The Coronation: The Further Adventures Of Erast Fandorin (Erast Fandorin 7)

by Boris Akunin

  People began running around outside the house, some in uniforms, some in civilian clothes. Some went dashing down the drive towards the gates, others rushed off in pursuit of the fugitive. But there were not very many pursuers, perhaps about ten. How could they catch the fleet-footed Mr Fandorin in the wide spaces of the dark park?

  I had no need to feel concerned for Erast Petrovich, but what was going to happen to me?

  There was a loud knock at the door.

  ‘Your Imperial Highness! There is a criminal in the house! Are you all right?’

  Xenia Georgievna gestured for me to hide in the wardrobe. She opened the door of the room and said in a discontented voice: ‘I have a terrible migraine, and you are shouting and clattering. Catch your criminal but do not bother me again!’

  ‘Your Highness, at least lock yourself in.’

  ‘Very well.’

  I heard the sound of a key turning in a lock and came out into the centre of the room.

  ‘I know,’ Xenia Georgievna said in a feverish whisper, clasping my shoulders in a tremulous embrace. ‘It is all lies. He could not have committed a robbery. And you, Afanasii Stepanovich, are not capable of such a thing either. I have guessed everything. You want to rescue Mika. I do not ask you to tell me exactly what you plan to do. Just tell me, am I right?’

  And she really did not ask me any more questions. She went down on her knees in front of an icon and started bowing low to the floor. I had never seen Her Highness display such piety before, not even when she was a child. She seemed to be whispering something as well, probably a prayer, but I could not make out the words.

  Xenia Georgievna prayed for an unbearably long time. I believe it must have been at least half an hour. And I stood there, waiting. All I did was put the bottle of whisky into the travelling bag. Quite clearly, I could not leave it in the grand princess’s room, could I?

  Her Highness did not rise from her knees until everything was quiet in the house and the pursuers had returned, talking loudly among themselves. She walked over to the secretaire, touched something inside it that made a jingling sound and then called me over to her. ‘Take this, Afanasii. You will need money. I do not have any, you know that. But here is a pair of opal earrings and a diamond brooch. They are my own, not the family’s. These things can be sold. They are probably worth a lot.’

  I tried to protest, but she would not listen to me. To avoid being drawn into a long argument, for which this was quite the wrong time, I took the jewels, promising myself firmly that I would return them to Her Highness safe and sound.

  Then Xenia Georgievna took a long silk sash from a Chinese dressing gown out of the wardrobe.

  ‘Tie this to the window catch and climb down. It will not reach all the way to the ground – you will have to jump – but you are brave; you will not be afraid. May the Lord preserve you.’

  She made the sign of the cross over me and then suddenly kissed me on the cheek. I was quite overcome. And it must have been my state of disorientation that made me ask: ‘Is there anything you would like me to tell Mr Fandorin?’

  ‘That I love him,’ Her Highness replied briefly and pushed me towards the window.

  I reached the ground without injuring myself in any way, and also negotiated the park without any adventures. I halted at the railings beyond which lay Bolshaya Kaluga Street, almost empty at this hour of the evening. After waiting until there were no passers-by anywhere in sight, I clambered over to the other side very nimbly. I had definitely made great progress in the art of climbing fences.

  However, what I ought to do now was not clear. I still had no money so I could not even hire a cab. Andwherewould I actually go?

  I halted indecisively.

  There was a newspaper boy wandering along the street. Still a little child, about nine years old. He was shouting with all his might, although there didn’t seem to be anyone there to buy his goods.

  ‘The latest Half-Kopeck News. Get your Half-Kopeck News. The newspaper for private ads! An admirer for some, a bride for others! An apartment for some, a good job for others!’

  I started, recalling my wager with Fandorin. I rummaged in my pockets, hoping to find a copper half-kopeck or one-kopeck piece. There was something round and flat behind the lining. An old silver coin, a Peter the Great altyn.

  Well, never mind. He probably would not notice in the dark.

