In fact, Jay was feeling both buoyant and overawed at being on his first mission abroad with a truly experienced team. And he positively relished that he didn’t understand either of them, let alone their bond. The dark, sardonic Irish ex-ranker and the mild, tubby English officer made an odd team, but their exploits together had become legendary (he didn’t yet realise that secret services, wary of records, are great breeding-grounds for legend). In his youthful cynicism, Jay had decided that while all life was a pretence, the Bureau and the two men he was with were worth pretending for.
The truth was that Jay was a secret enthusiast. He had joined the Army an overt enthusiast but found that it, or at least his battalion, had no place for enthusiasm. Not merely was it bad form to show it, you weren’t supposed to have it at all. What mattered was correct form. Since Jay could be correct without even trying, he turned to things that needed some effort, like seducing senior officers’ wives and rigging horse races. On the brink of disgrace – which had become familiar ground – he had been snapped up by the Commander, who believed “the black sheep of the best families” was what the Bureau needed.
It wasn’t, Jay had found, that the Bureau particularly wanted rank and breeding; it valued them, but just as it valued being able to lie convincingly or pick a lock. They were tools, for which the Bureau would find a use.
So here he was, in what felt like a stuffy tin coffin running on square wheels, any thought of seasickness stifled by sheer excitement. Not, of course, that he showed it. He did, however, allow himself an admiring glance at Ranklin, who was sitting smoking and hunched in thought, not caring that most of his coffee had spilled or what his pipe might be doing to O’Gilroy. Not much really, Jay decided, not in an atmosphere that was already thick with the smells of stale food and hot oil.
“What do we do when we get to Paris?” he asked.
Ranklin roused himself. “Get to the Ritz ahead of the supposed Mrs Langhorn. Then you and O’Gilroy follow her to see if she leads us to Gorkin.” They had to speak loudly. The cabin seemed to be next to the engine room and a high-speed thudding pulsed steadily through the bulkhead.
“Is she part of this plot.?”
“The real her?” Ranklin chewed his pipe and shrugged. “Yes and no, probably. I’m assuming she’d do anything to save her boy and that others are trading on that. Getting her to write that letter, bringing her to England to pretend to be her own sister. Which fooled me completely, I admit. My only excuse is that we’d convinced ourselves she was hiding from us and we weren’t thinking of conspiracies at that stage.”
“And what about the beautiful Berenice Collomb – was she originally part of it?”
“Wild card,” O’Gilroy said.
Ranklin swung clumsily around. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Tried that. Didn’t work. Now I’m trying to die.”
Ranklin nodded. ‘“Wild card’ sounds about right. She just came trailing after her lover. Gorkin hid her away in Bloomsbury Gardens, but then when we got hold of her, he tried to have her done away with. Like Guillet.”
Mustering his courage, Jay asked: “You really didn’t kill him yourself?”
“Of course I didn’t,” Ranklin said with only a hint of impatience. “D’you think if I’d killed him I wouldn’t have got more out of him first? If he’d confessed to being bribed or blackmailed into his evidence we’d have been on to this conspiracy almost two days earlier.”
Jay nodded and set out to memorise it all. In his bunk, O’Gilroy moaned, except when he was medicating himself with the brandy flask. And the Captain did remember to slow down before running into the Calais quayside, where they were met by a lieutenant-commander posted in to make arrangements for meeting the Royal Yacht four days later. He scurried them through the empty streets in a hired motor to board a train that then crawled its way to Longueau, just past Amiens, where they changed to a faster train coming in from Lille. They arrived at the Gare du Nord just after eight o’clock, among a crowd that looked disgustingly bright, well dressed and, above all, well slept. After a long wait, they got a taxi to O’Gilroy’s pension to wash, shave and for O’Gilroy to change his clothes. Ranklin was at the reception desk at the Ritz hotel by half-past nine.
The less you knew what you were doing, the more assured you should seem-or so ran Ranklin’s experience. However, having the inspiration that Major St Claire himself might be the man upstairs was what did the trick at the desk.
At St Claire’s room – actually a suite with a drawing-room joining two bedrooms – he was greeted with surprise: “What on earth brings you across?”
“More or less the same as you, I think. We got word that you’d found Mrs Langhorn.”
St Claire wasn’t happy that words like that had got loose. “You’d better come in . . . Yes, actually we have. How did you find out?”
“Do you mind me saying that the Bureau has its sources? Best I can offer, I’m afraid. Are you going to appeal to her patriotism to get her to drop the claim, then?”
“Ah . . . no, not exactly. We’re actually going to offer her a pension, payable for just as long as she keeps mum about the whole thing.”
“Ah . . . You don’t think that might look like admitting her claim is true?”
At that moment, a tall, well-built man in his fifties hurried out of one of the bedrooms, just finishing the knot of a very dull necktie. He wore a dark grey suit, gold-rimmed glasses and what was left of his hair was very pale. He relaxed, but frowned when he saw Ranklin.
St Claire stumbled over the introductions. “Captain Ranklin of the . . . um, well, let’s say the War Office – does that suit you? Mr Harland, the solicitor who’s acting for His Majesty in this matter. Don’t worry,” he reassured Harland, “Ranklin knows as much about this as we do. More, I rather think. Shall we sit down?”
When they were seated, and Harland had started fiddling with his tie again, St Claire went on: “Mr Harland will actually be making the offer of a pension and it will be traceable only as far back as the bank. There will be no connection to be made, I assure you.”
Ranklin looked grave. “Hm. I can’t help feeling that if news of a pension seeps out, everyone will know it comes from the Palace, no matter what.”
Harland cocked his head. “I intend to make it clear to the woman that the pension will continue only so long as news of it does not seep out.”
“Fair enough – but could we consider the thought that it might not be the real Mrs Langhorn but someone who just wants to find out what you’re offering and then reveal it all?”
St Claire stiffened. “The consulate officials checked her papers and questioned her closely. They reported themselves as satisfied she was who she claimed to be . . . And misbehaviour of that sort sounds well beyond the capabilities of a woman of her class living in that part of Paris.”
“Quite. But if it isn’t Mrs Langhorn, that should suggest there are more devious minds involved, shouldn’t it?” And while they were considering this, Ranklin went on: “I may be able to identify Mrs Langhorn myself. So if I can sit in on the interview, and you would hold off on making the actual offer . . .”
Harland turned to St Claire. “It’s for you to decide, Major, but I understood you wanted the matter settled as quickly as possible.”
“We do, we do,” St Claire soothed. “But if the lady isn’t the right one . . .” He was still puzzling out the implications of this.
Harland turned back to Ranklin. “Are you planning to challenge the woman’s identity?”
It was Ranklin’s turn to soothe. “Oh no. Whether she’s genuine or not, I don’t want her to think we have any doubts.”
“Then am I to make this offer or not?”
“May we see how it goes and I’ll leave you in no doubt about what to do?”
St Claire nodded and Harland sighed.