“That’s true, Your Excellency. What comes over the border for our barbarians is money and guns,” Bushell said.
“Yes, you told me they used a Russian rifle to murder the Steamer King,” Sir Martin said, as if reminding himself. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “That grasping little man courted fame all too successfully, I fear.” Bushell did not answer; the governor-general seemed to be talking more to himself than to anyone else. When Sir Martin resumed, he was brisk once more: “Carry on there, Colonel. All the resources of the North American Union shall be at your disposal. And as a symbol of that and a show of the national government’s concern for this horrendous crime, I, Lieutenant General Bragg, and leading members of our staffs will depart by train for Liverpool as soon as dawn breaks here, to lend you our support in this time of shock and crisis.”
“That’s kind of you, Your Excellency, but, between the RAMs and the New Liverpool constabulary, we have everything we need here for the time being,” Bushell replied quickly.
“Good of you to say so, but my plans are already in motion,” Sir Martin answered. Bushell said the only thing he could: “Yes, sir.” Without a doubt, Sir Martin would make a speech every time the train stopped. Without a doubt, he would arrange for it to stop a great many times. Without a doubt, once he got to New Liverpool he would not only make more speeches but spend the time when he wasn’t making speeches looking over Bushell’s shoulder. Without a doubt, Sir Horace would be looking over Bushell’s shoulder, too. And, without a doubt, so would all the bright young solicitors on Sir Martin’s staff and all the bright young investigators on Sir Horace’s. And, as if that weren’t enough, Sir Martin’s chief of staff was Sir David Clarke. Had Bushell thought Sir David Clarke would stay back in Victoria, he would have been willing to put up with the rest. But he was grimly certain Clarke would accompany the governor-general.
Sir Martin said, “I know you still have a long night ahead of you out there, Colonel, so I shan’t keep you any longer. I’ll see you in three days’ time. Good night.” He hung up. The line went dead. Bushell hung up the telephone. “Is there anything I should know from that?” Governor Burnett asked.
“As a matter of fact, there is: Sir Martin will be coming out to lend his support to the investigation. He’ll be here in three days.” Bushell bared his teeth in what a wolf might have used for a smile. “Huzzah.”
He found his own way back to the office he’d borrowed from Wilberforce. For some time, he became an interrogating machine, asking questions and scrawling down answers with next to no conscious thought in the process. Finally, to his exhausted surprise, he discovered no one left waiting outside to be interviewed.
Two people were still standing in front of the office Samuel Stanley was using. Bushell took one of them back into his own temporary office and grilled her. The moment she’d left, he realized he didn’t remember a thing she’d said, not even her name. Shaking his head, he glanced at the notebook. No, it didn’t matter. The notes were there.
He walked out into the hallway again. Now only Stanley stood there, looking as worn as Bushell felt.
“What time is it, anyway?” Stanley asked. He shook his hand, trying to work feeling back into it. Bushell took out his pocket watch. “Quarter to two,” he answered. “God, what a night.” The hall, the whole mansion, was eerily quiet. The two RAMs were a goodly chunk of the people still awake inside the massive building.
Stanley held up his notebook. “I didn’t get anything that leapt right out at me. How about you?”
“The same, I’m afraid. A lot of people who didn’t see anything much.” Bushell sighed. Witnesses so often disappointed. Then, remembering, he held up a forefinger. I don’t suppose you’ve heard this yet - ”
He recounted his conversation with the governor-general.
“Sir Martin and Sir Horace and their staffs?” Samuel Stanley said when he was done. He rolled his eyes. “They’ll all just stand around telling us what to do, and then they’ll blame us when their brilliant ideas don’t work.”
“You wouldn’t expect them to blame themselves, would you?” Bushell said. “No help for it, either. They all outrank us.” He covered a yawn with his hand. “Lord, I’m worn.”
“Me, too,” Stanley agreed. “Phyllis is resting in one of the guest rooms. I’ll wake her up and take her home in our car. You ought to go back to your flat and get a little rest.” He assumed Bushell intended to be at RAM headquarters at eight o’clock. He was right.
Even so, Bushell protested. “Then she’ll have to bring you in tomorrow - your steamer’s still downtown. I’ll take you back there to pick it up.”
“No, sir,” his adjutant said firmly. “That would cost us close to an extra hour apiece before we finally got to bed. We’ll be running on coffee and smoke tomorrow as is; we’ll need as much sleep as we can find.”
He spoke with a platoon sergeant’s insistence.
Bushell surrendered. “You’re right.” Learning when to obey your sergeant was not part of the standard officer’s training course, but Bushell, like any subaltern with promise, had picked it up in a hurry. “Tell Phyllis I’m sorry I ruined her evening.”
“She’ll be all right,” Stanley said. “The bed in there looked more comfortable than the one at home.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Bushell’s voice went bleak. “She didn’t have the chance to see The Two Georges.”
“Oh.” Samuel Stanley looked down at his shoes. “We’ve been friends a long time now. She’ll probably forgive you in eight or ten years.”
His delivery was so perfect that Bushell flinched before he saw the smile his adjutant was hiding. He wagged a finger at him. “God will get you for that, Sam, and if He doesn’t, I will.”
“Go home and go to bed, Chief.”
“Right.” Bushell trudged out to the cloakroom. His uniform cap and Samuel Stanley’s were the only ones still on their pegs. The cloakroom girl had long since retired to the servants’ quarters. Bushell retrieved his own cap. He left a couple of shillings under an ashtray, where the girl would be more likely to find them than anyone else, and walked out into the night.
The New Liverpool constables had taken Honest Dick’s body away. Only their tape and the large, dark stain on the pavement spoke of what had happened in front of the governor’s mansion. His Henry and Phyllis Stanley’s little red Reliable were the last two machines left in the visitors’ carpark. He got into his car, turned up the burner to make sure he had plenty of pressure for the trip home, and drove out toward Sunset Highway.
He had the road almost entirely to himself. Few headlamps besides his own were to be seen. The street cleaners and rubbish haulers wouldn’t be out and about for another hour or so, while even the latest of the late-night theater crowd had for the most part sought their beds. Bushell snorted when that thought crossed his mind. The neighborhood in which he lived had a far larger proportion of the late-night hooligan crowd than that devoted to the late-night theater. The suburb of Hawthorne, its bucolic name notwithstanding, was a working-class town not far from the airship port. He’d had a fancier residence before he came to New Liverpool, but. . .
“A single man doesn’t need fancy digs,” he told the black, empty street. It did not argue with him. He parked the steamer in front of his block of flats. When he got out, he made sure the car’s doors were locked. In most neighborhoods, he wouldn’t have bothered, but Hawthorne abounded with light-fingered types. He’d taken a couple of steps toward the entrance when he remembered the bags in the boot. He went back and got them and carried them upstairs.
He was glad no one saw him in his dress uniform. It would have ruined his reputation among his neighbors. So far as he knew, none of them had the slightest idea how he made his living. He preferred it that way.