Web of Discord (14 page)

‘Good evening, Mr Box. Are you, by any chance, free at the moment? I’d like a word with you, if that’s convenient.’

‘Good evening, Colonel Kershaw. Yes, I’m free, sir, and I’d very much like a word with you. Are you going my way?’

Kershaw hurried down the steps, and joined Box in the street. It was wet, but not cold, and somehow the presence of the perky young police inspector lifted the colonel’s spirits. They walked along in silence for a minute or two until they reached the rather gloomy entrance to Whitehall Place. Kershaw stopped, and took Box by the sleeve.

‘Mr Box,’ he said, ‘do you know somewhere private where you and I can speak undisturbed? I don’t want to go with you to King James’s Rents, because someone there may recognize me, and start to draw unwelcome conclusions.’

Arnold Box glanced round rather helplessly. What would the colonel consider to be ‘somewhere private’? Well, better to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. He’d take him to Pat Nolan’s place in Sussex Lane.

‘If you’ll follow me, sir,’ said Box, ‘I know just the place. It’s only two minutes from here.’

Kershaw followed Box down a very dark cobbled alley which seemed to have no pavements. After a hundred yards or so they turned abruptly right, and came into a dimly lit road, lined with small commercial premises, all firmly closed and shuttered. At one end of the road a blaze of light spilled out of a public house, from which came the noise of cheerfully raucous singing, accompanied on a very loud piano.

‘This is Sussex Lane, sir,’ said Box, ‘and that’s the Duke of Sussex. We’ll be able to have a quiet talk there.’

Box pushed open a door at the side of the public house, and the two men entered a pitch dark passage. The noise of singing, and the fortissimo crashing of the piano, came to them loudly through a glazed door to their right, upon which Kershaw could read the reversed letters ‘Private’.

Really, thought Kershaw, what extraordinary places Box knows! There’s a man with pretensions to a tenor voice singing something now, and the pianist seems to be in a thumping frenzy about it. What
is
the fellow singing?

Box suddenly pushed open the door, and poked his head into the public bar. A miasma of beer fumes and tobacco smoke hit them, and the noise of the singer and his accompanist increased fourfold. Kershaw watched Box semaphore some request or other to a stout, cheerful man in shirt sleeves who was standing behind the bar. The man nodded, smiled, and jerked a thumb towards the ceiling.

Box closed the door on the deafening scene, and began to mount a flight of stairs that Kershaw could now see in the gloom of the passage. They came to a small landing, and Box opened a door which took them into a long room overlooking the cobbled street. The inspector struck a match, went over to the fireplace, and lit the gas bracket over the mantelpiece. The light sprang to life with a little plop.

‘We won’t be disturbed here, sir,’ said Box. ‘This is the
meeting room of the Ancient Order of Jebusites, a kind of benevolent club. It’s not much of a place, but it’ll serve the purpose.’

The room was furnished with a number of tables and many chairs, and smelt of stale beer. There were pictures of
race-horses
on the walls, and the words ‘Ancient Order of Jebusites’ had been written neatly in whiting on the mirror. The two men sat down at one of the tables. They could still hear the frantic singing in the public bar below, but it had a muted sound, now. Evidently, thought Kershaw, the floors at the Duke of Sussex were made of stout stuff.

‘How can I help you, sir?’ There was a very slight hint of restraint in Box’s voice which Kershaw was quick to notice, because he had expected it.

‘You can help me, at once, Mr Box, by clearing the air. You’re annoyed about what happened to Sergeant Knollys, so you’d better say what you have to say about that before we proceed.’

‘It’s six days now, sir,’ Box replied, ‘since the man called Bleibner tried to kill my sergeant. I’ve visited him in University College Hospital, and he told me that you had called in to see him. That was very much appreciated by both of us. I spoke to the doctor who’s looking after him, and he told me that the hatpin missed the right lung by the merest fraction of an inch, snapping when it came into contact with one of the ribs. Knollys survived by sheer accident. Naturally, sir, I’m annoyed.’

