The Hansa Protocol

by Norman Russell

  Sergeant Knollys closed his eyes for a moment, as though recalling something. Then he quoted the chilling lines from Macbeth to which Kershaw had referred.

  ‘“Nay, had I power, I should

  Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,

  Uproar the universal peace, confound

  All unity of earth”.

  ‘We learnt that at school, sir. They’re the words of an anarchist with a lust for power—’

  The sound of voices came from the drill hall beyond the office. Box held up his hand in a warning gesture.

  ‘What’s all that commotion back there? It’s PC Kenwright. He’ll be bringing some of his “siftings” back from Chelsea. Better not say anything more now, Sergeant. We’ll talk about this business later. An anarchist with a lust for power …. Not a pleasant thought. But then, this Colin McColl’s not a pleasant man.’

  Sergeant Knollys produced a notebook, and turned over a few pages. It was time, he knew, to change the subject.

  ‘I talked to Mr Lodge, the butler, sir. We snatched half an hour together in his pantry. There wasn’t much that he could tell me that we didn’t know already. Miss Seligmann’s a bit of a handful, but very well regarded below-stairs. Mrs Poniatowski is a morose sort of woman, with her own ideas of service, which, needless to say, are not Mr Lodge’s. There’s a bit of a mystery, there, sir. Mrs P. says she’s a Pole, but one of the Seligmann’s neighbours has a Polish maid, who claims that Mrs Poniatowski can’t speak Polish, only German, and some other language – Czech, she called it.’

  ‘Well, well, Sergeant,’ said Box, ‘fancy that! Czech. That’s the language spoken in Bohemia—’

  ‘How do you know that, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know how I know, Sergeant. I just know it, that’s all. Like you know Macbeth, and I don’t. The important point is, that Mr Mack said that the dynamite used to blow up Dr Seligmann in the Belvedere came from Bohemia. An interesting point. Anything else?’

  ‘Count Czerny and Miss Ottilie had another blazing row after we’d gone out into the garden. Apparently, it was a continuation of the unpleasantness that Czerny told us about. Mr Lodge didn’t approve. “You’d think they could have behaved with a bit more respect, Sergeant”, he said to me, “with the house being in mourning, and all. There should be crepe on the door, and a myrtle garland, but they’ve no time for the decencies”.’

  ‘A blazing row …. I wonder what that was about?’

  ‘Mr Lodge doesn’t know, because it was all in German. But apparently there was an awful lot of shrieking from Miss Ottilie, and Count Czerny was like a raging lion. It only lasted a few minutes, but what it lacked in time, it made up for in ferocity. Your friend Mr Schneider has promised to tell Mr Lodge what it was all about. Lodge could hear the two of them going at it hammer and tongs all round the house while it lasted.’

  ‘Not very nice for Mr Lodge. He seemed a first-rate servant to me. Properly trained from boyhood, as like as not. He’s too good for that madhouse, Sergeant Knollys.’

  ‘I think he’d agree with you about that, sir. He’d already arranged terms of notice with Miss Ottilie, and had been offered a very attractive post with Sir Marcus Braintree at Henley. The household at Chelsea’s breaking up. I think it was only poor Dr Seligmann who held it together.’

  Box got to his feet. He peered into the mirror, and unconsciously smoothed his moustache with his right forefinger.

  ‘There’s something peculiar about that house in Chelsea, Sergeant Knollys. There’s more to Miss Ottilie than meets the eye, and now you tell me this Mrs Poniatowski’s a Czech – what we usually call a Bohemian. And these rows …. People don’t behave like that, Sergeant, after outrage and violent death on their premises. We’ll have them all watched, and see what they do.’

  ‘Sir, about Lieutenant Fenlake—’

  ‘Yes, I know what you’re going to say, Sergeant. We need to talk to him, if we can run him to ground. He was the last man to see Dr Seligmann alive. I’d very much like to hear what he said to Seligmann in that Belvedere, and what Seligmann said to him. I’ll do my best to track Mr Fenlake down – tomorrow, if possible. Unless, of course, the Foreign Office try to hide him away. Meanwhile, there’s something else I want to do.’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘Mr Schneider, who evidently thinks I’m an ignoramus, told us that the library in the house was the political library, and that the one in the Belvedere was the academic library. Now, I don’t think Schneider would tell any fibs, and I don’t think others in that house would trust him to do so. But I think he’s had it drilled in to him to make that point about the two libraries. It may mean nothing – or it may mean everything. So I’m going off now, to consult my own personal expert in philology.’

