A Thief in the Night (10 page)

Within minutes he was standing in a large sitting room full of armchairs and low tables, at which a gathering of admirers and enthusiasts sat. Irina was sitting in an ornate Georgian chair, with Bruzov to one side, seeming to guard her. The Frenchman was standing behind, not wanting to be a part of proceedings.

‘Lord George Lenham-Cawde,’ announced a voice from his side as George entered the room. Heads turned and all conversation stopped. Irina looked at him and maintained a professional posture. But Bruzov, always impressed by English status and tradition, rushed across, bowed, and then held out his hand. It was all George could do to prevent himself from striking the fat Russian, but dignity was intact as he shook his hand and found a false smile from somewhere. He walked across to where Irina sat, and bowed to kiss her lace-gloved hand. He had told her, five years earlier, how he adored her hands, which were the hands Goya painted. ‘
No daintiness, my
love, Goya liked the chunky, strong hands, of women who could work.’
He had said this with a laugh, and as he kissed them now, he whispered, ‘Like Goya’s!’ They both smiled, but as hers faded her eyes spoke to him, and they gave a silent appeal for help.

‘Miss Danova is very tired. I allowed only fifteen minutes for talk here. I must ask you to leave, ladies and gentlemen,’ Bruzov said firmly. As the small group left, George was about to try to speak more familiarly with Irina when Paul Dalevy put his considerable bulk in the way.

‘My dear Lord Lenham-Cawde, our prima donna is very tired.’

‘I will not tire her any further … I merely wish to speak for a minute.’ George raised a hand but two henchmen appeared at his side and Dalevy took Irina by the elbow and led her away into the recess behind.

‘Time for supper, My Lord,’ one of the henchmen said.

Back at the Septimus Club, Lord George was worried. ‘Something is deeply wrong, Harry. She is a virtual prisoner!’

‘Well, drinking whiskies at this rate will not help, George. You need a plan.’

‘Plan? What the deuce can I do? There’s a cabal around her. It’s like a fortress of … of very large men!’

‘But you’re an army man, you must have a plan?’ said Harry.

George stood up and paced the room from one side to the other, glancing into the billiard room where the young ones were frittering away time as usual. ‘It’s no use, Harry, this is a desperate situation. What I need is information. Could we have another afternoon tea arranged by Maria? Or some way of finding out more about this Bruzov man? While I’m at it, what’s this Mannheim affair?’

‘You have me there old friend. But what we need is Smythe!’

Jemmy Smythe, long the filter of information from Eddie and his colleagues in Special Branch, had been expecting a call from the long lounge, as he sat and studied the form for the York meeting that week. Unusually, he was not called for but was in fact advanced upon by George and Harry, who came hurriedly into the quiet reading room, which was fortunately empty but for Smythe.

‘Ah My Lord …’ Smythe stood up.

‘Oh don’t be silly, Smythe. I need information …’

‘Well, I’d say Redbank for the York meeting tomorrow, a sound wager at a hundred to seven.’

‘You’re being obtuse, Smythe … you know why I’m here!’

‘Yes. Take a seat and I’ll give you a lecture on Russian history My Lord.’

They all huddled in a corner area, heads bowed close as Smythe helped himself to a bowl of sweetmeats which had been left close to hand. ‘Now, gentlemen, after Maria’s little party the other day I asked Eddie to tell me what is known about these Russians. You will recall that Tsar Alexander was murdered, nine years ago now, as he drove along in St Petersburg, ready for a parade of his worthy soldiers. He was the victim of a party of political radicals called Narodnaia Volia. Two years later, My Lord, you met Miss Danova in Tehran. There is a link. Eddie informs me that, as Russia has not experienced the kind of changes many wish to have happened, there are still many radicals. The girl you met in Persia was the sister of a leading light in a very advanced political group – more advanced in thinking even than the Narodnaia.’

‘What? Is she in the hands of the authorities? Why have they not taken her to Russia? Why is she free, and here?’ demanded George.

‘Please do not be concerned My Lord … we do not know the answer to that question. But we must assume that she is not a target. But she may be … an
instrument
. That is as much as Eddie and his police brains have ascertained.’

‘Well, man, they may be here for some nefarious purpose,’ said Harry; ‘all that Derby Day allusion! Who knows, they may be out to do some evil here!’

‘My instinct is that we should find their hotel and drag her out to safety!’ George said defiantly, now red with fury.

‘Be patient,’ soothed Smythe, ‘Maria is putting out her spies and Eddie has men following them.’

‘I’ll try, but it’s damned hard!’ George shouted out to the world in general.

