The King's Commisar Read online

  'Yes.' Malory sighed. 'As you say, a straight line. Thank you for your time.'

  'Thank you for your fee, Sir Horace,' Felix Aston said. 'I'll leave the books if you like.'

  'Please do,' Malory said, 'and good day.' His mind was already focused on Vickers, for it was Zaharoff's company: Vickers, Maxim & Co.

  He turned suddenly. The historian was still slipping on a light raincoat. 'I say! Before you go . . .'

  'Yes, Sir Horace?'

  'Care for a swift whisky?' Malory rose and poured. 'One thing: how would the munitions be paid for?'

  'You'd know more about that than I, Sir Horace, surely? Credits and things, I expect.'

  'Perhaps, perhaps. But I'm thinking of all those Romanov holdings in overseas banks.'

  'That's private money, of course.'

  'Yes? I wondered about that.'

  'The Tsar would hardly have spent his own money on arms, though, would he?'

  'Indeed not,' said Malory. 'Er-what time's your train?'

  'In forty minutes, Sir Horace, and I'm afraid I daren't miss it. I have an American guest at High Table tonight and -'Aston smiled modestly - 'there's a visiting professorship at stake.'

  'It's money, you see,' Malory said. 'What about tomorrow?'

  'Tomorrow is fine.'

  And now it was tomorrow, and Lady Malory's instruction echoed in his mind as he waited and savoured (though not as much as usual) a Romeo No.3 with Blue Mountain coffee. David Lloyd George, he reflected, had been a wicked old devil. None wickeder.

  None? What about Zaharoff?

  And what a pair they made!

  'Tell me,' Malory said before the historian had so much as added sugar to his coffee, 'about the relations between Lloyd George and Zaharoff.'

  'Well, it's a bit mysterious.'

  'I imagined it might be,' said Sir Horace. 'Do go on.'

  'Not much known, actually. But there's a fascinating point. Zaharoff was - well, whatever he was: who knows if he was Greek, Turk, Anatolian, even Russian. Lot of covering-up went on in the matter of his birth. Records burned. Impossible statements sworn by a bench of bishops. You know.'

  'Yes, I do. Born in Mughla in Anatolia, that's what he always said.'

  'Usually said,' Aston corrected. 'But the point is he was a naturalized Frenchman. French domicile too.'

  'Agreed. What about Lloyd George?'

  The old Welsh Wizard slipped Zaharoff a big gong in nineteen-eighteen. Made him a Knight of the Order of the British Empire.'

  'Yes, I know.'

  'And ever afterwards, Zaharoff called himself Sir Basil.'

  'Doesn't fit, does it? Can't do it, can you?'

  "Hedid, Sir Horace, all his life. Lloyd George gave him a step up in 1921: Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. Still called himself Sir Basil but still a French citizen. Now - how could that come about?'

  'I suppose,' said Malory, 'that people just assumed-'

  'What, the College of Heralds? Just assumed? No, my guess is he wanted a title, a British one, and Lloyd George fixed things.'

  'It would take a little doing,' Sir Horace murmured.

  'There never was a fixer like him.'

  Malory brooded for a moment. "Why then did Lloyd George turn savage in his memoirs?'

  'He didn't. Not to Zaharoff. To Vickers, yes, but Zaharoff was long retired.'

  'Friends, were they - or useful to each other?'

  'Useful, I'd guess.' Once more the historian produced his grin. 'Or how about partners?'

  'Partners?' echoed Malory.

  'Partners,' said the historian. 'Think about it.'

  'Oh, it has my attention. Partners, indeed! But in what, do you suggest?'

  Felix Aston hesitated. 'I'm near my limit, Sir Horace.'

  'What do you mean - what limit?'

  'You'll perhaps think I am ridiculously cautious, but people have come to sticky ends in chasing Zaharoff.'

  'Sticky ends - what do you mean?'

  'I mean they have died, Sir Horace. Two to my knowledge. One found dead in a hotel, the other drowned in the lake at his French estate. So I repeat, sir, that I'm near my limit. I'm enormously discreet, you see. Always. And I can see the general direction of your interest, though not, of course, the precise nature of it. But there is one more thing. Are you aware of the story -1 hesitate to describe it as fact, though it was reported quite widely - that soon after Russia entered the war in 1914, and just before ice closed the port of Archangel for the winter, two British warships dropped anchor there?'

