During the violin concerto that followed the banker found it difficult to give his attention to the orchestra, though this was not entirely due to the shortcomings of the performance. He didn’t much care for the violin as a solo instrument, and his ruminating thoughts were tending to follow his wandering gaze.

  Was Dirving—restless legs protruding along the row—telling the truth about Miss Harwick? At the end of that painful interview the actor had sworn her visits to his room had been made when he hadn’t been in it—that he’d given her Frenk’s key so that she could use the bathroom there at particular times. It was because he had protested the lady’s pure reputation too stoutly and for too long, while going on to impute someone else’s, that Treasure had come to doubt his word.

  Could Miss Harwick—sitting quite still in front of Molly—conceivably have been the person Dirving was really intended to introduce to Frenk and not Mrs Vauxley? You could hardly become acquainted with the employer without being aware of her companion. But why should Frenk have needed instant introduction to either?

  Treasure considered Mrs Vauxley’s back: hers was a figure which even in that presentation, or perhaps especially in that presentation, epitomised the essence of British rectitude. It was almost untenable that she could be mixed up in a murder. His eyes dropped to take in the neatly arranged accessories under her seat—the capacious handbag, the stick, the woollen cardigan brought probably for fear that the building, predictably over-heated like all the others they had visited, should freeze over without reason. No doubt Miss Harwick had been obliged to do the bringing.

  Edwina Apse interrupted the last train of thought by leaning forward, re-crossing her legs and arranging her skirt over them. This was a ritual that would hardly have gone unremarked by any man in sight of it: they were very shapely legs and the movements were very graceful. Because he found Edwina so agreeable—and that was putting his feelings towards her at their mildest—the banker deplored her involvement with Dirving. He had always considered the actor unworthy of the women who appeared ready to indulge him in one way or another—a group which included not only the man’s ex-wife whom the Treasures had known, but also Candy, Mrs Vauxley and, it seemed, most of the other women in the Baroque Circle, Molly not excepted.

  Dirving had freely admitted to Treasure that his room was empty at night because he had been, as he put it, shacking up with Edwina. Granted the admission had come to strengthen his insistence that he wasn’t doing the same with Miss Harwick—but that was exactly why the banker had reservations on both parts of the statement.

  When, before dinner on the previous day, Edwina had come out of her room accompanied by Dirving, her attitude had made it clear she was less than enamoured with him—but perhaps this had been calculated. If it had been an act of self-indulgence later for Dirving to boast to Treasure that he had been sharing Edwina’s bed, it was one he had quickly regretted when he had come to insist Edwina had not been aware of his two-man impersonation. That had been an assurance which, in the circumstances, the banker had felt uneasy about. And he was certain his doubts over whether Edwina had been privy to the Frenk plan had bothered Dirving a good deal—more than Treasure’s earlier implied reservations about Miss Harwick.

  Evidently the person who had conceived the Frenk plan had an acuity sharper than those of either Dirving or Mrs Lloyd of Coventry—from what Treasure knew of the first and had learned on the telephone about the second. He believed too that there had been something more at stake than the creation of an identity for the now dead man, who had seemed not to have been a person likely to be valued for his knowledge so much as for something in his possession. And if this was right, and if Grinyev’s conviction that the end product involved was a valuable stolen painting, then Edwina’s intelligence could make her a front runner as the brain behind the whole enterprise. And her affinity with Coventry compounded that conclusion.

  It was because of the geography—Frenk, Mrs Lloyd and Edwina all being connected with the same city—that Treasure was having so much difficulty clearing Edwina from suspicion in his own mind. Even so he was trying.

  Clarence Emdon would know how to handle a stolen picture. He was at home in the fine art world and could probably find a source for the kind of funds needed—assuming he wasn’t such a source himself. The same probably applied to Reggie Tate, at least in terms of expert knowledge—and they said his mother was wealthy. Could Sol Blinton have been putting a smoke screen over his most serious intentions by too lightly covering his lesser clandestine activities with the refuseniks—a similar ploy to the one Emdon might have been using over the painting of the village saint? And what about the underpaid Candy? She had the expertise and energy at least to bring off a dishonest coup and to get her own back on the art establishment which rewarded her learning so meanly. And was Amelia Harwick really as downtrodden as she appeared? Earlier the banker had been convinced she had quietly captivated Dirving—and he wasn’t at all sure yet he’d been wrong, nor about the other consequences that such an involvement might entail.

