Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

by David Dickinson

  ‘You’re being absurd!’

  ‘So are you!’

  ‘No, I’m not!’

  One or two concerned glances were now being made at this young couple arguing so vehemently in French early in the morning. Well, they were known to be excitable people. One elderly Dowager began looking about her for a bell.

  ‘For the last time, Anastasia, will you let me send word to Mr Elias Killick that he’s to wire the money to the bank in Moscow? Yes or no?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is that your last word?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Damn it all, Anastasia, can’t you see that you’re doing the wrong thing?’ George looked really depressed. His latest possible time for arrival at the picture gallery was but fifteen minutes away. Maybe he could send a telephone message about a relation in distress. Then he remembered that he’d done that at least once already. He began wringing his hands. His sorrow and his concern seemed to touch something in Anastasia. She leant forward and held one of his hands briefly.

  ‘George,’ she said, ‘there’s something I haven’t told you. Something I promised not to tell anybody.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked George petulantly.

  ‘It’s this. That money,’ she was whispering now and the dowager returned her attention to the coffee and biscuits, ‘it can’t go near any banks. Not under any circumstances. This is what I promised not to tell. Oh, George, I wish I didn’t have to break my promise. But I do, don’t I?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said George. ‘What is it about a bank, for heaven’s sake? One lot of depositors, one lot of borrowers, a lot of people running round in frock coats pretending to be more important than they really are. That’s all there is, isn’t it?’

  Even the whispers were getting lower now.

  ‘No, it’s not.’ The young man had to lean forward now to catch her words. ‘It’s a question of who owns the banks, isn’t it?’

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ said George, checking his watch again. ‘Who owns the bloody banks anyway?’

  ‘It’s not the banks plural, George, it’s bank singular.’

  ‘Singular?’

  ‘Why is this so difficult? The bank whose details we have, the one we gave to Mr Killick, is owned or part-owned by my friend Prince Felix’s father. He has cut my Felix and his colleague out of all contact with the banks. Any transactions will be brought to his attention within the hour. Felix gave me the details of the bank before he realized how completely he and his friend had been cut off.’

  ‘So,’ said George, ‘the father hears about the money coming in? He won’t know how it got there.’

  ‘He has drawn up a contract or something in banker language which states that any money going to that bank must be used to pay off some of the son’s debts.’

  ‘And is forty thousand pounds not enough to pay off the debts and leave some change?’

  ‘I don’t know. Prince Felix doesn’t talk to me about money, only that bit.’

  ‘I suppose he could find out where the money came from, diamond merchants out of Antwerp and London. You don’t have to be a genius to work out what’s been going on. Dear God, what a mess.’

  ‘But do you see now that the money must not go to that bank? It must come here to me.’

  ‘I do and I must go. I’ll send the wire later this morning. And then, Anastasia . . .’

  ‘Then what, George?’

  ‘Then we’ll have to begin all over again.’

  Natasha Shaporova still kept open house for the corps de ballet. They were expected any minute now, for their timetables made them as punctual as clockwork. The girls still came, in the same numbers, some now refusing, very politely, to eat cakes or biscuits because of their weight. But Natasha, for the moment, was engaged in her correspondence.

  She had decided, when l’affaire Taneyev, as she referred to it, began, that she would make enquiries at the other end, the Russian end. She did not have the resources of a police force, or even a determined newspaper reporter, but Natasha had something better than that, a host of relations who would know, or who would know who knew, any interesting details of the Taneyev family background. There weren’t that many families in St Petersburg in which the mother was English – always a source of malice and gossip about Russian manners not being properly understood. She had written to her mother and her grandmother, and to two of her aunts and to the only one of her brothers she considered reliable. After that she had further cohorts of friends from school and cousins of every description. The replies were now arriving at regular intervals at her house in Chelsea. Gossip knows no boundaries.

