by Gavin Lyall
O’Gilroy said: “If he ups and says he’s the next king, surely everybody’ll laugh and say why not Julius Caesar or Napoleon?”
The Commander nodded firmly. “Yes, we should be concentrating on what the mother may say about the King – the Prince, in those days.”
Quinton asked: “Did he write her any letters?”
It was as if a sudden ice age had struck the room. Everybody held their breath and went quite still. Then it passed, leaving only shivers behind.
“God, I hope not,” the Commander said fervently.
In an even, reasonable voice, O’Gilroy said: “She didn’t pick this road until jest recent. She could’ve started causing this ruckus twenty-four years ago, when she found she was going to have a baby. But she didn’t. She married the American feller and started a new life in America. If she had any letters and such, probly she burned them then. Never thought she’d want to look back.”
“Thank you for that touch of common sense, O’G—Gorman,” the Commander said. “I just hope you’re right.”
Quietly, Ranklin got up, fetched the whisky decanter, and refilled the Commander’s glass. O’Gilroy and Jay shook their heads, and Quinton had taken only a couple of sips at his brandy.
“Do we know,” Quinton asked, “what the mother wants out of all this?”
“We haven’t had a peep out of her since that letter you saw,” the Commander grumbled. “But it seems to have been assumed by . . . certain others, that she’ll settle for a pension. They’ve put an advertisement in this afternoon’s Paris papers asking her to come in and get some good news from our consulate, which we take to mean money. Naturally enough, this has got the French police up in arms.”
“You know,” Ranklin said thoughtfully, “I don’t think we should necessarily assume that the woman will settle for a pension. She might just be taking this my-son’s-the-next-king stuff seriously and sees herself as the Queen Mother.”
Quinton said: “I’ve explained—”
“Not to her.”
“Well, I certainly have trouble envisaging Ma’mselle Collomb as our next queen.”
Ranklin shut his eyes and shuddered.
The Commander, who hadn’t met Berenice, smiled automatically. O’Gilroy looked disapproving on behalf of all fairy-tale milkmaids who reach the throne.
The telephone rang in the drawing-room and Ranklin got up to answer it. Behind him, Quinton was saying: “I’m sure Mrs Langhorn’s position will be explained to her . . .”
“I have a call from a Mrs Finn,” the office switchboard girl told Ranklin. “She says it’s very urgent. Should I connect her?”
“Please do,” and he listened as she wrestled with the “instant” communication that was going to change the world.
At last a very distant Corinna came on: “Matt? Matt? Get over here, Berenice has been kidnapped.”
10
Rolls-Royces might not zoom, either, but this one certainly surged when the Commander put his foot down. Ranklin felt the clenching of mechanical muscle like a horse preparing to leap, then the release as it soared off. But unlike a horse, it soared on and on as the Commander kept accelerator and horn depressed. Ranklin got the (fleeting) impression that other motorists turned angrily to see what frightful bounder was making that din, saw two tons of speeding Rolls-Royce behind, and chose to live long enough to write to The Times about it.
Looked at coolly, it was an odd way for the Secret Service Bureau to cross London, but by now Ranklin was praying that the Commander was at least looking, never mind coolly. They were all armed: Ranklin and O’Gilroy with their own pistols, Jay and the Commander with weapons grabbed from his collection in the inner office.
The steel-on-steel brakes screeched like escaping steam as they swung out of the Mall and up past St James’s Palace, barged into the traffic of Pall Mall, up St James’s, swerved into Piccadilly, and finally up Clarges Street. Corinna was waving energetically from the pavement.
“That Sackfield bitch from Bloomsbury Gardens called,” she panted, “and wanted to take Berenice for a walk and I couldn’t exactly stop them but I could go along, and your young guy following incognito. And near Hyde Park Corner an automobile pulled over and they shouted for Berenice to jump in and she did, and the Sackfield woman stopped me interfering but I stopped her getting in and her eye won’t be the same in weeks, and your guy came running but the automobile got away, and I think he may have got a taxi round in Constitution Hill, but I got one back here to telephone you.”
