The King's Commisar

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

----------------

Out of the myths of time . . .

Gossips were apt to say in the pubs of the City of London that to rattle Gibraltar would be a good deal easier than to rattle Sir Horace Malory. Even so, he became rattled on occasion, but he was good at concealing it and only those who knew him most closely were aware of the infallible sign: when upset, Malory had a tendency to sibilance.

Lady Malory, to whom after fifty-five years of marriage his mind was an open book, had asked sharply at breakfast: 'What on earth's the matter, Horace? You're hissing like a snake!'

He had mumbled an answer. Something of a problem at the office, m'dear, nothing to worry about. At which she spoke his name in a peremptory way. Busily scavenging in the obituary column of The Times, he did not look up, but she continued to repeat his name, each time more loudly, until he did.

'Yes, m'dear.'

'You should finish it quickly, Horace, whatever it is.'

'What, The Times obituary . . . ?'

'I mean the problem at the office. Finish with it - or it will finish with you. You will, won't you?' Lady Malory was at her most commanding.

'Yes, m'dear,' said Malory.

But it was easier said than accomplished. About as simple as trying to finish with gout, thought Malory (who occasionally suffered from it) as his chauffeur Horsfall and his Bentley car made velvet of the morning traffic. Of late, andnot without cause, the Siberian adventures of Henry George Dikeston had been intruders in his mind at all sorts of unlooked-for times. He found himself unable to take luncheon, or a walk, or even a nap, without Dikeston and his unlovely and disturbing story tapping rhythms in his head like so many demented drummers. It was no wonder he was hissing!

Yesterday he'd attacked the matter with quite a bit of determination, summoning Felix Aston from Oxford and then spending the entire day in what the historian had described as analysis. Aston had arrived staggering under the weight of no fewer than three large briefcases, all of thorn filled with books. Sir Horace had then proceeded to ask him straight questions, beginning with the straightest.

'Werethe Romanovs slaughtered at Ekaterinburg?'

'Er - well, Sir Horace. The general opinion has always been, you see, that they, er - were. But there's a certain amount of doubt, more recently. Mangold and Summers, for instance -'

'Who are they?'

'Two BBC reporters, Sir Horace. They produced a book. The File on the Tsar-*

* Victor Gollancz, Ltd, 1976

'I read that one. Nicholas shot and the rest survived, eh?'

'I'm not sure they'd like that summary. But they reviewed all the evidence most carefully.'

'Nobody knows then, is that so?'

'Yes, Sir Horace.'

'Any ideas about why it's all so mysterious?'

"Well, if they were killed, it was to the Bolsheviks' advantage if nobody knew. They were very worried at the time about the Germans.'

'I know.'

'And if the Germans didn't know -'

'I understand. But tell me about their money.' Malory now listened with all the riveted attention he gave to matters monetary. The Romanovs at the time of their disappearances had money, or so it was said, in half the banks of France, Britain and America. Banks tended, naturally, to say nothing. The Tsar was the richest man on earth in those days, and the Romanovs the richest family. Which raised another pertinent and very straight question: 'Who inherited?'

'Well - nobody, apparently,' said Aston.

Malory was now sitting a trifle straighter. Lady Malory would have noticed. 'It has all been sitting there, untouched, since 1918!'

'Or before, Sir Horace. This is the point, so some would say, about Anastasia, if she is Anastasia, who has spent half a century proclaiming that she is the Tsar's youngest daughter.'

'And failing to establish it, eh?'

'So far.'

'Any other lawsuits from frustrated heirs?'

'None of significance.'

Malory brooded for a moment. 'Would that be because Anastasia's claim made others impossible?'

'Well, my own discipline is history rather than jurisprudence, Sir Horace, but inevitably, yes. While the case was sub judice no others could be determined."

'Let me get this entirely clear,' Malory said. 'There's a great deal of money -'

The historian interrupted him. 'There may be money, Sir Horace. It's not proven.'

