by Boris Akunin
The stranger bowed respectfully to Her Highness, doffed the top hat that had miraculously remained on his head throughout the commotion and introduced himself, stumbling over his words slightly, probably because he was quite understandably embarrassed to find himself facing a member of the royal family: ‘Erast P-Petrovich Fandorin.’
He did not add anything else, from which it was possible to conclude that Mr Fandorin did not hold any position in the state service and was a private individual.
‘And this is my valet, or perhaps b-butler, I’m not sure which is more correct. His name is Masa, he is Japanese,’ said Fandorin, indicating the pugnacious pedlar, who in turn bowed low from the waist and remained bent over.
So it turned out that the elegant gentleman was not embarrassed at all but simply had a slight stammer, that the Chinese was not Chinese at all, and finally that the Oriental and I were in a certain sense professional colleagues.
‘And who are these people, Erast Petrovich?’ Her Highness asked, pointing timidly to the hapless kidnappers lying completely motionless. ‘Are they unconscious?’
Before replying, the dark-haired man went to each of the four men lying on the ground in turn, felt the arteries in their necks and shook his head four times. The last one he examined was the dreadful man with the beard. Fandorin turned him over onto his back and even to me, a man totally ignorant in such matters, it was perfectly clear that he was dead – the gleam of his motionless eyes was so completely lifeless. But Fandorin leaned down lower over the body, took hold of the beard between his finger and thumb and gave it a sudden jerk.
Her Highness cried out in surprise, and such crude familiarity with death seemed indecent even to me. However, the black beard parted easily from the face andwas left in Fandorin’s hand.
I saw that the dead man’s crimson features were pitted with pockmarks and he had a forked white scar on his cheek.
‘This is the famous Warsaw bandit Lech Penderetski, also kn-known as Blizna, which means Marked One or Scar,’ Fandorin stated calmly, as if he were introducing someone he knew well, and then added, almost to himself: ‘So that’s what’s going on . . .’
‘Are all these men really dead?’ I asked, realising with a sudden shudderwhat a terrible situation the royal family could find itself in as a result of this incident. If some stroller were to peep round the corner now, the scandal that broke out would echo round the world. Just think of it . . . an attempt to kidnap a cousin of the Russian tsar! Four men killed! And some Warsaw bandit or other! The sacred solemnity of the coronation ceremony would be completely shattered!
‘We have to get them into the carriage immediately!’ I exclaimed with a fervour untypical of me in normal circumstances. ‘Will your butler consent to assist me?’
While the Japanese and I piled the bodies into the carriage, I felt terribly anxious that someone might catch us engaged in this rather disreputable activity. Everything about the business was far from customary for me. Not only was there blood flowing down my face from my bruised forehead and broken lip, I had also stained my new promenading tunic with blood that was not my own.
And so I did not hear what Her Highness and Fandorin were talking about. But to judge from her flushed cheeks, she must have been thanking the mysterious gentleman again for saving her.
‘Where is His Highness?’ I asked Mademoiselle as soon as I recovered my breath.
‘I left him in ze . . .’ She clicked her fingers, trying to remember the word, but could not. ‘Ze quayside? Ze dock for ships?’
‘The arbour,’ I prompted her. ‘Let’s go together. His Highness must be feeling very frightened.’
Beyond the bushes there was a rather extensive lawn, with a lacy white wooden arbour standing at its centre.
When we did not find Mikhail Georgievich in it, we started calling for him, thinking that the grand duke must have decided to play hide and seek with us.
Our shouts brought Fandorin. He looked around on all sides and suddenly squatted down on his haunches, examining something in the grass.
Itwas the pink Chinese sugar lollipop, which had been crushed by some heavy object, probably a heel.
‘Damn, damn, damn!’ Fandorin exclaimed, striking himself on the thigh with his fist. ‘I ought to have foreseen this!’
