Web of Discord

by Norman Russell

  Box’s studiously neutral tones failed to mask the horror of the daughter’s narration. Miss Whittaker picked up a blue glass candlestick, examined it, and returned it to the mantelpiece. They both listened to the ticking of a little china clock, and to the coal settling in the grate.

  ‘Well?’ Louise Whittaker demanded.

  ‘What do you mean, miss?’

  Louise shook her head in half-amused vexation.

  ‘Oh, Mr Box, you know perfectly well what I’m asking. What was it that Lady Courteline saw that made her scream? And don’t say that it was her husband’s body, because it wasn’t!’

  ‘She didn’t see anything special, Miss Whittaker. She saw her husband, and she saw his lighted cigar. And— There was another piece of physical evidence present, but it couldn’t have meant anything to her.’

  ‘Ah! I think we’re getting somewhere at last. What was this piece of evidence?’

  ‘It was a calling-card by the dead man’s hand. I believe it was placed there by the assassin himself on behalf of the man who hired him. On it was printed the name “Dr N. I. Karenin”. When I questioned Lady Courteline myself yesterday, I asked her if she knew the name. She became very agitated – she was under great stress, of course – and denied any knowledge of a Dr Karenin.’

  Miss Whittaker’s face flushed crimson. She stamped her foot in vexation.

  ‘And you believed her! You believed her because she is a lady of title, and the widow of a public idol. So, as far as you were concerned, what she said was true. But that was why she screamed. It was seeing the card that made her scream in anguish. Of course she was upset that her husband had been murdered, but her hysteria, her sick fear, arose because she saw and read that card.’

  ‘So you think that she knew this man Karenin?’

  ‘Of course she knew him! Or knew him in the past. And, more to the point, Mr Box, she feared for him. Karenin is a Russian name. Lady Courteline is Russian by birth. A little delving into your titled lady’s history, Mr Box, might bear some interesting fruit. Let me give you a piece of advice: don’t allow yourself to be bullied by women’s wiles. Find out why Lady Courteline is shielding the man who brought about the murder of her husband.’

  Miss Whittaker rang the bell to summon Ethel. It was time for her to return to work.

  ‘Thank you, miss,’ said Arnold Box stiffly, ‘for a very pleasant repast. Very nice indeed. And thanks for your help.’ He sighed, and added in a low voice, ‘Miss Whittaker – Louise – I’m sorry to have made you angry. I seem to have a knack for doing that. But in fact, all I ever want is for you to be happy, miss.’

  Louise Whittaker took Box’s hand, leaned forward, and swiftly kissed his cheek.

  ‘As Ethel often remarks, Mr Box,’ she said, ‘you’re ever so funny! I’m not angry with you, Arnold Box. I’m angry with her, for involving you in whatever devious game she’s playing. You’re always welcome here: you should know that, by now. True friends don’t always need to observe the social niceties. Go after this Karenin. I must get back to Mary Shelley.’

  When Box had gone, Louise sat at her table in the bay window, watching little Ethel bustling about, removing the tea things. Forgetful of the author of Frankenstein, her thoughts dwelt on Arnold Box. What a lively, honest, decent man he was, despite his infuriating assumption of male superiority. That perkiness of his was a mask for a natural diffidence, an endearing modesty that made him at times underestimate his own very great talents. How thankful she was, though, that he was not an intellectual sort of man! She saw enough of those in her professional life. Arnold Box was refreshingly different.

  *

  As Box crossed the cobbles towards 2 King James’s Rents in the early evening, an elderly man with a straggling white moustache approached him from the turning into Aberdeen Lane.

  ‘My name’s Fred Wilson, sir,’ said the man. ‘I’m a messenger for the Prudential Assurance Office in Holborn Bars. You’ll be Detective Inspector Box, I expect?’

  The man had a rough but kindly voice. He peered at Box with rheumy, pale-blue eyes.

  ‘The very same, Mr Wilson,’ said Box. ‘And what can I do for you?’

  ‘Nothing for me in particular, Mr Box,’ Wilson replied. ‘But it would greatly oblige a friend of mine if you’d go up into St Edward’s Churchyard tomorrow morning, at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘St Edward’s Churchyard? I suppose I mustn’t ask who this friend of yours is?’

