by Gavin Lyall
Paddy asked softly: “Your gent: does he have any ideas about that accident?”
“I wouldn’t be knowing. But he’s got the time to waste.”
“Now, if the police have the idea he’s having ideas …” Paddy’s eyes flicked to the follower; “… ye’ve already got them trailing ye. So let them and let them be. And never in this world hit a one of them.”
“Ye mean they wouldn’t take it for a joke, like in the Old Country?” O’Gilroy’s smile was mostly a sneer.
Paddy looked down at the slopped beer he was rearranging on the bar with a soaked rag. “Ye can find out for yeself, like some I’ve known. They’d pick on six, mebbe eight, poor defenceless policemen in their own cells, just for the fun of it. Sure and ye could hear them laughing right up to the Canal where yer friend had his accident. Now, he wouldn’t have been a man that liked a joke, would he?”
“I wouldn’t be knowing. He wasn’t my friend.”
Paddy looked at O’Gilroy carefully, then said: “Another thing: near midnight Saturday, the police was in here – and every place, I heard – askin’ about a man could be yer friend: English, with a pink boating jacket and straw hat. Sudden keen to find him, they was. Mind ye,” he added, “I’ve said nothing.”
“Never a word,” O’Gilroy agreed, and walked out thoughtfully and slowly enough to save his follower from hurry.
Ranklin had just finished packing Cross’s luggage when a servant knocked and asked if the Club could offer him anything? Ranklin said that was very civilised of them, and asked for a Pils and a sandwich – no, of course, this was Germany – well, just something to nibble on. So why had the Kaiser, in his youthful passion for things British, imported such useless ideas as a navy and a yacht club but ignored the vital concept of the sandwich?
When the beer and a plate of cold ham, sausage and black bread arrived, he asked about communicating with the yachts. It turned out to be very simple: the Club acted as poste restante for them all, and owners sent boats ashore to pick up the day’s post. As to finding out who was on any one yacht, that was in its own way just as simple: impossible. People came and went and didn’t always want their comings and goings noticed.
Alone again, Ranklin took a sheet of the Club’s writing paper, thought carefully and wrote:
Dear Mrs Finn,
You may recall our taking tea at the Ritz in Paris after you kindly helped me secure a rare first edition before it came on the market, and solved a travel problem in an admirably practical fashion. It would give me the greatest pleasure if I might call on you to repeat my heartfelt thanks for your beneficence. Many things change but not the deepest gratitude of
James Spencer
PS My man Gorman wishes me to convey his humble respects.
German drinkers didn’t prop up the bar the way British ones did: they sat down at tables and got on with it. It wasn’t so far to fall, perhaps, but it made making new friends a more deliberate effort. It ran against O’Gilroy’s grain not to conform and try to be inconspicuous, but he was there to make his presence known. So he usually started by asking the barman for the lavatory – to check the back way out, just in case – and then asked what to drink and as much more as he could without seeming too suspicious.
The snag was that the barman usually assumed he was shyly asking for a brothel, and when O’Gilroy refused that, he was offered more expensive and startling alternatives. He had thought himself a man of the world, but realised he wasn’t a man of Baltic seaports.
Then he just sat, drank and smoked. So did his policeman, only he had his newspaper – though by now he must be reading the Lost Dogs column.
At the third tavern, a youngish Nordic-looking seaman came in soon after him and went round the room trying to sell dirty pictures. He got a lot of comment but no takers until he reached O’Gilroy. The women in the photographs were voluptuous and apparently very happy, but when the seller hissed: “This one your master like,” he flashed a postcard of warships firing their guns. And, with his back to the room, turned the card to show a number pencilled on the back.
Without knowing the phrase, O’Gilroy knew all about agents provocateurs, and that this could be evidence being “planted” on him. He decided he’d swear he thought he was buying only “artistic poses” and the seller had cheated him, so paid a few coins for three pictures. The seller tossed a coin on the bar as commission and scuttled out, leaving the other drinkers chuckling contemptuously at O’Gilroy’s naivety.
