The Red Staircase

by Gwendoline Butler

  I stopped the motor-car and turned to Jakob. He was lying back in his corner with his eyes closed.

  ‘Jakob,’ I said. ‘Wake up.’

  He didn’t answer. He was quite dead. I had been driving with a dead man beside me. But I had kept my promise to him. Without being aware of the moment of its happening, I had given him a quiet death.

  I took the metal box from his hands which still held it loosely, and got out of the car. The bank of snow before me had tracks in it, grey furrows in the snow leading to rugged areas on the ice where the peasants had broken through to fish, and where the ice had frozen over again, more irregular and thicker than before, like the crust on a wound. I could have left the explosive in the car and let the whole thing blow up, taking Jakob’s body with it, but I felt as though I had a promise to keep to him now as well as to myself.

  ‘Skim the box along the ice, like “curling” at home in Scotland, and run,’ I advised myself.

  I scrambled down the bank towards the canal; the soft fur edging my cloak dragged in the snow, but the snow was dry and floated away like powder. It was very cold, though, and I could feel the chill striking through me.

  I looked back at the safety of my motor-car behind me and saw another motor stopping a few yards from it. This was the car that had come on the same road from Tsarskoe Seloe. Brief as my glance was before I began to run, I knew the shape.

  My cloak tripped me and I stumbled, but I managed to right myself before running on. But it had slowed me down.

  ‘Rose!’ a voice behind me called. Peter’s voice.

  I ran on, scrambling over the snow to reach the frozen surface of the canal.

  ‘Rose, do stop. I beg you.’

  I thought I could hear another voice hailing us from the road, and was even conscious of seeing movement there.

  Peter caught me up and gripped me round the waist. He was saying something, but I would not listen.

  ‘No, you bloody murderer!’ I shouted. ‘You killed Mademoiselle Laure, you would have killed that child and his family, you would sacrifice me if it suited you. We are all fodder for you. And the old Princess is dead. In a way you killed her too. Don’t pretend to me that family or friends mean anything to you.’

  ‘I don’t regret her going.’ He dropped my hand and his face looked like a Fury. ‘She is gone at last. Gone to the hell she deserves. Did you never guess, Rose, how much of me came from her? I am an anarchist, I believe in the destruction of all government, and she taught me. I learnt it all from her when I was a boy. Up the Red Staircase for my “lessons”. But she reneged, it was all a game to her, because she had quarrelled with her friends at court. She became what you knew her to be – but I have never gone back. To me it is a self-evident truth. But I hate her for showing it to me.’

  So it all went back to that old woman sitting at the head of the Red Staircase, who had twisted and corrupted her descendant for her own amusement. After all I had been right to fear her. And he had loved her, which was why he hated her now. There was the tragedy of the Red Staircase.

  ‘But Rose,’ said Peter, ‘I did learn to love you, I do love you. I have come here now to save you.’

  He moved towards me, but I turned away in loathing. He seized my arm as I threw the box away from me with all my strength to rest in the centre of the frozen canal.

  I was breathless; I could feel my heart banging in my chest. Peter had a firm grip on my arm; I tried to draw free, but my strength was gone. I stood there, taking in the air in great, choking gulps.

  ‘Oh, Rose,’ said Peter. ‘In the end, I didn’t, I couldn’t …’

  Whatever he was going to say he could not finish. Perhaps the force of my throw had detonated the explosive, perhaps I had always mis-calculated the time I had in hand. There was a blue-white flash and a crack of noise in my ears that deafened them.

  Peter threw me to the ice, himself on top of me.

  After the whipcrack of sound, and the flash, came a roar that rumbled on and on in my ears while the world vibrated around me. For a moment I could neither see nor hear anything except the energies that howled around me. I was caught up in the force, whirling in space with it. Then the noise and movement stopped. I could hear a singing in my ears, then this died away too. I thought: ‘An explosion like this could have brought down the whole palace.’

  I opened my eyes. I was surprised to see that road, bank and canal were still there. But the ice was tilting, slipping away beneath our feet. A great hole had opened in the ice and it was cracking all around us.

  The piece beneath us gave and we were in the water. I felt the deadly cold sucking at me and pulling at my skirt. But there was a hard ridge of ice by Peter’s right arm where the peasants had repeatedly cut the ice and it had repeatedly frozen again. He had a grip on this, and with the other arm he supported me. Blood was running down his face, and the skin of his cheek was flapping, a bit of metal from the bomb was stuck in it. But even as the blood welled out, it froze.

  I could hear the ice whispering and cracking as it reacted to the tension of the explosion. ‘The ice is breaking up,’ I said. I think I said it aloud, I don’t know. ‘We shall drown together. And I don’t really mind.’ Aloud or in my heart, does it matter how I said it?

  A shout came echoing across the ice. ‘Hang on!’

  The edge of a thick tweed cloak was thrown over the edge of the ice. ‘Grab it and I’ll pull you in towards me.’

