Honourable Intentions

by Gavin Lyall

  22

  Around two in the morning a company of infantry – about 200 men – arrived. Despite the urgings of deadline-conscious journalists, they took time to be briefed and then to replace the Sûreté men, which wasn’t easy in the darkness. Two soldiers were wounded, which was blamed on the anarchists, and this took up more time. At last two machine-guns were set up: one in the lane and the other on the far side of the canal, firing in arcs which would miss the village if they first missed the cottage.

  The machine-guns opened fire at 3.43 a.m. and fifteen seconds later, both had jammed. The first versions of the French Hotchkiss had a reputation for unreliability, and their crews were unfamiliar with the weapon. But from about 4 a.m. firing became more or less continuous, and if anybody was by then shooting back, it wasn’t reported: most soldiers wisely had their heads well down to avoid howling ricochets. But even the humblest, most deserted dwelling-place has plenty of inflammable material in it, and with thousands of bullets arriving already red-hot and then striking sparks if they hit even a metal nail-head, the next step was inevitable: the cottage caught fire.

  Shooting was stopped, and the flames – mostly in the roof–left to burn out in the slow light of dawn. When a cautious patrol went in, four not-too-badly-charred bodies were found, all with several bullet wounds (the autopsies confirmed). Threemen and one woman.

  Ranklin had the car stopped outside the Gare du Nord and so arrived at the Sherring apartment with three newspapers, just before 7 a.m. The housemaid was already up and about, and she went to rouse Corinna while the chauffeur started making coffee.

  She appeared ten minutes later, wrapped in several layers of mauve taffeta neglige with a white fur collar. She looked pink and scrubbed but not truly awake. They sat down around one end of the big dining-table while the maid poured coffee.

  “It’s over, then,” Corinna said.

  “The siege, anyway.” Ranklin passed over the newspapers. “But it ended too late for these papers, so they had to make do with what they’d got by the time that . . . what’s the phrase?”

  “Newspapermen talk of ‘putting the paper to bed’.”

  “What a lovely thought.” Ranklin hadn’t been near a bed in forty-eight hours. They drank coffee and Corinna skimmed the papers. O’Gilroy offered a cigarette to Ranklin. Corinna half-raised her head to complain, then decided the world was full of worse things, and went on reading about them.

  Then she said: “Connelly. An Irish renegade called Connelly. I don’t think I know anybody of that name, so tell me why it sounds so dreadfully familiar.”

  O’Gilroy smiled his twisted smile and Ranklin said: “I couldn’t say. You know so many strange people.”

  “I do seem to, don’t I? Well, you appear to have taken mama’s advice and got your story in first.”

  “Yes . . . d’you think it’ll do?”

  Her face showed hopeful uncertainty. “Newspapers hate saying ‘Sorry, we got it all wrong, let’s start again’. But what will your café proprietor and his pals be saying?”

  Ranklin shook his head. “Nothing. They do tend to fight to the end – anarchists.”

  After a while, she asked: “Were you counting on that?”

  “A gentleman always gives up his seat to someone who wants to be a martyr. But will this stop Gorkin publishing his version?”

  She thought about this while she drank more coffee. “You can’t really ask me what that man would do . . . But at least you’ve put him in a difficult position. He can’t say that all of ‘Connelly’s’ story is rubbish because the Press knows it isn’t. And he’d be asking for trouble if he started quibbling about details, saying ‘Yes, I did this but the Secret Service did that’. If he admits he was involved at all, he can’t tell how much he’ll get sucked in . . . But then again, if Mrs Langhorn is still ready to back him up saying Grover’s the King’s son, I can’t say how much it’s worth to him as a trouble-maker to risk himself in stirring up more trouble.”

  “And Mrs Langhorn’s got her own row to hoe,” Ranklin reflected sombrely. “Even if she now thinks Gorkin’s a bad hat, she may still be dreaming of eating off gold plates in Buckingham Palace. Is she here?”

