Spy’s Honour

40

Until he became a spy, O’Gilroy had never worn evening dress. He now accepted it as just another part of his disguise, but the idea of dressing for dinner on a train, even the Orient Express, struck him as going a bit far. It was Ranklin who insisted; the Wagons-Lits staff could hardly make such a rule when so many of their passengers were Orientals who had their own styles of finery, though they could certainly make anybody in travelling tweeds feel out of place.

But after a few minutes, he had to admit, to himself only, that Ranklin had been right. With the orange glow of the gas lamps deepening the colour of his champagne, it was nice to feel he belonged in such company, that it would have been incomplete without him. And even nicer to feel that the bad-tempered Turk with a voice like a parrot belonged less. But what could you expect? Bloody foreigner.

“Hors-d’oeuvre?” Ranklin was suggesting. “Then I’m having the Chateaubriand with Bearnaise – would you prefer the sole and stay with champagne throughout?”

“Ah, why not?” O’Gilroy said, surprising even himself with the ultimate luxury of not having to choose his luxuries. He finished his glass and waited – not long – for somebody to refill it.

Ranklin smiled, a little enviously and only out of the window at the twilit hills beyond the Marne. For him it had been just lifting the knife at his place setting, the remembered weight of solid silver that had brought back the mess nights at Woolwich and other tables of the Regiment where the lamplight had glinted on the trophies of old campaigns and he had once belonged. At least O’Gilroy knew just what had got him here: money. It had taken Ranklin twenty years to learn that. Never rich, yet never wanting for cash, he hadn’t realised that those mess nights, the cheery outings in London and Ascot, the very comradeship itself, had all been founded on money. And when it went, they went. Nobody had been unkind, but they no longer looked him in the eye, didn’t know what to talk about. It was over.

He woke up to find the waiter asking for their order. He gave it, then pulled his hand away from his pocket where, he realised, he had been clutching and fingering the gold coins.

“It doesn’t last,” he said. But of course that was so obvious to O’Gilroy that he misunderstood.

“Are ye thinking there’ll be a train smash?”

“No, no – though they’ve had a few in the past. And I dare say some close calls when the King of Bulgaria insisted on driving.”

“He didn’t that?”

“Why not? It was going through his country …” And he chattered on with legends about the train as they swayed east towards night and the German frontier. “… and did you know – I should have mentioned this earlier, of course – that if you felt lonely, the conductor could have telegraphed ahead from one station to have a young lady waiting at the next to see you through the night?”

He thought he caught a flash of interest in O’Gilroy’s eyes before he decided to be shocked instead. “Ye never could.”

“Look around you. D’you think some of these gentlemen wouldn’t want such a thing from time to time? Trains like this exist to supply wants. It would cost you something for the, er, ride in both senses, and I’m sure the conductor would expect more than the telegraph costs. Be cheaper if you could find a duchess escaping from her mad husband on their honeymoon trip …”

“Captain!”

“I swear it. I heard it from …”

They awoke in the bright picture-postcard scenery of South Germany, breakfasted, and settled down for a smoke in the armchairs in the salon half of the dining car. Ranklin found a newspaper which had come aboard at an earlier stop and translated the news of the Balkans to O’Gilroy. The fighting had now officially stopped; Bulgaria, which had attacked Greece and Serbia, having lost not only to them but to Romania and Turkey who were happy to rob a man when he’s down. Peace talks were going on in the Romanian capital of Bucharest much to the dismay of Austria-Hungary, which would rather be celebrating a Bulgarian victory and lording it over the peace conference.

He tried to explain, without pretending to understand all the nuances, the “Dual Monarchy”: the frigid marriage of Austria and Hungary, with their forcibly adopted brood of Bohemia, Galicia, Croatia, Bosnia and all the others, with no common bond of race, religion or language.

“What seems to hold them together is the Army – and the Emperor. Don’t refer to him as that in Budapest, by the way: he’s Emperor of Austria but King of Hungary … But now with Serbia – they’re Slavs – winning a string of victories, the Slavs inside the Monarchy are getting restless. There’s a Pan-Slav movement, talk of a Greater Serbia reaching to the Adriatic coast. That’s another thing that worries the Monarchy: finding its fleet bottled up in the ports up the coast. The Army’s been mobilised for months, ready to march into Serbia.”

