City of Silence (City of Mystery) (17 page)

With
a short, shallow puff of the cigarette, Davy leaned back in his chair, consciously
mimicking Vlad’s own pose, and said, “Messenger boys see many things in the
course of a routine day.  My work has taken me from the homes of the most
wealthy and privileged into the most desperate parts of the city.”

“And
witnessing this divide is what has turned you into a revolutionary?”

“You
might say that,” Davy said.  “I remember one afternoon I saw a woman, maybe
just a girl, digging around in the muck for the core of a fallen apple and then
the next place I was sent was a kitchen so large and fine that there was a cook
going through a great sack of apples, tossing aside any with the slightest
mark.  You know, any flaw which meant they were not good enough for milady’s
daily tart.  I asked if I could take the ones she threw away and she laughed at
me and said yes.  So I went back to the street where I had started, but the girl
was gone.”

Vlad’s
face revealed nothing.  “What did you do with the apples?”

“Gave
them to the next person who passed.  Everyone in that particular street is
likely hungry.”

“You
never saw the girl in the mud again?”

“No.”

Vlad
shrugged.   “Such is revolution.  The fruits, if you will pardon my pun, never seem
to fall to those whose needs prompted the fight in the first place, only to the
strangers who come behind.”  He glanced down at the empty glasses.  “So shall
we drink again?  To the girl in the mud, wherever she may be?”

“Indeed,”
said Davy, raising his glass.  “To the girl in the mud.”

The
Winter Palace – The Grand Ballroom

5:02
PM

When
Emma emerged into the hall after her dance lesson, she found Tom approaching
from the other direction.  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“Sleuthing,
of course,” he said, whispering too, but loudly, as if for the stage, and he
finished off the pantomime with a bit of an exaggerated tiptoe toward her. “The
laudable Mrs. Kirby agreed to meet me in the theater at five and describe
exactly how the crime scene was situated, although at this point I imagine it
will be more of a history lesson than anything forensically useful.  And
apparently there is some confidence she must share as well, something so dark
and dreadful it’s meant for my ears only.  How was your first lesson?”

“Most
unusual,” she said.  She hesitated a second, but it was Tom, after all.  They
kept no secrets, at least none of this sort. “He asked me to close my eyes.”

“While
you were dancing?”

“Of
course while I was dancing.  He said I was struggling against him when I should
be following.  And you know, it did help.”

“Did
you like it?  This sense of being overpowered by a faceless stranger?”

“Oh,
stop looking at me like that, and stop smirking.  You turn everything into a
joke and I really want to do well in this waltz.  Not disgrace England and the
Queen and that sort of rot.”

“So
you liked it.”

“I
didn’t dislike it.”

“It
reminds one of the Scottish rapes, you know.”

“I’m
sure I don’t know.”

“The
crime we were discussing at the last meeting of the Murder Games Club.  You
truly don’t remember?  Of course that assailant used a scarf to disorient his
victims and you seem to have been an enthusiastic participant in your own
self-blinding.”

“The
rapes in Scotland,” Emma said, tilting her head.  “That seems a year ago doesn’t
it, and not just last week?  But I was hardly Konstantin’s victim and it didn’t
make me disoriented.  In fact, if anything I was uniquely oriented, more so
than I’ve felt for some time.”  She cut her eyes to his. “When did you say you
were supposed to meet Mrs. Kirby?”

“Five,”
said Tom, looking over his shoulder.  “And I’m rather surprised not to find her
here already.  She struck me as the punctual type.  But perhaps she is
inside.”  He pulled against the heavy door.  “Come along, I wish to be
introduced to this Siberian with his mysterious methods of instruction.”

“I’m
sure he’s gone,” Emma said, hoping that this was true as she walked through the
door.  For some reason she was not eager for Tom and Konstantin to meet.  “He
said I was his last lesson of the day.  Here’s the ballroom,” she added, with a
half-hearted sort of gesture.

“I
never would have deduced as much.”

“But
it is huge, is it not?”

“Everything
in this country is huge.” Tom walked to the middle of the dance floor and made
a slow circle, taking in the series of balconies, the imperial boxes, the half-finished
sets in the corners of the performance level, the orchestra pit, the marble
staircase leading from the wardrobe rooms to the ballroom floor.  “There are so
many points from which people can enter and exit.”

“My
guess would be that the two victims came down the stairs,” Emma said.  “The
performers are perhaps accustomed to entering from the second level, where the
costume and props and dressing rooms are located.  Konstantin both arrived and
departed by that level today.  They most likely do not use these lower doors,
on the audience level, at all.”

“I
agree,” said Tom. “Although Trevor would be in despair if he could hear you use
so many words like ‘guess’ and ‘perhaps’ and ‘most likely’ all in sequence. 
Let us look upstairs.”

“And
what is our explanation if we’re caught snooping around the performers’ area?”

“That
you forgot something after your lesson, you silly girl.”

“I
wouldn’t have left it up here,” she muttered, as they climbed the broad
staircase which led to a changing room for the dancers.  Adjacent to it was a
prop room, larger in itself than many theaters, and then a small sitting room
with any number of settees and even a small daybed.

“Not
a bad situation,” Tom said.  “A little home away from home for the performers.”

“Given
what most of them have come from,” Emma mused, “it’s hard to imagine they’d be
inclined to risk losing their position within the tsar’s troupe.”

“What
makes you say that?”

“I
don’t know,” she confessed.   Even though they had left the ballroom, they were
still whispering.  “But the young ballet dancers who were killed, they were
meeting here at night, were they not?  Which implies a forbidden sort of
liaison.”

