Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

by David Dickinson

  ‘He might well be right.’

  ‘Indeed so, my lord. One thing they have done is to cut down the numbers inside the Great Hall. The steward, after a lengthy conference with Diaghilev himself, cane tapping regularly on the antique chairs, said that fifty to sixty would be the maximum number permitted to attend, and even that’s a squeeze. Mrs Duke looked sad for a bit until the Duke himself rallied to the cause and told her it would be even more exclusive and even more highly prized.’

  ‘And what of Diaghilev’s finances, Monsieur Fokine?’

  ‘Ah yes, the finances of Monsieur Diaghilev, my lord, I haven’t forgotten. Where should I begin?’

  The young man was now at the King’s Road end of the Powerscourt drawing room, about to turn towards the fireplace end.

  ‘The first thing I should say is that Diaghilev himself is not in the ballet business for money. Far from it. So what is he after? Glory, I think, fame certainly, but fame accorded to one who has changed the nature of ballet for ever. He wants to go down in history as the greatest impresario the world has ever seen. There is no limit to his ambitions. He wanted to conquer Paris and he has. They say there is another ballet being written by Stravinsky now that will change the whole nature and appreciation of ballet. And what does this mean when it comes to his finances? Total chaos is the answer. He does not distinguish between his own personal expenditure and the monies needed for the dancers and the stage sets and the artists who decorate them and design those fabulous costumes.’

  ‘Are you saying that his personal account and the company’s accounts are the same? No difference at all?’

  ‘I am, my lord. Take the money he is getting from the Duke of Marlborough up there at Blenheim. That could go on paying the carpenters of the theatre in Paris, or the hire of theatrical costumes here in London, or on paying the bill for his last trip to Venice. And there’s another thing. He is very successful at persuading the rich to sponsor his work. I bet Lady Ripon has had to put her hand in her pocket more than once on this trip to London. They give him cheques or banker’s drafts. He then forgets he has them. Only recently he trotted into the accounts department with a huge cheque some rich backer had given him six weeks ago in Paris.’

  ‘Is it therefore impossible to say at any given time whether he is bankrupt or not?’

  ‘Quite impossible. One of the accounts people says they should turn him upside down every now and again and shake him vigorously to see what money falls out. People don’t last very long in the accounts department, those young men with mathematical training from St Petersburg. There are a few who have stuck the course. One of the young men who has lasted longest claims he stays because of the excitement. He says it’s like going over Niagara in a barrel all the time and hoping you’re still alive at the bottom. Not necessarily what you’d expect to hear from an accountant. The other one also uses a watery metaphor. He says it’s like keeping track of the flood before Noah decided to shove off in his Ark.’

  ‘So there is no answer to my original question?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I know there’s enough money to pay everybody till the end of next week. The Blenheim money may already have been spent paying bills in Paris or even St Petersburg. In two weeks’ time, my lord, we all climb into the barrel and go back over Niagara again.’

  George Walker the docker, Albert Smith from the railways, the brothers William and Thomas Baker and Arthur Cooper were packed into Arthur Cooper’s front room. His wife and children had been packed off to her sister’s round the corner.

  ‘Comrades, thank you all for coming. I have to report what our enemies would call a miracle. A miracle indeed. The long arm of Comrade Lenin has reached out across Europe to visit us here in Pentonville.’

  He held up a very large envelope with pages sticking out of the top. ‘This was put through my front door, and not by the postman, the day before yesterday.

  ‘This is what the money is to be used for. Comrade Lenin wants us to print five hundred copies of his latest masterwork in English and five hundred in Russian.’

  ‘How do you know that the work is from Lenin? That it isn’t from our enemies, trying to trick us into printing literature that will not help our cause?’

  William Baker was always suspicious. That, he often told his wife, was how he kept out of the authorities’ files all this time. ‘The courier who brought it gave very definite proof that it came from Cracow. He himself did not bring it all the way, he merely collected it from its temporary resting place elsewhere in London. I believe he is a courier acting for Lenin.’

