‘And why should that interest me?’ said the Tsar rather shortly, as if he had had enough of investigators.
‘It should interest you, sir, because it will contain my account of what transpired between you and Mr Martin. I give you my word that if you wish to correct my version in any way, I shall not tell a single soul who provided the information. Come, sir,’ Powerscourt smiled suddenly at his host, ‘come on a little adventure with me. Put aside the cares of state for ten minutes or so. Join the ranks of the investigators!’
The Tsar lit himself a cigarette. He returned the smile. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘for the moment I am your Mr Sherlock Holmes of 221b Baker Street. Sherlock Romanov perhaps. I shall consider what you have to say. Begin please!’
Powerscourt drew a deep breath. Now was his opportunity. From Markham Square to Tsarskoe Selo, via the British Embassy, Kerenkov’s shipyard, Kerenkova’s dacha, the eyes of Natasha Bobrinsky and the torture chambers of Okhrana boss Derzhenov was a long and complicated journey.
‘When I first began investigating the death of Mr Martin,’ he began, trying to be as honest as he could with the Tsar, ‘I thought that he had been sent here by the British Government with some proposal or other. A new treaty perhaps, an alliance with the French against Germany, maybe. It was possible, I thought, that he had been killed because somebody didn’t like the proposal or didn’t like your response to it. That all seemed perfectly possible.’
‘But you changed your mind, Lord Powerscourt. Why did you do that?’
‘I spent a lot of time, sir, trying to work out the dynamics of the meeting, who summoned who, that sort of thing. After a while I decided that the most likely sequence of events was rather different. The first event was you sending a message to England, to the King, I think, with a request that he should only discuss it with his Prime Minister. I think the request was in the form if not of a question, then something very like it. You see, sir, I began to think that the meeting had more to do with family than it did with affairs of state. That would explain why the conversation, if you like, began as monarch to monarch rather than minister to minister. And the need for confidentiality, for secrecy, if you will, explains why a man had to come from London rather than going through the British Embassy here.’
‘I was going to ask how you arrived at that conclusion but I shall save my questions for the end of this fascinating piece of investigation, Lord Powerscourt!’ Sherlock Romanov finished his cigarette and immediately lit another. Powerscourt noticed that some of his fingers were deeply stained with nicotine.
‘The second event,’ Powerscourt went on, ‘was Mr Martin arriving here with the answer from London. Again I can only guess at what the answer was. And I can only speculate as to why up until now no action has been taken.’
‘And what was the answer, Lord Powerscourt?’ The Tsar was now surrounded by a penumbra of smoke, his hand emerging from time to time to knock off the ash at the end of his cigarette.
‘I think, sir, that the question sent by you or your agents to London went something like this: Would the British royal family, and by extension, the British Government, be happy to welcome the Tsar’s wife and children to England while the present unrest in Russia continues. And,’ Powerscourt was reluctant to divulge this piece of news, ‘were there doctors in London who were experienced in the treatment of haemophilia.’
‘God bless my soul!’ The Tsar had turned pale.
‘And the answer, brought by Mr Martin,’ Powerscourt carried on relentlessly now, ‘was Yes, as long as the Russian royal family were content to live quietly in the country and didn’t expect to be taken round London on a never-ending quadrille of state banquets and ceremonial balls. A suitable place could be found for them in Norfolk, close to the Royal Family establishment at Sandringham.’
The Tsar looked at Powerscourt with considerable pain in his eyes. His question now had a slightly desperate air. ‘There is a flaw, of course, in this theory of yours. Do you see what the flaw is, Lord Powerscourt?’
