Death Comes to the Ballets Russes (35 page)

Lord Rosebery, old friend of Powerscourt, former Foreign Secretary, former Prime Minister, had sent a note round to say he proposed to call at three o’clock.

‘How is your investigation into the Ballets Russes murders going, Francis?’

Powerscourt laughed rather bitterly.

‘It’s everywhere and nowhere, Rosebery. I don’t think we even know who the murder victim was meant to be – the understudy, or the man whose name appeared on the programme. Sometimes I think the answer’s to be found in St Petersburg, where we have been reading the understudy’s letters to no avail; sometimes we think it may lie in the internal politics of the ballet. If you’d asked me when I took the case on if I thought I would have made so little progress after all this time, I should have dismissed it as an improbable fantasy. But there we are.’

‘You must have some suspicions, Powerscourt? Surely, after all this time.’

‘They are all like gossamer, my friend, one puff would blow them all away.’

‘I have come with some intelligence that may help you in your cause, but I must tell you that it too is like gossamer waiting for that one puff.’

‘There must be affairs of state involved, Rosebery, if you are coming to me with Delphic warnings like the Oracle.’

‘I’ve always fancied the role of Delphic oracle myself,’ Rosebery smiled. ‘All those potions, all those
desperate people coming to you for guidance and then the business of composing the riddle. You and I could have been rather good at riddles, Powerscourt; we could have been sitting there for hours talking nonsense while we worked them out.’

‘We are, alas, in Markham Square, not on the mountainside at Delphi.’

‘We are, that’s true. Let me tell you a secret. Sometimes, if you have held my positions, those in the secret world – the diplomats, the spies, the people opening other people’s mail – keep in touch with you. Sometimes it is for us elders to tell them that they have not gone mad. Sometimes it is for us to tell them they have gone mad. Sometimes it is to tell them that such and such an outcome is almost impossible. They only consult us when they feel the need for an outside eye, a final port of call before the Prime Minister.’

‘This is all rather serious, Rosebery. Are you trying to tell me that the Ballets Russes may be involved in some diplomatic incident?’

‘It could be. All I can tell you today is to watch your step. You may soon be embroiled in deeper waters than you bargained for when you took on this case.’

‘Is that all you can say? I ought to watch my step? There is a killer on the loose out there, Rosebery: I am quite careful with my step already.’

‘I have already said more than I should, my friend. If I have some more definitive news, I shall come straight over. I am staying in town for the present.’

‘So you come to me, if you like, saying that you have received some form of Delphic message that you cannot yet decipher? Is that it?’

‘You could put it like that. When I hear about your
need to trust in your wooden walls, or that the bull from the sea is coming at the time of the crescent moon, I shall let you know.’

Inspector Dutfield brought some ballet news to Markham Square later that afternoon.

‘It’s our friend Bolm, my lord. Or maybe he’s not our friend after all. Twice in the last twenty-four hours he has gone up to my men who were following him and swore at them violently in French, or it might have been Russian. Detective Constables do not have to take any exams in foreign languages just yet. Then he spat on the ground. Maybe they’ll get the evil eye next.’

‘Where did this happen? It’s certainly odd, Inspector, is it not?’

‘Once near the front of the opera house, and once on the way out of the chess club. He should have been in a good mood then, for my man asked afterwards about the results of his last match. The manager said he’d beaten a man he usually lost to. And in less than fifteen minutes.’

‘What do you suggest we do about it, Inspector?’

‘I’ve changed the men over, my lord. There’s a whole new detachment looking after Bolm now. It implies he’s jumpy, but about what?’

‘Or about whom? Why should he get jumpy about a couple of English policemen?’

‘The only crimes such people would be interested in are crimes committed here. That would suggest that he’s jumpy about the murder. Of course, you could say he would be quite right to be jumpy about the affair in
Covent Garden. He could have been the victim after all. But why now? Why not before?’

Inspector Dutfield was fiddling about in his notebook. ‘I don’t know. We shall just have to keep looking, I suppose.’

‘Well, could you send my thanks and my best wishes to the two officers who received the treatment,’ said Powerscourt.

As Inspector Dutfield departed for his duties, Powerscourt wondered if Alfred Bolm too might have had a message from the Delphic oracle. He wondered if the oracle might be an occasional visitor to the chess club.

Natasha Shaporova was deep into the family thickets of the Rostovs in
War and Peace
. The idea came to her from out of the blue. She hadn’t gone looking for it. It just popped into her head. They couldn’t all have missed it, the Taneyev family back there in St Petersburg, the Powerscourts in Markham Square, the English police. She thought about it from every angle she knew. Her train was slowing down for a change at Cologne. She checked her timetable. She should have over an hour to spare before the train made its connections and moved off. She shot into the telegraph office and sent a brief message to Powerscourt.

‘Did Alexander Taneyev keep a diary? Regards Natasha. Cologne Station.’

Two senior porters had left their employment at the Premier Hotel, scene of the theft of Anastasia’s jewel
money. They had both been there for a number of years. Martin Magee and James Harding were reported to have been looking happy and confident before their departure. They had departed with such of their belongings that they kept on the premises.

