by Boris Akunin
He went back inside and started picking up the clothes scattered on the floors of the rooms, paying special attention to a narrow shoe covered in dust. Its partner was nowhere nearby.
Meanwhile I went out into the cramped corridor and, for lack of anything better to do, glanced into the small untidy kitchen with a tiled stove in the corner. I found nothing remarkable in the kitchen apart from a very large number of cockroaches, and I was about to leave it when my eyes fell on a trapdoor set into the floor. It must be a cellar, I thought, and suddenly felt as if I had been nudged by some mysterious force. Simply in order to kill time while Fandorin was carrying out his search, I leaned down and lifted up the door. The dark opening exuded that special mouldy smell of dampness and earth, the smell that cellars where beetroot, carrots and potatoes are kept ought to have.
Just as I was just about to close the door, I heard a sound that made me turn cold and then set me trembling. It was a groan, weak but quite unmistakable!
‘Mr Fandorin!’ I shouted at the top of my voice. ‘Come here!’
AndItooktheparaffinlampoffthekitchentablewithtrembling hands, lit it with a match and went downinto the darkness and the cold. When Iwas only halfway down the steps, I sawher.
Mademoiselle Declique was lying huddled up against the wall on some grey sacks. She was wearing nothing but her shift – my eyes were drawn to a slim ankle with a bruise around the bone, and I hastily averted my eyes – but thiswas no time for respecting the proprieties.
I set the lamp down on a barrel (to judge from the smell, it must have contained pickled cabbage) and dashed over to where she lay. Her head was thrown back and her eyes were closed. I saw that one of Emilie’s hands was handcuffed to an iron ring set into thewall. Mademoiselle’s poor facewas covered with bruises and blotches of dried blood. Her undershirt had slipped down off onewhite shoulder, and I sawa huge bruise above her collarbone.
‘Ziukin, are you down there?’ Fandorin’s voice called from somewhere above me.
I did not reply because I had rushed to examine the other corners of the cellar. But His Highness was not there.
I went back to Mademoiselle and cautiously raised her head.
‘Can you hear me?’ I asked.
Fandorin jumped down onto the floor and stood behind me. Mademoiselle opened her eyes, then screwed them up against the light of the lamp and smiled. ‘Athanas, comme tu es marrant sans les favoris. Je t’ai vu dans mes rêves. Je rêve toujours . . .’1
She was clearly not well, otherwise she would never have spoken to me in such a familiar manner.
My heart was breaking with pity for her. But Fandorin was less sentimental.
He moved me aside and slapped the prisoner on the cheek.
‘Emilie, où est le prince?’2
‘Je ne sais pas . . . ’3 she whispered and her eyes closed again.
‘What, have you not guessed who Lind is?’ Emilie said, looking at Fandorin incredulously. ‘And Iwas certain that with your great intellect you had solved everything. Ah, it seems so simple to me now! Truly, we were all blind.’
Erast Petrovich looked embarrassed, and I must admit that the solution seemed very far from simple to me.
The conversationwas taking place in French, since after everything that Mademoiselle had suffered it would simply have been too cruel to torment her with Russian grammar. I had noticed before that when Fandorin spoke foreign languages he did not stammer at all, but I had not had any time to ponder this surprising phenomenon. It seemed that his ailment – for I considered stammering to be a psychological ailment – was in some way linked to expressing himself in Russian. Could this stumbling over the sounds of his native tongue perhaps be an expression of secret hostility to Russia and all things Russian? That would not have surprised me in the least.
We had arrived at our rented apartment half an hour before. Fandorinwas holding the casket, but I had an even more precious burden: Iwas carrying Emilie, muffled up in Doctor Lind’s cloak. Mademoiselle’s body was smooth and very hot – I could feel that even through the material. That must have been why I started feeling feverish myself, and I could not recover my breath for a long time, although Mademoiselle was not at all heavy.
We decided to put our dear guest in one of the bedrooms. I laid the poor woman on the bed, quickly covered her with a blanket and wiped the drops of sweat off my forehead.
