The Hansa Protocol (6 page)

‘Fenlake,’ he said, in formal tones, ‘your day’s mission is now
accomplished
. Folio 6, of the 3rd January, 1893, is turned and sealed.’ Lieutenant Fenlake drew himself briefly to attention, then left the lodge, slamming the front door behind him. Sir Charles listened to the ring of his emissary’s boots as he walked quickly away into the bitter night.

Friday, the thirteenth …. Poor Seligmann knew more than most about the seething undercurrents of German politics, and he expected the great rally of pan-Germanists called for the thirteenth to give the signal to set Europe ablaze. Whatever he had written in this sealed
memorandum, it would be sensational enough, apparently, to stay von Dessau’s hand. He was a mob orator of the first water, but a shrewd politician for all that.

Sir Charles Napier took the package out of his pocket. He examined it, looked at its official seals and signatures, and for one disquieting moment he felt the temptation to open it. After all, poor Seligmann was dead. Surely it would be prudent to ascertain the nature of his secret hold over Baron von Dessau?

No. That was not the way. To open the memorandum would be to dishonour himself, and betray Otto Seligmann’s memory. He put the memorandum carefully back into his pocket, and left the secluded lodge.

Detective Inspector Box hurried out of Whitehall Place and across the frosty cobbles fronting the complex of old buildings known as King James’s Rents. He noted that a heavy four-wheeler had drawn up in Aberdeen Lane, near the stables, and that a heavily muffled constable up on the box had seen him, but not saluted. As he mounted the steps to the front vestibule, a neighbouring clock chimed eight.

Ahead of him, across the sanded floorboards, the glazed swing doors of his office beckoned him invitingly. He could see the fire blazing merrily in the fireplace at the far end of the room, and Jack Knollys doing some vigorous morning exercise with the poker, while talking to a man in the uniform of an inspector. The man had his back to the door, so Box couldn’t see his face. No doubt he had something to do with the conveyance in Aberdeen Lane. He’d find out, in a moment.

Box had just returned the greeting of the constable on duty in the reception-room at the entrance, when he was stopped in his tracks by a voice from the landing at the top of the stone stairs that rose steeply from the vestibule to the floor above.

‘Is that you, Box? Come up here, if you please. I’ll not detain you more than five minutes.’

Superintendent Mackharness had evidently stationed himself on the upper landing to await Box’s coming. Box mounted the stairs, and joined the superintendent in his dark front office on the first floor of King James’s Rents. As always, the room smelt strongly of mildew and stale gas.

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Box. ‘I believe you wanted to see me?’

‘What? Well, obviously; otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you to come up here.’

Box looked appraisingly at his superior officer, as he sat down behind his massive old desk, upon which he had neatly arrayed a collection of books and papers. Neatness was his watchword, as Box knew. His yellowish face was adorned with neatly trimmed mutton chop whiskers. His thin hair was neatly brushed and combed. His civilian frock coat was well brushed and smart. His voice, precisely tuned to the pitch of irascibility that he reserved for Box, was well enunciated, and
surprisingly
powerful for a man who was well over sixty, and beginning to feel his age.

‘Just sit down there, will you, Box. I wanted to catch you as soon as you came in. You’ll find Inspector Lewis from Chelsea downstairs. He’s with Sergeant Knollys at the moment. He wants a detective down there, and I think you’d better be the one to go. I don’t suppose you know yet what happened out there last night?’

Box recalled his breakfast that morning, in his cheerful set of
bachelor
rooms in Cardinal Court, a secluded enclave of old houses behind Fleet Street. Mrs Peach, his landlady, had treated him to a dramatic story of an explosion in Chelsea, which she had heard from a
neighbour
, a stableman, who had just returned from his night-shift at Chelsea Barracks. ‘The night was turned to day, Mr Box,’ she’d told him, as she deposited a plate of poached egg and haddock in front of him. ‘They say it was a gas-leak what done it, but it sounds like foreigners to me. Russians. Or Prussians. And the master of the house blown to pieces. It doesn’t bear thinking of.’

Box felt the presence of a kind of imp of the perverse, which came to him whenever Mackharness asked him a question that was designed to show off his imagined superior knowledge.

‘No, sir,’ said Box, ‘I’ve heard nothing at all. What happened at Chelsea?’

Superintendent Mackharness eyed Box with a kind of defensive wariness.

‘Heard nothing, hey? You should keep your ears to the ground, Box! Well, you’d better listen carefully while I tell you. No doubt you’ll recall looking in on Dr Otto Seligmann’s lecture last Saturday? Well, last night, Box, Dr Seligmann was blown to pieces in an explosion at his house in Chelsea.’

‘Strewth!’

