Sideways In Crime Read online

  Marcus said, “As it happens Gavrilo received only a few visitors yesterday evening, in a small reception room at the back of the palace. Exchanging gifts and so forth. In fact he spent much of the day aboard the ship. He did receive Princess Alice during the day, but in the evening was rather unwell.”

  They all took this with straight faces. The rumors circulating among the interpreters was that Gavrilo, who had served on the Chinese front, had come back with an unhealthy liking for opium. He had spent the evening indulging with his companions and a few guests, including Jack Dempsey, the well-known American-born gladiator, who had put on a show of mock combat against the empire’s finest.

  “Of course that makes our task easier,” Marcus went on. “Since only a small number of people had access to the prince, we have a small number of suspects to consider.” Imogen, attuned by now to diplomatic niceties, chose to translate “suspects” as “personages.” Armstrong caught her eye and gave her an approving nod.

  They came at last to the reception room where Gavrilo had, from eleven in the evening onwards, grudgingly greeted his handful of visitors. More Romans took their pictures, the flashes dazzling, and British soldiers and police stood by uncomfortably among the legionaries.

  Imogen was shocked by the state of the room. The portraits on the walls were scorched and blistered, the heavy wallpaper blackened; the molded plaster of the ceiling was cracked and scorched, and at the very center of the room a thick pile carpet was as black as if it had been used as a hearth. Many of the fittings had been soaked, by the water that must have been used to put out the fire that had blazed here. Over that scorched patch of carpet a chair had evidently been blown to bits; Imogen recognized fragments, an arm, a seat cushion, a carved leg. The cushion was stained with a brown pigment--blood, perhaps.

  The party poked around the mess. The Foreign Secretary pressed a handkerchief to his face. There was a prevailing smell of smoke and soot, and a heavy underlying iron smell that reminded Imogen of a butcher’s shop.

  Marcus was at her side. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Then you’re stronger than me,” he murmured. “I’ve seen war-- I’ve fought in the east. One never gets used to the smell of dried blood.”

  “This is where Gavrilo died?”

  He pointed. “He sat in that chair. He was blown apart in the explosion; he probably died instantly. His body was scorched in the resulting fire. It has been taken away--returned to his ship.”

  “Was he alone in here?”

  “Alone save for his own companions, and one of our legionaries. Their injuries were minor. They reacted well, actually; they raised the alarm, got rid of the fires.”

  “But what caused all this? Was it a bomb?”

  “You can see it here, Miss Brodsworth,” Armstrong said in his Harrovian Greek. He pointed to a metal tube on the floor. “Don’t touch it--Scotland Yard, you know.”

  It seemed to be a primitive weapon, an iron lance, perhaps. At its tip, bound with cord, were the remains of a rolled-up tube of paper, perhaps two feet long. The paper tube was blackened, blown apart, like a failed firework. And scattered around the lance were bits of joinery, the remnants of a smashed wooden box.

  “Ironically,” Marcus said, “the force of the explosion preserved the remnants of the fire-lance itself, even the paper tube; the fire was blown toward the walls. But poor Gavrilo was not spared, of course.”

  Imogen inspected the weapon. “A ‘fire-lance?’“

  “A very early gunpowder weapon,” Armstrong said. “Actually of Roman design. In battle you would carry a small iron box of glowing tinder, to light the tube. Flames would shoot out, perhaps covering ten, twelve, fifteen feet.”

  “It’s a flamethrower, then.”

  Marcus said, “This particular specimen was captured during our war with the Seljuk Turks, over eight hundred years ago. It was a gift, presented in a display case--you can see the remnants of the case, reduced to matchwood. It appears Gavrilo was pleased with the gift, and was cradling it, box and all, when it detonated.”

  “But how could it have exploded?”

  “Well, it was rigged,” said Marcus. “Aside from the gunpowder in the lance itself, there was a simple fuse, and a trigger mechanism like a flintlock attached to a clockwork timer, all concealed in the body of the wooden box.” He pointed, and she could just make out an intricate mechanism amid the wreckage.

