Fandorin in English 1-10

His goal had gradually taken clear shape. It was the same as before: terror. After the destruction of the People's Will party the level of militant revolutionary activity had dwindled away to almost nothing. The police was no longer what it had been in the seventies. There were spies and agent provocateurs everywhere. In the whole of the last decade there had only been a couple of successful terrorist operations and a dozen failures. What good was that?

If there was no struggle against tyranny, revolutions did not happen - that was axiomatic. Tsarism would not be overthrown by leaflets and educational groups. Terror was as necessary as air, as a mouthful of water in the desert.

After carefully thinking everything through, Green had begun to act. He had a word with Melnikov, a member of the Central Committee whom he trusted completely, and was granted qualified approval. He would cany out the first operation entirely at his own risk. If it was successful, the party would announce the establishment of a Combat Group and provide financial and organisational support. If it failed, he had been acting alone.

That was logical. In any case acting alone was safer - you certainly wouldn't betray yourself to the Okhranka. Green also set one condition: Melnikov was to be the only member of the Central Committee who knew about him; all contacts had to go through him. If Green required helpers, he would choose them himself.

The first mission he was given was to carry out the sentence that had been pronounced a long time ago on Privy Counsellor Yakimovich. Yakimovich was a murderer and a villain. Three years earlier he had sent five students to the scaffold for planning to kill the Tsar. It had been a dirty case, based from the beginning on entrapment by the police and Yakimovich himself, who was not yet a privy counsellor, but only a modest assistant public prosecutor.

Green had killed him during his Sunday walk in the park -simply, without any fancy business: just walked up and stabbed him through the heart with a dagger, with the letters 'CG' carved into its handle. Before the people around him realised what had happened, he had already left the park - at a quick walk, not a run - and driven away in an ordinary cab.

This terrorist act, the first to be carried out after a long hiatus, had really shaken up public opinion. Everyone had started talking about the mysterious organisation with the mysterious name, and when the party announced what the letters meant and declared that revolutionary war had been renewed, a half-forgotten nervous tremor had run through the country - the tremor without which any social upheavals were unthinkable.

Now Green had everything necessary for serious work: equipment, money, people. He found the people himself or selected them from candidates proposed by the party. He made it a rule that there should be no more than three or four people in the group. For terror that was quite enough.

Big operations were planned, but the next assassination attempt - on the butcher Khrapov - had ended in failure. Not total failure, because a revolver bearing the letters 'CG' had been found on the dead bomber, and that had produced an impression. But even so, the group's reputation had been damaged. There could not be any more flops.

And that had been the situation when Green discovered the sheet of paper with the neatly typed lines of words, lying folded in two on the table. He had burned the paper, but he remembered what was written on it word for word.

Better not touch Khrapov for the time being; he is too well guarded now. When there is a chance to reach him, I shall inform you. Meanwhile, I can tell you that Bogdanov, the Governor of Ekaterinburg, visits house number ten on Mikhelson Street in secret at eight o'clock in the evening on Thursdays. Alone, with no guards. Next Thursday he is certain to be there. Burn this letter and those that follow as soon as you have read them.

TG

The first thought that had occurred to him was that the party was overdoing its conspiratorial methods. Why the melodramatic touch of leaving the letter like that? And what did 'TG' mean?

He asked Melnikov. No, the party Central Committee had not sent the note.

Was it a gendarme trap? It didn't look like one. Why beat about the bush like that? Why lure him to Ekaterinburg? If the police knew his clandestine apartment, they would have arrested him right there.

It had to be a third option. Someone wanted to help the Combat Group while remaining in the shadows.

After some hesitation, Green had decided to risk it. Of course, Governor Bogdanov was no major VIP, but the year before he had been condemned to death by the party for his vicious suppression of peasant riots in the Streletsk district. It wasn't a top priority mission, but why not? Green needed a success.

And he had got one. The operation went off wonderfully well, if you disregarded the scuffle with the police. Green left a sheet of paper at the scene - the party's death sentence, signed with the initials 'CG'.

Then, at the very beginning of winter, a second letter had appeared: he found it in the pocket of his own coat. He was at a wedding - not a genuine wedding, of course, but a fictitious one. Two party members had wed for the sake of the cause, and at the same time an opportunity had been provided to meet legally and discuss a few urgent matters. There had not been any letter in his coat when he took it off. But when he put his hand in the pocket as he was leaving, there was the sheet of paper.

The lieutenant general of gendarmes, Selivanov, who is well known to you, is inspecting the foreign agents of the Department of Security incognito. At half past two in the afternoon on 13 December he will go to a clandestine apartment at 24 rue Annamite in Paris.

TG

And once again everything had happened exacdy as the unknown TG had promised: taking the cunning fox Selivanov had been almost child's play, in fact - something they could never have dreamed of in St Petersburg. They waited for the gendarme in the entrance, Green grabbed him by the elbows, and Rahmet stuck the dagger into him. The Combat Group became the sensation of Europe.

Green had found the third letter on the floor in the entrance hall earlier this year, when the four of them were living on Vasilievsky Island in St Petersburg. This time the writer had directed his attention to Colonel Pozharsky, an artful rogue who was one of the new crop of gendarmes. The previous autumn Pozharsky had destroyed the Warsaw branch of the party, and he had just arrested an anarchist sailors' organisation in Kronstadt that had been planning to blow up the royal yacht. As a reward he had received a high post in the Police Department and an aide-de-camp's monogram for saving the imperial family.

The note had read as follows:

The search for the CG has been entrusted to the new deputy director for political affairs at the Police Department, Count Pozharsky. He is a dangerous opponent who will cause you a lot of trouble. On Wednesday evening between nine and ten he has a meeting with an important agent on Aptekarsky Island near the Kerbel company dacha. A convenient moment: do not let it slip.

TG

They had let the moment slip, even though it really was convenient. Pozharsky had demonstrated quite supernatural agility, returning fire as he melted away into the darkness. His companion had proved less nimble and Rahmet had caught him with a bullet in the back as he was running off.

Even so, the operation had proved useful and caused a sensation, because Green had recognised the man who was killed as Stasov, a member of the party's Central Committee and an old veteran of the Schlisselburg Fortress who had only just returned illegally to Russia from Switzerland. Who could have imagined that the police had people like that among their informers?

The latest message from TG, the fourth and most valuable, had appeared yesterday morning. It was hot in the house, and they had left the small upper window open for the night. In the morning Emelya had found the letter wrapped round a stone on the floor beside the window. He had read it and gone running to wake Green.

And now it is Khrapov's turn. He is leaving for Siberia today by the eleven o'clock express, in a ministerial carriage. I have managed to discover the following: Khrapov will make a stop in Moscow. The person responsible for his security while in Moscow is State Counsellor Fandorin, Prince Dolgorukoi's Deputy for Special Assignments. Description: 35 years old, slim build, tall, black hair, narrow moustache, grey temples, stammers in conversation. Extreme security measures have been planned in St Petersburg and Moscow. It is only possible to get close to Khrapov between these points. Think of something. There will be four agents in the carriage, and a duty guard of gendarmes in both lobbies (the front lobby is blind, with no access to the saloon). The head of Khrapov's guard is Staff Captain von Seidlitz: 32years of age, very light hair, tall, solidly built. Khrapov's adjutant is Lieutenant Colonel Modzalevsky: 39years of age, stout, medium height, dark-brown hair, small sideburns.

TG

Green had put together a daring but perfecdy feasible plan and made all the necessary preparations. The group had left for Klin on the three o'clock passenger train.

Once again TG's information had proved to be impeccable. Everything went without a hitch. It was the Combat Group's greatest triumph so far. It might have seemed that now he could afford to relax and congratulate himself on a job well done. The match had not been extinguished, it was still burning, and meanwhile the fire it had kindled was blazing ever more furiously.

But his enjoyment was marred by the mystery. Green could not abide mystery. Where there was mystery, there was unpredictability, and that was dangerous.

He had to work out who TG was - understand what kind of man he was and what he was after.

He had only one possible explanation.

One of his helpers, or even a member of the actual Combat Group, had someone in the secret police from whom he received confidential information that he passed on anonymously to Green. It was clear why he did not make himself known. That was to maintain secrecy; he did not wish to increase the number of people who knew his secret (Green himself always behaved in the same way). Or he was shielding his informant, bound by his word of honour - that sort of thing happened.

But what if it was entrapment?

No, that was out of the question. The blows that the group had struck against the machinery of state with the assistance of TG were too substantial. No tactical expediency could possibly justify an entrapment operation on that level. And most importantly of all: not once in all these past months had they been under surveillance. Green had an especially keen nose for that.

Two abbreviations: CG and TG. The first stood for an organisation. Did the second stand for a name? Why had there been any need for a signature at all?

That was what he must do when he got back to Peter: draw up a list of everyone who had had access to the places where the notes had been left. If he included only those who could have reached all four places, the list was a short one. Only a few people in addition to the members of the group. He had to identify who it was and engage them in candid conversation. One to one, with proper guarantees of confidentiality.

But it was a quarter past twelve already. His two hours were up. It was time to wake Rahmet.

Green walked through the drawing room into the dark bedroom. He heard Bullfinch's regular snuffling, Emelya's gentle snoring.

'Rahmet, get up,' Green whispered, leaning down over the bed and reaching out his hand.

There was nothing there. He squatted down and felt around on the floor: there were no boots.

Rahmet, the cornflower-blue man, was gone. He had either set out in search of adventures or simply run off.

CHAPTER 3

in which the costs of dual subordination are demonstrated

'How much longer will we be subjected to scrutiny?' Erast Petrovich asked drearily, glancing round at Burlyaev.

About five minutes had passed since the State Counsellor and the Lieutenant Colonel (who had changed his blue uniform for civilian clothes) first entered the gate of the modest townhouse on Arbat Street and rang the bell. At first the curtain in the window of the attic storey had swayed in very promising fashion, but since then nothing had happened.

'I warned you,' the head of the Okhranka said in a low voice: 'a capricious character. Without me here she wouldn't open the door to a stranger at all.' He threw his head back and shouted -not for the first time: 'Diana, it's me, open up! And the gentleman I telephoned you about is with me!'

No reply.

Fandorin already knew that this little townhouse, rented through an intermediary, was one of the Department of Security's clandestine meeting places, and it had been placed entirely at the disposal of the highly valued collaborator. Meetings with her always took place here and nowhere else, and always by prior arrangement, for which purpose a telephone had been specially installed in the house.

'Madam!' said Erast Petrovich, raising his voice, 'you will f-freeze us! This is quite simply impolite! Do you wish to take a better look at me? Then you should have said so straight away'

He took off his top hat, raised his face, swung round to present his left profile, then his right and - oh, wonder of wonders! - a small window frame opened slightly, white fingers were thrust out through it and a bronze key fell at his very feet.

'Ooph,' said the Lieutenant Colonel, bending down. 'Let me do it. There's a trick to the lock..."

They took off their coats in the empty hallway. Pyotr Ivanovich seemed strangely agitated. He combed his hair in the mirror and set off first up the creaking stairs to the mezzanine.

At the top of the stairs there was a short corridor with two doors. The Lieutenant Colonel knocked briefly on the door on the left and entered without waiting for an answer.

Strangely enough, it was almost completely dark in the room. Erast Petrovich's nostrils caught the scent of musk oil, and on looking round he saw that the curtains were tightly closed and there was no lamp in the room. It seemed to be a study. At least, there was the dark form of something like a secretaire over by the wall, and the grey silhouette of a desk in the corner. It was a few moments before the State Counsellor spotted the slim female figure with the disproportionately large head that was standing motionless beside the window. Fandorin took two steps forward and realised that his hostess was wearing a hat with a veil.

'Please be seated, gentlemen,' the woman said in a voice hushed to a sibilant whisper, gesturing elegantly to a pair of armchairs. 'Good morning, Pyotr Ivanovich. What is so very urgent? And who is your companion?'

'This is Mr Fandorin, Count Dolgorukoi's Deputy for Special Assignments,' Burlyaev replied, also in a whisper. 'He is conducting the investigation into the murder of Adjutant General Khrapov. Perhaps you have already heard?'

Diana nodded and waited until her guests were seated, then also sat down - on a divan standing against the opposite wall.

'How could you have heard? There's been n-nothing in the newspapers about it yet.'

The words were pronounced in a perfectly normal voice, but by contrast with the whisper that had preceded them, they sounded very loud.

'News travels fast,' the collaborator murmured mockingly. 'We revolutionaries have our own telegraph wires.'

'But more p-precisely? Where could you have heard?' said the State Counsellor, ignoring her frivolous tone.

'Diana, this is very important,' Burlyaev rumbled in his deep bass, as if he were trying to smooth over the abruptness of the question. 'You can't possibly imagine just how important—'

'Why not? - I understand.' The woman leaned back. 'For Khrapov you could all be thrown out of your cosy little jobs. Is that not so, Erast Petrovich?'

There was no denying that the low, hushed voice was provocatively sensuous, thought Fandorin - like the scent of musk, and the casually graceful movements of the slim hand idly toying with the earring in her ear. He was beginning to understand why this Messalina roused such intense passions in the Office of Gendarmes and the Department of Security.

'How do you know my first name and patronymic?' he asked, leaning forward slightly. 'Has somebody already told you about me?'

He thought Diana must have smiled - her whisper became even more insinuating.

'On more than one occasion. There are many people in Moscow who take an interest in you, Monsieur Fandorin. You are a fascinating character.'

'And has anybody spoken to you about the State Counsellor just recently?' Burlyaev put in. 'Yesterday, for instance? Have you had any visitors here?'

Erast Fandorin glanced sideways in displeasure at this intrusive assistance, and Diana laughed soundlessly.

'I have many visitors, Pierre. Have any of them spoken to me about Monsieur Fandorin? I can't really recall

She won't say, Erast Petrovich realised, taking mental note of that 'Pierre'. This was a waste of time.

He introduced a hint of metal into his voice. 'You have not answered my first question. From whom exactly did you learn that General Khrapov had been killed?'

Diana rose abrupdy to her feet and the tone of her whisper changed from caressing to piercing, like the hiss of an enraged snake. 'I am not on your payroll and I am not obliged to report to you! You forget yourself! Or perhaps they have not explained to you who I am? Very well, I shall answer your question, but that will be the end of the conversation. And do not come here any more. Do you hear, Pyotr Ivanovich - let me never see this gentleman here again!'

The Lieutenant Colonel stroked his short-cropped hair in bewilderment, clearly not knowing whose side to take, but Fandorin replied imperturbably.

'Very well, we will go. But I am waiting for an answer.'

The woman moved towards the window, so that the grey rectangle framed her shapely silhouette.

'The killing of Khrapov is an open secret. Every revolutionary group in Moscow already knows about it and is rejoicing. This evening there will be a party to celebrate the occasion. I have been invited, but I shall not go. You, however, could call in. If you are lucky you might pick up a few illegal activists. The gathering is at the apartment of engineer Larionov. Twenty-eight Povarskaya Street.'

'Why didn't you ask her directly about Sverchinsky?' the Lieutenant Colonel exclaimed angrily as they rode back to the Department in the sleigh. 'I suspect that he visited her yesterday and he could easily have given something away. You saw for yourself what kind of character she is. She toys with men like a cat with mice.'

'Yes,' Fandorin replied absent-mindedly, nodding. 'A lady of some character. But never mind her. What we have to do is put this Larionov's apartment under surveillance. Assign the most experienced agents, let them follow each of the guests home and establish their identity. And then we'll run through all of their contacts, right along the chain. And when we come across the person who was the first to find out about Khrapov, from there it will only be a short step to the Combat Group.'

Burlyaev responded patronisingly: 'There's no need to do any of that. Larionov's one of our agents. We set up the apartment specially - to maintain our surveillance of'discontents and dubious individuals. It was Zubtsov's idea, the clever chap. All sorts of riff-raff with revolutionary connections get together at Larionov's place - to abuse the authorities, to sing forbidden songs and, of course, for a drink and a bite to eat. Larionov keeps a good table; our secret fund pays for it. We take note of the blabbermouths and open a file on each one of them. As soon as we can nab them for something serious, we already have the full collected works on the little darlings.'

'But that's entrapment!' Erast Petrovich protested with a frown. 'First you engender nihilists, and then you arrest them.'

Burlyaev set his hand to his chest in a gesture of respect. 'Begging your pardon, Mr Fandorin, you are, of course, a well-known authority in the field of criminal investigation, but you have little understanding of our trade in the line of security.'

'Well then, there is no need to have Larionov's guests shadowed?'

'There is not.'

'Then what d-do you suggest?'

'No need to suggest anything; everything's clear enough as it is. When I get back now, I'll instruct Evstratii Pavlovich to put together an arrest operation. A single broad sweep - we'll pull in all the little darlings at once, then I'll give them the full works. One thing you're right about is that the thread leads from one of them to the Combat Group.'

Arrest? On what grounds?'

'On the grounds, dear Erast Petrovich, that, as Diana so rightly remarked, in a day or two you and I will be flung out on our backsides. There's no time to waste on tailing people. We need results.'

Fandorin felt it necessary to adopt an official tone. 'Do not forget, Mr Lieutenant Colonel, that you have been instructed to follow my directions. I will not permit any arrests without due grounds.'

Burlyaev, however, did not buckle under pressure. 'Correct, I have been so instructed. By the Governor General. But in the line of investigation I am subordinated to the Police Department, not the Governor's office and so I must politely beg your pardon. If you wish to be present at the arrest - by all means; only do not interfere. If you prefer to stay out of it - that's up to you.'

Erast Petrovich said nothing. He knitted his brows and his eyes glinted menacingly, but no thunderbolt or peal of lightning followed.

After a pause the State Counsellor said coolly: 'Very well. I shall not interfere, but I shall be present.'

At eight o'clock that evening all the preparations for the operation were complete

The building on Povarskaya Street had been surrounded since half past six. The first ring of the cordon, the closest, consisted of five agents: one of them, in a white apron, was scraping up the snow outside the very doors of the single-storey house that bore the number twenty-eight; three, the shortest and puniest, were pretending to be juveniles, building a snow casde in the yard; another two were repairing a gas lamp on the corner of Ss. Boris and Gleb Lane. The second ring, consisting of eleven agents, had a radius of a hundred paces: three 'cabbies', a 'police constable', an 'organ-grinder', two 'drunks' and four 'yard-keepers'.

At five minutes past eight Burlyaev and Fandorin rode down Povarskaya Street on a sleigh. Sitting on the driving box, half-turned towards them, was the undercover agents' commander, Mylnikov, pointing out how things had been set up.

'Excellent, Evstratii Pavlovich,' the Lieutenant Colonel said, approving the arrangements with a triumphant glance at the State Counsellor, who so far had not said a single word. 'Well now, Mr Fandorin, do my men know how to do their job or not?'

Erast Petrovich said nothing. The sleigh turned on to Skaryatinsky Lane, drove on a little further and stopped.

'How many of the little darlings are there?' asked Burlyaev.

'In all, not counting Larionov and his cook, there are eight individuals,' Mylnikov began explaining in a pleasant north Russian accent. He was a plump gentleman who looked about forty years old, with a light-brown beard and long hair cut pudding-basin style. At six o'clock, when we started setting up the cordon, by your leave, Pyotr Ivanovich, I sent in one of my men, supposedly with a registered letter. The cook whispered to him that there were three outsiders. And then another five showed up - all of them individuals known to us, and the list has already been drawn up: six individuals of the male sex and two of the female. My man told the cook to stay in her room and not stick her head out. I took a look in through the window from the next roof - the nihilists are enjoying themselves, drinking wine; they've already started singing. A real revolutionary Shrovetide it is.'

Mylnikov giggled briefly, to make quite sure no doubt could remain that these final words were a joke.

'I think, Pyotr Ivanovich, that now's the time to take them. Or else they'll take a drop too much; they might even offer resistance if they get their Dutch courage up. Or some early bird will make for the door and we'll have to divide our forces. We'd have to take him real careful like, some ways off, so as not to stir up the rest of them.'

'Perhaps you haven't brought in enough men, Evstratii Pavlovich. After all, there are eight of them,' the Lieutenant Colonel said doubtfully. 'I told you it would be a good idea to take some police constables from the station and put a third circle round the yards and the crossroads.'

