Fandorin 1-10

‘No, sir, I do not use f-fixative,’ Fandorin replied politely, looking up at the young man and not making the slightest attempt to move away.

‘My God, what eyelashes you have!’ the adjutant sighed. ‘I think I would give absolutely anything for long black eyelashes like that, curved at the end. Is that your natural colour?’

‘Absolutely natural,’ Erast Petrovich assured him no less amiably.

At this point I interrupted this outlandish conversation and invited the state counsellor to follow me.

It is amazing, but on finding himself face to face with such a large number of members of the royal family, Erast Petrovich Fandorin betrayed not the slightest sign of discomfiture. The light but perfectly respectful bow that seemed to be addressed to all present but at the same time primarily to His Majesty would have done credit to a plenipotentiary ambassador extraordinary from some great power.

Kirill Alexandrovich, who had only just been extolling Fandorin’s virtues, began abruptly, without any words of greeting, in what I thought was a rather hostile manner: ‘Tell us what you know about Doctor Lind and about this whole business in general.’

Fandorin inclined his head as if to indicate that he understood the request, but what he said was not at all what they were expecting. The gaze of his cold blue eyes slid across the faces of the men sitting there and halted on the sheet of paper lying in the middle of the table.

‘I see a l-letter has arrived. May I familiarise myself with its contents?’

‘I warned you what an impudent beggar he is!’ Simeon Alexandrovich exclaimed indignantly, but Fandorin did not even glance in his direction.

Kirill Alexandrovich took no notice of what he had said either.

‘Yes, Georgie, read the letter out loud. Every word is important here.’

‘Yes, yes,’ His Majesty put in. ‘I would like to hear it again too.’

With an air of disgust, Georgii Alexandrovich picked the sheet of paper up off the table and began reading out the message, which was written in French:

Messieurs Romanovs,

I offer you an advantageous arrangement: a little Romanov prince weighing ten kilograms for a little Count Orlov weighing 190 carats. The exchange will take place tomorrow, and do not take it into your heads to palm me off with a fake – I have my own jeweller. If you accept, give your reply at precisely noon from the semaphore apparatus at the Alexandriisky Palace. If you do not accept, the prince will be returned to you immediately. In pieces.

Yours sincerely,

Doctor Lind

PS I enclose the code for the light signal.

I had just begun to pour His Majesty’s coffee, and I froze with the coffee pot in my hand, in my shock even spilling a few drops on to the floor, which had never happened to me before. The monstrousness of the letter had exceeded my very worst fears. His Highness in pieces? Oh my God, my God!

‘What semaphore is this?’ That was the only thing that interested Fandorin in this nightmarish missive.

It is improper to ask questions in the presence of His Majesty, but not only did the sovereign react indulgently to such a flagrant violation of etiquette, he actually replied himself, with his distinctive unfailing courtesy: ‘An old light semaphore. Installed on the roof of the palace in my great-grandfather’s time, and during my grandfather’s reign it was fitted with electric lights for use in the dark and during overcast weather. Light signals sent from the semaphore can be seen from almost any point in the city.’

Instead of thanking His Majesty for his most gracious explanation, as a faithful subject ought to do, Fandorin merely nodded thoughtfully and asked: ‘“Orlov”. Presumably we must take that to mean the diamond that adorns the imperial sceptre?’

‘Yes,’ His Majesty confirmed laconically. ‘The diamond that Count Orlov bought in Amsterdam in 1773 on the instructions of Catherine the Great.’

‘Impossible, absolutely unthinkable,’ Simeon Alexandrovich snapped. ‘The solemn presentation of the state regalia takes place in five days’ time, and the coronation is two days after that. Without the sceptre the ceremony cannot go on. Let him have any amount of money but not the Orlov, under no circumstances.’

As one man they all turned towards Georgii Alexandrovich, whose opinion as the father was especially important in this matter.

And the grand duke proved worthy of his position and his rank. Tears sprang to his eyes, his hand tugged spontaneously at his tight collar, but His Highness’s voice was firm: ‘Impossible. The life of one of the grand dukes, even . . . of my own son (at this point Georgii Alexandrovich did tremble after all) cannot be set above the interests of the monarchy and the state.’

That is what I call royal nobility – the summit that only those who have been marked and chosen by God himself can scale. The socialists and liberals write in their paltry newspapers and leaflets that the imperial house is wallowing in luxury. This is not luxury, this is the radiant halo of Russian statehood, and every member of the imperial family is prepared to sacrifice his own life and the lives of his loved ones in the name of Russia.

The room began swaying before my eyes and shimmering with iridescent colours. I blinked, shaking the tears off my eyelashes.

‘And what if we replace the diamond with paste?’ Karnovich’s voice piped up from the corner. ‘We can make such a good copy that no one will be able to tell the difference.’

‘In such a short period of time it is not possible to produce a c-copy of such high quality,’ Fandorin replied. ‘And in any case Lind tells us that he has his own jeweller.’

Kirill Alexandrovich shrugged and said: ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand. Why does he have to have the Orlov? The stone is priceless, and that means it has no market price. It’s known all over the world; you can’t sell it.’

‘But why not, Your Highness?’ Colonel Karnovich objected. ‘You could cut it into three or four large diamonds and a few dozen medium and small ones.’

‘And how much could you sell all that for?’

Karnovich shook his head, unable to answer the question.

‘I know a little about such things,’ said Fandorin. ‘Three large diamonds of fifty carats or so can be worth approximately half a million roubles in gold each. And the small ones – well, let’s say another half-million.’

‘Two million?’ said the emperor, and his face brightened. ‘But we will not grudge a sum like that for our dear Mika!’

Fandorin sighed: ‘Your Majesty, this is not at all a matter of two million. I know Lind’s style. This is blackmail, and on a far grander scale than is obvious at first glance. We are not simply talking about the life of one of Your Majesty’s eleven cousins. Lind’s target is the coronation. He knows perfectly well that without the Orlov, the ceremony cannot go ahead. And the boy’s life is only a means of applying p-pressure. The real threat is not that Lind will kill the young grand duke, but that he will disrupt the coronation and dishonour the name of Russia and the Romanov dynasty throughout the world by leaving parts of the boy’s body in the most crowded areas.’

Everyone present, including myself, gave a groan of horror, but Fandorin continued remorselessly: ‘You were saying, Your Majesty, that no buyer could be found for the Orlov anywhere in the world. But there already is a buyer, and one who cannot refuse to buy. That buyer is the house of Romanov. Essentially, what you have to buy from Lind is not the grand duke, but the Orlov diamond, for what is at stake here is not just the stone, but the c-coronation and the very prestige of the monarchy. I am afraid that it will cost more than two million. Very, very much more. And that is not the worst thing.’ Fandorin lowered his head sombrely and I saw his hands clench into fists. ‘You will pay for the safe keeping of the stone and the return of the grand duke, but Lind will not give the boy back alive. That is against the doctor’s principles . . .’

An ominous silence fell, but only for a few moments, because Pavel Georgievich, who had so far been sitting quietly at the far end of the table, suddenly covered his face with his hands and burst into sobs.

‘Pauly, get a grip,’ Kirill Alexandrovich told him sternly. ‘And you, Fandorin, stop trying to frighten us. You’d better tell us about Lind.’

‘He is the most dangerous criminal in the world,’ Fandorin began. ‘I don’t know why he is called Doctor, perhaps because he possesses knowledge in many surprising areas. For instance, he speaks numerous languages. Possibly even including Russian – I would not be surprised. Very little is known for certain about Lind. He is obviously relatively young, because ten years ago no one had heard of him. No one knows where he is from. Most likely he is American, because Lind committed the first crimes that brought him fame as a daring and ruthless villain in the United States of North America. He began by robbing banks and mail cars and moved on to become a true master of the arts of blackmail, extortion and kidnapping.’

Fandorin spoke with his eyes fixed on the table, as if he could see in its polished surface the reflection of pictures from the past that were visible only to him.

‘And so, what do I actually know about this man? He is a confirmed misogynist. There are never any women n-near him – no lovers, no girlfriends. Lind’s gang is an exclusively male preserve. A male brotherhood, if you like. The doctor seems to have none of the usual human weaknesses, and as a result no one has yet managed to follow his trail. Lind’s assistants are slavishly devoted to him, something that is very rarely found in criminal associations. I have captured the doctor’s men alive on two occasions, and both times I got nothing out of them. One was given hard labour for life, the other killed himself, but they did not betray their leader . . . Lind’s connections in international criminal circles are truly boundless and his authority is immense. When he requires a specialist in any field at all – safe crackers, hired killers, engravers, hypnotists, burglars – the greatest experts of the criminal sciences regard it as an honour to offer him their services. I assume that the doctor is f-fabulously rich. In the time since I have taken an interest in him – which is a little over a year and a half – only in the cases that I know about he has appropriated at least ten million.’

‘Francs?’ Georgii Alexandrovich asked, intrigued.

‘Imeantdollars. That is approximately twenty million roubles.’

‘Twenty million!’ His Highness actually gasped at the figure. ‘And the treasury gives me a pitiful two hundred thousand a year! Only a hundredth part of that! And the blackguard has the nerve to demand money from me!’

‘Not from you, Uncle Georgie,’ the sovereign commented dryly. ‘From me. The Orlov is crown property.’

‘Nicky, Georgie!’ Kirill Alexandrovich shouted at both of them. ‘Carry on, Fandorin.’

‘I have had two meetings with Doctor Lind . . .’ Fandorin said and then hesitated.

The room went very quiet. The only sound was the chair creaking under Colonel Karnovich as he leaned forward bodily in his eagerness.

‘Although I do not know if I can really say that I met him, because we did not see each other’s faces. I was wearing disguise and make-up, Lind was in a mask . . . We became acquainted with each other eighteen months ago, in New York. The Russian newspapers may perhaps have reported the kidnapping of the millionaire Berwood’s twelve-year-old son? In America the story was front-page news for a month . . . Mr Berwood asked me to assume the responsibilities of intermediary for the delivery of the ransom. I demanded that the kidnappers first show me their prisoner. Lind himself took me to the s-secret room. The doctor was wearing a black mask that covered almost all of his face, a long cloak and a hat. And so the only observations I was able to make were that he was of average height and had a moustache – but that could have been false. He did not utter a single word in my presence, and so I have never heard his voice.’ Fandorin compressed his lips, as if he were struggling to contain his agitation. ‘The boy was sitting there in the room, alive, with his mouth sealed. Lind allowed me to approach him, then led me out into the corridor, closed the door with three locks and handed me the keys. In accordance with our agreement, I handed him the ransom – a ring that belonged to Cleopatra, worth one and a half million dollars – and readied myself for a fight, since there were seven of them, and I was alone. But Lind studied the ring carefully through a magnifying glass, nodded and left, taking his men with him. I fiddled with the locks for a long time, since they proved a lot harder to open than to close, and when I finally managed to get into the room, Berwood junior was dead.’

Erast Petrovich pressed his lips together again, so hard that they turned white. Everybody waited patiently for him to recover his self-control – the members of the royal family are indulgent with those poor mortals who do not possess their supernatural self-control.

‘I did not immediately understand why the boy was sitting so still and I leaned my head down low to look. It was only when I got very close that I saw there was a slim stiletto stuck straight into his heart! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The day before, in anticipation of a trick, I had searched the room as thoroughly as possible, looking for a disguised hatch or a secret door, and I had not found anything suspicious. But later I recalled that as Lind let me pass him on the way out, he had lingered beside the chair – for a second, no more than that. But that second had been enough for him. What a precise blow, what cold-blooded calculation!’

It seemed to me that in addition to a bitterness and fury that time had not dulled, Fandorin’s tone of voice expressed an involuntary admiration for the deftness of this satanic doctor.

‘Ever since then I have set aside all other business until I settle scores with the doctor. I admit that a significant part in this decision was played by wounded vanity and the stain that the whole business left on my reputation. But there is more to it than mere vanity . . .’ Fandorin wrinkled his high forehead. ‘This man has to be stopped, because he is a true genius of evil, endowed with an incredibly fertile imagination and boundless ambition. Sometimes it seems to me that the goal he has set himself is to become famous as the greatest criminal in the whole of human history, and Lind certainly has more than enough rivals in that area. I had realised that sooner or later he would arrange some kind of catastrophe on a national or even international scale. And that is what has now happened . . .’

He paused again.

‘Sit down, Erast Petrovich,’ Kirill Alexandrovich said to him, and I realised that Fandorin’s speech had obviously made a good impression on His Highness – the retired state counsellor was no longer being questioned, they were talking to him. ‘Tell us how you hunted Doctor Lind.’

‘First of all I turned the whole of New York upside down, but only succeeded in forcing the doctor to move his headquarters from the New World to the Old. I will not weary Your Majesty and Your Highnesses with a description of my searches, but six months later I managed to locate Lind’s lair in London. And I saw the doctor for the second time – or rather I saw his shadow as he fled from his pursuers along one of the tunnels of the London Underground, shooting back with incredible accuracy. With two shots the doctor killed two constables from Scotland Yard outright, and he almost dispatched me to the next world.’ Fandorin raised a lock of black hair off his forehead and we saw a scar running in a narrow white line across his temple. ‘It’s nothing, merely a glancing blow, but I lost consciousness for a moment, and in that time Lind was able to escape pursuit . . . I followed close on his heels from one country to another, and every time I was just a little too late. And then in Rome, about six months ago, the doctor simply vanished into thin air. It was only two weeks ago that I learned from a reliable source that the famous Warsaw bandit known as Blizna had boasted in intimate company that the doctor himself had invited him to Moscow for some very big job. As a Russian subject, Penderetski was well acquainted with the criminal world of Moscow – the gangs in both Khitrovka and the Sukharevka. That must be what Lind, who had n-never operated in Russia before, needed him for. I had been racking my brains to understand what could have attracted the doctor’s interest in patriarchal Moscow. Now it is clear . . .’

‘Impossible, absolutely impossible!’ Simeon Alexandrovich exclaimed angrily, addressing His Majesty, not Fandorin. ‘My boys in Khitrovka and the Sukharevka would never take part in a fiendish plot directed against the royal family! They will steal and cut throats as much as you like. But loyalty to the throne is in these Apaches’ blood! On several occasions my Lasovsky has successfully used criminals to catch terrorists. Let me give you an example: for the duration of the coronation celebrations he has concluded a kind of gentlemen’s agreement with the leader of all the Khitrovka thieves, a certain King, that the police will not detain pickpockets, but in exchange they must immediately report any weapons and other suspicious items that they discover in the pockets of the public. The King was quite happy to agree to this condition – he declared that in a certain sense he himself is an absolute sovereign, and monarchs must support each other. I can’t vouch for the exact words that he used, but that was his meaning.’

This announcement lightened the gloomy mood of the company somewhat and Simeon Alexandrovich, encouraged by the smiles, added the following with a wily air: ‘His Khitrovkan Majesty validated his promise with the formula: “I’m a mongrel if I don’t!” Lasovsky tells me that this is the most cogent bandit oath of all.’

‘How’s that?’ asked the sovereign, intrigued. ‘A mongrel, as in a dog with no pedigree, eh? I’ll tell Alice; she’ll like that.’

‘Nicky, Sam,’ Kirill Alexandrovich said sternly. ‘Let’s listen to the rest of what Mr Fandorin has to say.’

‘The King is not the only leader in Khitrovka and in any case he is certainly not an autocratic s-sovereign.’ Although Erast Petrovich was replying to the governor general’s statement, he did not look at him, but at the emperor. ‘They are even saying that the King’s days are numbered, that any day now he will be written off, that is killed by the so-called breakaways – pushy young bandits who are beginning to set the style in Khitrovka and Sukharevka. There is Rennet’s gang, which operates in a new trade, dealing in opium, there is a certain Gristle – his speciality is “wet jobs”, or killings, and extortion. Acertain Stump has also appeared, with a gang in which the secrecy and discipline are tighter than in the Neapolitan Camorra.’

‘Stump?’ the emperor repeated in amazement. ‘What a strange name.’

‘Yes. A colourful character. His right hand was amputated and the stump ends in a plate ontowhich, according to requirements, he screws either a spoon or a hook or a knife or a chain with an iron apple on the end. They say it’s a terrible weapon and its blow is deadly. The breakaways, Your Majesty, have no fear of spilling blood, do not acknowledge the thieves’ laws, and the King is no authority for them. I suspect that Penderetski had connections with one of them. I followed the Marked One and his man from Warsaw, but very cautiously, in order not to frighten them off. He visited the Zerentui inn in Khitrovka twice, a place that is well known for not paying any tribute to the King. I was hoping that Blizna would lead me to the doctor, but nothing came of that. The Poles were in Moscow for ten days, and Penderetski went to the poste restante at the Central Post Office every day and spent a lot of time loitering near the Alexandriisky Palace and the Neskuchny Park. At least four times he climbed over thewall and strolled about in the park round the Hermitage. I realise now that he was looking for a convenient spot for an ambush. From noon yesterday he and his boys were hanging about in front of the exit from the park onto the Kaluga Highway, and there was a carriage waiting nearby. Some time after six a carriage with the grand duke’s crest drove out of the gates and theWarsaw gang set out to follow it. I realised that the business was coming to a head. My assistant and I followed on behind in two cabs. Then two ladies, a boy and a man in a green tunic (Fandorin glanced towards me) got out of the grand duke’s carriage. Penderetski, now wearing a false beard so that I did not recognise him immediately, walked after them. The carriage carrying the other bandits drove slowly behind him. Then my assistant and I entered the park from the other side, and I walked towards the strollers, watching out all the time in case Lind appeared . . .’

Erast Petrovich sighed dejectedly.

‘Howcould I have miscalculated so badly? It never entered my head that there were two carriages, and not just one. But of course Lind had prepared two carriages, because he intended to abduct the girl and the boy, and then take them to separate hiding places. That was why Blizna only seized the grand princess. The second carriage was intended for the grand duke. That is probably where Lind was all the time, which really makes my blood boil. The governess unwittingly made their task easier when she carried the child to the very spot where the second group of kidnappers was lying in wait. Their plan only half-succeeded, but that does not change very much. Lind has still taken Russia by the throat . . .’

At these words His Majesty began gazing around with an expression of extreme unease, for some reason peering into the corners of the drawing room. I took a slight step forward, trying to guess what the emperor wanted, but my imagination was inadequate to the task.

‘Tell me, Uncle Georgie, do you have an icon anywhere here?’ the monarch asked.

Georgii Alexandrovich gave his nephew a glance of amazement and shrugged.

‘Ah, Nicky, for God’s sake!’ Kirill Alexandrovich exclaimed with a frown. ‘Let’s manage without the anointed of God business. You haven’t been anointed yet in any case, and if the coronation is disrupted, you never will be.’

His Majesty replied with an air of profound sincerity: ‘I do not see what can help here apart from prayer. All of us are in the hands of the Almighty. He has decided to arrange this trial for me, a weak and unworthy monarch, and so there must be some great meaning to it. We must trust in His will, and He will grant us deliverance.’

I recalled that I had seen a smoky little old icon, dark from age, in His Highness’s study. Walking without making a sound, I went out for a minute and brought the sovereign the icon – after first having wiped it with a napkin.

While the emperor recited thewords of a prayer with genuine fervour and even with tears in his eyes, the grand dukes waited patiently, except for Simeon Alexandrovich, who yawned as he polished his already impeccable nails with a piece of velvet braid.

‘Canwe continue, Nicky?’ Kirill Alexandrovich enquiredwhen the sovereign crossed himself for the last time and handed the icon back to me. ‘Very well, let us sum up this lamentable situation. Mika has been abducted by a cruel and cunning criminal who threatens not only to kill the boy, but also to scupper the entire coronation. What else can we do apart from trust in the help of the Almighty?’

