Rasputin's Revenge (37 page)

As the applause continued, Muret got up and went to the stage. Seconds later, he escorted a smiling Varya Panina back to our booth. Upon being introduced to Lupa and me, she stopped. “But surely you two … that night the
tyemniy
—Rasputin—was here …”

“That’s right,” Lupa said.

She smiled and her face, with such unattractive features, became a thing of its own rare beauty. She reached out her hand, first to me, then to Lupa. “I know now who you are.” She paused. “Thank you.”

Lupa, most uncharacteristically, held to her hand. “Could I ask you a question, madam?”

“Surely, anything.”

“That last song—what was it about?”

She shrugged, then answered in her deep, rich voice. “The same as always—love. That is all my songs. Love. What else is there? That is life, eh?” Lupa nodded and let go of her hand, and she went back toward the stage.

He hung his head for a moment and I could see him pursing his lips in and out, out and in. Then, straightening up, he looked across the table at his father.

“I’m thinking of going to England from here. I was wondering if I might stay a while with you?” he asked. “If you’re too busy, I’d understand, but …”

“No, not at all. Capital idea!” Watson exclaimed, bursting in before Holmes could respond. “Holmes, don’t you agree?”

The great detective nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I’d like that.” He nodded again, and smiled. “I’d like that very much. Stay as long as you wish.”

Lupa leaned back in the booth and looked from his father to Dr. Watson and back to his father again. The corners of his mouth turned up a centimeter in what was for him his broadest grin. Behind us, the guitarists began the introduction to another song. He lifted his half-full beer glass and raising it to his lips, drained it in one gulp. Putting the glass down gently, he wiped his lips with his napkin and sighed deeply.

“Satisfactory,” he said. “Very satisfactory.”

25

[
KREMLIN FILE NO. JG
0665–5104;
PSS ACCESS, OPEN
]

French Embassy

St. Petersburg   

14 janvier, 1917

Tania Chessal-Giraud

Le Vendange

Valence, France

My dear Tania:

I pray you have received my telegram, and more, that it arrived before the letter I wrote you from jail. I am well, and free, and on my way home. Paleologue (our ambassador here) assures me delivery of this missive by diplomatic pouch, and even so I am having a clerk copy it and leaving the copy here so you will believe I have written you during this long absence.

It has been a grueling experience, but now as I prepare to leave, I am heartened by the success of the job I came here to do. Or by both of them—Lupa’s and Foch’s.

In Lupa’s case, our young friend, with some help from me but mostly with the assistance of his father, the famous English detective Sherlock Holmes, solved the mystery of the Palace murders.

More importantly for me, the Czar has finally accepted the French offer—my offer!—of arms and money in exchange for a
commitment to the Eastern Front at least through the summer. This is the best possible news for France and for the Allied War effort, and I am very proud of my part in it.

I want to tell you everything but most of it will have to wait until I get home. You will guess, at least, that Lupa and I were completely pardoned before I would be allowed to see the Czar again. He is such a gentle and good man. He felt terrible about our imprisonment, and apologized profusely, but he really viewed the entire affair as outside of his control. It is a strange dichotomy in a man with absolute power.

His son, Alexis, is the hope of Russia’s future, if it is to have one. I can say without any exaggeration that without him, none of our successes could have transpired. I even suspect he orchestrated our pardon, though he insists that his mother came to her decision on her own. Nevertheless, if all royalty through the ages could have combined his humor, grace, courage, intelligence, and force of will …

Well, I will never be a monarchist, but suffice it to say the world would have been spared many of its worst tragedies.

I’m afraid that it’s becoming less certain every day that the boy will ever wear the crown his mother has worked so hard to preserve for him. My joy in coming home and my pride in my mission are both tempered by conditions here. They are bad. They were bad when I arrived in October, and they have only worsened.

L’Affaire Rasputin has driven another nail into the coffin of the Romanov reign. No one seems able to credit the fact that Alexandra, so intimate with Rasputin, didn’t see him for what he was. It is generally believed that she knew about his atrocious behavior and tolerated it, although the truth may be that she really never saw it, or at least never believed he did the things of which he was accused. In either event, the result is that respect for the crown is practically nonexistent.

Revolution is on everyone’s lips and in everyone’s mind. As a republican, this should delight me, but somehow one senses anarchy ahead, and violence—not a new and better order, but a chaotic upheaval resulting in who knows what. It is a frightening time, and I am glad to be getting out.

