The King's Commisar

CHAPTER FIVE

Deeds and Mr Grace

Everybody who has ever purchased a house is familiar with the airy ways and dilatory habits of lawyers. Most people are aware that it is the profitable practice of those who specialize in the conveyance of property to discover great thickets of difficulty where few truly exist. Even a solicitor who is not trying to cause delay will often do so, out of habit or lethargy, for months at a time. The lawyer with his heart actually set upon spinning out time will make a limpet look as lively as a thoroughbred stallion. Dikeston's brief instructions began the trouble, and it was perfectly clear to Malory that that was how they had been designed.

'The deeds of Carfax House,' ran Dikeston's relevant sentences, 'are to be presented for inspection to the manager of the Liverpool branch of the Irish Linen Bank together with the sum of fifty thousand pounds. Both are to be passed on to the holder of a special account numbered X253.'

'And in return, what we get is packet three?' Pilgrim asked.

'Yes.'

'Horace, where does it say so?'

Malory's lips tightened. 'It says so on the envelope, Laurence. In typescript. It actually reads, if you're interested, "Instructions for obtaining part three of the narrative of-"'

'Yeah, okay. Now, how about these deeds? Tell me the English legal set-up.'

'Have you read Dikeston's narrative?'

'Well, I kind of skimmed it. The guy's in a fix, sure. Look, Horace, we all know it's a sad story. When they get to Ekaterinburg, the Romanovs get slaughtered, that's how it ends. You can read it for nothing in the library. You can even see a movie. Tell me about the deeds, huh?'

'I told you about Yakovlev - that he went off with a trainload of treasure and then vanished?'

'Sure you told me.'

'Very well. Now I'll tell you about Dutov. He was a warlord, a law absolutely unto himself on the far side of the Urals.'

Pilgrim held up a hand. 'I've got the picture, Horace. I understand, believe me. There's chaos, and all these people are milling about in the middle. There's a fortune in various kinds of treasure. There's Zaharoff's document. Now we have warlords. Okay, it's exciting. But tell me about the deeds. You get them when you buy a house, right?'

'Well, yes. After the purchase is complete.'

'I thought so. After! We have to buy this damned house.'

'Yes.'

'Okay, Horace,' Pilgrim sighed noisily. 'Go right ahead. You don't need my say-so.'

'I'm simply informing you. The house can probably be sold later. That isn't important.'

'How much so far, including the house?'

'Two hundred thousand, I suppose. But as I say, the house can be sold.'

'Better check first,' Pilgrim said, 'that it can be bought.'

'Oh, it can.'

'Sure, at a price.'

Business talk over luncheon was preferable, it seemed to Malory that day, to further discussion with Pilgrim of South London property values. Accordingly he ate his salmon and drank his Mosel with one ear swivelling like a horse's in the direction of whichever of the partners had matters to raise. In the partners' dining-room at Hillyard, Cleef it had long been the custom to discuss openly any matters which might benefit from a general airing. One partner, recently married to an actress half his age, had received what he described as 'an interesting opportunity' to invest in a film. Smirks were exchanged across the table and thumbs turned down. General approval greeted an application from one of the great civil engineering concerns for a six million advance towards its costs in a Saudi building project. And Fergus Huntly's revised bid price for the seed and fertilizer company got a thumbs up. Privately, Malory thought it to be pitched unnecessarily high but was not disposed to say so. His thoughts were anywhere but in the City of London. One moment they would be sweeping like a satellite across the Urals; the next pointing like a finger at a neat, if not authentic, Georgian house some six miles from where he sat. Mr and Mrs Denis Abrahams, their house in Blackheath by now newly-decorated and repaired, were not anxious to sell.

'It's such a sweet house,' Mrs Abrahams told Jacques Graves, gushing extravagantly. 'We're frightfully attached to it. And it's so convenient. All our friends are near by.'

Her husband took a slightly different line. He was prepared to consider a good offer. But not an independent valuation. 'I am, after all,' he said, 'a creature of the market place. Supply and demand, and all that.'

Graves knew all right: Hillyard, Cleef was bent backward over the barrel, and standing upright again would come expensive.

'The actual worth?' Sir Horace Malory asked him.

'Value to us,' said Graves flatly.

'There must be a figure.'

'I got two local estate agents to give me an idea. One said a hundred and five thousand, the other a bit higher.'

'Offer the higher figure.'

'Okay.'

Mr and Mrs Abrahams accepted. The higher figure was one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds. Graves, sitting in their gleaming drawing-room, rising to shake hands on the deal suddenly thought Abrahams's eyes looked shifty.

And so it proved. Abrahams's solicitor was a Mr Thomas Plantagenet Grace, a partner in Holdfast & Grace, of London Wall. He was also Mrs Abrahams's brother-in-law.

'The point is,' Abrahams told Grace, 'that they must want it badly, but I don't know how badly.'

Grace nodded wisely. 'We'll find out - if somebody else comes in with an offer,' he murmured. Solicitors acting for Hillyard, Cleef, and this was a firm accustomed to enormous fees in recognition of its willingness to match its* pace to the urgent needs of a banking house, then approached Mr Plantagenet Grace. Their letter was opened and acknowledged by Mr Grace's secretary, and then placed in a folder marked 'Abrahams conveyance' to await his return. Mr Plantagenet Grace was away for a while; it was his custom, at that time of year, to recharge his batteries with a trip to Barbados. Hillyard, Cleef's solicitors informed Jacques Graves, who consulted Abrahams. Abrahams was surprised and regretful, but having instructed Mr Grace felt unable to do more than wait. To nobody's surprise, not Graves's and certainly not Sir Horace Malory's, the Barbados hiatus produced a further offer. Mr Thomas Plantagenet Grace discovered it on his desk upon his return. It upped the ante to£130,000.

'This,' said Malory grimly, 'can go on for years. Damn fella will be in Timbuctoo next, and the new offer'll be a million. Offer one hundred and thirty-two conditional upon immediate acceptance.'

But the hostage had by then been given, and it had been examined with pleasure. It was now very clear that Hill 11Qyard, Cleef not only sought to possess Cavendish House, but did so with great ardour. 'And Hillyard, Cleef,' as Thomas Plantagenet Grace observed, 'are rich, rich, rich!'

The riches, however, had not been accumulated by succumbing very often to essentially simple lures. Malory and Graves could play this game, too, and frequently did. The Hillyard, Cleef offer was suddenly lowered. Neither Graves nor Malory was subsequently available when Mr Grace telephoned to enquire if he understood the reduced offer aright. A further and genuine bid then materialized from another source altogether; this for one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds. It was made by an elderly lady who marched up to the white-painted door one evening, said she was from Australia, and would buy the house there and then. 'Here,' she said, 'is my cheque. And here, because there are crooks in this world Mr Abrahams-and I'm not saying you're one of them because I don't know whether you are or not - is a document for you to sign. In the event you call off the deal, you pay me ten thousand. Fair?'

It was fair, Abrahams thought. But Mr Thomas Plantagenet Grace was privately doubtful. He suspected that the elderly lady was a plant, an agent of Hillyard, Cleef. What is more, he was right. She was herself a director of a Hillyard, Cleef subsidiary in Australia. Mr Grace could prove nothing. What he could do was delay matters.

He did.

At Hillyard, Cleef the effects of the delay varied according to the individual. Laurence Pilgrim, with a somewhat irritable Malory haunting the building seven hours a day, began to hope that part three of Dikeston's memoirs would surface soon, if only to get Malory off his back. Malory passed his day harrying lawyers, Graves, and anybody else within reach. He was, by now, thanks to the historian from Oxford, as well-informed as it is possible to be about the question of what happened to the Romanovs after Yakovlev was compelled to turn back outside Omsk. Evenings at Wilton Place tended to be spent in his study with a volume of Romanov reminiscences, rather than at the bridge table. He read the memoirs of Romanov uncles, cousins, aunts, teachers and friends. In some areas all said much the same thing. In others they differed.

Not one mentioned a meeting with Dutov - nor was there mention anywhere of the possibility that Commissar Vassily Yakovlev was a British agent.

There were other mysteries, too.

When at last Cavendish House changed hands-and it took a full month despite all the pressure exerted by the no-nonsense lady from Australia - Graves heard the news without pleasure. A most useful part of Graves's make-up was a pronounced node of suspicion which probably came from his French ancestry, and which told him that there was a great deal more to Dikeston's story than might be gathered from a first and superficial view. Dikeston, he thought, was obsessive; Dikeston had taken trouble with his arrangements, and had carried his grievances a long time. Dikeston had also liked setting traps and Graves, thinking about all the years Dikeston had had to set them and all the money available for them, viewed his own future involvement with no enthusiasm at all. He had originally accompanied Laurence Pilgrim to London because working for Pilgrim in international financing projects would provide the challenges to which he best responded: locking horns with clever and energetic men on a familiar battlefield and according to rules universally comprehended. But Dikeston's legacy - and Graves by now felt this strongly - was something very different. Had he been able to avoid further involvement, he would have done so, but Pilgrim had made clear his own aversion to what he described to Graves privately as

'Malory's senescent flourish', and had indicated that Graves must bear the load. The load had been borne quite lightly for several days, since Hillyard, Cleef's solicitors were taking the weight. Jacques Graves, temporarily freed as a result, had been in Vancouver. British Columbia, tying up a profitable deal involving the building of two ocean-going tugs. He was sitting in the dining-room of the Bayshore Inn, picking with pleasure at a handsomely arranged plate of Crab Louie, when he was paged. There was a telex from Malory. It read: 'Return at once.'

