The Diamond Chariot (6 page)

‘So it was completely clear?’ Fandorin asked to make certain. ‘Did you look carefully?’

‘Why, I … Just look at that …’ The corporal choked and tugged his peaked cap off his head. ‘By Christ the Lord! Seven years … You ask anyone you like how Loskutov does his duty.’

The engineer turned to Mylnikov:

‘What have you managed to find out?’

‘The picture’s clear,’ Mylnikov said with a shrug. ‘The usual old Rooshian nonsense. The express train was travelling in front. It stopped at Kolpino and was supposed to let the special with the field guns go past. Then this telegraph clerk passes on a telegram: Carry on, the special’s delayed. Someone messed things up somewhere. As soon as the express has cleared the bridge, the army train catches up with it from behind. A heavy brute, as you can see for yourself. Should have shot across at full speed, as required, then nothing would have happened. But it must have started to brake, and the supports caved in. The railway top brass will be in for it now.’

‘Who sent the telegram about the special b-being delayed?’ asked Fandorin, leaning forward eagerly.

‘Well, that’s just it. No one sent any such telegram.’

‘And where’s the telegraph clerk who supposedly received it?’

‘We’re searching. Haven’t found him yet – his shift was already over.’

The corner of the engineer’s mouth twitched.

‘You’re not searching hard enough. Get a verbal portrait, a photo if you can, and put him on the all-Russian wanted list, urgently.’

‘The telegraph clerk? On the all-Russian list?’

Fandorin beckoned the court counsellor with his finger, took him aside and said in a quiet voice:

‘This is sabotage. The bridge was blown up.’

‘How do you make that out?’

Fandorin led the sleuths’ boss across to the break and started climbing down the dangling rails. Mylnikov clambered after him, gasping and crossing himself.

‘L-look.’

The hand in the grey glove pointed to a charred and splintered sleeper and a rail twisted like a paper streamer.

‘Our experts will arrive any minute now. They are certain to discover particles of explosive …’

Mylnikov whistled and pushed his bowler hat on to the back of his head.

The detectives hung there above the black water, swaying slightly on the improvised ladder.

‘So the gendarme’s lying when he says he inspected everything? Or even worse, he’s in on it? Shall we arrest him?’

‘Loskutov – a Japanese agent? Rubbish. Then he would have run for it, like the Kolpino t-telegraph clerk. No, no, there wasn’t any mine on the line.’

‘Then how’d it happen? There wasn’t any mine, but there was an explosion?’

‘That’s the way it is, though.’

The court counsellor frowned thoughtfully and set off up the sleepers.

‘Go and report this to the top brass … Now won’t there be a real song and dance.’

He waved to the agents and shouted:

‘Hey, get me a boat!’

However, he didn’t get into the boat, he changed his mind.

He watched Fandorin walking away towards the express train, scratched the back of his head and went dashing after him.

The engineer glanced round at the sound of tramping feet and nodded towards the motionless train.

‘Was there really such a small distance between the trains?’

‘No, the express halted farther along, on the emergency brake. Then the driver reversed. The conductors and some of the passengers helped to get the wounded out of the water. It’s not so far to a station this side as on the other. They drove a farm cart over and took them off to hospital …’

Fandorin summoned the conductor-in-chief with an imperious gesture and asked:

‘How many passengers on the train?’

‘All the seats were sold, Mr Engineer. That makes three hundred and twelve. I’m sorry, but when can we get moving again?’

Two of the passengers were standing quite close by: an army staff captain and an attractive-looking lady. Both covered from head to foot in mud and green slime. The officer was pouring water on to his companion’s handkerchief from a kettle, and she was energetically scrubbing her mud-smeared face. Both of them were listening to the conversation curiously.

A platoon of railway gendarmes approached at a trot from the bridge. The commanding officer ran up first and saluted.

‘Mr Engineer, we’re here at your disposal. There are two platoons on the other bank. The experts have started work. What will our orders be?’

‘Cordon off both sides of the bridge and the banks. Let no one near the break, not even if they hold the rank of general. Otherwise we renounce all responsibility for the investigation – tell them that. Tell Sigismund Lvovich to look for traces of explosive … But no, don’t bother, he’ll see that for himself. Give me a clerk and four of your brightest soldiers. Yes, and one more thing: put a cordon round the express train as well. Let none of the passengers or train staff through without my permission.’

