“Mind, sir,” Bridget added, quietly enjoying herself, “Wid a rowing boat ye’d be jest ten minutes acrost to Monkstown or Glenbrook. Or An Pasaiste or East Ferry on t’other side, and if’n the tide’s over the mud, then anywheres …”
In other words, you were on an island. And, by boat, could get off it in any direction. He was still thinking like a landlocked soldier.
A yell, abruptly cut off, came from upstairs, followed by scuffled footsteps and a thump. The front door slammed again.
“What was that, sir?” Wilks asked, wide-eyed.
“Don’t know, but keep quiet. And calm.” Whatever it was, it had been something nasty. Ranklin fingered the hard cool metal of the derringer in his pocket. It might not profit himself, but he could leave one body as evidence for the police …
Footsteps clattered on the stairs and corridor and the door opened wide. The Secretary, the butler and a private soldier in a blue-grey greatcoat were pushed inside. The soldier had lost his cap, the butler was white-faced and clutching his stomach.
Ranklin got a glimpse of O’Gilroy and Mick in the corridor before the door slammed on them all.
The soldier burst out wildly: “They killed me mate! Just stuck a knife in him, the bastards!” He was young and pale and shaking.
“Steady, lad. I’m Captain Ranklin, Royal Artillery. Now, who did it?”
The soldier calmed down, but seemed struck dumb. The Secretary said: “That damned German or Russian or whatever he is. Just cut his throat from behind, when … and they made me call them in to be murdered! God, I’d like too …”
Bridget let out a sobbing squeal and clutched at Wilks. He put his arm awkwardly round her shoulders.
Ranklin said: “Right, at least now we don’t have to guess at how serious they are. Here – ” he poured the soldier a tot of brandy and looked around for the butler, who was suddenly sick against the wall.
“That’s the Admiral’s brandy,” the Secretary said, confirming Ranklin’s view of senior officers in a crisis. He just said: “Yes.”
The Secretary coughed. “The one with a beard butt-stroked him with the shotgun. The man’s been a soldier to know how to handle a weapon like that.”
With a warning glance at Bridget and Wilks, Ranklin said: “Perhaps, but I don’t advise speculating out loud. You’re witnesses to a murder, now. Not the safest job on the market.”
The Secretary had calmed down. “I want a word, Captain.” He led Ranklin behind a rack of wine to the furthest corner just a few feet from the servants and other ranks, but now Officers’ Territory.
“What do you think they’ll do with us?” he whispered. Just asking a question was a slight transfer of authority.
“First,” Ranklin whispered back, “how will they get the gold away?”
“They’ve got the keys to the stable where the Admiral keeps his car.”
“Ah.” Ranklin hadn’t thought of that possibility. But that car, easily recognised, could be a passport to – where? O’Gilroy had said Peter wasn’t even taking a share of the gold, which had to mean he planned to take the lot. Some to America now, and bury the rest, probably. He could recover it in just a two-week return voyage – or leave it as a nest egg in case he got chased out of America, too. “Where are all your people and Marines and so on?”
“Guarding the Maggie Gray and the ammunition. We all assumed the gold would be safe once it was in this house.”
Feeling that any comment would be unhelpful, Ranklin asked: “What’s the state of the tide?”
“The tide? Just past full, I think. Ah, you think they plan to use a small boat, away from the harbour. Yes, they could do that in the next hour or two.”
Distantly, they heard the sound of a different car engine and the squeal of brakes; Ranklin wondered which of them could drive. “Are you prepared for me to take the lead?”
“I don’t see what you might do that I can’t,” the Secretary said stiffly.
“Nevertheless.”
The Secretary was two ranks senior to Ranklin, but only in the Navy’s Civil Branch. He frowned at Ranklin in the blotches of dusty light coming through the rack of bottles and Ranklin smiled his optimistic smile back.
“You’ve seen action, I trust?” It was an abdication.
“Yes.”
“Very well, then. I suppose you and that young soldier …”
“They’ll be watching for that combination. Just let me make the first move.” It wasn’t that he had any move in mind, just making quite sure the Secretary had none either.
They heard the key in the lock once more and moved back to meet O’Gilroy in the doorway. He pointed the shotgun at Ranklin. “Ye come wid me. There’s heavin’ and carryin’ to be done.”
In the corridor, Ranklin asked quietly: “Why me?”
Just as quietly, O’Gilroy said: “I know ye for a quiet man, Captain. Not excitable. And one that can start plotting if he’s got time to think.”
So O’Gilroy had assumed he would take charge in the cellar and wanted to leave the group leaderless. It was an odd compliment.
He stepped through the traditional green baize door at the head of the stairs – and into a puddle of blood. He shivered and stopped, but there was no avoiding it: cutting a man’s throat leaves a floor like that. The soldier’s shrunken body lay scooped aside against the wall.
“Why did you bring him?” Peter demanded loudly; he stood just beyond the blood pool.
O’Gilroy didn’t dare to explain the real reason. “Ye gave me the choice.” There was a tightstrung tension in the hallway; Mick stood with his back to the front door, unable to keep his hands still on the rifle. And the very fact that none of them was willing to lay aside his weapon to carry the gold suggested an apprehension, perhaps mistrust, that could have started with the murder of the soldier. Ranklin didn’t think the Irishmen had expected that: perhaps a mistrust he could exploit.
But first he had to carry twenty sealed bags of sovereigns from the safe in the Admiral’s office out to a blue Vauxhall tourer that sat rumbling under the lamppost in the carriageway. He stowed them on the floor by the back seat, and when the last had gone in there was a noticeable sag of the rear springs.
Peter said: “So now a few broadsides will not be fired at the poor of the world.” It fell flat; nobody was thinking in such terms now. “Now take him back.”
O’Gilroy said calmly: “Let Mick take him.”
“What does it matter?”
“So let Mick take him.” Did O’Gilroy not want to leave Peter unwatched, with the car now loaded and running?
“My friends, we do not quarrel now.”
“Sure. So let Mick take him.”
Muscles in Peter’s face twitched. O’Gilroy was impassive behind the beard, but his thumb was on the shotgun hammers, his finger on the first trigger.
The telephone rang.
Everybody moved in one spasm, then froze in place. The ringing went on, from the Admiral’s desk deep in the dim office. Peter looked around, his face taut.
“You,” to O’Gilroy, “you will say …”
“Not me: they know there isn’t an Irish manservant in the house.”
“Then you,” to Ranklin now. “You say – you say one wrong word and you die.”
Proof of that lay crumpled against the wall, and Ranklin had no intention of giving up his life to save, perhaps, twenty thousand pounds of Admiralty funds. He picked his way through the shadows and lifted the earpiece. “Admiralty House.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Kirkwood here,” the telephone said. “May I ask who that is?”
An arm reached over Ranklin’s shoulder and a knife glittered faintly. He said calmly: “This is Captain Ranklin. Did you want the Secretary? He’s, erm, in the lavatory at the moment …”
“No, thank you, sir. Just checking. And would you tell Lionel that I’m doubling the guard at the next change? Just as a precaution. Good night, sir.”
The knife pulled away as Ranklin hung up, frowning. “Just checking,” but what could he or any man have said with a knife at his throat or a gun at his back? Then he chuckled.