Two Cases for the Czar

by Gorg Huff

  There was even a debate about whether comic strips were an offense against God in some circles of the church.

  "So the place to look is the Dacha, but it's not certain that anyone here had anything to do with the thefts." Miroslava laid back in bed beside me and shivered, then pulled up the covers. "Tomorrow, I'm going to talk with Pavel and see if there have been any more thefts."

  Location: Ufa Kremlin, Police Headquarters

  Date: May 13, 1637

  Miroslava saw Pavel and went over to him. He was sitting next to Maksim, who was reading a report quietly. As she reached the desk, he looked up and said, "Have you made any progress on the locked room mystery?"

  "No. You?"

  "Nope, and another one landed on my desk this morning. Robbery homicide in front of witnesses. We know who did it, but he's probably halfway to Kazan, on his way to Moscow or Shein's territory. I'm about to go over to the telegraph office and send an arrest on sight bulletin. They may well get him."

  "That's good, but I'm here about some robberies."

  "I'm off robberies as of yesterday." When Pavel was made the first detective sergeant, he was placed in charge of all mysteries, murders, robberies if the culprit wasn't obvious. That, Miroslava learned, had changed.

  "What happened?"

  "Too many murders." He pointed at another table in the open area. "Meet Detective Corporal Viktor Zuykov. He is now in charge of robberies that don't involve homicide."

  Maksim muttered, "He's a jackass," which Miroslava heard, but doubted anyone else did.

  "I notice he doesn't have a reader."

  "Oh, Viktor can read," Pavel said. "He's been mentioning that since the day I got the star on my armband."

  Ranks in the streltzi police force in Ufa were based, in large part, on up-time books. Two stripes, corporal. Three, sergeant. And a star above the stripes if you were a detective. The last Miroslava had heard, the only detective's star in all of Russia was on Pavel's armband.

  But there he was. A grizzled old man with a long gray beard, with corporal's stripes and a star on top of them. She went over to introduce herself to Detective Corporal Viktor Zuykov.

  He looked up as she approached. "What do you want?"

  "I'm Consulting Detective Miro—"

  "I know who you are. What do you want?"

  "I want to know about any burglaries occurring in the last few weeks. Especially any having to do with jewelry."

  "I don't need your help, and I don't want your interference. Go away."

  "Corporal Zuykov," Pavel's voice came, not particularly loudly but audible across the large open room the cops used, "give her what she wants. On my authority."

  Zuykov stared at Pavel with dislike in his eyes, and Miroslava was almost sure he was going to refuse.

  Then Pavel added, "Unless you want to take it to the Colonel?"

  "All right. On your head be it." He pointed to a stack of folders on the table he was using for a desk. Another reason for him to resent Pavel and Maksim. Pavel worked at a table, but Maksim had an actual up-timer style desk.

  On the left side of Zuykov's table was a stack of folders. Each was made of a folded sheet of paper, something that the bureaus, and now the streltzi, had gotten from the Dacha, and the Dacha got from Grantville. Miroslava went around the table and looked at the top folder. It was an armed robbery.

  Miroslava's reading was still not great, but her memory was phenomenal. She could look at a document once and remember it in its entirety.

  She set the folder down on a blank place on the table and picked up the next. Another robbery, in this case a literal purse cutting. Since most people didn't have pockets, they kept their money in small pouches tied to their belts. At a puppet show in Alexi Park, there were five cutpurses that were reported. All the reports were complaints by people of at least streltzi rank.

  Peasants didn't complain to the cops, not usually.

  Miroslava, after looking at the reports, assumed that there were at least ten more people who lost their purses at that puppet show. The puppeteer might not be involved, or he might be. In any case, he was someone to talk to. But she didn't say anything because she was afraid that if she did the puppeteer would end up in a cell being tortured until he admitted to killing the Lindbergh baby, which was mentioned in several books.

  "Hey, I have those in order," Corporal Zuykov said.

