The Aquila Project (7 page)

‘And what am I to do, sir, when I go to work for this gentleman?’

‘You’re to look and listen – as you were supposed to do when I sent you to the home of Baroness Felssen during our investigation of the Bleibner affair. You remember? You had ideas of your own, which got you into trouble.’

Vanessa had the grace to blush. It was on that occasion that her inquisitiveness had caused her to exceed her orders in such a way as to bring her very near to death, while ensuring the escape of a very dangerous assassin. If Colonel Kershaw saw the blush, he made no sign of the fact. But she had realized that his words had been a warning to do as she was told.

‘Keep an ear open, Miss Drake,’ Kershaw continued, ‘for anything that might be said in conversation about the Tsar of Russia, or about European politics in general. A housemaid, as you may or may not know, cleans bedrooms and reception rooms, looks after the dining-room, and waits at table during dinner. Plenty of opportunities there for you to overhear without seeming to do so. When the time comes, you will be told how to leave Baron Augustyniak’s service, and report to me. What do you say to that?’

‘When do I start, sir? And what about my employer?’

‘Don’t worry about Watts & Company, Miss Drake. They know all about me now, and what work I do. As for when you start, well, you must receive a day’s training first. You will go to see Mrs Prout at Bagot’s Hotel, and she will tell you all about being a housemaid – how to stare straight ahead when waiting at dinner, and not keep looking at the diners. How to curtsy – all that kind of thing.

‘After that, you’ll go out to White Eagle Lodge, Baron Augustyniak’s residence in Cavendish Gardens, St John’s Wood. All the staff there have been newly recruited by Thompson’s Agency. You will appear on their books as Susan Moore – Vanessa being a decidedly unsuitable name for a housemaid! Mrs Bagot will tell you all you need to know. I’ll go now, missy. Do as you’re told, and all should be well. And remember: there may be danger, but you will never be more than a breath away from help.’

K
ITTY
F
ISHER
WINCED
as a packed train thundered across the railway bridge spanning Ludgate Circus. A great swath of acrid black smoke was blown down on to the pavement, and Kitty coughed, more in protest than discomfort.

Bloomin’ cheek! It was no joke standing for hours in bare feet on a hot summer pavement. The trains should have more
consideration
for the likes of her. This was a favourite spot of hers, in a corner just to the right of Bell & Pritchard’s, the tailors. City gents tended to notice a pretty girl of fourteen with a tray round her neck, selling boxes of matches, bootlaces, and packets of pen nibs. When it rained, she’d move under the bridge until it stopped. She could make a shilling or more a day on this patch.

The road was crammed full with heavy Wednesday morning traffic, some pouring in from Fleet Street and Farringdon Street, and some climbing the hill towards St Paul’s. The pavements were crowded, too. A close-packed knot of men hurried past her, none of them evidently in need of matches. Oh, well! Perhaps later.

What time was it? She walked to the other side of the bridge, where she could see the clock in St Paul’s. Ten past two. In a few minutes’ time the barmaid at the King Lud across the road would beckon to her, and she’d be given a cup of mild beer and a piece of bread. God bless her! Janie had a heart of gold. Kitty returned to her pitch near the tailor’s shop.

Whatever now? Three men, looking neither to right nor left, had hurried past in yet another throng of busy folk. As they’d passed her, one of them had thrown a little parcel into her tray! Bloomin’ cheek!

Ten minutes later, Kitty was sitting in a store room behind the bar of the King Lud tavern, sipping her beer, and devouring her round of bread and jam. When Janie, the barmaid, came in from the front to see how she was, Kitty showed her the little parcel that had landed in her tray.

‘It’s got writing on it, Janie,’ she said, ‘but I can’t read. What does it say? Maybe it’s important.’

Janie, a good-natured girl in her twenties, looked at the thin child in the cut-down black dress and shapeless hat. She’d walked out here barefoot to the Circus early, all the way from Shoreditch. Poor little lass! She was pretty, too, but poverty would soon play havoc with her youthful attractions.

The little parcel had been made from a torn piece of
handkerchief
, tied firmly with cotton. Around it was a strip of paper – it looked like one of the margins from the page of a newspaper – and on it someone had scrawled a message in pencil, which Janie read out to her young friend.

‘Mr Box? I know him, Kitty. He comes in here sometimes for a glass of India Pale Ale. He’s a famous detective-man. Here, there’s something wedged into the end of the packet – it’s a shilling! That’ll be for you, to make sure that you take the message to Mr Box. Inspector Box, he is, really.’

‘Half-a-crown…. Do you think it’s true? Will he really give it to me?’

‘I’m sure he will. Now, you’ve got a shilling already, so if I were you I’d go to King James’s Rents straight away, and see Mr Box. If he’s not there, ask them where he is.’

‘Half-a-crown…. Will you come with me, Janie? I don’t know where it is.’

