M, King's Bodyguard

by Niall Leonard

  “Tell me, Gustav, is the Kaiser a sympathetic employer?”

  “I would say he is a model employer.” Steinhauer beamed.

  “An odd declaration, for a man so recently concerned his boss might have him executed.”

  “He is quick to blame when things go wrong, yes. But he is also quick to praise when things go right.”

  “So, if you get shot this evening, will he put up a statue in your honour?”

  “If I get shot this evening, I shall neither know nor care. I see you are still trying to give me the creeps, William.”

  I laughed. “Apologies, Gustav. I find a little gallows humour can help to ease the tension.”

  “You don’t seem tense, Chief Superintendent. In fact you seem remarkably composed.”

  “Sure what good did worrying ever do? Anyway, I see you cleaned your plate.”

  Steinhauer shrugged.

  “I take it,” I went on, “you didn’t get to be His Imperial Majesty’s bodyguard just by laughing at his jokes?”

  “On the contrary, I have found a sense of humour is essential.”

  It was an interestingly subversive remark, but at that moment another waiter arrived to bring us an ashtray and brush down the tablecloth, and Steinhauer immediately clammed up.

  “How so?” I pressed when we were once again out of anyone’s earshot.

  “His Imperial Majesty has all the qualities one desires in a ruler. He is the sun, and the rest of us merely reflect his glory. Certain gentlemen of his Court, however, believe they are stars in their own right. I think you, of all people, know what I mean, William.”

  “Human nature is the same the world over,” I replied non-committally. I wasn’t about to step into the same snare I’d set for him. “Tell me about this lieutenant—Rolf, was it? How did you entice him back to Germany? When so many before you had failed?”

  Steinhauer was silent a moment and tapped his cigar ash into the deep cut-glass ashtray, probably calculating how accurate to make his reply. I sensed that for all his discipline and discretion he loved a yarn, and that he was keen to make a good impression on a famous, if aging, policeman. In fact I had chosen a fine strong wine at dinner in the hope that it would encourage just such a performance, but even though Steinhauer had matched me glass for glass, so far he seemed to have said just as much as he meant to, and no more.

  “We knew Rolf had found work in Antwerp, as an engineer,” he said at last. “I contrived an encounter and befriended him. I took my time—it’s a handsome city, and I was on expenses. I told him I too was German, but that I had been living in America to avoid military service. I had returned to Europe to sell trams.”

  “Trams? Why trams?”

  “So I would not have to carry a case full of samples.” Steinhauer grinned. “Anyhow, over the next week or so, my beloved Uncle Otto happened to come up in conversation.”

  “Ah yes, Uncle Otto,” I said. “I daresay I know the man. Wealthy? Old?”

  “Not merely wealthy and old. Wealthy, old and a widower, with two very fetching daughters. And as I confessed to Rolf, these cousins of mine had been brought up without the chastening influence of a mother and, as a result, were, well…rather too free with their affections.”

  “But wasn’t it women and money that got this fellow Rolf into trouble in the first place?”

  “This leopard had not changed its spots. It so happened my Uncle Otto lived in Neuss.” I looked blank. “A small town near Düsseldorf, just over the border,” Steinhauer explained. In fact I knew the place quite well. “And one morning, while I was having breakfast with the Lieutenant, I received a letter from Otto—beautifully composed, if I say so myself—insisting that I visit, and including a generous contribution towards the cost of my travel. Which I made sure Ernst noticed. And to cut a long story short, he said we should go.”

  “Ernst?”

  It was almost imperceptible, but Steinhauer hesitated. “That was his name. Lieutenant Ernst Rolf.”

  I didn’t let him dwell on his slip. “And of course you refused,” I said.

  “Point-blank. I told him I could not return to Germany—I would be conscripted. It took him two days to persuade me. Even on the train he kept reassuring me, insisting all would be well, and no one could possibly know about our visit.” There it was again; his face had clouded, just for an instant. It looked very much as if Gustav been genuinely fond of this man. But he had delivered him to his death all the same. Admirably cold-blooded, young Steinhauer, I noted; not as boyish as he looked.

