FIFTY
Light filled the room. Quinn stood with his back to the window, as if he didn’t have the courage to face it. But in truth it took more courage to confront the wall in front of him.
At the top left-hand corner he had pinned two enlargements of frames taken from Waechter’s Totentanz, showing respectively Lyudmila Lyudmova and Heinrich Klint. Next to them was a police photograph of the partially chewed eye he had retrieved from Cecil Court.
A pathologist’s report concerning the eye had just come in. In short, the medical opinion was that the eye had ceased to be a part of a living organism several days at least before Friday, 17 April. The pathologist even ventured to suggest the possibility that the eye had been removed from a cadaver. This was consistent with Waechter’s version of events, namely that the incident was a hoax. Who was responsible for that hoax had yet to be decided. A photograph of Berenger slumped in a tub of dark liquid raised the possibility of his culpability. Quinn had to admit, Waechter was a far more likely culprit. Quinn’s instinct was to bring him in and hold him. But Sir Edward had not yet reached a decision on what they should do with Herr Waechter.
And then there was the question of the eye itself. It seemed likely that it was the eye stolen from the body of Edna Corbett. Was it a coincidence that she was a victim in a case Quinn himself had investigated? Or had everything been designed from the outset to draw Quinn in? But into what?
If this was the case, was Waechter really behind it? Or was he merely the instrument of other, more sinister agents?
Quinn’s eye was naturally drawn to a photograph which occupied the centre of the walclass="underline" of Dolores Novak’s body on the bed in the rented room.
‘Penny for ’em, guv?’
Quinn’s brow rippled with annoyance at Inchball’s invitation. To be asked to share one’s thoughts was inevitably a disruption to thinking. However, it was often by talking through a case with his sergeants that he was able to make progress. ‘When do we get the full medical examiner’s report on Dolores Novak?’
‘Should be this week sometime, I reckon.’
‘I want it today.’
‘I have a pal at the morgue, sir.’ Macadam had a pal everywhere, it seemed. ‘I shall see if anything can be done.’
‘You think it can tell us anythin’ we don’ already know? She ’ad ’er throat cut and ’er eye plucked out. There’s your cause of death, guv, with respec’.’
‘It might tell us something about the weapon. Or weapons. Presumably a different implement was used to cut her from that which gouged out the eye. They found no eye at the scene of crime?’
‘No, guv.’
Quinn looked at a photograph of Novak. ‘And there has been no sighting of Novak?’
‘Nothing as yet, sir.’
‘I would like some scene of crime photographs from last night’s bomb outrage. And can we not get our hands on a photograph of Lennox?’
‘Do you think the bomb blast is connected to Dolores, sir?’ asked Macadam.
‘And what’s it all got to do with bloody German spies?’ Inchball shook his head dubiously.
‘Possibly nothing,’ said Quinn. ‘It doesn’t matter that we were looking for spies and found …’ Quinn gestured to the wall. ‘This. Last night Lennox told me he received an anonymous missive containing a damaged playing card. The eye of the Jack had been poked through. The address was written in green ink. If we are looking for connections, we have one here. Two men receive anonymous deliveries written in green ink. Both attend the party at Visionary Productions. Two disconnected violent acts occur as the sequels to these events. It was at the party that Lord Dunwich met and left with Dolores Novak. So if there is some link between Lord Dunwich receiving the billiard ball and the murder of Dolores Novak – if it is the same person behind both acts – then it is someone who was at that party and saw them together.’ Quinn thought back to his own impressions of Dunwich’s behaviour that night. ‘There was something about the way he looked at her. A gleam in his eye that was more than desire. Almost, you might say – someone observing them might have concluded – that Lord Dunwich had fallen in love with her.’ Quinn turned to Macadam. ‘Have you finished your review of the names on the list Hartmann sent over?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing. No known criminals. I am just now cross-checking them with the companies in St Swithin’s Lane.’
‘Very well. Get on with it.’
‘What do you want me to do, guv?’
Quinn looked uncertainly at the wall, avoiding Inchball’s questioning gaze. He had no clear idea how to answer his sergeant. ‘Connections, Inchball, connections. That’s what we must find. The question we must ask ourselves is this: what links the death of Dolores Novak and the bombing of the Daily Clarion?’
‘Sir?’
‘What is it, Macadam?’
‘I think I may have found something.’
Quinn turned from the wall and bent his head to avoid cracking it on the sloping ceiling.
‘The London Nitrate Company. According to the Stock Exchange Yearbook, Lennox and Lord Dunwich are both board members. Hartmann is given as the chairman. The other directors are all foreigners too, judging by their names.’
‘Nitrate?’
‘It’s used in the manufacture of explosives, sir. Guncotton. If a war is coming, the control of nitrate supplies could prove decisive. Perhaps Hartmann is trying to frighten his board of directors in some way, so that they withdraw from the company and control passes to him, or to other men of his choosing? That is to say, fellow German nationals, or other foreign types. He could effectively cut off this country’s access to nitrate and channel it all to Germany.’
‘So that’s his plan!’ cried Inchball. ‘How very Bismarckian!’
But Quinn was not convinced. ‘How do these attacks further that objective? Would it not be simpler just to kill Dunwich and Lennox?’
‘We do not know what other pressure he might be bringing to bear on them. You see what I have done to the woman you loved … You see what I can do to your business interests … Now, give me what I want.’
‘But why send them the strange packages? A billiard ball and a playing card?’
Macadam thought for a moment about that. ‘The billiard ball painted like an eye seems to convey the message that the recipient is being watched. I have my eye on you … you cannot escape.’
‘But in the playing card, the eye was poked out – does that not convey the opposite message?’
‘I confess, sir, I do not have every detail worked out.’ Macadam bowed his head, crestfallen.
‘But it is indubitably a connection, Macadam. And precisely the kind of connection we were looking for. Please be so good as to bring the Ford round to the front of the building. I will meet you there. The time has come for another talk with Herr Hartmann, I feel.’ He felt Macadam’s eyes on him, suddenly expectant. ‘And arm yourself. If what you say about Hartmann is true, he may prove to be a very dangerous individual.’
FIFTY-ONE
A circle of darkness fell from Hartmann’s eye. It shattered into pieces on his desk.
‘You appear to have broken your monocle,’ Quinn observed as he stepped into the German’s office.
Hartmann gave a shrug. ‘It is no matter.’ The German eyed him warily. No doubt it did not escape his notice that Quinn and Macadam held their hands in such a way to suggest they were preparing themselves to draw guns. Hartmann remained calm, nonetheless. If he was surprised by the abrupt entrance of two policemen, he gave little indication. ‘How may I help you, gentlemen?’
‘We wish to talk to you about the London Nitrate Company.’
‘I see.’
‘You are the chairman of that company, are you not?’
‘Is that a crime?’