by Evelyn Weiss
“Do you drink your tea naked?”
My mouth drops open, but no words come out.
“We Russians, we never drink tea naked, if we can find a cake or snack for it to wear. But it’s wartime; the hospital only has these wretched oatmeal biscuits.”
“Thank you. Yes, please, I’ll have one.”
He proffers a plate of broken cookies to me. “Now – the zavarka will be brewed.” He lifts the smaller pot and pours about an inch of thick fluid into each cup, then tops them up with hot water from the other pot. As he passes my cup to me, he says “Call me Yuri, by the way.”
“I’m Agnes.”
“Lemon juice with your tea? Or sugar?”
“Neither, thanks.”
“I’ll have the sugar.” He takes a sugar lump from the tray, and holds it between his teeth. Then he drinks. He says nothing about himself, and he doesn’t ask me anything. He just sits, in a companionable silence. I don’t think he’s being secretive. I sense that this is Russian politeness: he’s simply respecting my privacy.
Can I trust him? I look at his uniform. His military collar is buttoned; there’s no trace of a neck chain. But on the edge of my mind is the intruder’s jacket I saw in the cottage. There was something odd about that jacket: something out of place, or missing.
But if this Captain Sirko was the person who tried to kill Axelson and me, why did he risk his life to save us? I decide to trust him. It will be safe to leave the professor alone with him.
“Yuri – I need to leave the room, for a few minutes.”
His brown eyes look into mine. “My job is to guard both of you. But I can’t be in two places at once; I must stay with the professor. I can’t stop you going out of the room, but – take care. Watch around you and behind you. Even here in the hospital there may be intruders.”
I don’t tell him that I’m not planning to stay in the hospital. I go to the front entrance and step outside. It’s a bright day, but there’s a sharp breeze: I’m glad that Mrs Sepp’s daughter has lent me her coat. Across the road from the hospital is a two-storey building with large windows. I noticed the sign above its door when I arrived this morning, although then I paid little attention to it. But now, there’s a tiny chance that it might be useful. “I’m looking for a needle in a haystack” I say to myself, as I step across the street and up the steps to the doorway. The sign above says “Museum of Natural History”.
In the museum foyer, an elderly man sits at a dusty desk. Even his gray hair looks as if it’s collecting dust. There’s no one else about. I’m surprised that, in wartime, they even bother to open this place. I go over to the man and smile at him.
“I have an odd request, sir. First, I must ask you: do you have a butterfly collection here at the Museum?”
“Yes, we do, Madam. On the upper floor. You go up the staircase, there.”
“I’m wondering – did you have a visitor, maybe three weeks ago, who asked about the butterfly collection here?”
“How odd you should ask that. How very, very, odd.” The man coughs, putting his fist to his mouth. Then he looks at me, smiling. I ask him again.
“So – a butterfly collector did visit?”
“He came here three weeks ago. We have a very fine collection: specimens of all the species that live in the Baltic Region, even the rare Clouded Apollo. The visitor was very keen to view them all.”
There’s something more. The old man grins, as if he’s enjoying a private joke. I look at him, and he tells me.
“What’s funny is you asking about that man, right now. You see, the butterfly collector has come back. I saw him walk in through the doorway – about half an hour ago, and go up the stairs. And I’ve not seen him come back down. So he’s still up there.”
5 The butterfly collector
I hurry up the stairs. But there’s no need to rush, I tell myself. The butterfly collector must be on the upper floor: if he comes down the steps, I’ll see him. There’s no one else about, no-one at all. Apart from the old man at his desk, the museum seems entirely deserted.
I reach the top of the stairs and follow a corridor. Opening off it are a succession of large rooms. The first is full of rocks and fossils, the second contains stuffed birds. In the third room a moth-eaten bear stares with glass eyes, and a wolf bares yellow fangs. At the end of the corridor, the final door is labelled ‘Lepidoptera’. I turn the handle, and step inside.
