The Man From St. Petersburg

THREE

Charlotte was ready. The gown, agonized over for so long, was perfect. To complete it she wore a single blush rose in her corsage and carried a spray of the same flowers, covered in chiffon. Her diamond tiara was fixed firmly to her upswept hair, and the two white plumes were securely fastened. Everything was fine.

She was terrified.

“As I enter the Throne Room,” she said to Marya, “my train will drop off, my tiara will fall over my eyes, my hair will come loose, my feathers will lean sideways, and I shall trip over the hem of my gown and go flat on the floor. The assembled company will burst out laughing, and no one will laugh louder than Her Majesty the Queen. I shall run out of the palace and into the park and throw myself into the lake.”

“You ought not to talk like that,” said Marya. Then, more gently, she added: “You’ll be the loveliest of them all.”

Charlotte ’s mother came into the bedroom. She held Charlotte at arm’s length and looked at her. “My dear, you’re beautiful,” she said, and kissed her.

Charlotte put her arms around Mama’s neck and pressed her cheek against her mother’s, the way she had used to as a child, when she had been fascinated by the velvet smoothness of Mama’s complexion. When she drew away, she was surprised to see a hint of tears in her mother’s eyes.

“You’re beautiful too, Mama,” she said.

Lydia ’s gown was of ivory charmeuse, with a train of old ivory brocade lined in purple chiffon. Being a married lady she wore three feathers in her hair as opposed to Charlotte ’s two. Her bouquet was sweet peas and petunia roses.

“Are you ready?” she said.

“I’ve been ready for ages,” Charlotte said.

“Pick up your train.”

Charlotte picked up her train the way she had been taught.

Mama nodded approvingly. “Shall we go?”

Marya opened the door. Charlotte stood aside to let her mother go first, but Mama said: “No, dear-it’s your night.”

They walked in procession, Marya bringing up the rear, along the corridor and down to the landing. When Charlotte reached the top of the grand staircase she heard a burst of applause.

The whole household was gathered at the foot of the stairs: housekeeper, cook, footmen, maids, skivvies, grooms and boys. A sea of faces looked up at her with pride and delight. Charlotte was touched by their affection: it was a big night for them, too, she realized.

In the center of the throng was Papa, looking magnificent in a black velvet tailcoat, knee breeches and silk stockings, with a sword at his hip and a cocked hat in his hand.

Charlotte walked slowly down the stairs.

Papa kissed her and said: “My little girl.”

The cook, who had known her long enough to take liberties, plucked at her sleeve and whispered: “You look wonderful, m’lady.”

Charlotte squeezed her hand and said: “Thank you, Mrs. Harding.”

Aleks bowed to her. He was resplendent in the uniform of an admiral in the Russian Navy. What a handsome man he is, Charlotte thought; I wonder whether someone will fall in love with him tonight.

Two footmen opened the front door. Papa took Charlotte ’s elbow and gently steered her out. Mama followed on Aleks’s arm. Charlotte thought: If I can just keep my mind blank all evening, and go automatically wherever people lead me, I shall be all right.

The coach was waiting outside. William the coachman and Charles the footman stood at attention on either side of the door, wearing the Walden livery. William, stout and graying, was calm, but Charles looked excited. Papa handed Charlotte into the coach, and she sat down gracefully. I haven’t fallen over yet, she thought.

The other three got in. Pritchard brought a hamper and put it on the floor of the coach before closing the door.

The coach pulled away.

Charlotte looked at the hamper. “A picnic?” she said. “But we’re only going half a mile!”

“Wait till you see the queue,” Papa said. “It will take us almost an hour to get there.”

It occurred to Charlotte that she might be more bored than nervous this evening.

Sure enough, the carriage stopped at the Admiralty end of The Mall, half a mile from Buckingham Palace. Papa opened the hamper and took out a bottle of champagne. The basket also contained chicken sandwiches, hothouse peaches and a cake.

Charlotte sipped a glass of champagne but she could not eat anything. She looked out of the window. The pavements were thronged with idlers watching the procession of the mighty. She saw a tall man with a thin, handsome face leaning on a bicycle and staring intently at their coach. Something about his look made Charlotte shiver and turn away.

