The Illustrious (The Sublime Electricity Book #1)

by Pavel Kornev

  "You are free to go, constable," he released me.

  After leaving the house, we went out the manor gate and the half-dark of the early morning was quickly blown out by a blinding magnesium flash. While everyone was trying to get rid of the silver light still in their eyes, the newspaperman scooped up a huge camera in his arms and moved to a new place. His assistant poured some more incendiary powder into the tray and rushed to get behind him.

  "You are, in fact, very prudent, detective constable Orso," Bastian Moran stated. He had greatly appreciated my thought to inform not only the police administration but also the editors of the Atlantic Telegraph of the events. He started smoking and added pointedly: "But, to your detriment, you are also remarkably vain..."

  I let that remark go in one ear and out the other.

  Perhaps I really was the tiniest bit vain. Who among us is without sin?

  2

  I CERTAINLY WAS NOT, but I had been very naive. I could no longer count on a return voyage in a self-propelled carriage, so after bowing out, I limped down the alley with a hopeless sigh in search of a free cabby. But it was in vain; alas, the streets were empty.

  The leg I'd injured in the jump was in unbearable pain and the way up to Calvary started to seem like quite the feat indeed, equivalent to the dreaded curse of Sisyphus. So, with all my desire to get into bed as quickly as possible, I headed for the Greek Quarter. And though the Charming Bacchante was still locked at this early hour, I battered on the door until the night guard came down to see what the noise was and let me in. The spirit of a warm crowd, cigarette smoke, harsh fragrances and the smell of booze was still lingering in the room.

  Lurching, I went up to the second floor and knocked on the poet's apartment, risking finding a drunken orgy there, but no, inspiration had descended on Albert. Leaning over a wine-covered table, he was muttering something to himself over and over again as if delirious and hurriedly transposing the rhymes that were overflowing from his mind onto the writing paper. A great many drafts were towering on the edge of the table, lying about on the floor and filling the trash bin.

  The poet didn't even turn when I flung open the door, and I didn't distract him either. I would hardly have been able to anyway without resorting to shooting my pistol into the ceiling. I removed my jacket in silence, hung it on the handle of one of the desk drawer handles and sat down on the ottoman.

  Sleep!

  WHEN I AWOKE, it was almost midday. The itch of inspiration had already left Albert by that time. He was sprawled out in a chair next to a flung-open window, mending his health with soda water and apple juice.

  "Sorry, Leo," the poet turned when he heard the creaking of the springs, "I do not remember your arrival." He yanked on the chain of his pocket watch, which was still weighed down by his heavy student's ring and asked: "Where did you end up digging up my old ring, then?"

  "Nowhere," I waved it off and, remembering the fact that the poet had already moved all the furniture to find it, decided not to lie about some deep crack in his floor. "Someone sold it to a pawn shop. One of my colleagues recognized the ring's description."

  "What rapscallions!" Albert admired the expertise of the robbers I had just invented. "They'd cut the soles out of your shoes while you walk!"

  "Only if you don't do it first as a bet," I joked and, wanting to end the dicey topic fast, asked: "I think it's high time we go out and get some refreshments, don't you?"

  The poet noticeably went green.

  "I don't think so," he shook his head. "Curses! Where did Kira go off to? She made the best sharbat I've ever had!"

  I got up from the ottoman, took my jacket from the desk drawer handle and couldn't hold back a quip:

  "I suppose sharbat wasn't the only thing she did well."

  Albert frowned in annoyance:

  "This is nothing to laugh about. Her sharbat was simply one of a kind."

  "I enjoyed it, yes. Come out, I'll be waiting for you on the street."

  "Don't you have to go to work?" The poet grew surprised.

  "Not today," I shook my head.

  Actually, I should have gone to see Isaac Levinson first thing this morning and bring him up to speed, but I decided to put off my visit to the Banking House until evening when the preliminary results of the investigation would already be in hand.