‘Bleibner once trained as a surgeon,’ said Kershaw. ‘Somebody told me that, the other day. That’s why he was successful in despatching poor Mr Oldfield in his sleep. Can you guess
why
I sent Mr Knollys to Northumberland –
accompanied
, I may say, by a platoon of soldiers from the Northumberland Fusiliers?’

Box smiled to himself, and sat back in his chair. What was the use of being annoyed with a man who had to juggle at times with the destiny of the nation? There was neither the space nor the time for the luxury of annoyance when you were involved with Colonel Kershaw.

‘Oh, yes, sir, I know well enough why you sent him up there.
I spent a long evening in Westminster with Miss Drake, who told me everything about her visit to Stonewick Hall. She was angry with herself for fainting, and very relieved to hear that Sergeant Knollys will be out of hospital by the weekend.’

‘So all’s well between you and me? Good. Speaking of Miss Drake, I’ll be calling on her tomorrow. I expect you can imagine what I am going to say to her. But now, Box, I want to hear what you think all this Russian business is about. I promise you I’ll not interrupt you while you tell me your ideas.’

‘Sir, I believe this whole business has been engineered to turn Britain and Germany against Russia. There has been serious interference with the cable system at Porthcurno, where false messages have been fed into the cables from a rogue ship, the
Lermontov
,
posing as a Russian vessel, but in reality nothing of the sort. We’ve seen the results of that mischief in the
newspapers
: threatened invasions of India and Canada, and the atrocity of the sinking of the
Berlin
Star
by an armed vessel flying the Russian ensign. I could go on, sir, but I’m beginning to think that time is precious in this business.’

‘I’m convinced that you’re right, Box. In fact, I
know
you’re right. What else?’

‘One of the active agents in this scheme to blacken Russia’s reputation is the man I call the Hatpin Man – Dr N.I. Karenin. That is the man who arranged for the assassination of Sir John Courteline, brought about the death of a man called Joseph Kitely, and then murdered Mr Gabriel Oldfield with one of his lethal hatpins.’

‘Go on.’

‘It was Karenin who silenced a young man called William Pascoe, who had come to suspect the truth of the whole matter. And now, as a result of the events in Northumberland, I know that this Karenin is, in fact, a German called Bleibner, the man who attempted to murder Sergeant Knollys. They are clearly the same person. The fact that both are suffering from some kind of leprous skin complaint can’t be sheer coincidence.’

‘And so you’ve drawn a conclusion, haven’t you? Don’t be shy of telling me, Box, because your conclusion is true.’

‘The people behind this spate of outrages is the Linked Ring, the gang of terrorists to which the late but unlamented Count and Countess Czerny belonged. Miss Drake saw their memorial portraits in Baroness Feissen’s house. It’s the Linked Ring.’

‘It is, Mr Box. The
Eidgenossenschaft.
The idea, of course, is to drive Britain and Germany into each other’s arms, and to send them eastward, united against Russia. They failed by force last time; this time, they hope to succeed by cunning. In the next few weeks, I intend to send the whole lot of them to
perdition
.’

Both men sat in silence for a minute, listening to the hissing of the gas bracket over the mantelpiece. In the bar below, the piano still made itself heard, as a man with a deep voice began a mournful song which began with the line:

‘Well done, Mr Box,’ said Kershaw quietly. ‘You’ve arrived at those conclusions with precious little help from me. What do you propose to do next?’

‘Sir, I have obtained warrants of arrest for the man Hans Bleibner, alias N.I. Karenin, on separate charges of murder. I intend to go after him, and arrest him. I gather that he was able to escape from Stonewick Hall.’

‘He was. I imagine that he has already made his way back to Germany. He has an apartment in Berlin, so I’m told.’

