It had taken barely half an hour and Ranklin wasn’t sure his cultural appetite hadn’t been deeply insulted, but he recalled the Quay as being one of the pleasantest boulevards in Europe. Tree-and cafe-lined, it was as if a one-sided Champs-Elysees had been laid out along the Seine – and shorn of its new motor showrooms as well.
He was just savouring this when somebody tried to drive a herd of pigs through the side of a tram, and the romantic image got a little clouded. But he had quite forgotten the music that was everywhere: violins and pianos from the cafes, even this early, a gypsy band on a pleasure steamer, street musicians with cornets and urchins with fifes. It gave the whole city the sound of a smile.
They had strolled no more than half a mile when Hazay led them to a cafe table in a triangle of trees around yet another bronze statue.
“Who’s the gentleman?” O’Gilroy asked.
“Sandor Petofi, the poet and soldier.” Hazay’s face had lost its diffidence. “He was killed in … 1849,” translating figures is always tricky; “fighting the Russians.”
“Who were helping the Habsburgs keep control of Hungary,” Ranklin said unemotionally.
“That is right. He wrote then, the year before …” They waited as his face twisted in the effort of more translation; “he wrote:
‘Liberty, in this … faithless time,
We have been your … thy … last and only faithful sons.’ I am sorry I do not translate it very well.”
But it had been quite good enough for O’Gilroy, who was nodding gravely. “I like the sound of that.”
The waiter brought their coffee, a plate of cream cakes and a newspaper. Hazay was immediately apologetic again: “Excuse, please, but I must see if in a Vienna newspaper there is a report …” Eyes and hands flickering, he went through the paper in thirty seconds, then tossed it down.
“No. I had thought perhaps a journalist I know there, that he would have found something – but no.” He smiled at their politely blank faces and explained: “When he can find one thing, then I can write how it will affect Hungary. You see?”
O’Gilroy looked blank, knowing nothing of the journalistic round of liar-dice where one took another’s story, added a fresh twist and republished it as new, so that another could take it, add a twist … Ranklin, more newspaper-wise, smiled politely and said: “It must be an important matter to affect all Hungary.”
“It is still the affair of Colonel Redl. You have read about that?”
“Oh, something in the papers.” He turned to O’Gilroy and asked blandly: “Did you?”
“Sure, something.” The problem was that neither of them could now separate what was public knowledge from what they had picked up on the professional grapevine in Brussels. So they both put on expressions of interested ignorance.
“It has caused much trouble in our Parliaments and Minister Krobatin has tried to stop our Budapest papers from publishing so much …” He shrugged. “So we send it to Munich or Paris and then we can publish here that it is quite untrue what Munich and Paris say that Colonel Redl had given all our plans and codes for war to the Russians, and General Conrad did not lie to Parliament, he is an honourable man … our readers understand.”
This “revelation by denial” was itself news to Ranklin. But in a country with official censorship – and probably a lot of unofficial pressure as well – journalists would need crafts beyond the mere stringing together of words.
“And do you know what secrets Redl did give to the Russians?” he asked.
“But no. The Army does not know – it gave Redl no time to confess. So General Conrad did lie to Parliament when he said the secrets Redl gave were not important, because he cannot be sure.”
O’Gilroy said: “The Army should know what Redl knew. Then it would know what he might have given away.”
“Of course.” Hazay nodded emphatically. “But as deputy to military intelligence, he would know much. And as chief of staff to an army corps, the new work he had just moved to, he must know that Corps’ plans for war, perhaps all the Army’s plans.”
“All in all,” Ranklin summed up, “it sounds a good reason not to risk a war with Russia over Serbia just now.”
“But yes,” Hazay agreed. “You are interested in our politics, no?”
Ranklin was taken aback. O’Gilroy hastily rescued him, his voice muffled by cream cake: “Since when was politics and profit sleeping in different beds?”
“But of course.”
“And who’s pushing for war?” Ranklin asked, hoping it was a logical question at that point. “Apart from Archduke Franzie, of course.”
“General Conrad, yes. Always. He would solve everything to send in the Army. Your wife is unfaithful? – send in the Army. A fly has bitten you? – send in the Army. And the Minister of War, Krobatin, you know? – and General Georgi … But the Archduke; he made Conrad Chief of Staff, it was said, so we think he believes as Conrad – but who really knows what a pig thinks except ‘More mud, please,’?”
O’Gilroy was listening enchanted to this Hungarian view of Viennese authority – and of the Archduke, of course.
“Do you believe,” Ranklin asked, “these stories about the Archduke’s madness? Shooting a servant and so on?”
Hazay pondered, frowning, then decided to be frank. “I want to believe anything of the Archduke – but also I believe nothing that is said in Austria. So I have a problem, no?” He grinned.
“Well, if it’s any help, he didn’t look too mad yesterday.”
Suddenly wary, Hazay asked: “Do you know the Archduke?”
O’Gilroy said abruptly: “Met him.”
“He and his party tried to walk over us on the train,” Ranklin explained. “Coming to Vienna.”
“He was going to there?” Hazay was so eager that for a moment Ranklin feared he had let slip some self-betraying secret. But no, he reassured himself, it’s just journalistic enthusiasm. I hope.
“Last evening; he got on at Salzburg.”
“Who was with him? – please.”
“Three men. Two in Army uniform. One – I’m not good at ranks – could have been a colonel.”
“Colonel Doctor Bardolff, his aide.” Hazay was blinking with excitement. “So he is today in Becs …” The Magyar name for Vienna seemed to sum up the attitude: “operatic, enchanting Becs” – it just wasn’t quite the same. “Excuse, please, I have work – I will pay-”
“No, no, Mr Reynard Sherring will pay,” Ranklin said expansively.
Hazay grinned. “Thank you. I buy him coffee, or beer, soon – yes? Excuse.” He strode away.
O’Gilroy gazed after him. “Are we missing the main event somehow, then?”
“God knows, I think it’s just journalism. Anyway, we gave him the tip so he should feel he owes us anything he finds out. I think we should stay – accidentally – in touch. But if he’s still picking over Redl’s bones after – what? nearly three months? – he’s not making any friends in high places.”
“Seems he’s got most of the tale anyhow. Jest not how long the Colonel’d been working for the Russkies and the name of the Russkie himself Bat-what-was-it.”
“Batjuschin. And Plan Three.”
“Now, Captain, that was just talk. Nobody told us for sure he’d given away Plan Three. How would they know? – without the Russkies up and said it.”
“Hmm. Well, I wouldn’t risk an attack on Serbia if there was even a whisper the Russians might have the blueprint of it.”
“Ah, if yer dragging common sense into it … And what are we doing now?”
Ranklin looked at his watch. “It’s an hour and a half until we join the ladies – assuming we do. I’d better read the financial pages of any German-language papers, you could go and look at the shops. You’d better have some money.”