Death Comes to the Ballets Russes by David Dickinson

woman? It has been suggested to me, I have to report. It would explain your tardiness in detection. Are you carrying on with Natasha Shaporova, Powerscourt?’
    ‘I am not, Lady Ripon, and I regard it as a gross breach of my hospitality to even suggest it in my house.’
    ‘Oh well, I suspect you’re far too old for her, Powerscourt. What, pray, are your plans for the future in this investigation?’
    ‘We shall continue our work, Lady Ripon. I shall, of course, inform you of any developments.’
    ‘I happen to have with me a most interesting development, as you choose to call it. I have in my bag –’ a capacious vehicle it was too – ‘an invitation from the Duke of Marlborough for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes to perform two or three short ballets at Blenheim Palace, one for the Duke and his friends in the Great Hall, and the other in the open air for the surrounding populace. And a generous fee! What do you think of that?’
    Powerscourt wondered if the real purpose of this visit hadn’t been to show off what was in her handbag. ‘I shall certainly attend, Lady Ripon, it sounds most interesting.’
    ‘You will have to find your place among the agricultural labourers and the poor of Woodstock, Powerscourt. I shall take great care over the guest list for the palace itself. Maybe you’ll find more enlightenment among the rabble in the park than you havebeen able to do so far in the people of the Ballets Russes.’

    Word reached Diaghilev in one of the dressing rooms of the Royal Opera House. There were a couple of cleaned and freshly ironed shirts to the side of the dressing table and a long purple scarf hanging on the back of the door. There was the usual chaos of make-up jars, cleansing lotion, cold creams and all the apparatus needed to make up a ballerina for her performance. Diaghilev and his choreographer, and Bakst his principal designer, were discussing a new ballet to be performed in Paris the following year. The note was handed to Diaghilev. He passed it round.
    ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said. ‘These English must think we are some travelling circus, pitching our tents here and there as the will takes us. Or travelling monks, maybe, processing through Siberian villages with some mystery plays. What do you think, Fokine?’
    ‘Well, Sergei Pavlovich, I had the good fortune to be briefed by the Duke’s man of business last night. But his French was very bad, so I am not clear at all on many points.’
    ‘What is this Blenheim Palace? Where is it? I thought the only palace here was that little one they call Buckingham with the toy soldiers marching up and down.’
    ‘I believe,’ Fokine was scratching his head now, ‘that Blenheim was a battle in southern Germany that ended in an English victory. The General was made Duke of Marlborough and they gave him a palace as a thank-you present. The house was built in the early seventeenhundreds and is considered to be one of the finest in England.’
    ‘Pshaw,’ said Diaghilev. ‘They speak of a performance in the open air for the surrounding peasantry. How are we to do that, in heaven’s name? I think we should say no. Bakst, what is your view?’
    ‘There are obviously great difficulties. But five thousand pounds is a great deal of money. And we have always argued, from the earliest times, that art should be brought to as many people as possible. We could at least aspire to that here.’
    Bakst had always suspected that when Diaghilev referred to the widest possible audience he was referring to the workers by brain rather than the workers by hand. He, Diaghilev, really wanted the intelligentsia of St Petersburg and Paris to rejoice at his talents, rather than members of some mighty proletariat who travelled on foot or by bus rather than by barouche or taxi.
    ‘The money is just a drop in the ocean,’ Diaghilev said rather sadly. The gossip about his being on the edge of bankruptcy was pretty close to the mark. What really irked him was the