Against the Brotherhood (15 page)

Finally a man in a long red cowl made his appearance. I recognized his voice as that of Herr Dortmunder. He went to the altar and lifted up his hands, saying something in the archaic language about the power of sacrifice. The rest of the men intoned a response about the might of their work. Then Herr Dortmunder asked for the offering.

Three of the cowled men went into the nearest corridor, and I heard a great struggle, a few oaths, and then a man with a badly bruised face was half-carried, half-dragged out to the altar. Even in this light, and in spite of the blood matted in his unruly hair, I could see it was, as my mother would have said, red as a fire in a hay-rick. His mouth was too swollen for him to be able to do more than make incoherent screams. His hands were purple and badly distended from repeated blows. I suspected that all his knuckles were broken. The look of him made me queasy, for I was helpless to come to his aid, and I despised myself for not doing so. I steeled myself for what I was afraid might come.

“This is the plunder we bring,” intoned Herr Dortmunder as the man was bound to the altar.

I wanted to protest, but the words stuck in my throat as I felt the hand of one of the cowled figures descend on my shoulder, and a slim blade was pressed lightly against my neck.

“Watch,” the figure commanded. “And remember. Those who cross us will all die as this man dies. Do not forget.”

As if I would ever forget that place and the hideous acts I witnessed. I could not believe what I saw. I sat, transfixed with fear, as Herr Dortmunder stripped the man, and with the implacable assistance of the rest of his fellow-devotees, cut out the man’s tongue, and then emasculated him, putting these grisly tokens into the basin to the approving cries of the cowled men around him.

There was blood everywhere. It splashed, steaming, onto the floor, and it reddened the cowled habits of the men performing the heinous rite. The victim of this atrocity had fainted; I hoped for his sake that he would remain unconscious until he bled to death. The hideous ceremony went on, the cowled men chanting in a rough monotone as Herr Dortmunder continued his ghastly work.

The man on the altar suddenly struggled and cried out aloud, the sound of it causing my very marrow to freeze in my bones.

“This will be your fate, if you fail us,” said the man beside me, as if he were speaking of a notice in the paper. “Watch and remember.”

There were other terrible things done to the man on the altar. Signs whose importance I did not understand but by implication were cut into his chest, his abdomen, and his forehead. I was finding it
difficult to breathe.

I stared at the altar as Herr Dortmunder declared that this life would bring into his power and the power of the Brotherhood the life of Cameron McMillian, and make him the willing tool of their cause.

Then, with a great cry, Herr Dortmunder took the mace and dashed the man’s brains out.

FROM THE PERSONAL JOURNAL OF PHILIP TYERS:

Word has come that M.H. has reached France safely, and assumed one of the three identities Edmund Sutton has supplied him. He will not send word again until he reaches Germany, for fear of having his messages intercepted as well as wishing to take the utmost advantage of the Mercury train.

Arthur Upton has signed a full account of his wrongdoing and will face first the Admiralty and then, if it is decided that it would be worthwhile, the Bench. Acting upon M.H.’s instructions, Harold Worthing has resigned his position and is now retiring to his hunting box in Yorkshire, to wait out the worst of his disgrace. His family have done all they can to put a good face on it, but it is clear to all that they are keenly dismayed by what has transpired.

Countess Nagy has been informed by certain men in government that she might prefer Paris for the next few years. Her voluntary departure would spare her and the Hungarians the misfortune of having certain of their activities brought to light in a way that would please no one.

Inspector Cornell of Scotland Yard has sent word that he would like more information on the unfortunate young woman whose identity has still not been established. It seems that there are some odd marks branded into her body which give the Inspector grave reservations about the case. One of them, his note informs me, is the representation of an eye, and this is what is proving the most troublesome, for with so many high-ranking Masons in the government, he must tread carefully, if this eye is the same as the one the Masons represent within a triangle. I have sent word back saying that M.H
.
will be informed of these matters by telegram, and he will send his response directly to Cornell at Scotland Yard.

Mother was lucid for a short while today, and I can only thank God for the opportunity to see her then.

I HAD JUST
witnessed a murder of utmost ferocity. I was stupefied, unable to move. There was nothing I could do or say that would change anything of what I had seen. Again my danger struck me, but with renewed force, for as a witness to this unspeakable ritual, the Brotherhood could not afford to let me live. Surely they would do away with me when my work was done, possibly in a fashion as hideous as the atrocity was.

A short while later, my guard dragged me to my feet and directed me toward a room off one of the corridors leading to the chamber. I was able to keep my wits about me only to the extent that I carried my carpetbag with me, for more than ever, the notebooks it contained heralded my guilt to the Brotherhood.

The chamber assigned for my use was little more than a cell, containing an unmade army bed, a small chest with a gate-leg writing table at one end, and a commode. About eight by nine feet, it had two high, small windows which looked out on the ruins of a kitchen garden lit by three torches: I was below ground level at the rear of the building, and so isolated I might as well have been in the grave. I sat down on the cot provided and tried to make my mind work. The unsteady light from the torches in the courtyard provided irregular illumination that was much in accord with my wavering thoughts. At last one notion came to me—that I must do something about my covered eye. Desperately I tried to recall the tricks I had seen Edmund Sutton do, and set myself the task of using what my observations had taught me.

