by Boris Akunin
Surprised at himself, the hermit drove these pictures away; they had nothing to do with his life and his present interests.
For his constitutional he went for a walk along the boulevards, as far as the Cathedral of the Saviour and back again. Vasilii Alexandrovich did not know Moscow very well, and therefore he was terribly surprised when he looked at a sign with the name of a street that led up and away at an angle from the Orthodox cathedral.
The street was called ‘Ostozhenka’.
‘The Bomze building on Ostozhenka Street,’ Vasilii Alexandrovich heard a soft voice say, clipping its consonants in the Petersburg style as clearly as if she were there.
He strolled for a while along the street with its asphalt roadway and lines of beautiful buildings, but soon came to his senses and turned back.
Nonetheless, after that time he got into the habit of making a loop to take in Ostozhenka Street when he reached the end of his horseshoe route on the boulevards. Rybnikov also walked past the Bomze apartment building – a smart four-storey structure. Vasilii Alexandrovich’s indolence had put him in a strange mood, and as he glanced at the narrow Viennese windows, he even allowed himself to daydream a little about what could never possibly happen in a million years.
And then his dreams caught him out.
On the fifth day of his walks, as the false reporter, tapping his cane, was walking down along Ostozhenka Street to Lesnoi Passage, someone called him from a carriage.
‘Vasilii Alexandrovich! Is that you?’
The resounding voice sounded happy.
Rybnikov froze on the spot, mentally cursing his own thoughtlessness. He turned round slowly, putting on a surprised expression.
‘Where did you get to?’ Lidina chirped excitedly. ‘Shame on you, you promised! Why are you in civilian clothes? An excellent jacket, you look much better in it than in that terrible uniform! What about the drawings?’
She asked the last question in a whisper, after she had already jumped down on to the pavement.
Vasilii Alexandrovich warily shook the slim hand in the silk glove. He was nonplussed, which only happened to him very rarely – you might even say that it never happened at all
‘A bad business,’ he mumbled eventually. ‘I am obliged to lie low. That’s why I’m in civvies. And that’s why I didn’t come, too … You know, it’s best to keep well away from me just now.’ To make this more convincing, Rybnikov glanced round over his shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘You go on your way, and I’ll walk on. We shouldn’t attract attention.’
Glyceria Romanovna’s face looked frightened, but she didn’t move from the spot.
She glanced round too, and then spoke right into his ear.
‘A court martial, right? What is it – hard labour? Or … or worse?’
‘Worse,’ he said, moving away slightly. ‘There’s nothing to be done. It’s my own fault. I’m to blame for everything. Really, Glyceria Romanovna, my dear lady, I’ll be going.’
‘Not for anything in the world! How can I abandon you in misfortune? You probably need money, don’t you? I have some. Accommodation? I’ll think of something. Good Lord, what terrible bad luck!’ Tears glinted in the lady’s eyes.
‘No, thank you. I’m living with … with my aunt, my late mother’s sister. I don’t want for anything. See what a dandy I am … really, people are looking at us.’
Lidina took hold of his elbow. ‘You’re right. Get into the carriage, we’ll put the top up.’
And she didn’t wait for him to answer, she put him in – he already knew he could never match the stubbornness of this woman. Remarkably enough, although Vasilii Alexandrovich’s iron will did not exactly weaken at that moment, it was, so to speak, distracted, and his foot stepped up on to the running board of its own accord.
They took a drive round Moscow, talking about all sorts of things. The raised hood of the carriage lent even the most innocent subject an intimacy that Rybnikov found alarming. He decided several times to get out at the next corner, but somehow he didn’t get around to it. Lidina was concerned about one thing above all – how to help this poor fugitive who had the merciless sword of martial law dangling over his head.
When Vasilii Alexandrovich finally took his leave, he had to promise that he would come to Prechistensky Boulevard the next day. Lidina would be riding in her carriage, catch sight of him as though by chance, call him and he would get in again. Nothing suspicious, a perfectly normal street scene.
