Honourable Intentions (2 page)

“You say here the attaché’s mistress is –” he read from the report “– ‘olive-skinned’. . . Was she green?”

“No, of course not, sir.”

“Black, then?”

“No, sir.”

“Those are the only colours I’ve ever seen on an olive. Did you mean she was
swarthy?”

“Er . . . that sounds rather unshaven, sir.”

“Any reason to believe she does shave? – her face, anyway?”

Lieutenant P shook his head.

“Very well, then, she was
swarthy.
Say so next time.” He noticed Ranklin. “Ah, you’re back.” He pulled out his watch. “We’re due at the Cannon Street Hotel for tea at four. Your girlfriend wants us to meet that Jew lawyer Noah Quinton. Says it’s of national importance. It had bloody well better be.”

Ranklin puffed and nodded contentedly. He was home.

2

The Cannon Street Hotel wasn’t quite in the heart of the City but a bit south of that; say the liver. So it was geographically Corinna’s territory, and the hotel was prepared to overlook its City prejudice against women – save as rich widow shareholders at the many company annual general meetings held there – because she was the daughter of Reynard Sherring. And Sherring controlled a private bank that, even at the flood tide of joint-stock banking, was keeping its head a million or two above water.

Shortly before four, Ranklin and the Commander were sipping tea in the drawing-room of the hotel which, true to the current fashion, ran to a high ceiling, cushioned wickerwork chairs and potted palms.

The Commander looked at his watch. “She said four o’clock, didn’t she?”

“That‘s what you said.”

“Is she usually late?”

“I wouldn’t say she was, yet.”

The Commander watched five seconds tick by. “Dammit, she could perfectly well have told you whatever-it-is. No need for me. I’ve got things to do.”

Like keeping the Bureau from getting involved in the mess that was Ulster. There was a good case for this, but the danger was that the spring of 1914 was turning out to be rather quiet on the Bureau’s true international stamping-ground and they didn’t have enough to do.

Ranklin shrugged and another five seconds passed.

Then the Commander demanded: “I know she’s a partner or
something in her father’s bank, but does she really understand banking and finance and . . . whatnot?”

“I imagine so. But
I
don’t, so I can’t judge.”

“She’s one of these
clever
women, then.”

“Certainly.” Ranklin realised they were passing the time with a little game of make-the-other-lose-his-temper-first.

“Handsome gal, though.”

“I didn’t know you’d met her.” Did he lose half a point for being surprised?

“Oh yes. At a dinner party at the Grenfells’. We got on rather well.”

Perhaps that was supposed to make Ranklin jealous. But he could well believe that Corinna had been intrigued to meet the Bureau’s Chief. Of course, his identity was a closely-guarded secret, but equally of course, that didn’t apply to Certain People. Moreover, the Commander – a genuine naval rank – fancied himself as a ladies’ man. By now in his mid-fifties, he was a stocky man with a face like Mr Punch, nose and chin seemingly trying to meet. He had a complexion that he probably hoped looked weatherbeaten-old-seadog, but was really just ruddy, and the Navy had long ago beached him for incurable seasickness. He had once been heard calling espionage a “capital sport”, but probably that was just a sop to the type of Englishman who took nothing seriously except games.

On the whole, Ranklin thought he was probably right for his job. He had a lot of enthusiasms – gadgetry, motor-cars, pistols – a love of secrecy, and apparently no scruples. Certainly he betrayed his rich wife, who lavished Rolls-Royces and yachts on him, as skilfully and naturally as he did foreign governments. Ranklin wished he thought these two talents weren’t connected.

When Ranklin hadn’t reacted, the Commander provoked further: “Bit tall for you, I thought.”

“I don’t know . . . Can’t have too much of a good thing.”

That gave the Commander the choice of being even more vulgar or pretending to be upright and shocked. Cannily, he did
neither. “Ah, your intentions aren’t honourable, I see. Just animal passion.”

“As technically my commanding officer, would you give me permission to marry an American citizen?”

“Certainly, if it was just for her money. If I thought you were sincere, I’d sack you.”

Ranklin decided it was time for a change of subject. “What do we know about Noah Quinton?”

