Read Online HS01 - Critique of Criminal Reason by Michael Gregorio - Free Book Online Page A

and wider than average girth. He also had abominably black teeth, and a huge white moustache which swept over his upper lip and red cheeks. Crossing his short arms over his massive chest, he formed his wrinkled forehead into a frown, then flashed his head to the left in a singular gesture which brought a long white braid of hair whipping through the air to rest along his arm like a snake on a branch. High-ranking officers have never ceased to wear their hair in the style made fashionable by Frederick the Great.
    ‘Stiffeniis?’ the general barked, offering his tubby hand.
    I had to smile with relief. Here, it seemed, I was expected.
    ‘I will not waste your time, except to say I am glad you’ve come,’ he began, his beefy hand playing with the hilt of his sword. ‘The city is in turmoil, as you know. These murders! The King wants to tidy the matter up without delay. It is clear to me what’s going on.’ He leaned too close for comfort, reeking of garlic and other nameless half-digested things. ‘Jacobins!’ he said. ‘There, that’s your answer.’
    ‘Spies, sir?’ I asked.
    General Katowice placed his hand on my arm. ‘Exactly! I want to know where they are hiding!’ he said with some agitation, the white tress now dangling wildly on his chest. He looked more like a barbarian chieftain than a Prussian general. ‘Never trust a Frenchman! They’re cunning devils led by Satan himself! Napoleon would give his left arm and leg to seize the fortress of Königsberg. I have my forces strategically placed in and out of the city. They’ll strike without mercy. A word from you, a word from me. That’s all it takes.’
    He placed his right hand on my left shoulder, looked straight into my eyes, then tightened his hold. ‘If you find anything that looks French, smells French, I want to know of it. Rhunken suspected a foreign plot against the nation, but proof was lacking. Which tied my hands, of course. If you can track them down with more solid arguments, I’ll persuade the King to take the initiative. We will strike before they do. All may depend on you. Any questions?’
    The first that came to mind was more than sufficient to start a flood. What was I doing there? But I did not ask it. Nor did General Katowice wait.
    ‘None? Good man! Now, they’re expecting you, I believe.’
    The general and his staff marched off to the left, while a corporal stepped up before us from the right and saluted. ‘Follow me, gentlemen,’ he said, spinning on his heel and marching away.
    Was that the motive for the murders, a Jacobin plot to undermine the peace in Königsberg and in Prussia? I followed in a daze. We thundered along a dark corridor, through a large empty hall which echoed to the noise of our steps, passing beneath a low arch which led into a maze of gloomy corridors until we reached a narrow door cut into a damp grey wall.
    ‘This way,’ the corporal said, as he took a flaming torch from a ring on the wall and skipped lightly down a stairwell which spiralled into the bowels of the earth. The smell of mildew was sickening. Our guide’s torch fought a guttering battle with the pitch darkness.
    ‘Aren’t the offices above ground?’ I asked Koch.
    ‘So they are,’ he replied.
    ‘Why are we going underground, then?’
    ‘I’ve no idea, sir.’
    We might have been descending into a crypt.
    ‘This is a strange place for a meeting,’ I said, my anxiety mounting. ‘Where are you taking us, Corporal?’
    The corporal stopped, glanced at Koch, then at me, his brutish face topped by a battered tricorn hat and framed by a tattered wig which had not seen powder in a month. ‘To see the doctor, sir,’ he replied brusquely.
    Just then, a heavy clumping and clattering of steel-tipped boots sounded loudly on the staircase above us. Our guide raised his torch, lighting up the two soldiers I had noticed working in the courtyard above. They came hurtling down the stairs, manhandling a large box between them. The weight