“They probably won’t be stopped by us. Anyway, four of us will give us all a bit of Polish courage.”
The room we entered by the open door was plainly furnished — a simple table and a couple of nondescript wooden chairs, a cupboard and some shelves with kitchen things. Through an open doorway beyond, in darkness, lay the kitchen itself. There were sheets of blank paper both on the table and scattered on the floor, and an ink bottle had been toppled over, spilling its dark liquid on the table, over the papers, and then onto the tiled floor. This was the first sign of a disturbance. The gas mantles hissed steadily.
If we were to find the staircase, it was going to be found more to the front of the house. The door out of the back room was open but no lights were lit. Müller held up the lantern as we moved towards the front hall. Now the decor was different. An attempt at faux gentility or tasteless romance or both had been made. The walls were decorated with a velvet-flocked paper. Curtains and drapes were swagged and tasseled. All was of an insidious red colour. There were some tawdry divans in the main room we came to, but no other furniture.
Then there was the staircase. As we climbed I noticed the shapes on the wall of pictures that had been taken away; just their ghostly outlines in the dust remained. Some vulgar plasterwork of poorly sculpted cherubs heralded the entrances to four bedrooms. A short, narrow corridor ahead led to the room over the one at the back by which we had entered.
None of us said a word. We hardly breathed. Müller was ahead with the lantern, which threw grotesque shadows of those who followed him onto the constricted enclosure of this corridor. I felt Müller recoil back for a moment as his light fell on the scene in front of him, then he turned.
“I think Milady should go no further.”
“I must, Müller.” I had to steel myself to anything. Adventures were not for the faint-hearted. I must not show weakness.
He stood back, holding the light aloft. Half on the bed in the room, half propped against the wall, was the body of a woman. It had been as artlessly arranged as a glove tossed onto a chair. I recognised her eyebrows — but how people are different without life, without any ability to respond or to answer or to look. What had been a woman was now just an object for our horror and curiosity.
Her face was spattered with deep blue ink as well as blood, and the most gruesome feature of this scene was that she had been stabbed violently across her chest and neck. I wanted to be sick.
Jirka Minor seemed to be far more robust than I. He had spotted something in one of the woman’s hands and gently prised open two fingers of her closed fist. The fact that this was the corpse of a brutally murdered woman seemed not to concern him. Stuck to the palm of her right hand, by the bulb of the base of the thumb was a postage stamp. The young boy loosened it and held it up. It was a Russian stamp bearing the familiar head of the Tsar.
“I think I have to leave, Müller,” I said.
***
I was back in the carriage again. I can hardly remember how I was brought there. Müller was pouring something into a glass from a silver flask with the nonchalant air of a summer picnic.
“A little schnapps, Milady?”
Jirka Minor held out for me a cheap notebook with cloth covers. “This was under a chair in the downstairs room — beneath some papers,” he said. “Is it important?”
“I am sure it must be,” I replied. Actually my one thought was getting back home. I felt weak. “Your work is finished here. Come back the both of you and get warm by the kitchen stove. Are you too young for some medicinal brandy?”
Before I retired, I had just enough energy for Müller to get a connection to Inspector Schneider’s home telephone. The Inspector had insisted on giving me his card with this number and the other information prominently printed on it in shiny thermographic ink — the poor man’s form of engraving.
“Inspector,” I said as brightly as I was able considering the terrible things I had witnessed, “I think you had better send men around immediately to 166 Jeseniova Street. I am led to believe there has been a murder there. I would be obliged if you would call on me for what very little I know about the affair at eleven tomorrow.”
“Eleven…morning?” he said, sounding a little confused. Perhaps he had already gone to bed and I was awakening him. A man his age should be up all hours, for Heavens’ sake.
“Inspector,” I remonstrated, “now, would I mean eleven in the evening?”
“You already have — and more,” was his very apt response.
