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Filip smiled, his eyes glittering with pleasure. “Yes. Hush her up.”
“The costume she was found in–“
“It is his. Which makes the matter easy to understand, does it not?”
Actually, no, it did not. Unless Filip was implying that Antonovich was foolish enough to kill a
woman and then dress her in his own clothes, his theory made no sense at all. Surely even the palace
guard would have to realize that the use of Antonovich’s costume served to exonerate him. Glancing
at Filip’s self-satisfied face, Rayley tried another tack.
“What would this dance master’s motive be? Not for killing Mrs. Kirby, I mean, but why
would he have wished the two dancers dead?”
“They were going to Paris, part of a grand tour.” A groan rang through the sauna as another man
bent forward to take the beating of the rushes and Filip observed the scene with a placid expression.
“You are quite certain that you do not wish to give our small custom a try? I assure you that the rushes
will not hurt you very much, at least not once you get used to them, and the results are quite
invigorating.”
But Rayley was frowning, too intent on the Russian’s last words to be distracted by the scene
before him. “You cannot be suggesting that Antonovich killed the ballet dancers through professional
jealousy. No sane man would cut the throats of two children simply because he was envious of the
fact that they were going to perform in Paris.”
“You forget you are in Russia now. We are a passionate race. Quicker to act on our emotions
that the British criminals you perhaps are accustomed to. But shall we continue our conversation in
the smoking room?”
“Gladly,” said Rayley, scrambling to his feet. As he followed Filip toward the narrow door he
considered that he was talking to a man who had caught a bullet meant for another, a man who had
undoubtedly seen any number of innocents slaughtered for the causes of love, ambition, politics, or
God. As they paused in the foyer outside the sauna to once again don their robes before moving on to
the next room in the dimly-lit hall, Rayley wondered at the reasons behind Filip’s eagerness to
suggest Konstantin Antonovich as a suspect for all three murders. No doubt this was why he and
Trevor truly had been invited into the gentlemen’s enclave – to make sure they got a generous dose of
the Orlov’s propaganda against the Siberian dance master.
Rayley was relieved to find the smoking room a more conventional affair, with deep padded