Ranklin nodded. Just a few inches of water would do nothing to cushion a fifty-feet fall, just add the final touch of asphyxiation to a fast-dying body.
The watch appeared to have stopped at 1.45 (wasn’t that about the time the night watchman had spotted Cross’s body?) but when he picked it up, the minute hand swung loosely all round the dial. So much for the watch as a clue: that would never have happened to a proper detective, he thought sourly.
There were two 100-mark notes, the bill was from the local Ratsweinkeller for three dinners on the Saturday night – and that was all. No passport, card case, wallet, keys – none of the innocent freight that cluttered his own pockets. He was about to ask if this were really all, but then didn’t. Reimers wouldn’t like the implication.
While he was there he opened the table drawer – and found the answer: passport, wallet and all the rest. But it was an answer that posed a new question: had Cross stripped for action, as it were, on his last night?
“What was Lieutenant Cross wearing when he was found?” he asked casually.
“I can’t say.”
“Then probably he’s still wearing it. I hope you cleaned it up a bit before his father saw him.”
“The Club gave the police a suit and other things for the body,” Reimers said stiffly.
“What a good idea.” One of the papers, when unfolded, turned out to be a 200-mark bond for a local land development company. What would Cross want with such a thing? He hurried his thoughts, trying to think if there was an incriminating aspect to it, in which case he shouldn’t mention it, or … He recognised that the moment for showing surprise had passed, so just dropped it back into the drawer and went around the room collecting other bits and pieces.
There were only a couple of shilling-edition English novels (neither of them on the popular German-invasion-of-Britain theme, thank God), British and German yachting magazines, a new Baedeker Guide to Northern Germany (which he planned to keep for himself), and a hectographed list of visiting big yachts on Club paper.
He also wondered how to get rid of Reimers. He considered asking if Mrs Reimers had run off with the window-cleaner, or whether the bailiffs had taken the bed, but before he could think of something more diplomatic, Reimers asked: “Have you visited much of Europe?”
“Not on this trip, not yet. Just Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels so far. I thought of going on east, Vienna and so forth, unless there looks like being a war down there.”
“Do you think there will be?”
“Me? – haven’t a notion, old boy. But Emperor Franz Josef doesn’t seem to have much grasp on his Empire, these days.”
“I think all Empires of many races have problems today.”
That was probably a jibe at India and the rest of the British Empire, but Ranklin just said: “Very profound. Wise of you to have an Emperor and no Empire.”
Reimers’s politeness became controlled. “I do not advise you to say that to Hauptmann Lenz, who served His Imperial Majesty in the Schutztruppen of the Cameroons.”
It was no surprise that Lenz had been an army officer – just about all German police officers had to have been – but few came from the tough school of African soldiering. He asked: “What’s his job here?”
“Lenz? He is head of the detective bureau – and, at this time, most concerned with the safety of His Imperial Majesty. And,” he added, “other royal visitors, of course.”
Ranklin had quite forgotten that the Kaiser would have to be around, Kiel Week being his own invention. Probably his steam yacht was parked out in the harbour right now. And had there been a whisper of warning? – that anything happening in Kiel this week was serious?
Ranklin started piling Cross’s clothes on the bed and sorting through the pockets. “And what’s your job?”
“Lieutenant Cross was found on Imperial property that is not open to the public.”
“And what do you make of that?”
“I do not know. Do you?”
“D’you think he was spying?” James Spencer was turning out to be rather tart and blunt. Which might be useful, as long as he didn’t get Spencer thrown into jail.
“Why should we think an officer and a gentleman was spying?” Reimers asked smoothly, if a little belatedly.
“Wasn’t that what you were hinting at? You can’t have thought Dickie was trying to steal your locks. Not even pick them.” He chuckled at Spencer’s wit.
Reimers stood up, walked to the window and pulled aside a curtain to show the fairground lights of the steam yachts moored in the harbour. “It is Kiel Week. There are ships from all Europe and America also. They are all welcome, and welcome to this Club and this city. Why should we think they are spying?”
Ranklin stared out. “Impressive. No, I dare say they aren’t all spying. Sorry I brought it up. Captain Lenz thought he’d been drinking.”
Reimers let the curtain fall back. “Perhaps. But you know him better than Hauptmann Lenz: what do you think?”
Ouch. Then, airily: “Oh, Dickie could take a jar or two, but in company … I say!” he grabbed for the restaurant receipt. “Look, it says Abendessen for three. So he ate his last meal with two other chaps. Now, why didn’t Lenz find who they were and ask them what happened?”
“Their names were Younger and Kay, both young Englishmen and small yacht racers. They say they all stayed drinking at the Ratsweinkeller until eleven o’clock. Then Lieutenant Cross went to the lavatory – and did not come back. They waited, they looked for him, then they went back to their hotel – the Deutscher Kaiser, very close. That is all they know.”
“Oh.” Spencer’s triumph was only matched by his despondency. And now truculence: “Then why the devil didn’t Lenz tell Mr Cross?”
“He told him before you arrived.”
“Oh. Well – didn’t he have any other friends around as well?”
“Sure. He had one other friend.” Reimers took out his pocket-book and passed over a folded piece of writing paper, crumpled and stained like the banknotes and restaurant receipt. It said in large script:
Kiel, June 28
Ich bin gekommen im Namen der Freiheit von der Tyrannie
Dragan el Vipero
.
The writing was slow and careful, perhaps uneducated. “And who is this Dragan who comes in the name of freedom from tyranny?”
“You haven’t heard of Dragan el Vipero? But it is clear that Lieutenant Cross had – no?”
Ranklin shrugged. June 28 had been Saturday, Cross’s last day. “And this was on his body, too?”
Reimers nodded. “But we did not show it to his father. We did not want him to know his son knew such a monster.”
Dragan the Viper certainly sounded monstrous, but: “What sort of monster? Have you caught him?”
Reimers frowned quickly. “No, he has not been caught yet. I suggest you don’t try to catch – or meet – with him.” He tucked away the note. “This may be evidence, but – we hope not. Good night, Mr Spencer.”
When the door had closed, Ranklin grabbed a pencil and wrote down the names Kay and Younger of the Deutscher Kaiser hotel. Then he sat back and thought. Reimers was almost certainly Naval Counter-intelligence. And he suspected Cross of something, and by now suspected Ranklin/Spencer, too, though that transfer of suspicion had been inevitable. But most of all, Reimers suspected Dragan el Vipero – and who the devil was he!
22
There can hardly be such a thing as a “feeling” that you are being followed – except for nervous people, who are usually wrong. For O’Gilroy it was an awareness, tuned by experience, that close behind him in the babbling patchily lit streets there were footsteps and a shadow that copied his own. He shrugged mentally, knowing he would pinpoint the follower eventually, and strolled on whistling ‘The Wearin’ of the Green’.
The old town was a tangle of short narrow streets overhung by decrepit old houses, and to prowl it O’Gilroy had changed his “pepper-and-salt” valet suit for his oldest clothes, with an untied handkerchief in place of collar and tie. In such streets, he wanted no slip-knots round his neck.