1 Little Red Riding Hood.
2 And she went through the forest to see her grandmother.
3 Don’t point!
4 What do you want that rubbish for?
5 I just want it that’s all.
6 Get the grand duke away!
7 I‘m coming! I’m coming!
7 May
I shall not describe the events of the evening and the night that followed His Highness’s disappearance, because in effect there were no events as such. The primary concern of those who were aware of what had happened was to keep the matter secret, and so from the outside everything appeared as if nothing had happened at all, except for the constant ringing of the telephones and the over-reckless pace at which horsemen raced round the triangle formed by the Hermitage, the Petrovsky Palace and the governor general’s residence.
All of this carefully concealed but extremely frenetic (not to say chaotic) activity produced absolutely no result, since the most important thing remained unclear: who could havewanted to kidnap His Majesty’s little cousin and why? And the mystery was not cleared up until the morning, when a letter without any stamp arrived at the Hermitage together with the ordinary municipal post – the postman himself was unable to say how it could have got into his bag in that condition.
As a result of this letter the sovereign himself, having received his grateful Asian subjects His Highness the Emir of Bukhara and His Grace the Khan of Khiva in the morning, postponed a parade at the Khodynsk Field at the last moment on the pretext of the cold and rainyweather and, accompanied only by the head of the court police, travelled in complete secret in an ordinary closed carriage with his personal valet, Seleznyov, on the coach box to join us at the Hermitage. That was when this palace in the park demonstrated the two great advantages forwhich it had received its name – its remoteness and privacy.
His Majesty’s uncle the Grand Duke Kirill Alexandrovich and the Grand Duke Simeon Alexandrovich arrived in the same conspiratorial manner: the former came alone (his butler Luka Emelianovich was on the coach box) and the latter brought his adjutant, Prince Glinsky – the horses driven by the most highly respected of all living butlers, you might call him the elder of our trade, Foma Anikeevich.
Those in our house who knew about the emergency, apart from the family, were Mademoiselle Declique and I, the Englishmen, because in any case it would have been impossible to keep it secret from them, and Lieutenant Endlung, for the same reason and also because Pavel Georgievich had no secrets from his raffish friend. I did not explain anything to the servants living in the house and merely forbade them to leave the Hermitage for any reasonwhatever. As born court servants, they did not ask any questions. And the Moscowservants lodged above the stables were told that His Highness had gone to stay at Ilinskoe, the country palace of his uncle the governor general.
Naturally, Ekaterina Ioannovna in St Petersburg was not told anything. Why alarmHer Highness unnecessarily? And until the ominous letter arrived, we all still cherished the hope that some sort of misunderstanding had occurred and Mikhail Georgievich would soon return to the Hermitage unharmed and in good health.
Need I say that I barely slept a wink that night? I had terrible visions, each one worse than the one before. I imagined that His Highness had fallen into some invisible fissure overgrown with grass, and long after midnight I drove the servants out with blazing torches to search the park once again, telling them that Xenia Georgievna had lost a diamond earring. Then when I got back to my room, I suddenly imagined that Mikhail Georgievich had fallen victim to some monster of depravity who preyed on little boys, and my teeth started chattering in fright, so that I had to take valerian drops. But of course the assumption that seemed m
ost likelywas that the grand duke had been abducted by accomplices of the man with the false beard known as Blizna or Scar. While we were fighting some of the bandits for Xenia Georgievna, others had carried off the defenceless Mikhail Georgievich – and this was made all the more likely by the discovery of apparently fresh tracks from the wheels of another carriage not far from the fateful lawn.
But even though this thought was less horrific than the ones I have already mentioned, it was still agony to me. How was His Highness feeling now, surrounded by malicious strangers? Mika, the delicate, pampered little boy who had grown up in the firm belief that everyone around him loved him and they were all his friends. He did not even know what fear was, because nothing more frightening than a gentle slap on the hindquarters had ever happened to him. His Highness was so open, so trusting!