***
Sleep was again elusive. I was haunted by the staring eyes of the dead woman. The more I saw them in my mind the more I was impressed by the idea that they also had looked surprised. Could such an expression linger after death — in the way a watch can be stopped permanently, recording the exact moment of some catastrophe? If the deed had been done by her mad, unstable, wayward lover or husband — then she could hardly have been surprised.
But for certain she was the sender of the postcards. They had been written in Prague and sent to St. Petersburg for posting back. I guessed that she lacked credit or friends there because she had to have the stamps already stuck onto them. It had been an elaborately staged plan to spread panic amongst Number One-Six-Six’s clients. She had also been the writer of the blackmail letters. I was suddenly reminded of the notebook which Jirka Minor had handed me. Where was it?
I got out of bed and opened the door to my boudoir. I switched on the electric light. Yes, the notebook was there — along with my hastily discarded boy’s clothes. There was a blood spatter on the cover. All the papers scattered about that lower room had been blank sheets, that someone must have been thorough enough to try to remove anything which gave any clues to the woman’s activities. The notebook had apparently got hidden from view and thus overlooked.
It was the register of callers to One-Six-Six, with — wherever possible — their real names and addresses or scraps of addresses for them. It was in two distinct hands. The first was in a recognisably English hand — that of this man Hammond, perhaps, who had started the establishment. The second was the Russian woman’s.
There were perhaps two or three hundred names here, maybe more. I knew several personally from just taking a quick shuffle through the pages. I knew of many more: some were names at the very top of Society. Each one was the possible target for blackmail. This book with its greasy covers and cheap lined paper could ruin the reputations of so many men who were otherwise going about by day as the most respectable of citizens. In the eyes of the world their abnormal propensities would make outcasts of them. My Uncle Berty, had he been, as the writer of our encyclopaedia had put it, “a female soul trapped in a male body”? I just didn’t understand. Female souls weren’t generals, surely? And would female souls wish to risk all they had in dirty little villas like the one on Jeseniova Street?
I did understand that this book could do no one any good. I threw the shawl over me that had been draped over a small settee and went out into the corridor. The palace didn’t have the luxury of central heating and the big ceramic stoves in each room were charged by small furnace doors in the corridors so that servants could do this work unseen. I opened the door to the stokehole behind the boudoir and threw the book in. I waited a moment to ensure it was fully consumed by the flames which licked up and around it, shrivelling it quickly to black wisps of carbon. It was gone. For good. And for this, at least, I felt an enormous sense of relief.
***
“I can’t work out, Countess, if trouble simply follows you around or you manage to cause it,” said the Inspector. I took this as some kind of humorous aphorism. “But how came you to be there in the first place? That house — we had words with the owners a few months ago: ‘Either you close or we close you down.’”
“Oh, so you knew about it?”
“Look, of course the police know these things. Our job is not actually to persec
ute Widernatürliche Unzucht.”
“You mean sodomy?”
“Well, in law it’s defined as ‘unnatural lewdness’ — that’s good for five years. But the authorities don’t want the prisons full of men just following their urges.”
“Especially if those men are generals, judges, bishops, financiers?”
“So we allowed the Café Carl to go on, and the Café Scheidl. They are harmless enough. Safer than men meeting anonymously in the Karlov Gardens after dark. But when it comes to an out-and-out male brothel, then there are the dangers of pimps, procurement, blackmail. That Russian dancer who took it over — we didn’t like him a bit.”
“What about Hammond — the man who started it?”
“You are well informed. Yes, Charles Hammond. The Metropolitan Police in London sent us a file on him. He ran the notorious male brothel in Cleveland Street, which they closed down in 1889. Since then he has been in various places in Europe. He tried to do something in Turkey for a while, perhaps it was procurement. But he found out just in time that British subjects there, are in fact under British jurisdiction, and got out just in time. We had a report of him in Budapest — advertising his Poses Plastiques, then he turned up in Prague. He was a friend of this Duvalier. In the last six months we haven’t seen him, which means he’s either dead or he’s up to something bigger.”