'No need for that, Pyotr Ivanovich,' Mylnikov purred, unconcerned. 'My men are trained wolfhounds, and this lot, begging your pardon, are only small fry, minnows - young ladies and little students.'

Burlyaev rubbed his nose with his glove (as evening approached it had started to get frosty). 'Never mind; if the small fry already know about Khrapov, that means one of them is well in with a big fish. Godspeed, Evstratii Pavlovich; get to work.'

The sleigh drove along Povarskaya Street again, but this time the false cabby had hung a lantern on the horses' shaft, and at this signal the second ring moved in closer. At precisely eight thirty Mylnikov put four fingers in his mouth and whistled, and that very instant the seven agents broke into the house.

The top men - Burlyaev, Mylnikov and Fandorin - entered immediately behind them. The others formed a new cordon and stood under the windows.

In the entrance hall Erast Petrovich peeped out from behind the Lieutenant Colonel's back and saw a spacious drawing room, a number of young people sitting at a table and a young lady at a piano.

'Don't get up, or I'll put a bullet through your bonce!' Mylnikov thundered in a terrible voice quite unlike his previous one and struck a student who had jumped up off his chair on the forehead with the handle of his revolver. Instantly turning pale, the student sat back down and a scarlet stream sprang from his split eyebrow. The other guests at the party stared at the blood, spellbound, and not one of them said a word. The agents quickly took up positions round the table, holding their guns at the ready.

'Two, four, six, eight,' Mylnikov said quickly, counting the heads. 'Eremeev, Zykov, check the rooms, quick! There should be another one!' As the agents went out, he shouted at their backs: 'And don't forget the privy!'

"Well now, well now, what's the meaning of all this?' the man with spectacles and a goatee beard sitting at the head of the table - evidently the host - exclaimed in a trembling voice. "This is my name-day celebration! I am engineer Larionov of the Tryokhgorny cement factory! This is absolutely outrageous!'

He smashed his fist down on the table and stood up, but the agent standing behind him seized his throat in a grip of iron, reducing Larionov's voice to a feeble wheeze.

Mylnikov said imposingly: 'I'll give you a name day. If anyone else so much as twitches, it's a bullet in the belly, straight off. I have my orders: if there's any resistance, shoot without warning. Sit down!' he barked at the engineer, who was pale from pain and fear, and the man plumped down on to his chair.

Eremeev and Zykov came in from the corridor, leading a man who was doubled over with his hands forced up behind his back. They tossed him into an empty seat.

Burlyaev cleared his throat and stepped forward. Evidently it was his turn now. 'Hmm, Mr Collegiate Assessor, that's going a bit too far. You need to see who it is you're dealing with. We appear to have been misled. These people are not bombers;

they're a perfectly decent group. And then' - he lowered his voice, but it could still be heard - 'I told you to manage the arrest tactfully. Why go hitting people on the head with revolvers and twisting their arms? That really is too bad.'

Evstratii Pavlovich frowned in annoyance and muttered: As you wish, Mr Lieutenant Colonel, but I'd like to have a little talk with these bastards after my own fashion. You'll only spoil everything with all this liberalism of yours. Just give them to me for half an hour and they'll sing like nightingales, I give you my word of honour as a gentleman on that.'

'Oh no,' Pyotr Ivanovich hissed. 'Spare me your methods, please. I'll find out everything I need to know for myself. Mr Larionov, what have you got behind that door over there - a study? You don't mind if I use it to have a chat with your guests, one at a time, do you? Please do excuse me, gentlemen, but this is a bit of an emergency' The Lieutenant Colonel ran his glance over the detainees. 'This morning Adjutant General Khrapov was murdered. The same Khrapov ... Ah, but I see you're not surprised? Well, we'll have a little chat about that too. If you have no objections.'

'"If you have no objections" - Oh, my God!' Mylnikov exclaimed, grinding his teeth as he dashed out into the corridor in a fury, knocking over a chair on the way.

Erast Petrovich gave a doleful sigh - the entire manoeuvre was far too transparent; but it seemed to produce the required effect on the detainees. At least, all of them were gazing in stupefaction at the door through which Evstratii Pavlovich had made his exit.

But no, not all of them. One slim young lady who was sitting by the piano, off to one side of the main developments, did not appear to be stupefied at all. Her black eyes were blazing with indignation, the pretty, dark features of her face contorted into a mask of hatred. The young woman curled up her scarlet lips in a furious, silent whisper, reached out one slim hand to the handbag lying on the piano and pulled out a small, elegant revolver.

The intrepid young miss grasped the gun tightly with both hands, aiming it straight at the back of the Lieutenant Colonel of gendarmes. From a standing start, Erast Petrovich vaulted almost halfway across the drawing room in a single prodigious leap, lashing his cane down on the gun barrel before his feet even touched the floor.

The toy with the mother-of-pearl handle struck the floor and fired - not really all that loudly, but Burlyaev flung himself violently to one side and all the agents swung their gun barrels round towards the reckless young woman. They would undoubtedly have riddled her with bullets if not for Erast Petrovich, whose tremendous jump had terminated just in front of the piano, so that the malefactress was hidden behind the State Counsellor's back.

Ah, so that's the way!' exclaimed the Lieutenant Colonel, still recovering from the shock. 'So that's the way! You bitch! I'll kill you where you stand!' And he pulled a large revolver out of his pocket.

Mylnikov came running in from the corridor at the noise and shouted: 'Pyotr Ivanovich! Stop! We need her alive! Take her, lads!'

The agents lowered their guns and two of them dashed over to the young lady and seized her by the arms.

Burlyaev unceremoniously shoved the State Counsellor aside and stood in front of the black-haired terrorist, towering over her by almost a full head.

'Who are you?' he gasped out, struggling to recover his breath. 'What's your name?'

'I shall not reply to impolite questions,' the nihilist replied jauntily, looking up at the gendarme.

Mylnikov came over. 'Would you please tell me your name?' he asked patiently. And your title. Do let us know who you are.'

'Esfir Litvinova, daughter of a full state counsellor,' the detainee replied with equal politeness.

'The banker Litvinov's daughter,' Evstratii Pavlovich explained to his superior in a low voice. 'Under investigation. But not previously known to be involved in anything like this.'

'I don't care if her father's Rothschild himself!' Burlyaev hissed, wiping the sweat offhis forehead. 'You'll get hard labour for this, you scum. Where they won't feed you any of your Yiddish kosher delicacies.'

Erast Petrovich knitted his brows, preparing to intercede for the young mademoiselle's honour, but apparently his intercession was not required.

The banker's daughter propped her hands on her hips and screeched contemptuously at the Lieutenant Colonel: 'You bastard! You animal! How would you like a slap in the face, like Khrapov?'

Burlyaev began rapidly turning scarlet. When he reached a genuine beetroot colour, he roared: 'Evstratii Pavlovich, put the detainees in the sleighs and take them to the remand cells.'

'Wait, Mr Mylnikov,' said the State Counsellor, raising one finger. 'I will not allow you to take anyone away. I came here especially to see whether the provisions of the law would be observed during the operation. Unfortunately, you have disregarded them. On what grounds have these people been detained? They have not committed any overt offence, and so there can be no question of detaining them for the actual commission of a crime. If you intend to make an arrest on grounds of suspicion, you require specific sanction. Mr Burlyaev recendy told me that in the matter of investigation the Department of Security is not subordinated to the municipal authorities. That is correct. But the making of arrests falls within the jurisdiction of the Governor General. And as His Excellency's plenipotentiary representative I order you to release your prisoners immediately'

Fandorin turned towards the detainees, who were listening to his dispassionate and authoritative speech in dumbfounded amazement.

'You are free to go, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Count Dolgorukoi I apologise to you for the wrongful actions of Lieutenant Colonel Burlyaev and his subordinates.'

'This is unheard of!' Pyotr Ivanovich roared, the colour of his face now resembling not so much a beetroot as an aubergine. 'Whose side are you on?'

'I am on the side of the law. And you?' Fandorin enquired.

Burlyaev threw his arms up as if he were lost for words and demonstratively turned his back on the State Counsellor.

'Take Litvinova and let's go,' he ordered his agents and shook his fist at the seated guests. 'You just watch out, you cattle! I know every one of you!'

'You will have to release Miss Litvinova too,' Erast Petrovich said in a soft voice.

'But she fired at me!' said the Lieutenant Colonel, swinging round again and fixing the Governor's Deputy for Special Assignments with an incredulous stare. At an officer of the law! Engaged in the performance of his duty!'

'She did not fire at you. That is one. As for you being an officer of the law, she was not necessarily aware of that - since you did not introduce yourself and you are not in uniform. That is t-two. And as for the performance of your duty, it would be better not to mention that. You did not even announce that an arrest was taking place. That is three. You broke down the door and burst in, shouting and waving guns about. In the place of these gentlemen, I should have taken you for bandits and if I had had a revolver I should have fired first and asked questions later. You could have taken Mr Burlyaev for a b-bandit, could you not?' Erast Petrovich asked the young lady, who was regarding him with an extremely strange look.

'Why, is he not a bandit?' Esfir Litvinova responded immediately, assuming an expression of great amazement. 'Who are you all, anyway? Are you from the Department of Security? Then why didn't you say so straight away?'

'Right, I shan't let it go at this, Mr Fandorin,' Burlyaev said menacingly. 'We'll see whose department is the more powerful. Let's go, damn it!'

This final remark was addressed to the agents, who put their guns away and filed towards the door in disciplined fashion.

Mylnikov brought up the rear of the procession. In the doorway he looked round, smiled as he wagged a monitory finger at the young people, bowed politely to the State Counsellor and went out.

For about half a minute the only sound in the drawing room was the ticking of the clock on the wall. Then the student with the split eyebrow jumped to his feet and dashed headlong for the door. Without bothering to take their leave, the others followed him out no less rapidly.

After another half-minute there were only three people left in the room: Fandorin, Larionov and the fiery young lady.

The banker's daughter stared hard at Erast Petrovich with her bold, lively eyes, and those full lips that seemed almost out of place on the thin face curved into a caustic grin.

'So that was your little drama, was it?' Mademoiselle Lit-vinova enquired, shaking her short-cropped head in feigned admiration. 'Original. And superbly played - as good as Korsh's Theatre. What should come next according to your scenario? The grateful maiden falls on the chest of her handsome saviour, sprinkling his starched shirt with her tears, and vows eternal devotion? And then she informs against all her comrades, right?'

Erast Petrovich noticed something quite astonishing: the short haircut, far from spoiling the young lady, actually suited her boyish face very well.

'Surely you didn't really intend to fire, did you?' he asked. 'Stupid. With a t-trinket like that' - he pointed with his cane to the little revolver lying on the floor - 'you wouldn't have killed Burlyaev anyway, but they would certainly have torn you to pieces on the spot. And in addition—'

'I'm not afraid!' the effusive damsel interrupted him. 'What if they would have torn me to pieces? This bestial despotism must be given no quarter!'

'And in addition,' Fandorin continued, paying no heed to her impassioned retort, 'you would have doomed your friends. Your soiree would have been declared a gathering of terrorists and they would all have been sent off to penal servitude.'

Mademoiselle Litvinova was taken aback, but only for an instant. 'My, how very humane!' she exclaimed. 'But I don't believe in noble musketeers from the gendarmerie. The polished and polite ones like you are even worse than the outright bloodsuckers like that red-faced brute. You're a hundred times more dangerous! Do you at least understand, Mr Handsome, that none of you will escape retribution?'

The young lady stepped forward belligerendy, and Erast Petrovich was obliged to retreat as a slim finger with a sharp nail sliced through the air just in front of his nose.

'Butchers! Oprkhniks! You won't be able to hide from the people's vengeance behind the bayonets of your bodyguards!'

'I'm not hiding at all,' the State Counsellor replied resentfully. 'I don't have any bodyguards and my address is listed in all the address books. You can check for yourself: Erast Petrovich Fandorin, Deputy for Special Assignments to the Governor General.'

Aha, that Fandorin!' the young woman said with an excited glance at Larionov, as if she were calling on him to witness this astounding discovery. 'Haroun al-Rashid! The slave of the lamp!'

'What lamp?' Erast Petrovich asked in surprise.

'You know what I mean. The mighty genie who stands guard over the old sultan, Dolgorukoi. So that, Ivan Ignatievich, was why he threatened the police agents with the Governor,' she said, turning to the engineer once again. 'But I wonder just what kind of high-up it is who doesn't give a fig for the Okhranka? I rather thought, Mr Genie, that you despised political detective work.'

She transfixed Erast Petrovich with a final, lethal, withering glance, nodded in farewell to her host and set off majestically towards the door.

'Wait,' Fandorin called to her.

'What else do you want from me?' the young lady asked, bending her elegant neck into a proud curve. 'Have you decided to arrest me after all?'

'You have forgotten your gun.' The State Counsellor picked up the revolver and held it out to her, handle first.

Esfir took the gun with her finger and thumb, as if she disdained to touch the official's hand, and walked out of the room.

Fandorin waited until the front door slammed shut, then turned to the engineer and said in a low voice: 'Mr Larionov, I am aware of your relationship with the Department of Security'

The engineer shuddered as if he had been struck. An expression of melancholy despair appeared on his yellowish face with the puffy bags under the eyes. 'Yes,' he said with a nod, wearily lowering himself on to a chair. 'What do you want to know? Ask.'

'I do not make use of the services of secret informers,' Erast Petrovich replied coolly. 'I regard it as odious to spy on one's comrades. The name for what you do here is entrapment. You make new acquaintances among the romantically inclined youth, you encourage talk against the government, and then you report on your achievements to the Okhranka. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? After all, you're a n-nobleman, I've read your file.'

Larionov laughed unpleasandy and took a papyrosa out of a pack with trembling fingers.

Ashamed? You try talking about pangs of conscience with Mr Sergei Vitalievich Zubtsov. And about entrapment too. That's a word Mr Zubtsov doesn't like at all. He calls it "public sanitation". Says it's better to mark down potentially dangerous parties at an early stage and sift them out. If they don't meet at my place, under Sergei Vitalievich's watchful eye, they'll only meet somewhere else. And there's no knowing what ideas they'll come up with there, or what they might get up to. But here they're all in open view. The moment anyone stops making idle conversation and turns to serious talk, they grab the poor fellow straight away. Peace and quiet for the state, promotion for Mr Zubtsov and sleepless nights for the Judas Larionov ...' The engineer covered his face with his hands and stopped speaking. To judge from the heaving of his shoulders, he was struggling against his tears. Erast Petrovich sat down facing him and sighed. 'What on earth made you do it? It's loathsome.'

'Of course it's loathsome,' Larionov replied, speaking through his hands in a dull, muffled voice. As a student I used to dream of social justice too. I pasted up leaflets in the university. That was what I was doing when they took me.'

He took his hands away and Fandorin saw that his eyes were moist and gleaming. The engineer struck a match and drew in the smoke of his papyrosa convulsively.

'Sergei Vitalievich is a humane individual. "You, Ivan Ignatievich," he said, "have an old mother, in poor health. If they throw you out of university - and that's the least that you're looking at - she'll never survive it. Well, and if it's exile or, God forbid, prison, you'll send her to her grave, no doubt about it. For what, Ivan Ignatievich? For the sake of chimerical fantasies!" And then he went on explaining about public sanitation, only in more detail, with more fine phrases. Telling me he wasn't inviting me to be an informer, but a rescuer of children. "There they are, the silly, pure-hearted creatures, running around among the flowers, and they don't see the steep precipice down at the end of the meadow. Why don't you stand on the edge of that precipice and help me save the children from falling?" Sergei Vitalievich is a great talker and, above all, he believes what he says himself. Well, I believed it too' - the engineer smiled bitterly - 'or, to be more honest, I made myself believe it. My mother really wouldn't have survived the blow... Well, anyway, I graduated from university, and Mr Zubtsov found me a good job. Only it turned out that I wasn't a rescuer at all, just a perfecdy ordinary collaborator. As they say, it's not possible to be half-pregnant. I even get a salary, fifty-five roubles. Plus fifty roubles expenses, payable on account.' His smile widened even further, becoming a mocking grin. 'All in all, life simply couldn't be better. Except that I can't sleep at night.' He gave a chilly shudder. 'I nod off for a moment and then I wake with a start -I hear a knock and I think they've come for me - one side or the other. And I carry on shuddering like that all night long. Knock-knock. Knock-knock.'

At that very moment the door-knocker clattered loudly. Larionov shuddered and laughed nervously. 'Someone's come late. Missed all the fun. Mr Fandorin, you hide behind that door there for the time being. No point in your being seen. You can explain your business afterwards. I'll get rid of them quickly.'

Erast Petrovich walked through into the next room. He tried not to eavesdrop, but the caller's voice was loud and clear.

'... And they didn't tell you we were going to stay with you? Strange.'

'Nobody gave me any message!' Larionov replied and then, speaking louder than necessary, he asked, 'Are you really in the Combat Group? You mustn't stay here! They're looking for you everywhere! I've just had the police round!'

Forgetting his scruples, Fandorin stole quiedy up to the door and opened it a crack.

The young man standing in front of the engineer was wearing a short winter coat and an English cap, with a long strand of light-coloured hair dangling out from under it. The late visitor was holding his hands in his pockets and there were sparks of mischief glinting in his eyes.

'Are you alone here?' the visitor asked.

'There's the cook. She's sleeping in the boxroom. But you really mustn't stay here.'

'So the police came, took a sniff around and went away again?' The blond-haired man laughed. "Well, isn't that just miraculous?

'In Bryansk the cats on Railway Street Caught a sparrow they could eat. They licked a lot and licked a lot, But didn't eat a single jot.'

The jolly young man moved so that his back was towards the State Counsellor, while Larionov was obliged to stand facing the door.

The intriguing guest made a movement of his hand that Fandorin couldn't see and the engineer suddenly gasped and staggered back.

'What's wrong, Iscariot - afraid?' the caller enquired in the same flippant tone as ever.

Sensing that something was wrong, Erast Petrovich jerked the door open, but just at that moment there was the sound of a shot.

Larionov howled and doubled over; the shooter glanced round at the sudden clatter behind him and raised his hand. It was holding a compact, burnished-steel Bulldog. Fandorin dived under the shot and hurled himself at the young man's feet, but the caller leapt back nimbly, striking his back against the door jamb, and tumbled out into the hallway

Fandorin sat up over the wounded man and saw he was in a bad way: the engineer's face was rapidly turning a ghasdy shade of blue.

'I can't feel my legs,' Larionov whispered, gazing into Erast Petrovich's eyes in fright. 'It doesn't hurt at all, I just want to sleep

'I've got to catch him,' Fandorin said rapidly. 'I'll be quick, then I'll get a doctor straight away'

He darted out into the street and looked to the right - nobody there; he looked to the left - there it was, a fleeting shadow moving rapidly in the direction of Kudrinskaya Street.

As the State Counsellor ran, two thoughts came into his mind. The first was that Larionov wouldn't need a doctor. To judge from the symptoms, his spine was broken. Soon, very soon, the poor engineer would start making up for all his sleepless nights. The second thought was more practical. It was no great trick to overtake the killer, but then how would he deal with an armed man when he himself had no gun? The State Counsellor had not expected this to be a day of risky undertakings and his trusty Herstahl-Baillard (seven shots, the latest model) had been left at home. How useful it would have been just at this moment!

Erast Petrovich was running quickly, and the distance between him and the shadow was rapidly shortening. That, however, was no cause for rejoicing. At the corner of Ss. Boris and Gleb Street the killer glanced back. With a sharp crack, his gun spat a tongue of flame at the pursuer and Fandorin felt a hot wind fan his cheek.

Suddenly two more swift shadows sprang straight out of the wall of the nearest house and fused with the first, forming a nebulous, squirming tangle.

'Ah, you lousy scum, kick me, would you!' someone shouted in an angry voice.

By the time Erast Petrovich got close, the commotion was already over.

The jovial young man was lying face down with his arms twisted behind his back, swearing breathlessly. A solidly built man was sitting on him and grunting as he twisted his elbows even higher. Another man was holding Fandorin's fallen quarry by the hair, forcing his head back and up.

