by John Burke
“You’re absolutely right,” said Ivan. “What’s more—”
“Coward.”
Peter spat the word out. He saw his friend’s face darken. For a moment they were ready to come to blows, both tense and vengeful. Then Ivan said:
“If I didn’t think you were half out of your mind I’d make you regret that. What’s the matter, Peter? Is it . . . Sonia?”
“She’s been sleeping with him,” Peter burst out.
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Everyone knows, Peter,” said Ivan sympathetically. “Though whether she is his current favorite, I don’t know. He makes free of any woman he chooses. And he makes no attempt to hide anything he does.”
“And you’ll do nothing? Nothing? He besmirches everything we respect—my sister, your friends—and you won’t lift a finger?”
“A brawl would solve nothing. Murder is no answer.”
“Then what is the answer?”
Ivan looked unhappily around the confined space. He shrugged. Like Peter, he had evaded the problem until now. He had no personal reason to become embroiled. However much the dignitaries of the Court might hate Rasputin and his insidious murmurings, his sly influence on the Tsarina and the arrogant advice which he gave the Tsar, they all preferred to play safe. In his present position Rasputin could strike any one of them down. There had been charlatans before and Court favorites before. The best thing was to go along with them, trying to avoid a direct confrontation, and wait for them to fall. This was the first time that Peter had been personally hit. He wanted to sneer again at his friend; yet he had to admit that in the past he, too, had looked away and pretended that the whole thing was none of his business.
Ivan said: “The man is bound to overreach himself. If we are patient—”
“Patient? While my sister is debauched and the whole fabric of our existence undermined?”
“Come into the house,” Ivan coaxed him, “and have a drink.”
“No.” Peter had a vision of that café where the squalid figure had first appeared in their lives. It had been Sonia’s idea that they should go there. That was where it had all started. He said thickly: “Let’s go and drink as we used to. Let’s go to the Tzigane—that’s where everything in St. Petersburg happens, isn’t it?”
“After all you’ve just said—”
“You won’t drink with me, then?” Peter advanced threateningly on his friend. “You won’t help me, you won’t drink with me . . .”
Ivan drew himself up. “If you insist on going there, I think it would be as well if I came.”
“Good. No need to pretend. You don’t want to protect me—just want to drink, want it as much as I do. Eh? We’re drinking for old times’ sake, because we’re friends. All right?”
“All right,” said Ivan.
Peter did not know what demon drove him on. He only knew that he wanted to walk the same streets, relive the same incipient horrors, go over it again and again so that somehow it would all make sense and he would be able to believe and cope with the unthinkable.
The café was quiet. There was no band. No drinking contest, no laughter, no massive barbarian swirling in a violent dance around the room. Peter drank a bottle of wine before Ivan had finished his second glass, and ordered another.
“Steady, there,” said Ivan.
Peter glowered at him. If Ivan wanted to pick a quarrel, he was in the mood for it. If Ivan thought he wasn’t sober, or ought not to be out . . . if Ivan thought he wasn’t capable . . . capable of drinking, talking, fighting, dancing . . .
Dancing. That was it. That oaf from the primitive forests was not the only one who could dance. It was time someone showed what an officer and a gentleman could do.
Peter reeled out on to the floor. He sang to himself because there was no other music, clapped his hands while he danced. And then he found himself swaying, breathless, above the table, with Ivan looking mournfully up at him.
“What are we doing here?” Peter demanded.
“You insisted on coming.”
“Remember the last time we were here?” That was what it was all about. They had come here this time because of the last time. “We were sitting here, and they were over there . . . somewhere over there . . .” Through a haze he nodded at the next table. It was empty. No, not empty: peopled with ghosts.
Then one of the phantom figures became solid and real. A neatly dressed man slumped into a chair and beckoned to the waiter. Once he had been a scruffy, drunken wretch; now he was smart and trim, and the face was that of the new Court Physician.
“Look!” Peter whispered. He took a few unsteady steps towards the table. “I’m going to . . . hey, you there . . . where’s your friend?”
Ivan tried to clutch his arm. Peter shook him off and advanced on Doctor Zargo. The man must be in on the whole thing: he and Rasputin had been drinking here that evening, and now both of them were in high positions, running the country and its supposed governors as they chose.
“I’m going to punch you right on—”
“Gentlemen.” Zargo got up and looked from Peter to Ivan. “I did not expect to see you here.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. But now that we are here, it’s as good a time as any to—”
“Peter, no!”
“I wonder,” said Zargo, “if I may ask you to spare me a minute.”
“Every intention of sparing you a minute,” growled Peter, “if it takes that long.”
He was ready to take a swipe at the little rat. But Zargo had acquired an unexpected dignity. It was nothing to do with his transformation from a tavern drunkard to a smart courtier: rather was it to do with the sadness of experience in his eyes.
Ivan had his hand on Peter’s arm. They stood above Zargo.
The doctor said: “Believe me, I appreciate your feelings. But what I have to say is of the utmost importance. I see clearly what must be done; I would like to make you see it also.”
The patron clumped across the room. He didn’t want a fight. It was bad enough when the place was crowded; worse when these were his only customers.
