The William and Mary Hotel sprawled inside elegantly landscaped grounds. A light-skinned Negro clerk clucked in distress when Captain Martin tried to arrange a room for Kathleen Flannery. “That will be difficult, sir,” she said. “I’m surprised Mr. Bushell and Mr. Stanley were accommodated.”
“It has to do with the search for The Two Georges,” Bushell said.
“Sakes alive, why didn’t you say so?” The woman shuffled through a file box of registration cards like a professional vingt-et-un dealer at a casino in the south of France. By the time she was through, she’d gone from a frown to a smile so white and wide and dazzling that Bushell wondered whether her teeth were her own. “I’ve got you in room 527 now, Mr. Bushell, and you’re in 529, Mr. Stanley - and Dr. Flannery, I’ve put you in 525. We’ll worry about where the marchioness stays when she actually gets into town. I hope that’s all right?”
“Couldn’t be better,” Bushell said solemnly. He turned to Kathleen. “Well! The marchioness will be most vexed, I’m certain.”
Kathleen snorted at his languid, affected drawl. The desk clerk giggled. “You are a wicked man, Mr. Bushell,” she said severely, shaking a finger at him. He bowed in gratitude. She giggled harder. Captain Martin said, “I’m glad that’s worked out. Someone will be by tomorrow to take you and Captain Stanley - and Dr. Flannery - wherever you need to go. Don’t hesitate to ring me if there’s anything I can do.” He brushed a finger against the brim of his cap and hurried off.
“We’d better get up to our rooms right away,” Bushell said. “We’re only just around the corner from RAM headquarters. As soon as he gets back there, I expect my telephone to start ringing.” The registration clerk ran the little chime that sat on the front desk. The bellman who had been hovering in the background swooped down on the travelers’ bags.
Bushell unpacked with practiced ease and speed. His suitcases were not so full as they had been when he set out, either; he’d gone through a lot of clothes in chasing after The Two Georges. He’d have to do something about that - in his copious spare time. He laughed at the absurdity of the notion. After he’d moved things out of cases and into drawers and closet, he rang room service and ordered a couple of buttered scones, jam, and a pot of blackcurrant tea for an evening snack. Then he sat down on the bed and stared at the telephone. The watched pot stubbornly refused to boil. “If you’re going to be that way about it - “ he said, and, when it still didn’t ring, he stripped off his clothes and headed for the showerbath.
He thought the cheerful splash of hot water would be plenty to tempt the phone to life, but he got to finish bathing in peace. He was toweling his hair dry when the telephone finally rang. Wrapping the towel around his middle, he hurried over to the nightstand. “Hullo? Bushell here.”
“Hullo, Tom. Welcome back to the capital,” Sir Horace Bragg said. “You’ve taken a roundabout route getting here, haven’t you?”
“You might say so, sir, yes,” Bushell answered. “I’ve left so much behind along the way, too - I only hope none of that turns out to be crucial.”
“One of the things you’ve left behind you is a trail of blood,” Bragg said. “The papers are screaming their heads off. We’ve never had a case like this before, and I hope to heaven we never have another one like it again.”
“Amen to that,” Bushell said. “We weren’t the ones who blew off the back of Tricky Dick’s head, though. We weren’t the ones who fired first at Buckley Bay, either. And I promise you I didn’t throw the first grenade at the late, unlamented Mr. Venable. No, not unlamented: I take that back. I wish he were alive - or Kilbride, or Cavendish - so I could ask questions. Lots of questions.”
“Yes, and the papers are screaming about that, too.” Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg often sounded harassed, or at least dyspeptic, even when he wasn’t. When he was, his voice turned downright lugubrious. “One of the dailies here ran the story under the headline, ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales,’ which doesn’t make us look good.”
“To hell with the papers,” Bushell said, and was briefly glad Lieutenant Thirkettle couldn’t hear him committing such blasphemies. “I want The Two Georges. That Venable comes from Georgestown, just over the river from here. Are your people turning the place upside down yet, grilling everybody who ever met him?”
“They will be, as of tomorrow,” Bragg said. “I still don’t know as much about this business in Boston as I’d like.” His tone sharpened. “I would have expected, Tom, that you have rung me last night with a full report.”
“I tried to reach you this morning, sir, but you were already at the dentist’s.” Bushell felt guilty about not telephoning the RAM commandant, but less than he’d expected. And if Bragg wasn’t getting investigators into Georgestown till tomorrow, he wasn’t as energetic as he might have been, either.
“Well, let that go, then,” Sir Horace said, though by the sound of his voice it was far from forgotten. He paused, coughed, and then resumed: “What’s this I hear about your associating Dr. Flannery with the investigation?”
“Oh, yes, sir, I’m very glad I did that,” Bushell said brightly. “She was the one who identified Joseph Kilbride for us back in Doshoweh, and she was the one who spotted Venable in the cabinetmaker’s shop, too. Without her, we’d be much farther from The Two Georges than we are.” I have other reasons, too, but those are none of your business - sir.
“You can’t possibly trust her,” Bragg said. “I still find her involvement in the case suspicious, and to say that putting her on the investigatory team is irregular merely serves to weaken the power of language.”
“I worried about it, too,” Bushell said, which was true. “I had her join Sam and me not least to keep her from haring off on her own.” That was also true. “The help she’s given us, though, has justified the step I took.”
“Most irregular,” Bragg said, like a judge passing sentence. If we don’t come up with The Two Georges , you’ll be my scapegoat because of this. Bushell could hear the threat in his voice. He sighed. Had Sir Horace despaired of finding the painting? It sounded that way. Or maybe commanding the RAMs had finally made him come to think like a bureaucrat, not a soldier, with procedure ranking ahead of everything else, even results.
He’s old!. Bragg couldn’t have had more than a year or two on Bushell, but he sounded like a man ready for his cane and slippers. The thought saddened Bushell, who felt a long way from the boneyard himself. He said, “We’ll find it yet, sir. No new ransom demands, are there?”
“Eh? No.” Bragg hesitated, then said. “See here, Tom, are you involved with the Flannery woman?”
“I want to get a good night’s sleep tonight,” Bushell said, “and maybe you can tell me what’s on the agenda for tomorrow.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Bragg said. Bushell didn’t answer again. After a silence that stretched for more than a minute, Sir Horace sighed. “If you walk a tightrope long enough, Tom, sooner or later you fall off.” Bushell still didn’t say anything. Bragg sighed again. “First we meet with Sir Martin Luther King. He’s scheduled us for two hours, starting at ten. He’s been following your work with great attention, I assure you.”
“I believe that,” Bushell said. “He’s a politician, and he’s got the shadow of the King-Emperor’s visit hanging over him, too.”