Special Assignments

CHAPTER I A Bad Beginning

Erast Petrovich Fandorin, the Governor-General of Moscow's Deputy for Special Assignments and a state official of the sixth rank, a knight of many Russian and foreign orders, was being violently sick.

The finely moulded but now pale and bluish-tinged features of the Collegiate Counsellor's face were contorted in suffering. One hand, in a white kid glove with silver press-studs, was pressed against his chest, while the other clawed convulsively at the air in an unconvincing attempt by Erast Petrovich to reassure his assistant, as if to say, 'Never mind, it's nothing; I shall be fine in a moment.' However, judging from the intensity with which his distress continued, it was anything but nothing.

Fandorin's assistant, Provincial Secretary Anisii Pitirimovich Tulipov, a skinny, unprepossessing young man of twenty-three, had never before had occasion to see his chief in such a pitiful state. Tulipov himself was in fact a little greenish round the gills, but he had resisted the temptation to vomit and was now secretly feeling proud of it. However, this ignoble feeling was merely fleeting, and therefore unworthy of our attention, but the unexpected sensitivity of his adored chief, always so cool-headed and not disposed to excessive displays of feeling, had alarmed Anisii quite seriously.

'G-Go ...' said Erast Petrovich, squeezing out the word as he wiped his purple lips with one glove. His constant slight stutter, a reminder of a concussion suffered long ago, had been become noticeably stronger as a result of his nervous discomfiture. 'G-Go in ... T-Take ... d-detailed ... notes. Photographs from all angles. And make sure they don't t-t-trample the evidence

He doubled over again, but this time the extended hand did not tremble - the finger pointed steadfastly at the crooked door of the little planking shed from which only a few moments earlier the Collegiate Counsellor had emerged as pale as a ghost with his legs buckling under him.

Anisii did not wish to go back into that grey semi-darkness, into that sticky smell of blood and offal. But duty was duty.

He filled his chest right up to the top with the damp April air (he didn't want his own stomach to start churning too), crossed himself and took the plunge.

The little hut was used for storing firewood, but there was hardly any left, because the cold season was already coming to an end. Quite a number of people had gathered inside: an investigator from the Public Prosecutor's Office, detectives from the Criminal Investigation Department, the district superintendent of police, the local police inspector, a forensic medical expert, a photographer, local police constables, and also the yard-keeper Klimuk, first to discover the scene of the monstrous atrocity - that morning he had looked in to get some wood for the stove, seen it there, had a good long yell and gone running for the police.

There were two oil lamps burning, and shadows flickered gently across the low ceiling. It was quiet, except for a young constable gently sobbing and sniffing in the corner.

'Well now, and what do we have here?' forensic medical expert Egor Willemovich Zakharov purred curiously as he lifted some dark, bluish-crimson, porous object from the floor in a rubber-gloved hand. 'I do believe it's the spleen. Yes that's her, the little darling. Excellent. Into the little bag with her, into her little bag. And the womb too, the left kidney, and we'll have the full set, apart from a few odd little bits and pieces ... What's that there under your boot, Monsieur Tulipov? Not the mesentery, is it?'

Anisii glanced down, started in horror and almost stumbled over the outstretched body of the spinster Stepanida Andreichkina, aged thirty-nine years. This information, together with the nature of her occupation, had been obtained from the yellow prostitute's card left lying neatly on her sundered chest. But there was nothing else neat to be observed in the posthumous appearance of the spinster Andreichkina.

One could assume that even in life her face had not been lovely to behold, but in death it had become nightmarish: it was livid blue, covered with blobs of powder, the eyes had slipped out of their sockets and the mouth was frozen in a soundless scream of horror. What could be seen below the face was even more horrific. Someone had slashed open the poor streetwalker's body from top to bottom and from side to side, extracted all of its contents and laid them out on the ground in a fantastic design. By this time, though, Zakharov had already collected up almost the entire exhibition and put it away in little numbered bags. All that was left was the black patch of blood that had spread without hindrance and little scraps of the dress that had been either hacked or torn to shreds.

Leontii Izhitsin, the district prosecutor's Investigator for Especially Important Cases, squatted down beside the doctor and asked briskly: 'Signs of intercourse?'

'That, my darling man, I'll particularise afterwards. I'll compose a little report portraying everything just the way it is, very prettily. In here, as you can see for yourself, we have been cast into the outer darkness.'

Like any foreigner with a perfect mastery of the Russian language, Zakharov was fond of peppering his speech with various quaint and whimsical turns of phrase. Despite his perfectly normal surname, the expert was of English extraction. The doctor's father, also a medical man, had come to the kingdom of our late departed sovereign, put down roots and adapted a name that presented difficulty to the Russian ear - Zacharias - to local conditions, making it into 'Zakharov': Egor Willemovich had told them all about it on the way there in the cab. You could tell just from looking at him that he wasn't one of us Russians: lanky and heavy-boned, with sandy-coloured hair, a broad mouth with thin lips, and fidgety, constantly shifting that terrible pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other.

The investigator Izhitsin pretended to take an interest, clearly putting on a brave face, as the medical expert twirled yet another lump of tormented flesh between his tenacious fingers and inquired sarcastically: "Well, Mr Tulipov, is your superior still taking the air? I told you we would have got by perfectly well without any supervision from the Governor's department. This is no picture for over-dainty eyes, but we've already seen everything there is to see.'

It was clear enough: Leontii Izhitsin was displeased; he was jealous. It was a serious matter to set Fandorin himself to watch over an investigation. What investigator would have been pleased?

'Stop that, Linkov, you're like a little girl!' Izhitsin growled at the sobbing policeman. 'Better get used to it. You're not destined for special assignments; you'll be seeing all sorts of things.'

'God forbid I could ever get used to such sights,' Senior Constable Pribludko muttered in a half-whisper: he was an old, experienced member of the force, known to Anisii from a case of three years before.

It wasn't the first time he'd worked with Leontii Izhitsin, either - an unpleasant gentleman, nervous and jittery, constantly laughing, with piercing eyes; always neat and tidy - his collars looked as if they were made of alabaster and his cuffs were even whiter - always brushing the specks of dust off his own shoulders; a man with ambitions, carving out a career for himself. Last Epiphany, though, he'd come a cropper with the investigation into the merchant Sitnikov's will. It had been a sensational case, and since it also involved the interests of certain influential individuals to some degree, any delay was unacceptable, so His Excellency Prince Dolgorukoi had asked Erast Petrovich to give the Public Prosecutor's Office a helping hand. But everyone knew the kind of assistance the Chief gave - he'd gone and untangled the entire case in one day. No wonder Izhitsin was furious. He could sense that yet again the victor's laurels would not be his.

'That seems to be all,' the investigator declared. 'So what now? The corpse goes to the police morgue, at the Bozhedomka Cemetery. Seal the shed, put a constable on guard. Have detectives question everyone living in the vicinity, and make it thorough - anything they've heard or seen that was suspicious. You, Klimuk. The last time you came to collect firewood was some time between ten and eleven, right?' Izhitsin asked the yard-keeper. And death occurred no later than two o'clock in the morning?' (That was to the medical expert Zakharov.) 'So what we have to look at is the period from ten in the evening to two in the morning.' And then he turned to Klimuk again. 'Perhaps you spoke to someone local? Did they tell you anything?'

The yard-keeper (a broad, thick beard, bushy eyebrows, irregular skull, with a distinctive wart in the middle of his forehead, thought Anisii, practising the composition of a verbal portrait) stood there, kneading a cap that could not possibly be any more crumpled.

'No, Your Honour, not at all. I don't understand a thing. I locked the door of the shed and ran to Mr Pribludko at the station. And they didn't let me out of the station until the bosses arrived. The local folk don't know a thing about it. That is, of course, they can see as lots of police have turned up ... that the gentlemen of the police force have arrived. But the locals don't know anything about this here horror,' said the yard-keeper, with a fearful sideways glance at the corpse.

'We'll check that soon enough,' Izhitsin said with a laugh. 'Right then, detectives, get to work. And you, Mr Zakharov, take your treasures away, and let's have a full evaluation, according to the book, by midday'

'Will the gentlemen detectives please stay where they are.' Fandorin's low voice came from behind Izhitsin. Everybody turned around.

How had the Collegiate Counsellor entered the shed, and when? The door had not even creaked. Even in the semi-darkness it was obvious that Anisii's chief was pale and perturbed, but his voice was steady and he spoke in his usual reserved and courteous manner, a manner that did not encourage any objections.

'Mr Izhitsin, even the yard-keeper realised that it would not be good to spread gossip about this incident,' Fandorin told the investigator in a dry voice. 'In fact, I was sent here in order to ensure the very strictest secrecy. No questioning of the locals. And furthermore, I request - in fact I demand - that everyone here present must maintain absolute silence about the circumstances. Explain to the local people that... a st-streetwalker has hanged herself, taken her own life, a perfectly ordinary business. If rumours of what has happened here spread around Moscow, every one of you will be subject to official inquiry, and anyone found guilty of divulging information will be severely punished. I'm sorry, gentlemen, but th-those are the instructions that I was given, and there is good reason for them.'

At a sign from the doctor the constables were about to take the stretcher standing against the wall and place the corpse on it, but the Collegiate Counsellor raised his hand: 'Wait a m-moment. He crouched down beside the dead woman. 'What's this here on her cheek?'

Izhitsin, galled by the reprimand he had received, shrugged his narrow shoulders. A spot of blood; as you may have observed, there's plenty of blood here.'

'But not on her face.' Erast Petrovich cautiously rubbed the oval spot with his finger - a mark was left on the white kid leather of his glove. Speaking in extreme agitation, or so it seemed to Anissii, his chief muttered: 'There's no cut, no bite.'

The investigator Izhitsin watched the Collegiate Counsellor's manipulations in bewilderment. The medical expert Zakharov watched with interest.

Fandorin took a magnifying glass out of his pocket, peered from close up at the victim's face and gasped: 'The imprint of lips! Good Lord, this is the imprint of lips! There can be no doubt about it!'

'So why make such a fuss over that?' Izhitsin asked acidly. 'We've got plenty of marks far more horrible than that here.' He turned the toe of his shoe towards the open rib-cage and the gaping pit of the belly. 'Who knows what ideas a loony might get into his head?'

Ah, how foul,' the Collegiate Counsellor muttered, addressing no one in particular.

He tore off his soiled glove with a rapid movement and threw it aside. He straightened up, closed his eyes and said very quietly: 'My God, is it really going to start in Moscow ...?'

'What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! Inform and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?' No matter. What does it matter if the Prince of Denmark, an indolent and blasé creature, has no interest in man? I do! The Bard is half right: there is little angelic in the deeds of men, and it is sacrilege to liken the comprehension of man to that of God, but there is nothing in the world more beautiful than man. And what are action and apprehension but a chimera? Deception and vanity, truly the quintessence of dust? Man is not action, but body. Even the plants that are so pleasing to our eyes, the most sumptuous and intricate of flowers, can in no wise be compared with the magnificent arrangement of the human body. Flowers are primitive and simple, identical within and without, turn the petals whichever way you will. Looking at flowers is boring. How can the avidity of their stems, the primitive geometry of their inflorescences and the crude forms oftheir stamens rival the purple resilience of muscles, the elasticity of silky-smooth skin, the silvery mother-of-pearl of the stomach, the graceful curves of the intestines and the mysterious asymmetry of the liver?

How is it possible for the monotonous coloration of a blossoming poppy to match the variety of shades of human blood -from the shrill scarlet of the arterial current to the regal purple of the veins? How can the vulgar shade of the bluebell rival the tender blue pattern of the capillaries, or the autumnal colouring of the maple rival the deep blush of the menstrual discharge! The female body is more elegant and a hundred times more interesting than the male. The Junction of the female body is not coarse physical labour and destruction, but creation and nurturing. The elastic womb is like a precious pearl oyster. An idea! Some time I must lay open an impregnated womb to expose the maturing pearl within the shell-yes, yes, without fail! Tomorrow! I have been fasting too long already, since Shrovetide. My lips have shrivelled with repeating: 'Reanimate my accursed heart through this sacrificial fast!' The Lord is hind and charitable. He will not be angry with me for lacking the strength to hold out six days until the Blessed Resurrection. And after all, the third of April is no ordinary day: it is the anniversary of the Enlightenment. It was the third of April then too. What date it was in the other style is of no importance. The important thing is the music of those words: the third of April.

I have my own fast, and my own Easter. When the fast is broken, let it be in style. No, I will not wait until tomorrow. Today! Yes, yes, lay out a banquet. Not merely to sate myself but a surfeit. Not for my own sake, but to the glory of God.

For He it was who opened my eyes, who taught me to see and understand true beauty. More than that, to disclose it and reveal it to the world. And to disclose is to create. I am the Creator's apprentice.

How sweet it is to break the fast after a long abstinence. I remember each sweet moment; I know my memory will preserve it all down to the minutest detail, without losing a single sensation oj vision, taste, touch, hearing or smell.

I close my eyes and I see it...

Late evening. I cannot sleep. Excitement and elation lead me along the dirty streets, across the empty lots, between the crooked houses and the twisted fences. I have not slept for many nights in a row. My chest is constricted, my temples throb. During the day I doze for half an hour or an hour and am woken by terrible visions that I cannot remember when awake.

As I walk along I dream of death, of meeting with Him, but I know that I must not die, it is too soon; my mission has not been completed.

A voice from out of the darkness: 'Spare the money for half a bottle.' Trembling, hoarse from drinking. I turn my head and see the most wretched and abominable of human beings: a degraded whore, drunk and in tatters, but even so, grotesquely painted with ceruse and lipstick. I turn away in squeamish disgust, but suddenly my heart is pierced by the familiar sharp pity. Poor creature, what have you done to yourself! And this is a woman, the masterpiece of God's art! How could you abuse yourself so, desecrate and degrade the gift of God, abase your precious reproductive system?

Of course, you are not to blame. A soulless, cruel society has dragged you through the mud. But I shall cleanse and save you. My heart is serene and joyful.

Who could have known it would happen? I had no intention of breaking the fast-if I had, my path would not have lain through these pitiful slums, but through the fetid lanes and alleys of Khitrovka or Grachyovka, where abomination and vice make their home. But I am overflowing with magnanimity and generosity, only slightly tainted by my impatient craving.

'I'll soon cheer you up, my darling,' I tell her. 'Come with me.' I am wearing men's clothes, and the witch thinks she has found a buyer for her rotten wares. She laughs hoarsely and shrugs her shoulders coyly: 'Where are we going? Listen, have you got any money? You might at least feed me, or better still buy me a drink.' Poor little lost sheep.

I lead her through the dark courtyard towards the sheds. I tug impatiently on one door, a second - the third is not locked.

The lucky woman breathes her cheap vodka fumes on my neck, and giggles: 'Well fancy that! He's taking me to the sheds; he's that impatient.'

A stroke of the scalpel, and I open the doors of freedom to her soul.

Liberation does not come without pain; it is like birth. The woman I now love with all my heart is in great pain; she wheezes and chews on the gag in her mouth, and I stroke her head and comfort her - 'Be patient.' My hands do their work deftly and quickly. I do not need light: my eyes see as well at night as they do during the day.

I lay open the profaned, filthy integument of the body, the soul of my beloved sister soars upwards and I am transfixed by awe before the perfection of God's machinery.

When I lift the hot bread-roll of the heart to my face with a tender smile, it is still trembling, still quivering, like a golden fish fresh from the water, and I kiss the miraculous fish on the parted lips of its aorta.

The place was well chosen, no one interrupts me, and this time the Hymn to Beauty is sung to the end, consummated with a kiss to her cheek. Sleep, sister; your life was revolting and horrible, the sight of you was an offence to the eye, but thanks to me you have become beautiful...

Consider that flower again. Its true beauty is not visible in the glade or in the flower-bed, oh no! The rose is regal on the bodice of a dress, the carnation in the buttonhole, the violet in a lovely girl's hair. The flower attains its glory when it has been cut; its true life is inseparable from death. The same is true of the human body. While it is alive, it cannot reveal its delightful arrangement in all its magnificence. I help the body to ascend its throne of glory. I am a gardener.

But no, a gardener merely cuts flowers, while I also create displays of intoxicating beauty from the organs of the body. In England a previously unheard-of profession is becoming fashionable nowadays - the decorator, a specialist in the embellishment and adornment of the home, the shop window, the street at carnival time.

I am not a gardener; I am a decorator.

CHAPTER 2 From Bad to Worse

Holy Week Tuesday, 4 April, midday

Those present at the emergency meeting convened by the Governor-General of Moscow, Prince Vladimir Andreevich Dolgorukoi, were as follows: the Head Police Master and Major-General of the Retinue of His Imperial Majesty, Yurovsky; the Public Prosecutor of the Chamber of Justice of Moscow, State Counsellor and Usher of the Chamber, Kozlyatnikov; the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the police, State Counsellor Eichmann; the Governor-General's Deputy for Special Assignments, Collegiate Counsellor Fandorin; and the Investigator for Especially Important Cases of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Moscow, Court Counsellor Izhitsin.

'Oh this weather, this appalling weather, it's vile.' These were the words with which the Governor-General opened the proceedings. 'It's simply beastly gentlemen. Overcast, windy, slush and mud everywhere and, worst of all, the River Moscow has overflowed its banks more than usual. I went to the Zamo-skvorechie district - an absolute nightmare. The water's risen three and a half sazhens! It's flooded everything up as far as Pyatnitskaya Street. And it's no better on the left bank either. You can't get through Neglinny Lane. Oh, I shall be put to shame, gentlemen. Dolgorukoi will be disgraced in his old age!'

All present began sighing anxiously, and the only one whose face expressed a certain astonishment was the Investigator for Especially Important Cases. The Prince, who possessed exceptionally acute powers of perception, felt that perhaps he ought to explain.

'I see, young man, that you ... er ... Glagolev, is it? No, Luzhitsin.'

'Izhitsin, Your Excellency' the Public Prosecutor prompted Prince Dolgorukoi, but not loudly enough - in his seventy-ninth year the Viceroy of Moscow (yet another title by which the all-powerful Vladimir Andreevich was known) was hard of hearing.

'Please forgive an old man,' said the Governor good-naturedly, spreading his hands. "Well then, Mr Pizhitsin, I see you are in a state of ignorance ... Probably your position does not require you to know. But since we are having this meeting... well then' -and the Prince's long face with its dangling chestnut-brown moustaches assumed a solemn expression - 'at Easter, Russia's first capital city will be blessed by a visit from His Imperial Highness. He will arrive without any pomp or ceremony - to visit and worship at the holy places of Moscow. We have been instructed not to inform the citizens of Moscow in advance, since the visit has been planned as an impromptu, so to speak. However, that does not relieve us of responsibility for the standard of his reception and the general condition of the city. For instance, gentlemen, this morning I received a missive from His Eminence Ioannikii, the Metropolitan of Moscow. His Reverence writes to complain that what is going on in the confectionery shops of Moscow before the holy festival of Easter is a downright disgrace: the shop windows and counters are stacked high with boxes of sweets and candy with pictures of the Last Supper, the Way of the Cross, Calvary and so forth. This is sacrilege, gentlemen! Please be so good, my dear sir,' said the Prince, addressing the Head Police Master, 'as to issue an order to the police today to the effect that a strict stop must be put to such obscenities. Destroy the boxes, donate their contents to the Foundlings' Hospital. Let the poor orphans have a treat for the holiday. And fine the shopkeepers to make sure they don't get me into any trouble before the Emperor's visit!'

The Governor-General nervously adjusted his curly wig, which had slipped a little to one side, and was about to say something else, but instead began coughing.

An inconspicuous door that led to the inner chambers immediately opened and a skinny old man dashed out from behind it, moving silently in felt overshoes with his knees bent. His bald cranium shone with a blinding brilliance and he had immense sideburns. It was His Excellency's personal valet, Frol Vedishchev. Nobody was surprised by his sudden appearance, and everybody present felt it appropriate to greet the old man with a bow or at least a nod for, despite his humble position, Vedishchev had the reputation in the ancient city of being an influential and in certain respects omnipotent individual.

He rapidly poured drops of some mixture from a small bottle into a silver goblet, gave them to the Prince to drink and disappeared with equal rapidity in the reverse direction without so much as glancing at anyone.

'Shank you, Frol, shank you, my dear,' the Governor-General mumbled to his favourite's back, shifted his chin to put his false teeth back in place and carried on without lisping any more. 'And so, if Erast Petrovich Fandorin would be so good as to explain the reason for the urgency of this meeting... You know perfectly well, my dear friend, that today every minute is precious to me. Well then, what exactly has happened? Have you taken care to make sure that rumours of this vile incident are not spread among the inhabitants of the city? That's all we need on the eve of the Emperor's visit...'

Erast Petrovich got to his feet and the eyes of Moscow's supreme guardians of law and order turned to look at the Collegiate Counsellor's pale, resolute face.

'Measures have been taken to maintain secrecy, Your Excellency' Fandorin reported. 'Everybody who was involved in the inspection of the scene of the crime has been warned of the responsibility they bear and they have signed an undertaking not to reveal anything. Since the yard-keeper who found the body is an individual with an inclination to intemperate drinking and cannot answer for himself, he has been temporarily placed in a s-special cell at the Department of Gendarmes.'

'Good,' said the Governor approvingly. 'Then what need is there for this meeting? Why did you ask me to bring together the heads of the criminal investigation and police departments?

You and Pizhitsin could have decided everything between you?'

Erast Petrovich cast an involuntary glance at the investigator for whom the Governor had invented this amusing new name, but just at the moment the Collegiate Counsellor was not in the mood for jollity.

'Your Excellency, I did not request you to summon the head of the Criminal Investigation Department. This case is so disturbing that it should be classified as a crime of state importance, and in addition to the Public Prosecutor's Office it should be handled by the operations section of the gendarmes under the personal control of the Head Police Master. I would not involve the Criminal Investigation Department at all, there are too many incidental individuals there. That is one.'

Fandorin paused significantly. State Counsellor Eichmann started and was about to protest, but Prince Dolgorukoi gestured for him to remain silent.

'It seems I need not have bothered you, my dear fellow,' Dolgorukoi said amiably to Eichmann. 'Why don't you go and keep up the pressure on your pickpockets and swindlers, so that on Easter Sunday they break their fast at home in Khitrovka and, God forbid, don't show their noses outside. I am relying on you.'

Eichmann stood up and bowed without speaking, smiled with just his lips at Erast Petrovich and went out.

The Collegiate Counsellor sighed in the realisation that he had now acquired a lifelong enemy in the person of the head of Moscow's Criminal Investigation Department, but this case really was horrific, and no unnecessary risk could be justified.

'I know you,' said the Governor, looking anxiously at his trusted deputy. 'If you say "one", it means there will be a "two". Speak out; don't keep us on tenterhooks.'

'I greatly regret, Vladimir Andreevich, that the sovereign's visit will have to be cancelled,' Fandorin said in a very low voice, but this time the Prince heard him perfectly.

'How's that - "cancelled"?' he gasped.

The other individuals present reacted more violently to the Collegiate Counsellor's brash announcement.

'You must be out of your mind' exclaimed Head Police Master Yurovsky.

'It's absolutely incredible!' bleated the Prosecutor.

The Investigator for Especially Important Cases did not dare to say anything out loud, because his rank was too low to permit the taking of such liberties, but he did purse his plump lips as if he were outraged by Fandorin's insane outburst.

'What do you mean - cancelled?' Dolgorukoi repeated in a flat voice.

The door leading to the inner chambers opened slightly, and the valet's face emerged halfway from behind it.

The Governor began speaking with extreme agitation, hurrying so much that he swallowed syllables and even entire words: 'Erast Petrovich, it's not the first year... you... idle words... But cancel His Majesty's visit? Why, that's a scandal of unprecedented proportions! You've no idea what effort I ... For me, for all of us, it's

Fandorin frowned, wrinkling his high, clear forehead. He knew perfectly well how long Dolgorukoi had manoeuvred and intrigued in order to arrange the Emperor's visit, and how the hostile St Petersburg 'camarilla' had plotted and schemed against it - they had been trying for twenty years to unseat the cunning old Governor from his enviable position! His Majesty's Easter impromptu would be a triumph for the Prince, sure testimony to the invincibility of his position. And next year His Excellency had a highly important anniversary: sixty years of service at officer's rank. With an event like that he could even hope for the Order of St Andrew. How could he suddenly turn around and ask for the trip to be cancelled!

'I understand all th-that, Your Excellency, but if it is not cancelled, things will be even worse. This case of mutilation is not the last.' The Collegiate Counsellor's face became more sombre with every word that he spoke. 'I am afraid that Jack the Ripper has moved to Moscow'

Once again, as several minutes earlier, Erast Petrovich's declaration provoked a chorus of protests.

'What do you mean - not the last?' the Governor-General asked indignantly.

The Head Police Master and the Public Prosecutor spoke almost with a single voice: 'Jack the Ripper?'

Izhitsin gathered his courage and snorted. 'Stuff and nonsense!'

'What ripper's that?' Frol Vedishchev croaked from behind his little door in the natural pause that followed.

'Yes, yes, who is this Jack?' His Excellency gazed at his subordinates in obvious displeasure. 'Everybody knows; I'm the only one who hasn't been informed. It's always the same with you.'

'Your Excellency, he is a famous English murderer who kills streetwalkers in London,' the District Prosecutor explained in his pompous fashion.

'If you will permit me, Your Excellency, I will explain in detail.'

Erast Petrovich took a notebook out of his pocket and skimmed through several pages.

The Prince cupped one hand round his ear, Vedishchev put on a pair of spectacles with thick lenses and Izhitsin smiled ironically.

'As Your Excellency no doubt remembers, last year I spent several months in England in connection with a case with which you are familiar: the disappearance of the correspondence of Catherine the Great. Indeed, Vladimir Andreevich, you even expressed your dissatisfaction at my extended absence. I stayed in London longer than absolutely necessary because I was following very closely the attempts of the local police to find a monstrous killer who had committed eight brutal murders in the East End in the space of eight months, from April to December. The killer acted in a most audacious fashion. He wrote notes to the police, in which he called himself "Jack the Ripper" and on one occasion he even sent the commissioner who was in charge of the case half of a kidney that he had cut out of one of his victims.'

'Cut out? But what for?' the Prince asked in amazement.

'The Popper's outrages had a tremendously distressing effect on the public, but not simply because of the murders. In a city as large and ill-favoured as London there is naturally no shortage of crimes, including those that involve bloodshed. But the manner in which the Ripper despatched his victims was genuinely monstrous. He usually cut the poor women's throats and then disembowelled them, like partridges, and laid out their entrails in a kind of nightmarish still life.'

'Holy Mother of God!' Vedishchev gasped and crossed himself.

'The abominations you speak of!' the Governor said with feeling: 'Well then, did they not catch the villain?'

'No, but since December the distinctive murders have ceased. The police have concluded that the criminal has either committed suicide or ... left England.'

'And what else would he do except come to see us in Moscow?' said the Head Police Master, with a sceptical shake of his head. 'But if that is the case, finding and catching an English cut-throat is child's play'

Why are you so sure that he is English?' Fandorin asked, turning to the general. All the murders were committed in the slums of London, the home of many immigrants from the continent of Europe, including Russians. Indeed, in the first instance the English police suspected immigrant doctors.'

And why doctors in particular?' Izhitsin asked.

'Because in every case the internal organs were extracted from the victims with great skill, with excellent knowledge of anatomy and also almost certainly with the use of a surgical scalpel. The London police were absolutely convinced that Jack the Ripper was a doctor or a medical student.'

Public Prosecutor Kozlyatnikov raised a well-tended white finger and the diamond ring on it glinted.

'But what makes you think that the spinster Andreichkina was killed and mutilated by the Ripper from London? As if we had no murderers of our own? Some son of a bitch got so tanked up on drink he didn't know what he was doing and imagined he was fighting some dragon or other. We have any number of those.'

The Collegiate Counsellor sighed and replied patiently: 'My dear sir, you've read the report from the forensic medical expert. No one in a drunken fury can dissect so precisely, and use "a cutting tool of surgical sharpness". That is one. And also, just as in the East End cases, there are none of the signs of sexual debauchery which are usual in crimes of this kind. That is two. The most sinister point is the imprint of a bloody kiss on the victim's cheek, and that is three. All of the Ripper's victims had that imprint - on the forehead, on the cheek, sometimes on the temple. Inspector Gilson, from whom I learned this detail, was not inclined to attach any importance to it, since the Ripper had plenty of other freakish whims. However, from the limited amount of information that forensic science possesses on maniacal murderers, we know that these fiends attach great significance to ritual. Serial killings with the features of manic behaviour are always based on some kind of "idea" that prompts the monster into repeatedly killing strangers. While I was in London, I tried to explain to the officers in charge of the investigation that their main task was to guess the maniac's "idea" and the rest was merely a matter of investigative technique. There can be no doubt at all that the typical features of Jack the Ripper's ritual and that of our Moscow murderer are identical in every respect.'

'But even so, it's just too fantastic,' said General Yurovsky with a shake of his head. 'For Jack the Ripper to disappear from London and turn up in a woodshed on Samotechnaya Street... And then, you must agree, cancelling the sovereign's visit just because some prostitute has been killed ...'

Erast Petrovich's patience was clearly almost exhausted, because he said rather sharply: 'Permit me to remind Your Excellency that the case of Jack the Ripper cost the head of London's police his job, and the Home Secretary also lost his position, because they refused for too long to attach any importance to the murders of "some prostitutes or other". Even if we assume that we now have our own, home-grown Ivan the Ripper, that does not improve the situation. Once he has tasted blood, he won't stop. Just imagine the situation if the killer hands us another present like today's during the Emperor's visit! And if it comes out that it is not the first such crime? The old capital will have a fine Easter Sunday.'

Prince Dolgorukoi crossed himself in fright and General Yurovsky raised a hand to unbutton his gold-embroidered collar.

'It is a genuine miracle that this time we have managed to hush up such a fantastic case.' The Collegiate Counsellor ran his fingers over his foppish black moustache, seeming preoccupied. 'But have we really managed it?'

A deadly silence fell.

'Do as you wish, Prince,' Vedishchev said from behind his door, 'but he's right. Write to our father the Tsar. Tell him this and that, and there's been a bit of a muddle. It's to our own detriment, but for the sake of Your Majesty's peace of mind we humbly request you not to come to Moscow.'

'Oh, Lord.' The Governor's voice trembled pitifully

Izhitsin stood up and, gazing loyally at his exalted superior, suggested a possible way out: 'Your Excellency, could you not refer to the exceptionally high water? As they say, the Lord of Heaven must take the blame for that.'

'Well done, Pizhitsin, well done,' said the Prince, brightening up. 'You have a good head. That's what I shall write. If only the newspapers don't manage to ferret out this business of the mutilation.'

Investigator Izhitsin glanced condescendingly at Erast Petrovich and sat down, but not in the same way as before, with half a buttock on a quarter of the stool, but fully at his ease, as an equal among equals.

However, the expression of relief that had appeared on the Prince's face was almost immediately replaced by dismay.

'It won't do any good! The truth will come out anyway. If Erast Petrovich says this won't be the last atrocity, then it won't be. He is rarely mistaken.'

Fandorin cast an emphatically quizzical glance at the Governor, as if to say: Ah, I see, so there are times when I am mistaken!'

At this point the Head Police Master began breathing heavily through his nose, lowered his head guiltily and said in a deep voice: 'I don't know if it's the last case or not, but it probably isn't the first. I am to blame, Governor; I didn't attach any importance to it, I did not wish to bother you over trifles. But today's murder looked too provocative altogether, and so I decided to report it to you in view of the Emperor's visit. However, I recall now that in recent times brutal murders of streetwalkers and female vagrants have probably been on the increase. During Shrovetide, I think it was, there was a report of a female beggar found on Seleznevskaya Street with her stomach slashed to ribbons. And before that, at the Sukharev Market, they found a prostitute with her womb cut out. We didn't even investigate the case of the beggar - there was no point - and we decided the prostitute's ponce had mutilated her in a drunken fit. We took the fellow in, but he still hasn't confessed; he's being stubborn.'

Ah, General Yurovsky how could you?' said the Governor, throwing his hands in the air. 'If we had launched an investigation straight away and set Erast Petrovich on the case, perhaps we might have already caught this villain! And we wouldn't have had to cancel His Highness's visit!'

'But Your Excellency, who could have known? - there was no deliberate deception. You know yourself what the city is like, and the people are blackguards; there's something of the kind every single day! I can't bother Your Excellency with every petty incident!' the General said, almost whining in his attempt to justify himself, and he looked round at the Public Prosecutor and the investigator for support, but Kozlyatnikov was gazing sternly at the chief of police and Izhitsin shook his head reproachfully, as if to say: 'This is not good.'

Collegiate Counsellor Fandorin interrupted the General's lament with a curt question: "Where are the bodies?'

'Where else would they be but at the Bozhedomka? That's where they bury all the dissolutes, idlers and people without passports. If there are any signs of violence, they take them to the police morgue first, to Egor Zakharov, and after that they ship them over to the cemetery there. That's the procedure.'

'We have to carry out an exhumation,' Fandorin said, with a grimace of disgust. 'And with no delay. Check the records at the morgue to see which female individuals have recently - let's say, since the New Year - been brought in with indications of violent death. And exhume them. Check for similarities in the picture of the crime. See if there have been any similar incidents. The ground has not thawed out yet, the c-corpses ought to be perfectly preserved.'

The Public Prosecutor nodded: 'I'll issue instructions. You deal with this, Izhitsin. And how about you, Erast Petrovich -would you not care to be present? It would be most desirable to have your participation.'

Izhitsin grinned sourly - apparently he did not consider the Collegiate Counsellor's participation to be so very desirable.

Fandorin suddenly turned pale - he had remembered his recent shameful attack of nausea. He struggled with himself for a moment, but failed to master his weakness: ‘I’ll assign m-my assistant Tulipov to help Izhitsin. I think that will be adequate.'

The heavy job was finished after eight in the evening, by the light of flaming torches.

As a finishing touch, the ink-black sky began pouring down a cold, sticky rain and the landscape of the cemetery, which was bleak in any case, became dismal enough to make you want to fall face down into one of the excavated graves and sleep in the embrace of mother earth - anything not to see those puddles of filth, waterlogged mounds of soil and crooked crosses.

Izhitsin was giving the orders. There were six men digging: two of the constables who had been at the scene of the crime, kept on the investigation in order not to extend the circle of people who knew about the case, two long-serving gendarmes and two of the Bozhedomka gravediggers, without whom they would not have been able to manage the job. First they had thrown the thick, spongy mud aside with their spades and then, when the metal blades struck the unthawed ground, they had taken up their picks. The cemetery's watchman had showed them where to dig.

According to the list, since January of the current year, 1889, the police morgue had taken delivery of fourteen bodies of women bearing signs of 'death from stabbing or cutting with a sharp instrument'. Now they had extracted the dead women from their wretched little graves and dragged them back into the morgue, where they were being examined by Dr Zakharov and his assistant Grumov, a consumptive-looking young man with a goatee that looked as if it was glued on and a thin, bleating voice that suited him perfectly.

Anisii Tulipov glanced inside once and decided not to do it again - it was better out in the open air, under the grey April drizzle. However, after an hour or so, chilled and thoroughly damp, and with his sensibilities blunted somewhat, Anisii sought shelter again in the autopsy room and sat on a little bench in the corner. He was discovered there by the watchman Pakhomenko, who felt sorry for him and took him back to his hut to give him tea.

The watchman was a capital fellow with a kind, clean-shaven face and jolly wrinkles radiating from his clear, child-like eyes to his temples. Pakhomenko spoke the language of the people - it was fascinating to listen to, but he put in a lot of Ukrainian words.

