Spies in St. Petersburg

by Katherine Woodfine

  This time, the voices were different. ‘I gotta make sure everything’s all right,’ an American voice was saying fussily. ‘Who knows what kind of a mess those guards might’ve left behind ’em, if they’ve been rummaging through my baskets?’

  Lil was still hanging on to Carruthers. She could feel him twisting away, trying to wriggle out of her grip. The basket rocked from side to side.

  ‘Stop it!’ she hissed.

  ‘Well, let go of me then!’ He shook her away, but in the cramped dark, there was nowhere for her to go. The basket rocked a little more.

  ‘Hey! What was that?’ said the American voice. ‘I think I heard something.’

  ‘Oh goodness – you don’t suppose one of the animals could have got loose somehow, and got in here, do you?’ said another voice – a girl’s voice this time.

  ‘Maybe one of the guards opened a cage,’ said the first voice. ‘Hey, Ravi, you take a look. This is your department. Maybe it’s one of your snakes.’

  Lil gripped Carruthers’ shoulder harder. Light footsteps were crossing the floor towards them – and then suddenly, the lid of the basket was lifted up, and light flooded in.

  The Circus of Marvels

  Someone was staring down at them – startled, but not really half as shocked as you might expect, given that he’d just found two stowaways in a dress basket.

  ‘Hello,’ said an amused voice. ‘You are certainly not my snakes.’

  A boy was grinning at them. He was small, brown-skinned and black-haired, and his dark eyes were gleaming with high spirits. ‘And I think you are rather too old to be running away to join the circus,’ he observed.

  ‘What is it?’ said the girl’s voice, and then two more faces appeared above them. Not one of them looked in the least like Carruthers’ description of ‘drunken and dissolute ruffians’ but then again, nor did they look much like the circus folk of Lil’s imagination, who were dressed in sparkling sequins and feathered plumes.

  One of them was a tall girl of about Lil’s own age – though tall scarcely covered it. Lil knew that she herself was tall, but this young woman would make her look positively tiny. She must have been at least six foot, with strong rounded arms, and a figure which looked as though it had been carved out of marble. A thick plait of corn-coloured hair fell over one shoulder as she peered down at them, intrigued.

  ‘That’s a clever hiding place,’ she observed.

  ‘Clever? They’re crushing my costumes!’ protested the young man at her side. He was the American they’d heard before: short, plump, and rather well dressed, in a crisp white shirt with a silk cravat at the neck. ‘Have you any idea how long it takes to iron the frills in those skirts?’ he exclaimed angrily.

  There was nothing else for it: Lil climbed out of the basket, shaking off petticoats, which the young man began to gather up protectively. ‘I’m awfully sorry. We didn’t mean to do any damage.’

  Carruthers was scrambling out of the basket too, almost tripping himself up with a long feather boa that had become tangled around him as he did so. ‘Utterly mortifying!’ Lil heard him mutter, as the young American began untangling him, clucking like an irritable hen. Beside them, the boy stifled a giggle.

  ‘We can explain,’ she began, thinking quickly. She knew that if these three were to report them to whoever was in charge, her plan would be ruined – and she and Carruthers might find themselves handed over to the Russian police.

  But the girl held up a hand. ‘No need,’ she said, with a beaming smile. ‘We understand.’

  ‘You do?’ Lil asked in surprise.

  ‘Of course. You’re eloping.’

  ‘Eloping?’ choked Carruthers.

  ‘Yes – I think it’s awfully romantic to run off to get married in secret. It’s lucky for you that Fanshawe is secretly a soft touch. You’d never know it, of course – but I’m sure you’ll be allowed to stay until St Petersburg. I suppose that’s where you’re headed?’

  ‘Yes it is. Do you mean it – will we really be allowed to stay?’ Lil hadn’t the least idea who ‘Fanshawe’ was, but this sounded unexpectedly promising.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to muck in and help, of course,’ the girl added.

  ‘And you can start by helping me sort out these petticoats,’ interjected the American, who was shaking them out fussily. ‘It’s really the least you can do.’

  ‘But even if you do have to become Cecil’s wardrobe assistant, at least you won’t have to spend the rest of the journey in a dress basket,’ put in the boy, with another wide grin.

