Erast Fandorin 04 - The Death of Achilles

by Boris Akunin

  “Plenty,” replied the chief of police with an air of satisfaction. “A great deal of new light has been cast on the shady dealings of the deceased. It will take a bit more fiddling about to decode his financial records, though. Our bee was busy collecting nectar from many flowers, not just from Little Misha. And what have you got?”

  “I do have something,” Fandorin replied modestly.

  The conversation was taking place in the governor-general’s study.

  Dolgorukoi himself, however, was not there yet — according to his secretary, His Excellency was finishing his lunch.

  Eventually Dolgorukoi appeared, entering the room with an air of mysterious importance. He sat down and cleared his throat in a formal manner.

  “Gentlemen, I have received a telegram from St. Petersburg in reply to my detailed report. As you can see, the matter was considered so important that there was no procrastination at all. In this case I am merely conveying a message from one party to another. This is what Count Tolstov writes:”

  Highly esteemed Vladimir Andreevich, in reply to your message, I beg to inform you that Captain Pevtsov is indeed attached to the chief of the Corps of Gendarmes and is at present in Moscow on a special assignment. To be specific, the captain was instructed to confiscate a briefcase that might contain documents of state importance. His Imperial Majesty has instructed that the case of the death of Adjutant General Sobolev should be considered closed, concerning which appropriate formal notification will be forwarded to Evgeny Osipovich. His Majesty has further instructed that for exceeding his authority and involving a private individual in a secret investigation, which resulted in the death of the aforesaid individual, your deputy for special assignments Fandorin is to be removed from his post and placed under house arrest until further instructions.

  Minister of Internal Affairs D. A. Tolstov.

  The prince spread his hands regretfully and addressed the astounded Fandorin.

  “There, my dear fellow, see how things have turned out. Well, the people at the top know best.”

  Erast Petrovich rose slowly to his feet, pale and feeling desperately upset, not because his sovereign’s punishment was harsh, but because it was essentially just. The worst thing of all was that the account of the case that he had proposed with such cool self-assurance had collapsed ignominiously. He had taken a secret government agent for the main villain of the piece! What a shameful error!

  “Please don’t be offended if Evgeny Osipovich and I have a little talk now. Go on back to your hotel and get some rest,” Dolgorukoi said sympathetically. “And chin up! I have taken quite a liking to you, and I shall put in a word for you with Petersburg.”

  The collegiate assessor set off dejectedly toward the door. Just as he reached it, Karachenstsev called to him.

  “What was it that you discovered in the notebook?” asked the chief of police with a discreet wink, as if to say: Never mind, it will all blow over soon.

  Erast Petrovich paused for a moment and replied: “Nothing of any real interest, Your Excellency.”

  Back at the hotel, Fandorin declared from the threshold of his suite: “Masa, I am disgraced and have been placed under arrest. It is my fault that Grushin died. That is one. I have no more ideas. That is two. My life is over. That is three.”

  Erast Petrovich walked to the bed and, without bothering to undress, collapsed on the pillow and instantly fell asleep.

  * * *

  TWELVE

  In which a trap is sprung

  The first thing that Fandorin saw on opening his eyes was the rectangle of the window, filled with the pink glow of sunset.

  Masa was sitting on the floor by the bed, wearing his black formal kimono, with his hands resting ceremonially on his knees and a fresh bandage on his head. His face was set in an austere expression.

  “Why are you all dressed up like that?” Erast Petrovich asked curiously.

  “You said, master, that you are disgraced and that you have no more ideas.”

  “Well, what of it?”

  “I have a good idea. I have thought everything over and can propose a worthy way out of the distressing situation in which we both find ourselves. To my numerous misdeeds I have added yet another — I have broken the European rule of etiquette that forbids allowing a woman into the bathroom. That I do not understand this strange custom is no justification. I have memorized twenty-six whole pages from the dictionary — from the short word ab-ster-use, which means ‘difficult to conceive of or apprehend’ to the long word aff-fran-chis-e- ment, which means ‘release from servitude or an obligation,’ but even this severe trial has not lifted the weight from my heart. And as for you, master, you yourself told me that your life was over. Then let us leave this life together, master. I have prepared everything — even the brush and the ink for the death poem.”