  'No,' said Malory. 'I'm not aware of it. Is there more?"

  'The New York Times then, and a lot of historians since, reported that the ships were met by barges loaded with gold from the Tsar's own mines. The warships took it to Britain. It was to buy armaments. The Tsar's private contribution, you might call it, to the war effort.'

  'How much?' Malory asked.

  'The story is,' and Aston enunciated with care, 'that it was two point seven billion. That's dollars. But you could say about five hundred million in sterling. At 1914 values.'

  'I'll be damned!' said Malory. And though there was no letter S in the epithet, it emerged as a longish hiss.

  It was so clear! No mistaking this, Malory thought. The historian had gone by now and his books with him, and Malory paced slowly up and down the room at 6 Athels-gate, while the ingredients boiled together in the cauldron of his brain.

  What a pity it was that Sir Basil had burned his papers (he'd also damned near burned down his own house, at 45 Avenue Hoche in Paris, at the same time, Malory recalled). Because it was a safe bet that Zaharoff was in Russia touting for business as soon as war was declared. God, he thought - the whole thing stank of Sir Basil. The richest man on earth, Tsar of All the Russias, who had a million a day in private income, setting up a war chest with his own gold. To buy arms, from Vickers!

  Who could send warships? Not Zaharoíf. But Lloyd George was Minister of Munitions, then. Five hundred million! But brought out of Russia fairly secretly. Distant press reports, no more. And no arms were delivered.

  Andrevolution followed.

  And the murder of Nicholas and his entire family followed too!

  So no heirs? . . . No, no heirs.

  Or were there?

  Malory stopped pacing and glanced down. His highly-polished shoes gleamed black against the deep red of the carpet. But the gleam, he thought, savagely, was as nothing to the gleam of the gold bars three floors below, in Hillyard Cleef s celebrated vault.

  As nothing*.

  Oh yes, he knew the details. One hundred million in what are known as 'good delivery bars' each of 400 troy ounces. Placed in the vaults on January 1st, year of Our Lord, 1915. One hundred million kept permanently on display, by agreement with Her Majesty's Government. And the Bank of England. Because for many years after 1915 there were tight and difficult restrictions on gold holdings . . . But it was a simple enough proposition, so hallowed by time that Malory had barely thought of it in years. By agreement, the hundred million was a constant. If the gold price rose, a number of bars were taken from 6 Athelsgate to the Bank of England. If the gold price fell, the process was reversed. It was a simple thing. The Government and the national reserve benefited inevitably, in the long run, because the price of gold rose with equal inevitability over the years. Hillyard, Cleef benefited because its gold reserve was always there to maintain confidence.

  Malory thought about gold. He had touched one of the bars, once only and with his fingertips, when he was quite young. It had had a slightly greasy feel, he remembered. Remarkably easy material to work, though, and salted away under mattresses all over the world in bars of variousweights. The firm of Johnson Mathey, here in London, made bars of all sizes, from the 3.75 troy ounces of the ten-tola bar upward. No difficulty in finding a way to put new markings on a gold bar, either: you melted it down, re-moulded it, and put another stamp on it. You might remove a South African stamp and replace it with, for instance, that of the Banque de Fra
nce or Credit Suisse.

  Five hundred million.At 1914 values.

  God!

  The Tsar's war chest. That's what it was.

  But Lloyd George needed a war chest, too.

  'Despite repeated promises, the munitions were not delivered,' reported Pares. They got their hands on the gold - Zaharoff and Lloyd George - and used it: one to stuff his exchequer, and the other to underwrite his business.

  Brilliant - absolutely brilliant! Malory thought. Zaharoff s idea, of course . . . But he did not linger on the delights of so ineffable a stroke. It was necessary to think it through. There was no surviving heir. Hillyard, Cleef and the British Government had in effect inherited. There was no heir because there was no proof. The Tsar, who would by now have been a hundred and ten years old, was not even legally assumed to be dead.

  The Grand Duchess Anastasia had failed in her claim, and for no sensible reason that Malory could see, the rest of the Romanov family had never tried with any show of determination to get their hands on Nicholas Romanov's huge assets abroad.

  Why not? Because they knew something? Because lawsuits were expensive and the Romanov cousins knew they would fail? Yes, all that was possible.