'All right, all right. And if there is, then the surviving Romanovs couldn't go after it while Anastasia's case was sub judic e?'

True.'

'And moreover, the case was sub judice for -?'

'Decades. There were two verdicts - in 1967 and 1970. Of course,' the historian went on, 'neither accepted her as the Tsar's surviving daughter. If they had -'

'She'd have taken the lot!"

If she wanted the lot, yes.'

The conversation became lengthy. References to particular points were sought (by Malory) and produced (by Aston). That, however, was the nub of the long talk. Still, before he left 6 Athelsgate for Paddington and the Oxford train, the historian produced two further nuggets of information. The first came in the form of a lengthy extract from The War Memoirs of David Lloyd George.

'Met the old rascal a time or two,' said Malory reminiscently. 'After he was done, of course. He was PM

when?'

'From 1916 on. Until 1922, that is.'

'The point is what?'

Aston passed him the book. It was Volume One of the memoirs, open at page 82, and the wartime Prime Minister, in discussing the ordering of armaments, criticized very severely the practice of some major arms companies of accepting orders 'far beyond their capacity to execute'. And Lloyd George went on: '. . , some of them had undertaken orders on a gigantic scale from the Russian Government. When they accepted these Russian contracts they must have known that they had not the faintest chance of executing them in time . . . Their failure to execute these orders was largely responsible for the disasters which befell the Russian armies in the campaign of 1914-15.'

Malory looked up. 'Could he mean Vickers?' he asked.

'Among others. Everybody feels the lash, but Vickers in particular. Read the best bit - about Professor Pares.'

Lloyd George went on: 'A careful and considered report on the situation came from the pen of Professor Bernard Pares, a distinguished scholar who knew Russia and Russian thoroughly. He visited Petrograd in 1915 . . , and on his return presented .., a very remarkable account of the state of things in Russia .., a forecast of the wrath to come . . .

'See what Pares said about Vickers?' asked the historian.

'Coming to it now,' said Malory, and read: 'I have to submit that the unfortunate failure of Messrs Vickers, Maxim & Co, to supply Russia with munitions .., is gravely jeopardizing the relations of the two countries.

'The Russians have so far put in line seven million men. Their losses when I left Petrograd had reached the enormous figure of three million, eight hundred thousand.

'I am definitely told that so far no supplies of munitions have reached Russia from England.'

Malory's eye hurried on: '. . , failure which all Russians . . , associate intimately with the crushing losses .

. , and the obvious necessity of almost indefinite retreat

And then a paragraph which jolted even Malory. 'It has also led to threatened signs of resentment against the Russian authorities, which in my judgement must lead if continued to grave internal complications. Momentous developments . . , inevitable.'

Malory placed the book on his desk. 'Authoritative, that,' he said.

'Pares rather more so than that old rascal Lloyd George -in my view.' The historian grinned. 'But it can be summed up very simply. One, Russia places big orders with Vickers. Two, Vickers don't deliver as promised. Three, Russia has nearly four million dead. Four, the Russian Revolution follows. Five - if I may say so - Ekaterinburg, July 1918. All in a dead straight line.'

'Yes.' Malory sighed. 'As you say, a straight line. Thank you for your time.'

'Thank you for your fee, Sir Horace,' Felix Aston said. 'I'll leave the books if you like.'

'Please do,' Malory said, 'and good day.' His mind was already focused on Vickers, for it was Zaharoff's company: Vickers, Maxim & Co.

He turned suddenly. The historian was still slipping on a light raincoat. 'I say! Before you go . . .'

'Yes, Sir Horace?'

'Care for a swift whisky?' Malory rose and poured. 'One thing: how would the munitions be paid for?'

'You'd know more about that than I, Sir Horace, surely? Credits and things, I expect.'

'Perhaps, perhaps. But I'm thinking of all those Romanov holdings in overseas banks.'

'That's private money, of course.'

'Yes? I wondered about that.'

'The Tsar would hardly have spent his own money on arms, though, would he?'

'Indeed not,' said Malory. 'Er-what time's your train?'

