Honourable Intentions (30 page)

That hushed them. It was a hush of disbelief, but most of the audience scribbled a note or two. Some of the French journalists who couldn’t follow his “English” demanded what he’d said and were themselves hushed. Ranklin saw the
Sûreté
officer slip out into the street.

“So ye let loonies like this,” O’Gilroy continued, “in ivry pub in the world. But the feller Kaminsky gits to hear av ut – he’s one av the fellers shootin’ at the poliss right now, runs the
Café des Deux Chevaliers
in La Villette. ’N he told Feodor Gorkin,
the intellec’chul feller that came down slummin’ at the place. So they got the idea they’d use this to show what a rotten place England was. Have ut all come out when the King was visitin’ Paris.

“ ’N sure, I wint along wid that. But I didn’t know what I was gittin’ meself into. Anyways, this young feller was the waiter in Kaminsky’s café ’n he’d bin workin’ on Kaminsky’s barge, puttin’ an injin in ut—”

“What ‘fellow’?” an English reporter demanded. “Who’re you talking about?”

“Did I not say ut?” It was a nice touch, making them drag bits of the story out of him. It involved them. “ ’Twas a feller Grover Langhorn, ’n American, ’n his mother Mrs Langhorn who’d bin English. ’N he’d bin workin’ on the barge, like I said, so they sent him to buy petrol, then one night when they know he’s off duty at the café ’n safe alone in his room, a couple av the boyos set fire to the poliss station up the road.”

By now he
was
Connelly, sitting in on the betrayal of (Grover to the French police, his flight to London and second betrayal to Scotland Yard. And going with Gorkin to London for the extradition hearing, learning of Guillet’s failings in court and the decision to kill him off. He even had himself – Connelly – asked to do the killing but getting cold feet, “unconsciously” showing himself fonder of words rather than deeds.

“Anyways, he borries a motor-car off’n the fancy people he was stayin’ wid, while I gets a coupla fellers from the Anarchists’ Club. ’N he sends ’em to pick Guillet up ’n bash him on the head ’n roll him into the river. Mind ye,” he added quickly, “I din’t see nor know of this, I jest heard tell of it later.”

They didn’t believe that. It was too like a snake wriggling out of its old skin and claiming he’d left his sins behind, too. But paradoxically, they had to have something to disbelieve so that they’d believe the important parts. And “Connelly” was giving answers to questions everyone else had shied off, answers that strung together into a logical story. They were all scribbling flat out by now.

Of course, there was no mention of the Bureau, and not much of Mrs Langhorn. Her trip across to Portsmouth was ignored (but why, come to that, should “Connelly” know anything of it anyway?).

And standing at the door were two new
Sûreté
men and another in plain clothes.

“Ony then things really did start goin’ wrong. Seems Berenice Collomb’d gone round to find Guillet ’n ast why he’s tellin’ such lies ’bout her boy, ’n the London poliss grabbed her for the murther ’n whin they lets her go, it’s in the keepin’ av an American lady runnin’ the fund that’s defendin’ Grover. ’N Gorkin, he’s bad worried she’s mebbe goin’ to talk too much ’n he sez I should kidnap her ’n give her the treatment same as Guillet. ’N I sez I told ye I’m niver doing things like that, I come across to help banjax the English government ’n now yer killin’ poor Frenchies, the same people yer say yer doin’ all this for, and I’m off back to Paris. ’N I am.

“ ’N seems I did right, ’cos what I hear, Scotland Yard caught these fellers ’n rescued Berenice ’fore they could do her in. ’N seems Gorkin agrees wid me, ’cos he comes on the next boat ’n to hell wid those poor fellers from the Anarchists’ Club.

“ ’N then, I heard of some English fellers in Paris tryin’ to find out ’bout Kaminsky and the boyos from the café, ’n I kinda fell in wid ’em, becos killin’ people’s not what I signed up for, nobody told me ’bout that, ’n when the poliss from the
Sûreté
raided the café ’I Kaminsky gets away in the barge, I only went along ’cos they made me. Needed a feller to fix the injin. ’N first chancst I got, I’m away.”

One of O’Gilroy’s great talents was believing in his own lies, at least while he was telling them.

An English reporter who was quicker on the uptake than the rest asked: “You mean you’d changed sides and were working for the British War Office all the time you were on the barge?”

“Ye think what ye like,” O’Gilroy mumbled.

“Did you stop the barge here and tip off the
Sûreté
?”