I was afraid even to approach Mademoiselle. All evening she sat as if she had been turned to stone and did not even attempt to offer any excuses. She merely wrung her hands and bit her lips, once so hard that they bled – I saw it and wanted to give her my handkerchief, because she had not even noticed the trickle of scarlet droplets, but I decided against it, in order not to place her in an awkward situation. That night she did not sleep either – I saw light coming from under her door and heard the sound of footsteps. As soon as the Moscow chief of police, Lasovsky, had finished questioning her, Mademoiselle Declique locked herself in her room. Twice, even three times during the night I walked up to her door and listened. The governess was still pacing to and fro, as regularly as clockwork. I wanted very much to knock at the door on some pretext and tell her that no one blamed her for what had happened, and I actually admired her courage. But knocking on a lady’s door in the middle of the night is absolutely inconceivable. And in any case I would not have known how to talk to her.
The secret conference with the participation of His Majesty was held upstairs, in the small drawing room, as far away as possible from the Englishmen, who, with the tact typical of that nation, went out to walk in the garden as soon as His Majesty arrived, although the rain was simply lashing down and the weather not at all conducive to walking.
I served at the gathering. Naturally, it was quite impossible to allowany of the servants into this secret meeting, and in any case I would have regarded it as my duty and an obligation of honour to serve such brilliant company in person.
It is hard for the uninitiated to imagine the full complexity of this high art. It requires meticulous attention, unfailing deftness and – most important of all – total invisibility. It is as if one were transformed into a kind of shadow, an invisible man whom everyone very soon ceases to notice. Under no circumstances should one distract the members of an important conference with a sudden movement or sound, or even the unintentional gliding of a shadow across the table. At such moments I like to imagine that I am the disembodied master of the enchanted castle in the fairy tale The Scarlet Flower, regaling my dear guests: the drinks pour themselves into the glasses and cups; the matches flare up and are carried to the cigars without assistance from anyone; every now and then the ash that has accumulated in the ashtrays mysteriously disappears. When Simeon Alexandrovich dropped a pencil on the floor (His Highness is in the habit of constantly drawing little imps and cupids), I was on the alert. I did not crawl under the table, which would have attracted attention, but immediately handed the governor general another pencil, exactly the same, from behind his back.
I must say with some pride that not one of the participants in this highly delicate conference, which was, in a manner of speaking, crucial to the fate of the dynasty, ever once lowered his voice – in my opinion, that is the mark of supreme distinction for a servant. Of course, the conversation occasionally veered into French, but that did not happen because of me, itwas simply that on the whole it was all the same to His Majesty and Their Highnesses whether they conversed in Russian or French. If they had wished to conceal the content of one part or another of the discussion from me, they would have started talking in English since, as I have already said, very few of the old generation of court servants know that language, while almost all of them speak French. Or, more precisely, they do not speak it, but they understand it, since it would be extremely strange if I, Afanasii Ziukin, were suddenly to address a member of the royal family or a noble at court in French. One must know one’s place and not make oneself out to be something that one is not – that is the golden rule that I would recommend everyone to follow, regardless of his origins and position.
The sovereign, well-known for his patriotism, was the only one out of all those present who spoke nothing but Russian the whole time. It turned out that His Majesty remembered me from the time when I served as a table layer in the dining room of the late sovereign. Down at the entrance, before he went upstairs, the emperor was kind enough to speak to me: ‘Hello, Afanasii Stepanovich. Was it you who had the canopy with my initial hung up? It’s very beautiful, thank you.’
His Majesty’s refined courtesy and astonishing memory for names and faces arewell known. In fact, from early childhood all the grand dukes are specially trained to develop their memories – there is a special method for it – but His Majesty’s abilities in this area are truly exceptional. Once he has seen someone, the sovereign remembers them forever, and this impresses many people tremendously. On the question of courtesy, the tsar and tsarina are the only members of the royal family who address their servants formally. Perhaps this is becausewe servants, while feeling an appropriate veneration for Their Majesties, are at the same time not very—However, hush. One does not talk of such things. Or even think of them.
