Spy’s Honour Page 20

  “Now,” Ranklin told O’Gilroy, “can you head on down the waterfront and find out about the service to Korsör?”

  O’Gilroy nodded. “And where else?”

  Ranklin frowned, then saw the point: the question needed to be buried in among others. “Then ask about all the regular routes to both Denmark and Sweden. There should be half a dozen. And what ships – whose – run them.”

  “I can get somebody to do that for you,” Corinna offered.

  “No.” It came out more abruptly than Ranklin had meant. “Sorry, but I don’t want you to be involved in this.”

  “Oh? The last time we met – the time before that, anyway – you didn’t seem too worried if I got shot. This could be worse, could it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, a fate worse than death? I’ve always wanted to be saved from one of those. Whatever they are. Let’s find this bank.”

  It turned out to be the local branch of the Dresdner, and Corinna turned out to have a small wad of paperwork in her purse that sent bank employees hopping like fleas. Oblivious or accustomed to this, she sat with Ranklin in the manager’s office, sipping coffee and assuring him that indeed her esteemed father was well, enjoying Kiel Week but, as ever, busy.

  Her German was as good as her French, Ranklin noted, with an accent he knew but couldn’t quite place.

  “Perhaps you could also tell me something,” she continued. “Do you know the Wik Landentwicklungsgesellschaft?”

  The manager blinked, frowned, concentrated, then remembered with a grunt of laughter that he apologised for. “It is a long time ago, but now I recall. A sad and instructive story. The man thought he had a legal option to buy the land that would be on the south side of the new locks. He formed a company to get money to buy the land and then to build on it or perhaps to sell to the Government for offices of the locks. He was right that the Government wanted that land, but wrong that his option to buy was good in law. So, he lost everything, the company was finished, all who had bought shares also lost.”

  “Do you recall the man’s name?” Corinna asked, in case Ranklin wanted to know.

  “No. It is too long ago. But he committed suicide anyway.”

  Corinna glanced at Ranklin, her eyes wide.

  “Drowned himself,” the manager added, to show he was trying. “In the old lock. The north one. Your father was not interested, I hope?”

  “We just came across the company name. I thought if it still existed, it must be doing well.”

  “Ah, indeed it would have been, but for a fine legal point.”

  “It can be a mistake to argue the law with the lawmakers,” Corinna agreed. “Thank you for your time, and the coffee. Come along, James.”

  On the pavement, she let out a long breath. “Woof. Sorry I can’t remember the poor bastard’s name, only the exact spot he dived into the hereafter. Jesus wept.”

  “I suppose I can remember the details of some deaths – some nasty ones, in the war, but I can’t remember the names.”

  “I guess inhumanity’s only human. Anyhow, you’ve most likely got the guy’s name on the bond, as chairman of the company. Is it important?”

  “I have no idea at all.” Ranklin wondered just how many times he had said that or something like it already that day.

  “Well, if it can wait, it’s the Holstenstrasse we’re looking for now.”

  “If you don’t mind, while we’re in this district, I’d like to drop in at the Deutscher Kaiser hotel: there’s a couple of Britons there who dined with Cross on his last night …”

  And who, with a bit of luck, might spin the afternoon out until Corinna remembered something more urgent than helping him buy clothes. But neither Kay nor Younger was in, so he left them notes explaining simply and untruthfully who he was. He took his time about writing those, but it couldn’t be nearly enough.

  It was a blazered, white-shoed, new-necktied and distinctly grouchy Ranklin that she delivered back to the Club towards the end of the afternoon.

  “Well,” she said, “now I know what your fate worse than death is. I knew men didn’t like clothes shopping, but …”

  “I’m sorry. Rather a lot on my mind.” He was looking around for O’Gilroy.

  “D’you want to visit the Victoria Luise this evening?”

  “Ah – I’d like to very much, but it rather depends on what O’Gilroy’s found out about those steamship services. Can I get a message to you on board?”