“And in London, did he have any connection, do you think, with Sir Emile Brodsky?”
“I’ve not thought to connect them. You see, all relevant records in the Cleveland Street files have been — shall we say — lost. That affair was reported in our papers, but never in the London ones, that someone of the very highest rank was involved besides the two lords who were named. Someone much higher. It was all hushed-up. I don’t want to burn my fingers by delving too deep. But you still haven’t answered my first question.”
“The address was written on an envelope in my late Uncle Berty’s study. General Schönburg-Hartenstein was the subject, I believe, of an attempt at blackmail.”
“He and others. If only we had all the names.”
“Then you would have, no doubt, a comprehensive directory of the sodomites of Prague. That could be used to protect them — or to destroy them.”
I realised I should have spent more time at that wretched house on Jeseniova Street. I had only entered one of the upstairs rooms, but I didn’t have the stomach for more. Perhaps I didn’t really have the stomach for this work at all.
I told Schneider a slightly edited account of last night’s activities, and that I believed the woman to have been one of the blackmailers. But now there was another link, this man Hammond with Duvalier. But the Russian?
***
I could see the telegraph boy in the street outside as I was watching Schneider cross the road and make his way back to his office. In a minute, Müller was handing me an overseas cable. It was from Max in London:
INSPECTOR GREY INFORMS BRODSKY LEFT COUNTRY YESTERDAY TRAVELLING BIARRITZ STOP BEING FOLLOWED STOP THATS IF ITS BRODSKY QUESTION STOP SOMETHING NOW BEGINNING AM SURE STOP MAX
Biarritz, I was thinking. The seaside, at this time of year?
Chapter Ten
The Scheme Begins
Nothing much happened for the next five days. Hans Grübbe, the actor, continued to attend the office of the Felix Theatre which was now receiving callers resembling Emmy Destinnova. The Russian dancer was not seen and neither did Jenks visit the theatre. I had cancelled invitations, as I was in mourning, and yet, I was in no mood to see Aunt Ludmila again. With all that I was beginning to discover about Uncle Berty, what could I possibly say to her?
Only one small incident occurred. Müller informed me that he had been passing by the back of the empty Royal Court building, next to the Powder Tower, where he had seen our old chef, Monsieur Yves, handing over a sack to a gentleman. Yves had seemed rather embarrassed to have been spotted, especially by Müller. As Yves came away, Müller caught him and engaged him in conversation.
It transpired that the gentleman was in the habit of buying empty champagne bottles which Yves had procured from the Head Waiter of his hotel in the street opposite. “And just as when they are full,” Yves had said, “he pays more for the best vintages. Best prices for 1880 to 1887.”
“The gentleman had red hair, I suppose?” I asked Müller.
“Yes, Milady,” he said gravely, “our friend Jenks.”
“And tell me, Müller, I suppose too that these gatherings at The Union of Servants are strictly teetotal?”
“Oh yes, Milady. Strictly — but how could you possibly know that? Anyway, for our gala outing next month they are to make an exception.”
“So you are still going?”
“Only if I can be of use to you, Milady.”
“Good. That’s settled then.”
I dismissed Müller. Yes, it was all beginning to add up. For example: His Majesty King Edward VII had a small, long-haired terrier.
I toyed with the idea of informing Schneider about this sighting of Jenks, for it would be easy to set a trap for the man. I toyed, yes — but I would keep this to myself for the moment, to use this avenue when I needed it. In the end, Jenks would lead us somewhere, I felt sure.
On the Monday of the following week I received a letter, a cable, and a telephone call — all in the space of half an hour. It was exciting! The letter was from Max:
My Dear Trixie,
I have been in regular contact with Inspector Grey. Contrary to the opinion you probably have of them, the Metropolitan Police have been intensely interested in Sir Emile Brodsky and his visit to Marienbad — despite the fact that there are instructions from the highest in the land that there can be no suspicion attached to his activities. This does, of course, pose the question as I stated in my telegram that is ‘If it is the real Sir Emile in London?’
