by Boris Akunin
Erast Petrovich listened to this edifying homily with mounting irritation and then could not help asking: 'Gleb Georgievich, isn't that repugnant? - encouraging a mother to inform on her own son?'
Pozharsky paused before he replied, and when he did, his tone had changed - it was no longer jocular, but serious and rather tired.
Mr Fandorin, you give the impression of being an intelligent, mature individual. Are you really like that pink-cheeked boy-officer who was here yesterday? Do you really not understand that we have no time now for goody-goody sentiment? Do you not see that there is a genuine war going on?'
'I do see. Of course I do,' the State Counsellor said passionately. 'But even in war there are rules. And in war people are usually hanged for employing traitors to spy for them.'
"This is not the kind of war in which any rules apply,' the prince countered with equal conviction. 'It is not two European powers who are fighting here. No, Erast Petrovich, this is the savage, primordial war of order with chaos, the West with the East, Christian chivalry with Mamai's horde. In this war no peace envoys are despatched, no conventions are signed, no one is released on his word of honour. This is a war fought with all the relentless cruelty of Asiatic science; molten lead is poured down men's throats and they are flayed alive, innocents are slaughtered. Did you hear about our agent Shverubovich getting sulphuric acid thrown in his face? Or the murder of General von Heinkel? They blew up the entire house, in which, apart from the General himself - who, as it happens, was a fine blackguard -there happened to be his wife, three children and servants. The only survivor was the youngest daughter; she was thrown from the balcony by the blast. Her back was broken and her leg was crushed, so that it had to be amputated. How do like that for a war?'
And you, the custodian of society, are prepared to wage war on those kind of term' - to reply with the same methods?' asked Fandorin, stunned.
'What would you have me do - capitulate? Let the frenzied mobs burn houses and toss the best people of Russia on their pitchforks? Let our home-grown Robespierres inundate our cities with blood? Let our Empire become a bogeyman for the rest of humanity and be thrown back three hundred years? Erast Petrovich, I am no lover of high-flown sentiment, but let me tell you that we are only a narrow cordon, holding back the mindless, malevolent elements. Once they break through the cordon, nothing will stop them. There is no one standing behind us. Only ladies in hats, old grannies in mob-caps, young Turgenevian ladies and children in sailor suits - the little, decent world that sprang up in the wild Scythian steppes less than a hundred years ago thanks to the idealism of Emperor Alexander the Blessed.'
The prince broke off his impassioned speech, clearly embarrassed by his own outburst, and suddenly changed the subject. 'And by the way, concerning methods... Tell me, my dear Erast Petrovich, why did you plant a hermaphrodite in my bed?'
Fandorin assumed he must have misheard.
'I beg your pardon?'
'Nothing really important, just a charming joke. Yesterday evening, after taking supper in the restaurant, I went back to my room. When I enter it - good Lord, what a surprise! Lying there in my bed is a lovely lady, entirely undressed; I can see her delightful breasts above the top of the blanket. I try to show her out - she does not wish to get up. And a moment later there is a mass invasion: a police officer, constables and the porter shouting in a phoney voice: "This is a respectable establishment!" I can even see a reporter trying to slip in from the corridor, with a photographer in tow. And then things get even more interesting. My visitor jumps up out of bed, and, my sainted fathers, I've never seen the like before in all my life! A complete double set of sexual characteristics. Apparently an individual well known around Moscow, a certain gentleman - or a certain lady - who goes by the name of Coco. Very popular among those gourmands who prefer exotic amusements. An excellent idea, Erast Petrovich, bravo. I never expected it of you. Showing me up in an absurd and indecent light is the best possible way to regain control over the investigation. The sovereign will not tolerate lascivious behaviour from the servants of the throne. Goodbye to my aide-de-camp's monogram and farewell to my career.' Gleb Georgievich assumed an expression of exaggerated admiration. A most excellent plan, but I wasn't born yesterday, after all. When necessary I am more than capable of employing tricks of that kind myself, as you have had occasion to see in the case of Rahmet-Gvidon. Life, my dearest Erast Petrovich, has taught me to be cautious. When I leave my room, I always place an invisible mark on the door, and the servants are strictly forbidden to enter in my absence. When I looked at the door, I saw that the hair I left had been broken! The rooms on each side were occupied by my men -I brought them from St Petersburg. So I called them, and I was not alone when I entered the room -they were with me. When your police inspector saw these serious people with revolvers at the ready, he was confused and embarrassed. He grabbed the outlandish creature by the hair and dragged it out of the room, taking the newspaper men away with him as well; but never mind, the porter, a certain Teplugov, was still there and he was absolutely frank with me. He explained who this Coco was, and he told me how the gentlemen from the police had told him to be ready. Just see what enterprising action you have proved capable of, and yet you condemn my methods.'
'I knew nothing about this!' Erast Petrovich exclaimed indig-nandy, and immediately blushed - he had remembered Sverchinsky muttering something about Coco the day before. So that was what Stanislav Filippovich had had in mind when he was planning to make the official from St Petersburg a general laughing stock.
