The Hansa Protocol

by Norman Russell

  Lieutenant Fenlake and Vanessa Drake waited for a cab to make its rather leisurely way along Whitehall, and then crossed the carriageway. The soot-stained pile of the Admiralty rose behind its screening colonnade of stone. They stood for a moment at the gas lamp in front of the arched entrance, as though uncertain what to say or do next.

  ‘You’ll be all right by yourself?’ asked Fenlake. She could see that he was concealing his impatience, his wish to hurry through that arch and into the warren of offices constituting the old Admiralty buildings.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Arthur. I’ll walk back to Trafalgar Square, and get an omnibus home from there. The National Gallery’s a wonderful place, and it was a fascinating exhibition. It would have been nice to have stayed a bit longer.’

  Her eyes strayed across the road, where she could see the dingy entrance to Great Scotland Yard. Somewhere in that warren of poky streets Louise Whittaker’s friend, Inspector Box, would be working away in his office. No dull routine for him! Mr Box had discovered that Arthur was not, after all, being led into dangerous paths at the gaming-table. She wondered for a moment how he had found that out. How fascinating it must be to work as a detective!

  She would always feel kindly towards Arthur Fenlake, but it had become more and more obvious that this handsome, rather unimaginative young man was married to his work. A wife, at this stage in his career, would become a resented inconvenience. Well, she had begun to realize that herself. She would contrive ways of letting him know that she would always be there as a friend, and leave it at that.

  ‘I might have to go to the Continent,’ he said. ‘Any day, now’

  She looked at him, as he stood near the lamp standard, so smart and unconsciously elegant, longing to get through that arch and into the fray. He had the appearance of a wealthy young man about town, but he was not that.

  ‘You’re not just a soldier, are you?’ she suddenly asked him. ‘Ordinary soldiers don’t have urgent business so often at the headquarters of the Navy.’

  He shied away from her like a frightened colt.

  ‘What? Of course I’m a soldier, Vanessa. What an odd thing to say. I’m just …. I’m just a soldier. I must dash. I simply must! You’ll be all right?’

  Vanessa Drake smiled, and laid a hand lightly on his.

  ‘Yes, Arthur,’ she said, ‘I’ll be all right.’

  Louise stood uncertainly for a moment on the cobbles, and looked up at 2 King James’s Rents. The general impression was one of grimy windows in a soot-stained façade. A number of weathered iron Maltese crosses showed where tie-beams ended. Arnold Box always referred to this place as ‘The Rents’, and she could see that there were other ancient, dilapidated buildings attached to it at various odd angles. She mounted the steps and found herself in a dim vestibule that smelt of stale gas and mildew. An elderly police sergeant in uniform stepped out from a narrow front office, and looked at her enquiringly over a pair of wire spectacles. He was a heavily bearded man, who walked with a limp.

  ‘Inspector Box, ma’am? He’s in the streets at the moment, but he should be back soon. You can wait on the bench there by the entrance, or you can step into the office here, if you like.’

  Miss Whittaker accepted the hospitality of the office. It was a gloomy place, smelling of stale ink and wet serge. The ceiling was stained and cracked, and the room was lit by an unadorned fishtail burner. ‘In the streets’? Whatever could that mean? Whatever his errand, he’d forget all about it when he had heard what she had to tell him.

  The sergeant busied himself at a tall desk, writing in a ledger. From time to time other men came in, some uniformed, some in civilian clothing, to address various cryptic remarks to the old sergeant. They all glanced briefly at the lady visitor, and then ignored her presence entirely.

  Presently, Louise Whittaker heard the sound of raised voices somewhere on the floor above. Two men were evidently indulging in a noisy argument. To her alarm the violent altercation increased. A high-pitched but powerful tenor voice launched itself into some kind of vehement denunciation, only to be drowned out by a positively frightening stentorian bellow. There was silence for a while, and then the whole process was repeated. This time, there was the sound of a chair crashing over.

  The elderly sergeant sighed, and produced a substantial set of handcuffs from the desk. He smiled at Miss Whittaker, and limped out of the room, swinging the handcuffs as he went.

