by Gavin Lyall
When the Commander had been given permission to smoke and stuck his pipe in his mouth, he began: “There’s a lad, an American citizen, now in Brixton jail because the French want us to extradite him for setting fire to a police station in Paris.”
He paused, and St Claire said: “Yes, I read about the case in this morning’s papers. He’s an anarchist, isn’t he?”
Ranklin said: “Yes, but it’s legally important to keep that out of court – according to the lad’s lawyer.”
The Commander resumed: “It appears that if he is extradited, he’ll claim publicly that he’s the son of the King.”
Perhaps Ranklin was disappointed when St Claire merely nodded.
“His mother was an English girl called Enid Bowman. She wrote the American consulate here a letter that can be read as endorsing the boy’s claim. We think she’s in Paris – France, anyway – and probably in hiding.”
When the Commander didn’t go on, St Claire asked: “Is that all you can tell me, Commander?”
“We know more about the crime itself, but what seems to matter most is what the mother may claim. Even if we could go direct to her, it might be a mistake to do so – but an indirect approach is difficult and slow to do secretly. For example, we don’t want to involve the police.”
“How far have you gone with investigating this?”
“Hardly anywhere. We only heard the exact nature of the threat yesterday evening. I thought it best to come to you before going any further.”
St Claire tried to put his coffee cup down on a small table already overloaded with the tray, then put it on the floor instead. “Do you expect me to ask His Majesty if there could be any truth in this?”
The Commander took it evenly. “It would short-cut our investigations. And however careful we are, just asking questions endangers secrecy.”
St Claire shifted in his seat. “You do remember that We are going to Paris next week?” There was a definite capital letter on that “We”.
The Commander nodded.
“Is this just a coincidence?”
“With what little we know, we simply can’t tell,” the Commander said blandly.
St Claire gazed out of the window, stroked his moustache, and then, staring at the merely smouldering fire in the grate, began to speak. “His father would simply have brazened this out; sworn it couldn’t be true in the highest court and on any bible you cared to hand him. On the grounds that the honour of a British king was far more important than any truth – possibly more important than perjuring his immortal soul. But at least that would have been a matter between him and his God, and not involved us of the Household.” He sighed. “I suppose that the upbringing of royal children must always be a problem, but I doubt the answer is to shunt them off into the Navy at the age of twelve. Whatever is said about Queen Victoria not letting Prince Edward see state papers and the like, at least he was around. He met people, knew who was who in Europe. Whereas chugging around the Cannibal Isles shaking hands . . . hardly the best preparation for the subtleties of a modern state. The one thing one can say about His Majesty is that he sets an example to us all as a husband and family man . . .” His voice dwindled into silent thought. Then he said, almost to himself: “I certainly find it difficult to accept that a British king is for no more than that . . . Nevertheless, it is virtually the only strong card in his hand.”
“And you’d like to keep it that way,” the Commander nodded. “I quite understand that. But if His Majesty would say if this could be true—”
“Forgive me, but you may have missed my point. His Majesty is learning what being King of Great Britain means. That said, if he were now told that he might have fathered a bastard, he may well, given his inexperience except in the naval tradition of accepting personal responsibility, admit it openly. And where would we all be then?”
The Commander and Ranklin looked at each other. After a while, the Commander said: “So it may be a matter of saving the King from himself?”
“I don’t need to tell you that the British monarchy is going through a difficult patch. In his first four years on the throne, the King has faced the Prime Minister’s blackmail – it was nothing less – about reforming the Lords, radicalism, socialism, republicanism, women’s suffrage – and now the Irish Home Rule Bill and the likelihood of civil war in either North or South. A successful visit to Paris could make all the difference. It happens to be of particular political importance: the French loved the late King Edward and were rather annoyed that King George chose to visit Germany first – although it was, for a family wedding, quite unavoidable.
