All Honourable Men (7 page)

“Corbin told you the Turks were giving the Railway pretty well a free hand. However, one faction of the Committee regards paying the ransom as giving in to brigandry and prefers to let the engineers take their chances. In addition, neither the Railway-builders, the Deutsche Bank nor the German Foreign Office – which is deeply if not openly involved – can agree who should put up the money and take the risk of defying the Turks.

“But it seems that an agreement has now been reached in Berlin. They still hope Lady Kelso will get the men freed without it costing them a penny – but if she doesn't, they're ready to pay up. Without the relevant faction in the Turkish Government knowing, of course. And for that reason the money will have to be moved covertly. You still follow me?”

Ranklin nodded.

“Good. Now, Hapgood has a little scheme which I'll let him explain himself.”

Hapgood sat up straighter, cleared his throat, and launched into his Big Moment. “What I thought was, if we can slip you into the affair as Lady Kelso's escort, you could then intercept this ransom payment and replace a fair part of it with – let's say – lead. So when Miskal Bey comes to count it, he'll think the Germans have cheated him, become even more obstreperous, and the tunnelling – and hence the whole Railway – will be delayed yet further.”

And, after quick looks at the other two, he sat back smiling. Ranklin was doing his best not to gape; all his sympathy for Hapgood the outsider had vanished. Dazed, he instinctively looked to the Admiral, who should have some experience of making realistic plans. But Berrigan was studying the fire with deep concern. And Fazackerley was showing just as great an interest in his own finger-nails.

“I see,” Ranklin said slowly. “But . . . just suppose Lady Kelso manages to get the engineers set free and the ransom doesn't come into it?”

“We regard that as rather unlikely,” Fazackerley said, still
intent on his nails. “Particularly with a man of your ingenuity at hand.”

In short, his first task might be to sabotage Lady Kelso.

“Does the Foreign Secretary know about the ransom demand?”

“Sir Edward sees everything that comes in from diplomatic sources.”

So they'd learnt of the ransom from some back-door source . . . Gunther? he wondered. And whose office would he have come to: the FO, India or the Admiralty?

“Bound to be problems,” Berrigan said, waving the poker in slow circles, “but that's what you chaps are trained for, isn't it?”

And in his way, the old bastard was right – if I'd had any training worth the name, Ranklin thought sourly. He said: “Naturally I can't commit the Bureau myself, that'll be up to my . . . Chief. But I'll put the whole thing to him as fairly as I can.”

“We quite understand,” Fazackerley said. “And in the light of other matters, we hope you'll emphasise the importance of this.”

“And its urgency,” Berrigan said. “The Germans are in a hurry, so we can't afford to dawdle.”

Fazackerley nodded. “Now, as to details . . .”

* * *

The Commander listened to the story without interrupting, or not often. When Ranklin had finished, he said thoughtfully: “I've expected to be asked to do something about that blasted Railway for the last couple of years. . . And they're quite right, of course; it isn't just Foreign Office jingoism. We trapped ourselves when we decided to change the Navy from coal to oil and the only place we could find our own source was in the Gulf. So we're bound to protect it when we see the Germans driving a railway down to that part of the world. Their intentions may be entirely peaceful – in peace. But come a war, they'll use every weapon they can, and that Railway's one of them.”

“Then you want to take this on?”

“I don't think we have a choice. I've been saying that we're here to do dark-alley jobs like this, that this is how we can coexist with the Foreign Office – and now they've taken me at my word. I don't think we can say No.”

“The FO may be right,” Ranklin said, “but the the idea of interfering with the ransom is sheer lunacy. The Germans aren't going to carry a load of gold coin into brigand country in a shopping basket. It'll be shut up in safes or strongboxes, under armed guard probably.”

“You'd better make a quick study of safe-cracking before you go. But yes, I agree . . . You say that idea came from Hapgood? Perhaps, with his background, he's trying a little
too
hard.”