‘Mr Engineer,’ the captain of the train’s crew exclaimed plaintively, ‘we’ve been standing here for over four hours.’

‘And you’ll b-be standing here for a long time yet. I have to draw up a complete list of the passengers. We’ll question all of them and check their credentials. We’ll start from the final carriage. And you, Mylnikov, would do better to turn your attention to that telegraph clerk who disappeared. I can manage things here without you.’

‘Of course, right enough, it’s your move,’ said Mylnikov, and he even waved his arms, as if to say: I’m leaving, I’m not claiming any rights here. However, he didn’t leave.

‘Sir, madam,’ the conductor-in-chief said to the officer and lady in a dejected voice. ‘Please be so good as to return to your seats. Did you hear? They’re going to check your documents.’

‘Disaster, Glyceria Romanovna,’ Rybnikov whispered. ‘I’m done for.’

Lidina gasped as she examined a lace cuff stained with blood, but then jerked her head up sharply.

‘Why? What’s happened?’

In those slightly red and yet still beautiful eyes, Vasilii Alexandrovich read an immediate readiness for action and once again, after all the numerous occasions during the night, he marvelled at the unpredictability of this capital-city cutie.

The way Glyceria Romanovna had behaved during the efforts to save the drowning and wounded had been absolutely astounding: she didn’t sob and wail, or throw a fit of hysterics; in fact she didn’t cry at all, simply bit on her bottom lip at the most painful moments, so that by dawn it had swollen up quite badly. Rybnikov shook his head as he watched the frail little lady dragging a wounded soldier out of the water and binding up his bleeding wound with a narrow rag torn off her silk dress.

Once, overcome by the sight, the staff captain had murmured to himself: ‘It’s like Nekrasov, that poem “Russian Women”’. And he glanced around quickly, to see whether anyone had heard this comment that fitted so badly with the image of a grey little runt of an officer.

After Vasilii Alexandrovich had saved her from the dark-complexioned neurasthenic, and especially after several hours of working together, Lidina had started acting quite naturally with the staff captain, as if he were an old friend – she, too, had evidently changed her opinion of her travelling companion.

‘Why, what’s happened? Tell me!’ she exclaimed, gazing at Rybnikov with fright in her eyes.

‘I’m done for all round,’ Vasilii Alexandrovich whispered, taking her by the arm and leading her slowly towards the train. ‘I went to Peter without authorisation, my superiors didn’t know about it. My sister’s unwell. Now they’ll find out – it’s a catastrophe …’

‘The guardhouse, is it?’ Lidina asked, distressed.

‘Never mind the guardhouse, that’s no great disaster. The terrible part is something else altogether … Remember you asked about my tube? Just before the explosion? Well, I really did leave it in the toilet. I’m always so absentminded.’

Glyceria Romanovna put her hand over her lips and asked in a terrible whisper:

‘Secret drawings?’

‘Yes. Very important. Even when I went absent without leave, I didn’t let them out of my sight for a moment.’

‘And where are they? Haven’t you taken a look there, in the toilet?’

‘They’ve disappeared,’ Vasilii Alexandrovich said in a sepulchral voice, and hung his head. ‘Someone took them. That’s not just the guardhouse, it means a trial, under martial law.’

‘How appalling!’ said the lady, round-eyed with horror. ‘What can be done?’

‘I want to ask you something,’ said Rybnikov, stopping as they reached the final carriage. ‘Before anyone’s looking, I’ll duck in under the wheels and afterwards I’ll choose my moment to slip down the embankment and into the bushes. I can’t afford to be checked. Don’t give me away, will you? Tell them you’ve got no idea where I went to. We didn’t talk during the journey. What would you want with a rough type like me? And take my little suitcase that’s on the rack with you, I’ll call round to collect it in Moscow. Ostozhenka Street, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, the Bomze building.’

Lidina glanced round at the big boss from St Petersburg and the gendarmes, who were also moving towards the train.

‘Will you help me out, save me?’ asked Rybnikov, stepping into the shadow of the carriage.

‘Of course!’ A determined, even reckless expression appeared on Glyceria Romanovna’s little face – just like earlier, when she had made a dash for the emergency brake. ‘I know who stole your drawings! That repulsive specimen who attacked me! That’s why he was in such a great hurry! And I wouldn’t be surprised if he blew up the bridge too!’

