Web of Discord (11 page)

‘I wondered about that, sir, and about your connection with Mr Oldfield.’

‘Our fathers were both chemists, Inspector, with thriving shops in Portsmouth. I knew Gabriel since we were both boys. When he decided to buy that shop in Falcon Street, he needed a bit of financial help, which I was able to give him. In return, I asked him to provide a safe haven for me in times of stress. He knew what kind of work I did. And now he’s gone …’

‘Yes, sir, he’s gone, but he won’t be forgotten. And one of these days, I’ve no doubt, he’ll be avenged. When you’re ready, I’ll arrange for you to be taken to Colonel Kershaw.’

Adams threw Box a grateful glance, and then glanced at the old ostler’s inert figure sprawled on the bed.

‘And what am I to do about John Martin there?’ he asked. ‘I feel responsible for him, now. I can’t just leave him to fend for himself—’

‘There’s no question of that, Captain Adams. Old John’s not going to be left alone from now on, and very soon he’ll be moving to a comfortable billet in the Holy Cross Almshouses, near Theobald’s Road. Meanwhile, you need to see Colonel Kershaw.’

Box drew from his pocket the paper spill tied with twine that
he had taken from Kershaw’s cigar case in the churchyard of St Edward’s, Coleman Street. He snapped the twine, and read the words written on the paper in a firm, upright hand.

Sir Joseph Paxton’s stupendous glass palace at Sydenham never failed to take Box’s breath away. Composed entirely of glass and iron, it rose to a height of 175 feet above the 200 acres of
beautiful
landscaped gardens. He had been brought there as a boy, spent leisurely days there in his youth, and had twice gone out there to arrest a brace of rather genteel suburban poisoners.

The two detectives and Captain Adams made their way through the exuberant fountains and along the Upper Terrace until they came to a secluded square lodge surrounded by clipped privet hedges. It was clearly a much older building than the Crystal Palace, but it been dragooned by Paxton to serve as the East Lodge. Evidently they had been observed, for the door was opened by a genial, stooping man in tweeds, who was smoking a pipe, and holding what appeared to be a blueprint in his left hand.

‘Come in, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I suppose one could say that you’re expected! My name’s Boniface. The colonel will be able to speak to you in just a few moments.’

Boniface ushered them into the light and cheerful parlour of the lodge, where Colonel Sir Adrian Kershaw RA was standing at a table talking into a telephone. He smiled a delighted greeting to Adams, but held up his hand to prevent him speaking. He talked loudly and clearly into the instrument, which was of the new type, with a separate handset, and a cradle that could stand on a table.

‘… And you are quite sure that she spoke to the Dean of Durham personally? It’s very important to me…. Yes, I see. Did your informant hear her mention my young lady by name…? Yes, it sounds very much as though she’s making a move at last…. Yes, I agree, not before time! Thank you. I’ll close the line now. Goodbye.’

Colonel Kershaw handed the instrument to Boniface, and shook Captain Adams heartily by the hand. He glanced at Box and Knollys, and motioned them to sit down at the round table, which was covered in maps and papers.

‘Ah! Adams! Home at last! What does the poem say –
Home
is
the
sailor,
home
from
the
sea,
and
the
huntsman
home
from
the
chase.
Something like that. Thank you, Box, for rooting him out, and bringing him here. I knew you’d turn up trumps over this business. Adams, I want you to give me the gist of your recent adventures. The details can wait until later. You may speak quite freely before these two officers – they’re seasoned colleagues of mine. Mr Boniface, would you please continue with your work on the model in the next room.’

The pleasant man with the pipe raised a hand in an informal salute, and left the little parlour. Adams began his tale.

‘On 8 February, Kershaw, just a week after you and I returned from Porthcurno, I enlisted as an ordinary seaman, under the name Malcolm Enright, on board the
Lermontov
,
which was then lying off Lowestoft. It was easy enough to arrange for someone to go sick, and to take his place. You know how it’s done. The salient facts are these. The crew was part Russian, part Lascar, and part German. They spoke English among
themselves
, which is common enough on merchant vessels with mixed crews.’

‘An interesting point, that. Pray continue.’

‘They appeared to be operating exclusively as a cable repair ship, and all the cable-lifting equipment and specialized tools were properly greased and ready for use. We set sail for Königsberg on the ninth, which was a Thursday, sailed through the North Sea, and into the Baltic, holding a steady course some mile or so from the German coast.

‘Nothing unusual happened until we neared Pillau, which, as you know, is the port of Königsberg. I assumed that we were going to sail into the Pillau channel, and tie up in the port. Instead, we continued several miles east, until the towers of Königsberg had disappeared. It wasn’t my place to ask
question
s
, but I wondered what we were doing venturing so far into
the East Prussian wilderness.’