“What motor-car?” Ranklin asked.
“Dark red and a landau body.” The Yard might have felt inhibited about offending that car’s owner, but not so the Bureau.
“Go up and telephone the office,” the Commander told Ranklin. “See if P’s called in.”
Ranklin bounded up the stairs, leaving Corinna and her skirt plodding after. He had already rung the bell, rushed in and grabbed the telephone by the time she caught up.
“What happened to the Sackfield woman?” he asked.
“God knows. I wanted to get back here.”
“And you obviously didn’t have your pistol with you.”
Corinna travelled with an outdated but still handy Colt Pocket Pistol in her “purse” but: “In daylight in Mayfair?”
Then the office switchboard answered: yes, Lieutenant P had just called, he’d lost the red Simplex but it had been going up Shaftesbury Avenue and he’d called from the post office there. Damn – P wasn’t properly briefed, he didn’t know the Bloomsbury Gardens address.
“If he calls again,” Ranklin said, “tell him to get back to the office to act as co-ordinator.” Then he ran.
“What do I do?” Corinna yelled after him.
“Guard the telephone.”
“Don’t you want another automobile?”
Ranklin stopped.
In the street, the Commander was talking to two men, one in a sober suit and bowler hat, the other a derelict loafer – obviously Superintendent Mockford’s men.
O’Gilroy intercepted him and confirmed: “Coppers. Was watching the motor, but scared it off, more like. Drove away an hour and more ago. And of course the coppers didn’t have their own motor to follow in.”
Ranklin nodded and pushed straight into the Commander’s conversation. “He lost it heading north-east, it could have gone to Bloomsbury Gardens.”
The Commander abandoned the policemen in mid-sentence. “Right, all aboard!”
The more respectable looking one said: “I think I’d better come along, too, sir.”
“Sorry, no room.” The Rolls-Royce, an open tourer, could have carried a platoon. And a policeman could add legitimacy to what might otherwise be an outright brawl.
“Mrs Finn’s having her own motor-car brought round,” Ranklin said. “O’Gilroy and I could go in that. Then we can split up if Berenice isn’t at Bloomsbury Gardens.”
The Sherring Daimler appeared at the end of the street at the same time that Corinna shot out of the apartment house.
The Commander waved a hand impatiently. “Oh, all right. Get in the back, Inspector or Sergeant or whatever you are.”
By the time the Rolls-Royce surged away, Corinna had talked the chauffeur out and taken his place. Whatever she promised or threatened, Ranklin didn’t hear, but they left the man looking pretty bewildered.
“Bloomsbury Gardens?”
“Please. But if it looks like getting at all rough, you stay in the motor-car. And if anybody starts shooting, get out and hide behind the engine . . . That’s at the front.”
“I know where the engine is!”
“It’s solid enough to stop anything.”
She turned her head to look at him. “Why this sudden concern? You’ve had me loading artillery guns for you.”
“That just happened. I don’t want your luck running out—Please watch the road!”
The Simplex wasn’t parked outside 14 Bloomsbury Gardens, nor anywhere else in the square or within a hundred yards dow
n any of the streets off it. By the time the Daimler had finished its reconnaissance, the others were inside the house. The Commander was only just inside; he’d found a chair and was letting things develop around him.
Venetia Sackfield, with a rip down the front of her pale violet dress and a wet towel held to her left eye, was in full protest: “You’ve got no right at all to come charging into this house! This is sheer oppression!”
The bowler-hatted policeman said: “A complaint has been made, madam, that—”
Corinna pointed melodramatically: “I want that woman arrested for assault and kidnapping!”
“Berenice got into that car willingly!”
“Do you agree, madam, that you were present—?”
“Are you saying you didn’t assault—?”
“Berenice is within her rights—”
Ranklin and O’Gilroy left them to it and went to help Jay search the house. A kidnapping charge might even make that legal, though the Bureau wasn’t too expert on legality.
They met Jay coming downstairs escorting a young man in shirt-sleeves who looked pale, just woken, and hungover. “Meet Rupert Peverell,” Jay said cheerfully. “The owner of a dark red Simplex landau.”
