All Honourable Men (23 page)

“A receipt?”

“Ye see, me master give me the money for the coat and he'll be wanting the proof of it.”

“Ah, of course.”

“And, er . . . mebbe if the receipt said twelve francs? Or fifteen, say? – he'd never be knowing.”

One touch of dishonesty not only makes the whole world kin, it may make half of it think it has a hold on the other half.

* * *

“Gold,” Corinna said as they reached a daylit floor, “has its uses, but it doesn't make people polite.”

“Very philosophical. Are you taking the yacht south?”

“Probably. When are you going?”

“It looks like this afternoon.”

“By train?”

“I imagine so. It all being for the Railway.” They could, he supposed, catch one of the coastal steamers that linked Turkey's ports, but it seemed unlikely.

“So Lady Kelso will be on the opposite side of the mountains: you'll be coming from the north and me on the south. Hm.”

When she said no more, he asked a stray employee where he could change some sovereigns and was taken up to the long marble counter. The Bank might be French, but after fifty years in Constantinople it was now thoroughly bureaucratised, so this involved several flights of higher mathematics, half a dozen forms – and coffee.

Leaning on the counter, Ranklin observed: “I expected Beirut Bertie to be here.”

“Me too, but Edouard said he'd got a cable calling him back to Beirut. He's leaving later today.”

It seemed odd to haul Bertie away from Constantinople and the loan negotiations at this stage – but Ranklin was keeping an open mind about M'sieu Lacan.

So instead, he said: “Everything lovesy-dovesy with Edouard again this morning?”

“What a
revolting
phrase. And mind your own damn business.”

“Ah, the effects of gold again.”

* * *

“What a strange coincidence!” Bertie said, shaking his head in amazement. “Still, everyone comes to Great Bazaar. . . Do you know, I met your master only last night, at the British Embassy? He seemed charming. But then,” because he wanted to give O'Gilroy room to differ, “I am not his servant.”

“Ah, sure he's pleasant enough. Jest stupid, is all.”

“I am sure you exaggerate . . . Has he been in the Diplomatic long?”

“Not him. Doesn't seem to stick at anything, what I hear. But he's got money, and land in the Ould Counthry, so . . .” O'Gilroy shrugged at the way life was. He was giving, metaphorically, an imitation of a freshly ploughed field, waiting for whatever Bertie wanted to plant.

They were sitting in one of the many small coffee-houses that were mixed in with the Bazaar's stalls – the source, O'Gilroy realised, of all those boys hurrying about with trays of coffee and tea. Such boys provided the only sign of hurry; most of the customers were taking their time, some playing backgammon, others sharing a hubble-bubble pipe, each sucking at his ornate mouthpiece with a contemplative look.

Bertie saw where O'Gilroy was looking and smiled lazily. “Hashish, probably. There are many ways of passing time, one's life, one's troubles . . . I still prefer more European vices.” He took a large silver flask from his pocket and filled his half-empty coffee cup, then proffered it. “I beg pardon – would you care to improve yours also? Here I cannot find proper cognac, but this is a passable imitation . . .”

It had a strong brandy smell although it didn't taste much like it. But anything was better than Turkish coffee.

Bertie sat back and lit another cigarette. “Do you take much interest in diplomatic affairs yourself, Mr Gorman?”

O'Gilroy shrugged. “Ye hear a lot of talk . . . Seems pretty much mixed up, most'f the time.”

“True, true, the world is very confused. But at least now Britain and France are allies . . . You must be a patriotic man yourself.”

“Been a soldier of the Queen,” O'Gilroy offered. “And the King, too. Last one, that is.”

Bertie nodded and seemed uncertain about how to go on. Meanwhile he called for more coffee. Then he said: “Do you think your master can have much influence with the Ambassador here?”

Surprised, O'Gilroy blinked. “I . . . I wouldn't be thinking so.”

Two more cups of coffee arrived and Bertie drank half his in a gulp. “Quick, while the waiter does not see . . .” He topped up their cups from his flask again. “I think your Ambassador here is a most charming man. Charming. But perhaps too much of the right family, the right school, and the world today . . .” He leant forward confidentially. “I tell you, Mr Gorman, I am concerned about the
German
influence here, in Turkey. Britain has so great an Empire to think about, sometimes perhaps . . .”