'The deeds.' Malory's smooth hand, brown-spotted with age, manicured throughout a lifetime, patted twice at the manila envelope which lay upon his desk. He took the gold hunter from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. 'I don't think,' he added, 'that you should waste too much time.'

Graves, baggy-eyed and dopey with jet-lag after the seven thousand-mile overnight trip, reached for the envelope. 'Where was the address again?'

Malory looked at him reprovingly. 'A good memory,' he said, 'is extremely important in our profession, Mr Graves. Perhaps you'd better write it down.'

As the train travelled north to Liverpool, Graves's tired mind wrestled with images of Dikeston. Graves had never before in his life been subject to the feeling that he was being oppressed, but he felt it now. By some means or other, he thought savagely, anything that had its roots in Dikeston turned out to be uncomfortable, difficult or humiliating. It was evening when the train arrived in Lime Street. He awoke refreshed in one of the big high beds of the old but comfortable Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool; he breakfasted well and afterwards took a taxi to the premises of the Irish Linen Bank. The morning was bright; Graves felt cheerful; the dark, Dikeston-based delusions had been sloughed off by sleep and he was on his way to a bank to collect papers. What could be simpler? Yet it happened.

'I have an appointment,' Graves said, presenting his card, 'with Mr O'Hara.'

'One moment, sir.'

The girl who came over to him was O'Hara's secretary. Mr O'Hara would not be in until after luncheon. Yes, she knew Mr Graves had an appointment; yes, she realized he had come from London; indeed an attempt had been made to call his office and warn him. No, it was impossible to get a message to Mr O'Hara. But he would be in after lunch.

O'Hara arrived, finally, at a quarter to three and Graves, who had been cooling his heels with growing impatience for four and three-quarter hours was shown in. O'Hara, a big open-faced Irishman, was very apologetic and extremely sorry to hear that the warning message had not reached Graves at Hillyward, Cleef.

'But what is it I can do for you, Mr Graves?'

Graves removed two envelopes from his slender document case. Handing the first, and fatter, envelope to O'Hara, he said, 'We are fulfilling the terms of some old and somewhat, er, odd instructions. These are the deeds of a house, which you are to inspect and be sure they are what we say they are. And this -' he offered the second envelope - 'is our cheque for the sum of fifty thousand. Both are to be passed to the holder of an account here.'

'Lucky fella,' said O'Hara. 'Whose account is that?'

'I don't know.'

O'Hara smiled. 'As you say, odd. But if you can't tell me the name -?'

'There's a number. It's a special -'

He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone on O'Hara's desk.

'Excuse me.' O'Hara picked it up. 'Yes,' he said. Then, 'No.' Then 'Two and one, my dear, a diplomatic defeat.' Then, 'Well, nobody can go round Birkdale without -' He stopped, the open face suddenly flushing. 'I'll call you later, dear.'

'Golf?' Graves said, anger almost erupting. 'You were playing golf?' O'Hara's explanation was as full as his apologies were fulsome. 'Called out at the last minute, terribly sorry, but the General Manager . . , and one of our most important customers . . , promotion in the wind, you know .., no way of refusing . . . Now, you were saying?'

'I was saying there is a special account at this bank. It's number is X253.'

'An X account is it? Well, well. First time I've encountered any business with one of those. So these -' he held up the two envelopes - 'go to the account holder.'

'The cheque does. The deeds are to be inspected by you. And in return there should be some papers.'

'I see.' O'Hara rose. 'You'll excuse me a moment?'

He came back two or three minutes later, a deed box in his hands. 'The old and held file, that's what we call this, Mr Graves. Real mystery stuff. Now -' He found a key on a big ring and turned it in the lock. There was a fat foolscap-sized envelope in the box. It was sealed with wax, which O'Hara broke. He took out a sheet of paper and read it, then looked across the desk. 'Very well, Mr Graves.' From inside the envelope he took another, its shape familiar by now to Graves. 'I am to give you this. Perhaps you'll sign for it?'

Graves took out his pen. 'Yes. Oh, by the way.'

'Hmmm?' O'Hara glanced across.

'Whose account is it?'

A slow smile spread across the Irishman's features. 'Oh, now, Mr Graves! You know I can't tell you.'

'Then I'll just have to find out,' said Graves.

'Do. If you can.' O'Hara laughed. 'We're as tight as the Swiss here, and twice as difficult!'

'You wouldn't care to make it easier?'

'No.'

Graves put the new packet of papers into his document case, and left the manager's office. Outside, in the main business area, he picked up a copy of the Financial Times and took a seat, from which he had a good view of the whole floor. Carefully, he surveyed the staff of the Irish Linen Bank. Quite a number, he knew from experience, would regard an offered chance of a move to Hillyard, Cleef as one of life's great wonders. Few, however would have access to information about secret accounts. But somebody must - in case, for instance, O'Hara dropped dead on the golf-course. As Graves profoundly wished he would. The question was, who? The assistant manager, the accountant? O'Hara, meanwhile, was at his desk. The deed box still stood open before him. The foolscap envelope which had held the packet had also held something else: another envelope. His sheet of instructions told him to post it. He looked at the address before placing it in his out-tray. It was addressed to Coutts & Co., The Strand, London.

All very mysterious, O'Hara thought.

But he was more concerned with another mystery: O'Hara was in line for promotion, that much he knew. The question was: would it be to London or Dublin? It occupied his mind. Later his eye fell upon the envelope again as it lay waiting for his secretary to take away. Coutts, it occurred to him, were the royal bankers, and O'Hara enjoyed little flights of fantasy. Could this be a royal mystery?

CHAPTER SIX

------------•+,------------

Third instalment of the account, written by LtCdr H. G. Dikeston, RN, of his journeyings

in Russia in the spring of 1918

I have observed before in these papers that to set eyes upon the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna was to be aware on the instant that here was a human being of the finest. Something curious was there in the face and one can always tell ; one can look at a man of position and know him at once for a rascal, at a tramp and know him for a decent fellow. Some people are incapable of giving importance to words over which they labour long; there are others whose lightest remark is worth attention. All this is difficult to convey, and indeed there is no real need to attempt to do so, for all of us know the truth of it. Thus when, in the corridor of the train, moving through the night between Kulomzino and Tyumen, the door of the royal compartment opened and the Grand Duchess spoke, her words, though simple, conveyed much.

'May I talk to you?' was all she said. Yet I at once understood much more from certain subtleties of emphasis. I understood that she felt disloyal in leaving her parents even briefly; that such a brief escape was none the less necessary to her; that she sensed a future in which free talk would be rare for her. Many things.

'Of course. Your Royal -'

'Oh no!' she protested. 'I'm not a royal anything.' Then she laughed quietly. 'Except perhaps a royal relic. My name is Marie.'

I found myself smiling. 'Very well, ma'am.'

'Marie. Say it.'

I said it.

'Good. And you are Henry, I know that. Oh, so English a name! I've been there, you know. To England, I mean.'

'I know.'

'Father says you are a sailor. I met a young English sailor once - Prince Louis of Battenberg. You know him?'

'No. But I know of him.'

'I liked him. I think I like the English. Do you like Russians?'

'Some more than others."

'Oh yes.' She laughed. 'Some much more! You know, Henry - this is very wrong.'

'What is?' Though I knew.

She giggled. 'Why - standing in the dark talking to a sailor. Oh, shameful! And unique, I think.'

'Unique. A girl talking to a sailor? Hardly that.'

'Not an opportunity much granted to me,' she said. Then: 'Have you seen the world?'

'Some of it.'

'Tell me. I have seen so little. Have you been to China?'

'Yes.'

'Tell me about China.'

I can remember every second of it, that hour we passed in the Siberian night. In her lay a magical gaiety and attention and time went like the wind. How she could be so disposed, at a moment when only the most dangerous uncertainty lay ahead, is hard to understand, except that it was her nature. She wanted to know: I had seen and could tell. She was full of questions and swift insights following upon my answers. Nor would she allow talk of the present or the future: it was the wider world she wanted to know about; the world and the bright and exciting things in it. And so for a time we chattered and laughed, until she said suddenly. 'I must go,' and spoke my name. 'Good night, Henry.'

'Good night - Marie.'

