All Honourable Men (27 page)

He strolled up. “Can I be offering ye any assistance at all?”

Hunke's eyes widened. Then he switched the bag to his left hand, and looked back for the snowman-shaped Dr Zimmer, coming up behind. He also stopped dead at the sight of O'Gilroy.

“And a very good day to ye, too.” O'Gilroy flapped open his jacket to show the pistol butt, then folded his arms so his right hand rested naturally on it. “Jest thought I'd pop down to let ye know things've changed, 'twas all a mistake. Me and Monsieur Lacan, we talked it over and reckoned we was really allies, so . . . Sorry if ye've had a wasted journey.”

“M'sieu Lacan is not here?” Zimmer asked, looking around.

“Says he's sorry.”

“And he let you go?”

“Here I am,” O'Gilroy smiled. “Ye think I escaped? Ye don't know him so well, do ye?”

“I never—” Then Zimmer clenched his mouth shut.

“Anyways, he had urgent business – ye know? But 'fore that, we reckoned we was really on the same side. We talked over what Gunther had told us—” Zimmer expressed . . . well, it was difficult to say what. The point was that he
expressed
, and a proper agent wouldn't have; Zimmer really belonged behind a desk. “So it seems Gunther sold the same information twice, to the both of us.”

“No.” That was more bewildered than definite.

Trying to keep him off balance, O'Gilroy pressed on: “All 'bout the Railroad . . . And Miskal Bey . . . The ransom . . . all
what Gunther picked up from the Germans . . .” And at that item on the list Zimmer's expression relaxed.

“And did M'sieu Lacan send you to here?” Now Zimmer was confident, almost playful. O'Gilroy had shown that he didn't know something important.

“Must've done, else how'd I know? But like I say, I'll be leaving ye to do a bit of sight-seeing, mebbe. Pity to waste the trip.”

He turned away. Hunke took a step forward and O'Gilroy spun back, his right hand half out from his jacket. For a moment they just stood there, and if the crowd noticed them, God knows what it thought: there could be no missing the death-rays that crackled between them.

Then O'Gilroy said deliberately: “Best start that sightseeing: it improves the mind something wonderful, they do say.”

Zimmer laid a cautious hand on Hunke's sleeve. O'Gilroy took a couple of steps back, then turned away—

—right into Arif's path. And if he had been The Terrible before, now the look on his face and the bandages on his hands – he must have tried to open that blazing door – showed the only sight likely to improve
his
mind was O'Gilroy's insides.

O'Gilroy didn't pause. He pulled the pistol out and aimed at Arif's belly. Then, as the Arab flinched aside, slashed his head with the pistol, barged past both him and Theodora just behind, and ran for the Cadillac.

“If yer ready to leave this town,” he panted, flopping in beside Corinna, “me, too.”

Throughout the afternoon the sky had crowded with clouds, the sea became flecked with white and the wind started to make serious sounds in the rigging. By his last sight of the sun, Ranklin reckoned the Captain had turned away from the coast and islands to give himself more room for mistakes; he thoroughly approved.

In the saloon the steward had put away all the bottles and glasses and was making sure the tables and chairs were tied to ring-bolts in the floor. But he had issued Lady Kelso with a wide-based mug of coffee and offered to fetch another. Ranklin said he'd wait until the tying-down was finished and, picking his moment in the ship's roll, dropped into a chair.

“No sign of Dr Streibl?” he enquired.

“I'm afraid the poor man's confined himself to quarters.”

“But not you.”

“I've got quite a strong stomach. I should have, after twenty years of eating Bedouin food and getting around on camels.” The steward had disappeared towards the galley and she seemed about to say something.

Ranklin beat her to it: “I was a bit surprised you say that Miskal Bey's a
mountain
Arab. I mean, I think of Arabs as desert types, you know.”

“ ‘Arab' is just a race – like English, and at least as varied. You get as many mountain Arabs as desert ones – and most live in towns, anyway: Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut . . . It was the
Arabs
who founded the Islamic Empire and they don't forget it. The Ottoman Turks are Johnny-come-latelies who were hired as mercenary soldiers. Then, over time, the wheel turned.” She smiled ruefully.

