David Dickinson: Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

‘I would ask you all not to look at me as if I were an exhibit in a zoo or some exotic animal in a circus,’ Powerscourt began five days later, surveying his little audience in the drawing room at Markham Square. His left arm was still in a sling. Lady Lucy was in her favourite position, opposite her husband, on the other side of the fireplace. Natasha Shaporova and Inspector Dutfield were on the sofa. Powerscourt had told Johnny Fitzgerald the whole story the day after he came home from the hospital. His reaction had been typical. He was on his way back to Warwickshire.

‘There you go again, Francis. How many times do I have to tell you that you mustn’t go on these dangerous expeditions without me. I’m not saying you haven’t come through it very well, mind you. But you’d have been a damned sight better off with me by your side.’

‘I have to tell you,’ Powerscourt continued, ‘that I had to dissuade the authorities from making you all sign the Official Secrets Act before we met today. I told them that you were all responsible adults and would not dream of passing on anything that I say here this afternoon. And I have to say that a lot of the fresh information about events at the Ballets Russes comes from Inspector Dutfield and his police sources. And some of it comes from a mysterious gentleman at the Cabinet Office who is gatekeeper and guardian of most of the nation’s secrets. Rosebery persuaded him to talk to me on the grounds that I had nearly been killed and deserved to know the full facts while I was still here, if you see what I mean.’

‘I’m sure I can speak for us all, my lord,’ said Inspector Dutfield, ‘when I say you can depend on us, with or without the Official Secrets Act.’

‘I have been thinking about the best way to describe this investigation,’ Powerscourt carried on, ‘and I think I would like to begin at the outsides and work in towards the heart of the matter.

‘Consider first, if you would, the wicked uncle in Barnes, Richard Wagstaff Gilbert. A shady financier with a penchant for cheating at cards, a wicked uncle, a very wicked uncle, who liked to torment his nephews with the prospect of a glittering legacy when he died. Johnny talked to the remaining nephews and to the remaining sisters of Mr Gilbert. There was only one possible warning note in their evidence, that Mark the croquet player had been attending the Ballets Russes here in London. Johnny was convinced that the boy was not a killer, and he also believed his story that he had to leave as soon as the performance was over to get back to his college. The vicar and the teacher nephews need not detain us, but I must say my favourite memory of this investigation will be the thought of the vicar on the day of the great performance at Blenheim Palace attending to his garden and contemplating his sermon for the Sunday morning service as he pulled out the weeds. We can leave all that family in peace waiting for their inheritance.’

Powerscourt paused and took a drink of water. His bandaged arm was beginning to itch and he didn’t think scratching it would be appropriate in the circumstances.

‘There was the strange story of the French bonds being sold in large numbers but there was a perfectly sound reason for that. They too can be discounted.’

‘And the jewels, Francis, the stolen jewels from St Petersburg? Can they too be discounted as being irrelevant to the murder?’

‘How right you are, Lucy. There is a certain element of poetic justice in that affair. Inspector Dutfield told me yesterday that the thieves from the Premier Hotel have been apprehended and a lot, though not all, of the money recovered. I say poetic justice in that the money from the jewel raid was stolen, just like the jewels. Anastasia will just have to say that the money recovered was all they got from the sale of the diamonds and the rubies and so on. I’m sure she will be able to manage that.

‘There are further Russian links I’d like to come to in a minute, but consider, if you will, the possibility that the first murder, the one here in Covent Garden, was carried out by a jealous husband, possibly even one from Paris who would have had to cross the Channel to restore the family honour. I didn’t think there had been enough time here in England for Bolm to have his way with any compliant wives — the murder was committed shortly after the Ballets Russes arrived and Alexander Taneyev was killed during the first performance here in London. I didn’t believe in the French connection either, so that trail can be discounted. The boy wasn’t killed by a jealous husband.’

‘But what about all the girls in the corps de ballet, Lord Powerscourt? Bolm was after them all the time.’ Natasha Shaporova had collected the evidence on this count and she wasn’t going to let it go just yet.

‘I agree that Bolm behaved very badly with those girls. But there is only evidence of flirting, nothing more. Pretty serious flirting, by all accounts, but there was the added problem that those girls were on stage at the time the murder was carried out. So while Bolm is responsible for some pretty unacceptable behaviour — very unacceptable if you happen to be one of those girls — it wasn’t Bolm who was killed. It was Taneyev.’

Powerscourt finally relieved some of the itching on his arm with a rub rather than a scratch. He didn’t think the doctors would mind.

‘We now come to a strange series of events that had nothing to with the murder. And while it may be too early to talk in detail about the Ballets Russes, they did have a key role to play in this subplot. Most of my information on this comes from Rosebery’s friend in government intelligence, and the rest of it from Inspector Dutfield and his colleagues. It helps, I believe, if you think of the Ballets Russes as a sort of glorified postbox. If you are a spy or a revolutionary, it’s a perfect vehicle for your plans. There is a man called Lenin who is the principal revolutionary in Russia. He is, more or less, on the run. He cannot stay in Russia or he would be sent to Siberia or somewhere worse. He has stayed in Switzerland from time to time and he has stayed several times in Russia. He’s even lived in London for a time and worked at the British Museum. He is currently in exile at a place called Cracow.’

‘Why don’t the Russians just go and arrest him? And take him back to Russia,’ asked Lady Lucy.

‘That’s a good question, and I have to say I don’t know the answer. Maybe the Russians think of him as a source for information or a point of contact for all the other revolutionary leaders he is in touch with. If they locked him up, this useful information would just dry up.’

‘I’m sure Lenin’s mail and his visitors are known to the Russian authorities at all times,’ said Inspector Dutfield. ‘They may even read all his letters before he does.’

‘Several years ago,’ Powerscourt continued, ‘the revolutionaries organized a bank raid in a place called Tiflis. It was a bloody affair, but the raid realized an enormous haul of money for Lenin and his colleagues. Unfortunately most of it was in large denomination banknotes, and the banks knew the numbers. So the revolutionaries couldn’t change it. They tried in a neighbouring country but that didn’t work. Remember what I said about the Ballets Russes being a sort of postbox? Lenin or his cronies must have had a friend or a supporter in the company, not necessarily a dancer. They took the money to London in the Ballets Russes’s luggage. It has been successfully changed into English pounds, and those will eventually return the way they came, in the Ballets Russes’s luggage. They may even have done this by now.’

‘From what you say, Francis, the authorities could have put their hands on this money any time they liked. Why didn’t they?’