She paused. There was scarcely any light, but I could dimly see the pale outline of her face. She said softly, Thank you.' And kissed me on the cheek. And was gone. I stood for a while beside the closed door. Much of the magic of the night had departed with her, and realization that there was a dangerous time ahead came flooding back to me. I went at last to find Ruzsky: if nothing else, he could tell me about the city of Ekaterinburg and so keep from my mind the suddenly-gathering and fearful images which now crowded in. But he was asleep and snoring. I lay on my bunk and tried also to sleep, but could not. Then, for I must have been more weary than I knew, I did indeed doze for a little while, only to be awakened when the train halted. Yet I had given orders that it proceed without stopping to Ekaterinburg, and this was only Tyumen! And while I was still rubbing sleep from my eyes, the train was boarded by a dozen or so men and I recognized some of them as part of the Ekaterinburg detachment which had been at Tobolsk. They recognized me too, and just as quickly. Before I could move from where I stood, there was a pistol in my ribs and a voice snarling at me: 'Commissar Yakovlev, you are under arrest!'

'By whose orders?"

'On the authority of the Urals Soviet.'

I began my ritual protest. I was an emissary of the Central Executive Committee. Death awaited anyone who impeded 'Keep it for your trial!' I was told.

I was shoved roughly back and the door of the wagon-lit was slammed. Thus imprisoned, I came to Ekaterinburg. They opened my door as the train halted jerkily, and I was pulled into the corridor. Through the carriage window I could see that there was a jostling crowd around the train; a noisy one too. There were yells of 'Bring him out!' 'Hang the German bitch!' 'Show us Bloody Nicholas!' Truly it was a most frightening sight.

A moment later I was pushed to one side by the bearded lout who was guarding me, and as I turned my head I saw the Imperial Family coming towards me along the corridor, Nicholas first and carrying his own luggage, his face set.

I thought, Damn this rabble! and stood to attention and saluted. Nicholas stopped and looked at me.

I said. 'I have informed Moscow. They're bound to intervene, sir.'

His face darkened, and he gave me a look filled with hatred. 'We are under arrest, you treacherous pig!' he said, and stepped past me, adding over his shoulder, 'You've killed us all!'

In the end, they changed its name. Ekaterinburg was founded by Peter the Great and named for his wife. Now -and what irony there is in this! - now the city is Sverdlovsk, named for Yankel Sverdlov. Oh yes - the same. The Sverdlov who had sent me to Tobolsk, the Sverdlov who had christened me Yakovlev, the Sverdlov whose signature lay upon the paper which demanded all men assist me. They spat upon his signature that day - and laughed openly at mention of his name ! When I brandished Lenin at them, and Trotsky, they were no more impressed. Times have changed indeed. . . . But then - well, I was flung in to prison, and a real prison, too, with stone walls and clanging iron door. When the iron door opened again it was to admit two men. I had seen neither before. I was sitting on the grubby cell floor, for there was no chair and no bed. Scrambling at once to my feet I faced them angrily. 'How dare you imprison me!'

One of them - he looked like a superior clerk: fat, with a dark moustache and a creased suit-stood forward. 'Dare?' he said. 'The Urals Soviet does not dare. It acts - in full Soviet legality.'

'Doesn't Sverdlov?' I demanded. 'Doesn't Lenin? Are their actions illegal! Tell me, whoever you are. And I'll pass the message on!'

He surveyed me angrily. 'I am Alexander Beloborodov, chairman of the Urals Soviet, lawful government of the Urals region. Comrade Goloshchokin here is also a member.'

'I travel on direct orders from the Head of State!' I insisted, and showed my paper.

'To set Bloody Nicholas free!' said Goloshchokin. He was another type, this man: thin and intent. 'You know as well as I do what they're doing. It's a dirty deal with the Germans, made because the damned Tsarina's a German.' He turned on me angrily. 'Isn't it?'

I gave anger for anger. 'How do I know what's in their minds in Moscow? I do as I'm told. Maybe they have got one eye on the German army. To them it's too damned dangerous and too damned near. I am under orders to deliver the whole Romanov family to Moscow. When they get there, I don't know if they'll go on trial, if they'll go to the Germans - or if they'll be sent to Timbuctoo, for that matter.'

'Ah, but what do you want?' asked Beloborodov softly.

'Want?'

'What should be done?'

I thought for a moment, and thought damned carefully. These two would string me up, as soon as not, I sensed that with no difficulty. Their anxiety to demonstrate independence from Moscow was manifest.

'Me?' I said. 'I'd put them on trial before the world. There's evidence enough. But it's not my task to decide.'

'It's mine,' Beloborodov said. His round face glistened, though there was little warmth in the cell. I shook my head. 'Why? Why you? Upon what basis?

Are you Commissar for Foreign Affairs or is Comrade Trotsky? You merely want to kill for vengeance

-'

'Yes.' They said it in chorus. 'That damned German woman,' Goloshchokin went on angrily. 'How many deaths can be laid at her door?'

'And you want more?' I demanded. 'She's a German princess! If they want her back as the price of peace, what then? If she can be used to save the lives of our soldiers, why not? Because you want revenge, eh? And you are safe - a thousand miles from the German army.'

He scowled at me, and I turned to Beloborodov. 'You think I'm a traitor, do you?'

'Perhaps.' He said it quietly, threateningly.

'And Sverdlov - he's a traitor too? And Lenin? If they are not, I am not. Look at that signature!'

'How do I know it isn't forged?' Beloborodov said.

'You will know if you telegraph Moscow. There must be a telegraph available here.'

'He's bluffing,' Goloshchokin said.

'Am I? It's easy to find out. Send a telegram to Moscow!'

Whether or not they did, I have no way of knowing. What I do know is that they left me in that malodorous cell and as the iron door clanged behind them, I felt near to despair. All had gone dreadfully wrong. I was in prison, as the Tsar and Tsarina and Marie must now be. And it was I who had allowed them to fall into the hands of men who desired their deaths. No wonder the Tsar thought I had betrayed them.

I spent time staring unseeing at the stone floor before the thoughts came. What of Ruzsky? The prospect of Ekaterinburg had worried him not at all - as it would not, since like Goloshchokin and Beloborodov he was actually a member of the Soviet.

Whatever else he was!The man was a riddle: on the one hand a fanatic, on the other some kind of agent. And French, to boot! What was it he had said? After some thought I could even remember his words: 'I serve various interests,' he had said. 'For the moment, I am to help you when you need help.' And also:

'You were told to look out for a man before you left London.'

What could I make of it? It was all true enough. I had been told to lookout for a man upon reaching Tobolsk. I had also been told the man would be able to help me. It was in the sheet of instructions given to me by Mr Basil Zaharoff.

And Zaharoff was known, to the Press at any rate, as The Man Who Peddled Death!

'I serve various interests!' So Ruzsky, or Bronard, or whoever he was, was Zaharoff's man, of that much I was now fairly certain. But what was he doing here? How did it come about that Zaharoff, the arch-capitalist, had his own man as a member of a Soviet in the middle of Siberia? I know now that nothing was beyond that man. There will be Zaharoff agents among the ranks of angels; yes, and the devils, too. It seems extraordinary enough now, years later, when I know more of him. Then it seemed to be beyond believing.

But of course I got no further with my thoughts, not then. Hours went by before once more that iron cell door was thrown open. Goloshchokin appeared, looking at me grimly. I thought him to be alone, but in a moment it was Ruzsky who slouched into view, that smirk of his much evident. I came to my feet. 'What did Moscow say?'

Neither answered. 'Personally I'd hang you, Yakovlev,' Ruzsky suddenly said to me. He turned to his companion. 'You should have seen him bow and scrape to the Romanovs.'

'I wish we could hang him.' Goloshchokin gave a sigh. 'But the chairman believes him.'

Ruzsky laughed. 'Maybe the chairman has Moscow ambitions. No, Comrade, I don't really mean that. I admire Beloborodov.' He turned to me. 'You should be grateful to him, too.'

'Why?'

'Why? Because you're free. Who says there's no Soviet mercy, eh? A Tsarist provocateur, and what do we do? We let you go! We won't let them go, though, will we, Comrade Goloshchokin?'

Goloshchokin looked at me sidelong. 'Not even to Moscow. And be careful, Yakovlev, or you'll be back in here.'

He stalked out, Ruzsky slouching after him. I followed, and found myself standing close to Ruzsky, apparently by accident, by the road outside the prison gate. He didn't turn towards me, or even acknowledge he knew I was there. He spoke, though, quietly and clearly. 'Behind the Palais Royal Hotel at nine o'clock,' he said, and slouched away.

It was two hours to nine.

I wandered in the dark, found food and drink in a tavern, and listened to the talk there, anxious for news of the Imperial Family. Nor were tidings long in coming, for talk in the tavern was of nothing else. Every snatch of it seemed to tell more.

