Circle of Shadows caw-4

by Imogen Robertson

  ‘Drowned? Truly? You’re not blowing smoke in my eyes, Mr Crowther?’

  Crowther smiled. Krall’s English was redolent of the docks more than the drawing room. He gathered some of the sheets from his writing-table before taking a seat opposite him.

  ‘I am not. The evidence is in the notes you yourself prepared, Herr von Krall.’ He pointed out the relevant passages and explained their significance. The District Officer shook his head.

  ‘I thought that Professor was a damn fool.’

  Crowther sat back and put his fingertips together. ‘Your English is remarkably fluent.’

  Krall scratched his chin. ‘Four years in London.’

  ‘And your opinion of the English?’

  ‘What? Oh, that they are like the Germans. All just wanting to be a little better than their neighbours. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Simply curious.’ Crowther felt Krall’s eyes travel over him, and the corner of the District Officer’s mouth lifted.

  ‘Wondering if I’m prone to be prejudiced against you and your little group, more like.’ Crowther lifted his shoulders slightly. ‘No, Mr Crowther. I am glad of your help, and too old to want the glory of finding out the truth of this nonsense myself. Shall we talk it through?’

  They did, and by the time they had done Crowther was confirmed in his respect for his unpolished companion. The broken carafe on the floor was dismissed by them both. Krall had put his hand to his head and with visible effort tried to recall any scraps from his memory not already faithfully recorded in his reports that could be significant. There had been water in the smaller of the back rooms for the ladies to wash, and in a large basin that could have been sufficient to drown a woman in, if she were held with considerable force. But again, the lack of signs of a struggle gave them doubt.

  ‘What if she were drugged also?’ Crowther said at last. ‘There are substances that can cause great weakness, lassitude. If a man were capable of making a substance that could cause Clode’s visions, he could also create something that would make a person weak, but that would leave no trace in the body.’

  Krall had his shoulders hunched. ‘Sounds more likely than Lady Martesen just holding still while someone drowns her. Indeed. If you are at liberty, Mr Crowther, perhaps we might make a call on a gentleman of my acquaintance who might give us some help in the matter.’

  ‘I am willing.’ Crowther stood and picked up his cane.

  ‘It will also give us the opportunity to get out of this damn palace,’ Krall added.

  ‘In that case,’ Crowther said, ‘I am delighted.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Clode, what did you say then?’ Harriet said.

  ‘I mentioned that on the third evening, I was invited to attend a meeting of the local Lodge of Freemasonry, Harriet,’ he said, looking across at her. He already looked a great deal improved. ‘But of course, I can say nothing about it, other than that nothing remarkable occurred.’

  ‘Why can you say nothing about it?’

  Rachel took the opportunity to set about mending her pen. ‘Harry, you know it is a secret society.’

  ‘Not very secret, Rachel. When Daniel’s Lodge opened the charity school in Pulborough, they had a parade! And the bookseller in town always has at least one pamphlet on display on the rituals and secrets of Freemasonry.’

  Daniel smiled. ‘It’s different here, Harriet. The Catholic Church has banned membership, and though I doubt that bothers many Englishmen, it is a consideration here. There are any number of groups calling themselves Freemasons on the continent, and very few of them bear much relationship with the English Lodges. That is my understanding and experience. Some even admit women. But it is a useful way to meet people away from the court. One only encounters nobles there.’

  ‘Have you been to many meetings while in Germany, Clode? And don’t look at Graves as if you need his permission to speak! I haven’t asked you for any of your secret words of power.’ Harriet folded her arms. ‘I read one of those pamphlets once. I cannot say I was greatly impressed with the poetry of the drinking songs.’

  Graves grinned, and Daniel said, ‘Very well. I have been to several meetings of different Lodges here and in Berlin. Various of the gentlemen I have met who have business dealings with the Sussex estate are members of one Lodge or other. When they recognise I am a Freemason as well, they invite me along.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘It is a sort of international gentlemen’s club.’

  Harriet still had her chin in the air. ‘Like-minded men of business?’

  ‘Never any harm in making friends, Harriet.’

