The Devil's Grin - a Crime Novel Featuring Anna Kronberg and Sherlock Holmes (18 page)

‘
So both had been abducted independently and later managed to escape together. Any idea how Noble got to Guy’s?’ I asked.

‘
Unfortunately not. I
interviewed a cab driver who takes that route regularly. He said that one day a man approached his hansom; he was unable to walk properly and couldn’t speak. He grabbed the horse’s reigns and sank to the ground. That’s what made the horse whinny and rear. The driver, who thought the man was intoxicated, had had enough, cracked the whip, and left in a hurry. He had no idea where the man came from and he could not remember whether there were any onlookers whatsoever.’

I made us tea and sandwiches and we were quiet for a while. Then I remembered Stark.

‘
Stark pai
d me a second visit today,’ I said and Holmes looked up.

‘
He wants the tetanus germs very badly. I can expect an invitation to Cambridge any day soon.’

‘
I had hoped
this wouldn’t be necessary,’ he said quietly.

‘
I’ll move into
13 Tottenham Court Road tomorrow and will give up this place for a while,’ I said waving my arm at my apartment, ‘but how will we communicate?’

‘
Simple. You put a vase or the like into the window of your room whenever you have information that you need to share, or when you are in danger. I’ll come as soon as I can.’

‘
When I’m in danger? Well, that means that vase is constantly in the w
indowsill I guess,’ I noted sarcastically.

‘
You know what I mean
.’

‘
If you say so. And how will
you
contact me when you need to? By just walking into my rooms?’ I asked, and he nodded.

‘
So you are tailing me?’
I asked and he looked up again. ‘Because how the heck will you know when that vase is in the window if not for someone seeing it?’

‘
Yes, I’ll tail you.’

‘
Holmes, did you tail me before?’ I asked grossly.

‘
No I didn’t’

‘
How come you know where I live?’

‘
I asked your Irish friend.’

‘
Garret would have never told you!’

‘
He didn’t need to tell me anything. I suggested to him to get clean clothes for you
after the mugging and he led me to your place without his knowledge,’ Holmes stated happily. How very simple, I thought.

‘
And why the deuce would you want to know my address?’

‘
I was curious,’ h
e noted simply.

‘
Next time just as
k,’ I murmured.

‘
You wouldn’t have told me.’

‘
Probably not, no.’

We were quiet for a long moment until Holmes grumbled
: ‘I don’t like it that you throw yourself into the lion’s den.’

‘
I don’t like i
t, either,’ I said quietly, trying to hide my fear. It probably didn’t work very well.

‘
Holmes?’

‘
What is it?’

‘
I
know who you are,’ I said softly. He didn’t reply, so I turned towards him. He was staring at my ceiling and on first glance seemed relaxed. But his face was too still and his hands were rigidly flat on the armrests. Whenever I got too close to him, be it physically or emotionally, he got uncomfortable. It had started immediately after the first time we met and had gotten worse as the distance he needed seemed to be getting greater every time we talked. He would disappear as soon as the crime was solved, I was certain. Surprised, I noticed the pain that accompanied the insight.

‘
You don’t know me yet, but
soon you will,’ I told him.

Slowly his face turned
in my direction and I added ‘I will have to shed most of what I am to serve the lie. You may not recognise me anymore, but whatever you’ll see is a part of me.

Part Two - Anton

And since you know you cannot see yourself,

so well as by reflection, I, your glass,

will modestly discover to yourself,

that of yourself which you yet know not of.

W. Shakespeare

Chapter
Thirteen

March
, 1890

Dr
Anton Kronberg sat in the train to Cambridge. His shirt was starched and crisp, his black coat new from the tailor, and his brain sharp. Wisps of steam from the engine flew past the window, occasionally clouding the view onto the bleak countryside. The snow had melted two weeks ago, leaving a muddy black surface behind. No green had dared to hatch yet while the freezing drizzle poured down from an ever present blanket of grey clouds. Anton had the impression the sun would not return this year, but that suited his mood. Upon thinking it over for a second, he decided he was in no mood whatsoever. His controlled mind did not allow for such luxuries.

This was a day
of greatest importance. He would give a presentation on tetanus and its cures. His audience, a group of medical doctors from London and Cambridge, awaited him. Anton had his goal painted right in front of him, a scarlet bulls eye only he could see and aim at. And he would not rest until his bullet would find its centre and blow it apart.

Anton’s train arrived at Cambridge Railway Station. He walked to the next cab and ordered to be driven to Cambridge Medical School. Once inside, he closed his eyes and sat as still as a statue.

Precisely fourteen minutes later he arrived, opened the door, and paid the driver without looking at him. As he turned around he saw Stark crossing the street in a hurry to greet his guest. Anton was lead into the Great Court of Kings College where he noticed the mighty vaulted ceilings with delicate fans of stone, crisscrossing like the arteries of a large organism.

Before the feeling of being swallowed alive could overwhelm him, Anton swept his surroundings away with a blink of his eyes and focused on the imaginary scarlet spot straight ahead.

