by Gavin Lyall
Ranklin nodded, hiding the uplift he got from prospectively having the Irishman back. O’Gilroy was, unofficially, their Man in Paris. He was there mainly because he had to be somewhere, and London was too full of other Irishmen who wanted to cut his throat. He wasn’t much good at French politics, but there was no shortage of self-styled experts on that; what O’Gilroy now knew was the Paris streets. Ranklin felt he himself belonged there, too: the Bureau’s job was abroad, and Paris was eight hours closer to anything happening on the Continent.
The Commander may have suspected how he’d been led to his decision, because he went on looking at Ranklin. “You know, you’re not a bad second-in-command.” Then added explosively: “But by God – you’ve got a bloody funny taste in girl-friends.”
3
“My name is Detective Inspector Thomas Hector McDaniel of Bow Street Police Station.” Ranklin was particularly glad to hear those words, the point being that he could hear them, after three-quarters of an hour of straining and guessing.
Popular myth has it that court-rooms provide scenes of natural drama. Not this one: most of that morning would have been upstaged by a public reading of the London Street Directory. He couldn’t even study Grover Langhorn. Jammed among the spectators at the back, Ranklin was facing the magistrates’ bench, but so was Langhorn, standing in the raised dock in front of him. By the end of the morning, Ranklin knew he would recognise that slight and shabby back view of baggy check trousers and dark blue donkey jacket for the rest of his life, but he had yet to glimpse the face.
Moreover, once Langhorn had agreed he was who he was supposed to be, he apparently became irrelevant to the routine going on around him. Documents were passed, mulled over and agreed upon, men in old-fashioned frock coats, one being Noah Quinton, bobbed up, murmured things, and sat down when the magistrate had murmured back.
Then came Inspector McDaniel (it was odd how many London policemen had obviously been born elsewhere; were native Londoners too finicky or too corrupt?). He was bald-headed, walrus-moustached, as well fed as any lawyer, and probably as familiar with court-rooms. He gave his evidence loudly and confidently, pausing after each sentence so that the clerk could write it down. “Acting on information received” he had proceeded to 29 Great Garden Street . . . He there saw a man who admitted he was Grover Langhorn . . . Yes, he is the man standing in the dock there . . . He then arrested said man on a warrant issued by the Bow Street magistrate on the second of April . . .
The slow delivery let Ranklin’s attention wander to the others crammed beside him in the public seats. He had thought carefully about how he should dress that day, but after dismissing the idea of posing as a Cockney as impossible, and a farmer-in-town-for-the-day from his native Gloucestershire as improbable, he had just dressed as himself. He knew he would look vaguely official – just how, he wasn’t sure, but he had to accept it – but hoped the case would attract vaguely official attention anyway. And so it had: those around and altogether too close to him were definitely official-looking; he thought he recognised at least one face from the Foreign Office. Indeed, the one man who stood out was wearing a non-London check suit. He was taking assiduous notes.
Ranklin came back to earth when he realised the bowling had changed and Quinton was asking the questions: “Did my client say anything when you arrested him?”
Quinton’s court-room voice was monotonous and uninflected.
“Yes, sir, he asked me how I found him there. He also –”
“And what did you reply?”
“– he also,” McDaniel said firmly, “stated that this was supposed to be a safe place for him to hide. I made no reply to these statements.”
“Did he say anything else, then or at a later time, apart from confirming his name?”
“No, sir.”
Quinton sat down again. McDaniel stayed where he was while his evidence was read back to him, then the court relapsed into muttering over documents. Ranklin was looking at the time – it wasn’t easy to get his watch out in a crush like in a crowded underground train – when another witness popped up in the box and identified himself as Inspecteur Claude Lacoste of the Paris Préfecture attached to the eighth district, which included the nineteenth arrondissement – La Villette.
By contrast with McDaniel, this was a man with a clean-shaven round face who might have been chosen for his all-round averageness (and had been, Ranklin discovered later: French logic said that only men of average looks and height could become Paris detectives). But his manner was quiet and confident, someone who knew his job. He spoke English with a strong accent, but fluently enough to manage without an interpreter.
