Death on the Nevskii Prospekt

11

The last dishes had been cleared away. The candles had burnt halfway down. A great-great-grandfather of Lady Lucy’s, resplendent in a scarlet coat with enormous moustaches and a chest covered with medals, painted by Lawrence, was standing to attention over the fireplace, surveying his descendants. A bottle of claret and a bottle of port awaited the gentlemen’s attention. Lady Lucy was sitting at the head of the table with Francis on her right and Johnny on her left. She felt so proud to have Francis home. Olivia had confided to her at bedtime that they were now a proper family once again, and while Lady Lucy might have questioned the assumption that she couldn’t cope on her own, she was largely in agreement.

Once again Powerscourt presented his account of his investigation so far. It was, perhaps, less full than the one he had given to Inspector Clayton that afternoon. He would, he said, confine himself to the facts in the first instance. When they had heard Johnny’s report on Mrs Martin, he might speculate. He made no mention of the torture chambers in the basement of the Okhrana headquarters or of the grisly paintings in the special section of the Hermitage. He stressed two things, the differences between the various Russian ministries and the secret service, and the fact that Martin had actually seen the Tsar. He mentioned the tapping of the Embassy telegraphs by the Okhrana and the private system operational between the brothers Crabbe in St Petersburg and London. He said he thought the investigation would now assume less and less importance in the eyes of the Russians. Their thoughts and their agencies would be increasingly devoted to the threat of terrorism and the broader political dilemma of repression or reform. He told of the affair between Roderick Martin and Tamara Kerenkova and the circumstances surrounding her banishment at the time of his last visit. The single most important thing in helping solve the problem, he said gravely, would be an interview with the Tsar. But then, his, Powerscourt’s, fate might be the same as Mr Martin’s. He said he had tried to think of a message to the British Embassy, ostensibly sent to de Chassiron, but designed to be read by the Okhrana, which might precipitate events that would unlock the mystery. So far he had failed. In any case, he pointed out, he wasn’t sure the Okhrana knew any more than he did. He looked forward to hearing Johnny’s report but unless there was some firm evidence from the solicitors or the telegraph company, he feared that the death of Mrs Martin would remain a mystery. If they could discover more about the telegraphs sent from the British Embassy on the evening or the night of Martin’s death, the situation might become clearer. For if Martin had sent a message to his wife, and if the message contained compromising material, and if the Okhrana read it almost immediately, then that might account for Martin’s death, assuming the message was sent after his visit to the Tsar. It would also explain the death of Mrs Martin, killed for the same reason as her husband. They were killed to keep their knowledge a secret. Martin could, he admitted, have sent a message earlier in the day once he knew his business would be concluded by his interview with the Tsar. He also looked forward, he said, to hearing the views of Lucy and Johnny. The only firm plan he had at present, he told them, was to stop off in Paris on his way back to St Petersburg and speak to somebody high up in the French secret service. He passed on de Chassiron’s judgement that they were the best informed organization in Europe about Russia and the court of the Tsar.

Johnny Fitzgerald began his account with the answers, as far as he knew them, to Powerscourt’s queries sent from St Petersburg. William Burke, he said, had reported that there were erratic swings in the balances of Martin’s bank account, consistent, Johnny now realized, with the visits to Russia and the possible purchases of treats and other delights for la Kerenkova. Martin’s train tickets for his various expeditions to the Russian capital had not been bought through the Foreign Office, but through a branch of Thomas Cook round the corner. That was perfectly proper as he was going on private business, or, possibly, spying business. Then he moved on to the life and times of Mrs Letitia Martin in her own village of Tibenham with a very large swig of his port. Johnny looked round happily at his friends. ‘I’ve got one surprise for you all,’ he said, ‘but as in all the best stories, I’m going to save it to the end. The first thing to say about Mrs Martin is that she was very popular. She always arrived in the village on her horse, never on foot, never in a carriage. The natives seem to like that. She was well known in the few shops. The vicar spoke warmly of her as a regular participant at Communion and a generous giver to the fund for the restoration of his church spire. Stood for four hundred years, could fall down next week, give generously today, as the vicar’s sign outside the church proclaims. There’s just one slight crack in this perfection. Mrs Martin was always very late in paying her bills. Sometimes, the butcher told me when his shop was completely empty, her suppliers might have to wait over a year to be paid.’

