He left me, and for nearly three-quarters of an hour I sat alone in the room, save for two tall Cossack guards, one who never took his focus off of me, and the other who stared at the door. I pleaded for them to let me go, but they never spoke a word.
I was left with nothing to do but study my surroundings. I have never made secret my disdain of our era’s passion for clutter. Rooms whose every surface brimmed with trinkets, mounted birds, picture frames, vases, candlesticks, and heaven knows what else held no charm for me. Fashionable households—my mother’s included—were crammed with the stuff. But never before had I seen the style applied so vigorously as in this space.
The room itself, in the northwest corner of the palace, was of comfortable proportions and from its large, arched windows afforded stunning views of the Admiralty and the Neva. Otherwise, however, it was a hideous exercise in eclectic excess. A motley assortment of paintings—some of fine quality, some questionable at best—offered a bit of relief from the dizzying effect of the fussy print on the wallpaper. An ornate screen stood in front of an even more ornate iron fire guard, and above the highly decorated marble fireplace hung an enormous gilded mirror that would have been more appropriate in one of the grand formal reception rooms in the palace. The furniture looked as if it had come from a London department store catalog of middling quality, and every square inch of every surface was covered with objects Alexandra had chosen herself.
There were snuff boxes, cigarette cases, tiny stone statues of a variety of animals, enameled and jewel-encrusted frames that housed pictures of her husband and daughters, and a shocking number of icons. And there were, of course, Fabergé eggs, among them the one Sebastian had given to Nemetseva. I picked it up and looked at it closely. It was a gorgeous piece. I had just figured out how to release the tiny pictures of the tsar and his daughters when Cécile, Colin, and Vasilii burst into the room.
“Mon dieu, Kallista, is it true? You have saved the tsar?”
“Not alone,” I said. “Mitya and Lev—”
“Yes, alone,” Prince Vasilii said. “These reprobates have no scruples and are quick to abandon their principles when their own well being is threatened. They saw the game was up and did what they thought necessary to save themselves.”
“That is not true,” I said. “Their aim was not violence. Tabokov acted against orders. I overheard their plans.”
“She speaks the truth,” Colin said, waving a crumpled stack of papers stained with blood. “They were armed with nothing more than this petition, asking the tsar to consider social reforms.”
“Tabokov had a gun,” the prince said.
“Neither of the others did,” I said. “And their quick actions saved the emperor’s life.”
“How did you become embroiled in this, Kallista?” Cécile asked. “I thought your investigation was over. What made you start skulking around again when you should have been dancing?”
“I thought it was, too,” I said. “I only began skulking, as you say, when I caught sight of Mitya in one of the galleries above the ball. I followed him.”
“So it had nothing to do with Nemetseva?” Cécile asked, knowing my theory about the revolutionaries, which I now knew to be incorrect.
“In some ways the two crimes are unrelated,” I said.
“The two crimes are entirely unrelated,” Prince Vasilii said, his tone measured. “Has the doctor been in to see you, Lady Emily? You look quite unwell.”
“Your concern is touching,” I said, “but I make a practice of never taking a murderer’s words at face value.”
“Whatever can you be suggesting?” he said, his face darkening.
“You very nearly got away with it,” I said. “But after we danced tonight, you admitted that you had read the note to Nemetseva that accompanied the imperial egg. When did you see it?”
“When I read the police file, of course. I couldn’t risk examining the evidence myself, for reasons of which you are well aware.”
“The trouble, Vasilii, is that the note wasn’t part of the police evidence. They never saw it.”
“You must be wrong, because otherwise I wouldn’t have—”
“I’m not wrong, although, looking back, I realize it was foolish of me to so completely dismiss the presence of the egg. I did so because I am aware of the thief’s identity and have always been confident that it had nothing to do with the murder. Further, I had no way of proving whether Nemetseva had even found the egg before she was killed—it was left in the pocket of her cloak. I concluded that it must have fallen out during the attack, but that is not how it happened, is it?”
