The Two Georges

IV

Bushell sat down at his desk and slammed his fist down hard enough to make pen stand, inkwell, cigar case, and wooden IN tray jump. “God damn it to hell, Sam,” he ground out, “I thought we had the case half broken, right then and there. I’d have given a thousand pounds for that, just to be able to drop it in Sir Horace’s lap - and Sir Martin’s - when they get into town this afternoon.”

“Would have been fine, Chief,” Samuel Stanley agreed. “Too bad that rifle had never been fired, let alone at Tricky Dick.”

“Too bad, the man says.” Bushell looked up to the ceiling, as if someone invisible up there would nod and tell him he was right. “The other question is, how many more Nagant rifles are sitting in flats and hidden away in houses, just waiting to cause us more trouble? Every time things look bad in this case, they get worse, not better.”

“That’s so,” Stanley said. He looked better for a couple of nights’ sleep. “Other thing is, of course, the Sons may just have set a lucifer to The Two Georges the minute they got out of sight of Governor Burnett’s mansion.”

“Yes, that’s possible, but I don’t believe it,” Bushell said. I won’t believe it, he thought. But he had reasons for doubt: “If they’re going to destroy it, they’ll do that publicly: smuggle it into a city square someplace, maybe, and then touch it off. I still think they’re likelier to be holding it for ransom. They could bring in enough gold to keep themselves in business for years. They might even collect goodwill that way, too.”

“I thought the same thing, right after the painting was stolen,” Samuel Stanley answered. “But if they planned to ransom it, wouldn’t we have heard from them by now?”

“That worries me, too,” Bushell admitted. “It’s still early, though. Maybe they’re waiting for Sir Martin to get here, so they can present the demand directly to him. After all, we’re just police; if anyone is the painting’s patron here in the NAU, he’s the man.”

“Mm, there’s a point,” his adjutant said judiciously. “I hadn’t thought it through like that. I was there when The Two Georges disappeared, so I just assumed the ransom note would be heading in my direction. But it ain’t necessarily so.” Just for a sentence, he dropped into the heavy farm-Negro patois of the southeastern provinces, a dialect his family hadn’t used for four or five generations.

“Go chop your cotton,” Bushell said with a snort. “See if you and Rhodes can pull any magical answers out of that fancy chart the two of you made. I’ve got enough of my own work to do, I can tell you that.”

With a laugh, Samuel Stanley got up and went out the door. He let one hand linger for moment in a wave, then headed down the hall toward the stairs. Bushell lit a cigar. He looked longingly at the locked desk drawer. A good knock of Jameson would make him feel like a new man. But then the new man would want his own knock, and then . . . Regretfully he shook his head. He flipped through a telephone directory until he found the number of the Hotel La Cienega, where Kathleen Flannery was staying. He dialed it, then went through the hotel switchboard to reach her room. He wondered if he’d catch her out for breakfast, but she answered the phone on the second ring:

“Hullo?”

“Dr. Flannery? This is Tom Bushell, from the local RAM office.” Not until he’d introduced himself did Bushell notice he’d used the diminutive for his name. He hadn’t planned to do that. Shrugging in his seat, he went on, “How are you this morning?”

“I’m well enough, thank you, Colonel. And you?” When Bushell admitted he was also well, Kathleen continued, “How can I help you today? Have you learned something important about The Two Georges?”

“I’m afraid not. I just have some more questions for you.”

“Oh.” As it had risen, her voice fell. “I don’t have anything much new to tell you, either. I was hoping I would. I’ve been ringing up some people I know in the art business - auctioneers, agents, curators, people like that - in the hope they might have heard something about where The Two Georges might be. But I’ve had no luck, and I was wishing you’d call me to tell me you had.” She laughed sadly. “So much for wishes.”

Bushell took a deep breath, slowly let it out. He said, “Dr. Flannery, do not - I repeat, do not - pursue any independent investigations of your own. You may muddy the waters for me, you may alert the thieves, and you may also put yourself in danger. I really must insist.” And besides, you’re already an object of suspicion. Who knows what you were doing with your telephone calls!

“I am sorry, Colonel,” she said. He could all but see her green eyes going wide with surprise. “I didn’t mean any harm, please believe me.”

I wish I could. I wish I could be sure of you. Instead of saying that, Bushell struck hard: “Dr. Flannery, when I questioned you after The Two Georges was stolen, why didn’t you tell me you subscribed to Common Sense! ”

The silence on the other end of the line lasted long enough for Bushell to pull out his pocket watch and see ten or fifteen seconds go by. At last, Kathleen Flannery said, “How in God’s name did you find that out? Next thing you’ll tell me is what sort of underwear I have on.”

Under other circumstances, Bushell might have been pleasantly distracted thinking about Kathleen Flannery in her underwear - or out of it. As things were, his main thought was that she was trying to distract him so. “Just answer the question.”

“If you must know, Colonel, my father buys a subscription for me every year,” she answered.

“Common Sense suits his politics, not mine. I hardly ever look at it. If you know I subscribe, you can probably find out that the cheques to the magazine are always in his name - Aloysius Flannery - and drawn on his bank.”

She was right; the RAMs could do that. Bushell wondered if it was worthwhile. Probably not, he judged, at least not yet. “You were so open with your failed engagement, I wondered why you didn’t mention the other.”

“It didn’t cross my mind,” Kathleen said “Half the time I toss Common Sense into the rubbish without even opening it.” Which meant that half the time she didn’t, but Bushell held his peace. She asked, “Is there anything else?”

“Does the name Skidegate mean anything to you?” he asked idly.

He’d expected her to say no, or to ask who Skidegate was. But she answered, “That’s the chief town of the Queen Charlotte Islands, I believe. The Queen Charlottes and southern Alaska are, or rather were, home to the Haida Indians. The All-Union Museum in Victoria has an extensive collection of Haida totem poles and other wood carvings. They were masters of the craft.”

“Why do you say ‘were’?” Bushell asked.

“White men’s diseases hit them hard,” Kathleen said, “and that disrupted their way of life. And a lot of the survivors were resettled to the mainland when the naval base was built there, so few of them still follow their old tribal habits. It’s a pity; as I say, they produced some wonderful woodcarvers.” She paused and came up with a question she might have found sooner: “What on earth does Skidegate have to do with The Two Georges?”

“I don’t know yet,” Bushell said. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Aloud, he went on, “Thank you for your time, Dr. Flannery. And please, for the sake of the painting, don’t do any more investigating on your own. The odds are ten to one - a hundred to one - you’ll do more harm than good. Do you understand me?”

“You make yourself very clear, Colonel. Good morning.” Kathleen Flannery hung up. Bushell stared at the telephone, then uttered a pungent phrase that would have been more appropriate in the barracks than in the office of the chief of the New Liverpool RAMs; a chief, after all was supposed to maintain a certain dignity. The barracks comparison was apt in another way, too: Kathleen sounded like a soldier intent on evading an order that didn’t suit him. Short of having the telephone torn out of her room, Bushell didn’t know what he was supposed to do about that.

He growled the phrase again, louder this time. Just as he was about to pick up the telephone to call Captain Jaime Macias, it rang. He stared balefully at it before he picked it up. “Bushell.”

One of the switchboard operators said, “Colonel, I have on the line a man who claims to have The Two Georges. He’ll only talk to you, he says.”

“Put him on.” Excitement tingled through Bushell. What now? A ransom demand? A threat? A couple of clicks and the operator was off the line. “Hullo?” Bushell said, and gave his name and rank.

