by Boris Akunin
Erast Petrovich already knew what action to take.
Concerning the chemical means of influence, some thought was still required, but the psychological and hypnotic methods could perfectly well be applied to the killer. Fandorin would have to assume that they would prove adequate. The terrorist Bogrov had to reveal the most important thing: whose instrument was he? Exactly who had provided him with the pass and allowed him into the theatre with a revolver?
And it would also be no bad thing to compel the candour of the head of the Kiev Department for the Defence of Public Security, Lieutenant-Colonel Kulyabko, and the deputy director of the Police Department, State Councillor Verigin, who had been responsible for the security measures. There was probably no need to be over-fastidious with these extremely dubious gentlemen, bearing in mind their line of business and general lack of scruples. It was unlikely that they would allow themselves to be hypnotised, but he could sit tête-à-tête for a while with each of them, in an unofficial context, and add a drop or two of his secret formulation to the lieutenant-colonel’s favourite cognac and the teetotaller Verigin’s tea. And they would tell him about the mysterious pass, and why there was not a single bodyguard present beside the prime minister during the interval, despite the fact that Stolypin had been hunted for years by the Social Revolutionaries and the anarchists, as well as by various solitary crusaders against tyranny …
The idea that the organs responsible for the protection of the empire could be implicit in an attempt on the life of the head of the government made Fandorin shudder. This was the fourth day he had spent wandering round his apartment like a man demented, either telling his green beads or tracing out diagrams on paper that only he could understand. He smoked cigars and kept demanding tea, but ate almost nothing.
Masa – his servant and friend, and the only person in the world who was close to him – knew perfectly well that when the master was in this state, it was best to leave him alone. The Japanese remained near by all the time, but he didn’t call any attention to himself, he was as quiet as a mouse. He cancelled two assignations and sent the caretaker’s wife off to the Chinese shop to get tea. Masa’s narrow, oriental eyes glinted fervently – he was anticipating interesting events.
In the previous year the faithful companion had also reached the fifty mark, and he had responded to this milestone date with truly Japanese seriousness, changing his life in an even more radical manner than his master.
Firstly, in accordance with ancient tradition, he had completely shaved his head – as a sign that inwardly he was entering into the condition of a monk and renouncing the vanity of this world as he prepared to withdraw to another. Certainly, Fandorin had not yet noticed that Masa had altered his Céladonesque habits in any way. But then, the rules of Japanese monks do not necessarily prescribe chastity of the flesh.
Secondly, Masa had decided to take a new name, in order to make a complete break with his old self. But here a difficulty arose: it transpired that, according to the laws of the Russian Empire, in order to change one’s given name, it was necessary to undergo baptism. However, this was no obstacle to the Japanese. He happily accepted the Orthodox faith, suspended a substantial crucifix round his neck and started crossing himself fervently at the sight of every church dome, and even at the sound of bells chiming – none of which prevented him from continuing to burn incense in front of his domestic Buddhist altar. According to his documents, his name was no longer Masahiro, but Mikhail Erastovich (the patronymic having been taken from his godfather). Fandorin was also obliged to share his surname with this brand-new servant of God – the Japanese had requested this as the very greatest reward that his sovereign lord could bestow on his devoted vassal for long and zealous service.
A passport is one thing, but Erast Petrovich nonetheless reserved the right to call his servant by the name he had always used – Masa. And he ruthlessly nipped in the bud any attempts by his godson to call his master ‘faza-san’ (father), and especially ‘papa’.
So Erast Petrovich and Mikhail Erastovich had been stuck in the house for four days, all the while glancing impatiently at the telephone, anticipating a summons. But the lacquered box had remained stubbornly silent. Fandorin was not often disturbed on trifling matters, since not many people knew his number.
On Monday, 5 September, at three in the afternoon, at last there was a call.
Masa grabbed the receiver – he just happened to be polishing the instrument with a little velvet cloth, as if he were trying to propitiate a capricious deity.