As he gave his promise, Rybnikov was certain that he would not keep it, but the next day the will of this man of iron was affected once again by the inexplicable phenomenon already mentioned above. At precisely five o’clock the correspondent’s feet brought him to the appointed place and the ride was repeated.
The same thing happened the next day, and the day after that.
There was not even a hint of flirting in their relationship – Rybnikov kept a very strict watch on that. No hints, glances or – God forbid! – sighs. For the most part their conversations were serious, and the tone was not at all the one in which men usually talk to beautiful ladies.
‘I like being with you,’ Lidina confessed one day. ‘You’re not like all the others. You don’t show off, you don’t pay compliments. I can tell that for you I’m not a creature of the female sex, but a person, an individual. I never thought that I could be friends with a man and it could be so enjoyable!’
Something must have changed in the expression on his face, because Glyceria Romanovna blushed and exclaimed guiltily:
‘Ah, what an egotist I am! I’m only thinking about myself! But you’re on the edge of a precipice!’
‘Yes, I am on the edge of a precipice …’ Vasilii Alexandrovich murmured desolately, and the way he said it was so convincing that tears sprang to Lidina’s eyes.
Glyceria Romanovna thought about poor Vasya (that was what she always called him to herself) all the time now – before their meetings and afterwards too. How could she help him? How could she save him? He was disoriented, defenceless, not suited to military service. How stupid to put an officer’s uniform on someone like that! It was enough just to remember what he looked like in that get-up! The war would end soon, and no one would ever remember about those papers, but a good man’s life would be ruined for ever.
Every time she appeared at their meeting elated, with a new plan to save him. She suggested hiring a skilled draughtsman who would make another drawing exactly the same. She thought of appealing for help to a high-ranking general of gendarmes, a good friend of hers, who wouldn’t dare refuse.
Every time, however, Rybnikov turned the conversation on to abstract subjects. He was reluctant and niggardly in speaking about himself. Lidina wanted very much to know where and how he had spent his childhood, but all that Vasilii Alexandrovich told her was that as a little boy he loved to catch dragonflies and let them go later from the top of a high cliff, to watch them darting about in zigzags above the void. He also loved imitating the voices of the birds – and he actually mimicked a cuckoo, a magpie and a blue tit so well that Glyceria Romanovna clapped her hands in delight.
On the fifth day of their drives Rybnikov returned to his apartment in a particularly thoughtful mood. First, because there were fewer than twenty-four hours remaining until both ‘projects’ moved into a crucial stage. And secondly, because he knew he had seen Lidina for the last time that day.
Glyceria Romanovna had been especially endearing today. She had come up with two plans to save Rybnikov: one we have already mentioned, about the general of gendarmes, and a second, which she particularly liked, to arrange for him to escape abroad. She described the advantages of this idea enthusiastically, coming back to it again and again, although he said straight away that it wouldn’t work – they would arrest him at the border post.
The fugitive staff captain strode along the boulevard with his jaw thrust out determinedly, so deep in thought that he didn’t glance at his mirror-bright watch at all.
Once he
had reached the boarding house, though, and was inside his separate apartment, his habitual caution prompted him to peep out from behind the curtains.
He gritted his teeth: standing at the opposite pavement was a horse cab with its hood up, despite the bright weather. The driver was staring hard at the windows of the ‘Saint-Saëns’; the passenger could not be seen.
Scraps of thoughts started flitting rapidly through Rybnikov’s head.
How?
Why?
Countess Bovada?
Impossible.
But no one else knows.
The old contacts had been broken off, new ones had not yet been struck up.
There could only be one explanation: that damned Reuters Agency. One of the generals he had interviewed had decided to correct something or add something, phoned the Reuters Moscow office and discovered there was no Sten assigned there. He had taken fright, informed the Okhrana … But even if that was it – how had they found him?
And here again there was only one probable answer: by chance.
Some particularly lucky agent had recognised him in the street from a verbal description (ah, he should at least have changed his wardrobe!), and now was trailing him.