“Yeah, uh, Colonel Bushell?” The man talking to him, even though he’d just heard the name pronounced, put the accent on the wrong syllable. “You listen here, Colonel, you ever want The Two Georges back, you got to pay me fifty thousand pounds. You hear me, Colonel? Fifty thousand quid or that there painting’s catmeat.”

You contemptible fraud, Bushell thought. A vulture and a piker at the same time. “How do I know you have it?” he said. “What did you leave behind in the governor’s mansion?”

“What did I leave behind?” the man on the telephone echoed. “Why, uh, that is - ”

“Sir,” Bushell said coldly, “you should be aware that all telephone conversations in this building are routinely traced. You should also be aware that seeking money under false pretenses is a felony. And, sir, you should also be aware that a pair of RAMs will be at your home within the hour to place you under arrest.”

The only answer he got was a loud click! as the man hung up on him. Bushell laughed. He hoped he’d given the bloody fraud an anxious half hour or so. He could see the fellow tiptoeing over to the front window every so often, peeling back the drapes perhaps a finger’s width, and peering out to make sure no RAM steamer had just pulled up in front of his house. If a constabulary car happened to cruise down his street in the next hour, the man might stay panicked for days.

But more calls like this one would come. Some of the liars would have brains as well as gall. Finding out what the Sons of Liberty did to mark their crimes wasn’t impossible. If you knew where to look, it wasn’t even difficult. As if life weren’t hard enough already, it would get harder. If Bushell called out, he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else calling in for a while. He dialed the number of the New Liverpool constabulary, and was quickly connected to Captain Macias. “Tell me, Colonel,” Macias said, “is my beard black or gray?”

“You don’t wear a beard,” Bushell answered. A split second later, a flashbulb exploded in his head.

“You’ve had cranks ringing you up, too!”

“Haven’t I just,” Macias said ruefully. “You’re the third person this morning who’s claimed to be you and the first one I think may be telling me the truth. What can I do for you, Colonel?”

“You need to know there may be more Nagant rifles floating around in New Liverpool, and not among people you’d want having them.” Bushell explained how his men had found the firearm in Joseph Watkins’s room. “It hadn’t been there long, or he’d have used it: he’s that type. But how many others may have come down from Skidegate, or who has them - I just don’t know yet.”

“We’re liable to find out, you’re telling me. Aii! ” Hit where he lived, Macias sounded for a moment like a man of Nuevespañolan blood, just as Sir Horace Bragg showed he was indeed a Carolinian. “All right, Colonel, we shall do what we can to deal with this.” After the one exclamation, he sounded like a constabulary man again.

“You have anything for me?” Bushell asked.

“Autopsy report: Tricky Dick was shot,” Macias answered laconically. “No, in fact, there’s a bit more. The pathologist found a big enough piece of the bullet that blew out his brains to match it to the other one we recovered. They both came from the same weapon: only one gunman up on the knoll.”

“That is worth knowing,” Bushell said. “It doesn’t surprise me. The fewer people in on a plot, the likelier it is to stay tight. But thinking something is so and having evidence it’s so are different.”

“So is having evidence and having suspects,” Macias said, his voice mournful.

“I know.” Bushell sighed. “And having, say, two dozen rifles loose in New Liverpool doesn’t strike me as any too appetizing, either. Fanatics with guns could kill dozens of people over the next few years. And this used to be such a peaceful city.” He sighed again. Nothing seemed good any more. Captain Macias echoed his gloom: “Some of the people they kill will be my constables, too. We can’t stand up against that kind of firepower.”

“Neither can we,” Bushell said. “I had to pull wires to arrange for the guards in the room with The Two Georges at the governor’s mansion to carry pistols.” He laughed bitterly. “And a whole bloody lot of good that did me. But if we went to court to let all our men wear guns all the time, people would scream for our heads, and I can’t say I’d blame them much.”

“I wouldn’t, either,” Macias said. “But that holds only if nobody does any shooting. If the villains are aiming at my men how can I send them out there unless they’re able to shoot back?”

“You can’t,” Bushell said without hesitation. “But if it comes to that, the British Empire won’t be the same place. Thanks for your information, Captain. I’ll ring you up again directly I learn anything.”

“Call me Jaime,” Macias answered. “We’re going to get to know each other very well. I said as much outside the governor’s mansion the other night.”

“All right, Jaime, then I’m Tom. You did say that. I remember. What I don’t remember, worse luck, is being able to disagree with you.”

The New Liverpool All-Union Train Station lay not far east of RAM headquarters. Getting to it was easy. All the same, Bushell went there with the same enthusiasm he would have given a trip to the dentist. Like so much of New Liverpool, the train station sprawled over a wide area to minimize earthquake damage. Its low buildings were of white stucco with red tile roofs; the old Franco-Spanish flavor of what had been Los Angeles lived on more in architecture, perhaps, than in any other aspect of modern New Liverpool. The style suited the climate better than models imported from England or even from the older provinces of eastern North America.

Reporters and photographers had already jammed the waiting area by the time Bushell got there. Since the train full of dignitaries wouldn’t arrive for another half hour, they turned on Bushell instead. He understood how Canute had felt with the tide flowing up over his shoes. He didn’t think telling the reporters he believed Tricky Dick had been shot by a lone gunman would damage the investigation, so he did that. It was, however, the only piece of new information he had. The reporters complained he wasn’t telling them enough.

“The more time I spend answering questions, the less time I have to ask them,” he said pointedly. “The fewer questions I get to ask, the less I’ll find out, and the less I find out, the less I’ll have to tell you.”

Some of them got what he was driving at; one or two even gave him sympathetic grins. Most of those were veterans of the crime beat. But the theft of The Two Georges was such an important story, more than mere crime reporters were covering it. A lot of the people shouting questions in his face didn’t know grand theft from grand opera, or felonies from feldspar. They didn’t understand that policemen couldn’t deliver answers on silver trays like cartes de visite. “I don’t know” seemed to infuriate them, but Bushell had no better reply to give.

Finally, to his relief, ceiling-mounted speakers blared, “The governor-general’s special train is approaching the station on Track Two.”

Like sheep, the reporters flocked toward Platform Two, carrying the RAM along in their midst. “I see it!” somebody called excitedly. “There’s the plume of exhaust, sure enough,” somebody else added. Bushell couldn’t see anything except the shoulders of the people around him. A little judicious work with his elbows, though, and a few feet trod upon not quite by accident, got him near the edge of the platform, near enough to look down the track when he peered east.

Sure enough, the special train was getting close. Gray-black smoke rose from the stack. The steam whistle roared, warning anything and everything out of its path. The whistle blew again, even louder, as the train approached the platform. The brakes gripped, sparks flew from the wheels and from the track. A third blast from the whistle sent reporters stumbling away from the edge of the platform, hands to their ears. Bushell held his ground. The train stopped.

When an ordinary train came up to the platform, porters and doormen ran over to assist departing passengers and those who were boarding. Not here, not now. The last car in the short train had on its fantail a gleaming maple podium. Governor-General King had used that podium to deliver several speeches on his way across the continent. Unless Bushell had lost his instinct for such things, Sir Martin was about to use it to deliver one more.

Sure enough, he stepped out to the podium, a sheet of paper in hand. In his scarlet robe of office, he still looked like the preacher he had been a generation before. He still had the cadences of a preacher, too: hardly looking at the text of his speech, he began, “My friends, we are not met here today gladly, but in sorrow. Something precious has been taken from our lives. If we work together, and if God is kind and smiles on us, we can recover it once more.”

