Web of Discord (3 page)

It was as they began to skirt St Paul's Churchyard that Box suddenly became aware of the purposeful crowd hurrying along Carter Lane. Arnold Box knew all about crowds. This one was not bent on mischief. Its members, for the most part respectable City clerks, messengers and telegraph boys, were joined by grim-faced workmen and a growing number of street traders, all converging on a narrow slit between the tall buildings of Carter Lane. Box rapped with his knuckles on the ceiling of the cab, and the cabbie opened the flap in the roof.

‘Yes, sir?'

‘Cabbie, I'm Detective Inspector Box of Scotland Yard. Can you find out where all those people are going? They seem to be pouring down Verity Street.'

The cabbie's face disappeared from the open hatch, and Box heard him call out to one of the hurrying men on the pavement.

‘What's amiss, mate? Where are you all going?'

‘It's Sir John Courteline. He's been killed. Murdered.'

‘Did you hear that, sir? Sir John Courteline – who'd want to harm a hair of his head, for God's sake?'

‘I don't know, cabbie,' Box replied. He forgot all about having a quiet lunch in Cardinal Court. ‘I don't know,' he repeated, ‘but I'd like to find out. Can you get this cab down Verity Street and into Edgerton Square?'

The driver closed the roof flap, and began to manoeuvre his cab along the narrow lane called Verity Street. The vehicle moved forward through a seething mass of angry men, their
faces contorted with rage and grief. It was a grief that Box shared. Sir John Courteline, millionaire financier, was known as The Poor Man's Friend. Hundreds of projects for the relief of England's poor were wholly financed by him. Thousands
literally
owed their lives to him. He had funded trade schools, free hospitals, work projects. Five years earlier, he had been knighted for his services to the poor. And now he was dead – murdered, if these angry, frantic men were right.

The cabbie stopped his vehicle against the railings of the central garden in Edgerton Square, an elegant, secluded rectangle of tall, eighteenth-century houses with bow windows and wrought-iron balconies. Box could see the front door of Sir John Courteline's house gaping wide open, though the near hysterical crowd thronging the pavement made no attempt to trespass beyond the whitened doorstep, where two stalwart constables were stationed.

Box scribbled a note on a piece of paper, and handed it to the driver, together with two half crowns.

‘Cabbie,' he said, ‘be sure to deliver this note to the duty sergeant at 2 King James's Rents. You know where it is, don't you? Across the cobbles from Whitehall Place, on the other side of Aberdeen Lane.'

Box left the cab, and pushed his way through the crowd. Someone shouted angrily, ‘Who'd want to shoot Sir John Courteline, for God's sake? What's happening to this country?' There was a groan of assent, accompanied by a surge of bodies towards the open door of the house, through which Box could glimpse the rich appointments and gleaming gas-lanterns in the hallway. Box elbowed his way through the crowd, and hurried up the steps. Luckily, both constables had saluted him in
recognition
, so he had no need to waste time in idle chat on the pavement.

As soon as he stepped into the hall, he heard the screaming. It was a woman, hidden somewhere in the house, giving vent to wave after wave of hopeless, abandoned lamentation. Box stood transfixed. He could sense grief in the sound, but
something
else, a kind of horrified despair. After a few moments the
sound subsided, and terminated in a single chilling cry of anguish.

Box took hold of the heavy bolts behind the front door, and slammed it shut. The hall reverberated to the angry crash, bringing a uniformed sergeant out from a sort of glazed
sentry-box
beneath the stairs. The man saluted, and Box raised his hat in reply. Evidently the sergeant recognized him, which was just as well.

‘Who have you got here, Sergeant?' he asked.

‘Inspector Graham, sir, from “C” Division. We haven't sent to the Yard yet—'

‘I was just passing, Sergeant. Tell Mr Graham that I'm here, will you?'

