Flight From Honour

26

Ranklin didn’t rush to check if the intruder(s) had found this or that; by now he was experienced enough not to have a this or that. He sat down on the bed to think.

To report it or not? The search had been thorough, but not blatant; his things weren’t strewn about. A careless man might not have noticed it had happened – but only a guilty man could notice and not report it. That was the deciding fact. He sighed at the prospect of official entanglement ahead, but perhaps that had happened already.

The office had been carved out of one comer of a bigger room, partition walls chopping off the once-elaborate cornice moulding at two places and making it awkwardly high-ceilinged for its size. Too awkward to reach the cobwebs on the electric fan up there, anyway. After he had waited alone for some minutes Ranklin wondered if this were a test to see if he went snooping on the cluttered desk. After another few minutes, he did go snooping, but only for an ashtray. Perhaps that did the trick, because almost immediately a man in uniform bustled in.

Police Captain Novak was barely taller than Ranklin but built like a bear, with a deep chest, sloping shoulders and very quick, powerful movements. His squarish face would have been stolid if it, too, wasn’t always moving in small expressions and chewing or lip-pursing. He wore a neat middle-ranking moustache, neither too grand nor too humble. And he spoke no English.

But he had to speak German, the language of his Austrian masters, and they got along slowly in that. Their very different accents excused the slowness, but weren’t the real cause: Ranklin was thinking carefully before he spoke and he suspected that, despite his apparent impetuousness, so was Novak.

He started off with much shuffling of blank forms, then decided there was none that suited this occasion and carefully wrote down James Spencer’s details on a writing pad. “And you say nothing was taken? Most curious. In fact, an insult. To be robbed is shocking, terrible, but in a city full of Italians, quite normal. But to be robbed yet robbed of nothing is a trampling of your honour. Did you have anything worth taking?”

Ranklin shrugged. “A pair of gold cuff-links, not much more.”

Novak threw up his hands. “Not even taking gold cuff-links! Italian thieves are getting so rich! Or poor – perhaps he didn’t have any cuffs. Are you sure he didn’t steal any cuffs?”

“I didn’t really count them.”

“But then he would have taken the cuff-links as well, so we deduce that he most likely did not.” He smiled very quickly. “We progress . . . What have you been doing since you arrived in Trieste?”

Ranklin blinked. “Ah . . . talking to some gentlemen at the Exchange, lunching – alone – and wandering around the city.”

“And where did you have lunch?”

“At the Cafe San Marco. What does this have to do with my room being ransacked?”

“Ah!” Novak said explosively. “I am trying to establish a pattern. Men are creatures of routine, police work is mostly routine. If a thief should know that every lunchtime you are at the Cafe San Marco-”

“But I’ve been in Trieste less than a day. How can I have established any routines?”

“Ach, then my theory fails. No matter. Did you meet the Conte di Chioggia at the Cafe?”

“Is he an elderly gentleman? Dressed a little . . . artistically?”

“A most charming man and a truly great conspirator.”

Ranklin raised his eyebrows. “Is that so? What does he conspire?”

Captan Novak shrugged violently. “Just conspiracies. He has been conspiring for twenty years, and one day he will go too far. Perhaps tomorrow.” He glared fiercely at the pad. “We have not made much progress. You will not be in Trieste for long?”

Ranklin hadn’t said how long, but perhaps he was now being told.

“Probably not long. A few days.”

“Then, as you have already been robbed but nothing taken, the word will be passed that you have nothing of which to be robbed and you will be safe for the rest of your stay.” Then, with casual abruptness: “How is Senator Falcone?”

It was probably a trap, but the change of subject struck Ranklin dumb. “Huh? I beg your pardon?”

“The Italian Senator. You must know him.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of him.”

“He was attacked and stabbed. In England.”

“No! Killed, you mean?”

Novak made a vague gesture. “Almost – perhaps.” He already seemed bored by the topic.

Ranklin put on a heavy frown. “Very distressing. And rare, for Britain.”

Novak had gone silent. So at last Ranklin said: “Is that all, then?”

“I could show you some photographs of criminals, to see if you recognised one.”

“But I didn’t see anyone, just my room, ransacked.”

“Of course. It would not help anyway, they all look the same: hideously ugly. It is nonsense to say there is no criminal type: just to see those photographs proves it. SO!” He sprang to his feet. “Thank you for coming in, I apologise that I can be of no more help, enjoy your short stay in Trieste, good day.”

He sat down again and Ranklin found his own way out.

You Have Been Warned, he thought. And by now he was pretty sure Novak himself had organised the room-searching. Trieste’s eyes were back.

He sent another cable before dinner. It was mostly facts and figures about Triestine trade, but included the phrase “feeling a bit ill” to tell the Bureau he was under suspicion. They had progressed that far in developing a cable code – if anybody remembered, that is.

He devoted the next morning to behaving like a loyal and industrious Sherring employee. He called on the British consul and both the other names Corinna had given him and – apart, he hoped, from persuading any police watchers that he wasn’t a spy – only reinforced the impression that Trieste’s Italian workforce was not about to go on strike. He didn’t fool himself that he “understood” the city after a bare twenty-four hours, just that he had seen no sign of the unrest they hoped for and plenty of signs pointing the opposite way.

He asked at the hotel desk if there were any cablegrams for him, but got only an odd, stiff smile. Damn it, had that policeman Novak been snooping round, staining his reputation? He stumped off towards the lift – but didn’t get there.

Police Captain Novak was guarding a large potted palm beside the lift gate, and in case the plant turned nasty, he’d brought two policemen to help out.

He took Ranklins’ arm and urged him towards the front door; he had a grip like a lobster. “When I arrest people like you,” he confided, “I am allowed the expense of a carriage. You may also ride in it, or you can be carried through the streets by my men. It makes no difference to me. Either way, I still get to ride in the carriage.”