Ranklin stepped forward. “I think that’s enough. Now—”

An American voice called: “This story about Grover Langhorn’s parentage – d’you think there’s any truth in that at all?”

This was the heart-stopping moment, when the reporters could decide that anarchist plots ran a poor second to royal bastards. And typically, Ranklin’s mind flew off at an absurd tangent, reckoning that that fatherhood wasn’t a matter of “
any
truth” but plain true or false. But O’Gilroy was hardly likely to take up such a quibble, yet everything hung on his answer. And he surprised them all.

“Sure ’n it’s true. Isn’t ivry English king pokin’ ivry woman in the land ’n ’nough bastards to fill a rij’ment?”

There was a deathly hush. Then Ranklin recovered and called sternly: “Will you stop these filthy, irresponsible accusations against our monarch?” Everyone looked at him. “I’ll ask you to disregard those last remarks of Connelly’s.”

“Where’s this Mrs Langhorn”

O’Gilroy hesitated, and Ranklin held his breath again. Of course they’d want to know that – but where, for the sake of this story, should she be? He should have thought of it. Oh God . . .

“Last I saw, she was on the barge wid Kaminsky.” When all else fails, try (almost) the truth.

Anyway, it brought a pause while they thought about the implications of this, but then: “Is she one of the people being besieged, then?”

O’Gilroy shrugged, and Ranklin stood firmly forward to rescue him. “Connelly wanted to tell you his story. He’s now done so, and I take no responsibility for it. I’m sure that Scotland Yard and their French counterparts are investigating and you’ll hear the truth of it in due course.” Ranklin wasn’t so obtuse as to think any journalist cared about “due course”; they were interested in
now.
But he too was playing a part. “Now I ask Mr Connelly to honour his promise and return quietly to London with me.”

“What will happen to him?”

“We do not regard Mr Connelly as particularly important –”

“Me ’n ivry other Irishman!” O’Gilroy shouted.

“– we regard him as a useful – if not entirely trustworthy – informant.”

Playing the part to the last, O’Gilroy yelled: “ ’N mebbe ye’ve royal blood in yeself!”

“English is quite good enough for me,” Ranklin said with dignity. He took O’Gilroy by the elbow and pushed him, protesting sullenly, towards the little group of
Sûreté
men by the door. He couldn’t say they looked pleased but they were, in their way, welcoming.

22

Around two in the morning a company of infantry – about 200 men – arrived. Despite the urgings of deadline-conscious journalists, they took time to be briefed and then to replace the
Sûreté
men, which wasn’t easy in the darkness. Two soldiers were wounded, which was blamed on the anarchists, and this took up more time. At last two machine-guns were set up: one in the lane and the other on the far side of the canal, firing in arcs which would miss the village if they first missed the cottage.

The machine-guns opened fire at 3.43 a.m. and fifteen seconds later, both had jammed. The first versions of the French Hotchkiss had a reputation for unreliability, and their crews were unfamiliar with the weapon. But from about 4 a.m. firing became more or less continuous, and if anybody was by then shooting back, it wasn’t reported: most soldiers wisely had their heads well down to avoid howling ricochets. But even the humblest, most deserted dwelling-place has plenty of inflammable material in it, and with thousands of bullets arriving already red-hot and then striking sparks if they hit even a metal nail-head, the next step was inevitable: the cottage caught fire.

Shooting was stopped, and the flames – mostly in the roof–left to burn out in the slow light of dawn. When a cautious patrol went in, four not-too-badly-charred bodies were found, all with several bullet wounds (the autopsies confirmed). Threemen and one woman.

Ranklin had the car stopped outside the Gare du Nord and so arrived at the Sherring apartment with three newspapers, just
before 7 a.m. The housemaid was already up and about, and she went to rouse Corinna while the chauffeur started making coffee.

She appeared ten minutes later, wrapped in several layers of mauve taffeta neglige with a white fur collar. She looked pink and scrubbed but not truly awake. They sat down around one end of the big dining-table while the maid poured coffee.

“It’s over, then,” Corinna said.

“The siege, anyway.” Ranklin passed over the newspapers. “But it ended too late for these papers, so they had to make do with what they’d got by the time that . . . what’s the phrase?”

“Newspapermen talk of ‘putting the paper to bed’.”

“What a lovely thought.” Ranklin hadn’t been near a bed in forty-eight hours. They drank coffee and Corinna skimmed the papers. O’Gilroy offered a cigarette to Ranklin. Corinna half-raised her head to complain, then decided the world was full of worse things, and went on reading about them.