“Or
just a desire for more privacy than their own rooms provided,” Tom said,
pushing aside a set of curtains and considering the walls of boxes behind it. 
“Heaven knows, this place is full of enough nooks and crannies to accommodate
an army of forbidden lovers.  But it makes me wonder – had they decided in
advance to meet and if so, how would their killer have known their agreed-upon
time and place?  Or was the tryst a last minute decision, with the man perhaps
luring each of them here with a note that each believed was written by the
other?”

“More
likely their killer overheard them planning to meet,” Emma said.  “It is easy
to eavesdrop in this theater.  The acoustics are extraordinary.”

“Which
implies that our murderer is part of the dance troupe,” Tom said.  “Or perhaps
even someone in their confidence.  Their own Friar Lawrence, so to speak.”

“Rayley
and Trevor got the pages from the police report after luncheon, did they not?”

Tom
rolled his eyes.  “No plural needed, darling.  The report was a single page.  And
the police had collected no weapon, no samples of clothing, nothing at all.  That
is why I need to talk to the Kirby woman.  At least she was at the scene before
they moved the bodies and, who knows, those eagle eyes may have noticed
something.   Odd she still isn’t here.  Perhaps I should go back down and check
the hall again.”

“Saying
you would meet her in the theater was a rather imprecise location,” Emma said. 
“But wait a second, there’s only this one last room.  It appears to be costumes
too, or some sort place where they do the mending and sewing…”

She
had walked three steps in when she saw them.  For a moment she thought they
were unreal – dummies used in a play, perhaps, or dressmaker’s models.  And
then, judging by their prone position, cast among the garments on the floor,
she thought that perhaps they were dead.  It was this last thought that prompted
her scream and the fact that she spun on her heel, crashing directly into Tom,
who had entered the room no more than a few beats behind her.  But the sound
roused the lovers from their distraction and they leapt apart, thus proving,
even in the shadowy darkness, that they were both quite real and very much
alive.  Konstantin sprang to his feet instinctively, causing Emma to give
another small exclamation, this one more of a yelp.  Tatiana, prompted by another
sort of instinct, went scrambling beneath a nearby pile of clothes, but not
before catching a glimpse of the expression on Tom’s face.

“We
beg your pardon,” he said smoothly, backing out, pulling Emma with him.  She
had once again closed her eyes, offering further proof of Konstantin’s theories,
for she followed Tom’s lead without question back into the lighted prop room
where they stood for a moment before bursting into a sort of muffled laughter.

“That
was Konstantin,” Emma said at last, wiping the nervous tears from her face.

“Truly? 
Your dance master?  He seems uniquely qualified for his post.”

“Don’t
you dare make a joke of this,” she said.  Her heart was pounding and her face
was hot.  She had never had cause to study a man, fully naked, except perhaps in
statuary, and somehow none of it was arranged quite as she had imagined.  “How
will I ever be able to dance with him again after witnessing such a thing?”

“And
who was the lovely lady?”

“I
have no idea.  Was she lovely?”

“Oh,
I assure you.” 

“At
least Mrs. Kirby wasn’t with us, which would have been the only thing that could
have made the situation more appalling.”  Emma shuddered at the thought.  “She
has already declared that Konstantin is up to no good.  Come, we must find her
and waylay her long enough to let them escape, for if she even suspects-”

“She
will what?” Tom said, taking Emma’s arm and leading her from the performance
rooms back toward the staircase.  “Mrs. Kirby has no authority over the dancers
or indeed anything that happens in the palace.  We must not let her haughty manner
bamboozle us all into thinking she holds more sway than she does.”  But as they
moved closer to the well-lit staircase, the look on Emma’s face softened his
tone.  “I suppose you’re right.  There’s no reason to give her aging eyes this
particular shock, so we will intercept her, at least long enough to allow our
lovers to escape.”

They
hurried down the staircase, Emma still flushed and Tom still chuckling, then
across the broad ballroom floor to the door where they had entered.  But Mrs. Kirby
was not in the hallway beyond, nor in the next one they tried, nor the next. 
Finally they returned to the ballroom and stood in the center of the floor,
slowly circling, looking at all the entrances.

“Strange,”
said Tom. “She was insistent that we talk in private.”

“See
that rope,” Emma suddenly said.  “Was it there before?”

“I
don’t know,” Tom said.  “But it’s some sort of prop.  Meant to look like part
of the ship’s rigging, is it not?  See, they have the shape of a hull beneath
it.”

“It
wasn’t like that when I was dancing,” Emma said.

“How
would you know?  Your eyes were closed.”

“Not
the whole time,” she said irritably, starting toward the rope.  “I was looking
up at the performance level for most of the lesson.  I know what was in every
corner.”

“Leave
it be,” Tom said.  “You might bring a full model of a ship crashing down upon
your head.”

But
Emma was already in the corner, looking up, frowning at a wad of fabric wedged
near the top of the stage set.  It appeared to be a rolled flag, evidently
meant to be unfurled when the rope was cut, but there was more there too,
something else crammed beneath the shape of the hull.  “Do you have a knife?”

“What
are you talking about?  We can’t go cutting up theatrical props because
something doesn’t seem right to you.”

“I
swear to you that someone has altered this set.”

“Look,
Emma,” Tom said, his voice lower and kinder, “you’re rattled.  We both are, and
the others as well.  We’ve all traveled a great distance with little
preparation and come to such a different sort of place.  Even Trevor has been
set on edge.  And now this day…this day in itself has been quite
extraordinary.”

“If
you don’t have a knife, we’ll have to pull it,” she said.  If she went up the
steps to the very top, if she stood on one of the seats… She would still be at
least four inches too low.  She looked at Tom expectantly.

“Very
well,” he said, stepping onto one of the chairs and indicating with a turn of
his hand that she should move closer to the wall. “But I will pull it,
certainly not cut it, so that you can behold your flag and then we shall depart
this bizarre place and go take a rest.  I really think that the sight upstairs
–“