‘I was wondering where they’d gone. Thought I saw one of them waiting down there when we came out, but I could have been wrong. It’s very crowded.’ The banker nodded towards a lower terrace. There were a great many people who had come out of the building heading in the same direction as themselves. ‘Either they’ve been called off or they’ve given up the unequal struggle. It’d be a bit difficult for the two of them to cover fourteen of us, once we split up out here.’

  ‘I thought perhaps they’d be concentrating on special people,’ said Sol, whose definition of special in this context included himself but involved no kind of compliment.

  ‘But for your part you’re keeping out of trouble?’ Treasure enquired lightly but with a similar thought in mind.

  Gloria Blinton heard the question, frowned and was about to speak when Sol put in with forced bonhomie: ‘You bet. On my best behaviour till we get home. Then I can start living it up again.’ The older man’s eyes twinkled as his wife bore him off in the direction of a small blue pavilion set in the centre of a grass bordered etoile.

  ‘Don’t really want to go down there. The less formal part of the park’s to the right,’ said Molly, again consulting her guide book. ‘And some of the best pavilions are there too. Around the lake.’

  ‘The Great Pond,’ Treasure corrected absently. ‘This place must be pleasant in the summer.’ There was still a good deal of snow in untrampled areas.

  ‘And to think these beautiful buildings were half flattened in the war.’ Molly stopped to look back at the impressive white, blue and gold façade.

  ‘Like most of Leningrad. During the nine-hundred-day seige everyone keeps telling us about. You know, it’s a paradox these people have spent millions on restoring the cream of Church and Tsarist archictecture, after it was virtually obliterated by a capitalist enemy. The cathedrals and palaces are monuments to a religion and a regime they claim to detest. And now they’ve spruced them all up again, good as new.’

  ‘You think the money would have been better spent on housing or something?’

  ‘No. Although those ghastly high-rise flats we passed on the way weren’t wearing very well.’ He pouted at the wide stretch of water they were skirting along its south bank. ‘It’s the irritating inconsistency. What they’ve done here is so civilised, a quality they lack in so many other ways.’

  ‘Isn’t Colonel Grinyev too civilised to be in the KGB?’

  Treasure frowned. ‘Yes. Although perhaps he personifies what I’m getting at. The soul of courtesy and common sense so far as we’re concerned, while I suspect he’s making life hell for a lot of others. Like Valya. Ah, this must be the Little Admiralty pavilion. Gothic and red-brick. Reminds one of Keble College, Oxford.’

  ‘Used as a restaurant in the summer,’ said Molly consulting the guide book.

  ‘Hm. I don’t think Keble’s ever thought of that,’ he mused.

  ‘D’you suppose Colonel Grinyev ordered the harassment when we got on the coach?’

  ‘That was Mrs Vauxley’s description. I didn’t feel harassed. Wander, looked a bit uneasy. Must have been instigated by Grinyev, of course. I couldn’t think of the reason at the time.’

  ‘But you have now?’

  ‘I should think it was to test the young officer’s acuity. As to human recognition, if not time.’

  ‘He said he’d seen one of us. One of the men. At the State Hermitage. But on Wednesday? Impossible.’

  ‘Yes. But he must have been asked to identify a corpse.’ The banker paused, brow knitted. ‘Or maybe he’d been shown a photograph of the corpse.’

  ‘Of Mr Frenk? But he could never have seen him alive.’

  ‘Not on Wednesday, certainly. But he may have been in charge of the guard at other times. Frenk may have been there before.’

  ‘On a previous visit? He didn’t say he’d been to Russia before.’

  ‘But perhaps he had and didn’t want us to know. The officer may have remembered him for a wrong reason. More likely than the other kind.’

  ‘So why did he want to look at us if it was Mr Frenk he thought he saw?’

  ‘Because on this other memorable visit, whenever it was, Frenk may have been accompanied by someone else.’

  ‘All very hypothetical,’ said Molly dismissively. ‘And since he’d got the date wrong anyway.’

