Erast Fandorin 04 - The Death of Achilles

by Boris Akunin

  In the lobby Erast Petrovich called the night porter over and told him to open suite 47.

  “That’s quite impossible,” the porter said with a shrug. “The gentlemen gendarmes put up a seal and confiscated the key.” He lowered his voice: “The dead man’s in there, God rest his soul. They’ll come to get him at dawn. The funeral’s in the morning.”

  “A seal? Well, at least they didn’t leave a guard of honor,” muttered Fandorin. “That would have been really silly — a guard of honor in a bedroom. All right, I’ll open it myself. Follow me — you can light the candles.”

  The collegiate assessor walked into the ‘Sobolev’ corridor and tore the wax seal from the door with an intrepid hand. He took a bundle of picks out of the travel bag and a minute later he was inside the suite.

  The porter lit the candles, glancing warily out of the corner of his eye at the closed door of the bedroom and crossing himself with small, rapid movements. Ekaterina Alexandrovna also looked at the white rectangle behind which the embalmed body lay. Her gaze froze, spellbound, and her lips moved soundlessly, but Fandorin had no time for the teacher and her sufferings just at the moment — he was working. He dealt with the second seal just as unceremoniously, and the pick was not required — the bedroom door was not locked.

  “Well, don’t just stand there!” said Erast Petrovich, with an impatient glance at his servant. “Bring the candles in.”

  And he stepped into the kingdom of death.

  The coffin was closed, thank goodness — otherwise he would probably have had to attend to the young woman instead of getting on with the job at hand. There was an open prayer book lying at the head of the bed, with a thick church candle guttering beside it.

  “Madam,” Fandorin called, turning back toward the drawing room. “I ask you please not to come in here. You will only be in the way.” He added to Masa in Japanese, “The flashlight, quick!”

  Once equipped with the English electric flashlight, he moved straight to the safe. Shining the flashlight on the keyhole, he said brusquely over his shoulder: “Magnifying glass number four.”

  Well, well. They’d certainly given the door a good groping — just look at all those fingerprints! The year before last, in Japan, with the help of a certain Professor Garding, Erast Petrovich had been successful in solving a mysterious double murder in the English settlement after taking fingerprints at the scene of the crime. The new method had created a genuine furor, but it would be years before a dactyloscopic laboratory and card index could be set up in Russia. Ah, such a pity — these were such clear prints, and right beside the keyhole. All right, then, what would we find inside?

  “Magnifying glass number six.”

  Under strong magnification, fresh scratches were clearly visible — indicating that the safe was probably opened with a pick instead of the key. In addition, strangely enough, there were traces of some white substance left in the lock. Fandorin took a pinch of it with a pair of miniature forceps. On inspection, it appeared to be wax. Curious.

  “Is that where he was sitting?” asked a thin, tense voice behind him.

  Erast Petrovich swung around in annoyance. Ekaterina Alexan-drovna was standing in the doorway, clutching her elbows in her hands as if she felt cold. The young lady was not looking at the coffin; she was even making an effort to avert her eyes from it by gazing at the chair in which Sobolev had supposedly died. There is no need for her to know where it really happened, Fandorin thought.

  “I asked you not to come in here!” he shouted sternly at the teacher, because in these situations sternness is more effective than sympathy. Let the dead hero’s lover remember why they had come here in the middle of the night. Remember and take herself in hand. Golovina turned away without speaking and walked out into the drawing room.

  “Sit down!” Fandorin said loudly. “This could take some time.”

  The thorough examination of the suite took more than two hours. The porter, whose fear of the coffin had now subsided, found himself a comfortable perch in the corner and fell into a quiet doze. Masa followed his master around like a shadow, humming a little tune and from time to time handing him the tools he required. Ekaterina Alexandrovna did not appear in the bedroom again. Fandorin glanced out once and saw her sitting at the table, with her forehead resting on her crossed arms. As if sensing Erast Petrovich’s gaze, she sat up abruptly and turned the searing glance of her immense eyes on him, but she did not ask any questions.

