The Diamond Chariot

by Boris Akunin

He gestured to his agents to stay put and cautiously stuck his nose inside the door on the left.

  It was absolutely quiet in there. And empty, as Mylnikov soon convinced himself by shining his torch about. So there had to be a way through into the next room.

  Stepping soundlessly across the parquet, he walked out into the middle of the floor.

  What the devil! A table, chairs. A window. A mirror on the wall facing the window. There wasn’t any other door. And agent Mandrykin wasn’t there.

  He tried to cross himself, but the club grasped in his hand got in the way.

  Feeling the cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, Evstratii Pavlovich went back to the hallway.

  ‘Well?’ Sapliukin asked with just his lips

  The court counsellor just gestured irritably at him. He glanced into the room on the right.

  It was exactly like the one on the left – the furniture, the mirror and the window.

  Not a soul, empty!

  Mylnikov went down on his hands and knees and shone his torch under the table, although it was impossible to imagine that an agent could have decided to play hide-and-seek.

  Evstratii Pavlovich tumbled back into the hallway, muttering: ‘Oh, our Lord, and the Blessed Virgin.’

  He pushed the agents aside and rushed through the door leading straight ahead – clutching his revolver this time, not his club.

  It was the bedroom. A washbasin in the corner, with a bath, a toilet bowl and some other white porcelain contraption screwed to the floor behind a curtain.

  No one! The chipped moon squinted in derisively at Mylnikov through the window.

  He menaced it with his revolver and started flinging open the cupboard doors with a crash. He glanced under the bed, even under the bath.

  The Japanese had disappeared. And he had taken with him three of Mylnikov’s best agents.

  Evstratii Pavlovich felt afraid that he might have lost his reason. He shouted hysterically:

  ‘Sapliukin! Lepinsh!’

  When the agents failed to reply, he dashed back to the hallway.

  Only there was no one there any longer.

  ‘Oh, Lord Jesus!’ the court counsellor wailed beseechingly, dropping his revolver and crossing himself with broad gestures. ‘Dispel the sorcery of the Japanese devil!’

  When the thrice-repeated sign of the cross failed to help, Evstratii Pavlovich finally realised that the Japanese God was stronger than the Russian one and fell to his knees before His Squintyness.

  He rested his forehead on the floor and crawled towards the door, howling loudly: ‘Banzai, banzai, banzai.’

  The final syllable, the longest one of all

  How could he have failed to recognise her straight away? Well, yes, certainly, he was tired, he was tormented by boredom, waiting impatiently for when he could leave. And, of course, she looked quite different: that first time, at dawn near the sabotaged bridge, she was pale and exhausted, in a dress that was muddy and soaking wet, and this time she glowed with a delicate, well-groomed beauty, and the veil had blurred the features of her face. But even so, some sleuth he was!

  Then, when she approached him herself and mentioned the bridge, it was like being struck by lightning. Erast Petrovich had recognised her and remembered her testimony, which had led to his fatal, shameful error, and – most importantly – he had remembered her companion.

  At the Moscow Freight Station, when he looked through his binoculars and saw the man who had received the melinite, Fandorin realised immediately that he had seen him somewhere before but, confused by those Japanese facial features, he had taken a wrong turning, imagining that the spy resembled one of his old acquaintances from his time in Japan. But it was all much simpler than that! He had seen this man, dressed in a staff captain’s uniform, at the site of the catastrophe.

  Now everything had fallen into place.

  The special had been blown up by the Acrobat, as Mylnikov had so aptly christened him. The Japanese saboteur was travelling in the express train, accompanied by his female accomplice –this Lidina woman. How cunningly she had sent the gendarmes off on a false trail!

  And now the enemy had decided to strike a blow at the person who was hunting him. One of the favourite tricks of the sect of stealthy ones, it was called ‘The rabbit eats the tiger’. Well, not to worry, there was also a Russian saying: ‘The mouse hunts the cat’.

  Glyceria Romanovna’s invitation to go to her apartment had not taken the engineer by surprise – he was prepared for something of the sort. But even so, he tensed up inside when he asked himself whether he could cope with such a dangerous opponent on his own.