After such a grand exit from the house, she found that the anticlimax of sitting in the queue was calming. By the time the coach passed through the palace gates and approached the grand entrance she was beginning to feel more her normal self-skeptical, irreverent and impatient.

The coach stopped and the door was opened. Charlotte gathered her train in her left arm, picked up her skirts with her right hand, stepped down from the coach and walked into the palace.

The great red-carpeted hall was a blaze of light and color. Despite her skepticism she felt a thrill of excitement when she saw the crowd of white-gowned women and men in glittering uniforms. The diamonds flashed, the swords clanked and the plumes bobbed. Red-coated Beefeaters stood at attention on either side.

Charlotte and Mama left their wraps in the cloakroom, then, escorted by Papa and Aleks, walked slowly through the hall and up the grand staircase, between the Yeomen of the Guard with their halberds and the massed red and white roses. From there they went through the picture gallery and into the first of three state drawing rooms with enormous chandeliers and mirror-bright parquet floors. Here the procession ended and people stood around in groups, chatting and admiring one another’s clothes. Charlotte saw her cousin Belinda with Uncle George and Aunt Clarissa. The two families greeted each other.

Uncle George was wearing the same clothes as Papa, but because he was so fat and red-faced he looked awful in them. Charlotte wondered how Aunt Clarissa, who was young and pretty, felt about being married to such a lump.

Papa was surveying the room as if looking for someone. “Have you seen Churchill?” he said to Uncle George.

“Good Lord, what do you want him for?”

Papa took out his watch. “We must take our places in the Throne Room-we’ll leave you to look after Charlotte, if we may, Clarissa.” Papa, Mama and Aleks left.

Belinda said to Charlotte: “Your dress is gorgeous.”

“It’s awfully uncomfortable.”

“I knew you were going to say that!”

“You’re ever so pretty.”

“Thank you.” Belinda lowered her voice. “I say, Prince Orlov is rather dashing.”

“He’s very sweet.”

“I think he’s more than sweet.”

“What’s that funny look in your eye?”

Belinda lowered her voice even more. “You and I must have a long talk very soon.”

“About what?”

“Remember what we discussed in the hideaway? When we took those books from the library at Walden Hall?”

Charlotte looked at her uncle and aunt, but they had turned away to talk to a dark-skinned man in a pink satin turban. “Of course I remember.”

“About that.”

Silence descended suddenly. The crowd fell back toward the sides of the room to make a gangway in the middle. Charlotte looked around and saw the King and Queen enter the drawing room, followed by their pages, several members of the Royal Family and the Indian bodyguard.

There was a great sigh of rustling silk as every woman in the room sank to the floor in a curtsy.

In the Throne Room, the orchestra concealed in the Minstrels’ Gallery struck up “God Save the King.” Lydia looked toward the huge doorway guarded by gilt giants. Two attendants walked in backward, one carrying a gold stick and one a silver. The King and Queen entered at a stately pace, smiling faintly. They mounted the dais and stood in front of the twin thrones. The rest of their entourage took their places nearby, remaining standing.

Queen Mary wore a gown of gold brocade and a crown of emeralds. She’s no beauty, Lydia thought, but they say he adores her. She had once been engaged to her husband’s elder brother, who had died of pneumonia, and the switch to the new heir to the throne had seemed coldly political at the time. However, everyone now agreed that she was a good queen and a good wife. Lydia would have liked to know her personally.

The presentations began. One by one the wives of ambassadors came forward, curtsied to the King, curtsied to the Queen, then backed away. The ambassadors followed, dressed in a great variety of gaudy comic-opera uniforms, all but the United States ambassador, who wore ordinary black evening clothes, as if to remind everyone that Americans did not really believe in this sort of nonsense.

As the ritual went on, Lydia looked around the room, at the crimson satin on the walls, the heroic frieze below the ceiling, the enormous candelabra and the thousands of flowers. She loved pomp and ritual, beautiful clothes and elaborate ceremonies; they moved and soothed her at the same time. She caught the eye of the Duchess of Devonshire, who was the Queen’s Mistress of the Robes, and they exchanged a discreet smile. She spotted John Burns, the socialist President of the Board of Trade, and was amused to see the extravagant gilt embroidery of his court dress.