"Working in a graveyard, you need a callous heart,' he said in his quiet voice, with a compassionate glance at the exhausted Tulipov. Any folk will grow sick and weary if they're shown their own end every day: Look there, servant of God, you'll be rotting just like that. But the Lord is merciful: he gives the digger calluses on his hand so he won't wear the flesh down to the bone, and them as is faced with human woes, he gives them calluses on their hearts too. So as their hearts won't get worn away. You'll get used to it too, mister. At first I was afraid - green as burdock I was; but here we are, supping our tea and gnawing on our bread. Never mind, you'll get used to it in time. Eat, eat...'

Anisii sat for a while with Pakhomenko, who had been around in his time and seen all sorts of things in all sorts of places. He listened to his leisurely yarns - about worshipping at holy places, about good people and bad people - and felt as if he had been thawed out somehow and his will had been strengthened. Now he could go back to the black pits, the rough wood coffins and the grey shrouds.

It was talking to the garrulous watchman and home-grown philosopher that gave Anisii the idea that redeemed his useless presence at the cemetery with interest. It happened like this.

As evening was coming on, some time after six, they carried the last of the fourteen corpses into the morgue. The cheerful Izhitsin, who had prudently dressed for the occasion in hunting boots and rubberised overalls with a hood, called the soaking-wet Anisii over to summarise the results of the exhumation.

In the autopsy room Tulipov gritted his teeth, reinforced the calluses on his heart and it was all right: he walked from one table to the next, looked at the revolting deceased and listened to the expert's summaries.

'They can take these three lovelies back: numbers two, eight and ten,' said Zakharov, pointing casually with his finger. 'Our staff have got something confused here. I'm not the one to blame. I only dissect the cases that are under special supervision; otherwise it's Grumov who pokes about inside them. I think he's a bit too fond of the hard stuff, the snake. And when he's drunk, he writes whatever comes into his head in the conclusions.'

'What are you saying, Egor Willemovich?' Zakharov's goat-bearded assistant protested resentfully. 'If I do occasionally indulge in strong drink, it's only a drop, to restore my health and my shattered nerves. Honestly you should be ashamed.'

'Get away with you,' the gruff doctor said dismissively to his assistant and continued with his report. 'Numbers one, three, seven, twelve and thirteen are also not in our line either. The classic "jab in the side" or "slashed gizzard". Neat work, no excessive cruelty. Better take them away as well.' Egor Willemovich puffed a blast of strong tobacco smoke out of his pipe and lovingly patted a macabre blue woman on her gaping belly. 'But I'll keep this Vasilisa the Beautiful and the other four. I have to check how precisely they were carved, how sharp the knife was and so on. At first I'd hazard a guess that numbers four and fourteen were our friend's handiwork. Only he must have been in a hurry, or else someone frightened him off and stopped the fellow from properly finishing off the work he loves.' The doctor grinned without parting his teeth, which were gripping the pipe that protruded from them.

Anisii checked the numbers against the list. It all fitted: number four was the beggar Maria Kosaya from Maly Tryokhsvyatsky Lane. Number fourteen was the prostitute Zotova from Svininsky Lane. The same ones that the Head Police Master had mentioned.

For some reason the fearless Izhitsin was not satisfied with the pronouncements of the expert and started to check, almost sticking his nose into the gaping wounds and asking detailed questions. Anisii envied his self-possession and felt ashamed of his own uselessness, but he couldn't think of anything for himself to do.

He went outside into the fresh air, where the diggers were having a smoke

'Well, mister, was it worth all the digging?' asked Pakhomenko. 'Or are we going to dig some more?'

'There's no more digging to do,' Anisii responded gladly. 'We've dug them all up. It's strange, really. In three months in the whole of Moscow only ten streetwalkers were killed. And the newspapers say our city is dangerous.'

'Ha! Ten he says,' the watchman snorted. 'That's just how it looks. They're just the ones with names. But we stack the ones they bring us without names in the ditches?'

Anisii's heart started beating faster. 'What ditches?'

'What?' Pakhomenko asked in amazement. 'You mean the doctor didn't tell you? Come on, you can look for yourself.'

He led Anisii to the far side of the cemetery and showed him a long pit with a thin layer of earth sprinkled over the top.

'That's the April one. Just the beginning. And there's the March one, already filled in.' He pointed to a long mound of earth. And there's the February one, and there's the January one. But before that I can't tell; I wasn't here then. I've only been working here since Epiphany - I came here from the Optinaya Hermitage, from pilgrimage. Before me there was a Kuzma used to work here. I never saw him myself. At Christmas this Kuzma broke his fast with a bottle or two, tumbled into an open grave and broke his neck. That was the death God had waiting for him: You've been watching over graves, servant of God, so now you can die in one. The Lord likes to joke with us in the graveyard. We're like his yard-keepers. The gravedigger Tishka at Srednokrestny—'

'So do they bury a lot of nameless women in the ditches?' Anisii asked, interrupting the talkative fellow. He had completely forgotten his damp boots and the cold.

'Plenty. Just last month it must be nigh on a dozen, or maybe more. A person without a name is like a dog without a collar. Take them to the knacker's yard - it's nobody's concern. Anyone who's lost their name is more like a flea than a human being.'

And have there been any badly cut-up cases among the nameless women?'

The watchman twisted his face into a sad expression. 'Who's going to take a proper look at the poor darlings? They're lucky if the sexton from St John the Warrior rattles off a prayer over them, and sometimes I do, sinner that I am; I sing them "Eternal Peace". Oh, people, people ...'

So much for the Investigator for Especially Important Cases, such a meticulous man, Anisii gloated to himself. Fancy missing something like that. He gestured to the watchman in a way that meant: 'Sorry my friend, this is important,' and set off towards the cemetery office at a run.

'Come on, lads,' he shouted from a distance. 'There's more work to be done! Grab your picks and your shovels and let's get moving!'

Young Linkov was the only one to jump to his feet. Senior Constable Pribludko stayed sitting down, and the gendarmes actually turned away. They'd had enough of swinging picks and knocking themselves out in this unseemly work; the man giving the orders wasn't even their boss, and he wasn't so important anyway. But Tulipov felt he was responsible and he made the men move.

And, as it turned out, it was a good thing he did.

Very late in the evening - in fact it was really night, because it was approaching midnight already - Tulipov was sitting with his chief on Malaya Nikitskaya Street (such a fine outhouse with such fine rooms, with electric lighting and a telephone), eating supper and warming himself up with grog.

The grog was special, made with Japanese sake, red wine and prunes, prepared according to the oriental recipe of Masahiro Shibata, or Masa, Fandorin's servant. In fact, though, the Japanese did not behave or speak much like a servant. He was unceremonious with Erast Petrovich and did not regard Anisii as an important personage at all. In the line of physical exercise Tulipov was Masa's pupil and Anisii endured no little abuse and mockery from his strict teacher, and sometimes even thrashings disguised as training in Japanese fisticuffs. No matter what trick Anisii invented, no matter how he tried to shirk the practice of this hateful infidel wisdom, there was no way he could argue with his chief. Erast Petrovich had ordered him to master the techniques of ju-jitsu, and he had to do it, even if he was knocked out in the process. Only Tulipov did not make a very good sportsman. He was much more successful at getting himself knocked out.

'You squat hundred time this morninT Masa asked menacingly when Anisii had had a little to eat and turned pink from the grog. 'You beat pams on iron stick? Show me pams.'

Tulipov hid his palms behind his back, because he was too lazy to pound them against the special metal stick a thousand times a day, and anyway, you know, it was painful. The tough calluses were simply not developing on the edges of Anisii's hands, and Masa abused him seriously for that.

'Have you finished eating? All right, now you can report on business to Erast Petrovich,' Angelina told him and took the supper things off the table, leaving just the silver jug with the grog and the mugs.

Angelina was lovely, a real sight for sore eyes. Light-blonde hair woven into a magnificent plait that was arranged in a bun on the back of her head, a clear, white-skinned face, large, serious grey eyes that seemed to radiate some strange light into the world around her. A special woman: you didn't meet many like her. A swan like that would never even glance at a shabby, lop-eared specimen like Tulipov. But Erast Petrovich was a fine partner in every possible respect, and women liked him. During the three years that Tulipov had been his assistant, several passions, each more lovely than the last, had reigned for a while in the outhouse on Malaya Nikitskaya Street before leaving, but there had never been one as simple, bright and serene as Angelina. It would be good if she stayed a bit longer. Or still better -if she stayed for ever.

'Thank you, Angelina Samsonovna,' said Anisii, looking at her tall, stately figure as she walked away.

A queen - that was the word for her, even though she came from a simple lower middle-class background. And the Chief always had queens. There was nothing so surprising about it: that was the kind of man he was.

Angelina Krasheninnikova had appeared in the house on Malaya Nikitskaya Street a year earlier. Erast Petrovich had helped the orphan in a certain difficult business, and afterwards she had clung to him. She obviously wanted to thank him in the best way she could and, apart from her love, she had nothing to give. It was hard now to remember how they had managed without her before. The Collegiate Counsellor's bachelor residence had become cosy and warm, welcoming. Anisii had always liked being here, but now he liked it even more. And with Angelina there, the Chief seemed to have become a bit gentler and simpler somehow. It was good for him.

'All right, Tulipov, now you're well fed and drunk, t-tell me what you and Izhitsin dug up over there.'

Erast Petrovich had an unusual, confused expression. His conscience is bothering him, Tulipov realised, for not going to the exhumation and sending me instead. But Anisii was only too happy if he could come in useful once in a blue moon and spare his adored chief unnecessary stress.

After all, he was pampered by the Chief in every way: provided with an apartment at public expense, a decent salary, interesting work. The greatest debt he owed him, one that could never be repaid, was for his sister Sonya, a poor cripple and imbecile. Anisii's heart no longer trembled for her, because while he was at work, Sonya was cared for with affection and fed. Fandorin's maid Palashka loved her and pampered her. Now she had even moved in with the Tulipovs. She would run to her master's house and help Angelina with the housework for an hour or two, then run back to Sonya - Tulipov's apartment was close by, on Granatny Lane.

Anisii began his report calmly, working up to the main point. 'Egor Zakharov found clear signs that two of the women had been brutally mutilated after they were dead. The beggar Marya Kosoi, who died in unexplained circumstances on the eleventh of February, had her throat cut and her abdominal cavity slit open; her liver is missing. The woman of easy virtue Alexandra Zotova, who was killed on the fifth of April (it was assumed by her pimp Dzapoev) also had her throat cut and her womb was cut out. Another woman, the gypsy Marfa Zhemchuzhnikova, killed by a person or persons unknown on the tenth of March, is a doubtful case: her throat was not cut, her stomach was slashed open from top to bottom and side to side, but all her organs are in place.'

At this point Anisii happened by chance to glance to one side and stopped in confusion. Angelina was standing in the doorway with one hand pressed to her full breasts and looking at him, her eyes wide with terror.

'Good Lord,' she said, crossing herself, 'what are these terrible things you're saying, Mr Tulipov?'

The Chief glanced round in annoyance. 'Angelina, go to your room. This is not for your ears. Tulipov and I are working.'

The beautiful woman left without a murmur and Anisii glanced reproachfully at his chief. You may be right, Erast Petrovich, but you could be a bit gentler. Of course, Angelina Samsonovna is not blue-blooded, she's not your equal, but I swear she'd be more than a match for any noble-born woman.

Any other man would make her his lawful wife without thinking twice. And he'd count himself lucky. But he didn't say anything out loud; he didn't dare.

'Signs of sexual intercourse?' the Chief asked intently, paying no attention to Tulipov's facial expression.

'Zakharov had difficulty in determining that. Even though the ground was frozen, some time had still passed. But there's something more important than all that!'

Anisii paused for effect and moved on to the main point. He told Erast Petrovich how on his instructions they had opened up the so-called 'ditches' - the common graves for the bodies without names. In all they had inspected more than seventy corpses. On nine of the bodies - and one of them was a man -there had been clear signs of savage abuse. The general picture was similar to today's: someone with a good knowledge of anatomy and access to a surgical instrument had severely mutilated the bodies.

'The most remarkable thing, Chief, is that three of the mutilated bodies were taken from last year's ditches!' Anisii declared, and then modestly added: 'I ordered them to dig up the ditches for November and December just to make sure.'

Erast Petrovich had listened to his assistant very attentively, but now he suddenly leapt up off his chair: 'December, you say, and November! That's incredible!'

'I was indignant about it too. How about our police, eh? A monster like that active all these months in Moscow, and we don't even hear a word about it! If it's a social outcast who gets killed, then it's none of the police's business - they just bury them and forget about them. You know, Chief, in your place I think I'd really give Yurovsky and Eichmann what for.'

But the Chief seemed upset about something else. He walked quickly across the room and back again and muttered: 'It couldn't have happened in December, let alone in November! He was still in London then!'

Tulipov blinked. He didn't understand what London had to do with anything - Erast Petrovich had not yet acquainted him with his theory about the Ripper.

Fandorin blushed as he recalled the insulted look he had given Prince Dolgorukoi earlier when the Governor had said that his Deputy for Special Assignments was rarely mistaken.

It seemed that Erast Petrovich was sometimes mistaken, and seriously so.

The delightful decision has been realised. Only God's providence could have helped me to implement it so soon.

The whole day was filled with a feeling of rapture and invulnerability –following yesterday's ecstasy.

Rain and slush, there was a lot of work in the afternoon, but I don't feel tired at all. My soul is singing, longing for open space, to wander through the streets and waste plots of the neighbourhood.

Evening again. I am walking along Protopopovsky Lane towards Kalanchevka Street. There's a woman standing there, a peasant woman, haggling with a cabby. She doesn't strike a deal, the cabby drives off and she's standing there, shuffling her feet in confusion. I look and see she has a huge, swollen belly. Pregnant, seven months at least. I feel my heart start to race: there it is, it has found me.

I walk closer - everything is right. Exactly the sort I need. Fat, with a dirty face. Her eyebrows and eyelashes have fallen out - she must have syphilis. It is hard to imagine a creature further removed from the concept of Beauty.

I start talking to her. She's come from the village to visit her husband. He's an apprentice in the Arsenal. I say the Arsenal is not far and promise to show her the way. She is not afraid, because today I am a woman. I lead her through the waste lots towards the Immerovsky horticultural establishment. It is dark and deserted there. While we are walking, the woman complains to me about how hard it is to live in the country. I sympathise with her.

I lead her to the river bank and tell her not to be afraid, there is great joy in store for her. She looks at me stupidly. She dies silently. There is only the whistle of the air from her throat and the gurgling of her blood.

I am impatient to lay bare the pearl within and I do not wait until the spasms have ceased.

Alas, a disappointment awaits me. When I open the incised womb with hands trembling in sweet anticipation, I am overcome by disgust.

The living embryo is ugly and nothing at all like a pearl. It looks exactly like the little monsters in jars of alcohol in Professor Lints's faculty: a little vampire just like them. It squirms and opens its mousy little mouth. I toss it away in disgust.

The conclusion: man, like a flower, must mature in order to become beautiful. It is clear now why I have never thought children beautiful: they are dwarfs with disproportionately large heads and underdeveloped reproductive systems.

The Moscow detectives have begun to stir - yesterday's decoration has finally made the police aware of my presence here. It's funny. I am more cunning and stronger; they will never unmask me. 'What an actor is going to waste,' said Nero. That applies to me.

But I throw the body of the woman and her mouse into the pond. There is no point in stirring things up unnecessarily, and the decoration was not satisfactory.

CHAPTER 3 The 'smopackadj’

Holy Week Wednesday, 5 April, morning

From first thing in the morning Erast Petrovich locked himself away in his study to think, and Tulipov set out once again for the Bozhedomka - to have the October and September ditches opened up. He had suggested it himself: they had to determine when the Moscow killer had started his activities. The Chief had not objected. 'Why not?' he had said; 'You go,' but he was somewhere miles away, lost in thought - deducing.

It turned out to be dreary work, far worse than the previous day. The corpses that had been buried before the cold weather were severely decomposed and it was more than anyone could bear to look at them, let alone breathe the poisoned air. Anisii did puke a couple of times after all; he couldn't help himself.

'You see,' he said, with a sickly smile at the watchman, 'I still can't grow those calluses

'There are some as can't never grow them,' the watchman replied, shaking his head sympathetically. 'It's hardest of all for them to live in this world. But God loves them too. There you are now, mister, take a drop of this liquor of mine

Anisii sat down on a bench, drank the herbal infusion and chatted for a while with the cemetery philosopher about this and that; listened to his stories; told him about his own life -that mellowed his heart a little - and then it was back to digging the ditch.

Only it was all in vain. They didn't find anything new that was of use to the investigation in the old ditches. Zakharov said acidly: A bad head gives the legs no rest, but it would be all right if it were only yours that suffered, Tulipov. Are you not afraid the gendarmes will accidentally tap you on the top of your head with a pick? And I'll write in my report, all in due order: the Provincial Secretary brought about his own death: he stumbled and smashed his bad head against a stone. And Grumov will witness it. We're sick and tired of you and your rotten flesh. Isn't that right, Grumov?'

The consumptive assistant bared his yellow teeth and wiped his bumpy forehead with his soiled shirt. He explained: 'Mr Zakharov is joking.' But that was all right: the doctor was a cynical, coarse man. What offended Anisii was having to suffer mockery from the repulsive Izhitsin.

The pompous investigator had rolled up at the cemetery at first light - somehow he'd got wind of Tulipov's operation. At first he'd been alarmed that the investigation was proceeding without him, but then he'd calmed down and turned cocky.

'Perhaps,' he said, 'you and Fandorin have some other brilliant ideas? Maybe you'd like to dig in the pits while I lead the investigation?'

And the rotten swine left, laughing triumphantly.

In sum, Tulipov returned to Malaya Nikitskaya Street empty-handed. He walked listlessly up on to the porch and rang the electric bell.

Masa opened the door, in a white gymnastic costume with a black belt and a band bearing the word for 'diligence' round his forehead. 'Hello, Tiuri-san. Le's do renshu.'

What - renshu, when he was so tired and upset he could barely even stand?

'I have an urgent report to give the Chief,' Anisii said, trying to be cunning, but Masa was not to be fooled.

He jabbed his finger at Tulipov's protruding ears and declared peremptorily: 'When you have urgen' repor you have goggrin' eye and red ear, annow eye small and ear aw white. Take off coat, take off shoes, put on trousers and jacket. We goin' run and shout.'

Sometimes Angelina would intercede for Anisii - she was the only one who could resist the pressure from the damned Japanese - but the clear-eyed lady of the house was nowhere to be seen, and the oriental tyrant forced poor Tulipov to change into his gymnastics suit right there in the hallway

They went out into the yard. Jumping from foot to foot on the chilly ground, Anisii waved his hands around, yelled 'O-osu' to strengthen his prana and then the humiliation began. Masa jumped up on his shoulders from behind and ordered him to run in circles round the yard. The Japanese was not very tall, but he was stocky and solidly built, and he weighed four and a half poods at the very least. Somehow Tulipov managed to run two circles and then began to stumble.

But his tormentor spoke into his ear: Gaman! Gaman!' That was his favourite word. It meant 'Patience'.

Anisii had enough gaman for another half-circle, and then he collapsed. But not without an element of calculation: he collapsed right in front of a large dirty puddle so that this accursed eastern idol would go flying over his head and take a little swim. Masa went flying over the falling man's head all right, but he didn't come down with a splash in the puddle; he just put his hands down into it, then pushed off with his fingers, performed an impossible somersault in the air and landed on his feet on the far side of the watery obstacle.

He shook his round head in despair and said: Awri, go wash.'

Anisii was gone in a flash.

When his assistant reported in the study (after washing off the mud, changing his clothes and brushing his hair), Fandorin listened attentively. The walls were hung with Japanese prints, weapons and gymnastic equipment. Although it was already past midday, the Collegiate Counsellor was still in his dressing gown. He was not disappointed in the least by the lack of any result; in fact he even seemed rather glad. In any case, he did not express any particular surprise.

When his assistant stopped speaking, Erast Petrovich walked across the room, toying with his beloved jade beads and pronounced the phrase that always made Anisii's heart skip a beat: All right, 1-let us think about this.'

The Chief clicked a small sphere of green stone and swayed the flaps of his dressing gown.

'Don't think that your little trip to the cemetery has been wasted,' he began.

On the one hand it was pleasant to hear this; on the other hand the phrase 'little trip' hardly seemed an entirely accurate description of the torture Anisii had suffered that morning.

'To be quite sure, we had to check if there were incidents involving the disembowelling of victims prior to November. When you told me yesterday that two mutilated corpses had been found in the common grave for December and in the November grave, at first I began to doubt my theory about the Ripper moving to Moscow.'

Tulipov nodded, since the previous day he had been given a detailed account of the bloody history of the British ogre.

'But today, having reviewed my London notes, I came to the conclusion that this hypothesis should not be abandoned. Would you like to know why?'

Anisii nodded again, knowing perfectly well that just at the moment his job was to keep quiet and not interrupt.

'Then by all means.' The Chief picked a notebook up off the table. 'The final murder attributed to the notorious Jack took place on the twentieth of December on Poplar High Street. By that time our Moscow Ripper had already delivered plenty of his nightmarish work to the Bozhedomka, which would seem to exclude the possibility that the English and Russian killers might be subsumed in the same person. However, the prostitute Rose Millet, who was killed on Poplar High Street, did not have her throat cut, and there were none of our Jack's usual signs of savagery. The police decided that the murderer had been frightened off by passers-by who were out late. But in the light of yesterday's discovery, I am willing to surmise that the Ripper had absolutely nothing to do with this death. Possibly this Rose Millet was killed by someone else, and the general hysteria that had gripped London following the previous killing led people to ascribe a new murder of a prostitute to the same maniac. Now for the previous murder, committed on the ninth of November.'

Fandorin turned over a page.

'This is Jack's work without a doubt. The prostitute Mary Jane Kelly was discovered in her own room on Dorset Street, where she normally received her clients. Her throat had been slit, her breasts had been cut off, the soft tissue on her thighs had been stripped away, her internal organs had been laid out neatly on the bed and her stomach had been cut open - it is conjectured that the killer consumed its contents.'

Anisii's stomach began churning again, as it had that morning at the cemetery.

'On her temple she had the bloody imprint of lips that is familiar to us from Andreichkina's corpse.'

Erast Petrovich broke off his reasoning at this point, because Angelina had come into the study: in a plain grey dress and black shawl, with locks of blonde hair dangling over her forehead -the fresh wind must have tugged them free. The Chief's lady-friend dressed in various styles, sometimes like a lady, but best of all she liked simple, Russian clothes like the ones she was wearing today.

Are you working? Am I in the way?' she asked with a tired smile.

Tulipov leapt to his feet and hurried to reply before his chief: 'Of course not, Angelina Samsonovna. We're glad to see you.'

'Yes, yes,' said Fandorin with a nod. 'Have you come from the hospital?'

The beautiful woman lifted the shawl off her shoulders and pinned her rebellious hair in place. 'It was interesting today. Dr Bloom taught us how to lance boils. It turns out not to be hard at all.'

Anisii knew that Angelina, the kind soul, went to the Shtrobinderovsky Clinic on Mamonov Lane to help relieve the pain of the suffering. At first she had taken them presents and read the Bible to them, but then she had begun to feel that was not enough. She wanted to be of genuine benefit, to learn to be a nurse. Erast Petrovich had tried to dissuade her, but Angelina had insisted on having her own way.

A saintly woman, the kind that was the very foundation of Russia itself: prayer, help for one's neighbour, a loving heart. She might seem to be living in sin, but no impurity could stick to her. And it wasn't her fault that she found herself in the position of an unmarried wife, Anisii thought yet again, feeling angry with his chief.

Fandorin frowned. 'You've been lancing boils?'

'Yes,' she said with a joyful smile. 'For two poor old beggar women. It's Wednesday; they can come without having to pay. Don't worry, Erast Petrovich, I managed it very well, and the doctor praised me. I can already do a lot of things. And afterwards I read the Book of Job to the old women, for spiritual reinforcement.'

'You'd have done better to give them money,' Erast Petrovich said in annoyance. 'They're not interested in your book or your concern.'

Angelina replied: 'I did give them money, fifty kopecks each. And I have more need for this care and concern than they do. I'm far too happy living with you, Erast Petrovich. It makes me feel guilty. Happiness is good, but it's a sin to forget about those who are unhappy in your happiness. Help them, look at their sores and remember that your happiness is a gift from God, and not many people in this world are granted it. Why do you think there are so many beggars and cripples around all the palaces and mansions?'

'That's obvious enough: they give more there.'

'No, poor people give more than the rich. It's the Lord showing the fortunate people the unfortunate, saying: Remember how much suffering there is in the world and don't try to ignore it.'

Erast Petrovich sighed and made no attempt to reply to his mistress. He obviously couldn't think of anything to say. He turned towards Anisii and rattled his beads. 'Let's c-carry on. So, I am proceeding on the assumption that Jack the Ripper's last crime in England was the murder of Mary Jane Kelly, committed on the ninth of November, and that he was not involved in the case of the twentieth of December. In the Russian style, the ninth of November is still the end of October, and so Jack the Ripper had enough time to get to Moscow and add a victim of his perverted imagination to the November ditch at Bozhedomka. Agreed?'

Anisii nodded.

'Is it very likely that two maniacs would appear in Europe who act in an absolutely identical fashion, following scenarios that coincide in every detail?'

Anisii shook his head.

'Then the final question, before we get down to business: is the likelihood I have already mentioned so slight that we can concentrate entirely on the basic hypothesis?'

Two nods, so energetic that Tulipov's celebrated ears swayed. Anisii held his breath, knowing that now a miracle would take place before his very eyes: an elegant thesis would emerge, conjured up out of nothing, out of the empty mist, complete with search methods, plan of investigative measures and perhaps even specific suspects.

'Let us sum up. For some reason so far unknown to us, Jack the Ripper has come to Moscow and set about eliminating the local prostitutes and vagrants in a most determined fashion. That is one.' The Chief clicked his beads to add conviction to his assertion. 'He arrived here in November last year. That is two (click!). He has spent the recent months in the city, or if he has gone away, then not for long. That is three (click!). He is a doctor or he has studied medicine, since he possesses a surgical instrument, knows how to use it and is skilled in anatomical dissection. That is f-four.'

A final click, and the Chief put the beads away in the pocket of his dressing gown, which indicated that the investigation had moved on from the theoretical stage to the practical.

As you can see, Tulipov, the task does not appear so very complicated.'

Anisii could not yet see that, and so he refrained from nodding.

'Oh, come now,' Erast Petrovich said in surprise. 'All that's required is to check everyone who arrived in Russia from England and settled in Moscow during the period that interests us. Not even everybody, in fact - only those who are connected or have at some time been connected with medicine. And th-that's all. You'll be surprised when you see how narrow the range of the search is.'

Why indeed, how simple! Moscow was not St Petersburg; how many medical men could have arrived in the old capital from England in November?'

'So let's start checking the new arrivals registered at all the police stations!' said Anisii, leaping to his feet, ready to get straight down to work. 'Only twenty-four inquiries to make! That's where we'll find our friend: in the registers!'

Angelina had missed the beginning of Erast Petrovich's speech, but she had listened to the rest very carefully and she asked a very reasonable question: 'What if this murderer of yours didn't register with the police?'

'It's not very likely' the Chief replied. 'He's a very thorough individual who has lived in one place for a long time and travels freely across Europe. Why would he take the unnecessary risk of infringing the provisions of the law? After all, he is not a political terrorist, or a fugitive convict, but a maniac. All of a maniac's aggression goes into his "idea"; he has no strength left over for any other activities. Usually they are quiet, unobtrusive people and you would never think that they c-carry all the torments of hell around inside their heads ... Please sit down, Tulipov. There's no need to go running off anywhere. What do you think I have been doing all morning, while you were disturbing the dead?' He picked up several sheets of paper, covered in formal clerk's handwriting, off the desk. 'I telephoned the district superintendents and asked them to obtain for me the registration details of everyone who arrived in Moscow directly from England or via any intermediary point. To be on the safe side, I asked for November as well as December - just a precaution: what if Rose Millet was killed by our Ripper after all, and your November discovery, on the contrary, turns out to be the work of some indigenous cut-throat? It is hard to reach any firm conclusions on the pathology of a body that has been lying in the ground for five months, even if the ground was frozen. But those two bodies from December - that's a serious matter.'

'That makes sense,' Anisii agreed. 'The November corpse really wasn't exactly ... Zakharov didn't even want to rummage inside it; he said it was profanation. In November the earth hadn't really frozen yet, so the body had rotted a bit. Oh, I beg your pardon, Angelina Samsonovna!' Tulipov exclaimed, alarmed in case his excessive naturalism had upset her. But apparently his alarm was needless: Angelina had no intention of fainting, and the expression in her grey eyes remained as serious and intent as ever.

'There, you see. But even over two months only thirty-nine people arrived here from England, including, by the way, myself and Angelina Samsonovna. But, with your permission, I won't include the t-two of us in our list.' Erast Petrovich smiled. 'Of the remainder, twenty-three did not stay in Moscow for long and therefore are of no interest to us. That leaves fourteen, of whom only three have any connection with medicine.'

Aha!' Anisii exclaimed avidly.

'Naturally, the first to attract my attention was the doctor of medicine George Seville Lindsey. The Department of Gendarmes keeps him under secret surveillance, as it does all foreigners, so making inquiries could not have been any easier. Alas, Mr Lindsey does not fit the bill. It turned out that before coming to Moscow he spent only one and a half months in his homeland. Before that he was working in India, far from the East End of London. He was offered a position in the Catherine the Great Hospital, and that is why he came here. That leaves two, both Russian. A man and a woman.'

A woman couldn't have done anything like this,' Angelina said firmly. 'There are all sorts of monsters amongst us women too, but hacking stomachs open with a knife - that takes strength. And we women don't like the sight of blood.'

'We are dealing here with a special kind of being, unlike ordinary people,' Fandorin objected. 'This is not a man and it is not a woman, but something like a third sex or, to put it simply, a monster. We can by no means exclude women. Some of them are physically strong too. Not to mention that at a certain level of skill in the use of a scalpel, no special strength is required. For instance' - he glanced at one of his sheets of paper - 'the midwife Elizaveta Nesvitskaya, a spinster twenty-eight years of age, arrived from England via St Petersburg on the nineteenth of November. An unusual individual. At the age of seventeen she spent two years in prison on political charges and was then exiled by administrative order to a colony in the Arkhangelsk province. She fled the country and graduated from the medical faculty of Edinburgh University. Applied to be allowed to return to her motherland. She returned. Her request for her medical diploma to be accepted as valid is under consideration by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and in the meantime Nesvitskaya has set herself up as a midwife at the recently opened Morozov Gynaecological Hospital. She is under secret surveillance by the police. According to detectives' reports, although her right to work as a doctor has not yet been confirmed, Nesvitskaya is receiving patients from among the poor and impecunious. The hospital administration turns a blind eye and secretly even encourages her - no one wishes to waste their time on dealing with the poor. That is the information that we p-possess on Nesvitskaya.'

'During the time the Ripper committed his crimes, she was in London - that is one,' Tulipov began summarising. When the crimes were committed in Moscow, she was here - that is two. She possesses medical skills - that is three. From what we know, her personality seems to be unusual and not particularly feminine in its make-up - that is four. Nesvitskaya can certainly not be discounted.'

'Precisely. And in addition to that, let us not forget that in the London murders and in the murder of the spinster Andreichkina there are no indications of the sexual molestation which is usual when the maniac is a man.'

'And who's the other one?' asked Angelina.

'Ivan Stenich. Thirty years old. A former student of the medical faculty of the Moscow Imperial University. Excluded seven years ago "for immoral conduct". God only knows what was meant by that, but it looks as though it might fit our bill all right. He has held several jobs, been treated for psychological illness, travelled around Europe. Arrived in Russia from England on the eleventh of December. Since the New Year he has been working as a male nurse in the Assuage My Sorrows hospital for the insane.'

Tulipov slapped his hand on the table: 'Damned suspicious!'

And so, we have t-two suspects. If neither of them is involved, then we shall follow the line suggested by Angelina Sam-sonovna - that when Jack the Ripper arrived in Moscow he managed to avoid the eyes of the police. And only if we are convinced that this too must be excluded will we then abandon the main hypothesis and start to search for a home-grown Ivan the Ripper who has never been to the East End in his life. Agreed?'

'Yes, but it is the same Jack anyway' Anisii declared with conviction. 'Everything fits.'

'Who do you prefer to deal with, Tulipov - the male nurse or the midwife?' the Chief asked. 'I offer you the right to choose as the martyr of the exhumation.'

'Since this Stenich works in a mental hospital, I have an excellent excuse for making his acquaintance: Sonya,' said Anisii, expressing this apparently perfectly reasonable idea with more vehemence than cold logic required. A man - and one with a history of mental illness at that - appeared a more promising candidate for the Ripper than a runaway revolutionary.

All right, then,' Erast Petrovich said with a smile. 'Off you go to Lefortovo, and I'll go to Devichie Polye, to see Nesvitskaya.'

In fact, however, Anisii was obliged to deal with both the former student and the midwife, because at that very moment the doorbell rang.

Masa entered and announced: 'Post.' Then he explained, taking great satisfaction in pronouncing the difficult phrase: 'A smopackadj'.

The package was indeed small. Written on the grey wrapping paper in a hand that was vigorous but careless and irregular was: 'To His Honour Collegiate Counsellor Fandorin in person. Urgent and strictly secret.'

Tulipov felt curious, but his chief did not unwrap the package immediately.

'Did the p-postman bring it? There's no address written on it.'

'No, a boy. Hand to me and wan away. Should I catchim?' Masa asked in alarm.

'If he ran away, you won't catch him now'

Underneath the wrapping paper there was a small velvet box, tied round with a red satin ribbon. In the box, resting on a napkin, there was a yellow object. For the first moment Anisii thought it was a forest mushroom, a milky cap. He looked closer and gasped.

It was a human ear.

The rumours have spread round Moscow.

Supposedly a werewolf has appeared in the city. If any woman puts her nose outside the door at night, the werewolf is there in a flash. He creeps along so quietly, with his red eye glinting behind the fence, and if you don't say your prayers in time, your Christian soul is done for - he leaps out and the first thing he does is sink his teeth into your throat, and then he tears your belly to shreds and munches and crunches on your insides. And apparently this werewolf has already bitten out countless numbers of women's throats, only the authorities are keeping it a secret from the people, because the Father-Tsar is afraid.

That's what they were saying today at the Sukharev Market.

That is about me, I am the werewolf who is prowling their city. It's funny. My kind don't simply appear in a place, they are sent to bring terrible or joyful news. And I have been sent to you, citizens of Moscow, with joyful news.

Ugly city and ugly people, I will make you beautiful. Not all of you, please forgive me - that would be too much. But many, many.

I love you, with all your hideous abominations and deformities. I only wish you well. I have enough love for all of you. I see Beauty under lice-ridden clothes, under the scabs on an unwashed body, under rashes and eruptions. I am your saviour and your salvatrix. I am your brother and sister, father and mother, husband and wife. I am a woman and I am a man. I am an androgyne, that most beautiful ancestor of humanity, who possessed the characteristics of both sexes. Then the androgynes were divided into two halves, male and female, and people appeared - unhappy, remote from perfection, suffering from loneliness.

I am your missing half. Nothing prevents me from reuniting with those of you whom I choose.

The Lord has given me intelligence, cunning, foresight and invulnerability. Stupid, crude, dull, grey people tried to catch the androgyne in London without even attempting to understand the meaning of the messages he sent to the world.

At first these pitiful attempts amused me. Then a bitter taste rose in my throat.

