Honourable Intentions Read Online Free Page B

night, bringing whatever he’s got about the arson, and if the whole thing hasn’t fizzled out by then . . . we’ll see.”
    Ranklin nodded, hiding the uplift he got from prospectively having the Irishman back. O’Gilroy was, unofficially, their Man in Paris. He was there mainly because he had to be somewhere, and London was too full of other Irishmen who wanted to cut his throat. He wasn’t much good at French politics, but there was no shortage of self-styled experts on that; what O’Gilroy now knew was the Paris streets. Ranklin felt he himself belonged there, too: the Bureau’s job was abroad, andParis was eight hours closer to anything happening on the Continent.
    The Commander may have suspected how he’d been led to his decision, because he went on looking at Ranklin. “You know, you’re not a
bad
second-in-command.” Then added explosively: “But by God – you’ve got a bloody funny taste in girl-friends.”

3
    “My name is Detective Inspector Thomas Hector McDaniel of Bow Street Police Station.” Ranklin was particularly glad to hear those words, the point being that he
could
hear them, after three-quarters of an hour of straining and guessing.
    Popular myth has it that court-rooms provide scenes of natural drama. Not this one: most of that morning would have been upstaged by a public reading of the London Street Directory. He couldn’t even study Grover Langhorn. Jammed among the spectators at the back, Ranklin was facing the magistrates’ bench, but so was Langhorn, standing in the raised dock in front of him. By the end of the morning, Ranklin knew he would recognise that slight and shabby back view of baggy check trousers and dark blue donkey jacket for the rest of his life, but he had yet to glimpse the face.
    Moreover, once Langhorn had agreed he was who he was supposed to be, he apparently became irrelevant to the routine going on around him. Documents were passed, mulled over and agreed upon, men in old-fashioned frock coats, one being Noah Quinton, bobbed up, murmured things, and sat down when the magistrate had murmured back.
    Then came Inspector McDaniel (it was odd how many London policemen had obviously been born elsewhere; were native Londoners too finicky or too corrupt?). He was bald-headed, walrus-moustached, as well fed as any lawyer, and probably as familiar with court-rooms. He gave his evidence loudly and confidently, pausing after each sentence so that the clerk could write it down. “Acting on information received”he had proceeded to 29 Great Garden Street . . . He there saw a man who admitted he was Grover Langhorn . . . Yes, he is the man standing in the dock there . . . He then arrested said man on a warrant issued by the Bow Street magistrate on the second of April . . .
    The slow delivery let Ranklin’s attention wander to the others crammed beside him in the public seats. He had thought carefully about how he should dress that day, but after dismissing the idea of posing as a Cockney as impossible, and a farmer-in-town-for-the-day from his native Gloucestershire as improbable, he had just dressed as himself. He knew he would look vaguely official – just how, he wasn’t sure, but he had to accept it – but hoped the case would attract vaguely official attention anyway. And so it had: those around and altogether too close to him were definitely official-looking; he thought he recognised at least one face from the Foreign Office. Indeed, the one man who stood out was wearing a non-London check suit. He was taking assiduous notes.
    Ranklin came back to earth when he realised the bowling had changed and Quinton was asking the questions: “Did my client say anything when you arrested him?”
    Quinton’s court-room voice was monotonous and uninflected.
    “Yes, sir, he asked me how I found him there. He also –”
    “And what did you reply?”
    “–
he also,”
McDaniel said firmly, “stated that this was supposed to be a safe place for him to hide. I