  “Good God, no. Pop’s here.” To O’Gilroy’s amusement, Ranklin flinched, though as far as Corinna’s father went, his conscience had been clear for over a week. In a manner of speaking. “He came home good and late; he’ll probably sleep till noon, it being Sunday. No, I got her and Berenice in at a hotel down the street. What are you planning for Mrs L?”

  Ranklin shook his head. “That’s up to the Sûreté. When they let us go, they were still trying to prise control back from their army, and what with wondering how an Irish renegade was also a British agent, and telephoning St Claire to confirm there was a plot against the King – so all in all, they hadn’t got any sort of clear picture. But this morning they’ll start putting things together and when they realise we spirited Mrs Langhorn away, they’ll want to hear her story. That’s her chance to start dropping matches in the powder magazine.”

  Corinna finished her coffee and refilled her cup, then added milk and sugar. Her actions were deliberate and thoughtful. At last she said: “Perhaps it’s a pity a stray bullet didn’t take her out of the reckoning.”

  Ranklin and O’Gilroy didn’t look at each other.

  “And the same goes for Gorkin,” she went on. “But if anybody were to bump him off now, it would make him a victim.”

  “A martyr,” Ranklin agreed. “I was warning Berenice of that. Probably unnecessarily, but God knows what she might do. She’s decided that Gorkin is a traitor to the great cause. He’s been trying to manipulate future history and apparently that’s unsporting.”

  Corinna gave an unladylike snort. “What the hell else are we put in this world to do?”

  Ranklin nodded. What else did anybody form a Secret Service Bureau for? Then he levered himself stiffly to his feet. The moment he let himself relax, every bone in his body started to a che. “Well, I suppose I’d better find this hotel and do what I can to manipulate history for myself.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  * * *

  One of the Paris papers had brought out a two-page late extra edition covering the end of the siege, and Ranklin bought a copy as they walked down the Boulevard des Capucines. It was another sunny morning, with the street empty except for a few scurrying churchgoers responding to the call of the bells.

  The hotel was a small family place just off the Boulevard, with no restaurant but a small breakfast-room in the vaulted basement. This was for residents only, of course, but as usual, Corinna assumed this didn’t apply to her, and as usual the hotel agreed.

  So they sat down to more coffee while Ranklin tried to work out just how late the special edition had gone to press. About six o’clock, he reckoned, since it covered not just the army patrol finding the bodies but had the journalist himself tromping among the ashes and fire-tarnished cartridge cases, smelling burnt flesh and wood-smoke, and feeling the warmth still in the iron door-hinges. There was too much of that sort of guff, but it sounded genuine. The rest was a reprise of the earlier Connelly background story.

  Of the bodies found, Kaminsky had been identified, and a Raymond Cuchet, and—“Good God,” Ranklin said softly, and put the paper down to think.

  Corinna said: “What is it?” but O’Gilroy, who either knew Ranklin better or was less impetuous, shook his head at her. Ranklin went on staring, luckily unseeing, at a mural of beach and palm trees which the hotel had thought would improve the vaulted wall.

  Mrs Langhorn came in, wearing a skirt and blouse of Corinna’s, the blouse too tight and the skirt hem trailing several inches on the floor like a ball gown. She smiled confidently at them and sat down. A waitress hurried over with a fresh cup and poured her coffee.

  “Is Berenice up?” Corinna asked.

  “Don’t know. Shouldn’t think so.” Then she added: “Little trollop,” but as automatically as she might have said �
��May she rest in peace”. “What happened last night after we left?”

  Ranklin held up the newspaper for her to read the headline, but from her frown and the moving of her lips, she wasn’t too good at French journalese, so he read it for her. “ ’Four anarchists dead in flames of besieged cottage – plot against the King of England – Irish revolutionary confesses all.’ Don’t trouble yourself with that last one, it needs some explanation.”

  O’Gilroy reached for the paper and Ranklin handed it over, tapping a paragraph halfway down the first column.

  Mrs Langhorn asked: “Is it all over, then?”

  “Perhaps, but that’s up to you.”

  She understood exactly what he meant. “When you said Grover would be let free, did you really mean it?”

  “Oh yes. It was sure enough before, but last night made it even more certain. What are you planning to do then?”

