5 A Very Murdering Battle

by Edward Marston

  Welbeck was mystified. ‘Why don’t you follow him, Dan?’

  ‘Because he knows me,’ replied Daniel. ‘If he caught sight of me, he’d have another fit of pique. You’re a stranger to him. It would never cross his mind that you were trailing him.’

  ‘Do you think the effort could be worthwhile?’

  ‘Yes, Henry, I do. There’s something about the man that jars with me.’

  ‘So all I have to do is to follow him home?’

  ‘No,’ said Daniel, ‘you simply have to make sure that that’s where he’s going. My guess is that we may be in for something of a surprise.’

  Now that he knew the amount of money being demanded, Marlborough was even more irate. He would never hand over the sum of fifty thousand pounds in Dutch currency for property that was rightly his own. It was unthinkable. He was not unused to demands for money or, indeed, for making them. Holding prisoners of war to ransom was a common and very lucrative practice. If he was unable to organise a prisoner exchange, he’d willingly paid large amounts for the return of senior British officers who’d fallen into enemy hands. There was nothing ignoble in that. It was in the nature of warfare. He could always recoup such expenditure in due course. The situation here was different. Thieves had stolen something that held immense emotional value for him. Ramillies was a stirring victory that confirmed his position as a supreme military strategist. To have a tapestry of the battle hanging in Blenheim Palace meant that he had a permanent reminder of his triumph.

  It was his wife who troubled him most. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was an authoritative woman with a truculent streak. If he told her about his dilemma, she would explode with rage and he desperately wanted to avoid that. As it was, her most recent letters had fury coursing through every line. She complained bitterly about the way that her close friendship with Queen Anne had been systematically undermined by Abigail Masham, a member of the royal retinue for whom she retained the most utter detestation. Ousted from royal favour, the Duchess sought consolation in supervising the construction of Blenheim Palace, but there was more vexation than consolation. Money was inevitably the root cause. She was forever haggling with the architect over costs and trying to make craftsmen take less for their services than they were asking. Every detail of her financial skirmishes was dashed off in letters to her husband and he’d been almost relieved when ice in the Dutch ports brought a halt to her correspondence. He loved her dearly and missed her greatly, but there were times when he was actually glad to be apart from her. This was one of them.

  Yet she would have to know the ugly truth one day. Marlborough prayed that the situation would have been resolved by then. He wanted to be able to return to England with the tapestry. Having to admit to her that it had been destroyed by thieves in an act of malice would rouse her to a pitch of anger. Once infuriated, she couldn’t easily be pacified. The fact that Marlborough had refused to part with any money wouldn’t moderate her wrath in any way. The Duchess had been shown the design for the tapestry by Janssen himself and she’d given it her seal of approval. She’d already waited a long time to see the finished work. To be told that Janssen and his assistants would have to start all over again would be intolerable to her. Though none of it was his fault, Marlborough would be made to feel obscurely responsible. Only his wife was capable of doing such a thing to him.

  His one hope lay with Daniel Rawson. Having employed him on a number of dangerous assignments, Marlborough knew about his almost limitless capabilities. But his previous work had always had a military aspect to it. He’d never before been engaged to solve such a crime and recover property. Marlborough was bound to wonder if even Daniel’s resourcefulness was equal to the task.

  ‘It’s a waste of time, Dan,’ protested Welbeck. ‘I’ve followed him twice now and he went straight home. Pienaar is not the man we’re after.’

  ‘Don’t give up, Henry,’ said Daniel. ‘Trail him again this evening.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘I have this worry about him.’

  ‘And so do I,’ said Welbeck, bitterly. ‘My worry is that he does nothing but come to work and return home day after bloody day. That’s his entire life.’

  ‘Try just once more.’

  ‘It’s cold out there.’