‘As you say, Box, though I wish you could develop a wider range of
epithets and expletives, especially when talking to me. What is right for the costermonger is not necessarily fitting for a police inspector. But the point is, Box – the point is …. Where was I? Your constant
interruptions
interfere with my train of thought.’

‘Dr Seligmann had been blown up in Chelsea—’

‘Yes, that’s it. And the interesting point is, Box, that Inspector Lewis requested us to take PC Kenwright with us out there. To Chelsea, I mean. Now, Kenwright’s a uniformed man, and he’s here at the Rents ostensibly to recuperate from fever; but perhaps you’ll remember—’

‘Yes, sir. Last year, when we investigated the explosion in Euston Road. The Home Office moved in, and sent Mr Mack from Explosions to look at the pieces. Mr Mack was very impressed with the kind of help that PC Kenwright gave him. So maybe in this case—’

Mackharness waved his hand impatiently, as though to dismiss the whole topic. ‘Yes, yes, Box, your logical deductions do you credit, but if you’d waited for me to finish, instead of interrupting – as you constantly do – I’d have said the same thing.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I would never knowingly—’

‘Yes, yes, well never mind all that. Get out there, will you? Lewis came with a four-wheeler, so you can take Sergeant Knollys and PC Kenwright with you. Seligmann lived in a kind of square in Chelsea, somewhere behind the Physic Garden – Lavender Walk, it’s called. The Chelsea Police are there, of course, but I want you to show the people in the house that Scotland Yard is interested in the case.’

‘Perhaps it was a gas explosion, sir. We’ve had some corkers in that line, recently.’

‘Yes, Box, perhaps it was.’ Mackharness’s voice held a mixture of irascibility and sarcastic humour. ‘Or perhaps this building – the Belvedere, they called it – was struck by lightning. Or earthquake. Or it may have been the Fenians. One way of finding out would be to go there, and investigate! Find out what Mr Mack’s up to. The Home Office doesn’t involve the Explosions Inspectorate for a domestic gas explosion. Go, now, Box, and talk to Inspector Lewis. Then get out there to Chelsea.’

Inspector Lewis stretched his hands out gratefully to the blazing fire. At last, he was beginning to feel warm. He wore a long serge uniform
overcoat
and regulation hat, but it had been keenly cold in the ruins of that
garden tower place at Dr Seligmann’s – cold, and soulless. Gas, everyone had whispered, but it hadn’t been gas. He’d felt the evil in the dank air. You couldn’t say that to fellow officers, or put it into a report. He straightened up and turned from the fire as the doors of the office swung open.

‘Inspector Lewis? Box. Arnold Box. We’ve not met before. How are you?’

Lewis looked at the slim, smart man who had just erupted into the office. He was wearing a tightly buttoned fawn greatcoat, and carried a brown bowler hat. He looked more like a civilian than a policeman – but then, that’s what a detective ought to look like. This Mr Box had a dashing sort of military look to him. What was he? Thirty-five? That carefully trimmed moustache made him look a bit older.

‘I’m very well, thank you, Inspector Box. I’ve got a four-wheeler waiting to convey you out to Chelsea. I thought it best to see you here first, on your own ground.’

Box’s visitor was a man nearing fifty, with a narrow, weatherbeaten face, and hunched shoulders. He was the kind of police officer who had spent many years on duties that kept him out of doors. There was a thin, hollow quality to his voice, suggestive of weakened lungs.

‘Well, Mr Lewis, it’s not much of a place, as you can see! The ceiling’s black with soot from that old-fashioned gas mantle. It’s a bad burner, but they won’t replace it. And we’ve being trying to get them to paint the walls for years.’

‘But these walls of yours, Mr Box, don’t have ears. I’m not so sure about the kind of walls they have down our way, in Chelsea. So let me give you the gist of what happened last night.’

Inspector Lewis sat down on the edge of a chair near the fire. He had removed his braided uniform cap, and placed it on the crowded office table.

‘Mr Box, there was a monstrous explosion last night, at half past eight, at Dr Otto Seligmann’s house in Lavender Walk, Chelsea. The explosion occurred in a kind of fancy stone tower or summer house standing in the rear garden of the house. This tower was known as the Belvedere.’

Box sat on the opposite side of the table, writing in a notebook. He had donned small round gold spectacles, which made him look older than his years.

‘And what was this Belvedere? What was special about it?’

‘It was a library, Mr Box, where this German gentleman studied. There’s another library in the house. My men are out there, you’ll understand, keeping a watch over things. It’s a terrible business. We all heard the explosion in Chelsea Police Station, and didn’t wait for any one to call us in. We went round there as soon as we could, and arrived just after the fire engines—’

Lewis broke off as a gigantic uniformed police constable emerged from a tunnel-like passageway to the right of the fireplace. An
impressive
man by any standards, he had a flowing spade beard, which added to a natural gravity of manner. He was carrying a wooden tray, containing two steaming mugs of tea. Lewis watched as he placed his burden carefully on the table. He was unaccountably pleased when the constable briefly stood to attention and saluted him.

