Blackstone and the Endgame

by Sally Spencer

  Vladimir watched them walk across the courtyard and disappear down the steps to the basement.

  ‘It will soon be over and done with,’ he said.

  But to Blackstone’s mind, he did not sound entirely convinced.

  TWENTY

  It was at around two o’clock in the morning that Yusupov paid another visit to the Renault parked next to the Moika Canal.

  ‘Rasputin has eaten two cakes and drunk two glasses of wine laced with cyanide, and it all seems to have had no effect on him,’ he told Vladimir, with a hint of hysteria in his voice. ‘He asked me to sing him some songs. Do you hear me? He asked me to sing him some songs!’

  ‘Calm down,’ Vladimir said.

  ‘The man can’t be killed,’ Yusupov replied, in what was almost a sob. ‘He has supernatural powers.’

  ‘He’s a man just like any other,’ Vladimir told him. ‘If the cyanide did not kill him, it was because the cyanide was no good.’

  ‘But Dr Lazovert assured me …’

  ‘Do you remember the story of what happened to the circus elephant, somewhere in southern Russia?’ Vladimir interrupted him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then there you have it. The elephant did not have supernatural powers, did it? It was simply that the poison had lost its potency. And that must be what has happened in this case, too.’

  ‘But if I can’t poison him, what can I do?’ Yusupov whined. ‘You must tell me what to do, Count.’

  ‘It is not for a count to tell a prince how to act,’ Vladimir replied. ‘But,’ he added, ‘whatever you do, you cannot back down now – you have already gone too far for that.’

  ‘Yes, I have, haven’t I?’ Yusupov agreed. And then he turned and walked back towards the palace.

  ‘Tell me about the elephant,’ Blackstone said to Vladimir.

  ‘Yes, it is quite an amusing story – unless you happened to be the elephant in question,’ Vladimir replied. ‘This particular elephant was part of a circus, and his behaviour became so erratic that it was considered to be dangerous. It was decided to poison him, and since he was inordinately fond of cream cakes, a hundred of the cakes were purchased and laced with cyanide. The elephant ate them all – with obvious enjoyment – but it seemed to have no effect on him. So, in the end, they decided they would simply have to shoot him.’ Vladimir paused for a second. ‘And, given time, even someone as stupid as Prince Yusupov will realize that is what he must do with Rasputin.’

  At just after three o’clock, Yusupov appeared again.

  ‘Rasputin is dead!’ he said excitedly. ‘I shot him twice in the chest. The others wanted to help me, but I insisted on doing it alone. I am the hero who saved Russia, and my fame will live for ever.’

  ‘You will certainly be remembered,’ Vladimir replied ambigu-ously. ‘The important thing now is to get rid of the body.’

  ‘Oh, there will be plenty of time for that later,’ Yusupov said. ‘First, Dimitri and Lazovert will drive to Rasputin’s apartment – to give the impression that he had returned home – and then they will take his coat, hat and boots to the hospital train that Purishkevich runs, where Mrs Purishkevich will burn them.’

  ‘Get rid of the body now,’ Vladimir said firmly.

  ‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ Yusupov said. ‘You are a mere count, and I am a national hero.’

  ‘He’s a national idiot,’ Vladimir said, as Yusupov returned to the palace. ‘And refusing to move the corpse now had nothing to do with establishing alibis or burning clothes – he just wants more time to gloat over his trophy.’

  ‘Isn’t it about time we left?’ asked Blackstone, who was heartily sick of the whole affair.

  ‘No,’ Vladimir replied. ‘I want to stay and see just how many more mistakes they make.’

  But even a man like Vladimir – who automatically always expected the worst – could not have anticipated just how badly things would go wrong after Grand Duke Dimitri had driven away again. Even Vladimir could never have guessed what was about to happen next.

  A man, wearing a peasant blouse and baggy trousers, suddenly appeared in the palace courtyard at around four o’clock. He was staggering heavily and heading for the gate.

  ‘That can’t be …’ Blackstone gasped.

