Spy’s Honour

33

“And how did you sleep – apart from long?” Corinna asked.

“Rocked in the cradle of the shallows, very well, thank you.”

“This ship does not … oh, let it pass.”

It was another vividly bright day and the breakfast table was laid under an awning on the main deck. Corinna had long finished, but was lingering with coffee and a batch of American magazines that had just been brought off shore. Jake poured coffee for Ranklin and asked what he would like to eat.

“Bacon and eggs?” Ranklin suggested, more in hope than expectation, but Jake agreed and went away to organise it.

“Hah!” Corinna snorted. “The Englishman abroad. None of these native customs.”

“Just staying in character.”

“That’s your normal breakfast in India, is it?”

Ranklin remembered some ghastly attempts at English breakfasts in the Lahore cantonments and admitted that it wasn’t. “Let’s say it’s what I came home for. Tell me: do you think we can get ashore without being seen?” There was no hurry – the Sondenvind wasn’t due until around noon – but since he could think of no way to get aboard without walking up the gangplank, he wanted to be certain they weren’t being followed at the time.

“The launch is running around the harbour all day,” she said. “We could get you into her cabin out of sight of the shore – if you think they’re watching from there – and stay there until it touches at wherever you want to get off. They can’t cover all the landing places round the harbour. Is that good enough?”

It would have to be, and Ranklin accepted with more enthusiasm than he felt.

“Are you looking for the widow of the company promoter?” she asked.

Ranklin had almost forgotten about that, and admitted he wasn’t.

“Why not?” she demanded. “I’d like to hear her version of the story. And you’ve got all the excuse you need: that Reimers was talking about her, and the mysterious worthless bond. A real detective wouldn’t pass her up. D’you know her name?”

“On the bond it says Wedel, but I don’t know where she lives.”

“Then if I find out where she lives, will you go see her?”

Ranklin didn’t want to drag Corinna any further into the situation – but, damn it, who was doing the dragging? “Very well.”

“Promise? Spy’s honour?”

Ranklin winced. “I promise.”

The Sondenvind was about the same size as a Channel steamer, but single-funnelled and wider to accommodate the cargo that was now being unloaded. They stood in the shadow of a warehouse with O’Gilroy scanning the ship’s deck and Ranklin looking agitated, which was no problem, and explaining it by frequent glances at his watch.

“That’s him,” O’Gilroy said suddenly. “That’s the boy.”

The lad, of about twenty-five, was now dressed in a Third Officer’s uniform, so either he had been disguised when he went ashore selling artistic poses or O’Gilroy was wrong. But he seemed convinced enough, and Ranklin nodded him ahead.

O’Gilroy strode up the gangway, brushed aside a suspicious bo’sun, and handed the Third Officer a warship postcard as if it were a ticket. A few seconds later Ranklin followed, hoping his city suit made him look like one of those self-important officials who constantly bustle on and off ships in harbour but never go to sea. A minute after that they were in the tiny stuffy sea cabin of Captain J. Helsted.

Then, for a long moment, nobody said anything but probably everybody was thinking the same thing: if I say the wrong thing now, I may spend years regretting it in a German jail.

Captain Helsted was perhaps sixty, clean-shaven and with a thin face strongly lined with concern rather than age. He frowned at them, but looked as if he frowned at everybody and everything. And at last he said just: “Yes?”

“The night before last,” Ranklin said, “your officer sold my servant some photographs. He got one he did not expect. Personally, I preferred it to the ones he did expect.”

The Captain held the new postcard; now he turned it to glance at the number on the back, then to compare it with the ships in the picture.

He asked: “Did you write this number?”

Ranklin nodded.

“Who are you, please?”

Ranklin took out his – Spencer’s – card case and handed over a card. Captain Helsted dropped it on the little table unread. “Who are you really?”

Ranklin took back the card and put it into the case. “Really we are not here, we do not exist.”

After another moment, Helsted smiled, although the lines on his face made it more like a sneer. “Good. With men who do not exist, I can have talk that is not talked.” He nodded past them and the Third Officer vanished, closing the door with a firm click. His going made the cabin remarkably more spacious.

Helsted sat down and waved Ranklin to the only other chair. Ranklin hesitated, looking for a place for O’Gilroy until he growled: “Sit down and let’s get on.”

“Do you know,” Helsted asked, “who killed Lieutenant Cross?”

“No, and we’re not trying to find out. We only want to finish his work – unless you tell us it is finished.”

Helsted frowned again. “No, it is not finished.”

Well, that had been too much to hope for. “What more do you need?”

