Death in St. Petersburg

by Tasha Alexander

  “It is my Irusya’s handwriting,” he said. “I know it as well as my own. I know I ask a foolish question, but there is no possibility, is there, that she is still alive?”

  “There is not,” Colin said, his terse words and clipped tone allowing no possibility for false hope. “Bring me all the notes you have received, Emily.”

  We compared the three messages, each written on the same heavy linen paper in the same delicate hand. “We shan’t get anywhere trying to source the paper,” I said.

  “It’s all so hopeless.” Vasilii’s eyes were moist with tears. “I thought I would call on you in the hope that you had made progress in the case. I never expected to be faced with—” He closed his eyes and pressed his hand over them. “Her blood is still on it. It is too much to bear.”

  “You ought never to have seen it,” Colin said. “Go home and do whatever you must to free yourself from the image. We will take care of everything. Emily will bring this vile criminal to justice.”

  “Thank you. I apologize, Hargreaves, if we started off on the wrong foot,” the prince said. “I am prone to handle very badly matters in which I feel my pride is threatened. I ought not to have asked your wife to meet me without you.”

  “Nothing to worry about, old boy,” Colin said.

  “Had I known you better, I should have acted differently.” His lips curved into an ironic smile. “Or if I had been less stupid. There is much I regret. I wish I could better express how grateful I am to you both. I am overwhelmed, truly.”

  Colin walked him to the door and then we were alone again, but the mood had shifted too far for us to return to our pleasant interlude.

  “He reminds me very much of Prince Andrei in War and Peace,” I said. “There is an admirable nobility in him, but so much pride and almost a bit of awkwardness.”

  “Things ended very badly for Andrei,” Colin said. “I should find someone else to compare Vasilii to if I were you.”

  * * *

  After discussing the most efficient way to attack the rest of the afternoon, we decided to divide our forces, so to speak, Colin going to the Admiralty, headquarters of the Imperial Navy, located just across from the Winter Palace garden, while I went to Nemetseva’s flat near the Mariinsky. First, though, we stopped at the office of the judicial investigator handling the case and got from him the key to the apartment. Second, I collected Cécile, knowing two sets of eyes are always preferable to one.

  Nemetseva’s home contrasted with Katenka’s in every way. Its location, on the Moika, halfway between the Yusupov Palace and the theatre, was both fashionable and convenient. Located on the first floor, with high ceilings and a pleasant view of the river below, the rooms were large and full of light. Irusya’s taste could not be faulted. She had chosen elegant Empire-style furnishings that were both beautiful and comfortable. Photographs of her in ballet costumes adorned the walls, as did a number of unremarkable paintings. Along with her bedroom, two sitting rooms, a small library, and a dining room, there was a modest-sized ballet studio, with mirrored walls and wooden barres. The kitchen, pantry, and servants’ rooms ran along a narrow corridor at the back of the building. I had hoped to speak with her staff, but a neighbor told us none of them had come into the flat since the murder, and the layer of dust forming on every surface confirmed her statement.

  “What is to be done with the place?” Cécile asked, flicking from her glove a bit of dust. “Do her family plan to clear it out?”

  “Apparently her mother wants it to be left as it is,” I said.

  “Morbid.”

  “Quite,” I said, “but her grief is still raw. Let’s start in the bedroom and see what we can find.” As I had expected, Irusya’s clothing reflected her elegant style. All of it was of the latest cut and fashion. She had two large jewelry boxes full of a variety of pieces, from simple and modest to extravagant.

  “That must be from a most ardent admirer,” Cécile said, pointing to a large ruby brooch.

  “Vasilii?” I asked. “How rich is he? Do you know?”

  “He has more than enough to live three or four extremely prodigal lives.”

  A spacious en suite bathroom connected to the dressing room, a man’s shaving cup, razor, and brush next to the sink. Obviously they belonged to the prince. I cannot say I was shocked; I understood the nature of their relationship. But seeing physical evidence of their intimacy touched me unexpectedly. How tragic that they had not been able to live a normal life together, as man and wife.

