Rasputin's Revenge (29 page)

When she initially requested me, there had been three slayings. At the time of my arrest, there were six. Since my position at the court would be official, I determined that I would need another investigator working behind the scenes in a different capacity. As I’m sure your Excellency realizes, an official status is helpful for administrative purposes, but can be a downright hindrance to getting at facts.

I chose Monsieur Giraud for this role. I trusted him and we had worked together before. For various reasons, not the least of which being that I thought it likely he would refuse me if I made my
request boldly, I designed a cover mission for him, which was nonetheless legitimate. When he first came here, he was aware only of that mission—to present a French offer of arms and money to the Czar in return for his renewed commitment to France for the winter months.

No doubt it was the Czar’s return to Tsarkoye Selo which prompted the killing of Boris Minsky, the first murder after my arrival. It had the required effect, plunging Nicholas into a funk so deep that Giraud could not make his offer with any hope of its being accepted.

At this time, I solicited Giraud’s help, and he agreed to it. I did not tell the Empress of Giraud’s part in my plan because, frankly, I suspected that she would confide it to Anna Vyroubova, who abhors keeping secrets as nature does a vacuum. Excuse me, Monsieur Beria, but this is common knowledge.

In any case, events began to move swiftly. It is true that Giraud and I were both aware of Borstoi’s attempt to poison the Czar’s sugar. But—and this is crucial—my commission called for me to find the Palace killer, not potential assassins of Nicholas. Perhaps I erred, but I reasoned that if Borstoi could lead me to my quarry, that would be the greater good. Since he would be denied future admission to the Palace, I assumed that he could no longer be a danger to the Czar. That assumption, by the way, proved correct.

Giraud and I began our investigation into Minsky’s death, and the field became rife with suspects. Initially, I suspected Elena Ripley because she had been the last person seen with Minsky, and because poison is a classic woman’s murder weapon. Her motive? Jealousy. She was in love with Minsky and he had overturned her in favor of Katrina Sukhomlinov, with whom he was having an affair.

Suk: (from the gallery) That’s a lie, Lupa. That’s a black lie!

Zostov: Hear, hear! General, I must caution you.

Suk: Your Excellency, this is slander of the rankest sort.

Zostov: If it proves false, General, I will add slander to the charges against him. In the meanwhile, I will not tolerate interruptions in my courtroom. You, and all of you, are here at my pleasure, and you will be well advised to remember that. Proceed, Monsieur Lupa.

Lupa: Thank you. As I was saying, it was tempting to consider Miss Ripley as Minsky’s killer, but the weight of evidence favored our hypothesis that the murders were politically
motivated, and Miss Ripley had not even been in St. Petersburg when the first killing had taken place, so I was forced for the time being to exclude her from consideration.

However, the motive of jealousy immediately reappeared, again centering, if the General will excuse me, around Madame Sukhomlinov. It seems that Max Pohl, the Czar’s chef, also harbored an infatuation for that woman. He might have killed Minsky to eliminate his rival. Certainly he had the poison at hand.

But in my heart I could not suspect the chef. I knew him well. He was a patriot. He knew how the other murders had affected the Czar, and I didn’t believe he would place his own passions over his love of Russia. I hasten to add that while I held this view privately, I nevertheless did not cross him off my list of suspects.

But heading the list was General Sukhomlinov himself.

Suk: Your Excellency! I must insist …

Zostov: General, this is my last warning. Guard, stand by the General and if he speaks out of turn again, remove him from the courtroom. Monsieur Lupa, I also tell you that if this tale leads nowhere, you may expect no mercy from this court.

Lupa: I would expect none, Excellency.

Zostov: That is good. Our justice, though severe, is merciful. Our anger can be very painful. Do you understand?

Lupa: Completely.

Zostov: Proceed.

Lupa: Sukhomlinov had both political and personal motivation to kill Minsky. The Commissar had just returned from Spala with Czar Nicholas, and was about to reignite his affair with the General’s wife. Sukhomlinov hated Nicholas not only for removing him from his post as Minister of War, but for allowing him to be prosecuted for espionage. His business interests, mostly German, were being subverted by the prolonged War. There were a dozen reasons why he should act.

But Monsieur Giraud had not been idle. And his pursuit of Borstoi—including his brilliant subterfuge involving the Fabergé egg—abruptly changed the focus of my investigation.