“Sounds like they’d be swallowing a live snake to stop it biting ’em on the outside.”

“And that’s only the beginning. Russia will probably back Serbia: she’s been egging them on. After that, the whole European house of cards could fall in.”

“In a war, would ye go back to the Gunners?”

“It won’t be my decision but I hope so.” His mind drifted on ahead of the train, south to the shattered railway station outside Salonika. “If it lasts more than a couple of months, it’ll be a gunners’ war, not a spies’ one.”

“Mebbe Mrs Finn was right and it’s our war now.”

But a dark puzzled look had come over Ranklin’s boyish face and O’Gilroy guessed he was trying to see too far into the future. For himself, he was content in the present: a comfortable armchair, the unreeling scenery outside and the promise of a Munich beer when they passed through that city.

*

They finished lunch just as the train pulled out of Salzburg and hurried back to reclaim their armchairs and order coffee. As O’Gilroy was turning to sit down, the door just behind him banged open and a stout solid man in a high-buttoned dark suit marched in and seemed about to march straight on through O’Gilroy. Then a uniformed arm reached past the marcher and pitched O’Gilroy aside among the chairs. Ranklin stepped back, recognising the blunt face, straight hairline and wide-winged moustache, bowed his head and murmured: “Your Royal Highness.” The four men, two in Army uniform, tramped past into the dining area.

O’Gilroy bounced up like a boxer who has been foully tripped. “Jayzus and Mary! I’ll have the guts out of – ”

Ranklin reached up to lay a restraining hand on his chest. “I don’t think you’ve met the Archduke Franz Ferdinand before, have you? Well, you’ve met him now. Sit down and have a cognac.”

O’Gilroy let himself be pushed, more gently this time, into a chair, and sat there fizzing like an unexploded shell. Ranklin filled the time until their coffee and cognacs arrived by lighting, then relighting, his pipe; it was an unfamiliar French tobacco and he had packed it too loosely.

When O’Gilroy had gulped half his brandy and sipped most of the rest, he had calmed down enough to say: “So that fat dogrobber’s the Emperor’s son, ye say?”

“No, his nephew, but still the next Emperor. Franz Josef’s son committed suicide nearly fifteen years ago (you can take your pick of stories about that one). Then the Empress got murdered a year later. When you think of it, the old boy’s had a tough row to hoe. And people respect him: the old-fashioned virtues.”

“Like having more manners than a bedbug.”

“So I believe.”

“Be an interesting day when that bastard comes Emperor.”

“Ye-es, I fancy it’ll take more than a drill-corporal’s manner to hold the Monarchy together: the Hungarians loathe him, you’ll find. And he’s supposed to be one of the War Party – anxious to take on Serbia, even Russia – along with the Army chief, Conrad. But if it doesn’t offend you too deeply, I can tell you one sympathetic story about him.”

O’Gilroy looked at him with quiet but total disbelief. “Make it with the Little People and pots of gold and mebbe I’ll listen.”

“He married for love, and not the right woman to be Empress. Just a countess – though she’s a duchess now – Sophie Chotek. They tried everything to dissuade him, but he went right ahead. So he had to sign away her right to be Empress and their children’s rights to become anything. That’s what true love does for you.”

“The tears are running down me leg. And what did he give up for himself? – not becoming Emperor, I observe.”

“That’s true,” Ranklin admitted, not having looked at the story from that angle before. “But he became a bit of an outcast. Viennese society’s very catty about them, and her in particular. He spends most of his time with the Army.”

“God help the Army, then.”

That, Ranklin accepted, was a reasonable request. But Franz Ferdinand was presumably heading for Vienna today – and presumably on Army business. Why right now?

Most of the European passengers ended their journey at Vienna, being politely delayed until the Archduke and his colleagues had gone. There was no ceremony, only two men waiting for a quick exchange of salutes and bows, then all striding away through a crowd of dipping heads.