But if it was a chance occurrence, things could be set right, Vasilii told himself, and immediately felt calmer.
He estimated the distance to the carriage: sixteen – no, seventeen – steps.
His thoughts grew even shorter, even more rapid.
Start with the passenger, he’s a professional … A heart attack … I live here, help me carry him in, old mate … Beatrice would be annoyed. Never mind, she was in this up to her neck. What about the cab? In the evening, that could be done in the evening.
He finished thinking it all out on the move. He walked unhurriedly out on to the steps, yawned and stretched. His hand casually flourished a long cigarette holder – empty, with no papirosa in it. Rybnikov also extracted a small, flat pillbox from his pocket and took out of it something that he put in his mouth.
As he walked past the cabby, he noticed the man squinting sideways at him.
Vasilii Alexandrovich paid no attention to the driver. He gripped the cigarette holder in his teeth, quickly jerked back the flap of the cab – and froze.
Lidina was sitting in the carriage.
Suddenly deathly pale, Rybnikov jerked the cigarette holder out of his mouth, coughed and spat into his handkerchief.
Not looking even slightly embarrassed, she said with a cunning smile:
‘So this is where you live, Mr Conspirator! Your auntie has a lovely house.’
‘You followed me?’ said Vasilii Alexandrovich, forcing out the words with a struggle, thinking: One more second, a split second, and …
‘Cunning, isn’t it?’ Glyceria Romanovna laughed. ‘I switched cabs, ordered the driver to drive at walking pace, at a distance. I said you were my husband and I suspected you of being unfaithful.’
‘But … what for?’
She turned serious.
‘You gave me such a look when I said “until tomorrow” … I suddenly felt that you wouldn’t come tomorrow. And you wouldn’t come again at all. And I don’t even know where to look for you … I can see that our meetings are a burden on your conscience. You think you’re putting me in danger. Do you know what I’ve thought of?’ Lidina exclaimed brightly. ‘Introduce me to your aunt. She’s your relative, I’m your friend. You have no idea of the power of two women who join forces!’
‘No!’ said Rybnikov, staggering back. ‘Absolutely not!’
‘Then I shall go in myself,’ Lidina declared, and her face took on the same expression it had worn in the corridor of the train.
‘All right, if you want to so badly … But I have to warn my aunt. She has a bad heart, and she’s not very fond of surprises in general,’ said Vasilii Alexandrovich, spouting nonsense in his panic. ‘My aunt runs a boarding house for girls from noble families. It has certain rules. Let’s do it tomorrow … Yes, yes, tomorrow. In the early eve—’
‘Ten minutes,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll wait ten minutes, then I’ll go in myself.’
And she emphatically raised the small diamond watch hanging round her neck.
Countess Bovada was an exceptionally resourceful individual, Rybnikov already knew that. She understood his meaning from a mere hint, didn’t waste a single second on questions and went into action immediately.
Probably no other woman would have been capable of transforming a bordello into a boarding house for daughters of the nobility in ten minutes.
After exactly ten minutes (Rybnikov was watching from behind the curtains) Glyceria Romanovna paid her cabby and got out of the carriage with a determined air.
The door was opened for her by the respectable-looking porter, who bowed and led her along the corridor towards the sound of a pianoforte.
Lidina was pleasantly surprised by the rich decor of the boarding house. She thought it rather strange that there were nails protruding from the walls in places – as if pictures had been hanging there, but they had been taken down. They must have been taken away to be dusted, she thought absentmindedly, feeling rather flustered before her important conversation.
In the cosy salon two pretty girls in grammar school uniform were playing the ‘Dog’s Waltz’ for four hands.
They got up, performed a clumsy curtsy and chorused: ‘Bonjour, madame.’
Glyceria Romanovna smiled affectionately at their embarrassment. She had once been a shy young thing just like them, she had grown up in the artificial world of the Smolny Institute: childish young dreams, reading Flaubert in secret, virginal confessions in the quiet of the dormitory …
Vasya was standing there, by the piano – with a bashful look on his plain but sweet face.
