Against the Brotherhood

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Given what has befallen you, sir, I would venture to say that any troubles the landlord might visit upon me are trifling.” He indicated the way to the closet and took a ring of keys from the loop attached to his belt. “I’ll open the way for you.”

  As much for small talk as any other reason, I said, “How is it that the landlord is gone?”

  The host shook his head. “A sad business. He was called away two days since; his sister and her family have been stricken with fever and he was summoned to attend them.” He paused. “I must say, he took it badly, complaining that this was the worst possible time for him to be gone from here. But as his sister is a widow and there are no other male relatives, his presence was necessary . . .” He shrugged as he opened the closet. “He said he will return as quickly as possible.”

  “I hope his sister recovers quickly and fully,” I said automatically.

  “Amen to that, sir,” the host said as he stood aside.

  I went in and waited while the host struck a match for the lamp and adjusted the flame. “Gracious,” I said as I looked at the two long racks on which clothes of every description of the last forty years hung. Inconsequently I thought that Edmund Sutton would be delighted to get his hands on half of the garments here. I strolled along the section of the nearer rack which contained gentlemen’s coats, and at last took two from their hangers; one was too long in the sleeve, the other too narrow in the shoulder, but the third was precisely the garment I needed. It was about six years out of fashion, a long frock coat of dark brown broadcloth cut full at the sides in the German manner with a rolled velvet collar. It was in remarkably good condition, and were it not that it was no longer the mode, I would have thought it quite new; surely it could not have been worn many times before it was left here. The fullness of the cut not only gave me the appearance of having lost flesh recently, but provided a little extra room around the improvised dressing over my ribs, which was particularly welcome to me. I let the host help me shrug into it.

  “It is a good choice, sir,” said the host, looking pleased. “And perhaps, while you are here, a waistcoat as well?”

  I smiled. “Why not?”

  The selection was varied and interesting, and I was hard-put not to choose one of those that suited my own rather conservative taste. But that was not the persona of August Jeffries, and so I took one that was a tapestry brocade of leaf-patterns in russet, rust, and dark greens. “Thank you very much, my good man,” I said as I removed the coat in order to don the waistcoat. “It will suit me very well. It’s better quality than the one I lost.” I looked around the room again. “With all this on hand, I doubt your employer will miss these two.”

  The host laughed. “I am of the same mind.”

  “Well, it is good of you to do this for me,” I said to him, and resisted the urge to give him a few coins for his trouble. “And it is right welcome, too.”

  “A pleasure to serve you, Mister Jeffries,” said the host, and ushered me out of the closet, taking care to lock it once again before escorting me to the front of the establishment. “Will you want a cab to the station?”

  “No, I think I’ll walk; it isn’t very far,” I said, and picked up my carpetbag. I hoped that the exercise would limber me somewhat. With a jauntiness I did not truly feel I set out toward the long boulevard that led to the station. I made a point of not looking toward the gorge again, for fear of what I would see there.

  Upon reaching the station, I was informed that the train to Mannheim was late, and I would have more than an hour before it arrived. I asked again at the telegram desk if any packet had been delivered for me, and was again informed that none had been received. I sent my daily telegram with a sense of fatalistic oppression. The apprehension I had nearly succeeded in shaking off returned threefold. Why would Mister Holmes fail to deliver the material he had promised to have for me at this place? None of the answers that occurred to me lessened my worry. I purchased a two-day-old Munich paper and did my best to ward off my anxiety and hide my battered face by reading of events there, including the arrival of a pair of young giraffes at the zoo, an event that was causing something of a public festival.

  When the train finally steamed into the station, there was a general rush toward it, and I found myself in a crowded compartment where each man was hidden behind his paper. I decided to do as the rest did, and returned to my German paper as the train rattled on toward Mannheim.

  We arrived there now three hours late; I had missed my train to Wurzburg. I was informed I could take the late train to Nuremberg which was scheduled to leave in forty minutes, and arrive there around midnight. It was not part of my instructions, but if I were going to arrive in Augsburg at roughly the appointed time, I would have to reroute myself. My limited experience of the Brotherhood told me they would more readily forgive a change of travel than an unnecessarily late arrival. I decided it would be better to do this, and went to the telegraph desk to send word back to James: Will be at Nuremberg late tonight, departing for Augsburg tomorrow morning. No promised material delivered. Lacking information to continue. Need to know what you are doing toward resolving case. I thought this would not depart from what Mycroft Holmes had instructed me to do beyond the bounds of what he would tolerate. I purchased a new ticket, a second-class one, for Nuremberg and one from Nuremberg to Augsburg for the following day. Then I went to wait for the train.

  This ride was as uneventful as it was uncomfortable. The wooden seats in the second-class car were old and prone to leaving splinters in hands and bum as the train jolted and rocked its way to the south-east. By the time it halted in Nuremberg I was as miserable as if I had been taken with the grippe.