  ‘This isn’t like the old days when you could print anything you liked and send it wherever you liked,’ Albert Smith put in. ‘They could have us all locked up for breaking that Official Secrets Act, so they could.’

  ‘I do not see how the laws of the decadent bourgeoisie should be allowed to stand in the way of the advancement of the revolution, comrades.’ Arthur Cooper felt that the revolutionary spirit seemed to be in short supply this evening.

  ‘If you are opposed to this plan, I will proceed on my own. Anybody who refuses to agree with my proposals will face reprisals from the party.’

  ‘I think it’s all very suspicious,’ put in George Walker. ‘A man arrives who says he is a colleague of Comrade Lenin. He gives you a sign. That’s good enough for me. But that pamphlet, won’t it have to be translated as well? That’s another risk we are all taking.’

  Arthur Cooper was growing more and more irritated.

  ‘And can you not see that Comrade Lenin has thought of everything? He toils away in his lonely library and sends the next pamphlet to forward the cause of world revolution. All you can do is worry about some ridiculous law.’

  ‘It won’t be ridiculous if we end up in jail.’

  ‘Comrade Lenin expected better from his colleagues in London. I was not meant to tell you this but I will. He thought you would agree to his wishes and carry them out without complaint. It seems he was wrong. He had given me the name of a translator and the name of a printing firm in Clerkenwell that will carry out the work. Comrade Lenin expected obedience. Do I have it?’

  Reluctantly the revolutionaries agreed. Even then they weren’t finished.

  ‘What happens when they’re all printed off? What do we do with them then?’ asked William Baker.

  ‘When the pamphlets are done, I will take full responsibility for their distribution. That matter is not for discussion either here or later.’

  A rather different meeting was taking place upstairs in Markham Square. Lady Lucy, returned from nursing a sick aunt, was to be brought up to date by Natasha Shaporova, Inspector Dutfield and her husband.

  ‘I don’t think we have made much progress, really,’ Powerscourt began. ‘We are no nearer to solving the central problem of the case – who was the victim? Bolm or Alexander Taneyev? Personally, I have no idea. Inspector?’

  ‘Well, my lord, my lady, I have to say, speaking as a policeman with some experience in these cases: statistically, it has to be Bolm.’

  ‘How did you work that one out, Inspector?’ Lady Lucy felt that she had made insufficient contribution to the case so far, even though she had the excuse of having been away.

  ‘He’s been around longer. He must be in his forties. He’s had years and years to make enemies in the highly charged atmosphere of a company like the Ballets Russes. Maybe there’s been some dispute about roles in the company we know little about.’

  ‘There could be another reason you don’t seem to have considered so far. Cherchez la femme. Jealous husbands, maybe jealous husbands come all the way from Paris to take their revenge on the man who took their wife. Is that possible, Natasha?’

  ‘It certainly is. In Paris and London the women go mad for the ballet, possibly because it’s not here for very long and the time for conquest and pursuit is short. Look at the way Lady Ripon and all the other Lady Ripons pursue them for afternoon tea and a spot of dancing after the muffins. I bet they have something more in
mind. Maybe they don’t do anything about it, but the dancers could become trophies, conquests to be shown off to your less or more fortunate friends.’

  ‘And how do we find out if this is going on, or, perhaps more realistically, if it has been going on at Covent Garden?’

  ‘I shall ask the corps de ballet,’ said Natasha, ‘though the gossip there might not be one hundred per cent accurate. I suggest you ask Sergeant Jenkins, Inspector. I believe he has good contacts now among the stagehands and the scenery people.’

  ‘And what,’ said Powerscourt, ‘do we make of this story of the duel and the vow of revenge?’

  ‘I think it should be taken very seriously indeed,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Natasha is even now corresponding with her relations in St Petersburg. There may be more news yet to come.’