In the Charing Cross hotel, Bruzov and his performers occupied a suite overlooking the river. In one sitting room, Irina and her maid were left to fill their time as they wished, but they were under observation, and Irina could not leave the hotel without permission, and this was restricted to a few hundred yards.

The morning after the concert at the Steinway Hall, Irina, after a restless night, expected some kind of admonishment from Bruzov. Sure enough, at nine, after breakfast, Bruzov entered the room. ‘What was all that last night – who is this Lord Lenham-Cawde?’

‘I have no idea. He liked me. Men do.’

‘My dear Irina, you know very well why we are here. This is not a holiday. Remember what you have to do. There is no time for, how shall I say, attachments. If you know this man, or if he is important in some way, then forget it. I happen to know that he is a sad bachelor, gambling and wasting time at the Septimus Club where these English aristocrats fritter away their lives. Forget him. Do I have to remind you what will happen if we fail?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then, as you know, today we do it.’

Irina was left alone with her thoughts, but could think of no way out. Mother Russia would dominate lives, as always. But there was one thing she could do. Bruzov had told her what she wanted to know – where to find George. If George were involved he could be in danger, but she could think of nothing else. She took the little golden owl brooch and kissed it, and then called for her maid.

‘Sarah, I know I can trust you. I want you to do something for me … it’s very important – a matter of life and death. Do you understand?’

The girl made a little bow. ‘Yes Milady. What is it?’

Irina kissed Glaucus and put him in an envelope, addressing it to Lord Lenham-Cawde at the Septimus Club. She used the hotel notepaper, with the letterhead and address.

‘I’ll make sure it gets there Miss,’ said Sarah.

Irina put a sovereign into the girl’s palm.

As Lord George occupied himself at Maria’s residence, Harry had spent the first hours of the day racking his brain, trying to think of a way to help his friend, before finally admitting defeat and picking up
The Times
lying on the table in the club sitting room. He read a feature on his friend Arthur Sullivan, who was apparently planning a new, serious opera. Flicking through the pages, he found the day’s events. An announcement caught his attention:

MESMERISM AND SIR FAWLEY JONES

At Buckingham Street, Strand, at 3: the Foreign Secretary, Sir Fawley Jones, whose interest in matters psychical are well known, will be introducing the celebrated practitioner of mesmerism, Jurgen Mannheim. He has been invited by the Society for Psychical Research to demonstrate the powers of hypnotic states in medicine. As Mannheim has written: ‘We learn from Mesmerism that there are in all of us hidden reserves of force, physical and moral, and there are vast unexplored tracts in our nature.’

Harry Lacey almost jumped from his seat. What was this? There was Mannheim and there too was the Foreign Secretary. Surely this was more than coincidence. But he needed to know more before he acted, so he determined to go to his files and study the biographical profile of Sir Fawley Jones.

Back at his rooms in Edwardes Square he soon found the file he was looking for and read: ‘Jones, Sir Fawley. B. 1848. Served in the East as military attaché in Delhi; later in first intelligence on gazetteer of the northern provinces. Politics – MP, 1880. Foreign Secretary 1882.’ Something was taking shape in Harry’s mind. Yes, he thought, it was a matter of who is attending and with whom, and why?

Glancing at the wall clock, he saw that it was almost one. There may not be time to cross London to collect George and then go on to the Strand, so he returned to the Septimus Club, wrote a message to be delivered to him at Maria’s, and then decided to go immediately to Scotland Yard and inform Eddie that he had found a link between Mannheim and the forthcoming event involving a prominent politician. As he left the Club, the letter arrived for George from Irina, and it was put on a shelf labelled ‘L’ under the charge of the commissionaire.

After leaving Maria’s Richmond Street address George decided to walk down the Edgware Road as far as Marble Arch, in order to think. His mind was preoccupied with the dilemma regarding Irina. The fact of the matter, he reflected, was that she was either excessively protected from her public, or that there was some other, more sinister, reason.

Instinct told him that there was something deeply wrong. His mind went back to her troubled face before they parted in Tehran, and how she would not tell him the source of her worries. He raked his memory to try and recall any information she had given him during their time together. She was from St Petersburg and her real name was Polichova, her father being Dmitri Polichevski – some kind of university lecturer. Then, as he stopped to concentrate, he remembered a phrase she had once said: ‘My father wants to take away the teeth of the Church.’ She had referred to the Church more than once, and the local power-hungry officials.

Have I found myself in love with a dangerous radical? he asked himself. Noticing that he was now at the corner of George Street, he decided to see if Harry was at home.