Tall wooden cabinets fill the room. There are two rows, side by side, leaving a way down the centre, like an aisle.
The fronts of the cabinets, which face me, are glass; the sides and backs are made of panelled wood. The cabinets are wide; each stretches nearly all the way to the windows which line both sides of the room. Sunlight slants through the windows on one side, so that each cabinet casts a shadow across my path as I walk down the central aisle.
He must be in here. I call out “Sir! Are you here?”
There’s no reply. I take another step forward, deliberately treading noisily. Perhaps he is absorbed in studying the butterflies. I look into one of the cabinets.
There are a host of butterflies, like rows of jewels catching the sunshine. Every one is skewered with a pin onto a card labelled with its name. I realise that there is not one specimen of each species, but hundreds. This cabinet happens to be full of Clouded Apollos, like the aftermath of some insect massacre. “No wonder it’s rare” I say to myself.
I look along the rows of impaled creatures. At the far edge of the cabinet, something juts out, silhouetted against the light of the window.
It’s a revolver barrel. Pointing straight at me.
Is it a trick of the light? I see the black circle of the muzzle, the dull gleam of the sun along the barrel. It’s no illusion.
I step back, behind the cabinet. My mouth is open, inhaling; my eyes dart around the room. There’s a dead silence.
I can feel my heart beating. I glance along the aisle down the middle of the room. As before, the cabinets cast their shadows on the floor. But the angle of the light also shows, in the nearest sunlit patch, the shadow of a man’s head and shoulders.
The shadow takes a step forward, along the front of the cabinet that I’m hiding behind. So I move right round behind the cabinet, pressing myself up against the wood panelling. But of course, my pursuer knows where I am. I can see his shadow on the sunlit patch of the aisle, and in the same way, he can see the shadow of my head and shoulders, pushed close up against the back of the cabinet. My hands are cold with fear.
The man and I stand in silence: both of us watch each other’s shadows, considering what to do. I breathe, and try to think.
I notice a nail, sticking out of the back of the cabinet. Inch by inch, all the time watching the shadow of my head and shoulders, I slip my coat off my shoulders. My shadow hardly alters.
I concentrate on one thing, and one thing only – my fingers, to keep them from shaking. I slowly lift the coat, and hook the collar over the nail. All the time I watch my shadow on the aisle: it remains unchanged.
Gingerly, I take one step back, gradually lowering my heel, then my toe, so as to make no noise on the floorboards. The shadow of the coat hanging on the nail is cast across the floor of the aisle, looking for all the world like the head and shoulders of a woman, pressed up against the back of the cabinet.
I take another step.
The man shouts. “Who are you? Come out!”
Can he see that I’ve moved? I want to answer him: to communicate, to try to make peace with this person. But I resist the temptation; I must keep silent. I step back again, but the man doesn’t move. The shadow of my coat has fooled him. I reach the window.
He shouts again; a bark that makes me jump. “Give yourself up! Now!”
Keeping alongside the windows, I step as silently as I can along the room, away from him.
Another shout. “Put your hands in the air! I will step round the cabinet, now!”
I reach the far corner of the room, and I see ano
ther door. Its sign says “Staff only”.
I try the handle with shaking fingers. I push it down a little, and thankfully, it doesn’t squeak. I breathe: slow, quiet and shallow.
I turn the handle more, and as I do, I hear the man’s footsteps. He’s walking round the cabinet. I expect a roar of rage when he finds the coat – but there’s silence. Whoever he is, this man is deadly calm.
I push the door open. I hear movement among the cabinets; the man has realised where I’ve gone. I slam the door behind me and clatter down a narrow staircase to ground level. A corridor stretches in front of me, ending in another door. It’s got a key. I shut the door behind me, fumble the key into the lock and turn it.
I breathe in relief, and look round. I’m back in the foyer where I met the old man. But he’s not there; the foyer is deserted.
It doesn’t matter. I rush over to the front door of the museum. It’s made of glass: I can see the hospital across the road. I turn the handle – but the door is locked. A cardboard hand-written sign hangs from the handle: “Gone for lunch, back soon”.