  O’Gilroy gave a sudden cackle of laughter, shook his head, and looked at Mrs Langhorn with new interest. She blinked, disconcerted both by him and because this time she wasn’t sure what Ranklin had meant. So she chose for him to be asking where she’d g o. “When he’s free, I don’t fancy staying in Paris. I only come because of him, and now, well, there’s going to be too many of his anarchist friends around probably blaming me . . .”

  “That does seem likely,” Ranklin agreed politely.

  “We’ll have to get back to the United States.”

  “Are you an American citizen?” Corinna asked. The question surprised Ranklin, who’d assumed it was automatic for a woman marrying an American. But Corinna should know.

  “No, I never did. But Grover is. I shouldn’t have any trouble.”

  “You didn’t have in the past. But now you’ve been mixed up with anarchists and murderers. I should wait and see what the New York papers say about you before you book a passage.”

  Suddenly unsure, Mrs Langhorn looked from her to Ranklin. “I’m not going to be welcome in England, am I? I should think you’ll see to that.”

  “That rather depends on who you are.”

  She frowned, puzzled.

  He reached to tap the newspaper. “I don’t think there’s any easy way to break this to you, but you’re dead.”

  A procession of emotions flickered across her face: fear, then bewilderment, finally mistrust. He smiled reassuringly. “The charred body of a woman with your identity papers and passport on her was found in the cottage at Trilbardou. The false Mrs Langhorn sent to the Ritz yesterday, of course, but the Sûreté don’t know that.”

  “But I can prove I’m alive! All sorts of people . . . and Grover – when he’s free – will say I’m me.”

  “Oh yes, you shouldn’t have any trouble about that. But not many people get the chance of a new start, and I suggest you think of the alternative before you turn it down. You were on that barge, you have been part of Kaminsky’s gang, and as the only surviving member, the Sûreté will want to ask you all sorts of questions. The Préfecture, too. And if you tell the story about Grover being the King’s son – which you can’t actually prove, can you? – I’m sure his birth certificate gives your husband as the father. In fact, I don’t think you can even prove you were the King’s mistress: we couldn’t. And the more you try, the more you’ll tie yourself up in the plot against the King. And even if you talk your way out of that, you’ll have all your enemies back in force. Er . . . that’ll include me.” He smiled apologetically. “Sorry and all that, but we really will make life hell on earth for you and Grover if you come back to Britain, and also see what we can do to keep you out of America. As for what France does to you . . . well, that’s up to the Sûreté. But we’ll give them any help they need.”

  She looked at him, letting all this sink in – then broke down. Her pert face crumpled and her shoulders shook with sobs. “What can I do?” she wailed. “I’m just one poor woman against all you police and authority and all . . . You stamp on me like an insect, you do . . . The poor people in this world have got no rights, they’ve got no justice. None at all.”

  Corinna had got hold of the paper by now. Without looking up, she said unsymparhetically: “You sound like an anarchist.”

  And again, Ranklin had to remind himself that the woman had once been an actress. He waited in silence, and she dabbed at her eyes quickly. Was it cynical to think that was so he wouldn’t see how few tears there had been?

  She gave one last sob, and stopped.

  “Or,” he said, “you could start a new life with a pension. And if you pick that, we’ll give you all the help we can.”

  There was a long, long silence. Then Mrs Langhorn asked: “How much?”

  * * *

  “This time,” he told St Claire and Harland, “I’m vouching for her. Don’t worry about passports and papers, just get her to sign up and hand over the first dollop of pension.”

  That flummoxed them. Harland frowned and said: “We haven’t got any cash to disburse.”

  “Good God, man, you weren’t expecting her to settle for a cheque or some vague promise? Get it from the bank—”

  “On Sunday?”

  “Then from the hotel. Haven’t you ever seen soldiers at pay day? They’ll stand for all sorts of stoppages and allotments if they can see real money on the table.”

  Luckily St Claire had supervised at pay days. “We’ll get it, never fear. And perhaps it would be a good idea to throw in a passage to England?”