“As a man or as a lawyer?”

“Either.”

“I understand he doesn’t come of one of the academic-professional families. First of his line. Lower-middle-class East London Jew . . . Perhaps not
very
East London.” The Commander wasn’t speaking geographically. “It’s said he’s a good man to go to if you want to win and don’t mind how.”

In answer to Ranklin’s raised eyebrows, the Commander added: “I don’t say he breaks the law. Just got a reputation for sailing close to it.”

Ranklin wondered if he’d been naive in thinking that that was just what lawyers were for. While he was still wondering, Corinna and Noah Quinton arrived.

Corinna, who liked to be called Mrs Finn and thought of as a widow for entirely immoral reasons, was indeed tall and attracted words like “striking” and “handsome”. Or “vivid”, because her eyes and mouth were exaggerated like an actress’s and her hair was very black. With all this, she could carry off strong colours and did, while most of London was wearing pastels and fussy little hats. Today she wore a black matador hat and was wrapped in a cape of purple wool that completely hid, and therefore hinted at, her shape beneath.

Probably it was too warm for the day – a fine Easter was stretching on, with temperatures nearing 60° – but when did being hot or cold affect how a woman wanted to look?

The Commander pre-empted her to the introductions. “I’m Commander Smith and this is Captain Ranklin.
Army
Captain, of course.”

Corinna smiled. “May I present Mr Noah Quinton?” They shook hands and Quinton said: “And you represent the Government?”

“Whatever Mrs Finn told you,” the Commander said blandly. They all sat down, a watchful waiter hurried up with a fresh pot of tea, and Ranklin poured.

If you had met Quinton anywhere, you would have thought: Ah, a sharp lawyer. But how else was a lawyer allowed to advertise? He was dapper (attention to detail), quick of movement (and thus of thought), and looked you in the eye with a smile (he believed what you were telling him). Actually, between his curly grey hair and small grey beard was a rather ferrety face, which his heavy-rimmed glasses helped humanise, but he was constantly putting those off and on.

“We’re all busy me—people,” the Commander said briskly. “So: I believe you have something you feel we should know.”

“Yes.” Corinna took a deep breath. “My father, Reynard Sherring, is honorary treasurer of a small fund set up by Americans in London to help out American citizens in trouble here. Our consulate passes on people they think are deserving of our help. Last week they told us about a young American in prison over in Brixton. It seems you’re holding him for the French. They want him extradited on an arson charge.”

“What did he burn down?” the Commander asked. “Allegedly.”

“Oh, only a police station-house.” The Commander’s eyebrows vibrated at that “only”, but Corinna sailed on. “It doesn’t seem to have been more than singed, anyhow. So, I run the fund when my father isn’t here, and I was . . . well, I was kind of bothered by something the boy said to our vice-consul and a letter the boy’s mother wrote him. He was bothered, too. The vice-consul. So I asked Mr Quinton to take on the case. Frankly –” she flashed Quinton a searchlight-strength grin to disarm him “– I was hoping the boy would say more to him and he’d pass it on to me, but . . .”

“Without my client’s permission, it would have been quite unethical for me to do anything of the sort,” Quinton said tonelessly.

Corinna said cheerfully: “But it seems he hasn’t said any more anyhow, so our ethics are unsullied.” She could be deceptively feminine and vague when she wanted. In truth, she must have dealt with lawyers in half a dozen countries.

There was a pause, then the Commander said: “Are we going to hear what the chap said?” at the same time as Ranklin’s “Does the lad have a name?”

Corinna chose to answer Ranklin. “Grover Langhorn, aged twenty-three; he worked as a waiter at a café in La Villette – the nineteenth
arrondissement.”
She flicked on a fastidious expression: the nineteenth was the area Paris didn’t talk about, like an uncle who had gone to the bad. All Ranklin knew of it was that it was in the north-east of the city and had acres of abattoirs.

The Commander, who didn’t like coming second, said: “
Grover
Langhorn?”

“As I’m sure you remember,” Corinna said sweetly, “we had a President called Grover Cleveland around the time this boy was born. And what he told the vice-consul was that if he was going to be sent back to France he’d tell something scandalous about your King.”

