The Man from St. Petersburg (33 page)

Feliks was in there.

Lydia thought she would faint. Feliks! Within touching distance! Hidden, in Walden Hall, while the police searched the county for him! Hidden by Charlotte.

I mustn’t scream!

She put her fist to her mouth and bit herself. She was shaking.

I must get away. I can’t think straight. I don’t know what to do.

Her head ached horribly. I need a dose of laudanum, she thought. That prospect gave her strength. She controlled her trembling. After a moment she tiptoed out of the nursery.

She almost ran along the corridor and down the stairs to her room. The laudanum was in the dresser. She opened the bottle. She could not hold the spoon steady, so she took a gulp directly from the bottle. After a few moments she began to feel calmer. She put the bottle and the spoon away and closed the drawer. A feeling of mild contentment began to come over her as her nerves settled down. Her head ached less. Nothing would really matter now for a while. She went to her wardrobe and opened the door. She stood staring at the rows of dresses, totally unable to make up her mind what to wear for lunch.

Feliks paced the tiny room like a caged tiger, three steps each way, bending his head to avoid the ceiling, listening to Charlotte.

“Aleks’s door is always locked,” she said. “There are two armed guards inside and one outside. The inside ones won’t unlock the door unless their colleague outside tells them to.”

“One outside, and two inside.” Feliks scratched his head and cursed in Russian. Difficulties, there are always difficulties, he thought. Here I am, right in the house, with an accomplice in the household, and still it isn’t easy. Why shouldn’t I have the luck of those boys in Sarajevo? Why did it have to turn out that I’m a part of this family? He looked at Charlotte and thought: Not that I regret it.

She caught his look, and said: “What?”

“Nothing. Whatever happens, I’m glad I found you.”

“Me too. But what are you going to do about Aleks?”

“Could you draw a plan of the house?”

Charlotte made a face. “I can try.”

“You must know it—you’ve lived here all your life.”

“Well, I know this part, of course—but there are bits of the house I’ve never been in. The butler’s bedroom, the housekeeper’s rooms, the cellars, the place over the kitchens where they store flour and things …”

“Do your best. One plan for each floor.”

She found a piece of paper and a pencil among her childish treasures and knelt at the little table.

Feliks ate another sandwich and drank the rest of the milk. She had taken a long time to bring him the food because the maids had been working in her corridor. As he ate he watched her draw, frowning and biting the end of her pencil. At one point she said: “One doesn’t realize how difficult this is until one tries it.” She found an eraser among her old crayons and used it frequently. Feliks noticed that she was able to draw perfectly straight lines without using a rule. He found the sight of her like this very touching. So she must have sat, he thought, for years in the schoolroom, drawing houses, then Mama and “Papa,” and later the map of Europe, the leaves of the English trees, the park in winter … Walden must have seen her like this many times.

“Why have you changed your clothes?” Feliks asked.

“Oh, everybody has to change all the time here. Every hour of the day has its appropriate clothes, you see. You must show your shoulders at dinnertime but not at lunch. You must wear a corset for dinner but not for tea. You can’t wear an indoor gown outside. You can wear woolen stockings in the library but not in the morning room. You can’t imagine the rules I have to remember.”

He nodded. He was no longer capable of being surprised by the degeneracy of the ruling class.

She handed him her sketches, and he became businesslike again. He studied them. “Where are the guns kept?” he said.

She touched his arm. “Don’t be so abrupt,” she said. “I’m on your side—remember?”

Suddenly she was grown-up again. Feliks smiled ruefully. “I had forgotten,” he said.

“The guns are kept in the gun room.” She pointed it out on the plan. “You really did have an affair with Mama.”

“Yes.”

“I find it so hard to believe that she would do such a thing.”

“She was very wild, then. She still is, but she pretends otherwise.”

“You really think she’s still like that?”

“I know it.”

“Everything,
everything
turns out to be different from how I thought it was.”

“That’s called growing up.”

She was pensive. “What should I call you, I wonder.”

“What do you mean?”

“I should feel very strange, calling you Father.”

“Feliks will do for now. You need time to get used to the idea of me as your father.”

“Shall I have time?”

Her young face was so grave that he held her hand. “Why not?”

