“If we’re running on schedule then we should be almost there,” he said.
“At the Count’s estate?” Blackstone asked.
Sir Roderick laughed. ‘The Count’s estate? Oh no, Inspector. This isn’t little England, you know, with a railway station within walking distance of every country house. When we get off the train, we’ll still have at least thirty or forty more miles to travel.”
The train slowed and then pulled into the station. It was, in most details, like a dozen or so other stations they’d stopped at — a wooden structure which looked more like a cattle shed than an office of a serious-minded railway network. But in one major way, it was very different. At this station there were no peasants holding sacks which they were taking to the nearest market. At this station there were no top-hatted local officials standing around, trying to look important. The platform was empty save for half a dozen common soldiers and the elaborately uniformed officer commanding them.
Our escort, Blackstone thought, laid on, no doubt, by the minister back in St Petersburg. What was it Sir Roderick had called him’? An ‘invisible presence’. Interesting choice of words, that.
Blackstone had a feeling which he couldn’t quite justify — even after what had happened already — that there would be a fair number of invisible presences waiting for him at the Count’s estate.
Chapter Five
The six soldiers lined up on the platform had adopted the approved military stance — eyes forward, the butts of their rifles resting on the ground, the ends of their rifle barrels cupped in both hands. Their uniforms were the workaday sort that Blackstone had worn often enough in his time, but their officer — who was standing apart from them — sported a splendid scarlet uniform which would not have looked out of place at a regimental ball.
Sir Roderick saw the officer at the same time Blackstone did, and whistled softly to himself.
“My goodness, we are honoured indeed,” he told the Inspector.
“Honoured?” Blackstone repeated. “It’s an honour when they bother to send us an escort, is it?”
“No, it is an honour because of the calibre of the escort they have chosen to send us. That captain is in the uniform of the Hussar Guards. It’s one of Russia’s truly elite regiments. The Tsar himself has served in it.”
“Actually served in it,” Blackstone said. “How did he manage that? Start at the bottom and work his way up?”
“Your lack of respect for your betters is becoming rather tiresome,” Sir Roderick said.
“I keep telling you I’m the wrong man for the job,” Blackstone replied, risking another jab with his pointed mental stick.
“You do not have to convince me of that,” Sir Roderick told him. “And I note that you have fallen out of the habit of calling me ‘sir’ again.”
“Sorry, sir,” Blackstone said.
“No, you’re not,” Sir Roderick said sharply.
You’re right, Blackstone agreed silently. I’m not.
The two Englishmen stepped down from the train. The escort snapped to attention, bringing up their rifles and resting the barrels on their shoulders. Or at least, five of them did. The sixth misjudged the manoeuvre, so that his rifle slipped from his hands and clattered noisily on to the platform. The unfortunate man was on the point of retrieving his weapon when the officer screamed something at him. The soldier looked confused at first, then adopted the same stance as his comrades — though without his rifle he looked awkward, rather than smart.
The officer strode furiously across the platform and came to a halt in front of the hapless soldier. For several moments he stood perfectly still, then he raised his arm and slapped the soldier hard across the face. To his credit, the man hardly moved, but when a second slap followed the first, and a third came after that, he began to wobble, and on the fourth he lost his balance and staggered backwards against the station wall.
“Now you couldn’t get away with that kind of thing in our army,” Sir Roderick said.
“No, you couldn’t,” Blackstone agreed.
“More’s the pity,” Sir Roderick added.
The officer, finally satisfied with his handiwork, turned smartly on his heel and walked towards the new arrivals. He was in his early thirties, Blackstone guessed. He had a high forehead, a cruel mouth and black eyes, but he did not look unintelligent.
The Captain came to halt in front of the Englishmen, and favoured Sir Roderick with a slight bow.
“I am Captain Dobroskok,” he said. “You must forgive what you have just witnessed.”
“Must I?” Blackstone asked.
The Captain did not notice the irony. “Our sergeants do all they can with the men during their training,” he explained, “but even they can never make a peasant truly worthy of the officer he serves under.”
“It’s the same in Britain,” Sir Roderick said diplomatically. “Whatever you threaten them with — whatever punishing paces you put them through — you’ll never make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
The soldier had retrieved his rifle and was now standing in line with the other men, Blackstone noted — which was no mean feat considering the battering he had endured.
“You are Sir Roderick Todd?” the Captain asked.
“I am.”
“I have a coach waiting for you outside. Will your man here…?”
“He’ll ride with me,” Sir Roderick said.
The Captain gave a puzzled nod, which as much as said that, yes, he’d heard they did things very strangely in England. Then he turned towards the exit and gestured that Blackstone and Sir Roderick should follow him.
The carriage which awaited them had all the elegance of an English aristocrat’s coach, right down to the elaborate crest in the door, but was, Blackstone noted, considerably more robustly built.
“Our Russian roads require sturdy vehicles,” Captain Dobroskok said, reading Blackstone’s mind. “This country is demanding, but that is what makes us strong.”
