The Hansa Protocol (19 page)

Fritz Schneider sat at a little desk in his upstairs room at the house in Chelsea, and savoured the unaccustomed calm that seemed to have descended on the old Tudor dwelling. Since Mrs Poniatowski’s
departure
Miss Ottilie had become less abrasive, and more willing to give her full attention to winding up her late uncle’s affairs in England.

On the tenth of the month, His Excellency Count Czerny had departed for Germany, after enduring some very tiresome and rather scandalous tirades from Miss Ottilie. He’d given as good as he got, but on the doorstep of the house Miss Ottilie had seemed to relent a little. She had suddenly hugged the Count briefly, much to His Excellency’s surprise and embarrassment! Miss Ottilie was in her sitting-room across the passage, writing letters. She had told him that she would leave quietly for Berlin within the next few days.

Schneider had come upstairs to clear out this little desk, and to
bundle up what letters and papers he wished to take back with him to Leipzig. Here was his old letter-case, which had been given to him by his former employer, a renowned professor of music at the Leipzig Conservatoire. All these letters were part of his personal history.

But what was this? An unopened envelope, addressed to a Miss Whittaker, at Maybury College, Gower Street. Miss Whittaker …. He remembered her, now. A beautiful young lady scholar, who had called the year before last, when Dr Seligmann had procured a page from an ancient manuscript, and had invited her to look at it. The
herr
Doktor
must have come up to this room, and hidden this letter where he knew that it would be found. A strange, sinister proceeding …. What should he do? What was the etiquette? Miss Ottilie was now head of the household. It was not for him to act in anything without her knowledge.

He looked up from his desk, and saw Miss Ottilie standing in the doorway, watching him. He sprang to his feet, clicked his heels, and bowed his head in the Saxon fashion.

‘You look pale, Fritz. What has happened? You will tell me, yes?’

‘It is nothing of moment, Miss Ottilie. I have found a letter from the late
herr
Doktor
,
addressed to Miss Whittaker, at an address in Gower Street—’

‘Whittaker?’ Miss Ottilie’s voice held an uncharacteristic sharpness. ‘I recall the name, but cannot remember – ah! Yes! She called the other day, so Lodge told me, but would not stay. Another of Uncle Otto’s dreary scholar friends. You had better give me the letter. I can then decide if it is still of any relevance. You understand me, yes?’

Fritz Schneider blushed, and avoided Ottilie’s eye. What on earth was he to do?

‘Miss Ottilie, I beg that you will not ask me to give you this letter. After all, it can be of no importance. It will be some matter of scholarly detail, no doubt. The
herr
Doktor
would wish me to deliver it, as the last service that I can render him—’

‘Very well, Fritz. We must not upset your Saxon rectitude. Go. This college – it will be one of those dreary institutions near Euston Station. You had better take a cab. And when you have rendered this last service to the
herr
Doktor
,
I urge you to start your arrangements to return to Saxony. If you do not, you will find yourself here alone, with only the mice for company! Go!’

Ottilie Seligmann waited until Fritz Schneider had left the house,
and then she hurriedly dressed herself for a foray into town. Within minutes, she was hailing a cab from the rank at the end of Lavender Walk.

‘Where to, miss?’ asked the cabbie, touching the rim of his hat. He’d often taken this German lady into town. Very fetching she was, too, though she looked a mite pale today. Well, that was understandable. She’d had a lot of trouble, poor young soul.

‘Do you know Morwell Gardens, near Bedford Square? Take me there, if you please.’

Ottilie settled down in the cab, and thought of Fritz Schneider. He had been an excellent secretary to Dr Seligmann, a man who
understood
the nature of duty, and one of the best kind of German. She had urged him more than once to return to Leipzig. So had Mrs Poniatowski. But Fritz liked to take his time. And now, his Saxon honour had constrained him to refuse her sight of the letter to this woman Whittaker.

‘Some matter of scholarly detail’, he’d said. Did he really think that? Fool! What fools some decent people were!

Vanessa Drake put down the square of golden damask that she had been hemming, and gave her full attention to her friend Louise Whittaker, who had burst unceremoniously into her lodgings near Dean’s Yard, Westminster. It was a tall, gaunt building, that had once been the convent of an Anglican sisterhood. A steep staircase led up from the street to a landing, from which two corridors branched, each containing what at one time had been the nuns’ cells. They had been adapted very sympathetically to create a number of sets of rooms for single women.

‘A letter? From Dr Seligmann?’ Vanessa exclaimed. ‘Oh, Louise! How exciting! Have you opened it? What does it say?’

‘I haven’t opened it yet. What on earth can it be? It was brought to our college in Gower Street by poor Dr Seligmann’s secretary, Herr Schneider. Apparently, he’d found it slipped into his writing-case. This is Dr Seligmann’s handwriting. He knew my address at the college, you see.’

‘Oh,
do
open it, Louise! It may have something to do with our
adventure
– something that Colonel Kershaw should know about!’

Louise Whittaker tore open the envelope, and removed a single sheet of paper, which she spread out on Vanessa’s round table. The printed
letter heading showed that it came from the house in Lavender Walk. It was dated Monday, 2 January, 1893 – two days before Dr Seligmann’s death:

Louise Whittaker sat in thought for a minute, pondering Seligmann’s letter. Vanessa had picked up the square of damask again, and had begun to size some brilliants, which she intended to attach by silver thread to the gorgeous fabric. Louise saw the tears standing in the girl’s eyes.

‘How very sad,’ said Vanessa. Louise sighed, and picked the letter up again.

‘Yes. But a bit flowery, don’t you think? Poor Dr Seligmann talked like that. Talked the way he wrote, I mean. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no substance in this letter. I’ll do as he said, and take it to Mr Box. Have you a sheet of paper, and a pencil?’