  ‘This is part of the stolen painting investigation, not the one about who killed Frenk. Grinyev’s obsessed with getting the picture back and he’s leaving no pebble unturned. If that officer volunteered he’d seen Frenk before, Grinyev would want the point followed up on the off chance. And even if the chap was wrong on the date. Anyway, it gave us two facts we didn’t have before.’

  ‘That the painting was stolen from the State Hermitage? And it was pinched on Wednesday?’

  ‘Well done. You know, I don’t believe our party was supposed to be told where that officer came from.’

  ‘But only you and I know about a stolen picture. So there wouldn’t have been anything incriminating about the others admitting being in the Hermitage on Wednesday. Supposing any of them had been here then.’

  Treasure nodded. ‘Grinyev told me last night the painting had gone very recently. It happening so close to the murder of a Western art tourist at least suggests the possibility of a link.’ He pointed ahead of them. ‘Look, the famous Marble Bridge.’

  Molly opened the guide book again. ‘Copy of the stone Palladian Bridge at Wilton House. Faithful copy too. It’s why Mrs Tate said it’d remind us of home. Except we don’t live at Wilton,’ she added wistfully. ‘Wonder where she and Reggie are?’

  ‘Well forward I expect, but there’s the canon.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s he doing?’

  The covered bridge, with its Ionic columns and green copper roof, was a hundred yards ahead. Canon Emdon was emerging from it and moving rapidly. When he saw the Treasures he increased his pace even more, and without making any sign of recognition he swerved left onto a tributary pathway. At the same moment three men also came off the bridge—one of them clearly in the custody of the much bigger figures on either side of him who were holding his arms.

  Now someone came running from behind the Treasures—a heavily built man with a scarred cheek and wearing a black overcoat and trilby: he was one of the detectives who had followed them from Leningrad and through the palace. Treasure looked about for the man’s partner, but it was the canon who saw him first—coming towards him on the pathway he’d chosen.

  Canon Emdon turned around, and then froze at the sight of the three men bearing down on him. He made to go left towards the Treasures but recognised the other advancing policeman. Half turning again, he pulled a guide book from the handbag he was carrying, opened the book at random, fixed his monocle in his eye and stared earnestly at a miniature stone pyramid near the water in front of him. Almost immediately he was surrounded by the other five participants in the unfolding drama.

  ‘Hello, Canon,’ called Treasure briskly and enlarging the group still further. He elbowed through to the canon’s side. ‘Interesting monument. Three of Catherine the Great’s dogs are buried under it.’

  ‘One was called Sir Tom Anderson,’ Molly observed valiantly at the top of her voice from behind her husband. ‘Long name for dog.’

  ‘Ah, Tr … easure. I thought I saw …’

  ‘Please to move away.’ It was the scar-faced detective who spoke to the Treasures. He then said something sharply to the other Russians in their own language. The small man being held in the middle of the trio had his face partially obscured, but he seemed to be quite old. His body was stooped, and wisps of grey hair protruded from around the battered Homburg.

  ‘Come along then, Canon,’ said Treasure taking Emdon’s arm confidently. ‘Seems we’re not wanted.’

  ‘He stays. You go. You and lady, please.’

  ‘Do you want to stay, Canon?’

  ‘No,’ the cleric almost whimpered.

  ‘So I think you must be making a mistake,’ Treasure advised the policeman politely. ‘This is Canon Emdon, a distinguished American. My name is Treasure.’

  Scar-face was unimpressed. ‘These two make an exchange.’ He pointed at the small man and then to the canon. ‘On the bridge. We watch.’

  The knot of people was now expanding rapidly, but when scarface’s partner gruffly ordered newcomers to disperse they did so promptly—all except for the Tates, now exposed on the fringe.

  ‘This man is trading with foreigners. It is an offence.’ Scarface was pointing to the small man whose eyes showed bewilderment over the top of his muffler. ‘Both are under arrest. You please now go.’

  ‘No, we’re staying with Canon Emdon,’ Treasure insisted. ‘My name is Treasure and I’ve been working all morning with Colonel Grinyev. I wish to telephone him immediately.’

  The statement was not received with quite the degree of reverence the speaker had expected. It wasn’t even evident that the name Grinyev meant anything at all to scar-face who looked more puzzled than impressed. Even so, he didn’t repeat his insistence that the Treasures leave.

