‘No, sir! I know exactly where she is. I must have been within a few yards of her this morning. She was listening to what I was saying through a keyhole for all I know.’ Lily shivered.
‘Keyhole? Whose keyhole?’ he asked with suspicion. And then with sudden alarm: ‘Oh, my God! She was there? Within a few feet of you? What makes you think so?’
‘The coffee cups. A tray arrived moments after I did. It was laid for four. The maid who brought it was surprised to see me and asked if she should bring another cup. Which would have made it five. One too many. She was hurried out of the room. There had been four women there when I arrived, not the three who greeted me. Anna must have skipped out when I rang the doorbell. The coffee cups had no significance for me at that moment but it hit me later. The princess was pleased and relieved to be able to get me off the premises by sending me along to Hogsmire Lane. The gesture made her appear cooperative to the police but she was giving nothing away as she knew perfectly well that the address had already been abandoned. She — and possibly the whole of the Russian establishment — is sheltering this woman. You’re going to find that a hard nut to crack, I think.’
‘Wentworth, we are not unaware of this. The princess and her entourage have been the subject of close surveillance ever since she moved to London. She knows it, of course. Clandestine manoeuvring is meat and drink to her. She’s at the heart of a network that has tentacles covering the world and she works tirelessly for her own kind: émigré Russian aristocrats. She has a finger in every ambassadorial pie from here to Hong Kong and back again the other way.’
‘I’ve just remembered — they were about to set off for lunch at the embassy. They could have taken Anna along with them and …’
‘And left her there. On what is technically foreign territory. If she stays holed up in the embassy, we can’t touch her. They could spirit her out of the country in a bag in no time. But I think she was pulling the wool over your eyes. Which embassy, for a start? Did she say? That part of town is an international diplomatic enclave. You can’t throw a stone without knocking off an ambassador’s silk hat. And with the political situation as it is at the moment in that benighted country Miss Petrovna would be the very last person the present Russian mob would want to see come grinning round the door. We’re not contemplating the usual diplomatic protocol — these are bloodletting rogues and scoundrels we have to deal with. No idea how to behave on a world stage. They might approach our government and ask to have her removed.’ Joe sighed. ‘With the usual vociferous complaints about Scotland Yard intimidation and mismanagement. Whatever happens, I think we could be looking at diplomatic involvement. The quickest way to wreck a career. Damn!’
‘Sorry, sir. If I’d caught on straight away I could have rung you from the princess’s house …’ Her voice trailed away and she hung her head, waiting for a rebuke.
He smiled. ‘… and requested a snatch squad? “Come quickly! She’s hiding in the butler’s pantry!” I can’t quite see how that would have worked.’
‘No. They’d never have got past Foxton, sir.’
‘Well, cheer up. You’ve done wonders. I’m very pleased, Miss Wentworth.’ He sat back, eyeing her with satisfaction. ‘Would you like to hear me ruin someone’s lunch?’ He picked up the telephone and asked for a London number. ‘Have I got Bacchus? James! Listen. You may wish to reschedule your surveillance in the light of certain information which comes to hand. Your girl was watching your storming of forty-two, Hogsmire Lane from her outpost in the upstairs front room of number sixty-seven … yes, I said sixty-seven … which was her actual address. No … not there any longer. Clean pair of heels over the allotments at the rear… She’s taken shelter with her countrymen. She was playing cards with the Princess Ratziatinsky when Wentworth called this morning. Yes. Wentworth has been entrusted with the girl’s details … things like real name, character, possible motive, that sort of thing … By all means. I’m sure she’ll be glad to update your information.’
Joe held the earpiece at an exaggerated distance from his ear and grimaced. ‘That’s got him going. He’ll burst a blood vessel trying to keep up now. I wouldn’t want to be one of his chaps.’
‘And you’ve just killed off any chance of my ever gaining Bacchus’s confidence, sir,’ she murmured.
‘No harm done. That was dead in the water anyway. You’re never going to be soulmates. In any case, I doubt the chap has a soul.’
‘Poor Bacchus! No mother and now no soul? I can begin to feel sorry for him.’
‘Waste of time. I’ll try to keep you off his back. Best I can offer.’