  I called the newspaper seller, tugged a folded paper out of his bag and tossed the silver coin into his mug – it jangled every bit as well as copper. The boy plodded on his way as if nothing at all had happened, bawling out his crude doggerel.

  I walked over to a street lamp and unfolded the grey paper.

  And I saw it – right there in the centre of the front page, with letters a full vershok in height:

  My eagle! My diamond-precious love! I forgive you.

  I love you. I am waiting for your message.

  Your Linda

  Write to the Central Post Office,

  to the bearer of treasury note No. 137078859.

  That was it! No doubt at all about it! And how cunningly it had been composed. No one who did not know about the diamond and the exchange would have the slightest idea!

  But would Fandorin see this paper? How could I inform him? Where should I seek him now? What terrible luck!

  ‘Well then?’ a familiar voice asked out of the darkness. ‘That’s genuine love for you. This passionate declaration has been published in all the evening papers.’

  I swung round, astonished at such a fortunate encounter.

  ‘Why do you look so surprised, Ziukin? After all, it was clear that if you managed to escape from the house, you would climb over the railings. I just d-did not know exactly where. I had to engage four newspaper boys to walk up and down the railings and shout about private advertisements at the tops of their voices. That’s it, Ziukin. You have lost the wager. So much for your remarkable drooping moustache and sideburns.’

  17 May

  Staring out at me from the mirror was a puffy thick-lipped face with the beginnings of a double chin and unnaturally white cheeks. Deprived of its sumptuous drooping moustache and combed sideburns, my face seemed to have emerged out of some cloud or bank of fog to appear before me naked, exposed and defenceless. I was quite shaken by the sight of it – it was like seeing myself for the first time. I had read in some novel that as a man passes through life he gradually creates his own self-portrait, applying a pattern of wrinkles, folds, hollows and protuberances to the smooth canvas of the persona that he inherited at birth. Everyone knows that wrinkles can be intelligent or stupid, genial or spiteful, cheerful or sad. And the effect of this drawing, traced by the hand of life itself, is to make some people more beautiful with the passing years, and some more ugly.

  When the initial shock had passed and I looked at the self-portrait a little more closely, I realised that I could not say with any certainty whether I was pleased with the work. I supposed I was pleased with the pleated line of the lips – it testified to experience of life and a quite definite firmness of character. However, the broad lower jaw hinted at moroseness, and the flabby cheeks provoked thoughts of a predisposition to failure. The most astounding thing of all was that the removal of the covering of hair had altered my appearance far more than the ginger beard I had recently worn. I had suddenly ceased to be a grand-ducal butler and become a lump of clay, which could now be moulded into a man of any background or rank.

  However, Fandorin, having studied my new face with the air of a connoisseur of painting, seemed to be of a different opinion. Setting aside the razor, he muttered as if to himself: ‘You are hard to disguise. The gravity is still there, the prim fold on the forehead has not disappeared either, or the alignment of the head . . . Hmm, Ziukin, you are not at all like me, not in the least, except that we are about the same height . . . But never mind. Lind knows that I am a master of self-transformation. Such obvious dissimilarity might actually make his men quite certain that you are me. Who
shall be we dress you up as? I think we should make you a civil servant, sixth or seventh class. You don’t look at all right for any rank lower than that. You stay here; I’ll g-go to the military and civil uniform shop on Sretenka Street. I’ll look out something for myself at the same time. Here in Russia the easiest way to hide a man is behind a uniform.’

  The previous evening Erast Petrovich had found an announcement of an apartment for rent in the same Half-Kopeck News where Doctor Lind had placed his notice:

  For rent, for the coronation, a seven-room apartment

  with furniture, tableware and telephone.

  Close to the Clear Ponds. 5000 roubles.

  Use of servants possible for additional charge.

  Arkhangelsky Lane, the house of state counsellor’s

  widow Sukhorukova. Enquire at porter’s lodge.

  The number of rooms appeared excessive to me, and the price – bearing in mind the coronation celebrations were almost over – was quite staggering, but Fandorin would not listen to me. ‘On the other hand, it is close to the post office,’ he said. And before the evening was out we were installed in a fine gentleman’s apartment located on the ground floor of a new stone house. The porter was so pleased to receive payment in advance that he did not even ask to see our passports.

