Ottilie turned to face the secretary. He looked pale and drawn, though she could see that he was making a monumental effort to preserve his Saxon formality.
‘Come here, Fritz, and stand beside me. What are you afraid of? God in Heaven, do you think I will bite you? Look, here are the men from Scotland Yard. The dapper little man in the smart fawn coat – he, without doubt, will be the inspector. The other one, the hulking brute with the scarred face – that will be the sergeant.’
Ottilie watched as the cold winter rain turned suddenly to thick sleet, which began to freeze instantly on the grass and leaves. Towering up from the twisted and charred trees, the burnt-out Belvedere, she thought, looked like a sightless skull.
‘See, the constable on guard in the grounds has saluted, and the little inspector has raised his hat. So has the hulking brute. How formal – the ballet of the British Law! But there will be no dancing, my good Fritz! Not yet, at least.’
Ottilie moved further along the landing where she could look out of a round window almost opposite the ruined Belvedere.
‘Look, the brute sergeant has clambered up on to the ruins in that wretched building. He turns, and offers his hand to the little inspector. Soon no doubt, they will seek out the sad old man who crawled over the debris earlier, by the light of the flares. He came in the dark hours, that old one. He looks like a walrus. Bah! It does not interest me.’
Ottilie looked at Fritz Schneider with a sudden stab of guilt. He had listened patiently to her chatter, but it was clear that his mind was elsewhere. How could it be otherwise? He would be shocked by her callousness, but would be too in awe of her to ask the reason for her attitude. It would not, perhaps, be prudent to make a confidant of him.
Schneider, she knew, had entered Seligmann’s service when he was still renowned as a scholar, and Schneider himself was well versed in the mysteries of old Germanic tongues. Like many Saxons, he had been schooled in the virtue of dumb loyalty. He had never expressed the slightest interest in the politics of his own or any other country.
‘You, see, don’t you, Fritz, that all is over here? You should go back to Germany, to Leipzig, your native city. You have a sister there, no? You will not lack for money. Go back! You see the ruin here. There may also be danger. So make plans soon to return to Leipzig.’
‘And you, Fräulein? What will you do?’
‘Me? I have my plans, good Fritz. Meanwhile, there will be much to do here, repairing the damaged house, and putting things to rights. The police, also, they will demand attention. But for you, do as I say. So, sehr geerhte gnädiger Herr Schneider: return to Leipzig!’
Detective Inspector Box blinked upwards through the sleet at the shattered rear windows of the house. He was in time to see two pale faces regarding him from an unbroken circular casement, which looked as though it was designed to throw light on to a staircase.
‘So, Sergeant Knollys,’ he said, ‘our arrival has not gone unnoticed! The good folk in the house will be shocked and stunned, no doubt. But they can spare time for a little peep at us from the upper storey. That’s human nature, Sergeant. There’s something to be learned there, I’ve no doubt. And this, I take it, is the Belvedere.’
The devastated building loomed up at them out of the mist. The ruined entrance framed a virtual hillock of shattered stone and timber, which was being delicately covered with the gossamer touch of unmelting sleet. A buckled iron door hung inward from its hinges, and on the grass nearby lay what they both took to be the plank with which Colin McColl had made his assault. Knollys all but leapt across the threshold, and gave a hand to Box, who clambered up after him.
They were standing on a tumulus of debris. Pieces of charred beam and twisted metal protruded from the ruin like broken teeth. They could see the remains of a chimney breast, and a great, gaunt gas chandelier, twisted and crushed, lay straddled across the hillock like a dead giant spider. Knollys stooped, and pulled a fragment of leather from the ruin.
‘Looks like the spine of a book,’ he said, half to himself. He threw the fragment down again, and pulled up his collar against the rapidly thickening snow.
Box touched one of the walls. He fancied that the brickwork was still warm.
‘Look at these walls, Sergeant! Eighteen inches of stone, then lined with brick. A sledgehammer to crack a nut! You can smell foul gas trapped in the foundations. And something else …. What was it Mr Lewis said? “The smell of evil”. Maybe he was right. There’s nothing useful that we can do here at the moment. Let’s go and find Mr Mack. He and his searchers will have been through this place with a fine-toothed comb. He’ll tell us for certain what happened here.’