Perhaps my own land will receive the prophet, I thought. Irrational and mystical Russia, which has still not lost true faith, lured me to itself with its eunuch skoptsy sect, its schismatics, its self-immolations and its ascetics - and it seems to have deceived me. Now the same stupid, crude kind of people, devoid of imagination, are trying to catch the Decorator in Moscow. It amuses me; at night I shudder and shake in silent laughter. No one sees these fits of merriment, and if they did, no doubt they would think there was something wrong with me. Well certainly, if everyone who is not like them is mad; but in that case Christ is also mad, and all the holy saints, and all the insane geniuses of whom they are so proud.

In the daytime I am not different in any way from all the ugly, pitiful people with all their vain concerns. I am a virtuoso of mimicry; they could never guess that I am from a different race.

How can they disdain God's gift - their own bodies? My duty and my calling is to teach them a little about Beauty. I make the ugly beautiful. I do not touch those who are beautiful. They are not an offence against the image of God.

Life is a thrilling, jolly game. Cat and mouse, hide and seek. I hide and I seek. One-two-three-four-five, ready or not, I'm coming. If you're not hiding, it's not my fault.

CHAPTER 4 Tortoise, Setter, Lioness, Hare

Holy Week Wednesday, 5 April, afternoon

Anisii told Palasha to dress Sonya up in her holiday clothes. His sister, a full-grown adult but mentally retarded, was delighted and began gurgling in joy. For her, the poor imbecile, going on any trip was an event, wherever it was to, and she was particularly fond of visiting the 'dot' (in Sonya's language that meant 'doctor'). They talked to her patiently for a long time there; they always gave her a sweet or a spice cake; they put a cold metal thing against her chest and pressed her tummy so that it tickled and gazed into her mouth - and Sonya was happy to help by opening it wide enough for them to see everything inside.

They called a cabbie they knew, Nazar Stepanich. As always, at first Sonya was a little bit afraid of the calm horse Mukha, who snorted with her nostrils and jangled her harness, squinting with her bloody eyes at the fat, ungainly woman swaddled in shawls.

They drove from Granatny Lane to the Lefortovo district. Usually they went to a closer place, to Dr Maxim Khristoforich on Rozhdestvenka Street, to the Mutual Assistance Society; but this time they had to make the journey right across the city.

They had to drive around Trubnaya Street - it was completely flooded. When would the sunshine ever come and dry the ground out? Moscow looked dour and untidy. The houses were grey, the roads were dirty, the people all seemed to be wrapped in rags and hunched up against the wind. But Sonya seemed to like it. Every now and then she nudged her brother in the side with her elbow - 'Nisii, Nisii' - and pointed at the rooks in a tree, a water wagon, a drunken apprentice. But she prevented him from thinking. And he had a lot to think about - the severed ear, which the chief was dealing with in person, and his own difficult task.

The Emperor Alexander Society's Assuage My Sorrows Hospital, for the treatment of psychiatric, nervous and paralytic illnesses, was located on Hospital Square, beyond the River Yauza. He knew that Stenich was working as a male nurse with Dr Rozenfeld in department five, where they treated the most violent and hopeless cases.

After paying five roubles at the desk, Anisii took his sister to Rozenfeld. He began telling the doctor in detail about what had been happening with Sonya recently: she had begun to wake up crying in the night and twice she had pushed Palasha away, which had never happened before, and she had suddenly got into the habit of toying with a little mirror and staring into it for hours with her little piggy eyes.

It took a long time to tell the doctor everything. A man in a white coat came into the surgery twice. The first time he brought some boiled syringes, then he took the prescription for making up some tincture or other. The doctor spoke to him politely. So he had to be Stenich. Exhausted and pale, with immense eyes, he had grown his straight hair long, but he shaved his beard and moustache, which gave his face an almost medieval look.

Leaving his sister with the doctor to be examined, Anisii went out into the corridor and glanced in through a half-open door with the inscription 'Treatment Room'. Stenich had his back to him and was mixing up some green stuff in a small bottle. What could Anisii see from the back? Stooped shoulders, a white coat, patches on the back of his boots.

The Chief had taught him that the key to success lay in the first phrase of a conversation. If you could get the conversation going smoothly, then the door would open; you'd find out anything you wanted from the other person. The trick was to make sure you identified their type correctly. There weren't all that many types - according to Erast Petrovich there were exactly sixteen, and there was an approach for each of them.

Oh, if only he didn't get it wrong. He hadn't really mastered this tricky science completely yet. From what they knew about Stenich, and also from visual observation, he was a 'tortoise': an unsociable, suspicious type turned in on himself, living in a state of interminable internal monologue.

If that was right, then the correct approach was 'to show your belly' - that is, to demonstrate that you are defenceless and not dangerous and then, without even the slightest pause, to make a 'breach': to pierce through all the protective layers of alienation and caution, to take the other person by surprise, only without frightening him, God forbid, by being aggressive, or putting him off. You had to interest him, send a signal that seemed to say: You and I are berries from the same field, we speak the same language.

Tulipov mentally crossed himself and had a go. 'That was a good look you gave my idiot sister in the surgery just now. I liked it. It showed interest, but without pity. The doctor's just the opposite: he pities her all right, but he's not really all that interested in looking at her. Only the mentally ill don't need pity; they can be happier than we are. That's an interesting subject, all right: a being that looks like us, but is really quite different. And sometimes something might be revealed to an idiot that is a sealed book to us. I expect you think that too, don't you? I could see it in your eyes. You ought to be the doctor, not this Rozenfeld. Are you a student?'

Stenich turned round and blinked. He looked a little taken aback by the breach, but in the right kind of way, without feeling frightened or getting his back up. He answered curtly in the way a tortoise was supposed to: 'I used to be.'

The approach had been chosen correctly. Now that the key was in the lock, according to the teachings of the Chief, he should grab it immediately and turn it until it clicked. There was a subtle point here: with a tortoise you had to avoid being too familiar, you mustn't narrow the distance between you, or he'd immediately withdraw into his shell.

'Not a political, are you?' asked Anisii, pretending to be disappointed. 'Then I'm a very poor reader of faces: I took you for a man with imagination; I wanted to ask you about my idiot sister ... These socialists are no good as psychiatrists - they're too carried away with the good of society, but they couldn't give a damn for the individual members of society, especially for imbeciles like my Sonya. Pardon my frankness, I'm a man who likes to speak directly. Goodbye, I'd better go and have a talk with Rozenfeld.'

He turned sharply to go away, in the appropriate manner for a 'setter' (outspoken, impetuous, with sharply defined likes and dislikes) - the ideal match for a tortoise.

'As you wish,' said the male nurse, stung to the quick. 'Only I've never concerned myself with the good of society, and I was excluded from the faculty for something quite different.'

Aha!' Tulipov exclaimed, raising one finger triumphantly. 'The eye! The eye, it never deceives! I was right about you after all. You live according to your own judgement and follow your own road. It doesn't matter that you're only a medical assistant; I take no notice of titles. Give me a keen, lively man who doesn't judge things by the common standard. I've despaired of taking Sonya round the doctors. All of them just sing the same old tune: oligophrenia, the extreme stage, a hopeless case. But I sense that inside her soul is alive, it can be awakened. Will you not give me a consultation?'

'I'm not a medical assistant either,' Stenich replied, apparently touched by this stranger's frankness (and his flattery, of course -a man likes to be flattered). 'It's true that Mr Rozenfeld does use me as a medical assistant, but officially I'm only a male nurse. And I work without pay, as a volunteer. To make amends for my sins.'

Ah, so that's it, thought Anisii. That's where the glum look came from, and the resignation. I'll have to adjust my line of approach.

Speaking in the most serious voice he could muster, he said: 'You have chosen a good path for the exculpation of your sins. Far better than lighting candles in a church or beating your forehead against the church porch. May God grant you quick relief.'

'I don't want it quickly!' Stenich cried with unexpected ardour, and his eyes, which had been dull, were instantly aglow with fire and passion. 'Let it be hard, let it be long! That will be the best way, the right way! I... I don't talk with people often, I'm very reserved. And I'm used to being alone. But there's something in you that encourages frank talking. I feel like talking ... Otherwise, I'm on my own all the time; my mind could go again soon.'

Anisii was truly amazed by the results of his chief's method! The key had fitted the lock, and fitted it so well that the door had swung open of its own accord. He didn't need to do anything else, just listen and agree with everything.

The pause unsettled the male nurse. 'Perhaps you don't have any time?' His voice trembled. 'I know you have problems of your own; you can't have time for other people's confessions...'

A man with troubles of his own will understand another person's troubles better,' Anisii said jesuitically. 'What is eating at your soul? You can tell me. We're strangers; we don't even know each other's name. We'll have a talk and go our separate ways. What sin do you have on your soul?'

For just a moment Anisii dreamed of him dropping to his knees, bursting into sobs and saying: 'Forgive me, you good man, I am cursed, I bear the weight of bloody sin, I disembowel women with a scalpel.' And that would be it, case closed, and Tulipov would be rewarded by his superiors and, best of all, there'd be a word of praise from the Chief.

But no, Stenich didn't drop to his knees and he said something quite different: 'Pride. All my life I've been tormented by it. I took this job, this heavy, dirty work, in order to conquer it. I clean up the foul mess from the mad patients; no job is too disgusting for me. Humiliation and resignation - that's the best medicine for pride.'

'So you were excluded from the university for pride?' Anisii said, unable to conceal his disappointment.

What? Ah, from the university. No, that was something different ... I'll tell you - why not? - in order to humble my pride.' The male nurse blushed violently, turning bright red all the way up to the parting in his hair. 'I used to have another sin, a serious one: voluptuousness. I've overcome it now. Life has helped me. But in my young years I was depraved - not so much out of sensuality as out of curiosity. It's even viler, out of curiosity, don't you think?'

Anisii didn't know how to answer that, but it would be interesting to hear about the sin. What if there was a thread leading from this voluptuousness to the murder?

'I don't see any sin at all in sensuality' he said aloud. 'Sin is when you hurt your neighbour. But who's hurt by a bit of sensuality, provided of course there's no violence involved?'

Stenich just shook his head. Ah, you're still young, sir. Have you not heard of the Sadist Circle? How could you? - you probably hadn't even finished grammar school then. It was exactly seven years ago this April ... But in Moscow not many people know about the case. The rumours spread in medical circles, all right, but not much leaks out of them; it's a matter of esprit de corps, sticking together, a common front. Mind you, they threw me out...'

What was that, the saddler's circle?' asked Anisii, pretending to be stupid but remembering that Stenich had been excluded for 'immoral behaviour'.

Senich laughed grimly. 'Not exactly. There were about fifteen of us, wild students in the medical faculty, and two girl students. It was a dark, oppressive time. A year earlier the nihilists had blown up the Tsar-Liberator. We were nihilists too, but without any politics. In those days, for politics we'd have been sentenced to hard labour or worse. But all they did was pack our leader Sotsky off to a penal battalion. With no trial, no fuss, by ministerial decree. Some of the others were transferred to nonmedical faculties - pharmacists, chemists, anatomists - they weren't considered worthy of the exalted title of doctor. And some, like me, were simply flung out, if we couldn't find anyone highly placed to intercede for us.'

'That's a bit harsh, isn't it?' Tulipov asked with a sympathetic sigh. 'What on earth did you get up to?'

'Nowadays I tend to think it wasn't harsh at all. It was exactly right... You know, very young men who have chosen the path of medicine sometimes fall into a sort of cynicism. They become firmly convinced that man is not the image of God, but a machine made of joints, bones, nerves and various other bits of stuffing. On the early years of the course it's regarded as daring to take breakfast in the morgue and stand your bottle of beer on the stomach of a "piece of carrion" that's only just been sewn up. And there are jokes more vulgar than that - I won't tell you about them; they're disgusting. But these are all quite standard pranks: we went further. There were a few among us who had a lot of money, so we had the chance to cut loose. Simple debauchery wasn't enough for us any more. Our leader, the late departed Sotsky had a fantastic imagination. He didn't come back from the penal battalion; he died there, or he would have carried on even further. We were especially fond of sadistic amusements. We'd find the ugliest streetwalker we could, pay her twenty-five roubles and then mock and torment her. We took it too far ... Once, in a fifty-kopeck bordello, when we'd had too much to drink, we took an old whore who would do anything for three roubles and worked her so hard she died ... The incident was hushed up and it never reached the courts. And everything was decided quietly, with no scandal. I was angry at first, because they'd shattered my life - I was studying on a pittance, giving lessons and sending my mother as much as I could ... But afterwards, years later, I suddenly realised I deserved it.'

Anisii screwed up his eyes.

'How do you mean - "suddenly"?'

'It just happened,' Stenich replied curtly and sternly. 'I saw God.'

There's something here, thought Tulipov. Probe here and I'll probably find the 'idea' the boss was talking about. How can I turn the conversation to England?

'I expect life has tossed you about quite a lot? Have you not tried seeking happiness abroad?'

'Happiness? No, I haven't looked for that. But I've searched for obscenities in various countries. And found more than enough, may the Lord forgive me.' Stenich crossed himself, facing the icon of the Saviour hanging in the corner.

Then Anisii asked in a simple-minded kind of voice: And have you ever been to England? That's my dream, but I'm obviously never going to get there. Everyone says it's an exceptionally civilised country.'

'Strange that you should ask about England,' said the repentant sinner, looking at Anisii intently. 'You're a strange gentleman altogether. Whatever you ask, it always hits the bull's eye. It was in England that I saw God. Until that moment I was living an unworthy, degrading kind of life. I was sponging off a certain crazy madcap. And then I decided to change everything all at once.'

'You said yourself that humiliation is good for conquering pride. So why did you decide to leave a humiliating life? That's not logical.'

Anisii had wanted to find out a bit more about Stenich's life in England, but he had committed a crude error: his question had put the tortoise on the defensive, and that was something he ought not to have done under any circumstances.

Stenich instantly withdrew into his shell: And who are you, to go interpreting the logic of my soul? What am I doing whinging to you like this anyway?'

The male nurse's gaze was suddenly inflamed with hate, his slim fingers began fumbling convulsively at the table. And on the table there happened to be a metal pan with various medical instruments. Anisii remembered that Stenich had been treated for mental illness, and he backed out into the corridor. Stenich wouldn't tell him anything else useful now.

But even so, certain things had been clarified.

Now he had a really long road to travel, from Lefortovo to the opposite extreme of Moscow, Devichie Polye, to the Timofei Morozov Gynaecological Clinic, financed by the resources of the rich Counsellor of Commerce, at the Moscow Imperial University. With all her disabilities Sonya was still a woman, and some female problems or other were sure to be found. And so the imbecile was to be useful to the inquiry yet again.

Sonya was in an agitated state - the 'dot' at Lefortovo had made a strong impression on her.

'Mer tap-tap, knee hop-hop, nofraid, sweety no,' she said boisterously, telling her brother about her adventures.

To anybody else, it was a meaningless jumble of sounds, but Anisii understood everything: the doctor had hit her knee with a little hammer, and her knee had jerked, only Sonya hadn't been afraid at all, but the doctor hadn't given her a sweet.

So that she wouldn't prevent him from concentrating, he stopped the cab at the Orphan's Institute and bought a large, poisonous-red sugar cockerel on a stick. Sonya stopped talking. She stuck her tongue out a good two inches and licked, staring around with her pale little eyes. So much had happened today, and she didn't know that there were still a lot of interesting things to come. She'd need a lot of attention in the evening; she'd be too excited to get to sleep for a long time.

They finally arrived. The generous Counsellor of Commerce had built a fine clinic, there was no denying that. The Morozov family had done a lot of good for the city in general. Recently the newspapers had written that Honorary Citizen Madam Morozova had organised working trips abroad for young engineers, in order to improve their practical knowledge. Now anyone who completed the full course at the Moscow Imperial Technical College could take a trip to England if he wanted, or even the United States - provided, of course, that he was Orthodox by faith and Russian by blood. It was a great thing. And here in the gynaecological clinic, consultation and treatment were free for the poor on Mondays and Tuesdays. Wasn't that remarkable?

Today, though, it was Wednesday.

Anisii read the announcement in the reception room: 'Consultation with the professor - ten roubles. Appointment with the doctor - five roubles. Appointment with the female doctor Roganova - three roubles.'

A bit on the expensive side,' Tulipov complained to the attendant. 'My sister's retarded. Won't they take a retarded patient cheaper?'

At first the attendant replied sternly: 'It's not allowed. Come back on Monday or Tuesday'

But then he looked at Sonya, standing there with her mouth open, and his heart softened.

'You could go to the obstetrical department, to Lizaveta Nesvitskaya. She's as good as a doctor, even though she's only called a midwife. She charges less, or nothing at all, if she takes pity on someone.'

This was excellent. Nesvitskaya was at work.

They walked out of the waiting room and turned into a small garden. As they were approaching the yellow, two-storey building of the obstetrical department, something dramatic happened. A window on the first floor slammed open and there was a loud tinkling of glass. Anisii saw a young woman climb up into the window, wearing just her nightdress, with her long black hair tangled across her shoulders.

'Go away you torturers,' the woman howled. 'I hate you. You're trying to kill me!'

She looked down - the storeys in the building were tall and it was a long way to the ground - then she pressed her back against the stone wall and began edging along the parapet in small steps, away from the window. Sonya froze, watching with her mouth hanging open slackly. She'd never seen a wonder like this before.

Immediately several heads appeared at the window and began trying to persuade the black-haired woman not to play the fool and come back.

But it was clear that the woman was distressed. She was swaying, and the parapet was narrow. She was about to fall or jump. The snow below had melted, the earth was bare and covered with stones with some kind of iron rods sticking up out of it. It would be certain death or severe injury.

Tulipov looked to the left and the right. People were gaping, but the expression on all their faces was confusion. What should he do?

'Bring a tarpaulin, or at least a blanket!' he shouted to an orderly who had come out for a smoke and frozen at the sight, with his small cigar clutched in his teeth. He started and went darting off, but he was unlikely to be in time.

A tall woman pushed her way through the people clustered at the window and climbed determinedly out on to the window sill - a white coat, steel pince-nez, hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her head.

'Ermolaeva, don't be so stupid!' she shouted in a commanding voice. 'Your son's crying; he wants his milk!' And then she set off boldly along the parapet.

'It's not my son!' the dark-haired woman squealed. 'It's a foundling! Don't come near me, I'm afraid of you!'

The woman in the white coat took another step and reached out her hand, but Ermolaeva turned away and jumped with a howl.

The spectators gasped - at the very last instant the doctor had managed to grab the crazed woman just below the collar. The night-shirt tore, but it held. The dangling woman's legs were shamefully exposed, and Anisii began blinking rapidly, but immediately felt ashamed of himself - there was no time for that sort of thing now. The doctor grabbed hold of a drainpipe with one hand and held Ermolaeva with the other. Now she'd have to let the other woman go, or come tumbling down with her.

Anisii tore his greatcoat off his shoulders and waved to two men standing nearby. They stretched the coat out as far as it would go, and stood under the dangling woman.

'I can't hold on any longer! My fingers are slipping!' the iron doctor shouted, and at that very moment the black-haired woman fell.

The blow knocked them all down into a heap. Tulipov jumped up and shook his jarred wrists. The woman lay there with her eyes closed, but seemingly alive, and there was no sign of any blood. One of Anisii's helpers, who looked like a shop assistant, sat on the ground and whimpered, clutching his shoulder. Anisii's greatcoat was a sorry sight - it had lost both sleeves and the collar had split - a new greatcoat, he only had it made last autumn: forty-five roubles.

The woman doctor was already there - she must have moved really fast. She squatted down over the unconscious woman, felt her pulse, rubbed her hands and feet: 'Alive and unhurt.'

To Anisii she said: 'Well done for thinking of using your coat.'

'What's wrong with her?'

'Puerperal fever. Temporary insanity. Rare, but it happens. What's wrong with you?' she said, turning to the shop assistant. 'Put your shoulder out? Come here.' She took hold of him with her strong hands and gave a sudden jerk - the shop assistant gave a loud gasp.

A female medical assistant ran up, caught her breath and asked: 'Lizaveta Andreevna, what shall we do with Ermolaeva?'

'Put her in the isolation ward - under three blankets; give her an injection of morphine. Let her sleep for while. And be careful not to take your eyes off her.' She turned to go.

'I was actually coming to see you, Miss Nesvitskaya,' Anisii said, thinking: The Chief was right not to exclude women from suspicion. A mare like this could easily choke you with her bare hands, never mind slicing you up with a scalpel.

'Who are you? What's your business?' The glance through the pince-nez was stern, not feminine at all.

'Tulipov, Provincial Secretary. Look, I've brought an imbecile for a consultation on women's matters. She seems to suffer a lot with her periods. Will you agree to take a look at her?'

Nesvitskaya looked at Sonya and asked briskly: An imbecile? Does she have a sex life? Are you cohabiting with her?'

'Of course not!' Anisii exclaimed in horror. 'She's my sister. She was born like this.'

'Can you pay? From those who can afford it I take two roubles for an examination.'

'I'll pay, with the greatest of pleasure,' Tulipov hastened to reassure her.

'If paying gives you that much pleasure, then why come to me and not to the doctor or the professor? All right, let's go to my surgery'

She set off with rapid, broad strides. Anisii grabbed hold of Sonya's hand and followed her. He worked out his line of behaviour as he went.

There was no doubt about her type: a classic 'lioness'. The recommended approach was to act embarrassed and to mumble. That made lionesses soften.

The midwife's surgery was small and neat, with nothing superfluous: a gynaecological chair, a table and a chair. There were two brochures on the table: 'Problems of hygiene and women's clothing', written by A. N. Sobolev, docent of obstretics and women's ailments, and 'Proceedings of the Society for the Propagation of Practical Knowledge Among Educated Women'.

There was an advertisement hanging on the wall:

LADIES' HYGIENIC PADS

Manufactured from sublimated timber fibre

A very comfortable fastening, with the use of a belt, to be worn by ladies during difficult periods. The price of a dozen pads is one rouble. The price of the belt is from 40 kop. to 1 r. 50 kop.

Egorov's House, Pokrovka Street

Anisii sighed and began to mumble: 'You see, the reason I decided to come to you, Miss Nesvitskaya is... well, you see, I've heard that actually you have the highest possible qualifications, although you hold a position that doesn't correspond at all to the learning possessed by such a worthy individual... Of course, not that I have anything at all against the title of midwife ... I didn't mean to belittle or, God forbid, express any doubts, on the contrary in fact...'

He thought he'd done really well, and even managed to blush a little, but Nesvitskaya's response astonished him: she took Anisii firmly by the shoulders and turned his face to the light

'Well now, well now, I know that look around the eyes. Would you be a police spy, then? You've started working with a bit of imagination now, even picked up an imbecile from somewhere. What else do you want from me? Why can't you just leave me in peace? If you're thinking of making something of my illegal practice, then the director knows all about it.' She pushed him away in disgust.

Tulipov rubbed his shoulders - she had a fierce grip. Sonya pressed herself against her brother in fright and began to whine; Anisii stroked her hair.

'Don't you be frightened. The lady's only joking, playing games. She's kind, she's a doctor... Elizaveta Andreevna, you're mistaken about me. I work in the chancellery of His Excellency the Governor-General. In a very modest position, of course, the lowest of the low, so to speak. Tulipov, Provincial Secretary. I have my identification with me, if you'd like me to show you it. Or is there no need?' He spread his arms timidly and smiled shyly.

Excellent! Nesvitskaya felt ashamed, and that was the very way to get a lioness to talk.

Tm sorry, I see them everywhere ... You must understand ...' She picked up a papyrosa from the table with a trembling hand and lit it, but not straight away, only with the third match. So much for the iron doctor.

'I'm sorry I suspected you. My nerves are all shot. And then this Ermolaeva ... Ah, yes, you saved Ermolaeva, I forgot... I must explain myself. I don't know why, but I'd like you to understand

'The reason you want to explain yourself to me, madame,' Anisii answered in his thoughts, 'is because you're a lioness, and I'm acting like a hare. Lionesses get on best of all with timid, defenceless little hares. Psychology, Lizaveta Andreevna.'

But together with his satisfaction, Tulipov also experienced a certain moral discomfort - he was no police spy, but he was still doing detective work and using his invalid sister as a cover. The doctor had been right.

She smoked the papyrosa quickly, in a few puffs, and lit another one.

Anisii waited, fluttering his eyelids pitifully.

'Smoke?' Nesvitskaya pushed the box of papyrosas towards him.

Tulipov generally didn't smoke, but lionesses like it when they can order people about, so he took one, inhaled the smoke and started to cough violently.

'Yes, they're a bit strong,' the doctor said with a nod. 'It's a habit. The tobacco's strong in the North, and in the summer there you can't get by without tobacco - all those mosquitoes and midges.'

'So you're from the North?' Anisii asked naively, clumsily shaking the ash off his papyrosa.

'No, I was born and brought up in St Petersburg. Until the age of seventeen I was my mother's little darling. But when I was seventeen, men in blue uniforms came for me in droshkies. They took me away from my mother and put me in a prison cell.'

Nesvitskaya spoke in short, abrupt phrases. Her hands weren't trembling any more; her voice had become harsh and her eyes had narrowed in anger - but it wasn't Tulipov she was angry with, that was clear.

Sonya sat down on a chair, slumped against the wall and began sniffing loudly - she was exhausted from all these new impressions.

'What did they arrest you for?' the hare asked in a whisper.

'For knowing a student who had once been in a house where revolutionaries sometimes used to meet,' Nesvitskaya said with a bitter laugh. 'There had just been another attempt on the life of the Tsar, and so they hauled in absolutely everybody. While they were getting to the bottom of things, I spent two years in solitary confinement. At the age of seventeen. I don't know how I managed not to go insane. Perhaps I did ... Then they let me out. But to make sure I didn't strike up any inappropriate acquaintances, they sent me into administrative exile - to the village of Zamorenka in the Arkhangelsk province. Under official surveillance. So I have special feelings about blue uniforms.'

And where did you study medicine?' Anisii asked, with a sympathetic shake of his head.

'At first in Zamorenka, in the local hospital. I had to have something to live on, so I took a job as a nurse. And I realised that medicine was the thing for me. It's probably the only thing that makes any sense at all ... Later I ended up in Scotland and studied in the medical faculty, the first woman in the surgical department - they don't let women get ahead too easily there, either. I made a good surgeon. I have a strong hand; from the very beginning I was never afraid of the sight of blood, and I'm not disgusted by the sight of people's internal organs. They're even quite beautiful in their own sort of way'

Anisii was on the edge of his seat. And you can operate?'

She smiled condescendingly: 'I can perform an amputation, and an abdominal operation, and remove a tumour. And instead of that, for all these months ...' She gestured angrily.

What 'instead of that'? Disembowelling streetwalkers in woodsheds?

Possible motives?

Tulipov slyly examined Nesvitskaya's unattractive, even rather coarse face. A morbid hatred of the female body? Very possible. Reasons? Her own physical unattractiveness and uncertain personal situation, being forced to carry out a midwife's duties, work that she did not like, the daily contemplation of patients whose lives as women had worked out happily. It could be almost anything, even including concealed latent insanity as a result of the injustice she had suffered and solitary confinement at a tender age.

All right, let's take a look at your sister. I've been talking too long. It's not even like me.'

Nesvitskaya removed her pince-nez and wearily rubbed the bridge of her nose with her strong fingers, then for some reason massaged the lobe of her ear; and Anisii's thoughts naturally turned to the sinister ear in the box.

How was the Chief getting on? Had he managed to figure out who had sent the 'smopackadj'?

Again it is evening, the blessed darkness concealing me beneath its dusky wing. I am walking along a railway embankment. A strange excitement constricts my chest.

It is surprising how it throws one off balance to see acquaintances from a former life. They have changed, some are even unrecognisable, and as for me, it need hardly be said.

I am troubled by memories. Stupid, unnecessary memories. Everything is different now.

Standing at the crossing, outside the barrier, there is a young girl begging. Twelve or thirteen years old. She is shuddering from the cold, her hands are covered in red goose bumps, her feet are wrapped in some kind of rags. Her face is horrible, simply horrible: suppurating eyes, cracked lips, a runny nose. A miserable, ugly child of humanity.

How can I not pity such a creature? This ugly face can also be made beautiful. And there is really nothing I have to do. It is enough simply to reveal the true Beauty of its gaze.

I follow the girl. The memories are no longer troubling me.

CHAPTER 5 Fellow Students

Holy Week Wednesday, 5 April, afternoon and evening

After despatching his assistant on his errand, Erast Petrovich prepared himself for some intense thinking. The task appeared to be far from simple. Irrational enlightenment would be very welcome here, and so the right place to begin was with meditation.

The Collegiate Counsellor closed the door of his study, sat down on the carpet with his legs crossed and tried to rid himself of all thoughts of any kind - still his vision, shut off his hearing; sway on the waves of the Great Void from which, as on so many previous occasions, there would come the sound, at first barely audible, and then ever more distinct, and finally almost deafening, of the truth.

Time passed. Then it stopped passing. A cool calm began rising unhurriedly within him, from his belly upwards; the golden mist in front of his eyes grew thicker, but then the huge clock standing in the corner of the room churred and chimed deafeningly: bom-bom-bom-bom-bom!

Fandorin came to himself. Five o'clock already? He checked the time on his Breguet, because the grandfather clock could not be trusted - and he was right: it was twenty minutes fast.

Immersing himself in a meditative state for a second time proved harder. Erast Petrovich recalled that at five o'clock that afternoon he was due to take part in a competition of the Moscow Bicycle Enthusiasts' Club, to support the poor widows and orphans of employees of the military department. Moscow's strongest sportsmen and the bicycle teams of the Grenadier Corps were competing. The Collegiate Counsellor had a good chance of repeating his success of the previous year and taking the main prize.

Alas, there was no time now for sports competitions.

Erast Petrovich drove away the inappropriate thoughts and began staring at the pale-lilac pattern of the wallpaper. Now the mist would thicken again, the petals of the printed irises would tremble, the flowers would begin breathing out their fragrance and satori would come.

Something was hindering him. The mist seemed to be carried away by a wind blowing from somewhere on his left. The severed ear was lying there, in the lacquered box on the table. Lying there, refusing to be forgotten.

Ever since his childhood, Erast Petrovich had been unable to bear the sight of tormented human flesh. He had lived long enough, seen all sorts of horrific things, taken part in wars and yet, strangely enough, he had still not learned to regard with indifference the things that human beings did to their own kind.

Realising that the irises on the wallpaper would not breathe out any scent today, Fandorin heaved a deep sigh. Since he had failed to arouse his intuition, he would have to rely on his reason. He sat down at the table and picked up his magnifying glass.

He began with the wrapping paper. It was just ordinary paper, the kind used to wrap all sorts of thing. Nothing to go on there.

Now for the handwriting. The writing was uneven and the letters were large with careless endings to their lines. If you looked closely, there were tiny splashes of ink - the hand had been pressed too hard against the paper. The writer was most probably a man in the prime of life. Possibly unbalanced or intoxicated. But he could not exclude the possibility of a woman with strong emotional and hysterical tendencies. In that regard he had to take into account the flourishes on the O’s and the coquettish hooks on the capital F’s.

The most significant point was that they did not teach people to write like that in the handwriting classes in the grammar schools. What he had here was either someone educated at home, which was more typical of female individuals, or someone who had had no regular education at all. However, there was not a single spelling mistake. Hmm. This required a little thought. At least the writing was a clue.

Next - the velvet box. The kind in which they sold expensive cufflinks or brooches. Inside it there was a monogram: A. Kuznetsov, Kamergersky Way'. That was no help. It was a large jeweller's shop, one of the best known in Moscow. He could make inquiries, of course, but they would hardly come to anything - he could assume that they sold at least several dozen boxes of that kind a day.

The satin ribbon was nothing special. Smooth and red - the kind that gypsy women or merchants' daughters liked to tie their plaits with on holidays.

Using his magnifying glass, Erast Petrovich inspected the powder box (from 'Cluseret No. 6') with especial interest, holding it by the very edge. He sprinkled it with a white powder like talc, and numerous fingerprints appeared on the smooth lacquered surface. The Collegiate Counsellor carefully and precisely blotted them with a special, extremely thin paper. Fingerprints would not be accepted as evidence in court, but even so they would come in useful.

It was only now that Fandorin turned his attention to the poor ear. Judging from the sprinkling of freckles on both sides of the ear, its owner had been ginger-haired. The lobe had been pierced, and very carelessly: the hole was wide and long. Taking that into account, and also the fact that the skin was badly chapped by cold and wind, he could conclude, firstly, that the former owner of the object in question had worn her hair combed upwards; secondly, that she was not a member of the privileged classes; thirdly, that she had spent a lot of time out in the cold without wearing any hat. The final circumstance was especially noteworthy. It was well known that street girls touted their wares with their heads uncovered even during the cold season. It was one of the signs of their trade.

Biting his lip (he still couldn't manage to regard the ear as an object), Erast Petrovich turned the ear over with a pair of tweezers and began examining the cut. It was even, made with an extremely sharp instrument. Not a single drop of congealed blood. Which meant that when the ear was severed the ginger-haired woman had already been dead for at least several hours.

What was that slight blackening on the cut? What could have caused that? Defrosting, that was what! The body had been in an ice-room - that was why the cut was so perfect: when it had been made the tissues had still not completely thawed out.

A prostitute's body placed in an ice-room? What for? What kind of fastidiousness was this? That kind were always taken straight to the Bozhedomka and buried. If they were put in an ice-room, it was either in the medical-faculty morgue on Trubetskaya Street for educational purposes, or in the forensic morgue at Bozhedomka to help with a police investigation.

And now the most interesting question: who had sent him the ear and why?

First - why?

The London murderer had done the same thing the previous year. He had sent Mr Albert Lask, the chairman of the committee for the capture of Jack the Ripper, half of a kidney from the mutilated body of Catherine Eddows, which had been found on 30 September.

Erast Petrovich was convinced that this action had had a double meaning for the killer. The first, obvious meaning was a challenge, a demonstration of confidence in his own invulnerability, as if to say: No matter how hard you try, you'll never catch me. But there was probably a second underlying reason too: the typical masochistic desire of maniacs of this kind to be caught and punished: If you protectors of society really are all-powerful and ubiquitous, if Justice is the father and I am his guilty son, then here's the key for you; find me. The London police had not known how to use the key.

Of course, a quite different hypothesis was also possible. The terrible package had not been sent by the killer, but by some cynical joker who regarded the tragic situation as a pretext for a cruel jest. In London the police had also received a scoffing letter, supposedly written by the criminal. The letter had been signed 'Jack the Ripper', which was actually where the nickname had come from. The English investigators had concluded that it was a hoax - probably because they had to justify the failure of their efforts to find the sender.

There was no point in complicating his task by making it a double one. At this moment it made no difference whether or not it was the killer who had sent the ear. All he needed to do at this moment was find out who had done it. It was very possible that the person who had severed the ear would turn out to be the Ripper. The Moscow trick with the small package differed from the London case in one substantial respect: the entire British capital had known about the murders in the East End, and in principle anybody at all could have joked' in that way. But in this case the details of yesterday's atrocity were only known to an extremely limited circle of individuals. How many of them were there? Very few, even if he included intimate friends and relatives.

And so, what details did he know of the person who had sent the 'small package'?

It was someone who had not studied in a grammar school, but had still received a good enough education to write the phrase 'Collegiate Counsellor' without any mistakes. That was one.

Judging from the box from Kuznetsov's and the powder box from Cluseret, the person involved was not poor. That was two.

This person was not only informed about the murders, but he knew about Fandorin's role in the investigation. That was three.

This person had access to the morgue, which narrowed the circle of suspects still further. That was four.

This person possessed the skills of a surgeon. That was five.

What else was there?

'Masa, a cab. And look lively!'

