Two buses to Chelsea passed while Rollo told Poppy all about Count Sergei Andreiovich and how he became Ivan Molanov, archivist at The Globe. As Poppy already knew, Rollo had met Ivan in a field hospital in Belgium, and after the war Rollo had given him – and Daniel, whom he had also met there – jobs at The Globe. Ivan had been a White Russian reformist and, in 1917, had heard that his family had been killed back in Russia, so there was nothing left for him to return to. He had come to London as a refugee. Over the last three years there had been intermittent rumours that his family might not have died but were caught up with the masses of displaced people trying to get out of the war zone to safety. But there was no evidence of that, and the previous week Ivan had heard that yet another rumour had come to naught.
All this Poppy knew, but what she didn’t know was that soon after Ivan started working for Rollo he had confessed that his true identity was that of Count Sergei Andreiovich of Moscow, distant cousin and military adviser to Tsar Nicholas II. His story then began to dovetail with what she had heard that morning from Marjorie. He had gone to the Western Front as a military adviser but disappeared in 1916. No one knew whether he had defected to the German side or been killed and his body never found.
But Rollo apparently knew. “He was shot by some other White Russian generals who had got it into their heads that he was spying for the British. Although Britain was technically Russia’s ally in the war, there was still a lot of mistrust, and many Russians thought Britain was using the war to extend its empire at Russia’s expense. And of course, there might be some truth in that,” Rollo told her, leaning against the bus-stop post. Poppy remembered what Marjorie had told her that morning about the British Home Office trying to recruit Ivan to influence the tsar. But she didn’t want to interrupt Rollo’s flow.
The editor straightened up, dusting droplets of water from his shoulder. “But Ivan – I’ll continue to call him Ivan, because that’s who he is now – thought the real reason was because he had recently been suggesting that Russia pull out of the war; that he had adjudged the real battle was taking place in Russia itself and that talks needed to start between the Imperial government, the reformers and – and this was the clincher – the Bolshevik leaders. He had sent a report back to the tsar to advise him to consider this course of action. The generals had intercepted the despatch and confronted him with it. When he confessed that this was indeed his opinion, they shot him, leaving him for dead in a ditch.”
Rollo then went on to tell Poppy that Ivan had been found by British soldiers and brought to the field hospital where his photographer for The New York Times was being treated. “That’s where I met him – and Danny Boy, of course – and the rest –” he splayed his overlarge hands – “is history.”
Poppy chewed on her lower lip, absorbing the new information. It made sense. Most of it. But she couldn’t quite see how a few loose ends worked into the picture.
“So why is he pretending to be someone else? Why not just live openly as Count Sergei Andreiovich here in London?”
Rollo shoved his hands into his overcoat pocket. It was getting cold at the bus stop and Poppy wished they’d taken a table in another public house instead.
“Because,” answered Rollo, “he felt his life was still in danger from the Russian generals and he didn’t want the British to use him as some kind of diplomatic pawn.”
That made sense to Poppy: in her mind’s eye she wove one of the threads into the tapestry, then took hold of another. “But why settle in Britain then? It’s like walking straight into the lion’s den. He could have left Belgium and settled anywhere. Why come here and risk being unearthed by the Secret Service?”
Rollo shrugged, his hands still in his pockets. “I don’t rightly know, Miz Denby. You know what Ivan’s like – keeps his cards close to his chest – so the most I could get out of him was that he felt the best chance he had of keeping his ear to the ground regarding events back in Moscow was here in London. Due to the connections between the two royal families, Britain would have been the likely destination for any Romanov refugees. Paris too, of course, has attracted a lot of them, but the Brits were the best option for getting Nicholas and his family out.”
“And look how well that went,” observed Poppy wryly.
“Indeedy,” agreed Rollo. “But in 1917 when Ivan first came here, it was thought that the tsar and his family would be arriving any day. Perhaps Ivan was hopeful that he would be able to get some information about his family. It seems that his wife and the tsarina were quite close as children.”
Poppy tried to imagine the bear-like Ivan Molanov as a pre-war Russian aristocrat. She attempted to picture the photograph Marjorie had shown her that morning. There had been no beard, and the shaggy hair had been cut short. He was eight years younger too. She struggled to see the resemblance. But then she remembered the eyes – the same eyes that had stared at her from the face of his young daughter – and yes, she could see Ivan in them. She would ask Marjorie to show her the picture again when – or if! – she ever managed to get hold of the woman.
How much of this should she tell her? She didn’t want to blow Ivan’s cover.
As if reading her mind, Rollo said: “Best you don’t tell Marjorie any of this for now. We don’t want to get Ivan into trouble.”
Poppy’s cheek was beginning to hurt again. She touched it gingerly. “I think Ivan’s already in trouble, Rollo. Whether we like it or not, he’s somehow caught up in this whole Selena/Watts/Fabergé egg thing.”
Rollo cocked his head and looked up at her. “How d’ya reckon that, Miz Denby?”
“The chocolates, of course. Somebody poisoned the chocolates – intending them for Selena, and then poor Stanislavski got them instead.”
“You reckon he did it, then?” asked Rollo, folding his arms over his chest.
Poppy sighed, and it was her turn to lean wearily on the bus-stop post. “Well, his fingerprints are on the card …”
“So are mine …”
Poppy scowled at Rollo. “Are you trying to implicate yourself?”
Rollo laughed, but there was no humour in it. His demeanour was subdued, worn down. I wonder if he’s beginning to consider that Ivan could really have done it? Poppy thought.
“Let’s not forget there’s a third set of prints. Someone unknown …”
Rollo brightened a fraction. “Indeed there is, Miz Denby. And we need to find out who they belong to.”
“And,” she added, matching his tone, “we need to find out the real reason Ivan replaced the flowers with the chocolates. There’s something about the hay fever story that doesn’t fit. Selena stayed at our house and – I’ve just remembered – there were fresh flowers in her room every day. She asked for them herself. And I didn’t hear so much as a sniff. If Selena had –” she stopped suddenly, realising the one thing she had not thought to do “– I haven’t searched her room. The police have, but I haven’t got around to it yet. There might be some evidence in there.”
Rollo perked up a little more.
“If the police have left anything …” observed Poppy. “But what if the evidence implicates Ivan?”
Rollo reached out and patted her shoulder. “Follow your nose, Miz Denby, follow your nose. Just like you did on the Dorchester story, even if it implicates people you know and love.”
You mean people you know and love, thought Poppy. Poor Rollo. He wanted desperately for his friend to be innocent. She knew exactly how that felt. In all of this she’d forgotten Adam and Delilah. She needed to find them. Her stomach clenched into the familiar knot. The lights of another bus turned the corner into Fleet Street. She reached into her pocket for her purse.
“I think I’d better get this one, Rollo. I’ve got a few things to do – and people to see – in Chelsea.”
The editor agreed. “I’ll go back to the pub and see what I can wheedle out of Ivan, and then I’ll try to get Yasmin to set up a meeting with the Yusopovs. Even if they’re not directly involved, they must know something about this.”
Poppy agreed. Rollo asked her to ring him later at the office so they could compare notes. She said she would, then got on the bus. As she settled down, she wiped condensation from the window and watched as Rollo’s already small figure hunched even lower in the dim streetlight.