When the other passengers had gone, Ranklin and O’Gilroy got down to stretch their legs and buy newspapers and illustrated magazines: along with news, Ranklin wanted to put faces to the names of Austro-Hungarian society and hierarchy. They were still pacing in slow circles when the Hornbeam entourage arrived: Corinna, Hornbeam himself, daughter Lucy, various well-fed grandees and enough porters to help discover the source of the Nile.

Corinna greeted them. “Evening, boys. Is this the right train for the mysterious East? Don’t walk in step, you look like you’ve been in the Army.”

She was a meadow breeze in the warm grimy air of the Westbahnhof and they both grinned as they raised their hats. So did the Chef de Brigade as he saluted and bowed simultaneously – a gesture that only the French can do with conviction.

She recognised him, of course. “Good evening, Monsieur Claude. Have we got time for coffee before we dress? Hop aboard, boys; what news on the Rivoli?”

They had already been treated as the elite – as they should have been, on that train – but for the next few hours to Budapest Ranklin foresaw they would be the select elite. Probably there still remained the especially select elite treatment, perhaps reserved for polite archdukes, if one ever got born, but Ranklin wasn’t complaining. He hopped aboard.

Corinna dictated the seating for dinner, so that Ranklin shared a four-place table with Hornbeam and Lucy whilst she partnered O’Gilroy at a two-seater.

“Do you know Budapest well, Mr Ranklin?” Lucy asked. “Somebody told me it looks a lot like Paris.” She had a sharp, intelligent, but not yet sensitive, face and manner. Her dress and hair style were perfect but not quite part of her, as if she were an understudy suddenly called on to play the leading role.

“Budapest’s got a number of wide boulevards,” Ranklin recalled, “and was mostly built in the last century, so …”

“But in Vienna they said it’s just a poor imitation of Vienna.”

“They would. Yes, there’s a lot of rivalry – ”

“Do you know Vienna well? I think it’s a wonderful place. The people are so gallant and gay, and the palaces! – only they don’t let you into them, like in Paris.”

“I told you, sweetheart,” Hornbeam said, quietly amused, “you’ll have to wait until they see the light and become a republic. Then you’ll be able to visit the palaces.”

“Well, I think it’s just mean of them. And the Emperor was out of town and the Archduke. We met a couple of archdukes – did you know there were seventy archhdukes? – but not the wicked Archduke Franzie.”

Hornbeam winced; Ranklin said gravely: “The Archduke had lunch in this very dining-car today on his way to Vienna.”

“Oh, he didn’t! What was he like?”

Ranklin thought of referring her to O’Gilroy, but perhaps she was too young. “Very Archducal,” he said lamely.

“We’d heard,” Hornbeam said, “that he was hunting near Salzburg.”

“That’s where he got on. You didn’t happen to hear why he might be in Vienna just now?”

Hornbeam shook his head, perhaps reluctant to get involved in gossip. But Lucy waded in, lowering her voice and almost licking her lips. “They say he has crazy rages sometimes, that’s why he has to stay in the country, and people won’t go hunting with him because he’s shot one servant already and had to hush it up.”

“Sweetheart,” Hornbeam looked uneasy, “I don’t think we should believe every story we heard in Vienna – do you, Mr Ranklin?” he appealed.

“I think one should take most Viennese stories as plots for operettas rather than as factual reports.”

“Well, that’s what we heard,” Lucy said firmly, “and I believe there’s no smoke without gunfire, so. Are you staying in the same hotel as we are, Mr Ranklin? It’s on a place called Margaret Island. Do you know it? They say it’s very peaceful but right in the middle of the city like living in Central Park …”

Just how Lucy had managed to hear anything in Vienna above the sound of her own voice baffled Ranklin. But for the moment he was happy for her to answer her own questions, since his own knowledge of Budapest came from recent reading on top of a brief tourist visit many years before.

The train moved more slowly and swayed more as they trundled out of Europe’s drawing-room country and into its darker and more exotic back parlours. Onion- and half-onion-domed churches raised their silhouettes against the darkening sky, and Ranklin watched O’Gilroy watching the landscape jog by, attentive but non-committal.

