Web of Discord (6 page)

And where, thought Napier, was his particular
bête
noir
? Ah! There he was. Slightly behind the main Russian group, and frowning like a spoilt brat, was the Russian military attaché, Captain Igor Andropov.

A voice behind Napier, a voice belonging to a man
half-hidden
by an archway framed by tall palms, suddenly spoke. Napier continued to look down on the brilliant throng.

‘Did you send young Andropov a Note this morning?’ asked the voice. ‘If you did, then that would explain his brow of thunder. That, and the fact that he’s clearly drunk. He looks more like an apoplectic pig than ever.’

‘I don’t recollect your name appearing on the guest list, Colonel Kershaw,’ said Napier. ‘But of course I knew you’d get in some way or other. Yes, I sent him a formal Note. It was Salisbury’s idea in the first place. I think he contemplated
something
like a mild complaint, but I had a word with the Foreign Secretary before he left for Scotland this afternoon, and he thought a Note would be more to the point. But come out from
behind those palms, Kershaw, and sit down here. I received bad news from Brian Fitzgerald this afternoon. I want to tell you about it.’

Kershaw did as he was bid. Fitzgerald, he knew, was the supervisor of Foreign Office correspondents in Northern Europe. A genial cloth-merchant by trade, he had been based in Riga for many years.

‘I heard from Fitzgerald today that two of my people, Abu Daria and Piotr Casimir, were found murdered, tied back to back and shot through the head. Their bodies were in a
timber-store
at Petrovosk. And my agent Jacob Kroll – you remember Kroll? – was pulled dead from the river at Riga. He’d evidently been attacked by thugs, and his body flung into the Dvina. Those three men have been murdered for revealing what they knew about Russia’s aggressive intentions towards India, and their secret machinations in the forests of Lithuania.’

‘Perhaps. Or maybe they were murdered in case they revealed what they
didn’t
know. Dead men tell no tales either way.’

In the salon below, a pianist seated himself at a great
rosewood
piano, and began to play. His music was designed to complement the conversation – tuneful, and sweetly harmonic. The noise of conversation began to rise, and the footmen appeared with further supplies of claret.

‘I received no response from Andropov to that Note I sent this morning,’ said Napier. ‘I think this is the right time for me to go down there and pay my respects to Prince Orloff. Then I’ll steer young Andropov into a corner to hear what he has to say.’

‘I wish you well,’ said Colonel Kershaw. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

Sir Charles Napier laughed, and moved towards the staircase.

‘Certainly not! You stay up here, out of the way. After all, I’m hardly venturing into the lion’s den – merely the pig’s sty.’

Kershaw watched Napier as he descended the staircase into the salon. He had known Charles Napier since boyhood, They had had their differences, but since the affair of the Hansa Protocol earlier that year, each had revised his estimate of the
other. Elegant and beautifully spoken, Napier was a born diplomat, a fluent linguist, and a skilful weaver of the many subtle threads of politics. He wore his clothes well, and tonight his white shirt front was adorned with the insignia of a Knight Bachelor.

Colonel Kershaw thought of the bloodstained card that Box had given him earlier that day. He had shown it to M. Scriabin, head of security at the Russian Embassy. Scriabin had pulled a wry face, and told him that this Karenin had been gaoled for a breach of state security in the ’70s, and that he had been released from prison the previous year. He had told him, too, the name of a man living in London who could tell him all about Dr Karenin and his history. He would contrive to let Box know that.

There was Napier now, weaving his way through the throng. Now he was bowing to Prince Orloff, who was returning the compliment with a vengeance. His attendant suite bowed their heads briefly. And now he was talking to young Captain
Andropov
….

What was this? A sudden, violent movement from the Russian attaché, and he had flung the contents of his claret glass in Napier’s face. Several women screamed, the pianist stopped in mid-phrase, and conversation froze. In moments, a number of angry men had closed in on the attaché, pinioned his arms, and dragged him away. He was shouting something in Russian, his face contorted with drunken rage.

