Flight From Honour

by Gavin Lyall

  “Well?” she asked.

  “I did enjoy it. After the first few minutes. It’s . . . it’s different,” he said lamely.

  “There’s some, like brother Andrew, would say it’s a whole new world.”

  Ranklin turned to look back at the sky, realising that until only minutes ago it had always seemed to him a flat, painted backcloth to life. And that to most of the people who had stopped to stare up at him it would never be anything else. “Yes,” he said, “I can see how it could be.”

  Corinna was looking at him gravely. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. And came back safely.”

  13

  They found O’Gilroy waiting at the Blue Bird. Ranklin had anticipated Falcone’s surprise at seeing his former bodyguard reappear as student aeronaut and old acquaintance of Reynard Sherring’s daughter, but decided to let it happen. If O’Gilroy began to seem a Man of Mystery, and worth confiding in, it might not hurt.

  They even managed to keep straight faces when Falcone introduced them to each other, O’Gilroy being “a friend I met in Belgium who also works for your Government”.

  “Really?” Ranklin said coolly. “It’s a big government.”

  They managed to drift aside while Andrew and Falcone went back to the higher levels of aviation.

  “Got me first flight this morning,” O’Gilroy said chirpily.

  “What a coincidence.”

  O’Gilroy stared. “Ye sneaky bastard. In Sherring’s machine? How did ye like it?”

  Ranklin already regretted spoiling O’Gilroy’s triumph. “Terrified the whole time.”

  That repaired most of the damage. “I was pretty scared meself – but ye get over it.”

  “I’m not so sure. If God had meant me to fly he’d have had me hatched, not born. Do you know the menu here? – what should we order?”

  Andrew and Falcone managed to cram in a few mouthfuls between chatter. But this time Ranklin listened carefully. He now felt like a day-tripper hearing two experienced travellers swap reminiscences of a new continent, largely unexplored but with some agreed and well-trodden trails – and already its heroes and martyrs.

  One of the heroes was Adolphe Pégoud and Ranklin hadn’t heard of him – but neither, to Andrew’s surprise, had Falcone.

  “But you must have done,” Andrew protested. “The Frenchman who flies upside down.”

  Falcone’s suspicious look showed he thought this was some Anglo-Saxon leg-pull. But Andrew persisted: “No, honestly, I’m not fooling. It’s been in all the aviation magazines the last two weeks. He’s giving a display here next Thursday.”

  “You say it is written about for two weeks? I have been travelling, not reading . . . But, upside down?” He revolved his hands for emphasis.

  “Sure. He dives into it . . .” Andrew’s hands joined in. “He’s using a strengthened Blériot, and he’s tied in, of course. He flies, I don’t know, less than a minute upside down, but it’s for real. Him and Blériot are both coming here. I want to get hold of Blériot himself, find out how he’s stressed that machine. Hell, it’s a monoplane, same as mine.” He turned on Ranklin. “If your people can go on saying monoplanes aren’t strong enough after they’ve seen that . . .”

  Ranklin wanted to say “Sorry, old boy, but that isn’t my department” but it was so exactly what a real War Office desk-hussar would say that it sounded a parody. So he said: “God and generals both have mysterious ways, but only God actually moves.”

  Andrew snorted. Falcone smiled and said: “So, I must be here on Thursday.”

  “After lunch. Only I’d get here before – you’ll find me around here. Are you coming, Corrie?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Captain?”

  “It’s a working day. Depends what my superiors want me working at.”

  They ate for a few minutes, then Falcone asked: “Your machine – what happens to it now?”

  Andrew shrugged, a large, slow movement. “Don’t know. Farnborough’s at least agreed to test it, to see if the British Army could use it. I’ve got to deliver it there next week. But they’re very old-maidish about monoplanes after just a few accidents . . .”

  “You do not think of flying it in the Gordon Bennett race in France next week? That would be good advertising.”

  Andrew smiled wryly. “Coming in last? No, they’ll be going forty miles an hour faster’n the Oriole. She’s a working airplane, not a racer. No, when Farnborough’s turned it down, I’ll probably tinker with it some more, then ship it back to the States and see if anybody’s interested.”