‘And this Baroness Felssen, sir – how did
she
manage to escape? All those gallant soldier-boys weren’t much use, were they? If I’d been in charge up there, the good baroness wouldn’t have escaped. Not half she wouldn’t!’

‘Well, Box, these things do happen. Things don’t always go exactly according to plan. But to return to your arrest-warrants. If you’re going after Bleibner personally, your path would be very much smoothed if you came with me. Wait a little while until I’m ready, and then you and I – and a few others – can cross France and into Germany with no impediments placed in our way. That I can guarantee.’

Box stood up. It was nearing midnight, and the denizens of the Duke of Sussex would soon be pouring out on to the wet cobbles of Sussex Lane.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Box. ‘I accept your invitation. I’d very much like to be of assistance to you when you send the remnants of the Linked Ring to perdition.’

Vanessa Drake opened the door of her sitting-room, stood aside for Colonel Kershaw to enter, then resumed her seat at the table. As usual, he sat down opposite her without being invited. She watched him as he peeled off his black suede gloves, and dropped them into his tall silk hat. He retained his long dark coat with its astrakhan collar, thus maintaining the fiction that he had just dropped in while passing.

‘Well, missy,’ he said quietly, after looking at her inscrutably for a minute or more, ‘it looks as though you and I have come to the parting of the ways.’

She felt the tears sting her eyes, and dashed them away angrily. That was a sure way to arouse his contempt. He’d think that she was trying to appeal to his fatherly concern for her welfare. Best to say nothing. Just listen.

‘When you agreed to join my crowd, Miss Drake, I explained to you what being a “nobody” entailed. It meant carrying out a simple but vital task, then retiring from the scene. I warned you this time that your identity was known at Stonewick Hall, and I told you to look and listen. You were not to pry. You chose to disobey me.’

Vanessa’s mind leapt back to the snow-pocked cemetery at Highgate, where this modest, respectful artillery officer had approached her as she left the grave of Arthur Fenlake, her murdered fiancé. His offer of work with the secret intelligence service had given her new life, and with the passing of the weeks she had realized the enormous power exerted in the state by her newfound friend and mentor. And now it was all to end.

‘You chose to disobey me,’ Kershaw repeated. ‘You chose to be a “somebody” instead of a “nobody”, and the result was that Sergeant Knollys was stabbed in the chest by a hatpin, wielded
by one of the most dangerous men in England. What do you say to that?’

Stay quiet. Don’t contradict, don’t try to excuse yourself. Just listen.

Colonel Kershaw gave vent to an exasperated laugh.

‘I
knew
you would! Disobey me, I mean. I knew you’d start endangering yourself, and our enterprise, by looking for
adventure
. You’ve been reading too many magazine stories –
Marion
Forster,
the
Girl
Detective
and so forth. That’s why I sent Sergeant Knollys up there to look after you, together with a whole platoon of soldiers. What do you say to that?’

‘Sir, if you’ll give me a second chance, I promise most solemnly to behave myself. I’ll open the gates at Coleman Street to let Mr Box in, sweep the paths, so that you don’t slip on the leaves—’

‘Enough! Very well, Miss Drake. I’ll give you a second chance. As a matter of fact, I’d no intention of letting you go. You’re far too valuable. In any case, missy, there’s unfinished work for you to do.’

‘Oh, thank you, sir! I swear I’ll do exactly as you say in future. But what unfinished work is there for me to do?’

‘Well,’ said Colonel Kershaw, treating her to an enigmatic smile, ‘there’s all that costly embroidery left unfinished at Stonewick Hall. I think, when the time comes, that you’d better go up there and finish the job.’

Minster Priory, a fine old half-timbered house dating from the latter years of the seventeenth century, lay in a remote Wiltshire valley, several miles east of Corsham. Beside it stood an immense sandstone ruin, all that was left of the Benedictine priory that gave the house its name.

Colonel Kershaw stood on the terrace at the rear of the house, talking to a very distinguished man in faultless evening dress, who was smoking a cigar. It was early evening, and the sky was darkening above the old oaks that surrounded Minster Priory.

