The Coronation (18 page)

They had no time to turn their carriage – just as I did not the day before, but fortunately therewas a cab driving towards them.

The gendarmes told Mademoiselle to stay in the carriage, threw the cabby off his own rig and set off in pursuit of the carriage that had driven away with Mikhail Georgievich.

They were unable to catch it, however, because the cab horse was no match for a fine four-in-hand. Meanwhile, as Mademoiselle Declique squirmed in confusion on her seat, a gentleman wearing a beard and moustache approached her, politely doffed hisOffice of Mines peaked cap and addressed her in broken French: ‘The terms have been met – you have seen the prince. And now, if you don’t mind, the payment.’

What could Mademoiselle do? Especially since therewere two other men, whom she described as looking far less gallant than the polite gentleman, strolling about not very far away.

She gave them the reticule and tried to follow Fandorin’s instructions by memorising the three men’s appearances.

Well, she memorised them and later described them in the greatest possible detail, but what good would that do? There was no reason to think that Doctor Lind was short of men.

I did not learn about the failure of the operation conceived by the high police master until later, because I was not at the Hermitage that evening. When Mademoiselle returned, never having reached the cunning trap set around Arbat Street, I had already left the Neskuchny Park.

After I had seen the governess off on her way to the risky undertaking in which she was obliged to participate because I had behaved stupidly and bungled my own assignment, I found the inactivity simply too painful. I paced backwards and forwards in my room, thinking what a monster Fandorin was. That guttapercha gentleman ought not to be allowed anywhere near young girls and respectable women. How shamelessly he had turned Her Highness’s head! How craftily he had won the good favour of Mademoiselle Declique! And after all, what for? What could this slick seducer and experienced man of the world want with a modest governess who was no great beauty and no
grande dame
? Why would he talk to her in that velvety voice and squeeze her elbow so tenderly? Oh this specimen never did anything without a reason.

At this point my thoughts suddenly turned in a completely unexpected direction. I remembered that Simeon Alexandrovich, who had known Fandorin in his previous life, had called him ‘an adventurer of the very worst sort’ from whom you could expect absolutely anything at all. I had formed the very same impression.

The suspicions came crowding into my mind one after another, and I attempted to make sense of them by setting them out in order, in Fandorin’s own manner.

First. After a little reflection, the story about the finding of the newspaper boy appeared suspicious. If one supposed that Fandorin really had displayed quite uncommon resourcefulness and sought out the little rogue, then why would he have let him go? What if the boy had kept something back or quite simply lied, and then gone running to report to Lind?

Second. Why had Fandorin tried to dissuade Mademoiselle from following the instructions of the police and recommended her to act as she thought best? A fine adviser Lasovsky had, no two ways about it!

Third. If he found the high police master’s plan so disagreeable, then why had he not said so at the meeting?

Fourth. Where was he off to in such a hurry after he said goodbye to Mademoiselle Declique? What kind of urgent business could he suddenly have when the operation was being conducted without his involvement? Yet another trick like yesterday’s?

And fifth, and most importantly. Had he told me the truth about his relations with Lind? I could not be certain about that either.

It was this last thought, coupled with my feeling of guilt for the risk to which Mademoiselle had been exposed thanks to my good offices, that drove me to commit an act the like of which I had never committed before in my life. I could never even have imagined that I was capable of anything of the sort.

I walked up to the door of Fandorin’s room, looked around and put my eye to the keyhole. Peeping through it proved to be extremely uncomfortable – my back soon turned numb and my bent knees began to ache. But what was going on in the room rendered such minor discomforts entirely irrelevant. They were both there – the master and the servant. Fandorin was sitting in front of the mirror, naked to the waist and performing some incomprehensible manipulations with his face. It looked to me as if he was putting on make-up, just as Mr Carr did every morning, with his door open and without the slightest sign of embarrassment in front of the servants. Masa did not fall within my limited range of vision, but I could hear him snuffling somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the door.