On looking more closely, the State Counsellor saw that the unexpected assistance had been provided by two of the police agents on duty that evening.

'You see, Erast Petrovich, even the Okhranka can come in useful sometimes,' an amiable voice said out of the darkness.

There proved to be a gateway close by, and standing in it was none other than Evstratii Pavlovich Mylnikov in person.

'Why are you here?' the State Counsellor asked, and then answered his own question. 'You stayed to follow me.'

'Not so much you, Your Honour - you're an individual far above suspicion; more the general course of events.' The head of the plain-clothes squad came out from the shadows on to the illuminated pavement. 'We were particularly curious to see whether you would go off anywhere with that fiery young hussy. My belief is that you decided to win her over with the carrot rather than the stick. And quite right too. The foolhardy ones like that only turn vicious under direct pressure and insults. You have to avoid rubbing them up the wrong way, stroke them with the fur, stroke them, and as soon as they roll over - go for their soft underbelly!'

Evstratii Pavlovich laughed and held up one palm in a conciliatory gesture, as if to say: Don't bother to deny it, I wasn't born yesterday.

'When I saw the young lady leave alone, I almost sent my dunderheads after her, and then I thought no, I'll wait a bit. His Honour is a man of the world, with a keen nose. If he's staying back, he has something in mind. And sure enough - soon this character turns up.' Mylnikov nodded at the arrested man, who was howling in pain and cursing. 'So it turns out I was right after all. Who is he?'

'Apparently a member of the Combat Group,' Erast Petrovich replied, feeling indebted to this obnoxious but far from stupid collegiate assessor.

Evstratii Pavlovich whisded and slapped himself on the thigh: 'Good old Mylnikov! He knew which horse to back, all right. When you write your report, don't forget this humble servant of God. Hey, lads, call for a sleigh! Give over twisting his arms, or he won't be able to write a confession.'

One of the agents ran for the sleigh and the other clicked a pair of handcuffs on to the recumbent man's wrists.

'You can go whistle for your confession,' the prisoner hissed.

It was well after midnight before Erast Petrovich reached the Department of Security. First he had had to attend to Larionov, who was bleeding to death. When he got back to the apartment, Fandorin found the engineer already unconscious. By the time the carriage he summoned by telephone from the Hospital of the Society of Fraternal Love finally arrived, there was no longer any point in taking the wounded man away. It had been a pointless waste of time. And the State Counsellor had had to make his own way to Bolshoi Gnezdikovsky Lane on foot - at that hour of the night he hadn't met a single cab.

The quiet side street was completely dark, only the windows of the familiar two-storey building were aglow with cheerful light. The Department of Security had no time for sleeping tonight.

Once inside, Erast Petrovich witnessed a curious scene. Mylnikov was concluding his analysis of the evening's operation. All sixteen agents were lined up against the wall of the long corridor and the collegiate assessor was prowling softly along the ranks like some huge cat, admonishing them in a calm, measured voice, like a teacher in front of his class.

'Let me repeat that again, so that you blockheads will finally remember it. When detaining a group of political suspects, proceed as follows. First - stun them. Break in, making a din, yelling and banging and crashing, so you set their knees knocking. Even a brave man freezes when he's taken by surprise.

Second - immobilise them. Make sure every single detainee is rooted to the spot and can't even move a finger, let alone open their mouths. Third - search them for weapons. Did you do that? Ah? You, Guskov, it's you I'm asking; you were the senior man at the raid.' Mylnikov stopped in front of a middle-aged plain-clothes man with red slime streaming out of his flattened nose.

'Evstratii Pavlovich, Your Honour,' Guskov boomed. 'They was only small fry, snot-nosed kids, that was obvious straight off. Got a seasoned eye, I have.'

'I'll give you another one in that eye of yours,' the collegiate assessor said amicably. 'Don't even try to think, you numskull. Just do it right. And the fourth thing - keep a close watch on all the detainees all the time. But you sloppy dunces go and let a young lady take a pop-gun out of her reticule and none of you even see it. Right, then ...' Mylnikov clasped his hands behind his back and swayed back on his heels.

The agents waited for his verdict with baited breath.

'Only Shiryaev and Zhulko will receive gratuities. Fifteen roubles each, from me personally, for the arrest of a dangerous terrorist. And that goes in the official orders. As for you, Guskov, it's a ten-rouble fine. And one month's demotion from senior agent to the ranks. I reckon as that's fair, don't you?'

'I'm sorry, Your Honour,' said the punished man, hanging his head. 'Only don't take me off operations work. I'll make it up to you, I swear to God.'

All right, I believe you.'

Mylnikov turned towards Erast Petrovich and pretended to have only just noticed him.

'Delightful of you to drop in, Mr Fandorin. Pyotr Ivanovich and Zubtsov have been chatting with our friend for the best part of an hour and getting nowhere.'

'He refuses to talk?' the State Counsellor asked as he followed Mylnikov up the narrow winding stairs.

'On the contrary. He's a cocky one. I listened for a bit and then left. Nothing's going to come of it anyway. After what happened today Pyotr Ivanovich's nerves are a bit jittery. And then he's a bit vexed it was you and me as nabbed such a big fish,' Evstratii Pavlovich added in conspiratorial tones, half-turning round as he spoke.

They were conducting the interrogation in the boss's office. Fandorin's jovial acquaintance was sitting on a chair in the middle of the spacious room. It was a special chair, massive, with straps on the two front legs and the armrests. The prisoner's arms and legs were strapped down so tight that he could only move his head. The commanding officer of the Department of Security was standing on one side of him, and standing on the other was a lean gentleman of rather agreeable appearance who looked about twenty-seven, with a narrow English moustache.

Burlyaev scowled as he nodded to Fandorin and complained: 'A hardened villain. I've been flogging away for an hour now, and all for nothing. He won't even tell us his name.'

'What meaning has my name for thee?' the impudent prisoner asked the Lieutenant Colonel in a soulful voice. 'My darling, it will perish in a doleful murmur.'

Paying no attention to this insolent remark, the Lieutenant Colonel introduced the other man: 'Sergei Vitalievich Zubtsov. I told you about him.'

The lean man bowed respectfully and smiled at Erast Petrovich in an extremely affable manner.

'Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Fandorin. And even more delighted to be working with you.'

Aha,' the prisoner exclaimed in delight. 'Fandorin! That's right; now I see the grey temples. Didn't spot them before, I was in too much of a hurry. Why are you just standing there, gentlemen? Seize him, he killed that old ass Khrapov!' He laughed, delighted with his own joke.

'With your permission, I'll proceed,' Zubtsov said to both of his superiors and turned to face the criminal. All right, we know you're a member of the Combat Group and you were involved in the assassination of General Khrapov. You have just implicidy admitted that you were in possession of a description of the State Counsellor's appearance. We also know that your accomplices are in Moscow at present. Even if the prosecution is unable to prove your involvement in the assassination, you are still facing the severest possible penalty. You killed a man and offered armed resistance to representatives of the law. That is quite enough to send you to the gallows.'

Unable to restrain himself, Burlyaev interrupted: 'Do you realise, you scum, that you're going to dangle at the end of a rope? It's a terrible way to die, I've seen it more than once. First the man starts croaking and thrashing about. Sometimes for as long as fifteen minutes - it all depends how the knot's tied. Then his tongue flops out of his gullet, his eyes pop out of his skull and all the filth drains out of his belly. Remember the Bible, about Judas? 'And falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed out.'"

Zubtsov cast a reproachful glance at Burlyaev: he evidently felt that these were the wrong tactics.

The prisoner responded lightheartedly to the threatening words: 'So what, I'll croak a bit and then stop. I'll be beyond caring then, but afterwards you'll have to clean up my shit. That's what your job is, fat-face.'

The Lieutenant Colonel struck the defiant man a sharp, crunching blow in the mouth.

'Pyotr Ivanovich!' Zubtsov exclaimed in protest, even taking the liberty of seizing his superior by the arm. 'This is absolutely impermissible. You are bringing the authorities into disrepute!'

Burlyaev turned his head in fury and was clearly about to put the insolent subordinate in his place, but at that point Erast Petrovich struck his cane against the floor and said in a commanding voice: 'Stop this!'

The Lieutenant Colonel pulled his arm free, breathing heavily. The terrorist spat a thick gob of blood out on to the floor, together with his two front teeth, then stared at the Lieutenant Colonel with a gleam in his blue eyes and a gap-toothed smile.

'I beg your pardon, Mr Fandorin,' Burlyaev growled reluctantly. 'I got carried away. You can see for yourself what a fine hero we have here. What would you have me do with someone like this?'

'What is your opinion, Sergei Vitalievich?' the State Counsellor asked the likeable young man.

Zubtsov rubbed the bridge of his nose in embarrassment, but he replied immediately, with no hesitation. 'I think we are wasting our time here. I would postpone the interrogation.'

'Qu-Quite right. And what we should also do, Mr Lieutenant Colonel, is the following. Immediately draw up a verbal portrait of the prisoner and carry out a thorough Bertillonage, complete in every detail. And then send the description and the results of the anthropometric measurements to the Police Department by telegram. They might possibly have a file on this man there. And be so good as to make haste. The message must reach St Petersburg no later than an hour from now.'

Once again - how many times was it now in the last twenty-four hours - Fandorin walked along Tverskaya Boulevard, which was entirely deserted at this dead hour of night. The long day that seemed so reluctant to end had brought a bit of everything -raging blizzards, quiet snowfalls, and sudden, bright interludes of sunshine; but the night was filled with a calm solemnity: the soft light of the gas lamps, the white silhouettes of the trees that seemed to be draped with muslin, the gentle, gliding fall of the snowflakes.

The State Counsellor himself did not really understand why he had declined the official state sleigh until he felt the fresh, untrampled snow on the pathway crunching crisply beneath his feet. He needed to rid himself of a painful, nagging sense of defilement: if he didn't, he would not be able to sleep in any case.

Erast Petrovich strode unhurriedly between the melancholy elms, striving to comprehend why any business connected with politics always had such a rotten smell about it. This seemed like a normal enough investigation, simply one that was more important than the others. And the objective was a worthy one: to protect public peace and the interests of the state. So why this feeling of contamination?

Clean up dirt, and you're bound to get dirty - it was a sentiment Fandorin had heard often enough, especially from practitioners of law enforcement. However, he had concluded long ago that only people who lacked any talent for this subtle trade reasoned in that way. Those who were lazy, who sought simple means to resolve complex problems, never became genuine professionals. A good yard-keeper's apron was always snow-white, because he didn't scrape up the dirt with his hands, down on all fours - he had a broom, a spade and a shovel, and he knew how to use them. In all his dealings with heartless killers, ruthless swindlers and bloodthirsty monsters, Erast Petrovich had never experienced such keen revulsion as today.

Why? What was wrong?

He could not find the answer.

He turned on to Malaya Nikitskaya Street, where there were even fewer street lamps than on the boulevard. The pavement began here and the steel tip of his cane repeatedly clacked against the flagstones as it pierced the thin layer of snow.

At the wicket gate, scarcely visible among the fancy lace work of the estate gates, the State Counsellor froze as he sensed, rather than saw, a slight movement off to one side of him. He swung round sharply, his left hand grabbing the shaft of his cane (there was a sword with a thirty-inch blade inside it), but then immediately relaxed his taut muscles.

There was someone standing in the shadow of the railings, but this individual was clearly a member of the weaker sex.

'Who are you?' Erast Petrovich asked, peering intently into the gloom.

The slight figure moved closer. First he saw the fur collar of the winter coat and the sable semicircle of the hood, then the immense eyes set in the triangular face glittered as they suddenly caught the light of a distant street lamp.

'Miss Litvinova?' Fandorin asked in surprise. 'What are you doing here? And at such a late hour!'

The young lady from Larionov's apartment moved very close to him. She was holding her hands in a thick fur muff. Her eyes glowed with a truly unearthly radiance.

'You scoundrel!' the ecstatic maiden proclaimed in a voice that rang with hatred. Tve been standing here for two hours! I'm frozen through!'

'Why am I a scoundrel?' Erast Petrovich protested. 'I had no idea that you were waiting

'That's not why! Don't pretend to be a dunce! You understand perfectly well! You're a scoundrel! I've got your measure! You deliberately tried to hoodwink me! Making yourself out to be an angel! Oh, I can see right through you! You really are a thousand times worse than all the Khrapovs and Burlyaevs! You have to be eliminated without mercy!'

So saying, the reckless young lady drew her hand out of the muff, and there glinting in it was the familiar revolver that the State Counsellor had so imprudently returned to its owner.

Erast Petrovich waited to see if a shot would follow, but when he saw that the hand in the fluffy glove was trembling and the gun was swaying erratically, he took a quick step forward, grabbed hold of Mademoiselle Litvinova's slim wrist and turned the barrel aside.

Are you quite determined to shoot a servant of the law today?' Fandorin asked in a quiet voice, gazing into the young lady's face, which was very close now.

'I hate you! You oprichnik!' she whispered and struck him on the chest with her free fist.

He was obliged to drop his cane and grasp the girl's other hand too.

'Police spy!'

As Erast Petrovich examined her more closely, he noticed two things. First, framed in fur that was dusted with snowflakes, in the pale light of the gas lamps, the stars and the moon, Mademoiselle Litvinova's face was quite stunningly beautiful. And second, her eyes seemed to be blazing altogether too brighdy for mere hatred.

He leant down with a sigh, put his arms round her shoulders and kissed her firmly on the lips - in defiance of all the laws of physics, they were warm.

'Gendarme!' the nihilist protested languidly, pulling away from him. But then she instantly put both arms round his neck and pulled him towards her. The hard edge of the revolver jabbed into the back of Fandorin's head.

'How did you find me?' he asked, gasping for air.

'And you're a fool too!' Esfir declared. 'You told me yourself it was in all the address books

She pulled him to her again, with a fierce, sharp movement, and the toy revolver fired up into the sky, deafening Erast Petrovich's right ear and startling into flight the jackdaws sitting on a nearby poplar tree.

CHAPTER 4

Money is needed

All the necessary measures had been taken.

They had waited for Rahmet for precisely one hour before moving on to the reserve meeting place. And a wretched place it was: a little railway lineman's house close to the Vindava Station. It wasn't just that it was dirty, cramped and cold, but there was only one small room, with bedbugs and, of course, no telephone. The only advantage was an open view in all directions.

While it was still dark, Green had sent Bullfinch to leave a note in the 'post box' for Needle: 'Rahmet has disappeared. We need another address. Ten o'clock, same place.'

It would have been more convenient to telephone the courier while they were still at Aronson's place, but the cautious Needle had not left them any number or address. A house with a mezzanine, from which she could see the private lecturer's apartment through binoculars - that was all Green knew about where she lived. Not enough. No way to find it.

The role of the 'post box' for emergency communications was played by an old coach house in a side street close to Prechistenky Boulevard - there was a convenient crevice between its beams, wide enough to thrust your hand into as you walked by.

Before they left, Green had told the private lecturer to remember the system of signals. If their comrade came back, to speak to him as if he were a stranger: I've never seen you before, and I don't know what you're talking about. Rahmet was no fool; he would understand. He knew about the post box. If he wanted to explain himself, he would find a way.

From nine o'clock Green took up his observation post beside the Sukharev Tower, where he had met Needle the day before. The place and the time were convenient, there were crowds of people pouring into the market.

He had made his way across a courtyard and in through a back entrance to the position he had spied out the day before -a small, inconspicuous attic with a little window, half boarded up, that looked straight out on to the square. Intently, without allowing himself to be distracted, he studied everyone hanging around anywhere nearby. The hawkers were genuine. So was the organ-grinder. The customers kept changing; not one of them lingered for very long without a good reason.

That meant it was all clear.

Needle appeared at a quarter to ten. First she walked past in one direction, then she came back again. She was checking too. That was right. He could go down.

'Bad news,' the courier said instead of greeting him. Her thin, severe face looked pale and she seemed upset. 'I'll start at the beginning.'

They walked along Sretenka Street side by side. Green listened without saying anything.

'First. Yesterday evening the police raided Larionov's apartment. They didn't arrest anyone. But afterwards there was a shooting. Larionov was killed.'

That was Rahmet, he did that, Green thought, and he felt relief and rage at the same time. Just let him come back and Green would have to give him a lesson in discipline.

'Second?' he asked.

Needle just shook her head. 'You're too quick with your reprisals. We needed to investigate first.' 'What's second?' Green asked again.

'We haven't been able to find out where your Rahmet has got to. As soon as I find out something, I'll let you know. Third. There's no way we can send you out of the city soon. We were going to use a wagon on a goods train, but the railway gendarmes are checking all the seals at twelve versts and sixty versts outside Moscow'

'Never mind that. There's even worse news, I can see. Tell me.'

She took hold of his elbow and led him off the crowded street into a quiet lane. 'An urgent message from the Centre. A courier brought it on the morning train. Yesterday at dawn, at the same time as you executed Khrapov, the Police Department Flying Squad smashed up the secret apartment on Liteiny Prospect.'

Green frowned. The security arrangements for the clandestine apartment on Liteiny Prospect were excellent, and the party funds were kept in a secret hiding place there - all the funds remaining from the January expropriation, when they had hit the office of the Petropolis Credit and Loan Society.

'Did they find it?' he asked curdy.

'Yes. They took all the money. Three hundred and fifty thousand. It's a terrible blow for the party. I've been instructed to tell you that you're our only hope. In eleven days' time we have to make the final payment for the printing works in Zurich. A hundred and seventy-five thousand French francs. Otherwise the equipment will be repossessed. We need thirteen thousand pounds sterling to buy arms and freight a schooner in Bristol. Forty thousand roubles have been promised to a warder at the Odessa Central Prison to arrange for the escape of our comrades. And more money's needed for the usual outgoings ... Without the funds, the party's activities will be completely paralysed. You must give your reply immediately - under the present circumstances, is your Combat Group capable of obtaining the sum required?'

Green did not answer immediately: he was weighing things up.

'Do they know who betrayed us?'

'No. All they know is that the operation was led in person by Colonel Pozharsky, the deputy director of the Police Department.'

In that case, Green had no right to refuse. He had let Pozharsky get away on Aptekarsky Island; now he would have to make amends for his blunder.

However, under present conditions carrying out an expropriation was extremely risky.

First, there was the uncertainty about Rahmet. What if he had been arrested? It was hard to know how he would react under interrogation. He was unpredictable.

Second, he didn't have enough men. In effect, he only had Emelya.

Third, all the police forces of the city must have been thrown into the search for the CG. The city was swarming with gendarmes, agents and plain-clothes men.

No, the risk was unacceptable. It was no good.

As if she had been listening to his thoughts, Needle said: 'If you need people, I have them. Our Moscow combat squad. They don't have much experience - so far all they've done is guard meetings; but they're brave lads and they have guns. And if we tell them this is for the Combat Group, they'll go through hell and high water. And take me with you. I'm a good shot. I can make bombs.'

For the first time Green took a proper look into those serious eyes that seemed to be dusted with ash, and he saw that Needle's colour was like his own - grey and cold. What was it that dried you up? he thought. Or were you born that way?

Out loud he said: 'No need for hell and high water. At least, not yet. I'll tell you later. Now, a new apartment. If we can't have a telephone, all right. Only there must be a second exit. Seven this evening, same place. And be very careful with Rahmet if he turns up. I'm going to check him.'

He'd had an idea about where to get the money. Without any shooting.

It was worth a try.

Green let his cabby go outside the gates of the Lobastov plant then, as usual, waited for a minute in case another sleigh came round the corner with a police agent in it, and only when he was sure he wasn't being followed did he turn and walk into the factory grounds.

As he walked to the main office past the workshops, past the snow-covered flower beds and the elegant church, he gazed around curiously.

Lobastov managed his business in capital fashion. Even in the very best American factories you wouldn't often see such good order.

The workers Green encountered on his way were striding along with a purposeful air that was not Russian somehow, and he didn't spot a single face puffy and swollen from drink, even though it was Monday and still the morning. He'd been told that at the Lobastov plant the mere smell of drink would get you sacked on the spot and put straight out of the gates. But then the pay here was twice what it was at other plants, you got free company accommodation and almost two weeks of holiday on half-pay.

