5 A Very Murdering Battle

by Edward Marston

  Pienaar listened to his instructions and resolved to follow them. He was very nervous about his assignment but more than willing to accept it. Another letter had arrived from the thieves, agreeing to let Janssen view the tapestry but imposing strict conditions. He was to leave the house alone at a given time that evening and walk in the direction of the harbour until it was clear that he was not being followed. He’d then be taken to the place where the tapestry was stored. Pienaar wondered if it might actually be kept in the brothel.

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Daniel. ‘For one thing, it’s too far away. Before they stole it, they would have arranged for a hiding place much nearer.’

  ‘They’ll be expecting Emanuel. What will happen when I turn up instead?’

  ‘You explain that he’s too ill to come and sent you in his stead. They know you by name, Aelbert, so they’ll trust you.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘They’re not men of great intelligence. Look at the letters they’ve sent us. They were scrawled by an uneducated hand. What they have is low cunning. They’ll always be trying to get an advantage.’

  ‘And thanks to me,’ said Pienaar, penitently, ‘they got one.’

  ‘Put that out of your mind.’

  ‘But I was the one who told them about the tapestry.’

  ‘You weren’t to know that,’ said Daniel. ‘It was unintentional.’

  ‘I’d have cut my tongue out before I’d have given them the information voluntarily.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘Oh, if only that damned woman hadn’t looked like my Johanna!’

  They were alone in the parlour of the Janssen house and it was fast approaching the time when Pienaar had to leave. Somewhere outside in the darkness, one of the thieves would be watching. Daniel was bound to have qualms. He wasn’t entirely sure that Pienaar was equal to the task but there was no alternative. Of Janssen’s assistants, he’d be the most acceptable to the thieves because he was already known to one of them. He posed no physical threat and would be viewed as a sad old man who paid money every Friday simply to talk about his wife to a whore.

  Daniel looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Pienaar, swallowing hard.

  ‘Off you go, then – and good luck.’

  Dekker was relieved. Tulp had accepted his assurance that the stranger who visited Gerda posed no problem to them. He boasted that he’d beaten the woman to get the truth out of her, omitting to mention that he’d then been forced out of the house at gunpoint. They were skulking in a doorway some distance from the Janssen house, waiting for him to arrive. A lantern flickered in the darkness. It was the signal that their target was on his way and that he wasn’t being followed by anyone from the house. As footsteps approached along the pavement, the thieves were poised in readiness. The moment that Pienaar drew level with them, Dekker grabbed him and pulled him into the doorway. Tulp lifted up the lantern he’d been shielding and held it to the newcomer’s face.

  ‘Where’s Janssen?’ he demanded.

  ‘He’s too ill to come,’ replied Pienaar. ‘He sent me in his place.’

  Tulp was circumspect. ‘This could be a trick.’

  ‘I worked on that tapestry beside Emanuel Janssen. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘He’s right, Frans,’ said Dekker. ‘This is Aelbert Pienaar, the idiot who spends his Friday evenings talking nonsense to Gerda.’

  ‘Is that true?’ asked Tulp, prodding the man.

  Pienaar was embarrassed. ‘It’s true that I visit a certain house on a Friday,’ he confessed, ‘but I don’t talk nonsense.’

  ‘Yes you do,’ jeered Dekker. ‘I’ve heard you.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, Jan,’ ordered Tulp.

  ‘But I was hidden in the room at the time.’

  ‘That’s neither here nor there. We have business with this man. Let’s get on with it.’ Dekker took out a blindfold and put it on Pienaar. ‘This is to make sure you don’t see where we’re going,’ explained Tulp. ‘Don’t you dare to take it off.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Pienaar, wincing as it was tied very tightly.

  Taking an arm apiece, the thieves hustled him along the pavement and around a corner. A horse and cart stood waiting. Dekker lifted the weaver bodily and sat him on the back of the cart, climbing up beside him. Tulp clambered into the driver’s seat. Snapping the reins, he set the horse in motion. It rattled through the streets. Pienaar tried to memorise the route but soon realised that it was impossible. The cart was deliberately zigzagging its way through the city in order to confuse him. Sitting in the back of it, Pienaar had an uncomfortable ride, bouncing about and being held in an iron grip by Dekker. It seemed like an eternity before they reached their destination.

