by Boris Akunin
The nunchaka swayed menacingly again.
“Good-bye, then, Misha. I warned you. And I like it better this way; I can pay you back for my friends.”
“I swear, honest to God!” The runtish, terrified little man put his hands over his head, and Fandorin suddenly found the whole situation unbearably nauseating.
“It’s the honest truth, grandpa, I swear by Christ Almighty. The loot is still where it was, in the briefcase.”
“And where’s the briefcase?”
Misha swallowed and twitched his lips. His reply was barely audible.
“Here, in a secret room.”
Erast Petrovich threw his nunchaka aside — he wouldn’t need it anymore. He picked the Herstal up off the floor and set Misha on his feet.
“Come on, then, show me.”
While Little Misha was climbing the steps, Fandorin prodded him in the backside from below with the gun barrel and carried on asking questions.
“Who told you about the Chinee?”
“Khurtinsky.” Misha turned around and raised his little hands. “We do what he tells us to do. He’s our benefactor and protector. But he’s very strict, and he takes nigh on half.”
That’s wonderful, thought Erast Petrovich, gritting his teeth. As wonderful as it possibly could be. The head of the secret section, the governor-general’s own right hand, was a major criminal boss and patron of the Moscow underworld. Now he could see why they hadn’t been able to catch Misha no matter how hard they tried, and how he had become so powerful in Khitrovka. Fine work, Court Counselor Khurtinsky!
They clambered out into the dark corridor and set off through a labyrinth of narrow, musty passages. Twice they turned to the left, and once to the right. Misha stopped in front of a low, inconspicuous door and tapped out a complicated special knock. The girl Fiska opened up in nothing but her nightshirt, with her hair hanging loose and a sleepy, drunken expression on her face. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see her visitors and never even glanced at Fandorin. She shuffled back across the earthen floor to the bed, flopped down onto it, and immediately started snoring lightly. In one corner there was a stylish dressing table with a mirror, obviously taken from some lady’s boudoir, with a smoking oil lamp standing on it.
“I hide stuff with her,” said Misha. “She’s a fool, but she won’t give me away.”
Erast Petrovich took a firm grip on the little runt’s skinny neck, pulled him closer, stared straight into his round, fishy eyes, and asked, carefully emphasizing each word: “What did you do to General Sobolev?”
“Nothing.” Misha crossed himself rapidly three times. “May I croak on the gallows. I don’t know a thing about the general. Khurtinsky said I was to take the briefcase from the safe and make a neat job of it. He said there ‘d be no one there and no one would miss it. So I took it. Simple, a cakewalk. And he told me when things quieted down we’d split the money two ways and he ‘d send me out of Moscow with clean papers. But if I tried anything, he ‘d find me no matter where I went. And he would, too; that’s what he’s like.”
Misha took a hanging with a picture of Stenka Razin and his princess down off the wall, opened a little door, and began feeling about behind it with his hand. Fandorin broke out into a cold sweat as he stood there, trying to grasp the full hideous meaning of what he had just heard.
There ‘d be no one there and no one would miss it — Khurtinsky had said that to his accomplice? That meant that the court counselor knew Sobolev wouldn’t be coming back to the Dusseaux alive!
Erast Petrovich had underestimated the lord and master of Khitrovka. Misha was far from stupid and by no means the pitiful sniveler he had pretended to be. Glancing back over his shoulder, he could see that the detective had been shaken by his announcement and had even lowered the hand with which he was holding the revolver. The agile little man spun around sharply. Erast Petrovich glimpsed the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun pointing straight at him and only just managed to strike it from below in time. The barrel belched thunder and flame, a hot wind scorched his face, and debris rained down from the ceiling. The collegiate assessor’s finger spontaneously tightened on the trigger of his revolver and the Herstal, its safety catch off, obediently fired. Little Misha grabbed at his stomach and sat down on the floor with a high-pitched grunt. Remembering the bottle, Erast Petrovich glanced around at Fiska, but she didn’t even raise her head at the thunderous roar; she merely covered her ear with the pillow.