Sir Martin’s deep, rich voice was made for pulpit or podium. The reporters listened raptly. Some of them were too caught up even to take notes. Bushell would not have been surprised to hear shouts of “Amen!” ring out from the crowd, as if it were indeed a church congregation. The governor-general’s first few sentences convinced him, though, that the speech would hold little of substance. He didn’t blame Sir Martin for that: with The Two Georges missing and clues few and far between, what was the man supposed to say? But to Bushell, the speech was not the fodder from which news was made, as it was for the press corps. It was just a waste of time, and with The Two Georges stolen, he did not have time to waste.

He spotted red uniforms in a coach several cars up from the one where Sir Martin was addressing the crowd of reporters. He made his way toward it; by the time he got to it, he’d broken out of the crush. He hopped up on to the platform over the coupling and rapped on the door there. A stern-looking face appeared in the window. Bushell held up his badge. The RAM inside the car nodded and opened the door.

The air on the platform had been thick with smoke from pipes, cigars, and cigarillos. The air inside the car was positively blue. Bushell took out a cigar, scraped a lucifer on the sole of his shoe, and added to the clouds.

“Tom!” Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg pushed his way down the aisle toward Bushell; the RAMs who had accompanied him across the continent got out of his way. “Good to see you, by God!” He stuck out his hand.

Bushell shook it. “Good to see you, too, sir,” he said. “Good to see any friendly face - I’ve not seen many the past few days, and that’s the truth. You’re looking very well, if I may say so.”

“I’m getting fat,” Bragg said. “It’s only the cut of the uniform tunic that hides it.”

“Sir - rubbish,” Bushell said. Both men laughed. Bragg had been complaining about his weight for as long as Bushell had known him - more than half a lifetime, in other words. Few men ever complained more with less reason. Bragg was lean to the point of gauntness, with hollows under his cheekbones that the graying beard he wore could not disguise. His face was long and pale, with dark eyes peering out at the world from under heavy eyebrows.

He quickly sobered, and set a hand on Bushell’s shoulder. “This is a hell of a mess, Tom,” he said. “The whole dominion’s in an uproar. If we don’t find that painting - ” He shook his head. Lowering his voice, he went on. “There are even more complications than you know.”

“Tell me, then,” Bushell said.

But Sir Horace Bragg shook his head. “Not my place to do that, I’m afraid. Sir Martin will have to take care of it, either him or” - he grimaced apologetically - ”Sir David Clarke.”

“It’s all right,” Bushell said easily. “I expected he’d be coming west with Sir Martin.” But, despite his casual tone, it was not all right. His pulse beat so heavily, he could feel it pounding in the veins of his forehead. Still keeping his voice light, he asked, “Does this ever-so-official railway car boast an ever-so-official railway bar?”

Sir Horace sent him a worried look; he knew the bottle could get hold of Tom Bushell rather than the other way round. Bushell looked back, smiling, open, innocent, bland - with the slightest devilment in his eyes to make sure no one took the rest too seriously. Bragg recognized that look not just from their time in the RAMs but from their army days. He threw his hands in the air, turned to one of the officers who’d sat down to let him pass. “Felix, fix Tom here an Irish over ice, if you’d be so kind.”

“Happy to, Sir Horace, Colonel Bushell.” The officer - like Bragg, he was in dress uniform, with the crown and pip of a lieutenant-colonel on his shoulder boards - went down to the other end of the car, scooped ice from a silver bucket into a highball glass, and poured from a crystal decanter. He brought the glass back to Bushell, presented it with a flourish.

“Thanks very much, Lieutenant-Colonel, ah - ” Bushell glanced to Sir Horace Bragg.

“I beg your pardon,” Bragg said. “I forgot Felix was up in Boston while you were back at the capital; he got in the day after you left. Tom, let me present to you Lieutenant-Colonel Felix Crooke. Felix, my old friend Colonel Thomas Bushell.”

The two men shook hands. Crooke was stocky, pale, clean-shaven, with hair black as a Spaniard’s and eyes so blue they put Bushell in mind of a Siamese cat. He had a powerful grip. “Pleased to meet you at last, Colonel,” he said. “Lieutenant General Sir Horace often speaks of you.”

“I deny everything,” Bushell declared, sipping his drink. Crooke laughed. Sir Horace Bragg said, “Felix is one of our leading students of the Sons of Liberty in Victoria these days. He took over when Thaddeus Bishop retired a couple of years ago.”

“Ah, Thad,” Bushell said. “I remember him from my days at the capital.” He drank again; not all his memories of Victoria were as pleasant as those of Thaddeus Bishop. “I’m sure he enjoys going after trout more than he ever did, going after the Sons.” He nodded to Crooke. “Boston, eh? Find anything you could pin on Common Sense and make it stick?”

“Damn all,” Felix Crooke said glumly. “Their solicitors have kept them just this side of the line for years, and there’s no proof they give money to the Sons. Lord, how I wish there were. That would really hurt the Sons of Liberty, more than arresting some of the bastards every now and again ever could.”

“You know, they may have shot themselves in the foot, stealing The Two Georges,” Bushell said. “The whole NAU loves that painting.”

Sir Horace Bragg chuckled. “Anyone would think you’d been writing Sir Martin’s speeches for him, Tom. That’s one of the things he’s been doing all the way across the Union: saying that whatever people who do things like that want, it can’t be any good, because only people who do things like that could want it.” The commandant of the Royal American Mounted Police nodded in grudging admiration. “He’s clever, you have to give him that.”

“Who, Sir Martin? I should say so,” Bushell answered. “And when you add in a voice he plays like a church organ - ” He shrugged. “It didn’t surprise me when the King-Emperor named him governor-general.” He knocked back the rest of his drink. He wanted another one, but the look Sir Horace had given him made him hold his peace.

“The King-Emperor, yes,” Bragg said slowly. Then he brightened, as much as any man with a countenance two parts basset hound could brighten. “Here, Tom, let me introduce you to some of the other men I’ve brought to Upper California. You won’t have met all of them when you were in Victoria.”

Bushell wished he could whip out a notebook and jot down names and ranks, as if the RAMS were suspects; that would have helped him keep them straight. Except for Felix Crooke, Bragg had left most of his top people behind in the capital, and had with him captains and majors who probably had more recent active-duty experience than their superiors.

Major Michael Foster would be in charge of forensics investigation. He looked too young to be in charge of anything: he looked too young to be anything more than a university undergraduate. But he had two service hashmarks on the left sleeve of his dress tunic, so he’d been a RAM at least ten years. Bushell said, “You’ll need to talk with Sergeant Singh of the New Liverpool constabulary. He did the first workup of the crime scene.”

“I’ll talk with him,” Foster said, “but I’ll go over the site myself, too.” That could have meant he was eager to inspect it personally. From his tone, though, he sounded more condescending, as if wondering whether someone named Singh could possibly have done an adequate job. Looking around the car, Bushell saw that everyone in it was white. He’d lived in New Liverpool long enough to find that noteworthy, as he had at Independence Party headquarters. Victoria didn’t have the large concentrations of Nuevespaftolans and East Indians that New Liverpool did, but it had a great many Negroes: with so many of them in clerical and bureaucratic positions, only natural for the capital to draw them like a lodestone.

But just because they lived in and around Victoria, Bushell reminded himself, didn’t mean they had to join the RAMs in any significant numbers. Though a lot of police work was bureaucratic in nature, the RAMs were not the sort of bureaucracy to which people of cautious, conservative bent often aspired. Sir Horace Bragg said, “And here is Captain Patricia Oliver, whose area of expertise is handwriting and typewriter analysis.”