What they said about the holiday was probably a fairy tale, but Green knew for a certain fact that the working day at Timofei Grigorievich Lobastov's enterprises was nine and a half hours, and eight hours on Saturdays.

If all the capitalists were like Lobastov, there'd be no reason left for kindling any conflagration - Green was suddenly struck by this surprising idea when he saw the sturdy brick building with the sign 'Factory Hospital'. But it was a stupid idea, because in the whole of Russia there was only one Lobastov.

In the factory-office reception room Green wrote a short note and asked for it to be handed to the owner. Lobastov received his visitor straight away.

'Good morning, Mr Green.'

The short, solidly built man with a plain peasant face on which the carefully tended goatee beard looked entirely out of place came out from behind his broad desk and shook his visitor firmly by the hand.

'To what do I owe this honour?' he asked, screwing up his lively, dark eyes inquisitively. 'It must be something urgent, I suppose? Could it perhaps be connected with yesterday's mishap on Liteiny Prospect?'

Green knew that Timofei Grigorievich had his own people in the most unexpected places, but even so he was astonished that the industrialist could be so exceptionally well informed.

He asked: 'Do you really have someone in the Police Department on your payroll?' and then immediately frowned, as if he were withdrawing the inappropriate question.

Lobastov wouldn't answer in any case. He was a meticulous man, with that dense ochre colour that comes from great internal strength and unshakeable self-belief.

'It is written: "Cast thy bread upon the waters for thou shalt find it after many days,'" the factory owner said with a cunning smile, lowering his round head as if he were going to butt - the forehead was heavy and bullish. 'How much did they relieve you of?'

'Three hundred and fifty.'

Lobastov whistled and stuck his thumbs into the pockets of his waistcoat. The smile disappeared from his face.

'Goodbye, Mr Green,' he said crisply. 'I'm a man of my word. You are not. I do not wish to have any more dealings with your organisation. I paid my last contribution in January, absolutely on the nail - fifteen thousand - and I asked not to be bothered again until July. My purse is deep, but not bottomless. Three hundred and fifty thousand! Why not ask for more?'

Green paid no heed to the insult. That was just emotion. 'I only answered your question,' he said in a calm voice. 'We have urgent payments to make. Some people are waiting, others simply won't. We must have forty thousand. Otherwise it's the gallows. They don't forgive that sort of thing.'

'Don't you try to frighten me,' the factory owner snapped. '"They don't forgive"! Do you think I give you money out of fear? Or that I'm buying indulgences against the possibility of your victory?'

Green didn't say anything, because that was exactly what he thought.

'Oh no! I'm not afraid of anything or anybody!' Timofei Grigorievich's face began flushing crimson in anger and one cheek started twitching. 'God forbid that you should ever win! And you never will win. I suppose you imagined you were using Lobastov? Like hell you were! It's me who's been using you. And if I speak frankly with you, it's because you're a pragmatist, without any emotional histrionics. You and I are berries from the same field. Although we taste rather different. Ha-ha!' Lobastov gave a short, dry laugh, exposing a set of yellowish teeth.

What have berries got to do with anything? Green thought; why speak in jokes if you can speak seriously?

'Then why do you help?' he asked, and then corrected himself: 'Why did you help?'

'Because I realised our idiotic stuffed shirts needed a good scare, a few spokes stuck in their wheels, so they wouldn't stop intelligent people hauling the country out of the mire. The stupid asses need to be taught a lesson. They need their noses rubbed in the dung. So you go and rub them in it. To make them get it through those thick heads of theirs that Russia either goes with me, Lobastov, or goes to hell with you. There's no third choice on offer.'

'You're investing your money,' Green said with a nod, 'that's clear enough. I've read about it in books. In America they call it lobbying. We don't have a parliament, so you use terrorists to put pressure on the government. So will you give me forty thousand?'

Lobastov's face turned to stone, leaving the nervous tic agitating his cheek. 'I will not. You're an intelligent man, Mr Green. My budget for "lobbying", as you call it, is thirty thousand a year. And not a single kopeck more. If you like, take the fifteen thousand for the second half of the year now.'

Green thought for a moment and said: 'Fifteen, no. We need forty. Goodbye.' He turned and walked towards the door.

His host came after him and showed him out. Could he possibly have changed his mind? Hardly. He wasn't that kind. Then why had he come after Green?

'Was Khrapov your work?' Timofei Grigorievich whispered in his ear.

So that was why.

Green walked down the stairs in silence. On his way back through the factory grounds, he thought about what to do next.

There was only one answer: it would have to be an expropriation.

It was actually no bad thing that the police were preoccupied with the search. That meant there would be fewer men assigned to the usual requirements. For instance, to guarding money.

He could take some men from Needle.

But he still couldn't manage without a specialist. He'd have to send a telegram to Julie and get her to bring that Ace of hers.

Once outside the control post, Green stopped behind a lamp post and waited for a while.

He was right. An inconspicuous individual who looked like a shop assistant came hurrying out of the gates, turning his head this way and that and, when he spotted Green, pretended to be waiting for a horse-tram.

Lobastov was cautious. And curious.

That was all right. It wasn't hard to get rid of a tail.

Green walked a little way along the street, turned into a gateway and stopped. When the shop assistant slipped in after him, he punched him hard on the forehead. Let him have a lie-down for ten minutes.

The strength of the party lay in the fact that it was helped by all sorts of different people, some of them quite unexpected. Julie was precisely one such rare bird. The party ascetics took a dim view, but Green liked her.

Her colour was emerald: light and festive. Always gay and full of the joys of life, stylishly dressed, scented with heavenly fragrances, she set Green's metallic heart ringing in a strange way, simultaneously alarming and pleasurable. The very name 'Julie' was vibrant and sunny, like the word 'life'. If Green's fate had been different, he would probably have fallen in love with a woman just like that.

It wasn't done for members of the party to talk much about their past, but everyone knew Julie's story - she made no secret of her biography.

She had lost her parents when she was a teenager and been made a ward of a relative, a certain high-ranking official of advanced years. On the threshold of old age the old fool had run riot, as Julie put it: he squandered the inheritance entrusted to him, debauched his young ward and shortly thereafter a stroke left him paralysed. Young Julie had been left without a kopeck in her pocket and without a roof over her head, but with substantial carnal experience. The only career that lay open to her was that of a professional woman, and in this field Julie had demonstrated quite exceptional talent. For a few years she had lived as a kept woman, moving from one rich mentor to another. Then Julie had grown weary of'fat old men' and set up her own business. Now she chose her own lovers, as a rule not fat, and certainly not old, and she didn't take money from them but earned her own income from her 'agency'.

The women Julie employed in her agency were her friends -some of them kept women like herself, and some perfectly respectable ladies in search of additional income or adventures. The firm had rapidly become popular among the capital's pleasure-seekers, because Julie's female friends were all first-class beauties who enjoyed a laugh and were keen on love-making, and confidentiality was maintained meticulously.

But the women had no secrets from each other, and especially from their merry madam, and since their clients included important civil servants and generals, and even highly placed police officers, Julie received a constant stream of the most various kinds of information, some of which was extremely important for the party.

What no one in the organisation knew was why this frivolous creature had started helping the revolutionary cause. But Green found nothing surprising in that. Julie was just as much a victim of a villainous social system as an oppressed peasant woman, a beggar woman or some downtrodden mill hand. She fought injustice with the means available to her, and she was far more useful than some of the chatterboxes in the Central Committee.

Apart from providing highly valuable information, she could find a convenient apartment for Green's group in just a few hours, more than once she had helped them with money, and sometimes she had put them in touch with the right people, because she had the most extensive contacts at all levels of society.

She was the one who had brought them Ace. An interesting character, no less colourful in his own way than Julie herself.

The son of an archpriest who was the preceptor of one of St Petersburg's main cathedrals, Tikhon Bogoyavlensky was an apple who had rolled a very long way from the paternal tree. Expelled from his family for blaspheming, from his grammar school for fighting and from his secondary college for stealing, he had become an authoritative bandit, a specialist in hold-ups. He worked with audacious flare and imagination, and he had never, even once, fallen into the hands of the police.

When the party needed big money last December, Julie had blushed slightly as she said: 'Greeny, I know you'll think badly of me, but just recendy I got to know a very nice young man. I think he could be useful to you.'

Green already knew that in Julie's lexicon the words 'get to know' had a special meaning, and he had no illusions concerning the epithet 'nice' - that was what she called all her transient lovers. But he also knew that when Julie said something, she meant it.

In just two days Ace had selected a target, worked out a plan and assigned the various roles, and the expropriation had gone off like clockwork. The two sides had parted entirely satisfied with each other: the party had replenished its coffers and the specialist had received his share of the expropriated funds - a quarter.

At midday Green sent off two telegrams: 'Order accepted. Will be filled very shortly. G.' That one went to the central post office in Peter, poste restante. The second went to Julie's address: 'There is work in Moscow for a priest's son. Terms as in December. He will select the site. Expect you tomorrow, nine o'clock train. Will meet. G.'

Once again Needle omitted to greet him. She clearly regarded the conventions as superfluous, just as Green did.

'Rahmet has turned up. A note in the post box. Here.'

Green opened the small sheet of paper and read: 'Looking for my friends. Will be in the Suzdal tea rooms on Maroseika Street from six to nine. Rahmet.'

'A convenient spot,' said Needle: 'a student meeting place. Outsiders are obvious immediately, so the police agents don't stick their noses in. He's chosen it deliberately so we can check he's not being tailed.'

'What about tails near the post box?'

She knitted her sparse eyebrows angrily: 'You're too high and mighty altogether. Just because you're in the Combat Group, that doesn't give you the right to regard everyone else as fools. Of course I checked. I never even approach the box until I'm certain everything's all right. Will you go to see Rahmet?'

Green didn't answer, because he hadn't decided yet. 'And the apartment?'

'We have one. There's even a telephone. It belongs to the attorney Zimin. He's at a trial in Warsaw at the moment, and his son, Arsenii Zirnin, is one of our combat squad. He's reliable.'

'Good. How many men?'

'Listen, why do you talk in that strange way? The words just drop out, like lead weights. Is it meant to impress people? What does that mean - "how many men"? What men? Where?'

He knew the way he spoke wasn't right, but it was the only way the words came. The thoughts in his head were precise and clear, their meaning was absolutely obvious. But when they emerged in the form of phrases, the superfluous husk simply fell away of its own accord and only the essential idea was left. Probably sometimes rather more fell away than ought to.

'In the squad,' he added patiendy.

'Six that I can vouch for. First Arsenii - he's a university student. Then Nail, a foundryman from—'

Green interrupted: 'Later. You can tell me and show me. Is there a back entrance? Where to?'

She wrinkled up her forehead, then realised what he meant. 'You mean at the Suzdal? Yes, there is. You can get away through the connecting yards at the back in the direction of Khitrovka.'

'I'll meet him myself. Decide there and then. Your men must

be in the room. Two, better three. Strong ones. If Rahmet and I leave via Maroseika Street, OK. If I leave alone the back way, it's a signal. Then he must be killed. Will they manage? He's quick on his feet. If not, I'll do it.'

Needle said hastily: 'No-no, they'll manage. They've done it before. A police spy once, and then a provocateur. I'll explain to them. Can I?'

'You must. They have to know. Since we're doing an ex together.'

'So there's going to be an ex?' she asked, brightening up. 'Really. You are an unusual man after all. I... I'm proud to be helping you. Don't worry, I'll do everything properly'

Green hadn't expected to hear that, so he found it agreeable. He searched for something equally pleasant to say to her and came up with: 'I'm not worried. Not at all.'

Green only walked into the tea rooms at five minutes to nine in order to give Rahmet time to feel uneasy and grasp his situation.

The establishment proved to be rather poor, but clean: a large room with a low vaulted ceiling, tables covered with simple linen tablecloths, a counter with a samovar and brightly painted wooden trays with heaps of spice cakes, apples and bread rings.

The young men there - most of them wearing student blouses - were drinking tea, smoking tobacco and reading newspapers. Those who had come in groups were arguing and laughing; some were even trying to sing in chorus. But Green didn't see any bottles on the tables.

Rahmet was sitting at a small table by the window reading New Word. He glanced briefly at Green and turned over a page.

There were no signs of anything suspicious, either in the room or on the street outside. The back door was over there, to the left of the counter. There were two lads sitting without speaking in the corner by the large double-decker teapot. From the descriptions they had to be Nail and Marat, from the combat squad. The first was tall and muscular, with straight hair down to his shoulders. The second was broad-shouldered and snub-nosed, in spectacles.

Green strolled across to the table without hurrying and sat down facing Rahmet. He didn't say anything. Rahmet could do the talking.

'Hello,' Rahmet said in a low voice, putting down the newspaper and looking up at Green with his blue eyes. 'Thank you for coming

He pronounced the words strangely, with a lisp: 'sank you'. Because his front teeth are missing, Green noted. He had dark circles under his eyes and a scratch on his neck, but his glance was still the same: bold, without the slightest trace of guilt.

But what he said was: 'It's all my fault, of course. I didn't listen to you. But I've paid the price for that, even paid over the odds ... I was beginning to think no one would come. I tell you what, Green, you listen to me and then decide. All right?'

All this was superfluous. Green was waiting.

'Well then.' Rahmet smiled in embarrassment as he brushed back his forelock, which had thinned noticeably since the previous day, and started his story.

'So what did I think I was doing? I thought I'd just slip out for an hour, finish off that rat and slip back in on the sly. Go to bed and start snoring. You'd come to wake me up, and I'd bat my eyelids and yawn as if I'd been asleep all the time. And the next day, when the news about Larionov broke, I'd confess ... What an impression that would make ... Well, I made my impression all right.

Anyway, I ran smack into an ambush on Povarskaya Street. But I'd already done for Larionov. Put a slug in the bastard's bladder - so he wouldn't die straight away but have plenty of time to think about his filthy treachery. But the son of a bitch had gendarmes in the next room. Mr Fandorin himself, your twin brother. Well, I broke out on to the street, but they already had the place sealed off. The rotten dogs jumped me and tied me up - just look what they did to my hair.

'They took me to Bolshaya Gnezdikovskaya Street, to the Okhranka. First the boss interrogated me, Lieutenant Colonel Burlyaev. Then Fandorin arrived as well. They played good cop and bad cop with me. It was Burlyaev who thinned out my teeth.

See - pretty, isn't it? But that doesn't matter. I'll survive - I'll have gold ones put in. Or iron ones. I'll be an iron man, like you. Anyway, they worked on me a bit without getting anywhere, and then they got tired and sent me off to spend the night in a cell. They have special ones there at the Okhranka. Pretty decent they are, too. A mattress, curtains. Only the bastards cuffed my hands behind my back, so I couldn't do all that much sleeping.

'This morning they didn't touch me at all. The warden fed me breakfast with a spoon, like a little baby. But instead of lunch they dragged me off upstairs again. And goodness gracious me, who did I find there but my old friend Colonel Pozharsky! The same man who put a bullet through my cap on Aptekarsky Island. He'd come down urgently from Petersburg specially to see me.

'There's no way he can recognise me, I thought. It was dark that time on Aptekarsky. But the moment he saw me he grinned from ear to ear ... "Bah," he said, "Mr Seleznyov in person, the fearless hero of terror!" He'd found my old file, the one about von Bock, from my verbal description.

'Now he's going to threaten me with hanging, I thought, like Burlyaev. But no, this one was craftier than that. "Nikolai Ios-ifovich," he says, "you're like manna from heaven to us. The minister's trampling all over me and the director because of Khrapov. In fact, he's in even worse trouble - the Emperor's threatening to remove him from his post if he doesn't find the perpetrators immediately. But who's going to look for them, the minister? No, your humble servant Pozharsky. I had no idea at all where to begin. And then you go and fall straight into our hands. I could just kiss you." What do you think of that line? And it got worse. "I've already written a little article for the newspapers," he says. "It's called 'The end of the Combat Group'. And then under that, in smaller print, A triumph for our valiant police'. About the capture of the extremely dangerous terrorist N.S., who has provided extensive and frank testimony, from which it is clear that he is a member of the notorious Combat Group that has just treacherously murdered Adjutant General Khrapov." I have to confess, Green, I blundered there.

When I shot Larionov, I said: "Take that, you traitor, from the Combat Group." I didn't know Fandorin was listening behind the door...

'All right. So, I sit there, listening to Pozharsky. I realise he's trying to frighten me: "You may not be afraid of dying," he says, "but the idea of disgrace will scare you all right." Hang on, you foxy gendarme, I think. You're cunning, but I'm even more cunning. I bite my lip and start twitching my eyebrow, as if I'm getting nervous. He's pleased with that and he piles on the pressure. "You know, Mr Seleznyov," he says, "for making our day like this, we're not even going to hang you. To hell with Larionov. Just between ourselves, he was a real little shit. For von Bock, of course, we'll give you hard labour, there's no way round that. What a great time you'll have out in the camps when all your comrades turn their backs on you as a traitor. You'll put the noose round your own neck." So then I fall into hysterics, and I yell at him a bit and start foaming at the mouth -I know how to do that. And I started moping, as if I'd lost heart. Pozharsky carries on for a while, and then he throws me the bait. "There is another way," he says. "You give us your accomplices in the Combat Group and we'll give you a passport in any name you like. And then the whole world's your oyster. Europe, if you like, even America, or the island of Madagascar." Well, I twisted and turned this way and that and finally swallowed the bait.

'I wrote a statement, agreeing to collaborate. I'm telling you about that straight away, so I won't have it hanging over me later. But to hell with that. The worst thing is that I had to tell them about who's in the group - their aliases, what they look like. Hang on, Green, don't go flashing your eyes like that. I had to make them believe me. How could I know - they might have had something on us already. If they'd checked and seen I was lying, I'd have been a goner. But as it was, Pozharsky took a look at some piece of paper and he was satisfied.

'I left the Okhranka a useful man, a servant of the throne, a collaborator with the alias Gvidon. They gave me a hundred and fifty roubles, my first salary. And nothing much to do: find you and let Pozharsky and Fandorin know where you are. They put tails on me, of course, but I lost them on the way through Khitrovka. You know yourself, it's easy to disappear there.

'So that's my entire Odyssey for you. Now you decide what to do with me. Bury me in the ground if you like, I won't kick up a fuss. Let those two sitting over there in the corner take me out in the yard and finish me off straight away. Or if you like, Rahmet will leave this life in style, the way he lived it. I'll strap a bomb to my belly, go to Gnezdnikovsky Lane and blow the entire Okhranka to kingdom come, together with all the Pozharskys, Fandorins and Burlyaevs. Do you want me to?

'Or consider something else. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that I'm Gvidon now? There could be advantages in that too ...

'You decide - you're the one with all the brains. It's all the same to me whether I'm lying under the ground or walking around on top of it.'

One thing was clear: turned comrades didn't behave like this. Rahmet's glance was clear and bold, even insolent. And his colour was still the same, cornflower-blue; the treacherous blue tones were no denser than before. And was it really possible that they could have broken Rahmet in a single day? He would never have given in so quickly. Out of sheer stubbornness.

There was still a risk, of course. But it was better to trust a traitor than to spurn a comrade. It was more dangerous, but in the long run it was worth it. Green had quarrelled with party members who held a different point of view. -

He stood up and spoke for the first time: 'Let's go. There's work to be done.'

CHAPTER 5

in which Fandorin suffers from wounded vanity

Esfir Litvinova's awakening in the house on Malaya Nikitskaya Street was truly nightmarish. When a quiet rustling roused her from sleep, at first all she saw was the dark bedroom, with the diffident light of morning peeking through the curtains. Then she saw the impossibly handsome dark-haired man lying beside her with his eyebrows raised dolefully in his sleep, and for a moment she smiled. Then, catching a faint movement with the corner of her eye, she turned her head - and squealed in horror.

There, creeping towards the bed on tiptoe, was a fearsome creature with a face as round as a pancake and ferocious narrow slits for eyes, dressed in a white shroud.