With Lucy for once trying to be silent, since she was eating a peach, Ranklin had a chance to prompt Hornbeam: “I hear your talks went well in Vienna, sir?”

“Why, yes, I’m inclined to believe they did. And maybe did a little good, too. I think it’s time for the countries of Europe to be considering matters of international law right now. Did I understand from Corinna that you were at the Embassy in Paris last week?”

“That’s right, sir. I found it fascinating – though I confess some of it was rather deep for me.”

Hornbeam smiled benignly and stroked his white moustache. It was the same voice coming across the table as had filled the Embassy ballroom, only the volume was precisely controlled – as you might expect of an experienced lawyer. Ranklin saw why actors and lawyers studied each other’s delivery.

“I don’t believe in talking down to any audience,” Hornbeam said. “My real message is that international law touches us all, and increasingly so, since it grew primarily to govern our conduct in the making of war and the making of trade.”

“Very true,” Ranklin said, rather over-sincerely. “But tell me, sir, when you discussed intervention in a neighbouring state, did you have any particular situations in mind?”

“No, my boy, I was talking purely of principles. But I know what you’re getting at. Back home it’s assumed I was referring to Mexico, over here I find it applied to the Monarchy’s relations with, in particular, Serbia.”

“Do you find that embarrassing?”

“Indeed not. One of the experiences I hope for from this trip is to observe international relations in the field, so to speak, to meet those gentlemen applying such law to their everyday dealings. And perhaps be given the opportunity to comment on those dealings. Law should never become the house rules for life in an ivory tower.” He gave a little grunt of satisfaction whenever he felt he had ended on a telling phrase.

Ranklin also grunted, but just as another way of saying “very true”. “And it obviously gave you the opportunity to meet some interesting people?”

“We surely did. I believe I can say I met with almost all their leading jurists – but Lucy, of course, was more taken with high society.” He smiled indulgently at her and she hastily replaced her napkin in her lap before he could see the stain of lip rouge as well as peach juice.

“Oh, yes, we met Prince Montenuovo: he’s the … the Chamberlain at their court, and the boss of the Army, von … von …”

“General Conrad von Hotzendorff, usually just General Conrad.”

“That’s right. And Colonel Urbanski, I recall his name, and Herr Schwarzenburg – ”

When the waiter asked if they wanted coffee at the table or in the salon, Hornbeam pulled out a large gold watch and calculated. “We should be in Budapest in under two hours and there’s sure to be a welcoming committee and hand-shaking – I think I’m going to rest up a while. But you stay on and keep Mr Ranklin company, sweetheart.” He got up clutching a legal brief-case that seemed to go everywhere with him.

Lucy looked quickly around the dining-car. “Have you met any interesting people here, Mr Ranklin?”

Since, even if he’d been found “interesting”, Ranklin would rather talk to Corinna, he said sadly: “I’m afraid all the interesting people got off at Vienna, Miss Hornbeam.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It looks like you’re right. They all look like spies – isn’t this supposed to be the spies’ express? – except you and Mr O’Gilroy, of course. I guess I’ll rest up, too.”

Ranklin had brought an envelope of papers from Sherring’s office, and Corinna picked through them over her coffee to mask their talk as business.

“And how,” she asked, “did you get on with Lucy?”

“I listened well.”

Her voice got tart. “Lucy is a very sweet girl, she just happens to be the type who needs a husband to decide what sort of woman she’s going to become.”

“I’d suggest ‘silent’.”

“A husband who knows his own mind, no matter how little of it there is. Like an Army officer.”

Ranklin retreated behind a cloud of pipe-smoke, muttering: “Well, let her get on with looking, then.”

“What the hell d’you think she’s trying to catch around Europe? – smallpox?”

There was silence until O’Gilroy said: “At the end of Round One, the challenger, Matt Ranklin, was carried back to his corner in a bucket.”

She burst into laughter. “Oh shut up, Conall. Now, what did you make of Hornbeam himself?”

Ranklin reflected. “He doesn’t know much about European politics, but says he’ll be happy to offer them a comment if they’ll listen. I can’t say that improves my peace of mind.”