Comments like that about Hapgood made Ranklin feel a little awkward. He must have worked far harder than Corbin or Fazackerley to get where he was, he deserved every credit and so forth . . . and yet, damn it, this involved people's
lives
. Come to that, he wondered, why did the Foreign Office let the India Office in at all if it was the threat to the Navy's oil, not to India, that mattered?

He set that thought aside and said: “None of this seems to be sanctioned by any of the ministers involved.”

The Commander eyed him curiously. “You have a latent streak of democracy that you should keep an eye on . . . Ministers don't soil their hands and minds with the likes of us. My chosen interpretation of the situation is that Sir Edward wants the Railway delayed, and that sending the Kelso woman is just an empty gesture of goodwill. So his civil servants are doing their proper job of ensuring that the Railway
is
delayed, and not bothering him with the details.”

“Such as the problem of the ransom. And us.”

“Exactly. And if my interpretation is wrong, it doesn't matter because it isn't politicians we have to please; they could be gone next week. Civil servants last longer and it's the Corbins we have to live with – if we want this Bureau to survive. So just think of the Royal Navy running out of puff in mid-ocean, and remember that
anything
you can do to bugger
up this Railway puts us in profit . . . Now, how much d'you know about railways? D'you think it would really be better just to dynamite it? – anonymously, of course.”

Ranklin shook his head slowly. “In South Africa, the Boers kept on cutting our lines, tearing up rails, derailing trains – but our chaps usually had things working again in a day or two. I learnt that once a railway's in place, it's a pretty tough thing. Stopping it being built at all seems a better way.”

“Then just go along, and if a chance to do evil crops up, seize it. Perhaps Lady Kelso will introduce you to this brigand and you can bribe him to kidnap a few more Germans.” He thought for a while, chewing on his pipe and rattling a matchbox. “Did they say how they found out about this secret stuff, the ransom and so on?”

“Gunther van der Brock.”

“Did they say that or are you guessing?”

“I'm guessing. But the timing fits, and the story's from the German end, not the Turkish. And I remember that when I tried Gunther on the Eastern Question, he shied away from it. Normally he'd at least have discussed it, to see what we're after.”

The Commander's chomping on his pipe got positively carnivorous. “So van der Brock was selling us a German secret, which suggests the Germans were behind his murder. So won't they be watching to see if we interfere?”

“It sounds possible.”

The Commander grinned again. “D'you still want to go?”

Ranklin shrugged. “If it was ever worth doing, it still is. But if I get caught working under a diplomatic alias, then it'll look as if we're doing the sweetness-and-light bit with one hand and knifing them with the other.”

“The FO will disown you, say you're an impostor. And the Prime Minister will say we
have
no Secret Service, so you must just be some patriotic but barmy officer acting on your own.”

“That may fool our journalists and their readers,” Ranklin persisted, “but the Germans won't believe a word of it. It could make the international situation worse.”

“The FO must have considered that.”

“Perhaps. I just wonder if the FO has considered what a European war could mean in this age.”

Ranklin was one of the few Britons who thought he did know, had learnt fighting for the Greeks in the 1912 Balkan war – and, the Commander felt, it was about time he bloody well forgot it. “You shouldn't let your adventures in Macedonia colour your whole view of warfare.”

But Ranklin also thought the Commander saw such a war as largely a naval event; perhaps as most Britons did. Fleets pounding each other to pieces in a few glorious hours, not men cowering for weeks in the mud, with their feet and lungs rotting. And where stray shells might kill a passing herring, not women and children, nor grind down the houses, factories, roads, all the complex heart of twentieth-century civilisation.

But the Commander had heard all that before and wasn't about to hear it again. “You cannot be an agent and fool yourself that you're working for some abstraction, like clergymen serving God or lawyers saying they're doing it for Justice and Truth and not the money. An agent works for his country – that's all. And there's no doubt that buggering up this Railway is in our national interest. Also there's a long distance between a piddling little agent like you getting caught and starting a European war, so don't put on airs. Just do the job and concentrate on not getting caught. Now –” briskly “– what d'you need for that?”

