The Hansa Protocol (14 page)

‘Mr Box will be able to see you now, miss,’ he said. He, too, seemed not to have noticed the frightening struggle that had taken place within feet of where he sat. She followed him from the gloomy front office and crossed the bare floorboards of the entrance hall. The sergeant pushed open one of the glass doors and said, ‘Miss Whittaker, sir.’

Box glanced in her direction, but his flushed, angry face seemed not to see her.

‘I don’t want him up tomorrow on the police-court sheet,’ Box said. ‘I want him on a Surrey Magistrates’ Warrant. He’s been round my neck for three years. I’ll swing for him one day, Sergeant Knollys. I’ll do time for him. I want him down for good.’

Why had she imagined for one moment that she could belong to Arnold Box’s violent world? She had no right to be here, interfering. These men laboured night and day to hold back the tide of chaos and anarchy that constantly threatened society. Box’s world did not consist exclusively of the affair of Dr Otto Seligmann. Why had she come?

Box suddenly caught sight of her, and the anger melted from his face as though by a miracle. He hurried across from where he had been standing by a large table, covered with a jumbled sprawl of papers and books.

‘Miss Whittaker! Come in. How nice to see you. This is my office. I’m sorry it’s not very shipshape at the moment …. This is my colleague, Sergeant Knollys.’

‘Pleased to meet you, miss,’ said Sergeant Knollys.

The big, scar-faced man had been standing by a large fly-blown mirror, holding a blood-soaked handkerchief to his jaw. He turned round as he spoke, and smiled, and she was startled to see in his smile a knowledge that she and Box were acquainted. Surely he didn’t talk about her? Surely ….

‘Sit down in this chair near the fire, Miss Whittaker,’ said Box. ‘Sergeant Knollys, if you’re going to bleed all over the place you’d better go. You need stitches in that gash. Go and find Dr Cropper, and tell him to sew you up. Then go down to Beak Street and see Mr Shale. Or if you’re too bloody to go, send Wilson or Roberts. Mr Shale will get us a Surrey docket before tonight.’

When the glazed doors had swung closed behind Knollys, Inspector Box seemed to Louise to undergo a subtle change. The determined brutality that had animated him receded, and she saw once again the diffident, confiding friend who came out to Finchley in an omnibus to talk and have his tea with her. The large, grimy room began to take on a more intimate atmosphere. She saw the fireplace, the mirror with its notes, the round-faced railway clock high on the wall. Somehow, the office now seemed smaller and more intimate than when she had first crossed its threshold.

Box sat down opposite her, and looked keenly into her eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘Mr Box, I have discovered some information of vital importance, and I have come straight to you here at King James’s Rents to impart it to you.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Box repeated his question. ‘You look different … intimidated, if that’s the right word. What is it?’

Louise Whittaker felt herself blushing. It was like him, she thought, to let concern for her feelings override his professional curiosity.

‘I thought it would be so simple, Mr Box. I would come here and give you the benefit of my wisdom, and go away smirking with self-
satisfaction
. Instead of which, I stumbled into a rough, crude world of violence …. There was a frightful row upstairs between that
superintendent
and some kind of sea-captain—’

‘Was there, now? Well, he’ll tell me about that in half-an-hour’s time. I wonder who won that particular row?’

‘The superintendent did. He bellowed like a bull. I thought the ceiling would fall.’

Inspector Box laughed, and leaned back in his chair.

‘And then, while I was sitting in the front office with Sergeant Driscoll, you burst in with those others, and went rolling around on the floor, all spitting and cursing. That horrible man with the squeaky voice! He was like an animal. And here was I, with my clever little discovery, all ready to amaze and stun you. I should never have come.’

‘I see. So having accepted my offer to join my special posse, you want to back out? You’ve decided that it’s just a job for brutes?’

She could hear the hint of mocking challenge beneath the words, and began to form a reply, but Box continued.

‘Any other day of the week, Miss Whittaker, this place would have been as quiet as the tomb. You just happened to choose this day of all days, when Superintendent Mackharness decided to erupt like a volcano, and I had to bring in Baby-Boy Contarini, one of the most desperate villains in London. We chained him to the window frame in the growler, but he nearly had us over on the bridge. He’s as strong as an ox, is Baby.’

‘What has he done?’

