by Gavin Lyall
He crept back into the bushes, calling to Mrs Langhorn to lie down and stay still, and then to Ranklin: “It’s all right, Captain. Take yer time and come careful.” Then he crawled off in a half-circle to reach the lane again beside Jay.
A couple of minutes later Ranklin snaked up to Mrs Langhorn, and found her lying as flat as her cottage-loaf figure allowed. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know. I’m all scratched and torn . . . What’s going on? Where am I?”
“A place called Trilbardou, up the Canal de l’Ourcq from Paris. How long have you been aboard that barge?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I don’t remember when . . .”
Unless she was lying, and she was certainly capable of that, it occurred to Ranklin that she could have been drugged. As complications piled up on Kaminsky, it would have been tempting to pigeon-hole one problem female with a hefty dose of laudanum.
He switched to reassurance. “Well, never mind about it.”
“Who are you, then? Who are you really?”
“Oh, private investigators. Rather superior ones.”
“Then you’re still working for Mr Quinton? – what’s happening to Grover?”
This sounded like the real Mrs Langhorn. “Unless I miss my guess, then – what’s today? It’s still Saturday, yes – then on Monday the French will drop the case against him and he’ll be free. However, right now he’s safe in a cell in Brixton while we’re lying in these bushes hiding from some armed men who want to get you back. Now, I can’t stop you going back, though I can tell you the Sûreté Nationale’s looking for them. And unless everyone around here’s stone deaf, they’ll be here soon. I’ve got a motor-car down in the village, so if we can get to that . . .” He left the idea open.
A few hours ago, I wanted to kill this woman, he remembered. A lot’s happened since then, but . . . it would still be a solution. For us.
There was a crackling from the bushes and O’Gilroy calling a soft warning. A few moments later he bellied his way out of the long grass. “He’s dead, all right. Jay.”
Ranklin said: “Yes,” just to show he’d heard.
“I got his gun.”
“Yes. Good.”
Mrs Langhorn asked: “Do you mean one of your men?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It happens.” He could have feelings about it later, when there was time. “Can we get out of this cover and down the lane without being seen?”
“Surely. Trees’n stuff go way down on this side. What then?”
“I want to get Mrs Langhorn to the motor. Then keep those bastards bottled up here until the Sûreté arrives.”
“Ye think they’ll wait that long?”
O’Gilroy had a point there. Whatever questions the Sûreté had had for Kaminsky before, there were now two dead men to ask about. The safety of the cottage could be palling.
There was suddenly a blast of shooting, but nothing came their way. The firing seemed to have been wasted on the corner of the undergrowth back by the canal. Now there was nothing – but then a clatter as something was knocked over in the dark cottage.
“Covering fire. Bringing in the feller that’s stayed back on the barge,” O’Gilroy whispered. “Now all of ’em’s in that cottage.”
So, not surprisingly, they had abandoned the walking-pace barge and concentrated in the cottage. They could either stay there, or—“They’re going to break out and look for a motorcar to capture.”
“That figgers.”
The motor Corinna was in was probably the nearest; if Ranklin knew her, she wouldn’t have gone far. But any hapless motorist would suit Kaminsky now.
“Hell. Can you hang on here until I get back? Stop them breaking out?”
“Ye’ll hear if it happens,” O’Gilroy said calmly.
“And they might get across into these trees to . . .”
“They’re welcome.” And given O’Gilroy’s mood and his infantry training, that was probably the simple truth. A bunch of men moving in a dark crackly wood was at a fatal disadvantage to one who lay quiet and knew every sound was an enemy. Come to think of it, even Kaminsky and his townees would probably work out that much.
“All right. I’ll be back.” And Ranklin began crawling, Mrs Langhorn gasping along behind him. After he had gone a few yards without attracting fire, he rose to all fours, and by the time he reached a solid stretch of fence was moving in a crouch.
The fence led them to the lane, and from there the cottage was just a pale blur. “Don’t run,” Ranklin warned. “Just walk quietly.”