  ‘Do it as a favour to me, Henry.’ Welbeck could not refuse such an appeal but he continued to grumble. It was a long walk to Aelbert Pienaar’s house and, on the first occasion, he’d got hopelessly lost on his way back. There was always the possibility that Pienaar went home, had a meal and later went out, but Welbeck doubted it. The man had trudged all the way to his house and entered it as if eager to collapse into a chair by a warm fire. He didn’t give the impression of someone intent on revelry. Everything about him – his sober attire, his hunched walk, his air of sadness – suggested that Pienaar led a very private existence. Such a person would hardly associate with criminals.

  Notwithstanding his objections, Welbeck responded to Daniel’s request. When Pienaar finished at the end of a long day, he put on his coat and hat before letting himself out into the darkness. Welbeck was ready. After watching him through the window, he left the house and fell in behind him. Because he felt in no danger of being discovered, he stayed fairly close to him. On neither of the two previous occasions had Pienaar bothered to look behind him. He was too intent on getting home. When the man took the same route as usual, Welbeck groaned inwardly and braced himself for another fruitless plod through the streets of Amsterdam. Then Pienaar suddenly turned off his familiar path and headed down an alleyway. He was more cautious now, pausing to look over his shoulder before continuing. Keeping to the shadows, Welbeck allowed more space between them. He was excited by the change in routine, wondering if Daniel’s distrust of Pienaar would, after all, prove justified.

  A stranger to the city, Welbeck was nevertheless aware that they were now moving into one of its less salubrious districts. They passed rowdy taverns and groups of men lounging on street corners. Stray dogs were roaming. The quality of the housing declined. Pienaar eventually stopped outside a house and looked in both directions before knocking on the front door. Confident that he hadn’t been seen, Welbeck took up a position on the opposite side of the road. He was unsure what to do. He certainly had no inclination to wait indefinitely on such a raw evening. If he was visiting relatives, Pienaar might even stay the night. Yet it didn’t seem to be the sort of place where such a respectable and fastidious man would care to spend time. Buildings nearby were almost ramshackle and there was a faint hint of danger in the air. Welbeck was persuaded to linger where he was.

  His patience was rewarded. Twenty minutes later, the door of the house opened and two people appeared. A man embraced a woman and kissed her full on the lips before rolling drunkenly down the street and singing to himself. After waving to him, the woman closed the door. There’d been enough candlelight for Welbeck to get a good look at her. He’d seen enough. It was time to go.

  Amalia was surprised to see a light under the door of the workshop. Her father had finished work for the day, Dopff had gone off to his room and, she assumed, the other assistants had gone home. When she opened the door and peeped in, she saw that Geel was still there, brooding beside his loom. The sudden noise brought him out of his reverie.

  ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed, turning round. ‘You surprised me.’

  ‘What are you doing, Nick?’

  ‘This and that …’

  ‘I thought you’d left over an hour ago.’

  ‘No, no, I had some work to finish and some thinking to do.’

  Amalia backed away. ‘Then I won’t disturb you.’

  ‘Please don’t leave,’ he said, going across to her. ‘I need to share my thoughts with someone. I can’t keep them bottled up.’

  ‘Whatever they are,’ she said, noting the anxiety in his face and voice, ‘they’re obviously troubling you.’

  He bit his lip. ‘They’ve kept me awake night after night.’

 
; ‘Why is that?’

  Her sympathetic smile encouraged him. He couldn’t bring himself to confide in Janssen and Pienaar was unapproachable. Doff, too, was not a person to whom he could turn. Amalia, however, was the ideal person. Simply to be alone with her was a thrill for him. To be able to engage her interest was an added bonus.

  ‘I keep wondering if I was to blame,’ he confessed.

  ‘For the theft, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What possible grounds do you have for saying that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Miss Amalia, but … I have this feeling of guilt.’

  ‘We all have that,’ she told him. ‘I feel guilty that I didn’t wake up that night when thieves broke in here and stole the tapestry.’

