Free Midnight In Malmö: The Fourth Inspector Anita Sundström Mystery (The Malmö Mysteries Book 4) by Torquil MacLeod Page B

countries?’
    ‘Interesting question: and one that possibly relates to the events that took place in the Savoy Hotel in Malmö. Basically, the British were worried about the Bolsheviks because of their stated intent to end Russian involvement in the war. They needed the Russians to stay in and, therefore, would have undoubtedly stopped Lenin going through Britain.’
    Lennartsson swirled his mug of tea around in his fingers. ‘Lenin and company crossed Germany in a sealed train. Both sides were wary. Lenin didn’t want to be accused of being a traitor by being seen to deal with the enemy, which, of course, is what he was doing. That’s why the official front man was a Swiss revolutionary called Fritz Platten. The Germans didn’t want political émigrés fermenting trouble while they crossed the country. With the British naval blockades, food was short. There were few men around to work the farms and the factories because they were all at the two fronts. And Germany had its own revolutionaries to worry about. Everything was kept low profile as the train made its way across the country through various different railway systems. On Thursday, April the twelfth, the train reached Sassnitz on the Baltic coast, and the passengers boarded the Swedish ferry
Queen Victoria
.’
    Lennartsson drained his tea.
    ‘Anything else to drink?’ Anita asked.
    ‘No,’ Lennartsson waved away the offer. He was enjoying telling someone the story which he had been sworn to secrecy not to reveal until after Rylander’s death. ‘Lenin arrived in Trelleborg, where his party was met by Jacob Fürstenberg. He was an interesting guy. He was a Polish Social Democrat who was regarded as a sinister character even by Lenin’s trusted allies, because he not only had dubious criminal contacts, but also had links with the German Imperial Foreign Office in Berlin’s Wilhelmstrasse. Despite this, he was a close friend of Lenin’s, and carried out various missions for him. Before Lenin’s journey back to Russia, he had been employed by Parvus in an organization that was basically war profiteering, which made him a strange bedfellow for Lenin. Anyway, he was given the task of guiding Lenin through Scandinavia. He met the ferry, and there was a warm welcome from Swedish socialists and the mayor of Trelleborg. Then Fürstenberg, Lenin and company took the train to Malmö, where they headed over to the Savoy Hotel.’
    ‘It’s opposite the central station,’ Anita said to Kevin to put him in the picture.
    ‘Rylander’s father remembered the debonair Fürstenberg. As a young man, Oscar Rylander worked as a waiter at the hotel. It was here that Fürstenberg had arranged for Lenin’s rag-tag group to eat before they took the midnight train to Stockholm.’
    ‘And it was here that Rylander’s father saved Lenin’s life?’ Kevin couldn’t keep the enthusiasm out of his voice.
    ‘If it’s true. Albin Rylander obviously thought so. According to the tale Oscar told his son just before he died, he was walking along the corridor, hands full of used dishes, when Lenin asked him where the bathroom was. Just then, another man in a large coat and broad-brimmed hat appeared in the corridor and asked Lenin if he was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. When Lenin said yes, the man pulled out a gun of some sort. He was only a few feet away and couldn’t possibly miss from that range. Oscar instinctively threw the plates at the man, who was so taken aback he didn’t even fire and ran from the corridor and presumably into the night. Lenin thanked the young Oscar and said that the new Russia owed him a great debt of gratitude. It was then that he gave Oscar that red handkerchief. He told him that he had saved the revolution. And then Lenin was gone, and his party left for the station and on into history. The irony was that Oscar got an earful from the head waiter for dropping the plates and making a mess in the corridor!’
    ‘The red handkerchief? Could it possibly have