  Fandorin stretched, savoring the languorous aching in his joints.

  “Forget that, Masa,” he said. “I have a better idea. What is it that smells so delicious?”

  “I bought fresh bagels, the finest thing there is in Russia after a woman,” his servant replied sadly. “The sour cabbage soup that everyone here eats is absolutely terrible, but bagels are an excellent invention. I wish to offer my hara solace one last time, before I slice it in half with my dagger.”

  “I’ll slice you in half,” the collegiate assessor threatened him. “Give me one of those bagels; I’m dying of hunger. Let’s have a bite and get down to work.”

  “Mr. Klonov from number nineteen?” echoed the koelner (that was what the senior floor staff in the Metropole were called, after the German fashion). “Why, of course, we remember him very well. Such a gentleman, a merchant he was. Would you happen to be a friend of his then, sir?”

  That evening’s idyllic sunset had beaten a rapid retreat, ousted by a cold wind and rapidly gathering gloom. The sky had turned bleak and loosed a fine scattering of raindrops that threatened to develop into a serious downpour by nighttime. In view of the weather, Fandorin had dressed to withstand the elements: a cap with an oilcloth peak, a waterproof Swedish jacket of fine kidskin, rubber galoshes. His appearance was extravagantly foreign, which obviously must have been the reason for the koelner’s unexpected comment. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, the collegiate assessor decided — after all, he was a fugitive arrestee. He leaned across the counter and whispered: “I don’t know him at all, dear fellow. I am C-Captain Pevtsov of the Gendarmes Corps, and this is an extremely important matter, top secret.”

  “I understand,” the koelner replied, also in a whisper. “One moment and I’ll find everything for you.”

  He began rustling through the register.

  “Here it is, sir. Merchant of the first guild Nikolai Nikolaevich Klonov. Checked in on the morning of the twenty-second, arrived from Ryazan. The gentleman checked out on Thursday night.”

  “What!” cried Fandorin. “Actually during the night of the twenty-fourth to the twenty-fifth?”

  “Yes, sir. I was not present myself, but here is the entry — please look for yourself. The account was settled in full at half past four in the morning, during the night shift, sir.”

  Erast Petrovich’s heart thrilled to that overwhelming passion known only to the inveterate hunter. He inquired with feigned casualness: “And what does he look like, this Klonov?”

  “A well set-up sort of gentleman, respectable. In a word — a merchant of the first guild.”

  “You mean a long beard, a big belly? Describe his appearance. Does he have any distinctive features?”

  “No, no beard sir, and he’s not a fat man. Not your average old-style merchant, more one of your modern businessmen. Dresses European-style. And his appearance…” The koelner pondered for a moment. “An ordinary appearance. Blond hair. No distinctive features… Except for his eyes. They were very pale, the kind that Finns sometimes have.”

  Fandorin slapped his hand down on the counter like a predator pouncing. Bull’s- eye! Here was the central ch
aracter of the plot. Checked in on Tuesday, two days before Sobolev’s arrival, and checked out at the very hour when the officers were carrying the dead general into the plundered suite 47. He was getting warm now, very warm!

  “You say he was a respectable-looking man? I suppose people came to see him, business partners?”

  “Not a one, sir. Only messengers with telegrams a couple of times. It was plain to see the man didn’t come to Moscow on business, more likely to enjoy himself.”

  “What made it so plain?”

  The koelner smiled conspiratorially and spoke into Fandorin’s ear.

  “The moment the gentleman arrived, he started inquiring about the ladies. Wanted to know what little lovelies Moscow had with a bit of extra style. She had to be blond and slim, with a narrow waist. He was a gentleman of great refinement.”

  Erast Petrovich frowned. This was a strange turn of events. ‘Captain Pevtsov’ ought not to be interested in blondes.

