Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

by David Dickinson

  Grigoriev slipped away into the night. ‘Just one last thing,’ Diaghilev waddled at full speed to catch his colleague by the door.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Just this, my friend. Don’t forget to throw away the key.’

  Karsavina was still weeping softly at the supper table.

  ‘What about that poor boy, Sergei Pavlovich? You can’t just leave him in a trunk in that awful basement. What about his burial? What about his parents?’

  ‘You leave that to me, Tamara. I’ll think of something. Come to think of it, we’ll be out of London in another five weeks. Maybe they won’t find the body until after we’ve gone.’

  Diaghilev could well have been right about the body in the trunk not being discovered until after the Ballets Russes had left town. But there was one factor he had overlooked. Alexander Taneyev was not staying with the rest of the junior dancers and the corps de ballet in their hotel. He did have a room there, but he wasn’t spending the nights in the hotel most of the time. He was staying with his uncle, one Richard Wagstaff Gilbert, in a large house guarded by two stone lions next to Barnes Pond and close to the River Thames. Gilbert was a financier with fingers in many of the City of London’s tastiest and most profitable pies. When the young man didn’t come home the first evening, Gilbert presumed he had gone to the hotel with friends and stayed there. At that stage he wasn’t worried at all. Three days later, he moved into action. He sat on a charity committee with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The Commissioner was pressed into service. Gilbert was a trustee of the Royal Opera House and knew one of its principal patrons, Gladys Robinson, Marchioness of Ripon, a formidable society lady who used to move in the fast set around King Edward VII and Mrs Keppel. Oscar Wilde had dedicated his 1893 play A Woman of No Importance to Lady Ripon. By now she was a woman of considerable importance. She was a friend and supporter of Nellie Melba. The day after Richard Gilbert mobilized his forces, twenty policemen were sent to search the Royal Opera House. They found the body just before the doors opened for the evening performance of Carnaval, Thamar and Les Sylphides.

  Lady Ripon was in her box as usual. Her chauffeur drove her up to town every evening in her six-cylinder Napier motor car. The journey took about half an hour from her house in Coombe just outside London. No mention was made of the murder of Alexander Taneyev. Alfred Bolm was back dancing the role of the Prince in Thamar. There was no sign of Diaghilev. Lady Ripon had noticed that he was often to be seen during performances, watching from an empty box or peering round the curtain. She only heard about the incident the following afternoon when she received a telephone call from Richard Gilbert. Reports of the Russian’s demise were already circulating in the City of London.

  Lady Ripon had Russian blood in her veins. She was descended from the 11th Earl of Pembroke, who married Countess Catherine Semyonovna Vorontsova, on 25 January 1808. Catherine was the daughter of the prominent Russian aristocrat and diplomat Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov. Like many in her circle, Lady Ripon had a great many acquaintances and very few friends. After she heard the news, she invited herself round to the Chelsea house of the one Russian lady she knew in London to tell her the full story. Natasha Shaporova and her husband Mikhail had been based in the capital for a number of years. Natasha was in her mid-twenties and was one of the most beautiful women in London. Mikhail’s father was one of the richest men in Russia. People said he was far wealthier than the Romanovs. Amongst his many financial interests was a large bank with branches all over Europe. Natasha and Mikhail had just returned to London after a two-year spell in Cannes, where Mikhail had opened the Riviera office of the Shaporova Bank to cater for the needs of the wealthy Russian émigrés and their everlasting lust for expensive chips at the Casino in Monte Carlo.

  ‘Well, Natasha,’ Lady Ripon asked as she finished her story. ‘What do you make of it, this death at the Ballets Russes? I expect the news will be all over town tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I’m not an expert in these matters, Lady Ripon. Even Russians don’t usually go round murdering each other at the end of the ballet. Do you think there will be a scandal?’

  Natasha smiled a rather wicked smile as she brought up the subject of scandal. It looked as though she would rather enjoy it.

  ‘Scandal? A scandal?’ Lady Ripon was horrified at the thought that she might be caught up in such a thing. It might not be well received in Society.