  ‘If I don’t cope, that’s my karma, let them fight on without me,’ Erast Petrovich thought philosophically – and he went.

  But at the house on Ostozhenka Street he behaved with extreme caution. Karma was all very well, but he had no intention of playing giveaway chess.

  That only made the disappointment all the greater when he realised that the Acrobat was not in the apartment. Fandorin didn’t beat about the bush after that. The dubious lady’s part in everything had to be clarified there and then, without delay.

  She was not an agent, he realised that straight away. If she was an accomplice, she was an unwitting one and had not been initiated into any secrets. True, she knew where to find the Acrobat, but she would never tell Fandorin, because she was head over heels in love. He couldn’t subject her to torture, could he?

  At this point Erast Petrovich’s eye fell on the telephone apparatus, and the whole idea came to him in an instant. A spy of this calibre had to have a telephone number for emergency contacts.

  After frightening Lidina as badly as he could, Fandorin ran down the stairs, out into the street, took a cab and ordered the driver to race as fast as he could to the Central Telephone Exchange.

  Lisitsky had set himself up very comfortably in his new place of work. The young ladies on the switchboards had already given him lots of embroidered doilies and he had a bowl of home-made biscuits, jam and a small teapot standing on the desk. The dashing staff captain seemed to be popular here.

  On seeing Fandorin, he jumped up, pulled off his earphones and exclaimed enthusiastically:

  ‘Erast Petrovich, you are a true genius! This is the second day I’ve been sitting here and I never weary of repeating it! Your name should be incised in gold letters on the tablets of police history. You cannot imagine how many curious and savoury facts I have learned in these two days!’

  ‘I c-cannot,’ Fandorin interrupted him. ‘Apartment three, the Bomze House, Ostozhenka Street – what’s the number there?’

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Lisitsky, glancing into the directory. ‘37-82.’

  ‘Check what calls have been made from 37-82 in the last quarter of an hour. Q-quickly!’

  The staff captain shot out of the room like a bullet and came back three minutes later.

  ‘A call to number 114-22. That’s the Saint-Saëns Boarding House, on Chistoprudny Boulevard, I’ve already checked it. It was a brief conversation, only thirty seconds.’

  ‘That means she didn’t find him in …’ Fandorin murmured. ‘What boarding house is that? There wasn’t one by that name in my time. Is it educational?’

  ‘After a fashion.’ Lisitsky chuckled. ‘They teach the science of the tender passion. It’s a well-known establishment, belongs to a certain Countess Bovada. A highly colourful individual, she figured in one of our cases. And they know her well in the Okhrana too. Her real name is Anfisa Minkina. Her life story is a genuine Boussenard novel. She has travelled right round the world. A shady character, but she is tolerated because from time to time she provides services to the relevant government departments. Of an intimate, but not necessarily sexual, nature,’ the jolly staff captain said, and laughed again. ‘I told them to connect me to the boarding house. There are two numbers registered there, so I’ve connected to both. Was I right?’

  ‘Yes, well done. Sit here and listen. And meanwhile I’ll make
a call.’

  Fandorin telephoned his apartment and told his valet to make his way to Chistoprudny Boulevard and observe a certain house.

  Masa paused and asked:

  ‘Master, will this be interfering in the course of the war?’

  ‘No,’ Erast Petrovich reassured him, prevaricating somewhat, but he had no other choice at the moment. Mylnikov was not there, and the railway gendarmes would not be able to provide competent surveillance. ‘You will simply watch the Saint-Saëns Boarding House and tell me if you see anything interesting. The Orlando electric theatre is close by, it has a public telephone. I shall be at number …’

  ‘20-93,’ Lisitsky prompted him, with an earphone pressed to each ear.

  ‘A call, on the left line!’ he exclaimed a minute later.

  Erast Petrovich grabbed an extension earpiece and heard a blasé man’s voice:

  ‘… Beatrice, my little sweetheart, I’m aflame, I just can’t wait any longer. I’ll come straight to your place. Get my room ready, do. And Zuleika, it must be her.’

  ‘Zuleika is with an admirer,’ a woman’s voice, very gentle and pleasant, replied at the other end of the line.