  Louise Whittaker sat down in her chair at the fireside, and looked at her visitor. How would he want her to behave? He had come on business, to think aloud about a case, and invite her to exercise her judgement. She remembered the keen pleasure that she had felt in the previous autumn, when he had come to discuss with her the awful fate of Amelia Garbutt, cruelly murdered and thrown into a canal. Mr Box regarded her home as a sanctuary, a place where he could be quiet, and indulge in speculation. She must be careful not to spoil that ordered tranquillity that so obviously attracted him.

  ‘What do you want to know, Mr Box?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to know about the late Dr Otto Seligmann, miss. More than one person has told me that he was an eminent philologist. He appears to have produced an edition of old English poems – Anglo-Saxon verse, I think they call it. And then he propounded a rule or notion about syllables. I don’t think anyone’s trying to confuse me deliberately, but all this kind of thing is beyond me. Now you, miss, are a philologist, so I was wondering if you knew anything about this Dr Seligmann from that point of view.’

  Louise joined her fingertips together, and looked thoughtfully at Box. She saw beyond his question to what he was actually thinking.

  ‘Well, Mr Box, you’ve really answered your own question, haven’t you? Dr Seligmann’s Specimens of Anglo-Saxon Verse appeared in 1878. There has not been a second edition. If you want to embark upon the study of Anglo-Saxon, you would turn to other primers. And Seligmann’s Law, you know, is just a grand name for a very simple observation, something rather obvious to anyone who has made a study of the vowels in unaccented syllables. Do you know what I am talking about?’

  ‘No, miss.’

  ‘No; in one way, I suppose, you don’t, but in another way you do. What I am saying is that Dr Seligmann was a gifted and enthusiastic amateur. He turned his mind to editing texts and to the laws of phonology with equal enthusiasm, but I suspect that his true vocation lay in politics. Part of him, I’m sure, thought it more satisfying to be known as Dr Seligmann the distinguished scholar than Dr Seligmann the mere politician!’

  ‘Dr Seligmann had a very unusual library called the Belvedere—’

  ‘Yes, I know it. Just over a year ago Dr Seligmann invited me to see a very rare page of an old medieval chronicle that he had acquired.’ She added softly, ‘You see what I mean? Phonology, manuscripts …. Dr Seligmann was a good, sound, dabbler.’

  Miss Whittaker frowned, and gave a little shiver of disgust.

  ‘Oh, dear! I sound so mean and ungenerous – that last comment of mine had all the pettiness of a jealous rival! The poor man has just died by violent means – I suppose it was murder?’

  ‘It was a political assassination, Miss Whittaker.’

  ‘Frightful! But what I’ve told you about poor Dr Seligmann is true. He liked to play the role of the scholar forced by circumstances to be a politician. But in his heart he knew that what scholarly work he had done in the past had long been superseded.’

  ‘There were two libraries in that house at Chelsea,’ said Box. ‘The Belvedere library was the doctor’s academic library, and the one in the house was his political library. That’s what they told me at the house.’

  Louise
Whittaker was quick to detect the doubting tone behind Box’s words. ‘And you have your doubts, I take it? I suppose nothing remains of the Belvedere library?’

  ‘No, miss. It’s just rubble and ashes. The library that I saw was the one in the house. There was plenty of political stuff there, but all around the fireplace was a collection of well-thumbed books which I could see were all about language, and poetry, and suchlike. I had an image in my mind, Miss Whittaker, of a man sitting beside that fireplace, reading those books as though they were old friends. They weren’t novels, and there were no pictures in them, but that’s what I think they were – old friends.’

  Miss Whittaker sat quietly for a while, gazing thoughtfully at the fire. Box was content to wait.