  "And now they are in reverse order," Miroslava said. "All that needs to be done to put them back in order is to move them from my stack to yours, one at a time."

  "What are you doing, anyway? You can't have read them that fast."

  "No, I didn't read them. But I have seen them, and can remember them. I will read them later."

  She continued going through the stack, looking at each sheet in each folder. Then she put them back and left the police station.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Back in our rooms at the Dacha, Miroslava sat down in a comfortable chair and started laboriously to read the reports. This was made more difficult because Miroslava was still in the process of learning to read. And by the fact that Detective Corporal Zuykov's handwriting was idiomatic at best. I know because she drew out some of the words on the forms for me to help her decipher. Miroslava's handwriting was very like printing, each letter the same every time she wrote it.

  She complained about Corporal Zuykov all afternoon, insisting that it would have been much easier if Corporal Zuykov had allowed Maksim to read the files to her. Or even had given her just the files having to do with burglaries and missing jewels. After spending much of the afternoon going through the files in her mind, she found three out of the forty-seven files that might fit the profile of our burglar.

  They all had break-ins, and in each case, jewels of some sort were taken.

  Location: House of Svetlana Devornikov

  Date: May 15, 1637

  After spending the fourteenth on other matters, Miroslava was back on the Case of the Missing Necklace. The Devornikov family had an actual town house. It was just up the hill from the river and only a few blocks from the Ufa kremlin. They also had a staff of twenty-four: seven maids of all work under a chief housekeeper, four cooks, two butlers and a wine steward, three grooms and two gardeners, and the rest filling in as lady's maids and valets.

  That didn't include the ten men-at-arms who acted as the estate's security. The household consisted of Sevtlana Devornikov, her husband Gregori and four surviving children, ages four, seven, eleven, and fifteen.

  Svetlana was not, in Miroslava's view, a very nice lady. She was forty with bad teeth and overweight. The bad teeth and the overweightness were clearly the results of fondness for honey balls. These were essentially donut holes baked in an oven and then soaked in honey and spices.

  Miroslava managed to eat one of the things, but that was her limit. The flavor wasn't improved by the fact that Svetlana spent the entire time of consumption and an additional fifteen minutes complaining about everything imaginable. The weather, the servants, her husband, the house, the insects, and, of course, the loss of her diamond brooch, with its up-timer cut diamonds.

  It was an expensive brooch. There were photos of it. Four large diamonds surrounding a large black pearl in a silver and gold pin-on brooch, worth around a thousand rubles.

  Miroslava, after her interview with Svetlana, spent the rest of the day speaking with the entire staff. She could have stopped after her interview with one of the maids of all work, but that would have exposed the woman. And she didn't steal the brooch. It was a gift from the fifteen-year-old son of the house. Which gifting he would deny if asked, so the maid of all work insisted.

  In fact, he didn't deny it, but begged Miroslava to keep their secret because his mother would punish the maid more if she found out about their relationship. What Miroslava did get from the maid was the name of the fence who had bought the piece for a fraction of its real value. To keep the young couple's secret, she spent the remainder of the day interviewing the remainder of the staff
, learning of half a dozen other thefts and misappropriations of funds.

  None of which she reported to Svetlana or her husband. Two things were clear. One, this theft was not related to the burglaries, and two, she now knew of a fence that her sources at the Happy Bottom hadn't mentioned.

  Location: Room 22B, Ufa Dacha

  Date: May 16, 1637

  There was a note in the morning mail. The Dacha has a mail service, and each room has a mail slot in the wall. Most of the time, any mail is internal, reports and requests for reports from other parts of the Dacha. And the mail was almost entirely for me, but this was for both of us.

  "Our pistols are ready," I told Miroslava, holding up the note.

  In Russia at this time, there were many types of firearms and some of them could be had for a reasonable price. Even the caplock revolvers weren't unreasonably expensive. These were not those. Also on the note, was the price per each, and I added to Miroslava, "And they are apparently made of solid gold."

