David Dickinson - Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

‘Why is she appalling?’ asked the British Ambassador. He would have used a milder term himself.

‘She is German,’ the Minister replied, spitting out the word as if using a mouthwash at the dentist’s. ‘During the Terror here in Paris, the mob called Marie-Antoinette “ l’Autriche ”, which means either ‘Austrian’ or ‘ostrich’ — with its head in the sand. How right they were. It is the same in that vast Russian hinterland beyond the cities. Religious societies, like ours here in France, and in the Russian Orthodox Church, need a Holy Mary, a Madonna. They need the counterpoint too, the bitch goddess to make up their simple pantheon.’

‘Lucy, my love, do you think she’s telling the truth, that poor girl upstairs?’ Lord Powerscourt asked his wife.

‘Anastasia? Well, as a matter of fact, I do. Don’t you? It’s rather an odd question to ask, surely?’

‘Well, I do think she’s telling the truth. But what a fantastic story. It could almost be something to throw us off the scent. Whatever the scent is. At the moment I’m not quite sure. But think it has to do with jewels stolen in St Petersburg that have come to London, presumably in the luggage of the Ballets Russes. The jewels must have been sold through a dealer. And then the money itself is stolen. It’s vanished. It’s all too fantastic for words.’

‘Do you think it has to do with the murders?’

‘I don’t, except for the Ballets Russes connection. I suppose I’ll have to ask that poor man Inspector Dutfield to put his people onto the Premier Hotel.’

‘But there’s no mention in Anastasia’s account of any connection with Bolm or Taneyev, is there?’

‘If Natasha Shaporova finds any connection in St Petersburg to the stolen jewels, my love, I’ll take you to New York for a fortnight.’

Lady Lucy and their eldest son Thomas had been waging a persistent campaign for the oldest members of the Powerscourt family to go to New York and stay in a skyscraper. But so far the plan had failed.

‘What would you do, Lucy, if your jewels were stolen?’

‘Here in London?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go to the police.’

‘And I suppose you’d do the same thing in St Petersburg, though by all accounts the police there aren’t as good as ours. Would you employ a private detective to bring them back? Would you employ me?’

‘Of course I would.’

‘I’m not sure I would accept the case, Lucy. Count Powerscourtski would decline. Do you suppose that’s why the Russians are so fond of detective stories? At least in the fiction the crimes get solved, which they don’t in real life. Anyway, Inspector Dutfield will be here in a moment with his account of the movements of various people around Blenheim Palace on the evening of the murder.’

The Ambassador looked closely at Fragonard’s The Swing . He felt that any society whose aristocrats and princes of the Church dabbled in art beyond baroque and beyond rococo must be on the brink of revolution. Art had lost its moorings with society. Fragonard, the Tiepolos, Boucher all lived in a pink universe that was not connected to the people, except perhaps in subject matter and the strings on the swing. He included Poussin in his charge sheet, a John the Baptist for the horrors to come.

‘Perhaps we could return to the bonds,’ growled M. Dubois.

‘Of course, forgive me,’ replied M. le Ministre. ‘My young men with their degrees in mathematics from the École Nationale Supérieure and the other grandes écoles here in Paris have one thing in common. Their eyesight is already going from too many hours spent staring at figures. Many of them wear those owlish glasses you see on the Left Bank these days. They look out for hot spots or hot people, places where money well invested could increase and multiply and encourage the growth of other enterprises. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does not. They spotted the sudden and apparently inexplicable sale of these bonds.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Brouzet. ‘Now, Monsieur Nivelle, perhaps you could enlighten us about what is happening on the ground here in Paris?’

‘It was one of Monsieur le Ministre’s young men,’ said Nivelle in the coarse accent of the suburbs. ‘He was almost blind by the way, but he alerted us that many of the great finance houses here in Paris were selling French bonds — not in enormous quantities, but making substantial withdrawals nonetheless. We found the same thing happening on the ground in the poorer parts of Paris, people selling off their bonds. One week ago, it all stopped, as if some wizard had blown a whistle.’

‘Forgive me for a moment, gentlemen,’ said Colonel Brouzet, disappearing into a side room. He came back with an ornate ivory chess set, made in China centuries before. ‘It’s from the Louvre,’ he said apologetically. ‘They lent it to me along with the Fragonard. Perhaps these ancient warriors will help us.’

He placed the ivory chessmen carefully on a low table. ‘Let us see,’ Brouzet said, taking out one white castle and one black knight and placing them on the left centre side of the board. Here we have England and France, united by your King Edward’s entente cordiale. Here, we have the German knight, right in the middle of the board. On the far side of the battlefield we have the black castle, the Tsar and his armies. Who benefits from the sale of these bonds? Sir Miles, perhaps you could bring some of your wisdom to the table here?’

The Ambassador hesitated before he spoke. Outside a party of raucous Americans were demanding of an unfortunate waiter why they could not have their breakfast at seven fifteen in the morning. That was what they did in Des Moines, Iowa where they came from, they proudly told the garçon.

‘It all depends, doesn’t it,’ Myddleton said finally, ‘as to why these people are selling their bonds; on whether they are selling them for their own use, or to some foreign agents who are lurking in the poorer parts of the city — forgive me, Monsieur Nivelle — and scooping up these bonds. Do we know what proportion of the total have been sold, by the way?’

‘Just over six per cent of the total,’ said M. le Ministre. ‘That’s a substantial percentage, by the way.’

‘There is no evidence of a Monsieur Scoop operating anywhere in Paris,’ said M. Nivelle firmly.

‘It’s worth remembering,’ said the Ambassador, ‘that there are only two finance houses in Europe that could mount such an operation as this. You would need offices right across the Continent and very large numbers of employees. You see, I don’t think any of the governments would have the personnel to carry out such a conspiracy. They would turn to their bankers. After all, it was Rothschilds who financed Wellington’s later years during the Peninsular War, and on to Waterloo itself. They are one of the houses. They control the bond market across the whole of Europe. The other family are the Ephrussis. They control the supply of grain across Europe from their base at Odessa in the Crimea, the breadbasket of central Europe, and like their rivals they have offices in London and Paris and in other capitals.’

‘ Merde! ’ said M. le Ministre. ‘ Merde alors! What a thought! A cup final between the Rothschilds and the Ephrussis, fought out in the backstreets of the cities and in the Bourses and the Stock Exchanges of Europe, with a grand final between the Rothschilds and the Ephrussis played out on the finest tennis courts in Paris. What a prospect!’

Colonel Brouzet raised his hand. ‘We play a little game, I think. We look at the hopes and fears of both sides. Then we think of who might want to buy these bonds. Sir Miles, I ask you to bat for England, as you say about the cricket in your country. What are her hopes? Fears come later.’