  ‘Thank goodness you didn’t! They’d be far too dangerous to confront. My fear,’ he went on, ‘is that I somehow helped them. I can’t honestly think of a time when I spoke about my work here but I can be boastful. I do blurt things out without really meaning to. Did I drink too much one night and say something that I shouldn’t have said? Did I accidentally betray your father?’

  ‘You didn’t do it accidentally or deliberately.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘I know you, Nick,’ she reminded him. ‘Over the years, I saw you change from a keen, young apprentice into an expert weaver. You love working here and would never do anything remotely disloyal.’

  He was heartened. ‘Do you believe that, Miss Amalia?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Father would say the same about you.’

  ‘Then why do I have this lurking sense of blame?’

  ‘I can’t answer that. In my opinion, your conscience should be clear. Daniel questioned you and found no reason whatsoever to suspect you.’

  He grimaced. ‘It was Captain Rawson who first planted the seed of doubt in my mind. Until then I’d never even considered that I might have been the culprit. I wouldn’t have you think that it happens very often, Amalia,’ he added, keen to avoid her disapproval. ‘In fact, in the last few months, there’s only been the one occasion when I might have had too much to drink. I’m quite abstemious, as a rule.’

  She could see how distressed he was. Having known him for so long, however, she couldn’t believe he’d be indiscreet about his work to anyone. Had he been likely to boast about what he did, he’d have done so years before now and, if the information had got into the wrong hands, they might have had valuable tapestries stolen much earlier. Aware of his shortcomings, she knew that they were greatly outnumbered by Geel’s many virtues. Introspection had turned him into a nervous and penitent young man. He needed reassurance.

  ‘Go home, Nick,’ she said, putting a comforting hand on his arm.

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘And stop worrying – you weren’t to blame.’

  ‘No,’ he said, gratefully. ‘Thanks to you, I don’t need to accuse myself.’

  He beamed at her. Amalia had offered him friendship and affection. It was a moment that he’d cherish. When he set off for home, he was sustained by a feeling of exhilaration. The woman on whom he doted had attested his innocence. In convincing him that he was no longer a possible culprit, however, Amalia had raised an obvious question. If Geel didn’t alert thieves to the whereabouts of the tapestry, then who did?

  Daniel didn’t believe in delay. As soon as he heard Welbeck’s report, he set off into the night with his friend. Surprised to hear that Pienaar had visited a brothel, he was quick to see it as a potential place of betrayal, albeit inadvertent. Welbeck had memorised the way carefully. Having got lost on an earlier expedition, he’d taken care to note every turn that he’d made as he’d followed Pienaar. They pursued the same route until they came to the house that the man had entered. Given the amount of time it had taken for Welbeck to go back to the Janssen home, and to make a return journey with Daniel, it was felt unlikely that Pienaar was still inside the brothel. They could therefore approach it without any fear of meeting him there. Welbeck was quite certain that it was a disorderly house. He’d rousted enough lustful young soldiers out of brothels in his time. It had only served to intensify his dislike and distrust of the female sex.

  On this occasion, he was happy to leave it to Daniel to enter the premises. Welbeck stayed close to the house in case his friend needed to call for assistance. Daniel knocked on the door and waited until it was opened by a fleshy woman in her fifties daubed in powder and giving off a powerful aroma of perfume. When she saw her visitor by the light of the candelabra she held, her lips parted to reveal a row of uneven teeth. She gave a low, throaty chuckle. Daniel was evidently much younger and more handsome than her usual clients.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked, running an appreciative eye over him.

  ‘I came on the recommendation of a friend,’ he told her.

  ‘Oh – and who might that be?’

  ‘Aelbert Pienaar.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘Dear, dear Aelbert – he comes here once a week. In fact, it’s not long since he left, but he probably warned you that he’d be here today.’ She stood back to let him step into the hall and closed the door behind him. ‘He comes to see Gerda – always Gerda. Nobody else will do.’

