Death Comes to the Ballets Russes Read Online Free PDF Page A

capitalist system was that most of the money was in 500-rouble notes. And the authorities had the numbers. They could not be used or exchanged in Russia. Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, and his follower Joseph Stalin had both been involved in the organization of the robbery. One of Lenin’s disciples had a close friend in the Ballets Russes. So the notes were to go to London, where the disciple was instructed to contact as many revolutionaries as he could – Lenin had all the names and addresses – and enlist them in his mission. Between eleven and twelve o’clock one weekday morning, a guerrilla band of ten comrades were to take many thousands of roubles each into a series of different banks and change them into pounds. The day chosen was some days after the corpse was discovered beneath the trapdoor of the Royal Opera House. Lenin’s friend was to make contact with his fellow revolutionaries, most of whom lived in working-class districts in the East End.
    Lenin’s disciple had a further mission. As well as the notes, concealed in the false bottoms of a trunk and a couple of suitcases, he was entrusted with another of Lenin’s revolutionary tracts, proclaiming the inevitability of world revolution and describing the vanguardrole to be played by the Bolsheviks. Cracow, Lenin’s latest bolt-hole, was so infested with agents of the Russian Secret Service, the Okhrana, or local policemen hired to work on their behalf, that it was impossible to have anything printed in the city. Lenin’s man was to have five hundred copies printed in each language and sent back to St Petersburg in the Ballets Russes luggage. The money to pay the printers was to come from the proceeds of the bank robbery.

    Natasha was looking grave when she came back from the stage. Michel Fokine was shouting at the corps de ballet again.
    ‘This isn’t a very promising start, I’m afraid, Lord Powerscourt, Sergeant Jenkins. Fokine says that Diaghilev is in a terrible temper. It’s not just the murder, apparently. His inner circle suspect he’s run out of money and can’t pay the bills. It’s happened before, they say. Somehow or other he always manages to pull the squirrel out of the hat.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Is that right? Squirrel, I mean? Something tells me it’s not the squirrel.’
    ‘Rabbit,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘It’s a rabbit out of the hat. But I’m sure it might have been a squirrel.’
    Natasha laughed. ‘One of the ballerinas said Diaghilev was going to see Lady Ripon. He got a lot of money out of her last year, apparently. He promises to bring Nijinsky down to her house to dance in front of her friends. She’s built a little stage at the edge of her ballroom, they tell me. After Nijinsky has danced for his tea or his supper, she coughs up.’
    ‘I suppose that makes sense,’ said Powerscourt.
    ‘Anyway,’ Natasha went on, ‘Fokine says we’ll just have to wait. He’s going to ring me when he’s got some news. Nobody will speak until Diaghilev gives the all-clear. They won’t even let you visit the scene of the murder without his say-so. Maybe we should all go and have a cup of coffee round the corner?’
    Natasha took them to the Fielding Hotel near the Royal Opera House, where she and Mikhail often had supper after the performances. Sergeant Jenkins looked ruefully at Bow Street Magistrates Court across the way, as if he would have felt more at home giving evidence in court rather than consorting with prima ballerinas and temperamental impresarios.
    ‘Natasha,’ said Powerscourt, ‘can you tell us about the ballet? I don’t mean the composers or the choreographers or the artists, but the world of the dancers. What’s that like?’
    ‘Well, I don’t know a great deal about the ballet, I’m afraid. I have a brother back in St Petersburg who knows all about it. He’s a great ballet lover, what they call a balletomane. I can always ask him for more information. Let me see . . .’