Duncan Kyle - The King's Commisar

He gave me a glare. 'Relieved! Why are you relieved?'

'Because the thought of the murder of children is offensive to any man.'

'They are Romanovs. Their history is of blood. You wouldn't understand!'

'There are four girls, a sick boy -'

'And Nicholas the Bloody and his German bitch!'

I said, 'Are the arms still important?'

He stared across the desk at me, picked up the bottle. 'More?'

'Thank you, no, if you will excuse me. I have been ill.'

Sverdlov poured into his own glass, said, 'To your health,' and drained it. 'Arms are important if you need them.'

'And do you not need them,' I asked, 'against the Whites and the Czechs in Siberia?'

'Perhaps more here.' he said. Then he rose and stretched. 'I'm tired, Englishman. Come and see me tomorrow, eh? At noon.'

'If your clerks will let me,' I said sourly.

He laughed then, and scribbled quickly upon a slip of paper. 'My name may not count for much in Siberia,' he said, and laughed again. 'But here it should be effective.'

I left him, feeling somewhat puzzled. In many ways the things he had said had confirmed my own hypothesis: that the Romanovs were imprisoned in Ekaterinburg for the very good reason that that was where the Moscow Bolshevik leadership wanted them. That reason and no other. But why then was Sverdlov treating me with reasonable courtesy? I knew of his involvement, and of Lenin's. If aught were to go awry, that knowledge would besmirch both their names. I was better out of the way, yet he was taking trouble to reassure me, and to give me his time . . .

And it continued next day. When I was shown in, Sverdlov waved me to a seat beside his desk and pushed a paper across to me. It was headed 'Signal' and addressed to one General Jan Berzin, Ekaterinburg Military HQ. It read:

Report at once condition of Romanov family now confined your district. Your personal assurance of their well-being urgently required.

V. I. Lenin.

'Yesterday's date, you'll notice,' Sverdlov said.

'And the answer?'

'Is awaited. Sit and drink some tea.'

I stepped to the samovar to prepare my glass of tea, and was required to make one also for him. As I placed it before him, he held up a newspaper. 'This is why.'

The paper was Trud, I remember, and the item said Nicholas Romanov had been shot by Red Army men in a train as he was leaving Ekaterinburg.

'You're sure it's untrue?' I asked.

'We'll know soon for certain,' he said. 'The papers are full of these irresponsibilities. We'll have to learn to control the Press.'

An hour and a half later a message was brought in and placed upon his desk. Sverdlov read it and laughed. 'Here you are.' He handed it to me.

Military Telegram, to Moscow CEC from Ekaterinburg HQ.

Have visited Romanov family in detention this city. All are in good health. Premises secure, medical supervision available, rations more than adequate.

Jan Berzin, general, Red Army

'Satisfied?' said Sverdlov.

'They're not my affair. All I want is my document.'

'You should have made him sign it, my friend.'

'Made him?'

'A pistol at the head achieves miracles, I assure you.'

I said, is that how you made him endorse the Brest-Litovsk treaty?'

'Nicholas didn't endorse -' he glanced at me, and then laughed yet again. 'All right, all right. But I have no time, not now. Just be assured: nothing will change for a while. If the Romanovs are brought to Moscow, you will be given access. Fair?'

I nodded and he picked up a bell on his desk and rang it. A secretary entered, a woman, attractive and dressed in sober black. He told her: 'This is an Englishman, Nadezh-da. I can't even pronounce his name. Make arrangements to keep him informed on the Romanov question.'

'Yes, Comrade Minister.'

He rose and offered me his land. 'Why did Nicholas not sign?'

I think he is wary,’ I said.

'Not soon enough,' said Yankel Sverdlov. "He should have been wary long ago. Of Kaiser Viinelm, of Rasputin, of his wife. Goodbye, Comrade.' He held out his hand.

'Goodbye, sir.'

'Not "sir". Say "comrade".'

'I'm English. We address our superiors as "sir".'

'Superior?' he said. 'To an Englishman! None of you will ever believe it!' He gave me an amiable clap on the shoulder and I left.

'Now,' the woman's voice«aid crisply beside me, 'as to the arrangements. Do you require a report daily?'

'I don't require it, though it would be useful.'

She nodded. 'Very well. Here is my office. You should come to it as necessary.'

I thanked her and left. It was an extraordinary situation. If the Tsar had the paper, then from Sverdlov's own point of view, all that was necessary was to send me back to the Urals with instructions to General Berzin that I was to be admitted to the royal presence. Berzin apparently did not have difficulties. That way, assuming the recommended pistol-at-the-head method to be successful, I could be back in Moscow in a week with the key to releasing to the Soviets a vast quantity of arms, all of which must be sorely needed.

Why, then, was I being held in waiting? Personal kindness and daily information from one of his secretaries - it appeared to be generous, but in reality gave nothing. If his aim was to keep me quietly in Moscow, he would achieve it - and lose the chance of the arms. Didn't they want them? Could a new regime, embattled on many fronts, really afford to ignore a mountain of available war material? Or, I thought suddenly, was something else more important?

The Germans, for instance. For their army was in easy striking distance of Moscow!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Visit to a Black Widow

Malory's tame Oxford historian had produced, at Sir Horace's request, and upon two sheets of foolscap, a kind of timetable of known events concerning the Romanov family and the city of Ekaterinburg in May, June and July of 1918. Coming to the end of Dikeston's narrative, with its reference to the Germans, Malory reached for the foolscap list and ran his eye down it. 'Germans, bloody Germans

. . .?' he murmured quietly to himself. They'd be there, they always were. What was it Churchill had said: They're either at your feet or at your throat. He smiled in quiet private malice and then saw the reference:

'Throughout the months of May and June a German train is reported to have been standing, with all blinds drawn, at the station in Ekaterinburg. Source of information: Baroness Buxhoeveden, the Tsarina's l ady-in-waiting, who was in the city throughout this period, in her book Left Behind.' Dikeston, thought Malory as he pushed the list aside, was a fox. The narrative showed him to be something of a clown, and a pompous one at that, but he yet contrived to be everywhere of importance; not an easy matter to achieve, as Malory well knew. A fox then. A fox with a secret he had kept for six decades. A fox who knew where everything and everybody was, during one of the century's more mysterious episodes. He asked Mrs Frobisher to take Dikeston's narrative to Pilgrim's office. It was an hour before Pilgrim responded. Then the intercom buzzed beside Malory. 'Got a minute, Horace?'

Entering the room, Malory noted the satisfaction that was in Pilgrim's expression. It was well-contained, even suppressed, but there.

'Interesting about the Germans, wouldn't you say?' Malory mumbled. "Morning, Graves,' he added, for Graves stood at Pilgrim's shoulder. 'Been busy, have you?'

'At work in the vaults, Sir Horace.'

'Oh?'

'And,' said Pilgrim, 'old Jacques has found pay dirt.'

'Pay dirt, eh?'

'I got the idea,' Pilgrim said, 'of going through the old books to see if there were any references to Zaharoff's pensioners. Jacques has been down there hunting for three days. He found one or two things.'