So it was a surprise when Hackett called one day in the spring of 1871 and asked him to go to Berlin. He and Burdon were to make separate trips, he said, with instructions to visit particular locations, including government buildings and royal residences.
Luis was reluctant, but he was wary of angering Oswald Hackett. So he complied. He fulfilled his own mission without incident or alarm.
And it was a still greater surprise, a few weeks later, when he, Hackett and Fraser Burdon were all summoned once more to Windsor.
24
LUIS STAYED OVERNIGHT in a hotel on the Strand.
Restless, anxious, he was up before the dawn, long before his appointment with Hackett and Burdon. He made his way down to the river, where in the grey light the mudlarks dug for wood and coins and bits of coaclass="underline" children and old women, up to their knees in cold river-bed ooze. And he saw the sewer hunters emerging from their tunnels with their hoes and poles, coated in filth, splitting whatever grimy haul they had retrieved from the muck. Even in the city streets there was activity at this hour, the bone grubbers sifting garbage for anything they could eat or wear or sell on. All these people were striving to be up before the competition, as if the city was a vast midden infested by human insects, just as Hackett had once said, rooting and sifting and consuming the slightest morsel they found.
By eight Luis had made his way to Charing Cross, where the others were waiting by the brougham that would take them to Windsor.
This time the three of them, all older – Oswald Hackett was in his late fifties now – were met only by the man they knew as Mr Radcliffe, with a few hefty flunkeys at hand.
This encounter took place with the four of them standing somewhat uneasily in a drawing room that Luis suspected was one of the castle’s lesser chambers, deep in the bowels of the Conqueror’s tower, but whose carpet alone had probably cost more than all his own holdings combined, and whose walls were adorned with black crape, in the funereal style Victoria had maintained since the death of the Consort. Just the four of them, save for ‘servants’ in suits who stood by the walls and doorways, looking to Luis’s eye like nothing so much as Coldstream Guards playing at being butlers, and he imagined he wasn’t far wrong.
Radcliffe too had aged, of course; he must be nearly sixty now, with a greying at the temples, a slight stoop to the posture. But his attention remained blade-like, his stare skewering. ‘So, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Once again we meet. No Prince this time, sadly.’
Burdon snorted. ‘But maybe you’ll have the Widow of Windsor serve us tea, what?’
Hackett glared at him.
Radcliffe’s smile was the kind that did not extend above the line of his thin moustache. His advancing age had not mellowed him, evidently. ‘You know why you are here – or I imagine you have guessed. You were all asked to go into the new Germany, and the heart of Berlin in particular. Now here you are with your reports. Would you care to accompany me to the archive? You’ll recall it from your previous visit. The staircase down is just along the hall from here …’
Hackett would have followed, but Burdon grabbed his arm. Burdon said, ‘Not this time, thanks. Gettin’ a bit sensitive to being confined, in my old age.’
Hackett pulled away, eyes narrow, frowning. But Luis was surprised when, for the first time in Luis’s memory, he deferred to Burdon’s leadership.
Radcliffe affected mock surprise. ‘You, Mr Burdon, the famous gold-miner of California, scared of a bit of shut-in? Surely not.’
‘Occupational hazard. Well. Are you servin’ us tea? Why not take it here?’ He glanced around at the beefy servants. ‘I imagine these fellows are discreet. There’s no reason you want us down there, is there?’
Radcliffe gave way. He invited them to sit.
In short order a flunkey showed up with tea, another bulky fellow. As the man poured, Burdon murmured to Luis, ‘I never thought to see such fine china handled by a gorilla’s mitt like that.’
Now Radcliffe asked for their reports on Bismarck’s Berlin.
When it was his turn Luis described the cover he’d devised. ‘I posed as a theatrical entrepreneur, studying local acts with an eye to booking them for the English theatres. I took a room on the Unter den Linden, from where I had every excuse to stroll past the Prinz Carl Palace, and the ministries on the Wilhelmstrasse …’ All this was by way of summary; they had all had to submit detailed written reports, including sketch maps. It had been enough for Luis to have inspected these great buildings from the outside; the others had Waltzed their way inside on more penetrating spying missions.
When they had all reported, Radcliffe nodded. ‘Good, good. Now, I wonder if you have guessed why we have ordered such a mission. And why it had to be you three, the very apex of the pyramid of your Knights of Discorporea,’ and he said the words as if they were ashes in his mouth.
‘That’s not hard to guess,’ Hackett said sternly. ‘I think you mean to strike at Bismarck himself.’
Luis was astonished by this allegation. But Radcliffe did not flinch.
And Hackett continued relentlessly, ‘I can even guess at the logic.’
‘Go on.’
‘To avert a European war. We all remember the poor Prince with his dreams of unifying Europe under a drowsy dynasty – he married his and Victoria’s eldest daughter to the crown prince of Prussia to achieve just that end. Well, that didn’t wash with Bismarck. Now you have this tremendous brute of a German dog prowling around a European back yard that has been more or less at peace, as we all know, since the downfall of Napoleon. And in Bismarck you face a man ruthless and determined and of tremendous political and strategic skill—’
‘Who might be the ruin of us all,’ Radcliffe said, nodding. ‘And who, as you say, has terminated a half-century of relative peace on continental Europe with a terrible war, and he and his successors might spark off more before the hash is settled. No, the man has to go before he does any more harm, and spends any more lives. Which is where you gentlemen take the stage.’
Hackett nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, this is a step up from the Underground Rail Road, and your petty bits of spying. Even compared to the time you had us go into Sebastopol during the siege.’
Luis raised his eyebrows; he hadn’t heard of that one.
Burdon gave Radcliffe a mocking smile. ‘But what exactly is it you would have us do? Abduction, assassination? Of the German Chancellor? Are you serious? Do you expect us to believe that Her Majesty’s government would stoop to such a tactic? This isn’t some Balkan principality, you know. And besides, such an act would probably destabilize all Europe and bring us to war even faster than Bismarck with all his scheming ever could.’
Radcliffe kept calm. ‘It is the will of Her Majesty.’
‘Phooey,’ said Burdon. ‘Produce her and let her tell us so herself.’
Hackett seemed appalled. ‘Have some respect, man.’
Radcliffe stood. ‘If only you would come to the archive, I could explain the scheme better. We have documentation – maps – reports – it is already an expensive and carefully considered operation.’
Burdon said, ‘Determined to get us down in that hole in the ground, aren’t you?’
Radcliffe took a breath. ‘Also there is someone waiting to see you there. You met a prime minister once before, in Lord John Russell, many years ago. And now—’
Burdon laughed out loud. ‘You expect us to believe that you persuaded old Gladstone, not just to support your bonkers scheme, but to turn up in person and sit in some cellar waiting on the likes of us?’