  ‘It’s Rasputin,’ Vladimir said grimly. ‘It appears that when our new national hero, Prince Felix Yusupov, said he had killed the man, he was exaggerating somewhat.’

  Another man appeared in the courtyard – a short fat man, with a pistol in his hand.

  ‘Purishkevich,’ Vladimir said.

  The first two shots that Purishkevich fired appeared to miss Rasputin completely, but after the third the starets came to a halt, and with the fourth he fell to the ground.

  Purishkevich rushed up to the fallen man and began kicking him in the head as hard as he could. Then Yusupov appeared, and together they dragged Rasputin back into the palace.

  ‘You see,’ Vladimir said to Blackstone, ‘if we had left when you wanted to, we would have missed all the excitement.’

  It was another ten minutes before a uniformed police officer walked up to the palace gate.

  Vladimir seemed to have been expecting him.

  ‘The officer will have been on duty on the other side of the canal,’ he told Blackstone. ‘In the middle of a still night like this one, he could not have failed to hear the shots.’

  The officer’s arrival had obviously been anticipated from inside the palace, too, and he was met at the gates by Yusupov and another man.

  ‘Who’s he?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘Yusupov’s major-domo,’ Vladimir replied. ‘Let us just hope it is he who is in charge now, and not our madcap prince.’

  The prince, the major-domo and the policeman talked for a few minutes, and then the policeman left.

  ‘Felix Yusupov couldn’t organize an orgy in a brothel,’ Vladimir said in disgust.

  A few minutes later, the major-domo left the palace in the direction the policeman had gone, and when he returned, he had the policeman with him.

  ‘Just how much worse can it get?’ Vladimir asked, burying his head in his hands.

  The policeman returned to his post for a second time, just before the car returned from its journey to Rasputin’s apartment and the hospital train.

  ‘Get rid of the body,’ Vladimir said softly. ‘For God’s sake, get rid of the bloody body!’

  The conspirators went back into the palace, and, at a quarter to six, emerged again, carrying a long object wrapped in canvas between them. They loaded their parcel into the car and drove away.

  ‘Now we can go,’ Vladimir said.

  Vladimir was – understandably – very gloomy when they arrived back at his apartment. For five minutes, he listlessly played with his trains, and then he abandoned them in favour of the vodka bottle.

  He drank as Blackstone had never seen him drink before, knocking back a quarter of the bottle in fifteen minutes, with no obvious sign of pleasure.

  ‘I had nothing to do with Grigori Rasputin’s assassination, did I, Sam?’ he asked.

  ‘Not directly,’ Blackstone replied.

  ‘Not at all,’ Vladimir said emphatically, and now, with more of the vodka disappearing down his throat, he was starting to sound a little drunk. ‘I had no part in the planning of it – it would have gone much more smoothly if I had – and no part in the execution of it. I was no more than a witness.’

  Strictly speaking, that was true, Blackstone thought, but it rather overlooked the incident in which Vladimir had deliberately encouraged Rasputin to expose himself, as a way of strengthening Yusupov’s resolve.

  ‘If the tsar had instructed me – or anyone in my service – to protect Rasputin, then I would have been remiss in my duties tonight,’ Vladimir continued, ‘but, for all I know, the tsar may well have wished Rasputin dead, in which case it would have been going against his wishes to have intervened.’ He took another slug of vodka. ‘You think I am merely justifying myself, don
’t you, Sam?’

  ‘And aren’t you?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘I suppose so – but I do know for a fact that the tsar was not as much under Rasputin’s spell as the tsarina was, and that, two or three times, he became so angry with the starets that he actually sent him away. And who is to say he was not jealous of the amount of attention the tsarina was paying to a mere Siberian peasant?’ He drank more vodka. ‘Perhaps, after all, my master will not be entirely unhappy that the man is dead.’

  ‘And will things in Russia get better now that Rasputin has gone?’ Blackstone asked.

  Vladimir shrugged. ‘Who can say?’

  ‘You can say – or, at least, you think you can,’ Blackstone said. ‘You have an opinion on anything and everything, and an absolute belief that that opinion is the right one.’