‘One feels safe here,’ observed Colonel Kershaw to his companion, ‘at least for a while. Wiltshire’s never been too keen on railways – or roads, for that matter. It’s very kind of Archie Campbell to invite us here for these musical weekends.’

‘It was clever of him to lure Madame Alice Gomez down here from London,’ observed the distinguished man. ‘She really is a fine concert singer. Her renditions of those songs by Brahms were quite delightful. I suppose we must go back in, soon.’

Kershaw, who had also been smoking, dropped the butt of his cigar, and ground it into the pavement with his heel. If he made no move soon, Count von und zu Thalberg would continue to tease him with trivialities for the rest of the evening. He was evidently determined to make Kershaw take the initiative.

‘Don’t the Talbots live in this part of the world?’ asked the Head of Prussian Military Intelligence innocently.

‘Yes, Count, they do, over at Lacock Abbey. Very well, I surrender! Your relentless small-talk has defeated my
determination
to say nothing until you began to talk sense. So please tell me what you think I should know about the rogue cable station on the Rundstedt Channel.’

Von und zu Thalberg glanced down the terrace, as though to ensure that the two men were not being overheard. Then he lowered his voice.

‘This former cable relay station stands at the edge of the land at Rundstedt, which is quite a small place, little more than a dock and some repair sheds. The station was originally part of the Prussian State Telegraph Service, but it was closed when a new line was opened from Königsberg to Berlin in 1889. The relay was resited south of Königsberg, at a place called Halsdorf.’

‘And I suppose it’s assumed that this former relay station has been put to other uses?’ asked Kershaw.

‘I believe so. Once the station closed, that whole remote area was sold to the Brandenburg Consortium. That was in 1890. The consortium owns the private harbour of Rundstedt, where the
Lermontov
is currently moored. The consortium said that it wanted to develop the area as agricultural land. The relay station buildings were to be used for the storage of farming machinery. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.’

Count von und zu Thalberg glanced towards the lighted windows of Minster Priory, where the guests were assembling for the second half of the evening’s concert.

‘You’d better come in with me now, Kershaw,’ he said. ‘I know what a dreadful Philistine you are, but you must listen to Madame Alice Gomez singing Clara Schumann, if only for form’s sake. I’m very anxious to hear her, because I must be on my travels again early tomorrow. It’s time I visited my estate. So come, Colonel, bear me company while
la
diva
sings. After that, well – Archie Campbell tells me there’s a very snug little
gun-room
just beyond the garden passage. You might find things
more to your liking there.’

They stepped into the house through the open French window. The parlour was a long, low Tudor gallery panelled in black oak, with many twinkling candle sconces on the walls. Madame Gomez, in an elegant white evening dress, stood beside the grand piano, talking in low tones to her pianist.

Kershaw cast his eye over the other weekend guests, who had arranged themselves around the room on the tapestry-covered chairs and sofas. They were all old school and army friends of Archie’s, accompanied by their wives. If they wondered why two army officers, one English, the other German, were also guests, they were too well bred to enquire. Archie Campbell, the self-effacing connoisseur of music, landowner and former artilleryman, was one of Kershaw’s secret servants.

The second half of the concert began. Kershaw sat down with Von und zu Thalberg on an upholstered window seat. Madame Gomez sang sweetly, and her accompanist was very obviously an expert partner in the musical enterprise. Kershaw listened, and for a while shared the evident rapture of the other guests.

And then, from somewhere in his memory, another song began to clamour for remembrance. It was not as sweetly harmonious as Clara Schumann’s compositions, but it had its own validity. It represented another part of the threatened world of civilized peace that both Kershaw and Von und zu Thalberg were dedicated to preserve. 