When the diplomatic presentations ended, the King and Queen sat down. The Royal Family, the diplomats and the most senior nobility followed suit. Lydia and Walden, along with the lesser nobility, had to remain standing.

At last the presentation of the debutantes began. Each girl paused just outside the Throne Room while an attendant took her train from her arm and spread it behind her. Then she began the endless walk along the red carpet to the thrones, with all eyes on her. If a girl could look graceful and unself-conscious there, she could do it anywhere.

As the debutante approached the dais she handed her invitation card to the Lord Chamberlain, who read out her name. She curtsied to the King, then to the Queen. Few girls curtsied elegantly, Lydia thought. She had had a great deal of trouble getting Charlotte to practice at all: perhaps other mothers had the same problem. After the curtsies the deb walked on, careful not to turn her back on the thrones until she was safely hidden in the watching crowd.

The girls followed one another so closely that each was in danger of treading on the train of the one in front. The ceremony seemed to Lydia to be less personal, more perfunctory than it used to be. She herself had been presented to Queen Victoria in the season of 1896, the year after she married Walden. The old Queen had not sat on a throne, but on a high stool which gave the impression that she was standing. Lydia had been surprised at how little Victoria was. She had had to kiss the Queen’s hand. That part of the ceremony had now been dispensed with, presumably to save time. It made the court seem like a factory for turning out the maximum number of debs in the shortest possible time. Still, the girls of today did not know the difference and probably would not care if they did.

Suddenly Charlotte was at the entrance, and the attendant was laying down her train, then giving her a gentle push, and she was walking along the red carpet, head held high, looking perfectly serene and confident. Lydia thought: This is the moment I have lived for. The girl ahead of Charlotte curtsied-and then the unthinkable happened.

Instead of getting up from her curtsy, the debutante looked at the King, stretched out her arms in a gesture of supplication, and cried in a loud voice:

“Your Majesty, for God’s sake stop torturing women!”

Lydia thought: A suffragette!

Her eyes flashed to her daughter. Charlotte was standing dead still, halfway to the dais, staring at the tableau with an expression of horror on her ashen face.

The shocked silence in the Throne Room lasted for only a second. Two gentlemen-in-waiting were the fastest to react. They sprang forward, took the girl firmly by either arm and marched her unceremoniously away.

The Queen was blushing crimson. The King managed to look as if nothing had happened. Lydia looked again at Charlotte, thinking: Why did my daughter have to be next in line?

Now all eyes were on Charlotte. Lydia wanted to call out to her: Pretend it never happened! Just carry on!

Charlotte stood still. A little color came back into her cheeks. Lydia could see that she was taking a deep breath.

Then she walked forward. Lydia could not breathe. Charlotte handed her card to the Lord Chamberlain, who said: “Presentation of Lady Charlotte Walden.” Charlotte stood before the King.

Lydia thought: Careful!

Charlotte curtsied perfectly.

She curtsied again to the Queen.

She half turned, and walked away.

Lydia let out her breath in a long sigh.

The woman standing next to Lydia -a baroness whom she vaguely recognized but did not really know-whispered: “She handled that very well.”

“She’s my daughter,” Lydia said with a smile.

Walden was secretly amused by the suffragette. Spirited girl! he thought. Of course, if Charlotte had done such a thing at the court he would have been horrified, but as it was someone else’s daughter he regarded the incident as a welcome break in the interminable ceremony. He had noticed how Charlotte had carried on, unruffled: he would have expected no less of her. She was a highly self-assured young lady, and in his opinion Lydia should congratulate herself on the girl’s upbringing instead of worrying all the time.

He used to enjoy these occasions, years ago. As a young man he had quite liked to put on court dress and cut a dash. In those days he had had the legs for it, too. Now he felt foolish in knee breeches and silk stockings, not to mention a damn great steel sword. And he had attended so many courts that the colorful ritual no longer fascinated him.

He wondered how King George felt about it. Walden liked the King. Of course, by comparison with his father, Edward VII, George was a rather colorless, mild fellow. The crowds would never shout, “Good old Georgie!” the way they had shouted, “Good old Teddy!” But in the end they would like George for his quiet charm and his modest way of life. He knew how to be firm, although as yet he did it too rarely; and Walden liked a man who could shoot straight. Walden thought he would turn out very well indeed.

