The House of Special Purpose

by Paul Christopher

  ‘I don’t mind if she stays,’ said Jane.

  ‘Be a dear and switch on the projector, would you, Axel?’ said Moura. He did as he was told, then reached back and flipped off the lights. The room dropped into total darkness except for the brilliant white square of light at the other end of the cabin. Right away, Black saw, the beginning of the film was nothing like the one they’d seen earlier in the evening.

  It began with a standard countdown strip of leader and opened with a long shot down a wide, dirt-packed boulevard with large Russian-style wood-frame buildings to the left and right. A few very old-fashioned motor cars were parked on either side of the road but mostly it was lined with small horse-drawn carriages drawn up to hitching rails. Several wooden goods wagons moved back and forth. The film had a pale green overtone but from the brightness of the scene and the length of the shadows trailing behind people it was perhaps a little past noon.

  ‘Yekaterinburg, Western Siberia, this is Ascension Avenue, looking to the east.’

  The shot went dark in a way that told Jane someone had turned a multiple-lens turret.

  ‘This is the British consulate. The man coming out the door is Sir Charles Eliot, British high commissioner and consul-general for Siberia.’ Eliot was on the short side, his dark hair in an upright brush. His face was broad and square with a large nose and a drooping moustache covering thick, almost feminine lips. ‘The man with him is Major Homer Slaughter of American Military Intelligence, nominally attached to the Czech forces as liaison officer. On July 17, 1918, Major Slaughter had no business being in Yekaterinburg and certainly not speaking to the British consul-general.’

  ‘Why was he there?’ asked Jane.

  ‘In a moment,’ cautioned Moura Budberg.

  The shot changed several times, once showing a palatial building that Budberg identified as the local railroad station, another rather pretty shot of a large tree-lined lake with a biplane flying boat resting close to shore and a long continuous pan across a very old-looking cemetery with railroad tracks in the background and what appeared to be a freight yard behind it. Finally they were back in Yekaterinburg, this time facing an odd-looking house. It was large, several storeys tall with a Spanish-style tile roof, two turrets and a multitude of chimneys. What was truly odd, though, was the wooden palisade that had been built around it, completely obscuring the main and second floors as well as the entrances. The main gate was open and Jane could see a second, shorter palisade within. Six people were standing in front of the outer gates of the palisade closest to the street, one of them in uniform. As the film continued to play, an old woman dressed completely in black tottered through the shot as she crossed the street and disappeared from view. It was a strange, human detail that suddenly made the rest of the proceedings all the more real.

  ‘This is the Ipatiev House, also known as the House of Special Purpose,’ said Moura Budberg, her voice flat and unemotional. ‘We can identify the date of this as being sometime shortly after the fifteenth of July, since that is the date the outer palisade was completed. Watch now.’

  The turret flipped and suddenly the people standing at the gate came into sharp focus. The tallest was Major Slaughter; the man beside him was tall and dressed in an odd-looking uniform with boots and jodhpurs as well as a plain battle jacket without any rank insignia or unit. The two men were talking easily together and smoking cigarettes.

  ‘The man with the uniform is Alexander Beloborodov. At the time he was the chairman of the Ural Regional Soviet. He was also a friend of and a spy for Trotsky. In the end it was Beloborodov who managed to spirit him away to Mexico. Very little is known about him other than that.’

  ‘The next man?’ said Black.

  ‘Yakov Yurovsky. The chief assassin and leader of the firing squad that murdered the tsar and his family. He was also responsible for disposing of the bodies.’ The second man was slight and dark with a round face and a heavy moustache and a long, thick goatee-style beard that covered most of the bottom of his face.

  ‘And the next?’ asked Black, no longer able to delay the inevitable.

  Moura Budberg smiled in the gloomy, brightly punctuated darkness. ‘As you are well aware, the third man is Robert Bruce Lockhart, acting on special orders from George the Fifth.’

  ‘To rescue the Romanovs?’ said Jane, thinking about the flying boat she’d seen.

