Flight From Honour

by Gavin Lyall

  “The two Falcone got from Britain.”

  “He told you?” The surprise in the Count’s voice was almost horror.

  “Oh—” Ranklin waved his hand and smiled; “—we, my people, are in the business of knowing things.”

  “Yes . . . yes . . .” The Count was obviously thinking quickly. “He has many interests, the Senator. I believe he bought the machine-guns for the Italian Army. To test, to see if they will buy them.”

  “Really? That wasn’t what I heard.”

  “Then you heard wrong! Now, I have had my exercise, I must rest.” And he laid himself, limb by aged limb, on his cot.

  Rather than just stand there, Ranklin sat down himself, turned so that nobody could see his face. I wrecked it, he thought. I ran it into a wall.

  But perhaps the wall had always been there. So much he was expected to know, but other things he wasn’t. And the Lewis guns were on the far side of the wall. He had expected a touch of flamboyance in this plot; now he smelt a Borgian twist as well.

  But just what plot? Nobody had said it was actually impossible to mount a Lewis gun on Andrew’s aeroplane. What did seem impossible was getting Andrew himself to pilot a flight intended to spray a city with machine-gun fire. But if Falcone had another pilot standing by, and the firing wasn’t supposed to be accurate but just a dramatic gesture, the whole thing became possible. Insane, but possible.

  Damn it, it would be an act of war! And put Italy so far in the wrong that they’d hang Falcone for it, no matter what happened next. The Count might dream up such a plot, but Falcone was a practising politician . . .

  I’m missing something, he thought. And just how much is Dagner missing? – or rather, how much does he know?

  * * *

  At five o’clock the Falcone launch arrived at the northernmost of the Lido’s jetties with Corinna already on board, a loose white dress fluttering in the breeze, clutching on a wide straw hat. “Hi. Signora Falcone’s having the vapours about where you’d got to and thinking you’d broken your neck. You haven’t broken your neck, have you?”

  “Jest this.” O’Gilroy gloomily held up a few inches of oily copper pipe. “Oil feed. And seems nobody on the island can braze it, or don’t know what the devil I’m talking about.”

  “Poor you,” she soothed. “D’ you want me to try my Italian?”

  But by now the launch helmsman had taken a look. He said something to Corinna, who asked him to repeat more slowly, then she grinned at O’Gilroy. “Seems one of the chauffeurs back home can do it in a trice. Always doing something like it to the automobiles, he says. You’d better bring it aboard.”

  O’Gilroy hesitated, then stepped into the boat. “They’ll have to bring me back to fix it and I want to do a plug change while I’m at it . . . Won’t be getting the Oriole across today, I’m thinking.”

  “Then it’ll have to be tomorrow. How is it, flying it from the proper side?”

  O’Gilroy’s gloom vanished. “Ah, it’s like . . . like I don’t know the words for it. Riding a winner at the Curragh, mebbe.”

  She grinned back. “Little brother knows his stuff, then?”

  “Surely – and how’s he doing?”

  “Not so bad at all. Mostly bored, with the bandages still on and not able to read. I talked myself hoarse until I found a priest who speaks English and accepts donations to the Church. Then this boat arrived and I learned you’d gone missing – why didn’t you telephone them?”

  “In Italian, and not knowing the number besides?” And also, though he wouldn’t admit it, because he wasn’t yet used to the world of telephones and simply hadn’t thought of it.

  Once clear of the gondola routes and little islets, the helmsman started showing off like any chauffeur when the owner isn’t on board: they streaked across the lagoon like a torpedo boat. Corinna thought of telling him to behave, decided it would be improper and simply threw her hat on to the bottom boards and let her black hair stream in the wind; perhaps the Signora would lend her a maid to untangle it.

  “Have you learnt any more about tomorrow’s demonstration?” she called.

  “Never a word.”

  She tried again: “Well, whatever it is, Andrew’s out of it.”

  “Sounds like that’s what ye wanted.”

  “Let’s say I’ve got my doubts.”

  O’Gilroy considered. “Like what?”

  She’d rather have said this with quiet significance, not bellowed it against the wind and rumble of the engine, but: “That it won’t be a demonstration but dropping inflammatory leaflets written by d’Annunzio over Trieste.”