“I'd like . . .” Ranklin husked, then began again more firmly: “I want O'Gilroy with me, and a good alias. Something that fits with being a well-born hanger-on to the Diplomatic Service.”

The Commander lumbered to his feet. “Ah. Now there, I stumbled across something the other . . . Kilmartin . . . Kilmarnock . . .
Kilmallock
.” He took a copy of
Who's Who
from a shelf and dropped it with a thump in front of Ranklin. “Look up Kilmallock in that. He's an Irish peer, I forget the family name. You'll find he had two sons; I know the elder's in America – what's the younger called?”

“The Hon. Patrick Fergus Snaipe,” Ranklin read.

“Right. He's about your age, isn't he? He turned out an imbecile and he's hidden away in some looney bin in an Irish bog. Perfect: his existence is verifiable, but the rest is a dark family secret. So he could just as well be in the Diplomatic as in a bin.”

“And his Irish valet?”

“If you can talk O'Gilroy into being a manservant again.
And
your girl-friend's already out in Constantinople, isn't she?” The Commander's grin was sly rather than savage. “If we can't out-think 'em, perhaps for once we can outnumber 'em.”

No king could have worn his Coronation robes with more dignity than Mr Peters did his grubby apron, and Ranklin knew he had come to the right man. It was comforting to know that such men still existed in a world now so dominated by factory production and its good-enough standards. With unhurried precision, the locksmith unfolded and read through the letter of introduction. “Ah, yes. Mr Spencer –” that was Ranklin's normal alias, but it was wearing thin for use in the field “– of course. I assume you'd like this back.” He returned the letter. “And you want me to teach you to be a top-notch safe-cracker in the next hour.”

Ranklin tried a deprecating smile. “I'd like that, but I realise that, even for a man of your exceptional talents . . .” His voice faded and died. Peters recognised oil, and knew that it clogged the works.

“And what make of safe would it be?”

“I'm afraid we don't know. But probably German.”

Peters nodded. “Most likely to be a combination lock, then. Will you be able to use heavy tools or explosives?”

“Nothing that leaves a mark. It has to be an undetected entry.”

There was a long silence, then Peters sighed. “Well, I can show you a few safes, explain the principles of the discs and the tumbler gate, point out the differences between different makes, but . . . I won't try to tell you your business, but I suggest you concentrate on the owner of the safe. Open him, and maybe the safe'll follow. Apart from that . . . Are you a regular church-goer, Mr Spencer?”

Surprised, Ranklin said: “Er . . . I'm afraid not.” “Start today.”

* * *

Terence Gorman,
Pension Chaligny,
Paris 12e

Dear Gorman
,

You have been recommended to me by James Spencer Esq. as a loyal, sober and discreet manservant. I trust that Spencer did not exaggerate your qualities because I am offering you the opportunity to attend to my needs on a mission for His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs which will take me to Constantinople and perhaps further into the Turkish Empire
.

You will be engaged under the usual conditions at a wage of one sovereign a week, paid at the end of the week, but I am prepared to advance you a week's wage upon your acceptance
.

I assume that you will take this handsome chance to better yourself, and will present yourself clad in a fitting manner, and with your accoutrements suitably packed for immediate railway travel, at the Gare de l'Est at 2 in the afternoon on Tuesday next
.

Yrs

The Hon. Patrick Snaipe

* * *

Ranklin came into the Commander's room just as another paper was burning out in the ashtray.

“You're off to Constantinople tonight? – tomorrow?”

“I've just got to pick up a diplomatic passport.”

“Thought you'd like to know: Scotland Yard's pretty sure it knows who killed your chum van der Brock. A man suspected of being a professional assassin, name of – Bugger! I've forgotten.” He glared at the smouldering remains in the
ashtray. “Doesn't matter, he escaped abroad the same day and they can't prove it anyway.”

“What does matter is who hired him.”

“Possibly . . . I don't want you wasting time on it, anyway. Give my regards to O'Gilroy.”