The Diamond Chariot

by Boris Akunin

  The engineer took out of his pocket a beautiful small, flat pistol, manufactured to order at the Browning factory in Belgium, and tugged on the breech. His valet demonstratively turned away.

  Well then, come on, Erast Petrovich thought to himself, trying to hurry the Poles along, and sighed – there was not much hope that Danilov’s fine eagles would take anyone alive. But never mind, at least one of the villains had to stay with the horses. The lucky man would escape a gendarme’s bullet and fall into Fandorin’s hands.

  The discussions ended. But instead of moving towards the doors of the administration building or straight to the gates, the saboteurs got back into their carriages, cracked their whips and all three carriages dashed away from the depot, picking up speed, in the direction of Dobraya Sloboda.

  Had they noticed something? Had they changed their plan?

  Erast Petrovich ran out of the gateway.

  The carriages had already disappeared round the corner.

  The engineer pulled his splendid coat off his shoulders and set off at a run in the same direction.

  His servant picked up the abandoned coat and jogged after him, puffing and panting.

  When Lieutenant Colonel Danilov and his gendarmes darted out on to the porch, Novo-Basmannaya Street was already empty. The sound of hoofbeats had faded into the distance, and the moon was shining placidly in the sky.

  It turned out that Erast Petrovich Fandorin, a responsible member of a highly serious government agency, a man no longer in the prime of youth, could not only shin up telephone poles, but could also run at a quite fantastic speed, while making no sound and remaining virtually invisible – he ran close to the walls, where the shadows of night were thickest of all, skirting round the patches of moonlight or vaulting over them with a prodigious leap. More than anything else, the engineer resembled a phantom, careering along the dark street on some otherworldly business of his own. It was a good thing he didn’t run into anybody out walking late – the poor devil would have been in for a serious shock.

  Fandorin caught up with the carriages quite soon. After that he started running more gently, in order to keep his distance.

  The pursuit, however, did not continue for long.

  The carriages halted behind the Von-Dervizov Grammar School for Girls. They were parked wheel to wheel, and one of the drivers gathered all the reins into a bundle, while the other seven men set off towards a two-storey building with a glass display window.

  One of them fiddled with the door for a moment, then waved his hand, and the whole group disappeared inside.

  Erast Petrovich stuck his head out from round the corner, trying to work out how to creep up on the driver, who was standing on his box, gazing around vigilantly in all directions. All the approaches were brightly lit by the moon.

  At this point Masa came panting up. Realising from Fandorin’s expression that his master was about to take decisive action, he threw his false pigtail over his shoulder and whispered angrily in Japanese:

  ‘I shall only intervene if the supporters of His Majesty are going to kill you. But if you start killing the supporters of His Majesty the Mikado, then do not count on my help.’

  ‘Oh, drop it,’ Erast Petrovich replied in Russian. ‘Don’t get in my way.’

  There was a muffled scream from the house. No further delay was possible.

  The engineer ran soundlessly to the nearest lamp-post and hid behind it. He was now only ten paces away from the driver.

  Taking a monogrammed cigar case out of his pocket, Fandorin tossed it away from him.

  The driver started at the jingling sound and turned his back to the lamppost.

  That was exactly what was required. Fandorin covered the distance between them in three bounds, jumped up on to the footboard and pressed the driver’s neck. The driver went limp, and the engineer carefully laid him out on the cobblestones, beside the inflated tyres.

  From here he could make out the sign hanging above the door.

  ‘IOSIF BARANOV. DIAMOND, GOLD AND SILVER ITEMS,’ the engineer read, and muttered:

  ‘I don’t understand a thing.’

  He ran up to the window and glanced in – he could make out the glow of several electric torches in the shop, but it was still dark inside, with only agile shadows darting about. Suddenly the interior was illuminated by an unbearably bright glow, a rain of fiery sparks scattered in all directions, and Fandorin could make out glass counters with men scurrying along them and the door of a safe, with a man leaning over it, holding a blowtorch – the very latest model. Erast Petrovich had seen one like it in a picture in a French magazine.

