‘Ah, yes. Well, there are indeed several versions of the events of that night circulating, you know,’ said Edward. ‘And I too have had my ear bent. But I say it’s always interesting to hear from a chap who was on the spot.’ His blue eyes sparkled with mischievous invitation.

Gustavus smiled. ‘In the end, it took a company of us to dispatch the terrible old ox. He had survived previous assassination attempts, that was well known. The man was indestructible, it was rumoured, and rumour further had it that his strength came from a source beyond the natural. We took no chances. He received and accepted an invitation to a drinking party at the palace of Prince Yussupov on the river in St Petersburg. A merry, unbuttoned evening among like-minded chaps. First we poisoned him – three times – then we shot him – four times – and finally we clubbed him about the head, seized him and threw him into an ice-hole in the freezing river Neva. We watched as he sank under.’ He smirked with secret knowledge. ‘At least, that’s how the story goes.’

This was hardly dinner-table talk, but the audience was eager for more. The death of the Tsarina’s sinister influence had taken on a quality of dark farce that made it an acceptable topic of conversation. Rasputin, the much-feared and meddlesome evil genius, had been reduced, in death, to a pantomime villain.

‘The pathologist.’ Gustavus gave a rumbling laugh. ‘You have to feel for the poor chap. He must have been puzzled indeed to come up with a cause of death amongst so many possibilities. Stomach full of poisoned cake and red wine, body riddled with a mixture of Russian and English lead, skull cracked, lungs full of river water and the whole body frozen stiff! I do believe your revered Spilsbury would have been somewhat challenged.’

‘English lead?’ Connie Beauclerk protested. ‘What are you suggesting? The man was shot by a fellow Russian. Prince Yussupov. Everyone knows that. The Tsarina had him put under house arrest. Poor Felix! My brother was up at Oxford with him. A sweetie! Did the world a favour is what my brother says …’

Gustavus paused, making a show of filtering the information he could safely allow an English lady to hear. ‘Rasputin was, indeed, shot by Prince Yussupov, Miss Beauclerk. Shot, but not mortally wounded. His Highness is not one of nature’s assassins. Willing enough but, as you probably know, he has the reputation of being – as you remind us – Oxford educated and something of a fop. And the rumours are true. The revolver he chose for the task proved not to be of a calibre sufficient to fell the monster. When Yussupov approached what he assumed to be a corpse to check on his handiwork, Rasputin reared up, bellowed and seized his would-be murderer by the throat. The prince was extricated from the situation by another gentleman who happened to be at the scene. A gentleman wielding a higher calibre weapon.’

‘Ah,’ said Rupert, nodding his head sagely, ‘the good old Enfield revolver.’

‘No. A Webley. Of the kind used by … well, you know who uses them, Fanshawe. A .45 unjacketed bullet fired by the steady hand of an Englishman, an Englishman who rid the world of a meddling villain. One bullet in the centre of the forehead.’ Gustavus drilled an imaginary hole in his own head with a forefinger. ‘One bullet which changed the course of the war—’

‘Well, well,’ Rupert interrupted loudly. ‘A word of advice, Your Highness: ladies present. Not too keen on hearing about the war, you know. We try to avoid any mention. More wine?’

‘Oh, don’t be a killjoy, Rupert!’ Connie complained. ‘It’s a jolly good story. I love a bit of Grand Guignol! Prince Gustavus, I’ve got one more question. There are those who say’ – her voice took on a tentative tone – ‘that Rasputin – or his spirit – did in fact survive even those extremes of punishment. There was a hideous scene, I’ve heard, and one reported by many reliable men who were present at his cremation?’

‘You’re right, Miss Beauclerk,’ the Serbian assured her. ‘His funeral pyre was set ablaze in public so that all might see with their own eyes that the beast had at long last been annihilated. I was unfortunate enough to be of the company that witnessed the spectacle. The horror! Many swooned.’

He glanced around the table, gathering the earnest expressions silently urging him to reveal more. Sure of his audience, he lowered his voice and went on: ‘In the middle of the flames, the corpse began to sit up. Rasputin drew his knees to his chin and then, slowly, his torso began to rise upright.’

‘Golly gosh!’ breathed Connie, clutching her bosom. Edward leaned over and patted her shoulder, throwing a concerned and warning look at the Serbian.

‘Perfectly understandable,’ said Tuppy drily. The Navy man seemed to have taken a dislike to this dark foreigner whose eyes were as wintry and unfathomable as the ice holes he conjured up. ‘Clearly some careless funeral parlour operative forgot to cut the tendons. In the heat, they shrink, you know, and pull the limbs about in a disturbingly life-like movement.’ He gave a hearty bellow. ‘Ha! I’ve seen corpses get up and dance!’ Enjoying the surprise, he added: ‘Not just a matloe! I was a medic with the Navy before I inherited my father’s London practice. Travelled a lot, saw a lot of strange burial customs. Oh, I say – have I ruined your story, old man?’

Gustavus turned to glower at Tuppy. The sailor’s cheery confidence deflected the look, unaffected, but Lily, catching it, had to repress an instinctive shudder. The Serbian’s reaction to the set-down was one of anger barely held in check. He had enjoyed the fencing with Rupert but a trip-up by a medical man had fired his wrath. He breathed deeply, chewed his lips and, mastering himself, decided to reclaim the attention of the table. He raised his glass and admired the colour of the red wine against the candlelight. ‘It was such a strong wine as this that he was given the night he entered the trap we’d set for him at the palace on the waterfront,’ he recollected. ‘A wine laced with enough fast-acting poison to kill ten men.’

‘What on earth was the poison?’ Tuppy asked. ‘Rat poison? Digitalis? Arsenic? Strychnine? Forgive my curiosity – a physician is always interested in extending his knowledge.’

The Serbian paused for a tantalizing second, apparently quite aware that Tuppy had offered him a test: a menu of poisons from which to choose the correct one. Finally, he replied: ‘None of those. It was potassium cyanide.’

‘Makes sense. Not difficult to get hold of, and a minuscule amount will kill a man. Less than a gram would do for a twelve-stone chap. I understand that one gram is standard issue in the glass suicide capsules we dole out to our secret servicemen.’ His cheery gaze, which had been taking in the whole company at the table, skipped lightly past Rupert, Lily noticed, at the mention of the service. Another man in the know, she concluded. ‘Though for an ox of a man – as you describe him – perhaps you’d need a little more,’ Tuppy added sagely. ‘And a little research might have told those amateurs that baking it up in a cake is a pretty feeble way of going about things. It’s the heat, don’t you know. It vaporizes the noxious element. It’d take more than a slice of Victoria sponge to lay low a chap like Rasputin.’

‘Well, I’ve never heard of the stuff, and I read all the whodunits,’ said Connie. ‘I bet you couldn’t just stroll into Boots the Chemist and ask for an ounce, as you can with arsenic.’

‘Anything is obtainable. Anywhere. If one has the right connections,’ Gustavus told her. Judging, rightly, that his listeners were ready for some relief from the drama, he raised his glass again and proposed a further toast. ‘Let us repeat the word that was on every Russian’s lips on hearing of his death. In the street, strangers shouted it to each other in their joy and relief that justice had been done. Ubili! Ubili! “They have killed!”’