At the sound of her squeal the creature froze and bent over double. As it straightened up it said: 'Goo' morin'.'

A-a-a,' Esfir heard her own voice reply, trembling in shock. She turned towards Fandorin and grabbed his shoulder so that he would wake up and then wake her as quickly as possible in order to free her from this evil apparition.

But Erast Petrovich was apparently already awake.

'Morning, Masa, morning. I'll be right there,' he said and explained: 'This is my valet, Masa. He's Japanese. Yesterday he hid - that's why you didn't see him. He's c-come now because he and I always do our g-gymnastic exercises in the morning, and it's already very late, eleven o'clock. The exercises will take forty-five minutes. I'm going to get up now,' he warned her, apparently expecting Esfir to avert her eyes delicately.

Esfir didn't. On the contrary, she sat up a little and propped her cheek on one arm bent at the elbow in order to give herself a better view.

The State Counsellor hesitated for a moment, then emerged from under the blankets and got dressed very quickly in the same kind of white overalls as his Japanese valet.

On calmer consideration, she could clearly see that it wasn't a shroud at all, but a loose white jacket, with pants in the same style. It looked rather like underwear, except that the material was denser and there were no ties on the trouser legs.

Master and servant walked out through the door and a moment later Esfir heard an appalling crash from the next room (which she thought was the drawing room). She jumped up, looking round for something to throw on quickly, but couldn't see anything. Fandorin's clothes were lying neatly on a chair, but Esfir's dress and other elements of her attire were scattered about chaotically on the floor. As a progressive young woman, she despised the corset, but even the other items of harness - brassiere, drawers and stockings - took too long to put on, and she was simply dying to see what those two were doing in there.

She opened the massive wardrobe, rummaged about and took out a man's dressing gown with velvet trimming and tassels. It was almost a perfect fit, except that it trailed along the floor a little bit.

Esfir cast a quick glance at the mirror and ran one hand through her short-cropped black hair. She didn't look too bad at all - which was surprising really, since she hadn't had very much sleep. A short hairstyle was a wonderful thing. Not only was it progressive, it made life so much simpler.

The goings-on in the drawing room were as follows (Esfir had half-opened the door, slipped in without making a sound and stood by the wall): Fandorin and the Japanese were fighting, uttering wild yells as they flung their feet through the air at each other. Once the master landed a resounding kick on his half-pint servant's chest and the poor fellow was sent flying back against the wall; but he didn't pass out, just gave an angry squawk and threw himself at his assailant yet again.

Fandorin shouted something unintelligible and the fighting stopped. The valet lay down on the floor, the State Counsellor took hold of his belt with one hand and his neck with the other and began lifting him up to chest height and lowering him down again without any visible effort. The Japanese hung there calmly, as straight as a ramrod.

'Not only an oprichnik, but a loony as well,' Esfir declared out loud, expressing her opinion of what she had seen. She went off to perform her toilette.

Breakfast brought the necessary explanations, for which there had been too little time during the night.

'What happened changes nothing in principle,' Esfir declared sternly. 'I'm not made of wood, and of course you are rather attractive in your own way. But you and I are still on opposite sides of the barricades. If it's of any interest, I'm risking my reputation by getting involved with you. When my friends find out—'

'Perhaps they don't n-necessarily have to know about it?' Erast Petrovich interrupted her cautiously, holding a piece of omelette suspended halfway to his mouth. 'After all, it is your own personal business.'

'Oh no, I'm not having any secret assignations with an oprichnik. I don't want them to think I'm an informer! And don't you dare address me in such a formal tone.'

'All right,' Fandorin agreed meekly. 'I understand about the barricades. But you won't shoot at me again, will you?'

Esfir spread jam (excellent raspberry jam, from Sanders) on a bread roll - she had a simply ferocious appetite today.

'We'll see about that.' And she went on with her mouth full: ‘I’ll come here to see you. But don't you come to my place. You'll frighten off all my friends. And then, dear Papchen and Mamchen will imagine that I've picked up a desirable fiance.'

They were unable to clarify the situation completely because just at that moment the telephone rang. As he listened to his invisible interlocutor, Fandorin frowned in concern.

'Very well, Stanislav Filippovich. Call round in five minutes. I'll b-be ready.'

He apologised, saying it was urgent business, and went to put on his frock coat.

Five minutes later a sleigh with two gendarmes in blue greatcoats (Esfir saw them through the window) stopped at the gates. One gendarme remained seated. The other, an erect and dashing figure, came running towards the outhouse, holding down his sword.

When Esfir peeped out into the hallway, the dashing young gendarme was standing beside Fandorin, who was putting on his coat. The pretty boy officer, with an idiotic curled moustache and features ruddy from the frost, bowed and gave her a keen, curious glance. Esfir nodded coolly in farewell to Fandorin and turned away.

'... with quite incredible speed,' Sverchinsky exclaimed excitedly. He was concluding his story as they rode along. 'I know about yesterday's arrest and your part in it. My congratulations. But for Pozharsky himself to arrive from St Petersburg on the twelve o'clock train! The deputy director of the Police Department, in charge of all political investigations! A man on his way to the top! He's been made an aide-de-camp. Anyway, he must have set out as soon as he got the telegram from the Department of Security. See what importance they attach to this investigation at the very highest level!'

'How did you f-find out that he had arrived?'

'What do you mean?' Stanislav Filippovich asked resentfully. 'I have twenty men on duty at each main station. Do you think they don't know Pozharsky? They were watching him when he took a cab and told the driver to go to Gnezdnikovsky Lane. They telephoned me and I telephoned you straight away. He wants to steal your laurels, absolutely no doubt about it. See what a rush he was in to get here!'

Erast Petrovich shook his head sceptically. In the first place, he had seen brighter stars from the capital than this one and, in the second place, to judge from the prisoner's behaviour of the previous day, the aide-de camp was hardly likely to win any easy laurels there.

The journey from Malaya Nikitskaya Street to Bolshoi Gnezdnikovsky Lane was much shorter than from the Nikolaevsky Station, and so they arrived ahead of their exalted visitor.

They even beat Burlyaev there, since the Lieutenant Colonel still hadn't heard about his superior's arrival from St Petersburg.

However, no sooner did the five of them - Erast Petrovich, Burlyaev, Sverchinsky, Zubtsov and Smolyaninov - sit down to determine their general position, than the Deputy Director of Police put in an appearance.

A tall, slim gentleman, still by no means old, walked into the room. An astrakhan peaked cap, an English coat, a tan briefcase in his hand. But it was the face that immediately attracted and held their attention: an elongated skull, narrowed at the temples, a hawk-like nose, a receding chin, light-coloured hair, lively black eyes. Not a handsome face, perhaps even ugly, but it possessed the rare quality of initially provoking dislike and then improving greatly on protracted examination.

They all examined the new arrival at length. Sverchinsky, Burlyaev, Smolyaninov and Zubtsov jumped to their feet. As the man of senior state rank, Erast Petrovich remained seated.

The man with the interesting face halted in the doorway, pausing to return the Muscovites' curious gaze, and then suddenly spoke in a loud, solemn voice: 'The official who has arrived from St Petersburg on special instructions himself requires your presence in his room immediately' Then he laughed at the reference to Gogol, and corrected himself. 'Or, rather, he is glad to see you and requires only one thing: a cup of strong coffee. You know, gentlemen, I am quite unable to sleep in a train. The shaking of the carriage sets my brain fidgeting inside my head and prevents the thought process from closing down. You, of course, are Mr Fandorin' - the visitor bowed lightly to the State Counsellor. 'I've heard a lot about you. Glad to be working together. You are Sverchinsky. You are Burlyaev. And you?' he asked, glancing inquiringly at Smolyaninov and Zubtsov.

They introduced themselves, and the new arrival looked at Zubtsov with especial interest.

'Yes, of course, Sergei Vitalievich, I know. I've read your reports. Competent.'

Zubtsov turned pink.

'Judging from the considerate attention that you have accorded my person, you have agents at the station and I was recognised. Nonetheless, I hope you will give a warm welcome to Prince Gleb Georgievich Pozharsky. For three hundred years the eldest sons of our clan have all been either Gleb or Georgii -in honour of our patron saints, Gleb of Murom and George the Victorious. A tradition hallowed by the centuries, so to speak. So, the minister has personally instructed me to head the investigation into the case of the murder of Adjutant General Khrapov. From us, gentlemen, rapid results are expected. Exceptional zeal will be required, and especially from you.' Pozharsky pronounced these final words with significant emphasis and paused for the Muscovites to take his meaning. 'Time, gen-tlemen - time is precious. Fortunately last night, when your telegram arrived, I was in my office. I packed this little briefcase here and grabbed my suitcase -I always keep one ready in case I need to leave at short notice - and caught the train. Now I'll take ten minutes to drink coffee and at the same time listen to your ideas. Then we'll have a talk with the prisoner.'

Erast Petrovich had not seen an interrogation like this one before.

'Why's he sitting there all trussed up, as if he was in the electric chair?' Prince Pozharsky exclaimed in surprise when they entered the interrogation room. 'Have you heard about the latest American invention? They connect electrodes here and here' -he jabbed a finger at the seated man's wrist and the back of his head - 'and switch on the current. Simple and effective.'

'Would you be trying to frighten me?' the bound man asked with an insolent smile that exposed the gap in his teeth. 'Don't bother. I'm not afraid of torture.'

'Oh, come now,' Pozharsky exclaimed in surprise. 'What torture? This is Russia, not China. Do tell them to untie him, Pyotr Ivanovich. This Asiatic barbarity really is too much.'

'He's a violent individual,' Burlyaev warned him. 'He could attack you.'

The prince shrugged: 'There are six of us, all exceptionally well built. Let him attack.'

While the straps were being unfastened, the man from St Petersburg examined the captured terrorist with keen interest. Then suddenly he spoke with intense feeling: 'My God, Nikolai Iosifovich, you have no idea just how glad I am to see you. Let me introduce you, gentlemen. You see before you Nikolai Seleznyov, a fearless hero of the revolution. The very man who shot Colonel von Bock last summer, and then escaped from a prison carriage with guns blazing and bombs exploding all around. I recognised him immediately from your description. So I grabbed the file and set off. For such a dear friend six hundred versts is no distance.'

It would be hard to say on whom this announcement produced the greatest effect - the dumbfounded Muscovites or the prisoner, who froze with an extremely stupid expression on his face: his lips extended in a smile, but his eyebrows already raised in surprise.

'And I am Colonel Pozharsky, deputy director of the Police Department. You, Nikolai Iosifovich, are a member of the Combat Group these days, which means we have already met, on Aptekarsky Island. A quite unforgettable encounter.'

Maintaining his energetic tempo, he continued: And you, my darling, have been sent to me by God himself. I was almost thinking of retiring, but now you've turned up. I could just kiss you.' He even made a move towards the prisoner as if he were about to embrace him, and the fearless terrorist involuntarily shrank back into his chair.

'On my way here in the train, I composed a little article,' the dashing aide-de-camp told Rahmet in a confidential tone, extracting a piece of paper covered in writing from his briefcase. 'It is entitled "The End of the Combat Group is Nigh". With a subheading: 'A triumph for the Police Department". Listen to this: "The fiendish murder of the fondly remembered Ivan Fyodorovich Khrapov has not gone unavenged for long. The martyr's body has not yet been committed to the ground, but the investigative agencies of Moscow have already arrested the extremely dangerous terrorist N.S., who has provided detailed testimony concerning the activities of the Combat Group of which he is a member." The style's a little bit untidy, but never mind, the editor will fix that. I won't read any more - you get the gist.'

The prisoner, whose name was apparently Nikolai Iosifovich Seleznyov, chuckled: 'It's clear enough. So you're threatening to compromise me in the eyes of my comrades?'

'And for you that will be more terrible than the gallows,' the prince assured him. 'In the jails and labour camps, not a single political prisoner will offer you his hand. Why should the state take an unnecessary sin on its soul by executing you? You'll put the noose round your own neck.'

'Oh no I won't. They'll believe me before you. My comrades know all about the Okhranka's little tricks.'

Pozharsky did not try to deny that. 'Of course, who's going to believe that the immaculate hero of terror broke down and told all? It's psychologically unconvincing, I realise that. Only is he ... Oh, Lord, where are they ...?' He rummaged in his tan briefcase and drew out a pile of small rectangular cards. 'There now. I gave myself a fright - thought I must have left them behind on my desk. Only, as I was saying, is he really so immaculate? I know you have very strict morals in your party. You'd do better to join the anarchists, Nikolai Iosifovich; their morals are a bit more - you know, lively. Especially with your curious nature. Just take a look at these photographs, gentlemen. Taken through a secret aperture in one of the most depraved establishments on the Ligovka. It's our Nikolai Iosifovich here - there he is at the back. And he's with Lubochka, an eleven-year-old child. That is, of course, a child in terms of her age and physique, but in terms of experience and habit, very far indeed from a child. But if you don't know her personal history, it looks quite iniquitous. Here, Pyotr Ivanovich, take a look at this one. You can see Nikolai Iosifovich quite clearly here.'

The policemen crowded round Pozharsky, examining the photographs with keen interest.

'Look, Erast Petrovich, it's disgusting!' Smolyaninov exclaimed indignantly, holding out one of the photographs to Fandorin.

Fandorin glanced at it briefly and said nothing.

The prisoner sat there pale-faced, biting his lips.

'You take a good look too,' said the prince, beckoning him with his finger. 'You'll find it interesting as well. Sergei Vitalievich, my dear fellow, give them to him. It doesn't matter if he tears them up, we'll print more. When these photos are taken into account, Mr Seleznyov's psychological profile acquires a quite different emphasis. I understand, you know, Nikolai Iosifovich,' he said, turning back to the terrorist, who was gaping in stupefaction at one of the photographs; 'it's not that you're an out-and-out pervert, you simply felt curious. A dangerous quality, excessive curiosity'

Pozharsky suddenly walked up to the terrorist, grasped his shoulders firmly in both hands and started speaking in a slow, regular rhythm, as if he were hammering in nails: 'You, Seleznyov, will not get a heroic trial with all the pretty ladies in the courtroom swooning over you. Your own comrades will spit at you as treacherous scum who has besmirched the bright countenance of the revolution.'

The prisoner gazed up, spellbound, as Pozharsky went on.

And now let me outline another possibility to you.' The prince removed his hands from Seleznyov's shoulders, pulled up a chair and sat down, crossing one leg elegantly over the other. 'You are a brave man, vivacious and high-spirited. What do you find so interesting in hobnobbing with these miserable would-be martyrs, your tedious comrades in the revolutionary struggle? They're like bees who need to bunch together in a swarm and live according to the rules; but you're a loner, you do things your own way, you have your own laws. Admit it, in the depths of your heart you really despise them. They're alien to you. You enjoy playing cops and robbers, risking your life, leading the police a merry dance. Well, I'll give you a chance to play a game far more amusing and much riskier than revolution. Right now you're just a puppet in the hands of the party theoreticians, who drink their coffee with cream in Geneva and Zurich and other such places, while fools like you water the pavements of Russia with your blood. But I'm offering you the opportunity to become the puppet-master and pull the strings of the entire pack of them. And I assure you, you would find it delightful.'

'I'll be pulling their strings, and you'll be pulling mine?' Seleznyov asked in a hoarse voice.

'I can't see anyone ever pulling your strings.' Pozharsky laughed. 'On the contrary, I shall be totally and completely dependent on you. I'm staking a lot on you - going for broke, in fact. If you make a mess of things, my career's over. You see, Seleznyov, I'm being absolutely frank with you. By the way, what's your revolutionary alias?'

'Rahmet.'

'Well, for me you will be ... let's say, Gvidon.'

'Why Gvidon?' Seleznyov asked with a puzzled frown, as if he were totally confused by the pace of events.

'Because you will come flying to me in the realm of the glorious Tsar Saltan from your island of Buyan, sometimes as a mosquito, sometimes as a fly, sometimes as a bumblebee.'

Erast Petrovich suddenly realised that the process of recruitment was already complete. The word 'yes' had not yet been spoken, but some invisible boundary line had been crossed. And after that everything happened very quickly, in the space of just a few minutes.

At first Rahmet answered his virtuoso interrogator's questions absent-mindedly, as if they concerned insignificant matters and not the membership of the Combat Group (it turned out that there were only four of them: the leader with the alias Green, Emelya, Bullfinch and Rahmet himself). Then he provided a clear and vivid psychological portrait of each of them. What he said about the leader, for instance, was: 'He's like Frankenstein's monster in the English novel, half man, half machine. Every time he speaks or moves, you can literally hear the gearwheels creaking. Green sees everything in black and white, nothing puts him off.'

Rahmet gave the address of the clandestine apartment just as willingly, offering no resistance at all, and he dashed off his agreement to cooperate on a voluntary basis as blithely as if it were a billet-doux. His expression as he did so was anything but frightened or even ashamed; it seemed more thoughtful, the expression of a man who has unexpectedly discovered wide new horizons and not yet had time to take in the stunning view now extending before his eyes.

'Off you go, Gvidon,' said Pozharsky, shaking him firmly by the hand. 'Your job is to find Green and hand him over to us. A difficult task, but you're up to it. And don't be afraid that we'll let you down. You're our most important man now; we're putting all our trust in you. Contacts as we agreed. Go with God. And if you don't believe in God, a fair wind to your sails."

The moment the door closed behind the former terrorist Rahmet and the new collaborator Gvidon, Burlyaev said confidently: 'He'll make a run for it. Why don't you have us put a couple of good agents on his tail?'

'Under no circumstances,' said the prince, shaking his head and yawning. 'In the first place, the tails might be noticed, and we'll get him killed. And in the second place, let us not insult our little mosquito by not trusting him. I know his kind. Fear won't make him collaborate, but he'll put his heart into it, all his inspiration and imagination - until the keen edge of new sensations is blunted. The important thing here, gentlemen, is not to miss the moment that is bound to come, when our Gvidon realises it would be a greater thrill to commit double treason, that is, to pull the strings of both dolls, police and revolution, to make himself the head puppet-master. That's when our waltz with Nikolai Iosifovich will come to an end. We just have to hear that moment when the music stops playing.'

'How true that is!' Zubtsov exclaimed passionately, gazing at the psychologist from the capital with unfeigned admiration. 'I've thought about that a great deal myself, only I used a different name for it. Managing a collaborator, gentlemen, is like entering into a secret liaison with a married lady. You have to cherish her, love her sincerely and take constant care not to compromise her, not to destroy her family happiness. And when the feeling is exhausted, you have to part as friends and give her a nice present in farewell. There should be no bitterness, no mutual resentment.'

Pozharsky listened attentively to the young man's excited exclamations and commented: 'Romantically put, but essentially correct.'

'May I also say something?' Smolyaninov put in, blushing. 'Colonel, you were very cunning in the way you recruited this Rahmet, of course, but it seems to me unbecoming for the defenders of the state to employ dishonest methods.' At this point he started speaking quickly, obviously concerned that he might be interrupted. 'Actually, I've been wanting to speak out frankly for a long time ... The way we work isn't right, gentlemen. This Rahmet has shot the commander of a regiment, escaped from arrest, killed one of our people and committed God only knows how many other terrible crimes, but we let him go. He should be put in prison, but we wish to profit from his viciousness, and you even shake his hand. Of course, I understand that we shall solve the case more quickly that way, but do we want speed, if that is the price to be paid? We are supposed to maintain justice and morality, but we deprave society even more than the nihilists do. It is not good. Well, gentlemen?'

The Lieutenant looked round at both of his superiors, but Sverchinsky merely shook his head reproachfully in reply and while Fandorin's expression was sympathetic, he said nothing.

