The Hansa Protocol (2 page)

The shivering sergeant took up the tale.

‘Somebody on the launch chucked a dead body over the side. Before any of us could move, Inspector, the launch was off and away. There’s a little skiff down there, and we used that to bring the body in—’

‘We’ve laid it out on a table in the pier-master’s office over there. As soon as ever Dr Kelly comes, we’ll go in and take a proper look.’

At that moment, a rowing-boat approached the pier, propelled by yet another huddled member of the river force. Sitting upright in the boat, was a stout man wearing a fur-collared coat and a dark wide-awake hat. He seemed to be complaining angrily in a strong Irish brogue about being disturbed from his dinner at such an inopportune time.

‘You’re just a gang of galley-slaves! What do you mean by disturbing a respectable doctor with your dead bodies? Pirates, most of them. Why don’t you leave them to float out to sea? Come on, man – help me up the ladder.’

Inspector Cross surveyed the newcomer from head to foot with a detached interest, as though the big, bluff Irishman was a specimen in an anatomical museum.

‘You’re very civil, as always, Dr Kelly,’ he said. ‘Now, here’s a little thought for you to ponder, before we look at the latest pirate to be fished out of the river. We’re policemen, Doctor, so we have to account to higher authority for every corpse that we find. But you – you can bury
your
mistakes.’

Dr Kelly bellowed with laughter, in which the River Police joined. They moved swiftly across the quay towards the pier-master’s office.

The dead man taken from the river lay on a trestle table, which had been dragged under a flaring gas burner suspended from the ceiling. Box looked at him, noting his heavy features, and the stubble on his chin. His black hair was plastered close to his skull by the river water, and his rough seaman’s suit of dark serge was heavy with moisture.

Inspector Cross pulled open the man’s jacket to reveal his
bloodstained
shirt and waistcoat. He pointed to a torn inside pocket, and turned to Box.

‘There was something in that pocket, Arnold, that decided us to send for you. We knew you were up there at St Swithin’s with Sir Charles Napier. We’ll talk about that later. Come on, Doctor, take a look at this man, and tell us what he died of. Jimmy, you give him a hand.’

Dr Kelly seemed to be no respecter of persons, living or dead. With the help of the River Police sergeant he closely examined the man’s chest, where a gaping wound had been revealed beneath the shirt, and then turned him over on to his front with a sickeningly wet thud. For five minutes or so he poked and pummelled the body, then stood back, wiping his hands on his overcoat.

‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I can’t do anything much till you’ve brought him up to Horseferry Road mortuary tomorrow. As you can see, he’s a man in his early forties, a trifle overweight, but nothing that would have mattered much. He’s been shot in the back from close up with some kind of medium calibre pistol, and the bullet’s passed right through him. Shot in the back, so perhaps he was running away from somebody. That’s all. Give me a hand again, Jimmy.’

Dr Kelly and the sergeant hauled the heavy body on to its back again, and then they left the pier-master’s office, accompanied by the man who had rowed the doctor to the pier. They could all hear a fresh outbreak of banter, accompanied by the doctor’s full-throated laugh, which turned into a fit of luxurious coughing as he descended the iron ladder to the rowing-boat. Inspector Box broke the silence.

‘Why did you send for me, Bob?’ he asked Inspector Cross. ‘This is divisional work. Nothing to do with me.’

Cross jerked his head towards Constable Peabody, who had said nothing at all since Box, Knollys and he had arrived at the pier.

‘Joe there will tell you what it’s all about. I’m going back to the galley. I’ll wish you good night. And you, Sergeant.’

Inspector Cross strode out on to the quay, closing the door firmly behind him.

Joe Peabody glanced uncertainly at Knollys, seemed to make up his mind about something, and then spoke.

‘You know what I am, don’t you, Mr Box? Mentioning no names, of course.’

‘Yes, Joe. I know what you are. So what do you want to tell me?’

PC Joseph Peabody glanced at the dead man. He shook his head slightly, and then gave his attention once more to Box.

‘This man, Inspector, is Stefan Oliver. He was a Foreign Office courier, one of Sir Charles Napier’s people. You’ll understand, sir, that I know something about him – being what I am. When Bob Cross opened his jacket to search for a wound, he found something thrust in the inside pocket.’

