Theater of the Crime (Alan Stewart and Vera Deward Murder Mysteries Book 6)

by Неизвестный

  “I know next to nothing about Russian history,” said Alan, “so...what happened to Rasputin?”

  “He’d already been assassinated by the end of 1916,” said Vera, “by other nobles, relatives of the Romanovs, worried about his influence over the royal family and the tsar’s decision making processes. They questioned the way the tsar ran the war and Russia with that dubious kind of guidance, and critics didn’t like it that the powerful mystic monk came from peasant stock. As Ben said, the sexual rumors involving Tsarina Alexandra didn’t help the family’s position as the ruling monarchs. Rasputin gained favor with Tsar Nicholas by ‘curing’ the heir Alexei of hemophilia, using hypnotism or mysticism of some kind. Rasputin also claimed he could predict the future, and with the tsar’s blessing, he had complete access to the throne and all the bedrooms, which raised more fear.”

  “That sounds shaky,” said Alan.

  “Adds to the concern about the tsar’s judgment,” said Ben. So with Rasputin’s implied divinity and his influence over the court, he sold political offices to friends and admirers, which added to the shabby ineptness of it all. So a group of nobles decided to put an end to Rasputin, with the tsar away leading Russian troops on the Eastern Front. A prince and a grand duke got together with others and tried to kill the priest in secret. Many foes of Rasputin complained about his voracious appetite for sex and liquor. Rumor had it that when not seducing the tsarina, he and she conspired together to broker a shady treaty with Germany, her country of birth, to end the war in its favor.”

  “Seriously?” asked Alan.

  “It gets more complicated than that,” said Ben. “Although German by birth, she’s the second granddaughter of Queen Victoria. It’s believed the hemophilia that threatened the Russian throne came from Queen Vickie.”

  Vera nodded in concurrence and stopped to stare closely at a picture of a girl sitting almost on Rasputin’s lap. “She’s much darker than the Romanovs,” said Vera. “I wonder who she is?”

  “Do you remember the names of the girls?” asked Ben.

  Vera shook her head slowly. “Other than Grand Duchess Anastasia, not really. I’d have to think about it for a minute, but they’ll come to me. At any rate, the assassins poisoned Rasputin, but it had no immediate effect—so they shot him three times, including once at point blank. A visiting Englishman who’d joined them delivered the fatal shot.”

  “An Englishman?” asked Ben.

  “So I’ve been told,” said Vera. “Only the English rival the Russians when it comes to spying. They had a young noble, a military liaison who went to Oxford with a Russian prince named Felix, a reported bi-sexual married to Princess Irina, a beauty Rasputin wanted desperately to bed. England feared Rasputin might influence the tsarina and convince Russia to withdraw from the war, which would leave the Brits with a much bigger fight on the Western Front. England needed Russia to help them keep Germany busy on two fronts. So the conspirators used the allure of Irina to draw Rasputin into the palace where they killed him—or started the process anyway. They intimated that the lonely princess had an interest in seeing the mystic for private counseling.”

  “You have a much better source of information than I do,” said Ben.

  Vera beamed a smile and shook her head. “Rasputin had been having headaches for months and predicted his own death. In the palace he refused the offer of wine and poisoned sweets, but while waiting for Irina, he got bored and indulged in the treats. But the poison didn’t work as expected, at least not right away, so they worried he might survive until daylight, and then they wouldn’t be able to dispose of his body without drawing notice. So they shot him in the back at close range to put a quick end to it all.”

  “After celebrating his death,” Vera continued, “and while congratulating themselves on how bold and clever they’d been, one conspirator decided to check on the dearly departed. But Rasputin felt warm, and while being touched he batted an eye open. Startled into a panic, he got up and ran out of the house, running across the lawn, threatening to tell the tsarina. The nobles chased and shot him three times more. Then they took his dead body back to the palace, wrapped him in a rug, and finally threw him into the frozen Neva River, once they found a hole big enough to fit him through the ice.

  “That’s pretty gruesome,” said Alan.

