“Splendid.” And one sweep of her lorgnette closed the conversation. Dahlmann, relieved, gathered up his coat and headed for his compartment. Zurga lingered a while longer, then picked up his coffee cup and went in the opposite direction, into the dining-saloon.
Lady Kelso put down her lorgnette and magazine and said briskly: “Balderdash.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What Zurga says he’s going to say to Miskal. He must know that’s absurd. A man like Miskal won’t take any lectures from a jumped-up Stambouli who’s sold his soul to us infidels – and that’s how Miskal will see him. He’ll have captured those two because they’re foreigners wanting to carve up his land, so he’s being defender of the Faith – and that’s what matters to the Arabs, not being patriotic to some Ottoman Turk idea of Empire.”
Ranklin frowned. Put like that, Zurga’s task did look pretty hopeless. “Then why d’you think he’s here?”
“Heaven knows if you don’t.” She cocked her face to give him a cool look. “I do think the Foreign Office might have given you a better brief.” She might not be a lady who always knew what she wanted – considering what she’d got, one certainly hoped not – but Ranklin couldn’t see her as a hapless plaything either.
However, that wasn’t what bothered him most. Granted that they’d prefer her to talk the prisoners free and save themselves ?20,000, what happened if Miskal Bey said “Nice to see you again, old girl – but where’s my ransom money?” – and she knew nothing about it? They must surely tell her before she met him. Perhaps they were sizing her up first, guessing how she’d take it.
Wanting a little peace and quiet to think things over, he patted his pockets, muttered: “Seem to have left my cigarettes . . .” and went along to his own sleeper.
He got his first sight of Dr Streibl from the window of that compartment. A tall man, his half-unbuttoned overcoat flapping in the wind, was marching across the tracks of the yard towards them. He carried a wide-brimmed hat in his hand, showing a sun-tanned bald head with long grey strands of hair fluttering around his ears, and the sure-footed way he matched his stride to the tracks without looking down marked him as a true railwayman. Outdistanced behind him came a single porter with – by the standards of the rest of them – a meagre load of luggage.
Ranklin heard him come aboard and decided it was safe to re-appear. He came into the saloon at the tail-end of Dahlmann’s introductions: “Ah, and here is the Honourable Patrick Snaipe of the English Diplomatic Service. Herr Doktor Martin Streibl of Phillip Holzmann Gesellschaft from Frankfurt.”
“Rumpled” was the word for Streibclass="underline" his clothes, his hair and even his face, with ears and bulbous nose exaggerated like a cartoon drawing. His tie was askew and too much bulged his pockets. Nor could he keep his attention on Ranklin or any of them: just on the carriage itself. After a hearty handshake, he went back to peering at the paintings on the ceiling, tapping the walls, poking the carpet with his rather unshiny boot.
Feeling responsible and perhaps a little vexed, Dahlmann said unnecessarily: “Perhaps you have not seen this train before?”
“Hm? Nein, nie . . . bemerkenswert . . . I am sorry.” But he couldn’t keep his eyes on mere humans, murmuring: “Au?erordentlich . . . erstaunlich. . .”
Lady Kelso had her mouth pursed to stop herself laughing aloud, and went on being chirrupy when more coffee had been brought around and Dahlmann had led Streibl away for a private chat. “So now all we’re waiting for is the Orient Express, and Eastward Ho! I don’t suppose we’ll have any international problems, not in these carriages.”
Ranklin was glad someone had brought that up. After Budapest the line ran through Serbia and then Bulgaria, both of which had been at war with Turkey a year ago. And Serbia’s recent past – turbulent or murderous, depending on how close you stood – had given them a rare mistrust of any foreigners.
Zurga gave a fatalistic little shrug. “We hope not.”
When they were rolling through Munich’s stolid surburbs, Dahlmann appeared back in the saloon. “Lady Kelso, gentlemen: we are now attached to the Orient Express but it is most strictly agreed that we must remain separate. There is no connecting door, and I must ask you not to board their carriages when we stop at stations. Thank you. Now, Dr Streibl has brought me some important news that has come from Turkey. If you will please . . .”
So they trooped in to join Streibl in the dining compartment and sit, conference-like, around the bare table. A subdued Lady Kelso caught Ranklin’s eye and made a little moue of mock apprehension.
Dahlmann hunched himself as chairman at the head of the table; at least he didn’t stand up. “This is an unfortunate development.” He looked around to make sure they were well braced. “The railway camp in the south has had a message from Miskal Bey. He demands, as payment to release our officials, a ransom in gold coin of 400,000 marks.”
Dear me, what a wicked deceitful old banker you are: you knew that all along, Ranklin thought. But it was a relief to stop pretending not to know it – for both of them, probably. He adjusted Snaipe’s expression to a baffled frown.
But if Lady Kelso hadn’t naturally been sitting bolt upright, she would have done so now. “That doesn’t sound like Miskal. He’s a gentleman, not a bandit.”
Dahlmann’s voice had a hint of satisfaction. “I am afraid – unless the message is quite misunderstood – that he has done this.”
“I could understand him shooting your people, for trespassing. Or putting out their eyes and sending them back as a warning. But not holding them to ransom – that’s just not him.”
“Perhaps you understood him wrongly,” Dahlmann suggested rashly.
She stared at him as if he were a new and unnecessary discovery in the insect world. “And just how well do you know him?”
Dahlmann mumbled that he hadn’t met Miskal.
“I knew him rather well.”
Dahlmann looked for support and didn’t get it. Zurga avoided his eye, Streibl seemed honestly devoted to the painted ceiling. “Perhaps . . . we may hope when we arrive, it is all a mistake. But please, at this moment, may we pretend it is true? And my Bank must decide if paying it is advisable.” His confidence crept back with the sound of his own voice. “My thought now is to hope that you, Madam, can persuade the Bey to release the men without payment. But if you do not succeed, and Zurga Bey cannot also persuade him, then I think I must recommend payment.
“But naturally, I welcome all your opinions . . . Lady Kelso, do you have any more . . .?”
Her voice was gentle but distinctly cool. “You already know my opinion, Dr Dahlmann . . . But if you want me to pretend Miskal has made a ransom demand, I’m not sure there’s any point in my going there at all. If what he wants is 400,000 marks, he’s not going to settle for me fluttering my eyelashes at him.”
Oh Lord. Ranklin saw the whole scheme collapsing gently around him. Because if she decided to get off at the next stop and go home, he had no choice but to go too.
But Dahlmann was just as taken aback. “Oh, no, Madam, I beg you to do as Sir Edward Grey himself has asked you to. As you agreed.”
“To save you 400,000 marks?”
“Naturally, the gold is important. But it is not everything-” He was floundering. Yet, though he couldn’t admit it, he’d had plenty of time to foresee such an obvious snag. Poor staff work, Ranklin disapproved.
Zurga rode calmly to the rescue. “But to pay the money will not change Miskal Bey’s mind. Only you can do that, Lady Kelso. And end the matter in peace – for his people as well as the Railway.”
She was cool to any idea coming from Zurga, however sensible. And, Ranklin guessed, she probably didn’t trust a word he said. But in a sudden change of mood, she smiled. “Very well, you’ve persuaded me, Zurga Bey. But if I don’t succeed, then my opinion doesn’t count for anything. You must do whatever you think best.”