Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Mr American

  George MacDonald Fraser

  COLLINS

  St James's Place, London

  1980

  Part One

  1

  Inspector Griffin came down to the landing-stage on a raw autumn morning to see the Mauretania berthing. It was part of his job; there was always someone from the detective department on hand when the American liners docked, but for Inspector Griffin it was a pleasure, too. He loved the bustle of the wharf at dawn, and the sight of the huge iron ship edging gently into the quay, the busy little tugs, the squealing whistles, the propellor churning the yellow Mersey into dirty foam; he even enjoyed the bite of the wind and the cold drizzle which was causing his colleague, young Constable Murphy, to hunch his collar round his chin as he stamped his feet on the wet flags. To Murphy it was just another tedious chore; he wiped his nose and glowered at the low clouds over the river.

  `Won't be worth their while takin' off at Doncaster this afternoon,' he observed glumly, and Inspector Griffin understood. Constable Murphy was a flying enthusiast, like most of the population these days; since M. Bleriot had come winging ghost-like out of the Channel mist a few weeks before, the first man to fly from France into England in a crazy contraption that looked like an overgrown kite, the country seemed to have gone flying daft, Inspector Griffin reflected. He didn't like it; perhaps he was getting old and conservative, but the thought that a man could fly in a few minutes across England's last line of defence - and from France, of all places - made him uneasy. It wasn't natural, and it wasn't safe. And what use would the Royal Navy be, if Frogs and Germans and God knew what other breed of foreigners could soar unscathed over their heads?

  'Farman an' Cody's goin' to be at Doncaster,' said Murphy, with relish. 'First flyin' meetin' on British soil, by gum! Wouldn't I like to be there? Cody flew from London to Manchester the other day, over the railway tracks, special markers they had on the ground to guide him - an' they say Farman's been

  up six hundred feet, an' can go higher yet.' He shuddered deliciously and wiped his noseagain. 'Think of it, sir! Just them tiny machines, an' -'

  Females, football and flying, Griffin reflected irritably, that was all these young fellows thought about. The gangways were down, and the first passengers were picking their way gingerly down to the quay, shepherded by the Mauretania's stewards, but Murphy, who should have been casting a professional eye over them, was plainly miles away in the sky above Doncaster, performing aerobatics with Cody and Farman and his other heroes.

  'Cody's goin' to become naturalised British, they reckon,' he went on. 'If he lives long enough - there was a crash at Paris t'other day, fellow broke his neck, shocking risks they take-'

  'Thought you were more interested in Everton,' said Griffin, vainly trying to stem the flood. 'Aren't they playing Liverpool this afternoon?'

  'Gah, they'll get beat, them,' said Murphy derisively. 'Play football, that lot? They dunno what football is - you should have been up in Glasgow the other day, sir, my Saturday off. Glasgow versus Sheffield, that was something. See that McMenemy, an' Quinn - bloody marvellous! We don't see nothing like 'em, down here. Now, Quinn, he -'

  I was a fool to mention it, thought Griffin, and a bigger fool for being so soft. Any right-minded inspector would have shut up the garrulous Murphy with a look, but he wasn't a bad lad and Griffin had a liking for him. Irish though - mind you, who wasn't, in Liverpool these days? Griffin the Welshman had strong views about immigrants, and while the Micks were undeniably fellow-Britons there were still a damned sight too many of them about.

  Come on,' he said, 'they're coming ashore,' and the two officers moved off into the long, dingy Customs shed where the officials were waiting with their watchful eyes and pieces of chalk among the mounds of baggage, to deal soft-voiced with the first passengers who were congregating at the tables.

  This was what Griffin liked. The faces, the clothes, the voices - above all the voices. Many years before, Inspector Griffin had been a strapping young constable in the North-west Mounted Police; it was where his career had begun, and he had never lost his affection for the North American accent -even the harsh nasal Yankee voice which was so often heard in that shed awoke memories for him; he had that vague privileged feeling of kinship that one feels for foreigners in whose country one has lived. Not that Canada was foreign, of course, quite the opposite; neither were Americans, really - he scanned the faces beyond the tables with an interest that was only part-professional, indulging in his habitual speculation. Who were they? Where were they from? What would they be doing in England? How many of them were rascals? One or two, in his experience, but nothing serious this trip, or Delgado in New York would have telegraphed. He'd never met Delgado, and knew him only as a name at the end of cables and occasional official reports - Delgado would know him in the same way. Wonder what he was like? - sounded like an Italian name, maybe. Good policeman, anyway, whatever he was; it was Delgado's tip that had helped them nail that German forger in Leeds a year ago.

