‘The gas machines first,’ said the Russian, ‘you shall at least go to your well-deserved grave knowing the full extent of the power of Mother Russia. You think my work here,’ he was still drawing furiously as he spoke, and had just gone to another new page, ‘is the beginning. It is not. It is nearly the end. We have the formula for the gas from the French – there’s nothing French engineers and chemists like doing more than boasting how their labours will add to the greater glory of France. This –’ he waved an arm round the terrible silos – ‘may be enough for our engineers, locked away in the interior where nobody could find them, a plan of this room and the disposition of the equipment may be all they need to complete the work.’
Where on earth were those bloody soldiers? There couldn’t be much left to say about the pipes and the terrible cauldron at the centre. Only one card left to play.
‘Why were your colleagues at the ballet reporting on my movements?’
‘That has to do with the Ballets Russes. I shall tell you a little as you have less than five minutes left to live. We thought everybody would assume that Bolm was meant to be the victim. Everyone except you, my about-to-be-dead friend. I congratulate you on that. The dead man was in fact who the dead man was meant to be, the understudy. He saw something he shouldn’t have in Bolm’s dressing room. He told Bolm he was going to report it to the English authorities. He told one of the girl dancers, Vera Belitsky I think she was called. She, in case you have forgotten, was the dancer I killed at Blenheim Palace. Taneyev may not have known much in the way of mathematics and chemical equations, but any fool can see the word “Goring” and the date. The other victim was also part of Taneyev’s conspiracy. The little fool told the dancer all he knew and what he proposed to do about it. She had to go before she could tell the English authorities. We have a saying in Russia, smert shpionem – death to spies and traitors of every sort. That was what happened to Taneyev and his friend, and good riddance too.’
‘So all of Bolm’s bad behaviour with women was a red herring, as we say in English?’
The man was checking his drawings now. The end could not be very far away. Would he throw a knife or attempt to close in on him with the deadly weapon in his hand? Powerscourt had been fiddling about with his left hand among the materials lined up against the wall behind him. There was a square steel plate about the size of a dustbin lid that might do service as a shield. And there was a very long pole, slightly longer than the pole used to propel punts up and down the waters of the Cam and the Isis – though Powerscourt, for the moment, could not imagine what to do with it.
The Russian put his notebook and his pencil in his pocket. Even as he started, Powerscourt guessed what was coming next. He just had time to drag his steel shield in front of his body, up to the chin. He gambled that the man wouldn’t try for his head, a smaller and more mobile target. The knife seemed to come simultaneously with the hand coming out of his pocket. It smashed into Powerscourt’s shield and fell on the floor. Another followed, then a third, all repelled by the dustbin lid. The man began swearing viciously in Russian and started fiddling about with his right boot. Powerscourt saw his chance. He grabbed the punt pole, which had a sort of paddle at the end, as if for stirring the monstrous brew in the Devil’s kitchen, and charged the thirty feet or so between him and the Russian. He felt, momentarily, that he was Sir Lancelot come to rescue the Lady of Shallot in some terrible jousting tournament. The paddle caught the Russian and pushed him backwards towards the pit. He staggered.
Powerscourt drew his weapon back and shoved again. He knew his strength was failing fast from inhaling these terrible vapours, but it was the best he could do. The man slipped and turned as he fell down the top of the slippery slope and began sliding down into the mouth of hell itself. Powerscourt moved in for the kill. Sliding down, the man made one last effort. He raised himself and sank his teeth into Powerscourt’s arm. Gravity and the weight of the Russian were pulling them both towards the final vision of Hieronymus Bosch. It just needed a few splotches of brilliant red and some dancing flames in front and it could be hanging as the pride of place in some leading German art gallery, Powerscourt thought. He felt his arm might be about to break. He knew the fumes could overcome him at any moment.
