by Duncan Kyle
The King's Commisar
Duncan Kyle
One of the truly different foreign-intrigue novels in recent years. This story shuttles between 1915 Russia and 1980 England. A dead man leads the septuagenarian director of a bank founded by the legendary Basil Zaharoff through a multi-layered mystery backward in time to the Russian Revolution, and the author makes it work.
Extract from the diaries of the late Capt. J. R. A, Walters, DSC, RN, Captain (1917-21) of HMS
Airedale. Entry for April 19,1918:
During the night the man came up on my bridge and asked permission to remain a while. The sea was high that night, for we were bucking into a strong nor’easter. For two hours or so he stood quietly by the bridge wing door, watching Airedale's bow lift and fall, half a smile on his lips and an odd look on his face. He was a handsome fellow, too - what one could see of him behind the black whiskers, for he had a full set - and I judged from his stance and bearing he must be Royal Navy, and twenty-six years of age or thereabouts. He stood easily on the canting deck, back straight as a gun barrel. A sailor, beyond a doubt.
The man who must have been Walters's passenger was born in 1892, and he lived to be seventy-eight, but that is the only description of him in youth anyone was able to find, though his history was later investigated with great vigour by squads of Treasury men. So many of his tracks had been covered by time or by events or, more often, with intent, that hardly anything remained. The foregoing passage of Captain Walter's diary entry is also not without interest: Ordered aboard flagship and went, all a-tremble, wondering what offence I had committed, only to be greeted, on saluting the quarter-deck, by Beatty's glossy flag lieutenant in person!. Given orders: Airedale to be made ready at once for sea. She would be temporarily detached from the fleet and would await, with steam up, the arrival of an unnamed man who would be brought to her in Admiral Beatty's own barge. When the man was aboard, Airedale was to sail at once. Only after clearing Scapa was I to open the sealed envelope containing sailing orders. And there was more of this, all said in a low and mysterious tone: our passenger was not to be engaged in conversation by myself or anyone else! How our masters love their mysteries!
Well, the fellow arrived and with him came a goodish amount of baggage for a man alone. I gave him Number One's cabin, which didn't please Porky much . . .
The diary entry concluded:
Put him off at Bergen in Norway, where he was met at the quayside, and then without waste of time I put back to Scapa to rejoin the Fleet.
Captain Walters's daughter, who now owns the diaries, said her father had wondered to the end of his life about the identity of his passenger and that there had been an occasion, some time in the late 1920s, when Walters, introduced to Admiral Beatty at a fleet reunion, had asked Beatty direct about the incident. Ten years had gone by, after all, and it could hardly still be a great secret. Walters afterwards told his daughter that Beatty only gave his celebrated grin and said he could recall nothing of the incident. One final picture of the man from life was unearthed in Sainte-Maxime in the south of France. The last housekeeper, Anne-Marie Frey, a Frenchwoman by now in her ninetieth year, was able to furnish a word picture of sorts, of him as an old man. He was bald. He wore spectacles. He had a white beard and a white moustache. He sounded, and probably looked, like thousands of other elderly gentlemen. She remembered him well but said there was so little to describe. He had no particular interests, or close friends.
He was just an old man who lived alone. But there was one thing. He slept always with a photograph on the table by his bed.
Alas, m'sieu, destroyed with his other trifles; there was so little and his instructions were perfectly clear. This photograph - was it of a man or of a woman?
Oh, a woman, m'sieu!
Do you know her name?
I cannot be certain though I believe so. The photograph was destroyed before I could compare. Compare?
With a picture I saw in a book, later.
Of the same person?
Oui.
The name?
It is a great sadness, m'sieu, if I am right. She was a princess, the daughter of the Russian Tsar. I see her picture in a book and at once I recognize her. She was Maria, but they called her Marie. . .