Then she said: “Connelly. An Irish renegade called Connelly. I don’t think I know anybody of that name, so tell me why it sounds so dreadfully familiar.”

O’Gilroy smiled his twisted smile and Ranklin said: “I couldn’t say. You know so many strange people.”

“I do seem to, don’t I? Well, you appear to have taken mama’s advice and got your story in first.”

“Yes . . . d’you think it’ll do?”

Her face showed hopeful uncertainty. “Newspapers hate saying ‘Sorry, we got it all wrong, let’s start again’. But what will your café proprietor and his pals be saying?”

Ranklin shook his head. “Nothing. They do tend to fight to the end – anarchists.”

After a while, she asked: “Were you counting on that?”

“A gentleman always gives up his seat to someone who wants to be a martyr. But will this stop Gorkin publishing his version?”

She thought about this while she drank more coffee. “You can’t really ask me what that man would do . . . But at least
you’ve put him in a difficult position. He can’t say that all of ‘Connelly’s’ story is rubbish because the Press knows it isn’t. And he’d be asking for trouble if he started quibbling about details, saying ‘Yes, I did this but the Secret Service did that’. If he admits he was involved at all, he can’t tell how much he’ll get sucked in . . . But then again, if Mrs Langhorn is still ready to back him up saying Grover’s the King’s son, I can’t say how much it’s worth to him as a trouble-maker to risk himself in stirring up more trouble.”

“And Mrs Langhorn’s got her own row to hoe,” Ranklin reflected sombrely. “Even if she now thinks Gorkin’s a bad hat, she may still be dreaming of eating off gold plates in Buckingham Palace. Is she here?”

“Good God, no. Pop’s here.” To O’Gilroy’s amusement, Ranklin flinched, though as far as Corinna’s father went, his conscience had been clear for over a week. In a manner of speaking. “He came home good and late; he’ll probably sleep till noon, it being Sunday. No, I got her and Berenice in at a hotel down the street. What are you planning for Mrs L?”

Ranklin shook his head. “That’s up to the
Sûreté.
When they let us go, they were still trying to prise control back from their army, and what with wondering how an Irish renegade was also a British agent, and telephoning St Claire to confirm there
was
a plot against the King – so all in all, they hadn’t got any sort of clear picture. But this morning they’ll start putting things together and when they realise we spirited Mrs Langhorn away, they’ll want to hear her story. That’s her chance to start dropping matches in the powder magazine.”

Corinna finished her coffee and refilled her cup, then added milk and sugar. Her actions were deliberate and thoughtful. At last she said: “Perhaps it’s a pity a stray bullet didn’t take her out of the reckoning.”

Ranklin and O’Gilroy didn’t look at each other.

“And the same goes for Gorkin,” she went on. “But if anybody were to bump him off now, it would make him a victim.”

“A martyr,” Ranklin agreed. “I was warning Berenice of that. Probably unnecessarily, but God knows what she might do. She’s decided that Gorkin is a traitor to the great cause. He’s been trying to manipulate future history and apparently that’s unsporting.”

Corinna gave an unladylike snort. “What the hell else are we put in this world to do?”

Ranklin nodded. What else did anybody form a Secret Service Bureau for? Then he levered himself stiffly to his feet. The moment he let himself relax, every bone in his body started to a che. “Well, I suppose I’d better find this hotel and do what I can to manipulate history for myself.”

“I’ll show you.”

*           *           *

One of the Paris papers had brought out a two-page late extra edition covering the end of the siege, and Ranklin bought a copy as they walked down the Boulevard des Capucines. It was another sunny morning, with the street empty except for a few scurrying churchgoers responding to the call of the bells.

The hotel was a small family place just off the Boulevard, with no restaurant but a small breakfast-room in the vaulted basement. This was for residents only, of course, but as usual, Corinna assumed this didn’t apply to her, and as usual the hotel agreed.

So they sat down to more coffee while Ranklin tried to work out just how late the special edition had gone to press. About six o’clock, he reckoned, since it covered not just the army patrol finding the bodies but had the journalist himself tromping among the ashes and fire-tarnished cartridge cases, smelling burnt flesh and wood-smoke, and feeling the warmth still in the iron door-hinges. There was too much of that sort of guff, but it sounded genuine. The rest was a reprise of the earlier Connelly background story.