As a matter of fact, he was a smashing success here in Victoria - and what did that say about the NAU?
Rather than contemplating such an unpleasant question, Bushell made his way through the crowd toward the fortified position the bartenders held. Kathleen Flannery followed in his wake. He suspected that the soles of his shoes took the gleam off some patent leather, but he got stepped on himself a couple of times, too, so that game was even.
“Jameson over ice,” he said when at last he reached the bar, “and ... a gin and tonic?” He glanced back over his shoulder at Kathleen to make sure that was really what she wanted. She nodded. “A gin and tonic,” he repeated, more firmly.
“Da,” the bartender said, and built the two drinks with offhand skill. Bushell had heard that the Russian embassy brought its entire staff, right down to the lowliest sweeper, from the rodina, the motherland, the better to keep spies from gaining access to whatever secrets it held. The tale was evidently true. He knocked back his Irish whiskey and called for another one. Kathleen looked from the empty glass to him and back again. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to say anything. She’d barely tasted her own drink.
“It will be all right,” Bushell assured her. Maybe he was assuring himself, too. The bartender set the second glass of Jameson in front of him. Instead of disposing of it all at once, as he had the first one, he sipped sedately. Kathleen didn’t say anything. He liked her better for that. Had she made approving noises, the imp of perversity that dwelt in his breast might have made him get drunk for no better reason than to show her she couldn’t make him do everything she wanted. He took a step back from the bar. Someone else instantly usurped his place. He would have liked nothing better than finding someplace to sit and chat with Kathleen, but this was liable to be his only chance inside the Russian embassy, and he had to make as much of it as he could. When he turned to tell her that, he found her in earnest conversation with a heavyset fellow who spoke French with a Russian accent. They were both talking about Les Deux Georges. Bushell sipped at his drink. Evidently, he didn’t need to tell her anything.
“Good evening, Colonel.” Sir Devereaux Jones made his way through the crowd toward Bushell.
“Congratulations on your progress toward recovering The Two Georges.”
“I could wish I’d made more, but thanks all the same,” Bushell answered. As Tory Party chairman, Sir Devereaux naturally put the best possible face on things. That came with his job, just as running miscreants to earth came with Bushell’s.
“You’re too modest,” Jones said now, as much to the room as a whole as to Bushell. In less public tones, he went on, “Allow me to introduce you to my wife. Alexa, this is Colonel Thomas Bushell, of whom you’ve seen so much in the papers.”
Alexa Jones, a striking blond woman in her early forties, extended a slim hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Colonel,” she said. By her soft accent, Bushell guessed she was from Georgia, or perhaps one of the Carolinas. “You’ve certainly had an exciting time on the trail of The Two Georges.”
“Much more exciting than I wanted,” Bushell answered. “I greatly prefer cases where the villains do something stupid right at the start, so we can scoop them up without ever leaving our desks.”
She laughed more than the joke was worth, proving herself a politico’s wife. Sir Devereaux Jones laughed, too, but not for long. “Very important to the Union, very important to the Empire, that we get the painting back safe and sound, Colonel,” he said. He glanced over toward a couple of members of the Whig shadow cabinet, whom the Russians, in what Bushell thought at best questionable taste, had also invited to the reception. “Not that all the esteemed members of the, ah, loyal opposition would concur, their own interests being affected here, too.”
“I understand,” Bushell said, hearing what Jones wasn’t adding: very important to the Tory Party. To him, that was of small consequence. “If The Two Georges is destroyed, we lose something precious and unique.” He dropped his voice. “And if we pay ransom for it, we lose our peace of mind from now till I don’t know when. But then, I daresay you’ll have heard my views about that.”
“I have had them reported to me in detail, Colonel,” Jones replied, deadpan. His wife started to say something, then prudently held her tongue. The two people who would have told Sir Devereaux about Bushell’s opinions were Sir Martin Luther King and Sir David Clarke, neither of whom was likely to have been an objective witness.
Jones steered Bushell away from the thickest part of the crowd. Under a somber-faced icon in a frame encrusted with pearls, he said, “Do you think you’ve been led here as a ruse, or is The Two Georges somewhere nearby?”
“That is the question,” Bushell said, doing his best to sound like a melancholy Dane. “We’ve certainly suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune - “
“-And you’ve taken up arms against a sea of troubles,” Jones put in, not to be outdone. “But, the Bard aside - “
“The Bard aside, Sir Devereaux, my opinion is that The Two Georges is somewhere not far from here. Whatever the Sons of Liberty intend to do with it is tied to the King-Emperor’s arrival in Victoria. And if they were only playing for the fifty million pounds, wouldn’t we have heard more about arranging a ransom for the painting?”
Sir Devereaux Jones drew a snuffbox from the inner pocket of his tailcoat. The lid to the box was an enamelwork miniature of The Two Georges, brilliant as a jewel. He flipped it open, took a pinch of powdered tobacco, and placed it between his gum and cheek. Then he held out the snuffbox to Bushell, who shook his head. Jones flicked the lid with his thumb; it snapped shut. He put the box back into his pocket.
“That’s - a disturbing thought, Colonel,” he said at last, his broad face tired and worried. “Having the painting stolen was quite embarrassing enough - “
“More than embarrassing enough,” Bushell said.
“Indeed,” Sir Devereaux said. “I admit that paying ransom for its return strikes me as being equally unappetizing.”
“I hope to God you’ve told that to Sir Martin,” Bushell said. “All he’s been hearing is that paying is the only thing he can do.”
“And the reasons he’s been hearing that is that not paying and having The Two Georges destroyed is also a consummation devoutly not to be wished,” Jones replied. “I assure you, Coloneclass="underline" weighing advantages is much more pleasant for a working politico than trying to decide which disadvantageous course has the fewest repugnant consequences. And now you’ve given me something more to worry about, which may prove even more unfortunate than either of the two previous unpleasant possibilities. I’ll remember you in my nightmares.” With great determination, he made his way toward the bar, using his wide shoulders to advantage in forcing his way through the crowd. A string quartet that had been playing arrangements of Russian folk melodies suddenly switched first to
“God Save the King” and then to “To Anacreon in Heaven,” the old tune to which the NAU’s national hymn was sung. Bushell strode back into the room that held Duke Orlov’s receiving line: if he could get a chance to speak to Sir Martin Luther King without Sir David Clarke there to whisper into the governor-general’s other ear, he would seize it.