Fandorin reached out his hand, pulled a crimson silk Russian shirt over his head and then stood up so that I could not see him any longer, but I did hear squeaking and tramping sounds, as if someone were pulling on a pair of blacked boots.

What was this masquerade in aid of? What shady business was afoot here?

I was so completely absorbed that I let my guard down and almost banged my head against the door when I heard a gentle cough behind my back.

Somov! Ah, this was not good.

My assistant was gazing at me in utter amazement. Things were doubly bad because that morning I had put a flea in his ear for his lack of discretion – as I walked along the corridor before breakfast I had caught him coming out of Mademoiselle Declique’s room, where he had absolutely no business to be. In reply to my stern question, Somov had blushed and admitted that in the mornings he studied French on his own, and he had asked the governess to explain a particularly difficult point of grammar. I told him that although I encouraged the study of foreign languages by the staff, Mademoiselle Declique had after all been hired to teach His Highness and not the servants. It seemed to me that Somov resented my remarks, but of course he did not dare to answer me back. And now this embarrassing blunder!

‘The door handles and keyholes have not been polished as well as they might,’ I said, concealing my embarrassment. ‘Here, take a look for yourself.’

I squatted down, breathed on the brass handle and, thank God, fingerprints appeared on its misty surface.

‘But a guest only has to take hold of the handle once, and a mark will be left. Afanasii Stepanovich, no one will ever spot trifles like that!’

‘In our work, Kornei Selifanovich, there are no trifles. And that is something you ought to get clear before you try to master French,’ I said with a severity that was perhaps inordinate but justified by the circumstances. ‘Be so good as to go round all the doors and check. Begin with the upper floors.’

When he had left, I put my eye to the keyhole again, but the room was quiet and deserted, and the only movement was the curtain swaying at the open window.

I took a master key that fitted all the doors in the house out of my pocket, went inside and ran across to the window.

I was just in time to see two figures dive into the bushes: one was tall, wearing a black pea jacket and a peaked cap, the other was a squat figure in a blue robe, with a long plait and a bowler hat. That was exactly how Masa had looked when he was playing the part of the Chinese pedlar on the day we first met. ‘Strollers’ like that had spread all over St Petersburg in the last few years, and apparently all over Moscow too.

I did not have any time to think.

I clambered determinedly over the window sill, jumped down onto the ground, hunched over and ran after them.

It was easy enough to determine the direction in which the disguised men were running from the shaking of the bushes. I tried hard not to fall behind, but I avoided getting too close to them, in order not to give myself away.

With an agility that I found impressive, Fandorin and Masa scaled the railings and jumped down on the other side. My attempt to overcome this barrier, a
sazhen
and a half in height, went less smoothly. I fell off twice, and when I finally did find myself on the top I did not dare jump for fear of breaking my leg or spraining my ankle, and I carefully slid down the thick railings, catching the coat-tail of my livery and lacerating the entire flap, and also getting dirt on my culottes and white stockings. (It later became clear that if we had gone along the main avenue instead of through the garden, we would have run into Mademoiselle Declique on her way back from her unexpectedly brief expedition.)

Fortunately Fandorin and Masa had not got very far. They were standing arguing with a cabby who apparently was very reluctant to let such a suspicious-looking pair into his vehicle. Eventually they got in and drove off.

I glanced to the left and then to the right. Therewere no more cabs to be seen. The Kaluga Highway is just that, not really a street, more like a country high road, and cabbies are a rare commodity there. But once again my experience as a footman came in useful. I set off trotting smoothly at an easy pace, keeping close to the railings of the park, since the cab was not moving very fast. I did not come across a cab until I reached the Golitsyn Hospital, when I was beginning to get out of breath. Puffing and panting, I slumped on to the seat and told him to follow the other cab, offering to pay him twice the usual rate.

The driver looked respectfully at my green livery with braid trimmings and the gold epaulette with aiguillettes (in order to get into the ceremonial parade, I had decked myself out in my dress uniform, and afterwards there had been no time to change back – thank goodness that at least the three-cornered hat with the plumage had been left at home) and called me ‘Your Excellency’.

