by Iain Pears
“Oh,” he said softly.
“Oh what?” I was fearful. It was based on nothing, just the way he had said it—apprehensive, almost alarmed; certainly surprised, even shocked. “What’s the matter? What is all this?”
“We received a request from the Government not to run the news immediately, as did every other newspaper. We agreed, as the health of Ravenscliff ’s businesses is a matter of national interest. Besides, we were assured it was merely to stop an unnecessary panic on the markets. I thought there might be more to it, hence my recommendation of you, so I might have a man on the inside, so to speak, but I never realised it might be that serious.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at the carpet as he did when thinking fast, then looked up at me once more. “Write to her, and say you are sorry, but this job’s not for you.”
“What? But it was your idea!”
“I know. But this is not idle journalism, hanging around the law courts and police stations. This is not the sort of thing you should get involved in.”
“You’re being melodramatic. What on earth is bothering you?”
“What do you know about Henry Cort?”
“Very little,” I said firmly. “There doesn’t seem to be much to know. He was a journalist; he appears to be a gentleman of leisure of moderate means. He knew Lady Ravenscliff many years ago; and he was on the scene in some capacity shortly after Ravenscliff died. There was a reference to FO, but I don’t know what it means. Certainly not the Foreign Office, as he is not listed. I looked,” I concluded lamely.
“Yes, well. As you say, you know very little.”
“So tell me more. You clearly know something.”
“Only if you promise to give due consideration to my recommendations.”
“I will,” I said stoutly. But I don’t remember whether I meant it.
“Good. Henry Cort is possibly the most powerful man in the Empire…” He held up his hand, for he could see my look of incredulity. “Please. If you want me to tell you, you must not keep interrupting. I briefly came across him, as you so rightly guessed, at The Times about twenty years ago. Supposedly he was a journalist, but he wrote little. Yet he was sent to Paris as a correspondent even though there was one there already. No one knew where he came from, why he was given the job, except that it was said he once worked for Barings, and that his appointment was engineered by Sir Henry Wilkinson, a name which, I am sure, means nothing to you whatsoever.”
“You are right. But it is not the first time that Barings has cropped up in the last week.”
He waved away my diligence with impatience.
“Until he died, Sir Henry Wilkinson was the head—so they said, at least—of the Imperial Secret Service. It is said—equally without anyone really knowing—that Henry Cort is his far more efficient replacement. It is said—again without a shred of evidence or detail—that he once single-handedly prevented a catastrophe which would have brought the Empire to ruin. That he has killed men, and ordered the deaths of others.”
I opened my mouth to express something, then thought better of it and shut it again.
“An enterprise which operates on the scale of the British Empire is beset by foes and dangers. We have been fending off war for several decades, and have succeeded quite well. But it is only a matter of time before our luck runs out. Who will we fight? How will we ensure the best advantage for ourselves? Who are our friends? How do we guard our diplomatic, industrial, military secrets? This—so it is said—is what occupies Henry Cort.”
“You are not serious about this?”
“I am.”
“You’ve not been reading too many yellow novels?”
“No.”
“But you know this. Presumably our enemies know it.”
“Presumably. But I do not know it for certain and, perhaps, neither do they. What Cort does, and how he does it, I do not know. There are stories, but nothing that I could ever pin down enough to print in a newspaper, for example. Not that I would be allowed to, even were I so unpatriotic as to consider it. Nor does it matter. What I am trying to tell you is that if Cort is involved in some way, then so is the interest of the entire Empire. And that is not something that a junior reporter of no great experience should be dabbling in.”
“Perhaps he’s just a family friend.”
“Ravenscliff did not have family friends. Nor does Cort.”
“So what is going on?”
“I have no idea. And I suggest you do not try to find out. It will do you no good. Does Cort know about you?”
“I very much doubt it. That is, I don’t see how he could.”
“I see. Have you noticed anyone following you?”
Now I was really getting alarmed. “You’re not serious?” I was repeating myself, I know, but it seemed justifiable.
“A couple of years ago,” he said, “there was a German reporter in England, a correspondent for a Berlin newspaper. He asked questions about Mr. Cort. He died a few months later. On a railway track just outside Swindon. The verdict was suicide.”
“Really?”
“The moral of the story is, do not interest yourself in Mr. Cort. As you are English, he will no doubt be more indulgent towards you, as it is safe to assume you are not—or not yet—in the pay of our enemies…”
“Of course I’m not—”
“But you are, of course, in the pay of a woman who is, or was, a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is in alliance with the German Empire…”
I gaped. I should have managed better, but I gaped. “You’re making this up,” I said reproachfully.
“I am merely pointing out that an excessively lucrative engagement for a spurious project might be interpreted in many different ways, some not to your advantage.”
“I am certainly not going to give up £350 a year because of the fantastical notions of some civil servant,” I said robustly. “If anyone wishes to ask me what I am doing I will explain fully and openly. Naturally I will. But I am doing nothing inappropriate at all. And it is my right…”
“Of course. But your right as an Englishman can be misunderstood, and may be held to contradict your duty. So be careful. Are you still inclined to continue with this?”
