Fandorin in English 1-10

“But Your Excellency, surely there will be an investigation?” Fan-dorin asked unexpectedly. “Such an important individual. And a strange death. It ought to be looked into.”

“Come now, what investigation?” the prince replied with a frown of annoyance. “I told you, His Majesty will be coming.”

“Nonetheless, I have grounds to suppose that foul play is involved,” the collegiate assessor declared with astounding equanimity.

His calm words produced the impression of an exploding grenade.

“What kind of absurd fantasy is that?” cried Karachentsev, instantly abandoning the slightest shred of sympathy for this young fellow.

“Grounds?” Khurtinsky snapped derisively. “What grounds could you possibly have? How could you possibly know anything at all?”

Without even glancing at the court counselor, Erast Petrovich continued to address the governor.

“By your leave, Your Excellency. I happen by chance to be staying at the Dusseaux. That is one. I knew Mikhail Dmitrievich for a very long time. He always rises at dawn, and it is quite impossible to imagine that the general would remain in bed until such a late hour. His retinue would have become alarmed at six in the morning. That is two. And I saw Captain Gukmasov, whom I also know very well, at half past eight. He was unshaven. That is three.”

Here Fandorin paused significantly, as though the final point were of particular consequence.

“Unshaven? Well, what of it?” the chief of police asked, puzzled.

“The point, Your Excellency, is that never, under any circumstances whatever, could Gukmasov be unshaven at half past eight in the morning. I went through the B-Balkan campaign with that man. He is punctilious to the point of pedantry, and he never left his tent without having shaved, not even if there was no water and he had to melt snow. I suspect that Gukmasov already knew his superior was dead first thing in the morning. If he knew, then why did he keep silent for so long? That is four. This business needs to be investigated. Especially if His M- Majesty is going to be here.”

This final consideration seemed to impress the governor more powerfully than any other.

“What can I say; Erast Petrovich is right,” said the prince, rising to his feet. “This is a matter of state importance. I hereby initiate a secret investigation into the circumstances of the demise of Adjutant General Sobolev. And, clearly, there will also have to be an autopsy. But take care, Evgeny Osipovich, tread carefully, no publicity. There will be rumors enough as it is. Petrusha, you will gather the rumors and report to me personally. The investigation will be led, naturally, by Evgeny Osipovich. Oh, yes, and don’t forget to give instructions to embalm the body. A lot of people will want to say good-bye to their hero, and it is a hot summer. God forbid he should start to smell. And as for you, Erast Petrovich, since the hand of fate has already placed you in the Dusseaux, and since you knew the deceased so well, try to get to the bottom of this business in your own way, acting in a personal capacity, so to speak. It is fortunate that you are not yet known in Moscow. You are, after all, my deputy for special assignments — and what assignment could possibly be more special than this?”

TWO

In which Fandorin sets about his investigation

Erast Petrovich’s way of setting about his investigation in to the death of the TWO illustrious general and people’s favorite was rather unusual. Having forced his way into the hotel with considerable difficulty, since it was surrounded on all sides by a double cordon of police and grieving Muscovites (from time immemorial, mournful rumors had always spread through the ancient city even more rapidly than the voracious conflagrations of August), the young man, glancing neither to the right nor the left, walked up to suite 20 and flung his uniform cap and sword at his servant without speaking, answering all his questions with a brief nod. Well used to his ways, Masa bowed understandingly and promptly spread out a straw mat on the floor. He respectfully wrapped the short little sword in silk and placed it on the sideboard. Then, without saying a word, he went out into the corridor, stood with his back to the door, and assumed the pose of the fearsome god Fudomyo, the lord of fire. Whenever anybody came walking along the corridor, Masa pressed his finger to his lips, clucked his tongue reproachfully, and pointed either to the closed door or the approximate position of his own navel. As a result, the rumor instantly spread through that floor of the hotel that the occupant of suite 20 was a Chinese princess who was due to give birth, and perhaps she was even giving birth at that very moment.

Meanwhile, Fandorin was sitting absolutely motionless on the mat. His knees were parted, his body was relaxed, his hands were turned with their palms upward. The collegiate assessor’s gaze was directed at his own belly or, more precisely, at the bottom button of his uniform jacket. Somewhere beneath that twin-headed gold eagle there lay the magical tanden, the point that is the source and center of spiritual energy. If he could renounce all thoughts and immerse himself completely in apprehending his own self, then enlightenment would dawn in his spirit and even the most complex and puzzling of problems would appear simple, clear, and soluble. Erast Petrovich strove with all his might for renunciation and enlightenment, a very difficult goal that can only be achieved after long training. His natural liveliness of thought and the restless impatience that it bred made this exercise in inward concentration particularly difficult. But, as Confucius said, the noble man does not follow the road that is easy, but the one that is hard, and therefore Fandorin obstinately continued staring at that accursed button and waiting for something to happen.

At first his thoughts absolutely refused to settle down. On the contrary, they fluttered and thrashed about like little fish in shallow water. But then all external sounds gradually began to recede until they disappeared completely; the fish swam away to seek deeper waters, and his head was filled with swirling fog. Erast Petrovich contemplated the crest on the circle of metal and thought of nothing. A second, a minute, or perhaps even an hour later, the eagle quite suddenly nodded both its heads, the crown began sparkling brightly, and Erast Fandorin roused himself. His plan of action had composed itself of its own accord.

The collegiate assessor’s subsequent movements were confined to the limits of the hotel, following a route from the foyer to the doorman’s lodge to the restaurant. His conversations with the hotel staff occupied somewhat more than an hour or two, and when Erast Petrovich eventually found himself at the door leading into what was already known in the Dusseaux as ‘the Sobolev section,’ it was almost evening; the shadows had lengthened and the sunlight was as thick and syrupy as lime-flower honey.

Fandorin gave his name to the gendarme guarding the entrance to the corridor, and was immediately admitted into a realm of sorrow, where people spoke only in whispers and walked only on tiptoe. Suite 47, into which the valiant general had moved the previous day, consisted of a drawing room and a bedroom. In the first of these a rather large company of people had gathered: Erast Petrovich saw Karachentsev with high-ranking gendarme officers, the deceased’s adjutants and orderlies, the manager of the hotel, and Sobolev’s valet, Lukich, a character famous throughout the whole of Russia, who was standing in the corner with his nose thrust into the door curtain and sobbing quietly. Everyone kept glancing at the closed door of the bedroom, as if they were waiting for something. The chief of police approached Fandorin and said in a quiet, deep voice, “Welling, the professor of forensic medicine, is performing the autopsy. Seems to be taking a very long time. I wish he’d hurry up.”

As though in response to the general’s wish, the white door with carved lions’ heads gave a sudden jerk and opened with a creak. The drawing room immediately fell silent. A gray-haired gentleman with fat, drooping lips and a disgruntled expression appeared in the doorway, wearing a leather apron surmounted by a glittering enamel Cross of St. Anne.

“Well, now, Your Excellency, of course,” the fat-lipped man — evidently Professor Welling himself — declared gloomily, “I can present my findings.”

The general looked around the room and spoke in a more cheerful voice.

“I shall take in Fandorin, Gukmasov, and you.” He jerked his chin casually in the direction of the hotel manager. “The rest of you please wait here.”

The first thing that Erast Petrovich saw on entering the abode of death was a mirror in a frivolous bronze frame draped with a black shawl. The body of the deceased was not lying on the bed, but on a table that had evidently been brought through from the drawing room. Fandorin glanced at the form vaguely outlined by the white sheet and crossed himself, forgetting about the investigation for a moment as he remembered the handsome, brave, strong man he had once known, who had now been transformed into an indistinct, elongated object.

“A straightforward case,” the professor began dryly. “Nothing suspicious has been discovered. I will analyze some samples in the laboratory as well, but I am absolutely certain that vital functions ceased as a result of paralysis of the heart muscle. There is also paralysis of the right lung, but that is probably a consequence, not a cause. Death was instantaneous. Even if a doctor had been present, he would not have been able to save him.”

“But he was so young and full of life; he’d been to hell and back!” Karachentsev exclaimed, approaching the table and folding back a corner of the sheet. “How could he just up and die like that?”

Gukmasov turned away in order not to see his superior’s dead face, but Erast Petrovich and the hotel manager moved closer. The face was calm and solemn. Even the famous sideburns, the subject of so much humorous banter by the liberals and scoffing by foreign caricaturists, had proved fitting in death — they framed the waxy face and lent it even greater grandeur.

“Oh, what a hero, a genuine Achilles,” the hotel manager murmured, burring the letter ‘r’ in the French manner.

“Time of death?” asked Karachentsev.

“Sometime during the first two hours after midnight,” Welling replied confidently. “No earlier, and definitely no later.”

The general turned to the Cossack captain.

“Right, now that the cause of death has been established, we can deal with the details. Tell us what happened, Gukmasov, as accurately as possible.”

The captain evidently did not know how to describe events in great detail. His account was brief, but nonetheless comprehensive.

“We arrived here from the Bryansk Station after five o’clock. Mikhail Dmitrievich rested until the evening. At nine we dined in the restaurant here, then we went for a ride to look at Moscow by night. We did not stop off anywhere. Shortly after midnight Mikhail Dmitrievich said that he wished to come back to the hotel. He wanted to make some notes; he was working on a new field manual.”

Gukmasov cast a sidelong glance at the bureau standing by the window. There were sheets of paper laid out on the fold-down writing surface and a chair casually standing where it had been moved back and a little to one side. Karachentsev walked over, picked up a sheet of paper covered in writing, and nodded his head respectfully.

“I’ll give instructions for all of it to be gathered together and forwarded to the emperor. Continue, captain.”

“Mikhail Dmitrievich dismissed the officers, telling them that they were free to go. He said he would walk the rest of the way back, he felt like taking a stroll.”

Karachentsev pricked up his ears at that.

“And you let the general go off on his own? At night? That’s rather odd!”

He glanced significantly at Fandorin, but the collegiate assessor appeared entirely uninterested in this detail — he walked over to the bureau and for some reason ran his finger over the bronze candelabra.

“There was no arguing with him,” said Gukmasov, with a bitter laugh. “I tried to object, but he gave me such a look, that… After all, Your Excellency, he was used to strolling around on his own in the Turkish mountains and the Tekin steppes, never mind the streets of Moscow.” The captain twirled one side of his long mustache gloomily. “Mikhail Dmitrievich got back to the hotel all right. He just didn’t live until the morning.”

“How did you discover the body?” asked the chief of police.

“He was sitting here,” said Gukmasov, pointing to the light armchair. “Leaning backward. And his pen was lying on the floor.”

Karachentsev squatted down and touched the blotches of ink on the carpet. He sighed and said: “Yes indeed, the Lord moves…”

The mournful pause that followed was interrupted unceremoniously by Fandorin. Half-turning toward the hotel manager and continuing to stroke that ill- starred candelabra, he asked in a loud whisper: “Why haven’t you electricity here? I was surprised about that yesterday. Such a modern hotel, and it doesn’t even have gas — you light the rooms with candles.”

The Frenchman tried to explain that candles were in better taste than gas, that there was already electric lighting in the restaurant, and it would definitely appear on the other floors before autumn, but Karachentsev cleared his throat angrily to cut short this idle chatter that had nothing to do with the case.

“And how did you spend the night, Captain?” he asked, continuing with his cross- examination.

“I paid a call to an army comrade of mine, Colonel Dadashev. We sat and talked. I got back to the hotel at dawn and collapsed into bed immediately.”

“Yes, yes,” Erast Petrovich interjected, “the night porter told me that it was already light when you got back. You also sent him to get a bottle of seltzer water.”

“That’s correct. To be quite honest, I had drunk too much. My throat was parched. I always rise early, but this time, as luck would have it, I overslept. I was about to barge in with a report for the general, but Lu-kich told me that he had not risen yet. I thought Mikhail Dmitrievich must have worked late into the night. Then when it got to half past eight, I said, Come on Lukich, let’s wake him or he’ll be angry with us, and this isn’t like him anyway. We came in here, and he was stretched out like this” — Gukmasov flung his head back, screwed up his eyes, and half-opened his mouth — “and cold already. We called a doctor and sent a telegram to the corps. That was when you saw me, Erast Petrovich. I apologize for not greeting an old comrade but — you understand, I had other things to deal with.”

Rather than acknowledge the apology, which in any case was absolutely unnecessary under the circumstances, Erast Petrovich inclined his head slightly to one side, put his hands behind his back, and said: “But you know they told me in the restaurant here that yesterday a certain lady sang for His Excellency the general and apparently even sat at your table. An individual well-known in Moscow, I believe? If I am not mistaken, her name is Wanda. And it appears that all of you, including the general, left with her?”

“Yes, there was a chanteuse of some sort,” the captain replied coldly. “We gave her a lift and dropped her off somewhere. Then we carried on.”

“Where did you drop her off, at the hotel Anglia on Stoleshnikov Lane?” the collegiate assessor asked, demonstrating just how well-informed he was. “I was told that is where Miss Wanda resides.”

Gukmasov knitted his menacing brows and his voice turned so dry that it practically grated: “I don’t know Moscow very well. Not far from here. It only took us five minutes to get there.”

Fandorin nodded, evidently no longer interested in the captain — he had noticed the door of a wall safe beside the bed. He walked over to it, turned the handle, and the door opened.

“What’s in there, is it empty?” asked the chief of police.

Erast Petrovich nodded.

“Yes indeed, Your Excellency. Here’s the key sticking out of the lock.”

“Right, then,” said Karachentsev, tossing his red head of hair, “seal up any papers that we find. We’ll sort out later what goes to the relatives, what goes to the ministry, and what goes to His Majesty himself. Professor, you send for your assistants and get on with the embalming.”

“What, right here?” Welling asked indignantly. “It’s not like pickling cabbage, you know, general.”

“Do you want me to ferry the body all the way across the city to your academy? Look out the window, look how tightly they’re crammed out there! I’m afraid not; do the best you can here. Thank you, Captain, you are dismissed. And you,” he said, turning to the hotel manager, “give the professor everything he asks for.”

When Karachentsev and Fandorin were left alone, the redheaded general took the young man by the elbow, led him away from the body under the sheet, and asked in a low voice, as though the corpse might overhear: “What, what do you make of it? As far as I can tell from the questions you ask and the way you behave, you weren’t satisfied with Gukmasov’s explanations. Why do you think he was not being honest with us? He explained his unshaven condition that morning quite convincingly, after all, or don’t you agree? He slept late after a night of drinking — nothing unusual about that.”

“Gukmasov could not have slept late,” Fandorin said with a shrug. “His training would never allow it. And he certainly would not have gone barging in to see Sobolev, as he says he did, without tidying himself up first. The captain is lying, that much is clear. But the case, Your Excellency—”

“Call me Evgeny Osipovich,” the general interrupted, listening with rapt attention.

“The case, Evgeny Osipovich,” Fandorin continued, bowing politely, “is even more serious than I thought. Sobolev did not die here.”

“What do you mean, not here?” gasped the chief of police. “Where, then?”

“I don’t know. But permit me to ask one question: Why did the night porter — and I have spoken with him — not see Sobolev return?”

“He could have left his post and doesn’t want to admit it,” Karachentsev objected, more for the sake of argument than as a serious suggestion.

“That is not possible, and in a little while I shall explain why. But here is a mystery for you that you will definitely not be able to explain. If Sobolev had returned to his suite during the night, then sat down at the desk and written something, he would have had to light the candles. But take a look at the candelabra — the candles are fresh!”

“So they are!” said the general, slapping his hand against a thigh tightly encased in military breeches. “Oh, well done, Erast Petrovich. And what a fine detective I am!” He smiled disarmingly. “I was only recently appointed to the gendarmes; before that I was in the Cavalry Guards. So what do you think could have happened?”

Fandorin raised and lowered his silky eyebrows, concentrating hard.

“I would not like to guess, but it is perfectly clear that after supper Mikhail Dmitrievich did not return to his apartment, since it was already dark by then and, as we already know, he did not light the candles. And the waiters also confirm that Sobolev and his retinue left immediately after their meal. And the night porter is a reliable individual who values his job very highly — I don’t believe that he could have left his post and missed the general’s return.”

“What you do or don’t believe is no argument,” Evgeny Osipovich teased the collegiate assessor. “Give me the facts.”

“By all means,” said Fandorin with a smile. “After midnight the door of the hotel is closed on a spring latch. Anyone who wishes to leave can easily do so, but anyone who wishes to enter has to ring the bell.”

“Now that is a fact,” the general conceded. “But please continue.”

“The only moment at which Sobolev could have returned is when our d-dashing captain sent the porter to get some seltzer water. However, as we know, that happened when it was already dawn, that is to say, no earlier than four o’clock. If we are to believe Mr. Welling — and what reason do we have to doubt the judgment of that venerable gentleman? — by that time Sobolev had already been dead for several hours. What, then, is the conclusion?”

Karachentsev’s eyes glinted angrily.

“Well, and what is it?”

“Gukmasov sent the porter away so that he could bring in Sobolev’s lifeless body without being noticed. I suspect that the other officers of the retinue were outside at the time.”

“Then the scoundrels must be thoroughly interrogated,” the police chief roared so ferociously that they heard him in the next room, where the vague droning of voices immediately ceased.

“Pointless. They have already conspired. That is why they were so late in reporting the death — they needed time to prepare.” Erast Petro-vich gave the general a moment to cool down and absorb what he had said, then turned the conversation in a different direction. “Who is this Wanda that everybody knows?”

“Well, perhaps not everybody, but she is a well-known individual in certain circles. A German woman from Riga. A singer and a beauty, not exactly a courtesan, but something of the kind. A sort of dame aux camelias.” Karachentsev nodded briskly. “I see where your thoughts are leading. This Wanda will clear everything up for us. I’ll give instructions for her to be brought in immediately.”

The general set off resolutely toward the door.

“I wouldn’t advise it,” said Fandorin, speaking to his back. “If anything did happen, this individual will certainly not confide in the police. And she is certainly included in the officers’ conspiracy. That is, naturally, if she is involved at all in what happened. Let me have a talk with her myself, Evgeny Osipovich. In my private capacity, eh? Where is the hotel Anglia? The corner of Stoleshnikov Lane and Petrovka Street?”

“Yes, just five minutes from here.” The chief of police was regarding the young man with evident satisfaction. “I shall be waiting for news, Erast Petrovich. God be with you.”

He made the sign of the cross and the collegiate assessor left the room bearing the blessing of high authority.

THREE

In which Fandorin plays heads or tails

However, Erast Fandorin did not manage to reach the hotel Anglia in five minutes. Waiting for him in the corridor outside the fateful suite 47 was a sullen- faced Gukmasov.

“Be so good as to step into my room for a couple of words,” he said to Fandorin and, taking a firm grasp of the young man’s elbow, he drew him into the suite next door to the general’s.

The suite was exactly like the one that Fandorin himself was occupying. There was already a large group of men in it, scattered about on the divan and the chairs. Erast Petrovich glanced at their faces and recognized the officers from the dead man’s retinue whom he had seen only recently in the drawing room next door. The collegiate assessor greeted the assembled company with a slight bow, but no one made any response, and there was evident animosity in the gazes that they turned toward him. Fandorin crossed his arms on his chest and leaned against the doorpost, and the expression on his face changed from polite greeting to cold hostility.

“Gentlemen!” Captain Gukmasov announced in a severe, almost ceremonial voice. “Allow me to introduce Erast Petrovich Fandorin, with whom I have the honor of being acquainted from the time of the Turkish War. He is now working for the governor-general of Moscow.”

Again, not even a single officer so much as inclined his head in greeting. Erast Petrovich refrained from repeating his own greeting to them and waited to see what would happen next. Gukmasov turned to him and said: “And these, Mr. Fandorin, are my colleagues. Senior Adjutant Lieutenant Colonel Baranov, Adjutant Lieutenant Prince Erdeli, Adjutant Staff Captain Prince Abadziev, Orderly Captain Ushakov, Orderly Cornet Baron Eichgolz, Orderly Cornet Gall, Orderly Lieutenant Markov.”