  But in these postulations was he simply demonstrating a concern for Edwina he didn’t feel for the others—especially those others who were not female or, even if they were, then not so beguilingly so to maturing bankers! And on second thoughts were any of them really capable of raising the cash that had to be involved? Come to that, was Edwina? He frowned to himself as his glance again moved along the row. In his experience an attractive intelligent woman could usually borrow money in extremis if she couldn’t find it any other way. Which brought him back in a circle to the inescapable Coventry ingredient. Was there anybody else …?

  ‘Very insensitive playing, I thought,’ Molly commented over the noise of the clapping at the end of the concerto. As she added her own token applause she continued quite loudly: ‘That pace was positively martial. You could almost believe it is a military band. Now I’m certain the conductor belongs in uniform.’

  ‘Failed army officer attempts classical music con as last resort,’ offered Gandy from Molly’s other side. ‘Pleads he did it for the money,’ she added with a giggle.

  ‘You know, that could be absolutely right,’ uttered Treasure, but almost to himself, his gaze fixed on the piglet-eyed, bowing conductor. What he’d said had not been so much a comment on the girl’s remark—more a spontaneous reaction to the notion she’d just sparked. Suddenly a lot of apparently unrelated things began fitting together in his mind.

  Mrs Vauxley turned around. ‘Heaven knows what they’ll do to the Beethoven after the interval,’ she observed savagely, then made to get up.

  ‘D’you want your stick? Allow me,’ said Treasure delving under the chair in front.

  ‘Only because I need to go to the ladies’, and there’ll be a queue. Like last night. How kind of you.’ Mrs Vauxley took the proffered aid from Treasure. ‘My bag too, Mark. If it’s not too much trouble. No need for you to come, Amelia. Not if you don’t need. I didn’t see a bar,’ the older woman added pointedly as though her companion were an alcoholic in need of restraint or discouragement. Then she straightened and joined the people moving up the aisle. Treasure fell in at her side, following a new determination not to leave her. Molly stayed, talking to Candy and the others. The Wanders too were still in their seats, although Jeremy was glancing back with an uncertain expression.

  Unexpectedly there was no queue outside the ladies’ room half way down the long staircase. ‘Ah,’ exclaimed Mrs Vauxley looking vexed at her accoutrements, and clearly now wishing she had brought Miss Harwick along.

  ‘You won’t need the stick after all. Let me take it,’ said Treasure smiling.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind? It’ll just be an encumbrance in there.’ She altered her voice to a piercing stage whisper and narrowed her eyes. ‘The arrangements are always very cramped in this country, as well as unhygienic.’

  When Mrs Vauxley had taken herself off, Treasure moved across to the men’s room. The cubicles were small as the lady had pointed out, but he found a vacant one and firmly locked himself in.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘I still think Beethoven’s Seventh in twenty-nine minutes eighteen seconds has to be a world record,’ growled Jeremy Wander while helping Mrs Vauxley off the coach. They had sat together on the short journey. He handed back her stick.

  ‘With the strings a critical second slower than that. And never quite catching up with the conductor who beat them by a short head. On a thick neck. What a riot,’ expounded Candy Royce, chuckling as she stepped down to join the others.

  ‘It was a spirited performance. You could say eighty per cent proof,’ offered Miss Harwick who seldom attempted drollery but wanted to say something bright because Treasure had just taken her arm.

  ‘I’ve never laughed so much at a concert,’ said Sol Blinton, lifting the back of his collar against the stiff breeze.

  ‘Maybe they were worried about catching the plane back to Leipzig.’ He was walking between his wife and Molly.

  ‘I don’t really think you missed anything by not coming back after the interval.’ This was Miss Harwick to Treasure again.

