“Stanage’s solicitor got him out on a writ yesterday evening.” Bushell made a face. “So that was his safety-deposit box password, eh? I wonder how long it has been. I’d give you long odds the judge never asked.” He and Bragg silently commiserated about the unfathomable ways of judges. Then he went on, “I had a good idea last night, or I think so, anyhow. I want to hear how you like it.”
“I’m all ears,” Sir Horace answered, reaching up to touch one of the rather fleshy protuberances in question. He wasn’t saying anything about Bushell’s conversation with Jamie Macias or his own reaction to it. Probably trying to pretend it never happened, Bushell thought. He said, “All the evidence we’ve developed in this case makes the Russians look to be the people feeding the damned Sons of Liberty gold and guns, doesn’t it, sir?”
“Can’t argue with you there,” Bragg said. “We’ve been over that ground again and again. Haven’t come up with anything I know of to make us suspect the Holy Alliance or somebody more unlikely like the Prussians or Austrians.”
“No, sir,” Bushell agreed. “Not a scrap. But one of the things we’ve been worried about is whether stealing The Two Georges was an end in itself or part of a bigger plot, one that would endanger the King-Emperor when he gets to Victoria.”
“As a matter of fact, Sir Devereaux Jones rang me up with that very concern not ten minutes ago,” the RAM commandant said. “He seemed genuinely alarmed, and he’s not a man to concern himself with trifles.”
Bushell had said the same thing the day before, but let that go. He’d succeeded in putting a flea in Sir Devereaux’s ear, all right. “It occurred to me that, if there will be an attempt on the person of Charles III, the Sons of Liberty may well need to get some weapon or piece of apparatus from the Russian embassy at the last minute. One way to keep that from happening would be to seal off the embassy grounds for the duration of His Majesty’s visit, let no one in or out during that time.”
“Duke Orlov would scream blue murder,” Sir Horace observed. “That’s not the sort of slight a diplomat will take lying down.”
“To hell with diplomacy,” Bushell said, not the first time he’d voiced such a sentiment. “Keeping the King-Emperor safe counts for more, if you ask me.”
“Oh, I agree with you,” Bragg said. “Don’t mistake me for a moment. All right, we’ll do it that way, and let Sir Martin or the foreign secretary pour oil on troubled waters. I won’t be sorry not to have the Russians sneaking around during the imperial visit, and that’s the God’s truth.”
“That’s very good, sir.” Bushell hoped the glad surprise he felt didn’t show in his voice. He dismissed as foolishness his fear that the RAM commandant was somehow involved in the theft of The Two Georges and whatever plot might be hatching against Charles III. The Russians, he was convinced, were part and parcel of that plot; if his old friend was part of it, too, he would have come up with any number of good reasons to leave the Russian embassy open. Instead, he’d agreed to close it down. Sir Horace had passed the test. It was the best news Bushell had had for days. The only problem with it was, it left the leak to the Sons of Liberty unaccounted for. He made a mental note to go after that leak, not that he had much hope of finding it unless the villain, whoever he was, made a mistake: when you asked a leaker if he was leaking, he wasn’t likely to say yes.
Bragg must have been following that same melancholy train of thought. His forehead corrugated into a badland of wrinkles. “I wish to heaven I could find out how the devil the Sons got word of our raids. When I do - if I do - someone’s head is going to go on the block, and that’s the God’s truth, too. If the Sons have infiltrated the RAMs, nothing and nobody is safe anymore.”
“I know,” Bushell said; glad once more to find Sir Horace thinking along with him. “How’s your tooth, sir?” he asked sympathetically.
Bragg rolled his eyes. “Don’t speak of it. I may have to go back to that quack of a Pendleton sometime in the next few days to get the nerve killed. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it, not when they put it that way? What they don’t tell you is that it means drilling a good, deep hole in your head. I think half the torturers in theOkhrana started out as dentists.”
Bushell, who had been through the procedure, nodded vigorous agreement. He said, “Have you got any idea who the turncoat might be?”
“I wish I did,” the RAM commandant answered, his voice even more melancholy than usual. “And speaking of turncoats, have they managed to match that note from Stanage’s to a machine handy for Sir David Clarke? Safety-deposit box password, my -“ His snort said his opinion of that was the same as Bushell’s.
“No, sir,” Bushell answered. “From what Captain Oliver says, it doesn’t seem to be any of the ones in America’s Number Ten.”
“Maybe one he has at home, then,” Sir Horace suggested.
“Neither of those, either,” Bushell said. “Unofficially speaking, of course.”
“Really? You do sail close to the wind, don’t you, Tom? And I’ve said that before, haven’t I?” Bragg sighed, then held out his hands, palm up. “It doesn’t signify, anyhow. Sir David could lay hands on a fresh typewriter as easily as he could lay hands on -“ He didn’t take that any further.
“So he could.” If Bushell’s voice came out cold, Sir Horace would attribute that to his still-smoldering anger at Sir David Clarke. And that anger was there, and likely would be for as long as Bushell lived. But now he was angry at Sir Horace, too, not only for bedding Irene but also for trying to manipulate him. He looked across the desk at the man he’d long thought his friend. I’ll work with you till we get The Two Georges back. After that, we’re quits. Had Sir Horace shown the slightest reluctance to shut down the Russian embassy while the King-Emperor was in Victoria, they would have been quits already. Bragg’s eyes were deep and dark and moist: sad spaniel eyes. If you looked into them, you’d swear you could see all the way down to the bottom of his soul. Bushell had thought he’d done just that. Only went to show you couldn’t tell by looking.
“One way or another, things will work out,” Bragg said. “We’ll whip the villains yet.”
“Yes, sir,” Bushell said. After that, we’re through.
XV
Every day, the wireless brought word of the progress of the yacht Britannia. The dailies printed front-page maps that showed nothing but the mother country, the eastern coastline of North America, and a dot on the Atlantic Ocean. Every day, the dot moved closer to the coastline. The Jack and Stripes of the NAU normally fluttered from a plethora of poles all over Victoria. Great Britain’s Union Jack was far from rare, either. In the days before Charles III reached the North American capital, workmen spread red-white-and-blue bunting, either striped or in crosses, over every available vertical surface. If a man had to stand too long waiting for an omnibus, he risked being decorated.
Hawkers with trays or handcarts sold little flags and other allegedly commemorative items on every other street corner. One hair salon offered to dye patrons’ locks in the colors and pattern of the Union Jack. From what the papers said, it stayed open almost around the clock to keep up with demand. Bushell viewed the story with amused tolerance: mankind kept coming up with new foibles. (The first time he saw one of the dye treatments, a couple of days after the story broke, he viewed the results with amazement, but that was another matter.) He took a slightly dimmer view of the hawkers, many of whom were petty grifters who probably wouldn’t be averse to picking a customer’s pocket if opportunity beckoned.