David Dickinson - Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

‘But whose were the jewels? Were they yours? Family heirlooms that would cause distress in your household?’

This brought a further burst of weeping, in which the words St Petersburg, George and something that sounded like Kollicky were all the Powerscourts could pick up.

Powerscourt now took over after a nod from Lady Lucy.

‘Did the jewels come from St Petersburg, Anastasia?’

She nodded this time, relieved not to have to speak for a while.

‘And you brought them here? Or did somebody else bring them here?’

The girl pointed at herself. Powerscourt hoped this unhappy experience hadn’t left her partially dumb for the next half an hour.

‘And who is George? A friend of yours?’

The girl nodded.

‘Has he taken the money from the sale of the jewels?’

The girl shook her head.

‘Did he organize the sale of the jewels for you?’

The girl nodded once more.

‘You mentioned somebody who sounded like Kollicky just now. Were they Johnston Killick of Hatton Garden by any chance?’

Another nod.

‘A very reputable and responsible firm they are too, Anastasia. I’m sure they will have done their best for you. Let me try to clear up the London end, if we may. You brought some jewels, which weren’t yours, to London. I am guessing you were under instructions from St Petersburg to sell them during your stay here. You sold the jewels with the help of your friend George. You had the money. I am guessing when I say it was hidden among your luggage at the hotel. Now the money has gone. Is that right?’

The girl nodded.

‘And the suitcase? The money was in a suitcase? Yes? So it is the suitcase that has gone missing?’

This time the girl managed a feeble, ‘Yes.’

‘Anastasia,’ Lady Lucy moved back into command, ‘I think you need to lie down and have a rest. I’ll take you up to one of the spare bedrooms and I’m sure we can find some clean clothes that aren’t stained with tears. We can move on to the St Petersburg end of things later.’

A step of beating in which the dancer jumps into the air and rapidly crosses the legs before and behind. For example: in an entrechat-quatre starting from fifth position, right foot front, the dancer will jump crossing her/his legs and beating first the right thigh on the back of the left thigh, then at the front of the left thigh, landing in the same position she/he started. Three changes of the feet in the air, ultimately changing which foot was front.

A battered Renault taxi-cab drew up outside 32 Place des Vosges, home of the European Art Exchange, the cover story for the French Secret Service Headquarters on the first floor. That taxi passenger must have prepaid his fare, for he shot out of the Renault and into the building in a couple of seconds flat. The other visitor, the Préfet de Paris, or Mayor of Paris, had been shown in through the back door by the dustbin men, who voted for him regularly at election times. M. Dubois was their friend, and any friend of M. Dubois was automatically enrolled in their very own Legion of Honour.

So what brought this disparate group — three Frenchman, and an English Ambassador to France, Sir Miles Myddleton, just returned from attendance on his sovereign in Biarritz — together in a large, eighteenth-century room with high ceilings and elegant shutters on the windows one floor up in one of Paris’s most elegant squares at seven o’clock in the morning? The answer was not long in coming. Colonel Brouzet made the introductions and summed up the reasons for their presence in a single word.

‘Bonds, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘People have been selling French bonds in considerable quantities. If it goes on like this, it could cause a financial crisis all across Europe. It is French government-issue bonds that have brought us here together this morning.’

Outside the birds were still singing and one or two of the cleaning staff could be heard complaining to themselves down in the square. It was going to be a beautiful day.

‘The movements in these bonds coincided with the presence in Paris of the Ballets Russes and their various appendages. I have to tell you that nothing would surprise me regarding the behaviour of the Ballets Russes.

‘As you know, gentlemen, the French government has authorized, some would say organized, vast loans to Russia, many of them designed as bonds due for repayment at some date in the distant future. This, as we all know, messieurs, is war policy disguised as finance. The more Russia is industrialized, the more factories she can build with the money raised from these bonds. She can pay for new facilities to make armaments for use in any future war with Germany. A stronger Russia means a stronger France. Monsieur le Ministre?’

It was an unusual scene. Here, in the afterglow of the belle époque, the French Minister of Finance, M. Blanc, looked as though he should have been head of dustmen, and the leader of the dustbin men, M. Nivelle, looked as though he should be Minister of Finance. The minister was wearing an old suit, much frayed, with a wing collar that looked as if it had been made for his father at the time of the terrible days of the siege of Paris and the Commune back in 1870. The suit, like his vast estates near Chambord and in the poorer quarters of the capital, was part of his inheritance.

‘War and a strong Russia, gentlemen,’ he began, ‘is in the hands of ministries other than my own.’ The man sounded as if every single person in his own department was also part of his immediate family.

‘We follow the instructions of the President of the Republic. It is now a good number of years since the great treaty between our country and Russia was signed. The President charged my predecessor with the task of binding Russia economically to us as part of the stance of the Republic towards our neighbours across the Rhine.’

It seemed that the poor man couldn’t even bring himself to say the word ‘Germans’. It was widely known how unpopular the Germans had been in Paris in 1870 and 1871, proclaiming the new German Empire in France itself, against the advice of Bismarck, who warned it could lead to a hatred that could last for generations. Well, that hatred had survived for forty years or more. It was still going strong. The scars had lasted till this day. The wounds were still suppurating.

‘Perhaps you could give us a brief outline of your methods, Monsieur le Ministre?’ Olivier Brouzet looked closely at the painting from the Louvre that had replaced the Watteau that had hung happily behind the director’s desk for the past seven years. Now it was Fragonard’s The Swing , the girl flying higher and higher, pushed from behind by an old man who must have been her husband, and watched from the front by her lover hiding in the woods.

‘You’ve always done well with jobs for the workers, I’ll give you that,’ the dustbin men’s leader, M. Nivelle, in his immaculate suit, suddenly made his first contribution of the day. ‘The loans have made a difference. There are now lots of working class districts around St Petersburg and the great cities. My people are grateful for that, even if the wages are still terrible.’

‘To our methods.’ The Minister of Finance picked up where Brouzet had left off. ‘Russia is not a democracy like we have here in France or in England.’ He nodded at Ambassador Myddleton. ‘Laws are passed by the Duma, the toy-town Parliament with no real powers, and sent to the Tsar. There they are either rejected or amended by the last person to talk to the Tsar. At the present time, that means the unspeakable Rasputin, or his lover, as St Petersburg gossip would have it, the appalling Alexandra, wife of the Tsar.’