The Copper House A detective story
a few minutes earlier, I might have learned everything. At any rate,
he had not summoned me in vain; I knew now that the Master Villain was
called Gabriel Ortiz.
"But when I tried to obtain particulars as to this Gabriel Ortiz, I
immediately met with the most extraordinary difficulties, which were
in themselves a proof that he existed, but that he had safeguarded
himself with the most intricate precautions. I had only just started
my investigations in earnest, when the Russian Revolution broke out in
March. At once I became aware, here in Stockholm, that under my very
eyes, the sinister development was gaining strength. The Whirlpool
was beginning to seethe. My attention had been directed towards Baron
Fayerling, but I had not succeeded in discovering anything mysterious
about him. He stays at one of the best hotels, goes everywhere, and
lives officially on the rents of his Roumanian property. But as
Roumanian property is just now a very uncertain source of income, Baron
Fayerling also does business of the most up-to-date kind, and has
associated himself for this purpose with Marcus Tassler, the manager
of the Finno-Russian Import and Export Company, a thorough going
profiteer, and even outside business matters a regular shark.
"Meanwhile, the odd thing about Tassler is the interest he takes in the
Copper House. Mark this: we have at the Copper House three perfectly
inconspicuous persons, who seem to prefer living in the most complete
retirement; they are Andrei Bernin, his sister and his daughter. As
long as I have had my eye on them, they have never left the Copper
House, and have not evinced any particular friendship for Tassler
or the baron, who often stay there as self-invited guests. Tassler
has shown unremitting interest in the Copper House, and it is he who
has brought about, first the lease of the entire property, and now
the liberal offer to purchase it. He has installed there a staff of
attendants, whom he commands with almost military zeal. The gate-keeper
is called Tugan; no one knows his nationality, but he is a regular
watchdog, and only too glad to get food, drink and fighting, provided
gratis. He, of course, lives at the lodge.
"Then we have the gardener, whom you have probably not seen yet;
his name is Rosenthal, a taciturn, meditative sort of fellow, with
something refined about him which distinguishes him slightly from the
rest. He has two underlings, and these three live in the gardener's
cottage behind the big house.
"Next we have the cowhouse and the stable, which now contain only three
cows and two horses--but four cowherds and two grooms are kept to look
after them--what do you make of that?
"Wait! The list is not complete yet. There are the six men whom Sonia
Bernin calls the forest-guards, and they really _do_ keep watch in the
wood, as you can testify from personal experience!
"And finally, two individuals are installed at the little cottage
beside the pier that runs out into the Bay; they fish, and sail in and
out of the farther islands, but what they catch, neither you nor I can
say!
"So there we have a retinue of eighteen men--but not a trace of either
men or women servants in the Copper House itself. Not counting the
three Bernins, who are Russians, every one of the others on the place
is a foreigner, although ten or eleven of them can speak Swedish, and
six have been naturalized as Swedish citizens."
"And you said you didn't know the Copper House!" exclaimed Leo; "why,
you know it better than I do!"
"Anybody can find out that sort of thing," replied Wallion. "There is
no secret about it. But the burning question is: what is _really_ going
on at the Copper House?"
CHAPTER VII
_The slayers_
"Let us try and see exactly how we stand," went on the Problem-hunter;
"up to now there has been a lot of vague talk about whirlpools, chaos,
wild beasts, and the like. Accurately speaking, we already have a
complete chain, with the Copper House at one end, and the mysterious
Gabriel Ortiz at the other. Two of the most important links in the
chain are Fayerling and Tassler. I might add a third: Rastakov, though
he is a subordinate, a sort of non-commissioned officer, so to speak,
who gets all the dirty jobs for his share. Now we will take this
extraordinary 'chain,' link by link, and sum up all we know about it.
Of its head, Ortiz, we are not yet in a position to say anything very
definite; most of our information about him dates from ten years back."
Wallion proceeded to give a brief outline of the story which he had
related to B.22, a few hours earlier.
"Baron Fayerling, the fashionable society man, with his Roumanian
property, is the next on our list," he continued; "he manages to invest
his money on the most extraordinarily favorable terms. He banks with
no fewer than six banks in Stockholm, two in Göteburg, and one in
Copenhagen, Malmö, Christiania, and Hälsingfors respectively.
"The grand total of his outstanding account rises and falls in a
very peculiar way: at the beginning of February he had no less than
12,000,000 kroner, at the end of the same month only half that amount,
and at the end of March only a paltry 100,000. Two weeks later, he paid
in on one day, 1,000,000 kroner to every one of his banking accounts,
making another sum of 12,000,000 kroner. And now, in July, his account
has reached the enormous total of over 20,000,000 kroner. Whatever kind
of business does he carry on? No one can say. I have myself verified
the names of eighty-four different persons, who have cashed the baron's
checks; of these, all except four were foreigners, and half of them
left Sweden afterwards, mostly bound for Russia or Finland. This influx
of people, all of whom received money, and sometimes a great deal of
it, from Fayerling, was largest at the beginning of March. Each man
paid a short visit to the baron's room at the hotel, and two of them
were shadowed the whole time by Rastakov. Three of them went out to the
Copper House.
