‘I’ve rather grown to dislike Mr Bolm, making his advances on these young girls all over the place and at all times of day.’
‘Doesn’t necessarily make him a murderer,’ said Lord Francis Powerscourt.
East Prussia stretched out in front of Natasha Shaporova’s train. She was making good progress with War and Peace. Her knowledge of geography was poor and she wondered if Napoleon’s armies had crossed the same space a hundred years before. She remembered somebody telling her that Tolstoy himself had seen military service in the Crimea. She hoped that there wouldn’t be too much marching about and military manoeuvres. Never far from her mind was a family that might not be too different from War and Peace’s Bolkonskys and Rostovs: the family Taneyev, with its treasure trove of letters from the dead Alexander. Change in Warsaw.
Anastasia couldn’t tell anybody in the Ballets Russes what had happened. She knew it would mean expulsion from the company, let alone possible prosecution for being an associate to theft in St Petersburg. She had cried so much and for so long that she thought there couldn’t be any tears left in her little body. She found Lady Lucy’s address and set out for Markham Square. Somebody had told her that the husband was a detective. Perhaps he would be able to help. She knew Lady Lucy’s address and hailed a taxi to take her to Markham Square. Fresh reserves and reservoirs of tears overcame her so much in the cab that the driver leant back and offered her his best handkerchief, perfectly washed and pressed by the cabbie’s wife in Harringey. He even forgot to ask her for the fare, but ushered her to the Powerscourt door and waited for Rhys to let her in. The butler had seen all sorts and conditions of visitors to Markham Square in his time but never one as distraught as this. Her whole life seemed to have come to an end.
‘Anastasia from the corps de ballet,’ he announced to Lady Lucy, who was reading the forthcoming programme for the ballet.
‘Anastasia, you poor thing,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Your eyes are so red you must have been crying all afternoon.’ She helped the girl into the large armchair by the fire. ‘Would you like some tea? Something stronger? A glass of water?’
Through her sobs, the girl managed to nod for the glass of water.
‘Now, Anastasia,’ said Lady Lucy, who thought she had met the girl at Natasha’s house in the early days, ‘whatever is the matter?’
There was a prolonged burst of sobbing, broken only by further ministrations with the cabbie’s handkerchief. Lady Lucy waited. Powerscourt had decided to let his wife do all the talking for now.
‘There must have been something terrible,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘We’re not the police, my dear, and we’re not the Ballets Russes either. If you’ve got something to say, it need never go outside these four walls, I promise you.’
The answer came in a whisper. Powerscourt had often remarked how people thought they could minimize the effect of some terrible news by announcing it in the lowest of voices. He had decided it was the opposite of shouting at foreigners in English in the hopes that the volume might bring forth understanding.
‘Jewels.’
‘Jewels?’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Your jewels? Somebody else’s jewels? You must speak up, Anastasia or we’ll never hear you.’
Anastasia did not speak up. She spoke, if anything, even more softly than before.
‘Not my jewels.’
‘If they weren’t yours, then why do you have to be so upset about them?’
‘I don’t have the jewels any more.’
‘Do you mean that you were looking after the jewels for somebody else? And now they’ve gone, you worry you’ll have to replace them?’
‘No, no,’ sobbed the girl, ‘it’s the money. The money from the jewels has gone.’
‘Let’s take this one step at a time, Anastasia? Have another glass of water. I’ll order some tea in a minute. You had some jewels. You sold them one way or another. The money’s gone. Is that it?’
‘Yes, yes, that’s it. That’s right.’
‘But whose were the jewels? Were they yours? Family heirlooms that would cause distress in your household?’
This brought a further burst of weeping, in which the words St Petersburg, George and something that sounded like Kollicky were all the Powerscourts could pick up.
Powerscourt now took over after a nod from Lady Lucy.
‘Did the jewels come from St Petersburg, Anastasia?’
She nodded this time, relieved not to have to speak for a while.
‘And you brought them here? Or did somebody else bring them here?’
The girl pointed at herself. Powerscourt hoped this unhappy experience hadn’t left her partially dumb for the next half an hour.
‘And who is George? A friend of yours?’
The girl nodded.
‘Has he taken the money from the sale of the jewels?’
The girl shook her head.
‘Did he organize the sale of the jewels for you?’
The girl nodded once more.
‘You mentioned somebody who sounded like Kollicky just now. Were they Johnston Killick of Hatton Garden by any chance?’
Another nod.
‘A very reputable and responsible firm they are too, Anastasia. I’m sure they will have done their best for you. Let me try to clear up the London end, if we may. You brought some jewels, which weren’t yours, to London. I am guessing you were under instructions from St Petersburg to sell them during your stay here. You sold the jewels with the help of your friend George. You had the money. I am guessing when I say it was hidden among your luggage at the hotel. Now the money has gone. Is that right?’
The girl nodded.
‘And the suitcase? The money was in a suitcase? Yes? So it is the suitcase that has gone missing?’
This time the girl managed a feeble, ‘Yes.’
‘Anastasia,’ Lady Lucy moved back into command, ‘I think you need to lie down and have a rest. I’ll take you up to one of the spare bedrooms and I’m sure we can find some clean clothes that aren’t stained with tears. We can move on to the St Petersburg end of things later.’
17
A step of beating in which the dancer jumps into the air and rapidly crosses the legs before and behind. For example: in an entrechat-quatre starting from fifth position, right foot front, the dancer will jump crossing her/his legs and beating first the right thigh on the back of the left thigh, then at the front of the left thigh, landing in the same position she/he started. Three changes of the feet in the air, ultimately changing which foot was front.
A battered Renault taxi-cab drew up outside 32 Place des Vosges, home of the European Art Exchange, the cover story for the French Secret Service Headquarters on the first floor. That taxi passenger must have prepaid his fare, for he shot out of the Renault and into the building in a couple of seconds flat. The other visitor, the Préfet de Paris, or Mayor of Paris, had been shown in through the back door by the dustbin men, who voted for him regularly at election times. M. Dubois was their friend, and any friend of M. Dubois was automatically enrolled in their very own Legion of Honour.
So what brought this disparate group — three Frenchman, and an English Ambassador to France, Sir Miles Myddleton, just returned from attendance on his sovereign in Biarritz — together in a large, eighteenth-century room with high ceilings and elegant shutters on the windows one floor up in one of Paris’s most elegant squares at seven o’clock in the morning? The answer was not long in coming. Colonel Brouzet made the introductions and summed up the reasons for their presence in a single word.