Jonathan Broughton: The Russian White: A Victorian Thriller

“Did he hurt you?” She pulled his shirt open to find the wound left by William’s knife. A small cut and the blood slight. “Thank goodness. It’s just a scratch.” She kissed his cheek and helped him to his feet. “I’m going to get you out of this house if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

The household staff huddled in scattered groups on the gravel drive. Their buckets and saucepans and bowls of water lay discarded on the grass; the fire had beaten them. They watched in shock, as sheets of flame spiralled skywards and the House disintegrated.

The Chief, Doctor Hood and Judge Buffrey stood apart. Their eyes reflected the red and orange firelight, their minds numbed by the spectacle before them.

Sylvia lay on her broken bed, and the women of the House covered her nakedness with curtains and sheets. She smiled her baby smile and waited to be fed. Why did it take so long?

At the back of the House, the old stableman released the horses and let them loose in the Park, where they scattered in panic. He puffed on his pipe and trudged round to join the rest of the staff. He imagined the Devil had set fire to the House, and that Devil was called Isobel.

After he left, an iron grille next to the kitchen window began shaking and rattling. Two tiny hands gripped the metal latticework and worked it free until it broke loose from the wall, and fell with a clatter onto the cobbles. It opened up a dark hole, an air shaft, and out of its black interior crawled Peggy. She jumped out and sat down to catch her breath.

Masonry crashed and rumbled, and she jumped, terrified that Sylvia was in pursuit, and scared of being caught and punished for deserting her Mistress, she ran out of the stable yard and disappeared into the night.

Isobel and James staggered out of the kitchens, and the clean cold air blew away the heat, and they sank to the ground and held each other tight. James stroked her hair and kissed her hands, and she pressed her face into his shoulder and sobbed.

Parklands disintegrated into smoke and dust. The walls fell down, and the flames snapped at the sky. A fireball shot out of the wreckage and streamed high into the air where it exploded with an ear-splitting crash. Orange firelight illuminated the Park, and the staff cowered, frightened by the fury of this final act of sudden violence.

The flames dimmed, and the wind blew away the smoke, and Parklands existed no more.

The Chief found Isobel and James in the stables, fast asleep in the straw. He hitched his lantern onto a nail and flexed his fingers.

Such peace, such innocence, though only a fool might be deceived. The Brotherhood’s constitution demanded revenge on anyone who threatened the safety and security of the Russian White, and these two, between them, had threatened to expose it to the world.

To strangle them might give him satisfaction. However, it would leave too many questions unanswered.

He shook Isobel’s shoulder, and she moaned and opened sleepy eyes, but when she saw him she covered James with her body. “What do you want?”

He backed away. He didn’t want to frighten her, and he didn’t want a fight. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised. “I want to ask some questions.” To demonstrate his sincerity, he sat on a hay bale several paces away, and at the edge of the lamplight.

James stirred, woken by Isobel’s voice, and sat up with a rush when he saw him. “What’s he doing here?”

His legs kicked, as if they might strike him, though his feeble attack suggested he lacked the strength even to walk. He collapsed into the straw. Doctor Hood’s thoroughness left so many of his patients incapacitated.

“Don’t touch her,” he threatened.

The Chief sighed and opened his arms, palms upwards, to signify his peaceful intentions. “I’m not going to touch either of you.”

“He says he wants to talk.” Isobel stroked James’s hair.

“Talk?” grunted James. “Bit late for that.” He flopped back into her arms, and his chest heaved as he panted for breath. “What’s he got to talk about?”

The lumps and bumps of his bones protruded through his clothes; he might almost be described as emaciated. Hood’s methods were too rigorous, and he cursed the Doctor’s inability to question his prisoners without leaving them so close to death.

Then, he thought, how must he look? Pale face, his eyes ringed with dark shadows, stinking of smoke; he was no threat, but they needed convincing.

He clasped and unclasped his hands. How to find the right words to elicit the exact information he required? Whichever phrases he used exposed his motives. He didn’t want to force them into silence, but the first question that needed asking was the most obvious.

“Where is the diamond?”

“I don’t know.”

Isobel’s reply was too quick, too easy, though he said nothing.

“Really I don’t know,” she repeated. James stared back as if he dared him to contradict her.

“Do you know?” he asked James.

“No.”

He might almost believe them, they spoke with such conviction. Of course, they were adept at being deceitful because they both worked in the theatre; a fertile training ground for dissembling.

“But you had it,” he pressed Isobel. “You found it and gave it to the Russians.”

“No I didn’t,” she retorted. “I never gave it to the Russians.”

“Then you helped them find it. You told them where William kept it.”

“The Russians found it by themselves,” she blazed. “I never told them anything. I found a fake one that William kept in his study, but I never gave it to them.” Her voice faltered. “And anyway William got that one back.” She snuggled against James, and buried her face in his shoulder.

Such a show of vulnerability, and their answers, taken at face value, so easily acceptable, if you were foolish enough to be deceived.

“Where is the diamond?” He didn’t intend to back down now.

James sat up, and his voice cracked with anger. “She’s just told you, she doesn’t know.”

He kept his temper, and leant out of the lamplight to massage the back of his neck. He was so tired. Might it be possible that their replies were honest? Suppose there was nothing new to tell? Hood didn’t extract any information from James either. The Doctor found it difficult to believe that two people so intimately caught up with the fate of the diamond didn’t know anything about its whereabouts, a view he shared, which of course suggested other possibilities. Indoctrination by the Russians? Paid for their silence? Or pawns in a much bigger game that he had yet to unravel?

“I saw it.” Isobel’s whisper jumped him out of his reverie, and he leant forward into the light.

“What?”

“I saw the diamond?”

“Where?”

“The Russian man who found me had it.” She twined her fingers through James’s hair. “But I don’t know where it is now.”

“And this Russian man—” Desperate for information, though careful not to frighten her into denial or silence, he stayed calm; “Where is he now?”

“He took me to London, but I haven’t seen him since.”

Had he been one of the Russians caught at the Embassy? “What was his name?”

“I don’t—know,” she hesitated.

Had she forgotten, or did she lie?

“He didn’t tell me,” she confirmed.

“But he was an agent,” he pressed. He turned to James. “One of those brought over by your troupe?”

James shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t meet him. There are a lot of Russians in London.”

This was true. The discovery of The Third Section in Southwark had been a shock. “Do you keep a list of names?”