“Captain.” Since this was business, Bushell stuck out his hand as he would have for a man. Smiling in approval, Patricia Oliver pumped it briskly. She was somewhere not far from forty, her light brown hair touched with gray, her skin pale under powder and rouge: like a lot of RAMs with specializations such as hers, she didn’t spend much time in the sun.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Colonel Bushell,” she said. “I’ll want to see that note you recovered from the phonogram, match it to others we have from the Sons. I’ve brought along several dozen samples for comparisons. With luck, I’ll be able to identify the typewriter.” Her voice showed the same no-nonsense attitude as her handshake.

“I’ll take care of that for you.” Bushell promised, pleased with her. Few women reached captain’s rank in the RAMs. She filled out her uniform tunic in a different and pleasant way. Beneath it, instead of trousers, she wore an ankle-length skirt of black wool.

He glanced at her left hand. The fourth finger bore a slim gold band with a sparkling diamond. I might have known, he thought. The good ones are mostly taken. Kathleen Flannery wasn’t, but she would have been had Kyril Lozovsky proved himself something other than a bounder. Or was she not taken because she wasn’t a good one? He’d have to think about that.

“Captain Oliver’s husband is one of the prosecuting attorneys for the province of Virginia,” Sir Horace said.

“Is he?” Bushell murmured. He wondered if Captain Oliver had met her husband while they were both involved with the same case. Or had she got her interest in police work from him? It wasn’t any of Bushell’s business. Politely, he said, “A prominent man.”

“A busy man,” she answered, looking him straight in the eye. “And because I’m also busy, I don’t see him nearly as much as I’d like.” After a second or two, he recognized the way she was studying him with much the same hopeful speculation he’d used when he met Kathleen Flannery. Under other circumstances, that would have been flattering, perhaps delightfully so. As things were, he found it disturbing.

Outside on the platform, the reporters started streaming away from the car where Sir Martin Luther King had spoken. Sir Horace Bragg took Bushell by the arm. “Now that His Excellency has finished out there, Tom, we throw you to the wolves.”

He laughed to show that was meant as a joke, but it held too much truth for Bushell to do anything more than skin his lips back from his teeth in the pretense of a smile. If any audience would be tougher than the press, it was Sir Martin’s staff. Bushell had embarrassed their patron. To any politico’s aides, that was more dastardly than murder.

None of the RAMs save Sir Horace accompanied Bushell into the next coach back. He had the idea they wanted as little to do with the governor-general’s staff as they could manage. From everything he’d seen of the men who worked for politicos, he was willing to believe the feeling mutual. The RAMs’ red tunics had provided a splash of color against the earth tones of leather and polished mahogany in their car. The governor-general’s men dressed like bankers and brokers, in muted grays and blues or funereal black. Bushell wondered if they did so in the hope of convincing people that they, like prominent capitalists, served a useful purpose.

His voice cool and formal, Sir Horace Bragg said, “Gentlemen, allow me to present to you my friend Colonel Thomas Bushell, commandant of the Royal American Mounties based in New Liverpool.” That my friend took courage. Not many commanders would have publicly identified themselves with a subordinate on whose watch disaster had struck.

The governor-general’s men realized as much. They came up one by one to introduce themselves to Bushell: Roy Saunders, deputy minister of the exchequer, thin and sandy and acerbic; Hiram Defoe, postage minister and Sir Martin’s chief political fixer, who, if he didn’t know everything and everyone, made a good game try of not letting on; Sir Devereaux Jones, NAU Tory Party chairman, his ebony face clever and closed; and a couple of others whose names Bushell missed. In back of them, not pushing his way forward, stood Sir David Clarke. Before long, though, the moment could be avoided no more. The governor-general’s chief of staff came up to Bushell. “Colonel,” he said quietly, and held out his hand.

Bushell’s eyes flicked to the well-groomed appendage, then up to Clarke’s handsome, craggy face. The two men were about the same age, but somehow Clarke had managed to hide ten or fifteen years where they did not show. His smile was broad and perfect, his teeth even and gleaming, the whites of his blue, blue eyes untracked by red. He looked too good to be true.

“Sir David,” Bushell said. A quarter of a heartbeat late, he shook Clarke’s hand. A couple of Sir Martin’s aides whispered behind their hands to the rest. Bushell could not hear what they were saying, but he knew. He wanted to hit Sir David in those sparkling teeth, to wipe that condescendingly uncondescending smile off his face. He’d done it once. He couldn’t now. He rubbed at his mustache. Sometimes the price of duty was almost more than a man could bear to pay.

He asked the question Clarke was waiting for: “I hope Irene is well?”

“Quite well, yes, thank you,” Sir David answered, the picture of civilized restraint. Bushell hated him more than ever. Clarke twisted the knife a little: “When she learned I was coming to New Liverpool, she asked me to say hello for her.”

“Tell her hello from me,” Bushell said tonelessly. The inside of the railway car had gone very quiet; he could hear his words echoing from the walls and ceiling.

In the quiet, footsteps echoed on the platform at the rear of the car. “Here is Sir Martin now,” Sir Horace Bragg said as the governor-general came in. The two men got along imperfectly well; Bushell had never imagined his old friend sounding so glad and relieved to report the arrival of Sir Martin Luther King.

The governor-general of the North American Union had doffed his robe of office before coming up into the car in which his aides worked. Now he wore a suit and waistcoat of darkest navy, so dark the eye mistook it for black at first glance. With that as background, his skin seemed almost pale; he was a couple of shades lighter than Sir Devereaux Jones.

As Sir David Clarke had, he held out his hand to Bushell and said, “Colonel.” His orator’s voice filled the car. Bushell found it daunting to have that voice, trained to sway thousands in a crowd or millions over the wireless, turned on him alone.

He shook the governor-general’s hand and said, “Your Excellency, honored as I am to meet you, I wish it were under happier circumstances.”

“So do I, Colonel Bushell,” Sir Martin answered. Beneath the trained phrasing, he sounded worn. He was in his sixties, his hair and mustache graying, tired pouches under his narrow, slanting, almost Oriental eyes. Cross-country railway travel, even at its most luxurious, would tell on a man no longer young. “So do I, for more reasons than you yet know.”

“Sir Horace alluded to those reasons, sir,” Bushell said, glancing toward his commandant. “He said he was not the proper person to elaborate on them: that was your province, no one else’s.”

“He was correct.” Sir Martin Luther King also let his eyes slide toward Sir Horace, just for a moment, as if granting even so much praise pained him. After a brief hesitation, the governor-general went on, “We have a need more pressing than you can imagine to recover The Two Georges quickly. Were you not involved in this case, you would not hear of it for some time to come.”

“Your Excellency, I assure you that Tom Bushell is reliable in every way,” Sir Horace Bragg declared. Sir Martin did not answer. He did not need to answer. Had Bushell been reliable in every way, The Two Georges would not have been stolen, and he himself would have been comfortably back in Victoria.

“Your Excellency, if you don’t think I should have whatever this information may be, don’t tell me,” Bushell said. “I understand secrets and the need for them.”

“Well said,” Hiram Defoe murmured. Several of the governor-general’s aides nodded. Sir David Clarke stood unmoving. He understood secrets, too, and what they could do when they were secret no more.

“Colonel, I tell you frankly that I would withhold this information if I could,” Sir Martin said. “I am far from convinced you should know it. But I am convinced you must know it, to appreciate the urgency of our predicament. The Two Georges was scheduled to return to Victoria on 15 August - two months from now, less three days. That much you already know.”