  She nodded. “So that’s how he died. But who’s responsible? Who gave him this gift?”

  “Ah,” Armstrong said. “That’s where it gets tricky... It was a gift from Vizier Osman Pasa.” Who was, Imogen knew, a senior official of the Ottoman government. “So this appears to be the murder of a Roman prince, by an Ottoman assassin, carried out right here on British soil.” He shook his head. “Shocking business.”

  Imogen frowned. “The Ottomans I’ve met haven’t been fools, major. Would Vizier Pasa really implicate himself so obviously? And do the Ottomans actually want conflict with the Romans right now? I’ve read that on the contrary--”

  Armstrong snorted. “I doubt very much that whatever racy stuff you read in the penny papers has much relation to a complicated diplomatic reality, Miss Brodsworth.”

  Offended, she withdrew. “Yes, major.”

  But Marcus would have none of it. “No, no. You have a good point, Miss Brodsworth. We must not jump to conclusions. Gavrilo was a scion of an imperial house two thousand years old, and here we are at the meeting point of empires. It’s hardly likely that anything about his death would be simple, is it? What would you suggest we do, Miss Brodsworth?”

  Armstrong was starting to get agitated. He stubbed out his latest cigarette and protested, “Now look here, prefect, Miss Brodsworth is an able translator, but a mere slip of a girl who...”

  Marcus wasn’t listening. He kept his eyes on Imogen while the major ran down.

  Imogen smiled at Marcus, flattered. “Well, you need to find out who had access to the prince. One of them was the murderer--or more than one--that seems clear. When you know who the suspects are, you can begin to eliminate them, one by one.”

  “Eminent common sense,” said Marcus. “But I disagree on one point.”

  “Yes?”

  “You said ‘you.’ You meant ‘we.’ I want you to work with me on this, Miss Brodsworth.”

  Armstrong seemed outraged. “Oh, now look here, this is all--”

  “Just for a period of grace. The police can continue their work in parallel. Miss Brodsworth is surely right, major. We need to establish the truth of this incident before we start murdering each other’s populations over it. And fresh eyes, untainted by diplomatic calculation, British eyes at that, might help a great deal. We do need an interpreter, too, of course.” He turned back to Imogen. “You spoke of who had access to Gavrilo. That at least is easy to establish.” He glanced at the photographers. “A thorough lot, we Romans. We keep a record of everything...”

  It wasn’t yet nine o’clock. As the relevant photographs were assembled, hastily developed overnight, Imogen took the opportunity to have a breakfast of pastries and Brazilian coffee.

  Aside from the prince’s companions and guards, only four men had been admitted to the reception room last night, while Gavrilo held his bleary court. “The prince was in such a delicate temper,” Marcus said carefully, “that it was decided to restrict the interview to representatives of the three great powers, other than the Romans: the British, the French, and the Ottomans.”

  So the Americans, the Spanish, and the German and Italian princelings had all been left kicking their heels. “That must have pleased the others.”

  “But at least they are not under suspicion. Well, the photographs match the testimonies,” Marcus said.

  Imogen stared at the grainy plates. There was a fresh chemical smell about them. She studied the Romans first: legionaries in traditional costumes, though armed with automatic weapons, a handful of the prince’s companions
in stylish American-fashion modern dress, and senators and other ministers in togas. Gavrilo had himself worn a toga, and a wreath of laurels on his head.

  “I know none of these people,” Imogen said.

  “I think we can rule them out as suspects,” Marcus said rather grimly. “They’re all now in the hands of the Praetorian Guard.” This traditional bodyguard of the Caesars had evolved into a secret police, “After several hours I think we can be sure they’ve nothing to reveal. Why, the very threat of being handed over to the Praetorians is enough to keep any Roman in line, believe me.” If he harbored any fear of what might be done to him as punishment for his failure to protect Gavrilo, he showed no sign of it.