As Box's eyes adjusted to the gloom of the hallway, he
realized
that a group of frightened domestic staff stood huddled together near the great mahogany staircase. They, too, had been transfixed by the screams of the unseen woman. They seemed to be shrinking in horror from an ugly, heavy pistol lying on the hall floor. At that moment the sergeant returned. He followed Box's gaze, and said, ‘It was thrown down by the assailant, sir, as he ran from the house. Mr Mervyn, the butler there, saw the man coming out of the study.'

The butler stepped forward as though he had been summoned to tell his story, but Box shook his head and held up his hand.

‘Not now, if you please, Mr Mervyn. Will you please send your staff about their duties. I'll speak to you later.'

As the butler shepherded the frightened servants down a dim passageway leading from the hall, Box drew the sergeant into the glass sentry-box beneath the stairs.

‘Sergeant,' he said, ‘who was doing the screaming when I came through the front door just now? It sounded like the torments of the damned.'

‘That was Lady Courteline, sir. Very upset, she was, which is not surprising, really. She's a Russian lady, Mr Box, and I believe they're regular corkers in the screaming line.'

‘Are they, now? Well, I'll remember that morsel of wisdom.
When did this attack take place?'

‘It was no more than twenty minutes ago, sir. About ten to twelve, by all accounts. Here's Inspector Graham now.'

A door to the right of the hall had suddenly opened, and a stout, whimsical-looking man stepped out to greet Box. He spoke with a kind of suppressed chuckle, as though humour was his natural bent. He wore a smart but comfortable uniform, and carried his pill-box hat in his hand.

‘Sergeant Miller,' he said, ‘go through and take brief
statements
from the servants. Leave the butler till later. Come in, Mr Box.'

The two men entered a comfortable panelled room in which a cheery fire was burning in an ornate grate. Inspector Graham closed the door.

‘Miller says that you were just passing,' he said. ‘Well, either that was an act of Providence, or a very curious concatenation of circumstances. Will you associate yourself with this case, Mr Box? It'll have to be a Yard job, in any case.'

‘“Concatenation”?' said Box, shaking his head in mock disbelief. ‘Honestly, Joe, I don't know where you get these long words from. What does it mean?'

‘It means a chain of circumstances, Arnold, as your nanny should have told you. But this is a bad, bad business. It reminds me of that poor young man you and I found shot in Thomas Lane Mews last January. There he is, Inspector, by the
fireplace
.'

Sir John Courteline lay on his back, his surprised eyes still open, his waxed beard jutting grotesquely upward. There was a bad wound in the chest, and the carpet was heavily stained with blood. The dead man was dressed in striped trousers and a frock coat. His sober waistcoat was buttoned over a white silk liner. By placing his ear close to the dead man's chest, Box could hear the quiet ticking of a watch in its fob pocket.

Sir John Courteline's right arm was flung outward. Inspector Graham pointed to a thin cigar lying near the nerveless fingers. It was still smouldering, and had begun to burn the carpet.

‘The assailant must have just flung himself into the room, and
shot him,' said Graham. ‘As you can see, it was a totally
unexpected
assault.'

‘Did you recognize the make of weapon, Joe? A .38 Colt. All the villains of the nation seem to have them, now. Our assailant rushes in, shoots his victim, rushes out again, and flings the weapon away – I wonder…. I'll talk to the butler, now. He's our best lead at the moment.'

Graham had crossed to the window which looked out on to Edgerton Square. He pulled the net curtain aside.

‘That crowd's still milling around out there,' he said. ‘There'll be trouble today, Arnold, mark my words. Sir John Courteline was The Poor Man's Friend. Before the night's out, The Poor Man will be out for blood. I'll fetch the butler.'

When the shaken Mervyn came into the study, Box pointed to a chair which he had placed so that the butler's back was turned to the dead body of his master. Box sat down beside him. His sense of outrage at Courteline's death was still strong, but his professional instincts were gradually taking control.

‘Now, Mr Mervyn,' he said, ‘I'd like you to sit there quietly, and tell me what you saw of the man who shot your master. I don't want you to tell me what he did, just what he looked like.'