'Young man, where on earth did you get the idea that the state is justice arid morality?' Pozharsky asked, laughing good-naturedly. 'Fine justice indeed! My ancestors and yours, the bandits, stole all their wealth from their fellow countrymen and passed it on by inheritance to us, so that we could dress elegantly and listen to Schubert. In my own case, admittedly, there was no inheritance, but that's a specific instance. Have you read Proudhon? Property is theft. And you and I are guards set to protect the stolen booty. So don't go filling your head with foolish illusions. Better try to understand this, if you really must have a moral justification. Our state is unjust and immoral. But better a state like that than rebellion, bloodshed and chaos. Slowly and unwillingly, society becomes just a little bit more moral, a little bit more decent. It takes centuries. And revolution will throw it back to the times of Ivan the Terrible. There still won't be any justice, new bandits will simply appear, and again they'll have everything and the others will have nothing. And what I said about guards is actually too poetic. You and I, Lieutenant, are night-soil men. We clean out the backhouse privies, to prevent the shit sluicing out into the street. And if you don't wish to get dirty, then take off that smart blue uniform and look for another profession. I'm not threatening you, just giving you some well-meant advice.'

The deputy director of police confirmed the sincerity of his final words with a gentle smile.

Lieutenant Colonel Burlyaev waited for the end of this abstract discussion and asked briskly: 'Your Excellency, then shall I give instructions for private lecturer Aronson's apartment to be surrounded?'

'No. Any tracks there are long since cold. Leave Aronson alone - or we risk giving Gvidon away. And what can the private lecturer give us? He's chicken feed, a "sympathiser". Will he tell us what the real fighters look like? We already know that. I'm more interested in this Needle, the party courier. That's the one we need to find, and then—'

Breaking off in mid-sentence, the prince suddenly leapt to his feet. In two rapid strides he was at the door and jerked it open. The gendarme officer caught in the doorway froze. He had very light hair and a face as pink as a piglet's, which turned even pinker as they watched. Erast Petrovich recognised the officer as Staff Captain Seidlitz, erstwhile protector of Khrapov, the general who was now lying in the autopsy room and had no more need of his guard.

'I -I came to see Mr Burlyaev. To ask if he'd found any clues that would lead to the murderers... I heard a whisper that there was an arrest last night... You're Prince Pozharsky, aren't you? I'm—'

'I know who you are,' the aide-de-camp interrupted sharply. 'You are a man who failed in an assignment of the utmost importance. You, Seidlitz, are a criminal, and you will be tried by a court of law. I forbid you to leave Moscow until specifically instructed to do so. What are you doing here anyway? Were you eavesdropping at the door?'

For the third time in the short period since his arrival the visitor from St Petersburg underwent a total metamorphosis. Benign with his colleagues and assertive with Rahmet, now he was sharp to the point of rudeness with this offender.

'I won't allow this!' Seidlitz burst out, almost crying. Tm a gendarme officer. Let them try me, but you have no right to talk to me like that! I know what I did was unforgivable. But I swear I will atone for it!'

'You'll atone for it in a penal battalion,' the prince interrupted him, and slammed the door unceremoniously.

When Pozharsky turned round, there was not a trace of anger in his face - only intense concentration and excitement. 'That's all, gentlemen; now to work,' he said, rubbing his hands. 'Let us assign roles. You, Pyotr Ivanovich, are responsible for intelligence work. Feel out all the revolutionary groups, all your contacts. If you can't find Green, then at least bring me Mademoiselle Needle. And one more job for your agents: sit on Seidlitz's tail, and his men's too. After the tongue-lashing I just gave him, that Ostsee blockhead will stop at nothing to save his own skin. He will demonstrate truly miraculous zeal. And he won't be any too particular about his methods either. Let him pull the chestnuts out of the fire, but we'll be the ones who eat them. Now for you, Stanislav Filippovich. Distribute the descriptions of the criminals to your men at the railway stations and turnpikes. You're responsible for making sure that Green doesn't leave the Moscow city limits. And I' -the prince smiled radiantly - 'will work with Gvidon. After all, that's only fair, since I recruited him. Now I'm going to the Loskutnaya Hotel, to take a good room and catch up on my sleep. Sergei Vitalievich, I ask you to stay by the telephone at all times in case a message comes in from Gvidon. Let me know immediately. Everything will be just fine, gentlemen, you'll see. As the Gallic gentlemen say, we shall not let our noses droop.'

They rode back in the sleigh in absolute silence. Smolyaninov looked as if he would have liked to express an opinion, but he didn't dare. Sverchinsky twirled the end of his pampered moustache. But Fandorin seemed unusually lethargic and subdued.

And in all honesty, he had good reason.

Set against the brilliant glow of the celebrity from the national capital, the flattering aura surrounding the State Counsellor had dimmed substantially. From being an individual of the first magnitude, whose every word, and even silence, commanded the respectful attention of those around him, Erast Petrovich had suddenly been transformed into a dispensable and even rather comical character. Who was he now? The investigation had been taken over by an experienced, brilliant specialist who would clearly manage the case better than the Moscow governor's Deputy for Special Assignments. The success of the search would also be facilitated by the fact that the aforementioned specialist was obviously not hampered by excessive scruples. However, Fandorin immediately relented of that thought as unworthy and prompted by his own wounded vanity.

The main cause of his discomfiture lay elsewhere - the State Counsellor honestly admitted that to himself. For the first time in his life, destiny had brought him face to face with a man who possessed greater talents as a detective. Well, perhaps not for the first time, but the second. A long, long time ago, at the very beginning of his career, Erast Petrovich had encountered another such talent, only he did not much like to recall that story from the dim and distant past.

But then, he couldn't withdraw from the investigation either, could he? That would be giving way to his pride and betraying his beneficent mentor Prince Dolgorukoi, who was relying on his deputy for support and even salvation.

When they reached the Office of Gendarmes they walked into Sverchinsky's office, still without speaking. Here it turned out that on the way the Colonel had also been thinking about the Governor General.

'Disaster, Erast Petrovich,' Stanislav Filippovich said, without any of his usual ambivalence,, after they had settled into the armchairs and lit their cigars. 'Did you notice that he didn't even bother to present himself to Vladimir Andreevich? That's it. The old man's finished. The question's already been decided up at the top. It's obvious.'

Smolyaninov sighed regretfully and Fandorin shook his head sadly. 'This will be a terrible blow for the prince. He may be advanced in years, but he is still p-perfectly sound in body and mind. And he was good for the city'

'To hell with your city,' the Colonel said sharply. 'The important thing is that working under Dolgorukoi was good for us. And things will go badly without him. Naturally, I shan't be confirmed as head of the Office. And it will be the end of your free and easy life, too. The new Governor General will have his own trusted associates.'

'No d-doubt. But what's to be done about it?'

The cautious Stanislav Filippovich was a completely changed man. 'What else? Make Pozharsky look stupid.'

'You're suggesting that we find the terrorist before C-Colonel Pozharsky does,' the State Counsellor stated rather than asked.

'Exactly. But that's not enough. This little prince is too smart by half; he has to be neutralised.'

Erast Petrovich almost choked on his cigar smoke. 'Good Lord, Stanislav F-Filippovich!'

'Not killed, of course. That's the last thing we need. But there are better ways.' Sverchinsky's voice became pensive. 'For instance, make this jumping jack look ridiculous. Turn him into a figure of fun. Erast Petrovich, my dear fellow, we have to show that we, Dolgorukoi's men, are worth more than this popinjay from the capital.'

'I have not actually withdrawn from the investigation,' the State Counsellor remarked. 'In his distribution of "roles", Pozharsky left me with nothing to do. But I am not accustomed to sitting around doing nothing.'

'Well, that's excellent.' The Colonel jumped to his feet and began striding energetically round the room, turning something over in his mind. 'Well then, you will apply the analytical talent that has saved us all more than once. And I shall take steps to make the little prince a general laughing stock.' Then Stanislav Filippovich went on to mutter something incomprehensible under his breath. 'The Loskutnaya, Loskutnaya... I've got that, what's his name?... the one in charge of the corridor attendants ... Terpugov? Sychugov? Damn it, it doesn't matter ... And Coco, yes, definitely Coco .. .Just the job ...'

'Erast Petrovich, can I come with you?' Lieutenant Smolyaninov asked in a whisper.

'I'm afraid that I have now been reduced to the status of a private individual,' Fandorin replied in an equally low voice and then, seeing the Lieutenant's fresh features stretch into a long face of disappointment, he tried to console him. 'It's a great pity. You would have b-been very useful to me. But never mind, we are still both working on the same job.’

From the Office of Gendarmes to the State Counsellor's home was no more than five minutes' walk at a leisurely pace, but that was quite long enough for him to identify his niche in the investigation - a narrow one, alas, and not very promising. Fandorin reasoned as follows.

Pozharsky had chosen the shortest route to the Combat Group - through Rahmet-Gvidon.

The Okhranka would creep up on the militants via roundabout paths, working its way along the chains of revolutionaries.

The gendarmes were ready to snap up the terrorists if they attempted to leave Moscow.

There was also Seidlitz, who would go at things like a bull in a china shop and employ methods that the State Counsellor didn't even want to think about. And he would have Mylnikov's agents on his tail.

So the Combat Group and its leader, Mr Green, were besieged from all sides. There was nowhere for them to go ... and there didn't seem to be any space left for a private investigator with a rather vague mandate to become involved in the case either.

There were already so many investigators around, he could easily be trampled underfoot.

But there were three motives insistendy prompting Erast Petrovich to take urgent and decisive action.

He felt sorry for the old Prince Dolgorukoi. That was one.

He could not swallow the insult he had suffered at the hands of Green, who had dared to mask himself as State Counsellor Fandorin for his audacious crime. That was two.

And three. Yes, yes, three: his wounded vanity. We shall see, Your St Petersburg Excellency, who is worth what and what they are capable of.

After this concise formulation of his motivation, Fandorin's brain began functioning more clearly and precisely.

Let all his colleagues search for the infamous Combat Group. He would see how soon they managed to find it. But he was going to search for the traitor in the ranks of the upholders of law and order. That was probably more important than catching terrorists, even the very dangerous ones. And who could tell if this path might not actually prove to be the shortest to the Combat Group?

This final thought, however, smacked only too distinctly of self-deception.

CHAPTER 6

The expropriation

Of course, Green didn't go out on to the platform to the trains. He took a seat in the cafe in the waiting room for those expecting new arrivals, ordered tea with lemon and began observing the platform through the window.

It was interesting. He had never seen so many police spies in a single spot, even during the Emperor's outings. Almost a third of the people seeing passengers on their way consisted of inquisitive gentlemen with roving eyes and rubber necks. It was clear that the police agents were especially interested in men of a slim build with black hair. Not one of these managed to reach his train unchecked - all dark-haired male individuals were taken politely by the elbows and led away to one side, towards the door with the sign that said 'Duty Stationmaster'. Evidently there must be someone behind the door who had seen Green in Klin.

The dark-haired gentlemen were released again almost immediately, and hurried back on to the platform, glancing round indignantly. But blonds and even redheads were not immune -they were also taken for checking. So the police had at least enough imagination to suspect that their wanted man might have dyed his hair.

However, they had lacked the imagination to picture Khrapov's killer turning up among the people who were meeting new arrivals, not seeing off departing passengers. The hall in which Green had taken up his post was peaceful and deserted. No police spies, and not a single blue uniform.

This was precisely what Green had been counting on when he set out to meet the nine o'clock express on which Ace was due to arrive. It was a risk, of course, but he preferred to handle all business contacts with the specialist himself.

The train arrived precisely on schedule, presenting Green with a surprise. Even before he saw Ace, Green spotted Julie in the stream of newcomers. It would have been hard not to notice those purple ostrich feathers swaying above the wide-brimmed fur hat. Julie stood out from the crowd like a bird of paradise in a flock of black-and-grey crows. She was followed by porters lugging along suitcases and hatboxes, and walking beside her with a light, dancing step was a handsome young man with his hands stuck in his pockets: a close-fitting coat with a beaver collar, an American hat, a black strip of neatly shaved moustache. Mr Ace, the expropriation specialist, in person.

Green waited for the glamorous couple to walk out on to the square and approach the cab stop, then followed them at a leisurely pace.

Walking up from behind, he asked: 'Julie, what are you doing here?'

Ace swung round sharply without taking his hands out of his pockets. Recognising Green, he nodded briefly.

But Julie had never been notable for her reserve. Her fresh, pretty face lit up in a happy smile. 'Greeny, darling, hello!' she exclaimed, throwing herself on Green's neck and planting a resounding kiss on his cheek. 'I'm so glad to see you!' And she added in a whisper: 'I'm so proud of you, and I was so worried about you. You know you're our greatest hero now, don't you?'

Ace twisted up his lips scornfully and said: 'Didn't want to bring her. Told her it was a business trip, not a pleasure party. But there's no talking sense to her.'

It was true. Julie was hard to argue with. When she really wanted something, she swooped like some exotic whirlwind, smothering you with her perfume, overwhelming you with a torrent of words, demanding, laughing, imploring and threatening all at the same time, and her mischievous dark-blue eyes glittered and sparkled with devilment. At an exhibition in Paris Green had seen a portrait of an actress by the fashionable artist Renoir. It could have been a picture of Julie - it looked exactly like her.

It would have been better for the job, kept matters simpler, if Ace had come alone. Nonetheless, Green was glad to see her. But this feeling was not right, so he knitted his brows and said, more sternly than necessary: 'You shouldn't have. At least don't get in the way.'

'When have I ever got in the way?' she asked, pouting prettily. 'I'll be as quiet as a teeny-weeny little mouse. You won't see me or hear me. Where are we going now? To an apartment or a hotel? I need to take a bath and tidy myself up. I'm sure I look a real fright.'

A fright was the last thing she looked like, as she knew perfectly well, so Green turned away and beckoned to a cabby. 'The Hotel Bristol.'

'Why not? - of course we can. Today if you like. If you can find me ten likely young blades,' Ace drawled lazily as he polished a manicured nail.

This affected air of laziness was evidently the apotheosis of bandit chic.

'Today?' Green asked suspiciously. Are you sure?' The specialist shrugged impassively: Ace never makes idle promises. We'll net half a million, at least.' 'Where? How?'

The bandit smiled and Green suddenly understood what Julie had seen in this flashy young buck: the broad smile revealed Ace's white teeth and lent his features an expression of boyish, harum-scarum devilment.

'I'll tell you where later. And how after that. First I have to take a sniff around. I've got two rich targets in Moscow covered: the treasury of the military district and the forwarding office of the state financial instruments depository. I have to choose. We can" take either of them, if we're not afraid of spilling a bit of blood. There are plenty of guards, but that's no real problem.'

'But can't you do it without bloodshed?' Julie asked.

She had already changed into a scarlet silk robe and let her hair down, but had not yet reached the bathroom. She had spurned the room booked for Ace by Green and the suitcases had been carried from the sleigh to a de luxe apartment on the piano nobile. That was her business. It was beyond Green's understanding what people found so enjoyable about luxury, but he felt no moral condemnation for this weakness.

'Better steal apples if you don't like blood,' Ace said dismissively getting to his feet. 'My share's one third. We'll go this evening. If the job's at the treasury - at half past five. If there's a delivery from the depository today, at five. Tell your men to gather at the meeting place. They'll need revolvers and bombs. And a sleigh - a light one, American-style. Smear the runners with pork fat. And a horse, of course - one that flies like a swallow. You be here. I'll be back in about three hours.'

When Ace left and Julie went to take her bath, Green twirled the handle of the Erickson telephone on the wall and asked the hotel telephonist to give him subscriber number 38-34. After the untidy evacuation from Ostozhenka Street he had made Needle tell him her number - contact via the post box was too slow for the present circumstances.

When he heard a woman's voice in the earpiece he said: 'It's me.'

'Hello, Mr Sievers,' Needle replied, using the agreed code name.

'The goods will be despatched today. It's a large delivery; all your employees will be required. They should go to the shop immediately and wait there. And they should bring their tools, the full set. We'll be needing a sleigh too. Fast and light.'

'That's all clear. I'll give instructions straight away' Needle's voice trembled with excitement. 'Mr Sievers, please, I'd like to ask you ... Can I not be involved? I would be a great help to you.'

Green said, nothing and looked out of the window, feeling annoyed. He had to refuse in a way that would not offend her.

'I don't think that's necessary,' he said at last. 'We have plenty of men, and you will be more useful if—'

He didn't finish, because at that moment two hot, naked arms gently wound themselves round his neck from behind. One unfastened a button and slid in under his shirt, the other stroked his cheek. He felt a warm breath tickling the back of his neck, then it was scorched by the touch of tender lips.

'I can't hear you,' the shrill voice squeaked in his ear. 'Mr Sievers, I can't hear you any more!'

The hand that had crept under the shirt began playing tricks that made Green catch his breath.

'... If you stay by the telephone ...' he said, forcing the words out with an effort.

'But I asked you specially! I told you that I possess all the requisite skills!' the earpiece persisted.

But in his other ear a low, chesty voice crooned: 'Greeny, darling. Come on ...'

'You ... Carry out your instructions,' Green mumbled into the mouthpiece and hung up.

Turning round, he saw a hot pink glow, and suddenly there was a fine crack in his secure steel shell. The crack spread rapidly, widening to release a torrent of something long ago locked away deep inside and forgotten, something that paralysed his mind and will.

The briefing began at half past two.

The barrister who owned the apartment where they gathered was presently in Warsaw, conducting the defence of a hussar who had shot an empty-headed actress out of scorned love. They were a large group - eleven men and one woman. One man spoke and the others listened - so attentively that the famous professor of history, Klyuchevsky himself, would have envied the orator.

The listeners were seated around him on chairs arranged along three walls of the barrister's study. Pinned to the fourth wall was a sheet of heavy paper, on which the instructor was drawing squares, circles and arrows in charcoal.

Green was already aware of the plan of action - Ace had told him about it on the way from the hotel - and so he was watching the listeners rather than the diagram. The arrangements were sensible and simple, but whether they would work depended entirely on those carrying them into effect, most of whom had never taken part in an ex and never even heard the whistle of bullets.

He could rely on Emelya, Rahmet and Ace himself. Bullfinch would do his best, but he was a greenhorn who had never smelled gunpowder. Green had no idea at all what sort of stuff the six lads from the Moscow combat squad were made of.

Green had seen two of them in the tea rooms on Maroseika Street: Nail, a worker from the Guzhonov plant, and Marat, a medical student. All they had managed to do there was give themselves away by staring too hard at Rahmet in their eagerness. The other four - Arsenii, Beaver, Schwartz and Nobel (the last two, both chemistry students, had chosen their aliases in honour of the inventors of gunpowder and dynamite) - looked scarcely more than boys. But they would be up against experienced guards. He hoped the guards wouldn't mow down the entire junior school.

Julie was sitting in the corner, with her eyebrows knitted in studious concentration. There was no reason at all for her to be there. As he looked at her, Green felt himself blushing, something that hadn't happened to him for more than ten years. With an effort of will, he drove the scorching memories of what had happened that day deeper, for analysis at some later time. His self-esteem and the strength of his protective shell had suffered substantial damage, but he was sure it could all be restored. He just had to think of a way. Not now. Later.

He cast a glance at Ace - not of guilt, but of appraisal. How would the specialist react if he knew? Obviously, the operation would be wrecked, since in the terms of criminal morality Ace had suffered a deadly insult. That was the main danger, Green told himself; but, glancing at Julie again, he suddenly had doubts: was it really? No, the main danger, of course, lay in her.

She had broken his steely will and iron discipline with ease. She was life itself, and everyone knew that life was stronger than any rules or dogmas. Grass grew through asphalt, water wore holes in rocks, a woman could soften the hardest of hearts. Especially a woman like that.

It had been a mistake to let Julie into the revolutionary movement. Mirthful pink playmates like that, who held out the promise of joyful oblivion, were not for the crusaders of the revolution. The travelling companions for them were steely-grey Amazons. Like Needle.

She was the one who ought to be sitting there, not Julie, who only distracted the men from the job with her bright plumage. But Needle had taken offence. She had brought the men to the apartment and left without waiting for Green. It was his fault again - he had spoken clumsily to her on the telephone.

