The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

by Dennis Wheatley

  She appeared much pleased with his prompt replies, as she concluded the interview by saying: ‘ ’Tis common knowledge that I have a great fondness and admiration for the genius of your country, and I count you a true representative of it. ’Tis my wish that you should carry away a good impression of Russia; so should you find yourself incommoded in any way while you are here, or lack for money, do not hesitate to apply to me through your Ambassador. Now take that little bag of bones, the Baroness Stroganof, away and dance with her.’

  Murmuring his thanks, Roger kissed the plump, heavily be-ringed hand again, and bowed his way back into the crowd. Natalia Andreovna congratulated him on the excellent reception with which he had been favoured, and added with a slight touch of spite: ‘Katinka does not usually converse with strangers who are of no special importance for so long. Momonof will have to look to his laurels, or he will find himself supplanted by you.’

  ‘God forbid!’ laughed Roger. ‘I take it that Momonof was the tall, sulky-looking fellow, seated on a tabouret to the Empress’s left. He has been the reigning favourite for some time, has he not?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, for well over a year. He was another of Potemkin’s protégés; but he is a vain, stupid oaf and now seeks to bite the hand that elevated him. His reign may be abruptly terminated at any time, as he is not even faithful to the Empress. He is also the lover of the Princess Scherbatof, and everyone except Katinka knows it. So it needs but a word in her ear from someone who bears him malice to secure his dismissal.’

  After dancing for a little they made a leisurely progress through the other apartments. Five orchestras were now playing a variety of French, Russian and German dance music, so dancing as well as feasting was in full swing in most of the rooms. Natalia pointed out various high dignitaries of the Court to Roger and introduced him to a number of her friends. From time to time they joined in a dance themselves, and between dances ate and drank of the lavish refreshments.

  The Empress had arrived at six o’clock and at about nine they drifted back to the main ballroom, to find the centre of the floor occupied by a troupe of tumblers, who were essaying the most amazing feats for her amusement. Three performing elephants were then led in, and after them an Italian prima donna sang most gloriously. The entertainment was concluded by a grand parade representing the might of Catherine’s realm. For it Orlof had mobilised large detachments of warriors from all over the empire, and resplendent in their native costumes, Kalmucks, Tartars, Laplanders, Yakuts, Kazbecks, Circassians and Don Cossacks all streamed past the throne, shouting their wild war-cries and excitedly firing bullets off into the ceiling.

  When the pandemonium had died down dancing was resumed; than, at a little before eleven, a sudden hush fell again on the whole brilliant gathering while the Empress was escorted back to the doors of the palace by Orlof, and took her departure. But the party showed no signs of breaking up; the sweating fiddlers, boosted with generous wine, sawed more vigorously at their violins, often joining in the dances themselves; the dancing became faster and more abandoned; the drinking and shouting of healths more unrestrained.

  Their giant host was sitting moodily on the lower steps of a side staircase with an empty, gem-encrusted tankard dangling from his great hand.

  ‘Why do you look so glum, Alexi?’ Natalia Andreovna inquired. ‘Was not Katinka pleased with this fine entertainment you have given her?’

  ‘Aye, the old bitch was pleased enough,’ he mumbled ungraciously. ‘But I am bored. Time was when I enjoyed this sort of thing, but now it seems to me nought but foolishness.’

  ‘That is because you are getting old,’ she mocked him,

  It was obvious that he was three-parts drunk, but a sudden gleam came into his dull eye, and he stood up.

  ‘I’m not too old to give you a good tumble still, my pretty. Come upstairs and join me in a cup of wine.’

  She shook her head and indicated Roger. ‘Nay, I thank you. I am pledged for this evening to Monsieur le Chevalier de Breuc.’

  The High Admiral returned Roger’s bow with a morose stare. A few years earlier it would have been typical of him to knock his young guest down with one blow of his great fist and carry Natalia Andreovna upstairs on his back. To do so did occur to him, but he felt too tired to bother, so he grunted: ‘As you will. Bring him upstairs too, then. I am sick of the sight of all these stupid people.’