So now Misha’s surprising compliance was explained. He had played his part cleverly, getting Erast Petrovich to lower his guard and leading the detective to just where he wanted him. How could he possibly have known that the speed of Erast Fandorin’s reactions was famous even among the ‘stealthy ones’?
The important question now was whether the briefcase was there. Erast Petrovich pushed the twitching body aside with his foot and thrust his hand into the cubbyhole. His fingers encountered a dimpled leather surface. It was!
Fandorin leaned down over Misha, who was blinking rapidly and licking fitfully at his white lips. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead.
“A doctor!” groaned the wounded man. “I’ll tell you everything; I won’t keep anything back!”
Erast Petrovich checked and saw that the wound was serious, but the Herstal was only a small-caliber weapon, and Misha might live if he was taken to a hospital quickly. And an important witness like that had to live.
“Sit still; don’t move a muscle,” Fandorin said aloud. “I’ll send for a cab. But if you try to crawl away, the life will just drain out of you.”
The inn was empty. The dim light of early morning was filtering in through the murky half windows. A man and a woman were lying in each other’s arms right in the middle of the filthy floor. The hem of the woman’s skirt was pulled up — Erast Petrovich turned his eyes away. There didn’t seem to be anybody else. But no, there was yesterday’s blind man sleeping on a bench with his knapsack under his head and his staff on the ground. There was no sign of the landlord, Abdul — the one person Fandorin badly wanted to see. But what was that? He thought he could hear someone snoring in the storeroom.
Erast Petrovich cautiously pulled aside the chintz curtain and breathed an inward sigh of relief — there he was, the scum. Stretched out on a large chest, his beard jutting up in the air, his thick-lipped mouth half-open.
The collegiate assessor thrust the barrel of his revolver in his teeth and said in a low, gentle voice: “Time to get up, Abdul. It’s a bright new day.”
The Tartar opened his eyes. They were matte black, devoid of even the slightest expression.
“You just try to make a run for it,” Fandorin invited him. “And I’ll shoot you like a dog.”
“No point in running,” the killer replied coolly, with a wide yawn. “I’m no runner.”
“You’ll go to the gallows,” said Erast Petrovich, staring with hatred into those expressionless little eyes.
“Yes, if that’s what’s set down for me,” the landlord agreed. “All things are ruled by the will of Allah.”
It took all the collegiate assessor’s strength to fight back the compulsive itch in his index finger.
“You dare to mention Allah, you miserable low scum! Where are the men you killed?”
“I put them away in the closet for now,” the monster replied readily. “Reckoned I’d throw them in the river later. That’s the closet there.”
He pointed to a rough wooden door.
The door was bolted shut. Erast Petrovich tied Abdul’s hands with his own leather belt and drew the bolt back with a wearily aching heart. It was dark inside.
After hesitating for a moment, the collegiate assessor took one step, then another, and received a powerful blow from the side of someone’s hand to the back of his neck. Taken totally by surprise, half-stunned, he collapsed face- forward onto the floor. Someone jumped on top of him and breathed hotly into his ear:
“Where master? Murder dog!”
Hesi
tantly, with a great effort — the blow had been heavy one, and it had landed on the bump from the day before — Fandorin stammered in Japanese: “So you have b-been learning words, after all, you idle loafer?”
And he burst into sobs, unable to restrain himself.
But that wasn’t the last shock in store for him. When Fandorin had bandaged up Masa’s broken head and found a cab, he went back to Fiska’s underground chamber for Little Misha, but the gypsy girl wasn’t there and Misha himself was no longer sitting slumped against the wall, but lying on the floor. He was dead, and he had not died from the wound in his stomach — someone had very precisely slit the bandit king’s throat.
Holding his revolver at the ready, Erast Petrovich dashed off down the dark corridor, but it branched into several paths that led away into the damp darkness, where he would be more likely to get lost himself than to find anybody else.
