The Diamond Chariot

by Boris Akunin

  And now this.

  The mark was taken over from an agent of the Moscow Flying Squad at 7.25 at the railway station. The accompanying agent (Detective Gnatiuk) stated that on the way Twitchy had not spoken with anyone and had only left his compartment to answer calls of nature.

  Having taken over the mark, we followed him in two cabs to the Bunting Building on Nadezhdinskaya Street, where Twitchy walked up to the fourth floor, to apartment No. 7, from which he never emerged again. Apartment No. 7 is rented by a certain Zwilling, a resident of Helsingfors, who only appears here very rarely (according to the yard keeper the last time was at the beginning of winter).

  At 12.38 the mark summoned the yard keeper with the bell. Agent Maximenko went up to him, disguised as the yard keeper. Twitchy gave him a rouble and told him to buy bread, salami and two bottles of beer. There was apparently no one in the flat apart from him.

  When he brought the order, Maximenko was given the change (17 kop.) as a tip. He observed that the mark was extremely nervous. As if he was waiting for someone or something.

  At 3.15 an army officer who has been given the code name ‘Kalmyk’ appeared. (A staff captain with the collar tabs of the Supply Department, a limp on his right leg, short, high cheekbones, black hair.)

  He went up to apartment No. 7, but came down 4 minutes later and set off in the direction of Basseinaya Street. Agent Maximenko was dispatched to follow him.

  Twitchy did not emerge from the entrance of the building. At 3.31 he walked over to the window and stood there, looking into the yard, then walked away.

  At this moment Maximenko has still not returned.

  I am presently (8 o’clock in the evening) handing over the surveillance detail to Senior Agent Goltz.

  Sen. Agent Smurov

  Short and clear, apparently.

  Short enough, certainly, but damn all about it was clear.

  An hour and a half ago Evstratii Pavlovich, having only just received the report cited above, also received a phone call from the police station on Basseinaya Street. He was informed that a man had been found dead in the courtyard of a building on Mitavsky Lane, with documents that identified him as Flying Squad agent Vasilii Maximenko. In less than ten minutes the court counsellor himself had arrived at the scene of the incident and ascertained that it really was Maximenko. There were absolutely no signs of violent death, nor any traces of a struggle or of any disorder in the agent’s clothing. The highly experienced medical expert, Karl Stepanovich, had said immediately that all the signs indicated heart failure.

  Well, of course, Mylnikov was upset for a while, he even shed a tear for the old comrade with whom he had served shoulder to shoulder for ten years – the number of scrapes they’d been through together! And, as a matter of fact, Vasilii had even been involved in the winning of the Order of Vladimir that had led to the genesis of a new noble line.

  In May the previous year, a secret message had been received from the consul in Hong Kong, saying that four Japanese disguised as businessmen were making their way towards the Suez Canal – that is, to the city of Aden. Only they were not businessmen at all, but naval officers: two minelayers and two divers. They intended to place underwater bombs along the route of cruisers from the Black Sea Squadron that had been dispatched to the Far East.

  Evstratii Pavlovich had taken six of his best agents, all of them genuine wolfhounds (including the now-deceased Maximenko), skipped across to Aden and there, in the bazaar, disguised as sailors on a spree, they had started a knife fight: they carved the Jappos to shreds and dumped their luggage in the bay. The cruisers had got through without a single hitch. True, those lousy macaques had smashed them to pieces afterwards anyway but, like they say, that wasn’t down to us, was it?

  This was the kind of colleague the state counsellor had lost. And not even in some rollicking adventure, but from a heart attack.

  After giving instructions concerning the mortal remains, Mylnikov went back to his office on Fontanka Street and reread the report about Twitchy, and something started bothering him. He dispatched Lenka Zyablikov, a very bright young lad, to Nadezhdinskaya Street, to check Apartment No. 7.

  And then what came up? Well, the old wolfhound’s nose hadn’t led him astray.

  Zyablikov had phoned just ten minutes ago, talked about this and that, said how he’d dressed up as a plumber, and started ringing and knocking at No. 7 – no answer. Then he opened the door with a picklock.