I thought hard. He was a man I trusted; until that moment I had not realised how much I trusted him. But I could not entirely discount the money. And, uppermost in my mind there floated the image of Lady Ravenscliff, sitting on the settee in her sitting room, looking so vulnerable and needy, missing her husband so greatly, and placing herself in my hands. Asking my help. Me, of all the people in London.
“I may,” I said. “But not until I am sure that your warnings are correct. I do not want to place myself in danger, obviously. Nor do I wish to meddle in things which are not my concern. But I have taken on a commission, and so far I can see no real reason not to fulfil it.”
He sighed, and looked frustrated and disappointed.
“I am not saying I am determined to continue. Merely that I wish to.”
“I thought that might be your attitude. I am sorry for it. I think you are making a mistake.”
I sat and considered. What McEwen had just said had made a deep impression. And yet, an old stubbornness was beginning to stir. Why should I be frightened off with just a word whispered in my ear? Why shouldn’t I discover whatever I wanted to? I was breaking no law; in a way I was trying to discover if any had been broken. And I was being told that I should be afraid, and cautious. Englishmen should never be afraid or cautious; not of their own Government. I looked up defiantly.
“Who does Cort work for?”
“The Government.”
“I mean, which bit?”
“I have no idea. The Foreign Office, the War Office, the Home Office. All or none. It is in the nature of a task like this that it is ill-defined. You will not find any piece of paper saying what it is. I doubt he is even on the rolls of the Civil Service. We finally have a formal intelligence organisation, and he is not part of that,
either.”
“Oh.”
“He will be paid, and his expenses met, out of miscellaneous funds, untraceable to any one department of state.”
“But one person cannot—”
“Oh, good heavens, there are more than Cort! All over Britain, throughout the Empire, all over Europe, there are his men, and his women, I gather, who watch our enemies and their doings. They watch troops, they watch politicians, they watch what sorts of weapons are being produced by factories. They watch ships in harbours, they watch the people watching us. I said we may eventually be at war; in truth it has already started. You’ve read the stories in the papers; about German spies in this country, about trained murderers waiting for the moment war breaks out to strike and cause havoc here, on the streets of London.”
“Hysterical nonsense.”
“Are you sure? Our enemies learn fast. They have watched the chaos a few anarchists with homemade bombs can cause. How easy it is to kill a king in Portugal, a president in France. To sow panic with a well-placed bomb in a restaurant. Do you think they do not realise what potent weapons are fear and confusion?”
Personally, I had always considered these mouthings in the newspapers to be simply a way of softening up the population so that repressive measures could be taken against the trade unions, and poor people who wished to strike in order to gain a living wage. It had never crossed my mind that someone like McEwen would actually take them seriously. Or that they might be true.
CHAPTER 13
The Russell Hotel in Bloomsbury was a fairly new building, having been completed only a few years previously. All terra-cotta, brick and marble, it presented a formidable appearance to the outside world, so much so that although I had walked past it on many occasions, I had never even thought of going inside. It was not for people like me, any more than the Ritz was, or drawing rooms in St. James’s Square. Nor yet was it for the very wealthy. In fact, it was difficult to work out who, exactly, was meant to use it: it was too far from the West End to be convenient for the people who congregated there, and not really properly sited for those who worked in the City. And most visitors to the British Museum were not the sort who could afford its lavish prices.
That was a problem for the management, not for me. When I arrived there I simply spent my time staring at the multicoloured marble columns, the carved ceilings, the glittering chandeliers. It must, I thought, be the sort of surroundings aristocrats were used to all the time. I confess I felt rather grand; I was beginning to get a taste for this sort of living, and after only a week or so. It was slightly worrying.
“Dreadful place,” Lady Ravenscliff remarked as she sat down opposite me, once she had announced herself and I had stood up to greet her. She was smiling, indeed she seemed energised by the outing. Her eyes were bright and larger than I had noticed before; she looked extraordinarily beautiful, as though she had made a special effort to intimidate the opposition. The idea of complimenting her never occurred to me.
“Don’t you like it?”
“I find it somewhat ostentatious. It is designed to impress the impressionable. I suppose it does that very well.”
She noticed the way I had blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You will find I am prone at times to be opinionated and insensitive. Please never take anything I say on such matters to be of any value at all. I was brought up with older, shabbier buildings which did not force you to admire them all the time.”
“I suppose you might say I was as well,” I replied. “A little ostentation I find enjoyable.”
She smiled. “So it is. I stand corrected. Let us bathe in this exuberant vulgarity while we wait. Could you inform Signora Vincotti of our presence?”
I did so, while she sat immobile, a dreamy smile coming over her face. I did not know her very well, but I guessed she was calming herself before what could well be an unpleasant interview.