CHAPTER ONE
His Debt goes Marching on
The car park, at thousands of pounds a square foot, was worth a fortune to any developer. In theory, it offered room for four large cars or half a dozen smaller ones to enter and turn, but in fact it contained only two regal spaces. The rest of the area had been made into a garden, blooms appropriate to the season being tended throughout the year by an elderly gardener with a green thumb and a very substantial appropriation of funds. An office building could easily have been constructed upon the site, and in the opinion of a great many people in the City of London should have been erected long ago. Such people were given to talk of assets unused, money going to waste, and ostentation. Car park and garden could be put to better, profitable purpose and in a City of London densely-packed with expensive office space the argument had its point. But this cavilling, though outwardly rational, though founded upon sound calculation and good husbandry, was in truth more emotional, its roots in envy. Proprietors, chairmen, senior partners, those men of substance who controlled great enterprises, were simply jealous. The car park belonged to, and adjoined, the private banking house of Hillyard, Cleef, at 6 Athelsgate. Its two celebrated parking spaces were used by the two most senior partners; and by no one else, ever. It was even rumoured in the City that when, at the time of some Royal Occasion at St Paul's Cathedral, close by, an informal request had been made from Buckingham Palace, a deaf ear had been turned. But then, rumours about Hillyard, Cleef had long abounded.
On that spring morning, as most mornings, the royal blue Bentley belonging to Sir Horace Malory halted for a moment in the street outside and his chauffeur got out to unlock the gold-painted chain which guarded the two parking spaces. The car was then driven through, and took its place beside an immense black Lincoln. Malory got out, grunting a little. 'You're to pick up Lady Malory at eleven, Horsfall,' he said. 'She's going to Harrods, I understand, then Burlington House.'
'Yes, Sir Horace. At five, here?'
'Not a minute later.' Sir Horace, at seventy-eight, liked to be back in Wilton Place, whisky in hand, by five-twenty, 'Daffodils are coming up well, are they not?'
'Wish mine were as good, sir. ' Horsfall climbed back into the Bentley, turned and drove out, pausing to refasten the chain.
Sir Horace lingered a minute or two, looking at the immaculate flower-beds. Snowdrops were fading, crocuses aglow, daffodils high and ready to burst, and tulips were marshalled to follow. He was no gardener, but appreciation of handsome surroundings came naturally to him. He gave a little sigh, surprising himself, and wondered for how many more years the flowers would be there. Young Pilgrim wouldn't actually override him, but at seventy-eight there couldn't be many more years left, and then Pilgrim wouldn't hesitate: there'd be builders stamping past the chain before the first spadeful of earth rattled on his coffin lid. Of course it wasn't the flowers themselves, no, no; he knew himself too well to believe that. Rather it was having the garden, here, in this place. The flowers were a symbol of eminence. Like the gold.
Swinging his stick a little, he walked out of the car park and round the corner, and stopped. Workmen were busy at the front door of Hillyard, Cleef.
To the man who appeared to be in charge, Malory said, What's all this?'
The man turned. 'What's it to you, mate?'
Mate, Malory thought. Mate Still, there was not much to be done about workmen's manners. He said mildly, 'I work here. Even sign some of the bills. Tell me.'
'You ought
to know, then,' the man said aggressively.
My father, Malory thought with regret, would have broken his stick across this oaf's back. He looked at the opening and saw the old mahogany door was being taken from its hinges; and leaning against the wall a few feet away was a door-sized rectangle, wrapped in corrugated paper.
'Ah,' he said, 'I see. We're to have a new door.'
'Good morning, Sir Horace,' a girl he recognized as a secretary said, nipping past him in embarrassment, an hour late and as aware of it as he was.
' 'Morning. ' He touched his bowler hat to her, and found the workman looking hard at him.
'You the boss, then?'
'In a manner of speaking. Tell me about the door.'
'Thought you was an accounts clerk. Well, guv, that old door's coming out, that and the fanlight, and this one goes in.'
'Handsome, is it?' He moved towards the thing and ripped at the covering. Something shiny and coppery gleamed at him.
'Reflecting glass, that is, guv. Three-quarters of an inch thick. Weighs a bleedin' ton, I'll tell you.'
it would, yes. But what takes the place of the fanlight?' Like the old door, the fanlight was Georgian and exquisite.
'Door's curved at the top, see. Takes up the whole space. Smashing thing it is, all copper. You can see out, but no nosey bleeder can see in. And it's reinforced.'
