by P. W. Child
The taxi crawled around the corner onto the bustling Strand. Sam barely noticed. He was intent on keeping up with this new information. “So how come he painted the same thing twice? Didn’t that seem a bit suspicious?”
“Perhaps at first, but both Raoul and Katrina knew that van Eyck was in Philip’s pay. They believed themselves to be using him as a spy against their Duke! So once he had finished the portrait that they wanted for themselves, the one that we have here, which would be a status symbol never seen outside the Order, they allowed him to make a copy to send to his employer. Van Eyck was a clever man. He argued that he was not allowed to take private commissions from burghers while he was still obliged to Philip, so in order to keep the Duke sweet, they must appear to present the painting to him. The copy that he created had one major difference – instead of the Black Sun appearing on the back wall, he painted a mirror showing the faces of the men in the room. To Raoul and Katrina, blissfully confident of the Order’s secrecy, this was nothing more than a demonstration of van Eyck’s capacity for trick perspective. But to Philip, it was a clear indicator that those men were involved in the Order. One by one, they perished at Philip’s command. He very nearly brought down the Order altogether – it’s my belief that he would have done, had Katrina not supplied him with valuable information that secured his victory in the Hook and Cod wars, bringing Holland under his control. The price of her intelligence was the Order’s safety guaranteed for her lifetime, and by the time her life ran out Philip had been dead for years and the Black Sun was safely forgotten once again. But now, here we are – enough chatter! It is time for me and my painting to part for some time.”
The taxi swung into the specially built cul-de-sac outside the Savoy Hotel and came to an abrupt halt. While Professor Lehmann paid the cab driver and greeted the hotel staff warmly, Sam and Nina wriggled the crate out onto the pavement. Within seconds a uniformed porter had appeared with a tall brass cart and was carefully transferring the Van Eyck onto it. Without waiting to hear their destination, he rolled it swiftly indoors and into the foyer, while Sam and Nina exchanged glances and followed Professor Lehmann.
Chapter Forty-One
Sam and Nina followed Professor Lehmann through the revolving doors, into the opulent lobby of the Savoy Hotel, past the reception desk towards a small office, discreetly tucked away beyond the plush couches and highly polished tables. The porter wheeling the crate attempted to stop him, to steer him towards the receptionists or the concierge’s desk, but Lehmann was having none of it.
“I assure you, my good man, I know where I am going. The concierge, I see is not at his desk, and we must speak to him on urgent, private business. Please locate him at once. We shall wait here.”
“Certainly, Sir.” The porter looked a little confused, but he knew better than to argue. He pointed to the crate. “Shall I send this up to your room?”
“Leave it here with us,” said Lehmann. He offered no explanation for their determination to keep the mysterious package with them. Leaning heavily on his cane, he sank down onto an overstuffed sofa and crossed his legs. “And please – send someone over so that we can order some tea.”
Taking their cue from Lehmann, Sam and Nina sat down too. A discreet signal from the porter sent a waiter scurrying across the checkered floor to take their order. Somehow, between the porter’s departure and the waiter’s arrival Professor Lehmann’s ideas about what they should be drinking altered somewhat. The order that came out of his mouth was not for tea at all, but for three large gin and tonics. ‘He definitely seems to know Nina well,’ Sam thought.
He looked around at his elegant surroundings. He had not seen these intricate friezes, the warm wood paneling, the chic pendant lamps for a long time. Places like the Savoy had always been a little too upmarket for Sam’s tastes, but he had fond memories of crashing a party with Trish. A book launch, as he recalled, for some author whom neither of them had heard of, but Trish had a friend who was photographing the event and smuggled them in. They had taken full advantage of the free-flowing champagne and sneaked back out with Sam’s pockets and Trish’s bag stuffed with stolen canapés. ‘I know you’re supposed to grow out of doing that kind of thing once you get past your student years,’ he thought, grinning at the memory, ‘but we couldn’t resist. We brought out the worst in each other.’
“You said that you were instructed to give a particular name when you deposit the painting,” said Professor Lehmann. “What name was it, again?”
Despite being sure that she had memorized the instructions, Nina checked the cards again. “Maria de Beck,” she replied.
Lehmann gave a short, staccato laugh. “Whoever devised this scheme has a sense of humor, and indeed of history.”
“And we’ve to make sure that it gets put in the Gaunt Box.”
“Indeed?” he raised his thick white eyebrows. “And do you have any idea of the significance of that name?”
Sam watched Nina expectantly. She looked at him to see if he knew, but he shook his head. She shook hers in reply. “I’m afraid I don’t,” she said.
“You will have heard of John of Gaunt, presumably?”
“Of course,” said Nina. “I studied the Plantagenêts for a while during my undergrad degree, though I’m more familiar with the earlier ones. He was the son of Edward III, the third son if I recall correctly. His mother was… Philippa of Hainault, I think? The name Gaunt was a corruption of Ghent, where he was born.”
“Ghent again,” Sam remarked.