Janie considered for a moment. The boss would grumble and growl, but he’d let her go for half an hour. Poor little Kitty!
Two-and
-six was a fortune to her.

‘I tell you what, Kitty,’ she said, ‘Burton’s wagon will be leaving in ten minutes’ time. It’ll be going down the Strand, so the driver can give us a lift as far as the Whitehall end. Leave your tray here till we get back. Come on, let’s go off to see Inspector Box.’

While Kitty Fisher was preparing for her visit to King James’s Rents, Arnold Box was sitting at the long table in his office, reading a note that he had just received by messenger. It was from Inspector Pollard at Bow Street Police Station, telling him of some further developments in the matter of the Rosanski murder. It was obviously some kind of Polish vendetta, Pollard thought, and the people behind it had hired Schumann to make away with their imagined enemy. Well, Box knew better than that, but it wouldn’t do to disabuse Pollard on that point.

Box turned over the note, and whistled in surprise.

‘Now here’s something that will surprise you,’ Pollard had written. ‘Oscar Schumann died last night from natural causes in the Middlesex Hospital. The doctors say it was aneurysm of the aorta. He died without speaking, so we’ll never know who employed him.’

Box read on. Pollard had managed to compile a list of
everybody
who had been present in Rosanski’s shop on Sunday morning. He would draw Box’s attention to two of these people. One was a certain Baron Augustyniak, of White Eagle Lodge, Cavendish Gardens, St John’s Wood. As a nobleman, he would probably be a prominent figure in the Polish fraternity, and so worth questioning. The other man was called Herr Gerdler, and he was another German, like Schumann. Perhaps there was a link
there. Gerdler was a gunsmith by profession, with premises in Dover Lane, Covent Garden.

It
was
odd, thought Box. If Rosanski’s murder was a Polish affair, why should there be Germans connected with it? What time was it? 2.30. It would be a good idea to act on Mr Pollard’s
information
, and pay a call on this Herr Gerdler in Covent Garden.

Dover Lane was a kind of wide alley near the Russell Street approach to Covent Garden Market. The premises of Herr Alois Gerdler were smart and well kept. A discreetly grilled window displayed an impressive array of hunting guns and pistols. A little bell behind the door jangled as Box entered the shop.

A mousy little man with a stoop looked up from a ledger that he had been studying. His face bore a faintly hostile expression, and when he spoke Box saw that his mouth was cruel and thin-lipped.

‘Yes?’

‘Mr Gerdler?’ said Box. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Box, of Scotland Yard. This is just a routine call. Would you please show me your current gun licence? We’re checking the validity of all such licences this year.’

Box saw the strands of a beaded curtain behind the counter tremble faintly. He wondered who it was in the back room of the shop, listening so intently to their conversation.

‘My licence? Yes, I have it here, in this drawer. You’ll see that I’ve been established here for nearly three years. All my papers are thoroughly in order.’

As Box made a show of examining the licence, the beaded curtain suddenly parted, and a man came down the step from the back room. A greater contrast to Gerdler could not have been imagined. Tall and imposing, the man was dressed expensively in black, and sported an orchid in the button hole of his frock coat. His long face was adorned with the type of fierce moustache, waxed and turned up at the ends, favoured by the Kaiser.

‘Inspector Box,’ said Gerdler, ‘it is my privilege to present an old friend from my German days, Herr Doktor Franz Kessler, who is the new Second Secretary at Prussia House.’

‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ said Box. ‘Well, I must be on my way. It was just a routine call. Good day to you, gentlemen.’

Box raised his hat, and both Germans clicked their heels in response. They watched him as he turned out of Dover Lane into Covent Garden.

‘What did that fellow really want with you?’ asked Kessler. ‘All that talk of a check on licences was a crude fiction.’

‘He was involved in the arrest of Grunwalski last Saturday. He was also involved in the investigation of Rosanski’s death. He will know all about Oscar Schumann, I expect. He’s pestered me first, and now, no doubt, he’ll bother Baron Augustyniak with his little questions. Don’t let him disturb you, Fritz.’

‘I won’t, if you say so. But there have been serious leaks of information, some of which have been stopped at source. Sir Charles Napier was in Berlin last month, and made contact with that money-grubbing Judas, Paul Claus. He wouldn’t have spoken to Napier unless he had something to tell him. Well, you know what happened to Claus.’

‘Do you think that the British intelligence people have
discovered
what we intend to do? Is Count von Donath quite certain that it is safe for us to act on the twenty-first?’

‘Of course it’s safe. What can British intelligence possibly know of the matter? How could they even remotely conceive what we intend to do? I’ve no doubt that they’ll be interested in the sudden arrival of Baron Augustyniak and myself in England. They might even look for links between him and me – and you, for that matter, and of course, they’ll find them. But they can’t possibly guess what our ultimate purpose is. I ask you, how
could
they? Just think of the elaborate charade that we provided for them – the bridge, the waving pistol, the crowd of notables! As the conjurors say, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye!’