  Another voice was calling behind me, but in the confusion of the moment everything was incoherence and I could make nothing out. Yet I knew it was Patrick holding out the cloak. In Peter’s eyes I read this knowledge too. He had heard and understood. He supported me while I took hold of the cloak and felt myself being slowly, slowly hauled out of the water towards the firmer ice.

  I turned round to look at Peter. I saw his lips frame one word. ‘Love,’ he whispered. ‘Love.’

  Then he let his hand slip away and slowly sank back into the water. Horrified, I could only stare. A thin veil of ice was already coating him, blinding him and smoothing out his features. He was turning into an ice man before my eyes.

  Patrick and Edward Lacey drove me back to the Denisov house through the dusk. I was wrapped in Edward’s travelling cloak. Patrick drove in Edward’s car, in which they had rushed out from St Petersburg. Peter’s car was left by the roadside; I never saw it again. My own car with its dead burden was driven away by Edward. I remember very little of all this.

  Little was said between Patrick and me on that drive. I felt light-headed and sleepy, not really rational. I remember Patrick looking at me with anxiety as he drove. I remember Dolly’s face as she received me. Then I remember voices talking over my head as I lay in bed, and a pain in my chest and a mounting fever. The words ‘pleurisy’ and ‘pneumonia’ floated on a cloud above me. Speechless, I hid gladly in the cocoon of my illness.

  I remember of it only Patrick sitting by my bedside, and Dolly’s voice floating over everything. ‘But she will recover,’ I heard her say. ‘I promise you, she will recover.’

  I suppose I was more ill than I realized. The experience taught me something about illness from the other side of the pillow, as it were: this was that of all the senses, hearing went on the longest. One might be immobilized, eyes blinded, but one went on hearing. I would remember that fact.

  And the things one heard: Patrick’s voice, coldly angry, upbraiding Dolly for the things that had happened to me; Dolly’s voice, full of sorrow, never defending herself, and accepting all the guilt. Ariadne crying by my bed. And distantly, the remembered rumble of Ivan’s voice.

  ‘Live, dearest Rose. Get better. Live, live.’ Was it Patrick’s voice? But when I was at my very lowest ebb, I seemed to hear the ghostly echo of Peter’s voice whispering through my mind.

  But I was strong, and healthy and very young: I soon recovered. Patrick and Edward had gone from St Petersburg by then, leaving me letters to read when I was well enough. I kept Patrick’s close to me, and rea
d it often.

  Owing to the good offices of General Rahl and his long friendship with the Princess Irene Drutsko, the whole affair of Peter Alexandrov was hushed up. He had drowned in an ‘accident’. Nothing was said about Jakob or his death, but I learnt he had been given a decent funeral in Moscow. I never heard word of my German servant again, and as far as I know Dolly never saw her car again either. I dare say there was much that it suited General Rahl to bury with Peter, too.

  Ariadne was sent away; Marisia Lazarev had already left Russia.

  Early in the spring of the next year Dolly and I stood side by side in the Cathedral in St Petersburg, awaiting the beginning of the splendid service to celebrate the Tercentenary of the Romanov Dynasty.

  ‘This is the last time we shall be in public together, our last outing in Russia.’ Dolly smiled at me, but there was a tear in her eye. ‘And so you are going back to your own country, and there you will be happy ever after.’

  ‘Oh, Dolly. I am sad to leave you too.’

  ‘I had hoped to keep you in Russia, but no, it was not to be. I truly love you, Rose.’ For a moment she was quiet. ‘In the end then, you have had but your year in Russia.’

  ‘I shall miss it all. I have grown to love Russia.’

  ‘Just as Edward does. Oh, I wish he could have married Ariadne. Or even me. No, that’s a joke, Rose. I could never marry Edward. Oh what a terrible lot we Denisovs are.’

  Of all the people in this history, Edward was, in the event, the person who knew most secrets, mine and everyone else’s included. He had long been a close observer of events in Russia. He had always known about Peter Alexandrov. So too, had the Third Bureau – but they were an incompetent, divided lot.

  ‘And where is Ariadne now?’ I asked. Incense was floating over the whole great interior of the Cathedral, aglitter with the jewels of the ladies and rich with the colour of the uniforms.

  ‘She has gone to Geneva. She will study to be a doctor. And when you think how she loved clothes and frivolities, such a life will be punishment enough for a girl of her sort. My own marriage was so unhappy, my husband drank and gambled his way to death. I thought he represented all the worst traits of our class and race.’ Dolly sighed. ‘Still, she is out of Russia. Which is what I always wanted. I fear what will happen to us here. But I have had to make one concession.’

  ‘Oh, what is that?’

  ‘I have had to promise that, in the event of a general war or a civil war, she comes back.’

  Our eyes met. I suppose we both assessed the situation more shrewdly than most of the people sitting around us.

  ‘And what about you, dear Dolly?’

  ‘Oh, I shall stay,’ she said quietly. ‘I always intended that I should.’ She took up the Order of Service and studied it. ‘Now, let me see, this must be the procession of the Grand Duke Cyril passing us now.’

  I had never admired her more.