“Ghent again. Apparently he took a lot of stick because he was supposedly a bastard – the son of a Ghent butcher. He used to go into violent rages when people teased him about it. And he… oh.” She trailed off. Sam could see the moment of realization written upon her face. “His seat was the Savoy Palace, wasn’t it?” She looked to Professor Lehmann, who nodded his confirmation. “And he lost it during an uprising – the Peasants’ Revolt? Yes, that’s about right. It was razed to the ground.”
“It was,” said Lehmann. “And a hospital for the needy built in its place some years later, and then eventually this fine establishment in which we find ourselves now. Until the early eighteenth century, the land upon which the Savoy Palace stood – land which forms its own jurisdiction, independent of the County of Middlesex - belonged to the same people.”
“The Order?” Sam guessed.
“Indeed. It had been passed through high-ranking members of the English branch of the Order, and the sale that took place in the 1700s included a condition that any property built here would always accommodate members in need of shelter. I spent my first few weeks in England in this lovely place under that very arrangement, though I doubt the hotel’s staff or even its owners are aware of it. All they know is that a suite is kept under a name that changes every so often so that it appears to change hands. At present, it seems, that name is Maria de Beck. I would imagine that the present Renata, whoever she may be, goes by that name whenever she is in England and in residence here.”
Sam tried to picture the tall, statuesque blonde he only knew as Renata in these surroundings. It was not difficult. Like the fiercely intelligent Nazi prodigy, Lita Røderic, whom they had hopefully dispatched of for good in Valhalla, Renata’s confident, almost arrogant stride and expensive taste in clothes would not be out of place here. She would descend these stairs with her head held high, looking as if she belonged. There would be none of the misgivings that Sam always experienced in places like this.
Renata would feel at home.
She would not watch out of the corner of her eye for the porter or the concierge approaching to ask her to leave. Not that Sam had ever actually been asked to leave – even on the occasions when he had gate-crashed in fancy places, he had always had an instinct for when to get out. But he had always felt that it might happen, and that it would only be fair if it did.
At last the concierge arrived, a short, stout man in a black suit with a small badge on his lapel in the shape of two crossed k
eys. His name was Mr. Barrington, and he was bubbling over with apologies for keeping them waiting. Although he had never seen Sam or Nina before and Professor Lehmann has not stayed in the hotel since the 1940s, at the mention of Maria de Beck he treated them as if they were the most treasured, most honored, most respected guests that the hotel had ever had.
He ushered them into the secluded office. It was not marked Concierge, in fact it almost faded into the background completely. This was a place for business that was not to be interrupted by requests for taxi bookings, table reservations or tickets to the opera. It was oddly sparse after the lavish lobby, with pale walls, a plain desk and chair, some filing cabinets against the wall and a few shelves full of folders and ledgers. The porter wheeled the cart in. The brass still shimmered in the dim light, making it look out of place.
“That will be all, thank you,” Barrington said to the porter and sent him on his way. “Now, how may I help you?”
Sam and Nina stood back and allowed Professor Lehmann to do the talking. Although they all knew the words to say, Lehmann was clearly the one accustomed to dealing with such situations and they were both glad to be spared yet another conversation in which they were left feeling their way through, always in the hopes of saying the necessary word to stay alive.
Nina looked exhausted, Sam noticed. They had spent so much time in each other’s company that he had barely noticed her drawn face, her cheekbones more prominent than they had been before, dark shadows beneath her eyes. He tried not to let this remind him of her ordeal and of how she had looked during their hunt through the Walhalla in Bavaria, where she was gradually eaten away by Lita’s insidious poison. In his mind’s eye she had always been the woman he had met that day at the Braxfield Tower – still slim, but not as gaunt as she looked now, with glossy dark hair and pretty, pointed features shaped into the expression of annoyance that he had come to know so well. He wondered whether a similar change had come over him. How much of a toll had all of this taken on him? ‘Well, with any luck things will calm down soon,’ he thought. ‘We might not be able to escape from the Order, but at least we might be able to win ourselves some breathing space. Once Renata has her painting and they’re assured of our loyalty, we can play along until we’ve recovered enough to think about how we’re going to get out of all this permanently.’ The thought that Professor Lehmann had apparently been searching for a way out for most of his life without ever finding one crossed Sam’s mind, but he forced himself not to think about it. ‘We’ll find a way.’ Sam promised himself. ‘Between the two of us, somehow, we will find a way.’
Realizing that he had tuned out, Sam quickly resumed concentrating on the conversation taking place in front of him. The concierge was nodding vigorously, promising to lead them straight away to the hotel’s safe deposit boxes where they could witness him placing the crate in the Gaunt Box personally.
“The boxes used by our normal guests are close to the reception area,” Barrington said, “but for our more regular visitors, those with whom we have a special relationship, there is a more exclusive area to which only a few select members of staff have access. If you would be so kind as to follow me…”
Rather than taking them back out through the lobby, he led then into a little corridor that ran down behind his office. A pair of double doors waited at the end of the corridor, and at the touch of a button they opened to reveal an elevator with plush seats inside. Sam’s stomach flipped as it began a sharp descent, plunging down into the bowels of the building.