  Twitchy was dangling in a noose, by the window, from the curtain rail. All the signs indicated suicide: no bruises or abrasions, paper and a pencil on a chair, as if the man had been going to write a farewell note, but changed his mind.

  Evstratii Pavlovich had listened to the agent’s agitated jabbering and ordered him to wait for the group of experts to arrive, then sat down at the desk and started drawing the crest – to clear his mind and, even more importantly, to calm his nerves.

  Just recently the court counsellor’s nerves hadn’t been worth a rotten damn. The medical diagnosis read: ‘General neurasthenia resulting from excessive fatigue; enlargement of the pericardium; congestion of the lungs and partial damage to the spinal cord that might pose the threat of paralysis’. Paralysis! You had to pay for everything in this life, and the price was usually much higher than you expected.

  So here he was, a hereditary nobleman, the head of a supremely important section in the Department of Police, with an annual salary of six thousand roubles – and never mind the salary, he had a budget of thirty thousand to use entirely at his own discretion, every functionary’s dream. But without his health, what good was all the gold in the world to him now? Evstratii Pavlovich was tormented by insomnia every night, and if he ever did fall asleep, that was even worse: bad dreams, ghoulish visions, with the devil’s work in them. He woke in a cold sweat, with his teeth chattering wildly. He kept thinking he could see something stirring repulsively in the corners and hear someone chuckling indistinctly, but derisively, or that ‘someone’ might suddenly start howling. In his sixth decade Mylnikov, the scourge of terrorists and foreign spies, had started sleeping with a lighted icon lamp. For the sanctity of it, and to keep away the darkness in the nooks and crannies. All those steep hills had nigh on knackered the old horse …

  The previous year he had applied to retire – and why not, he had a bit of money put by, and a little homestead bought, in a fine area for mushrooms, out on the Gulf of Finland. And then this war happened. The head of the Special Section, the director of the Department and the minister himself had implored him: Don’t betray us, Evstratii Pavlovich, don’t abandon us in dangerous times like these. You can’t refuse!

  The court counsellor forced himself to focus his thoughts on more pressing matters. He tugged on his long Zaporozhian Cossack moustache, then drew two circles on the paper, a wavy line between them and a question mark up above.

  Two little facts, each on its own more or less clear.

  So, Maximenko had died, his overworked heart had given out under the stresses and strains of the service. It happened.

  Honorary citizen Komarovsky, whoever the hell he was (the Moscow lads had picked up his trail the day before yesterday at a secret Socialist Revolutionary meeting place), had hanged himself. That happened with some neurasthenic revolutionaries too.

  But for two existences that were to some degree interconnected, two, so to speak, intersecting earthly vales, both to be broken off abruptly and simultaneously? That was too queer by half. Evstratii Pavlovich had only the vaguest idea of what an earthly vale was, but he liked the sound of the words – he had often imagined himself wandering through life as just such a vale, narrow and tortuous, squeezed in between bleak, rocky cliffs.

  Who was this Kalmyk? Why did he go to see Twitchy – on business or, perhaps, by mistake (he was only there for four minutes)? And what took Maximenko into a dead-end courtyard?

  Oh, Mylnikov didn’t like this Kalmyk at all. He was more like the Angel of Death than a plain staff captain (the co
urt counsellor crossed himself at the thought); he left one man, and he promptly hanged himself; another man followed the Kalmyk, and he died a dog’s death in a filthy passageway.

  Mylnikov tried to draw a slant-eyed Kalmyk face beside the crest, but the likeness turned out poorly – he didn’t have the knack of it.

  Ah, Kalmyk-Kalmyk, where are you now?

  And Staff Captain Rybnikov, so accurately nicknamed by the agents (his face really was rather Kalmykish), was spending the evening of this troublesome day hurrying and scurrying more intensely than ever.

