Abruptly, Ranklin said: “What do you know of the Baroness Schramm?”
Klapka blinked. “I do not know her at all, before this. But – if the Law comes from her, obviously she is connected with the Archduke. Or his advisers, Count Czernin, Bardolff …”
“You think they’d have the influence to get her into this job? It might still be worth asking about her. Quietly.”
Klapka looked at Corinna for confirmation; she nodded.
“And,” Ranklin went on, “what are you going to do yourself?”
Klapka blinked even harder and then waved his arms again. “To do? I must do nothing. Mrs Finn has employed me, and … and …” he seemed to cringe into the protection of his suit.
“You don’t want to be involved?” Ranklin said soothingly. “Of course not. Better to let Dr Hornbeam’s fellow countrywomen advise him that he’s playing with fire and gunpowder.”
“Of course.” Klapka expanded to fill his suit again. “That is most best.”
“And thank you very much for your time and excellent advice.”
After that, Klapka had no choice but to go, despite Corinna’s obvious flabbergastation. He was more accustomed to taking orders from men than from even the richest women.
As the door closed, Corinna turned to Ranklin and it was going to be thunder well before teatime.
He held up a hand. “I know, I know – it was unpardonable. But – so far he hasn’t thought through to the next step, and perhaps he’ll deliberately not think any more. He’ll know he’s close enough for fragment wounds if there’s any scandal involving Hornbeam. Anyway, we’re one step ahead at the moment so let’s use that moment.”
“What step?” She was far from soothed.
“Remembering the Archduke may be stupid but he’s been a Habsburg all his life. He has to know the risk he’d be running by involving Hornbeam and the Law. Why not wait until he’s Emperor, with an Emperor’s clout, and see what he can do about the Law then? I don’t think he knows anything about this at all.”
Corinna’s mouth opened slowly, but she caught on quickly. “Then the Baroness isn’t working for him but against him? And that’s why you wanted to know what her connections are – that’s pretty smart, and I forgive your masterfulness.” She pondered. “Then this – trying to break the Amendment to the Law – must be planned to leak out. How?”
“That I can’t guess. They can’t have counted on your taste for burglary.”
She grinned. “And that was pretty smart of me, too.”
“And I forgive your instinctive immorality. But it has to leak out soon: they need Hornbeam himself – an independent witness, you might say – to confirm that it isn’t just another Viennese cafe rumour.”
“Maybe he’ll announce it as part of his speech tonight: ‘I bring good cheer: Duchess Sophie can be Empress after all.’ Wow.”
“Wow indeed,” Ranklin whispered, awe-struck at the idea. But something like that seemed horribly likely: public and irrefutable.
Corinna’s mind was off on a branch line. “Solving a legal problem and making a pretty lady into an Empress, that would really be gravy to an old dormouse from Harvard Yard. And the Baroness’s beautiful white body to make doubly sure.”
“Trebly: now she’s snared him, they can threaten to tell his wife if he wants to back out. Or if you and Lucy tell him to.”
“Wow some more.” Now Corinna was being awe-struck. “This is big.”
“Destroying the Emperor Presumptive usually is, I imagine. And because that’s what we’re talking about, I want you to promise to do and say nothing: nothing to Lucy, no telegram to Paris, nothing until we know more.”
To promise inactivity was probably the hardest thing you could ask Corinna to do, but he believed her solemn nod.
Back in his own room, Ranklin pottered about looking for his folding Panama hat and trying to think of what more there might be for them to find. If the plotted “revelation” was intended to stop the Archduke becoming Emperor, then it had its risks. Suppose that Hornbeam, seeing what he had stirred up, told the whole story? Then suppose that pressure was brought on the Baroness to tell yet more? In time, the plot might well be revealed and its effect destroyed. After all, the job of Emperor wasn’t open yet.
He remembered that O’Gilroy had borrowed the Panama, put on his straw boater, and started looking for his umbrella. Suppose, then, that the plot was not so much to destroy Franz Ferdinand’s chance of becoming Emperor in the future as to throw him into temporary disgrace right now? This summer, this month, this war season. With the Archduke silenced, his influence gone, the war party would be badly weakened. Berchtold and his fellow peace-mongers at the Foreign Office might then be able to stop any invasion of Serbia, get the Army scattered back to its barracks. It would take too long to re-assemble for this season even if the plot leaked out and the Archduke regained his status.
He found his umbrella; a hot summer spent on the Continent meant he hadn’t carried it in months. Now he twirled it expertly and its comforting familiarity improved his humour even more. Because now, he thought, as he trotted cheerfully down the stairs, I need do nothing – except confirm my theory. Let the peace party have its way: who could criticise that?
Well, Corinna could, if it meant letting a distinguished American make a diplomatic incident of himself. And it did mean just that, he realised, a shade less cheerfully; the plot had to succeed. Would it be fair to ask if she would rather see Europe ablaze with war? Perhaps he should just take charge of stopping the plot – and then bungle it and apologise. Hmm.
Out in the sunlight, he lifted the furled umbrella with a flick of his wrist and the dozing cabbie across the driveway woke immediately; even his horse seemed to stand to attention. If there was one thing at which the English still unquestionably led the world, it was handling umbrellas.
47
Ranklin had forgotten the name of the cafe, so just had the cabbie put him down at the statue of Petofi. He was surprised to find how eagerly he was looking forward to a talk with Hazay. Was he overtrusting the young man’s inside knowledge and cynical judgement? Certainly he was being overdependent on one friendly source in a strange city, a recognised pitfall for a lazy spy. But time was short, and anyway, he would judge anything Hazay said on its merits.
He sat pondering over a coffee and a copy of the Neue Freie Presse. Was there any way in which he could use Hazay and his access to the public? Obviously he couldn’t give him the plot against the Archduke: that would wreck it – if the censors allowed it to be printed. But any other way? He shuddered suddenly at how cynical he himself was becoming, and picked up the newspaper. Anyway, he couldn’t use the man unless the damned man turned up. The morning was wearing away.
He had just about given up hope when Tibor came along with his bear-like shamble. “Good day, Enemy,” he grinned, leaning over to shake hands. “Stefan tells me to see if you are here. He is most sorry – ” he broke off to order a drink, “ – but he must go to Komarom to telegraph to Munich.”
Komarom? That was the next proper town up the railway line to Vienna; he remembered passing through it.
“There,” Tibor explained, “he misses the Budapest censors.” Of course: the telegraph line followed the railway line in every country.
“But,” Tibor added, shrugging, “the censors in Vienna will see it anyway. He asks me to give you this.”
This was a page from a notebook covered in hasty handwriting. Ranklin deciphered it carefully. “So the Archduke went to Vienna the day before yesterday to see Count Berchtold at the Ballhausplatz.” That was the Foreign Office. “And tomorrow Berchtold goes to Bad Ischl to an audience with the Emperor – sorry, King. How far is that?”