He brazened it out for a while by studying the pictures happily, but then pocketed them and left.
The streets were emptier but the Old Town wasn’t asleep yet: singing, loud voices and laughter seeped out from ill-fitting shutters and scanty curtains. At one corner he was nearly trampled by a group of, presumably, visiting yachtsmen in evening dress, slumming and drunk, but still sensible enough to stick together as a group. And always, behind him, the copycat tread of his follower.
Then suddenly there were other footsteps, a scuffle, a squawk, and O’Gilroy turned to face two men running at him. Behind, his follower was slumping onto the pavement. He got his back against the wall.
But the nearest man just grabbed at his arm as he rushed past, yelling: “Komm schnell!” As O’Gilroy’s childhood training had been strict on not lingering near beaten-up policemen, he ran too.
They had rounded two corners and he was just thinking of not lingering near the beaters-up of policemen either, when they grabbed him. Looking back, he admired their planning.
One held his upper arms from behind, the other poked a knife against his side, and between them they forced him on round another corner and into a narrow alley. It was a breath of perfume rather than what he could see of the stocky dark figure that told him the person waiting there was a woman. They were crowded close in the alley, the breath from the man behind rasping in O’Gilroy’s ear.
The woman spoke in a low growly voice and the man with the knife passed her something – a box of matches, since she struck one to peer at O’Gilroy.
He shut his eyes to avoid the dazzle, but caught just a glimpse of her wide face and the glitter of green stones at her ears. She said something else and O’Gilroy felt a hand go into his jacket pocket. His eyelids darkened and he opened them just as the knife man took away the photographs.
The man then tried to see what they were in the darkness – a mistake, since O’Gilroy promptly kicked him in the balls. The reaction of the kick threw O’Gilroy backwards, squashing the man holding him against the wall and loosening his grip. O’Gilroy jabbed his elbow back, twisted, and stiff-armed the heel of his hand into the man’s face, slamming his head onto the wall again.
Then he grabbed the photographs and ran.
Five minutes later he walked into Paddy’s and said: “Gimme an Irish whiskey and I’m not asking what it costs.”
Instead, Paddy passed him a bar-rag. “I should get the blood off’n yer hand first. Ye didn’t go and hit that policeman?”
“I did not. But somebody else did.”
“Would he think it’s you?” Paddy poured the whiskey and O’Gilroy gulped it.
“He was still watching me back when they caught him.”
“And what’ll ye be doing now?” Paddy was obviously worried it might involve his premises.
“Go back to me hotel, lock me door and sit with an open knife in me hand. Ye keep a rough town, here.”
Relieved, Paddy nodded absently. “If it means anything, I’ve heard there’s a feller called Dragan el Vipero around.”
“Who?”
“The feller that killed the King of Greece just the other month. So they say. Mind, I’ve said nothing.”
23
Ranklin was already shaved and half-dressed when a servant brought in a tray of coffee and bread. He took his cup out on to the little balcony, nodded Guten Morgen to a clubman in a Chinese dressing-gown on the next balcony, and leant on the railing to sniff the air.
It was a perfect sailing day, blue a
nd sparkling. Already there was a crowd on the quayside across the road, with yachts flapping and fluttering away from the mooring poles to join others already jinking full-sailed among the graceful white steam yachts. He still couldn’t identify Kachina, but knew the Kaiser’s Hohenzollern by its size, twin yellow funnels and old-fashioned ram bow. And, in the middle of the channel, rigid and many funnelled, the German fleet at anchor.
Suddenly he realised somebody had been pounding on his door and hurried inside just as Mr Cross stumped in. He was dressed in what could only be “travelling” tweeds, and was followed by Hauptmann Lenz. Cross looked as if he’d had a restless night, Lenz restless in a different way, suspicious and annoyed.
“I’ve got Richard’s kit all packed.” Ranklin gestured at the bags. “There’s only …”
“May as well take them with me, then. I’m heading for home. Nothing for me to do here, and his mother …” Cross put a pipe in his mouth but didn’t light it, just stared around, discontented.
“If there’s anything more I can do …” Ranklin said.