  After taking tea in a sumptuously but rather tastelessly furnished dining room, we discussed our plan of further action. Actually, our discussion was more like a monologue by Fandorin, and for the most part I listened. I suspected that for Erast Petrovich a so-called discussion was simply a matter of him thinking aloud, and any requests for my opinion or advice ought be regarded as no more than figures of speech.

  It is true, though, that I began the conversation. Lind’s initiative and the acquisition of a roof over our heads had had a most heartening effect on me, and my former despondency had vanished without trace.

  ‘The business does not seem so very complicated to me,’ I declared. ‘We will send a letter with a statement of the terms of exchange, and occupy an observation post close to the window where they hand out the poste restante correspondence. When the bearer of the treasury note turns up, we shall follow him inconspicuously, and he will lead us to Lind’s new hideout. You said yourself that the doctor has only two helpers left, so we shall manage things ourselves, without the police.’

  The plan seemed very extremely practical to me, but Fandorin looked at me as if I were blathering some kind of wild nonsense.

  ‘You underestimate Lind. The trick with the bearer of the note has a completely different meaning. The doctor of course expects me to trail his messenger. Lind must already know that I am playing my own game and the authorities are no longer helping me but on the contrary trying to hunt me down. Anything that is known to the entire municipal police is no longer a secret. So Lind thinks that I am acting alone. If I wait at the post office trying to spot the doctor’s courier, someone else will spot me. The hunter caught in his own trap.’

  ‘What are we to do?’ I asked, perplexed.

  ‘Fall into the trap. There is no other way. I have a trump card that Lind does not even suspect exists. And that trump card is you.’

  I squared my shoulders because, I must admit, it was pleasing to hear something like that from the smug Fandorin.

  ‘Lind does not know that I have a helper. I shall disguise you very cunningly, not so that you will look like Fandorin, but so that you will look like a disguised Fandorin. You and I are almost the same height, and that is the most important thing. You are substantially more corpulent, but that can be concealed by means of loose-fitting garments. Anyone who spends too long hanging around that little window will arouse Lind’s suspicions of it being me in disguise.’

  ‘But at the same time it will not be hard to recognise Lind’s man, for surely he will “hang around”, as you put it, somewhere close by.’

  ‘Not necessarily, by any means. Lind’s men might work in rotation. We know that the doctor has at least two helpers left. They are almost as interesting to me as Lind himself. Who are they? What do they look like? What do we know about them?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Unfortunately, that is actually the case. When I jumped down into the underground vault at the tomb, I had no time to see anything. As you no doubt recall, that bulky gentleman whose carotid artery I was obliged to crush threw himself on me straightaway. While I was busy with him, Lind was able to withdraw and maintain his complete anonymity. What was it that Emilie tried to tell us about him? “He’s . . .” He’s what?’

  Fandorin frowned discontentedly.

  ‘There is no point in trying to guess. There is only one thing that we can say about his helpers. One of them is Russian, or at least has lived in Russia for many years and speaks the language absolutely fluently.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The text of the notice, Ziukin. Do you think that a foreigner would have written about a “diamond-precious love”?’

  He stood up and started walking round the room. He took a set of jade beads out of his pocket and started clicking the small green spheres. I did not know where these beads had come from – probably out of the travelling bag. That was undoubtedly the source of the white shirt with the fold-down collar and the light-cream jacket. And the bottle of whisky, Mr Freyby’s present, had migrated from the travelling bag to the sideboard.

  ‘Tomorrow, or rather, t-today, Lind and I shall fight our decisive battle. He and I both understand this. A tie is not possible. Such is the peculiar nature of our barter: both parties are determined to take everything, and without trading anything for it. What would a tie signify in our case? You and I save the hostages but lose the Orlov.’ Fandorin nodded towards the travelling bag, where he had concealed the stone the previous day. ‘Lind remains alive, and so do I. And that does not suit either him or me. No, Ziukin, there will be no tie.’