  “At the first stop over the border”—Steinhauer noticed his neglected cigar had gone out—“I told him to wait on the platform, while I went to find Uncle Otto. I returned with two porters and placed him under arrest.” He struck another match.

  “How did he take it?” There was a pause while Steinhauer relit his cigar, and seemed to collect himself.

  “Lieutenant Rolf swore an oath to our country and our Emperor. He drank too much, he whored and gambled his money away, and then he tried to save his own neck with treachery. He was a fool, yes, but he understood very well the risks he was taking.” Steinhauer drew deep and blew out a long plume of blue smoke. He hadn’t answered my question, I noticed. I could imagine this man Rolf, all bravado gone, hauled from the carriage with his knees buckling, pleading for mercy from a man he had thought was his friend. Perhaps Gustav found the memory too painful to recount.

  Give it time, my lad, I thought. You’ll stop seeing their faces in your dreams.

  “I take it he was executed?” I said.

  “By firing squad,” said Steinhauer.

  “Hm.”

  “Better that than the French way—a living death on Devil’s Island.”

  “A soldier’s death, at least,” I said, glancing at the clock. It showed a quarter to midnight.

  “Talking of which,” said Steinhauer.

  I grinned, and caught our waiter’s eye.

  6

  I slammed the cab door shut as the driver wheeled the cab round in a tight U-turn, heading east along the Strand, still thronged with ladies and gents in silks and furs weaving their way through drunks and beggars and chestnut sellers. The glamour and clamour of the West End faded behind us as we entered the City, and the theatres and music-halls gave way to brightly lit pubs where the windows rattled with music and drunken revelry.

  In the dimness of the cab Steinhauer rearranged his borrowed black scarf to cover his white shirt while I busied myself loading my old Webley Bulldog. Eventually our cab wheeled right and headed south across London Bridge, over the black churning Thames dense with smoking barges, and dived into a rabbit-warren of slums where tattered grey washing hung limply from lines across the street. The clop of our horse’s hooves and the clatter of the cab’s wheels seemed muffled by the sulphurous smoke that hung in a pall between the grimy houses. Before long we turned again, left this time, into a narrow cobbled avenue. I rapped sharply on the roof and the cab quickly came to halt.

  “Two minutes, Gustav.”

  I stepped down onto the black beaten earth of the street and glanced around. Not a soul to be seen, apart from another cab, a little farther along. Its horse stamped and shook its mane while the driver huddled in his seat under a rug, waiting for a fare. I was the fare, as it happened. I’d often employed Jack Forte and his cab for jobs like this—he was one of my irregulars, discreet, reliable and always up for some shenanigans.

  I asked our current cabbie to wait, just in case, then sought out a certain door. No streetlamps here; the only illumination was the feeble glow of paraffin lamps spilling from the dirty uncurtained windows high above. But I knew the house and found it quick enough—the premises of a professional lady who owed me a favour. This was where I’d arranged to meet Miss Minetti, far from the prying eyes of Akushku and his friends. I rapped lightly twice with the rusted ir
on knocker, as arranged, and the door was opened almost immediately by Miss Minetti herself, dressed and ready to go out, lacking only a hat.

  “Mr. Melville. One moment, I am with you.”

  She stepped back to check her reflection in a mirror hanging in the hallway and picking up a pin fastened a shabby straw hat to her honey-blond hair. I stepped in, closing the door behind me. The bruising around her eye had faded, and now she wore no powder, but just a dab of rouge on her lips.

  “Where are you planning to go, Miss Minetti?”

  She frowned. “I am coming with you.”

  “You are not. All I need is your key to get into the house. Stay here until I send for you.”

  “Where are your men? Are they there now?”

  “It’s just the two of us.”

  “Two of you? Against Iosif and his friends?” She looked alarmed, as well she might.

  “We’ll have surprise on our side. Leave this to us.”