“I won’t remember them all,” responded Erast Petrovich.

“That will not be necessary,” snapped Gukmasov. “I have introduced all these gentlemen to you because you owe us an explanation.”

“Owe you?” Fandorin echoed derisively. “Oh, come now!”

“Yes indeed, sir. Be so good as to explain in front of everyone here the reason for the insulting interrogation to which you subjected me in the presence of the chief of police.”

The captain’s voice was menacing, but the collegiate assessor remained unperturbed and his constant slight stammer had suddenly disappeared.

“The reason for my questions, Captain, is that the death of Mikhail Dmitrievich Sobolev is a matter of state importance, indeed it is an event of historical significance. That is one.” Fandorin smiled reproachfully. “But you, Prokhor Akhrameevich, have been trying to make fools of us, and very clumsily, too. That is two. I have instructions from Prince Dolgorukoi to get to the bottom of this matter. That is three. And you may be certain that I shall get to the bottom of it; you know me. That is four. Or are you going to tell me the truth after all?”

A Caucasian prince in a white Circassian coat with silver cartridge belts — if only Fandorin could remember which of the two Caucasians he was — leapt up off the divan.

“One-two-three-four! Gentlemen! This sleuth, this lousy civilian, is jeering at us! Prosha, I swear on my mother that I’ll—”

“Sit down, Erdeli!” Gukmasov barked, and the Caucasian immediately did so, twitching his chin nervously.

“I certainly do know you, Erast Petrovich. I know you and I respect you.” The captain’s expression was grave and cheerless. “Mikhail Dmitrievich respected you, too. If his memory is dear to you, do not interfere in this matter. You will only make things worse.”

Fandorin replied no less sincerely and seriously: “If it were merely a matter of myself and my own idle curiosity, then I should certainly accede to your request. But I am sorry, in this case I cannot — it is a matter of duty.”

Gukmasov cracked the knuckles of the fingers that he had linked together behind his back and began walking around the room, jingling his spurs. He halted in front of the collegiate assessor.

“Well, now, I cannot accept that, either. I cannot allow you to continue with your investigation. Let the police try — but not you, never. This is the wrong case for you to apply your talents to, Mr. Fandorin. Be informed that I shall stop you by any means possible, regardless of the past.”

“Which means, for example, Prokhor Akhrameevich?” Erast Petrovich inquired.

“I’ll give you some means!” Lieutenant Erdeli interjected yet again, jumping to his feet. “You, sir, have insulted the honor of the officers of the Fourth Army Corps, and I challenge you to a duel! Pistols, here, this very minute. To the death, handkerchief terms!”

“As far as I recall the rules of dueling,” Fandorin said dryly, “the terms of combat are set by the party who is challenged. So be it; I will play this stupid game with you — but later, when I have concluded my investigation. You may send your seconds to me. I am staying in suite number twenty. Good-bye, gentlemen.”

He was about to turn around and leave, but Erdeli bounded over with a cry of “Then I’ll make you fight!” and attempted to slap him across the face. With amazing agility, Erast Petrovich seized the hand that had been raised to strike and squeezed the prince’s wrist between his finger and thumb — apparently not very hard, but the lieutenant’s face contorted in pain.

“You scoundr-rel!” the Caucasian shrieked in a high falsetto, flinging out his left hand. Fandorin pushed the overeager prince away and said fastidiously: “Don’t trouble yourself any further. We shall regard the blow as having been struck. I challenge you and I shall make you pay for the insult with your blood.”

“Ah, excellent,” said the phlegmatic staff officer whom Gukmasov had introduced as Lieutenant Colonel Baranov. It was the first time he had opened his mouth. “Name your terms, Erdeli.” Rubbing his wrist, the lieutenant hissed malevolently: “We fight now. Pistols. Handkerchief terms.”

“What does that mean — handkerchief terms?” Fandorin inquired curiously. “I’ve heard about this custom, but I must confess that I’m unfamiliar with the details.”

“It’s very simple,” the lieutenant colonel told him politely. “The opponents take hold of the opposite corners of an ordinary handkerchief with their free hands. Here, you can take mine if you like; it is clean.” Baranov took a large red-and- white-checked handkerchief out of his pocket. “They take their pistols. Gukmasov, where are your Lepages?”

The captain picked up a long case that had obviously been lying on the table in readiness and opened the lid. The long barrels with inlaid decorations glinted in the light.

“The opponents draw lots to select a pistol,” Baranov continued, smiling amicably. “They take aim — although what need is there at that distance? On the command, they fire. That is really all there is to it.”

“Draw lots?” Fandorin inquired. “You mean to say that one pistol is loaded and the other is not?”

“Naturally,” said the lieutenant colonel with a nod. “That is the whole point. Otherwise it would not be a duel but a double suicide.”

“Well, then,” said the collegiate assessor with a shrug. “I feel genuinely sorry for the lieutenant. I have never once lost at drawing lots.”

“All things are in God’s hands, and it is a bad omen to talk like that; it will bring you bad luck,” Baranov admonished him.

He seems to be the one in charge here, not Gukmasov, thought Erast Petrovich.

“You need a second,” said the morose Cossack captain. “If you wish, as an old acquaintance, I can offer my services. And you need not doubt that the lots will be drawn honestly.”

“Indeed I do not doubt it, Prokhor Akhrameevich. But as far as a second is concerned, you will not do. If I should be unlucky, it will appear too much like murder.”

Baranov nodded.

“He is quite right. How pleasant it is to deal with a man of intelligence. And you are also right, Prokhor, he is dangerous. What do you propose, Mr. Fandorin?”

“Will a Japanese citizen suit you as my second? You see, I only arrived in Moscow today and have had no time to make any acquaintances.”

The collegiate assessor spread his arms in a gesture of apology.

“A Papuan savage will do,” exclaimed Erdeli. “Only let’s get on with it!”

“Will there be a doctor?” asked Erast Petrovich.

“A doctor will not be required,” sighed the lieutenant colonel. “At that distance any shot is fatal.”

“Very well. I was not actually concerned for myself, but for the prince.”

Erdeli uttered some indignant exclamation in Georgian and withdrew into the far corner of the room.

Erast Petrovich expounded the essence of the matter in a short note written in bizarre characters running from the top to the bottom of the page and from right to left, and asked for the note to be taken to suite 20.

Masa was not quick to come — fifteen minutes passed before he arrived. The officers had begun to feel nervous and appeared to suspect the collegiate assessor of not playing by the rules.

The appearance of the offended party’s second created a considerable impression. Masa was a great enthusiast of duels, and for the sake of this one he had decked himself out in his formal kimono with tall starched shoulders, put on white socks, and girded himself with his finest belt, decorated with a pattern of bamboo shoots.

“What kind of gaudy parrot is this?” Erdeli asked with impolite astonishment. “But who gives a damn, anyway? Let’s get down to business!”

Masa bowed ceremonially to the assembled company and held out that accursed official sword at arm’s length to his master.

“Here is your sword, my lord.”

“How sick I am of you and your sword,” sighed Erast Petrovich. “I’m fighting a duel with pistols. With that gentleman there.”

“Pistols again?” Masa asked disappointedly. “What a barbaric custom. And who are you going to kill? That hairy man? He looks just like a monkey.”

The witnesses to the duel stood along the walls, and Gukmasov, having turned away and juggled with the pistols for a moment, offered the opponents a choice. Erast Petrovich waited as Erdeli crossed himself and took a pistol, then casually picked up the second pistol with his finger and thumb.

Following the captain’s instructions, the duelists took hold of the corners of the handkerchief and moved as far away as possible from each other, which even with fully outstretched arms was a distance of no more than three paces. The prince raised his pistol to shoulder level and aimed directly at his opponent’s forehead. Fandorin held his weapon by his hip and did not aim at all, since at that distance it was entirely unnecessary.

“One, two, three!” the captain counted quickly and stepped back.

The hammer of the prince’s pistol gave a dry click, but Fandorin’s weapon belched out a vicious tongue of flame. The lieutenant fell and began rolling around on the carpet, clutching at his right hand, which had been shot through, and swearing desperate obscenities.

When his howling had subsided to dull groans, Erast Petrovich chided him: “You will never again be able to slap anyone’s face with that hand.”

There was a clamor in the corridor, where people were shouting. Gukmasov opened the door slightly and told someone that there had been an unfortunate accident — Lieutenant Erdeli had been unloading a pistol and had shot himself in the hand. The wounded man was sent to be bandaged up by Professor Welling, who fortunately had not yet left to collect his embalming equipment, and then everyone returned to Guk-masov’s suite.

“Now what?” asked Fandorin. “Are you satisfied?”

Gukmasov shook his head.

“Now you will fight a duel with me. On the same terms.”

“And then?”

“And then — if you’re lucky again — with everyone else in turn. Until you are killed. Erast Petrovich, spare me and my comrades this ordeal.” The captain looked almost imploringly into the young man’s eyes. “Give us your word of honor that you will not take part in the investigation, and we shall part friends.”

“I should count it an honor to be your friend, but what you demand is impossible,” Fandorin declared sadly.

Masa whispered in his ear: “Master, I do not understand what this man with the red mustache is saying to you, but I sense danger. Would it not be wiser to attack first and kill all these samurai while they are still unprepared? I have your little pistol in my sleeve, and those brass knuckles that I bought for myself in Paris. I would really like to try them out.”

“Masa, forget these bandit habits of yours,” Erast Petrovich told his servant. “I am going to fight these gentlemen honestly, one by one.”

“Ah, then that will take a long time,” the Japanese said, drawing out the words. He moved away to the wall and sat down on the floor.

“Gentlemen,” said Fandorin, attempting to make the officers see reason, “believe me, you will achieve nothing. You will simply be wasting your time.”

“Enough idle talk,” Gukmasov interrupted him. “Does your Japanese know how to load dueling pistols? No? Then you load them, Eich-golz.”

Once again the opponents took their pistols and stretched the handkerchief out between them. The captain was morose and determined, but if anything Fandorin seemed rather embarrassed. On the command (Baranov was counting this time), Gukmasov’s pistol misfired with a dry click, but Erast Petrovich did not fire at all. The captain, deadly pale now, hissed through his teeth: “Shoot, Fandorin, and be damned. And you, gentlemen, decide who is next. And barricade the door so that no one can get in! Don’t let him out of here alive.”

“You refuse to listen to me, and that is a mistake,” said the collegiate assessor, waving his loaded pistol in the air. “I told you that you will achieve nothing by drawing lots. I possess a rare gift, gentlemen — I am uncannily lucky at games of chance. An inexplicable phenomenon. I resigned myself to it a long time ago. Evidently it is all due to the fact that my dear departed father was unlucky to an equally exceptional degree. I always win at every kind of game, which is why I cannot stand them.” He ran his clear-eyed gaze over the officers’ sullen faces. “You don’t believe me? Do you see this imperial?” Erast Petrovich took a gold coin out of his pocket and handed it to Eichgolz. “Toss it and I will guess, heads or tails.”

After glancing around at Gukmasov and Baranov, the baron, a young officer with the first vague intimations of a mustache, shrugged and tossed the coin.

It was still spinning in the air when Fandorin said: “I don’t know… Let’s say, heads.”

“Heads,” Eichgolz confirmed, and tossed it again.

“Heads again,” the collegiate assessor declared in a bored voice.

“Heads!” exclaimed the baron. “Good Lord, gentlemen, just look at that!”

“Right, Mitya, again,” Gukmasov told him.

“Tails,” said Erast Petrovich, looking away.

A deadly silence filled the room. Fandorin did not even glance at the baron’s outstretched palm.

“I told you. Masa, ikoo. Owari da.* Good-bye, gentlemen.”

The officers watched in superstitious terror as the functionary and his Japanese servant walked to the door.

As they were leaving, the pale-faced Gukmasov appealed to Erast Petrovich: “Fandorin, promise me that you will not employ your talent as a detective to the detriment of the fatherland. The honor of Russia is hanging by a thread.”

Erast Petrovich paused before answering.

“I promise, Gukmasov, that I will do nothing against my own honor, and that, I think, is sufficient.”

The collegiate assessor walked out of the suite, but before following him Masa turned in the doorway and bowed ceremonially, from the waist.

“Let’s go, Masa. It’s over.”

FOUR

In which the usefulness of architectural extravagance is demonstrated

The suites in the hotel Anglia were a match for the respectable Dusseaux in the FOUR magnificence of their appointments, while in terms of architectural fantasy they actually surpassed it, although the presence of a somewhat dubious, or at least frivolous, quality might possibly be detected in the sumptuous gilded ceilings and marble volutes. On the other hand, however, the entrance was radiant with bright electric light; one could ride up to the top three floors in an elevator, and from time to time the foyer resounded with the shrill jangling of that fashionable marvel of technology, the telephone.

After taking a stroll around the grand foyer with its mirrors and morocco-leather divans, Erast Petrovich halted in front of the board with the names of the guests. The people who stayed here were a more varied bunch than at the Dusseaux: foreign businessmen, stockbrokers, actors from fashionable theaters. However, there was no songstress named Wanda to be found on the list.

Fandorin cast a keen eye over the hotel staff darting back and forth between the reception desk and the elevator and selected one particularly brisk and efficient waiter with mobile features suggestive of intelligence.

“Tell me, does Miss Wanda n-no longer reside here?” the collegiate assessor asked, feigning slight embarrassment.

“While certainly the lady does,” the fellow responded eagerly and, following the handsome gentleman’s gaze, he pointed to the board. “Right there, sir: Miss Helga Ivanovna Tolle, that’s the lady in question. Uses the name Wanda because it sounds better. She lives in the annex. You just go out through that door there, sir, into the yard. Miss Wanda has a suite there with a separate entrance. Only the lady’s not usually in at this time, sir.” The waiter was about to slip away, but Erast Petrovich rustled a banknote in his pocket, and the good fellow suddenly froze as if he were rooted to the spot.

“Is there some little errand you’d like done, sir?” he asked, giving the young gentleman a look of affectionate devotion.

“When does she get back?”

“It varies, sir. The lady sings at the Alpine Rose. Every day but Mondays. I’ll tell you what, sir — you take a seat for a while in the buffet, have a drink of tea or whatever, and I’ll make sure to let you know when the mam’selle shows up.”

“And what is she like?” asked Erast Petrovich, twirling his fingers vaguely in the air. “To look at? Is she really so very pretty?”

“The picture of beauty, sir,” said the waiter, smacking his plump red lips. “Highly respected in these parts. Pays three hundred rubles a month for her suite and very generous with tips, sir.”

At this point he paused with practiced psychological precision and Fandorin slowly took out two one-ruble notes — but then thrust them into his breast pocket with a distracted air.

“Miss Wanda doesn’t receive just anybody in her rooms; she’s very strict about that, sir,” the waiter declared significantly, his gaze boring into the gentleman’s frock coat. “But I can announce you, seeing as I am in her special confidence.”

“Take that, then,” said Erast Petrovich, holding out one of the notes. “You’ll g- get the other when Mademoiselle Wanda comes back. Meanwhile, I’ll go and read a newspaper. Where did you say your buffet was? ”

On 25 june 1882 the Moscow Gazette wrote as follows:

A Telegram from Singapore

The renowned explorer N. N. Miklukha-Maklai intends to return to Russia on the clipper ‘Marksman’. Mr. Miklukha-Maklai’s health has been seriously undermined; he is extremely thin and suffering from constant fevers and chronic neuralgia. For the most part his state of mind is also morose. The traveler informed our correspondent that he is sick and tired of wandering and dreams of reaching his native shores as soon as possible.

Erast Petrovich shook his head, vividly picturing to himself the emaciated, twitching face of the martyr of ethnography. He turned over the page.

The Blasphemy of American Advertising An inscription in letters half the height of a man recently appeared above Broadway, the main street of New York — “the president is certain to die.” Dumbfounded passersby halted, transfixed, and only then were they able to read what was written below in smaller letters: “… in our treacherous climate if he does not wear warm woolen underwear from Garland and Co.” A representative of the White House has taken the firm to court for exploiting the presidential title for base commercial ends.

Thank God, things have not reached that state here and are never likely to, the collegiate assessor thought with some satisfaction. After all, His Majesty the Emperor is more than some mere president.

As a man with a certain interest in belles lettres, he was naturally drawn to the following headline:

Literary Talks

A large number of listeners were attracted to the spacious hall at the home of Princess Trubetskaya for a talk on contemporary literature given by Professor I. N. Pavlov, which was devoted to an analysis of the recent works of Ivan Turgenev. With the help of illustrative examples, Mr. Pavlov demonstrated the depths to which this great talent has sunk in the pursuit of a tendentious and spurious reality. The next reading will be devoted to analyzing the works of Shchedrin as the leading representative of the crudest and most fallacious form of realism.

Fandorin was dismayed to read that. Among the Russian diplomats in Japan it was considered good tone to praise Turgenev and Shchedrin. How very far he had fallen behind the literary scene in Russia during his absence of almost six years! But what was new in the field of technology?

Tunnel Under the English Channel

The length of the railway tunnel under the English Channel is already approaching 1,200 meters. The engineer Brunton is excavating the galleries with a ram-drill powered by compressed air. According to the plans, the total length of the underground passage should be a little over thirty versts. The initial design envisaged that the English and French digs would link up after five years, but skeptics claim that the labor-intensive work of facing the walls and laying the rails will delay the opening of the line until at least 1890…

With his keen sensitivity to progress, Fandorin found the digging of the Anglo- French tunnel quite fascinating, but something prevented him from reading this interesting article to the end. A certain gentleman in a gray two-piece suit, whom Fandorin had only recently spotted beside the head porter in the vestibule, had now been hovering around the buffet counter for several minutes. The isolated words that reached the collegiate assessor’s ears (and his hearing was quite excellent) seemed to Fandorin so curious that he immediately stopped reading, although he continued to hold the newspaper in front of his face.

“Don’t you try putting one over on me,” the gray-suited gentleman pressed the man behind the counter. “Were you on duty last night or not?”

“I was asleep, Yer Onner,” droned the man, a fat-faced, rosy-cheeked hulk with a greasy beard combed to both sides. “The only one here from the night shift is Senka.” He jerked his beard in the direction of a boy serving cakes and tea.

The man in gray beckoned Senka to him. A police sleuth, Erast Petrovich thought with absolute certainty and without any great surprise. So our chief of police Evgeny Osipovich was feeling jealous — he didn’t want all the laurels to go to the governor’s deputy for special assignments.

“Now tell me, Senka,” the inquisitive gentleman said ingratiatingly, “was there a general and some officers at Mam’selle Wanda’s place last night?”

Senka twitched his nose, fluttered his white eyelashes, and asked: “Lasnigh’? A gen’ral?”

“Yes, yes, a gen’ral,” said the sleuth, nodding.

“ ‘Ere?” asked the boy, wrinkling up his forehead.

“Yes here, here, where else?”

“But does gen’rals drive out at nigh’?” Senka inquired suspiciously.

“And why wouldn’t they?”

The boy replied with deep conviction: “Nah, gen’rals sleeps at nigh’. Tha’s what gen’rals does.”

“You just watch it, you… little idiot!” the man in gray exclaimed furiously. “Or I’ll take you down to the station and soon have you singing a different tune.”

“I’m an orphan, mister,” Senka responded swiftly, and his foolish eyes were instantly flooded with tears. “You can’t take me down the station, it gives me the fainting fits.”

“Are you all in this plot together, or what?” the police agent snapped viciously and stormed out, slamming the door loudly behind him.

“A serious gent’man,” said Senka, looking at the door.

“Yesterday’s were more serious,” the counterman whispered and smacked the lad on the back of his close-cropped head. “The sort of gentlemen who’d rip your head off without any police or anything. You take care, Senka, keep your mouth shut. Anyway, they probably slipped you something, didn’t they?”