Helsted got suspicious again. “What do you know?”

“Perhaps not much: Cross didn’t leave any last will and testament. We know about the code for warship movements on the Canal and the cablegrams from Korsor, but that’s all. Who collects the information and how it gets to you, we do not know.”

Still frowning, the Captain got up and took a bottle of clear liquor from a wall cupboard and scattered three shot glasses on the table. “Since this aquavit does not exist – there are no spirits on this ship – it is perhaps good for men who do not exist.” He poured. “Skol. Now I may tell you: I do not know either.”

Ranklin looked at O’Gilroy, who took a second swallow, sighed, and said: “Well ’twas kind of ye to give us this before telling us that.”

Ranklin said: “Did he give you any idea …?”

“No. He did not want me to know. I think also he did not want the other person to know about me. He said only it would come to me by signal, that I would not have to go ashore.”

All that was highly professional of Cross, making sure neither of his sub-agents could betray the other – and reassuring them by letting them know that – but it left a complete dead end.

“Did he give you another address – not his family’s – to send cablegrams to?”

“No. He said that also would come to me.”

“Do you think he had even arranged the other person and the signals?”

“I think yes. He said he would leave Kiel the day after, after that he was killed, I mean. And he would go by train and ship to meet me in Korsor and give me everything there.”

So Cross had finished, or was about to finish, the job when he died. At least he had done the impossible: found his Canal-watcher – but that achievement seemed to have died with him.

Ranklin unfolded the bearer bond and passed it to Helsted. “Does this mean anything to you?”

The Captain’s face grew even more and deeper lines as he studied it. He shook his head slowly. “It says nothing. How did …?”

“It was among Lieutenant Cross’s things. And I imagine he must have picked it up in Kiel, so … The company doesn’t exist any longer. It may have been a fraud anyway.” He put the bond away, musing. “I can get a cablegram address for you to use; that won’t be a problem. And if we can revive the plan, can we reach you at Korsor?”

“By the steamship office.”

“All right, that seems to be …”

“One thing,” O’Gilroy interrupted. “The officer ye sent to sell me the pretty pictures: some rough things happened after that, and he could be recognised by them making them happen. I’d keep him aboard until – ” he glanced at Ranklin, “ – until the circus has left town, mebbe?”

“Until Kiel Week is over, anyway.”

“This was not the police?” Helsted frowned.

“No. It was – perhaps some visiting Russians. I’m not sure. But you trust your officer?”

“I trust my own son,” Helsted sneered his smile again. “Perhaps he will live to see Kiel a town of Denmark once more. Who knows?”

Ranklin very much doubted it, but was grateful for the hint at Helsted’s motive in working for Britain. The unwritten rule book told him to use other people’s patriotism – or misuse it – wherever he could find it.

“Indeed I hope so,” he said solemnly.

On their way back to the jetty where the Kachina’s launch would pick them up, they passed the railway station which was being hung with bunting and flags for the arrival of the King and Queen of Italy that evening. A squad of Schutz des Konigs, drably uniformed except for their helmets, rehearsed in the square and, as old soldiers, they had to stop to watch. They approved the uniforms – keeping the best unsullied for the real ceremony – and even the drill. Only the basic idea, that an escort of troops could prevent an assassination, was mocked by the history of the last ten years.

“Get them standing top of the steps there,” O’Gilroy murmured. “Perfect target.”

Most assassinations took place where the victim was raised up: on a horse, in an open carriage, on a balcony or … “Or up on that viewing stand at the locks, tomorrow?” Ranklin suggested gloomily.

“Sure, grand place.” And Cross had been found within short rifle-shot of that stand, a letter from Dragan in his pocket. It simply didn’t make sense – but here was no place to be overheard discussing it.

The chauffeured Mercedes was also waiting by the jetty and the launch delivered Corinna and her father, both dressed smartly but soberly and off to lunch with some business acquaintances.

“Jake’s expecting you back to lunch,” she assured Ranklin, “and you can use the launch as long as it’s back here by three. Or you sleep in the bilges tonight – whatever they are. Oh yes – the Widow Wedel lives at Holtenau, Tiessenkai 16. You promised and I’ve done my bit.”

“What was that about?” O’Gilroy asked as the boat scorched through the busy harbour.

“I promised to look up the widow of the man who formed the land company that issued the bond. You needn’t bother, it’s just to keep Mrs Finn happy.”

“Ye be going to ask her how the Lieutenant picked up the bond? What it might be meaning?”

Ranklin made a face. “It’s worthless, it’s been worthless for years. He could have picked it up anywhere.”