  Falcone chewed thoughtfully for a while, then said: “I believe someone in Italy would like to show it to our army.”

  Andrew brightened up. “No fooling?”

  “I will send a cable today . . . But you say it must go to Farnborough next week?”

  “Yes, that’s official now. I’m sure they’ll turn it down, but it’s got to go.”

  Falcone nodded. “I understand. We can talk some more – you are always here? – but if you would please write for me the performance figure, speed and distance . . .”

  “Right away.” Andrew began searching his pockets for pen and paper.

  “I do wish,” Corinna said frowning, “you’d built a peaceful airplane.”

  “Who for?” Andrew demanded without looking up from his scribbling. “Airplanes cost money. And who’s got money? – governments. And what do governments spend money on? – weapons. Not flying omnibuses and taxi-cabs, I’d be building those if anybody asked, but the way things are . . .” He shrugged and went on writing.

  * * *

  After lunch, the party split up. Ranklin would have liked to have had a long quiet word with O’Gilroy, but that might make Falcone suspicious of him. It was one thing for the Senator to be in touch with the Bureau, but a mistake to let him know he was quite so much in touch. So he stuck to Corinna.

  “Were you planning to invite me to dinner?” she asked casually.

  “I was. I thought—”

  “In that case why don’t we have it at my apartment?” This was an annex to her father’s flat in Clarges Street, which she had insisted be self-contained except for sharing a kitchen and servants – only two when Sherring himself wasn’t there. “I kind of think the staff have run up a cold supper and then taken the evening off.”

  Ranklin suppressed the warm surge of anticipation as they strolled towards the car. The chauffeur was waiting, holding the big envelope Falcone had picked up at the hotel and then forgotten. “I took the liberty of looking after this, sir, rather nor leave it laying in the car. These days you can’t trust—”

  “Thank you, thank you.” Falcone took it, wondered whether to tip the man, and properly decided not. “Will you permit it—?” He began opening the envelope. “I do not know what it is, I expected nothing . . .” And that was about what he’d got: a couple of rough-printed sheets of paper. He shrugged and looked around for somewhere to throw them away.

  Suddenly Ranklin remembered his real job. “D’you mind if I see those?”

  The papers gave the times of services and other information about the Italian church of St Peter in Back Hill, Clerkenwell – just the sort of thing to be handed out to a new immigrant or Italian visitor. At the Ritz? But there was no address on the envelope, just Senatore G. Falcone. The handwriting could have been Italian.

  “Do they expect me to go to confession in Clerkenwell?” Falcone said jovially. “These priests, all they want is more money.”

  But an Italian priest would have anticipated that attitude and taken the trouble to write a personal note of welcome. Ranklin turned to Corinna: “Would you forgive us?” and he urged Falcone aside, annoyed that O’Gilroy wasn’t here to handle this and leave his War Office character unbesmirched. But he had no choice. “I’m afraid it looks as if you aren’t safe in England. I think you’ve been followed here.”

  Falcone was surprised, but Ranklin wouldn’t have said scared. Nor was he used to this sort of thing, because h
e still looked puzzled.

  “No address,” Ranklin explained. “Somebody hawked the letter around the leading hotels until one accepted it. Now he knows where you’re staying.”

  Falcone took this without argument, beyond: “It would be more quick to call by telephone.”

  “For you or me, yes. But probably these people don’t have a private telephone, or don’t speak English well enough . . . Do you have any idea of who they are?”

  Falcone hesitated, looking at Ranklin carefully. “You say you are from your Ministry of War . . .”

  “We’re one big happy family and we try to be good hosts. Do you have any idea about these people? – this suggests they could be Italian.”

  “I may guess who sent them – but not whom they sent.”

  “You could go to the police again. They’d have to take this seriously.”

  Falcone wasn’t used to this sort of danger. The reality of it had taken time to sink in, but now his eyes flickered side to side and he wore a thoughtful frown. “Yes, that is possible . . . but it would be a trouble for them . . .”