‘Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere!’ said Kershaw. ‘I expect you passed the inlet to the Rundstedt Channel, didn’t you? You’d be fifteen miles east of Königsberg by then, and very near the Lithuanian coast of Russia.’

‘Exactly. We dropped anchor there, started the winch engines, and turned the drums. We raised a single cable, which I could see travelled under the sea towards the Prussian coast, spliced into it, and transmitted a long message. Obviously, I’ve no idea what that message was, but I assumed that it was designed to end up in Berlin. The ship has its own advanced transmission equipment.’

‘Could you see the Lithuanian coast from where you were anchored? Did you see— Excuse me, one moment. Boniface! Come back in here, will you?’

Still smoking his pipe and clutching his blueprints, the genial man in tweeds appeared at the door.

‘You called me, Colonel Kershaw?’

‘Yes. If you were anchored near the Rundstedt Channel, Boniface, within sight of the Lithuanian coast of Russia, what would you expect to see?’

‘Well, sir, on a nice clear day I’d expect to see a vast, rolling tract of woodland, and a solitary onion-domed church at the land’s edge. There’d be little or nothing visible on the Prussian coast, just scrubland and uncultivated wilderness.’

‘Thank you, Boniface. Was that more or less what you saw, Captain Adams? And was the date 15 February?’

‘Yes, it was. And I remember that church. The sun glinted off its gilded dome. I’ve no idea, as I said, what it was that they sent through that splice, because I was just an ordinary seaman. It wouldn’t have done to show any special interest in what was going on.’

‘It was on that day,’ said Kershaw, ‘that the German Foreign Office in Berlin received a message purporting to come from a German agent in Lithuania, telling them that a new and deadly weapon was being developed for use against Prussia. There was to be a “grand strike”, apparently, at Germany through its
eastern territories, which would entail the destruction of the ancient Prussian capital of Königsberg. I think that’s what you helped to transmit, Adams. I rather think, too, that it was the first serious attempt at disruption after those test-runs through the English cable complex at Porthcurno.’

Kershaw glanced at a sheet of paper which he had selected from the many spread out on the round table.

‘The
Lermontov
,
as you know, Adams, was originally a vessel of the Imperial Russian Marine, built in the 1870s, but it was sold off a few years ago, and now belongs to the Olafsson Steamship Company, of Stavanger. That company is in turn owned by a financial grouping called the Brandenburg Consortium, registered as a private company in
Hesse-Darmstadt
. It makes you think, doesn’t it? It certainly makes
me
think.’

Very dimly, as though far off, Arnold Box began to glimpse an unpleasant possibility. At the same moment, he knew that Kershaw had done more than merely glimpse it.

‘Sir,’ he said to Kershaw, ‘these names that you’ve mentioned – Brandenburg, and what was the other one? Hesse-Darmstadt. Do I begin to detect a German flavour to the proceedings?’

‘You do, Box, you do indeed. And as usual I must leave you in the dark until you yourself see the whole light. But there’s something that I
will
tell you. The people at the German Embassy are not involved in whatever’s going on.’

‘There’s something else I discovered about the Lermontov,’ said Adams. ‘It’s armed. Two of its winch-houses on the forward deck are actually disguised gun emplacements. It was soon after
I discovered that, Kershaw, that the ship’s officers began to suspect me. It was then that I abandoned ship, as it were, and began my perilous return to Britain by land and sea. Do you want to hear about it?’

‘No, not yet. That can keep till later. But your discovery of guns on board is very important. I imagine that it was the
Lermontov
that sank the German cargo-ship
Berlin
Star.
The ship was seen to be flying the Russian ensign, but neither the victims nor the witnesses could identify the aggressor with any certainty. Yes, surely, it was the
Lermontov.
And that means….’

Colonel Kershaw gazed into space for what seemed like minutes. Then, with an effort, he brought himself back to the business in hand.

‘When this meeting’s over, Adams,’ he said, ‘I intend to spirit you away from harm to a place where we can talk at leisure. Meanwhile, there are other things waiting for me to do. The time for action against this growing threat to peace and stability is fast approaching, but there are two events that must take place before I begin to move. One is a meeting later this week, at Whitehall, which has been convened by Sir Charles Napier. It will be attended by various people from the German, Russian and French embassies. I shall be there, too.’

‘And the second event?’ asked Adams. Box noticed with amusement the edge of vexation in the captain’s tone. Evidently, he’d resented being upstaged at this meeting by the annoyingly omniscient Kershaw, and to a lesser extent by Box himself.

‘The second event, Adams, is a country-house weekend, where, among others, I hope to meet an old ally of mine, Count von und zu Thalberg. You know all about him, don’t you, Mr Box? The count is a high-ranking officer in Prussian Military Intelligence. He is also a very decided Anglophile, and it’s essential that I talk to him before I make a move.’