At the corner where the lane met a proper street and became suddenly the heart of the village, lined with cracked stucco walls and shuttered windows, there was a small crowd gathered under one pale gas light. In front was the local gendarme. He had his pistol holster undone and laid a hand on it as Ranklin and Mrs Langhorn came out of the darkness.
Ranklin braced himself, made no attempt to hide the revolver in his hand, just brushed bits of copse out of his hair. It was the time to remember he was an officer. “Ah, M’sieu le gendarme. Have you called the Sûreté? Good. I’m Spencer of Scotland Yard –” well, within a few hundred yards, anyway “– and it’s an international anarchist gang up there. They kidnapped this lady and we’ve rescued her. Now listen, everybody –” he raised his voice “– their one hope is to escape this way and steal a motorcar. So if there’s any motors about, please make sure they’re hidden or their starting-handles are.” The village might well have no motor-cars, but the mention of “escape this way” had already reminded several citizens that they’d get just as good a view from their bedroom windows. But one of those remaining, towering over the rest, was Corinna. Thank God. “The lady’s employer will take care of her.” And to keep the gendarme from interfering, he added: “The commissaire will wish to question her personally.” Now Ranklin addressed him directly. “I won’t presume to give you orders, but may I suggest that you tell these people to find somewhere safer? It’s the bandit Kaminsky from the Café des Deux Chevaliers up there. Perhaps you’d tell the Sûreté that. Kaminsky, they’re already looking for him. And then possibly you’d guard this corner and show them the way when they arrive?”
“Very good, sir.” The gendarme even saluted him. He was a sizeable man, and probably a brave one. But in this situation, he was just out of his depth.
Ranklin nodded politely – he’d long since lost his hat somewhere – and led Mrs Langhorn over to Corinna. From there he could see the motor-car parked just along the street. “This is Grover Langhorn’s mother. Get her to . . . to the village café, wherever it is, then put the motor out of sight.”
“Are you all all right?”
“Jay got himself killed.” Why did people have to keep reminding him of it? He’d remember it when he had time, damn it.
“Oh God.”
“Yes. Well, it happens.” He turned away. “I was serious about all that stuff. O’Gilroy and I’ll keep them pinned down until the Sûreté gets here. Don’t worry.”
“What d’you mean, don’t fucking worry?”
There was another spatter of shots as he went cautiously back up the lane, and he crouched in the cover of a fence, but nothing came his way. And then, after he had turned off into the copse and begun crawling again, he and O’Gilroy had to reveal themselves with husky calls before they met. But that attracted no more shooting.
“They tried coming out’ve the back door,” O’Gilroy explained. “I sent ’em back. Next time, they might have the sense to come out crawling and I’d never see ’em behind that fence.” The cottage had a tiny fenced garden at the back. Once Kaminsky and Co. were loose in that, they would slip among the trees beyond and filter down into the village.
“No . . .” Ranklin stared at the cottage roof, dark against the starry sky. At the far end there was a chimney stack, and a wall with a chimney wouldn’t have a door, and probably no windows either. So there was just a front door on to the tow-p
ath, a back door on to the garden, with windows on those sides and the narrow end facing them.
One man up in the corner of the copse and the tow-path could cover the front and this side, but the second would have to be across the lane, able to contain any who crawled out into the little garden.
“That’s my job,” O’Gilroy said firmly. “Yer a Gunner.” With the gentle implication that Ranklin was most effective when several thousand yards from the enemy. And Ranklin couldn’t really argue.
But: “We’re not after revenge. We’re still doing the job we came to France for. Right now, that means keeping them penned up until the Sûreté gets here.”
O’Gilroy said: “Uh-huh,” and then started asking how many cartridges they had left. Ranklin knew that revenge for Jay’s death made a lot more sense to the Irishman than saving the King from embarrassment. It made it straightforward and personal. But he would obey orders . . . or rather, he wouldn’t disobey them.