Karnovich rose to his feet and whispered from his corner: ‘Find His Highness and free him from captivity.’

‘Excellent,’ said Kirill Alexandrovich, turning towards the chief of the court police. ‘Then look for him, Colonel. Lind has given you until midday. You have an hour and a half at your disposal.’

Karnovich sat back down on his chair.

At this point Pavel Georgievich spoke for the first time. With his face contorted and still wet from tears, he said in a trembling voice: ‘Perhaps we ought to give him it? After all, Mika is alive, and when all’s said and done, the Orlov is only a stone . . .’

The eternal enemies Kirill Alexandrovich and Simeon Alexandrovich cried in a single voice: ‘No! Never!’

The sovereign looked at his cousin with compassion and said gently: ‘Pauly, Mr Fandorin has explained quite convincingly that handing over the diamond still will not save our Mika . . .’

Pavel Georgievich sobbed and wiped his cheek with his sleeve in an awkward gesture.

‘Leave us, Pauly,’ his father said sternly. ‘Wait for me in your room. You make me feel ashamed.’

Pavel Georgievich jumped abruptly to his feet and ran out of the door. Even I had difficulty in maintaining an imperturbable expression, although of course no one even thought of looking at me.

Poor Pavel Georgievich, he found the burden of royal responsibility hard to bear. In the education of the grand dukes and princesses the greatest emphasis is placed on self-control, the ability to keep oneself in hand under any circumstances. Since early childhood Their Highnesses are taught to sit through long, exhausting gala dinners, and they are deliberately seated beside the least intelligent and most insufferable guests. They have to listen attentively to what the grown-ups say without showing that their company is boring or unpleasant and laugh at their jokes – the more stupid the witticism, the more sincere the laughter must be. And what about the Easter triple kiss for the officers and lower ranks of their affiliated regiments! Sometimes they have to perform the ritual kiss more than a thousand times in the course of two hours! And God forbid that they should show any signs of tiredness or revulsion. But Pavel Georgievich was always such a lively and spontaneous boy. He was not good at the exercises for developing self-control and even now, although His Highness has come of age, there is a lot that he still needs to learn.

After the door slammed shut behind the grand duke, there was a long, gloomy silence. Everyone started when the clock struck a quarter to eleven.

‘However, if we do not let this Lind have the Orlov,’ His Majesty said, ‘then he will kill Mika, and tomorrow he will leave the body on Red Square or at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. And that will put me, the tsar, to shame in front of the entire civilised world!’

‘And the entire house of Romanov with you,’ Simeon Alexandrovich remarked.

Kirill Alexandrovich added gloomily: ‘And the whole of Russia.’

‘As God is my witness,’ the sovereign sighed woefully, ‘I never wanted the crown, but clearly it is my cross. It was no accident that I appeared in this world on the day of St Job the Long-Suffering. O Lord, teach me, enlighten me. What am I to do?’

God’s answer was given by Fandorin, who enunciated a single brief phrase very clearly: ‘Rent the stone.’

‘What?’ asked His Majesty, raising his eyebrows in amazement.

I also thought that I had misheard.

‘We have to rent the stone from Lind until the end of the coronation.’

Simeon Alexandrovich shook his head.

‘He’s raving!’

However, the eldest of the grand dukes narrowed his eyes in thoughtful concentration, trying to penetrate the meaning of this bizarre suggestion. Having failed, he asked: ‘How do you mean, “rent” it?’

Fandorin explained dispassionately.

‘We have to tell Lind that his terms have been accepted, but for obvious reasons they cannot be met before the coronation. And therefore, for each day of delay he will receive a certain sum of money, amost substantialone – as ifwe are renting the Orlov from him. There is aweek still to go until the coronation, is there not?’

‘But what will that give us?’ asked Georgii Alexandrovich, clutching his magnificent moustache.

‘What do you mean, Georgie – time!’ explained Kirill Alexandrovich. ‘A whole week of time!’

‘And a better chance of saving the child,’ Fandorin added. ‘Our terms will be as follows: the payments are made daily, and at each handover we must have unequivocal proof that the boy is alive. That is seven extra d-days of life for His Highness. And seven chances to pick up a thread that will lead us to the doctor. Lind may be extremely cunning, but he can make a mistake. I shall be on the alert.’

Georgii Alexandrovich jumped to his feet and drew himself up to his full impressive height. ‘Yes, now I see that it is an excellent idea!’

The idea really did seem most felicitous – not even Simeon Alexandrovich could find any objections to make against it.

‘And I will assign my most capable agent as an intermediary,’ Karnovich suggested.

‘I have genuine lions in the Department of Security,’ the governor general of Moscow immediately retorted. ‘And they know the city very well, unlike your Tsarskoe Selo carpet scrapers.’

‘I b-believe it would be best if I were to take on the role of the intermediary,’ Erast Petrovich said quietly. ‘Naturally, in some kind of disguise. I know Moscow very well, and I know Lind’s habits too.’

Kirill Alexandrovich put an end to the argument by declaring firmly: ‘We will decide this later. The important thing is that now at least we have some kind of plan of action. Nicky, does it have your approval too?’

The questionwas clearly asked for form’s sake, for His Majesty had never been known to object to anything that had been approved by his eldest uncle.

‘Yes, yes, Uncle Kir, absolutely.’

‘Excellent. Sit down, Colonel, take the code and write this message . . .’ said His Highness, clasping his hands behind his back and striding across the room. ‘“Agreed. We need a respite of seven days. For each day we are willing to pay a hundred . . . no, two hundred thousand roubles. Payment by daily instalments, in any place at any time, but the prisonermust be produced.” Well, how’s that?’ he asked, not addressing the question to his royal relatives, but to Fandorin.

‘Not bad,’ Fandorin replied most impudently to the commander of the Imperial Guard. ‘But I would add: “Otherwise there will be no deal.” Lind must understand we acknowledge that he has a strong hand and are prepared to pay a high price, but are not prepared to jump to his every beck and call.’

Our exalted visitors did not go home even after taking this difficult decision, for Fandorin expressed the opinion that a reply from Lind would follow almost immediately, either by semaphore light signal, telegraph – there was an apparatus in the Alexandriisky Palace – telephone call or some other, entirely unusual means. He said that on one occasion in similar circumstances a message from the doctor had come flying in through the window, attached to an arrow fired from a great distance.

Just imagine it – the autocrat of all Russia, the admiral-general of the fleet, the commander of the royal guards and the governor general of Moscow waiting patiently for some adventurer to deign to reply to them! I’m sure that nothing of the sort had happened in Russian history since the negotiations with the Corsican at Tilsit – but at least Bonaparte was an emperor.

In order not to waste time, the grand dukes began instructing their nephew the emperor in how to receive the foreign ambassadors and monarchswho had arrived for the celebrations. These meetings constituted the main political significance of the coronation, since it is quite common for extremely delicate questions of interstate relations to be decided, highly responsible diplomatic initiatives to be launched and new alliances to be concluded under the guise of ceremonial audiences.

His Majesty definitely still lacked experience in such subtleties and was in need of guidance and instruction. Not to mention the fact that the late sovereign, not having a very high opinion of the tsarevich’s intellectual abilities, had not felt it necessary to initiate him into the secrets of higher diplomacy. For example, not until he had already ascended the throne, and even then not immediately, did the newemperor learn that in some mysterious fashion the direction of Russian foreign policy had been completely reversed: although to all appearances we remained a friend of His Majesty the Kaiser, we had concluded a secret defence pact with France, Germany’s most bitter enemy. And this was by no means the only surprise awaiting the young successor to the throne.

The briefing was extremely sensitive in nature and, having ascertained that everything necessarywas on the table, I thought it best to withdraw. The sensitivity arose not so much from the secrecy of the information as from the intimate family tone that the conversation assumed. His Imperial Majestywas actually not all that quick at absorbing what he was told, and his most august uncles began losing patience with their nephew, sometimes employing expressions that might perhaps be permissible between close relatives but are unthinkable in the presence of servants.

Well, I had my own guests, who might be less eminent but were far more demanding. Having installed Mr Fandorin, Colonel Karnovich and Prince Glinsky in the large drawing room, where my assistant Somov served them coffee and cigars, I went to the servants’ parlour, a small, cosy little room located beside the kitchen on the ground floor. The governor general’s butler Foma Anikeevich, the senior grand duke’s butler Luka Emelyanovich, His Majesty’s valet Dormidont Seleznyov and Fandorin’s Japanese servant Masa were taking tea there. I had asked Mademoiselle Declique to look in on my guests from time to time to make sure that they did not feel abandoned – and also to give the poor woman, who was crushed by the misfortune that had overtaken her, something to keep her occupied. I know only too well from my own experience that at moments of such moral suffering there is no better medicine than performing mundane duties. It helps one to keep control.

On entering the servants’ parlour, in addition to the pale but evidently quite calm governess, I also found Mr Freyby there, sitting a little apart from the general group with his interminable book in his hands. But there was not really anything to be surprised at in that. It was raining outside, the English gentlemen had gone for their enforced promenade, and Mr Freyby had no doubt grown bored of sitting in his room. Every butler knows that the servants’ parlour is something like a drawing room or, to put it in the British manner, a club for the senior servants.

For a brief moment I was perturbed by the Englishman’s presence, since I was intending to hold my own secret council meeting with my guests, but then I remembered that Mr Freyby did not understand a single word of Russian. Very well, let him sit there and read.

We were served by the new footman Lipps, whose experience and level of training I had not yet had time to ascertain. He himself understood perfectly well the importance of the examination to which he was being subjected, and he did everything immaculately. I observed him with as critical an eye as possible but failed to spot any blunders. I told Lipps to wait outside the door, for the conversation was not intended for his ears, and when something had to be brought in or taken away, I rang the bell. The man from the Baltic did what was required quickly but without hurrying – that is exactly as it should be done, and disappeared behind the door again.

You could probably not find judges of the servant’s art sterner and better informed than my guests anywhere in the world. And that applied in particular to the venerable Foma Anikeevich.

I ought to explain that we servants have our own hierarchy, which does not depend at all on the status of our masters, but exclusively on the experience and merits of each one of us. And in terms of this hierarchy beyond all doubt the most senior among us was Foma Anikeevich, butler to Simeon Alexandrovich, the youngest of His Majesty’s uncles. Luka Emelyanovich and I were approximately on the same level, while Dormidont, for all the brilliance of the position that he held, was regarded in our circle as still an apprentice. He knew his place and sat there modestly without leaning back in his chair, trying to listen to everything and not speak too much. The general opinion concerning him was that he was competent, observant, capable of learning and would go a long way. He came from a good court servant family, which was obvious from his given name and patronymic – Dormidont Kuzmich. At christening we hereditary servants are all given the simplest of the old names, so that the order of theworld will be preserved and every human will have a name to suit his calling. What kind of servant or waiter could be called Vsevolod Apollonovich or Evgenii Viktorovich? That would only cause hilarity and confusion.

In the year and a half of the new reign Dormidont had grown tremendously in the opinion of court connoisseurs. For instance, there was the important incident in Livadia, immediately after the death of the previous sovereign, when the new emperor, being in a rather distraught state, almost received the visitors who had come to pay their condolences in his shoulder straps and without his black armband. Seleznyov caught His Majesty by the elbow when the doors were already open, and in five seconds changed the straps for epaulettes and even managed to attach mourning crкpe to His Majesty’s shoulder knot. What an embarrassing faux pas that would have been!

But of course he still has a long way to go to reach the level of high-flying eagles like Foma Anikeevich or the late Prokop Sviridovich. Foma Anikeevich endures the heavy cross of being attached to an individual like Simeon Alexandrovich. In a word – his lot is not to be envied. The number of times that Foma Anikeevich has saved His Highness from shame and scandal! If the governor general’s rule still possesses any authority in Moscow, it is only thanks to the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna and his butler.

And our circle tells legendary stories about Prokop Sviridovich, who served as a valet to Tsar Alexander the Liberator.

Once, during the Balkan campaign, in the middle of the third battle of Plevna, a stray Turkish grenade fell right in front of the sovereign, who happened at that moment to be taking his afternoon snack. Prokop Sviridovich was standing close by, just as he ought to have been, holding a tray on which there was a cup of broth, a bread roll and a napkin.

Suddenly this ball of fire appeared out of nowhere! It fell into a small hollow overgrown with grass, hissing, hopping up and down and spitting smoke, all set to go off bang at any moment. The entire entourage froze and the butler was the only one not to lose his head: without dropping his tray, he took two short steps towards the hollowand poured the broth onto the grenade! The fuse went out. The most remarkable thing is that His Majesty, engrossed in his snack, did not even notice this incident and was only surprised at how little broth there was in the cup that was served to him. Kommissarov was awarded a noble title for deflecting the would-be regicide Karakozov’s pistol, but Prokop Sviridovich ended up, as simple folk say, with twice nothing because none of the witnesses – the duty generals and aides-de-camp – bothered to explain anything to the tsar. They were ashamed that a butler had proved pluckier and more resolute than them, and Prokop Sviridovich was not one to boast of his achievements.

However, this outstanding servant demonstrated even greater bravery on the front of intimate relations. You might say that he saved the peace and tranquillity of the imperial family. On one of the empress’s saint’s days His Majesty committed a serious blunder: as he took her present out of his pocket – it was a ring with a large sapphire in the form of a heart and the empress’s initials – he dropped another ring that was absolutely identical except that it bore the initials of the Princess Tverskaya.

‘What’s that, Sandy?’ the empress asked, peering short-sightedly at the small round shape that had gone tumbling across the carpet and taking her lorgnette out of her handbag.

The sovereign was dumbstruck and had no idea what to say. But Prokop Sviridovich quickly bent down, picked up the ring and swallowed it on the spot, after which he politely explained: ‘I beg your pardon, Your Imperial Highness, I dropped one of my catarrh lozenges. I have been having terrible trouble with my stomach.’

That’s the sort of man he was. The surgeon Pirogov himself cut the ring out of his stomach later.

Itwas precisely Prokop Sviridovich’s example that inspired me last yearwhen, as I dare to think, I rescued Georgii Alexandrovich from an almost identical delicate situation involving a letter from the ballerina Snezhnevskaya. Thank God, paper is not sapphire, and so no surgical intervention was required.

When I joined the honourable company, they were discussing the imminent festivities. Dormidont, who was clearly excited, and no wonder – he did not often have an opportunity to speak in such company – was telling the others something interesting about the sovereign. Foma Anikeevich and Luka Emelyanovich were listening benignly. The Japanese was drinking his tea from the saucer, puffing out his cheeks and goggling wildly. Mademoiselle was nodding politely, but I could see from her eyes that her thoughts were far away – I believe I have already mentioned that, for all her self-restraint, she did not have much control over the expression of her eyes. Mr Freyby was puffing away comfortably on his pipe and leafing through the pages of his book.

‘. . . toughen their characters,’ Dormidont was saying just as I walked into the servants’ parlour. When he saw me he sat up respectfully and continued: ‘They themselves are very superstitious, but they want to get the better of destiny, at any price. They deliberately arranged the arrival in Moscowfor an unlucky day, the festival of St Job the Long-Suffering, and the move from the city to the Kremlin for the thirteenth, although it could easily have been earlier. I think it’s all wrong – what point is there in tempting fate? You’ve seen for yourselves how Saint Job’s day turned out yesterday.’ And he gave me an eloquent glance, evidently feeling it was inappropriate to comment in greater detail on the disaster that had overtaken the Green Court.

‘What do you say to that, Luka Emelyanovich?’ Foma Anikeevich asked.

Kirill Alexandrovich’s butler, a stolid and dignified man, thought for a moment and said: ‘Well now, strengthening the will is no bad thing for a monarch. His Majesty could do to have a firmer character.’

‘Is that what you think?’ Foma Anikeevich asked with a shake of his head. ‘I think it’s not good. Ruling is like living: it should be done naturally and joyfully. Fate is kind to people like that. But if someone calls down misfortune on his own head, Fate heaps the dark clouds up over him. Our state isn’t exactly a cheery place in any case, and if the sovereign himself starts prophesying gloom and doom . . . And then again, Her Majesty has a heavy and joyless character. When the tsar grows a bit older and stronger, he’ll choose ministerswho are just as gloomy and unlucky. Every one knows the tsar’s kennel man is just like the tsar.’

I was astounded, not by the fact that Foma Anikeevich spoke so freely about His Majesty (that is perfectly normal in our circle, and it is a good thing for the work) but that he was not in the least bit wary of an outsider – the Japanese. Obviously in my absence Fandorin’s servant must have done something to win Foma Anikeevich’s special trust. He is a perspicacious man who sees right through people and understands perfectly what can be said in front of them and what cannot.

The Oriental’s smooth, impassive features gave no clue as to whether he understood what the conversation was about or was simply filling himself up with tea.

‘And what is your opinion about this, Afanasii Stepanovich?’ Foma Anikeevich asked me, and I realised from his quizzical glance that the question actually meant something quite different: did I think we could discuss the most important subject, or should we limit ourselves to conversation on abstract themes?

‘Time will tell,’ I replied, sitting down and ringing the bell for Lipps to pour me some tea. ‘There have been cases in history when extremely weak-willed successors to the throne have proved to be most worthy rulers in time. Take Alexander the Blessed, for instance, or even Franz-Josef.’

We spoke about one thing and thought about another: did I have any right to mention the decision that had been taken upstairs?

The Japanesewould learn about it from his master in any case. Mademoiselle could not be kept in ignorance either – thatwould be too cruel. Foma Anikeevich and Luka Emelyanovich could give useful advice. The only awkwardnesswas occasioned by the presence of Mr Freyby.

Catching my glance, the Briton raised his eyes from his book and mumbled something incomprehensible, with his pipe swaying up and down.

‘I know everything,’ Mademoiselle translated into Russian, pronouncing the word ‘efrything’. ‘My lord has told me.’

The butler stuck his nose back in his book to let us know that we need not take any notice of him.

Well then, so in England gentlemen had no secrets from their butlers. So much the better.

I briefly told my comrades about the letter, the sinister doctor and the decision that had been taken at the secret council. They heard me out in silence. It was only when I told them that Doctor Lind never returned his captives alive that Mademoiselle broke downand gasped, clenching her firmlittle fists above the table. To assist her in mastering her understandable agitation, I digressed briefly to talk about the remarkable self-control shown by Georgii Alexandrovich. But, as was often the case, Mademoiselle’s comment took me by surprise.

‘Georgii Alexandrovich has six sons from Heh Highness and two from a young ballehina. If Doctor Lind had abducted His Highness’s only daughteh – O, he would have behaved quite diffehently.’

I must confess that I was flabbergasted – both by the judgement itself (which might not have been entirely unjustified, since Xenia Georgievna really was Georgii Alexandrovich’s favourite) and by the tactless reference to Miss Snezhnevskaya.

Foma Anikeevich changed the subject and smoothed over the awkward moment.

‘Is there not anything that we servants can do, for our part?’

There you have a genuine butler – with only a fewscantwords he swept away the dross and defined the most important point. Compared to him we are all of us mere dwarves.

‘Pardon me for saying this, Afanasii,’ Foma Anikeevich continued with his unfailing politeness, ‘but we are not talking here just about the life of Mikhail Georgievich, but about even more significant matters – the fate of the monarchy and of Russian statehood itself. If you take all our internal upheavals, disorder and vacillation, as well as the sovereign’s obvious weakness and lack of experience, then add a blow like this, with the whole of society, the whole world looking on . . . The consequences are quite unimaginable. We, the servants of the Romanovs, must not allow it to happen.’

The Japanese banged his saucer down on the table and bowed his forehead down to the tablecloth so abruptly that I was afraid he was having an apoplectic fit. But no, it turned out to be a bow. With his forehead still touching the tablecloth, the Oriental addressed Foma Anikeevich, speaking with passion.