  'Do I look as though I am carrying more than half a pint of spirits?' A mountainous lady in an expensive sealskin coat and a mountainous English accent was glaring at a Customs man. 'Spirits, indeed! I never heard of such -'

  'Perfumes are spirits, madam,' said the Customs man quietly. 'Have you any perfume, madam?'

  'Of course I have. A normal quantity, and certainly not half a pint -'

  'And chocolates, madam? Confections of any kind?'

  'Chocolates?'

  'Sweets are dutiable, madam. Any American candies, or bon-bons-'

  `What arrant nonsense!' The lady turned indignantly to the pale young companion at her side. 'Have we any sweets, Evelyn? Dangerous, highly contraband sweets whose introduction into England will unbalance the Budget?'

  Griffin smiled, but his eyes were elsewhere, running over a small, stout man waiting his turn at the next table, politely allowing a lady to go first, smiling affably and tapping his fingers on the handle of his valise. Three or four bottles of brandy in there for a start, thought Griffin. That was not strictly speaking any of his business, but the stout little man could easily be a sharp. Griffin sauntered closer to listen to the voice.

  `... one bottle of bourbon, open, and a half pound of cigars, nothing else, officer.' It was an American voice, sharp and eager, perhaps a little too conciliatory. 'Oh, and I have a copy of one of Mr Conan Doyle - I beg your pardon, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, printed in America. I know that English copyrighted books are liable to confiscation, but I assure you it's the only one I've got.'

  ' - an' anyway, Liverpool'!! win by two clear goals, easy,' Constable Murphy was saying. 'Want me to keep an eye on that one, sir?'

  Griffin turned away, surveying the other passengers. Rich, influential, upper-class, most of them, as one would expect aboard the Mauretania. Well-fed faces, substantial broadcloths and tweeds on the men, furs on the ladies, fox stoles and sealskins, diamond pins, gold watch-chains, a profusion of expensive rings and brooches - a pickpocket's paradise, if any of the local dips had had the nerve to invade the area between the quay and Riverside Station, well-policed as it was. About half were American visitors, about half returning Britons; the voices mingled in a babble round the Customs tables. 'Anything to declare . . . ? Well, I don't know how many cigars make a pound, officer.... I have this silk scarf, but it's a present for my mother, don't you know ... if you'll open the large trunk, please, sir ... but it's an engagement ring - this is my fiance - surely you won't charge on that? . . . anything to declare, madam?'

  All the usual little lies, the half-hearted deceptions, the unnecessary anxieties, thought Griffin. But nothing really to excite his official interest. He noted that the mountainous lady was preparing to erupt as
her nervous companion clumsily unbuckled the straps of a suitcase and twitteringly guided and hindered the Customs man as he plunged into the mass of female clothing within.

  'One would think one were a criminal, or a passenger to New York!' exclaimed the large lady indignantly, her feather hat quivering with affront. 'It is bad enough to have one's belongings turned out wholesale in front of half the population of America, but in England - really!' Plainly the lady had suffered, on her arrival at New York, at the hands of the minions of 'Lucky' Loeb, the Customs Chief, whose private war against smuggling had caused considerable indignation and sundry spluttering letters to the New York Times; Griffin seemed to remember that even a steamship line's director had had to turn out his pockets. But now the Customs man was delving and bringing forth a large bottle of gin, and the lady was going bright purple and demanding of the shrinking Evelyn how that had got there?

  'Serve the old trout right,' observed Murphy coarsely, and Inspector Griffin privately agreed. Nothing much here, though; he glanced again at the little stout man, who was bustling off crying 'Thank you, thank you, sir!' to the Customs man, and was preparing to speak to Murphy, when his eye fell on a face at the table beyond.