The prince’s face had taken on a ghastly pallor, and the tortured look in his eyes as he winced at my words almost made me wish I could comfort him. Almost.
“I know what you did,” I said. “What I cannot understand is why.”
“It is appalling that you would consider me capable of such a thing.” Vasilii’s voice, brittle and dry, cracked.
“She must have found the egg almost as soon as the thief left it for her. Maybe she brushed against her cloak and felt something hard, or maybe she felt chilled and put it around her shoulders and noticed the weight of it. The specifics don’t matter. When she saw it, she must have panicked, realizing at once that it belonged to the empress. Not wanting to be accused of having stolen from the imperial family, she would have wanted to rectify the situation without delay. Fortunately, her lover was an adjutant to the major general in charge of palace security. Who better to return the egg to its rightful owner, possibly even before anyone noticed it had gone missing? Which is exactly what you told me you did.”
Vasilii frowned, but I saw confusion on his face. “No, I never said that. I told you I intended to but then realized the egg Irusya had was nothing more than a copy.”
“I am impressed that you managed to construct your lie without so much as hesitating. A falsehood, however, does not change the facts.” I moved to stand directly in front of him and looked him in the eyes. “Nemetseva trusted you completely, which is not surprising. You shared an intimate relationship for two years. Was it that trust that destroyed her and her dearest friend, who is now imprisoned for a crime she did not commit? Thank heavens Nemetseva at least was spared the knowledge that you would stand by and let Katenka ruin her life, too.”
He staggered back, covering his face with his hand. “Stop, please, I cannot stand anymore. You are right, right about everything, but you must believe me when I say I never intended for any of this to happen. I loved her so, more than should have been possible. She was like a dream to me, a dream of perfection.”
“She asked you to come to the stage door, didn’t she?” I reached for his hand and pulled it away from his face. “Did she send you a message?”
He answered in a whisper. “Yes. As you know, I never made a habit of seeing her backstage as neither of us wanted our relationship to play out in public, but that does not mean I was anything but desperate to see her. I was so thrilled that night, knowing she would triumph. No one could dance like her. The stage will never see her equal. Much though I love Swan Lake, I could hardly pay attention to the first act of the ballet, as she did not appear in it. I was probably more excited than she was. But that is not what you want to hear.” He sighed. “I always order champagne to be delivered to my box, preferring that to balancing a glass in the foyer during the interval, and that night, when my tray arrived—just before the second act began—I found a note in Irusya’s handwriting. It said Stage door, interval.”
“Were you alarmed by this?” I asked.
“I had no reason to be,” he said, his deep voice louder and stronger now. “I knew she waved to Agrippina Alexandrovna during intervals, and I assumed she wanted to see me, too, if only briefly, before she went back on stage. It was an historic occasion to make her debut in such a role and no shock that she would want to share it with me.”
“Let’s sit down, shall we?” I led him to a long couch and sat next to him, taking h
is hand in mine. “I know this is difficult, but you must tell me exactly what happened when you saw her.”
“She rushed straight toward me without even waving at her mentor,” he said, “and I could see from her face that something was terribly wrong. She could hardly get out a coherent sentence—she was so agitated—but she forced herself to calm down. As you so aptly deduced, she was worried about being implicated in the theft, but that was the least of her problems.”
His forehead was beaded with sweat. “She kept saying ‘the wondrous moment of our meeting’ over and over, as if hearing the phrase repeatedly would make me understand. Finally, she took me by the shoulders and shook me, as if that would clarify her fears for me. And then, at last, she explained. She told me that she had a lover long before I met her and that he had copied out that same poem of Pushkin’s for her the day after he first kissed her, on a swing at her parents’ dacha.” His voice changed, becoming almost wistful. “I don’t know why she felt that detail was important, but it endeared her to me, and an overwhelming feeling of love swelled in me like none I had felt before. I tried to embrace her, but she pushed me away, imploring me to listen.