  A man who looked like the nightwatchman had been tied up and was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall: his mouth was covered with sticking plaster, blood was flowing from a wound where he had been hit over the head, and his frantic eyes were glaring wildly at the satanic flame.

  ‘What has the Japanese secret service c-come to?’ exclaimed Fandorin, turning to his valet, who had just walked up. ‘Can Japan really be so short of money?’

  ‘The servants of His Majesty the Mikado do not stear,’ replied Masa, surveying the picturesque scene. ‘These are bandits. “Moscow Daredevirs” – I read about them in the newspaper; they make raids in automobiles or fast carriages – they very fond of progress.’ The Japanese servant’s face lit up in a smile. ‘That’s good! Master, I can herp you!’

  Erast Petrovich himself had already realised that he was the victim of a misunderstanding – he had mistaken ordinary Warsaw bandits on tour in Moscow for saboteurs. All that time had been wasted for nothing!

  But what about the dark-haired man, the passenger from compartment number six, who had fled the scene of the catastrophe in such a suspicious manner?

  That’s very simple, the engineer replied to his own question. A daring robbery was committed two days ago in St Petersburg, all the newspapers wrote about it in purple prose. An unidentified individual in a mask stopped the carriage of Countess Vorontsova, robbed Her Excellency, quite literally, of her last thread of clothing and left her there in the road, naked apart from her hat. The spicy part was that the countess had quarrelled with her husband that very evening, and she was moving to her parents’ house, secretly taking all her jewels with her. No wonder Lisitsky said that the inhabitants of the dacha called the dark-haired man ‘a real daredevil’ – he had pulled off the job in St Petersburg and got back here in time for the Moscow operation.

  If not for his bitter disappointment and annoyance with himself, Erast Petrovich would probably not have interfered in a mere criminal case, but his fury demanded an outlet – and he felt sorry for the nightwatchman – what if they slit his throat?

  ‘Take them when they start coming out,’ he whispered to his servant. ‘One for you, one for me.’

  Masa nodded and licked his lips.

  But fate decreed otherwise.

  ‘Nix it, gents!’ someone shouted desperately – he must have seen the two shadows outside the window.

  In an instant the acetylene glow went out and instead of it a crimson-red gunshot came crashing out of the pitch darkness.

  Fandorin and his Japanese valet jumped in opposite directions with perfect synchronisation. The shop window shattered with a deafening jangle.

  They carried on firing from the shop, but it was already completely pointless.

  ‘Whoever jumps out is yours,’ the engineer jabbered rapidly.

  He crouched down, rolled agilely over the windowsill covered with shards of glass and dissolved into the dark entrails of the shop.

  From inside came the sounds of men yelling and cursing in Russian and Polish, and short, sharp blows. Every so often the room was lit up by the flashes of shots.

  A man in a check cap came flying out of the door with his head pulled down into his shoulders. Masa caught the fugitive with an uppercut and laid him out with a blow to the nape of the neck. He rapidly tied him up and dragged him over to the carriages, where the driver Fando
rin had half throttled was lying.

  Soon another one jumped out through the window and took to his heels without looking back. The Japanese easily overtook him, grabbed him by the wrist and twisted it gently. The bandit squealed and hunched over in pain.

  ‘Easy, easy,’ Masa coaxed his prisoner as he quickly tied his wrists to his ankles with his belt.

  He carried him over to the other two and went back to his original position.

  There was no more noise from inside the shop. Masa heard Fandorin’s voice.

  ‘One, two, three, four … where’s number five? Ah, there he is – five. Masa, how many have you got?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘That tallies.’

  Erast Petrovich thrust his head out through the rectangle rimmed with barbs of glass.

  ‘Run to the depot and bring the gendarmes. And quick about it, or this lot will come round and we’ll be off again.’

  The servant ran off in the direction of Novo-Basmannaya Street.