  Vladimir nodded slowly. ‘You’re quite right, of course,’ he said. ‘I am so intelligent that sometimes it frightens even me.’

  ‘So will things get better?’ Blackstone persisted.

  ‘No, things will not get better,’ Vladimir said. ‘The chances are that they will get much worse. When it was left up to Rasputin to decide what would be enacted and what wouldn’t, at least a few of the decisions he allowed to get through made some kind of sense. But without his guidance, the tsarina will become more erratic than ever. And that, my dear Sam, is not the worse consequence of what has happened tonight – not by a mile.’

  ‘Then what is the worst consequence?’

  ‘Rasputin’s death is the first rent in the cloak that has shrouded tsarism – and kept it safe – for centuries, and soon that rent will grow, and the cloak will be torn apart.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean,’ Blackstone admitted.

  ‘Rasputin was known to be under the tsar’s protection, and that should have been enough to ensure that no harm could ever come to him,’ Vladimir explained. ‘But now he is dead, and everyone can see that the tsar’s protection is not as absolute as it was once thought to be. And if he could not keep Rasputin alive, are there not perhaps other things that he cannot do? The magic, you see, is starting to drain away.’

  ‘Yes, I do see that,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘And if the starets can be killed, why can’t a member of the aristocracy?’ Vladimir asked. ‘Why can’t a member of the imperial family? Why can’t the tsar himself? You must be careful when extracting a brick from the foundations, that it does not bring down the whole structure, and that was what Rasputin was – a brick in the foundations of tsarism.’

  ‘If that’s what you believe, then I’m surprised you allowed the assassination,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘We have already discussed that,’ Vladimir said, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice. ‘I did not allow it – I merely did nothing to prevent it. And if Yusupov had not killed Rasputin tonight, some other aristocrat – or some politician or some jealous husband – would have put a bullet in him before the month was out. He had many enemies.’

  ‘You’re splitting hairs,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘That is what Tanya said, the night she came here to show me the poster and demand that I do something about Rasputin,’ Vladimir said. ‘And do you remember what else she said, when I told her there was nothing I could do?’

  Blackstone nodded. ‘She said, “There are times when you make me so angry that I almost hate you.”’

  ‘I would gladly give my life for my tsar,’ Vladimir said. ‘If it would serve his interest to have me slowly tortured to death, then I would submit willingly. You believe that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Blackstone said, ‘I do believe it.’

  ‘I do not fear pain, and I do not fear extinction,’ Vladimir continued, ‘but I am terrified – to the very depths of my soul – by the thought of Tanya growing to hate me.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  17th December 1916 – Julian calendar; 30th December 1916 – Gregorian calendar

  As they stood on the promenade at Brighton, looking out over a choppy sea, Patterson felt his own personal wave of depression roll over him.

  ‘If we could find Max’s lodgings in a big place like London, it should be easy enough to find Max himself in a piddling little place like this,’ Ellie Carr said, with mock-cheerfulness.

  But Brighton wasn’t such a piddling little place, Patterson told himself – it was a town of over a hundred thousand people.

  Besides, the clock was ticking. They didn’t have six days to find Max – which was how long it had taken to find his lodgings in Collingwood Street. They didn’t even have one day – because it was already ten fifteen, and at nine o’clock the next morning he would have to surrender himself at the police station.

  ‘If we don’t find him today, I’ll keep on looking myself,’ Ellie promised, reading his mind.

  And what bloody use would that be? Patterson thought.

  Ellie wasn’t a trained police officer, and even if she did find Max, how was she ever going to get him to confess to anything?

  A sudden feeling of shame and general unworthiness swept over him.

  ‘I’ll always be grateful for what you’ve done for me, Ellie,’ he said, with a slight choke in his voice, ‘and when I’m inside – with only four blank walls to stare at – I’ll draw a great deal of strength from knowing there are still good people like you on the outside.’

  ‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake,’ Ellie said, reverting to her cockney. ‘You ain’t quite dead yet, are you?’