“Yes there is,” Cross burst out. “You can ask some questions about this damnable business. I’m just not satisfied. Are you?”
“Ah …” Ranklin was conscious of Lenz’s glower.
“Well, I’m not,” Cross said firmly. “Why the devil should Richard get drunk – and that’s what you were implying,” he snapped at Lenz, “and go fooling around those locks in the middle of the night? It’s ridiculous: he wasn’t some idiot midshipman. I want you to look into it, for his sake if not mine.”
Ranklin had no idea of what to say. Both professionally and personally, his first instinct was not to offend Lenz.
However, it was a bit late for that. “Herr Spencer is not befugt – he has no rights to – ”
“Oh, get out!” Cross barked. “Buzz off. Go and arrest a stray dog.”
You do not speak to Prussian policemen like that. An English one might have apologised, saluted and buzzed; Lenz just goggled at Cross as if he’d spat on the flag.
“Herr Cross is distressed,” Ranklin said anxiously. “If you could leave us alone for a minute …”
Clearly unable to believe what he was doing, Lenz turned and slow-marched out.
“Bone-headed flatfoot,” Cross said loudly.
“Quite, but he’s not a village bobby. He could be back with the Horse Marines. Before he is, is there anything specific that makes you suspicious?”
“Just what I said: why should Richard behave like a backward schoolboy? If you want to know what I think, that pompous dog-catcher decided Richard was a spy and he and his bullyboys – and, damn it, the last thing I want said of my son is that he was a filthy spy.”
“Quite,” Ranklin said again, but more faintly.
“But there is something odd …” Cross took a sheaf of cablegrams from an inside pocket. “I was getting these all last week – all from a place called Korsör in Denmark. Only about eighty miles from here. They don’t make sense to me, but obviously something Richard arranged.”
“Have you shown these to Lenz or anybody?”
“No. They’d just make something nasty out of them.”
Ranklin pocketed them quickly. “Thank you. I’ll do what I can, but you heard Lenz, and it’s his town. One thing – ” he offered the bond; “ – does this mean anything?”
Cross frowned at the stained, crumpled document. “I can see what it is, but … was it …?”
“He had it with him when he died, yes. But you can’t think of any connection with the firm, or that line of business?”
“Nothing. Richard was never interested in speculation – or in building.”
“What was his line, in the Navy?”
“Signals, mostly.”
Not a bad background for … He said quickly: “The bond’s part of his estate, but I’d like to hang onto it just to see if …”
“Good God, man, do what you like with it.”
“Thank you. Here’s the rest of his stuff, passport and so on. I didn’t have to burn anything. Richard had nothing to hide.”
Except that he was a filthy spy, of course.
“Thank you,” said his father.
Cross must have passed Lenz and Kapitanleutnant Reimers on the stairs, but any conversation had been brief because Ranklin had hardly got his jacket on when they were inside his room. He braced himself.
But Reimers, wearing his best everyday uniform, was as sunny as the day. “Good morning, Mr Spencer. Now I hear you are to be the Sherlock Holmes of Kiel.”
“Oh, Lord,” Ranklin groaned. “The old man’s taking it very hard and …”
“I get it.” Reimers held up a hand in blessing. “And you are welcome. Unlike your Scotland Yard, Hauptmann Lenz will give you all assistance. Most willingly,” he said to Lenz, who was having trouble with his willing expression. “And maybe it’s best for an Englishman to investigate also. Then there can be no international misunderstandings. ”
It was a shrewd point. He wanted Ranklin to investigate – and find nothing. Which meant he thought there was nothing to find, or nothing that reflected on the German authorities, anyway. But on top of that, he was inviting Ranklin to display snooping abilities that, as James Spencer, he shouldn’t have.
“I am not Sherlock Holmes,” Ranklin said wearily. “But – I’ll go through the motions. For Mr Cross.”
“Excellent. But I am afraid you cannot use the Club as Baker Street (I forget the number). It was a kindness for only one night, but Hauptmann Lenz will find you a hotel room.”