‘My auntie’s waiting for you. I’ll show you the way,’ he muttered, letting Lidina go on ahead.
Fira Ryabchik (specialisation ‘grammar school girl’) held Rybnikov back for a moment by the hem of his jacket.
‘Vas, is that your ever-loving? An interesting little lady. Don’t get in a funk. It’ll go all right. We’ve locked the others in their rooms.’
Thank God that she and Lionelka didn’t have any make-up on yet because it was still daytime.
And there was Beatrice, already floating out of the doors to meet them like the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna.
‘Countess Bovada,’ she said, introducing herself with a polite smile. ‘Vasya has told me so much about you!’
‘Countess?’ Lidina gasped.
‘Yes, my late husband was a Spanish grandee,’ Beatrice explained modestly. ‘Please do come into the study.’
Before she followed her hostess, Glyceria Romanovna whispered:
‘So you have Spanish grandees among your kin? Anyone else would certainly have boasted about that. You are definitely unusual.’
In the study things were easier. The countess maintained a confident bearing and held the initiative firmly in her own grip.
She warmly approved of the idea of an escape abroad. She said she would obtain documents for her nephew, entirely reliable ones. Then the two ladies’ conversation took a geographical turn as they considered where to evacuate their adored ‘Vasya’. In the process it emerged that the Spanish grandee’s widow had travelled almost all over the world. She spoke with special affection of Port Said and San Francisco.
Rybnikov took no part in the conversation, merely cracked his knuckles nervously.
Never mind, he thought to himself. It’s the twenty-fifth tomorrow, and after that it won’t matter.
The fourth syllable, in which Fandorin feels afraid
Sombre fury would be the best name to give the mood in which Erast Petrovich found himself. In his long life he had known both the sweetness of victory and the bitterness of defeat, but he could not remember ever feeling so stupid before. This must be the way a whaler felt when, instead of impaling a sperm whale, his harpoon merely scattered a shoal of little fish.
; But how could he possibly have doubted that the thrice-cursed dark-haired man was the Japanese agent responsible for the sabotage? The absurd concatenation of circumstances was to blame, but that was poor comfort to the engineer.
Precious time had been wasted, the trail was irredeemably lost.
The mayor of Moscow and the detective police wished to express their heartfelt gratitude to Fandorin for catching the brazen band of crooks, but Erast Petrovich withdrew into the shadows, and all the glory went to Mylnikov and his agents, who had merely delivered the bound bandits to the nearest police station.
There was a clearing of the air between the engineer and the court counsellor, and Mylnikov did not even attempt to be cunning. Gazing at Fandorin with eyes bleached colourless by his disappointment in humankind, Mylnikov admitted without the slightest trace of embarrassment that he had set his agents on the case and come to Moscow himself because he knew from the old days that Fandorin had a uniquely keen nose, and it was a surer way of picking up the trail than wearing out his own shoe leather. He might not have picked up any saboteurs, but he hadn’t come off too badly – the hold-up artists from Warsaw would earn him the gratitude of his superiors and a gratuity.
‘And instead of name-calling, you’d be better off deciding what’s the best way for you and me to rub along,’ Mylnikov concluded amicably. ‘What can you do without me? That railway outfit of yours doesn’t even have the right to conduct an investigation. But I do, and then again, I’ve brought along the finest sleuths in Peter, grand lads, every last one of them. Come on, Fandorin, let’s come to friendly terms, comradely like. The head will be yours, the arms and legs will be ours.’
The proposal made by this rather less than honourable gentleman was certainly not devoid of merit.
‘On a friendly basis, so be it. Only bear in mind, Mylnikov,’ Fandorin warned him, ‘if you take it into your head to be cunning and act behind my b-back, I shan’t beat about the bush. I shan’t write a complaint to your superiors, I’ll simply press the secret bakayaro point on your stomach, and that will be the end of you. And no one will ever guess.’