Stark opened a door to a small lecture hall and Anton counted fifteen men, all wearing a stern expression, aged mostly above fifty, and some of them sitting in comfortable armchairs. Then he scanned the room. This was no ordinary lecture hall. Dark and intricate wood panels decorated the walls and pictures of more than twenty haughty looking men, wigged, robed, and framed in gold, hung all around the room.

Stark coughed and all heads turned into his direction. All but Anton’s, who kept looking straight ahead.

‘
Gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce Dr Anton Kronberg, England’s leading epidemiologist. He studied medicine at the University Leipzig and took regular internships at the Charité in Berlin, where he also defended his thesis. After that, the Harvard Medical School rewarded him with a fellowship for four years.’

A few men nodded approvingly and Stark continued with a smile on his lips. ‘Then London had the honour to welcome him. His work on infectious diseases at Guy’s Hospital made him a well known scientist in all of London’s hospitals. But his visit to Dr Koch’s laboratory in Berlin with his breakthrough in the isolation of the tetanus bacteria made him an internationally renowned bacteriologist. His colleagues describe him as driven, hard working, and highly intelligent.’ Stark turned to face Anton as he said: ‘He came here today following our invitation, and will give a presentation on his recent work - tetanus and the isolation and characterisation of the causative agents.’

Anton nodded in acknowledgment and entered the podium. He was used to giving presentations for much larger audiences. His nervousness usually peaked just before starting his talk. But once he stood in front of his always exclusively male listeners, he felt calm washing over him. He was in disguise. But today he felt no nervousness whatsoever; there was nothing but cold drive.

With a determined, yet silken voice he started his presentation: ‘My dear colleagues, it is a great honour to speak to you today, here in this lecture hall were the greatest anatomists spoke before me.’ Anton made a sweeping move with his right arm, indicating the men in the paintings. ‘Yet, the topic of my talk differs very much from those of my predecessors.’ Here he took a few seconds to let the information take effect. ‘My field of research is young but advancing at unimaginable speed - bacteriology. We bacteriologists deal with the greatest evils for mankind - diseases like tetanus, cholera, typhoid, and pest, to name but a few. We study how diseases spread and how the battle against their causative agents, namely bacteria, can be won. I will focus my talk today on tetanus and its recently isolated germs.’

Anton turned to the blackboard and drew a plot of the numbers of tetanus fatalities in London during the last thirty years. As long as he spoke, Anton’s audience was glued to his lips and to his hand leading the chalk over the slate.

After one hour he had finished his presentation. The men rose to their feet and clapped. Several of the older men shook his hand and congratulated him. After some small talk, they agreed to meet up with him in a more private setting back in London in three days time.

~~~

In a small single-room apartment in Tottenham Court Road, Anton sat on his tattered armchair, leaning far back with his feet on the
scarred coffee table. He stared at the ceiling with half closed eyes. It was the only flat surface in this room that had no wallpaper peeling off. He hated distractions. The ceiling, though, was perfectly homogeneous.

~~~

Th
ree days later Stark called at Anton’s apartment and both men took the waiting brougham. Anton noticed that the two chestnuts looked fresh. Their destination must not be far away. It did not bother him that the thick velveteen curtains were to remain drawn, he knew London well enough as he had walked it almost every day. The journey lasted fifty minutes. Stark made small talk and Anton answered while following his own thoughts and listening to the noise the wheels made on the ground. It sounded like the broad and flat cobblestones of High Holborne, a large and busy street. They turned right, a smaller street now, followed by the sounds of Blackfriars Bridge and Great Surreys Street. A sharp right turn told him this could only be Waterloo. And yes, they crossed the river. Anton used to pass this bridge at least three times every week. He would recognise it in his sleep. A left turn brought them onto The Strand with all its bustling and clattering. Then the hooting of a leaving train - they must have reached Charing Cross. Now they turned into Regents Street, Piccadilly, St James, Pall Mall, and again, and again. They were going in circles. The pattern changed after a quarter of an hour. At first, Anton could not sense any familiarity. Maybe he had never been here or at least not for a long time? But the ducks, the hungry, burred up, freezing ducks begging for an evening meal from passers-by told him the brougham was passing James Park on its south side. Then they made a left turn and soon stopped. They must be somewhere around King’s Road and south of Palace Gardens.

The carriage came to a halt at a large Victorian villa. Light was pouring through all its windows onto the brownish lawn. The wind was stiff and the old sycamore trees clawed each other with scrawny twigs, their mottled torsos shiny from the ice cold rain. The only green came from the artfully trimmed conifers lining the walkway to the house and the lichen covered fountain with water lazily dripping down its rims.

Their footsteps
crunched on the walkway and a minute later, the two men entered the house. Servants took their coats, to brush and dry them, while Stark and Anton made their way through the hall and proceeded into a large, wood panelled smoking room. A good fire was crackling merrily in a large fireplace made of green marble. Fifteen men were sitting in burgundy armchairs, smoking, drinking brandy, and eating snacks from a buffet. No servants were allowed to enter.