The Winter Queen

CHAPTER EIGHT

which the jack of spades turns up most inopportunely

IN THE SMOKE-FILLED HALL THE PLAYERS WERE seated at six green card tables—in some places in compact groups, in others in fours or twos. There were also observers loitering beside each table: fewer around games where the stakes were low and rather more where the excitement of the spiel was spiraling upward. Wine and hors d’oeuvres were not served at the count’s establishment. Those who wished could go into the drawing room and send a servant out to a tavern, but the gamblers only ever sent out for champagne to celebrate some special run of luck. On all sides there resounded abrupt exclamations incomprehensible to the non-gambler:

“Je coupe.”*

“Je passe.”

“Second deal.”

“Retournez la carte.”**

“Well, gentleman, the hands are dealt!”—and so forth.

The largest crowd was standing around the table where a high-stakes game was taking place, one against one. The host himself was dealing and a sweaty gentleman in a fashionable, overtight frock coat was punting. The punter’s luck was clearly not running. He repeatedly bit his lips and became excited, while the count was the very image of composure, merely smiling sweetly from under his black mustache as he drew in the smoke from a curving Turkish chibouque. The well-tended, strong fingers with their glittering rings dealt the cards adroitly—one to the right, one to the left.

Among the observers, standing demurely at the back, was a young man with black hair whose face bore no resemblance to that of a gambler. It was immediately obvious to a man of experience that the youth came from a good family, had wandered into a gaming hall for the first time, and felt entirely out of place. Several times old stagers with brilliantined partings in their hair had proposed that he might like to ‘turn a card,’ but they had been disappointed. The youth never staked more than five rubles and positively refused to be ‘wound up.’ The experienced card master Gromov, a man known to the whole of gambling Moscow, even threw the boy some bait by losing a hundred rubles to him, but the money was simply wasted. The rosy-cheeked youth’s eyes did not light up and his hands did not begin to tremble. This was an unpromising mark, a genuine ‘louser.’

And in the meantime Fandorin—for of course it was he—believed that he had been slipping through the hall like an invisible shadow without attracting anyone’s attention. In all honesty, he had not yet done a great deal of this ‘slipping.’ Once he had noticed an extremely respectable-looking gentleman slyly appropriate a gold half imperial from a table and walk off with a highly dignified air. Then there were the two young officers who had been arguing in loud whispers in the corridor, but Erast Fandorin had not understood a word of their conversation: the lieutenant of dragoons was heatedly asserting that he was not some ‘top spinner’ or other and he did not ‘play the Arab’ with his friends, while the cornet of hussars was upbraiding him for being some kind of ‘fixer.’

Zurov, beside whom Fandorin had found himself every now and then, was clearly in his native element in this society, by far the biggest fish in the pond. A single word from him was enough to nip a nascent scandal in the bud. Once at a mere gesture from their master two thug-gish lackeys took hold of the elbows of a gentleman who refused to stop shouting and had carried him out the door in an instant. The count definitely did not recognize Erast Fandorin, although Fandorin did catch his quick, unfriendly gaze on himself several times.

“Fifth round, sir,” Zurov declared, and for some reason this announcement drove the punter to a paroxysm of excitement.

“I mark the duck!” he shouted out in a trembling voice and bent over two corners on his card.

A low whisper ran through the watching crowd as the sweaty gentleman tossed back a lock of hair from his forehead and cast a whole bundle of rainbow-colored bills onto the table.

“What is a ‘duck’?” Erast Fandorin inquired in a bashful whisper of a red-nosed gentleman who seemed to him to be the most good-humored.

“That signifies the quadrupling of the stake,” his neighbor gladly explained. “The gentleman desires to take his revenge in full in the following round.”

The count indifferently released a small cloud of smoke and exposed a king to the right and a six to the left.

The punter revealed the ace of hearts.

Zurov nodded and instantly tossed a black ace to the right and a red king to the left.

From somewhere Fandorin heard a whisper of admiration: “Exquisitely done!”

The sweaty gentleman was a pitiful sight. His glance followed the heap of banknotes as it migrated to a position beside the count’s elbow and inquired timidly, “Would you perhaps care to continue against an IOU?”

“I would not,” Zurov replied lazily. “Who else wishes to play, gentlemen?”

His gaze unexpectedly came to rest on Erast Fandorin.

“I believe we have met?” the host asked with an unpleasant smile. “Mr. Fedorin, if I am not mistaken?”

“Fandorin,” Erast Fandorin corrected him, blushing furiously.

“I beg your pardon. Why do you do nothing but stand and stare? This is not a theater we have here. If you’ve come, then play. Please have a seat.” He pointed to the newly vacated chair.

“Choose the decks yourself,” the kind old gentleman hissed in Fandorin’s ear.

Erast Fandorin sat down and, following instructions, he said in an extremely decisive manner, “But if you don’t mind, Your Excellency, I will keep the bank myself. A novice’s privilege. And as for the decks, I would prefer…that one and that one there.” And so saying he took the two bottom packs from the tray of unopened decks.

