Joe twiddled his pencil for a moment and then added, “So you’ll think it a bit odd when I say: watch his back too. I’m not certain which side the sergeant’s playing for—or even which pitch he’s on. He may be a target himself and unaware of it. Who murders the murderer? And who guards the guards? Well, today it’s Cottingham of the Met. That’s who.”

The men bustled off about their business and Joe lifted the telephone. On the third attempt, he raised Bacchus. “Drop whatever you’re doing and come here for a briefing, James. Bring everything you have on the Nine Men. Oh, and put on your best hat and a clean Burberry—I’m taking you on somewhere afterwards.”

“WELL? WHAT ARE you thinking, James? Struck you dumb, have I?”

“I’ll say! I’m trying to get used to the thought that I may well have served liqueurs and cigars to a consortium of the world’s power brokers. Bringers of War. Wreakers of Mayhem. When I think what I could have slipped into their beverages! The contents of the two capsules I always carry in my pocket could have saved the world from lord knows what. But two of these blokes are out of place. Minnows swimming in a shark tank. Kingstone and Armitage. Look, Joe, would it be an irrational thought … with all this economics stuff buzzing in our ears … we might have overlooked an even more alarming reason for their foregathering in London?”

“The conference is just a useful cover, you mean, for something more dire than fiddling with the exchange rates?”

“Could be. It is a good cover—a damn good one. We can be sure Kingstone is heavily involved … useful to them, but not indispensable, as they’ve shown they were quite prepared to dispense with him definitively. But he’s a recent acquirement—and Armitage is only there at his insistence. There must be a core of elder statesmen—say, five—and they co-opt others as and when they’re useful.”

“I had thought as much. But the motive, James? An economic one?”

“I’d have thought more—political, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s what Kingstone himself hinted to me. The annoying chap has given me lots of hints as to the seriousness of his predicament and I’ve wondered why he can’t just come out with it straight. He’s a man who is by nature, I’d say, a straight-talker.”

“Wants to warn you off—doesn’t like to see innocent strangers involved in his troubles?”

“Yes. I do believe so. But there’s more to it than that. Have you noticed, James, when you’re doing interrogations—the people who make a show of clamming up but then go on to drop hints, start sentences and leave them tantalisingly unfinished—they are the ones who are encouraging you to press them harder. They want you to guess their secret or their guilt.”

“So they can claim we beat it out of them! Not their fault, they never intended to give anything away? Know the type. I wouldn’t have thought Kingstone fitted that profile. He’s tough and he’s a gent. Don’t forget—I’ve listened in to his unbuttoned moments. I think I know the man by now.”

“No. He’s made of sterner stuff, I agree. I’ve seen him grinning in full knowledge he has two revolvers trained on him. The swing in popularity of the gold standard wouldn’t freeze him like a rabbit in the headlights.”

“Then we have to raise our eyes above the level of the economic shenanigans?”

“Or below. Where the hell are we supposed to be looking? What’s happening in the world that some powerful people take exception to? That’s so unpalatable that men from various nations will gather together under the umbrella of transatlantic friendship to put a stop to? Let’s think in those basic terms.”

“Discounting greed, world poverty, and starvation then …” Bacchus rolled his eyes and gulped. “Let’s see … It usually comes down to leadership, doesn’t it? Power. Now I’ll rule us out here in Britain. I know we can be damned annoying to anyone who doesn’t know the words to ‘Rule Britannia’ and have the recipe for strawberry jam by heart but … honestly, no. With our charming old sheep-farmer prime minister and our peace-loving monarch presiding over a war-weary nation, who would feel threatened? Apart from renegades like this old fart, Admiral Buchanan, we have no one who’s going about the world annoying other nations. Unless someone’s been unkind about the Japanese again.”

Searching his memory, Joe presented Bacchus with the remark of Kingstone’s that had truly puzzled him. In his sphinx-like manner, the senator had declared that what these men valued was his military reputation and record.

“A military leader, eh? He’s young enough and fiery enough to play Mars to his friend Roosevelt’s Jupiter, I’d say, wouldn’t you? Those two men in harness would be very impressive.”

Joe pointed out the drawbacks to this notion. Kingstone’s military career, though impressive, had been short-lived. He was never a professional soldier. Conscripted. In and out of the war within a year. Joe voiced the objection that the US had already got an army general with a reputation in the picture.

“That would be MacArthur you’re thinking of? But since last summer his reputation is pretty well a stinking one. Blotted his copy book in no uncertain terms.”

Joe had to admit mystification.

“It happened in July. I think you were up in Scotland, miles away from a newspaper. Rather shocking event! After months of strikes and disorder which nearly brought the country to its knees, the protest to end all protests broke out. The ‘Death March’ around Washington, staged by the Bonus Expeditionary Force. The B.E.N. Old soldiers. Veterans down on their luck. Ten thousand of them gathered to march and demand an instant payment of their ‘bonus.’ The promised veterans’ endowment policy which hadn’t been paid. Worth about a thousand dollars a man. They set up camp outside the capital and called their collection of shacks ‘Hooverville’ after President Herbert Hoover. Being soldiers, they dug latrines, kept the place clean and orderly. Denied use of their assembly to communists and fascists alike. There was no rise in the crime rate. They were unarmed. Some brought their families with them. Planted vegetables. A skirmish with the police left two officers dead and several injured and federal intervention was called for. Unfortunately it was the army’s chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur, who answered the call.”

“Oh, dear! Heavy fist shaken?”

“Four troops of cavalry, four companies of infantry with machine guns and bayonets, city police in support—oh, and four tanks. Heavy enough for you? The general routed the veterans and chased them across the river. Ordered not to pursue them, he disobeyed the order and set fire to their camp. President Hoover became the first American president to make war on his own citizens. And in their own streets in sight of the White House. Many of them had voted for him. Of course he was not re-elected and in stepped Franklin D. Roosevelt that following autumn.”

A worrying picture was emerging. Joe knew that those soldiers had very likely not disappeared. And it was unlikely they had ever been paid. Men with a double grudge. A man with Kingstone’s record and soldierliness, his feeling for the common man, a Doughboy like them, would be seen as a leader they could admire, not revile. With the press behind him—and who owned the press?—such a man could be built up as one whose talents complemented those of Roosevelt. A worthy sword arm for a democratic president?

He said as much to Bacchus.

“Sounds good to me. Many might think that a winning combination.”

“But what struggle would they be winning? Who do they see as their potential enemy, James?”

Joe didn’t quite like the look of pity for such political innocence that flitted across Bacchus’s handsome features.