  ‘Nothing so high-minded,’ put in the Duchess of Windsor. ‘David told me all about this some time ago. Lockhart was there to negotiate trade agreements with the Reds, through Yakolev, the head of the local soviet. Supposedly to get a jump on the Germans. The question at hand had nothing to do with rescuing the poor creatures. It had to do with questions regarding how trade could go on after they’d been killed and would it have any effect. Very cold-blooded, I must say. David hated his father for that. I think he would have gone and rescued them himself if he’d been able but of course he wasn’t.’

  ‘Lenin and Trotsky were both aware that there would be a cinematographer in place and he was given orders to get Lockhart on film as well as the two men standing next to him, also there to negotiate trade agreements,’ added Budberg.

  The camera panned a little more and the two men at the far end of the group came into focus. One of them was tall, stooped and lanky with thinning dark hair. The other one was shorter, broad-shouldered and clean-shaven. His haircut was military but he was wearing a rumpled dark suit that didn’t seem to fit him very well.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Jane whispered, her eyes widening.

  ‘Oh, but it is, Miss Todd. The man you see in front of you is none other than Colonel William Joseph Donovan, at that point late of the Fighting Sixty-ninth, I believe they were called. He was also a member of American Military Intelligence and a “friend” to President Wilson. The other man is Father Patrick Duffy, Donovan’s regimental chaplain and a high-ranking member of military intelligence himself. Since neither Donovan nor Duffy spoke Russian, Slaughter, who did, was brought in to translate for them.’ They watched for a few moments longer and then Wenner-Gren stopped the film and turned on the lights.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ said Jane. ‘Donovan was a war hero. He was on the Western Front. He got the Congressional Medal of Honor.’

  ‘He was also slightly wounded. In the end he was given two Purple Hearts, I believe,’ said Budberg. ‘He was taken off the front lines and evacuated back to a field hospital in a place called Château Poicens. From there he was flown to Marseille, where he caught an Imperial Airways flight to Trebizond in Turkey and then a Stetinin M9 Devjatka flying boat. The whole trip, start to finish, took a little less than twenty-four hours. Neither Duffy nor Donovan was even missed. Ironically, Donovan came back a year later with the American Expeditionary Force to talk to General Kolchak of the Whites to see if he could arrange the same trade deals as he had with the Reds. Hedging his bets, so to speak.’

  ‘This doesn’t prove anything,’ said Black. ‘Only that Donovan and Lockhart were present in Yekaterinburg.’

  ‘It certainly proves that Lockhart wasn’t planning any rescue. In fact, it obviates any further discussion about it. It also categorically proves that both Donovan and Lockhart lied about their whereabouts since neither one ever mentioned their presence publicly, either at the time or since. Combined with the film of the assassination itself the whole thing is very damning.’ She shook her head. ‘An American war hero and a member of the British Foreign Office talking in broad daylight with the man who was responsible for the mass murder of eleven people. Governments have toppled for less than this.’ ‘

  Who’s to say the film was shot all at the same time?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Because there are no edits of any kind. The film all comes from the same reel of negative stock.’

  ‘Why don’t we get to the point of all this?’ said Black. ‘I’ve seen enough.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Moura Budberg replied. She made a small gesture with her hand and Wenner-Gren darkened the lights and switched on the pr
ojector a second time. Once more they sat through Levitsky’s preparations for filming and then the horrible footage of the killing itself, ending with the scene as Yurovsky stepped forward and stood over Alexei. Again they saw the bearded, dark-haired man as he kicked the thirteen-year-old boy in the head with the toe of his heavy boot and the tsarevitch’s temple caving in under the lethal blow. They watched again as Yurovsky pulled his second gun and pumped two shots directly into the boy’s ear. Alexei’s head exploded. The boy’s heels drummed against the floor for a few seconds and then he was still.

  On the film once again Yurovsky, wreathed in smoke, stood up and looked around the room and once again he went from corpse to bloody corpse, checking pulses and occasionally firing the Mauser in a coup de grâce.