  Fandorin untied the watchman and gave him a few slaps on the cheeks to bring him to his senses. But the watchman didn’t want to come to his senses – he muttered and screwed up his eyes, quivered and hiccupped. In medical terms it was called ‘shock’.

  While Erast Petrovich was rubbing his temples and feeling for a nerve point just below his collarbone, the stunned bandits began to stir.

  One muscly hulk, who had taken an impeccable blow to the chin from a shoe only five minutes earlier, sat up on the floor and started shaking his head. Fandorin had to leave the hiccupping watchman in order to give the reanimated bandit a second helping.

  No sooner had that one dived nose first into the floor than another one came round, got up on all fours and started crawling nimbly towards the door. Erast Petrovich dashed after him and stunned him.

  A third one was already stirring in the corner, and things were also getting confused out on the street, where Masa had arranged his bandit ikebana: by the light of the street lamp Fandorin could see the driver trying to unfasten the knot on one of his partner’s elbows with his teeth. It occurred to Fandorin that now he was like a clown in a circus who has thrown several balls up in the air and doesn’t know how he’s going to deal with them all. While he’s picking one up off the floor, the others come showering down.

  He dashed to the corner. A dark-haired bandit (could it be Yuzek himself?) had not only come round, he had already managed to take out a knife. A quick blow, and another one to make sure. The bandit lay down.

  Then a rapid dash to the carriages – before those three could crawl away.

  Damn it, where had Masa got to?

  But Fandorin’s valet had not managed to reach Lieutenant Colonel Danilov, who was hanging about cluelessly with his men at the Varvarin Company building.

  At the very first corner an agile fellow flung himself under Masa’s feet and another two fell on him from above, twisting his arms behind his back.

  Masa growled and even tried to bite, but they had his arms twisted tightly, in true professional style.

  ‘Evstratii Pavlovich! We’ve got one! A Chink! Tell us, Chinky, where’s the shooting?’

  They pulled Masa’s pigtail and the wig flew off his head.

  ‘He’s in disguise!’ the same voice shouted triumphantly. ‘But he’s a slanty-eyed git all right, a Jap! A spy, Evstratii Pavlovich!’

  Another man, wearing a bowler hat, walked up and praised his men.

  ‘Good lads.’

  He leaned down to Masa.

  ‘Good evening to you, Your Japanese Honour. I’m Court Counsellor Mylnikov, Special Section, Department of Police. What’s your name and rank?’

  The prisoner tried to give the court counsellor a vicious kick on the shin, but he missed. Then he started hissing and cursing in some foreign tongue.

  ‘No point in swearing,’ Evstratii Pavlovich rebuked him. ‘You’re caught now, so you can stop chirping. You must be an officer of the Japanese general staff, a nobleman? I’m a nobleman too. So let’s deal honestly with each other. What were you up to here? What’s all this shooting and running about? Give me a light here, Kasatkin.’

  The yellow circle of electric light picked out a narrow-eyed face contorted in fury and a head of short-cropped, shiny black hair.

  Mylnikov started babbling in confusion:

  ‘Why, it’s … How do you do, Mr Masa …’

  ‘Rong time, no see,’ hissed Fandorin’s valet.

  The third syllable, in which Rybnikov gets into a jam

  In recent months Vasilii Alexandrovich Rybnikov (now Sten) had lived a feverish, nervous life, dealing with hundreds of different matters every day and getting no more than two hours’ sleep a night (which, however, was quite enough for him – he always woke as fresh as a daisy). But the telegram of congratulations he had received the morning after the crash at the Tezoimenitsky Bridge had relieved the former staff captain of routine work, allowing him to concentrate completely on his two main missions or, as he thought of them, ‘projects’.

  The brand-new Reuters correspondent did everything that needed to be done at the preliminary stage in the first two days.

  In preparation for the main ‘project’ (this involved the onward delivery of a large consignment of certain goods), it was sufficient to send the consignee with the frivolous name of Thrush a letter by the municipal post, telling him to expect delivery in one or two weeks, everything else as formerly agreed.

