‘No, I haven’t. And these revelations don’t make me change my mind. Somebody had obviously stolen the jewels in St Petersburg and found they would be easily traced. So they transferred the deal to London to get the money.’
There was a knock and a cough at the door. It was Rhys, the Powerscourt butler-cum-chauffeur who always coughed before he came into a room.
‘Telegram, my lord,’ he announced. ‘From Cologne Railway Station, my lord. I thought it might be important. For you, my lord.’
Rhys handed it over. Powerscourt read it aloud. ‘Did Alexander Taneyev keep a diary? Regards Natasha. Cologne Station.’
‘Good God!’ said Powerscourt. ‘We’ve never thought of that. Not one of us. Do you know if he kept a diary, Inspector?’
‘Well no, my lord. We’ve concentrated our search on letters rather than diaries.’
‘If it was one of those new ones, it could look like a book cover if it was lined up with other books.’
‘I’ll just have to go and take a look at his things, my lord. All of his stuff is still packed up at the station, as you know. I’ll conduct the search myself. I’ll come straight back if I find it.’
Fifteen minutes later another policeman found his way to the heart of Chelsea. Inspector Jackson made his apologies for arriving without notice. ‘I had another piece of business to transact, my lord, but there is one thing in particular I felt I ought to tell you in person.’
‘You’re more than welcome, Inspector. Some tea?’
‘Thank you, that would be kind. The thing is this. I’ve been reading all the accounts of the witnesses at the murder of Vera the ballerina. Not just the ones from the Ballets Russes, but from the invited guests as well. I tell you this, Lord Powerscourt. It was chaos backstage, as it were, in the other parts of the palace, while the guests were taking drinks and enjoying roast suckling pig and all the rest of it. There were two identified people milling around: one a tall, foreign-looking man with a dark coat and a hat who everybody thought was Russian, and one a middle-aged Englishman in a brown check suit carrying a walking stick — rather in the manner of Mr Diaghilev if you like, my lord, who everybody thought was a local, from Oxford, for he seemed to be able to speak Russian as well. Always assuming our constables are correct in identifying what he was saying as Russian, not French or German or Hottentot or what you will.’
‘And what did your staff think they were doing?’
‘This is the thing, my lord. Most of the domestic staff were in attendance at the dinner, serving out the peas or the parsnips or whatever they do on these occasions. For the rest, it was like a free invitation to wander all over the house. There was the odd footman about, and the occasional door closed to the Ballets Russes people, the dancers and the stage staff and so on, who were all well behaved. I come to my point, my lord.’
‘Perhaps the gentleman with the walking stick was just one of your extra translators brought in from Oxford?’
‘That’s very possible. We did conduct a fairly wide trawl to find those people. He could well have come from some department of the university.’ Inspector Jackson paused to take a sip of his tea.
‘It still must have been chaotic everywhere in the palace. The ballet people behaved as if they were visitors, as if they had been given a chance to look over the house like the other visitors the Duke of Marlborough and his lady let in during the year. One minute you could have been in the hall, another minute you could have been wandering round upstairs. And it’s an enormous place. If we assume, and I grant you this is a pretty big if, that the murderer had come to kill the ballerina, he could have waited for ever in the wrong part of the palace. She could have been on another floor. She might have been out in the gardens looking at the fountains or that sort of stuff. My hunch is that he must have arranged to meet her on the gallery in a few minutes’ time, that sort of thing. He wants to express his admiration in person. It will not do in the crowd. You can never underestimate vanity as a motive for doing things. So, when Vera arrives in the middle of the gallery, that’s the end of her. The other man disappears back into the crowd and out the front door. It was murder by appointment.’
‘God bless my soul, Inspector, that’s a pretty fine piece of work!’
‘I have to say I have no idea if it is true or not. There is one other thing. If a member of the Ballets Russes or anybody connected with the opera wanted to kill her in London, they’d have been liable to bump into a policeman or an investigator like yourself at any point and in any place. Up there in Blenheim Palace, there were only the footmen at that particular time. Not to mention our two strangers who had the great advantage that the Blenheim people thought they were Ballets Russes and the Ballets Russes people thought they were palace people.’
‘And what have you done about the strangers, Inspector?’
Inspector Jackson finished his tea. ‘We have circulated their descriptions all around Oxford and in all the towns and villages where the visitors could have come from.’
‘How do you think the killer knew who his victim was, if you see what I mean?’
‘I did think about that, my lord, but he could have asked any of the ballet people. You could have spotted a member of the Ballets Russes a mile off.’
‘You have done good work, Inspector, well done.’
‘Do you know, Lord Powerscourt, I’ve been an Inspector now for six years and this is the most unusual case I’ve come across in all that time. I think I may be able to tell my grandchildren about it in years to come.’
‘Only “may” be able to tell them, Inspector?’
‘That’s right, my lord. I’m bloody well not going to tell them we’ve all failed to work out who the murderer was.’
‘“London June the fifth. I wonder if it’s extravagant and rather vain to buy another diary every time we move to a fresh city. Certainly there’s still lots of room left in the French one. But I can always go back to that the next time I’m in Paris. I shall have in time a whole volume about Paris.”’
Alexander Taneyev’s diary had arrived by police constable late that afternoon. Inspector Dutfield had said he would come round later. Powerscourt maintained that his policeman colleague was feeling guilty about not having found it before. Lady Lucy told him he was being uncharitable.
‘Do carry on, Francis,’ she said.
‘“Rehearsals start tomorrow with Monsieur Fokine. I have danced in all of these works before, mainly in Paris. My two understudy roles I have also danced before, both in Monte Carlo. I am lucky that I have been allowed to stay with my uncle, though they have told me at the hotel here that there will always be a room ready if I need it. It is two years now since I came to London with Mama and the girls.”
‘I say Lucy, do you think I should skip a few bits and see how long before we get to the relevant parts?’
‘I don’t think you should skip anything just yet, Francis. I think it would be disrespectful.’
‘“We were given half an hour today to walk around Covent Garden and take a full tour of the opera house. It’s certainly grander than the ones in Paris, but nothing like our own place on Theatre Street back home. Maybe the fact that the Imperial Family come to see us in St Petersburg makes a difference. Everything has to be special all the time. I don’t think the King here is very keen on the opera, even though they say he looks exactly like the Tsar. I think Mama told me they are cousins.”
‘And that’s the end of Wednesday June the fifth. What do you think of it so far, Lucy?’
‘Promising start, I should say. It looks as though he puts down whatever comes into his head.’
‘On we go. “Thursday June the sixth. Another rehearsal. Monsieur Fokine spends a lot of time shouting at the girls in the corps de ballet. I think they just find it hard to concentrate when they’re left stuck in some position or other while he concentrates on something else. Mama and the girls always tell me how lucky I am to spend so much time with all these lovely young people. I tell them it’s not like that at all. They’re work colleagues, that’s all. I just wish some other older members of the company behaved in the same way.”