‘Had this been going on for a long time, Johnny, or was it a recent development?’ Powerscourt was fiddling with a fountain pen.

‘It had got very bad in the past few years, they said. Even the vicar had heard about it, for God’s sake. But it may tie in with William’s information about the fluctuating bank balance.’

Johnny seemed to regard discreditable information that reached the ears of the Church as especially trustworthy, almost as reliable as Holy Writ.

‘What about the Colonel, Johnny?’ said Lady Lucy. ‘I’m very keen to hear about the Colonel.’

‘The Colonel, the Colonel, I’m just coming to the Colonel, Lucy,’ said Johnny with a grin, virtually singing the words “the Colonel” as if it were the refrain in a ballad. ‘Colonel Peter Templeton Fitzmaurice, formerly of the Irish Rangers, one-time resident at Castleford Lodge, some ten miles from Tibenham, nine miles from the Grange. I have to say, ladies and gentlemen,’ Johnny looked at his hosts in turn, ‘that the hard evidence for any sort of relationship between those two is, well . . .’ Johnny paused, searching for the most appropriate phrase, ‘flimsy might be the right word. Or thin. Certainly inadmissible in a court of law. It started in the lounge bar of the Coach and Horses. I don’t mean any affair started there, but my information did. It was ten minutes or so before opening time and the landlady, a handsome woman in her early thirties, years younger than her husband, referred to them. “Of course, there’s that Mrs Martin and her special friend the Colonel,” she said, nodding vigorously at the word “special”. The same process then began to repeat itself. You know, Francis, you know those people who go about studying strange tribes in remote places and asking them questions – anthropologists, are they called? – they could have a field day down in rural Kent. Communication by non-verbal means, they could call it. I don’t think a single person used words like affair, close friendship, love, certainly not love. There was the serious nod, making the recipient of the nod complicit in the knowledge of the nodder. There was the tap, or even the double tap on the side of the nose. There was the rolling of the eyes. There were phrases like no better than she should be, carry on, carry along even. The lad who drives the little fly to the station and back was regarded as a priceless witness for the prosecution because he had once seen them standing together on the station platform With Luggage. No evidence that they were necessarily travelling together With Luggage, of course, but grist to the mill all the same.’

‘Was there any truth in it, Johnny? As far as you could discover?’ Lady Lucy smiled at him.

‘Well, yes, I think there is. Or was. You see, I took a trip over to Castleford Lodge earlier today. The Colonel is not in residence. The housekeeper is. I don’t know why, but housekeepers for some reason are much more forthcoming than butlers in my experience.’

‘It’s because you’re male,’ Powerscourt cut in.

‘I don’t think you should undermine a fellow investigator’s talents in that way, Francis, I really don’t. It’s quite uncalled for. She didn’t know Mrs Martin was dead, the housekeeper. Her face fell and she looked very pale when I told her. “The master would be so upset if he knew that,” she said, “he was so fond of that lady, he really was. When she came here to stay he’d be happy for days afterwards.” Then she burst into tears. I didn’t think it politic to inquire about the sleeping arrangements at that precise moment, so I left.’

‘Isn’t it curious,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘how the words could apply to her master alive or dead. I find that very strange. So which is he, Johnny, the amorous Colonel? Is he alive or is he dead?’

‘I don’t know. The housekeeper doesn’t know. I’ve nearly finished,’ said Johnny, eyeing his still half-full glass of port. ‘We know she was popular with the locals. We know she was hard up, sometimes very hard up. I don’t think she was mean. We know she was having a relationship of some sort with the Colonel, dead or alive. And . . .’ Johnny paused melodramatically, like the conjurer finally about to produce a hatful of rabbits or the Queen of Sheba, ‘we know that a week or ten days before her death she received a visit from a foreigner. A rather unusual foreigner.’ And Johnny tapped the side of the nose in the manner of the Tibenham residents he had described a few moments ago.

