The Red Zeppelin (Hilary Manningham-Butler Book 2)

by Jack Treby

  ‘The mind can play tricks, Monsieur. If you are told you have been poisoned, the body will often react accordingly.’

  ‘Poppycock! I know what I felt.’

  ‘But you are not dead, Monsieur,’ Maurice insisted. ‘And when the late Monsieur Kendall drank his whisky, he did not notice any peculiarity in the taste.’

  That was a point. I closed my eyes for a moment. My valet was right, damn it. It couldn’t have been the rat poison. I wasn’t dying. I had never been dying. It was all a ruse. Sir George was a gambling man and he had taken a chance, as he always did. ‘He wanted to disconcert me,’ I realised now. ‘Throw me off kilter, so he could get me down here more easily.’ The last throw of the dice, he had said. And I had fallen for it. ‘He was mad. Absolutely mad. No, not mad.’ I reconsidered. ‘Reckless. All or nothing. And I would have jumped, too, in the end. If you hadn't come by.’ I frowned for a moment. ‘Why were you up and about anyway?’

  ‘I was concerned for you, Monsieur, when I did not hear you retire to bed. Given all that had happened, I wished to make sure you had returned safely to your cabin.’ That was typical of him, I thought. Always fussing. But on this occasion I was not about to complain. ‘I came out into the corridor and was surprised to find there was no steward on guard outside Monsieur Lindt’s cabin. I discovered the man lying unconscious in the games room.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Sir George belted him.’

  ‘I alerted the other steward, who was on duty in his cabin. Then we heard voices from the deck below and came to investigate.’

  ‘I’m glad you did. Good lord. To think what might have happened otherwise.’ I stared at him numbly for a moment, not wanting to think through the implications. ‘That was a brave thing you did there, Morris, coming down for me like that.’

  ‘A little foolish perhaps. But necessary, Monsieur.’

  ‘I don’t think I could have got back up on my own.’ I shook my head, trying to dismiss the horror of the moment. ‘If you wanted a pay rise that badly,’ I joked, ‘you only had to ask.’

  ‘That will not be necessary, Monsieur. Though I may need to purchase a new pair of shoes.’

  I laughed, relief washing through me. ‘I think I might be persuaded to cover the cost of that.’

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ he responded dryly. He glanced across at the steps, which were now mercifully secured. ‘And Sir George?’

  ‘With the fishes, where he deserves to be.’ It had been a close run thing, but I was alive. My God, I was alive.

  ‘And the photographs?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The photographs. Did Sir George have the negatives with him?’

  ‘No. No, he didn’t.’ I brought a hand up to my mouth and stifled a yawn. ‘But, as luck would have it, Morris, I do have some idea where they might be...’

  The mail bags were jammed tightly together, blocking out most of the light from the post room window. It had a taken a couple of crewmen the better part of an hour to cart all the sacks over here from the hold. There was barely room to contain them all. The crewmen had dumped the bags in the cabin and left me to get on with it. By rights it should have been their job – menial tasks are for menial people – but unfortunately this was one job that was too important to delegate. I grabbed another pile of letters from the sack. Sir George had said the envelope and the bag it was in had been marked in some way, for easy identification, but he hadn’t said what kind of marks they were. A pencil scratch of some kind? A coloured sticker? There was no way of telling. All I could do was grab a clump of envelopes from the nearest sack and feel each one for suspicious lumps. I sighed. It would take the better part of a day to look through them all. There were thousands of the damned things. And knowing my luck, the package I wanted would be buried at the bottom of the very last sack.

  Maurice could have done the work for me but he was busy deciphering a long telegram from London. The message had been encrypted their end using Finch’s Scotland Yard book code. I could have had a go at translating that, but given the choice between mindless envelope fondling and hard-headed brain work, I had plumped for the easier task. My head was in no fit state for anything else today and it was a relief just to be away from the passenger decks.

  I had arrived at the breakfast table in a somewhat delicate state. I had barely slept a wink during the night and had emerged from my cabin with a shocking headache. Before I had even settled myself at a table, I was assaulted by a battery of questions from the other passengers. Their curiosity was understandable – no one could quite believe that Sir George Westlake had been a murderer – but all that attention was the very last thing I needed. Maurice did his best to field some of the more tedious questions, while I grabbed a bite to eat. But when an angry Karl Lindt stormed in, having finally been released from his cabin, I knew it was time to get away.