“Prof. Semyonich, by Christ the Lord,” the boy jabbered, blinking rapidly. “I can swear on a sacred holy icon! All they give me was fifteen kopecks, and I took that to the chapel and lit a candle for the peace of my mother’s soul…”

“What d’you mean, fifteen kopecks! Don’t give me any of your lies. Took it to the chapel!” The man raised his hand to strike Senka, but the boy dodged away nimbly, picked up his tray, and dashed off to answer a summons from a customer.

Erast Petrovich set aside his Moscow Gazette and went up to the counter.

“Was that man from the police?” he asked with an air of extreme displeasure. “I haven’t come here just to d-drink tea, my dear fellow, I am waiting for Miss Wanda. Why are the police interested in her?”

The counterman looked him up and down and asked cautiously: “You mean to say you’ve got an appointment, sir?”

“I should say I have an appointment! Didn’t I tell you I was waiting?” The young man’s blue eyes expressed extreme concern. “But I don’t want anything to do with the police. Mademoiselle Wanda was recommended to me as a respectable girl, and now I find the p-police here! It’s a good thing I’m wearing a frock coat and not my uniform.”

“Don’t worry, Yer Onner,” the counterman reassured the nervous customer. “The young lady’s not some cheap bar girl; it’s all top-class service with her. There’s others come in their uniform and don’t count it no shame.”

“In uniform?” The young man couldn’t believe it. “What, even officers?”

The counterman and young Senka, who had reappeared, exchanged glances and laughed.

“Aim a bit higher,” the boy chortled. “Even gen’rals comes visiting. And the manner of their visiting is a sight to see. Arrives on their own two feet, they does, then afterward they ‘as to be carried out. That’s the kind of gay mam’selle she is!”

Prof. Semyonich gave the joker a clout on the ear.

“Don’t go talking nonsense, Senka. I told you to keep your mouth shut.”

Erast Petrovich frowned squeamishly and went back to his table, but he did not feel like reading about the tunnel any longer. He was far too impatient to have a talk with Mademoiselle Helga Ivanovna Tolle.

The collegiate assessor’s wait was mercifully brief. After about five minutes the waiter he had spoken to came darting into the buffet and bent down and whispered in his ear: “The lady’s arrived. How shall I announce you?”

Fandorin took a calling card out of his tortoiseshell wallet and after a moment’s thought wrote several words on it with a little silver pencil.

“There, g-give her that.”

The waiter carried out his commission and was back in a trice to announce: “She asks you to come. Kindly follow me. I’ll show you through.”

Outside it was already getting dark. Erast Petrovich examined the annex, of which Miss Wanda occupied the entire ground floor. It was clear enough why this lady required a separate entrance — her visitors evidently preferred matters to remain discreet. Protruding above the tall ground-floor windows was a first-floor balcony, perched on the shoulders of an entire brood of caryatids. Generally speaking, the amount of molding on the facade was clearly excessive, in keeping with the bad taste of the 1860s, which all the signs indicated was when this frivolous building had been erected.

The waiter rang the electric bell and, having received his ruble, withdrew with a bow, striving so diligently to display absolute tact and understanding that he actually tiptoed all the way back across the yard.

The door opened and Fandorin saw before him a slim, slight woman with high- combed, ash-blond hair and huge, tantalizing green eyes — although at that moment he read caution rather than mockery in the gaze of their owner.

“Come in, mysterious visitor,” the woman said in a low, resonant voice for which the most fitting epithet would have to be the poetic term ‘bewitching’. Despite the tenant’s German name, Fandorin did not catch even the slightest trace of an accent in her speech.

The suite occupied by Mademoiselle Wanda consisted of a hallway and a spacious drawing room, which apparently also served as a boudoir.

It occurred to Erast Petrovich that in view of his hostess’s profession this was entirely natural, and he felt embarrassed at the thought, for Miss Wanda did not resemble a woman of easy virtue. She showed her visitor into the room, sat down in a soft Turkish armchair, crossed one leg over the other, and stared in anticipation at the young man, who had halted motionless in the doorway. The electric lighting gave Fandorin an opportunity to examine Wanda and her accommodations more closely.

She was not a classic beauty — that was the first thing that Erast Petrovich noted. A little too snub-nosed, he thought, and her mouth was a little too wide, and her cheekbones protruded more noticeably than was permitted by the classical canon. But none of these imperfections weakened the overall impression of quite uncommon loveliness — on the contrary, in some strange manner they actually reinforced it. He felt as if he could simply go on and on looking at that face — there was so much life and feeling in it, as well as that magical quality known as femininity, which defies description in words, but is unerringly discerned by any man. Well, then, if Mademoiselle Wanda was so popular in Moscow, it meant that Muscovite taste was not so very bad, reasoned Erast Petrovich, and he regretfully tore himself away from the contemplation of the amazing face to look carefully around the room. An absolutely Parisian interior in a color range from claret to mauve, with a deep carpet, comfortable and expensive furniture, numerous table and floor lamps with colorful shades, Chinese figurines, and, on the wall — the very latest chic — Japanese prints of geishas and Kabuki-theater actors. In the far corner there was an alcove behind two columns, but a sense of delicacy obliged Fandorin to avert his gaze from that direction.

“What is ‘everything’?” asked his hostess, breaking a silence that had clearly lasted too long, and Erast Petrovich shivered at the almost physical sensation of that magical voice setting the secret, rarely touched strings of his heart quivering.

The collegiate assessor’s face expressed polite incomprehension, and Wanda declared impatiently: “Mr. Fandorin, on your card it says ‘I know everything’. What is ‘everything’? And who are you, as a matter of fact?”

“Deputy for special assignments to Governor-General Prince Dolgorukoi,” Erast Petrovich replied calmly. “Assigned to investigate the circumstances of the demise of Adjutant General Sobolev.”

Seeing his hostess’s slim eyebrows shoot up, Fandorin remarked: “Do not pretend, mademoiselle, that you did not know about the general’s death. As for the note on my card, that was written to deceive you. I know far from everything, but I do know the most important thing. Mikhail Dmitrievich Sobolev died in this room at about one o’clock this morning.”

Wanda shuddered and put her thin hands to her throat, as though she suddenly felt cold, but she said nothing. Erast Petrovich nodded in satisfaction and continued: “You have not given anyone away, mademoiselle, or broken the word that you gave. The officers themselves are to blame — they covered their tracks far too clumsily. I shall b-be frank with you in the hope of receiving equal frankness in return. I am in possession of the following information.” He closed his eyes in order not to be distracted by the subtle pattern of white and pink tones that had appeared on the woman’s agitated face. “From the Dusseaux restaurant you came directly here with Sobolev and his retinue. It was then shortly before midnight. An hour later the general was already dead. The officers carried him out of here, pretending that he was drunk, and took him back to the hotel. If you will complete the picture of what happened, I will try to spare you interrogation at the police station. And, by the way, the police have already been here — the hotel staff will probably tell you about it. So let me assure you that it would be much better to make your explanations to me.”

The collegiate assessor paused, calculating that more than enough had already been said. Wanda rose abruptly to her feet, took a Persian shawl from the back of a chair, and threw it across her shoulders, although the evening was warm, almost hot. She walked around the room twice, glancing from time to time at the expectant functionary. Finally she stopped, facing him.

“Well, at least you don’t look like a policeman. Have a seat. This story might take some time.”

She indicated a plump divan covered with embroidered cushions, but Erast Petrovich preferred to take a seat on a chair. An intelligent woman, he decided. Strong. Coolheaded. She won’t tell me the whole truth, but she won’t lie to me, either.

“I met the great hero yesterday, in the restaurant at the Dusseaux,” Wanda said, taking a small brocade pouffe and sitting beside Fandorin, positioning herself, in fact, so close to him that she was looking up into his face from below. In this foreshortened perspective she appeared alluringly helpless, like some oriental slave girl at the feet of a pasha. Erast Petrovich shifted uncomfortably on his chair, but to move away would have been ridiculous.

“A handsome man. Of course, I had heard a lot about him, but I never suspected that he was so very good-looking. Especially his cornflower-blue eyes.” Wanda pensively ran one hand across her brow, as if she were driving away the memory. “I sang for him. He invited me to sit at his table. I don’t know what you have been told about me, but I am sure most of it is lies. I am no hypocrite; I am a free, modern woman, and I decide for myself who to love.” She glanced defiantly at Fandorin and he saw that now she was talking without pretense or affectation. “If I take a liking to a man and decide that he must be mine, I don’t drag him to the altar, the way your ‘respectable’ women do. No, I am not ‘respectable’ — in the sense that I do not accept your definition of respectability.”

This is no slave girl, there is no defenselessness here, Erast Petrovich thought in astonishment, looking down at those sparkling emerald-green eyes; she is more like the queen of the Amazons. He could easily imagine her driving men insane with these impetuous transitions from arrogant defiance to submissiveness and back again.

“Could you please stick more c-closely to the subject,” Fandorin said dryly out loud, trying hard not to give way to inappropriate feelings.

“I could hardly be closer,” the Amazon queen teased him. “It is not you who buy me, it is I who take you, and I make you pay me for it! How many of your ‘respectable’ women would be only too happy to be unfaithful to their husbands with the White General in secret, skulking like thieves? But I am free and I have no need to hide. Yes, I found Sobolev attractive,” she said, suddenly changing her tone of voice again, from challenging to cunning. “Yes, why should I pretend I was not flattered by the idea of adding such a big, bright specimen to my butterfly collection? And after that…” Wanda twitched her shoulder. “It was the usual thing. We came here, drank some wine. But what occurred then, I don’t remember very well. My head was spinning. Before I knew what was going on, we were over there, in the alcove.” She laughed hoarsely, but almost immediately her laughter broke off and the light in her eyes faded. “After that it was horrible, I don’t want to remember it. Don’t make me tell you the physiological details, all right? You wouldn’t wish that on anyone — a lover in the very height of his passion suddenly stopping like that and falling on you like a deadweight…”

Wanda sobbed and angrily wiped away a tear.

Erast Petrovich followed her expression and intonation carefully. She appeared to be telling the truth. After an appropriate pause, Fandorin asked, “Did your meeting with the general take place by chance?”

“Yes. That is, of course, not entirely. I heard that the White General was staying at the Dusseaux. I was curious to take a look at him.”

“And did Mikhail Dmitrievich drink a lot of wine here with you?”

“Not at all. Half a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem.”

Erast Petrovich was surprised.

“Did he bring the wine with him?”

“No, what makes you think that?”

“Well, you see, mademoiselle, I knew the deceased quite well. Chateau d’Yquem was his favorite wine. How could you have known that?”

Wanda fluttered her slim fingers vaguely.

“I didn’t know it at all. But I am also fond of Chateau d’Yquem. It would seem that the general and I had many things in common. What a pity that the acquaintance proved to be so brief.” She laughed bitterly and cast a seemingly casual glance at the clock on the mantelpiece.

The movement was not lost on Fandorin and he deliberately paused for a moment before continuing with the interrogation.

“Well, what happened next is clear. You were frightened. You probably screamed. The officers came running in, they t-tried to revive Sobolev. Did they call a doctor?”

“No, it was obvious that he was dead. The officers almost tore me to pieces.” She laughed again, this time in anger rather than bitterness. “One of them, in a Circassian coat, was especially furious. He kept repeating that it was a disgrace, a threat to the entire cause, shouting about death in a cheap whore’s bed.” Wanda smiled disagreeably, revealing her white, perfectly even teeth. “And there was a Cossack captain who threatened me, too. First he sobbed a bit, then he said he would kill me if I said anything and offered me money. I took his money, by the way. And I took his threats seriously, too. You never know; I might go down in history as some kind of new Delilah. What do you think, Monsieur Fandorin, will they write about me in school textbooks?”

And she laughed again, this time with a clear note of defiance.

“Hardly,” Erast Petrovich said pensively.

The overall picture was clear now. And so was the reason for the obstinacy with which the officers had tried to protect their secret. A national hero could not die like that. It was so improper. Not Russian, somehow. The French would probably have forgiven their idol, but here in Russia it would be regarded as a national disgrace.

Well, then, Miss Wanda had nothing to worry about. It was up to the governor, of course, to decide her fate, but Fandorin was willing to guarantee that the authorities would not discommode the free-spirited songstress by opening an official investigation.

It might have seemed that the case could be regarded as closed, but Erast Petrovich was an inquisitive man and there was one small circumstance that was still nagging at him. Wanda had already glanced surreptitiously at the clock several times, and the collegiate assessor thought that he could sense a mounting anxiety in those fleeting glances. Meanwhile the hand on the clock was gradually approaching the hour — in five minutes it would be exactly ten. Could Miss Wanda perhaps be expecting a visitor at ten o’clock? Could this circumstance be the reason for her being so frank and forthcoming? Fandorin hesitated. On the one hand, it would be interesting to discover whom his hostess was expecting at such a late hour. On the other hand, Erast Petrovich had been taught from an early age not to impose on ladies. In a situation like this, a cultured man said his farewells and left, especially when he had already obtained what he came for. What should he do?

His hesitation was resolved by the following commonsense consideration: If he were to linger until ten and wait for the visitor to arrive, then he would probably see him, but unfortunately in Erast Petrovich’s presence no conversation would take place — and he wanted very much to hear what that conversation would be about.

Therefore Erast Petrovich got to his feet, thanked his hostess for her frankness, and took his leave, which was clearly a great relief to Mademoiselle Wanda. However, once outside the door of the annex, Fandorin did not set out across the yard. He halted as if he were brushing a speck of dirt off his shoulder and looked around at the windows to see if Wanda was watching. She was not. Which was only natural — any normal woman who has just been left by one guest and is expecting another will dash to the mirror, not the window.

Erast Petrovich also surveyed the brightly lit windows of the hotel’s suites, just to be on the safe side, then set his foot on the low protruding border of the wall, nimbly levered himself against the slanting surface of the windowsill, pulled himself up, and a moment later he was above the window of Wanda’s bedroom- cum-drawing room, half-lying on a horizontal projection that crowned its upper border. The young man arranged himself on his side on the narrow cornice, with his foot braced against the chest of one caryatid and his hand grasping the sturdy neck of another. He squirmed to and fro for a moment and froze — that is, applying the science of the Japanese ninjas, or ‘stealthy ones,’ he turned to stone, water, grass. Dissolved into the landscape. From a strategic point of view, the position was ideal: Fandorin could not be seen from the yard — it was too dark, and the shadow of the balcony provided additional cover — and he was even less visible from the room. But he himself could see the entire yard and through the window left open in the summer warmth he could hear any conversation in the drawing room. Given the desire and a certain degree of double-jointed elasticity, it was even possible for him to hang down and glance in through the gap between the curtains.

There was one drawback — the uncomfortable nature of the position. No normal man would have held on for long in such a contorted pose, especially on a stone support only four inches wide. But the supreme degree of mastery in the ancient art of the ‘stealthy ones’ does not consist in the ability to kill the enemy with bare hands or to jump down from a high fortress wall — oh, no. The highest achievement for a ninja is to master the great art of immobility. Only an exceptional master can stand for six or eight hours without moving a single muscle. Erast Petrovich had not become an exceptional master, for he was too old when he took up the study of this noble and terrible art, but in the present case he could take comfort in the fact that his fusion with the landscape was unlikely to last long. The secret of any difficult undertaking is simple: One must regard the difficulty not as an evil, but as a blessing. After all, the noble man finds his greatest pleasure in overcoming the imperfections of his nature. That was what one should think about when the imperfections were particularly distressing — for instance, when a sharp stone corner was jabbing fiercely into one’s side.

During the second minute of this delectable pleasure, the back door of the hotel Anglia opened and the silhouette of a man appeared — thickset, moving confidently and rapidly. Fandorin caught only a glimpse of the face, just as the man entered the rectangle of light falling from the window in front of the door. It was an ordinary face, with no distinctive features: oval, with close-set eyes, light- colored hair, slightly protruding brow ridges, a mustache curled in the Prussian manner, an average nose, a dimple in the square chin. The stranger entered Wanda’s residence without knocking, which was interesting in itself. Erast Petrovich strained his ears to catch every sound. Voices began speaking in the room almost immediately, and it became clear that hearing alone would not be enough — he would also have to call on his knowledge of German, for the conversation was conducted in the language of Schiller and Goethe. In his time as a grammar school boy, Fandorin had not greatly excelled in this art, and so the main focus in the overcoming of his own imperfections shifted quite naturally from the discomfort of his posture to intellectual effort. However, it is an ill wind… The sharp stone corner was miraculously forgotten.

“You serve me badly, Fraulein Tolle,” a harsh baritone declared. “Of course, it is good that you came to your senses and did as you were ordered. But why did you have to be so obstinate and cause me such pointless nervous aggravation? I am not a machine, after all; I am a living human being.”

“Oh, really?” Wanda’s voice replied derisively.

“Really, just imagine. You carried out your assignment after all — and quite superbly. But why did I have to learn about it from a journalist I know, and not from you? Are you deliberately trying to anger me? I wouldn’t advise it!” The baritone acquired a steely ring. “Have you forgotten what I can do to you?”

Wanda’s voice replied wearily: “No, I remember, Herr Knabe, I remember.”

At this point Erast Petrovich cautiously leaned down and glanced into the room, but the mysterious Herr Knabe was standing with his back to the window. He took off his bowler hat, revealing a couple of minor details: smoothly combed hair (a third-degree blond with a slight reddish tinge, Fandorin ascertained, applying the special police terminology) and a thick red neck (which appeared to be at least size six).

“All right, all right, I forgive you. Come on, don’t sulk.”

The visitor patted his hostess’s cheek with his short-fingered hand and kissed her below the ear. Wanda’s face was in the light and Erast Petrovich saw her subtle features contort in a grimace of revulsion.

Unfortunately, he was obliged to curtail his visual observation — one moment longer, and Fandorin would have gone crashing to the ground, which under the circumstances would have been most unfortunate.

“Tell me all about it.” The man’s voice had assumed an ingratiating tone. “How did you do it? Did you use the substance that I gave you? Yes or no?”

Silence.

“Obviously not. The autopsy didn’t reveal any traces of poison — I know that. Who would have thought that things would go as far as an autopsy? Well, then, what actually did happen? Or were we lucky and he simply died on his own? Then that was surely the hand of Providence. God protects our Germany.” The baritone quavered in agitation. “Why do you not say anything?”

Wanda said in a low, dull voice: “Go away. I can’t see you today.”

“More feminine whimsy. How sick I am of it! All right, all right, don’t glare at me like that. A great deed has been accomplished, and that is the main thing. Well done, Fraulein Tolle; I’m leaving. But tomorrow you will tell me everything. I shall need it for my report.”

There was the sound of a prolonged kiss and Erast Petrovich winced, recalling the look of revulsion on Wanda’s face. The door slammed.

Herr Knabe whistled as he cut across the yard and disappeared.

Fandorin dropped to the ground without a sound and stretched in relief, straightening his numbed limbs, before he set off in pursuit of Wanda’s acquaintance. This case was acquiring an entirely new complexion.

FIVE

In which Moscow is cast in the role of a jungle

“And my p-proposals come down to the following,” said Fandorin, summing up his report. “Immediately place the German citizen Hans-Georg Knabe under secret observation and determine his range of contacts.”

“Evgeny Osipovich, would it not be best to arrest the blackguard?” asked the governor-general, knitting his dyed eyebrows in an angry frown.

“It is not possible to arrest him without any evidence,” the chief of police replied. “And it’s pointless; he’s an old hand. I’d rather bring in this Wanda, Your Excellency, and put her under serious pressure. You never know, it might turn up a few leads.”

The fourth participant in the secret conference, Pyotr Parmyonovich Khurtinsky, remained silent.