  “You can hire a boat to send one. Or get the Club to run up a signal hoist.”

  “Er …?”

  She indicated the complicated flagpole in the corner of the Club front garden. There were several signal flags fluttering from one of its many ropes. “Get them to hoist KAC – that’s us – then the ‘affirmative’ flag, then just sign it J.”

  “I doubt I belong there sufficiently for them to do that.”

  “Then just hang a bath towel out your bedroom window,” she said impatiently. “Which is it?”

  He pointed it out.

  “One towel if you’re coming and I’ll send the launch here at nine. Oh, hell.” She relaxed and grinned. “I know you’ve got problems you can’t talk about. Don’t worry about being the perfect gentleman as well. I’ve met enough of them already.”

  She strode away across the road – a cab horse wisely conceding her the right – to the jetty. Ranklin turned into the Clubhouse.

  There was no sign of O’Gilroy but there was a message. It was on official police paper and simply said: Herr Gorman has been arrested. J. Lenz, Hauptmann.

  29

  Lenz’s office had that institutional look of grime scoured in by constant cleaning. The desk was big and worn, the papers on it neatly stacked, the large photograph of the Kaiser as an Admiral stared down sternly from the wall behind. But the framed photograph of his wife and sons on the desk was turned so that the visitor would realise the Hauptmann was a loving family man really, one to be trusted.

  “A man has given evidence,” he said unemotionally, “that he heard Gorman asking in a Kneipe for a man to attack the detective who was following him. He has signed a statement.”

  “I see.” Ranklin was being at least equally calm. “The detective himself didn’t see or hear this happening?”

  “He may have gone to the toilet, he cannot say. He was hit on the head and does not remember for half an hour before he was attacked.”

  “Yes, I was wondering how you’d get round that problem,” Ranklin agreed. “Very neat. The man who so dutifully came forward to bear witness – he’s of good character and so forth?”

  A little warily, Lenz said: “Why must he come to us if he is not telling the truth?”

  There had to be a reason, of course, but Ranklin didn’t think the police had provided it. And that wasn’t his gentlemanly view of the police prevailing, either. Why should they trump up an assault charge for O’Gilroy when to let him run loose might prove him a spy?

  “Did you know this man already?”

  Lenz allowed himself a small smile. “No, he is not from Kiel. From Hamburg.”

  “Ah, yes. Now, may I see Gorman?”

  “When the doctor has finished.”

  Ranklin’s voice hardened. “He resisted arrest, did he? So the magistrate may infer from the marks on his face that he’s of a violent disposition?” I’m beginning to think like O’Gilroy – at least about the police. Lenz may not have started this affair, but he’s making sure it finishes his way.

  There was a clatter in the hallway outside and the door sprang open, letting in the protests of some junior policemen and, ignoring them, Kapitanleutnant Reimers. His face was set and his eyes angry. He saw Ranklin, calmed himself with a quivering effort and asked very politely: “Mr Spencer, would you do us the great kindness of waiting outside for just one minute?”

  Ranklin almost hurried out. So, he guessed, Reimers had not been consulted about arresting O’Gilroy. That seemed to make it an odds-on bet that O’Gilroy would soon be
floating free. Bruised, but free.

  He leant against a wall and lit a cigarette. But just how, he thought, is a Captain of detectives expected to feel when one of those detectives gets hammered flat? And how would the other detectives feel if the Captain does nothing – even when somebody rolls up with a sworn statement about who caused it? How would I feel if it was a man from my battery who’d got pulped by local townees?

  Lenz is no Sherlock Holmes, and no cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie either, but he’s been in command of men all his working life. So he instinctively did the right thing for his men, his service – and forgot the bigger task.

  The door opened again and Reimers said: “Please come in, Mr Spencer. I fear we have not quite got this problem sorted out yet …”

  Lenz was behind his desk looking doggedly righteous. Ranklin sat down without being asked and went on with his cigarette.