  Lady Lucy did not care to mention it but she thought Natasha’s network of contacts and relations in St Petersburg might be the equal of her own here in London.

  ‘I find it all very strange,’ Natasha said. ‘The original duel must have happened fifty or sixty years ago. It could even have happened at the same time as the poet Pushkin’s unfortunate end. But the authorities have always been very strict about duels and vendettas caused by duels. They have been known to send people to exile in Siberia for it.’

  ‘But would those strictures apply if the revenge killing took place outside Russia?’ said the Inspector. ‘Suppose you are a male descendant of the victim. You come away on holiday. You carry out your killing. You go back home. Did you have a good time, the relations ask. London is a wonderful city, you reply. You expound on the changing of the guard or the shops on Oxford Street or the plays in the theatres. You don’t mention the murder to a single soul, except your parents, if that.’

  ‘There’s one other thing that troubles me,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘You remember the Cossack dance in Thamar, the one where all the knives are hurled into the floor? Could the girls or one of the girls in the corps de ballet have become expert in those lethal instruments, so that she too would know how to kill Bolm or Taneyev, whichever was the victim.’

  ‘Now I think about it,’ said Natasha Shaporova, ‘I think you’re probably right. I suspect any of those girls could have done it; except, of course, that they were on stage at the time of the murder.’

  ‘I shall make enquiries,’ said Inspector Dutfield. ‘Circus people, they’re always throwing knives about. They should probably know.’

  ‘I’m confused,’ said Powerscourt. ‘We just seem to have established a whole fresh lot of lines of enquiry, as if we didn’t have enough already.’

  13

  Sauté

  Literally ‘jump’. As adjectives, sauté (masc.) or sautée (fem.). French pronunciation: [sote] are used to modify the quality of a step: for instance, ‘‘sauté arabesque indicates an arabesque performed while jumping.

  By half past one in the afternoon, the crowds had begun to arrive at Blenheim Palace. The programme was due to start at three. They came through the main gate that led to Vanbrugh’s triumphal entrance and the elegant courtyard within that led onto the front of the great palace. Small groups had already taken up their position by the edge of the lake and were having a picnic. Footmen and porters were on duty to show them the way to go. The wooden platforms for the musicians and the dancers were empty, a bare stage for the glories to come. Towards two o’clock, the crowds grew thicker. Powerscourt and Lady Lucy had a place reserved for them by Fokine at the rear of the Palladian bridge. There was a sort of throne area for the Duke and his lady where they would be more visible than the dancers. Powerscourt suspected the steward must have been responsible for that part of the arrangement. He had made friends with a local reporter who was scurrying round the lake and the two entrances for information. The young man’s name was Riggs, Benjie Riggs, and he told Powerscourt that he worked as a reporter on the Oxford newspaper and that his beat included Woodstock. ‘It’s going to be amazing,’ he told his visitors. ‘People are supposed to be turning up from the little towns and villages for miles around, not to mention Oxford itself!’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I am, sir. I asked in as many local pubs as I could contact last Thursday for a piece in the local paper. Some of the publicans are even thinking of closing down for the afternoon, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Do they know what to expect? I mean, they aren’t going to be what you would call the usual crowd for a ballet, are they?’

  ‘Well, it’s free isn’t it?’ said Riggs. ‘That’s in its favour, for a start. The locals, some of them at any rate, even turn out to watch the arrivals when they have a costume ball up there in the big house, Marie Antoinette dancing with Napoleon, Nelson waltzing with Boadicea with his one arm. And that’s just a glimpse of the participants from outside the front door. The ordinary people aren’t allowed inside. Pardon me, my lord, there’s a great throng just arrived at the main gate. They seem to have come in buses. I’d better find out who they are. I’ll catch you up later.’

  At two o’clock, Diaghilev himself waddled out of the main entrance to the palace. He appeared to wish to be incognito, for he had his hat pulled well down over his head. He strolled as far as the bridge and looked around. Powerscourt wondered if – even in his wildest dreams – he had ever thought of performing in such a place with such an audience. In spite of his hat over his eyes, a number of people recognized him from the newspapers.