  The picture she was forming was orthodox (if you didn’t count the English mother who had a habit of reading to some of her younger children in bed before they went to sleep, which was considered barbaric on the Nevskii Prospekt and the Fontanka Quay). Natasha had only two letters left when she found the hidden secret of the family Taneyev. It came in a long letter from her aunt, who prided herself on her knowledge of St Petersburg family history. After pages and pages of successful Taneyevs, soldier Taneyevs, banker Taneyevs, Admiral Taneyevs, drunken Taneyevs – far too many in Natasha’s view, for she was growing rather fond of this family with a background rather like her own – Aunt Marie eventually came to the dead boy’s grandfather, Josef Ilyich Taneyev, a middle-ranking Guards officer with a very beautiful wife.

  This Taneyev was rather old when he married Anna Bulgakov, who was said to be one of the prettiest girls in St Petersburg. She had two sons when they lived in peaceful seclusion in Perm with the Guards Regiment, but very little society to speak of. ‘And then, my dear, it all started to go wrong,’ Natasha’s aunt wrote. ‘The husband was posted to St Petersburg. The duties weren’t very serious so he wanted to live quietly in the country when he wasn’t needed on military duties. His rank, however – for his was one of those fashionable regiments that are expected to appear at social functions in our capital – meant that he had to spend more time than he would have liked attending the great balls and soirees and parties of every sort. And he hated dancing, Josef Ilyich Taneyev – one of my closest friends had predicted that this would cause great trouble even before they were married – while Anna loved it.

  She became reckless, dancing with the same partner all night sometimes, and causing great pain to the older man in the sitting-out area, who loved her and had married her. Eventually Anna became besotted with an artistic young man called Pyotr Solkonsky, who wrote a lot of poetry and whose interests and instincts were the opposite of Josef Ilyich’s. You just had to see them together to see that they were having an affair – and they seemed not to care who knew it. She was, or she seemed to be, in love. But she forgot that she had married into a military family. The husband’s fellow officers had been talking to him for weeks about challenging the poet-lover to a duel. Eventually he gave in, and the fateful day finally came: the meeting in a glade in a forest outside the city; the seconds in attendance; the carriages waiting to take the living and the dead back to their homes.’

  Natasha was wondering at this point if her aunt hadn’t missed out on a second career as a novelist. She read on.

  ‘The result was a surprise, but perhaps a tribute to our military training. The poet fired first and missed. Perhaps he intended to miss, who knows? Josef Taneyev did not miss. His bullet struck the poet in the chest and did terrible damage to his lungs. They say the blood was pouring out of him in his carriage all the way back to his home. He died two days later. But, wait, Natasha, here is the point of this terrible story. The poet gathered his three brothers round his deathbed before he passed away. ‘Revenge,’ he whispered, coughing yet more blood onto the sheets, ‘revenge, not in this generation but the next. Take my revenge on the generation after ours.’ He died that evening. It took some time before the family Solkonsky realized what he meant. Any revenge in this generation would mean the death of one who might be the son or daughter of his lover. That was why the Solkonskys had to
wait. Even in death he was trying to protect his Anna from unhappiness.’

  Natasha knew from her other letters that Alexander Taneyev’s siblings consisted of one older brother, Ivan, and three younger sisters: Marie, Elizabetta and Olga.

  12

  Arabesque

  Arabesque is the position of the body supported on one leg, with the other leg extended behind the body with the knee straight. The standing leg may be either bent, in plié or straight. Arabesque is used in both allegro and adagio choreography. The working leg is placed in 4th open, à terre (on the ground) or en l’air (raised). Armline defines whether this is 1st, 2nd or 3rd arabesque.

  Johnny Fitzgerald was meeting a stockbroker in the City of London, one of the money men recommended to him by Sweetie Robinson, who had played cards for money with Richard Wagstaff Gilbert. Two had declined very politely, but the third, Henry Wilson Pollock, senior partner of Pollock, Richards and Cork in Mincing Lane was prepared to talk to him.

  ‘You’re an investigator, Sweetie tells me,’ Pollock began. He was a small, stout man who looked, Johnny thought, much as Mr Pickwick might have looked when he grew older.

  ‘That’s right, Mr Pollock. My current case involves a man you know well, I believe: Richard Wagstaff Gilbert.’

