The Commander escorted him out through the sound-proof door and the outer office. This was furnished with unmatched but comfortable-looking chairs, small tables with ashtrays, a scatter of newspapers and magazines. It might have been any small club – and Whitehall Court was full of them – devoted to owning a certain make of motor-car or shooting a particular breed of animal. Three men stood in a huddle by a window. They glanced at Lord Erith, showed no hint of recognition, and went on talking.
He was disconcerted; surely they must recognise who I am, he thought. Then he remembered that they would be carefully trained not to show any reaction, and went his way content.
The huddle was still in session when the Commander came back. O’Gilroy had been able to change out of chauffeur’s uniform in Ranklin’s – actually the Bureau’s – flat downstairs, but Lieutenant J still wore his funereal City solicitor clothes. The Commander asked: “Is it all wrapped up, then? Succesfully?”
They let Ranklin, as senior, answer: “As far as we’re concerned, yes, sir.”
“Come in and tell me about it.”
* * *
“So,” the Commander summarised, “we assume Mr Gottlich/Divine is really off to Switzerland by now.”
“I think Budapest’s more likely, but yes in principle,” Ranklin agreed.
“Have you both moved out of your respective hotels?”
Ranklin nodded, looking regretful. He had felt he could get accustomed to the Savoy. O’Gilroy, recalling the aspidistra’d tedium of the Gloucester Road, lowered at him.
“And you’re sure the Foreign Office paid all your bills?”
“With no more than a murmur about alcoholic beverages,” Lieutenant J said. Then, affecting the innocent air of the young new boy, he added: “You wouldn’t believe how generous they get in the company of the oil business, sir.”
The Commander shoved his pipe into the narrow gap between the tips of his nose and chin and glared. But that did no good; the three looked back calmly, and he knew they would quietly snoop and ponder until they had their answers. Dammit, that was their job.
So he sat back in his chair, struck a match, and said: “All right, tell me what you think you know.”
Again they looked at Ranklin to answer for them. He said politely: “What we guess will happen is the Oriental Pearl’s new owners will sell off its assets – such as the foreshore lease in Kuwait – seemingly to try and satisfy the creditors and keep out the receivers. But they’ll fail, and let the company go down. Which is hard luck on the other shareholders, but what would have happened anyway. And the obvious people to sell the lease to is Anglo-Persian Oil, who are already in the Gulf area.”
Lieutenant J took up the story. “And by a singular coincidence, the registered office address of Albemarle and Dover Trust Co. is that of a director of Anglo-Persian. I’m afraid I got carried away when I was playing solicitor, and looked up a bit more than I was supposed to in company registers and so on. You know how it is, sir.” He smiled winningly.
Ranklin resumed: “We can see why Anglo-Persian used back-door methods to get the concession. Gottlich would have got greedy if he knew they were interested, and the Turks might have remembered they really own Kuwait if they’d heard of Anglo-Persian buying in there. But we are slightly puzzled at why Anglo-Persian can’t stage its own swindles without asking the help of the Foreign Office and ourselves.”
“And even more puzzled,” J said, “why the FO gave that help – unless they’re most frightfully chummy with Anglo-Persian.”
“Like,” O’Gilroy topped it off, “they, or the Government, was going to buy Anglo-Persian. Jest so’s the Navy’d have some oil of its own.”
“Stop,” the Commander said. “Stop where you are.” He glowered at his table-desk with his pipe sending up war-dance signals. Finally he said: “Young Winston’s going to put this to Parliament as soon as he reckons he can persuade them. But it’ll cost a hell of a lot and he’ll have a hell of a job, and the whole thing could go smash if somebody gossips about it beforehand. Especially to a friend in the City, no matter how close.” He had shifted his glower to Ranklin for that.
Ranklin gave a nod and smiled placidly back. In fact, all three were smiling.
“Smug buggers,” the Commander muttered. “Go on, get out. Not you, Ranklin, I want a word.”
When the other two had gone, the Commander relaxed and grinned. “And you think the Foreign Office ended up happy?”
“As happy as that chap Fazackerley ever seems to get. Was that what it was all about?”
“Mostly. If we can get them turning to us in their hour of need . . . well, it may stop them trying to strangle us in our cot.” Normally, the Foreign Office resented the upstart Bureau, and not entirely without reason. Ambassadors disliked sharing their job with spies, particularly when the spies got caught and undid years of diplomacy with a single blaring headline.
“But we’ll see what happens next time,” the Commander added. “Meanwhile, thank your girl-friend for the tip that Gottlich was trying to unload his shares; I assume that’s where you got it? Did I hear that she – at least her father – is interested in getting involved with the French on a new Turkish loan?”
“Did you, sir?” Ranklin said coolly. But the Commander, thanks to his second wife, was himself in the world of yachts and Rolls-Royces, so he could well have City friends of his own.
“I’m sure I heard something . . . But that being the case, you’d better become our Turkish expert.”
“For Heaven’s sake, I’ve only been to Constantinople, and that for just a few days as a tourist years ago.”
“And you fought against them in Macedonia, didn’t you?”
“Pitching shells onto people’s heads at four thousand yards doesn’t give you a great insight into their national character.”
“Every little helps,” the Commander said. “You’re still the closest to a Turkish specialist that we’ve got.”
And that, Ranklin had to accept, was true. In the tiny Bureau, you were well-versed if you knew one fact about a foreign country, while knowing two made you an expert. So in the next days he took to noting every reference to the Ottoman Turkish Empire in the newspapers, and even read several books on the Eastern Question, although without finding out exactly what the question was, let alone the answer.
He had the time to spare, particularly in the gloomy March evenings. O’Gilroy had gone back to their pension in Paris and Corinna was either on her way to Constantinople or already there, indeed involved in a possible Turkish loan. Their last meeting had been one of the strangest episodes of his life.
3
The Commander had got one thing wrong: “Mrs Finn”, nee Corinna Sherring, was not a widow. The San Francisco fire of 1906 (which did not involve an earthquake, as any resident without earthquake insurance could tell you) destroyed so many public records of births and marriages that it became, retrospectively, where most of America’s confidence tricksters had been born or married. But what (a kindly judge asked himself) could a millionaire’s daughter gain from falsely declaring she had lost both husband and his birth certificate in the flames when no inheritance was involved? The judge’s wife might have pointed out that society – particularly in Europe – allowed widows far more licence than unmarried girls, but more likely she’d have kept such knowledge to herself. Anyway, the judge hadn’t asked her.
Corinna had not, in the eyes of society, abused her freedom. She did not steal others’ husbands, however obvious the offers from the husbands (and occasionally their wives). She had simply set out to enjoy the full life she had heard whispered about at her Swiss finishing school. And if anybody said she could only do that because her father was very rich, she readily agreed and pointed out that, since he was rich, she’d be silly to pass up the chance.