‘These words of genuine samurai, Foma-sensei, you nobur man.’

I had read that a samurai is a kind of Japanese knight, but I did not know the meaning of sensei. I can only assume it is some kind of respectful oriental formof address, similar in kind to cher maоtre.

Foma Anikeevich replied with a polite bow and the Japanese straightened up.

‘We have to hewp my masta,’ he declared in his outlandish but perfectly comprehensible Russian. ‘Onry my masta can save ritter odziand honow of the empia.’

‘I have heard a lot about Erast Petrovich, Mr Masa,’ said Foma Anikeevich. ‘I believe that during the governorship of Prince Dolgorukoi here in Moscow he performed no small number of remarkable deeds.’

I had not known that Foma Anikeevich was informed about Fandorin, but was not in the least surprised.

The Japanese replied staidly: ‘Yes, ver’, ver’ many. But that no’ importan’. Importan’ that my master will not wive if Dokutor Rind wive.’

It was not said in the most elegant fashion, but I understood the meaning.

Mademoiselle spoke in a different accent, far more pleasing to the ear: ‘But what can he do, your master?’

‘Evewyfin’,’ Masa said laconically. ‘Master can do anyfin’. Dokutor Rind will not wive.’

‘Lady, gentlemen, I propose the following . . .’

It immediately went quiet, and even Mr Freyby looked up from his book, peering curiously at Foma Anikeevich over the top of his spectacles.

‘Our gentlemen, unfortunately, are not on good terms with each other. That could be bad for the cause. Let us therefore agree that at least we servants will act together. We shall keep each other informed and protect His Majesty and Their Highnesses against making mistakes. Insofar as it lies in our power.’

That was how he spoke – simply and wisely.

At this point my assistant Somov stuck his head into the servants’ parlour and pressed his hand to his heart as he apologised: ‘Afanasii Stepanovich, gentlemen, I beg your pardon, but Her Highness is asking for Mademoiselle Declique.’

Then he bowed and withdrew.

‘Ah, yes, Monsieur Ziukin,’ the governess said to me. ‘Poor Xenia does not know. What can I tell her?’

‘Do not tell Her Imperial Highness about Lind’s threats,’ I said sternly, somewhat annoyed by such familiarity in speaking of Xenia Georgievna. ‘Simply tell Her Imperial Highness that the kidnappers are demanding a ransom and the money will be paid.’

I believe that she left the room feeling duly chastened.

A few minutes later I had reason to regret Mademoiselle’s absence, because Mr Freyby suddenly parted his lips to utter a brief phrase.

‘What was that you were so good as to say?’ Foma Anikeevich asked.

‘He say “A spy”,’ Masa translated – apparently he understood English.

‘A “spy” in what sense?’ I asked, puzzled.

The Briton looked hopefully at Foma Anikeevich, who suddenly frowned pensively.

‘Mr Freyby is quite right. Theremust have been a spy at work. The kidnappers were too well informed about your movements yesterday. I do not wish to upset you, Afanasii Stepanovich, but it is very probable that Doctor Lind’s spy is one of your staff. Can you vouch for your servants?’

I felt the colour drain from my face.

‘Not completely. I can vouch for those from St Petersburg. All of them apart from Lipps – the one who is serving us – are old and well-tried colleagues. But I have a temporary staff of nine here and I don’t know the local staff at all; Somov is in charge of them.’

‘Then extreme caution is required,’ Luka Emelyanovich declared solemnly.

Foma Anikeevich spoke to the Englishman: ‘Thank you, Mr Freyby, for a most pertinent comment.’

The English butler shrugged in incomprehension, and I remembered that I had the lexicon he had givenmeinmypocket.

I looked up the words and said: ‘Tenk yoo, Meester Freebee.’

He nodded and stuck his nose back into his Trollope (I had looked in the library and now knew that this was the name of an English novelist).

For a while we carried on discussing the means by which we could maintain confidential contact with each other, and then the meeting was interrupted by Somov sticking his head in at the door again. From the expression on his face I realised that something out of the ordinary had happened.

I excused myself and went out into the corridor.

‘Look here,’ Somov said, whispering for some reason, and held out a white envelope. ‘This has been found. The doorman picked it up. No one knows where it came from.’

I took the envelope and read the message in capital letters that was written on it in pencil:AVEC LES COMPLIMENTS DE DR LAND.

It cost me an incredible effort of will to maintain my composure.

‘Where was it found?’

‘On the porch, right outside the doors. The doorman went out to see if the rain had stopped, and it was lying there.’

That means it could have been left from the outside, I thought. They climbed over the fence and left it, very simple. That made me feel better, but only a little.

Of course, I did not open the envelope, although it was not sealed – I took it up to the first floor. If Somov had not been watching me, I would have run.

Before entering the small drawing room, I stopped and listened at the door. I always do this, but not in order to eavesdrop, only to avoid interrupting any important conversations or intimate moments by knocking.

I heard Kirill Alexandrovich’s thick, angry voice speaking in the room: ‘Nicky, howcan you be such a blockhead! Youmustn’t say anything about concessions during the audience with Li Hunchan! Under no circumstances! You’ll ruin everything!’

I could not help shaking my head and thinking that things could not go on like this for much longer. The sovereign was by no means as weak-willed as Their Highnesses imagined. And he had a vindictive streak.

I knocked loudly, handed over the message and immediately went back out into the corridor.

I had to wait no more than five minutes. Georgii Alexandrovich looked out and beckoned to me with his finger. His expression seemed rather strange to me.

The sovereign and the other grand dukes also looked at me in the same way – as if they were seeing me for the first time or, perhaps, as if they had only just noticed that there was a man by the name of Afanasii Stepanovich Ziukin living in the world. I did not like it at all.

‘You know French, don’t you?’ Kirill Alexandrovich asked. ‘Here, read this.’

I took the unfolded sheet of paper with a certain degree of trepidation and read:

Your terms are accepted, but the payment for each day of deferment is one million. Tomorrow at three in the afternoon your intermediary must drive along the Garden Ring Road alone, in an open carriage, from Kaluga Square in the direction of Zhitnaya Street. The money must be in a suitcase, in twenty-five-rouble treasury notes. I shall regard the slightest sign of foul play from your side as releasing me from all commitments and shall return the prince to you as promised – in pieces.

One final thing. The intermediary must be the servant who was in the park: with a wart on his cheek and the doggy sideburns.

Yours sincerely,

Doctor Lind

The first response I felt was resentment. Favoris de chien?¹ How dare he call my well-groomed whiskers that?

It was only afterwards that the full, frightening meaning of the message struck me.

¹Doggy sideburns.

8 May

Following long telephone conversations between the Petrovsky Palace, the governor general’s residence and the Hermitage, control of the operation was entrusted to Colonel Karnovich. The high police master of Moscow was instructed to provide every possible assistance, while Fandorinwas assigned the rather indefinite role of adviser, and even then only at the stubborn insistence of Georgii Alexandrovich who, following the rescue of his daughter, believed fervently in the exceptional qualities of the retired deputy for special assignments.

Like everyone else, I knew very little aboutKarnovich, because this mysterious man had only made his appearance at the foot of the throne very recently. He was not obviously fitted for this responsible, indeed one might say crucially important, post either by age, or rank or social connection, especially since before this exalted appointment Karnovich had performed the modest duties of head of one of the provincial offices of gendarmes. However, following the sensational exposure of an anarchist terrorist organisation, people had begun speaking of the colonel as the rising star in the field of political detective work, and soon this quiet, unprepossessing gentleman, who always kept his eyes hidden behind blue-tinted spectacles, was the head of His Majesty’s bodyguard – a truly prodigious advancement which did not endear Karnovich to the members of the court. But then, when had the head of the court police, who, by the very nature of his job, is exceptionally well informed about the weaknesses and secrets of individuals who stand close to the throne, ever enjoyed the sympathy of the court? Such is the nature of the job.

In contrast, High Police Master Lasovsky was very well known, a figure of almost legendary status in both capital cities. The St Petersburg newspapers loved to describe the eccentric and despotic behaviour of this modern-day Ivan the Terrible (the Moscowpapers did not dare): his love of driving round the streets in the famous police master’s carriage with the finest horses in the entire city, his particular enthusiasm for the fire brigade, his exceptional strictness with yard keepers and his famous orders, printed every day in the Moscow Municipal Police Gazette. That very morning, on the front page of this remarkable newspaper, I myself had read the following order:

While driving out on 7 May I observed the following: on Voskresenskaya Square opposite the Bolshaya Moskva hotel I detected the foul odour of rotting herrings that had not been cleared away by the yard keepers; at 5.45 a.m. two nightwatchmen standing by the Triumphal Gateswere making idle conversation; at 1.20 in the afternoon the constable was not at his post on the corner of Bolshay tverskaya-yamskaya street and the Triumphal Gates Square: at 10 p.m. on the corner of Tverskaya Street and Voskresenskaya Square, the constable stepped up on to the pavement and began arguing with a cab driver.

I hereby order all the guilty con-stables, watchmen and yard keepers to be arrested and fined.

Acting High Police Master of

Moscow, Colonel Lasovsky

Of course, the head of police in a city of a million people ought not to concern himself with such petty matters, but in my view we could well introduce some of Moscow’s innovations in St Petersburg. For instance, we could station constables at crossroads in order to direct the movement of carriages – on Nevsky Prospect and the embankments the crush is so thick that you cannot pass either on foot or in a vehicle. And it would also be a good idea to followthe example of Moscowand forbid cab drivers to swear and drive unwashed carriages on pain of a fine.

But Colonel Lasovsky’s temperamentwas genuinely gruff and whimsical, as I had the opportunity to observe during the briefing meeting before the beginning of the operation.

Although my main supervisor was Karnovich, the high police master constantly interrupted with his own remarks, and his entire manner suggested that he, Lasovsky, and not the upstart from out of town was the true master in the old city. Arguments flared up repeatedly between the two colonels as to whether one ought to arrest the doctor’s messenger when he came for the money: the Moscow colonel was emphatically in favour of an immediate arrest and swore he would shake the son of a bitch’s very soul out of him, together with the rest of his innards, while the colonel from Tsarskoe Selo spoke no less emphatically in support of caution and emphasised the threat to Mikhail Georgievich’s life. Fandorin was present in the drawing room, but he did not get involved in the argument.

Karnovich took a number of measures that appeared very sensible to me. Three disguised carriages with police agents in civilian dress were to drive ahead of my carriage. The agents would all be from the court police – fine strapping young men. Their task would not be to seize Lind’s messenger, but to ‘sit on his tail’ (as the colonel put it) and ‘tail’ him to the kidnappers’ lair. In addition, since the previous evening a special group of treasury officials had been engaged in copying out the numbers of all the banknotes to be handed over to Lind, each of these would then leave its own trail to be followed.

My task appeared simple: to drive without hurrying along the Garden Ring Road and wait for the villains to show themselves, then demand that their man take me to His Highness, and until I saw Mikhail Georgievich alive and well, not to let them have the suitcase under any circumstances. If the bandit or bandits used force, the disguised agents would intervene.

‘You should grab the fellow by the scruff of the neck straight away,’ the stubborn police master repeated for probably the tenth time already. ‘And hand him over to me. After I’ve had a talk with him, there’ll be no need to sit on his tail. He’ll tell you everything you want to know and show you everything you want to see. But you, Mr Colonel, are trying to be too clever by half and making a mess of things.’

Karnovich nervously adjusted his spectacles, but he vented his irritation on Fandorin instead of his Moscow colleague.

‘Listen here, sir, what use to me is an adviser who never opens his mouth? Do you have any thoughts?’

Fandorin sceptically raised one eyebrow, as elegant as if itwere painted on.

‘Lind is very cunning and inventive. He can guess all the actions that you might take in advance. And copying out the numbers of the banknotes is simply a joke. Are you really going to hang up lists of forty thousand seven-digit numbers in all the shops and bureaux de change?’ He turned to address me. ‘The most important thing depends on you, Ziukin. Acute observation, attention to the most minute details – that is what is required. Remember that today is only the first meeting; there are at least six more to come. All you need to do now is get a good look at things. And as for a tail,’ he said, speaking to Karnovich now, ‘it can be tried, but don’t push too hard, otherwise we’ll be handed a corpse.’

‘A most valuable recommendation, merci,’ the head of the court police replied with a sardonic bow. ‘Are you intending to pay the respected doctor a million roubles six more times? Are you not perhaps receiving a commission from Dr Lind for giving such advice?’

Fandorin got up and walked out without saying anything in reply.

‘That’s the one we ought to put a tail on,’ Lasovsky hissed in the direction of the door after it closed. ‘A highly suspicious individual.’

‘If the need arises, we will,’ Karnovich promised. ‘He really is a most disagreeable fellow.’

I shared this judgement with all my heart, for my view of Mr Fandorin, who had initially produced a positive impression on me, had changed completely. And with good reason.

The first half of the day had dragged by at a distressingly slow pace. While the higher spheres were arguing over which departmentwould head the operation, everyone had left me alone, and I was tormented by both alarm and inactivity. Owing to my forthcoming responsible assignment I was released from my usual responsibilities, which were transferred to Somov. Georgii Alexandrovich said that only one thing was required from those of us who were privy to the secret: not to let anything show and to maintain an air of serene imperturbability. Endlung was given the task of cheering up the dejected Pavel Georgievich. In order to perform this important mission, the lieutenant was given a certain sum of money. He adopted an exceptionally brisk and lively air, put his ward in a carriage first thing in the morning and drove him off to the gypsy restaurant at Tsaritsyno – for a ‘razzle’ as Endlung put it.

His Highness entrusted Xenia Georgievna to me, and my task did not appear to be simple. The grand princess came down to breakfast with red eyes, looking pale and sad, and that evening she would have several visits to make and then drive to the Petrovsky Palace for supper and a serenade in a narrow circle.

Georgii Alexandrovich consulted me onwhat should be done, and we came to the conclusion that the most effective way of dispelling melancholy was physical exercise. Let her play tennis, His Highness decreed, since the day had turned out dry, if over-cast. After that he dressed in civilian clothes and left on some business that I did not know about, having instructed me to arrange the game.

‘But Afanasii, with whom can I play?’ Xenia Georgievna asked.

Indeed, as it turned out, there were no partners for Her Highness. On instructions from Simeon Alexandrovich, Prince Glinsky had called for the Englishmen and driven them to Sokolniki Park to go riding, and from there to lunch at the governor general’s residence. Remembering the interest that His Highness had taken in the elegant Mr Carr the previous day, I felt alarmed, but not greatly so, since I had more serious concerns on my mind.

After thinking for a little while, Xenia Georgievna said: ‘Go to Erast Petrovich and ask him. There isn’t anyone else, after all.’

So I went to Fandorin’s room. Before knocking, I listened at the door and heard very strange sounds: dull blows, loud snorts and the jangling of glass. Alarmed, I knocked gently and opened the door slightly.

The sight that met my eyes was amazing. Mr Fandorin and Mr Masa, both wearing nothing but white underpants, were performing some strange kind of ritual, taking turns to run, jump to a quite incredible height and strike the wall with one foot, which was the cause of the jangling sound that had frightened me. Erast Petrovich performed this outlandish exercise in total silence, but his servant panted and snorted, and after each attack on the wall, he did not simply bounce back, but tumbled across the floor like a ball.

‘What can . . . I do for you?’ Fandorin enquired jerkily, interrupting his question halfway through for another blow.

A good butler is never surprised by anything. And if he is, then he does not show it. So I simply bowed as if everything was perfectly normal and conveyed Xenia Georgievna’s request.

‘Thank Her Highness for the honour,’ he replied, wiping away his sweat, ‘but I do not know how to play tennis.’

Iwent back to the grand princess, but she had already changed into a loose-fitting tennis dress and white shoes.

Shewas very upset by Fandorin’s refusal: ‘What am I supposed to do, serve the ball to myself? Ask him anyway. Say I’ll teach him.’

There were tears in her eyes.

I hurried back to Fandorin and this time I asked him properly, and also mentioned Georgii Alexandrovich’s instructions to me.

Erast Petrovich sighed and gave way. In an instant I brought him Pavel Georgievich’s tennis clothes, which were almost a perfect fit, except for being a little tight in the shoulders.

The lesson began. I watched from the side of the net, since I had nothing to busy myself with. Soon Iwas joined by Masa, and a little later Mr Freyby also came out, attracted by the sound of a bouncing ball, so enchanting to the English ear.

Fandorin proved to be a rather good pupil and after a quarter of an hour the ball was already flying backwards and forwards over the net as many as ten times in a row. Xenia Georgievna became more cheerful, roses appeared in her cheeks and a few strands of light hair crept out from under her hat – she was a joy to look at. Her partner was also a fine sight. He held the racket wrongly and struck the ball powerfully, as if he were slashing with a sabre, but his movements around the court were agile, and it must be admitted that he looked very handsome.

‘They make a lovely couple, don’t they?’ said Mr Freyby.

‘Beootifur per,’ Masa translated succcinctly.

Iwas astounded by this remark and attributed it to a distortion of meaning in the translation. Of course, Mr Fandorin could not possible make a ‘pair’ with Her Highness, not in any sense of the word. However, after those words of Mr Freyby’s I looked more closely at Xenia Georgievna and for the first time, as the common folk say, felt a cat scratching at my soul. I had never seen Her Highness look so radiant, not even before her first ‘grown-up’ ball.

‘That’s all now, Erast Petrovich, no more time-wasting!’ she shouted. ‘You already know enough for us to play one game keeping score. The rules are very simple. I’ll serve, because you don’t know how to anyway. First I’ll hit the ball into this square, then into that one, and so on by turns until the game is won. And you hit it back, only into the court. Is that clear? The loser will crawl under the net. And I’ll ask the Englishman to be umpire.’

She spoke to Mr Freyby in English and he bowed with a serious air and walked up to the net. However before signalling for the game to start, he turned to us and said something.

‘He want bet,’ Masa explained, and sparks of mischief glinted in his little eyes. ‘Two to one on rady.’

‘On the what?’ I asked, mystified.

‘On young rady,’ the Japanese replied impatiently and then he also started babbling away in English, pointing to his master and to Her Highness by turns.

‘All right,’ the Briton agreed. ‘Five to one.’

Masa translated.

With a despairing sigh, he took a brightly coloured wallet out from somewhere under his clothes, showed Mr Freyby a fiverouble note and put it down on the bench.

The Englishman immediately took out a squeaky wallet of fine leather and extracted a twenty-five-rouble note from it.

‘What about you, Mr Ziukin?’ he asked, and I understood that without any translation.

To my mind the idea of betting was not entirely decent, but as Georgii Alexandrovich was leaving, he had ordered me: ‘Fun and relaxation, Afanasii. I am relying on you.’ So I decided to behave in a relaxed fashion.

And anyway, the bet looked like a certainty. Xenia Georgievna had been exceptionally flexible and agile ever since she was a child, and there was no one among the ladies who could match her at tennis. And not just among the ladies, either – I had often seen her outplay Pavel Georgievich, and Endlung, while Fandorin had never even held a racket before today. Masa could only have bet on his master out of a sense of loyalty. I have heard that among Japanese servants loyalty extends to a fanaticism that knows no bounds. They write (I do not know if it is true) that a Japanese servant will rather rip open his own stomach than fail his master. Such self-sacrifice, in the spirit of the butler Vatelle, who fell on his own sword when the fish dish was not served in time, cannot occasion anything but respect. However, the spilling of one’s own intestines on a polished parquet floor is an act that is quite inconceivable in a respectable house.

I began feeling curious as to how far the Japanese valet’s self-sacrifice extended. I happened to have exactly fifty roubles in my purse, set aside to be deposited in my savings account at the bank. I took out the notes and put them in the same place on the bench.

To give the Japanese his due, he didn’t turn a hair. He took another ten-rouble note out of his wallet, and then Mr Freyby shouted: ‘Go!’

