by Boris Akunin
Erast Petrovich knitted his brows, preparing to intercede for the young mademoiselle's honour, but apparently his intercession was not required.
The banker's daughter propped her hands on her hips and screeched contemptuously at the Lieutenant Colonel: 'You bastard! You animal! How would you like a slap in the face, like Khrapov?'
Burlyaev began rapidly turning scarlet. When he reached a genuine beetroot colour, he roared: 'Evstratii Pavlovich, put the detainees in the sleighs and take them to the remand cells.'
'Wait, Mr Mylnikov,' said the State Counsellor, raising one finger. 'I will not allow you to take anyone away. I came here especially to see whether the provisions of the law would be observed during the operation. Unfortunately, you have disregarded them. On what grounds have these people been detained? They have not committed any overt offence, and so there can be no question of detaining them for the actual commission of a crime. If you intend to make an arrest on grounds of suspicion, you require specific sanction. Mr Burlyaev recendy told me that in the matter of investigation the Department of Security is not subordinated to the municipal authorities. That is correct. But the making of arrests falls within the jurisdiction of the Governor General. And as His Excellency's plenipotentiary representative I order you to release your prisoners immediately'
Fandorin turned towards the detainees, who were listening to his dispassionate and authoritative speech in dumbfounded amazement.
'You are free to go, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Count Dolgorukoi I apologise to you for the wrongful actions of Lieutenant Colonel Burlyaev and his subordinates.'
'This is unheard of!' Pyotr Ivanovich roared, the colour of his face now resembling not so much a beetroot as an aubergine. 'Whose side are you on?'
'I am on the side of the law. And you?' Fandorin enquired.
Burlyaev threw his arms up as if he were lost for words and demonstratively turned his back on the State Counsellor.
'Take Litvinova and let's go,' he ordered his agents and shook his fist at the seated guests. 'You just watch out, you cattle! I know every one of you!'
'You will have to release Miss Litvinova too,' Erast Petrovich said in a soft voice.
'But she fired at me!' said the Lieutenant Colonel, swinging round again and fixing the Governor's Deputy for Special Assignments with an incredulous stare. At an officer of the law! Engaged in the performance of his duty!'
'She did not fire at you. That is one. As for you being an officer of the law, she was not necessarily aware of that - since you did not introduce yourself and you are not in uniform. That is t-two. And as for the performance of your duty, it would be better not to mention that. You did not even announce that an arrest was taking place. That is three. You broke down the door and burst in, shouting and waving guns about. In the place of these gentlemen, I should have taken you for bandits and if I had had a revolver I should have fired first and asked questions later. You could have taken Mr Burlyaev for a b-bandit, could you not?' Erast Petrovich asked the young lady, who was regarding him with an extremely strange look.
'Why, is he not a bandit?' Esfir Litvinova responded immediately, assuming an expression of great amazement. 'Who are you all, anyway? Are you from the Department of Security? Then why didn't you say so straight away?'
'Right, I shan't let it go at this, Mr Fandorin,' Burlyaev said menacingly. 'We'll see whose department is the more powerful. Let's go, damn it!'
This final remark was addressed to the agents, who put their guns away and filed towards the door in disciplined fashion.
Mylnikov brought up the rear of the procession. In the doorway he looked round, smiled as he wagged a monitory finger at the young people, bowed politely to the State Counsellor and went out.
For about half a minute the only sound in the drawing room was the ticking of the clock on the wall. Then the student with the split eyebrow jumped to his feet and dashed headlong for the door. Without bothering to take their leave, the others followed him out no less rapidly.
After another half-minute there were only three people left in the room: Fandorin, Larionov and the fiery young lady.
The banker's daughter stared hard at Erast Petrovich with her bold, lively eyes, and those full lips that seemed almost out of place on the thin face curved into a caustic grin.
'So that was your little drama, was it?' Mademoiselle Lit-vinova enquired, shaking her short-cropped head in feigned admiration. 'Original. And superbly played - as good as Korsh's Theatre. What should come next according to your scenario? The grateful maiden falls on the chest of her handsome saviour, sprinkling his starched shirt with her tears, and vows eternal devotion? And then she informs against all her comrades, right?'