Fandorin sat down beside her and said: ‘Emilie, we cannot call a doctor for you. Monsieur Ziukin and I are, so to speak, outside the law at present. If you will permit me, I will examine and treat your wounds and contusions myself, I do have certain skills in that area. You must not feel shy with me.’
And now, why this? I thought, outraged. What incredible impudence!
But Mademoiselle did not find Fandorin’s suggestion impudent at all. ‘This is no time for me to be shy,’ she said, smiling feebly. ‘I shall be very grateful to you for your help. I hurt all over. As you can see, the kidnappers did not treat me very gallantly.’
‘Afanasii Stepanovich, heat some water,’ Fandorin ordered briskly in Russian. ‘And I saw some alcohol and embrocation in the bathroom.’
The famous surgeon Pirogov in person! Nonetheless I did as he said, and also brought some clean napkins, mercurochrome and adhesive plaster that I found in one of the drawers in the bathroom.
Before the examination began, Mademoiselle cast a timid glance in my direction. I hastily turned away, and I am afraid that I blushed.
I heard the rustle of light fabric. Fandorin said anxiously: ‘Good Lord, you’re bruised all over. Does this hurt?’
‘No, not much.’
‘And this?’
‘Yes!’
‘I think the rib is cracked. I’ll strap it with the plaster for the time being. How about here, under the collarbone?’
‘It hurts when you press.’
There was a mirror not far away on the wall. I realised that if I took two sly steps to the right I would be able to see what was happening on the bed, but I immediately felt ashamed of this unworthy thought and moved to the left instead.
‘Turn over,’ Erast Petrovich ordered. ‘I’ll feel your vertebrae.’
‘Yes, yes, it hurts there. On the coccyx.’
I gritted my teeth. This was becoming genuinely unbearable! I regretted not having gone out into the corridor.
‘Someone kicked you,’ Fandorin stated. ‘It’s a very sensitive spot, but we’ll put a compress on it, like that. And here too. Never mind, it will hurt for a few days and then get better.’
I heard water splashing, and Mademoiselle groaned quietly a few times.
‘It is all over, Athanas. You can revolve now,’ I heard her say in Russian and immediately turned round. Emilie was lying on her back, covered up to her chest with the blanket. She had a neat piece of white plaster on her left eyebrow, one corner of her mouth was red from mercurochrome, and I could see the edge of a napkin under her open collar.
I could not look Mademoiselle in the eye and glanced sideways at Fandorin, who was washing his hands in a basin with a self-composed air, like a genuine doctor. I bit my lip at the thought that those strong slim fingers had touched Emilie’s skin, and in places that it was impossible even to think about without feeling giddy. But the most surprising thing was that Mademoiselle did not seem embarrassed at all and was looking at Fandorin with a grateful smile.
‘Thank you, Erast.’
Erast!
‘Thank you. I feel a lot better now.’ She laughed quietly. ‘Alas, I have no more secrets from you now. As a respectable man you are obliged to marry me.’
This risqué joke made even Fandorin blush. And you can imagine how I felt.
In order to steer the conversation away from the indecent and painful direction that it had taken, I asked dryly: ‘Nevertheless, Mademoiselle Declique, where is His Highness?’
‘I do not know. We were separated as soon as we left the underground passage and kept in different places ever since then. The boy was unco
nscious, and I was very faint myself. They hit me quite hard on the head when I tried to shout.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Erast Petrovich said eagerly. ‘What were you trying to tell us? You shouted: “Lind’s here. He’s . . .” But not another word after that.’
‘Yes, he put his hand over my mouth and punched me in the face. I recognised him despite the mask.’
‘You recognised him!’ Erast Petrovich and I exclaimed in a single voice.
And then Mademoiselle raised her eyebrows in surprise and asked the question that embarrassed Fandorin so greatly.
‘What, have you not guessedwho Lind is?’ Emilie said, looking at Fandorin incredulously. ‘And Iwas certain that with your great intellect you had solved everything. Ah, it seems so simple to me now! Truly, we were all blind.’
Fandorin and I glanced at each other, and I could tell from his furtive expression that he wished to ascertainwhether I had been more quick-witted than he had. Unfortunately I had not. But I would have paid dearly to make it so.