Ranklin felt his own expression must be a mirror of the Commander’s: blank puzzlement. Agreed that it would be impossible to top the late Edward VII’s mark for scandalous behaviour, George V didn’t even seem to be trying. His appearance was entirely the opposite: that of a dutiful family man. Could he have told a
risqué
story from his naval days in mixed company? At full stretch, that was the worst Ranklin’s imagination could reach.

Finally the Commander asked: “Is that
all?”

“Not quite.” Corinna dug in what she called a “purse” and anyone else would have said was a moderate piece of luggage, and unfolded a sheet of pale violet writing-paper. She passed it across.

18
rue Castelnaudry

Paris 19

April 3erd

Dear sir

     
My son Grover has been arested by the London police becaus the French say he set fire to the police baracks but I know he did not do this but they will lock him up for ever if he is sent back here becaus of perjery so pleas see him & listen
very carefuly
to what he tells you becaus it is
true

     
yrs faithfuly

     
Enid Langhorn (Mrs (widow) born Bowman).

“Let me get this quite clear,” the Commander said. “Was this sent to the American Consul here?”

“She was English, and married an American merchant seaman back . . . whenever. And the letter was sent to the American
consulate.
It was opened by one of the young vice-consuls – a sweet boy, you’d love him – and it was he who saw Grover and then got in touch with me. As he’d sort of handed the case over to me, he gave me the letter as well. He said that it probably wasn’t the sort of thing to leave lying in a file anyhow. Between you and me, I don’t think he feels America should be mixed up in the scandalous behaviour of royalty.

“You can keep it,” she added. “Unless Mr Quinton wants it.”

Quinton shook his head firmly and the Commander, after one last frowning glance, tucked the letter into an inside pocket. He seemed uncertain about what to say next.

So Ranklin said: “Perhaps Mr Quinton would care to say something about extradition procedure – in general, of course, not in regard to this case.”

Quinton’s smile flickered quickly and then he said: “Extradition’s rare, so not many lawyers bother to know much about it. It’s really an uneasy mix of law and international politics. Our courts can decide that a man should be extradited, but then the Home Secretary – although it would really be a Cabinet decision – can overrule them and decide he shouldn’t
be. However, not vice versa: if the courts decide someone should
not
be extradited, that’s an end of the matter.”

The Commander said: “Be a bit of a snub to that foreign government if the Home Sec chose not to extradite when the courts had said he should.”

“Quite so,” Quinton nodded. “Just what I meant by an uneasy mix with politics. And that aspect goes a little further: the court can hear evidence to show that the alleged crime was a
political
one – something that would be irrelevant in a normal trial – and if they decide it
was
political, set the prisoner free.”

The Commander frowned. “But suppose—”

“Even
if the charge is murder. There was something of a landmark case some thirty years ago, Castioni. He killed a man during the overthrow of the local government in one of the Swiss cantons and fled to England. The judges decided the killing had been a political act and refused to extradite . . . Perhaps I should point out that treason, spying, subversion and so on aren’t even extraditable crimes, of course. Nobody gets sent back to, say, Germany because he’s been doing naughty things to their government.”

Perhaps Quinton was just trying them out: Corinna certainly wouldn’t have told him who they really were. The Commander was clearly less certain about her, but she ignored him and asked: “Burning a police station-house . . . is that political? Sounds as if it could be.”

Quinton didn’t answer; instead, he said: “Why doesn’t someone ask about anarchism?”

Knowing the Commander now wouldn’t, Ranklin asked: “What about anarchism?’

“Interesting that you should ask that,” Quinton said. “Because there was a case just a few years after Castioni: Meurnier, this time, a French anarchist. He blew up a Paris café and killed a couple of people and claimed that had been political. Mr Justice Cave – as he then was – came back with a rather crafty judgment. In effect, he said that a political act is one aimed at replacing one party or system of government by
another – but that, since an anarchist didn’t believe in
any
form of government, all his actions must be directed against private citizens, and he sent Meurnier back.”

“Does that mean,” Corinna asked, “that nothing an anarchist does can be political?”

“That would be one possible reading of the judgment.”