  ‘Except the hilarity. By the way, there really wasn’t a bar.’ He gave her a conspiratorial smile to which she responded eagerly.

  ‘Didn’t think classical music was supposed to be funny,’ said Gloria Blinton uncertainly. ‘Oh, isn’t the reflection on the water lovely?’

  ‘And will you just look at those buildings? Aren’t they great?’ The slight Mrs Tate was enthusing close behind but wobbling a bit with the buffeting wind fairly driving her along.

  ‘It was worth coming for that view all by itself,’ Edwina agreed, putting a supporting arm through the older woman’s.

  Despite the problems attending their trip, the members of the Baroque Circle were determinedly enjoying their last minor excursion. Instead of returning directly to the hotel after the concert, as originally arranged, the coach had taken them over the bridge between the Hermitage and the Admiralty to Strelka Point—a granite-walled, half-circular promontory jutting into the water just upstream of the bridge. The panorama being exclaimed upon is the most celebrated in Leningrad, especially at night when the impressive string of buildings back across the Neva are sensitively illuminated.

  ‘Bit cooler, wouldn’t you think? Yah,’ said Felicity Wander who had been last off the coach with Dirving. She wrinkled her nose and bared her teeth at the wind like a scenting hare.

  ‘It’ll be in our backs over here. Water’s high too. I’d say less than eight feet below the top of the wall,’ said Dirving who hadn’t been saying much all evening.

  ‘Yah, and choppy. But you can’t see the chunks of ice floating in it like you can in the day.’ For once Felicity was wearing her glasses. ‘You will when the moon comes out in a minute,’ said Mrs Tate who Felicity had joined, standing above the water. ‘Strong current running too.’

  Now the whole group was lined along the river wall. Miss Harwick was next to her employer with Treasure on her other side. Wander was on the far side of Mrs Vauxley.

  ‘Shall I take your stick?’ Miss Harwick enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Vauxley replied tersely, thrusting the object on her companion, then continuing her interrupted conversation with Wander. It was customary for her to dispose of any encumbrance not actively in use in this way—and usually without thanks. The foot-wide wall was low enough for her to lean on, so she didn’t need her auxiliary seat.

  Miss Harwick laid the stick on top of the wall just as Treasure, leaning forward sharply to say something to Wander, jogged her arm. Her hand hit the stick which shot off the wall into the water.

  ‘Oh no!’ Miss Harwick cried in horror.

  ‘I’m dreadfully sorry.’ Treasure reacted loudly.

  ‘Look it’s going to float. It’s drifting away,’ called Mrs Tate.

  It was at the same moment that the shirt-sleeved Wander hit the water with a mighty splash.

  There were gasps all around the group. The man had jumped into the icy river without hesitation. He had simply shed his jacket and sheepskin coat together, pulled off his shoes, and launched himself over the parapet.

  ‘He must be crazy,’ said the astonished Reggie Tate.

  ‘Lifebelt. Everybody look for a lifebelt,’ shouted Sol Blinton.

  ‘I’ll fetch a policeman,’ called Candy, turning about and starting to run back towards the road.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Mrs Vauxley and meaning it.

  ‘Yah, he’s a super swimmer,’ Felicity offered with incredible coolness.

  ‘He’ll need to be. Is he drunk?’ This came bluntly from Dirving who was now behind Treasure. With the others they watched Wander recover from his drop, wipe the water from his face and strike out for the aluminium stick which was certainly floating—but some four or five yards away from him towards the main stream where the ripples from his initial contact with the water had helped to push it.

  ‘He’s going to freeze. Darling, what can we do?’ Molly spoke at Treasure’s side. ‘Is he quite mad?’ she added in a whisper.

  ‘He’s proving a point,’ the banker answered without taking his eyes off the swimmer.

  ‘But not winning one,’ Molly answered.

  ‘No. I’m afraid it’s my point.’