I knew the rules of the game very well, so I did not need to pay attention to what the Englishman shouted.

Xenia Georgievna arched over gracefully and served the ball so powerfully that Fandorin barely managed to get his racket in the way. The ball flew off at an angle, caught the top of the net, hesitated for a while over which way to fall, then tumbled over on Her Highness’s side.

Love–fifteen to Erast Petrovich. He was lucky.

Her Highness moved to the other side of the court and hit a very tricky serve with a powerful swerve, then ran rapidly up to the net, knowing in advance where her opponent would return the ball – if he returned it at all.

Fandorin did return it, but so powerfully that the ball would certainly have flown out of the court if only it hadn’t struck Her Highness on the forehead.

Xenia Georgievna looked rather shaken, and Fandorin seemed frightened. He dashed to the net and applied a handkerchief to Her Highness’s forehead.

‘It’s all right, it’s nothing,’ she murmured, holding Fandorin’s wrist. ‘It doesn’t hurt at all. You are a lucky beggar, though. Love–thirty. But now I’ll show you.’

The third serve was one of those that are quite impossible to get. I didn’t even see the ball properly – only a streak of lightning that flashed above the court. By some miracle Fandorin managed to catch the ball with his racket, but extremely awkwardly: the small white sphere flew up onto the air and began falling back down straight onto the net.

Xenia Georgievna ran forward with a triumphant exclamation, prepared to hammer the ball into the court. She swung and smashed the ball hard, and once again it caught the top of the net, only this time it did not tumble over on to the opponent’s side, but fell back to Her Highness’s feet

The grand princess’s face expressed confusion at the strange way the game was turning out. No doubt it was this confusion that caused Her Highness to miss twice on her last serve, a thing that had never happened before, and the game was lost ‘to love’, as the sportsmen say.

I felt my first twinge of dislike for Fandorin as his valet coolly stuffed his substantial winnings into his bright-coloured purse. It would take me quite a while to get used to the idea of losing fifty roubles in such an absurd fashion.

And I did not like the scene that was now played out on court at all.

As it had been agreed that the losing party would do, Her Highness went down on all fours and crawled under the net. Fandorin bent down hastily to help Xenia Georgievna get up. She looked up at him and she froze in that absurd pose. Embarrassed, Erast Petrovich took her by the hand and pulled, but too strongly – the grand princess fell against him with her chest and her hat went flying to the ground, taking her hairpins with it, so that her thick locks scattered loose across her shoulders.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Fandorin mumbled. ‘Thank you for the lesson. I must be going.’

He bowed awkwardly and strode off towards the house, with the Japanese waddling after him.

‘Lucky devil,’ said Mr Freyby.

Then he translated it: ‘

S-cha-stlivy . . . chort.’

And he began counting the money remaining in his wallet with an obvious air of regret.

But I was no longer thinking about the money I had lost. My heart was wrung by a feeling of alarmand a sense of foreboding.

Ah, how Xenia Georgievna gazed after Fandorin as he moved away from her! The cunning beast walked as if nothing at all had happened and only looked round at the very last moment – just before he turned the corner. He glanced briefly at Her Highness and immediately turned away. A low trick, very low, perfectly calculated for its effect on a young, inexperienced girl!

The grand princess flushed bright red at that lightning-fast glance, and I realised that something monstrous, something quite scandalous had occurred – one of those events that shake the very foundations of the monarchy. An individual of the imperial blood had fallen in love with a person who was inappropriate. There could be no mistake about it, although I can certainly not be considered an expert on the subject of women and their feelings.

Afanasii is an old bachelor and will evidently remain one. Our honourable dynasty is destined to end withmebecause, although I have a brother, he has forfeited the right to continue the Ziukin line of court servants.

My father, Stepan Filimonovich, and before him his father, Filimon Emelyanovich, were married at the age of seventeen to girls from similar court servant families and at the age of eighteen they had already produced their eldest sons. God grant to everyone the respect and love in which they lived with their spouses. But with me our family’s good fortune faltered and stumbled. The Ziukins will die out because I was given a feeble soul incapable of love.

I have not known love for the female sex. Adoration, though, is a different matter: I experienced that feeling when I was still a youth, and it was so powerful that afterwards I seemed to have no strength left for ordinary love.

From the age of fourteen I was a servant at a certain grandducal house too well known for me to name it. One of the grand princesses, whose name I will also not mention, was the same age as myself, and I often accompanied her when she went riding. In all my life since then I have never met a girl or a lady who could even remotely compare with Her Highness – not in beauty, although the grand princess was quite indescribably lovely, but in that special glow that radiated from her face and her entire person. I cannot explain it any better than that, but I saw that radiance quite clearly, as others see the moon’s rays or the light from a lamp.

I do not recall ever making conversation with Her Highness or asking her a question. I simply dashed to carry out any order that she deigned to give me without saying a word. In those years my life consisted of days that happened and days that somehow didn’t. When I saw her, it was a good day; when I did not see her, it was as if there was no day, nothing but blackness.

She must have thought that I was dumb, and she either pitied or simply grew used to me, but sometimes she would look at me with such an affectionate smile that I simply froze. It happened once during a horse race through the forest. Her Highness looked round at me and then smiled in that way, and in my happiness I let go of my reins. When I came round I was lying on the ground with everything swimming around me and Her Highness’s radiant face bending down over me, with tears in her eyes. I believe that was the happiest moment in my entire life.

I was a boy servant at that court for two years, seven months and four days, and then the grand princess was married to a German prince, and shewent away. It did not happen all at once – in imperial households marriages are arranged slowly – and all that time I had only one dream – to be among the staff of servants that would go to Germany with Her Highness. There was a vacancy for a junior footman.

But it did not happen. My father, the wise man, would not allow it.

I never saw Her Highness again. But at Christmas that year I received a letter she had written to me in her own hand. I still keep it to this day, with my parents’ wedding rings and my bank book, but I never open it to look at it – I know it off by heart in any case. It is not even a letter really, more of a note. Her Highness sent one like it to all her former servants who had stayed at home.

Dear Afanasii

All is well with me, and soon I shall have a little baby – a son or a daughter. I often remember our rides together. Do you remember the time you fell and I thought you had been killed? Not long ago I dreamed of you, and you were not a servant but a prince, and you told me something very happy and very nice, only I don’t remember what it was.

Be happy, Afanasii, and remember me sometimes.

That was the letter that I received from her. But there were no more letters because Her Highness passed away during her first labour and for almost thirty years now she has been with the angels, which is certainly a more suitable place for her than our sinful earth.

And so my father was proved right all round, although for a long time, right up until his death, I was unable to forgive him for not letting me go to Germany. Soon after Her Highness’s departure I turned seventeen, and my parents wished to marry me to the daughter of the senior doorman at the Anichkov Palace. Shewas a fine girl, but Iwould have nothing of it. Despite my equable and accommodating character, I would sometimes be overcome by stubbornness like that. My father struggled and struggled with me, and then finally gave up. He thought that in time I would come to my senses. And so I did, but I never did feel the desire for family life.

And that is the best way for a genuine butler – there is nothing to distract you from serving. Foma Anikeevich is not married either. And as for the legendary Prokop Sviridovich, although he had a wife and children, he kept them in the country and only visited them twice a year – at Christmas and at Easter.

A genuine butler knows that his service is not a duty but away of life. It is not a matter of being a butler from morning until evening and then going home and simply being Afanasii Ziukin. A butler is like a nobleman, they both serve at court, only we are a lot stricter with ourselves than the nobility. That is what makes us worth so much.

Many people would like to lure away a genuine butler from the court of the tsar or a grand duke and they have been known to offer huge amounts of money. Any rich man is flattered to have his own home ordered in the same manner as the imperial palaces. My own brother Frol could not resist the temptation: he felt flattered by a handsome offer . . . Now he serves as a butler – no, they call it a major domo – for a Moscow millionaire, the banker Litvinov, a Jew. Frol was given five thousand for making themove and three thousand a year, all found, with an apartment and gratuities. There was a butler once, but no more.

I severed all relations with my brother. And he does not bother me either – he understands the sin he has committed. And never mind millionaires, I would not even go to Prince Borontsov, although he offered me everything you could possibly imagine. One can only serve someone with whom one will not compare oneself. Distance is required. Because on one side there is the human, and on the other side the divine. Distance will always help to maintain respect. Even when one discovers Georgii Alexandrovich in the black chef Manefa’s little room or when Pavel Georgievich, unconscious and covered in vomit, is delivered home by cab in the middle of the night. But who is Prince Borontsov – merely a noble, and what is so special about that? Even we Ziukins were nobles once, although not for long.

This is an unusual story concerning one of our ancestors, my great-grandfather Emelyan Ziukin. I think it is probably worth telling – it is highly edifying, since it demonstrates once again that the foundation of the world is the established order, and God forbid that one should disrupt this order – no good will ever come of it in any case.

The Ziukins have their origins among the serfs of the Zvenigorod district of the province of Moscow. My ancestor, Emelyan Silantievich – at that time simply Emelka – was taken as a child to serve the master and his family, and his quick wit and efficiency made him well-liked, so that after a while they began treating him specially: they dressed him in clean clothes, kept him away from dirty work and taught him to read and write. He was attached to the young master as a kind of play friend. He read a lot of books, picked up some manners and even learned a certain amount of French, but the worst thing was that he started to feel ashamed of being a serf. And I believe that is why he started looking at the young lady of the house, the landowner’s daughter, not as one looks at a grand princess, with reverential devotion, but with the most audacious of intentions: he was determined to marry the object of his interest. You might think, who has ever heard of a peasant boy marrying a noblewoman? Anyone else would have dreamed for a while and then given up, but Emelyanwas a stubborn character – he thought a lot and planned a long way ahead and, as they would say nowadays, he believed in his star.

He did not tell a single living soul about his dream (although one could call it a plan, not a dream), especially not the young lady, but when recruits were being enlisted – they were fighting the French at the time – he suddenly asked to go for a soldier instead of the miller’s son, whose name had been drawn in the lottery. Emelyan was not yet old enough, but he was a fine strapping lad, and he added a year or two to his age. He was willingly let go, because by that time he had become insolent and disobedient – the master and his family no longer knewwhat to do with him.

So my great-grandfather put on a soldier’s uniform and took a payment in compensation from the miller, the richest man in the village, of seven hundred roubles in paper money, which he didn’t give to his father but put in the bank in his own name. That was in order to carry out his plan.

Emelyan was sent straight to the war, to fight in the Austrian campaign, and he fought for seven or eight years without a break – against the French and the Persians and the Swedes and the Turks and then the French again. He found his way into the very hottest spots and always volunteered for every desperate adventure. He was wounded many times and awarded medals, won a corporal’s stripes, and still that was not enough for him. And in the campaign of 1812, at the battle of Smolensk, when all the commanders in his company were killed, Emelyan won his cherished reward: General Bagration himself kissed him and promoted him to officer’s rank, something that almost never happened in those times.

After that Emelyan Ziukin fought for another two years and went as far as Paris with the army, but as soon as the armistice came, he asked for extended leave, although he was regarded most highly by his superiors and could have hoped for further advancement in the army. But my great-grandfather wanted something else – his impossibly bold plan was finally coming close to fulfilment.

Emelyan returned to his native parts not simply as a nobleman and a lieutenant in the grenadiers, he also had his own small capital, because in all those years he had not spent his pay, and when he was discharged he received bonuses and medical payments, and his initial seven hundred roubles had also almost doubled owing to accrued interest.

And in his home village everything could not have gone better. The estate had been burned by the French, so that the master and his familywere absolutely ruined and nowlived in the priest’s house. The young master, Emelyan’s former playmate, had been killed at Borodino, and the maiden who had inspired my great-grandfather to play his desperate game with fate had been left without a bridegroom, for he had laid down his life at Leipzig. All in all, Emelyan appeared to the object of his dreams almost in the guise of an angel sent to rescue her.

He presented himself at the priest’s log-built village but in his dress uniform, wearing his medals. The young lady came out in an old patched dress, and the trials she had suffered had spoiled her looks, so that he did not recognise her immediately. But that did not matter to him, because itwas not the young lady he loved but his own impossible dream.

Only nothing came of it. The young lady greeted him affectionately enough at first – she was delighted to see an old acquaintance – but she replied to the offer of his hand and his heart with an insulting amazement, and said she would rather live under sufferance with her relatives than ever become ‘Mrs Ziukin’.

These words clouded Emelyan’s reason. He had never drunk intoxicating liquor before in his life, but now he launched into a wild binge, and it ended very badly. In his drunken state he tore off his epaulettes and medals in public and trampled them into the ground, all the while bawling out an incoherent stream of words. He was tried for bringing disgrace on the uniform, stripped of his officer’s rank and expelled from the nobility. He would have been completely destroyed by drink but, by a fortunate chance, he was spotted by his former regimental commander, Prince Drubetskoi, who took pity on the down-and-out and for the sake of his former meritorious services found him a place as a manservant at Tsarskoe Selo.

And so the fate of our family line was decided.

When an individual of loworigins cherishes inadmissible dreams regarding a person of higher standing, this is deplorable and even perhaps outrageous, but not really so very dangerous for, as they say, a wicked cow has short horns. But an infatuation that runs in the opposite direction, not up from below but down from above, is fraught with far-reaching consequences. The case of Grand Duke Dmitrii Nikolaevich is still fresh in everyone’s memory. He defied the tsar’s will and married a divorced lady, for which he was banished from the empire. And we court servants also know that when the present tsar was still the tsarevich, he begged his august father with tears in his eyes to release him from succeeding to the throne and allowa marriage beneath his station to the ballerina Snezhnevskaya. That had everybody trembling, but any damage was prevented by the grace of the Lord and the abrupt temperament of the late tsar.

Therefore, the sense of alarm that came over me following that infamous game of tennis is entirely understandable, especially since Xenia Georgievna already had a fiancй in the shape of a Scandinavian prince with good prospects of becoming king (everybody knew that his elder brother, the heir to the throne, had consumption).

I needed urgently to consult someone who understood the workings of a young girl’s emotions, for I myself, as must be clear from what has already been said, can not consider myself an authority in such matters. After long hesitation, I decided to take Mademoiselle Declique into my confidence and I informed her of my apprehensions in the most general and delicate of terms. Mademoiselle nonetheless understood me perfectly well and – to my dismay – was not at all surprised, indeed she took what I said in a spirit of quite incredible frivolity.

‘Yes, yes,’ she said, nodding absent-mindedly. ‘I noticed that too. He is a handsome man, and she is at that age. It is all right. Let Xenia know a little love before they put her in a glass case.’

‘How can you say such a thing!’ I exclaimed in horror. ‘Her Highness is already engaged!’

‘Ah, Monsieur Ziukin, I saw her fiancй Prince Olaf, in Vienna,’ Mademoiselle said, wrinkling up her nose. ‘What was that folk saying you taught me . . . one of God’s own fools, yes?’

‘But if the elder brother should die – and everyone knows that he is consumptive – Prince Olaf will be first in line to inherit the throne. Which means that Xenia Georgievna could be a queen!’

Of course, the governess’s remark that I found so jarring should be attributed to her state of dejection. I had noticed that Mademoiselle was absent that morning and believed I had guessed why. No doubt, with her active and energetic temperament, she had been unable simply to do nothing and had attempted to undertake some searches of her own. But what could she do in a foreign country and an unfamiliar city when even the police felt helpless?

Mademoiselle had returned looking so tired and miserable that it pained me to look at her. And it was partly because of this that I began the conversation about the subject of my concern – in a desire to distract her from her thoughts about the little grand duke. In order to calm her a little, I told her the direction that things had taken and mentioned the responsible mission that had fallen to my lot – naturally without any undue inflation of my own role in matters.

I had expected Mademoiselle to be delighted by the news that now there was a glimmer of hope, but after hearing me out she looked at me with a strange, frightened expression and suddenly said: ‘But that is very dangerous.’ And turning her eyes away, she added: ‘I know you are brave . . . but don’t be too brave, all right?’

I was quite nonplussed by that, and there was a rather uncomfortable pause.

‘Ah, what bad luck,’ I eventually said to recover the situation. ‘It has started raining again. And the combined choir serenade for Their Imperial Majesties is set for this evening. The rain could spoil everything.’

‘You’d better think of yourself. You have to ride in an open carriage,’ Mademoiselle said in a quiet voice, pronouncing the final phrase almost perfectly. ‘It’s very easy to catch cold.’

When I drove out through the gate in the gig with the top back, the rain was already lashing down in earnest and I was soaked through before I even reached Kaluga Square. That was bad enough, but in the stream of carriages rolling along Korovii Val Street, I was the only person behaving in this intrepid manner, whichmust have appeared strange to any onlookers. Whywould a respectable-looking man with a large moustache and whiskers not wish to put up the leather hood on his carriage? The water was streaming off the sides of my bowler hat, and my face was inundated too, while my fine tweed suit clung to me like a wet sack. But how else would Doctor Lind’s people have been able to recognise me?

Standing at my feetwas a heavy suitcase stuffed full of twenty-five-rouble notes. Colonel Karnovich’s agents were driving in front of me and behind me, maintaining a cautious distance. I was in a strangely calm state of mind and did not feel any fear or excitement – my nerves had probably been numbed by the long wait and the damp.

I did not dare to look round, for my instructions had strictly forbidden it, but I did glance to the sides every now and then, examining the occasional pedestrian passers-by. Half an hour before I left, Foma Anikeevich had telephoned me and said: ‘Mr Lasovsky has decided to take measures of his own. I heard him reporting to His Highness. He has positioned his sleuths from Kaluga Square all the way down to the Moscow River, spaced fifty paces apart, and told them to stay alert and arrest anyone who comes close to your carriage. I am afraid this might put Mikhail Georgievich in danger.’

I had no difficulty in spotting the sleuths – who, apart from them, would be out strolling with such an air of boredom in a downpour like this? Except for these gentlemen with identical black umbrellas there was almost no one on the pavements. There were just carriages driving in both directions, crowded close together, almostwheel-to-wheel. After Zatsepsky Val Street (I read the name on the street sign) a priest came up beside me in an old rattletrap of a carriage with its tarpaulin cover up. He was in a ferocious mood, in a hurry to get somewhere, and he kept shouting at the driver in front: ‘Come on, get a move on, servant of God!’ But how can anyone get a move on when he’s stuck behind a solid line of carriages, wagons, charabancs and omnibuses?

We crossed a little river or canal, then a river that was a bit wider. The chain of sleuths had ended long ago, and still no one had hailed me. I was already quite convinced that Lind had spotted the police agents and decided to call the meeting off. The flow of traffic halted at a wide crossroads, with a constable in a long oilskin raincoat whistling frantically as he gave right of way to traffic from the street crossing ours. The newspaper boys took advantage of the hold-up and darted in between the carriages, screeching: ‘One-Kopeck News!’, ‘Moscow Gazette!’, ‘RussianWord!’

One of them, with a flaxen forelock stuck to his forehead and a plush shirt turned dark by the rain hanging outside his trousers, suddenly grabbed hold of my carriage shaft with one hand and adroitly plumped himself down beside me on the seat. He was so small and so nimble that probably no one in the carriages behind had noticed him through the curtain of rain.

‘Turn right, Mister,’ the little lad said, nudging me in the side with his elbow. ‘And orders are not to turn your head.’

I wanted very much to look back to see if the police agents had missed this unexpected messenger, but I did not dare. They would see me take the turn anyway.

I pulled the reins to the right, cracked the whip, and the horse turned into a slanting side street that looked most respectable, with fine stone houses.

‘Move on, Mister, move on!’ the boy cried, looking back. ‘Come on now!’

He grabbed the whip from me, gave a wild whistle, lashed the chestnut horse, and it started clopping its hooves over the cobblestones for all it was worth.