In my toiletry kit I found a wad of cotton lint. I took a little of this, my concentration driven by dread and the need to do something so that I would not feel so utterly in the power of the Brotherhood. I took also my iodine bottle and stained a little of the cotton with it. Then I rummaged in my things for my mucilage for stamps. I spread some of this vile-smelling glue on the cotton and pressed the cotton onto my closed eyelid, holding it with my fingers until it dried in place. The appearance, once the whole was set—at least as much as I could determine in the shine of the torches—was of a badly puckered scar. Satisfied that the effect might stand a superficial inspection, I then put the patch back in place, trying to find some reason for optimism in the efforts I had made.

Tempting as it was to try to find a place to conceal the notes I had been keeping somewhere in the room, I was unable to convince myself that this was wise, for any disruption of the room might bring unwanted attention to my activities, and I suspected the tattoo would not banish all doubts from the minds of my captors. I went to the chest and looked inside it for the bedding, and found old, discolored though freshly laundered sheets, a blanket—the moths had been at it—and a pillow stuffed with spent barley with a sour smell that pervaded the whole of the cell. Not very promising, I thought, doing my best to cheer myself with these mundane reflections. I set about putting the bed to rights, and wishing I had been provided a lantern, or a candle, for the darkness was oppressive and my efforts clumsy.

The night went by interminably, and I found myself sinking to the depths of despair. If these men had disposed of that poor man so unspeakably, what would be my fate if they discovered my mission? The more I tried to dismiss such concerns from my mind, the more determinedly they stuck there, like an aching tooth. I tried to convince myself I was hungry and cold, and those things accounted for my state of mind, but I knew it was not so. When I tried to sleep, I was visited by images of the man in Luxembourg falling into the abyss. By morning, I was groggy with fatigue and melancholy, and I rose feeling stiffness in my joints when I heard others stirring in the hall beyond me. I decided I should shave, and wished I could have a proper wash.

“You are to come with me,” announced one of the guards who appeared unheralded in my doorway as I was shaving. As I had my eyepatch raised, I was glad I had taken the precaution the night before of making it appear the covered eye was hideously injured. I trusted that the light was insufficient for him to realize the makeshift nature of my supposed disfigurement.

I continued with my razor—the one I had bought in Paris—and prayed my hands did not shake. “I will be with you as soon as I’m finished here.”

He clearly did not like this, but he remained where he was, unwilling to move until I completed my work and had put my razor away in my case and returned them all to my carpetbag. “Herr Dortmunder is expecting you.” His English was good but his accent was thick enough that under other circumstances he might have sounded comical, something Edmund Sutton would use for a music hall revue about the stiff-rumped Germans. In this setting, I could find little amusing about it.

I put my eyepatch back in place. “Not surprising,” I said, trying to sound unmoved by this information, as if the ghastly dealings of the night before had made no impression on me. “Well, I’m ready.”

“Nasty scar you have there,” he observed as he started down the corridor ahead of me.

“Better than having my brains shot out, I suppose, or so I thought at the time,” I answered as casually as I could. “Thought it would be easier to lose an eye than my life.”

“No doubt,” said the guard, unimpressed with my sangfroid.

I followed after him, my carpetbag feeling as heavy as if it contained anvils; those notebooks might yet reveal my ruse. I was attempting to think of some way to explain them when we arrived at last on the upper level of the building, in a good-sized dining room paneled in dark oak and made cheery by a blazing fire in the hearth and a half-a-dozen east-facing mullioned windows letting in the watery morning light.

Herr Dortmunder was seated by himself in solitary state at the head of the glossy table, which was designed to accommodate twenty-four people at least. He had a number of covered dishes in front of him and a tankard of beer in one hand. His own plate was filled with fried sliced potatoes and bits of egg and cheese. “Good morning, Mister Jeffries,” he exclaimed, indicating the seat beside him. His heartiness did not convince me, not after what I had seen the night before. “I have just had a most interesting telegram from Vickers.” He held up the document and smiled at me. “He informs me that you notified him of your change in travel arrangements.” His expression turned granite-like. “You may think this was clever, or you may have only been hoping to please him as the one who first employed you. But you will understand that Vickers as well as I takes his orders from von Metz.” He nodded to my guard, who gave a kind of salute and left us alone. “Sit down.”

I did as I was told; taking a chair to Herr Dortmunder’s left, leaving one space between us so that I would not appear too presumptuous. “I did not want him to think I had disobeyed his orders,” I said, trying for the right mix of servility and sulking. “He might have withheld the money he promised me if I had not done it.”

Herr Dortmunder sighed heavily. “You are so concerned about money, Mister Jeffries. There are more important issues at stake here.”

“Of course I am concerned about money,” I answered with indignation. “I haven’t got any, have I? It’s easy to say that money isn’t that important when you have it, but when you don’t, then it is as important as food.” I glanced at the covered dishes, though I had no appetite.