They had been in conference for a long time already, since first thing that morning. Erast Petrovich had reported on the events of the previous evening and how he had followed the mysterious visitor, who had proved to be the German businessman Hans-Georg Knabe, the Moscow representative of the Berlin banking firm Kerbel und Schmidt, with a residence on Karyetny Ryad. When the collegiate assessor related the sinister conversation between Knabe and Wanda, his report had to be interrupted briefly, because Prince Dolgorukoi became extremely agitated and began shouting and waving his fists in the air.

“Ah, the villains, ah, the blackguards! Were they the ones who murdered the noble knight of the Russian land? What heinous treachery! An international scandal! Oh, the Germans will pay for this!”

“That will do, Your Excellency,” the head of the secret section, Khurtinsky, murmured reassuringly. “This is too dubious a hypothesis. Poison the White General! Nonsense! I can’t believe the Germans would take such a risk. They are a civilized nation, not treacherous Persian conspirators!”

“Civilized?” exclaimed General Karachentsev, baring his teeth in a snarl. “I have here the articles from today’s British and German newspapers, sent to me by the Russian Telegraph Agency. As we know, Mikhail Dmitrievich was no great lover of either of these two countries, and he made no secret of his views. But compare the tone! With your permission, Your Excellency?” The chief of police set his pince-nez on his nose and took a sheet of paper out of a file.

The English Standard writes:

Sobolev’s compatriots will find him hard to replace. His mere appearance on a white horse ahead of the firing line was enough to inspire in his soldiers an enthusiasm such as even the veterans of Napoleon hardly ever displayed. The death of such a man during the present critical period is an irreparable loss for Russia. He was an enemy of England, but in this country his exploits were followed with scarcely less interest than in his homeland.

“Indeed, frankly and nobly put,” said the prince approvingly.

“Precisely. And now I will read you an article from Saturday’s Bbrsen Kurier.” Karachentsev picked up another sheet of paper. “Mm… Well, this piece will do:”

The Russian bear is no longer dangerous. Let the pan-Slavists weep over the grave of Sobolev. But as for us Germans, we must honestly admit that we are glad of the death of a formidable enemy. We do not experience any feelings of regret. The only man in Russia who was genuinely able to act upon his word is dead.

“And so on in the same vein. How’s that for civilization, eh?”

The governor was outraged.

“Shameless impudence! Of course, the anti-German feelings of the deceased are well known. We can all remember the genuine furor caused by his speech in Paris on the Slav question — it almost caused a serious falling-out between the emperor and the kaiser. “The road to Constantinople lies through Berlin and Vienna!” Strongly put, with no diplomatic niceties. But to stoop to murder! Why, it’s quite unheard-of! I shall inform His Majesty immediately! Even without Sobolev we’ll give those sausage-eaters a dose of medicine that will—”

“Your Excellency,” said Evgeny Osipovich, gently interrupting the fuming governor. “Should we not first listen to the rest of what Mr. Fan-dorin has to say?”

After that they had heard Erast Petrovich out without interruption, although his culminating proposal to limit themselves to placing Knabe under observation was clearly a disappointment to his listeners, as the remarks adduced above testify. To the chief of police Fandorin said: “To arrest Wanda would cause a scandal. By doing that we would dishonor the m-memory of the deceased and would be unlikely to achieve anything. We would only frighten Herr Knabe off. And in any case, I got the distinct impression from their conversation that Mademoiselle Wanda did not kill Sobolev. After all, Professor Welling’s autopsy did not reveal any traces of poison.”

“Precisely,” Pyotr Parmyonovich Khurtinsky said emphatically, addressing himself exclusively to Prince Dolgorukoi. “An entirely ordinary paralysis of the heart, Your Excellency. Most regrettable, but these things happen. Even in the very prime of life, as in the deceased’s case. I wonder whether the collegiate assessor might not have misheard. Or even — who knows — fantasized a little? After all, he himself admitted that German is not exactly his forte.”

Erast Petrovich gave the speaker a particularly keen look, but said nothing in reply. However, the redheaded gendarme jumped in.

“What do you mean, fantasized! Sobolev was in the very best of health! He hunted bears with a forked pole and bathed in a hole in the ice on the river! Are you trying to say that he lived through a hail of fire at Plevna and in the desert of Turkestan, but he couldn’t survive a bit of lovemaking? Rubbish! You should stick to gathering the city’s gossip, Mr. Khurtinsky, and not meddle in matters of espionage.”

Fandorin was surprised by this open confrontation, but the governor was apparently well used to such scenes. He raised a conciliatory hand.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, do not argue. My head is spinning already. So many things to do after this death. Telegrams, condolences, deputations, they’ve covered the whole of Theater Lane with wreaths — you can’t get through on foot or by carriage. There are important individuals coming to the funeral; they have to be met and accommodated. This evening the war minister and the head of the General Staff will arrive. Tomorrow Grand Duke Kirill Alexandrovich will arrive and go directly to the funeral. And today I have to call on the Duke of Liecht-enburg. He and his wife happened by chance to be in Moscow. His wife, the Countess Mirabeau, is the sister of the deceased, and I must go and offer them my condolences. I have already sent notice to them. You come with me, Erast Petrovich, my dear fellow; you can go over everything with me once again in the carriage. We’ll consider together what best to do. And you, Evgeny Osipovich, please arrange to have both of them followed for the time being: this German and the girl. It would be good to intercept that little report that Knabe mentioned. I’ll tell you what. Let him write the report for his spymasters and then catch him red-handed with the evidence. And as soon as you have issued instructions for the surveillance, come straight back here to me, if you please. When Erast Petrovich and I get back, we’ll make a final decision. We can’t afford to make a mess of things. This business has the whiff of war about it.”

The general clicked his heels and went out, and Khurtinsky immediately darted across to the governor’s desk.

“Urgent papers, Your Excellency,” he said, bending right down to the prince’s ear.

“Are they so very urgent?” the governor growled. “You heard me, Petrusha, I’m in a hurry; the duke’s waiting.”

The court counselor set his open hand against the decoration on his starched breast.

“They must be dealt with immediately, Vladimir Andreevich. Look here — this is an estimate for completing the painting of the cathedral. I suggest awarding the commission to Mr. Gegechkori, a most excellent painter and a man with a very sound way of thinking. The amount he is asking is certainly not small, but then he will do the work on time — he is a man of his word. All that’s required is your signature here, and you can consider the matter completed.”

Pyotr Parmyonovich deftly set a sheet of paper in front of the governor and drew a second one out of his folder.

“And this, Vladimir Andreevich, is a plan for the excavation of an underground metropolitan railway, following the example of London. The contractor is Commercial Counselor Zykov. A great undertaking. I had the honor of reporting to you about it.”

“I remember,” Dolgorukoi growled. “So now they’ve dreamed up some city railway or other. How much money does it require?”

“A mere pittance. Zykov is asking only half a million for the surveying work. I’ve looked at the estimate and it’s perfectly sound.”

“ Only,” sighed the prince. “When did you get so rich, Petka, that half a million became a mere pittance?” Then, noticing Fandorin’s amazement at observing him dealing in such a familiar fashion with the head of his secret section, he explained. “Pyotr Parmyonovich and I talk like close relatives. But, you know, he was raised in my house. My deceased cook’s little son. If only Parmyon, God rest his soul, could hear how casually you dispose of millions, Petrusha!”

Khurtinsky gave Erast Petrovich an angry sideways glance, evidently displeased at this reminder of his plebeian origins.

“And this concerns the prices for gas. I’ve drawn up a memorandum, Vladimir Andreevich. It would be good to reduce the tariff in order to make street lighting cheaper. To three rubles per thousand cubic feet. They’re taking too much as things are now.”

“All right, give me your papers; I’ll read them in the carriage and sign them,” said Dolgorukoi, getting to his feet. “It’s time to get going. It’s bad form to keep important people waiting. Let’s go, Erast Petrovich; we can discuss things along the way.”

In the corridor, Fandorin inquired with great politeness: “But tell me, Your Excellency, will the emperor himself not be coming? After all, it is Sobolev who has died, not just anybody.”

Dolgorukoi squinted at the collegiate assessor and declared emphatically: “He did not consider it possible. He has sent his brother, Kirill Alexandrovich. But why is not for us to know.”

Fandorin merely bowed without speaking.

They were not able to discuss things along the way. When they were already seated in the carriage — the governor on soft cushions and Erast Petrovich facing him on a leather-upholstered bench — the door suddenly swung open and the prince’s valet, Frol Vedishchev, clambered in, panting and gasping. He seated himself unceremoniously beside the prince and shouted to the driver: “Let’s go, Misha, let’s go!”

Then, without paying the slightest attention to Erast Petrovich, he swung around to face Dolgorukoi.

“Vladimir Andreevich, I’m going with you,” he declared in a tone that brooked no objections.

“Frolushka,” the prince said meekly. “I’ve taken my medicine, and now please don’t interfere; I have important things to talk over with Mr. Fandorin.”

“Never mind, your talk can wait,” the tyrant declared with an angry wave of his hand. “What were those papers that Petka slipped you?”

“Here they are, Frol,” said Vladimir Andreevich, opening his folder. “A commission for the artist Gegechkori to complete the murals in the cathedral. The estimate has been drawn up, see? And this is a contract for the merchant Zykov. We ‘re going to dig a railway underneath Moscow, so that people can get around more quickly. And there’s this — about reducing the prices for gas.”

Vedishchev glanced into the papers and announced determinedly: “You mustn’t give the cathedral to this Gegechkori; he’s a well-known swindler. Better give it to one of our own artists, from Moscow. They have to make a living, too. It will be cheaper and every bit as beautiful. Where are we going to get the money from? There isn’t any money. Gegechkori promised your Petka that he would decorate his dacha in Al-abino, that’s why Petka’s taking so much trouble on his behalf.”

“So you think we shouldn’t give the commission to Gegechkori,” Dolgorukoi asked pensively, and put the paper on the bottom of the pile.

“It doesn’t even bear thinking about,” snapped Frol. “And this underground railway is sheer stupidity. What’s the point of digging a hole in the ground and sending a steam engine down it? It’s just throwing the treasury’s money away. What an idiotic idea!”

“Well, you’re wrong about that,” the prince objected. “The metro is a good thing. Just look what the traffic’s like — we’re barely crawling along.”

It was true: The gubernatorial carriage was stuck at the turn onto Neglinnaya Street and, despite desperate efforts, the convoy of gendarmes was quite unable to clear the road, which, on a Saturday, was packed solid with the carts and wagons of traders from Okhotny Ryad.

Vedishchev shook his head, as though the prince himself should realize that his stubbornness was wrongheaded.

“But you know the councilors in the Municipal Duma will say old Dol-gorukoi’s finally lost his mind completely. And your enemies in St. Petersburg won’t miss dieir chance, either. Don’t sign it, Vladimir Andreevich.”

The governor gave a mournful sigh and set the second paper aside.

“And what about the gas?”

Vedishchev took the memorandum, held it away from himself, and began moving his lips soundlessly.

“That’s all right, you can sign it. It saves the city money and it eases the burden on the people of Moscow.”

“That’s what I think, too,” said the prince, brightening up. He folded down the small desk with a writing set that was attached to the carriage door and affixed his sprawling signature to the document.

Erast Petrovich was astounded by this incredible scene, but he made a great effort to act as if nothing out of the ordinary were taking place, gazing out the window with intense interest. At that very moment they arrived at the house of Princess Beloselskaya-Belozerskaya, where the Duke of Liechtenburg was staying with his wife, nee Zinaida Dmitrievna Soboleva, who had been granted the title of the Countess Mirabeau in morganatic marriage.

Erast Petrovich knew that Evgeny of Liechtenburg, a major-general in the Russian Guards and commander of the Potsdam Life-Cuirassiers, was the grandson of the emperor Nikolai Pavlovich. He had not, however, inherited the famous basilisk stare of his fearsome grandfather — his highness’s own eyes were the color of blue Saxon porcelain and they peered out through his pince-nez with an expression of mild courtesy. The countess, on the other hand, proved to resemble her famous brother greatly. Although she lacked his physical stature and her bearing was far from martial, while the oval outline of her face was delicately defined, nonetheless, her blue eyes were precisely the same as his and she was the exact same breed — unmistakably a Sobolev. The audience went awry from the very beginning.

“The countess and I came to Moscow on a quite diffewent matter, and then there was this tewwible calamity,” the duke began, rolling his r’s in a most engaging fashion and supporting his words by flapping his hand, the middle finger of which was adorned with an old sapphire.

Zinaida Dmitrievna did not allow her husband to finish.

“How, how could it have happened?” she exclaimed, and the large tears streamed down her face, which, even swollen as it was by her lamentations, remained delightful. “Prince, Vladimir Andreevich, the grief is unbearable!”

The countess’s mouth twisted and froze into the double curve of a yoke and she was unable to carry on speaking.

“Evewything is in God’s hands,” the bewildered duke muttered and glanced in panic at Dolgorukoi and Fandorin.

“Evgeny Maximilianovich, Your Highness, I assure you that the circumstances of your relative’s untimely demise are being thoroughly investigated,” the governor declared in an agitated voice. “Mr. Fandorin here, my deputy for highly important assignments, is dealing with the case.”

Erast Petrovich bowed and the duke’s gaze dwelt for a moment on the young functionary’s face, but the countess dissolved in even more bitter tears.

“Zinaida Dmitrievna, my darling girl,” said the prince, sobbing himself now. “Erast Petrovich was your brother’s comrade in war. And as chance would have it, he put up at the same hotel, the Dusseaux. He is a very intelligent and experienced investigator; he will get to the bottom of everything and report back to me. But what’s the point of crying, it won’t bring him back…”

Evgeny Maximilianovich’s pince-nez glinted coldly and imperiously.

“If Mr. Fandorin should discover anything important, please inform me personally about it immediately. Until Grand Duke Kiwill Alexandwovich awwives, I wepwesent the person of His Majesty the Empewor here.”

Erast Petrovich bowed once again without speaking.

“Yes, His Majesty…” Zinaida Dmitrievna took a crumpled telegram out of her small handbag with shaking hands. “A telegram has arrived from His Majesty.”

Shocked and grieved by sudden death of Adjutant General Sobolev.

She sobbed and blew her nose, then continued reading.

He will be hard for the Russian army to replace and, of course, this loss is greatly lamented by all true soldiers. It is sad to lose such useful people who are so devoted to their work. Alexander.

Fandorin raised his eyebrows slightly — the telegram had sounded rather cold to him. “Hard to replace?” Meaning that the general could be replaced after all? “Sad” — and nothing more?

“The lying in state and funeral service are tomorrow,” said Dolgo-rukoi. “Muscovites wish to pay their final tribute to their hero. Then I presume the body will be sent by train to St. Petersburg? His Majesty will surely give instructions to arrange a state burial. There will be many people who wish to take their leave of Mikhail Sobolev.” He assumed a dignified air. “Measures have been taken, Your Highness. The body has been embalmed; so no problems will arise.”

The duke glanced sideways at his wife, who was wiping away her inexhaustible flow of tears, and said in a low voice, “The thing is, Pwince, the empewor has acceded to the wishes of the family and gwanted them permission to buwy Michel en famille at their Wyazan estate.”

Vladimir Andreevich responded with a haste that Fandorin thought slightly excessive.

“Quite right, too; things are more human that way, without all the pomp. What a man he was, such a great heart.”

He ought not to have said that. The countess, who had begun to calm down, started sobbing even more loudly than before. The governor began blinking rapidly, took out an immense handkerchief, and wiped Zinaida Dmitrievna’s face in a paternal manner, after which, overcome by emotion, he loudly blew his nose into it. Evgeny Maximilianovich observed this intemperate Slavic display of emotion with a certain degree of consternation.

“How could it happen, Vladi… Vladimir Andre… evich?” the countess asked and fell against the prince’s chest, which was squeezed up and out by his corset. “He is only six years older than me. Ooh-ooh-ooh,” she wailed in a quite unaristocratic, entirely demotic manner, like a peasant woman, and Dolgorukoi’s composure dissolved completely.

“My dear fellow,” he said to Fandorin over Zinaida Dmitrievna’s brown head of hair. “You… you know… You go on. I’ll stay here for a while. You go, take Frol and go. The carriage can come back for me afterward. And you have a word there with Evgeny Osipovich. Decide matters for yourselves. You can how see how things are.”

All the way back, Frol Grigorievich complained about intriguers (whom he called ‘antreegars’) and embezzlers of public funds.

“The things they get up to, those monsters! Every louse trying to grab a piece of everything for himself! Say a tradesman wants to open up a shop, for instance, and sell corduroy pants. You might think, what could be simpler? Pay the fifteen- ruble municipal tax and trade away. Ah, but no! Pay the local policeman, pay the excise man, pay the sanitation inspector! And all bypassing the treasury. And the top price for the pants should be a ruble and fifty kopecks — but they go for three. This isn’t Moscow, it’s an absolute jungle, that’s what it is.”

“What?” asked Fandorin, who hadn’t understood.

“Jungle. Beast against beast. Or take vodka, for example. Oh, my, sir, vodka’s an entire tragedy in itself. Let me tell you…”

And there followed the dramatic history of how the merchants, in contravention of all laws human and divine, bought duty stamps from the excise officials at one kopeck each and stuck them on bottles of home brew in order to pass it off as state produce. Erast Petrovich had absolutely no idea what to say, but fortunately his participation in the conversation did not seem to be required.

When the carriage rumbled over the cobblestones up to the front entrance of the governor’s residence, Vedishchev cut short his bitter tirade in mid-phrase: “You go straight up to the study. The chief of police must be tired of waiting by now. I’ll get on about my business.” And with an alacrity surprising in one of such great age and with such impressive sideburns, he darted down one of the side corridors.

The professional tete-a-tete went well. Fandorin and Karachentsev caught each other’s meaning at once, which both of them found exceedingly pleasant.

The general settled himself in the armchair by the window and Erast Petrovich sat facing him on a velvet-covered chair.

“First, let me tell you about Herr Knabe,” Evgeny Osipovich began, holding his folder at the ready but not glancing into it for the time being. “An individual well known to me. I simply did not wish, in such a crowd…” He made a wry face, and Fandorin realized that he was referring to Khurtinsky. The general slapped his hand down on the folder. “I have here a secret circular from last year. From the department, from the Third Office, which, as you know, deals with all sorts of political matters, and they instruct me to keep an eye on Hans-Georg Knabe. To make sure he doesn’t overstep the mark.”

Erast Petrovich inclined his head inquiringly to one side.

“A spy,” the chief of police explained. “According to our information, a captain of the German General Staff. The head of the kaiser’s intelligence service in Moscow. Knowing that, I believed what you told us immediately and unconditionally.”

“And you don’t pick him up because a secret agent you know is better than one you don’t,” the collegiate assessor stated rather than asked.

“Precisely. And there are certain rules of diplomatic propriety. If I arrest him and expel him, then what? The Germans immediately expel one of our men. What good is that to anyone? It’s simply not done, touching foreign agents without specific instructions to do so. However, this particular incident goes far beyond the bounds of gentlemanly behavior.”

Erast Petrovich could not help smiling at such an obvious understatement.

“Yes, indeed, to put it mildly.”

The general smiled, too.

“And so we are going to pick up Herr Knabe. The question is, where and when?” Evgeny Osipovich’s smile broadened even further. “I think, this evening, at the Alpine Rose restaurant. You see, according to information in my possession” — he slapped his hand down on the closed folder once again — “Knabe often spends the evening there. He phoned them again today and booked a table for seven o’clock. For some reason under the name of Rosenberg, although, as you can imagine, he is very well known at the restaurant.”

“Interesting,” remarked Fandorin. “And he really ought to be brought in.”

The general nodded. “I have instructions from the governor-general for the arrest. I operate as a soldier: The superiors give the orders, I carry them out.”

“How do we know that Knabe t-telephoned and booked a table under a false name?” Erast Petrovich asked after a moment’s thought.