Outside the door of the Hard Labor, Fandorin screwed up his eyes against the sun as it peeped over the rooftops. Masa was sitting in the cab, clutching the briefcase that had been entrusted to him against his chest with one hand and maintaining a firm hold on the collar of the bound Abdul with the other. Jutting up beside him was a formless bundle — the body of Xavier Feofilaktovich wrapped in a blanket.
“Let’s go!” shouted Erast Petrovich, leaping up onto the box beside the cabbie. He wanted to get out of this cursed place as soon as possible. “Drive hard to Malaya Nikitskaya Street, to the Department of Gendarmes!”
* * *
TEN
In which the governor-general takes coffee with a roll
The sergeant major on duty at the door of the Moscow Province Department of TEN Gendarmes (20 Malaya Nikitskaya Street) cast a curious glance, but without any particular surprise in it, at the strange threesome clambering out of the cab — serving duty at a post like that, you saw all sorts of things. The first to climb down, stumbling on the footboard, was a black-bearded Tartar with his hands tied behind his back. Behind him, pushing the prisoner in the back, came some slanty-eyed devil in a tattered beshmet and a white turban, holding a very expensive-looking leather briefcase. And finally a ragged old man leapt down from the coachbox far too easily for someone of his age. On taking a closer look, the sergeant major saw that the old man had a revolver in his hand, and it wasn’t a turban on the slanty-eyed devil’s head after all, but a towel that was stained in places with blood. That was clear enough, then — they were undercover agents back from an operation.
“Is Evgeny Osipovich in?” the old man asked in a young gentleman’s voice, and the gendarme, a seasoned campaigner, asked no questions but simply saluted.
“Yes, sir, he arrived half an hour ago.”
“C-call the duty officer, will you, b-brother,” said the man in disguise, stammering slightly. “Let him book our prisoner. And over there,” he said gloomily, pointing to the carriage, in which they had left a very large bundle, “over there we have a dead man. They can take him to the ice room for the time being. It is Grushin, the retired detective-inspector.”
“Why, Your Honor, I remember Xavier Feofilaktovich very well, we even served together for a few years.” The sergeant major removed his cap and crossed himself.
Erast Petrovich walked quickly through the wide vestibule. Masa could hardly keep up with him, swinging the bulging briefcase with its leather belly packed so tightly with banknotes that it was almost bursting. At such an early hour, the department was rather empty — it was not, in any case, the kind of place that was ever crowded with visitors. From the far end of the corridor, where the plaque on the door read officers’ gymnastics hall, came the sound of shouting and the clash of metal on metal. Fandorin shook his head skeptically: Of course, knowing how to fence was essential for an officer of the gendarmes. But with whom, he wondered. With the bomb-throwers? It was an obsolete skill. They would do better to study jujitsu or even, in a pinch, English boxing. Outside the entrance to the reception room of the chief of police, he said to Masa: “Sit here until you’re called. Guard the briefcase. Does your head hurt?”
“I have a strong head,” the Japanese replied proudly.
“And thank God for that. Remember now, don’t move from this spot.”
Masa puffed out his cheeks in offense, evidently regarding this last instruction as superfluous. Behind the tall double door Fandorin found the reception room, from where, according to the posted signs, one could either go straight on, into the office of the chief of police, or to the right, into the secret section. In fact Evgeny Osipovich Karachentsev had his own chancelry, on Tverskoi Boulevard, but His Excellency preferred the office on Malaya Nikitskaya Street — it was closer to the secret springs of the machinery of state.
“Where are you going?” asked the duty adjutant, rising to meet the ragged tramp.
“Collegiate Assessor Fandorin, deputy for special assignments to the governor- general. On urgent business.”
The adjutant nodded and dashed off to announce him. Thirty seconds later, Karachentsev himself came out into the reception room. At the sight of the poor tramp he froze on the spot.
“Erast Petrovich, is that you? What an incredible transformation! What has happened?”
“A great deal.”