‘Turn in there!’ said my guide, jabbing one finger to the left.

We went flying into a street that was a bit smaller and less grand, hurtled past one block of buildings and took another turn. Then another, and another.

‘Go that way, into the gateway,’ the newspaper boy ordered.

I pulled back slightly on the reins, and we drove into a dark narrow archway.

Less than half a minute later two carriages carrying police agents went rumbling and clattering past, and then all was quiet except for the splashing of the rain as it lashed even harder against the surface of the road.

‘And what now?’ I asked, taking a cautious look at the messenger.

‘Wait,’ he said grandly, blowing on his chilly hands.

It was clear that I could not expect any help from the court police and I would have to fend for myself. But I was not afraid, for I could deal with an opponent like this on my own. A small boywas no problem. Grab him by his skinny shoulders, give him a good shaking and he would tell me who had sent him. Then I could follow the trail.

Then I took a better look at the little fellow, noting the swollen mouth not at all like a child’s and the screwed-up eyes. A wild wolf cub, a real wolf cub. One could never shake the truth out of a boy like that.

Suddenly I heard the sound of another carriage approaching in the distance. I craned my neck to look, and the boy immediately took his chance. I heard a rustling sound and when I looked back I saw there was no longer anyone beside me – there was nothing but a blurred smear on the wet seat.

The rumbling was very close now. I jumped down off the coach box, ran out of the archway to the pavement and saw a foursome of sturdy blacks pulling a carriage with all the curtains tightly closed at a spanking pace. The driver had a hood lowered over his face and he was cracking a long whip loudly over the gleaming backs of the horses. When the carriage drew abreast of the archway, the curtains suddenly parted and there in front of me I saw His Highness’s pale little face framed in golden curls and that familiar sailor’s hat with the red pompom.

Mikhail Georgievich also saw me and started shouting loudly: ‘Afon! Afon!’

That was what he had always called me.

I tried to shout too and I opened my mouth, but only sobbed.

Lord, what was I to do?

The tricky procedure of backing the gig out of the gateway would take me too long. Not even realising what I was doing in my agitation, I dashed after the carriage as fast as I could run. I did not even notice when the wet bowler hat went flying off my head.

‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Stop!’

I could see the driver’s round hat above the roof of the carriage, and his flailing whip.

I had never run like that before in all my life, not even during my time as a court outrunner.

Of course, there was no way I could have caught a team of four horses if the street had not suddenly taken a tight bend. The carriage slowed down, heeling over slightly to one side. I took several huge bounds to reduce the distance, jumped and clung onto the luggage rack with both hands. I pulled myself up and was just on the point of climbing onto the monkey board, but the driver, without even looking round, lashed his whip back over the roof, stinging my temple, and I fell off. I landed face down in a puddle and then rolled across it, sending up a fountain of spray. When I lifted myself up on my hands the carriage was already turning a corner.

I limped back to the gig, wiping my dirty face with my sleeve, but when I got there the suitcase of money was gone.

9 May

The ceremonial procession had already passed the Triumphal Gates when I jumped out of my hired carriage, panting hard and streaming with sweat, and started working away brusquely with my elbows to force my way through the dense crowd lining both sides of Bolshaya Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street.

There were cordons of troops along the edge of the roadway and I squeezed my way through as close as possible to an officer, attempting as I went to extract from my pocket the decorative cardboard ticket that gave me the right to take part in the procession. But that proved to be far from simple, for in the crush it was not possible for me to straighten out my elbows. I realised that I would have to wait until the sovereign passed by and then slip through into the tail of the column.

There was a festive, radiant sun in the sky – for the first time after so many overcast days. The air was filled with the pealing of bells and shouts of ‘Hoorah!’

The emperor was making his ceremonial entry into the old capital, following the route from the suburban Petrovsky Palace to the Kremlin.

There were twelve horse gendarmes riding huge stallions at the front of the procession, and a mocking voice behind my back said rather loudly: ‘C’est symbolique, n’est-ce pas?¹ It’s easy enough to see who’s in charge in Russia.’

I looked round and saw two students gazing in disgust at the parade through the spectacles on their smug faces.

Behind the gendarmes came the Cossacks of the the imperial escort, swaying in their saddles, with the silver embroidery of their crimson Circassian coats glittering in the sun.

‘And they’ve got their whips too,’ the same voice remarked.

Then the Don Cossacks rode past in a rather untidy square, followed by a deputation from the Asiatic subjects of the empire, dressed in their colourful costumes, riding without any formation whatever, with carpets for saddles on their slimlegged, prancing steeds. I recognised the Emir of Bukhara and the Khan of Khiva, both wearing medals and gold general’s epaulettes, which looked strange on their Central Asian robes.

I still had a long time to wait. A long procession of representatives of the nobility passed by in their full-dress uniforms, and behind them came Head of the Bedchamber Bulkin, who was leading the court servants: footmen, blackamoors in turbans, Cossacks of the bedchamber. Then at last the people on the balconies decorated with flags and garlands began cheering, waving their hands and scarves, and the spectators pressed forward, stretching the cables taut, and I guessed that the central core of the column was approaching.

His Majesty was riding alone, looking most impressive in his Semyonovsky regimental uniform. His graceful snow-white mare Norma twitched her slim ears sensitively and squinted to one side and the other with her moist black eyes, but her ceremonial stride never faltered. The tsar’s face was motionless, frozen in a fixed smile. His white-gloved right hand was suspended beside his temple in a martial salute while his left hand toyed gently with the gilded bridle.

I waited for the grand dukes to pass by, and also the open landaus with Their Majesties the dowager and reigning empresses, and then showed my pass to the cordon and ran hastily across the open space.

Finding myself in the column of senators walking on foot, I made my way into the very centre, as far away as possible from the public gaze, and then started zigzagging my way forward, muttering my apologies as I slipped through. The important gentlemen, many of whom I knew by sight, glanced in bewilderment at this ignorant fellow in the green livery of the house of the Georgieviches, but I had no time to be concerned about the proprieties. The letter from Doctor Lind was burning my chest.

I caught a glimpse of Colonel Karnovich sitting on the monkey board of the empress-mother’s carriage. He was dressed as a footman of the chamber, with a tunic and a powdered wig, but was still wearing his eternal blue-tinted spectacles. At that moment however the head of the tsar’s bodyguard could not be of any help to me. I needed urgently to talk with Georgii Alexandrovich, although even he would not be able to resolve the problem that had arisen. The tsar himself was required for that. And, even worse, the tsarina.

Following the previous day’s embarrassing failure, Colonel Karnovich had received a vociferous dressing-down from Georgii Alexandrovich for preparing his agents poorly. I got my share too, from both of them, for not getting a good look at anything and not even detaining the newspaper boy. Fandorin was not present at this distressing scene. As Somov later informed me, the state counsellor and his Japanese had gone off somewhere even before I left for the meeting with Doctor Lind’s people, and they had not been seen since.

Their absence worried me greatly. Several times in the course of the evening and once long after midnight I went outside and looked at their windows. There was no light.

In the morning I was woken by a sharp, nervous knocking. I thought it must be Somov and opened the door in my nightcap and dressing gown. Imagine my embarrassment when I saw Her Highness standing there!

Xenia Georgievna looked pale, and the shadows under her eyes suggested that she had not gone to bed at all.

‘He’s not here,’ she gabbled. ‘Afanasii, he wasn’t here last night!’

‘Who, Your Highness?’ I asked in fright, pulling off my nightcap and bending my legs slightly, so that the hem of the dressing gown touched the floor and concealed my bare ankles.

‘What do you mean? Erast Petrovich! Do you perhaps know where he is?’

‘I have no idea,’ I replied, and my heart sank because I did not like the expression on Her Highness’s face at all.

Fandorin and his servant made their appearance after breakfast, when the grand dukes had already left for the Petrovsky Palace for the preparations for the ceremonial entry into the city. The house was full of police agents because a further message from the kidnappers was expected. I myself stayed as close as possible to the telephone and kept sending Somov out to the entrance to see if another note had been left. In fact, that was quite unnecessary, since Colonel Lasovsky had sleuths on duty in the bushes all the way along the avenue leading to the house. This time no one would be able to climb over the fence and approach the Hermitage unnoticed.

‘Did you see the child?’ Fandorin asked instead of greeting me. ‘Is he alive?’

I told him the bare bones of what had happened the previous day, anticipating another helping of reproaches for letting the newspaper boy get away.

In order to forestall any reprimands, I said: ‘I know I am at fault. I ought to have grabbed that little scoundrel by the scruff of his neck and not gone chasing after the carriage.’

‘The most important thing is that you got a good look at the boy and that he is unharmed,’ said Fandorin.

I could have stomached his reproaches, because they were well deserved, but I found such condescension objectionable.

‘But now the only clue has been lost!’ I exclaimed angrily, letting him see that I had no need of his false magnanimity.

‘What clue?’ he asked with a mild gesture of the hand. ‘A perfectly ordinary mop-headed little scamp, eleven and a half years old. Your Senka Kovalchuk doesn’t know a thing, and there’s noway he could have. Justwho do you think Doctor Lind is?’

My jaw must have dropped, because before I began to speak I felt my lips slap together in a most foolish fashion.

‘Se-Senka? K-Kovalchuk?’ I repeated, suddenly developing a stammer. ‘You mean you have found him? But how?’

‘Nothing to it. I got a good look at him when he dived into your g-gig.’

‘A good look?’ I echoed and felt furious with myself for talking like a parrot. ‘How could you get a look at anything, when you weren’t even there?’

‘How do you mean, I wasn’t there?’ Fandorin protested with a dignified air. He knitted his brows together and suddenly boomed in a deep voice that seemed incredibly familiar: “Come on, servant of God, get a move on!” Didn’t you recognise me? I was there beside you all the time, Ziukin.’

The priest, the priest in the rattletrap with the tarpaulin cover!

I took myself in hand and gave vent to my righteous indignation.

‘So you were there beside us, but you didn’t follow us!’

‘What on earth for?’ The gaze of his blue eyeswas so cool that I suspected he was mocking me. ‘I had s-seen quite enough. The boy had the Moscow Pilgrim newspaper in his bag. That is one. The printer’s ink had eaten deep into his fingers, so he really was a newspaper boy who handled hundreds of copies every day. That is two . . .’

‘But there are plenty of boys who sell the Pilgrim,’ I exclaimed in frustration. ‘I’ve heard that almost a hundred thousand copies of that yellow rag are sold in Moscow every day!’

‘The boy also had six fingers on his left hand – did you not notice that? And that is three,’ Fandorin concluded serenely. ‘Yesterday evening Masa and I went round all the ten depots where Moscow Pilgrim news boys collect their wares and we had no difficulty in establishing the identity of the individual who interests us. We had to search for a while before we found him, it is true, and when we found him we had to run a bit too, but it is quite hard to run away from Masa and me, especially for such a young individual.’

So simple. Lord, it was so simple – that was the the first thought that came into my head. In fact, all I needed to have done was look more closely at the kidnappers’ messenger.

‘What did he tell you?’ I asked impatiently.

‘Nothing of any interest,’ Fandorin replied, suppressing a yawn. ‘A perfectly ordinary little Senka. He sells newspapers to earn his own daily bread and his alcoholic mother’s vodka. Has no contacts with the criminal world. Yesterday he was hired by a certain “mister” who promised him three roubles and explained what he had to do. And he threatened to rip the boy’s belly open if he got anything confused. Senka says he was a serious mister, the kind who really would rip you open.’

‘And what else did he say about this “mister”?’ ‘I asked with a sinking heart. ‘What he looked like? How he was dressed?’

‘Ordnery,’ Fandorin said with a gloomy sigh. ‘You see, Ziukin, our young friend has a very limited vocabulary. His answers to every question are “Ordnery” and “Who knows?” The only distinctive f-feature of his employer that we have established is that he has a “bold face”. But I am afraid that will not be ofmuch help to us . . . All right, I’ll go and get a bit of rest. Wake mewhen the message from Lind arrives.’

And the unpleasant man went to his room.

I, however, still could not bring myself to move far away from the telephone apparatus standing in the hallway. I paced up and down, trying to maintain a dour, pensive air, but the servants were already casting glances of frank bewilderment in my direction. Then I stood at the window and pretended to be observing Lord Banville and Mr Carr, both dressed in white trousers and check caps, as they played croquet.

Properly speaking, they were not actually playing, merely strolling around the croquet pitch with sour expressions on their faces, while His Lordship spoke incessantly about something or other, seeming to become more and more angry. Finally he stopped, turned towards his companion and flew into a genuine fury – he waved his hands and started shouting so loudly that even I could hear him through the glass. I had never seen English lords behave in such a manner before. Mr Carr listened with a bored expression on his face, sniffing at his dyed carnation. Freyby was standing a short distance away, smoking his pipe without looking at his gentlemen at all. The butler had two wooden mallets with long handles tucked under his arm.

Suddenly Lord Banville shouted something especially loudly and gave Mr Carr a resounding slap which knocked the gentleman’s cap off his head. I froze in horror, afraid that the Britons would start up their barbarous ‘boxing’ right there on the lawn, but Mr Carr only threw his flower down at Banville’s feet and walked away.

His Lordship stood there for no more than a few moments, and then dashed after the friend of his heart. He overtook him and grabbed him by the arm, but Mr Carr tore himself free. Then Lord Banville went down on his knees and waddled after the man he had struck in that unflattering position. Freyby followed them with the mallets, yawning.

I didn’t understand what had happened and, to be quite honest, I was not interested in their English passions. And in any case I had just had a good idea that would free me from my enslavement to the telephone. I sent for the senior police agent and asked him to take my place in the hallway and send to the conservatory for me immediately there was a call from the kidnappers.

I believe that when I described the Hermitage I forgot to mention the most delightful space in this old palace – a glass-roofed winter garden with tall windows overlooking the Moscow river.

I chose this secluded spot, so conducive to intimate conversation, in order to deal with a matter that had been tormenting me for three days. I had to overcome my accursed shyness and finally tell poor Mademoiselle Declique that it was high time for her to stop suffering, that she had not done anything for which she deserved to be punished. How on earth could she have known that there was another carriage hidden behind the bushes? Not even the cunning Fandorin, who knewabout Doctor Lind, had guessed that.

I ordered Lipps to lay a table in the conservatory and sent to Mademoiselle to ask whether she would care to take tea with me. (In St Petersburg the two of us often often used to sit for a while over a cup or two of good Buryatian oolong.) I had selected a lovely little corner, completely cut off from the rest of the conservatory by luxuriant bushes of magnolia. I waited for the governess, feeling very nervous as I tried to choose the right words – quite unambiguous and yet at the same time not too intrusive.

However, when Mademoiselle arrived, looking sad in a severe, dark grey dress with a shawl across her shoulders, I could not bring myself to address the ticklish subject immediately.

‘It’s funny,’ I said, ‘there’s a garden in here and a garden out there.’

I meant that we were sitting in the winter garden, and there was a garden outside the window too, only a natural one.

‘Yes,’ she replied, lowering her head and stirring her tea with a spoon.

‘You shouldn’t . . .’ I blurted out, but then she lifted her head and glanced at me with her luminous eyes, and I finished in a way I had not intended ‘. . . dress so warmly. Today is a genuine summer day, even rather hot.’

The light in her eyes went out.

‘I don’t feel hot,’ Mademoiselle said quietly and then neither of us spoke any more.

It was this silence that allowed it all to happen.

There was the sound of footsteps in the conservatory and we heard Xenia Georgievna’s voice: ‘Yes, yes, Erast Petrovich, this is just the right spot. No one will disturb us here.’

I was about to push my chair back and get up, but Mademoiselle Declique suddenly squeezed my wrist in her fingers, and I froze in surprise, because in all the time we had known each other this was the first time she had touched me in that way. By the time I recovered my wits it was already too late to speak up – things had gone too far between Her Highness and Fandorin.

‘What do you want to tell me?’ he asked quietly and – so I thought – cautiously.

‘Just one thing . . .’ Xenia Georgievna replied in a whisper, but she did not add anything else – the only sound was a rustle of material and a very faint squeak.

Concerned, I parted the thick bushes and was absolutely astounded: Her Highness was standing on tiptoe (it was her shoes that had squeaked, I realised) with both of her arms round Fandorin’s neck, pressing her lips against his. The detective adviser’s hand was held out helplessly to one side; the fingers clenched and unclenched and then suddenly, as if they had finally come to some decision, flew up and began stroking the delicate nape of Xenia Georgievna’s neck with its fluffy strands of light hair.

I heard the sound of rapid breathing right beside my ear – it was Mademoiselle, who had also parted the bushes and was watching the kissing couple. I was astounded by the strange expression on her face, her eyebrows seemingly raised in a kind of merry amazement, a half-smile trembling on her lips. The doubly scandalous nature of the situation – the kiss itself and my inadvertent spying – brought me out in a cold sweat. But my accomplice apparently felt no awkwardness at all.

The kissing went on for a very, very long time. I had never imagined that it was possible to kiss for so long without any pause for breath. But I did not actually look at my watch, and perhaps the wait seemed so interminable to me because of the sheer nightmarishness of the situation.

Eventually they released their hold on each other, and I finally saw the radiant glow in Her Highness’s eyes and the perplexed expression, so unlike his usual one, on the face of her seducer. Then Xenia Georgievna took Fandorin by the hand in a most determined fashion and led him away.

‘What do you think; where is she taking him?’ I asked in a whisper, avoiding looking at Mademoiselle.

There was strange sound rather like giggling. I glanced at the governess in surprise, but she looked perfectly serious.

‘Thank you for the tea, Afanasii Stepanovich,’ Mademoiselle said with a demure little bow and left me there alone.

I tried to gather my thoughts. What should I do? The honour of the imperial house was under threat – God only knew what this infatuation might lead to if someone did not intervene in time. Perhaps I should inform Georgii Alexandrovich? But to burden him with this additional problem seemed quite impossible. I had to think of something myself.

However, I was prevented from concentrating effectively on this most important matter by entirely extraneous questions.

Why had Mademoiselle taken hold of my wrist? I could still feel the dry heat of her hand.

And what was the meaning of that giggling – if, of course, I had not imagined it?

The windowpanes sudden quivered from a plangent blowand I heard a mighty rumbling – it was the cannon firing from the Kremlin towers to announce the commencement of the procession. And that meant itwas noon already. And almost that very same moment Iwas called to the hallway. The postman had delivered the daily correspondence, and among the usual envelopes containing all sorts of invitations, notifications and charity appeals, one envelope without a stamp had been discovered.

We assembled round this rectangle of white paper lying in the centre of the small table under the mirror: myself, two police agents and Fandorin – looking unusually ruddy and with his collar distinctly lopsided.

While he questioned the postman about which route he had followed and whether he might have left his bag anywhere, I opened the envelope with trembling fingers and took out, together with a sheet of paper folded into four, a lock of soft, golden hair.

‘Oh Lord,’ I exclaimed involuntarily, because there could be no doubt at all that the hair belonged to Mikhail Georgievich.

Fandorin left the frightened postman and joined me. We read the message together.

Gentlemen, you have violated the terms of our arrangement. Your intermediary attempted to reclaim the goods by force without having made the payment agreed. As a first warning I am sending you a strand of the prince’s hair. Following the next breach of faith on your side, you will receive one of his fingers.

The gentleman with the doggy sideburns can no longer be trusted. I refuse to deal with him. Today the prince’s governess, whom I saw in the park, must come to the meeting. So that the lady will not be encumbered with the burden of a heavy suitcase, this time please be so good as to make the next payment to me in the form of the sapphire bow collar made by the court jeweller of the Tsarina Elisaveta – in the opinion of my specialist this bauble is worth precisely a million roubles, or perhaps slightly more, but you will not cavil at petty trifles, surely?

