by Boris Akunin
'So what did happen?' asked Clarissa.
Translate everything she says,' Mrs Truffo sternly instructed her husband, who had already returned. 'Everything, word for word.'
The doctor nodded, wiping the perspiration induced by fast walking from his forehead with a handkerchief.
'Don't be afraid, madam. Just tell the truth,' Sir Reginald encouraged Renate. 'This person is no gentleman, he has no idea how to treat a lady, but I guarantee that you will be treated with respect.'
These words were accompanied by a glance in Fandorin's direction - a glance filled with such fierce hatred that Clarissa Stamp was startled. What on earth could have happened between Erast and Milford-Stokes since the previous day to cause this hostility?
'Thank you, dear Reginald,' Renate sobbed.
She drank her lemonade slowly, snuffling and whining under her breath. Then she looked imploringly at her interrogators and began:
'Gauche is no guardian of the law! He is a criminal, a madman! That loathsome shawl has driven everybody insane! Even a police commissioner!'
'You said you had something to confess to him,' Clarissa reminded her in an unfriendly tone of voice. 'What was it?'
'Yes, there was something that I was hiding . . . Something important. I was going to confess to everything, but first I wanted to expose the commissioner!'
'Expose him? As what?' Sir Reginald asked sympathetically.
Mme Kleber stopped crying and solemnly declared:
'A murderer. Renier did not kill himself. Commissioner Gauche killed him!' Seeing how astounded her listeners were by this claim, she continued rapidly. 'It's obvious! You try smashing your skull by running at the wall in a room of only six square metres. It can't be done. If Charles had decided to kill himself, he would have taken off his tie, tied it to the ventilation grille and jumped off a chair. No, Gauche killed him! He struck him on the head with some heavy object and then made it look like suicide by smashing the dead man's head against the wall.'
'But why would the commissioner want to kill Renier?' Clarissa asked with a sceptical shake of her head. Mme Kleber was obviously talking nonsense.
'I told you, greed had driven him completely insane. That shawl is to blame for everything. Either Gauche was angry with Charles for burning the shawl, or he didn't believe him -I don't know which. But anyway it's quite clear that Gauche killed him. And when I told him so to his face, he didn't try to deny it. He took out his pistol and started waving it about and threatening me. He said that if I didn't keep my mouth shut I'd go the same way as Renier . . .' Renate began sniffling again and then -miracle of miracles - the baronet offered her his handkerchief.
What mysterious transformation was this? He had always shunned Renate like the plague!
'. . . Well, then he put the pistol on the table and started shaking me by the shoulders. I was so afraid, so afraid! I don't know how I managed to push him away and grab the gun from the table. It was terrible! I ran away from him and he started chasing me round the table. I turned and pressed the trigger. I kept pressing it until he fell . . . And then Mr Fandorin came in.'
Renate began sobbing at the top of her voice. Milford-Stokes patted her shoulder tentatively, as if he were touching a rattlesnake.
Clarissa started when the silence was suddenly broken by the sound of loud clapping.
'Bravo!' said Fandorin with a mocking smile, still clapping his hands. 'Bravo, Mme Kleber. You are a great actress.'
'How dare you!' exclaimed Sir Reginald, choking with indignation, but Erast cut him short with a wave of his hand.
'Sit down and listen. I shall tell you what really happened.' Fandorin was absolutely calm and seemed quite certain that he was right. 'Mme Kleber is not only a superb actress, she is quite exceptionally talented in every respect. She possesses true brilliance and breadth of imagination. Unfortunately, her greatest talent lies in the criminal sphere. You are an accomplice to a whole series of murders, madam. Or rather, not an accomplice, but the instigator, the leading lady. It was Renier who was your accomplice.'
'Look,' Renate appealed plaintively to Sir Reginald. 'Now this one's gone crazy too. And he was such a quiet boy.'
'The most amazing thing about you is the superhuman speed with which you react to a situation,' Erast continued as though she hadn't even spoken. 'You never defend yourself - you always strike first, Mile Sanfon. You don't mind if I call you by your real name, do you?'
'Sanfon! Marie Sanfon? Her?' Dr Truffo exclaimed.