'I can see you didn't know,' Pozharsky said, nodding. 'Naturally, it's not the way you behave. I just wanted to make sure. In actual fact the responsibility for this trick with Coco lies, of course, with the highly experienced Colonel Sverchinsky. I came to that conclusion this morning, when Sverchinsky started calling me every hour. He was checking to see if I had guessed. Of course it was him, it couldn't be anyone else. Burlyaev lacks the imagination for tricks like that.'
Just at that moment there was a tramping of numerous feet outside the door, and Burlyaev himself - speak of the devil! -came bursting in.
'Disaster, gentlemen,' he gasped. 'I've just been informed that there's been a hold-up - the carriage of the state financial instruments depository. There are dead and wounded. They stole six-hundred-thousand roubles! And they left their sign: CG.'
Dejected confusion - that was the predominant mood at the extraordinary meeting of the leaders of the Office of Gendarmes and the Department of Security that dragged on late into the evening.
Occupying the chair at this doleful council was the Deputy Director of the Police Department, Prince Pozharsky - tousle-haired, pale-faced and angry.
'How wonderfully well you do things here in Moscow,' the man from the capital repeated yet again. 'Every day you despatch state funds for transfer to the most remote regions of the Empire, but you don't even have even any official instructions for the transportation of such immense sums! Who has ever heard of security guards going dashing after some bomber and leaving the money almost completely unprotected? All right, gentlemen, there's no point in repeating myself,' said Pozharksy, gesturing despairingly. 'We have all visited the scene of the crime and seen everything. Let us draw the sad conclusions. Six hundred thousand roubles have migrated to the revolutionary treasury which, by dint of great effort, I had only just emptied. It is terrible to think of all the atrocities the nihilists will commit with that money... We have three men dead and two wounded, but during the shooting in Somovsky Cul-de-Sac only one man was wounded, and then only slightly. How was it possible not to guess that the shooting was started as a deliberate diversion, while the main action was taking place at the carriage?' the prince asked, growing furious now. 'And again that insolent challenge - the CG's calling card! What a blow to the prestige of the authorities! We underestimated the size of the Combat Group and its daring! There are not four men at all, but at least ten. I shall demand reinforcements from St Petersburg and special powers. An
d what wonderful execution! They had absolutely precise information about the route of the carriage and the guards! They struck quickly, confidently, mercilessly. They left no witnesses. Another example for our discussion of methods.' Gleb Georgievich glanced at Fandorin, who was sitting in the far corner of Burlyaev's office. 'True, one man -the driver Kulikov - did manage to get away alive. We know from him that the core group consisted of two men. Going by his description, one of them is our beloved Mr Green. The other was called Ace. Now, that seems like a clue! Ah, but no! The body of a man with a fractured skull was discovered at the India Inn. He was dressed exactly like Ace, and Kulikov identified him. Ace is a rather common alias in criminal circles; it signifies "a dare-devil, successful bandit". But most likely this was the legendary St Petersburg hold-up specialist Tikhon Bogoyavlensky. He is rumoured to have had connections with the nihilists. As you are aware, the body has been sent to the capital for identification. But what's the point! Mr Green has snapped that thread in any case. Most convenient, no need to share the money either ...' The prince hooked his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. 'But the robbery is by no means the worst of our troubles. There is an even more distressing development.'
The room was completely silent, for those present could not imagine any misfortune worse than the robbery.
'You know that Titular Counsellor Zubtsov found out who owns the telephone from which some man called shortly before the attack on the carriage. It is in an apartment belonging to the well-known barrister Zimin, on Myasnitskaya Street. Since Zimin is presently involved in a trial in Warsaw - all the newspapers are writing about it -I sent my agents to make discreet enquiries about the gentleman who was too shy to speak with Sergei Vitalievich. The agents saw that there was no light on in the apartment, they opened the door and inside they discovered a body ...'
The new silence that followed was broken by Erast Petrovich, who asked in a quiet voice: 'Could it have been Gvidon?'
'How did you know?' Pozharsky asked, swinging round towards him. 'You couldn't possibly know that!'
'It's very simple,' Fandorin said with a shrug. 'You said that something even more distressing than the theft of six hundred thousand roubles had happened. We all know that in this investigation you had staked your greatest hopes on the agent Gvidon. Nobody else's murder could possibly have upset you so badly'
The deputy director of police exclaimed irritably:
'Bravo, bravo, Mr State Counsellor. Where were you earlier with your famous deduction? Yes, it was Gvidon. There were clear indications of suicide; he was clutching a dagger bearing the letters CG in his hand, and the stab wound in his heart had been made by the same blade. Apparently I was mistaken in my assessment of this individual's psychological constitution.'
It was evident that Gleb Georgievich found self-castigation difficult, and Fandorin appreciated how much this gesture must have cost him.
'You were not so very mistaken,' he said. 'Obviously Gvidon was about to betray his comrades and he even phoned the Department, but at the last moment his conscience awoke. It happens sometimes, even with traitors.'
Pozharsky realised that Fandorin was referring him back to their recent conversation and he smiled briefly; but then his face immediately darkened and he turned in annoyance to Lieutenant Colonel Burlyaev.