Finally the last debutante curtsied and passed on, and the King and Queen stood up. The orchestra played the national anthem again. The King bowed, and the Queen curtsied, first to the ambassadors, then to the ambassadors’ wives, then to the duchesses, and lastly to the ministers. The King took the Queen by the hand. The pages picked up her train. The attendants went out backward. The royal couple left, followed by the rest of the company in order of precedence.

They divided to go into three supper rooms: one for the royal family and their close friends, one for the diplomatic corps and one for the rest. Walden was a friend, but not an intimate friend, of the King: he went with the general assembly. Aleks went with the diplomats.

In the supper room Walden met up with his family again. Lydia was glowing. Walden said: “Congratulations, Charlotte.”

Lydia said: “Who was that awful girl?”

“I heard someone say she’s the daughter of an architect,” Walden replied.

“That explains it,” said Lydia.

Charlotte looked mystified. “Why does that explain it?”

Walden smiled. “Your mama means that the girl is not quite out of the top drawer.”

“But why does she think the King tortures women?”

“She was talking about the suffragettes. But let’s not go into all that tonight; this is a grand occasion for us. Let’s have supper. It looks marvelous.”

There was a long buffet table loaded with flowers and hot and cold food. Servants in the scarlet-and-gold royal livery waited to offer the guests lobster, filleted trout, quail, York ham, plovers’ eggs and a host of pastries and desserts. Walden got a loaded plate and sat down to eat. After standing about in the Throne Room for more than two hours he was hungry.

Sooner or later Charlotte would have to learn about the suffragettes, their hunger strikes, and the consequent force-feeding; but the subject was indelicate, to say the least, and the longer she remained in blissful ignorance the better, Walden thought. At her age life should be all parties and picnics, frocks and hats, gossip and flirtation.

But everyone was talking about “the incident” and “that girl.” Walden’s brother, George, sat beside him and said without preamble: “She’s a Miss Mary Blomfield, daughter of the late Sir Arthur Blomfield. Her mother was in the drawing room at the time. When she was told what her daughter had done she fainted right off.” He seemed to relish the scandal.

“Only thing she could do, I suppose,” Walden replied.

“Damn shame for the family,” George said. “You won’t see Blomfields at court again for two or three generations.”

“We shan’t miss them.”

“No.”

Walden saw Churchill pushing through the crowd toward where they sat. He had written to Churchill about his talk with Aleks, and he was impatient to discuss the next step-but not here. He looked away, hoping Churchill would get the hint. He should have known better than to hope that such a subtle message would get through.

Churchill bent over Walden’s chair. “Can we have a few words together?”

Walden looked at his brother. George wore an expression of horror. Walden threw him a resigned look and got up.

“Let’s walk in the picture gallery,” Churchill said.

Walden followed him out.

Churchill said: “I suppose you, too, will tell me that this suffragette protest is all the fault of the Liberal party.”

“I expect it is,” Walden said. “But that isn’t what you want to talk about.”

“No, indeed.”

The two men walked side by side through the long gallery. Churchill said: “We can’t acknowledge the Balkans as a Russian sphere of influence.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“What do they want the Balkans for? I mean, forgetting all this nonsense about sympathy with Slav nationalism.”

“They want passage through to the Mediterranean.”

“That would be to our advantage, if they were our allies.”

“Exactly.”

They reached the end of the gallery and stopped. Churchill said: “Is there some way we can give them that passage without redrawing the map of the Balkan Peninsula?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.”

Churchill smiled. “And you’ve got a counterproposal.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Walden said, “What we’re talking about here is three stretches of water: the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles. If we can give them those waterways, they won’t need the Balkans. Now, suppose that whole passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean could be declared an international waterway, with free passage to ships of all nations guaranteed jointly by Russia and England.”

Churchill started walking again, slow and thoughtful. Walden walked beside him, waiting for his answer.

Eventually Churchill said: “That passage ought to be an international waterway, in any event. What you’re suggesting is that we offer, as if it were a concession, something which we want anyway.”

“Yes.”

Churchill looked up and grinned suddenly. “When it comes to Machiavellian maneuvering, there’s no one to beat the English aristocracy. All right. Go ahead and propose it to Orlov.”

“You don’t want to put it to the Cabinet?”

“No.”

