Spy’s Honour

5

Ranklin walked to the door and listened. But O’Gilroy would be well away, probably at the top of the cellar steps and ready to intervene up there. Any noise they made down here could be dealt with later, after the slaughter in the hallway that was all they could cause.

He turned away and made a brief exploration of the cellar, finding nothing but a drain hole in one corner and a small table with a candle-holder used for decanting wines. But behind one of the tall racks, he was out of sight of anybody else for the first time in hours. He pulled up his left trouser leg and ripped loose the surgical tape that held a tiny pistol just below the hollow behind his knee. It was a two-barrelled derringer, an American gambler’s sleeve gun barely three inches long and accurate no further than the width of a card table, issued to him “just in case”. Just in case, he had reckoned, he needed a false sense of security. But now, maybe … Well, maybe.

He slid it into a pocket, hoping O’Gilroy and co. would be content with just one search, and went back wearing as cheerful a smile as he could manage.

“Begging yer pardon, sir,” Bridget whispered, “but would ye be, sort of, knowing the …” She pointed to the door.

“Yes, but for God’s sake don’t mention it. He doesn’t seem to want his … colleagues to know, so let’s leave it that way.” He was pretty sure by now that Bridget wasn’t one of Peter’s or O’Gilroy’s informants, and sharing confidences was a good way to raise morale (though raise it for what, he had no idea).

“He was a soldier in an Irish regiment at the South African War. Before your time,” he added. He might think of himself as still young, but these two had barely been of school age when that war began. “His battalion got chopped up before Nicholson’s Nek, where I had a troop of field artillery, I was a subaltern, then. He was probably lucky that he got wounded and dropped out early: we picked him up in the retreat and …” They might be listening, but he could be describing the battle of Agincourt for all they understood or could imagine. “Anyway, we ended up besieged in Ladysmith with him attached unofficially to my troop, sharing roasted rat and horsemeat soup until General Buller condescended to relieve us four months later.”

They might imagine that – the diet, anyway. Not the heat and flies and bombardment from guns better than their own, nor the daily death list from sickness … No: born in an Irish city, Bridget could probably understand that list.

“It must have been frightful, sir,” Wilks said, as convention demanded.

Less conventionally, Bridget said: “And now he’s the man ordering yez around wid a gun? And yeself an officer? It shouldn’t be allowed.”

“Er – yes. Quite.” Class distinctions weren’t uppermost in Ranklin’s mind just then. He was grateful for the distraction of more footsteps overhead, another slam of the front door and, soon after, the rattle and chug of a car engine. The delivery of gold must be complete and the curtain ready to rise on the last act. How did they plan to get the gold out of the house? Carry it down the back garden and over the wall into someone else’s garden and …? He didn’t know what, but it seemed chancy. And there were two sentries – Army, not Marine – at the front gate, mostly symbolic, but likely to ask questions of any cart or car at that time of night. And even then -

“Wilks,” he said, speaking low and quickly, “they must have some vehicle to carry the sovereigns. Now, if they want to get it out of Queenstown, how would they go?”

He had asked the wrong person; without a local upbringing or any military training, Wilks had no concept of seeing himself at a geographical point. He could think of two roads out of town, no, three or maybe …

Bridget rescued him. “There’s jest the one road off’n the island, sir.”

“Island?”

She couldn’t suppress her grin. “Did ye not know yez on an island, sir?”

So with all his military experience, Ranklin had managed to miss that simple fact. His one glance at a map had suggested Queenstown was on a peninsula, with a lot of shallow creeks around.

“Just one road?”

“Aye, sir, the road to Cork over Belvelly bridge, next the railway.”

So whoever held that bridge could keep the gold on the island – if Peter wanted to get it off, of course.

“Mind, sir,” Bridget added, quietly enjoying herself, “Wid a rowing boat ye’d be jest ten minutes acrost to Monkstown or Glenbrook. Or An Pasaiste or East Ferry on t’other side, and if’n the tide’s over the mud, then anywheres …”

In other words, you were on an island. And, by boat, could get off it in any direction. He was still thinking like a landlocked soldier.

A yell, abruptly cut off, came from upstairs, followed by scuffled footsteps and a thump. The front door slammed again.

“What was that, sir?” Wilks asked, wide-eyed.