  A man was stepping forward to take his place at the table, pausing momentarily to make way for two pretty giggling American girls who were gathering up their cases; they had succeeded in wheedling more than their allowance of perfume past a grey-haired and indulgent official, and were tripping off to find a porter. One of them shot a quick, appraising glance at the man who was stepping aside, received a grave touch of the hat-brim in return, and whispered, tittering to her companion; she was what Murphy would have called a peach, a lissom little blonde whose bobbing curls and tight-skirted bottom drew an approving sigh from the constable as he watched her clicking off on her high heels, showing a tantalising glimpse of silken ankle; a nudge from Griffin brought him back to earth.

  'That one at the far table. All right, turn this way and tell me about him.'

  Murphy glanced at the man for a couple of seconds and turned obediently to face Griffin; he only slightly resented his superior's habit of playing classroom games by way of instruction in police routine.

  'American,' he said confidently, 'thirty to thirty-five, not more. Six foot one, maybe two, between twelve an' thirteen stone, well built on the lean side, black moustache, no whiskers, could do with a hair-cut, thin features, sunburned, wearing a bowler, brown, an' a tweed cape, dark suit, no rings, plain pin, watch-chain as might be gold but might just as easy be brass, not carryin' a stick, but with a big green valise-'

  'Yes, yes, boy,' said Griffin. 'But what about him? Turn and have another look.'

  Murphy shrugged and glanced round at the man, who was watching the Customs official go through his valise; he looked ordinary enough to Murphy; not quite so well-dressed as most of the passengers, perhaps, a trifle more - bohemian was the word that might have occurred to Murphy if he had known it, but it would have been wide of the mark. Quiet-looking chap, very attentive to what the Customs man said, nodding seriously and thanking the official as he restrapped the valise and turned his attention to the battered trunk which lay beside the table. Murphy frowned and shrugged again.

  'That's all, sir; don't see anything out o' the way. He's no crook, that's certain; not so - well, smooth as most, but otherwise. ..' He shook his head. 'Quiet chap, I'd say; you know, a bit soft-like, in his manner - for a Yankee, any roads.'

  The Customs man was bending over the trunk, chalk in hand, and the American was stooping beside him, apparently reassuring him about the contents. Griffin strained his ears, and felt a slight thrill of satisfaction when the passenger spoke. All he said was: 'No, no I don't believe I have any of those. Guess I'd know if I did, all right. Thank you, thanks very much.'

  The voice fitted, Griffin thought. That soft, husky drawl, so different from the nasal rasp of the Eastern seaboard; it was a voice from the Plains, the kind he remembered from the Saskatchewan prairie. North Central United States, then, or thereabouts; it was an accent which Griffin, with his sympathetic Welsh ear, could have listened to all day; a voice from out yonder.

  'Have I missed anything, sir?' Murphy was wondering.

  Just about everything that matters, thought Griffin, but since he couldn't blame Murphy for failing to recognise something he had never seen before, all he said was: 'No, boy, you had him summed up nice for description. He isn't sunburned, though; he's weatherbeaten. There's a difference. Tell you what, Constable Murphy - that little stout chap who went through a minute since. See if he gets on the London train, will you? If he doesn't, get his address.'

  He was not particularly interested in the little stout man, but he wanted to study this other one at leisure. Not that there was anything really remarkable about him, but he was out of the run of the normal transatlantic traffic. A Westerner, and not a townsman, either. Griffin studied the tall, rangy figure in its slightly incongruous cape and new bowler; good features, behind the black moustache that turned down slightly at the corners of the mouth, quite a fine face, like a scholar's, even, thought Griffin, although this patently wasn't a scholar. Soft-like, Murphy had thought, and Griffin could excuse him for the mistake; there was a gentleness, almost a diffidence, about the face and the man's whole bearing, as though he were ready to apologise for being there. But he wasn't soft; oh no, thought Griffin, you're not soft - but nobody will realise it until the moment when they wish they hadn't misjudged you.

