‘And you say this is nothing, my friend? This should keep them quiet for at least twenty-four hours, those jackals in Headquarters! What bloody language are they going to be in?’
‘English and Russian, General.’
‘It’s the Russian one that is important. The English Bolsheviks can go and throw them across the railings of Buckingham Palace as far as I’m concerned. No doubt they think the waves of strikes in their country and over in Ireland will make people receptive to their cause. Are the Russian ones ready yet?’
‘Not as far as I know, sir. The printer is a very sensitive man.’
‘Title, Gorodetsky? Do we have a title for the bloody pamphlet? No doubt they intend to circulate it inside Russia as soon as they get their hands on it.’
‘I think it’s called “What Is to Be Done Now?” sir.’
‘What indeed,’ said the General, ‘I think the bloody man Lenin wrote a pamphlet called “What Is to Be Done” some years ago. Sounds as if the comrades have been rather lax in the performance of their revolutionary obligations, if they have to get the same title twice. Repeat homework if you like. Pretty poor show.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Just get one thing into your head, Captain. You watch over this business as closely as you can with your English colleagues. When you know when and how the pamphlets are going to leave England, you let me know.’
‘Are you going to have them picked up, sir?’
‘We have had this conversation before, Captain. No, we are not going to intercept them. We are going to follow them to their destinations. I shall tell you more about this operation next week.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And remember, Captain. Any news of these pamphlets arriving, you get straight onto the telephone and let me know.’
Natasha Shaporova spent most of the afternoon reading through Alexander Taneyev’s letters to his sisters. They were all younger than him, and Natasha felt that he would not be likely to confide in them. She had more hope of the elder brother Ivan, who was an officer in a fashionable regiment and liable to appear at any moment. The girls wanted to know about the fashions in London. The youngest seemed to expect her brother to inspect the clothes of the audience very closely during a performance and report back. The middle one seemed to think her brother should spend his time checking out the latest London fashions in the great shops of Oxford Street. And the eldest one wanted an impression of English men, their clothes, their manners, how they behaved towards the opposite sex. Alexander decided that this sister, Olga, must be planning a visit to England, well prepared for the young men she would conquer there, and intending to carry one of them back to St Petersburg. There was only one note to interest Natasha. ‘Ivan has told me of the decision you may have to make. I think you should consult Papa as well as Ivan. That would be for the best.’
This too made its way to London down the telegraph wires and landed in Markham Square four hours after it had left St Petersburg. Mrs Clarissa Cooper’s eldest, Nicholas, was a vicar. He was one of the more fortunate vicars in that distinguished community. His parish was owned by one of Oxford’s richer colleges, and his parish came with a suitable endowment of between four and five hundred pounds a year. It was in the little town of Kidlington, between Oxford and Blenheim Palace, and its occupants were employed on the estates around Woodstock or in university business.
‘Mr Fitzgerald,’ he said, showing him to a seat in the parlour of his handsome vicarage. ‘My mother sent me a wire. She said I was to be very careful what I say to you!’
He laughed and poured some tea. His wife was out, he said, handing out clothes to some of the poorer parishioners. She always did this, his Hermione, the first Friday of the month.
‘Forgive me for plunging straight in,’ Johnny began. ‘I’ve talked to your mother and your aunt in London about this business of the inheritance from Uncle Richard. I thought it would be useful to talk to the surviving nephews as well.’
‘Only too happy to help,’ said Nicholas, ‘but just let me say one thing at the outset. Both of those good ladies will have impressed on you that this doesn’t matter at all, that it’s all a whim of Uncle Richard’s and nobody should pay any attention to it. They wouldn’t want me to say this, but I do have obligations in my profession. All that stuff about it not being important is not true. It has taken up a lot of their attention for years now. Who’s in; who’s out: it could be a parlour game if it wasn’t so serious. If Peter or I have fallen from favour – maybe my uncle doesn’t approve of me being a vicar – who’s going to inherit now? Mark? Is it his turn? Alexander can’t any more because he’s not here, God rest his soul.’
