“No. The books. Alexei was given books by his tutor, Nestor. One was the Time Machine. It’s a popular book of science fiction, written by the socialist H. G. Wells. It’s about a future world, in which human society has divided into two species: underground-dwelling workers and dreamy, idle aristocrats. Then there were two poems by Thomas Macauley, both about the struggles of the young Republic of Rome to defend itself against the claims of tyrant kings. The last book Alexei mentioned in his letter struck a particular chord with me, because the author was born in Litchfield and settled in Hartford – both in Connecticut, my home state. Uncle Tom's Cabin is one of my favorite books.”
Aristarkhov sneers. “This is hardly relevant – and rather tedious, Miss Frocester.” But I carry on.
“Can we conclude anything about the type of person who might give such books to an impressionable young boy? I could only guess, of course. But then I came across something more definite. Mr Bukin – you told me that Nestor is an Estonian surname.”
“Yes, it is.”
“And Professor, you thought that it might be a name from classical Greece. But when I was in Astrakhan, I met Yuri’s mother, Mrs Viktoriya Sirko. At her house I saw a newspaper clipping of a civic visit to Astrakhan from Boston, Massachusetts. As you may know, Boston is famous for its Irish population. One of the visitors was a Boston businessman named Patrick Casey Nestor.”
I look at Emily. “When the General sent you and I to Moscow, you told the American consulate that you'd lost your passport. But the truth is that you did still have your passport – but you didn't want to get it out in front of me, in case I saw the surname that was written in it. And today, you got the General Aristarkhov to introduce you as Emily Neale. But that’s a lie, isn’t it? Your name is actually Emily Nestor, of Irish descent, born in New Orleans. When I saw that newspaper article in Astrakhan, I realised, for the first time, that Nestor is an Irish surname.”
Emily says nothing.
“You have a brilliant academic record, Emily. You are one of the world’s most distinguished scholars of Russian literature. On that basis you secured a job as a private tutor to Alexei. I think his mother favored a female tutor for her delicate boy. And, the Tsarina’s extreme secretiveness meant that, although you were at Tri Tsarevny, you remained in the main Dacha every day. Only your name was known to you, General, and you, Mr Bukin. You never actually met Nestor, did you?”
The two Russians nod silently as I continue.
“But I think that one of you – probably you, General – had seen the distant figure of Tutor Nestor up at the main Dacha, from your own house down on the lake.”
“Good God! How did you know that?” Aristarkhov glares at me.
“Another of my guesses. What you saw – from a distance – was a black-haired, pale-skinned, thin woman, conservatively dressed in dark clothes. The weather was sunny, those few days at Tri Tsarevny in July 1916. In bright sunlight, you often don’t see people’s features. And if Emily was standing against the light, all you’d have seen was a silhouette, General. Look at me, now, against the sunlight—”
Aristarkhov looks at my shaded face and my figure, standing on the beach. My sharp shadow on the sand points at his feet. I go on.
“Three weeks later at Ivangorod, General, you were told that a person matching that description, an American woman, was at the harbor, getting into a boat to Tri Tsarevny. It was me, of course.
At the time, General, you were a loyal servant of the Tsar, and a senior member of Okhrana. You knew that the one person at Tri Tsarevny who had managed to remain a mystery to you was the dark-haired American woman, Tutor Nestor. So you suspected her – who was in fact me – of being the murderer of Svea Håkansson, and a threat generally to security and to the Tsar’s family.
In typically ruthless Okhrana manner, you asked the Cossack Ivan Horobets to dispose of me. You knew that Horobets was a brutal, unscrupulous man. That’s why you employed him to carry out Ohkrana’s nastier jobs. It was you who gave Kaspar Sepp a piece of drugged meat, and it was Horobets who set fire to the cottage.”
“You're accusing me of attempted murder, Miss Frocester.”
I turn away from the general, and look at Emily.
“First, let's finish your story, Emily. You took the position of tutor to Prince Alexei because you are a revolutionary socialist. You saw it as an opportunity to spy on the imperial family. You believed that would help the revolutionary movement in Russia. I think that you were in touch with Nikolay Chkheidze and other would-be revolutionaries before you even arrived in Russia. Once you were at Tri Tsarevny, you took the opportunity to send Chkheidze and his friends messages from a wireless that the revolutionaries gave you. You concealed it in the old storeroom, the house that was never used, on the island down on the lake. You were good at your little piece of espionage. You were spotted only once, by Rasputin, on one of his late-night forays along the causeway.
And finally, Emily, Alexei left one other clue that you are in fact Tutor Nestor. He drew a picture of you, at the end of his letter to Dr Jansens. I remember, at the Hotel Metropol in Moscow, that you were very quick to say that the drawing was of Svea.”
Emily shrugs at me. “Why couldn’t the drawing have been Svea?”
“I think that Alexei couldn’t draw Svea. He didn’t want to go to that place in his mind. Whenever he thought of Svea, all he could think of was the horror he'd stumbled across on the porch of the Second Princess. No: that drawing is of you.”
Emily’s lower lip sticks out, like a little girl’s, as she looks at me.
“You’ve connected up a series of guesses – but you’re right, Agnes. I was tutor to Prince Alexei. I’m not ashamed of sending wireless messages to Chkheidze, or of trying to influence Alexei with those books. I was trying to educate him, to give him a new way of thinking. The Romanovs were tyrants.”
“And Lenin isn’t?”
She’s about to answer me, but I turn to Aristarkhov.
“General, you said I accused you of attempted murder. I’m not backing down on what I said. You did order Horobets to kill the professor and me in that cottage at Ivangorod. But then, when you saw Emily and I together at the Winter Palace, you realised how alike we looked, and that either of us might have been Tutor Nestor. You questioned us to try and find out the truth, but you couldn’t.
So you had us exiled to Siberia, and later you again instructed Horobets to eliminate us, at the Kungur ice caves. As with the burning of the cottage, you and Horobets took pains to make the intended deaths look like an accident.”
Aristarkhov snorts. “You can’t prove anything about me. Nor can you prove Captain Sirko innocent!” He turns on his heel, and signals to the four guards in the boat. They step down into the waves, and begin to walk across the sand towards us.
But I carry on talking. “You weren’t worried, General, about two American women disappearing in an apparent accident in an underground cave, because that would hardly draw the attention of the United States government. But when it came to actually putting someone on public trial for the murder of Svea Håkansson, you wanted to avoid any international effects.
You needed a Russian to take the blame. I think gangsters in New York use the phrase ‘fall guy’. An old-fashioned Cossack, loyal to the Tsarist regime, was ideal. But what made Yuri the perfect fall guy was that he actually was at Tri Tsarevny when the murder happened, and he knew how to handle guns.”
The four Russian guards are standing with us now, awaiting Aristarkhov’s signal. I see that all of them are armed with pistols. Yuri looks at the circle of faces. “I hope for my sake you can prove this, Agnes! But are you saying that it was Emily that killed Svea? Or, General, did you murder her yourself?”