  In a few moments the frightful row upstairs abruptly ceased, and the stentorian voice relieved itself of some kind of admonitory speech.

  Miss Whittaker glanced out into the hall, and saw the bearded sergeant walking with measured tread down the stairs. The handcuffs were now tucked in his belt. He was followed by a wiry little man in merchant navy uniform. His ginger beard bristled with indignation, but there was a certain cowed look about him. His face was red, not with anger but with blushing. He looked neither to right nor left, and bustled indignantly out into the street.

  ‘In Heaven’s name, Sergeant, what was that dreadful altercation? I feared that violence was about to be done.’

  The sergeant smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Oh, no, ma’am, there was no fear of that. It was just a gentleman connected with one of our cases having a difference of opinion with Superintendent Mackharness upstairs. In cases like that, I usually go up and wave the handcuffs about. It always does the trick. That was the gentleman, him what just went out now. Naval sort of man, he was.’

  ‘Is Superintendent Mackharness a pleasant man? He sounds quite stern through the ceiling.’

  The sergeant seemed struck by Louise’s question. Evidently it was a matter he’d not considered before. He put his pen down on the desk, and stroked his beard thoughtfully.

  ‘Pleasant? No, miss, since you ask: he’s not pleasant. Not in the least. But he’s the senior officer here, and people must speak respectful when they go up to see him. Respectful.’

  The sergeant returned to his labour of writing in the ledger. It had begun to rain, and it was getting quite dark in the little office. The sergeant turned up the gas, and threw a scuttleful of coal on to the fire. Somehow, the action only emphasized the chilliness of the gloomy place.

  Louise Whittaker began to long for her neat and well-ordered house in Finchley. Was it really possible, she wondered, for a woman ever to be a detective in a place like this? Why did it have to be so wretchedly drab?

  A jaunty young man in plain clothes popped his head through the door and said, ‘Digger Davies has just turned up, floating in the Regent’s Canal. Head stove in by a brick. Thought you’d like to know, Pat.’

  The jaunty man caught sight of Louise Whittaker.

  ‘Beg pardon, miss,’ he said, ‘I didn’t see you there.’

  ‘So your name’s Pat, is it?’ Louise faltered. She was cold and apprehensive, and felt impelled to speak to her saturnine companion rather than just sit still, a useless piece of decoration in a rough and threatening world. She had imagined Inspector Box in a small, book-lined office, receiving her with his usual confused gallantry, and then listening with dawning appreciation to her revelations. It was not going to be like that.

  ‘Yes, miss. Sergeant Driscoll, known as “Pat”. Ah! I think this will be Mr Box, now.’ They both heard the sound of iron tyres grating to a stop on the cobbles of King James’s Rents. ‘Yes, here he is. He’ll be with you presently.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant Driscoll. I’ll just—’

  A frightful crash of doors flying open drove her words from the air. From the safety of the office she saw a mass of struggling men fall into the entrance hall. One of them was Inspector Box, whose hat rolled away across the floor as a brawny arm circled his throat. There were three uniformed policemen in the grunting, struggling heap. One of them prised the arm from Box’s throat in time for him to shout, ‘Get the darbies on him, for God’s sake, Wilson! Stamp on his hand, Jack, or he’ll have your guts out with that blade!’

  Without warning the whole seething
heap rose a few feet into the air and a hideous soprano voice began to shriek out threats and obscenities. Louise Whittaker caught sight of a convulsed face, black with grime, a loose red mouth apparently filled with broken teeth, and rolling bloodshot eyes.

  There was a clatter of boots from some unseen corridor and several more men appeared. In a few moments, the hideous prisoner was subdued and turned on to his stomach. One of the reinforcements forced his squirming wrists into a pair of handcuffs. The knot of detectives stood up. One big, heavy young man with a badly scarred face held a handkerchief to a knife slash below the jaw line. Inspector Box roughly turned the captive on to his back and stared into his contorted grimy face.

  Louise felt sick. This was horrible. They were all brutes ….

  ‘You’re going downstairs, Baby-Boy,’ Box panted. His face was convulsed with anger. ‘You’re going in the bear-pit to cool off, and then I’ll be down to ask you a few questions.’