  Wander still hadn’t reached the stick. It had seemed to be only just beyond his reach but his arms which had thrashed out vigorously seconds before were visibly weakening. It was difficult for those watching to discern whether the stick was moving faster than the swimmer. Then suddenly the moon cleared of cloud and shed a detailing light on what was happening. The wind off the near shore plus the current were carrying object and pursuer on a diagonal course towards the main stream. The further both got from the lee of the low river wall the faster they moved—except the distance between them had definitely increased. The glinting stick was just visible still.

  ‘You know he’s going to be carried away,’ uttered Dirving almost under his breath.

  ‘Look at what’s behind him.’ The horrified Mrs Tate elbowed those on either side and pointed at a huge cluster of fused ice-floes moving very fast on what appeared to be a collision course with Wander.

  ‘Can he get up on it?’ asked the ingenuous Gloria whose words the others ignored.

  They could all see Wander was hesitating, but from the shore it wasn’t clear whether this was because the stick had sunk, or because the swimmer had calculated the increased danger he was in.

  ‘Jeremy, come back now!’ roared Reggie Tate cupping his hands. Some, of the others, took up the cry.

  ‘But how will you get him out?’ This was Edwina.

  Nigel Dirving began taking off his topcoat. ‘If he can make it back, we’ll pull him up. Two of you can lower me down head first …’

  ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary.’ Treasure was looking to their right. The wind had masked the noise of the engine but a big black motor-launch with a cabin midships had emerged from under the inshore span of the bridge. It was doggedly riding the choppy water, its high prow throwing a lot of spray. The searchlight above the cabin came on now, its beam flickering across the water until it picked up the swimmer and held him. Then there was a sharp engine spurt, with water cauldroning behind the low, rear section of the vessel where two life-jacketed men were crouched at the gunwale.

  The intention had evidently been to swing the bow of the fast-moving boat hard to the left into the wind just after it came up to Wander, to let him drift down to the after part of the vessel where he could be hauled in over the shallow gunwale there. But whoever was steering hadn’t seen the ice-floe. What happened took only an instant, but the result was devastating.

  Those watching horrified from the shore saw the boat’s bow come around to slap into the packed ice—with Wander’s head squeezed between the two like a nut in a cracker.

  The jagged ice reared back and for a second Wander’s head and raised arms were exposed, illuminated by the searchlight—the head bloody, the arms and empty hands held up but strangely lifeless; there was no stick. The gap closed again before either of the men could reach the swimmer although they had both scrambled forward as the boat’s engine was thrust into reverse with the bow still swinging to port. One of the men signalled to the helmsman, crossed the boat, then jumped into the water on what was now the windward side. It was several seconds before he bobbed up again—and in full sight of the onlookers. He had Wander’s body in his arms.

  ‘Oh no. No,’ breathed Felicity. Molly took her shoulders and tried to turn her away from the sight, but she wasn’t to be moved.

  ‘I know the man who jumped. He works for Colonel Grinyev,’ said Sol, suddenly proud of the acquaintance.

  ‘They both work for me, Mr Blinton,’ came Grinyev’s voice from behind. He was standing beside Candy Royce.

  ‘I found a policeman,’ said Candy dully.

  Sir Jeremy Wander was dead when they brought him ashore.

  ‘I think I’d rather walk. It’s such a gorgeous still morning after that awful wind last night,’ said Molly taking Mark Treasure’s arm and blinking in the sunshine. It had been dark still when they had arrived at St Nicholas cathedral by taxi an hour before.

  ‘Bit under a mile. Do us good,’ Treasure smiled approvingly. He had snatched three hours’ sleep only—not counting short naps while awaiting telephone calls in Colonel Grinyev’s office in the early hours.

  He had kept his promise of the day before to take Molly to the seven o’clock mass. The congregation had been quite small and made up mostly of elderly women who had treated the tourists with more surprise than suspicion—as well as with tentative half-smiles. The two had found it difficult to follow the service but enjoyed the atmosphere of worship in a thoroughly baroque building set in a garden. St Nicholas had been the choice of the unfortunately still restricted Canon Emdon. Mrs Tate had intended to come with them but, like all the others, she had missed a good deal of sleep and hadn’t appeared by the appointed time.

 

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