The King's Commissar

by Duncan Kyle

  'Naturally.'

  'What a way to go, eh? Surprising, isn't it,' said the agent, musing, 'what fate has in store? An old lady - what was she? Eighty-six - an old lady actually flying off to Heaven!'

  The man chuckled. 'To Hell,' he said. 'And I never doubted she'd fly there.'

  The agent looked puzzled. 'No?'

  'Yes - on her broomstick!'

  In the height of the dog days, it made a very pleasing story: Mystery of the Banker and the Crone - that was the way most of the English papers played it. The French press had more fun: 'Was it an assignation?' asked Nice-Matin. There was an inside page feature on the celebrated strange tastes of the British. Zaharoff was not mentioned, of course, since Mme Bronard, who would gladly have yelled curses on his name from the rooftops, was silent in refrigeration, and nobody else who was willing to talk knew about him. But Hillyard, Cleef were in the papers again. Senior executives of private banks are not shot every day by old ladies wielding revolvers so powerful that the recoil hurled the firer to her death! And this was, in any case, one of the men, and certainly the banking house, which had figured so recently and so much in the still-extant controversy over Turner's great painting.

  'Lousy goddam jokes!' Pilgrim complained. 'They have this great reputation for wit, the English, but there are no laughs, just sniggers.'

  'Usually,' Malory agreed.

  'I was at a Bank of England lunch.'

  'Luncheon, yes.'

  It was the Governor, too. Some discussion on spelling. He said -' Pilgrim attempted an Old Etonian languor- 'he believed everybody at Hillyard's could spell necrophilia.'

  Malory frowned. 'Naughty.' He paused. 'We will live it down, Laurence.'

  'I'm not so sure. You may. I won't.'

  'Rubbish.'

  'Rubbish it's not, Horace. Maybe it's something in the air here. I never goofed in my life before. Here I goof all the time. Who set this ball rolling? I did. Who got Graves shot? Who had to be saved from Pepe Robizo? Every time, the answer's Pilgrim.'

  Malory said with a kind of gruffness: 'My fault really, m'dear boy. I insisted on following through.'

  Pilgrim shook his head. 'So I'm going,' he said harshly.

  'Where to?'

  'Back to the States. I tell you, Horace, on Wall Street I feel safe, my feet are on rock, my head's clear. Here I make mistakes. I don't feel I have a foothold. I'm going back where I can operate!'

  'You're wrong.'

  'No. We can't have a joke running this place and I'm turning into a joke. Every time we look at each other, Horace, every time we talk, Pepe Robizo'll be there with us. No thanks.'

  'I repeat, you're wrong. The joke who ran this bank was me. That's why you came in and I moved over. In any case, the joke's on me, too.'

  The difference,' Pilgrim said, 'is that you're an old, respected City figure. I'm Johnny-come-lately and all those bastards are enjoying it!'

  Malory pursed his lips. 'You'll go back and do what?'

  'What I did before. It's no problem.'

  'It is for me, dear boy. Lady Malory intended that I retire. Now Lady Malory is likely to be severely displeased and I tell you that is no small matter. In any case, there's the Grim Reaper-1 hear the scythe swish occasionally. It's not on, you know.'

  'It's on,' Pilgrim said, I see two scenarios here. The first is where I go and you take hold again and everything slides nicely into place. The second is where I go back to Wall Street and some other guy comes over here and runs things. Neither way should the names of Pilgrim and Hillyard, Cleef be bracketed in this City again!'

  Sir Horace spread his hands. 'It must, of course, be up to you.'

  'And I've decided. Naturally, I'll send my apologies to Lady Malory -'

  'She collects amethysts,' Malory murmured.

  'She does? I'll be sure to remember that. Anyway, you won't have to hold the baby long, Horace. Wall Street's full of bright young -'

  'Yes, isn't it!' said Malory.

  Within days Pilgrim was in New York, Harrods were packing his impedimenta, and Horace Malory, once again in control at 6 Athelsgate, was spending another fraught hour in contemplation of the most recent instructions from Dikeston. In order to obtain the next - the sixth, and penultimate instalment of the narrative, certain conditions were to be fulfilled. Sir Horace frowned as he read and re-read the typed sheet, sniffing for hidden snags but unable to detect them. That there would be snags he did not doubt, and he was reasonably sure the Turner painting must be involved, because:

  Six large copies, photographic or otherwise, of the painting Naval Vessel and Plymouth Hoe now in your possession, are to be despatched, one copy each to the following institutions, together with the number appropriate thereto.