Bushell nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Very well. What you do not know is that His Majesty Charles III is scheduled to arrive in Victoria on the following day aboard the imperial yacht Britannia, to view the painting in its colonial setting and deliver an address touching on the importance of the ties between the N AU and the mother country. Surely I need not emphasize for you the unfortunate symbolism which would be conveyed were The Two Georges to be missing upon his arrival.”

“No, Your Excellency, you don’t,” Bushell said. He had as little to do with politics as he could, but he didn’t have to be a fixer of Hiram Defoe’s caliber to figure out what would happen if the King-Emperor gave his speech in front of a blank wall rather than before the painting. A generation might pass before London again trusted the NAU to handle anything important on its own.

“I hate it when political considerations interfere with the investigation of a crime,” Sir Horace Bragg said, “but sometimes they do, and that’s a fact we can’t ignore.”

“Yes, sir,” Bushell said; Bragg might have been reciting any competent policeman’s creed. Of Sir Martin Luther King, Bushell asked, “Your Excellency, would the Sons of Liberty have had any idea the King-Emperor is sailing to the NAU? Is that part of the reason why they stole The Two Georges!”

“That’s an ugly thought, Tom,” Sir Horace Bragg said before the governor-general could answer.

“It is indeed an ugly thought,” Sir Martin echoed. His glance slid to Bragg once more, either in annoyance at being anticipated or, perhaps more likely, in surprise at agreeing so much with the RAM commandant. After a moment, he went on, “To the best of my knowledge, Colonel, you are the first person outside London and Victoria to be entrusted with that secret. We shall presently make the great to-do appropriate for a visit from His Majesty, but for the time being all arrangements are tightly held, the better to keep the King-Emperor safe and secure.”

“If the Sons of Liberty did get word of Charles’s impending visit, they got it from someone on this train,” Sir Horace Bragg said. “I can’t believe any of us here would violate a sacred trust in such a way. The timing of the theft has to be coincidental.”

“Once more, I find myself agreeing with Lieutenant General Bragg,” Sir Martin said. He spoke the words through slightly pursed lips, as if they tasted sour. “That the Sons of Liberty could have penetrated our inmost councils - inconceivable, sir, inconceivable.”

“Fewer things are truly inconceivable than we’d like to believe, Your Excellency,” Bushell said, “and some people know more about betrayal than they should.” He was speaking to the governor-general, but looked straight at Sir David Clarke.

That evening, over beefsteak in the dining room of the Grosvenor Hotel - the closest to RAM headquarters - Sir Horace Bragg said, “You did yourself no good there, Tom, pitching dirt at Sir Martin’s fair-haired boy.”

“I didn’t give a damn,” Bushell said savagely. He tossed down his Jameson and waved for a waiter to fetch him another. “That toffee-nosed bastard, standing there all smooth and smug and sweatless, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. If I had my druthers, I’d have put him in hospital for a week or two.” He sliced away at his beefsteak. He’d ordered it blood rare, and wished the red juice spurting from it poured from the veins of Sir David Clarke.

“It’s done, Tom,” Bragg said. “No point dwelling on it, brooding over it, now.”

“I know,” Bushell answered. “Intellectually, I know. But it’s been years now, and I can’t let go of it, not for good.” He cut off another bite of rare, rare meat, raised it to his mouth. The waiter, black satin cummerbund glistening in the lamplight, set a fresh Irish whiskey before him. He swallowed the beefsteak and took a long pull at the drink.

“When I learned Smithers was going to retire, I sent you out here to take his place so you would get a fresh start on life,” Bragg said. He sent Bushell a reproving stare with his houndlike eyes. “That was a long time ago. You’ve done very well here, by all accounts and by your record. I really thought you’d managed to forget. But then today - ” He shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” Bushell said. “I didn’t intend to embarrass you, sir. And I do forget, sometimes for weeks at a stretch. But it keeps coming back, like memories from a bad stretch of combat. And when I saw Sir David’s face - ”

He slammed a fist down on the snowy linen of the tablecloth. China and silverware jumped. Jameson shook in his glass, an Upper California Burgundy in Bragg’s. The sudden sharp noise made people’s heads turn all over the dining room. The newly arrived RAMs resolutely pretended Bushell had done nothing out of the ordinary, which made him feel worse than the civilians’ stares. Only Patricia Oliver met his eyes. He thought she looked sympathetic, but had reason to distrust his own judgment. As the hum of conversation slowly revived, Bushell mumbled, “I do apologize. Another unseemly display to put in my file.”

“Oh, nonsense.” Sir Horace Bragg waved that away. “You’re a human being, Tom, and human beings have a way of doing unseemly things every so often.” He hesitated, then added, “You might get along better if you remembered you’re human a little more often. Then you wouldn’t be so taken by surprise when it happens.”

“Duty comes first,” Bushell answered, as automatically as he would have given his name had someone asked him that. Bragg glanced up to the ceiling and said no more.

After fruit and cheese, cigars and brandy, after he paid the bill, Sir Horace yawned and got to his feet.

“I’m for bed,” he declared. “Everyone tells me the rumble of a train rolling down the tracks is restful, but I’ve never found it so. Peace and quiet suit me better. I must be getting old.” He squeezed Bushell’s shoulder. “See you in the morning, Tom.”

“Yes, sir,” Bushell said. He knew that meant he should get into his steamer, drive back to his flat, and get some rest himself. Instead, he walked into the bar next to the dining room, caught the bartender’s eye, and said, “Jameson over ice, if you’d be so kind.”

He drank two Irish whiskeys in rapid succession, then paused, thoughtful and numb at the same time. If he went on from here, he wouldn’t stop until he fell asleep with his head on the polished wood of the bar. He’d done that more times than he cared to remember. But if he stopped at this point, all the memories would well up, and the Jameson had dissolved the shields he usually held against them. Could he bear that? If he could, why did he have the shields?

He looked around. The bar was nearly empty. If he did make a sodden mess of himself, he didn’t think any of his colleagues would find out about it. Like Sir Horace Bragg, they’d doubtless headed upstairs for a good night’s sleep. Most RAMs were fine, upstanding citizens. The drunken reprobates like me are few and far between, he thought.

He lifted the forefinger of his right hand. The bartender didn’t see it. Bushell opened his mouth to call the fellow. Just then, one of the newly arrived RAMs paused at the entrance to the bar. Bushell’s call turned into a cough. He let his forefinger fall.

His colleague saw him and came striding up. “May I join you?” Patricia Oliver asked. She’d changed from uniform tunic and skirt to a skirt checked in light and dark green and a light green jacket with bow, cuffs, felt, and pocket edges checked to match the skirt. The sports outfit made her look less severe and several years younger.

Bushell let his hand rest for a moment on the round leather seat of the bar stool next to him. “Please do,” he said. “What can I get for you?”

“Scotch and soda,” she answered as she sat down. Bushell gave the bartender the order. He did not ask for anything for himself. Patricia Oliver sent him a curious look. “You’re not drinking, Colonel?”

“I’ve been drinking,” he said. “Perhaps in a while, I’ll drink some more. Right now” - he shrugged - ”I’m not drinking.” The bartender returned with the Scotch and soda. Bushell set a pound note on the bar, with half a crown for a tip. One more argument against getting drunk here was that it cost even more than it would have aboard the Upper California Limited. He took out his cigar case. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all.” Patricia reached into her handbag and produced a monogrammed gold cigarette case. She drew one of the slender white tubes from it, tapped the end of the cigarette against the bar. “Do you mind if I join you?”