‘Would you say they were obsessed by it?’
‘I would, Mr Fitzgerald, I certainly would. Short of getting down on the floor and counting out the imaginary money, there isn’t a lot else they could do.’
‘Pardon me. Mr Cooper, do you know how much it is worth, this inheritance?’
‘No.’
‘Do they?’
‘No. I don’t think so, anyway. I’ve not been told, at any rate.’
‘And how long was your time in the sun, as it were, when you were the favourite one? Of all the nephews?’
‘I’ve followed the progress, Mr Fitzgerald. Alexander was the favourite at the moment. I suppose he’d been in place for about two months. My mother is always writing to keep me up to date. I’d say he had about one month to go. Three months is the average.’
‘And there haven’t been any times when one nephew stepped out of line, as it were, and was immediately sent packing from the top of the family tree?’
‘It didn’t work like that, Mr Fitzgerald. I don’t think it would have made any difference if one of the cousins had married a parlour maid or eloped with a chorus girl – that wouldn’t have changed a thing.’
‘So, as far as you knew, these arrivals and removals, as it were, came completely at random?’
‘For all I know, it could have happened when some financial deal came through or he lost heavily at cards.’
‘So what would you think was the motive for all this? It must have caused a great deal of unhappiness among the relations.’
‘Only if they let it. I know my brother is as bad as my mother and my aunt, pretending it doesn’t matter, while following the story as closely as they do. You ask about motive, Mr Fitzgerald. It might be my profession, but I think he’s a wicked old man. A lonely old man, with no family of his own, he likes teasing his relations with the one thing he has that they don’t – and that’s lots of money.’
‘One last thing. I have to ask everyone this, Mr Cooper. Have you attended any of the performances of the Ballets Russes either here or at Blenheim?’
‘I knew that question would come. On the day of the great concert at Blenheim I was here, pretending to tend my garden and thinking about my sermon for the Sunday.’
20
Tours en l’air
Literally ‘turn in the air’. A jump, typically for a male, with a full rotation. The landing can be to both feet; on one leg with the other extended in attitude or arabesque; or down to one knee, as at the end of a variation. A single tour is a 360° rotation, a double is 720°. Vaslav Nijinsky was known to perform triple tours en l’air.
Inspector Dutfield brought news from Oxford.
‘Let me bring you up to date with the news from Blenheim, my lord. Inspector Jackson has been most thorough. He asked the indoor staff, via the butler – as their head man – rather than through his own officers, how many strangers they thought they had seen about the place on the big day. They had met most of the technical people during meals in the servants’ hall, and most of the dancers and suchlike getting ready for the performance. They thought there were four they had never seen before. All sounded Russian. Two of them had coats with those astrakhan collars. One of them appeared to speak neither French nor English, so we can probably rule him out, assuming he wasn’t pretending. One might have been a stageh
and. Descriptions – imperfect though they obviously are – have been circulated round Oxford. I expect they’ll ask on the trains as well. I don’t think that takes us very far forward. We’re still looking for two people on the relevant night in Covent Garden.’
Powerscourt felt glad, not for the first time, that he wasn’t a policeman. All that leg work, all those questions, always the same as the ones you had asked five minutes before, the endless writing of notes. He’d have grown so bored he would have made a mistake.
‘Well done, indeed, Inspector. At least that might produce something in the end. Please send our thanks to Inspector Jackson. We too have had some information. Two telegrams from Natasha Shaporova, reading Alexander’s mail in St Petersburg.
‘“What am I, Mama, Russian or English?” That’s the first one. The second could be connected to the first, or maybe not.
‘“Ivan” – that’s the elder brother – “has told me of the decision you may have to make. I think you should consult Papa as well as Ivan. That would be for the best.” Ivan is the elder brother. Lucy, what do you think?’
‘They could be linked, as you say, Francis. Surely the first one could be something terribly simple, like who he should support in a football match between Russia and England, that sort of thing. But the second could relate to something more serious, as if there’s something worrying him.’