The sovereign was sitting at the head of the table, gloomy and taciturn. Beside his tall, well-built uncles, His Majesty appeared quite small and insignificant, almost a stripling. And what can I say about our own Georgii Alexandrovich – a real mountain of a man: handsome, portly, with a dashingly curled moustache, and dressed in a blinding white admiral’s uniform, compared with which the emperor’s modest colonel’s uniform looked rather shabby. Simeon Alexandrovich, the tallest and slimmest of the deceased sovereign’s brothers, is like a medieval Spanish grandee, with his regular features that seem carved out of ice. And the eldest, Grand Duke Kirill Alexandrovich, the commander of the Imperial Guard, may not be as handsome as his brothers, but he is truly majestic and formidable, for he inherited the celebrated basilisk stare from his father the emperor. Officers who have committed some offence have been known to faint under that gaze.
In the presence of the doyens of the royal family, the youthful Pavel Georgievich was as quiet as a mouse and as meek as a lamb, and did not even dare to smoke. Also present was the head of the court police, Colonel Karnovich, a taciturn gentleman of huge resources and very meagre sentiment. He did not even sit at the table, but found himself a place in the corner.
Waiting outside on a chair in the corridor was our rescuer of the previous day, Mr Fandorin. I had been instructed to move him into the house, and for lack of any other accommodation I had put him in the nursery, judging that this gentleman would remain in the Hermitage only until Mikhail Georgievich returned to his own room. I had planned to lodge the Japanese in the stables, but he had wanted to stay with his master. He had spent the night on the floor with a plush teddy bear under his head and, to judge from his gleaming face, had slept excellently. Fandorin himself had not gone to bed at all, but spent the whole night until dawn prowling around the park with an electric torch. I did not know if he had found anything. He did not enter into any explanations with the chief of police, let alone with me, saying only that he would report everything he knew to His Majesty the emperor in person.
This same mysterious gentleman became the subject of discussion almost immediately the meeting began, although it did not begin with discussion as such, but with reading. Everyone sitting there took turns to read (or reread) the letter that had been received, the contents of which I did not know as yet. Then they all turned towards the sovereign. I held my breath i
n order to hear the precise words with which His Majesty would open this emergency meeting. The sovereign gave an embarrassed cough, glanced round from under his brows at the faces of all present and said quietly: ‘This is appalling. Simply appalling. Uncle Kir, what shall we do now?’
The emperor had said his word, etiquette had been observed and some how of its own accord the chairmanship of the meeting moved to Kirill Alexandrovich, who had been regarded as a covert joint ruler during the previous reign and had consolidated his position even further under the new sovereign.
His Highness spoke slowly, weighing his words: ‘Above all, Nicky, self-control. How you conduct yourself will determine the fate of the dynasty. Over the next few days thousands of eyes will be trained on you, including some very, very shrewd ones. Not the slightest sign of agitation, not a hint of anxiety – do you understand me?’
The sovereign nodded uncertainly.
‘We must all act as if nothing has happened. I understand, Georgie,’ said Kirill Alexandrovich, turning to Georgii Alexandrovich, ‘how hard this is for you. You are the father. But you and Pauly and Xenia must remain cheerful and calm. If rumours spread that some crooks or other have abducted a cousin of the Russian tsar with the wholeworld looking on, the prestige of the Romanovs, which has already been damaged by the fiendish murder of your father, will be completely undermined. There are eight foreign crown princes, fourteen heads of government and thirty special legations arriving in Moscow—’
Simeon Alexandrovich threw his pencil down on the table and interrupted his elder brother.
‘This is all raving nonsense! Some doctor or other! What is this? Who is he? He’s simply insane! Give him the Orlov! What insolence!’
I didn’t understand anything that the governor general had said. A doctor? An Orlov? Which of the Orlovs – the arch-chamberlain or the deputy minister of the interior?