They climbed into the carriage — the Captain positioning himself as far from Blackstone as the limited space allowed. Flanking the coach, Dobroskok’s men mounted their horses. The unfortunate soldier whom the Captain had beaten was still somewhat groggy, Blackstone observed, and had to be helped on to his mount by his comrades.
Dobroskok tapped on the roof of the coach with his stick, and the party pulled away from the rickety station.
Once they had cleared the few shacks which surrounded the railway, they were once again absorbed by the vastness of the land.
“I am told the North American prairies are somewhat like this,” Dobroskok said to Sir Roderick. “Though, of course, they are much smaller,” he added with quiet pride.
“You speak very good English,” Blackstone commented. The remark seemed to puzzle — perhaps even offend —the Captain. “Why shouldn’t I?” he asked.
“Because you’re Russian?” Blackstone suggested.
Dobroskok laughed at Blackstone’s ignorance. “I am a gentleman,” he said. “I was brought up speaking English and French. Russian is a language I only use when talking to enlisted men and servants.”
“The ordinary people,” Blackstone elucidated.
“Enlisted men and servants,” the Captain repeated. “I do not know any other ordinary people.”
Well, you’ve met one now, Blackstone thought.
“I notice there were no passengers waiting to get on the train when we arrived,” he said aloud.
“That is correct,” the Captain agreed.
“And why was that?”
“Because until you have finished your work here — and I must quickly add, Sir Roderick, that I myself have no idea what the nature of that work is — no one is allowed to leave.”
“Do you mean by that they’re not allowed to leave by train?” Blackstone asked.
“I mean that they are not allowed to leave at all.”
“So you sealed off the whole area?”
“Yes.”
Black
stone looked out of the carriage at the unending steppe. “It’s a big job,” he commented.
“Fortunately, I have sufficient men at my command to adequately enforce the restriction.”
“But to seal off an area like this would take several hundred soldiers,” Blackstone protested.
The Captain nodded appreciatively, and the new expression on his face said that perhaps he had been a little hasty in judging Blackstone solely on his rather inelegant appearance. “You have obviously been a military man yourself, at one time,” he said.
“Yes, I have.”
“What rank did you hold?”
“Blackstone was an officer, naturally, though now he is in the police force we do not refer to his previous rank,” Sir Roderick said.
He’s trying to build me up in Dobroskok’s eyes, Blackstone thought. He probably even thinks he’s doing me a favour — but favours based on lies are no favour at all.
“Sir Roderick has obviously been misinformed about my military career,” he said. “The truth of the matter is that I started out as a private and was eventually promoted to sergeant.”
The look of disdain returned to the Captain’s eyes, and he sniffed as if he had suddenly noticed the overpowering odour of the lower classes.
“I see,” he said loftily.
“And now I’m an inspector in the Metropolitan Police, which certainly counts for something in England,” Blackstone continued. “And not only that, but I’m the inspector who Her Majesty’s Government has entrusted with investigating this case.” He paused and looked at Sir Roderick. “Entrusted me with it whether I wanted to be or not.”
A superior smile came to the Captain’s face. “So you think it is your government which wants you here, do you?”
“Isn’t it?”
The Captain’s supercilious smile widened further. “Perhaps it is. What would I know? I am just a soldier, who obeys the orders of his commanding officer without question.”
Oh no, you’re much more than that, Blackstone thought. For a start, you’re a pretty smug bastard, even by the standards of smugness displayed by the English officer class.
“I’m sure you know your job, Captain,” he said, “but are you quite sure that no one has left the area since the ‘incident’ — which, of course, you know nothing about — occurred?”
Dobroskok glared at him. “No one at all has left.”
“The Prince of Wales left,” Blackstone pointed out.
“I naturally did not include him in my statement,” Dobroskok said. “Nor did I include—“ He stopped abruptly, as if his throat had suddenly frozen.
“Nor did you include who?” Blackstone prompted.
The Captain’s face blackened. He hates being questioned by a man like me — someone only a step up from a peasant — Blackstone thought. He really hates it. But he has no choice — because the ‘invisible presence’ who set all this up has ordered him to co-operate.
“Nor did you include who?” the Inspector repeated. “Nor did I include the Prince of Wales’ entourage,” the Captain said, unconvincingly.
“So all the other guests who were attending the house party are still there, several days after the robbery?”
“Naturally.”
“Don’t they mind?”
The Captain shrugged, obviously feeling on safer ground again — elevated ground from which he could look down on Blackstone.
“A Russian house party is not to be confused with the common drinking session you will have experienced in the sergeants’ mess,” he said cuttingly. “It is altogether a more leisurely affair. Guests sometimes have to travel for many days, under very difficult conditions, to reach it. Once they have arrived, it is natural that they should stay for quite some time. Besides…”
“Besides what?”
“Their own wishes in the matter are of very little importance. What we are dealing with here is an affair of state.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know what it was about,” Blackstone said sharply.
“Nor do I,” the Captain agreed, deflecting this particular parry with ease. “But I do know on whose orders I am acting, and that is enough to convince me of the gravity of the matter.”