Erast Petrovich noticed something quite astonishing: the short haircut, far from spoiling the young lady, actually suited her boyish face very well.
'Surely you didn't really intend to fire, did you?' he asked. 'Stupid. With a t-trinket like that' - he pointed with his cane to the little revolver lying on the floor - 'you wouldn't have killed Burlyaev anyway, but they would certainly have torn you to pieces on the spot. And in addition—'
'I'm not afraid!' the effusive damsel interrupted him. 'What if they would have torn me to pieces? This bestial despotism must be given no quarter!'
'And in addition,' Fandorin continued, paying no heed to her impassioned retort, 'you would have doomed your friends. Your soiree would have been declared a gathering of terrorists and they would all have been sent off to penal servitude.'
Mademoiselle Litvinova was taken aback, but only for an instant. 'My, how very humane!' she exclaimed. 'But I don't believe in noble musketeers from the gendarmerie. The polished and polite ones like you are even worse than the outright bloodsuckers like that red-faced brute. You're a hundred times more dangerous! Do you at least understand, Mr Handsome, that none of you will escape retribution?'
The young lady stepped forward belligerendy, and Erast Petrovich was obliged to retreat as a slim finger with a sharp nail sliced through the air just in front of his nose.
'Butchers! Oprkhniks! You won't be able to hide from the people's vengeance behind the bayonets of your bodyguards!'
'I'm not hiding at all,' the State Counsellor replied resentfully. 'I don't have any bodyguards and my address is listed in all the address books. You can check for yourself: Erast Petrovich Fandorin, Deputy for Special Assignments to the Governor General.'
Aha, that Fandorin!' the young woman said with an excited glance at Larionov, as if she were calling on him to witness this astounding discovery. 'Haroun al-Rashid! The slave of the lamp!'
'What lamp?' Erast Petrovich asked in surprise.
'You know what I mean. The mighty genie who stands guard over the old sultan, Dolgorukoi. So that, Ivan Ignatievich, was why he threatened the police agents with the Governor,' she said, turning to the engineer once again. 'But I wonder just what kind of high-up it is who doesn't give a fig for the Okhranka? I rather thought, Mr Genie, that you despised political detective work.'
She transfixed Erast Petrovich with a final, lethal, withering glance, nodded in farewell to her host and set off majestically towards the door.
'Wait,' Fandorin called to her.
'What else do you want from me?' the young lady asked, bending her elegant neck into a proud curve. 'Have you decided to arrest me after all?'
'You have forgotten your gun.' The State Counsellor picked up the revolver and held it out to her, handle first.
Esfir took the gun with her finger and thumb, as if she disdained to touch the official's hand, and walked out of the room.
Fandorin waited until the front door slammed shut, then turned to the engineer and said in a low voice: 'Mr Larionov, I am aware of your relationship with the Department of Security'
The engineer shuddered as if he had been struck. An expression of melancholy despair appeared on his yellowish face with the puffy bags under the eyes. 'Yes,' he said with a nod, wearily lowering himself on to a chair. 'What
do you want to know? Ask.'
'I do not make use of the services of secret informers,' Erast Petrovich replied coolly. 'I regard it as odious to spy on one's comrades. The name for what you do here is entrapment. You make new acquaintances among the romantically inclined youth, you encourage talk against the government, and then you report on your achievements to the Okhranka. Aren't you ashamed of yourself? After all, you're a n-nobleman, I've read your file.'
Larionov laughed unpleasandy and took a papyrosa out of a pack with trembling fingers.