When the lift reached its destination it came to a halt, but the doors did not open, not until Barrington had pressed his palm to a brass panel and allowed his retinas to be scanned. He summoned each of them in turn to speak their names into the concealed microphone at the top of the panel and let their palm scans be taken. “I am afraid I can’t admit you any other way,” he said. “The doors will only open once every person in the lift is accounted for.”
Sam was the last to speak, enunciating his name clearly into the microphone. The doors slid open, and they stepped into the stark white room beyond.
Chapter Forty-Two
The Gaunt Box proved to be less of a box and more of a vault. In order to access it Barrington had to enter a long combination of numbers and submit to another palm scan before the locks clunked back and let him in. He hauled the crate into place, and as he did so Sam stole a glance over his shoulder.
He expected to see a treasure trove, a glimpse of a tiny fraction of the unrecovered Nazi art haul. Instead he saw only blank stone walls. Either the Gaunt Box was seldom used or it was emptied frequently.
“I have done my duty,” the concierge said, dusting off his hands as he came out of the vault. “I trust it is to your satisfaction. No-one else shall enter that vault until Madame de Beck arrives to collect the crate, or until someone is dispatched with her note of hand. Shall we return upstairs?”
They resumed their plush velvet seats in the lift and sat in silence as it transported them back to the ground floor. Sam, Nina and Professor Lehmann were each lost in their own thoughts, or in no thoughts at all, overwhelmed and blank. They walked back along the dim corridor. They allowed Barrington to show them out of his office, back through the lobby and to the main doors.
“If there is anything else I can do to help you, please let me know,” he said, bowing slightly as he ushered them towards the exit.
“Thank you,” said Professor Lehmann, “but I think a cab is all that we require.”
Considering that it was such a short distance from the Savoy back to Peter Street, Sam almost laughed out loud at the idea of taking a taxi. He remembered the distances he had walked in his London days, just to avoid feeling cooped up and crushed on the Tube. It was a different city if you got to know it by walking. Still, Professor Lehmann was an old man and the day’s exertions were starting to tell on him. He leaned on his cane a little more heavily now, and his breath was more ragged. After all the help he had given them, neither Sam nor Nina would have allowed him a moment’s unnecessary discomfort.
“So what do we do now?” Sam asked once they were settled into the taxi. “Presumably we go back to Bruges and talk to Renata?”
“I think so,” said Nina.
“Then I hope that you will accept an invitation to stay with me for tonight,” said Professor Lehmann. “You have completed your task, but I see no reason why you have to rush back straight away. I have plenty of room for guests, and you must be hungry. We can order in a good dinner and you can get a proper night’s sleep before you return.”
Sam and Nina exchanged a glance. “You’re sure?” Nina asked. “I’d love to say yes – I’ll admit that I’m completely wiped and I’d really appreciate a place to sleep. But I don’t want to put you in any more danger, and I can’t imagine that associating with us is particularly safe. Not until we’ve settled things with Renata and the Order.”
Lehmann waved away her concerns. “Whatever trouble I am in,” he said, “I am already in it. Do accept. Please. Nothing would please me more than to spend some time with you and get to know Mr. Cleave a little better. I may even be able to find you legitimate transport back to Belgium, but not until morning.”
“Then yes, please,” said Nina. “Thank you. I’ve no idea how we would have done this without you. As you saw, we weren’t exactly the world’s greatest cat burglars.”
“We’ll leave that sort of thing to the professionals in future,” Sam said. The conversation turned to the all-important subject of what kind of take-away to order as the cab turned onto Peter Street and drew up outside Professor Lehmann’s house. By the time they had climbed out, paid the driver and unlocked the door, they were reaching the consensus that Chinese food would be the best option. Sam’s mouth was beginning to water in anticipation of sweet and sour chicken and egg fried rice as they climbed the stairs. Professor Lehmann showed them to the guest room, where two neatly-made brass beds stood ready, and then they sat in the study and sipped Pernot until
a knock on the door indicated that the food had arrived.
“I’ll go.” Nina stood up and stretched, then headed down to answer the door, while the two men readied themselves for a leisurely conversation. As he sipped at the cool rim of his glass, Sam heard Nina’s voice from downstairs.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
*
Of all the strange things that Sam had ever seen, the sight of Alexandr Arichenkov sitting casually in a leather armchair in an elegant London townhouse was among the strangest. The man looked out of place anywhere that did not smell of diesel or smoke, and his presence made no sense in a place as refined as this.
The Order had sent him. He evidently did not know why. Renata had instructed him to follow Sam and Nina to London and be on hand to bring them back when she gave the word. Alexandr, who never questioned an order that came with a significant sum of money attached, had done as he was bid.
“How did you keep track of us?” Sam asked. “We checked our clothes for GPS trackers and the like.”
“Ah, I had hoped you would not ask me!” Alexandr grinned like a devil. “It is one of Purdue’s devices, and you know how he loves to give these explanations himself. The nanotracker which gave me your position is in the cards.” He pulled out what looked like a smartphone and consulted it. “The cards are currently in your left hand pocket, Nina.”