Flight From Honour (22 page)

Then the desk sergeant said: “We’d best call and try to wake the lads upstairs.”

“Yes, Sarge,” the constable agreed. There was more silence.

“So,” the sergeant said eventually, “both together, right?” He coughed. “When I’ve cleared me throat.”

Outside, another and younger constable returning westward along Clerkenwell Road noticed the big motor-car parked beyond the junction, beside the railed garden of Gray’s Inn. It was a funny place to park, not outside any house, but its tail-light glowed, its engine rumbled faintly in the stillness, and a man was leaning against the hood, so perhaps it had some minor breakdown. The constable knew almost nothing about motor-cars but was ready to show willing on a quiet night, so marched forward. He made almost no noise, having slipped rings cut from motor tyres around his boots, a trick learnt from the older men.

He had almost reached the junction when two men came out of the police station and turned towards the car, not hurrying, but moving with purpose. A bit odd. The constable paused at the kerb. Two more men came from the station and walked quickly after the others. Definitely odd. And had that been a gleam of metal in one man’s hand?

The constable stepped forward and called: “Wait a minute.” The men started running, and so did he. By the time he had crossed the road he was going flat out but the men were scrambling into the car. Except for the one who had been leaning on the hood. He had straightened up to the rigid stance of a pistol duellist, arm and glinting metal pointing towards . . . There was a flash, smoke, and what the constable afterwards remembered as a “boom” rather than “bang”. He was so surprised he forgot to stop running. The man stayed quite still, there was another flash and boom and the constable’s head was jerked back as his helmet tried to leap from his head. He stopped then, eyes watering from the jerk of the chin-strap. When he had blinked them clear again, the car was far down Theobald’s Road.

Dagner had the car stopped in Horse Guards to let him and Ranklin walk the last two hundred yards while it delivered O’Gilroy back to Whitehall Court. A few lights burned in the War Office, but the wide streets were empty. This had become so much a self-sufficient government enclave that the police virtually ignored it at night. After a few slow paces, Dagner said: “I want O’Gilroy got back to Brooklands now, tonight. Use P’s motor-car, don’t go near railway stations. And tomorrow, abroad: make sure he takes enough kit with him now.”

“You don’t think our Irish act worked, then?”

“Of course not. Sir Basil may pretend to believe it, if he wants to concede the game to us and needs someone to blame, but if he decides to come after us . . . then God knows. But we’ll find out soon enough.” He paused, then went on in the same conversational tone: “I’m afraid I blame you for most of this evening’s problem. You weren’t alone – but you
were
in command.”

Quite properly, he wasn’t going to roast an officer in front of juniors. But also, Ranklin realised, he was making O’Gilroy Ranklin’s subordinate rather than a member of the Bureau in his own right. But this was one of those never-explain-never-complain situations.

Dagner went on: “If you
must
behave as if you’re abroad on a mission, and I’d far prefer that you didn’t, then don’t do things by halves. If you ever again decide to charge into some house ready to shoot somebody, then bloody well get on with it – and then be off like a scalded rabbit. Don’t go near the police at all. As it is, you seem to have gone one way and let O’Gilroy go another – and all the rest followed from that. So now the shooting of one tu’penny Italian bandit threatens the secrecy, even the future, of our Bureau. And
I will not
have that. Do you follow me?”

“Yes, sir.” The ‘sir’ was pure instinct.

“And do you agree?”

“Yes, sir.” And I do, Ranklin thought miserably. I tried to be half secret agent, half solid citizen, and the two halves don’t add up.

“On the other hand,” Dagner said, “I think Certain Quarters may have got the message that the Secret Service Bureau, while perhaps not as legendary as legend has it, is still not to be trifled with.”

But they’d only been rescuing O’Gilroy, hadn’t they? Ranklin was about to say this, then didn’t. It was his fault that any rescue had been needed.

21

“It isn’t in the papers, and
may
never be,” Major Kell said pointedly, “but did you hear that a group of Irish desperadoes stormed the Gray’s Inn Road police station early this morning and freed one of their number who was being held on a murder charge? A man called Gorman.”

Dagner pretended pretend interest. “Really? Should I have heard of him?”

“I just thought you’d be interested. Sir Basil Thomson certainly is. Indeed, I’d go as far as to say that he’s in a mood to spit blood and would like it to be yours.”