  The second ‘project’, which was of secondary importance, but even so very significant indeed, also required very little fuss or bother. In addition to the aforementioned telegrams to Samara and Krasnoyarsk, Vasilii Alexandrovich ordered from a glass-blowing workshop two slim spirals to match a drawing that he supplied, whispering confidentially to the receiving clerk that they were parts of an alcohol purification device for home use.

  By inertia or as a pendant, so to speak, to his hectic life in Peter, Rybnikov spent another day or two running round the military institutions of Moscow, where a correspondent’s calling card ensured him access to all sorts of well-informed individuals – everyone knows how we love the foreign press. The self-styled reporter discovered a great deal of curious and even semi-confidential information, which, when properly assembled and analysed, became completely confidential. After that, however, Rybnikov thought better of it and put an end to all his interviewing. In comparison with the projects that he had been charged to carry out, this was petty business, and there was no point in taking any risks for it.

  With an effort of will, Vasilii Alexandrovich suppressed the itch for action that had been developed by long habit and forced himself to spend more time at home. Patience and the need to remain in a state of quiescence are a severe trial for a man who is not used to sitting still for a single minute, but even here Rybnikov proved up to the challenge.

  He transformed himself in an instant from an energetic, active individual into a sybarite who sat in his armchair at the window for hours at a stretch and strolled around his apartment in a dressing gown. The new rhythm of his life coincided perfectly with the regimen of the carefree inhabitants of ‘Saint-Saëns’, who woke up at about midday and strolled round the house in curlers and carpet slippers until seven in the evening.

  Vasilii Alexandrovich established a wonderful relationship with the girls in no time at all. On the first day the young ladies were still uncertain of the new boarder, and so they made eyes at him, but very soon the rumour spread that he was Beatrice’s sweetheart, and the tentative romantic approaches ceased immediately. On the second day ‘Vasenka’ had already become a general favourite. He treated the girls to sweets and listened to their tittle-tattle with interest and, in addition to that, he tinkled on the piano, crooning sentimental romances in a pleasant, slightly mawkish tenor.

  Rybnikov really was interested in spending time with the girls at the boarding house. He had discovered that their tittle-tattle, if correctly directed, could be every bit as useful as dashing from one fake intervie
w to another. Countess Bovada’s boarding house was a substantial establishment, men of position visited it. Sometimes they discussed work matters with each other in the salon and later on, in a separate room, when they were in a tender and affectionate mood, they might let slip something absolutely intriguing. They must have assumed that the empty-headed young ladies would not understand anything anyway. And indeed, the girls were certainly no match for Sophia Kovalevskaya when it came to intellect, but they had retentive memories and they were terribly fond of gossiping.

  And so, tea parties at the piano not only helped Vasilii Alexandrovich to kill the time, they also provided a mass of useful information.

  Unfortunately, during the initial period of the staff captain’s voluntary life as a hermit, the young ladies’ imagination was totally engrossed by the sensation that had set the entire old capital buzzing. The police had finally caught the famous gang of ‘daredevils’. Everyone in Moscow was writing and talking more about this than about Tsushima. They knew that a special squad of the very finest sleuths had been sent from St Petersburg to capture the audacious bandits – and Muscovites found that flattering.

  A redheaded Manon Lescaut who went by the nickname of ‘Wafer’ was known to have been frequented by one of the ‘daredevils’, a handsome Pole and genuine fancy morsel, so now Wafer was wearing black and acting mysteriously. The other girls envied her.

  During these days Vasilii Alexandrovich several times caught himself thinking about his companion in the compartment in the train – possibly because Lidina was the total opposite of the sentimental but coarse-spirited inhabitants of the ‘Saint-Saëns’. Rybnikov recalled Glyceria as she made a dash for the emergency brake handle, or with her pale face and bitten lip, binding up a torn artery in a wounded man’s leg with a scrap of her dress.