“Ye think? Last week’s newspaper’s not worth much, neither, but tell me where ye’d find one.”

Ranklin was about to suggest library files or the newspaper office, but then saw the point: somebody had to make a deliberate effort to keep something that had lost its value. He nodded; it was a topic for the useless conversation with the Widow.

If the Widow worked in a government office, she wouldn’t be home until the end of the afternoon, so Ranklin sat under an awning, read newspapers, listened to the starting guns of various yacht races, drank lemon tea – and worried. O’Gilroy, it turned out later, had been in the earthly paradise of Kachina’s engine room. Everything mechanical fascinated him; he belonged in the modern world far more than Ranklin, who welcomed improvements warily and viewed change with suspicion – except in military matters. As a soldier he wanted the latest and best fighting tools, but to defend and preserve his world as it was now, not to reshape it. O’Gilroy just preferred the stink of a petrol engine to that of the slums and assumed in some romantic way that the one must conquer the other.

“Put the turbines of this thing in torpedo boats,” he enthused, having brought up Ranklin’s latest glass of tea, “and ye’d have better than any navy in the world.”

“Splendid. But getting back to the navy we see parked around us – ” he gestured at the rigid columns of grey ships (a colour the Royal Navy seemed to be adopting) “ – we’re still looking for somebody who can tell what ships have gone through the Canal and has the means to signal it to the Sondervind when she passes. How? like the Yacht Club’s mast?”

A string of flags was displaying an unreadable message to some ship in the harbour.

“Not like to allow that – in a war,” O’Gilroy said.

“Hardly.” He remembered Corinna’s suggestion of hanging towels on his balcony as a signal, but that had been a simple Yes or No, not a dozen different figures. And yet it must be something like that, a signal that didn’t look like a signal. Red Indian smoke puffs from a chimney? He had been worrying at it all afternoon and hadn’t found a better answer.

“And when ye say ‘looking’, I’d say we was jest standing, or sitting, here,” O’Gilroy said calmly.

“But where? If we go ashore and just prowl about, all we’ll do is get Lenz and Reimers on our heels, growling about Dragan. Dragan. I just don’t see why Cross got mixed up with him. We now know what Cross was up to: good, sensible, naval espionage. Nothing to do with assassination. That just stirs things up – Good God, it would start a war tomorrow!” As Anya had been telling him last night, he now realised.

“If yer plotting to steal the knives, get them to counting the spoons,” O’Gilroy said, as if quoting an unimpeachable authority.

“And what does that mean?” Ranklin asked crossly.

“A feller like Lenz, ye’ll never stop him suspecting yer up to some deviltry. But ye may get him thinking it’s a different deviltry and be looking the wrong way. So the Lieutenant didn’t want Lenz thinking about battleships on the Canal …”

“You think he teamed up with Dragan to create a diversion?”

O’Gilroy shrugged. “He was talking enough about him, it seems.”

Ranklin sat silent, frowning busily. Finally he said: “I wonder how much Dragan would like that.”

“Not so much, with it getting Lenz and his detectives looking all over for him. And, ye notice, the Lieutenant did end up dead.”

Dragan the murderer? If he were an assassin he wouldn’t hesitate to blot out some walk-on player like Cross. And leave Lenz’s suspicions to be transferred to themselves. Good God! – the man thought they were planning to kill the Kaiser! No wonder Lenz had locked O’Gilroy up on the flimsiest evidence, rather than let him get on with that plan. And probably, but for Reynard Sherring’s unwitting protection, they’d both be in “protective custody” or expelled from Kiel. Either was allowed under German law.

He found himself glancing around furtively, earning a contemptuous scowl from O’Gilroy. It was a bit craven, but they were in German waters, and he was the next one to go ashore.

34

The government and province offices in Holtenau turned out at six, so assuming that the Widow Wedel didn’t stop off at the nearest Biergarten then by twenty past, Ranklin reckoned, she should be home and ready to receive.

Only she wasn’t either, because Tiessenkai 16 was no longer her home. And getting her new address from the dragon guarding what turned out to be a boarding-house for respectable widows and spinsters called for every ounce of Ranklin’s own respectability, charm – and a few hinted lies about a business connection with Herr Wedel, deceased.

The Widow had, it seemed, just come into a small inheritance and moved to rooms above the restaurant by the lighthouse where they had met Gunther the day before. And while the rooms there might be bigger, the view better and the restaurant itself respectable, living above any restaurant, next door to strangers, quite likely men, was, Herr Spencer must agree …

Ranklin agreed with everything but it still took five minutes. After that, however, it was easy. He asked at the restaurant and a waiter pointed immediately to a corner table.