“Not even to the Foreign Secretary?”

“Not at this stage. The Russians are certain to want to modify the proposal-they’ll want details of how the guarantee is to be enforced, at least-so I’ll go to the Cabinet when the deal is fully elaborated.”

“Very well.” Walden wondered just how much the Cabinet knew about what Churchill and he were up to. Churchill, too, could be Machiavellian. Were there wheels within wheels?

Churchill said: “Where is Orlov now?”

“In the diplomatic supper room.”

“Let’s go and put it to him right away.”

Walden shook his head, thinking that people were right when they accused Churchill of being impulsive. “This is not the moment.”

“We can’t wait for the moment, Walden. Every day counts.”

It will take a bigger man than you to bully me, Walden thought. He said: “You’re going to have to leave that to my judgment, Churchill. I’ll put this to Orlov tomorrow morning.”

Churchill seemed disposed to argue, but he restrained himself visibly and said: “I don’t suppose Germany will declare war tonight. Very well.” He looked at his watch. “I’m going to leave. Keep me fully informed.”

“Of course. Good-bye.”

Churchill went down the staircase and Walden went back into the supper room. The party was breaking up. Now that the King and Queen had disappeared and everyone had been fed there was nothing to stay for. Walden rounded up his family and took them downstairs. They met up with Aleks in the great hall.

While the ladies went into the cloakroom Walden asked one of the attendants to summon his carriage.

All in all, he thought as he waited, it had been a rather successful evening.

The Mall reminded Feliks of the streets of the Old Equerries Quarter of Moscow. It was a wide, straight avenue that ran from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace. On one side was a series of grand houses including St. James’s Palace. On the other side was St. James’s Park. The carriages and motor cars of the great were lined up on both sides of The Mall for half its length. Chauffeurs and coachmen leaned against their vehicles, yawning and fidgeting, waiting to be summoned to the palace to collect their masters and mistresses.

The Walden carriage waited on the park side of The Mall. Their coachman, in the blue-and-pink Walden livery, stood beside the horses, reading a newspaper by the light of a carriage lamp. A few yards away, in the darkness of the park, Feliks stood watching him.

Feliks was desperate. His plan was in ruins.

He had not understood the difference between the English words “coachman” and “footman” and consequently he had misunderstood the notice in The Times about summoning carriages. He had thought that the driver of the coach would wait at the palace gate until his master emerged, then would come running to fetch the coach. At that point, Feliks had planned, he would have overpowered the coachman, taken his livery and driven the coach to the palace himself.

What happened in fact was that the coachman stayed with the vehicle and the footman waited at the palace gate. When the coach was wanted, the footman would come running; then he and the coachman would go with the carriage to pick up the passengers. That meant Feliks had to overpower two people, not one; and the difficulty was that it had to be done surreptitiously, so that none of the hundreds of other servants in The Mall would know anything was wrong.

Since realizing his mistake a couple of hours ago he had worried at the problem, while he watched the coachman chatting with his colleagues, examining a nearby Rolls-Royce car, playing some kind of game with halfpennies and polishing the carriage windows. It might have been sensible to abandon the plan and kill Orlov another day.

But Feliks hated that idea. For one thing, there was no certainty that another good opportunity would arise. For another, Feliks wanted to kill him now. He had been anticipating the bang of the gun, the way the prince would fall; he had composed the coded cable which would go to Ulrich in Geneva; he had pictured the excitement in the little printing shop, and then the headlines in the world’s newspapers, and then the final wave of revolution sweeping through Russia. I can’t postpone this any longer, he thought; I want it now.

As he watched, a young man in green livery approached the Walden coachman and said: “What ho, William.”

So the coachman’s name is William, Feliks thought.

William said: “Mustn’t grumble, John.”

Feliks did not understand that.

“Anything in the news?” said John.

“Yeah, revolution. The King says that next year all the coachmen can go in the palace for supper and the toffs will wait in The Mall.”

“A likely tale.”

“You’re telling me.”

John moved on.

I can get rid of William, Feliks thought, but what about the footman?

In his mind he ran over the probable sequence of events. Walden and Orlov would come to the palace door. The doorman would alert Walden’s footman, who would run from the palace to the carriage-a distance of about a quarter of a mile. The footman would see Feliks dressed in the coachman’s clothes, and would sound the alarm.