“Ah, the chap the police say helped murder the French meat porter,” Ranklin said loudly.
Peverell got several degrees more sober. “They say . . . I didn’t . . . What?”
“ ’T was yer motor they used,” O’Gilroy said. “That makes it for yeself to prove yer innocence.” His law was as twisted as his grin, but the grin was indisputable. It possibly reminded Peverell of a shark halfway through a good meal.
“I-I-I lent it t-to some chaps,” he stuttered.
“Names?” Ranklin snapped.
“J-just some friends o-of Feodor’s.”
“Gorkin’s?” Ranklin glanced at Jay, who shook his head: no one else in the house. “Look the place over for clothes and luggage.” Back to Peverell. “Where is Gorkin?”
“I-I d-don’t know. I-I’ve been as-sleep. G-got a bit tiddly. Sorry.” He sat down abruptly on the stairs, leaned slowly over and was sick.
Ranklin went back to the policeman standing just inside the front room with Corinna and Venetia Sackfield. “I’ve got the owner of the Simplex for you. But he’s no idea where it is.”
“Good. The Super very much wants a word with him. It seems there isn’t a telephone here, so—”
“Telephone wire going into the place two doors down,” O’Gilroy told him.
“Oh, splendid. I’ve informed this lady she’s under arrest, so if you’d watch her for me? If she tries to escape, please do not use violence, just follow her.”
“I’m not trying to escape, you nincompoop!” Venetia flared. “I live here.”
When the policeman had gone, Ranklin nodded Corinna after him.
“Now hold on, I—”
“Out.” Ranklin jerked his thumb. She flounced, but flounced out. He turned to Venetia and made his voice quiet and reasonable. “We are genuinely worried about the fate of Berenice. It isn’t a question of the police this time, it’s some unknown men that Mr Peverell lent his motor-car to. The police think Guillet, the murdered Frenchman, may have got into that motor-car just before he was killed. So I hope you understand our worry about Berenice definitely getting into it. I want you – please – to tell us anything you know about those men and where they’ve taken Berenice.”
“She’s going back to France, of her own free will. That’s all.”
“Too late for a boat today,” O’Gilroy said.
“Of her own free will.”
“One last appeal,” Ranklin said. “Please?” After a moment, he turned to O’Gilroy. “She’s obviously in it with them. Maybe two murders, and I doubt the police’ll be able to prove it. Hardly seems just, that.”
He walked over and snapped the bolt on the door.
O’Gilroy took out his pistol, examined it – then thrust it at Venetia’s face.
Ranklin walked back. “She suddenly produced a firearm–this one.” He took out his revolver. “From under that cushion there. You had no choice.”
“We need her fingerprints on it,” O’Gilroy said, his gun quite steady.
Ranklin seized Venetia’s hand and squeezed it round the revolver. She pulled free and Ranklin shrugged. “I’ll get better ones when she’s dead. Nobody can tell.”
“And mebbe a touch of gun oil on the cushion underside?”
“Good point.” He smiled at Venetia. “You see? It’s the little things that give conviction.” He put the revolver down and his fingers in his ears. “In your own time, Mr Gorman.”
“I don’t know their names!” Venetia wailed.
Ranklin shook his head irritably. “Get it over with, man.” He replaced his fingers.
Venetia collapsed into a chair and spoke in one panting rush. “Dr Gorkin met them at the Jubilee Street anarchists’ club. I don’t know their names, honestly. They come from around there, they mentioned a Tarling Street. It’s in the East End, you go down Whitechapel High Street and just after it becomes the Mile End Road—”
By then Ranklin was unbolting the door. Unbelieving, Venetia stared at him. Then she rounded on O’Gilroy, who was calmly uncocking his pistol. “You aren’t police! I’m going to tell the police!”
“What’ll ye tell ’em? That ye helped two fellers ye knew was from the anarchist club kidnap her?” He turned away and, when he had turned, swallowed hard. He honestly hadn’t been sure what would have happened next, what was supposed to happen next. Ranklin had been so convincing about wanting the woman killed . . .