Zurov smiled still more unpleasantly. “Very well, mister novice, your terms are accepted, but on one condition: if I break the bank, you must not run off. Afterward give me the chance to deal. Well, what’s the pot to be?”

Fandorin faltered, his resolve deserting him as suddenly as it had descended on him.

“A hundred rubles?” he asked timidly.

“Are you joking? This is not one of your taverns.”

“Very well, three hundred.” And Erast Fandorin placed all his money on the table, including the hundred he had won earlier.

“Lejeu ne vautpas la chandelle,”* said the count with a shrug, “but I suppose it will do for a start.”

He drew a card from his deck and carelessly tossed three hundred-ruble notes onto it.

“I’ll go for the lot.”

The ‘forehead’ was to the right, Erast Fandorin remembered, and he carefully set down a lady with little red hearts to the right and to the left the seven of spades.

Hippolyte Alexandrovich Zurov turned his card over with two fingers and gave a slight frown. It was the queen of diamonds.

“Well done, the novice,” someone said with a whistle. “He set up that queen very handily.”

Fandorin clumsily shuffled his deck.

“For the whole pot,” the count said derisively, tossing six notes onto the table. “Dammit, if you don’t place it, you’ll never ace it.”

What was the card on the left called? Erast Fandorin could not remember. This one was the ‘forehead,’ but the second one…damnation. It was embarrassing. What if Zurov asked something? It would look bad if he had to check his crib.

“Bravo!” called out the audience. “Count, c’est un jeu intéressant* do you not think so?”

Erast Fandorin saw that he had won again.

“Be so kind as not to Frenchify. It really is a stupid habit to stick half of a French phrase into Russian speech,” Zurov said irritably, glancing around at the speaker, although he himself interpolated French expressions now and again. “Deal, Fandorin, deal. A card’s not a horse, waiting to take you home in the morning. For the lot.”

To the right, a jack—that’s the ‘forehead’—to the left, an eight, that’s—

Count Hippolyte Zurov turned over a ten. Fandorin killed it at the fourth twist.

People were now pressing around the table on all sides, and Erast Fandorin’s success was worthily acclaimed.

“Fandorin, Fandorin,” Zurov muttered absentmindedly, drumming on the deck of cards with his fingers. Eventually he drew out a card and counted out 2,400 rubles.

The six of spades went straight to the ‘forehead’ from the very first twist.

“What kind of name is that?” exclaimed the count, growing furious. “Fandorin! From the Greek, is it? Fandorakis, Fandoropoulos!”

“Why Greek?” Erast Fandorin asked, taking offense. The memory of how his good-for-nothing classmates had mocked his ancient surname was still fresh in his mind—at the gymnasium Erast Fandorin’s nickname had been Fanny. “Our line, Count, is as Russian as your own. The Fandorins served Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.”

“Yes, indeed, sir,” said the same recent red-nosed old gentleman, Erast Fandorin’s well-wisher, suddenly coming to life. “There was a Fandorin at the time of Catherine the Great who left the most fascinating memoirs.”

“Fascinating, fascinating, today is most exasperating,” Zurov rhymed gloomily, heaping up an entire mound of banknotes. “For the entire bank! Deal a card, devil take you!”

“Le dernier coup, messieurs!”* came a voice from the crowd.

Everyone stared greedily at the two equally huge piles of crumpled notes, one lying in front of the banker, the other in front of the punter.

In absolute silence Fandorin opened up two fresh decks of cards, still thinking about the same thing. Pocketbook? Handbook?

An ace to the right, another ace to the left. Zurov has a king. A queen to the right, a ten to the left. A jack to the right, a queen to the left. Which one was the higher card, after all, jack or queen? A seven to the right, a six to the left.

“Don’t snort down my neck!” the count roared furiously, and the crowd recoiled from him.

An eight to the right, a nine to the left. A king to the right, a ten to the left. A king!

The men standing around were howling with laughter. Count Hip-polyte Zurov sat there as though turned to stone.

Dreambook! Erast Fandorin remembered and smiled in delight. The card to the left was the dreambook. What a strange name it was.

Zurov suddenly bent forward across the table and pinched Fandorin’s lips into a tube with ringers of steel.

“Don’t you dare smirk! If you happen to have won a bundle, then have the decency to behave in a civil manner!” the count hissed furiously, moving very close. His bloodshot eyes were terrible. The next moment he pushed Fandorin’s chin away, leaned back against his chair, and folded his arms on his chest.

“Count, that really is going too far!” exclaimed one of the officers.

“I don’t believe I am running away,” Zurov hissed, without taking his eyes off Fandorin. “If anyone’s feelings are offended, I am prepared to reciprocate.”

A genuinely deadly silence filled the room.

There was a terrible ringing in Erast Fandorin’s ears, and there was only one thing he was afraid of now—he must not turn coward. But then, he was also afraid that his voice would betray him by trembling.

“You are a dishonorable scoundrel. You simply do not wish to pay,” said Fandorin, and his voice did tremble, but that no longer mattered. “I challenge you.”

“Playing the hero for the audience?” sneered Zurov. “We’ll see how you sing looking down the barrel of a gun. Tomorrow. At twenty paces, with barriers. Either party can fire when he wishes, but afterward you must stand at the barrier. Are you not afraid?”

I am afraid, thought Erast Fandorin. Akhtyrtsev said he can hit a five-kopeck coin at twenty paces, let alone a forehead. Or even worse, a stomach. Fandorin shuddered. He had never even held a dueling pistol in his hand. Xavier Grushin had once taken him to the police shooting range to fire a Colt, but that was entirely different. Zurov would kill him, he would kill him over a worthless trifle. And he would get clean away with it. There would be no way to catch him out. There were plenty of witnesses. It was a quarrel over cards, a common enough business. The count would spend a month in the guardhouse and then be released; he had influential relatives, and Erast Fandorin had no one. They would lay the collegiate registrar in a rough plank coffin and bury him in the ground and no one would come to the funeral. Except perhaps Grushin and Agrafena Kondratievna. And Lizanka would read about it in the newspaper and think in passing: what a shame, he was such a well-mannered policeman, and so very young. But, no, she would not read it—Emma probably did not give her the newspapers. And, of course, his chief would say: I believed in him, the fool, and he got himself killed like some idiotic greenhorn. Decided to fight a duel, dabble in idiotic gentry sentiment. And then he would spit.

“Why don’t you say something?” Zurov asked with a cruel smile. “Or have you changed your mind about going shooting?”

But just then Erast Fandorin had a positively lifesaving idea. He would not have to fight the duel straightaway—at the very earliest it would be the following morning. Of course, to go running to his chief to complain would be mean and despicable, but Ivan Brilling had said there were other agents working on Zurov. It was entirely possible that one of the chief’s people was here in the hall right now. He could accept the challenge and maintain his honor, but if, for example, tomorrow at dawn the police were suddenly to raid the house and arrest Count Zurov for running a gambling den, then Fandorin would not be to blame for it. In fact, he would not know a thing about it. Ivan Brilling would know perfectly well how to act without consulting him.

His salvation, one might say, was as good as in the bag, but Erast Fandorin’s voice suddenly acquired a life of its own, independent of its owner’s will, and began uttering the most incredible nonsense and, amazingly enough, it was no longer trembling.

“No, I haven’t changed my mind. But why wait until tomorrow? Let’s do it right now. They tell me, Count, that you practice from morning to night with five-kopeck pieces, and at precisely twenty paces?” Zurov turned crimson. “I think we ought to go about things differently, as long as you don’t funk it.” Now hadn’t Akhtyrtsev’s story come in very handy! There was no need to invent a thing. It had all been invented already. “Let us draw lots and the one who loses will go out in the yard and shoot himself, without any barriers. And afterward there will be the very minimum of unpleasantness. A man lost and he put a bullet through his forehead—it’s a common story. And the gentlemen will give their word of honor that everything will remain a secret. Will you not, gentlemen?”

The gentlemen began talking and their opinion proved to be divided: some expressed immediate willingness to give their word of honor, but others suggested forgetting the quarrel altogether and drinking the cup of peace. Then one major with luxuriant mustaches exclaimed, “But the boy is putting up a good show,” and that increased Erast Fandorin’s fervor.

“Well then, Count?” he exclaimed with desperate insolence, finally slipping his reins. “Can it really be easier to hit a five-kopeck piece than your own forehead? Or are you afraid of missing?”

Zurov said nothing, staring curiously at the plucky youngster, and his expression suggested that he was figuring something out. “Very well,” he said at last with exceptional coolness. “The terms are accepted. Jean.”

A lackey promptly flew over to Zurov. The count said to him, “A revolver, a fresh deck, and a bottle of champagne.” And he whispered something else in his ear.

Two minutes later Jean returned with a tray. He had to squeeze his way through the crowd, for now every last one of the visitors had gathered around the table.

With a deft, lightning-swift movement Zurov swung out the cylinder of the revolver to show that all the bullets were in place.

“Here’s the deck.” His fingers split open the taut wrapper with a crisp crackling sound. “Now it’s my turn to deal.” He laughed, seeming to be in an excellent frame of mind. “The rules are simple: the first to draw a card from a black suit is the one to put a bullet through his forehead. Agreed?”

Fandorin nodded without speaking, already beginning to realize that he had been cheated, monstrously duped by his adversary, killed even more surely than at twenty paces. The cunning Hippolyte had outplayed him, outsmarted him finally and absolutely! A card master like him would never fail to draw the card he needed—certainly not from his own deck! No doubt he had an entire stack of marked cards.

Meanwhile Zurov, after demonstratively crossing himself, dealt the top card. It was the queen of diamonds.

“That’s Venus,” the count said with a insolent smile. “She always comes to my rescue. Your turn, Fandorin.”

To protest or haggle would be humiliating. It was too late now to demand another deck. And it was shameful to delay.

Erast Fandorin reached out his hand and turned over the jack of spades.