Free The Hansa Protocol by Norman Russell

had a flowing spade beard, which added to a natural gravity of manner. He was carrying a wooden tray, containing two steaming mugs of tea. Lewis watched as he placed his burden carefully on the table. He was unaccountably pleased when the constable briefly stood to attention and saluted him.
    ‘PC Kenwright, sir,’ the big constable said. ‘This here tea is sent with Sergeant Knollys’ compliments. It’s rare cold outside. This should warm you up a bit.’
    Kenwright left the room the way he had come, and Inspector Lewis continued his story.
    ‘Well, Mr Box, the fire was too strong for anyone to go in, though everyone in the garden was talking about a gentleman visitor who’d managed to burst the door down before we came—’
    ‘A gentleman visitor? Tell me about him, Mr Lewis.’
    ‘Well, he was a gentleman called Colin McColl, and he’d called to see Dr Seligmann by appointment. We got all this information out of the secretary, later, you understand, a German chap called Schneider; and from Mr Lodge, the butler. This Mr McColl managed to burst the door in – a heavy, iron door. Trying to rescue poor Dr Seligmann, you see. There was another visitor, who came just as this Mr McColl left. A young man called Fenlake—’
    ‘Fenlake?’ asked Box, sharply. ‘Lieutenant Fenlake?’
    ‘Yes, Mr Box, that’s right! Do you know him?’
    ‘I know of him. I know a young lady friend of his.’
    ‘Well, this Lieutenant Fenlake, according to Mr Lodge, was the last person to see poor Dr Seligmann alive.’
    ‘An interesting point. And what did you do next, Mr Lewis?’
    ‘We stayed all night – us, and the fire brigade, I mean – and by first light this morning the fire had all but burnt itself out. We’d brought gasflares in, and worked by the light of them to find out what we could. We located what was left of Dr Seligmann just before dawn. A terrible affair, as I said. The ruins of a man ….’
    Inspector Lewis sipped his tea. His eyes, Box saw, held a renewed awareness of the sadness of things. There was no need for him to commiserate. Each knew that the other had witnessed terrible sights in the course of their often thankless duties.
    ‘Oddly enough, Mr Lewis, I helped to police a meeting addressed by this Dr Seligmann only last Saturday. Shocking. Shocking altogether. And so you thought of us? Scotland Yard, I mean.’
    ‘I did. There was the smell of evil all around, Mr Box, though you might think me foolish for talking like that. Then, just after six, Dr Janner, the Home Office forensic pathologist, arrived in a cab. That told me that something funny was in the wind. He’d brought another Home Office man with him, an old chap who said he was Mr Mack, from the Home Office Explosions Inspectorate.’
    ‘Mr Mack’s an old friend of ours here at the Yard. I know Dr Janner, too. What did he do?’
    ‘He – well, he gathered the remains together. He and his assistants put them in a deal coffin, and conveyed them to the Chelsea Union mortuary. But it’s time we set off, Mr Box. I want you to see the site of this atrocity with your own eyes.’
     
    As they turned the corner into Aberdeen Lane, they were assailed by a sudden squall of hailstones. They hurried over the setts to the waiting four-wheeler, and by the time they had clambered in to the heavy vehicle, the hailstones had turned to tentative sleet. The constable on the box released the brake, and turned the horses’ heads in the direction of Whitehall.
    For a man on the small side, thought Inspector Lewis, Mr Box chose giants for his companions. PC Kenwright, sitting opposite him, was imposing enough, but the sergeant sitting beside him was massive, to put it mildly. An ugly customer, too, by the look of him. He had close-cropped yellow hair, and a livid scar running across his face from below the right eye to the left corner of his mouth.
    Lewis caught the amused gleam in the sergeant’s piercing blue eyes, and realized that he had been reading