  ‘No need to look so surprised,’ the girl went on. ‘You’re not the first eloping couple we’ve found hiding on one of our trains, you know. Far from it! We’re used to it. It’s usually either that or kids with dreams of running away with the circus, to become a bareback rider or a clown. Come on – I’ll take you to Fanshawe, and you can say your piece.’

  Lil shot Carruthers a desperate glance. His face seemed to have turned an unusual shade of purple. ‘Yes, come on, darling,’ she improvised, grabbing him purposefully by the arm. ‘Let’s go and get this sorted out.’

  She didn’t dare look at him as the girl led the way out of the luggage car, and along the passage through the swaying, rattling train. She knew he would loathe and despise the idea of pretending to be sweethearts – no doubt he’d think it even worse than masquerading as brother and sister. But they had no choice now.

  She glanced around as they went along the train, catching glimpses of more luggage cars loaded with boxes and trunks; and then a series of living compartments. Inside each, a group of people was sitting – playing cards, or eating breakfast, or in one compartment, snoozing on bunk beds. In spite of all that was happening, Lil found herself peeping in, fascinated by these snatches of life with the circus – although their companion was not giving them much chance to stop and look.

  ‘What are your names?’ she asked, as she led them briskly onwards.

  ‘I’m Lil. And this is er . . .’ It struck Lil suddenly that she had no idea what Carruthers’ first name was. But surely she couldn’t introduce a man who was supposed to be her fiancé as ‘Carruthers’?

  ‘Samuel,’ interjected Carruthers, giving their new friend what Lil was surprised to see was rather a pleasant smile. ‘Samuel Carruthers. But you can call me Sam.’

  ‘Sam – that’s a nice name,’ said the girl, smiling back.

  ‘I’m named after my grandfather,’ said Carruthers cheerfully. Lil felt rather astonished. Was it her imagination, or was Carruthers actually being friendly and decent, for once?

  ‘You’ve changed your tune about people from the circus,’ she muttered – so low that only Carruthers could hear her.

  ‘Right now, that girl is all that’s standing between me and a Siberian prison,’ Carruthers muttered back, sounding far more like his usual self. ‘Thanks to you and your plan.’

  ‘I’m Hanna,’ the girl was saying, as she strode ahead of them along the passage. The other two, she explained, were Cecil – ‘who looks after all our costumes’ and Ravi – ‘who’s awfully good with snakes’.

  ‘I beg your pardon – did you say snakes?’ repeated Carruthers, looking all around him as though he expected a boa constrictor to drop from the ceiling at any moment.

  Hanna laughed. ‘That’s right! You must see his snakes – they’re beautiful. He has a wonderful snake-charming act. It’s terribly popular.’

  ‘And what do you do?’ asked Lil curiously.

  Hanna grinned over her shoulder. ‘I’m a strongwoman. They call me “Miss Hercules”!’

  Lil stared in surprise. She knew that circuses often had strongmen: she’d seen pictures of them plenty of times, usually posing in a skimpy outfit, flexing their enormous muscles or lifting an immense weight over their heads. But she’d never heard of a strongwoman before. ‘I perform feats of strength,’ Hanna was explaining. ‘I lift weights – or sometimes I’ll get men from the audience to volunteer, and I’ll hold them above my
head.’

  ‘How marvellous!’ said Lil, thinking of how all her suffragette friends in London would adore the idea of a circus strongwoman.

  ‘Oh, it is! I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,’ said Hanna proudly. She told them she was part German, part Swedish and part English: she’d been born in a circus wagon in Bavaria and had been performing since she was two years old. ‘My father was a strongman. He taught me gymnastics and wrestling, and then weightlifting. Two years ago, when I turned sixteen, he offered a prize of one hundred gold marks to any man who could defeat me in a wrestling match. Plenty of them tried, but none of them could,’ she said with a giggle, pushing back the sleeve of her blouse to show Lil her powerful arm muscles. ‘That’s when Fanshawe heard about me, and invited me to join the Circus of Marvels. Of course, I couldn’t resist the chance. It’s one of the best circuses there is.’

  ‘They call it “the Greatest Show on Earth”, don’t they?’ said Lil, thinking of what she had read in the newspapers.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Hanna proudly. ‘And you’ll have heard of Fanshawe, of course. It was actually Felix Fanshawe who started the circus, oh, twenty years ago or more. When he died, Freddie Fanshawe took over.’