Joe Peabody produced a stout linen-backed envelope, to which a number of wax seals had been attached. It was only lightly stained, and Box could read a series of letters and numbers written in bold Indian ink on the front of the packet. It had been roughly torn open, but the contents were still intact. Box carefully drew out two folded sheets of notepaper, and opened them by the light of the flaring gas burner. They proved to be two sheets of blank paper.

‘I wanted you to see that, Mr Box. I know that in the nature of things you can’t be one of us, but you’ve worked with us before. That’s a Foreign Office cipher written there, on the cover, and this packet was to be delivered to Sir Charles Napier himself. You’ll understand, Mr Box, that I know what this is in general terms, because I can read the cipher, but I don’t know anything at all about the particular nature of this packet. It’s nothing to do with us – our crowd, you know. But I think it was what they term a “dummy run”. A rehearsal, if you get my meaning. But somebody thought it was the real thing, and shot Stefan Oliver in the back in order to get that letter.’

‘But whoever it was, Joe, put the letter back in his pocket. Why should he do that?’

Joe Peabody carefully closed the envelope, and concealed it in his coat. He turned away towards the door.

‘I don’t know, Inspector. Not for certain, anyway. I’ll see that this
packet gets to Sir Charles Napier. But I’m thinking of how that fellow in the steam launch tooted his whistle to attract our attention, and then dumped poor Stefan there into the river. He wanted us to see him! Sir Charles was only a quarter of a mile away from here – I expect he’s still up there, at that meeting, or whatever it is.’

‘So you think—’

‘I don’t think anything special, Mr Box. But it did just occur to me that Stefan Oliver was being sent back to his master by an assassin with a sense of humour. You know, sir: like you can do with a letter. “Not at this address. Return to Sender”.’

In St Swithin’s Hall, the audience were dispersing, and the lights were being turned low. The heavy velvet curtains had once again been winched closed. Dr Otto Seligmann and Sir Charles Napier sat at the table on the stage, talking together in low voices.

‘What did you make of that row, Seligmann? Louts? Or something else?’

Dr Seligmann did not reply for a moment. He poured himself a glass of water from a carafe that had been provided for the lecture, and Napier saw how his hand trembled. Seligmann thought of his
opponents
, and their growing belligerence. Years ago, he had engaged in courteous arguments with men of differing minds, men whose
interpretation
of German history had differed from his. They had usually agreed to differ, but always with a strong measure of courtesy.

It was different, now. His opponents were turning into deadly enemies. He had seen their impotent reflection in the enraged knot of German so-called ‘patriots’ earlier in the evening. Frustrated exiles, they longed to see their native land develop into the colossus of Europe. He recalled the ringleader of that knot of men, the puce-faced lunatic who had shouted ‘Traitor! Traitor!’ – a vile slander, which his brainless friends had taken up as a battle-cry. Their obvious hatred of him, and of his mission, had unnerved him.

‘They were not louts, Napier. They were part of the great and growing army of the prosperous ignorant. You and I have known each other – what? – twenty years, and for most of that time we have watched together the gradual degeneration of peace in Europe. What you saw tonight will tell you that things are coming to a head. The war party’s out for blood, and soon, violent words will be replaced by violent deeds.’

Sir Charles said nothing for a while. He was thinking of the deep trust that had grown up between him and the elderly German former diplomat turned scholar. When those men had called him a traitor, Sir Charles Napier had felt personally affronted.

‘Do you think that those men were part of an organization?’ he asked at last. ‘We’ve a lot of Germans in London, and the vast majority of them are quiet, decent citizens. But there are societies – clubs, debating groups – where various forms of mild subversion are practised. I wondered whether our friends tonight came from that quarter.’

‘They may well have done so, Napier. But the real danger to peace lies in Berlin. There are new ideas abroad there that have taken hold of the heady imagination of the young, and the calculating opportunism of the older cynics. You have heard of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche? He exhorts us all to reject what he calls the “slave morality” of Christianity, and replace it with a stern new ethic, leading to the
development
of the superman …. You don’t have many ideas in England, Napier, so you don’t understand their danger—’

‘Oh, yes I do, Seligmann! That’s why I agreed to go along with your plan to warn these people off – these dreamers in Berlin.’

