The normal pattern of life at the Alexander Palace was in turmoil. The routine, the patterns by which this most regular of families lived their lives had been thrown into chaos. The heir to the throne, His Imperial Highness Alexis Nicolaievich, Sovereign Heir Tsarevich, Grand Duke of Russia, was sick, very sick, and none of the doctors sent from the city could cure him. It began with a haemorrhage which arose without the slightest cause and lasted for three days. Bandages were applied which sometimes showed blood. Then a bruise ruptured a tiny blood vessel beneath the skin and Alexis’ blood began to seep slowly into surrounding muscle or tissue. The blood did not clot as it would in a normal person, it went on flowing for hours, leading to a swelling the size of a grapefruit. Natasha Bobrinsky was now looking after the four girls virtually on her own. She had no time to visit the city or even to write letters. She went with the girls on their visits to their infant brother and ushered them out a few minutes later. She noticed that the parents were reluctant to conduct any conversation with the doctors in front of the princesses. This is the future of Russia, Natasha said to herself, standing by one of the nurses at the end of the crib and watching the infant toss from side to side, this child, this tiny Romanov holds the fate of the empire in his hands. Should he die, the Emperor and Empress might never recover. When she wasn’t by her son’s side the Empress was praying, on her knees in front of her icon of the Virgin, beseeching the cruel God who had done this to her child to take pity. Earthly sinners are urged to repent, she told herself, God can repent too and take back whatever dreadful fate he has handed down to my Alexis, the awful horrors of joints that bled and would not stop, the terrible cries of pain from the child that could not be assuaged. Natasha would sink to her knees beside her Empress when she could and join her in her prayers. She felt that this family were being asked to suffer too much. The thought of a lifetime punctuated by these bouts of illness and uncertainty was more than she could bear. Late one afternoon Natasha accompanied two of the doctors from the sick room to the front door and the carriages that were waiting to take them back to the city. She heard the word whispered between them when they thought nobody was looking or listening, only some servant girl. Natasha didn’t know what the word meant but she could look it up in the library when she got a chance. She felt sure that Lord Powerscourt would like to know.
Only one thought offered faint consolation to the Empress. All through the illness she had prayed that the faith healer Philippe’s prophecy to her might be fulfilled, that he was only a messenger for a greater healer due to follow him. The Montenegrin sisters had sent word that a new staretz, another holy man, a man with extraordinary powers of healing had arrived in the capital from Siberia. Maybe this man would be the answer to her prayers.
Powerscourt had letters to write on his return to Markham Square. He wrote to Lord Rosebery asking him to make a very particular request from the Private Secretary to the King. He asked him not to elaborate, not to give any hint of why he was making this peculiar inquiry. If pressed, he could say it was to do with national security and the death of a British diplomat. No details could be given of where the Foreign Office man had met his doom. When Rosebery had the answer – and the question was of considerable urgency – he was under no circumstances to send the cable via the Foreign Office. He was to send one word, Yes or No, to be transmitted to Powerscourt through the house of Shaporov in St Petersburg from the offices of William Burke in London. He, Powerscourt, thanked Rosebery most sincerely for his help and promised to fill him in on the details on his return. Then he wrote to Johnny Fitzgerald. When he, Johnny, had satisfied himself that he knew all there was to know about the death of Mrs Letitia Martin, he was to come to St Petersburg. But only after a strange journey to the East of England. Once more Powerscourt enjoined his friend to total security. Once more he requested that a one-word answer be sent to the Shaporov address. One look into the eyes of the people he was going to see, Powerscourt told his friend, and Johnny would know if Powerscourt’s guess was correct. He wrote one final letter to Lady Lucy. He sealed it carefully and wrote her name in bold letters on the envelope. He placed it in the front drawer of his desk so it could be easily found if he did not return. ‘Lucy,’ it said, ‘I love you so much. I always will. Francis.’ Then he went to have a farewell cup of tea with her before he set off for the Dover boat.
The Place des Vosges, Powerscourt remembered the next morning, was, according to devotees of Paris, the most beautiful square in the city, and therefore the most beautiful square in the world. On a bright February morning, with only the pigeons taking their rest on the gravel in the centre, the thirty-nine tall houses made of stone and red brick stared impassively outwards as they had for the previous three hundred years. In the arcade that ran right round the square the cafes and the galleries were setting out their wares. Victor Hugo had lived here, Powerscourt remembered. So had Richelieu for a period of ten or twelve years. A plaque on the front of Number 32 announced the European Art Exchange, the cover story for the French secret service. M. Olivier Brouzet, Director General of the organization, had his office on the first floor, looking out directly on to the square. He might have just reached forty, Powerscourt thought, and was perfectly dressed in a grey suit with a cream shirt and a pale blue tie. He was tall and slim and looked as though he might have been an athlete in his youth. He had a very small painting behind his desk that could have been a Watteau, and eighteenth-century tapestries on his walls.
‘It is, Lord Powerscourt,’ he said after the introductions had been carried out and Powerscourt was settling himself down opposite the Frenchman at his eighteenth-century escritoire. ‘It is a Watteau, I mean. The Louvre were kind enough to let us have it on loan. Now then, how can I be of help to you? I am so pleased to see co-operation between our two countries on intelligence matters. Some of your compatriots, I suspect, might not be so keen.’
His English was perfect. Powerscourt was to learn later that Brouzet had spent three years at Harvard after his time at the Sorbonne. Powerscourt explained his mission, the missing Martin, the missing body, the different accounts of his activities from the different ministries, Martin’s affair with Tamara Kerenkova, the fact that he had met the Tsar. He included his meetings, but not their accompanying delights, with Derzhenov. He repeated his belief that the French secret service was the best informed organization about Russia in the world.
‘Derzhenov the primitive!’ the Frenchman said. ‘Does he still take time to torture his victims in person down in that frightful basement in the Fontanka Quai?’
‘I’m afraid he does.’
‘Let me be frank with you. I think we should be as open as possible with each other. One of us, as surely as night follows day, will want to keep something back, but so be it. Let us help each other where we can. We knew about Mr Martin in this office and his love trysts with la Kerenkova. Some of my colleagues here wanted to elect him an honorary Frenchman for the way he carried out his affairs. We have many sources of information, as you might imagine, Lord Powerscourt. There are the emigres all around us here in Paris and on the Riviera. Three times now I have applied for extra funds to put a man on permanent station in the casino at Monte Carlo. Never, I tell my superiors, are Russian aristocrats more likely to tell the family secrets than when they have just lost all their money at blackjack or on the roulette table. Always they refuse me at the Quai d’Orsay. I say they must be damned Presbyterians or Quakers or some other form of terrible American Puritan. Never mind. We also have many agents in St Petersburg, in the banks, among the servants of the aristocracy, and most of all, at the imperial court at Tsarskoe Selo. That is how I know about your visit and your two Russian colleagues. All the reports I have seen about Natasha Bobrinsky incidentally, tell me she is very beautiful. It is true?’