  ‘That old bastard Waggers!’ said Pollock, almost shouting. Johnny was surprised at the vehemence of his reaction. Most people would stick with the pleasantries of politeness for five minutes or so before showing their anger. This tubby little man launched straight in.

  ‘I gather that you have had a lot of dealings with the gentleman in your time, Mr Pollock.’

  ‘Gentleman is not a word I would use in connection with Waggers, Mr Fitzgerald, oh no. Definitely not.’

  ‘Might I ask why?’

  ‘If you had called ten or maybe even five years ago, I would not have told you. I would have been constrained by professional etiquette and what remains of the rules of society. But now? I am winding down my affairs. I shall keep a presence in the firm, but I shall not be here very often. I intend to spend my days looking after my garden and following the fortunes of Middlesex Cricket Club in the summer and Tottenham Hotspur in the winter.’

  ‘What a pleasant prospect. I hope you will be able to watch one of the triangular Test matches between England and Australia and South Africa this summer. But for the moment, in a professional sense, you do feel able to talk about Mr Gilbert?’

  ‘Let me begin with his business affairs. He specializes in new investment trusts and new offerings in general. Part of my business here touches the same areas. Now, I would have to say that there is nothing strictly illegal about what Waggers does. We have all done it up to a point, but not to the extent that he does.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Word gets round every now and then about some new offering. It might be a cleverly constructed investment trust or a mining share or a brewer. The day before the company is opened for business, the men who know let it be rumoured abroad that this is going to be a winner. The recipients of this information make a mental note to recommend it to their clients in due course. Others, especially Waggers, make sure that they buy a large holding, and then sell it a few days later at a handsome profit. That was just the most obvious of his little schemes. The others are only understood by insiders in the City, which Waggers undoubtedly was.’

  ‘And the cards, Mr Pollock, the cards?’

  ‘The irregularities at whist only began about eighteen months ago, after he had a losing run that seemed to have gone on since Christmas. I hesitate to use that word beginning with “c”, even in my own office, for fear it might come out and drench us all in scandal, Mr Fitzgerald. After Easter this year, several months ago, it was as if he had decided to take revenge on all those who play with him regularly. He always wins now, sometimes by a lot, sometimes by a little.’

  ‘I have a little experience in cheating at cards, Mr Pollock, from a terrible case in the officers’ mess at Simla years ago. A young subaltern took to cheating at whist to make amends for his overspending on the horses. He tried a variety of methods.’

  ‘I would be most grateful for your inside information, as it were.’

  ‘A pleasure, Mr Pollock. Tell me, what does the fellow wear?’

  ‘I’ve often wondered about that, now you mention it. He always wears long jackets – smoking jacket, Norfolk jacket with very deep pockets, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And is there a certain amount of fiddling about with handkerchiefs, cigar lighters maybe, helpings of snuff?’

  ‘There is sometimes, not all the time. Why do you ask?’

  ‘If you’re quick-fingered, you could whip the pack of cards you’re about to deal into your right-hand pocket and substitute another one from your left. Do you see?’

  ‘I do indeed.’

  ‘Then there’s the handkerchief on the floor midway between your chair and the chair next to you, either on the right or the left. You might be able to see your opponents’ cards – only for a second, but long enough if you have a good memory.’

  ‘He has an excellent memory, but I don’t recall seeing that one in action.’

  ‘Well-polished cigarette cases, perhaps?’

  Johnny produced a handsome cigarette case from his breast pocket and gave it a quick polish.

  ‘Do you have a pack of cards anywhere about the place, Mr Pollock?’

  Mr Pollock did. Johnny was still polishing his cigarette case.

  ‘Now then, Mr Pollock, this is my best bet – it’s what brought down the man in Simla in the end. It only works on my deal, you understand, one hand in four. You keep up a flow of information as you go. And you place your cigarette case, which you have been fiddling with all evening, more or less in the centre of the table.’

  ‘I see. Off you go.’

