The Russian White, page 1
The Russian White
By
Jonathan Broughton
Copyright 2012 Jonathan Broughton
Cover Design by Rayne Hall
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part One - Chasing The Diamond
Part Two - The Diamond Lost and Found
Part Three - Keeping the Diamond Secret and Safe
Prologue
The bell in the steeple struck two in the morning.
Wolfman sprang out of the shadows and sprinted towards the church. He collapsed against the cemetery wall. His ragged breathing smothered any sounds of pursuit. No time to rest.
He dashed across the fields and mud clung to his boots. Pain burned his legs, and his body staggered as it threatened to topple him over. Then his boot hit hard ground.
A large barn loomed before him with one huge door propped wide open. He stroked the silver wolf charm at his neck, it always brought him luck.
He ran inside. Straw rustled at his feet, and then pricked his face. His hands plunged into its dry sharpness; a mountain of straw, tall enough to cover a man. He dived in, head first, and wriggled. The dust filled his eyes and mouth and he coughed.
Behind him, running footsteps hammered hard against the cobbles. Loud voices, stamping boots, lantern light throwing violent shadows across the barn walls, and then the swish of a sword as it scythed through the straw over his head.
His hand closed over the diamond in his pocket. He scrabbled through the straw until his fingers found a deep crack where the barn wall met the broken floor, and he pushed the diamond inside and secured it between the sharp stones.
Then a strong hand reached down, pulled him up, and exposed him to the lantern light.
The men jeered as they searched him. They hit him with the flats of their swords. They shouted at him, but he didn’t say a word, and that angered them. They cut him. He didn’t cry out, not even when warm blood trickled down his arms. He felt light headed, like dreaming.
Then anger erupted into violence, and the men pushed him onto his knees and sliced his head off. They thrust it into an old sack, but they left his body for whoever might find it.
In the dark, Wolfman’s blood dripped through the straw, and some of it dried on the diamond.
Part One. Chasing the Diamond
Chapter One
On the 20th October 1853 a handwritten bill, pinned to the door of The Garden Room Club in the London Borough of Soho, flapped in the wind. A passing gentleman took a moment to read it.
Venus and Adonis by W. Shakespeare and James Turney.
Mister James Turney takes great pleasure
In presenting his Famous Classical Beauties in this Ecstatic Love Poem.
One Night Only (23rd October 10pm)
Eight Spectacular Scenes. Admission One Guinea.
Gentlemen Only.
The gentleman adjusted the tilt of his top hat, pulled up his high collar, made a mental note of the date and time, and moved on.
On the appointed evening, he arrived alone at The Garden Room Club, paid his guinea, and climbed the narrow stairs to the upstairs saloon.
Gentlemen packed the room. A haze of blue tobacco smoke drifted over their heads. Raucous laughter drowned out any attempts at conversation. He bought a beer and found a seat against the wall. A small stage shrouded in white curtains stood at the far end of the saloon.
On the stroke of ten the doors were shut and the lights extinguished, except for two gas lamps on either side of the stage. The gentlemen cheered, and gave their undivided attention to the white curtains swaying in the heat.
An old man shuffled out of a side door and sat down on a wooden stool. He opened a large leather bound book. There was a murmur of disappointment as he began reciting the poem “Venus and Adonis,” by William Shakespeare.
Behind the white curtains Isobel Hunt draped herself over the bed. She affected her opening pose and attempted to look comfortable which required a lot of concentration, because the bed wasn’t a bed, but the touring trunk for the company’s costumes covered in a blue sheet, and the slats that made the trunk secure dug into her skin. She wore a short white cotton shawl and a long blonde wig that wound around her body and made her skin tickle.
Behind her, five “handmaidens,” also dressed in white cotton shawls, though not wigs, giggled as they took up their positions around the stage.
“Ready ladies?” James Turney winked at Isobel as he prepared to open the curtains. She winked back and nodded.
“Here we go then.”
The curtains clattered apart to reveal the first tableaux of the evening; “The Goddess Venus Awaking at Dawn with her Handmaidens in Attendance.”
The heat and tobacco smoke enveloped Isobel like a blanket, though she didn’t let her discomfit show. She liked to think of herself as professional, and she had the audience’s complete attention. She affected a look of dreamy wistfulness, as though unaware of her surroundings. She had perfected this technique over the last few months and knew that audiences liked it. They stared at her without feeling guilty, and it stopped her from laughing. All those eyes gazing at her as if she really were a Goddess.
She smiled as she remembered her first performance at a courtesan’s house in Paris the year before. She had felt no shame and no fear, just silly. James called her a natural actress. She glanced at him, standing at the side of the stage, his black floppy hair falling into his eyes, and pouted. He blew her a kiss.
The gentlemen leaned forward.
Her body ached. Pins and needles tingled in her left leg. She turned to her “handmaidens,” and, keeping her face in profile to the audience, lifted her right arm in a dreamy languid sweep. This was the cue for the nearest “handmaiden” to step forward, take hold of her white shawl and draw it away, slowly revealing her naked body.