Bleibner…. He had been a different kettle of fish entirely from Baroness Felssen. It was an outrage that he had been allowed to escape from that house in Northumberland. Perhaps there had been collusion somewhere? One of his people had seen a man of his description boarding a ferry at Harwich, bound for the Hook of Holland.

Kershaw had sent the kindly Mr Boniface to hear poor,
penitent 
Miss Drake’s account of her stay at Stonewick Hall. She’d offered to write it all down, forgetting the golden rule of the organization: never write down anything…. Missy’s tale had allowed them to pick up one misfit, a wretched clerk called Cathcart, employed at the Post Office Relay in Newcastle. By the end of this business, they would have collected other small fry. That would be one of the lesser spoils of victory.

Really, this lady was a superb singer. No wonder she was a favourite of the London concert halls. It was a pity that so many of the Schumanns’ subjects were pining away for love, or the lack of it. That was because they were given to setting
sentimental
poets like Heine to music. Everything ended up soaked in tears. That man Bleibner, according to Missy, had shed a tear while playing Beethoven, and had shown a similar kind of
sentiment
when he was about to take the hatpin to her.

It was positively embarrassing to have the anonymous singer of the Duke of Sussex taking up residence like this in his mind. What would this genteel company think? It was all Box’s fault. 

A burst of clapping brought Kershaw back to the present. Madame Gomez curtsied, the pianist bowed, and the whole company began to move towards the dining-room, where they had been promised a hot and cold buffet. Count von und zu Thalberg atttached himself to a quite young lady in green, ignoring his erstwhile companion. Colonel Kershaw left the company, and made his way towards the garden passage.

He found the gun-room without difficulty, and knocked on the solid door. There was the sound of a key turning, and the door was opened, first cautiously, and then fully, to reveal a stocky man dressed in a long greatcoat. He had a wide, wooden countenance, adorned with an old-fashioned German
moustache
. He clicked his heels in salute, ushered Kershaw into the room, and closed the door.

The room was warmed by an oil stove, and lit by a number
of candles in china holders. The walls contained racks of sporting guns, and smelt strongly of oil and metal filings. The man with the moustache sat down at a table, upon which were a number of files, notebooks, and folding maps.

‘Lieutenant-Colonel Kershaw,’ said the man, ‘I am
Oberfeldwebel
Schmidt. His Excellency Count von und zu Thalberg has detailed me to guide you and your party as soon as you arrive on the territory of the Reich. I am also to give you an
intelligence
briefing, which I will do now.’

‘Thank you, Sergeant Major,’ said Kershaw. ‘I will look forward to meeting you again in Germany. For the moment, though, I am anxious to hear the latest intelligence on the
Eidgenossenschaft
.’

‘Yes,
Herr
Oberst.
The
Eidgenossenschaft
,
which owns the Brandenburg Consortium, has secretly re-established the relay station at Rundstedt. Over the past year, it has run subterranean cables to join the Prussian State Cable System at Halsdorf—’

‘One moment,
Oberfeldwebel.
How long has that fact been known?’

‘Sir, it has been known to Prussian Military Intelligence only for a week. The State Intelligence Office as yet knows nothing about it.’

The German soldier smiled under his moustache. He added, ‘We are a superior service, sir. The Military Intelligence, you understand.’

‘Oh, of course. I share your sentiment, Sergeant Major. And so these people have joined up with the Prussian State Cable System? I wondered about that.’

‘They have, sir. And it is from that rogue station near the Rundstedt Channel that various dangerous and false messages have originated. I am permitted to tell you that cables ostensibly sent by three of the esteemed Sir Charles Napier’s agents, Abu Daria, Piotr Casimir, and Jacob Kroll, all originated from Rundstedt, and not from Petrovosk and Vilna.’

‘I’ve long believed something of the sort,’ said Kershaw. ‘Those agents of Sir Charles Napier’s – Daria, Casimir and Kroll – were first killed, and then impersonated over the cables,
retailing stories that were not true. And they were killed not by the Russians, but by the
Eidgenossenschaft
.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Oberfeldwebel Schmidt suddenly treated Kershaw to an alarmingly wolfish smile. ‘Sir Charles Napier’s cables are supposed to be secret, but, you’ll appreciate that we have ways of reading them! A precaution, nothing else.’

