back the card and put it into the case. “Really we are not here, we do not exist.”
After another moment, Helsted smiled, although the lines on his face made it more like a sneer. “Good. With men who do not exist, I can have talk that is not talked.” He nodded past them and the Third Officer vanished, closing the door with a firm click. His going made the cabin remarkably more spacious.
Helsted sat down and waved Ranklin to the only other chair. Ranklin hesitated, looking for a place for O’Gilroy until he growled: “Sit down and let’s get on.”
“Do you know,” Helsted asked, “who killed Lieutenant Cross?”
“No, and we’re not trying to find out. We only want to finish his work – unless you tell us it is finished.”
Helsted frowned again. “No, it is not finished.”
Well, that had been too much to hope for. “What more do you need?”
Helsted got suspicious again. “What do you know?”
“Perhaps not much: Cross didn’t leave any last will and testament. We know about the code for warship movements on the Canal and the cablegrams from Korsor, but that’s all. Who collects the information and how it gets to you, we do not know.”
Still frowning, the Captain got up and took a bottle of clear liquor from a wall cupboard and scattered three shot glasses on the table. “Since this aquavit does not exist – there are no spirits on this ship – it is perhaps good for men who do not exist.” He poured. “Skol. Now I may tell you: I do not know either.”
Ranklin looked at O’Gilroy, who took a second swallow, sighed, and said: “Well ’twas kind of ye to give us this before telling us that.”
Ranklin said: “Did he give you any idea …?”
“No. He did not want me to know. I think also he did not want the other person to know about me. He said only it would come to me by signal, that I would not have to go ashore.”
All that was highly professional of Cross, making sure neither of his sub-agents could betray the other – and reassuring them by letting them know that – but it left a complete dead end.
“Did he give you another address – not his family’s – to send cablegrams to?”
“No. He said that also would come to me.”
“Do you think he had even arranged the other person and the signals?”
“I think yes. He said he would leave Kiel the day after, after that he was killed, I mean. And he would go by train and ship to meet me in Korsor and give me everything there.”