At Kaluga Square we took a turn to the left, came out on the embankment just before the bridge and then we did not make any more turns for a long time. Thank God, the passengers in the carriage in front did not turn round even once – my green and gold outfitmust have been clearly visible from a long distance away.

The river divided into two. Our route lay along the the narrower of the two channels. On the left I could see the Kremlin towers and eagles between the buildings, and still we kept on driving, further and further, so that I no longer knew what part of Moscow we had reached.

At long last we made another turn and rumbled across a short cobblestoned bridge, then across a longwooden one, then across a third, which bore a plaque: ‘Small Yauza Bridge’.

The houses became poorer and the streets dirtier. And the longer we drove along that atrocious, rutted embankment, the more wretched the buildings became, so that I could not think of any other word to describe them except slums.

The driver suddenly halted his horse.

‘You do what you like, guv’nor, but I’m not going into Khitrovka. They’ll rob me. Take me horse and give me a good battering into the bargain, if not worse. Everyone knows what the place is like, and evening’s coming on.’

And indeed dusk was already falling – how had I failed to notice that?

Realising that it was pointless to argue, I got out of the cab immediately and handed the driver three roubles.

‘Oh no!’ he said, grabbing me by the sleeve. ‘You just look how far we’ve rode, and you promised me double, Your Excellency!’

Fandorin’s carriage disappeared round the corner. In order not to fall behind, I tossed the insolent fellow another two roubles and ran in pursuit.

The people I encountered on the street were unsavoury in the extreme. To put it more simply, they were riff-raff, the same sort as we have on the Ligovka in St Petersburg only probably even worse. What I found particularly unpleasant was that every last one of them was staring at me.

Someone shouted after me familiarly: ‘Hey, you dandy drake, what have you lost around here?’

I pretended not to hear.

The cab was not there round the corner – there was nothing but an empty, crooked little street, crooked street lamps with broken glass covers and half-ruined little houses.

I dashed to the next turn and then jerked back sharply, because right there, only about fifteen paces away, the men I was looking for were getting out of their carriage.

I cautiously peeped round the corner and saw a crowd of repulsive ragamuffins gather round the new arrivals from all sides, gaping curiously at the cabby, from which it was possible to conclude that the appearance of a cab in Khitrovka was a rather extraordinary event.

‘Well, what about a rouble and a half, then?’ the driverwhined plaintively, addressing the disguised state counsellor.

Fandorin swayed back on his heels, keeping his hands in his pockets, baring his teeth in a fierce grin with a glint of gold caps, which had appeared in his mouth out of nowhere, and spat neatly on the driver’s boot. Then he asked mockingly: ‘What about a kick and a poke?’

The idle onlookers chortled.

Oh, what a fine state counsellor this was!

The cabby pulled his head down into his shoulders, lashed his horse and drove off, accompanied by whistling, hallooing and shouts of an obscene nature.

Without even glancing at each other, Fandorin and the Japanese walked off in different directions. Masa ducked into a gateway and seemed to dissolve into the gathering gloom, while Erast Petrovich set off along the very middle of the street. After hesitating for a while, I followed the latter.

It was incredible how much his walk had changed. Hewaddled along as if he were on invisible springs, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched over. He spat zestfully twice to once side and kicked an empty tin can with his boot. A crudely painted wench in a bright-coloured dress came walking towards him, wiggling her hips. Fandorin deftly extracted one hand from his pocket and pinched her on the side. Strangely enough, this style of courtship seemed very much to the lady’s liking – she squealed, broke into peals of laughter and shouted such a pithy phrase after her admirer that I almost stumbled over my own feet. If only Xenia Georgievna could have seen how little this gentleman cared for her tender feelings!

He turned into a dark narrowalleyway – no more than a chink between two buildings. I went in after him, but before I had even taken ten steps I was grabbed by the shoulders from both sides. A whiff of something rotten and sour blew into my face and a young, nasal voice drawled: ‘Ea-sy now, Mister, ea-sy.’