  There followed a list of six United States banks. Opposite each name appeared what looked like an account number, consisting of two or three letters and up to a dozen digits.

  The consequent happenings were not described but it was clear to Malory that, where Dikeston was concerned, nothing came cheap. The copies had been made, for speed's sake photographically, on 10 x 8 inch transparencies.

  He buzzed for Mrs Frobisher. 'Will you send one of these to each of these.'

  'Yes, Sir Horace.'

  'Air freight them. And get them off today.'

  'Yes, Sir Horace.'

  Six American banks, Malory noted, his thumb stroking idly at the numeral which hung upon his watch-chain.

  Next day he was taking tea in mid-afternoon when the call came. 'A Mr Ed Sochaki is on the line,' Mrs Frobisher reported, 'from the Custerbank in Santa Barbara, California.'

  Malory glanced at his watch. Mr Sochaki, he reflected, must be one of those tiresome people who went to his desk at seven in the morning. He picked up the phone. 'Hello, Mr Sochaki?'

  'Sir Malory?'

  'Horace Malory speaking, yes.' Curious how often people got it wrong.

  'I got your picture.'

  'Must be a little puzzling to you,' Malory said. 'Matter of fact it puzzles us, too. Eccentric client, just following his instruction. Haw, haw.'

  'Yeah, well we got something for you. Deposited years ago, along with the instructions.'

  'Oh? Well, good,' Malory said. 'What is it?'

  'Looks like some papers. In a packet.'

  'That's fine, MrSochaki. I'd be grateful if you could send them - express if you would. '

  'Why, sure. Be glad to. There's just one thing.'

  'What's that?'

  Sochaki said, 'Well, it sounds kinda crazy, but this packet only gets sent to you after we read something in the newspapers. You understand that, Sir Malory?'

  'At the moment, no. What is it you are required to read?'

  'That you people have given something to your country.'

  'We do it all the time,' Malory said. 'It's called income tax.' But he knew what was coming.

  And it came. 'A painting. By a guy called Turner.'

  'When you read that,' Malory said sadly, 'then you send the packet. Not before?'

  'Why, no. Our client's instructions -'

  'Cannot be varied?'

  'Certainly not, Sir Malory. This is the Custerbank of California.'

  Malory thanked him and hung up.

  Later in the day something drew him to the boardroom. It was an old-fashioned place, not often used, furnished in heavy Victorian mahogany. The long table shone with polish; the hide upholstery remained soft from much waxing over the years. For Horace Malory the place was full of people and memories. Half-close his eyes and he could see his father again, frock-coated at the side table, pouring one of the brandies that finally felled him at eighty-eight. His grandfather, too, had sat in this boardroom, though Malory, hardly surprisingly, had never met him. Few people, in fact, actually believed in Malory's grandfather, who had been born before the French Revolution (i.e, in 1786), had served as a lieutenant in Collingwood's flagship Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, had fathered his only son at the age of 68 in 1854, and had lived to ninety on a diet of lobs
ter and Mosel wine. At Malory's birth, his own father had been fifty years of age, and the three of them therefore spanned better than two centuries.

  Years of increasing prosperity, too, Malory thought. Until now. There were cigars in the humidor, and as he stood selecting one, his eye fell upon the chair that was the only piece of oak in the room ; it was dark and very old, and of a design that was probably Greek. A tiny silver plate affixed to the side of one arm bore the initials ZZ.

  Malory lit the cigar with care, and in the wreathing fumes had little difficulty in picturing Sir Basil seated in the chair.

  'What would you have done?' he murmured. 'Would you have given away three million and more in money?'

  On this day, it was as though he heard the answer in his head: 'I did, I did.' Malory smiled. 'Yes, but with a purpose. Always that.'