  ‘I received nothing,’ said the canon, but more to Treasure than the policeman.

  ‘He gave this one a package. These officers witness,’ scarface stated bluntly, indicating the small man’s escorts. ‘Is most likely foreign currency. Is a bad offence.’

  ‘You in trouble, Canon?’ This was Effie Tate who by moving forward with Reggie, deep into disputant territory, had put a better nominal balance on things.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded scar-face.

  ‘We’re with the Baroque Circle which you must know perfectly well. You just trailed the lot of us through the palace,’ replied Mrs Tate affably. ‘Now we’re supporting Canon Emdon.’

  The policeman gave her a disapproving look, then said something in Russian to the small man who replied haltingly, then slowly began turning out the pockets of his blue raincoat. First came a folded newspaper. Scarface’s partner snatched it, examined the front page closely, then shook his head. Everything else produced was treated in a similar way. These comprised two letters, a coloured postcard of the Catherine Palace, and the blade of a car windscreen wiper. The last item brought a challenge from the second policeman, answered satisfactorily it seemed, in mime, by the small man’s production of an ignition key.

  The next sequence happened quickly. Following a roughly couched order, the small man slowly began to remove his outer clothing—first his scarf, then his raincoat and finally his hat. The grey hairs were attached to the hat: the owner was about thirty with a crewcut. While most of those present were registering this, he made as if to hand the garments to scarface then, swiftly whipping about, thrust the hat and scarf in the face of the first escort and the coat over the head of the second, shoving both men hard backwards into the water before sprinting away from them along the tributary path.

  Scarface’s astonished partner was still holding the newspaper and the wiper and continued doing so. In contrast, his companion’s reaction was prompt and decisive. He moved after the fugitive for only as long as it took to produce a stubby handgun from beneath his coat. Then he dropped on one knee, taking aim with both hands, as the crowd scattered in the wake of the target and out of the line of the fire. One shot rang out. The small man was forty yards distant. He buckled at the knees, then fell on his face.

  ‘Oh God,’ the canon beseeched, the monocle falling from his eye.

  ‘Winged him, by the look of it,’ said Mrs Tate in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Treasure and Reggie Tate caught up with scarface as he knelt down beside the wounded man. He began tearing open the jacket. Its owner lay moaning on the ground, blood oozing through his fingers. His hands were fastened over a rent at the top of one trouser leg on the outside.

  ‘Flesh wound,’ said scarface coldly, by way of information not apology, and perhaps to advertise his skill as a marksman. He also said something to the victim as he came upon a flat package in an inside pocket, and roughly hauled it out.

  The detective pulled off the black plastic wrapping of the package, tearing away the layer of tissue paper beneath. What he revealed was a small dark oil painting. The work was about five inches square.

  Chapter Seventeen

  At the time the coach transporting the Baroque Circle members arrived in Pushkin, Peregrine Gore had already been locked inside the windowless bathroom of Frenk’s flat in Coventry for several hours.

  He was entirely naked. Mrs Lloyd had even insisted he surrender his watch, so he could only estimate how long he had been there and roughly how much longer the incarceration would continue, unless he could extricate himself. She had said she was expecting a ’phone call at two and that after that she would know what to do about him.

  That a strapping, healthy, athletic male—and a trained soldier (well, broadly)—could be rendered so totally helpless by a passed-over blonde dancer armed only with a .22 automatic should have challenged normal understanding. It didn’t challenge Peregrine’s, though, just as it wouldn’t have taxed the credulity of those who knew him well.

  Peregrine abominated hand-guns, trying never to be involved with them unless it was absolutely unavoidable—all as a result of one of those army accidents to which he had been so prone. On top of this, his chivalrous attitude towards the female sex was positively Arthurian. Thus, the present impasse had not come about through a lack of courage on his part—only a conjunction of two principles rigorously observed.