  ‘I tell you what the really interesting question is,’ said Natasha, who was a devotee of the works of Conan Doyle.

  ‘What’s that, my dear?’

  ‘It’s this. Did the murderer intend to kill the understudy Alexander Taneyev? Or was the victim meant to be Alfred Bolm, who was on the programme to take the role? I don’t suppose we know when Bolm cried off, do we?’

  ‘God bless my soul! I’d never have thought of that. I have no idea what the answer might be. That’ll be something the police will have to find out, I expect.’

  Natasha started to giggle. Lady Ripon frowned. Aristocratic young women weren’t meant to giggle like schoolgirls.

  ‘Forgive me, Lady Ripon. I’ve just thought of something. The police are going to have a terrible time. Diaghilev doesn’t know a word of English. He speaks Russian or French. The top people in the Ballets Russes like Fokine and Bakst all speak French but not English. The make-up artists and the technical people they bring with them from St Petersburg don’t speak French. They only know Russian. I met that lovely ballerina Tamara Karsavina when they were here last year. She doesn’t speak English either – she and her friends always carried a note with Premier Hotel, Russell Square, Bloomsbury written on it to show the taxi driver where to take them. It’s going to be chaos, pure chaos.’

  ‘What am I going to do?’ Lady Ripon was horrified at the prospect of her Royal Opera House and her Ballets Russes, as she always referred to them, turning into a Tower of Babel in the middle of Covent Garden. ‘I feel so responsible, you know.’

  Natasha Shaporova suddenly remembered a hotel in St Petersburg where she had danced with a handsome investigator from London some years earlier when she was still Natasha Bobrinsky. The investigator was at the end of a difficult case involving an English diplomat found dead on the Nevskii Prospekt and was returning to London the next day. Natasha recalled asking him where the most romantic place in the world to get married was. She never forgot his reply: ‘There’s only one answer,’ he said, smiling at Natasha and feeling at least seventy years old. ‘Venice. You get married in the Basilica of St Mark or, if you can’t manage that, San Giorgio Maggiore across the water. You have your reception in the Doge’s Palace. If that’s not possible, I’m sure you could rent a whole palazzo on the Grand Canal. It would be wonderful. Mikhail’s father and yours might have to throw quite a lot of money about, but the Venetians have been taking bribes for centuries. Anyway, you should all feel at home there.’

  ‘Should we?’ asked Natasha.

  ‘Of course you should, whole bloody city’s built on the water. Just like here.’

  She had married Mikhail in the marble church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in the heart of Venice. The investigator and his wife were among the guests at the reception in the Ca’ d’Oro on the Grand Canal.

  ‘I know what you should do,’ cried Natasha. ‘I know exactly what you should do!’

  ‘What should I do, Natasha?’

  ‘I’ve just remembered. I know just the man for you. I met him in St Petersburg years ago when he was investigating a murder. As far as I know he doesn’t speak Russian but he speaks perfect French. At least he’d be able to talk to Diaghilev and Fokine and Bakst and that rather frightening-looking composer person – Stravinsky, I think he’s called. My friend is one of the most distinguished investigators in the country.’

  ‘And what is his name, my dear?’

  ‘Why, he lives just round the corner in Markham Square, Lady Ripon. His name is Powerscourt, Lord Francis Powerscourt.’

  2

  Pas


  Literally, ‘step’. In ballet, the term pas often refers to a combination of steps which make up a dance (typically, in dance forms such as jazz, hip-hop, tap, etc., this is called a routine). Pas is often used as a generic term when referring to a particular suite of dances, i.e. Pas de deux, Grand Pas d’action, etc., and may also refer to a variation. The use of the word pas when referring to a combination of steps which make up a dance, is used mostly in Russia, and much of Europe, while in English-speaking countries the word combination is often used.