‘You’ve heard about the Islington Pawnbrokers? Well, Baby-Boy is the one who slit their throats. He did that, and burned them up in their shops to cover his tracks. But he wasn’t quite clever enough. It’s a long story – another story. So you want to back out?’

It was her turn to laugh. He was so obviously glad to see her, and so clearly determined to make her stay the course. And so she would.

‘No, Mr Box. I don’t want to “back out”, as you so inelegantly put it. In future, I’ll choose a quieter day, when you’re deep in contemplation. You and Sergeant – Knollys, did you say?’

‘That’s it, miss. Jack Knollys. Now, you’d better tell me what you’ve discovered. In a quarter-of-an-hour’s time I’m due upstairs to hear the latest words of wisdom from my lord and master.’

Lieutenant Fenlake watched Vanessa Drake for a moment as she walked off towards Trafalgar Square. She’d be all right. There were plenty of people about. Anyway, she was a Londoner born. It wasn’t as though she was a visitor, or anything like that.

He hurried under the archway, and through one of several dark doorways in the block of buildings to the right of the front court. His journey took him along a matted corridor and three sets of swing doors,
which brought him to a long, dim room, where a dozen soberly dressed clerks were writing away busily at their desks. One of the clerks, an elderly puckish man with a smooth round face, looked up, and put his quill pen down on the desk.

‘Mr Fenlake, sir! I’m afraid there’s to be no rest for you today. There’s a new assignment waiting for you!’

The clerk took a small buff envelope from a pigeon-hole, and handed it to Fenlake.

‘There you are, sir. You’re folio 8 of the 6th January, unsealed at 4.24 p.m. It’s a return assignment, Mr Fenlake, so you’ll need to come back here to the cipher-office to close and seal when you’ve done.’

Lieutenant Fenlake tore open the envelope and extracted a slip of white paper. He read it through, and then thrust it without comment into his pocket. It was a routine task, an initial meeting with another courier, a new man who needed to be shown the ropes.

‘Thank you, Anson. I’ll be on my way. But tell me, aren’t you usually over there, at that desk by the staircase?’

‘Usually, sir, yes. But one of the cipher-clerks didn’t sign in today, so we’re doubling up, if you see what I mean.’

One of the clerks …. Fenlake stared at the desk, with its blotter, pen rack, and set of pigeon-holes, all made in dark mahogany. It was Anson who dealt with his assigniments, but he could recall the man who usually sat at this desk near the door, a young man, neatly dressed,
self-effacing
. He’d once caught his eye, and received a neutral glance from the man.

That face …. He saw it again in his mind’s eye, enlivened by
exertion
, soot-stained, eyeing him with a strangely intense and cynically amused expression. A Scotsman – the man with the plank at Chelsea.

‘This clerk? What is his name?’

‘His name’s Colin McColl, sir. He’s been with us on a part-time basis nigh on a year, now.’

Fenlake said nothing. It was time for him to leave the Admiralty by a rear door that gave on to St James’s Park. Should he walk up to the Foreign Office now, and alert Sir Charles Napier to what he had just discovered? It was only a step away. But then, if Colin McColl was one of their own people, how could he have been an assassin? Was Sir Charles wrong about that?

Well, the matter would have to wait until the morning. Duty called,
and he would make his way to 3 Thomas Lane Mews, near Grosvenor Square. He had been there on a number of occasions before. It would be prudent to walk over to Carlton House Terrace, and take a cab from the rank at the corner of Waterloo Place. As he skirted the vast, sombre expanse of the park, some part of his tidy mind hoped that Vanessa Drake would be all right.

Inspector Box felt tired. The desperate struggle with Baby-Boy Contarini had fatigued him more than he’d cared to admit. What a day for Miss Whittaker to pay a surprise call! Still, her information confirmed what he and Knollys had suspected all along. The young woman called Ottilie Seligmann was an impostor. Well, they were all being discreetly watched – Ottilie, Count Czerny, the housekeeper, and the secretary. They could wait.

He sat down in his accustomed chair near the fire, and lit a thin cigar. It was just after five, and quite dark outside. The old gas mantle flickered and spluttered. Box could hear the faint movements of other people in distant rooms. A coal settled in the grate.