My colleague has been much maligned during this trial for his deception of the Czarina. In his defense, I must make two points. First, he had no reason to believe the Empress was not fully informed of his possession of the egg—indeed, that he
returned it directly to her proves that. Second, by spuriously presenting the egg to Borstoi, Giraud convinced him that they were brother communists. This resulted in Borstoi’s boastful confession to the first Palace murder, and set the stage for the solution to the rest.

Beria: The solution to the rest?

Lupa: Exactly.

Beria: You realize, of course, that Inspector Dubniev has closed the file on those murders.

Lupa: That doesn’t surprise me. I assume he concluded that Kapov and Pohl worked together and, when they were about to be found out, entered into a suicide pact.

Beria: There is ample evidence to believe that that is exactly what transpired. And indeed, there have been no further killings—a good indication that the murderers themselves are dead.

Lupa: It might also mean that the killer took advantage of an ideal opportunity to stop. Since the crimes are believed solved, there is no further investigation. Even a dimwit would see that, and we are not dealing here with an idiot. Far from it.

Zostov: Go on.

Lupa: When Monsieur Giraud brought me the information that Borstoi had confessed to committing the first murder with Kapov, it was tempting to consider the obvious—that Kapov had continued the killings, and may have even done so with Borstoi.

But Borstoi’s rationale for stopping after one murder—that someone else saw the effect it produced on the Czar, and continued with their own campaign of terror—made a perverted kind of sense to me. Why should Borstoi and Kapov continue putting themselves at risk when someone else was apparently willing to do their work for them?

I must now make a confession, and in so doing I offer an apology to Monsieur Giraud. We are charged with being coconspirators. And it’s true that to a certain extent we worked together. But to a greater extent, I worked alone, and I used Monsieur Giraud for my own purposes. Jules, please forgive me for this.

Zostov: Monsieur Lupa, you will address yourself to this court. We are growing impatient with this story and are unmoved by your apology to the accused. Get to the point.

Lupa: The point, Excellency, is this. Early in my investigation, I had eliminated one of the suspects from consideration. Elena Ripley had been in the Crimea with the Royal Family when the first murder had been committed. She was, therefore, demonstrably innocent. Subsequently, Monsieur Giraud and she formed an attachment. He began confiding in her.

And on a hunch, I began feeding disinformation, through him, to her.

Beria: Disinformation? You mean lies. You lied to your own partner?

Lupa: I won’t argue semantics with you. I presented information to Monsieur Giraud as though it were factual when I knew it not to be.

Beria: But what prompted this “hunch” in the first place? If you knew Miss Ripley was innocent …?

Lupa: I knew, or at least believed, she had not committed the first murder. But I couldn’t get away from the knowledge that she was the last person to be seen with Minsky, that poison is a classic woman’s weapon, that she seemed to be a fixture at gatherings where a simple governess had no place. But as I say, at the time, it was only the merest conjecture. I had no motive for her, only means and opportunity.

To keep Monsieur Giraud from suspecting anything, although I don’t believe he would have been suspicious in any case, I told him that Miss Ripley had left Minsky with a group of fellow officers on the night he was killed. Now doubly assured of her innocence, Monsieur Giraud had no reason not to trust her completely.

Even so, it remained a minor theme while I carried on my regular investigations which, with the exception of Borstoi, were proving exceptionally barren. It wasn’t until Borstoi’s confession to the first murder—and only the first murder—that Miss Ripley came back under suspicion. It was possible, I reasoned, that there was more than one killer. Then, at Kapov’s death—his rather too convenient and timely death—my suspicions grew to convictions.

Beria: But Kapov’s death was a suicide.

Lupa: No. That was a murder!

Zostov: Silence! I must again warn the gallery. These outbursts are not acceptable. Proceed, Monsieur Beria.

Beria: You realize that Inspector Dubniev has proclaimed Kapov’s death a suicide.

Lupa: And he was about to do the same with Minsky. In both cases he was wrong.

Beria: And I presume you can prove that?

Lupa: The facts allow no other conclusion. I ordered an autopsy of Kapov’s body as soon as I examined him, and got the results just before my arrest. He had died of hanging …

Beria: Brilliant! Hanging, you say?