  The loathsome soprano voice burst out again into a string of obscenities. Box’s voice rose to a dangerous shriek.

  ‘Shut it, do you hear! You’re done for, Baby, so keep a civil tongue in your head. If you start your cursing again, we’ll gag you. You wouldn’t like that.’

  Inspector Box retrieved his hat and stood up, while the group of policemen dragged the now subdued prisoner away towards the basement steps. The whole violent episode had lasted no more than five minutes. To Louise Whittaker it seemed an age.

  Box and the scarred man pushed open some glazed doors and were about to enter a room that she could not see when an elderly man in a frock coat appeared at the head of the stairs. He stooped a little, and sported fine, white, mutton-chop whiskers. The man seemed to have been totally unaware of the affray that had just taken place.

  ‘Box,’ the elderly man called down, ‘up here, if you please. Half an hour hence.’

  Box made some reply that Louise Whittaker could not hear, and then disappeared through the glazed doors with his companion. The bearded Sergeant Driscoll got up from his desk.

  ‘Mr Box will be able to see you now, miss,’ he said. He, too, seemed not to have noticed the frightening struggle that had taken place within feet of where he sat. She followed him from the gloomy front office and crossed the bare floorboards of the entrance hall. The sergeant pushed open one of the glass doors and said, ‘Miss Whittaker, sir.’

  Box glanced in her direction, but his flushed, angry face seemed not to see her.

  ‘I don’t want him up tomorrow on the police-court sheet,’ Box said. ‘I want him on a Surrey Magistrates’ Warrant. He’s been round my neck for three years. I’ll swing for him one day, Sergeant Knollys. I’ll do time for him. I want him down for good.’

  Why had she imagined for one moment that she could belong to Arnold Box’s violent world? She had no right to be here, interfering. These men laboured night and day to hold back the tide of chaos and anarchy that constantly threatened society. Box’s world did not consist exclusively of the affair of Dr Otto Seligmann. Why had she come?

  Box suddenly caught sight of her, and the anger melted from his face as though by a miracle. He hurried across from where he had been standing by a large table, covered with a jumbled sprawl of papers and books.

  ‘Miss Whittaker! Come in. How nice to see you. This is my office. I’m sorry it’s not very shipshape at the moment …. This is my colleague, Sergeant Knollys.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, miss,’ said Sergeant Knollys.

  The big, scar-faced man had been standing by a large fly-blown mirror, holding a blood-soaked handkerchief to his jaw. He turned round as he spoke, and smiled, and she was startled to see in his smile a knowledge that she and Box were acquainted. Surely he didn’t talk about her? Surely ….

  ‘Sit down in this chair near the fire, Miss Whittaker,’ said Box. ‘Sergeant Knollys, if you’re going to bleed all over the place you’d better go. You need stitches in that gash. Go and find Dr Cropper, and tell him to sew you up. Then go down to Beak Street and see Mr Shale. Or if you’re too bloody to go, send Wilson or Roberts. Mr Shale will get us a Surrey docket before tonight.’

  When the glazed doors had swung closed behind Knollys, Inspector Box seemed to Louise to undergo a subtle change. The determined brutality that had animated him receded, and she saw once again the diffident, confiding friend who came out to Finchley in an omnibus to talk and have his tea with her. The large, grimy room began to take on a more intimate atmosphere. She saw the fireplace, the mirror with its notes, the round-faced railway clock high on the wall. Somehow, the office now seemed smaller and more intimate than when she had first crossed its threshold.

  Box sat down opposite her, and looked keenly into her eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘Mr Box, I have discovered some information of vital importance, and I have come straight to you here at King James’s Rents to impart it to you.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Box repeated his question. ‘You look different … intimidated, if that’s the right word. What is it?’

  Louise Whittaker felt herself blushing. It was like him, she thought, to let concern for her feelings override his professional curiosity.

  ‘I thought it would be so simple, Mr Box. I would come here and give you the benefit of my wisdom, and go away smirking with self-satisfaction. Instead of which, I stumbled into a rough, crude world of violence …. There was a frightful row upstairs between that superintendent and some kind of sea-captain—’

  ‘Was there, now? Well, he’ll tell me about that in half-an-hour’s time. I wonder who won that particular row?’

