Honourable Intentions Read Online Free PDF Page A

made no reply to these statements.”
    “Did he say anything else, then or at a later time, apart from confirming his name?”
    “No, sir.”
    Quinton sat down again. McDaniel stayed where he was while his evidence was read back to him, then the court relapsed into muttering over documents. Ranklin was looking at the time – it wasn’t easy to get his watch out in a crush like in a crowded underground train – when another witnesspopped up in the box and identified himself as
Inspecteur
Claude Lacoste of the Paris
Préfecture
attached to the eighth district, which included the nineteenth
arrondissement –
La Villette.
    By contrast with McDaniel, this was a man with a clean-shaven round face who might have been chosen for his all-round averageness (and had been, Ranklin discovered later: French logic said that only men of average looks and height could become Paris detectives). But his manner was quiet and confident, someone who knew his job. He spoke English with a strong accent, but fluently enough to manage without an interpreter.
    Yes, he could identify the accused as Grover Langhorn . . . He had been employed as a waiter at the
Café des Deux Chevaliers
since last autumn . . . It was a haunt of anarchists–
    “I fail to see the relevance of that,” Quinton interrupted.
    The magistrate looked enquiringly at the prosecutor, who was just another half-bowed back to Ranklin, but Lacoste beat him to it: “It is the only reason why I am familiar with the establishment,
M’sieu
.”
    Quinton shrugged dramatically – by the dramatic standards of the day so far – and sat down.
    Yes, on the night of 31 March there had been a fire at the police barracks . . . It had quickly been established that it was deliberate, caused by petrol . . . A fire-warped 5-litre petrol tin had been discovered at the scene . . . He had led the investigation . . . He had questioned certain persons . . . There are few places in La Villette which sell petrol, there being few motor-cars in the area . . . At one garage, however, he had learned that at about six o’clock in the evening four days earlier . . . Yes, 27 March . . . the accused had purchased a green tin of petrol . . .
    There was a break while the prosecutor assured the magistrate that there was a sworn statement by the
garagiste,
one from the café proprietor, two from patrons, and one from an eyewitness, representing Lacoste’s investigation.
    . . .As a result of all this, Lacoste had sought to question Langhorn . . . He could not be found . . . It had been suggested he might have fled to England . . . (there was something missing here, Ranklin thought: somebody had either volunteered the suggestion or been persuaded to volunteer it by method or methods unknown. Such thoughts wouldn’t have occurred to him eighteen months ago.) . . . Consequently, an extradition warrant had been sought . . .
    In his own job, Ranklin demanded bare facts and came down brutally on colourful phrases. But here he felt cheated at being told of an arson attack followed by a police trawl of the local underworld, hasty flight and legal pursuit – and all made as dull as a railway timetable. Perhaps Quinton’s cross-examination would help . . .
    “The fire at the police station – what part of the building did it damage?”
    “The kitchen,
M’sieu
.”
    “So it could hardly have been an attempt to free any prisoners held there, for example . . . Do you have any reason to believe that my client is an anarchist?”
    “He is a waiter at a café of anarchists,
M’sieu
.”
    “Just an employee – one who is paid to work there?”
    “I know nothing of his pay,
M’sieu
.”
    “But still only an employee?”
    “So I believe,
M’sieu
.”
    “And would you expect every waiter at – say – every poet’s café in Paris to be a poet?”
    “No,
M’sieu
.”
    “Has my client ever expressed anarchistic views to you or within your