  Henry Welbeck was becoming increasingly pessimistic. He and Daniel were alone in the parlour, awaiting the return of Pienaar. Welbeck glanced at the clock. ‘He’s been gone for over an hour,’ he said.

  ‘I can tell the time, Henry.’

  ‘I think he might crack. You’re asking too much of him, Dan. There’s every chance that he’ll break down and then where will we be? If they learn that there’s no intention of paying the ransom, the tapestry will be destroyed and Pienaar’s life will be at risk. You were wrong to send him.’

  ‘I know the man better than you,’ said Daniel, ‘and I have faith in him.’

  ‘You should have let me go.’

  ‘It needed someone who spoke Dutch.’

  ‘Then you should have gone.’

  ‘Aelbert was far and away the best choice,’ insisted Daniel. ‘After what we discovered about him, it was only fair to let him atone for what he did. The thieves won’t harbour suspicions about someone as old and patently harmless as Aelbert. It would have been a different matter if you or I had gone in his place.’

  Welbeck got to his feet and walked up and down to relieve his tension. He was a man of action who hated to be idle in the face of a threat. He wanted to grab a weapon and take the fight to the enemy. Since that was impossible, he fretted at the delay. Welbeck wanted the problem resolved swiftly. Comfortable as the house was, he yearned to be back in the familiar surroundings of an army camp where he could speak his own language to everyone around him. In the middle of Amsterdam, he felt like an interloper. Even mischievous soldiers like Private Ben Plummer were preferable to the dour Aelbert Pienaar, the ebullient Nicholaes Geel and the silent Kees Dopff. Again, he missed the lively exchanges with Sergeant Curry, and while he was glad to be with Daniel at first, Welbeck knew that Amalia would always take priority over him.

  After pacing the room for several minutes, he came to an abrupt halt.

  ‘He’s given the game away,’ he decided. ‘I feel it.’

  Daniel smiled indulgently. ‘You’re getting impatient in your old age, Henry.’

  ‘He’s probably lying somewhere with his throat cut.’

  ‘Stop fearing the worst.’

  ‘He’s not experienced, Dan. We’ve been trained to cope with danger but Pienaar hasn’t. When he’s alone with the thieves, he’ll be a bag of nerves.’

  ‘I think he has more steel in him than that.’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen no sign of it. I’m used to judging a man’s character. I do it all the time when I have new recruits to knock into line. When I look at Pienaar, what I see is a weak, pitiable, vulnerable man.’

  ‘Then he’s going to surprise you, Henry.’

  ‘Would you care to have a wager on that?’

  ‘No,’ said Daniel, laughing. ‘It would be cruel to take your money.’

  He was suppressing his own doubts. Convinced that the tapestry was stored reasonably close to the house, he was worried at the length of time it was taking for Pienaar to return. Once he saw the tapestry, the weaver would assess its condition within minutes and be on his way back to the house. What was delaying him? It was unsettling. Welbeck remained sceptical and Daniel continued to make futile attempts to reassure him. They were still arguing when they heard a
knock on the door. Daniel was the first to reach it, opening it to let Pienaar come into the house. Amalia and her father also came rushing to greet him. They shepherded Pienaar into the parlour and across to the fire, letting him thaw out before he spoke. Daniel winked at Welbeck.

  ‘I was wrong,’ conceded his friend.

  ‘Would you still like to make that wager?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘Let’s hear what he has to say first.’

  Pienaar was grateful to escape from the freezing temperatures outside. Warmed by the fire, he was further revived by a glass of brandy from Janssen. It helped him to find his voice again.

  ‘It was as Captain Rawson predicted,’ he said. ‘I was followed from the house then accosted by two men some distance away. I was blindfolded and lifted on to a cart by a man named Jan. He sat with me as we drove endlessly through the streets. There were so many twists and turns that I had no idea where we were. Eventually, we bumped down a cobbled hill and pulled up. I was hauled off the cart and marched into some kind of storehouse, though they made sure that I didn’t see what was being stored there.’

