by Gavin Lyall
Ranklin nodded calmly. “And can this be done?”
“I explain.” Klapka took a deep breath. “Now: when the Archduke Franzie is married, no, before, he must sign that … No. I explain.” He took another breath. “The old Article One says the Habsburg-House is the Emperor, his consort, the Archdukes and Archduchesses, la-la, la-la … you see? His consort. If he marries Sophie, only a Czech countess, she will be Empress when he becomes Emperor – and this they must change. So they make the amendment which is a list of the families in standesgemäss – you would say, of proper standing – whose women may be Empress. If he marries one of them, good, if not, pffft. It must be a morganatic marriage. You understand morganatic?”
“Sure,” Corinna said. “Wife doesn’t get husband’s rank.”
“Yes. It is first meaning ‘the morning gift’ that the husband gives after … after the first night, which says ‘This is all you get from marrying me.’ Very romantic, hein? So – this amendment the Archduke must sign if he is to become Emperor, with the Prince Archbishop holding up the cross of Ferdinand over him and all the House looking and then also signing. And after three days only, he marries his Sophie and the Prince Montenuovo, Obersthofmeister of the Court, declares there must be twelve days mourning for some cousin that nobody knows, so nobody can go to the wedding.”
“That Montenuovo would be right at home in Tammany Hall,” Corinna observed. It had just struck her that she, daughter of Reynard Sherring, would not be standesgemäss, was unworthy of becoming Empress, and her democratic blood was boiling. Not that she wanted to be, but …
Ranklin had put his empty pipe into his mouth so as to look even more thoughtful and detached. Now he took it out and asked: “And do you think Hornbeam can break this amendment – legally?”
Klapka’s arms flew up again. “You do not understand! You English and American – I apologise, but – this is the Habsburg Law! Perhaps legally it does not work, there may be – you say a ‘loophole’ – but what matter? They get the lawyers, the Prince-Archbishop, the cross – they make a new amendment. Now no loophole.”
They absorbed this, Ranklin less surprised than Corinna. He said: “But nobody – whoever nobody is – told Hornbeam this?”
“That is sure, yes – but still you do not understand. To ask a foreign lawyer – a great one, yes, but … to interfere in the Habsburg Law, this is bad. An insult. But to try at all to make Sophie the Empress, if this is known – ” he threw the notes onto a table, “ – then the Archduke never becomes Emperor.”
*
The Baroness was sitting at a front table of the first-class buffet, so that she could watch the door. This had made it impossible for O’Gilroy to follow, so he resorted to inconspicuous time-wasting within sight of the door. He bought a newspaper he couldn’t read, cigarettes which he hoped not to smoke, and an apple of which he ate half. He also changed his hat. He had come out wearing Ranklin’s folding straw Panama; now he pocketed that and slipped on a flat cloth cap. But he had already realised he would have to be stark naked to look conspicuous in the crowd that changed with every train: landowners in tweeds with servants and gun cases, farmers with live chickens, soldiers in various operatic uniforms and peasant girls in traditional eleven-petticoat finery. And it was only the Baroness he had to fool.
Then suddenly it wasn’t. She was out of the buffet and walking towards the street, escorted by the Military Attaché who had bought the code in Paris.
As the waiter went out, Corinna surveyed the tray. “That coffee pot seems to follow me around. How does anybody like their coffee? And if you want a cake, just grab. How can anybody decide that the Archduke can’t become Emperor? I thought it was just a matter of birth …”
“You think like what you are: American. You have the rule of Law, we have the House of Habsburg. You must believe, if enough people do not want, then he will not be Emperor. And those people will be the Emperor himself, Prince Montenuovo, the Court, the House – and the Parliament in Hungary also, they do not like the Archduke Franzie. Last year, the Archduke’s young brother, he married not to the standesgemäss. Now he is not an Archduke, he is not a general, he does not even have his medals. You must believe.” He took a cream cake.
Corinna shook her head slowly. She had always assumed – insofar as she thought about it at all – that European royalty survived by playing by the rules, dopey though those rules might be. Now she saw it was the opposite: survival by playing with the rules – which wasn’t nearly so dopey. She glanced at Ranklin.
He was clutching one end of his pipe and chewing the other, frowning intently in a way that always seemed faintly absurd for his boyish face. The poor man, she thought, stuck with a face that people will never quite take seriously. But not a bad face for what you really are, these days, because nobody takes your thinking seriously, either. Except me.
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 café 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 ol
d 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 café, so just had the cabbie put him down at the statue of Petöfi. 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 Komárom to telegraph to Munich.”
Komárom? 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?”
“Half a day,” Tibor shrugged. “More, perhaps.”