The sergeant major rummaged through the papers laid out on the table.

‘And so, our mission, Colonel Kershaw, is to seize and destroy these traitors. They have identified themselves with the State. They are mistaken. They will be punished. The area which they occupy is privately policed, and virtually derelict. To subdue them will be no schoolboy’s adventure. It would be foolish to approach them from the sea. We must creep up towards them from inland’ – he stabbed an area on one of the open maps – ‘here, across this wide and wild tract of land to the south of the Rundstedt Channel.’

‘I have been told that the area falls under the protection of the Germany Army?’

‘It does,
Herr
Oberst.
It is part of the territory of Military Field District 7, the headquarters of which is at
Lindstedt-Schwanefeld
, twelve miles south-west of Königsberg. But His Excellency is not anxious to involve our regular forces. It could create a wrong impression among those whose business it is to watch for troop movements. I mean the foreign spies, you understand.’

‘So what will we do?’

‘There is a militia barracks at Gehrendorf, which is only three miles from the Rundstedt Channel. The officer commanding that barracks has been ordered to place himself at our disposal when the moment comes to strike. I have been attached to him on a temporary basis for the duration of this exercise. I know him well, sir, and he knows me. We’re both true Prussians!’

The sergeant major smiled, looked up from his maps, and sat back in his chair.

‘The commanding officer – his name is Major Kerner – knows me well, as I say, but as a field strategist. He knows
nothing of my secret work for Count von und zu Thalberg.’

This man, thought Kershaw, is a pearl without price. It would be a privilege to work with him. This was the kind of man who would know how to exceed orders to some purpose.

‘And now, sir, for the date. The military assault on the cable station has been scheduled for Thursday, 20 April. This would entail you and your party setting foot in France on Monday, the seventeenth. Is that possible?’

‘It is.’

‘And can you tell me how many men will constitute your party,
Herr
Oberst
?
You will all be travelling as civilian visitors to Germany, of course. That, at least, is what the documents will say.’

‘That is so, and we shall come with all the correct papers, passports and
visés.
Once in Germany, we will place ourselves under the orders of the military authority. There will be five of us – myself, Captain Edgar Adams RN, Mr Boniface, who is a naval architect, a man called Robert Jones, who’s a specialist telegraphist, and Detective Inspector Box, of Scotland Yard.’

‘Box? Ah, yes. I have heard of him. Finally, as regards languages, sir—’

‘Adams and I both speak German well. Adams is fluent in Russian. Mr Boniface is a true polyglot. I should think that the others speak only English.’

‘A true polyglot?’

‘I mean that he’s one of those men who seem able to speak any language you care to mention.’

Sergeant Major Schmidt muttered a word that sounded like ‘
vielsprachig
’,
scribbled a note, and then closed the book.

‘I will leave you now, Colonel Kershaw,’ he said. ‘When next we meet, it will be in Germany. And there, we will capture the illegal telegraph station, take its operators captive, and use your men to signal the truth of the whole matter to the Chancelleries of Europe.’

Sergeant Major Schmidt rose from his chair, and stood stiffly for a moment in salute. When Kershaw left him, he had returned to his work, poring over his maps and plans in the candle-lit gun-room.

The long railway carriage juddered over a set of points, and Arnold Box woke up. At first, he wondered where he was, and then memories flooded back. England seemed a lifetime away. It was Wednesday today, 19 April. The five men constituting Kershaw’s party had crossed the Channel on Monday
afternoon
. It had taken them twelve hours to cross France, their train passing through beautiful countryside, skirting vast towns and stopping once or twice at what seemed to be country halts before reaching the German border towards three o’clock on Tuesday morning.