  ‘Lady Ripon, my lord.’ Rhys, the Powerscourt butler, coughed apologetically before his announcement. He always did. Powerscourt’s wife, Lady Lucy, had a private theory that Rhys must have North American blood. The cough, she maintained, was the modern English equivalent of the Indians up in the hills sending smoke signals to their colleagues down on the plains.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon the day after Lady Ripon’s conversation with Natasha Shaporova. The staff at the Royal Opera House had telephoned early that morning to make the appointment.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice, Lord Powerscourt. I don’t think we’ve met. Mind you, I’m sure I have come across your charming wife about the town from time to time.’

  Powerscourt thought she made it sound as if it was his fault they had not met before.

  ‘And how may I be of assistance to you, Lady Ripon?’

  Lady Ripon was tall with luscious brown hair, a very superior air and a lorgnette. ‘I trust this conversation may be regarded as private, Lord Powerscourt. I have come in my dual role as Patron of the Ballets Russes and Patron of the Royal Opera House.’ Powerscourt felt sure she would have accepted the patronage of any other organizations that bothered to approach her. She made it sound like a royal command.

  ‘Of course.’

  She told him the details of the murder at the ballet. ‘It’s important to us that the matter is sorted out as soon as possible. I and my people would like the matter cleared up in a week. Can you give me your word on that?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, Lady Ripon. If you are asking me to give my word that I could solve this case inside a week, the answer is no. Definitely no. It’s just not possible to say how long it will take to clear up a matter like this. I’m sorry.’

  ‘My people will be disappointed, Lord Powerscourt. We had heard such good things about you. We had high hopes.’

  Powerscourt wondered who ‘my people’ were and who she had been talking to. He decided that if she didn’t want to tell him the names of her associates, he would just have to find out.

  ‘Have the police been informed?’ Powerscourt asked. ‘And the newspapers? Publicity often helps in cases like this. People remember they may have seen something which could be useful.’

  Lady Ripon snorted. ‘The last thing we want, Lord Powerscourt, is for the common people to be reading sensational stories in the vulgar press and gossiping about them in the public houses. The Times and the other principal papers have been spoken to this morning. They will do as they’re told. I felt we had no choice but to inform the police. The victim may be a foreigner of whom we know little or nothing but the reputation of British justice must be maintained. The police are under orders to be as discreet as possible.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Can I take it then that you will take on the investigation? I can tell my people that you will start work this afternoon?’

  Lady Ripon rose as if to go.

  ‘No, you can’t do that, Lady Ripon. I suspect there will be great difficulties, certainly about the language. I don’t know how many of the Ballets Russes people speak English. I need time to think about it. I need to talk it over with my wife.’

  ‘I thought you agreed that our conversation was confidential, off the record. We can’t have you discussing the matter with anybody you like.’

  ‘My wife is not anybody, Lady Ripon. Nor is your husband. I shall let you have my answer first thing in the morning.’ Powerscourt rang the bell for Rhys to take Lady Ripon away.

  Lady Lucy was fascinated to hear of her husband’s meeting with the world of opera and ballet.

  ‘Was she really frightful, Francis?’

  ‘Do you know, I rather think she was. Somewhere between Lady Bracknell and the current Queen Mary with a hint of Lady Catherine de Bourgh.’

  ‘I wonder if that isn’t the key to her whole attitude.’

  ‘You’re way ahead of me, Lucy. What might this key be?’

  ‘Well, I’m sure she is much less important now than she was under the previous regime. I never had anything to do with them, but Lady Ripon was a key player in that fast set around the late King, bed-hopping in the night, little cards left on every bedroom door with the name of the guest so people knew who they were going to visit, gentlemen expected to be back in their quarters by four thirty in the morning when the servants began moving about. Enormous meals. Expensive chefs from Paris. No expense spared to entertain a King. Some people are thought to have almost bankrupted themselves serving in the royal progress. Mrs Keppel was everywhere, always keen to have the last word and nobody daring to argue with her. Now I come to think about it, Lady Ripon was famous for a while for her role in the Duchess of Devonshire’s costume ball back at the time of the Diamond Jubilee.’