The Emperor spent much of the summer in the little mountain resort near Salzburg, playing (it was said) at being just an ordinary citizen and being surprised when everyone stepped aside and bowed.
“So Berchtold,” Ranklin deduced, “will advise the Emp–, King, whether or not to accept the new frontiers in the peace treaty.” He hastily indicated the newspaper, to excuse his knowledge. According to it, the treaty was almost ready for signing in Bucharest, but Austria disliked the way Serbia was gaining land to the west. It was another step towards seizing a port on the Adriatic – where a Russian fleet might one day drop anchor.
So there was a ready-made quarrel with Serbia – if the Emperor wanted to take it up. And the Archduke would have been urging Berchtold to advise the Emperor to do just that. If they let the treaty be signed without objecting, the excuse for war was gone by default.
“And is that what Hazay is telegraphing to the Munich newspaper?”
But Tibor was frowning suspiciously. Ranklin offered his cigarettes and Tibor took one, but it didn’t stop him wondering why a business adviser was so interested in the detail of Balkan politics. But then a waiter arrived with two glasses and Tibor scattered some coins in return. Ranklin hadn’t realised the order had included him, and distrusted small glasses of almost clear liquid.
“Szilva,” Tibor explained: plum brandy. “Egészségéré!” He swallowed half in a gulp; Ranklin sipped cautiously. “’Why do you like to talk with Stefan?”
“He knows more than he can get printed. And my employer – you know who I mean?” Tibor nodded, thinking he did know; “ – well, he doesn’t pay me to tell him what he can read for himself.”
“He wants to know all about this?” Tibor waved a hand at the newspaper.
“I’ll tell you what he wants to know, perhaps you can answer him,” Ranklin said boldly. “Is there going to be a war? When? Who’s going to be involved? And who’s going to win?”
Tibor sat back in his chair. Then he said: “Capitalists.”
“He’d agree. What about the peasant with half a dozen gold pieces buried under his hearth? He wants to know whether to move his money, too.”
“But the peasant does not care if everybody else knows also,” Tibor said shrewdly. “The capitalist wants to know in secret, to move before others move. He wants truth, but to hide it for himself. But – ” he finished his brandy; “ – Stefan does not telegraph about the treaty, it is about Colonel Redl.”
“Ah.”
“You know about the Colonel?”
“What I read in the papers – and Stefan was talking about him yesterday.” He daren’t seem too interested: what would Sherring care about an intelligence scandal?
But, perhaps for the same reason, Tibor insisted on “boring” him with what Hazay had uncovered. “He has learnt of a meeting between the Archduke Franzie and General Conrad, after Redl has shot himself. Franzie talks to him as if he is a common soldier.” Tibor relished that. “He makes him stand to attention and tells him he is a pig-head to make Redl kill himself and not answer any question. That now they cannot know what Serbia, what Russia, knows about their Army and its plans. And also, that it is wicked to make a good Catholic do a mortal sin.”
Now that, a complete irrelevance to Ranklin’s non-Catholic mind, had the truth of a detail nobody would think to invent. “Really?” he
said, his uninterested tone hiding his thoughts. If true, if true, that confrontation meant the Archduke was well aware of the danger in starting a war here and now. So could he really have been advising one?
“So now,” Tibor said, “you will tell your Capitalist this truth also?”
“Perhaps – but only if the censors stop it being published.” And he could see just why those censors wouldn’t want such dissension in the high command made public. “Why is Hazay taking such a risk? – it must be a risk.”
“They cannot shoot him for it. And he does it for truth, so everybody will know, not just capitalists.”
Ranklin nodded absently and sipped his brandy. “Would you ask Hazay to telephone me at the Margaret Island hotel?”
“He says he will see you tonight, if you go to the American’s speech.”
“He’ll be there?”
“All journalists are invited.” So somebody wanted to make sure that Hornbeam got well and undeniably reported.
“All the same, I’d like to talk to him as soon as he gets back from – from Komárom. I might have some extra truth he’d be interested in,” he added as bait.
Tibor stared at him without expression, then said: “All right – Enemy.” He lumbered away and Ranklin watched without really seeing.
Damn, he was thinking. And damn again. This may change everything.
Dr Ignatz Brull’s stern-but-kindly expression changed into one of astonished horror. “You are telling me that Professor Hornbeam will announce that the Habsburg Law can be broken? – to make Duchess Sophie become Empress? Du Liebe Gott!” Although the British Consul, Brull’s origins had obviously been German-speaking. His accent was now just a constant mild flavour – except when he got astonished.
“I fear the papers his daughter found allow of no other conclusion,” Ranklin said sadly. He had cleaned up the details of the discovery.