‘Cause?’ Cyril leapt on the word. ‘Ah! No — sorry. Can’t get involved with causes. I generally try to avoid political entanglements. Bad for business.’
‘Many things are bad for business, Cyril,’ Lily told him quietly.
Joe caught her sideways glance, a glance which said, ‘I’m silent for the moment but you wouldn’t want me to speak out in the commander’s company, would you?’ She had some hold over the newsman, that much was clear. Joe was intrigued and quietly satisfied to know that someone at least had this hound on a lead.
The hound came to heel at once. Cyril shrugged, grinned and spread his hands in a gesture of compliance. ‘As you say. Just tell me which cause, will you — a hint will do. Very well — I’ll take a shot at it … Some enterprising lady from the Emerald Isle? Is that who we’re talking about?’
Wentworth nodded. ‘Joe’s friends — from whom our information comes — will be thick on the ground in support as you might imagine, but it was thought that the close and constant presence of a protective female officer — yours truly — might put the opposition off their stroke.’
‘And she might get blown up, shot or stabbed in the process. I don’t much like what I’m hearing, Lily.’ Tate’s debonair grin had vanished and his words were clipped and businesslike. ‘Terrorism on the streets of London — that’s what we’re looking at, isn’t it?’ He turned a belligerent eye on Joe. ‘That’s the province of Special Branch. Are you telling me that the Branch are recruiting females now? I find that hard to believe. This is men’s work, Sandilands. You should be ashamed to be putting up a woman in the front line. My God, man! You should be risking all — risking anyone — to keep Lily safe!’ He threw some coins on to the table. ‘I don’t care to drink with you. I’ll be off now and I’m taking Lily with me. Get your hat, love — we’re off! Let him try stopping the bullets himself.’
It took all of Joe’s strength to check his urge to rise to his feet and seize the fellow by his collar. It was a cool restraining hand on his gathering right fist and a diverting tinkle of laughter from Lily that saved him from making a disastrous move. Five minutes of persuasive chatter was necessary to bring Tate down to earth but she managed. Clever girl, though — Joe was sure she’d detected and not been taken in by the thread of pleasurable vindication in the newsman’s voice. He’d caught Sandilands in a less than honourable posture and was making the most of it.
Wentworth was playing down the danger and stressing the more frivolous aspects of her role: the checking of the ladies’ powder rooms, the possible need to identify a suspicious bulge under a fold of taffeta — searching females was part of her job, after all. She would keep an ear out for the sound of an Irish accent. And that’s where they needed his skills, she added, drawing the net closer around him. He knew all the runners and riders — an interloper would stand out to his eye as to no one else’s.
It seemed to work. Tate finally mumbled that they could probably count on his cooperation. ‘Tell me more about this comic opera you’ve got planned and what, precisely, you have it in mind for me to do?’
‘You know everyone who’s anyone. Home-bred or foreign.’ Joe took over. ‘The gathering will be very mixed for nationality — most of the European ambassadors will be there in support — but all the guests will have one thing in common: wealth. It’s a fundraising do for impecunious émigré Russians. Though none of them will be on parade tonight.’