Death on the Nevskii Prospekt (33 page)

Only one thought offered faint consolation to the Empress. All through the illness she had prayed that the faith healer Philippe’s prophecy to her might be fulfilled, that he was only a
messenger for a greater healer due to follow him. The Montenegrin sisters had sent word that a new staretz, another holy man, a man with extraordinary powers of healing had arrived in the capital
from Siberia. Maybe this man would be the answer to her prayers.

Powerscourt had letters to write on his return to Markham Square. He wrote to Lord Rosebery asking him to make a very particular request from the Private Secretary to the
King. He asked him not to elaborate, not to give any hint of why he was making this peculiar inquiry. If pressed, he could say it was to do with national security and the death of a British
diplomat. No details could be given of where the Foreign Office man had met his doom. When Rosebery had the answer – and the question was of considerable urgency – he was under no
circumstances to send the cable via the Foreign Office. He was to send one word, Yes or No, to be transmitted to Powerscourt through the house of Shaporov in St Petersburg from the offices of
William Burke in London. He, Powerscourt, thanked Rosebery most sincerely for his help and promised to fill him in on the details on his return. Then he wrote to Johnny Fitzgerald. When he, Johnny,
had satisfied himself that he knew all there was to know about the death of Mrs Letitia Martin, he was to come to St Petersburg. But only after a strange journey to the East of England. Once more
Powerscourt enjoined his friend to total security. Once more he requested that a one-word answer be sent to the Shaporov address. One look into the eyes of the people he was going to see,
Powerscourt told his friend, and Johnny would know if Powerscourt’s guess was correct. He wrote one final letter to Lady Lucy. He sealed it carefully and wrote her name in bold letters on the
envelope. He placed it in the front drawer of his desk so it could be easily found if he did not return. ‘Lucy,’ it said, ‘I love you so much. I always will. Francis.’ Then
he went to have a farewell cup of tea with her before he set off for the Dover boat.

The Place des Vosges, Powerscourt remembered the next morning, was, according to devotees of Paris, the most beautiful square in the city, and therefore the most beautiful
square in the world. On a bright February morning, with only the pigeons taking their rest on the gravel in the centre, the thirty-nine tall houses made of stone and red brick stared impassively
outwards as they had for the previous three hundred years. In the arcade that ran right round the square the cafés and the galleries were setting out their wares. Victor Hugo had lived here,
Powerscourt remembered. So had Richelieu for a period of ten or twelve years. A plaque on the front of Number 32 announced the European Art Exchange, the cover story for the French secret service.
M. Olivier Brouzet, Director General of the organization, had his office on the first floor, looking out directly on to the square. He might have just reached forty, Powerscourt thought, and was
perfectly dressed in a grey suit with a cream shirt and a pale blue tie. He was tall and slim and looked as though he might have been an athlete in his youth. He had a very small painting behind
his desk that could have been a Watteau, and eighteenth-century tapestries on his walls.

‘It is, Lord Powerscourt,’ he said after the introductions had been carried out and Powerscourt was settling himself down opposite the Frenchman at his eighteenth-century escritoire.
‘It is a Watteau, I mean. The Louvre were kind enough to let us have it on loan. Now then, how can I be of help to you? I am so pleased to see co-operation between our two countries on
intelligence matters. Some of your compatriots, I suspect, might not be so keen.’

His English was perfect. Powerscourt was to learn later that Brouzet had spent three years at Harvard after his time at the Sorbonne. Powerscourt explained his mission, the missing Martin, the
missing body, the different accounts of his activities from the different ministries, Martin’s affair with Tamara Kerenkova, the fact that he had met the Tsar. He included his meetings, but
not their accompanying delights, with Derzhenov. He repeated his belief that the French secret service was the best informed organization about Russia in the world.

‘Derzhenov the primitive!’ the Frenchman said. ‘Does he still take time to torture his victims in person down in that frightful basement in the Fontanka Quai?’

‘I’m afraid he does.’