  ‘J. Hobbs, W. Rhodes, R. H. Spooner,’ Johnny began a recital of the England Test team due to play Australia at Lord’s in the next few days, dealing the cards as fast as he could, but looking not at Mr Pollock or imaginary partners to the left or right, but at the reflection in the heavily polished case, ‘C. B. Fry, P. F. Warner, F. R. Foster, nearly at the end now, F. E. Woolley, J. W. Hearne, E. J. Smith.’

  Johnny pocketed the cigarette case with a flourish. ‘I can tell you, Mr Pollock, you have four spades to the king, three small clubs, two diamonds to the ten and four clubs to the ace, king, jack and two.’

  Henry Pollock picked up his cards. They were exactly as Johnny had said. ‘My God, Mr Fitzgerald, you’re a miracle worker. So that’s how he did it! I remember a well-polished silver cigarette case from the last time we played.’

  ‘Buy yourself a well-polished one, Mr Pollock, and play him at his own game. Maybe all four players should have polished cases and do the same thing each time a hand is dealt. It could be a sweet revenge.’

  ‘I’m obliged, Mr Fitzgerald, it’s more than useful in my profession to know how a man cheats at cards.’

  ‘I’ve just come back from Blenheim Palace, Lord Powerscourt! It’s fantastic! Amazing!’

  Michel Fokine burst into the Powerscourt drawing room before Rhys had time to announce him.

  ‘The stage for the orchestra is nearly finished. They’ve been laying long floorboards down on top of a whole series of staves sunk into the bed of the lake. There’s a couple of musicians going up tomorrow to test out the acoustics.’

  ‘Is Monsieur Diaghilev there in person, Monsieur Fokine?’

  ‘He’s there every other day, I would say. He cheered them all up when he told them the Venetians sank one million piles into the Grand Canal to build Santa Maria della Salute after some plague or other. I think there are two major churches in Venice built to commemorate victims of two different plagues. I sometimes think he’s back in his beloved Venice, organizing for a troupe of dancers to perform in the middle of the Grand Canal. They’re even going to have a bridge of boats to carry the performers onto their stages, like they do at the Feast of the Redentore when
the great and good walk across the water to the church. The steward fellow is in charge of the whole thing. He seems to have even picked up a couple of words of Russian. He can say thank you very much and please don’t drop that on my toe.’

  ‘And all the rest of it? The caterers and so on?’ asked Powerscourt.

  ‘Fine, just fine. They’ve organized the local printers in Oxford to print little advertisements to go all over the place. Diaghilev suggested that they print a short guide to the ballets on the lake, so the audience can work out what’s happening on stage. Only one person has fallen in so far – and he was carrying a very heavy beam – but he’s all right.’

  ‘And the seating?’

  ‘That’s going according to plan,’ said Fokine, abandoning his seat by the fire and pacing up and down the room again.

  ‘The people of Woodstock, my lord, have entered into the spirit of the thing with a vengeance. The hotels have ordered extra caviar from Paris and lashings of vodka. One of them is planning to roast a couple of wild boar in their courtyard. The bakers have got hold of recipes for blinis, those little Russian pancakes, and are selling them in hundreds – a trial run, perhaps, for the big day. And beetroot for borscht, that Russian soup. I’m told you can’t buy a beetroot within a fifty-mile radius from Woodstock.’

  ‘And the big event in the evening in the Great Hall? I hope nobody’s forgotten about that.’

  ‘They wouldn’t be able to, my lord. The Duke himself is taking a great interest in that, and in the affair by the lake.’

  ‘Well, he is paying for it.’

  ‘True enough, but every time he goes out on a tour of inspection, Mrs Duke – that’s what the steward calls her when she’s out of earshot, my lord – is by his side, urging him back to the big house. She spends a lot of time looking around – one of the dancers said she’s checking to see if any photographers have arrived yet.’

  ‘And have they?’

  ‘We had a couple of enterprising ones yesterday, hanging so far over that Palladian bridge you’d have sworn they were going to fall in. One of them, a young fellow from the Illustrated London News, says his master at the magazine always believes the preparations are more interesting than the real thing.’