Napier was wiping his face with a scarf that someone had passed to him. Even from where he stood in the balcony, Kershaw could see the ugly red claret stain splashed across Napier’s dress shirt. He suddenly felt a surge of cold anger, but he did not let that prevent him from noticing that one of the footmen had hastily deposited his tray on a window sill and hurried out into the hall passage. So that was it!

Napier was speaking to the assembled company in French. ‘Please, my friends, it is nothing. A young man’s foolish
misunderstanding
. Please continue the
soirée.
In a few minutes’ time the grand buffet will be served.’ Napier glanced at the pianist,
who immediately continued his quiet recital. The conversations were renewed.

Prince Orloff’s face was white with shock. He looked beside himself with shame.

‘My dear Sir Charles,’ he stammered in English, ‘you will believe me when I say that I had no notice of this terrible insult. I apologize unreservedly and publicly, on my own behalf, and that of the Imperial Government. That man will be withdrawn to Russia immediately, and disciplined. I am devastated,
dishonoured
….’ The ambassador was wringing his hands in anguish.

‘Come up into the gallery, Your Excellency,’ said Napier. ‘We can talk privately there. Meanwhile, let me assure you that I regard Andropov’s action as a mental aberration. The matter is of no consequence.’

Sir Charles Napier and Prince Orloff made their way through the guests towards the stairs. Napier acknowledged the many murmured expressions of sympathy that were offered to him in several languages. The Russian Ambassador maintained a stiff posture and determined silence until they had reached the seclusion of the gallery, where they sat down at a table.

‘This afternoon, Sir Charles,’ said Prince Orloff, ‘Andropov came to me and showed me the Note that you had sent him. It suggested that the Russian Imperial Government had
authorized
incursions into Afghanistan, perhaps with a view to attacking India. I am happy to assure you that these suggestions are unfounded.’

‘I am delighted to hear it, Your Excellency. Your assurance is, of course, entirely sufficient. Thank you for clarifying the
situation
for me.’

‘Your Note to Andropov further suggested that Russian
engineers
were working on unspecified projects in the vicinity of Meshed. Again, I am happy to assure you that this is not the case. Your informants were mistaken.’

‘Again, Prince Orloff, I must thank you for your kindness in making things clear. They were simply enquiries, as I’m sure you’ll understand. Captain Andropov evidently misread my intentions. Having those points clarified assures me, not for the
first time, that relations between our government and yours are conducted on a basis of frankness and mutual regard.’

Prince Orloff smiled, and inclined his head. Then his eyes rested on Napier’s stained shirt front. Once again, the old
aristocrat
blushed with shame and anger.

‘Do you believe me when I say that I was not privy to that fellow’s outrageous assault? I can’t fathom the reason for it. He is supposed to be a diplomat – but he will be one no longer. He will be returned to his regiment, if they will have him – but who is this? Ah! Colonel Sir Adrian Kershaw. Please join us, Colonel. I have been apologizing to Napier here for that man’s conduct.’

Colonel Kershaw glanced briefly at Napier, and then sat down beside the ambassador.

‘My dear Prince Orloff,’ said Kershaw, ‘as you know, I am the kind of person who finds out things. Now here is something about Captain Igor Andropov that you may not know. Young as he is, that man has been heavily in debt for years – ruinously in debt. Very soon, he may lose the small estate that has given him the necessary entrée into Russian public life.’

‘You astound me! Are you sure of this, Colonel Kershaw?’

‘I am, Your Excellency. Andropov was bribed by a certain faction to create a diplomatic incident here, tonight. That faction had previously ensured that there would be sufficient bad blood between Britain and Russia for something like this to occur. Andropov is no Russian patriot. He is a hired turncoat. So, as I’m sure Sir Charles Napier has told you, there is no diplomatic breach between you and us. Russia’s honour has never been in question.’

The ambassador stood up, and shook both men vigorously by the hand.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the matter is closed. I will go down to join my suite. And then, perhaps, we can all assemble for the grand buffet!’