'. . . I saw them at the station. Just shoved off the train, they were, like sacks of grain. I thought for a bit the crowd would grab them, but . . .'

'. . .My God, they looked frightened!'

'. . . Wouldn't you? Did you see who drove the car, though? Parfeny, yes. Oh, you know him, yes,

'course you do. Head of the Railwaymen's Punitive Detachment. Real swine, wouldn't want him driving me."

'. . . They say Professor Ipatiev was given only six hours' notice to get out. Six hours, that's all.'

'. . House is too good for them. It's like a bloody palace! Big white place up on Vosnesensky Avenue the one with the archway. And Nicholas still has servants with him!'

I sat very quietly in a dark corner, absorbing it all, astonished at how easy it was to learn. I heard that the Family was now guarded by detachments of men from two local factories. I rose when they began to go over it all again; from the excitement in their voices they'd spend the night repeating it all endlessly. In the street outside I stood for a moment, wondering at the whereabouts of the places they had spoken of: Ipatiev's house and Vosnesensky Avenue. But they were not difficult to find. The city of Ekaterinburg buzzed with the knowledge of the Romanov's presence, and I quickly realized many in the streets were sightseers bound for the house. I simply followed. No one was allowed nearer to the house than the other side of the Avenue: There was a high palisade built of logs before the entrance, close against the building so that nothing could be seen, and a few armed militiamen stood in the roadway moving along the many passers-by. I looked as long as I could. It had been a house of some style, but was a prison now and unmistakably so. Guards in the streets, guards at the gates, guards no doubt in the house itself. Around me, in the talk of the townspeople, there was nothing but hostility. Why keep the Romanovs alive? Why not shoot them now? It was all talk of that kind. I thought of the quiet courage of the Tsar, of his refusal to go with Dutov when he could so easily have done so. I thought of the marvel of that hour I had spent with the Grand Duchess Maria. No, not Maria. Marie.

Then I thought of the paper - Zaharoff's paper - the paper that was supposed to be vital to so many: with a value of millions in money plus the weapons for an army; and on top of that, God alone knew how many human lives!

The Tsar had signed it, he'd told me so! And everyone was waiting for it; everyone from Ruzsky to Lenin and Trotsky; everyone from my own humble self to Zaharoff and my Sovereign, King George. Many men's worlds hung upon that piece of paper!

As I trudged along towards my meeting with Ruzsky, my thoughts whirled. Oh yes, everyone wanted it; but only I knew where it was, the Tsar and his son excepted. Well, I would keep it so, keep it above all from Ruzsky until I understood his purpose more clearly. For my tumbling thoughts were now presenting me with strange notions and stranger conclusions.

Lenin and Sverdlov had sent me to Siberia to bring the Tsar out. And I had done so, or nearly. If I hadn't been stopped at Omsk, had not been sent back to Ekaterinburg , t hen both I and the entire Imperial Family would by now be halfway to Moscow.

The questions drummed in my mind: Had I really been stopped by the rivalry between provincials and metropolitans? Could it really be true that the men of Omsk and Ekaterinburg took no notice of Lenin and Sverdlov?

Or was it something else? Did those devious and clever men in Moscow actually want the Romanovs to be held in peril in Ekaterinburg rather than safe in Tobolsk or Moscow? And then I saw it, or thought I did. The Germans were the key; camped as they were, menacingly and in army strength on Moscow's doorstep. Suppose there were negotiations; suppose the Germans were demanding that the Imperial Family be surrendered to them; suppose Lenin and Sverdlov had no alternative but to agree? Yes, suppose all that - what then if Moscow did not want to hand over the Romanovs? Oh yes, now it was simple enough. Send me to bring them (and kill two birds with one stone!) and then arrange for the Romanovs to be detained by wild men in far Siberia, and say to the Germans, Oh, we're trying to persuade the local Soviet, but they won't even listen.

Was it all conceivable?

Certainly it was. That explanation fitted all the complexities, answered all the questions. Yet I could barely believe a word of it. Too outlandish, I thought. But as I approached the Palais Royal Hotel I was resolved to play matters close in future. And to learn more of Ruzksy. He was waiting in the shadowed street behind, and was not a sight to give any man hope: drink in him, and bearing and manner scruffy. Yet when he spoke, it seemed his mind was more or less clear - and entirely concerned with the paper.

'Have you got it?' he demanded.

I shook my head. 'It had to be left with the Tsar. Then -when the train was halted - there was no chance to ask him.

'Precious little chance now. But we've got to get it.'

'We?' I said harshly. 'You're the one who must recover it.'

'You imagine he'd give it to me? He knows me, remember. No, you're the only one he'd trust.'

I did not tell Ruzsky the Tsar's view of me now. Instead: 'I could give you a note to him,' I said.

'A note of hand?' Ruzsky laughed sharply. 'If the guards search me and find it, what then? I'll tell you I'm the bearer of clandestine messages between you, who tried to take the Tsar to safety, and Nicholas himself. And my life then would be worth nothing!'

We regarded each other warily. At last I said, 'What will happen to them?'

Ruzsky shrugged. 'Do you care?'

'Yes. I care.'

'My guess is that there is a majority of the Soviet in favour of killing them.'

'Cold-blooded execution?'

'It is a difficult question. There is a lot of discussion. Good Bolsheviks should not molest women and children, some say. But others say this is the German woman, and that's different.'

He knew more of the circumstances of imprisonment than I. 'Is there,' I asked him, 'any chance of freeing them?'

He gave me an amused glance. 'White horses to the rescue, you mean? No, my friend. They're as good as dead, that's my view, unless they have value in bargaining. And yes, that they have, but only with the Germans.'

'So?'

'So they will be there for a long time, unless a rescue is attempted. In that case the guards will pull triggers at once. There are White Russian armies loose in Siberia and you may be sure of one thing, my friend: neither Nicholas nor his son will be allowed to fall into White hands. There are still some who would restore the Throne.'

'You have suggestions, then?'

'Yes, wait.'

'And do nothing?'

He gave me a look. 'Be patient. What is there to do? If he'd signed that paper you could have been off to England now, but you didn't force it!'

T couldn't force it. But it seems to me I might just as well set off for England, anyway. I have no position here. You have, though. Whatever's to be done, you'll have to do it!'

'I told you, be patient! Remember the purpose. It is not to save the Tsar's neck, it is to get his signature on the paper. Don't forget that. The paper, signed, and off to Moscow and London.'

'I wish I knew what was in it!'

'You know enough,' Ruzsky said roughly. 'Remember this: the only thing that will save the Romanovs'

necks is that paper, signed and on Lenin's desk.'

'If Lenin wants it he can -!'

He shook his head. 'That's not the way of things. Think, man, can you see Lenin coming here, in person, to bicker with men like Beloborodov and Goloshchokin and even be refused? By yokels like that? And then have word spread through the country that Lenin himself betrays the Revolution by talking to the Tsar. No, not in a thousand years. So it comes back to you, whom the Tsar may trust. He'll certainly trust no one else! If you leave now, his death-warrant is signed.'

'I'm helpless,' I said.

Ruzsky made that odious gesture: finger laid along his nose. 'Nobody is ever helpless,' he said. 'Time creates opportunities.'

We parted then, I to return to the train for I had nowhere else to go and it ought to be standing at Ekaterinburg station, still. The arrangement for the future was that we should meet nightly, at the same time, in the same shadowed place behind the Palais Royal Hotel. But when I reached the train there was a guard on it and I was given instructions to report at once to the office of the station-master. When I got there it was quickly apparent that this was no professional station-master, but a nonentity in unfamiliar shoes too large for him. He had orders for me, though: orders I did not like, that came from the Urals Soviet under Beloborodov's name. I was to take the train forthwith out of Ekaterinburg and return it to Tyumen where the engine and rolling stock rightly belonged. In no circumstances was I to remain in the city. If I did, I would be subject to arrest and trial on suspicion of pro-Tsarist activities.

I found my engine-driver and roused him. He grumbled a little, but it seemed he was not sorry to be going, for in Ekaterinburg he had found himself in an odd position, caught between those who wanted low gossip from the driver of the Imperial Family's train, and those who regarded him as a criminal for even driving it. He had been offered both drinks and threats.

The train had been shunted into a siding after the removal of the royal passengers and my own arrest, and it was there still, guarded in two ways. The Urals Soviet had a couple of men by the engine and two more at the rear: factory workers with rifles, from the look of them. Aboard, there remained several of the cavalrymen who had been with me since my first arrival in Tyumen, including the sergeant, Koznov, who made it abundantly clear he was pleased to see me.

'Where to, sir?' he asked brightly.

'Tyumen. You have no other orders?'

'No.' He looked at me expectantly, in that way every officer in a fighting force knows: he would obey any order.

But orders were needed. A good man but without initiative.

