Death Comes to the Ballets Russes (32 page)

‘Was your exhibition a success, Monsieur Diaghilev?’

‘It was a success of sorts, I think. People were fascinated by all these remote ancestors. People flocked to see them, many of them no doubt curious to see portraits of some of their grandparents; all of them agreed that it was a great thing to have assembled such a great many portraits. But I had not wanted it to be a clarion call for the past. I wanted people to see that it is up to our generation to build something new, something to replace all these fossils, their houses and palaces gradually falling down around them.’

‘And is the Ballets Russes part of this new wave to replace the old, Monsieur Diaghilev?’

Diaghilev laughed and peered down at the stage where the dancers were still complaining about Nijinsky’s teaching methods.

‘I think the Ballets Russes are bringing ballet into a new world, a ballet very different to the one they teach at the Imperial Theatre School in St Petersburg. And ballet means so much more in Russia than it does here in London. Perhaps you could say we have made a start.’

Diaghilev picked up his cane and began twirling it round in his hand. ‘I hope you can see one thing clear, Lord Powerscourt. Whether it was the magazine about art, or the exhibition of the ancestors, or my work here, I live for my art. It is everything to me. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way. That is why I have not taken as much interest as perhaps I should in the unfortunate incidents that have marked our stay in London. To me they are like brushing a fly off my face. We shall have to find replacement dancers. I have written to one or two people back home already. I say home, but it remains my greatest regret that we are not able to bring my ballets to St Petersburg. I hope you do not think me heartless, that is all. Even now, in the splendour of Imperial London, we all miss our homeland. Now, if you will forgive me, I have to go to another meeting. I shall leave my principal calling card behind.’

‘Your principal calling card?’

‘I have to go to see Lady Ripon at her house in Coombe. Nijinsky is my principal calling card. Don’t think me so vain that I believe all the society ladies want to see me. They all want to see Nijinsky. He would be welcomed by every society hostess in London.’

‘I say, look here, I can’t talk to you now.’ Mark Butler, the last of the cousins who might inherit the earth, had been tracked down to the croquet lawn of Trinity College, Oxford. ‘This is a key match, you know, Trinity versus Balliol. Matches don’t get much more important than that.’

With great difficulty, Johnny Fitzgerald managed to drag the young man away from his crucial game to
answer a few questions about Alexander Taneyev and his uncle’s will.

‘Uncle Richard and his money?’ he said a little wearily. ‘Yes, Mama warned me that you were coming. No, I don’t know how much money there is to come when the old chap pops off. And No, I don’t know if I am now the chosen one or not. Is that enough for you? Can I get back to my game? My substitute doesn’t seem to be doing very well.’

‘No, you can’t,’ said Johnny, ‘not yet. Believe me, I shall be as quick as I can. Did anybody talk to you about what you should do if you, Mark Butler, were to inherit all the money in the old man’s will?’

The young man’s eyes were still locked on the croquet game. A red ball, a Trinity ball apparently, had just been deposited with some force into a flower bed.

‘Mama and her sisters had all that worked out. There was talk that Uncle Richard was going to insist that the money only went to one person and that it would be impossible to share it out. They had some legal scheme afoot to make sure that didn’t happen. The three sisters had decided that the money should be divided out four ways, one quarter to each nephew. Sorry, that should be three ways now, shouldn’t it? Sorry about that.’

‘Did everybody know that was the plan?’ asked Johnny, remembering that Mark’s mother had definitely not told him about this scheme.

‘No, they didn’t,’ said Mark Butler, ‘it was meant to be a secret.’

He took his eyes off the croquet game for a moment. ‘Oh God, have I said the wrong thing? I have a feeling I wasn’t meant to tell anybody that. Will I get into trouble, do you think?’

‘Well, I for one have no intention of telling your family any of what you just told me.’

‘That’s very decent of you. Is there anything else?’

‘Yes, there is. Your mother tells me you have been going to the Ballets Russes quite regularly. Is that true?’

‘It is,’ said the young man, springing to his feet suddenly to applaud a particularly delicate shot by one of his teammates. ‘Well done, William, well done! Sorry, Lord Powerscourt, three of us here have been going to the ballet but we always came straight back. We have to on this special course. I wouldn’t even know where the room where Alexander was murdered is. We’ve got to be back here by a certain time, don’t you see.’

Complicated mathematical questions about angle of strike seemed to be occupying the croquet players now. ‘Have you finished with me now?’

‘If you just give me the dates when you went to the ballet, that will be all.’

The young man fished out a small pocket book and gave Johnny the dates.

‘Good luck with your game. Sorry for the interruption.’

‘Not at all. Nice speaking to you. I say, you fellows, I’m back. You can send the substitute back to the sidelines now.’

As he departed, Johnny saw on a scoreboard that Balliol were leading Trinity College three to one. Perhaps it was all his fault.

Développé

A common abbreviation for
battement développé
. A movement in which the leg is first lifted to
retiré
position, then fully extended, passing through
attitude
position. It can be done in front (
en avant
), to the side (
à la seconde
), or to the back (
en arrière
).

Natasha Shaporova thought she had found something at last. It wasn’t much and it was contained in a letter to his brother shortly before he was murdered. ‘Thank you for your advice about those papers I should not have seen. People like me were certainly never meant to read them. Your advice is very sensible.’ Natasha sent them verbatim to London.

‘Why is nothing ever definite about this bloody case?’ was Powerscourt’s first reaction when he read them in Markham Square. ‘Alexander could be talking about anything.’