Beginning from six o’clock this evening the governess, completely alone, must stroll along the Arbat and the streets around it, following any route that she wishes, but choosing the places that are less crowded. She will be approached.

Yours sincerely,

Doctor Lind

‘I am afraid that this is impossible,’ was the first thing I said.

‘B-but why?’ Fandorin asked.

‘The inventory of the crown jewels lists the neckband in the coffret² of the ruling empress.’

‘And what of that?’

I simply sighed. How was he to know that for Her Majesty, so jealously protective of her somewhat ethereal status, the crown jewels held a special, rather morbid importance?

According to established ceremonial, the dowager empress was obliged to pass on the coffret to her successor immediately upon the new tsarina’s accession to the throne. However, Maria Feodorovna, being a connoisseur of the beautiful as well as a capricious and wilful individual – and also let us be quite frank, not overfond of her daughter-in-law – had not wished to be parted from the jewels and had forbidden her crowned son to pester her with conversations on the subject.

A painful situation had resulted in which His Majesty, being on the one hand a dutiful son and, on the other, a loving husband, found himself, as they say, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, and did not know what to do. The confrontation had continued for many months and had only been ended very recently by an unexpectedly decisive move on the part of the young empress. When, following numerous hints and even direct demands, Maria Feodorovna sent her only a small part of the jewels, mostly emeralds, which she did not like, Alexandra Feodorovna announced to her husband that she regarded the wearing of jewellery as in bad taste and henceforth she would not wear any diamonds, sapphires, pearls, gold and other vain ornaments at any ceremonial occasions. And she referred to the Scriptures, where it is said: ‘A good name is better than great riches, and a good reputation is better than silver and gold.’ After this threat the empress-mother was obliged to part with her jewels after all and, as far as I was aware, Alexandra Feodorovna had brought the entire contents of the coffret to Moscow so that she could appear in all her splendour at the numerous balls, receptions and ceremonies.

I had to reach Georgii Alexandrovich urgently.

I had to delay a little while before running from Maria Feodorovna’s landau to the mounted group of grand dukes, for the procession had just entered the Triumphal Square and my manoeuvre would have been blatantly obvious. My watch already showed half past one. Time was running out.

A convenient opportunity presented itself when rockets went soaring up into the sky from the roof of a large building on the corner of Tverskaya Street, leaving trails of coloured smoke behind them. As if by command, the assembled members of the public jerked up their heads and started buzzing in rapturous delight, and I quickly cut across the open space and hid among the horses. In accordance with ceremonial, each of the horses on which Their Highnesses were sitting was being led by the bridle by one of the companions of the court. I saw Pavel Georgievich, wearing a weary, anxious expression on his bluish-green face; Endlung, sprightly and rosy-cheeked, was striding out beside him.

‘Afanasii,’ His Highness called to me in a pitiful voice. ‘I can’t go on. Get me some pickle water. I swear to God, I’m going to be sick . . .’

‘Hold on, Your Highness,’ I said. ‘The Kremlin is coming up soon.’

And I carried on squeezing my way through. A dignified gentleman squinted sideways at me in bewilderment. To judge from the red welts on his cuffs and the buttons with hunting horns on them, he must have been a master of hounds, but so many of those had appeared during the new reign that it was impossible to remember them all.

His Majesty’s three uncles made up the front row of the procession of grand dukes. I worked my way through to Georgii Alexandrovich’s sorrel Turkmen, took hold of its bridle (so that there were now two of us leading it – myself and the stall-master Count Anton Apollonovich Opraksin) and passed the note from Lind to His Highness without speaking.

When he saw the lock of hair, Georgii Alexandrovich’s face changed. He quickly ran his eye over the lines of writing, touched his spurs to the lean, muscular sides of his mount and began slowly overhauling the solitary figure of the sovereign. The count let go of the bridle in horror. And so did I.

There could be no doubt at all that a genuine storm would blow up in international politics. It was a certainty that today the coded telegrams would go flying to foreign courts and delegations: Admiral-General Georgii Alexandrovich demonstrates his special relationship with the tsar, and from now on can probably be regarded as the most influential individual in the Russian empire. So be it. There were more important things to deal with.

With his hands held proudly on his hips exactly like his nephew, His Highness approached the sovereign unhurriedly and rode on beside him, just half a length behind; the admiral-general’s portly figure made a far more majestic sight than the autocrat’s thin silhouette. From the twitching of His Highness’s magnificent moustache, I guessed that Georgii Alexandrovich was telling the emperor about the letter, without even turning his head. The tsar’s head quite clearly jerked to one side. Then his moustache, less magnificent than Georgii Alexandrovich’s, twitched in exactly the sameway, and the grand duke began gradually falling back, until he was level with his brothers again.

Since I was so close, I could hear Kirill Alexandrovich hiss furiously: ‘Tu es fou, Georgie, ou quoi?’³

I do not know if the people of Moscow noticed that when the procession entered Tverskaya Street the column began moving significantly more quickly, but in any case twenty minutes later the sovereign rode in through the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin and a quarter of an hour after that closed carriages drove away one after another from the porch of the Large Kremlin Palace. The individuals who were privy to the secret were hurrying to the Hermitage for an emergency meeting.

This time the visitors included our sovereign lady, whose decision would determine the outcome of the whole affair.

Since I had to arrange in haste for light hors d’њuvres, coffee, seltzer water and orangeade for Her Majesty (nothing so inflames the thirst and the appetite as a prolonged ceremonial procession), I missed the beginning of the discussion and had to reconstruct its course in retrospect, from what I heard the participants say.

For example, the delicate explanation to the tsarina concerning the sapphire neckband took place in my absence. When I came in, I found Her Majesty in an angry mood but already reconciled to the inevitable.

‘However, His Anointed Majesty has promised to me that this thing will quite definitely be returned to me entire and undamaged,’ our sovereign lady was saying to High Police Master Lasovsky just as I entered with the tray.

From these words, and also from the fact that Colonel Karnovich was sitting there with a rather sulky air, I concluded that following the previous day’s failure control of the operation had been transferred to the Moscow police. Fandorin was also here – I assumed in his capacity as an adviser.

Her Majesty had not had time to change, and she was still wearing her ceremonial dress of white brocade studded all over over with precious stones, and a heavy diamond necklace. The grand dukes had had no time to remove the stars of their various decorations, the watered silk ribbons of their medals and their chains of St Andrew, and all this iridescent shimmering made the room seem like a closet where the New Year’s tree decorations are kept.

‘Your Majesty,’ Lasovsky declared, ‘Iwarrant on my own head that the sapphires will remain perfectly safe, we will rescue Mikhail Georgievich, andwe will nab the entire gang.’ Herubbed his hands together eagerly and Alexandra Feodorovna wrinkled up her nose at this rather vulgar gesture. ‘Everything will go absolutely perfectly, because this time that villain Lind has laid the trap for himself. Allow me to explain – I have drawn up a plan.’

He moved aside all the glasses and cups that I had arranged so carefully, grabbed a starched napkin and set it down at the centre of the table.

‘This is Arbat Street and the area around it, the Second Prechistensky District. The governess will get out of her carriage here, at Maly Afanasievsky Lane, hesitate for a while as if uncertain which way to go, then turn in here, on to Bolshoi Afanasievsky Lane, from there on to Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane, and then . . .’

He carried on listing the turns for a quite a long time, checking them against a sheet of paper. Everyone listened attentively, although Her Majesty, if the disdainful set of her mouth was anything to go by, was thinking more about the odour of sweat that was clearly emanating from the overheated chief of police.

‘I have already calculated that she will pass twelve blocks in all, on which there are two hundred and thirty houses.’ Lasovky looked round triumphantly at the sovereign and rapped out: ‘And in every one of those houses there will be one of my men. In every one! My assistants are arranging it at this very moment. And so, although the governess’s route will appear random, she will actually be in our field of vision all the time, but the villains will never realise it, since the detectives, agents and constables in plain clothes will be located inside the residents’ houses and apartments. If she walks the entire route and no one approaches her, she will go round a second time, and then a third – as many times as necessary.’

‘Rather smart, isn’t it?’ Simeon Alexandrovich asked smugly, very proud of his chief of police.

‘P-permit me to ask, Colonel,’ Fandorin suddenly put in. ‘Are you certain that Mademoiselle Declique, who has never been to Moscow before, will not be confused by your complicated route?’

Lasovsky frowned, knitting his brows.

‘I shall personally lock myself away in a room with her and make her learn off all the corners and turns by heart. We shall have an entire hour to do it.’

Fandorin seemed to be satisfied with this answer and he did not ask any more questions.

‘We have to send for the neckband,’ the sovereign said with a sigh. ‘And may God be with us.’

At half past four, as Mademoiselle, pale-faced and with clear bite marks on her lips, was on her way to the carriage, where two gendarmes officers in civilian clothes were waiting for her, Fandorin approached her in the corridor. I happened to be nearby and I heard every word.

‘There is only one thing required of you, My Lady,’ he said in a very serious voice. ‘Do not put the life of the boy at risk. Be observant, that is your onlyweapon. I do not knowwhat scheme Lind has in m-mind this time, but be guided by your own understanding, listen to no one and trust no one. The police are less interested in the life of your pupil than in avoiding publicity. And one more thing . . .’ He looked her straight in the eye and said what I had tried to say so recently, but had not known how. ‘Do not blame yourself for what happened. If you had not left the boy alone, your presence would still not have made any difference. Therewould only have been another unnecessary casualty, because Doctor Lind does not leave witnesses.’

Mademoiselle fluttered her eyelashes rapidly, and I thought I saw a teardrop fall from them.

‘Merci, monsieur, merci. J’avais besoin de l’entendre.’⁴

She put her hand on Fandorin’s wrist – exactly as she had done so recently with mine – and squeezed it. He squeezed her elbow in a highly familiar manner, nodded and walked rapidly away in the direction of his room, as if he were in a great hurry to get somewhere.

I shall jump ahead of my story at this point – why will become clear later – and tell you what came of the Moscow police’s operation.

Colonel Lasovsky’s plan was not bad at all, and no doubt it would have been crowned with success if Lind had complied with the conditions that he himself had set for the meeting. But that, unfortunately, is precisely what the guileful doctor did not do.

And so the governess was driven to Arbat Street. She had a velvet reticule holding the priceless treasure in her hands, and there were two gendarmes with her: one sitting opposite her, the other on the coach box.

Immediately after Krymsky Most Street, when the carriage turned into another street which, if I am not mistaken, is called Ostozhenka Street, Mademoiselle suddenly stood up, turned round to look after a carriage that had driven past in the opposite direction and shouted in a piercing voice: ‘Mika! Mika!’

The officers also looked round, just in time to glimpse a little blue sailor’s cap between the swaying curtains of a rear window.

They had no time to turn their carriage – just as I did not the day before, but fortunately therewas a cab driving towards them.

The gendarmes told Mademoiselle to stay in the carriage, threw the cabby off his own rig and set off in pursuit of the carriage that had driven away with Mikhail Georgievich.

They were unable to catch it, however, because the cab horse was no match for a fine four-in-hand. Meanwhile, as Mademoiselle Declique squirmed in confusion on her seat, a gentleman wearing a beard and moustache approached her, politely doffed hisOffice of Mines peaked cap and addressed her in broken French: ‘The terms have been met – you have seen the prince. And now, if you don’t mind, the payment.’

What could Mademoiselle do? Especially since therewere two other men, whom she described as looking far less gallant than the polite gentleman, strolling about not very far away.

She gave them the reticule and tried to follow Fandorin’s instructions by memorising the three men’s appearances.

Well, she memorised them and later described them in the greatest possible detail, but what good would that do? There was no reason to think that Doctor Lind was short of men.

I did not learn about the failure of the operation conceived by the high police master until later, because I was not at the Hermitage that evening. When Mademoiselle returned, never having reached the cunning trap set around Arbat Street, I had already left the Neskuchny Park.

After I had seen the governess off on her way to the risky undertaking in which she was obliged to participate because I had behaved stupidly and bungled my own assignment, I found the inactivity simply too painful. I paced backwards and forwards in my room, thinking what a monster Fandorin was. That guttapercha gentleman ought not to be allowed anywhere near young girls and respectable women. How shamelessly he had turned Her Highness’s head! How craftily he had won the good favour of Mademoiselle Declique! And after all, what for? What could this slick seducer and experienced man of the world want with a modest governess who was no great beauty and no grande dame? Why would he talk to her in that velvety voice and squeeze her elbow so tenderly? Oh this specimen never did anything without a reason.

At this point my thoughts suddenly turned in a completely unexpected direction. I remembered that Simeon Alexandrovich, who had known Fandorin in his previous life, had called him ‘an adventurer of the very worst sort’ from whom you could expect absolutely anything at all. I had formed the very same impression.

The suspicions came crowding into my mind one after another, and I attempted to make sense of them by setting them out in order, in Fandorin’s own manner.

First. After a little reflection, the story about the finding of the newspaper boy appeared suspicious. If one supposed that Fandorin really had displayed quite uncommon resourcefulness and sought out the little rogue, then why would he have let him go? What if the boy had kept something back or quite simply lied, and then gone running to report to Lind?

Second. Why had Fandorin tried to dissuade Mademoiselle from following the instructions of the police and recommended her to act as she thought best? A fine adviser Lasovsky had, no two ways about it!

Third. If he found the high police master’s plan so disagreeable, then why had he not said so at the meeting?

Fourth. Where was he off to in such a hurry after he said goodbye to Mademoiselle Declique? What kind of urgent business could he suddenly have when the operation was being conducted without his involvement? Yet another trick like yesterday’s?

And fifth, and most importantly. Had he told me the truth about his relations with Lind? I could not be certain about that either.

It was this last thought, coupled with my feeling of guilt for the risk to which Mademoiselle had been exposed thanks to my good offices, that drove me to commit an act the like of which I had never committed before in my life. I could never even have imagined that I was capable of anything of the sort.

I walked up to the door of Fandorin’s room, looked around and put my eye to the keyhole. Peeping through it proved to be extremely uncomfortable – my back soon turned numb and my bent knees began to ache. But what was going on in the room rendered such minor discomforts entirely irrelevant. They were both there – the master and the servant. Fandorin was sitting in front of the mirror, naked to the waist and performing some incomprehensible manipulations with his face. It looked to me as if he was putting on make-up, just as Mr Carr did every morning, with his door open and without the slightest sign of embarrassment in front of the servants. Masa did not fall within my limited range of vision, but I could hear him snuffling somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the door.

Fandorin reached out his hand, pulled a crimson silk Russian shirt over his head and then stood up so that I could not see him any longer, but I did hear squeaking and tramping sounds, as if someone were pulling on a pair of blacked boots.

What was this masquerade in aid of? What shady business was afoot here?

I was so completely absorbed that I let my guard down and almost banged my head against the door when I heard a gentle cough behind my back.

Somov! Ah, this was not good.

My assistant was gazing at me in utter amazement. Things were doubly bad because that morning I had put a flea in his ear for his lack of discretion – as I walked along the corridor before breakfast I had caught him coming out of Mademoiselle Declique’s room, where he had absolutely no business to be. In reply to my stern question, Somov had blushed and admitted that in the mornings he studied French on his own, and he had asked the governess to explain a particularly difficult point of grammar. I told him that although I encouraged the study of foreign languages by the staff, Mademoiselle Declique had after all been hired to teach His Highness and not the servants. It seemed to me that Somov resented my remarks, but of course he did not dare to answer me back. And now this embarrassing blunder!

‘The door handles and keyholes have not been polished as well as they might,’ I said, concealing my embarrassment. ‘Here, take a look for yourself.’

I squatted down, breathed on the brass handle and, thank God, fingerprints appeared on its misty surface.

‘But a guest only has to take hold of the handle once, and a mark will be left. Afanasii Stepanovich, no one will ever spot trifles like that!’

‘In our work, Kornei Selifanovich, there are no trifles. And that is something you ought to get clear before you try to master French,’ I said with a severity that was perhaps inordinate but justified by the circumstances. ‘Be so good as to go round all the doors and check. Begin with the upper floors.’

When he had left, I put my eye to the keyhole again, but the room was quiet and deserted, and the only movement was the curtain swaying at the open window.

I took a master key that fitted all the doors in the house out of my pocket, went inside and ran across to the window.

I was just in time to see two figures dive into the bushes: one was tall, wearing a black pea jacket and a peaked cap, the other was a squat figure in a blue robe, with a long plait and a bowler hat. That was exactly how Masa had looked when he was playing the part of the Chinese pedlar on the day we first met. ‘Strollers’ like that had spread all over St Petersburg in the last few years, and apparently all over Moscow too.

I did not have any time to think.

I clambered determinedly over the window sill, jumped down onto the ground, hunched over and ran after them.

It was easy enough to determine the direction in which the disguised men were running from the shaking of the bushes. I tried hard not to fall behind, but I avoided getting too close to them, in order not to give myself away.

With an agility that I found impressive, Fandorin and Masa scaled the railings and jumped down on the other side. My attempt to overcome this barrier, a sazhen and a half in height, went less smoothly. I fell off twice, and when I finally did find myself on the top I did not dare jump for fear of breaking my leg or spraining my ankle, and I carefully slid down the thick railings, catching the coat-tail of my livery and lacerating the entire flap, and also getting dirt on my culottes and white stockings. (It later became clear that if we had gone along the main avenue instead of through the garden, we would have run into Mademoiselle Declique on her way back from her unexpectedly brief expedition.)

Fortunately Fandorin and Masa had not got very far. They were standing arguing with a cabby who apparently was very reluctant to let such a suspicious-looking pair into his vehicle. Eventually they got in and drove off.

I glanced to the left and then to the right. Therewere no more cabs to be seen. The Kaluga Highway is just that, not really a street, more like a country high road, and cabbies are a rare commodity there. But once again my experience as a footman came in useful. I set off trotting smoothly at an easy pace, keeping close to the railings of the park, since the cab was not moving very fast. I did not come across a cab until I reached the Golitsyn Hospital, when I was beginning to get out of breath. Puffing and panting, I slumped on to the seat and told him to follow the other cab, offering to pay him twice the usual rate.

The driver looked respectfully at my green livery with braid trimmings and the gold epaulette with aiguillettes (in order to get into the ceremonial parade, I had decked myself out in my dress uniform, and afterwards there had been no time to change back – thank goodness that at least the three-cornered hat with the plumage had been left at home) and called me ‘Your Excellency’.

At Kaluga Square we took a turn to the left, came out on the embankment just before the bridge and then we did not make any more turns for a long time. Thank God, the passengers in the carriage in front did not turn round even once – my green and gold outfitmust have been clearly visible from a long distance away.

The river divided into two. Our route lay along the the narrower of the two channels. On the left I could see the Kremlin towers and eagles between the buildings, and still we kept on driving, further and further, so that I no longer knew what part of Moscow we had reached.

At long last we made another turn and rumbled across a short cobblestoned bridge, then across a longwooden one, then across a third, which bore a plaque: ‘Small Yauza Bridge’.

The houses became poorer and the streets dirtier. And the longer we drove along that atrocious, rutted embankment, the more wretched the buildings became, so that I could not think of any other word to describe them except slums.

The driver suddenly halted his horse.

‘You do what you like, guv’nor, but I’m not going into Khitrovka. They’ll rob me. Take me horse and give me a good battering into the bargain, if not worse. Everyone knows what the place is like, and evening’s coming on.’

And indeed dusk was already falling – how had I failed to notice that?

Realising that it was pointless to argue, I got out of the cab immediately and handed the driver three roubles.

‘Oh no!’ he said, grabbing me by the sleeve. ‘You just look how far we’ve rode, and you promised me double, Your Excellency!’

Fandorin’s carriage disappeared round the corner. In order not to fall behind, I tossed the insolent fellow another two roubles and ran in pursuit.

