David Dickinson: Death on the Nevskii Prospekt

Trofimov, Act Two, The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov

London, December 1904

Lord Francis Powerscourt looked carefully at the number at the top of the page. One hundred and twenty-three did indeed follow on from one hundred and twenty-two. Earlier on in his perusal of this work he had discovered page two hundred and four coming directly after page twenty-three and page eighteen coming immediately after page ninety-one. His eye moved on down the first couple of paragraphs. There may be a place called Salusbury somewhere, he said to himself, there probably is, but it doesn’t have a cathedral and this one should be spelt Salisbury. Sissors should be scissors. Sacistry should be sacristy.

Powerscourt himself was the author of this forthcoming volume. These were the proofs of the first in a three-part series on the cathedrals of England. He had completed all his research, travelling to every cathedral in the country, often with Lady Lucy as his companion. Powerscourt remembered Johnny Fitzgerald telling him, very shyly, of the extraordinary pride he felt in becoming a published author, of seeing a physical book with your own name on the cover. Powerscourt now felt the same and his elder children were growing incredibly excited, demanding regular bulletins on the book’s progress and asking when they could go and see it on display at Hatchard’s in Piccadilly.

Page one hundred and seventy-one, Wrocester did not have a cathedral, Worcester did. People did not reseive the sacriment, they received the sacrament. Powerscourt thought he might finish these proofs before lunch when there was an apologetic knock at the door and the sound of a slight cough on the far side. Rhys, the Powerscourt butler, another veteran from Indian Army days, always coughed before entering a room.

‘Excuse me, my lord, forgive me for interrupting you, but there is a gentleman down below who wishes to speak to you. He says his business is most urgent, my lord.’

Powerscourt glanced down at the name on the card. Sir Jeremiah Reddaway, Permanent Under Secretary, HM Foreign Office. Did he know this Reddaway? Had he had dealings with him in his earlier life as an investigator? Was he, much more likely, one of Lady Lucy’s relations? But, in that case, why not ask for his wife?

‘Is he in the hall now, Rhys, the Reddaway fellow?’

‘He is, my lord.’

‘Show him into the drawing room and say I will join him shortly. And ask him if he would like some coffee.’

As he tidied up his proofs, Powerscourt wondered if his past had come back to haunt him, if some fragment of an earlier case had resurfaced and needed tidying up. Maybe it would blow up instead, the past returning to explode in the face of the present. Sir Jeremiah, Powerscourt saw as they shook hands in the middle of the drawing room, was extraordinarily tall and equally extraordinarily thin. Sir Jeremiah leant forward when he walked as if some bureaucratic truth or disobedient memorandum had escaped his clutches and he was pursuing it down a recalcitrant Foreign Office corridor. He had a long thin nose and a small tight mouth. There was a very slight air of menace about him this morning, as if he might despatch a destroyer or a squadron of horse against you if you crossed his path.

‘Lord Powerscourt,’ he began, sitting beside the fireplace and stretching out those long legs till they almost reached the far side, ‘please forgive me for calling at such short notice and without warning. I am here on the instructions of the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister.’

Powerscourt bowed slightly. The previous Prime Minister Lord Salisbury he had known quite well. The current one he did not know at all.

‘I have come, Lord Powerscourt, on a most delicate and most urgent mission.’

‘Forgive me, Sir Jeremiah, I do not know if you are fully acquainted with my current position. As of over two years ago I have given up investigations. I attend to no more murder inquiries in society or anywhere else. My detecting days are over.’ Powerscourt smiled at the man from the Foreign Office. ‘I write books now, Sir Jeremiah, books about cathedrals.’

Sir Jeremiah did not give up easily. ‘I look forward to reading your work as soon as it is published. But we are talking here of a matter of the utmost importance. In the Prime Minister’s words it is crucial to the well-being of the nation and the Empire. It is our wish that you should take one final bow on the world stage, Lord Powerscourt, in the service of your country.’

‘I do not think you have understood me,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I do not do investigations any more. I am a retired investigator. I am a Chelsea Pensioner of an investigator, or, if you prefer a parliamentary to a military analogy, I have taken the Chiltern Hundreds and resigned from the House. I do not mean to be rude but I don’t intend to change my mind for you or the Foreign Secretary or even the Prime Minister.’ With that Powerscourt smiled politely at his visitor.

Sir Jeremiah remembered the advice from a Foreign Office official who had seen Powerscourt in action during his time as Head of Military Intelligence in the Boer War. ‘You’ve got to tempt him, Sir Jeremiah. I know you can’t tell him much until he agrees to take on the job, but make it sound as dangerous and difficult as you can. That might pull him in. The man likes a challenge.’

‘Lord Powerscourt, please, permit me to give the briefest outline of our difficulties. Surely you will give your country the right to enlighten you?’

Sir Jeremiah was rubbing the tips of his fingers together as he spoke. Powerscourt suddenly saw what he must be like in Foreign Office meetings. Polite. Polished. Lethal. He was not going to fall out of step in this gavotte of la politesse as if his drawing room had been magically transported back to the court of the Sun King in the vast and draughty salons of Versailles.

‘Of course, Sir Jeremiah, you must carry out your instructions.’ Powerscourt saw that Sir Jeremiah did not like being referred to as a bearer of instructions, as if he were a messenger boy or a deliverer of telegrams. A brief frown shot across his long thin face before the customary bureaucratic mask reappeared. ‘But, as you say, the briefest of outlines, for my mind is already made up.’

Sir Jeremiah pulled another card from his department’s investigations into Powerscourt’s past. Somebody remembered sitting next to somebody at a dinner party at Powerscourt’s sister’s house, and the second somebody recalled Powerscourt speaking very eloquently about the glory and the grandeur of St Petersburg which he had just visited in the company of Lady Lucy.

‘Do you know St Petersburg, Lord Powerscourt?’ Sir Jeremiah was now purring slightly. Looking at his incredibly long legs Powerscourt thought he looked like one of those Spy cartoons that appeared in Vanity Fair . Perhaps he had already appeared there. Perhaps he should ask him. Perhaps not.

‘I do,’ said Powerscourt, in the most neutral tone he could think of. He was not going to give Beanpole, as he was sure his children would describe the man from King Charles Street, any hint of advantage.

‘Did you care for the city? Did you find the architecture and so on agreeable?’

Here was an opening, surely. Powerscourt slipped through it like a rugby three-quarter making a break for the try line.

‘Forgive me, Sir Jeremiah,’ he said, ‘I thought you came here to discuss a matter crucial to the well-being of the nation and the Empire, not to debate the architectural merits of northern Russian cities as if we were compiling a guidebook or an updated edition of Baedeker.’

The sally made no impact whatever. Sir Jeremiah seemed to be carrying steel armour many inches thick as if he were some sort of human battleship.

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