He watched as the girl shrugged and conceded a bleak smile. He thought he’d try for a warmer one. He’d been a bit hard on her, perhaps. ‘And now … reward for a jolly good morning’s work! I’m going to say a few words that may produce a reaction. Are you ready?’ He gave her the benefit of his most seductive tone. ‘What about roast beef … Yorkshire pudding … horseradish sauce … apple charlotte …’
He sat back, alarmed, as the girl went off like a pistol, jumping to her feet and laughing. ‘Gawd, sir! You know how to make a girl wet her knickers! … Oh, Lord! Oh!’
Her face turned crimson at her indiscretion. She put a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with horror, burbled something and started for the door.
Joe leapt up, dashed over and grabbed her by the arm. ‘Steady on! Don’t bolt! I’m not insulted. I’ve heard worse in the trenches.’
‘Sorry, sir. It’s just a common saying … where I come from it means nothing, not a …’
‘Shh. Don’t go and spoil it. I’ve never had a compliment of the kind before. I’m rather relishing it. The nearest I’ve come to such a pinnacle of approval is from Amalthea Jameson who declared once, in a fit of heightened emotion — occasioned by a bunch of violets, I remember — that I certainly knew how to make a lady’s heart flutter. I think I prefer the earthier tribute! But look — before you lose complete control of your tongue and any other dicky bits of your anatomy, why don’t we get someone to drive us to Simpson’s-in-the-Strand? Lunch goes on there until supper time. And their gravy is wonderful. They make it with red wine, you know.’
Joe burbled on, calm and amused, until he felt her muscles begin to relax again. He released her arm. Though still avoiding his eye, Lily managed to get her voice in gear. ‘I’d like that, sir. And perhaps while we’re about it, you can tell me about Anna Petrovna’s motive. I don’t think I mentioned one?’
She was putting on her gloves when the phone rang.
In his urgent quest for roast beef and suitable accompaniments, he very nearly ignored it. Grumpily he picked up the earpiece and announced himself. He looked questioningly at Lily.
‘A package, you say? For Miss Lily Wentworth, care of this office? How big is this package? Three feet by two? That big? And heavy? I say — have you checked it for … Of course. Can’t be too careful these days. Then get two strapping fellers to haul it upstairs, will you? Use the lift. I’m just off to lunch but I can wait a few more minutes, I suppose. Tell them to get a move on, will you?’
The commander waited until the two uniformed coppers left before he approached the brown-paper wrappings of the carefully boxed parcel with a penknife. He first examined the label. ‘They made no mistake, Wentworth. It is indeed addressed to you care of my office. Were you expecting anything of this nature? Bagatelle board from Hamleys? Travelling guillotine? The missing Mona Lisa?’
She shook her head, perplexed. He clicked out the blade of his knife and began to strip away the wrapper.
After five minutes of combined effort, they stood speechless, absorbing the contents.
Sandilands was the first to regain his voice. ‘Congratulations, constable! You seem to have made a very favourable impression. A most gracious gesture — I’m sure even you will agree.’
He bent and picked up an envelope that had fallen from the wrappings. He waited while she opened it and read the message on the single sheet it contained. Wh
en she coloured and put it away he asked no question.
They continued to stare. Joe approached the painting of the Russian forest, now reset in a heavy gilt frame, and peered at it more closely. He shook his head and looked again. His fingers reached out to touch it but left off before they contacted the oil surface. He began to speak hesitantly, as though talking to himself and feeling his way through hostile territory in the dark: ‘I wonder — and you’ll tell me if you think this a fanciful idea — are we … could we possibly be … looking at a motive? Of sorts? A motive for murder? Anna Petrovna’s reason, if you can call it that — most would say “unreason” — for wanting the Prince of Wales dead? Is it staring us in the face? Am I making an unwarranted and utterly crazy assumption? If not, it’s worse than we thought.’
He turned to Lily, full of foreboding. ‘We’re staring into a depth of madness that makes anarchy and revolution look like cool common sense.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the bustle of Simpson’s, Joe sat wrapped in thoughtful silence, paralysed by his insight. Disturbing though this clearly was, it showed no sign of affecting his appetite. He settled to his rib of beef and was halfway through it before he remembered his manners and engaged again in conversation with his equally preoccupied companion.
