by Boris Akunin
‘Fifty kopecks a year,’ replied the perspicacious client: it was a pleasure doing business with a man like him. At this point the enquiries started dragging on a bit. The clerk took out the annual directories volume by volume and moved from the twentieth century back into the nineteenth, burrowing deeper and deeper into the strata of the past.
Vasilii Alexandrovich had already reconciled himself to failure when the clerk suddenly exclaimed:
‘I have it! Here, in the book for 1891! That will be … er … seven roubles!’ And he read it out: ‘“E. P. Fandorin, state counsellor, deputy for special assignments to governor-general of Moscow. Malaya Nikitskaya Street, annexe to the house of Baron Evert-Kolokoltsev”. Well, if your acquaintance held a position like that fourteen years ago, he definitely must be an Excellency by now. Strange that I couldn’t find him in the ministry listings.’
‘It is strange,’ admitted Rybnikov, absentmindedly counting through the reddish notes protruding from his wallet.
‘You say the Department of Police or the gendarmes?’ the clerk asked, narrowing his eyes cunningly. ‘You know the way things are there: a man may seem to exist, and even hold an immensely high rank, but for the general public, it’s as if he didn’t exist at all.’
The customer batted his eyelids for a moment and then livened up a little.
‘Why, yes. My father said that Erast Petrovich worked on secret matters at the embassy!’
‘There, you see. And you know what … My godfather works just close by here, on Maly Gnezdnikovsky Lane. At the police telegraph office. Twenty years he’s been there, he knows everyone who’s anyone …’
There followed an eloquent pause.
‘A rouble for you, and one for your godfather.’
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ the clerk shouted at a peasant who had stuck his nose in at the door. ‘Can’t you see it’s half past one? It’s my lunch hour. Come back in an hour! And you, sir’ – this was to Vasilii Alexandrovich, in a whisper – ‘wait here. I’ll be back in a flash.’
Of course, Rybnikov did not wait in the office. He waited outside, taking up a position in a gateway. You could never tell. This petty bureaucrat might not be as simple as he seemed.
However, the precaution proved unnecessary.
The bureaucrat came back a quarter of an hour later, alone and looking very pleased.
‘A quite eminent individual! As they say, widely known in very narrow circles,’ he announced when Rybnikov popped up beside him. ‘Pantelei Ilich told me so much about your Fandorin! It turns out that he was a very important man. In the old days, under Dolgorukov.’
As he listened to the story of the former greatness of the governor’s special deputy, Vasilii Alexandrovich gasped and threw his hands up in the air, but the greatest surprise was waiting for him at the very end.
‘And you’re lucky,’ said the bureaucrat, flinging his arms wide dramatically, like a circus conjuror. ‘This Mr Fandorin of yours is in Moscow, he arrived from Peter. Pantelei Ilich sees him every day.’
‘In Moscow?’ Rybnikov exclaimed. ‘Really! Well, that is a stroke of luck. Do you know if he’ll be here long?’
‘No way of telling. It’s something highly important, government business. But Pantelei didn’t say what it was, and I didn’t ask. That’s not for the likes of us to know.’
‘Certainly, that’s right …’ There was a peculiar expression in Rybnikov’s slightly narrowed eyes as their glance slid over the other man’s face. ‘Did you tell your godfather that one of Erast Petrovich’s acquaintances was looking for him?’
‘No, I asked as if I was the one who was interested.’
He’s not lying, Vasilii Alexandrovich decided. He decided to keep both roubles for himself. His eyes widened again to assume their normal expression. And the clerk never knew that his little life had just been hanging on the very slimmest of threads.
‘It’s very good that you didn’t. I’ll arrange a surprise for him – in memory of my late dad. Won’t Erast Petrovich be delighted!’ Rybnikov said with a radiant smile.
But when he walked out, his face started twitching nervously.