'Charming,' said Malory gently. 'A fine match for the name-plate, there.' He glanced at the plate with distaste. For seventy years nothing but a small, silver square had indicated that this was the home of Hillyard, Cleef. Generations of women had worked on it with silver polish until the copperplate inscription had been worn almost away.
Pilgrim, typically, had moved at once to change it. The new one, in stainless steel, was inscribed in a modern lettering:
HILLYARD + CLEEF
And that, Malory thought, since there hadn't been a genuine Hillyard in the bank for a hundred years, or a Cleef either, was unnecessary and even misleading.
'And that's coming off, too, guv.'
'The plate - changing it again?'
'Yer. We got another. Want to see it?' The man fished out a small package from behind the new door, and slid out the new plate. 'Brushed stainless, guv.' The man held it for Malory's inspection. 'Somebody don't like that one there.'
Malory's distaste deepened. The lettering this time was modern-barbaric. It now read HILLYARD & CLEEF
and reminded him of the figures spewed out by their various computers.
'Like it, guv? I reckon it's great. Just like a record cover.'
Malory said, 'Certainly your description is apt. Thank you for showing me. Good morning.'
'S'okay. 'Ere, guv. You couldn't organize us some coffee, could you?'
Malory smiled bleakly, I expect so.'
He stepped past the old door, which now hung drunkenly from a single hinge, and paused for a moment, looking at the door's familiar numeral: the slender, cursive, brass figure six which for decades had been the colophon on the bank's stationery. A smaller version, finer and in gold, hung from Malory's watch-chain. He was thinking that the Almighty sometimes handed out talents in a seriously unbalanced way. Pilgrim was superlatively well-equipped as a banker: sensitive antennae, rapid mind, a good eye for the possible and an even better eye for the impracticable; toughness, skill in negotiation, the ability to think well on his feet. All that: yet in matters of taste Master Pilgrim would have made a very fine Goth. Slowly, thinking about Laurence Pilgrim, Sir Horace Malory ascended the stairs to the first floor. The day had already provided its first surprise, and there would be others. Pilgrim, six months in London after a meteoric rise in New York, was still engaged in a process he called 'getting acquainted with the total landscape'. When Malory once enquired what he meant, Pilgrim explained: 'I like to know all the flowers by name.' It meant Pilgrim was working a sixteen-hour day, prodding sticks into every corner.
'Oh, Sir Horace,' Mrs Frobisher said, 'I'm so glad you're here. Mr Pilgrim has called a meeting at eleven.' She stood waiting for his hat, coat and stick, and put them away in a wardrobe that was part of the furnishing of her office.
'Be surprised if he hadn't,' Malory said.
'Just time for some coffee, though.'
He sat at his desk, a little heavily. For a man his age, Malory was, and knew he was, quite unusually spry. The stairs took it out of him a bit nowadays, but it was a private point of honour to avoid the lift.
'Oh, Mrs Frobisher, that reminds me,' he said as she came in with the tray, set with two silver pots and a Crown Derby cup and saucer. 'There's a party of men downstairs. One of them asked me, now let me see: yes, he wanted to know could I organize some coffee?'
She gave her little laugh. Mrs Frobisher had been Malory's private secretary for two decades, and the laugh was her only real fault. 'You mean the workmen?'
'That what they are? I took them for Vandals.'
She missed the reference, and the laugh came again. 'I'll see to it, Sir Horace. It is a pity to move that door, though. So elegant, wasn't it?'
Sir Horace poured his own coffee, as he preferred to do, black this morning, glanced at his watch, and busied himself with his morning cigar, a Romeo No.3. He made a small ceremony of cutting and lighting, and settled himself to ten minutes of civilized enjoyment. Life, these days, he reflected, appeared to consist entirely of meetings, and damned dull a lot of them were. An hour and a half later, the morning's meeting having proved quite as tedious as usual, he was allowing the discussion to pass by him, and considering lunch. The food served in the partners' room was moderately good, but he knew from much recent sad experience that the meeting was certain to continue across the luncheon table. On the other hand, if he went to his club - well, things there weren't too inviting nowadays. The beef was usually all right, but beef wasn't on the menu every day . . . He realized Pilgrim was addressing him.
