Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

‘How would I know?’ Wolff replied.

You’re wrong, Gaunt, he thought, as he walked back to his apartment. New York’s finest did have some inkling of what was going on under their noses.

He tried to warn Gaunt the following morning but the attaché was too excited to listen.

‘Never mind the police, Wolff,’ he said, pacing their room at the Prince George. ‘Never mind that.’

‘But we’re no better, are we…’ Wolff persisted.

‘Forget the police.’

‘Will the police recognise us as friends?’

‘For God’s sake, man,’ Gaunt’s temper flared; it was on the lightest of triggers. ‘They haven’t heard from the Fiscus for two days. Left here on the twelfth. Lost. Sunk. Gone. Cargo and crew. Seven thousand tons with shells. Blinker’s hopping.’ He stopped pacing abruptly. ‘That’s the fourth we know of for sure. Got to do something,’ he declared. ‘We’re not waiting for your Bureau chaps to arrive, do you hear?’

THEIR VISITOR PARKED his car with two wheels on the sidewalk. Emmeline watched as he dropped his cigarette end in the front yard, grinding it into the grass that Anton had cut and weeded carefully the day before. Suit trousers stuffed carelessly into seaman’s boots, and why didn’t he run a comb through that shock of blond hair? There was nothing in his demeanour to suggest he was genial, as large men often are, but something unkind in his face. Not the sort she wanted neighbours to see swaggering to their door.

Stepping away from the curtain, she walked into the kitchen. ‘Your guest is here.’ There was no reply. ‘Anton?’ He’d closed the cellar door. ‘Anton?’ she shouted, and took a step down the stair. She didn’t like to go further. ‘Anton.’ Her voice sounded a little plaintive; and there was that evil smell again. ‘My beef broth,’ Anton liked to joke. ‘Your visitor is here!’

This time he opened the door, mask around his neck, white coat and rubber gloves. ‘Just finishing,’ he replied with a distant smile. ‘Entertain him, would you? Just for a few minutes.’

‘Please hurry,’ she pleaded.

Their guest was smirking on the doorstep. ‘I saw you so I didn’t bother to ring,’ he said in German. ‘Is he here?’

‘I assume you mean my brother, Dr Dilger. Yes, he is here,’ she said stiffly. ‘Please come in.’ The sooner he was inside the better. ‘My name is Miss Emmeline Dilger — Dr Dilger’s sister.’

‘I know.’ He offered her his calloused hand. ‘This is Tony’s place. Where is he? In the laboratory?’

‘Would you like some tea? He’ll be with you in a minute, Mr…?’

‘Captain. Captain Hinsch. At your service.’

She led him into the drawing room and left him examining their family photographs. When she came back with the tea, he was perched on the edge of a low chair, his broad knees almost at his shoulders. He’d removed a picture from the wall above the secretaire and was scrutinising it closely.

‘Big family,’ he observed. ‘You here?’

‘Yes,’ she said, placing the tray on the table beneath the window.

‘Show me.’

She finished pouring the tea.

‘Is that you?’ he asked, poking the glass with his forefinger.

Setting a cup on a lace doily beside him, she turned and bent over the picture. ‘No, that’s me.’ He smelt fusty, like an old couch. ‘That’s Anton; and my father, Mr Hubert Dilger; and there in the middle row, my mother’s father, Dr Tiedemann from Heidelberg.’

He grunted. ‘Family of doctors.’

‘No. My father was a soldier. May I,’ she tugged at the picture, jerking it from his hands; ‘if you don’t mind.’

He didn’t seem to notice the hostility in her voice. ‘A soldier, eh? Against the French?’

‘No. For the Grand Duke of Baden’s horse artillery, then here in America — in the Civil War,’ she said, polishing the glass with her handkerchief.

He grunted again, this time with a little more interest. ‘My brother’s fighting,’ he said.

‘Oh? My brother-in-law too, and Anton was serving in a hospital.’

For some reason he found this amusing, reaching for his cup with the same smirk with which he’d greeted her on the step. She was relieved to hear Anton in the hall, and a few seconds later he joined them.

‘Only tea,’ he reproached her affectionately; ‘but the captain would prefer something stronger, I’m sure. How about that good German beer Josephine brought us?’

She frowned. Why was he going to the trouble?

‘So this is Tony,’ said Hinsch, levering himself from the chair.

‘This is Dr Anton Dilger,’ she retorted crossly.

She left them to become acquainted while she fetched the beer and the old stoneware mugs she had brought from the farm. Rattling around the kitchen, opening and shutting the same cupboards, fretting that her brother was involved in something he shouldn’t be. ‘The acquaintance of a friend in Berlin,’ he’d told her, but she could see he wasn’t being frank. Goodness, it wasn’t a matter for her. Please just drink your beer and leave, she thought; leave us in peace.

They were still speaking of the family when she returned to the drawing room. Anton’s eyes were twinkling wet with pride as he told of the horse shot from beneath their father at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Such a marvellous raconteur — all their neighbours said so — the dinner guest of choice. Folks in Chevy Chase appreciated proper manners and Anton brought a little old-world sophistication to their homes with his stories of life in Berlin — just as long as the conversation didn’t turn to war. Of course she felt the same but she knew not to lose her temper. ‘Americans don’t understand Germany,’ she’d told him; but he’d upset Mr and Mrs Proctor, dumping his napkin and some forthright opinions on their table before walking out unceremoniously. Not that it really mattered; old Proctor was only a storekeeper.

The war would have broken their father’s heart, Anton was saying. ‘There’s too much stupid sentiment here about democracy, you see.’ His beer mug hovered at his lips. ‘I was shocked when I got back. The newspapers — the Kaiser’s a despot, we’re Huns and the despoilers of Belgium…’ he paused to snatch a sip. ‘Is the Tsar a democrat? Do the British care a fig for the rights of small nations? What about the British Empire? I tell you, Captain, I’m worried.’

‘About what?’ Hinsch asked, shifting impatiently in his chair.

‘That the United States will become embroiled.’

‘Isn’t it already?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You know we should get on?’

Anton caught Emmeline’s eye and smiled apologetically. ‘The captain wants to see my experiments.’

‘Oh?’ she remarked sceptically. ‘Are you interested in science, Captain?’

‘Very,’ replied Hinsch, bending to stuff a trouser leg back in his boot.

‘All right.’ Her brother put down his mug and stood up hurriedly. ‘Shall we?’

Emmeline followed them into the kitchen with the tray. As they clumped down to the cellar she heard Hinsch say, ‘And this is Tony’s lab.’ Then, a moment later, ‘Don’t I need a mask?’ The door banged shut because it was stiff; she would speak to Anton about shaving a little from the jamb.

She’d asked the Mitchells from across the way for supper. Anton had found a good butcher and she was going to cook Schweinshaxe . Taking a sharp knife from the drawer, she scored the flesh of the pork and began to press in the garlic. Pity there wasn’t time to soak the knuckle in brine. Hinsch was talking, now laughing. He had a quarterdeck voice — boom, boom, boom — but she couldn’t make out more than a few words and was cross with herself for trying.