All Honourable Men (10 page)

“Wonderful,” Ranklin murmured.
Eil-Zug
, with the international deceitfulness of all railways, meant “fast train” without telling you there were two faster types and only one slower.

Then the bearded man came back and they stood up for Dahlmann's introductions. “Zurga, may I introduce the
Honourable Patrick Snaipe of His Britannic Majesty's Diplomatic Service? Zurga Bey, of His Imperial Majesty's Consular Service.”

They shook hands. Zurga was considerably taller and leaner than them, wearing a thick, tweedy German knickerbocker suit that didn't make him look in the least German.

“Zurga Bey is coming with us to Constantinople,” Dahlmann explained, “and then to the south with you and Lady Kelso. He knows Miskal Bey, I think?”

“By repute only.”

It was time to plant a first impression of Snaipe on Zurga. So, while Ranklin knew just who Miskal was – though hardly anything about him – he looked hopefully blank.

Dahlmann saw this and said: “The man who kidnapped the railwaymen. The whole reason we are—”

“Oh, the Pasha.”

This genuinely annoyed Dahlmann, but Zurga was only amused. “The newspapers think everyone in Turkey is a pasha. In truth, a pasha is a general or a governor, a bey is a colonel or the
vali
of a district, after that everyone is
effendi
.” Such rank-consciousness was perhaps inevitable in such a bureaucratic country.

“Miskal is Bey because he was a colonel, once,” Zurga went on. “Now he has only the authority of
kaimakam
. Chief of a village. He is an Arab –” that was no compliment “– and supporter of Sultan Abdul Ahmet, so naturally the Committee could not trust him, and made him to retire. There are many like him, just important in one little bit of country.”

Except that little bit of country is the one you need to blast a rail tunnel through.

During this, the carriage had been shunted back and forth, but now it seemed to be picking up speed steadily. The marshalling yard narrowed and vanished, trees replaced houses and glimpses of the Rhine appeared between them. It was about the width of the Thames at London and full with fast brown water flecked with white, like teeth; beyond it, the wooded hills looked pallid in the drizzle.

The Wurttemberg State Railways official came in, dabbing rain from his wide blonde moustache and announced that they were on their way to Friedrichshafen via Singen, on time. Dahlmann offered him coffee, he accepted and sat down in a permanent manner.

This rather put a stopper on the conversation until Zurga switched to English on the quite blatant assumption that the railwayman wouldn't understand. “Do you come all the way into the mountains?” His English was nowhere as good as his German, which had been fluent, better than Ranklin's.

“Oh yes. Wherever Lady Kelso goes, I tag along.”

“It will be cold. Still snow, I think. Do you have good clothes?”

“Warm ones? I expect so. I told my man to pack whatever I'd need.”

Ranklin wondered if he'd overdone the casual Snaipeish-ness, since Zurga began to study him carefully. He could only gaze blandly back. Behind the short wiry beard, Zurga had a big sharp nose in a triangular face, rather like an Italian cat and typically Turkish so far. But the face was flatter, the eyes wider spaced, almost Eastern. But despite a reputation for being nasty to minority races, the Turks had more mixed blood than they usually acknowledged, and they had originally come from further east anyway. In Ranklin's memory the beard was odd, usually worn only by older men and
mullahs
.

And unlike Ranklin and Dahlmann, who both wore their overcoats firmly buttoned up – they were too few in that big compartment to add anything to the temperature – Zurga seemed happy lounging back in his knickerbocker suit with even the jacket unbuttoned.

“You're a Consul, are you?” Ranklin asked. “Jolly good. Are you stationed in Basle?”

“No. I am in Frankfurt. But I was travelling in the Black Forest when the message was to meet this train.”

“Ah. Nice country, there.” Their route up the Rhine was skimming the west and southern edges of the Forest.

“And do you know the Lady Kelso a long time?” Zurga asked.

“Never met her,” Ranklin said cheerfully. “Have you?”

“I have seen her, in Constantinople, many years before now. It was said of her . . .” He hesitated.

Perhaps heading him off, Dahlmann leaned forward. “You must help me, Mr Snaipe, so that I do not make mistakes. How should I call the lady?”