  “But…” The girl seemed to wilt in disappointment. Had she been looking forward to seeing her deceiver in handcuffs? Roughed up a little, perhaps? “I can help you,” she said. “I can ask Iosif to come out and talk to me, away from his friends. You will wait outside, and take him, make no noise. Then when you go back in…”

  “His friends will think we’re him.” I was silent a moment. It was not a bad plan, especially for one dreamed up on the spur of the moment. “No, it’d be too dangerous.”

  “It is less dangerous, surely!”

  “I mean dangerous for you. If these friends of his are armed, as you said, and if they suspect you’ve informed on them—”

  “They suspect nothing. They think I am a silly little girl.”

  “I can’t permit it, Miss Minetti. You’d be risking your life.”

  “But you will be outside the door, Mr. Melville. I trust you. You will be there if I need you.”

  I hesitated, because it was a good ruse, and with only Steinhauer and myself involved we needed every advantage we could get. Miss Minetti had already shown plenty of courage, and even now she looked calm and composed, as if we were planning a picnic on Clapham Common rather than an armed ambush. Sometimes guile and nerve can get you further than mere muscle, and this young woman seemed to have plenty of both.

  “Hang it,” I said. “Yes. We’ll do it the way you suggest.”

  Minetti laughed and clapped her gloved hands in excitement. Glancing in the mirror, she made some final adjustments to her hat, then turned back to me. “How do I look?”

  She knew very well how she looked. But even so I sensed she needed reassurance.

  “You look very fetching, Miss Minetti. We need to move.”

  Steinhauer was in the street, stamping his feet to keep warm. He had climbed down from the cab to smoke a small cigar, but seeing us emerge from the house he tossed the cigar-butt aside and ground it into the damp earth and bowed to Minetti, who nodded and smiled. I made no introductions but led her on down the street towards Forte’s waiting cab, where I helped her aboard.

  “Don’t alight right by your front door,” I said. “Get out one street early and walk the rest of the way. My colleague and I will be right behind you. Don’t worry about losing us, and don’t look back.”

  “I understand,” said the girl, and settled calmly into her seat.

  “You heard that, Jack?” I asked the driver. He nodded once. That was why I liked Forte; unlike most London cabbies he listened and kept his mouth shut. “Good,” I said. “Off you go.” Forte cracked his whip and the cab headed east. I trotted back to our own cab.

  “Follow him, but keep your distance,” I told our driver.

  “Follow him? Right you are, guv’nor,” he replied. Steinhauer scrambled aboard behind me, and the hackney moved off before we had even shut the door.

  “How far from here?” asked Steinhauer.

  “Whitechapel. Ten minutes or so.”

  North, we headed again, back across the Thames by way of Tower Bridge. Then east, and soon the massive elegant buildings around St. Paul’s gave way to yet more grimy slums and the rutted streets of Whitechapel. Here the shadows teemed with life; I caught the flare of a match lighting up a huddle of beggars sharing a clay pipe, and farther on two shapes in a dark doorway that resolved themselves as we passed—a young woman with her hair cropped short, lifting her skirts for a soldier.

  After a few minutes our cab slowed and stopped at the kerb.

  “The other cab, sir, he’s pulled up,” our driver called down to us, but quietly, thank God. Steinhauer descended after me, and I flicked a sovereign to the driver. He caught it neatly, stared at it in disbelief and could not resist biting it, even while I watched. Then he grinned, with blackened teeth.

  “Want me to wait, guv’nor?” He kept his voice down. “For this much I’ll hang about all night.”

  “We’ll manage, thanks. Good evening.”

  Angela Minetti was standing fifty feet ahead of us, fumbling in her handbag as if searching for the fare; she must have been watching us from the corner of her eye, for as soon as our cab moved away she turned and set off in the direction of her apartment without a backwards glance. Steinhauer fell into step beside me as we followed her along the deserted street of tall tenements, all veiled in a thin bitter mist.

  “Is this the place?”

  “Not quite. But two cabs pulling up right outside her home, a few minutes apart…”

  “Would be as good as a fanfare.”

  “Indeed.”

