“It happens,” Shikalimo admitted, sounding unhappy about it. “Our laws and customs go no farther than our own borders, while the ways of the rest of the NAU seep in. I blame your romantic wireless shows and especially the cinema for many of the troubles of our young people.”
“I blame them for some of the troubles of our young people,” Bushell said. Shikalimo blinked; maybe he’d been expecting an argument. “Will there be anything else, Colonel?” he asked, with a glance toward the papers Dewasenta had brought him.
Bushell wished he could answer yes. No matter what Shikalimo promised, he worried that the Iroquois would put him on the shelf. But, in the end, he had to shake his head, get up, and go. To preserve his sense that he was doing something useful while waiting for Shikalimo to call, Bushell spent a good part of the next three days on the telephone. He rang Major Gordon Rhodes, who had nothing much new to report. He’d grilled Titus Hackett and Franklin Mansfield, but the printers denied any connection between the gold roubles they’d received from the Queen Charlotte Islands and the four Sons of Liberty who’d lived at Buckley Bay. So far, no one had managed to unearth evidence they were lying and bring it to any of His Majesty’s prosecutors.
He rang Jaime Macias, but the New Liverpool constabulary captain had even less to tell him than did Rhodes. The constables had had no luck running Tricky Dick’s killer to earth, and hadn’t turned up any new Nagants used in other crimes, either.
“Knives and coshes and one chap with more imagination than brains who tried to hold up an ironmonger’s shop with a crossbow, but no more rifles,” Macias said. “Can’t say I miss them, either.”
“A crossbow?” Bushell said, bemused. “There’s something you don’t see every day. What happened?”
“He shot his bolt - and missed.” Macias chuckled. “Whereupon the shopkeeper hit him several fine licks with a fireplace poker. He’ll be in hospital for a couple of weeks before they can try him, and in gaol afterwards rather longer than that, unless I’m very much mistaken.”
“Here’s hoping you’re not,” Bushell said. “You haven’t helped me much, but you have brightened up the day. A crossbow!” He let out a highly unprofessional chortle.
His next telephone call went to Victoria. “Dreadful business you went through at Buckley Bay,” Sir Horace Bragg said once the connection was made. “Shocking. A terrible loss, too; Felix Crooke was the best we had when it came to dealing with the Sons.”
“This time they dealt with him,” Bushell said with grim irony. “It’ll hurt us down the line, too. It can’t help but.”
“Try not to take it too hard. From all I’ve heard, you did everything in the most proper fashion imaginable,” Bragg said.
“Yes, and a crown with that will buy me a cup of tea,” Bushell replied. “They don’t pay off for doing things properly. They pay off for getting them done.”
“Doing them properly is most often the way to get them done,” Bragg said. Bushell didn’t answer, since that was true. Bragg went on, “Your investigations certainly seem to be leading you all over the NAU. You’re in the Six Nations now? Who would have imagined the Sons operating there?”
“None of us, evidently,” Bushell said. He didn’t mention Kathleen Flannery. He didn’t want Bragg clucking at him over his mild treatment of her; he had enough on his plate without that. “I feel I’m chasing shapes in the mist, and whenever I get close to one, it disappears. The clock is ticking, too.”
“Well, I can tell you something,” Bragg said in confidential tones. “At a reception at the French embassy last night, Sir David Clarke was seen talking most animatedly with Duke Orlov. Was seen by me, in fact; I was there. Nothing I can prove, nothing I can take to Sir Martin - as if he’d listen to me anyhow - but damn me if I like it.”
“I don’t, either,” Bushell said. “It’s a good job you went back to the capital.” The idea of Sir David and the Russian ambassador to the NAU getting together for a cozy tête-à-tête at some formal reception revolted him. “Pity you couldn’t hear what they were saying.”
“My French isn’t all it should be,” Sir Horace confessed, “and that’s the language they were using.”
Under his breath, he added, “It’s just like Clarke to be fluent in it, too.”
Bushell spoke reasonably good French himself, but he understood what Bragg meant. French was the language of people who called themselves sophisticates the world around, and a good many of the sophisticates were degenerates masquerading under the politer name - Sir David Clarke immediately sprang to mind there. And furthermore, he thought with the British citizen’s almost inborn suspicion for any language not his own, French sounded slimy.
Bragg asked, “How are you doing there, Tom?” Bushell gave him a précis, again not mentioning Kathleen Flannery. When he was through, Sir Horace said, “Sounds like you’re doing a splendid job. Keep up the good work, and by all means keep me apprised of your progress.”
“I shall, sir,” Bushell said, and hung up. He didn’t think he was doing a splendid job. A splendid job would have meant The Two Georges on display back in New Liverpool, and him back there, too, and Felix Crooke in Victoria, worried about the Sons but not too much. He scowled, grimaced, and wished he had a drink.
However mildly he was treating Kathleen Flannery, he didn’t trust her very far. One of the things he didn’t trust her about was going off on her own and learning who could guess what without telling him about it. She’d already shown she did things like that, or she wouldn’t have been in Doshoweh complicating his life.
The only way he saw to be certain she didn’t wander off by herself was to make sure either he or Samuel Stanley stuck close to her all the time. He ended up doing a good deal more of that than Stanley did. He told himself that was because it was part of the case he could personally control. The explanation was true; not even the unsleepingly watchful part of him that demanded perfection could deny it. But neither that part of him nor any other could deny that he found Kathleen attractive, either. He would have seen a good deal of her in the course of duty, had The Two Georges stayed safe in New Liverpool. He might well have tried seeing her off duty, too: who better to show her the sights?
He didn’t know the sights of Doshoweh. The Six Nations had seldom crossed his professional path even before he moved to the southwestern part of the NAU. The Iroquois kept to themselves and stayed out of trouble, characteristics he heartily favored. The only case involving them he remembered was one where they’d asked for RAM help in keeping smugglers from sneaking rotgut into the Six Nations without paying the hefty tax they slapped on it.
Even had he known the sights, Kathleen Flannery likely would have been happier seeing them without him. He’d meet her for breakfast each morning in the restaurant attached to the Hotel Ahgusweyo. The small talk, he thought gloomily, was very small indeed. She had an Irish temper, at least when it came to nursing grudges. He thought it unfair that she reckoned keeping her from hurting the investigation a grudge, but she did.
Another trouble was that Doshoweh itself didn’t have a lot of sights. A museum dedicated to the achievements of Sosehawa took up one day and filled Kathleen with more enthusiasm than she’d shown lately, but left Bushell discontented.
Kathleen noticed. “He was a great man,” she declared, as if he’d denied it. By the light that came into her eyes, she was spoiling for a fight.
“Well, what if he was?” Bushell answered. “The ancient Greeks turned their great men into demigods. From what I saw in there, the Iroquois have done the same thing. You’d think the Great Spirit was whispering into Sosehawa’s ear every step he took.”