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his mouth, he began: “There’s a lad, an American citizen, now in Brixton jail because the French want us to extradite him for setting fire to a police station in Paris.”
    He paused, and St Claire said: “Yes, I read about the case in this morning’s papers. He’s an anarchist, isn’t he?”
    Ranklin said: “Yes, but it’s legally important to keep that out of court – according to the lad’s lawyer.”
    The Commander resumed: “It appears that if he is extradited, he’ll claim publicly that he’s the son of the King.”
    Perhaps Ranklin was disappointed when St Claire merely nodded.
    “His mother was an English girl called Enid Bowman. She wrote the American consulate here a letter that can be read as endorsing the boy’s claim. We think she’s in Paris – France, anyway – and probably in hiding.”
    When the Commander didn’t go on, St Claire asked: “Is that all you can tell me, Commander?”
    “We know more about the crime itself, but what seems to matter most is what the mother may claim. Even if we could go direct to her, it might be a mistake to do so – but an indirect approach is difficult and slow to do secretly. For example, we don’t want to involve the police.”
    “How far have you gone with investigating this?”
    “Hardly anywhere. We only heard the exact nature of the threat yesterday evening. I thought it best to come to you before going any further.”
    St Claire tried to put his coffee cup down on a small table already overloaded with the tray, then put it on the floor instead. “Do you expect me to ask His Majesty if there could be any truth in this?”
    The Commander took it evenly. “It would short-cut our investigations. And however careful we are, just asking questions endangers secrecy.”
    St Claire shifted in his seat. “You do remember that We are going to Paris next week?” There was a definite capital letter on that “We”.
    The Commander nodded.
    “Is this just a coincidence?”
    “With what little we know, we simply can’t tell,” the Commander said blandly.
    St Claire gazed out of the window, stroked his moustache, and then, staring at the merely smouldering fire in the grate, began to speak. “His father would simply have brazened this out; sworn it couldn’t be true in the highest court and on any bible you cared to hand him. On the grounds that the honour of a British king was far more important than any truth – possibly more important than perjuring his immortal soul. But at least that would have been a matter between him and his God, and not involved us of the Household.” He sighed. “I suppose that the upbringing of royal children must always be a problem, but I doubt the answer is to shunt them off into the Navy at the age of twelve. Whatever is said about Queen Victoria not letting Prince Edward see state papers and the like, at least he was
around.
He met people, knew who was who in Europe. Whereas chugging around the Cannibal Isles shaking hands . . . hardly the best preparation for the subtleties of a modern state. The one thing one can say about His Majesty is that he sets an example to us all as a husband and family man . . .” His voice dwindled into silent thought. Then he said, almost to himself: “I certainly find it difficult to accept that a British king is for no more than
that . . .
Nevertheless, it is virtually the only strong card in his hand.”
    “And you’d like to keep it that way,” the Commander nodded. “I quite understand that. But if His Majesty would say if this
could
be true—”
    “Forgive me, but you may have missed my point. His Majesty is
learning
what being King of Great Britain means. That said, if he were now told that he might have fathered a bastard, he may well, given his inexperience except in the naval tradition of accepting personal responsibility, admit it openly. And where would we all be then?”
    The Commander and Ranklin looked at each other. After a while, the Commander said: “So