  It was extraordinary how clear the image was: the blazing eyes, the little Second Empire beard and moustache, the authority. Malory daydreamed infrequently, but his visual memory was powerful, and as a young man he had conversed often with the great man, and always in this interrogatory style; somehow, under the influence of Zaharoff's personality, people discovered answers to their own questions.

  Three million and more to find out - what? That the Tsar was dead, had been murdered in Ekaterinburg? At least I'd know, then, he thought. Hell of a price, but I'd know. A long echo seemed to float down the years, of a light voice, faintly accented: 'It is necessary always to know.'

  Malory smiled to himself. He'd tell his wife tonight, and she'd be impatient, but then she believed in ghosts. He didn't: but his memories were powerful and could be used.

  He reached for the telephone on the side table beside the chairman's place. 'I should like to talk to whoever administers The Turner Bequest,' he told Mrs Frobisher. 'And then to the Press Association, Reuters, and - no, make it the Associated Press first!’

  Mr Sochaki's expressed packet arrived two days later, bearing Pan American stickers.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ----------------------

  Sixth instalment of the account, written by

  Lt-Cdr H. G. Dikeston RN, of his journeyings

  in Russia in the spring and summer of 1918

  The Germans it was, right enough, though if I'd had to rely on Nadezhda the secretary or her master, Sverdlov, for information, I'd never have known. I've wondered often, since, what became of that woman, for she had the makings of power if ever a woman had. A real bluestocking, with one of those cold and superior brains: she was the kind that makes grown men feel like small boys, with all the snap of the scrubbed schoolroom about her.

  Daily I went to see Nadezhda, and daily she told me nothing. But no- that's not entirely true, though it might as well have been. Every afternoon I went through the same drill, showing Sverdlov's pass at the Spassky gate and proceeding to her office, there to be told that the Romanov family remained in good health in the hands of the Urals Oblast Soviet. Thereafter I was virtually obliged to leave. After many days of this, and with time on my hands, I began to cast about for other sources. I went to see Robert Bruce Lockhart in his room at the Elite Hotel and had short shrift. At the time I had the impression he was strongly pro-Bolshevik, but it was untrue, though certainly he and Trotsky liked and admired each other. All Bruce Lockhart did was treat me courteously for a minute or two and then throw me out with the advice to make my way to Murmansk and take a British ship home. There were others I tried of the scattered Britons in Moscow. Arthur Ransome, for one, then a reporter for the Manchester Guardian, and a naval man named Le Page who had some strange liaison assignment. But mention of the Tsar to any of them produced at the very least impatience, if not outright boredom.

  And so, it went on, until one day when I was in the corridor after leaving Nadezhda's office, I saw a group of men walking confidently towards me and stood aside to let them pass. Suddenly I believed I heard my name spoken. I turned to see one of this approaching band had halted and was repeating my name:

  'It is Dikeston - yes, I knew it!'

  I blinked at him, and from him to his companions, two of whom were in German uniform!

  'Come now, you recognize me!'

  'Oh yes,' I said, goggling.

  'What are you doing here?' he demanded. He was jovial, but looking at me sidelong all the same; for this was Graf Wilhelm von Mirbach, German ambassador, since the treaty was signed at Brest-Litovsk, to the Bolshevik Government.

  It was a difficult question, but fortunately I did not have to answer; or not at that moment. He said, 'Can you wait? I shall not be more than twenty minutes.'

  I nodded and he and his group strode off, I noted where they went, for it was through a familiar door: the German Ambassador was now closeted with Sverdlov. As for me, I felt myself to be in a dilemma. As a serving officer of the Royal Navy, I had no business to be greeting Germans on terms of friendship, even on neutral soil. Yet it was at once clear that my acquaintance with Willi von Mirbach might be of great value. Remembering the man Le Page and his naval liaison work, I decided quickly to pretend his role was my own, at least for Willi's ears, and then stood smoking a cigarette and awaiting the promised return.

  And he was as good as his word. Within fifteen minutes he was striding towards me, smiling, and demanding, 'Have you found a tennis court in Moscow, Harry?'

  Tennis was the last thought in my head. I smiled and said, 'No.'

  'Pity.' He took my arm. 'I haven't played since nineteen-fourteen. And you and I - when was that?'

  'Biarritz,' I said, 'in nineteen-eleven.'