Suppose the footman arrived at the parking place to find that the carriage was no longer there?

That was a thought!

The footman would wonder whether he had misremembered the spot. He would look up and down. In something of a panic he would search for the coach. Finally he would admit defeat and return to the palace to tell his master that he could not find the coach. By which time Feliks would be driving the coach and its owner through the park.

It could still be done!

It was more risky than before, but it could still be done.

There was no more time for reflection. The first two or three footmen were already running down The Mall. The Rolls-Royce car in front of the Walden coach was summoned. William put on his top hat in readiness.

Feliks emerged from the bushes and walked a little way toward him, calling: “Hey! Hey, William!”

The coachman looked toward him, frowning.

Feliks beckoned urgently. “Come here, quick!”

William folded his newspaper, hesitated, then walked slowly toward Feliks.

Feliks allowed his own tension to put a note of panic into his voice. “Look at this!” he said, pointing to the bushes. “Do you know anything about this?”

“What?” William said, mystified. He drew level and peered the way Feliks was pointing.

“This.” Feliks showed him the gun. “If you make a noise I’ll shoot you.”

William was terrified. Feliks could see the whites of his eyes in the half dark. He was a heavily built man, but he was older than Feliks. If he does something foolish and messes this up I’ll kill him, Feliks thought savagely.

“Walk on,” Feliks said.

The man hesitated.

I’ve got to get him out of the light. “Walk, you bastard!”

William walked into the bushes.

Feliks followed him. When they were about fifty yards away from The Mall Feliks said: “Stop.”

William stopped and turned around.

Feliks thought: If he’s going to fight, this is where he will do it. He said: “Take off your clothes.”

“What?”

“Undress!”

“You’re mad,” William whispered.

“You’re right-I’m mad! Take off your clothes!”

William hesitated.

If I shoot him, will people come running? Will the bushes muffle the sound? Could I kill him without making a hole in his uniform? Could I take his coat off and run away before anyone arrived?

Feliks cocked the gun.

William began to undress.

Feliks could hear the increasing activity in The Mall: motor cars were started, harnesses jingled, hooves clattered and men shouted to one another and to their horses. Any minute now the footman might come running for the Walden coach. “Faster!” Feliks said.

William got down to his underwear.

“The rest also,” Feliks said.

William hesitated. Feliks lifted the gun.

William pulled off his undershirt, dropped his underpants, and stood naked, shivering with fear, covering his genitals with his hands.

“Turn around,” said Feliks. William turned his back.

“Lie on the ground, facedown.”

He did so.

Feliks put down the gun. Hurriedly, he took off his coat and hat and put on the livery coat and the top hat which William had dropped on the ground. He contemplated the knee breeches and white stockings but decided to leave them: when he was sitting up on the coach no one would notice his trousers and boots, especially in the uncertain light of the streetlamps.

He put the gun into the pocket of his own coat and folded the coat over his arm. He picked up William’s clothes in a bundle.

William tried to look around.

“Don’t move!” Feliks said sharply.

Softly, he walked away.

William would stay there for a while; then, naked as he was, he would try to get back to the Walden house unobserved. It was highly unlikely that he would report that he had been robbed of his clothes before he had a chance to get some more, unless he was an extraordinarily immodest man. Of course if he had known Feliks was going to kill Prince Orlov he might have thrown modesty to the winds-but how could he possibly guess that?

Feliks pushed William’s clothes under a bush, then walked out into the lights of The Mall.

This was where things might go wrong. Until now he had been merely a suspicious person lurking in the bushes. From this moment on he was plainly an impostor. If one of William’s friends-John, for instance-should look closely at his face, the game would be up.

He climbed rapidly onto the coach, put his own coat on the seat beside him, adjusted his top hat, released the brake and flicked the reins. The coach pulled out into the road.

He sighed with relief. I’ve got this far, he thought; I’ll get Orlov! As he drove down The Mall he watched the pavements, looking for a running footman in the blue-and-pink livery. The worst possible mischance would be for the Walden footman to see him now, recognize the colors, and jump onto the back of the coach. Feliks cursed as a motor car pulled out in front of him, forcing him to slow the horses to a halt. He looked around anxiously. There was no sign of the footman. After a moment the road was clear and he went on.

