“Well - de gustibus non disputandum.”
“You don’t believe me,” Kathleen said indignantly.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You meant it.” Kathleen jumped to her feet. “Come with me, then. I’ll show you.” She headed for the stairs, not looking back to see whether he followed or not.
Follow he did. He was only a couple of paces behind her when she flicked on the bedroom lamp and waved him in ahead of her. A fine print of a Fragonard hung on one wall, and a smaller reproduction of Greuze’s portrait of Sophie Arnould on another, but - “There’s no Two Georges here.”
“You’re right,” Kathleen said from behind him. “I lied.”
“Why?” he asked, turning.
Mischief filled her face. “Can you think of a more - decorous - way for a lady to invite a gentleman into her bedroom?”
“Can’t be a gentleman all the time,” he said, and took her in his arms. The telephone rang. “Oh, God, what now?” Bushell said, spinning his swivel chair away from the typewriter wherein sat a report recommending the dismissal from the Royal American Mounted Police of Drinkwater, Lieutenant Obadiah J., on the grounds of allegiance to an organization aiming at the subversion of the North American Union and the British Empire. “Hullo? Bushell here.”
“Colonel Bushell?” a female voice said. “One moment, please. His Excellency the governor-general desires to speak with you.”
What’s gone wrong now? Bushell wondered. The thought had hardly formed before Sir Martin Luther King came on the line: “I’m sorry to disturb you, Colonel, but could I ask you to come to my residence as soon as may be convenient for you?”
In plain English, that meant immediately, and Bushell knew it. “Is this something we could possibly do by telephone, Your Excellency?” he asked, with hope but without any great expectation of success.
“I’m afraid not,” Sir Martin answered. “Some matters are too important to be entrusted to such means.”
Fewer than you think. But Bushell didn’t say that out loud. Maybe the governor-general was like a horse shying at shadows - and maybe something dreadful really had erupted. After the past few weeks, how could you be sure? “I’m on my way,” Bushell said, and hung up.
He was heading for the bank of lifts when he came upon Ted Kittridge walking in the same direction, a couple of thick manila folders under one arm. “Where are you off to with those?” he asked.
“America’s Number Ten,” Kittridge answered sourly. He hefted the folders. “They think they’re smarter than we are.”
“If they were half as smart as they think they are, they’d be right,” Bushell said. Kittridge let out a brief chuckle. Bushell went on, “I’m on my way to the same place, matter of fact. Somebody’s had a brainstorm, or thinks he has. Can I take up some space in your steamer?”
“Why not?” Kittridge chuckled again. “What with the last couple of rides we had, I oughtn’t to let you near it. But they turned out right, so - “
Once they were in the motorcar, he lighted another one of his poisonous cigarillos. Bushell already had his window down, the better to stir the hot, soupy air of Victoria summer. Some of the smoke blew away. Some, unfortunately, didn’t. As he had before, he fired up a cigar of his own to fight the stink. At the entrance gate to the governor-general’s residence, RAMs in dress reds meticulously checked Bushell’s badge, then Kittridge’s. They saluted and waved the two men through. “Better than crashing a barricade, eh?” Kittridge said. Bushell nodded. For Kittridge, that was an amazing show of loquacity. When the steamer pulled up to the residence, Sir David Clarke came out to meet Bushell, who started worrying in earnest. If Sir Martin sent out his chief of staff, he did think something was going on. Whatever it was, Clarke was tight-lipped about it, saying only, “Come with me, Colonel.”
Bushell came. Kittridge followed along behind, carrying those manila folders. “What’s all this in aid of?”
Bushell asked. “Sir Martin didn’t want to say much over the telephone.”
“I really think I’d better let His Excellency make the required explanations,” Clarke answered, glancing back over his shoulder at Sergeant Kittridge. That set Bushell worrying again. If Clarke didn’t care to talk in front of a man who’d helped save the King-Emperor’s life not once but twice, whatever was going on had to be horrid. Either that, or the governor-general’s chief of staff deserved a clout in the teeth for slighting Kittridge - and, with Clarke, that was always a possibility. The office to which Kittridge had to deliver his precious folders was only a couple of doors down from Sir Martin’s sanctum. “Meet you downstairs,” he told Bushell, who nodded. Before they went into the governor-general’s office, Bushell tried again: “Anything you can tell me? I hate walking in blind.”
Sir David Clarke pointed to the closed door. “As I said, Colonel, Sir Martin will fully inform you inside.” Damn you, Clarke, Bushell thought. Only the memory of the hour Sir David had wheedled out of the Sons of Liberty kept him from grabbing the chief of staff and shaking the truth out of him right there in the corridor.
He might have done it in spite of that memory, but Clarke’s hand was already on the latch. He relaxed, yielding to the inevitable. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone into a briefing cold, and likely wouldn’t be the last, either.
The door opened. The hum of conversation inside Sir Martin Luther King’s office quieted. Hearing any talk at all in there startled Bushell, who’d been expecting to confront a grim-faced Sir Martin alone. What with the governor-general’s urgent efforts at maintaining secrecy and those of his chief of staff, with whom could he be conferring?
“Go on in, Colonel,” Sir David said.
Bushell took two steps into the office, then stopped dead. That was when Samuel Stanley, his left arm still splinted and supported by a sling, handed him a glass of champagne. “Ha! We did fool you, Chief,” he said, his expression triumphant. “I can see it in your face - and Kathleen owes me a fiver. She guessed you’d tumble to it.”
Bushell almost dropped the champagne flute. He felt like a man who’d been hunting for reverse and by mistake found top gear instead. He stared around the room. There was Kathleen, next to Sam. There was Brigadier Arthurs, pink-faced, white-mustachioed, looking like everyone’s favorite if ineffectual grandfather although decked out in full dress uniform. There flanking him stood Micah Williams, Walter Manchester, and Toby Custine; they wore dress reds, too. Off against the other wall, there was Irene . . . Clarke. She waved to him and said something he didn’t catch because coming toward him, hands outstretched, were Sir Martin Luther King and Charles III.
“Your Excellency,” Bushell said, and then, a moment later, “Your Majesty.” The ceremonial uniform Charles III had on outdid those of the RAMs as the sun outshone the moon. Bushell wondered how he stayed standing with all those decorations weighing him down. And the blade on his belt was more like a broadsword than the usual dress saber.
Magically relieved of file folders, Ted Kittridge came into the governor-general’s office. Bushell rounded on him. “You were part of this plot,” he said severely.
“Plot?” Kittridge tried, without much success, to look innocent.
“If Colonel Bushell can uncover the deep-laid plans of the Sons of Liberty, we must expect him to see through ours as well,” Sir Martin Luther King said. People laughed and clapped their hands. Bushell shifted the glass of champagne Sam Stanley had given him back to his right and raised it high.
“His Majesty, the King-Emperor!” he said. Everybody who had a glass - except His Majesty, the King-Emperor - drank to the toast. Making it was, so far as Bushell knew, the only act proper at any and all times throughout the British Empire.