Death Comes to the Ballets Russes (27 page)

‘Perhaps we could return to the bonds,’ growled M. Dubois.

‘Of course, forgive me,’ replied M. le Ministre. ‘My young men with their degrees in mathematics from the École Nationale Supérieure and the other
grandes écoles
here in Paris have one thing in common. Their eyesight is already going from too many hours spent staring at figures. Many of them wear those owlish glasses you see on the Left Bank these days. They look out for hot spots or hot people, places where money well invested could increase and multiply and encourage the growth of other enterprises. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it does not. They spotted the sudden and apparently inexplicable sale of these bonds.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Brouzet. ‘Now, Monsieur Nivelle, perhaps you could enlighten us about what is happening on the ground here in Paris?’

‘It was one of Monsieur le Ministre’s young men,’ said Nivelle in the coarse accent of the suburbs. ‘He was almost blind by the way, but he alerted us that many of the great finance houses here in Paris were selling French bonds – not in enormous quantities, but making substantial withdrawals nonetheless. We found the same thing happening on the ground in the poorer parts of Paris, people selling off their bonds. One week ago, it all stopped, as if some wizard had blown a whistle.’

‘Forgive me for a moment, gentlemen,’ said Colonel Brouzet, disappearing into a side room. He came back with an ornate ivory chess set, made in China centuries before. ‘It’s from the Louvre,’ he said apologetically. ‘They lent it to me along with the Fragonard. Perhaps these ancient warriors will help us.’

He placed the ivory chessmen carefully on a low table. ‘Let us see,’ Brouzet said, taking out one white castle and one black knight and placing them on the left centre side of the board. Here we have England and France, united by your King Edward’s entente cordiale. Here, we have the German knight, right in the middle of the board. On the far side of the battlefield we have the black castle, the Tsar and his armies. Who benefits from the sale of these bonds? Sir Miles, perhaps you could bring some of your wisdom to the table here?’

The Ambassador hesitated before he spoke. Outside a party of raucous Americans were demanding of an unfortunate waiter why they could not have their breakfast at seven fifteen in the morning. That was what they did in Des Moines, Iowa where they came from, they proudly told the garçon.

‘It all depends, doesn’t it,’ Myddleton said finally, ‘as to why these people are selling their bonds; on whether they are selling them for their own use, or to some foreign agents who are lurking in the poorer parts of the city – forgive me, Monsieur Nivelle – and scooping up these bonds. Do we know what proportion of the total have been sold, by the way?’

‘Just over six per cent of the total,’ said M. le Ministre. ‘That’s a substantial percentage, by the way.’

‘There is no evidence of a Monsieur Scoop operating anywhere in Paris,’ said M. Nivelle firmly.

‘It’s worth remembering,’ said the Ambassador, ‘that there are only two finance houses in Europe that could mount such an operation as this. You would need offices right across the Continent and very large
numbers of employees. You see, I don’t think any of the governments would have the personnel to carry out such a conspiracy. They would turn to their bankers. After all, it was Rothschilds who financed Wellington’s later years during the Peninsular War, and on to Waterloo itself. They are one of the houses. They control the bond market across the whole of Europe. The other family are the Ephrussis. They control the supply of grain across Europe from their base at Odessa in the Crimea, the breadbasket of central Europe, and like their rivals they have offices in London and Paris and in other capitals.’

‘
Merde!
’ said M. le Ministre. ‘
Merde alors!
What a thought! A cup final between the Rothschilds and the Ephrussis, fought out in the backstreets of the cities and in the Bourses and the Stock Exchanges of Europe, with a grand final between the Rothschilds and the Ephrussis played out on the finest tennis courts in Paris. What a prospect!’

Colonel Brouzet raised his hand. ‘We play a little game, I think. We look at the hopes and fears of both sides. Then we think of who might want to buy these bonds. Sir Miles, I ask you to bat for England, as you say about the cricket in your country. What are her hopes? Fears come later.’

‘The English politicians are preoccupied with matters at home, with strikes, with the problems of the House of Lords and the Irish question that never seems to go away. Her hopes are for a period of domestic peace and no change abroad. She worries that the great days of Empire may be over, that she could become one with Nineveh and Tyre.’