'Where has that Mylnikov of yours got to? He's our last hope now. Ace is dead, Gvidon is dead. The unidentified man found behind the church wall in Somovsky Cul-de-Sac is dead too, but if we can establish his identity, it might be the start of a new trail.'
'Evstratii Pavlovich has set all the local constables on it,' Burlyaev boomed, 'and his agents are checking the dead man's photograph against all our card files. If he's from Moscow, we're sure to identify him.'
'Allow me to draw your attention to one more thing, Erast Petrovich - in continuation of our discussion,' Pozharsky said, glancing at the State Counsellor. 'The unidentified man had only been wounded in the neck, not fatally However, his accomplices didn't take him with them; they finished him off with a shot to the temple. That is the way they do things!'
'Or perhaps the wounded man shot himself in order not to be a burden to his comrades?' Fandorin responded.
Gleb Georgievich's only response to such misplaced idealism was to roll his eyes up and back, but Colonel Sverchinsky rose halfway out of his seat and asked: 'Mr Deputy Director, will you order me to head the effort to identify the man? I can line up all the yard-keepers in Moscow. We'll need more men than Mylnikov and his agents for this.'
Several times that evening when Stanislav Filippovich had tried to make useful suggestions, the prince had stubbornly refused to take any notice of him. But this time Pozharsky seemed to explode.
'Why don't you keep quiet!' he shouted. 'Your department is responsible for order in the city! Fine order! What was it you were planning to deal with today? The railway stations? Then go, and keep your eyes open! The bandits are bound to try to ship their loot out of the city, most likely to Petersburg, in order to replenish the party funds. Take care, Sverchinsky; if you bungle this too, I'll see that you pay for everything at once! Go!'
The Colonel, deadly pale, gave Pozharsky a long glance and walked towards the door in silence. His adjutant, Lieutenant Smolyaninov, dashed after him.
Mylnikov came dashing towards them from the reception, looking delighted. 'We've done it!' he shouted from the doorway. 'Identified him! He was on record from last year! He's in the card file. Arsenii Nikolaevich Zimin, the barrister's son! A private house on Myasnitskaya Street!'
In the sudden silence that followed, the puzzled Evstratii Pavlovich's fitful breathing was clearly audible.
Fandorin turned away from Pozharsky, afraid that the prince might read the gloating in his eyes. It was not exacdy gloating, but the State Counsellor did experience a certain involuntary sense of satisfaction, of which he immediately felt ashamed.
'Well now,' Pozharsky said in a flat, expressionless voice. 'So this move has led us into a dead end too. Let us congratulate each other, gentlemen. We are right back where we started.'
When he returned home, Erast Petrovich had barely changed his frock coat for a white tie and tails before it was time to go to collect Esfir from the banker Litvinov's house on Tryokhsvyatskaya Street, a building famous throughout Moscow.
This pompous marble palazzo, built only a few years earlier, seemed to have been transported to the quiet, sedate little street directly from Venice, instandy overshadowing the old nobles' mansions with their peeling columns and identical triangular roofs. Even now, in the hour before midnight, the buildings beside it were lost in darkness, but the handsome house was all aglow, glimmering like some fairy-tale palace of ice: the magnificent pediment in the very latest American fashion was illuminated by electric lights.
The State Counsellor had heard about the great wealth of the banker Litvinov, who was one of Russia's most generous benefactors of charity, a patron of Russian artists and zealous donor to the Church, a man whose recent conversion to Christianity had been more than compensated for by his fervent piety. But even so, in Moscow high society the millionaire was regarded with condescending irony. They told a joke about how when Litvinov was awarded a decoration for his assistance to orphans, a star that conferred the status of a noble of the fourth rank, he supposedly began saying to people: 'Please, why struggle to get your tongue round 'Avessalom Efraimovich". Just call me "Your Excellency".' Litvinov was accepted in all the best houses of Moscow, but at the same time it was sometimes whispered to the other guests, as if in justification, that 'a baptised Jew is a thief forgiven'.
However, on entering the spacious Carrara marble vestibule, decorated with crystal chandeliers, vast mirrors and monumental canvases showing scenes from Russian history, Erast Petrovich was struck by the thought that if Avessalom Efraimovich's financial affairs continued in the same successful vein, the tide of baron was a certainty, and then the ironic whispers would stop, because people who are not simply rich, but super-ric
h, and also tided, have no nationality.
Despite the late hour, the imperious manservant was dressed in a gold-embroidered camisole and was even wearing a powdered wig. Once Fandorin gave his name, there was no further need to explain the purpose of his visit.
'One moment, sir,' the valet said, bowing ceremoniously, with an air that suggested he had previously served in the palace of some grand prince, if not somewhere even grander. 'The young lady will be down straight away. Perhaps Your Honour would care to wait in the sitting room?'
Erast Petrovich did not care to do so, and the servant hurried up the gleaming, snow-white staircase, while somehow managing to maintain his majestic composure, to the first floor. A minute later a small, nimble gentleman with an extremely expressive face and a neat lick of hair across his balding head came tumbling down in the opposite direction like a rubber ball.