  After the incident on Mitavsky Lane, he dropped into a telegraph office and sent off two messages: one was local, to the Kolpino railway station, the other was long-distance, to Irkutsk, and he quarrelled with the telegraph clerk over the rate – he was outraged that they took ten kopecks a word for telegrams to Irkutsk. The clerk explained that telegraphic communications to the Asiatic part of the empire were charged at a double rate, and he even showed Rybnikov the price list, but the staff captain simply wouldn’t listen.

  ‘What do you mean, it’s Asia?’ he howled, gazing around plaintively. ‘Gentlemen, did you hear what he said about Irkutsk? Why, it’s a magnificent city, Europe, the genuine article! Oh, yes! You haven’t been there, so don’t you talk, but I served three unforgettable years there! What do you make of this, gents? It’s daylight robbery!’

  After raising a ruckus, Vasilii Alexandrovich moved to the queue for the international window and sent a telegram to Paris, at the urgent rate, that is to say, all of thirty kopecks for a word, but he behaved quietly here, without waxing indignant.

  After that the irrepressible staff captain hobbled off to the Nicholas station, where he arrived just in time for the departure of the nine o’clock express.

  He tried to buy a second-class ticket, but the ticket office didn’t have any.

  ‘Sorry, it’s not my fault,’ Rybnikov informed the queue with obvious satisfaction. ‘I’ll have to travel in third, even though I am an officer. Government business, I’ve no right not to go. Here’s six roubles. My ticket, please.’

  ‘There’s no more places in third class,’ the booking clerk replied. ‘There are places in first, for fifteen roubles.’

  ‘How much?’ Vasilii Alexandrovich gasped. ‘My father’s not called Rothschild, you know! If you’re really interested, I happen to be an orphan!’

  They started explaining to him that there weren’t enough places, that the number of passenger trains to Moscow had been reduced because of the military traffic. And even that one ticket in first class had only become free by sheer chance, just two minutes ago. A lady had wanted to travel in a compartment alone, but this was forbidden by decree of the director of the line, and the passenger had been forced to return the extra ticket.

  ‘Well, are you taking it or not?’ the booking clerk asked impatiently.

  Cursing plaintively, the staff captain bought the hugely expensive ticket, but he demanded ‘a paper with a seal’ stating that there hadn’t been any cheaper tickets available. They barely managed to get rid of him by sending him off to the duty station supervisor for a ‘paper’, but the staff captain didn’t go to him, instead he called into the left luggage office.

  There he retrieved a cheap-looking suitcase and a long, narrow tube, the kind used for carrying blueprints.

  And then it was already time to go to the platform, because they were ringing the first bell.

  The third syllable, in which Vasilii Alexandrovich visits the WC

  There was a lady passenger sitting in the first-class compartment – presumably the one who had been prevented from travelling in solitude by the rules of the railway.

  The staff captain greeted her glumly, evidently still smarting over his fifteen roubles. He hardly even glanced at his travelling companion, although the lady was good-looking – in fact more than merely good-looking, she was quite exceptionally attractive: a delicate watercolour face, huge moist eyes behind a misty veil, an elegant travelling suit in a mother-of-pearl hue.

  The lovely stranger took no interest in Rybnikov either. In reply to his ‘hello’ she nodded coldly, cast a single brief glance over her companion’s common features, his baggy uniform tunic and gingerish scuffed boots and turned away towards the window.

  The second bell pealed out.

  The female passenger’s delicately defined nostrils started fluttering. Her lips whispered:

  ‘Ah, get a move on, do!’ but the exclamation was clearly not addressed to her companion in the compartment.

  Newspaper boys dashed, gabbling, along the corridor – one from the respectable Evening Russia, the other from the sleazy Russian Assembly. They were both howling at the tops of their voices, trying to out-yell each other.

  ‘Woeful news of the drama in the Sea of Japan!’ called the first one, straining his lungs to bursting point. ‘Russian fleet burned and sunk!’

  The second one yelled: ‘Famous “Moscow Daredevils” gang strikes in Petersburg! High society lady undressed!’

  ‘First lists of the dead. Numerous names dear to all hearts! The whole country will be weeping!’

  ‘Countess N. put out of a carriage in the costume of Eve! The bandits knew she had jewels hidden under her dress!’