Then the door at the back of the room opened. The sudden burst of light startled her. William, her brother, and three other men appeared in the doorway. Her heart thumped. What was he doing here? She gripped the shawl as the “handmaiden” reached down to take it.
“No wait,” she whispered.
“What?”
“All right, do it quickly.”
“Eh?” Nellie, the “handmaiden,” dithered and did nothing.
Isobel smiled with what she hoped suggested wide-eyed innocence, but it felt forced and the audience murmured. She had to get off the stage. Her brother, she hoped and prayed, was still oblivious to her presence.
She stood, turned her back to the audience, and let the shawl drop to the ground.
There was an intake of breath, but before the gentlemen had time to appreciate the spectacle, James swept the curtains shut.
“What are you doing?” he whispered loudly.
Isobel picked up the shawl and wrapped it around her.
“You’re not supposed to do that until the last scene,” he remonstrated.
“My brother just walked in,” she explained. Her thumping heart made her voice breathy and faltering. “I’ve got to get out. I don’t think he saw me.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know. Where can I dress?” She had changed behind the curtains with the girls, so they didn’t have to walk through the Club. She handed James the blonde wig.
“Upstairs. There’s an empty room. I’ll get Peter to show you. Hold on.” The “handmaidens” watched from the stage.
“Next scene ladies.” He clapped his hands to hurry them. “Jessica, you’re playing Venus.”
“Why can’t Isobel do it?” Jessica drawled.
“She has to go, something important.”
Jessica opened her mouth to argue, but James cut her short. “Now don’t be difficult darling, please. The audience is waiting.”
“I want more money if I’m playing Venus,” she whined.
James sighed. “Very well. Three shillings?”
Jessica clapped her hands. “Of course I’ll do it.”
“Do you remember what to do?”
Jessica pretended to think hard. “I’m behind that box, looking like I’m swimming, and I get really bored, and I stand up and I’m not wearing any clothes.”
“Shakespeare’s wasted on you girl.”
The “handmaidens” slipped out of their white shawls and twined garlands of silk flowers around their bodies. Wax fruit, piled high on wooden platters, represented the fruits of the forest, and two furry toy animals, a lion and a donkey, the wild beasts.
Isobel waited, desperate to leave.
The girls found their places and James slowly opened the curtains. The scene underway, he led Isobel through a side door and out into a narrow dim hallway. A short dark man with a black beard sat on a stool smoking a pipe.
“Peter?” James spoke each word with slow clear care. “Show this lady upstairs. To the big room with wide window, where we stored the clothes. You know?”
“I know. Yes, I take she.” He pointed his pipe at the ceiling.
James twined his arms around Isobel and pulled her close. “Where will you go?”
“Home. I don’t think he saw me.” She kissed his open mouth.
He kissed her back. “Be careful.”
“As always.” She kissed him again.
She followed Peter to the end of the hallway and then up a narrow flight of wooden stairs to the very top of the building.
The chill in the attic room made her shiver. The only light came from the spill of the gas lamp from the alleyway outside. Peter strode across th
“Here is,” he indicated.
“Thank you Peter.” She stepped into the closet and prepared to change. Peter stood behind her, watching.
“You’d better go back downstairs,” she prompted. “To guard the door. Yes?”
“Guarding-yes, I go. Goodbye now? Yes?”
“That’s right Peter. Goodbye.”
Chapter Two
Peter clomped across the floor and descended the stairs. She closed the closet door and removed her shawl.
A floorboard creaked. Was that naughty Peter creeping back to have a peep through the keyhole? She jerked the door open, hoping to take him by surprise, but no one was there. Then she heard voices on the stairs, and the heavy tread of approaching feet. Too late to run, she stepped back into the closet, and left the door ajar.
“Here we are gentlemen. Not comfortable, but cheap, which is what you asked for.”
She recognised the voice of Bernard Hopper, the proprietor of the Club.
“This will be fine.”
She gasped, and covered her mouth. William, her brother. Her heart beat quickened. Had he seen her and followed her upstairs?
“Can I fetch any of you gentlemen a drink?”
More people entered the room and the ancient floorboards creaked under their weight.
“We have everything we need,” replied William. “I will settle with you later.”
“In your own time sir.”
“Oh Landlord?”
“Sir?”
“We are not to be disturbed. Is that clear?”
William used that phrase when he conducted business. She’d didn’t like its cruel cold authority.
“Of course sir-um-.”
“Yes?”
“The evenings’ entertainment-downstairs sir.” Bernard Hopper gave a nervous laugh.
“What about it?”
“The ladies’ clothes sir, there in that closet. They’ll be coming up here to change later, but the show don’t finish for another hour. Will that be time enough for you gentlemen?”
Isobel backed into the dresses and drew them around her. She wished, with all her heart, for the floorboards not to squeak.