  They followed him up to a landing and across it to a suite of rooms on the first floor at the back of the house. The one they entered could best be described as a study, and an open door led to a bedroom beyond it. Both rooms were in a state of chaotic disorder. They did not look as though they had been cleaned for a decade, and smelt abominably; yet their contents were worth a fortune. About them were scattered sable cloaks, weapons of all kinds encrusted with precious gems, jewelled ikons, gold baldrics, top-boots, pictures of ships and naval charts. In one corner a chained ape was quietly chattering to itself, and another was occupied by a great pile of empty bottles.

  ‘What’ll you drink?’ asked their host, thickly, as he pulled open a cabinet; ‘Tokay, Malmsey, Vodka, Champagne, French Brandy?’

  Natalia Andreovna chose champagne and Roger said he would join her. Orlof handed him a bottle and, while he opened it, swept a mass of documents mixed up with gaming chips from the table to the floor, then produced three crystal goblets. All of them were dirty, but he took no heed of that. Knocking the head off a bottle of cognac with one swift, practised, blow against the table edge, he slopped half its contents into one of the goblets for himself, and slumped into a high-backed chair.

  Roger poured the champagne, and lifting their glasses to each other, they drank. After a couple of big gulps of the brandy Orlof set down his glass and declared: ‘That’s better! That’s a real man’s drink. I wouldn’t insult my stomach with that fizzy muck you’re drinking, Chevalier. But young men are all the same, these days. They’re girls, not men as they were in my time.’

  Seizing on this golden opportunity to win so important a man’s regard and confidence, Roger replied with a laugh. ‘That may be so in Russia, Excellency, but ’tis not so in France. I may not have your capacity, but I’ll drink bottle for bottle with you any time till one of us is under the table.’

  ‘Well said,’ exclaimed the Count, clapping him on the shoulder with sudden affability, ‘I’d see you under the table seven times out of seven; but ’tis good to meet a youngster for once who is not afraid to drink man’s liquor. Pour that filth you’re drinking into the monkey’s pot and fetch yourself a bottle of brandy.’

  Roger did as he was bid, and as he settled himself down again Orlof continued with a sad shake of his leonine head. ‘The youth of France may still be virile; but in Russia ’tis now pestiferous. For a decade or more the Empress has surrounded herself with a riffraff of weaklings who are capable of nought but scribbling poetry or painting pictures. When my brother and I raised her to the throne ’twas vastly different. She was dependant then on us rough soldiers, but we gave her an empire and made her the mightiest sovereign in the world. Aye, we fought, and drank, and leched like men in those days, and stood no nonsense from Katinka either. To see her now you’d never realise what a monstrous handsome baggage she was as a young woman, and ’twas a joy to smack her bottom when she got foolish ideas into her pretty head.’

  ‘I would that I had been a girl then,’ Natalia Andreovna remarked. ‘Life at the time of the coup d’état must have been prodigious exciting. Tell us about it, Alexi?’

  ‘You’ve heard the story often enough,’ he grumbled; but evidently he enjoyed recalling the bold stroke that had lifted him from a poor soldier to great fortune, as after very little pressing from Natalia he started off reminiscently.

  ‘I doubt if the conspiracy would ever have taken place had not Peter the Third been a fool, a weakling and a traitor. With all her faults, the Empress Elizabeth was a true Russian, but her nephew was born a German and remained a German all his life. Bringing him here at the
age of fourteen and changing his name from Karl Peter Ulric to Peter Feodorovitch did not have the same effect as changing Katinka’s name did on her, when she was brought here three years later to marry him. As he grew up he developed a passionate admiration for Frederick the Great. Well, I’ve nothing against youngsters playing at soldiers, but the men of his bodyguard didn’t like it when he put them into Prussian uniforms. They liked it even less during the last years of Elizabeth’s reign, when we were at war with Prussia. Yet worse, as Grand Duke and Heir-Apparent he was a member of the Royal Council, and time and again he used his position to betray our plans.’

  Orlof spat on the floor in disgust. In spite of that we had old martinet Frederick rocking on his pins and our armies were on the very point of taking Berlin. Then the Empress died. Without even having the decency to inform his allies in Vienna and Versailles of his intentions, Peter Feodorovitch made peace; and a shameful peace at that. He bartered the fruits of all the victories won by Russian lives and blood for the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle, and went about proud as a peacock, flaunting it on his chest.’