  ‘What about the tapestry?’ pressed Janssen. ‘Was it there?’

  ‘Yes, it was safe and dry, rolled up under a tarpaulin. They took off my blindfold and let me have a good look at it. There was no damage.’

  ‘Thank God for that!’

  As Pienaar continued with his narrative, Daniel translated the Dutch so that Welbeck could understand exactly what had happened. Some clues had emerged. Pienaar had learnt three names. Jan was the sturdy man who’d manhandled the weaver, Frans was the smaller, older man who gave the orders and they’d been joined at the storehouse by an accomplice named Teunis. Pienaar had only got a glimpse of his face but saw enough to notice his close resemblance to Jan. When he heard the details in translation, Welbeck snapped his fingers.

  ‘It’s the same three men I saw at the harbour,’ he said.

  ‘We have to be careful,’ warned Pienaar. ‘They’re evil men. If they discover a ruse, they’ll turn nasty. Somebody could get hurt.’

  ‘What did you tell them about the money?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘I repeated what you told them, Captain Rawson. I said that it would be arriving by courier from The Hague the day after tomorrow. They complained bitterly at the delay but accepted it in the end. Then they blindfolded me again, bundled me on to the cart, and drove me back by a different route. I was dropped off a few hundred yards from here.’

  Amalia was disappointed. ‘So you’ve learnt nothing of real use.’

  ‘He learnt that the tapestry is unharmed,’ Janssen pointed out.

  ‘He also discovered their names,’ noted Daniel, ‘and the fact that two of them are probably brothers. That confirms Henry’s observation.’

  ‘But we still don’t know who or where they are,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not true,’ countered Pienaar, taking care to give no details. ‘I think I may have come across the man named Jan before.’

  ‘Then your ordeal has paid a rich dividend,’ said Daniel, realising that Jan must have been employed at the brothel. ‘If you can remember where you saw him, Henry and I can pay him a visit.’

  ‘It’s slipped my mind at the moment, Captain Rawson, but I’m sure that it will come back in time.’ He smiled at Amalia. ‘It was a cold and miserable journey but it wasn’t a waste of time, I assure you. See for yourself.’

  He turned round to reveal white patches on the back of his coat.

  ‘Is it snowing outside?’ asked Amalia.

  ‘No,’ said Pienaar, facing her again. ‘The white marks came from the cart.’ He put a hand into his pocket and took something out. ‘I picked up a handful of it when nobody was looking.’ He offered it to Daniel. ‘Taste it.’

  Daniel wetted his finger and put some of the powder on his tongue. ‘Salt,’ he said, identifying it at once. ‘It’s a salter’s cart.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After the long and tedious wait, there was a flurry of action. Daniel and Welbeck armed themselves, then saddled their horses before riding off together in the direction of the brothel. Daniel had taken care to speak to Pienaar alone to glean further details about Jan’s identity. He discovered that the man had actually hidden in the room when the weaver talked to Gerda on his Friday visits to the establishment. Having learnt about the significance of the tapestry, Jan had obviously passed on the information to his accomplices and a plot had been hatched. Daniel’s faith in Pienaar had been vindicated. The weaver had returned with evidence that led directly to one of the thieves. Welbeck acknowledged that his friend had been right to entrust the task of meeting the thieves to Pienaar. It had at last given Daniel and him their cue to launch an attack.

  The sergeant raised his voice above the clatter of hooves.

  ‘What else did Pienaar tell you, Dan?’ he asked.

  ‘It was what he didn’t tell me that pleased me,’ replied Daniel. ‘He made no mention of the fact that I’d visited the place on Friday after he did. That means they didn’t ask him why he’d recommended it to me or try to find out what I said to Gerda. If they’d done either of those things, Aelbert would have had to talk himself out of an extremely awkward situation.’

  ‘He did well – much better than I dared hope.’

  ‘Tell him that, Henry. He’d appreciate it.’

  ‘Let’s round up these villains first.’

  Daniel chuckled. ‘That’s why I brought you to Amsterdam. I wanted to ride into battle with you once more. It will be just like old times.’

  ‘Except that I’m an infantryman. I prefer to fight on foot.’