There was a shot from near the door. The soldiers, Powerscourt whispered to himself, they’ve come at last. Two burly Corporals used their bayonets to free Powerscourt’s arm – his left, he was glad to see. He was free. Everybody stood and watched in horror as the Russian began slipping down to hell. He was now out of human reach and nobody gave the order to throw him a lifeline. Four enormous steel plates appeared round the edges of the pit and began moving quite fast towards the centre. When they met, the Devil’s saucepan would have a lid that admitted nothing into the mixture within. Somebody must have pressed a lever or a button to start the process off.
They watched in horror as the Russian – now slowly, now quite quickly – began to fall into the pit. He was swearing violently to start with. Then he managed to cross himself and began saying his prayers in Russian. He was going to need them now. Powerscourt found himself shuddering as he thought of what would happen to the man if he wasn’t underwater by the time the square lids closed. He would be cut in half, or a quarter, or, maybe, God forbid, his head would be sliced clean off his body. One second the Russian would be winning the race towards total immersion. Then it would look as though the top of his face, maybe his hair, would be caught in the pincers of the steel plates.
Suddenly it was all over. Gravity won. The Russian was under the noxious mixture before the lid closed. But only by about ten seconds. Powerscourt thought a quick death by steel plate might have been the better option, but he was so glad he hadn’t met the same fate. He realized that blood was flowing fast out of his arm where the spy had held on.
‘We’ve sent for an ambulance, just breathe in the fresh air,’ Danvers Tresilian said as he led him to a veranda looking out over the river. ‘It’ll be here in a minute. I hope to God you’re going to recover fully. The doctors think that it would be impossible to survive in there for more than five minutes. You were in there for seven and a half. May the Lord bless you and keep you.’
27
À la seconde
To the side or in the second position. À la seconde usually means a movement done by the feet to the side such as a tendu, glisse or grand battement. A technically challenging type of turn is a pirouette à la seconde, where the dancer spins with the working leg in second position in à la hauteur. This turn is typically performed by male dancers because of the advanced skills required to perform it correctly. It is seen as the male counterpart of fouettés en tournant.
The four black funeral horses were standing very still outside Arthur Cooper’s house. The driver, also dressed in black, waited at his post. The back of the hearse was empty. Inside, in Arthur Cooper’s front room, three of his revolutionary colleagues were transferring money from a large container, sent under guard from the bank that held his account. In vain had the bank’s manager pleaded with Arthur to leave some of the money behind. Nobody, he said, should leave their accounts completely empty. Surely, the bank manager had continued, Arthur would need some reserves for the inevitable rainy day.
It was all in vain. The three comrades had taken it in turn to guard the container all through the night.
‘If you’d said to me when I joined the movement, Arthur, that I would spend an entire night guarding money from a bank rather than stealing it, I’d have said you were mad.’
‘But it was stolen in the first place, liberated from the capitalist class in Russia,’ Cooper had replied, ‘and think of the good use Comrade Lenin will put it to when he gets his hands on it.’
‘I tell you another thing,’ said the comrade from Stepney. ‘No customs man is going to be in a hurry to open this lot, I can tell you. I doubt if opening coffins is in their job description. Once it gets to the Continent, all those bloody customs men will be crossing themselve
s and saying their Hail Marys at top speed.’
Now the money was all tightly packed in the bottom of the coffin, with piles of bricks lining the upper levels. Very slowly, and with all due solemnity, the coffin was carried out of the door on four sets of shoulders and slid into position. On the top and the sides was a very clear description of the contents. Ballets Russes. Props Department.
Arthur Cooper took up his position beside the driver. Two other comrades rode at the back as the strange hearse with its four black horses set out west across London to the fruit and vegetable market at Covent Garden, where it would be stored along with all the other props in the Ballets Russes section of the storage facilities of the Royal Opera House.
General Kilyagin was tired of waiting for news from London. He rang Captain Yuri Gorodetsky at his post in the little office in Holborn.
‘What on earth is going on, Captain?’ he boomed down the phone line. ‘It’s days since I’ve had any news from London! What in God’s name have you been doing? Inspecting the Tower of London? Going to the bloody ballet?’