Mervyn, he judged, was nearer seventy than sixty. He had a smooth, gentle face, framed by white mutton-chop whiskers. Box thought that he had probably been in service all his working life.

‘Well, sir, the man was about thirty years of age, with
close-cropped
gingery hair. He had a fleshy sort of neck – a roll of fat bulging over his collar. I'd just come out from the kitchen passage. He threw the gun down on the hall floor. You could smell the gunpowder…. He turned and glanced at me as he reached the front door. I'd run down the passage, you see, when I heard the shot. There was something odd about his face.'

Box said nothing. Instead, he slowly drew the index finger of his right hand across his right cheekbone. The butler's old eyes lightened with surprise.

‘Yes, sir! Where you're pointing on your own face this villain had a crimson scar, or sore. Perhaps it was a birthmark?'

‘Well, Mr Mervyn, we'll see. You've been of great help. And how is Lady Courteline? Does she have anyone with her?' As he spoke, Box gently escorted the butler to the study door.

‘Lady Courteline is a little better, now, sir. Miss Olga is with her, and Dr Grace. Oh, dear! What terrible times we live in!'

When Mervyn had gone, Box turned to Inspector Graham.

‘It was Killer Kitely, Joe. I thought it might be. He does that, you know. Runs in and shoots and runs out again. It was Killer who shot the Master of the Patents Office last February. We know he did it, though we can't prove it. It looks as though we've got him this time, though. Just as well, I suppose. As you said just now, the mobs will be out for vengeance over Courteline's death. Kitely will be the appeasing sacrifice.'

He glanced sombrely at the inert figure lying in front of the blazing fire.

It's an assassination. Kitely's been hired to do the job – but who by?'

‘“By whom”.'

‘What? Yes, that's what I said. We may know who did it, but we've got to find who it was who hired Kitely, and why – hello! What's this?'

Box knelt down beside the body. A piece of blood-soaked cardboard lay under the fingers of the outstretched hand. Perhaps Sir John Courteline had been looking at something when his assassin struck?

‘Have I missed something?' asked Graham.

‘You'd have found it, Joe. It's just that I've noticed it first.'

Gently, Inspector Box removed the card. It proved to be an ordinary printed visiting card, bearing the name Dr N.I. Karenin. Box turned the card over. The other side was not stained, and the neat printed letters could be seen quite clearly. But they were in a script that Box could not recognize. There was no address given on either side, just the name in neatly embossed characters. Whoever Dr N.I. Karenin was, his visiting card had presumably been the last thing that the murdered
philanthropist
had read.

‘I'll take this with me, if I may, Joe,' said Box. ‘I'm going now
to report to my superintendent at the Rents. Then I'm going after Kitely. After this escapade, he'll go to earth, and I know exactly where to find him. Before the day's out, Joe, I'll have our friend Kitely under lock and key. And then the mob will have their sacrifice.'

It was nearing two o’clock when Arnold Box emerged into Carter Lane, and jumped on to the rear stair of a passing omnibus which would take him down to the Embankment. There were one or two passengers sitting uncomfortably on the back-to-back knifeboard seats. The sky above St Paul’s had turned a menacing greenish-black, and he could smell the
pent-up
rain in the waiting air.

As they passed the Temple Gardens the heavens opened, and within seconds the open top deck of the omnibus was awash. The few passengers turned up their collars and tried to shrink themselves into their coats. It was not yet three o’clock, but the Embankment was suddenly plunged into gloom.

As they approached the Whitehall end of the Embankment, Inspector Box saw the magnificent building of New Scotland Yard rising in all its glory of red brick and Portland stone above the trees. Its many windows shone with the special sharp glow of electric light. It had been opened two years earlier, in 1891, and the Metropolitan Police had moved there, lock, stock and barrel, taking Sir Edward Bradford, the Chief Commissioner, and his 15,000 officers, with them. He had 598 inspectors, and Arnold Box was proud to be one of them.