  Downstairs, I ordered a coffee, a scramble and some toast. I took one of the tables in front of the stage and put my injured leg in a more comfortable position. Looking at the canal, its muddy waters being crossed from time to time by heavily weighed-down boats, I ate breakfast in no particular hurry, then started drinking my coffee with a biscuit.

  Albert Brandt only deigned to come down an hour later. He looked at the overcast sky with a dissatisfied grimace, adjusted his hat and announced:

  "I normally am not in the habit of making appearances at such an early hour."

  With a smirk, I nodded:

  "I guess you're right. It's only one P.M..."

  "What's on your mind?" The poet asked, taking a seat opposite me.

  "I do not know," I shrugged my shoulders. "I just need to kill some time somehow. I have a meeting scheduled at four. What could we get up to?"

  Albert frowned:

  "Where can you take a guy who doesn't drink? The museum?"

  "Maybe we should go to the hippodrome?" I suggested, much to my own surprise.

  The poet just shook his head.

  "Leo, if you are of such limited means that you have to rely on Fortuna for bread, I could lend you a bit of money to tide you over until your next payday."

  "Drop it, Albert!" I waved it off. "You know I cannot bear gambling."

  "And you also don't like big crowds of people," my friend reminded me. "So what is making you want to go to the hippodrome?"

  "I don't know," I confessed. "But there's just no fresh air in the city. At least there, you get cleaner air blowing in off the ocean."

  Because of the lack of wind over the building roofs, today, the factory smoke was gathering into fully-fledged clouds. The sheet of dark clouds stretched out over the sky and the sun just barely shone through it as a colorless, white dot.

  The poet wiped his sand-colored beard in thought and relented.

  "Have it your way! Let's go!" And when I took out my wallet, he waved it off chivalrously: "Forget it, my treat."

  Without arguing, I got up from the table and winced at the pain in my leg.

  "Curses!" I exclaimed, leaning on the edge of the table. "Albert, we'll have to find someone to drive us."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I hurt my leg jumping from a second-story window. They had very high ceilings!"

  Albert whistled in surprise:

  "How'd you end up doing that?"

  I sat down on the chair and reminded him:

  "What about the carriage?"

  The poet whistled, calling a street boy over. He handed him a small coin and told him to go find a free cabby.

  "So then, what happened?" he repeated the question when the errand boy had run away.

  In two words, I told him about the bank robbery and the poet shook his head in unfeigned surprise:

  "Well, holy shit! I spent all day working yesterday and didn't even read a newspaper!"

  He set about inquiring all the details from me, then we took our seats in the carriage that pulled up to the venue and I commanded:

  "To the races!"

  WITH ITS UNASSAILABLE appearance, the hippodrome was reminiscent of a coastal fort. The massive construction had been erected on a cape that jutted out into the ocean. On the other side of the harbor, it had a partner in a lighthouse tower, which was of a similarly colossal scale.

  A strange place for an amphitheater, don't you think?

  What can you say, it was part of the inscrutable plans of the fallen.

  The structure hadn't always been a hippodrome. At one time, the sand of the arena had run red with the blood of gladiators. Horse races only started to be organ
ized when the municipal authorities of the time got bored of the spectacle of people, animals and infernal chimeras killing one another. After that, the amphitheater was supposed to be rebuilt into a fortress, but that never got off the ground; they never found an enemy capable of threatening the capital of the all-powerful Second Empire.

  When the carriage stopped on the square in front of the hippodrome, I stepped out onto the reddish granite paving stones and threw back my head, surveying the gloomy building, its gray severity broken up only by a great many flags and colorful streamers.

  Stone towers, arches, passages, raised walls – the amphitheater was not a fortress, but it also was not inferior to ancient defensives structures in any way. And it was hard to say how its fate would have turned out if the development of artillery hadn't made building such fortified constructions an utterly pointless endeavor.

  Another special feature of the hippodrome was that it lacked a name. A peculiar joke of the fallen – erect a grandiose structure that surpasses the famous colosseum of Rome in every way, but leave it nameless.

  Albert settled accounts with the cabby and headed for the ticket offices. I hurried behind him, hissing through my teeth at the pain in my sprained leg.

