David Dickinson - Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

‘I’ll know it full well when the bloody policemen come knocking at my door. You’ve got to pay the going rate for the job. Why isn’t he circulating the English pamphlet here in England, anyway? Answer me that.’

‘Security, that’s what.’ All difficult questions were to be answered, Lenin’s courier had told him, with that blanket response.

‘If you don’t like my price, go and find somebody else who’ll do it.’

The comrades in Cracow, Cooper had been told, were most anxious that he should clinch the deal.

‘All right. One thousand pounds for the lot. I can’t say I’m happy with that, but it’ll have to do.’

‘Very good. I knew you’d come round in the end.’ ‘Who should I deliver the pamphlets to?’

‘Bring them back here, heavily marked with the words Ballets Russes, Customs Requisitions and Clearances.’

‘Very good.’

As Cooper showed his printer out of the back door, he suddenly knew how he felt. It was if he was still a true believer in the Evangelical side of Christianity, who arrives at Heaven’s gates only to be told by St Peter that a substantial entry fee would be required.

Lady Lucy had taken over the role of friend and counsellor to the girls of the corps de ballet. A translator was found among the great army of her relations in the capital. She had borrowed the samovar and a couple of icons from Natasha’s housekeeper and was reading the notes made after each visit. She thanked her lucky stars that Natasha had written them in English.

‘There’s only one thing that hits you after you’ve read all these things, Francis,’ she said.

‘And what’s that?’ said her husband absent-mindedly. He was reading a selection of the newspapers and their coverage of the Ballets Russes’s display at Blenheim Palace. Most of them were ecstatic; tactfully they had kept the story of the dead girl for the later paragraphs. Fokine had told him to look out for the photographs of the Duke and his lady. The photographers, unaware of the lack of title, had taken shots of them together all over the place, on the steps of the palace, progressing down the great sweep of the entrance court to the bridge, sitting applauding the performers. One inhabitant of Blenheim Palace, at least, would be happy with the coverage and consider the money well spent. Even though Gladys Deacon had still not been described as the Duchess.

‘It’s that man Bolm. He was after those girls like a man possessed. I’m sure one of them could have killed him. But there’s a further complication, Francis. You said that he pulled out about two o’clock in the afternoon because he was ill and Alexander Taneyev took over. So anybody inside the company would have known that the young Alexander and not the older man Bolm was to dance the Prince. But if you were an outsider, a man paid to do the job, you might not have known that. You could have lurked about in the scenic area and the backstage areas and gone to kill the chap who came down through the trapdoor. You mightn’t even realize you’d killed the wrong man until you read about it the next day.’

‘There is and there always has been,’ agreed Powerscourt, ‘a terrible question mark at the heart of the first murder. Did they kill Taneyev because he was Taneyev, or did they kill him because they thought he was Bolm? Or did Bolm take the evening off because he knew he or his associates would be able to kill Taneyev? Nobody backstage would have noticed Bolm at all. I think I’m going to ask the Inspector to make a further check on Bolm’s movements for the whole day. He could, for example, have decided to kill Taneyev days before and laid his plans accordingly, only telling the theatre people after lunch.’

‘I’ve rather grown to dislike Mr Bolm, making his advances on these young girls all over the place and at all times of day.’

‘Doesn’t necessarily make him a murderer,’ said Lord Francis Powerscourt.

East Prussia stretched out in front of Natasha Shaporova’s train. She was making good progress with War and Peace . Her knowledge of geography was poor and she wondered if Napoleon’s armies had crossed the same space a hundred years before. She remembered somebody telling her that Tolstoy himself had seen military service in the Crimea. She hoped that there wouldn’t be too much marching about and military manoeuvres. Never far from her mind was a family that might not be too different from War and Peace ’s Bolkonskys and Rostovs: the family Taneyev, with its treasure trove of letters from the dead Alexander. Change in Warsaw.

Anastasia couldn’t tell anybody in the Ballets Russes what had happened. She knew it would mean expulsion from the company, let alone possible prosecution for being an associate to theft in St Petersburg. She had cried so much and for so long that she thought there couldn’t be any tears left in her little body. She found Lady Lucy’s address and set out for Markham Square. Somebody had told her that the husband was a detective. Perhaps he would be able to help. She knew Lady Lucy’s address and hailed a taxi to take her to Markham Square. Fresh reserves and reservoirs of tears overcame her so much in the cab that the driver leant back and offered her his best handkerchief, perfectly washed and pressed by the cabbie’s wife in Harringey. He even forgot to ask her for the fare, but ushered her to the Powerscourt door and waited for Rhys to let her in. The butler had seen all sorts and conditions of visitors to Markham Square in his time but never one as distraught as this. Her whole life seemed to have come to an end.

‘Anastasia from the corps de ballet,’ he announced to Lady Lucy, who was reading the forthcoming programme for the ballet.

‘Anastasia, you poor thing,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Your eyes are so red you must have been crying all afternoon.’ She helped the girl into the large armchair by the fire. ‘Would you like some tea? Something stronger? A glass of water?’

Through her sobs, the girl managed to nod for the glass of water.

‘Now, Anastasia,’ said Lady Lucy, who thought she had met the girl at Natasha’s house in the early days, ‘whatever is the matter?’

There was a prolonged burst of sobbing, broken only by further ministrations with the cabbie’s handkerchief. Lady Lucy waited. Powerscourt had decided to let his wife do all the talking for now.

‘There must have been something terrible,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘We’re not the police, my dear, and we’re not the Ballets Russes either. If you’ve got something to say, it need never go outside these four walls, I promise you.’

The answer came in a whisper. Powerscourt had often remarked how people thought they could minimize the effect of some terrible news by announcing it in the lowest of voices. He had decided it was the opposite of shouting at foreigners in English in the hopes that the volume might bring forth understanding.

‘Jewels.’

‘Jewels?’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Your jewels? Somebody else’s jewels? You must speak up, Anastasia or we’ll never hear you.’

Anastasia did not speak up. She spoke, if anything, even more softly than before.

‘Not my jewels.’

‘If they weren’t yours, then why do you have to be so upset about them?’

‘I don’t have the jewels any more.’

‘Do you mean that you were looking after the jewels for somebody else? And now they’ve gone, you worry you’ll have to replace them?’

‘No, no,’ sobbed the girl, ‘it’s the money. The money from the jewels has gone.’

‘Let’s take this one step at a time, Anastasia? Have another glass of water. I’ll order some tea in a minute. You had some jewels. You sold them one way or another. The money’s gone. Is that it?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s it. That’s right.’