It was a characteristic of those chaotic days that nobody believed anybody else, and the next events at Ekaterinburg station proved it. Though I was under direct instruction from the highest local authority Beloborodov and his Soviet - and their instructions had been transmitted to me via the man in charge of the station, the lone guards did not believe any of it. There was a long debate about which of them should be sent to the station-master to make a check on the matter, and when a man had been chosen and despatched and had at last returned, he was not believed either. So, in the finish, all four of them made separate forays to the office.

At last they were all convinced and we could set about getting steam up. I«could also ask Koznov the question it had been impossible to ask in their presence.

'The contents of the two locked carriages,' I said anxiously, 'have they been disturbed?'

'No,' Koznov told me. 'One of the guards wanted to look inside and was greatly insistent. For a minute I thought I might have to restrain him by force, bat it was his companions who prevented it. The Tsar's property was community property now, they said, and must remain so.'

I thanked God for that, and busied myself as fireman, thrusting wood into the engine's furnace and keeping my eye on the steam pressure gauge. Those two locked carriages, to which I had the keys, must hold things of great value, and I was deeply concerned at having responsibility for them. It must have been two or three o'clock in the morning when, with a full head of steam and the signal clear, the train hissed and clanked out of the station, and began its journey east from Ekaterinburg, back towards Tyumen.

As the city fell behind and the train came out on to the wide lonely spaces, I found myself standing in the corridor of the

noroyal coach, in the very place where I had stood once before - for that single magical hour with the Grand Duchess Marie. Then the night had been black dark, so that I could barely see her; now there was a trace of moonlight. Oh, had she only been with me now . . .

I was overcome for a little while by melancholy and then by a fearful sense of helplessness. For what could I do? By staying in Ekaterinburg I would be putting myself at risk -and pointlessly, too, for it was already obvious the Tsar was to be sealed away from any outside contact. If I went to Moscow it would be to report complete failure - and where was the sense in that? I must somehow contrive a purpose for remaining in the region: a purpose which would stand up to all examination. I brought my thoughts back to reality and considered my situation. The paper was in Tobolsk. I had the train. Simple: I must go and get the paper! If the paper was itself a weapon, perhaps I could use it, too. What were the realities? I had been ordered out of Ekaterinburg. Very well, I had obeyed orders. But those orders gave me justification for remaining in the wider region, for they required me to return the train to Tyumen and keep its contents intact. The reason was obvious enough: if I were with the train in Tyumen, I would not be stirring trouble in Ekaterinburg. And further, since the contents of the train were valuable, having Yakovlev stand guard over them in a place as remote as Tyumen was one way to keep them safe. So both ways I was secure. I was armed with Urals Soviet written orders concerning the train and Sverdlov's laissez-passer concerning my own person. Anyone who would not accept the one ought to accept the other.

And what, anyway, was I guarding? I had seen it loaded as we prepared to leave Tobolsk, but then it was just boxes and bags, chests and parcels and cases. What lay inside? I decided to find out. And it was dazzling. Nicholas Romanov had been monarch of one-sixth of the earth, and Alexandra his queen. Their possessions were bound to be of the grandest. I found the carriages contained not only silks and velvets, china and crystal, not only a number of the most exquisite paintings and icons, but also a great many jewels. A great many? Boxes of them! Just how many I do not know, for I opened only a few of dozens of containers of various kinds. One was a chest of wood perhaps eighteen inches long by a foot wide and five to six inches deep: and it was full of gold coins in huge variety: Austrian thalers, English sovereigns, American 50-dollar pieces, Mexican, Spanish. It was too heavy for me even to lift from the floor.

In one suitcase lay a small leather-covered octagonal box which, when I opened it, proved to contain only jewellery of a religious nature: crucifixes, small enamelled icons and the like. But it was all of immense richness, with large precious stones used liberally for decoration. To find oneself responsible for such a treasure is, I can assure you, an extraordinary and unnerving experience. Soon I realized that something must be done: the treasure had to be hidden or buried or taken to a place of safety if such could be found.

I made haste to close everything up and lock the carriage doors. The first light of dawn was showing as I began to make my way forward towards the locomotive.

And it was at dawn that the ambush must have happened, for only a few minutes afterwards, as I stood beside the driver on the platform of the locomotive, looking ahead along its sleek, steel side as we rounded a bend, a battle came sweeping into view.

A train stood halted on the track ahead, perhaps half a mile away, and was clearly engaged in a furious fight with attacking troops. We had heard nothing of the firing, naturally, for the sound of our own locomotive was more than enough to drown out anything else. The driver's hand flew to the brake and I swung off along the handrails at the side of the tender to warn Koznov and his men. Before I had even reached the first carriage, a bullet clanged upon steel close by and went humming past me; turning my head, I saw horsemen riding hard towards us.

Koznov, it turned out, was already alert and his men stood in the corridor with rifles trained upon the approaching riders. Similar scenes are commonplace in these modern days in cinema films about the West in the United States of America. The difference here was that the attack was not by a tribe of painted savages, but by cavalrymen. Whose were they? I snatched a look through binoculars at them, and at the far larger group surrounding the train ahead. Suddenly I noticed a milk-white horse . . . Dutov!

'Don't shoot,' I told Koznov, but it was a useless instruction, for even as I spoke we ourselves were under fire, and Koznov's men were firing back.

'Hold your fire!' I shouted, and snatched up a white pillow from a compartment and waved it from the window. I had them drop their rifles then, and descend to the track with their hands raised. They were resentful, but this was the only thing to be done: it would have been slaughter otherwise. We were then made to sit by the track and wait as the battle raged farther ahead. But even at that stage it was clear enough that Dutov's troops must carry the day, for it was a couple of hundred against a thousand or more: revolutionary guards against highly-trained men. Determined resistance was certainly put up, but at last the red flags at either end of the Red train were torn down and the inevitable surrender occurred.

It was a full hour after that that I was prodded to my feet with a cavalry sabre and marched to where Dutov sat, on horseback still, beside the surrendered train.

He glared down at me, the big moustache bristling. 'Where is the Tsar?'

I told him straight: 'Imprisoned in Ekaterinburg.'

He struck angrily at his thigh with a gauntleted hand. 'I knew it! Bound to happen. He's alive still?'

'To the best of my knowledge."

'Alive but abandoned,' Dutov raged. 'You've left him to rot.'

'I was imprisoned, and then turned out of the city,' I protested. 'If I go back they'll arrest me.'

'Where are you bound now?'

I said, 'The other royal children are still at Tobolsk. I said I'd return.'

'Stay by your train,' said he. 'We'll talk when I've done here.' And he wheeled away. In the next hour or so he mopped up. The survivors from the attacked Bolshevik train were formed up, with their wounded, and set to marching due north, and a dishevelled-looking crew they were. Dutov's men then swarmed aboard the train and seemed to be taking for themselves anything that was both movable and useful. Then the white horse came cantering towards us and Dutov swung one leg forward over the horse's neck and slid to the ground.

'Got any vodka?' he demanded.

There was perhaps two inches of the lemon remaining. I handed the bottle to him and watched his head tilt back as he drained it. 'None on that damned Bolshevik train!' he said. 'Precious little of anything. All we got was a few rifles and some ammunition boxes. God knows what they live on!'

I told him we had a little food in tins, but he wasn't interested. 'It's arms we want. I could do with money, too-it's a while since my rascals were paid. Not -' and he laughed wickedly-'that they could spend it anywhere, eh! But it keeps a man loyal, money does, no matter what the Bolsheviks say! Now, tell me about Nicholas.'

So I told him what I knew: of the pressure for assassination, of the place where he was imprisoned. But not, of course, of the paper.

'What forces have the Bolsheviks?'

'Impossible to know. There are guards everywhere, men with weapons in the streets.'

'Rabble!' says he. 'You can give a man a gun, it doesn't make him a soldier.'

'You're thinking of attack?'

He gave me a glittering grin. 'No! I'm not thinking of anything of the kind. God, I had you for a lily-livered nothing running off with your tail curled down, and what is it you want of me? To attack Ekaterinburg with my little force, no less! But don't worry, it will be retaken before too long, that's a promise.'

'I hope it won't be too late,' I said soberly.

He regarded me for a moment, then fished in his tunic pocket, brought out a leather cigar case and lit one carefully. 'Upmann,' he said through wreathing, fragrant smoke, 'and I have seven left. The boy's where?'

'The Tsarevitch?'

'Yes, Alexei.'

'At Tobolsk. Why?'

Dutov drew on the cigar and looked hard at me. 'The succession, man!'

'Nicholas abdicated for himself and his son.'

Dutov nodded angrily. 'Damn fool. The boy would have been a rallying point.'

'Probably a dead one,' I said.

'Not necessarily. And he wouldn't be the first son to reclaim a father's throne. ' Dutov was tempted, he told me a moment later, to ride for Tobolsk, and secure the Romanov children; and he was angry when I shook my head.

'Why not?'

'There are extremists in Tobolstz who'll kill them at the first sign of an army. You'd never get near enough!'