Clarissa realized she was sitting there with her mouth open. Milford-Stokes jerked his hand away from Renate's shoulder. Renate herself looked at Fandorin pityingly.
'Yes, you see before you the legendary, brilliant, ruthless international adventuress Marie Sanfon. Her style is breathtakingly daring and inventive. She leaves no clues or witnesses. And last, but not least, she cares nothing for human life. The testimony of Charles Renier, which we shall come to later, is a mixture of truth and lies. I do not know, my lady, when you met him and under what circumstances, but two things are beyond all doubt. Firstly, Renier genuinely loved you and he tried to divert suspicion from you until his very last moment. And secondly, it was you who persuaded the son of the Emerald Rajah to go in search of his inheritance - otherwise why would he have waited for so many years? You made Lord Littleby's acquaintance, acquired all the information you required and worked out a p-plan. Obviously at first you had counted on obtaining the shawl by cunning and flattery - after all, his Lordship had no idea of the significance of that scrap of cloth. But you soon became convinced that it would never work: Littleby was absolutely crazy about his collection and he would never have agreed to part with any of the exhibits. It was not possible to obtain the shawl by stealth either - there were armed guards constantly on duty beside the display case. So you decided to keep the risk to a minimum and leave no traces behind, the way you always prefer to do things. Tell me, did you know that Lord Littleby had not gone away, that he was at home on that fateful evening? I am sure you did. You needed to bind Renier to you with blood. It was not he who killed the servants - you did.'
'Impossible!' said Dr Truffo, throwing his hand in the air.
'Without medical training and practice, no woman could give nine injections in three minutes! It's quite out of the question.'
'Firstly, she could have prepared nine loaded syringes in advance. And secondly . . .' Erast took an apple from a dish and cut a piece off it with an elegant flourish. 'M. Renier may have had no experience in using a syringe, but Marie Sanfon does have such experience. Do not forget that she was raised in a convent of the Grey Sisters of St Vincent, an order founded to provide medical assistance to the poor, and their novices are trained from an early age to work in hospitals, leper colonies and hospices. All these nuns are highly qualified nurses and, as I recall, young Marie was one of the best.'
'But of course. I forgot. You're right,' the doctor said, lowering his head penitently. 'Please continue. I shall not interrupt you again.'
'Well then, Paris, the rue de Grenelle, the evening of the fifteenth of March. T-two people arrive at the mansion of Lord Littleby: a young doctor with a dark complexion and a nurse with the hood of her grey nun's habit pulled down over her eyes. The doctor presents a piece of p-paper with a seal from the mayor's office and asks for everyone in the house to be gathered together. He probably says it is getting late and they still have a lot of work to do. The inoculations are given by the nun -deftly, quickly, painlessly. Afterwards the pathologist will not discover any sign of bruising at the sites of the injections. Marie Sanfon has not forgotten what she learned in her charitable youth. What happened after that is clear, so I shall omit the details: the servants fall asleep, the criminals climb the stairs to the second floor, Renier has a brief tussle with the master of the house. The murderers fail to notice that his gold Leviathan badge has been left behind in Lord Littleby's hand. Which meant that afterwards, my lady, you had to give him your own emblem - it would be easier for yo
u to avoid suspicion than the captain's first mate. And I expect that you had more confidence in yourself than in him.'
Up to this point Clarissa had been gazing spellbound at Erast, but now she glanced briefly at Renate. She was listening carefully with an expression of offended amazement on her face. If she was Marie Sanfon, she had not thrown her hand in yet.
'I began to suspect both of you from the day that poor African supposedly fell on top of you,' Fandorin confided to Renate. He bit off a piece of the apple with his even white teeth. 'That was Renier's fault, of course - he panicked and got carried away. You would have invented something more cunning. Let me try to reconstruct the sequence of events and you can correct me if I get any of the details wrong. All right?'
Renate shook her head mournfully and propped her plump cheek on her hand.