“What will you do when you have Aleks?”

He looked away so that she should not see the guilt in his eyes. “That depends just how and when I kidnap him, but most likely I’ll keep him tied up right here. You’ll have to bring us food, and you’ll have to send a telegram to my friends in Geneva, in code, telling them what has happened. Then, when the news has achieved what we want it to achieve, we’ll let Orlov go.”

“And then?”

“They will look for me in London, so I’ll go north. There seem to be some big towns—Birmingham, Manchester, Hull—where I could lose myself. After a few weeks I’ll make my way back to Switzerland, then eventually to St. Petersburg—that’s the place to be, that’s where the revolution will start.”

“So I’ll never see you again.”

You won’t want to, he thought. He said: “Why not? I may come back to London. You may go to St. Petersburg. We might meet in Paris. Who can tell? If there is such a thing as Fate, it seems determined to bring us together.” I wish I could believe this. I wish I could.

“That’s true,” she said with a brittle smile, and he saw that she did not believe it either. She got to her feet. “Now I must get you some water to wash in.”

“Don’t bother. I’ve been a good deal dirtier than this. I don’t mind.”

“But I do. You smell awful. I’ll be back in a minute.”

With that she went out.

It was the dreariest luncheon Walden could remember in years. Lydia was in some kind of daze. teristically nervy, dropping her cutlery and knocking over a glass. Thomson was taciturn. Sir Arthur Langley attempted to be convivial but nobody responded. Walden himself was withdrawn, obsessed by the puzzle of how Feliks had found out that Aleks was at Walden Hall. He was tortured by the ugly suspicion that it had something to do with Lydia. After all, Lydia had told Feliks that Aleks was at the Savoy Hotel; and she had admitted that Feliks was “vaguely familiar” from St. Petersburg days. Could it be that Feliks had some kind of hold on her? She had been behaving oddly, as if distracted, all summer. And now, as he thought about Lydia in a detached way for the first time in nineteen years, he admitted to himself that she was sexually lukewarm. Of course, well-bred women were supposed to be like that; but he knew perfectly well that this was a polite fiction, and that women generally suffered the same longings as men. Was it that Lydia longed for someone else, someone from her past? That would explain all sorts of things which until now had not seemed to need explanation. It was perfectly horrible, he found, to look at his lifetime companion and see a stranger.

After lunch Sir Arthur went back to the Octagon, where he had set up his headquarters. Walden and Thomson put on their hats and took their cigars out onto the terrace. The park looked lovely in the sunshine, as always. From the distant drawing room came the crashing opening chords of the Tchaikovsky piano concerto: Lydia was playing. Walden felt sad. Then the music was drowned by the roar of a motorcycle as another messenger came to report the progress of the search to Sir Arthur. So far there had been no news.

A footman served coffee, then left them alone. Thomson said: “I didn’t want to say this in front of Lady Walden, but I think we may have a clue to the identity of the traitor.”

Walden went cold.

Thomson said: “Last night I interviewed Bridget Callahan, the Cork Street landlady. I’m afraid I got nothing out of her. However, I left my men to search her house. This morning they showed me what they had found.” He took from his pocket an envelope which had been torn in half, and handed the two pieces to Walden.

Walden saw with a shock that the envelope bore the Walden Hall crest.

Thomson said: “Do you recognize the handwriting?”

Walden turned the pieces over. The envelope was addressed:

Mr. F. Kschessinsky c/o 19 Cork Street London, N.

Walden said: “Oh, dear God, not Charlotte.” He wanted to cry.

Thomson was silent.

“She led him here,” Walden said. “My own daughter.” He stared at the envelope, willing it to disappear. The handwriting was quite unmistakable, like a juvenile version of his own script.

“Look at the postmark,” Thomson said. “She wrote it as soon as she arrived here. It was mailed from the village.”

“How could this happen?” Walden said.

Thomson made no reply.