“This lover had recently reached out to her, she explained, not looking for romance, but assistance. She told me he was involved in a political movement that had met with a certain amount of trouble with the police. Their leader had been arrested and exiled some years back, but he was planning to return to Petersburg, to participate in some sort of demonstration. She swore she did not know the details. I have considered her words many times since then, and I am convinced she was telling the truth. She knew nothing more. I believe her. I do.”
“You may now, but did you believe her then?” I asked.
“It all happened so quickly I had no opportunity to consider the veracity of her statement. All that mattered was what she said next. This man had been a dear friend of hers, before and after they were lovers. She confessed to me that she had treated him badly and felt that she owed him. So when he asked if his colleague, the exiled leader, could hide in her apartment, just for two nights, she did not refuse him. She believed him when he said there would be no danger, because a ballerina of her reputation and stature would never be suspected of harboring a fugitive.”
“When was she hiding this man?” Colin asked.
“She never did.” Vasilii closed his eyes. “I had interrupted to beg her to reconsider, insisting that such things are always dangerous, but she would not let me finish. She pulled the egg out from her cloak and thrust it at me, along with the note she had received with it, the note that referenced that same poem her former lover had given her. She was convinced it was a warning, meant to tell her that their plan had been compromised and that the authorities knew what she planned to do. She said her friend had connections in the palace who could easily have stolen the egg, and it was then that my emotions started to churn. Only a few moments ago, I had felt so consumed by love, but now she was telling me this? Admitting to aiding would-be revolutionaries?
“I have spent my entire career working toward the position I hold in palace security and now am responsible not only for helping to keep the imperial family safe, but I am also tasked with rooting out members of the staff who have revolutionary leanings. Discovery of her treason would lead to my destruction as well as hers. I did not try to explain this to Irusya then, though. She was too agitated and so wholly unable to contain herself, I knew that the instant the police began to question her, she would be incapable of resisting their barbaric methods of interrogation. They would ferret out every detail of her life, including the identity of her lover, and they would never believe that I was not a party to all of this.”
He pulled his hand from mine and rose to his feet. “I was furious, enraged, utterly unable to reconcile myself to what she had done. She had ruined everything for both of us. For a flash, I pictured the wives of the Decembrists, following their traitorous husbands to Siberia, but I knew Irusya was not made for such a fate. I looked at her again, at her beautiful face, her refined features, her dark eyes. I remember holding my breath, wanting more than anything to be able to stop time, to go back, to keep her from making such a dreadful mistake. I felt dizzy and could hardly remain upright. I started to gasp, desperate for air, and then I saw her face again. I could no longer read her emotions. It was as if she were a stranger. And after seeing her as a stranger, something deep inside me, something of which I will always be ashamed, made her my enemy. Some primal evil lurking in my soul led me to protect myself—my worthless life and my career—instead of helping her.”
He covered his face again, this time with both of his hands. “I do not recall pulling the knife from its sheath, or the feeling of the blade sinking into her flesh. I ought to remember it. I deserve to be haunted by it, to be capable of thinking of nothing else but the hideous details, but all I know is that there was blood, so much blood. She hadn’t fastened her cloak and it must have dropped when I—” He swallowed hard. “It was there, on the ground next to her, when I realized she was dead. There was no blood on it, not a drop. I don’t know how that is even possible. I picked it up and stood over her, unable to comprehend what I had done. Never had I thought myself capable of such grotesque and hateful violence.”
Colin had moved closer to him and laid his hand on the prince’s shoulder. “You are right to speak the truth now. Your crime cannot be undone, but you can stop an innocent woman from being branded a murderer.”
This was small consolation, but more than the prince deserved. “What did you do with the cloak?” I asked.
“A terrible calm came over me after I left her there, on the ground. I put the cloak around me to hide the blood on my clothes and then took it home and burned it. I suppose the note must still have been in the pocket. I changed into a clean uniform and then went to the palace.”
“Where you said you had been called away from the ballet for a meeting,” I said.