This was the news that brought Inspector Dutfield hurrying round to Chelsea. ‘They didn’t bother to give notice,’ he reported. ‘They both seem to have left their lodgings in a hurry too. They paid up, mind you, for the remainder of their time before they left. Their landladies said they were both model guests in their establishments.’

‘How long between their departure and your realizing that they had gone?’ asked Powerscourt.

‘It must have been a couple of days. We were trying to search the hotel to see if the money had been hidden away on the premises. Have you ever tried searching a hotel and its bedrooms, Lord Powerscourt? The guests were not cooperative at all. Two Americans threatened to call the police until we reassured them that we really were the police, if you see what I mean.’

‘Will you call off the search, Inspector?’

‘No, we’ll have to carry on. There’s no proof that they left with the money. Luckily we were able to get very good descriptions of the pair. Every policeman in London will be on the lookout for them soon. If that brings no answers, we’ll circulate them round the country, concentrating on railway stations and ports. They could be on the Continent by now, my lord.’

‘Where they could change the stolen money into foreign currency and nobody would be the wiser.’

‘Absolutely correct. Our friend Killick didn’t take the numbers of the notes, he didn’t have time. I think I
shall have to call in Mr George Smythe again, though I’ve always felt he was telling the truth.’

Inspector Dutfield began polishing his glasses with a fresh handkerchief. ‘You’ve never really felt the robbery of the jewel money had anything to do with the murders, my lord, have you?’

‘No, I haven’t. And these revelations don’t make me change my mind. Somebody had obviously stolen the jewels in St Petersburg and found they would be easily traced. So they transferred the deal to London to get the money.’

There was a knock and a cough at the door. It was Rhys, the Powerscourt butler-cum-chauffeur who always coughed before he came into a room.

‘Telegram, my lord,’ he announced. ‘From Cologne Railway Station, my lord. I thought it might be important. For you, my lord.’

Rhys handed it over. Powerscourt read it aloud. ‘Did Alexander Taneyev keep a diary? Regards Natasha. Cologne Station.’

‘Good God!’ said Powerscourt. ‘We’ve never thought of that. Not one of us. Do you know if he kept a diary, Inspector?’

‘Well no, my lord. We’ve concentrated our search on letters rather than diaries.’

‘If it was one of those new ones, it could look like a book cover if it was lined up with other books.’

‘I’ll just have to go and take a look at his things, my lord. All of his stuff is still packed up at the station, as you know. I’ll conduct the search myself. I’ll come straight back if I find it.’

Fifteen minutes later another policeman found his way to the heart of Chelsea. Inspector Jackson made
his apologies for arriving without notice. ‘I had another piece of business to transact, my lord, but there is one thing in particular I felt I ought to tell you in person.’

‘You’re more than welcome, Inspector. Some tea?’

‘Thank you, that would be kind. The thing is this. I’ve been reading all the accounts of the witnesses at the murder of Vera the ballerina. Not just the ones from the Ballets Russes, but from the invited guests as well. I tell you this, Lord Powerscourt. It was chaos backstage, as it were, in the other parts of the palace, while the guests were taking drinks and enjoying roast suckling pig and all the rest of it. There were two identified people milling around: one a tall, foreign-looking man with a dark coat and a hat who everybody thought was Russian, and one a middle-aged Englishman in a brown check suit carrying a walking stick – rather in the manner of Mr Diaghilev if you like, my lord, who everybody thought was a local, from Oxford, for he seemed to be able to speak Russian as well. Always assuming our constables are correct in identifying what he was saying as Russian, not French or German or Hottentot or what you will.’

‘And what did your staff think they were doing?’

‘This is the thing, my lord. Most of the domestic staff were in attendance at the dinner, serving out the peas or the parsnips or whatever they do on these occasions. For the rest, it was like a free invitation to wander all over the house. There was the odd footman about, and the occasional door closed to the Ballets Russes people, the dancers and the stage staff and so on, who were all well behaved. I come to my point, my lord.’

‘Perhaps the gentleman with the walking stick was
just one of your extra translators brought in from Oxford?’

‘That’s very possible. We did conduct a fairly wide trawl to find those people. He could well have come from some department of the university.’ Inspector Jackson paused to take a sip of his tea.

‘It still must have been chaotic everywhere in the palace. The ballet people behaved as if they were visitors, as if they had been given a chance to look over the house like the other visitors the Duke of Marlborough and his lady let in during the year. One minute you could have been in the hall, another minute you could have been wandering round upstairs. And it’s an enormous place. If we assume, and I grant you this is a pretty big if, that the murderer had come to kill the ballerina, he could have waited for ever in the wrong part of the palace. She could have been on another floor. She might have been out in the gardens looking at the fountains or that sort of stuff. My hunch is that he must have arranged to meet her on the gallery in a few minutes’ time, that sort of thing. He wants to express his admiration in person. It will not do in the crowd. You can never underestimate vanity as a motive for doing things. So, when Vera arrives in the middle of the gallery, that’s the end of her. The other man disappears back into the crowd and out the front door. It was murder by appointment.’