‘PC Kenwright, sir,’ the big constable said. ‘This here tea is sent with Sergeant Knollys’ compliments. It’s rare cold outside. This should warm you up a bit.’

Kenwright left the room the way he had come, and Inspector Lewis continued his story.

‘Well, Mr Box, the fire was too strong for anyone to go in, though everyone in the garden was talking about a gentleman visitor who’d managed to burst the door down before we came—’

‘A gentleman visitor? Tell me about him, Mr Lewis.’

‘Well, he was a gentleman called Colin McColl, and he’d called to see Dr Seligmann by appointment. We got all this information out of the secretary, later, you understand, a German chap called Schneider; and from Mr Lodge, the butler. This Mr McColl managed to burst the door in – a heavy, iron door. Trying to rescue poor Dr Seligmann, you see. There was another visitor, who came just as this Mr McColl left. A young man called Fenlake—’

‘Fenlake?’ asked Box, sharply. ‘Lieutenant Fenlake?’

‘Yes, Mr Box, that’s right! Do you know him?’

‘I know
of
him. I know a young lady friend of his.’

‘Well, this Lieutenant Fenlake, according to Mr Lodge, was the last person to see poor Dr Seligmann alive.’

‘An interesting point. And what did you do next, Mr Lewis?’

‘We stayed all night – us, and the fire brigade, I mean – and by first light this morning the fire had all but burnt itself out. We’d brought gas
flares in, and worked by the light of them to find out what we could. We located what was left of Dr Seligmann just before dawn. A terrible affair, as I said. The ruins of a man ….’

Inspector Lewis sipped his tea. His eyes, Box saw, held a renewed awareness of the sadness of things. There was no need for him to commiserate. Each knew that the other had witnessed terrible sights in the course of their often thankless duties.

‘Oddly enough, Mr Lewis, I helped to police a meeting addressed by this Dr Seligmann only last Saturday. Shocking. Shocking altogether. And so you thought of us? Scotland Yard, I mean.’

‘I did. There was the smell of evil all around, Mr Box, though you might think me foolish for talking like that. Then, just after six, Dr Janner, the Home Office forensic pathologist, arrived in a cab. That told me that something funny was in the wind. He’d brought another Home Office man with him, an old chap who said he was Mr Mack, from the Home Office Explosions Inspectorate.’

‘Mr Mack’s an old friend of ours here at the Yard. I know Dr Janner, too. What did he do?’

‘He – well, he gathered the remains together. He and his assistants put them in a deal coffin, and conveyed them to the Chelsea Union mortuary. But it’s time we set off, Mr Box. I want you to see the site of this atrocity with your own eyes.’

As they turned the corner into Aberdeen Lane, they were assailed by a sudden squall of hailstones. They hurried over the setts to the waiting four-wheeler, and by the time they had clambered in to the heavy vehicle, the hailstones had turned to tentative sleet. The constable on the box released the brake, and turned the horses’ heads in the
direction
of Whitehall.

For a man on the small side, thought Inspector Lewis, Mr Box chose giants for his companions. PC Kenwright, sitting opposite him, was imposing enough, but the sergeant sitting beside him was massive, to put it mildly. An ugly customer, too, by the look of him. He had
close-cropped
yellow hair, and a livid scar running across his face from below the right eye to the left corner of his mouth.

Lewis caught the amused gleam in the sergeant’s piercing blue eyes, and realized that he had been reading his thoughts. He felt himself blushing, but was spared the indignity by Box, who suddenly broke
what he thought was becoming an embarrassed silence.

‘Inspector Lewis, I didn’t have time to introduce you properly back there at the Rents. This is my sergeant, Jack Knollys. He’s from Croydon, originally.’

‘Oh, Croydon? Really. Pleased to meet you, Sergeant.’

The heavy cab had reached Parliament Street, and Box glanced at the magnificent Italianate palace built by Sir Gilbert Scott to house the Home Office. It made him think for the moment of old Mr Mack, who had a little room somewhere in that impressive pile.

‘And you reckon it wasn’t a gas explosion, Mr Lewis? A gas leak?’ Lewis shook his head decidedly.

‘It wasn’t gas, Mr Box. Two men from the Gas, Light and Coke Company came out within the hour, turned the gas off, and hammered the broken pipe flat. But it wasn’t gas. It was as though a shell had exploded, or a magazine gone up. There’s devilry behind it, and for my money it’s not the Fenians this time. Still, that’s for you to decide, Mr Box, when you’ve seen the place. The Belvedere, I mean.’