The two Englishmen watched the old Russian aristocrat as he descended the stairs. Sir Charles Napier looked at Kershaw with a mixture of awe and amused vexation.

‘You monstrous creature, Kershaw! So you knew all the time
that this incident was going to take place. You knew Andropov would be here, and you didn’t think it necessary to warn me. Really!’

‘Well, you see, I didn’t know what exact form the incident was going to take. Trust a fellow like Andropov to waste a very decent Médoc! Incidentally, I think Mrs Beeton has a recipe somewhere, called, “To Remove Claret Stains from a Boiled Shirt”. I’ll look it out for you. By the way, did you notice one of the footmen rushing out as soon as the wine-throwing took place? He’s gone to alert the Press, who are lurking in the alley beside this house. Somebody tipped them off about all this, and paid that footman to relay the news. It’ll be in all the papers tomorrow, and no matter what you and old Orloff say to each other, the papers will blow the matter up out of all proportion. The so-called “incident” was contrived solely for that purpose.’

Napier stood in thought for a moment, looking down on the crowd of guests.

‘You may well be right, though my intelligence seems to confirm that Russia really is making these incursions in Afghanistan and beyond. Prince Orloff is secretly furious beneath that veneer of diplomatic sweet reasonableness. He’s convinced that we’re seeking an opportunity to quarrel. He didn’t believe my reassurances just now, and, of course, I didn’t believe his protestations of innocence.’

‘Well, Charles,’ said Kershaw, ‘perhaps we’ll speak further about all this. Incidentally, it’s not only the gentlemen of the Press who are shivering out there in the cold; Detective Inspector Box is there, as well. I rather think that our friend the footman will have met his match in that alley.’

Box waited in the shadows of the cold alley until the footman, incongruous in his blue and silver livery and powdered wig, had poured out his excited account of the incident to the waiting reporters. Fiske of the
Graphic,
and Carter of the
Sketch,
grinning
broadly, had beaten a hasty retreat. Both men, Box knew, needed only the bare bones of a story: their great journalistic skills would provide the necessary meat.

As soon as the gleeful reporters had gone, Box emerged from the shadows, and seized the startled footman by the collar.

‘I just want a little verbal statement from you, my friend,’ said Box, showing the man his warrant card. ‘So let’s have no bluster, and no clever tales. Who tipped you off about this little game?’

The footman, a young fellow of twenty or so, licked his lips nervously, and glanced at the entrance to the alley, which the taciturn coffee seller had carefully blocked by pulling his stall across the entrance.

‘So help me God, guvnor, I don’t know who the man was. He approached me yesterday, as I was exercising Lady Goldsmith’s dogs in the park. He gave me five pounds in sovereigns, and said that if anything peculiar happened in our house tonight, I was to come out here and tell a man called Fiske what had happened. I didn’t mean no harm, guvnor—’

‘I never said you did. What was he like, this man? I don’t suppose he gave you his name and address, did he, and a nice little photograph of himself in a leather-covered frame?’

‘No, sir. He didn’t do anything like that. He was a tall man, with very black hair. Pale as a ghost – corpse pale, he was. He spoke English, but with a foreign accent, like a lot of the gentlemen do who come to our house. I won’t lose my place, will I, guvnor?’

‘No, you won’t. You’ve not broken the law, but you might take a few lessons in loyalty to your employer, my lad. You might have compromised him, and damaged his reputation as a banker, and all for five pounds. Go on, hop it.’

When the footman had scuttled away, Box turned to the
stall-holder
.

‘I suppose you’re another of the colonel’s private regiment?’ he asked. ‘He thinks of everything, doesn’t he?’

The man smiled. He had cleared the stall of its urn and pile of cups, which he had stowed in a cupboard beneath the counter, and had begun to drag the whole thing out into Arlington Street.

‘He thinks of most things, Inspector Box,’ he said. ‘You’ll
usually find me working in a little lane off Leicester Square, but I came here tonight to oblige the Colonel. If the gentlemen of the Press were turning up, they’d need somewhere to plant themselves comfortably. Thinks of everything, the colonel does.’

