“Neither can we,” Bushell said. “I had to pull wires to arrange for the guards in the room with The Two Georges at the governor’s mansion to carry pistols.” He laughed bitterly. “And a whole bloody lot of good that did me. But if we went to court to let all our men wear guns all the time, people would scream for our heads, and I can’t say I’d blame them much.”
“I wouldn’t, either,” Macias said. “But that holds only if nobody does any shooting. If the villains are aiming at my men how can I send them out there unless they’re able to shoot back?”
“You can’t,” Bushell said without hesitation. “But if it comes to that, the British Empire won’t be the same place. Thanks for your information, Captain. I’ll ring you up again directly I learn anything.”
“Call me Jaime,” Macias answered. “We’re going to get to know each other very well. I said as much outside the governor’s mansion the other night.”
“All right, Jaime, then I’m Tom. You did say that. I remember. What I don’t remember, worse luck, is being able to disagree with you.”
The New Liverpool All-Union Train Station lay not far east of RAM headquarters. Getting to it was easy. All the same, Bushell went there with the same enthusiasm he would have given a trip to the dentist. Like so much of New Liverpool, the train station sprawled over a wide area to minimize earthquake damage. Its low buildings were of white stucco with red tile roofs; the old Franco-Spanish flavor of what had been Los Angeles lived on more in architecture, perhaps, than in any other aspect of modern New Liverpool. The style suited the climate better than models imported from England or even from the older provinces of eastern North America.
Reporters and photographers had already jammed the waiting area by the time Bushell got there. Since the train full of dignitaries wouldn’t arrive for another half hour, they turned on Bushell instead. He understood how Canute had felt with the tide flowing up over his shoes. He didn’t think telling the reporters he believed Tricky Dick had been shot by a lone gunman would damage the investigation, so he did that. It was, however, the only piece of new information he had. The reporters complained he wasn’t telling them enough.
“The more time I spend answering questions, the less time I have to ask them,” he said pointedly. “The fewer questions I get to ask, the less I’ll find out, and the less I find out, the less I’ll have to tell you.”
Some of them got what he was driving at; one or two even gave him sympathetic grins. Most of those were veterans of the crime beat. But the theft of The Two Georges was such an important story, more than mere crime reporters were covering it. A lot of the people shouting questions in his face didn’t know grand theft from grand opera, or felonies from feldspar. They didn’t understand that policemen couldn’t deliver answers on silver trays like cartes de visite. “I don’t know” seemed to infuriate them, but Bushell had no better reply to give.
Finally, to his relief, ceiling-mounted speakers blared, “The governor-general’s special train is approaching the station on Track Two.”
Like sheep, the reporters flocked toward Platform Two, carrying the RAM along in their midst. “I see it!” somebody called excitedly. “There’s the plume of exhaust, sure enough,” somebody else added. Bushell couldn’t see anything except the shoulders of the people around him. A little judicious work with his elbows, though, and a few feet trod upon not quite by accident, got him near the edge of the platform, near enough to look down the track when he peered east.
Sure enough, the special train was getting close. Gray-black smoke rose from the stack. The steam whistle roared, warning anything and everything out of its path. The whistle blew again, even louder, as the train approached the platform. The brakes gripped, sparks flew from the wheels and from the track. A third blast from the whistle sent reporters stumbling away from the edge of the platform, hands to their ears. Bushell held his ground. The train stopped.
When an ordinary train came up to the platform, porters and doormen ran over to assist departing passengers and those who were boarding. Not here, not now. The last car in the short train had on its fantail a gleaming maple podium. Governor-General King had used that podium to deliver several speeches on his way across the continent. Unless Bushell had lost his instinct for such things, Sir Martin was about to use it to deliver one more.
Sure enough, he stepped out to the podium, a sheet of paper in hand. In his scarlet robe of office, he still looked like the preacher he had been a generation before. He still had the cadences of a preacher, too: hardly looking at the text of his speech, he began, “My friends, we are not met here today gladly, but in sorrow. Something precious has been taken from our lives. If we work together, and if God is kind and smiles on us, we can recover it once more.”
Sir Martin’s deep, rich voice was made for pulpit or podium. The reporters listened raptly. Some of them were too caught up even to take notes. Bushell would not have been surprised to hear shouts of “Amen!” ring out from the crowd, as if it were indeed a church congregation. The governor-general’s first few sentences convinced him, though, that the speech would hold little of substance. He didn’t blame Sir Martin for that: with The Two Georges missing and clues few and far between, what was the man supposed to say? But to Bushell, the speech was not the fodder from which news was made, as it was for the press corps. It was just a waste of time, and with The Two Georges stolen, he did not have time to waste.
He spotted red uniforms in a coach several cars up from the one where Sir Martin was addressing the crowd of reporters. He made his way toward it; by the time he got to it, he’d broken out of the crush. He hopped up on to the platform over the coupling and rapped on the door there. A stern-looking face appeared in the window. Bushell held up his badge. The RAM inside the car nodded and opened the door.
The air on the platform had been thick with smoke from pipes, cigars, and cigarillos. The air inside the car was positively blue. Bushell took out a cigar, scraped a lucifer on the sole of his shoe, and added to the clouds.
“Tom!” Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg pushed his way down the aisle toward Bushell; the RAMs who had accompanied him across the continent got out of his way. “Good to see you, by God!” He stuck out his hand.
Bushell shook it. “Good to see you, too, sir,” he said. “Good to see any friendly face - I’ve not seen many the past few days, and that’s the truth. You’re looking very well, if I may say so.”
“I’m getting fat,” Bragg said. “It’s only the cut of the uniform tunic that hides it.”
“Sir - rubbish,” Bushell said. Both men laughed. Bragg had been complaining about his weight for as long as Bushell had known him - more than half a lifetime, in other words. Few men ever complained more with less reason. Bragg was lean to the point of gauntness, with hollows under his cheekbones that the graying beard he wore could not disguise. His face was long and pale, with dark eyes peering out at the world from under heavy eyebrows.
He quickly sobered, and set a hand on Bushell’s shoulder. “This is a hell of a mess, Tom,” he said. “The whole dominion’s in an uproar. If we don’t find that painting - ” He shook his head. Lowering his voice, he went on. “There are even more complications than you know.”
“Tell me, then,” Bushell said.
But Sir Horace Bragg shook his head. “Not my place to do that, I’m afraid. Sir Martin will have to take care of it, either him or” - he grimaced apologetically - ”Sir David Clarke.”
“It’s all right,” Bushell said easily. “I expected he’d be coming west with Sir Martin.” But, despite his casual tone, it was not all right. His pulse beat so heavily, he could feel it pounding in the veins of his forehead. Still keeping his voice light, he asked, “Does this ever-so-official railway car boast an ever-so-official railway bar?”