‘How long between their departure and your realizing that they had gone?’ asked Powerscourt.
‘It must have been a couple of days. We were trying to search the hotel to see if the money had been hidden away on the premises. Have you ever tried searching a hotel and its bedrooms, Lord Powerscourt? The guests were not cooperative at all. Two Americans threatened to call the police until we reassured them that we really were the police, if you see what I mean.’
‘Will you call off the search, Inspector?’
‘No, we’ll have to carry on. There’s no proof that they left with the money. Luckily we were able to get very good descriptions of the pair. Every policeman in London will be on the lookout for them soon. If that brings no answers, we’ll circulate them round the country, concentrating on railway stations and ports. They could be on the Continent by now, my lord.’
‘Where they could change the stolen money into foreign currency and nobody would be the wiser.’
‘Absolutely correct. Our friend Killick didn’t take the numbers of the notes, he didn’t have time. I think I shall have to call in Mr George Smythe again, though I’ve always felt he was telling the truth.’
Inspector Dutfield began polishing his glasses with a fresh handkerchief. ‘You’ve never really felt the robbery of the jewel money had anything to do with the murders, my lord, have you?’
‘No, I haven’t. And these revelations don’t make me change my mind. Somebody had obviously stolen the jewels in St Petersburg and found they would be easily traced. So they transferred the deal to London to get the money.’
There was a knock and a cough at the door. It was Rhys, the Powerscourt butler-cum-chauffeur who always coughed before he came into a room.
‘Telegram, my lord,’ he announced. ‘From Cologne Railway Station, my lord. I thought it might be important. For you, my lord.’
Rhys handed it over. Powerscourt read it aloud. ‘Did Alexander Taneyev keep a diary? Regards Natasha. Cologne Station.’
‘Good God!’ said Powerscourt. ‘We’ve never thought of that. Not one of us. Do you know if he kept a diary, Inspector?’
‘Well no, my lord. We’ve concentrated our search on letters rather than diaries.’
‘If it was one of those new ones, it could look like a book cover if it was lined up with other books.’
‘I’ll just have to go and take a look at his things, my lord. All of his stuff is still packed up at the station, as you know. I’ll conduct the search myself. I’ll come straight back if I find it.’
Fifteen minutes later another policeman found his way to the heart of Chelsea. Inspector Jackson made his apologies for arriving without notice. ‘I had another piece of business to transact, my lord, but there is one thing in particular I felt I ought to tell you in person.’
‘You’re more than welcome, Inspector. Some tea?’
‘Thank you, that would be kind. The thing is this. I’ve been reading all the accounts of the witnesses at the murder of Vera the ballerina. Not just the ones from the Ballets Russes, but from the invited guests as well. I tell you this, Lord Powerscourt. It was chaos backstage, as it were, in the other parts of the palace, while the guests were taking drinks and enjoying roast suckling pig and all the rest of it. There were two identified people milling around: one a tall, foreign-looking man with a dark coat and a hat who everybody thought was Russian, and one a middle-aged Englishman in a brown check suit carrying a walking stick – rather in the manner of Mr Diaghilev if you like, my lord, who everybody thought was a local, from Oxford, for he seemed to be able to speak Russian as well. Always assuming our constables are correct in identifying what he was saying as Russian, not French or German or Hottentot or what you will.’
‘And what did your staff think they were doing?’
‘This is the thing, my lord. Most of the domestic staff were in attendance at the dinner, serving out the peas or the parsnips or whatever they do on these occasions. For the rest, it was like a free invitation to wander all over the house. There was the odd footman about, and the occasional door closed to the Ballets Russes people, the dancers and the stage staff and so on, who were all well behaved. I come to my point, my lord.’
‘Perhaps the gentleman with the walking stick was just one of your extra translators brought in from Oxford?’
‘That’s very possible. We did conduct a fairly wide trawl to find those people. He could well have come from some department of the university.’ Inspector Jackson paused to take a sip of his tea.