  ‘Better not, sir. St Edward’s Churchyard, just beyond Goldsmiths’ Court, on the turn into Coleman Street.’

  Before Box could reply, the elderly messenger had touched his hat and walked rapidly away in the direction of Whitehall Place.

  4

  Diplomatic Incident

  At eleven o’clock the next morning, Inspector Box climbed up the four worn steps into the churchyard of St Edward’s, Coleman Street. A faded old man, with a campaign medal pinned to his rusty old coat, saluted him with a tug at his forelock, and locked the churchyard gates behind him. Oh, well, thought Box, time to enter the lion’s den.

  The churchyard was no bigger than a modest suburban garden. It contained a few tottering tombs, a good deal of gravel, and a stone shelter built against the soot-blackened north wall of an unremarkable eighteenth-century church. To right and left rose the blank walls of commercial buildings. The old man with the medal, apparently preoccupied with his own thoughts, limped across the graveyard, and disappeared through a small door into the church.

  Sitting in the stone shelter was a slight, sandy-haired man with a mild, clean-shaven face. He was wearing a long overcoat with an astrakhan collar, and his tall silk hat and ebony walking-cane reposed on the bench beside him. He treated Box to an almost apologetic smile.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Box,’ he said. He managed to invest the simple greeting with a tone of sardonic weariness.

  ‘Good morning, Colonel Kershaw. So it’s like that, is it?’

  ‘Yes, Box. It’s like that. At least, I think it is. Will you smoke a cigar with me?’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  Box sat down beside Kershaw on the stone bench and looked at his companion. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Adrian Kershaw RA was rumoured to be one of the powers behind the throne. Box was one of a small number of people, who, through personal experience, knew that the rumour was true. Colonel Kershaw was a man feared by his enemies. It was, perhaps, more illustrative of his powers to know that he was feared, too, by his friends.

  Colonel Kershaw took a stout cigar case from his pocket, opened it, and offered it to Box. Three slim cigars reposed in the case, and beside them a rolled-up spill of paper secured by a loop of twine. Kershaw’s pale-blue eyes caught Box’s for a moment. Box took a cigar, and also the spill of paper, which he slipped into his overcoat pocket. The two men lit their cigars, and smoked in silence for a minute or two. Then Kershaw spoke.

  ‘I’m glad you came, Box,’ he said. ‘Evidently old Wilson hasn’t lost his talents to persuade. I didn’t think we’d meet again so soon after that Hansa Protocol business, but there it is. Let me first congratulate you on your brilliant solution of the Courteline case. Very commendable.’

  Kershaw smiled, and drew thoughtfully on his cigar. Box regarded him quizzically. Something tantalizingly abstruse lay behind the colonel’s words.

  ‘But I didn’t solve it, Colonel Kershaw. I laid hands on the villain who fired the shot, and holed him up in his den. Somebody else – somebody quite unknown to me – blew Killer Kitely to Kingdom Come.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Kershaw. ‘I suppose that’s true, as far as it goes.’

  ‘And there’s another mystery, sir, that I haven’t solved. Sir John Courteline was dressed and ready to go out somewhere at the time of his murder, but no one seems to know where he was going. More to the point, no one has come forward to say that Sir John failed to keep an appointment.’

  ‘Well, you see, Mr Box,’ said Kershaw, narrowing his eyes against the invasive smoke of his cigar, ‘peopl
e don’t like being involved unnecessarily with the Law. I don’t myself. But Courteline’s whereabouts on that fatal day – fatal for him, you know – brings me very conveniently, to my business with you today.

  ‘Earlier this year, in the company of a man called Captain Edgar Adams RN, I went down to Cornwall, to a place called Porthcurno, the little spot where some of the major submarine telegraph cables come up out of the ocean and on to the British mainland. And there, Mr Box, Adams and I detected the stirring of yet another international hell’s brew—’

  ‘Not the Germans again?’

