Web of Discord (7 page)

‘Miss Margaret…. Well, she had good taste in hatpins! Sister of the Lord of the Manor, she resides in glory with the saints. Amen. But you, my friend, are still living, and bound to
me
.
’

Dr Nikolai Ivanovich Karenin slowly turned his pale-blue eyes and fixed them on his host. He had placed the hatpin down carefully on the desk.

‘You have observed me, no doubt?’ he asked. ‘You have noticed my pale complexion? That is what they call prison pallor. It is the result of twenty-five years in a Russian prison! The paleness etches itself on the skin, so that if you were to live the rest of your life in the tropics, you would be branded with the leprous white mark of the convict.’

Dr Karenin seemed lost in his own vivid musings. He hugged the title deed of the manor closely to his chest. Then he suddenly began to laugh, his shoulders heaving with a strangely terrifying mirth. Hugh Trevannion waited.

‘We Russians, Mr Trevannion,’ said Karenin at length, ‘we Russians do everything by extremes. So a man who’s rotted in gaol for a lifetime comes out looking like a leper…. Oh, yes! We Russians are terrible creatures. And that is the kind of man to whom you are bound, Hugh Trevannion – that, and worse. I have more work to do, work that will bring me flying back to this sanctuary of yours. I have restored to you your estate. In return, you must always give me sanctuary, either here, or
elsewhere
. Is that a bargain?’

‘It is. You need not doubt my word. Now, will you sign the transfer?’

Without warning, Karenin suddenly lunged towards
Trevannion
,
and encircled his throat with a sinuous, bony hand. Trevannion shrieked with fear.

‘Whatever happens, my friend,’ the corpse-white Karenin whispered, ‘you ask no questions, venture no opinions. That curious cat – the young man from Porthcurno – who knows what will happen to him? Do not presume to ask. And to avoid you asking any curious questions, Mr Trevannion, I’ll let you share some little secrets.

‘You recall what happened to Sir John Courteline? Well, Courteline was my enemy, and, with the hired help of a murderous thug, I sent him to perdition. Later, I left a device in the killer’s wretched hovel which blew him to pieces. There, you now share one of my deadly secrets. If you ever
contemplate
becoming a danger to me by talking too much, then, my friend, your life will not be worth a day’s purchase.’

Karenin suddenly laughed again, and relinquished the title deed of St Columb’s Manor to Trevannion. He turned back to the desk, dipped a pen in an inkwell, and taking a handwritten note from the sheaf of papers, he signed it with a flourish. When he spoke again, it was in a pleasant, businesslike tone, accompanied with something approaching a smile.

‘There you are, my friend,’ he said, ‘the deed of
relinquishment
, duly signed. The manor of St Columb is truly yours once more.’

The next day, Hugh Trevannion left St Columb’s Manor early, and took a hired trap to the busy town of Truro, where he deposited the precious title deeds with his lawyer. The business done, he turned into a nearby coffee shop, where the day’s papers were available for customers to read. He selected the
Exeter
Express
from the rack, and laid it flat on the table. The front page, usually covered in lines of advertisements, had produced a black headline,
A RUSSIAN ATROCITY
. The story beneath it cried out for his attention. 

Trevannion put the newspaper aside, and sipped his coffee. It was grave news, but under the new dispensation ushered in by Dr Karenin, it was none of his business. Let the great world go its own way – his world lay on the edge of the cliffs at St Columb’s Manor. Say nothing, think nothing. That must now be his saving creed.

Hugh Trevannion returned to St Columb’s in the mid-
afternoon
, but instead of pushing open the gate in the dry-stone wall, he walked along the narrow road that would take him to the cliff edge. It was a blustery day, with angry grey clouds
scudding
across the sky. Once arrived at the edge of the cliff, he looked down the giddy slope to Spanish Beach, 200 feet below.

The spume-crested waves flung themselves against the rocks, broke up into violent spray, and retreated, only to revisit the inhospitable shore with renewed violence. Below him, Hugh could see wind-blown plants and gnarled bushes growing perilously from the many outcrops. Gulls wheeled and screamed across the uneasy sky.

Something shifted in the foaming channels between the rocks, something that seemed to be endowed with a kind of erratic life, lunging forward with the inrush of the waves, and
retreating when the waters retreated. But it was in reality a dead thing, broken and lifeless, the body of a young man, floating on its back, its white face staring sightlessly up towards the cliff-top from which it had been flung. Soon, it would be swept out to sea, to be yielded up, no doubt, days later, on a strand further along the Cornish coast. From the top of the cliff, Hugh Trevannion looked down in stunned terror at the bobbing white face of his dead friend William Pascoe, and listened in dread to the phantom mourning dirge begun somewhere in his head by his dead sister Meg.

Sir Charles Napier, seated at his ornate desk, read William Pascoe’s message aloud, for the benefit of the man sitting
opposite
him. The message had been brought earlier that day by a courier from Mr Dangerfield, of the Eastern Telegraph Company.

‘“Have ascertained that the German cargo steamer
Berlin
Star,
out of Bremerhaven, is in reality a contraband runner, smuggling arms from Britain to dissidents in Russia. Let all necessary action be taken”. What do you think of that, Herr Fischer?’

It was to be one of those German mornings, thought Napier, occasions usually characterized by the cautious sharing of routine information in an atmosphere of frigid
politesse.
He had asked Herr Fischer, the German commercial attaché, to call at the Foreign Office that day, but a second visitor had arrived unannounced, bringing with him the usual fulsome apologies. He was in the anteroom now, reading the morning’s papers.