The steward came back with Ranklin's mug of coffee. Then, just as Lady Kelso was about to get onto the topic of her choice, one of the ship's officers came in from the deck, accompanied by a howl from the weather until he slammed the door on it. He saluted quickly and steadied himself on the back of a chair, dripping water from his sou'wester all over it.

“Please: there is much storm . . . the Herr
Kapitan
asks you do not go on the outside, the deck – Yes?”

“Thank you,” Lady Kelso purred.

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Ranklin said.

The officer saluted again and handed his way out, letting in another brief howl from the storm.

The steward had gone and this time Ranklin had to let her have her say. “Actually, this wouldn't be a bad time to go looking for that gold coin. Nobody'll expect you to be on deck, nobody else'll be, the Captain's sure to be on the bridge and I think it's in his office cabin sort of thing, it's marked
Büro
towards the front on—”

“I saw it, too.”

“Good. There's a safe inside—”

“You
looked
?”

Again the sweet smile. “Oh, nobody minds a woman being snoopy, they expect us to do the most frightful things. Do you know anything about breaking into safes?”

“I
say
, hold on, wait just a minute . . . Do you really think we ought to be doing this . . . this sort of thing?”

“I think Sir Edward just sent me as a gesture of goodwill, but he assumed I'd fail. But he didn't know about the ransom, did he? How could he have done? So it seems to me he'd
expect
us to spoil that, if we can. We'd really be doing what he originally wanted: helping delay the Railway.”

She'd probably convinced herself that was true, too. Or was thinking of riding into London society as the great patriotic heroine. Or both. Either way, he was left wondering who was supposed to be the spy on this damned mission. Here she was urging him to do something he was planning anyway. If he just said No, he could lose her as a potential ally; if he confessed
who he really was, he was putting his life, the whole mission, in her hands. Perhaps he could play the deeply-shocked diplomatist but go ahead with the burglary anyway, without her knowing . . .

Not realising it, he must have pulled a deeply-shocked-diplomatist face because she said: “If you feel you really can't, I'll have a stab at it myself. I can probably talk my way out if I get caught.”

He really should stop being surprised how naturally women turned to blackmail. And whether she meant it or not, he had to let it work. “No, no,” he said gloomily, “I'll have a go.”

“Oh, how
splendid
you are! It looks quite an old safe, and the Captain's probably left the key or the combination in his desk drawer. I didn't have time to look.”

“I'll try when we're through with dinner . . . What are you going to be doing?”

She'd got it all thought out. “Persuading everybody that you're still around here. I thought the best way was for me to go into your cabin. If a steward or anybody hears my voice, they'll assume you're there, too.” This was delivered with yet another bright innocent smile. “Just chatting about England and the Season, of course.”

* * *

Corinna found O'Gilroy planted at the big table in the middle of the
Vanadis's
saloon, where the almost imperceptible roll of the vessel would be at its least. She had been prowling the yacht – the first chance she'd had – and comparing it with her father's
Kachina
. But all yachts had much the same layout: that was inevitable once you'd put the engine and boiler rooms where they had to be, and the officers' cabins within easy reach of the bridge. This was bigger and more powerful than
Kachina
but coal-fired, which meant a lot of cleaning whenever they coaled, and the decor was too conventional for her taste. Her father had let her decorate
Kachina
in light woods and subtly cheerful colours – except for his “study”, which was the usual
Banker's Spanish Main, and his bedroom. He could pick the decor in which he entertained his lady friends for his own damned self.

O'Gilroy pushed the paper he had been writing on aside and staggered to his feet. She waved him back. “I got the wireless operator to send a message to the British Embassy saying you'd been found safe and would they tell the Honourable Snaipe you'll try to catch up – if they know where he is.”

“Thank ye. I reckon the Captain'd be worrying.”

“I also learnt that the German Embassy yacht, the
Loreley
, left Constantinople yesterday afternoon going full steam. And today the wireless operator picked her up in the Aegean morsing for weather information, which means she's going the same way that we are. So probably Matt and Lady Kelso and your German chums are aboard her.”