  Not until it was already dawn, and the flashlight was no longer needed, did Fandorin find the clue. The faint print of the sole of a shoe was barely visible on the sill of the far left window — a narrow print, as if it had been left by a woman, although the shoe was quite clearly a man’s. Through the magnifying glass it was even possible to make out a very faint pattern of crosses and stars. Erast Petrovich raised his head. The small upper pane of the window was open. If not for the footprint, he would have thought nothing of it — the opening was far too narrow as a means of entry.

  “Hey, my good man, come on now, wake up,” he called to the drowsy porter. “Has the suite been cleaned?”

  “Not a bit,” the man replied, rubbing his eyes. “How could it be? You can see for yourself, sir.” And he nodded his head at the coffin.

  “And have the windows been opened?”

  “I wouldn’t know. But it’s not very likely. They don’t open the windows in dead men’s rooms.”

  Erast Petrovich examined the two other windows, but failed to discover anything else worthy of note.

  At half past four, when the makeup artist and his assistants arrived to prepare Achilles for the final journey in his chariot, the search had to be terminated.

  The collegiate assessor let the porter go and said good-bye to Ekaterina Alexandrovna, still without having told her anything. She shook his hand firmly, looked inquiringly into his eyes, and managed to avoid any superfluous words. He was right — she was a true Spartan.

  Erast Petrovich was impatient to be left alone, in order to consider the results of the search and work out a plan of action. Despite a sleepless night, he didn’t feel at all drowsy or even slightly tired. When he got back to his room, he began his analysis.

  At first sight, the nighttime search of suite 47 did not appear to have yielded a great deal, and yet the picture that emerged seemed clear enough.

  In all honesty, the claim that the people’s hero had been killed for money had initially appeared improbable, or even preposterous, to Erast Petrovich. But, after all, someone had climbed in through the window, opened the safe, and made off with the briefcase. And it had had nothing to do with politics. The thief hadn’t taken the papers kept in the safe, although these were so important that Gukmasov had felt it necessary to extract them before the authorities arrived. So surely the burglar had only been interested in the briefcase?

  There was one thing worth noting — the thief had known that Sobolev was not in the suite that night, and that he would not return suddenly. The safe had been opened with considerable care and no haste. But the most significant thing of all was that it hadn’t been left wide open, but carefully closed again, which certainly required a great deal more time and skill than opening it. Why had the additional risk been necessary, if the loss of the briefcase would be discovered by the hotel guest in any case? And why bother to climb out through the small window aperture when the large window could have been used? Conclusions?

  Fandorin stood up and started walking around the room.

  The thief knew that Sobolev wouldn’t be coming back to his suite. At least not alive. That was one.

  He also knew that no one apart from the general would miss the briefcase, since only Sobolev himself knew about the million rubles. That was two.

  All of the above indicated that the criminal was quite incredibly well-informed. That was three.

  And naturally, four: The thief absolutely must be found. If only because he might be a murderer as well as a thief. A million rubles was a very serio
us incentive.

  It was all very well to say that he must be found. But how?

  Erast Petrovich sat down at the table and pulled a packet of writing paper toward him.

  “The brush and the inkwell?” asked Masa, dashing over to the collegiate assessor from his position by the wall, where he had been standing motionless, even snuffling less loudly than usual in order not to prevent his master from comprehending the meaning of the Great Spiral, onto which all existent causes and consequences are threaded, from the very great to the extremely small. Fandorin nodded, continuing his deliberations.

  Time was precious. Last night someone had made himself a million rubles richer. The thief and his loot could be far away by now. But if he were clever — and everything indicated that he was a wily individual — then he was avoiding any sudden moves and laying low.

  Who would know professional safecrackers? His Excellency Evgeny Osipovich Karachentsev. Should Erast Petrovich pay him a visit? But the general was no doubt sleeping, restoring his strength for the arduous day ahead. And, in addition, he didn’t keep his card index of criminals at home. And there would be no one at the Criminal Investigation Department at such an early hour. Should Fandorin wait until it opened?

  Oh, but did they even have a card index? Previously, when Fandorin himself had worked in the department, there were no such sophisticated arrangements in place. No, there was no point in waiting until morning.