The people I encountered on the street were unsavoury in the extreme. To put it more simply, they were riff-raff, the same sort as we have on the Ligovka in St Petersburg only probably even worse. What I found particularly unpleasant was that every last one of them was staring at me.

Someone shouted after me familiarly: ‘Hey, you dandy drake, what have you lost around here?’

I pretended not to hear.

The cab was not there round the corner – there was nothing but an empty, crooked little street, crooked street lamps with broken glass covers and half-ruined little houses.

I dashed to the next turn and then jerked back sharply, because right there, only about fifteen paces away, the men I was looking for were getting out of their carriage.

I cautiously peeped round the corner and saw a crowd of repulsive ragamuffins gather round the new arrivals from all sides, gaping curiously at the cabby, from which it was possible to conclude that the appearance of a cab in Khitrovka was a rather extraordinary event.

‘Well, what about a rouble and a half, then?’ the driverwhined plaintively, addressing the disguised state counsellor.

Fandorin swayed back on his heels, keeping his hands in his pockets, baring his teeth in a fierce grin with a glint of gold caps, which had appeared in his mouth out of nowhere, and spat neatly on the driver’s boot. Then he asked mockingly: ‘What about a kick and a poke?’

The idle onlookers chortled.

Oh, what a fine state counsellor this was!

The cabby pulled his head down into his shoulders, lashed his horse and drove off, accompanied by whistling, hallooing and shouts of an obscene nature.

Without even glancing at each other, Fandorin and the Japanese walked off in different directions. Masa ducked into a gateway and seemed to dissolve into the gathering gloom, while Erast Petrovich set off along the very middle of the street. After hesitating for a while, I followed the latter.

It was incredible how much his walk had changed. Hewaddled along as if he were on invisible springs, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched over. He spat zestfully twice to once side and kicked an empty tin can with his boot. A crudely painted wench in a bright-coloured dress came walking towards him, wiggling her hips. Fandorin deftly extracted one hand from his pocket and pinched her on the side. Strangely enough, this style of courtship seemed very much to the lady’s liking – she squealed, broke into peals of laughter and shouted such a pithy phrase after her admirer that I almost stumbled over my own feet. If only Xenia Georgievna could have seen how little this gentleman cared for her tender feelings!

He turned into a dark narrowalleyway – no more than a chink between two buildings. I went in after him, but before I had even taken ten steps I was grabbed by the shoulders from both sides. A whiff of something rotten and sour blew into my face and a young, nasal voice drawled: ‘Ea-sy now, Mister, ea-sy.’

There were two figures that I could only vaguely make out in the twilight, one standing on my left and one on my right. Right in front of my eyes an icy spark glinted on a strip of steel, and I felt the strange sensation of my knees turning soft, as if they might suddenly bend in the wrong direction, in defiance of all the laws of anatomy.

‘Lookee ’ere,’ hissed a different voice, a bit older and hoarser. ‘A wallet.’

The pocket in which my porte-monnaie was lying suddenly felt suspiciously light, but I realised it would be best not to protest. In any case, the noise might bring Fandorin, and my surveillance of him would be exposed.

‘Take it quickly and leave me in peace,’ I declared quite firmly, but then gagged on my words because a fist came hurtling out of the gloom and struck me on the base of the nose, so that I was immediately blinded, and something hot ran down my chin.

‘Well, isn’t he the feisty one?’ I heard someone say as if he was speaking through a pane of glass. ‘And the skins, look at the skins, with gold trimmints.’

Someone’s hands grabbed hold roughly of my shirt and pulled it out from under my belt.

‘You did wrong to bloody his snout, Seka. That shirt of his is pure cambric, and now look, the whole front’s spattered something rotten. And his pants are good too.’

It was only then I realised that these criminals intended to strip me naked.

‘Them’s women’s pants, but the cloth’s right enough,’ the other voice said and someone tugged at the edge of my culottes. ‘They’ll do Manka for pantaloons. Get ’em off, Mister, get ’em off.’

My eyes had grown accustomed to the dull light, and now I could make out my robbers better.

It would have been better if I hadn’t – the sight was nightmarish. Half the face of one of them was swollen up and covered by a bruise of monstrous proportions, the other was wheezing through a damp, sticky collapsed nose.

‘Take the livery, but I won’t give you the breeches and the shoes,’ I said, for the very idea that I, the butler of the Green Court, might go wandering around Moscow in the nude, was inconceivable.

‘If you don’t get ’em off, we’ll pull ’em off yer corpse,’ the hoarse one threatened and pulled a razor out from behind his back – a perfectly ordinary razor, the same kind that I shave with, except that this one was covered in rust and badly notched.

I began unbuttoning my shirt with trembling fingers, cursing my own folly. How could I have got into such a loathsome mess? I had let Fandorin get away, but that was the least of my worries now – I would be lucky to get out of there alive.

Another shadow appeared behind the backs of the Khitrovka savages and I heard a lazy, sing-song voice say: ‘And what’s this little comedy we ’ave ’ere, then? Right, shrimp, scarper, and quick.’

Erast Petrovich! Butwhere had he come from? He hadwalked away!

‘You what? You what?’ the young robber shrieked, but his voice sounded nervous to me. ‘This here’s our sheep, mine and Tura’s. You live your life, toff, and let honest dogs live too. There’s no law says you can take a sheep off us dogs.’

‘I’ll give you a law,’ Fandorin hissed, and put his hand inside his jacket.

The robbers instantly pushed me away and took to their heels. But they took with them the livery and my wallet – with forty-five roubles and small change inside it.

I did not know if I could consider myself saved or, on the contrary, I had simply fallen out of the frying pan into the fire, as they say. That wolfish grin distorting Fandorin’s smooth features could hardly bode me any good, and I watched in horror as his hand drew something out of his inside pocket.

‘Here, take that.’

It was not a knife or a pistol, merely a handkerchief.

‘What am I going to do with you, Ziukin?’ Erast Petrovich asked in his normal voice and the appalling grimacewas replaced by a crooked smile which, to my mind, was equally repulsive. ‘Of course, I spotted you back at Neskuchny Park, but I didn’t expect you to stay in Khitrovka – I thought you would take fright and retreat. However, I see you are not a man who frightens easily.’

I did not know what to say to that, so I said nothing.

‘I ought to leave you here wandering around naked. It would be a lesson to you. Explain to me, Ziukin, what on earth made you come traipsing after us?’

The fact that he was no longer speaking like a bandit but in his usual gentleman’s voice made me feel a bit calmer.

‘What you told me about the boy was not convincing,’ I replied. I took out my own handkerchief, threw my head back and squeezed my bloodied nose. ‘I decided to check on you.’

Fandorin grinned.

‘Bravo, Ziukin, b-bravo. I had not expected such perspicacity from you. You are quite right. Senka Kovalchuk told me everything he knew, and he’s an observant boy – it’s part of his p-profession. And he’s bright – he realised that I wouldn’t let him go otherwise.’

‘And he told you how to find the “bold face” who hired him?’

‘Not exactly, for that of course is something that our young acquaintance does not know, but he gave an exhaustive description of his employer. Judge for yourself: a bold face, slit eyes, clean-shaven, thick lips, a “general’s” cap with a lacquer peak, a red silk shirt, boots with a loud squeak and lacquer galoshes . . .’

I looked at Fandorin’s own attire and exclaimed: ‘That’s amazing, you’re dressed in exactly the sameway. There are plenty of young fellows like that around in Moscow.’

‘By no means,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You certainly won’t see them around Moscow very often, but in Khitrovka you can meet them, although not in such v-very large numbers. It’s not just a matter of clothes, this is the supreme Khitrovka chic – the red silk and the lacquer galoshes. Only the toffs, that is bandits at the very top of the hierarchy, can presume to wear this outfit. To make it easier for you to understand, Ziukin, to them it is something like a gentleman-in-waiting’s uniform. Did you see the way those d-dogs scarpered at the sight of me?’

‘Scarpered’, ‘dogs’ – what sort of way is that to talk? I could see that there was very little of the state counsellor left in Fandorin. This man rather reminded me of cheap gilded tableware from which the upper layer has peeled away, exposing the vulgar tin.

‘What “dogs” do you mean?’ I asked, to make it clear that I would not agree to converse in criminal argot.

‘“Dogs”, Ziukin, are petty thieves and ruffians. For them, toffs like me are b-big bosses. But you interrupted me before I could tell you the bold face’s most important characteristic.’ He paused and then, with a pompous air, as if he were saying something very important, he said: ‘All the time he was talking to Senka – and he spoke to him for at least half an hour – this individual never took his right hand out of his pocket and kept jingling his small change.’

‘You believe that this habit is enough for you to find him?’

‘No,’ Fandorin sighed. ‘I believe something quite different. But anyway it will soon become clear whether my assumption is correct or not. Masa has to establish that. And if I am right, we intend to look for Mr Bold Face while Doctor Lind is playing cat and mouse with the police.’

‘And where is Mr Masa?’

Erast Petrovich waved his hand vaguely.

‘Not far from here, in a basement, a secret Chinese opium den. It moved from Sukharevka to Khitrovka after a police raid the year before last. Those people know all sorts of things.’

‘You mean that Mr Masa can speak Chinese?’

‘A little. There are many Chinese in his home town of Yokahama.’

Just then we heard an intricate bandit-style whistle from around the corner and I cringed.

‘There he is now,’ Fandorin said with a satisfied nod. He folded his fingers together in some special manner and whistled in exactly the same way, only even more piercingly – it actually left me deaf in one ear.

We walked on along the narrow side street and very soon met the Japanese. He was not at all surprised to see me and merely bowed ceremonially. I nodded, feeling extremely stupid without my livery and with blood spattered on my shirt.

They babbled away to each other in some incomprehensible language – I don’t know whether it was Japanese or Chinese – and all I could make out was the constant repetition of the word stump, which failed to make anything clearer to me.

‘I was right,’ Fandorin eventually condescended to explain. ‘It really is Stump – he has lost one hand and is in the habit of holding the stump in his pocket. He is a very serious bandit, the head of one of the new and most dangerous gangs in Khitrovka. The Chinese say their hideout is on Podkopaevka Street, in an old wine warehouse. It won’t be easy to get in there – they post sentries as if it was an army barracks, and they have even introduced a “scrip”, that is a password . . . That’s all very well, but what am I going to do with you, Ziukin? You’ve made yourself a real problem now. I can’t let you go wandering round Khitrovka on your own. You never know, you could get your throat cut.’

I was greatly piqued by these words and was on the point of saying that I would manage very well without anyone else looking after me – although, I must admit, I did not find the thought of a solitary stroll through the Khitrovka evening very attractive – when he asked: ‘Tell me, Ziukin, are you a physically robust man?’

I straightened my shoulders and replied with dignity: ‘I have served at court as a footman and postilion and on excursions. I do French gymnastics every morning.’

‘All right then, we’ll s-see,’ said Fandorin, with an insulting note of doubt in his voice. ‘You’ll come with us. Only on one condition: don’t take any action on your own; you must obey Masa and myself unquestioningly. Do you give me your word?’

What else could I do? Go back with nothing, as they say, for all my pains? And would I be able to get out of this cursed place on my own? And then it would be verymuch to the point to find this Stump. What if Fandorin was right, and the police operation on Arbat Street failed to produce any results?

I nodded.

‘Only your appearance isn’t really suitable for Khitrovka, Ziukin. You could compromise Masa and myself. Who can we turn you into? Well, at least a servant from a good house who has taken to drink.’

And, so saying, Fandorin leaned down, scooped up a handful of dust and poured it on the crown of my head, then wiped his dirty hand on my shirt, which was already stained with red blotches.

‘Ye-es,’ he drawled in satisfaction. ‘That’s a bit better.’

He squatted down and tore the gold buckles off my shoes, then suddenly took hold of my culottes and jerked hard, so that the seam at the back split and parted.

‘What are you doing?’ I cried in panic, jumping back.

‘Well, how’s that, Masa?’ the crazed state counsellor asked the Japanese, who inclined his head, looked me over and remarked: ‘Stockings white.’

‘Quite right. You will have to t-take them off. And you are far too clean-shaven, that is not comme il faut around here. Come on . . .’

He stepped towards me and, before I could even protest, he had smeared dust from the crown of my head right across my face.

I gave up. I took off my white silk stockings and put them in my pocket.

‘All right, that will do in the dark,’ Fandorin said condescendingly, but his valet actually favoured me with praise: ‘Ver’ good. Ver’ beeutfuw.’

‘Now where? To this Stump?’ I asked, burning with desire to get down to business.

‘Not so f-fast, Ziukin. We have to wait for night. Meanwhile, let me tell you what is known about Stump. He has the reputation of a mysterious individual with a big future among the criminals of Moscow. Rather like Bonaparte during the Directoire period. Even the King himself is rather afraid of him, although no state of war has been declared between the two of them. The one-armed bandit’s gang is small but select – everyone pulls their weight. Nothing but toffs, all well tried and tested. My man in the criminal investigation department, a highly authoritative professional, believes that the future of the Russian criminal world belongs to leaders like Stump. There are no drinking binges or fights in his gang. They won’t touch any small-time business. They plan their raids and robberies thoroughly and execute them cleanly. The police do not have a single informer among Stump’s men. And this gang’s hideaway, as I have already had the honour of informing you, is guarded with great care, military fashion.’

This all sounded most discouraging.

‘But how are we going to reach him, if he is so cautious?’

‘Over the rooftops,’ said Fandorin, gesturing for me to follow him.

We made our way through dark, dismal, foul-smelling courtyards for a while, until eventually Fandorin stopped beside a blank windowless wall that was indistinguishable from the others beside it. He took hold of a drainpipe, shook it hard and listened to the rattling of the tin plate.

‘It will hold,’ he muttered as if he were talking to himself, and then suddenly, without the slightest apparent effort, he started climbing up the flimsy structure.

Masa thrust his bowler further down onto his head and climbed after him, looking like a fairground bear who has been taught to scramble up a pole to get a sugarloaf.

As the common people say, in for a kopeck, in for a rouble. I spat on my hands the way our kitchen servant Siavkin doeswhen he is chopping firewood, crossed myself and took hold of an iron bracket. Right, one foot on the step in the wall, now the other – hup! Reach up to that hoop, now get my other arm over that ledge . . .

In order not to feel afraid, I started adding up my financial losses over the last fewdays. The day before before I had lost fifty roubles on the bet with Masa, today I had spent two and a half roubles on a cab in the morning and five in the evening, making seven and a half in all, and then the Khitrovka ‘dogs’ had gone off with my porte-monnaie and forty-five roubles. Then add to that my ruined clothes – they might only be my official uniform, but even so it was upsetting.

At this point I accidentally looked down and immediately forgot all about my losses because the ground was a lot further away than I had thought. The wall had not seemed all that high from below, only three storeys, but looking down made my heart skip a beat.

Fandorin and Masa had clambered onto the roof a long time ago, but I was still creeping up the drainpipe, trying not to look down any more.

When I reached the overhang of the roof, I suddenly realised that there was absolutely no way I could climb over it – all my strength had gone into the climb. I hung there, with my arms round the drainpipe, for about five minutes, until a round head in a bowler hat appeared against the background of the purple sky. Masa took hold of my collar and dragged me up onto the roof in a jiffy.

‘Thank you,’ I said, gulping in the air.

‘No need gwatitude,’ he said, and bowed although he was on all fours.

We crawled over to the other side of the roof, where Fandorin was spreadeagled on his belly. I settled down beside him, impatient to find out what he was watching for.

The first thing I saw was the crimson stripe of the fading sunset, pierced by the numerous black needles of bell towers. Fandorin, however, was not admiring the sky, but examining a lopsided old building with boarded-up windows located on the opposite side of the street. I could see that once, a long, long time ago, it had been a fine strong building, but it had been neglected, fallen into disrepair and begun to sag – it would be easier to demolish than renovate.

‘Back at the beginning of the century this used to be a warehouse that belonged to the Mobius brothers, the wine merchants,’ Erast Petrovich began explaining in a whisper, and I noticed that when he whispered the stammer disappeared completely from his speech. ‘The basement consists of wine cellars that go very deep. They say that they used to hold up to a thousand barrels of wine. In 1812 the French poured away what they didn’t drink and supposedly a stream of wine ran down the Yauza. The building is burnt out from the inside and the roof has collapsed, but the cellars have survived. That is where Stump has his residence. Do you see that fine young fellow?’

On looking more closely, I observed a ramp sloping down from the road to a pair of gates set well below the level of the street. There was a young fellow wearing a peaked cap just like Fandorin’s, standing with his back to the gates and eating sunflower seeds, spitting out the husks.

‘A sentry?’ I guessed.

‘Yes. We’ll wait for a while.’

I do not know how long the wait lasted, because my chronometer was still in my livery (something else to add to the list of losses: a silver Breguet awarded for honourable service – I regretted that most of all) but it was not just one hour or two, but more – I was already dozing off.

Suddenly I sensed that Fandorin’s entire body had gone tense, and my sleepiness disappeared as if by magic.

I could hear muffled voices from below.

‘Awl,’ said one.

‘Husk,’ replied the other. ‘Come on through. Got a message?’

I did not hear the answer to this incomprehensible question. A door in the gates opened and then closed, and everythingwent quiet again. The sentry lit up a hand-rolled cigarette and the lacquer peak of his cap glinted dully in the moonlight.

‘Right, I’m off,’ Fandorin whispered. ‘Wait here. If I wave, come down.’

Ten minutes later a slim figure approached the building, walking in a loose, slovenly manner. With a glance back over its shoulder, it loped springily down to the sentry.

‘Wotcher, Moscow. Guarding the wall?’

It was Fandorin of course, but for some reason his speech had acquired a distinct Polish accent.

‘Shove off back to where you came from,’ the sentry replied hostilely. ‘Or shall I tickle your belly with a pen?’

‘Why use a pen?’ Fandorin laughed. ‘That’s what an awl’s for. An awl, get it?’

‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ the sentry growled, taking his hand out of his pocket. ‘Husk. So who would you be then, a Polack? One of thatWarsaw mob, are you?’

‘That’s right. I need to see Stump.’

‘He’s not here. And he said as he wouldn’t be back today. Expect him tomorrow, he said, by nightfall.’ The bandit lowered his voice, but in the silence I could still hear what he said, and asked curiously, ‘They say as the narks done for your top man?’

‘That’s right,’ Fandorin sighed. ‘Blizna, and three other guys. So where’s Stump, then? I’ve got some business to talk over with him.’

‘He don’t report to me. You know the way the music plays nowadays, Polack. He’s on the prowl somewhere – ain’t shown his face since early morning. But he’ll be here tomorrow, for sure. And he’s put out the word for all the lads to come to a meet . . . Many of yourWarsaw mob left?’

‘Just three,’ Fandorin said with a wave of his hand. ‘Vatsek One-Eye’s in charge now. How many of yours?’

‘Counting Stump, seven. What’s this bazaar tomorrow, d’you know?’

‘Na-ah, they don’t tell us anything, treat us like mongrels . . . What’s your handle, Moscow?’

‘Code. And who are you?’

‘Striy. Shake?’

They shook hands and Fandorin glanced around and said: ‘Vatsek was spieling about some doktur or other. Did you hear anything?’

‘No, there wasn’t no yak about no doktur. Stump was talking about some big man. I asked him what sort of man it was. But you can’t get nothing out of him. No, he didn’t spiel about no doktur. What doktur’s that?’

‘Devil knows. Vatsek’s got a tight mouth too. So Stump’s not here?’

‘I told you, tomorrow, by nightfall. Come on in and have a banter with us. Only you know, Striy, our den’s not like the others – you won’t get no wine.’

‘How about a bit of hearts are trumps?’

‘Not done around here. For cards Stump’ll smash your neb in with his apple without thinking twice. Heard about the apple, have you?’