Yes, he could identify the accused as Grover Langhorn . . . He had been employed as a waiter at the Café des Deux Chevaliers since last autumn . . . It was a haunt of anarchists–
“I fail to see the relevance of that,” Quinton interrupted.
The magistrate looked enquiringly at the prosecutor, who was just another half-bowed back to Ranklin, but Lacoste beat him to it: “It is the only reason why I am familiar with the establishment, M’sieu.”
Quinton shrugged dramatically – by the dramatic standards of the day so far – and sat down.
Yes, on the night of 31 March there had been a fire at the police barracks . . . It had quickly been established that it was deliberate, caused by petrol . . . A fire-warped 5-litre petrol tin had been discovered at the scene . . . He had led the investigation . . . He had questioned certain persons . . . There are few places in La Villette which sell petrol, there being few motor-cars in the area . . . At one garage, however, he had learned that at about six o’clock in the evening four days earlier . . . Yes, 27 March . . . the accused had purchased a green tin of petrol . . .
There was a break while the prosecutor assured the magistrate that there was a sworn statement by the garagiste, one from the café proprietor, two from patrons, and one from an eyewitness, representing Lacoste’s investigation.
. . . As a result of all this, Lacoste had sought to question Langhorn . . . He could not be found . . . It had been suggested he might have fled to England . . . (there was something missing here, Ranklin thought: somebody had either volunteered the suggestion or been persuaded to volunteer it by method or methods unknown. Such thoughts wouldn’t have occurred to him eighteen months ago.) . . . Consequently, an extradition warrant had been sought . . .
In his own job, Ranklin demanded bare facts and came down brutally on colourful phrases. But here he felt cheated at being told of an arson attack followed by a police trawl of the local underworld, hasty flight and legal pursuit – and all made as dull as a railway timetable. Perhaps Quinton’s cross-examination would help . . .
“The fire at the police station – what part of the building did it damage?”
“The kitchen, M’sieu.”
“So it could hardly have been an attempt to free any prisoners held there, for example . . . Do you have any reason to believe that my client is an anarchist?”
“He is a waiter at a café of anarchists, M’sieu.”
“Just an employee – one who is paid to work there?”
“I know nothing of his pay, M’sieu.”
“But still only an employee?”
“So I believe, M’sieu.”
“And would you expect every waiter at – say – every poet’s café in Paris to be a poet?”
“No, M’sieu.”
“Has my client ever expressed anarchistic views to you or within your hearing?”
“No, M’sieu.”
Ranklin was not tempted to whisper to those beside him that here Quinton was paving the way to claim that this was a political crime and his client was not an anarchist. But he didn’t mind them noticing his knowing nod and smile. Then he remembered he was here on duty and trying to be anonymous, and shamefacedly went back to thinking about the case.
Probably Lacoste would have pointed out that in a scruffy, dangerous little café in the nineteenth arrondissement an a
narchist clientele wouldn’t have tolerated for a moment a waiter who didn’t share their views. But Quinton had given him no chance to say so, and presumably magistrates weren’t allowed to think such things for themselves.
Once Lacoste had stepped from the witness box, the court returned to murmuring over documents. In front of him, Langhorn moved nervously from foot to foot, never quite standing straight. An Englishman might have stood to attention or he might have leant on the dock rail; he wouldn’t have stood in that loose, rangy way. Perhaps it was something to do with Americans walking with their hips thrust forward – Corinna had once demonstrated that for him, stark naked. It had been most instructive but not a suitable memory for a police court—
From what Ranklin could hear, the depositions from the café proprietor and patrons had Langhorn asking to go off duty at ten that evening and not reappearing until about one o’clock. Obviously it was not a café which relied on early-to-bed working citizens for its customers.