Fandorin walked out into the other room and stood at the window, preparing himself inwardly for the important clarification of the situation. Insist on the maximum authority and absolute freedom of action, immediately, he thought. Otherwise do not accept. That is one …
Masa glanced in through the door. His expression was intent.
‘I don’t know whose call you have been expecting for so many days, master, but I think this is the one. The lady’s voice is trembling. She says it is a very urgent matter, of ex-cep-tion-ar im-port-ance.’ Masa pronounced the last three words in Russian.
‘A l-lady?’ Erast Petrovich queried in surprise.
‘She says “Origa”.’
Masa considered Russian patronymics an inessential decorative element, remembered them poorly and often omitted them.
Fandorin’s bewilderment was resolved. Olga … Why, naturally. He should have been expecting this. In a case as tangled and fraught with unpredictable complications as this one, the authorities would not wish to approach a private individual directly in order to ask for help. It was more appropriate to act through the family. Fandorin was acquainted with Olga Borisovna Stolypina, wife of the wounded prime minister and great-granddaughter of the great general Suvorov. A woman of firm will and intelligence, not the kind of individual to be bowed or broken by any blows of fate.
Of course, she was aware that she would be a widow very soon. It was also quite possible that she was telephoning on her own initiative, having sensed something strange in the way the official investigation was being conducted.
Erast Petrovich heaved a deep sigh and took the receiver.
‘Fandorin at your s-service.’
OH, HOW VERY AWKWARD!
‘Erast Petrovich, for my sake, for the sake of our friendship, in the name of mercy. For the sake of my late husband, do not refuse me!’ a woman’s voice declared rapidly in resounding tones. A familiar voice, certainly, but distorted by agitation. ‘You are a noble and compassionate man, I know that you cannot refuse me!’
‘So he has died …’ Fandorin hung his head, even though the widow could not see it, and spoke with sincere feeling. ‘Please accept my p-profoundest condolences. This is not only your personal grief, it is an immense loss for the whole of Russia. You are a strong person. I know your presence of mind will not desert you. And for my part, of course, I will do everything that I possibly can.’
Following a pause, the lady continued in a tone of voice that conveyed a certain perplexity:
‘Thank you, but I have come to terms with it one way or another. Time heals all wounds …’
‘Time?’
Erast Petrovich stared at the telephone in stupefaction.
‘Well, yes. After all, it is seven years since Anton Pavlovich died … This is Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhov here. I suppose I must have woken you up?’
Oh, how very awkward! Hurling a furious glance at the entirely innocent Masa, Fandorin blushed. It was not surprising that the voice had seemed familiar to him. He had long-standing ties of friendship with the writer’s widow – they had both been members of the commission on Chekhov’s legacy.
‘F-for God’s sake f-forgive me!’ he exclaimed, stammering more than usual. ‘I thought you were … It d-doesn’t matter …’
The consequence of an essentially comic misunderstanding was that from the very beginning of the conversation Fandorin found himself in the position of a man apologising and feeling guilty. If it w
ere not for that, his response to the actress’s request would most probably have been a polite refusal, and his entire subsequent life would have turned out quite differently.
But Erast Petrovich was embarrassed, and the word of a noble man is not a sparrow.
‘You really will do everything you can for me? I’m taking you at your word, now,’ Olga Leonardovna said in a less agitated voice. ‘Knowing you as a true knight and a man of honour, I have no doubt that the story I am about to tell you will not leave you unmoved.’
In fact, even without the awkward start to the conversation, it would not have been easy to refuse a request from this woman.
In society Chekhov’s widow was regarded with disapproval. It was considered good form to denounce her for preferring to flaunt her brilliance on stage and spend her time in the jolly company of friends from the Art Theatre, instead of nursing the fatally ill writer in his dreary solitude in Yalta. She didn’t love him! She didn’t love him! She had married the dying man out of cold calculation, in order to acquire Chekhov’s fame, while clinging on to her own, in order to secure a name that would be a genuine trump-card in her subsequent theatrical career – such was the generally voiced opinion.