‘No, sir. I have news for you – important news that will change this case and take it out of my area of responsibility.’
‘Out with it, man. What have those Bolsheviks been doing?’
‘Everything is now secure in the luggage section of the Ballets Russes, General. Our English colleagues watched both consignments right into the building in Covent Garden.’
‘You’re still not making sense, Captain. What consignments?’
‘Sir, both the revolutionary tracts and the money are now in the care of the ballet people. There they will remain until the whole lot moves off back to France or wherever they’re going next.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Absolutely certain, General. Could I ask you a question?’
‘With that answer you could ask me anything. Fire ahead.’
‘What is going to happen to them now?’
‘I do not have full authority to tell you that, Captain. They will be watched all their way to the final destinations. And by that I don’t just mean Comrade Lenin and his revolutionary friends. We will watch the leaflets in particular right to their final destinations from Lenin’s address list, be that in Moscow or Siberia or Kiev. Once they have been delivered, the recipients will receive a visit from the Okhrana. They may end up joining Lenin in exile, or, more likely, they will find themselves taking a long journey to Siberia.’
They kept Powerscourt in bed in a private wing of a military hospital for five days. The wing was sealed off. In that time a number of doctors came to see him, all in uniform. They listened to his breathing; they prodded his chest; they asked him to walk up and down. They were particularly keen to inspect the yellow pallor on his face. They didn’t seem very bothered about his arm, though they did say it was healing well. They passed no judgement on his condition. They were waiting, they told him, for the man from London, who was a civilian and whose background had to be thoroughly checked before he was allowed to pass judgement. Dr Archibald Forester had a large and distinguished practice in Harley Street.
‘Lord Powerscourt, I am delighted to make your acquaintance,’ said Dr Forester, when he finally arrived.
‘Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what is happening,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I have no idea where I am, apart from the fact that this is a military hospital. Nobody has told me what is going on. I feel like a parcel that is being passed round and round except that the music never stops.’
‘Let me see what I can do to help. This hospital is near Aldershot. In spite of the best efforts of Mr Danvers Tresilian of the Cabinet Office and the military doctors, I have persuaded them to let me tell you what we know.’
Forester drew a chair up to the side of Powerscourt’s bed.
‘The problem with you, Lord Powerscourt, is that you are a medical freak. Indeed you are a freak in two ways, a double freak if you like. I don’t mean that in any personal sense. I mean that you should not be alive at this moment. You should have been dead five days ago. According to the calculation of these military doctors, you stayed in that Devil’s kitchen longer than anybody or anything, man or sheep or goat is meant to. Yet you are still here, and showing marked signs of improvement. You have caused a major headache for the military personnel preparing these lethal mixtures. Perhaps the dose is too small; let’s not beat about the bush, if the gas needs to be made more potent to kill or maim a lot of humans, they are going to need the formula – the recipe if you like – to be made more powerful. That is going to cost money. I have no idea what our friend Danvers Tresilian is going to do about that.’
‘Well, doctor, I am very pleased to be a freak. At least I’m still here.’
‘I haven’t finished yet, not by a long way. The other factor that makes you a freak is this. Nobody has ever tested this mixture on humans. Not properly. It’s hardly surprising when you think about it. The staff at that Devil’s kitchen have special clothes to wear, so they are protected. Because we have not tried these dreadful potions on humans rather than animals, we have no idea what treatment will work or what treatment will make it worse. If a patient comes into my rooms in Harley Street with a respiratory problem or a heart condition, we know what to do. There are textbooks. Among the medical fraternity there is a pool of educated knowledge. If I do not know the answer or an answer – God knows we’re not infallible, however much we try to give the opposite impression – I can send my patient to a colleague or to a leading teaching hospital where they will know more than me.
‘There is no medical textbook for you, Lord Powerscourt. You are first in the field. You are, quite literally, opening the batting. No doubt your case will feature prominently in the medical literature if anybody decides to use this form of warfare and our hospitals at the front are crowded out with victims. You are the first human, rather than animal, victim of gas warfare in this country. And, as far as I know, none of the animal victims has survived. So we are in terra incognita. We could try some form of treatment but we have no idea if it would work.’