Several times Quinton bobbed up asking for clarification of some point, in a manner that looked to Ranklin like time-wasting. It apparently struck the magistrate the same way, because the last time he gave Quinton a sour look, weighed the yet-to-be-accepted depositions in his hand and said: “It looks as if we’re going to have to postpone hearing the next witness until after lunch. Perhaps that won’t inconvenience you too greatly, Mr Quinton?”
Quinton fawned decorously, and once they had polished off the depositions, they broke up.
Standing like a rock amid the hurrying crowd spilling out from the court was a man in dark-blue chauffeur’s kit asking people if they were Captain Ranklin. It was a distinct shock to Ranklin to hear his name used so publicly when he was working – it reminded him again of how far he had come in eighteen months – and he hurried to hush the man up.
“Mr Quinton’s just having a word with his client, sir, so he said would you care to wait in his motor?” He led the way to a spacious black Lanchester parked at the kerb, ushered Ranklin into the back seat, and opened a small built-in cabinet behind the driver’s partition. “Whisky, sherry or beer, sir?”
Quinton arrived nearly ten minutes later. But instead of driving off, the chauffeur handed in an attache case and spread a napkin over Quinton’s lap. From the case, Quinton took a china plate, then unwrapped a game pie and several small dishes of salad and pickle. His movements were quick and precise. The last item was an opened but recorked pint of claret. During this, he said: “Could you hear anything in court? What do you think so far? You talk while I eat.”
Privately, Ranklin thought that having your lunch in a parked car was a bit showy when you could just as well have been driven back to your office or a chop-house. Perhaps it was another form of advertisement, or perhaps it just came of being born poor.
“It seems,” he began slowly, “to be mostly what I think you call ‘circumstantial’ evidence – though unless you’ve got someone who saw Langhorn strike a match, I imagine that’s what you’d expect. So far, all we’ve got is that he bought the petrol—”
“He bought some petrol.”
“Sorry, some – and was off duty at the relevant time. I imagine this afternoon’s witness will implicate him more deeply . . . Is he the one you want to tear apart in cross-examination?”
Quinton, his mouth full, just nodded.
“And, of course, he fled to London. I don’t know how much inference one can legally draw from that, but I don’t see how anyone can ignore it.”
Quinton swallowed. “A fair enough summary. Any gaps or weaknesses?”
“Simply as a story, I’d like to know who told the French police he’d gone to London and who told our police where to find him.”
“You’ll see winged pigs first. That’s the police on both sides protecting informers.” He was about to take another mouthful when there was a scuffling sound outside and they looked up to see the chauffeur trying to hustle away a dumpy girl in a big hat and ankle-length coat the vague colour of an Army blanket. Quinton said: “Oh, damn it,” handed Ranklin his lunch and got out of the car.
Ranklin watched through the open door and tried to listen, but in the busy street all he heard was that they were speaking French. Quinton had called off the chauffeur and seemed to be pacifying the girl. Her features weren’t exactly coarse, just not refined, except for an upper lip in an exaggerated medieval bow shape that gave her a natural pout. Right now, she was pouting fit to bust, her dark eyes adding sullenness. She also had an unnaturally upright stance, as if she were balancing her big hat rather than wearing it. A few untidy strands of brown hair dangled from under it.
After a time, Quinton gave an exaggerated hands-and-shoulders gesture and turned away. She went on pouting but didn’t follow as he climbed back into the Lanchester.
“That’s the girl-friend of the accused. Apparently spent her own money following him over here.” He shook his head. “Young love’s seldom any use in court.” He reclaimed his lunch and added: “She says she was in bed with him at the time the offence was committed.”
At least this promised a more interesting afternoon in court, and Ranklin cheered up. “She’s going to say that?”
“Of course she’s not.” Then, seeing Ranklin’s disappointment, he went on: “Captain, this world spends half its time denying it was fornicating when it was, and the other half claiming it was fornicating when it was doing something worse. Every magistrate’s heard it a thousand times. She’d only label herself a whore and thus unreliable as a witness.”