‘Let me be frank with you. I think we should be as open as possible with each other. One of us, as surely as night follows day, will want to keep something back, but so be it. Let us help
each other where we can. We knew about Mr Martin in this office and his love trysts with la Kerenkova. Some of my colleagues here wanted to elect him an honorary Frenchman for the way he carried
out his affairs. We have many sources of information, as you might imagine, Lord Powerscourt. There are the émigrés all around us here in Paris and on the Riviera. Three times now I
have applied for extra funds to put a man on permanent station in the casino at Monte Carlo. Never, I tell my superiors, are Russian aristocrats more likely to tell the family secrets than when
they have just lost all their money at blackjack or on the roulette table. Always they refuse me at the Quai d’Orsay. I say they must be damned Presbyterians or Quakers or some other form of
terrible American Puritan. Never mind. We also have many agents in St Petersburg, in the banks, among the servants of the aristocracy, and most of all, at the imperial court at Tsarskoe Selo. That
is how I know about your visit and your two Russian colleagues. All the reports I have seen about Natasha Bobrinsky incidentally, tell me she is very beautiful. It is true?’

Powerscourt wondered what kind of world left you permanently speculating about the physical attributes of your informers or the people they informed against.

‘Oh, yes, M. Brouzet,’ he replied, ‘she is very beautiful. Quite headstrong, I should say. Might be rather a handful.’

‘Some day,’ said the Frenchman darkly, ‘they will release me from this office and let me out into the real world. Even Mrs Kerenkova must be worth a look, I would have thought.
Now then, enough of this, sorry, Lord Powerscourt. Let me come back to your colleague Mr Martin. I knew he had been killed. I presumed somebody had killed him, whether for what he knew or what he
refused to tell, I do not know. And I know he had been to see the Tsar. That, my friend, must be the key to the whole affair, that meeting.’

‘Did you know, M. Brouzet, that not even the Foreign Office or the British Ambassador in St Petersburg knew why he was there, that his mission was a complete secret, known only to the
Prime Minister?’ Powerscourt could hear Sir Jeremiah Reddaway fussing with fury at this piece of intelligence being given away. Powerscourt hoped that if he gave up an ace he might at least
be offered a king.

‘I did not know that, Lord Powerscourt, how very helpful of you. Did you know, incidentally,’ – something was coming his way, Powerscourt thought. Was it a knave or a valet as
the French call the jack, or a queen or a king? An ace even, perhaps? – ‘that Kerenkov was seen at the station late on the night Martin was probably killed? I mean the St Petersburg
station where the Tsarskoe Selo trains come in. You can guess the rest, I am sure.’

Queen, Powerscourt said to himself, maybe king. ‘I just have this problem, M. Brouzet, about Kerenkov killing Martin. Why do it now? Why not before? He’d been home lots of times in
the past after Martin had left his visiting cards with the fair Tamara, after all.’

The Frenchman shrugged. ‘The affairs of the heart, love, revenge, jealousy, Lord Powerscourt, are not susceptible to the rational analysis you and I carry round in our heads. Let me return
to the meeting between Martin and the Tsar with this new piece of knowledge you have given me.’

He paused briefly and stared out into the square. A number of people were now making their way across it, one or two of them tourists, earnestly consulting their guidebooks.

‘I always say in my mind to these damned tourists, Lord Powerscourt, forgive me if many of them are your fellow countrymen, that they should read their wretched Baedekers in their hotel
rooms or in the cafés or even when they go home. In this square, of all squares, they should look at the buildings and soak in all the beauty. Maybe then they can carry some of it home to
Boston or Birmingham or wherever they come from. Forgive me, I digress again.’

Powerscourt smiled. He thought that if he had to choose a man to work for, His Nibs, say, or Reddaway or even de Chassiron, he would prefer this slim Frenchman.

‘Let us put our brains together, Lord Powerscourt,’ Olivier Brouzet continued, ‘and think about this meeting. Consider first of all the subject matter. Of what do emissaries
from Prime Ministers speak to autocrats like Nicholas the Second? Of money? Unlikely, it seems to me. The Tsar doesn’t understand his own domestic finances, let alone those of his empire.
Mind you, I’m sure we could find bankers in this city who would argue that understanding your own finances would be a crippling handicap in coping with your government’s. However, with
the greatest respect, my lord, it is France, the old ally, that provides most of the Russian loans, not the English. So I think we can rule out money as a topic for the meeting.’

Powerscourt had two cards he had not put in play. He thought of them as the eight and nine of trumps, no more. But because he was not sure if they were real information, or just a guess, he did
not introduce them. Over the next two days as he travelled across eastern France and most of the German plain he was to wonder if he had been right not to do so.

‘A new treaty, do you think that possible, my lord?’ Olivier Brouzet smiled quizzically at his guest.

