Spies in St. Petersburg

by Katherine Woodfine

  ‘Do you know, I haven’t been to the circus since I was a girl!’ exclaimed Vera, who had her arm tucked into Sophie’s. ‘What a place it is – just as splendid as I remember.’

  The circus building was a dazzle of golden light in the dark evening. Stylishly dressed ladies in glittering diamond necklaces, and gentlemen in rich furs, could be seen clambering out of their carriages, whilst ordinary folk had gathered close by to stare in at the immense building, hung with great red and gold banners reading The Circus of Marvels. At the entrance, Boris presented their tickets with a flourish to an usher in a frock coat; guards were checking people’s bags and pockets as they entered. ‘That’s because of the Tsar, of course,’ Vera observed with a sniff. At last they were allowed inside the grand foyer, where they were each presented with a large programme in a silk cover and directed towards their seats.

  The magnificent auditorium thronged with people – elegant ladies in evening frocks, gentlemen with roses in their buttonholes, children in frilly frocks or sailor suits – although the Imperial box, draped in its grand red velvet curtains, was still empty. Sophie and Nakamura found themselves sitting side by side at the end of the row, with a fine view of the circus ring below them, as well as all the people in their finery. As they took their seats, Sophie gave Nakamura a quick nudge. ‘Look!’ she whispered.

  Sitting across the auditorium from them, on the other side of the ring, she had spotted someone familiar. It was Viktor, sitting by himself. What was he doing here, Sophie wondered? Wasn’t he supposed to be at the lecture with Mitya? A grand gala performance for the Tsar was the last place she would have expected to see him. She saw that he hadn’t noticed them, but instead kept glancing over his shoulder, as though waiting for someone to arrive. In his green cap, he looked rather out of place in an auditorium filled with silk top hats and satin gowns.

  ‘And there’s someone else we know,’ said Nakamura in a low voice, gesturing to one of the seats just beneath the Imperial box, where a young woman was sitting with a notebook and pencil in her lap. At once, Sophie opened her programme and whisked it up to hide her face. It was Miss Roberta Russell! She’d forgotten that Miss Russell was following the circus on their grand tour. Even though Sophie had managed to dodge her for most of the air race, she knew that Miss Russell would not have forgotten her.

  To her relief, at that moment a trumpet fanfare sounded and the audience stood up, all of them looking up at the Imperial box, where the upright figure of the Tsar and his wife could be seen making their entrance. Sophie looked up, as curious as the rest: she’d never caught even the slightest glimpse of the Imperial family before, beyond the portrait of the children Boris kept hanging in the hallway. Their visits to the capital were increasingly rare, and she saw that they were accompanied by a number of dour-looking guards in military uniforms. It was the children who caught her eye first, all dressed in white: the four girls in matching lace-trimmed frocks, their carefully arranged long hair hanging down over their shoulders. As the audience bowed and curtsied, they took their seats together in a group – and beside them was their little brother Alexei, dressed in a sailor suit, a manservant close by, ready to minister to his every need.

  But there was not much time to stare. Almost the moment the Imperial family had taken their seats, the house lights went down, plunging everyone suddenly into darkness. The orchestra began to play a stirring melody, and after a few minutes, a single spotlight appeared in the centre of the ring. Standing within it was a single, splendid figure, dressed in an immaculate tailcoat, spotless white breeches, tall leather boots, and a glossy top hat. Sophie assumed it was a man, but as the figure performed a low bow, she realised that the ring master in the top hat was, in fact, a woman.

  ‘Your Imperial Majesties! My lords, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Fanshawe’s Circus of Marvels!’ she proclaimed, in a ringing voice that seemed to echo out to every corner of the auditorium. ‘An evening of spectacle and entertainment lies ahead of you. My name is Freddie Fanshawe, and it is my great pleasure and privilege to welcome you here tonight. For our first act, I am delighted to introduce one of our most remarkable stars: Madame Fleurette, Queen of the Air!’

  The spotlight was extinguished, making the elegant figure of Freddie Fanshawe vanish like a blown-out candle flame. A gasp of anticipation ran around the dark auditorium – and then all at once, the lights burst into a blaze of brightness, brilliant scarlet and gold.