  “It’s not over yet,” said Vera. “Police officials fished Rasputin out of the river two days later. The autopsy showed he had water in his lungs.”

  “He drowned?” asked Alan.

  Vera nodded. “Appears so, but I’m no expert on whether or not that’s conclusive evidence of drowning. Devastated, the royal family had Rasputin’s body buried on palace grounds, but over a year later, following the Revolution, the Bolsheviks dug up the body to cremate it so zealous fanatics wouldn’t rally around it. During the burning process, Rasputin sat bolt upright in the fire, which shocked the hell out of everybody there.”

  “No kidding?” asked Alan.

  “I’d heard that part of the story before,” said Ben, “so I asked the Butterworth morticians about it. They told me that if you don’t sever the tendons before cremating, the muscles contort and that kind of thing will happen, and it very well may have happened in St. Petersburg. There’s also a rumor that the assassins cut off Rasputin’s penis, kept it as a talisman, and that it holds magical powers of some kind, but I’m told by others that is purely legend.”

  “Keeping the penis or the magic powers?” asked Alan.

  “Both...I’m hoping,” said Ben.

  “Good Lord, I hope so too,” said Vera.

  “So back to these pictures,” said Alan. “What do you make of them?

  Vera had them all in her hands and leafed through them slowly, one at a time. She flipped the one over with the girl on Rasputin’s lap. Written in a mix of English and what appeared to be Russian were names penciled in. “Alexei, Maria, Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, Grigori, and another Maria,” said Vera. “Those are the names of the tsarevich, the grand duchesses, and Rasputin. I’m thinking the words in Russian explain who the girl is on Rasputin’s lap.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” said Ben.

  Vera flipped over another photograph, a candid that included servants standing nearby the royals. Penciled on back were more names and more Russian. “This looks like it says ‘Ekateringburg,’” said Vera. “Isn’t that where the Bolsheviks murdered them?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Ben, “but that sounds right.”

  “More Russian writing and names we’ve seen before, with additional ones of ‘Anna Demidova,’ ‘Yeveg... something Botkin,’ and ‘Alexie Trupp.’ I’m going to guess these people are part of the house staff,” Vera said, flipping the picture over and back again, lining up names with the photographs, “and this might have been the place of their last stand, before they were killed. If that’s true, how in the world would Tasha have come up with these?’

  “I suppose we’re going to have to ask her,” said Alan.

  “So what did you find in St. Laurent’s dressing room?” asked Ben.

  Vera shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing remarkable, which is rather remarkable in itself. It could be that he and Yvette did all their makeup and dressing upstairs in their room, which is nearby enough to be handy, but I didn’t find much more than a top hat, gloves, basic make-up, and brushes in there.”

  15

  The only seats available in The Moore Theater for Wang Tao Chia’s magic act were underneath the balcony, main floor. While purchasing their tickets, the trio spotted Nikolai Ivanovich in a tuxedo and top hat, sliding through the crowd.

  “What are you staring at?” Vera asked Alan.

  “Nikolai Ivanovich.”

  “This time without the beard,” said Vera. “You still sore at him?”

  Alan exhaled and nodded. “Curious to know if he leaves a slime trail
behind him like other slugs.”

  “I understand that slugs are one of the state’s symbols,” said Ben. “He could be a protected species.”

  “They are not a state symbol,” said Vera. “That’s an urban legend. Honestly, you two. I can’t take you anywhere.”

  Vera led the way, and the men followed, stopping for popcorn and soda along the way. “Let me indulge my butter and salt craving,” she said. “I didn’t have a chance to eat earlier, and I used to eat a ton of popcorn back in the day.”

  They worked their way through the late arriving crowd, and an usher pointed them to seats just inside the door.

  “Not my favorite view back here,” said Vera, “but there are no pillars and the theater is still a showcase. The Orpheum Circuit bought this in the twenties for their vaudeville shows. They staged all their premier acts here, from across the country, until they opened the new Orpheum on Fifth. Then they intentionally downgraded this one, removing the luxury boxes that jutted out from the sides, near the stage.”