‘Stop teasing, Johnny,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘Who was it, Hottentot or Zulu, Afghan or Bedouin?’

‘Russian,’ said Johnny. ‘The lad in the fly brought him to and from the station to Tibenham Grange. When he asked the stranger where he came from – the man was wearing an astrakhan coat, for God’s sake – he said Russia. And then he smiled, apparently.’

‘Pretty big place, Russia,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Any city, by any chance? Kiev? Archangel? Moscow? Minsk? St Petersburg?’

‘I’m afraid he didn’t say and the lad didn’t ask. Pretty remiss of him, but there you are.’

Powerscourt started walking up and down the dining room, running his hand along the backs of the chairs. ‘Damn! Damn! Damn! I hate to say it but the really infuriating thing about this case is that so many people are dead. Both Martins for a start. We can’t ask them a thing.’

‘You know what happens in those circumstances, Francis,’ said Johnny flippantly, ‘there’s one lot of dead people and another lot of live people who want to find out what happened. The live lot send for some investigators to find the answers. That’s why we’re here, Francis, to find out why the other buggers are dead, isn’t it?’

‘Of course, Johnny, you’re right. I’m being stupid,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘But there are so many things a Martin could answer if only they were here. Who was this Russian? What was he doing here? Had he come from the Embassy to offer his condolences? Had he come from the Okhrana with a final message? Or had he come to find out if Mrs Martin had received a message from her husband in St Petersburg? Or was he the spy Martin’s handler in London, come to see Mrs Martin with messages of sympathy and large bundles of cash? I know I’m supposed to be offering suggestions as to what has been going on. I don’t discount the spy theory at all. Maybe the Okhrana asked Martin once he was in St Petersburg to perform some final, unbelievably dangerous act of treachery. He refuses. They kill him and create this smokescreen which has baffled me ever since.’

A disconsolate Powerscourt sat down and began to run his fingers through his hair.

‘Don’t worry, Francis,’ said Lucy, ‘you’ve had cases as difficult as this in the past and you’ve always solved them in the end.’

‘It wouldn’t look too good,’ her husband said bitterly, ‘if I allowed myself to be brought out of retirement for a case I couldn’t solve. I’d be finished then, as an investigator, totally finished and hung out to dry.’

‘Francis, Francis,’ said Johnny Fitzgerald, leaning over to refill his friend’s glass, ‘you are forgetting one of the most salient facts of this investigation, if you can have a most salient fact. What is that? I hear you ask. Quite simply this. You have been operating on your own. Single. Unaided. Achilles without Patroclus. Aeneas without whatever he’s called, the faithful Achates. Wellington without Blucher at Waterloo. You have not had me at your side to offer sympathy, friendship, intelligence, common sense and alcohol on your journey through this vale of tears. But I am here now. Oh yes, Johnny Fitzgerald is now on the case. So why don’t you make all our lives easier by offering up your thoughts as to what might have happened to the late Roderick Martin. And,’ he added as an afterthought, ‘to his wife, if you have formed any theories yet in that department. You don’t usually wait for the facts to get in the way of the theories.’

Powerscourt smiled. Lady Lucy felt relieved and stood up to give her husband a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘When you’re ready, Francis,’ she said, ‘we’re ready when you are.’

‘I said earlier,’ Powerscourt began, ‘that I would speculate about what has been going on in this case. I don’t think I feel capable of speculation yet, so what I would like to offer you are some questions to which I don’t know the answers.’ He gazed at Lady Lucy, suddenly realizing that the shape of her mouth and her chin were identical to those of their twin daughter Juliet. He found the thought cheering, knowing that a partial replica of Lucy would be at large in the world long after the original had gone.

‘Question Number One,’ he said, Lady Lucy fascinated to see that he was not, for once, emphasizing his point by tapping the index finger of one hand into the palm of the other, ‘may seem obscure, but it would help enormously if we knew the answer. Why did Martin not tell his mistress Tamara Kerenkova that he was coming to St Petersburg? He had always told her before. Why not this time? It was, after all, about to be the season for balls and dancing, even if the balls were not as magnificent as in years gone by on account of the Tsar not providing any entertainment because of the war with Japan. Did Martin know that her husband was in St Petersburg? But then that didn’t seem to have bothered either of them before. Has anybody any suggestions?’