'Renier saw you to your cabin - you certainly had things to discuss, since your accomplice states in his confession that the shawl had mysteriously disappeared only a short while before. You went into your cabin, saw the huge negro rummaging through your things and for a moment you must have been frightened - if you are acquainted at all with the feeling of fear. But a second later your heart leapt when you saw the precious shawl on the negro's neck. That explained everything: when the runaway slave was searching Renier's cabin, the colourful piece of material had caught his eye and he decided to wear it round his massive neck. When you cried out Renier came running in, saw the shawl and, unable to control himself, he pulled out his dirk . . . You had to invent the story about the mythical attack lie down on the floor and hoist the negro's hot, heavy body onto yourself. I expect that was not very pleasant, was it!'
'I protest, this is all pure invention!' Sir Reginald exclaimed heatedly. 'Of course the negro attacked Mme Kleber, it is obvious! You are fantasizing again, mister Russian diplomat!'
'Not in the least,' Erast said mildly, giving the baronet a look of either sadness or pity. 'I told you that I had seen slaves from the Ndanga people before, when I was a prisoner of the Turks. Do you know why they are valued so highly? Because for all their great strength and stamina, they are exceptionally gentle and have absolutely no aggressive instincts. They are a tribe of farmers, not hunters, and have never fought a war against anyone. The Ndanga could not possibly have attacked Mme Kleber, not even if he was frightened to death. Mr Aono was surprised at the time that the savage's fingers left no bruises on the delicate skin of your neck. Surely that is strange?'
Renate bowed her head thoughtfully, as though she herself were amazed at the oversight.
'Now let us recall the murder of Professor Sweetchild. The moment it became clear that the Indologist was close to solving the mystery you, my lady, asked him not to hurry but to tell the whole story in detail from the beginning, and meanwhile you sent your accomplice out, supposedly to fetch your shawl, but in actual fact to make preparations for the murder. Your partner understood what he had to do without being told.'
'It's not true!' Renate protested. 'Gentlemen, you are my witnesses! Renier volunteered of his own accord! Don't you remember? M. Milford-Stokes, I swear I'm telling the truth. I asked you first, do you remember?'
'That's right,' confirmed Sir Reginald. 'That was what happened.'
'A t-trick for simpletons,' said Fandorin, with a flourish of the fruit knife. 'You knew perfectly well, my lady, that the baronet could not stand you and never indulged your caprices. Your little operation was carried through very deftly, but on this occasion, alas, not quite neatly enough. You failed to shift the blame onto Mr Aono, although you came very close to succeeding.' At this point Erast lowered his eyes modestly to allow his listeners to recall precisely who had demolished the chain of evidence against the Japanese.
He is not entirely without vanity, thought Clarissa, but to her eyes the characteristic appeared quite charming and only seemed to make the young man even more attractive. As usual, it was poetry that provided the resolution of the paradox:
For even the beloved's limitation
Is worthy, in love's eyes, of adoration.
Ah, mister diplomat, how little you know of Englishwomen. I believe you will be making a protracted halt in Calcutta.
Fandorin maintained his pause, as yet quite unaware that his faults were 'worthy of adoration' or that he would arrive at his new post later than planned, and then continued:
'Now your situation has become genuinely perilous. Renier described it quite eloquently in his letter. And so you take a terrible decision that is nonetheless, in its own way, a stroke of genius: to sink the ship together with the punctilious commissioner of police, the witnesses and a thousand others. What do the lives of a thousand people mean to you, if they prevent you from becoming the richest woman in the world? Or, even worse, if they pose a threat to your life and liberty.'
Clarissa looked at Renate with horrified fascination. Could this young woman, who was rather bitchy, but otherwise seemed perfectly ordinary, really be so utterly wicked? It couldn't be true. But not to believe Erast was also impossible. He was so eloquent and so handsome!
A huge tear the size of a bean slithered down Renate's cheek. Her eyes were filled with mute appeal: why are you tormenting me like this? What did I ever do to you? The martyr's hand slipped down to her belly and her face contorted in misery.
'Fainting won't help,' Fandorin advised her calmly. 'The best way to bring someone round is to massage the face by slapping. And don't pretend to be weak and helpless. Dr Truffo and Dr Aono think you are as strong as an ox. Sit down, Sir Reginald!' There was a steely ring to Erast's voice. 'You will have your chance to intervene on behalf of your damsel in distress. Afterwards, when I am finished . . . Meanwhile, ladies and gentlemen, you should know that we have Sir Reginald to thank for saving all our lives. If not for his . . . unusual habit of taking the ship's position every three hours, we would have been breakfasting on the b-bottom of the sea today. Or rather others would have been breakfasting on us.'