  So - a single survivor or proof of death. Either would suffice. Either was the key to enormous wealth. And Dikeston was in Ekaterinburg in July 1918, at Zaharoff s insistence!

  At dinner that night, though he was already thinking of the means to have the Hillyard, Cleef ingots recast, Sir Horace Malory was not himself. He punished the malt whisky beforehand, and opened a second bottle of claret.

  'You're getting worse,' said Lady Malory disparagingly, 'you sound like a pit full of vipers.'

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  -----------------------

  Seventh and final instalment of the account,

  written by Lt Cdr H. G. Dikeston, RN, of

  his journeyings in Russia in the spring and summer of 1918

  When first I encountered it, I was much struck by the degree of mutual distrust common to the Bolsheviks. Here, after all, were men who had fought a long-established autocracy and overthrown it. They claimed their victory in the name of the People and proclaimed Brotherhood and Equality. Trust, though, was not to be their way, as history shows.

  Bronard first explained it to me, grinning in contempt. Within the Urals Soviet were a dozen shifting alliances, he said. A pair of Commissars might agree on one matter and disagree on three more. Factions proliferated, as did enmities. 'Friendships,' said Bronard, after I used the word,1'do not exist. Too dangerous.'

  'But Sverdlov and Goloshchokin are old friends, surely?' I said.

  'Old acquaintances and old allies, but not friends,' said Bronard. 'Does one friend threaten another with death?'

  I had not sought Bronard out; rather he had come to me, having learned from Goloshchokin that my plan must perforce be abandoned.

  We were sitting in a room at the Americana, Bronard nursing half a tumbler of vodka. A great pity that we don't know where Nicholas keeps the paper,' he said thoughtfully. To tell the truth, I had forgotten, until that moment, about the document. After all, it was safe in the Finnish Bank in Moscow. And for many days my mind had been concentrated entirely upon the hope of rescuing the Romanov family.

  'Why?' I said. 'Even if we knew, we couldn't get to it.'

  He gave me a look. 'Yurovsky, you mean?'

  I nodded. It was then he began to talk about alliances and about the way he had insinuated himself into the Urals Oblast Soviet.

  'Every man, if he's a politician, has an id ée fixe,'he said with a smug chuckle. 'With Scriabin it's gold, God alone knows why. Agree with him that all gold belongs to the workers, and he's on your side in everything else. I support Berzin and Goloshchokin in demanding more arms for the working class: that's what they care about.'

  'Are you saying Yurovsky trusts you?" I asked in surprise. He shook his head. 'You don't listen, do you? Yurovsky doesn't trust me. He doesn't trust, really trust, anybody. Nor do any of them. But Yurovsky knows I'm on his side where the Romanovs are concerned. He's heard me ranting about them and I always ranted loudly. He trusts my views about his own id ée fixe,because they are his own views. But it's my opinion he trusts, not me - you understand?'

  'Oh yes. I understand. Tell me - would he let you in to the Ipatiev House?'

  Bronard took a long swallow of vodka. 'He might.'

  'But not Goloshchokin?'

  'I'm not Goloshchokin, am I? He's Sverdlov's man. Yurovsky'Il have guessed a lot of what Sverdlov's doing; and why the Germans are here, too. He's not a fool.'

  'Could you enter the house?' I persisted.

  'Not much point, is there?' Bronard said. 'I yelled for Nicholas's blood often enough, and at Tobolsk he heard me do it. Nicholas wouldn't trust me with any paper he thought important. We'd have to get you in to him.'

  I said, 'To get them all out would be better.'

  He gave me a curious smile. 'Oh, I'm not being reluctant, don't imagine that. The moment has come and I can recognize it. But it's taken time and trouble to make a place here.' He gave a shrug. 'So I'll abandon it, if I have to. What do you want?'

  'Answers to questions.'

  He stretched like an animal. And somehow, like a cat stretching on a hearthrug, he seemed at the same time to be indolent, comfortable and fully alert. He said, 'You - you neither like nor trust me. It's true, eh?'

  'We have a common purpose,' I told him.

  And he laughed. 'That's right! You and I-we're like the Bolsheviks, you see. It's unity of interests. To get the paper we must get the Romanovs out. Lucky, is it not, that I'm the one Yurovsky might listen to!'

  I said, 'It's damned useful!'