  ‘No, not the Germans. From all appearances, it’s the Russians this time. From what we saw at Porthcurno, Captain Adams and I deduced that Russia is about to step out of line, and wreak havoc with the balance of power in Europe and beyond. I’ve been thinking about Russia for the last two months, and so has our friend Sir Charles Napier at the Foreign Office. Captain Adams, by the way, belongs to Naval Intelligence. He was lent to me by Admiral Holland, on the understanding that he was to be given as free a range as possible.’

  Box felt the characteristic surge of excitement that always occurred whenever this subtle and rather sinister man crossed his path. They had worked closely together in the past, but Kershaw was not his official superior. He always asked Box to assist him, and had made it perfectly clear that he was free to decline. It was this freedom of association that added to the thrill of working with Kershaw.

  ‘And this brings me now, Box,’ said Kershaw, ‘to the mystery of Sir John Courteline. You ask where he was going on the day of his murder. The answer is, that he was going to see me. Courteline was one of my secret servants.’

  The secret servants…. Kershaw always referred to people like Fred Wilson and the old man who had secured the churchyard gate as his ‘nobodies’. Their great value lay in their social anonymity. The secret servants, though, were salaried agents of Secret Intelligence, men and women who knew that their lives could be in danger when they went out to do Kershaw’s mysterious bidding. And the murdered Sir John Courteline had been one of them.

  ‘Sir John Courteline was of particular value to you, sir?’

  ‘Yes. He was my hidden eye on Russia. Mine, not the Foreign Office’s. He knew all kinds of people in Moscow and St Petersburg, high and low, good and bad. Courteline had all but retired from secret intelligence work, but if anything particularly odd seemed to be afoot in Russia, Courteline would come to see me. But I don’t know why he wanted to see me on this occasion. He never lived to tell me.’

  Kershaw made a little sound, which might have been a laugh, or a stifled sigh.

  ‘And this Captain Edgar Adams, sir: what’s become of him?’

  Kershaw shifted uneasily on the bench. He frowned with what Box thought at first was annoyance. He swiftly realized that the frown was one of anxiety.

  ‘I don’t know. I last saw Captain Adams in London, after we’d returned from Cornwall. He’s an officer in the Royal Navy, but decided that he’d follow a certain line of exploration by turning himself into a merchant seaman. This was in January. He set out on his travels almost immediately, and returned to London only a few days ago. But I’ve not been able to speak to him yet, because he’s been dogged by a very determined enemy.’

  ‘So you reckon he’s gone to ground in London somewhere?’

  ‘I do. I’m convinced that he’s found out certain things that will confirm a theory I have about the state of Europe at the moment. I can’t act decisively until I’ve talked to Adams face to face…. I’m sorry that I can’t be more forthcoming. I think you’ll know that it’s not for lack of trust in you, either as a man or a colleague.’

  ‘And what do you want me to do, sir?’

  ‘I want you to do something that at first sight seems to have nothing to do with what I’ve just told you. But appearances, as you well know, Box, are frequently deceptive. This evening, Sir Charles Napier is attending a reception for members of the Diplomatic Corps at Sir Abraham Goldsmith’s house in Arlington Street, just off Piccadilly. I was wondering whether you could contrive to station yourself somewhere in the vicinity? It’s just that I feel something dramatic is going to happen at the reception tonight, and I’d value your presence there, if you’re agreeable. You might like to bear a particular name in mind: Captain Igor Andropov. Just bear it in mind, you know.’

  ‘Andropov. Very well, sir. And will you be there, Colonel Kershaw?’

  Kershaw smiled, and threw away the butt of his cigar.

  ‘I will, Box. I’ve not been formally invited, but I’ll be there, none the less. Will you agree to – to hover in the vicinity?’

  ‘I will, sir. And now, if I may, I’d like to show you a visiting-card that I took from near the dead body of Sir John Courteline. I believe that it was deliberately left beside him by his murderer. It may mean something to you.’

  Box took the bloodstained visiting-card from his pocket, and handed it to Kershaw, who looked thoughtfully at the side containing the Russian characters.

  ‘Dr N.I. Karenin,’ he muttered. ‘Nikolai Ivanovich, most likely. Hm….’