  ‘Look!’ gasped Luka, and they all looked up, to where a magnificent figure could be seen descending with impossible grace from the rafters of the high ceiling. It was a trapeze artist, dressed in a glittering rainbow of feathered plumes, like an impossibly exotic bird.

  She was like the extravagant Rivière’s peacock, unfurling its magnificent jewelled tail, Sophie thought. The twinkling music of the orchestra seemed to rise and soar with Madame Fleurette, as she glided high through the air, reminding Sophie of how it had felt to fly through the skies in Nakamura’s aeroplane. The audience gasped and applauded at her daring, and up in the Imperial box, the Tsar’s children leaned forward in admiration, peering at her through their gilded opera glasses and whispering to one another behind their hands. Madame Fleurette performed one somersault, and then two, somewhere between a bird in flight and a firework, exploding up into the sky. The music reached a crescendo as she performed three magnificent somersaults – before at last she swung down to the ground to a roar of applause and flowers heaped at her feet, as she curtseyed low and blew a kiss to the Imperial box.

  But Madame Fleurette was just the first of the evening’s delights. Sophie forgot all about the Bureau, and the spyglass, the notebook and even the Fraternitas, as she watched in fascination. Next, ‘Miss Hercules’ appeared in the ring: a young woman not much older than Sophie, dressed like an Ancient Greek in a flowing white tunic, a wreath of laurel leaves about her head. She proceeded to demonstrate the most extraordinary feats of strength: she twisted an iron bar into a spiral; broke a chain with her bare hands; juggled with three enormous cannonballs; and even lifted an immensely tall and strong-looking man from the audience over her head, as though it was perfectly easy, smiling graciously at the audience all the while.

  As Miss Hercules left the ring amidst a roar of delighted applause, Freddie Fanshawe returned. ‘Our next act is brand-new, designed especially for our tour of Russia. Your Majesties, ladies and gentlemen – may I present to you The Dance of the Firebird.’

  Almost at once, the music began to rise again, in a delicate crescendo of silvery strings that sent a shiver over Sophie’s skin. A circle of dancers appeared, moving in perfect rhythm to the music, rippling out from the wings, or floating down as gracefully as feathers, suspended on invisible wires. Each was clad in a gauzy frock of deep crimson, or rich orange, or gold: it was like watching petals blowing in the wind, or a circle of flames flickering.

  ‘Beautiful!’ gasped Vera in awe, as the audience broke out in a spontaneous burst of applause.

  A new line of dancers flitted into the ring, leaping and spinning into pirouettes – and now it was Sophie’s turn to gasp aloud. But it was not the sparkling golden lights, nor the effortless grace of the twirling dancers, nor their beautiful swirling costumes that had astonished her. It was one of the dancers – the tallest of them all, who had shining dark hair. She wore a deep red ballet frock, which looked as though it was scattered with rubies; there were red and orange feathers in her hair; and her face was concealed by a mask of glittering gold paint. Just the same, Sophie would have recognised her anywhere – and now she leaned forward, clutching the balustrade so hard that her knuckles turned white.

  It seemed as astonishing as something out of one of Vera’s fairy tales. It couldn’t possibly be real, she thought stupidly to herself. And yet Sophie felt absolutely certain that the dancer in the red dress, twirling in the ring below her, was Lil.

  The Ciniselli Circus, St Petersburg

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just
go rushing off like this,’ hissed Carruthers, as Lil dragged her coat quickly over her ballet dress. They were backstage in one of the big dressing rooms – not far away from them Cecil was zipping one of the acrobats into a skintight costume, whilst a clown sat before a mirror, carefully painting his face. ‘The show’s still going on! You haven’t even taken your make-up off!’

  ‘I have to go!’ snapped back Lil at once. ‘Look, I said I’d help out when one of the dancers sprained her ankle – and I did. But I’m not here to have a jolly old time at the circus or admire the Tsar. I’m here to look for Sophie, remember?’

  ‘But you won’t find her now! It’s late – and it’s dark – and you look completely ridiculous. You can’t run about the city like that. You don’t even know where you’re going!’