They found Mr Mack sitting in a small brick shed that seemed to be growing out of the old garden wall beyond a clump of stunted trees. They had to stoop through the low door of what Box assumed to have been at one time the hub of a gardener’s empire. From the state of the grounds it was evident that horticulture had not been among the late Dr Seligmann’s interests.
Mr Mack was sitting hunched over a small cast-iron stove, which was burning rather smokily. His watery eyes were half closed, and his prominent nose was very red. It was impossible to read his expression fully, as most of his face was concealed by a straggling yellow moustache. He was puffing away at an old briar pipe, and not for the first time Box thought that he looked for all the world like a cocky-watchman. PC Kenwright was standing impassively beside him.
The iron stove spluttered away. A sound of hammering came to their ears, and Box saw that the paved yard behind the house had been commandeered by a number of glaziers and joiners. He closed the shed door, and sat down. Mr Mack opened his eyes, and began to speak.
‘This explosion, Mr Box, was caused by a device concealed in a stout leather valise of some kind – a device that you, I suppose, would call a detonator. I’ll not teach you your job, but find out who brought a leather valise into that Belvedere and left it there. The device in the valise was controlled by a timing mechanism, set to operate at eight-thirty, which it did.’
Mr Mack stopped speaking, and emitted a sound that could have been a sigh, or a suppressed chuckle.
‘Now here’s the interesting bit, Mr Box. There was already a massive cache of high explosive in the building. I rather fancy it was concealed in a crate of some sort – a box of books, to judge from what we’ve found in the ruins. Whatever it was, it must have been brought into the Belvedere on an earlier occasion. When the valise exploded, what we call a “brisant” effect occurred – a kind of explosive sympathy, if you see what I mean, which sent the whole thing up sky high. Beautiful. A beautiful job.’
Mr Mack gazed morosely at the stove for a while, drawing at his old pipe. Box remained quiet. It was best not to interrupt the expert when his thoughts were running on the task in hand.
‘It wasn’t the Fenians, Mr Box. And it wasn’t Murder Malthus and his gang. I can’t tell you much yet until I’ve done some tests, but from the smell in there I know that we’re dealing with dynamite. Nothing fancy, you know: just the ordinary stuff you’ll find in mines or quarries. I can’t be very specific, but I reckon it’s come from the Feissen Werke armaments concern in Bohemia.’
‘“Can’t be specific”? You fill me with awe, Mr Mack. It’s like magic. You’re a shining ornament, if I may say so.’
A strangled noise from Mr Mack suggested that he was laughing. He was never unpleased if someone chose to praise his efforts.
‘It’s like wines, Mr Box. Some folk can tell a claret from the smell of the cork, or identify a brandy blindfold. Well, I can often sniff out explosives by the smell. Nitro-glycerine. Porous silica …. The bouquet, Mr Box.’
Mr Mack laughed again, and then began to cough, as there was a lot of pungent smoke in the shed. He stooped down, and with a poker opened the small iron door at the stove’s base. The air rushed in and presently there was a cheerful blaze, and a little shower of sparks shot out from the rim of the lid on top of the stove.
‘Oh, Lord,
Mr Mack,’ said Box, ‘you must be inspired! Did you see those sparks? That stove. It’s like a little Belvedere. Open the door at the bottom and the fire rushes out at the top. Didn’t this McColl realize that? Or maybe—’
Inspector Box was silent for a moment. His mind was on the edge of a discovery, but its exact nature eluded him. If only he could think more clearly!
Mr Mack lumbered to his feet.
‘Well, Mr Box,’ he said, ‘I’ll leave all that to you, as is right and proper. Now, I’m not given to offering advice where it’s not my business to do so, but I’ve already had a quiet word with PC Kenwright here, and he agrees with what I’ve suggested. He and I have worked together before, as you know, which is why I took the liberty of speaking to him.’
‘And what have you suggested, Mr Mack?’