The cable ship
Lermontov
had lain at anchor for most of the dark hours of Friday night, half a mile off the Cornish coast. As Saturday dawned, and the sun rose, its light was quickly
smothered
in the drifting mists of grey rain falling widely across the sea. It was just possible for a sharp ear to detect the sound of the engines that worked the cable-lifting gear. A pall of black smoke hung over the vessel.

In a sheltered fissure high on the cliff top William Pascoe, chief cipher clerk, well wrapped up against the rigours of the cold morning, stared out to sea through powerful binoculars. Yes, it was as he thought. The mysterious vessel had returned to its haunt, and this time he was able to make out its name and provenance, painted on the stern in Latin characters:
Lermontov,
Odessa.
They were busy splicing into one of the cables. Soon, no doubt, they’d send a message for him and his colleagues at Porthcurno to pick up and relay to London.

The rain began to clear, and the low banks of cloud glowed with a diffuse sunlight. Far off, near the horizon, a smudge of smoke appeared. That, thought Pascoe wryly, will be the naval frigate that someone in London had decided to send across from Plymouth, to keep an eye on things. Activity on the
Lermontov
ceased, and Pascoe heard the rasping of its
anchor-chain
. The ship remained stationary, but Pascoe knew that
before the frigate had come fully into view, the Russian ship would begin to move away, probably in the general direction of the French coast.

In the snug inner office leading off the main transmission room at Porthcurno cable station, a comfortable, fair-haired man in his forties puffed away at his morning pipe, and scanned the early editions of the newspapers. They were full of the drunken Russian attaché’s attack on Sir Charles Napier – and making heavy weather of it, by the look of things.

‘A grave assault on the dignity of the English race,’ the
Morning
Post
declared. ‘Russia may be quite certain,’ it went on to say, ‘that Her Majesty’s Government will demand full
reparation
.’ Well, maybe.

What did
The
Times
have to say? ‘It may be time for Britain to reappraise her alliances. For too long, it seems, we have made Prussia the bogey-man with which to affright ourselves. Has the time come to believe the Kaiser’s protestations of friendship? Has the time come to understand the deep concerns of the Berlin government, and to see that fear of Russia is a legitimate cause for concern?’ Strong stuff!

The fair-haired man put the paper down, and walked out into the transmission room. William Pascoe had come hurrying in from his early-morning jaunt. Thank goodness he’d left his bicycle outside! Here he was, making no attempt to remove his damp pea jacket, looking as though he was bursting with news. It was only seven o’clock, and the six night operators were still on duty, sitting at their busy machines.

‘Ah! So you’re back from your jaunt at last, William!’ said the fair-haired man. ‘It’s been frantic here for the last hour. Very heavy traffic from Alexandria, which seems to be carrying a lot of the Malta stuff this morning. Heavy going, for a Saturday! But it’s all commercial, and we’re slackening off, now, thank goodness. The day men will be down in half an hour.’

‘Has there been anything from nearer home in the last twenty minutes or so, Bob? I saw that ship down there again this morning. It was splicing into one or other of the cables—’

‘You and your mystery ships! As a matter of fact, a message had started to come in as you arrived. It’s coming through now, on Number 5, over there, the old Kelvin-Muirhead machine. Perhaps it’s the message you’re hoping for.’

Bob Jones moved away to talk to one of the other operators, and William Pascoe sat down in front of Number 5 engine, a gleaming Kelvin Siphon Recorder. His experienced fingers made a few quick adjustments to the terminals and to the speed of the electro-magnetic engine. Then he caught the moving paper tape between his hands as it rolled off the spool, reading the peaks and dips recorded by the elderly machine, and mentally translating them into letters.