  ‘You’ll have your chance to do that,’ promised Daniel.

  As the two of them rode side by side down a long lane, the clacking of hooves reverberated off the walls. At the end, they turned into the street where the house was located. It was no time to stand on ceremony. After tethering their horses, they marched to the front door, hands on their swords. Daniel banged on the timber with a peremptory fist. The door was soon opened by Hendrika, holding a candelabra and beaming at them.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ she said with professional sweetness. ‘You’re most welcome.’ When she squinted at Daniel, she recognised him. ‘If you’ve come back to talk to Gerda,’ she apologised, ‘I’m afraid that she’s not available, sir, but we have other delights to offer you and your friend.’

  ‘I didn’t come to see Gerda,’ said Daniel, pushing past her and looking around. ‘We’re here to speak to Jan.’

  Her face hardened. ‘Then you’re wasting your time,’ she snarled. ‘He’s not here.’ Angered by the sudden intrusion, she drew out the pistol from beneath the folds of her dress. ‘So I’ll thank you both to leave my house at once.’

  Welbeck reacted swiftly. Almost as soon as he saw the pistol, he jumped forward, grabbed it by the barrel and twisted it expertly from her grasp. Hendrika shrieked at him but the words died on her lips when she found the weapon turned on her. Instantly, she became more amenable.

  ‘There must be some mistake here, sirs,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘Why don’t we step into my parlour and take a glass of something to warm us up?’

  ‘We want Jan,’ insisted Daniel.

  ‘I told you. He’s not here.’

  ‘Then where is he?’

  She was rancorous. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. I threw him out when he tried to kill Gerda. She’s still laying half dead in her room. I’ll get no money out of her for weeks. It was your fault,’ she went on, pointing an accusatory finger at him. ‘Jan wanted to know what you said to Gerda. When she wouldn’t tell him, he set about her. If I hadn’t held a pistol to his head, he’d have murdered her.’

  Daniel was overcome with remorse. As a result of his conversation with her, Gerda had endured a terrible beating. The fact that she hadn’t told Jan about her conversation with Daniel was no consolation to him. She was an innocent victim. An already frail woman had been assaulted by a man who was reportedly big
and powerful. It served to spur on Daniel to seek retribution.

  ‘Where is he likely to be?’ he demanded.

  ‘He’s probably in a tavern,’ she said, ‘or between the thighs of some doxy.’

  ‘What’s his full name?’

  ‘Jan Dekker.’

  ‘Does he have a friend called Frans?’

  ‘That little fart,’ she said, derisively. ‘Frans Tulp is a nasty creature. I’ve let him hide here a couple of times when officers of the law were after him. He pays well but he treats my ladies badly. I won’t have him in here again.’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘He steals.’

  ‘Where could I find him?’

  ‘He’s with Jan, most likely.’

  ‘Let’s go back to Dekker. Does he have a brother?’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ she said. ‘Teunis – why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s because I think I know what he does for a living,’ said Daniel. ‘Would he, by any chance, be a salter?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, he is,’ she replied.

  ‘Do you happen to know where he lives?’

  Hendrika sniffed profit. ‘How much is the information worth?’

  ‘This much,’ said Welbeck after Daniel translated the question for him.

  And he let the barrel of the pistol rest gently against her forehead.

  Teunis Dekker was a brawny man with the same limited intelligence as his brother. Struggling to make a living as a salter, he’d grown to hate the monotonous work of salting meat and fish in order to preserve it. Winter had made it difficult for him to get supplies of salt. The stocks in his storehouse were dwindling. With a wife and three small children to feed, he needed to get money from another source, so he jumped at the offer made by Tulp and by his own brother. Taking part in the theft of the tapestry would solve all his problems. All that he’d had to do was to steal something, hide it in his storehouse and act as an occasional lookout. Once the money had been handed over by Janssen, he could take his share, sell his business and move to a better district. The salter was sitting alone beside the fire with a tankard of beer in his hand. His wife was upstairs, putting the children to bed. When he heard a knock on the front door, he got grumpily to his feet and ambled out. Opening the door, he was confronted by a stranger.