‘Is it possible,’ said Lady Lucy, ‘that Martin had broken it off as you implied earlier? He promised his wife he would not see her and he kept to his word.’

‘And surely it’s equally possible,’ said Johnny, ‘that her husband did not know about any giving up on Martin’s part. Kerenkov killed him. He told the local police about the body and then his naval friends made it disappear. Isn’t it possible that we’re not dealing with high politics at all, Francis, but with the old story of the revenge of the jilted husband?’

‘Perfectly possible,’ agreed Powerscourt, ‘but that wouldn’t explain the interest of the Russian secret service in Martin and his movements. The biggest unanswered question is Martin’s meeting with the Tsar. Who arranged it? The British? Possibly. Or the Tsar? What in God’s name were they talking about that was so sensitive it had to bypass the Ambassador and the diplomats and the diplomatic protocol and the diplomatic bag? Military matters? Something to do with the naval conflict in the Far East? Were the British offering to break their treaty with the Japanese and ally themselves with the Russians? Unlikely, I should have thought. Were the British looking to extend their alliance with France to include France’s ally, Russia? The normal channels might be a trifle stormy just now after the sinking of those fishing boats, but the Tsar could take a long view. He needs all the allies he can get against his cousin Willy in Berlin, after all.’

‘Why are you so sure it had to do with high politics, Francis?’ asked Lady Lucy.

‘Because,’ he replied quickly, ‘I can’t think what else it might have been. The Tsar doesn’t need a man like Martin to get him an invitation to Cowes Week or to Ascot. He’s got teams of flunkeys to look after that side of things. If his wife wants some more furniture, they’ll send for a man from Maples, not a man from the Foreign Office. And it looks as if Martin was sent from London on a mission which included, or perhaps mainly consisted of, seeing the Tsar. I’m sure it had to do with politics, Lucy.’

‘And the third question, Francis?’ Lady Lucy was well used to questions in her husband’s investigations that came in numbers now, numbers sometimes quite small, unrolling themselves like the platforms in some great railway station, on other occasions growing into large numbers that taxed her ability with figures.

‘I think,’ Powerscourt began, ‘that the last question has to do with the inability of the various bits of the Russian bureaucracy to agree with each other. Why weren’t they all singing the same tune about Martin’s death? Why didn’t the Foreign Ministry know about Martin’s previous visits to St Petersburg? Come to that, why didn’t the Okhrana? I think there may be a perfectly simple explanation that has to do with the nature of bureaucracies whether they’re in modern Russia or ancient Rome. They’re all competing with each other in a spirit of Darwinian struggle if not for the survival of the fittest, then certainly to be the part of the system with the best information for their master. De Chassiron told me that all sorts of the imperial protection units had their elite corps looking after the Tsar, the police, the household troops, the customs, the navy and so on. One of them is going to know what happened to Martin, I’m certain of it. As to which one, I simply haven’t a clue.’

Powerscourt got up and poured himself another glass of claret. ‘There’s another possibility, actually,’ he said. ‘I’ve only just thought of it. You know I’ve always wondered if Martin was a double agent, a man really working for the Russians rather than his own side. He’d be a perfect recruit with his brains and his career prospects. Imagine having the British Ambassador in Washington or Berlin reporting direct to the Tsar in the Winter Palace. But suppose the British find out. They decide there’s only one thing to do with him. They kill him. And they send a message to his masters in St Petersburg that they know what has been going on by dumping his body, or appearing to dump his body, on the most famous street in the Russian capital. I’m just a distraction, a means of trying to persuade everybody that Martin is really a good British man after all.’

‘I’ll say one thing for you, Francis,’ said Johnny, ‘you may have been away from investigations for a year or two but the brain hasn’t got any slower.’

‘I should hope not,’ said Lady Lucy loyally, wondering, as she had all evening, how much her husband was not telling her about what went on in St Petersburg.