'I do beg your pardon, Laurence. What was that again?'
'There's this payment here, Horace. Fifty thousand pounds on the seventeenth of July every year to Zurich’s-bank. You know anything about that?'
He was instantly awake. 'I think I might.'
'Care to explain? This has been going on for years. Started nineteen-twenty, for God's sake! That's a heck of a time -'
Gently Malory interrupted. 'I'll have a word afterwards, Laurence.'
Laurence Pilgrim's evident exasperation did not surprise Malory. 'Look, Horace, we ought to get this thing out in the sunlight.'
Malory said mildly, 'A point or two for your private ear, no more. Better, I think.'
'Well, okay.'
With the meeting at an end, or at any rate adjourned while the participants washed prior to resumption over food, Malory followed Pilgrim through to the rosewood-and-chrome of the newly-furnished office.
"Have you the file, or just a note of the payment?'
'The file. Right here.' Pilgrim held it up. 'Fifty thousand for sixty years, Horace. That's three million before we even start computing interest. What in hell's going on?'
'May I see?' Malory opened the folder. It contained merely a single typed sheet of paper, on which were set out instructions for payment. At the bottom were a few handwritten words. 'It says, "See Senior Partner's note,"' Malory said. 'Did you check up on that?'
'No.'
'Then perhaps you should.'
Pilgrim said, 'What's a Senior Partner's note?'
'Well, when things last a long time, like this,' Malory said, 'sometimes they go on well beyond the lifetimes of the people originally concerned. And sometimes matters of discretion are involved also. You see?'
'I suppose. But sixty years!'
'I'll have the Senior Partner's Notes sent up.' Malory picked up the telephone and gave instructions to Mrs Frobisher. 'They're kept for safety in the basement safe,' he explained to Pilgrim. 'Most remiss of me not to have mentioned it to you before. Supposed to be my job to introduce you to our curious ways, after all -'
'Horace.'
'Er, yes.' Malory stopped burbling.
'We're talking about fifty thousand pounds a year, right? For sixty years, right? Horace, how long were you Senior Partner?'
'Thirty years, or so, I think. Yes, thirty-two.'
'You never questioned a sum like that - never?"
'Not me, no.'
A tap on the door heralded Mrs Frobisher, accompanied by a member of the security staff carrying an old, oaken, brass-bound box.
'M'key's on my watch-chain,' Malory said. 'The other's in your safe, I do believe.'
They fumbled with the keys, finally lifting the lid. 'It's like Captain Kidd's treasure's in this thing,' Pilgrim said. 'Why the melodramatics? What's wrong with a security file in a strong safe? No, don't say it - it's traditional.'
'There'll be a number on the paper,' said Malory.
Pilgrim looked. 'Twenty-eight.'
'Ah. Just a moment. Yes, here we are.' He extracted an envelope, glanced at it. 'Addressed to the Senior Partner. That's you now, old chap.'
Pilgrim took a stainless steel paper-knife from his desk, slit the envelope and removed a sheet of paper. He read it, then laughed sharply.
'Humorous, is it,' Malory said. 'That's unusual.'
'Don't know about that. It sure is melodramatic' Pilgrim handed him the paper. Malory took his half-lens spectacles from the top pocket of his jacket. 'Well, now, let me see.' He read the note and handed it back. 'Clear enough, I should have thought.' He removed his spectacles.
'Clear?' Pilgrim looked at Malory as though he might be mad. 'Let's have it again -'
He read aloud: '"At no time must this payment be missed. Nor is it to be questioned at any time, for any reason. Whatever the future circumstances of the bank, the payment must have priority. Failure to follow this instruction would have extremely severe consequences." Initialled with two Zs,' said Pilgrim, 'and undated. Who was that with the Zs?'
'Sir Basil,' said Malory.
'Who?'
'Zaharoff.'
Pilgrim's fingers drummed for a moment on the red leather of his blotter. 'Look, Horace, I've heard of him. Sure I have. I know he was important and able and tricky and mysterious and all that, but hell - he's been dead fifty years!'
