‘I am, my lord. Take the money he is getting from the Duke of Marlborough up there at Blenheim. That could go on paying the carpenters of the theatre in Paris, or the hire of theatrical costumes here in London, or on paying the bill for his last trip to Venice. And there’s another thing. He is very successful at persuading the rich to sponsor his work. I bet Lady Ripon has had to put her hand in her pocket more than once on this trip to London. They give him cheques or banker’s drafts. He then forgets he has them. Only recently he trotted into the accounts department with a huge cheque some rich backer had given him six weeks ago in Paris.’
‘Is it therefore impossible to say at any given time whether he is bankrupt or not?’
‘Quite impossible. One of the accounts people says they should turn him upside down every now and again and shake him vigorously to see what money falls out. People don’t last very long in the accounts department, those young men with mathematical training from St Petersburg. There are a few who have stuck the course. One of the young men who has lasted longest claims he stays because of the excitement. He says it’s like going over Niagara in a barrel all the time and hoping you’re still alive at the bottom. Not necessarily what you’d expect to hear from an accountant. The other one also uses a watery metaphor. He says it’s like keeping track of the flood before Noah decided to shove off in his Ark.’
‘So there is no answer to my original question?’
‘I’m afraid not. I know there’s enough money to pay everybody till the end of next week. The Blenheim money may already have been spent paying bills in Paris or even St Petersburg. In two weeks’ time, my lord, we all climb into the barrel and go back over Niagara again.’
George Walker the docker, Albert Smith from the railways, the brothers William and Thomas Baker and Arthur Cooper were packed into Arthur Cooper’s front room. His wife and children had been packed off to her sister’s round the corner.
‘Comrades, thank you all for coming. I have to report what our enemies would call a miracle. A miracle indeed. The long arm of Comrade Lenin has reached out across Europe to visit us here in Pentonville.’
He held up a very large envelope with pages sticking out of the top. ‘This was put through my front door, and not by the postman, the day before yesterday.
‘This is what the money is to be used for. Comrade Lenin wants us to print five hundred copies of his latest masterwork in English and five hundred in Russian.’
‘How do you know that the work is from Lenin? That it isn’t from our enemies, trying to trick us into printing literature that will not help our cause?’
William Baker was always suspicious. That, he often told his wife, was how he kept out of the authorities’ files all this time. ‘The courier who brought it gave very definite proof that it came from Cracow. He himself did not bring it all the way, he merely collected it from its temporary resting place elsewhere in London. I believe he is a courier acting for Lenin.’
‘This isn’t like the old days when you could print anything you liked and send it wherever you liked,’ Albert Smith put in. ‘They could have us all locked up for breaking that Official Secrets Act, so they could.’
‘I do not see how the laws of the decadent bourgeoisie should be allowed to stand in the way of the advancement of the revolution, comrades.’ Arthur Cooper felt that the revolutionary spirit seemed to be in short supply this evening.
‘If you are opposed to this plan, I will proceed on my own. Anybody who refuses to agree with my proposals will face reprisals from the party.’
‘I think it’s all very suspicious,’ put in George Walker. ‘A man arrives who says he is a colleague of Comrade Lenin. He gives you a sign. That’s good enough for me. But that pamphlet, won’t it have to be translated as well? That’s another risk we are all taking.’
Arthur Cooper was growing more and more irritated.
‘And can you not see that Comrade Lenin has thought of everything? He toils away in his lonely library and sends the next pamphlet to forward the cause of world revolution. All you can do is worry about some ridiculous law.’
‘It won’t be ridiculous if we end up in jail.’
‘Comrade Lenin expected better from his colleagues in London. I was not meant to tell you this but I will. He thought you would agree to his wishes and carry them out without complaint. It seems he was wrong. He had given me the name of a translator and the name of a printing firm in Clerkenwell that will carry out the work. Comrade Lenin expected obedience. Do I have it?’
Reluctantly the revolutionaries agreed. Even then they weren’t finished.
‘What happens when they’re all printed off? What do we do with them then?’ asked William Baker.
‘When the pamphlets are done, I will take full responsibility for their distribution. That matter is not for discussion either here or later.’
A rather different meeting was taking place upstairs in Markham Square. Lady Lucy, returned from nursing a sick aunt, was to be brought up to date by Natasha Shaporova, Inspector Dutfield and her husband.
‘I don’t think we have made much progress, really,’ Powerscourt began. ‘We are no nearer to solving the central problem of the case — who was the victim? Bolm or Alexander Taneyev? Personally, I have no idea. Inspector?’
‘Well, my lord, my lady, I have to say, speaking as a policeman with some experience in these cases: statistically, it has to be Bolm.’
‘How did you work that one out, Inspector?’ Lady Lucy felt that she had made insufficient contribution to the case so far, even though she had the excuse of having been away.
‘He’s been around longer. He must be in his forties. He’s had years and years to make enemies in the highly charged atmosphere of a company like the Ballets Russes. Maybe there’s been some dispute about roles in the company we know little about.’
‘There could be another reason you don’t seem to have considered so far. Cherchez la femme. Jealous husbands, maybe jealous husbands come all the way from Paris to take their revenge on the man who took their wife. Is that possible, Natasha?’
‘It certainly is. In Paris and London the women go mad for the ballet, possibly because it’s not here for very long and the time for conquest and pursuit is short. Look at the way Lady Ripon and all the other Lady Ripons pursue them for afternoon tea and a spot of dancing after the muffins. I bet they have something more in mind. Maybe they don’t do anything about it, but the dancers could become trophies, conquests to be shown off to your less or more fortunate friends.’
‘And how do we find out if this is going on, or, perhaps more realistically, if it has been going on at Covent Garden?’
‘I shall ask the corps de ballet,’ said Natasha, ‘though the gossip there might not be one hundred per cent accurate. I suggest you ask Sergeant Jenkins, Inspector. I believe he has good contacts now among the stagehands and the scenery people.’
‘And what,’ said Powerscourt, ‘do we make of this story of the duel and the vow of revenge?’
‘I think it should be taken very seriously indeed,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Natasha is even now corresponding with her relations in St Petersburg. There may be more news yet to come.’
Lady Lucy did not care to mention it but she thought Natasha’s network of contacts and relations in St Petersburg might be the equal of her own here in London.
‘I find it all very strange,’ Natasha said. ‘The original duel must have happened fifty or sixty years ago. It could even have happened at the same time as the poet Pushkin’s unfortunate end. But the authorities have always been very strict about duels and vendettas caused by duels. They have been known to send people to exile in Siberia for it.’
‘But would those strictures apply if the revenge killing took place outside Russia?’ said the Inspector. ‘Suppose you are a male descendant of the victim. You come away on holiday. You carry out your killing. You go back home. Did you have a good time, the relations ask. London is a wonderful city, you reply. You expound on the changing of the guard or the shops on Oxford Street or the plays in the theatres. You don’t mention the murder to a single soul, except your parents, if that.’