  ‘The superintendent did. He bellowed like a bull. I thought the ceiling would fall.’

  Inspector Box laughed, and leaned back in his chair.

  ‘And then, while I was sitting in the front office with Sergeant Driscoll, you burst in with those others, and went rolling around on the floor, all spitting and cursing. That horrible man with the squeaky voice! He was like an animal. And here was I, with my clever little discovery, all ready to amaze and stun you. I should never have come.’

  ‘I see. So having accepted my offer to join my special posse, you want to back out? You’ve decided that it’s just a job for brutes?’

  She could hear the hint of mocking challenge beneath the words, and began to form a reply, but Box continued.

  ‘Any other day of the week, Miss Whittaker, this place would have been as quiet as the tomb. You just happened to choose this day of all days, when Superintendent Mackharness decided to erupt like a volcano, and I had to bring in Baby-Boy Contarini, one of the most desperate villains in London. We chained him to the window frame in the growler, but he nearly had us over on the bridge. He’s as strong as an ox, is Baby.’

  ‘What has he done?’

  ‘You’ve heard about the Islington Pawnbrokers? Well, Baby-Boy is the one who slit their throats. He did that, and burned them up in their shops to cover his tracks. But he wasn’t quite clever enough. It’s a long story – another story. So you want to back out?’

  It was her turn to laugh. He was so obviously glad to see her, and so clearly determined to make her stay the course. And so she would.

  ‘No, Mr Box. I don’t want to “back out”, as you so inelegantly put it. In future, I’ll choose a quieter day, when you’re deep in contemplation. You and Sergeant – Knollys, did you say?’

  ‘That’s it, miss. Jack Knollys. Now, you’d better tell me what you’ve discovered. In a quarter-of-an-hour’s time I’m due upstairs to hear the latest words of wisdom from my lord and master.’

  Lieutenant Fenlake watched Vanessa Drake for a moment as she walked off towards Trafalgar Square. She’d be all right. There were plenty of people about. Anyway, she was a Londoner born. It wasn’t as though she was a visitor, or anything like that.

  He hurried under the archway, and through one of several dark doorways in the block of buildings to the right of the front court. His journey took him along a matted corridor and three sets
of swing doors, which brought him to a long, dim room, where a dozen soberly dressed clerks were writing away busily at their desks. One of the clerks, an elderly puckish man with a smooth round face, looked up, and put his quill pen down on the desk.

  ‘Mr Fenlake, sir! I’m afraid there’s to be no rest for you today. There’s a new assignment waiting for you!’

  The clerk took a small buff envelope from a pigeon-hole, and handed it to Fenlake.

  ‘There you are, sir. You’re folio 8 of the 6th January, unsealed at 4.24 p.m. It’s a return assignment, Mr Fenlake, so you’ll need to come back here to the cipher-office to close and seal when you’ve done.’

  Lieutenant Fenlake tore open the envelope and extracted a slip of white paper. He read it through, and then thrust it without comment into his pocket. It was a routine task, an initial meeting with another courier, a new man who needed to be shown the ropes.

  ‘Thank you, Anson. I’ll be on my way. But tell me, aren’t you usually over there, at that desk by the staircase?’

  ‘Usually, sir, yes. But one of the cipher-clerks didn’t sign in today, so we’re doubling up, if you see what I mean.’

  One of the clerks …. Fenlake stared at the desk, with its blotter, pen rack, and set of pigeon-holes, all made in dark mahogany. It was Anson who dealt with his assigniments, but he could recall the man who usually sat at this desk near the door, a young man, neatly dressed, self-effacing. He’d once caught his eye, and received a neutral glance from the man.

  That face …. He saw it again in his mind’s eye, enlivened by exertion, soot-stained, eyeing him with a strangely intense and cynically amused expression. A Scotsman – the man with the plank at Chelsea.

  ‘This clerk? What is his name?’

  ‘His name’s Colin McColl, sir. He’s been with us on a part-time basis nigh on a year, now.’