“Oh, help yourself, Mister Jeffries. There are hot pastries with sausages in this and baked apples in that baroque dish. And baked eggs and bacon with cheese in the far platter with the Bavarian arms on the lid. The crockery dish with the fish pattern contains the fried potatoes. They’re very good. Have whatever you like.” He continued to smile, his version of affability making me feel nauseated. “This is going to be an important day for you.”

“How is that?” I asked, pausing in the act of raising the lid on the pastries with sausages.

“Today you are to meet your future ... eh ... employer. Cameron McMillian is in want of a valet, and you will offer him your services, as he has just discovered his man has decamped.” His chuckle was mirthless.

“How’s that? You’ve arranged it?” I wanted to sound surprised, but my suspicion turned it to apprehension.

“Certainly.” He regarded me steadily. “Well, surely you guessed?”

“What?” I was anticipating his answer already.

“Our sacrifice last night was his man,” came the bland explanation. “I saw no reason for our Brotherhood to lose such a fine opportunity to further our work. You made it possible for us to get full value from the fellow. Had you not been here, we would not have dared to risk killing him because too many questions might be asked about his disappearance. Now that you are here, you will take his place, and so any inquiry as to his whereabouts is going to be cursory at best. He was a foreigner and a servant. Such persons are unreliable when traveling abroad.” He opened the disk of baked eggs and used the silver spatula to remove two and add them to the mess on his plate.

“You’re sure of that, are you? Someone will notice he’s gone. Won’t my arrival look a trifle too convenient, coming on the heels of the ... other cove’s departure?” I made myself put pastry and sausages on my plate.

“No. If the Scotsman were another sort, the authorities might question it, but McMillian is known to be difficult. His servants do not remain in his employ for long.” He picked up his fork. “But a man down on his luck, as you appear to be, can be expected to try to gain the help of such a man as he.” The certainty with which he said this chilled me.

“I don’t know,” I said as I took my first bite; it was like eating sawdust and blotting paper. “If he’s difficult, he might want a replacement he knows. Why should he accept me as his valet?”

“He is in no position to choose, at least not at present. He will not find a manservant where he is now.” He took a long draught of beer. “He has been spending the last few nights at a very exclusive brothel. He will not want it known that he visited such an establishment while on so urgent a mission as he has undertaken.”

“Probably not,” I agreed, thinking of the stern demeanor of the Queen in regard to such things, urgent mission or no.

“So, as soon as you are done, we will take you to the place. You will say you encountered Angus at a biergarten, playing cards and drunk, who told you about his intention to leave Munich at once. You, not being one to waste a possible advantage, decided to present yourself to the Scotsman in his valet’s stead. That should do well enough.” He looked very satisfied with himself.

I sat at the table and ate as much as I could bring myself to take, thinking as I did that I might be nourishing a corpse.

We were away from the old warehouse in less than an hour after I finished shaving. It was a chill morning, and mists from the river made the city almost as foggy as London, but without the penetrating smell of saltwater. The calash went through the streets at a steady trot, and around us I heard more than saw the people of the city. All the while, Herr Dortmunder did his best to prepare me for our destination.

“It is King Ludwig who has made the city mad for Orientalia. He has a Turkish room at his hunting lodge, and there is a Moorish kiosk being built at Linderhoff, his latest building effort. Who knows what he will want next—an Indian castle, perhaps.” His account smacked of condemnation of these excesses.

I thought of George IV’s fantastical pavilion at Brighton, the one Beau Nash, or one of the other great dandies, had described as Saint Paul’s having littered and brought forth cupolas, and for which I had a tasteless but genuine affection. “It could be a right treat,” I said as if approving of the venture.

Herr Dortmunder rolled his eyes upward in disapproval. “If he cared for anything but buildings and the opera, Bavaria might have played a more important role in the war. As it is, Ludwig has no thought of any glory but what his architect and Richard Wagner can supply. He has gone to Bayreuth to hear every new work at least once.”

“They say Otto, the Prince, is mad,” I remarked.

“How do you know about that? Where did you hear it?” demanded Herr Dortmunder. He swung around to look at me, ignoring the guard driving the carriage.

Too late, I recalled it was in a dispatch on Mycroft Holmes’ table. I covered my error as best I could. “Well, they put him in the loony bin, didn’t they? That’s what the
Mirror
said,” I responded in a quarrelsome tone. “Putting the Prince away like that, he’s got to be daft. Though how anyone would notice, given how royals are, I’m—”

Herr Dortmunder interrupted me. “If you are not willing to listen and learn, you will be of no use to the Brotherhood when we reach Madame Isolde’s. Pay attention to what I tell you.”

I took the rebuke as well as I, as Jeffries, could—that is, petulantly—and I said, “You wanted to know how I knew.”

He did not dignify this with an answer. “You will begin with Madame Isolde. She will introduce you to McMillian. Madame Isolde is the name Lottelisa Spanner gave herself five years ago, to suit the fashion. She has turned her establishment into an Oriental paradise, or so she claims. Occasionally she entertains Arabs and Turks there, so she must have achieved some success.”