The Hansa Protocol

by Norman Russell

  ‘Detective Inspector Box? We have not met before, even though your father is one of our patients. I am Elizabeth Barton, the matron here. This hospital exists to treat the sick poor, and is staffed almost entirely by females. Nevertheless, there are male doctors in attendance, as you know. Last night a man purporting to be such a doctor approached one of our patients, Mr Fritz Schneider, and gave him what the poor man may have thought to be a sleeping-draught. The intruder was not a doctor, and the substance that he gave to Mr Schneider was a noxious poison.’

  Matron Barton suddenly abandoned her self-control, burst into tears, and hid her face in her hands. When she spoke, Box heard the voice of the compassionate woman hidden behind the mask of the professional administrator.

  ‘Oh, dear! What am I to do? Such a thing has never happened here in all my years of service. That poor man was brought in here yesterday, because he was knocked down by a runaway horse and cart in Frederick Street. It’s just on the corner from here, which is why we received him.’

  Box recalled something that Inspector Wright had told him before the matron had appeared on the scene. Witnesses to the incident in Frederick Street had sworn that Schneider had been deliberately run down. A failed attempt at murder? Perhaps.

  ‘Can you tell me what kind of injury Mr Schneider had sustained? I knew him, Matron, you see, and I’m very sorry and angry about this. He was a prim and prickly kind of man, but I couldn’t help liking him.’

  ‘I know, Mr Box. He was in great pain, but all he would do was apologize to us for all the trouble he was causing! Poor man …. His right leg was badly fractured, and there were open wounds that could have festered if not treated quickly. Mr Howard Paul saw him almost immediately, and was going to attempt to reset the limb later today. But now ….’

  By a monumental effort of will, Matron Barton composed herself.

  ‘But come, Mr Box, I will take you upstairs to the surgical ward. Your father, I know, is very anxious to talk to you.’

  ‘How is he, Matron? I’ve not been able to call in as often as I’d like.’

  ‘He’s doing very well, Mr Box. He’s been rather feverish for the last two days, but that’s only to be expected. His leg is making great strides – Oh, dear! I hope that doesn’t sound too frivolous! Come, I’ll conduct you up to the ward.’

  ‘How are you, Pa?’

  Old Mr Box was sitting half upright, supported by a mound of pillows. His face was flushed, but his eyes shone not with the light of fever, but the excitement of the chase.

  ‘I’m fine, Arnold, I’m fine. Now pull up that little stool and sit down, while I tell you what happened up here last night. That poor German man, Mr Schneider, was brought in here yesterday. He was supposed to have been run over by a cart. They put him in that bed over there, the fourth one along from the door. He was looked after, and fussed over, and seemed to settle down to sleep—’

  ‘What time was he brought in, Pa?’

  ‘Well, I’m telling you, aren’t I? Don’t interrupt. He was brought in just after three o’clock. Nothing untoward happened until just after midnight. I’ve had a bit of a fever, and couldn’t sleep very well. The night lamps were lit on the big table there, and we all settled down as well as we could.

  ‘At a quarter past twelve, a man came into the ward. He was wearing the kind of long, white coat that the doctors wear, and was carrying a medicine bottle and a glass – one of those little frosted tumblers. I had my eyes half closed, but I was watching him, because he didn’t ring true.’

  ‘What do you mean by that, Pa?’

  ‘He didn’t behave like a hospital doctor. Usually, when they come on to the ward, they glance at every patient as they go along – they’re interested, you see, even if you’re not one of their particular patients. This man looked neither to right nor left. He made straight for Mr Schneider, and – I’d better tell you what he looked like, first. He was of slim but wiry build, five feet ten inches high, fresh complexion, with a half-healed scar on his forehead.’

  Arnold Box thought to himself: Colin McColl couldn’t shoot poor Schneider in the back. Not in a quiet hospital ward. He had used more subtle, but equally deadly means of silencing a potential nuisance.

  ‘You’re marvellous, Pa! Still on duty! This ward’s your new beat …. What happened next?’