  “Did he speak about this with you?”

  “Not at all, sir. Timofei Spiridonovich told me about it. He used to work as koelner in this very spot.” He sighed with affected sorrow. “Timofei Spiridonovich passed on last Saturday, Lord bless his soul. The mass is tomorrow.”

  “And how did he pass on?” asked Fandorin, leaning forward. “In what way?”

  “In a very ordinary way. He was on his way home in the evening and he slipped and banged the back of his head against a stone. Not far from here, walking through one of the courtyards. Gone, just like that. But we’re all of us in God’s hands.” The koelner crossed himself. “I used to be his assistant. But now I’ve been promoted. Eh, poor old Timofei Spiridonovich.”

  “So Klonov spoke with him about the ladies?” asked the collegiate assessor, with the acute intuition that the veil was about to fall away from his eyes at any moment, revealing the full picture of what had happened in its clear and logical completeness. “And did Timofei Spiridonovich not tell you any more details?”

  “Why, of course; the deceased was a great man for talking. He said he’d described all the high-class blondes in Moscow for number nineteen — that’s the way we refer to the guests between ourselves, sir, by their numbers — and number nineteen was interested most of all in Mam’selle Wanda from the Alpine Rose.”

  Erast Petrovich closed his eyes for an instant. The thread had led him along a tangled path, but now its end was in sight.

  “YOU?”

  Wanda stood in her doorway, wrapping herself in a lace shawl and gazing in fright at the collegiate assessor, whose wet kidskin jacket reflected the light of the lamp and seemed to be enveloped in a glowing halo. Behind the late-night caller’s back the rain hissed down in a shifting wall of glass, and beyond that the darkness was impenetrable. Rivulets of water ran off the jacket onto the floor.

  “Come in, Mr. Fandorin, you’re soaked through.”

  “It is most amazing,” said Erast Petrovich, “that you, mademoiselle, are still alive.”

  “Thanks to you,” said the songstress, with a shrug of her slim shoulders. “I can still see that knife creeping closer and closer to my throat… I can’t sleep at night. And I can’t sing.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of Herr Knabe at all, but of Klonov,” said Fandorin, staring keenly into those huge green eyes. “Tell me about this interesting gentleman.”

  Wanda was either genuinely surprised or playacting.

  “Klonov? Nikolai Klonov? What has he got to do with this?”

  “That is what we are going to try to discover.”

  They went into the drawing room and sat down. The only light came from a table lamp covered with a green shawl, which gave the whole room the appearance of some mysterious underwater world. The kingdom of the enchantress of the sea, thought Erast Petrovich, and then immediately banished all inappropriate thoughts from his mind.

  “Tell me about Merchant of the First Guild Klonov.”

  Wanda took his wet jacket and put it on the floor, without appearing at all concerned about damaging the deep Persian carpet.

  “He is very attractive,” she said in a dreamy tone of voice, and Erast Petrovich felt something akin to a prick of envy, to which, of course, he had no right whatsoever. “Calm, confident. A good man, one of the best kind of men, the kind that you rarely meet. At least I almost never come across them. Like you, in some ways.” She smiled gently and Fandorin felt strangely perturbed — she was bewitching. “But I don’t understand why you are so interested in him.”

  “This man is not who he says he is. He is not a merchant at all.”

  Wanda half-turned away and her gaze went blank.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. But I have grown used to the fact that everyone has his own secrets. I try not to interfere in other people’s business.”

  “You are a very perceptive woman, mademoiselle, otherwise you would hardly be so successful in your… profession,” Erast Petrovich was embarrassed, realizing he hadn’t chosen the happiest way to express himself. “Are you quite sure that you never sensed any danger emanating from this m-man?”

  The songstress swung around to face him.

  “Yes, yes, I did. Sometimes. But how do you know?”

  “I have substantial grounds for believing that Klonov is an extremely dangerous man,” said Fandorin, and then continued without the slightest transition. “Tell me, was it he who brought you and Sobolev together?”

