Honourable Intentions (20 page)

St Claire stumbled over the introductions. “Captain Ranklin of the . . . um, well, let’s say the War Office – does that suit you? Mr Harland, the solicitor who’s acting for His Majesty in this matter. Don’t worry,” he reassured Harland, “Ranklin knows as much about this as we do. More, I rather think. Shall we sit down?”

When they were seated, and Harland had started fiddling with his tie again, St Claire went on: “Mr Harland will actually be making the offer of a pension and it will be traceable only as far back as the bank. There will be no connection to be made, I assure you.”

Ranklin looked grave. “Hm. I can’t help feeling that if news of a pension seeps out, everyone will know it comes from the Palace, no matter what.”

Harland cocked his head. “I intend to make it clear to the woman that the pension will continue only so long as news of it does
not
seep out.”

“Fair enough – but could we consider the thought that it might not be the real Mrs Langhorn but someone who just wants to find out what you’re offering and then reveal it all?”

St Claire stiffened. “The consulate officials checked her papers and questioned her closely. They reported themselves as satisfied she was who she claimed to be . . . And misbehaviour of that sort sounds well beyond the capabilities of a woman of her class living in that part of Paris.”

“Quite. But if it
isn’t
Mrs Langhorn, that should suggest there are more devious minds involved, shouldn’t it?” And while they were considering this, Ranklin went on: “I may be able to identify Mrs Langhorn myself. So if I can sit in on the interview, and you would hold off on making the actual offer . . .”

Harland turned to St Claire. “It’s for you to decide, Major, but I understood you wanted the matter settled as quickly as possible.”

“We do, we do,” St Claire soothed. “But if the lady isn’t the right one . . .” He was still puzzling out the implications of this.

Harland turned back to Ranklin. “Are you planning to challenge the woman’s identity?”

It was Ranklin’s turn to soothe. “Oh no. Whether she’s genuine or not, I don’t want her to think we have any doubts.”

“Then am I to make this offer or not?”

“May we see how it goes and I’ll leave you in no doubt about what to do?”

St Claire nodded and Harland sighed.

“And one more thing,” Ranklin said. “I’d like to ask a Mr Jay –one of our people – up here and pop him in one of your bedrooms for a while. Then he’ll come out on some excuse, get a look at the lady, and go downstairs ready to follow her. If she isn’t Mrs Langhorn –” he thought for a moment, then added:“– and perhaps even if she is, she might lead us to the man behind this affair.”

Harland and St Claire exchanged looks, then Harland asked: “Do you really think there is such an affair and such a man?”

“There’s been some remarkable goings-on in London, probably orchestrated by a Dr Gorkin, who we think came back to Paris yesterday . . . Now I’ll just pop down and collect Mr Jay.”

Harland said: “I fully appreciate the need for discretion and caution in this matter. I just question whether we need all this . . . this . . .” He waved a hand.

“Have you ever had occasion to hire private detectives, Mr Harland?”

“I have. And no,” he smiled rather bleakly, “I didn’t tell them how to go about their business, if that was your next question. I’m just concerned about the number of people getting involved.”

“We all are,” St Claire growled.

When he got back with Jay, leaving O’Gilroy sitting at the back of the lobby, there was a smartly-dressed, middle-aged lady seated in the corner of the room. This certainly was neither Mrs Langhorn nor someone trying to be, which left Ranklin
puzzled until St Claire introduced him to Mrs Winthrop, wife of one of the Embassy staff. “I’ve invited Mrs Winthrop to sit in as chaperone, just for the look of things.”

Gracious, polite, interested but not
too
interested – a lot of the diplomatist had rubbed off on Mrs Winthrop. “I understand I’m not to ask what this is all about and not to guess, either,” she said, smiling. “You have my word.”

Nice to meet someone who
doesn’t
know, Ranklin thought sourly, given that Harland and St Claire do, and Corinna and Quinton and . . . there may be some hermit in the Hebrides who hasn’t heard the story yet, but who else? Oh yes, the King himself was supposed not to know. Ironic, that.

A tray of coffee arrived soon after that, and Jay posted himself beside the bedroom door. They drank coffee, discussed the programme of the Royal Visit, and waited.