O'Gilroy was surprised. “Them on a boat, too? . . . What's that mean, then?”

“That they won't reach the south coast, a place called Mersina – where we're going – until the day after tomorrow. But our Captain also reckons we're about four knots faster, and if they run into a storm – it seems there's one down past Smyrna – and have to slow down, we should catch up quite a bit.”

“Are we heading for a storm, then?”

Corinna had forgotten how resolutely bad a sailor O'Gilroy was. How he had ever managed to get
off
Ireland . . . Lying flat and groaning, presumably. “We shouldn't be; he says it'll have blown inland by the time we get there. Just a bit of a sea.”

He looked at her with dark suspicion. “Worse'n this?”

They were in a near-flat calm in the almost land-locked Sea of Marmora. “This is
nothing
. This is
normal
.” Then she curbed her impatience and tried a bit of distraction: “Apart from nearly shooting each other's heads off –
with my pistol
– did you learn anything from your buddies at the station?”

“Mebbe . . .” O'Gilroy had been trying to work out what he had learnt, or come to suspect. But this was usually Ranklin's job; O'Gilroy contributed mistrust and muscle, and neither was
much help here. He needed a fluent mind to help interpret and while Corinna certainly had that, she was still a foreigner. Tied up with the French, too, who seemed to be playing an unexpected part . . .

He'd try to advance step by step. “D'ye recall a feller Gunther van der Brock? Was using another name when ye met him—”

“Of course I remember him. That was the first time I ever had to use my pistol. I ought to charge the Secret Service whenever—”

“Sure, sure . . . Two weeks back, Gunther got himself killed in London. No, 'twasn't us. Only his partners – the fellers at the station – they reckon 'twas our fault. He'd come over to sell us the . . . the story 'bout the Railway. So the Captain reckons.”

She sat down. “All that about the kidnapped engineers? – it's been in the papers, everybody knows it. And Lady Kelso's mission, everyone knows that by now, too.”

“Surely . . .” But they didn't know about the ransom. And neither did she, it seemed. “. . . only, what's Bertie doing, getting mixed up in it, going off down there to . . . to where it all is?”

She shrugged. “Bertie knows the Arabs – so everyone says. And the old bandit chief down there's more or less an Arab, isn't he? Perhaps Bertie put him up to the whole thing in the first place.”

O'Gilroy sat very still. Then he murmured: “Jayzus 'n Mary,” reverentially. He reached for his sheet of paper and began writing.

Corinna watched, amused. She couldn't see what he was writing, just that it was done in a laborious but near-perfect copperplate script. Only the educated classes, who used writing as an everyday tool, scrawled unreadably.

But O'Gilroy's runaway thoughts were outpacing his careful script. All sorts of things fell into place if he assumed Bertie had manipulated Miskal. Like where Miskal had got his repeating rifles from. And as for the ransom, it was no longer a question of whether Bertie knew about it, but whether demanding it had
been his idea all along. And
then
– it was coming with a rush now – if Bertie and his bosses had actually created that “secret”, Gunther could have got it from them, not the Germans. And the French, suspicious, then had Gunther killed. Certainly Bertie had been far more suspicious of them than anyone on the train.

Only . . . if he was trying to delay the Railway, he wouldn't want the ransom to work, would he? There was still something missing. His ambition to hit Monsieur Lacan with a blunt axe still held, but perhaps he'd allow himself a couple of questions first.

Corinna asked sweetly: “Do I get to mark your homework?”

“Mebbe . . . when I know ye'll give it ten out of ten.” In fact, he planned to throw it into the sea . . . Oh, God, why had he remembered the heaving, churning sea?

* * *

Ranklin had no sou'wester, not even a rain-proof, so he just buttoned his overcoat to the neck. He decided against any sort of hat – it might blow off and be found on deck – and, after a little thought, shoes and socks as well. Weren't bare feet traditional for gripping a stormy deck? The bag of lead shot (which Lady Kelso didn't know about), a handkerchief to dry his hands and a dry-battery torch and he was ready to go safecracking.