“Technical progress.” The police chief’s eyes glinted cunningly. “It is possible to listen to telephone conversations at the exchange. But that is strictly between you and me. If they ever find out, I shall lose half my sources of information. By the way, your friend Wanda will be performing at the Rose today as well. She told the porter to have a carriage at the door at six. This evening presents an interesting prospect. It would be good to pick up the pair of them together. The question is, how to proceed?”

“Resolutely, but keeping everything neat and tidy.”

Karachentsev sighed.

“My dashing lads are fine when it’s a matter of being resolute. But they’re not so good when it comes to tidiness.”

Erast Petrovich began speaking in half phrases.

“What if I do it? As a private individual? If anything happens — no diplomatic incidents. Your men standing by, eh? Only, Your Excellency, no duplication, like yesterday in the Anglia.”

Well, I’ll be damned if it isn’t a sheer pleasure working with you, the general thought. But out loud he said: “I apologize for yesterday. It won’t happen again. But about today… two outside, two inside, in the hall. What do you think?”

“There should be none in the hall at all — a professional will always spot them,” the collegiate assessor declared confidently. “But outside — one in a carriage at the front door and one at the back door. Just in case. I think that will be enough. He’s an agent after all, not a terrorist.”

“How are you thinking of proceeding?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’ll see how it goes; take a close look, observe for a while. I don’t like trying to guess ahead.”

“I understand,” said the general, nodding. “And I have full confidence in your judgment. Do you have a weapon? Our Mr. Knabe is in a desperate situation. In this case he won’t get off with simple deportation, and his superiors will disown him if anything happens. He may not be a terrorist, but he’ll probably be very nervous.”

Erast Petrovich slipped his hand in under his frock coat, and a moment later there was a small, neat-looking revolver with a fluted handle, worn down by frequent use, lying on the palm of his hand.

“A Herstal-Agent?” Evgeny Osipovich asked respectfully. “An elegant little piece. Do you mind if I take a look?”

The general took hold of the revolver, opened the cylinder deftly, and clicked his tongue in admiration: “Gas-operated? That’s splendid! Fire off all six bullets one after another if you like. But isn’t the trigger a bit too sensitive?”

“This button here is the safety catch,” said Fandorin, pointing. “So it won’t go off in your pocket. It’s not all that accurate, of course, but then in our business the main thing is a rapid rate of fire. We don’t need to hit a mink in the eye.”

“Perfectly true,” agreed Evgeny Osipovich, handing back the gun. “So, will she recognize you? Wanda, I mean.”

“Please do not b-be concerned, Your Excellency. I have an entire chest full of makeup. She won’t recognize me.”

Entirely satisfied, Karachentsev leaned back in his chair, and, although the discussion of business had apparently been concluded, he seemed in no hurry to say good-bye. The general offered Fandorin a cigar, but the collegiate assessor took out his own, from an elegant suede case.

“Genuine Batavia, Evgeny Osipovich. Would you like to try one?”

The chief of police took a slim, chocolate-colored wand, lit it, and released a thin stream of smoke, savoring the flavor. The general very definitely liked Mr. Fandorin, and that was why the final decision was taken to steer the conversation in a delicate direction.

“You are new to our Moscow jungle…,” he began cautiously.

He talks about the jungle, too, Erast thought in surprise, but gave no sign of it. He only said: “And to the Russian jungle, too.”

“Yes, indeed. While you’ve been on your travels things have changed a great deal.”

Fandorin waited with an attentive smile for what would follow — all the signs suggested that the conversation to follow would not be a trivial one.

“What do you make of our old beau?” the chief of police suddenly asked.

Erast Petrovich hesitated before replying: “I think that His Excellency is by no means as simple as he seems.”

“Alas.” The general forcibly blew a thick stream of smoke up into the air. “In his time the prince was far from simple, very far indeed. It’s no easy thing, maintaining a grip of iron on the old capital for sixteen years. But the old wolf’s teeth have come loose. It’s hardly surprising — he’s over seventy now. He’s gotten old and lost his grip.” Evgeny Osipovich leaned forward and lowered his voice confidentially. “He hasn’t got much time left. You can see for yourself, those lackeys of his, Khurtinsky and Vedishchev, can twist him around their little fingers. And that famous cathedral of his. It’s sucked the city completely dry. And for what? Think of all the orphanages and hospitals you could build with money like that! No, our latter-day pharaoh is determined to leave his own pyramid after him when he’s gone.”

Erast Petrovich listened attentively without opening his mouth.

“I understand that it’s awkward for you to discuss this,” said Karachentsev, leaning back in his armchair again. “But just listen to someone who is genuinely well-disposed toward you. I can tell you that there is dissatisfaction with Dolgorukoi at court. The slightest blunder from his side and it will be the end. Off into retirement, to Nice. And then, Erast Petrovich, his entire Moscow junta will fall apart. A new man will come, someone quite different. He will bring his own people. In fact, they’re already here, his people. Making ready.”

“You, for instance?”

“You take my meaning at once. And that means I do not need to continue. The essence of the proposal is clear to you.”

This really is more like a jungle than the old capital city, thought Erast Petrovich, looking into the redheaded police chief’s eyes, positively aglow with goodwill — to all appearances the eyes of an honest and intelligent man. The collegiate assessor smiled in a most agreeable manner and shrugged.

“I appreciate your confidence; indeed I am flattered by it. Perhaps Moscow would indeed be better off with a new governor. But I cannot undertake to judge, since I still understand nothing about Moscow affairs. I have, however, lived in Japan for four years, Your Excellency, and, would you believe, I have become completely Japanese — sometimes I even surprise myself. In Japan a samurai — and in their terms you and I are both samurai — must keep faith with his overlord, no matter how bad he might be. Otherwise nothing would work; the whole system would collapse. Vladimir Andreevich is not exactly my sovereign lord, and yet I cannot feel entirely free of all obligations to him. Please do not take this amiss.”

“Well, that is a shame,” sighed the general, realizing that any attempt at persuasion would be futile. “You could have had a great future. But never mind. Perhaps you still will. You can always count on my support. May I hope that this little chat will remain between the two of us?”

“You may,” the collegiate assessor replied tersely, and Karachentsev immediately believed him.

“Time to get going,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll issue instructions concerning the Rose and select some of my brighter deputies for you, and you, in turn…”

They left the governor’s study, discussing the final details of the forthcoming operation as they went. A second later a small door in the corner of the room opened — it led to the private lounge where the old prince liked to doze after lunch. Frol Grigorievich Vedishchev emerged from behind the door, stepping silently in his thick felt slippers. His bushy gray eyebrows were knitted in a grim frown. The prince’s valet walked across to the chair on which the chief of police had been sitting a minute earlier and spat savagely, leaving a brown gob of tobacco spittle on the leather seat.

SIX

In which a woman in black appears

Back at the hotel, there was a surprise in store for Erast Petrovich. As the young man approached suite 20, the door suddenly swung open and a buxom maid came running out toward him. Fandorin did not get a clear view of her face, since it was turned away, but there were certain eloquent details that did not escape the observant collegiate assessor’s attention: an apron worn back to front, a lace cap that had slipped to one side, and a dress that was buttoned crookedly. Masa was standing in the doorway, looking very pleased with himself and not in the least embarrassed by his master’s sudden return.

“Russian women are very good,” he declared with profound conviction. “I suspected this before and now I know for certain.”

“For certain?” Fandorin asked curiously, surveying his Japanese servant’s glistening features.

“Yes, master. They are passionate and do not demand presents for their love. Not like the female inhabitants of the French city of Paris.”

“But you don’t know Russian,” said Erast Petrovich with a shake of his head. “How did you explain yourself to her?”

“I did not know French, either, but to explain oneself to a woman, words are not needed,” Masa declared with a solemn expression. “The most important things are the breathing and the glance. If you breathe loud and fast, the woman understands that you are in love with her. And you must do this with your eyes.” He screwed up his already narrow eyes, which made them sparkle in quite an astonishing fashion. In reply Fandorin merely cleared his throat. “After that, all you need to do is to woo her a little, and a woman can no longer resist.”

“And how did you woo her?”

“There is a special approach for each woman, master. Thin ones like sweet things, fat ones like flowers. To the lovely woman who ran away on hearing your footsteps, I gave a sprig of magnolia, and then I gave her a neck massage.”

“Where did you get the magnolia?”

“There.” Masa pointed vaguely downward. “They are growing in pots.”

“And what is the point of the neck massage?”

The servant gave his master a pitying look.

“A neck massage develops into a shoulder massage, then into a back massage, then…”

“I see,” sighed Erast Petrovich. “You don’t need to continue. Better give me that little chest with my makeup kit instead.”

Masa perked up at that.

“Are we going to have an adventure?”

“We are not; I am. And another thing. This morning I had no time to do any gymnastics, and I need to be in good shape today.”

The Japanese began taking off the cotton dressing gown that he usually wore when he was at home.

“Master, shall we run across the ceiling or are we going to fight again? The ceiling is best. That is a very convenient wall.”

Surveying the wallpapered wall and molded ceiling, Fandorin felt doubtful.

“It’s awfully high. At least twelve shaku. Never mind, let’s try it.”

Masa was already standing ready in nothing but his loincloth. Around his forehead he tied a clean white rag with the hieroglyph for ‘diligence’ traced out on it in red ink. After changing into a pair of close-fitting tights and rubber slippers, Erast Petrovich jumped up and down for a while, then squatted down and gave the command: “Ichi, ni, san.” Both of them dashed at the wall and ran up it, and when they were just short of the ceiling, pushed off from the vertical, turning a back somersault in the air and landing on their feet.

“Master, I ran higher up — as far as that rose there, but you were two roses lower,” Masa boasted, pointing at the wallpaper.

Instead of answering, Fandorin called out once again: “Ichi, ni, san!” The vertiginous feat was repeated, and this time the servant touched the ceiling with his foot as he tumbled head over heels.

“I reached it, and you didn’t!” he declared. “Yes, master, even though your legs are considerably longer than mine.”

“You are made of rubber,” growled Fandorin, panting slightly. “All right, now we will fight.”

The Japanese bowed from the waist and adopted the combat position without any great enthusiasm: legs bent at the knees, feet turned out, arms relaxed.

Erast Fandorin leapt up, spun around in the air, and struck his partner quite hard on the back of the head with the toe of his slipper before Masa had time to turn away.

“First hit!” he shouted. “Come on!”

Masa created a distraction by tearing the white band off his forehead and tossing it to one side, and when Fandorin’s gaze involuntarily followed the flying object, the servant uttered a guttural cry, launched himself across the floor like a bouncing rubber ball, and tried to catch his master across the ankle with a hard kick. However, at the final moment Erast Petrovich leapt back, managing at the same time to strike the shorter man across the ear with the edge of his open hand.

“Second hit!”

The Japanese leapt agilely to his feet and began walking around the room with short, rapid steps, tracing out a semicircle. Fandorin shifted his weight lightly from one foot to the other where he stood, holding his upturned palms at the level of his waist.

“Ah, yes, master, I quite forgot,” said Masa, still walking. “It is unforgivable of me. A woman came to see you an hour ago. Dressed all in black.”

Erast Fandorin lowered his hands.

“What woman?”

He immediately received a blow from a foot to his chest. As he flew back against the wall, Masa exclaimed triumphantly: “First hit! An old, ugly woman. Her clothes were completely black. I could not understand what she wanted and she went away.”

Fandorin stood there, rubbing his bruised chest.

“It’s high time you learned some Russian. While I’m out, take the dictionary that I gave you and learn eighty words.”

“Forty will be enough!” Masa exclaimed indignantly. “You are simply taking your revenge.” And then, “I’ve learned two words already today: sweehar, which means ‘dear sir,’ and chainee — that’s Russian for ‘Japanese’.”

“I can guess who your teacher was. Just don’t ever think of calling me ‘sweetheart’. Eighty words, I said — eighty. Then next time you’ll fight fair.”

Erast Petrovich sat down in front of the mirror and started to apply his makeup. After considering several wigs, he selected a dark-brown one, with the hair cut to a single length and a neat center part. He turned down the ends of his curled black mustache and stuck a fluffy, lighter one over it, then glued on a thick, full beard cut short and square. He painted his eyebrows the appropriate color and moved them up and down for a while, stuck out his lips, extinguished the gleam in his eyes, pinched his ruddy cheeks, sprawled back in his chair, and, as if at the wave of a magic wand, was suddenly transformed into a boorish young merchant from Okhotny Ryad.

Shortly after seven in the evening a smart cab drove up to the Alpine Rose German restaurant on Sofiiskaya Street: a gleaming, lacquered droshky with steel springs, scarlet ribbons woven into the manes of the pair of black horses pulling it, and the spokes of the wheels painted yellow with ocher. The dashing cabbie roared out a deafening ‘whoa’ and cracked his whip boisterously.

“Wake up, Your Honor, here you are, delivered all proper and correct!”

The passenger in the back of the cab was snoring gently, sprawled out on the velvet seat — a young merchant in a long-skirted blue frock coat, crimson waistcoat, and tight-fitting boots. A gleaming top hat was perched at a devil-may- care angle on the reveler’s head.

The merchant opened his drowsy eyes and hiccupped: “Delivered? Where?”

“Where you ordered, Your Worship. This is it, the Rose itself.”

The restaurant was famous throughout Moscow, and there was a row of cabs lined up in front of it. The coachmen watched the noisy driver of the flashy cab with annoyance — shouting and yelling and cracking his whip like that, he was likely to frighten other people’s horses. One driver, a clean-shaven, high-strung- looking lad in a shiny leather coat, walked over to the troublemaker and set into him angrily.

“What do you think you’re doing, waving your whip around like that? This isn’t a gypsy fair! Now you’re here, stand in line like everyone else.” Then he added in a low voice, “Off you go, Sinelnikov. You got him here, now get going, don’t make yourself too obvious. I’ve got my carriage here. Tell Evgeny Osipovich everything’s going according to plan.”

The young merchant jumped down onto the pavement, staggered, and waved to the cabbie: “Off with you! I’ll be spending the night here.”

The smart driver cracked his whip, whistled like a bandit, and set off. The roistering trader from Okhotny Ryad took several uncertain steps and staggered. The clean-shaven young driver was there in a flash to take him by the elbow.

“Let me help, Your Worship. It wouldn’t do for you to go missing your step.”

He took a solicitous grip on the reveler’s elbow and whispered rapidly.

“Agent Klyuev, Your Honor. That’s my carriage there, with the chestnut mare. I’ll be waiting up on the box. Agent Nesznamov is at the rear entrance in an oilskin apron, playing the part of a knife-grinder. The mark arrived just ten minutes ago. He’s wearing a ginger beard. Seems very nervous. He’s armed, too — there’s a bulge under his armpit. And His Excellency told me to give you this.”

In the very doorway, the ‘cabbie’ deftly slipped a sheet of paper folded into eight into the young merchant’s pocket, then doffed his cap and bowed low from the waist, but he received no tip for his pains and could only grunt in annoyance when the door slammed in his face. To the jeers of the other drivers (“Hey, my bold fellow, didn’t you get your twenty kopecks, then?”) he plodded back to his droshky and climbed dejectedly up onto the box.

The Alpine Rose restaurant was regarded on the whole as a decorous European establishment — during the daytime, that is. Moscow’s Germans, both merchants and civil servants, flocked here for breakfast and lunch. They ate leg of pork with sauerkraut, drank genuine Bavarian beer, and read newspapers from Berlin, Vienna, and Riga. But come evening, all the boring beer-swillers went back home to tot up the balances in their account books, have supper, and get into their feather beds while it was still light, and a louder and more free-spending public began to converge on the Rose. For the most part they were foreigners, people of easy manners who preferred to take their fun in the European style rather than the Russian. If Russians did look in, it was more out of curiosity than anything else and also — in more recent times — to hear Mademoiselle Wanda sing.

The young merchant stopped in the white marble entrance hall, hiccupped as he surveyed the columns and the carpeted stairs, tossed his dazzling top hat to a flunky, and beckoned to the maitre d’hotel.

The first thing he did was to hand him a white one-ruble note. Then, enveloping him in cognac fumes, he demanded: “Now then, you German pepper sausage, you fix me up with a table, and not just one that happens to be standing empty anyway, but one I happen to fancy.”

“The place is rather crowded, sir,” the maitre d’hotel said with a shrug. He might have been German, but he spoke Russian like a true Muscovite.

“Fix me up,” the merchant said, wagging a threatening finger at him. “Or else I’ll make trouble! Oh, right, and where’s your privy here?”

The maitre d’hotel beckoned a flunky across with his finger and the rowdy customer was shown with all due deference to a room fitted out with the latest word in European technology: porcelain stools, flushing water, and washstands with mirrors. But our merchant was not interested in these German novelties. Ordering the flunky to wait outside, he went in, took a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket, and began reading, frowning in concentration.

It was the transcript of a telephone conversation.

17 MINUTES PAST 2 IN THE AFTERNOON. PARTY 1-MALE, PARTY 2-FEMALE.

P1: Young lady, give me number 762, the Anglia… This is Georg Knabe here. Could you please call Miss Wanda.

Voice (sex not determined): One moment, sir.

P2: Wanda speaking. Who is this?

P1: (Note in the margin: “From this point on everything is in German.”) It’s me. An urgent matter. Very important. Tell me one thing. Did you do anything to him? You understand what I mean. Did you or didn’t you? Tell me the truth, I entreat you!

P2: (following a long pause): I didn’t do what you mean. Everything simply happened on its own. But what’s wrong with you? Your voice sounds very strange.

P1: You really didn’t do it? Oh, thanks be to God! You have no idea of the position I’m in. It’s like some terrible nightmare!

P2: I’m delighted to hear it. (One phrase inaudible.) P1: Don’t joke. Everyone has abandoned me! Instead of praise for showing initiative, there’s only black ingratitude. And that is not the worst thing. It could turn out that a certain event of which you know will not postpone the conflict, but, on the contrary, bring it closer — that is what I have been informed. But you didn’t do anything after all?

P2: I told you, no.

P1: Then where’s the bottle?

P2: In my room. And it’s still sealed.

P1: I must collect it from you. Today.

P2: I’m singing at the restaurant today and won’t be able to get away. I’ve already missed two evenings as it is.

P1: I know. I’ll be there. I’ve already booked a table. For seven o’clock. Don’t be surprised — I’ll be in disguise. This business has to be kept secret. Bring the bottle with you. And another thing, Fraulein Wanda. Recently you’ve been tending to get above yourself. Take care — I’m not the kind of man to take liberties with.

(P2 hangs up without replying.) Stenographed and translated from the German by Yuly Schmidt There was a note at the bottom in a slanting military hand: “Make sure he doesn’t get scared and do away with her! E.O.”

The young merchant emerged from the lavatory clearly refreshed. Accompanied by the maitre d ‘hotel, he entered the dining hall and cast a dull glance over the tables and their impossibly white tablecloths covered with gleaming silver and crystal. He spat on the brilliant parquet floor (the maitre d’hotel merely winced) and finally jabbed his finger in the direction of a table (an empty one, thank God) beside the wall. On the left of it there were two students in the company of several young milliners trilling with laughter, and on the right of it was a gentleman with a ginger beard in a checked jacket, sitting there watching the stage and sipping Moselle wine.

If not for agent Klyuev’s warning, Fandorin would never have recognized Herr Knabe. Another master of disguise. But then, in view of his primary professional activity, that was hardly surprising.

Scattered but enthusiastic applause broke out in the hall. Wanda had come out onto the low stage — slim and sinuous in a dress shimmering with sequins, looking like some magical serpent.

“What a scrawny thing; no meat on her at all,” a chubby milliner at the next table snorted, offended because both students were staring wide-eyed at the songstress.

Wanda swept the hall with her wide, radiant eyes and began singing in a quiet voice without any introduction, either words or music. The accompanist picked up the melody on the piano as she went along and began weaving a lacy pattern of chords around the low voice that pierced straight to the heart.

Beside a crossroads far away,

Buried in sand a body lies.

Above it blooms a dark-blue flower,

The flower of the suicides.