At ten past ten “Mrs Langhorn” arrived and she certainly wasn’t the “Mrs Simmons” Ranklin had met at Portsmouth, although she looked about the came age. Instead of being fair and pert, this woman had a sharp, bony face under mousy-brown hair. She was dressed in a skirt and high-buttoned jacket, both in faded grey-blue. An old fur stole dyed a quite unnatural orange was wrapped around her neck. She certainly looked like La Villette in its Sunday best, and from Harland’s forced smile, she had him convinced.

And don’t forget she may BE Mrs Langhorn,
Ranklin reminded himself.
It’s only my – and O’Gilroy’s – deduction that she shouldn’t be. I must keep an open mind.

Harland began in legal fashion: “You are Mrs Enid Langhorn, mother of Grover Langhorn who is now – unfortunately – the subject of an extradition hearing in London?”

“That I am, sir.”

“And before your marriage, you lived in Portsmouth?”

“Southsea it was, yes, sir.”

“And thereafter in the United States of America?”

“For nigh on twenty-two years, sir. Then me and James parted and I come over to be with my boy Grover. James, he’d taken to the drink something awful, he had, when he’d retired from
the sea, and why should I stay around just to be bashed about? I tell you—”

Her voice was genuinely English English, without any strong regional accent or touch of American. Still, some people did cling to their original voices, perhaps the one thing from the Old Country that they could retain.

“Quite so,” said Harland, who had probably steered his career well clear of domestic violence cases. “And you now live in La Villette?”

“That’s where Grover was working, sir. I don’t say it’s the best part of Gay Paree, but the lodgings ain’t expensive and the folks round there—”

They Jay bustled in from the bedroom carrying a cable form. He smiled an apology at Harland and gave the form – blank – to Ranklin. Ranklin made a show of reading it carefully, and nodded to Jay. “Yes, that’s fine. Get it sent immediately.”

When Jay had gone out into the corridor, he smiled at “Mrs Langhorn”. “Sorry about that: I just got in from London this morning,” he said rapidly. “The police there have arrested one man – another resisted and was shot dead – for the murder of Guillet, the meat porter who was giving evidence against your son. And foiled an attempt to kidnap and possibly murder Berenice Collomb, and they’re looking for an anarchist Dr Gorkin who could have been organising all this, along with a certain Monsieur Kaminsky whom you may have heard of. All very complicated, but it does sound as if a big conspiracy’s been going on and you may – quite unwittingly, I’m sure – have been a part of it.”

Seated more or less beside Harland and St Claire, he couldn’t see their expressions. But he could sense the startled bewilderment radiating from them like sparks from a generator.

He hurried on tonelessly: “So it looks as if all the evidence against Grover was quite false and he should be released any moment now.”

There was a long silence when he had finished. And then a wide smile broke across “Mrs Langhorn’s” face – but late, far too late. She’d been so busy memorising the details of London’s happenings and deductions that she reacted too slowly to the one thing a mother would have cared about: her son was accepted as innocent.

Ranklin looked away quickly and murmured to St Claire: “I should have told you this earlier, but I’ll give you the details later.” He smiled blandly at Harland. “Please continue.”

“This . . . ah, doesn’t alter anything?”

“Oh no. But I do think we should take our time and get this dead right. We can have lunch sent up here, can’t we?” He smiled at “Mrs Langhorn”. “You can stay for lunch, I’m sure.”

Stay on for another three hours? – of course she couldn’t. But she didn’t let her act slip. In fact, she traded on it, dabbing a grubby handkerchief at imaginary tears of joy.

“Oh sirs, I’m that shook up with the news of our Grovcr, I can’t think of anything else. Oh dear, I just don’t know what to say. I couldn’t think of nothing else at this time, I really couldn’t.” She got to her feet, making a nice floundering motion of it, and clutching at her chair arm for support. The men sprang up, too. “Oh sirs, could I come back another time – this afternoon, maybe? I’ve just got to go and . . . my head’s in such a whirl . . .”

She fumbled her way to the door and out.

Harland was open-mouthed, his bewilderment quickly turning to annoyance with Ranklin. “Well, I don’t know where that leaves us. We don’t know where she’s gone, whether she’ll be back . . . I just hope
you’re
satisfied.”

“Indeed I am. She’s hurrying off to report what I told her about the conspiracy being spotted. And with any luck, complete the link with Gorkin.”

Also anxious but also baffled, St Claire asked: “Then you don’t think she was the real Mrs Langhorn?”

Ranklin was about to explain when Mrs Winthrop said in her well-bred voice: “I’ve no idea what this is all about, but if that
woman is the mother of a boy on trial in London, then I’m Lillie Langtry.”