  She sighed and sat back in her chair.

  ‘Clode, have you come across any group calling themselves the Minervals in your travels?’ Graves asked.

  ‘No — why do you ask?’

  ‘Just that, during a Lodge meeting I attended in London last year, there was a German fellow visiting, and he was full of dire threats about them.’

  ‘What manner of terrible threats, Graves?’ Harriet asked, putting her chin in her hand. Then, when he looked a little sheepish: ‘If you do not explain, I will tell Verity you were not helpful.’

  Graves cleared his throat. ‘I suppose it will be all right, in the circumstances. This chap had been at a conference in Wilhelmsbad in eighty-two, and he met some of these fellows there. They were recruiting from the ranks of the Freemasons, he said, and he became convinced they were intent on overthrowing the governments of Europe. He claimed they had spies and agents everywhere and saw chucking over the old order as a duty. Seemed a little crazed to me.’

  Rachel was arranging the papers disturbed by Graves’s elbow. ‘In such a place as Ulrichsberg, I have some sympathy with them.’

  Graves was silent for a moment. ‘You know, Clode, if this plot against you had succeeded, we would have refused to renegotiate the bonds and demanded the repayment of the principal.’

  ‘That would have been foolish.’

  ‘Probably, but we would have done it. It might have been an embarrassment to Maulberg.’

  ‘You think a group of revolutionary Freemasons has been plotting against me, Graves?’ Clode shook his head. ‘It seems unlikely, though between the wedding and the death of their Chief Privy Councillor last year, I do not think they know what money is in the Treasury at all. It is said round court, he once told the Duke, if he wished to put on the Carnival he had planned, he would not be able to feed himself the next day. And now that wise hand is removed.’

  ‘What was his name?’ Harriet said sharply.

  Clode looked at her curiously. ‘Count von Warburg, I think.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘There was a fire.’

  III.6

  Pegel stood in the room in which he had seen the gentleman writing, and thought. If he was correct in his assumptions — and he was sure he was — the message he had sent had travelled upwards and come to a rest in this place. Therefore here was the top of the tree, and it was very interesting Dunktal had not sent a message to some other town. Did he have any masters? That was just one of several rather pressing questions.

  If there were crucial papers here, and that was what Pegel had come in to search for, Dunktal would not be so stupid as to leave them loose on his desk. He thought of Florian’s terrible sincerity, his idealism. Did that extend up the organisation too? If so, and given the apparent love of secrecy and symbols, all these codes and owls, it was possible the gentleman would leave the papers somewhere clever. Pegel had discovered that life was easier when people tried to be clever, since it often made them obvious. A clever code was far easier to break than a random one, a clever hiding-place much easier to find than an unlikely one. He would have to assume that this gentleman would want his putative papers to hand. That meant this room. Good. Now for the clever bit.

  The walls were lined with books — Lord, these radicals loved to read. Pegel stood very still, letting the details of the room shift and settle in his mind as he panned his impressions for gold. There it was. On
the bottom of the bookshelf, crushed into the corner by any number of volumes on law, was a large, elderly-looking Bible. If Florian was anything to go by, these people were not religious. Perhaps it was an heirloom of the family? Then surely it should be on display downstairs in the public rooms, not tucked up here. He teased it out of the shelf towards him and considered. It was certainly lighter than it should be. He picked it up and cradled it between his forearms.

  ‘Open Sesame!’ he said in a deep voice, then gave a soft whistle. It was hollowed out and a thick stack of letters and papers lay in the nest cut out for them. He grinned, considered, set the Bible down on the desk, then spent five minutes giving the room the look of a place speedily ransacked. He pulled out the desk drawers and scattered the papers, yanked out a random number of volumes from the upper shelves and dropped them all so their spines snapped. The pages that had been loose on the desktop when he entered, he threw over his shoulder.