So Ranklin crawled off through the undergrowth to the corner by the tow-path with Jay’s big revolver. It was the familiar Army issue, with the disadvantage that he’d never known it to be accurate for anything but killing off wounded horses.
It took O’Gilroy five minutes to cross the lane and creep through a patch of waste ground studded with small bushes and goat droppings, to the trees by the far corner of the garden fence. Shielded by a trunk, shadowed by the almost bare branches overhead, he rose carefully upright and peered around and over the low garden fence.
The cottage was only a few yards away, the little garden between just a shapeless mess of scrawny bushes and long grass. He was pretty well diagonally opposite where Ranklin should now be, the cottage in between, so there was no risk of their shooting each other. War Office letters to sorrowing parents never mentioned getting in the way of a mate’s shooting, but it happened often enough.
All right. Suppose he now fired a couple of shots through the door or its flanking windows: that would tell Kaminsky this side was covered and not to attempt anything. That would certainly be obeying orders. On the other hand, waiting for such an attempt wouldn’t be disobeying orders, would it? It would just be a sensible saving of ammunition, and he only had six rounds left. Far better, really, to keep them until he could see a target. That was what the Army had taught. It had also taught patience.
It was very quiet, a silence such as cities like London and Paris never know. The excitement might be causing untypical noise down in the village, but the houses and trees blocked it off. Even the barge’s engine had stopped – seized up, perhaps – and half a dozen people with cocked guns waited within yards of each other in dead silence. And two more, in real dead silence, in the lane.
Suddenly there was shouting from the far side of the cottage. Something in French about a woman, and then an English female voice. God damn! They were sending out the fake Mrs Langhorn on Ranklin’s side. And him an English officer and gentleman who’d be quite unable to handle that, who wouldn’t see it for a trick . . .
Then he realised the back door had opened, slowly and quietly, so slowly and quietly that he wondered if it had moved at all. But then a shape slithered over the doorsill. Moving as slowly as the door had, he leant his gun hand against the tree and aimed.
For a moment he had cunning thoughts about waiting for a second creeping shape and shooting that to block the retreat of the first . . . But it was too dark, the shooting too uncertain. He just fired, twice.
The figure gave a grunt, and then came a wild blast of firing – from the door, from the windows. Whatever anarchists really believed in, having enough ammunition came near the top of the list, and it was too much for O’Gilroy to risk. With his back to the tree trunk, he slid down to the ground while twigs, bark and even branches pattered down around him, and when the firing died down, he bellied away to a new position.
By the time he had raised himself to see over the fence again, it was quiet and the back door was shut. Then there was a clattering from inside the cottage, a muffled screech of pain, and O’Gilroy smiled in the darkness. He didn’t know if it was Kaminsky he’d hit, and anyway, there was no reason to suppose it had been Kaminsky who’d killed Jay. So it was just his hope and imagination, and all very primitive. He felt much better for it.
Moreover, those in the cottage now knew he was waiting out there, so in the end he’d done just what he’d been told.
It took ten more minutes, silent except for groans from within the cottage, for the first of the Garde Mobile of the Sûreté to arrive. Eight men in two motor-cars (Ranklin worked out later) who first questioned the village gendarme, then advanced cautiously – except for shouting loudly – up the lane. Ranklin called back and, after a time, handed over control of the copse to them. It took longer still to get a couple of men across the waste ground to take over from O’Gilroy, but that was managed, too.
He met up with Ranklin halfway back down the lane, and after they had both said they were unhurt, O’Gilroy asked: “What happened with the woman coming out the front door?”
“Oh, she just wandered along the tow-path calling to me.”
“What’d ye do?”
“Nothing, of course.” Ranklin sounded surprised. “She was obviously a ruse, but I knew she couldn’t see me. And when the shooting started on your side, she turned and ran back inside. What should I have done?”
“Nothing. Jest what ye did.” After all, O’Gilroy was recalling, I had to talk this man out of killing the real Mrs Langhorn just a few hours ago. Maybe he’s learning.