In his little office at the back of the Alexander Palace Major Andrey Shatilov of the Imperial Guard, Royal Palaces Security Division, was reviewing the reports on Suspect No. 28,487B. This was only one of the hundreds of such files that passed through his office every day. The Major was only concerned with the St Petersburg district. Other officers had Moscow and the provinces, especially the royal palace at Livadia in the Crimea, under their control. Shatilov saw that Suspect No. 28,487B was employed as a lady-in-waiting in the Alexander Palace. This made him immediately suspicious as many of the waiters and the footmen and the grooms and the maids were already on the payroll of the Imperial Guard. There were, in the Major’s view, few finer places to obtain accurate first-hand intelligence on the imperial family. And 28,487B’s activities outside Tsarskoe Selo were equally suspect. She was consorting with a rich young nobleman called Mikhail Shaporov, whose father was suspected of links and contacts right across the political spectrum from the Social Revolutionaries on the extreme left to even more dubious cells on the far right. Shaporov pere would not, the Major reflected grimly, be the first one in uncertain times to take out as many insurance policies as possible. Then there was the Englishman, Powerscourt, with whom she had been observed in three separate locations, including one at the Imperial Yacht Club where they had been inquiring about the dead man, Martin. Powerscourt, the Major saw on his file, had returned to England but was expected to come back to St Petersburg in the near future. He was some sort of an investigator, despatched to look into the death of the wretched Martin. Soon, Major Shatilov said to himself, soon we shall have Miss Natasha Bobrinsky in for questioning. That way we shall also send a message to this fool Englishman come to meddle in other people’s affairs.

The offices of Evans Watkinson and Ragg were in a handsome eighteenth-century building at the end of Tonbridge High Street nearest the church. A collection of prints of clippers, elegant vessels with greyhound lines that used to speed across the Atlantic or the tea routes to China, adorned the reception area, manned by an ancient greybeard who looked as if he might have begun his career during the Crimean War. Mr Ragg, Mr Theodore Ragg, Powerscourt was told, would attend to him, if Lord Powerscourt would step this way up to the first floor.

Ragg was about fifty years of age, with a small well-trimmed moustache and suspicious brown eyes. He was wearing a brown suit that his wife might have told him was slightly past its best. Powerscourt wondered if there was a Mrs Ragg and decided that there probably was. Lucy could always tell about these things.

‘You’re here about Mr and Mrs Martin, I understand, Lord Powerscourt?’ Ragg’s voice sounded to Powerscourt as though he disapproved of investigators as a class, and even more of ones who were lords.

‘Yes, I am,’ said Powerscourt brightly. ‘I was asked by the Foreign Office to look into the death of Mr Martin in St Petersburg, you see.’

‘Indeed,’ said Ragg. ‘I would point out, however, that this is Tonbridge rather than the Russian capital. How may we assist you here?’

Powerscourt realized that brevity might be the order of the day. ‘Did either of them leave a will?’

‘No,’ said Ragg.

‘To whom does the estate pass in that case?’

‘I am not sure I am at liberty to tell you that, Lord Powerscourt.’

‘Tell me, tell me not,’ said Powerscourt quickly, ‘but if you do not tell me you will have the police here this afternoon, and they will take up even more of your valuable time, Mr Ragg. Are you competent at shorthand? Some of the London forces are like lightning with it. I have never cared for it myself. But the chances are that a policeman taking very slow shorthand could take up most of your afternoon. And if by any chance you should decide not to co-operate with the police, you would have the Foreign Office lawyers to deal with instead. Charming, the Foreign Office lawyers, of course, but pretty brutal, I think you’d find.’

‘As far as we know, Mr Samuel Martin, some sort of cousin,’ said Ragg, with considerable malice.

‘Address, Mr Ragg, address?’

‘I’m not obliged to give you that.’

‘For God’s sake, man. We’re talking about one or possibly two murders here and you are refusing to hand over an address. It’s not credible.’ Suddenly a dark suspicion flitted across Powerscourt’s mind. ‘You don’t represent Mr Samuel Martin too, do you, Mr Ragg?’

‘No, I don’t. 128 Hornsey Lane, London N is the address you seek.’

