The Hansa Protocol

by Norman Russell

  Box recalled his breakfast that morning, in his cheerful set of bachelor rooms in Cardinal Court, a secluded enclave of old houses behind Fleet Street. Mrs Peach, his landlady, had treated him to a dramatic story of an explosion in Chelsea, which she had heard from a neighbour, a stableman, who had just returned from his night-shift at Chelsea Barracks. ‘The night was turned to day, Mr Box,’ she’d told him, as she deposited a plate of poached egg and haddock in front of him. ‘They say it was a gas-leak what done it, but it sounds like foreigners to me. Russians. Or Prussians. And the master of the house blown to pieces. It doesn’t bear thinking of.’

  Box felt the presence of a kind of imp of the perverse, which came to him whenever Mackharness asked him a question that was designed to show off his imagined superior knowledge.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Box, ‘I’ve heard nothing at all. What happened at Chelsea?’

  Superintendent Mackharness eyed Box with a kind of defensive wariness.

  ‘Heard nothing, hey? You should keep your ears to the ground, Box! Well, you’d better listen carefully while I tell you. No doubt you’ll recall looking in on Dr Otto Seligmann’s lecture last Saturday? Well, last night, Box, Dr Seligmann was blown to pieces in an explosion at his house in Chelsea.’

  ‘Strewth!’

  ‘As you say, Box, though I wish you could develop a wider range of epithets and expletives, especially when talking to me. What is right for the costermonger is not necessarily fitting for a police inspector. But the point is, Box – the point is …. Where was I? Your constant interruptions interfere with my train of thought.’

  ‘Dr Seligmann had been blown up in Chelsea—’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. And the interesting point is, Box, that Inspector Lewis requested us to take PC Kenwright with us out there. To Chelsea, I mean. Now, Kenwright’s a uniformed man, and he’s here at the Rents ostensibly to recuperate from fever; but perhaps you’ll remember—’

  ‘Yes, sir. Last year, when we investigated the explosion in Euston Road. The Home Office moved in, and sent Mr Mack from Explosions to look at the pieces. Mr Mack was very impressed with the kind of help that PC Kenwright gave him. So maybe in this case—’

  Mackharness waved his hand impatiently, as though to dismiss the whole topic. ‘Yes, yes, Box, your logical deductions do you credit, but if you’d waited for me to finish, instead of interrupting – as you constantly do – I’d have said the same thing.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I would never knowingly—’

  ‘Yes, yes, well never mind all that. Get out there, will you? Lewis came with a four-wheeler, so you can take Sergeant Knollys and PC Kenwright with you. Seligmann lived in a kind of square in Chelsea, somewhere behind the Physic Garden – Lavender Walk, it’s called. The Chelsea Police are there, of course, but I want you to show the people in the house that Scotland Yard is interested in the case.’

  ‘Perhaps it was a gas explosion, sir. We’ve had some corkers in that line, recently.’

  ‘Yes, Box, perhaps it was.’ Mackharness’s voice held a mixture of irascibility and sarcastic humour. ‘Or perhaps this building – the Belvedere, they called it – was struck by lightning. Or earthquake. Or it may have been the Fenians. One way of finding out would be to go there, and investigate! Find out what Mr Mack’s up to. The Home Office doesn’t involve the Explosions Inspectorate for a domestic gas explosion. Go, now, Box, and talk to Inspector Lewis. Then get out there to Chelsea.’

  Inspector Lewis stretched his hands out gratefully to the blazing fire. At last, he was beginning to feel warm. He wore a long serge uniform overcoat and regulation hat, but it had been keenly cold in the ruins of that garden tower place at Dr Seligmann’s – cold, and soulless. Gas, everyone had whispered, but it hadn’t been gas. He’d felt the evil in the dank air. You couldn’t say that to fellow officers, or put it into a report. He straightened up and turned from the fire as the doors of the office swung open.

  ‘Inspector Lewis? Box. Arnold Box. We’ve not met before. How are you?’

  Lewis looked at the slim, smart man who had just erupted into the office. He was wearing a tightly buttoned fawn greatcoat, and carried a brown bowler hat. He looked more like a civilian than a policeman – but then, that’s what a detective ought to look like. This Mr Box had a dashing sort of military look to him. What was he? Thirty-five? That carefully trimmed moustache made him look a bit older.