  Only two hostelries were willing to take in late travelers, and those of us leaving the train had to choose between an ancient, black beamed coaching inn and a tavern attached to an old brewery with a dozen small rooms available to travelers, or those so filled with beer they could not make their way home. While I would have preferred the coaching inn, it was twice the cost of rooms at the tavern, and I knew that Jeffries would far prefer the latter to the former. Reluctantly, I went into the taproom and arranged for a bed for the night and the promise of chocolate and pastry before seven in the morning.

  “That’s quite a bruise you have on your face,” said the parlor maid as she led me up to the second floor.

  “Hazards of travel,” I said, speaking my German with a stronger English accent than I had been taught to use.

  “Certainly is,” said the parlor maid with a speculative look at me. “Do you want to sleep alone?”

  Given where I was I should have expected this. I did my best not to appear shocked, and instead I said that another time I would be interested, but just at present, what I wanted was to lie down on something that wasn’t moving.

  She laughed and winked, and indicated a room with one high, small window, a bed, a dresser, a shaving stand, and precious little else. There was a faint-but-pervasive smell of malt and barley in the air. “If you change your mind, I’ll be up another two hours.”

  I could think of no reply other than to hand her a few coins as I closed the door, taking care to set the bolt in place. This was one night I had no wish to be disturbed.

  But much as I yearned for sleep, it would not come. There were too many questions haunting me from the last few days. What had Mycroft Holmes sent me into? I had had no concept of what dangers I would encounter, and, in my exhausted state, I began to think myself very hard-used by my employer. Treaty or no treaty, I grumbled inwardly, I had been sent as a lamb to the slaughter. That reminded me afresh of my narrow escape, and the killings in Luxembourg, and a shudder went through me. I did my best to persuade myself that my worries were as much a product of fatigue and sore joints as any other factor, and I was able to convince myself sufficiently to fall asleep so that the trepidations I held at bay now had free rein in my dreams.
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br />   FROM THE PERSONAL JOURNAL OF PHILIP TYERS:

  For the first time since the trouble with the Admiralty has come to light, M.H. has been hopeful of resolving it. This morning he has sent for two men who manage accounts for the Admiralty who remain under suspicion, and they are to arrive this afternoon at two-thirty. After his meetings of yesterday, M.H. is certain that one of the two is the guilty party, and he is determined to resolve the matter as soon as possible. “Had I the leisure, I would discover the man on the evidence, but I haven’t the time to do it. Guthrie is too much at risk for me to indulge in deductive games. I will have to confront the two men and observe them carefully.”

  I am to carry a message round to Edmund Sutton, advising him to present himself at M.H.’s flat after one in the morning, prepared to undertake his replacement for a period of at least a week. I am also to order that the Mercury train be standing by in Calais for M.H.’s use as soon as he can depart for the Continent.

  “We have either a very dangerous man to apprehend, or a venal one,” said M.H. to me as he finished writing his note to Sutton. “I will hope the man is dangerous. It would be galling to think that I have put Guthrie in danger for nothing more than a small mans greed.”

  WE LEFT NUREMBERG without incident, and I arrived at Augsburg no more than two hours later than the train from Ulm pulled into the station. Satisfied that I had made good time, I went in search of Herr Dortmunder, pausing on the way to stop at the telegraph desk to inquire for any messages that might have been left for me, giving Mycroft Holmes’ brother’s address for identification. While the agent went through his records, I noticed two men of military bearing standing on the platform, scanning the crowd with narrowed eyes. I knew that sort of soldier from times past, and I could find it in my heart to pity whomever it was they sought.

  “Herr Jeffries?” said the agent, and handed me a packet roughly the size of two books bound together. “Sign for it, please.”

  Ah, the German love of order, I thought to myself. When I had done that, I did the one thing I had decided was prudent to do: I sent a telegram to Vickers at the Cap and Balls, telling him of my forced change of travel plans and informing him of my belated arrival in Augsburg. At least if my actions were ever questioned, I would have this to defend myself. That is, if men of this sort gave a damn about such things. Still, it was a precaution against his promise that I would be hunted in did not keep to the schedule provided me. Satisfied that I had done what I could in the way of self-protection, I went away from the telegraph desk and the presence of the two watchers.

  I looked around once more, and went toward the waiting area to see if Herr Dortmunder would find me, as I had been told he would. While I waited, I opened the package, and, trying not to appear too eager, I examined its contents. First was a telegram from James, sent with the material from Zurich, where a British exporter had added the requested information: In hopes you arrive as per schedule. Press of work delays action. Contents should explain. When should I expect payment?

  Going over the telegram, I realized that there was more information still to be delivered, and he wanted to know when I would reach McMillian. I was puzzling out how to answer that when I noticed a stiff-spined man with a face like something off a bad statue of Beethoven. He was looking over all those of us in the waiting room, scanning each person in the place with an increasingly serious glower. I made note of him, then began to read the contents of the bound notebooks provided by the exporter in Zurich. What was written here were catalogs of the records of criminal and political activities of members of the Brotherhood. I scanned the pages, realizing that I would have a great deal of reading to do tonight, most of it distasteful. First among the men of this list was a sinister man who styled himself Luther von Metz, though it was thought he had taken this as his own after he had started his career with the Brotherhood. That name caught my eye and held my attention for some seconds as I tried to bring to mind where I had come across it. It did not take me long to narrow the time. Somewhere in the confusion of the last several days, I had heard von Metz, perhaps more than once. If my thoughts were not so disjointed, thanks to the developments of the last few days, I knew I would recall it at once. The memories slithered away from my attempts to grasp them as readily as snakes. It was quite frustrating, and I glared at the page where I was studying the entry under von Metz’s name when the Beethoven-faced man approached me, bowing a little before he spoke. He wore a long suit-coat in the German fashion, and a heavy neck-cloth. In addition, he affected riding boots and heavy postilion’s spurs, with the chain leathers.