This was one area where Snaipe, as an “Hon” himself, could afford to get it right. “Strictly, she's the Dowager Viscountess Kelso, but she most likely prefers to be –” what was her Christian name? Oh, yes – “Harriet, Lady Kelso. To distinguish her from her stepson's wife, who's plain Lady Kelso.”

Dahlmann mouthed “Harriet, Lady Kelso,” a couple of times in a whisper.

“But,” Ranklin added, “since the Christian name is just to avoid confusion, ‘Lady Kelso' will do. Unless we get the other one on the train as well.”

“And I call her My Lady?”

Ranklin winced. “No, not unless you're a servant. Just Lady Kelso to start with, then Madam.”

This didn't seem grand enough for Dahlmann. “Are you quite certain?”

“Oh, yes.” So Dahlmann whispered “Madam” a few times to see if he could aggrandise it.

“Mind, she may say ‘Call me Harriet', so—”

“I shall call her Lady Kelso,” Dahlmann said firmly, pulling his overcoat tighter about his shoulders. It occurred to Ranklin that the banker was probably more comfortable dealing with ladies who had morals but no titles rather than the vice versa sort.

During all of this, Zurga had listened with careful interest. Being as rank-conscious as any Turk, he would want to get it right, too. Now he leaned back and said: “So this woman can be a Viscountess but also an adulteress? – almost a whore?”

That was going a bit far for Dahlmann. “Please, Zurga Bey, I beg you not to say such things. The lady will be with us in a few hours.”

Ranklin said: “She wasn't born in the gutter, you know, not
if she married a diplomatist. The nobility can afford to marry chorus-girls – often do, actually – but not diplomatists. Anyway, as I see it, she's coming along just because she was an adulteress, no other reason.”

“In Turkey—” But Zurga stopped there. In Turkey, adulteresses lost more than a place in decent society.

* * *

This was timber country: stacks of cut logs lay beside the track, and at almost every station there was a yard full of planks, a carpeting of damp sawdust and the smell of cut wood seeping in whenever the outside door was opened. Between stations, the forests of mingled pines and larches came in waves, surging right up to the track, then ebbing around a clearing, a handful of fields, or a sudden sight of the Rhine. In places the larches were matted so thickly with creepers that it became a dark green arras, blotting out the gloomy forest depths.

Nearly four hours after leaving Basle they were abandoned at Singen junction and, as Ranklin and O'Gilroy watched from the platform, a shunting engine pushed a similarly painted carriage up behind and men started coupling it. The rear of the new carriage had double baggage doors and was windowless, the front half had a scatter of vari-sized windows and nice warm steam wisping from two stubby chimneys. A man in the white apron, hat and bad-tempered look of a true chef sneered at them from a doorway.

The baggage compartment doors were fastened by a big padlock. Ranklin murmured: “There's probably a door on the inside, so if you
can
get a look . . .”

“Surely. Where'd this one come from?”

The only other line from the junction – Ranklin had borrowed a look at a railway map – was from the north. “It could have come from Strasbourg by the quicker, shorter route. If it's got the gold, they may not have wanted to take it through Swiss territory.”

“Mebbe ‘twas picking it up and they didn't want us to see.”

“From the middle of the Black Forest? It doesn't seem likely.”

Dahlmann appeared, probably from the local telegraph office, and urged them: “
Komm schnell!
We are going to move.”

Ranklin glanced at either end of the train. “Er – I think we'll need an engine, first.”

Dahlmann took another look and hurried away again.

“What d'ye make of the Turkish feller?” O'Gilroy asked.

“Zurga? I just don't know. His German's good, but I'd have expected more of a merchant type – and Turkey's got plenty of those – as a consul.”

“Did ye see his hands? He's not been sitting at any desk, he's been doing some real work.”

“He
says
he's been in the Black Forest. It's not exactly mountain country but it can be quite rocky. If he'd been climbing, that would roughen up his hands.”

“This weather?” O'Gilroy grunted, then added: “His baggage is all locked. And the labels been cleaned off.”

“Ah, you had a snoop. Thank you, but don't take any risks.”

“Best done while I can. Looks like we're going to be crawling with staff from now on.”

