Death Comes to the Ballets Russes (25 page)

‘Even art must go on,’ said Powerscourt, sensing that somewhere there must be a key to unlock Diaghilev’s intransigence, ‘art must go on on Monday and art must go on on Tuesday and art must go on on Wednesday. There’s another thing that would help mark the glories and the triumphs of yesterday.’

Powerscourt was to tell Lady Lucy later that he had no idea where this next suggestion came from.

‘I have one further thought, Monsieur Diaghilev. Why not erect a plaque on this bridge in memory of Vera Belitsky, the dead girl? You could say her death happened after the performance. Maybe you should start collections after each performance for a fund to start a scholarship in her memory.’

M. Fokine suddenly sprang into life. ‘It could be a scholarship for a poor dancer to attend the Imperial Theatre School back home, Sergei Pavlovich. That way her memory would live as long as the ballet.’

Diaghilev sighed. ‘Sometimes I think I am like that man in Shakespeare who is surrounded by a sea of troubles which come not in a single one but in battalions. I have to carry the entire weight of the Ballets Russes on my shoulders and sometimes it feels too heavy to bear. But I like the plaque. I like the scholarship. We shall do as you ask. Perhaps you could see to it, Fokine.’

With that Diaghilev waddled off away from the house towards the great obelisk on the high ground above the lake. Powerscourt couldn’t help wondering
if he was going to take its measurements for an obelisk of his own.

Natasha Shaporova’s train was leaving Cologne, the twin spires of the great cathedral still visible from her carriage window. Once she heard from one of the corps de ballet that Alexander Taneyev was always writing letters home, she did not hesitate. She caught the earliest express that could connect to St Petersburg and set off. She packed a bag and Tolstoy’s
War and Peace
, which she had always meant to read but never got round to starting. She felt it would last her on the outward and the return journeys. Even as she read about the salons of St Petersburg, a part of her brain was saying to her: father, mother, three sisters, friends, sweethearts – was there one person Alexander Taneyev confided in? Who was it? She looked out at the German countryside now shooting past her window. Change in Berlin.

Arthur Cooper was as distressed as he had ever been in his new faith of world revolution, which had been inspired by the scriptures of Lenin and his followers. He had at last found the printer he wanted, a man who could organize the translation from the original Russian into English, and the printing of five hundred copies of each tract. ‘What Is to Be Done Now?’ he had learned, was the title of the latest gospel from Lenin’s fertile pen in Cracow. The comrade, one Harry Smith, had a regular press in Clerkenwell, on which he would print all sorts of subversive literature. In Arthur
Cooper’s world he should be offering to carry out the work for a nominal sum. But he wasn’t. Cooper did not know it, but the tale of the roubles changed into pounds – and the very large totals of those transactions – was now common knowledge among a select few of the capital’s revolutionary vanguard. And Harry Smith was one of them.

‘It’s not like it was in the old days, comrade. With these new laws they could lock me up in jail for a long time for spreading this kind of stuff around.’

‘That’s not the point,’ replied Cooper, ‘it’s doing Lenin’s work. That shouldn’t be charged at your exorbitant rates and you know it.’

‘I’ll know it full well when the bloody policemen come knocking at my door. You’ve got to pay the going rate for the job. Why isn’t he circulating the English pamphlet here in England, anyway? Answer me that.’

‘Security, that’s what.’ All difficult questions were to be answered, Lenin’s courier had told him, with that blanket response.

‘If you don’t like my price, go and find somebody else who’ll do it.’

The comrades in Cracow, Cooper had been told, were most anxious that he should clinch the deal.

‘All right. One thousand pounds for the lot. I can’t say I’m happy with that, but it’ll have to do.’

‘Very good. I knew you’d come round in the end.’ ‘Who should I deliver the pamphlets to?’

‘Bring them back here, heavily marked with the words Ballets Russes, Customs Requisitions and Clearances.’

‘Very good.’

As Cooper showed his printer out of the back door,
he suddenly knew how he felt. It was if he was still a true believer in the Evangelical side of Christianity, who arrives at Heaven’s gates only to be told by St Peter that a substantial entry fee would be required.

Lady Lucy had taken over the role of friend and counsellor to the girls of the corps de ballet. A translator was found among the great army of her relations in the capital. She had borrowed the samovar and a couple of icons from Natasha’s housekeeper and was reading the notes made after each visit. She thanked her lucky stars that Natasha had written them in English.

‘There’s only one thing that hits you after you’ve read all these things, Francis,’ she said.

‘And what’s that?’ said her husband absent-mindedly. He was reading a selection of the newspapers and their coverage of the Ballets Russes’s display at Blenheim Palace. Most of them were ecstatic; tactfully they had kept the story of the dead girl for the later paragraphs. Fokine had told him to look out for the photographs of the Duke and his lady. The photographers, unaware of the lack of title, had taken shots of them together all over the place, on the steps of the palace, progressing down the great sweep of the entrance court to the bridge, sitting applauding the performers. One inhabitant of Blenheim Palace, at least, would be happy with the coverage and consider the money well spent. Even though Gladys Deacon had still not been described as the Duchess.

‘It’s that man Bolm. He was after those girls like a man possessed. I’m sure one of them could have killed him. But there’s a further complication, Francis.
You said that he pulled out about two o’clock in the afternoon because he was ill and Alexander Taneyev took over. So anybody inside the company would have known that the young Alexander and not the older man Bolm was to dance the Prince. But if you were an outsider, a man paid to do the job, you might not have known that. You could have lurked about in the scenic area and the backstage areas and gone to kill the chap who came down through the trapdoor. You mightn’t even realize you’d killed the wrong man until you read about it the next day.’

‘There is and there always has been,’ agreed Powerscourt, ‘a terrible question mark at the heart of the first murder. Did they kill Taneyev because he was Taneyev, or did they kill him because they thought he was Bolm? Or did Bolm take the evening off because he knew he or his associates would be able to kill Taneyev? Nobody backstage would have noticed Bolm at all. I think I’m going to ask the Inspector to make a further check on Bolm’s movements for the whole day. He could, for example, have decided to kill Taneyev days before and laid his plans accordingly, only telling the theatre people after lunch.’

‘I’ve rather grown to dislike Mr Bolm, making his advances on these young girls all over the place and at all times of day.’

‘Doesn’t necessarily make him a murderer,’ said Lord Francis Powerscourt.

East Prussia stretched out in front of Natasha Shaporova’s train. She was making good progress with
War and Peace
. Her knowledge of geography was poor
and she wondered if Napoleon’s armies had crossed the same space a hundred years before. She remembered somebody telling her that Tolstoy himself had seen military service in the Crimea. She hoped that there wouldn’t be too much marching about and military manoeuvres. Never far from her mind was a family that might not be too different from
War and Peace
’s Bolkonskys and Rostovs: the family Taneyev, with its treasure trove of letters from the dead Alexander. Change in Warsaw.

Anastasia couldn’t tell anybody in the Ballets Russes what had happened. She knew it would mean expulsion from the company, let alone possible prosecution for being an associate to theft in St Petersburg. She had cried so much and for so long that she thought there couldn’t be any tears left in her little body. She found Lady Lucy’s address and set out for Markham Square. Somebody had told her that the husband was a detective. Perhaps he would be able to help. She knew Lady Lucy’s address and hailed a taxi to take her to Markham Square. Fresh reserves and reservoirs of tears overcame her so much in the cab that the driver leant back and offered her his best handkerchief, perfectly washed and pressed by the cabbie’s wife in Harringey. He even forgot to ask her for the fare, but ushered her to the Powerscourt door and waited for Rhys to let her in. The butler had seen all sorts and conditions of visitors to Markham Square in his time but never one as distraught as this. Her whole life seemed to have come to an end.

‘Anastasia from the corps de ballet,’ he announced
to Lady Lucy, who was reading the forthcoming programme for the ballet.

‘Anastasia, you poor thing,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Your eyes are so red you must have been crying all afternoon.’ She helped the girl into the large armchair by the fire. ‘Would you like some tea? Something stronger? A glass of water?’

Through her sobs, the girl managed to nod for the glass of water.