  Patterson smiled. ‘No, I’m not quite dead yet,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then wait till they’ve screwed the lid down properly before you stop breathing,’ Ellie told him. ‘So where do we start?’

  ‘Since we’ve got so little time left, it would be better if we split up,’ Patterson told her. ‘So you take the shops and all the pubs, and I’ll check on the hotels.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Ellie agreed.

  She turned to look out at the grey sea and found herself wishing that – if only for a little while – the sun would come out.

  From what they had learned of Max so far, he seemed like the kind of man who would indulge himself whenever possible, Patterson reasoned. And since twenty-four thousand pounds would buy him rather a lot of indulgence, it was likely that he had ignored the modest side-street boarding houses and checked into one of the swanky hotels on the promenade.

  Working from this premise, he started his search in the Grand, which had been lavish with its use of Italian marble in its large foyer and was reputed to be the best hotel in Brighton.

  The clerk behind the desk looked at him as if he was something the cat had dragged in.

  ‘You’re not a guest at this hotel, are you?’ he asked with some disdain, before adding a reluctant, ‘Sir?’

  ‘Course I’m not,’ Patterson agreed pleasantly. ‘I’m an ordinary working man – just like yourself.’

  The clerk did not welcome the comparison. ‘Then if you’re not a guest, I must request you to—’

  ‘I’m here on a job,’ Patterson interrupted him. ‘I’ve come to pick up Mr Armitage and drive him to a very important meeting.’

  ‘What name did you say?’ the clerk asked.

  ‘Mr Armitage,’ Patterson repeated.

  ‘There’s no one of that name staying here,’ the clerk said.

  ‘Would you mind checking through the register, just to make sure?’ Patterson asked.

  The clerk gave the register the most cursory of glances. ‘No, not here,’ he said.

  ‘Ah!’ Patterson said.

  ‘Ah what?’ the clerk demanded.

  ‘For business reasons, Mr Armitage sometimes travels incognito,’ Patterson said. ‘That means he doesn’t use his own name.’

  ‘I know what it means,’ the clerk told him.

  ‘And the problem is that he sometimes forgets to tell his staff what new name he’s chosen.’

  ‘A problem indeed – for you,’ the clerk said unsympathetically.

  ‘That’s why I always carry a pi
cture of him around with me,’ Patterson explained, reaching into his pocket. ‘Now if you’d care to look at it …’

  ‘I have better things to do with my time than look at pictures,’ the clerk said, turning away.

  ‘But … but the last time a driver failed to pick him up from a hotel, he sacked the man,’ Patterson said.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s no concern of mine,’ the clerk said, starting to move towards the other end of the counter.

  ‘And he got the manager of the hotel to sack the poor bloody clerk as well,’ Patterson said.

  The clerk stopped and turned around.

  ‘I don’t suppose that it would do any harm just to take a quick look at it,’ he said.

  But Mr Armitage was a stranger to the clerk at the Grand, just as Mr Bainbridge was not known in the Royal, and Mr Canterbury had never been seen in the Palace.

  The air of optimism that Ellie Carr had displayed in the presence of Archie Patterson began to melt away almost as soon as she had left him, and after two hours of pounding the streets of Brighton – of seeing so many people shake their heads when she showed the photograph of Max – there was not even a trace of it left.

  It was almost inevitable, she thought, as she approached yet another public house – this one called the Mariner’s Return – that Archie Patterson – dear, lovable Archie – would end up going to jail for a long, long time. It was almost equally inevitable that Sam Blackstone would remain a fugitive, and she would never see him again.

  A large part of her life – the only important part, aside from her work – was about to be wrenched from her, and knowing that Sam wasn’t guilty (and Archie was only guilty of being a loyal friend) only made matters worse.

  So although she would continue going through the motions – visiting every pub and shop in Brighton that it was humanly possible to visit, and showing the picture around – she knew, deep inside herself, that it was all pointless.

  Vladimir had finally gone to bed at seven o’clock, looking so exhausted that Blackstone had been sure he’d sleep for hours, but he was up again at eight and had left the apartment by eight thirty.