Sherlock Holmes and his colleague Dr. Watson left for England on the
Standart
, the Czar’s personal flagship, two weeks ago, and Lupa accompanied them. They set off just in time. The port, choked with ice, closed for the Winter only four days ago.

After spending some time with his father in Sussex Downs in England, Lupa plans to go to New York City. As an American citizen, he says he will be supporting that country’s growing War effort in some capacity, and when this tragedy concludes (let us pray with an Allied victory), he intends to strike out on his own as a consulting detective. I wish him luck, but told him in no uncertain terms that my own involvement in his affairs is at an end.

There was a rumor that Nicholas was going to decorate us for services to the crown, but nothing has come of that, probably because of Alexandra—she is still hurt and bitter over Rasputin, and I think the mere sight of Lupa or myself reminds her of her own gullibility. In compensation, however, the Czar was more than generous to us, presenting Lupa with a small velvet bag filled with a dozen or so diamonds. He also gave me something that I plan to give to you, so for the moment I will keep it to myself.

I would have preferred to have taken the
Standart
when it left, but there were many details of the agreement to be worked out between the Czar, Paleologue and myself, and I wanted to see it through. Tomorrow, though, I will board the train and travel south to the Crimea, then across the Black Sea to Istanbul, to Athens, around the boot to Marseilles, and finally to your side. It is a longer trip, but safer, and after what I have been through here, that more than compensates. With luck, I will be home to see the first buds on the vines.

Outside the room I am using for an office here at the Embassy, the snow continues to fall, as it has so steadily during this brutal winter. I look across the deserted street and wonder at the events that took place nearly a quarter of a century ago at a little-known waterfall in a corner of Switzerland.

Rasputin is dead and Lupa lives. Why, then, as I look out on the frozen city, do I feel that Rasputin has had his revenge after all? The events he set in motion by his hatred still curl in eddies of unrest through the current of Russian life.

Last night I dreamed I was with Alexis in the Winter Palace. A blizzard was raging, but somehow we knew that outside a fire was devouring the capital. As the smoke reached us, we made our way, choking, to Alexis’ “secret place” on the roof. St. Petersburg lay in flames all around us, and over the din of panic and suffering coming up to us from below, we heard another noise, a half-human sound that turned my blood to ice.

“Monsieur Giraud,” Alexis asked me. “Why is Grishka laughing? Can we make it stop?”

As the roof caved in, I woke up, but in the howl of the wind outside I could still hear Rasputin’s triumphant cry. And I was left with Alexis’ question—can we make it stop?

Forgive me. I let myself grow maudlin as the storm increased. I’ve taken a break and shared a cognac with Maurice Paleologue, and my attitude is better. Why be pessimistic when there is so much to be thankful for? The Czar is still in power, the Eastern Front is alive, Rasputin is no more, and I must believe that Alexis someday will rule a powerful, stable, modern Russia with a fair and even hand.

Perhaps after the War, we can come back and visit as his guests. He is a wonderful boy whom you would love.

For now, I must get back to packing, and post this letter. I cannot say how much I miss you and love you, and how I long to walk with you again on the soil of our beloved France.

Your husband,

Jules              

E
PILOGUE

T
wo months after Giraud left St. Petersburg, Nicholas abdicated the throne, and the Russian Revolution began. The Romanovs—Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia, and Alexis—were arrested. They remained confined at Tsarkoye Selo for a while, then were transferred to Siberia and other outposts while the rest of the civilized world ignored their plight and a series of Russian provisional governments struggled to bring order out of the chaos.

In October, 1917, the Bolsheviks came to power, forged a separate peace with Germany, and proclaimed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

On July 16, 1918 (New Style), after fifteen months of captivity, Czar Nicholas Romanov and his entire family were executed by a Bolshevik death squad in the cellar of a country estate in Ekaterinburg, a small city on the Eastern slope of the Ural Mountains.

Even after the Czar’s government fell, Giraud’s mission continued to bear fruit. Heroic efforts by Russian troops on the Eastern Front, newly fortified with French ordnance but still ill-equipped, diverted enough German divisions to allow the Western Front to survive until fresh American troops arrived on the Continent and tipped the precarious balance of power finally to the Allies.

© Exley-Foto, Inc.

J
OHN
L
ESCROART
, the
New York Times
bestselling author of such novels as
The Mercy Rule, The 13th
Juror, Nothing But the Truth
, and
The Hearing
, lives with his family in northern California.