‘It still must have been chaotic everywhere in the palace. The ballet people behaved as if they were visitors, as if they had been given a chance to look over the house like the other visitors the Duke of Marlborough and his lady let in during the year. One minute you could have been in the hall, another minute you could have been wandering round upstairs. And it’s an enormous place. If we assume, and I grant you this is a pretty big if, that the murderer had come to kill the ballerina, he could have waited for ever in the wrong part of the palace. She could have been on another floor. She might have been out in the gardens looking at the fountains or that sort of stuff. My hunch is that he must have arranged to meet her on the gallery in a few minutes’ time, that sort of thing. He wants to express his admiration in person. It will not do in the crowd. You can never underestimate vanity as a motive for doing things. So, when Vera arrives in the middle of the gallery, that’s the end of her. The other man disappears back into the crowd and out the front door. It was murder by appointment.’
‘God bless my soul, Inspector, that’s a pretty fine piece of work!’
‘I have to say I have no idea if it is true or not. There is one other thing. If a member of the Ballets Russes or anybody connected with the opera wanted to kill her in London, they’d have been liable to bump into a policeman or an investigator like yourself at any point and in any place. Up there in Blenheim Palace, there were only the footmen at that particular time. Not to mention our two strangers who had the great advantage that the Blenheim people thought they were Ballets Russes and the Ballets Russes people thought they were palace people.’
‘And what have you done about the strangers, Inspector?’
Inspector Jackson finished his tea. ‘We have circulated their descriptions all around Oxford and in all the towns and villages where the visitors could have come from.’
‘How do you think the killer knew who his victim was, if you see what I mean?’
‘I did think about that, my lord, but he could have asked any of the ballet people. You could have spotted a member of the Ballets Russes a mile off.’
‘You have done good work, Inspector, well done.’
‘Do you know, Lord Powerscourt, I’ve been an Inspector now for six years and this is the most unusual case I’ve come across in all that time. I think I may be able to tell my grandchildren about it in years to come.’
‘Only “may” be able to tell them, Inspector?’
‘That’s right, my lord. I’m bloody well not going to tell them we’ve all failed to work out who the murderer was.’
‘“London June the fifth. I wonder if it’s extravagant and rather vain to buy another diary every time we move to a fresh city. Certainly there’s still lots of room left in the French one. But I can always go back to that the next time I’m in Paris. I shall have in time a whole volume about Paris.”’
Alexander Taneyev’s diary had arrived by police constable late that afternoon. Inspector Dutfield had said he would come round later. Powerscourt maintained that his policeman colleague was feeling guilty about not having found it before. Lady Lucy told him he was being uncharitable.
‘Do carry on, Francis,’ she said.
‘“Rehearsals start tomorrow with Monsieur Fokine. I have danced in all of these works before, mainly in Paris. My two understudy roles I have also danced before, both in Monte Carlo. I am lucky that I have been allowed to stay with my uncle, though they have told me at the hotel here that there will always be a r
oom ready if I need it. It is two years now since I came to London with Mama and the girls.”
‘I say Lucy, do you think I should skip a few bits and see how long before we get to the relevant parts?’
‘I don’t think you should skip anything just yet, Francis. I think it would be disrespectful.’
‘“We were given half an hour today to walk around Covent Garden and take a full tour of the opera house. It’s certainly grander than the ones in Paris, but nothing like our own place on Theatre Street back home. Maybe the fact that the Imperial Family come to see us in St Petersburg makes a difference. Everything has to be special all the time. I don’t think the King here is very keen on the opera, even though they say he looks exactly like the Tsar. I think Mama told me they are cousins.”
‘And that’s the end of Wednesday June the fifth. What do you think of it so far, Lucy?’
‘Promising start, I should say. It looks as though he puts down whatever comes into his head.’