  'They'll all talk to me. Yurovsky, Goloshchokin, Beloborodov, Berzin - all of them. It takes work, my friend, and preparation. That's why Zaharoff pays me well. In two years the Urals Soviet will be buying their arms from Zaharoff, and I'll be rich and in retirement!'

  'Yurovsky's Letts - what of them?' I said.

  'What do you mean?'

  'If he were removed, what then?'

  Bronard frowned. 'Will you never understand that there is no personal loyalty here.'

  'They're not his men, then?'

  'They're soldiers of the revolutionary army. And yes, it can be done!'

  I must have looked puzzled. 'What can be done?'

  He sighed. And then, to my amazement, he told me precisely what my own thoughts had been a mere moment earlier. The whole stratagem made good, practical sense, Bronard said, and should, furthermore, be put into operation at the earliest feasible moment. We agreed on that, at least. And shook hands on it

  ...

  Three men and a single vehicle: the required resources for rescuing an emperor, his consort, his heirs. The truck was an almost new American Dodge ('abandoned by a fleeing capitalist,' said Bronard with a truly wicked laugh) and the men were our two selves and Goloshchokin, who had agreed to drive the truck.

  Why Goloshchokin? Because above all the need would be for confidence and authority: the first Bronard's with Yurovsky, the other Goloshchokin's with the Letts. And so, a few minutes after midnight-it was, accordingly, July 17th - the truck drove along Voznesensky Avenue to the House of Special Purpose. As we approached I saw the new-piled sandbags of what was obviously a machine-gun emplacement at the north end of the stockade. Here was Yurovsky preparing his defences!

  One of his Letts stamped over to us as Goloshchokin turned the truck round and then reversed it until its rear entered the gap in the stockade. The guard's rifle was in his hands rather than at his shoulder another sign the whole place was alert.

  'Who are you?' the Lett demanded.

  'Ruzsky,' responded Bronard cheerfully, 'with Commissar Goloshchokin. Here's my pass. Tell me - do you like fish?'

  'Fish?' repeated the guard, made uncertain by this joviality on the part of a high official. He took the pass. 'Well

  'Because we've found a barrel of pickled herring. Thank
you -' he took his pass back - 'found it at the Americana Hotel and it's Baltic herring, my friend, and I said, those Baits in Comrade Yurovsky's guard would enjoy eating those. Am I right?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Yes, Comrade,'1 cried Bronard. 'Come on, let's get it unloaded!'

  So we left Goloshchokin at the wheel and Bronard and I unloaded the herring barrel and a bottle or two of chilled vodka and a jar of pickled cucumbers. Gaining entry to the Ipatiev House, the gaol of a king, was as easy as that. The guard stood and watched as the two of us walked through the high stockade with our little hoard of food.

  I had thought Yurovsky might be asleep, but he stood waiting as we entered the first hallway: a thin man of medium height, with sparse sand-coloured hair. He wore, as I had been told he usually did, a short white jacket of the kind often worn by doctors and dentists. His glance rested briefly upon me and he frowned, but then he turned at once to Bronard and said, 'What is this nonsense?' Over his shoulder I could see, through the open doorway, that two Lettish guards were standing, at ease but watchful.

  'Brought something for your men,' Bronard said loudly. Whether he actually was a little drunk I do not know, but I doubt it. Still, he gave the impression of one with overmuch liquor in him. He explained the discovery of the herring barrel in the hotel's cold-room. 'Thought straightaway, Yurovsky's men would like 'em, that's what I thought. Brought something to go with 'em, too!' He waved a vodka bottle in each hand.

  I watched Yurovsky carefully. So much depended upon how he received this farrago of nonsense. But all seemed well. Where he had been frowning, his face now relaxed into a faint smile, one almost of indulgence.

  'How kind of you - come along through here.' He gestured at the doorway in an almost courtly way. We followed and placed our load upon the table that apparently served as his desk, and he now made a great fuss: 'Herrings from the Baltic, yes, my Letts will be delighted,' and 'Hasn't it been hot today!' and so on. I could almost have been at tea with a maiden aunt.

  We had agreed, Bronard and I, that we must take him prisoner at the first good opportunity. Both of us were armed with pistols and I know that when I put the heavy pickle jar on the table, I turned, with my hand ready by the pistol, only to see that for the moment it was impossible: two guards with rifles occupied the doorway. We would have to wait.