‘How many?’ said Natasha at the end, her face the colour of ivory.
‘Nobody knows,’ said Mikhail gravely. ‘The foreign newspapers have talked of thousands and thousands of martyrs. The authorities here, the police and so on, talk of a couple of dozen terrorists accidentally killed in a revolutionary incident. Lord Powerscourt, who has seen a number of battles in his time, thinks we shall never know the true figure, but it is probably a thousand or so. And, of course, hundreds and hundreds more wounded. Russia will never forget Bloody Sunday.’
They all fell silent. The only sound in the room was the ticking of a Sevres clock at the far end of the room. Mikhail took the girl’s hands and held them in his own. Powerscourt wondered what the Russian for ‘no longer wanted’ might be.
‘I know what I meant to tell you, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Natasha suddenly. ‘It’s only just come back to me. You remember Mikhail asked me to listen out for any mention of the name Martin out there in Tsarskoe Selo? Well, I have heard two mentions!’
The girl paused as if she expected instant congratulations. ‘How very interesting,’ was the best Powerscourt could manage. Inwardly he cursed himself for his English reserve in the face of all this Russian intensity. ‘How did you come to hear it? Who was speaking?’
‘The first time was the day before the march,’ Natasha said. ‘That must have been on the Saturday evening. I was passing the door of the Empress’s mauve drawing room and I heard her talking to some official or other.’
‘How did you know it was an official, Natasha?’ said Mikhail.
‘Well, I couldn’t work out how I knew it at first. Then I realized the man kept referring to her as Your Majesty.’
‘And the second?’ Powerscourt this time.
‘The second time was Sunday night, quite late. We’d heard the latest episode of The Hound of the Baskervilles.’ She stared at the looks of incomprehension of the two men. ‘Oh yes,’ she said bitterly, ‘in the Tsar’s Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo it is more important that the inmates hear the latest fictional exploits of Mr Sherlock Holmes than they should hear the facts about what is going on in their own city.’ Natasha paused and concentrated hard, trying to ensure that her memory was perfect. ‘I’d been talking to the Empress Alexandra and I’d left my bag in the hall,’ she went on, staring intently at Mikhail as if he could help her remember, ‘so I crept downstairs to collect it. Nicholas and Alexandra were having the most frightful row in the drawing room. I didn’t dare stop because I could hear a sentry coming along the corridor. She was shouting at him about following the path of his father and his grandfather, about how autocracy was the only path the Russians would ever understand and the path to Western fantasies of democracy and constitutional government was bound to be a total disaster.’
Natasha stopped, listening perhaps to the voices replaying in her head. ‘And what did he say?’ whispered Powerscourt after a moment or two of silence.
Natasha drew herself up to her full height. ‘He said, I think this is right, how many dead did she want lying on the streets, how many members of their own family had to be buried in St Petersburg, before she followed the path of the Englishman Martin.’
6
Outside the windows there came the noise of an enormous steam whistle, like some mighty vessel in pain. Powerscourt stared hard at Natasha. He had no idea what the words meant and, for the present, no idea how he was going to find the answer. Over fifteen years as an investigator, however, had taught him that often you just have to wait for the answers to appear.
‘Natasha, Mikhail,’ he said cheerfully, trying to convey a confidence about affairs he did not actually feel, ‘I would very much like to talk some more about Mr Martin, the late Mr Martin. But it must wait for an hour or so, if you will forgive me. I must send some messages to London. I should have done so before.’
Mikhail stared at Powerscourt. ‘Forgive me, my lord, I -’ He broke off suddenly and looked desperately at Natasha, wringing his hands together.
‘Is there something you would rather I did not hear, Mikhail?’ said the girl. ‘Some male secret that we women are not allowed to listen to?’
Her tone was jocular but Powerscourt thought she was on the verge of anger. Mikhail seized the nettle.
‘I should have told you this before, Lord Powerscourt. I forgot. If you want to send a confidential message to London, I would not recommend the orthodox routes. The Okhrana are now able to decode the telegraph traffic from all the major embassies in St Petersburg. They circulate the key points round the people guarding the Tsar and the ministries if they think it’s relevant. That is rather a great secret, and I would ask you not to tell your Embassy just for the moment.’
‘Traffic one way? Traffic coming in? Or traffic going out as well?’
‘Traffic going in both directions, my lord. They employed some eccentric mathematics professors and a couple of grand master chess players to work out how to do it.’
‘May I ask how you know this, Mikhail? If you are able to say, that is.’ Powerscourt managed not to use words like ‘one so young’.
‘My father told me,’ said the young man.
Mikhail’s father was beginning to assume legendary proportions in Powerscourt’s mind, somewhere between a Russian J.P. Morgan and George Bernard Shaw.
‘Does he have a couple of tame maths professors and the odd grand master to hand as well, so to speak, Mikhail?’
‘I’m sure he’s got lots of those,’ said the young man loyally.
Powerscourt smiled. Mikhail thought he was enjoying some scheme forming in his brain.
‘So,’ said Powerscourt, ‘if I could send a message to people in London by a different route, warning them that the orthodox channels were being broken, we could then send a whole lot of false or inaccurate information to the Okhrana and its customers, secure in the knowledge that they would receive it without knowing that we knew what was in it and that it might be false.’
‘Exactly so,’ said Mikhail, gazing hungrily at Natasha and wondering if there might be a time for love as well as a time for secrets.
‘And how, Mikhail, do I send a secure message to London from here?’
‘Well, my lord, if you give it to me I shall send it by one of my father’s messengers or by his telegraph machinery. It’s perfectly safe. There is a messenger leaving at half past seven tonight, as a matter of fact, and the telegraph is working all the time.’
‘That would be splendid,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I shall go and attend to my business at the Embassy. Let me make a suggestion. I am sure you two have important matters to discuss. How would it be if I returned,’ he paused briefly to look at his watch, ‘in a couple of hours’ time, at half past six? We could discuss Mr Martin briefly and then I should be delighted to take you both out to dinner.’
‘Thank you very much indeed,’ Natasha and Mikhail said in unison and laughed happily at the accident of their response.
‘Take care, Lord Powerscourt,’ Natasha called after him, ‘we don’t want you ending up like poor Mr Martin.’
Mikhail waited until Powerscourt had gone and then he smiled at Natasha.
‘Do you know what this room was designed for, Natasha?’ he asked.
The girl’s eyes flashed back at him, bright with anticipation. ‘For dancing, of course, silly. Do you think earlier Bobrinskys danced across these boards with earlier Shaporovs?’