  "That would be a silly thing to make a pistol from."

  "Yes, but it would explain the bill."

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  A few minutes later, in Anya's office, she explained. "These are hand made from up-time design and the price includes the first one hundred rounds. Which are the truly expensive part of the bill. They are brass cartridges filled with smokeless powder, with internal primers. We can make the smokeless powder here at the Dacha, but to do it we have to make guncotton, and then add a buffering agent. With our equipment, it can only be done on a small scale. Between that and the cost of making the brass casings, also done individually, the bullets for these guns cost half a ruble each."

  A USSR ruble was eighty American dollars as of the last report we had from Grantville. An old Russia ruble was forty-two.

  "What you are holding is a Walther PPK, hand made in Russia," Anya said. "Let's go down to the firing range, and get you both checked out on them."

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Once in the firing range, Yuri Akulov showed us first where the safety was located and how to use it, then how the bullets were loaded into the clip, and how the clip was loaded into the pistol. The thing that struck me most about the pistol was how small and light it was. You could carry this everywhere and no one would be the wiser. A point that Anya demonstrated by reaching into her bodice and pulling her PPK out. Miroslava and I watched as she used her thumb to flip the safety off, cock and fire the pistol, then fire it repeatedly until the clip was empty.

  I tried it, and out of nine shots, I hit the silhouette three times. It didn't have much recoil, but it was very different than what I was used to. This wasn't a soldier's gun. It was a lady's gun or a spy's gun. With practice, I was sure I could learn to shoot it well.

  Then it was Miroslava's turn. She carefully loaded, then flicked off the safety and cocked the hammer. She fired, and poked a hole in the paper above and to the right of the silhouette. She looked at the pistol, then at the target, aimed and fired again. The bullet struck the target low and to the left of the silhouette. Again, and she hit center mass. Then she took one shot after another, at an interval of perhaps a second between shots, and put the rest of the rounds in the center of the target, in a grouping no more than five inches across.

  I was watching her as she did it. She was carefully aiming each shot.

  Miroslava was fitted for her shoulder holster and I was fitted for mine. Then, taking our guns and ammunition, we went back to our rooms. For now, Miroslava carried her pistol in an inside pocket of her vest.

  Location: Rooms of Valeria Denisov, Hotel Yeltsov

  Date: May 16, 1637

  Miroslava, feeling the weight of the PPK, shifted her blouse as she showed her Dacha ID to the clerk at the hotel. He examined it carefully, very much as though he had never seen anything like it. It was two thick laminated sheets of cardboard attached to each other by a strip of purple cloth that was glued and sewn to each cardboard panel. When opened, one panel showed a printed photograph of Miroslava and her name and address within the Dacha. The other panel listed her job. This was a new ID, one issued after the czar had declared her Miroslava Holmes. Her job description had a five pointed star and the legend "Consulting Detective."

  Looking impressed, the clerk at the desk gave it back, and sent a runner up to see if Valeria Denisov was in. Valeria Denisov was a widow in her fifties. She was a new arrival in town, having come out from Old Russia after the Kazak Khan had signed the document making Kazak a state in the United Sovereign States of Russia.

  She was sort of a desperation move on the part of her family. She was the member of the family that they could get out without angering the Boyar Council, which was flailing around madly since Sheremetev had gone missing. The pogroms against anyone not showing enough loyalty to the Boyar Council were getting out of hand.

  Part of the way she pulled it off was that Valeria Denisov was the owner of a steam-powered riverboat. A high-end one, at that. Luxury accommodations and river travel, all rolled into one. It was making a trip to the Caspian Sea to buy goods, while Valeria was here in Ufa, politicking for her family.

  Miroslava was led to the woman's door and escorted to her sitting room where Valeria Denisov was not sitting. She was standing behind one of the older lectern-style desks with a pen in hand, writing on a sheet of paper that Miroslava couldn't see. "So you're the czar's Holmes. And what does a Holmes do?"