His mind turned to Dr Seligmann. He must have acquired a complete set of
The
Hansa
Protocol
and hidden it away behind those dummy books in the Belvedere. Then someone had found out …. Perhaps the false Ottilie had done some snooping. Seligmann was a German, a subject of the Kaiser. Didn’t that make him a traitor? To some people, like those angry men in St Swithin’s Hall, he would be a traitor. But to others – well, to hold the keys of the German military machine meant some guarantee of peace.

He glanced at the paper calendar hanging beside the fireplace. Friday, 6 January, it said, the Feast of the Epiphany. There was just one week to go before the Pan-German rally in Berlin. Box wondered when the memorandum was to start on its journey.

The old sergeant from the front office came in through the swing doors, carrying a slim ledger, which he placed in front of Box on the desk. The incident book.

‘How late does this go, Sergeant Driscoll?’ asked Box.

‘To five o’clock, sir. The duty officer at Whitehall Place will compile the night book from six onwards. Is it all right for me to go off now, sir?’

Box removed the slim cigar from his mouth.

‘That’s quite all right, Sergeant. PC Kenwright will be back soon.’

Sergeant Driscoll saluted, and left the room. Without leaning forward in his chair, Box dragged the incident book towards him across the cluttered table, and opened it where a piece of blotting paper marked a place.

The teeming millions …. There was never any relief from the constant wave of crime surging through the vast metropolis. His eyes scanned the carefully written entries – Parker, Emmanuel, jeweller, stabbed at such-and-such an address; O’Hanlon, Patrick, taken up on suspicion of murder; Fenlake, Arthur, shot dead at such-and-such an address—

Box sat up straight in his chair. All trace of tiredness had left him.

‘Fenlake, Arthur, shot dead in premises at 3 Thomas Lane Mews, Grosvenor Square.’

Within a minute Box was in a cab, rattling through the bitter cold streets towards Grosvenor Square.

Box could hear the murmur of the crowd before he turned the corner from the square into Thomas Lane Mews. The narrow lane was thronged with the usual parcel of loiterers, tradesmen and know-alls, who gazed at the grimy brick front and dirty windows of number three as though they could read its secrets.

The door of the house opened to admit him, and was immediately closed after him. He stood in a dusty hall, where a stout, whimsical looking inspector had come out to greet him. He spoke with a kind of suppressed chuckle, which indicated the kind of man he was. He wore a smart but comfortable uniform, and carried his round pillbox hat in his hand.

‘I saw you striding along the pavement just now, Mr Box,’ he remarked, ‘which made me ask myself, “What does
he
want?” And then I thought to myself, “Why not ask him?” You’d better come through to the back room.’

‘How are you, Mr Graham?’ asked Box. ‘I know you’ll not mind me coming. It’s just that there’s a little link here with something I’m engaged on.’

Inspector Graham motioned with his hand to a plain wooden desk, which, with two upright chairs, completed the furnishing of the room.

‘There he is, Mr Box, on the floor behind the desk. Shot at
point-blank
range in the back. Revolver, I’d say, though we can’t be sure till
later. Dr Cheshunt’s coming. Poor young man. I don’t think he could’ve been thirty, by the look of him.’

‘Why was he found? The house looks empty to me.’

‘Someone heard the shot. Someone who knew the house was empty. They sent for us. I’ve examined the body. There were some letters and papers in his pocket, which tell us who he is. Arthur Fenlake, his name was. A lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. Are you going to associate
yourself
with this?’

Inspector Box looked down at the young man’s body. This dead man was Vanessa Drake’s young man. The manner of his death had the deadly hallmark of Colin McColl. Stefan Oliver, too, had been shot in the back. It was an economical way to murder a man, because there was no possibility of a struggle. You took your victim by surprise.

Arthur Fenlake had spun round with the force of the shot, and was lying on his back in a pool of dark blood. His arms were outstretched, the left hand contracted into a tight fist. The face, and open eyes, expressed not fear, but surprise. Box had to use both hands to prise open Fenlake’s fingers. He removed a slip of paper from his hand and quickly read it. He drew in his breath sharply.

‘Associate myself? No, Mr Graham, I’ll not do that. I’ve seen all I need to see. I don’t think you’ll find out who did this for a long time. It’s a Foreign Office affair – you know the kind of thing I mean.’