At the palace end of the avenue he spotted an empty space on the right, the side of the road farther from the park. The footman would come along the opposite pavement and would not see the coach. He pulled into the space and set the brake.

He climbed down from the seat and stood behind the horses, watching the opposite pavement. He wondered whether he would get out of this alive.

In his original plan there had been a good chance that Walden would get into the carriage without so much as a glance at the coachman, but now he would surely notice that his footman was missing. The palace doorman would have to open the coach door and pull down the steps. Would Walden stop and speak to the coachman, or would he postpone inquiries until he got home? If he were to speak to Feliks, then Feliks would have to reply and his voice would give the game away. What will I do then? Feliks thought.

I’ll shoot Orlov at the palace door and take the consequences.

He saw the footman in blue-and-pink running along the far side of The Mall.

Feliks jumped on the coach, released the brake and drove into the courtyard of Buckingham Palace.

There was a queue. Ahead of him, the beautiful women and the well-fed men climbed into their carriages and cars. Behind him, somewhere in The Mall, the Walden footman was running up and down, hunting for his coach. How long before he returned?

The palace servants had a fast and efficient system for loading guests into vehicles. While the passengers were getting into the carriage at the door, a servant was calling the owners of the second in line, and another servant was inquiring the name of the people for the third.

The line moved, and a servant approached Feliks. “The Earl of Walden,” Feliks said. The servant went inside.

They mustn’t come out too soon, Feliks thought.

The line moved forward, and now there was only a motor car in front of him. Pray God it doesn’t stall, he thought. The chauffeur held the doors for an elderly couple. The car pulled away.

Feliks moved the coach to the porch, halting it a little too far forward, so that he was beyond the wash of light from inside, and his back was to the palace doors.

He waited, not daring to look around.

He heard the voice of a young girl say, in Russian: “And how many ladies proposed marriage to you this evening, Cousin Aleks?”

A drop of sweat ran down into Feliks’s eye, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

A man said: “Where the devil is my footman?”

Feliks reached into the pocket of the coat beside him and got his hand on the butt of the revolver. Six shots left, he thought.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a palace servant spring forward, and a moment later he heard the door of the coach being opened. The vehicle rocked slightly as someone got in.

“I say, William, where’s Charles?”

Feliks tensed. He imagined he could feel Walden’s eyes boring into the back of his head. The girl’s voice said: “Come on, Papa,” from inside the carriage.

“William’s getting deaf in his old age…” Walden’s words were muffled as he got into the coach. The door slammed.

“Right away, coachman!” said the palace servant.

Feliks breathed out, and drove away.

The release of tension made him feel weak for a moment. Then, as he guided the carriage out of the courtyard, he felt a surge of elation. Orlov was in his power, shut in a box behind him, caught like an animal in a trap. Nothing could stop Feliks now.

He drove into the park.

Holding the reins in his right hand, he struggled to get his left arm into his topcoat. That done, he switched the reins to his left hand and got his right arm in. He stood up and shrugged the coat up over his shoulders. He felt in the pocket and touched the gun.

He sat down again and wound a scarf around his neck.

He was ready.

Now he had to choose his moment.

He had only a few minutes. The Walden house was less than a mile from the palace. He had bicycled along this road the night before, a reconnoiter. He had found two suitable places, where a street-lamp would illuminate his victim and there was thick shrubbery nearby into which he could disappear afterward.

The first spot loomed up fifty yards ahead. As he approached it he saw a man in evening dress pause beneath the lamp to light his cigar. He drove past the spot.

The second place was a bend in the road. If there was someone there, Feliks would just have to take a chance, and shoot the intruder if necessary.

Six bullets.

He saw the bend. He made the horses trot a little faster. From inside the coach he heard the young girl laugh.

He came to the bend. His nerves were as taut as piano wire.

Now.

He dropped the reins and heaved on the brake. The horses staggered and the carriage shuddered and jerked to a halt.

From inside the coach he heard a woman cry and a man shout. Something about the woman’s voice bothered him, but there was no time to wonder why. He jumped down to the ground, pulled the scarf up over his mouth and nose, took the gun from his pocket and cocked it.

Full of strength and rage, he flung open the coach door.