  As she spoke, she tapped on a door – and a moment later, Lil and Carruthers found themselves standing in front of a large desk, in a private train compartment fitted out like an office. Behind the desk sat a woman, so absorbed in a stack of paperwork that she scarcely took the trouble to look up at them. Whilst everyone else on the train was dressed in quite ordinary clothes, Lil saw that the woman was very smart. She wore what looked like a man’s black suit, with a snow-white shirt, her dark hair pulled back into a glossy bun.

  Carruthers glanced around, obviously looking for the ‘Freddie Fanshawe’ Hanna had described. But when the woman behind the desk looked up, giving them a fierce, imperious glance, Lil felt quite certain that this was Fanshawe. She found herself beginning to smile. Suddenly it did not seem so very surprising that the Circus of Marvels played host to a young strongwoman like Hanna, when the owner of the circus was a woman herself.

  ‘What’s all this then, Hanna?’ Fanshawe demanded – then sat frowning while Hanna quickly related their story.

  ‘Lil and Sam need to get to St Petersburg. Couldn’t they stay with us until then?’ she finished, in a pleading voice.

  ‘I’m not providing a transportation service for waifs and strays here, you know. I have a business to run,’ said the mistress of the circus, in a brusque voice. ‘But . . . since we’re behind schedule already, I have no plans to stop until we arrive in St Petersburg. With that in mind, I suppose they will have to stay.’ She fixed them with a steely expression. ‘Count yourselves lucky I’m not dropping you off in the wilds of the Russian countryside. Hanna will look after you and see you make yourselves useful. But after we get to St Petersburg I don’t want to see you on this train ever again – do I make myself clear?’

  She looked at them grimly, but it was all Lil could do to conceal her delight. This was far better than anything she could have imagined. Now, there would be no need to hide in the luggage van and sneak off the train in the station at St Petersburg. Now, they would arrive in the city amongst the crowd of circus folk – it was absolutely the perfect cover. And while she knew that Carruthers hated the idea of pretending to be her fiancé, even he looked suddenly cheerful as Hanna led them away to one of the living compartments – a comfortable little place with cushioned seats, which smelled wonderfully of coffee and warm bread.

  ‘I brought you breakfast,’ announced Ravi, who was lounging in a corner. ‘I thought you would be hungry.’

  The sandwich she’d only half eaten seemed like years ago: Lil fell hungrily upon rolls, butter and honey, and Ravi looked pleased.

  ‘I told you Fanshawe would be all right,’ said Hanna. ‘Now, tell us all about yourselves. We want to hear everything. How did the two of you meet?’

  Carruthers and Lil exchanged a quick, awkward glance. ‘I suppose . . . through work,’ said Lil at last.

  ‘What is your work?’ asked Ravi curiously, munching on a roll.

  Of course, they couldn’t mention the Secret Service Bureau – and announcing that she was a private detective didn’t seem quite the thing to do either – so Lil fell back on her old career. ‘I’m an actress, and a dancer,’ she explained. ‘On the London stage.’

  In other company, people might have responded to this with surprise, or excitement – or perhaps even disapproval. But Hanna and Ravi accepted it without even as much as a raised eyebrow. ‘And are you on the stage too?’ Hanna asked Carruthers.

  Carruthers looked appalled by the very idea. ‘Me? Oh no!’ he replied at once.

  ‘He was one of those fellows waiting by the stage door, for an autograph,’ Lil invented hurriedly. ‘That’s where we first met – and then we fell in love!’ She grabbed Carruthers’ hand, and fixed him with a suitably adoring look.

  ‘How romantic! I suppose that’s why you had to elope?’ Hanna exclaimed, nodding sympathetically to Carruthers. ‘Your family didn’t approve of you marrying an actress? Are they awfully traditional?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Carruthers uncomfortably, pulling his hand away from Lil’s.

  ‘So why do you wish to go to Russia?’ asked Ravi, beginning on his second roll.