  He presumably didn’t want to be murdered, but – Ranklin guessed – he didn’t want British officialdom watching his every step, either. And Ranklin was in no position to insist on anything. But neither could he abandon Falcone now.

  “Then I suggest you move out of the Ritz as soon as we get back – and leave no forwarding address. I don’t know how easy it is to register under a false name in London hotels . . . You don’t belong to a London club, or an Italian one with a reciprocal arrangement with one here? Or would your ambassador put you up?”

  “No.” Presumably Falcone was answering the last question first: he didn’t want his embassy looking over his shoulder, either. “Perhaps I am going to a hotel by here?”

  Why not? The Hound and Spear probably didn’t meet the Senator’s standards, but there must be others within easy motor-ride. Probably Corinna had a guide book in the car. Corinna! – Ranklin suddenly realised that if Falcone was in danger then so, until they got rid of him, was Corinna. His own eyes started flickering and he wished he were armed.

  But, once they were in the car and with the window to the chauffeur firmly shut, he had to explain as much as he could. “It seems that somebody’s stalking the Senator and they’ve pinpointed the Ritz. We have to assume they were watching, this morning, and saw him get into this car and they’ve pinpointed it, too.”

  She took it quite calmly. Which was useful but a little disturbing, as if she expected Ranklin to move in an aura of trouble like a permanent garlic breath. “Then,” she suggested, “we could stop before the hotel and Senator Falcone could switch to a taxi. Or there must be some back way.”

  “No,” Ranklin said firmly. “The other way around. We’re going to try and unravel any association between him and this car, and you, by delivering him back to the main entrance in plain view. I am not,” he went on, looking at Falcone, “having your problems spill over onto Mrs Finn. That is my first concern. We can start playing taxi-cab games after that.”

  Falcone was all gallant protestations that of course Mrs Finn’s safety came first. Then he smiled and said: “You are most skilled in such . . . affairs. Like the Mr O’Gilroy who met me in Brussels.”

  “Oh, just my Army training,” Ranklin said dismissively. “India, and all that,” he added.

  “Ah yes.” Falcone seemed satisfied. And Corinna was watching the landscape as if it were the first time she’d ever seen a tree, a hedge or even the sky.

  * * *

  Ranklin went on being worried until he was holding in his pocket Falcone’s own pistol, left uselessly in the Ritz suite, and watching as the Senator directed the packing of his luggage. He had taken a casual look around as they dismounted outside the hotel, but Piccadilly was far too busy for any watcher to show up at a glance. In such a situation without O’Gilroy he felt incomplete, like Lancelot fighting Sir Meliagrance with only half his armour on. But at least he could get Corinna out of the arena by sending her, disappointed but obedient, back to her flat in Clarges Street.

  Falcone had picked on a country house hotel, Oatlands, just outside Weybridge itself. The Ritz hadn’t been told the new address, merely asked to send letters to the Italian embassy. Now Ranklin was working out how to obscure the trail back to Weybridge and had decided to start by switching cabs at the relatively quiet Marylebone station.

  There were several taxi-cabs waiting outside the hotel and Ranklin made Falcone show himself by going out to watch his luggage being loaded into one while he himself hung back in the doorway and watched. Particularly he watched the second cab on the rank, and when somebody came up to it, stepped forward himself.

  Pretending not to notice it had been taken, he yanked open the door – it was a closed Unic – interrupting a cloud of Italian-flavoured explanations and getting a vicious glare.

  He became Utterly English. “I say, I’m most frightfully sorry. Didn’t notice you’d taken it, what?” But he was still holding the door open. “Perhaps I can help, what? I speak a couple of words of Italian and I couldn’t help overhearing . . .”

  “Can’t make out what the gent wants, guv,” the driver said. “I ask him ‘Where to?’ and he just points straight ahead and gabbles.”

  “Il autista demande dove . . .” Ranklin began slowly. Ahead of them, Falcone’s cab pulled away and was quickly lost in the jumble of Piccadilly traffic. Ranklin’s passenger gave him another superheated glare, then banged out of the far side of the cab and stalked off down the street.