  Even so, it is probable Peregrine would have tackled a male holding a pistol on him. What had deterred him was having to take on a woman armed not only with a pistol but also with one of positively French Resistance vintage. He’d had plenty of time to look it over and come to the conclusion that it was the kind of weapon which often blew up in people’s hands. So what had weighed heavy with him was the chance—and with his luck—even the probability of this gun doing Mrs Lloyd a serious mischief if she fired it. Quite simply it wasn’t in Peregrine’s nature to expose any woman to the risk of injury.

  However, his imprisonment had at least allowed him time to reason why things had turned out the way they had.

  From the start he simply hadn’t been ready for Mrs Lloyd’s preparedness. It was as if she’d been expecting him—or someone like him. And when she’d decided he wasn’t all he’d been pretending to be she’d had a programme ready to implement—to hold him pending advice. She’d been a step ahead of him the whole time, except for the brief period when she’d relaxed her defences—when she’d stopped suspecting his motives, and begun making plans for dalliance in the Scimitar. That was when she’d given him the cottage address in the hope he’d drive to Evesham and take her with him. He was sure she wasn’t meant to have parted with that address—that his knowing it was the reason she couldn’t let him go, as well as the reason why it was imperative he escape in time to reach Evesham by two.

  She had kept her distance while he had been undressing in the living room—making him empty his pockets onto a table and place his clothes in a neat pile. He had not been particularly aware of the way she had assessed his revealed physique but she had given him a good and un-erotic reason why she wanted him stripped.

  ‘I may have to keep you here for quite a bit, dear,’ she had explained as she’d motioned him into the bathroom, keeping the same safe distance she had done since producing the gun. ‘Don’t try breaking down the door. It’s a good solid one. So’s the lock. The airduct behind that fan’s too small to get your head in even, and it goes out through the kitchen. Don’t try flooding the place or I’ll switch the water off at the stopcock. And don’t try shouting, or banging on the walls. Nobody’ll hear you. The next door people are away for the weekend.’ She had looked him up and down slowly, with the gun pointing at an area of his anatomy he felt was even more acutely vulnerable than his chest. ‘Pity you didn’t turn out the innocent I thought you were. As it is, you can stay in the raw in case you give trouble. If you do I’ll scream blue murder and swear you’re trying to rape me. It’ll be your word against mine. And with your clothes off I know whose word’ll get taken.’

  It was then she had announced she was expecting the call.

  ‘Is it Rudy who’s ringing?’ he’d asked.

  ‘Never mind who’s ringing, dear. I can tell you you’ll make life easier for yourself if you’ll say why you’re here. And who sent you.’

  ‘But I’ve told you. Nobody sent me. I brought myself. To enquire about a painting Rudy’s interested in. An old painting.’

  ‘And I’ve said I don’t believe you. Rudy isn’t into pictures. So I still want the real reason.’

  ‘Mrs Lloyd, I’ve given it to you. And I can’t see why you won’t tell me where Rudy is. If I can talk to him I can explain. There’d be nothing underhand in that.’

  ‘Taking his ’photo was though. Sneaky that was. For someone who’s supposed to know him. So, you going to answer my question?’ She had waited for a response. He had made none. Treasure had told him not to say Frenk was dead. In any case he didn’t know what effect that piece of intelligence would have on Mrs Lloyd and hadn’t been minded to find out at the time.

  ‘Well, please yourself,’ she’d ended. ‘If you’re thirsty there’s plenty of water in the taps. I’m not bringing you food, but you don’t look as if you’ll starve for a few hours.’

  Ever since she had locked the door and left he had been able to listen to her movements. Despite the solidity of the building the sound insulation was poor. She seemed remarkably busy, vacuum cleaning and shifting furniture a good deal of the time below and in Frenk’s flat. Latterly she had been clattering about in her kitchen.

  Peregrine had small hope of Mrs Lloyd going out. With his car parked outside, the possible need for her later to claim he had been detaining her against her will was enough to keep her in. It was just that dog owners usually walked their pets at ritual intervals, and even though Tai Fung didn’t look like a keen exerciser, there was still a chance in that area: from time to time Peregrine had listened hopefully to the animal’s complaining yaps. There had been no purpose in trying anything so noisy as breaking down a wall or door while Mrs Lloyd was in. It wasn’t until later he’d found a more promising escape method—and quieter too.

 

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