“Now you tell me that the visit is threatened by prospective headlines trumpeting a Paris anarchist as the true heir to the throne. Oh, I know he can’t be, but that won’t stop the French press. This really couldn’t have come at a worse moment. So I ask again: are you sure this is pure coincidence?”
In a marginally controlled voice the Commander said: “And I repeat what I said a few minutes ago, since I haven’t learnt anything new since then: I’ve no bloody idea.”
Quite unoffended, St Claire leant forward and gave the fire a poke. Ranklin was coming to an odd – and almost reluctant – conclusion about him: he didn’t despise them. The normal reaction for anyone suspecting he was a spy was distaste, with at most some sympathy of the “I suppose someone has to do it” sort. But St Claire was treating them as brother officers who’d been handed a tricky task, that was all. Ranklin couldn’t help warming to the man.
Now St Claire was saying: “We seem to be talking about a time well before I joined the Household . . .”
“Around February 1890,” Ranklin said. “When Prince George was a naval lieutenant doing a gunnery course at HMS Excellent at Portsmouth.” Nanny’s scrapbook had given him that much.
“And that is the . . . the relevant time? Thank you, Captain . . . I should have asked this before: does anyone in the government know anything about this?”
The Commander said firmly: “Not from us. And I’ve no reason to believe they’d know from any other source.”
“Hm. Thank goodness for rather large mercies. So it wasn’t they who passed the problem to you?”
“It came to us,” the Commander said, “by a rather round-about route. I don’t know if you have the time . . . ?”
“I think I’d better have.”
When the Commander had finished, St Claire fetched a notepad from his table and scribbled. The Commander winced at seeing things committed to paper, but said nothing.
St Claire looked up. “And how many are aware of this claim? So far I’ve got the boy himself, his mother, this girl from Paris, yourself and Captain Ranklin. How many more in your Bureau?”
The Commander hesitated, then said: “I think I have to say ‘As many as I choose to tell’. If we’re to go on investigating, I need to pick the right man for each aspect of it. They wouldn’t be in the Bureau if they weren’t trustworthy.”
The old bastard does stick by us, Ranklin thought. Though, mind you, to say anything else would reflect badly on himself. Still, it does bypass the problem of explaining O’Gilroy.
“Very well. You say the boy’s lawyer doesn’t want to know? I assumed Mr Noah Quinton –” the emphasis showed that Quinton’s reputation had got as far as the Palace “– wanted to know everything, but I suppose he must have a strong instinct for self-preservation. And so far, no politicians. What about this American vice-consul and Miss . . . Mrs Finn? Is she that daughter of Reynard Sherring?”
“She is. They know that a secret – an alleged secret – is involved, but not what it is. I doubt the vice-consul wants to know more, he’s already concealing things from his superiors, but Mrs Finn . . .” And he looked hard at Ranklin.
“Not from me. But she does talk to people. More importantly, people talk to her.”
“So she remains,” St Claire said, “a weak link.”
“If we’re looking for weak links,” Ranklin said evenly, “we’ve got the boy hi
mself, his mother and the girl Berenice Collomb. God knows what they’re going to do.”
“But in the short term,” St Claire said, “that seems to depend on the outcome of the case. It was going on this morning, wasn’t it?” He glanced towards his table and sighed. “I’m sure the world thinks that all I have to do is lift that telephone and I’m immediately in touch with the wisdom of Solomon. Whereas most of the time I daren’t even suggest the Palace wants to know something without starting a riot of speculation.”
“Let Ranklin call our office,” the Commander said promptly. “We’ve got a man in court and they should be breaking for lunch about now.”
So Ranklin found himself speaking to first the Palace switchboard lady and then the Bureau’s, both chosen for well-bred reticence rather than technical skill.
Behind him, St Claire was saying: “If it comes down to it, at least the current Home Secretary is a lawyer. And in my experience, lawyers seldom see the law as something rigid. More like a palette from which they can select the right colours for any situation. I’m sure that if he had a word with the Lord Chancellor – if that’s the right person – Bow Street would quickly get the idea that a verdict against extradition would be preferred. Even better if the verdict seems to hang in the balance, as you say.”