  He stared at her. “Where d’ye get that from?”

  “From that practice flight you told me about in Paris. And listening to d’Annunzio on the train. And because Pop Sherring didn’t raise his little girl to believe everything she hears from big men with fifty-dollar suits and hundred-dollar smiles. Though,“ she admitted, “he may have slipped up with his little boy.”

  “Ye worked that out yeself, then . . .”

  “They’ll have to tell you pretty soon.”

  O’Gilroy thought a while. “I wish the Captain was here.”

  “D’you think Matt knows it and didn’t tell you?”

  “Mebbe . . .” Ranklin wasn’t a naturally devious man, but over the past nine months he had been learning. O’Gilroy had helped teach him. “It’s not his way, though, not with me.”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t know everything himself.”

  O’Gilroy nodded vaguely and went back to his own thoughts. Ranklin trusted her – up to a careful point defined by their relationship, but he himself was right outside that. (To tell the truth, which he didn’t like to do even to himself, he disapproved of the affair. Such behaviour was normal for Ranklin, an Army officer, and he had no illusions about the morals of upper-class British women, not after being in service at a Big House. But he had expected better of an American lady.)

  Finally he said: “Ye really wouldn’t want to be letting down the Captain?”

  Corinna was about say something witty or withering, then thought again and just called: “No. I really wouldn’t. And,” she added, “ I wish he was here, too.”

  “They’re wanting to start a strike in the shipyard there.”

  She frowned over this, then: “Just that?”

  “How d’ye mean?”

  “These things can get out of hand, God knows they do in the States. In Trieste it could set Italians against Austrians. Or maybe that’s what they want . . . Except that Falcone’s a senator; he daren’t get mixed up in . . .” She reflected for a moment. “Only he’s doing a pretty good job of unmixing himself, letting d’Annunzio take the credit, and a foreign airplane flown by a foreign pilot . . .”

  The launch slowed suddenly, curving skilfully, or so the helmsman wanted them to think, to avoid the milling boats at the mouth of the Brenta.

  Meanwhile, O’Gilroy had become an intellectually rigorous Intelligence agent. “Jest how much of this do ye know, or would it all be guessing?”

  Corinna almost pouted, but kept her voice low, now the engine noise had dimmed. “Guessing? It’s logic. Deduction.”

  “So where’s d’Annunzio? And the leaflets?”

  “I bet he – they – both will be here tonight.” She saw his look and hissed: “Suppose Matt had come up with the same idea, would you have believed him!”

  With rash honesty, O’Gilroy said: “More like.”

  “Oh would you? Just because he’s a man.”

  He seemed surprised. “No. Because he‘s a spy.”

  She sat back, stunned by the logic. Yes. Quite. What was the answer to that? “You don’t have to be a spy to figure out other people for crooks,” she growled.

  They scurried the first few yards from the landing-stage to escape the cloud of insects, but could then stroll up the long garden. It was designed to frame the house: lines of cypresses and flowerbeds and stone walls all leading to it or at right angles from it. The villa
itself, pink in the sunset, stood four-square on a slight rise, its ‘ground’ floor raised further so as to need impressive flights of steps on either side of the portico.

  Seeing it without distractions for the first time, O’Gilroy broke the long silence. “Nice enough little place.”

  “Needs more gardeners,” Corinna said succinctly. And correctly, because the formality was blurred by overgrowth, moss and crumbled stone. But it hardly mattered, since nobody could make decay as elegant as the Italians. “I must ask if it’s genuine Palladio.” She was quite sure O’Gilroy had never heard of him.

  But O’Gilroy didn’t ask. He was noticing other villas, half hidden by trees, a quarter of a mile away on either side. In Ireland and England, such houses would have been miles apart, each the dominating Big House of its area. But here, on a vast scale, they had built a Renaissance garden suburb.

  It was like words, he was coming to realise. They didn’t translate exactly, and nor did the patterns of life.