  ‘What a monstrous thing to do,’ Roger remarked feelingly.

  ‘ ’Twas indeed,’ Orlof nodded. ‘And he disgusted us further by his affair with Elizaveta Romanovna Vorontzoff. It seems that while she was his mistress as Grand Duke, he had promised her that when he came to the throne he would put away Katinka and make her Czarina instead. Katinka had been slipping out of one of the palace-windows at night for years past, to go in disguise to Yelaguin’s house in order to keep assignations there with Poniatowsky—the fellow she afterwards made King of Poland—so Peter had ample grounds for divorcing her, but he hadn’t got the guts. His failure to carry out his promise resulted in some frightful scenes. He and the Vorontzoff used to get drunk together every night, then she used to beat him, and boast about having done so in public afterwards. Well, no one can respect a man who lets his woman beat him, can they?’

  ‘No,’ agreed Roger, with an amused glance at Natalia Andreovna. They certainly cannot.’

  ‘So naturally all our sympathies gravitated towards Katinka. My brother Gregory had been A.D.C. to Count Peter Schuvalof. While Katinka was still only Grand Duchess the fates decreed that the Count should catch him in bed with the Princess Kurakin; and as she was Schuvalof’s mistress he threatened Gregory with Siberia. Katinka got to hear of it, and her curiosity being aroused, she arranged to get a sight of him without his knowledge. One look at his handsome face was enough, and his destination was changed from Siberia to a much warmer spot.’

  The High Admiral guffawed at his own joke; then went on. ‘Mark you, Katinka was remarkably circumspect about her amours in those days. She had wearied of Poniatowsky for quite a while and only continued to visit him in order to divert suspicion from her other pranks. Whenever she saw a likely-looking young officer of the Guards she used to tell her woman, Katarina Ivanovna, to arrange matters for her. On some pretext the fellow was persuaded to allow himself to be blindfolded, then he was secretly introduced into her chamber at night. Often enough, if the young man was a stranger to the Court, he went away next morning with a purse full of gold but not the faintest idea whom he had slept with.

  ‘Gregory knew well enough, but he had the sense to keep his mouth shut. In fact, when the Princess Dashkof sounded him, as just the type of bold bravo who would be required if any sword-play was needed to carry through the conspiracy, she was unaware that Katinka had ever set eyes on him. Actually he had been her favourite lover in secret for some months, and he was shrewd enough to see that if she did not get rid of her husband he would eventually screw up the courage to get rid of her.’

  ‘Moreover,’ Natalia put in, ‘Gregory also knew that once Peter was out of the way he would be able to come out into the open. And you Orlofs have never been slow at seeing where your best interests lay.’

  ‘True enough!’ cried the Count. ‘But the little Dashkof was the prime mover in the affair, inspired by the virulent hatred she bore her own sister, Elizaveta Romanovna. The Dashkof was no more than eighteen then, yet so great was her talent for intrigue that she won over to her project, in turn, the Hetman Cyril Razumofsky, Count Nikita Panin and Prince Volkonsky, the major-general commanding the Brigade of Guards. Katinka pretended afterwards that she knew nothing of all this, and ’tis certain that none of these folk were fully aware of the game the others were playing; but ’tis my opinion that she directed the whole business through the Dashkof and, towards the end, my brother.’

  ‘Towards the end, too, the conspirators surely met,’ Natalia interposed again, ‘and in the presence of the Empress. Have I not heard that there was a violent altercation in which the Dashkof and Gregory vowed that once Peter was deposed Katinka must be enthroned as supreme ruler; whereas Nikita Panin stood firmly by his contention that she should act only as Regent for her son, Paul Petrovitch; believing that the post as governor to the boy would then assure him first place in the Empire?’