I pull and pull at the handle of the door. It rattles, but won’t open.
I hear a sound, and it makes sweat crawl down my face. A key is turning, in the door that I came through a minute ago. My pursuer must have found another key. Then, I hear that door swinging open. I don’t look back. I tug helplessly at the museum door. A man’s voice rings out.
“Stop! Turn and face me now!”
I make a final desperate pull at the door. But it’s immovable. The unseen stranger barks again.
“Who are you, and why are you interested in Professor Axelson?”
It’s the strangest thing: the voice is familiar to me. Although it’s speaking Russian, I’ve heard that exact intonation before, long ago and far away. The voice continues.
“Of course, it would be preferable to sort this matter out with a civilized conversation. I dislike unnecessary violence.”
I turn and face the speaker. A face emerges from the shadows; a face I know all too well. A small face, for a man. Sharp, intelligent eyes, an aquiline nose, and elegantly coiffured gray hair. I answer my pursuer, in English.
“Lord Buttermere.”
“Miss Frocester! Well, this is indeed a surprise. Please – accept my apologies for frightening you. I had no idea that you were here in Russia with Professor Axelson.”
He steps forward into the sunlit foyer, and explains. “I didn’t see your face, or hear your voice, so I didn’t realise it was you. In fact I have to admit, I was a little afraid myself.”
“So was I.”
“Please accept my apologies for the revolver. I thought it best to have any conversation with my pursuer with a gun in my hand, even though I knew she was female. There are many ruthless people about – even of the fairer sex. I’m sorry.”
He reaches out and shakes my hand, and I smile. My heart still thumps, but relief is slowly flooding through me. But my mind is whirling: I’m trying to make sense of this situation.
“So – Lord Buttermere… you are the butterfly collector?”
“Oh, you know about that, do you? My own title suggested the idea to me – Buttermere, butterfly. A flight of fancy. I was pretending to be an eccentric, rather ridiculous English gentleman. A foolish man obsessed with butterflies, even in the midst of a world at war.”
I’m starting to breathe a little easier now. Lord Buttermere’s refined face crinkles in a quiet, wry laugh.
“It’s not a brilliant disguise, I admit. You’ve unmasked me. Hardly my finest hour as the Head of British Intelligence. But, Miss Frocester, you are one of the few people in the world with the talent to find me out.”
“Thank you. But why are you here?”
“I pretended to be a butterfly collector to cover my visit to Tri Tsarevny. I came to this museum first, before my visit there, so that I could appear to have some knowledge of Baltic butterflies when I visited the Tsarina. But I came back to the museum today for a different reason. The view from the butterfly room – come with me, and see.” He points towards the staircase, and raises an eyebrow. “It will also, of course, give you an opportunity to collect your coat.”
“It’s not my coat. But that’s another story.”
We climb the stairs and go back into the cabinet-lined room. The windows look out across the street at the hospital. We can see through a ground-floor window into the professor’s room. The tea-tray is still sitting on the window sill. Axelson’s sleeping face lies back on his pillow; Yuri slouches in his chair, looking bored.
“So you came up to this room to keep an eye on the professor?”
“Yes, Miss Frocester. I heard that he was in hospital because someone tried to kill him. This window is the perfect observation spot. I waited and watched… I could see a female figure in the professor’s room. Then, twenty minutes ago, I saw the same figure, dressed in a Russian coat, crossing the road to the museum.”
“Why don’t we both simply go and keep watch over Professor Axelson in his room?”
“Because there may be people watching me. I’m worried that our enemies have already found me out – hence my gun. I don’t want to increase the professor’s danger by drawing attention to him. It’s safer for him if I don’t visit him. It’s also inadvisable for you and I to meet again. But it’s lucky that we have met now. It gives me a chance to explain – and most of all, to warn you. You see, what happened to you at the cottage in the woods is only the start.”