‘Lamb suit you, Wentworth? Mint sauce not too fierce?’
‘It’s all perfect, sir.’
After a pause: ‘You can’t send it back, you know … The painting, I mean.’
‘That’s exactly what my mind was turning on. I’m not used to receiving such lavish presents. I was trying to find the right phrases for a note to the prince.’
‘Well, you can forget about returning it with a few polite words. Out of the question. No one returns a royal gift. Ever. You must admit that it was a thoughtful gesture — and well deserved. Altogether, highly appropriate.’ He caught his bossy tone and added, more mildly: ‘I say, you weren’t really minded to return it, were you?’
‘Not on your nelly! I’m keeping it. I’m not such an ingrate as to spurn a gracious offering. And besides, I like it. My admiration was genuine. I encouraged the prince to bid for it. I can’t wait to show it to my father. It has an uneasy and depressing presence but it’s wonderfully done.’
‘Know what you mean. One wouldn’t hang it in one’s drawing room, perhaps …’ Joe agreed. ‘Tell me what you see in-’ He stopped talking, seeing the wine waiter approach to pour more burgundy into his glass.
Lily waited until they were left alone. A table discreetly placed in a corner, behind a small tropical forest of broad-leafed plants, had been put at Sandilands’ disposal. And not for the first time, judging by the warm greeting and the swift accommodation from the maître d’hôtel. The rest of the diners who crowded the room had already embarked on their sponge puddings and custard; some were as far advanced as brandy and cigars. All were loudly talkative, cheery and unbuttoned. No one was paying the slightest attention to the quiet couple in the corner.
‘It’s a frightening vision,’ Lily said. ‘Deliberately so. The princess told us all — do you remember — that no photographic equipment is allowed any longer in Russia. The country’s being laid waste, people are fleeing their homes or starving to death, massacres are going on, and what do the rest of us see of this? Nothing! The painting is an allegory. It’s a scream of protest, a warning, a cry to the world for assistance from whoever sees it. It shows the trackless wastes of the artist’s homeland but in the forefront there’s a deep, freshly dug grave. Reminiscent of a plague pit. It’s standing ready to receive its cargo of corpses. We know this from the crosses lining up in the background. Crosses made of human bones. Russian bones.’
‘Is that what you see, Wentworth? An allegory? Is that all?’
Lily looked at him in puzzlement. ‘Isn’t that enough? A foreshadowing of disaster for the Russian people? The death of a great empire?’
‘No. You haven’t looked closely enough. Look — we’ll finish up here and go back. We’ll pass a magnifying glass over the paintwork. And I’ll fill you in on our goddess. I called her the “Morrigan” after the Irish deity but I see I may have been poking about in the wrong pantheon.’
Joe talked on while Lily concentrated on her lamb and mint sauce. ‘She’s really Morana. In Russian and Slavic pagan religion, Morana was the goddess of death and winter. A beautiful girl with black hair and light skin but endowed also with wolf’s teeth and clawed hands. And she has form — she’s known to have killed her own husband, the god of fertility. She’s a dangerous goddess of darkness, frost and death.’
‘I begin to think you see one of these charmers around every corner, sir. Herr Freud might suppose you were frightened at an impressionable age by an odd-looking nursemaid!’
Joe reflected that Miss Jameson would never have dared to tease him so blatantly and wondered why he allowed it.
‘And is there any remedy against this recurrent nightmare?’ she wanted to know. ‘Or is Morana invincible?’
‘Apparently not. No. It’s her only useful attribute: she can be overcome — if only temporarily. She’s the spirit of winter, after all, and winter passes into spring. Even on the Russian steppes. Just to be quite certain they were rid of her, the country people used to make a straw puppet representing Morana and throw it into the river.’
Lily grunted. ‘And we know what that signifies. It’s just another way of celebrating the destruction of the matriarchal society and its replacement with a patriarchal one.’
Joe shot a warning glare across the table. ‘Stop right there. I must ask you, Wentworth, not to bend my ear with all that suffragist talk. You’re preaching to the converted. The Pankhurst ladies are good friends of my mother’s and therefore — of mine.’