“Yes. I remained there until long after the performance would have finished and then went to Masha’s, where I met you, and what a fortuitous event it seemed to me! After you left, Masha told me of your talent for detection, and I decided to enlist your assistance, hoping I would either be able to manipulate you in your conclusions or, at least, know if you discovered anything that might implicate me. The latter, of course, is precisely what you have done.” He lowered his head. “And now there is only one honorable thing to do.” His eyes darted to one of the Cossack guards standing at the door, and he lunged forward, reaching for the man’s gun. In a single swift movement, Colin pinned him to the floor.
“There’s already been quite enough killing,” he said. “If you’re lucky, you’ll get nothing worse than a decade or so of hard labor, given your rank and the fact that your crime wasn’t directed at the imperial family. You deserve far worse.” The guards approached, and my husband handed over control of Vasilii to them. As they led him away, I saw tears in his eyes.
“Mon dieu,” Cécile said, snapping open her fan and waving it in front of her face. “I never suspected him. Masha will be mortified. She was in the process of trying to marry him off, you know. But what about the rest? These revolutionaries and Nemetseva’s ghost?
“You know perfectly well there never was a ghost,” I said. “Given the scant evidence—the pamphlets in Nemetseva’s dressing room, Sofya’s pride at refusing to live a bourgeois life, the costume in Mitya’s room—I am forced to rely on my intuition, which tells me that Sofya is our culprit.”
“In this case, your intuition is correct,” Colin said. “She was arrested less than an hour ago. You were quite right, Emily, that her role was to provide an ever-increasing distraction, and she knew that her performance tonight would be her last. She would not be able to disappear into the crowd when Palace Square was filled with guards on high alert. She was aligned with Lev and Mitya, who split off from the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class because they both wanted to pursue nonviolent metho
ds of revolution. Their immediate goal was to make a direct appeal to the tsar, but it soon became clear that they were being spied on. A young woman, working as a maid for the Yusupov family, was passing their plans to the government.”
“So they killed her?” Cécile asked.
“That was not the original plan,” Colin said. “But one of their members took matters into his own hands.”
“Tabokov,” I said.
Colin nodded and continued. “Sofya had agreed to provide a distraction to the houseful of guests by dancing outside in a costume similar to the one Nemetseva was wearing when she died. The idea was that while everyone was looking at what they thought was a ghost, one of their men would slip inside and get Anna. He was to bring her to a designated spot, so that they could question her. They wanted to know the identity of her contact in the government. But, instead, the man they sent, Tabokov, killed her.”
“Why?” Cécile asked.
“Because he was afraid she would reveal his identity to her contact,” Colin said. “He was a well-respected naval officer, whom no one, myself included, suspected of maleficence.”
“Did she reveal the name of her contact?” I asked, knowing full well my husband was the man in question.
“Fortunately, she did not,” Colin said, looking grim. “Once she was dead, there was no more hope of learning his identity, but the distraction provided by Sofya was successful beyond all their expectations. They staged similar appearances multiple times throughout the city, until they had worked the population into such a frenzy that they could count on getting their desired reaction tonight.”
“They certainly succeeded in distracting everyone at the ball,” Cécile said. “No one was paying attention to anything but the dancer when they removed the tsar to the antechamber. If it were not for your intervention, Kallista, we might now be mourning the emperor’s untimely demise.”
Colin replied to her, but I hardly heard him. I walked across the room to a window and gazed upon the frozen expanse of the Neva below. The world had lost an incomparable artist when an ordinary man, in a moment of catastrophically reckless rage, had destroyed both her and his humanity. A Christian believes there exists no sin that cannot be forgiven, but Vasilii would never forgive himself. Whatever punishment he received, it could not cleanse from him the grief and guilt he would carry for the rest of his life. He had taken from the world the woman he loved, Katenka’s dearest friend, and a mother’s and father’s daughter. His act could never be redeemed.
Death in St. Petersburg Page 24