  Moving out of the bedroom, we went to the larger of the sitting rooms. A cabinet there contained a profusion of the trinkets Vasilii had mentioned, although I am not certain the word adequately described the objects presented to the ballerina as gifts. There were a handful of humble offerings, but most impressive were the numerous Fabergé flowers, perfectly enameled—and, sometimes, bejeweled—copies of nature’s best: pearl lilies of the valley, blue cornflowers, a single white anemone with a rose-cut diamond in its center and nephrite leaves, and tiny violets in a rock crystal vase that looked almost real until one noticed their gold stems.

  “Surely these cannot be from random admirers,” I said.

  Cécile shrugged. “The Russians love Fabergé, and they love their ballerinas. To the very rich, these are trinkets, as Vasilii said.”

  The library held only a few books—Pushkin’s poetry, several volumes of fairy tales, and an assortment of popular novels. More interesting were the albums full of photographs. There were more pictures of scenes from ballets, but most fascinating to me were those showing her and Katenka at what must have been a summer house near a lake. The girls sat next to each other on a wide wooden swing that hung from the branch of a large tree, both wearing wreaths of wildflowers. Another showed them in a boat, holding their oars at the ready. Many captured picnics on a broad lawn, and in these were two other individuals.

  “That’s Mitya,” I said, pointing to a young spectacled man. “But who is the other?”

  “Who is asking?” The voice came from the doorway, behind us. I recognized it from when I had crouched on the floor of the Mariinsky costume shop. Every fiber of my being shrieked to attention. The man who had argued with Katenka was standing not five paces from us, a shocking look of anger on his face, a face identical to that in the photograph I was holding.

  Ekaterina Petrovna

  November 1897

  Katenka managed, just barely, to go through the motions in company class that morning, but she moved as if pushing through a dense fog. She was grateful she did not have a lesson scheduled with Cecchetti that afternoon and relieved that she would not be performing that evening. Disappointment had consumed her when the cast was announced, as she had always loved Petipa’s Cinderella, but now she saw the omission of her name as a stroke of good fortune. She would not have to leave her flat again until tomorrow, which suited her well. She did not want to see anyone.

  Except Lev. He was the cause of all this worry. Irusya had the night off, too, because she had danced Coppélia the night before, and Lev was planning to propose to her that evening. Katenka had tried to warn him and even went back to the bookstore on her way home from class, but he would not hear her, claiming that he knew Irusya better than she when it came to certain matters.

  In the end, she gave up. She could not force him to listen, let alone force him to believe her, and now she was left pacing, waiting for that terrible, inevitable moment when he would come to her, heartbroken.

  Each hour seemed to last for days. Nothing provided her solace. She rested her hand on the back of a chair and started methodically practicing battement tendus. In a way, they were the simplest step in ballet—sliding the foot in a perfect line while keeping the toes on the floor. She repeated the step, over and over, en croix, to the front, then to the side, then to the back, again to the side, first with one foot, then the other.

  Her muscles knew the motion so well she could execute perfect tendus with little thought, and the familiar exercise soothed her
. Six o’clock passed, then seven. By nine, fear began to gnaw at her. If, through some miracle, Irusya had accepted Lev’s proposal, they would have raced to Katenka’s long ago to share the news with her. She had assumed Lev would come on his own in search of consolation had he been rebuffed, but perhaps she had been wrong.

  Bundling herself up against the snow, Katenka started for the bookstore. She did not have enough money for a droshky, so she walked, and the cold wind felt as if it would tear apart the seams of her coat. When she reached the shop, Lev was not there, but she found Mitya sitting near the stove with two of the other men she had seen there the night before.

  “What brings you here?” he asked, in a tone she did not recognize. He did not stand to greet her.

  “I am looking for my brother,” she said.

  “He’s gone, and not likely to be back anytime soon,” Mitya said. Now he rose and took her by the arm, wrenching it as he dragged her to the back room. Lev’s cot had been stripped of its linens, and all of his possessions were gone. “Did you know she would do this to him?”

  “I tried to tell him, but he would not listen.” Tears smarted in her eyes.

