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off. He was a tall, slim, restrained man who had come here from German Kamerun and before that Hamburg. Bremmer was clearly a Jew but his religion was only likely to become a problem when the time came to bury the poor sod, after he had succumbed to the new diseases he was exposed to daily in the fever wards.
    â€œI fear it is about the unfortunate Herr Lutzow,” Kessler said.
    â€œIndeed?” Doctor Bremmer asked, raising an eyebrow.
    â€œI have asked Herr Prior to help us investigate these, uh, peculiar circumstances and he has agreed to offer his services.”
    Bremmer turned to Will and bowed.
    â€œCome, let us go, gentlemen,” Kessler said.
    The way to Gunantambu, Queen Emma’s palatial residence, led past the telegraph office and along the coast. It was too dark for Will to see the conspiratorial gleam in Doctor Bremmer’s eyes but he realized that it had to be there for as they walked by the new hospital the young man stopped to light a cigarette and then wondered casually: “If you are with us, Herr Prior, would you perhaps care to see the victim?”
    â€œSurely you’ve buried the bugger by now?” Will said, astounded.
    â€œOn the contrary.”
    â€œWhat did you do? Put him in a brandy cask like Nelson?”
    â€œSomething like that,” Kessler said.
    They entered the hospital through the back door to avoid poor Beyer in the mad room and the fever patients in the main wing. The hospital had no nurses at this time but there were several New Guinean attendants sleeping on the floor of the dispensary.
    Bremmer took them through the fever ward and a supply room.
    â€œThis way,” he said, and led them down an unlit stairwell to a basement Will had never noticed before.
    â€œWhere are we going?” Will asked.
    But the Germans were determined to preserve the mystery and did not answer. At the bottom of the stairs they reached a door and here Bremmer lit a match to see where the lock was. He inserted an iron key and turned it.
    When the door opened Will felt a strange blast of chilly air. He followed both men inside and when Bremmer lit an oil lamp it became clear how for two days they’d kept the body from becoming a rotten piece of meat.
    In the center of the small concrete room, Max Lutzow was lying on a massive slab of ice, partially covered by a thin grey blanket. The room itself was at or around thirty degrees Fahrenheit—a temperature Will had not experienced for years.
    He examined the clear white ice and touched it. “You have installed an ice manufacturing machine at the hospital?” Will asked incredulously.
    Kessler laughed. “We could not afford such a machine.”
    â€œThen how?” Will wondered.
    â€œQueen Emma gave the ice to us,” Doctor Bremmer said.
    â€œOh, I see,” Will said. And now of course it made sense, for Queen Emma was famous for her champagne parties. He looked at Kessler and shook his head. “A man dies on one of Queen Emma’s islands and instead of burying him like a Christian you ask her for blocks of ice from her machine, and you have the temerity to think that you can keep her out of it? You’re losing your touch, Klaus, even my curiosity would be piqued and I don’t give a whistle for much.”
    â€œDo you wish to take a look at him?” Kessler asked.
    Will nodded. Lutzow was a large, rotund man, balding with melancholy black whiskers. His skin was yellow and shriveled, his delicate thin fingers bluish green. He had lost weight in the last few months for the skin was loose about his abdomen and neck. His feet were curiously rough and scarred, probably from spending a considerable amount of time shoeless.
    â€œSo you were going to live forever, were you?” Will asked Lutzow. He turned to the doctor. “What makes you think he was murdered?”
    â€œYou do not?” Doctor Bremmer asked.
    â€œAt first glance it looks like a classic case of the yellow