‘On we go. “Thursday June the sixth. Another rehearsal. Monsieur Fokine spends a lot of time shouting at the girls in the corps de ballet. I think they just find it hard to concentrate when they’re left stuck in some position or other while he concentrates on something else. Mama and the girls always tell me how lucky I am to spend so much time with all these lovely young people. I tell them it’s not like that at all. They’re work colleagues, that’s all. I just wish some other older members of the company behaved in the same way.”
‘Hello hello, Lucy. Do you think this is Bolm, enter stage left, as it were?’
‘Probably, Francis. Just read on. There may be more.’
‘“Monsieur Diaghilev looked in on the rehearsals today. He was talking to that composer Stravinsky, who looks very strange to me. People are already saying that Monsieur Diaghilev is about to run out of money, but they say that all the time.”’
Sergeant Rufus Jenkins had taken up smoking again. He had managed to give it up at the request of Marjorie, his girlfriend from the Post Office – well, in fact, as the Sergeant told himself regularly, it was more of an ultimatum really – me or those damned cigarettes – and hoped that if he only smoked on duty and changed his clothes when he got home, he might get away with it. Marjorie couldn’t stand the smell. She said it made her feel ill. The Sergeant rationed himself to one every half an hour. He was now in the second half of 1887, and had reached the letter P. Most of those letters were more than familiar to him now and he groaned as he reached the letter P. He knew it contained a good number of popular Christian names. Patrick Gilbert, Newcastle under Lyme, Patrick Gilbert, Wolverhampton, Patrick Gilbert, Southampton, Patrick Gilbert, Ludlow Shropshire.
Ahead were the Pauls and the Peters and God only knew how many of those. The Sergeant lit another cigarette in anticipation.
‘“Friday June the seventh. Sometimes I find life in the ballet rather confusing. Our main purpose is our art, to produce the finest ballet in the world. M. Diaghilev keeps telling us that if we work hard we will reach that goal. It’s the languages, really. With my uncle I speak English. With some of Diaghilev’s people I speak French, as they prefer that to Russian. On my ballet work I speak Russian, like everybody else. The stagehands and everybody else speaks Russian. Which one do I belong to? At home I always feel Russian, even though Mama insists we speak English all the time, rather than French. My old nurse – I do hope she hasn’t died yet, she must be well over eighty now – always spoke to me in Russian. She couldn’t do anything else. But what am I? Am I Russian or am I English? I have spent a lot of time in England, with these two summers over here, and I find I can think in English. I can’t do that in French, though I can speak it fluently. And of course I can think in Russian. I wouldn’t like to lose the English bits of me if I was told I was Russian, any more than I would like to lose the Russian bits of me if I was told I was English. What am I to do? I shall write to Mama, although I know what she will say. She will say I am English. If I wrote to Papa he would say I was Russian. It’s all very confusing.”’
Rhys was coughing at the door. ‘Urgent message from the Oxfordshire Constabulary,’ he announced. ‘From Inspector Jackson, my lord, my lady.’
‘“We have received intelligence from a number of places concerning the Russian who might have been at Blenheim Palace,”’ Powerscourt read, feeling rather like one of the slaves of some Eastern potentate whose sole job was to read messages or to tell stories to his master when the master was bored. ‘“The first one said that he had been seen entering the Ashmolean Museum. We have no reports of his coming out, but I doubt if he is still inside. The second sighting was of him at the railway station, about to board a train, presumably, unless he was meeting somebody. The third report, from rather further afield, has him walking through the village of Goring on the borders between Oxfordshire and Berkshire. They could, of course, all refer to the same man. Further reports as news comes in.”’
‘I can see that a man might want to catch a train or visit the Ashmolean Museum, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘but what on earth was he doing in Goring? What do you know of Goring, Francis?’
23
Bourrée
The word originates from an old French dance resembling the gavotte. In ballet, this denotes quick, even movements often done on pointe; the movement gives the look of gliding.
‘What do I know of Goring?’ mused Lord Powerscourt. ‘Absolutely nothing, my love. I shall return to the diary.