“Don’t know, but keep quiet. And calm.” Whatever it was, it had been something nasty. Ranklin fingered the hard cool metal of the derringer in his pocket. It might not profit himself, but he could leave one body as evidence for the police …

Footsteps clattered on the stairs and corridor and the door opened wide. The Secretary, the butler and a private soldier in a blue-grey greatcoat were pushed inside. The soldier had lost his cap, the butler was white-faced and clutching his stomach.

Ranklin got a glimpse of O’Gilroy and Mick in the corridor before the door slammed on them all.

The soldier burst out wildly: “They killed me mate! Just stuck a knife in him, the bastards!” He was young and pale and shaking.

“Steady, lad. I’m Captain Ranklin, Royal Artillery. Now, who did it?”

The soldier calmed down, but seemed struck dumb. The Secretary said: “That damned German or Russian or whatever he is. Just cut his throat from behind, when … and they made me call them in to be murdered! God, I’d like too …”

Bridget let out a sobbing squeal and clutched at Wilks. He put his arm awkwardly round her shoulders.

Ranklin said: “Right, at least now we don’t have to guess at how serious they are. Here – ” he poured the soldier a tot of brandy and looked around for the butler, who was suddenly sick against the wall.

“That’s the Admiral’s brandy,” the Secretary said, confirming Ranklin’s view of senior officers in a crisis. He just said: “Yes.”

The Secretary coughed. “The one with a beard butt-stroked him with the shotgun. The man’s been a soldier to know how to handle a weapon like that.”

With a warning glance at Bridget and Wilks, Ranklin said: “Perhaps, but I don’t advise speculating out loud. You’re witnesses to a murder, now. Not the safest job on the market.”

The Secretary had calmed down. “I want a word, Captain.” He led Ranklin behind a rack of wine to the furthest corner just a few feet from the servants and other ranks, but now Officers’ Territory.

“What do you think they’ll do with us?” he whispered. Just asking a question was a slight transfer of authority.

“First,” Ranklin whispered back, “how will they get the gold away?”

“They’ve got the keys to the stable where the Admiral keeps his car.”

“Ah.” Ranklin hadn’t thought of that possibility. But that car, easily recognised, could be a passport to – where? O’Gilroy had said Peter wasn’t even taking a share of the gold, which had to mean he planned to take the lot. Some to America now, and bury the rest, probably. He could recover it in just a two-week return voyage – or leave it as a nest egg in case he got chased out of America, too. “Where are all your people and Marines and so on?”

“Guarding the Maggie Gray and the ammunition. We all assumed the gold would be safe once it was in this house.”

Feeling that any comment would be unhelpful, Ranklin asked: “What’s the state of the tide?”

“The tide? Just past full, I think. Ah, you think they plan to use a small boat, away from the harbour. Yes, they could do that in the next hour or two.”

Distantly, they heard the sound of a different car engine and the squeal of brakes; Ranklin wondered which of them could drive. “Are you prepared for me to take the lead?”

“I don’t see what you might do that I can’t,” the Secretary said stiffly.

“Nevertheless.”

The Secretary was two ranks senior to Ranklin, but only in the Navy’s Civil Branch. He frowned at Ranklin in the blotches of dusty light coming through the rack of bottles and Ranklin smiled his optimistic smile back.

“You’ve seen action, I trust?” It was an abdication.

“Yes.”

“Very well, then. I suppose you and that young soldier …”

“They’ll be watching for that combination. Just let me make the first move.” It wasn’t that he had any move in mind, just making quite sure the Secretary had none either.

They heard the key in the lock once more and moved back to meet O’Gilroy in the doorway. He pointed the shotgun at Ranklin. “Ye come wid me. There’s heavin’ and carryin’ to be done.”

In the corridor, Ranklin asked quietly: “Why me?”

Just as quietly, O’Gilroy said: “I know ye for a quiet man, Captain. Not excitable. And one that can start plotting if he’s got time to think.”

So O’Gilroy had assumed he would take charge in the cellar and wanted to leave the group leaderless. It was an odd compliment.

He stepped through the traditional green baize door at the head of the stairs – and into a puddle of blood. He shivered and stopped, but there was no avoiding it: cutting a man’s throat leaves a floor like that. The soldier’s shrunken body lay scooped aside against the wall.

“Why did you bring him?” Peter demanded loudly; he stood just beyond the blood pool.