"We mustn't forget to mention Tassler, whose interests are closely
allied to those of the baron. The Finno-Russian Import and Export
Company is a bona fide concern; you can go whenever you like to their
office in Drottning Street, and negotiate the buying or selling of
almost any conceivable thing, for, like most other modern business men,
Tassler deals in practically any goods, from clinical thermometers to
coffee, tea and cocoa. A small number of the articles in which they
deal are only to be found in the catalogue, but this is probably due to
the fact that their value fluctuates with the continual rise of prices.
"Tassler's banking-accounts are as unimpeachable as those of the baron,
and are deposited in much the same way. In one or two cases, I have
ascertained that these two men had concluded a deal in which there was
a genuine exchange of cash and goods; but, on the whole, I have not
been able to discover that the Agents of the Company, who are to be
found in all the large Scandinavian towns, carry on any business beyond
an incessant correspondence, on the firm's stamped writing paper, with
Messrs. Tassler and Fayerling.
"I have read through a whole pile of such letters; they are full of
lists of goods, and business terms. Sometimes if it is anything urgent,
they send telegrams. Tassler's agent in Göteburg did so when you
landed from the American vessel. One gets the impression of elaborate
machinery in full working-order, but it is not so easy to ascertain its
object, for, if it were to make money, Fayerling and Tassler would not
have a rag to their backs by this time.
"To put the thing in a nutshell, we see two gentlemen who allow
millions to flow out through a hundred different channels, but we
search in vain for the source of these millions or for the ultimate
aim of such lavish expenditure. If it were a question of the usual
spy-business, it would be easily understood, but neither Fayerling
nor Tassler nor any of their associates in and around the Copper House
appear to have the slightest connection with the belligerent powers.
No, there is something else in the wind--but what?
"When I began my investigations, I evolved two different theories. The
first was, that this was an organization for gun-running. It was a fact
that Fayerling had been somehow implicated in the infamously famous
expedition which attempted to smuggle explosives across the northern
boundary into Finland, but was quashed by the Swedish authorities, and
its promoters mysteriously dispersed. The equally famous motor-launch
'Nelly,' which attempted to cross the Gulf of Bothnia with a cargo
of modern rifles, was seen a week previously cruising off the Copper
House. But I could not obtain sufficient proof; and, above all, I was
soon convinced that neither of such incidents could be more than a
detail, a mere trifle, in Fayerling's daily program. I could see that
he only goes in for big things. Thereupon, I started a fresh theory:
that the whole affair was a federation to assist various political
fugitives and conspirators in the technical part of their plans, such
as forging passports, protecting them against counter-espionage,
financing their journeys, purchasing weapons ... in short, a kind
of revolutionary stock-jobbery. As a matter of fact, hundreds of
revolutionaries and the like, with weapons and 'red' literature, were
smuggled into Russia by way of Stockholm, at the beginning of this
year. It would certainly be an interesting interpretation of the
activities of the Finno-Russian Import and Export Company!
"But that explanation proved inadequate also: its aims were far too
limited. Fayerling and Tassler were obviously interested in the Russian
Revolution, but even after a revolutionary Government came into power
in Petrograd, their mysterious work continued with unabated vigor,
directed by the still invisible Gabriel Ortiz. I felt quite at a
loss....
"Then, all of a sudden, a period of inactivity set in; it started
some weeks ago. No more streams of unknown visitors, no more of that
colossal expenditure ... absolute stagnation! I noticed that Fayerling
was beginning to get fidgety; about once a day, usually rather late,
he would hold a long conversation on the telephone, after which he
regularly countermanded certain orders, and substituted new ones.
I felt sure that Ortiz must be at the other end of the line during
these talks, but I found it impossible to verify this. It was soon
evident that some new plan was afoot, and I determined to redouble
my watchfulness. One day my assistant, Robert Lang, overheard in the
street a conversation between the baron and Tassler in which the latter
alluded several times to 'Tarraschin's memorandum.' This gave us a
fresh idea.
"Do you know what 'Tarraschin's memorandum' is?
"It has only once been referred to publicly, and that was by a
Bulgarian journalist, who had got into some trouble over a newspaper
controversy. He referred to 'Tarraschin's memorandum' as 'a bomb
which, if it came into the right hands, would annihilate Europe.'
The document must have been drawn up in Moscow immediately after the
March revolution, and Prince Tarraschin was the originator of it. It
contained a complete plan to destroy the Revolution and reinstate the
Tsar, and practically all the best-known names of the Russian 'ancien
régime' would be irrevocably compromised if the document came to light.
Strangely enough, or perhaps, naturally enough, Prince Tarraschin died
at the end of March, before his plan had gone further than the paper
on which it was written, and the whole thing seemed to have died out
altogether.
"This is where Bernard Jenin comes in, and at the same moment,
Fayerling's attitude of suspense ends as though by magic! I see a