‘“Saturday June the eighth. I think the rehearsals have gone very well. This morning I had to take on the role of the Prince in Thamar in case Bolm should be indisposed or is too busy chasing the corps de ballet. I have watched Bolm perform this role so many times and I know, heaven knows I have been told often enough, that my role is to perform it in exactly the same way as he does. I am not to add any little touches of my own. The audience, Monsieur Fokine says, have come to see Bolm, not me, and the least I can do is to replicate down to the smallest movement what he would have done.”
‘There’s a break here, Lucy, as if he added this last bit later in the day. Here we go:
‘“Some of the girls are thinking of complaining about the way Bolm treats them all. They ask me for my advice! I agree that his antics, his endless approaches, sometimes physical, would be quite disgusting if you were a girl. Perhaps I am lucky in that I have sisters and I know how I would feel if anybody behaved like that with them. But I tell them that the Ballets Russes is more important than any individual. One of the girls told me that I sounded like Diaghilev when I said that. I told her I didn’t care. One complaint of that nature could split the company apart, half for Bolm and half against Bolm. The performances would never recover. The unity of the company must come first. And I tell them that Fokine, for one, must know what is going on. If he knows, Diaghilev knows. Maybe somebody high up will have a word with Bolm. That, I tell them, would be for the best.”’
Sergeant Jenkins was having another cigarette. He wondered if the smoke got into your hair. He could always say that he was surrounded by people smoking inside and outside the building. People were always smoking on the bus. He thought he could mount a reasonable defence against that charge. He was on the Rs now. He hoped for a moment that the entry might be for a Mrs Richard Gilbert rather than a Mrs Sophie Gilbert, née Shore. Ahead of them was another long line of Raphaels, Richards, Roberts and Ruperts. He consoled himself with the thought that the place closed in forty minutes’ time.
‘“Saturday June the eighth. The girls are still going on about Bolm. Don’t they realize that if they go on and on about something it can get more than a little boring. I am in my room at the Premier Hotel now. The traffic is always very thick down our side of the square. I am feeling unsettled. There hasn’t been time for a reply from Mama yet. I wonder how Papa is coping now Ivan is away on manoeuvres for a fortnight. Papa always says he finds it difficult being in a house full of women with no other man to talk to apart from the servants. That is why he always runs
up those enormous bills at the yacht club when the men of the family are away. I wonder how he’s coping now.
‘“I have to say that I have not felt homesick since I have been here, not once. Just now I wish I was back home in St Petersburg, having family supper with some lively conversation going on.”’
‘Poor boy,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘He could have come round here if we’d known he wanted a bit of family life, couldn’t he Francis?’
‘He could have played a bit of chess with Thomas, though I wouldn’t recommend it. We haven’t heard anything like what we want, Lucy. Not yet anyway.’
Sergeant Rufus Jenkins was feeling like a lone fisherman who has taken his rods and his fishing basket and his rug to a remote riverbank and cast away all day. He finds nothing. Just when he thinks he might as well pack up and go home, he finally catches a fish. There it was! At last! He made a careful note in his notebook, including the entries on either side of it, and hurried off at full speed to Markham Square where he expected to find his Inspector. As he wished his bus would go faster, Sergeant Jenkins thought that the Powerscourt residence was turning into a sort of extra police station.
Rhys showed the panting young man, one or two buttons undone, hair dishevelled, gasping heavily, into the drawing room.
‘Lord Powerscourt, Lady Powerscourt, apologies for bursting in on you like this, but I’ve got it! I’m sorry it’s taken so long!’
‘You are most welcome, Sergeant. We’ll get you a cup of tea – or a bottle of beer, if you’d prefer. You’ve obviously come in a great hurry with your news. Tell us, pray, what sends you hurtling round the streets of London.’
‘Sorry, my lord, I’ve come from Somerset House where I’ve been looking at the death certificates! Reverend Fortescue down in Blexham brought us the fist part of the story of the marital life of Richard Wagstaff Gilbert. Here comes the second.’
Death Comes to the Ballets Russes Page 24
