‘Unfortunately for all of us,’ Derzhenov shook his head slightly at this point, ‘Mr Martin dies. Alas! Poor Mr Martin! Let us not speculate at this moment on how he died or who might have killed him. Let us concentrate on his replacement. Step forward, Lord Francis Powerscourt of Markham Square in Chelsea, sent by the British Foreign Office to fulfil the mission of Mr Martin. Consider, if you would, the visitors attendant on the Lord Powerscourt before he left.’
The General picked a piece of paper out of his desk drawer. ‘The Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office, Sir Jeremiah Reddaway, calls. A junior minister from the same ministry calls two days later. A former Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, the famous Lord Rosebery himself, also pays a visit from his great mansion in Berkeley Square. And then, orchestrated and organized by Sir Jeremiah himself, the widow Martin in her widow’s weeds comes to meet Lady Powerscourt at Markham Square. The purpose of all those visits and all those visitors? Surely, Lord Powerscourt, there can be only one explanation. The Lord Powerscourt is being briefed to carry on the work of the dead man, to take the place of Mr Martin and do whatever he came to St Petersburg to do. So all that remains for you, Lord Powerscourt, is to let us know the outline of what your colleagues told you in Markham Square. The fiction that you do not know what Mr Martin was here for cannot possibly be true.’
It all sounded very definite but Powerscourt thought it might be a fishing expedition, no more. He was astonished that the Okhrana had been watching his house in Markham Square. He remembered de Chassiron telling him, in one of his great tours de force of contemporary Russia, that the Okhrana were the best organized and most sinister secret police in the world. Other states might catch up, he had said, but the Okhrana had a great start. Before Powerscourt could reply there was a knock at the door. A thick-set man wearing a deep blue butcher’s apron with dark stains on it spoke briefly in Russian to General Derzhenov. He barked a few words and waved the minion away.
‘Fool in the last cell on the right has died on us. Natural causes, the usual thing. Gives us room to welcome another guest.’ He looked meaningfully at Powerscourt.
‘General Derzhenov.’ Powerscourt was aware that there was now less than an hour before his appointment at the Interior Ministry, and that his position might truly be described as precarious. ‘You are obviously very well informed about what goes on in London. Now I am going to tell you a story. You are a man accustomed to listening to stories. I leave it up to you to judge whether this one is true or not.
‘I have been working as a full-time investigator for over fifteen years. I was involved with Lord Rosebery in one very difficult case concerning the royal family some years back in 1892. We have been very close ever since. Three years ago in 1902 I was asked to investigate some deaths at a London Inn of Court, a legal establishment where barristers have their offices and train up newcomers to their profession. It was a difficult case. At the end I was shot and severely wounded. I very nearly died. I was saved, I believe, by the expertise of the doctors and the love of my family. After that my wife Lucy and I went on holiday to Italy. She made me promise to give up investigating as I had been nearly killed too many times. I agreed, but with some reluctance, I must say. As you gentlemen will know, it is no light matter to abandon one’s profession. The procession of visitors your people observed going into Markham Square were not coming to brief me on the nature of Martin’s mission to St Petersburg. They were coming to try to persuade me to come out of retirement to investigate his death. Finally, they succeeded. That is why I am here today. But I do not know anything about Martin’s mission, any more,’ he drew a bow at a venture here, ‘than you do. Look.’ Powerscourt brought his notebook out of his pocket and began writing names and addresses at great speed. ‘Here is Lord Rosebery’s address in Berkeley Square, and the barrister Maxwell Kirk’s chambers in Queen’s Inn. Sir Jeremiah Reddaway, as you know, is at the Foreign Office in King Charles Street. If your agents speak to these people, you will discover very quickly that I am telling the truth.’ He handed over the piece of paper.
General Derzhenov looked at him very slowly. He began serious work on another doodle. Peering at the page upside down Powerscourt thought he was drawing people who had lost a limb, in war, or perhaps in his basement. There were spidery figures with only one arm or one leg, or with hands that had disappeared. Two had no heads, perhaps pulled off by Colonel Kolchak in person.
‘That is very interesting, Lord Powerscourt. I do believe your story.’ The General smiled his wolflike smile once more. ‘But I will have our people check it out all the same. I would make just one comment. There is no reason why events could not have taken place as you describe, but with the following exception. That you were also briefed on Mr Martin’s visit to Russia.’
Powerscourt laughed. ‘You don’t give up,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you ask Lord Rosebery about Martin? He doesn’t know what the mission was either.’
‘But if you were Lord Rosebery, Lord Powerscourt, and a curious Russian person asked you about it, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’
‘The trouble with you, General, is that you have a very suspicious mind. You see plots and conspiracies where they don’t exist.’
Derzhenov laughed bitterly. ‘If I did not have a suspicious mind, where do you think Russia would be now? If I did not suspect plots and conspiracies, this Emperor would have gone the way of his grandfather and his Interior Minister and his Education Minister and his Governor of Finland, blown into smithereens by the bombs of the revolutionaries. This is necessary in our country, the whips downstairs, the iron bars to break a man’s arms, the water torture, the racks, the burnings, all of it. This is not a safe country for its rulers, Lord Powerscourt. All we can do is try to make it a little safer for them. Russia today is a place where the students learn to make bombs in their science classes, not one where they drift up and down the Backs in punts in your Cambridge drinking champagne and reciting the doubtful verses of A.E. Housman.’
The General shrugged his shoulders. ‘You make me grow philosophical, Lord Powerscourt. I need some exercise in the basement to bring me back to reality. Off you go to your meeting. Your young man should be waiting outside. I shall be in touch after I have heard about our discoveries in London. Good day to you.’
The General picked up another of those dark blue aprons from a peg on the back of his door and hurried down his stairs. As Powerscourt left Number 16 Fontanka Quai, he noticed again the disagreeable smell coming from the basement. Very faintly he could hear the swish of the whips and a noise that sounded like a human head being smashed against a wall. He wondered if the General had rejoined his fellow torturers in his own private underworld of pain and suffering.
Shortly before four o’clock that afternoon Powerscourt and Mikhail were back in the Shaporov Palace. Mikhail had brought his friend to the Great Drawing Room on the second floor, a vast chamber with a sprung floor and spectacular candelabra that had originally been intended to serve as a ballroom for the Shaporovs and their guests. Their meeting at the Interior Ministry had been cancelled. The man at the decrepit reception desk had told them in his surliest tones that Mr Bazhenov was not at home. Only when pressed hard by Mikhail had he divulged that there was a message for them. Only when Powerscourt produced a wide variety of papers testifying to his name and existence did the wretch with one arm hand over the envelope. They waited till they were outside the building before they opened it. Mikhail translated fast: