Powerscourt wondered what kind of world left you permanently speculating about the physical attributes of your informers or the people they informed against.
‘Oh, yes, M. Brouzet,’ he replied, ‘she is very beautiful. Quite headstrong, I should say. Might be rather a handful.’
‘Some day,’ said the Frenchman darkly, ‘they will release me from this office and let me out into the real world. Even Mrs Kerenkova must be worth a look, I would have thought. Now then, enough of this, sorry, Lord Powerscourt. Let me come back to your colleague Mr Martin. I knew he had been killed. I presumed somebody had killed him, whether for what he knew or what he refused to tell, I do not know. And I know he had been to see the Tsar. That, my friend, must be the key to the whole affair, that meeting.’
‘Did you know, M. Brouzet, that not even the Foreign Office or the British Ambassador in St Petersburg knew why he was there, that his mission was a complete secret, known only to the Prime Minister?’ Powerscourt could hear Sir Jeremiah Reddaway fussing with fury at this piece of intelligence being given away. Powerscourt hoped that if he gave up an ace he might at least be offered a king.
‘I did not know that, Lord Powerscourt, how very helpful of you. Did you know, incidentally,’ – something was coming his way, Powerscourt thought. Was it a knave or a valet as the French call the jack, or a queen or a king? An ace even, perhaps? – ‘that Kerenkov was seen at the station late on the night Martin was probably killed? I mean the St Petersburg station where the Tsarskoe Selo trains come in. You can guess the rest, I am sure.’
Queen, Powerscourt said to himself, maybe king. ‘I just have this problem, M. Brouzet, about Kerenkov killing Martin. Why do it now? Why not before? He’d been home lots of times in the past after Martin had left his visiting cards with the fair Tamara, after all.’
The Frenchman shrugged. ‘The affairs of the heart, love, revenge, jealousy, Lord Powerscourt, are not susceptible to the rational analysis you and I carry round in our heads. Let me return to the meeting between Martin and the Tsar with this new piece of knowledge you have given me.’
He paused briefly and stared out into the square. A number of people were now making their way across it, one or two of them tourists, earnestly consulting their guidebooks.
‘I always say in my mind to these damned tourists, Lord Powerscourt, forgive me if many of them are your fellow countrymen, that they should read their wretched Baedekers in their hotel rooms or in the cafes or even when they go home. In this square, of all squares, they should look at the buildings and soak in all the beauty. Maybe then they can carry some of it home to Boston or Birmingham or wherever they come from. Forgive me, I digress again.’
Powerscourt smiled. He thought that if he had to choose a man to work for, His Nibs, say, or Reddaway or even de Chassiron, he would prefer this slim Frenchman.
‘Let us put our brains together, Lord Powerscourt,’ Olivier Brouzet continued, ‘and think about this meeting. Consider first of all the subject matter. Of what do emissaries from Prime Ministers speak to autocrats like Nicholas the Second? Of money? Unlikely, it seems to me. The Tsar doesn’t understand his own domestic finances, let alone those of his empire. Mind you, I’m sure we could find bankers in this city who would argue that understanding your own finances would be a crippling handicap in coping with your government’s. However, with the greatest respect, my lord, it is France, the old ally, that provides most of the Russian loans, not the English. So I think we can rule out money as a topic for the meeting.’
Powerscourt had two cards he had not put in play. He thought of them as the eight and nine of trumps, no more. But because he was not sure if they were real information, or just a guess, he did not introduce them. Over the next two days as he travelled across eastern France and most of the German plain he was to wonder if he had been right not to do so.
‘A new treaty, do you think that possible, my lord?’ Olivier Brouzet smiled quizzically at his guest.
‘It’s possible,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but in that case why are there no Foreign Office ministers present?’
The Frenchman laughed. ‘Think of the psychology of the Tsar, my lord. He has to appoint all these damned ministers, Finance, Interior, Education and so on. If they are any good, they make the Tsar look a fool for being so bad at the rest of his job. If they are bad, he reassures himself that as the autocrat of Russia he must have been better than they were in the first place. There’s nothing he would like more than to conclude secret treaties behind the back of his Foreign Ministry. He’d be boasting about it to that old cow Alexandra for weeks afterwards. After all, he concluded some bloody treaty with the Kaiser without telling any of his ministers. They had to spend years wriggling out of it.’
‘That’s all very well for the Tsar,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but I find it hard to see a British Prime Minister carrying on like that.’
‘More difficult for the British, but not impossible,’ said Brouzet cheerfully. ‘I’m sure Lord Salisbury wouldn’t have turned a hair. Well, that’s treaties as one possible subject of the meeting. Do you have any other thoughts as to what they might have talked about?’
‘Just one,’ said Powerscourt, hanging on grimly to his eight and nine of trumps. ‘What about the little boy? What about the Tsarevich and his terrible illnesses? We, the British, or it might equally well be the French, will send you three, let us say, or four of our finest children’s doctors, to see if they can find out what is wrong with Alexis. That’s certainly the kind of thing you’d want to keep very quiet.’
‘All arriving with false beards and fake moustaches, mind you, Lord Powerscourt, dressed as if they were going to an undertakers’ convention. Think of the outrage in London if the boot was on the other foot, and three Russian doctors were coming to sort out the health of the Prince of Wales. The rumpus in St Petersburg would be enormous, especially since they hate that bloody woman so much. But it is quite likely, certainly. Do you know what the illness is, Powerscourt?’
‘I don’t,’ said Powerscourt,
‘Neither do I,’ said Brouzet smoothly, and Powerscourt wondered if that was the French secret service’s eight and nine of trumps. ‘But I hope to know fairly soon. Let us consider, finally, the dynamics of the meeting, if we may.’
‘The dynamics?’ asked Powerscourt, wondering if he was wandering into some French metaphysical territory.
‘Let me explain,’ said the head of the French secret service. ‘Suppose the original idea comes from the British. They send Martin to St Petersburg. He sees the Tsar. For someone to kill Martin it seems likely to me that the Tsar said Yes, rather than No, to whatever proposal it was Martin brought. If he said No, it was merely reverting to the status quo, after all. Martin could be left alive as nothing had changed. That says Treaty talk to me, I think. Or it’s the other way round. The Tsar has the original idea. He sends for a British agent. Somebody doesn’t like what the Tsar is offering to the British and kills Martin before he can take the message home.’
‘But the message could have been sent by cable before Martin was killed,’ said Powerscourt.
‘Pedant,’ said the Frenchman.
‘Or,’ said Powerscourt, ‘think of it like this. Suppose we’ve got the order all wrong. The original idea comes from the Tsar. He sends a message to London. Martin comes, not as a man with a message, but as a man with an answer, the answer to the original idea or question from the Tsar. That’s what he conveys to the Tsar out there in the Alexander Palace. That’s what somebody overhears, or maybe the Tsar is indiscreet. That is what kills Martin. As a matter of fact, I have requested an audience with the Tsar on business related to Martin but I doubt if he will see me.’