  ‘I’m very well, thank you, Inspector Box. I’ve got a four-wheeler waiting to convey you out to Chelsea. I thought it best to see you here first, on your own ground.’

  Box’s visitor was a man nearing fifty, with a narrow, weatherbeaten face, and hunched shoulders. He was the kind of police officer who had spent many years on duties that kept him out of doors. There was a thin, hollow quality to his voice, suggestive of weakened lungs.

  ‘Well, Mr Lewis, it’s not much of a place, as you can see! The ceiling’s black with soot from that old-fashioned gas mantle. It’s a bad burner, but they won’t replace it. And we’ve being trying to get them to paint the walls for years.’

  ‘But these walls of yours, Mr Box, don’t have ears. I’m not so sure about the kind of walls they have down our way, in Chelsea. So let me give you the gist of what happened last night.’

  Inspector Lewis sat down on the edge of a chair near the fire. He had removed his braided uniform cap, and placed it on the crowded office table.

  ‘Mr Box, there was a monstrous explosion last night, at half past eight, at Dr Otto Seligmann’s house in Lavender Walk, Chelsea. The explosion occurred in a kind of fancy stone tower or summer house standing in the rear garden of the house. This tower was known as the Belvedere.’

  Box sat on the opposite side of the table, writing in a notebook. He had donned small round gold spectacles, which made him look older than his years.

  ‘And what was this Belvedere? What was special about it?’

  ‘It was a library, Mr Box, where this German gentleman studied. There’s another library in the house. My men are out there, you’ll understand, keeping a watch over things. It’s a terrible business. We all heard the explosion in Chelsea Police Station, and didn’t wait for any one to call us in. We went round there as soon as we could, and arrived just after the fire engines—’

  Lewis broke off as a gigantic uniformed police constable emerged from a tunnel-like passageway to the right of the fireplace. An impressive man by any standards, he had a flowing spade beard, which added to a natural gravity of manner. He was carrying a wooden tray, containing two steaming mugs of tea. Lewis watched as he placed his burden carefully on the table. He was unaccountably pleased when the constable briefly stood to attention and saluted him.

  ‘PC Kenwright, sir,’ the big constable said. ‘This here tea is sent with Sergeant Knollys’ compliments. It’s rare cold outside. This should warm you up a bit.’

  Kenwright left the room the way he had come, and Inspector Lewis continued his story.

  ‘Well, Mr Box, the fire was too strong for anyone to go in, though everyone in the garden was talking about a gentleman visitor who’d managed to burst the door down before we came—’

  ‘A gentleman visitor? Tell me about him, Mr Lewis.’

  ‘Well, he was a gentleman called Colin McColl, and he’d called to see Dr Seligmann by appointment. We got all this information out of the secretary, later, you understand, a German chap called Schneider; and from Mr Lodge, the butler. This Mr McColl managed to burst the door in – a heavy, iron door. Trying to rescue poor Dr Seligmann, you see. There was another visitor, who came just as this Mr McColl left. A young man called Fenlake—’

  ‘Fenlake?’ asked Box, sharply. ‘Lieutenant Fenlake?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Box, that’s right! Do you know him?’

  ‘I know of him. I know a young lady friend of his.’

  ‘Well, this Lieutenant Fenlake, according to Mr Lodge, was the last person to see poor Dr Seligmann alive.’

  ‘An interesting point. And what did you do next, M
r Lewis?’

  ‘We stayed all night – us, and the fire brigade, I mean – and by first light this morning the fire had all but burnt itself out. We’d brought gas flares in, and worked by the light of them to find out what we could. We located what was left of Dr Seligmann just before dawn. A terrible affair, as I said. The ruins of a man ….’

  Inspector Lewis sipped his tea. His eyes, Box saw, held a renewed awareness of the sadness of things. There was no need for him to commiserate. Each knew that the other had witnessed terrible sights in the course of their often thankless duties.

  ‘Oddly enough, Mr Lewis, I helped to police a meeting addressed by this Dr Seligmann only last Saturday. Shocking. Shocking altogether. And so you thought of us? Scotland Yard, I mean.’