‘He may just wonder where his loyalties ought to lie,’ said the Inspector. ‘He wants to take his bearings, which people he belongs with, that sort of thing.’
‘I suspect we need something more specific, don’t we?’ said Powerscourt. ‘And why, if we think it is serious for a moment, why would he want to know whether he’s English or Russian? I don’t see the context myself. It’s not as if there’s a war on and he has to decide which side to join.’
‘Tell me this,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Where are the letters Alexander Taneyev received here? There must be answers of some kind in there. They must be in police storage somewhere, is that not so, Inspector? Then we could read the correspondence at both ends.’
Inspector Dutfield smacked his hand very firmly on his knee.
‘Of course, Lady Powerscourt. How right you are. Why didn’t we think of that sooner? I’m sorry about that.’
‘Never mind, Inspector,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I’m as guilty as you are. But you could lay your hands on them, couldn’t you?’
‘It’ll take a day or two,’ said Inspector Dutfield, ‘but we can certainly locate them. I’ve got one other piece of news to impart. You remember that duel in the forest glade outside St Petersburg? A member of the Taneyev family and a member of the Solkonsky family? Well, we’ve checked the names of all the Russians staying in hotels in the capital for the past week or so. At Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair there is at present a certain Mr Leonid Solkonsky, who gives an address in St Petersburg.’
‘God bless my soul!’ said Powerscourt. ‘You’ve been keeping that one pretty close to your chest, Inspector.’
‘You don’t know yet if he is a relation, do you, Inspector?’
‘I’m afraid, Lady Powerscourt, that as he is staying at a pretty expensive establishment, it might be better if your husband talked to him rather than a mere policeman.’
‘Do Russians not like policemen, Inspector?’ Lady Lucy was looking very determined all of a sudden. ‘Do you think they are more suspicious than people here?’
‘I asked one of the translators, Lady Lucy. They said people in St Petersburg would always be more suspicious of policemen than people in London.’
‘I wonder why.’
‘I don’t think this is the best time for a discussion on the relative popularity of police forces, Lucy, interesting though that would be,’ said Powerscourt, rising from the sofa to pace about his drawing room.
‘I shall drop this fellow a note at his hotel, saying I propose to call on him tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. Any change of plan to be sent back by the footman who brings the note. How’s that?’
‘Capital,’ said Inspector Dutfield.
As he went down the flight of stairs to his study, Powerscourt wondered what would happen if he put the real questions directly. Are you a direct relation of the Solkonsky who fought a duel with a member of the family Taneyev all those years ago? How did you get into the Royal Opera House? Did you bring a knife or a dagger with you? Even as he signed his note, he realized there was one question that might make trouble for his cause. Why are you still here?
Peter Cooper had a pile of schoolbooks on each side of his table when Johnny Fitzgerald called. This particular Cooper was not in a vicarage but in a spacious ground-floor flat in a large house off the Woodstock Road in Oxford.
‘Mr Fitzgerald, how kind of you to call. I’ve been expecting you. As you can see, I’m a history teacher at the boys’ school here in Oxford, and today is the day I mark the latest history essays.’ He nodded at the two heaps of notebooks on his desk by the window.
‘Are your charges doing well, Mr Cooper? Taking in what you have told them? Potential scholars all?’
‘Would that they were, Mr Fitzgerald! I have watched them read the relevant pages in their history books about the French Revolution. I have talked till I am blue in the face about the potential causes. And what do I get? Some excellent work, I admit, but one of the wastrels – there are always three or four in any class, sending each other messages, looking out through the window, scratching signs on their chairs and desks – has said that the mob stormed the Bastille because they were bored and hadn’t anything else to do. Another says that the King spent all his time on that damned tennis court where the oath took place and was so busy playing that he didn’t pay any attention to what was happening in Paris.’
‘I don’t envy you,’ said Johnny, ‘but I think you look as if you might be a little over halfway through.’