'But yew would?'

They know me, the Bolsheviks there.'

'Maybe, but do they trust you?'

I shrugged. "The sight of Yakovlev won't set them murdering the youngsters.'

'Thinking of a boat, are you - from Tobolsk up the Ob?'

I shook my head, though that was precisely the direction of my thoughts. 'What will you do, General?'

He puffed smoke. 'More of the same. Harass these Bolshevik dogs wherever I can. Wait for the rest to arrive: they'll be here in a few weeks!'

'Who will - what others?'

'The Whites. Kolchak's army, the Czech Legion, all of them. It's advance, advance at the moment and the Bolsheviks are falling back. One day soon you'll get your wish. We'll take Ekaterinburg. Meanwhile I need guns and money.'

'Let's hope the Tsar will still be alive when you reach him. Will money buy guns?'

'Takes time,' Dutov said. 'Munitions have a long way to come from the Far East, but yes.'

For some minutes I had been looking at General Dutov with a thoughtful and sceptical eye, for there was a picture in my mind of that chest of gold coins, and a rearing question: should it be handed to Dutov? My own instinctive answer was that it should; what is a royal treasure for if it is not to be spent on the arms necessary to preserve the royal life? But Dutov was a brigand if ever I saw one. He was not a man who, shown the gold, would say at once, 'How generous! A thousand thanks.' Dutov would say, 'Where did it come from?' and 'How much more?'

Therefore I asked him, as great favour, to arrange for the line ahead to be cleared of the standing train. He agreed-'I like playing with trains' - and departed to arrange it. The task would be a simple one, for there was a spur siding actually in view.

Then, while he was away, I had Koznov assist me to lift the chest from the carriage, bear it forward to my wagon-lit, and stow it beneath the bed. That done, I took up the pillow used earlier to surrender, stepped down to the track and began to wave it. The signal brought a galloper and I said, 'Ask General Dutov if he can spare me a moment.'

The man appeared to regard this as mild effrontery. 'You should go to the General,' he admonished me.

'Tell him it will be worthwhile.'

I watched him ride off. A minute passed, then the milk-white beast came flying towards me.

'What's this?' barked Dutov. 'A damned summons?'

'Come with me.' I climbed aboard the train.

'What is it, damn you?' All this was an offence to his dignity. He followed me along to the wagon-lit, growling to himself.

I flung open the door and pointed to the handle of the chest where it protruded from beneath my bed.

'Help me pull it out.'

'I'll get one of my men.'

'Better,' I said, 'if this is private.'

He looked at me sharply.

'Entrusted to me by the Tsar,' I said, 'so it wouldn't fall into Bolshevik hands.'

He gave a little roar of eagerness and together we dragged the box out. When I lifted the lid, I thought he would explode with joy.

'A king's ransom, here,' he purred.

'A king's treasure,' I told him. 'To be used, as His Majesty insisted, in the general cause.'

'General damned nonsense,' said Dutov dismissively, his hands in the chest and coins clinking merrily.

'There isn't a general cause.'

'There's an anti-Bolshevik cause,' I said, 'and that will do.'

He was suddenly roaring with laughter. I for one had certainly never seen the like of the fortune in gold which lay in that chest, and I doubt if Dutov had either. Then suddenly the laughter stopped, and he was regarding me with suspicious eyes. 'How much did you take?'

'None,’ I said.

¦\AA'None!' he yelled. 'You're a damned liar! I bet you've taken -'

'Close the lid, man,' I said. 'And you'll see that the chest is full to the top. I have this -' and I took from my pocket a crucifix encrusted with sapphires, and lied to him - 'a gift from the Tsarina which I would not exchange for a moment. Not for all of that!'

He didn't know whether to gape at me or at the gold; his eyes were not still for a second. Perhaps a minute passed before he said, with a wonderful air of cunning: 'Think what I can buy with this!'

'Exactly,' I said.

So now my train could push ahead along a clear track, for Dutov did not remain long after the gold came to him. It was an easy and uninterrupted run through empty country that brought us at last back to Tyumen, and by then my mind was made up concerning the treasure. I left the faithful Koznov and his men to guard it at the station and made my way to the river quay. There was ice on the water still, and plenty of it; but it was broken now and the edges smooth as it melted. There was a building containing an office or two, and behind that, a warehouse of good size. A brass plate on the door of the offices proclaimed this to be premises of the West Siberian Steamship Co. The door was locked, and repeated banging on it produced no answer. It was probable, I thought, that the workers in this place would hibernate in the winter. But the winter was over now. I set out to find the responsible men.

The manager I found without trouble, in a house no distance away. He was a man in some difficulty, for the winter had changed his world. When in October the frosts had rendered the river unnavigable, there had still been a Provisional Government, and the company's owners, though far away in London and Oslo, were at least known. Now he knew only what the local Bolsheviks had told him: that everything belonged to the people. So, with spring upon him and a steamship company to manage, he was looking round for instructions very keenly.

'That steamer over there -' I pointed - 'is she fit to sail?'

'Oh yes. We keep a fire going through the winter months so-'

'How long to get steam up?'

'What are you proposing, Comrade?'

'CommissarYakovlev,' I said, and produced my paper.

He goggled at it.

'I intend to requisition that steamer for a journey to Tobolsk.'

'Of course, of course. We can have steam up in three hours.'

'Good. And I shall need horses and wagons.'

There was surprisingly little trouble: Tyumen was once again merely a town along the track, for the men from Ekaterinburg had gone. Carts and horses were rapidly assembled and it was perfectly clear that the relationship between the steamer manager and the carters was both long-standing and amiable. So all was done with fair ease and proper care. I stood by the rail carriages to make sure there was no attempted theft. One might imagine that men like those carters, who could never in their lives have come across such things before, might be at the least curious and at worst fiercely acquisitive; but they were not. In their placidity and capacity for work they much resembled their own horses. By mid-afternoon all was aboard the Rus, for that was the steamer's name, and I was ready to depart. The boat's master, one Meluik, was at the wheel and Koznov's men were below, ready to feed the boiler from the stacks of corded wood.

So we sailed. What I remember from that journey aboard the Rus is a sense of peace. Tyumen is itself a small town and Tobolsk hardly bigger and there is little between them save the waters of the river and a few villages along the banks. So the steamer nudged along through the ice, thrusting it aside; and on either bank the farmland was green with the spring thrust of young corn. There came a point when Captain Meluik pointed to a village as we passed and said, That is Pokrovskoe, Commissar.' His tone suggested I should know its name.

'Pokrovskoe?' I repeated, snapping my fingers. 'Ah, that's where -?'

'Rasputin,' he said eagerly. 'The mad monk came from there. Last year when the Tsar and Tsarina made this journey on my ship -' and then he caught himself. 'Your pardon, Commissar, the ex-Tsar and ex-Tsarina, that's what I meant.'

'Tell me.'

'I pointed out the village to the ex-Tsarina. She wept and fell to her knees on the deck and prayed.'

'You knew him?' I asked.

'He travelled on the Rus. I spoke to him.' Meluik gave a little shudder. 'A man to fear. Such eyes!'

So I was regaled with stories of Rasputin, the ship and the region, as Rus drove steadily north, and came at last, on the next day, to the great bend of the Irtysh River where stands Tobolsk. From the bridge of the steamer the Governor's House was clearly visible, and through my binoculars I could discern that there were figures sitting outdoors on a kind of balcony which caught the afternoon sun. I regarded them with a profoundly guilty feeling.

For it is here that I must make a most dreadful confession. The peace of mind of which I spoke lasted only the first half of the Rus's journey. It happened that I lay that night, so Meluik told me, in the bed occupied the previous year by Nicholas. Somehow that knowledge made me, for a time at least, quite unable to sleep, so that my mind ran hither and yon over the events of the immediate past and possibilities for the future. It was then, listening to the water and the bumps of ice, that I pictured my own King, whose first mysterious summons had set me upon this road, and who was so desperately anxious to save the Imperial Family. And I realized that I must endeavour by all available means to carry out my Sovereign's dearest wish, whatever the risks. But I had almost no money. You may have guessed already the nature of the temptation to which I succumbed. The truth is that at dead of night I entered the hold of the Rus where all the Romanov possessions were stored, and searched among them for small and valuable things, portable and easy to exchange. I came up with a good handful of items, loose jewels, brooches, earrings and the like. Their value cannot possibly be guessed at, but must have been substantial. It was an unforgivable crime: I see that now. But at the time, as I searched among the belongings for suitable items, the thought dominant in my mind was that if the necessity should arise to bribe an official, or purchase services for the Tsar's sake, it would be unthinkable for me to fail to have the wherewithal when the wherewithal was available. And so, a thief in the night, I stole. Next afternoon, when the Rus had been tied up at the West Siberian Steamship Co.'s quay at Tobolsk and I strode off to greet the royal children, my pockets contained their things.

