City of Silence (City of Mystery) (29 page)

“Fascinating,”
Rayley said.  “And you have a reason for bringing this story up now, I
presume?”

“I
was wondering if we were perchance making the same mistake as the Scottish
police,” Trevor said. 

“You
mean we’re looking for one man when in reality there might be two?” Rayley asked.

“It
seems at least worth considering,” Trevor said.  “We have been assuming all
this is the work of a single man, and that there is thus a single line of logic
to the killings.  Yulian must have been killed by an enemy of the Volya, and
Cynthia Kirby must have been killed by the same person, who realized she had
discovered something – most likely through the photograph she and Ella took on
the morning after the crime.  But it seems to me that there’s an inherent flaw
in that thinking.”

“Wait…wait,”
said Tom.  “Give us a shot at it.  It goes back to the question of why Yulian
was killed, does it not?   Because if someone within the palace, either the
private guard or the police or just some concerned citizen, learned that he was
affiliated with the Volya, they wouldn’t have had to cut his throat in the dead
of night and then taken some innocent girl along with him.  They could simply
have exposed him and let the law do their dirty work for them.”

“Quite
right,” Emma said.  “We’ve all assumed the obvious – that Yulian was killed by
an enemy of the Volya.  But the enemies of the Volya are the authorities and
they would have arrested him, not killed him.  And they hardly would have, in
turn, killed Katya and Mrs. Kirby.  Poor Katya was probably just in the wrong
place at the wrong time, but looking beyond her, our other two murders lie at
opposite ends of the political spectrum.  One victim was a loyal member of the
revolution and the other a loyal servant to the imperial family.  Who would
have had reason to wish them both dead?”

“No
one I can think of,” Trevor said.  “Which is why the resolution of the case in
Scotland so intrigued me.  Upon reflection, our quick assumption that whoever
killed Yulian must have also killed Cynthia is quite illogical since, just as
Emma says, it implies a man who stands against both the revolution and the
established order.  But perhaps we are not looking for one man with dual
motives.  Perhaps we are looking for two men.”

“I
must disagree,” said Rayley.  They all turned toward him, Trevor nodding
encouragement.   Disagreement, not runaway accord, was the purpose of these
meetings. 

“In
this huge edifice, with more than a thousand rooms, both crimes were committed
in the same space, were they not?” Rayley said, pushing back his eyeglasses and
clearing his throat.  “Even more significantly, they were both staged in
precisely the same theatrical manner.  Yulian and Katya posed as tragic lovers,
Mrs. Kirby as the king the gypsies.  No, I feel both crimes had to have been
committed by the same person, and that they are both designed to relay a
message, albeit one we have yet to fully crack.”

“Come
now, Rayley, everyone in Russia is theatrical,” Emma said, setting down her cup
with a careless clatter.  “You’re right, if this crime took place in London, in
a shop or a school or a hospital, the elaborate staging would be noteworthy. 
Some great clue to the killer’s mind.  But these are Russians, and dancers, and
revolutionaries, and what seems excessively dramatic to us is more or less the
way they all think.”

“So
have we come to an impasse?” Trevor said, after a moment of silence.  “Yet once
again?”

“Not
at all,” Tom said.  “I find your mention of the Scottish case most apt.  It
reminds us to question every assumption.  There may be two killers afoot, and
not one, and they may be connected to a joint cause or acting on completely
different motivations.  The murders may be less connected that they appear. 
Yulian may not have been the only member of the Volya to have infiltrated the
palace.”

“I
find that last thought the most chilling,” Emma said.  “For you’re quite
right.  If Yulian Krupin managed to dance his way through these iron gates and
into close congress with the imperial family, there could be others.”

“One
other point,” Rayley mused.  “Yulian had been part of the imperial ballet corps
for nearly a year. Why was he killed now?”