‘Oh, good Lord. Why it’s Banville,’ she said, shaking her head in amazement at our slow-wittedness. ‘Or at least the person we knew as Lord Banville. I recognised his voice back there in the vault. When someone called down: “Alarm! Run!” Lind forgot his usual caution and shouted in English: “Take the kid and the slut! Run for it!” It was Banville!’
‘Banville?’ Erast Petrovich repeated, perplexed. ‘But how is that possible? Surely he is a friend of Georgii Alexandrovich? They have known each other for a long time!’
‘Not so very long,’ I put in, trying to gather my thoughts. ‘His Highness only made Banville’s acquaintance this spring, in Nice.’
‘I was not aware of that,’ Fandorin said hastily, as if he were trying to offer excuses. ‘Yes indeed, how simple . . .’ He changed from French to Russian and said: ‘Even Homer sometimes nods. But my own lack of insight in this case is absolutely unforgivable. Why, of course!’
He jumped up and started striding around the room, almost running in fact, and gesticulating fitfully. I had never seen him in such an agitated state. Thewords spurted from his lips, tumbling over each other.
‘The doctor began putting his plan into action in Nice. He must have gone there deliberately to seek out his future victim – so many Russian grand dukes go to the Côte d’Azur in spring! And it was already known that the coronation would be in May! Win the trust of members of the imperial family, become a friend, obtain an invitation to the c-celebrations, and everything else was just a matter of precise technical preparation!’
‘And another thing!’ I put in. ‘A hatred of women. You said yourself that Lind cannot bear to have women around him. Now it is clear why. So Endlung was right!’
‘Endlung?’ Erast Petrovich echoed in a hollow voice and rubbed his forehead furiously, as if he wished to rub right through it to his brain. ‘Yes, yes indeed. And I attached no importance to his idiotic theory – precisely because it was that blockhead who thought of it. A genuine case of “Out of the mouths of fools . . .” Ah, Ziukin, snobbism is a truly terrible sin . . . Banville! It was Banville! And that fragrance, The Earl of Essex . . . How cleverly he gave himself freedom of movement by pretending to leave so suddenly! And the duel that came at just the right moment! And a shot straight to Glinsky’s heart – I recognise Lind’s diabolical accuracy in that! An excellent disguise: an eccentric British homosexual. The conceptual breadth and fine detailed planning, the incredible boldness and ruthlessness – these are definitely Lind’s signature! And I have failed to catch him again . . .’
‘But there is still Mr Carr,’ I reminded him. ‘He is Lind’s man too, surely?’
Erast Petrovich gestured hopelessly.
‘I assure you that Carr has nothing to do with all this. Otherwise Lind would not have left him behind. The doctor brought along his affected cutie to make his camouflage more convincing, and probably in order to combine work and pleasure. Lind is well known for his sybaritic habits. Dammit, the most upsetting thing is that Endlung was right! A gang of homosexuals, united not only by financial interests but by other ties as well. So that is the source of their great loyalty and self-sacrifice!’
Mademoiselle wrinkled up her forehead, listening attentively to Fandorin’s lamentations, and I think that she understood everything, or almost everything.
‘Oh yes, Lind really does hate women,’ she said with a bitter laugh. ‘I know that very well from my own experience. All the time I was a prisoner I was only given one piece of bread and two mugs of water. It was a good thing that barrel was there beside me, with that terrible cabbage of yours. I was kept on a chain, with no clothes. And yesterday evening Banville, I mean Lind, came down into the cellar as angry as a thousand devils and started kicking me without saying a word! I think he must have had some bad news. The pain was bad, but the fear was worse.’ Emilie shuddered and pulled the blanket right up to her chin. ‘He is not a man; he is pure evil. The doctor beat me without saying a single word and flew into such a rage that if the owner of the house had not been there he would probably have beaten me to death. The owner is quite a tall man with a gloomy face. He was the only one who did not hurt me. He gave me the bread and water.’
Mademoiselle gingerly touched the plaster on her forehead.
‘You saw what Lind did to me, Erast! The scum! And there was no reason for it!’
‘He was angry when he found out that he had lost two of his helpers,’ I explained. ‘Mr Fandorin killed one of them and handed the other over to the police.’