  ‘Mr Box,’ said Louise Whittaker, ‘I wondered about that library, too! The one in the house, I mean. Dr Seligmann showed me around it. It was just a courtesy on his part. He wanted me to admire the very fine carved Tudor panelling.’

  ‘And did you, miss? I must confess that I never noticed it.’

  ‘I was content to listen to him talking about it, while I looked all round the room. Like you, Mr Box, I realized that it was there that he kept the books he actually read! I was waiting to see whether you, too, had seen the truth of the matter. Oh, I know it was filled with interminable reference material to do with Germany and German politics, but those books around the mantelpiece – well-thumbed volumes, some with the spines sprung loose from constant opening – they conjured up for me the younger Dr Seligmann, the man who, perhaps, would have liked to become a scholar of international repute. But in his later years, you know, I think his enthusiasm was largely nostalgic: he had become a politician – perhaps a statesman in the making – and philology had become something of a romantic regret.’

  Box watched Louise Whittaker as she smiled, and shook her head.

  ‘But that library in the Belvedere, Mr Box – well, I thought it was a very peculiar place. It was there that Dr Seligmann showed me the medieval manuscript that he’d bought. While I was there you may be sure I cast my eyes around very thoroughly! As I remember, there were three shelves containing a wide range of modern German books on European history – three great shelves, completing the circle of the Belvedere. But above those shelves, Mr Box, rose tier after tier of leather-bound dummies! I wasn’t fooled – I’ve seen that kind of thing before, and they make a good show.’

  ‘Dummies?’

  ‘Dummies. Very much like filing-boxes, but with a leather-covered false spine. People keep sets of magazines in them, or use them to tidy away items that look untidy when left lying about. Sometimes they have amusing names printed on them. I remember feeling slightly shocked when I saw them. They suggested a kind of deceit, which I’d never have associated with a man of Dr Seligmann’s reputation.’

  ‘Dummies …. And why did Dr Seligmann send for you in particular, Miss Whittaker? To look at this old manuscript, I mean.’

  ‘Well, you see, Mr Box, about eighteen months ago I went with some other scholars to a symposium on Germanic Philology at the university of Jena, in Prussia. It was a very learned affair, with lectures and discussions for most of the day, but some opportunities for sight-seeing as well. I was invited to dinner one evening by Professor Adolf Metternich and his wife, and among their guests was Miss Ottilie Seligmann, who is Dr Seligmann’s niece—’

  ‘Miss Ottilie? She has been living at the house in Chelsea for the last six months, Miss Whittaker. I don’t know whether you realized that?’

  Box saw the bewilderment in Louise’s face.

  ‘Ottilie? Here in England? I had no idea, Mr Box. I gather that there was an estrangement between Ottilie’s father and Dr Seligmann – some wretched family quarrel. Perhaps that’s why she never thought to make contact with me.’

  ‘Miss Ottilie’s father died six months ago, so I’ve been told. She was an orphan, and came to England in order to live with her uncle. She’s been here ever since.’

  ‘We were very friendly at Jena,’ said Louise. ‘She was a vivacious girl, you know, disconcertingly frank, but with an engaging personality. She was very pretty, too, rather like Vanessa Drake, with yellow hair and bright blue eyes, but not as healthy as Vanessa – consumptive, I think. But you asked me a question. I think Dr Seligmann invited me because he knew that I had seen his niece, though when I went to Chelsea he never asked after her.’

  Louise Whittaker suddenly made up her mind to visit Ottilie Seligmann at Chelsea. Whatever quarrels had kept her father and uncle apart, they were irrelevant now. It would seem both rude and heartless not to call with her condolences.

  Box picked up his curly-brimmed bowler and drew on his gloves. He would have to digest what Miss Whittaker had told him, or rather sift through her account of the libraries at Chelsea. At one stage in her account he had almost had a revelation of the truth. She had unwittingly revealed to him something about Seligmann’s death that so far had been hidden from him. Whatever it was, it had retreated to the shadows.

  ‘Thank you very much, Miss Whittaker,’ he said. ‘You’ve been a beacon of light today, if I may put it like that. Without being too dramatic, I think I can say that you have helped your Queen and country in a moment of acute crisis.’