By way of reply, Bushell scraped a lucifer afire. He held it out for her. She lighted her cigarette; her cheeks hollowed as she sucked in smoke. Bushell thought cigarettes harsh and acrid, but Patricia Oliver had not asked his opinion. He got his cigar going. Its savory aroma helped mask that of the cigarette. Patricia reached out and knocked ash into the crystal tray in front of Bushell. Her lipstick had drawn a band of red around the cigarette. She raised her glass. “Down with the Sons of Liberty!” she said, and sipped.

Bushell shifted his cigar to his left hand. He lifted an imaginary glass high with his right, brought it to his mouth, and tipped his head back. “Consider that drunk to.”

Her laugh exposed small, white, even teeth. “Are you serious enough to make a proper RAM? We’re a sobersided lot, most of us.”

He considered that - seriously. “I’m serious on duty,” he said. “Off duty, I’m no more serious than I have to be.” Even with whiskey in him, sobersided was an adjective that fit well, maybe too well, but he didn’t have to acknowledge it.

“That’s fair,” Patricia Oliver said with a nod. “Too many people take the office wherever they go, though.” She sipped her drink, staring pensively at the glowing coal of her cigarette and the thin, twisting ribbon of smoke that rose from it. After a moment’s silence, she asked, “Do you think we have any chance at all of recovering The Two Georges intact?” No sooner had the words passed her lips than she burst out with a long peal of laughter. “There I was, mocking people who bring their work with them no matter where they are, and now I’ve done it myself.”

“It’s all right,” Bushell said. “It’s what we have in common, after all.” He thought about the question, slowly answered, “The only way we’ll see it, I think, is if the Sons of Liberty think that’s to their advantage. Otherwise - ” He looked down at the bar and wished the imaginary shot of Irish whiskey he’d downed had been real. “Otherwise, I’ll have found a way of going down in history that isn’t the one I had in mind.”

Patricia Oliver’s red mouth closed on the cigarette. She took a long drag and let the smoke out a little at a time, so that she sat as if shrouded in fog. “It’s not your fault, or not altogether,” she said.

“I was in charge. By God, I was there,” Bushell said. “My duty was to keep that painting safe, and I didn’t do it.” He started to signal the bartender, but hesitated once more. Too soon since the last one, if he wanted to stay on the dry side of the slough of despond.

“It’s not that simple,” she answered. “It’s Sir Horace’s responsibility, too, but he’s not losing sleep over it.” That was literally true; Sir Horace had gone up to bed. Patricia continued, “Anyone who expects perfection is asking too much. The Sons of Liberty can try a hundred outrages; if they succeed with one, they come out ahead. If we fail one time in a hundred, we lose. That’s not right. You can’t blame yourself for not being perfect.”

“I found out I wasn’t perfect a long time ago,” Bushell said with a rueful twist to his lips that wasn’t quite a smile. “Of me as me, I expect what I can get by doing the best I know how. Of me as RAM commander here - the job needs to be perfect, even if the man isn’t.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said, almost angrily. “Not even priests ask that much of themselves.”

Bushell shrugged.

“How do you live with yourself?” Patricia Oliver wondered. He shrugged again, not sure if she was asking the question of some higher authority. She knocked back her drink with a flick of the wrist, man-fashion, and signaled the bartender for a refill. He’d been polishing the already gleaming wood of the bar for some time, and looked grateful for something better to do.

This time, Bushell, having exhausted his singles, handed the man a blue two-pound note. This time, too, he consciously noticed the reproduction of The Two Georges on the banknote. He grimaced and looked away; the image too vividly called to mind the original he’d seen and then lost. The bartender, mindful of his own tip, gave back a pound’s worth of change in a jingle of silver. Bushell left one gleaming coin on the bar and scooped the rest into his trouser pocket.

Patricia Oliver said, “Are you going to drink another imaginary toast with me?” Her eyes challenged him. Sighing, he dug out the change he’d just put away, and more besides. The bartender brought him a shot of Jameson and then went back to plying his cloth.

“Anyone would think you were a Son yourself, drinking Irish whiskey like that,” Patricia said, one eyebrow quirking up.

“I like it,” Bushell said. “I got a taste for it in my army days, maybe even before I’d ever heard of the Sons of Liberty. It doesn’t taste like medicine, the way Scotch does for me.” He sipped; Jameson was the medicine he needed, all right. “And I wish to God I still hadn’t heard of the Sons.”

“I don’t blame you.” She set her hand lightly atop one of his. He looked up at her face. He saw sympathy and - something else? He wasn’t sure. She went on, “You’re blaming yourself enough as is. This must be hell for you.”

“Now that you mention it,” he said, “yes.”

The weight of her hand on his grew slightly. Her skin was warm and very smooth. She said, “If it weren’t for the Russians and the Holy Alliance, the Sons would long ago have dried up and blown away for lack of blood - I mean, money.”

“Not much difference between the two, not when it comes to politics,” he said, nodding. He told her of what he’d uncovered while the special train was traveling west from Victoria: the Nagant rifle posted from Skidegate and the scandalous pamphlet commingled with accounts paid in gold roubles for the travel brochure about the Queen Charlotte Islands.

“Russian money,” she said with a quick indrawn breath, “and Russian guns, too. No telling how many more Russian guns are loose in New Liverpool, either.”

“I had that same happy thought,” Bushell agreed. “Of course, it doesn’t necessarily prove anything: men who aren’t Russians can lay hands on gold roubles, and on Nagants, too, I suppose, though that would be harder. But it gives us a place to start looking, and in a case like this - ”

“We’re grateful for any place to start,” she finished for him.

They spent the next considerable while talking about the case, and about other things. But for them, the bar was dead quiet: a slow weekday evening. Bushell had another drink, and then another. He nursed them instead of leaping headlong into them as he had before. He knew they were in him, but somehow they lacked the power over him whiskey sometimes seized.

With a yawn, the bartender sat down on a stool in the far corner of his little domain. He leaned against the wall, giving every sign of being about to fall asleep. Bushell pulled out his pocket watch, “Good heavens,” he said, staring at it. “How did it get to be a quarter to one?”

“For me, it was the pleasant company,” Patricia Oliver said.

Pleasant company was all very well. Bushell was thinking he was most of an hour from home, most if not all of another hour back to RAM headquarters, and not enough hours of sleep sandwiched in between there. Having gone through a day on no sleep a short while earlier, he did not want to do it again. “I think I’ll go over to the office and put my feet up on my desk,” he said. “I’ve done that before, a time or two.”

“Why don’t you come up to my room instead?” Patricia said.

He looked up from his glass to her. She met his eye with the same directness she’d shown in the railway coach. “What sort of invitation is that?” he asked slowly.

“Whatever sort you want it to be,” she answered. The pink tip of her tongue lingered between her teeth for a moment before she drew it back once more. “I hope you find the idea . . . inviting.”

That told him what sort of invitation it was. He had not been a monk since his marriage to Irene exploded, but this. . . “Mrs. Oliver - ” he began.

‘“Mrs. Oliver’?” she echoed, her voice still low, but mocking. “Not Patricia, not even Captain Oliver, but Mrs. Oliver? What on earth has this” - she held out her left hand: even in the muted light of the bar, the diamond on the fourth finger sparkled - ”got to do with anything?”

“Quite a lot,” he answered quietly.

She laughed out loud. She remained very much in control, so as not to rouse the bartender (whose eyes had fallen closed), but she was also very much amused. “How could it possibly matter?” she exclaimed.

“My husband is on the other side of the dominion, and what dear Roland doesn’t know will never, ever hurt him. I’m sure I don’t know a great many things of his doing, and I’ve not lost a moment’s sleep over any of them.”

“Mrs. Oliver - ” Bushell said again.