He seemed so close to saying something, to making some proposition, that O'Gilroy had to listen. But like an expert tightrope walker, Bertie went on teetering without taking the plunge. He just droned on, and his voice receded into the background murmur, the clattery of crockery, the click of backgammon pieces . . . Maybe it was getting cold, too, although O'Gilroy felt clammy . . . was it clammy? It was difficult to tell . . .

Bertie was leaning forward again, looking concerned. “Are you feeling unwell? Finish your coffee and we can get into the fresh air . . . I can get you back to the hotel.”

Obediently O'Gilroy emptied his cup – by now pure brandy – and swayed onto his feet. Bertie scooped up the sheepskin coat and supported him out into the crowded tunnel, then guided him. O'Gilroy concentrated on getting one foot in front
of the other . . . Damn it! – what a time to get some foreign germ . . .

Then a blast of cold air cut him to the marrow, but he was being helped into a cab and clattered away briskly somewhere, anywhere to outrun the drowsy dullness, to find a fresh live new world . . .

* * *

The Deutsche Bank (or the Embassy or the Railway, they seemed indivisible on this matter) had provided its own porters and another bruiser in a pistol belt to get the boxes of coin into a closed car in the street. They had also put each box into their own canvas sacks, but not with any hope of deceiving passers-by: two strong men carrying something smaller than a shoe box from a bank are unlikely to be delivering cut flowers.

Everything had been signed for prolifically: first by Dahlmann and D'Erlon, then by Corinna, who had read everything carefully, and Ranklin, who signed Snaipe's name to anything, and finally by Streibl and Dahlmann as the Deutsche pretended to pass over running expenses to the Railway. Then Streibl had driven off with the guard to see the boxes onto a launch for Haydar Pasha station and the south.

Dahlmann looked at his watch. “So. Mr Snaipe, you will be ready to travel at half past two, yes? The motor-car will take you to your Embassy for Lady Kelso also, then Dr Streibl will lead you. You will be ready?”

Ranklin agreed distractedly. He had been hoping to share a cab with Corinna, but D'Erlon was all over her – well, his eyes were – and the most he could do was persuade himself that she was taking it coolly. So he went back to the Pera Palace alone. He wasn't worried to find that O'Gilroy was still out.

“Just a mixture very similar to laudanum,” Bertie was explaining. “Which most likely you have had before as a sleeping draught. It does no damage, I assure you, or I would not have taken it myself. However, over the years, I have built up some resistance to opium – it is the cure to everything in the East – indeed, I believe a true opium-eater can take one hundred grains a day, an amount that would certainly kill an elephant. Quite remarkable. But you have taken perhaps one grain or less . . . Ah, my neck is becoming stiff.”

He gabbled something and the Turk (or whatever) who had been trudging O'Gilroy round and round the room, started marching him to and for instead. They had let him be sick, indeed had given him some foul stuff to bring it on, and since they could easily have killed him already if that was what they'd wanted, he'd taken it without a struggle. Now he felt weak, slow-witted and with a headache coming on, but nothing else. Except murderous, of course.

Seated in a chair in the middle of a room in what seemed to be a private house, Bertie went on: “You will be interested in your future.” He took out his watch. “I am leaving Constantinople this afternoon. When I have gone, and Lady Kelso's mission has also departed, soon you will be set free. We are, as I said before, allies, and I have no wish to annoy your Bureau too much. I hope you believe that?”

O'Gilroy glowered at him but was forced to keep on walking. “Me master'll be turning the town inside out looking for me, and with the Embassy to help besides—”

“Perhaps, but I much doubt it. I think a man like that will
think that you are a quite normal manservant who has quite normally got drunk. And lost.”

There was no chance of O'Gilroy betraying himself by a sudden change of expression: thoughts took far too long to sink into his sodden sponge of a brain. But it slowly seeped through that Bertie still thought Ranklin was the genuine Snaipe and that the Bureau had sneaked an agent in as his servant. He couldn't work out how that helped; it was enough for the moment that Bertie had got
something
wrong.

