by Boris Akunin
I moved closer without making a sound, vainly struggling to control the trembling in my knees.
The post office attendant gaped at the sailor. ‘There hasn’t been any such letter,’ he said eventually after a lengthy pause. ‘Nothing of the kind has come in today.’
It hasn’t come in? I groaned inwardly. There where on earth had it got to? It looked as if I had just spent the best part of six hours hanging about here in vain!
The boatswain started grumbling too: ‘Oh that’s good, getting an old man running round the place, and all for nothing. Aaagh!’
He wiggled his thick eyebrows angrily, rubbed his sleeve over his luxurious moustache and walked towards the door.
Only one thing was clear – I had to follow him. There was no reason to stay in the post office any longer, and the working day was already over.
I slipped out into the street and followed the old man, maintaining a substantial distance. However, the sailor never looked round even once. He kept his hands in his pockets and walked as if he were in no hurry, waddling along but at the same time moving remarkably fast. I was barely able to keep up with him.
Absorbed in the chase, I did not remember at first that the plan had allocated a quite different role to me – that of decoy. I had to check to see if there was anyone following me. Obeying the instructions I had been given, I took out of my waistcoat pocket a fob watch in which Fandorin had installed a little round mirror, and pretended to be studying the dial.
There he was! Walking twenty paces behind me, a suspicious-looking character: tall, stooped, wearing a wide-peaked cap, with his coat collar raised. He clearly had his eyes fixed on me. Just to make sure, I turned the watch slightly to examine the far side of the street and discovered another man who looked equally suspicious – the same kind of burly thug, demonstrating the same kind of unambiguous interest in my person. Had they taken the bait?
Two of them at once! And perhaps Doctor Lind himself was not far away?
Could Fandorin see all this? I had played the role of the bait faithfully; now it was up to him.
The boatswain turned into a side street. I followed him. The other two followed me. There was no doubt at all left: those two charmers were the doctor’s helpers!
Suddenly the sailor turned into a narrow entrance. I slowed down, struck by an understandable concern. If those two followed me, and Fandorin had fallen behind or gone off somewhere else altogether, it was very probable that I would not get out of this dark crevice alive. And now the old man did not seem as simple as he had at the beginning. Ought I really to walk straight into a trap?
Unable to stop myself, I looked round quite openly. Apart from the two bandits the side street was completely deserted. One pretended to read the sign of a grocery shop; the other turned away with a bored air. And there was no sign of Erast Petrovich!
There was nothing else for it – I walked through the narrow entranceway then into a courtyard, then another archway, and another, and another. It was already dusk out in the street, and in here it was dark in any case, but I could still have made out the boatswain’s silhouette. The only problem was that the old man had disappeared, simply vanished into thin air! He could not possibly have got through this sequence of passages so quickly, not unless he had broken into a run, but in that case I would have heard the echoes of his steps. Or had he turned off at the first courtyard?
I froze.
Then suddenly, from out of the darkness on one side, I heard Fandorin’s voice: ‘Don’t just hang about like that, Ziukin. Walk without hurrying and stay in the light, so that they can see you.’
No longer understanding anything that was going on, I obediently walked on. Where had Fandorin come from? And where had the boatswain got to? Had Erast Petrovich really had enough time to stun him and hide him away?
I heard steps clattering behind me, echoing under the low vaulted ceiling. They started clattering faster and moving closer. Apparently my pursuers had decided to overtake me. Then I heard a dry click that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I had heard more than my share of clicks like that, when I was loading revolvers and cocking firing hammers for Pavel Georgievich – His Highness loves to fire his guns at the shooting range.
I turned round, expecting a roar and a flash, but there was no shot after all.
I saw two silhouettes, and then a third, against the background of a bright rectangle. The third one detached itself from the wall and threw out one foot with indescribable speed, and one of my pursuers doubled over. The other pursuer swung round smartly, and I quite clearly glimpsed the barrel of a pistol, but the fast-moving shadow swung one hand through the air – upwards, at an oblique angle – and a tongue of flame shot up towards the stone vault, while the man who had fired the gun went flying back against the wall, slid down it to the ground and sat there without moving.
‘Ziukin, come here!’
I ran across muttering: ‘Purge us of all defilement and save our souls.’ I could not say myself what had come over me – it must have been the shock.
Erast Petrovich leaned down over the seated man and struck a match, and it was not Erast Petrovich at all, but my acquaintance the boatswain with the grey moustache. I started blinking very rapidly.
‘Curses,’ said the boatswain. ‘I miscalculated the blow. And all because it’s so damn dark in here. The nasal septum has fractured and the bone has entered the brain. Killed outright. Well then, what about the other one?’
He moved across to the first bandit, who was struggling to get up off the ground.
‘Excellent, this one’s fresh as a cucumber. Give me some light on him, Afanasii Stepanovich.’
I struck a match. The feeble flame lit up a pair of vacant eyes and lips gasping for air.
The boatswain, who was, after all, none other than Fandorin himself, squatted down on his haunches and slapped the stunned man resoundingly across the cheeks.
‘Where is Lind?’
No reply. Nothing but heavy breathing.