“Stop that!” Now her eyes sparked. “If you do it again, you will make me angry. Don’t tell me you’re not interested. I’ve been watching you for hours. I know better.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you that,” he answered. His face felt wooden; getting each word out took a separate effort. “But what I am interested in doing and what I do are not necessarily one and inseparable.”

She stared at him. “What on earth?” she said in honest bewilderment. Then her gaze happened to fall to the ring she’d displayed a moment before. “Don’t tell me this bothers you?” she said. When he nodded like a machine whose mechanism needed oiling, she took it off and put it in her handbag. “There! Is that better?”

He shook his head, as jerkily as he’d nodded.

“A man of scruples!” she exclaimed in wonder. Bushell had always thought of himself so, but not in the way she said it. From her red lips, it sounded foolish, outmoded, useless. She cocked her head to one side, studying him like some strange biological specimen. “You shan’t even let me seduce you?”

He discovered the Jameson he’d taken on board was still with him after all. It had just been lying low. Without it, he never would have replied as he did: “Mrs. Oliver” - he stared at her, through her, so fiercely that she did not correct him - ”were that ring not on your finger, I should like nothing better than taking you upstairs and” - not even the whiskey could make him say to a woman fucking your brains out, which was the thought uppermost in his mind - ”making love to you. You may forgive me for declining or not, as you see fit, but I have a” - he hesitated again before coming up with the right word ”a horror of adultery.”

He waited for Patricia to say something else cutting. How quaint was what he thought most likely. But she was a RAM, and a good one, or she wouldn’t have been in New Liverpool, and she had a police officer’s itch to know. Very quietly, she spoke one word: “Why?”

He wanted another drink, wanted it with a sweaty passion not much different from lust. But the Irish whiskey already in him kept his tongue loose in his mouth. “I used to work out of Victoria myself, some years back now. Once, I finished a piece of business up in the Oregon country a couple of days sooner than I’d thought I would. I didn’t telegraph or telephone - I thought I’d come home early and surprise Irene.”

“That’s enough,” Patricia Oliver said, looking not at him but down at her hands. “You don’t need to tell me anymore. I don’t want you to tell me anymore.”

Obediently, he fell silent. But he did not need to tell the rest of his story to have it unwind in his head as if played on a cinema a finger’s breadth in front of his eyes. He’d opened the front door, set down his bags, and heard some small noise in the bedroom that told him Irene was there. He’d walked in quietly and . . .

She’d been naked, straddling Sir David Clarke, sliding up and down on his thick, hard tool, her head thrown back in abandon, little whimpering noises coming from her throat. Then she’d gasped, and then he had, and then, as they’d slowly begun to come back to themselves, they’d noticed Bushell standing in the doorway.

“You never know for certain where anyone is until you actually see him,” he remarked, not so much to Patricia Oliver as to Irene back in the days when he’d thought he was a happy, lucky man. Patricia had grit. She slid the wedding ring back onto her finger. Then she raised her eyes to his face and said, “I hope this won’t interfere with our working together.”

“Captain Oliver, if I can work with Sir David Clarke - I’m not giving out any great secrets there; you’ll hear it from others if not from me - I can work with you.”

She nodded at that, and then again to show she’d noticed him using her title. “I am going up to bed now,” she said, sliding off the bar stool. “Good night, Colonel.” He dipped his head in return. Formality was a grease that could help people from grinding against one another. Bushell rose, too. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of shillings, and set them on the bar: quietly, so as not to disturb the dozing bartender. He walked out into the lobby. Patricia had already disappeared; catching a lift upstairs at this hour must have been easy. Under the glow of electric lamps, the streets were almost deserted. Every now and then, a steamer rolled past, nearly as silent as the rest of the night. A couple of women who probably were not ladies stood on a street corner, talking in low voices. Here and there, in shadows where the streetlamps did not reach, men with no better place to stay slept curled in ragged blankets or wrapped in newspapers to hold chill at bay. Some of them clutched the bottles that were at once their solace and ruination. A tavern just a few doors down from RAM headquarters was an oasis of light and noise. Flickering images from the large televisor screen at one end of the bar showed a London soccer match that had to have been filmed a couple of weeks before. As Bushell walked past, one of the teams scored a goal. The tavern erupted in cheers, as if the action itself, not a faded, tardy simulacrum, had taken place before the eyes of those who watched it. Bushell rubbed at his mustache, marveling that so many people confused with reality what the televisor showed.

Televisor or no, he thought about going in, and even took one step halfway in the direction of the door. Another drink, or two, or three? Why not? But even as the temptation formed in his mind, he forced it to dissolve. He knew why not, all too well. Another drink, or two, or three, another drunk, or two, or three, and he might find himself one of those broken men on the sidewalk, a bottle in hand, oblivion all he craved. He shuddered and walked on.

The sergeant at the duty desk nodded to Bushell when he strode in. If he found anything in the least unusual about his chief’s appearance there in the wee small hours of the morning, he did not presume to show it.

A Nuevespañolan janitor sweeping the hall in front of his office did give Bushell a curious glance as he went in, but said nothing. Bushell locked the door after himself, took off his shoes, loosened his tie, and sank down in his swivel chair. He put his feet up on the desk, as he’d told Patricia Oliver he would, and did his best to sleep.

But sleep would not come. Despite weariness, despite Jameson, behind his eyelids he kept seeing Irene’s white buttocks clench and loosen, kept hearing her moans of delight, kept smelling her sweat and her lover’s. The images came to him all too often, even now, but seldom with such force as tonight.

“Damn that Oliver woman,” he muttered, shifting in the chair as he searched for some spot that was comfortable, or at least restful.

The bells of the Anglican cathedral chimed two. He did not hear them chime three. Bushell’s chin came up off his chest. Light was leaking in through the closed Venetian blinds. He pulled out his pocket watch: a quarter to seven. Four hours’ sleep would get him through the day. He snorted. If he’d managed on one, he could manage on four.

His head throbbed dully. It wasn’t a hangover, not quite, but it wasn’t the way he cared to start the day, either. He jerked open the middle drawer of his desk, unscrewed the lid from a bottle of paracetamol tablets, and dry-swallowed two. When he got out of the chair and stood up, he discovered his head was not the only part of him that ached. In his army days, he’d slept on hard ground as if it were a feather mattress. His army days, he had to keep reminding himself, were well behind him. He hoped the paracetamol would start working soon.

He looked down at himself. Sleeping in a swivel chair had done nothing for the press of his suit. If he left it on, he’d look like a derelict in secondhand clothes. He rubbed his chin. Whiskers rasped under his fingers. They’d only add to the impression of seediness.

Then he looked to one of the file cabinets across from his desk. On it, still neatly folded, lay his dress uniform. He’d never found time to take it to be cleaned, but it was in far better shape than the clothes he was wearing. Without hesitation, he got out of his suit and put on the red tunic and striped trousers. Some of his men would raise an eyebrow at seeing him in uniform, but not so high as if he’d stayed in the suit. He telephoned the duty desk. “This is Colonel Bushell. I’ve been, ah, working up here all night. Could you fetch me up a razor and some shaving soap?”

“I’ll send them directly, sir,” the sergeant at the desk said. “I heard you were in the building, so I thought you might be wanting them.”

“Thank you,” Bushell said, and hung up. The night man had warned his replacement, then, Some things didn’t change from the army to police work.