  As they came near the house, O’Gilroy pitched his cigarette-butt into the dampest bit of undergrowth he could see and got a sharp look from Corinna. But at the last moment she relented as far as saying: “ I don’t know what orders you’re following, but for what it’s worth, I’ll back you if you want to abandon ship. And I’ll tell Matt that.”

  But he just muttered something gruff, and they walked up the cracked, mossy but still elegant steps.

  * * *

  With its thick walls, the dungeon was out of phase with the day. It was late afternoon when it had realised it was a warm day outside, but it took to the idea enthusiastically. Already bad-tempered, Ranklin had sweated on the itchy blankets long enough. He grabbed the water-jug, found it was empty, walked to the door and stab-kicked it several times. He heard the guard come scurrying down the corridor to peer through the Judas window.

  “Wasser, bitte, und schnell!” Ranklin bawled, waving the jug at the guard’s startled eyes. Looking back, he was a bit surprised the guard hadn’t told him where to stuff the jug, but instead called a mate to stand guard while he hurried away to fill it.

  The Count watched and said cynically: “The word of an Englishman – when shouted loudly enough.”

  So Ranklin tried again when the guard returned, demanding the window be opened. That, however, was definitely verboten.

  “Perhaps,” the Count observed, “you did not shout loudly enough that time.”

  Ranklin finished washing his hands and face and left them to dry by evaporation. “And perhaps,” he said nastily, “you haven’t as many friends in high places as you thought. Looks like you’re spending another night here.”

  The Count sat up. “That is impossible. I cannot be here tomorrow.”

  “Hard luck,” Ranklin said callously. Then that “tomorrow” echoed in his mind. “Why tomorrow? – because you don’t want to be here, in the Castello, in their hands, when they realise just what you’ve been plotting? Is it happening tomorrow?” He grabbed the Count by his coat and hauled him up, shaking him like the frail old man he was, and Pero leaping up to intervene . . . But the Count’s frightened nod had got through to Ranklin and he let go.

  They all just stood for a moment, the Count trembling, Pero tensed to jump, Ranklin panting – but thinking. And deciding to play the cards he had; it was too late to hope for more. He looked at Pero. “Right: go and tell Novak I want to make a full confession. Go on, man, can’t you see it’s over? Get on with it.”

  Pero hesitated a moment longer, then smiled. “Almost I thank you, it was so very tiring.” He went to the door, thumped on it, and called out in fluent German.

  The Count had caught up with events and now his trembling was rage. “You, sir, are an English hound of extreme obscenity! You are . . . without honour!”

  Ranklin considered this briefly, then nodded. “Yes, I do seem to be growing out of that.”

  * * *

  Signora Falcone was having first-night nerves but the house servants must be used to it, because they tiptoed around her as they would around sweating dynamite.

  “Just plain bad British workmanship!” she flared at the oil-feed pipe.

  “Happens all the time,” O’Gilroy said stolidly. “And mebbe I shook it up on yesterday’s landing, along with the wheel. Thing is to get it brazed.”

  Signora Falcone controlled herself and called for Matteo. He took one look, started explaining the problem and its solution, but then saw her expression and vanished to the garage.

  She turned to Corinna, smiling professionally. “And you, my dear, perhaps you’d care to bathe before dinner? I want to go over a few details of tomorrow’s demonstration with Mr O’Gilroy.”

  There wasn’t much Corinna could do but accept graciously. But she dawdled her way and managed to hear Signora Falcone saying: “Giancarlo – the Senator – will be back on the sleeper early tomorrow morning, so he will tell . . .”

  Well, Corinna reflected, now Conall’s finding out whether I, a mere woman, had deduced the truth about tomorrow’s demonstration’. And as she turned along the gallery to her room, she ran into a distinct whiff of lavender water. So d’Annunzio had arrived, she’d been right about that, and walked slower until her nose and the sound of movement identified his room – next to hers. Probably that corner was all guest bedrooms; still, she’d remember to lock her door.

  She took her time with bathing, dressing, and sorting out her hair – she now didn’t want a strange maid distracting her – and thinking. With Andrew safely out of any plot, it really wasn’t any longer her business. Conall could look after himself, might even be acting under orders – though he’d seemed genuinely worried – and Ranklin wouldn’t thank her for interfering in British policy, if that were involved. It might be wiser to think of the House of Sherring’s good name, since London had a way of having a quiet word with itself that could leave you suddenly out in the cold. But those schemers downstairs had still, she believed, planned to talk Andrew into something dirty. He’d probably have let them, too. She wasn’t in a hurry to forgive that.