  He pried Jemmy the dog out from under the body of her mistress, then tossed the little spaniel aside like a rag. He put away the Mauser and the Colt then waved the others forward. The eleven men began to lift the bodies up, carrying them back out through the doors and up the twenty-three steps.

  But this time instead of ending, the film continued. The shot held steady on Yurovsky, standing in the thinning smoke, and then two figures passed between Yurovsky and the camera, their profiles briefly seen but forever captured on the whirring strip of celluloid. Even in the smoke and the semi-darkness there was no mistaking who they were: William Joseph Donovan and Robert Bruce Lockhart. The film ran on for a few seconds as the smoke continued to swirl and then it faded out to nothing. Wenner-Gren switched off the projector again and turned on the lights.

  Jane stared, ‘They were there? In the room!’

  ‘It would appear so.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure but it may simply have been so that they could bear witness. Various banks and financial institutions, both of your governments, in fact, have access to enormous amounts of Romanov wealth. With the Romanovs undeniably gone the Morgans and Barings of the world could breathe just a little bit easier. Had there been any survivors it could well have led to awkward questions.’

  ‘They would have reported back to their superiors: Lockhart to Balfour, the foreign secretary, and Donovan to President Wilson,’ put in the duchess. ‘A sigh of relief heard round the world, or at least in Europe and the States,’ she added sourly.

  ‘What is the price for all of this?’ Morris Black asked bluntly.

  Moura Budberg smiled. ‘For our friends down in their staterooms their version of the film is expensive. For you and your friend, think of this version of the film as a gift.’ She turned and glanced at the Duchess of Windsor. ‘For Her Royal Highness it is a bulwark. Something to keep the royal dogs at bay in case they intend to visit any further indignities on her or her husband.’ Budberg paused. ‘And you, Detective Inspector Black, will deliver the bad news that she has it in her possession.’

  ‘And my copy?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Make it public and it would almost certainly destroy any credibility Colonel Donovan might have, now or in the future. It might even be enough to bring down Mr Roosevelt.’

  ‘What if we just destroy the copies and have done with it?’ said Jane.

  ‘Then we’d make it public for you. As you must be aware, we have access to the originals.’

  ‘One question,’ said Black. ‘Why didn’t you just do that in the first place? Why did you need us to run about tracking it all down? You could have released the film yourself.’

  ‘It probably wouldn’t have been believed. What do my friends on Dzerzhinskiy Square call it, Dizinformation? This way is much more effective, much more believable.’

  ‘And what do you and your friend here get out of it all?’

  ‘Doors will open,’ she said, glancing at the former Wallis Simpson. ‘Doors will open in many places, I think.’

  ‘When do we get the film?’

  ‘Tomorrow, shortly after nine p.m, along with everyone else.’ She smiled. ‘I wouldn’t want it to appear that I was playing favourites. Until then they will be kept locked in this sideboard, which I should caution you is quite well guarded.’ She paused again. ‘And now, if you will excuse us, Her Majesty and I have a number of things to discuss before we return to Nassau.’ It was a dismissal. Arthur, stationed outside the dining room door, escorted them back to their stateroom.

  * * *

  ‘Now what?’ asked Jane as they were locked into their stateroom on the Southern Cross again. The dinner things and the folding table had been removed. ‘How about we climb out through the porthole? Take good old Emil’s advice before he starts shooting.’ Black shook his head, puffing on a cigarette and thinking hard. Jane hopped over to his bunk, pushed back the curtains and tried her hand at the brass porthole bolts securing the small round windows. They were dogged down tight and anyway it would have been impossible to clamber through an opening that small. She cupped her hands and looked out over the water of the basin. On the fisherman’s wharf by the administration building all the lights were out. Below the wharf, riding out a low tide, was a long fishing boat with twin booms, an open cockpit and a small forward cabin that was probably used in foul weather. She could even read the name on the transom, Crunch and Des, after the Philip Wylie stories in the Saturday Evening Post.

  ‘What the hell was the name of their boat?’ she asked under her breath, trying not to think about the situation they were in.

