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it may be a matter of saving the King from himself?”
    “I don’t need to tell you that the British monarchy is going through a difficult patch. In his first four years on the throne, the King has faced the Prime Minister’s blackmail – it wasnothing less – about reforming the Lords, radicalism, socialism, republicanism, women’s suffrage – and now the Irish Home Rule Bill and the likelihood of civil war in either North or South. A successful visit to Paris could make all the difference. It happens to be of particular political importance: the French loved the late King Edward and were rather annoyed that King George chose to visit Germany first – although it was, for a family wedding, quite unavoidable.
    “Now you tell me that the visit is threatened by prospective headlines trumpeting a Paris anarchist as the true heir to the throne. Oh, I know he can’t be, but that won’t stop the French press. This really couldn’t have come at a worse moment. So I ask again: are you sure this is pure coincidence?”
    In a marginally controlled voice the Commander said: “And I repeat what I said a few minutes ago, since I haven’t learnt anything new since then: I’ve no bloody idea.”
    Quite unoffended, St Claire leant forward and gave the fire a poke. Ranklin was coming to an odd – and almost reluctant – conclusion about him: he didn’t despise them. The normal reaction for anyone suspecting he was a spy was distaste, with at most some sympathy of the “I suppose someone has to do it” sort. But St Claire was treating them as brother officers who’d been handed a tricky task, that was all. Ranklin couldn’t help warming to the man.
    Now St Claire was saying: “We seem to be talking about a time well before I joined the Household . . .”
    “Around February 1890,” Ranklin said. “When Prince George was a naval lieutenant doing a gunnery course at HMS
Excellent
at Portsmouth.” Nanny’s scrapbook had given him that much.
    “And that is the . . . the relevant time? Thank you, Captain . . . I should have asked this before: does anyone in the government know anything about this?”
    The Commander said firmly: “Not from us. And I’ve no reason to believe they’d know from any other source.”
    “Hm. Thank goodness for rather large mercies. So it wasn’t they who passed the problem to you?”
    “It came to us,” the Commander said, “by a rather round-about route. I don’t know if you have the time . . . ?”
    “I think I’d better have.”
    When the Commander had finished, St Claire fetched a notepad from his table and scribbled. The Commander winced at seeing things committed to paper, but said nothing.
    St Claire looked up. “And how many are aware of this claim? So far I’ve got the boy himself, his mother, this girl from Paris, yourself and Captain Ranklin. How many more in your Bureau?”
    The Commander hesitated, then said: “I think I have to say ‘As many as I choose to tell’. If we’re to go on investigating, I need to pick the right man for each aspect of it. They wouldn’t be in the Bureau if they weren’t trustworthy.”
    The old bastard does stick by us, Ranklin thought. Though, mind you, to say anything else would reflect badly on himself. Still, it does bypass the problem of explaining O’Gilroy.
    “Very well. You say the boy’s lawyer doesn’t want to know? I assumed
Mr
Noah Quinton –” the emphasis showed that Quinton’s reputation had got as far as the Palace “– wanted to know everything, but I suppose he must have a strong instinct for self-preservation. And so far, no politicians. What about this American vice-consul and Miss . . . Mrs Finn? Is she that daughter of Reynard Sherring?”
    “She is. They know that a secret – an
alleged
secret – is involved, but not what it is. I doubt the vice-consul wants to know more, he’s already concealing things from his superiors, but Mrs Finn . . .” And he looked hard at Ranklin.
    “Not from