“Yes?” Dagner said, as if inviting him to get to the point.

“One of his policemen was shot.” Kell paused to see if that brought any reaction. When it didn’t, he continued: “Through the helmet. Sir Basil was talking of raiding this office and demanding that every one of you come up with an alibi for between three and four this morning.”

“Most extraordinary.” But Dagner still seemed only mildly interested. “However, I’m sure cooler counsels will prevail. I, for my part, would not permit him to know who is on the staff of this Bureau, let alone demand alibis of them. And I hope he bears in mind that any such raid will be upon a non-existent Bureau answerable only to the First Lord of the Admiralty.”

Kell looked at him thoughtfully. “However, I think he might be assuaged if you just handed Gorman back.”

Dagner seemed to consider this, but as if it were a strange and fanciful idea. “No, I don’t think so.”

Kell took a deep breath. “Major Dagner, do you really consider your service to be so far above the law that—”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” Dagner leant back in his chair. “Because if it isn’t there, it’s nowhere. So there is no question of my handing over one of our agents for judgment by that law – and that’s quite apart from any questions of loyalty and morale. But I don’t think it should harm your relationship with Scotland Yard if they realise you have no control over
this
service. Unless, of course, you’d led them to believe you had.”

Kell clenched his face but said nothing. He took a paper from an inside pocket, and unfolded it on Dagner’s table. It was a police ‘wanted’ poster for Thomas Gorman. There was no photograph, but the description was good – as it should have been, given that they’d had him in custody for several hours. Dagner read it with apparently mild interest.

“Those,” Kell said, “will be distributed throughout the Home Counties unless I return either with your man or your promise to surrender him.”

He had the feeling that Dagner was staring straight through him at some distant memory. “Most interesting – but it doesn’t alter my position. May I keep this?”

*        *        *

Rich and lordly as the Naval Intelligence Division seemed from Whitehall Court, inside the Admiralty it ranked – to judge from its offices – on a par with bilge-scraping. Even the civilian stores clerk, to whom Ranklin’s NID friend introduced him, lived in grander style. The Nelson touch, perhaps: Trafalgar had been won with stores, not spies.

The introduction was terse: “Here’s the chap I was telling you about, the one asking about the missing pistol. He’s Army, so fob him off with any old stuff.”

The clerk greeted Ranklin with wary courtesy. “Are you
really
from the Secret Service?”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“Gosh.”

Ranklin added quickly: “But just the paper-shuffling side, not one of the stealing-the-Kaiser’s-code boys.”

“Ah.” The clerk looked disappointed, then realised that a
real
spy obviously wouldn’t admit it, so went back to wariness.

“Could we . . . ?” Ranklin suggested, gesturing at the nearest stack of paperwork.

“Of course.” He shuffled through a pile of papers. “You were asking about a certain Webley pistol, serial number so-and-so . . . Here we are: a court of inquiry established that it was lost overboard from HMS
Gloucester
during a storm in the Adriatic last April. No disciplinary action, but the loss has been paid for. And everybody’s living happily ever after.” He looked up with a bright smile.

“I rather thought it would be something like that. However, for a heavy pistol, it seems to have floated remarkably well, and due to some oddity of tide and current which perhaps you’d understand better than I, it was washed up in Clerkenwell yesterday.”

“Oh
dear.” A slow grin spread across the clerk’s face and he consulted the report again before saying cheerfully: “Well, the paperwork’s all in order. So if you want to take it any further, you’ll have to talk to somebody in the Naval Branch—”

“No, no, I don’t want to stir things up and get anyone into trouble,” Ranklin assured him. “I’m not interested in the ‘how’ of it, just some idea of where it really went missing.”

“Are you quite sure of that serial number?” Then the clerk reconsidered. “Sorry, that was rather a silly question: you’ve found a pistol and we’ve lost one . . .” He went back to the report. “How about the last port of call before the ‘washing overboard’?”

“Where was that?”

“Trieste.”

The atmosphere in the agents’ office was like the last day of term. Lieutenant H waved the ‘wanted’ poster at Ranklin, grinning as if it were a report of how the school had just beaten Greyfriar’s 60-nil. “Have you seen this?”

