Evelyn Weiss - Murder and Revolution

You went up to the main Dacha. No-one was about. You looked down at the lake, and saw the islands. You went down there, and walked along the causeway, past one island with a little house, then another.

At the third island, you saw the house that you thought was the Third Princess. You looked into the house, expecting to see Rasputin. As I said, people see what they expect to see. But when I stood up on the beach with the others, a few minutes ago, I showed how little can really be seen of a person, when they have a bright light behind them.

It was the same on the sunny afternoon that I was there, in August 1916, three weeks after the murder. The professor and I were standing at the door of the Princess house. We looked right through it, and through the French windows, at the glare of the sun sparkling on the lake. The conditions on the day you were there must have been very similar. The brightness of the sun and the lake would silhouette any person standing on the porch, when seen from that doorway.

So you saw the outline of a tall figure, standing with their back to you. The person was completely unaware of you. They had flowing dark hair, and they were wearing a long white robe, like that of a monk. The figure was leaning on the rail of the porch and looking away from you, out at the lake. And you knew that, one way or another, Rasputin had to be stopped.

You are a planner and a plotter, not a trigger-happy chancer, Lord Buttermere. But you showed me, in the butterfly gallery at the Ivangorod Museum, that you are quite ready to use a gun, if you think it is necessary.”

Buttermere nods.

“A few moments ago, I tossed a stone onto the beach behind us. You heard the sound, and being right handed, you glanced over your right shoulder, to see what the noise was. The figure you saw on the porch of the Princess house did the same, when they heard you at the door. That person was standing, facing the lake, with their head beginning to turn over their right shoulder.

You stood at the door, looking at the silhouetted figure, and you had your gun in your hand. As the figure turned their head, you fired. The bullet entered the right temple, and came out the left side of the skull, where it shattered the bones. Svea fell, into the wicker chair, her head still turned over her right shoulder. Later, that position, and that damage, was what Prince Alexei saw.”

The waves are still shining on the white sand, and the slim, elegant gentleman beside me shakes his head silently.

“Shall we turn round now, Lord Buttermere, and walk back to the others? As I said, Svea Håkansson wasn’t sitting, when she was shot. She was standing, then she fell into the chair, onto Alexei’s book, which he later pulled out from beneath her body.

I’m sure it was an awful moment for you, in that little house, when you realized what you’d done. But it was after you had flung the gun into the lake, and when you were hurrying back along the causeway, that you saw why you had been misled. There are in fact four islands, and four houses, but the first was only a storeroom. What you had thought was the Third Princess was in fact only the Second. It was Svea’s house, not Rasputin’s.

That little storeroom on its island has a lot to answer for. It misled you as to which Princess was which. But it also betrayed you in another way, when I went back there with Yuri in December 1916.

As you told me, when you went to Tri Tsarevny, you were disguised as an eccentric butterfly collector. The most obvious attribute of a butterfly collector is, of course, his butterfly net. You shot Svea, then in dismay, you went over to look at her corpse. At that point, I guess, you noticed that you’d got blood on your butterfly net.

Unlike the gun, a net would hardly sink in the lake. So throwing it into the water was not an option. But as you ran along the causeway, you decided you had to get rid of that butterfly net somehow. You hid it inside the neglected old storeroom. Months later, Yuri and I went into the storeroom, found the net, and used it to get the gun off the bottom of the lake. We assumed it was a fishing net, for children.

But Alexei wasn't allowed down by the lake, and it couldn’t have been left over from an earlier visit, because Tatiana Romanov assured me that they had never had a family holiday at Tri Tsarevny. As I said, the place was like a mausoleum: no children had ever holidayed there. So I began to wonder about the net, and whether it really did belong to a child.”

I glance at my companion’s profile; his straight nose and fine, delicate features. As always, his face is calm and assured, except for a shine in his eye that might be the beginning of a tear. The distant voices are getting closer again now. General Aristarkhov is speaking to the others, but I can’t make out the words. I finish my story.

“So, Lord Buttermere, I realised that the net might, instead, belong to a butterfly collector. That was what made me suspect you. But my proof is the gun. Yuri and I found it in the lake. Then, later on, Rufus took it with him to Armenia. Before he left us, I asked him to use his contacts in British Intelligence to check out the serial number of the gun – DCE5654. Rufus wrote back to me from Yeravan. His letter said that British Intelligence had telegraphed him with confirmation that a gun with that number was issued to you, Lord Buttermere, before you left England for Russia. Rufus’s letter reached me at the Sultan’s Fortress in Canakkale, a few days ago.”

The others are now only a few paces away. Suddenly, Aristarkhov loses patience. He shouts, and two guards step over to Yuri and grip his arms, just like the policemen did in Moscow. Another guard stands in front of Professor Axelson, ready to hold him back if he tries to interfere. I look at Lord Buttermere.

“I owe you my life.”

“Last night? I was just doing my job. I came to arrest Kılıç Pasha. When I got into the ruins of Troy, I naturally stopped him and his men committing further crimes, just as anyone would have done.” There’s a hint of a laugh in his voice as he adds “As you know, Miss Frocester, I dislike unnecessary violence.”

“You know what you have to do now?”

“Of course.”

Lord Buttermere calls across the beach; his voice is clear as a bell. “Aristarkhov! Call your men off! I have some news for you.”

He walks the last few paces across the sand to the general, and speaks quietly to him. Aristarkhov signals to the guards, and they let Yuri go. Professor Axelson and I stand, listening intently: we’re trying to hear what Buttermere and Aristarkhov are saying, as they talk together in low voices. Five minutes pass. Then Aristarkhov speaks, decisively.

“Very well. Have it your way.”

Aristarkhov turns to us; his blue eyes are hard and clear, but he speaks through clenched teeth. “It seems that we have a confession to the murder of Svea Håkansson. Lord Buttermere, in the light of what he has just told me, will be accompanying my party to Russia, to stand trial.”

Two of the guards are standing either side of Lord Buttermere now. But Aristarkhov hasn’t quite finished.

“Of course, Lord Buttermere, we will have to tell a little fiction about how this happened. It will be our word against yours.” He looks at the professor and me. “I will say that the English lord’s arrest on the beach in Lemnos was not quite as dignified and co-operative as it actually has been. We will say that there was an unseemly scuffle… and a gun went off, quite accidentally.”

He signals to the other two guards. They draw their pistols, and the general’s voice barks.

“Shoot Sirko!”

For answer, the guards look blankly at Aristarkhov.

“Where is he, sir?”

Aristarkhov’s eyes, and those of the guards, scan the beach. I see a shape in the faraway waves. The professor laughs out loud.