“Rayley
is returning to his training,” Trevor said, nodding toward Tom and Emma.  “When
the Yard cannot discover why something has happened, we busy ourselves with the
timeline, the ‘when’ of the crimes.  For the ‘when’ often leads us to the
‘why.’”

“Perhaps
Yulian’s killer only recently discovered his identity,” Tom said. 

“I
think it’s more likely there’s some sort of ticking clock we aren’t aware of,”
Rayley said.  “Some upcoming event which is forcing the killer’s hand.”

“Quite
a few events are converging,” Emma said, her voice also slow and speculative.  
She seemed to be talking as much as ever and sifting through the discussion perfectly
well, at least to Trevor’s point of view, and he wondered about this misty,
distracted manner that both Tom and Rayley had commented upon.  She certainly
wasn’t showing it to him.

“There
is of course the great ball,” Emma was continuing.  “And the customary closing
of the Winter Palace just afterwards, so that the imperial court can retire to
the coast.  You might also argue that our own arrival is a significant event,
even though no one appears to be treating it that way.  A visit by the Queen of
England is inherently significant, is it not?  And of course, except for Ella,
no one seems to want Alix to marry Nicky.”

“Another
thing - Yulian was shortly to be leaving for Paris,” Rayley said.  “He and
Katya had been granted an exalted and apparently rather rare opportunity to
dance there.  Filip put this out as part of the motive during our afternoon in
the saunas, when he suggested that Antonovich killed Yulian out of professional
jealousy.”

“Then
perhaps young Yulian’s loyalty to the Volya was not truly so unswerving,” Tom
said.  The energy of the room was picking up again and they had all leaned a
bit closer into the center of the circle. “The chance to dance in Paris with
Katya may have tempted him away from his duties to the cause.”

“Now
we’re onto something,” Trevor said with enthusiasm.  “I’m not sure which, if
any, of these notions is the closest to correct, but I feel in my bones that
this is a fruitful line of questioning.   For the one assumption we cannot be
foolish enough to make is that Yulian was the only member of the Volya within
the Winter Palace.  We cannot assume that all threats to the imperial family
died with him.”

“The
Tchaikovsky ball is in two days,” Emma said.  “Everyone will be there.  Not
just the imperial family and Ella, but Alix and the Queen as well.  If I were a
revolutionary I would consider it …the last day of hunting season.”

“Quite
right,” Rayley said.  “Even with the loss of a man on the inside, the Volya may
be prepared to continue whatever scheme they’d conceived.  We can’t say for
sure it would be the ball, but the timing is suspicious, is it not?” 

“Damn
suspicious,” Tom said, slapping his thighs. “Especially in light of the fact
that, just as Emma says, all the birds will scatter the day after the ball. 
Once the imperials and their consorts are at the seashore for the season,
they’re beyond the reach of anyone, the Volya included.”

“Just
how desperate would you guess these revolutionaries to be?” Rayley asked. 
“Enough so that they’d be willing to alter a plan at the last minute, even if
they have lost a key player?”

Trevor
winced.  “If anyone should have a word to say on the subject, it’s Davy.  But
where could he be?  I expected him some time ago.”

The
Streets of St. Petersburg

6:48 
PM

 Davy
had been wandering the streets of St. Petersburg ever since leaving Vlad.  Not
only was it a beautiful city, but now that his nose had finally grown
accustomed to the smell of the marsh, he found that the most enchanting vistas
were those from the bridges.  Heaven knows there were plenty to explore.  The
city was a compilation of nineteen separate islands, all connected by a series
of arching bridges, spanning the ever-present Neva at regular intervals. 

The
city is a silent place, he thought suddenly, as he stood at the arc of one of
the bridges, staring down into the steel-grey water below.  At first the
streets had seemed noisy, noxious, and fulsome – just like the streets of
London.  But here, just the middle of the bridge, high over the Neva, he
realized a different aspect to St. Petersburg.  A silence so profound that for
a moment it unsettled him.