You can’t do that, Ranklin thought instinctively. But why not? He himself broke or ignored laws all the time, usually other countries’ but sometimes Britain’s as well; that was now his job. How was this different? Were there any lines to be drawn? And why was he drawing one at someone seated beside the fountain-head of justice itself proposing to rape the law and then pretend it was still virgo intacta?.
“It might get the French up in arms,” the Commander observed. “There’s an appeals procedure, I understand, which could spin it out another two weeks or more.”
“Hm. I’ll think about that . . . How am I to keep in touch with you, by the way?”
“I’ve decided to revive the old Steam Submarine Committee. Good practice to cloak a new purpose in an existing body and I think I’m still chairman of it, though it hasn’t met for ten years. Not since we decided that steam-powered submarines were pure balls, in fact. Ranklin here is the new secretary.”
Still muddled by his own emotions, Ranklin barely registered that he’d got a new job he hadn’t been told about. Then Jay came on the other end of the telephone.
“So,” the Commander went on, “if you mention the Committee in any telephone call or message, we’ll know exactly what you’re talking about.”
“And vice versa. Excellent,” St Claire murmured.
Ranklin put down the telephone and said tonelessly: “The case was adjourned for another day. The meat porter, Guillet, has gone missing.”
* * *
Sitting in a rocking corner of the “express” to Portsmouth, Ranklin watched the gentle Hampshire countryside unreeling past and thought of what he should have said to avoid being sent on this futile jaunt. Too late now, of course. And he couldn’t even alter the minutes of the meeting to make the injustice plain, because the Bureau kept no minutes. Good for secrecy, bad for clarity. People unconsciously developed what had been said until they were convinced that it had been said. Or agreed, or decided. Good minute-keeping prevented that.
Once, he’d been good at minutes himself. Of mess meetings, staff pow-wows and the like. Could he still do it?
The Steam Submarine Committee met in Whitehall Court at approximately 12 noon on April 16 1914.
In the chair: Commander C.
In attendance: Capt. R, Secty; Lieut. Jay; Mr O’G.
A selection of cold comestibles and beverages was provided by the ground-floor restaurant. Lieut, jay commented unfavourably on the quality of the sausage rolls.
The minutes of the last meeting, held some ten years previously, having been presumed lost, the Chairman opened the proceedings by inviting Lieut. Jay to report on events at Bow St Police Court that morning. Jay said that the witness Guillet had failed to appear for his resumed cross-examination. The barrister representing the Crown apologised for the witness’s absence and said he had been assured that every effort was being made by the police to find him. Broad hints were then dropped by Mr Noah Quinton that he had been about to expose said witness as a perjurer and this might not be unconnected with his disappearance. The magistrate then adjourned the hearing for twenty-four hours.
The Chairman said he had been told by Captain R that he had seen the deceased witness on the previous night but been assured that he had not brought about the witness’s decease, although he was sure that Captain R had been justified in doing so if he had, in fact, done so. When Captain R could get a word in edgeways, he said that he had neither killed nor interfered with said witness, merely listened to him in a nearby public house. He might have pointed out that the witness’s testimony could result in a perjury charge, but had come to the conclusion that the witness was more frightened of some unnamed person or persons than he was of such a charge,
Discussion ensued concerning the possible identity of the above-mentioned person (s), the Paris Préfecture of police being mentioned.
Mr O’G opined that he did not think the Préfecture was guilty of such conduct, nor that it really intended to put Grover Langhorn on trial in France. In his view, its intention was to establish a hold over him and compel him to give evidence incriminating others at the Café des Deux Chevaliers. The police would rather convict such others than an American youth.
He further opined that little distinction was drawn by the Paris police between anarchists who robbed banks etc. as “expropriation” and criminals who just robbed banks etc. Lieut. Jay said that casual discussions at Bow St had led him to believe that London policemen thought the same way.