‘Let’s just think about what he might be talking
about, Francis. You’re usually very good at working out the possibilities in a case like this.’

‘Love affair,’ said her husband. ‘Alexander has fallen for a married woman, or for a member of his own sex?’

‘Can’t we discount the last one about his own sex? Alexander would hardly be likely to ask his father, would he?’

‘Or he could have discovered about a love affair in the Ballets Russes that could be very complicated. Tamara Karsavina fallen for the principal scene shifter, that sort of thing?’

‘It’s possible. Any more?’

‘It has to do with the future plans of the Ballets Russes. They are totally bankrupt, perhaps, and are going to have to go back to St Petersburg on the next train.’

‘Wouldn’t that have happened by now, if it was going to happen?’

‘Well spotted, Lucy. Maybe there’s another change of plan with the Ballets Russes. They’re going to rip up the timetable and go back to Paris immediately.’

‘More?’

‘Well, this is a bow drawn at a venture. Suppose what Colonel Brouzet said is true and there is a link between Russian spies using the Ballets Russes as a kind of postbox. I can’t see it, myself. I can’t see how young Alexander could ever have come to see something confidential.’

‘You do know what all this means, Francis.’

‘I do, Lucy, I do. It means we are still no further forward. I think I shall send a message to Michel Fokine asking him to drop by. He might be able to
tell us if the information concerns the Ballets Russes or not.’

Johnny Fitzgerald had taken a generous helping of Treasury notes from the Powerscourt war chest in Markham Square. He did not believe Sweetie Robinson would talk about the size of Richard Wagstaff Gilbert’s fortune out of the goodness of his heart. He had decided one thing about the nephews and the aunts. Four nephews being reduced to three was one thing. Three reduced to two would be something else again. If anything happened to Mark the Croquet Ball, as Johnny referred to him now, there would only be two – and two, moreover, in the same family. Four down to two would be more than suspicious; it would be a motive for murder.

Sweetie Robinson was doing further damage to his teeth with a large mint from the bowl in front of his desk.

‘Ah, Mr Fitzgerald, fresh from your travels round the surviving nephews, I presume. What news of Mark the spendthrift, as I gather he is? The earnest vicar? The schoolteacher? All well, I take it?’

‘All well, thank you, Sweetie. It won’t take you long to work out why I have come today.’

‘I can’t imagine, Mr Fitzgerald. Put me out of my misery, please.’

‘I won’t beat about the bush, Sweetie.’ Johnny was convinced that his man would have started to form an opinion of the wealth of Richard Gilbert the moment he had set his eyes on him. It was part of his trade, an instinct that would go with him whenever he met
somebody new. Trading on this kind of knowledge, after all, provided a fairly large segment of his income. ‘How much is he worth, our friend Gilbert?’

‘You wouldn’t expect me to hand that over without some kind of consideration for all the time spent working out the answer, would you now, Mr Fitzgerald?’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Johnny. ‘How much?’

‘I don’t think I like to go in for that kind of arithmetic. I prefer a slower kind.’

Johnny had heard of this other kind, a sort of torture by money where the amount handed over had to increase with the value of the subject’s financial position.

‘All right,’ said Johnny, ‘let’s say he’s worth over a thousand and I’ll give you ten pounds.’

‘Thirty.’

‘Twenty.’

‘Done, he’s worth more than a thousand pounds. Your next suggestion, Mr Fitzgerald?’ Sweetie popped a fresh mint into his mouth. He was grinning with pleasure at his business.

‘He’s worth more than ten thousand pounds, Sweetie: how’s that?’

‘You’re going rather fast for me. Shouldn’t there be a bridge or two on the way? A calling station on the road?’

‘OK Sweetie, he’s worth more than five thousand pounds. Ten pounds, but we both think he’s worth more than that.’

‘I’ll give you five thousand for twenty pounds, Mr Fitzgerald.’

‘Done,’ said Johnny. He took the money out of his pocket and laid all the notes spent so far on the table
and pushed them over. In Sweetie’s world you never knew when or indeed if people were actually paying you real money or not. Sweetie inspected the notes with great care. Forty pounds in notes were now by the side of the sweet bowl. Johnnie hoped their presence would make future transactions easier.

‘Done, and another twenty for over ten thousand.’ Johnny added another twenty to the pile.

‘I agree. And seeing that you have been a man of your word, Mr Fitzgerald, I’ll give you the total, as I understand it. Otherwise we could be here all day. You give me thirty pounds more and I’ll tell you his worth and a little jewel for you to take away.’

Johnny had spent more or less as much as he thought would be necessary so far.

‘You’re a hard man, Sweetie.’ He brought out another couple of notes and added them to the pile. ‘I think that should do it, don’t you?’

Sweetie Robinson grinned a rather terrible grin, revealing to a watching world just how much damage had been done to his teeth by his years of confectionery consumption.

‘You’re a hard man, Mr Fitzgerald, and that’s a fact. I tell you that friend Richard Wagstaff Gilbert – Waggers to the City of London – is worth between ten and twenty thousand pounds. And closer to the twenty than the ten.’

That’s enough to set a mother’s heart racing, Johnny said to himself. ‘And what’s your little jewel, Sweetie, the one you’ve been saving up?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr Fitzgerald. I told you before that he cheats at cards. This information is even more valuable.’ Sweetie popped another
humbug into his mouth and leant forwards across his desk.