'In forty minutes, Sir Horace, and I'm afraid I daren't miss it. I have an American guest at High Table tonight and -'Aston smiled modestly - 'there's a visiting professorship at stake.'

'It's money, you see,' Malory said. 'What about tomorrow?'

'Tomorrow is fine.'

And now it was tomorrow, and Lady Malory's instruction echoed in his mind as he waited and savoured (though not as much as usual) a Romeo No.3 with Blue Mountain coffee. David Lloyd George, he reflected, had been a wicked old devil. None wickeder.

None? What about Zaharoff?

And what a pair they made!

'Tell me,' Malory said before the historian had so much as added sugar to his coffee, 'about the relations between Lloyd George and Zaharoff.'

'Well, it's a bit mysterious.'

'I imagined it might be,' said Sir Horace. 'Do go on.'

'Not much known, actually. But there's a fascinating point. Zaharoff was - well, whatever he was: who knows if he was Greek, Turk, Anatolian, even Russian. Lot of covering-up went on in the matter of his birth. Records burned. Impossible statements sworn by a bench of bishops. You know.'

'Yes, I do. Born in Mughla in Anatolia, that's what he always said.'

'Usually said,' Aston corrected. 'But the point is he was a naturalized Frenchman. French domicile too.'

'Agreed. What about Lloyd George?'

The old Welsh Wizard slipped Zaharoff a big gong in nineteen-eighteen. Made him a Knight of the Order of the British Empire.'

'Yes, I know.'

'And ever afterwards, Zaharoff called himself Sir Basil.'

'Doesn't fit, does it? Can't do it, can you?'

"Hedid, Sir Horace, all his life. Lloyd George gave him a step up in 1921: Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. Still called himself Sir Basil but still a French citizen. Now - how could that come about?'

'I suppose,' said Malory, 'that people just assumed-'

'What, the College of Heralds? Just assumed? No, my guess is he wanted a title, a British one, and Lloyd George fixed things.'

'It would take a little doing,' Sir Horace murmured.

'There never was a fixer like him.'

Malory brooded for a moment. "Why then did Lloyd George turn savage in his memoirs?'

'He didn't. Not to Zaharoff. To Vickers, yes, but Zaharoff was long retired.'

'Friends, were they - or useful to each other?'

'Useful, I'd guess.' Once more the historian produced his grin. 'Or how about partners?'

'Partners?' echoed Malory.

'Partners,' said the historian. 'Think about it.'

'Oh, it has my attention. Partners, indeed! But in what, do you suggest?'

Felix Aston hesitated. 'I'm near my limit, Sir Horace.'

'What do you mean - what limit?'

'You'll perhaps think I am ridiculously cautious, but people have come to sticky ends in chasing Zaharoff.'

'Sticky ends - what do you mean?'

'I mean they have died, Sir Horace. Two to my knowledge. One found dead in a hotel, the other drowned in the lake at his French estate. So I repeat, sir, that I'm near my limit. I'm enormously discreet, you see. Always. And I can see the general direction of your interest, though not, of course, the precise nature of it. But there is one more thing. Are you aware of the story -1 hesitate to describe it as fact, though it was reported quite widely - that soon after Russia entered the war in 1914, and just before ice closed the port of Archangel for the winter, two British warships dropped anchor there?'

'No,' said Malory. 'I'm not aware of it. Is there more?"

'The New York Times then, and a lot of historians since, reported that the ships were met by barges loaded with gold from the Tsar's own mines. The warships took it to Britain. It was to buy armaments. The Tsar's private contribution, you might call it, to the war effort.'

'How much?' Malory asked.

'The story is,' and Aston enunciated with care, 'that it was two point seven billion. That's dollars. But you could say about five hundred million in sterling. At 1914 values.'

'I'll be damned!' said Malory. And though there was no letter S in the epithet, it emerged as a longish hiss.