Zakharov came out of the autopsy room in his leather apron, his black gloves smeared with some brownish sludge. His face was puffy he looked overhung and the pipe in the corner of his mouth had gone out.

Ah, the eyes and ears of the Governor-General,' he muttered instead of a greeting. 'What is it - has somebody else been sliced up?'

'Mr Zakharov, how many prostitutes' bodies do you have in the ice-room?' Erast Petrovich asked curtly.

The forensic expert shrugged: 'On Mr Izhitsin's orders, they now bring in all the streetwalkers who have come to the end of their walk. In addition to our mutual friend Andreichkina, yesterday and today they've brought in another seven. Why - do you want to have a bit of fun?' Zakharov asked with a debauched grin. 'There are some very pretty ones. But probably none to suit your taste. You prefer the giblets, I think?' The pathologist could see perfectly well that Fandorin was not at ease, and he seemed to take pleasure in the fact.

'Show them to me.' The Collegiate Counsellor thrust his chin out stolidly, readying himself for the distressing sight.

The first thing that Fandorin saw in the spacious room lit by electric lights was the wooden shelves covered with glass jars with shapeless objects floating in them, and then he looked at the zinc-covered oblong tables. Projecting from one of them, beside the window, was the black neck of a microscope, and beside it a body was lying flat, with Zakharov's assistant working on it.

Erast Petrovich took a quick glance, saw that the body was male and turned away in relief.

'A deep firearms wound to the top of the head, Mr Zakharov, that's all,' the assistant said with a nasal twang, gazing curiously at Erast Petrovich, who was an almost legendary character in and around police circles.

'They brought that one in from Khitrovka,' Zakharov explained. 'But your little chicks are all over there, in the ice-room.' He pushed open a heavy metal door that breathed out a dense, chilly, repulsive stench. A switch clicked and the matte-glass globe on the ceiling lit up.

The doctor pointed. 'There are our heroines, on that side,' he said to Fandorin, who was feeling numb.

The initial impression was not at all horrific. Ingres's painting The Turkish Bath. A solid tangle of naked women's bodies, smooth lines, lazy immobility. Except that the steam was not hot, but frosty, and for some reason all the odalisques were lying down.

Then the details struck his eyes: the long crimson incisions, the blue patches, the sticky, tangled hair.

The forensic expert patted one of them, who looked like a mermaid, on her blue neck. 'Not bad eh? From a brothel. Consumption. In fact, there's only one violent death here: the one over there, with the big breasts; someone stove her head in with a rock. Two of them are suicides. Three of them died of hypothermia - froze to death when they were drunk. They bring them all in, no matter what. Teach a fool to pray and he won't know when to stop. But what's that to me. I don't have to do all that much.'

Erast Petrovich leaned down over one woman, thin, with a scattering of freckles on her shoulders and chest. He threw the long ginger hair back from the pitifully contorted, sharp-nosed face. Instead of a right ear the dead woman had a cherry-red hole.

'Well, who's been taking liberties here?' Zakharov asked in surprise and glanced at the tag attached to the woman's foot. 'Marfa Sechkina, sixteen years old. Ah, I remember: poisoned herself with phosphorous matches. Came in yesterday afternoon. But she still had both her ears, I remember that very well. So where's her right one got to?'

The Collegiate Counsellor took a powder box out of his right pocket, opened it without speaking and thrust it under the pathologist's nose.

Zakharov took the ear with a steady hand and held it against the cherry-red hole.

'That's it! So what does this mean?'

'That is what I would like you to tell me.' Fandorin held a scented handkerchief to his nose, feeling the nausea rising in his throat, and said: 'Come on, let's talk out there.'

They walked back into the autopsy room which now, despite the presence of the dissected corpse, Erast Petrovich found almost cosy.

'Three qu-questions. Who was here yesterday evening? Who have you told about the investigation and my participation in it? Whose writing is this?'

The Collegiate Counsellor set down the wrapping paper from the 'smopackadj' in front of Zakharov. He felt it necessary to add: 1 know that you did not write it -1 am familiar with your handwriting. However, I trust you appreciate the significance of this correspondence?'

Zakharov turned pale; he had clearly lost any desire to play the clown.

Tm waiting for an answer, Mr Zakharov. Shall I repeat the questions?'

The doctor shook his head and squinted at Grumov, who was pulling something greyish-blue out of the corpse's gaping belly with exaggerated zeal. Zakharov gulped and his Adam's apple twitched in his neck.

'Yesterday evening my colleagues from the old faculty called to see me. They were celebrating the anniversary of a certain ... memorable event. There were seven or eight of them. They drank some medical spirit here, in memory of the old student days ... It's possible that I might have blurted out something about the investigation - I don't exactly remember. Yesterday was a heavy day, I was tired, and the drink soon went to my head.' He stopped.

'The third question,' Fandorin reminded him: 'whose handwriting is it? And don't lie and tell me you don't know. The handwriting is quite distinctive.'

Tm not in the habit of lying!' Zakharov snapped. And I recognise the writing. But I'm not a police informer; I'm a former Moscow student. You find out for yourself, without me.'

Erast Petrovich said in an unpleasant voice: 'You are not only a former student, but a current forensic medical expert, who has taken an oath. Or have you forgotten which investigation we are talking about here?' And then he continued in a very quiet, expressionless voice: 'I can, of course, arrange for the handwriting of everyone who studied in the same faculty as you to be checked, but that will take weeks. In that case your honour among your comrades would not suffer, but I would make sure that you were tried and deprived of the right to work in the state service. You've known me for some years already, Zakharov. I always mean what I say'

Zakharov shuddered, and the pipe slid from left to right along the slit of his mouth. 'I'm sorry, Mr Court Counsellor, but I can't. Nobody would ever shake my hand again. Never mind the government service, I wouldn't be able to work in any area of medicine at all. But I'll tell you what ...' The forensic expert's yellow forehead gathered into wrinkles. 'Our revels are continuing this evening. We agreed to meet at seven at Burylin's place. He never completed the course, like many of our company in fact; but we get together from time to time ... I've just completed a job here; Grumov can finish up everything else. I was just about to have a wash, get changed and go. I have an apartment here. At the public expense, attached to the cemetery office. It's most convenient ... Well, if you like, I can take you with me to Burylin's place. I don't know if everyone who was here yesterday will come, but the person you're interested in will definitely be there, I'm certain of that ... I'm sorry, but that's all I can do. A doctor's honour.'

It was not easy for the pathologist to speak in such a plaintive manner; he was not accustomed to it, and Erast Petrovich decided to temper justice with mercy and not press him any harder. He merely shook his head in astonishment at the peculiarly elastic ethics of these people's esprit de corps: a man could not point out someone he had studied with as a likely killer, but there was no problem in bringing a detective along to a former fellow-student's house.

'You are complicating my task, but very well, let it be so. It's after eight already. Get changed and let's go.'

For most of their journey (and it was a long journey, to Yak-imanka Street), they rode in silence. Zakharov was as gloomy as a storm cloud and he replied to questions reluctantly, but Fandorin did at least learn something about their host.

He was called Kuzma Sawich Burylin. He was a manufacturer, a millionaire from an old merchant family. His brother, who was many years older, had taken up the eunuch faith of the skoptsy. He had 'cut off his sin' and lived like a hermit, building up his capital. He had intended to 'purge' his younger brother as well, when he reached the age of fourteen, but on the very eve of the 'great mystery' the elder brother had died suddenly, and the youth had not only remained completely intact, but inherited an immense fortune. As Zakharov remarked acidly, a retrospective fear and the miraculous preservation of his manhood had marked Kuzma Burylin's life ever since. For the rest of his life he was doomed to demonstrate that he was not a eunuch, and he often went to excess in the process.

'Why did such a rich man join the medical faculty?' asked Fandorin.

'Burylin has studied all sorts of things - both here and abroad. He has a curious and unstable mind. He doesn't need a diploma, so he has never finished any course anywhere, but he was thrown out of the medical faculty'

'What for?'

'There was good cause,' the forensic expert replied vaguely. 'You'll soon see for yourself what kind of individual he is.'

The illuminated entrance to Burylin's house, which faced the river, could be seen from a distance. It was the only house glowing with bright lights of different colours on the dark merchants' embankment, where they went to bed early during Lent and did not use any light unless they needed to. It was a big house, built in the absurd Mauritanian Gothic style: with little pointed turrets, chimeras and gryphons, but at the same time it had a flat roof and a round dome above the conservatory, even a watch-tower shaped like a minaret.

There was a crowd of idle onlookers outside the decorative gates, looking at the gaily illuminated windows and talking among themselves disapprovingly: an obscenity like this on Holy Week Wednesday during the last week of the forty days of Lent! The muffled whining of gypsy violins drifted out of the house over the silent river, together with the jangling of guitars and jingling of little bells, peals of laughter and an occasional low growling.

They walked in and handed their outer garments to the doormen, and Erast Petrovich was surprised to see that beneath his tightly buttoned black coat, the forensic expert was wearing a white tie and tails.

Zakharov smiled crookedly at his glance of amazement. 'Tradition.'

They walked up a broad marble staircase. Servants in crimson livery opened tall gilded doors, and Fandorin saw before him a spacious hall, its floor covered with palms, magnolias and other exotic plants in tubs. It was the latest European fashion - to make your drawing room look like a jungle. 'The hanging gardens of Semiramis' it was called. Only the very rich could afford it.

The guests were distributed in leisurely style among the paradisiacal groves. Like Zakharov, everyone was in white tie and tails. Erast Petrovich's dress was dandyish enough - a beige American j acket, a lemon-yellow waistcoat, and a pair of trousers of excellent cut with permanent creases - but in this black-and-white congregation he felt like a Yuletide masker. Zakharov could at least have warned him what kind of clothes he was going to change into.

But then, even if Fandorin had come in tails, he still would not have been able to lose himself among the guests, because there were very few of them - perhaps a dozen. For the most part gentlemen of respectable and even prosperous appearance, although they were not at all old - about thirty, or perhaps a little older. Their faces were flushed from drinking, and some even looked a little confused - evidently for them this kind of merrymaking was not the usual thing. At the far end of the hall Fandorin could see another pair of gilded doors, which were closed, and from behind them he could hear the clatter of dishes and the sounds of a gypsy choir practising. A banquet was evidently in preparation inside.

The newcomers had arrived at the high point of a speech being given by a bald gentleman with a paunch and a gold pince-nez.

'Zenzinov - he was the top student. He's a full professor already,' Zakharov whispered, and Fandorin thought he sounded envious.

"... recalling our old pranks from those memorable days. That time, seven years ago, it fell on Holy Week Wednesday too, like today'

For some reason the professor paused for a moment and shook his head bitterly. 'As they say: Out with your eye for remembering the past, but if you forget, out with both. And they also say: It will all work out in the end. And it has worked out. We've got old, turned fat and flabby. Thanks to Kuzma for still being such a wild man and occasionally shaking up us boring old disciples of Aesculapius.'

At that point everyone began laughing and cackling, turning towards a man who was sitting in an armchair in a stately pose with one leg crossed over the other and drinking wine from an immense goblet. Evidently he was Kuzma Burylin. An intelligent, jaundiced-looking face of the Tatar type - with broad cheekbones and a stubborn chin. His black hair was stuck up in a short French crop.

'It may have worked out for some, but not for everyone,' said a man with long hair and a haggard face, who did not look like the others. He was also wearing tails, but they were obviously not his own, and instead of a starched white shirt, he was definitely wearing a false shirt-front. 'You got away scot-free, Zenzinov. Of course, you were the faculty favourite. Others weren't so lucky. Tomberg became an alcoholic. They say Stenich went crazy. Sotsky died a convict. Just recently I keep thinking I see him everywhere. Take yesterday, for instance ...'

'Tomberg took to drink. Stenich went crazy, Sotsky died and Zakharov became a police corpse-carver instead of a doctor,' their host interrupted the speaker unceremoniously. However, he was looking not at Zakharov but at Erast Petrovich, and with distinct hostility.

'Who's this you've brought with you, Egorka, you English swine? Somehow I don't remember this bright spark as one of our medical brotherhood.'

Then the forensic expert, the Judas, demonstratively moved away from the Collegiate Counsellor and declared, as if everything were perfectly normal: 'Ah, this, gentlemen, is Erast Petrovich Fandorin, a very well-known individual in certain circles. He works for the Governor-General on especially important criminal cases. He insisted that I bring him here. I could not refuse - he is my superior. In any case, please make him welcome’

The members of the brotherhood began hooting indignantly. Someone leapt out of his chair. Someone else applauded sarcastically.

'What the hell is this!'

'These gentlemen have gone too far this time!'

'He doesn't look much like a detective.'

These comments, and similar ones that assailed him from all sides, made Erast Petrovich blench and screw up his eyes. This business was taking an unpleasant turn. Fandorin stared hard at the perfidious forensic expert, but before he could say anything, the master of the house had dashed across to his uninvited guest in a couple of strides and taken him by the shoulders. Kuzma Sawich's grasp proved to be very powerful; there was no way to wriggle out of it.

'In my house there's only one superior: Kuzma Burylin,' the millionaire roared. 'Nobody comes here without an invitation, especially detectives. And anyone who does come will regret it later.'

'Kuzma, do you remember that bit in Count Tolstoy' the long-haired man shouted, 'how they tied a constable to a bear and threw them in the river! Let's give this fop a ride too. And it will be good for your Potapich; he's been getting a bit dozy'

Burylin threw his head back and laughed loudly. 'Oh, Filka, you delightful soul, that's what I value about you: your imagination. Hey! Bring Potapich here!'

Several of the guests who were not yet completely drunk tried to reason with their hosts, but two burly lackeys had already brought in a shaggy bear in a muzzle from the dining room, leading it on a chain. The bear was growling in annoyance and did not want to come; he kept trying to sit down on the floor, and the lackeys dragged him along, with his claws scraping along the highly polished parquet. A palm in a tub was overturned and went crashing to the floor, scattering lumps of earth.

'This is going too far! Kuzma!' Zenzinov appealed. 'After all, we're not boys any longer. You'll have to face the repercussions! In any case, I'm leaving if you don't stop this!'

'He's right,' some other reasonable individual chimed in, in support of the professor. 'There'll be a scandal, and nobody needs that.'

'Well, you can go to the devil then!' Burylin barked. 'But remember, you clyster tubes, I've engaged Madam Julie's establishment for the whole night. We'll go without you.'

After he said that, the voices of protest immediately fell silent.

Erast Petrovich stood there calmly. He did not say a word and did not make the slightest attempt to free himself. His blue eyes gazed without any expression at the wild merchant.

The master of the house gave brisk instructions to his lackeys. 'Turn Potapich's back this way, so he won't maul the detective. Have you brought the rope? And you turn your back this way, you state minion. Afonya, can Potapich swim?'

'Why of course, Kuzma Sawich. In summer he's very fond of splashing about at the dacha,' a lackey with a forelock replied merrily.

'Well then, he can splash about a bit now. The water must be cold, it's only April. Well, why are you being so stubborn!' Burylin shouted at the Collegiate Counsellor. 'Turn round!'

He clutched Erast Petrovich's shoulders with all his strength, trying to turn his back to the bear, but Fandorin did not budge an inch, as if he were carved out of stone. Burylin pushed and strained against him. His face turned crimson and the veins stood out on his forehead. Fandorin carried on calmly looking at his host, with just the faintest hint of a mocking smile in the corners of his mouth.

Kuzma Sawich grunted for a little longer but, realising that it looked extremely stupid, he removed his hands and gazed in astonishment at this strange official. The hall went very quiet.

'You're the one I want to see, my dear fellow,' said Erast Petrovich, opening his mouth for the first time. 'Shall we have a talk?'

He took the manufacturer's wrist between his finger and thumb and strode off rapidly towards the closed doors of the banqueting hall. Fandorin's fingers clearly possessed some special power, because his corpulent host grimaced in pain and minced after the man with black hair and white temples. The lackeys froze on the spot in bewilderment, and the bear slowly sat down on the floor and shook its shaggy head idiotically.

Fandorin looked back from the doorway. 'Carry on enjoying yourselves, gentlemen. Meanwhile Kuzma Sawich will explain a few things to me.'

The last thing Erast Petrovich noticed before he turned his back to the guests was the intense gaze of forensic medical expert Zakharov.

The table that was laid in the dining hall was a marvel to behold. The Collegiate Counsellor glanced in passing at the piglet dozing blissfully, surrounded by golden rings of pineapple, and the frightening carcass of the sturgeon in jelly, at the fancy towers of the salads, the red claws of the lobsters, and remembered that his unsuccessful meditation had left him without any dinner. Never mind, he comforted himself. Confucius said: 'The noble man satisfies himself by abstaining.'

In the far corner he could see the scarlet shirts and shawls of the gypsy choir. They saw the master of the house, and the elegant gentleman with a moustache leading him by the hand, and broke off their singing in mid-word. Burylin waved his hand at them in annoyance, as if to say: Stop staring, this is none of your business.

The female soloist, covered in necklaces of coins and ribbons, misunderstood his gesture and began singing in a chesty voice:

He was not her promised one, He was not her husband ...

The choir took up the tune in low voices, at only a quarter of full volume.

He brought his little darling Into the timbered chamber...

Erast Petrovich released the millionaire's hand and turned to face him. 'I received your package. Should I interpret it as a confession?'

Burylin rubbed his white wrist. He looked at Fandorin curiously. "Well, you really are strong, Mr Collegiate Counsellor. You wouldn't think so to look at you ... What package? And a confession to what?'

'You see, you know my rank, although Zakharov didn't mention it today. You severed that ear; nobody else could have done it. You've studied medicine, and you visited Zakharov yesterday with your fellow students. He was certain that whoever else was here today, you would be. Is this your writing?' He showed the manufacturer the wrapping paper from the 'smopackadj'.

Kuzma Sawich glanced at it and laughed. 'Who else's? How did you like my little present? I told them to be sure to deliver it in time for dinner. Didn't choke on your bouillon, did you? No doubt you called a meeting and constructed hypotheses? Yes, I admit it, I like a joke. When the alcohol loosened Egorka Zakharov's tongue yesterday, I played a little prank. Have you heard about Jack the Ripper in London? He played a similar kind of trick on the police there. Egorka had a dead girl lying on the table - ginger-haired she was. I took a scalpel when he wasn't looking. I lopped off her ear, wrapped it in my handkerchief and slipped it in my pocket. His description of you was far too flowery, Mr Fandorin, you were this and you were that, and you could unravel any tangled thread. Well, Zakharov wasn't lying: you are a curious individual. I like curious individuals, I'm one myself.' The millionaire's narrow eyes glinted cunningly. 'I tell you what. You forget this little joke of mine - it didn't work anyway - and come along with us. We'll have a right royal time. Let me tell you in secret that I've thought up a most amusing wheeze for my old friends, the little doctors. Everything's all ready at Madam Julie's. Moscow will break its sides laughing when it finds out about it tomorrow. Come along with us, really. You won't be sorry'

At this point the choir suddenly broke off its slow, quiet song and roared out as loud as it could:

Burylin merely glanced over his shoulder, and the roaring stopped.

'Do you often go abroad?' Fandorin asked, apropos of nothing.

'This is the palace I often come to,' said his host, apparently not surprised by the change of subject. 'But I live abroad. I've no need to sit polishing the seat of my pants in the office here - I've got capable managers; they do things without me. In a big business like mine, there's only one thing you need: to understand people. Choose the right people and you can lie back and take it easy, the work does itself.'

'Have you been in England recently?'

'I often go to Leeds, and to Sheffield. I have factories there. I drop into the exchange in London. The last time was in December. Why do you ask about England?'

Erast Petrovich lowered his eyelids a little in order to soften the glint in his eyes. He picked a speck of dust off his sleeve and said emphatically: 'I am placing you under arrest for mutilating the body of the spinster Sechkina. Only administrative arrest for the time being, but in the morning there will be a warrant from the Public Prosecutor. Your appointed representative must deposit your bail no later than midday tomorrow. You are coming with me, and your guests can all go home. The visit to the bordello is cancelled. It's not good to bring such respectable d-doctors into disgrace like that. And you, Burylin, will enjoy a right royal time in the cells.'

*

As a reward for saving the girl, I was sent a dream last night.

I dreamed I was standing before the Throne of the Lord.

'Sit on my left hand,' the Father of Heaven said to me. 'Rest, for you bring people joy and release, and that is heavy work. They are foolish, my children. Their views are inverted: they see black as white and white as black, woe as happiness, and happiness as woe. When in my mercy I summon one of them to Me in their childhood, the others cry and pity the one I have summoned instead of feeling joy for him. When I let one of them live to a hundred years, until his body is weak and his spirit is extinguished as a punishment and a warning to the others, they are not horrified by his terrible fate, but envy it. After a bloody battle, those I have turned away rejoice, even if they have received injuries, while they pity those who have fallen, summoned by Me to appear before My face, and secretly even despise them for their failure. But they are the truly fortunate, for they are already with Me, the unfortunates are those who remain. What am I to do with people, tell Me, you kind soul? How am I to bring them to their senses?' And I felt sorry for the Lord, vainly craving the love of his foolish children.

CHAPTER 6 The Triumph of Pluto

Holy Week Thursday, 6 April

Today it fell to Anisii's lot to work with Izhitsin.

Late the previous evening, after an 'analysis' in the course of which it was determined that they now had more suspects than they required, the Chief had walked around the study for a while, clicked his beads and said: 'All right, Tulipov. We'll have to sleep on it. You go and rest; you've done more than enough running about for one day'

Anisiii had expected the decision to be: put Stenich, Nesvitskaya and Burylin under secret observation, check all their movements for the last year and perhaps also set up some kind of investigative experiment. But no, the unpredictable Chief had come to a different conclusion. In the morning, when Anisii, shivering in the dreary drizzle, arrived at Malaya Nikitskaya Street, Masa handed him a note:

I am disappearing for a while. I shall try to come at this business from the other side. In the meantime, you work with Izhitsin. I am afraid he might botch things up with his excessive zeal. On the other hand, he may not be a very pleasant character, but he is tenacious, and he could just dig something up.

EF

Well, did you ever? And just what 'other side' could that be?

The pompous investigator was not easy to find. Anisii phoned the Public Prosecutor's office and they told him: 'He was called out by the Department of Gendarmes.' He called the Department of Gendarmes and they replied: 'He went out on urgent business that can't be discussed over the telephone.' The duty officer's voice sounded so excited that Tulipov guessed it had to be another murder. And a quarter of an hour later a messenger arrived from Izhitsin - it was the constable, Linkov. He had called at the Collegiate Counsellor's and not found him in, so he'd come round to Tulipov on Granatny Lane.

Linkov was terribly agitated. 'It's an absolute nightmare, Your Honour,' he told Anisii. 'The brutal murder of a juvenile. It's terrible, terrible ...' He sniffed and blushed, evidently embarrassed by his own sensitivity.

Anisii looked at the ungainly, scrawny-necked policeman and saw straight through him: literate, sentimental, and no doubt he liked reading books; joined the police out of poverty, only this rough work wasn't for him, the poor lamb. Tulipov would have been the same if not for his fortunate encounter with Erast Petrovich.

'Come on, Linkov,' said Anisii, deliberately addressing the constable in a formal, polite tone. 'Let's go straight to the morgue; that's where they'll take her anyway'

Deduction is a great thing. His calculation proved to be correct. Anisii had been sitting talking to Pakhomenko in his watchman's hut for no more than half an hour, enjoying a chat about life with the agreeable fellow, when three droshkies drove up to the gates, followed by a blind carriage with no windows, the so-called 'corpse-wagon'.

Izhitsin and Zakharov got out of the first droshky a photographer and his assistant got out of the second, two gendarmes and a senior constable got out of the third. No one got out of the carriage. The gendarmes opened its shabby doors with the peeling paint and carried out something short on a stretcher, covered with a tarpaulin.

The medical expert was dour, chewing on his eternal pipe with exceptional bitterness, but the investigator seemed to be in lively spirits, almost even glad about something.

When he caught sight of Anisii, his face dropped: 'A-ah, there you are. So you already got wind of this? Is your chief here too?'

But when it turned out that Fandorin was not there and would not be coming, and so far his assistant did not really know anything, Izhitsin's spirits rose again. 'Well, now things will really start moving,' he told Tulipov, rubbing his hands energetically. 'So, it's like this. At dawn today the railway line patrolmen on the Moscow-Brest transfer line discovered the body of a juvenile female vagrant in the bushes close to the Novotikhvinsk level crossing. Zakharov has determined that death occurred no later than midnight. It's not very pretty, I warn you, Tulipov, it was an incredible sight!' Izhitsin gave a brief laugh. 'Just imagine it: the belly, naturally, had been completely gutted and the entrails hung all around on the branches, and as for the face ...'

'What, another bloody kiss?' Anisii exclaimed excitedly.

The investigator burst out laughing and couldn't stop, he was helpless with laughter - obviously it was nerves.

'Oh, you'll be the death of me,' he said eventually, wiping away his tears. 'Fandorin and you and that kiss of yours. Please forgive my inappropriate merriment. When I show you, you'll understand. Hey, Silakov! Stop! Show him her face!'

The gendarmes put the stretcher down on the ground and turned back the edge of the tarpaulin. Anisii was expecting to see something particularly unpleasant: glassy eyes, a nightmarish grimace, the tongue lolling out of the mouth, but there was none of that. Under the tarpaulin there was some kind of black-and-red baked pudding with two round blobs: white, with a small dark circle in the centre.

What is it?' Tulipov asked in surprise, feeling his teeth starting to chatter of their own accord.

'Seems like our joker left her without any face at all,' Izhitsin explained with morose humour. 'Zakharov says the skin was slit along the hair line and then torn off, like the peel off an orange. There's a kiss for you. And, best of all, now she can't be identified.'

Everything was still swimming and swaying in front of Anisii's eyes. The investigator's voice seemed to be coming from somewhere far in the distance.

Anyway, the secret's out now. Those rogues of patrolmen have blabbed to everyone they could. One of them was taken away in a faint. The rumours were already spreading round Moscow in any case. The Department of Gendarmes is flooded with reports of a killer who's decided to wipe out women completely. This morning they reported everything to St Petersburg, the whole truth, nothing kept back. The minister himself, Count Tolstoy is coming. So there you have it. Looks like heads are going to roll. I don't know about you, but I'm quite fond of mine. Your chief can go on playing his game of deduction as long as he likes; he's safe enough, he has protection in high places. But I'll crack this one without deduction, by sheer determination and energy. This is no time for snivelling, I reckon.'

Tulipov turned away from the stretcher, gulped to dispel the murky veil that was clouding his eyes, and filled his lungs as full of air as he could. That was better.

Izhitsin couldn't be allowed to get away with that 'snivelling', and Anisii said in a flat, expressionless voice: 'My chief says determination and energy are good for chopping firewood and digging vegetable patches.'

'Exactly my dear sir.' The investigator waved to the gendarmes to carry the body into the morgue. 'I'll damn well dig up the whole of blasted Moscow, and if it gets a bit messy, the result will justify it. If I don't get a result, my head's going to roll anyway. Have you been detailed to keep an eye on me, Tulipov? Do that then, but keep your comments to yourself. And if you feel like submitting a complaint, be my guest. I know Count Tolstoy; he appreciates determination and turns a blind eye to minor points of legality if liberties are taken in the interests of the case.'

'I have had occasion to hear that sort of thing from policemen, but such views sound rather strange coming from an official of the Public Prosecutor's Office,' said Anisii, thinking that was exactly what Erast Petrovich would have told Izhitsin if he had been in Anisii's place.

However, when the investigator simply shrugged off this dignified and restrained reprimand with a gesture of annoyance, Tulipov changed to an official tone of voice: 'Would you please stick closer to the point, Mr Court Counsellor. What is your plan?'

They went into the forensic medical expert's office and sat down at the desk, since Zakharov himself was working on the body in the autopsy theatre.

'Well, all right then,' said Izhitsin, giving this man he outranked a superior glance. 'So let's put our thinking caps on. Who does our belly-slasher kill? Streetwalkers, vagrants, beggars - that is, women from the lower depths of the city, society's discarded garbage. So now, let's remember where the killings have taken place. Well, there's no way to tell where the nameless bodies in the ditches were brought from. We know well enough that in such cases our Moscow police don't take too much trouble over the paperwork. But on the other hand, we do know where the bodies we dug out of the named graves came from.'

Izhitsin opened an exercise book with an oilcloth cover.

'Aha, look! The beggar Marya Kosaya was killed on the eleventh of February on Maly Tryokhsvyatsky Lane, at Sychugin's dosshouse. Her throat was cut, her belly was slit open, her liver is missing. The prostitute Alexandra Zotova was found on the fifth of February in Svininsky Lane, lying in the road. Again with her throat cut and her womb missing. These two are obvious clients.'

The investigator walked across to the police map of the city that was hanging on the wall and began jabbing at it with a long, pointed finger: 'So, let's take a look. Tuesday's Andreichkina was found just here, on Seleznyovskaya Street. Today's little girl was found by the Novotikhvinsk level crossing, right here. From one crime scene to the other it's no more than a verst. And it's the same distance to the Vypolzovo Tatar suburb as well.'

'What has the Tatar suburb got to do with anything?' Tulipov asked.

'Later, later,' said Izhitsin, with another impatient gesture. 'Just hold your horses... Now the two old bodies. Maly Tryokhsvyatsky Lane - that's there. And there's Svininsky Lane. All in the same patch. Three hundred, maybe five hundred steps from the synagogue in Spasoglinishchevsky Lane.'

'But even closer to Khitrovka,' Anisii objected. 'Someone gets killed there every day of the week. That's no surprise: it^?s a hotbed of crime.'

'They get killed all right, but not like this! No, Tulipov, this smacks of something more than plain Christian villainy. I can sense a fanatical spirit at work in all these paunchings. An alien spirit. Orthodox folks get up to lots of beastly things, but nothing like this. And don't start with all that nonsense about the London Ripper being Russian and now he's come back for some fun and games in the land of his birth. That's rubbish! If a Russian can travel round cities like London, it means he comes from the cultured classes. And why would an educated man go rummaging in the stinking guts of some Manka Kosaya? Can you picture it?'

Anisii couldn't picture it and he shook his head honestly.

"Well then, you see. It's so obvious. You have to be a crackpot theoretician like your chief to abandon common sense for abstract intellectual postulates. But I, Tulipov, am a practical man.'

'But what about the knowledge of anatomy?' Anisii asked, dashing to his chief's defence. And the professional use of a surgical instrument? Only a doctor could have committed all these outrages!'

Izhitsin smiled triumphantly. 'That's where Fandorin is wrong! That hypothesis of his stuck in my throat from the very start. It doesn't hap-pen,' he said, hammering home every syllable. 'It simply doesn't happen, and that's all there is to it. If a man from respectable society is a pervert, then he'll think up something a bit more subtle than these abominations.' The investigator nodded in the direction of the autopsy room. 'Remember the Marquis de Sade. Or take that business last year with the notary Shiller - remember that? He got this bint blind drunk, stuck a stick of dynamite up her, you know where, and lit the fuse. An educated man - you can see that straight away; but a monster, of course. But only some low scum is capable of the loathsome abominations we're dealing with here. And as for the knowledge of anatomy and the surgical skill, you'll see that's all very easily explained, you know-alls.'

The investigator paused, raised one finger for dramatic effect and whispered: A butcher! There's someone who knows anatomy as well as any surgeon. Every day of the week he's separating out livers and stomachs and kidneys as neat and tidy as you like, every bit as precise as the late surgeon Pirogov. And a good butcher's knives are as sharp as any scalpel'

Tulipov said nothing. He was shaken. The obnoxious Izhitsin was right! How could they have forgotten about butchers?

Izhitsin was pleased by Anisii's reaction. And now, about my plan.' He went up to the map again. 'Seems we have two focal points. The first two bodies were found over here, the last two - over here. What reason the criminal had for changing his area of activity we don't know. Perhaps he decided it was more convenient to commit murder in the north of Moscow than in the central district: waste lots, shrubs and bushes, not so many houses. To be on the safe side, I'm regarding all the butchers who live in either of the regions that interest us as possible suspects. I already have a list.' The investigator took out a sheet of paper and put it on the desk in front of Anisii. 'Only seventeen names in all. Note the ones that are marked with a six-pointed star or a crescent moon. This is the Tatar suburb, here in Vypolzovo. The Tatars have their own butchers, and real bandits they are. Let me remind you that it's less than a verst from the suburb to the shed where Andreichkina was found. It's the same distance to the railway crossing where the little girl's body was found. And here' - the long finger shifted across the map - 'in the immediate proximity of Tryokhsvyatsky and Svininsky Lanes, is the synagogue. That's where the kosher meat-carvers are, the filthy Yid butchers who kill the cattle in that barbarous fashion of theirs. Have you ever seen how it's done? Very much like the work of our good friend. Now do you get a whiff of where the case is heading?'

To judge from the pompous investigator's flaring nostrils, it was heading for a sensational trial, serious honours and breath-takingly rapid promotion.

'You're a young man, Tulipov. Your future's in your own hands. You can cling to Fandorin and end up looking stupid. Or you can work for the good of the cause and then I won't forget you. You're a smart lad, an efficient worker. I need helpers like you.'

Anisii was about to open his mouth to put the insolent fellow in his place, but Izhitsin was already carrying on with what he was saying: 'Of the seven butchers who interest us, four are Tatars and three are Yids. They're at the top of the list of suspects. But to avoid any reproaches of prejudice, I'm arresting the lot. And I'll give them a thorough working over. I have the experience for it, thank God.' He smiled rapaciously and rubbed his hands together. 'So right then. First of all I'll start by feeding the heathen scum salt beef, because they don't observe the Orthodox fast. They won't eat pork, so I'll order them to be given beef: we respect other people's customs. I'll give the Orthodox butchers a bit of salted herring. I won't give them anything to drink. Or let them sleep either. After they've been in for a night, they'll start howling, and in the morning, to make sure they don't get too bored, I'll call them out by turn and my lads will teach them a lesson with their "sticks of salami". Do you know what a "stick of salami" is?'

Tulipov shook his head, speechless.

A most excellent little device: a stocking stuffed with wet sand. Leaves no marks, but it makes a great impression, especially applied to the kidneys and other sensitive spots.'

'But Mr Izhitsin, you're a university graduate!' Anisii gasped.

'Exactly and that's why I know when to stick to the rules and when the interests of society allow the rules to be ignored.'

And what if your theory's wrong and the Ripper isn't a butcher after all?'

'He's a butcher, who else could he be?' Izhitsin said with a shrug. "Well, I've explained things convincingly enough, haven't I?'

And what if it's not the guilty party that confesses, but the one with the weakest spirit? Then the real murderer will go unpunished!'

By this stage the investigator had become so insolent that he actually slapped Anisii on the shoulder: 'I've thought of that too. Of course, it won't look too good if we go and string up some Moshe or Abdul and then in three months or so the police discover another disembowelled whore. But this is a special case, bordering on a crime against the state - the Emperor's visit has been disrupted! And therefore, extreme measures are permissible.' Izhitsin clenched his fist so tight that his knuckles cracked. 'One of them will go to the gallows, and the rest will be exiled. By administrative order, with no publicity. To cold, deserted places where there aren't too many people to carve up. And even there the police will keep an eye on them.'

Anisii was horrified by the determined investigator's 'plan', although it was hard to deny the effectiveness of such measures. With a visit from the terrifying Count Tolstoy in the offing, the top brass would probably be frightened enough to approve the initiative, and the lives of a host of innocent people would be trampled into the dust. How could he prevent it? Ah, Erast Petrovich, where are you when you're needed?

Anisii gave a grunt, waggled his celebrated ears, mentally requested his chief's forgiveness for acting without due authority and told Izhitsin about the previous day's investigative achievements. Just so he wouldn't get too carried away, let him be aware that, apart from his butchers, there were other, more substantial theories.