  I left for home the next day. During my illness my mind had solved the problem of the Gowrie Works. Suddenly I believed I knew the solution to which my old godfather had hoped. I had called Mr Dundee and Mr Somov together and told them of my plans – Andrew was gone, never to be seen by me again.

  Mr Dundee at once protested. ‘It’s most unusual. No, I cannot advise you to do it. Your godfather would have been shocked.’

  ‘On the contrary; I believe it is what he hoped I would do. I don’t think he saw me as running the Gowrie Works for ever, but I believe he did see I was the one of his relatives with some foresight. Mr Somov, I hand it over to you.’

  Mr Somov bowed: ‘But not me alone,’ he said. He was excited at the idea I had put forward, of course.

  ‘No. You and Gurien, and such men as you yourself appoint from the Works, will form the managing body between you. Choose whom you think best. The Works belong now to those who work there, and the profit goes to them. But, it must be used for a hospital, schools and housing, not personal enrichment. Any profits beyond a certain sum are a trust to be used for the advancement of science. I think that’s fair, considering how the money is made.’

  Although Mr Dundee continued to raise a protest, I knew that he would arrange matters as I directed. ‘It’s a gamble,’ I said to him bluntly. ‘I am gambling on Somov, on Dr Gurien, on the workers there, on Russia herself. Let’s wait and see what has happened in ten years time. But I do know I want nothing of the profits of the Gowrie Works for myself. Let them that make it, keep it.’

  Shortly after I got home, Patrick and I were married quietly in Edinburgh with only the closest of our family and friends with us. One companion I did have from Russia, and that was my black Ivan. I had rescued him from the Denisov house and brought him with me. He was a minor sensation in Edinburgh and thoroughly enjoyed my wedding.

  And then, after the period of rehabilitation and repentance that all great institutions seemed to demand if you transgress their laws, Patrick rejoined his regiment. In the mysterious way these things go, his expertise with guns allied to his experiences in Russia, together with the passage of time, had qualified him for promotion. He was now in charge of his own group of big guns. He accepted the new responsibility soberly. ‘At least it means I shall survive,’ he said.

  I looked up at him questioningly. We were back in Woolwich. Not in the house I had seen before, but one very like it. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s going to be a war, Rose.’

  I nodded. ‘I know. I’ve felt the gathering shadows.’

  ‘And it’s not going to be a war for the poor old foot-slogging infantry, or the dashing cavalry. Down in their thousands they will go, poor devils. No, I’ll be better off behind my big guns.’

  ‘And what will I do when there is a war?’

  He smiled at me. ‘Knowing you, Rose, I expect you will be running something. A hospital, probably. Or a munitions factory. I think it would be a good idea if you completed your medical course. You could do that in London, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, easily. I’d like to.’

  Thoughtfully he said: ‘I think we might get in one child before the conflagration starts. After that, we’d better avoid production until the war is over. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ I said. How strange, I thought, to be planning for a war, and even for a post-war baby.

  I wondered what that post-war world would be like? Strange, I supposed. And where would we all be in it? Not exactly where we had been when it started. I would survive, though, I knew it. ‘Agreed,’ I said to Patrick, holding out a hand, partly to him and partly to the future.

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  About the Author

  Gwendoline Butler, who died in 2013, was a Londoner, born in a part of South London for which she still had a tremendous affection, and where Coffin on the Water is set. She was educated at one of the Haberdasher’s Schools and then read History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. After a short period doing research and teaching, she married Dr Lionel Butler. They had one daughter, Lucille.

  It was while her husband was Professor of Mediaeval History in the University of St Andrews that Gwendoline first began writing crime fiction. In her lifetime she wrote seventy-seven novels, thirty-four of which feature Detective John Coffin.

  Also by the Author

  John Coffin novels

  Receipt for Murder

  Dead in a Row

  The Dull Dead

  The Murdering Kind

  The Interloper

  Death Lives Next Door

  A Coffin for Baby

  Make Me a Murderer

  Coffin in Oxford

  Coffin Waiting

  Coffin in Malta

  A Nameless Coffin

  Coffin Following

  Coffin's Dark Number

  A Coffin from the Past<
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  A Coffin for Pandora

  A Coffin for the Canary

  Coffin On the Water

  Coffin in Fashion

  Coffin Underground

  Coffin in the Black Museum

  Coffin and the Paper Man

  Coffin on Murder Street

  Cracking Open a Coffin

  A Coffin For Charley

  The Coffin Tree

  A Dark Coffin

  A Double Coffin

  Coffin's Game

  A Grave Coffin

  Coffin's Ghost

  A Cold Coffin

  A Coffin for Christmas

  Coffin Knows the Answer

  Major Mearns and Sergeant Denny novels

  The King Cried Murder

  Dread Murder

  Standalone novels:

  Sarsen Place

  Olivia

  The Vesey Inheritance

  Meadowsweet

  The Red Staircase

  Albion Walk

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain 1980

  Copyright © Gwendoline Butler 1979

  Gwendoline Butler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.