‘Où est Lind? Wo ist Lind? Where is Lind?’ Erast Petrovich repeated, pausing between the different languages.
The eyes of the man lying on the ground were no longer vacant but animate with a fierce spite. His lips came together, twitched, stretched out, and a gob of spittle went flying into Fandorin’s face.
‘Du, Scheissdreck! Küss mich auf—’1
The hoarse screeching broke off as Fandorin jabbed the bandit in the throat with the edge of his open hand. The spiteful glow in the man’s eyes faded and the back of his head struck the ground with a dull thud.
‘You killed him!’ I exclaimed in horror. ‘Why?’
‘He wouldn’t have told us anything anyway, and we have v-very little time left.’
Erast Petrovich wiped the spittle off his cheek and pulled off the dead man’s jacket. He dropped something small and white onto his chest – I could not really see it properly.
‘Quick, Ziukin! Get that uniform off. Leave it here. Put this on.’
He pulled off his grey moustache and eyebrows and threw the boatswain’s pea jacket on the ground, leaving himself in a short frock coat with narrow shoulder straps. He attached a cockade to his cap, and I suddenly realised that it was a police cap, not a navy one.
‘You don’t have a sabre,’ I remarked. ‘A police officer has to have a sabre.’
‘I’ll get a sabre, don’t worry. In a little while,’ said Fandorin, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me after him. ‘Quick, Ziukin, quick!’
It was a shame simply to fling a good-quality uniform on the ground, and so I hung it on the handle of a gate – it would come in useful for someone.
Erast Petrovich looked round as he ran.
‘The order!’
I took the Order of St Vladimir off my neck and put it in my pocket.
‘Where are we going in such a hurry?’ I shouted, dashing after him.
There was no answer.
We ran out of the side street back on to Myasnitskaya St
reet, but turned into a gateway just before the post office. It led into a narrow stone courtyard with only a few service doors in the walls. Fandorin dragged me into a corner behind some large rubbish containers stuffed to the brim with brown wrapping paper and scraps of string. Then he took out his watch.
‘Ten minutes past nine. We dealt with that quickly. He probably hasn’t come out yet?’
‘Who is he?’ I asked, breathing hard.
‘Lind?’ Fandorin stuck his hand straight into a rubbish container and extracted a long narrow bundle. Inside it there was a sword belt and a police sabre.
‘Our acquaintance from the poste restante. He’s the one, didn’t you realise?’
‘He is Doctor Lind?’ I said, astounded.
‘No, he is Lind’s man. It all turned out to be very simple, much simpler than I expected. And it explains the mystery of the letters. Now we know how they reached the Hermitage without a stamp. A post office counter attendant working for Lind – let us call this individual the Postman for brevity’s sake – simply put them into the sack with the post for the Kaluzhskaya district.
‘And the letter we sent today also fell straight into his hands. He noticed you cruising up and down near the window and informed Lind, who sent his men. They waited patiently for you outside in the street. Or rather they waited for Fandorin, since they thought it was me.’
‘But . . . But how did you manage to guess all this?’
He smiled smugly. ‘I was sitting in the tea room opposite the post office, waiting for you to come out and follow the man who collected the letter. Time went by, and you still didn’t come out. It seemed strange to me for Lind to act so slowly. After all, he is no less interested in this encounter than I am. Of all the people going into the post office, no one stayed inside for long, and I didn’t spot anyone suspicious. Things began to get interesting with the arrival of the two gentlemen known to you, who appeared at about a quarter to four. They actually arrived together and then separated. One took a seat in my tea room, two tables away from me, after asking in German for a place at the window. He kept his eyes fixed on the doors of the post office and never looked around him at all. The second went into the building for a moment and then came back out to join the first. That meant you had been discovered, but for some reason Lind’s people were not showing any interest in the contents of the letter. I thought about that for a long time and eventually formed a hypothesis. Just before the post office closed I set out to test it. You saw the way the Postman gaped at me when I claimed to be the bearer of the treasury bill? It was a total surprise to him, since there could not be any bearer – he knew that quite definitely. The Postman could not control his facial expression and gave himself away. We must assume that he is the doctor’s Russian assistant who drew up the playful announcement for the newspaper. The Postman is the one who can lead us back to Lind.’
‘But what if he was alarmed by the appearance of the mysterious boatswain and has already gone running to warn the doctor?’
‘Tell me, Ziukin, have you ever had occasion to receive letters via the poste restante? No? It shows. The post office keeps the letter or package for three days free of charge and then starts charging a daily penalty.’
I thought hard but failed to discover any connection between this circumstance and the apprehension that I had expressed.
‘Well, what of it?’
‘This,’ Erast Petrovich said with a patient sigh. ‘Wherever payments are taken there is financial accounting. Our friend cannot leave until he has cashed up and handed over the takings – it would look far too suspicious. That door over there is the service entrance. In about five minutes, or ten at the most, the Postman will come out of it and set off very quickly straight to Lind, and we shall follow along. I hope very much that the doctor has no more helpers left. I am really sick of them.’