Ashamed? You try talking about pangs of conscience with Mr Sergei Vitalievich Zubtsov. And about entrapment too. That's a word Mr Zubtsov doesn't like at all. He calls it "public sanitation". Says it's better to mark down potentially dangerous parties at an early stage and sift them out. If they don't meet at my place, under Sergei Vitalievich's watchful eye, they'll only meet somewhere else. And there's no knowing what ideas they'll come up with there, or what they might get up to. But here they're all in open view. The moment anyone stops making idle conversation and turns to serious talk, they grab the poor fellow straight away. Peace and quiet for the state, promotion for Mr Zubtsov and sleepless nights for the Judas Larionov ...' The engineer covered his face with his hands and stopped speaking. To judge from the heaving of his shoulders, he was struggling against his tears. Erast Petrovich sat down facing him and sighed. 'What on earth made you do it? It's loathsome.'
'Of course it's loathsome,' Larionov replied, speaking through his hands in a dull, muffled voice. As a student I used to dream of social justice too. I pasted up leaflets in the university. That was what I was doing when they took me.'
He took his hands away and Fandorin saw that his eyes were moist and gleaming. The engineer struck a match and drew in the smoke of his papyrosa convulsively.
'Sergei Vitalievich is a humane individual. "You, Ivan Ignatievich," he said, "have an old mother, in poor health. If they throw you out of university - and that's the least that you're looking at - she'll never survive it. Well, and if it's exile or, God forbid, prison, you'll send her to her grave, no doubt about it. For what, Ivan Ignatievich? For the sake of chimerical fantasies!" And then he went on explaining about public sanitation, only in more detail, with more fine phrases. Telling me he wasn't inviting me to be an informer, but a rescuer of children. "There they are, the silly, pure-hearted creatures, running around among the flowers, and they don't see the steep precipice down at the end of the meadow. Why don't you stand on the edge of that precipice and help me save the children from falling?" Sergei Vitalievich is a great talker and, above all, he believes what he says himself. Well, I believed it too' - the engineer smiled bitterly - 'or, to be more honest, I made myself believe it. My mother really wouldn't have survived the blow... Well, anyway, I graduated from university, and Mr Zubtsov found me a good job. Only it turned out that I wasn't a rescuer at all, just a perfecdy ordinary collaborator. As they say, it's not possible to be half-pregnant. I even get a salary, fifty-five roubles. Plus fifty roubles expenses, payable on account.' His smile widened even further, becoming a mocking grin. 'All in all, life simply couldn't be better. Except that I can't sleep at night.' He gave a chilly shudder. 'I nod off for a moment and then I wake with a start -I hear a knock and I think they've come for me - one side or the other. And I carry on shuddering like that all night long. Knock-knock. Knock-knock.'
At that very moment the door-knocker clattered loudly. Larionov shuddered and laughed nervously. 'Someone's come late. Missed all the fun. Mr Fandorin, you hide behind that door there for the time being. No point in your being seen. You can explain your business afterwards. I'll get rid of them quickly.'
Erast Petrovich walked through into the next room. He tried not to eavesdrop, but the caller's voice was loud and clear.
'... And they didn't tell you we were going to stay with you? Strange.'
'Nobody gave me any message!' Larionov replied and then, speaking louder than necessary, he asked, 'Are you really in the Combat Group? You mustn't stay here! They're looking for you everywhere! I've just had the police round!'
Forgetting his scruples, Fandorin stole quiedy up to the door and opened it a crack.
The young man standing in front of the engineer was wearing a short winter coat and an English cap, with a long strand of light-coloured hair dangling out from under it. The late visitor was holding his hands in his pockets and there were sparks of mischief glinting in his eyes.
'Are you alone here?' the visitor asked.
'There's the cook. She's sleeping in the boxroom. But you really mustn't stay here.'
'So the police came, took a sniff around and went away again?' The blond-haired man laughed. "Well, isn't that just miraculous?
'In Bryansk the cats on Railway Street Caught a sparrow they could eat. They licked a lot and licked a lot, But didn't eat a single jot.'
The jolly young man moved so that his back was towards the State Counsellor, while Larionov was obliged to stand facing the door.
The intriguing guest made a movement of his hand that Fandorin couldn't see and the engineer suddenly gasped and staggered back.
'What's wrong, Iscariot - afraid?' the caller enquired in the same flippant tone as ever.
Sensing that something was wrong, Erast Petrovich jerked the door open, but just at that moment there was the sound of a shot.