No more has been seen of this man Jenks here, and despite a watch on the ports it is believed he has slipped away. On Tuesday Inspector Grey told me that Brodsky had left London that morning on the boat train, destination Biarritz. He was alone without even a valet. Grey said that they had managed to place an officer on the train and his whereabouts would thus be monitored.
Henry Chudborough has been round to see me twice now. The Foreign Secretary has apparently been asking a lot of questions about you, and Henry thinks they either mean to solicit your help or to arrest you! I think whatever is planned by these villains in Marienbad must be important.
I will write more when there is anything new to report. I admire your courage in following all this through and trust Uncle Berty’s funeral passed well. How was Mamma?
Before I finish, I do have one thing more to report. I did as you said and telephoned Mr. Elderbridge at The Times. Yesterday I received from him by post a cutting from about 4 months ago. It simply reports that in the area of St. John’s Wood and Marylebone over the previous few months there have been no less than twenty-two missing dogs reported. I suppose they are the owners of the collars!
By the way, I popped into The Times today, just to thank Mr. Elderbridge for his trouble. Did you know he’s the All-London Graeco-Roman Wrestling Champion in his weight?
Ever your loving brother,
Max.
P.S. Trans-Siberian Railway shares continue to fall.
I could never have believed that of the diminutive Mr. Elderbridge. It evidently pays never to believe only what one sees. The overseas telegram was also from Max:
BRODSKY HAS GIVEN THEM THE SLIP STOP WASNT ON TRAIN AT BIARRITZ STOP MAX
The telephone call was from Colonel Northcott:
“Beatrice, if I may?”
“Of course, Colonel…James, isn’t it?”
“I am responding to your telegram. I hope you don’t mind me telephoning, but there’s quite a bit to tell you. I contacted my chum in St. Petersburg. This Vasily
Pilipenko was indeed a dancer at the Imperial Court Ballet, but hardly a big star. He danced at the Mariinsky Theatre. In fact he got into rather a lot of trouble — missing money or something — and he was forced to leave the company. Then there were rumours of an even greater scandal involving a Grand Duke. I think the police were told to keep a lid on it, and Pilipenko was offered the chance to get out of the country or face charges for theft. He and his sister — Olga, her name was — left forthwith. Not a nice piece of work, I’d say.”
“Sister? What about his wife?”
“Nothing known about any wife — just this sister Olga, a nasty piece of work, so I am told.”
“When was this?”
“This would have been about two years ago. Now, in answer to your other question — that’s simple. When Heads of State meet, it is customary on occasions when one of them particularly wants to honour the other, for them to exchange uniforms. It’s no secret if I say that later this year His Majesty is coming to Bohemia and Emperor Francis Joseph will visit him in Marienbad. One of my tasks here has been to get all the details correct for an Austrian Field-Marshal’s uniform for His Majesty.”
I was learning secrets by the second. I wanted yet more: “Oh, do go on,” I said.
“Well, actually, Archduke Frederick has already been to London to deliver the thing, but since His Majesty did not permit his correct measurements to be sent to Austria, it was — of course — far too small. My job has been to discreetly pass on the correct ones, especially those relating to girth.”
I thanked him very much for calling and our conversation ended.
Well! Pilipenko’s sister. All the postcards from St. Petersburg were part of their cold-blooded scheme to make it seem like a jealous woman on the rampage. Perhaps Pilipenko had said as much to his victims. Now, for all her scheming, Olga Pilipenko was in the morgue.
***
More slips of paper were beginning to fall into place. So the Kaiser would be meeting the British Head of State. Except that King Edward would not be meeting the Kaiser at all, but a poor actor named Hans Grübbe. Was that what was being planned? And for what purpose? At least it didn’t look any more like a plan for an assassination. For that, you could turn up in any clothes, hide behind a tree, and simply lob a bomb at the appropriate moment. No, this was much more subtle. If only I could understand Brodsky’s role in all this.
The Countess of Prague Page 18