Erast Petrovich was outraged by this injustice. The late Chekhov had been a mature and intelligent man. He knew that he was not simply marrying a woman, but an illustrious actress. Olga Leonardovna had been prepared to give up the stage in order to remain beside him constantly, but it would be a fine husband who agreed to accept such a sacrifice. To love meant to wish happiness for the loved one. Without selflessness, love was not worth a brass farthing. And the wife had been right to let her husband win this battle of magnanimities. The important thing was that she had been with him before he died and eased his passing. She had told Fandorin that on the very last evening he joked a lot and they laughed heartily. What more could one wish for? A good death. No one had any right to condemn this woman.
All these thoughts flashed through Erast Petrovich’s mind, not for the first time, as he listened to the actress’s rambling, incoherent story. It concerned a certain Eliza, a friend of Olga Leonardovna’s and apparently also an actress. Something or other had happened to this Eliza that had ‘left the poor thing in a constant state of mortal fear’.
‘Pardon me,’ Erast Petrovich interposed, when the other party broke off in order to sob. ‘I d-didn’t quite understand; Altairsky and Lointaine – are they one individual or two?’
‘One! Her full name is Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine. She used to go by the stage name of “Lointaine”, but then she married and became “Altairsky” as well, after her husband. They soon separated, it’s true, but you must agree that it would be stupid for an actress to renounce such a beautiful surname.’
‘But even so, I don’t quite …’ Fandorin wrinkled up his forehead. ‘This lady is afraid of something, you have described her nervous state most eloquently. But what exactly is frightening her?’
And, most importantly, what is it that you want from me? he added to himself.
‘She won’t tell me what the problem is! Eliza is a very secretive, she never complains about anything. That’s such a rare thing for an artiste! But she came to visit me yesterday, we had a good talk, and something came over her. She burst into tears, fell on my breast and started babbling about her life being a nightmare and saying she couldn’t bear it any longer, she was hounded and tormented to death. But when I started badgering her with questions, Eliza suddenly turned terribly pale and bit her lip, and I couldn’t drag another word out of her. Eventually she babbled something unintelligible, asked me to forgive her momentary weakness and ran off. I didn’t sleep last night and I’ve had the jitters all day long! Ah, Erast Petrovich, I’ve known Eliza for a long time. She’s not a hysterical girl who imagines things. I’m sure she’s in some kind of danger and, what’s more, danger of a kind that she can’t even tell a friend about. I implore you, in the name of all the bonds between us, find out what the matter is. It’s a mere trifle for you, after all, you’re a master at solving mysteries. How brilliantly you tracked down that missing manuscript of Anton Pavlovich’s!’ she said, reminding Fandorin of the story that had marked the beginning of their acquaintance. ‘I shall help you gain entry to her circle of acquaintances. Eliza is the heroine now at Noah’s Ark.’
‘Who? W-where?’ Erast Petrovich asked in surprise.
‘She’s the leading lady in that new-fangled company which is attempting to rival the Art Theatre,’ Olga Leonardovna explained in a tone that carried a hint of condescension – either for Fandorin’s theatrical ignorance, or for the madmen who had dared to compete with the great Moscow Art Theatre. ‘Noah’s Ark has arrived on tour from St Petersburg, to astound and conquer the public of Moscow. It’s quite impossible to get a ticket, but I have arranged everything. You will be allowed in and given the very finest seat, so that you can get a good look at all of them. And afterwards you can pay a visit backstage. I shall telephone Noah Noaevich (that’s their manager, Noah Noaevich Stern). And I shall tell him to render you every possible assistance. He’s positively dancing reels round me, hoping to lure me into joining him, so he will do as I ask without any unnecessary questions.’