  “I like the unobstructed view you can get from here,” said Ben. “Every old theater I’ve ever been in you had to deal with the support pillars.”

  “Groundbreaking for its time,” said Vera, “but behind its time racially. The top tier has a separate outside entrance, giving ‘colored’ people their own entrance and seating, but I think the management has stopped that practice. The Coliseum had one of those too.”

  “One of the reasons I like living here,” said Ben, “is Seattle doesn’t have all the hang-ups common to other parts of the country—or at least not to the same degree.”

  “Amen to that,” said Vera.

  “So what’s the story on Wang Tao Chia?” Ben asked Alan. “What did Sylvie tell you?”

  “His signature act is where a firing squad of Boxer revolutionaries shoot at him with old fashioned muskets, but he manages to catch the lead using a Chinese plate as a shield,” said Alan. “The plate and the trick has something to do with the origination of the Boxer cult. They claimed to be impervious to foreign bullets, especially British, so his using a piece of china is a form of defiance, showing how he’s protected by a common dish from their bullets.

  “I thought shooting acts were banned,” said Vera. “There’ve been a number of magicians wounded or killed over the years. I think the numbers are in the teens.”

  “The train wreck syndrome,” said Ben. “People want to see tragedy involving others. It somehow makes them feel more alive.”

  “Other than his signature act, I don’t know much about what he does,” said Alan. “He reportedly doesn’t speak English, except to say, ‘Much good,’ when he’s pleased. So his assistants interpret for him, but since he spent time in a British Crown colony, Sylvie figures he should be able to speak a little English.”

  “Sylvie sounds like a clever girl,” said Vera. “And she said he uses an interpreter? My bet is that the interpreter will be a she, and she will have visible assets, as well as responsibilities other than just speaking for him.”

  “Another Yvette?” asked Alan.

  Vera nodded as she thought. “More like Yvette and Sylvie combined, with a stronger stage presence, like that of a director during opera rehearsals. While Chia’s busy working his tricks, she can coach him as well as distract us when necessary.”

  “So she’ll be another looker?” asked Ben. “That will make our taxing surveillance much easier.”

  “Honestly, you guys,” said Vera. “You can count on the looks. Sex sells, but that’s not a bad thing. I certainly took advantage of that and made a living for years. And if the women in the audience are honest with themselves, they’ll admit they love seeing the naked female form. After all, how many statues do you see of naked men? Two? Rodin’s The Thinker and Michelangelo’s David. Maybe a few more, but you see countless ones of women, and that’s not a bad thing. It sets a standard of beauty and women want to see how they measure up.”

  “We are in total agreement,” said Ben. “But I have seen a few more statues of males in Rome, fine specimens of male anatomy, except some pope had their penises chiseled off, which took away from the artwork.”

  Alan grinned. “That had to hurt.”

  Vera playfully slapped Alan’s upper arm. He leaned back and started to weave his hand along her armrest, intertwining it with hers, but she squeezed it with her arm against her body, flicked his hand, shooing it away, while shaking her head without looking at him. Not the time or place for that.

  The orchestra struck up a few bars of fanfare, as the dapper Nikolai Ivanovich strutted across the apron to the front of the stage. The large spotlight caught and followed him, while the audience applauded politely.

  “Why is he here tonight?” Alan asked Vera. “Is he cashing in on the free publicity that Alexander gave him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Vera. “That backfired on him last time.”

  “Maybe he likes playing with fire,” said Ben.

  “At least we’re close to an exit this time,” said Vera.

  Ivanovich thanked the crowd, introduced himself. “Welcome to The Moore Theater,” he said. “For tonight, we are bringing you exotic entertainment from the Orient. It’s a bit unusual for us in that the magician doesn’t speak more than a word or two of English. We can’t provide you with subtitles, but we can avail ourselves of the services of a pretty young China doll, who will serve as our interpreter.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Ivanovich continued, “may I present to you from Peking, China, Liu Yang!”

  The crowd applauded enthusiastically as the curtains opened part way. Ivanovich backed out of the light and quietly exited the stage as a woman in brightly colored silks emerged into the spotlight.