Bertie had said something more that O'Gilroy had missed, but then came a knock on the door and a woman came in with a tray of coffee pot and big cups. She looked odd to O'Gilroy, yet it took him time to work out that she was unveiled and wore a European skirt and blouse despite her Mediterranean looks of olive skin and bold dark eyes and hair. She gave him a curious look – perhaps it was the closest her strong features could come to impassivity – and set the tray down.

“Merci
beaucoup, Theodora,”
Bertie murmured.
“Noir pour le petit pauvre
. . .”

At last O'Gilroy was allowed to sit down and Theodora – was that a Turkish name? – handed him a big cup of real black coffee. The headache apart, he was feeling . . . well, at least better enough to realise it would be a mistake to show it. So he let the cup tremble and slop in his hands.

Bertie drank half his coffee, then went and conferred privately with Theodora. They glanced around the walls, which were hung with rugs instead of pictures, then went out. The Turk stood by the door and watched O'Gilroy impassively. He had a big curved knife shoved into his cummerbund.

* * *

By two o'clock, Ranklin was really worried – the more so as he was limited to doing what Snaipe would have done, which wasn't much. He thought about telephoning the police, but then called the Embassy instead to let them, with their greater
clout, do so. He wrote a cryptic note to Corinna, who hadn't come back yet, and a formal letter to O'Gilroy telling him to catch up if he could. There was never any doubt that he himself had to go on: the job came first, and O'Gilroy would know it. It was an odd consolation that they shared that knowledge across a gulf that just might now be as wide as death.

“Gorman's got himself lost, the damned fool,” he told Dahlmann, when the German Embassy car arrived. “He might come along later, I've left him some money—”

“Do you not want to stay to be sure he is unharmed?” Dahlmann asked hopefully.

“Oh, no, duty comes first, what?”

The car was a big closed Benz with a roof rack for luggage and hung about with spare tyres and petrol cans, so it was probably used more as the Embassy workhorse than for diplomatic visiting. A few hundred yards up the hill Lady Kelso was waiting at the British Embassy. So was a stormy-looking Jarvey; he herded Ranklin aside.

“Damn it, man,” he raged quietly, “it isn't enough that you go off signing God-knows-what at the Imp Ott – yes, we
know
about that – but now you can't even find your own manservant. Just think how it reflects on us, going cap in hand to the Turks saying ‘Please, one of our chaps has lost his servant, can you find him for us?' The Ambassador is
most
—”

“He's usually very reliable, so he could have run into trouble.” By now, Ranklin was sure of this, but daren't say so.

“Then if you're so worried, you'd best stay here and help find him. Young Lunn can take your place. The Ambassador and I have talked it over and—”

“Be damned to
that
,” Ranklin said flatly. “Sir Edward Grey sent me on this mission –
and
briefed me –” he was inventing desperately now; an Ambassador has an awful lot of power in his own bailiwick, despite the speed of the telegraph “– and you'll have to clap me in irons to stop me.”

“
Mutiny
!” Jarvey's cry brought the loading of the German car to an interested stop. He toned down to a venomous hiss.
“By God, you can forget any career in the Diplomatic and go back to farming your Irish bog after this. We'll be sending an absolute
stinker
about you to London.”

“I'm sure we're both doing what we think is right and proper,” Ranklin said stiffly.

Looking very much like a frock-coated cobra, tall, stooped and poisonous, Jarvey glared the big car out of the gate and on its way.

“Mutiny?” Lady Kelso asked cheerfully.

“Just a little disagreement on protocol.” Ranklin was trying to wriggle back into the persona of Snaipe, like donning an overcoat while sitting down. “I say, have you heard what that fool of a manservant of mine has done? . . .”

* * *

The room had the dark, crammed look of a bygone European age, but – apart from antimacassars and such – most of the cramming was Eastern. There were carpets and rugs everywhere and half the furniture was heaps of cushions. The few chairs and tables were of elaborately carved wood with the legs in the wrong places, and every surface was scattered with brass bowls, ashtrays and paraffin reading-lamps. A large cast-iron stove sat under a tiled conical flue in one corner. They hadn't let O'Gilroy near the windows, but if the corner of building he could see was part of this house, it was all made of green-painted wood and he was on the first floor.