And, ten minutes later, Esther Vincotti descended. Let me be direct and say there was no competition possible between the two women. One alert, intelligent, beautiful, elegant; the other stout, almost square in shape, with a ruddy though amiable complexion over which she clearly took no pains at all. Never had I seen any woman less likely to be connected in some way to a vastly wealthy man. She was aged around fifty and while her clothes were not poor, she manifestly had little notion of how to dress for effect. Her hair was grey and no attempt had been made to make it look at all stylish or well groomed. Her face seemed good natured, although it bore an expression which made it clear that, if Lady Ravenscliff was anxious at the coming interview, she was thoroughly frightened.
She sat down nervously once the introductions had been made—with me acting as the go-between, as neither of the two women seemed willing to start the proceedings off and Lady Ravenscliff had (she told me) prohibited Mr. Henderson the solicitor from coming anywhere near the hotel until she had finished. Neither, however, had a look of hostility about them. Lady Ravenscliff had hardly moved a muscle, but I guessed was utterly perplexed by the idea that her husband might have dallied with such an utterly ordinary, maternal figure as this. As a result, she was hiding behind a mask of aristocratic grandeur which was both intimidating and (to me) exceptionally alluring.
“It is very good of you to come here, Your Ladyship. I am most honoured to meet you,” Signora Vincotti said after a while. “And I must thank you for arranging for me to stay in this splendid hotel. It is quite beyond what I am used to.”
“I do not think it is particularly good of me,” she replied. “And I am afraid I must wait before I know whether I am equally honoured by meeting you. How well did you know my husband?”
Nothing like getting down to business fast, I thought. I had anticipated an interminable round of politenesses before the real subject was broached.
“I do not know him at all,” replied the other woman. She spoke with something of an Italian accent, but her English was much too good for her to have been anything other than English in origin. “I am completely at a loss as to why I am here. All I know is that I received a telegram from a London solicitor telling me I had to come to London, that it was a matter of the utmost urgency. Then they sent me a railway ticket. First class. I am totally mystified and very worried. I am sure I have done nothing wrong.”
This was not the reply either of us had been expecting; Lady Ravenscliff registered something like incredulity, although she managed to keep her expression under control.
“You didn’t know my husband?”
“I met him when I was a child, I believe, though I do not remember it.”
“Where, exactly?”
“In Venice, which is where my father lived. And where he died.”
“And this was Signor Vincotti?”
“No. That is my married name, although I am a widow now. Luigi died several years ago, leaving me with four children. But my father provided for me, and I have had a good life. His name was Macintyre. He was a travelling engineer. He died in an accident when I was eight, and I was brought up by a family there.”
“You are even more well-provided for now, it seems,” said Lady Ravenscliff. “My husband has died, as you may know, and you are a beneficiary of his will.”
Signora Vincotti looked thoroughly surprised by this. “That was very kind of him,” she said. “Can you tell me why?”
I noticed she did not ask how much. I quite liked her for that.
“We were rather hoping that you might tell us.”
“I’m afraid I have no idea. None.”
“And you really never met him after your father died?”
“Never. Until that telegram arrived I had quite forgotten him. It was a great effort to recall him at all.”
“You speak very good English for someone brought up in a foreign country,” I commented.
“I was brought up by an English family. Mr. Longman was the British Consul in Venice and lived there for many years, but died when I was twenty. As I had no connections to England at all apart from him and
his wife, I stayed and eventually married. My husband was a civil engineer. With his salary, and my inheritance, we lived very well. Two of my daughters are married already. And of my two sons, one will be a lawyer, while the other intends to follow his father into engineering.”
“I congratulate you,” said Lady Ravenscliff. Was there something in the account of steady, modest, family life, of seeing children growing, and growing well, that she envied? Did it make her sad that she could never boast about her own children to others—oh, he’s doing so well, we’re so proud of him…? Was she sad she could never look into the face of a child and see an echo of her husband reflected back at her?
“Do you not wish to know how much the bequest is?” I put in, as we seemed to be straying far from the point.
“I suppose I should; but I cannot see how it can be a great deal of money.”
“It depends on what you consider a great deal. It is £50,000.”
A total silence greeted this piece of information. Signora Vincotti grew deathly pale, almost as though she had just been told some devastating news. “There must be some mistake,” she said eventually in a voice which was so quiet and so trembling it was difficult to make out.
“It seems not. I hope you will excuse our curiosity, but we are naturally interested in the reason for it. Lord Ravenscliff was an immensely wealthy man, but even by his standards this is a large sum.”
I was aware I was talking like a member of the Ravenscliff entourage, like some retainer. It made me uncomfortable in some ways, but I also noted a certain smugness in my mind as I spoke.
“I cannot help you at all, I really cannot,” she said, looking as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
“Was your father a rich man? Might they have been in business together?”
“I doubt it. I was always told he was very poor; quite unworldly. But not so unworldly that he did not provide for me.”
“And this inheritance. It was an annuity? It comes from an insurance company? A Venetian one? Italian?”
“No, no. An English bank.”
“Please do not take offence, but could you tell me how much this is for? It would help to gauge what sort of relationship your father might have had with Lord Ravenscliff.”