‘I am not sure it is a flaw, sir. I presume you refer to the fact that your wife and children are still here in Tsarskoe Selo, St Petersburg, not in Norfolk, England. But I do not believe that invalidates any of the rest of the theory, sir. There has been a British frigate on patrol in the waters off the coast here for a number of weeks now. People are beginning to talk. It seems possible to me, sir, that a number of factors could have intervened to modify the situation. The Empress might not have liked the plan. She might have preferred to stay with her husband in his hour of duty and help him fulfil what she saw as his obligations as ruler of Russia. The Tsar’s advisers, if they heard of the plan, might have thought it an unhelpful act to send the Tsar’s family and his heir out of the country. Hostile elements in society, not just the bomb-throwing fraternity, might have branded it cowardice, a vote of no confidence by the Tsar in the Tsar’s own administration. And finally, sir,’ Powerscourt thought he must stop very soon, ‘if security is so bad at present that you cannot attend the funeral of one of your own relations, blown to smithereens by the Kremlin walls, it might also be too bad to permit a party of six with all their attendants to make their way from here to a main-line railway station or to the English frigate.’
The Tsar crossed his legs and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘You will be interested to hear, Lord Powerscourt, that almost all of what you said is true in one sense or another. I congratulate you. But I have two questions for you. How did you know we were thinking of sending the children to England? And how did you know about my son?’
Powerscourt thought fast. He knew that if he mentioned the disappearing toys or the vanished Trans-Siberian Railway egg, Natasha would be in trouble. He did not dare rely on her testimony for the haemophilia either. He decided to take a huge gamble, not with the first question, but with the second.
‘I have a politician friend, sir, who is intimate with members of the British royal family. Forgive me if I do not mention his name. I asked him to inquire among his contacts to see if preparations were being made for the possible reception of a party of Russian royalty. His inquiries revealed that the answer was Yes. He also told me that inquiries were made about whether London had doctors skilled in the treatment of certain diseases. No name was given to the disease but it was clear from the descriptions given that it was haemophilia. The disease is all too well known to London doctors, unfortunately. Queen Victoria was a carrier.’ So far so good, Powerscourt thought, looking at the Tsar closely, now for a diversion. ‘When I considered where the British royals would be likely to accommodate Russian royals, I felt London would be inappropriate. Too public, too many prying eyes from the journalists and members of the public. Windsor Castle? Large enough, certainly, but there’s rather a lot of gloom and not much privacy. Sandringham is where they would send them. And when I asked a colleague to go and make inquiries in the area about any plans that might have been made to receive a group of foreign royalty, the answer was Yes. No nationality was known, but a party of foreign royals including a number of children was expected, had indeed been expected for some time.’ Powerscourt smiled faintly, as if apologizing for knowing too much, for being too well acquainted with the Tsar’s affairs.
‘I see,’ said Nicholas the Second, ‘I see.’ He looked like a man playing for time. Powerscourt remembered de Chassiron saying that the Tsar had plenty of charm but very little in the way of brain. ‘This is all very interesting, Lord Powerscourt, but please enlighten me as to how it helps your investigations with Mr Martin, the dead Mr Martin.’
Powerscourt prayed that Nicholas was not going to look at his watch. That, the Ambassador had told him, in what must, Powerscourt thought, have been the only piece of useful information ever imparted by His Nibs, was a certain sign that the Tsar wished the interview to end.
‘Let me try to explain, sir.’ Don’t patronize the man, for God’s sake, Powerscourt said to himself, don’t let him see I think he’s rather dim. ‘Suppose you have two friends. You know
they have met for a conversation. Almost immediately afterwards one of them is killed. Anybody trying to solve the mystery would wish to know what the two men talked about. It might have a bearing on the reasons for their murder. The same thing applies to Mr Martin.’
‘Do you,’ asked the Tsar, possibly returning to the Sherlock Romanov mode, ‘have a list of suspects, as it were, for the killing?’
‘I do, sir, but forgive me if I do not put names to them,’ Powerscourt said. ‘I would not want you to carry round in your head a collection of possible murderers who might be totally innocent. It would be as unfair on you as it might be unjust on them.’
‘And do you think, Lord Powerscourt, that this conversation we have just had will make it easier for you to catch the murderer?’
Powerscourt noted that the conversation had now reverted to the past tense. He did not tell the Tsar that he believed his best chance of finding the murderer still lay in the three or four hours immediately after this interview.
