‘Thank you very much for coming to see me, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Gilbert. ‘It is much appreciated. He was such a dear boy, Alexander, so much loved by all who knew him.’
There was something about the way Richard Gilbert looked at you, Powerscourt thought, a combination of slyness and a leer, that left you thinking his main objective was to get the better of you, or to win you over to some shady deal.
‘There is this morning, Mr Gilbert, a press conference at the Royal Opera House with the chairman and the general manager telling the journalists what has been going on and outlining the opera house’s plan for keeping the Press in touch in the days ahead. We, Lady Ripon and I, did not feel that the strain of those journalistic enquiries, the constant questioning of your staff at work and the people who look after you here, was one that it would be fair to subject you to at this time.’
‘Let us not forget,’ the chairman was nearing the end of the speech now, ‘the wider context in which this affair sits, the close relations between our two countries and the joint role we play in international affairs. . These are troubled times, with the threat of war, which seemed so impossible before, now threatening to darken the lives of all the countries on the continent of Europe. Let us hope that the flame of friendship between England and Russia, which does so much to keep peace alive in our time, may burn brighter yet because of this tragedy. . may it serve to bring about a happy state where the people by the Neva may live at peace with the people of the Thames and people all over Europe, and that the forces working for international peace may be stronger tomorrow than they were yesterday. .’
‘I am grateful for that, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Richard Gilbert, ‘truly I am. It has always been my policy to avoid the limelight; to work, if not in the shadows, in the quiet places.’
Powerscourt could see that for once the man was speaking the whole, unvarnished truth.
‘I am an old man now, Lord Powerscourt. I have no children of my own. But the nephews and their parents have always been a source of great delight to me.’
I’ll say amen to that, Powerscourt said to himself, and a great deal of playing rather wicked games with them and their families.
‘. . thought I would outline to you gentlemen some of our proposals for keeping you in touch with this terrible crime.’ The general manager was on his feet, the pens still moving rapidly across the notebooks. ‘We propose to hold a conference with you every morning at this time to bring you up to date with events, bringing in representatives of the police and the Ballets Russes as appropriate. . happy to answer questions except that the Ballets Russes, who will probably be represented by their principal choreographer, Monsieur Fokine, are not with us this morning. He will be speaking in French. .’ There was a deep sigh from the journalists, a sigh of regret for not paying enough attention to French lessons at school, and a cry of pain at the thought of trying to extract money for the services of a French translator from a miserly news editor, but the general manager threw them a lifeline. ‘We shall of course be offering the services of translators in French and Russian as required. .’
‘There has been a change in our plans, Lord Powerscourt. Originally my sister in St Petersburg was going to come and bring Alexander home in person. But that has proved difficult to organize and, obviously, a cross that my sister does not feel able to bear. We have engaged a courier from Thomas Cook to bring the boy home, starting the day after tomorrow. He will be away for at least ten days.’
‘Our daily programme will include another conference at four o’clock here at the Royal Opera House. This afternoon we will be pleased and proud to offer you the Russian Ambassador, who asks you to remember that his only comments on the terrible affair will be made here this afternoon. Otherwise he regrets to say that the pressure of business is such that he will be unable to answer individual requests for comment or interview. And the following afternoon we shall have senior spokesmen, not as yet finalized, but definitely coming from the Russian Orthodox Church, to speak of Alexander Taneyev. .’
‘I’m sure that is the right thing to do,’ said Powerscourt, ‘to commission Thomas Cook to take the body from London to St Petersburg. I think you are all very sensible, Mr Gilbert. I have made that journey a number of times and it is a very tiring business, particularly the final stretch when you feel surrounded by the vast size of Russia. Are your other nephews going to the funeral?’
‘Alas, no, the pressure of work or study is too great for them to be away so long. If you feel you need to be in touch with the family in St Petersburg, I have arranged that Lady Ripon could leave a message at the embassy there. They have very kindly given permission. The Ambassador is a former partner of mine at whist.’
Powerscourt took his leave a few minutes before the press conference broke up at the Royal Opera House. The general manager had done his job very efficiently, and two or three of the better brought-up journalists made a point of shaking him by the hand as they left. The one thing they had to be thankful for, as Patrick Butler of The Times had pointed out, was that there were unlikely to be many entries in the London telephone directories in the name of Taneyev.
11
Second position of the leg — the dancer stands with feet turned out along a straight line as in first position, but with the heels about one foot apart. The term seconded generally means to or at the side.
Second position of the arm — raises your arms to the side. Keep your arms slightly rounded. Lower your elbows slightly below your shoulders. Make sure your wrists are lower than your elbows. Keep your shoulders down, your neck long and your chin up.
Captain Yuri Gorodetsky was very worried about what his master in Paris would say when he heard the news. The call was booked for four o’clock on the afternoon of the great gathering at the Royal Opera House. As ever, the call came through on time. The General did not. As usual he was in the building but nobody knew precisely where he was. Messengers would be sent to search for the missing leader. Gorodetsky always wondered what it was that caused the delay. Did the General pop down to his basement to check the ordered ranks of his files? Did he nip into the library to catch up on the latest newspapers from Moscow and St Petersburg? The answer was none of these. The General merely felt that his presence would carry more weight if people had to wait around to talk to him. Being wanted, as it were, he would be more wondered at.
‘Gorodetsky!’ he boomed at last. ‘What news of the Bolsheviks?’
‘Good news, General, in one sense.’
‘What do you mean “in one sense”? Give us a clear message, man, for God’s sake!’
‘They have changed the money, all of it. Our English colleagues, I have to say, were appalled at the way their fellow countrymen treated the revolutionaries. They all gave them a terrible rate of exchange, about two-thirds of what it should have been according to the published rates in the English papers.’
‘There can’t be that many people wandering round London wanting to buy that amount of roubles in large denomination notes, can there?’
‘You’re probably right there, General.’
‘Is that the good news in the sense you referred to earlier, Gorodetsky?’
‘No, it is not, General.’
‘What is it then?’
‘It’s this. They’ve put all the money into an English bank account. The Central Provincial, Ludgate Circus branch, now holds tens and tens of thousands of English pounds. The chief Bolshevik, Arthur Cooper, had opened the account a few days before. He arranged for all his colleagues to meet him there. This caused a certain amusement among our English colleagues, General, but each Bolshevik had to watch as the chief cashier, operating from a private office, counted all the money and made the appropriate entry in his ledger.’