‘It’s mischievous nonsense, Sir Charles,’ said Fischer. ‘As commercial attaché at the German Embassy, I naturally have records of all vessels of the German mercantile marine, and what they are carrying. I have access to all manifests and bills of lading. The
Berlin
Star
is one of the vessels of the Hofmann Line, a very reputable company.’

‘The
Berlin
Star
was in the Thames only recently,’ Napier observed.

‘Quite so, She docked at Chandler’s Wharf on Tuesday, 7
March. She was carrying general merchandise, as you can readily ascertain, I’ve no doubt. I’m inclined to see the message as a hoax, especially as it implies that Britain is covertly arming the Russian anarchists, which is nonsense, of course. But it is very good of you, Sir Charles, to call me in like this. I can assure you that His Excellency the German Ambassador is most grateful.’

Napier looked across the document that Dangerfield had sent him at the dapper man with the bristling moustache and eye glass sitting opposite him. The man’s appreciation of his gesture was only too patently genuine. In this matter of the Russian cable, he was convinced that Germany was an innocent and aggrieved party.

‘I’ve got a very decent ’69 brandy here, Herr Fischer,’ said Napier, rising from his desk. ‘I hope it’s not too early for you to imbibe?’

‘Not at all, Sir Charles. How very kind! And may I, without impertinence, convey my commiserations to you on the recent outrage perpetrated against you? It was a cause of deep pain to many of us at Prussia House.’

And he means it, thought Napier, as he busied himself at a wine table in a dim corner of the room. They all mean it! What was happening to the old diplomatic certainties? Prussians were designed by nature to be forever flying at Britons’ throats – but not now. Did the Germans know things about Russia that they were not yet willing to share?

As he poured their drinks from a crystal decanter, he glanced briefly out of the window at St James’s Park, where banks of daffodils were glowing among the lawns. Spring was well on the way. Would 1893 be a year free from international tensions? He smiled sardonically, and turned to his guest.

‘There you are, Herr Fischer:
Gesundheit
!’

‘
Gesundheit,
Herr
Ritter
!
Ah! A fine brandy, this!’

‘So you intend to treat that cable as a hoax?’ asked Napier. ‘I wonder why it was despatched in English? That’s very odd. Still, if it contains any kind of truth – I mean a genuine threat to an unarmed German merchant steamer – then I place myself,
and my government, at your disposal.’

‘It can only be a hoax, Sir Charles. But I’ll mention it to His Excellency. Perhaps the Hofmann Line can be alerted to the possibility of unpleasantness. These are strange and stirring times, Sir Charles. We must wait and see what happens – if anything.’

Some minutes later, Herr Fischer left the room, and Napier rang a small hand-bell on his desk. Almost immediately, the double doors of the chamber were thrown open, and the duty secretary announced Colonel von Hagen, military attaché to the German Embassy.

Colonel von Hagen was wearing morning coat and pinstriped trousers, but he looked as though he would have been more comfortable in the field-grey uniform of the Prussian Hussars, to which he belonged. He was clutching a highly polished
briefcase
, and Napier wondered idly whether it was his valet’s daily task to buff up the briefcase at the same time as the colonel’s boots. Von Hagen clicked his heels and bowed. Napier motioned vaguely to the chair that Herr Fischer had only just vacated.

‘Sir Charles,’ said von Hagen in heavily accented English, ‘I will come to the point immediately. It could never be said that I strove to see the English point of view. I see only the needs and demands of Germany, its Kaiser, and its folk.’

‘Oh, quite,’ said Sir Charles Napier, settling himself in the comfortable chair behind his desk. This was more like it! He was at home with these arrogant Junkers, and knew how to play their game.

‘Nevertheless, recent developments in Europe have been so peculiar, that I have determined to talk to you in your capacity as head of the Foreign Office intelligence service. You have, no doubt, heard of the Russian weapons project in the forests of Lithuania?’

‘I have, Colonel. I am also aware that any such developments in that area of the Baltic coast could be construed as a potential threat to the integrity of Prussian Germany. I can advise you that that is also the view of Her Majesty’s Government.’

‘Good. I am pleased to hear you say so. The Russian secret project has been under way for the last eighteen months. Many people are under the impression that they are developing a new kind of land-vehicle for aggressive use against Germany. Some have wondered whether it could not be a new kind of boat – possibly an under-sea boat. But no. It is more sinister than that. Our German Intelligence is brilliant in its methods, and they have found out the truth.’

Von Hagen began to struggle with the leather straps of his briefcase. Napier watched him. Here was yet another modern German with a bristling waxed moustache, and a glinting monocle. Did they never have short sight in
both
eyes?

‘Ah! Here. This is what our intrepid agents have discovered. The Russians, Sir Charles, are constructing not a land vehicle, not an under-sea boat, but a great ship of the air, a monstrous dirigible.’ He struck the papers that he had taken from his
briefcase
with the back of his hand. ‘They have seen it, tethered in a great shed deep in the woods of Lithuania. They estimate it to be two hundred and sixty feet in length, and eight tons in weight. Our experts in Berlin have computed that this aerial ship will reach a speed of ten knots.’

‘But Colonel von Hagen, what can be the possible use of such a grotesque contraption? What is it for?’

‘Ah! I forget; you are not a military man. This monstrous ship will be equipped with special hand-shells, or bombs, which can be dropped at will from the air on to the innocent people on the ground, What is to stop them? What field-piece can fire up into the air? This aerial vessel is but the prototype of more to come. The Russians will have the potential to destroy our cities, kill our innocent civilians by the thousand – and that is why I bring you this set of plans today. The time for traditional animosity between England and Germany is over. We must share
intelligence
, Sir Charles, if we are to survive this new and terrible aggression.’