‘I also understand,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that there was something resembling a family feud concerning the ownership of this house and estate the last time they changed hands. Is that so?’

‘It is so, and a very interesting case it proved to be, Lord Powerscourt.’

Theodore Ragg seemed to have softened suddenly. Powerscourt wondered if it was the legal subtlety of the case or the size of the fees and the length of the affair that caused the sudden change in his temperament. The answer was soon apparent.

‘Fascinating case, my lord, fascinating,’ said Theodore Ragg with a faraway look in his eyes. ‘It went on for over five years before it was finally settled in the House of Lords.’

Five years of fees, Powerscourt thought, noticing also that Thedodore Ragg’s gums seemed to be bleeding slightly. The man was having to swallow constantly to stop drops of blood escaping down his chin. Maybe this accounted for his earlier ill temper. Maybe he didn’t like dentists.

‘Old Mr Martin, the dead Mr Martin’s benefactor, was very ill at the end, Lord Powerscourt, this must have been over twenty years ago now,’ said Ragg. ‘His mind was going, you see. Mr and Mrs Roderick Martin were abroad on Foreign Office business, they were very young then, so Mr Samuel Martin and his wife came to stay to look after the old gentleman. If my memory serves me, Mr Roderick Martin was first cousin, and Mr Samuel Martin second cousin, twice removed. We used to have their family trees all over the offices here in those days. The Samuel Martins tried to get rid of the old man’s own doctor, Dr Morgan, but he, the doctor, didn’t like the look of what was going on. He kept coming back to see the old man whenever he could. The staff used to let him in the back door. Then the Samuel Martins brought in another doctor, a man nobody liked, by the name of West, Barnabas West. And when the old gentleman finally died, the Samuel Martins produced another will, signed two weeks before he passed on, leaving the house and the estate and the money to the Samuel Martins and witnessed, among others, by the doctor, West. Then the Samuel Martins promptly moved into Tibenham Grange and took charge of their inheritance. When Roderick Martin came back, he said the other will was a forgery. He went to court with the original will, signed some ten years before and kept here in our safe. Originally the lawyers said that the later will had to take precedence and it was up to Mr Roderick to prove otherwise. Well, my lord, we used to say it would become like Jarndyce versus Jarndyce, Martin versus Martin, new counsel being instructed every six months, new judges in the Court of Appeal who didn’t know the background. Eventually it was proved that the signatures of one of the witnesses were forgeries and that was an end to it.’

Ragg sank back a little, obviously tired by his narrative. Powerscourt wondered if his entire career had been a disappointment after that. ‘What a fascinating time it must have been, Mr Ragg. Did the two sides of the Martin family bury the hatchet in the end?’

There was a cackle from the solicitor. Now at last, Powerscourt thought, blood was going to escape from the unfortunate man’s mouth. But with a Herculean effort, swallowing hard three times like a seabird swallowing a fish, Theodore Ragg kept his dignity. ‘Bury the hatchet, Lord Powerscourt? The only way either side would have been satisfied would have been to bury the hatchet in the other party’s neck. I’m sure that’s still true today.’

Suddenly Theodore Ragg looked exhausted. He began to look anxious like a man who thinks he might miss his train or fail to make his connection. Powerscourt wondered if the blood was an omen of something rather more sinister than bad gums. He remembered a previous President of the Royal Academy coughing blood into a series of perfectly laundered white handkerchiefs and dying not long afterwards.

‘I must leave you in peace, Mr Ragg,’ said Powerscourt, looking into the sad brown eyes of the solicitor. ‘Just one last question. How old would Mr Samuel Martin be now?’

‘About fifty or a few years more,’ said Ragg. ‘Forgive me if I was rude earlier on, Lord Powerscourt. I was feeling particularly unwell.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ said Powerscourt, rising to his feet and heading for the door. ‘There’s nothing to forgive, you have been most helpful.’

As he made his way towards the front door, he understood what an enormous effort Theodore Ragg must have been making during their conversation. The coughing in the room behind him began like a slow rumble far off, then it turned into a great hacking shriek, and finally it ebbed away into sounds of weeping. Powerscourt could hear doors opening and closing as the partners went to offer help and comfort to their dying colleague.