‘What a pity you did not kill both of them, Erast,’ she said, sniffing and wiping a tear of anger off her eyelashes. ‘Those Germans were absolute swine. Which of them did you kill, the lop-eared one or the one with freckles?’
‘The one with freckles,’ Erast Petrovich replied.
And I had not seen either of them properly – there was no time and it was dark in that passage.
‘Never mind,’ I observed. ‘At least now the doctor has been left entirely alone.’
Fandorin pursed his lips sceptically. ‘Hardly. There is still someone guarding the boy. If the poor boy is still alive . . .’
‘Oh, the little one is alive, I am sure of it!’ Mademoiselle exclaimed. ‘At least, he was still alive yesterday evening. When the owner of the house dragged that raging lunatic Banville off me, I heard him growl: “If not for the stone, I’d send him both heads – the kid’s and the slut’s.” I think he meant you, Erast.’
‘Thank God!’ I blurted out.
I turned towards the icon of St Nicholas hanging in the corner and crossed myself. Mikhail Georgievichwas alive, therewas still hope.
However, therewas another question thatwas still tormenting me. It was not the kind of question that one asks, and if one does ask, one has no right to expect a reply. Nonetheless, I decided that I would. ‘Tell me, did they . . . did they . . . abuse you?’
To make things quite clear, I spoke these words in French.
Thanks be to God, Emilie was not offended. On the contrary, she smiled sadly. ‘Yes, Athanas, they did abuse me, as you might have noticed from my bumps and bruises. The only comfort is that it was not the kind of abuse that you obviously have in mind. Those gentlemen would probably have preferred to kill themselves rather than enter into physical relations with a woman.’
This bold direct answer embarrassed me and I averted my eyes. If there was one thing about Mademoiselle Declique that I did not like, it was the unfeminine exactitude with which she expressed herself.
‘Well then, let us sum up,’ Fandorin declared, hooking his fingers together. ‘We have rescued Emilie from the clutches of Doctor Lind. That is one. We now know what the doctor looks like. That is two. We have recovered the empress’s jewels. That is three. Half of the job has been done. The rest is simple.’ He heaved a sigh, and I realised that he was using the word ‘simple’ ironically. ‘Rescue the boy. Eliminate Lind.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Mademoiselle exclaimed, lifting herself abruptl
y off the pillow. ‘Kill that foul beast!’ She looked at me with a plaintive expression and said in a feeble voice: ‘Athanas, you cannot imagine how hungry I am . . .’
Ah, what a stupid, insensitive blockhead! Fandorin was only interested in Lind, but I ought to have known better!
I went dashing towards the door, but Erast Petrovich grabbed hold of the flap of my jacket.
‘Where are you off to, Ziukin?’
‘Where? To the dining room. There is cheese and biscuits in the sideboard, and pâté and ham in the icebox.’
‘No ham. A g-glass of sweet tea with rum and a piece of black bread. She must not have anything more yet.’
He was right. After fasting the stomach should not be burdened with heavy food. But I put in four spoons of sugar, cut a substantial slice of bread and splashed in a good helping of whisky from Mr Freyby’s bottle.
Mademoiselle drank the tea with a smile on her split lips, and the colour returned to her pale cheeks.
My heart was wrung with an inexpressible pity. If I could have got my hands on that vile Doctor Lind, who had kicked and beaten a helpless woman, I would have put my hands round his neck and no power on earth could have forced my fingers apart.
‘You need to get some sleep, Emilie,’ Fandorin said, getting to his feet. ‘We will decide in the morning how to proceed from here. Afanasii Petrovich,’ he said, switching into Russian, ‘will you agree to spend the night here, on the couch? In case Emilie might need something?’
Need he have asked! I wanted so much to be alone with her. Just to be there, not to talk. Or, if there was a chance, to speak of the feelings that filled my heart. But where would I find the words?
Fandorin left the room. Emilie looked at me with a smile, and I sat there, a pitiful awkward creature, licking my lips, clearing my throat, clasping and unclasping my fingers. Finally I gathered the courage to speak.
‘I . . . I missed you very badly, Mademoiselle Declique.’
‘You may call me Emilie,’ she said in a quiet voice.