Death Comes to the Ballets Russes (29 page)

‘I do not see why I should have to talk about my brother’s testamentary dispositions in front of a complete stranger, Mr Fitzgerald.’

‘You are quite correct in that, Mrs Cooper. But the alternatives are somewhat worse – worse for you, I mean.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you, Mr Fitzgerald.’

‘Well, there’s always the police, isn’t there? When I walk out of here you could very soon have the Oxfordshire constabulary on the trail of your two sons, who both live near Oxford, I gather. They would make a lot of enquiries with neighbours, employers, friends and so on. There would be a lot of talk.’

‘There are times when I really dislike my brother for the difficulties he has brought into this family. It is intolerable. What do you want to know, Mr
Fitzgerald? What do I have to tell you to make you go away?’

‘Three things, Mrs Cooper, and thank you for deciding to be cooperative. First, if you would, do you know the size of your brother’s fortune? I don’t mean down to the last penny in the last investment trust, just a general sort of figure. Second, if you are prepared to give me your sons’ addresses, I shall call on them and I can assure you of my discretion. And third, do you know if either of your boys went to the open-air performance of the Ballets Russes at Blenheim Palace?’

‘As to your first question, Mr Fitzgerald, I think it is very difficult for me. I don’t honestly know the size of my brother’s fortune. But from your tone I suspect that the higher the figure, the higher the interest from investigators like yourself will be. Nobody’s going to murder somebody for a couple of hundred pounds. But start talking of thousands, or tens of thousands, and the bloodhounds are on your trail. Am I right?’

‘I would be deceiving you if I were to say that you were wrong, Mrs Cooper.’

‘I shall give you the boys’ addresses when you leave, Mr Fitzgerald. And I know that Nicholas and Peter were intending to go to the Oxford ballet and have their lunch on the grass in the park. I do not know if they actually went. They often change their plans, as young people do. Now it’s my time to ask a question.’

‘Of course, Mrs Cooper. Please do.’

‘Am I right in thinking from your interest in rounding up potential suspects that you still do not know who killed my nephew?’

‘That is a perfectly legitimate question. I shall tell you the truth. We don’t know who killed him. If we
did I wouldn’t be here. We have a number of lines of enquiry running at present, but no, we do not know who killed your nephew.’

As he made his way back to the train station, Johnny thought she had told him one thing, even though she wouldn’t have known it. Why would she have talked of tens of thousands of pounds if that wasn’t something close to the real figure?

It was that time of the week again. Captain Yuri Gorodetsky was watching the telephone on his desk in the little office in Holborn. The windows were grimy, heaps of files packed up in disorderly fashion along the walls. It had always been one of the Captain’s worst fears that his superior officer, the General from Paris with his passion for neat and exact filing, would pay an unexpected visit.

There it was! The Captain picked up his telephone. As ever, he suspected that the General was in the next room, shouting at him.

‘Gorodetsky! Good morning to you. What news of the English Bolsheviks?’

‘Very little, I’m afraid General. It all seems fairly quiet just now.’

‘Come come man, you must have something to report, for God’s sake! Every other day now I am bombarded with questions from St Petersburg. Every day I have to say we have no news.’

‘Well, General, most of the money is still in that bank where it was last week.’

‘Most of the money? Where is the rest of it, you fool?’

‘It has gone to pay the printers, General. There are
to be two sets of five hundred copies made. They will be returned to Arthur Cooper and then he will decide what to do with them.’

‘And you say this is nothing, my friend? This should keep them quiet for at least twenty-four hours, those jackals in Headquarters! What bloody language are they going to be in?’

‘English and Russian, General.’

‘It’s the Russian one that is important. The English Bolsheviks can go and throw them across the railings of Buckingham Palace as far as I’m concerned. No doubt they think the waves of strikes in their country and over in Ireland will make people receptive to their cause. Are the Russian ones ready yet?’

‘Not as far as I know, sir. The printer is a very sensitive man.’

‘Title, Gorodetsky? Do we have a title for the bloody pamphlet? No doubt they intend to circulate it inside Russia as soon as they get their hands on it.’

‘I think it’s called “What Is to Be Done Now?” sir.’

‘What indeed,’ said the General, ‘I think the bloody man Lenin wrote a pamphlet called “What Is to Be Done” some years ago. Sounds as if the comrades have been rather lax in the performance of their revolutionary obligations, if they have to get the same title twice. Repeat homework if you like. Pretty poor show.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Just get one thing into your head, Captain. You watch over this business as closely as you can with your English colleagues. When you know when and how the pamphlets are going to leave England, you let me know.’

‘Are you going to have them picked up, sir?’

‘We have had this conversation before, Captain. No, we are not going to intercept them. We are going to follow them to their destinations. I shall tell you more about this operation next week.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And remember, Captain. Any news of these pamphlets arriving, you get straight onto the telephone and let me know.’