Not everyone, though, had made the move from the old to the new Scotland Yard. A goodly number had been left behind, marooned in a dilapidated, mildewed collection of soot-
blackened
old houses just fifty yards on from Whitehall Place. Box swung himself down the slippery stairs of the omnibus, and wove his way through a tangle of mean lanes that took him into the cobbled enclave of King James’s Rents.

As Box ran up the wet steps of Number 2, he saw that the irregularly shaped entrance hall was thronged with uniformed policemen, a motley collection of men of varying girth and size, some in wet cloaks over their thick serge uniforms. Box uttered a little cry of satisfaction. Old Growler had evidently decided to assemble a posse.

‘Are you waiting for me, gentlemen?’ he asked, in his loud but pleasing London tones. He knew that Superintendent Mackharness would place these men at his disposal if he asked. ‘You’ll have heard the news. I’ve just this minute got back from Sir John Courteline’s house. Would you all go through to the drill hall? I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Hello, Sergeant Porter. I didn’t know you were here at the Rents. Is that Sergeant Ruskin at the back? I’ll be with you in minutes, seconds. Just go behind the stairs to the drill hall.’

Box stood with his hand on one of the swing doors of his office, watching the couple of dozen officers as they clattered over the bare boards of the passage behind the stairs. In a few moments’ time he’d brief them as to his plan of campaign. There was a lot to be done, and timing was the crucial thing. If he moved too quickly, Kitely would give them the slip; move too slowly, and he’d disappear for good. Killer Kitely was a
slippery
customer.

As Box entered his office his sergeant, Jack Knollys, turned round from the mirror that rose above the fireplace, where a cheerful fire was burning. The mirror was plastered with visiting cards and various pasted messages, but Box knew that his sergeant had not been looking at them. He’d been ruefully examining his face, across which a livid scar ran from below the right eye to the left corner of his mouth. Poor lad, he’d always
be sensitive about that scar, particularly now that he was courting Vanessa Drake.

‘You’ve heard the news, Jack?’ said Box. ‘I’ll cut a long story short, and tell you that this murder was done by a villain called Killer Kitely. I’m giving him a little time to run back to his lair, and then I’m going after him. He’s got a kind of den in a row of houses in East Dock Street, down at Shoreditch, not so far from St George’s in the East. Do you know those parts, Sergeant?’

‘No, sir. Being a Croydon man by birth and breeding, I’m not really well up on all these exotic places on this side of the river.’

Sergeant Knollys was a giant of a man, with close-cropped yellow hair. His voice was unexpectedly quiet, and what Box called ‘educated’, with a hint of mocking humour behind it.

‘There’s nothing very exotic about Shadwell, Sergeant,’ said Box. ‘But Sergeant Porter’s in the drill hall, and he hails from Shoreditch, and knows his way around. He’s coming with us to bring Kitely in. So you’d better get your hat and coat—’

There was the sound of a chair being pushed back in the room above, and the rackety gas mantle trembled and
spluttered
as a heavy tread shook the soot-stained ceiling. Box sprang to the door, and was standing in the vestibule when an elderly, thickset man in a frock coat appeared on the landing at the top of the steep stairs. Evidently, Superintendent Mackharness had been on the look-out for him at the upstairs window of his office, and had seen him hurrying across the square.

‘Box,’ he said, in a powerful, well-enunciated voice, ‘come up here, if you please. I shan’t keep you more than a few minutes.’

Box hurried up the stairs and entered the gloomy, mildewed office of Superintendent Mackharness.

‘I received your note, Box. Sit there in that chair, will you? This is a devilish business. Why Courteline, of all people?
There’s already a flurry of activity at the Home Office, so I’m told. And Lord Salisbury was seen slipping into the Foreign Office earlier on. Deep waters, Box, mark my words! Incidentally, how did you manage to get so quickly to the scene of the crime?’