That was the same day that Glyceria Romanovna came to their meeting with a new idea for saving Rybnikov: to appeal for help to her good friend, the head of the Moscow Gendarmes Office, General Charme. Lidina assured him that Konstantin Fyodorovich Charme was a dear old man whose name suited him perfectly, and he would not refuse her anything.
‘But what good will that do?’ asked Rybnikov, trying to fight her off. ‘My dear, I am a state criminal: I lost secret documents and I went on the run. How can your general of gendarmes help with that?’
But Glyceria Romanovna exclaimed heatedly:
‘You’re wrong! Konstantin Fyodorovich himself explained to me how much depends on the official who is assigned to handle a case. He can make things go badly or make them go well. Ah, if we could find out who is dealing with you!’
And then, giving way to the impulse of the moment, Vasilii Alexandrovich suddenly blurted out:
‘I do know. You’ve seen him. Do you remember, beside the bridge – that tall gentleman with the grey temples?’
‘The elegant one, in the light-coloured English coat? I remember, a very impressive man.’
‘His name is Fandorin, Erast Petrovich Fandorin. He has come to Moscow from St Petersburg especially to catch me. For God’s sake, don’t ask anyone to intercede – you’ll only make them suspect that you are harbouring a deserter. But if you could find out cautiously, in passing, what kind of man he is, what kind of life he leads, what his character is like, that might help me. Every little detail is important here. But you must act delicately!’
‘You men have nothing to teach us about delicacy,’ Lidina remarked condescendingly, already figuring out how she would go about this business. ‘We’ll set this misfortune right, just let me sleep on it.’
Rybnikov didn’t thank her, but the way he looked at her gave her a warm feeling in her chest. His yellow eyes no longer seemed like a cat’s, as they had during the first minutes of their acquaintance – she thought of them now as ‘bright coffee-coloured’ and found them very expressive.
‘You’re like the Swan Queen,’ he said with a smile. ‘“Dearest Prince, do not pine so, for this wonder I do know. In friendship’s name, do not be sad, I shall help you and be glad.”’
Glyceria Romanovna frowned.
‘Pushkin! I can’t stand him!’
‘What? But surely all Russians adore Pushkin, don’t they?’
Rybnikov suddenly realised that in his astonishment he had expressed himself rather awkwardly, but Lidina attached no importance to his strange words.
‘How could he write: ‘“Your end, your children’s death, with cruel joy I do behold”? What kind of poet is it that rejoices at the death of children? So much for “a star of captivating happiness”!’
And the conversation turned from a serious subject to Russian poetry, which Rybnikov knew quite well. He said that his father, a passionate admirer of Pushkin’s lyre, had cultivated the taste in him as a child.
And then 25 May had come, and Vasilii Alexandrovich had entirely forgotten the inconsequential conversation – there was more important business afoot.
The ‘dummies’ had been instructed to collect the packages from the left luggage office at dawn, just before they set off. The postman would cover the three crates with sackcloth, daub them with sealing wax and conceal them among his parcels – the best possible hiding place. Bridge’s job was even easier, because Vasilii Alexandrovich had done half the work for him: while riding in the closed wagon, he had tipped the melinite into eight cardboard boxes and wrapped each one in anthracite-black paper.
They were both going on the same eastbound express, only Bridge was travelling on his railway worker’s pass, in third class, and Tunnel was in the mail coach. Then their paths would part. The former would change to the locomotive of a freight train at Syzran, and in the midd
le of the Volga he would throw the boxes into the firebox. The latter would ride on as far as Lake Baikal.
For the sake of good order, Rybnikov decided to make certain that the agents collected the baggage by observing in person – naturally, without letting them see him.
As night was drawing to an end, he left the boarding house dressed in the style of a ‘little man’, with a crooked peaked cap and a collarless shirt under a jacket.
Casting a brief glance at the edge of the sky, which was just turning pink, he slipped into his role and jogged off along Chistoprudny Lane like a stray mongrel.
SHIMO-NO-KU
The first syllable, in which iron stars rain down from the sky
The putative Japanese had now been lost, and the Moscow Okhrana was tailing Thrush, so the efforts of the Petersburgians were concentrated entirely on the left luggage office. The items had been deposited there for twenty-four hours, which indicated that they would be called for no later than midday.