  The post room was proving a welcome retreat. Even here, however, I was not entirely free of attention.

  ‘Can I give you a hand?’ Miss Tanner poked her head around the door. She was dressed in a heavy coat, against the cold, but her head was unbonneted and her short black curls were hanging free. ‘Goodness. There’s barely room to swing a cat in here,’ she observed. Her escort, the gap-toothed crewman, waved a friendly greeting and moved on.

  I grimaced, unwilling to indulge in idle chit chat. ‘It’s just as well I don’t own a cat,’ I muttered.

  ‘Feeling a little tired?’ she asked brightly, refusing to take offence. ‘I just came down to see how you were getting on. Monsieur Sauveterre said you might need a hand. Is that a new shirt?’

  ‘Er...yes. Mr Gray was kind enough to lend it to me.’ I glanced down at the off-the-peg monstrosity. ‘It’s a bit tight, to be honest.’

  ‘It looks very nice,’ Miss Tanner pronounced, stepping forward into the small gap between the door and the first of the mail sacks. ‘So how are you feeling?’ she asked.

  I put down the pile of letters. I never did know how to answer questions like that. I shrugged. ‘Glad to be alive, I suppose.’

  ‘You poor dear. Was it too awful?’

  ‘I...really thought I was a goner.’ I shuddered.

  ‘That ghastly man. Trying to throw you out of the airship! It must have been absolutely frightful.’

  ‘The worst of it is, I actually quite liked the fellow. Before he tried to poison me, I mean. I admired his spirit. The great adventurer. But it turns out he was just a common thief. A murderer. Goes to show, doesn’t it? Even the best of people are not always what you think they are.’

  ‘Well, I think you were very brave,’ Miss Tanner concluded, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze. She surveyed the mail room brightly. ‘I really would like to help, if I can. I don’t like to think of you all alone here, piled up with these letters.’

  ‘Ludwig – Mrs Koenig’s nephew – is coming by later, to steam open anything suspicious.’ The captain had given me free access to the mail, but he didn’t want me damaging any of the packages. It would be left to the professionals to actually open the envelopes and seal them up afterwards. ‘But you’re welcome to help,’ I added.

  Miss Tanner moved further into the room. It was a tight squeeze, the mail bags were piled up so highly. ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘Anything that doesn’t feel like a letter. A roll of film, maybe two, but perhaps not as big as a standard camera film.’

  ‘Righty-ho.’ She picked up a pile of letters and started rifling through them.

  ‘The envelope might have some kind of marking on it. Anything paper thin you can discard.’

  Miss Tanner nodded seriously. ‘And I gather I’m not allowed to ask what’s on these films.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. National security. As soon as we’ve found the negatives I’m going to have destroy them.’

  ‘Golly, how thrilling!’

  The two of us set to work and, to her credit, Miss Tanner left it a good minute and a half before broaching the matter that had really brought her down
here. ‘Mr Kendall,’ she said, putting down the letters and finally coming to the point. ‘Walter. It wasn’t an accident. Sir George really did kill him?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ It was true, after a fashion. I wasn’t going to admit my own involvement in the American’s death, but I did have to provide some kind of explanation to the other passengers; especially as the police in New Jersey would be interviewing everybody on arrival. I would stick to the truth as far as I could. ‘Sir George tried to sell the films to Mr Kendall. But your friend was a man of some integrity. Bit odd for a journalist,’ I observed. ‘Bunch of blackguards, as a rule. But Kendall wouldn’t buy stolen goods. He threatened to inform the authorities and so Sir George did him in.’ That was the story, at least, that I wanted everyone to believe. The press would doubtless speculate endlessly on the nature of the secrets that had been stolen, but they would never know the whole truth. London would not allow that and the American authorities had no desire to upset their European allies.

  ‘Gracious. How awful!’ Miss Tanner said. ‘That vile man. And he used Herr Kaufmann’s rat poison? In a sleeping draught?’

  ‘I believe so. He must have slipped it in there when Mr Kendall was out and about.’

  ‘But how would he have got into the cabin?’