  The man became flustered.

  ‘What’s that you say, with an admirer? With whom? If it’s Von Weilem, I’ll never forgive you!’

  ‘I’ll prepare Madam Frieda for you,’ the woman cooed. ‘Remember her, the large lady with the wonderful figure. She’s a true whiplash virtuoso, every bit as good as Zuleika. Your Excellency will like her.’

  The staff captain started shaking with soundless, suppressed laughter. Fandorin dropped his earpiece in annoyance.

  During the next hour there were many calls, some of an even more spicy nature, but all of them in Lisitsky’s left ear – that is, on number 114-22. Nothing on the other line.

  It came to life at half past eleven, with a call from the boarding house. A man requested number 42-13.

  ‘42-13 – who’s that?’ the engineer asked in a whisper, while the young lady was putting through the connection.

  The gendarme was already rustling the pages. He found the number and ran his thumbnail under the line of print.

  Fandorin read it: ‘Windrose Restaurant’.

  ‘Windrose Restaurant,’ said a voice in the earpiece. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘My dear fellow, could you please call Mr Miroshnichenko to the telephone? He’s sitting at the table by the window, on his own,’ the Saint-Saëns said in a man’s voice.

  ‘Right away, sir.’

  A long silence, lasting several minutes.

  And then a calm baritone voice at the restaurant end asked:

  ‘Is that you?’

  ‘As we agreed. Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll be there at one in the morning.’

  ‘There’s a lot of it. Almost a thousand crates,’ the boarding house warned the restaurant.

  Fandorin gripped his earpiece so tightly that his fingers turned white. Weapons! A shipment of Japanese weapons, it had to be!

  ‘We have enough men,’ the restaurant replied confidently.

  ‘How will you move it? By water?’

  ‘Naturally. Otherwise, why would I need a warehouse on the river?’

  Just at that moment little lamps started blinking on the telephone apparatus on the desk in front of Lisitsky.

  ‘That’s the special line,’ the officer whispered, grabbing the receiver and twirling a handle. ‘For you, Erast Petrovich. I think it’s your servant.’

  ‘You listen!’ Fandorin said with a nod at the earpiece, and took the receiver. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Master, you told me to tell you if anything interesting happened,’ Masa said in Japanese. ‘It’s very interesting here, come.’

  He didn’t try to explain anything – evidently there were a lot of people in the electric theatre.

  In the meantime the conversation between Windrose and Saint-Saëns had ended.

  ‘Well, d-did he tell him the place?’ the engineer asked, turning to Lisitsky impatiently.

  The gendarme spread his hands helplessly.

  ‘It must have been during the two seconds when you put the receiver down and I hadn’t picked it up yet … All I heard was the one at the restaurant saying: “Yes, yes, I know”. What are your instructions? Shall I send squads to the Windrose and Saint-Saëns?’

  ‘No need. You won’t find anyone at the restaurant now. And I’ll deal with the guest house myself.’

  As he flew along the dark boulevards in the carriage, Fandorin thought about the terrible danger hanging over the ancient city – no, over the thousand-year-old state. Black crowds, armed with rifles from Japan (or wherever), would choke the throats of the streets with the nooses of barricades. A formless, bloody stain would creep in from the outskirts to the centre and a ferocious, protracted bloodbath would begin, in which there would be no victors, only dead and defeated.

  The great enemy of Erast Petrovich’s life – senseless and savage Chaos – stared out at the engineer through the blank wall eyes of dark windows, grinned at him with the rotten mouths of ravenous gateways. Rational, civilised life shrank to a frail strand of lamps, glimmering defencelessly along the pavement.

  Masa was waiting for him by the railings.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ he said quickly, leading Fandorin along the edge of the pond. ‘That bad man Myrnikov and five of his men crept into the house, through that porch over there. That was … twerve minutes ago,’ he said, glancing with delight at the gold watch that Erast Petrovich had given him for the Mikado’s fiftieth birthday. ‘I terephoned you straight away.’

  ‘Ah, how appalling!’ the engineer exclaimed miserably. ‘That jackal picked up the scent and he’s ruined everything again!’

