Flight From Honour

21

“It isn’t in the papers, and may never be,” Major Kell said pointedly, “but did you hear that a group of Irish desperadoes stormed the Gray’s Inn Road police station early this morning and freed one of their number who was being held on a murder charge? A man called Gorman.”

Dagner pretended pretend interest. “Really? Should I have heard of him?”

“I just thought you’d be interested. Sir Basil Thomson certainly is. Indeed, I’d go as far as to say that he’s in a mood to spit blood and would like it to be yours.”

“Yes?” Dagner said, as if inviting him to get to the point.

“One of his policemen was shot.” Kell paused to see if that brought any reaction. When it didn’t, he continued: “Through the helmet. Sir Basil was talking of raiding this office and demanding that every one of you come up with an alibi for between three and four this morning.”

“Most extraordinary.” But Dagner still seemed only mildly interested. “However, I’m sure cooler counsels will prevail. I, for my part, would not permit him to know who is on the staff of this Bureau, let alone demand alibis of them. And I hope he bears in mind that any such raid will be upon a non-existent Bureau answerable only to the First Lord of the Admiralty.”

Kell looked at him thoughtfully. “However, I think he might be assuaged if you just handed Gorman back.”

Dagner seemed to consider this, but as if it were a strange and fanciful idea. “No, I don’t think so.”

Kell took a deep breath. “Major Dagner, do you really consider your service to be so far above the law that-”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” Dagner leant back in his chair. “Because if it isn’t there, it’s nowhere. So there is no question of my handing over one of our agents for judgment by that law – and that’s quite apart from any questions of loyalty and morale. But I don’t think it should harm your relationship with Scotland Yard if they realise you have no control over this service. Unless, of course, you’d led them to believe you had.”

Kell clenched his face but said nothing. He took a paper from an inside pocket, and unfolded it on Dagner’s table. It was a police ‘wanted’ poster for Thomas Gorman. There was no photograph, but the description was good – as it should have been, given that they’d had him in custody for several hours. Dagner read it with apparently mild interest.

“Those,” Kell said, “will be distributed throughout the Home Counties unless I return either with your man or your promise to surrender him.”

He had the feeling that Dagner was staring straight through him at some distant memory. “Most interesting – but it doesn’t alter my position. May I keep this?”

Rich and lordly as the Naval Intelligence Division seemed from Whitehall Court, inside the Admiralty it ranked – to judge from its offices – on a par with bilge-scraping. Even the civilian stores clerk, to whom Ranklin’s NID friend introduced him, lived in grander style. The Nelson touch, perhaps: Trafalgar had been won with stores, not spies.

The introduction was terse: “Here’s the chap I was telling you about, the one asking about the missing pistol. He’s Army, so fob him off with any old stuff.”

The clerk greeted Ranklin with wary courtesy. “Are you really from the Secret Service?”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“Gosh.”

Ranklin added quickly: “But just the paper-shuffling side, not one of the stealing-the-Kaiser’s-code boys.”

“Ah.” The clerk looked disappointed, then realised that a real spy obviously wouldn’t admit it, so went back to wariness.

“Could we . . . ?” Ranklin suggested, gesturing at the nearest stack of paperwork.

“Of course.” He shuffled through a pile of papers. “You were asking about a certain Webley pistol, serial number so-and-so . . . Here we are: a court of inquiry established that it was lost overboard from HMS Gloucester during a storm in the Adriatic last April. No disciplinary action, but the loss has been paid for. And everybody’s living happily ever after.” He looked up with a bright smile.

“I rather thought it would be something like that. However, for a heavy pistol, it seems to have floated remarkably well, and due to some oddity of tide and current which perhaps you’d understand better than I, it was washed up in Clerkenwell yesterday.”

“Oh dear.” A slow grin spread across the clerk’s face and he consulted the report again before saying cheerfully: “Well, the paperwork’s all in order. So if you want to take it any further, you’ll have to talk to somebody in the Naval Branch-”

“No, no, I don’t want to stir things up and get anyone into trouble,” Ranklin assured him. “I’m not interested in the ‘how’ of it, just some idea of where it really went missing.”