Mackharness had seated himself at his carved oak desk, upon which reposed a number of slim cardboard folders. Well over sixty, with a yellowish face lightened by well-tended
mutton-chop
whiskers, the senior officer of King James’s Rents regarded Box with bright, black eyes, in which there lurked a kind of defensive wariness.

‘Well, sir,’ said Box, ‘I was returning from a visit to Tooley Street Police Court, and I just happened on the Courteline
business
by chance. You could say it was a concatenation of circumstances.’

‘Concatenation?’ Mackharness repeated the word with evident distaste.

‘Yes, sir. It means a chain of circumstances—’

‘Yes, yes, Inspector, I know what it means,’ Mackharness interrupted testily. ‘I’m not exactly deficient in my knowledge of the English language. I’m just startled to hear
you
using such a word, that’s all. But never mind all that. You’d better tell me what happened when you got to Courteline’s house in Edgerton Square.’

While Box talked, Mackharness listened intently, all the time drumming on the desk with the heavy, spatulate fingers of his right hand.

‘This visiting card – did you bring it away with you?’

Box produced the bloodstained card from his jacket pocket, and handed it to his superior. Mackharness held it at arm’s length, turning it over once, and then back again. He gave it back to Box, and sat back in his chair.

‘Dr N. I. Karenin,’ he said. ‘I don’t recall the name. You’ll look him up in the directories, I expect, but somehow I don’t think you’ll find him, Box. Did you see those foreign characters on the reverse? They simply repeat the fellow’s name, but in the Russian alphabet.’

‘How did you know that, sir? About the Russian alphabet?’

Mackharness began a frown, which he suddenly turned into a condescending smile.

‘You have evidently forgotten, Inspector Box, that long, long ago – longer ago than I care to remember – I served as an officer in the Crimean War. It was useful to know something of the Russian language, and the peculiar alphabet that they use to set it down in writing. I served under Raglan, you know. Most of us knew a bit of Russian – not just us, but Johnny Turk as well.’

‘And it just spells out the same name, sir?’

‘Yes. I’m inclined to think that card was actually printed in Russia, though I can’t be sure. Incidentally, the initials N.I. almost certainly stand for Nikolai Ivanovich.’

‘How did you—’

‘Don’t dare ask me, do you hear? I just know, that’s all. Now…. Do you want to follow up this case officially? There’ll be a lot of publicity, as you’ll appreciate. There’ll be all kinds of protests and marches from the humbler sort of person, Box. It’s the unions who put them up to it. And the anarchists. But never mind all that. What are you going to do? What do you want
me
to do?’

‘Sir, I know who did this murder, and I know where he’s hiding out. I see you’ve already mustered a body of officers downstairs. With their help, sir, I’ll flush our murderer out before nightfall.’

‘Well done, Box! Use those officers as you wish. And you say that you’ve identified the perpetrator of this foul outrage?’

‘Yes, sir. It was Killer Kitely. I don’t know whether you recall the name—’

‘Ahem! Kitely, you say? Well, get after him, will you? Take Sergeant Knollys with you. Oh,
Kitely
?
Joseph Kitely, aged thirty-eight, five feet seven, murderer and assassin. A slippery customer, Box. Make sure you don’t lose him!’

Sir Charles Napier, Her Majesty’s Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, sat back in his chair and observed his distinguished guest. By rights, he thought, he should be
sitting here at this ornate desk, not me! But there, politics was a peculiar game, and Lord Salisbury, the former Prime Minister, who had so recently presided over the partition of Africa while acting as his own Foreign Secretary, was now the Leader of Queen Victoria’s Loyal Opposition.

‘I can’t see Mr Gladstone taking exception to my coming here, Napier,’ said Lord Salisbury. ‘I’ve not much patience with his democratic notions, but he knows that well enough. I think he trusts me to do the best I can for Britain, whether in or out of office. He’s called an emergency meeting with the Home Secretary for later this afternoon over this damnable business of Sir John Courteline’s murder. London’s up in arms. Meanwhile, you and I can have a discreet chat, without treading on anyone’s toes. So tell me more about
Afghanistan
. I thought I’d resolved that business once and for all in ’85.’

