Rasputin's Revenge (21 page)

J
ohn Tucker Wilson handed me a note as I exited the Czar’s room. It was from Lupa, who had just finished his own interview with Alexandra.

I didn’t know what Nicholas would do, whether or not he would sue for peace and so end the War on the Eastern Front within hours. I felt I had failed—and if I had, even Lupa’s investigation would be more or less meaningless. In any event, he ought to be aware of the situation. Time was indeed short.

As I hurried toward my meeting with Lupa, I heard the unmistakable sounds of another riot outside. Perhaps word had gotten out that Nicholas and Alexandra were in the Palace. Maybe it was just another outburst over no bread or the cold or another defeat had been announced.

Whatever its cause, the riot could not help but add to the Czar’s worries. He would hear it and see it from his window. Would it stiffen his back, I wondered, or break him down further?

In either case, I had to get to Lupa. If there was any hope left at all, I believed it lay with my friend’s solution to these killings, if he had one. It is all very nice to have suspects, I mused, but at some point the list must begin to narrow. How close, I wondered, was Lupa to that point?

I burst into his office to see him sitting behind his desk, surrounded by flowers, reading and drinking beer! He looked up as soon as the door had opened, and had put the book down by the time I got to his desk.

“Jules,” he said, “satisfactory.”

“No, it is not,” I exploded, venting my pique. “It is not satisfactory at all. You sitting here reading and drinking as though you’re on holiday, while the War is coming to an end. I’ve just seen Nicholas and he’s going
to capitulate unless you come up with a suspect in these killings. He may have already done it. What are we going to do?”

The young man glared at me briefly, then grunted in annoyance. “Sit down, Jules, calm yourself. Have a beer.”

“I don’t want a beer. We have to …”

He held up a hand. “Please.”

I sat down, waiting.

He finished his glass, pushed it to the side of the desk—it was the first one there—then took out a clean glass and poured from the pitcher. After the foam had settled properly, he took another sip, smacked his lips, and addressed me. “While I understand your frustration with this, I have done quite a bit today and I resent your implication that I have somehow been remiss. Alexandra and I have just had a very successful meeting, in which she has given me power of subpoena, and now I am awaiting the arrival of our friend General Sukhomlinov.”

“But Auguste, time is running out.”

His nostrils flared as he slammed his palm flat against the desk. “Don’t you think I know that? What am I supposed to do? Pull a murderer out of a hat?”

“It might help,” I said evenly “We have to do something.” I went on to tell him about my meeting with Kapov and his comment about “killing a hundred Minskys,” and then the audience with Nicholas.

He listened quietly, eyes closed, nodding from time to time. When I finished, he drank more beer and then talked. “Alexandra led me to believe it wasn’t so bad, that she thought he could hold out for another few weeks—that is, unless there’s another murder.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. He seemed close to the end to me.”

The big man sighed. “Well, if that’s the case, Jules, there isn’t much we can do. We can only hope that you had some influence on him. And remember, you saw him immediately after Kapov, and Nicholas might still have been reacting to some of his cousin’s arguments when you came in.”

I had to admit a kernel of truth in that statement.

“In any event,” Lupa continued, “we should, I agree, move with haste. Maybe even create a suspect out of whole cloth. It’s an idea. But right now,” he went on, “I’ve asked you to be here in more or less an official capacity. Sukhomlinov will be arriving shortly, and I’d like you to take notes behind that tapestry.” He pointed to a painted screen that hung over the back half of the room. “I don’t want him to know we’re working together, but I need an official witness to the proceedings.”

At my questioning glance, he explained. “I think the General is capable of casting his own nets in these waters. He is going to want me out
of the way—I am, in his view, personally harassing him, and my success here would threaten his separate peace. Ergo, I predict he will launch a campaign of his own to discredit me—perhaps even kill me.”

“Do you think he killed Minsky?”

Lupa shrugged and finished the second beer. “I expect to have a better idea within an hour.”

Lupa: I have sent for you, General, to ask you some questions relating to the death of Boris Minsky.

Sukhomlinov: Are you accusing me of that murder?

L: No. Not at this time, though it is my understanding that you were not unhappy to see him dead.

S: That is not a crime.

L: So you admit that that’s true?

S: And I repeat that it’s no crime. The man played at being a soldier, and he filled the Czar’s ear with nonsense.

L: And for that he deserved to die?

(No response.)

L: You were at Tsarkoye Selo the night he was killed, were you not?

S: This is absurd, Lupa. I was at the Czar’s dinner as everyone knows, with my wife.

L: And afterwards?

S: Afterwards we went to our quarters there.

L: Both of you? Together?

S: Yes, of course.

L: That’s odd. I spoke to your wife yesterday, and she said you quarreled, after which you went out alone. What did you quarrel about?

S: I don’t remember if we quarreled at all.

L: Wasn’t it about Minsky?

S: What about him?

L: (long pause) We’ll leave that, General. But you did take a walk?

S: I don’t remember. What if I did?

L: If you did, I would ask if you saw Minsky, but since you don’t remember …

S: You seem to be implying two different things: that I wanted Boris out of the way for political reasons, and because some issue of honor might also have been involved.

L: That’s correct. Two very good and different motives.

