by Gavin Lyall
“Never met her,” Ranklin said cheerfully. “Have you?”
“I have seen her, in Constantinople, many years before now. It was said of her . . .” He hesitated.
Perhaps heading him off, Dahlmann leaned forward. “You must help me, Mr Snaipe, so that I do not make mistakes. How should I call the lady?”
This was one area where Snaipe, as an “Hon” himself, could afford to get it right. “Strictly, she’s the Dowager Viscountess Kelso, but she most likely prefers to be –” what was her Christian name? Oh, yes – “Harriet, Lady Kelso. To distinguish her from her stepson’s wife, who’s plain Lady Kelso.”
Dahlmann mouthed “Harriet, Lady Kelso,” a couple of times in a whisper.
“But,” Ranklin added, “since the Christian name is just to avoid confusion, ‘Lady Kelso’ will do. Unless we get the other one on the train as well.”
“And I call her My Lady?”
Ranklin winced. “No, not unless you’re a servant. Just Lady Kelso to start with, then Madam.”
This didn’t seem grand enough for Dahlmann. “Are you quite certain?”
“Oh, yes.” So Dahlmann whispered “Madam” a few times to see if he could aggrandise it.
“Mind, she may say ‘Call me Harriet’, so—”
“I shall call her Lady Kelso,” Dahlmann said firmly, pulling his overcoat tighter about his shoulders. It occurred to Ranklin that the banker was probably more comfortable dealing with ladies who had morals but no titles rather than the vice versa sort.
During all of this, Zurga had listened with careful interest. Being as rank-conscious as any Turk, he would want to get it right, too. Now he leaned back and said: “So this woman can be a Viscountess but also an adulteress? – almost a whore?”
That was going a bit far for Dahlmann. “Please, Zurga Bey, I beg you not to say such things. The lady will be with us in a few hours.”
Ranklin said: “She wasn’t born in the gutter, you know, not if she married a diplomatist. The nobility can afford to marry chorus-girls – often do, actually – but not diplomatists. Anyway, as I see it, she’s coming along just because she was an adulteress, no other reason.”
“In Turkey—” But Zurga stopped there. In Turkey, adulteresses lost more than a place in decent society.
* * *
This was timber country: stacks of cut logs lay beside the track, and at almost every station there was a yard full of planks, a carpeting of damp sawdust and the smell of cut wood seeping in whenever the outside door was opened. Between stations, the forests of mingled pines and larches came in waves, surging right up to the track, then ebbing around a clearing, a handful of fields, or a sudden sight of the Rhine. In places the larches were matted so thickly with creepers that it became a dark green arras, blotting out the gloomy forest depths.
Nearly four hours after leaving Basle they were abandoned at Singen junction and, as Ranklin and O’Gilroy watched from the platform, a shunting engine pushed a similarly painted carriage up behind and men started coupling it. The rear of the new carriage had double baggage doors and was windowless, the front half had a scatter of vari-sized windows and nice warm steam wisping from two stubby chimneys. A man in the white apron, hat and bad-tempered look of a true chef sneered at them from a doorway.
The baggage compartment doors were fastened by a big padlock. Ranklin murmured: “There’s probably a door on the inside, so if you can get a look . . .”
“Surely. Where’d this one come from?”
The only other line from the junction – Ranklin had borrowed a look at a railway map – was from the north. “It could have come from Strasbourg by the quicker, shorter route. If it’s got the gold, they may not have wanted to take it through Swiss territory.”
“Mebbe ‘twas picking it up and they didn’t want us to see.”
“From the middle of the Black Forest? It doesn’t seem likely.”
Dahlmann appeared, probably from the local telegraph office, and urged them: “Komm schnell! We are going to move.”
Ranklin glanced at either end of the train. “Er – I think we’ll need an engine, first.”
Dahlmann took another look and hurried away again.
“What d’ye make of the Turkish feller?” O’Gilroy asked.
“Zurga? I just don’t know. His German’s good, but I’d have expected more of a merchant type – and Turkey’s got plenty of those – as a consul.”