  “Is this the way it is with you dancers?” he asked. “Loyal only until someone richer comes along?”

  “That is a hateful thing to say.” Katenka met his angry glare. The eyes behind the lenses of his spectacles were hard and cold. “I would never do that.”

  “I want to trust you, Katenka.”

  “You can, always,” she said. “I thought you knew that.”

  “Lying is a delightful thing for it leads to the truth.”

  “You used to quote Pushkin to me.”

  “You object to Dostoyevsky?” he asked. “These are dangerous times, and we risk everything if we do not choose our friends carefully.”

  One of the men stepped into the doorway. “Can we go outside?” she whispered.

  “No,” Mitya said. “I will come to you tomorrow, at your flat, if that is agreeable to you. We will speak then.”

  Her heart was pounding. What was happening? It was bad enough that she couldn’t find Lev, but now to have Mitya lashing out at her as well? How could she endure that? “I’ve class in the morning and rehearsals until four.”

  “I will be there at five.”

  But he wasn’t. She waited until eight before giving up on him. And still she’d had no word from Lev.

  January 1900

  15

  The stranger facing us was tall and extremely broad, with square shoulders and a ruggedly handsome face framed with unkempt honey-colored curls. I ought, perhaps, to have been frightened by the menace emanating from his icy-blue eyes, but I was not. Something in his appearance—the well-cared-for but worn suit visible through his open overcoat, perhaps—tugged at me.

  “I am Lady Emily Hargreaves,” I said in Russian. “I take it you are a friend of Nemetseva’s.”

  He sneered when I introduced myself and replied in surprisingly good French. “I am not interested in your bourgeois title.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not either, particularly, but I see no need to completely abandon good manners. Who are you?”

  “That is none of your concern.” He pulled himself up to his full, and not inconsiderable, height, stepped into a wide stance, and moved his tight fists to his hips, as if to intimidate us.

  Cécile sighed. “Mon dieu, you dramatic young men! I have neither the time nor the inclination to coax you along.” She pulled one of the pictures from the corner fasteners glued onto the photograph album’s pages and flipped it over. “The names are written on the back. We know you are neither Irusya nor Katenka, and as we’re already acquainted with Mitya, that leaves only Lev.”

  “Lev, of course,” I said. “You’re Katenka’s brother.” I tried to remember everything he had said to her in the costume room at the Mariinsky. Mostly, though, I recalled the fear and pain in her voice, coupled with its unexpected force.

  “Who I am is of no consequence to you,” he said. “I have come to collect something that belongs to me.”

  “How did you enter the premises?” I asked. “I locked the door behind us.”

  “I, too, have a key.” He removed it from his pocket, waved it in front of me, and crossed purposely to a battered wooden chest, which he pulled open. It was the only piece of furniture in the flat that did not seem to fit. One side was covered with haphazard-looking notches, carved with a knife that must have been dull. After riffling through the contents, he pulled out a bundle of envelopes tied with a pale-pink satin ribbon and slipped it underneath his coat.

  “You cannot come in here and remove things,” I said, grabbing—unsuccessfully—for the letters. “There is an ongoing investigation into Nemetseva’s death.”

  “An investigation that has nothing to do with my personal property,” he said. “Good day, ladies.” Making his final word sound like a vile insult, he turned on his heel and left the apartment. I pursued him as fast as I could down the stairs, but did not catch him before he disappeared down a side street. The cold air burned my lungs, and I began to feel chilled as soon as I stopped running. Unable to determine where he had gone, I returned to the apartment to complete my search, beginning with the chest from which he had removed the papers. It was full of postcards and programs from the ballet, opera, and theatre.

  On the desk in the smaller of the sitting rooms I found blank sheets of paper identical to that used for the notes I had received. A cursory examination of the blotter on the desk did not reveal anything related to them, nor anything else of use. I had hoped to find something that would better illuminate the ballerina’s life, Irusya’s apartment, so beautifully appointed, contained little of a personal nature. Cécile and I retreated to Masha’s, where Colin planned to meet us later, and soon were ensconced in her exquisite blue drawing room.