  Meanwhile, Masa rapidly ground up a stick of dry ink in a square lacquered bowl, added a few drops of water, dipped a brush in the ink, and handed it respectfully to Fandorin, posting himself directly behind his master, in order not to distract him from his calligraphic exercise.

  Erast Petrovich slowly raised the brush and paused for a second, then painstakingly traced out on the paper the hieroglyph for ‘patience,’ trying to think of only one thing — making the form of the character ideal. The result was absolutely awful: crude lines, disharmonious elements, a blot on one side. The crumpled sheet of paper went flying to the floor. It was followed by a second, a third, a fourth. The brush moved ever faster, with ever greater assurance. The eighteenth attempt produced an absolutely irreproachable result.

  “There, keep it,” said Fandorin, handing the masterpiece to Masa.

  The servant admired it, smacked his lips in approval, and put it away in a special folder of rice paper.

  Now Erast Petrovich knew what to do, and the simple and correct decision brought peace to his heart. Correct decisions are always simple. Has it not been said that the noble man does not embark on unfamiliar business until he has acquired wisdom from a teacher?

  “Get ready, Masa,” said Fandorin. “We’re going to visit my old teacher.”

  If there was anyone who might prove even more useful than a card index, it was Xavier Feofilaktovich Grushin, a former detective-inspector at the Criminal Investigation Department. The youthful Erast Petrovich had begun his career as a detective under his tolerant, fatherly tutelage, and although the term of their service together had not been a long one, he had learned a great deal from it. Grushin was old now, long since retired, but he knew all there was to know about the criminal underworld of Moscow, having studied it inside and out in his many years of service. There had been occasions when the twenty-year-old Fandorin had walked with him through the Khitrovka slum district or, say, along Grachyovka Street, a favorite bandits’ haunt, and he had been amazed to see how the grim-faced ruffians, nightmarish ragamuffins, and pomaded fops with shifty eyes would come up to the inspector, and every one of them would doff his hat, bow, and greet him. Xavier Feofilaktovich would whisper for a while with one of them, give another an amiable smack on the ear, and shake hands with a third. And immediately, after moving on a little, he would explain to his novice clerk: “That’s Tishka Siroi, a railway specialist — he works the stations, snatches suitcases out of cabs on the move. And that’s Gulya, a first-class swapper.” — “A swapper?” Erast Petrovich would inquire timidly, glancing around at the respectable-looking gentleman with his bowler hat and cane. “Why, yes, he trades in gold. He’s very clever at switching a genuine ring for a fake. Shows them a gold ring and slips them a gilded copper one. A respectable trade; requires great skill.” Grushin would stop beside some ‘players’ — rogues who use three thimbles to empty people’s pockets — then point and say: “See that, young man? Styopka just put the little ball of bread under the left thimble. But don’t you believe your eyes — the ball’s glued to his fingernail, so it can never stay under the thimble.”

  “Then why don’t we arrest them, the swindlers!” Fandorin would exclaim passionately, but Grushin would only chuckle: “Everyone has to live somehow, my dear fellow. The only thing I ask of them is to have a conscience and never take the last shirt off a man’s back.”

  The inspector was held in especially high regard among the criminals of Moscow — for his fairness, for the fact that he allowed birds of every feather to earn their living, and especially for his lack of cupidity. Unlike other police officers, Xavier Feofilaktovich did not take bribes, and therefore he never earned enough to buy himself a stone mansion, and when he retired he had settled in a modest house with a vegetable garden in the Zamoskvorechie district. While working in the diplomatic service in distant Japan, Erast Petrovich had from time to time received news from his old boss, and when he was transferred to Moscow he had decided that he must pay Grushin a visit as soon as he had settled in a little. But now it seemed that he would have to pay that visit right away.

  As their cab rumbled across the Moskvoretsky Bridge, bathed in the first, uncertain rays of morning sunlight, Masa asked in concern: “Master, is Grushm- sensei simply a sensei or an onshi?” And he explained his doubts, with a disapproving shake of his head: “For a respectful visit to a sensei it is still too early, and for a highly respectful visit to an onshi it is even more so.”