  She came out of her bedroom wearing a royal blue evening dress and carrying just a small purse. The scent of lavender was still there, perhaps renewed. She paused, standing back from the balustrade of the gallery, and listened. There was a gentle babble of conversation in Italian from the big hall below. That was the hub of the house, onto which all the ground-floor doors opened and where both staircases began. People naturally gathered there and it had little Italian formality: chairs and small tables scattered in a way that would have been cosy if you couldn’t have thrown a party for a hundred people in the space. D’Annunzio would be down there by now, and if she couldn’t see anybody, nobody could see her. She stayed back by the wall and sidled towards his room, trying to remember just what a New York detective had told her about how a skilled burglar worked.

  30

  Probably Novak wasn’t even in the Castello; certainly he would want to hear Pero report first and alone. Meanwhile, Ranklin was kept waiting in a room that was only slightly more office than cell, watched by two large soldiers. They regarded him with some awe, but also as if they could overcome that if he gave them an excuse. So he sat quietly, at first wondering if he were really betraying the Count and deciding, a little surprised, that the question was a waste of thought. What mattered now was working out just what Novak would believe.

  At last he was called through into a slightly larger, military-style office with sheaves of printed orders and a couple of maps hung on the walls. Novak had placed himself behind someone else’s table, Pero on a chair at one side.

  “So.” Novak glowered heavily and launched into his own brand of German; it was a good language for climactic speeches. “So we have an agent of the famous English Secret Service. Odd, but you look like any other slimy little spy to me. And Pero here has told me everything, everything, that you and the Count plotted together – see?” He flourished two pages of notes. “So your pitiful denials will be useless, quite us
eless. Your one hope – and it’s a thin one, I warn you – is to make a complete confession. Because even more than wanting to watch you rot into fungus in some forgotten cell, I want to see the Count on the gallows. Twenty years he’s spent plotting treasons at his café table, and now I have him in my hand. So: make your confession complete enough to hang the Count for treason and I might perjure my immortal soul to let you off lightly. Begin.”

  “Yes, that’s fine, but it isn’t what I wanted to see you about.” Ranklin helped himself to a cigarette from the packet on the desk. “Actually, I need your help—”

  Novak leaped to his feet, roaring: “I did not say you could smoke! Especially not my cigarettes! You want my help? Dear God, for that I’ll testify that you called the Emperor a fornicating old fossil and hang both of you for treason.” He sat down and his tone made a chameleon change. “What made you think Pero here was an informer?”

  “He was good,” Ranklin lied, “but his teeth were too good for the rest of him. Just staining them isn’t enough.”

  Pero smiled, then hastily shut his mouth and worked his tongue at the stains. “It feels horrible,” he murmured.

  “Was that all?” Novak demanded.

  The honest answer was that Pero had to be an informer. There was no point in bringing himself and the Count together without someone to overhear. After that, everything about Pero, from the excessively greedy way he ate to the impersonal raggedness of his clothes, had seemed stagey, convincing from the back row of the stalls but not close to.

  But honesty would only help them improve the act for the next British agent they nabbed. Ranklin shrugged and conceded: “His feet, too. Down-and-outs let their feet rot.”

  “Ach!” Novak’s act became one of melodramatic delight. “You betray yourself! Such careful observation confirms you are a snivelling spy.” He jerked his head at Pero. “All right, you can go and clean yourself up. Also, you might be sickened to watch what I may do to this disgusting maggot. You did well enough.”

  Pero clicked his heels at Novak, gave Ranklin a sympathetic grin, and vanished. Novak lit a cigarette and slumped in his chair. “Go on, say something. I’m beyond surprise. Help, Dear God.” Behaving like an erratic fuse was obviously intended to keep Novak’s victims off balance, worrying that he might explode. But behind it, Ranklin guessed, was a shrewd, nasty, and committed mind. But committed to what?