The telegraph office was but a hundred yards away down the High Street. Powerscourt was shown into the office of the manager, a dapper young man by the name of Charlie Dean, who looked as if he and his clothes would have been happier in Finsbury Circus or Leadenhall Street in the City of London. He was quick to grasp the import of Powerscourt’s visit and the importance of any possible messages from St Petersburg.

‘How long would we keep a message, you ask, my lord. Three months.’

Fine, thought Powerscourt. If Martin had sent any message to his wife here, and if, for some reason she had forgotten to collect it, the message should still be somewhere in the system.

‘And what kind of authority would you need before you handed the message over to somebody, Mr Dean?’

‘Company rules say we have to try three times to deliver to the recipient in person. Well, we tried and failed three times in this case so now it could be handed over to anybody with a proof of connection with the address. If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, Lord Powerscourt, I don’t think anybody has been in here asking for cables they have no business with. We know most of our customers in a place like this, you see.’ Charlie Dean sounded rather sad as he said that. Powerscourt thought he would be much happier somewhere very busy in the metropolis where every customer was a perfect stranger, a new challenge, offering possibilities of fresh messages and fresh romance.

‘And suppose you wanted to send a message the other way, Mr Dean. Would you have a copy of anything Mrs Martin might have sent to Russia?’

‘That would be before she was killed, I suppose,’ said Charlie happily, glad to welcome murder to the Tonbridge telegraph office. ‘Well, there should be a copy of that too. If you wait here, my lord, I’ll just go and make some inquiries.’

The walls of the little office were adorned with prints of great cricketers like C.B. Fry and Ranjitsinghi, interspersed with modern photographs of ancient telegraphic equipment. Powerscourt was reflecting that a man who scored as fast as Fry could probably transmit a telegraph message at record speed when the manager returned, in a very excited state.

‘Look, Lord Powerscourt, it’s a message! From Russia!’ He handed Powerscourt the thin envelope used to protect the cable. It came from St Petersburg, dated December 22nd, possibly the very date of Mr Martin’s death.

‘Has this been here ever since? Nobody has asked for it or anything like that?’ said Powerscourt.

‘It’s been here ever since,’ said Charlie Dean. ‘Aren’t you going to open it? The fiendish killer might be unmasked right here in this office, my lord.’

Powerscourt grinned. He wondered if Charlie was a regular reader of the adventures of heroes like Sexton Blake with their emphasis on excitement and melodrama rather than detection and analysis. He looked at the envelope.

‘What are you thinking, my lord? Do you feel you may have the master criminal in your hands?’ Powerscourt was feeling rather nervous. This could be the answer to all his problems. It could mean that he would never have to go back to St Petersburg. Above all, he thought of Roderick Martin. Did he send this message before he saw the Tsar or after? If it was after, had he put in the cable the news that was to kill him, and might have killed his wife too? The message, after all, might have been in the hands of the Russian security services inside the hour. Plenty of time to prepare an expedition to Tibenham Grange and push a widow into the moat beneath. And, maybe more important yet, how much longer did Martin have left to live when he wrote it?

Charlie Dean’s eyes were burning bright. His brain seemed to have taken off to some fictional Valhalla. ‘Maybe he’s going to tell of the deadly fight on the ice floe with the Russian killers, my lord. Maybe the chief villain behind Mr Martin’s murder is going to be exposed at last!’

Powerscourt opened the envelope. He looked rather sadly at the message. He handed it over to Charlie.

‘Coming home tomorrow, Thursday,’ it read, ‘should be back in three or four days.’

‘It must be in code, my lord,’ said Charlie feverishly. ‘Tomorrow probably means enemies vanquished and Thursday means, well, coming home Thursday.’

‘I think we’ll find,’ said Powerscourt, folding the message carefully and putting it in his pocket, ‘that the message is more useful than might first appear.’

‘You mean there is a secret code, my lord?’ Hope died hard in Charlie Dean’s heart.