  Masha and Cécile fell into animated conversation—something about two former lovers having a scandalous public argument over which of them should keep the dog they had once shared. I admit to not paying attention. The pictures in Nemetseva’s flat suggested she had a close relationship with Katenka’s brother. Had they been more than friends? Why hadn’t Katenka ever mentioned this? If I asked her about this now, would she still claim to have had no recent contact with him?

  I had considered professional jealousy a viable motive for Nemetseva’s murder, but had found no evidence of anyone hurt by or begrudging of her success. Agrippina Alexandrovna had—rather forcefully—suggested that Katenka alone benefitted from her friend’s murder, but I had uncovered nothing indicative of a violent or bitter streak in her. Furthermore, she could not have committed the crime herself, and I had a difficult time believing she would have hired someone else to take on the task for her. If nothing else, she couldn’t have afforded to do so. Perhaps I needed to adjust my focus. Nemetseva’s private life might prove more illuminating.

  “Masha, what do you know about Nemetseva?” I asked. “Did she have spectacular fallings-out with lovers?”

  “I remember a brief flirtation with Anatole Emsky that ended as soon as his engagement was announced.”

  “She didn’t throw him over?” I asked.

  “No, not at all.” Masha laughed. “If anything, she was the one disappointed, although I cannot imagine it had a lasting effect on her. As I said, it was extremely short-lived. I shouldn’t be surprised if the man never got so far even as kissing her.” This contradicted what Katenka had told me. I distinctly remembered her saying that Irusya had ended the relationship and that she had done it badly. “Later there was a prince—Nikolai Danilovich Ukhov—with whom she fell deeply in love. It was rather sweet, if a bit indiscreet for my taste. She was so young and so infatuated it was impossible for her to hide her feelings.”

  “Did it cause a scandal?” I asked.

  “Not as such,” Masha said. “It did, however, sate Petersburg’s appetite for gossip. They conducted the affair in plain view and ended it when the prince married. She managed her h
eartbreak with dignity—never spoke of it—but everyone agreed that afterward she infused her dancing with a deeper level of emotion. From then on, I’ve heard nothing about her private life. There was a flirtation with the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich later, but it was never serious on either side. The man is old enough to be her father and categorically devoted to his wife. They were never anything more than friends, amusing each other.”

  Masha’s story explained why Nemetseva valued discretion in her relationship with Vasilii; she would not want to act out another affair in public after such a devastating outcome. It also made me wonder about the ripples caused by her heartbreak. How much did Nikolai Danilovich’s wife know about her husband’s previous love? If anything had transpired to bring it to the forefront of gossip again, Masha would have heard and mentioned it, but what if the wife discovered something on her own? Something that might inspire a jealous rage. Recalling the police evidence that the murderer had to be considerably taller than Nemetseva, I decided it was unlikely that the prince’s wife had struck the fatal blows, although I admit to being rather taken with the idea. My imagination was getting the better of me.

  A footman in a powdered wig and elegant emerald green-and-gold livery entered the room and announced my husband’s arrival. Colin followed close on the man’s heels, his face red with cold. “It’s bitter out there,” he said, warming his hands in front of Masha’s large fire. “Any luck at Nemetseva’s apartment?”

  I told him what we had found and how Lev had interrupted us. “He wouldn’t confirm his identity, but it is obvious he’s Katenka’s brother.”

  “That’s rather in line with what I learned about the dagger this afternoon. I consulted a man I’ve known for some time and whom I trust absolutely. He is an adjutant attached to an admiral,” Colin said. “He recognized the weapon as one given to officers as part of their uniforms and dated it from somewhere between eighteen seventy and eighteen eighty. He confirmed my suspicion that there is no way to identify to whom it belonged, but when I told him it may be the instrument of Nemetseva’s death and asked if he could think of any naval connections she might have, he surprised me. He said that Katenka’s father had been a navy man and that he had known him quite well when they were both early on in their careers. He never met his daughter, but recognized her name when he read an interview with Nemetseva in which she mentioned how close she and Katenka were.”