“Are you quite sure of that serial number?” Then the clerk reconsidered. “Sorry, that was rather a silly question: you’ve found a pistol and we’ve lost one . . .” He went back to the report. “How about the last port of call before the ‘washing overboard’?”

“Where was that?”

“Trieste.”

The atmosphere in the agents’ office was like the last day of term. Lieutenant H waved the ‘wanted’ poster at Ranklin, grinning as if it were a report of how the school had just beaten Greyfriar’s 60-nil. “Have you seen this?”

Ranklin said: “Oh Christ,” and went straight to Dagner’s door, leaving H standing bewildered.

“Exactly,” Dagner said, seeing the poster in Ranklin’s hand. “We have to get him abroad. Where the devil have you been? You’d better get down to Brooklands.”

“Naval Intelligence. Right away.”

Dagner strode to the door, pulled it open and called: “Somebody get Captain R a taxi-cab.” He came back, muttering: “Like a bunch of . . . never mind. At least get him under cover-” he unlocked the safe against the wall and rummaged inside; “-and when you’ve done that, try and find out how Senator Falcone is. I can’t go telephoning the hospital without some explanation.” He spilled a small bag of sovereigns on to the table and began counting them swiftly.

“I should have told you,” Ranklin said. “I talked to Mrs Finn on the telephone, earlier. He’s not too serious at all. It was just the muscles in his back. It looked . . . you know how a little blood goes a long way, and he lost a lot. Apparently what saved him was he was wearing a medical corset, plaster and so on, after he’d hurt his back in an aeroplane smash.”

“Is he conscious? – talking?”

“She didn’t know about that, I’m afraid.”

“We need to know if his plan’s still going ahead. He was working with others, but we don’t know who, nor if they can carry on without him.”

This startled Ranklin. He had assumed the whole scheme was over or indefinitely postponed, but he said nothing. He still had some leeway of deference to make up.

“And,” Dagner said, “am I right in thinking it hasn’t been reported in the newspapers?”

“None I’ve seen have got it. He was awake enough to give a false name at the hospital – Vascotti. I don’t know if they believe it, but as long as the bill gets paid . . . And it happened in a big crowd, at the height of the display, and most of the reporters there were aeronautical specialists. Oh, and another thing Mrs Finn told me: Signora Falcone’s coming over. She’ll be here this afternoon. She might know something.”

“Getting here today?” Dagner wouldn’t be familiar with Continental travel, but knew Italy was further away than that.

“Apparently she was already in Paris. Mrs Finn said she’s going down to Weybridge to see the Signora herself – she was originally an Irish lady, I believe, so there won’t be any language problem. And I expect Andrew Sherring will be anxious to know if the aeroplane deal’s still on, too.”

Dagner pondered, and Ranklin could guess at the unanswered questions. Did Signora Falcone know of her husband’s plottings? – and if so, could they approach her instead? Or was she feeling anti-British-Government for letting her husband get stabbed? And how much of this dare they leave to Corinna to find out for them? Quite apart from Corinna’s tactlessness in being born an American, Dagner must realise she was no helpless fly in their web.

He came to a decision: “Find out what you can from her, but don’t step outside your War Office persona. But first, get O’Gilroy somewhere safe. There’s twenty-five sovereigns here-” he dropped the gold into Ranklin’s hand; “-and those giggling schoolboys must have found you a cab by now.”

Feeling he owed the ‘schoolboys’ some defence, Ranklin paused long enough to say: “I thought they worked very well as a team. Last night really brought them together-”

“Captain-” the unslept hours suddenly showed in Dagner’s face; “-they’ve had years of that sort of thing in the Army. We’re supposed to be teaching them to work alone.”

The platform at Waterloo was surprisingly crowded, until Ranklin remembered that Pegoud was giving a second display that afternoon, puffed by ecstatic reports in the day’s papers. He had also seen a couple of uniformed police in the booking hall who hadn’t been there yesterday when they might have been some use, but more important were any plain-clothes ones that he couldn’t identify.