S: It’s ridiculous. If it were an affair of honor, I would have challenged him to a duel. Politically, there are more important men
than Minsky. Who was he? A fly in the Czar’s ear. There was no reason to kill him on that score.

L: There is a theory, General, that these murders—and this is the fourth, remember—serve a political end. Have you heard about that?

S: You mean to weaken the Czar’s will? It’s the silliest idea I’ve ever heard.

L: Still, these murders began just after your trial for espionage three months ago …

S: Where I was acquitted.

L: Yes, you were. Your timing, from the point of view of my investigation, was unfortunate. And the trial didn’t seem to have any adverse effect on your friends, your views, did it?

S: Which views are you referring to?

L: The ones which led to your arrest in the first place—you never seem to have a dinner or social engagement without a suspect agent of the Kaiser in attendance.

S: Many of those men were my friends before the war.

L: And you see no reason to treat them differently now?

S: No. They are not spies. They are writers and businessmen.

L: I can only wonder what legitimate business they might now have in Russia. (Pause.) All right. Now, as to your arsenal …

S: Don’t you think that was covered well enough at the trial?

L: Nevertheless, I find it provocative. According to this report, you admit to having over one thousand grenades, four hundred rifles, and at least fifteen thousand rounds of ammunition. As you were Minister of War, I can imagine how you got them, but what use can they be for you now?

S: I came by them legally, and they are for my protection.

L: Legality is an interesting concept, and perhaps even technically accurate. One is led to wonder, though, why the army has such incredible shortages, while your own larder is so well-stocked. (Pause.) Confound it, sir! Don’t you realize that you are the only source of grenades in this city? And the first murders were done by grenade? Have you no answer to that?

S: No. None. It is the least of my concerns.

L: If I find any other connection, I can and will have you arrested.

S: (Laughs.) Then I would be well advised to get you out of the way, wouldn’t I? Good day, sir. This meeting is over.

“Could he do it?” I asked when he’d left. “What did he mean, ‘get you out of the way’?”

Lupa, with a look of disgust, fiddled with some papers on his desk. “That was an interesting choice of words,” he said. “He is used to having his enemies arrested. That would get me out of the way. Or, if he is our killer, that approach would also work.”

“I loathe the man.”

His fingers drummed. “Yes, I share that feeling. But what did you think of the interview?”

“I think it got us nowhere.”

“Not exactly. It got us somewhere. We can probably eliminate the General. It is almost too obvious. He had two motives, means were no problem, and there was all the opportunity in the world. The man may be venal, but his stupidity would have to be colossal to act so unconcerned with so many facts pointing in his direction, and he is not stupid. He wears his villainy on his sleeve, but I’m not sure I believe he’s a murderer.”

“And where does that leave us?”

Lupa leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. For a moment, he was so still I had the impression that he’d dozed off. His only movement was the regular pursing of his lips. So he was thinking.

“Tell me about Elena Ripley,” he said at last.

It was an unexpected sally and it must have shown in my reaction. “Come, Jules,” Lupa said in response, “she is the last person to have been seen with Minsky. The propinquity alone is potentially damning.”

“You’re grasping at straws,” I said defensively. “Elena knows nothing about all this.”

“You’ve talked to her about it, then?”

“Obliquely.”

He leaned forward, concern now written clearly across his features. “And I take it,” he said quietly, “that she knows of our alliance?”

“I may have mentioned something about it.”

Again he leaned back. Again the eyes closed and the mouth moved. Finally he grunted and settled himself back at the desk. Almost to himself, he said, “Well, it is done. Some good may even come of it.”

I thought of his new power of subpoena. “Are you going to be speaking with her?”

He shook his head. “There’s no need so long as you are not befuddled.”

I assured him I was not, and promised that I would not keep from him anything she told me that might be pertinent to our investigations.

“Anything at all, Jules, please. Pertinent or no. Something could be hidden in the most seemingly casual remark. All right?”

Feeling he was being peevish, and thoroughly disenchanted with the topic, I agreed, though I wasn’t sure at the time, nor am I now, whether I intend to keep my promise or not.

My spirits low, I wandered the corridors of the Palace. It was late evening and might as well have been the dead of night.

After leaving Lupa, I went over to the children’s chambers, intending to pass some time with Alyosha, only to find that the royal children were dining with their parents. I thought I would pay a call on Elena, but she, too, had gone out.

Since I’d heard no news of a treaty with Germany, I still entertained hopes that all was not lost, but Lupa’s puerile insistence on suspecting Elena and his lack of success with Sukhomlinov, which he had called a triumph of sorts, had sapped my confidence in him and his abilities.

At the end of our meeting, he’d suggested I go see Borstoi again and finally get to the bottom of the “damage” he’d supposedly wrought, but I explained that without proof of my commitment to his cause, my credibility with him would be next to nil. With his characteristic bravado, he assured me that I could plan on seeing the young firebrand tomorrow, and I’d have the proof I needed. He’d see to that. Without the heart or even the curiosity to question him further, I walked from his office.

I don’t know what I was thinking or where I was going. Suddenly I could no longer stand the confines of the Palace. Hunger gnawed at me but somehow the thought of food made me nauseous.