Leontii Izhitsin listened attentively without interrupting even once. His tense, nervous face first turned crimson, then began to turn pale, and at the end it came out in blotches, and his eyes had a drunken look.

When Tulipov finished, the investigator licked his thick lips with a whitish tongue and slowly repeated: A nihilist midwife? An insane student? A madcap merchant? Right, right...' Izhitsin leapt up off his chair and started running round the room and ruffling up his hair, doing irreparable damage to his perfect parting.

'Excellent!' he exclaimed, halting in front of Anisii. 'I'm very glad, Tulipov, that you have decided to collaborate openly with me. What secrets can there be between colleagues, after all; we're all doing the same job!'

Anisii felt a cold tremor run through his heart - he should have kept his mouth shut.

But there was no stopping the investigator now: All right, let's try it. I'll still arrest the butchers anyway, of course, but let them sit in cells for the time being. First let's get to work on your medicos.'

'How do you mean - "get to work"?' Anisii asked in panic, remembering the male nurse and the midwife. 'With the "salami stick"?'

'No; this class of people requires a different approach.'

The investigator thought for a moment, nodded to himself and put forward a new plan of action: 'Right then, this is what we're going to do. There's a different method for educated people, Tulipov. Education softens a man's soul, makes it more sensitive. If our belly-slasher comes from good society, then he's some kind of werewolf. During the day he's normal, like everyone else, and at night, in his criminal frenzy, it's as if he's possessed. That's where we'll catch him. I'll take the dear people in when they're normal and present them with the werewolf's handiwork. We'll see how their sensitive souls stand up to the sight. I'm sure the guilty party will break down. He'll see by the light of day what his alter ego gets up to and give himself away -he's bound to. That's psychology, Tulipov. Let's hold an investigative experiment.'

For some reason Anisii suddenly remembered a story his mother used to tell him when he was a child, keening in the plaintive voice of Petya-Petushka, the cock from the fairy-tale: 'The fox carries me off beyond the blue forests, beyond the high mountains, into her deep burrows ...'

Chief, Erast Petrovich, things are looking bad, very bad.

Anisii did not participate in the preparations for the 'investigative experiment'. He stayed put in Zakharov's office, and in order not to think about the blunder he had committed, he began reading the newspaper lying on the desk - ploughing through it indiscriminately.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE EIFFEL TOWER COMPLETED

Paris. Reuters News Agency informs us that the gigantic and entirely useless structure of iron rods with which the French intend to astound visitors to the Fifteenth World Fair has finally been completed. This dangerous project is causing justified anxiety among the inhabitants of Paris. How can this interminable factory chimney be allowed to tower over Paris, dwarfing all the marvellous monuments of the capital with its ridiculous height? Experienced engineers express concern about whether such a tall and relatively slim structure, erected on a foundation only a third of its own height, is capable of withstanding the pressure of the wind.

A SWORD DUEL

Rome. The whole of Italy is talking about a sword duel that took place between General Andreotti and Deputy Cavallo. In the speech that he gave last week to veterans of the Battle of Solferino, General Andreotti expressed concern about Jewish dominance of the newspaper and publishing world of Europe. Deputy Cavallo, who is of Jewish origin, felt insulted by this entirely justified assertion and, speaking in parliament, he called the general a 'Sicilian ass', as a result of which the duel took place. In the second skirmish Andreotti was slightly wounded in the shoulder by a sword, after which the duel terminated. The opponents shook hands.

MINISTER'S ILLNESS

St Petersburg. The Minister of Railways, who fell ill with pneumonia a few days ago, is somewhat improved: he has no more chest pains. The patient passed the night comfortably. He is fully conscious and aware of his surroundings.

Anisii even read the advertisements: about a cooling glycerine powder, about a cream for galoshes, about the latest folding beds and nicotine-filtering cigarette holders. Overcome by a strange apathy, he spent a long time studying a picture with the following caption: The patented smell-free powder-closet using the system of mechanical engineer S. Timokhovich. Cheap and meets all the requirements of hygiene, can be located in any room in the home. At Adadurov's house near Krasnye Voroty you can observe the powder-closet in action. Can be rented out for dachas.'

After that he simply sat there and stared despondently out of the window.

Izhitsin, on the other hand, was a whirlwind of energy. Under his personal supervision they brought additional tables into the autopsy room, so that there were thirteen of them in all. The two gravediggers, the watchman and the constables carried three identified bodies out of the ice-room on stretchers, one of them the juvenile vagrant. The investigator gave several instructions for the bodies to be laid out this way or that way - he was striving for the maximum visual effect. Anisii simply shuddered when he heard Izhitsin's piercing, commanding tenor through the closed door:

'Where are you moving that table, you dolt! On three sides, I said, on three sides!' Or even worse: 'Not like that! Not like that! Open her belly up a bit wider! So what if it is all frozen together; use the spade, the spade! Right, now that's good.'

The prisoners were brought shortly after two in the afternoon, each one in a separate droshky with an armed guard.

Through the window Tulipov saw them bring the first one into the morgue - a round-faced man with broad shoulders in a crumpled black tailcoat and a white tie that had slipped to one side - he could assume that he was the manufacturer Burylin, who hadn't managed to get home since being arrested the day before. About ten minutes later they brought Stenich. He was wearing a white coat (he must have come straight from the clinic) and glaring around like a trapped animal. Soon after that they brought in Nesvitskaya. She walked between two gendarmes with her shoulders held back and her head high. The midwife's face was contorted by an expression of hatred.

The door creaked and Izhitsin came into the office. His face was agitated and flaming red - a genuine theatrical entrepreneur on an opening night.

'For the moment our dear guests are waiting in the front office, under guard,' he told Anisii. 'Take a look and see if this is all right.'

Tulipov stood up listlessly and went into the dissection theatre.

In the middle of the wide room there was an empty space, surrounded on three sides by tables. Lying on each of them was a dead body covered by a tarpaulin. Standing along the walls behind the tables were the gendarmes, the constables, the grave-diggers and the watchman: two men for each body. Zakharov was sitting on a chair beside the end table, wearing his perpetual apron and with his eternal pipe in his mouth. The forensic expert's face looked bored, even sleepy. Grumov was loitering behind him and a little to one side, like a wife with her ever-loving in a lower-middle-class photograph, except that he didn't have his hand on Zakharov's shoulder. The assistant had a dejected look - evidently the quiet man wasn't used to such large crowds in this kingdom of silence. The room smelled of disinfectant, but beneath the harsh chemical smell there was a persistent undercurrent: the sweet stench of decomposition.

On a separate, smaller table at one side there was a heap of paper bags. The prudent Izhitsin had provided for anything -somebody might easily be sick.

'I'll be here,' said Izhitsin, indicating the spot. 'They're here.

At my command these seven will take hold of one cover with their right hand and another cover with their left hand, and pull them off. It's a remarkable sight. You'll see it soon for yourself. I'm sure the criminal's nerves won't stand up to it. Or will they?' the investigator asked in sudden alarm, surveying his stage setting sceptically.

'They won't stand up to it,' Anisii replied gloomily. 'Not one of the three.'

His eyes met Pakhomenko's and the watchman gave him a sly wink, as if to say: Don't get upset, lad, remember that callus.

'Bring them in!' Izhitsin barked, turning towards the doors and then, hastily running into the centre of the room, he assumed a pose of stern inflexibility, with his arms crossed on his chest and one foot slightly advanced, his narrow chin jutting forward and his eyebrows knitted together.

They brought in the prisoners. Stenich immediately fixed his eyes on the terrible tarpaulins and tugged his head down into his hunched shoulders. He didn't even seem to notice Anisii and the others. Nesvitskaya, however, was not even slightly interested in the tables. She glanced round everybody there, rested her gaze on Tulipov and laughed contemptuously. Anisii blushed painfully. The captain of industry stood beside the table with the paper bags, leaning on it with one hand, and began turning his head this way and that curiously. Zakharov winked at him and Burylin nodded gently.

'I'm a forthright man,' Izhitsin began in a dry, piercing voice, emphasising every word. 'So I'm not going to beat about the bush here. In recent months there have been a number of brutal, monstrous murders in Moscow. The investigating authorities know for certain that these crimes were committed by one of you. I'm going to show you something interesting and look into your souls. I'm an old hand at detective work; you won't be able to fool me. So far the killer has only seen his or her own handiwork by night, while in the grip of insanity. But now you can see how lovely it looks by the light of day. All right!'

He waved his hand, and the tarpaulin shrouds seemed to slide to the floor by themselves. Linkov certainly spoiled the effect slightly - he tugged too hard, and the tarpaulin caught on the corpse's head. The dead head fell back on to the wooden surface with a dull thump.

It really was a spectacular sight. Anisii regretted he hadn't turned away in time, but now it was too late. He pressed his back against the wall, took three deep breaths, and it seemed to have passed.

Izhitsin did not look at the bodies. He stared avidly at the suspects, moving his eyes from one to the other in rapid jerks: Stenich, Nesvitskaya, Burylin; Stenich, Nesvitskaya, Burylin. And again, and again.

Anisii noticed that, although Senior Constable Pribludko was standing there motionless and stony-faced, the ends of his waxed moustache were quivering. Linkov was standing there with his eyes squeezed tight shut and his lips were moving - he was obviously praying. The gravediggers had expressions of boredom on their faces - they'd seen just about everything in their rough trade. The watchman was looking at the dead women in sad sympathy. His eyes met Anisii's and he shook his head very slightly, which surely meant: Ah, people, people, why do you do such things to each other? This simple human gesture finally brought Tulipov round. Look at the suspects, he told himself. Follow Izhitsin's example.

The former student and former madman Stenich was standing there cracking the knuckles of his slim fingers, with large beads of sweat on his forehead. Anisii would have sworn it was cold in there. Suspicious? No doubt about it!

But the other former student, Burylin, who had severed the ear, seemed somehow too calm altogether: he had a mocking smile hovering on his face and his eyes were glittering with evil sparks. No, the millionaire was only pretending that it all meant nothing to him - he'd picked up a paper bag from the table and was holding it against his chest. That was called an 'involuntary reaction' - the Chief had taught Anisii to take note of them in his very first lesson. A lover of the high life like Burylin could easily develop a thirst for new, intense sensations simply because he was so surfeited.

Now the woman of iron, Nesvitskaya, the former prison inmate, who had learned to love surgical operations in Edinburgh. An exceptional individual - you simply never knew what an individual like that was capable of and what to expect from her. Just look at the way her eyes blazed.

And the 'exceptional' individual immediately confirmed that she really was capable of acting unpredictably.

The deathly silence was shattered by her ringing voice: 'I know who your target is, Mister Oprichnik,' Nesvitskaya shouted at the investigator. 'How very convenient. A "nihilist" in the role of a bloodthirsty monster! Cunning! And especially spicy, because it's a woman, right? Bravo, you'll go a long way! I knew what kind of crimes your pack of dogs is capable of, but this goes far beyond anything I could have imagined!' The female doctor suddenly gasped and clutched at her heart with both hands, as if she'd been struck by sudden inspiration. 'Why it was you! You did it yourselves! I should have realised straight away! It was your executioners who hacked up these poor women -why not? you've got no pity for "society's garbage"! The fewer of them there are, the simpler it is for you! You scum! Decided to play at Castigo, did you? Kill two birds with one stone, eh? Get rid of a few vagrants and throw the blame on the "nihilists"! Not very original, but most effective!' She threw her head back and laughed in scornful hatred. Her steel-rimmed pince-nez slid off and dangled on its string.

'Quiet!' Izhitsin howled, evidently afraid that Nesvitskaya's outburst would ruin his psychological investigation. 'Be silent immediately! I won't allow you to slander the authorities.'

'Murderers! Brutes! Satraps! Provocateurs! Scoundrels! Destroyers of Russia! Vampires!' Nesvitskaya shouted, and it was quite clear that her reserve of insults for the guardians of law and order was extensive and would not soon be exhausted.

'Linkov, Pribludko, shut her mouth!' the investigator shouted, finally losing all patience.

The constables advanced uncertainly on the midwife and took her by the shoulders, but they didn't seem to know how to go about shutting the mouth of a respectable-looking lady.

'Damn you, you animal!' Nesvitskaya howled, looking into Izhitsin's eyes. 'You'll die a pitiful death; your own intrigues will kill you!'

She threw up her hand, pointing one finger directly at the pompous investigator's face, and suddenly there was the sound of a shot.

Izhitsin jumped up in the air and bent over, clutching his head. Tulipov blinked: how was it possible to shoot anyone with your finger?

There was peal of wild laughter. Burylin waved his hands in the air and shook his head, unable to control his fit of crazy merriment. Ah, so that was it. Apparently, while everyone was watching Nesvitskaya, the prankster had quietly blown up a paper bag and then slammed it down against the table.

'Ha-ha-ha!' The captain of industry's smothered laughter soared up to the ceiling in an inhuman howling.

Stenich!

'I can't sta-a-and it!' the male nurse whined. 'I can't stand anymore! Torturers! Executioners! Why are you tormenting me like this? Why? Lord, why, why?' His totally insane eyes slid across all of their faces and came to a halt, gazing at Zakharov, who was the only person there sitting down - sitting there silently with a crooked smile, his hands thrust into the pockets of his leather apron.

'What are you laughing at, Egor? This is your kingdom, is it? Your kingdom, your witch's coven! You sit on your throne and rule the roost! Triumphant! Pluto, the king of death! And these are your subjects!' He pointed to the mutilated corpses. 'In all their grace and beauty!' And then the madman started spouting rubbish that made no sense at all. 'Throw me out, unworthy! And you, you, what did you turn out to be worthy of? What are you so proud of? Take a look at yourself! Carrion crow! Corpse-eater! Look at him, all of you, the corpse-eater! And the little assistant? What a fine pair! One crow flies up to another; one crow says unto the other: "Crow, where can we dine together?'" And he started trembling and burst into peals of hysterical giggling.

The corners of the forensic expert's mouth bent down in a grimace of disapproval. Grumov smiled uncertainly.

A wonderful 'experiment', thought Anisii, looking at the investigator clutching his heart, and the suspects: one shouting curses, one laughing, one giggling. Well, damn you all, gentlemen.

Anisii turned and walked out. Phew, how good the fresh air was.

He called into his own apartment on Granatny Lane to check on Sonya and have a quick bowl of Palasha's cabbage soup, and then went straight to the Chief's house. What he was most anxious to learn about was what mysterious business Erast Petrovich had been dealing with today.

The walk to Malaya Nikitskaya Street was not very long -only five minutes. Tulipov bounded up on to the familiar porch and pressed the bell-button. There was no one there. Well, he supposed Angelina Samsonovna must be at church or in the hospital, but where was Masa? He felt a sharp stab of alarm: what if, while Anisii was undermining the investigation, the Chief had needed help and sent for his faithful servant?

He wandered back home listlessly. There were kids dashing about in the street and shouting. At least three of the urchins, the wildest, had black hair and slanting eyes. Tulipov shook his head, remembering that Fandorin's valet had the reputation of a sweetheart and a lady-killer among the local cooks, maids and laundrywomen. If things carried on like this, in ten years' time the entire district would be populated with Japanese brats.

He came back again two hours later, after it was already dark. Delighted to see light in the windows of the outhouse, he set off across the yard at a run.

The lady of the house and Masa were at home, but Erast Petrovich was absent, and it turned out that there hadn't been any news from him all day long.

Angelina didn't let her visitor go. She sat him down to drink tea with rum and eat eclairs, one of Anisii's great favourites.

'But it's the fast,' Tulipov said uncertainly, breathing in the heavenly aroma of freshly brewed tea, laced with the strong Jamaican drink. 'How can I have rum?'

'Oh, Anisii Pitirimovich, you don't observe the fast anyway' Angelina said with a smile. She sat facing him, with her cheek propped on her hand. She didn't drink any tea or eat any eclairs. 'The fast should be a reward, not a deprivation. That's the only kind of fast the Lord needs. If your soul doesn't require it, then don't fast, and God be with you. Erast Petrovich doesn't go to church, he doesn't acknowledge the statutes of the Church, and it's all right - there's nothing terrible in that. The important thing is that God lives in his heart. And if a man can know God without the Church, then why coerce him?'

Anisii could hold back no longer, and he blurted out what had been on his mind for so long: 'Not all the statutes of the Church should be avoided. Even if it's not important to you, then you can think about the feelings of people close to you. Or else, well, see how it turns out. Angelina Samsonovna, you live according to the law of the Church, you observe all the rites, sin would never even dare come anywhere near you, but in the eyes of society ... It's not fair, it's hurtful...'

He still wasn't able to say it directly and he hesitated, but clever Angelina had already understood him.

'You're talking about us living together without being married?' she asked calmly, as if it were a perfectly ordinary topic of conversation. 'Anisii Pitirimovich, you mustn't condemn Erast Petrovich. He has proposed to me twice, all right and proper. I was the one who didn't want it.'

Anisii was dumbstruck. 'But why not?'

Angelina smiled again, only this time not at Anisii, but at some thoughts of her own. 'When you love, you don't think about yourself. And I love Erast Petrovich. Because he's very beautiful.'

'Well that's true,' said Tulipov with a nod. A more handsome man would be hard to find.'

'That's not what I meant. Bodily beauty is not enduring. Smallpox, or a burn, and it's gone. Last year, when we were living in England, there was a fire in the house next door. Erast Petrovich went in to drag a puppy out of the flames and he got singed. His clothes were burned, and his hair. He had a blister on his cheek, his eyebrows and eyelashes all fell out. He was a really fine sight. His whole face could have been burned away. Only genuine beauty is not in the face. And Erast Petrovich really is beautiful.'

Angelina pronounced the last with special feeling, and Anisii understood what she meant.

'But I'm afraid for him. He has been given great strength, and great strength is a great temptation. I ought to be in church now: it's Great Thursday today, the commemoration of the Last Supper; but, sinner that I am, I can't read the prayers that I'm supposed to. I can only pray to our Saviour for him, for Erast Petrovich. May God protect him - against human malice, and even more against soul-destroying pride.'

At these words Anisii glanced at the clock and said anxiously: 'I must confess I'm more concerned about the human malice. It's after one in the morning and he's still not back. Thank you for the refreshments, Angelina Samsonovna; I'll be going now. If Erast Petrovich shows up, please be sure to send for me.'

As he walked home, Tulipov thought about what he'd heard. On Malaya Nikitskaya Street a saucy girl came dashing up to him under one of the gas lamps - a broad ribbon in her black hair, her eyes made up, her cheeks rouged.

'Good evening to you, interesting sir. Would you care to treat a girl to a little vodka or liqueur?' She raised and lowered her painted eyebrows and whispered passionately: And I'd be very grateful to you, handsome sir. I'd give you a time to remember for the rest of your life

Tulipov felt an ache somewhere deep inside him. The streetwalker was good-looking - very good-looking, in fact. But since the last time he had given in to temptation, at Shrovetide, Anisii had renounced venal love. He felt awful afterwards, guilty. He ought to marry, but what could he do with Sonya?

Anisii replied with paternal sternness: 'You shouldn't be wandering the streets at night. You never know, you might run into some crazy murderer with a knife.'

But the saucy girl wasn't bothered in the slightest. 'Oh, such concern. I don't reckon I'll get killed. We're watched - the boyfriend keeps an eye on us.'

And yes, there on the other side of the street, Anisii could see a silhouette in the shade. Realising he'd been spotted, the ponce came over unhurriedly, at a slovenly stroll. He was a very stylish specimen: beaver-fur cap pulled down over the eyes, fur coat hanging dashingly open, a snow-white muffler covering half his face and white spats as well.

He began speaking with a drawl, and a gold-capped tooth glinted in his mouth. 'I beg your pardon, sir. Either take the young lady or be on your way. Don't go wasting a working girl's time.'

The girl looked adoringly at her protector, and that angered Tulipov even more than her pimp's insolence.

'Don't you go telling me what to do!' Anisii said angrily. 'I'll drag you down to the station in no time.'

The ponce turned his head quickly to the left and the right, saw that the street was empty and inquired with an even slower, more menacing drawl: 'You sure the dragger won't come unstuck?'

Ah, so it's like that, is it?' Anisii grabbed the rogue by his collar with one hand, and took his whistle out of his pocket with the other. There was a police constable's post round the corner on Tverskaya Street, and it was only a stone's throw to the gendarme station.

'Run for it, Ineska, I'll handle this!' the gold-toothed scoundrel said.

The girl immediately picked up her skirts and set off as fast as her legs would carry her, and the brazen ponce said in Erast Petrovich's voice: 'Stop blowing that thing, Tulipov. You've deafened me.'

The constable, Semyon Sychov, ran up, puffing and panting like a horse jangling its harness.

The Chief held out a fifty-kopeck piece to him: 'Good man, you're a fast runner.'

Semyon Lukich didn't take the money from the suspicious-looking man and glanced quizzically at Anisii.

'Yes, it's all right, Sychov, off you go my friend,' Tulipov said in embarrassment. 'I'm sorry for bothering you.'

Only then did Semyon Sychkov take the fifty kopecks, salute in a highly respectful manner and set off back to his post.

'How's Angelina - is she not sleeping?' Erast Petrovich asked, with a glance at the bright windows of the outhouse.

'No, she's waiting for you.'

'In that case, if you don't object, let's take a walk and have a little talk.'

'Chief, what's this masquerade in aid of? In the note it said you were going to approach things from the other side. What "other side" is that?'

Fandorin squinted at his assistant in clear disapproval. 'You're not thinking too well, Tulipov. "From the other side" means from the side of the Ripper's victims. I assumed that the women of easy virtue that our character seems to have a particular hatred for might know something we don't. They might have seen someone suspicious, heard something, g-guessed something. So I decided to do a bit of reconnaissance. These people aren't going to open up to a policeman or an official, so I chose the most appropriate camouflage. I must say that I've enjoyed distinct success in the role of a ponce,' Erast Petrovich added modestly. 'Several fallen creatures have volunteered to transfer to my protection, which has caused dissatisfaction among the competition - Slepen, Kazbek and Zherebchik.'

Anisii was not in the least surprised by his chief's success in the field of procuring - he was a really handsome fellow, and tricked out in full Khitrovka-Grachyovka chic too. Speaking aloud, he asked: 'Did you get any results?'

'I have a couple of things,' Fandorin replied cheerfully. 'Mamselle Ineska, whose charms, I believe, did not leave you entirely indifferent, told me an amusing little story. One evening a month and a half ago, she was approached by a man who said something strange: "How unhappy you look. Come with me and I'll bring you joy." But Ineska, being a commonsensical sort of girl, didn't go with him, because as he came up, she saw him hide something behind his back, and that something glinted in the moonlight. And it seems a similar kind of thing happened with another girl, either Glashka or Dashka. There was even blood spilt that time, but she wasn't killed. I'm hoping to find this Glashka-Dashka.'

'It must be him, the Ripper!' Anisii exclaimed excitedly. 'What does he look like? What does your witness say?'

'That's just the problem: Ineska didn't get a look at him. The man's face was in the shadow, and she only remembered the voice. She says it was soft, quiet and polite. Like a cat purring.'

And his height? His clothes?'

'She doesn't remember. She admits herself that she'd taken a drop too much. But she says he wasn't a gent and he wasn't from Khitrovka either - something in between.'

Aha, that's already something,' said Anisii, and he started bending down his fingers. 'Firstly it is a man after all. Secondly, a distinctive voice. Thirdly, from the middle classes.'

'That's all nonsense,' the Chief said abruptly. 'The killer can quite easily change clothes for his n-nocturnal adventures. And the voice is suspicious. What does "like a cat purring" mean? No, we can't completely exclude a woman.'

Tulipov remembered Izhitsin's reasoning. 'Yes, and the place! Where did he approach her? In Khitrovka?'

'No, Ineska's a Grachyovka lady, and her zone of influence takes in Trubnaya Square and the surrounding areas. The man approached her on Sukharev Square.'

'Sukharev Square fits too,' said Anisii, thinking. 'That's just ten minutes' walk from the Tatar suburb in Vypolzovo.'

All right, Tulipov, stop.' The Chief himself actually stopped walking. 'What has the Tatar suburb to do with all this?'

Now it was Anisii's turn to tell his story. He began with the most important thing - Izhitsin's 'investigative experiment'.

Erast Petrovich listened with his eyes narrowed. He repeated one word: 'Custigo?'

'Yes, I think so. That's what Nesvitskaya said. Or something like it. Why, what is it?'

'Probably "Castigo", which means "retribution" in Italian,'

Fandorin explained. 'The Sicilian police founded a s-sort of secret order that used to kill thieves, vagrants, prostitutes and other inhabitants of society's nether regions. The members of the organisation used to lay the blame for the killings on the local criminal communities and carry out reprisals against them. Well, it's not a bad idea from our midwife. You could probably expect that from Izhitsin.'

When Anisii finished telling him about the 'experiment', the Chief said gloomily: 'Yes, if one of our threesome is the Ripper, it won't so easy to catch him - or her - now. Forewarned is forearmed.'

'Izhitsin said that if none of them gave themselves away during the experiment, he'd order them to be put under open surveillance.'

And what good is that? If there are any clues, they will be destroyed. Every maniac always has something like a collection of souvenirs of sentimental value. Maniacs, Tulipov, are a sentimental tribe. One takes a scrap of clothing from the corpse, another takes something worse. There was one barbaric murderer, who killed six women, who used to collect their navels -he had a fatal weakness for that innocent part of the body. The dried navels become the most important clue. Our own "surgeon" knows his anatomy, and every time one of the internal organs is missing. I surmise that that the killer takes them away with him for his collection.'

'Chief, are you sure the Ripper has to be a doctor?' Anisii asked, and he introduced Erast Petrovich to Izhitsin's butcher theory, and at the same time to his incisive plan.

'So he doesn't believe in the English connection?' Fandorin said in surprise. 'But the similarities with the London killings are obvious. No, Tulipov, this was all done by one and the same person. Why would a Moscow butcher go to England?'

'But even so, Izhitsin won't give up his idea, especially now, after his "investigative experiment" has failed. The poor butchers have been sitting in the lock-up since midnight. He's going to keep them there till tomorrow with no water and not let them sleep. And in the morning he's going to get serious with them.'

It was a long time since Anisii had seen the Chief's eyes glint so menacingly.

Ah, so the plan is already being implemented?' the Collegiate Counsellor hissed through his teeth. 'Well then, I'll wager you that someone else will end up without any sleep tonight. And without a job too. Let's go, Tulipov. We'll pay Mr Pizhitsin a late visit. As far as I recall, he lives in a public-service apartment in the Court Department building. That's nearby, on Vozdvizhenskaya Street. Quick march, Tulipov, forward!'

Anisii was familiar with the two-storey building of the Court Department, where unmarried and seconded officials of the Ministry of Justice were accommodated. It was built in the British style, reddish brown in colour, with a separate entrance to each apartment.

They knocked at the doorman's lodge and he stuck his head out, half-asleep and half-dressed. For a long time he refused to tell his late callers the number of Court Counsellor Izhitsin's flat - Erast Petrovich looked far too suspicious in his picturesque costume. The only thing that saved the situation was Anisii's official cap with a cockade.

The three of them walked up the steps leading to the requisite door. The doorman rang the bell, tugged on his cap and crossed himself. 'Leontii Andreevich has a very bad temper,' he explained in a whisper. 'You gentlemen take responsibility for this.'

'We do, we do,' Erast Petrovich muttered, examining the door closely. Then he suddenly gave it a gentle push and it yielded without a sound.

'Not locked!' the doorman gasped. 'That Zinka, his maid -she's a real dizzy one. Nothing between the ears at all! You never know: we could easily have been burglars or thieves. Nearby here in Kislovsky Lane there was a case recently

'Sh-sh-sh,' Fandorin hissed at him, and raised one finger.

The apartment seemed to have died. They could hear a clock chiming, striking the quarter-hour.

'This is bad, Tulipov, very bad.'

Erast Petrovich stepped into the hallway and took an electric torch out of his pocket. An excellent little item, made in America: you pressed a spring, electricity was generated inside the torch and it shot out a beam of light. Anisii wanted to buy himself one like it, but they were very expensive.

The beam roamed across the walls, ran across the floor and stopped.

'Oh, God in Heaven!' the doorman squeaked in a shrill voice. 'Zinka!'

In the dark room the circle of light picked out the unnaturally white face of a young woman, with motionless, staring eyes.

'Where's the master's bedroom?' Fandorin asked abruptly, shaking the frozen doorman by the shoulder. 'Take me there! Quickly!'

They dashed into the drawing room, from the drawing room into the study and through the study to the bedroom that lay beyond it.

Anybody might have thought that Tulipov had seen more than enough contorted dead faces in the last few days, but this one was more repulsive than anything he'd seen so far.

Leontii Andreevich Izhitsin was lying in bed with his mouth wide open.

The Court Counsellor's eyes were bulging out so incredibly far that they made him look like a toad. The beam of yellow light rushed back and forth, briefly illuminated some dark heaps of something around the pillow and darted away. There was a smell of decay and excrement.

The beamed moved back to the terrible face. The circle of electric light narrowed and became brighter, until it illuminated only the top of the dead man's head.

On the forehead there was the dark imprint of a kiss.

It is astounding what miracles my skill can perform. It is hard to imagine a creature more repulsively ugly than that court official. The ugliness of his behaviour, his manners, his speech and his revolting features was so absolute that for the first time I felt doubt gnawing at my soul: could this scum really be as beautiful on the inside as all the rest of God's children?

And yet I managed to make him beautiful! Of course the male structure is far from a match for the female, but anybody who saw investigator Izhitsin after the work on him was completed would have had to admit that he was much improved in his new form.

He was lucky. It was the reward for his vim and vigour; and for making my heart ache with longing with that absurd spectacle of his. He awoke the longing-and he satisfied it.

I am no longer angry with him; he is forgiven. Even if because of him I have had to bury the trifles that were dear to my heart - the flasks in which I kept the precious mementoes that reminded me of my supreme moments of happiness. The alcohol has been emptied out of the flasks, and now all my mementoes will rot. But there is nothing to be done. It had become dangerous to keep them. The police are circling round me like a flock of crows.

It's an ugly job - sniffing things out, tracking people down. And the people who do it are exceptionally ugly. As if they deliberately choose that kind: with stupid faces and piggy eyes and crimson necks, and Adam's apples that stick out, and protruding ears.

No, that is perhaps unjust. There is one who is ugly to look at, but not entirely beyond redemption. I believe he is even rather likeable.

He has a hard life.

I ought to help the young man. Do another good deed.

CHAPTER 7 A Stenographic Report

Good Friday, 7 April

'... dissatisfaction and alarm. The sovereign is extremely concerned about the terrible, unprecedented atrocities that are being committed in the old capital. The cancellation of the Emperor's visit for the Easter service in the Kremlin is a quite extraordinary event. His Majesty has expressed particular dissatisfaction at the attempt made by the Moscow administration to conceal from the sovereign the series of murders, which, as it now appears, has been going on for many weeks. Even as I was leaving St Petersburg yesterday evening in order to carry out my investigation, the latest and most monstrous killing of all took place. The killing of the official of the Public Prosecutor's Office who was leading the investigation is an unprecedented occurrence for the entire Russian Empire. And the blood-chilling circumstances of this atrocity throw down a challenge to the very foundations of the legal order. Gentlemen, my cup of patience is overflowing. Foreseeing His Majesty's legitimate indignation, I take the following decision of my own volition and by virtue of the power invested in me

The rain of words was heavy, slow, intimidating. The speaker surveyed the faces of those present gravely - the tense faces of the Muscovites and the stern faces of those from St Petersburg.

On the overcast morning of Good Friday an emergency meeting was taking place in Prince Vladimir Andreevich Dolgorukoi's study, in the presence of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Count Tolstoy, and members of his retinue, who had only just arrived from the capital.

This Orthodox champion of the fight against revolutionary devilment had a face that was yellow and puffy; the unhealthy skin sagged in lifeless folds below the cold, piercing eyes; but the voice seemed to be forged of steel - inexorable and imperious.

'... by the power I possess as minister, I hereby dismiss Major-General Yurovsky from his position as the High Police Master of Moscow,' the Count rapped out, and a sound halfway between a gasp and a groan ran through the top brass of the Moscow police.

'I cannot dismiss the district Public Prosecutor, who serves under the Ministry of Justice; however, I do emphatically recommend His Excellency to submit his resignation immediately, without waiting to be dismissed by compulsion

Public Prosecutor Kozlyatnikov turned white and moved his lips soundlessly, and his assistants squirmed on their chairs.

'As for you, Vladmir Andreevich,' the minister said, staring steadily at the Governor-General, who was listening to the menacing speech with his eyebrows knitted together and his hand cupped to his ear, 'of course, I dare not give you any advice, but I am authorised to inform you that the sovereign expresses his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the city entrusted to your care. I am aware that in connection with your imminent sixtieth anniversary of service at officer's rank, His Highness was intending to award you the highest order of the Russian Empire and present you with a diamond casket decorated with the monogram of the Emperor's name. Well, Your Excellency, the decree has been left unsigned. And when His Majesty is informed of the outrageous crime that was perpetrated last night

The Count made a rhetorical pause and total silence fell in the study. The Muscovites froze, because the cold breeze of the end of a Great Age had blown though the room. For almost a quarter of a century the old capital had been governed by Vladimir Andreevich Dolgorukoi; the entire cut of Moscow public-service life had long ago been adjusted to fit His Excellency's shoulders, to suit his grasp, that was firm yet did not constrain the comforts of life. And now it looked as if the old warhorse's end was near. The High Police Master and the Public Prosecutor dismissed from their posts without the sanction of the Governor-General of Moscow! Nothing of the kind had ever happened before. It was a sure sign that Vladimir Andreevich himself was spending his final days, or even hours, on his high seat. The toppling of the giant could not help but be reflected in the lives and careers of those present, and therefore the difference between the expressions on the faces of the Muscovites and those on the faces of the Petersburgians became even more marked.

Dolgorukoi took his hand away from his ear, chewed on his lips, fluffed up his moustache and asked: And when, Your Excellency, will His Majesty be informed of the outrageous crime?'

The minister narrowed his eyes, trying to penetrate the hidden motive underlying this question that appeared so simple-minded at first glance.

He penetrated it, appreciated it and laughed very quietly: As usual, from the morning of Good Friday the Emperor immerses himself in prayer, and matters of state, apart from emergencies, are postponed until Sunday. I shall be making my most humble report to His Majesty the day after tomorrow, before the Easter dinner.'

The Governor nodded in satisfaction. 'The murder of Court Counsellor Izhitsyn and his maid, for all the outrageousness of this atrocity, can hardly be characterised as a matter of state emergency. Surely, Minister, you will not be distracting His Imperial Highness from his prayers because of such a wretched matter? That would hardly earn you a pat on the back, I think?' Prince Dolorukoi asked with the same naive air.

'I will not.' The upward curls of the minister's grey moustache twitched slightly in an ironical smile.

The Prince sighed, sat upright, took out a snuffbox and thrust a pinch into his nose. 'Well, I assure you that before noon on Sunday the case will have been concluded, solved, and the culprit exposed. A ... a ... choo!'

A timid hope appeared on the faces of the Muscovites.

'Bless you,' Tolstoy said morosely. 'But please be so good as to tell me why you are so confident? The investigation is in ruins. The official who was leading it has been killed.'

'Here in Moscow, my old chap, highly important investigations are never pursued along one line only' Dolgorukoi declared in a didactic tone of voice. And for that purpose I have a special deputy, my trusted eyes and ears, who is well known to you: Collegiate Counsellor Fandorin. He is close to catching the criminal and in a very short time he will bring the case to a conclusion. Is that not so, Erast Petrovich?'