It was so clear! No mistaking this, Malory thought. The historian had gone by now and his books with him, and Malory paced slowly up and down the room at 6 Athels-gate, while the ingredients boiled together in the cauldron of his brain.

What a pity it was that Sir Basil had burned his papers (he'd also damned near burned down his own house, at 45 Avenue Hoche in Paris, at the same time, Malory recalled). Because it was a safe bet that Zaharoff was in Russia touting for business as soon as war was declared. God, he thought - the whole thing stank of Sir Basil. The richest man on earth, Tsar of All the Russias, who had a million a day in private income, setting up a war chest with his own gold. To buy arms, from Vickers!

Who could send warships? Not Zaharoíf. But Lloyd George was Minister of Munitions, then. Five hundred million! But brought out of Russia fairly secretly. Distant press reports, no more. And no arms were delivered.

Andrevolution followed.

And the murder of Nicholas and his entire family followed too!

So no heirs? . . . No, no heirs.

Or were there?

Malory stopped pacing and glanced down. His highly-polished shoes gleamed black against the deep red of the carpet. But the gleam, he thought, savagely, was as nothing to the gleam of the gold bars three floors below, in Hillyard Cleef s celebrated vault.

As nothing*.

Oh yes, he knew the details. One hundred million in what are known as 'good delivery bars' each of 400 troy ounces. Placed in the vaults on January 1st, year of Our Lord, 1915. One hundred million kept permanently on display, by agreement with Her Majesty's Government. And the Bank of England. Because for many years after 1915 there were tight and difficult restrictions on gold holdings . . . But it was a simple enough proposition, so hallowed by time that Malory had barely thought of it in years. By agreement, the hundred million was a constant. If the gold price rose, a number of bars were taken from 6 Athelsgate to the Bank of England. If the gold price fell, the process was reversed. It was a simple thing. The Government and the national reserve benefited inevitably, in the long run, because the price of gold rose with equal inevitability over the years. Hillyard, Cleef benefited because its gold reserve was always there to maintain confidence.

Malory thought about gold. He had touched one of the bars, once only and with his fingertips, when he was quite young. It had had a slightly greasy feel, he remembered. Remarkably easy material to work, though, and salted away under mattresses all over the world in bars of variousweights. The firm of Johnson Mathey, here in London, made bars of all sizes, from the 3.75 troy ounces of the ten-tola bar upward. No difficulty in finding a way to put new markings on a gold bar, either: you melted it down, re-moulded it, and put another stamp on it. You might remove a South African stamp and replace it with, for instance, that of the Banque de France or Credit Suisse.

Five hundred million.At 1914 values.

God!

The Tsar's war chest. That's what it was.

But Lloyd George needed a war chest, too.

'Despite repeated promises, the munitions were not delivered,' reported Pares. They got their hands on the gold - Zaharoff and Lloyd George - and used it: one to stuff his exchequer, and the other to underwrite his business.

Brilliant - absolutely brilliant! Malory thought. Zaharoff s idea, of course . . . But he did not linger on the delights of so ineffable a stroke. It was necessary to think it through. There was no surviving heir. Hillyard, Cleef and the British Government had in effect inherited. There was no heir because there was no proof. The Tsar, who would by now have been a hundred and ten years old, was not even legally assumed to be dead.

The Grand Duchess Anastasia had failed in her claim, and for no sensible reason that Malory could see, the rest of the Romanov family had never tried with any show of determination to get their hands on Nicholas Romanov's huge assets abroad.

Why not? Because they knew something? Because lawsuits were expensive and the Romanov cousins knew they would fail? Yes, all that was possible.

So - a single survivor or proof of death. Either would suffice. Either was the key to enormous wealth. And Dikeston was in Ekaterinburg in July 1918, at Zaharoff s insistence!

At dinner that night, though he was already thinking of the means to have the Hillyard, Cleef ingots recast, Sir Horace Malory was not himself. He punished the malt whisky beforehand, and opened a second bottle of claret.

'You're getting worse,' said Lady Malory disparagingly, 'you sound like a pit full of vipers.'