  ‘That’s Mr Diaghilev!’ ‘Isn’t that Diaghilev?’ the sober whispered to each other. A rather inebriated fellow who had taken up position halfway along the lake roared out, ‘Good on you Diaghilev! Well done mate!’

  Diaghilev would not have understood a word. But he raised his cane as a gesture of politeness and hurried back to the safer quarters of the palace.

  By a quarter to two all the seats at the edge of the lake on both sides were full. The new arrivals pitched camp on the ground. The footmen were stressing that all the area behind the seats was for sitting; the area behind a number of posts was standing room only, rather like a football match.

  Benjie Riggs was back now. ‘I’m on the way to that Palladian bridge now,’ he said. ‘It may be cut off by the crowds later on.’

  ‘One question,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Who will the audience be? What will they have seen that’s remotely like this before?’

  ‘Well, no, they certainly won’t have seen anything like this before. There’s lot of the men, maybe most of the men, certainly the football-crowd people, who believe that the stage is full of virtually naked women all the time.’

  ‘Just like in London at the opera house,’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘Francis,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Behave!’

  ‘There’s some will have been to the circus with their children, some to the panto, a few maybe even to the theatre. For the ones from the countryside, the only thing like it will be an agricultural show with all those side stalls and jugglers and fortune tellers.’

  It was now just after two fifteen. Another series of buses from Oxford deposited a hundred and fifty more.

  A man in evening dress came down to the water’s edge by the bridge and held his hand up, as if testing for wind direction. The musician’s area was ready now, seats and music stands waiting for the men to play. Floating in the middle of the lake was an enormous platform for the dancers. This too, Powerscourt presumed, was secured with a series of staves to the ground at the bottom. A series of four wooden tongues, each wide enough for a couple of dancers, ran out north, south, east and west. There were two wooden bridges of boats, one for the musicians and the other for the ballet. There was one solitary boat on the far side of the bridge, furthest away from the house. Powerscourt reckoned that a giant might have been able to jump from the end of the tongue nearest the house onto dry land, but even for a giant it would have to be a prodigious leap.

  At two thirty the huge crowd, increasing by the minute, had their first taste of action. The musicians, led by their con
ductor, the man who had tested for wind direction before, marched out of the main entrance, serenaded on their way by a couple of trumpeters on either side of the great doors. The crowd began to cheer. They carried on cheering until the musicians had negotiated their way onto their positions by the bridge. Above them was a canopy designed to stop too much of the sound disappearing into the sky above. The musicians began tuning up. On the signal from the conductor they all rose and bowed to the crowd. The cheering went on for some minutes.

  ‘The crowd’s well over two thousand now,’ panted Benjie Riggs, fresh from a mission to the far side of the lake, where a group of Oxford football supporters were now waving their scarves in the air and chanting some impenetrable war cry. ‘Policeman told me. The Duke and his party, including Diaghilev and his people, should be coming down about a quarter to three.’

  The musicians were now playing a series of popular and patriotic airs, including a rather mangled version of ‘Jerusalem’. Each was greeted with a wave of applause and roars of encouragement.

  ‘I bet they learnt that on the bloody bus on the way down,’ said Benjie. ‘The footman from inside tells me they’ve hired an actor with a huge voice to be master of ceremonies. He’s going to tell the crowd what each ballet is about before it starts. That way they shouldn’t find it too confusing. My footman friend also told me he’d be able to tell them to shut up if they got out of hand.’

  Just before a quarter to three, it was as if a dam had broken by the main gates. A large number of buses from Oxford brought another crowd of ballet lovers, ushered with great care to the seats on the far side of the lake. Picnics were being packed away. A small number of hardy souls came in by the rear gate, walking sticks in hand, wives and children straggling behind but still in attendance, the little ones frequently carried by a stronger parent.