Fandorin and Mylnikov took up position in a secret observation post the evening before. As has already been mentioned, railway gendarmes were concealed in close proximity to the left luggage office, and Mylnikov’s agents were also taking turns to stroll around the square in front of the station, so the two bosses installed themselves comfortably in the premises of Lyapunov’s Funeral Services, which were located opposite the station, offering a superlative panoramic view. The American glass of the shop window was also very handy for their purpose, being funereal black and only allowing light through in one direction.
The two partners did not switch on the light – they had no real need for it anyway, since there was a street lamp burning nearby. The night hours dragged by slowly.
Every now and then the telephone rang – it was their subordinates reporting that the net had been cast, all the men were in position and vigilance was not slackening.
Fandorin and Mylnikov had already discussed everything to do with the job, but the conversation simply would not gel when it came to more abstract subjects – the ranges of the two partners’ interests were simply too different.
The engineer was not concerned, the silence did not bother him, but it drove the court counsellor wild.
‘Did you ever happen to meet Count Loris-Melikov?’ he asked.
‘Certainly,’ replied Fandorin, ‘but no more than that.’
‘They say the man had a great mind, even though he was Armenian.’
Silence.
‘Well, what I’m getting at is this. I’ve been told that before he retired His Excellency had a long tête-à-tête with Alexander III, and he made all sorts of predictions and gave him lots of advice: about a constitution, about concessions to foreigners, about foreign politics. Everyone knows the late tsar wasn’t exactly bright. Afterwards he used to laugh and say: “Loris tried to frighten me with Japan – just imagine it! He wanted me to be afraid of Japan”. That was in 1881, when no one even thought Japan was a proper country! Have you heard that story?’
‘I have had occasion to.’
‘See what kind of ministers Alexander II, the old Liberator, had. But Sandy number three had no time for them. And as for his son, our Nicky, well, what can you say … The old saying’s true: If He wants to punish someone, He’ll take away their reason. Will you at least say something! I’m talking sincerely here, straight from the heart. My soul’s aching for Russia.’
‘S-so I see,’ Fandorin remarked drily.
Not even taking a meal together brought them any closer, especially since each of them ate his own food. An agent delivered a little carafe of rowanberry vodka, fatty bacon and salted cucumbers for Mylnikov. The engineer’s Japanese servant treated him to pieces of raw herring and marinaded radish. Polite invitations from both parties to sample their fare were both declined with equal politeness. At the end of the meal, Fandorin lit up a Dutch cigar and Mylnikov sucked on a eucalyptus pastille for his nerves.
Eventually, at the time determined by nature, morning arrived.
The street lamps went out in the square, rays of sunlight slanted through the steam swirling above the damp surface of the road and sparrows started hopping about on the pavement under the window of the undertaker’s office.
‘There he is!’ Fandorin said in a low voice: for the last half-hour he had been glued to his binoculars.
‘Who?’
‘Our man. I’ll c-call the gendarmes.’
Mylnikov followed the direction of the engineer’s binoculars and put his own up to his eyes.
A man with a battered cap pulled right down to his ears was ambling across the broad, almost deserted square.
‘That’s him all right!’ the court counsellor said in a bloodthirsty whisper, and immediately pulled a stunt that was not envisaged in the plan: he stuck his head out through a small open windowpane and gave a deafening blast on his whistle.
Fandorin froze with the telephone receiver in his hand.
‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’
Mylnikov grinned triumphantly and tossed his reply back over his shoulder:
‘Well, what did you expect? Didn’t think Mylnikov would let the railway gendarmes have all the glory, did you? You can sod that! The Jap’s mine, he’s mine!’
From different sides of the square, agents dashed towards the little man, four of them in all. They trilled on their whistles and yelled menacingly.
‘Stop!’