  The smoke of ten thousand coal fires swirled in Minetti’s wake as she strode up the street, and at one point even threatened to swallow her up, but I saw her turn left, and we quickened our step to close the distance. She kept up a brisk pace, without one look over her shoulder. Presently she slowed, and paused at the foot of a flight of steps leading up to a tall decaying town house. I knew the place from the reconnaissance trip I’d made shortly after Minetti had first presented herself at my office. I’d wanted to get the lay of the land before we raided the place in force; but of course Anderson had nobbled that plan.

  Silently I caught Steinhauer’s sleeve and drew him into the shadows on our left. The girl was fishing in her handbag again, and I saw the glint of a latchkey as she climbed the steps to the front door. Like all these houses, the place had been grand once, the home of some wealthy merchant; now it was rented out to scores of miserably poor tenants, sometimes with three generations crammed into one room.

  As Minetti entered we followed and saw that she had closed the front door behind her, but not all the way. Laying a hand on Steinhauer’s arm, I murmured, “Wait here, and cover the front door. Anyone comes out, you challenge them, and shoot if you have to. You’re on His Majesty’s service now.”

  Gustav did not argue but stood back as I ascended the steps, eased the Webley from my pocket and gently pushed the door. It swung wide, barely creaking, to reveal nothing but darkness. Stepping in, I pushed it shut behind me, again not fully, and edged forwards, listening to voices drift downstairs and letting my eyes become accustomed to the dark. The voices were coming from the first floor at the rear of the building—Minetti’s apartment.

  The hallway I stood in was a freezing black quagmire, but the dark was lifted a little by the light leaking in from the street. Faint as it was, it would be enough to silhouette me if anyone chose to look down from the first-floor landing. I crept forwards, towards the foot of the broad wooden staircase I had climbed just the day before, moving slowly, testing each floorboard before I placed my full weight on it in case a creak betrayed me. My thumb found the safety catch of my gun and flicked it on, and I turned the pistol in my hand to hold it by the barrel. As soon as Akushku reached the foot of the stairs, I would bludgeon him. A gunshot would certainly alert his accomplices.

  If you were to ask me how long I stood there, I would say five minutes
, or possibly five hours. At such moments one loses all track of time, focusing only on staying alert and ready for any eventuality, every nerve stretched taut, every sense extended. That was Minetti’s voice, rising and falling; she had been pleading with her lover, but now by the sound of it she was starting to hector him. I cursed, silently—this was no good; if her charms were not enough to persuade him downstairs, nagging would not change his mind.

  But why was he so reluctant to come out?

  Abruptly the door on the first floor burst open and light spilled down into the hallway. I slipped back into the shadows, but the door shut again almost immediately, and I heard Minetti’s footsteps tapping petulantly down the stairs. At the foot of the staircase she paused and whispered into the gloom, “He will not come down. He says whatever I have to tell him, I must say in front of his friends.”

  I weighed up my options. Was Akushku suspicious, or merely tired of obliging the girl? “Go outside,” I whispered. “And ask my friend to come in.”

  She did not look in my direction but carried on to the front door while I kept my eyes fixed on the landing above. My thumb found the safety catch on my pistol again, and flicked it off. I heard the rustle of Angela’s dress as she re-entered, and I glanced back quickly to see her leading Steinhauer by the hand through the gloom.

  “Wait outside,” I told her. “We’ll do this my way.”

  “No, I know what to say to him now. This time he comes down, you will see.” Before I could stop her, she was clattering up the stairs again, hitching her dress with her gloved fists. I cursed under my breath. What was it that Prussian general said? No plan of attack survives contact with the enemy. Steinhauer and I would have to take these men head-on, and the time to do it was while Minetti was distracting them. She opened the door to her apartment and went inside.

  Then I heard footsteps, directly overhead, quickly pacing from the front of the building towards the back. Had someone been looking out the front window?

  Abruptly the door at the top of the stairs was wrenched open again, and Minetti reappeared, her face pale and pinched with fear, her mouth a tight line. She had barely crossed the threshold when a pistol shot rang out, and she fell with a yelp of pain. A tall muscular figure stepped forwards to stand over her, raised a pistol and started shooting down the stairs.