‘So I am, well, that’s something. Now, Mr Fitzgerald, I understand you want to talk to me about Uncle Richard’s will. Is that right?’
This was all pretty direct, Johnny said to himself. Take away the polite condolences and that was exactly what he had come for. ‘Absolutely right,’ said Johnny.
‘I’m not going to beat about the bush, Mr Fitzgerald. I think it is most excellent sport. I drink in all the latest news from my mother and my aunt. They all believe it’s terribly serious, close the door to make sure the servants aren’t listening in the hall – all that silly cloak-and-dagger sort of stuff. I think it’s like being in a horse race – a very long horse race, mind you – where the favourite is in the lead for a while then he falls back and is replaced by one of the other runners. There used to be four of us in the race, now Alexander has fallen at one of the fences.’
‘Becher’s Brook, as it were.’
‘Precisely so. And when the new position has been well established, that only lasts a certain amount of time before he too is replaced. My relations keep asking me how I feel about Alexander’s death and I’m afraid I make the usual noises. But deep down, I’m rather intrigued in one sense. If you thought, Mr Fitzgerald, that you were one of four riders left in the big race, and that number was suddenly reduced to three, how would you feel? It’s hard to get too upset about it when you think that your own chances have been improved by a third or a quarter. You were four to one in the big race. Now you’re three to one. Don’t you see?’
‘That’s all very interesting, Mr Cooper. Do you know who the new favourite is, by any chance?’
‘No, I don’t, as a matter of fact. I think I was in the lead until I was replaced by Alexander, so it’s not likely to be me.’
‘Do the changes in expectation, as it were, always follow the same pattern: A followed by B and B followed by C and C followed by D?’
‘No, they don’t. It’s all completely random. There was once a period of A to D in strict alphabetic pattern, but it didn’t last.’
‘Does your uncle know you are a strict follower of form in this matter, Mr Cooper?’
�
��No, he doesn’t. He hardly ever sees us at all. My aunt says he doesn’t like young people as a rule, but that might just be camouflage.’
‘Let’s suppose, Mr Cooper, that you were in the preferred position, leading the field, and your uncle dropped down dead. What would you do with the money?’
‘I’d get married for a start. I have been in love for six months or so with a young lady who teaches English at the girls’ school here. We could buy a bigger house. Maybe I could give up teaching history altogether. The problem is, we don’t know how much money there is. Do you know, Mr Fitzgerald?’
Johnny shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know exactly. I may have an idea quite soon.’
‘Well, when you find out, and I’m sure you will, a resourceful chap like you, remember to drop me a line. Just the total will do. You needn’t bother with the rituals of politeness.’
‘Tell me this before I go, Mr Cooper. You say all your information about the places in the race comes from your mother or your aunt. You don’t have any conversations with your uncle about the latest odds and so on?’
‘That’s right. It all comes from my mother and my aunt.’
As Johnny took his leave, a return to marking history essays calling on Mr Cooper’s side, two thoughts would not leave him alone. The first was that he suspected Peter Cooper was probably more like his uncle than anybody suspected. And the second was that, in the discussions about what he would do with the money, there had been no mention of sharing it out with anybody else.
Natasha Shaporova was sounding depressed and frustrated in her room in the Taneyev household, surrounded by the family icons.
‘Regret no further news to report here,’ the telegram began.
Powerscourt was reading it aloud to Lady Lucy.
‘Have read all letters to female members of the household. Nothing further to report. None of the men can find any of theirs. Alexander wrote more often to the women of the household than to his brother and his father. Both remember him referring to something very secret, something he shouldn’t have seen at all, and what should he do about it. The brother doesn’t remember replying, but admits he could have done. His father suggested that he send more details of what he’d actually seen. The brother thinks he may have left the letters in his barracks, the father thinks his may be in the yacht club. Both under strict instructions to carry out further searches. Regards Natasha.’
Death Comes to the Ballets Russes Page 20