  ‘Mr Schneider woke up, and he and the so-called doctor talked for a minute or so. Then Mr Schneider said, “I fancy I’ve seen you somewhere before, Doctor.” And this man replied, “Very likely, Mr Schneider. Where three and a half million people are cooped up together in one city, their paths may cross and re-cross.” And then the man uncorked the bottle, and poured some liquid into the little frosted glass.’

  Old Toby Box seized his son by the wrist, and looked at him with a sudden shade of horror in his eyes. His voice dropped to a whisper.

  ‘Arnold, you could smell the peaches …. There was nothing I could do: I’m helpless here. He held the glass to poor Mr Schneider’s lips, and he drank it. Prussic acid. He would have been dead before that man had reached the ward door.’

  Inspector Box stood in the deep porch of the Royal Free Hospital, and looked out at the gleaming wet cobbles of Gray’s Inn Road. It was raining steadily, but there was a freshness in the accompanying breeze that helped to banish the memory of the intense cold and persistent snow of the earlier part of the month.

  He took Colonel Kershaw’s envelope from his pocket, tore it open, and read the note inside. It told him to come to the rear entrance of the Admiralty building, in St James’s Park, at five o’clock. It was already after four. A solitary cab came slowly along the street. Box hailed it, and told the cabbie to take him to Horse Guards Road.

  Colonel Kershaw was waiting for him under a kind of Doric pillared veranda at the back of the Admiralty building. Box joined him, and together they stood looking out across the park. Kershaw seemed disinclined to move from the sheltered spot.

  ‘Mr Box,’ he said, ‘perhaps your superintendent has spoken to you? Good. I thought that he was owed some kind of explanation for your mysterious absence from your usual hunting-grounds. There’s no need, by the way, to tell me about the unfortunate Schneider. I already know about that. Some day soon, Box, we’ll avenge these deaths. Oh, yes …. But now, very quickly, here are a few points. Seligmann’s letter to Miss Whittaker was very interesting, particularly its reference to something happening on the 25th of the month—’

  ‘I recall, sir, that Dr Seligmann’s wooden calendar had been altered to show that date: Wednesday, 25th January. I think he did it himself. It must mean something.’

  ‘Yes, Box, it must. All I know about it is that it’s the feast of the Conversion of St Paul. It seems to have no other significance. What we must do now, Box, is beard Admiral Holland here, in his lair. He’s the head of Naval Intelligence, and he’s hugging some damned smug secret close to his bosom, something to do with Scotland.’

  Colonel Kershaw turned abruptly, and pushed open the tall glazed door, flanked by two great stone anchors, that would take them both into the hushed corridors of the Admiralty. As they entered the rear vestibule, Kershaw paused for a moment. There was something else he wanted to say.

  ‘Our friend Mrs Poniatowski, Box, has installed herself in Caithness, on Hamish Bull’s doorstep. Why? What possible naval presence could there be in Scotland, apart from the odd patrol-boat? The British Home Fleet is Channel-based. It always has been. Only Admiral Holland can answer our question.’

  Rear Admiral Holland, Box judged, was not far off the retirement age of sixty, but his manner betrayed the energy and resolve of a much younger man. He looked well in uniform, which he wore without self-consciousness but with perhaps just a touch of complacency.

  The admiral ushered Kershaw and Box into his darkly panelled office with its maps and globes, and its chart-covered desk. He sat in a high-backed chair in front of an enormous painting of iron-clad warships at anchor in a spacious harbour. Parchment-shaded lamps added an aura of
quiet opulence to the room.

  ‘Well, now, Colonel Kershaw, whatever brings you into the offices of the Queen’s Navy? I got your note, and made a little space and time for you. How good to see you! Sit down. And you, Mr – er—’

  ‘This is Detective Inspector Box of Scotland Yard. I am about to talk of Intelligence matters, Admiral Holland, but I must insist that this officer shares our confidences. You will have heard of the assassination of Dr Otto Seligmann. Inspector Box here has discovered that Seligmann was holding a copy of The Hansa Protocol and its attendant volumes as a means of neutralizing the German war party.’