Larionov howled and doubled over; the shooter glanced round at the sudden clatter behind him and raised his hand. It was holding a compact, burnished-steel Bulldog. Fandorin dived under the shot and hurled himself at the young man's feet, but the caller leapt back nimbly, striking his back against the door jamb, and tumbled out into the hallway
Fandorin sat up over the wounded man and saw he was in a bad way: the engineer's face was rapidly turning a ghasdy shade of blue.
'I can't feel my legs,' Larionov whispered, gazing into Erast Petrovich's eyes in fright. 'It doesn't hurt at all, I just want to sleep
'I've got to catch him,' Fandorin said rapidly. 'I'll be quick, then I'll get a doctor straight away'
He darted out into the street and looked to the right - nobody there; he looked to the left - there it was, a fleeting shadow moving rapidly in the direction of Kudrinskaya Street.
As the State Counsellor ran, two thoughts came into his mind. The first was that Larionov wouldn't need a doctor. To judge from the symptoms, his spine was broken. Soon, very soon, the poor engineer would start making up for all his sleepless nights. The second thought was more practical. It was no great trick to overtake the killer, but then how would he deal with an armed man when he himself had no gun? The State Counsellor had not expected this to be a day of risky undertakings and his trusty Herstahl-Baillard (seven shots, the latest model) had been left at home. How useful it would have been just at this moment!
Erast Petrovich was running quickly, and the distance between him and the shadow was rapidly shortening. That, however, was no cause for rejoicing. At the corner of Ss. Boris and Gleb Street the killer glanced back. With a sharp crack, his gun spat a tongue of flame at the pursuer and Fandorin felt a hot wind fan his cheek.
Suddenly two more swift shadows sprang straight out of the wall of the nearest house and fused with the first, forming a nebulous, squirming tangle.
'Ah, you lousy scum, kick me, would you!' someone shouted in an angry voice.
By the time Erast Petrovich got close, the commotion was already over.
The jovial young man was lying face down with his arms twisted behind his back, swearing breathlessly. A solidly built man was sitting on him and grunting as he twisted his elbows even higher. Another man was holding Fandorin's fallen quarry by the hair, forcing his head back and up.
On looking more closely, the State Counsellor saw that the unexpected assistance had been provided by two of the police agents on duty that evening.
'You see, Erast Petrovich, even the Okhranka can come in useful sometimes,' an amiable voice said out of the darkness.
There proved t
o be a gateway close by, and standing in it was none other than Evstratii Pavlovich Mylnikov in person.
'Why are you here?' the State Counsellor asked, and then answered his own question. 'You stayed to follow me.'
'Not so much you, Your Honour - you're an individual far above suspicion; more the general course of events.' The head of the plain-clothes squad came out from the shadows on to the illuminated pavement. 'We were particularly curious to see whether you would go off anywhere with that fiery young hussy. My belief is that you decided to win her over with the carrot rather than the stick. And quite right too. The foolhardy ones like that only turn vicious under direct pressure and insults. You have to avoid rubbing them up the wrong way, stroke them with the fur, stroke them, and as soon as they roll over - go for their soft underbelly!'
Evstratii Pavlovich laughed and held up one palm in a conciliatory gesture, as if to say: Don't bother to deny it, I wasn't born yesterday.
'When I saw the young lady leave alone, I almost sent my dunderheads after her, and then I thought no, I'll wait a bit. His Honour is a man of the world, with a keen nose. If he's staying back, he has something in mind. And sure enough - soon this character turns up.' Mylnikov nodded at the arrested man, who was howling in pain and cursing. 'So it turns out I was right after all. Who is he?'
'Apparently a member of the Combat Group,' Erast Petrovich replied, feeling indebted to this obnoxious but far from stupid collegiate assessor.
Evstratii Pavlovich whisded and slapped himself on the thigh: 'Good old Mylnikov! He knew which horse to back, all right. When you write your report, don't forget this humble servant of God. Hey, lads, call for a sleigh! Give over twisting his arms, or he won't be able to write a confession.'