Chill evening wrapped the world in slumber

As at that spot I stood and sighed.

The moon shone on its gentle swaying…

The flower of the suicides.

A strange choice for a restaurant, thought Fandorin, listening to the German words of the song. From Heine, I think.

The hall went very quiet, then everyone began applauding at once, and the milliner who had recently been so jealous even shouted out ‘Bravo!’ Erast Petrovich realized that even he himself had perhaps slipped out of character, but nobody appeared to have noticed the inappropriately serious expression that had appeared on the young merchant’s drunken features. In any case, the man with the ginger beard, sitting at the table to the right, had been looking only at the stage.

The final chords of the mournful ballad still hung in the air when Wanda began snapping her fingers to set a rapid rhythm. With a shake of his shaggy head, the pianist rushed his ending, then crashed all ten digits down onto the keys, and the audience began swaying in their chairs in time to a rollicking Parisian chansonette.

Some Russian gentleman who looked like a factory owner performed a rather strange ritual: He called over a flower girl, took a bouquet of pan-sies out of her basket, wrapped them in a hundred-ruble note, and sent them to Wanda. Without a pause in her singing, she sniffed the bouquet and ordered it to be sent back, together with the hundred-ruble note. The factory owner, who had been acting as proud as a lion, was visibly deflated and gulped down two tall wineglasses of vodka in quick succession. The people around him in the hall kept casting derisive glances in his direction.

Erast Petrovich did not forget his role again. He played the fool a little, pouring champagne into a teacup, and from there into the saucer. He puffed out his cheeks and sipped at the champagne with a loud slurping noise — but only drank a tiny amount, in order not to get tipsy. He ordered the waiter to bring some more champagne (“And not Lanvin, either — the real stuff, Moet”) and roast a piglet, only it had to be still alive, and first they had to bring it and show it to him: “I know what you krauts are like; you’ll slip me some old carcass from the icehouse.” Fandorin was counting on the fact that it would take a long time to find a live piglet, and in the meantime the situation would be resolved in one way or another.

The disguised Knabe squinted across at his noisy neighbor in annoyance, but without taking any great interest in him. The secret agent took out his Breguet watch four times; it was obvious that he was nervous. At five minutes to eight Wanda announced that she was singing her last song before the intermission and struck up a sentimental Irish ballad about a girl called Molly, whose true love failed to return from war. Some of the people sitting in the hall were wiping tears from their faces.

She’ll finish the song in a moment and sit at Knabe’s table, Fandorin assumed, and prepared himself by lowering his forehead onto his elbow, as if he had dozed off, but he tossed back the strand of hair from over his right ear and, applying the science of concentration, shut off all of his senses except for hearing. He became transformed, as it were, into his own right ear. Wanda’s singing now seemed to be coming from far away, but he could hear the slightest movement made by Herr Knabe with great clarity. The German was restless: squeaking his chair, scraping his feet, then suddenly starting to tap his heels. Just in case, Erast Petrovich turned his head and half-opened one eye — and was just in time to see the gentleman with the ginger beard slipping out through the side door.

The hall broke into thunderous applause.

“A goddess!” shouted a student, moved almost to tears. The milliners were clapping loudly.

Herr Knabe’s stealthy departure was not at all to the collegiate assessor’s liking. In combination with the disguise and the false name, it suggested alarming possibilities.

The young merchant rose abruptly to his feet, knocking over his chair, and declared in a confidential tone to the festive group at the next table: “Got to go relieve myself.” Swaying slightly on his feet, he headed for the side exit.

“Sir!” shouted a waiter, racing up behind him. “The lavatory is not that way.”

“Go away,” said the barbarian, shoving the waiter aside without even turning around. “I’ll go wherever I want.”

The waiter froze on the spot in horror, and the merchant continued on his way in broad, rapid strides. Oh, this was not good. He needed to hurry. Wanda had already flitted off the stage into the wings.

Just as he reached the door a new obstacle arose for the capricious client in the form of a desperately squealing piglet being carried in his direction.

“Here, just as you ordered!” said the panting chef, proudly displaying his trophy. “Alive and kicking. Shall we roast it for you?”

Erast Petrovich looked at the piglet’s little eyes filled with terror and suddenly felt sorry for the poor creature, born into the world only to end up in the belly of some glutton.

The merchant growled: “Not big enough yet, let him put on a bit of fat!”

The chef dejectedly clutched the cloven-hoofed beast to his breast as the ignorant boor stumbled against the doorpost and staggered out into the corridor.

Right, Fandorin thought feverishly. The entrance hall is on the right. That means the offices and Wanda’s dressing room are on the left.

He set off down the corridor at a run. Around the corner he heard a scream coming from a dimly lit recess. There was some kind of commotion going on there.

Erast Petrovich dashed toward the sound and saw the man with the ginger beard clutching Wanda from behind, holding one hand over the songstress’s mouth and forcing a narrow steel blade up toward her throat.

Wanda had grabbed the broad wrist covered in reddish hair with both her hands, but the distance between the blade and her slim neck was closing rapidly.

“Stop! Police!” Fandorin cried in a voice hoarse with tension. Displaying phenomenally rapid reactions, Herr Knabe pushed the floundering Wanda straight at Erast Petrovich, who involuntarily put his arms around the songstress’s thin shoulders. She clung to her savior with a grip of iron, trembling all over. In two bounds the German was past them and dashing away down the corridor, fumbling under his armpit as he ran. Fandorin saw the running man’s hand emerge, holding something black and heavy, and he barely had time to drag Wanda to the floor and shield her. A second later and the bullet would have pierced both their bodies. For an instant the collegiate assessor was deafened by the thunderous roar that filled the narrow corridor. Wanda squealed in despair and began thrashing about under the young man.

“It is I, Fandorin!” he panted as he struggled to stand up. “Let go of me.”

He tried to leap to his feet, but Wanda, still lying on the floor, was clutching him tightly by the ankle and sobbing hysterically: “Why did he do that? Why? Oh, don’t leave me!”

It was useless trying to pull his foot free — the songstress was clinging on tight and wouldn’t let go. Then Erast Petrovich said in an emphatically calm voice: “You know yourself, why. But, God be praised, you’re safe now.”

He unclasped her fingers gently but firmly and ran off in pursuit of the secret agent. It was all right; Klyuev was at the entrance, a sound officer, he wouldn’t let him go. At the very least he would delay him.

However, when Fandorin burst out of the doors of the restaurant onto the embankment, he discovered that things had gone about as badly as possible. Knabe was already sitting in an ‘egoist’ — an English single-seater carriage — and lashing a lean, sleek gelding with his whip. The horse flailed at the air with its front hooves and set off so sharply that the German was thrown back hard against his seat.

The sound officer Klyuev was sitting on the pavement, holding his head in his hands with blood running out between his fingers.

“Sorry, let him get away,” he groaned dully. “I told him — “Stop,” and he hit me on the forehead with the butt—”

“Get up!” Erast Petrovich tugged at the wounded man’s shoulder and forced him to his feet. “He’ll get away!”

With a great effort of self-control, Klyuev smeared the dark-red sludge across his face and began hobbling sideways toward the droshky.

“I’m all right, it’s just that everything’s spinning,” he muttered, clambering up onto the coachbox.

Fandorin leapt up beside him in a single bound, Klyuev cracked the reins, and the chestnut mare set off with its hooves clip-clopping loudly over the cobblestones, gradually picking up speed. But it was slow, too slow. The ‘egoist’ already had a start of a hundred paces!

“Harder!” Erast Petrovich shouted at the groggy Klyuev. “Drive harder!”

At breakneck speed, with houses, shop signs, and astounded pedestrians flashing past in a blur, both carriages tore along the short Sofiiskaya Street and out onto the broad Lubyanka, where the chase began in earnest. A policeman on duty opposite Mobius’s photographic studio began whistling in furious indignation and waving his fist at the scofflaws, but that was all. Ah, if only I had a telephone apparatus in the carriage, Fandorin fantasized, I could call Karachentsev and have a couple of carriages sent out from the gendarme station to cut him off. A useless, idiotic fantasy — their only hope now was the chestnut mare, and that dear creature was giving her all, desperately flinging out her sturdy legs, shaking her mane, glancing back over her shoulder with one insanely goggling eye — as if she were asking if this was all right, or should she kick even harder. Kick, my darling, kick, Erast Petrovich implored her. Klyuev seemed to have recovered a little and he stood up, cracking his whip and hallooing so wildly that an entire Mongol horde seemed to be hurtling down the quiet evening street.

The distance to the ‘egoist’ had been reduced a little bit. Knabe looked back in alarm once, then again, and seemed to realize that he wouldn’t get away. When there were about thirty paces remaining between them, the German agent turned around, holding out the revolver in his left hand, and fired. Klyuev ducked.

“Damn, he’s a good shot! That one whistled right past my ear! That’s a Reichsrevolver he’s blasting away with! Shoot, Your Honor! Aim at the horse! He’s outpacing us!”

“What has that poor horse done wrong?” growled Fandorin, remembering the piglet. In fact, of course, the interests of the fatherland would have outweighed his compassion for the dun gelding, but the problem was that his Herstal-Agent wasn’t designed for accurate shooting at such a distance. God forbid, he might hit Herr Knabe instead of the horse, and the entire operation would be ruined.

At the corner of Sretensky Boulevard the German turned around once again, taking a little longer to aim before his barrel belched smoke and flame. Klyuev instantly collapsed backward, on top of Erast Petrovich. One eye gaped in fright into the collegiate assessor’s face; the place of the other had been taken by a red hole.

“Your Excel —” his lips began to say, but they did not finish.

The carriage swung to one side and Fandorin was obliged to shove the fallen man aside unceremoniously. He grabbed the reins, and just in time, or the carriage would have been smashed to smithereens against the cast-iron railings of the boulevard. The excited chestnut mare was still trying to run on, but the left front wheel had jammed against a stone post.

Erast Petrovich leaned down over the police agent and saw that his one remaining eye was no longer frightened, but staring fixedly upward, as though Klyuev were looking at something very interesting, far more interesting than the sky or the clouds.

Fandorin mechanically reached up to remove his hat, but he had none, for his remarkable topper had been left behind in the cloakroom at the Alpine Rose.

This was a fine result: an officer killed and Knabe allowed to escape!

But where exactly could he have escaped to? Apart from the house on Karyetny Ryad, the German had nowhere else to go. He had to call in there, if only for five minutes — to pick up his emergency documents and money, and destroy any compromising materials.

There was no time to indulge in mourning. Erast Petrovich took the dead man under the arms and dragged him out of the droshky. He sat him with his back against the railings.

“You sit here for a while, Klyuev,” the collegiate assessor muttered and, paying no attention to the passersby who had frozen in poses of horrified curiosity, he climbed back up onto the coachbox.

The ‘egoist’ was standing at the entrance of the beautiful apartment house on the third floor of which the Moscow representative of the banking firm Kerbel und Schmidt resided. The dun gelding, covered in thick lather, was nervously shifting its hooves and shaking its wet head. Fan-dorin dashed into the hallway.

“Stop! Where are you going?” yelled the fat-faced doorman, grabbing hold of his arm, but he was immediately sent flying by a punch delivered to his jaw without any superfluous explanations.

Upstairs a door slammed. It sounded like the third floor! Erast Petro-vich bounded up two steps at a time, holding the Herstal at the ready. He would have to shoot him twice, in the right arm and the left. The German had tried to slit Wanda’s throat with his right hand, and he had fired with his left, which meant he was ambidextrous.

Here at last was a door with a brass plaque: HANS-GEORG KNABE. Fandorin tugged hard on the bronze handle — it wasn’t locked. After that he moved quickly, but took precautionary measures. He held the revolver out in front of him and flicked the safety catch off.

The long corridor was dimly lit, the only light entering from an open window at its far end. That was why Erast Petrovich, anticipating danger from ahead and from the side, but not from below, failed to notice the elongated object lying under his feet and stumbled over it, almost sprawling full length. He turned swiftly and prepared to fire, but there was no need.

Lying facedown on the floor, with one hand flung forward, was a familiar figure in a checked jacket with its back flaps parted. Witchcraft, was the first thought that came into Erast Petrovich’s mind. He turned the man over onto his back and immediately saw the wooden handle of a butcher’s knife protruding from his right side. Witchcraft apparently had nothing to do with the case. The secret agent was dead, and to judge from the blood pulsing from the wound, he had only just been killed.

Fandorin ran through all the rooms, peering intently through half-closed eyes. There was chaos all around, with everything turned upside down and books scattered across floors. In the bedroom, white fluff from a slashed eiderdown was swirling in the air like snow in a blizzard. And there was not a soul there.

Erast Petrovich glanced out the window that was intended to illuminate the corridor and saw the roof of an extension directly below him. So that was it!

Jumping down, the detective set off across the rumbling iron sheeting of the roof. The view from up there was quite remarkable: a scarlet sunset above the belfries and towers of Moscow, and a black flight of crows rippling across the scarlet. But the collegiate assessor, normally so sensitive to beauty, did not even glance at this wonderful panorama.

It was a strange business. The killer had disappeared, and yet there was absolutely nowhere he could have gone from that roof. He couldn’t have simply flown away, could he?

Two hours later, the apartment on Karyetny Ryad was unrecognizable. There were detectives darting around the crowded rooms, men from the code section numbering all the papers that had been found and assembling them in cardboard files, a gendarme photographer taking pictures of the body from various angles. The top brass — the chief of police, the head of the secret section of the governor’s chancellery, and the deputy for special assignments — occupied the kitchen, which had already been searched.

“And what ideas do the gentlemen detectives have?” asked Khurtin-sky, dispatching a pinch of tobacco into his nostril.

“The general picture is clear,” said Karachentsev with a shrug. “A mock robbery, staged for idiots. They wrecked everything, but didn’t take anything of value. And the secret hiding places haven’t been touched: the weapons, the codebook, the tools — they’re all still there. Evidently they were hoping we wouldn’t dig too deep.”

“Atish-oo!” the court counselor sneezed deafeningly, but no one blessed him.

The general turned away from him and continued, addressing Fandorin.

“One particularly ‘convincing’ detail is the murder weapon. The knife was taken from over there.” He pointed to a set of hooks on which knives of various sizes were hanging. One hook was empty. “Intended to suggest that the thief grabbed the first thing that came to hand. Typically German, rough-hewn cunning. The blow to the liver was delivered with supreme professionalism. Someone was waiting for our Herr Knabe in the dark corridor.”

“But who?” asked Pyotr Parmyonovich, carefully charging snuff into his other nostril.

The chief of police did not condescend to explain, and so Erast Petrovich had to do it.

“Probably someone from his own side. There doesn’t appear to be anyone else it could be.”

“The krauts panicked; they’re afraid of a diplomatic conflict,” Evgeny Osipovich said with a nod. “The robbery is a fiction, of course. Why bother to rip open the eiderdown? No, they were just trying to muddy the waters. It’s not good, meine Herren, not Christian, to do in your own agent like a pig in a slaughterhouse. But I understand the reason for the panic. In this case exposure could mean more than a mere scandal — it could mean war. The General Staff captain overplayed his hand a bit. Excessive zeal is a dangerous thing, and the careerist got what he deserved. In any case, gentlemen, our work is done. The events surrounding General Sobolev’s death have been clarified. From here on the people at the top make the decisions. What’s to be done with Wanda?”

“She has nothing to do with Sobolev’s death,” said Fandorin. “And she has been punished enough for her contacts with the German agent. She almost lost her life.”

“Leave the chanteuse alone,” Khurtinsky seconded him, “otherwise a lot of things will surface that we’d rather didn’t.”

“Well, then,” the chief of police summed up, evidently considering how he would compose his report to the ‘people at the top’.

“In two days the investigation has reconstituted the entire chain of events. The German agent Herr Knabe, wishing to distinguish himself in the eyes of his superiors, took it into his head, at his own risk, to eliminate our finest Russian general, well known for his militant anti-Germanism, and the acknowledged leader of the Russian nationalist party. Having learned of Sobolev’s forthcoming arrival in Moscow, Knabe arranged for the general to meet a demimondaine, to whom he gave a small bottle of a certain powerful poison. The female agent either chose not to use it or had no time to do so. The sealed bottle has been confiscated from her and is now in the Moscow Governor’s Department of the Gendarmes. The general’s death was the result of natural causes; however, Knabe did not know this and hurried to report his action to Berlin, anticipating a reward. His superiors in Berlin were horrified and, foreseeing the possible consequences of such a political murder, immediately decided to rid themselves of their overzealous agent, which they did. It is not envisaged that there will be any reason to take diplomatic action against the German government, especially since no attempt was actually made on the general’s life.” Evgeny Osipovich concluded his summary in his normal, unofficial tone of voice. “Our clever captain was destroyed by a fatal confluence of circumstances. Which was no more than the scoundrel deserved.”

Khurtinsky stood up.

“Amen to that. Now, gentlemen, you can finish up here, and with your permission I shall take my leave. His Excellency is waiting for my report.”

It was well after midnight when Erast Petrovich reached the hotel. Masa was in the corridor, standing motionless in front of the door.

“Master, she is here again,” the Japanese declared laconically.

“Who?”

“The woman in black. She came and she does not leave. I looked in the dictionary and said that I did not know when you would come back: “Master not here now. Here later.” She sat down and is still sitting. She has been sitting three hours, and I have been standing here.”

With a sigh, Erast Petrovich opened the door slightly and peered in through the gap. Sitting by the table with her hands folded on her knees was a golden-haired young woman in a mourning dress and a wide-brimmed hat with a black veil. He could see the long eyelashes lowered over her eyes, a thin, slightly aquiline nose, the delicate oval outline of her face. Hearing the door creak, the stranger raised her eyes and Fandorin froze when he saw how beautiful they were. Instinctively recoiling from the door, the collegiate assessor hissed: “Masa, but you said she was old. She’s no more than twenty-five!”

“European women look so old,” said Masa, shaking his head. “And anyway, master, is twenty-five years young?”

“You said she was ugly!”

“She is ugly, the poor thing. Yellow hair, a big nose, and watery eyes — just like yours, master.”

“I see,” whispered Erast Petrovich, stung. “So you’re the only handsome one here, are you?”

And, heaving another deep sigh, but this time for a quite different reason, he entered the room.

“Mr. Fandorin?” asked the young woman, rising abruptly. “You are conducting the investigation into the circumstances of Mikhail Dmitrievich Sobolev’s death, are you not? Gukmasov told me.”

Erast Petrovich bowed without speaking and gazed into the stranger’s face. The combination of willpower and fragility, intelligence and femininity was one not often seen in the features of a young woman’s face. Indeed, this lady was somehow strangely reminiscent of Wanda, except that there was not the slightest sign of cruelty or cynical mockery in the line of her mouth.

The night visitor walked up close to the young man, looked into his eyes, and in a voice trembling from either suppressed tears or fury, asked: “Are you aware that Mikhail Dmitrievich was murdered?”

Fandorin frowned.

“Yes, yes, he was murdered.” The girl’s eyes glinted feverishly. “Because of that accursed briefcase!”

SEVEN

In which everyone mourns and Fandorin wastes his time

From early on Sunday morning, the incessant pealing drifted across a tranquil sky, bleached almost white by brilliant sunlight. The day seemed to have turned out fine, and the golden onion domes of the innumerable churches shone so brightly that it made you blink to look at them. But the heart of this city sprawling across the low hills was filled with a chill anguish, and there was a doleful and despondent cadence to the constant droning of those far-famed bells — today the grieving people of Moscow were praying for the eternal repose of the recently departed servant of God, Mikhail.

The deceased had lived for a long time in St. Petersburg and only made brief, flying visits to Russia’s ancient capital, and yet Moscow had loved him more intensely than had cold, bureaucratic Peter, loved him with a devoted, womanly love, without sparing too much thought for the true virtues of its idol — it was enough that he was dashingly handsome and famed for his victories. And above all Sobolev was beloved of Muscovites because in him they sensed a genuine Russian soul, untainted by foreign arrogance and duplicity. This was the reason why lithographs of the bushy-bearded White General wielding his keen-edged saber hung in almost every house in Moscow, whether the inhabitants were minor functionaries, merchants, or bourgeois.