‘I suggest that you sift through every piece of dust and debris left in that Belvedere, and in these gardens, until you’ve found everything that might be of relevance to this crime – this murder, for murder it is. There’s bits of all sorts in there – fragments of paper, and leather, bits of china and clockwork. All kinds of shattered things. Let PC Kenwright here sift through the lot, and take his finds back to that drill hall of yours at King James’s Rents – if you’re agreeable, that is, Mr Box.’
‘I am, Mr Mack. PC Kenwright’s a giant of a man, but he’s got sensitive hands.’
‘Good. I’ll send a Home Office van down here late this afternoon, and you can beg some empty ammunition boxes from Chelsea Barracks, or the Duke of York’s. I’ll leave three of my men here to help. I’ll have to go now: I’m wanted back in Whitehall. Goodbye, Mr Box. I’ll send you a written report later today. Meanwhile, take my advice. Sift.’
5
A House of Cards
Dr Seligmann’s study was at the front of the house, and had thus been largely unaffected by the previous night’s destruction. The long room, with an ancient window looking out on to Lavender Walk, seemed agreeably comfortable. An ample mahogany desk stood to the left of the fireplace, and near it was a small, baize-covered card-table, upon which a deck of playing-cards had been carelessly thrown down.
‘Mr Lodge,’ said Box to the elderly butler, ‘my sergeant and I will need to talk to those members of the family and household who were here last night. We need to see them now, you understand. The secretary – Mr Schneider, isn’t it? – can you send him along to see us straight away?’
‘I will ask Mr Schneider to come along at once, sir. Count Czerny has just expressed a desire to speak to you. He returned just over half an hour ago—’
‘Returned?’
‘Yes, sir. Count Czerny was not here last night. He fulfilled a dinner engagement at his club, and stayed the night there.’
‘Did he, now? Well, we’ll be happy to see Count Czerny when we’ve finished talking to Mr Schneider, and to the lady of the house. I take it that she’s still on the premises?’
‘Miss Ottilie is upstairs in her private sitting-room. I will inform her that you wish to see her.’
While Lodge was speaking, Inspector Box’s eyes had been drawn to a painted heraldic shield hanging above the fireplace. The shield depicted a black eagle on a white ground, edged with red. The eagle’s head bore a royal crown, its wings were spread wide, and its talons grasped an orb and sceptre.
‘The arms of the old Kingdom of Prussia,’ said Box. ‘Presumably it reminded Dr Seligmann of happier days. I must confess, Sergeant Knollys, that I don’t much care for that particular bird, or for its offspring. And over there, in that alcove, there’s a framed photograph of the German emperor, William II – the Kaiser, as he calls himself. There’s not much to choose between the two of them, in my book. That eagle’s on the lookout for prey, and so is that mad fellow on the wall.’
Box withdrew his glance from the offending heraldry and examined the mantelpiece, which held an array of well-thumbed books kept upright between two ebony book-ends. The titles seemed to be in German, though some of them, Box saw, were in English. He was suddenly overwhelmed with the same conviction that had come to him earlier in the frozen garden – a feeling that he had overlooked some obvious anomaly, and that, ever since his arrival at Chelsea, he had been fed with misleading morsels of information by a source which he could not identify.
Voices in the passage announced the arrival of the secretary. Box sat down behind Dr Seligmann’s desk, and motioned to Sergeant Knollys to station himself in an armchair near the window. The door of the study opened rather cautiously, and Dr Seligmann’s secretary came into the room.
Inspector Box looked at the elderly man who stood stiffly in front of the desk. He was very formally dressed, in tightly buttoned black frock coat and pin-striped trousers, but behind the man’s formal mask of respectful attention Box could discern a suggestion of unquenchable defiance. Schneider’s bearing reminded him strongly of his own attitude when confronted by Superintendent Mackharness.
‘You are Mr Schneider?’ asked Box.
‘Fritz Schneider, sir. I had the honour to be Dr Seligmann’s personal secretary.’
Box watched as the German secretary glanced briefly at Knollys, and then sat down unbidden in a chair placed in front of the desk. He fixed his eyes not on Box, but on the leather blotter, the wooden calendar with its little knobs for changing the date, the crystal ink wells, the ivory pen and the little brass clock arranged on the desk. They were familiar, everyday things which had suddenly become memorials of his vanished master.