  ‘I did. There was the smell of evil all around, Mr Box, though you might think me foolish for talking like that. Then, just after six, Dr Janner, the Home Office forensic pathologist, arrived in a cab. That told me that something funny was in the wind. He’d brought another Home Office man with him, an old chap who said he was Mr Mack, from the Home Office Explosions Inspectorate.’

  ‘Mr Mack’s an old friend of ours here at the Yard. I know Dr Janner, too. What did he do?’

  ‘He – well, he gathered the remains together. He and his assistants put them in a deal coffin, and conveyed them to the Chelsea Union mortuary. But it’s time we set off, Mr Box. I want you to see the site of this atrocity with your own eyes.’

  As they turned the corner into Aberdeen Lane, they were assailed by a sudden squall of hailstones. They hurried over the setts to the waiting four-wheeler, and by the time they had clambered in to the heavy vehicle, the hailstones had turned to tentative sleet. The constable on the box released the brake, and turned the horses’ heads in the direction of Whitehall.

  For a man on the small side, thought Inspector Lewis, Mr Box chose giants for his companions. PC Kenwright, sitting opposite him, was imposing enough, but the sergeant sitting beside him was massive, to put it mildly. An ugly customer, too, by the look of him. He had close-cropped yellow hair, and a livid scar running across his face from below the right eye to the left corner of his mouth.

  Lewis caught the amused gleam in the sergeant’s piercing blue eyes, and realized that he had been reading his thoughts. He felt himself blushing, but was spared the indignity by Box, who suddenly broke what he thought was becoming an embarrassed silence.

  ‘Inspector Lewis, I didn’t have time to introduce you properly back there at the Rents. This is my sergeant, Jack Knollys. He’s from Croydon, originally.’

  ‘Oh, Croydon? Really. Pleased to meet you, Sergeant.’

  The heavy cab had reached Parliament Street, and Box glanced at the magnificent Italianate palace built by Sir Gilbert Scott to house the Home Office. It made him think for the moment of old Mr Mack, who had a little room somewhere in that impressive pile.

  ‘And you reckon it wasn’t a gas explosion, Mr Lewis? A gas leak?’ Lewis shook his head decidedly.

  ‘It wasn’t gas, Mr Box. Two men from the Gas, Light and Coke Company came out within the hour, turned the gas off, and hammered the broken pipe flat. But it wasn’t gas. It was as though a shell had exploded, or a magazine gone up. There’s devilry behind it, and for my money it’s not the Fenians this time. Still, that’s for you to decide, Mr Box, when you’ve seen the place. The Belvedere, I mean.’

  The cab turned into Broad Sanctuary, and proceeded at a good pace down Victoria Street. Evidently, the driver was following a well-known route of his own out to Chelsea. He’d turn into Buckingham Palace Road just opposite Grosvenor Gardens, then into Pimlico Road, and go round the long boundary wall of the Chelsea Royal Hospital.

  ‘I must confess, Mr Lewis,’ Box said, ‘that I’m not well versed in these high-class German political thinkers, and how they live. What should I know about this house in Lavender Walk, and the folk who live there?’

  Inspector Lewis coughed, and drew a sleeve across his mouth. This infernal cold! The old cab smelt of stale tobacco and damp straw. He’d be glad when they got to Chelsea.

  ‘Well, Mr Box, Dr Seligmann’s house has always been a popular sort of place. We’ve a lot of thinkers and artists and so forth living in Chelsea. There’s always been a lot of coming and going at Dr Seligmann’s. Poor old Mr Carlyle used to visit there, years ago, and he’d gabble away in German with Dr Seligmann and the other Germans in the house.’

  Sergeant Knollys suddenly spoke, causing Lewis to start in surprise.

  ‘Any Englishmen, sir? Coming and going, I mean?’

  Sergeant Knollys’ voice was well enunciated and slightly mocking. The man looked like a thug, but was evidently something else. He dressed well, too. There was more to Mr Box’s sergeant than mere bulk and brawn.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, there were some Englishmen from time to time. Learned men from the universities, and more than one Member of Parliament. Sir Charles Napier, the Under-Secretary, has called there more than once. He and Dr Seligmann were old friends. But usually there’d be a lot of foreigners turning up, some of them with huge pointed moustaches and what I’d call hectoring voices. Germans, most of them, I’d say.’

  ‘And who’s inside the house at present?’ asked Box.

