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David Dickinson: Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

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David Dickinson Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

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‘Stabbing each other to death with Cossack knives just used in a performance, perhaps?’ said Powerscourt.

‘I’ve never heard of anything that bad, but there are some terrible stories. One female dancer, who thought she was the one people came to see, was dancing with Nijinsky not long ago. At the end it was clear that the applause and the standing ovations that rang round and round were for him, not her. She’s never danced with Nijinsky again.’

‘God bless my soul,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Then there was another prima ballerina who found that her roles were drying up. She was cast in fewer and fewer ballets and her parts were getting smaller. She only found out the reason by accident. Another prima ballerina had gone to the choreographer Fokine we saw just now and told him that he, Fokine, must not put her rival in too many roles. She was consumptive. Too much dancing would be very bad for her health. Smaller roles, not too many performances, that was the secret.’

‘It all sounds a bit like London gangsters to me — why don’t we knife the boss of the gang next door?’ Sergeant Jenkins was brushing chocolate crumbs off his jacket. ‘I’m obliged to you, Mrs Shaporova, for the coffee and the cake. You were right about that. It’s delicious. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the station. My inspector may have found somebody who speaks Russian for me by now. I wish you both a very good day.’

Natasha Shaporova was also preparing to leave. ‘I will let you know the minute I hear from Fokine, Lord Powerscourt. Do you have any plans in the meantime?’

‘I do, as a matter of fact. I’m going to find out all I can about the gentleman Alexander Taneyev was staying with, Mr Richard Wagstaff Gilbert. In my rather disagreeable profession, Natasha, we learn a number of disagreeable truths. Jealousy may be one motive for murder. Money, especially money to be inherited, is undoubtedly another.’

3

Relevé

Literally ‘lifted’. Rising from any position to balance on one or both feet on at least demi-pointe, which is heels off the floor, or higher to full pointe (commonly for girls), where the dancer is actually balancing on the top of the toes, supported in pointe shoes. Smoothly done in some versions, a quick little leap up in other schools.

‘The buildings in the City of London are pygmies, just pygmies,’ Powerscourt said to himself as he made his way up Lombard Street. The capital’s skyline was still dominated by the same landmark buildings that had been there for centuries, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Monument, Big Ben. In New York, as his son Thomas continually told him (as part of Thomas’s campaign to be taken there on holiday), there was a race towards the stars. The 1890 World Building, at over 300-feet high, had been overtaken by the Singer Building in 1908, which had forty-seven storeys and rose to 612 feet. Its reign as New York City’s tallest building didn’t last long. It was surpassed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building, measuring 700 feet, a year later.

The London Building Act, Powerscourt remembered, prohibited buildings over eighty-feet high; that became law as a direct result of Queen Anne’s Mansions, a block of flats in Westminster that were over 100-feet tall, which prompted many complaints — including from Queen Victoria herself, who objected to the new building blocking her view of her Parliament from Buckingham Palace.

Powerscourt was going to talk to his financier brother-in-law William Burke, who had risen to become very powerful in the world of money. Burke was sitting in a comfortable chair close to his marble fireplace. Powerscourt noticed that the portrait of Burke’s wife — Powerscourt’s sister — by the American artist John Singer Sargent, had now been joined by two further Sargents depicting the two eldest Burke daughters. The man’s family is now growing on the walls of his office, Powerscourt said to himself, just as it did in real life when they lived in Chelsea all those years before.

‘Francis,’ said the financier, taking off his spectacles and putting down a great folder, ‘how nice to see you. You’ve rescued me just in time.’

‘Rescued you from what, William? Bankruptcy? Debtors’ prison? The Marshalsea?’

‘Sometimes, you know, from where I sit, those places can seem very attractive. I’ve got to decide whether to buy another bank or not. I’ve got to make a recommendation to the Board in two days’ time. Do you know, Francis, I can’t make up my mind.’

‘I thought that you swallowed banks like other people might swallow a strawberry, William. You’ve been doing it for years.’

Burke laughed. ‘It’ll do me good to take my mind off it for a while. What can I do for you this morning? I sometimes think you only come to see me when you want information.’

‘Richard Wagstaff Gilbert,’ said Powerscourt. ‘What do you know of the fellow?’

‘Is he about to be recommended for a place on the Court of the Bank of England, Francis? A knighthood, perhaps?’

Powerscourt told him about the murder at the Ballets Russes and the fact that the victim had been staying with his uncle in a large house in Barnes guarded by two stone lions.

‘I see,’ said Burke, ‘but before I tell you about Gilbert, does this mean that those bloody ballet dancers are back in town? The ones who were here last year? Ballets Russes, did you say? I was nearly bankrupted last summer with the wife and daughters going to see them over and over again. And for some reason, they had to have the most expensive seats in the house so they could see everything properly. I got so sick of hearing about Nijinsky every morning that I took myself off to a hotel for breakfast.’

‘You’d better make a block booking at the Savoy for the fried eggs and bacon, William. They’re back. They’re here for about five weeks, I think. I’m surprised your women haven’t begun pestering you already.’

Burke sighed. ‘It could be worse, I suppose. Thank God they’re not interested in racehorses. Now then, Richard Wagstaff Gilbert. I don’t know a great deal about him. I know he’s very rich. Some wag once said that there are basically three ways to get rich. Inherit it. Marry it. Make it at the gambling tables. Our friend has done two out of three. He inherited one heap of money from his mother. She was an American heiress whose family owned a lot of stuff in New York and Chicago. Hotels, was it? Jewellery shops? Grocers? I’m not sure. Richard Gilbert himself made another fortune at the roulette table and traded in diamonds for a while. I think he’s involved with a lot of investment trusts. Some people don’t care for him at all. They say he sails a little too close to the wind. Is that any good?’

‘Very helpful, William, thank you very much. Are there any children, grandchildren perhaps, running round Barnes Pond with their nannies?’

‘I’ve never heard of a wife and certainly never heard of any children either. Why do you ask?’

‘Well, it’s rather a long shot. You see, just at the moment I can’t make much direct progress with this case. I can’t talk to the man Diaghilev who runs the show. He’s disappeared. But until he gives the all-clear, I can’t talk to the dancers. I can’t even see the place where the body was hidden.’

‘I don’t see, Francis, what this has to do with Gilbert.’

‘Switch on your most suspicious mind, William. We investigators have to look for all sorts of things in our work: the how, the where, the why. In my experience, jealousy is a very potent weapon for murder, especially when love and marriage and fidelity are involved. But there’s one other motive we meet much more often.’

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