The Chairman asked Mr O’G if he thought Grover Langhorn was a sincere anarchist. O’G said that he had received that impression from Paris newspapers which had interviewed Mme Berenice Collomb. She had been represented as saying that Langhorn wanted to slaughter every capitalist in the world but would not, on the other hand, hurt a fly. Capt. R commented that such a remark seemed to him consistent with Mme Collomb’s mode of thought.
Some pointless discussion then ensued. The Chairman called the meeting to order and asked Lieut. Jay what he had discovered at Somerset House. Jay reported that he had uncovered a marriage certificate showing that Ethan James Langhorn and Enid Elizabeth Bowman were married at St Jude’s church in Southsea, Portsmouth, on May 9 1890. The Chairman calculated that the bride had then been nearly three months pregnant and commented favourably on her skill in acquiring a husband in that time.
Continuing, Jay said that the certificate revealed the bride to have been aged 25, the groom a boatswain aged 42, his address being a seamen’s hostel in Southampton. The bride’s address was given as 15 Abercromby Road, Southsea. No parents were among the witnesses. Of these, three were female and assumed to be friends of the bride; the fourth, George Pavlides, might have been a shipmate of the groom.
It was then decided by the Chairman that Capt. R and Mr O’G would proceed immediately to Portsmouth to see if they could acquire any additional information, despite the passage of some twenty-three years. There being no objections to this except from Capt. R and Mr O’G, the meeting was declared closed at approximately 1.30 p.m.
He must have been moving his lips, because O’Gilroy said: “Talking to yeself again? Bad sign, that.”
“Had a nice refreshing sleep?”
“Wasn’t sleeping, jest thinking.” O’Gilroy found and lit a cigarette. “That marriage, with the American sailor, it went wrong. Or mebbe the feller died a while gone.”
Ranklin raised his eyebrows.
“Why else would ye tell yer son his father wasn’t really his father? Either ye’ve come to hate the feller or he’s been long anough dead it don’t matter, and ye reckon ye can tell the truth – and mebbe make a bob or two out of it.”
Ranklin thought this over and accepted it. The trouble with
high-flown meetings around big tables was forgetting that behind all the national implications lay very simple human emotions. “You should have said that at the meeting.”
But O’Gilroy just grunted. He said as little as possible at such meetings. Perhaps it had been his years in the ranks, perhaps the more dangerous years in the ranks of those plotting for a free Ireland, but the result was that he was the most secretive and distrusting of them all.
If O’Gilroy got on a tram in a strange city, he already knew which door to use, how one paid, generally what to do next. Nobody had told him, he’d just watched how others did it. He simply hated being conspicuous, of giving away his ignorance or next move by asking – as Ranklin would instinctively have done. So while Ranklin’s protection was that he seemed a simple, open-faced English gentleman, O’Gilroy’s was in not being noticed at all. Neither was right nor wrong, except for himself, and essentially they were complementary. As Ranklin had once put it, they might add up to one competent spy. The hope was that nobody would expect a spy to come in two halves.
Beyond the train’s window, a fuzz of bright green, brought out by the last few days of sunshine, was blurring the skeleton hands of the winter trees beside the track. The world was waking again, and Ranklin had felt safer when it was asleep.
6
From Portsmouth town station they took a motor-taxi, dropping Ranklin at St Jude’s Church and taking O’Gilroy on to Abercromby Road. Ranklin hadn’t hoped to find anything more from the parish register – a marriage certificate is simply copied from that – but the vicar might still be the one whose name was on the certificate and remember more.
After twenty-four years he wasn’t the same, of course, and his predecessor was dead. Nor was the current incumbent, who’d had a properly busy Easter, in any rush to help. His congregation included too many senior naval officers – St Jude’s was quite fashionable, by Portsmouth standards – for him to be impressed with self-important civilians.