  ‘Sir George’s room was on the same part of the landing as the stewards’. He must have slipped in there to borrow the keys, when the fellow was away.’ Come to think of it, that was probably how he had managed to gain access to Gerhard Schulz’s cabin.

  Miss Tanner frowned. ‘But using a sleeping draught at all. It’s so unlike Walter,’ she declared. ‘He never had any trouble sleeping.’

  ‘Age comes to us all, my dear. And, in my experience, older men don’t like to advertise their weaknesses, especially not to young ladies they are particularly fond of.’

  She nodded sadly. ‘I really was very fond of him,’ she confided. ‘But I should have told Thomas that we knew each other. I shouldn’t have lied to him like that.’

  ‘I’m sure you had the best of motives.’ Actually, I wasn’t sure of that at all, but one has to be polite about these things. ‘Now, we really do need to get on.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Miss Tanner pulled herself together and we continued with our work. At least her curiosity had been satisfied. My own was still itching away in the background. There was still so much I did not understand. There was that daft business with Kendall’s notebook, for a start.

  Maurice was making his way along the corridor outside, a pair of plimsolls serving as a temporary replacement for his lost footwear. ‘Monsieur,’ he said, poking his head into the post room and nodding a greeting to Miss Tanner. ‘I have decrypted the telegram.’

  ‘About time. Give me a minute.’ I added a handful of letters to the “checked” pile and manoeuvred myself past Miss Tanner, who smiled playfully as we pressed against each other. The damned woman never missed an opportunity for flirting.

  I slipped out into the corridor and shivered. I had been getting a bit steamed up in the post room, but there was a definite chill on the walkway. Unlike Maurice, I was not wearing an overcoat. His escort had already disappeared into the radio room. I grabbed the note from my valet and scanned it quickly.

  “DURRANT CONFIRMS INVOLVEMENT WESTLAKE AND LAZENBY STOP LAZENBY DETAINED LISBON STOP AGREE NO ACTION RE HURST STOP LOCAL AUTHORITIES COOPERATING STOP DEBRIEFING ON ARRIVAL”

  ‘Clear as mud,’ I muttered. ‘As usual.’ But they had at least arrested Charles Lazenby. ‘He must have got wind something had gone wrong,’ I said to Maurice. ‘If he tried to make a run for it.’

  ‘Indeed, Monsieur.’

  Lisbon was a stopping off point for all manner of transatlantic vessels. The authorities would throw the book at him when they got him back to London. And quite right too, the scoundrel. He would be lucky to escape the noose.

  ‘Is it good news?’ Miss Tanner called from inside the post room.

  ‘For Miss Hurst,’ I said, looking down again at the decrypted note. Maurice’s handwriting was far better than Finch’s had been.

  “AGREE NO ACTION RE HURST”

  ‘They’re not going to pursue the matter of her passport.’

  ‘That is good news,’ Miss Tanner agreed. ‘She’ll be so pleased.’

  ‘Monsieur Kaufmann has also received a telegram,’ Maurice confided, keeping his voice low. ‘He did not look happy.’

  I frowned. ‘Do you know what it was about?’

  ‘No, Monsieur. But I will endeavour to find out.’

  Mr Lindt had been eliminated as a murder suspect, but Captain Albrecht had refused to return his cash. Perhaps Mr Kaufmann had been making enquiries about where it had come from.

  ‘Good man. Then you can come and give me a hand with these letters.’ I poked my head back into the mail room.

  Miss Tanner was hip deep in post bags. ‘I said I would help you, Mr Bland,’ she teased. ‘I didn’t say I would do it all myself.’ She grabbed another handful of envelopes and began rifling through them. Her hands fingered a small package and she let out a sudden ‘Ooh!’ The envelope had a bright red line running the length of it and a couple of small bulges in the centre. ‘Gosh!’ she exclaimed, excitedly. ‘Mr Bland! I think I may have found your films!’

  Chapter Twenty

  After four days on board the Richthofen, I had just about come to terms with looking out of the windows; but this was the first time I had seen New York from the air. It was quite a novel experience, hovering serenely over the Statue of Liberty, staring down at the thorny crown on her head and that great big torch in her hand. It made one dizzy just looking at it. The Manhattan skyline had changed quite a bit in the last few years. The Chrysler building, the Empire State – it was all new to me. A couple of spotter planes were buzzing around us, taking photographs of the airship, and in the bay various boats were tooting their horns in greeting. It was the first glimmer of the carnival that would be awaiting us upon our arrival at the hangar in New Jersey. There would be no chance for any of us to slip away quietly.