  "A friend of mine has a stall with all kinds of curiosities," the poet then said, "I bet we could find a cane there."

  A lanky young man in a fashionable suit with an old cane would be a spectacle you could call comical without any exaggeration, so I shook my head categorically.

  "It's not worth it!"

  "As you say," Albert did not insist and pointed at the dirigible hovering over the arena. "Shall we take a place at the very top?"

  "I appreciate your sense of humor," I grumbled in reply, "but it's beginning to tire me today."

  "You can't seriously tell me you can't scrape together a measly fifteen franks for a ticket, right?"

  "I am quite serious!"

  The poet laughed uncontrollably.

  "Let's go, Leopold! Let's go! We'll try to catch luck by the tail!"

  I was in no way preparing to place the last of my advance on the races and followed after my friend, thinking in confusion on where in the hell I had gotten the idea to visit this betting parlor. The wind from the ocean was, of course, nice, but it was hardly likely that anyone other than me would come here just to get fresh air.

  And there were more than enough spectators at the races. In one long file, they stretched out into one of the gates. Through another, they formed a jumbled mass – disenchanted, emotional and hoarse from screaming – they poured in and spread out through the area. The causeway on the other side was strewn with little tickets from bum bets.

  And, naturally, there were nimble boys scurrying about throughout the crowd as well. No, not young pickpockets, but little vendors, selling anything and everything: newspapers, beer, sandwiches, gossip...

  "Monstrous crime!" one of them chirped, shaking a fresh release of the Atlantic Telegraph. "Horrible murder!"

  I shuddered, expecting to hear about the muse, but the boy took in a full chest of air and sputtered out at the speed of a machine gun:

  "Procrustes has returned! Mangled corpse! Body parts ripped out! Get your papers here! Procrustes has returned!"

  What?! Procrustes had returned?! The paper boys were fanning the flames of a sensation again, raking up the affairs of days long past.

  Albert Brandt immediately slipped the boy a ten-centime coin and set about looking over the top headline with interest.

  "There it is!" He just whistled. "Stunning!"

  Not able to hold back, I followed the poet's example and also bought a newspaper, but opened it straight to the police blotter page. Squeezed out by the unexpected gruesome murder, the story about the deaths in the art world was way in the back, and it didn't show my picture, or even mention my name.

  I remembered Bastian Moran's remark on my excessive vanity, nervously crumpled up the paper and threw it into a waste-paper basket in annoyance. It didn't land in the basket, but I didn't go pick it up either.

  To hell with it! Let it get lost for all I care!

  "Well, shall we go?" I gave a jerk to Albert, who was distracted by the paper.

  "Wait!" he waved. "Procrustes has returned! Can you imagine?"

  "You put too much faith in paper boys!"

  "Puddles of blood! Body parts ripped out!" Albert wouldn't even think of toning it down. "Do you know, Leo, you were too little, but I used to follow the news on Procrustes with great interest. This has all the hallmarks of his work!"

  Procrustes was the name the newsmen had given to a murderer, who used to tear his victims apart with his bare hands. Any new crime by him was sure to cause a huge echo in society, and newspapers had been releasing flashy headlines like that for many years now: "Monstrous Slaughter!" or "Procrustes gives Police the Runaround!"

  The murders happened every six months or even a bit more often, but the investigators didn't even get a millimeter closer to figuring out who it was in all that time. Then, Procrustes simply disappeared.

  Died.

  "Forget it, Albert!" I cut my friend off. "He died a long time ago. How many years has it been since you've heard anything about him, six? Seven? It's been too long!"

  The poet could only wave it off.

  "Werewolves never stop! He is not capable of overcoming his animal nature!" he announced matter-of-factly. "A long break? And why not? Procrustes might have been out of town. But now, he's back!"

  "He also might have died," I noted reasonably, "and the paper boys are trying to squeeze blood from a stone. I'd bet on that one."