  “Your pardon, but are you waiting for a Herr Dortmunder?” He spoke English like a machine, and I realized he had learned it from a book. “Are you Mister Jeffers?”

  “That’s Jeffries. Yes, I am,” I said, aware that any questioning of the man could cause more trouble than I wanted to deal with. I also suspected that his slight mispronunciation of my assumed name was intentional, done to throw off any spy or imposter.

  “I thought you would be on the train from Wurzburg.” He made this an accusation. “I was told you would be on it.”

  I answered him in German. “My train from Luxembourg was delayed, and I was not able to reach the connecting trains, so I made my way to Nuremberg and from there to here. I did not want to delay on Mister Vickers’ errand. He told me it was urgent, and so I came as quickly as I could.” If I had expected praise for my initiative, I did not receive it.

  “You were told to come on the Ulm train,” he said, his German as bookish as his English.

  “I would not have arrived until tomorrow, if I had done that. My instructions were that I was to arrive today, and I endeavored to comply,” I said at my most reasonable as I did my best to appear casual, tucking the two bound volumes into my carpetbag as I talked. “I regret that I did not arrive until a short while ago.”

  “I would have come back.” He inspected me in that abrupt way I have always associated with Germans. “Your face is damaged, and your coat is brown, not black. I was not told to expect that. I am Herr Dortmunder; a pleasure,” he added with feigned cordiality.

  “Nor was I,” I countered, beginning to weary of the man. “Expecting these things.”

  Herr Dortmunder stared hard at me. “Is that a witticism?”

  “Apparently not,” I said, my fatigue increasing with every word we shared. “I was attacked in Luxembourg by two men.”

  “Attacked?” Herr Dortmunder exclaimed. “Who were they?”

  “I have no idea,” I answered. “They did not give their names or their mission; they tried to kill me.”

  “And what became of them?” Herr Dortmunder’s tone demanded an answer.

  “They failed in their mission,” I told him, reluctant for some reason I could not define to relate the whole tale to this brusque man. I did not relish having to recount how I happened to kill one of them.

  “That is fortunate,” said Herr Dortmunder. “We must leave at once, before you are too closely observed.” He indicated my carpetbag; as his coat swung back I saw he had a pistol tucked into a pocket of his waistcoat. “Is that all you carry? Just that one bag?”

  “Yes, that is all,” I assured him, rose and picked up my luggage and said, “Lead on, MacDuff,” in English.

  Whether he understood the remark or its contents, Herr Dortmunder did not find it funny. He sneered at me and stalked ahead of me toward the front of the station where carriages were drawn up, some for hire, and others private. He indicated a covered calash drawn by two strengthy seal-brown horses of a breed I did not recognize. “Put your bag under your feet,” he recommended as he paused to make a series of signs to the coachman before he climbed into the carriage and said, “The man is deaf.”

  “Poor fellow,” I said automatically, and looked at the man beside me. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll learn that soon enough,” he t
old me gruffly as the calash started off through the traffic at the station. “We will not arrive for a while; you might as well make yourself comfortable.”

  It was a day of uneven temperament; when the sun peeked through the clouds, it was warm, but all shadows were cold, and there was a chill in the wind that whipped color into my face and made it stiff at the same time. I tried not to let this dismay me, but I could not wholly rid myself of the feeling that all the world was warning me of my current predicament. I sat back against the low squabs and did not speak as we rolled off into the German countryside.

  In mid-afternoon we stopped at a country inn and were given a meal of savory wurst, cheese, and bread, and one of those yeasty German beers to wash it down. Herr Dortmunder ate with a steady, mechanical determination, without any sign of relish or disgust for his food. We exchanged no more than a dozen words over our repast, a thing that is harder to do in German than English. Then we were back in the calash, bowling down the road at a smart trot. About an hour later, the coachman turned his pair off the public road onto a narrow track that led toward a spinny of oaks mixed with pines. Herr Dortmunder offered no explanation for this diversion and I asked no questions, not wanting to cause any problems with the fellow. A quarter of an hour later, I could see the vague outlines of a large country house, which I think the Germans would call a schloss. The building was hidden among the trees, and I realized it was also of an age and design that was intended to withstand siege warfare, from the days when Germany had been a collection of minor states all at war with one another. This impression was confirmed as we neared the schloss itself, which was larger than I had first supposed, and nowhere near as welcoming; a drawbridge was lowered to admit the calash. We passed under an emblem carved in stone: an Egyptian eye.