“Did ye see his hands? He’s not been sitting at any desk, he’s been doing some real work.”
“He says he’s been in the Black Forest. It’s not exactly mountain country but it can be quite rocky. If he’d been climbing, that would roughen up his hands.”
“This weather?” O’Gilroy grunted, then added: “His baggage is all locked. And the labels been cleaned off.”
“Ah, you had a snoop. Thank you, but don’t take any risks.”
“Best done while I can. Looks like we’re going to be crawling with staff from now on.”
Dahlmann appeared again. “The engine is coming. When we move, we will have lunch in half an hour. Meanwhile, your luggage will be put in the baggage compartment.”
“Thank you.” Ranklin nodded the problem on to O’Gilroy.
“Right away, sir. Ah –” he turned deferentially to Dahlmann “– if ye could have the baggage doors opened, I could bring it along the platform, sir. Easier than hauling it all through the train.”
That was so sensible that it took Dahlmann a moment to think how to refuse it. “Er, no, we may move very soon. Just make sure it is ready, the other servants will help.”
So the baggage compartment was strictly verboten. O’Gilroy just bowed his head and walked quickly away.
8
It was nearly half past three when they reached Friedrichshafen, and also just after lunch. This had been a proper affair of silver cutlery and hock glasses directed by the Chef de Train, another Bismarck copy in (of course) Prussian blue uniform and medals. He had made it clear that the formality was because he had standards, not because he thought bankers and foreigners did.
They paused at the main station to pick up two railway officials from a welcoming party, then chugged on half a mile down a spur leading to the dockside itself and yet more officials. With all this official attention, it was getting to be a secret mission in a spotlight – but Ranklin was realising that, for Berlin, it wasn’t a secret mission at all. They might well want European sympathy in dealing with a Turkish brigand, and any secrets – such as what was in the baggage compartment – could be well hidden in the extra-dark shadows a spotlight throws.
Just before it ran into the lake, the spur line ended at a complete but toytown-sized harbour. There was a station with a short platform, already occupied by a two-coach local train, so again they ended up in a goods siding, but a tiny one with just odd wagons parked. A few more had strayed, via a turntable, onto the quayside itself where two little cranes could lift cargo directly onto moored steamers. There was even a traditional half-timbered Customs house along the landward side of the quay.
The drizzle had stopped, but been replaced by a water-honed wind, and across the lake behind the low grey clouds and lower grey hills of Switzerland the sun was already setting. Dahlmann went off with the officials to be busy, and Zurga took one breath of outside air and said: “I am going to stay warm.” Ranklin suspected he simply wasn’t going to rouse himself for an adulteress, Dowager Viscountess though she was, but staying warm was finally possible: the return of the service coach had re-connected a heating system. Ranklin himself wasn’t anxious to be out of doors, but felt the honour of the Foreign Office demanded it.
So he and O’Gilroy paced along the quay. Although the little harbour was obviously kept busy – they could see a steamer that had left only shortly before – nobody else was fool enough to hang about in that wind. They had the quay to themselves and one inevitable dockside loafer in a flat cap.
“Is this the place they make the Zeppelins?” O’Gi
lroy asked.
“It is, and we show absolutely no interest in that.”
“Surely. Jest hoping to see one. But too much wind, I’m thinking.”
“How are your new quarters?”
“Jayzus!” O’Gilroy said fervently. “Ye wouldn’t keep a pig in them, ‘cept I think they did. Mind,” he added grudgingly, “the carriage is clever for what it is. Jest too much space for baggage.”
“When the Kaiser travels, it’ll all be used. Can you get at it?”
“Not easy. There’s a proper locked door and one of the fellers, sort of train guard and mebbe t’other sort as well, he’s got a seat right alongside it. I’ll try later: if ye dress for dinner, ye’ll find ye haven’t got any neck-ties. Give me a bollocking and send me to get ’em double quick. Mebbe that’ll stampede them to let me in.”
“Good idea.”
Dahlmann strode – except that with his short legs it was more of a scurry – up with the news that the ship perhaps a mile away, and already sparkling with lights in the dusk, was the one from Romanshom. “In ten or fifteen minutes she is here. Ah . . . you will not get lost, I hope?”