“Is there anywhere we can go?” asked Zargo urgently. “Please—it is of the utmost concern to you, I swear it.”
Ivan said: “We will drive back to my house.”
Peter felt drowsy and resentful on the way back. He was suspicious of Zargo and unwilling either to confide in him or be influenced by him. One of Rasputin’s lackeys—what trust could one repose in him?
But he sobered up as they sat by the warmth of the stove, huddled together like three conspirators, and Zargo told them all he knew of Rasputin. The little doctor made no excuses for his own conduct. He admitted that he had gone along too easily with the power-crazed monk and that he had not hesitated to take what profit he could on the way. But he had his standards—submerged once, but now coming to the surface again. He wished to atone. Above all he wished to put a stop to the raging, headlong career of Grigori Rasputin.
“He has the Tsarina in his absolute power. Under hypnosis she will do whatever he wishes. Do you understand? He must be destroyed before he destroys us all.”
Peter glanced at Ivan. The echo of his own words must surely make an impression.
Ivan nodded thoughtfully. “When you say “destroyed”, you mean . . . just that. Kill him.”
“I mean he must be killed. Yes.”
“I can’t be a party to that. If we can evolve some means of blocking him and depriving him of the power he has seized—if we could enlist the aid of some of the men he has tried to overthrow . . .”
“He must be eliminated,” said Zargo remorselessly. “It cannot be done by political methods. He cannot be deflected from his course—he can only be stopped in the middle of it if he is struck down. Literally struck down, gentlemen.”
“No.”
“I will take it into my own hands,” said Zargo. “All I ask is that you should deliver him to me. I can’t get near him again on my own. Tonight I l
eft his house, telling him that I would not be a party to his intrigues and his terrible methods any longer. He cursed me and said that I would come crawling back to him when it suited him.” Although he tried to make it sound matter-of-fact, the doctor’s voice began to tremble. “I would have no chance of defeating him face to face. But a well-laid plan . . .”
“What sort of plan?”
“You must forgive me for saying this—he was much attracted to the beautiful young lady who was with you on that first evening.”
“Vanessa? She loathes him.”
“He will find that hard to believe. His vanity is as powerful as all his other emotions. All you have to do is go and see him. I’ll tell you what to say. You use your sister’s name to lure him to a rendezvous—a place chosen by us, not by him, and carefully prepared for his reception. Here, say. He will come if you tempt him. And I shall make my preparations and ensure that he never leaves alive.”
Ivan sought Peter’s support. “You can’t expect me to bring Vanessa into this. It’s out of the question.”
“Ivan, the fellow is right. It must be done. For Sonia’s sake; for everyone’s sake.”
“Sonia!” Zargo sat back, startled. “Yes . . . poor little Sonia.”
“What do you mean—‘poor little Sonia’?”
“She . . .”
Zargo faltered. Peter seized him by the lapels and shook him. “What is it? What has he done?”
“Tonight,” said Zargo as though under hypnosis himself, “he told her to run away and kill herself.”
“But she wouldn’t simply—”
“She was so much under his spell that if he commanded it, she might well carry it out.”
Peter’s hands fell away from Zargo’s jacket. He was on his feet. Ivan began to plead with him, but there was only one thought in his mind now. He could only pray that he was not too late.
As soon as he entered his sister’s room he knew that there was no hope left. His feet slipped in a pool of blood. Sonia’s face was grey and lifeless. There was neither agony nor resignation in her features; she was merely a husk, bearing no resemblance to the girl he had known. Sonia had been cancelled out as though by the casual, callous hand of an indifferent deity ruling a heavy line through all that she had been and all she had done. A deity . . . or a devil.
Now there was no haste. Anger could be slow and calculating. Peter fetched his sabre and made his way calmly but without wasting a moment to Rasputin’s villa.
The door of the villa yielded to his touch Only a maniac could have been so arrogant as to leave this door open—a maniac so sure of his own omnipotence that he scorned the most powerful of enemies.
Peter went into the dark hall. A faint glimmer of moonlight touched the lower treads of the staircase.
“Rasputin!”
His voice bellowed through the hall and rose up the staircase.
There was silence. He licked his lips and took a tighter grip on his sabre. All Rasputin’s occult powers would not save him from the murderous tongue of cold steel.
“Rasputin—come on out, you devil!”
There was a quiet chuckle only a few feet away. Peter turned his head, trying to pierce the gloom.
“I know you’re there,” he said.
“Yes, I am here, Peter Vassilievitch. I am here . . . close to you. What do you want with me?”
Peter balanced the weight of the sword in his hand so that at the slightest movement he could make a killing stroke.
“Sonia is dead,” he said. “You killed her.”
“That was clever of me,” said the sly, unperturbed voice from the darkness. “Without even touching her?”
“You told her to destroy herself.”
“And she did as she was told? What a good girl!”
The taunting indifference of it was an intolerable goad. Peter braced his feet and swung out madly with the sabre. “You monster!”
The blade whistled through the air. But it made no contact.
And Rasputin laughed again. “Not good enough, little Peter. I can see in the dark.”