The spy listened and stopped. He turned his head in all directions. He saw there was nowhere to run, but he ran anyway – chasing after an empty early tram that was clattering towards Zatsepa Street.
The agent running to cut him off thought he had guessed his enemy’s intentions – he darted forward to meet the tramcar and leapt nimbly up on to the front platform.
Just at that moment the Japanese overtook the tram, but he didn’t jump inside; running at full speed, he leapt up and grabbed hold of a rung of the dangling ladder with both hands, and in the twinkling of an eye, he was up on the roof.
The agent who had ended up inside the tram started dashing about between the benches – he couldn’t work out where the fugitive had disappeared to. The other three shouted and waved their arms, but he didn’t understand their gesticulations, and the distance between them and the tram was gradually increasing.
Spectators at the station – departing passengers, people seeing them off, cab drivers – gaped at this outlandish performance.
Then Mylnikov clambered out of the open window almost as far as his waist and howled in a voice that could have brought down the walls of Jericho:
‘Put the brake on, you idiot!’
Either the agent heard his boss’s howling, or he twigged for himself, but he went dashing to the driver, and immediately the brakes squealed, the tram slowed down and the other agents started closing in on it rapidly.
‘No chance, he won’t get away!’ Mylnikov boasted confidently. ‘Not from my aces he won’t. Every one of them’s worth ten of your railway boneheads.’
The tram had not yet stopped, it was still screeching along the rails, but the little figure in the jacket ran along its roof, pushed off with one foot, performed an unbelievable somersault and landed neatly on a newspaper kiosk standing at the corner of the square.
‘An acrobat!’ Mylnikov gasped.
But Fandorin muttered some short word that obviously wasn’t Russian and raised his binoculars to his eyes.
Panting for breath, the agents surrounded the wooden kiosk. They raised their heads, waved their arms, shouted something – the only sounds that reached the undertaker’s premises were ‘f***! – f***! – f***!’
Mylnikov chortled feverishly.
‘Like a cat on a fence! Got him!’
Suddenly the engineer exclaimed:
‘Shuriken!’
He flung aside his binoculars, darted out into the street and shouted loudly:
‘Look out!’
But too late.
The circus performer on the roof of the
kiosk spun round his own axis, waving his hand through the air rapidly – as if he were thanking the agents on all four sides. One by one, Mylnikov’s ‘aces’ tumbled on to the paved surface.
A second later the spy leapt down, as softly as a cat, and dashed along the street towards the gaping mouth of a nearby gateway.
The engineer ran after him. The court counsellor, shocked and stunned for a moment, darted after him.
‘What happened? What happened?’ he shouted.
‘He’ll get away!’ Fandorin groaned.
‘Not if I have anything to do with it!’
Mylnikov pulled a revolver out from under his armpit and opened fire on the fugitive like a real master, on the run. He had good reason to pride himself on his accuracy, he usually felled a moving figure at fifty paces with the first bullet, but this time he emptied the entire cylinder and failed to hit the target. The damned Japanese was running oddly, with sidelong jumps and zigzags – how can you pop a target like that?
‘The bastard!’ gasped Mylnikov, clicking the hammer of his revolver against an empty cartridge case. ‘Why aren’t you firing?’
‘There’s no p-point.’
The shooting brought the gendarmes tearing out of the station after breaking their cover for the ambush. The public started to panic, there was shouting and jostling, and waving of umbrellas. Local police constables’ whistles could be heard trilling from various directions. But meanwhile the fugitive had already disappeared into the gateway.
‘Along the side street, the side street!’ Fandorin told the gendarmes, pointing. ‘To the left!’
The light-blue uniforms rushed off round the building. Mylnikov swore furiously as he clambered up the fire escape ladder, but Erast Petrovich stopped and shook his head hopelessly.
He took no further part in the search after that. He looked at the gendarmes and police agents bustling about, listened to Mylnikov’s howls from up above his head and set off back towards the square.
A crowd of curious gawkers was jostling around the kiosk, and he caught glimpses of a policeman’s white peaked cap.