  The staff captain bought Evening Russia with its huge black border of mourning and the lady bought Russian Assembly, but before they could start reading, the door burst open, and in charged a huge bouquet of roses that wouldn’t fit through the frame, immediately filling the compartment with unctuous fragrance.

  Protruding above the rosebuds was a handsome man’s face with a well-groomed imperial and a curled moustache. A diamond pin glinted and sparkled on his necktie.

  ‘Anddd who is thissss!’ the new arrival exclaimed, eyeing Rybnikov intently, and his black eyebrows slid upwards menacingly, but after only a second the handsome fellow had had his fill of observing the staff captain’s unprepossessing appearance and lost all interest in him, after which he did not deign to notice him again.

  ‘Lycia!’ he exclaimed, falling to his knees and throwing the bouquet at the lady’s feet. ‘I love only you, with all my heart and soul! Forgive me, I implore you! You know my temperament! I am a man of sudden enthusiasms, I am an artiste.’

  It was easy to see that he was an artiste. The owner of the imperial was not at all embarrassed by his audience – in addition to the staff captain glancing out from behind his Evening Russia, this interesting scene was also being observed by spectators in the corridor, attracted by the mind-numbing scent of the roses and the sonorous lamentations.

  Nor did the lovely lady’s nerve fail her in front of an audience.

  ‘It’s over, Astralov!’ she declared wrathfully, throwing back her veil to reveal her glittering eyes. ‘And don’t you dare show up in Moscow!’ She waved aside the hands extended in supplication. ‘No, no, I won’t even listen!’

  Then the penitent did something rather strange: without rising from his knees, he folded his hands together on his chest and started singing in a deep, truly magical baritone:

  ‘Una furtive lacrima negli occhi suoi spunto …’

  The lady turned pale and put her hands over her ears, but the divine voice filled the entire compartment and flowed far beyond – the entire carriage fell silent, listening.

  Donizetti’s entrancing melody was cut short by the particularly long and insistent trilling of the third bell.

  The conductor glanced in at the door:

  ‘All those seeing off passengers please alight immediately, we are departing. Sir, it’s time!’ he said, touching the singer’s elbow.

  The singer dashed over to Rybnikov:

  ‘Let me have the ticket! I’ll give you a hundred roubles! This is a drama of a broken heart! Five hundred!’

  ‘Don’t you dare let him have the ticket!’ the lady shouted.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ the staff captain replied firmly to the artiste. ‘I would gladly, but it’s urgent government business.’
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  The conductor dragged Astralov, in floods of tears, out into the corridor.

  The train set off. There was a despairing shout from the platform:

  ‘Lycia! I’ll do away with myself! Forgive me!’

  ‘Never!’ the flushed lady passenger shouted, and flung the magnificent bouquet out of the window, showering the little table with scarlet petals.

  She fell back limply on to the seat, covered her face with her fingers and burst into sobs.

  ‘You are a noble man,’ she said through her sobbing. ‘You refused his money! I’m so grateful to you! I would have jumped out of the window, I swear I would!’

  Rybnikov muttered:

  ‘Five hundred roubles is huge money. I don’t earn a third of that, not even with mess and travelling allowances. But I’ve got my job to do. The top brass won’t excuse lateness …’

  ‘Five hundred roubles he offered, the buffoon!’ the lady exclaimed, not listening to him. ‘Preening his feathers for his audience! But he’s really so mean, such an economiser!’ She pronounced the final word with boundless contempt and even stopped sobbing, then added: ‘Refuses to live according to his means.’

  Intrigued by the logical introduction inherent in this statement, Vasilii Alexandrovich asked:

  ‘Begging your pardon, but I don’t quite understand. Is he thrifty or does he lives beyond his means?’

  ‘His means are huge, but he lives too far within them!’ his travelling companion explained, no longer crying, but anxiously examining her slightly reddened nose in a little mirror. She dabbed at it with a powder puff and adjusted a lock of golden hair beside her forehead. ‘Last year he earned almost a hundred thousand, but he barely spent even half of it. He puts it all away “for a rainy day”!’