The
heat had grown with the day and at some point in his walk he had removed his
cap and stuffed it in his jacket.  At another corner of another street he had
rolled up his shirt sleeves and finally now, here on the bridge, he unclasped
his collar.   Such dishevelment would never be allowed on the streets of London
where at any moment he might have crossed paths with someone else from the Yard
or perhaps, even worse, some public citizen who knew his function there and
considered him a representative of all that was proper with Queen and country. 
Representing the crown could be burdensome at times, especially for a man who
had not yet left his twenty-first year, and Davy now rubbed his throat and
neck, seeking the promise of a breeze and enjoying the freedom that came from
being anonymous, just another faceless man in the streets.

This
is why people travel, he thought.  So they can loosen their collar and roll
their sleeves in every known sense of the words.

A
church bell rang.  Even this sound was muted by the water and his elevation on
the bridge but his mind automatically counted the faint bells.  Seven.  Dear
God, he thought, jerking to attention, pulling his elbows away from the railing. 
He had walked for hours, he had missed teatime, and thus the chance to confer
with Trevor and the others.  Returned to himself immediately, he loped down the
slope of the bridge and onto the sidewalk, trying to calculate the fastest
route back to the Winter Palace.  He suspected the path he had taken with Vlad –
the Nevsky Prospect which ran beside the Café of the Revolutionaries and
required transit over the bridge where Alexander II had met his famous end –
was not the most direct option but that was the street he knew best.  It would
perhaps be faster to follow along the Neva itself, which would eventually lead
to the palace.  But rivers could undulate and waver, thus limiting their
usefulness for a man navigating on foot and who knows how many of the steep
bridges he would be required to cross between this spot and the palace?

Striding
briskly, Davy decided to take the Nevsky Prospect.  If nothing else, traveling
a well-known street would allow his mind the time to work on excuses for Trevor
and to practice his report, late though it would be, in his head. 

He
was halfway there, merely a block or two shy of the Café of the Revolutionaries
– he really needed to stop thinking of it that way lest he make a slip in the
presence of the Volya – when he saw Vlad himself.  He was coming up the
sidewalk from the opposite direction as Davy and walking with another man.  A
large and hulking beast whose brown jacket was buttoned to his throat despite
the heat and whose facial features seemed ludicrously lost in the vastness of
his flesh.  Small eyes, small nose, small mouth.  He looked like a snowman who
was melting, Davy thought, whose coal eyes and stony mouth were being slowly engulfed
in his collapsing face.

Vlad
had seen Davy too and, judging by his guilty, exasperated expression, some sort
of battle was going on in his mind.  He is leaving the meeting, Davy thought,
in the presence of a fellow Volya member.  And here, as luck would have it, he
encounters me.  He would prefer not to introduce me to this man, but what
choice does he have?  We are walking right toward each other and it is too late
for either of us to pretend we have not noticed the other or to change
direction.  He must either introduce me to his companion or, by neglecting to
do so, know that he has incited my curiosity about the man even more.

“Hello
there,” Vlad said as they all three came to stop on the street.  “Where have
you been since we parted?”

“Walking,”
Davy replied, reflecting upon how sometimes the most honest of answers could
also sound the most evasive.  “Admiring your beautiful city.”

“Ah,”
said Vlad, looking around with some surprise, as if it had been years since he
had closely observed the streets he walked every day.  “We have been in our
meeting, as you know.”

“Yes,”
Davy said, glancing at the man beside him.  Almost all the Russians he had met
spoke some degree of English but perhaps this fellow did not.  His face was
convincingly blank, as if even this banal discussion was beneath his understanding.

But
evidently not.  With a slight grimace, Vlad accepted the social realities of
the situation.  “This is Davy Mabrey,” he said to the snowman.  “He is a
British revolutionary in service to the Queen but in sympathy to our cause.” 
The man’s small eyes darted to Davy with sudden interest and Davy flushed.

“And
this is one of the senior members of the Volya,” Vlad continued.  “May I
present my comrade, Filip Orlov.”