  It had seemed a noble sentiment when he conceived it. After he’d actually said it, it sounded faintly ridiculous. As he turned to open the door, the lady scholar’s mocking voice rang out.

  ‘One day, Mr Box, there may even be a woman detective at Scotland Yard to help you. And the Queen and country, too!’

  Inspector Box smiled, and thought for a moment before replying to what Louise had meant to be a friendly taunt.

  ‘Very well, Miss Whittaker,’ he said, ‘although I don’t imagine there’ll ever be any official lady policemen, I herewith enrol you as the first and only member of my unofficial female posse. There – does that satisfy you?’

  Miss Whittaker laughed, and turned her attention once more to her books and papers.

  ‘Away with you, Mr Box,’ she cried. ‘Go and solve your mysteries!’

  Detective Inspector Box chuckled to himself, and left the room.

  Box walked through the low passage that led from his office to the long, lime-washed room at the back of King James’s Rents. It was a forlorn place, used partly as a storeroom, and partly as a venue for meetings. Superintendent Mackharness always referred to it as ‘the drill hall’, which was the kind of description that came easily to an old Crimea veteran’s mind.

  PC Kenwright was sitting at one of a number of trestle tables, writing in a large foolscap ledger. The tables were covered with what Box estimated to be hundreds of shattered fragments, each carefully reposing in a chalked circle. The huge bearded constable glanced up from his work, and lumbered to his feet.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear you coming in.’

  ‘Carry on with what you’re doing, Constable,’ said Box. ‘I’ve just come in to see how you’re getting on. I heard you yesterday, shifting all this stuff in here from the lane. These tables – and all these pieces that you’ve ringed in chalk – excellent, PC Kenwright! Have you drawn any conclusions yet from all these fragments?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Do you see all those pieces of brown leather that I’ve collected at the end of this table? They’re parts of the valise that was used to bring the detonator into the Belvedere. I was given a great deal of help by Mr Mack’s men yesterday at the site, sir. I reckon we’ve collected just about everything of significance.’

  Box examined the pieces of the valise. Kenwright had drawn a rough impression of a briefcase on the wooden surface of the table, and had positioned the fragments over it. They included both a buckle and a strap, and a discoloured brass lock.

  ‘Excellent,’ Box murmured. PC Kenwright continued to exercise his careful penmanship, his great frame bent over the ledger. Box watched him as he glanced at specific objects that he had salvaged, before turning once more to the ledger. He realized that PC Kenwri
ght was compiling an inventory.

  He looked at the second table, and saw that Kenwright had ringed a further collection, this time of what looked like strips of green leather, charred and soaked with moisture. Box suddenly recollected Sergeant Knollys in the Belvedere, stooping down pulling a fragment of leather from the ruin. ‘Looks like the spine of a book,’ he’d said ….

  ‘Constable, what are these green fragments here, do you think?’

  ‘Those, sir? Well, they look like parts of books until you examine them closely. They look like bits of the covers of books, but when you turn them over there’s no white or marbled paper gummed on them, which is what you’d expect to see – like on this ledger that I’m writing in. I don’t rightly know about those bits. They look like parts of books, sir, but they may have been something else.’

  Yes, thought Box. They looked like something else. Dummies ….

  PC Kenwright left his task, and joined the inspector at the second table.

  ‘We salvaged hundreds of things from that wreckage, sir. You see all those little things glinting in that jar? Little cogs and wheels. They’ll be from the timing-clock in the detonator, I expect. Or perhaps Dr Seligmann had a clock in there, and they’re part of the clock. Or maybe it’s a mixture of both.’

  He pointed to some further items arranged in a wooden tray.

  ‘Those tiny wheels and bits of metal are what’s left of the poor doctor’s watch. There’s all sorts coming out here, sir.’

  Box picked up a small picture frame, which Kenwright had used to hold a thick piece of paper on which was printed the letters EISS. Mounted beneath it was a brief note, written in what Box recognized as the sprawling and spiky handwriting of Mr Mack:

  ‘FEISSEN WERKE. This is part of one of the labels attached to sticks of dynamite and other explosives made by the Feissen armaments and explosive factories in Bohemia.’

  Box placed the little frame carefully back on the table.