  Imogen studied the photographs of the visitors. Here was Vizier Osman Pasa carrying the fateful wooden case containing the fire-lance, and Prince Philippe, second son of the French king come to greet the second son of Caesar, and the Foreign Secretary representing the British government--and Lloyd George had Armstrong at his side. Even as he had been admitted to the Roman’s presence, Imogen saw, Armstrong was smoking his customary cigarette.

  “I’m surprised you were there, major,” Imogen said.

  “I do have a responsibility for security,” Armstrong said. “In this case it was actually the Foreign Secretary’s welfare I was concerned with, for you’ll notice we had no British soldiers in the chamber at that time.”

  Marcus studied another photograph, which showed the visitors submitting to searches by helmet-clad legionaries. “You’re still smoking. They left you your cigarette! Few Romans smoke, you know.”

  “Well, I know that. In fact I only lit up to annoy the Frenchies, if you must know.” His schoolboy Greek was studded with English: “Frenchies.”

  This was a rivalry that dated back to Napoleonic times, when the French emperor, confronting the Romans in Europe and locked in war with the British, had refused to sell the Louisiana Territory to the new United States. A century later, as if in spite, the French refused any imports of tobacco products from the former English colonies, and very few Europeans smoked.

  “Well.” Marcus lined up four photographs: of the Foreign Secretary, the major, the vizier, and the French prince. “Our suspects.”

  “I do find it hard to suspect the Foreign Secretary,” Imogen admitted.

  Marcus referred to a sheaf of documents. “I have testimony from the prince’s companions and the legionaries. It was after all these men left the prince’s presence that the explosion went off. It was indeed the fire-lance that killed Gavrilo, and all the witnesses confirm that it was the vizier who brought it in personally.”

  The major sat back, hands behind his head. “It all seems clear enough to me.”

  Marcus ignored him. “What now, Miss Brodsworth?”

  “We should interview our suspects. I would start with the man who brought in the fire-lance in the first place.”

  Marcus summoned a runner. Then he set about finding an office suitable for interviews.

  Armstrong raised his eyebrows, but did not object.

  It took forty minutes for Osman Pasa to be brought to the palace from his suite at the Savoy.

  Pasa’s title was vizier, but Imogen understood this was something of a formality; power under the Ottoman sultan Mehmed V lay with parliament, and the vizier had little influence outside the court. Pasa was an elegant man, perhaps fifty, his dark complexion set off by the sharp, silver-gray suit he wore. He spoke fluent Latin, the nearest thing to a common international language, and Imogen translated for the major.

  “The fire-lance was of course a Roman artifact,” Pasa said languidly. “Captured during the Seljuk war of 1071, as the Christian calendar has it. It has languished on palace walls or in museums ever since. This seemed an appropriate occasion to hand it back. After all, that conflict, so little known to western historians, was a turning point in the fortunes of the Romans...”

  The East Roman empire, with its capital at Constantinople, had survived the collapse of its western counterpart. But the explosive advance of Islam in the Seventh Century had seen it lose Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Egypt to the Arabs. And in the new millennium the Seljuk Turks assaulted Asia Minor, the very heart of the empire.

  “I’ve always been convinced that if not for the fire-lances, Asia Minor would have been lost,” the vizier said. “And the decline of the empire would have been assured. But the fire-lances, just like this one, and other gadgets like crude bombs, turned the tide. The Seljuk armies had nothing like it, and were driven back.

  “It’s said that gunpowder was brought to Constantinople by a single man, a Chinese dissident who fled the Sung emperors and came wandering down the Silk Road. And he carried a new idea out of China, as many ideas had traveled to the west before--silk, paper... In China, as you may know, gunpowder was an accidental discovery of Taoist chemists who sought an elixir of life.” Pasa grunted. “What they discovered was a recipe for death. Of course the East Romans had always used Greek fire against the Islamic armies; they knew how to develop super-weapons, and how to keep them secret. As a result they had a monopoly on gunpowder weapons in Europe for two hundred years. Remarkable, isn’t it, the difference one man can make?”

  Imogen pressed the vizier, “But as to the fire-lance itself--you did not hand over a live weapon to the prince, did you?”

