The Romanov succession

When he came back she was sitting in the parlor with one leg across the arm of the chair. It was a pose no one else could have brought off with dignity. She tossed back her whisky and displayed her subtle mocking smile. “You’re being heroic again. I confess it suits you. What happened to your leg? You’re favoring it.”

“A man used it for target practice.”

Her face changed. “Hadn’t you better tell me about it?”

“In Boston a few days ago. It was a rifle. The bullet hit the doorjamb beside me-it was wood splinters that nicked me. It isn’t serious.”

“Did they capture him?”

“No.”

“Of course it’s the same ones who murdered Vassily.”

“Possibly.”

“You sound dubious.”

“It was hardly a hundred yards. He’d have killed me if he’d meant to.”

“Then you’re convinced he wasn’t shooting to kill?”

“I’m not convinced of anything-but there wasn’t much wind and he had an absolutely clear shot. You can kill a man at five times that distance with a good rifle.”

“Perhaps his sights had been pushed out of alignment somehow.”

“It’s possible,” he conceded. “I think he’d have had time to correct his aim and fire again.”

“Wasn’t there any trace of him? Didn’t you see him?”

“No to both questions. If we knew who he was we’d know why he did it.”

“They may try it again-someone better with a rifle.”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve taken certain precautions. Talking about it won’t clear it up-let’s have a look at your package from Oleg.”

It was a brief letter folded into a book-Clausewitz’s On War, a very old volume, the second Russian edition; published in St. Petersburg in 1903. He riffled the pages but there were no underlinings or marginal notations.

Oleg’s letter was written sparsely in a formal Russian free of post-Revolutionary innovations.

Barcelona 24 August 1941