  ‘Then you know who this man is?’ asked Box, eagerly.

  Kershaw sighed, and slipped the card into an inside pocket of his great-coat.

  ‘I’m not Little Jack Horner, you know, Box. I don’t just put my thumb into a nice big pie, and pull out a juicy plum, saying, “Oh, what a good boy am I”. Karenin? No, I don’t know anyone of that name. As for the Nikolai and the Ivanovich, it’s just that Russian names have a certain predictability – and monotony. But if you’ll let me take the card away with me, I’ll find someone at the reception tonight who’ll steer you in the right direction.’

  Colonel Kershaw stood up, and treated Box to a kindly smile. He picked up his silk hat and his ebony cane. At the same time, the old man with the medal appeared from the church, carrying a bunch of keys.

  Box thought to himself: he’s playing the innocent, but he’ll have to get up early to deceive me. He’s drawing me into something, but he’s not going to tell me what it is yet. Well, so be it. Wily old fox! It was time to make arrangements for hovering in the vicinity of Arlington Street, just off Piccadilly.

  ‘Inspector Box! What brings you down this particular alley this evening?’

  ‘Well, well. Fiske of the Graphic. I could well ask you the same question. And the intrepid Mr Carter, of the Sketch. How are you, gents? As for why I’m here, it’s to get a cup of hot coffee. It’s chilly tonight, even for early March.’

  Arnold Box looked at the two reporters, who were leaning against a wall near to a rather flimsy coffee stall, where a taciturn, nondescript sort of man displayed a steaming urn and a pile of chipped mugs. Billy Fiske was the Graphic’s chief political reporter, an impressive figure, much given to flapping overcoats and old-fashioned high-crowned hats. He sported a fiercely intimidating black moustache. Ted Carter, a frog-faced man with a hacking cough, and a navy-blue muffler tied round his throat, was Court and Society Correspondent for the Sketch.

  Box threw a penny down on the counter, and received a steaming mug of coffee. He wondered why there should be a coffee stall so near to Sir Abraham Goldsmith’s imposing residence. He also wondered what Billy Fiske was doing there.

  ‘I’m here to report the social goings-on for our avid readers, Mr Box,’ said Fiske. ‘Another brilliant levee for the glittering ornaments of the upper echelons of our society. The coaches have been coming and going for the last half hour. Gentlemen in sashes, and ladies in ball gowns, some with tiaras (but most without) have ascended the steps outside the brilliantly lighted mansion of the celebrated merchant banker, Sir Abraham Goldsmith.’

  ‘Strewth! You don’t actually write like that, do you, Billy? I’ve never bothered to read your stuff’

  Fiske of the Graphic laughed, and gulped down some of his coffee.

  ‘No, Mr Box, that’s not my style. I’m imitating poor Ted here – Ted, if you cough any louder, you’ll cough your fat head off.�
�

  The frog-faced man managed a smile. He rubbed his mittened hands together, and stamped his feet. Box realized how very cold it was in the alley, and wondered why these two eminent reporters had chosen to freeze there together. Still, their presence simplified the business of hovering.

  ‘Mr Box,’ said Ted Carter of the Sketch, between coughs, ‘ignore this overbearing ignoramus. I pen my reports in a dignified and elegant style, worthy to rank with the best in The Times. I’ve made a note of all the most eminent persons who’ve arrived so far. The German Ambassador and his suite came on foot from Prussia House. His Excellency the Russian Ambassador, accompanied by Princess Orlova, arrived just minutes ago. The French party – well, they’ll come deliberately late, so as to spite the Prussians.’

  ‘Any sign of Captain Igor Andropov?’ asked Box.

  Mr Fiske cursed roundly as he splashed hot coffee down his coat.

  ‘Andropov?’ he growled. ‘He’s the military attaché, isn’t he? He may be here, for all I know.’

  Box smiled, and said nothing. A palpable hit, as someone or other once said. So that’s what had brought Billy Fiske, chief political reporter, to this social gathering of big bugs! Box glanced at the self-effacing stall holder, and saw that he, too, was smiling, as though at some secret joke that he was not allowed to share.