“But how could you tell?” St Claire was honestly puzzled.

She stood up from her chair in a corner and gave him a look. “
Men
.” Then she smiled at Ranklin. “Not including you – in a manner of speaking.”

14

Jay, a natural Ritz person, had been wandering about the front of the lobby consulting theatre pamphlets and the like while O’Gilroy sat in a corner reading a newspaper and refusing to take off his long topcoat. When “Mrs Langhorn” came downstairs – sooner than they’d expected – Jay strolled after her. O’Gilroy calmly folded his newspaper and drifted off in their wake, watching to see if Mrs L had any other admirers in tow.

He quickly spotted two: both men in nondescript dark topcoats, bowler hats and heavy moustaches, so similarly anonymous that his instincts told him “police” rather than “criminal”. But police followers didn’t mean there weren’t the other sort as well. Whether or not the lady was the true Mrs Langhorn (which he didn’t yet know), she would only be there by order of the villains (whoever
they
were) and they’d be fools not to cover their bet with a watcher or two. It troubled him that he couldn’t spot anyone.

Meanwhile, Jay was ahead on the Rue de la Paix, pausing to glance into shop windows, then striding out to keep “Mrs Langhorn” in sight. He wasn’t doing a bad job, but to an old hand like O’Gilroy he was concentrating more on not appearing to be a follower than on following. The two
flics
were taking one side of the road each in classical pattern.

At the Place de l’Opéra she vanished down into the Metro and there was an unobtrusive rush to be closer to her when she chose her platform. O’Gilroy hung back, following the last
flic
instead, so perhaps he was the only one to spot that a fifth man had joined the party. She must be taking a prearranged route and this one, dressed in what he probably thought was Grands
Boulevards fashion and which made him look like a cheap swell, was there specifically to see if she was followed.

To a Londoner the new Paris Metro had a toytown look, with overlarge tunnels and over-small wooden carriages rattling in with a jaunty air. By the time their train arrived, O’Gilroy had positioned himself to get into the carriage behind. He found a seat at one end with his back to the other passengers, and began. First, he sprinkled a matchbox of talcum powder over his good-quality boots so that, at a glance, they looked dusty and thus cheap. He dumped the bowler hat and replaced it with a greasy cloth cap (in Paris, berets were for country yokels). Then he took off the long topcoat and revealed a torn, button-less jacket and out-at-the-knees trousers several sizes too big; the Ritz would have had the vapours to know what he’d been wearing under the coat. Finally he pocketed his tie and collar, rubbed his hands on the carriage floor and then on to his face.

He simply abandoned the coat and bowler, and never mind the Bureau’s accountants. The Bureau just wanted believability, and believability was O’Gilroy’s stock in trade: he was radiating it when he shuffled off at the next station and into “Mrs Langhorn’s” carriage.

Of course, if they turned out to be heading for some posh suburb, he was sunk. But there, Jay would come into his own again, and the further east they went, the less likely posh suburbs became. And the Metro had its standards, skirting around the nineteenth
arrondissement
to make sure that anyone visiting La Villette, or trying to escape from it, was doomed to a good long walk. Sure enough, the woman got out at Bolivar station and began the trek down the Rue Armand Carrel.

You might say that this was Paris’s equivalent of London’s East End, but that had been built on virgin land to cram the new breed of factory workers into a dreary, geometrical pygmyland. La Villette lay within Paris’s walls, so had started as farmhouses and village cottages, the gaps gradually filled in with whatever fitted the space and need until you had today’s above-ground warren of unmatched buildings and rambling alleyways. Even
in the sunlight, it had a grey Northern bleakness. The slums of Naples might be worse, but their cracked and scabbed walls seemed to have soaked up colour from the Mediterranean sun. They could look quite charming – in paintings. Nobody bothered to paint La Villette. There was a dead cat in the roadway that had been there, judging by the smell, for days. That was the essence of the place: not just dead cats, but nowhere worse to put them.

If the
flics
hadn’t been involved, O’Gilroy would have signalled Jay to drop out: on these streets, he looked like royalty gone slumming. But as the police – almost equally obvious – were soldiering on, he let Jay persist. And the sheer number could be cover for himself: the swell might not have much experience of counting above three. Moreover, the sunshine had brought out modest crowds of locals, running children and odd loafers with the shambling preoccupation that was O’Gilroy’s speciality.