Lord Salisbury, a very tall, heavily built man, bald but bearded, had rather gingerly lowered himself into an upright chair on entering Napier’s first-floor room in the Foreign Office. He regarded the under-secretary with melancholy eyes set deep under beetling brows. His eyes never quite focused, because he was extremely short sighted; it was said that vanity forbade his wearing spectacles in public.

‘Well, sir,’ said Napier, ‘you’ll appreciate that the Amir,
Abd-ur
-Rahman, remains loyal to the British Government, and is content that we direct his foreign policy—’

‘I appreciate that the Amir is a shrewd man, Napier, who has the knack of playing his cards right, if rather too close to his chest for comfort. If Russia’s contemplating mischief in the area, it’s just possible that Abd-ur-Rahman may pretend to be deaf. But go on, Napier, I’m setting the cart before the horse.’

‘I’ve received intelligence from one of our people in Baluchistan, a man called Abu Daria, that Russia had been covertly arming some of the northern Afghan tribes. That in itself is alarming, but another of our agents, a man who works for the railway in Petrovosk, on the shore of the
Caspian Sea, tells us that a company of ostensibly civilian engineers – Russians, I mean – have been seen in the vicinity of Meshed.’

Lord Salisbury sat up in his chair, and looked at Napier with renewed interest. He stroked his luxuriant beard
thoughtfully
.

‘Ah! Meshed. Now I can see a picture emerging…. I suppose these informants of yours are trustworthy? Could anyone have tampered with their despatches?’

‘They both communicated by cable, sir. Abu Daria linked up with the other man, Piotr Casimir, at Petrovosk, and they sent a joint cable from the telegraph office there.’

‘Hm…. Well, Meshed is one of the Russians’ classic lines of advance towards India, so if there’s anything in what your couriers have told you, then the Tsar and his advisers may be contemplating another attempt to overturn the Raj. In which case, Napier, I should say that His Imperial Majesty has taken leave of his senses. Since last year he’s turned his attentions to China. He’s borrowing French money to build a trans-Siberian railway. But Meshed…. Well, it makes one think.’

‘What would you advise, sir? Obviously, I will be ruled by whatever Lord Rosebery, the present Foreign Secretary,
recommends
, but I do have a certain standing in the matter of foreign affairs.’

‘Well, you and I have worked closely for a good few years, Napier, and by the look of things in the country at the moment, we may find ourselves in harness again before very long. Mr Gladstone’ – Salisbury permitted himself a rather mischievous smile – ‘Mr Gladstone is throwing all his energy into this Home Rule for Ireland business, and for a man in his eighties he’s putting up a remarkable show. But the country’s not with him, and that will see him out of office in a year’s time. And this business of Courteline today will unsettle the voting masses. I don’t hold any kind of brief for so-called “public opinion”, but Gladstone does, and he’ll bow to the inevitable when it happens.’

‘And about Afghanistan, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. Sorry, Napier, I was looking a bit too eagerly beyond the present. I don’t like the sound of this at all. Not one bit. As you know, I’m a diplomat where foreign relations are concerned, and my motto is “There’s always a pass through the mountains”. You can always escape bloodshed and conflict if you’re clever enough. Sir Abraham Goldsmith is giving one of his receptions for the Diplomatic Corps at his house in Arlington Street this Friday evening. He’s angling for a peerage, you know, and won’t mind if you suggest another name for his guest list. Get him to invite Captain Andropov, the Russian
military
attaché, and have a civil word with him over a glass or two of claret. And it might be an idea to chat with someone more or less civilized from the German Embassy. They’ll be just as
interested
as us, you know. The balance of power must be upheld at all costs.’

The great aristocrat lumbered to his feet. His bald head shone in the bright March light streaming through the windows from St James’s Park. He began to pull on a pair of stout leather gloves, but suddenly stopped, and looked speculatively at Napier.