She nodded. “Yes, if he hadn’t got such a good opinion of himself I think he’d be surprised at being invited over. A guy I got speaking to at our Embassy certainly was surprised: said there were several lawyers in Washington and Harvard who were better informed.”

“Could it be that his naivety was part of his attraction? – to whomever asked him across. Who did, by the way?”

“Their sort of Bar Association.”

“But he was speaking at their Embassy in Paris. He wouldn’t be doing that unless somebody high up in their government approved.”

“Everybody seems to approve, with the people he’s been meeting. And it all seems a bit forced for a man who isn’t top in his field.”

“When ye got a circus come to a small town in Ireland,” O’Gilroy recalled, “they always had the Strongest Man In The World with ’em. And sometimes I’d wonder why he wasn’t in Dublin or London or Paris instead. But most folks jest liked to believe it.”

Corinna smiled a little ruefully. “Yes, society sets out to catch swans, but whatever they catch they’ll call it a swan.”

Ranklin said: “If all they wanted was to quote him on intervention, the damage is already done. He’s said it out loud, in public, on Austrian soil. What more can they want?” Then another thought struck him. “Is anybody making money out of the Strongest Swan In The World?”

“I thought of that. No, he’s getting well enough paid, but his lectures are free, by invitation only. I’d be happier if I could see some financial racket going on – but maybe it’s nothing more sinister than being nice to influential Americans: Hornbeam’s quite a voice in the Republican Party. But with a Democrat just installed in the White House …”

“They said they’d met a Colonel Urbanski. Did you?”

“No, I don’t recall … Who is he?”

“Head of their Secret Service.” Corinna’s eyes widened; Ranklin went on: “On the other hand, such people take evenings off, like to be seen at society shindigs talking to the right people; colonels want promotion, too.”

Corinna sat back, brooding. The parrot-voiced Turk came past, pausing to give her an unmysteriously Eastern look. Her return glance nearly unmanned him.

“Poor Lucy,” she sighed. “I fancy this train’s headed the wrong way for her ambitions-”

“Aren’t they breeding plenty of cavalry officers in these parts?” O’Gilroy asked. “Ye could fix her up with one of them. Or his horse, if she wants more high-toned talk.”

Corinna gave him a look. “I wasn’t being as serious about Lucy’s problem as she is herself. Trouble is, too many of her class at school have got English or French titles by now. And most of the Hungarian aristocracy, as I understand it, is broke and landless. So, back to business: how well d’you know Budapest?”

O’Gilroy shook his head, Ranklin said: “Hardly at all.”

“Me, too. I guess you don’t speak Magyar?”

“Who does?” Magyar was almost unique, related only to Finnish both in its grammar and its utter uselessness outside its own country. Most Hungarians they were likely to meet would speak German, too, but thought of it as the language of tradesmen and Austrians. English and French were acceptably “neutral”.

“You’re going to be great business advisers,” she observed.

“Both the iron business and banking,” Ranklin said solemnly, “are, effectively, what one does not call cartels. Even the Rothschilds, despite having a branch in Vienna, are losing their part in the government loan business to the German-backed banks. On the other hand, if that’s partly anti-Vienna sentiment, there could be room for an American player.”

“It’s light industry they’re short on,” O’Gilroy said, just as solemnly. “D’ye know they can only make clothes for a third of the population? And God knows it doesn’t take much money to start a sweat-shop, nor run one, neither.”

“You boys have been doing your homework,” Corinna admitted, smiling broadly. “But remember your real job is to turn your nasty suspicious minds on whether somebody is really trying to swing something by using Hornbeam.”

Ranklin said nothing. Their real job was being spies for the Bureau, and she couldn’t think they were for private hire. But they had accepted Sherring hospitality – did that limit their scope, the risks they could take with involving the Sherring name? He began to feel awkward.

She sensed that and said reassuringly: “I’m sure you’ll behave like perfect gentlemen. Now I’m going to change out of this finery before we arrive.”

O’Gilroy quickly grabbed her small travelling bag, kneading it briefly in his hands before passing it to her.

She smiled. “Yes, I still carry it on journeys like this. I believe virtue is its own reward, but a Colt’s Navy Model also helps.”