Natasha Shaporova spent most of the afternoon reading through Alexander Taneyev’s letters to his sisters. They were all younger than him, and Natasha felt that he would not be likely to confide in them. She had more hope of the elder brother Ivan, who was an officer in a fashionable regiment and liable to appear at any moment. The girls wanted to know about the fashions in London. The youngest seemed to expect her brother to inspect the clothes of the audience very closely during a performance and report back. The middle one seemed to think her brother should spend his time checking out the latest London fashions in the great shops of Oxford Street. And the eldest one wanted an impression of English men, their clothes, their manners, how they behaved towards the opposite sex. Alexander decided that this sister, Olga, must be planning a visit to England, well prepared for the young men she would conquer there, and intending to carry one of them back to St Petersburg. There was only one note to interest Natasha. ‘Ivan has told me of the decision you may have to make. I think you should consult Papa as well as Ivan. That would be for the best.’

This too made its way to London down the telegraph wires and landed in Markham Square four hours after it had left St Petersburg. Mrs Clarissa Cooper’s eldest, Nicholas, was a vicar. He was one of the more fortunate vicars in that distinguished community. His parish was owned by one of Oxford’s richer colleges, and his parish came with a suitable endowment of between four and five hundred pounds a year. It was in the little town of Kidlington, between Oxford and Blenheim Palace, and its occupants were employed on the estates around Woodstock or in university business.

‘Mr Fitzgerald,’ he said, showing him to a seat in the parlour of his handsome vicarage. ‘My mother sent me a wire. She said I was to be very careful what I say to you!’

He laughed and poured some tea. His wife was out, he said, handing out clothes to some of the poorer parishioners. She always did this, his Hermione, the first Friday of the month.

‘Forgive me for plunging straight in,’ Johnny began. ‘I’ve talked to your mother and your aunt in London about this business of the inheritance from Uncle Richard. I thought it would be useful to talk to the surviving nephews as well.’

‘Only too happy to help,’ said Nicholas, ‘but just let me say one thing at the outset. Both of those good ladies will have impressed on you that this doesn’t matter at all, that it’s all a whim of Uncle Richard’s and nobody should pay any attention to it. They wouldn’t want me to say this, but I do have obligations in my profession. All that stuff about it not being important is not true. It has taken up a lot of their attention for years now. Who’s in; who’s out: it could be a parlour
game if it wasn’t so serious. If Peter or I have fallen from favour – maybe my uncle doesn’t approve of me being a vicar – who’s going to inherit now? Mark? Is it his turn? Alexander can’t any more because he’s not here, God rest his soul.’

‘Would you say they were obsessed by it?’

‘I would, Mr Fitzgerald, I certainly would. Short of getting down on the floor and counting out the imaginary money, there isn’t a lot else they could do.’

‘Pardon me. Mr Cooper, do you know how much it is worth, this inheritance?’

‘No.’

‘Do they?’

‘No. I don’t think so, anyway. I’ve not been told, at any rate.’

‘And how long was your time in the sun, as it were, when you were the favourite one? Of all the nephews?’

‘I’ve followed the progress, Mr Fitzgerald. Alexander was the favourite at the moment. I suppose he’d been in place for about two months. My mother is always writing to keep me up to date. I’d say he had about one month to go. Three months is the average.’

‘And there haven’t been any times when one nephew stepped out of line, as it were, and was immediately sent packing from the top of the family tree?’

‘It didn’t work like that, Mr Fitzgerald. I don’t think it would have made any difference if one of the cousins had married a parlour maid or eloped with a chorus girl – that wouldn’t have changed a thing.’

‘So, as far as you knew, these arrivals and removals, as it were, came completely at random?’

‘For all I know, it could have happened when some financial deal came through or he lost heavily at cards.’

‘So what would you think was the motive for all this? It must have caused a great deal of unhappiness among the relations.’

‘Only if they let it. I know my brother is as bad as my mother and my aunt, pretending it doesn’t matter, while following the story as closely as they do. You ask about motive, Mr Fitzgerald. It might be my profession, but I think he’s a wicked old man. A lonely old man, with no family of his own, he likes teasing his relations with the one thing he has that they don’t – and that’s lots of money.’

‘One last thing. I have to ask everyone this, Mr Cooper. Have you attended any of the performances of the Ballets Russes either here or at Blenheim?’

‘I knew that question would come. On the day of the great concert at Blenheim I was here, pretending to tend my garden and thinking about my sermon for the Sunday.’

Tours en l’air

Literally ‘turn in the air’. A jump, typically for a male, with a full rotation. The landing can be to both feet; on one leg with the other extended in
attitude
or
arabesque
; or down to one knee, as at the end of a variation. A single
tour
is a 360° rotation, a double is 720°. Vaslav Nijinsky was known to perform triple
tours en l’air
.

Inspector Dutfield brought news from Oxford.

‘Let me bring you up to date with the news from Blenheim, my lord. Inspector Jackson has been most thorough. He asked the indoor staff, via the butler – as their head man – rather than through his own officers, how many strangers they thought they had seen about the place on the big day. They had met most of the technical people during meals in the servants’ hall, and most of the dancers and suchlike getting ready for the performance. They thought there were four they had never seen before. All sounded Russian. Two of them had coats with those astrakhan collars.
One of them appeared to speak neither French nor English, so we can probably rule him out, assuming he wasn’t pretending. One might have been a stagehand. Descriptions – imperfect though they obviously are – have been circulated round Oxford. I expect they’ll ask on the trains as well. I don’t think that takes us very far forward. We’re still looking for two people on the relevant night in Covent Garden.’