‘You’re not going to post it to him, are you?’

‘Of course not! I intend to brave whatever horrors are waiting for me this time at King James’s Rents, and deliver this letter personally. No, I simply want to follow good scholarly practice, and make a copy of the letter. After all, it was written to me. I always make copies of important documents.’

Vanessa supplied the necessary paper and pencil, and then sat watching her friend as she wrote. Louise often spoke as though she resented men, and their dominant role in life. But ‘Mr Box’ was forever on her lips. He was her swain in waiting – but he’d be waiting forever if Louise didn’t make some kind of move. Her academic attainments had been hard won, and people of influence were beginning to listen to women of Louise’s calibre. But academic qualifications weren’t
everything
.

‘There you are!’

Louise Whittaker folded the copy that she had made, and put it
carefully
into one of the pockets of the rather mannish grey jacket that she was wearing. It was part of a stylish costume suit, worn with a crisp white shirt-blouse. One of its advantages was its two capacious pockets! She picked up Dr Seligmann’s letter from the table, and put it carefully back in its envelope.

‘And now, I suppose I’d better take another cab, this time to King James’s Rents, though I could walk it from here, I expect. I wonder—’

Neither girl had noticed that the door of the room had been almost silently opened. It was the sudden draught from the staircase that made Vanessa look up in alarm. A man stood on the threshold, a man of thirty or so, clean-shaven and fresh-looking, with what seemed to be the beginnings of a tense, unpleasant smile insinuating itself across his even features. He was well if rather primly dressed in a dark-grey suit, covered by a tightly buttoned black overcoat.

‘Can I help you?’ Vanessa’s voice faltered, as she looked into the visitor’s hard blue eyes. She added, bravely, ‘It is customary to knock before entering a lady’s room.’

The visitor slowly closed the door behind him, and stood with his
back to it. He seemed to dominate the room, as though he had commandeered it, and they now occupied it merely on sufferance. When the man spoke, it was with the quiet and pleasant accent of the educated Scotsman. He ignored Vanessa completely, and addressed himself to Louise.

‘You are Miss Whittaker? You are holding a letter. Is that the letter from Dr Otto Seligmann, which Fritz Schneider gave to you? I see by your expression that it is. Give it to me.’

Louise quickly slipped her arms behind her back. She was terrified of this quiet, respectable young man, but she was not going to let herself be bullied.

‘I will do no such thing! How dare you burst in here—’

With a spring like that of a panther the young man bounded from the door, and swung Louise round by the shoulders. He snatched Dr Seligmann’s letter from her hand, and thrust it deep into his overcoat pocket. Louise stumbled as she tried to steady herself, and fell to the floor.

Vanessa Drake began to scream. Even as she did so, she marvelled at the terrifying noise that she emitted. The young man turned towards her with a snarl of rage, and at that moment the door of the room seemed to fly off its hinges as an enormous scar-faced giant of a man hurled himself with an oath at their unwelcome visitor.

Louise Whittaker quickly got to her feet, and joined her young friend, who was cowering in a corner of the room. ‘It’s Jack Knollys, Mr Box’s sergeant!’ she whispered to Vanessa. The two men seemed to be locked together in a kind of wrestling-hold. They flung each other around the small room, knocking furniture over, and panting with their deadly efforts to subdue each other.

The sinister Scotsman suddenly pulled himself clear, threw open the door, and dashed across the landing. In a second Jack Knollys had sprung after him, and both men went crashing down the narrow
staircase
. Despite a warning cry from Louise, Vanessa immediately followed them. Blood was welling up on Knollys’ right cheek. She saw the lithe Scotsman’s hands close round Sergeant Knollys’ throat, and started to run down the stairs.

Knollys suddenly brought his legs up under his opponent’s body, and flung him against the wall of the stairwell. At the same time, he sent a massive fist crashing into the Scotsman’s temple. Vanessa saw the blood
start from a gash above the man’s right eye.

Colin McColl clutched his head, and blundered out into the narrow street. Knollys heaved himself to his feet and ran out after him. Vanessa stood halfway down the stairs, looking at the rectangle of dull light beyond the open door. It had been a terrifying episode, but it had left her with a feeling of exhilaration. In some strange way, she felt that she had become Arthur Fenlake’s heir.

Sergeant Knollys sat gingerly on an upright chair while Vanessa Drake bathed the wound on his cheek. She had brought a small enamel bowl half full of cold water, to which she had added a generous amount of iodine. Louise Whittaker watched her young friend with a certain wry amusement, and wondered ….

Vanessa had regularly fallen for a succession of quiet young men since she was sixteen, and had eventually tired of them all. There had been Dennis, a clerk in the Prudential Assurance Office, who had
eventually
married a young lady clerk in the same concern. Jonathan had been a pupil teacher, a devoted swain, who could talk about nothing but Froebel’s Principles. He had married another teacher as soon as he had reached the sober age of nineteen.

Edwin, Stephen, Albert – all earnest, basically conformist young fellows, they had ultimately bored Vanessa, and she had sent them on their respective ways with her relieved blessing. Arthur Fenlake had been no different. True, he had brought with him the glamour of commissioned military rank, and they both knew, now, that he had worked as a secret courier for the Foreign Office. But Arthur Fenlake had really been no different from Dennis, and Jonathan, and Edwin, and the rest. He and they had been worthy fellows. All had been
unsuitable
for a girl who craved some kind of excitement.

Vanessa continued to clean the blood away from Jack Knollys’ cheek. The great giant winced occasionally as the iodine bit into what was, in fact, a scrape rather than a cut.