Ranklin said: “Oh Christ,” and went straight to Dagner’s door, leaving H standing bewildered.

“Exactly,” Dagner said, seeing the poster in Ranklin’s hand. “We have to get him abroad. Where the devil have you been? You’d better get down to Brooklands.”

“Naval Intelligence. Right away.”

Dagner strode to the door, pulled it open and called: “Somebody get Captain R a taxi-cab.” He came back, muttering: “Like a bunch of . . . never mind. At least get him under cover—” he unlocked the safe against the wall and rummaged inside; “—and when you’ve done that, try and find out how Senator Falcone is. I can’t go telephoning the hospital without some explanation.” He spilled a small bag of sovereigns on to the table and began counting them swiftly.

“I should have told you,” Ranklin said. “I talked to Mrs Finn on the telephone, earlier. He’s not too serious at all. It was just the muscles in his back. It looked . . . you know how a little blood goes a long way, and he lost a lot. Apparently what saved him was he was wearing a medical corset, plaster and so on, after he’d hurt his back in an aeroplane smash.”

“Is he conscious? – talking?”

“She didn’t know about that, I’m afraid.”

“We need to know if his plan’s still going ahead. He was working with others, but we don’t know who, nor if they can carry on without him.”

This startled Ranklin. He had assumed the whole scheme was over or indefinitely postponed, but he said nothing. He still had some leeway of deference to make up.

“And,” Dagner said, “am I right in thinking it hasn’t been reported in the newspapers?”

“None I’ve seen have got it. He was awake enough to give a false name at the hospital – Vascotti. I don’t know if they believe it, but as long as the bill gets paid . . . And it happened in a big crowd, at the height of the display, and most of the reporters there were aeronautical specialists. Oh, and another thing Mrs Finn told me: Signora Falcone’s coming over. She’ll be here this afternoon. She might know something.”

“Getting here today?” Dagner wouldn’t be familiar with Continental travel, but knew Italy was further away than that.

“Apparently she was already in Paris. Mrs Finn said she’s going down to Weybridge to see the Signora herself – she was originally an Irish lady, I believe, so there won’t be any language problem. And I expect Andrew Sherring will be anxious to know if the aeroplane deal’s still on, too.”

Dagner pondered, and Ranklin could guess at the unanswered questions. Did Signora Falcone know of her husband’s plottings? – and if so, could they approach her instead? Or was she feeling anti-British-Government for letting her husband get stabbed? And how much of this dare they leave to Corinna to find out for them? Quite apart from Corinna’s tactlessness in being born an American, Dagner must realise she was no helpless fly in their web.

He came to a decision: “Find out what you can from her, but don’t step outside your War Office persona. But first, get O’Gilroy somewhere safe. There’s twenty-five sovereigns here—” he dropped the gold into Ranklin’s hand; “—and those giggling schoolboys must have found you a cab by now.”

Feeling he owed the ‘schoolboys’ some defence, Ranklin paused long enough to say: “I thought they worked very well as a team. Last night really brought them together—”

“Captain—” the unslept hours suddenly showed in Dagner’s face; “—they’ve had years of that sort of thing in the Army. We’re supposed to be teaching them to work
alone.”

*        *        *

The platform at Waterloo was surprisingly crowded, until Ranklin remembered that Pégoud was giving a second display that afternoon, puffed by ecstatic reports in the day’s papers. He had also seen a couple of uniformed police in the booking hall who hadn’t been there yesterday when they might have been some use, but more important were any plain-clothes ones that he couldn’t identify.

It was a long, dusty trudge from Weybridge station to the aerodrome – any local taxis and cabs had been snapped up by the first off the train – and Ranklin’s mood was very different from the cheery anticipation of the crowd around him. Then he had to use bluff and his calling card to get past the Aero Club officials to reach Andrew’s shed. Frustrations apart, he was leaving a trail like an elephant stampede and could only hope the police didn’t suspect him (not especially, anyway) or were moving at their ‘proceeding’ pace.

The sheds had no doors, just a row of shutters that could be taken down individually or, in Andrew’s case, mostly left up to give the interior an air of dim, dusty, castor-oil-tinged privacy. And sharing that privacy was, thank God, O’Gilroy. He was helping Andrew fit the metal engine cowling back on to the Oriole.