“That’s very kind.” It was nothing of the sort: they just wanted him in a room of their choice, probably with their own man next door, stethoscope pressed to the wall. But at least it meant a place to sleep.
“Now all you need is your Doctor Watson. Hauptmann Lenz has some unhappy news, I’m afraid.”
Looking happy for the first time, Lenz reported: “Room-servant Gorman did not obey your order not to go to Kneipen. Also, he spent more than twenty marks. So he has money of his own.”
“Mine, you mean.”
“Yes, perhaps from you he steals.” That thought made Lenz even happier. “He went to three Kneipen, perhaps more.”
The imprecision of that “perhaps” surprised Ranklin. A little embarrassed but more indignant, Lenz explained: “The detective who was protecting Room-servant Gorman was attacked in the street, from behind, and made unconscious.”
Ranklin froze inside. Surely O’Gilroy hadn’t been fool, or drunk, enough to …
“We hope,” Reimers said sternly, “that Gorman did not arrange this attack.”
Ranklin drew himself up stiffly. “I hardly think that a stranger with barely a word of your language could arrange such a thing, particularly with Captain Lenz’s trained detective looking on. Now, has Gorman broken any law?”
Reluctantly, Lenz had to admit not.
“Very well. Thank you for your information, Captain, but provided no law has been broken, then a servant’s behaviour, no matter how ill-advised, is a matter for his master.”
Lenz might be disappointed, but Ranklin was playing the scene for the more cosmopolitan Reimers, who smiled in his beard and said: “But would the good Dr Watson have behaved so? Now, I think you want to see the locks at Holtenau.”
“Yes, but not until I’ve solved the case of what yachtsmen have for breakfast.”
Over breakfast in the original Club building, he read the Balkan news in the Kieler Zeitung. The Serbs were resisting strongly, and though it said nothing about the Greeks, he was reasonably sure they wouldn’t have been caught dozing. In a few days, Bulgaria was going to regret starting this war, no matter what secret encouragement it had been getting from Vienna. But supposing that encouragement became more open? Austria-Hungary wanted Serbia slapped down, but if one major power joined in, could the others stand idle?
Morosely, he joined a crowd of suntanned men in identical blue blazers and white trousers all harassing the hall porter
for their mail. The impact of loud-voiced wealth depressed him further: each man here, he thought, could dip into his pocket and buy all I own. If, that is, I legally own anything but my own clothes. And even they – a dark town suit – aren’t the right ones for this occasion.
He was passed a single envelope and stared gloomily at the SY KACHINA embossed on the flap; if he hadn’t got the right clothes for the Club, they were even less right for a steam yacht. Then the gloom was swept away by pure terror: his own note had been innocent enough if steamed open, but what about her reply? Dear Spy …
No: My dear Mr Spencer – Delighted to hear from you again. If you would care to join us for lunch on board, be at the Club landing at noon. And by all means bring Gorman to carry your umbrella.
Yrs Affectionately, Corinna.
He let his shoulders sag with relief – a mistake in that muscular crowd, since he immediately got squashed flat. Wriggling his way out of the crush, he reflected that it was odd that she didn’t use her married name even to sign letters. American practice, perhaps. But now it was half past eight and time to find O’Gilroy.
There was no hint at all of Army experience in O’Gilroy’s posture: he was upright, but apart from that as relaxed as a tired snake. He barely managed to flick away his cigarette end and raise his bowler as Ranklin came out into the sunlight.
“Stand to attention,” Ranklin muttered, “and look as if I’m taking off your balls with a blunt knife. I’m sure you know you had the police trailing you last night – and what happened to one of them. I’ve been hearing all about it. Don’t answer: they’ll expect me to rave on at you, and we have to assume we’re being watched, everywhere. I think their Naval Intelligence is in on the act, too, and I fancy they got Cross’s number. Now his father wants me to play detective and the police are co-operating. It makes it easier for them to keep an eye on us.”
He remembered to keep his expression angry and to punctuate with savage gestures. By now O’Gilroy was at attention and looking like a dog trying to charm its way out of a whipping.