  ‘How far are we from Lakehurst?’ I asked Adelina Koenig, who was standing next to me with a pair of binoculars.

  ‘Seventy-two kilometres,’ she said, in her harsh, guttural English. ‘We are travelling at eighty kilometres an hour and will be in Lakehurst in fifty four minutes.’

  I pulled out my fob watch. ‘Right. Seventy-two kilometres. What’s that in miles?’

  Mrs Koenig regarded me contemptuously. ‘I do not understand the imperial system. Miles, yards. Feet and inches. It makes no sense.’

  ‘You’ll have to get used to it in America.’

  ‘It is too confusing.’ She waved a hand dismissively, almost thumping me with her binoculars. ‘The metric system, kilometres, metres, centimetres. It is far better.’

  ‘If you say so.’ It wasn’t the first time there had been some confusion in that respect. ‘Did you ever discuss any of that with Mr Kendall?’ I enquired. The issue of that damned notebook was still niggling away at me.

  ‘Nein. But we talk about my travels in Africa. There is little understanding between us. I tell him the kilometres I travel but he is speaking in miles.’ She growled. ‘That is why it is better to have one system.’

  I nodded, thoughtfully. So Kendall had got the wrong end of the stick. He had thought Mrs Koenig had no idea about the distances between various cities in Africa and had begun to doubt the veracity of her heroic adventures. He had scribbled down a few notes in his book, no doubt intending to follow them up later. But in actual fact, the German woman had known exactly what she was talking about.

  Mrs Koenig hesitated before she spoke again. ‘You work with Herr Finch, ja?’

  ‘Er...yes, I did.’

  She frowned for a moment, almost as if she were embarrassed. ‘When he looks in my room, he takes something. Two films, in my jacket. Where are they?’ A slightly bitter tone had entered her voice.

  ‘Ah.’ There was no point dissembling.
‘I think he may have destroyed them.’ At least with Finch dead, I did not have to take responsibility for that myself.

  Mrs Koenig muttered a few expletives in German, then raised up her hands. ‘It is not important. I go now to say goodbye to Ludwig.’ And off she went, in search of her nephew.

  I watched her go with some amusement. ‘What an extraordinary woman,’ I mumbled, to no one in particular. I wondered what had been in those photographs of hers. I had never seen her using a camera on board.

  I doubted it would be anything as contentious as the photographs I had recovered from Sir George Westlake. In some ways, it was a shame the man had not got around to developing them. I would have liked the opportunity to peruse that Special Branch file. But the negatives needed be disposed of before we arrived in America and I had consigned them to the bottom of the ocean on Wednesday evening. As a staunch monarchist, I could not risk any harm coming to a future sovereign, even a skirt-chasing half-wit like Prince Edward. Better to be rid of the bloody things. It was a little galling, though, having spent so long pursuing the files, not to have the opportunity to read them. I was itching to find out more about the dubious Madame Alibert and her scandalous hold over the British establishment. But, sadly, duty came before pleasure.

  Karl Lindt was kicking up a fuss over in the lounge. ‘The captain has no right to withhold my luggage!’ he snarled, in reply to a comment I had not heard. ‘It is my money. I can do with it as I like.’ I glanced across and saw Thomas McGilton standing opposite the German, with Miss Tanner hovering to his right.

  The Irishman could not resist baiting the fellow. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ he said.

  Lindt glared back at him. ‘What have you heard?’

  McGilton raised an eyebrow. ‘That you stole the money from your company. Money that was owed to your creditors. Wages for your employees. Rent money.’

  ‘That is ridiculous! Who told you that?’

  McGilton gestured across the lounge to Josef Kaufmann, who was standing at the far end of the promenade, looking pointedly out of the window at the New York skyline. Despite the volume of the argument, the older man was pretending not to hear. I can’t say I blamed him. ‘Herr Kaufmann contacted your people back home,’ McGilton continued. ‘They confirmed everything. You sold up. Sent him off on a fools errand to England while you cashed in everything you could. You even sold the fixtures and fittings, none of which belonged to you.’