Ranklin suppressed a smile. “Oh, I don’t expect so. It seems quite a small town.”
Dahlmann hurried off again and Ranklin did a standing dance to keep his feet from frostbite.
O’Gilroy said approvingly: “Ye’ve got him thinking Patrick Snaipe’s a pure fool, anyhow.”
And indeed, Ranklin felt happy that he was getting across his new persona convincingly – although he’d have to start all over again with Lady Kelso. So he may have forgotten that however well he played at being Patrick Snaipe, he still matched perfectly a description of Captain Matthew Ranklin.
As the steamer hooted its arrival, the dockside suddenly spawned a flood of porters, waving greeters, outgoing passengers and a row of horse-drawn cabs. Ranklin and O’Gilroy strolled along to where the gangway was being readied and Dahlmann reappeared, relieved to see they weren’t lost.
About a couple of dozen passengers disembarked, and Lady Kelso was obvious as the one lone woman in a crowd of businessmen and families. Dahlmann stepped forward, swept off his hat and bowed, a gesture that would have gone better without the jostling of other disembarking passengers. Uniformed town and railway officials crowded in to be introduced next, so Ranklin hung back and watched.
The first impression was that here was a genuine dowager viscountess, with all the fore-and-aft opulence of King Edward’s time – in miniature. She was one woman who was shorter than Ranklin: even at a distance, he had a perfect eye for that. And despite the way she glided like the figurehead of a ship, the face between the wide hat and the muffling fur collar was startlingly petite, soft and feminine. Age had been kind to her: Ranklin knew she was about sixty, but her face didn’t sag, no matter what her corset was coping with. For a woman whose reputation if not life had been made in the evenings, she had a morning look: bright, fresh and – since God enjoys a joke – innocent.
Finally it was his turn. He raised his hat: “Patrick Snaipe of the Diplomatic, Lady Kelso. Your official escort.”
She smiled. “How sweet of them. And do you know Turkey well?”
“Hardly at all,” Ranklin said cheerfully.
“Well, between us we should manage.” She smiled inquiringly past him at O’Gilroy.
Ranklin was deliberately slow catching on; first impressions, again. “Oh, and that’s Gorman, my man.”
Very properly, she didn’t offer any handshake, just: “Good evening, Gorman.”
O’Gilroy dipped his head. “Good evening, M’Lady.”
Dahlmann and the officials closed in again. “I have arranged that your baggage is brought to the train, My – Lady Kelso. It is only two hundred metres, but if you wish a cab—?”
“Of course not. Oh, Dr Zimmer.” He was shaped like a snowman, a round head on a round body, with sleek black hair and thick spectacles. He wore an overcoat with a turned-up fur collar and carried an attaché case.
He bowed over her hand and said: “I must hurry, alas, Madam. I am most honoured to have met you. And the very best of luck in your travels.” He disappeared into the churning crowd.
“An admirer I seemed to acquire coming through Zurich,” she explained. “Now, have we really got a private train? How gorgeous. All the way to Constantinople? How clever of you.” Dahlmann preened himself; whatever his private feelings about Lady Kelso, nobody else in the party had called him clever.
Walking along the quayside, she turned to Ranklin again. “And the Foreign Office has sent you to keep me out of trouble . . . well, at least you don’t seem to be one of those tall sun-bronzed Englishmen who wander the unexplored world making such a nuisance of themselves.”
“Er, no. I’m not,” Ranklin said, wondering if he should sound regretful.
By now it was almost dark. Lights and lamps were coming on around the Customs house and station building as the little procession, porters bringing up the rear, picked its way across the tracks to the welcoming glow of the private carriages.
Ranklin and O’Gilroy stayed outside to let Dahlmann, Lady Kelso, officials and porters jam the corridor, and O’Gilroy observed quietly: “We’ve lost the engine again.”
“Probably just gone to collect more coal or water.” But Ranklin was beginning to feel the cold. “Damn it, I’m getting in the other end.”