The Prince turned grandly towards the Collegiate Counsellor, who was sitting by the wall, and only the sharp gaze of the Deputy for Special Assignments could read the despair and entreaty in the protruding, watery eyes of his superior.

Fandorin got to his feet, paused for a moment and declared dispassionately: 'That is the honest truth, Your Excellency. I actually expect to close the case on Sunday'

The minister peered at him sullenly. 'You "expect"? Would you mind giving me a little more detail? What are your theories, conclusions, proposed measures?'

Erast Petrovich did not even glance at Count Tolstoy, but carried on looking at the Governor-General.

'If Vladimir Andreevich orders me to, I will give a full account of everything. But in the absence of such an order, I prefer to maintain confidentiality. I have reason to suppose that at this stage in the investigation increasing the number of people who are aware of the details could be fatal to the operation.'

'What?' the minister exploded. 'How dare you? You seem to have forgotten who you are dealing with here!'

The gold epaulettes on shoulders from St Petersburg trembled in indignation. The gold shoulders of the Muscovites shrank in fright.

'Not at all.' And now Fandorin looked at the high official from the capital. 'You, Your Excellency are an adjutant-general of the retinue of His Majesty, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Chief of the Corps of Gendarmes. And I serve in the chancellery of the Governor-General of Moscow and so do not happen to be your subordinate by any of the aforementioned lines. Vladimir Andreevich, is it your wish that I should give a full account to the minister of the state of how affairs stand in the investigation?'

Prince Dolgorukoi gave his subordinate a keen look and evidently decided that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. 'Oh, that will do. My dear minister, my old chap, let him investigate as he thinks best. I vouch for Fandorin with my own head. Meanwhile, would you perhaps like to try a little Moscow breakfast? I have the table already laid.'

'Well, your head it is, then,' Tolstoy hissed menacingly. As you will. On Sunday at precisely twelve thirty, everything will be included in my report in the presence of His Imperial Majesty. Including this.' The minister got up and stretched his bloodless lips into a smile. "Well now, Your Excellency, I think we can take a little breakfast.'

The important man walked towards the door. As he passed Collegiate Counsellor Fandorin, he seared him with a withering glance. The other officials followed him, avoiding Erast Petrovich by as wide a margin as possible.

'What are you thinking of, my dear fellow?' the Governor whispered, hanging back for a moment with his deputy. 'Have you taken leave of your senses? That's Tolstoy himself! He's vengeful and he has a long memory. He'll hound you to death; he'll find the opportunity. And I won't be able to protect you.'

Fandorin replied directly into his half-deaf patron's ear, also in a whisper: 'If I don't close the case before Sunday, neither you nor I will be here much longer. And as for the Count's vengeful nature, please do not be too concerned. Did you see the colour of his face? He won't be needing that long memory of his. Very soon he will be called to report, not to His Imperial Highness, but to a higher authority, the supreme one.'

'We all have to tread that path,' said Dolgorukoi, crossing himself devoutly. "We only have two days. You pull out all the stops, my dear chap. You'll manage it, eh?'

'I decided to provoke the wrath of that serious gentleman for a very excusable reason, Tulipov. You and I have no working theory. The murder of Izhitsin and his maid Matiushkina changes the whole picture entirely'

Fandorin and Tulipov were sitting in a room for secret meetings located in one of the remote corners of the Governor-General's residence. The strictest instructions had been given that no one was to disturb the Collegiate Counsellor and his assistant. There were papers lying on the table covered in green velvet, and His Excellency's personal secretary was on continuous duty in the reception room outside the closed door, with a senior adjutant, a gendarme officer and a telephone operator with a direct line to the chancellery of the (now, alas, former) High Police Master, the Department of Gendarmes and the district Public Prosecutor (as yet still current). All official structures had been ordered to afford the Collegiate Counsellor the fullest possible cooperation. The Governor-General had taken the care of the formidable minister on his own shoulders - so that he would get in the way as little as possible.

Frol Vedishchev, Prince Dolgorukoi's valet, tiptoed into the study - he'd brought the samovar. He squatted modestly on the edge of a chair and waved his open hand through the air as if to say: I'm not here, gentlemen detectives; don't waste your precious attention on such small fry.

'Yes,' sighed Anisii, 'nothing's clear at all. How did he manage to reach Izhitsin?'

"Well that's actually no great puzzle. It happened like this Erast Petrovich strode across the room and took his beads out of his pocket with an accustomed gesture.

Tulipov and Vedishchev waited with bated breath.

'Last night, some time between half past one and two, someone rang the doorbell of Izhitsin's apartment. The doorbell is connected to the bell in the servant's room. Izhitsyn lived with his maid, Zinaida Matiushkina, who cleaned the apartment and his clothes and also, according to the statements of servants in the neighbouring apartments, fulfilled other duties of a more intimate character. However, it would seem that the deceased did not allow her into his bed and they slept separately. Which, by the way, corresponds perfectly to Izhitsin's well-known convictions concerning the "c-cultured" and "uncultured" classes. On hearing the ring at the door, Matiushkina threw on her shawl over her nightdress, went out into the entrance hall and opened the door. She was killed on the spot, in the entrance hall, by a blow to the heart with a sharp, narrow blade. Then the killer walked quietly though the drawing room and the study into the master's bedroom. He was asleep, there was no light - that was clear from the candle on the bedside table. The criminal appears to have managed without any light, a f-fact which is quite remarkable in itself, since, as you and I saw, it was absolutely dark in the bedroom. Izhitsin was lying on his back, and with a blow from an extremely sharp blade, the killer severed his trachea and his artery. While the dying man wheezed and clutched at his slit throat (you saw that his hand and the cuffs of his nightshirt were covered in blood), the criminal stood to one side and waited, drumming his fingers on the top of the secretaire.'

Anisii thought he was already used to everything, but this was too much, even for him. 'Oh come on, Chief, that's too much -the bit about the fingers. You told me yourself that when you're reconstructing a crime you mustn't fantasise.'

'God forbid, Tulipov; this no fantasy' Erast Petrovich said with a shrug. 'Matiushkina really was a careless maid. There is a layer of dust on the top of the secretaire, and it has been marked by the numerous repeated impacts of fingertips. I checked the prints. They are a little blurred, but in any case they are not from Izhitsin's fingers ... I shall omit the details of the disembowelment. You saw the result of that procedure.'

Anisii shuddered and nodded.

'Let me draw your attention once again to the fact that, during the ... dissection, the Ripper somehow managed without any light. He obviously possesses the rare gift of being able to see in the dark. The criminal left without hurrying: he washed his hands in the washbasin and cleaned up the marks of his dirty feet in the rooms and the entrance hall with a cloth, and very thoroughly too. In general, he did not hurry. The most annoying thing is that everything indicates that you and I reached Vozdvizhenskaya Street only about a quarter of an hour after the killer left.' The Collegiate Counsellor shook his head in vexation. 'Those are the facts. Now for the questions and the conclusions. I will start with the questions. Why did the maid open the door to the visitor in the middle of the night? We don't know, but there are several possible answers. Was it someone they knew? If it was, then who knew them - the maid or the master? We don't know the answer. It is possible that the person who rang simply said that they had brought an urgent message. In his line of work Izhitsin must have received telegrams and documents at all times of the day and night, so the maid would not have been surprised. To continue. Why was her body not touched? And - even more interestingly - why was the victim a man, the first in all this time?'

'Not the first,' Anisii put in. 'Remember, there was a male body in the ditch at Bozhedomka too.'

It seemed like a useful and pertinent remark, but the Chief merely nodded 'yes, yes', without acknowledging Tulipov's retentive memory.

And now the conclusions. The maid was not killed for the "idea". She was killed simply because, as a witness, she had to be disposed of. And so we have a departure from the "idea" and the murder of a man - and not just any man, but the man leading the investigation into the Ripper. An energetic, cruel man who would stop short at nothing. This is a dangerous turn in the Ripper's career. He is no longer just a maniac who has been driven insane by some morbid fantasy. He is now prepared to kill for new reasons that were previously alien to him -either out of the fear of exposure or c-confidence in his own impunity'

A fine business,' Vedishchev's voice put in. 'Streetwalkers won't be enough for this killer now. The terrible things he'll get up to! And I see you gentlemen detectives don't have a single clue to go on. Vladimir Andreevich and I will obviously be moving out of here. The devil take the state service - we could have a fine life in retirement - but Vladimir Andreevich won't be able to bear retirement. Without any work to do he'll just shrivel up and pine away. What a disaster, what a disaster

The old man sniffed and wiped away a tear with a big pink handkerchief.

'Since you're here, Frol Grigorievich, sit quietly and don't interrupt,' Anisii said sternly. He had never before taken the liberty of talking to Vedishchev in that tone, but the Chief had not finished his conclusions yet; on the contrary he was only just coming to the most important part, and then Vedishchev had stuck his oar in.

'However, at the same time, the departure from the "idea" is an encouraging symptom,' Fandorin said, immediately confirming his assistant's guess. 'It is evidence that we have already got very close to the criminal. It is now absolutely clear that he is someone who is informed about the progress of the investigation. More than that, this person was undoubtedly present at Izhitsin's "experiment". It was the investigator's first active move, and vengeance followed immediately. What does this mean? That in some way he himself was not aware of, Izhitsin annoyed or frightened the Ripper. Or inflamed his pathological imagination.'

As if in confirmation of this thesis, Erast Petrovich clicked his beads three times in a row.

'Who is he? The three suspects from yesterday are under surveillance, but surveillance is not imprisonment under guard. We need to check whether any of them could have evaded the police agents last night. To continue. We ourselves must personally investigate everybody who was present at yesterday's "investigative experiment". How many men were there in the morgue?'

Anisii tried to recall. 'Well, how many ... Me, Izhitsin, Zakharov and his assistant, Stenich, Nesvitskaya, that, what's his name, Burylin, then the constables, the gendarmes and the men from the cemetery. I suppose about a dozen, or maybe more, if you count everybody'

'Count everybody, absolutely everybody' the Chief instructed him. 'Sit down and write a list. The names. Your impressions of each one. A psychological portrait. How they behaved during the "experiment". The most minute details.'

'Erast Petrovich, I don't know all of their names.'

'Then find out. Draw up a complete list for me; our Ripper will be on it. That is your task for today; get on with it. And meanwhile I'll check whether any member of our trio could have made a secret nocturnal outing.'

It's good to work with clear, definite instructions, when the task is within your ability and its importance is obvious and beyond all doubt.

From the residence the Governor's swift horses carried Tulipov to the Department of Gendarmes, where he had a talk with Captain Zaitsev, the commander of the mobile patrol company, about the two commandeered gendarmes, asking if he'd noticed anything strange about their characters, about their families and their bad habits. Zaitsev began to get alarmed, but Anisii reassured him. He said it was a top-secret and highly important investigation that required special supervision.

Then he drove to Bozhedomka. He called in to say hello to Zakhkarov, only it would have been better if he hadn't. The unsociable forensic specialist mumbled something unwelcoming and buried his nose in his papers. Grumov was not there.

Anisii also visited the watchman to find out about the grave-diggers. He didn't give the Ukrainian any explanations, and the watchman didn't ask any questions - he was a simple man, but he had a certain understanding and tact.

He went to see the gravediggers too, ostensibly to give them a rouble each as a reward for assisting the investigation.

He formed his own judgement about both of them. And that was it. It was time to go home and write out his list for the Chief.

When he finished the extensive document, it was already dark. He read it through, mentally picturing each person on it and trying to figure out if he fitted the role of a maniac or not.

The gendarme sergeant-major Siniukhin: an old trooper, a face of stone, eyes like tin - God only knew what he had in his soul.

Linkov. To look at, he wouldn't hurt a fly, but he made a very strange kind of constable. Morbid dreams, wounded pride, suppressed sensuality - there could be anything.

The gravedigger Tikhin Kulkov was an unpleasant character, with his haggard face and pockmarked jaw. What a face that man had - if you met someone like that in a deserted spot, he'd slit your throat without even blinking.

Stop! He'd slit your throat all right, but how could his gnarled and crooked hands manage a scalpel?

Anisii glanced at his list again and gasped. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and his throat went dry Ah, how could he have been so blind? Why hadn't he realised it before? It was as if his eyes had been blinded by a veil. It all fitted! There was only one person in the entire list who could be the Ripper!

He jumped to his feet and dashed off, just as he was, without his cap or his coat, to see the Chief.

Masa was the only person in the outhouse: Erast Petrovich was out and so was Angelina, praying in the church. Yes, of course, today was Good Friday: that was why the church bells were tolling so sadly - for the procession of the Holy Shroud.

Ah, such bad luck! And there was no time to lose! Today's inquiries at Bozhedomka had been a mistake - he must have guessed everything! But perhaps that was for the best? If he'd guessed, then he'd be feeling anxious now, making moves. He had to be tracked down! Friday was almost over; there was only one day left!

Only one consideration made him doubt the correctness of his inspiration, but there was a telephone in the house on Malaya Nikitskaya Street and that helped him resolve it. In the Meshchanskaya police district, which included Bozhedomka, Provincial Secretary Tulipov was well known and, despite the late hour, the reply to the question that was bothering him was given immediately.

The first thing Anisii felt was sharp disappointment: 31 October - that was too early. The last definite London killing had taken place on 9 November, so his theory didn't hold together. But today Tulipov's head was working quite remarkably well - if only it was always like this - and the catch was easily resolved.

Yes, the body of the prostitute Mary Jane Kelly had been discovered on the morning of 9 November, but by that time Jack the Ripper was already crossing the Channel! That killing, the most revolting of them all, could have been his farewell 'gift' to London, committed immediately before his departure for the continent. Anisii could check later to find out what time the night train left over there.

After that the whole thing simply fitted together by itself. If the Ripper left London on the evening of 8 November - that is, on 27 October in the Russian style - then he ought to have arrived in Moscow on precisely the thirty-first!

The mistake he and the Chief had made was that, when they checked the police passport offices, they had limited themselves to December and November and not taken the end of October into consideration. That accursed confusion of the two styles of date had thrown them off the track.

And that was it. The theory fitted down to the last jot and title.

He went back home for a moment: to put on something warm, get his 'Bulldog' and grab a quick bite of bread and cheese - there was no time to have a real supper.

While he was chewing, he listened to Palasha reading the Easter story from the newspaper to Sonya, syllable by syllable. The imbecile was listening intently, with her mouth half open. But who could tell if she really understood very much?

'In the provincial town of N,' Palasha read slowly, with feeling, last year on the eve of the glorious resurrection of Christ, a criminal escaped from the jail. He waited until all the townsfolk had gone to the churches for matins and crept into the apartment of a certain rich old woman who was respected by all, but who had not gone to the service because she was not well, in order to kill her and rob her.'

'Ooh!' said Sonya. My goodness, thought Anisii, she understands. And a year ago she wouldn't have understood a thing; she'd have just dozed off.

At the very moment when the murderer was about to rush at her with an axe in his hand' - the reader lowered her voice dramatically - 'the first stroke of the Easter bell rang out. Filled with an awareness of the solemn holiness of that moment, the old woman addressed the criminal with the Christian greeting: "Christ is arisen, my good man!" This appeal shook the sinner to the very depths of his soul; it illuminated for him the deep abyss into which he had fallen and worked a sudden moral renewal within him. After several moments of difficult internal struggle, he walked over to exchange an Easter kiss with the old woman and then, breaking into uncontrollable sobbing

Anisii never learned how the story ended, it was time for him to rush away.

About five minutes after he had dashed off at breakneck speed, there was a knock at the door.

'Oh that crazy man,' Palasha said with a sigh; 'he's probably forgotten his gun again.'

She opened the door and saw that it wasn't him. It was dark outside - she couldn't see the face, but he was taller than Anisii. A quiet, friendly voice said: 'Good evening, my dear. Look, I wish to bring you joy'

When the essential work had been completed - after the scene of the crime had been inspected, the bodies photographed and taken away, there was nothing left to do. And that was when Erast Petrovich began feeling really bad. The detectives had left and he was sitting alone in the small drawing room of Tulipov's modest apartment, gazing in a torpor at the blotches of blood on the cheerful bright-coloured wallpaper, and still he couldn't stop himself trembling. His head felt as empty as a drum.

An hour earlier Erast Petrovich had returned home and immediately sent Masa to fetch Tulipov. Masa had discovered the bloodbath.

At this moment Fandorin was not thinking of kind, affectionate Palasha, or even meek Sonya Tulipova, who had died a terrible death that could not possibly be justified by God or man. In the grief-stricken Erast Petrovich's head there was one short phrase hammering away over and over again: He won't survive this, he won't survive this, he won't survive this. There was no way that poor Tulipov could ever survive this shock. He would never see the nightmarish picture of the vicious mutilation of his sister's body, never see her round eyes opened wide in amazement; but he knew the Ripper's habits, and he would easily be able to imagine what Sonya's death had been like. And that would be the end of Anisii Tulipov, because no normal man could possibly survive something like that happening to people who were near and dear to him.

Erast Petrovich was in an unfamiliar state quite untypical of him: he could not think what to do.

Masa came in. Snuffling, he dragged in a rolled-up carpet and covered the terrible blotches on the floor, then he set about furiously scraping off the bloodstained wallpaper. That was right, the Collegiate Counsellor thought remotely, but it hardly did any good.

After a while Angelina also arrived. She put her hand on Erast Petrovich's shoulder and said: Anyone who dies a martyr's death on Good Friday will be in the Kingdom of Heaven, at the side of Christ.'

'That is no consolation to me,' Fandorin said in a dull voice, without turning his head. And it will hardly be any consolation to Anisii.'

But where was Anisii? It was already the middle of the night, and the boy hadn't slept a single wink last night. Masa said he'd called round without his cap, in a great hurry. He hadn't said anything or left a note.

It didn't matter: the later he turned up, the better.

Fandorin's head was absolutely empty. No surmises, no theories, no plans. A day of intensive work had produced very little. The questioning of the detectives who were keeping Nesvitskaya, Stenich and Burylin under surveillance, together with his own observations, had confirmed that, with a certain degree of cunning and adroitness, any one of the three could have slipped away and come back unnoticed by the police spies.

Nesvitskaya lived in a student hostel on Trubetskaya Street that had four exits or entrances, and the doors carried on banging until the dawn.

Following his nervous fit, Stenich was holed up in the Assuage My Sorrows clinic, to which the detectives had not been admitted. There was no way to check whether he had been sleeping or wandering round the city with a scalpel.

The situation with Burylin was even worse: his house was immense, with sixty windows on the ground floor, half of them concealed by the trees of the garden. The fence was low. It wasn't a house: it was a sieve, full of holes.

It turned out that any one of them could have killed Izhitsin. And the most terrible thing of all was that Erast Petrovich, convinced of the ineffectiveness of the surveillance, had cancelled it altogether. This evening the three suspects had had complete freedom of action!

'Don't despair, Erast Petrovich,' said Angelina. 'It's a mortal sin, and you especially have no right. Who else will find the killer, this Satan, if you just give up? There is no one apart from you.'

Satan, Fandorin thought listlessly. Ubiquitous, could be anywhere, anytime, slip in through any opening. Satan changed faces, adopted any appearance, even that of an angel.

An angel. Angelina.

Freed from the control of his torpid spirit, his brain, so accustomed to forming logical constructions, obligingly joined the links up to form a chain.

It could even be Angelina - why couldn't she be Jack the Ripper?

She had been in England the previous year. That was one.

On the evenings when all the killings had taken place, she had been in the church. Supposedly. That was two.

She was studying medicine in a charitable society and already knew how to do many things. They taught them anatomy there too. That was three.

She was an odd individual, not like other women. Sometimes she would give you a look that made your heart skip a beat -but you couldn't tell what she was thinking about at such moments. That was four.

Palasha would have opened the door for her without thinking twice. That was five.

Erast Petrovich shook his head in annoyance, stilling the idling wheels of his insistent logic machine. His heart absolutely refused to contemplate such a theory, and the Wise One had said: 'The noble man does not set the conclusions of reason above the voice of the heart.' The worst thing was that Angelina was right: apart from him there was no one else to stop the Ripper, and there was very little time left. Only tomorrow. Think, think.

But his attempts to concentrate on the case were frustrated by that stubborn phrase hammering in his head: He won't survive this, he won't survive this.

The time dragged on. The Collegiate Counsellor ruffled up his hair, sometimes began walking around the room, twice washed his hands and face with cold water. He tried to meditate, but immediately abandoned the attempt - it was quite impossible!

Angelina stood by the wall, holding her elbows in her hands, watching with a sad insistence in her huge grey eyes.

Masa was silent too. He sat on the floor with his legs folded together, his round face motionless, his thick eyelids half-closed.

But at dawn, when the street was wreathed in milky mist, there was the sound of hurrying feet on the porch, a determined shove made the unlocked door squeak open, and a gendarme officer came dashing into the room. It was Smolyaninov, a very capable, brisk young second lieutenant, with black eyes and rosy pink cheeks. 'Ah, this is where you are!' Smolyaninov said, glad to see Fandorin. 'Everybody's been looking for you. You weren't at home or in the department, or on Tverskaya Street! So I decided to come here, in case you were still at the scene of the murders. Disaster, Erast Petrovich! Tulipov has been wounded. Seriously. He was taken to the Mariinskaya Hospital after midnight. We've been looking for you ever since they informed us; just look how much time has gone by ... Lieutenant-Colonel Svershinsky went to the hospital immediately and all his adjutants were ordered to search for you. What's going on, eh, Erast Petrovich?'

Report by Provincial Secretary A. P. Tulipov Personal Assistant to Mr E.P. Fandorin Deputy for Special Assignments of His Excellency the Governor-General of Moscow

8 April 1889, half past three in the morning

I report to your Honour that yesterday evening, while compiling the list of individuals suspected of committing certain crimes of which you are aware, I realised that it was absolutely obvious that the crimes indicated could only have been committed by one person, to whit, the forensic medical expert Egor Willemovich Zakharov.

He is not simply a doctor, but an anatomical pathologist -that is, cutting out the internal organs from human bodies is his standard, everyday work. That is one.

Constant association with corpses could have induced in him an insuperable revulsion for the whole human race, or else, on the contrary, a perverted adoration of the physiological arrangement of the human organism. That is two.

At one time he was a member of the Sadist Circle of medical students, which testifies to the early development of depraved and cruel inclinations. That is three.

Zakharov lives in a public-service apartment at the police forensic morgue at Bozhedomka. Two of the murders (of the spinster Andreichkina and the unidentified beggar girl) were committed close to this place. That is four.

Zakharov often goes to England to visit his relatives, and he was there last year. The last time he came back from Britain was on 31 October last year (11 November in the European style) - that is, he could quite easily have committed the last of the London murders that was undoubtedly the work of Jack the Ripper. That is five.

Zakharov is informed of the progress of the investigation, and in addition, of all the people involved in the investigation, he is the only one who possesses surgical skills. That is six.

I could carry on, but it is hard for me to breathe and my thoughts are getting confused ... I had better tell you about recent events.

After not finding Erast Petrovich at home, I decided there was no time to be lost. The day before I had been at Bozhedomka and spoken with the cemetery workers, which could not have escaped Zakharov's notice. It was reasonable to think that he would feel alarmed and give himself away somehow or other. To be on the safe side I took my gun with me - a Bulldog revolver that Mr Fandorin gave me as a present on my name day last year. That was a wonderful day, one of the best days in my life. But that has nothing to do with this case.

And so, about Bozhedomka. I got there by cab at ten o'clock in the evening; it was already dark. In the wing where the doctor has his quarters there was a light in one window, and I was glad that Zakharov had not run away. There was not a soul around. A dog started barking - they keep a dog on a chain by the chapel there - but I quickly ran across the yard and pressed myself against the wall. The dog went on barking for a while and then stopped. I put a crate by the wall (the window was high off the ground) and cautiously glanced inside. The lighted window was where Zakharov has his study. Looking in, I saw there were papers on the desk and the lamp was lighted. And he was sitting with his back to me, writing something, then tearing it up and throwing the pieces on the floor. I waited there for a long time, at least an hour, and he kept writing and tearing the paper up, writing and tearing it up. I wondered if I should arrest him. But I didn't have a warrant, and what if he was just writing some nonsense or other, or adding up some accounts? At seventeen minutes past ten (I saw the time on the clock), he stood up and went out of the room. He was gone for a long time. He started clattering something about in the corridor, then it went quiet. I hesitated about climbing inside to take a look at his papers, became agitated and let my guard down. Someone struck me in the back with something hot and I banged my forehead against the window sill as well. And then, as I was turning round, there was another burning blow to my side and one to my arm. I had been looking at the light, so I could not see who was there in the darkness, but I hit out with my left hand as Mr Masa taught me to do, and with my knee as well. I hit something soft. But I was a poor student for Mr Masa; I shirked my lessons. So that was where Zakharov had gone to from the study. He must have noticed me. When he started back to avoid my blows, I tried to catch up with him, but after I'd run a little distance, I fell down. I got up and fell down again. I took out my Bulldog and fired three shots into the air. I thought perhaps one of the cemetery workers would come running. I should not have fired. That probably only frightened them. I should have used my whistle. I didn't think of it; I was not feeling well. After that I do not remember very much. I crawled on all fours and kept falling. Outside the fence I lay down to rest and I think I fell asleep. When I woke up, I felt cold - very cold, although 1 had all my warm things on; I had especially put on a woolly jumper under my coat. I took out my watch and looked at it. It was already after midnight. That's it, I thought, the villain has got away. It was only then I remembered about my whistle. I started blowing it. Soon someone came, I could not see who. They carried me. Until the doctor gave me an injection, I was in a kind of mist. But now it's better, you can see. I'm just ashamed of letting the Ripper get away. If only I had paid more attention to Mr Masa. I tried to do my best, Erast Petrovich. If only I'd listened to Mr Masa. If only ...

POSTSCRIPT

At this point the stenographic recording had to be halted, because the injured man, who spoke in a lively and correct fashion at first, began rambling and soon fell into a state of unconsciousness, from which he never emerged. Dr K. I. Mobius was also surprised that Mr Tulipov had held on for so long with such serious wounds and after losing so much blood. Death occurred at approximately six o'clock in the morning and was recorded in the appropriate manner by Dr Mobius.

Lieutenant-Colonel of the Gendarmes Corps Sverchinsky Stenographed and transcribed by Collegiate Registrar Arietti

A terrible night.

And the evening had begun so marvellously. The imbecile turned out wonderfully well in death - a real feast for the eyes. After this masterpiece of decorative art, it was pointless to waste any time on the maid, and I left her as she was. A sin, of course, but in any case there would never have been the same staggering contrast between external ugliness and internal Beauty.

My heart was warmed most of all by the awareness of a good deed accomplished: not only had I shown the youth the true face of Beauty, I had also relieved him of a heavy burden that prevented him from making his own life more comfortable.

And then it all finished so tragically.

The good young man was destroyed by his own ugly trade - sniffing things out, tracking people down. He came to his own death. I am not to blame for that.

I felt sorry for the boy and that led to sloppy work. My hand trembled.

The wounds are fatal, there is no doubt about that: I heard the air rush out of a punctured lung, and the second blow must have cut through the left kidney and the descending colon. But he must have suffered a lot before he died. This thought gives me no peace. I feel ashamed. It is inelegant.

CHAPTER 8 A Busy Day

Holy Week Saturday, 8 April

The investigative group loitered at the gates of the wretched Bozhedomka Cemetery in the wind and the repulsive fine drizzle: Senior Detective Lyalin, three junior detectives, a photographer with a portable American Kodak, the photographer's assistant and a police dog-handler with the famous sniffer-dog Musya, known to the whole of Moscow, on a lead. The group had been summoned to the scene of the previous night's incident by telephone and given the strictest possible instructions not to do anything until His Honour Mr Collegiate Counsellor arrived, and they were now following their instructions strictly - doing nothing and shivering in the chilly embrace of the unseasonable April morning. Even Musya, who was so damp that she looked like a reddish-brown mop, was in low spirits. She lay down with her long muzzle on the soaking earth, wiggled her whitish eyebrows dolefully and even whined quietly once or twice, catching the general mood.

Lyalin, an experienced detective and a man who had been around a lot in general, was inclined by nature to scorn the caprices of nature and he wasn't bothered by the long wait. He knew that the Deputy for Special Assignments was in the Mariinskaya Hospital at that moment, where they were washing and dressing the poor wounded body of the servant of God Anisii, in recent times the Provincial Secretary Tulipov. Mr Fandorin was saying goodbye to his well-loved assistant; he would make the sign of the cross and then dash over to Bozhedomka in no time. It was only a five-minute journey anyway, and he presumed that the Collegiate Counsellor's horses were a cut above the old police nags.

No sooner had Lyalin had this thought than he saw a four-in-hand of handsome trotters with white plumes hurtling towards the wrought-iron gates of the cemetery. The coachman looked like a general, all covered in gold braid, and the carriage was resplendent, with its gleaming wet black lacquer and the Dolgorukoi crest on the doors.

Mr Fandorin jumped down to the ground, the soft springs swayed, and the carriage drove off to one side. It was evidently going to wait.

The newly arrived Chief was pale-faced and his eyes were burning brighter than usual, but Lyalin's keen eyes failed to discern any other signs of the shocks and sleepless nights that Fandorin had endured. On the contrary, he actually had the impression that the Deputy for Special Assignments' movements were considerably more sprightly and energetic than usual. Lyalin was about to offer his condolences, but then he looked a little more closely at His Honour's compressed lips and changed his mind. Extensive police experience had taught him it was best to avoid snivelling and just get on with the job.

'No one's been in Zakharov's apartment without you, according to instructions received. The employees have been questioned, but none of them has seen the doctor since yesterday evening. They're waiting over there.'

Fandorin glanced briefly in the direction of the morgue building, where several men were waiting, shifting from one foot to the other. 'I thought I made it clear: don't do anything. All right, let's go.'

Out of sorts, Lyalin decided. Which was hardly surprisingly in such sad circumstances. The man was threatened with the ruin of his career and now there was this upsetting business with Tulipov.

The Collegiate Counsellor ran lightly up on to the porch of Zakharov's wing and pushed at the door. It didn't yield - it was locked.

Lyalin shook his head - Dr Zakharov was a thorough man, very neat and tidy. Even when he was making good his escape he hadn't forgotten to lock the door. A man like that wouldn't leave any stupid tracks or clues.

Without turning round, Fandorin snapped his fingers and the senior detective understood him without any need for words. He took a set of lock-picks out of his pocket, chose one that was the right length for the key, twisted and turned it for a minute or so, and the door opened.

The Chief walked swiftly round all the rooms, throwing out curt instructions as he went; his usual mild stammer had disappeared somehow, as if it had never existed. 'Check the clothes in the wardrobe. List them. Determine what is missing ... Put all the medical instruments, especially the surgical ones, over there, on the table ... There was a rug in the corridor - see that rectangular mark on the floor. Where has it gone to? Find it! What's this, the study? Collect all the papers. Pay especially close attention to fragments and scraps.'

Lyalin looked around and didn't see any scraps. The study appeared to be in absolutely perfect order. The agent was amazed once again by the fugitive doctor's strong nerve. He'd tidied everything up as neatly as if he were expecting guests. What scraps would there be here?

But just then the Collegiate Counsellor bent down and picked up a small, crumpled piece of paper from under a chair. He unfolded it, read it, and handed it to Lyalin.

'Keep it.'

There were only three words on the piece of paper:

'longer remain silent'.

'Start the search,' Fandorin ordered and went outside.

Five minutes later, having divided up the sectors of the search among the detectives, Lyalin looked out of the window and saw the Collegiate Counsellor and Musya creeping through the bushes. Branches had been broken off and the ground had been trampled. That must be where the late Tulipov had grappled with the criminal. Lyalin sighed, crossed himself and set about sounding out the walls of the bedroom.

The search did not produce anything of great interest. A pile of letters in English - evidently from Zakharov's relatives: Fandorin glanced through them rapidly but didn't read them; he only paid attention to the dates. He jotted something down in his notebook, but didn't say anything out loud.

Detective Sysuev distinguished himself by discovering another scrap of paper, a bit bigger than the first, in the study, but its inscription was even less intelligible: 'erations of esprit de corps and sympathy for an old com'.

For some reason the Collegiate Counsellor found this bit of nonsense interesting. He also looked very closely at the Colt revolver discovered in a drawer of the writing desk. The revolver had been loaded quite recently - there were traces of fresh oil on the drum and the handle. Then why hadn't Zakharov taken it with him, Lyalin wondered? Had he forgotten it, then? Or deliberately left it behind? But why?

Musya disgraced herself. Despite the mire, she went dashing after the scent pretty smartly, but then a massive, shaggy dog came flying out from behind the fence and started barking so fiercely that Musya squatted down on her hind legs and backed away, and after that it proved impossible to shift her from that spot. They put the watchman's dog back on its chain, but Musya had lost all her spirit. Sniffer-dogs are nervous creatures; they have to be in the right mood.

'Which of them is which?' Fandorin asked, pointing through the window at the cemetery employees.

Lyalin began reporting: 'The fat one in the cap is the supervisor. He lives outside the cemetery and has nothing to do with the work of the police morgue. Yesterday he left at half past five and he came this morning a quarter of an hour before you arrived. The tall consumptive-looking one is Zakharov's assistant; his name's Grumov. He's just got here from home recently as well. The one with his head lowered is the watchman. The other three are labourers. They dig the graves, mend the fence, take out the rubbish and so on. The watchman and the labourers live here and could have heard something. But we haven't questioned them in detail, since we were told not to.'

The Collegiate Counsellor talked with the employees himself.

He called them into the building and first of all showed them the Colt: 'Do you recognise it?'

The assistant Grumov and the watchman Pakhomenko testified (Lyalin wrote in his notes) that they were familiar with the weapon - they had seen it, or one just like it, in the doctor's apartment. However, the gravedigger Kulkov testified that he had never seen any 'revolvert' close up, but the previous month he had gone to watch the 'doctur' shooting rooks, and he had done it very tidily: every time he fired, rooks' feathers went flying.

The three shots fired last night by Provincial Secretary Tulipov had been heard by the watchman Pakhomenko and the labourer Khriukin. Kulkov had been in a drunken sleep and the noise had not wakened him.

Those who had heard the shots said they'd been afraid to go outside - how could you tell who might be wandering about in the middle of the night? - and they apparently had not heard any cries for help. Soon afterwards Khriukin had gone back to sleep, but Pakhomenko had stayed awake. He said that shortly after the shooting a door had slammed loudly and someone had walked rapidly towards the gates.

'What, were you listening then?' Fandorin asked the watchman.

'Of course I was,' Pakhomenko replied. 'There was shooting. And I sleep badly at nights. All sorts of thoughts come into my head. I was tossing and turning until first light. Tell me, pan general, has that young lad really passed away? He was so sharp-eyed, and he was kind with simple folk.'

The Collegiate Counsellor was known always to be polite and mild-mannered with his subordinates, but today Lyalin could barely recognise him. The Chief gave no reply to the watchman's touching words and showed no interest at all in Pakhomeno's nocturnal thoughts. He swung round sharply and spoke curtly over his shoulder to the witnesses: 'You can go. No one is to leave the cemetery. But you, Grumov, be so good as to stay'

Well, he was like a totally different man.

The doctor's assistant blinked in fright as Fandorin asked him:

'What was Zakharov doing yesterday evening? In detail, please.'

Grumov shrugged and spread his hands guiltily: 'I couldn't say. Yesterday Egor Willemovich was badly out of sorts; he kept cursing all the time, and after lunch he told me to go home. So I went. We didn't even say goodbye - he locked himself in his study'

"After lunch" - what time is that?' After three, sir.'

"After three, sir",' the Collegiate Counsellor repeated, shaking his head for some reason, and clearly losing all interest in the consumptive morgue assistant. 'You can go.'