'Where's Polonius?' the baronet blurted out with a laugh. 'At supper. Not where he eats but where he is eaten.' Very funny!
Clarissa shuddered. A wave that was larger than the others had struck the side of the ship, clinking the dishes against each other on the table and setting Big Ben swaying ponderously to and fro.
'Other people are no more than extras in your play, my lady, and the extras have never really meant anything to you. Especially in a matter of some fifty million pounds. A sum like that is hard to resist. Poor Gauche went astray, for instance. But how clumsy our master detective was as a murderer! You are right, of course, the unfortunate Renier did not commit suicide. I would have realized that for myself if your assault tactics had not thrown me off balance. What force does a 'letter of f-fare-well' carry on its own? From the tone of the letter it was clearly not a final testament - Renier is still playing for time, hoping to plead insanity. Above all, he is relying on you, Mile Sanfon, he has grown used to trusting you implicitly. Gauche calmly tore off a third of a page at the point which he thought was best suited for an ending. How clumsy! The idea of the treasure of Brahmapur had driven our commissioner completely insane. After all, it was his salary for three hundred thousand years!' Fandorin gave a sad chuckle. 'Do you remember how enviously Gauche told us the story of the gardener who sold his stainless reputation to a banker for such a good price?'
'But why kill M. Renier?' asked the Japanese. 'The shawl had been burned.'
'Renier very much wanted the commissioner to believe that, and to make his story more convincing he even gave away the shawl's secret. But Gauche did not believe him,' said Fandorin. He paused for a moment and said: 'And he was right.'
You could have heard a pin drop in the salon. Clarissa had just breathed in, but she forgot to breathe out. She wondered why her chest felt so tight, then realized and released her breath.
'Then the shawl is unharmed?' the doctor asked tentatively, as though he was afraid of startling a rare bird. 'But where is it?'
'That scrap of fine materia
l has changed hands three times this morning. At first Renier had it. The commissioner did not believe what was in the letter, so he searched his prisoner and f-found the shawl on him. The thought of the riches that were almost in his grasp deranged him and he committed murder. The temptation was too much. Everything fitted together so neatly: it said in the letter that the shawl had been burned, the murderer had confessed to everything and the steamer was heading for Calcutta, which is only a stone's throw from Brahmapur. So Gauche went for broke. He struck his unsuspecting prisoner on the head with some heavy object, rigged things to look like a suicide and came back here to wait for the sentry to discover the body. But then Mile Sanfon took a hand and outplayed both of us - the commissioner and myself. You are a most remarkable woman, my lady,' said Erast, turning towards Renate. 'I had expected you to start making excuses and blaming your accomplice for everything, now that he is dead. It would have been very simple, after all. But no, that is not your way. You guessed from the way the commissioner was behaving that he had the shawl, and your first thought was not of defence, but attack! You wanted to get back the key to the treasure, and you did.'
'Why must I listen to this nonsense?' Renate exclaimed in a tearful voice. 'You, monsieur, are nobody and nothing. A mere foreigner! I demand that my case be handled by one of the ship's senior officers!'
The little doctor suddenly straightened his shoulders, stroked a strand of hair forward across his olive-skinned bald patch and declared:
'There is a senior ship's officer present, madam. You may regard this interrogation as sanctioned by the ship's command. Continue, M. Fandorin. You say that this woman managed to get the shawl away from the commissioner?'
'I am certain of it. I do not know how she managed to get hold of Gauche's revolver. The poor fool was probably not afraid of her at all. But somehow she managed it and demanded the shawl. When the old man wouldn't give it to her, she shot him, first in one arm, then in the other, then in the knee. She tortured him! Where did you learn to shoot like that, madam? Four shots, and all perfectly placed. I'm afraid it is rather hard to believe that Gauche chased you round the table with a wounded leg and two useless arms. After the third shot he couldn't stand any more pain and gave you the shawl. Then you finished your victim off with a shot to the centre of the forehead.'