‘Blew it up?’ Rybnikov gasped in amazement, struggling to keep up with what she was saying. ‘How do you make that out? How could he blow it up?’

‘How should I know, I’m not a soldier! Perhaps he threw some kind of bomb out of the window! I’ll save you all right! And there’s no need to go crawling under the carriage!’ she shouted, darting off towards the gendarmes so impulsively that the staff captain was too late to hold her back, even though he tried.

‘Who’s in charge here? You?’ Lidina asked, running up to the elegant gentleman with the grey temples. ‘I have important news!’

Screwing his eyes up in alarm, Rybnikov glanced under the carriage, but it was too late to duck in under there now – many eyes were already gazing in his direction. The staff captain gritted his teeth and set off after Lidina.

She was holding the man with grey hair by the sleeve of his summer coat and jabbering away at incredible speed:

‘I know who you want! There was a man here, an obnoxious type with dark hair, vulgarly dressed, with a diamond ring – a huge stone, but not pure water. Terribly suspicious! In a terrible hurry to get to Moscow. Absolutely everybody stayed, and lots of them helped get the men out of the river, but he grabbed his travelling bag and left. When the first wagon arrived from the station for the wounded, he bribed the driver. He gave him money, a lot of money, and drove away. And he didn’t take a wounded man with him!’

‘Why, that’s true,’ the captain of the train put in. ‘A passenger from the second carriage, compartment number six. I saw him give the peasant a hundred-rouble note – for a wagon! And he rode off to the station.’

‘Oh, be quiet, will you, I haven’t finished yet!’ Lidina said, gesturing at him angrily. ‘I heard him ask that peasant: “Is there a shunting engine at the station?” He wanted to hire the engine, to get away as quickly as possible! I tell you, he was terribly suspicious!’

Rybnikov listened anxiously, expecting that now she would tell them about the stolen tube, but clever Glyceria Romanovna kept quiet about that highly suspicious circumstance, astounding the staff captain yet again.

‘A m-most interesting passenger,’ the gentleman with the grey temples said thoughtfully, and gestured briskly to a gendarmes officer. ‘Lieutenant! Send to the other side. My Chinese servant is across there in the inspector’s carriage, you know him. Tell him to come at the d-double. I’ll be at the station.’

And he strode off rapidly along the train.

‘But what about the express, Mr Fandorin?’ the lieutenant shouted after him.

‘Send it on its way!’ the man with the stammer shouted back without stopping.

A dull fellow with a simple sort of face and a dangling moustache who was hanging about nearby snapped his fingers – two nondescript little men came running up to him, and the three of them started whispering to each other.

Glyceria Romanovna returned to Rybnikov victorious.

‘There now, you see, it’s all settled. No need for you to go chasing through the bushes like a hare. And your drawings will turn up.’

But the staff captain wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the back of the man whom the lieutenant had called ‘Fandorin’. Vasilii Alexandrovich’s yellowish face was like a frozen mask, and there were strange glimmers of light flickering in his eyes.

NAKA-NO-KU

The first syllable, in which Vasilii Alexandrovich takes leave

They said goodbye as friends and, of course, not for ever – Rybnikov promised that as soon as he was settled in, he would definitely come to visit.

‘Yes, do, please,’ Lidina said severely, shaking his hand. ‘I’ll be worried about that tube of yours.’

The staff captain assured her that he would wriggle out of it somehow now and parted from the delightful lady with mixed feelings of regret and relief, of which the latter was by far the stronger.

After shaking his head to drive away inappropriate thoughts, the first thing he did was pay a visit to the telegraph office at the station. A telegram was waiting there for him to collect: ‘Management congratulates brilliant success objections withdrawn may commence project receive goods information follows’.

Apparently this acknowledgement of his achievements, plus the withdrawal of certain objections, was very important to Rybnikov. His face brightened up and he even started singing a song about a toreador.

Something in the staff captain’s manner changed. His uniform still sat on him baggily (after the adventures of the night, it had become even shabbier), but Vasilii Alexandrovich’s shoulders had straightened up, the expression in his eyes was more lively, and he wasn’t dragging his leg any more.