“Right on both counts,” Sir Horace said. “I thought you’d spend the afternoon at headquarters - unless you plan on going out and shooting someone then.”
Bushell rubbed at his mustache, which was unruly from the showerbath. Sir Horace waxed sarcastic only under great strain. “It’s not on my calendar, so I guess I can let it go,” Bushell said, even as the image of Sir David Clarke appeared in his mind for a moment.
“Heh, heh,” Bragg said, just like that. “Well, keep tomorrow night open, too, if you’d be so kind. There’s a reception laid on at the Russian embassy.” He muttered something under his breath; Bushell thought he heard damn Russians. In an ordinary voice, Sir Horace went on, “We’ll go there, too, and to all the other receptions and parties and banquets the ambassadors and ministers and charges will be putting on before the King-Emperor’s visit. We’ll probably learn damn all at any of them, but we have to make the effort.”
“The Russians,” Bushell said dreamily. “Russian rifles, Russian roubles, Russian grenades. ... Do you know, sir, I’m almost tempted to be undiplomatic when I get inside the Russian embassy. But, of course, I’d never do anything like that.”
“Of course not,” Sir Horace Bragg said. He might have been trying to sound hearty, but uneasy better described his tone. “I’ll send a driver around for you and Captain Stanley - “
“-And Dr. Flannery,” Bushell reminded him.
This time, the silence was on Bragg’s end of the line. At last, Sir Horace said, “Very well, Tom. And Dr. Flannery. The driver will swing by a little before ten. On your head be it.” He hung up, which effectively kept Bushell from getting in the last word.
He ran a hand through his hair. It was mostly dry by now; to make it lie flat, he’d have to oil it more heavily than he liked. He got up off the bed and started back to the bathroom. He hadn’t taken more than two steps when someone knocked on the door.
“About time with the bloody scones,” he muttered, and turned toward the doorway. He’d have been astonished if the room-service waiter hadn’t seen patrons wearing nothing but a towel. He opened the door. For a moment, he and Kathleen Flannery stared at each other. In accusing tones, he said, “You’re not room service.”
Her eyes sparkled. “I could be,” she said. “It depends on what you ordered.” She stepped into the room, closed the door behind her, and undid the towel.
The governor-general’s residence, familiarly known as America’s Number Ten, lay across Victoria from the William and Mary Hotel. The RAM driver who took Bushell and his companions there, a stolid veteran named Kittridge, refrained from pointing out all the scenic wonders they passed en route. For that alone, Bushell would gladly have promoted the sergeant to any rank this side of brigadier. Maybe Kittridge remembered him and Sam from the days when they’d worked out of the capital and knew they knew the sights. He got the feeling, though, that Kittridge would have been as taciturn if he’d come from Mars rather than New Liverpool.
They purred down Union Avenue - otherwise known as Embassy Row - on the way to the residence. Far and away the two biggest buildings there housed the Franco-Spanish and Russian legations: the fleur-de-lis of the Holy Alliance and the Russian tricolor and two-headed eagle flew only a couple of blocks apart, separated, appropriately enough, by the smaller missions of several of the German states.
“Miserable Russians,” Bushell muttered, glancing toward the ornate brick pile they inhabited. Sam Stanley was thinking along with him. “What, just because they’d fit into a building half that size if they didn’t send so many spies over here?”
“Something like that,” Bushell answered. Sergeant Kittridge still didn’t say anything, but he did nod so vigorously that the waxed tips of his handlebar mustache quivered.
America’s Number Ten was a two-story structure of white marble, with long north and south wings and a colonnaded main entrance. Exchanging small talk outside that entrance as Kittridge stopped the steamer were Sir Horace and Sir David Clarke.
Clarke clasped Kathleen’s hand for what Bushell thought was an unduly long time when she got out of the motorcar. He wondered whether that was simple mistrust of Sir David, or whether what Kathleen had said of her experience with John Kennedy made him more alert to such things. “Ah, Dr. Flannery,” Sir David said. “Sir Horace was telling me how you and Colonel Bushell had joined forces. I wondered how he meant that.” His smile was broad and pleasant.
“Nastily, I suspect,” she answered, which froze that smile on his face and made Bragg look even glummer than usual.
“It’s just ten now. We shouldn’t keep His Excellency waiting,” Stanley said, doing his best to spread oil on troubled waters.
Bragg also seemed willing to make peace. “By all means,” he said. Bushell shrugged and nodded. Without a word, Sir David Clarke turned and led them into the residence.
“Some splendid paintings on the walls here,” Kathleen murmured.
“Yes, you can trace the history of the NAU as you walk down the halls,” Bushell agreed. Colonial days gave way to the emancipation of the southern Negroes, the expansion across the prairies and then to the Pacific, the rise of factories, all punctuated with portraits of governors-general past. There was Jackson, looking grim enough to enforce the freeing of the slaves prescribed in London; there was short, roly-poly Douglas, under whom the NAU had spilled west over the Rockies; and there was Martin Roosevelt, shown at the controls of his personal airship. Rumor said he’d sometimes taken pretty girls up into the sky with him, but rumor said lots of things.
“I was thinking of the art, not the history,” Kathleen said.
“I know,” Bushell replied. “There’s room for both.” Kathleen considered that, then nodded. Bushell smiled, pleased they’d found something over which they didn’t have to argue. Over his shoulder, Sir David Clarke said, “We’re meeting with Sir Martin in the Green Room. Don’t be surprised when you find it’s appointed in blue, because - “
“-Politicians have a habit of saying one thing and doing another,” Bushell put in. Clarke looked pained. “Because it was done deliberately, I was going to say, to show the mother country she hasn’t got a monopoly on eccentric institutions.”
“Why have I got the feeling our British cousins could figure that out for themselves?” Stanley said. Again, though, he spoke disarmingly.
A servant in black tie opened the door to the Green Room, which was, as Sir David had said, done in shades of blue. Sir Martin Luther King rose from his chair and walked over to the newcomers.
“Welcome, gentlemen, Dr. Flannery,” he said. He nodded to Sam. “You would be Captain Stanley. I don’t believe we actually met when I was in New Liverpool.”
“No, Your Excellency, we didn’t.” Stanley extended his hand. “I’m delighted to meet you now, though.”
“As all of us have said throughout this sorry affair, I wish it were under more pleasant circumstances.”
Sir Martin’s deep, rich voice filled the Green Room. Even here, in a gathering altogether un-public, his every gesture seemed - not calculated, precisely, but a little stagier than it might have been, showing how conscious he was of eyes upon him. “Shall we get to work?” he said, indicating chairs with a smooth motion of his hand. “We haven’t much time, as I’m sure you know. His Majesty’s yacht sails tomorrow, and arrives - all too soon.”
“And still no further ransom demands from the Sons of Liberty?” Bushell asked.
“Only a silence as of the tomb,” Sir Martin answered. “They’re playing their cards very cagily indeed: calculating how best to force us to go along with their demands when they do finally make them.”