‘I do, sir, and I am most grateful to you for your time and your patience in listening to my theories.’
‘I wish you good luck in your inquiries, Lord Powerscourt. Perhaps we shall meet again some day.’
‘I hope so, sir, I sincerely hope so.’
The interview was at an end. The symphony in gold braid and the footman with the plumed hat collected Powerscourt and the rest of the party and escorted them to their carriage. The symphony wished them Good Evening. The plumed hat bowed slightly at the departing foreigners. Not too near the palace, probably just outside the park, Powerscourt expected the carriage to be stopped and that he and Mikhail would be taken away. This was the gamble he had taken when he sent his message to the Embassy about being in a position to solve the mystery of Martin’s death inside a week. Whatever happened to Martin had happened after he left the Tsar. Somewhere between Tsarskoe Selo and St Petersburg he had been killed.
They heard their adversaries before they saw them, a rattle of horses’ hooves hurrying across the snow. Then a party of six men came into view, all in some elaborate Russian army uniform Powerscourt didn’t recognize, all with rifles slung across their backs, the leader with a pistol in his left hand. Powerscourt remembered an old army instructor telling him years before that left-handed shots had to be treated with great care as they were often more accurate than right-handers.
‘You!’ the left-hander barked at the coachman. ‘Follow us.’ A very young soldier took his place beside the coachman on the box seat and stuck a gun in his ribs.
‘What do you think is going to happen now, Francis?’ whispered Johnny Fitzgerald.
‘I think they’re going to haul me off for questioning, Johnny. If they take me on my own that probably means it’s Derzhenov. He doesn’t need an interpreter. If they want Mikhail to come too, it’s a different collection. Whatever happens, I don’t think it’s going to be good for my retirement prospects to stay with these gentlemen long, whoever they may be.’
The coach had turned out of the park and was now passing down the main street of the village. At the very end of the built-up area they turned left into the grounds of a rather dilapidated house. Faint lights could be seen in a room on the ground floor. The paint seemed to be peeling from the pillars by the front door. There was some discussion between the men who had captured them. Then Powerscourt and Mikhail were ordered out of the carriage and marched roughly into the house. Four men stayed on guard by the coach, scowling at the English and smoking strong-smelling cigarettes.
Powerscourt and Mikhail were shown into what had once been a handsome room with high ceilings and sash windows. There were a couple of battered armchairs in the middle of the room. Two wooden chairs had been placed in front of a rickety table at the opposite end from the window. Powerscourt noticed to his dismay that there were a number of stout sticks and a couple of Russian knouts or whips lying casually in the corner of the room. Opposite the chairs was a pale officer in his mid-forties with a great scar running down the lower side of his face. Most people, Powerscourt thought, would have grown a beard to hide the injury. Not this man. He flaunted it like a badge of honour. His hair was grey and his eyes were a dull brown.
‘Major Andrey Shatilov of the Imperial Guard, Royal Palaces Security Division,’ he said crisply.
‘Lord Francis Powerscourt, attached to His Majesty’s Foreign Office,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘Mr Mikhail Shaporov of the Shaporov Bank, acting as my translator. Pray explain to us why we have been taken prisoner in this fashion. I shall report this to my Ambassador here.’
Powerscourt wondered suddenly if the world of conventional diplomacy, with its notes and its niceties, its protocols and its levees, was somehow alien even in St Petersburg. Peter the Great may have been trying to civilize a nation when he built his capital here on this isolated spot, but after two hundred years he still had not succeeded. These people here, the Major with his scar and the rough soldiery outside, belonged to some alien world, the world of the peasants perhaps, tucked away in the great empty vastness of Russia with only their women and their violence for company. Russian generals, he remembered, had always been careless with the lives of their men. There were so many of them, endless reservoirs to make up the numbers when the first drafts had perished.
Shatilov’s voice was crisp. ‘It is not for you to inquire why you have been taken into temporary custody by the local authorities here, Powerscourt or whatever you say your name is.’