  His valet replied philosophically:

  ‘There’s nothing you can do about it now, anyway. Ret’s watch what happens next.’

  So they started watching.

  There were single windows on the left and right of the door. They had no light in them.

  ‘Strange,’ whispered Erast Petrovich. ‘What are they doing there in the dark? No shots, no shouts …’

  And that very second there was a shout – not very loud, but filled with such utter animal terror that Fandorin and his servant both leapt up without a word, breaking their cover, and went running towards the house.

  A man crawled out on to the porch, working his elbows and knees rapidly.

  ‘Banzai! Banzai!’ he howled over and over again.

  ‘Let’s go!’ said the engineer, looking round at Masa, who had stopped. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  His servant stood there with his arms crossed, the mute embodiment of affronted feelings.

  ‘You deceived me, Master. That man is Japanese.’

  There was no point in trying to persuade him. And anyway, Fandorin felt ashamed.

  ‘He is not Japanese,’ said Fandorin. ‘But you’re right: you’d better go. If neutrality is not to be compromised.’

  The engineer sighed and moved on. The valet sighed and plodded away.

  Three shadows came flying out, one after another, from round the corner of the boarding house – three men in identical coats and bowler hats.

  ‘Evstratii Pavlovich!’ they clamoured, taking hold of the crawling man and setting him on his feet. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Mylnikov howled and tried to break free of their grip.

  ‘I am Fandorin,’ said Erast Petrovich, moving closer.

  The agents exchanged glances, but they didn’t say anything – obviously no further introductions were required.

  ‘He’s cracked up,’ one of them, a little older than the others, said with a sigh. ‘Evstratii Pavlovich hasn’t been himself for quite a while now, our lads have noticed. But this time he’s really flipped his lid.’

  ‘The Japanese God … Banzai … Get thee behind me …’ the afflicted man repeated, twitching and jerking.

  So that he would not get in the way, Fandor
in pressed on his artery, and the court counsellor quietened down. He hung his head, gave a snore and slumped in the grip of his deputies.

  ‘Let him lie down for a while, nothing will happen to him. Right now, follow me!’ the engineer ordered.

  He walked quickly round the rooms, switching on the electric light everywhere.

  The apartment was empty, lifeless. The only movement was a curtain fluttering at an open window.

  Fandorin dashed over to the windowsill. Outside was the courtyard, and after that a vacant lot and the gloomy silhouettes of buildings.

  ‘He got away! Why was no one posted under the window? That’s not like Mylnikov!’

  ‘Well, I was standing there,’ one of the agents started explaining. ‘Only when I heard Evstratpalich shout, I ran. I thought he needed a hand …’

  ‘Where are our lads?’ the older one asked, looking around in amazement. ‘Mandrykin, Lepinsh, Sapliukin, Kutko and that other one, what’s his name, with the big ears. Did they go after him, through the window? They should have whistled …’

  Erast Petrovich set about examining the apartment more closely. In the room to the left of the entrance hall, he discovered a few drops of blood on the carpet. He touched it – it was fresh.

  He glanced around, set off confidently towards the sideboard and pulled open the door, which was slightly ajar. There, protruding slightly from the inner space, was a small crossbow, gripped in a carpenter’s vice. It had been fired.

  ‘Well, well, familiar tricks,’ the engineer murmured, and started feeling the floor at the spot where he found the blood. ‘Aha, and here’s the spring. He hid it under the parquet … But where’s the body?’

  He turned his head to the right and the left. Then walked towards the mirror hanging on the wall facing the window. He fingered the frame, but couldn’t find a switch, and simply smashed his fist into the brilliant surface.

  The agents, who were blankly following ‘Silver Fox’s’ actions, gasped – the mirror jangled and collapsed into a black niche.

  ‘So that’s where it is,’ the engineer purred in satisfaction, clicking a switch. A small door opened up in the wallpaper.

  There was a tiny boxroom behind the false mirror. At the far end of it was a window that gave an excellent view of the next space, the bedroom. Half of the secret hiding place was taken up by a camera on a tripod, but that was not what interested Fandorin.