Well, she had been convinced, and that was all that mattered.
When he got outside, Ranklin and Corinna were standing on the pavement, with her pointing out that it was her automobile, God damn it.
“It’ll be the East End, and if we catch up with these men, I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“But I’ll be driving, leaving you free to—”
“O’Gilroy can drive – and when we get there, I’d like him guarding my back, not staying behind with you.”
That was a low blow and the fury on her face showed it. But it ended the fight: she stood aside, looking daggers. Nasty Eastern curly ones.
The bowler-hatted policeman appeared again. “Superintendent Mockford’s on his way. He wants you to—”
“Save your breath,” Corinna advised, as the Daimler pulled away behind the Commander’s Rolls-Royce. “No women or policemen allowed.”
Perhaps traffic was lighter in the City, but the roads there were narrower. Then suddenly they were out on the broad highway of Whitechapel High Street and though neither the Commander nor O’Gilroy knew this territory, all they had to do was follow the tram-lines and scatter the queues coming out to board a tram.
By now the Daimler was leading, Ranklin in the front seat and reading from a London map. Having located Tarling Street, he directed O’Gilroy down the Commercial Road.
“Are we looking for this club place?”
“No, they’d tell us nothing. Also, I forgot to ask whereabouts in Jubilee Street it is and it’s nearly half a mile long. We’ll try Tarling Street; it’s shorter.”
He had O’Gilroy turn down Sutton Street East and stop, then walked back to the Rolls-Royce. “Tarling Street’s the second on the right,” he told the Commander. “D’you want to give any orders?”
“You carry on, you’re doing fine.”
Ranklin nodded. “Our one hope is finding that Simplex. We’ve got no proper address, no description, nothing but that motor-car. And it may not be parked outside the right house. Down here . . .” He gestured: down here, a private motor would stand out like a lighthouse; the locals had as much chance of owning one as they did a holiday home on the moon.
“So if you spot it, knock on doors and ask questions.” And Jay, who would be sent to do the knocking and asking, nodded unenthusiastically.
“You take the next right and work your wa
y down,” Ranklin told the Commander. “We’ll go down to the railway –” it crossed Sutton Street on arches two hundred yards ahead “– and work our way up.”
Already the sight of two big shiny motor-cars had brought an audience to the nearer doorsteps. The women all wore aprons and kept their arms folded except when they were cuffing their children. Ranklin felt like an explorer meeting an alien tribe and wasn’t sure how they’d answer if he tried speaking to them.
The whole area was alien, dreary, shabby and above all featureless. Just rows of terraced houses, as small as they could be and packed as tight as they could be. These streets lacked even the small, starved shops and sad little pubs of the Commercial Road. Here and there a scrubbed doorstep and shining-clean windows stood out, but such signs of determined hope were rare. And if Ranklin had thought brickwork was just brickwork, he learnt that here it wasn’t: it could be unskilled and careless, with rotting mortar.
And it was so small, everything so Lilliputian – except in area. They had passed miles of such streets and he knew there were more miles all around.
They trundled slowly down Sutton Street: there were no side streets on the left, and nothing parked anywhere on the cobbles except for an occasional hand-cart and a couple of horses and carts delivering things. They turned right alongside the railway and there was a motor by Shadwell station, but it was the wrong make and colour and had someone in it obviously waiting for a train passenger.
Right again up Watney Street, which would bring them past the other end of Tarling Street. But first there was a Congregational Church on the corner of a small cross street, and outside was parked the Simplex. It was empty.
O’Gilroy stopped in front of it and they got out and, for want of something to do, peered into the motor. A couple of small boys, in trousers chopped off around the knees, sidled from an alleyway opposite and walked quickly towards the corner, glancing across at them furtively.
O’Gilroy was the one to catch on. He waited until the boys were out of sight, then ran. Bemused but trusting, Ranklin followed. At the corner of the church O’Gilroy stopped, crouched and peered from an unexpected height.