  'No, no, in London!' He came sometimes for Wimbledon, before the war. 'The year the Doherty brothers won!'

  'They won every year,' I protested.

  'No, the last time. Must have been nineteen-five. Will you dine with me?'

  'A little improper, is it not, Willi?'

  'The war, you mean - or the dinner? Yes, it's improper. But we'll meet as Russians, eh? There's a gipsy restaurant, the Streilna. Tomorrow, if you're free.' He turned to one of his aides. 'I'm clear, am I not?' And upon being assured he was: 'At nine, Harry! And I'll set about finding a court.'

  And then they were gone.

  Were we friends? I suppose not - friendly acquaintances was more like it. But our paths had crossed several times: in St Petersburg when I was first posted there, in Berlin, in Wimbledon, in Biarritz. I used to beat him at tennis, though not by any great margin, and he was forever demanding the return match.

  And now Willi was Ambassador of His Imperial German Majesty in Moscow!

  I had only the clothes in which I stood, and by now they were far from fresh. How, then, could I dine with an Ambassador? But then I remembered my first arrival in Moscow, and being taken to choose a naval uniform suited to Yakovlev. I had had a suitcase with me then, and had left it in that malodorous hall of uniforms. I returned, and found the bag untouched, still in the care of the custodian.

  So it was a different Dikeston who went next night to the Streilna restaurant. Tsiganer music reached gaily out into the street as I arrived and I thought then that this was a strange place indeed to find still extant in Bolshevik Moscow. By the time I was inside and being seated at Mirbach's table, the music had saddened, and a woman with a grave, dark beauty was singing 'Black Eyes'. I felt then that here was a last stirring of days that were almost gone, and I was right, for the restaurant closed soon after.

  Willi von Mirbach arrived intent upon enjoyment. 'We'll speak only Russian, Harry. No German, no English. All right?'

  'All right.'

  'And we'll get drunk!'

  I grinned and said, 'Good!' though I had no such intention. Already, looking round the smoky room, I had caught sight of Bruce Lockhart, the British Consul-General, with a noisy group at another table. If he saw me with Willi and told the Admiralty, there was a fair chance of my being shot!

  We drank charochki - toasts in vodka - to everything we could think of, and made pigs of ourselves, on caviare of course, and became, bot
h of us, gradually less discreet. It was an absurd conversation we had, considering our respective positions, for he was charged with preventing the intervention in the war of the Allied troops which had already landed in northern Russia, and those forces were in part British! Furthermore, I was the enemy. For enemies, though, we got along well. We talked of places and acquaintances, of tennis-players and old times, and of summers and scenes gone by. And then abruptly, as we spoke of such matters, my head was filled with an image of that Family now beleaguered in Ekaterinburg and I said to Willi, 'Can you help the Tsar?'

  My tone must have told him that I took the matter seriously for he became quiet and looked carefully around him before replying.

  Then he said, 'He's quite safe.'

  'You're sure?'

  'I have assurances that the whole family is well-treated -'

  'From whom do these assurances come?'

  He frowned. 'From Sverdlov. Also from Lenin. The Romanovs are held in Ekaterinburg, but it is temporary.'

  'You believe they will be released?' I demanded.

  He put a hand on my shoulder. 'Not so fierce, Harry, this is not your affair.'

  'It's yours, then?'

  'The Tsarina is German, Harry, and her daughters are German princesses. Yes, it ¿s ours. And it is well in hand, please believe it.'

  'What would you say,' I asked, 'if I told you there was a majority on the Urals Oblast Soviet for murdering the lot of them? Would you still say it was well in hand?'

  He looked hard at me. 'No. But I would ask where you got your story. How you know.'

  'Because I came to Moscow from Ekaterinburg, Willi. Because I have seen their prison, because I have met their captors.'

  He laughed. 'What nonsense! Too much vodka, Harry. How could it be so?'

  'You don't believe me!' I was stung.

  'Another drink, Harry. Come -'

  But I had the pass from my pocket now and pushed it beneath his nose. 'Read that!'

  He bent his nose over it, and from the time he took, must have read it three or four times.

  'You are Yakovlev?'

  'Your humble servant.'

  He looked at me in astonishment. 'How did all this happen? You must tell me.'