“Just hand it over, chérie. You don’t have to worry about a thing…” he edged toward her. Madame Koska saw him raising his hands and she knew, with complete clarity, that he meant to strangle her. She fired the gun and in what seemed too slow to be real, she saw Grigory sink to the floor.
At this moment Mr. Korolenko burst through the door, holding a gun of his own.
Madame Koska stood paralysed, with her arm still stretched ahead of her. Mr. Korolenko put his gun in his pocket, approached her, and gently took the gun from her hand. Her arm dropped and she could not move or say a word.
Grigory opened his eyes and looked at Mr. Korolenko. “Dmitri, old friend,” he said.
“Yes, Grigory. I am sorry it had come to that,” said Mr. Korolenko.
“Dmitri, push me so I can sit up against the desk,” said Grigory. “I am finding it hard to breathe.”
Mr. Korolenko hesitated for a few seconds, looking at the wounded man. He shrugged, bent over and gently helped Grigory to sit up, then quickly jumped back. Grigory smiled weakly and said, “I would not hurt you, Dmitri.”
“You would hurt anyone who is in your way, Grigory,” said Mr. Korolenko. “We can be your friends, even your wife, and you would still hurt us. But go ahead, do what you have to do. It’s better than the alternative.”
Grigory raised his hand and touched something under the desk. A large trapdoor opened under it and both the desk and Grigory fell through it. Madame Koska heard a strong splash of water and then silence.
The shock freed her from her paralysis. “He is gone,” she whispered. “I shot him.”
“Good work,” said Mr. Korolenko. He took her in his arms and held her close, very calmly, until she stopped shaking. When he sensed that she was more in control, he let her go and helped her sit on the couch.
“It’s all right,” he said, sitting down next to her. “It’s all over now. You are safe.”
“How could I shoot him? How could I kill Grigory?” Her voice showed she was still near a hysterical reaction.
“Because he was about to kill you, Madame Koska,” said Mr. Korolenko. “You had no choice.”
Madame Koska shuddered violently. “Yes, I think he was,” she said. “He was perfectly capable of killing me. He tried to hypnotise me to give him my gun, and I think he meant to strangle me.”
“Yes, since he had no weapon, he would consider that.”
“But why would he kill me? He could have dropped himself through the trapdoor and disappear. Why strangle me?”
“Because you knew too much. You could help the police with so many details about the past and the present. He could not afford to let you live—unless you consented to help him, which I am sure he tried to make you do.”
“Yes, he said he still loved me, and wanted me to go away with him to Polynesia.”
“He might have loved you in his own way, Madame Koska, but he was a ruthless man and the life and death of anyone meant little to him.”
“Is he dead, do you think?”
“We have no way of knowing,” said Mr. Korolenko. “But I certainly hope he is, and I can’t imagine a man who was so badly wounded would survive the fall into the river. The police will look for his body.”
“But what will the police say about my shooting him?” asked Madame Koska, suddenly aware that she might be in more trouble.
“The police will be perfectly satisfied that you shot in self-defence.”
“How do you know?” asked Madame Koska “What makes you think they will believe me?”
“Because I am the police,” said Mr. Korolenko.
“You are what?”
“I have been doing police work in England for some years,” said Mr. Korolenko. “Special assignments. Plain clothes.”
Madam Koska shook her head. “I suspected it once momentarily, but it did not make sense and I dismissed the idea.”
“Of course it did not make sense, since you believed I was engaged in some dishonest work. But that was perfectly all right since I did not want you to know until we resolved this crime.”
“You knew about his real identity, somehow, didn’t you?”
“I suspected it, but I got my proof when we were looking through the papers in the envelope you left with Madame Golitsyn. I saw a very old letter there, just a note, really, signed Grigory Orlov, and I took it to make sure and read it carefully. He obviously never knew it was left around, and you didn’t know because you could not read Russian at the time.”
“I saw his passport once, but I did not remember his name was Orlov.”
“Because it was written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Later, I’ll show you how it looks, when we get some better light. I am sure it will look familiar.”
“You knew about the trap door, and let him go,” said Madame Koska. “I am glad of it.”
“I was not sure about it, but it’s a commonplace escape route in these dens by the river, and I assumed it was his way out. There was no point in preventing it.”
“I agree. But how did you know I was here?” asked Madame Koska.
“I heard it from Gretchen. When she went upstairs, she sat on the couch with a book to wait for you, and being tired from all the excitement, fell asleep. About an hour later, Madame Golitsyn called you. She had been uncomfortable and worried about you and Gretchen and wanted to see if you were safe. Natalya was with her that night, and when Gretchen woke up to answer the phone, and the three of them realised that you were seriously delayed, they called Inspector Blount and me and then rushed to the apartment. Madame Golitsyn and Natalya wanted to sit up and wait with Gretchen and to hear what happened to you as soon as possible.”
“And what about Gretchen’s father?”
“He is right here. They kept him here all this time.”
“Is he well?”
“Yes, they did not hurt him. We must leave now, and let the officers continue with their massive arrests. I’ll tell Blount to join us at your apartment as soon as he can. There are several police cars out in front of the house, we’ll use one and take you home.”
“Thank you, yes, I want to see the ladies as soon as possible… they must be terribly worried.”
“Before we leave, Madame Koska, I must say that you look—”
“Of course I look dishevelled, Mr. Korolenko. I mean, look what I have just been through. I apologise for looking like a mess.”
“I meant to say that you look extremely beautiful when you are just a little less perfectly groomed and your hair is down, Madame Koska.”
“Oh,” said Madame Koska, not sure how to react. “Thank you, Mr. Korolenko.”
They went through the opium room and the night club, moving through a pandemonium of police officers, half-dazed smokers, and elegantly dressed people in a state of panic. Passing by the inspector, Mr. Korolenko said, “I am taking Madame Koska home. Please come as soon as possible.” They entered one of the police cars that were parked in the front, and Mr. Korolenko gave the address to the driver.
“What I would like to understand,” said Madame Koska, “is how Grigory and you knew each other, Mr. Korolenko, and why an Orlov would become a jewel thief and a couturier.”
“He was a school friend. He was interested in the arts and took some lessons. I was interested in literature. We had so much in common that was good, but we both were thoughtless youths… When I was kicked out of the priesthood, Grigory was caught in a worse scandal—he was involved in a jewel theft on a large scale. I faced my disgrace and lived it down, but Grigory disappeared. No one knew where he went, not even his family.”
“But eventually you found out?” asked Madame Koska.