  Orlof tipped the other half of the bottle of brandy into his goblet, and nodded. ‘Aye, and it looked as if a deadlock had been reached; but the Dashkof was persuaded to save the situation by her confidential secretary, an ambitious Piedmontese named Odart, whom she used as her go-between in the affair. By the grace of St. Nicholas, Panin had fallen in love with her during these secret negotiations. As he had been her mother’s lover she believed herself his own daughter; so she was, at first, loath to give way to him. But Odart overcame her scruples, and on Katinka promising that Panin should be her principal Minister, between them, the two women brought him to heel.’

  Roger was no puritan himself and accepted the low morality of the age as natural; but even he was shocked by these disclosures which make it even more apparent that, compared with the licence that reigned in London and Paris, the Court of St. Petersburg was a positive sink of iniquity.

  ‘Yet the time wasted over this wrangle was near our undoing,’ Orlof continued. ‘Peter had succeeded to the throne on the 5th of January, 1762, and it was now the first week in July. The breach between the royal couple had reached such dimensions that Peter had banished Katinka from the city with orders to live in Peterhof until his further pleasure; and we feared that any day Elizaveta Romanovna might prevail upon him to have her cast into a fortress. My brother, myself, our friend Bibekof and a Lieutenant Passick had steadily been gaining adherents to the plot in the regiments of Guards; but not all of them were trustworthy. So many people were now involved that talk became inevitable. Frederick of Prussia got to hear that there was something in the wind and sent Peter a warning. Fortunately Peter was too drunk or lazy to bother about it; but another warning reached him through a French architect named Valois. As a result, Teplof, the Councillor of State, who was one of our number, was arrested.’

  Orlof paused dramatically, then he gave a great guffaw of laughter. ‘Would you believe it, that fool of a Czar had not the sense to put Teplof to the question, so our necks were saved. But we were near undone again. This time by a soldier, one of Passick’s people, who inadvertently gave away our intentions to his Captain. It was nine o’clock at night. Passick was arrested and thrown into a cell; but, realising the desperateness of the situation he managed to get a message out which reached Princess Dashkoff, urging us to act before morning.’

  Again Orlof paused, then went on more quickly. ‘Panin came in to keep an assignation with her just as she received the message. His courage did not prove equal to the occasion and he begged her to await events. Scorning his counsels she changed into man’s attire, sent a message to my brother and met him at the Green Bridge over the Moika. Gregory returned to the barracks to prepare the soldiers and to myself allotted the perilous task of going to fetch the Empress.

  ‘She was then living retired in a small summer house called Monplaisir on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, at the extremity of the Peterhof gardens. As her lover, Gregory, had the key to it, and on his giving it to me with directions how to find the place, I to
ok two soldiers and we set off hell-for-leather.

  It was two o’clock in the morning before we reached the Peterhof, and I had the devil’s own ado to find Katinka’s retreat. Knowing nothing of what had passed in the capital, she had long since retired and was sound asleep. Shaking her awake I told her that if she valued her life she had not a moment to lose and must follow me.

  ‘Katinka never lacked for courage, and although she had never set eyes on me before, within five minutes she was up and dressed. Meanwhile my two men had harnessed horses to a coach that the far-sighted little Dashkof had stabled in an outhouse nearby for just such an emergency. No sooner was Katinka in it than I climbed on the box and took the reins myself.

  ‘Stomach of St. Nicholas! How I drove those horses! Everything depended on Katinka arriving in the Residence and being acclaimed by the guards before our intentions were discovered. But we had twenty-five versts to cover and I overdid the part of Jehu. While we still had a good part of the way to go, the poor beasts foundered and died in their tracks.

  ‘There was nought for it but to walk, and being this season of the year it was as light as day. Poor Katinka feared that at any moment some of Peter’s officers might come galloping up on their way to arrest her at Peterhof, and recognising her there upon the road, seize her person. Then, after a while, we met a market-cart. Dispossessing the peasant of it, I put her in it, and on we went again. As we neared the city we suddenly saw a carriage approaching us at full gallop. For a few moments our hearts were in our mouths; but it was Gregory, who had set out to discover what had caused the delay in Katinka’s arrival. He paused to shout to her that they only awaited her coming, then turned about and galloped off to prepare for her reception. At last, near dead with suspense and excitement, at seven o’clock in the morning, we entered the city.