The Hansa Protocol by Norman Russell

to face the secretary. He looked pale and drawn, though she could see that he was making a monumental effort to preserve his Saxon formality.
    ‘Come here, Fritz, and stand beside me. What are you afraid of? God in Heaven, do you think I will bite you? Look, here are the men from Scotland Yard. The dapper little man in the smart fawn coat – he, without doubt, will be the inspector. The other one, the hulking brute with the scarred face – that will be the sergeant.’
    Ottilie watched as the cold winter rain turned suddenly to thick sleet, which began to freeze instantly on the grass and leaves. Towering up from the twisted and charred trees, the burnt-out Belvedere, she thought, looked like a sightless skull.
    ‘See, the constable on guard in the grounds has saluted, and the little inspector has raised his hat. So has the hulking brute. How formal – the ballet of the British Law! But there will be no dancing, my good Fritz! Not yet, at least.’
    Ottilie moved further along the landing where she could look out of a round window almost opposite the ruined Belvedere.
    ‘Look, the brute sergeant has clambered up on to the ruins in that wretched building. He turns, and offers his hand to the little inspector. Soon no doubt, they will seek out the sad old man who crawled over the debris earlier, by the light of the flares. He came in the dark hours, that old one. He looks like a walrus. Bah! It does not interest me.’
    Ottilie looked at Fritz Schneider with a sudden stab of guilt. He had listened patiently to her chatter, but it was clear that his mind was elsewhere .How could it be otherwise? He would be shocked by her callousness , but would be too in awe of her to ask the reason for her attitude. It would not, perhaps, be prudent to make a confidant of him.
    Schneider, she knew, had entered Seligmann’s service when he was still renowned as a scholar, and Schneider himself was well versed in the mysteries of old Germanic tongues. Like many Saxons, he had been schooled in the virtue of dumb loyalty. He had never expressed the slightest interest in the politics of his own or any other country.
    ‘You, see, don’t you, Fritz, that all is over here? You should go back to Germany, to Leipzig, your native city. You have a sister there, no? You will not lack for money. Go back! You see the ruin here. There may also be danger. So make plans soon to return to Leipzig.’
    ‘And you, Fräulein ?What will you do?’
    ‘Me? I have my plans, good Fritz. Meanwhile, there will be much to do here, repairing the damaged house, and putting things to rights. The police, also, they will demand attention. But for you, do as I say. So, sehr geerhte gnädiger Herr Schneider: return to Leipzig!’
     
    Detective Inspector Box blinked upwards through the sleet at the shattered rear windows of the house. He was in time to see two pale faces regarding him from an unbroken circular casement, which looked as though it was designed to throw light on to a staircase.
    ‘So, Sergeant Knollys,’ he said, ‘our arrival has not gone unnoticed! The good folk in the house will be shocked and stunned, no doubt. But they can spare time for a little peep at us from the upper storey. That’s human nature, Sergeant. There’s something to be learned there, I’ve no doubt. And this, I take it, is the Belvedere.’
    The devastated building loomed up at them out of the mist. The ruined entrance framed a virtual hillock of shattered stone and timber, which was being delicately covered with the gossamer touch of unmelting sleet. A buckled iron door hung inward from its hinges, and on the grass nearby lay what they both took to be the plank with which Colin McColl had made his assault. Knollys all but leapt across the threshold, and gave a hand to Box, who clambered up after him.
    They were standing on a tumulus of debris. Pieces of charred beam and twisted metal protruded from the ruin like broken teeth. They could see the remains of a chimney breast, and