Blackstone tried to imagine the same situation in England — tried to picture what would happen if the inhabitants of, say, Hampshire, were suddenly told that they could not leave the area, however important their particular reasons for travelling. There would be strong protests at the very least, he decided. And at worst, there would be a riot.
But then this was not England, where neither the Queen nor the Prime Minister aspired to the title of ‘absolute autocrat’.
“Of course, it must have taken you and your men some time to get here,” Blackstone said, appearing to be thinking aloud, “and it’s always possible that any number of people slipped away before you arrived.”
“No, it is not possible,” the Captain said definitely.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because we were already here when the incident — whatever it was — occurred.”
Blackstone looked out again at the wide steppe. “You were here?” he repeated.
“That is correct.”
“But why, in God’s name? I know from my own experience — even if the experience was that of a mere sergeant — that it’s a complicated matter moving large numbers of soldiers around. Expensive, too. They’ve got to have transportation, and they need forage. It’s hardly ever done without a purpose. So what was the purpose here? You can’t have been expecting an invasion — not unless the invading army was planning to land by hot-air balloon!”
Captain Dobroskok’s mouth opened, then closed again, as if to shut off the words he’d been about to speak. He turned to Sir Roderick, and the look in his eyes said he needed rescuing.
“Perhaps the soldiers were here to protect His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales,” Sir Roderick said, providing the requested lifeline.
“Several hundred of them?” Blackstone asked.
“This is, in some ways, a dangerous country,” Sir Roderick explained. “It is, of course, quite as civilized as England in so many important ways,” he added, in order not to injure the Captain’s sense of national pride, “but out in open countryside, the like of which we simply do not have in England, there are still plenty of bandits and brigands. Given that situation, His Imperial Majesty, the Tsar, will have been at pains to ensure that His Royal Highness — who is not only the son of a fellow monarch, but also his uncle — should have been well protected.”
A look of enlightenment came to Blackstone’s face, followed by an abashed expression which might have been taken to indicate that he considered himself stupid for not working all that out on his own. Sir Roderick Todd noted the process, and visibly relaxed.
“But apparently, he only needed the protection when he was coming here,” Blackstone mused.
“I don’t understand,” Sir Roderick said.
“I should have thought it was obvious, sir,” Blackstone countered. “This area is so unsafe that the Prince needs a small army to escort him here. But later — after the worst fears are confirmed, and he has not only been robbed but assaulted — he leaves the place without that escort. And how do we know that? We know it because we have Captain Dobroskok’s word for it that the escort is still here!”
“The Prince may well have been shaken by the experience and wanted to get away from here as quickly as possible,” Sir Roderick said, clearly improvising as he went along. “Under those circumstances, he will naturally not have wanted to wait for the whole troop to be mobilized, and no doubt he instead decided to leave under an escort of a few of Captain Dobroskok’s most trusted men. Isn’t that what happened, Captain?”
“Yes,” Dobroskok said, in a flat — almost dead — voice. “Yes, that is what happened.”
Blackstone put his clenched hands behind his head and stretched out his legs. “Well, I’m certainly glad all that’s been cleared up,” he sai
d, almost lazily. “But there’s still just one small point I haven’t got straight in my head. Well, I suppose there are two, really.”
“And what ‘two small points’ might they be?’ the Captain asked, with a considerable show of reluctance.
“You say you cordoned off the area straight after the incident?”
“That is correct.”
“And that you did so on orders from St Petersburg?”
“Again, that is correct.”
“But how did you get your orders so quickly?”
“What do you mean?”
Blackstone looked out of the window again. “It’s a very bare landscape,” he said reflectively. “True, we’ve seen the odd village and the odd clump of trees in the distance, but what we haven’t seen is any poles.”
“Poles?” the Captain repeated, mystified. “There are no Poles any more. What was once Poland is now the Vistula Province, under the benevolent rule of His Imperial Majesty.”
“I meant wooden poles. Poles to carry the telegraph and telephone wires. There aren’t any. So from that, I assume this part of the country is very backward in terms of modern communication.”
“Backward!” Dobroskok repeated hotly. “How dare you insult my fatherland in such a way! Certainly, we do not have telephones connected to every tiny hamlet as you do in your country, but that is because we live in a magnificent sweeping land — a land that has depth and breadth — not in a stinking little cabbage patch of an island like yours.”
“I say, steady on there, old chap!” Sir Roderick protested. “Doesn’t do to go insulting each other’s countries, you know.”
“It’s my fault,” Blackstone apologized. “I never meant to insult Russia, Captain Dobroskok, and if I did so inadvertently, then I’m truly sorry. All I was doing was asking whether or not there was a telephone or telegraph line to the Count’s estate.”
“There will be, in time,” the Captain said, somewhat mollified.
“But there isn’t now?”
“No.”
“In fact it’s probably several hours ride to the nearest telegraph office? And several hours ride back?”
“It is certainly not close,” the Captain admitted grudgingly.
Blackstone and the House of Secrets (The Blackstone Detective series Book 3) Page 4