‘It’s possible,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but in that case why are there no Foreign Office ministers present?’

The Frenchman laughed. ‘Think of the psychology of the Tsar, my lord. He has to appoint all these damned ministers, Finance, Interior, Education and so on. If they are any good, they make
the Tsar look a fool for being so bad at the rest of his job. If they are bad, he reassures himself that as the autocrat of Russia he must have been better than they were in the first place.
There’s nothing he would like more than to conclude secret treaties behind the back of his Foreign Ministry. He’d be boasting about it to that old cow Alexandra for weeks afterwards.
After all, he concluded some bloody treaty with the Kaiser without telling any of his ministers. They had to spend years wriggling out of it.’

‘That’s all very well for the Tsar,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but I find it hard to see a British Prime Minister carrying on like that.’

‘More difficult for the British, but not impossible,’ said Brouzet cheerfully. ‘I’m sure Lord Salisbury wouldn’t have turned a hair. Well, that’s treaties as
one possible subject of the meeting. Do you have any other thoughts as to what they might have talked about?’

‘Just one,’ said Powerscourt, hanging on grimly to his eight and nine of trumps. ‘What about the little boy? What about the Tsarevich and his terrible illnesses? We, the
British, or it might equally well be the French, will send you three, let us say, or four of our finest children’s doctors, to see if they can find out what is wrong with Alexis. That’s
certainly the kind of thing you’d want to keep very quiet.’

‘All arriving with false beards and fake moustaches, mind you, Lord Powerscourt, dressed as if they were going to an undertakers’ convention. Think of the outrage in London if the
boot was on the other foot, and three Russian doctors were coming to sort out the health of the Prince of Wales. The rumpus in St Petersburg would be enormous, especially since they hate that
bloody woman so much. But it is quite likely, certainly. Do you know what the illness is, Powerscourt?’

‘I don’t,’ said Powerscourt,

‘Neither do I,’ said Brouzet smoothly, and Powerscourt wondered if that was the French secret service’s eight and nine of trumps. ‘But I hope to know fairly soon. Let us
consider, finally, the dynamics of the meeting, if we may.’

‘The dynamics?’ asked Powerscourt, wondering if he was wandering into some French metaphysical territory.

‘Let me explain,’ said the head of the French secret service. ‘Suppose the original idea comes from the British. They send Martin to St Petersburg. He sees the Tsar. For
someone to kill Martin it seems likely to me that the Tsar said Yes, rather than No, to whatever proposal it was Martin brought. If he said No, it was merely reverting to the status quo, after all.
Martin could be left alive as nothing had changed. That says Treaty talk to me, I think. Or it’s the other way round. The Tsar has the original idea. He sends for a British agent. Somebody
doesn’t like what the Tsar is offering to the British and kills Martin before he can take the message home.’

‘But the message could have been sent by cable before Martin was killed,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Pedant,’ said the Frenchman.

‘Or,’ said Powerscourt, ‘think of it like this. Suppose we’ve got the order all wrong. The original idea comes from the Tsar. He sends a message to London. Martin comes,
not as a man with a message, but as a man with an answer, the answer to the original idea or question from the Tsar. That’s what he conveys to the Tsar out there in the Alexander Palace.
That’s what somebody overhears, or maybe the Tsar is indiscreet. That is what kills Martin. As a matter of fact, I have requested an audience with the Tsar on business related to Martin but I
doubt if he will see me.’

‘But the message, Lord Powerscourt, what did it concern, this message from London?’

‘I wish I knew, M. Brouzet.’

‘I do like that last theory, Lord Powerscourt. But look, you must be on your way, or you will miss your train.’

As they shook hands at the front entrance and Powerscourt looked out once more at the glories of the Place des Vosges, the Frenchman put his hand on his arm. ‘Will you promise me, one
thing, Lord Powerscourt? Tell me the true story if you can, when you have found it. I am sure you will find it, you see. God speed and good luck!’ As he went back into Number 32, Place des
Vosges, with his escritoire and his Watteau and his tapestries, Olivier Brouzet resolved to help his English colleague in one important respect. He would ask the French Ambassador to St Petersburg,
the most respected man in the St Petersburg diplomatic community, to use his good offices at court to obtain for Lord Francis Powerscourt an interview with Nicholas the Second, Tsar of All the
Russias. On his own. Just like Mr Martin.