Dr Seligmann looked very grave. To the English diplomat watching him, he seemed the very picture of despair.

‘The dreamers are bad enough, Napier, but behind them is a cold and orchestrating intelligence, the Baron Luitpold von Dessau. That man is the prime exponent of the new pan-German militarism. He’s currently the darling of the Reichstag. He’s a friend of that madman Nietzsche. But von Dessau is something more than merely a fanatical nationalist. He’s innately prudent, a quality that he inherits from his father, a careful diplomat whom I knew long ago at Jena. Von Dessau would only ever match his words with deeds if he knew that the way was clear to do so—’

‘Which brings us,’ Sir Charles Napier concluded, ‘to the day of destiny – Friday, 13 January, when von Dessau addresses a mass rally in Berlin of the Pan-German Congress. That, my dear Seligmann, will be a tinder-box waiting to be ignited, and if the orators there get their own way, Europe will be plunged into war.’

Seligmann sighed, and began to gather up his papers. How painful it was to talk about Germany to this British minister as though his
native land was an enemy country! But they were living in dangerous times, and Napier was an old and trusted friend.

‘They’ll all be there on Friday, the thirteenth, Napier. That date! It sounds as though it was a deliberately perverse choice, perhaps a device of that madman Nietzsche! All the half-crazed brotherhoods will be there, encouraging each other to condone and commit excesses. The
Eidgenossenschaft
,
the Prussian Banner, the Junkers of the First Hour – all the deadly demons who want to push the borders of the Reich east to Moscow, and west to the English Channel—’

Sir Charles Napier laughed.

‘They’d better not try, Seligmann! If they ever do, we’ll be ready for them!’

‘Ah, but will you?’ asked the old German scholar softly. ‘You cannot be sure. And that is why I have written a secret memorandum to von Dessau, which one of your couriers will place in his hands on the very eve of his accursed rally. I cannot in honour tell you what I have written in that memorandum, my dear Napier, but I can promise you that it will strike von Dessau like a thunderclap! Once he reads it, he will use all his great influence to stifle at once the danger of German aggression in our time.’

‘And you won’t tell me what that memorandum contains?’

‘I cannot, Napier! I have almost compromised my own integrity as a German in revealing certain things to von Dessau that should have remained a close and fast secret.’

‘Very well. You can, of course, trust me to see that your
memorandum
is delivered sealed and intact. I will undertake to see it delivered at the time of our choosing by one of my special couriers. Until that time, Seligmann, it will repose in the Foreign Office
strongroom
.’

‘Excellent! Your man came as planned to Chelsea earlier this evening, to conduct the rehearsal. I expect all will be well.’

‘I trust so. We have fourteen days before von Dessau attempts to unleash the dogs of war. Have your memorandum ready and sealed in the packet that I gave you by next Tuesday, 3 January. It will be collected by a man called Fenlake. Lieutenant Arthur Fenlake.’

Inspector Box and Sergeant Knollys walked back up from Waterman’s Pier. They said nothing until they had emerged from the gloomy alleys
to the south of Walbrook, and were within sight of the vast
meeting-hall
in St Swithin’s Lane. Its windows were now dark, and the collection of ostlers and coachmen who had been there earlier, had disappeared from the street.

‘Let’s walk up to the Mansion House, Sergeant Knollys, and take a cab from there back to the Rents. This is the coldest New Year’s Eve I’ve ever known. There’s no need for us to go back into that hall. It’s nearly ten now, and they’ll be done by half past.’

Knollys did not seem to hear what Box was saying. He stopped in the lane, and glanced back towards the dimly lit alleys that led down to the Thames.

‘Sir,’ asked Sergeant Knollys, ‘what was that constable talking about? PC Peabody? For a rough-and-ready riverside character he seemed to know far more than was good for him.’

‘Joe Peabody is a constable in the River Police. He’s been a
galleyman
since he was a lad. He joined the force when they still had the old floating station near Somerset House. But he’s also a recruit into a special body of men who assist the security services. I don’t know much about them, but I once found myself on the fringes of some business that involved them, and the man who runs them. That’s when I met Joe Peabody.’