  A sensei is simply a teacher, but an onshi is something immeasurably greater: a teacher to whom one feels profound and sincere gratitude.

  “I would say he is an onshi,” said Erast Petrovich, glancing at the broad red band of dawn that extended halfway across the sky, and confessed carelessly. “It is a little early, certainly. But then Grushin probably has insomnia anyway.”

  Xavier Feofilaktovich was indeed not asleep. He was sitting at the window of the house, which, although it was little, was nonetheless his own, located in the labyrinth of narrow lanes between Greater Ordynka Street and Lesser Ordynka Street, and indulging in meditations on the peculiar properties of sleep. The fact that as a man grows older he sleeps less than in his youth seemed right and proper — what was the point of wasting the time when you would catch up on your sleep forever soon enough? But on the other hand, when you were young, you had so much more use for the time. Sometimes you would be dashing around from dawn till dusk, driving yourself to exhaustion, and if you only had just another hour or two, you could get everything done, but then you had to sacrifice eight hours to the pillow. The feeling of regret was sometimes so keen — but what could you do about it? Nature would claim what was hers by right. And now you dozed for an hour or two in the evening in the little front garden, and then you might go all night without sleeping a wink, but you had nothing to occupy yourself with. Times had changed; things were done differently now. The old dray horse had been retired to live out his life in a warm stall. And thank goodness for that, of course; it would be a sin to complain. But it was boring. His wife, may she rest easy in the ground, had passed away more than two years before. His only daughter, Sashenka, had upped and married a loud windbag of a midshipman and taken off with her husband to the other end of the world, to the city of Vladivostok. Of course, his cook, Nastasya, would prepare his meals and wash his clothes, but sometimes he felt like talking, too. And what could he talk about with an empty-headed woman like that? The price of kerosene and sunflower seeds?

  But Grushin could still have made himself useful; oh, yes, very useful indeed. His strength was not com
pletely exhausted yet, and his brain, thank God, still hadn’t begun to rust away. You don’t know your job, mister chief of police. Just how many villains had you caught with those idiotic Bertillonages of yours? People were afraid to walk around the streets of Moscow now — the footpads would have your billfold off you in an instant, and in the evenings you were as likely as not to get knocked on the head with a cosh.

  His mental wrangles with his former bosses usually left Xavier Feofilaktovich in a state of depression. The retired inspector was honest with himself: The service would get by without him somehow or other, but life without the service was unbearably tedious for him. Ah, sometimes you would go out on an investigation in the morning and everything inside you was trembling like a spring wound up as tight as it would go. After your coffee and your first pipe your head was clear and your thoughts laid out the entire line of action without any effort. And now he could see that that had been happiness, that had been living. Lord, you would think I’d lived long enough already and seen more than enough in my time, but if only I could live a bit longer, sighed Grushin, glancing in disapproval at the sun peeping out from behind the roofs. The long, empty day would soon begin.

  And the Lord heard him. Xavier Feofilaktovich squinted at the un-paved road with his long-sighted eyes — he thought he could see a carriage raising dust over in the direction of Pyatnitskaya Street. There were two riders: one wearing a tie, the other low and squat, wearing something green. Who could this be so early in the morning?

  After the obligatory embraces, kisses, and questions, to which Grushin answered at great length, and Fandorin with great brevity, they got down to business. Erast Petrovich did not go into the details of the story, and in particular he did not mention Sobolev, but merely outlined the terms of the problem.

  A safe had been cleaned out in a certain hotel. The signature was as follows: The lock had been picked rather sloppily — to judge from the scratches, the thief had fiddled with it for quite a while. A distinctive feature was that there were traces of wax inside the keyhole. The criminal possessed an exceptionally slender frame — he had climbed in through a small window opening only seven inches by fourteen. He was wearing boots or shoes with a pattern of crosses and stars on the sole, with a foot approximately nine inches long and a little less than three wide. Before Fandorin could even finish listing the terms of the problem, Xavier Feofilaktovich suddenly interrupted the young man.