  ‘So I have heard, Kershaw. Sir Charles Napier was good enough to inform me of that interesting fact.’

  ‘Therefore you will also know that agents of the German war party have succeeded in destroying those volumes. Box and I have identified a gang of fanatical Pan-Germanists who, we are both convinced, are about to commit some kind of outrage connected with our naval defences.’

  The admiral settled himself further back in his chair. He permitted himself a little smile.

  ‘This is all club talk, Kershaw. Those who shout the loudest are not always the doers of deeds. The British Home Fleet is more than capable of looking after itself.’

  Colonel Kershaw reined in his temper with considerable difficulty.

  ‘I have a direct commission from the Queen, Admiral Holland, to prevent any such outrage from taking place. Will you now tell me what measures have been taken to protect the Channel Fleet, or must I bring you a penned order from the Queen herself?’

  Admiral Holland regarded the earnest secret service chief with an almost indulgent amusement.

  ‘There’s no need to bother the Queen, Kershaw. You – and your celebrated crowd – are a number of years too late with your fears for the Channel Fleet. I suspect that your little gang of German anarchists are also very much out of date.’

  Box saw Holland glance rather doubtfully at him for a moment before continuing. Here’s a man who liked to keep Navy business strictly within the confines of the Navy and its own intelligence services. Well, Box could understand that. The admiral was getting on Kershaw’s nerves, but he had all the appearance of a man to be valued and respected.

  ‘Naval policy, Kershaw,’ Holland continued, ‘is moving with the times, largely as a result of an alliance between senior officers such as myself and a gaggle of younger men who are still walking the decks. The British Mediterranean Fleet, as you will know, is commanded by my old friend Admiral Sir George Tryon. With him at the helm, no foreign power would dare to upset the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean, which means that people like me can safely concentrate on home affairs.

  ‘Let me tell you, Kershaw, about the thinking of our informal alliance, which, I may say, has been successful in making its views official naval policy. For too long our warships of the Home Fleet have been concentrated on the Channel area, as though we were still threatened navally by France. That, I may say, has not been a remote possibility for the past sixty years. But plans are going forward to swing the concentration of fleets up from the Channel towards the German Ocean – the North Sea, as some people are now calling it.’

  ‘The German Ocean? You mean—’

  ‘The tactical and strategic reasons for that move may not be immediately obvious to you, Kershaw. The only threat to our Navies in that area, as you are fully aware, must come from the growing ambitions of the German Empire. It is therefore our wish to organize and equip a British Grand Fleet, and ultimately, when it is up to full strength, exercise it openly for the benefit of anyone who cares to contemplate its might. With Tryon in the Mediterranean, and the projected Grand Fleet in the German Ocean, any potential aggressor, Kershaw, will be effectively hemmed in, and rendered powerless.’

  Admiral Holland warmed to his subject, and Box found himself enthralled by the man’s knowledge, and his enthusiasm for expounding it. He saw that Colonel Kershaw had decided to remain silent until the admiral had finished his exposition.

  ‘Speed is always of the essence,’ Holland continued, ‘and new engines are being developed, new types of cruiser, new, awesomely armed battleships! All these will move in concert under commanders who will be free of antiquated approaches to naval warfare. Of course, there are diehards who want us to doze on complacently, thinking that command of the seas is a divine imperative assigned to Britannia, and that we need to do nothing. Younger minds, for once, know better.’

  ‘They often do,’ Kershaw murmured. Holland seemed not to hear him.

  ‘Now, in the long term, Colonel, we aim at establishing massive, impenetrable harbours for this Grand Fleet at Rosyth, and possibly at Scapa Flow, in the Orkneys. But since 1890 we have begun an intensely secret rehearsal of our intentions, first in certain remote creeks and harbours in the Pentland Firth, lying off the north of Caithness – I beg your pardon?’

  Kershaw had allowed a gasp of realization to burst from his lips.