At the gate of the Governor's House I put on a bold manner and called for Colonel Kobylinsky. He came quickly, but with the air of a man looking over his shoulder, and led me, without speaking, inside to his quarters. Once there and with the stout door closed, he asked me at once, 'What of the Tsar?'

'You haven't heard?'

'We hear nothing.'

So I told Kobylinsky briefly of the incarceration of Nicholas and Alexandra and their daughter.

'Can anything be done?'

'I'm trying. The situation is very difficult.'

'Are you taking the others?' Kobylinsky then asked me worriedly. 'They very much want to go to their parents, of course. But I don't like the prospect of Ekaterinburg ... I don't like that at all.'

'No. There's no question of taking them, but I'll talk to the youngsters.'

He nodded. 'Try not to worry them.'

So I made my face as cheerful as possible and adopted a matching tone, but it was a melancholy experience to face the three Grand Duchesses and young Alexei and to tell them the news. That they blamed me was clear in their eyes, but they were all of them too well-mannered to say an accusing word; they simply sat in a little semi-circle round me, listening with great concentration and absorbing every movement of my eyes and lips and facial muscles.

When I had finished, the questions came, and they were heartbreakingly polite and formal: How is Papa? How is Mama? Is Marie well? I told them what I could, but such explanation as I could make satisfied them as little as it satisfied me.

The leader among them, though not the eldest, was clearly Tatiana, a thin-faced girl of twenty. She sat silent for a while, listening as I spoke, and then broke in: 'Commissar Yakovlev, we are of one mind. If our parents and our sister are imprisoned, we wish to be with them. Please take us to Ekaterinburg.'

I had hoped to avoid telling them of my own arrest and expulsion from the city, because to do so must increase their burden of worry, but it became impossible to conceal.

'I cannot take you,' I told her, and explained why.

'Then who is responsible?' she demanded. 'We all understood you to represent the highest Bolshevik authority. We understood also that safety, at the very least, was guaranteed.'

'I have informed Moscow by telegraph,' I told them. 'And I feel sure that authority will soon be re-established over the Ekaterinburg Regional Soviet.' I tried to sound convincing, and perhaps the younger ones believed me, but plainly Tatiana did not.

'Did you really come on orders from Lenin and Sverdlov?' she asked me. 'Is it true?'

'Perfectly true.'

'But they are masters of all Russia now! How can this happen, this defiance?'

I told her what I had once thought myself: that the answer lay in a failure of communication, and perhaps in rivalry.

T, she said, 'think it is all a trick! Commissar, if our request cannot properly be made to you, to whom can it be made?'

'I will pass it on to Moscow. That is all I can do. And now I must speak alone to your brother.'

'Why?'

'I have a gift for him, and a message.'

Tatiana blinked distrustfully at me, but of course she was powerless to prevent it. She led the girls from the room and I was alone with Alexei.

He smiled at me, quite cheerfully. 'Tatiana always looks on the black side,' he said. 'I'm sure we'll all be together soon.' And then the smile broadened. 'You said you had a gift and a message. Who from Papa?'

I took out the sapphire-studded crucifix and held it up by its chain so that it swung.

'A crucifix,' Alexei said confidently, 'must be from Mama. Am I right?'

'Not entirely," I said. 'The gift and the message go together, and really they're from your father. He told me that he had left something with you, a document -'

I saw the boy's quick frown and made myself smile. 'It is just that he changed his mind, you see. He told you to keep the document safely and to give it to him only when the four of you are taken to join him. I know that's what he said. He told me so. You were to keep it secret and give it to nobody. But now he wants you to give the paper to me.'

'No.' Alexei's lips were clamped together. 'He said I must give it to nobody.'

I know he did. You heard me say so. Alexei, he sent the crucifix so you would know the message was from him, because you would recognize the crucifix. I'm sure you do.'

He was distressed now, and I hated myself for lying to him. The fact remained that the paper might well be the only means of saving all their lives. He said, on the edge of tears, 'But he told me, and made me promise!'

I said gently, 'Alexei, did you tell me about the paper?'

He shook his head. 'Of course not.'

'Did anybody else know - your sisters, for instance?'

'No.'

'It was between the two of you, between you and your father - a secret between men?'

'Yes.'

'Then how do I know?'

He stared at me, blinking.

I said, 'Only he or you could have told me, Alexei, and you didn't, did you? So it must have been your papa, mustn't it? And the crucifix is to show you that's the truth.'

A moment passed, and his brow cleared a little. Then he stretched out a hand for the crucifix. I gave it to him and he examined it.

'You know it, don't you?' I said.

Alexei rose. 'I'll bring you the paper, Commissar,' he said politely. With the paper safe in my pocket I next sought out Kobylinsky and took up with him the matter of the steamer Rus and her contents. Discussion produced the stratagem that I, as emissary of the Central Executive, issue papers to the vessel's master and to the Tobolsk manager of the shipping company commandeering the boat, and then handing control of it to Kobylinsky in the name of the Central Executive committee. He was greatly concerned about the position of himself and his men. Kobylinsky, after all, had no standing at all. In a country increasingly controlled by the Bolsheviks, he was an officer of a former regime and one, furthermore, tainted by personal contact and service with his old master, Nicholas. He could never live it down; he knew that and was accordingly hoping for the advance of the White armies to Tobolsk so he could join them. Kobylinsky's life was difficult. Elements of the guards from both Omsk and Ekaterinburg still remained, and though the good colonel had nominal command, it was in truth beyond his exercising. All in all, I determined, it was better that I leave at once. I went on horseback. The Rus had to stay where she was, and with the spring thaw now powerfully under way, a sled would prove impossible, for its runners would cut through the wet snow and scrape the ground beneath.

So I made the decision to ride, and a foolish choice it was - one that was to cost me dear. But as I rode those first two or three miles, the document given so trustingly to me by young Alexei, and so much wanted by Lenin and by Zaharoff and apparently by half the world, was burning a hole in my pocket. From the beginning, from the very first awed conversation in Lenin's room in Moscow, I had had a notion of what it must contain. Now I found I had to know. And so, in the last of the light, I reined in my horse, took the envelope from my pocket, and broke the seal.

I checked first that it had indeed been signed - and there was his signature: not a simple Nicholas as once it must have been, but 'Nicholas Romanov'. I saw, too, that it had been witnessed by Kobylinsky. Surprising, I thought, that it had been witnessed at all; but then I realized the document was composed in English, a language Kobylinsky did not speak.

It was only then that I read it through. My eyes followed the typewritten lines with growing incredulity, for though something of what I expected was there in the dry, legal language, there was far more. So much more! At stake with this document was so much that my senses reeled. Then the questions flooded in. Who knew? Did King George the Fifth? I couldn't believe that] Lenin then? No, the deceit encompassed him too.

But two men had known. Nicholas Romanov, ex-Tsar of all the Russias - he knew. And so did Basil Zaharoff, whom many held to be the most sinister figure in Europe. And now there was a third, for Henry George Dikeston knew . . . Progress in snow depends upon the condition of the snow, and a horse is as dependent upon it as is a man. Set the animal upon firm, hard-packed snow and a horse is happy and moves well. Set him upon soft slush, which is half-water, half-ice, and all treachery and discomfort, and the horse prefers to pick his way.

It was true of all those I rode and I exchanged horses several times. They would trot, certainly; flog them hard and they'd work up a gallop? but only for a few moments. That ride back to Tyumen began in difficulty and rapidly became more and more unpleasant. On a succession of horses I splashed and slithered my way southward, part of the time through falling sleet. I grew so wet and cold that had I been asked I would have said it was quite impossible to be wetter and colder. But that was wrong. I had more than a hundred miles still to go when the horse fell and threw me and I landed in a pothole in the road, a hole filled with earthy black water, and though neither the horse nor I was hurt, by the time I had remounted and ridden a few minutes in that bitter wind, I was chilled to the marrow. J should have stopped. In a village I could have found fire and food and warmth. But I was alone, and the solitary night-time traveller in remote country had better beware, whether he is in Siberia or Somerset, especially when, as was the case with me, there was wealth in his pockets. So I pressed on. My teeth chattered and my feet were blocks of ice; gradually the cold crept through my body, so{ hat I shivered uncontrollably. Come morning, I was aware that I was already quite unwell, for alternately I shook and was feverish, and felt increasingly foul. But I came into Tyumen still in place upon my horse's back, just in time to leap direct aboard a train bound west for Ekaterinburg. That journey, also, was a nightmare. The remnants of my money bought me a place only in a third-class carriage which was impossibly crowded, and not only with people, though there were three for every two places. In addition there was baggage and several animals, including a goat whose stench, I swear, was no greater than that of several of the peasants near me. Probably I stank also; certainly I steamed and in the press of humanity there were many like me: soaked and steaming. I felt increasing hunger and thirst, but there was no means of satisfying either. My health deteriorated by the hour: I was hot, I was shaking; the fever was rising, I sweated like a hog. The last three hours of the journey were spent huddled on the floor, sleeping perhaps, though it was more of a faint.

