City of Silence (City of Mystery) (20 page)

“You
forget you are in Russia now.  We are a passionate race. Quicker to act on our
emotions that the British criminals you perhaps are accustomed to.  But shall
we continue our conversation in the smoking room?”

“Gladly,”
said Rayley, scrambling to his feet.  As he followed Filip toward the narrow
door he considered that he was talking to a man who had caught a bullet meant
for another, a man who had undoubtedly seen any number of innocents slaughtered
for the causes of love, ambition, politics, or God.  As they paused in the
foyer outside the sauna to once again don their robes before moving on to the
next room in the dimly-lit hall, Rayley wondered at the reasons behind Filip’s
eagerness to suggest Konstantin Antonovich as a suspect for all three murders. 
No doubt this was why he and Trevor truly had been invited into the gentlemen’s
enclave – to make sure they got a generous dose of the Orlov’s propaganda
against the Siberian dance master.  

Rayley
was relieved to find the smoking room a more conventional affair, with deep
padded chairs around a fire.  Despite the fact it was June, Rayley chose one
close to the hearth for now that he had left the sauna he was chilled by the
return to normal air.  Filip plopped down beside him and opened a cigarette box. 

“Try
one,” he said. “They are treated with opium. Just a touch, so there’s no need
to fear the loss of your senses.”

Opium? 
Rayley observed the slender cigarettes with interest, including the brightly
lacquered box which held them.  “Where do they come from?”

“Another
part of the homeland,” Filip said airily, causing Rayley to once again reflect
that this monstrosity of a nation stretched from Europe to the Pacific,
enveloping a dozen distinct cultures along the way.  “Pleasures you cannot
imagine can be found in the east,” Filip continued, his voice already
dreamlike, as if the even the idea of the opium or the feel of the small
cigarette in his large palm was enough to impart an anticipatory intoxication. 
“Those oils the men rubbed on themselves back in the sauna, did you happen to notice
the aromas?  Each was rendered from a different exotic plant, all with unique
properties of healing, and most of them from Asia. The plants of the east….and
their women…”  He abruptly jerked a thumb toward the door. “Later I shall show
you the passageway we use to bring them in and then, of course, back out.  Have
you by chance ever lain with a woman from Japan?”

“Never,”
Rayley said.  ‘I’m not sure I’ve even seen one.  At least not up close.”

“The
sensations they evoke are extraordinary,” Filip said.  “Their feet are
corrupted in the most intriguing way.  Twisted, you know.”

“Yes,
I’ve read about it.  I always thought the practice was cruel.”

Filip
shrugged, as if the statement was undeniably true but inconsequential.  “All
human pleasure comes at the cost of another creature’s pain.”

“What
an extraordinary suggestion.”

“Remember
it the next time you sit down to dine,” Filip said, finally striking a match
and lighting the cigarette in his hand, then taking a deep drag before putting
it aside to light a second one for Rayley.  “The next time you sink your teeth
into a leg of chicken pause for a moment to consider the final seconds of the
chicken’s existence in this earthly realm and you shall see at once what I
mean.  But somehow I’ve found that contemplating the suffering of the chicken
doesn’t make her leg any less juicy.”  Filip gave a quick consult to the clock
on the wall. “We do not have much longer until you will see what I mean.”

“The
women are on their way now?  So early in the afternoon?”  For some reason,
Rayley found this the most depraved detail of all.

Filip
smiled.  “But what difference does the hour make?  Why should anyone care if it
is day or it is night?”

“I
must confess, the longer I remain here, the less I can distinguish them myself.” 
Rayley looked at the lit cigarette with suspicion then took a tentative puff.   He
was not immune to botanical pleasures and had dabbled in a few back in London,
but had always made it a policy never to mix this particular indulgence with
work.  Still, considering he had already witnessed the sauna and the oils and
the slapping of bullrushes and was sitting here, nearly naked, discussing
philosophy with some manner of a hairy beast, he supposed such a small smoke
couldn’t hurt.  He had been commissioned by Welles, after all, to explore the rituals
of the men’s enclave in their entirety.  

