Dennis Wheatley - The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

Orlof spat on the floor in disgust. "In spite of that we had old mar­tinet Frederick rocking on his pins and our armies were on the very point of taking Berlin. Then the Empress died. Without even having the decency to inform his allies in Vienna and Versailles of his intentions, Peter Feodorovitch made-peace; and a shameful peace at that. He bartered the fruits of all the victories won by Russian lives and blood for the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle, and went about proud as a peacock, flaunting it on his chest."

"What a monstrous thing to do," Roger remarked feelingly.

"'Twas indeed," Orlof nodded. "And he disgusted us further by his affair with Elizaveta Romanovna Vorontzoff. It seems that while she was his mistress as Grand Duke, he had promised her that when he came to the throne he would put away Katinka andjmake her Czarina instead. Katinka had been slipping out of one of the palace-windows at night for years past, to go in disguise to Yelaguin's house in order to keep assignations there with Poniatowsky—the fellow she after­wards made King of Poland—so Peter had ample grounds for divorcing her, but he hadn't got the guts. His failure to carry out his promise resulted in some frightful scenes. He and the Vorontzoff used to get drunk together every night, then she used to beat him, and boast about having done so in public afterwards. Well, no one can respect a man who lets his woman beat him, can they?"

"No," agreed Roger, with an amused glance at Natalia Andreovna. "They certainly cannot."

"So naturally all our sympathies gravitated towards Katinka. My brother Gregory had been A.D.C. to Count Peter Schuvalof. While Katinka was still only Grand Duchess the fates decreed that the Count should catch him in bed with the Princess Kurakm; and as she was Schuvalof's mistress he threatened Gregory with Siberia. Katinka got to hear of it; and her curiosity being aroused, she arranged to get a sight of him without his knowledge. One look at his handsome face was enough, and his destination was changed from Siberia to a much warmer spot."

The High Admiral guffawed at his own joke; then went on. "Mark you, Katinka was remarkably circumspect about her amours in those days. She had wearied of Poniatowsky for quite a while and only continued to visit him in order to divert suspicion from her other pranks. Whenever she saw a likely-looking young officer of the Guards she used to tell her woman, Katarina Ivanovna, to arrange matters for her. On some pretext the fellow was persuaded to allow himself to be blindfolded, then he was secretly introduced into her chamber at night. Often enough, if the young man was a stranger to the Court, he went away next morning with a purse full of gold but not the faintest idea whom he had slept with.

"Gregory knew well enough, but he had the sense to keep his mouth shut. In fact, when the Princess Dashkof sounded him, as just the type of bold bravo who would be required if any sword-play was needed to carry through the conspiracy, she was unaware that Katinka had ever set eyes on him. Actually he had been her favourite lover in secret for some months, and he was shrewd enough to see that if she did not get rid of her husband he would eventually screw up the courage to get rid of her."

"Moreover," Natalia put in, "Gregory also knew that once Peter was out of the way he would be able to come out into the open. And you Orlofs have never been slow at seeing where your best interests lay."

"True enough!" cried the Count. "But the little Dashkof was the prime mover in the affair, inspired by the virulent hatred she bore her own sister, Elizaveta Romanovna. The Dashkof was no more than eighteen then, yet so great was her talent for intrigue that she won over to her project, in turn, the Hetman Cyril Razumofsky, Count Nikita Panin and Prince Volkonsky, the major-general commanding the Brigade of Guards. Katinka pretended afterwards that she knew nothing of all this, and 'tis certain that none of these folk were fully aware of the game the others were playing; but 'tis my opinion that she directed the whole business through the Dashkof and, towards the end, my brother."

"Towards the end, too, the conspirators surely met," Natalia inter­posed again, "and in the presence of the Empress. Have I not heard that there was a violent altercation in which the Dashkof and Gregory vowed that once Peter was deposed Katinka must be enthroned as supreme ruler; whereas Nikita Panin stood firmly by his contention that she should act only as Regent for her son, Paul Petrovitch; believ­ing that his post as governor to the boy would then assure him first place in the Empire?"

Orlof tipped the other half of the bottle of brandy into his goblet, and nodded. "Aye, and it looked as if a deadlock had been reached; but the Dashkoff was persuaded to save the situation by her con­fidential secretary, an ambitious Piedmontese named Odart, whom she used as her go-between in the affair. By the grace of St. Nicholas, Panin had fallen in love with her during these secret negotiations. As he had been her mother's lover she believed herself his own daughter; so she was, at first, loath to give way to him. But Odart overcame her scruples, and on Katinka promising that Panin should be her prin­cipal Minister, between them, the two women brought him to heel."

Roger was no puritan himself and accepted the low morality of the age as natural; but even he was shocked by these disclosures which make it ever more apparent that, compared with the licence that reigned in London and Paris, the Court of St. Petersburg was a positive sink of iniquity.

"Yet the time wasted over this wrangle was near our undoing," Orlof continued. "Peter had succeeded to the throne on the 5th of January, 1762, and it was now the first week in July. The breach between the royal couple had reached such dimensions that Peter had banished Katinka from the city with orders to live at Peterhof until his further pleasure; and we feared that any day Elizaveta Romanovna might pre­vail upon him to have her cast into a fortress. My brother, myself, our friend Bibekof and a Lieutenant Passick had steadily been gaining adherents to the plot in the regiments of Guards; but not all of them were trustworthy. So many people were now involved that talk became inevitable. Frederick of Prussia got to hear that there was something in the wind and sent Peter a warning by Baron Goltz. Fortunately Peter was too drunk or lazy to bother about it; but another warning reached him through a French architect named Valois. As a result, Teplof, the Councillor of State, who was one of our number, was arrested."

Orlof paused dramatically, then he gave a great guffaw of laughter. "Would you believe it, that fool of a Czar had not the sense to put Teplof, to the question, so our necks were saved. But we were near undone again. This time by a soldier, one of Passick's people,' who inadvertently gave away our intentions to his Captain. It was nine o'clock at night. Passick was arrested and thrown into a cell; but, realising the desperateness of the situation he managed to get a message out which reached Princess Dashkoff, urging us to act before morning."

Again Orlof paused, then went on more quickly. "Panin came in to keep an assignation with her just as she received the message. His courage did not prove equal to the occasion and. he begged her to await events. Scorning his counsels she changed into man's attire, sent a message to my brother and met him at the Green Bridge over the Moika. Gregory returned to the barracks to prepare the soldiers and to myself allotted the perilous task of going to fetch the Empress.

"She was then living retired in a small summer house called Mon-plaisir on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, at the extremity of the Peterhof gardens. As her lover, Gregory, had the key to it, and on his giving it to me with directions how to find the place, I took two soldiers and we set off hell-for-leather.