There were a few official-sounding shouts behind them, then a Sûreté voice calling on the cottage to surrender. That brought a burst of shots, and Ranklin was a bit surprised to feel himself relaxing. Firing on the Sûreté clearly established the besieged as villains, but more than that, it suggested that the siege would go to a fatal end. Odd how anarchists fought to the – quite pointless – death: at Sidney Street and here in France, too, at Choisy-le-Roi last year. Of course, Kaminsky had said he wasn’t an anarchist – but was he really? Or would he just prefer to die than be thought a coward? Either way, it was a deplorable waste of life, but if Kaminsky opted to be dead and silent – unless, of course, he already was – Ranklin wouldn’t complain.
Which left the problem of Gorkin – and Mrs Langhorn.
21
The village café was along the high street and left, beside a village green that seemed more English than French. The evening was turning chilly – it was still only April, after all – and the pavement tables were unoccupied while the interior was warm and steamy. But the tables inside weren’t much occupied either; most of the regulars would be hanging around the fringes of the siege. There were just a couple of old men whose minds weren’t in the present day, and in a corner banquette, Corinna, Berenice and Mrs Langhorn.
They made a strange trio: Corinna, who didn’t own any clothes that were less than elegant, alongside Berenice doing her usual impersonation of a bag of washing. And Mrs Langhorn, who at least knew how to wear clothes, had Corinna’s motoring dustcoat over a skirt and blouse that hadn’t been improved by crawling through the copse. But she had done something to tidy her hair.
Corinna watched them approach with anxiety turning to relief. “You look all in one piece. Have the cops finally ridden to the rescue? I heard automobiles.”
“The Garde Mobile.” Ranklin and O’Gilroy sat down. “It could turn into a proper siege, army and all, if it lasts much longer.”
Corinna glanced cautiously at Mrs Langhorn, then asked: “And you had no trouble getting away?”
“No, the Sûreté—” but then the proprietor, fat and gloomy, arrived. He delicately picked a bit of twig off Ranklin’s shoulder with his pudgy fingers and dropped it into an ashtray. Ranklin ordered cognac and beer for himself and O’Gilroy, and whatever the ladies were having again.
“That boy’s going to make his fortune tonight,” Corinna said. “When the journalists get here. He’s got a telephone.” Ranklin nodded: he ha
dn’t thought of journalists. Then he took the hint from the “boy” – probably twice Corinna’s age – and went off to the toilette to try and clean up.
When he got back, Corinna said: “You were telling us about the Sûreté.”
“They’re still getting organised up there, and hadn’t really got time for us. And my French wasn’t too good.” He glanced at O’Gilroy. “You seemed to have forgotten yours entirely.”
“No spikka da lingo.”
“Then,” Corinna asked, “d’you want to get away before they’ve got time for you?”
Ranklin shook his head slowly. “No, I’ll have to stay and give them some sort of explanation. But I’m hoping by then there’ll be a commissaire or even a prefect along: they’re more likely to settle for a nod and a wink. It’s the lower ranks who ask awkward questions.”
“And there’s still . . .” She had suddenly remembered Jay, lying in the cold lane.
Ranklin nodded.
“D’you want to tell me how—?”
“No. Later.” Then a tray of drinks arrived and he and O’Gilroy finished their beer in a few gulps. It was funny how action made your mouth dry. Then they sipped the cognac for their nerves. Corinna watched their duplicated actions solemnly.
Mrs Langhorn had been silent, looking from them to Corinna and quite ignoring Berenice. Now she asked: “Well, you’ve rescued me. What happens to me now?”
Ranklin felt he had already hauled himself up a vast mountain, only to find another false summit and an indefinite way yet to go. Had it been worth it? Why not stop now, before it cost him anything – anybody – more? Let the damned woman say what she liked to whoever she liked. But . . . but maybe he had to go on a few more steps.
He said: “You were on that barge, so the Sûreté will want to talk to you, too. What will you tell them?”
She was a bit taken aback; perhaps she thought she’d reached a safe peak, too, and now he was pushing her off.
“What do you want me to tell them?”