“The
passageway which leads to the docks is quite cleverly designed,” Filip said. “I
believe the detective’s part of your mind will be intrigued.  And as your host
I must insist that you make the acquaintance of one of the eastern women before
our time together is past.  You’ve only had British, I presume.”

And
not so very many of those, Rayley thought wryly, feeling the first puff of the
opium curl down his throat and through his chest, unloosening everything, each
tension and doubt that it found there.  It was sweet to the smell and the taste
but, he suspected that, like most sweet things, it had the power to sting. 

“I
was with an American whore once,” he told Filip.

“Ah,”
said Filip. “I cannot claim that particular pleasure.  And how was it?”

“A
bit like your sauna.  Bizarre at first. but in the end, most invigorating.”

The
two men laughed and then, in unison, they raised the small dark cigarettes to
their lips and pulled the velvety smoke in yet again.

The
Winter Palace – Guest Quarters

1:30
PM

Their
search of the balcony in the west-facing corner of the ballroom had revealed
little.  Certainly nothing that would suggest that a woman had been killed
there, even by the bloodless method of strangulation followed by a twist of the
neck.  They had been ready to write the entire venture off as the waste of a
morning when Davy had spied a lone thread, tucked beneath a chair, its wiry texture
indicating it most likely came from a rope.  With it reverently folded within a
piece of paper, Tom, Trevor, and Davy returned to their rooms where they sat
down in straight chairs and stared at each other wordlessly.

“We’re
missing quite a lot,” Trevor finally said.

“Indeed,”
said Tom.  “As in witnesses, suspects, a murder weapon, and a motive.  Other
than that we’re well on our way.”

“I
would not say we’re entirely missing motive,” Davy said.  “Mrs. Kirby was most
certainly killed because she knew something about how or why the ballet dancers
died.”

“Agreed,”
said Trevor.  “Something that for some reason she neglected to mention to us.”

“Oh,
and we’re missing a table,” Tom said.  “It feels rather strange to sit here in
straight chairs without one, does it not?”

“None
of the rooms in this part of the palace seem to have desks or working tables,”
Davy said.  “They have angels on the ceiling and flowers on the bedposts but
they don’t have tables.”

“I
hadn’t noticed, but you’re quite right,” said Tom, looking thoughtfully around
him.  “I suppose it’s because no one who has stayed in these rooms before us
has ever felt the urge to do any sort of work.”

“You
know when the Queen first described Mrs. Kirby to me she said the woman was a
crack shot,” Trevor mused.  “Certainly a unique trait in a female of her age
and background, and it implies she was the owner of a pistol.  Yet we found no
such weapon among her things, nor did she have one with her when she died.”

“Two
possibilities come to mind,” Tom said, idly slapping out a rhythm on his thighs
as he talked. “The gun is still in her room and well hidden, which implies she
did not perceive herself to be in danger, at least not of the type which would
prompt her to carry a weapon wherever she went.  Certainly not when meeting me.
The other scenario is that she did have the pistol with her when she was attacked,
but since she was likely jumped from behind, did not have the chance to use
it.  Her killer could have disarmed her after death, which leaves us with the unsettling
possibility that a man who used a knife the first time, and his hands the
second, now has a brand new and far more efficient toy with which to play.”

“I
do wish Mrs. Kirby had been more forthcoming about what or who she was onto,”
Trevor said, leaning forward onto his own thighs and frowning.  “I have never
understood private citizens who come to the police and say ‘I suspect
something, but I dare not tell you what it is.’  It has always seemed to me rather
like announcing that they wish to become part of the evidence, and not part of the
investigation.”

“But
she left the photograph,” Davy said.  “It must have some meaning, else she
wouldn’t have gone to such great pains to hide it.”