  The Inspector smiled. How long ago was it now? - twenty-four years, nearly twenty-five since the day that sometimes came back to him in bad dreams. The tangled clearing at Duck Lake, the reek of powder smoke and the crash of firing, the shrill yells of the Metis sharpshooters and the whooping of Big Bear's Crees as they closed in through the woods on the battered circle of red coats among the carts and slaughtered horses. The Army Colt jumping in his fist as he fired over the shelter of his saddle, and then the scorching pain in his left arm, and himself pawing at the feathered arrow in his blood-soaked sleeve, crying great tears of pain, until the man next to him had crawled across to snap the shaft off short and thrust the arrow-head agonisingly through Griffin's arm and out the other side. He remembered the man's face; the same wide-spaced grey eyes, the lean features and straight jaw under the broad-brimmed hat, and the soft, almost apologetic voice: 'Easy does it, Mountie. Just lie there, head down-okay?' Why, he might have been this fellow's father, for looks. MacPherson, his name had been, a big, gangling scout in buckskin - but then, there had been hundreds like him, all through that campaign; tall, quiet men who said little, and that to the point, courteous in manner, pensive, rather lonely men.

  And the wounded bewildered young constable in the red tunic was now Inspector Lloyd Griffin, of the Liverpool force, dressed in authority and drab overcoat, heavier about the jowls and waist, and instead of the trees and war-whoops by Duck Lake there was the echoing Customs shed and the respectable passengers and staff going about their business quietly and orderly in the civilised centre of England's second city, and it was no buckskin man but a soberly dressed American who was nodding to the Customs man and looking about for a porter.

  Griffin sauntered closer and cast an eye at the label on the battered trunk. It read 'M. J. Franklin, Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, England.' Well, he hadn't expected to see the name MacPherson, anyhow. Just because this boy was from the same stable, so to speak, of the same breed and the same neck of the woods, give or take a thousand miles or so, meant nothing. Inspector Griffin shook himself almost irritably. That was all long ago, and things had changed; this was the twentieth century, and the wild days were well gone now, except in the memories of old hands like himself. But for a moment there, the sight of that . . . that type, working on his Celtic imagination, had taken him back. Well, of course, men didn't change, even if times did. And this one still seemed out of place, somehow, in grimy old Liverpool. In quiet old England, come to that.

  He watched M. J. Franklin trying t
o catch a porter's eye and not succeeding. No, decidedly he wasn't a city-dweller. A farmer, perhaps? No, that wasn't right. A surveyor, then, or an engineer. Most probably something like that, with his sundowner complexion. And what was he doing in England? Any one of a thousand perfectly ordinary things - Inspector Griffin chided himself to remember that men came and went with startling speed from the ends of the earth nowadays, on all sorts of errands; the old conventions that tied a man to his place were going, and it was becoming one world indeed. Bloody Frogs flying the Channel, for example.

  `He got on the London train, second class, his name's Kruger, and he travels for a New Jersey typewriter manufacturer.' Constable Murphy was back, reporting with every sign of self-satisfaction. 'An' he'll be staying at Peterson's Hotel, Baker Street.'

  `Very good, Constable Murphy,' said Griffin, and since it would never do for Murphy to think he was impressed, he added: 'And the little Yankee charmer with the blonde curls, then? Where was she going?'

  `Maidstone, to visit her aunt,' said Murphy, grinning. `Well, she was having trouble finding a seat, and a policeman's meant to be helpful, isn't he?'

  `She must be uncommon helpless if she can't find a seat on a train that's never half-full,' said Griffin drily. He was still observing Mr Franklin's unavailing attempts to summon a porter. On impulse the Inspector whistled, short and sharp, half a dozen porters looked round, and a jerk of his head directed their attention to Franklin's trunk. In a moment it was on a barrow and being rolled out of the shed; Franklin, who had heard the whistle, raised an acknowledging finger to the Inspector.

  `Much obliged to you, sir,' he said, and strode off after his trunk, valise in hand, open cape flapping. Griffin watched the rangy figure out of sight, and sighed. So much for his romantic imagination, he decided. Still ...

  `Duck out o' water,' said Murphy carelessly, following his chief s glance.

  `Yes,' said Inspector Griffin, turning away. `Yes, constable, you're probably right.'