Zostov: Curb your sarcasm, Prosecutor. This is hardly new ground, Monsieur Lupa.

Lupa: New ground will be broken, Excellency. The autopsy showed that Kapov was both drugged and drunk when he died.

Beria: Many suicides find courage for their final act that way.

Lupa: True. But Kapov could not have walked or even moved on his own with the quantity of poisons in his body. It is flatly impossible that he could have fashioned a proper noose, or balanced himself sufficiently on his window ledge to loop the rope over the gable. It’s in the autopsy report. Read it, if Inspector Dubniev hasn’t destroyed it.

Beria: But that alleged destruction would also serve you well, wouldn’t it?

Lupa: Not really. I don’t need the autopsy. The captain of the guards who discovered Kapov’s body can testify to some other critical points. Kapov’s fingernails were broken off—two of them to the quick. The others were bloody and filled with splinters, splinters of the same rough wood that bordered the window. There were matching scratch marks on the shutters.

Beria: That’s all? That is your evidence?

Lupa: That’s not all, but it should be enough. Taken together, it is damning. Someone drugged Kapov, looped a rope over the outside gable—by the way, I checked and it was near enough that anyone could have done it—then dragged him to the window. When the noose was over his head, Kapov regained enough consciousness to realize what was happening, and put up a valiant struggle, grabbing at the shutters, the border to the window, anything to save himself from that last terrible fall.

Please, let me continue. I know that thus far this has all been conjecture, a pet theory. You need proof, and I needed proof. I got it.

I made up another lie, one that I shall regret for as long as I live. Though it identified the murderer beyond any doubt, it resulted in the death of one of the finest men I have ever known, Max Pohl.

After reaching the conclusion that Kapov had not killed himself, I told Monsieur Giraud that Pohl had news concerning Minsky’s murder, something to do with locating the source of the poison that had been used to kill Minsky.

As I surmised he would, Giraud passed this information along to Miss Ripley. It must have been a terrible shock for her. She had just killed Kapov, thinking to end all suspicion surrounding the murders, and now here was a new threat.

She wasted no time. With her position as governess to the Grand Duchesses, she had the run of the Royal Quarters. And being a beautiful woman, she undoubtedly had no trouble seducing Max, who was a very passionate man, into a vulnerable position. When she’d done that, she shot him, leaving the gun in his hand to give it the appearance of a suicide.

But the string of coincidence had by now grown too thin—it could no longer support the weight of Miss Ripley’s deceptions.

She was the only one with reason to fear Pohl, with a motive to kill him. No one else knew of his supposed information. I was about to arrest her when I myself was taken into custody.

Beria: This is ingenious, monsieur, but it is still not compelling. It is all “might have been,” “should have done.” There is no evidence.

Lupa: Question her and depend on it. Elena Ripley is guilty.

Ripley: (from the gallery) No!

Zostov: Madam, I would …

Ripley: Please, your Excellency. It’s impossible!

Lupa: It’s not impossible. It’s established.

Ripley: No! You’re saying I killed Kapov. But I was with someone that whole night who can prove I didn’t do it, who can testify to my innocence.

Lupa: He would have to be an unimpeachable witness, Madam. He could not, in fact, exist.

Zostov: Miss Ripley! Return to your seat. Get away from the dock!

Ripley: Oh Jules, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I tried not to tell.

Beria: Are you saying …?

Ripley: I was with your own colleague, Monsieur Lupa. Jules Giraud. I didn’t kill Kapov. I was with Jules.

Zostov: Silence! Silence! Miss Ripley, control yourself. Guard, get her away from the accused. Monsieur Giraud, is this true? Giraud, I am addressing you. Answer me. Is this true?

Giraud: (from the dock)
Oui, c’est ça
. (Whispers.) I am sorry, Auguste, but you must be wrong.

Zostov: What did you say? Speak up, man.

Giraud: She was with me. She could not have killed Kapov.

Beria: Your Excellency. This farce must be concluded. Not only can Monsieur Lupa not prove his accusations. The only thing he has proven is that he has a vivid imagination and he is an adroit liar. His own coconspirator refutes his testimony. This court has been more than lenient with him, with them both. They even lie to one another. For my part, I dismiss this witness. I’ve heard enough of him. Step down, sir.