Violet grinned.“I forgot that about you—that you make me laugh when I’m miserable.”
“I forgot that about you, too,” Una said.
“Forgot what?”asked Violet.
“That you can laugh when you’re miserable.”
“One of my few talents!”said Violet.
Una stood and shook out her lacy overskirt.“If we go now, we’ll be one minute late for dinner.And that’s quite late enough.”
Chapter thirty-two
London
BlackfriarsRingwaslocatedin one of the most squalid parts of the city, and during a match it was both noisy and malodorous.It was not the sort of place Crispin would go for his own amusement, but as he scanned the roiling crowd, he found the experience rather pleasant than otherwise.At last, he spotted the well-brushed top hat of the man he was looking for.
“Evening, sir,” Crispin murmured, slipping into the seat next to the Home Secretary.
“Which one would you put your money on?”the Home Secretary asked, nodding beyond the ropes.
Crispin considered the two gleaming men dancing under the spotlights.His own regular practise of pugilism equipped him to follow the spectacle with a certain degree of insight.
“The big one’s too cocky,” said Crispin.“He’s all gas.If the smaller fellow can keep clear and tire him out, he’s got a chance.”
“Not a bad summary of world affairs,” said the other, then added offhandedly, “you know, I had a vision once.”
“A vision, sir?”
He got out a cigar from his breast pocket.“When I was at school.It was of London, on fire.I had to be the one to save it.I still believe in that vision—I’ve never been able to shake it.”Now he lit the cigar carefully.“But I have a problem.I don’t know who starts the fire, you see.And as with any fire, how much better to stop it being lit, than to wait and put it out!If you were to ask any one of these men, where would they look for a threat to the empire?”
Crispin looked around at the crowd.“Anyone in this room would say the same thing, sir.”He gave a shrug.“Germany.Her imperial ambitions have never been satisfied.”
The Home Secretary nodded and exhaled smoke.“Exactly.And that’s why I want to look closer to home.The press likes to stir us up against the foreigner—the international Jew, the Yellow Peril, the Russian anarchists, the German airships!Excellent for selling papers, no doubt.But I fear we aren’t paying attention to what’s under our noses.Someone could be laying a fire as we speak, right here, right now, while we’re all goggling at the sky for phantom airships.”
Crispin reflected on this.The British public’s panic over airships the previous summer—fanned to flames by popular invasion fiction serialised in the newspapers—had finally burned itself out.The Kaiser’s air captains, instead of descending from the night skies on a terrified population, had simply faded away like the phantoms they were.The widespread global hysteria had been a subject of great amusement in Germany, and Crispin knew from his father that there were no airships capable of nocturnal attacks.Not yet, anyway.
“You don’t take the air threat seriously, sir?”Crispin asked.
“I take all threats seriously,” the man replied smoothly.“But it’s pretty hard not to see an airship coming.It’s what Idon’tsee coming that keeps me awake at night.”
The men around them surged to their feet with a roar of mingled euphoria and despair.The bigger man lay insensible.
The Home Secretary chuckled.“See what I mean?”He leaned close to mutter in Crispin’s ear, “There’s a man here tonight who has been recruiting men—misfits, nervous types.Their catchphrase isEngland for the English.Find out everything you can.Don’t come to the Home Office.We’re going to keep this very quiet, you and I.“ He pressed a scrap of paper into Crispin’s hand.“Find me the fire before the tinder is lit.”
Then he got up and left.
Crispin opened the paper to find an address:
Report to C at Ashley Mansions, Vauxhall Bridge Road.
After the match, Crispin paid for a pint at the pub across from the arena.
“I’m looking for someone,” he said to the harassed-looking barmaid.
“That’s not a description,” she retorted, “that’s desperation, that is.”
He suppressed a laugh, instead schooling his expression to sullen displeasure.“I’m looking for someone who thinks England ought to be for people like you and me.”