  ‘How did she become famous for dressing up?’

  ‘That’s the thing, Francis. Mary Queen of Scots was there and Queen Zenobia from Persia and a couple of Nelsons. Lady Ripon was one of three Cleopatras. But she was the only one who took her slave girl with her at all times.’

  ‘I see,’ said Powerscourt. ‘And that’s all gone now. The King is dead. Long live the King. Lady Ripon and her set must feel rather like Bardolph and Poins and Falstaff after Prince Hal gives up his naughty past and turns into a warrior prince. Edward the Seventh was the opposite of his mother. George the Fifth is very different from his father. Respectability, not dissipation and luxury, is the new order of the day. Rosebery told me at the time of the Coronation that the new King had spent most of the past seventeen years sticking stamps into his album in that dreary York Cottage up at Sandringham. God help us all.’

  ‘Did you see her as a grande horizontale, Francis?’

  ‘I’m not sure about that. Grande certainly. I can’t quite bring myself to imagine Lady Ripon horizontale. I’ve always thought it referred to aristocratic mistresses in Versailles with loads of perfume and cupboards full of suggestive lingerie. Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry before she was sent to the guillotine, those sort of people.’

  ‘So Lady Ripon might feel the need to put on airs, to throw her weight about now, precisely because she is much less important than she was before?’

  ‘Exactly so, Lucy, exactly so. But I wonder who she meant by “her people”. She referred to them more than once.’

  ‘I’m sure she knows a lot of very rich men, Francis, like those financiers who bailed out Edward the Seventh. The only other thing I know about her is that she was one of the first society ladies to have a motor car and to install a telephone. She claimed, so I was told, that the telephone was much more discreet. No billet-doux left lying around for the servants to blackmail you with later on. Anyway, Francis, are you going to take on the case?’

  ‘Well,’ said her husband, ‘I must admit that I was very tempted to tell Her Ladyship to go to hell. But I don’t think I can refuse. Think of that poor dead dancer – he can’t have been much older than our Thomas is now. Think of his family back in St Petersburg or Kiev or Moscow or wherever they live. I shall send a note round to the Royal Opera House, accepting the case and requesting an interview with Diaghilev in the morning. Maybe he’s one of “her people”. But I look forward to meeting him. I wonder what he’s like. I do have one major problem with this case though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I really don’t like ballet, Lucy. I never have and I never will. I can’t stand it.’

  The stage at the Royal Opera House in Covent G
arden was a hive of activity. A couple of carpenters were high on their ladders adjusting the scenery. A make-up artist was putting the finishing touches to the complexion of one of the prima ballerinas. The girls of the corps de ballet seemed frozen in mid-pirouette, waiting for guidance. The choreographer, Michel Fokine, a young man, probably in his early thirties, looked as if he was, quite literally, tearing his hair out. He was swearing violently in what Powerscourt presumed to be Russian. Powerscourt learnt later that Fokine had one complaint, repeated over and over again: why in God’s name did I leave St Petersburg with these stupid girls?

  Another young man was staring hard at the scene. Powerscourt thought he must be a policeman. He had that slightly uncomfortable look people often have when they are transferred out of the uniformed branch.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Powerscourt, ‘are you connected with the opera or the Ballets Russes?’

  ‘No, I’m not, sir. I’m a policeman. Sergeant Rufus Jenkins, at your service.’ The young man bowed politely. ‘And who might you be, sir, if I might make so bold?’

  ‘My name is Powerscourt, Francis Powerscourt. I happen to be Lord Powerscourt but that isn’t important. I have been asked to investigate a rather shocking murder that happened here a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Why, my lord, that’s why I’m here too. I’m the officer in charge of the police inquiry, so I am.’

  ‘Forgive me if I sound rude, but are you the only officer on the case? In my experience Scotland Yard usually send an inspector to look into murder cases.’

  ‘That’s right, my lord. But that’s what happens if you’re English. English corpses get inspectors, so they do. Foreign dead get sergeants.’