‘Who hasn’t heard about it. No, I won’t come in. It’s more fun round at our place. I’ll call round tomorrow. By nightfall, you say?’

And just then there was the sound of a clock striking the hour from the German church, a vague dark outline in the distance. I counted twelve strokes.

¹Symbolic, isn’t it?

²Casket.

³Are you mad, Georgie, or what?

⁴Thank you, sir, thank you. I needed to hear that.

10 May

‘Roll up when them bells is clattering,’ said Code, jerking his head in the direction of the church. ‘Stump ordered the meet for midnight sharp. Righty-ho, Polack, be seeing you.’

Fandorin waddled away, and the Japanese jabbed me in the back and gestured to indicate that it was time to get down off the roof.

I will not tell you how I climbed down the drainpipe in the total darkness. It is best not to remember such things. I skinned my hands, ripped my long-suffering culottes wide open and finally jumped down straight into a puddle, but the important thing is that I did not break my arms or legs, for which, O Lord, I thank Thee.

We were unable to hire a cab for a long time, even after we left Khitrovka. Once they got a good look at the three of us, the night-time cabbies simply lashed on their horses without saying a word and disappeared into the night. Moreover, I got the impression that the drivers’ doubts were aroused, not so much by Fandorin and Masa, as by my own tattered and spattered personage.

Finally we got a cab – when we had already reached the KitaigorodWall. All the way back I was worried that Erast Petrovich would refuse to pay again, and I didn’t have a kopeck on me. But no, this time he did pay, and in fact more generously than he need have done, as if he were paying for both journeys at once.

In my condition it seemed inappropriate to go in through the gates and I suggested, with some embarrassment, that we should climb over the fence again, although, God knows, in the day just past I had done more than enough climbing over fences and roofs. However, Fandorin glanced at the brightly lit windows of the Hermitage glimmering through the trees and shook his head.

‘No, Ziukin, we’d better go in through the gates. Otherwise we’ll probably get shot as well.’

It was only then I realised that light in the windows at such a late hour was a strange and alarming sign. There were two men in civilian clothes standing beside the usual gatekeeper. And, on looking more closely, I noticed that there were indistinct figures in the gardenonthe other side of the railings. Gentlemen from the court police, there was nobody else they could possibly be. And that could only mean one thing: for some reason the sovereign had come to visit the Hermitage in the middle of the night.

After long explanations at the entrance which concluded with Somov being sent for and the humiliating confirmation of my identity (the expression on my Moscow assistant’s face was a sight to behold when I appeared before him in such a state) we were admitted, and as we walked along the drive to the house I saw several carriages. Something out of the ordinary was clearly going on.

In the hallway there was another ordeal in store for me: I came face to face with the governess.

‘Mon Dieu!’ she exclaimed, fluttering her eyelashes, and in her agitation forgetting our agreement to speak to each other only in Russian. ‘Monsieur Ziukin, qu’est-ce qui s’est passй? Et qui sont ces hommes? C’est le domestique japonais?’¹

‘It is I, Mademoiselle,’ Fandorin said with a bow. ‘Afanasii Stepanovich and I have been taking a brief tour of the sights of Moscow. But that is of no importance. Please tell me how your meeting went. Did you see the boy?’

That was when I learned the circumstances under which Her Majesty had lost her sapphire collar.

‘It’s very bad that the gendarmes went off in pursuit,’ Erast Petrovich said anxiously. ‘They should not have done that under any circumstances. Describe the c-carriage for me.’

Mademoiselle wrinkled up her forehead and said: ‘Black, dusty, a window with a rideau . . . The wheel had eight rais . . . Spikes?’

‘Spokes,’ I prompted.

‘Yes, yes, eight spokes. On the door – a brass handle.’

‘That’s right!’ I exclaimed. ‘The handle on the door of the carriage that I saw was in the form of a brass ring!’

Fandorin nodded. ‘Well then, they have used the same carriage twice. Lind is too sure of himself and has too low an opinion of the Russian police. And that’s not a bad thing. Describe the man who took the reticule from you.’

‘Tall, brown eyes. His nose a little crooked. His moustache and beard ginger, but I think they were not real, glued on. Outre cela. ² . . .’ Mademoiselle thought. ‘Ah, oui! A mole on the left cheek, just here.’ And she touched my cheek with her finger, making me start.

‘Thank you, that is something at least,’ Fandorin told her. ‘But what is going on here? I saw the carriages of the tsar and the grand dukes in front of the house.’

‘I don’t know,’ Mademoiselle said plaintively, switching completely into French. ‘They don’t tell me anything. And they all look at me as I were to blame for everything.’ She took her elbows in her hands, gulped and said in a more restrained voice, ‘I think something terrible has happened. An hour ago a package was delivered to the house, a small one, and everyone started running around, and the phones started ringing. Half an hour ago His Majesty arrived, and Grand Dukes Kirill and Simeon have just arrived too . . .’

At that moment Colonel Karnovich glanced out into the hallway with his brows knitted and his lips tightly compressed.

‘Fandorin, is that you?’ he asked. ‘I was informed you had arrived. What sort of idiotic masquerade is that? Still playing the gentleman detective? They’re waiting for you. Please be so good as to make yourself decent and and get up to the large drawing room immediately. And you too, madam.’

Erast Petrovich and Mademoiselle walked away, but Karnovich looked me over from head to foot and shook his head fastidiously.

‘What do you look like, Ziukin? Where have you been? What was Fandorin up to? It’s most opportune that he should have taken you into his confidence. Come on, tell me; you and I are from the same department.’

‘It was all pointless, Your Honour,’ I said, without knowing why. ‘We just wasted our time. Who is serving His Majesty and Their Highnesses?’

‘The sovereign’s valet and Simeon Alexandrovich’s butler.’

Oh, how shameful!

Never before had I washed and changed with such speed. Just ten minutes later, after putting myself in order, I quietly entered the drawing room and thanked Foma Anikeevich and Dormidont with a bow.

There were no drinks or hors d’њuvres on the table – only ashtrays and a rather small brown paper package that had already been opened. Just to be on the safe side I took a tray from the side table and started setting out glasses on it, and in the meantime I stole a quick glance at the faces of those present, trying to guess what had happened.

The sovereign was nervously smoking a papyrosa. Kirill Alexandrovich was wearily rubbing his eyelids. The governor general was drumming his fingers on the table. Georgii Alexandrovich was gazing fixedly at the package. Pavel Georgievich looked unwell – his lips were trembling and there were tears in his eyes. But I found Mademoiselle Declique’s appearance most frightening of all. She was sitting with her face in her hands, her shoulders were trembling, and there were convulsive sobs escaping through her fingers. I had never seen her cry before, in fact I had never even imagined that it was possible.

The high police master was sitting apart from the other men, beside the impassive Karnovich, and constantly mopping his forehead and bald temples with a handkerchief. He suddenly hiccuped, flushed bright crimson and muttered: ‘I beg your pardon.’

Then he immediately hiccuped again. In the total silence the indecorous sound was distinctly audible.

I suddenly felt very afraid. So afraid that I swayed on my feet. Oh Lord, surely not?

‘May I take a look?’ Fandorin asked, breaking the silence.

Erast Petrovich had evidently entered the drawing room a minute or two before me. He had changed into a severe English frock coat and even found time to put on a tie.

What was it that he wanted to look at? The latest letter from Lind?

‘Yes,’ Kirill Alexandrovich said morosely. He had evidently taken on the role of chairman out of force of habit. ‘Feast your eyes on it.’

Fandorin took a small bundle, about the size of a fruit drop, out of the package. He unwrapped it, and I saw some small object, pink andwhite, inside it. Erast Petrovich quickly extracted a magnifying glass from his inside pocket and bent down over the table. The expression on his face was as sour as if he had bitten a lemon.

‘Is this d-definitely His Highness’s finger?’

The silver tray slipped out of my hands, the glasses were smashed to smithereens. Everybody started and looked round at me, but I didn’t even apologise – I barely managed to grab hold of the corner of the table in order to stop myself falling.

‘What kind of stupid question is that?’ Simeon Alexandrovich growled angrily. ‘Of course it’s Mika’s little finger! Who else’s could it be?’

Foma Anikeevich walked silently across to me and supported me by the elbow. I nodded to him gratefully, trying to indicate that it would soon pass.

‘Listen to what it says in the letter,’ said Kirill Alexandrovich, and I noticed that there was a sheet of paper lying in front of him.

The grand duke put on his pince-nez and read out the message which, like the previous ones, was written in French.

Gentlemen, you still do not seem to have realised that I am not joking.

I hope that this little parcel will convince you of the seriousness of my intentions. The severed finger is the punishment for your people’s repeated violation of our agreement. The next time there is any foul play, the boy’s ear will be cut off.

Now concerning our business. For the next payment I am expecting you to deliver the diamond bouquet with a spinel from the collection of the empress. The governess must be at mass in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour from three o’clock in the afternoon. Alone, naturally.

If she is shadowed, you have only yourselves to blame for the consequences.

Yours sincerely,

Doctor Lind

What astounded me most of all was how well-informed the villain was about Her Majesty’s coffret. The small diamond bouquet with a spinel was one of the genuine masterpieces of the imperial collection. It had become the property of the crown as part of the dowry of the bride of Pavel Petrovich, the future Emperor Paul I. This great masterpiece of eighteenth-century jewellery work was valued not so much for the size and purity of the stones of which it was composed as for its sheer elegance. To my mind there was no more beautiful jewel in the entire Diamond Room collection.

‘Oh Lord, poor Alice,’ the emperor said miserably. ‘She is suffering so badly over the loss of the neckband—’

One ought perhaps to have sympathised with His Majesty, especially bearing in mind the the temperament of the tsarina, but at that moment I was quite unable to feel pity for anyone apart from poor little Mikhail Georgievich.

‘We have all had our say, Fandorin,’ said Kirill Alexandrovich, rather brusquely interrupting the sovereign. ‘What do you think? It’s clear now that you were right. Lind is an absolute monster: he will not stop at anything. What are we to do?’

‘Ah, poor little Mika,’ said the tsar, hanging his head disconsolately.

‘We all feel sorry for Mika, of course,’ said Simeon Alexandrovich, striking his fist on the table, ‘but you, Nicky, ought to be feeling sorry for yourself. If the world finds out that some crook has kidnapped your nephew during the coronation of the Russian tsar and is slicing him up like salami—’

‘Sam, for heaven’s sake!’ Georgii Alexandrovich roared in a voice like thunder. ‘You’re talking about the fate of my son!’

‘I’m talking about the fate of our dynasty!’ the governor general answered in kind.

‘Uncle Sam! Uncle Georgie!’ His Majesty cried, raising his hands to heaven in a gesture of conciliation. ‘Let us listen towhat Mr Fandorin has to say.’

Erast Petrovich picked the package up off the table and turned it this way and that.

‘How was it delivered?’

‘Like the previous messages,’ said Kirill Alexandrovich. ‘By ordinary post.’

‘And again there is no stamp,’ Fandorin said pensively. ‘Has the postman been questioned?’

Colonel Karnovich replied: ‘Not only has he been questioned, but all three postmen who deliver the municipal mail to the Hermitage by turns have been under surveillance since yesterday afternoon. They have not been seen doing anything suspicious. Furthermore, the mailbags with the post sent from the Central PostOffice to this postal district are constantly under observation by plain-clothes police. Nooutsiders came close to the bag during the journey from Myasnitskaya Street to Kaluzhskaya Street or later, after the postman set out on his round. We don’t know where Lind’s messages come from. It’s a real mystery.’

‘Well then, until we can solve it, this is what we must do,’ Erast Petrovich said morosely. ‘Give him the bouquet. That is one. No attempts to follow Lind’s people. That is two. Our only hope lies in Mademoiselle Declique’s powers of observation – fortunately, they are very keen. That is three. I have no other recommendations to make. The slightest indiscretion by the police now, and you will not receive the boy’s ear but a corpse and an international scandal. Lind is furious, that much is obvious.’

As one man, everybody turned to look at the governess. She had stopped crying and was no longer hiding her face in her hands. Her features seemed frozen to me, as if they were carved out of white marble.

She said quietly, ‘Je ferai tout mon possible.’³

‘Yes, yes,’ the sovereign pleaded. ‘Please, do try. And Alice and I will pray to the Almighty. And we will start a fast immediately. According to ancient ritual that is the right thing to do before a coronation . . .’

‘Excellent, everyone will make the best contributions they can.’ Kirill Alexandrovich laughed dismally. ‘Colonel Lasovsky must be removed from command of the search.’ (At these words the high police master hiccuped even more loudly than previously, but he did not apologise any more.) ‘The responsibility will be returned to you, Karnovich, but this time no rash moves.

Let everything be as Fandorin said. You will move into the Hermitage temporarily and run the search from here. There are too many visitors at the Alexandriisky Palace. Ziukin, find the colonel some sort of room and run a phone line to it. That’s all. Let’s go home. We all have a hard day tomorrow and you, Nicky, have to receive the ambassadors. Your bearing must be absolutely irreproachable.’

After the exalted guests had left, I continued serving tea to Their Highnesses for a long time, and many tears were shed – mostly by Pavel Georgievich, but Georgii Alexandrovich also wiped his fleshy cheeks with his cuff more than once, and as for me, I went completely to pieces. On two occasions I was obliged to hurry out of the drawing room in order not to upset the grand dukes even more with the sight of my crooked, tear-stained face.

Some time after three in the morning I was plodding along the corridor in the direction of my room when I came across Mr Masa in a very strange pose outside Fandorin’s door. He was sitting on the floor with his legs folded under him and his head nodding drowsily.

When I stopped in amazement, I heard muffled sobs coming from inside the room.

‘Why are you here and not inside?’ I asked. ‘Who is in there with Mr Fandorin?’

A terrible suspicion made me forget all the other shocks of the day.

‘Pardon me, but there is something I must tell Mr Fandorin,’ I declared resolutely, taking hold of the door handle, but the Japanese rose nimbly to his feet and blocked my way.

‘Not arrowed,’ he said, fixing me with his little black eyes. ‘Genterman cry. Suffering much for ritter boy. Cannot rook. Is shamefur.’

He was lying. I realised immediately that he was lying! Without saying another word, I ran up to the first floor and knocked at Xenia Georgievna’s door. There was no answer. I cautiously opened the lock with my master key. The room was empty. And the bed had not been disturbed.

Everything went hazy in front of my eyes. She was down there, alone with that heartbreaker!

Oh Lord, I prayed, guide me and show me what I must do. Why have you visited such trials on the house of Romanov?

I hurried to the doorkeepers’ room, where I had installed Colonel Karnovich only an hour earlier after laying a telephone line from the hallway.

The head of the court police opened the door to me wearing nothing but his nightshirt and without his usual tinted spectacles. His eyes proved to be small and piercing, with red eyelids.

‘What is it, Ziukin?’ he asked, screwing up his eyes. ‘Have you decided to tell me what your friend is up to after all?’

‘Her Highness is spending the night in Mr Fandorin’s room,’ I announced in a whisper. ‘I heard her crying. And I am afraid . . . that she went there of her own accord.’

Karnovich yawned in disappointment.

‘That is all very racy of course, and as head of the court police it is my business to know with whom the young ladies of the imperial family spend the night. However, you could have told me about it in the morning. Believe it or not, Ziukin, I had gone to bed to get a bit of sleep.’

‘But Her Highness has a fiancй, Prince Olaf! And, apart from that, she is a virgin! Colonel, it may still not be too late to prevent this!’

‘Oh no,’ he said, yawning again. ‘Interfering in grand princesses’ affairs of the heart is more than my life’s worth. They don’t forgive my kind for that sort of indiscretion. And as for being a virgin, I expect she was, but she’s got over that now,’ Karnovich said with a crooked smile. ‘Everyone knows it’s a short step from weeping to consolation, and that Fandorin of yours has a considerable reputation as a ladykiller. But don’t you worry, the prince won’t lose a thing. He’s marrying the House of Romanov, not the girl. Virginity is a load of bunk. But what is not a load of bunk are these sly tricks of Fandorin’s. I’m very concerned about our very own Pinkerton’s maverick activities. If you want to help me and help the sovereign at the same time, tell me everything you know.’

And so I told him – about Khitrovka and about Stump, and about the bandits’ gathering the next day.

‘Bosh,’ Karnovich commented succinctly when he had heard me out. ‘A load of bosh. Which was just what I expected.’

Sleep was entirely out of the question. I walked up and down the corridor of the first floor, wringing my hands. I was afraid that I mightwake Georgii Alexandrovich with my tramping, but at the same time in my heart that was what I wanted. Then His Highness would have asked what I was doing there and I could have told him everything.

But this was a petty and unworthy hope. After what the grand duke had been through that day, I could not add this to his burdens. And so I stopped walking about and sat down on the landing.

At dawn, when the newborn sun timidly extended its first rays across the gleaming parquet, I heard light steps on the stairs, and I saw Xenia Georgievna walking up, wrapped in a light lace shawl.

‘Afanasii, what are you doing here?’ she asked, not so much in surprise, more as if she didn’t think our meeting like this at such an unusual hour was of any great importance.

Her Highness’s face was strange. I had never seen it look like that before – as if it were completely new.

‘How incredible all this is,’ Xenia Georgievna said, sitting down on one of the steps. ‘Life is so strange. The horrible and the beautiful side by side. I’ve never felt so unhappy or so happy before. I’m a monster, aren’t I?’

Her Highness’s eyes and lips were swollen. The eyes – that was from her tears. But the lips?

I simply bowed without saying anything, although I understood the meaning of her words very well. If I had dared, I would have said: ‘No, Your Highness, it’s not you who is the monster, but Erast Petrovich Fandorin. You are only a young, inexperienced girl.’

‘Good night, Your Highness,’ I said eventually, although the night was already over, and went to my room.

I slumped down in an armchair without getting undressed and sat there blankly for awhile, listening to the dawn chorus of birds whose names I did not know. Perhaps they were nightingales or some kind of thrushes? I had never known much about such things. I went on listening and fell asleep without realising it.

I dreamed that I was an electric light bulb and I had to illuminate a hall full of waltzing couples. From my position up on high I had an excellent view of the gleaming epaulettes, glittering diamond coronets and sparkling gold embroidery on the uniforms. There was music playing, and the echoes of many voices washing about under the high vaulted ceiling, merging into a single, indistinct rumbling. Suddenly I saw two dancing couples collide. Then another two. And another two. Some people fell over, and some of them were taken by the arms and helped up, but the orchestra kept playing faster and faster, and the dancers never stopped circling even for a second. Suddenly I realisedwhat the problem was. I was not coping with my job – my light was too dim, that was what was causing the turmoil. Panic-stricken, I strained as hard as I could to burn brighter, but I failed. In fact the twilight in the hall was growing thicker and thicker with every second that passed. Two resplendent couples flew straight towards each other, spinning as they went, and they could not see that a collisionwas inevitable. I did not know who theywere, but the respectful way in which the other couples moved aside to make way for them suggested that they were no ordinary guests but members of the royal family. I made an absolutely incredible effort that set my thin glass shell tinkling, strained with all my might and a miracle happened: I and the world around me were suddenly flooded with a blinding light that illuminated everything. The intense bliss I experienced in that magical moment set me trembling, I cried out in rapture – and woke up.

I opened my eyes and immediately squeezed them shut again to keep out the brilliant sunlight thatmust have reached my face at just that second.

The final peals of my chimerical rapture slowly gave way to fright: the bright disc was so high in the sky that the hour had to be late. In any case, breakfast time must certainly be over.

I jumped to my feet with a gasp, then remembered that I had been excused from all domestic duties – Somov was performing them for the time being. Then I listened and realised how quiet the house was.

Well, naturally. Everyone had gone to bed so late that probably no one had got up yet.