  “The situation,” Reimers said, “appears to be that the witness will say he overheard Gorman attempting to hire a man to attack the detective. Gorman will obviously deny this – ”

  “Excuse me,” Ranklin said, “but in between, the witness will be asked to describe the man Gorman spoke to and the police will be asked why they have not found that man. The witness will also be asked why he did not warn the detective – obviously he has no fear of approaching the police – or take some other action to prevent this attack. Some questions about his character, his trade, his Hamburg address may also be gone into. Then Gorman will deny it happened and ask how he could have benefited from it.”

  Reimers nodded and looked at Lenz.

  Lenz said: “The evidence of the detective …”

  “Excuse me again,” Ranklin interrupted, “but the evidence of the detective will be that he remembers nothing. Nothing to clear Gorman, nothing to convict him. As far as he knows, he may have been knocked down by a cab or struck by a thunderbolt.”

  Reimers stroked his whiskers, hiding a small smile. “A more complicated case than we imagined, Herr Hauptmann. Perhaps one for the highest court in the land.”

  “We have a sworn statement,” Lenz growled.

  “Perhaps it would be well to question the witness further. At best the case is not complete: you have not found the attacker – or the cab or thunderbolt. And as Mr Spencer was kind enough not to say, the detective can tell the court nothing except that he did his work so badly that he was identified by a foreign servant, and that he could not defend himself on his own streets. Should we force him to say that – for so unsure a result?”

  It was a crafty argument, and Ranklin warmed to Reimers. Then realised that was just what Reimers wanted.

  What Lenz might have said then was lost in a growing hubbub in the corridor outside, a perfunctory knock and the immediate entrance of a stout white-haired man in a black suit and very high collar.

  Lenz knew him. “Rechtsanwalt Loder – Kapitanleutnant Reimers – Herr Spencer …”

  Behind the lawyer came two younger men, one obviously Loder’s clerk, the other wearing a blazer and an eager expression. He pounced on Ranklin. “Mr Spencer. I’m Don Byrd with a Y, Mr Sherring’s secretary. We got here as fast as we could. Mrs Finn’s outside in the automobile. Loder’s supposed to be good, we got him through the vice consul. Now what’s the situation?”

  As far as Ranklin could tell, the situation was a fast dialogue between the lawyer and Lenz, with Reimers looking as if he had just dropped in to report a lost battleship, his naval uniform having nothing to do with this case at all.

  Before Ranklin caught the pace of the dialogue, it ended. Lawyer Loder shook hands with Lenz, then turned: “Herr Spencer?” He reached out his hand slowly and ceremoniously, shook Ranklin’s hand, bowed slightly, and announced in a polished mahogany voice: “Your servant is free.”

  “Boy,” Don Byrd whispered, “I never saw even a lawyer make a buck so fast before.”

  The only visible sign on O’Gilroy was a split lip, but he was moving stiffly. “They knew enough not to hit me where it’d show, not with me clothes on. But I’m all right, ma’am.”

  Corinna was all for laying charges and lawsuits against the police. But Loder preferred winnable cases and was learned enough in law to know that every policeman not proven to have been home in bed would have witnessed O’Gilroy’s resistance to arrest. And Ranklin was learning: “Call it experience – for us. The one who got it didn’t need it.”

  Then he got Don Byrd on one side and muttered: “I want the name and any address of that ‘witness’, if you can.”

  Byrd looked at him sharply, but then smiled. “Sure. We must have paid for that much already.”

  In the back of a big, and presumably hired, Mercedes tourer, Corinna was arranging cushions and rugs around O’Gilroy who leered at Ranklin and murmured: “Jest like the sergeant-major used to do.”

  “Shut up, you,” Corinna said briskly. “You’re both moving aboard Kachina. It isn’t safe to walk the streets of Kiel,” she announced to the street. “Especially with police protection. Antreiben,” she told the chauffeur.

  They went a quarter of a mile to O’Gilroy’s guesthouse and then had to unpack him so that he and the chauffeur could go in to collect his luggage. Waiting in the car, Ranklin tried to thank Corinna for her help.

