Free A Study in Murder by Robert Ryan Page B

There was
no mistaking its intent, even if you didn’t understand the single word,
Fleckfieber
, for it was adorned with a crudely daubed red skull and crossbones. In fact, Watson did, for once,
know that term. He knew it in several languages and it made his already shivering body shake that little bit more.
Fleckfieber.
    Typhus.

TWELVE
    Despite the cold mist rising off the lake as the light faded, Von Bork was sweating as he rowed. A sheen of perspiration covered his shoulders as he dug the blades into the
water, exhilarated by the rhythm he had found – the old, relaxed varsity stroke he had once mastered so easily – and the way the nose of the tiny craft leaped forward with each pull. He
had missed this, the burn of muscle and lung that physical exercise brought. He could see now that the last few years had been blighted by a form of depression, caused by his failure in England.
Now, at least, he had engineered a partial revenge for his humiliation and it had brought a fresh burst of vitality.
    It was a pity he had been forced to order the killing of the orderly. But he wasn’t part of the plan. He wanted Watson to feel alone, as he had, bereft of friends and acquaintances.
Ostracized. And it did have the benefit of causing Watson even more anguish, once he realized that he, indirectly, was responsible for the private’s death.
    Von Bork glanced across at the rococo villa that stood on the lakeshore to his right, its lights blazing with profligacy, as there was only him and his host – plus the servants – in
residence. But Admiral Hersch was not one to let the privations of war affect him too much. As a senior commander in the
Nachrichten-Abteilung
– Naval Intelligence – Hersch was
well aware of how much the Allied blockade was strangling the country, how the shops of Berlin mainly displayed hundreds of square metres of dust. But he didn’t believe in sharing the
suffering of the Kaiser’s subjects. Hersch insisted that men like himself needed to be kept in tiptop condition to win this war. He and his team required their full vigour to outfox the
British and the French. So, tonight Von Bork was expecting a table full of sausages with no barley and sawdust makeweight filling, the best pork knuckle, oysters, foie gras, brandy and cigars.
    Von Bork could see Hersch standing on the jetty, his bulk silhouetted by the electric lights behind him. Broad of shoulder, with cropped steel-grey hair, he was still attractive to women, with
his unlined face and square jaw, despite being well into his fifties. The duelling scar on his upper left cheek did little harm, either. Nor did the signet ring that proclaimed him a member of one
of the oldest Prussian families, albeit some moves away from the main bloodline. He had a wife – although God alone knew where she was kept – but more often than not he squired a young
widow on his arm, consoling her for her loss in one way or another.
    ‘Are you going to stay out there all night, man?’ boomed Hersch, his voice skimming over the water. ‘We have company arriving.’
    Von Bork slowed and began to dig his right oar deeper into the water, turning the vessel towards where his former spymaster stood. Hersch had been one of the more understanding of his superiors
when Von Bork had returned from England in shame. He alone had thought there was only a little chagrin in being outwitted in the game of spies and spying by a man like Holmes. Von Bork suspected
Hersch would have kept him on, but back then he lacked the influence the war years had given him. So he’d reluctantly cut Von Bork adrift, left him to work his way up through the backwater of
a bureau concerned with POWs.
    Meanwhile, Hersch had created the Sie Wölfe, a group of female assassins and spies, which he had released across Europe. True, their losses had been comparable in percentage terms to
officers on the Western Front, but many had gleaned valuable information. There were those in the old