  Lil glared at him. ‘I have to go. Thanks to you, I’m out of time. The Chief has ordered us back to Hamburg and I’ve still no idea where Sophie is. I went to half the hotels in the city this afternoon, and none of them were any use.’

  ‘Look, can’t you just wait until tomorrow? Our visas won’t be ready until the afternoon at the earliest. I could come with you – we’ll look for her together.’

  ‘No,’ said Lil. She was hanging on to the hope that she’d somehow be able to find out something tonight – anything that might have a chance of leading her to Sophie before Carruthers dragged her away from St Petersburg. ‘I’m not hanging around any longer. I won’t waste any more time!’

  She flung the dressing-room door open. ‘I have to look now if I’m going to have even the slightest chance of finding –’ But then her voice cracked suddenly and broke off. ‘SOPHIE?’ she gasped, in disbelief.

  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There before her, standing on the threshold, her arm raised as if to knock on the door, was Sophie herself, quite as if she’d been conjured there by the circus magician. She’d done her hair differently, plaited and pinned around her head, but there was no doubt about it – it was her. She didn’t look injured or sick, nor like someone who had just escaped from prison or from the clutches of the Fraternitas – nor any of the dreadful things that Lil had imagined. She looked simply like herself.

  Lil gave a little scream of delight. ‘Sophie!’ she cried again, leaping forward.

  Sophie felt Lil’s arms envelop her and staggered back. It was true: the ballet dancer really was Lil. She made a strange sight, dressed in an ankle-length red ballet frock and red satin ballet slippers, a winter coat thrown roughly over the top, her hair still scraped into a high bun, and her face shining with gold paint – but Sophie’s only thought was how marvellous it was to see her.

  ‘Oh, Sophie – you’re all right!’ she burst out. ‘And you’re here!’

  ‘Of course I’m all right,’ laughed Sophie, almost choked by her enthusiastic embrace. ‘But whatever are you doing here? What are you doing performing in a circus? Is it part of a new assignment?’ Her eyes widened at the sight of Carruthers, gaping at her from just behind Lil. ‘Did the Chief send you both?’

  ‘I came here to look for you – to find you and bring you home!’ Lil released her at last but kept a tight hold of her hand as though she didn’t dare to let go of it. ‘I was so worried about you! We all were, when we heard you’d gone missing. I thought you’d been kidnapped by the Count – or caught by the Fraternitas. Sophie, what happened to you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Sophie, her forehead creasing into a frown. ‘Missing? I wasn’t missing.’

  But Lil didn’t seem to have heard her. ‘I could hardly believe it when the Chief said you’d disappeared in St Petersburg. It was simply awful when he said he hadn’t heard from you for more than a month. I was imagining the most terrible things.’

  ‘More than a month?’ Sophie stared at her, baffled. ‘But I’ve been sending reports to the Bureau ever since I got here. I send one via the British Embassy every week.’

  Carruthers intervened hurriedly. ‘Er – don’t you think we might want to go somewhere a little more private for this conversation?’ he whispered, gesturing around the dressing room. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this probably isn’t the best place to go shouting about the Bureau and the British Embassy.’

  Lil scowled at him, but all the same she dragged Sophie forward – through the hustle and bustle of backstage and then out of a side door that led out on to a deserted street at the side of the circus building. Carruthers hurried behind them.

  Once they were safely outside in the cold night air, Lil turned to Sophie at once. ‘I don’t understand. The Chief said he hadn’t heard anything from you for weeks.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense. I’ve been writing all the time!’

  ‘Well, none of your messages have reached him – not since you came to St Petersburg,’ said Carruthers briskly. ‘He thought you’d disappeared.’

  ‘But he sent me a telegram back just the other day,’ protested Sophie, rummaging in her pocket for it. It had been one of the papers she’d taken with her, in case Viktor returned to do any more snooping in her room. Now she handed it to Carruthers, who unfolded it and read it aloud: ‘ORDER GRANDFATHER’S BIRTHDAY PRESENT AND BRING ASAP – CLARKE.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ asked Lil, puzzled.

  ‘It’s a reply to the letter I sent him,’ said Sophie. ‘It’s my instructions – they do make sense.’