The city had not manifested such great grief even in March of the previous year, when the requiem was held for the treacherously slain emperor Alexander the Liberator, after which people had worn mourning for a whole year, without dressing up smartly, or organizing any festivities, or styling their hair or staging any comedies in the theaters.

Long before the funeral procession set out across the center of the city to Krasnye Vorota, where the requiem was due to be celebrated in the Church of the Three Hierarchs, the pavements, windows, balconies, and even roofs along Theater Lane, Lubyanka Street, and Myasnitskaya Street were thronged with hordes of spectators. Little boys perched in trees, and the most audacious of them even clung to drainpipes. The forces of the city garrison and cadets from the Alexander and Junker colleges were drawn up in ranks that lined the entire route to be traveled by the hearse. The funeral train — fifteen carriages decorated all over with flags, St. George crosses, and oak leaves — was already waiting at the Ryazan Station. Since St. Petersburg had chosen not to bid farewell to the hero, it was Mother Russia herself who would say the final good-bye, and her heart lay midway between Moscow and Ryazan, where the White General would finally be laid to rest in the village of Spasskoe in the district of Ranenburg.

The procession extended for a good verst. There were more than twenty velvet cushions bearing the orders and decorations of the deceased, with the Star of St. George, first class, carried by the commander of the St. Petersburg military district, General of Infantry Ganetsky. And the wreaths, all those wreaths! A huge one from the traders of Okhotny Ryad, and from the English Club, and the Moscow Bourgeois Council, and the Cavaliers of St. George — far too many to list them all. The hearse — a gun carriage covered with crimson velvet and surmounted by a canopy of gold — was preceded by heralds on horseback bearing inverted torches and the masters of ceremonies — the governor-general of Moscow and war minister. The coffin was followed by a solitary rider on a black Arabian steed — the brother and personal representative of the sovereign, Grand Duke Kirill Alexandrovich. Behind him came Sobolev’s famous snow-white Akhaltekin, draped with a black blanket of mourning, with adjutants leading him by the bridle. Then came the guard of honor, marching in slow time, carrying yet more wreaths, more modest in size, and the most important guests, walking along with their heads uncovered — high officials, generals, members of the Municipal Duma, financial magnates. It was a magnificent, quite incomparable spectacle.

Then, as though suddenly ashamed of its misplaced brightness, the June sunshine hid itself behind dark clouds. The day turned gray, and when the procession reached Krasnye Vorota, where a hundred thousand mourners stood sobbing and crossing themselves, a fine, miserable drizzle began to fall. Nature was finally in harmony with the mood of human society.

Fandorin squeezed his way through the dense crowd, trying to find the chief of police. He had gone to the general’s home on Tverskoi Boulevard shortly after seven, when it was barely light, but he had come too late — they told him that His Excellency had already left for the hotel Dusseaux. This was serious business, a special day, and a great responsibility. And everything depended on Evgeny Osipovich.

Then a string of misfortunes had followed. At the door of the hotel Dusseaux, a captain of gendarmes informed Erast Petrovich that the general “was here just this minute and went galloping off to the department.” But Karachentsev was not at the department on Malaya Nikitskaya Street, either — he had dashed away to restore order in front of the church, where people were in danger of being crushed.

Of course, Erast Petrovich’s urgent little matter of vital importance could have been decided by the governor-general. There was no need to search for him — there he was, clearly visible from all sides, at the very head of the procession, perched on his dappled-gray horse with a seat as firm as a bronze Cavalry Guard. No point in trying to get anywhere near him.

In the Church of the Three Hierarchs, which Fandorin was only able to enter thanks to the timely appearance of the prince’s secretary, things were no better. By applying the science of the ‘stealthy ones,’ Erast Petrovich was able to squeeze his way through almost to the very coffin, but there the backs closed together in a sheer, impenetrable wall. Vladimir Andreevich Dolgorukoi, with a solemn face and pomaded hair, his bulging eyes moist with old man’s tears, was standing nearby with the Grand Duke and the Duke of Liechtenburg. It was absolutely impossible to talk with him, and even if it had been possible, at that moment it was unlikely that he would have appreciated the urgency of the matter.

Furious in his helplessness, Fandorin listened to the touching sermon by the Reverend Amvrosii, who was expounding the inscrutability of the ways of the Lord. A pale and agitated young cadet declaimed a long verse epitaph in a ringing voice, concluding with the words:

And did not he our foemen proud Inspire with dread and trepidation? Though his remains lie in the ground, His spirit lives, our inspiration. Not for the first time, or even the second, everybody there shed a tear, shuffling their feet and reaching for their handkerchiefs. The ceremony proceeded with a lack of haste that befitted the occasion.

And meanwhile precious time was slipping away.

The previous night Fandorin had been informed of circumstances that cast an entirely new light on the case. His nighttime visitor, whom his servant, unaccustomed to the European canon of beauty, had considered old and ugly, while his romantically inclined master had thought her intriguing and quite lovely, had proved to be a teacher at the girls’ secondary school in Minsk, Ekaterina Alexandrovna Golovina. Despite her frail frame and clearly agitated emotional state, Ekaterina Alexandrovna had expressed herself with a resoluteness and directness most untypical of secondary-school teachers — either it was her natural manner, or grief had hardened her.

“Mr. Fandorin,” she began, enunciating every syllable with deliberate clarity, “I should explain to you immediately the nature of the relationship that bound me to the, the… deceased.” It was almost impossible for her to get the word out. A line of suffering creased her high, clear forehead, but her voice did not tremble. A Spartan woman, thought Erast Petrovich, a genuine Spartan. “Otherwise you will not understand why I know what no one else does, not even Mikhail Dmitrievich’s closest aides. Michel and I loved each other.” Miss Golovina looked inquiringly at Fandorin and, evidently unsatisfied by the politely attentive expression on his face, felt it necessary to clarify the point. “I was his lover.”

Ekaterina Alexandrovna pressed her clenched fists to her breast, and at that moment Fandorin thought once again that she resembled Wanda; when she was speaking about her free love, there was that same expression of defiance and expectation of being insulted. The collegiate assessor continued looking at the young lady in exactly the same way — politely and without the slightest hint of condemnation. She sighed and explained to the dolt one more time: “We lived as man and wife, you understand? And so he was more open with me than with others.”

“I understand that, madam, please do go on,” said Erast Petrovich, opening his mouth for the first time.

“But surely you know that Michel had a lawful wife,” said Ekaterina Alexandrovna, still feeling the need to elaborate, making it clear from her entire bearing that she wished to avoid leaving anything unsaid and was not in the least ashamed of her status.

“I know, the Princess Titova by birth. However, she and Mikhail Dmitrievich separated a long time ago, and she has not even come for the funeral. Tell me about the briefcase.”

“Yes, yes,” said Golovina, suddenly confused. “But let me start at the beginning. Because first I must explain. A month ago, Michel and I had a quarrel…” She blushed. “In fact, we parted and did not see each other again. He left for maneuvers, then came back to Minsk for a day and then immediately—”

“I am aware of Mikhail Dmitrievich’s movements over the last month,” Fandorin said politely but firmly, redirecting his visitor to the main theme.

She hesitated, then suddenly said very clearly: “But are you aware, sir, that in May Michel cashed in all his shares and securities, drew all the money out of his accounts, mortgaged his Ryazan estate, and also took a large loan from a bank?”

“What for?” asked Erast Petrovich, frowning.

Ekaterina Alexandrovna lowered her gaze.

“That I do not know. He had some secret business that was very important to him, which he did not wish to tell me about. I was angry, we quarreled… I never shared Michel’s political views — Russia for the Russians, a united Slavdom, our own non-European path, and similar preposterous nonsense. Our final and conclusive quarrel was also caused in part by this. But there was something else. I sensed that I was no longer at the center of his life. There was something new in it, more important than me…” She blushed. “Or perhaps, not something, but someone… Well, that is all immaterial. The truly important thing is something else.” Golovina lowered her voice. “All the money was in a briefcase that Michel bought in Paris during his tour in February. Brown leather, with two silver locks with little keys.”

Fandorin half-closed his eyes as he tried to remember if there had been a briefcase like that among the dead man’s things during the search of suite 47. No, definitely not.

“He told me he would need the money for a trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg,” the teacher continued. “The trip was due to take place at the end of June, immediately after the maneuvers were over. You did not find the briefcase among his things, did you?”

Erast Petrovich shook his head.

“And Gukmasov says that the briefcase disappeared. Michel never let go of it, and in the hotel room he locked it in the safe — Gukmasov saw him do it. But then afterward, after… when Prokhor Akhrameevich opened the safe, there was nothing in it except a few papers; the briefcase wasn’t there. Gukmasov didn’t make anything of it, because he was in a state of shock, and anyway he had no idea what a huge sum the briefcase contained.”

“What was th-the sum?”

“To the best of my knowledge, more than a million rubles,” Ekaterina Alexandrovna said quietly.

Erast Petrovich whistled in surprise, for which he immediately apologized. This was decidedly ominous news. Secret business? What sort of secret business could an adjutant general, general of infantry, and corps commander have? And what kind of papers had been lying in the safe? When Fandorin looked into the safe in the presence of the chief of police, it was completely empty. Why had Gukmasov felt it necessary to conceal the papers from the police? This was very serious. And, most important of all, the sum was huge, quite incredibly huge. What could Sobolev have needed it for? And the key question — where had it gone?

Peering into the collegiate assessor’s preoccupied face, Ekaterina Alexandrovna spoke quickly and passionately.

“He was murdered, I know it. Because of that accursed million rubles. And then somehow they faked a death from natural causes. Michel was strong, a true warrior, his heart would have withstood a hundred years of battles and turmoil — it was made for turmoil.”

“Yes,” said Erast Petrovich, with a sympathetic nod. “That is what everybody says.”

“That is why I did not insist on marriage,” said Golovina, without listening to him. Bright pink now from the turbulence of her emotions, she continued: “I felt that I had no right, that his mission in life was different, that he could not belong just to one woman, and I didn’t want the leftover crumbs… My God, what am I saying! Forgive me.” She put her hand over her eyes and after that spoke more slowly, with an effort. “When the telegram from Gukmasov arrived yesterday, I dashed to the railway station immediately. Even then I didn’t believe in this ‘paralysis of the heart,’ and when I learned that the briefcase had disappeared… He was murdered, there can be no doubt about it.” She suddenly seized hold of Fandorin’s arm, and he was amazed at how much strength there was in her slim fingers. “Find the murderer! Prokhor Akhrameevich says that you are an analytical genius, that you can do anything. Do it! He couldn’t have died of heart failure! You didn’t know that man as I did!”

At this point she finally began weeping bitterly, thrusting her face against the collegiate assessor’s chest like a child. As he awkwardly embraced the young woman around the shoulders, Erast Petrovich remembered how only recently he had embraced Wanda, in quite different circumstances. Identically frail, defenseless shoulders, an identical scent from the hair. It seemed clear now why the general had been attracted to the songstress — she must have reminded the general of his love in Minsk.

“Naturally, I didn’t know him as you did,” Fandorin said gently. “But I did know Mikhail Dmitrievich well enough to doubt that his death was natural. A man of that kind does not die a natural death.”

Erast Petrovich seated the young woman, still shuddering and sobbing, in an armchair and he himself began walking around the room. Suddenly he clapped his hands loudly eight times. Ekaterina Alexandrovna started and stared at the young man through eyes gleaming with tears.

“Pay no attention,” Fandorin hastened to reassure her. “It is an oriental exercise to aid concentration. Very helpful in setting aside what is merely incidental and focusing on the fundamental. Let’s go.”

He strode resolutely out into the corridor and Golovina, dumbfounded by the suddenness of it, dashed after him. As he went, Erast Petrovich spoke rapidly to Masa, who was waiting behind the door.

“Get the travel bag with the tools and catch up with us.”

Thirty seconds later, as Fandorin and his companion were still descending the staircase, the Japanese was already at their heels, walking with small, quick steps and panting at his master’s back. In one hand the servant was holding the travel bag in which all the tools required for an investigation were kept — numerous items that the detective found useful and even vital.

In the lobby Erast Petrovich called the night porter over and told him to open suite 47.

“That’s quite impossible,” the porter said with a shrug. “The gentlemen gendarmes put up a seal and confiscated the key.” He lowered his voice: “The dead man’s in there, God rest his soul. They’ll come to get him at dawn. The funeral’s in the morning.”

“A seal? Well, at least they didn’t leave a guard of honor,” muttered Fandorin. “That would have been really silly — a guard of honor in a bedroom. All right, I’ll open it myself. Follow me — you can light the candles.”

The collegiate assessor walked into the ‘Sobolev’ corridor and tore the wax seal from the door with an intrepid hand. He took a bundle of picks out of the travel bag and a minute later he was inside the suite.

The porter lit the candles, glancing warily out of the corner of his eye at the closed door of the bedroom and crossing himself with small, rapid movements. Ekaterina Alexandrovna also looked at the white rectangle behind which the embalmed body lay. Her gaze froze, spellbound, and her lips moved soundlessly, but Fandorin had no time for the teacher and her sufferings just at the moment — he was working. He dealt with the second seal just as unceremoniously, and the pick was not required — the bedroom door was not locked.

“Well, don’t just stand there!” said Erast Petrovich, with an impatient glance at his servant. “Bring the candles in.”

And he stepped into the kingdom of death.

The coffin was closed, thank goodness — otherwise he would probably have had to attend to the young woman instead of getting on with the job at hand. There was an open prayer book lying at the head of the bed, with a thick church candle guttering beside it.

“Madam,” Fandorin called, turning back toward the drawing room. “I ask you please not to come in here. You will only be in the way.” He added to Masa in Japanese, “The flashlight, quick!”

Once equipped with the English electric flashlight, he moved straight to the safe. Shining the flashlight on the keyhole, he said brusquely over his shoulder: “Magnifying glass number four.”

Well, well. They’d certainly given the door a good groping — just look at all those fingerprints! The year before last, in Japan, with the help of a certain Professor Garding, Erast Petrovich had been successful in solving a mysterious double murder in the English settlement after taking fingerprints at the scene of the crime. The new method had created a genuine furor, but it would be years before a dactyloscopic laboratory and card index could be set up in Russia. Ah, such a pity — these were such clear prints, and right beside the keyhole. All right, then, what would we find inside?

“Magnifying glass number six.”

Under strong magnification, fresh scratches were clearly visible — indicating that the safe was probably opened with a pick instead of the key. In addition, strangely enough, there were traces of some white substance left in the lock. Fandorin took a pinch of it with a pair of miniature forceps. On inspection, it appeared to be wax. Curious.

“Is that where he was sitting?” asked a thin, tense voice behind him.

Erast Petrovich swung around in annoyance. Ekaterina Alexan-drovna was standing in the doorway, clutching her elbows in her hands as if she felt cold. The young lady was not looking at the coffin; she was even making an effort to avert her eyes from it by gazing at the chair in which Sobolev had supposedly died. There is no need for her to know where it really happened, Fandorin thought.

“I asked you not to come in here!” he shouted sternly at the teacher, because in these situations sternness is more effective than sympathy. Let the dead hero’s lover remember why they had come here in the middle of the night. Remember and take herself in hand. Golovina turned away without speaking and walked out into the drawing room.

“Sit down!” Fandorin said loudly. “This could take some time.”

The thorough examination of the suite took more than two hours. The porter, whose fear of the coffin had now subsided, found himself a comfortable perch in the corner and fell into a quiet doze. Masa followed his master around like a shadow, humming a little tune and from time to time handing him the tools he required. Ekaterina Alexandrovna did not appear in the bedroom again. Fandorin glanced out once and saw her sitting at the table, with her forehead resting on her crossed arms. As if sensing Erast Petrovich’s gaze, she sat up abruptly and turned the searing glance of her immense eyes on him, but she did not ask any questions.

Not until it was already dawn, and the flashlight was no longer needed, did Fandorin find the clue. The faint print of the sole of a shoe was barely visible on the sill of the far left window — a narrow print, as if it had been left by a woman, although the shoe was quite clearly a man’s. Through the magnifying glass it was even possible to make out a very faint pattern of crosses and stars. Erast Petrovich raised his head. The small upper pane of the window was open. If not for the footprint, he would have thought nothing of it — the opening was far too narrow as a means of entry.

“Hey, my good man, come on now, wake up,” he called to the drowsy porter. “Has the suite been cleaned?”

“Not a bit,” the man replied, rubbing his eyes. “How could it be? You can see for yourself, sir.” And he nodded his head at the coffin.

“And have the windows been opened?”

“I wouldn’t know. But it’s not very likely. They don’t open the windows in dead men’s rooms.”

Erast Petrovich examined the two other windows, but failed to discover anything else worthy of note.

At half past four, when the makeup artist and his assistants arrived to prepare Achilles for the final journey in his chariot, the search had to be terminated.

The collegiate assessor let the porter go and said good-bye to Ekaterina Alexandrovna, still without having told her anything. She shook his hand firmly, looked inquiringly into his eyes, and managed to avoid any superfluous words. He was right — she was a true Spartan.

Erast Petrovich was impatient to be left alone, in order to consider the results of the search and work out a plan of action. Despite a sleepless night, he didn’t feel at all drowsy or even slightly tired. When he got back to his room, he began his analysis.

At first sight, the nighttime search of suite 47 did not appear to have yielded a great deal, and yet the picture that emerged seemed clear enough.

In all honesty, the claim that the people’s hero had been killed for money had initially appeared improbable, or even preposterous, to Erast Petrovich. But, after all, someone had climbed in through the window, opened the safe, and made off with the briefcase. And it had had nothing to do with politics. The thief hadn’t taken the papers kept in the safe, although these were so important that Gukmasov had felt it necessary to extract them before the authorities arrived. So surely the burglar had only been interested in the briefcase?

There was one thing worth noting — the thief had known that Sobolev was not in the suite that night, and that he would not return suddenly. The safe had been opened with considerable care and no haste. But the most significant thing of all was that it hadn’t been left wide open, but carefully closed again, which certainly required a great deal more time and skill than opening it. Why had the additional risk been necessary, if the loss of the briefcase would be discovered by the hotel guest in any case? And why bother to climb out through the small window aperture when the large window could have been used? Conclusions?

Fandorin stood up and started walking around the room.

The thief knew that Sobolev wouldn’t be coming back to his suite. At least not alive. That was one.

He also knew that no one apart from the general would miss the briefcase, since only Sobolev himself knew about the million rubles. That was two.

All of the above indicated that the criminal was quite incredibly well-informed. That was three.

And naturally, four: The thief absolutely must be found. If only because he might be a murderer as well as a thief. A million rubles was a very serious incentive.

It was all very well to say that he must be found. But how?

Erast Petrovich sat down at the table and pulled a packet of writing paper toward him.

“The brush and the inkwell?” asked Masa, dashing over to the collegiate assessor from his position by the wall, where he had been standing motionless, even snuffling less loudly than usual in order not to prevent his master from comprehending the meaning of the Great Spiral, onto which all existent causes and consequences are threaded, from the very great to the extremely small. Fandorin nodded, continuing his deliberations.

Time was precious. Last night someone had made himself a million rubles richer. The thief and his loot could be far away by now. But if he were clever — and everything indicated that he was a wily individual — then he was avoiding any sudden moves and laying low.

Who would know professional safecrackers? His Excellency Evgeny Osipovich Karachentsev. Should Erast Petrovich pay him a visit? But the general was no doubt sleeping, restoring his strength for the arduous day ahead. And, in addition, he didn’t keep his card index of criminals at home. And there would be no one at the Criminal Investigation Department at such an early hour. Should Fandorin wait until it opened?