  ‘But what if Mademoiselle and Mikhail Georgievich are already dead?’ I asked, giving voice to my greatest fear.

  ‘No, they are alive,’ Fandorin declared confidently. ‘Lind knows quite well that I am no fool. I will not hand over the stone until I am convinced that the hostages are alive.’ He clicked his beads once again and put them away in his pocket. ‘So this is what we shall do. You, in the role of the false Fandorin, keep an eye on the window. Lind’s men keep an eye on you. The real Fandorin keeps an eye on them. All very simple really, is it not?’

  His self-assurance inspired me with hope, but infuriated me at the same time. That was the very moment at which the agonising doubt that had been tormenting me since the previous evening was finally resolved. I would not tell him what Xenia Georgievna had said. Mr Fandorin already had too high an opinion of himself without that.

  He sat down at the table and, after a moment’s thought, jotted down a few lines in French. I looked over his shoulder.

  For me, unlike you, people are more important than precious stones. You will get your diamond. At four a.m. bring the boy and the woman to the open ground where the Petersburg Chaussée turns towards the Petrovsky Palace. We shall conduct the exchange there. I shall be alone. It does not matter to me how many people you have with you.

  Fandorin

  ‘Why precisely there, and why at such a strange time?’ I asked.

  ‘Lind will like it: the dead hour before dawn, a deserted spot. In essence it makes no difference whatsoever, but things will be decided all the sooner . . . Go to bed, Ziukin. Tomorrow will be an interesting day for us. And I shall go and post the letter in the box at the Central Post Office. Correspondence that arrives in the morning is handed out beginning from three in the afternoon. That is when you will take up your position. But first we shall transform you beyond all recognition.’

  I cringed at those words. And, as it turned out, I was right to do so.

  The Moscow Central Post Office seemed a poor place to me, no comparison at all with the post office in St Petersburg. It was dark and crampe
d with no facilities whatever for the customers. In my view a city of a million people ought to acquire a somewhat more presentable central post office. For my purposes, however, the squalidness of this state institution actually proved most opportune. The congestion and poor lighting made my aimless wandering around the hall less obvious. Fandorin had dressed me up as a collegiate counsellor of the Ministry of Agriculture and State Lands, and so I looked very impressive. Why would such a staid gentleman with clean-shaven chops spend so many hours at a stretch sauntering around between the battered counters? Several times I halted as if by chance in front of a chipped mirror in order to observe the people coming in less conspicuously. And, why not admit it? I also wanted to get a better look at myself.

  I fancied that the appearance of an individual of the sixth rank suited me very well indeed. It was as if I had been born with those velvet buttonholes decorated with gold braid and the Order of St Vladimir hanging round my neck. (The order had come out of that same travelling bag.) Nobody stared at me in amazement or disbelief – I was a perfectly regular official. Except perhaps for the attendant in the poste restante window, who from time to time cast attentive glances in my direction. And quite naturally too – I had been marching past him since three o’clock in the afternoon. And business hours at the post office during the coronation celebrations had been extended right up to nine, owing to the large volume of mailings, so I was stepping out for quite a long time.

  But never mind the attendant at the window. The worst thing of all was that time was going to waste. None of the people who approached the little window presented treasury bills. No one loitered nearby for a suspiciously long time. I did not even notice something that Fandorin had warned me about: someone who left the hall and returned repeatedly.

  As the end of the day approached, despair began to take a grip of me. Could Lind really have worked out our plan? Had everything gone wrong?

  But at five minutes to nine, when the post office was already preparing to close, a portly sailor with a grey moustache wearing a dark-blue pea jacket and a cap with no cockade came striding in briskly through the doors. He was clearly a retired boatswain or pilot. Without bothering to look round, he walked straight across to the little window with the poste restante sign and rumbled in a voice rendered hoarse by drink: ‘There’s supposed to be a little letter here for me. For the bearer of a banknote with the number . . .’ He rummaged in his pocket for a while and took out a note, held it out as far as possible from his long-sighted eyes and read: ‘One three seven zero seven eight eight five nine. Got anything?’