She looked very much like a pre-Raphaelite painting of The Widow: middle-aged but slim and sitting very upright, with a thin ascetic face and flaxen hair drawn tightly back to a bun. She also seemed, like such a painting, very detailed in the modest lacework of her blouse, the metal brooch at her throat, the fine pattern of her pleated skirt. The respectability of Tiessenkai 16 certainly hadn’t worn off yet, and Ranklin approached her with caution.

He was, he said, most apologetic for approaching her so improperly, but he was pressed for time. She had doubtless heard of the unfortunate death of the English Naval officer, a friend of his, and he had been asked by the officer’s father …

He spun it out, giving her time to react and for him to see her reactions; Corinna, he guessed, would be as insistent as the Commander on a complete report. At first the Widow seemed to tense, but then – almost with no visible sign – relaxed and listened carefully. When he had finished, she asked him to sit down, called for another cup and poured him coffee.

“It is so much more convenient to come back after work to a home that is also a coffee-house,” she said. “Naturally, I read of the English officer’s death, but knew nothing of him. Have you spoken to the police?”

“To Hauptmann Lenz and also a Naval officer, Kapitanleutnant Reimers. It was he who mentioned the unfortunate death of your late husband.”

“Really? I thought the government had forgotten all about that. Why was it mentioned?”

“Lieutenant Cross had among his papers a bond issued by your husband’s company.”

“Truly? It would be without value now. I wonder how he got it?”

“I wondered also. Being so out of date, it would not be easy to find.”

“Naturally I have several old unissued ones – as ridiculous souvenirs. But I cannot think why anyone else should keep one.”

Really I’m getting nowhere, Ranklin thought, and even Corinna would have to admit it. Time to stop bothering the Widow.

“More coffee, Herr Spencer?” she suggested.

So he stayed just one cup longer. While he was trying to think of fresh but harmless conversation, she asked: “And what was the English lieutenant doing in Kiel?”

“Oh, I think only for the races.”

“And you are not also in the Navy?”

“No. Just a friend.”

“Not a comrade of his, then.”

Ranklin said carefully: “No, but we had many interests in common – naturally.”

“Naturally.” She permitted herself a small prim smile, then glanced over her shoulder at the windows. “It is a charming view, is it not? It is one of the reasons I moved when I got my unexpected inheritance.”

“Most charming,” Ranklin agreed. “May I express my pleasure at your good fortune? – if it was not outweighed by the loss of a relative.”

“Oh, I felt no loss. Indeed, that I deserved it.” She put down her cup. “Come, let me show you the view from the terrace.”

The last yachts were trailing home, heeled gently to port by a dying west wind and dodged by chugging ferries crammed with home-going workmen. “Charming,” she said again. “And even better from my windows. See, those are my rooms up there.”

A bit surprised, Ranklin turned and looked up. The windows were also fake medieval, divided into several smaller panes of glass by lead strips. Several panes were almost blanked out by coloured decorations on the inside.

“I like to decorate my windows,” she explained. “To make them more interesting against the morning sun. But I cannot decide how to do it, so I change them often.”

There were six windows, he counted, and nine panes in each. In each window there were no more than two decorations, each of a different colour.

“This building has not changed,” she said, “from how it is in the engraving my late husband put on the bond certificate.”

“Most interesting,” Ranklin said very, very calmly. “And what work is it you do for the government?”

“Very dull. Every day at the locks office I must prepare for the invoicing department a complete list of all ships which have passed through the Canal in the past twenty-four hours …”

Coming away from the restaurant, Ranklin wanted to tell everyone of his triumph and simultaneously thought everyone was staring straight into the guilty knowledge in his head. He hesitated at the roadside. He had solved it! – well, Corinna had sent him up to the Widow Wedel, but he’d surely have visited her sooner or later anyway. And he deserved a cab back to town: if he waited, he must catch one setting down dinner guests at the restaurant. But if he wanted to cover his tracks, best to go back on the anonymous ferry, there must be one soon.

As he hesitated, an elderly but very well-kept town car drew up beside him and the chauffeur leant out to say he was heading back to Kiel empty, would the gentleman like a ride – for a consideration? A taxi! An unofficial one, but chauffeurs did it all the time. And the curtained rear windows suggested more luxury than the average motor taxi. He deserved this. He agreed and opened the rear door -

– and a hand yanked him all the way in. A pistol glinted dully in the curtained light, and at the other end of it was Anya’s mournful watchdog of last night. Sherlock Holmes would never have got caught like this, Ranklin thought.