“Could you begin at the beginning? Why on earth did you come to Russia, Lord Buttermere?”
“As you’ve been working with Axelson, you’ll be aware that Svea Håkansson had damning evidence about Rasputin.”
“Yes.”
“Miss Håkansson went to Tri Tsarevny to tell Rasputin to step down from power. If he refused, she would reveal her information to the Tsar and Tsarina.
Before going to Tri Tsarevny, she contacted British Intelligence, and told me about her mission. She was afraid, you see. She knew that if she met Rasputin alone, she would be in serious danger.”
“But Sweden isn’t even an ally of Britain. Why did British Intelligence decide to get involved?”
“Miss Håkansson found that Rasputin is within an ace of getting a cease-fire between Russia and Germany. If that happens, Germany will rule the Baltic. They would control all Swedish trade, making Sweden an economic pawn in Germany’s game.
But Britain too desperately needs to stop Rasputin. Because a cease-fire with Russia would allow Germany to transfer millions of troops to the Western Front to fight against us.
So although I had never met Svea Håkansson, she and I had a single purpose – Rasputin must be stopped. Given the high stakes involved, I decided to come to Russia myself, and help her. She and I were to meet on the afternoon of July 29th, to plan how we would confront Rasputin – together. But by the time I got to Tri Tsarevny, she was beyond help. I arrived half an hour after she died.”
I glance across the road into the professor’s room. He’s still sleeping like a baby. I think back to yesterday, and those lonely little islands on the lake. Lord Buttermere continues his story.
“My own cover story for my mission was simple. I obtained a letter signed by King George of England – who is of course the Tsar’s cousin – to say that I was a friend of his, and a butterfly collector. The letter asked the Tsar and Tsarina if I could visit Tri Tsarevny for the day, to study the insect life of the area. The letter stated that although I was not visiting on official business, my connections to all the noble families of England ‘would help strengthen Britain’s support for Russia’. The Tsarina wrote back to say that I would be most welcome to visit.”
“Lord Buttermere – do you think Svea might have met Rasputin by herself, before you arrived?”
“Miss Håkansson was horribly aware of the risks of meeting him alone. But I don’t know for sure that she didn’t meet him.”
“Professor Axelson and I went to Tri Tsarevn
y. There was no-one there, and our guide, who was called Mr Bukin, told us nothing.”
“I’ll tell you what I know – which isn’t much. When I visited the place, a small boat from Ivangorod took me along a remote creek to a quay, where I was met by two guards. They said they had been told to expect my visit. I was surprised that they didn’t even check my papers. Then one of them suggested that I stroll around the gardens until someone was free to meet me. He even took the time to tell me about the old legends – the three princesses, the islands and so on – as if he was some sort of tourist guide. His lax attitude gave me serious doubts about the security of the place.”
“Professor Axelson thought the same. So what did you do then?”
As the guard suggested, I went up the steps into the garden, but I could see no-one around the main house; it seemed deserted. In hindsight, I realise that they were all down at the lake, looking at the murder scene. But at the time I had no idea what was happening. I simply waited in the gardens for someone to appear.
Finally, I saw a man coming up from the lakeside. He seemed to be some kind of butler. He told me that a ‘foreign lady’ had ‘had an accident’. Then he showed me into a room in the main house, and the Tsarina came in to see me. I remember her face: white as death. She was the one who first used the word ‘murder’. She apologized for the circumstances – and asked me to leave immediately. She said she was particularly keen that her young son Alexei, who is a delicate boy, should not be disturbed, or even become aware of what had happened. Of course, I had no option. If I had asked to stay on there –”
“I understand. They would have suspected your disguise. You had to play the eccentric English butterfly collector.”
“Sadly, yes. Never have I been more frustrated. Miss Håkansson’s death is a disaster for all the Allies in this war; her plan to unseat Rasputin was, as it were, our last throw of the dice in our attempts to help Russia. And since then, I’ve been able to discover nothing about the murder. I’ve found Ohkrana impossible to work with.”