Oh, but did they even have a card index? Previously, when Fandorin himself had worked in the department, there were no such sophisticated arrangements in place. No, there was no point in waiting until morning.

Meanwhile, Masa rapidly ground up a stick of dry ink in a square lacquered bowl, added a few drops of water, dipped a brush in the ink, and handed it respectfully to Fandorin, posting himself directly behind his master, in order not to distract him from his calligraphic exercise.

Erast Petrovich slowly raised the brush and paused for a second, then painstakingly traced out on the paper the hieroglyph for ‘patience,’ trying to think of only one thing — making the form of the character ideal. The result was absolutely awful: crude lines, disharmonious elements, a blot on one side. The crumpled sheet of paper went flying to the floor. It was followed by a second, a third, a fourth. The brush moved ever faster, with ever greater assurance. The eighteenth attempt produced an absolutely irreproachable result.

“There, keep it,” said Fandorin, handing the masterpiece to Masa.

The servant admired it, smacked his lips in approval, and put it away in a special folder of rice paper.

Now Erast Petrovich knew what to do, and the simple and correct decision brought peace to his heart. Correct decisions are always simple. Has it not been said that the noble man does not embark on unfamiliar business until he has acquired wisdom from a teacher?

“Get ready, Masa,” said Fandorin. “We’re going to visit my old teacher.”

If there was anyone who might prove even more useful than a card index, it was Xavier Feofilaktovich Grushin, a former detective-inspector at the Criminal Investigation Department. The youthful Erast Petrovich had begun his career as a detective under his tolerant, fatherly tutelage, and although the term of their service together had not been a long one, he had learned a great deal from it. Grushin was old now, long since retired, but he knew all there was to know about the criminal underworld of Moscow, having studied it inside and out in his many years of service. There had been occasions when the twenty-year-old Fandorin had walked with him through the Khitrovka slum district or, say, along Grachyovka Street, a favorite bandits’ haunt, and he had been amazed to see how the grim-faced ruffians, nightmarish ragamuffins, and pomaded fops with shifty eyes would come up to the inspector, and every one of them would doff his hat, bow, and greet him. Xavier Feofilaktovich would whisper for a while with one of them, give another an amiable smack on the ear, and shake hands with a third. And immediately, after moving on a little, he would explain to his novice clerk: “That’s Tishka Siroi, a railway specialist — he works the stations, snatches suitcases out of cabs on the move. And that’s Gulya, a first-class swapper.” — “A swapper?” Erast Petrovich would inquire timidly, glancing around at the respectable-looking gentleman with his bowler hat and cane. “Why, yes, he trades in gold. He’s very clever at switching a genuine ring for a fake. Shows them a gold ring and slips them a gilded copper one. A respectable trade; requires great skill.” Grushin would stop beside some ‘players’ — rogues who use three thimbles to empty people’s pockets — then point and say: “See that, young man? Styopka just put the little ball of bread under the left thimble. But don’t you believe your eyes — the ball’s glued to his fingernail, so it can never stay under the thimble.”

“Then why don’t we arrest them, the swindlers!” Fandorin would exclaim passionately, but Grushin would only chuckle: “Everyone has to live somehow, my dear fellow. The only thing I ask of them is to have a conscience and never take the last shirt off a man’s back.”

The inspector was held in especially high regard among the criminals of Moscow — for his fairness, for the fact that he allowed birds of every feather to earn their living, and especially for his lack of cupidity. Unlike other police officers, Xavier Feofilaktovich did not take bribes, and therefore he never earned enough to buy himself a stone mansion, and when he retired he had settled in a modest house with a vegetable garden in the Zamoskvorechie district. While working in the diplomatic service in distant Japan, Erast Petrovich had from time to time received news from his old boss, and when he was transferred to Moscow he had decided that he must pay Grushin a visit as soon as he had settled in a little. But now it seemed that he would have to pay that visit right away.

As their cab rumbled across the Moskvoretsky Bridge, bathed in the first, uncertain rays of morning sunlight, Masa asked in concern: “Master, is Grushm- sensei simply a sensei or an onshi?” And he explained his doubts, with a disapproving shake of his head: “For a respectful visit to a sensei it is still too early, and for a highly respectful visit to an onshi it is even more so.”

A sensei is simply a teacher, but an onshi is something immeasurably greater: a teacher to whom one feels profound and sincere gratitude.

“I would say he is an onshi,” said Erast Petrovich, glancing at the broad red band of dawn that extended halfway across the sky, and confessed carelessly. “It is a little early, certainly. But then Grushin probably has insomnia anyway.”

Xavier Feofilaktovich was indeed not asleep. He was sitting at the window of the house, which, although it was little, was nonetheless his own, located in the labyrinth of narrow lanes between Greater Ordynka Street and Lesser Ordynka Street, and indulging in meditations on the peculiar properties of sleep. The fact that as a man grows older he sleeps less than in his youth seemed right and proper — what was the point of wasting the time when you would catch up on your sleep forever soon enough? But on the other hand, when you were young, you had so much more use for the time. Sometimes you would be dashing around from dawn till dusk, driving yourself to exhaustion, and if you only had just another hour or two, you could get everything done, but then you had to sacrifice eight hours to the pillow. The feeling of regret was sometimes so keen — but what could you do about it? Nature would claim what was hers by right. And now you dozed for an hour or two in the evening in the little front garden, and then you might go all night without sleeping a wink, but you had nothing to occupy yourself with. Times had changed; things were done differently now. The old dray horse had been retired to live out his life in a warm stall. And thank goodness for that, of course; it would be a sin to complain. But it was boring. His wife, may she rest easy in the ground, had passed away more than two years before. His only daughter, Sashenka, had upped and married a loud windbag of a midshipman and taken off with her husband to the other end of the world, to the city of Vladivostok. Of course, his cook, Nastasya, would prepare his meals and wash his clothes, but sometimes he felt like talking, too. And what could he talk about with an empty-headed woman like that? The price of kerosene and sunflower seeds?

But Grushin could still have made himself useful; oh, yes, very useful indeed. His strength was not completely exhausted yet, and his brain, thank God, still hadn’t begun to rust away. You don’t know your job, mister chief of police. Just how many villains had you caught with those idiotic Bertillonages of yours? People were afraid to walk around the streets of Moscow now — the footpads would have your billfold off you in an instant, and in the evenings you were as likely as not to get knocked on the head with a cosh.

His mental wrangles with his former bosses usually left Xavier Feofilaktovich in a state of depression. The retired inspector was honest with himself: The service would get by without him somehow or other, but life without the service was unbearably tedious for him. Ah, sometimes you would go out on an investigation in the morning and everything inside you was trembling like a spring wound up as tight as it would go. After your coffee and your first pipe your head was clear and your thoughts laid out the entire line of action without any effort. And now he could see that that had been happiness, that had been living. Lord, you would think I’d lived long enough already and seen more than enough in my time, but if only I could live a bit longer, sighed Grushin, glancing in disapproval at the sun peeping out from behind the roofs. The long, empty day would soon begin.

And the Lord heard him. Xavier Feofilaktovich squinted at the un-paved road with his long-sighted eyes — he thought he could see a carriage raising dust over in the direction of Pyatnitskaya Street. There were two riders: one wearing a tie, the other low and squat, wearing something green. Who could this be so early in the morning?

After the obligatory embraces, kisses, and questions, to which Grushin answered at great length, and Fandorin with great brevity, they got down to business. Erast Petrovich did not go into the details of the story, and in particular he did not mention Sobolev, but merely outlined the terms of the problem.

A safe had been cleaned out in a certain hotel. The signature was as follows: The lock had been picked rather sloppily — to judge from the scratches, the thief had fiddled with it for quite a while. A distinctive feature was that there were traces of wax inside the keyhole. The criminal possessed an exceptionally slender frame — he had climbed in through a small window opening only seven inches by fourteen. He was wearing boots or shoes with a pattern of crosses and stars on the sole, with a foot approximately nine inches long and a little less than three wide. Before Fandorin could even finish listing the terms of the problem, Xavier Feofilaktovich suddenly interrupted the young man.

“Boots.”

The collegiate assessor cast a startled sideways glance at Masa dozing in the corner. Had they perhaps wasted their time in coming here? Was the old onshi already in his dotage?

“What?”

“Boots,” the inspector repeated. “Not shoes. Box-calf boots, shined as bright as a mirror. He never wears anything else.”

Fandorin’s heart stood still. Cautiously, as if he were afraid of alarming Grushin, he asked: “Do you mean you know the thief?”

“I know him very well,” said Grushin, with a smile of satisfaction covering his entire soft, wrinkled face, which had far more skin than the skull required. “It’s Little Misha, can’t be anyone else. Only it’s strange that he fumbled with the safe for such a long time; opening a hotel safe is as simple as falling off a log for him. Misha is the only safecracker who climbs in through the small window, and his picks are always lubricated with wax — his ears are very sensitive and he can’t bear the sound of squeaking.”

“Little Misha? Who’s th-that?”

“Why, everybody knows him,” said Xavier Feofilaktovich, untying his tobacco pouch and taking his time to fill his pipe. “The king of Moscow’s ‘businessmen’. A first-rate safecracker, and not squeamish about getting his hands bloody, either. He’s also a lady’s man, a fence, and the leader of a gang. A master of a wide range of trades, a criminal Benvenuto Cellini. Very short — only two arshins and two vershoks. Puny, but he dresses in style. Cunning, resourceful, vicious, and cruel. An individual of considerable repute in Khitrovka.”

“So well known and still not doing hard labor?” Fandorin asked in surprise.

The inspector chortled and sucked on his pipe in delight — the first puff in the morning is always the sweetest.

“Just you try to put him away. I couldn’t manage it, and I doubt whether the present crowd will, either. The villain has his own men in the force — that’s for certain. The number of times I tried to nail him. I never even came close!” Grushin waved his hand dismissively. “He escapes from every raid. They tip him off, those well-wishers of his. And people are afraid of Misha. Oh, they’re really afraid! His gang are all cutthroats and murderers. They have plenty of respect for me over in Khitrovka, but you couldn’t rip a single word about Little Misha out of them with pliers. And they knew I wasn’t going to try ripping it out with pliers; the worst I’d do is punch someone in the teeth. But afterward Misha would pick them to pieces with red-hot pincers, never mind pliers. There was one time, four years ago, when I managed to get really close to him. I was using one of his working girls; she was a good girl really, not a completely hopeless case yet. Then, just before the job when I was supposed to pick Misha up in their bandits’ hideaway, someone dumped a sack right in front of the department. Inside it was my informer — sawn up into joints, twelve of them. Eh, Erast Petrovich, the things I could tell you about his tricks, but if I understand right, you don’t have the time for that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come around at half past five in the morning.”

And Xavier Feofilaktovich screwed up his eyes cunningly, proud of his perspicacity.

“I need Little Misha very badly,” Fandorin said with a frown. “Although it seems improbable, he must be connected in some way. However, I have no right… But I do assure you it is a matter of state importance and also of great urgency. Why don’t we go right now and pick up this Benvenuto Cellini of yours, eh?”

Grushin shrugged and spread his arms wide.

“That’s a tall order. I know every nook and cranny of Khitrovka, but I’ve no idea where Little Misha spends the night. It would take a mass raid. And it would have to come straight from the very top, not through any inspectors or captains — they’d tip him off. Cordon off the whole of Khitrovka, and do everything right, without rushing it. And then, if we don’t get Misha himself, we might at least pick up someone from his gang or one of his girls. But that would require about five hundred constables, no less. And they mustn’t be told what it’s all about until the last minute. That’s absolutely essential.”

And so since early that morning Erast Petrovich had been roaming around a city in the grip of mourning, dashing back and forth between Tverskoi Boulevard and Krasnye Vorota, trying to find the topmost brass in town. The precious time was slipping away! With a fabulous haul like that, Little Misha could already have made a dash for the jolly haunts of Odessa, or Rostov, or Warsaw. It was a big empire, with plenty of room for a high-spirited fellow to cut loose. Since the night before last Misha had been sitting on a pile of loot the likes of which he could never have imagined, even in his dreams. The logical thing for him to do would be to wait for a little while and see whether there would be any uproar or not. Misha was an old hand, so he was bound to understand all this. But with money like that his bandit’s heart would be smarting. He wouldn’t be able to hold out for long — he’d make a run for it. If he hadn’t slipped away already. Ah, what a nuisance this funeral was…

Once, as Grand Duke Kirill Alexandrovich stepped toward the coffin and respectful silence filled the church, Fandorin caught Prince Dolgorukoi glancing at him and began nodding desperately to attract His Excellency’s attention, but the governor-general merely replied by nodding in the same way, sighing heavily and raising his mournful eyes to the flaming candles in the chandelier. However, the collegiate assessor’s gesticulations were noticed by His Highness the Duke of Liechtenburg, who seemed rather embarrassed to find himself surrounded by all this gilded Byzantine finery, and was crossing himself the wrong way, from left to right, not like everybody else, and generally looking as though he felt very much out of place. Raising one eyebrow slightly, Evgeny Maximilianovich fixed his gaze on this functionary who was making such strange signs, and after a moment’s thought he tapped Khurtinsky on the shoulder with his finger — the court counselor’s disguised bald spot was just peeping out from behind the governor’s epaulette. Pyotr Parmyonovich proved quicker on the uptake than his superior: He realized instantly that something out of the ordinary must have happened and jerked his chin in the direction of the side exit — as if to say, go over there and we’ll have a talk.

Erast Petrovich began slipping through the dense crowd once again, but in a different direction, not toward the center, but at a slant, so that now his progress was quicker. And all the while, as the collegiate assessor was forcing his way through the mourners, the deep, manly voice of the Grand Duke resounded under the vaults of the church, and everybody listened with rapt attention. It was not merely that Kirill Alexandrovich was the sovereign’s own well-loved brother. Many of those present at the requiem knew perfectly well that this stately, handsome general with the slightly predatory, hawkish face did more than merely command the Guards; he could in fact be called the true ruler of the empire, for he was also in charge of the War Ministry and the Department of Police and, even more significantly, of the Special Gendarmes Corps. And most important of all, it was said that the tsar never made a single decision of even the slightest importance without first discussing it with his brother. As he worked his way toward the entrance, Erast Petrovich listened to the Grand Duke’s speech and thought that nature had played a mean trick on Russia: If only one brother had been born two years sooner and the other two years later, the autocratic ruler of Russia would not have been the prevaricating, inert, morose Alexander, but the intelligent, farsighted, and decisive Kirill! Ah, how different torpid Russian life would have been then! And what a glittering role the great power would have played on the international stage! But it was pointless to rage in vain at nature and, if one chose to vent one’s rage after all, then it should not be at Mother Nature, but at Providence, who never decided any matter without a higher reason, and if the empire were not destined to rise from its slumber at the command of a new Peter the Great, then it must be that the Lord did not wish it. He had some other, unknown fate in mind for the Third Rome. At least let it be a joyful and bright one. And with this thought Erast Petrovich crossed himself, which he did extremely rarely, but the movement failed to attract anybody’s attention, for the people around him were all repeatedly making the sign of the cross over themselves. Could they perhaps be having similar thoughts?

Kirill’s speech was splendid, filled with a noble, vital energy:

“… There are many who complain that this valiant hero, the hope of the Russian land, has left us in such a sudden and — why not face the truth? — absurd fashion. The man who was dubbed Achilles for his legendary good fortune in battle, which saved him many times from imminent doom, did not fall on the field of battle; instead of a soldier’s death, he died the quiet death of a civilian. But is that really so?” The voice assumed the ringing tone of antique bronze. “Sobolev’s heart burst because it had been exhausted by years of service to the fatherland, weakened by numerous wounds received in battles against our enemies. Achilles should not have been his name, oh, no! Well protected by the waters of the Styx, Achilles was invulnerable to arrows and sword; until the very last day of his life he did not spill a single drop of his own blood. But Mikhail Dmitrievich bore on his body the traces of fourteen wounds, each of which invisibly advanced the hour of his death. No, Sobolev should not have been compared with the fortunate Achilles, but rather with the noble Hector — a mere mortal who risked his own life just as his soldiers did!”

Erast Petrovich did not hear the ending of this powerful and emotional speech, because just at that point he finally reached his goal — the side door, where the head of the secret section of the governor’s chancelry was already waiting for him.

“Well, then, what’s going on?” the court counselor asked, twitching the skin of his tall, pale forehead and then pulling Fandorin out after him into the yard, farther away from prying ears.

Erast expounded the essence of the matter with his invariable mathematical clarity and brevity, concluding with the following words: “We need to carry out a mass raid immediately, tonight at the very latest. That is six.”

Khurtinsky listened tensely, gasped twice, and near the end of Fandorin’s account even loosened his tight collar.

“You have killed me, Erast Petrovich, simply killed me,” he said. “This is worse than the spy scandal. If the hero of Plevna was murdered for filthy lucre, we are disgraced before the entire world. Although a million rubles is not exactly a miserly sum.” Pyotr Parmyonovich began cracking his knuckles, trying to think. “Lord, what is to be done, what is to be done… There’s no point in pestering Vladimir Andreevich — the governor-general is in no condition for this today. And Karachentsev won’t be any help, either — he hasn’t got a single constable to spare at the moment. We can expect public unrest this evening in connection with the sad event, and so many important individuals have come — every one of them has to be guarded and protected from terrorists and bombers. No, my dear sir, nothing can be done about a raid tonight; don’t even think of it.”

“Then we’ll lose him,” Fandorin almost groaned. “He’ll get away.”

“Most likely he already has,” Khurtinsky sighed gloomily.

“If he has, then the tracks are still fresh. We might just be able to p-pick up some little thread.”

Pyotr Parmyonovich took the collegiate assessor by the elbow in an extremely tactful manner.

“You are quite right. It would be criminal to waste any more time. I am no novice when it comes to the secrets of Moscow. I also know Little Misha, and I have been trying to get close to him for ages, but he’s crafty, the rogue. And let me tell you something, my dear Erast Petrovich.” The court counselor’s voice assumed an affectionate and confidential tone; the eyes that were always hooded opened to their full extent and proved to be intelligent and piercing. “To be quite honest, I did not take a liking to you at first. Not at all. A windbag, I thought, an aristocratic snob. A scavenger hovering over prey won by others’ sweat and blood. But Khurtinsky is always willing to admit when he is wrong. I was mistaken about you — the events of the last two days have demonstrated that most eloquently. I see that you are a man of great intelligence and experience, and a first-rate detective.”

Fandorin bowed slightly, waiting to see what would follow.

“And so I have a little proposal for you. That is, of course, if you don’t find it too frightening.” Pyotr Parmyonovich moved close and began whispering. “To prevent this evening being entirely wasted, why don’t you take a stroll around the thieves’ dens of Khitrovka and do a bit of reconnaissance? I know that you’re an unsurpassed master of disguise, so to pass yourself off as one of the locals should be no problem at all for you. I am in possession of certain information, and I can tell you where you are most likely to pick up Misha’s trail. And I will provide you with guides, some of my very finest agents. Well, I hope you’re not too squeamish for this kind of work? Or perhaps too afraid?”

“I am neither squeamish nor afraid,” replied Erast Petrovich, who actually thought that the court counselor’s ‘little proposal’ made rather good sense. Indeed, if a police operation was impossible, why not have a go himself?

“And if you should pick up a thread,” Khurtinsky continued, “it would be possible to launch a raid at dawn. Just give me the word. I won’t be able to get you five hundred constables, of course, but that many wouldn’t be needed. We must, after all, assume that by then you will have narrowed the scope of the search, must we not? Just send word to me through one of my men and I’ll see to the rest myself. And we shall manage perfectly well without His Excellency Evgeny Osipovich Karachentsev.”

Erast Petrovich frowned, detecting in these last words an echo of the high-level intrigues of Moscow politics, which were best forgotten at this moment.

“Th-thank you for your offer of assistance, but your men will not be required,” he said. “I am used to managing on my own, and I have a very able assistant.”