Read All Honourable Men for Free Online Page B

didn’t want to alienate what few clients it had in the low season. Anyway, the only others left in the room were foreign tourists waiting hopefully for the fog to clear. So Ranklin lit a cigarette.
    â€œAnd how about the Eastern Question?”
    â€œAch – only you English could have such a phrase, that can mean everything or nothing. No, I have nothing from there. But Serbia, I hope soon to have some most interesting news from Belgrade. You must remember to call me . . .” The conversation wound down slowly until, at half past nine, Gunther heaved himself to his feet. “Now, you will excuse me, I am going home today and first I must observe the English custom and ‘have a breath of fresh air’.” He chuckled as he gestured at the world beyond the windows.
    â€œI’ll come out with you.”
    Gunther had brought his cape downstairs with him and they stood on the front steps looking out on nothingness the colour of dirty washing-up water. But not silence: Northumberland Avenue was a cacophony of honking horns, clattering hooves and jingling harness. Lamps glowed, crawled past attached to the dim shapes of cabs and taxies, and vanished. On the pavement, pedestrians moved hesitantly, unbalanced, staying close to the walls and peering at the hotel name to locate themselves. One man was standing under the glow of a street lamp a few feet away, trying to read a guide-book map.
    â€œA true London fog,” Gunther said, as if he were viewing the Taj Mahal. Then he turned to shake hands. “You have come far – in only a year, is it? When I hear of you – I hear very little, I assure you – I think i knew him when he had just begun.’”
    â€œYou tried to kill us.”
    â€œI did not see you as a future customer. Also – I think violence is not a proper part of our trade. I gave you a badexample, and I hear . . . But probably I am wrong.” His spectacles gleamed cheerily as the yellow lamplight caught the droplets forming on them. “Au revoir.”
    Ranklin took a couple of steps, then paused, professionally interested to see if he could spot the Special Branch man who should be following. Gunther had paused, too, wiping his spectacles under the lamplight.
    The man with the guide-book turned, put a pistol to Gunther’s face and fired. The back of Gunther’s head burst and his hat fell off soggily. The man ran, disappearing in three steps.
    Ranklin caught Gunther before he hit the pavement, but he was too heavy. Suddenly there was another man, helping ease him down, then blowing a fierce shriek on a whistle, but Gunther didn’t react to the sudden close noise. His eyes were already wide and unmoving in a bloody, sooty mask of gunsmoke. Ranklin felt for the pulse in the thick neck, then stood up.
    Already the doorman was gawping, pedestrians were stopping. Ranklin said loudly: “Get him inside, get a doctor, an ambulance.
Quick
!” And having stirred them into useless babble and motion, vanished himself.
    * * *
    Ranklin blundered his way back to Whitehall Court, numb, shivering with shock and simple disbelief. Life could seem so strong. A growing plant could crack through stone; men clung to life with the ghastliest of wounds. So how could it be so fragile? You snapped off a flower head, unthinking. A man turned away and died, from just two little bullets.
    * * *
    They met in a small room in a Pall Mall club, a good place for a private meeting on virtually neutral ground. The rest of the time, it seemed to be the unread part of the library: sets of thickbooks that must represent lifetimes of patient work. Had
they
died happy?
    He found himself explaining for the umpteenth time: “If I had stayed, the Branch officer would have hung on to me, at least as a witness. I was quite prepared to explain myself, as I did later to Detective Sergeant Dix—” He nodded to a solid, placid and heavily moustached man being self-effacing on