Erast Petrovich loosed an angry kick at a chair, and it cracked in half. An absolutely worthless, laughable case – the hypochondriacal caprices of some prima donna with a quite incredible name – but it was absolutely impossible to refuse. And this at a moment when he was expecting an invitation to assist with the investigation of a crime of historical, one might even say epochal, significance!
Clucking his tongue, Masa took the mutilated item of furniture and tried to sit on it – the chair sagged crookedly.
‘Do you have nothing to say? Surely you will not refuse this little request of mine? I shan’t survive it if you too abandon me!’ the great writer’s widow said with the intonations of Arkadina appealing to Trigorin in The Seagull.
‘How could I p-possibly dare,’ Erast Petrovich said dismally. ‘When do I need to be at the theatre?’
‘You are an absolute dear! I knew that I could count on you! The performance today is at eight. Now let me explain everything to you …’
Never mind, Fandorin consoled himself. When all is said and done, this outstanding woman deserves to have me spend one evening on her foolish whim. And if a call about the Stolypin case comes before then, I’ll explain to her that it’s a matter of national importance.
But no one called before the evening, either from St Petersburg or from Kiev. Erast Petrovich put on a white tie and set off for the performance, struggling in vain to master his annoyance. Masa was ordered to stay beside the telephone and if necessary to come rushing to the theatre on the motorcycle.
ELIZAVETA’S DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
Fandorin himself went by horse cab, knowing that when there were performances taking place simultaneously in the Bolshoi, Maly and Noveishy theatres, there would be nowhere to park an automobile on Theatre Square. The last time, when he went to see Wagner’s Valkyrie, he had been incautious enough to leave his Isotta Fraschini between two cabs, and a frisky trotter had fractured his chrome-plated radiator – afterwards it had taken two months for a new one to be delivered from Milan.
In the few hours since the actress’s telephone call, Erast Petrovich had gathered a little bit of information about the theatre company with which he was about to spend the evening.
He had discovered that this company, which had appeared in St Petersburg the previous season, had created a genuine furore here in the old capital, enchanting the public and dividing the critics into two irreconcilable factions, one of which lauded the genius of the director Stern to the skies, while the other called him an ‘artistic charlatan’. They had also written a lot about Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine, but here the range of opinions was somewhat different: from ecstatically adoring among the benevolently disposed reviewers, to condescendingly sympathetic among the malicious – they regretted the waste of talent involved whe
n such an excellent artiste was obliged to squander her gift in the pretentious productions of Mr Stern.
In general, a great deal had been written about Noah’s Ark, and written with passion; it was simply that Fandorin never read through the newspapers as far as the pages which discussed the theatrical news. Unfortunately, Erast Petrovich was no lover of the dramatic art and took absolutely no interest in it; if he ever did happen to be in a theatre, it was always, without exception, for an opera or a ballet. He preferred to read good plays with his eyes, so that his impressions would not be spoiled by directorial ambition and poor acting (after all, even in the most absolutely wonderful production there was certain to be one actor or actress who would strike a false note and spoil everything). It seemed to Fandorin that the theatre was an art form doomed to extinction. When the cinematograph came into its own, acquiring both sound and colour – who then would spend a substantial amount of money in order to contemplate cardboard scenery, while pretending that they couldn’t hear the prompter’s whispering and didn’t notice the swaying of the curtain and the excessive maturity of the prima donnas?
For its Moscow tour Noah’s Ark had rented the building of the former Noveishy Theatre, which now belonged to a certain ‘Theatrical and Cinematographic Company’.
On arriving at the famous square, Erast Petrovich found himself obliged to get out beside the fountain – the congestion created by the carriages and the public made it impossible to drive up to the actual entrance. Moreover, it was strikingly obvious that the crush in front of the Noveishy Theatre was much denser than in front of the Maly Theatre located opposite it, with its perennial production of Ostrovsky’s Storm, or even in front of the Bolshoi Theatre, where the season was currently opening with Twilight of the Gods.