  "It's not an occupation, but the name of a consulting detective. A fictional consulting detective. What a consulting detective does is detect evidence and consult with the authorities on who may have committed a crime."

  "And what are you here to detect?" That was definitely a hostile tone.

  "I am looking into a series of burglaries that have occurred in Ufa over the last few days."

  "Is this about that silly tiara?"

  "Yes, it's about the tiara." The tiara was one worn to a czar's reception a week earlier, which had gone missing two days after the reception. Valeria had reported the theft to the police, and then ordered a new tiara made by the same shop that had made the stolen one back in Moscow, in the firm belief that the tiara would never be recovered. They mostly weren't, after all. The order, made by telegraph, would be filled in a few months.

  Valeria told Miroslava all that and more, in the course of about an hour as the discussion moved up to her private room and the actual metal safe.

  "I still don't know how he did it," Valeria said. "The key was under my mattress. Anyone reaching in there to get it would have awakened me."

  The room was large for a sleeping room and again on the second floor. The window shutter worked the same way as the last, and on the safe—well, at the keyhole on the safe—Miroslava found the same sort of telltale marks left by a hard pick on soft metal pieces as the pick was moved back and forth to find the right location to unlock the lock.

  "He didn't get your key. He picked the lock."

  "Really? Is that possible?" Valeria bent over Miroslava's shoulder to look at the lock plate.

  "He did it in at least two other cases," Miroslava said, uncomfortable with Valeria's nearness.

  "Well, when you catch him, I want to hire him."

  "I don't think he will be available," Miroslava said, as she scooted out from between the safe and Valeria.

  "Shame that. There are so many more valuable things he could be stealing than up-timer cut jewels."

  "You don't seem overly upset about the tiara?"

  "I'm upset about the money, but the tiara was just a way of showing off. Having it stolen right here in Ufa under the czar's nose is actually sort of useful."

  Somewhere over the last hour, Valeria decided to trust Miroslava. Miroslava had no idea why.

  As Miroslava got up to leave, Valeria asked, "Do you do your detecting for anyone other than the Ufa city streltzi?"

  "I am doing this investigation for one of the other victims of the thefts."

  Valeria nodded. "I will keep that in mind. If I want to contac
t you, it's Miroslava Holmes?"

  "Miroslava Holmes, 22B, Ufa Dacha," Miroslava said, and Valeria went to her lectern style desk and wrote something, presumably the address.

  Chapter 8

  Location: Room 22B, Ufa Dacha

  Date: May 16, 1637

  Miroslava came back from the shower room dressed in a white robe with a towel around her head. I had ordered in, in celebration.

  "What's this about?" she asked, pointing at the table by the bed with the covered plates on it.

  "I think we have it whipped," I told her.

  "The condenser problem?"

  "Yes. We're going to put the condenser in the air cushion assembly. It gives us more room and lets us spread it out and we get hot air for the air cushion."

  We spent a pleasant few minutes discussing the intricacies of steam condensing in an aircraft, then shifted to her day.

  "It doesn't make sense. None of the other thefts fit with Nikolina's necklace."

  "Which means," I said, "that Nikolina's necklace doesn't fit with the other thefts. So why doesn't it fit?" I cut the sausage and dipped it in a sour cream and garlic sauce, which was quite good.

  Miroslava sighed. "Nikolina doesn't fit. The other victims were all rich nobles, the people you would expect to have jewels. But how would he even know about Nikolina's necklace?"

  "A noble with low tastes."

  "That's what I thought too. But no one would tell such a one about Nikolina's necklace." Miroslava took a roll from my plate and nibbled on it.

  "Karol Chernoff?"

  She shook the roll like she was shaking her head. "Karol was a special case. In fact, a unique case. Half the reason he ended up with Marina was that she was the one who was willing to take a chance on him being real. And everyone at the Happy Bottom knew precisely who he was. If there was another like him, I would have heard about it."