  “Oh, skip it. From what Don said, you’d done most of the work already. But why did the police pick on Conall?”

  Ranklin told her a censored version of O’Gilroy’s night on the town: no artistic poses or warships and no mention of the attack on O’Gilroy himself.

  “If they were following him, that means they suspected you from the moment you hit town, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Because you knew this Navy man who died?”

  Ranklin nodded.

  “You’re walking on eggs. So what happened today?”

  “Somebody went in and laid evidence that he’d heard O’Gilroy trying to hire someone to scrag the policeman.”

  “So who’d do that? – and why?”

  “I’m working on a theory.”

  After that, they drove to the Club for Ranklin’s belongings; there was also a message from Mr Kay, saying he would be there at six and happy to answer any questions Mr Spencer might have for him.

  “If you don’t mind,” Ranklin said, “I’ll stay here and meet this chap, then hire a boat and come out later.”

  “Okay.” But she looked dubious. “You’re sure there won’t be any more trouble?”

  “No. I mean, yes. If there is, I’ll signal you. I’ll set the Clubhouse on fire, all right?” He turned away, then suddenly remembered O’Gilroy’s mission. “What about the services to Korsör?”

  “There’s two every day – one German, one – Danish, d’ye say? That one’s the Son-den-wind, or something like that.” Sensibly, he hadn’t written anything down.

  “Sondenvind, I expect.”

  “Could be. She goes out about now, be back noon tomorrow.”

  “That’ll have to wait until then.” But as he watched them walk out onto the jetty, the chauffeur almost invisible under the luggage (he must be well paid for that loss of dignity), he began wondering about how to board the Sondenvind unseen. Because if that link was as vital as it might be, it was one that Lenz and Reimers must never even suspect.

  30

  On the hallway of the Club there was a small rack of picture postcards for sale. Ranklin bought a handful, including two that had other views of warships on parade in the harbour. Then he sat in a wicker chair on the verandah to wait for Mr Kay.

  110200, he thought, idly trying the 6-class coding system on a postcard of, he thought, one new battleship of the Kaiser class, one three-funnelled old battleship, and two four-funnelled ships he assumed were armoured cruisers (though some light cruisers had four funnels and some armoured ones only two or three, he remembered). You know, he told himself, whoever sits by that Canal, day and night, rain and shine, counting the German Navy go past, must know that Navy better th
an most. Better than I do, anyway.

  Perhaps Cross simply hadn’t found anybody to do it before he died: he had everything else worked out but not that. Does that mean we’ve got to scour the city for a volunteer traitor? Not double-bloody likely.

  It wasn’t the way they had been taught to work, anyway. You found out where the information you wanted was, then investigated those who had access to it. Did one of them have money problems? Woman problems? Little boy problems? – anything that marked the soul “For Sale” to those trained to read souls.

  But he couldn’t see himself going up to an angler on the Canal bank to ask: “Excuse me, mein Herr, but are you an expert on German warships who seduces choirboys?” There had to be an easier way.

  Only he couldn’t find it. Did it lead somehow through Dragan who cast a remarkably wide shadow for a man who was invisible? Or through the bearer bond issued by the suicided company promoter? What was his name? He was about to take out the bond and consult it when a blue blazer loomed up in front and asked if he were Mr James Spencer.

  Mr Kay was a pleasant young man whom Ranklin came to believe had no ambition except to sail boats until he became a pleasant old man. He apologised, pleasantly, for the absence of Mr Younger. They had dismasted their own small yacht and he was over at Laboe seeing it repaired before … Ranklin didn’t really listen, just waited until Cross’s name came up.

  “Are you sort of … well, actually … investigating how Cross got killed?”

  “His father asked me to do that, and the local police are being, well, sympathetic …” Would Lenz recognise that description of himself? “… but I’m really a duffer at that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, I suppose you would be,” the young man said seriously.