“Feliks was the man in the tweed cap,” Walden said. “It all fits.” He felt hopelessly sad, almost bereaved, as if someone dear to him had died. He looked out over his park, at trees planted fifty years ago by his father, at a lawn that had been cared for by his family for a hundred years, and it all seemed worthless, worthless. He said quietly: “You fight for your country, and you are betrayed from within by socialists and revolutionists; you fight for your class, and you’re betrayed by Liberals; you fight for your family, and even they betray you. Charlotte! Why, Charlotte, why?” He felt a choking sensation. “What a damnable life this is, Thomson. What a damnable life.”

“I’ll have to interview her,” Thomson said.

“So will I.” Walden stood up. He looked at his cigar. It had gone out. He threw it away. “Let’s go in.”

They went in.

In the hall Walden stopped a maid. “Do you know where Lady Charlotte is?”

“I believe she’s in her room, my lord. Shall I go and see?”

“Yes. Tell her I wish to speak to her in her room immediately.”

“Very good, m’lord.”

Thomson and Walden waited in the hall. Walden looked around. The marble floor, the carved staircase, the stucco ceiling, the perfect proportions—worthless. A footman drifted by silently, eyes lowered. A motorcycle messenger came in and headed for the Octagon. Pritchard crossed the hall and picked up the letters for posting from the hall table, just as he must have the day Charlotte’s treacherous letter to Feliks was written. The maid came down the stairs.

“Lady Charlotte is ready to see you, my lord.”

Walden and Thomson went up.

Charlotte’s room was on the second floor at the front of the house, looking over the park. It was sunny and light, with pretty fabrics and modern furniture. It’s a long time since I’ve been in here, Walden thought vaguely.

“You look rather fierce, Papa,” Charlotte said.

“I’ve reason to be,” Walden replied. “Mr. Thomson has just given me the most dreadful piece of news of my whole life.”

Charlotte frowned.

Thomson said: “Lady Charlotte, where is Feliks?”

Charlotte turned white. “I’ve no idea, of course.”

Walden said: “Don’t be so damned cool!”

“How dare you swear at me!”

“I beg your pardon.”

Thomson said: “Perhaps if you’d leave it to me, my lord …”

“Very well.” Walden sat down in the window seat, thinking: How did I find myself apologizing?

Thomson addressed Charlotte. “Lady Charlotte, I’m a policeman, and I can prove that you have committed conspiracy to murder. Now my concern, and your father’s, is to let this go no further; and, in particular, to ensure that you will not have to go to jail for a period of many years.”

Walden stared at Thomson. Jail! Surely he’s merely frightening her. But no, he realized with a sense of overwhelming dread; he’s right: she’s a criminal …

Thomson went on: “As long as we can prevent the murder, we feel we can cover up your participation. But if the assassin succeeds, I will have no option but to bring you to trial—and then the charge will not be conspiracy to murder, but accessory to murder. In theory you could be hanged.”

“No!” Walden shouted involuntarily.

“Yes,” Thomson said quietly.

Walden buried his face in his hands.

Thomson said: “You must save yourself that agony—and not only yourself, but your mama and papa. You must do everything in your power to help us find Feliks and save Prince Orlov.”

It could not be, Walden thought desperately. He felt as if he were going insane. My daughter could not be hanged. But if Aleks is killed, Charlotte will have been one of the murderers. But it would never come to trial. Who was Home Secretary? McKenna. Walden did not know him. But Asquith would intervene to prevent a prosecution … wouldn’t he?

Thomson said: “Tell me when you last saw Feliks.”

Walden watched Charlotte, waiting for her response. She stood behind a chair, gripping its back with both hands. Her knuckles showed white, but her face appeared calm. Finally she spoke. “I have nothing to tell you.”

Walden groaned aloud. How could she continue to be like this now that she was found out? What was going on in her mind? She seemed a stranger. He thought: When did I lose her?

“Do you know where Feliks is now?” Thomson asked her.

She said nothing.

“Have you warned him of our security precautions here?”

She looked blank.

“How is he armed?”

Nothing.

“Each time you refuse to answer a question, you become a little more guilty. Do you realize that?”

Walden noticed a change of tone in Thomson’s voice, and looked at him. He seemed genuinely angry now.

“Let me explain something to you,” Thomson said. “You may think that your papa can save you from justice. He is perhaps thinking the same thing. But if Orlov dies, I swear to you that I will bring you to trial for murder. Now think about that!”