  To Lil’s relief, the door of their compartment banged open, and a man burst in. ‘Does anyone here read Russian?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve got a dozen of these dashed official documents to get through before we arrive in St Petersburg, and I can’t make head nor tail of the beastly things. I’ve never known a country for so much paperwork!’ Lil knew the voice at once: it was Max, the man with the crisp English accent who she’d heard earlier in the luggage compartment.

  ‘I thought Sasha was helping you,’ said Hanna in surprise.

  ‘Yes, he was helping me,’ said Max impatiently. ‘And I must say, he didn’t do a bad job when it came to dealing with those customs fellows. But he’s no help at all with these documents!’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Ravi, his mouth full of bread.

  ‘He can’t read or write! He speaks Russian like a native – well of course he does, he is Russian. But he can’t read a word – and if I don’t get these sorted out we won’t be able to go ahead with the show, and Fanshawe will be furious.’

  ‘Er . . . I can read Russian,’ spoke up Carruthers tentatively.

  Max looked him up and down. ‘And who the devil are you? No – on second thoughts, I don’t want to know. If you can read Russian and you’ve got half a brain, you might be the answer to my prayers. Well – come on then!’ Carruthers hurriedly put down his coffee, and followed Max out of the room.

  ‘Sam can read Russian? He must be awfully clever. He definitely looks clever. You are lucky – I wish a clever, handsome man would fall in love with me at one of our shows.’ Hanna stared dreamily after Carruthers, and Lil felt rather startled at the idea of anyone finding the scowling Carruthers handsome.

  She was kept very busy for the rest of the day by Cecil, who reappeared to demand that she help refold and repack the costumes in the dress basket, and then assist him by sewing hundreds of red and gold sequins on to some ballet dresses. He was extremely particular about how this must be done, and Lil, who loathed sewing, would have found it terribly dull – but luckily, Hanna and Ravi kept them company, chatting about the circus, and only occasionally asking an awkward question that Lil found difficult to answer.

  Now and then, she found an opportunity to squeeze in a question of her own. ‘What about that journalist who’s writing about the circus – Miss Russell? I read her pieces in The Daily Picture. Is she travelling on the train too?’

  Ravi snorted. ‘Of course she isn’t!’

  ‘The newspaper people don’t bother hanging about with us to pack up the show,’ explained Hanna. ‘They travel separately.’

  ‘First class all the way. Then she and her photographer will no
doubt be staying in some fancy hotel suite while we slum it in whatever awful digs Max has found for us,’ said Cecil, with a plaintive sigh that suggested he would very much rather have enjoyed a fancy hotel suite himself.

  Lil bent her head over her sewing to hide her relieved expression. She felt very glad indeed that she wouldn’t have to worry about dodging Miss Russell and Charlie Walters for the rest of the journey to St Petersburg.

  It was teatime before Carruthers and Max reappeared: Lil noticed at once that Carruthers was looking extremely pleased with himself.

  ‘I must say, old fellow, you really have been a tremendous help,’ said Max, shaking his hand vigorously.

  ‘Did you get all your paperwork done?’ asked Hanna.

  ‘Get it done? This fellow absolutely breezed through the lot of it – I’ve never seen anything like it! My paperwork has never been in such marvellous order. And it turns out he doesn’t just know Russian – but French, German and Italian too!’

  ‘Well, that and a bit of Hindustani,’ said Carruthers modestly.

  Max guffawed and slapped him on the back, as though he’d made a most amusing joke.

  ‘You’ll be sorry to say goodbye to Sam when we get to St Petersburg tomorrow,’ observed Ravi.

  ‘Say goodbye to him?’ Max demanded. ‘Oh no. I’m not saying goodbye to this chap now. I need him. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you, old fellow. I’ll pay you – put you up in lodgings, whatever you like. But you simply mustn’t go anywhere. I can’t have that.’

  ‘Yes, do stay!’ burst out Hanna excitedly. ‘And Lil can stay too, of course.’

  ‘Lil? Who’s Lil?’ demanded Max.

  ‘She is,’ said Carruthers, pointing at the corner where Lil was sitting. ‘She’s my . . . er . . . fiancée.’

  Max shrugged. ‘Bring her. Bring whoever you like – bring your grandmother, if you want! Just as long as I get to keep you as my right-hand man.’ He clapped Carruthers on the shoulder again, and Carruthers looked smug.