“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 Pegoud 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.
“Hi there, Captain,” Andrew greeted him. “If you’re looking for Corrie, she’s over at the hospital, but she said she’d come by before she goes back to town.”
Since Ranklin hadn’t remembered to think up an excuse for being there, he accepted the suitor role and propped himself against a work-bench.
“Trouble is,” Andrew went on, juggling the flexible metal carefully, “I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing now. I wanted to get off today and maybe stop off a day at Rheims getting a look at the new racers. But with the Senator getting stabbed – have the police found out who did it yet? – what it was all about?” He glanced at Ranklin, who shook his head. “So now I don’t know if I’m going at all. It’s very sad,” he added hastily, “but it’s also a damn nuisance. Ah.” The cowling had snapped into place and O’Gilroy was ready with the bolts to hold it down.
Andrew watched for a moment, then walked to the back of the shed, wiping his hands on a rag. O’Gilroy asked softly: “What’s the news?”
“The police have got a flyer out for Thomas Gorman, probably at all stations and ports. Major X wants you out of the country or at least hidden under some bed.”
“Does he now? Well, I’ve me private chariot waiting-” he patted the aeroplane; “-if anyone gives the word.”
This was a completely new thought, and Ranklin gaped at it. “Will Andrew really take you?”
“Surely, only he don’t know it yet. He thinks he’s taking one of the fellers works here, and him having to choose between leaving his wife for a week and Mr Sherring promising him ten pounds gold, so if someone was to give him fifteen right now, it’d make up his mind something wonderful.”
After a glance to make sure nobody was looking, Ranklin handed over fifteen sovereigns – and then the rest of the cash. “You’ll need some working capital as well.”
“I should’ve brought me passport, I’m thinking.” Ranklin handed that over, too. “Yer a genius. So now we jest wait for Mrs Falcone to make up her mind.”
“Is she here?”
“Mrs Finn said she’d be meeting her at the hospital.”
“I could try telephoning her there, say Andrew’s anxious to get moving.”
O’Gilroy turned from the aeroplane and gave him a steady look. “And explain who ye are and why yer so concerned?”
Ranklin chewed his lip. His near-sleepless night was blurring his judgment and sharpening his agitation. O’Gilroy, if he knew him, would have slept like a babe in his cell until they came to rescue him.
“We’ll know soon enough.” O’Gilroy turned back to the aeroplane. “Nobody’s coming looking for me in a place like this.”
“I’m not so sure.” Sir Basil knew ‘Gorman’ as an agent of the Bureau and probably thought Brooklands irrelevant, but Ranklin recalled saying at the police station that he was an aeronautical engineer and maybe somebody remembered that and thought it worth following up, so . . . oh, damn it! – he was worrying in useless circles. Angry and critical, he glared at O’Gilroy’s clothing. “And it you’re going abroad, you’d better change first.”
O’Gilroy gave the cowling a final shake to make sure it was firm, then looked down at his grubby mechanic’s apron. “Glad ye reminded me. Need me proper kit from the hotel.”
“For God’s sake, no. You’ve got to stay here until-”
“Ye worry too much, Captain.” O’Gilroy stripped off the apron. “I’ll be borrowing Dave’s motor-bike and back before I’m gone.”
And there was nothing Ranklin could do. Except wonder what made O’Gilroy so confident and then realise, with sick horror, that after yesterday’s events he would certainly be carrying his own pistol today and see an unarmed policeman as no obstacle at all, at all . . .
22
“He has been drinking,” the Padrone said.
“Is he drunk now?” Jankovic demanded.
“He has been drunk.” The Padrone’s hands made delicate but imprecise movements, trying to pass the message that Silvio would be as unpredictable as an unexploded shell. He didn’t know what to make of Jankovic, who spoke a fluent if strange Italian but had a glowering low-browed face like a Slav farmer.