Powerscourt said nothing. Two of Shatilov’s thugs were lounging on the chairs in the middle of the room. One of them was fiddling with a very long piece of rope.
‘My request is quite simple,’ Shatilov said, managing to imbue even those innocent-sounding words with a charge of venom. ‘All you have to do is to tell me the nature of your conversation with the Tsar.’
Powerscourt paused for a moment. ‘Don’t translate this bit,’ he said to Mikhail, speaking very fast, ‘I want to make him lose his temper. My conversation with the Tsar was confidential,’ he went on more slowly. ‘It is not my business to tell you of his business any more than it would be for me to tell you of any discussions I might have with my King in London. What right do you think you have to make such a request?’
Shatilov was beginning to warm up nicely, Powerscourt thought. His fingers began strumming on the table.
‘Those of us in charge of the security of the imperial family are entitled to know all of his conversations! All of them. For his own safety! Now will you please tell me the nature of your conversation!’
Powerscourt wondered suddenly what would happen if it became known that the Tsar was planning to send his children abroad. It would say, as surely as if he had signed a proclamation, that he was not in control of events, that he had lost faith in the ability of his regime to protect his children. The Emperor himself would be announcing that he has no clothes. The myths and facade of autocracy, built up over nearly three hundred years of Romanov rule, would vanish like mist on a summer morning. Maybe the monarchy would fall and the Tsar would have to follow his family to England to stick family photographs into English albums and watch an English sea lapping at an English coast. The alternative, of course, might be worse, the Tsar’s children blown into minute fragments by a terrorist bomb, or murdered in their beds. It was, they had said to him in London before he left, a matter of vital national importance. Well, Powerscourt thought, looking absently at the Major’s scar, it certainly was for Tsar Nicholas the Second. And for King Edward the Seventh? The presence of the Tsar’s family in England would surely lead to an alliance with Great Britain. Confronted by the vast forces of France, Russia and the British, surely even the Kaiser would not risk a war, particularly when those other English-speakers, the Americans, might join the battle on the side of the Allies. A matter of vital national importance in London as it was in St Petersburg.
‘I would like you to tell me about a different conversation, Major Shatilov, a conversation you had, possibly in this very room, with a pre
decessor of mine, a man called Martin who came to St Petersburg, who saw the Tsar on a Wednesday evening, and who was found dead on the Nevskii Prospekt later that night or very early the next morning. Did you come across Mr Martin, Major? Did he perhaps sit in this very room with you and your thugs?’
There was a quick muttering from the pair in the chairs. ‘I know little or nothing of this man Martin,’ said Shatilov. ‘I repeat, before my patience runs out, tell me what happened with the Tsar!’ He looked meaningfully at the whips in the corner.
Now it was Mikhail Shaporov’s turn to speak very fast. ‘We weren’t meant to hear it, but one of the chair people said, “Mind the same thing doesn’t happen to you,”’ and then he went on to translate the rest of it.
Powerscourt wondered how much longer Johnny Fitzgerald and the man from the Black Watch were going to be. He had no doubt that they had begun working on a rescue mission as soon as he and Mikhail had been taken away. He too looked with some suspicion at the whips in the corner. Whatever happened he had no intention of betraying the Tsar. He wondered how painful it might be.
‘Did you kill Martin? Here in this room?’ He spoke with as much hostility as he could muster.
‘Shut up about Martin!’ shouted Shatilov, half rising now out of his chair. ‘I want to know about the Tsar!’
‘Did you kill Martin?’ If Powerscourt had wanted to make the Russian Major angry he had certainly succeeded.
‘Shut up about Martin! For the last time, I want to know about your conversation with the Tsar!’
Powerscourt was certain the man was lying about Martin.
‘Did you kill Martin?’ Powerscourt shouted for the third time. Mikhail Shaporov raised his voice to the same pitch.
‘That’s it! That’s it! I’ve had it. Vladimir! Boris! Tie them up!’ Shatilov had turned bright red.
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