‘Not exactly,’ said Powerscourt with a smile, ‘but think about what the message says. He must have done, or been about to do, whatever he went to St Petersburg for, don’t you see, Charlie? Otherwise he wouldn’t be so confident about coming home tomorrow. Mission accomplished, that’s how I read that bit.’ Privately, Powerscourt wasn’t so sure. It could mean, this has all been a complete disaster, so I’m coming home tomorrow, he said to himself, though he wasn’t convinced. And had he sent it during the day? Or in the evening when Ricky Crabbe thought somebody else had been using his machines? And why – Powerscourt’s brain was circling round the problem like a bird of prey – hadn’t Mrs Martin come to pick it up? Maybe her husband wasn’t in the habit of sending messages. After the shock of his death it could have passed completely out of her mind as she mourned for her husband.

‘And the other thing, Charlie,’ said Powerscourt, keen to bring as much excitement as possible to the young of Tonbridge, ‘is that sending this may have been one of the last things he did alive.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Charlie. ‘Did the Cossack monsters charge in and drag him off the telegraph machine to his death?’

‘Not quite,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but he could have been killed very soon afterwards, outside in the snow.’

‘I’ll never forget this morning, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Charlie. ‘For me, it’s been so exciting. I know I read too many of those detective stories, but this has been like a look through the door of one of them. I’m ever so grateful, my lord.’

‘I tell you what I’ll do, Charlie,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘When I know what happened, what really happened, I’ll let you know. I tell you what, even better, I’ll send you a telegram.’

Forty minutes later Powerscourt was climbing up the little stone staircase that led to the top of the tower at Tibenham Grange. Of Inspector Clayton, or Constable Watchett, keeping the property free of visiting architects, there was, at present, no sign. As he stood on the top once more Powerscourt gazed intently at every single stone in the surface, in case they had all overlooked a vital clue. He stared into the woods, imagining a fifty-five year old man, bent on revenge for what had happened all those years before, inching his way towards the Grange. He saw him helping himself to a weapon in the kitchen and presenting himself in front of an unsuspecting Mrs Martin in her favourite bay in the library. Then he saw her marched at knifepoint through the house she loved towards the tower from where she would see it no more. He saw the man creeping back through the woods towards a train to London, secure in the knowledge that this time his claim on the estate would surely win the day. He was woken from his reverie by a loud shout from Inspector Clayton who had appeared suddenly on the lawn.

‘Thank God you’ve come,’ yelled the Inspector. ‘See you in the library.’

There a panting Inspector delivered his message. ‘You’re to return to London, my lord, as soon as possible, your wife says. There’s news from Russia. Lady Powerscourt didn’t say what it was, but it surely concerns the investigation.’

Before he set off for the station Powerscourt told Clayton all he had discovered about the earlier court case from Theodore Ragg, and he showed him the telegram from St Petersburg.

‘I wish that message had been more help to you, my lord,’ said the Inspector. ‘Do you think it likely that this old family feud has come to the surface?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but I’m sure we have to look at it closely. If we can eliminate the other Martin, as it were, we’re still left with the original three contenders.’

‘Three?’ said Inspector Clayton.

‘Three,’ Powerscourt replied firmly. ‘Did she fall, did she jump, or was she pushed? Something tells me we may never find the answer.’

Powerscourt was lucky enough to secure a whole compartment to himself on the way back to London. He sat by the window and stared out over Kent. He hoped, he prayed, that the news from St Petersburg was not what he feared it might be. He wondered if he should take Johnny Fitzgerald back with him or leave him working on the death of Mrs Martin. He wondered how upset Lady Lucy would be if he disappeared into dangerous territory once again. He wondered, less seriously, if he should buy more dolls and soldiers for the twins.

The message was brief, sent by Mikhail Shaporov via his father’s private system to William Burke. ‘Natasha due to meet me at four o’clock yesterday,’ it said, ‘but she did not appear. Nor has she come today. What should I do? Mikhail.’

Powerscourt swore violently to himself. It was what he had feared, that something would happen to the girl. Had she fallen into the hands of the Okhrana? Would she live to survive her incarceration? Was Natasha Bobrinsky, young, beautiful and clever, about to meet the fate of Roderick Martin on the ice of the Nevskii Prospekt?