Colonel Kershaw got up from the table, and went to look out of one of the cottage-style windows of the little lodge. Box, watching the mild, sandy-haired man with the slight stoop,
thought to himself, When this man ‘makes a move’, he will have the whole force of the Crown and its armed services behind him. It was an awesome thought.

‘Well,’ said Kershaw, ‘the spring has decidedly taken hold, and the gardens here at the Crystal Palace are burgeoning into their many-coloured splendour. But if certain forces have their way, this year of 1893 will be one of unsettling strife among the nations, and when that happens, the common enemy will strike. There will be much work for us to do if we are to preserve the Queen’s Peace.’

Kershaw turned from the window, and treated them all to his rather apologetic smile.

‘Adams,’ he said, ‘will you go into the next room, where Boniface will arrange for you to be spirited away? I will be with you again without fail this evening.’

When Captain Adams had left the room, Colonel Kershaw turned to Box.

‘What did you think of Mr Boniface, Box?’ he asked.

‘He seems a very agreeable man, sir.’

‘He is. He’s a naval architect by training, and for a number of years he was attached to the Admiralty as an intelligence interpreter. Then he came to work for me. He travels a lot, you know, and finds ways of surviving in hostile terrain. As you say, a very agreeable man. Perhaps you’ll see more of Mr Boniface before this business is over.’

Kershaw looked around the little parlour of the lodge, as though to reassure himself that he was actually standing in it.

‘This isn’t one of my regular haunts, you know, Box. It’s a bit out of the way for me, but it’s very useful at the moment, and you’ll find me here, or in the vicinity, for the near future. Somehow, I think that you and I are going to work even more closely on this Russian business than we have so far. Call
whenever
you wish.’

‘Did you say Russian business or Prussian business, sir?’ asked Box, impishly.

Colonel Kershaw subjected him to an impressively blank and forbidding stare.

‘Why, what on earth do you mean? I said “Russian”, of course. You must listen more closely in future.’

Box smiled to himself, bowed, and turned to leave the room, followed by Knollys. However, Kershaw’s voice checked them on the threshold.

‘Sergeant Knollys,’ he said, ‘I’d be obliged if you’d stay behind. There’s something very personal about this business which I need to discuss with you alone.’

As Box walked away from the East Lodge through the
spectacular
display of fountains, he wondered what the very personal business between Kershaw and Knollys could possibly be. Whatever it was, he was evidently not to be a party to it. It was no good sulking about it. The colonel had his little ways.

Sergeant Knollys stayed for half an hour. As soon as he had left the East Lodge, Colonel Kershaw went into the next room, where Mr Boniface was sitting at a plain trestle table, his unlit pipe clenched between his teeth. There was a strong smell of cardboard, fish glue and wood shavings in the air.

‘Has Adams gone?’ asked Kershaw.

‘Yes, sir. Mrs Prout called for him, and has removed him from the premises in a four-wheeler. She had one of those hulking great porters with her.’

‘Mrs Prout runs an excellent hotel, with excellent staff, Mr Boniface. Excellent from our point of view, you understand.’

Mr Boniface smiled, and pointed with his pipe to a model, meticulously constructed of wood and cardboard, standing on the table. It represented a long, cigar-shaped vessel, painted silver, and with a number of structures suspended from it by wires. It was quite unlike anything that Kershaw had ever seen.

‘There it is, sir,’ said Boniface. ‘That’s the nearest I can get to what it must look like. I’ve based it on the twelve reports sent back to you, and the five documents furnished by Sir Charles Napier. The Russians, I gather, are convinced that we know nothing about it?’

‘That’s so. And for the time being I want them to continue in that belief. Germany, of course, knows all about it, and if it
becomes necessary, I’ll get Napier to show this model of yours to von Hagen at Prussia House. Just take me through the salient points, will you? I’m not a technical man, you know, apart from knowing all about heavy artillery.’

‘Well, sir, this is the Russian aerial boat
Phoebus-Apollo
, currently under construction in the Lithuanian forest, and, to judge from its present state of building, due at any time for practical tests. Its length is two hundred and sixty-two feet, and its displacement three hundred and sixty thousand cubic feet.’

‘And this thing is designed to rise into the air? Do you think that’s feasible?’

‘It may be, sir. In theory, it should be able to rise. I compute the total weight of the aerial boat to be eight tons, with an air displacement of twelve tons. That gives what you might call a surplus lift of four tons. Oh, yes, it’s feasible.’

‘How is it powered?’

‘They’ve developed a very fine single cylinder steam engine of twenty-five horse power, fuelled by pebbled coal. The engine will drive a propeller – you can see it there, emerging from the rear suspended carriage, which is twenty-four feet in length. There’s room in there for an engineer, who is also the helmsman. From there, he can control the rudder. It’s a boat, you see, but a boat of the air.’