  As he looked around the dingy interior with its fading walls, tattered carpet and abiding smell of damp, Daniel didn’t condemn Pienaar. If the man was driven by grief and loneliness to seek comfort in the arms of a woman, he deserved pity rather than censure. All that Daniel was there to establish was whether or not Pienaar had been drawn into revealing confidential information. The madame of the brothel was still feasting her gaze on him. Her smile broadened into a grotesquely frank grin. As he nodded back at her, he was aware that they were not alone. Lurking at the far end of the hall was the hulking figure of a man. A gesture from the woman dismissed him and he slunk off into a room. At a glance she’d decided that she needed no protection from her latest client.

  ‘We have several ladies to choose from,’ she said, sidling closer. ‘All of them are skilled at satisfying your every desire. There is Anneka, Brigitte, Magdalena …’

  ‘Gerda,’ said Daniel. ‘I’d like to see Gerda.’

  She was surprised. ‘Gerda is very popular this evening.’

  ‘Is she available?’

  ‘At a price – she does not give her favours away.’

  Daniel paid the amount requested. He was then ushered up the staircase and along a passageway. They stopped outside a door. The woman knocked, opened the door and went in alone. Seconds later, she emerged to tell Daniel that he could enter. Gerda would be happy to accommodate him. When he went into the room, he closed the door behind him. The odour of perfume was almost overwhelming and helped to hide the stink of damp. There was a fire in the grate but the room still felt cold. Gerda was seated on the edge of the bed in a provocative pose. Daniel could see why the woman had been surprised at his choice. Gerda was at least fifteen years older than him, a thin, raddled, angular woman with the remains of a youthful prettiness all but obliterated. Candles were artfully arranged so that too much light didn’t fall on her. She wore a taffeta dress that exposed her arms and dipped at the front to display most of her wrinkled bosom.

  There had to be much younger and more appealing prostitutes in the house. It seemed strange to Daniel that Pienaar had selected this particular one. There was nothing alluring about her.

  ‘What is your wish, good sir?’ she asked.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you, Gerda,’ he replied.

  She was disappointed. ‘We can do that afterwards.’

  ‘I understand that Aelbert Pienaar is one of your regular clients.’

  ‘Yes, Aelbert comes here every Friday. Why do you ask?’

  ‘He told me how much he enjoyed his visits here.’

  ‘He enjoys them more than I do,’ she said, tartly. ‘All that Aelbert wants to do is to talk. In the months that he’s been coming here, he’s never laid a finger on me.’ She gave him an open-mouthed smile. ‘I can see
that you’re much more of a man than he is. You want what you paid for, don’t you, sir?’

  ‘Tell me about Aelbert first.’

  She frowned. ‘Why bother about him when we have each other?’

  ‘Why does he always come to you?’

  She sighed. ‘I’m the only one with the patience to listen to him.’

  ‘There must be another reason.’

  ‘There is,’ she said, rising to her feet and coming to stand close to him. ‘Take your pleasure first and I’ll tell you what that reason is.’

  When she reached out for him, Daniel caught her wrists and held them.

  ‘Tell me now,’ he insisted. ‘Why does Aelbert spurn everyone else? What is it about you that brings him here every Friday?’

  ‘It’s sheer accident,’ she said with a shrug.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He says that I remind him of his dead wife.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Daniel didn’t stay there for much longer. Less than ten minutes after he’d arrived, he left by the front door. Welbeck was waiting for him outside. On the way to Pienaar’s house, Daniel gave his friend details of what he’d learnt in the brothel. Welbeck reached an immediate conclusion.

  ‘I think she teased the information out of him,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Daniel. ‘She’s not that cunning. It’s far more likely to have come from him. Gerda simply let him do the talking and he rambled on. It was as if Aelbert Pienaar was sitting at home with his wife.’

  ‘I can’t believe that his wife worked in a dreadful place like that.’

  ‘I’m sure that she didn’t, Henry. There was a resemblance between the two women, that’s all. Or, at least, that’s what Pienaar thought. In the subdued lighting, he’d never have been able to see Gerda properly. He needed her to be his wife and that’s what she became.’