‘Why did you kill that German?’ I asked, remembering the incident. ‘Just because he spat at you? He was stunned, helpless!’
Fandorin was surprised. ‘I see, Ziukin, that you think I am a worse monster than Lind. Why should I want to kill him? Not to mention the fact that he is a valuable witness. I only put him to sleep, and not for long, about four hours. I expect that will be long enough for the police to find our two friends. An interesting discovery, is it not – a corpse and beside it a man with a revolver in his pocket. And I also left my visiting card with a note: “This is one of Lind’s men.”’
I recalled the white thing that Fandorin had dropped onto the bandit’s chest.
‘Perhaps Karnovich and Lasovsky will be able to shake something out of him. Although it is not very likely. There are no traitors among Lind’s helpers. But at least the police will start to question whether you and I are thieves, and that in itself is no bad thing.’
This final consideration sounded most reasonable, and I was about to tell Fandorin so, but he placed his hand over my mouth in an outrageously cavalier fashion.
‘Quiet!’
A narrow door swung open violently and the familiar counter attendant came out almost at a run, now wearing a peaked uniform cap and carrying a file under his arm. Taking short strides, he strutted past the rubbish containers and headed out through the gateway.
‘He’s in a hurry,’ Erast Petrovich whispered. ‘That’s very good. It means he was not able to telephone or has nowhere to phone to. I wonder how he informed Lind about your arrival? By note? That would mean that the doctor’s lair is somewhere quite close. All right. Time to go.’
We walked out quickly into the street. I started looking around, trying to spot a free cab – after all, if the Postman was in a hurry, he was sure to take a carriage. But no, the hurrying figure in the black post office uniform crossed the boulevard and disappeared into a narrow little street. So Erast Petrovich had guessed right, and Lind was somewhere not far away.
Without stopping, Fandorin told me: ‘Drop back about ten sazhens behind me and keep your distance. But d-do not run!’
It was easy for him to say ‘Do not run!’ Erast Petrovich himself has a miraculous way of striding along rapidly but without any visible signs of haste, and so I was obliged to move in the manner of a wounded hare: I walked for about twenty steps, and then ran for a brief stretch, walked and ran, walked and ran. Otherwise I would have fallen behind. It was already completely dark, which was most opportune since otherwise I fear that my strange manoeuvres would have attracted the attention of the occasional passer-by. The Postman wound his way through the side streets for a little while and suddenly stopped in front of a small detached wooden house with a door that opened straight onto the pavement. There was light at one of the curtained windows – someone was at home – but the Postman did not ring the doorbell; he opened the door with a key and slipped inside.
‘What are we going to do?’ I asked, catching up with Fandorin. He took hold of my elbow and led me away from the little house.
‘I don’t know. Let’s t-try to work that out.’ By the light of a street lamp, I saw the smooth forehead below the lacquered peak of the police cap gather into wrinkles. ‘There are several possibilities. The first: Doctor Lind and the hostages are here. Then we need to keep watch on the windows and wait. If they try to leave, then we strike. The second possibility: only Lind is here and Emilie and the boy are somewhere else. We still have to wait until the doctor comes out and follow him until he leads us to the hostages. The third possibility: neither Lind nor the p-prisoners are here, only the postman and his family. After all, there was someone in the house, was there not? In that case, someone has to come to the Postman from Lind. There is hardly likely to be a telephone connection in this little house. So once again we need to wait. We can see who comes, and then act according to the circumstances. So, there are three alternatives, and in every case we have to wait. Let’s m-make ourselves comfortable – the wait might drag on for a while.’ Erast Petrovich looked around. ‘I tell you what, Ziukin, get a cabby from the boulevard. Don’t tell him where he’s going. Just say th
at you’re hiring him for a long time, and he’ll be generously paid. And meanwhile I’ll look for a comfortable spot.’
When I drove back to the corner in a cab a quarter of an hour later, Fandorin emerged from the dense shadows to meet us. Straightening his sword belt, he said in a stern commanding voice: ‘Badge number 345?You’ll be with us all night long. Secret business. You’ll be paid twenty-five roubles for your work. Drive into that entranceway and wait. And no sleeping now, Vologda. Understand?’
‘I understand, what’s so hard to understand?’ the cabby replied briskly. He was a young peasant with a clever snub-nosed face. I didn’t understand how Fandorin guessed from his appearance that he was from Vologda, but the cabby certainly did stretch his vowels to the limit.
‘Let’s go, Afanasii Petrovich. I’ve found a most comfortable spot.’
Opposite the little wooden house was a more impressive detached property surrounded by a trellis fence. Erast Petrovich bounded over the fence in an instant and beckoned for me to follow his example. Compared with the railings at the Neskuchny Park it was simple.
‘Well, not bad, is it?’ Fandorin asked proudly, pointing to the other side of the street.
The view of the Postman’s house from there really was ideal, but our observation point could only have been called ‘most comfortable’ by a masochistic (I believe I have remembered the word correctly) habitué of the chamber at the Elysium club. Right behind the fence there were thick prickly bushes that immediately started catching at my clothes and scratching my forehead. I groaned as I tried to free my elbow. Would I really have to sit here all night?
