That didn’t satisfy Corinna, but Temple saw the drift and nodded seriously. “Exactly. His views on intervention in a neighbouring state …”
“Such as Serbia.” And Ranklin was immediately aware that he had said a Very Rude Word. Temple winced and actually glanced around.
Now Corinna had got interested. “I thought that intervention stuff was just about Cuba and maybe now Mexico; he’s a great Teddy Roosevelt man. But I never thought of Serbia.”
“Mrs Finn, we are on Austro-Hungarian territory here,” Temple hissed. “I’m sorry the matter came up.”
“My fault,” Ranklin said. “Still, he doesn’t speak for your government and you didn’t invite him to Europe, so if anything he says might be construed as endorsing any prospective act with unfortunate consequences – Good God! I’m beginning to speak like him. Anyway, you can disown him.”
“We’d rather not have to,” Temple said. “He’s a very eminent academic. And our job is to protect our citizens abroad, not rap their knuckles. Still …”
“I was planning to go to Vienna soon anyway,” Corinna said cheerfully. “Maybe I’ll hitch myself to his wagon and see if I can’t tone him down a bit.”
“Mrs Finn,” Temple said, beginning to sound anxious, “we have a perfectly good Embassy in Vienna.”
“Why, of course you do – but they’re all diplomatists, aren’t they, old boy, what ho? Anyway, Lucy would welcome some help shopping, I’m sure.”
“His wife?” Ranklin asked.
“Daughter, stupid. Mrs Hornbeam’s an invalid, doesn’t travel.”
“Ah. Tell me,” Ranklin turned to Temple, “who’s the Major in Cuirassiers’ uniform?”
Temple squinted across the room at a blond young man alternately laughing and dipping his moustache in champagne. “Oh, their temporary Military Attache, I forget his name. The real one’s back in Vienna.”
“He looks,” Corinna said, “as if he has a very muscular brain.”
Ranklin nodded, hoping she was right.
39
The Embassy’s windows had all been opened wide, bringing a confusion of warm fresh air and warm bad breath from last night’s reception. Or at least the Temporary Military Attache found it confusing as he picked his way through the cleaners and sweepers to stare at the man waiting in a small side room.
The visitor was lean, his hair sleeked back with some disgusting-smelling oil, and wearing thick-rimmed spectacles and a suit that was almost a diplomatic incident. He looks like a servant – or worse, the Attache thought. Who let him in? Who said he could sit down?
Unsure of what language to use, he made an international noise in his throat. The visitor looked up and asked: “D’ye spaik English?”
“I do.”
The visitor reached into a bulging pocket. “D’ye want to buy this, then?”
He didn’t even say “Sir”. The book was red, slim, pocket-sized and in the front it said MOST SECRET – CODE X – TRES SECRET. The Attache opened it, then sat down abruptly.
I will attack, he read – 11647 – Je vais attaquer. His hands shivered and he took several deep breaths to subdue his hangover. Despite being a cavalryman and enjoying the image of himself as a “devil of a fellow”, the Attache was not stupid. Perhaps a good deal of what he mistook for intelligence in himself was really ruthless ambition, but in some military circles that is just as good.
I am attacking – 45151 – J’attaque.
If this is a foul joke perpetrated by an unspeakable Magyar in the Commercial section, I will personally see that he is posted to Manzanillo.
I attacked – 31847 – J’ai attaque.
“Where – ” his voice started as a croak and he coughed: “ – where did you obtain this?”
“It belongs to me master, but him busy being dead drunk this fine morning, I’m handling his affairs for him.” He leered like a gargoyle.
“Who is your master?”
“Ah, now. I was thinkin’ names, specially mine, needn’t come into this. Just say he’s the sort of man uses this sort of book. And a bastard of an Englishman besides.”
“You are not English?”
The visitor stood up, snatched back the book, and sneered down at the Curassiers’ uniform. “I ask for an officer and they send the lavatory attendant.”
“No, wait please. You are Irish.”
“A genius. And in uniform.”
“A good Catholic, like us Austrians.”
Apparently mollified, the visitor sat down again.
“But how,” the Attache asked, “can I be sure this book is genuine?”
The visitor shrugged. “How would I know meself. – except me master jest got it for special cablegrams. D’ye want it or not?”
“This is a more complicated matter than you understand. I cannot just buy this book. I do not have the authority. And to buy the book itself would make the code useless, because …”
The visitor studied his fingernails, perhaps to make sure none of the dirt had fallen out.
“I want a thousand pounds,” he said.
“And I said ye wouldn’t be awake before one o’clock so he went charging away with the code – to get it photographed – and then asked me a lot more questions and then stuck me to wait out in the garden. Jayzus! ye should see the size of that garden – ”
“I believe it’s the biggest private park in central Paris,” Ranklin said. They had met in a large students’ cafe near the Place St Michel and, for their own peace of mind, in a dark corner of it.
“… and gave me coffee and cream cakes – ah, those cakes, ye’ve never tasted the like in yer life.”
“That’s fine, but are we going to get the money?”
O’Gilroy considered. “From what he was saying, he was serious about it: telling me not to leave your employ sudden and go drinking it all up at oncest, or ye’d be suspicious.”
“He knows something about the business, then.”
“And he gave me a hundred francs.”
“Four pounds? Well, it’s a start. From what we heard in Brussels, a thousand’s a bit high for a code, but we should get six to eight. Do you think they managed to photograph the whole book?”
“They had three hours, and was talking of getting them on a train to Vienna …”
“That’s at least twenty-four hours. It’ll take time.” Their own “proof” of the code had already gone: a bribed operator had telegraphed a coded message to the British Embassy in Vienna. Tomorrow or the next day, the Kundschaftstelle would have the photographs of the code book, would take the intercepted telegram from the “unsolved” file, and behold! – it was solved. Actually, all they would learn was that it was a test run of a new code, in future to be used only in moments of crisis (which would explain why they wouldn’t get a flood of telegrams in the new code) and no acknowledgement was needed. And they would conclude, Ranklin prayed, that they were being offered a bargain.
The only risk, he reckoned, was that the Vienna Embassy would have an unreadable telegram, would complain to the Foreign Office, who would suspect the Bureau and scream that their diplomatic virginity was being threatened. But that was just too bad: if the Commander didn’t want trouble with the Foreign Office, he shouldn’t send accountants to insult his agents’ financial probity.
He picked up a short list of questions. “You said you wanted the money in cash, either pounds or francs?”
“Yes.”
“And that we were leaving next week and you wanted it prompter?”
O’Gilroy nodded.
“That if they didn’t pay, somebody else might?”
“Ah, they gave me a lecture on how it would ruin the value of the code if word of it got about, and I took a long time to understand what they meant by that.” Ranklin’s sympathy was entirely with the Austrian Attache; O’Gilroy being stupid was a top-of-the-bill performance.
“But ye’re still sure,” O’Gilroy added, “ye don’t want me to try it on the Germans as well?”