  "How do you like my poem Inhabitant of the Night?" Albert seemed not to have heard me. "If Procrustes really has returned, that would be quite the hot topic."

  "You'll make a laughing stock of yourself," I warned and extended a crumpled fiver under the ticket window. "Two tickets, if you would," then turned to the poet and advised him: "Better throw that foolishness out of your mind..."

  Albert answered with a glance full of skepticism and carefully rolled his newspaper up into a tube.

  "You haven't convinced me."

  "You'll be sorry."

  "Don't fight it, old buddy. It's a gold mine!"

  Bickering, we walked under the raised arch and, there Albert ran straight off to place bets. I decided against throwing my money to the wind and, feigning carelessness, leaned on my elbows against the stone stairway banister, waiting for my friend. Actually, though, I was simply giving my weary legs a rest.

  Then suddenly, a shiver ran up my spine as if a draft had managed to go straight up my jacket. It was a stiff breeze and thorny like a thistle bush.

  I turned around without delay, shifted the loop of my glasses down to the very tip of my nose and looked at the people walking past above my darkened lenses. I didn't notice anything suspicious and was already preparing to put my glasses back in place when I suddenly caught a strange shadow coming off one of the viewers' shoulders with the corner of my eye. It would sometimes dissolve into an indistinct mirage, and sometimes take on a certain share of definition, but my gaze could never catch it no matter what I did.

  I immediately rushed off after the unfamiliar man and, without the slightest doubt, would have caught him, if I hadn't twisted the foot on my sprained leg. But then, as I groaned in pain and restored my balance, the strange gentleman had already fled from my sight, and I felt Albert grabbing me.

  "Leo!" he grew surprised. "Where are you going?"

  "Nowhere now," I winced, having realized that I couldn't remember the uncanny stranger's face, or even clothing.

  Anyway, what would I have said to him? "Hey! You've got a shadow on your shoulder!?"

  Nonsense!

  "Let's go!" The poet hurried me on. "The race is starting!"

  In one of his hands, he was squeezing a pile of little bet tickets, and in the other there was a rented pair of theater binoculars. Seeing that, it became clear that Albert was firm in his intention to spend t
his time as best he could; not even a trace remained of his earlier skepticism.

  We walked through into the hippodrome and went up the stairs, which had been worn down for centuries, until we reached the second deck. There were plenty of viewers up here too, but the huge size of the amphitheater meant that it was still not hard to find a free seat; the ancients built in style, you could not take that away from them.

  A huge field spread out before us; in the middle, there was green grass. Around it, there stretched the oval of a racetrack. At the same time, you could have a half dozen other athletic competitions here. It wasn't for nothing that Baron de Coubertin had insisted on holding the Third Olympic Games precisely in New Babylon.

  The pandemonium that reigned over it now was fairly extreme...

  The sky, as before, was blanketed with a gray sheet of clouds, so Albert waved off a parasol offered to him by an old man, sat on the stone bench and took out his flask. He removed the stopper, and the subtle aroma of calvados drifted up to my nose.

  I took the yellowed ivory binoculars from the poet and craned my neck, looking at the dirigible hovering over the arena. Despite the gusts of wind, it was staying in one place as if it had been glued there; the whole hippodrome must have been as easy to see from there as the palm of your hand.

  "The horses run on the ground, not in the sky," Albert reminded me, taking another gulp.

  "I am aware," I grumbled and handed over the VIP theater glasses.

  Elizabeth-Maria von Nalz was sitting there, hand-in-hand with the nephew of the Minister of Justice, a doughy young man in a suit worth six times what mine was. My heart began to groan as if it had been pierced with a rusty needle.

  "The horses don't run in the skyboxes for the mucky-mucks either," the poet chuckled, following my gaze.

  I tore myself from the binoculars, looking expressively at my friend and asked:

  "Did you bet a lot of money?"

  "What does it matter to you?" Albert flared up, hurt to the quick by my insinuation. "I mean, I'll make it all back right now just from Admiral. He'll definitely come in first!"

  "So, he's the reliable favorite? Who gave you the tip?"