The message was in English, and directed from the cable station at Carcavelos in Spain to the military section of the Russian Embassy in London. ‘Have ascertained,’ it ran, ‘that the German cargo steamer
Berlin
Star,
out of Bremerhaven, is in reality a contraband runner, smuggling arms from Britain to dissidents in Russia. Let all necessary action be taken.’ What could it mean? Was it a hoax? Perhaps, but the letters concluding the message were undoubtedly the signal code for the receiving telegraph office at the Russian Embassy. Here was Bob Jones again.

‘Any luck, William?’ said his colleague, good-humouredly. Bob Jones was an easy man to work with. Although much older than Pascoe, he didn’t seem to begrudge the younger man his seniority.

‘Yes, Bob, I’m quite certain that this message was relayed here from a splice, made just an hour ago by that rogue cable ship, the
Lermontov.
I’ll write it down in plain English, and send it enclosed in a letter to Mr Dangerfield at Winchester House. Perhaps he’ll pass it on to that clever chap who was down here in January – Captain Adams. And I think I’ll go down to my friend Hugh Trevannion at St Columb’s Manor on Monday. I’d value his advice.’

Young Pascoe turned the knurled brass knobs that stopped the mechanisms rotating, and the Kelvin-Muirhead Recorder fell silent.

The rush of calls on the cable station had subsided, and Jones had strolled over to the blazing fire.

‘Incidentally,’ he said, ‘if secret messages can be so easily breached by splicing the cables, then the government should consider using direct-voice communications through the Post Office’s electric telephone lines. That new line from London to Paris has been wildly successful.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Pascoe, smiling, ‘a very great success – at eight shillings for three minutes! It’s only used by the Stock Exchange to talk to the gentlemen of the Paris bourse. The government would never sanction using the electric telephone for serious work, ingenious as it is.’

‘Well, I’ll give you a little piece of fatherly advice. Forget all this cloak-and-dagger business. Your job –
our
job – is to forward incoming messages to their destinations. If we do that, we’ll all keep out of trouble. I’m off, now. Time for a bit of shut-eye.’

William Pascoe went into the inner office, and rummaged among the pile of newspapers. He’d leave the heavy ones to Bob and the others. Where was the
Graphic
?
There’d be a leader by William Fiske, the great political correspondent. Yes, here it was.

Marvellous! It was good to know that not everybody in the capital believed in hiding their heads in the sand.

Squire Trevannion glanced out of the long medieval window of the living-room at his ancient Cornish manor of St Columb’s. How far off London seemed! For himself, he would be content to remain here, within the confines of his walled cliff-top estate, until he died. But the old, stable world was shrinking fast. The railways, and the web of telegraphic cables and humming wires, had reduced the vast realm of Britain to a comparatively small and manageable island.

Here was young Pascoe now, pushing open the gate in the dry-stone wall that gave entrance to St Columb’s from the cliff path. He’d sent a note over on Sunday, saying he wanted to call and ask for advice. Best go to the door and greet him. Would he mind these old, patched tweeds? Pascoe always dressed smartly – too smartly, to some folk’s way of thinking. One day, if he wasn’t careful, he’d forget that he was a Penzance man, born and bred.

‘Now, I wonder,’ said Trevannion, as he ushered his visitor over the threshold and into the long, low parlour, ‘what brings you this far out from Porthcurno today? I’m sure it’s not merely for the pleasure of my conversation.’

‘As I said in my note, Hugh, I’ve come to ask you a favour. It’s nothing very much, just permission to use your cliff path down to Spanish Beach. You see, somebody told me recently that a boatload of men came ashore one January night from that Russian cable ship—’

Hugh Trevannion sprang to his feet. His face, normally wooden and impassive, was flushed with anger.

‘For goodness’ sake, Pascoe,’ he cried, ‘can’t you leave that wretched business alone? Damn it, man, it’s six weeks since those odd messages came through your machines. Leave it, I say. You’re a clever fellow, I’ve no doubt, but there are cleverer people in London who’ll ferret out the meaning of it all.’