  His ransacking done, he sat down on the floor with the papers from the Bible and sorted through them. Some were letters in plain language. Of these he noted down an idea of the contents, and names used; these were mostly classical pseudonyms, but one never knew where these things might lead, and each one was addressed to Spartacus. So Spartacus is Dunktal, he thought. The signatures were similarly unlikely, though Pegel grinned, his eyebrows raised, to see letters apparently from some of the Muses of Antiquity. For Muses, he couldn’t help thinking, they wrote ugly sentences. Some pages seemed to be instructions on the recruitment and training of members; others some of the central tenets of the organisation. He whistled silently and made notes. Several sheets were in code and there were three longer documents that seemed to have been written by the same hand, and bearing the same date. They must be copied exactly and there was no way of knowing how much time he had. He set down his notebook, picked up the coal-scuttle and emptied its contents down the stairs then shut the door, wedged a chair under it and opened the hatchway into the attic.

  Thus, as prepared as he could be, he settled down to his work.

  ‘An alchemist?’ Crowther said coldly.

  ‘Yes,’ Krall replied, and knocked again. ‘He is a good man. He was an apothecary.’

  ‘The drugs used on Clode are of a sophistication-’

  ‘Bugger off!’ The voice sounded from deep within.

  Krall rattled the handle again. ‘Open up now, Adam, or I will break down the door.’

  ‘I said, bugger off!’

  Crowther looked around the square while negotiations continued. So even in a city as new as Ulrichsberg there were places that could look neglected. The house at which Krall hammered so vigorously looked like a crabbed old woman surrounded by spring brides. Its windows were thick with filth, there were tiles loose and greenery sprouted from the gutters. The paint on the half-timbering was peeled. The houses on either side showed what it should have been and it seemed to hunker and slump between them, neglected and resentful. Above the door was a faded emblem of a unicorn.

  Krall began to count slowly down from ten and a new storm of expletives erupted from behind the low door. Crowther was a little gratified to realise how many of them he understood. He had always thought German a pleasing language to swear in. It had the proper supply of consonants. The unseen owner of the house was proving himself to be an inventive user of the linguistic tools to hand.

  As Krall reached ‘Five’ there was a screech and a wrench and the door opened. The man who appeared behind it was an elderly, stooped creature whose eyes were made huge by a pair of smeared glasses. He peered at Krall over them and sneezed, then kicking the door open a little wider against some resistance, spoke.

  ‘Come in then.’ Noticing Crowther for the first time, he paused. ‘Who’s your pet?’ He spoke clearly enough, but under his words was a faint high wheeze; it was like a slow puncture in an organ bellows.

  ‘This man is Mr Crowther.’

  ‘Foreigner?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘Explains it,’ he said, then tramped off into the gloom of the house. Krall and Crowther followed.

  The ground floor of the building was one low, continuous space but so cramped with old furniture and broken oddments that the man in the eyeglasses had to lead them down a narrow path between the tumbling piles. It was like a junk shop in a corner of the docks somewhere, a place where lost remnants of better places went to die. Crowther saw chairs, dressers, tables upended and balanced on half-opened packing cases; portraits thick with grime set at an angle and half-hidden by the skeletons of chandeliers. Their guide had now scurried ahead of them, more sure-footed and confident among the wreckage.

  Krall said quietly, ‘Twenty years ago, Adam Kupfel — Whistler, as he is known now — was a rich enough man. He was an apothecary, and had a house outside Ulrichsberg worth envying. Now he lives in what used to be his shop, surrounded by the wreckage of his old home.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Krall sighed. ‘He turned alchemist, and that turned him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘He always had a liking for all old books, and he found a thing in one of the bookshops of Leuchtenstadt one day — an old volume full of woodcuts and patterns and spells. It took some sort of hold on him. He spent all his money on similar works and turned the apparatus of his trade into a means of searching for the Elixir of Life.’

  ‘I am still unclear, Krall, what you hope to achieve by questioning a delusional recluse. What can he know of this drug, or who might have made it? These are matters of the real world.’

