"Here. Learn something, my international spy. This tract of land in Bredeney, thirty-seven acres in the Baldeney valley-ideal for someone like Voroshin. It was purchased by the Staatsbank of Duisburg for the minors of the family in Remscheid. Ridiculousl" "What's the name?" "It's irrelevant. A device. We find out who moved in a year or so after, that's the name we want." "You think it may be Voroshin. Under his new identity?" "Don't jump. There are others like this." Kassel laughed. "I had no idea my predecessors were so full of legal caprice; it's positively shocking.
Look," he said, pulling out another sheaf of papers, his eyes automatically rivited on an indented clause on the first page, "here's another. A cousin of the Krupps is transferring ownership of property in Rellinghausen to a woman in Diisseldorf in gratitude for her many years of service. Reallyl" "It's possible, isn't it?" "Of course not; the family would never permit it. A relative found a way to turn a handsome profit by selling to someone who did not want his peers-or his creditors-to know he had the money. Someone who controlled the woman in Diisseldorf, if she ever existed. The Krupps probably congratulated their cousin." And so it went. 1911, 191, 1913, 1914... 1915.
August 0, 1915.
The name was there. It meant nothing to Heinrich Kassel, but it did to Taleniekov. It brought to mind another document ,000 miles away in the archives in Leningrad. The crimes of the Voroshin family, the intimate associates of Prince Andrei.
Friedrich Schotte.
"Wait a minute!" Vasili placed his hand over the pages. "Where's this?" "Stadtwaid. There's nothing irregular here. As a matter of fact, it's absolutely legal, very clean." "Perhaps too legal, too clean. Just as the Voroshin massacre was too profuse with detail." "What in God's name are you talking about?" "What do you know of this Friedrich Schotte?" The attorney grimaced in thought, trying to recall irrelevant history; this was not what he was looking for.
"He worked for the Krupps, I think, in a very high position. It would have had to be for him to buy this. He got in trouble after the First World War.
I don't remember the eircumstances-a prison sentence or something-but I can't see why it's relevant." "I can," said Taleniekov. "He was convicted of manipulating money out of Germany. He was killed on the first night of that prison sentence in 1919.
Was the estate sold then?" "I would think so. It would appear by the map survey to be a rather expensive property for a prison widow to maintain." "How can we find out?" "Look through the year 1919. We'll get there--' "Let's get there now. Please." Kassel sighed. He got up and headed for the cabinets, returning a minute later with a bulging folder. "When a brief is interrupted continuity is lost," he muttered.
"Whatever we lose can be restored; we may gain time." It took nearly thirty minutes before Kassel extracted a file within a file and placed it on the table. "I'm afraid we've just wasted a half-hour.".,Why?" "T'he estate was purchased by the Verachten family on November 1, 1919." "ne Verachten Works? Krupp's competitor?" "Not then. More so now, perhaps. The Verachtens came to Essen from Munich soon after the turn of the century, sometime around nineteen six or seven.
It's common knowledge, the Verachtens were Munichers, and they couldn't be more respectable. You have a V, but no Voroshin." Vasili's mind raced back over the information already known. Guillaume de Matarese had summoned the beads of once-powerful families, stripped-nearly but not entirely--of their past riches and influence. According to old Mikovsky, the Romanovs had waged a long battle against the Voroshins, labeling them the thieves of Russia, provokers of revolution.... It was clear! The padrone from the hills of Porto Vecchio had*summoned a man-and by extension, his family-already in the process of a covert immigration, taking with them everything they could out of Russial "The imperial V, that's what we've found," said Taleniekov. "My God, what a strategyl Even to the prolonged use of truckloads of gold and silver sent out of Leningrad with the imperial V!" Vasili picked up the pages in front of the attorney. "You said it yourself, Heinrich. Voroshin would build a false identity very slowly, very carefully. That's exactly what he did; he simply began five or six years before I thought he had. I'm sure if such records were kept or memories could be activated, we'd find that Herr Verachten came first