Dahlmann appeared again. “The engine is coming. When we move, we will have lunch in half an hour. Meanwhile, your luggage will be put in the baggage compartment.”

“Thank you.” Ranklin nodded the problem on to O'Gilroy.

“Right away, sir. Ah –” he turned deferentially to Dahlmann “– if ye could have the baggage doors opened, I could bring it along the platform, sir. Easier than hauling it all through the train.”

That was so sensible that it took Dahlmann a moment to think how to refuse it. “Er, no, we may move very soon. Just make sure it is ready, the other servants will help.”

So the baggage compartment was strictly
verboten
. O'Gilroy just bowed his head and walked quickly away.

It was nearly half past three when they reached Friedrichshafen, and also just after lunch. This had been a proper affair of silver cutlery and hock glasses directed by the
Chef de Train
, another Bismarck copy in (of course) Prussian blue uniform and medals. He had made it clear that the formality was because
he
had standards, not because he thought bankers and foreigners did.

They paused at the main station to pick up two railway officials from a welcoming party, then chugged on half a mile down a spur leading to the dockside itself and yet more officials. With all this official attention, it was getting to be a secret mission in a spotlight – but Ranklin was realising that, for Berlin, it wasn't a secret mission at all. They might well want European sympathy in dealing with a Turkish brigand, and any secrets – such as what was in the baggage compartment – could be well hidden in the extra-dark shadows a spotlight throws.

Just before it ran into the lake, the spur line ended at a complete but toytown-sized harbour. There was a station with a short platform, already occupied by a two-coach local train, so again they ended up in a goods siding, but a tiny one with just odd wagons parked. A few more had strayed, via a turntable, onto the quayside itself where two little cranes could lift cargo directly onto moored steamers. There was even a traditional half-timbered Customs house along the landward side of the quay.

The drizzle had stopped, but been replaced by a water-honed wind, and across the lake behind the low grey clouds and lower grey hills of Switzerland the sun was already setting. Dahlmann went off with the officials to be busy, and Zurga took one breath of
outside air and said: “I am going to stay warm.” Ranklin suspected he simply wasn't going to rouse himself for an adulteress, Dowager Viscountess though she was, but staying warm was finally possible: the return of the service coach had re-connected a heating system. Ranklin himself wasn't anxious to be out of doors, but felt the honour of the Foreign Office demanded it.

So he and O'Gilroy paced along the quay. Although the little harbour was obviously kept busy – they could see a steamer that had left only shortly before – nobody else was fool enough to hang about in that wind. They had the quay to themselves and one inevitable dockside loafer in a flat cap.

“Is this the place they make the Zeppelins?” O'Gilroy asked.

“It is, and we show absolutely
no
interest in that.”

“Surely. Jest hoping to see one. But too much wind, I'm thinking.”

“How are your new quarters?”

“Jayzus!” O'Gilroy said fervently. “Ye wouldn't keep a pig in them, ‘cept I think they did. Mind,” he added grudgingly, “the carriage is clever for what it is. Jest too much space for baggage.”

“When the Kaiser travels, it'll all be used. Can you get at it?”

“Not easy. There's a proper locked door and one of the fellers, sort of train guard and mebbe t'other sort as well, he's got a seat right alongside it. I'll try later: if ye dress for dinner, ye'll find ye haven't got any neck-ties. Give me a bollocking and send me to get 'em double quick. Mebbe that'll stampede them to let me in.”

“Good idea.”

Dahlmann strode – except that with his short legs it was more of a scurry – up with the news that the ship perhaps a mile away, and already sparkling with lights in the dusk, was the one from Romanshom. “In ten or fifteen minutes she is here. Ah . . . you will not get lost, I hope?”

Ranklin suppressed a smile. “Oh, I don't expect so. It seems quite a small town.”

Dahlmann hurried off again and Ranklin did a standing dance to keep his feet from frostbite.

O'Gilroy said approvingly: “Ye've got him thinking Patrick Snaipe's a pure fool, anyhow.”

And indeed, Ranklin felt happy that he was getting across his new persona convincingly – although he'd have to start all over again with Lady Kelso. So he may have forgotten that however well he played at being Patrick Snaipe, he still matched perfectly a description of Captain Matthew Ranklin.