  “No, not at all,” Wanda replied just as quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly.

  She also seemed to sense this and felt it necessary to elaborate on her answer.

  “At least, he is in no way involved in the general’s death, I swear to you! Everything happened just as I told you.”

  Now she was telling the truth — or believed that she was telling the truth. All the signs — the modulation of the voice, the gestures, the movements of the facial muscles — were precisely as they should be. But then, perhaps the world had lost an exceptional actress in Miss Tolle?

  Erast Petrovich changed tactics. The masters of detective psychology teach us that if one suspects a person under interrogation of not being entirely frank, but merely pretending to be so, he or she should be peppered with a hail of rapid, unexpected questions that require an unambiguous answer.

  “Did Klonov know about Knabe?”

  “Yes, but what—”

  “Did he mention the briefcase?”

  “What briefcase?”

  “Did he mention Khurtinsky?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Does he carry a weapon?”

  “I think so. But surely that is not illeg—”

  “Are you going to meet him again?”

  “Yes. That is…”

  Wanda turned pale and bit her lip. Erast Petrovich realized that from now on she would lie to him, and before she could start he began speaking quite differently, in an extremely serious voice, sincerely and from the heart.

  “You have to tell me where he is. If I am mistaken and he is not the man I take him for, it is best for him to clear himself of suspicion now. If I am not mistaken, he is a terrible man, not at all what you imagine him to be. And as far as I can follow his logic, he will not leave you alive; it would be against his rules. I am astounded you are not lying on a slab in the mortuary at Tverskaya Street police station by now. Well, then, how can I find him, your Mr. Klonov?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Tell me,” said Fandorin, taking her by the hand. The hand was cold, but the pulse was pattering rapidly. “I have saved you once already and I intend to do so again. I swear to you, if he is not a murderer, I shall not touch him.”

  Wanda gazed at the young man through dilated pupils. There was a struggle taking place inside the young woman, and Fandorin didn’t know how to tilt the scales in his favor. While he was feverishly trying to think of something, Wanda’s gaze hardened — the scales had been tipped by some thought that remained unknown to Erast Petrovich.

  “I don’t know where he is,�
�� the songstress stated definitively.

  Fandorin slowly stood up and left without saying another word. What was the point?

  The important thing was that she was going to see Klonov-Pevtsov again. In order to locate his target, all that was needed was to arrange for her to be shadowed competently. The collegiate assessor stopped dead in the middle of Petrovka Street, paying no attention to the rain — in any case, the downpour was no longer as torrential as before.

  How could he arrange any damned thing at all? He was under arrest and supposed to be sitting quietly in his hotel. He would have no assistants, and on his own it was impossible to carry out proper surveillance — that would require at least five or six experienced agents.

  To force his thoughts out of their well-worn rut, Fandorin clapped his hands rapidly and loudly eight times. Passersby hidden under their umbrellas shied away from this madman, but a smile of satisfaction appeared on the collegiate assessor’s lips. An original idea had occurred to him.

  On entering the spacious lobby of the Dusseaux, Erast Petrovich immediately turned to the desk.

  “My dear man,” he addressed the porter in a haughty voice, “connect me to the suites in the Anglia on Petrovka Street, and step aside, will you — this is a confidential conversation.”

  The porter, who was by now well used to the mysterious behavior of the important functionary from number 20, bowed, ran his finger down the list of telephone subscribers hanging on the wall, found the one required, and lifted the earpiece of the telephone.

  “The Anglia, Mr. Fandorin,” he said, handing the earpiece to the collegiate assessor.

  Someone hissed: “Who is calling?”

  Erast Petrovich looked expectantly at the porter, and he tactfully moved away into the farthest corner of the vestibule.

  Only then did Fandorin set his lips close to the mouthpiece and say: “Be so good as to ask Miss Wanda to come to the telephone. Tell her Mr. Klonov wishes to speak with her urgently. Yes, yes, Klonov!”