Fandorin went into the office and closed the door behind him. The adjutant glanced curiously after the unusual visitor as he went in. He stood up and looked out into the corridor. There was nobody there, except for some Kirghiz sitting opposite the door. Then the officer tiptoed up to his superior’s door and put his ear against it. He could hear the even intonation of the collegiate assessor’s voice, interrupted every now and then by the general’s deep-voiced exclamations. Unfortunately, those were the only words that he was able to make out.
The exchange sounded like this:
“What briefcase?”
“…”
“But how could you do that?”
“…”
“And what did he say?”
“…”
“To Khitrovka?”
At this point, the door from the corridor opened and the adjutant barely had time to recoil, pretending that he had just been about to knock at the general’s door, and turn around in annoyance at the intrusion. An unfamiliar officer with a briefcase under his arm threw up his open hand reassuringly and pointed to the side door, which led into the secret section, as much as to say, Don’t trouble yourself, I’m going that way. He strode quickly across the spacious room and vanished. The adjutant placed his ear back against the door.
“Appalling!” Karachentsev exclaimed excitedly. Then a moment later he gasped: “Khurtinsky! That’s incredible!”
The adjutant flattened himself out across the door, hoping to make out at least something of the collegiate assessor’s story, but then, as ill luck would have it, a courier came in with an urgent letter that he had to accept and sign for.
Two minutes later the general emerged from his office, flushed and excited. However, to judge from the gleam in the general’s eyes, the news did not appear to be all bad. Karachentsev was followed out by the mysterious functionary.
“First we need to deal with the briefcase, and then we can deal with the treacherous court counselor,” said the chief of police, rubbing his hands together. “Where is this Japanese of yours?”
“Waiting in the corridor.”
The adjutant glanced out from behind the door and saw the general and the functionary stop in front of the ragged Kirghiz, who stood up and bowed ceremonially, with his arms at his sides.
The collegiate assessor asked him anxiously about something in an incomprehensible language.
The oriental bowed again and gave a reassuring answer. The functionary raised his voice, clearly indignant about something.
The narrow-eyed face expressed confusion. The oriental seemed to be trying to justify his actions.
The general turned his head from one of them to the other. He puckered his ginger eyebrows in concern.
Clasping his hands to
his forehead, the collegiate assessor turned toward the adjutant.
“Did an officer with a briefcase enter the reception?”
“Yes, sir. He went through into the secret section.”
Acting with extreme rudeness, the functionary pushed aside first the chief of police and then the adjutant, and dashed out the side door of the reception room. The others followed him. Behind the door with the plaque was a narrow corridor with windows looking out onto the yard. One of the windows was slightly open. The collegiate assessor leaned out over the windowsill.
“Boot prints in the ground! He jumped down!” The emotional functionary groaned and smashed his fist against the frame in rage. The blow was so strong that all the glass showered out into the yard with a mournful jangle.
“Erast Petrovich, what has happened?” the general asked in alarm.
“I don’t understand it at all,” said Fandorin, raising his arms in dismay. “Masa says that an officer came up to him in the corridor, gave him my name, handed him an envelope with a seal, took the briefcase, and supposedly brought it to me. And there really was an officer, only he jumped out of this very window with the briefcase. It’s like some terrible nightmare!”
“The envelope — where’s the envelope?” asked Karachentsev.
The functionary roused himself and started jabbering away in some oriental tongue again. The negligent oriental, now betraying signs of exceptional concern, took an official envelope out of his beshmet and handed it to the general. Karachentsev glanced at the seal and the address.
“Hmm.”
To the Moscow Province Department of Gendarmes. From the Department for the Maintenance of Order and Public Security of the Office of the Governor-General of St. Petersburg.
He opened the envelope and began reading:
Secret. To the chief of police of Moscow. On the basis of article 16 of the decree approved by the emperor concerning measures for the maintenance of state security and public order, and by agreement with the governor-general of St. Petersburg, the midwife Maria Ivanovna Ivanova is forbidden to reside in St. Petersburg or Moscow, due to her political unreliability, concerning which matter I have the honor of informing Your Excellency. Captain Shipov, for the Head of Section.