'Well, why have you all pleated up your foreheads like accordions?' Ace laughed, wiping his dirty fingers on his black trousers of expensive English wool. 'Don't get the sulks, revolution! A hold-up needs gumption, not sour faces. You have to go at it cheerily, with your spirits up. And if anyone swallows a lead pellet, it means his time was up. Dying young is as sweet as honey. When you're old and sick it's frightening, but for one of us it's just like downing a glass of vodka on a frosty day: it stings, but not for long. You gulls don't even have to do much; Green and me will see to all the important stuff. And then it goes like this ...' - he turned to speak directly to Green. 'We sling the loot into the sleigh and scram, we go to the India Inn, where Julietta will be waiting for us. It's a trading place, a market; nobody will be surprised to see sacks there. While I'm driving the horse, you have to cover the official seals with plain sackcloth, no one will ever twig it's not bay leaves we're carrying, but six hundred grand. Once we're inside, we divvy up. Like we agreed: two for me, four for you. And then adieu, until we meet again, but not too soon. Ace will be on the spree for a long time with that kind of loot.' He winked at Julie. 'We'll go to Warsaw, then on to Paris and from there - anywhere you like.'

Julie smiled tenderly and affectionately at him, then smiled at Green in exacdy the same way. It was incredible, but Green could not read even a hint of guilt or embarrassment in her eyes.

'Now leave,' he said, getting to his feet. 'First Ace and Julie.

Then Nail and Marat. Then Schwartz, Beaver and Nobel.'

He gave them his final instructions as he saw them off in the hallway, trying to speak clearly, without swallowing his words.

'Throw the beam across at ten minutes to, no sooner and no later. Or the yard-keepers might roll it away ... Fire without breaking cover. Stick one hand out and blaze away. You don't need to shoot them, just deafen them and keep them busy ... The most important thing is that none of you should catch a bullet. There'll be no time to carry away any wounded. And we can't leave anyone behind. Anyone who's wounded and can't walk has to shoot himself. Do as Rahmet and Emelya tell you.'

When the last three had left, Green locked the door and was about to go back into the study when he suddenly noticed the corner of something white sticking out of the pocket of his black coat that was hanging on the hallstand.

Immediately realising what it was, he froze on the spot and instructed his heart not to falter in its rhythm. He took out the sheet of paper, lifted it up very close to his eyes (it was dark in the hallway) and read:

The city is sealed off by gendarmes. You must not show yourself at the railway stations and turnpikes. The blockade is under the command of Colonel Sverchinsky. Tonight he will be at the Nikolaevsky Station, in the duty stationmaster's office. Try to exploit this and strike to create a diversion.

And most important of all: beware of Rahmet, he is a traitor.

TG

Noting in passing that this note was not typed on an Underwood, like the previous ones, but on a Remington, Green began rubbing his forehead to make his brain work faster.

'Green, what are you doing out there?' he heard Emelya's voice call. 'Come here!'

'One moment!' he shouted back. 'I'll just go to the lavatory'

In the water closet he leaned against the marble wall and began counting off the points to consider, starting with the least important.

Where had the letter come from? When had it arrived? When Green went to the station he was wearing Rahmet's short coat, not his own black one - he had taken a bomb with him just in case, and Rahmet's coat had handy pockets. The black coat had been hanging on the hallstand all day long. That narrowed the circle somewhat. Everyone who was in St Petersburg could be excluded. And so could the Moscow lads - provided, of course, that TG was a single person, and not two or more. Perhaps this 'G' stood for 'group' too? Terrorist Group? Meaningless. All right, he'd think about it later.

Sverchinsky. It was an excellent idea - if not for the ex. Kill a high-ranking gendarme officer and at the same time divide the police's attention. A diversionary strike was just what was required. After all, the important thing was not to escape from Moscow themselves, but to get the money through. Time was short. But would they have enough men for both operations? That would only be clear after the ex.

And then he came to the most difficult thing in the note: the part underlined in blue pencil.

Rahmet, a traitor? Was that possible?

Yes, Green told himself. It was.

That would explain the glint of challenge and triumph in Rahmet's eyes. He hadn't been broken by the gendarmes, he was working his way into a new role. Mephistopheles, Dick Turpin or whoever he imagined himself to be.

But what if TG's information was wrong? TG had never been wrong before, but this was a matter of a comrade's life.

Since the day before, Green had made sure that Rahmet didn't leave the apartment. Today he had ordered Emelya to keep a close eye on the former Uhlan to see if he started acting suspiciously after his nocturnal escapade.

The plan had been to give Rahmet the riskiest job at the expropriation. What could be better than action for showing if a man was honest or not? But as things stood now, he couldn't take Rahmet to the ex.

Having reached his decision, Green pressed the copper knob of the flush mechanism, that latest innovation of sanitary technology, and walked out of the lavatory.

Rahmet, Emelya, Bullfinch and Arsenii, the son of the apartment's absent owner, were standing in front of the charcoal diagram.

Aha, at last,' said Bullfinch, his eyes aglow with excitement as he turned to Green. 'We're worried about whether you and Ace can manage. After all, there are only two of you, and there's an entire gang of us.'

'It's far too risky,' said Rahmet, supporting the boy. And then, aren't you trusting this Rocambole from a priest's family a bit too far? What if he does a flit with the money? Let me go with you, and Emelya can throw the bomb.'

'No, I'll throw the bomb!' Bullfinch exclaimed. 'Emelya has to give the lads their orders.'

Is it the danger he's afraid of, or something else? Green thought, about Rahmet. In a dry voice that brooked no objections, he said: Ace and I will manage, just the two of us. Emelya will throw the bomb. Once it's thrown, run round the corner. Don't wait for it to explode. Just yell first, so everyone knows you've thrown it. Get down behind the wall and tell them when to shoot. And Rahmet's not going to the expropriation.'

'What do you mean by that?' Rahmet exclaimed furiously.

'You can't go,' Green explained. 'It's your own fault. They're looking for you. All the police agents have your description. You'll only get us killed. Stay here, by the telephone.'

They moved off at a quarter past four - a little earlier than they were supposed to.

Outside in the yard, Green looked back.

Rahmet was standing at the window. He saw Green looking and waved.

They walked out of the gateway into the lane. 'Damn,' said Green. 'Forgot my cleaning rod. Got to have it -what if a cartridge gets stuck?'

Crimson-faced with excitement, Bullfinch chirped up: 'Let me run and get it. Where did you leave it? On the locker, right?' And he turned to dash off; but Emelya grabbed hold of his collar.

'Stop, you little hothead! You can't go back. This is your first operation - it's a bad sign.'

'Wait in the sleigh, I'll just be a moment,' Green said and turned back.

He didn't walk straight out into the yard; first he glanced out cautiously from the gateway. There was no one standing at the window.

He ran quickly across the yard and up the stairs to the piano nobile. The door had been specially oiled and it didn't squeak.

Leaving his boots on the staircase, he walked into the apartment without making a sound. He crept stealthily past the dining room and heard Rahmet's voice from the study, where the telephone was.

'Yes, yes, twelve, seventy-four. And quickly, please, miss, this is an urgent matter ... Security? Is that the Department of Security? I need—'

Green cleared his throat.

Rahmet dropped the mouthpiece and spun round.

For a moment his face looked odd - without any expression at all. Green realised Rahmet didn't know if the fatal words had been overheard and didn't know what part he ought to play -comrade or traitor. So that was what Rahmet's real face looked like. Blank. Like a classroom blackboard that has been cleaned with a dry rag, leaving dusty white smears.

But the face was only blank for a second. Rahmet realised that he had been found out, the corners of his mouth extended into a mocking leer and his eyes narrowed contemptuously.

'What is it, Greeny - don't trust your comrade-in-arms then? Well, well, I never expected that from an old softy like you. Why are you standing to attention like a little tin soldier?'

Green stood there stock-still with his arms at his sides and didn't even move a muscle when the cornflower-blue man snatched a Bulldog revolver out of his pocket.

'What are you doing here on your own?' Rahmet lisped, '- without Emelya or little Bullfinch? Or did you come to prick my conscience? The trouble is, Greeny old boy, I don't have a conscience. You know that. A pity, but now I'll have to eliminate you. Handing you in alive would have been far more impressive. What are you gawping at? I hate you, you blockhead.'

There was only one thing Green still had to find out - whether Rahmet had been collaborating with the Okhranka for a long time or had only been recruited yesterday.

He asked him: 'How long?'

'Let's say from the very beginning. You lifeless, long-faced bastards have made me feel sick for ages. And especially you, you thick-headed dolt! Yesterday I met a man far more interesting than you.'

'What does "TG" mean?' Green asked, just in case.

'Eh?' Rahmet said in surprise. 'What's that you say?'

There were no more questions, and Green didn't waste any more time. He flung the knife that was clutched in his right hand and dropped to the floor, to avoid being winged by a shot.

But there was no shot.

The Bulldog fell on the carpet as Rahmet clutched with both hands at the handle protruding from the left side of his chest. He lowered his head, gazing in amazement at the incongruous object, and tore it out of the wound. Blood flooded the entire front of his shirt; Rahmet stared round the room with blank, unseeing eyes and collapsed on to his face ...

'Let's go,' said Green, taking a running jump into the sleigh, flopping into his seat and then slipping the small chest under it. The chest held everything they needed: detonators, false documents, spare guns. 'The rod fell under a chair. Barely managed to find it. Together as far as Khludovsky Lane. You get out there, I go on to meet Ace. And one more thing: don't come back here. After the ex, go to the lineman's place. And Arsenii too.'

Ace was already strolling along the pavement dressed as an undistinguished commercial traveller in a beaver-skin peaked cap, short coat, checked trousers and foppish white-felt boots. Green was dressed, as they had agreed, like a shop assistant. 'Where the hell have you been?' the specialist shouted at Green, getting into his role. 'Tether the horse over there and get yourself over here.'

When Green came close, the bandit winked and said in a low voice: 'Well, you and I make a right pair. When I was still a young 'un I used to like fleecing geese like us. If only you could see Julietta - you'd never recognise her. I dolled her up like a real common little lady, so they wouldn't gape at her in the India. What a ruckus - a real scandal! Didn't want to make herself look ugly, no way she didn't.'

Green turned away in order not to waste time on idle conversation. He surveyed their position and decided it was ideal. The specialist knew his job all right.

Narrow Nemetskaya Street, along which the carriage would arrive, ran in a straight line all the way from Kukuisky Bridge. They'd be able to see the convoy from a distance, and there'd be plenty of time to take a good look and get ready.

Lying across the road just in front of the crossroads was a long timber beam of exactly the right thickness - a man on horseback would ride by without any trouble, but a sleigh would have to stop. Fifty paces further back on the right there was a gap between the buildings: Somovsky Cul-de-Sac. The gunmen should be there already, waiting in ambush behind the stone wall of the churchyard. A head appeared round the corner: Emelya, taking a look.

Ace's plan was a good one - sound and simple: there was no reason to expect any complications.

It wasn't quite getting dark yet, but the light at the edges of the sky was already dimming slighdy, turning a murky grey. In half an hour the twilight would thicken, but by then the operation would already be over, and darkness would be very handy for the disengagement.

'It's five o'clock,' Ace announced, clicking shut the lid of an expensive watch on a thick platinum chain. 'They're just leaving the despatch room. We'll see them in about five minutes.'

He was taut and collected, his eyes sparkling merrily. Fate had played a cruel joke on the archpriest by planting a wolf cub like that in his family. Green was suddenly struck by an interesting theoretical question: what was to be done with characters like Ace in a free, harmonious society? Nature would still carry on producing a certain proportion of them, wouldn't she? And innate natural traits couldn't always be corrected by nurture.

There would still be dangerous professions, he thought; people with an adventurous bent would still be needed. That was where Ace and his kind would come in useful: for exploring the depths of the sea, conquering impregnable mountain peaks, testing flying machines. And later, after about another fifty years, there would be other planets to explore. There would be plenty of work for everyone.

'Clear off!' Ace shouted at a yard-keeper who was grunting as he struggled to roll the beam aside. 'That's ours; the cart'll be back in a minute to pick it up. Ah, these people, always looking for something they can pick up without paying for it.'

Faced with this furious assault, the yard-keeper withdrew behind his iron gates, leaving the street completely deserted.

'The money's coming; our little darlings are on their way,' Ace drawled in an unctuous voice. 'You get across to the other side. And don't go too early. Take your lead from me.'

At first all they could see was a long, dark blob; then they could make out individual figures - everything was exactly as Ace had said it would be.

At the front - two mounted guards with carbines over their shoulders.

Behind them - the despatch office's financial instruments carriage: a large enclosed sleigh, with a driver and two other men, a constable and a delivery agent.

Riding beside the carriage - more armed guards, two on the right, two on the left. And bringing up the rear of the convoy was a sleigh, which they couldn't make out clearly from where they were standing. It ought to be carrying another four guards with carbines.

Emelya came out from round the corner and leaned against the wall, watching the procession as it passed by. He was holding a small package: the bomb.

Green stroked the fluted handle of his Colt with his finger as he waited for the front riders to notice the beam and come to a halt. The clock above the pharmacy showed nine minutes past five.

The horses stepped indifferently over the barrier and ran on, but the driver of the carriage roared out 'Whoah!' and pulled hard on his reins.

'Where are you going?' the constable yelled, half-rising to his feet. 'Can't you see that beam? Dismount and drag it out of the way. And you give a hand too,' he added, nudging the driver.

Once he saw the convoy had halted, Emelya began strolling slowly towards the final sleigh from behind, like a curious onlooker.

When the two guards and the driver bent over and grabbed hold of the beam, Emelya took a short run, hurled his bundle and shouted in daredevil style: 'Hey-up!' He had to shout so that the guards would realise who had thrown the bomb. That was crucial for the plan.

Before the bundle had even touched the ground or the guards had realised what this strange object flying towards them was, Emelya had already spun round and set off back towards the corner.

The boom wasn't particularly loud, because the bomb was only half as powerful as an ordinary one. The power to kill wasn't needed here; this was only a demonstration. A powerful blast would have stunned the guards, or concussed them, but right now they had to have their wits about them and be quick on their feet.

A bomber!' the constable yelled, looking back over the top of the carriage. 'There he goes - ducked round the corner!'

So far everything was going according to plan. The four men sitting in the sleigh (not one of them had been hurt by the blast) jumped out one after another and went dashing after Emelya. The other four, who were still sitting in their saddles, swung their horses round and set off whistling and hallooing in the same direction.

The only armed men left near the carriage were the two who had dismounted, now caught with the beam clutched in their hands, and the constable. The driver and the delivery agent didn't count.

Just a second after the pursuers turned into the cul-de-sac, a sharp crackle of revolver shots came from round the corner. The guards would be too busy to think about the carriage now. They would be stunned by the gunfire and their own fear; they would just lie down and start blazing away.

Now it was up to Ace and Green.

They stepped into the roadway almost simultaneously, each from his own side of the street. Ace shot one guard twice in the back and Green struck the other on the back of his head with the butt of his revolver - with Green's strength that was enough. The beam dropped on to the trampled snow with a dull thud and rolled away a little distance. The driver squatted down on his haunches, covered his ears with his hands and started howling quietly.

Green waved his revolver at the constable and the delivery agent, who were sitting on the coach-box, transfixed. 'Get down. Look lively'

The agent pulled his head right down into his shoulders and jumped down clumsily, but the constable couldn't make up his mind whether to surrender or carry out his duty: he raised one hand as if he were surrendering, but fumbled blindly at his holster with the other.

'Don't play the fool,' said Green. 'I'll shoot you.'

The constable flung his second hand up in the air, but Ace fired anyway. The bullet hit the constable in the middle of his face, transforming his nose into a blackish-red hole, and the constable collapsed backwards with a strange sob, slapping his arms against the ground.

Ace grabbed hold of the delivery agent's coat collar and dragged him to the back of the carriage: 'Open it, serviceman, if you want to live!'

'I can't, I haven't got a key,' the agent whispered through lips white from terror.

Ace shot him in the forehead, stepped over his body and smashed the sealed lock with another two bullets.

There were six sacks inside, just as they had been told there would be. Green hastily scratched the letters 'CG' on the carriage door with the handle of his Colt. Let them know.

While they were carrying the loot to the sleigh, he asked as he ran: 'Why did you have to kill him? And the other one had surrendered too.'

'No one stays alive if he can identify Ace,' the specialist hissed through clenched teeth, tossing another sack over his shoulder.

The driver, who was still squatting down, heard what he said and made a run for it, hunched over.

Ace dropped his load and fired after him, but missed, and before he could fire again Green knocked the gun out of his hand.

'What are you doing?' The bandit clutched at his bruised wrist. 'He'll bring the police!'

'It doesn't matter. The job's done. Give the signal.'

Ace swore and whistled piercingly three times, and the shooting in the cul-de-sac was immediately cut by half - the whistle was the sign that the gunmen could stop firing.

The horse set off at a gallop with its studded hooves clattering and the light sleigh, not at all encumbered by its paper load, slid off weightlessly along the icy roadway.

Green looked back

A few dark, shapeless heaps on the ground. Orphaned horses nuzzling at them. The empty carriage with its doors ajar. The clock above the pharmacy. Twelve minutes after five.

That meant the expropriation had taken less than three minutes.

The India Inn stood on a dingy depressing square beside the Spice Market. A long, single-storey building - not much to look at, but it had a good stable and its own goods warehouse. This was where merchants stayed when they came to Moscow for cinnamon, vanilla, cloves and cardamoms. The entire area around the Spice Market was impregnated with exotic aromas that set your head spinning, and if you closed your eyes to blot out the snowdrifts stained yellow by horses' urine and the lopsided little houses of this artisans' quarter, you could easily imagine that you really were in India, with sumptuous palm trees waving overhead, elephants swaying gracefully as they strolled past, and a sky that was the colour it ought to be: an unfathomable, dense blue, instead of the grey and white of Moscow.

Ace's calculations were right yet again. When Green walked into the hotel carrying two heavy sacks, nobody gave him a second glance. A man carrying samples of his wares - nothing out of the ordinary there. How could anyone possibly guess that what the dark-haired shop assistant was carrying in his sacks was not spices for trading but two hundred thousand roubles' worth of brand-new banknotes - while they were driving from Nemetskaya Street, Green had covered the sealing-wax eagles and dangling lead seals with plain, ordinary sackcloth.

Julie looked strange in a cheap drap-de-dame dress, with her hair set in a simple bun at the back of her head. She flung herself on his neck, scorching his cheek with her hot breath, and murmured: 'Thank God, you're alive ... I was so worried, I was really shaking ... That's the money, right? So everything's all right, is it? What about our men? Are they all safe and well? Where's Ace?'

Green had had time to prepare himself, so he bore the rapid, ticklish kisses without a shudder. Apparently that was perfectly possible.

'On guard,' he replied calmly. 'Now we'll bring in two more each, and that's it.'

When they brought in the remaining four sacks, Julie rushed to kiss Ace in exactly the same way, and Green was finally convinced that the danger had passed. He wouldn't be caught out again; his willpower would withstand even this test.

'Do you want to count it?' he asked. 'If not, choose any two. We'll take four to the sleigh and I'll go.'

'No, no!' Julie exclaimed. She kissed her lover on the lips once again and dashed over to the window sill. 'I knew everything would be all right. Look, I've got a bottle of Cliquot cooling outside. We have to raise a glass.'

Ace walked over to the sacks lying on the floor. He swung his foot and kicked them one at a time, as if he were checking how tightly they were packed. Then he turned slightly and swung his foot, with the same springy movement, but three times as hard, straight into Green's crotch.

For an instant the sudden pain made everything go dark. Green doubled over and another crushing blow landed on the back of his head. He saw the floorboards right in front of his eyes. He must have fallen.

He knew how to handle pain, even pain as sharp as this. He had to take three convulsive breaths in, forcing the breath back out each time, and disconnect the zone of pain from his physical awareness. Once he used to spend a lot of time practising with fire (burning the palm of his hand, the inside of his elbow, the back of his knee) and he had completely mastered this difficult art.

But the blows were still raining down - on his ribs, his shoulders, his head.

‘I’ll kill you, you louse,' Ace kept repeating. ‘I’ll trample you into manure! Trying to make a gull out of me!'

There was no time to fight the pain. Green turned into the next blow and took it in his stomach, but he grabbed the felt boot and kept hold of it. From close up the boot didn't look so white: it was smeared with mud and spattered with blood. He jerked it towards himself, knocking Ace off his feet.

He let go of the boot so that his fingers could reach Ace's throat, but his adversary rolled aside and dodged out of the way.