Footsteps shuffled away. Peter made a lunge forward, and the pace of the footsteps quickened. The faint outline of a door opened up ahead of him and he blundered through, crashing into a low table. Now the laughter built up into a hysterical bellow, neither ahead nor behind but all round him.
He stumbled forward and came up against another door. There was the faint tinkle of glass as he blundered into what might have been a table or a bench.
He was falling. Off balance, he groped for a firm handhold and found nothing. His hip jarred against the edge of something as he went down, and he felt it sliding with him. The bottles jangled and clattered together, and one of them struck the side of his head. As he hit the ground and rolled over, liquid from above poured full into his face.
The flames of hell were damp yet searing. There was a shock of ice and then of devouring fire. He screamed and tried to wipe his hand across his face, to protect his eyes, to ward off the impossible agony. But he was too late. Acid scorched its way into his flesh, and when he opened his mouth to scream again it trickled on to his tongue and palate.
He threw himself up like a mad thing and reeled across the darkness, seeking a relief that he would never find.
Laughter followed him, lashing him on.
10
The disappearance of Peter alarmed Zargo. He had been counting on the young man. The other, Ivan, was not possessed by the same virulent hatred for Rasputin; without his friend at his elbow he might well turn away from the project. Perhaps Peter himself had faltered and was now skulking in concealment somewhere, hoping that Zargo would carry the whole burden himself; or perhaps—even more disturbingly—he had already made some impetuous move and fallen into Rasputin’s hands. The monk might draw his secrets from him. They were few enough, but they included the knowledge that Zargo was committed to the destruction of his former master. Rasputin wouldn’t like that. He would waste no time in contriving some foul revenge.
But during the day Ivan was swayed once and for all. Pale and distraught, he came to Zargo and swore not to rest until they had destroyed Rasputin. He was less impetuous than his friend; but once his mind was made up he would be ten times more resolute and dependable.
The corpse of Sonia had been found. Zargo’s prophecy had been fulfilled. The girl had numbly accepted Rasputin’s orders and done away with herself. The hand that put an end to her life was her own; yet it was still a case of wanton murder.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Ivan grimly.
Last night, after Peter had rushed away, they had made tentative plans. Ivan had not really listened then, but he listened now. There were no more hesitations. Within twenty minutes they had decided how to lay the trap and how to coax Rasputin into it.
Ivan would visit the monk’s villa and play the part of a languid, dissolute young aristocrat without too many scruples. He would make it clear that he was not above selling his sister if there were certain advantages in it for himself. Vanessa’s name would come into the conversation. Rasputin lusted for her. The bait should be dangled before him.
Now that he was concentrating, Ivan was swift to make suggestions.
“I shall say how well I understand her. She is constantly telling me how much she dislikes Rasputin. Yes—I will tell him that and then soften the blow. ‘She dislikes you. In fact she talks of little else. You might say she protests too much about you.’ That’s the line to adopt, I fancy?”
“It is just the kind of argument which will appeal to him,” Zargo agreed. “Go on.”
Ivan swiftly built up a part for himself. He would talk of his own frustrations. Promotion was slow. There would be a vacant position in the diplomatic service in Paris before long, and with Rasputin’s influence with the Tsarina—the gentlest of whispers in her ear—it ought to be possible for a transfer to be arranged. In return, Ivan would promise an assignation with the beautiful Vanessa. Of course she was shy and of cour
se there were appearances to be maintained. Family honor and that sort of thing. She could not visit Rasputin in his villa. But at Ivan’s home there was a charming apartment away from the house and servants. It had proved ideal in the past for “entertaining”. If Ivan were to send his carriage for Rasputin at ten that evening . . . ?
“An apartment?” said Zargo.
“The coach-house. I will send the coachman away on a long errand as soon as he has brought Rasputin here. And then we will deal with the creature.”
They spent the remaining hours on preparations. The room over the stables was furnished to look as intimate as possible. Ivan brought his finest wine decanter and glasses from the house, and Zargo helped him to carry a richly covered sofa. They had to work without being observed: nobody must know beforehand what was going on, and nobody must be implicated when the storm broke afterwards.
At the end of the morning Ivan went to offer temptation to Rasputin. He was back within the hour. Rasputin had snatched at the bait.
“You’re sure he suspected nothing?” Zargo still trembled at the thought of Rasputin’s superhuman powers. If you proposed to lure an animal into a trap, you wanted to be sure it was not pacing cunningly around and waiting its opportunity to pounce on you rather than on the bait.
“He will come,” Ivan assured him.
Zargo spent the afternoon on his own part of the plot. He injected a huge box of chocolates with poison from a hypodermic—one after another, delicately handled so that there should be no trace of their having been disturbed. The weeks of new-found respectability had steadied his hand and his judgement, but by the time he had completed his task he was shivering.
It was dusk when he carried the fruits of his labors into the coach-house. He left the lid of the chocolate box open, and decanted a bottle of wine. The light glowed in the rich, red liquid.
There were footsteps on the wooden staircase outside.
Zargo spun round, terrified. If Rasputin appeared now and saw him here, his life was as good as at an end.
Ivan came in.
“My God . . . I thought it was him.”
“Not yet,” said Ivan. “You’ll hear the carriage in plenty of time.”