  Krall’s eyebrows drew together. ‘I am not the first person who thought a recluse with unusual interests might yet do some good.’ Crowther felt his meaning, and his lips thinned. ‘Thing is, Kupfel was a good friend to me before this madness took him. My father died when I was just starting off in life, and without Adam’s advice and guidance I’d have probably lost everything he left me. Many the evening I spent at his house while his son played on the hearth-rug. He had the sharpest mind, and such learning. We would have been in a better state in Maulberg if he had taken the seat where Swann now sits, but such opportunities are available only to those of noble blood.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I doubt that you do. As to what he can tell us now, for all his madness no man within a hundred miles is as skilled with the methods of distilling and preparing drugs.’

  ‘Stop dawdling! Think I have all day to wait while you pick apart my history?’

  Kupfel had to turn sideways to lead them into his lair, so close did the piles of refuse tumble together, but in the narrow opening Crowther saw a steady glow. As he squeezed through after their host he found himself in a more open space. It was as if they entered a cave, carved from the walls of detritus around them. There was no dust here. Every surface was clean and bright. A fire burned evenly in a huge brick fireplace, and by its light Crowther saw the walls were lined with books. Desk and stool stood to the right, a pair of armchairs to the left, and behind them a door, part-open to show a wall of glass jars and distilling bottles. Kupfel saw where Crowther was looking and went to shut the door, frowning.

  ‘Sit down then, Benedict, you and your friend. Why do you disturb me? I was reading.’ He said the last with a vicious emphasis. Crowther noticed that Krall looked a little abashed.

  ‘You have heard of the murder?’ Krall asked.

  ‘At the Festennacht? A woman, slaughtered by some hot-blood.’

  ‘Mr Clode’s guilt is called into question.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Kupfel curled up in the armchair by the fire like an old dog and began to work his hands over each other. Crowther noticed they were covered in small scars and burns. There was a scar on his neck too which Crowther only noticed now as he twisted sideways in the light of the flames. It lapped his neck on the left side from collarbone to the underside of his chin, the flesh pink and puckered. Some sort of burn, certainly. Vitriol? Without willing it Crowther imagined a vessel exploding, the man turning away to shield his eyes and l
eaving the flesh of his neck exposed to the clawing liquid. The pain must have been indescribable, and the damage deep. No wonder his voice had that wheeze. How long had it been before Kupfel returned again to the fire? ‘How was she killed?’

  Crowther spoke. ‘Drowned. Drowned without sign of restraint or resistance.’

  Kupfel bent over the fire and gently shifted one of the logs so it would burn more evenly, then, still stooped, he looked at Crowther. His glasses reflected the flames.

  ‘Where did you learn your German?’

  ‘Wittenberg University, largely.’

  ‘A man of the nobility then. A man of money, to study there. No wonder you talk my language as if you had that stick up your arse.’

  Crowther did not react, and remained looking into the flames reflected on the smeared glasses. The Alchemist put his head on one side, then the other. Once Crowther had seen a Persian tempt a snake from the basket with his pipe at a London fair. As he had watched the animal and the man, he had wondered who was influencing whom. The movement of Kupfel’s head made him think of that snake again. There was a tang of sulphur in the air.

  ‘I had heard in the chop-shop that an Englishman and a widow had come here to declare the hot-head innocent. You’re no widow, so that makes you the anatomist then, I suppose. A man of science.’

  ‘I am. My name is Gabriel Crowther.’

  The reflection of the flames in the Alchemist’s eyeglasses hid his pupils, making him seem slightly inhuman. He bared his black teeth. It seemed he had no interest in Crowther’s name. ‘Pah. Science. Progress! Man can be perfected, but by mystery. By the transformation of the stars he can live through time, raise the dead, become a god, know God.’ He leaned forward, and as he did so, the wheeze in his voice began to sound more like a hiss. His voice was not loud, but so insidious and intense it felt like a finger pressing on Crowther’s eyeballs. He wondered, trying not to listen, what fumes hung around this place. The air was thick, the fire hot. ‘That is wisdom and it comes with sacrifice. Knowledge! Big word for little minds. In your cutting about of the flesh, have you ever found a soul? Found a thought, a dream? Found love?’ He turned away again. ‘Of course not. You’re merely picking through what you can see. You’re like a man dabbling in a pool of ditchwater thinking he examines the moon he saw reflected there. Look up, Mr Crowther, look up!’