“Plenty.”
“Very good gentlemen, I will leave you in peace.”
“Well Doctor Hood,” laughed William, after Bernard Hopper had left. “Congratulations. Our first meeting in a bawdy house.”
“Makes a change from all those stuffy old clubs in Pall Mall,” sniggered the man called Doctor Hood. Isobel shuddered. His high creaky voice reminded her of fingernails drawn down slate.
She pushed the dresses aside and tip-toed behind the door to peer through the gap between the door and the frame.
“Bit unusual though, I must say.”
This man’s voice was deep and gruff. He struck a match and lit two candles that stood in brass holders on the mantelpiece. The weak flames flickered, then flared, and produced a wavering glow of yellow light. They also lit the man’s fat red face.
“Oh come on Buffrey,” William laughed. “You’re not telling me you didn’t know such establishments existed?”
“I’ve never been in one before if that’s what you’re saying,” grumbled Buffrey. “Have you Chief?”
The fourth man had his back to her. He wore a long black overcoat that reached to the floor.
“Gentlemen, time to get down to business, then those of us who care for such pleasures can join the throng downstairs.” His voice carried authority and demanded attention.
He stepped in front of the fireplace and turned to face the room. The left side of his face glowed in the candlelight. His pale skin, creased and sagging, and etched with dark lines around his eyes and mouth, looked the same colour as the candle wax. Here was a man weary with care and thought. His eyes glittered in the flickering light, bright and alert, and betrayed no hint of tiredness or worry. He stood, with his hands clasped behind his back, and addressed the room with the confidence of many years practice.
“William Hunt?”
“Chief?”
“Do you have the diamond?”
“Yes.”
“Is it safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is it secret?”
“It is known only to The Brotherhood.”
“Name them.”
“Their names are listed but not written down.”
The Chief glanced across the room. “We are all present.”
“I thank The Brotherhood for attending.” William bowed with a quick nod.
The Chief continued. “Does the diamond have a name?”
“Yes.”
“Name it.”
“The Russian White.”
Isobel stopped breathing. She wished she didn’t have to breathe ever again for fear that one of the men might hear. She opened her mouth and sucked in air very slowly. The Russian White? But-her BROTHER? She willed herself to stay quiet and listen.
“That concludes the formalities,” The Chief sighed. “Now gentlemen, I regret to inform you that we have received fresh reports of Russian activity within the capital, suggesting that despite our best endeavours, there has been another influx of agents.”
Buffrey groaned.
“Increased tension in the Holy Lands has no doubt contributed to this situation?” suggested William.
“Yes. It is unfortunate,” replied The Chief.
“At the last meeting you said that you had caught them all.” Buffrey’s note of outrage suggested that he might have been misled.
“I said that we had caught two of them,” countered The Chief.
“Did you torture them?” asked Doctor Hood. She couldn’t see him, though he sounded very close to the door.
“We questioned them-yes. But they died.”
“Can’t take their medicine,” snorted Buffrey.
The Chief ignored the interruption. “Our intelligence suggests that there are many more of them out there.”
“What’s being done about it?” William’s petulance hinted at rising anger.
“Our agents, as you would expect, are in the field, but at the moment that is all that I can tell you.”
“This is worrying,” mumbled Hood. “I thought the new port laws stopped illegal immigrants from entering the country.”
“The law states that each foreign national be listed as they come into this country,” The Chief emphasised. “But not arrested.”
“Well that’s all right then.” The floorboards creaked as the back of Hood’s head paced into view. “You know who they are. It shouldn’t be that difficult to find them.”
“That’s just the problem,” The Chief replied with a weary sigh. “We don’t know who they are.”
“What?” retorted Buffrey, and he spluttered with eye-popping outrage. “Are you saying-do you mean-?”
“That they are being smuggled in?” William finished the question for him.
“I think that might be a logical possibility,” The Chief conceded.
“Who by?” Buffrey’s red face deepened in colour.
“Well if he knew that he would tell us,” snapped Hood.
“I have absolutely no idea,” The Chief answered.
“But-.” Buffrey’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you think they know where the diamond is?”
“Well I think we can presume that, yes, don’t you?” The Chief’s sarcasm made her smile.
“Good lord. But how?” Buffrey’s red face looked as if it might ignite.
“The danger lies in our discovery gentlemen.” William’s anger shifted to a tone of complacent righteousness, a trait he had inherited from their father.
“And not just The Brotherhoods.” The Chief paced in a circle. “The British and Russian governments have never disclosed their information concerning the whereabouts of The Russian White. It is such ancient history that an admittance of proof from either side would throw up the deceit and treachery of centuries. Not to mention the countless numbers of people who have died in its name. If the diamond was to be discovered, the ramifications would be momentous. It might even, I dare to suggest, signal the outbreak of hostilities.”
Isobel leant against the closet wall. Its solidity reaffirmed that she was awake. No dream could be as real, this was happening. Her shoulders ached with tension.