He stumped off down beside the carriage to climb up at the dining-saloon end. That meant going through the shadow of a couple of wagons – the light from the private coach came out well above his head – and he had to watch where he was putting his feet. So he wasn’t watching a large figure slip out from between the wagons, but he felt something ram into his ribs.
Ranklin froze.
The pistol, it could only be that, wriggled against him and the man said: “Komm mit mir.”
“You aren’t going to shoot me here,” Ranklin said in German. But it was one of those silly things you say when you don’t know whether he will or not.
“I have orders.”
So Ranklin moved on. They went past the blind service carriage, past more goods wagons and beyond the station buildings, heading up the tracks into darkness.
He is going to shoot me, Ranklin realised. There I was, being so clever at persuading them I was Snaipe, and all the time they were working out how to get rid of me. Just an armed-robbery-gone-wrong, or a simple disappearance, and the Wilhelmstrasse full of remorse and regret but no Diplomatic Incident.
Little I’ll care.
But I don’t want to die now – it’s so inconvenient, so much unfinished. It leaves my family in a mess, I haven’t sorted things out with Corinna, this job incomplete . . . I have to try something. Only . . . what?
Then they reached a level crossing and turned off into the sparsely-lit streets of the old town. This puzzled Ranklin more than it cheered him. It probably meant a more complicated plan, maybe an interrogation ending with him “accidentally” drowned in the harbour . . .
Abruptly he was pushed in through a side door of a half-timbered building that had the smell and distant babble of a beer hall. Ahead of him was a dim-lit uneven wooden staircase and he was shoved up it. And into a wide, low-ceilinged room with its furniture pushed back against the walls, except for a single table and chair in the middle. Sitting there was the snowman-shaped Dr Zimmer of Zurich.
He looked up and said in fluent but accented English: “You are Captain Ranklin of the English Secret Service Bureau?”
9
Ranklin tried to look outraged. “I’m Patrick Snaipe, attached to the Diplomatic Service, and I most strongly—”
“Yes, yes, of course. But I will proceed as if you were Captain Ranklin. You are accused of helping arrange the murder of a man known – to you – as Gunther van der Brock.”
A great relief flooded Ranklin: the Germans hadn’t uncovered him, only Gunther’s people, and they knew him anyway. He might still get murdered, but he had his professional pride
back. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, and I’ve most certainly never arranged the death of any—”
“You are here in Germany to accompany Lady Kelso, who goes to Turkey to help release two engineers on the Baghdad Railway held hostage for ransom. Do you want more details? About Miskal Bey defeating Turkish soldiers with his new rifles?”
“Who are you?”
“You may go on calling me Dr Zimmer. But I am a partner of Gunther. Will you now stop pretending?”
Ranklin looked around. The room was big, probably used for parties and meetings, and bare – for any room in Bavaria. The walls held only a scattering of religious prints, mountain views, photographs and official notices, a clock and several empty flower baskets. It was lit by a single electric bulb hung from the ceiling that was anything but bare: its shade looked like a harvest festival with tassels on, letting only a glow of orange-pink light leak out. From below came, incongruously, the friendly early-evening mumble of the beer hall. “Is this a trial, then?”
Zimmer gave a tiny shrug. “Perhaps, but not like your English trials. It is . . . an inquiry, before Hunke takes you out for execution.”
“It seems I’ve been found guilty already.”
Zimmer said indifferently: “I could have had Hunke shoot you in the rail-yard. Instead, I am being fair. You can try to explain yourself.”
Good God, the bastard really means this, Ranklin realised. Any feeling of relief was gone now. He was going to be taken out and shot like . . . like a spy. He swallowed and asked: “May I sit down?”
Zimmer nodded; Hunke brought over a chair, then himself sat against the wall square to Ranklin, dangling the pistol between his knees. His knubbly face seemed solemn and phlegmatic under his wide flat cap – he may have been the dockside loafer glimpsed earlier – but quite capable of obeying nasty orders.
Ranklin said: “Gunther didn’t come to see the Bureau in London, he saw somebody else. I don’t know who. I called on him at breakfast because we’d heard he was in town—”