Lyalin approached the Collegiate Counsellor and delicately cleared his throat. 'I've jotted down a verbal portrait of Zakharov. Would you care to take a look?'

Fandorin didn't even glance at the excellently composed description; he just waved it away. It was rather upsetting to see such a lack of respect for professional zeal.

'That's all,' Fandorin said curtly. 'There's no need to question anyone else. You, Lyalin, go to the Assuage My Sorrows Hospital in Lefortovo and bring the male nurse Stenich to me on Tverskaya Street. And Sysuev can go to the Yakimanka Embankment and bring the factory-owner Burylin. Urgently'

'But what about the verbal portrait of Zakharov?' Lyalin asked, his voice trembling. 'I expect we're going to put him on the wanted list, aren't we?'

'No, we're not,' Fandorin replied absent-mindedly, and strode off rapidly towards his wonderful carriage, leaving the experienced detective totally bemused.

Vedishchev was waiting in the Collegiate Counsellor's office on Tverskaya Street. 'The final day' Dolgorukoi's 'grey cardinal' said sternly instead of saying hello. We have to find that crazy Englishman. Find him and then report it, all right and proper. Otherwise you know what will happen.'

And how do you come to know about Zakharov, Frol Grigorievich?' Fandorin asked, although he didn't seem particularly surprised.

"Vedishchev knows everything that happens in Moscow'

'We should have included you in the list of suspects, then. You put His Excellency's cupping jars on and even let his blood, don't you? So practising medicine is nothing new to you.' The joke, however, was made in a flat voice and it was clear that Fandorin was thinking about something quite different.

'Poor old Anisii, eh?' Vedishchev sighed. 'That's really terrible, that is. He was a bright lad, our shorty. He should have gone a long way, from all the signs.'

'I wish you would go to your own room, Frol Grigorievich,' was the Collegiate Counsellor's reply to that. He was clearly not inclined to indulge in sentimentality today.

The valet knitted his grey eyebrows in a frown of annoyance and changed to an official tone of voice: 'I have been ordered to inform Your Honour that the Minister of the Interior left for St Petersburg this morning in a mood of great dissatisfaction and before he left he was being very threatening. I was also ordered to inquire if the inquiry will soon be closed.'

'Soon. Tell His Excellency that I need to carry out just two more interrogations, receive one telegram and make a little excursion.'

'Erast Petrovich, in Christ's name, will you manage it before tomorrow?' Vedishchev asked imploringly. 'Or we're all done for.'

Fandorin had no time to reply to the question, because there was a knock at the door and the duty adjutant announced: 'The prisoners Stenich and Burylin have been delivered. They are being kept in separate rooms, as ordered.'

'Bring Stenich in first,' Erast Petrovich told the officer, and pointed the valet towards the door with his chin. 'This is the first interrogation. That's all, Frol Grigorievich - go, I have no more time.'

The old man nodded his bald head submissively and hobbled towards the door. In the doorway he collided with a wild-looking man - skinny and jittery with long hair - but he didn't stare at him. He shuffled off rapidly along the corridor in his felt shoes, turned a corner and unlocked a closet with a key.

But it turned out not to be any ordinary closet: it had a concealed door in the inside corner. Behind the little door there was another small closet. Frol Grigorievich squeezed into it, sat down on a chair with a comfortable cushion on it, silently slid opened a small shutter in the wall and suddenly he was looking though glass at the whole of the secret study, and he could hear Erast Petrovich's slightly muffled voice: 'Thank you. For the time being you'll have to stay at the police station. For your own safety.'

The valet put on a pair of spectacles with thick lenses and pressed his face up close to the secret opening, but he only saw the back of the man leaving the room. So that was an interrogation, was it? - it hadn't even lasted three minutes. Vedishchev grunted sceptically and waited to see what would come next.

'Send in Burylin,' Fandorin ordered the adjutant.

A man with a fat Tatar face and insolent eyes came in. Without waiting to be invited, he sat down on a chair, crossed his legs and began swinging his expensive cane with a gold knob. It was obvious straight away that he was a millionaire.

'Well, are you going to take me to look at offal again?' the millionaire asked merrily. 'Only you won't catch me out like that. I have a thick skin. Who was that who went out? Vanka Stenich, wasn't it? Ooh, he turned his face away. As if he'd not had plenty of pickings from Burylin. He rode around Europe on my money, and he lived as my house guest. I felt sorry for him, the poor unfortunate. But he abused my hospitality. Ran away from me to England. Began to despise me - I was dirty and he decided he wanted a clean life. Well, let him go; he's a hopeless man - a genuine psychiatric case. Will you permit me to smoke a small cigar?'

All of the millionaire's questions went unanswered. Instead, Fandorin asked his own question, which Vedishchev didn't understand at all. At your meeting of fellow-students there was a man with long hair, rather shabby. Who is he?'

But Burylin understood the question and answered it willingly: 'Filka Rozen. He was thrown out of the medical faculty with me and Stenich, distinguished himself with honours in the line of immoral behaviour. He works as an assessor in a pawn shop. And he drinks, of course.' 'Where can I find him?'

'You won't find him anywhere. Before you came calling, like a fool I gave him five hundred roubles - turned sloppy in my old age, thinking of the old days. Until he's drunk it all to the last kopeck, he won't show up. Maybe he's living it up in some tavern in Moscow, or maybe in Peter, or maybe in Nizhny. That's the kind of character he is.'

For some reason this news made Fandorin extremely upset. He even jumped up off his chair, pulled those round green beads on a string out of his pocket and put them back again.

The man with the fat face observed the Collegiate Counsellor's strange behaviour with curiosity. He took out a fat cigar, lit it and scattered the ash on the carpet, the insolent rogue. But he didn't start asking questions; he waited.

'Tell me: why were you, Stenich and Rozen thrown out of the faculty, while Zakharov was only transferred to the anatomical pathology department?' Fandorin asked after a lengthy pause.

'It depended on who got up to how much mischief Burylin said with a laugh. 'Sotsky the biggest hothead amongst us, actually got sent to a punitive battalion. I felt sorry for the old dog; he had imagination, even if he was a rogue. I was under threat too, but it was all right: money got me out of it.' He winked a wild eye and puffed out cigar smoke. 'The girl students, our jolly companions, got it in the neck too - just for belonging to the female sex. They were sent to Siberia, under police surveillance. One became a morphine addict, another married a priest - I made inquiries.' The millionaire laughed. And at that time Zakharka the Englishman wasn't really outstanding in any way - that's why he got off with a lesser punishment. "He was present and did not stop it" - that's what the verdict said.'

Fandorin snapped his fingers as if he had just received a piece of good news that he'd been expecting for ages, but then Burylin took a piece of paper folded into four out of his pocket.

'It's odd that you should ask about Zakharov. This morning I received a very strange note from him, just a moment before your dogs arrived to take me away. A street urchin brought it. Here, read it.'

Frol Grigorievich twisted himself right round and flattened his nose against the glass, but there was no point - he couldn't read the letter from a distance. Only it was clear from all the signs that this was a highly important piece of paper. Erast Petrovich's eyes were glued to it.

'I'll give him some money, of course,' said the millionaire. 'Only there wasn't any special "old friendship" between the two of us; he's just being sentimental there. And what kind of melodrama is this: "Please remember me kindly, my brother"? What has he been up to, our Pluto? Did he dine on those girls that were lying on the tables in the morgue the other day?' Burylin threw his head back and laughed, delighted with his joke.

Fandorin was still examining the note. He walked across to the window, lifted the sheet of paper higher, and Vedishchev saw the scrawling, uneven lines of writing.

'Yes, it's such terrible scribble you can hardly even read it,' the millionaire said in his deep voice, looking round for somewhere to put the cigar he had finished smoking. As if it was written in a carriage or with a serious hangover.'

He didn't find anywhere. He almost threw it to the floor, but decided not to; he cast a guilty glance at the Collegiate Counsellor's back, wrapped the stub in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket. That's right.

'You can go, Burylin,' Erast Petrovich said without turning round. 'Until tomorrow you will remain under guard.'

The millionaire was highly incensed at that news. 'I've had enough; I've already spent one night feeding your police bedbugs! They're vicious beasts, and hungry. The way they threw themselves on an Orthodox believer's body!'

Fandorin wasn't listening. He pressed the bell button. The gendarme officer came in and dragged the rich man towards the door.

'But what about Zakharka?' Burylin shouted. 'He'll be calling for the money!'

'That's no concern of yours,' said Erast Petrovich, and he asked the officer: 'Has the reply to my inquiry arrived from the ministry?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Let me have it.'

The gendarme brought in some kind of telegram and went back out into the corridor.

The telegram produced a remarkable effect on Fandorin. He read it, threw it on to the desk and then suddenly did something very strange. He clapped his hands very quickly several times, and so loudly that Vedishchev banged his head against the glass in his surprise, and the gendarme, the adjutant and the secretary stuck their heads in at the door all at once.

'It's all right, gentlemen,' Fandorin reassured them. 'It's a Japanese exercise for focusing one's thoughts. Please go.'

And then even more wonders followed.

When the door closed behind his subordinates, Erast Petrovich suddenly started to get undressed. When he was left in just his underclothes, he took a travelling bag that Vedishchev hadn't noticed before out from under the desk and took a bundle out of the bag. The bundle contained clothes: tight striped trousers with footstraps, a cheap paper shirt-front, a crimson waistcoat and yellow check jacket.

The highly respectable Collegiate Counsellor was transformed into a pushy jerk, the kind that hover around the street girls in the evenings. He stood in front of the mirror, exactly a yard in front of Frol Vedishchev, combed his black hair into a straight parting, plastered it with brilliantine and coloured the grey at his temples. He twisted the ends of his slim moustache upwards and shaped them into two sharp points. (Bohemian wax, Frol Vedishchev guessed - he secured Prince Dolgorukoi's sideburns in exactly the same way, so that they stuck out like eagles' wings.)

Then Fandorin put something into his mouth and grinned, and a gold cap glinted on one tooth. He carried on pulling faces for a while and seemed perfectly content with his appearance.

The Yuletide masker took a small wallet out of the bag, opened it, and Vedishchev saw that it was no ordinary wallet: inside it he could see a small-calibre burnished steel gun barrel and a little drum like the one on a revolver. Fandorin put five shells into the drum, clicked the lid shut and tested the resistance of the lock with his finger - no doubt the lock played the role of a trigger. What will they think of next for killing a man? the valet thought, with a shake of his head. And where are you going dressed like a cheap dandy, Erast Petrovich?

As if he had heard the question, Fandorin turned towards the mirror and put on a beaver-fur cap, tilted at a dashing angle, winked familiarly and said in a low voice: 'Frol Grigorievich, light a candle for me at vespers. I won t get by without God's help today'

Ineska was suffering very badly, in body and in spirit - in body, because last night Slepen, her former ponce, had waited for the poor girl outside the City of Paris tavern and given her a thorough beating for betraying him. At least the creep hadn't rearranged her face. But her stomach and sides were battered black and blue - she couldn't even turn over at night; she just lay there shifting about until morning, gasping and feeling sorry for herself. The bruises weren't the worst thing - they'd heal up soon enough, but poor Ineska's little heart was aching so badly she could hardly stand it.

Her boyfriend had disappeared, her fairy-tale prince, the handsome Erastushka; he hadn't shown his sweet face for two days now. And Slepen was as brutal as ever and always making threats. Yesterday she'd had to give her old pimp almost everything she earned, and that was no good; decent girls who stayed faithful didn't do that.

Erastushka had gone missing; that lop-eared short-arse must have handed him over to the police and her pretty dove was sitting in the lock-up in the first Arbat station, the toughest in the whole of Moscow. If only she could send her darling a present, but that Sergeant Kulebyako there was a wild beast. He'd put her inside again, the same as last year, threaten to take away her yellow ticket, and then she'd end up servicing the whole police district for free, down to the last snot-nosed constable. It still made her sick to remember it, even now. Ineska would gladly have accepted that kind of humiliation if she could just help her sweetheart, but after all, Erastushka wasn't just any boyfriend: he had brains, he was nice and clean, choosy; he wouldn't want to touch Ineska after that. Not that their passion had actually come to anything yet, so to speak; love was only just beginning, but from the very first glance Ineska had taken such a fancy to his lovely blue eyes and white teeth, she'd really fallen for him; terrible it was, worse than with that hairdresser Zhorzhik when she was sixteen, rot his pretty face, the lousy snake - if he hadn't drunk himself to death by now, of course.

Ah, if only he'd show up soon, her sweet honey-bunch. He'd put that vicious bastard Slepen in his place and he'd be sweet and gentle with Ineska, pamper her a bit. She'd found out what he'd told her to, and hidden some money in her garter too -three and a half roubles in silver. He'd be pleased; she had something to greet him and treat him with.

Erastik. It was such a sweet name, like apple jam. Her darling's real name was probably something simpler, but then Ineska hadn't been a Spanish girl all her life either; she'd been born into God's world as Efrosinya, plain simple Froska in the family.

Inessa and Erast - that had a real ring to it, like music it was. If only she could stroll arm-in-arm with him through Grachyovka, so that Sanka Myasnaya, Liudka Kalancha and especially that Adelaidka could see what a fine fancy-man Ineska had, and turn green with envy.

After that, they'd come to her apertiment. It might be small, but it was clean, and stylish too: pictures from fashion magazines stuck on the walls, a velvet lampshade, and a big, tall mirror; the softest down mattress ever, and lots of pillows, a whole seven of them - Ineska had sewn all the pillowcases herself

Then, just as she was thinking her very sweetest thoughts, her cherished dream came true. First there was a tactful knock at the door - tap-tap-tap - and then Erastushka came in, in his beaver-fur cap and white muffler, with his wool-cloth coat with the beaver collar, hanging open. You'd never think he was from the Kutuzka jail.

Ineska's little heart just stood still. She leapt up off the bed just as she was, in her cotton nightshirt, with her hair hanging loose, and threw herself on her sweetheart's neck. She only managed to kiss his lips once; then he took hold of her by the shoulders and sat her down at the table. He looked at her sternly.

'Right, tell me,' he said.

Ineska understood - those vicious tongues had already been wagging.

She didn't try to deny anything; she wanted everything to be honest between them. 'Beat me,' she said, 'beat me, Erastushka; I'm to blame. Only I'm not all that much to blame - don't you go believing just anyone. Slepen tried to force me' (she was fibbing there, of course, but not so much really) 'and I wouldn't give him it, and he gave me a real battering. Here, look.'

She pulled up her shirt and showed him the blue, crimson and yellow patches. So he would feel sorry for her.

But it didn't soften him. Erastushka frowned. 'I'll have a word with Slepen afterwards; he won't bother you again. Get back to the point. Did you find who I told you to? - the one who went with that friend of yours and barely came out alive?

'I did, Erastushka, I found her; Glashka's her name. Glashka Beloboka from Pankratievsky Lane. She remembers the bastard all right - he nearly slit her throat open with that knife of his. Glashka still wraps a scarf round her neck, even now'

'Take me to her.'

'I will, Erastushka, I'll take you, but let's have a bit of cognac first.' She took a bottle she'd been keeping out of the little cupboard, put her bright-coloured Persian shawl on her shoulders and picked up a comb to fluff up her hair and make it all glossy.

'We'll have a drink later. I told you: take me there. Business first.'

Ineska sighed, feeling her heart melting: she loved strict men -couldn't help herself. She went over and looked up into his beautiful face, his angry eyes, his curly moustache. 'I think my legs are giving are giving way, Erastushka,' she whispered faintly.

But today wasn't Ineska's day for kissing and cuddling. There was a sudden crash and a clatter from a blow that almost knocked the door off its hinges, and there was Slepen standing in the doorway, evil drunk, with a vicious grin on his smarmy face. Oh the neighbours, those lousy Grachyovka rats, they'd told on her; they hadn't wasted any time.

'Lovey-doving?' he grinned. 'Forgotten about me, the poor orphan, have you?' Then the grin vanished from his rotten mug and his shaggy eyebrows moved together. 'I'll talk to you, Ineska, afterwards, you louse. Seems like you didn't learn your lesson. And as for you, mate, come out in the yard and we'll banter.'

Ineska rushed to the window - there were two of them in the yard: Slepen's stooges, Khryak and Mogila.

'Don't go!' she shouted. 'They'll kill you! Go away, Slepen, I'll make such a racket all Grachyovka'll come running' - and she had already filled her lungs with air to let out a howl; but Erastushka stopped her.

'Don't, Ineska, you heard what he said; let me have a talk with the man.'

'Erastik, Mogila carries a sawn-off under his coat,' Ineska explained to the dimwit. 'They'll shoot you. Shoot you and dump you in the sewer. They've done it before.'

But her boyfriend wouldn't listen; he wasn't interested. He took a big wallet out of his pocket, tortoiseshell. "Salright,' he said. ‘I’ll buy 'em off.' And he went out with Slepen, to certain death.

Ineska collapsed face down into the seven pillows and started whimpering - about her malicious fate, about her dream that hadn't come true, about the constant torment.

Out in the yard there were one, two, three, four quick shots, and then someone started howling - not just one person, a whole choir of them.

Ineska stopped whimpering and looked at the icon of the Mother of God in the corner, decorated for Easter with paper flowers and little coloured lamps. 'Mother of God,' Ineska asked her, 'work a miracle for Easter Sunday and let Erastushka be alive. It's all right if he's wounded; I'll nurse him well. Just let him be alive.'

The Heavenly Mediatress took pity on Ineska - the door creaked and Erastik came in. And not even wounded - he was as right as rain, and his lovely scarf hadn't even shifted a bit.

'There, I told you, Ineska; wipe that wet off your face. Slepen won't touch you any more; he can't. I put holes in both his grabbers. And the other two won't forget in a hurry either. Get dressed and take me to this Glashka of yours.'

And that dream of Ineska's did come true after all. She went strolling through the whole of Grachyovka on her prince's arm -she deliberately led him the long way round, though it was quicker to get to the Vladimir Road tavern, where Glashka lived, through the yards, across the rubbish tip and through the knacker's yard. Ineska had dressed herself up in her little velvet jacket and batiste blouse, and she'd put on her crepe-lizette skirt for the first time and even her boots that were only for dry weather - she didn't care. She powdered her face that was puffy from crying and backcombed her fringe. All in all, there was plenty to turn Sanka and Liudka green. It was just a pity they didn't meet Adelaidka; never mind, her girlfriends would give her the picture.

Ineska still couldn't get enough of looking at her darling, she kept looking into his face and chattering away like a magpie: 'She has a daughter, Glashka does - a real fright she is. That's what the good folks told me: "You ask for the Glashka with the ugly daughter." '

'Ugly? What way is she ugly?'

'She has this birthmark that covers half her face - wine colour; it's a real nightmare. I'd rather put my head in a noose than walk around looking like that. In the next house to us, there was this Nadka used to live there, a tailor's daughter ...' But before she had time to tell him about Nadka, they'd already reached the Vladimir Road. They walked up the creaking staircase where the rooms were.

Glashka's room was lousy, not a patch on Ineska's apertiment. Glashka was there, putting on her make-up in front of the mirror - she was going out to work the street soon.

'Look, Glafira, I've brought a good man to see you. Tell him what he asks about that evil bastard that cut you,' Ineska instructed her, then sat sedately in the corner.

Erastik immediately put a three-rouble note on the table. 'That's yours, Glashka, for your trouble. What sort of man was he? What did he look like?'

Glashka was a good-looking girl, though in her strict way Ineska thought she didn't keep herself clean. She didn't even look at the money.

'Everyone knows his kind: crazy' she answered and wiggled her shoulders this way and that.

She stuck the money up her skirt anyway - not that she was that interested, just to be polite. And she stared at Erast that hard, ran her peepers all over him, the shameless hussy, that Ineska's heart started fluttering.

'Men are always interested in me,' Glashka said modestly, to start her story. 'But that time I was really low. At Shrovetide I got these scabs all over my face, so bad I was scared to look in the mirror. I walked and walked and no one took any interest; I'd have been happy to do it for fifteen kopecks. That one's a big eater' - she nodded towards the curtain, from behind which they could hear the sound of sleepy snuffling. 'Plain terrible, it is. And anyway, this one comes up, very polite, he was—'

'That's right, that was the way he came up to me too, 'Ineska put in, feeling jealous. And just think, my face was all scratched and battered then too. I had a fight with that bitch Adelaidka. No one would come near me, no matter what I said, but this one comes up all on his own. "Don't be sad," he says, "now I'll give you joy." Only I didn't do like Glashka did, I didn't go with him, because

'I heard that already' Erastik interrupted her. 'You didn't get a proper sight of him. Keep quiet. Let Glafira talk.'

Glashka flashed her eyes, proud-like, at Ineska, and Ineska felt really bad. And it was her own stupid fault, wasn't it? - she'd brought him here herself

And he says to me: "Why such a long face? Come with me," he says. "I want to bring you joy." Well, I was feeling happy enough already. I'm thinking, I'll get a rouble here, or maybe two, I'll buy Matryoshka some bread, and some pies. Oh, I bought them all right, didn't I?... had to pay the doctur a fiver afterwards, to have my neck stitched up.'

She pointed to her neck, and there, under the powder, was a crimson line, smooth and narrow, like a thread.

'Tell me everything in the right order,' Erastushka told her.

Well, then, we come in here. He sat me on the bed - this one here - puts one hand on my shoulder and keeps the other behind his back. And he says - his voice is soft, like a woman's - "Do you think", he says, "that you're not beautiful?" So I blurts out: "I'm just fine, the face will heal up all right. It's my daughter that's disfigured for the rest of her life." He says, "What daughter's that?" "Over there," I say, "take a look at my little treasure," and I pulled back the curtain. As soon as he saw my Matryoshka -and she was sleeping then too; she's a sound sleeper, used to anything, she is - he started trembling, like, all over. And he says, "I'll make her into such a lovely beauty. And it'll make things easier for you too." I look a bit closer, and I can see he has something in his fist, behind his back, glinting like. Holy Mother, it was a knife! Sort of narrow and short.'

A scalpel?' Erastik asked, using a word they didn't understand.

'Eh?'

He just waved his hand: Come on, tell me more.

'I give him such a clout and I start yelling: "Help! Murder!" He looked at me, and his face was terrible, all twisted. "Quiet, you fool! You don't understand your own happiness!" And then he slashes at me! I jumped back, but even so he caught me across the throat. Well then I howled so loud, even Matryoshka woke up. Then she starts in wailing, and she's got a voice like a cat in heat in March. And he just turned and scarpered. And that's the whole adventure. It was the Holy Virgin saved me.'

Glashka made the sign of the cross over her forehead and then straight off, before she'd even lowered her hands, she asked: And you, good sir, you're interested for business, are you, or just in general?' And she fluttered her eyelids, the snake.

But Erast told her, strict like: 'Describe him to me, Glafira. What does he look like, this man?'

'Ordinary. A bit taller than me, shorter than you. He'd be up to here on you.' And she drew her finger across the side of Erastushka's head, real slow. Some people have no shame!

'His face is ordinary too. Clean, no moustache or beard. I don't know what else. Show him to me, and I'll recognise him straight away'

'We'll show him to you, we will,' Ineska's sweet darling muttered, wrinkling up his clear forehead and trying to figure something out. 'So he wanted to make things easier for you?'

'For that kind of help I'd unwind the evil bastard's guts with my bare hands,' Glashka said in a calm, convincing voice. 'Lord knows, we need the freaks too. Let my Matryoshka live - what's it to him?'

And from the way he talked, who is he - a gentleman or a working man? How was he dressed?'

'You couldn't tell from his clothes. Could have worked in a shop, or maybe some kind of clerk. But he spoke like a gent. I remembered one thing. When he looked at Matryoshka, he said to himself: "That's not ringworm, it's a rare nevus matevus." Nevus matevus - that's what he called my Matryoshka; I remembered that.'

'Nevus maternus,' Erastik said, putting her right. 'In doctor's talk that means "birth mark".'

He knows everything, he's so bright.

'Erastik, let's go, eh?' Ineska said, touching her sweetheart's sleeve. 'The cognac's still waiting.'

'Why go?' that cheeky bitch Glashka piped up. 'Since you're already here. I can find some cognac for a special guest, it's Shutov; I've been keeping it for Easter. So what's that your name is, you handsome man?'

Masahiro Shibata was sitting in his room, burning incense sticks and reading sutras in memory of the servant of the state Anisii Tulipov, who had departed this world in such an untimely fashion, his sister Sonya-san and the maid Palashka, whom the Japanese had his own special reasons to mourn.

Masa had arranged the room himself, spending no small amount of time and money on it. The straw mats that covered the floor had been brought on a steamboat all the way from Japan, and they had immediately made the room sunny and golden, and the floor had a jolly spring under your feet, not like stomping across cold, dead parquet made out of stupid oak. There was no furniture at all, but a spacious cupboard with a sliding door had been built into one of the walls, to hold a padded blanket and a pillow, as well as the whole of Masa's wardrobe: a cotton yukata robe, broad white cotton trousers and a similar jacket for rensu, two three-piece suits, for winter and summer, and the beautiful green livery that the Japanese servant respected so very much and only wore on special festive or solemn occasions. On the walls to delight the eye there were coloured lithographs of Tsar Alexander and Emperor Mutsuhito. And hanging in the corner, under the altar shelf, there was a scroll with an ancient wise saying: 'Live correctly and regret nothing.' Standing on the altar today there was a photograph: Masa and Anisii Tulipov in the Zoological Gardens. It had been taken the previous summer: Masa in his sandy-coloured summer suit and bowler hat, looking serious, Anisii with his mouth stretched into a smile that reached the ears sticking out from under his cap, and behind them an elephant with ears just the same, except that they were a bit bigger.

Masa was distracted from mournful thoughts on the vanity of the search for harmony and the fragility of the world by the telephone.

Fandorin's servant walked to the entrance hall through the dark, empty rooms - his master was somewhere in the city, looking for the murderer, in order to exact vengeance; his mistress had gone to the church and would probably not be back soon because tonight was the main Russian festival of Easter.

'Harro,' Masa said into the round bell mouth. 'This is Mista Fandorin's number. Who is speaking?'

'Mr Fandorin, is that you?' said a metallic voice, distorted by electrical howling. 'Erast Petrovich?'

'No, Mista Fandorin not here,' Masa said loudly, so that he could be heard above the howling. They had written in the newspapers that new telephones had appeared with an improved system which transmitted speech 'without the slightest loss of quality, remarkably loudly and clearly'. They ought to buy one. 'Prease ring back rater. Would you rike to reave a message?'

'No thank—' The voice had gone from a howl to a rustle. ‘I’ll phone later.'

'Prease make yourself wercome,' Masa said politely, and hung up.

Things were bad, very bad. This was the third night his master had not slept, and the mistress did not sleep either; she prayed all the time - either in the church or at home, in front of the icon. She had always prayed a lot, but never so much as now. All this would end very badly, although it was hard to see how things could be any worse than they were already.

If only the master would find whoever had killed Tiuri-san and murdered Sonya-san and Palasha. Find him and give his faithful servant a present - give that person to Masa. Not for long, just half an hour. No, an hour would be better ...

Engrossed in pleasant thoughts, he didn't notice the time passing. The clock struck eleven. Usually the people in the neighbouring houses were already asleep at this time, but today all the windows were lit up. It was a special night. Soon the bells would start chiming all over the city, and then different-coloured lights would explode in the sky, people in the streets would start singing and shouting, and tomorrow there would be a lot of drunks. Easter.

Perhaps he ought to go the church and stand with everyone and listen to the slow bass singing of the Christian bonzes. Anything was better than sitting all alone and waiting, waiting, waiting.

But he didn't have to wait any longer. The door slammed and he heard firm, confident footsteps. His master had returned!

'What, mourning all alone?' his master asked in Japanese, and touched him gently on the shoulder

Such displays of affection were not their custom, and the surprise broke Masa's reserve; he sobbed and then broke into tears. He didn't wipe the water from his face - let it flow. A man had no reason to be ashamed of crying, as long as it was not from pain or from fear.

The master's eyes were dry and bright. 'I haven't got everything I'd like to have,' he said. 'I thought we'd catch him red-handed. But we can't wait any longer. There's no time. The killer is still in Moscow today, but after a while he could be anywhere in the world. I have indirect evidence: I have a witness who can identify him. That's enough; he won't wriggle out of it.'

'You will take me with you?' Masa asked, overjoyed by the good news. 'You will?'

'Yes,' his master said, with a nod. 'He is a dangerous opponent, and I can't take any risks. I might need your help'

The telephone rang again.

'Master, someone phoned before. On secret business. He didn't give his name. He said he would call again.'

'Right then, you take the other phone and try to tell if it's the same person or not.'

Masa put the metal horn to his ear and prepared to listen.

'Hello. Erast Petrovich Fandorin's number. This is he,' the master said.

'Erast Petrovich, is that you?' the voice squeaked. Masa shrugged - he couldn't tell if it was the same person or someone else.

'Yes. With whom am I speaking?' 'This is Zakharov.'

'You!' The master's strong fingers clenched into a fist. 'Erast Petrovich, I have to explain things to you. I know everything is against me, but I didn't kill anyone, I swear to you!' 'Then who did?'

'I'll explain everything to you. Only give me your word of honour that you'll come alone, without the police. Otherwise I'll disappear, you'll never see me again and the killer will go free. Do you give me your word?'

'Yes,' the master answered without hesitation.

'I believe you, because I know you to be a man of honour. You have no need to fear: I am not dangerous to you, and I don't have a gun. I just want to be able to explain ... If you still are concerned, bring your Japanese along, I don't object to that. Only no police.'

'How do you know about my Japanese?'

'I know a great deal about you, Erast Petrovich. That's why you are the only one I trust... Come immediately, this minute to the Pokrovskaya Gates. You'll find the Hotel Tsargrad on Rogozhsky Val Street, a grey building with three storeys. You must come within the next hour. Go up to room number fifty-two and wait for me there. Once I'm sure that only the two of you have come, I'll come up and join you. I'll tell you the whole truth, and then you can decide what to do with me. I'll accept any decision you make.'

'There will be no police, my word of honour,' the master said, and hung up.

'That's it, Masa, that's it,' he said, and his face became a little less dead. 'He will be caught in the act. Give me some strong green tea. I shan't be sleeping again tonight.'

'What weapons shall I prepare?' Masa asked.

'I shall take my revolver; I shan't need anything else. And you take whatever you like. Remember: this man is a monster -strong, quick and unpredictable.' And he added in a quiet voice: 'I really have decided to manage without any police.'

Masa nodded understandingly. In a matter like this, of course it was better without the police.

I admit that I was wrong: not all detectives are ugly. This one, for instance, is very beautiful.

My heart swoons sweetly as I see him close the ring around me. Hide and seek!

But I can facilitate his enlightenment a little. If I am not mistaken in him, he is an exceptional man. He won't be frightened, but he will appreciate the lesson. I know it will cause him a lot of pain. At first. But later he will thank me himself. Who knows, perhaps we shall become fellow-thinkers and confederates. I think I can sense a kindred spirit. Or perhaps two kindred spirits. His Japanese servant comes from a nation that understands true Beauty. The supreme moment of existence for the inhabitants of those distant islands is to reveal to the world the Beauty of their belly. In Japan, those who die in this beautiful way are honoured as heroes. The sight of steaming entrails does not frighten anyone there.

Yes, there will be three of us, I can sense it.

How weary I am of my solitude. To share the burden between two or even three would be unspeakable happiness. After all, I am not a god; I am only a human being.

Understand me, Mr Fandorin. Help me.

But first I must open your eyes.

CHAPTER 9 A Bad End to an Unpleasant Story

Easter Sunday, 9 April, night

Clip-clop, clip-clop, the horseshoes clattered merrily over the cobblestones of the street, and the steel springs rustled gently. The Decorator was riding through the Moscow night in festive style, bowling along to the joyful pealing of the Easter bells and the booming of the cannon. There had been illuminated decorations on Tverskaya Street, different-coloured little lanterns, and now on the left, where the Kremlin was, the sky was suffused with all the colours of the rainbow - that was the Easter firework display. The boulevard was crowded. Talking, laughter, sparklers. Muscovites greeting people they knew, kissing, sometimes even the popping of a champagne cork.

And here was the turn on to Malaya Nikitskaya Street. Here it was deserted, dark, not a soul.

'Stop, my good man, we're here,' said the Decorator.

The cabbie jumped down from the coachbox and opened the droshky's door, decorated with paper garlands. He doffed his cap and uttered the holy words: 'Christ is risen.'

'Truly He is risen,' the Decorator replied with feeling, throwing back the veil, and kiss the good Christian on his stubbly cheek. The tip was an entire rouble. Such was the bright holiness of this hour.

'Thank you, lady' the cabby said with a bow, touched more by the kiss than by the rouble.

The Decorator's heart was serene and at peace.

The infallible instinct that had never deceived told him that this was a great night, when all the misfortunes and petty failures would be left behind. Happiness lay very close ahead. Everything would be good, very good.

Ah what a tour de force had been conceived this time. As a true master of his trade, Mr Fandorin could not fail to appreciate it. He would grieve, he would weep - after all, we are all only human - but afterwards he would think about what had happened and understand; he was sure to understand. After all, he was an intelligent man and he seemed capable of seeing Beauty.

The hope of new life, of recognition and understanding, warmed the Decorator's foolish, trusting heart. It is hard to bear the cross of a great mission alone. Even Christ's cross had been supported by Simon's shoulder.

Fandorin and his Japanese were dashing at top speed on their way to Rogozhsky Val Street. They would waste time finding room number fifty-two and waiting there. And if the Collegiate Counsellor should suspect anything, he would not find a telephone in the third-class Hotel Tsargrad.

The Decorator had time. There was no need to hurry.

The woman the Collegiate Counsellor loved was devout. She was in the church now, but the service in the nearby Church of the Resurrection would soon be over, and at midnight the woman would certainly come home - to set the table with the Easter feast and wait for her man.

Decorative gates with a crown, the yard beyond them, and then the dark windows of the outhouse. Here.

Throwing back the flimsy veil, the Decorator looked around and slipped in through the wrought-iron gate.

It would take a moment or two to fiddle with the door of the outhouse, but that was an easy job for such agile, talented fingers. The lock clicked, the hinges creaked, and the Decorator was already in the dark entrance hall.

No need to wait for such well accustomed eyes to adjust to the darkness: it was no hindrance to them. The Decorator walked quickly round all the rooms.

In the drawing room there was a momentary fright caused by the deafening chime of a huge clock in the shape of Big Ben. Was it really that late? Confused, the Decorator checked the time with a neat lady's wristwatch - no, Big Ben was fast, it was still a quarter to the hour.

The place for the sacred ritual still had to be chosen.

The Decorator was on top form today, soaring on the wings of inspiration - why not right here in the drawing room, on the dinner table?

It would be like this: Mr Fandorin would come in from the entrance hall, turn on the electric light and see the delightful sight.

That was decided then. Now where did they keep their tablecloth?

The Decorator rummaged in the linen cupboard, selected a snow-white lace cloth and put it on the broad table with its dull gleam of polished wood.

Yes, that would be beautiful. Wasn't that a Meissen dinner service in the sideboard? The fine china plates could be laid out round the edge of the table and the treasures could be laid on them as they were extracted. It would be the finest decoration ever created.

So, the design had been completed.

The Decorator went into the entrance hall, stood by the window and waited, filled with joyful anticipation and holy ecstasy.

The yard was suddenly bright - the moon had come out. A sign, a clear sign! It had been overcast and gloomy for so many weeks, but now a veil seemed to have been lifted from God's world. What a clear, starry sky! This was truly a bright and holy Easter night. The Decorator made the sign of the cross three times.

She was here!

A few quick blinks of the eyelashes to brush away the tears of ecstasy.