‘Well, I’ve never heard of your Morana — I think you’re making her up — but it wouldn’t surprise me if she existed. She’s probably Celtic in origin like the Morrigan … similar names. Same root? All these stories come with a warning — women are nasty, dangerous creatures. Chuck ’em off the nearest bridge.’
The flippant comment provoked a dry response. ‘No use. They’d bob to the surface in that annoying way they have and float, then we medieval-minded men would have the bother of fishing them out and burning them. Look here, I think we can manage without pudding, don’t you? In all the excitement I forgot to warn you that we’re expected for tea at Cassandra’s. Better leave room for the tea cakes.’ He signalled to the waiter that he’d like his bill. ‘She’s got her two boys back home and I think she rather wants to introduce us to the new head of the family. We’ve just got time to go back to my office and take a proper look at that painting.’
‘I see a Russian landscape. Desolate place, miles from anywhere … probably Siberia. Summer time — there’s no snow. Thick forest,’ Lily offered in return to his challenge.
‘You’re not looking carefully enough. Stand closer.’ Joe put a hand on her shoulders and steered her towards the canvas. Surely this bright girl could see what he was seeing? ‘It’s all in the detail. It’s summer time, yes. Forest — yes. And I think the trees: birch, larch, pine … and the soggy terrain … would indicate a scene in the Ural mountains. But miles from anywhere? No. I think we can tie this spot down very precisely. In fact I can point it out to you on a map.’
He produced a map of Asia from a drawer of his desk and, after a moment’s search, found the place he was looking for. Lily’s eyes widened as she read off the name and she went back to stare at the painting.
He followed her. ‘There, what do you see on the horizon?’
‘I think I see the gates of hell,’ Lily murmured. ‘Hieronymus Bosch would have admired this.’
‘Many would agree with that interpretation. A hellish place. And it’s not imaginary. It’s very real. What seems to be the entrance to the underworld or a town on fire is the heat and smoke of dozens of factories, smelting works, and mineral processing plants. The biggest iron works in Europe is what you see belching away there,
Wentworth. And the whole hot nastiness is emanating from a mineral-rich earth. There’s a saying that “If you haven’t found gold within twenty miles of Ekaterinburg, it’s because you haven’t looked for it.” Precious stones and metals — they’ve been dug out of the soil here and fashioned into the jewels and precious objects that decorated the Tsar’s palaces for years.’
‘Ekaterinburg! I had no idea. That’s the city? It’s just a name … a rather terrifying name … the place where the royal family was murdered.’
‘It’s terrifying for the poor souls who work there and for those who make their way through it — in shackles. It’s in the Ural mountains — the division between Europe and Asia. Ekaterinburg is the gateway to the prison camps of Siberia. Thousands of the Tsar’s prisoners were sent from jails in Moscow and Petrograd to walk with shackled feet and bound hands on their way across Russia to a miserable death. Men, women and children tramped through. And still do. But now they tramp in greater numbers and these prisoners have the benefit of no legal process. They’re condemned for no good reason by the Bolshevist butchers who rule the empire now. It’s enough to be intelligent, skilled, outspoken, unpopular with a neighbour — any of those qualities or none will have you arrested and obliterated.’ Joe gave a sharp grunt of laughter. ‘You and your father wouldn’t last two minutes in the new Russia, Wentworth. But in Ekaterinburg in 1918, the Tsar and his secret police force were hated. The “Crowned Executioner” they called him … or “Nicholas the Bloody”. This was the last place on earth he would have wished to be sent himself as a prisoner. He knew that he and his family could expect no mercy at the hands of the Ural Regional Soviet.’
‘But who sent them there? They were doing no harm where they were held in detention in … Tobolsk, was it? Siberia?’
‘As long as they were alive, they were always going to be a focus for the royalist party. In 1918 the White Army was still active and making progress. They’d joined forces with a rather effective Czech contingent and were fighting their way towards the city. In the last days, you could hear the guns getting closer. It was undoubtedly Lenin, back in Moscow, who gave the order — by telegraph — for the guard to carry out the assassination of the whole family before they could be rescued. He was wily enough not to sign his name on any incriminating documents.’
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