All Honourable Men by Gavin Lyall Read Free Book Online

the outskirts of the seated group. “But not there and then, not in public.”
    â€œBut also,” the man from the Home Office said, “it seems that you made no attempt to catch the assassin.”
    â€œHe’d vanished in the fog. I had no more chance of grabbing him than the Branch officer had,” Ranklin pointed out.
    â€œThe officer was supposed to be following van der Brock, not protecting him,” Sir Basil Thomson said. On looks alone, his long face kept a funeral parlour and his nose a pub; in fact, he headed the Yard’s Criminal Investigation Department and Special Branch – effectively, all its plainclothes detectives.
    The Home Office man frowned. He was young and trying – too hard – to keep his end up in grand and mysterious company. He was also the only one who was going to have to write a report; Sir Basil, the Commander and Major Kell of the counter-espionage service were all their own bosses.
    He said: “Nobody seems to have thought to be armed – except the assassin.”
    â€œIt has never been Government policy that policemen in Britain should normally wear sidearms,” Sir Basil said. “I cannot, of course, speak for the Secret Service.” His past experience of the Bureau, particularly an occasion when they had certainly been armed, had left him officially Deeply Concerned and privately Bloody Furious.
    â€œSorry,” Ranklin said, “I hadn’t got a gun, either. Not that I’d have started blazing away in that fog anyway.”
    â€œDelighted to hear it,” Sir Basil said coldly.
    â€œAnd we don’t even have a proper description of the man, just –” the Home Office man turned a copy of the
EveningStandard
on the table to read from the front page “– ‘about five feet six tall, long dark overcoat, face obscured by a scarf.”
    â€œLike most sensible people out in that fog,” Kell observed.
    The Commander grunted and said: “Professional,” and everyone but the Home Office nodded sagely. He blinked at them and tried another tack: “Then was this van der Brock known to have had any enemies?”
    Now everyone smiled; the Commander even chuckled, but left the answer to Kell, who said: “He was a notorious seller of state secrets, so at one time or another every Power in Europe had reason to want him dead. However, I believe he was so even-handed that each Power expected he’d be selling to them next week, so let him live. Until today.”
    â€œProbably your lads who did him in,” the Commander said cheerfully. “We shall miss him.”
    â€œWe shan’t, that’s for certain,” Kell said. “But I’m afraid it still wasn’t us.”
    The Commander grinned at the Home Office. “Well, that narrows it down for you. Only Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia and a few others to suspect.”
    Sir Basil’s voice had become grave. “All highly amusing, gentlemen, but his death doesn’t fall to your charge. He’s
my
unsolved murder – and likely to be a highly publicised one, if the press get any inkling of his true job. They’re already aroused by the way he was killed, assassination-style.” He tapped the
Evening Standard
.
    â€œCan’t you stifle those bloody editors?” the Commander asked. “I mean, ask for their responsible co-operation? It’s my Bureau which will suffer from this: other dealers getting wary of us, perhaps even blaming us for the murder. So, believe me, we’d very much like to see this solved. Only,” he added, “I don’t think it’s solvable.”
    The Home Office consulted his notes. “I believe there was something about him picking up a
poste restante
letter . . .”
    Sir Basil craned his skinny neck to summon the detective sergeant into action. Dix coughed and said: “We didn’t find anything that looked like such a letter on