  Carruthers shook his head. ‘I don’t believe the Chief sent this telegram. Why would he have sent a telegram to you here in St Petersburg, without saying a word about it to me? I always arrange all his telegrams,’ he added a little peevishly.

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t want you to know about it,’ Lil pointed out.

  Carruthers looked like he was going to argue, but then Sophie said: ‘Shhh!’ Two dark figures had emerged from the circus building, and at once the three of them drew back into the shadows. It was two men – one a large man with square shoulders, the other smaller, wearing a cap. They seemed to be having a furtive conversation in whispered voices.

  ‘I know that man!’ murmured Lil in a low voice. ‘That’s Rogers – he’s one of the circus hands. The one with the crate of guns, remember?’ she added to Carruthers.

  ‘And that’s Viktor!’ said Sophie, in astonishment. ‘He’s a student at St Petersburg University and a friend of the family I’m staying with – but he’s been snooping about my room and asking questions. What’s he doing here, talking to someone who works for the circus?’

  At that moment, the two men’s conversation seemed to come to an abrupt end. Viktor murmured something to Rogers, who took an object out of his pocket and put it in Viktor’s hand. Even in the dark, it was quite clear to see that the object was a revolver.

  Sophie and Lil exchanged a quick glance as the two men stalked off in opposite directions – Viktor towards the brightly lit entrance of the circus building and Rogers towards the big gate that led into the yard behind.

  ‘I’m going to follow Viktor,’ said Sophie. ‘I want to know what he’s doing here. I’ve got a feeling he’s up to no good.’

  Lil felt a familiar thrill of excitement in her stomach. This was more like it, she thought! She and Sophie were together again, and there was investigating to be done. ‘I’m going to follow Rogers,’ she announced.

  Sophie nodded at once, as though she’d expected nothing else. ‘Right. Let’s meet after the show. Come to my lodging house – it’s not far away, and we can talk privately there. It’s number 3, Ulitsa Zelenaya – the pink house by the canal.’

  She grinned at Lil and then disappeared after Viktor, running lightly down the dark street without even looking back. Without another word, Lil darted after Rogers. ‘So, I’ll come with you, shall I?’ muttered Carruthers, making haste to hurry after her. ‘Right . . . very good.’

  Lil hurried through and into the yard, with Carruthers close behind. She could hardly believe that she’d done it – she’d found Sophie. Or Sophie had found her, perhaps – but whichever way round it wa
s, it didn’t matter, because now they were together again. How Lil had missed this – working with someone who knew you so well that you both knew exactly what you were going to do, without needing to say a word.

  The yard was dark and empty now; the motor-vans and carriages had long since vanished. But there was one vehicle standing waiting in the darkness – a rather dilapidated-looking wooden cart, pulled by a single sturdy carthorse. Rogers was standing beside it speaking to the driver. As she watched, the driver jumped down from his seat and followed Rogers into one of the circus sheds, which adjoined the outbuilding in which Ravi’s snakes were kept.

  Beckoning to Carruthers to follow her, she crossed the cobbled yard after them. The door of the shed stood open and inside she could hear them talking in Russian. Of course, she couldn’t understand a word that they were saying, but she elbowed Carruthers forward, closer to the door. He was already listening intently, a frown on his face – but then Lil pulled him back sharply, inside the doorway of the shed where the snakes were kept. Rogers and the driver were coming out again, this time pushing a trolley upon which was balanced a wooden crate. Lil stared at it, certain it was the same crate they’d seen in the luggage van – the crate that Hanna had tried to help with – the crate containing the guns!

  There was no sound in the yard but the squeak of the trolley wheels, as Rogers steered it towards the cart. The driver helped to manoeuvre it into the back, with much grunting and struggling. Once they had positioned it securely, Rogers said something else to the driver. The fellow looked at him sharply, then nodded and flicked the reins. He gave Rogers a kind of salute, before clip-clopping slowly out of the yard and away into the night. Rogers watched him go – and then, to Lil’s surprise, he bolted the two doors that led from the circus building into the stable yard from the outside. Instead of returning inside the building himself, he turned and walked quickly out of the gate and away down the street as if he were in a great hurry.