Spy’s Honour

53

They drove back to the hotel in silence, but as they got out, Corinna said: “Hornbeam and Lucy are heading back to Paris tomorrow. Is there any reason for us to stay on?”

Ranklin glanced at O’Gilroy, then shook his head. “I think it’s all over here. Tomorrow Berchtold goes to Bad Ischl to advise the Emperor … If you can get us invited to tea at the Imperial Villa there …”

O’Gilroy went inside, probably to make sure the brandy corks hadn’t jammed in the bottles, while Corinna gave the chauffeur instructions for the morning.

Then she turned to Ranklin, puffed out a long breath and let her shoulders sag theatrically. “Wasn’t it your Duke of Wellington who said it had been ‘a damned close-run thing’? But, apart from the bad guy getting shot in the last scene, I guess I’ll never know just all of what happened back there.”

Ranklin said thoughtfully: “I fancy Hazay had a lot of friends in Budapest. But some questions are better left unasked.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” she said coolly.

“I was talking to myself.”

After a moment, she said: “Ah, it’s that way, is it?” and took his arm as they walked up the steps and into the lobby.

After Corinna had gone upstairs, they sat on with their second glasses. The lobby was deserted except for a politely distant waiter, Hornbeam, Lucy and the Baroness had gone straight to bed, Dr Klapka would be at home by now … Ranklin would probably see them all in the morning, but his mind had already let them go, they were fading, their lines spoken. The play was ended.

“A short run, but a busy one,” he muttered, and O’Gilroy glanced at him. Ranklin roused himself. “Tomorrow I’ll have to start thinking about a report on all this.”

“What ye going to say in it?”

“God knows. If I tell a quarter of the truth, we’ll find ourselves selling matches down the Strand.”

“I doubt that, Captain.” O’Gilroy smiled comfortably. “With what ye know now, they’d never let ye go discontented. Least they’ll do is send ye back to yer big guns – mebbe as a major, too. And that’s what yer wanting, isn’t it?”

Ranklin leant back in his chair, hands thrust into his pockets and frowning down past his stomach. “I don’t know, now … But what sort of man likes being a spy?”

O’Gilroy looked contentedly at the pearl studs in the shirt over his own, flatter, stomach. “Depends where he starts, mebbe. Me, ’twas the bottom of Spy Hill … seems a long ways, now. And seems to me, if yer good at a job – and yer surviving, which must count good in this trade – mebbe ye got a duty to do it, rather’n let some feller not so good wreck the job and himself both.”

“Perhaps,” Ranklin agreed. Then he looked up suspiciously. “Where did you get that thought?”

“Ah, now, Captain, would I ever be remembering jest what …”

“And don’t try your round-the-houses Irishness on me. It was Corinna, wasn’t it?”

“She’s a gracious lady with her favours, I’m thinking, so mebbe she threw a small thought in the way of meself.”

Ranklin reached for his brandy. “Go to bed, you black-hearted chancer. I’ve got a report to worry about.”

“With not too much truth in it?”

“Hardly a word.”