O’Gilroy didn’t dare to explain the real reason. “Ye gave me the choice.” There was a tightstrung tension in the hallway; Mick stood with his back to the front door, unable to keep his hands still on the rifle. And the very fact that none of them was willing to lay aside his weapon to carry the gold suggested an apprehension, perhaps mistrust, that could have started with the murder of the soldier. Ranklin didn’t think the Irishmen had expected that: perhaps a mistrust he could exploit.

But first he had to carry twenty sealed bags of sovereigns from the safe in the Admiral’s office out to a blue Vauxhall tourer that sat rumbling under the lamppost in the carriageway. He stowed them on the floor by the back seat, and when the last had gone in there was a noticeable sag of the rear springs.

Peter said: “So now a few broadsides will not be fired at the poor of the world.” It fell flat; nobody was thinking in such terms now. “Now take him back.”

O’Gilroy said calmly: “Let Mick take him.”

“What does it matter?”

“So let Mick take him.” Did O’Gilroy not want to leave Peter unwatched, with the car now loaded and running?

“My friends, we do not quarrel now.”

“Sure. So let Mick take him.”

Muscles in Peter’s face twitched. O’Gilroy was impassive behind the beard, but his thumb was on the shotgun hammers, his finger on the first trigger.

The telephone rang.

Everybody moved in one spasm, then froze in place. The ringing went on, from the Admiral’s desk deep in the dim office. Peter looked around, his face taut.

“You,” to O’Gilroy, “you will say …”

“Not me: they know there isn’t an Irish manservant in the house.”

“Then you,” to Ranklin now. “You say – you say one wrong word and you die.”

Proof of that lay crumpled against the wall, and Ranklin had no intention of giving up his life to save, perhaps, twenty thousand pounds of Admiralty funds. He picked his way through the shadows and lifted the earpiece. “Admiralty House.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Kirkwood here,” the telephone said. “May I ask who that is?”

An arm reached over Ranklin’s shoulder and a knife glittered faintly. He said calmly: “This is Captain Ranklin. Did you want the Secretary? He’s, erm, in the lavatory at the moment …”

“No, thank you, sir. Just checking. And would you tell Lionel that I’m doubling the guard at the next change? Just as a precaution. Good night, sir.”

The knife pulled away as Ranklin hung up, frowning. “Just checking,” but what could he or any man have said with a knife at his throat or a gun at his back? Then he chuckled.

Peter was instantly suspicious. “Why do you laugh? What did you say to him?”

“He called me ‘Sir’. Must have thought I was a Navy captain.”

O’Gilroy grinned, too, but the military niceties were lost on Peter. He pushed Ranklin towards the hallway – and into the sudden eye-stinging waft of petrol.

“Jayzus!” O’Gilroy lunged forward.

Mick stood grinning in the reeking hall, with the car’s now-empty spare petrol tin lying beside the dark blood pool.

“Now isn’t it a quieter way than shootin’ the lot of them?” he said. “And a diversion besides to keep the English busy whiles we git acrost the channel.”

“Yez never goin’ to burn every soul in the house!” O’Gilroy turned on Peter. “Tell him, ye idjit! Tell him it’ll be settin’ the whole country alight and never a place to hide!”

The shotgun was staring in Peter’s face and he made placating gestures, rather spoiled by the knife in his hand. “But, Conall, you agreed we must …”

“Ah,” Mick said. “Me big cousin’s jist gone soft.” And he struck a match.

The rasp spun O’Gilroy round. Perhaps he fired at the match flame but it was in front of Mick’s chest. Or perhaps he just reacted with the instinct of a man who has been controlling a situation with a gun. The blast took the match and Mick’s chest in one gulp and slung the remains halfway through the baize door.

In the hall, it was like a coastal six-incher firing. It blew Ranklin’s eyes and ears shut, and when he got his eyes open again, fully expecting the hall to be ablaze from the blast, he saw Peter drop the knife and grab for his pocket. Forgetting his own pistol, Ranklin dived for Mick’s abandoned rifle.

There was no sound, not through the ringing in Ranklin’s ears, just a dumb show of one man trying to free a pistol from a tight-fitting pocket, another grabbing up a blood-slippery rifle, thumbing for the safety-catch – then Peter gave up and jumped through the open front doorway.