“Perhaps
whatever is in the photograph is what she wanted to discuss with me in our
meeting,” Tom said, now slapping out a new tune with a bit more energy. 
“Although of course she didn’t have it with her when she left her room either,
did she?”

“Fortunately,
she did not,” said Trevor.  “Or it would now be in her killer’s possession and
not in ours.  It isn’t much, but it appears to be all we have, so let us go
over it again.”

The
night before they had spent hours taking turns peering at the photograph, but
it had as of yet yielded nothing beyond the sad sight of two beautiful young
people, both dead.  Trevor now placed it on a small serving table and the three
men stood around it, gazing down.

“The
significance of the picture almost has to be the knife in the girl’s hand,”
said Tom, pulling his magnifying glass from his coat pocket and bending to
squint at the center of the photograph.  “But she is clutching it so tightly,
that the shape of the handle is all but invisible and the blade is lost in the
folds of her nightdress.”

“Can
we make the image bigger?” Davy asked.

“Sorry,
my friend,” said Tom, shaking the magnifying glass at him. “This thing has sadly
limited powers and I left my microscope back in London at Aunt Gerry’s house. 
Dear Aunt Gerry.  I wish she was with us now.  She would have gotten every
gossipy detail from that wretched Kirby woman in three minutes flat.”

“No,
I don’t mean looking at it through a microscope or magnifying glass,” Davy
said.  “If this picture was found within these palace walls, then the negative
is likely also close at hand.  Are there not ways to make pictures larger,
expand them, so that details become more clear?”

“Bravo,
Davy,” said Trevor.  “So they can.  We have no idea who took the picture but
presumably it was developed somewhere here at the palace.  These people don’t
leave for any reason at all, including birth, death, and everything that comes
between.  We simply must find where the photography is developed and see if the
negative still exists.”

“I
shall do it, Sir,” said Davy.

“And
I shall go with him,” said Tom. “Four eyes are better than two and we may have
to study the expanded image within the dark room.”

“Good
lads, for I” – and here Trevor paused to check his pocket watch – “am within
minutes of my two o’clock audience with the Queen.”

The
Winter Palace – Ella’s Parlor

2:02
PM

“I
am dreadfully sorry, Your Majesty,” Trevor said.  “And may I extend my
condolences to you as well, Your Imperial Highness.”

He
stood before the settee which held the Queen and a morose-looking Alix while
Ella walked back and forth behind it, staring down at the rug and wringing her
hands.

“We
do not understand how this might have happened,” the Queen said, perhaps
slipping back into the royal “we” through agitation and perhaps simply speaking
for both herself and her granddaughters.  “You say she was found dressed in a
stage costume?  Why on earth should that be?”

“We
do not know for certain,” Trevor said, “but we imagine that the gypsy king
costume is some sort of message.  Perhaps things will become clearer when we
have had the chance to interview the dancers and know whose costume it was and
how the assailant might have come to possess it.”

“I
can save you the effort,” Ella said, still not meeting his gaze as she
continued to pace.  “The Gypsy King is a role played by Konstantin Antonovich in
one of the sketches planned for the ball.  I have seen him wear the costume in
rehearsals many times.  Everyone has.”

“Alix
most certainly shall not waltz with that man,” said the Queen.

“But
don’t you see, Granny?” Ella said, stopping at last and facing the settee. 
“All this contrivance, this ridiculous theatricality, only serves to prove that
the killer is anyone on earth except Konstantin.”

“The
Grand Duchess is most likely correct,” Trevor said.  “Not only is the costume a
rather extreme gesture, but we have narrowed the time frame during which Mrs. Kirby
might have been placed among the ship rigging to a mere twelve minutes and
Antonovich has an alibi for that period.”  He lifted his eyes to Ella.  “You
said you had seen him in the costume.  If I bring it here, to your apartment,
will you be able to confirm it is the same one you have seen before?  That no
parts of it are missing?”