‘I’ve only a couple of things to ask you, Mr Schneider. It would seem that the last person to see Dr Seligmann alive was a man called Fenlake. Lieutenant Fenlake. I’d like you to tell me about him, if you will.’
When Schneider spoke, it was clear that his mind was only partly on what Box had asked him.
‘Fenlake … yes, that was his name. But he was not the assassin of my poor master. This room, Herr Box, was Dr Seligmann’s study – his bureau for public affairs. He was a great philologist, but his academic library was housed in the Belvedere, and so perished with him. This study, secure at the front of the house, was where he wrote and strove and struggled for peace. Here are the year-books, the political commentaries, the minutes of meetings – all the desiderata of a political crusade—’
‘And a man called Lieutenant Fenlake was the last person to see Dr Seligmann alive. You say he was not the assassin—’
Herr Schneider sat upright in his chair and looked haughtily at Box.
‘And you disagree? Then I am wrong. I apologize. Evidently you think differently. The police, of course, are very clever. So, yes, he was the last person to see Dr Seligmann alive, and I will tell you about him. The Herr Doktor apprised me earlier in the day that a young gentleman called Lieutenant Arthur Fenlake would be visiting him. He instructed me to conduct Mr Fenlake to the Belvedere as soon as he arrived.’
For a fleeting moment, Arnold Box recalled the blonde girl with the cornflower-blue eyes who had accompanied Miss Whittaker and himself to the Savoy Theatre on New Year’s Eve. Her absent beau and Dr Seligmann’s visitor were surely one and the same person – the young officer in the 107th Field Battery of the Royal Artillery who had been warned off from Mr Gordon’s gaming hell in Eagle Street, Holborn. Or perhaps not. A man bent on mischief could call himself any name he liked ….
‘What was he like? This Lieutenant Fenlake, I mean.’
‘Well, Herr Inspector, he was much like the usual run of young gentlemen of that sort – well dressed for his generation, smart, of soldierly bearing. I am surprised to hear that he was an assassin. He said nothing to me, either at that time, or later, when I conducted him to the front door. What is the English expression? A man of few words.’
‘I don’t suppose you know why he came to see Dr Seligmann?’
‘No, sir, I do not. The Herr Doktor received many people of all ranks and stations. He was renowned throughout the world – he conferred with the legislatures of the nations. Though he has perished at the assassin�
��s hand, his name will endure for ever!’
Box sighed. He looked at the secretary, and experienced a curious sensation of affinity with the man mingled with a rapidly growing impatience with his flowery sentiments. He thought: he’s doing it on purpose, to annoy me. He was a lively enough man, despite his prim exterior, but he was in imminent danger of turning himself into a bore on the subject of his late master’s virtues.
‘Are you in charge of the daily arrangements in this study, Mr Schneider?’ asked Box. ‘Looking after the blotters, trimming the pens, and so forth?’
‘What? Yes, so I am. To you, no doubt, these things are trivial: the labours of a servant. But the Herr Doktor was a man of great affairs. It was not for him to busy himself with the minutiae of study and office—’
‘Oh, quite, Mr Schneider,’ said Box. ‘So why doesn’t the calendar show today’s date? Today is the 4th January. This calendar reckons it’s Wednesday, the 25th.’
He turned the wooden calendar round for the secretary to read.
‘But there’s no need to answer that question, Mr Schneider. Instead, you can tell me about the other visitor. The man who came into the house carrying a briefcase. Was he, too, expected?’
Schneider seemed not to hear. He was looking in puzzlement at the calendar.
‘That calendar – I have not been in here since yesterday …. Someone has been tampering with it. I will speak to Mrs Poniatowski. Everything in this room is sacred …. The man with the briefcase, you ask? Yes, he was expected. There was no secret about Mr Colin McColl. He came from Mr Quaritch’s bookshop in Piccadilly with some rare pages of manuscript for Dr Seligmann to examine. Those pages – ah! They, too, will have been incinerated. But I digress. Our butler, Lodge, admitted Mr McColl to the house, and I heard him talking to the Herr Doctor in the hall passage.’
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