‘And the rest of the crew?’

‘The captain, and one other, accommodated in that long forward carriage, which is fifty-two feet long. I estimate that it will do ten knots in still air, without too much turbulence. Ten knots – what’s that? – eleven miles an hour. Its range could be between thirty and fifty miles. Always assuming, sir, that the thing gets off the ground in the first place.’

Colonel Kershaw sat back in his chair and sighed. He regarded the model with what looked like gloomy dislike.

‘And this
Phoebus-Apollo
, Mr Boniface – is it designed to take wealthy Russians on thrilling trips across the Lithuanian
countryside
? Excursions, you know?’

‘It is not, sir. If you look closely at the forward carriage, you’ll see a number of racks, pointing downwards—’

‘I know, I know. I was only teasing you. I have a report from one of Napier’s people at Moscow, which tells me that one of the smaller munitions factories there has been converted to the production of a special kind of shell or bombard, each three hundred pounds in weight. These bombards are filled with high explosive – picric acid, apparently. They will have been designed for those racks of yours, Boniface, and the purpose of the whole venture will be to drop the bombards on to
unprotected
towns, and sea-going vessels. Sir Charles Napier has been told something similar by von Hagen, who doesn’t realize that I’ve been on to this devilish contraption for nearly a year. Armed attack from the air!’

‘It may not come to that, sir. More humane counsels may prevail.’

‘Oh, no they won’t, Mr Boniface. Whenever mankind creates a new marvel, he will soon find ways of using it to destroy his fellow man. This
Phoebus-Apollo
may have nothing to do with the present unrest, but it must not go unobserved. Vigilance is all.’

Vanessa Drake lodged in a tall, gaunt building near Dean’s Yard, in Westminster. It had once been the convent of an Anglican sisterhood, and the nuns’ cells had been very sympathetically adapted to create a number of sets of rooms for single women. She had brought her work home on the Wednesday night, so that she could work quietly at her table in the morning, and report to Watts & Co. in the early afternoon. She had been stitching a fine and delicate gold braid to the edges of a bourse, and her fingers ached. She set the bourse down on the table.

Jack Knollys had taken her to the Alhambra again, and then to supper at a brilliantly lit restaurant in Regent Street, and next week, if the weather was decent, they were going to Hampstead Heath….

It would be nice to have a little villa out at Finchley, near to her friend Louise. She could easily make all her own curtains, and there were some marvellous new fabrics at Peter Robinson’s, just come in. Was Finchley too far out for a man
who worked at Scotland Yard? Still, they’d never be able to afford a place like that. Louise was paid a salary by London University, and her parents were very comfortably off. She wondered what Jack’s parents did for a living. He’d never mentioned them yet….

Maurice was a nice name for a boy, and Louise for a girl, after Princess Louise. Or May, perhaps, like Princess May of Teck.

Someone was coming up the stairs. Vanessa frantically straightened the mess on the table, smoothed her dress, and sat down to wait for the knock. The door opened, and Colonel Kershaw came into the room. She was quite unable to suppress her cry of delight as she sprang up to greet him.

‘So, there you are, missy!’ Kershaw treated her to an amused smile, and sat down uninvited in a chair opposite hers. He was wearing the dark-blue undress uniform of a Royal Artillery officer, and was carrying his glazed peak cap in his hand.

‘Well, Miss Drake, how are you?’

‘I’m very well, thank you, sir.’

‘Good, I’m glad to hear it. And you mustn’t stand up to greet me in your own home. Young ladies don’t need to do that. Now, if I tell you that something rather interesting is going forward, would you want to be associated with it?’

‘Oh, yes, sir!’

Why conceal her delight? She
was
delighted. How smart he looked! She wondered where he could be going, in uniform, like that. The last time she’d seen him dressed as an officer, it had been in the full dress uniform of a colonel at poor Arthur’s funeral.

‘Very well. Now listen carefully. I think that very soon – within the next day or so – you will be approached by a German lady, Baroness Felssen, who will say that she admired your handiwork in some church or other. She may come here, or she may approach you at Watts & Company. I’m not quite sure what she’ll say next, but I rather think that she’ll invite you to stay at her house in Northumberland for a while, in order to carry out some commission. Now, I must say at once that there is more to this task than merely acting as one of my “nobodies”,
because in this case it is the other side who have taken the
initiative
.’

‘I don’t quite understand, sir—’

‘I mean that they know who you are. It’s not as though I were to send you somewhere, incognito. They know that you’re one of my people, and for some reason they want to see you. Now, I don’t want to tell you too much about Baroness Felssen, but I’ll warn you that some people consider her to be the most dangerous woman in Europe, at this moment. You’re at perfect liberty to say, no, thank you, if she asks you to go with her. But if you
do
agree, I want you to go up there to Northumberland, do whatever she says, look, and listen.’