As Box came into the vestibule of 2 King James’s Rents, Sergeant Driscoll came out of the reception room near the door.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘there’s a young girl in the front office who wants to talk to you. Kitty Fisher’s her name. A peddler, by the looks of her. Says she’s fourteen. She’s brought some kind of a message wrapped up in a handkerchief.’

‘A peddler?’ asked Box. ‘Is she by herself?’

‘A young woman brought her – one of the barmaids from The King Lud. She says she’ll call back for the girl in half an hour’s time. Shall I bring this Kitty Fisher in?’

Box had already caught sight of the rather mournful figure standing by herself in the reception room. Even from where he was standing, he could see that the girl was the poorest of the poor. He told Sergeant Driscoll to bring her into the office, and then to leave them alone. The girl might find a uniformed sergeant with a flowing beard rather too intimidating.

Kitty Fisher came into Box’s office, and stood for a moment looking about her. Box saw her glance at the soot-blackened ceiling, and then at the fly-blown mirror above the fireplace.

‘It’s not much of a place, is it?’ said Kitty Fisher.

‘Well, I’m sorry, miss,’ said Box, ‘but it’s the best we can do, so you’ll have to put up with it. What can I do for you? Sit down there, by the fire, and tell me all about it.’

Kitty did as she was told, and then handed Box the little parcel. She hesitated, as though unwilling to part with it.

‘He said you’d give me half-a-crown,’ she said.

‘Did he? How very generous of him. You’re right, though. That’s what it says on this piece of paper. Tell me how you came by this parcel.’

‘Three men walked past me as I stood with my tray near Bell & Pritchard’s, at Ludgate Circus. One of the men threw that parcel into the tray. They looked to neither right nor left, but just
walked on. It says on that slip of paper that you’ll give me
half-a
-crown.’

‘What did this man look like?’

‘I don’t know. I tell you they just rushed past me, and one of them threw it into the tray. I told Janie about it in The King Lud, and she brought me here.’

Sergeant Driscoll came into the office carrying a mug of tea and a plate with a round of buttered toast on it. He set down mug and plate in front of the girl.

‘There you are, Kitty Fisher,’ he said, ‘get that down you.’

‘Thanks, mister,’ said Kitty. For the first time since her arrival at the Rents, she managed a smile, which seemed to transform her whole appearance. Box nodded his thanks to Driscoll for his thoughtful kindness, and then carefully opened the small parcel.

It contained a folded wad of notepaper, evidently torn from an old account book. Box unfolded it, and saw that it was covered in tiny writing, carefully produced with a sharpened pencil. He began to read, and immediately he was overwhelmed with a growing excitement. The contents of the parcel were like a
revelation
from the blue, a sudden ray of light in a darkened sky.

‘Are you going to give me the half-a-crown?’ Kitty had wolfed down her toast, and had almost finished the mug of tea. The girl’s voice held a quaver that warned Box that tears were about to follow. Kitty had evidently convinced herself that the money was not to be forthcoming.

‘Yes, I am,’ he said. He stood up, delved deep into his trouser pocket, and dredged up a handful of silver and copper. ‘I haven’t got a half-crown coin,’ he said, ‘but I can give you a florin and a sixpenny piece, which is the same thing. All right?’

The girl held out her hand and, when Box put the money into it, she closed her fingers tightly over it. The threat of tears receded, and the smile returned.

‘Now, Kitty,’ said Box, ‘I want you to tell me where you live. Just for the record, you see.’

‘I live in the Sally Army Refuge in Conduit Street, Shoreditch. I never had no mother nor father. I lived with an old lady called Mrs Morris until she died, and then the Sally Army took me in. Why do you want to know that? I ain’t done nothing wrong.’

‘I know you haven’t, Kitty. I just want to know where you live, that’s all. Now, I’m going to give you a note to take to the St Matthew’s Clothing Aid Society in Bedford Lane, which is not too far from where you live. Do you know it?’

‘Yes, mister.’

Box wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper, folded it, and handed it across the table to the girl.

‘You take that to Bedford Lane, and ask for a Mrs Fairhurst. She’ll give you a new pair of leather boots and a warm jacket. You’d better go now, and wait in the office by the door until your friend returns.’

Kitty Fisher stood up, and extended a buttery hand to Box, who shook it solemnly.

‘You’ve been very good to me, mister,’ said Kitty. ‘I’ll not forget that it was you what got me some new boots.’

Kitty attempted a little curtsy, and then walked out of Box’s office.

Sergeant Driscoll stepped back into the room for a moment, holding the door open.

‘Did you give her a docket for boots, Inspector? She’ll only pawn them.’