As the voice yelled 'Ekaterinburg,' I dragged myself to my feet. It was just after eight o'clock by the station clock as I staggered out of the stinking, steamy heat of the railway carriage into the cold night air of the city.

In an hour I must meet Ruzsky.

I would have waited another day to see him, and should have done so. Food and a bed and healthy warmth were what was required, but I had no money for lodging, the last having been spent on the train journey. Only a few kopeks remained and with those I bought tea at the station. It refreshed me a little, as tea does, but I was in a poor way as I set off from the station towards the Palais Royal Hotel. Already I knew, from talk heard in the station, that the Imperial Family remained imprisoned in the Ipatiev House. Ruzsky was late. It is unimportant, I suppose, but it mattered that night to me, feeling as I did, and leaning against the rear wall of the hotel, miserable as a sick dog. But it is difficult to blame him. In the days since I had left Ekaterinburg he must have kept our rendezvous faithfully, and was keeping it still. At the sight of me he said wrathfully, 'Where in hell have you been?'

I began to tell him and my teeth were chattering. He pulled a bottle from his pocket. 'Plum brandy. Drink it.'

Then he listened as I told him about the steamer and Tobolsk. The story took little time in the telling, so that soon I could ask him: 'What news of the Romanovs here?'

That, too, was soon told. There were no events to record; the Imperial Family remained under guard, that was all. But one change had occurred: and it struck me at once as deeply sinister. Ipatiev's house now had a new name, by proclamation. It must now be known as The House of Special Purpose!

'But what does it mean?' I demanded. 'What special purpose?'t Ruzsky gave a shrug. 'Who knows? A name means nothing. Drink some more.'

The political state of affairs was unchanged, he told me then: the Urals Soviet had been meeting almost daily, and always there was discussion of what to do with the Romanovs. 'General opinion is for execution of Nicholas.'

'He alone?' I asked.

'That depends who speaks. Beloborodov, the chairman, would kill the Tsar and spare the rest, or so I think. Goloshchokin's for butchering them all. With the Whites too near for comfort he thinks their presence is a danger to the city.'

'Is there no opposition?' I demanded. 'Surely there must be - when there is talk of killing children?'

'Hardly children,' he said, 'except for the boy, and he's fourteen now. Yes, there's opposition.'

'How many - what's the balance of the committee?'

'Never tested,' Ruzsky said, 'and some decline even to offer a view, on the grounds that the matter is of no importance. I'm doing what I can, but it's little enough.

Nobody, even of the Soviet, may enter the House of Special Purpose to see the Romanovs except Beloborodov. And the guards, of course. That's the problem.'

'How much opposition?' I repeated.

There's a fellow named Scriabin; he's Regional Commissar for Natural Resources: one of the milk-and-water people who won't shed blood. I make a point of being close to him in spite of disagreement.'

'So is there a chance?'

'There's always a chance,' Ruzsky said.

Pilgrim, despite his impatience and his professed lack of interest, continued to see Dikeston's manuscripts; he merely declined to allow thought of them to dominate his waking hours. That morning the third instalment, thoughtfully Xeroxed for him by Malory, won a small battle for his attention, a battle with the Financial Times. Pilgrim, speed-reading, his concentration firm, barely noticed the entrance of Jacques Graves to his office. He murmured, 'Important?'

'Not really.' Graves, from long familiarity knew when not to disturb. 'Later will be okay.'

He laid a single sheet of paper on the left side of Pilgrim's desk, and withdrew. Pilgrim ignored it for several minutes, then reached out a hand. The note read: 'Account no. X253 at the Irish Linen Bank belongs to ...

Pilgrim swore to himself, rose and marched down the corridor to Malory's room. Malory, wreathed in expensive cigar smoke, looked up. 'Have you read it?'

'Some of it.' Pilgrim flourished Graves's note. 'Did Jacques tell you?'

'Tell me what?' Malory removed his glasses.

'That damned account at the bank,' Pilgrim said. 'Know whose it is?'

'No, he didn't tell me.'

'Then I will. How's UNICEF grab you?'

Malory frowned. 'You know, I'm never too sure which of those things is which - WHO and UNESCO

and so on. Which is UNICEF?'

'It's the children's fund, Horace - The United Nations Children's Fund.'

'Ah, I see.'

'So do I. My God, fifty thousand - plus the deeds of a house worth another hundred and fifteen - and we've handed the goddam lot to a charity! We'll never see one red cent back. Have you the instructions for the next instalment?'

An envelope lay beside Malory. He patted it with a brown-spotted hand. 'Here,' he said.

'What do they say?'

'I'm waiting to learn. Until I have finished reading.' Malory glanced pointedly at the Act of Parliament clock on the wall. 'Tell me,' he continued, 'are you beginning to find this interesting now?'

'At ten pounds a word, sure it's interesting!' There was irritation in every line of Pilgrim's back as he turned and left.

Malory put on his glasses and resettled himself to read. The temptation to turn to the end and to open the envelope were almost, but not quite, irresistible. Dikeston was clearly in terrible trouble, but equally clearly he had got out of it - with something that was worth£50,000 a year for ever. Deep inside myself, Malory thought with conscious realism, I am now a man torn: I deeply believed in the potential disaster, yet I am perversely beginning to enjoy the game Dikeston has set us all to play. I felt like death by this time. Sweat coursed down my body beneath my clothes, yet at the same time I shivered and burned.

'What I keep pressing upon Scriabin,' Ruzsky told me, as we stood beneath the dark shelter of the hotel wall that night, 'is that the Romanov family should be brought together.'

'Why?' I asked. Though I was awake and standing up, my mind worked barely at all. Yet I recall clearly the sound of a clock chiming near by. Oddly, in that place, it was a Westminster chime.

'Why? Because,' Ruzsky said, 'it is foolish on all counts to separate them. Even for the Bolsheviks it is wrong. So Scriabin tells the Soviet, and I reinforce his argument as much as I dare. So long as Nicholas is here and the son at Tobolsk there will be two potential rallying points: for the Whites and for monarchists of all kinds, here in Siberia. It is even an invitation to White armies to a two-pronged attack!'

He gave me a grin then, and tapped his nose. 'Better for us too, eh? - if the Family were together here.'

'Why? We're helpless.'

'Nobody is helpless,' Ruzsky said. 'Least of all you and me. But,' he went on, 'it is true we stand in need of help.'

This was so ludicrous an understatement that I was near to laughing in his face. He looked at me hard, then forced more plum brandy on me. Perhaps he sensed what the future held for me; at all events he would brook no delay and no argument. He took my arm and began to propel me along the dark streets, talking as we went.

'The help we need,' he argued, 'is from someone of position. You have none now; I have standing only in the Soviet and my attitude cannot alter there. We need an outside power.'

'Of what kind?'

'British,' Ruzsky said firmly. 'The British have a consul here. His name is Preston. His position is secure; he may even be able to force diplomatic access to the House of Special Purpose. Come along, man, you must stay on your feet an hour or two yet.'

And I did, God alone knows how. I stayed on my feet as we trudged towards the forbidding palisade at the Ipatiev House, as we walked past it, eyed by the guards, along Vosnesensky Avenue. Ruzsky knew where he was going well enough, and when we halted at a big house with a strongly bolted door upon which the lion and the unicorn did their dance, he did not so much speak as issue an order. This was the British Consulate.

'Knock,' he said. Obediently I did so.

We waited. The door was opened at last by a man in a long silken dressing-gown. I said to him in English, 'I am in urgent need of your assistance!'

And he, in the very best traditions of the British Foreign Service when confronted with a fellow countryman visibly in extremis, said, 'I can't help you now. It's far too late. Come back in the morning.'

The King, thought Malory - it all began with the King, with George V, acting alone. No, not alone through Zaharoff. But acting in a remarkably furtive manner all the same for a King-Emperor. Malory ticked off the steps one by one: the King calls in Zaharoff, who unearths Dikeston from somewhere or other and sends him off to Siberia. And there -surprisingly, if one did not know Sir Basil, but unsurprisingly if one did - another Zaharoff man is encountered. At no point, Malory noted, was the British Government involved. Or not, at least, to that point.

But now, it seemed, the Foreign Office was about to be dragged in by its reluctant if elegant lapels. He stretched out a hand to the letter, broke the seal and with care extracted the sheet of paper therein. The first sentence read:

I did not know that evening, as I spoke to Ruzsky, that on that very day Bolshevik orders had reached Tobolsk from Moscow relieving Colonel Kobylinsky of his command, dispersing his troops and replacing him with one Rodionov. Nor did I know that within a week the steamer Rus would again be used - this time to move the Romanov children from Tobolsk. But they did not journey north to the Ob river . . . Dikeston's instructions followed.