  “Of course not.” He glanced at Marcus, quite relaxed. “There should have been no gunpowder in it at all--only black pepper-- certainly not such a potent modern mix. To place such a weapon in the hands of a young man so liable to, ahem, confusion? It would have been asking for trouble.”

  Imogen said, “And did the lance leave your possession at any time before you handed it over to the prince?”

  “Yes.” Both Roman and British soldiers, and British police, had checked over the weapon and its box. He glanced meaningfully at Armstrong.

  “I oversaw some of this myself,” the major said. “We were looking for poison--doped needles, that sort of thing; we thought that was the most likely way one might get at the prince. We missed the gunpowder, I admit.”

  “A bit of an oversight,” Marcus said in English, mocking the major’s tone.

  Armstrong eyed him stonily. “We’re not as experienced with assassinations and palace coups as you are in your ancient empire, prefect.”

  “Really?” Osman Pasa asked, glaring at Armstrong. “I wonder if these questions of yours are directed at the right party, prefect.”

  Armstrong just laughed at him.

  They asked further questions of the Ottoman diplomat, but learned nothing new.

  Prince Philippe was fat, fifty, his face red and puffy, his hair elaborately coiffed. He smelled of perfume, pomade, and Roman vodka.

  As he tried to squeeze his ample frame into a hard, upright English chair, Armstrong murmured to Imogen, “Always the same, the Frenchies. Every diplomatic occasion they send over a prince of the blood--if not Fat Phil here, one of his equally unappealing brothers. They know these Orleanist princes get up the noses of our Bourbon royal family.”

  Philippe’s own gift to Gavrilo had been a remarkable jeweled cane, still in the possession of the Romans, beautiful and quite harmless. What Philippe chose to talk about, however, was the gift Gavrilo had handed to him. It was a bit of cloth mounted in a glass case, very old, coarsely woven. It bore a red cross, faded with time, and was stained with rust-brown splashes.

  “It is a relic of my own ancestor,” Philippe said, speaking defiant French. “George of Boulogne took the cross of Christ in 1203; this was stitched to his tunic when he died before the walls of Constantinople...”

  The East Romans had always had a prickly relationship with the crusades. These great military missions, aimed at recovering the Holy Land from the Muslims, were seen from Constantinople as grabs for power by the popes in Rome, who hoped to rule the squabbling statelets of Western Christendom. At last resentment had boiled over, and Western Christians assaulted the capital of the East Christian power. But
by now the East Romans had advanced weapons, bombs and mines, cannon, rockets, even handguns, at a time when gunpowder was still entirely unknown west of Constantinople. The crusaders were scattered; the city was saved.

  “The cross was ripped from the chest of my fallen ancestor, and stored in some vault in Constantinople for eight hundred years. And now here it is,” Philippe said. “Hurled back in my face!”

  Imogen frowned. “Perhaps the Romans meant to honor you, and the memory of George.”

  Philippe said dismissively, “Perhaps there is honor in defeat for you British; not for us. Remember we have kept the Romans at bay for centuries, while you sit behind la Manche building ships...”

  Even before the East Romans had acquired their fire-lances, Orthodox Christendom had spread far from Constantinople, with the conversion of Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia, Serbia. When in the Thirteenth Century the Mongols had erupted from central Asia to assault Georgia and Russia, the East Romans struck back, using their firearms to drive off the ferocious nomads: the Battle of Kiev in 1240 was remembered as the day the Mongols were repelled and a dream reborn. After this smashing victory a new geographically contiguous empire was born, absorbing the Orthodox countries, sweeping from the Balkans to the Baltic.

  By now the secret of gunpowder was out; the Mongols acquired it from the Chinese, and through them the technology was adopted by Islam and Western Christendom. But the East Romans were the first to reorganize their society as a gunpowder empire, with an expansion of mining and manufacture, government control of resources, the raising of vast armies, and a centralizing of the state. To do this they reached back consciously to the forms of the old Roman Empire. By 1300 the Caesars once more wore the imperial purple, and legions armed with muskets and field artillery marched in the field.