‘I’m sorry to annoy you so much, Hugh—’

‘I’m not really annoyed with you, William. It’s just that as I get older, I get grumpier! By all means go down my private path
to Spanish Beach. I expect you want to talk to the folk at the inn. They’re the people who’ve been putting these rumours about. I wish you’d give it up. But there, young men don’t really like to accept advice from folk of my age, even though they ask for it. Get down to Spanish Beach. I know you won’t rest until you’ve heard what the folk at the inn have to say.’

As Hugh Trevannion stood at one of the windows, watching Pascoe as he hurried across the sparse grass towards the cliff, a voice behind him said softly, ‘Curiosity, so you English aver, killed the cat.’

Trevannion turned from the window to look at the man who had been his secret guest since mid-February. A tall man, whose bony wrists protruded from the sleeves of his black jacket, a man with strong, sinuous hands, from the fingers of which some nails were missing. Familiarity with the man brought these things to the forefront of Hugh’s attention, but on first
acquaintance
, it was the face that had held him fascinated.

It was a face of almost ghostly pallor, chalk-white. The features were regular, and the man was clean-shaven, so that when you saw beyond the pallor you realized that he must have been very handsome in his youth. He was nearer fifty than forty, but his hair was of a deep bluish black. His eyes, of a
startlingly
pale blue, had the unsettled gaze of a fanatic.

Hugh Trevannion felt a surge of excitement. He forgot about Pascoe, as he met the disturbingly unfocused gaze of the
corpsepale
man. Had the moment arrived when the manor, and its lands, were to be truly his own again? Dr Karenin had come into his life at a desperate juncture, when total ruin had threatened him, not financial ruin alone, but mental disintegration, for he had begun to hear the voice of his dead sister Meg talking and singing about the house. Karenin had brought him solvency and security. All he had to do was say nothing, and think nothing.

‘That is what you English say, is it not? “Curiosity killed the cat”. Well, that young man should have heeded your warning. Spanish Beach is a decidedly unhealthy place at this time of year.’

‘Are you ready, now, Dr Karenin, to conclude the business?’ asked Trevannion in a trembling voice. ‘You promised that today would be the day – Monday, the thirteenth of March.’

‘I did, Mr Trevannion, and you’ll find that I am true to my word. Let us go up to my room, and conclude the business there.’

An old twisted staircase took them to the second storey, where Trevannion’s guest occupied a large room overlooking the wild, boulder-strewn approach to the edge of the cliff. The man sat down at a roll-top desk, and carefully sorted some papers into order. Trevannion sat in tense watchfulness on an upright chair.

This had once been his sister Meg’s room. It still contained her vanity-table, and the double doors of the tall wardrobe concealed her clothes. Meg had died of pleurisy during the fierce Cornish winter of ’85. Sometimes Hugh fancied that she was still moving quietly about the ancient house.

When his guest picked up a time-worn document bearing a number of wax seals dangling from faded tapes, Trevannion cried out in satisfaction, and stretched out his hand. Dr Karenin clung on to the document, and quelled his host with a single glance from his pale-blue, restless eyes.

‘Wait!’ His tone was peremptory, almost threatening. Even as he spat out the single word of warning, Trevannion wondered at his excellent command of English.

‘Wait! Yes, my friend, this is the original title deed of St Columb’s Manor, which lay safe for centuries with your family and its lawyers, and then began its ignominious travels, as you were obliged to mortgage your birthright to grasping strangers. Well, I have it, now, and in a moment or two I’ll affix my
signature
to a deed of relinquishment that will make this title deed yours once again. But you must give me your verbal assurance that you will honour your side of the bargain.’

‘My side?’

‘Yes, Mr Trevannion,
your
side of it. In a few moments’ time you will be a true property owner once again, an English milord, living on his own ancestral acres. How romantic it sounds! But unlike other English landed gentry, you, my friend, are bound to
me
.’

Dr Karenin picked something up from the desk, and held it up to the light.

‘What would you say this thing was, Mr Trevannion? Long and thin, like a needle, and capped with a little diamanté globe? How elegant it is!’

‘That? Why, it’s a hatpin. There are a great many of them in that little box. They belonged to my late sister, Miss Margaret Trevannion.’