Ranklin nodded, understanding, but a little regretful. The girl was standing back on the pavement, still unnaturally upright but now looking lost and somehow alien. A man raised his hat to her and made some inquiry. Ranklin couldn’t hear it or her terse reply, but the man recoiled and walked away quickly.
“D’you know her name and address?” Ranklin asked.
Quinton looked at him warily. Ranklin said firmly: “Government business.”
“Her name’s Mademoiselle Berenice Collomb,” Quinton said, “and she doesn’t speak any English. I’ve no idea where she’s staying in London.”
Ranklin wrote down the name, then asked: “And you said that Langhorn isn’t going to say what he was doing, either?”
“His is not.”
Ranklin thought this over for a moment, then: “May I ask: is he innocent?”
There was no change in Quinton’s expression. Just the sense that he had withdrawn into himself and was thinking that just when Ranklin had been showing signs of intelligence, here came the usual naive old question.
So Ranklin asked it again “You’re a man of experience: does your experience tell you he’s innocent or guilty?”
Clearly, Quinton’s experience had been carefully trained to avoid such emotive thinking. “If you’re asking whether or not he’ll be extradited –”
“I’m not. I’m asking—”
“– on the face of it – and that’s what prima facie means – the case against him is good so far. I still think it may fall apart in a French court, but that’s not my concern. He wants me to save him from being extradited, so that’s what I’m trying to do. No evidence has been given that he himself is an anarchist, and a rather half-hearted attempt to burn a police station seems only explicable as a political gesture.”
“Thank you. Now may we go back to my original question?”
Quinton looked at him for a while, then shrugged quickly and spoke just as quickly. “All right, he’s acting as if he were innocent. He’d like to get this over with: stand up, say his piece, be believed and walk out a free man. But that’s no way to conduct a defence, as any experienced criminal knows. You take your time: time for something to turn up, for witnesses to forget – sometimes even be persuaded to forget. So, yes, Langhorn’s acting as if he were innocent – of this charge.
“But there are degrees of innocence. If I let him be cross-examined this afternoon, I’ll tell you just what he, in that innocence, would admit. First, that of
course he’s an anarchist. Second, that he left a good, respectable job (did you know he’d been a steward on an Atlantic liner?) to work in a filthy dive among other anarchists and known criminals – I’ve learnt that much about the Café des Deux Chevaliers. And lastly, that he thinks the police are the sheepdogs of cruel government shepherds herding the workers to slaughter, and thoroughly deserve burning. That is not my own phrase. Now you should see why I don’t want that on the record. And perhaps it answers your question.”
“Very fully, thank you.”
“And incidentally, remember that someone did set fire to that police station, and if Langhorn didn’t do it, he probably has a very good idea who did. As I said: degrees of innocence.”
There was a gentle rap on the window and Quinton looked up with an impatient sigh. But it was just one of his clerks with a couple of papers to sign.
Ranklin asked: “Then we won’t be hearing any of Langhorn’s story?”
Quinton smiled briefly. “Oh, we’ve got nothing to hide. He needed the petrol because he’s helping put a motor in a boat in the nearby canal, as I shall tell the court. And at the time of the fire, he was resting in his room. But this isn’t a case that turns on an alibi. The facts all depend on this afternoon’s witness.”
“And Langhorn hasn’t said any more about his threat . . . ?”
“Captain, I hope you aren’t relying on me for any more explanation of that. As I suggested yesterday, I have a certain amount of experience at not being told what I don’t want to hear.”
Mildly annoyed, though without any justification, Ranklin said: “Never mind. Tomorrow we may well have our own man sharing his cell.”
“In Brixton? You won’t, you know. Things have changed since Dickens’s day. Whenever I go down there, each prisoner has a cell to himself and a number of empty ones left over. They don’t like prisoners on remand talking to each other and cooking up mutual alibis.”
Blast. And the Commander would say it was another of Ranklin’s half-baked, unthought-out wheezes, quite ignoring how eagerly he’d adopted it himself.