It was a long, dusty trudge from Weybridge station to the aerodrome – any local taxis and cabs had been snapped up by the first off the train – and Ranklin’s mood was very different from the cheery anticipation of the crowd around him. Then he had to use bluff and his calling card to get past the Aero Club officials to reach Andrew’s shed. Frustrations apart, he was leaving a trail like an elephant stampede and could only hope the police didn’t suspect him (not especially, anyway) or were moving at their ‘proceeding’ pace.

The sheds had no doors, just a row of shutters that could be taken down individually or, in Andrew’s case, mostly left up to give the interior an air of dim, dusty, castor-oil-tinged privacy. And sharing that privacy was, thank God, O’Gilroy. He was helping Andrew fit the metal engine cowling back on to the Oriole.

“Hi there, Captain,” Andrew greeted him. “If you’re looking for Corrie, she’s over at the hospital, but she said she’d come by before she goes back to town.”

Since Ranklin hadn’t remembered to think up an excuse for being there, he accepted the suitor role and propped himself against a work-bench.

“Trouble is,” Andrew went on, juggling the flexible metal carefully, “I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing now. I wanted to get off today and maybe stop off a day at Rheims getting a look at the new racers. But with the Senator getting stabbed – have the police found out who did it yet? – what it was all about?” He glanced at Ranklin, who shook his head. “So now I don’t know if I’m going at all. It’s very sad,” he added hastily, “but it’s also a damn nuisance. Ah.” The cowling had snapped into place and O’Gilroy was ready with the bolts to hold it down.

Andrew watched for a moment, then walked to the back of the shed, wiping his hands on a rag. O’Gilroy asked softly: “What’s the news?”

“The police have got a flyer out for Thomas Gorman, probably at all stations and ports. Major X wants you out of the country or at least hidden under some bed.”

“Does he now? Well, I’ve me private chariot waiting-” he patted the aeroplane; “-if anyone gives the word.”

This was a completely new thought, and Ranklin gaped at it. “Will Andrew really take you?”

“Surely, only he don’t know it yet. He thinks he’s taking one of the fellers works here, and him having to choose between leaving his wife for a week and Mr Sherring promising him ten pounds gold, so if someone was to give him fifteen right now, it’d make up his mind something wonderful.”

After a glance to make sure nobody was looking, Ranklin handed over fifteen sovereigns – and then the rest of the cash. “You’ll need some working capital as well.”

“I should’ve brought me passport, I’m thinking.” Ranklin handed that over, too. “Yer a genius. So now we jest wait for Mrs Falcone to make up her mind.”

“Is she here?”

“Mrs Finn said she’d be meeting her at the hospital.”

“I could try telephoning her there, say Andrew’s anxious to get moving.”

O’Gilroy turned from the aeroplane and gave him a steady look. “And explain who ye are and why yer so concerned?”

Ranklin chewed his lip. His near-sleepless night was blurring his judgment and sharpening his agitation. O’Gilroy, if he knew him, would have slept like a babe in his cell until they came to rescue him.

“We’ll know soon enough.” O’Gilroy turned back to the aeroplane. “Nobody’s coming looking for me in a place like this.”

“I’m not so sure.” Sir Basil knew ‘Gorman’ as an agent of the Bureau and probably thought Brooklands irrelevant, but Ranklin recalled saying at the police station that he was an aeronautical engineer and maybe somebody remembered that and thought it worth following up, so . . . oh, damn it! – he was worrying in useless circles. Angry and critical, he glared at O’Gilroy’s clothing. “And it you’re going abroad, you’d better change first.”

O’Gilroy gave the cowling a final shake to make sure it was firm, then looked down at his grubby mechanic’s apron. “Glad ye reminded me. Need me proper kit from the hotel.”

“For God’s sake, no. You’ve got to stay here until-”

“Ye worry too much, Captain.” O’Gilroy stripped off the apron. “I’ll be borrowing Dave’s motor-bike and back before I’m gone.”

And there was nothing Ranklin could do. Except wonder what made O’Gilroy so confident and then realise, with sick horror, that after yesterday’s events he would certainly be carrying his own pistol today and see an unarmed policeman as no obstacle at all, at all . . .