‘And France, Monsieur le Ministre?’

‘France hopes for
la revanche
, for revenge against Germany. Some of our monuments in the capital have been draped in black since we lost at Sedan in 1870. Nobody, man or woman, horse or dog has ridden through the great arch of the Arc de Triomphe since that date. La Gloire, l’Audace on the battlefield, the restoration of France to her rightful place as the cultural capital of Europe and the world: those are the hopes of France, Monsieur Brouzet.’

‘Germany, Mr Dubois?’

‘I didn’t come here to speak for the Germans, Monsieur Brouzet, but I can speak to the question. We are in touch with our comrades in Berlin and dustmen everywhere. Germany means the Kaiser, a bundle of neuroses and vanities. He wants to be master of the universe. He wants peace with all the world. He is obsessed with the country of his mother and his grandmother Queen Victoria. He is the most unstable ruler in Europe.’

‘I would dispute that, Mr Nivelle. I speak for Russia.’ M. Brouzet was inspecting his ivory chessmen very carefully. ‘I offer Tsar Nicholas the Second in place of the Kaiser. The Tsar is, even now, preparing to celebrate the tercentenary of the Romanovs next year. It will be a year of processions and parades and loyalty reaffirmed. Three hundred years of supreme power. He is probably waiting for some simple peasant being lined up to greet his Father, The Father of all the Russias, Nicholas the Second. Throw in Rasputin and the German bitch and the Tsar wins by several lengths. Above all, he wants no truck with Dumas and democracy. He wants to be an autocrat once again, to reclaim the past to secure his future.’

Colonel Brouzet paused for a moment and moved the white knight forward into an attack position. The black horseman went into the defence.

‘Time is short, messieurs, eternity is long, Sir Miles. We have to grasp the nettle. Each of you has one sentence to explain why your country would want to buy up these bonds. England, Sir Miles?’

‘England would buy the bonds to preserve the status quo and to prevent the Germans getting them.’

‘Thank you. France?’

‘France too would buy them for fear of the Germans having them.’

‘Russia, that’s me, is so preoccupied with the celebrations next year that it takes no notice of what might be happening in Paris.’

‘Germany would buy them to throw a spoke in the wheels of the Triple Alliance and because some Germans want war now before the Russians become too powerful with their new industrial might.’

‘Thank you all,’ said Colonel Brouzet, moving a couple of Chinese pawns on his board. ‘We may not have the answer, but at least we are better informed.’

Later that day, M. Brouzet sent the news of the vanishing bonds to his friend, the English investigator Lord Francis Powerscourt. There was only the most tenuous connection with the Ballets Russes – had one of their number brought word that the selling was to begin, perhaps? – but you could never tell.

Pointe
work

Performing steps while on the tips of the toes, with feet fully extended and wearing
pointe
shoes, a structurally reinforced type of shoe designed specifically for this purpose. Most often performed by women.

They had most of the story now, Powerscourt and Lady Lucy. They knew that the jewels had been stolen in St Petersburg but they didn’t know who had taken them or from whom they had been taken. They knew that Anastasia had been charged with the selling of them, but not by whom. They knew now about George Smythe, currently sitting happily in a Powerscourt chair and drinking some Powerscourt coffee. Anastasia’s reluctance to name names did not extend to George’s, possibly because he was English. At any rate, she had thrown him, metaphorically, to the wolves at the first available opportunity. Anastasia had been so upset after telling most of the rest of what she knew that she had been sent back to her hotel in a taxi-cab.

‘Mr Smythe,’ Powerscourt began, ‘thank you for coming to see us so promptly. I appreciate that.’

‘Thank you, Lord Powerscourt.’

‘I’d just like to ask you a couple of questions, if I may. We are, as I am sure you know, engaged in the mystery of the deaths at the Ballets Russes, not into the thefts of large sums of money from a hotel in Russell Square. Let me begin by asking, who approached whom: did you get in touch with Anastasia, or did she get in touch with you?’

George Smythe paused before he replied. He was going to do a lot of pausing in the course of the interview.

‘She got in touch with me, originally.’