  ‘Whose boat?’

  ‘Crunch and Des.’

  ‘The Poseidon,’ answered Black promptly.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I read the stories in the Saturday Evening Post,’ Black answered. ‘My mother had an airmail subscription. When I grew up, I was either going to be Crunch Adams having adventures in the Florida Keys or one of the Mounties bringing law and order to the Canadian West.’

  ‘I always wanted to be Gertrude Lange.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘One of the first famous woman photographers,’ Jane answered. ‘Like Margaret Bourke-White.’

  They sat in silence for a moment, side by side on the bunk. ‘Are we going to get out of this?’ Jane asked.

  ‘I think so. We’re the ones bringing the bad news, remember.’

  ‘Yeah, and you know what happens to the bearers of bad tidings.’ After a pause she said, ‘You think they’re not going to let us go, Donovan and your people?’

  ‘They can’t,’ Black said darkly. ‘We’re too much of a security risk as it is. This simply makes it a thousand times worse.’ He let out a long, sighing breath. ‘The chances are, we’ll be sent out on some sort of mission from which we won’t be coming back. Nice and tidy and out of the way. Telegrams home to the family… We regret to inform you…’

  ‘Except we don’t have any families, which makes it even easier.’ She made a fist and pounded it down on the bed. ‘Christ, we should have seen this coming.’

  ‘I think we did,’ said Black. ‘You and I share a terrible flaw, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We’re too bloody curious for our own good.’

  ‘Well, curious or not I’m not going to give up without trying.’

  ‘You seem to forget we’re on an island, Jane. There’s not too many ways of getting off and you know as well as I do that Shivers’s people are no more than a hundred yards away in that gas station watching everything that happens.’

  ‘Quit being a pessimist. Something will show up.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Without thinking very much about it Jane leaned over and kissed Morris Black full on the lips. He returned the kiss for a long moment then broke away. ‘Is this part of some escape plan?’ he asked, smiling. His lips and mouth were tingling hotly from the touch of her. Jane kissed him again and this time it lasted even longer. Black felt his right hand come up and gently touch her breast. She moaned softly and the kiss deepened, then broke a second time.

  ‘A while ago I fell in love with another Limey and wound up not kissing him or making love to him or showing
him how I felt in any way. I’m not going to let that happen again.’

  ‘Don’t I have anything to say about this?’

  ‘Not a word,’ Jane said and kissed him again.

  * * *

  According to his watch it was slightly after five thirty in the morning when Morris Black sat bolt upright in the narrow bunk. Jane Todd mumbled sleepily under the covers beside him.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he whispered, speaking into the gloom. At the Yard, Morris Black had been considered to possess the Sight, the slightly metaphysical sixth sense that was sometimes a little spooky to those who did not possess it. Black himself knew that there was nothing at all metaphysical about it. Most coppers thought in an entirely linear fashion, putting one fact atop another like a child playing with alphabet blocks until the tower was finished and the letters aligned in the right order. Black, on the other hand, was one of those rare policemen who could let the facts at hand simmer in the back of his mind until he was ready to make the single, simple intuitive leap that took him directly to the solution of the problem. To Black it was the subtle difference between craft and art.

  ‘What?’ murmured Jane, pushing herself up against the pillows and yawning. Still half asleep, she groped around on the table between the beds and found a lighter and a packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Levitsky!’ said Black. He took the lit cigarette away from Jane and began puffing away on it himself.

  ‘I hand over my virtue. Twice, if you recall, and you steal my cigarette.’ She lit another. ‘And what’s this about Levitsky? He’s the cameraman, right?’

  ‘Who came to America, stole a camera from a newsreel company and started making stag movies.’

  ‘You’ve gone crazy now, haven’t you?’

  ‘It explains it.’ Black grinned. ‘It absolutely explains it.’

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘Why they came here. To Hawaii. Honolulu.’ Suddenly Jane saw the reason too. ‘It wasn’t because Wenner-Gren couldn’t dock his boat in the States. It’s because Levitsky’s here. The original film is here.’