  ‘Well, there’s Mr Schneider, who was Dr Seligmann’s personal secretary. Very stiff and foreign – all heel-clicking, and so forth – but a very decent, honest kind of man, I think. I’ve passed the time of day with him more than once. I told Mr Schneider that I was going to Scotland Yard. Everybody else seems to have been prostrated with grief. So Mr Schneider said.

  ‘Then there’s Count Czerny – C-Z-E-R-N-Y. They say he’s an Hungarian, and that may well be so, but he speaks better English than most English people. I don’t know exactly what he was supposed to do in the house, Mr Box, but he lives there, and was very close to Dr Seligmann.’

  The clumsy four-wheeler rumbled its way out of Pimlico Road, and proceeded along Royal Hospital Road, which at that point was flanked by spacious, tree-lined gardens. They were passing the gracious buildings that housed the Chelsea Pensioners, and for a fleeting moment Box imagined that they were in the countryside.

  ‘And then,’ Inspector Lewis continued, ‘there’s Miss Seligmann – Miss Ottilie, as she’s called. She’s Dr Seligmann’s niece. She’s little more than a girl, very pretty, and very nice to the English staff. I don’t know what she’s like with the Germans, as I don’t speak German. I think she just lives in the house because she’s no parents. Came here six months ago, she did.’

  ‘What about the staff?’

  ‘There’s Mr Lodge, the butler, who I mentioned to you before. A very nice man, he is, fond of a glass or two of stout when the fancy takes him. I know a niece of his in the Borough. There’s a full house of English servants, and Mr Lodge is in charge of them. They’re all local folk. And there’s Mrs Poniatowski, who’s the housekeeper. All starch and vinegar, she is. I rather think—’

  Lewis broke off as a clutch of lively men in raincoats and bowler hats suddenly appeared at the corner of a narrow lane, waving their arms excitedly. Some of them were carrying notebooks. Inspector Box smiled.

  ‘The gentlemen of the Press, unless I’m very much mistaken,’ he said. ‘So the flies are already buzzing round the jampot. I take it we’ve arrived at Lavender Walk?’

  ‘We have, Mr Box. It’s just along that little lane. I don’t know why it’s called Lavender Walk. It’s more like a little square. We’ll leave the cab here, and walk down beside the hospital wall. Look at those men! What do they expect me to say?’

  ‘Would you like me to vouchsafe them a few words, Mr Lewis? I’m used to them, you know.’

  ‘I’d be very grateful if you would, Mr Box. Flies around the jampot? Vultures, more like!’

  As soon as the four police officers alighted from the cab, they were surrounded by the reporters. Each represented a different newspaper, but they also had a team spirit of their own, a communal identity. Box leapt on to a l
ow wall at the side of the road, and immediately the gaggle of men congregated eagerly in front of him.

  ‘Now, gents,’ said Box, in a loud, clear voice, ‘you all know me, and I won’t let you down. This is a very sinister business, and there are implications that, at the moment, it would not be prudent to make public. So if you come along at noon today, to the Clarence Vaults in Victoria Street, I’ll make a statement, and answer any questions. For the moment, though, I’ll ask you to disperse. Good day.’

  The reporters seemed very satisfied with Box’s words. They moved away slowly in the general direction of Ormond Gate, chattering among themselves, and glancing back occasionally at the cab, which had been halted at the side of the road. The driver had come down from the box gratefully and shut himself up snug inside.

  There had been a sickly sun shining for most of the journey, but now the fog began to descend with greater determination. The four policemen made their way into Lavender Walk, which proved to be a number of very ancient houses of modest size arranged around a patch of green. A few people were standing around, apparently heedless of the cold rain. They were talking quietly together, and looking up at one of the houses, an old Tudor dwelling with mullioned windows and carved beams. The front door stood wide open, despite the bitter cold. The onlookers parted to make way for the policemen. Box was conscious of their curious glances as they stepped over the threshold of the stricken house.

  ‘Behold, Herr Schneider, the majesty of the British Law!’

  Ottilie Seligmann was looking down at the neglected garden from one of the few rear windows of Dr Seligmann’s house to have escaped the destruction of the previous night. The secretary, stiff and respectful, stood on the landing behind her. He had heard the Scotland Yard men being admitted to the house a few minutes earlier. Lodge would have conducted them through the hall passage, and out into the garden.