  Vera nudged Alan playfully and smirked. “I told you she’d be pretty—and all dolled up for you.”

  The small woman shuffled to the front of the stage apron, opening and closing a delicate fan in front of her face, taking mincing steps, as if her feet had been broken and bound while in her youth. Asian music from the orchestra pit accompanied her gliding shuffle, the music rich with plinking strings, shaking cymbals, and finally a gong.

  “Sounds like they brought their own instruments,” said Ben.

  “I imagine it would be hard for the local orchestra to fake it for very long,” said Vera.

  The woman stopped in front of the closed curtain and bowed obsequiously, as if she wanted to hide behind the fan. Her face painted in the fashion of Chinese opera characters, the features carefully drawn over white makeup with a pink tint to it. She had arched eyebrows that pulled her eyes upward into a mild slant, while tiny cupid bow lips below a small nose served as the bright focal point on her youthful face. Her opal blue headdress, festooned with colored glass beads and bright decorations stuck out exotically, shaking and bobbing as she moved, while her matching robe swept elegantly across the stage.

  “I am Liu Yang,” said the woman when the applause subsided, her voice clear but halting, as if English were not her preferred language. She followed by setting the ground rules, explaining the need for her to interpret for Wang Tao Chia. Her narration told that his origins were actually Manchurian, from the north of China, which meant he spoke a dialect not common to the majority of local Chinese immigrants, should there be Cantonese speakers in the audience. Wang Tao supported the embattled British Crown during the Rebellion, while he expressed disdain for the Chinese Nationalist Boxers, who pursued him with vengeance, wanting him dead because of his pro-Western loyalties. She reminded the audience that members of the Righteous Harmony Society had killed European missionaries in Peking during the turn of the century uprising.

  Wang Tao had recently arrived in America after publicly disgracing wizarding rival, Chin Ling Foo, who forfeited 1,000 pounds rather than duel Wang Tao on stage with feats of magic. Each had claimed the other a fake and impo
ster until that point, and following the showdown, which didn’t occur, the press “rightfully acknowledged” Wang Tao Chia as the greatest magician alive. As Liu Yang spoke, the curtain continued to slowly pull back on a darkened stage. Faintly visible, an arched bridge, curved boughs, and roof rafters came into view, as if the audience were entering a Chinese village depicted on a porcelain plate. A muscular, bare-chested man struck a huge gong, which soon disappeared, being raised into the rafters. As the disc disappeared, a dim spot light slowly focused and brightened on the silhouette of an Asian man, hands on hips, standing in profile.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Liu Yang, “I present to you the world renowned master of Chinese magic and mysticism, Wang Tao Chia.”

  From the orchestra pit, Chinese carnival music with pounding drums and clashing cymbals created a noisy cacophony that filled the theater, while on stage a dozen young Chinese men and women carrying streamers danced across the stage, chasing a Chinese dragon, with several human legs visible underneath, like a centipede, circling back and forth around the stage.

  Wang Tao strutted bowlegged to the forefront, passing through the midst of the other performers, wearing a gold embroidered silk robe. As the magician stepped out of the darkness, into the light, his features became clearer, revealing that he, too, wore operatic makeup, with painted brows, heavy eyeliner, and a matching mustache, similar to what Groucho Marx wore in films. A long plaited queue hung down from beneath a silk and fur hat, dancing back and forth with every step he took.

  Wang Tao bowed formally to the audience, and took the circular cap from his head and handed it to an assistant, revealing a head nearly shaved, save for a patch of hair in the back that grew long into the braided queue. He continued to make himself comfortable by taking off his colorful cape, twirling it around in front of him like a matador, back and forth, twisting it about to show the audience every facet of it. He stretched it out in front of him, fluffed it as if he were making a bed, and then laid it on the floor. While lowering the cape, it took on the shape of a large object, which hadn’t been on the stage before. Wang Tao withdrew the magic carpet and revealed a large wooden tub, full to the brim with water and a white swan that flapped its wings and splashed about in the tub. Two assistants picked up the tub, gentled the swan, and carried it off the stage, while the audience applauded.