  “Distinctly good idea.”

  “But who will she be when she gets there?”

  “Luckily she’s got a part half-written for her already: her own sister, the widowed Mrs Simmons. It has to be some relative so she can scoop in Grover. And she plays the part rather well, I can vouch for that, too.”

  “But she won’t have any of the paperwork, birth and marriage certificates and . . . Oh.” He caught Ranklin’s patient look. “Your Bureau, of course. Perhaps we’d better not know about that.” He and Harland exchanged glances. “Then just give us an hour to raise the wind and send the lady up.”

  “And what are you going to do yourself, now?” Harland asked.

  “I’ll probably escort Mrs Simmons back to London and help find her lodgings there until she decides where to go. But first –” he sighed “– I’ve got an interview with the Sûreté to get through. Still, they have killed off an anarchist gang and wiped the eye of the Préfecture, so if I can convince them they’ve saved the King’s visit here, they may settle for that. I used to laugh at the French police for being so political, but thank God they are. And then arrange with the consulate to get Lieutenant Jay’s body shipped home.”

  “If you need any help from the Embassy . . .” St Claire said quickly.

  “Thank you.”

  There was a silence that became awkward with unsaid things. Ranklin gave a little shrug and turned towards the door. St Claire said: “I hope you think it was worth it. It was, you know.”

  Ranklin nodded, meaning nothing. St Claire went on: “All sorts of things that could have happened now probably won’t. There are always casualties; that’s what we’re for. And to do the best job we can. Nobody can ask more than that.”

  Ranklin nodded again. It was the right speech for a major to make to a junior.

  “What will you tell Jay’s parents?” St Claire asked.

  “That he died on His Majesty’s service, I suppose.”

  23

  Gorkin wasn’t in what O’Gilroy said was his usual café, though the posters on the walls and the intensity of the conversations at the tables told Ranklin he’d got the right place; this was the intellectuel version of the Deux Chevaliers. He felt badly out of place there and stayed only long enough for a small coffee. He didn’t ask about Gorkin, either. He wanted it to be a casual encounter. After that, he tried several more cafés along the Boulevard Saint Michel, then headed for a smaller place which Gorkin seemingly didn’t use but was almost opposite his apartment house.

  O’Gilroy was slumped at a table one r
ow from the window, reading a newspaper.

  “He could be in, could be not,” he reported. “But he had another visitor half an hour ago: Berenice. Dressed up like . . . like a real tart. All paint and an orange fur stole and a purse.” He was trying to keep the censoriousness out of his voice. “Only there twenty minutes, so mebbe he was out and she waited jest that long.”

  “Damn. Was the little bitch reporting to him what we’d been up to?”

  “Don’t know. Like I said, mebbe she didn’t see him.”

  “And the concierge let her in dressed like that?”

  “One of these places that only has a concierge night and mornings. Afternoons, ye jest walk in and knock on the door.”

  “Damn,” Ranklin muttered again, thinking. Maybe he should cut and run now, concentrate on getting Mrs Langhorn back to England. But he’d be leaving a loose end: if Berenice had been blabbing to Gorkin, he had to try and find out what she’d told him. Which meant either trying to dig her out, down in La Villette – which he didn’t fancy – or seeing what Gorkin might say. And of the two, Gorkin was the talker; Messiahs are.

  He sighed. “I’ll go up and see. You hang on here.”

  The building was quiet, except for someone practising on a violin somewhere; perhaps that itself told how empty it was at that time. Gorkin’s apartment was at the front on the first floor, and the door was slightly open. Ranklin pushed, then knocked and called softly, but got no reply. The open door surprised him and made him wary of a trap, but he still wasn’t going to pass up the chance of a look around.

  He was in a small living-room, the walls lined with books and stacks of small periodicals and manuscripts. A large typewriting machine stood on a solid table by the window, a large comfortable office chair behind it. Ranklin tiptoed across to see if there was anything half-written in the machine, but there wasn’t. And there was too much paper everywhere to make a hasty look worthwhile. He went over to the inside door, listened at it, then pushed that open. It was the bedroom –