‘This is all very gratifying, to know I am first in the field, Doctor Forester, but can you tell me how much longer I have left to live? I have had enough of members of your profession inspecting me as if I were some form of freak in a circus. Do I need to revise my will today? Or tomorrow? Or can I leave it for a while?’
Doctor Forester laughed. ‘That’s a very good question, Lord Powerscourt. Indeed it may be the only question. I would not wish to insult you by putting a figure or a time on your life expectancy. The short answer is that I haven’t a clue how long you will live after this ordeal. Neither has anybody else.’
Powerscourt thought he liked this doctor from London. At least he told you the score.
‘To continue with my answer, you could live for years. Or the poison gas may carry you off rather sooner. These military doctors are keen to try out a number of different treatments. I propose to tell them that they could do more harm than good. Your arm will heal naturally over time, we believe.’
‘So what are you going to suggest for me? What is the best treatment for a human guinea pig?’
‘I am going to suggest that you go home tomorrow and rest. I don’t mean that you should stay in bed all day. I’m sure you have had enough of that for now. Do whatever you would normally do, but don’t for heaven’s sake take any violent exercise just yet. It could be bad for your heart. I shall come and see you once a week. It may be that your body, like your arm, will try to heal itself, we just don’t know.’
‘I would ask you all not to look at me as if I were an exhibit in a zoo or some exotic animal in a circus,’ Powerscourt began five days later, surveying his little audience in the drawing room at Markham Square. His left arm was still in a sling. Lady Lucy was in her favourite position, opposite her husband, on the other side of the fireplace. Natasha Shaporova and Inspector Dutfield were on the sofa. Powerscourt had told Johnny Fitzgerald the whole story the day after he came
home from the hospital. His reaction had been typical. He was on his way back to Warwickshire.
‘There you go again, Francis. How many times do I have to tell you that you mustn’t go on these dangerous expeditions without me. I’m not saying you haven’t come through it very well, mind you. But you’d have been a damned sight better off with me by your side.’
‘I have to tell you,’ Powerscourt continued, ‘that I had to dissuade the authorities from making you all sign the Official Secrets Act before we met today. I told them that you were all responsible adults and would not dream of passing on anything that I say here this afternoon. And I have to say that a lot of the fresh information about events at the Ballets Russes comes from Inspector Dutfield and his police sources. And some of it comes from a mysterious gentleman at the Cabinet Office who is gatekeeper and guardian of most of the nation’s secrets. Rosebery persuaded him to talk to me on the grounds that I had nearly been killed and deserved to know the full facts while I was still here, if you see what I mean.’
‘I’m sure I can speak for us all, my lord,’ said Inspector Dutfield, ‘when I say you can depend on us, with or without the Official Secrets Act.’
‘I have been thinking about the best way to describe this investigation,’ Powerscourt carried on, ‘and I think I would like to begin at the outsides and work in towards the heart of the matter.
‘Consider first, if you would, the wicked uncle in Barnes, Richard Wagstaff Gilbert. A shady financier with a penchant for cheating at cards, a wicked uncle, a very wicked uncle, who liked to torment his nephews with the prospect of a glittering legacy when he died. Johnny talked to the remaining nephews and to the remaining sisters of Mr Gilbert. There was only one possible warning note in their evidence, that Mark the croquet player had been attending the Ballets Russes here in London. Johnny was convinced that the boy was not a killer, and he also believed his story that he had to leave as soon as the performance was over to get back to his college. The vicar and the teacher nephews need not detain us, but I must say my favourite memory of this investigation will be the thought of the vicar on the day of the great performance at Blenheim Palace attending to his garden and contemplating his sermon for the Sunday morning service as he pulled out the weeds. We can leave all that family in peace waiting for their inheritance.’
Death Comes to the Ballets Russes Page 28
