The Death of Achilles

TWO

In which Fandorin sets about his investigation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Time of death?” asked Karachentsev.

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

The general turned to the Cossack captain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Karachentsev pricked up his ears at that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Erast Petrovich nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fandorin raised and lowered his silky eyebrows, concentrating hard.

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

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

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

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

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

Karachentsev’s eyes glinted angrily.

“Well, and what is it?”

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

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

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

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

The general set off resolutely toward the door.

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

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

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