She was here. A short figure wearing a broad coat and hat came in unhurriedly through the gate. When she approached the door, it was clearly a hat of mourning, with ... with a black gauze veil. Ah, yes, that was for the boy, Anisii Tulipov. Don't grieve, my dear, he and the members of his household are already with the Lord. They are happy there. And you too will be happy, only be patient a little longer.

'Christ is risen.' The Decorator greeted her in a quiet, clear voice. 'Don't be frightened, my dear. I have come to bring you joy.'

The woman, however, did not appear to be frightened. She did not cry out or try to run away. On the contrary, she took a step forwards. The moon lit up the entrance hall with an intense, even glow, and the eyes behind the veil glinted.

'Why are we standing here like two Moslem women in yashmaks?' the Decorator joked. 'Let's show our faces.' The Decorator's veil was thrown back, revealing an affectionate smile, a smile from the heart. And let's not be formal with each other. We're going to get to know each other very well. We shall be closer than sisters. Come now, let me look at your pretty face. I know you are beautiful, but I shall help you to become even more so.'

The Decorator reached out one hand, but the woman did not jump back; she waited. Mr Fandorin had a good woman, calm and acquiescent. The Decorator had always liked women like that. It would be bad if she spoiled everything with a scream of horror and an expression of fear in her eyes. She would die instantly, with no pain or fright. That would be the Decorator's gift to her.

One hand drew the scalpel out of the little case that was attached to the Decorator's belt at the back; with the other threw back the fine gauze from the face of the fortunate woman.

The face revealed was broad and perfectly round, with slanting eyes. What kind of witchcraft was this? But there was no time to make any sense of it, because something in the entrance hall clicked and suddenly it was flooded with blindingly bright light, unbearable after the darkness.

With sensitive eyes screwed tightly shut against the pain, the Decorator heard a voice speaking through the darkness: Til give you joy right now, Pakhomenko. Or would you prefer me to call you by your former name, Mr Sotsky?'

Opening his eyes slightly, the Decorator saw the Japanese servant standing in front of him, fixing him with an unblinking stare. The Decorator did not turn round. Why should he turn round, when it was already clear that Mr Fandorin was behind him, probably holding a revolver in his hand? The cunning Collegiate Counsellor had not gone to the Hotel Tsargrad. He had not believed that Zakharov was guilty. Satan himself must have whispered the truth to Fandorin.

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani ? Or perhaps You have not abandoned me, but are testing the strength of my spirit?

Then let us test it.

Fandorin would not fire, because his bullet would go straight through the Decorator and hit the Japanese.

Thrust the scalpel into the short man's belly. Briefly, just below the diaphragm. Then, in a single movement, swing the Japanese round by his shoulders, shield himself with him and push him towards Fandorin. The door was only two quick bounds away, and then they would see who could run faster. Not even the fierce wolfhounds of Kherson had been able to catch convict number 3576. He'd manage to get away from Mr Collegiate Counsellor somehow.

Help me, O Lord!

His right hand flew forward as fast as an uncoiling spring, but the sharp blade cut nothing but air - the Japanese jumped backwards with unbelievable ease and struck the Decorator's wrist with the edge of his hand; the scalpel went flying to the floor with a sad tinkling sound, and the Asiatic froze on the spot again, holding his arms out slightly from his sides.

Instinct made the Decorator turn round. He saw the barrel of a revolver. Fandorin was holding the gun low, by his hip. If he fired from there, the bullet would take the top of the Decorator's skull off and not touch the Japanese. That changed things.

And the joy I will bring you is this,' Fandorin continued in the same level voice, as if the conversation had never been interrupted. 'I spare you the arrest, the investigation, the trial and the inevitable verdict. You will be shot while being detained.'

He has abandoned me. He truly has abandoned me, thought the Decorator, but this thought did not sadden him for long; it was displaced by a sudden joy. No, He has not abandoned me! He has decided to be merciful to me and is calling me, taking me to Himself! Release me now, O Lord.

The front door creaked open and a desperate woman's voice said: 'Erast, you mustn't!'

The Decorator came back from the celestial heights that had been about to open to him, down to earth. He turned round curiously and in the doorway he saw a very beautiful, stately woman in a black mourning dress and a black hat with a veil. The woman had a lilac shawl on her shoulders; in one hand she was holding a package of pashka Easter dessert and in the other a garland of paper roses.

'Angelina, why did you come back?' the Collegiate Counsellor said angrily. 'I asked you to stay in the Hotel Metropole tonight!'

A beautiful woman. She would hardly have been much more beautiful on the table, soaking in her own juices, with the petals of her body open. Only just a little bit.

'I felt something in my heart,' the beautiful woman told Fandorin, wringing her hands. 'Erast Petrovich, don't kill him; don't take the sin on your soul. Your soul will bend under the weight of it and snap.'

This was interesting. Now what would the Collegiate Counsellor say?

His cool composure had vanished without a trace; he was looking at the beautiful woman in angry confusion. The Japanese had been taken aback too: he was shaking his shaven head either at his master or his mistress with a very stupid expression.

Well, this is a family matter; we won't intrude. They can sort things out without our help.

In two quick bounds the Decorator had rounded the Japanese, and then it was five steps to the door and freedom - and Fandorin couldn't fire because the woman was too close. Goodbye, gentlemen!

A shapely leg in a black felt boot struck the Decorator across the ankle, and the Decorator was sent sprawling, with his forehead flying towards the doorpost. A blow. Darkness.

Everything was ready for the trial to begin.

The unconscious accused was sitting in an armchair in a woman's dress, but without any hat. He had an impressive purple bump coming up on his forehead.

The court bailiff, Masa, was standing beside him with his arms crossed on his chest.

Erast Petrovich had appointed Angelina as the judge and taken the role of prosecutor on himself.

But first there was an argument.

'I can't judge anyone,' said Angelina. 'The Emperor has judges for that; let them decide if he is guilty or not. Let them pronounce sentence.'

'What s-sentence?' Fandorin asked with a bitter laugh. He had started to stammer again after the criminal had been detained -in fact even more than before, as if he were trying to make up for lost time. 'Who needs a scandalous t-trial like that? They'll be only too glad to declare Sotsky insane and put him in a madhouse, from which he will quite definitely escape. No bars will hold a man like this. I was going to kill him, in the way one kills a mad dog, b-but you stopped me. Now decide his fate yourself, since you interfered. You know what this monster has done.'

'What if it's not him? Are you quite incapable of making a mistake?' Angelina protested passionately.

‘I’ll prove to you that he, and no one else, is the murderer. That's why I'm the prosecutor. You judge f-fairly. I couldn't find a more merciful judge for him in the whole wide world. And if you don't want to be his judge, then go to the Metropole and don't get in my way'

'No, I won't go away' she said; 'let there be a trial. But in a trial there's a counsel for the defence. Who's going to defend him?'

'I assure you that this gentleman will not allow anyone else to take on the role of counsel for the defence. He knows how to stand up for himself. Let's begin.'

Erast Petrovich nodded to Masa, and the valet stuck a bottle of smelling salts under the nose of the man in the chair.

The man in the woman's dress jerked his head and fluttered his eyelashes. The eyes were dull at first, then they turned a bright sky-blue colour and acquired intelligence. The soft features were illuminated by a good-natured smile.

'Your name and title?' Fandorin said sternly, trespassing somewhat on the prerogatives of the chairman of the court.

The seated man examined the scene around him. 'Have you decided to play out a trial? Very well, why not. Name and title? Sotsky ... former nobleman, former student, former convict number 3576. And now - nobody'

'Do you admit that you are guilty of committing a number of murders?' Erast Petrovich began reading from a notepad, pausing after each name: 'The prostitute Emma Elizabeth Smith on the third of April 1888 on Osborne Street in London; the prostitute Martha Tabram on the seventh of August 1888 near George Yard in London; the prostitute Mary Ann Nichols on the thirty-first of August 1888 on Back Row in London; the prostitute Ann Chapman on the eighth of September 1888 on Hanbury Street in London; the prostitute Elizabeth Stride on the thirtieth of September 1888 in Berner Street in London; the prostitute Catherine Eddows also on the thirtieth of September 1888 on Mitre Square in London; the prostitute Mary Jane Kelly on the ninth of November 1888 on Dorset Street in London; the prostitute Rose Millet on the twentieth of December 1888 on Poplar High Street in London; the prostitute Alexandra Zotova on the fifth of February 1889 in Svininsky Lane in Moscow; the beggar Marya Kosaya on the eleventh of February 1889 in Maly Tryokhsvyatsky Lane in Moscow; the prostitute Stepanida Andreichkina on the night of the third of April on Seleznyovsky Lane in Moscow; an unidentified beggar girl on the fifth of April 1889 near the Novotikhvinsk level crossing in Moscow; Court Counsellor Leontii Izhitsin and his maid Zinaida Matiushkina on the night of the fifth of April 1889 on Vozdvizhenskaya Street in Moscow; the spinster Sophia Tulipova and her nurse Pelageya Makarova on the seventh of April 1889 on Granatny Lane in Moscow; the Provincial Secretary Anisii Tulipov and the doctor Egor Zakharov on the night of the seventh of April at the Bozhedomka Cemetery in Moscow - in all eighteen people, eight of whom were killed by you in England and ten in Russia. And those are only the victims of which the investigation has certain knowledge. I repeat the question: do you admit that you are guilty of committing these crimes?'

Fandorin's voice seemed to have been strengthened by reading out the long list. It had become loud and resonant, as if the Collegiate Counsellor were speaking to a full courtroom. The stammer had also disappeared in some mysterious fashion.

'Well, that, my dear Erast Petrovich, depends on the evidence,' the accused replied amiably, apparently delighted with the proposed game. Well, let's say that I don't admit it. I'm really looking forward to hearing the opening address from the prosecution. Purely out of curiosity. Since you've decided to postpone my extermination.'

Well then, listen,' Fandorin replied sternly. He turned over the page of his notepad and continued speaking, addressing himself to Pakhomenko-Sotsky but looking at Angelina most of the time.

'First, the prehistory. In 1882 there was a scandal in Moscow that involved medical students and students from the Higher Courses for Women. You were the leader, the evil genius of this depraved circle and, because of that, you were the only member of it who was severely punished: you were sentenced to four years in a convict battalion - without any trial, in order to avoid publicity. You cruelly tormented unfortunate prostitutes who had no right of redress, and fate repaid you with equal cruelty. You were sent to the Kherson military prison, which is said to be more terrible than hard labour in Siberia. The year before last, following an investigation into a case of the abuse of power, the senior administrators of the punishment battalion were put on trial. But by then you were already far away ...'

Erast Petrovich hesitated and then continued after a brief pause: 'I am the prosecutor and I am not obliged to seek excuses for you, but I cannot pass over in silence the fact that the final transformation of a wanton youth into a ravenous, bloodthirsty beast was facilitated by society itself. The contrast between student life and the hell of a military prison would drive absolutely anyone insane. During the first year there you killed a man in self-defence. The military court acknowledged the mitigating circumstances, but it increased your sentence to eight years and when you were sent to the guardhouse, they put shackles on you and subjected you to a long period of solitary confinement. No doubt it was owing to the inhuman conditions in which you were kept that you turned into an inhuman monster. No, Sotsky you did not break, you did not lose your mind, you did not try to kill yourself. In order to survive, you became a different creature, with only an external resemblance to a human being. In 1886 your family, who had turned their backs on you long before, were informed that convict Sotsky had drowned in the Dnieper during an attempted escape. I sent an inquiry to the Department of Military Justice, asking if the fugitive's body had been found. They replied that it had not. That was the answer I had been expecting. The prison administration had simply concealed the fact of your successful escape. A very common business.'

The accused listened to Fandorin with lively interest, neither confirming what he said nor denying it.

'Tell me, my dear prosecutor: what was it that made you start raking through the case of the long-forgotten Sotsky? Forgive me for interrupting you, but this is an informal court, although I presume the verdict will be binding and not subject to appeal.'

'Two of the individuals who were included in the list of suspects had been your accomplices in the case of the Sadist Circle, and they mentioned your name. It turned out that forensic medical expert Zakharov, who was involved in the inquiry, had also belonged to the group. I realised straight away that the criminal could only be receiving news of the inquiry from Zakharov, and I was going to take a closer look at the people around him, but first I took the wrong path and suspected the factory-owner Burylin. Everything fitted very well.'

'And why didn't you suspect Zakharov himself ?'Sotsky asked, in a voice that sounded almost offended. After all, everything pointed to him, and I did everything I could to help things along.'

'No, I couldn't think that Zakharov was the murderer. He besmirched his name less than the others in the Sadist Circle case; he was only a passive observer of your cruel amusements. And in addition, Zakharov was frankly and aggressively cynical and that kind of character is not typical of maniacal killers. But these are circumstantial points; the main thing is that last year Zakharov only stayed in England for a month and a half, and he was in Moscow when most of the London murders took place. I checked that at the very beginning and immediately excluded him from the list of suspects. He could not have been Jack the Ripper.'

'You and your Jack the Ripper,' said Sotsky, with an irritated twitch of his shoulder. 'Well, let us suppose that while Zakharov was staying with relatives in England he read a lot in the newspapers about the Ripper and decided to continue his work in Moscow. I noticed just now that you count the number of victims in a strange manner. Investigator Izhitsin came to a different conclusion. He put thirteen corpses on the table, and you only accuse me of ten killings in Moscow. And that's including those who died after the "investigative experiment"; otherwise there would only be four. Your numbers don't add up somewhere, Mr Prosecutor.'

'On the contrary' said Erast Petrovich, not even slightly perturbed by this unexpected outburst. 'Of the thirteen bodies exhumed with signs of mutilation, four had been brought directly from the scene of the crime: Zotova, Marya Kosaya, Andreichkina and the unidentified girl, and you had also not managed to process two of your February victims according to your special method - clearly, someone must have frightened you off. The other nine bodies, the most horribly mutilated of all, were extracted from anonymous graves. The Moscow police are, of course, far from perfect, but it is impossible to imagine that no one paid any attention to bodies that had been mutilated in such a monstrous fashion. Here in Russia many people are murdered, but more simply, without all these fantasies. When they found Andreichkina slashed to pieces, look what an uproar it caused immediately. The Governor-General was informed straight away, and His Excellency assigned his Deputy for Special Assignments to investigate. I can say without bragging that the Prince only assigns me to cases that are of exceptional importance. And here we have almost ten mutilated bodies and nobody has made any fuss? Impossible.'

'Somehow I don't understand,' said Angelina, speaking for the first time since the trial had begun. 'Who did such things to these poor people?'

Erast Petrovich was clearly delighted by her question - the stubborn silence of the 'judge' had rendered the examination of the evidence meaningless.

'The earliest bodies were exhumed from the November ditch. However, that does not mean that Jack the Ripper had already arrived in Moscow in November.'

'Of course not!' said the accused, interrupting Fandorin. 'As far as I recall, the latest London murder was committed on Christmas Eve. I don't know if you will be able to prove to our charming judge that I am guilty of the Moscow murders, but you certainly won't be able to make me into Jack the Ripper.'

An icy, disdainful smile slid across Erast Petrovich's face, and he became stern and sombre again. 'I understand the meaning of your remark perfectly well. You cannot wriggle out of the Moscow murders. The more of them there are, the more monstrous and outrageous they are, the better for you - you are more likely be declared insane. But for Jack's crimes the English would be certain to demand your extradition, and Russian justice would be only too delighted to be rid of such a bothersome madman. If you go to England, where things are done openly, nothing will be hushed up in our Russian fashion. You would swing from the gallows there, my dear sir. Don't you want to?' Fandorin's voice shifted down an octave, as if his own throat had been caught in a noose. 'Don't even hope that you can leave your career in London behind you. The apparent mismatch of the dates is easily explained. "Watchman Pakhomenko" appeared at the Bozhedomka Cemetery shortly after the New Year. I assume that Zakharov got you the job for old times' sake. Most likely you met in London during his most recent visit. Of course, Zakharov did not know about your new amusements. He simply thought that you had escaped from prison. How could he refuse to help an old comrade whom life had treated so harshly? Well?'

Sotsky did not reply; he merely shrugged one shoulder as if to say: I'm listening, go on.

'Did things get too hot for you in London? Were the police getting too close? All right. You moved to your native country. I don't know what passport you used to cross the border, but you turned up in Moscow as a simple Ukrainian peasant, one of those godly wandering pilgrims, of whom there are so many in Russia. That's why there is no information about your arrival from abroad in the police records. You lived at the cemetery for a while, settled in, took a look around. Zakharov obviously felt sorry for you; he gave you protection and money You went for quite a long time without killing anybody - more than a month. Possibly you were intending to start a new life. But you weren't strong enough. After the excitement in London, ordinary life had become impossible for you. This peculiarity of the maniacal mind is well known to criminal science. Once someone has tasted blood, he can't stop. At first you took the opportunity offered by your job to hack up bodies from the graves; it was winter, so the bodies buried since the end of November had not begun to decompose. You tried a man's body once, but you didn't like it. It didn't match your "idea" somehow. By the way, what is your idea? Can you not tolerate sinful, ugly women? "I want to give you joy," "I will help to make you more beautiful" -do you use a scalpel to save fallen women from their ugliness? Is that the reason for the bloody kiss?'

The accused said nothing. His face became solemn and remote, the bright blue of his eyes dimmed as he half-closed his eyelids.

'And then lifeless bodies weren't good enough any longer. You made several attempts which, fortunately, were unsuccessful, and committed two murders. Or was it more?' Fandorin suddenly shouted out, rushing at the accused, shaking him so hard by the shoulders that his head almost flew off.

Answer me?'

'Erast!' Angelina shouted. 'Stop it!'

The Collegiate Counsellor started away from the seated man, took two hasty steps backwards and hid his hands behind his back, struggling to control his agitation. The Ripper, not frightened at all by Erast Petrovich's outburst, sat without moving, staring at Fandorin with an expression of calm superiority.

"What can you understand?' the full, fleshy lips whispered almost inaudibly.

Erast Petrovich frowned in frustration, tossed a lock of black hair back off his forehead and continued his interrupted speech: "On the evening of the third of April, a year after the first London murder, you killed the spinster Andreichkina and mutilated her body. A day later the juvenile beggar became your victim. After that, events moved very quickly. Izhitsin's "experiment" triggered a paroxysm of excitation which you discharged by killing and disembowelling Izhitsin himself, at the same time murdering his entirely innocent maid. From that moment on, you deviate from your "idea" and you kill in order to cover your tracks and avoid retribution. When you realised that the circle was closing in, you decided it would be more convenient to shift the blame on to your friend and protector Zakharov. Epecially since the forensic specialist had begun to suspect you - he must have put a few facts together, or else he knew something that I don't. In any case, on Friday evening Zakharov was writing a letter addressed to the investigators, in which he intended to expose you. He kept tearing it up and starting again. His assistant Grumov said that Zakharov locked himself in his office shortly after three, so he was struggling with his conscience until the evening, struggling with the understandable, but in the present instance entirely inappropriate, feelings of honour and esprit de corps, as well as simple compassion for a comrade whom life had treated harshly. You took the letter and collected all the torn pieces. But there were two scraps that you failed to notice. On one it said "longer remain silent" and on the other "erations of esprit de corps and sympathy for an old com". The meaning is obvious: Zakharov was writing that that he could no longer remain silent, and attempting to justify harbouring a murderer by referring to considerations of esprit de corps and sympathy for an old comrade. That was the moment when I was finally convinced that the killer had to be sought among Zakharov's former fellow students. Since it was a matter of "sympathy", then it had to be one of those whose lives had gone badly. That excluded the millionaire Burylin. There were only three left: Stenich, the alcoholic Rozen and Sotsky whose name kept coming up in the stories that the former "sadists" told me. He was supposed to be dead, but that had to be verified.'

'Erast Petrovich, why are you certain that this doctor, Zakharov, has been killed?' Angelina asked.

'Because he has disappeared, although he had no need to,' replied Erast Petrovich. 'Zakharov is not guilty of the murders and he had believed that he was sheltering a fugitive convict, not a bloody killer. But when he realised who he had been sheltering, he was frightened. He kept a loaded revolver beside his bed. He was afraid of you, Sotsky. After the murders in Granatny Lane you returned to the cemetery and saw Tulipov observing Zakharov's office. The guard dog did not bark at you; he knows you very well. Tulipov was absorbed in his observation work and failed to notice you. You realised that suspicion had fallen on Zakharov and decided to exploit the fact. In the report he dictated just before he died, Tulipov states that shortly after ten Zakharov went out of his study and there was some sort of clattering in the corridor. Obviously the murder took place at that very moment. You entered the house silently and waited for Zakharov to come out into the corridor for something. And that is why the rug disappeared from the corridor. It must have had bloodstains on it, so you removed it. When you were finished with Zakharov, you crept outside and attacked Tulipov from behind, inflicting mortal wounds and leaving him to bleed to death. I presume you saw him get up, stagger to the gates and then collapse again. You were afraid to go and finish him, because you knew that he had a weapon, and in any case you knew that his wounds were fatal. Without wasting any time, you dragged Zakharov's body out and buried it in the cemetery. I even know exactly where. You threw it into the April ditch for unidentified bodies and sprinkled earth over it. By the way, do you know how you gave yourself away?'

Sotsky started, and the calm, resigned expression was replaced once again by curiosity, but only for a few moments. Then the invisible curtain came down again, erasing all trace of living feeling.

'When I talked to you yesterday morning, you said you hadn't slept all night, that you had heard the shots, and then the door slamming and the sound of footsteps. That was supposed to make me think that Zakharov was alive and had gone into hiding. But in fact it made me think something else, If the watchman Pakhomenko's ears were sharp enough to hear footsteps from a distance, why could he not hear the blasts that Tulipov gave on his whistle when he came round? The answer is obvious: at that moment you were not in your hut; you were some distance away from the spot - for instance, at the far end of the cemetery, where the April ditch happens to be. That is one. If Zakharov had been the killer, he could not have gone out through the gates, because Tulipov was lying there wounded and had still not come round. The killer would certainly have finished him off. That is two. So now I had confirmation that Zakharov, who I already knew could not be the London maniac, was not involved in Tulipov's death. If he had nonetheless disappeared, it meant that he had been killed. If you bed about the circumstances of his disappearance, it meant that you were involved in it. And I remembered that both murders that were committed according to the "idea", the prostitute Andreichkina and the young beggar, were committed within fifteen minutes' walking distance of the Bozhedomka Cemetery - it was the late investigator Izhitsin who first noticed that, although he drew the wrong conclusions from it. Once I put these facts together with the fragments of phrases from the letter, I was almost certain that the "old comrade" with whom Zakharov sympathised and whom he did not wish to give away was you. Because of your job you were involved in the exhumation of the bodies and you knew a lot about how the investigation was developing. That is one. You were present at the "investigative experiment". That is two. You had access to the graves and the ditches. That is three. You knew Tulipov - in fact you were almost friends. That is four. In the list of those present at the experiment drawn up before he died, you are described as follows.'

Erast Petrovich walked across to the table, picked up a sheet of paper and read from it: 'Pakhomenko, the cemetery watchman. I don't know his first name and patronymic, the labourers call him "Pakhom". Age uncertain: between thirty and fifty. Above average height, strongly built. Round, gentle face, without a moustache or beard. Ukrainian accent. I have had several conversations with him on various subjects. I have listened to the story of his life (he was a wandering pilgrim and has seen a lot of things) and told him about myself. He is intelligent, observant, religious and kind. He has assisted me greatly in the investigation. Perhaps the only one of them whose innocence could not possibly be in the slightest doubt.'

A nice boy' the accused said, touched, and his words made the Collegiate Counsellor's face twitch, while the dispassionate court guard whispered something harsh and hissing in Japanese.

Even Angelina shuddered as she looked at the man in the chair.

'You made use of Tulipov's revelations on Friday when you entered his apartment and committed a double murder,' Erast Petrovich continued after a brief pause. And as for my ... domestic circumstances, they are known to many people, and Zakharov could have told you about them. So today or, in fact, yesterday morning already, I had only one suspect left: you. But I still had a few things to do. Firstly, establish what Sotsky looked like, secondly ascertain whether he really was dead and, finally, find witnesses who could identify you. Stenich described Sotsky to me as he was seven years ago. You have probably changed greatly in seven years, but height, the colour of the eyes and the shape of the nose are not subject to change, and all of those features matched. A telegram from the Department of Military Justice which included the details of Sotsky's time in prison and his supposedly unsuccessful attempt to escape, made it clear that the convict could quite well still be alive. My greatest difficulty was with witnesses. I had high hopes of the former "sadist" Filipp Rozen. When he spoke about Sotsky in my presence, he used a strange phrase that stuck in my memory. "He's dead, but I keep thinking I see him everywhere. Take yesterday ..." He never finished the phrase - someone interrupted him. But on that "yesterday", that is, on the fourth of April, Rozen was with Zakharov and the others at the cemetery. I wondered if he might have seen the watchman Pakhomenko there and spotted a resemblance to his old friend. Unfortunately I wasn't able to locate Rozen. But I did find a prostitute you tried to kill seven weeks ago at Shrovetide. She remembered you very well and she can identify you. At that stage I could have arrested you; there were enough solid clues. That is what I would have done if you yourself had not gone on the offensive. Then I realised that there is only way to stop someone like you

Sotsky appeared not to notice the threat behind these words. At least, he did not show the slightest sign of alarm - on the contrary, he smiled absent-mindedly at his own thoughts.

Ah yes, and there was the note that was sent to Burylin,' Fandorin remembered. A rather clumsy move. The note was really intended for me, was it not? The investigators had to be convinced that Zakharov was alive and in hiding. You even tried to imitate certain distinctive features of Zakharov's handwriting, but you only reinforced my conviction that the suspect was not an illiterate watchman but an educated man who knew Zakharov well and was acquainted with Burylin. That is - Sotsky Your telephone call when you took advantage of the technical shortcomings of the telephone to pretend to be Zakharov could not deceive me either. I have had occasion to use that trick myself. Your intention was also quite clear. You always act according to the same monstrous logic: if you find someone interesting, you kill those who are most dear to him. That was what you did in Tulipov's case. That was what you wanted to do with the daughter of the prostitute who had somehow attracted your perverted attention. You mentioned my Japanese servant very specifically - you clearly wanted him to come with me. Why? Why, of course, so that Angelina Samsonovna would be left at home alone. I would rather not think about the fate that you had in mind for her. I might not be able to restrain myself and

Fandorin broke off and swung round sharply to face Angelina: 'What is your verdict? Is he guilty or not?'

Pale and trembling, Angelina said in a quiet but firm voice: 'Now let him speak. Let him justify himself if he can.'

Sotsky said nothing, still smiling absent-mindedly. A minute passed, and then another, and just when it began to seem that the defence would not address the court at all, the lips of the accused moved and the words poured out - clear, measured, dignified words, as if it were not this man in fancy dress with a woman's face who was speaking, but some higher power with a superior knowledge of truth and justice.

'I do not need to justify anything to anyone. And I have only one judge - our Heavenly Father, who knows my motives and my innermost thoughts. I have always been a special case. Even when I was a child, I knew that I was special, not like everybody else. I was consumed by irresistible curiosity, I wanted to understand everything in the wonderful structure of God's world, to test everything, to try everything. I have always loved people, and they felt that and were drawn to me. I would have made a great healer, because nature gave me the talent to understand the sources of pain and suffering, and understanding is equivalent to salvation - every doctor knows that. The one thing I could not stand was ugliness; I saw it as an offence to God's work - ugliness enraged me and drove me into a fury. One day in a fit of such fury, I was unable to stop myself in time. An ugly old whore, whose very appearance was sacrilege against the name of the Lord, according to the way that I thought then, died as I was beating her with my cane. I did not fall into that fury under the influence of sadistic sensuality, as my judges imagined - no, it was the holy wrath of a soul imbued through and through with Beauty. From society's point of view it was just one more unfortunate accident - gilded youth has always got up to worse things than that. But I was not one of their privileged favourites, and they made an example of me to frighten the others. The only one, out of all of us! Now I understand that God had decided to choose me, I am the only one. But that is hard to understand at the age of twenty-four. I was not ready. For an educated man of sensitive feelings, the horrors of prison - no, a hundred times worse than that, the horrors of disciplinary confinement - are impossible to describe. I was subjected to cruel humiliation, I was the most abused and defenceless person in the entire barracks. I was tortured, subjected to rape, forced to walk around in a woman's dress. But I could feel some great power gradually maturing within me. It had been present within my being from the very beginning, and now it was putting out shoots and reaching up to the sun, like a fresh stalk breaking up through the earth in the spring. And one day I felt that I was ready. Fear left me and it has never returned. I killed my chief tormentor -killed him in front of everyone, grabbed hold of his ears with my hands and beat his half-shaved head against a wall. I was put in shackles and kept in the punishment cell for seven months. But I did not weaken or fall into consumptive despair. Every day I became stronger and more confident; my eyes learned to penetrate the darkness. Everyone was afraid of me - the guards, the officers, the other convicts. Even the rats left my cell. Every day I strained to understand what this important thing was that was knocking at the door of my soul and not being admitted. Everything around me was ugly and repulsive. I loved Beauty more than anything else in the world, and in my world there was absolutely none. So that this would not drive me insane, I remembered lectures from university and drew the structure of the human body on the earth floor with a chip of wood. Everything in it was rational, harmonious and beautiful. That was where Beauty was, that was where God was. In time God began to speak to me, and I realised that He was sending down my mysterious power. I escaped from the jail. My strength and stamina knew no bounds. Even the wolfhounds that were specially trained to hunt men could not catch me, the bullets did not hit me. I swam along the river at first, then across the estuary for many hours, until I was picked up by Turkish smugglers. I wandered around the Balkans and Europe. I was put in prison several times, but the prisons were easy to escape from, much easier than the Kherson fortress. Eventually I found a good job. In Whitechapel in London. In a slaughterhouse. I butchered the carcasses. My knowledge of surgery came in useful then. I was well respected and earned a lot; I saved money. But something was maturing within me again, as I looked at the beautiful displays of the rennet bags, the livers, the washed intestines for making sausages, the kidneys, the lungs. All this offal was put into bright, gay packaging and sent to the butchers' shops. Why does man show himself so little respect? I thought; surely the belly of the stupid cow, intended for the processing of coarse grass, is not more worthy of respect than our internal apparatus, created in the likeness of God? My enlightenment came a year ago, on the third of April. I was walking home from the evening shift. On a deserted street, where not a single lamp was lit, a repulsive hag approached me and suggested I should take her into one of the gateways. When I politely declined, she moved very close to me, searing my face with her filthy breath, and began shouting coarse obscenities. What a mockery of the image of God, I thought. What were all her internal organs working for day and night? Why was the tireless heart pumping the precious blood? Why were the myriads of cells in her organism being born, dying and being renewed again? What for? And I felt an irresistible urge to transform ugliness into Beauty, to look into the true essence of this creature who was so unattractive on the outside. I had my butcher's knife hanging on my belt. Later I bought a whole set of excellent scalpels, but that first time an ordinary butcher's instrument was enough. The result far surpassed all my expectations. The hideous woman was transformed! In front of my eyes she became beautiful! And I was awestruck at such obvious evidence of a miracle from God.'

The man in the chair shed a tear. He tried to continue, but just waved his arm and did not say another word.

'Is that enough for you?' Fandorin asked. 'Do you declare him guilty?'

'Yes,' Angelina whispered, and crossed herself. 'He is guilty of all these atrocities.'

'You can see for yourself that he cannot be allowed to live. He brings death and grief. He must be exterminated.'

Angelina started. 'No, Erast Petrovich. He is insane. He needs treatment. I don't know if it will work, but it has to be tried.'

'No, he isn't insane,' Erast Petrovich replied with conviction. 'He is cunning and calculating; he possesses a will of iron and he is exceptionally enterprising. What you see before you is not a madman, but a monster. Some people are born with a hump or a harelip. But there are others whose deformity is not visible to the naked eye. That kind of deformity is the most terrible kind. He is only a man in appearance, but in reality he lacks the most important, the most distinctive feature of a human being. He lacks that invisible, vital string that dwells in the human soul, sounding to tell a man if he has acted well or badly. It is still present even in the most inveterate villain. Its note may be weak, perhaps almost inaudible, but it still sounds. In the depths of his soul a man always knows the worth of his actions, if he has listened to that string even once in his life. You know what Sotsky has done, you heard what he said, you can see what he is like. He does not have the slightest idea that this string exists; his deeds are prompted by a completely different voice. In olden times they would have called him a servant of the devil. I put it more simply: he is not human. He does not repent of anything. And he cannot be stopped by ordinary means. He will not go to the gallows, and the walls of an insane asylum will not hold him. It will start all over again.'

'Erast Petrovich, you said that the English will demand his extradition,' Angelina exclaimed pitifully, as if she were clutching at her final straw. 'Let them kill him, only not you!'

Fandorin shook his head. 'The handover is a long process. He'll escape - from prison, from a convoy, from a train, from a ship. I cannot take that risk.'

'You have no trust in God,' she said sadly, hanging her head. 'God knows how and when to put an end to evil deeds.'

'I don't know about God. And I cannot be an impartial observer. In my view, that is the worst sin of all. No more, Angelina, I've decided.'

Erast Petrovich spoke to Masa in Japanese: 'Take him out into the yard.'

'Master, you have never killed an unarmed man before,' his servant replied agitatedly in the same language. 'You will suffer. And the mistress will be angry. I will do it myself.'

'That will not change anything. And the fact that he is unarmed makes no difference. To hold a duel would be mere showmanship. I should kill him just as easily even if he were armed. Let us do without any cheap theatrics.'

When Masa and Fandorin took the condemned man by the elbows to lead him out into the yard, Angelina cried out: 'Erast, for my sake, for our sake!'

The Decorator glanced back with a smile: 'My lady, you are a picture of beauty, but I assure you that on the table, surrounded by china plates, you would be even more beautiful.'

Angelina squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears, but she still heard the sound of the shot in the yard - dry and short, almost indistinguishable against the roaring of the firecrackers and the rockets flying into the starry sky.

Erast Petrovich came back alone. He stood in the doorway and wiped the sweat from his brow. His teeth chattered as he said: 'Do you know what he whispered? "Oh Lord, what happiness".'

They stayed like that for a long time: Angelina sitting with her eyes closed, the tears flowing out from under her eyelids; Fandorin wanting to go to her, but afraid.

Finally she stood up. She walked up to him, put her arms round him and kissed him passionately several times - on the forehead, on the eyes, on the lips.

'I'm going away, Erast Petrovich; remember me kindly'

Angelina ...' The Court Counsellor's face, already pale, turned ashen grey 'Surely not because of that vampire, that monster

Tm a hindrance to you; I divert you from your own path,' she interrupted, not listening to him. 'The sisters have been asking me to join them for a long time now, at the Boris and Gleb Convent. It is what I should have done from the very beginning, when my father passed away. And I have grown weak with you. I wanted a holiday. But that is what holidays are like: they don't last for long. I shall watch over you from a distance. And pray to God for you. Follow the promptings of your own soul, and if something goes wrong, don't be afraid: I will make amends through prayer.'

'You can't go into a c-convent,' Fandorin said rapidly, almost incoherently. 'You're not like them; you're so vital and passionate. You won't be able stand it. And without you, I won't be able to go on.'

'You will; you're strong. It's hard for you with me. It will be easier without me... And as for me being vital and passionate the sisters are just the same. God has no need of cold people. Forgive me, goodbye. I have known for a long time we should not be together.'

Erast Petrovich stood in silent confusion, sensing that there were no arguments that could make her alter her decision. And Angelina was silent too, gently stroking his cheek and his grey temple.

Out of the night, from the dark streets, so out of tune with this farewell, there came the incessant pealing of the Easter bells.

'It's all right, Erast Petrovich,' said Angelina. 'It's all right. Do you hear? Christ is risen.'