The RAM who brought him the shaving implements did indeed blink to confront him all gleaming in crimson and gold, but held his incredulity to the one blink. Bushell was certain that, by the time he came downstairs, the entire headquarters building would know how he’d chosen to dress. He walked into the lavatory, turned on the hot water at a faucet, lathered up, and scraped the straight razor across cheeks and chin and throat. He nicked himself a couple of times; the blood matched the red wool of his tunic. That tradition went back more than two thousand years to the Spartans, who hadn’t wanted their clothing to betray their wounds. He dabbed at the nicks with a paper towel, then surveyed himself in the mirror. His eyes were redder than they should have been, the hollows under them deeper and darker, but he’d do.

The RAMs he encountered ostentatiously ignored his uniform as he made his way to the little kitchen not far from the duty desk. There he almost bumped into Samuel Stanley, who was fixing himself a spicy-smelling cup of Earl Grey. As an old friend, Stanley enjoyed - and took advantage of - the privilege of staring.

Bushell took a waxed cardboard cup and advanced on the coffeepot. He poured steaming coffee into the cup, drank it down hot and black and bitter. “All the rankers from Victoria are in their fancy dress, so I thought I’d match them,” he said. The explanation did not sound especially convincing, even to himself.

“Uh-huh,” Stanley said, which meant he hadn’t convinced his adjutant, either. Stanley went on, “Chief, you’re going to kill yourself if you spend all your time here, and you won’t do the case any good if you’re too worn to think straight.”

“I know,” Bushell said, “but I was so busy talking with the people from Victoria last night that time got away from me.” That was even true, though he didn’t mention what he and Patricia Oliver had been talking about. He went on, “I thought I’d get more rest here than by driving down to my flat and back.”

“Mm, maybe.” Samuel Stanley watched him gulp another cup of coffee. “However much rest you got, it wasn’t enough.”

“It’s never enough,” Bushell answered. “I’ll make it up after we have The Two Georges back.” When he said it, he believed it. By the way Samuel Stanley swallowed wrong and started coughing, he didn’t. After a moment, neither did Bushell. Something else would come up, and he’d push himself just as hard for that. And then there would be yet one thing more. . . . “If we don’t push ourselves every day, we don’t belong in this business.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” his adjutant conceded. He cocked an eyebrow at Bushell. “I suppose Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg and his band of merry men are certain they’ll have the case wrapped up in tinsel and string by about day after tomorrow? That’s the way it usually goes when they deign to come down from their mountain and do some real work.”

“You’re a cynical soul today,” Bushell said. “Anyone would think you were a police officer, or something similarly disreputable.” He and Samuel Stanley both laughed. The humor had a bitter edge to it, though, for Stanley had spoken unvarnished truth - and any police officer with more than a year on the job was steeped, indeed pickled, in cynicism. Learning what your fellow man was capable of all too often failed to endear him to you.

Stanley lowered his voice: “The other thing is, Chief, that if you say that too loud, somebody besides me will hear you.”

“Me? What about you, Sam? Why, if you weren’t dead right, I’d have to speak sharply to you about lack of proper respect for those illustrious enough to work out of Victoria.”

Bushell did not bother to keep his voice down. Sir Horace knew his views on the ivory tower - or perhaps the whited sepulcher made a better comparison - that was Victoria. And if Sir Horace hadn’t known them, Bushell wouldn’t have cared if he heard. His commandant had done him a favor in more ways than one in getting him out of the capital after his marriage so spectacularly collapsed. Samuel Stanley said, “Well, I’d better get back to it. And so had you, or the redcoats from Victoria will land on your back, knock you over, and kick you while you’re down.”

“It’s not the redcoats I worry about. After all, they’re policemen, too, after a fashion.” Bushell chuckled, both at his adjutant’s scandalized expression and his own wit, but he wasn’t more than half joking. He went on, “The ones who scare me are the politicos. They want the rabbit pulled out of the hat right away, and if the rabbit’s not there to begin with - ”He spread his hands, palms up.

“Watch yourself, Chief. That’s all.” Stanley hurried out of the little room. After a moment, Bushell left, too. He was only slightly surprised to find Sir Horace Bragg talking with the sergeant at the duty desk. Sir Horace might not have gone into the field for a good many years before this, but he worked hard at whatever he did. More than brilliance, dogged, unyielding persistence had got him the lieutenant general’s uniform he wore today.

He spotted Bushell in turn and hurried up to him. “Good morning, Tom. I was just asking your man there where I could get myself round a cuppa. I gather you had the same notion.”

“I just got myself round two coffees,” Bushell answered. “Now that I’ve topped up the boiler, I’m ready to hit the day head-on.”

“You’re ahead of me, then.” Bragg raised one of his bushy eyebrows. “In uniform, are you? Not on my account, I hope. Unless I’m no more senile than I think, I don’t recall you being much one for such fripperies. Or did you sleep in your office and put on the only fresh things you had?”

“Sir, you know me too well,” Bushell said with rueful admiration. “Tomorrow you’ll see me in civilian clothes again, I expect. You’d better, because if I’m still in uniform then, the sky will be falling.”

Without waiting for a reply, he bounded upstairs to his office. As long as he had the coffee surging in him, he intended to take advantage of the energy it lent. He tore through paperwork, then telephoned down to Gordon Rhodes to see if any fresh evidence or leads had come in while he snatched sleep. The call, unfortunately, proved a waste of time: Rhodes had heard nothing new. A RAM came into Bushell’s office and dumped the morning mail delivery onto his desk. He had a secretary next door, but made as little use of her services as he could: he was better at doing his job than at handing off parts of it for others to do. He rapidly sorted through the envelopes. Some went into the waste-paper basket unopened. Others got a quick skim and then joined them there. After a few minutes, only half a dozen items were left. He set them aside to be dealt with individually. One was from the New Liverpool constabulary, the detailed report on the autopsy of Honest Dick the Steamer King. Bushell glanced through it, then put it away for detailed consideration later - it didn’t offer any immediately obvious clues to the murderer’s identity.

Most of the remaining envelopes held forms he had to complete for the budgetary process back in Victoria. On any other day, those would have taken priority. They might still, but Bushell, after examining them, shoved them aside. Hard as it was to believe inside the bureaucracy that bound together the greatest empire the world had ever known, budgets were not always the be-all and end-all of a man’s career.

“And then there was one,” Bushell said, picking up the last envelope, a large manila. His name, title, and address were neatly typed in the center of the envelope: the upper left-hand corner bore no return address. The manila envelope did not bend when he picked it up.

His letter opener was in the shape of a cavalry saber, and as sharp as one of the swords it mimicked. He slit the envelope and drew out two sheets of cardboard and the photograph they protected. He stared at that photograph for a long time. One of the people who’d sent it obviously knew how to develop film himself; it could hardly have been entrusted to a commercial developing service. It showed The Two Georges leaning against a blank plaster wall, with a hand and arm thrusting into the picture the front page of a newspaper whose headline screamed of the theft of the painting. Bushell set down the photo, picked up the envelope, and looked inside. Sure enough, it held a note-sized sheet of paper he hadn’t seen before. On the paper, typed by a machine different from the one that had addressed the envelope, was a note:

IF YOU WANT THIS STINKING PAINTING BACK, YOU WILL PAY US £50,000,000 BY 15

AUGUST. OTHERWISE, THE SYMBOL OF OPPRESSION WILL BE CAST INTO THE FIRE

OF LIBERATION. INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PAY THE RANSOM SO WE CAN SAFELY

RECOVER IT WILL REACH YOU. OBEY THEM. DO NOT THINK YOU CAN KEEP THIS A SECRET FOR YOUR OWN TREACHEROUS ENDS - COPIES ARE GOING TO THE

NEWSPAPERS. AMERICA SHALL BE FREE.