  “Oh dear, I seem to have lost you a fare,” Ranklin apologised, thinking about five foot ten, longish dark hair with slight sideburns and down-turning moustache . . .

  “No matter, guv, he’d probly of tried to pay me in somefink foreign any’ow. Where can I take yer?”

  “Marylebone station, please.” . . . age about thirty-five, long nose, broken uneven teeth . . . If I hadn’t given Falcone back his pistol, would I have tried to “arrest” him? But what for? – I’d have caused a rumpus, had to explain myself and probably learnt nothing but his name. And I certainly daren’t have followed him, not after meeting him face to face. That’s where O’Gilroy would have fitted in . . . high-buttoned Continental style of black suit but looks as if he’s bought a new English brown felt hat . . . Lacks observation, too, he reflected, because nobody wears a brown hat in town.

  But on balance, he felt quite pleased: he’d snapped the thread of Falcone’s followers and probably not even revealed himself. He’d double-check at Marylebone, but if that was clear, they could take Falcone’s cab on to Waterloo and put him on a Weybridge train. And then to Clarges Street . . .

  14

  Corinna had tea waiting, which showed remarkable confidence in Ranklin’s ability to handle such affairs – or, more likely, she didn’t care about wasting tea.

  “Meet a Gunner and see the underworld,” she said cheerfully. “Was that the Senator’s past catching up with him?”

  “It may be his future. He’s up to something, so far up that somebody from back home wants to kill him for it, but he won’t tell me what.”

  She got more sombre. “Is it anything to do with airplanes? That could involve Andrew?”

  Ranklin hoped she didn’t see his shiver as he remembered the fatal crash in Brussels. “I don’t think it’s directly connected . . . But I’d like to know if he approaches your brother again.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” She reconsidered. “No, I’ll damn well do it. Andrew just doesn’t know Europe, the way things can happen over here. You could have told me the Senator was on someone’s Wanted list.”

  Ranklin nodded gloomily, and not only at the way she seemed to lump Britain in with the Continent as “Europe”. “I’m afraid we all assumed the danger was over once he’d reached London. The trouble is, he’s an amateur at being someone’s enemy. His caution comes in spasms. And unless he tells us what the danger really is, we can’t do much . . . ”

&nb
sp; The sight of his gloom seemed to cheer her up. “It may never happen, whatever it is. And it’s been a great day – and we’ve still got supper to come.”

  “Look, about that . . . With O’Gilroy away, there’s nobody but me to mind the . . . shop.” We must set up a weekend roster, he realised. One of the new boys to move into the flat whenever it’s empty.

  She solved that easily. “All right, I’ll pack up the supper and we can have a picnic in your flat.”

  “I’d love that but . . . I mean, there’s a doorman and he’ll see you . . . what time you come out and . . . I’m thinking of your good name.”

  “That’s very sweet of you. But I’ll tell you a Very Dark Secret.” Her voice became a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve got a friend – I can’t mention his name – who works for the Secret Service! Imagine that! And he’s Frightfully Clever at being secret, so why don’t I just leave the problem to him?”

  After a while, the Frightfully Clever friend said feebly: “You could wear a motoring veil.”

  “There! – perfect. What did I tell you?”

  * * *

  The hall porter at that particular entrance to Whitehall Court – there were several – was an old sailor whose appointment might have been arranged by the Commander. He didn’t – supposedly – know what went on in the top-floor offices, just that something did. And given the Commander’s reputation, and that the top rooms had been his apartment before they became offices, secret servicing wasn’t the only something that had gone on there nor Corinna the first veiled lady he’d let in.

  She looked around the dark walls of the flat. “I hope this isn’t your taste in decor.”

  “No. Just as we acquired it.”

  “Thank God for that.” Her own taste ran to light plain colours and, in her bedroom, soft feminine fabrics. She wandered through to the dining room and saw The Table. “My Lord, my supper’s going to look pretty meagre spread on this.” She began spreading it nonetheless. You couldn’t say it was enough to feed an army, because ordinary soldiers would probably have mutinied if served foie gras, plovers’ eggs, lobster mayonnaise and quails in aspic. But the General Staff wouldn’t have minded at all.