‘And how did she know to get in touch with you? Why you, George Smythe, and not anybody else?’

This question seemed to cause a certain amount of thought.

‘I knew she would be coming.’

‘How did you know she would be coming?’

‘Somebody wrote to me from St Petersburg, saying that a girl called Anastasia would be in touch with me.’

‘And are you prepared to tell us who that person is?’

‘No, I am not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because, Lord Powerscourt, if I may say so, you are, in effect, behaving like a policeman in this matter. I do not wish to incriminate anybody, even in a country very far away.’

‘So the person who communicated with you came from St Petersburg?’

‘I can say no more than I already have.’

‘Very well. I can see your position. Would I be right
in saying that your role in all this was, quite simply, to sell the jewels for the best possible price?’

‘Yes, my lord. It was.’

‘Could I ask how you sold them?’

‘I made enquiries. I found a firm called Johnston Killick in Hatton Garden. They took most of the jewels, as far as I know, to Antwerp and various places on the Continent where they had contacts. They offered to wire the money back to Russia. Anastasia wasn’t having that. She wanted the money delivered to the hotel in a suitcase. I put her in a taxi after our last meeting and asked the cabbie to take her to the Premier Hotel.’

‘You didn’t want to be seen at the hotel with her, is that right?’

‘It is.’

‘Why not?’

‘Lord Powerscourt, I’m sure you will understand. I’m not absolutely sure about the legality of my actions. I don’t see how I could be breaking the law selling some jewels. But I wasn’t sure. And I knew about the murders. It seemed to me the most prudent course would be to have as little as possible to do with the ballet people.’

‘That’s very helpful. And am I right in thinking that you are not prepared to tell us who contacted you from St Petersburg?’

‘No, I mean yes, you are right in thinking that.’

‘Not even if it was connected in some way with the ballet?’

‘You said earlier that you did not think there was a connection with the Ballets Russes.’

‘I did,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but now I’m not absolutely sure.’

Chassé

Literally ‘to chase’. A slide forwards, backwards, or sideways with both legs bent, then springing into the air with legs meeting and straightened. It can be done either in a gallop (like children pretending to ride a horse) or by pushing the first foot along the floor in a
plié
to make the springing jump up. This step is generally found in a series, either with several of the same or a combination of movements. Like a glide.

A weary Inspector Dutfield arrived in the Powerscourt drawing room that afternoon. He carried a great bundle of notes in his briefcase.

‘There’s only one consolation about the second murder at Blenheim – always assuming it was murder,’ he began.

‘What’s that?’ asked Lady Lucy.

‘Why, it’s the fact that it happened at the evening rather than the afternoon performance. Think what it would have been like had it happened at the lake
with all those people to interview. That could have taken days. This lot here –’ he waved at the notes in his bag – ‘were bad enough. I have to tell you, my lord, my lady, that we are no better informed at the end of the interviewing process than we were at the beginning. Certain members of the aristocracy might have been enjoying company they shouldn’t have. That is not my business. It is impossible to establish any link with the previous murder, apart from the fact that they both involved the ballet people. What we hadn’t realized was that the entire troupe, the men and the women of the corps de ballet, were on standby in case they were required to do an encore after supper. It was Diaghilev’s idea. If you ask me, my lord, my lady, I don’t think many of those people at the Great Hall concert were much interested in the ballet. It was a social occasion – see and be seen, that sort of thing.’

‘But where were they all, all those Ballets Russes people?’

‘Well, they were still in their costumes and they were wandering round all over the place. The footmen kept them out of the State rooms, the bedrooms and so on, but they were given the run of the rest of the place. None of them have watches so nobody has any idea of the time. So nobody can give any information about when they might have seen the dead girl, Vera Belitsky. She was killed from that balcony, thrown down a long way onto the marble floor to be precise. The balcony’s the best place in the house to get a clear view of the hall; you can see up as well as down, which you can’t do so well from the ground floor. Each and every one of them, I think, must have wandered onto that balcony to have a look at some time or other. There was one
occasion when they all rushed off to the other side of the house for a peep into the dining room from the servants’ passage, but I can’t establish if the dead girl was left behind or not. And there’s another thing.’