Fall of Giants

Walter smiled at her elegant back. He had seen Maud yesterday and he would see her tomorrow, yet he had been terrified that he might not get another chance to see her today. Was he really incapable of passing twenty-four hours without her? He did not think of himself as a weak man, but she had cast a spell over him. However, he had no wish to escape.

It was her independent spirit that he found so attractive. Most women of his generation seemed content to play the passive role that society gave them, dressing beautifully and organizing parties and obeying their husbands. Walter was bored by the doormat type. Maud was more like some of the women he had met in the United States, during a stint at the German embassy in Washington. They were elegant and charming but not subservient. To be loved by a woman like that was unbearably exciting.

He walked with a jaunty step along Piccadilly and stopped at a newsstand. Reading British papers was never pleasant: most were viciously anti-German, especially the rabid Daily Mail. They had the British believing they were surrounded by German spies. How Walter wished it were true! He had a dozen or so agents in coast towns, making notes of comings and goings at the docks, as the British had in German ports, but nothing like the thousands reported by hysterical newspaper editors.

He bought a copy of the People. The trouble in the Balkans was not big news here: the British were more worried about Ireland. A minority of Protestants had ruled the roost there for hundreds of years, with scant regard for the Catholic majority. If Ireland won independence the boot would be on the other foot. Both sides were heavily armed, and civil war threatened.

A single paragraph at the bottom of the front page referred to the “Austro-Servian Crisis.” As usual, the newspapers had no idea what was really going on.

As Walter turned into the Ritz Hotel, Robert jumped out of a motor taxi. He was wearing a black waistcoat and a black tie in mourning for the archduke. Robert had been one of Franz Ferdinand’s set-progressive thinkers by the standards of the Viennese court, albeit conservative by any other measure. He had liked and respected the murdered man and his family, Walter knew.

They left their top hats in the cloakroom and went into the dining room together. Walter felt protective toward Robert. Since they were boys he had known that his cousin was different. People called such men effeminate, but that was too crude: Robert was not a woman in a man’s body. However, he had a lot of feminine traits, and this led Walter to treat him with a kind of understated chivalry.

He looked like Walter, with the same regular features and hazel eyes, but his hair was longer and his mustache waxed and curled. “How are things with Lady M?” he said as they sat down. Walter had confided in him: Robert knew all about forbidden love.

“She’s wonderful, but my father can’t get over her working in a slum clinic with a Jewish doctor.”

“Oh, dear-that’s harsh,” Robert said. “His objection might be understandable if she herself were a Jew.”

“I’ve been hoping he would warm to her gradually, meeting her socially now and again, and realizing that she is friendly with the most powerful men in the land; but it’s not working.”

“Unfortunately, the crisis in the Balkans is only going to increase tension in”-Robert smiled-“forgive me, international relations.”

Walter forced a laugh. “We will work it out, whatever happens.”

Robert said nothing, but looked as if he was not so confident.

Over Welsh lamb and potatoes with parsley sauce, Walter gave Robert the inconclusive information he had gleaned from Anton.

Robert had news of his own. “We have established that the assassins got their guns and bombs from Serbia.”

“Oh, hell,” said Walter.

Robert let his anger show. “The arms were supplied by the head of Serbian military intelligence. The murderers were given target practise in a park in Belgrade.”

Walter said: “Intelligence officers sometimes act unilaterally.”

“Often. And the secrecy of their work means they may get away with it.”

“So this does not prove that the Serbian government organized the assassination. And, when you think logically about it, a small nation such as Serbia, trying desperately to preserve its independence, would be mad to provoke its powerful neighbor.”

“It is even possible that Serbian intelligence acted in direct opposition to the wishes of the government,” Robert conceded. But then he said firmly: “That makes absolutely no difference at all. Austria must take action against Serbia.”