They jumped to their feet at the same moment, face to face.

It was bad that his revolver was still in the pocket of his coat. There it was, hanging on the hallstand - a long way away, and it was pointless in any case: he couldn't fire in the room, it would bring everyone in the hotel running.

Julie froze motionless by the wall, with her eyes staring in horror and her mouth open, one hand clutching the bottle of champagne while the fingers of the other automatically tore away the gold foil.

'You bloody bitch,' the bandit said with an angry smile.

"Thought you'd swap your Ace for a spot card, did you? Take a look at him, the ugly freak. He looks like a corpse.'

'You imagined it all, Ace,' Julie babbled in a quavering voice, '- imagined the whole thing. Nothing happened.'

'Don't lie. "Nothing happened"! Ace has the eye of a falcon where treason's concerned -1 can sense it straight away. That's why I'm still walking around and not rotting in jail.'

The specialist leaned down and pulled a knife with a long, slim blade out of his boot.

'Now I'm going to carve you up, dead-eyes. Slowly, one little scrap at a time.'

Green wiped his split eyebrow with his sleeve so that the blood wouldn't blind him and held out his bare hands. He'd used his knife on Rahmet. Never mind; he could manage without a knife.

Ace moved closer, taking little steps, easily dodged a right hook and ran his knife across Green's wrist. Red drops began falling to the floor. Julie howled.

'That's for your starters,' Ace promised.

Green said: 'Quiet, Julie. You mustn't scream.'

He tried to catch hold of his opponent by the collar, but again only grabbed empty air and the sharp blade ran through his undershirt and stung his side.

'And that's for the soup.'

With his left hand Ace grabbed a carafe off the table and flung it. To avoid it hitting his head, Green had to duck down, losing sight of the specialist for a moment. The knife immediately took its opportunity, whizzing past right beside his ear, which was suddenly aflame, as if the contact had set it on fire. Green raised his hand - the top of his ear was dangling by a thin strip of skin. He tore it off and threw it into the corner. Something hot streamed down his neck.

'That was the meat course,' Ace explained. 'And now we'll get to the dessert.'

Green had to change his tactics. He retreated to the wall and stood there motionless. He had to ignore the knife. Let it cut. Throw himself towards the blade, seize his opponent's chin with one hand and the top of his head with the other, then twist sharply. Like in 1884, in the fights in the Tyumen transit prison.

But Ace was in no hurry to come at him now. He stopped three steps away, shuffling his fingers, and the knife flickered through them like a glittering snake.

All right, Julietta, now who do you choose?' he asked derisively. 'Do you want me to leave him for you? Never mind that he's all battered and cut up, you can lick his wounds for him. Or will you go with me? I've got money now, heaps of it. We could leave old Mother Russia and never come back.'

'I choose you, you,' Julie answered immediately, sobbing and rushing towards Ace 'I don't want him. It was just playing a game - seeing if I could do it. Forgive me, Acey, my sweet, you know the way I am. Compared to you he's nothing, just slobbered all over me, nothing interesting at all. Kill him. He's dangerous. He'll set all the revolutionaries on your tail; there'll be nowhere in Europe you can hide.'

The bandit winked at Green.

'Do you hear the smart woman's advice? Naturally, I was going to finish you off anyway. But you can thank Julietta for one thing. You'll go quick. I was going to play with you a bit longer - slit your nose and your eyes

The specialist didn't finish. The green bottle descended on his head with a crunch and he collapsed at Green's feet.

Ai! Ai! Ai! Ai!' Julie screeched shrilly, at regular intervals, staring in fright, first at the broken neck of the bottle, then at the man on the floor, then at the blood frothing up as it mingled with the spilled champagne.

Green stepped over the motionless body, took Julie by the shoulders and shook her firmly.

CHAPTER 7

in which the investigation is right back where it started

Erast Petrovich had intended to make a start on the search the very first thing on Tuesday morning, but he failed to make an early start, because his female guest once again spent the night at the outhouse on Malaya Nikitskaya Street.

Esfir turned up without any warning, after midnight, when the State Counsellor was walking around his study, counting his beads. His visitor had a determined air, and she didn't waste any time on conversation - right there in the hallway, without even taking off her sable cloak, she put her arms around Erast Petro-vich's neck and gave him a tight hug; and naturally it was quite some time before he was able to concentrate on his deductions again.

In fact, he only managed to get back to work in the morning, when Esfir was still asleep. Fandorin slipped quietly out of bed, sat in an armchair and tried to restore the broken thread of his thought. The results were not very good. His beloved jade beads, which disciplined the workings of his mind with their rigorous, crisp clicking, had been left behind in the study; and walking to and fro, so that the movement of his muscles would stimulate the activity of his brain, was too risky - the slightest sound would wake Esfir. And he could hear Masa snuffling behind the door -the servant was waiting patiently for the moment when he and his master could do their gymnastic exercises.

Difficult circumstances are no hindrance to the superior man in contemplating higher things, the State Counsellor reminded himself, recalling a maxim from the great sage of the Orient. As if she had overheard the phrase 'difficult circumstances', Esfir stuck her bare arm out from under the blanket and ran her hand over the pillow beside her. Finding nobody there, she moaned pitifully, but still unawares, without waking up. Even so, he had to think quickly.

Diana, Fandorin decided - he should start with her. The other lines of enquiry were already taken in any case.

The mysterious female collaborator had links to the Office of Gendarmes and the Okhranka, and the revolutionaries. Very probably she was a traitor to them all. An entirely amoral individual and, moreover, judging from Sverchinsky and Burlyaev's behaviour, not only in a political sense. But then, it seemed, did it not, that in revolutionary circles the view taken of relations between the sexes was more liberal than the general view in society?

Erast Petrovich cast a glance of vague misgiving at the sleeping beauty. The scarlet lips moved, shaping soundless words, the long black eyelashes trembled, the two moist embers framed between them flared up brightly and were not extinguished again. Esfir opened her eyes wide, saw Fandorin and smiled.

'What are you doing?' she asked in a voice hoarse from sleep. 'Come here.'

'I'd like t-to ask you ...' he began, then hesitated and broke off in embarrassment.

Was it fitting to exploit personal relationships to gather information for his investigation?

Ask.' She yawned, sat up on the bed and stretched sweetly, so that the blanket slipped down and Erast Petrovich had to make a serious effort not to be distracted.

He resolved his moral dilemma as follows.

Of course he should not ask about Diana. Even less should he ask about the revolutionary groups - in any case, Esfir was hardly likely to be involved in any serious anti-government activity. But it was permissible for him to extract information of a quite general, one might say sociological, nature.

'Tell me, Esfir, is it t-true that the women in revolutionary circles take... an absolutely free view of amorous relationships?'

She burst into laughter, pulling her knees up to her chin and clasping them in her arms. 'I knew it! How predictable and bourgeois you are after all. If a woman hasn't acted out the proper performance of unavailability for you, you're ready to suspect she is debauched and promiscuous. "Oh, sir, I am not that kind of girl! Phoo, how disgusting! No, no, no, only after the wedding!'" she mocked in a repulsive, lisping voice. "That's how you want us to behave. But of course - the laws of capitalism apply, don't they? If you wish to sell your commodity for a good price, first you have to make it desirable, set the buyer's mouth watering. But I am not a commodity, Your Honour. And you are not a buyer.' Esfir's eyes blazed with righteous indignation and her slim hand sliced through the air menacingly. 'We women of the new age are not ashamed of our nature and we choose for ourselves who to love. There's one girl in our circle. The men all run a mile from her, because the poor thing is so terribly ugly -a real fright, an absolute nightmare. But for her intelligence she gets far more respect than all the great beauties. She says that free love is not lustful sin but the union of two equal beings -naturally, a temporary union, because it is the nature of feelings to be inconstant; you can't incarcerate them for life. And you don't need to be afraid that I'll try to drag you to the altar. I shall drop you soon anyway. You're not my type at all, and in general you're absolutely awful! I want to gorge myself until I've had enough and I'm finally disillusioned with you. Well, what are you gaping at? Come here immediately!'

Masa must have been listening at the door, because at that very moment it opened a little and a round head with narrow eyes was thrust into the room through the crack.

'Goo' morin',' the head said with a joyful, beaming smile.

'Go to hell with your gymnastics!' Esfir exclaimed resolutely, flinging a well-aimed pillow at the head; but Masa bore the blow without flinching.

'Letter from impotan' gen'man,' he declared, holding up a long white envelope.

'Impotan' gen'man' was what the Japanese called the Governor General, so the reason for his intrusion had to be accepted as legitimate. Erast Petrovich opened the envelope and took out a card bearing a gold crest.

Most of the text was printed; only the name and the note at the bottom were written in His Excellency's regular, old-fashioned hand.

My dear Erast Petrovich

On the occasion of Butter Week and the forthcoming festival of Shrovetide, I request your company for pancakes.

The cordial supper in an intimate circle will commence at midnight. Gentlemen invited are requested not to trouble themselves by wearing uniform. Ladies are free to choose a dress at their own discretion.

Vladimir Dolgorukoi

Erast Petrovich you must come. You can tell me how our business is going.

And do bring your new flame -it is an unofficial supper and as an old man I am curious to see her.

'What is it?' Esfir asked, disgruntled, '-a summons from the terrible Tsar? Tie a dog's head to your saddle and ride off to work - severing heads?'

'Not at all,' Fandorin replied. 'It's an invitation to pancakes at the Governor General's residence. Listen.'

He read it out loud, naturally omitting the handwritten note. Fandorin was not at all surprised by how well informed the prince was concerning the private lives of his aides - all the years they had worked together had accustomed him to that.

'You know, we could g-go together if you like,' he said, absolutely certain that the only way Esfir would go to the Governor General's residence for pancakes was wearing shackles and under armed escort.

'What does "an intimate circle" mean?' she asked, wrinkling up her nose squeamishly. 'Is it just the sultan and his viziers and the especially trustworthy eunuchs?'

'Shrovetide pancakes at the prince's house are a tradition,' Fandorin explained. 'It has been going on for more than twenty years. 'An intimate circle" means seventy or eighty close officials and honoured citizens with their wives. They spend the whole night sitting there eating, drinking and dancing. Nothing interesting about it. I always leave early.'

And can I really wear any dress I like?' Esfir asked pensively, not looking at Erast Petrovich, but gazing off somewhere into space.

Having taking his leave of Esfir until the evening, Fandorin tried several times to call the telephone number that Lieutenant Colonel Burlyaev had given to the operator two days before, but there was no reply, and Erast Petrovich began wondering if perhaps he ought to take advantage of the female agent's absence to carry out a secret search of the townhouse on Arbat Street.

He gathered together the necessary assortment of tools and then telephoned again, just to make certain, and the earpiece suddenly responded in the American manner, with a long, drawling whisper: 'Hel-lo?'

Against all his expectations, Diana failed to recall that the State Counsellor had been declared persona non grata and immediately agreed to a meeting.

Nor was Fandorin obliged on this occasion to wait in front of a locked door. After ringing the bell, he pushed on the brass handle and, to his surprise, the door yielded - apparently it had been unlocked in advance.

Erast Petrovich followed the familiar route up the steps into the mezzanine, knocked on the door of the study and entered without waiting for an answer.

Just like the previous time, the thin curtains were tightly drawn and the woman on the divan was wearing a hat with a veil.

The State Counsellor bowed and was about to sit in an armchair, but the woman beckoned him.

'Over here. It's hard to whisper right across the room.'

'Do you not find all these precautions excessive?' Fandorin could not resist asking the question, although he knew it was not a good idea to annoy his hostess. 'It would be quite enough for me not to be able to see your face.'

'No-o,' Diana murmured. 'My sound is a rustle, a whisper, a hiss. My element is shade, darkness, silence. Sit down, sir. We shall make quiet conversation and in the pauses listen to the stillness.'

'As you wish.'

Erast Petrovich seated himself side on to the lady, some slight distance away from her, and tried to make out at least some features of her face through the veil. Alas, the room was too dark for that.

'Are you aware that in progressive young people's circles you are now regarded as an intriguing individual?' the collaborator asked derisively. 'Your intervention in darling Pyotr Ivanovich's operation the day before yesterday has split my revolutionary friends into two camps. Some see you as a state official of a new type, the first herald of forthcoming liberal changes. While others...'

'What d-do the others say?'

'The others say that you should be eliminated, because you are more cunning and dangerous than the stupid sleuths from the Okhranka. But don't be alarmed.' Diana touched Erast Petrovich gendy on the shoulder. 'You have an intercessor -Firochka Litvinova - and after that evening she has the reputation of a true heroine. Ah, handsome men can always find women to intercede for them.'

There was the sound of muffled, almost soundless laughter, which produced a distinctly unpleasant impression on the State Counsellor.

'Is it true what our people say - that Larionov was executed by the CG?' Diana asked, inclining her head inquisitively. 'It had been rumoured that he was an agent provocateur. In any case, our people no longer mention his name. A taboo - the kind that primitive savages have. Was he really a collaborator?'

Erast did not answer, because something else had occurred to him. Now it was clear why Esfir had never mentioned the deceased engineer.

'Tell me, my lady, do you know a female individual who goes by the alias Needle?'

'Needle? I've never heard it before. What is she like?'

Fandorin repeated what he had heard from Rahmet-Gvidon. 'She looks about thirty. Thin. Tall. Plain ... I think that's all.'

'Well, we have plenty like that. I might know her by name, but in conspiratorial circles she is known by her alias. My connections are extensive, Monsieur Fandorin, but not deep; they do not reach into the depths of the underground. Who told you about this Needle?'

Again he did not answer. It was time to approach the most important question.

'You are an unusual woman, Diana,' Erast Petrovich began with affected enthusiasm. 'At our last m-meeting you made a quite indelible impression on me, and I have been thinking about you ever since. I think this is the first time I have met a genuine femme fatale who can make respectable grown men lose their heads and neglect their duty'

'Go on, go on,' whispered the woman with no face and no voice. 'It's a pleasure to listen to such words.'

'I can see that you have driven Burlyaev and Sverchinsky completely insane, and they are very sober and serious gentlemen. They are consumed with burning jealousy for each other. And I am sure that on both sides their suspicions are not unfounded. How elegantly you toy with these two men, who are feared by the whole of Moscow! You are a bold woman. Others only speak of free love, but you preach it with your entire life.'

She laughed in gratification, throwing her head back. 'There is no such thing as love. There is only the human being, living alone and dying alone. There is nothing and nobody who can share that solitude. And it is not possible for anyone to merge completely into anyone else's life. But you can play at someone else's life, taste it. You are an intelligent man, Mr Fandorin, I can be entirely frank with you. You see, by vocation I am an actress. I should be glittering on the stage in the finest theatres, rousing my public to tears and laughter, but... the circumstances of life have prevented me from using my talent for its true purpose.'

'Which circumstances?' Erast Petrovich enquired cautiously.

'Do you mean your noble origins? I have heard that you come from good society.'

'Yes, something of the kind,' Diana replied after a pause. 'But I have no regrets. Playing at life is far more interesting than playing on the stage. With stupid young people who have crammed their heads full of pernicious literature, I play one part; with Burlyaev I play another, and with Sverchinsky I play a different one again... I am more fortunate than many people, Mr Fandorin. I am never bored.'

'I understand the difference between the roles of a nihilist and a collaborator, but do you really have to behave differently with the gendarme colonel Sverchinsky and the gendarme lieutenant colonel Burlyaev?'

'Oho, you obviously understand nothing at all about the theatre.' She fluttered her hands rapturously. 'The two roles are quite different. Shall I tell you how to be successful with men? Do you think beauty is required? By no means! How can I be beautiful if you cannot even see my face? It is all very simple. You have to understand what a man is like and play a contrasting part. It is like electricity: opposite charges attract. Take Pyotr Ivanovich, now. He is a strong, coarse individual, inclined to direct action and force. With him I am weak, feminine, vulnerable. Add to that professional interest, a whiff of the mystery to which men are so partial - and poor Burlyaev becomes soft putty in my hands.'

Erast Petrovich sensed that he was very close to the goal - he must not make a false step now.

And Sverchinsky?'

'Oh, he is entirely different. Cunning, cautious, suspicious. With him I am open-hearted, carefree, a little crude. I have already mentioned professional interest and mystery - those are essential components. Would you believe that last week Stanislav Filippovich went down on his knees in front of me and begged me to tell him if I was intimately involved with Burlyaev? I threw him out and told him not to show his face until he was summoned. Not bad for a "collaborator", ah? The top gendarme in the entire province, and I have him dancing like a performing poodle!'

So there he had his first result: Sverchinsky had not been here since last week, and so Diana could not have received any information about Khrapov's arrival from him.

'Brilliant!' the State Counsellor said approvingly. 'So the unfortunate Stanislav Filippovich has b-been in exile for an entire week? Poor fellow! No wonder he's so furious. The field was left open for the Department of Security'

'Oh no!' the femme fatale gasped, quite overcome by her own quiet laughter. 'That's the whole point! I gave Burlyaev his marching orders for a week too! - so that he would think I had chosen Sverchinsky over him!'

Erast Petrovich knitted his brows and asked: 'And in actual fact?'

'In actual fact...' The collaborator leaned closer and whispered confidentially 'In actual fact I had the usual woman's troubles and was in any case obliged to take a break from both my lovers!*

The State Counsellor involuntarily started back, and Diana broke into an even more intense fit of merriment, hissing and whistling in delight at the effect she had produced.

'You are a very sensitive and proper gentleman, you adhere to strict rules, and therefore I try to intrigue you with my cynicism and violations of the conventions,' the frustrated actress blithely confessed. 'However, I am not doing it for any practical purpose, but solely out of my love of art. My woman's problems are over now, but you, Monsieur Fandorin, have no reason to hope for anything. There is no point in your trilling like a nightingale and showering me with compliments. You are simply not my type at all.'

Erast Petrovich got up off the divan, overwhelmed by horror, hurt feelings and disappointment.

The initial feeling was horror: how could this nightmarish creature have imagined that he was attempting to win her favours!

The hurt feelings came with the recollection that this was the second time today a woman had told him he was not her type.

But the strongest feeling, of course, was disappointment: Diana could not have been the channel through which the leak had occurred.

'I assure you, madam, that you are completely m-mistaken as far as I am concerned,' the State Counsellor said coolly and walked towards the door, to the accompaniment of rustling, muffled laughter.

Shortly after four Fandorin drove on to Bolshoi Gnezdikovksy Lane in a morose and depressed state of mind.

The only promising theory left for him to explore had collapsed in a totally ignominious fashion and now nothing remained for him but to play the pitiful role of a sponger. The State Counsellor was not accustomed to feeding on crumbs from others' tables and the anticipation of humiliation had put him in a foul mood; but nonetheless it was absolutely essential for him to obtain some information about the progress of the investigation, for that night he would have to report to the Governor General.

The Department of Security seemed to have been depopulated. There was not a single agent in the duty room on the ground floor - only a police sergeant and a clerk.

Zubtsov was languishing in the reception room upstairs. He was quite delighted to see Erast Petrovich: 'Mr State Counsellor! Do you have anything?'

Fandorin shook his head glumly.

'We haven't come up with anything either,' the young man sighed, casting a despondent sideways glance at the telephone. 'Would you believe it, we've been sitting here all day, glued to the spot, waiting for some word from Gvidon - Mr Pozharsky and myself

'He's here?' Erast Petrovich asked in surprise.

'Yes, and he's very calm. I'd go so far as to say he's quite placid - sitting in Pyotr Ivanovich s office reading magazines. The Lieutenant Colonel has gone to the student hostel on Dmitrovka Street to interrogate suspects. Evstratii Pavlovich has taken his wild men and, in his own words, they've "gone off gathering mushrooms and berries". Sverchinsky went to make the rounds of all the turnpikes this morning and for some reason feels it necessary to telephone from every one of them. I don't even inform the prince any more. This evening the indefatigable Stanislav Filippovich is going to check in person on his men's work at the railway stations, and he intends to spend the night at the Nikolaevsky - how's that for professional zeal!' Zubtsov smirked ironically. 'Showing the new boss how energetic he is. Only the prince is no fool; you can't deceive him with sham diligence.'