  ‘There it is, Box, do you hear?’ he cried. ‘Caithness! The mist is clearing, at last. Mrs Poniatowski, our explosive Bohemian, is living openly near Hamish Bull’s estates at Caithness – I’m sorry, Holland. You don’t know what I’m talking about—’

  ‘No, I don’t! So let me continue. Most of these places are lying off the north of Caithness. Later, we envisage a much larger concentration of anchorages in the northern lochs of Ross and Cromarty, from Loch Broom to Cape Wrath. These vast areas of anchorage can be sealed off from public access at any time, and it has been shown that the entire Home Fleet could be stationed in these areas until such time as the Rosyth and Scapa Flow harbours are built.’

  ‘My people have observed fleet movements in the Irish Sea.’

  ‘Yes, Kershaw, it’s all part of the same business. These are dangerous times, as you well know. If the German Admiralty were to get wind of our plans, there would be a very ugly incident, and it would give the German war party ample fuel to stoke its incendiary fires. That’s why we’ve carried out these manoeuvres with great subtlety and caution. So set your mind at rest about the Channel, Kershaw, because the fleets aren’t there.’

  Box listened to Holland’s complacent, almost patronizing voice as he expounded Naval policy for the benefit of his visitors. Didn’t the man appreciate the irony of the situation? With every word the admiral spoke, another fragment of the puzzle fitted into place. Holland’s words unwittingly made clear what the German conspirators intended to do. The Home Fleet had moved to Scotland. So had Mrs Feissen. So, no doubt, had Colin McColl.

  Box glanced at Colonel Kershaw, and mouthed the words ‘Conversion of St Paul’. Kershaw, who had been sitting in absorbed silence, suddenly found his voice.

  ‘If I were to say January 25th, Admiral Holland, would it have any significance for you?’

  A frown of annoyance creased the admiral’s brow.

  ‘Really, Colonel Kershaw, this is too bad! No one should know about the 25th. Not even the people here know about it. Just Her Majesty and His Royal Highness. Very well, you may as well be told. On that day, the whole of the Home Fleet will have completed a secret rehearsal – no less than its arrival in concentration in the provisional harbours. Indeed, all but a few of the capital ships are already there. HMS Fearnought arrived from Portsmouth last Thursday, the 12th. It’s one of the greatest exercises that the Royal Navy has ever undertaken.’

  Colonel Kershaw took a few moments to frame his answer. When he did speak, it was with his usual dry, rather world-weary tone, but there was a tremor of anger underlying it.

  ‘When you speak of His Royal Highness, am I to understand that you are referring to the Prince of Wales?’

  ‘I am. On the 25th of this month, as a seal of the royal approval of the new strategy, the Prince of Wales will step on board HMS Leicester, which will then pass through the fleets arrayed overall. The Leicester came up from Portsmouth at the same time as HMS Fearnought. The whole brilliant exercise has been overseen by a very able man called Commodore
Cartwright, acting in concert with his captains. I assume that one of your untiring minions picked up that date, the 25th, from one of my careless people here.’

  A hideous vision suddenly arose, unbidden and unwelcome, before Box’s eyes: HMS Leicester, torn apart by a massive explosion, plunged to the bottom of the sea, taking with it the Prince of Wales. The Empire would respond with ungovernable rage, thirsting for retribution. The German war party thirsted for conflict. Well, if that vision were to become reality, they would have their desire, with a vengeance ….

  Box was recalled to the present by Kershaw, who had swallowed his anger enough to respond to Holland’s complacent words.

  ‘I am, as you know, Admiral Holland,’ said Kershaw, ‘usually au fait with the activities of Naval Intelligence, because you, or others here at the Admiralty, have the courtesy to send me the occasional note. On the matter of the 25th January, apparently, it was thought that I was not to be trusted—’

  ‘My dear Kershaw, you know that isn’t true! I simply judged that the fewer who knew about the 25th, the better.’

  ‘Very well. And I want you to know that my knowledge of that crucial date, Admiral, came not from some talkative junior here at the Admiralty, not from what you’re pleased to call my “untiring minions”, but from that police inspector there, and his colleagues, who have trudged and tramped through snow and slush for a week or more turning up clues and following up leads. It was Inspector Box there, and his sergeant, who brought that date, the 25th, to light.’