The Winter Queen (18 page)

His chief may have been right, but even so Fandorin had not squandered his travel expenses in vain. Even in his worst nightmares Ivan Brilling could hardly have imagined the true might of the multiheaded hydra with which he was doing battle. These were no students and hysterical young ladies with little bombs and pistols. This was an entire secret order involving ministers of state, generals, court investigators, and even a full state counselor from St. Petersburg!

That was when Erast Fandorin was struck by a sudden insight (by this time it was already after noon). A full state counselor—and a nihilist? It simply didn’t make sense. The head of the imperial guard in Brazil was not really a problem. Erast Fandorin had never been to Brazil and he had no idea of the local mores—but his imagination absolutely refused to picture a Russian state general holding a bomb in his hand. Fandorin was acquainted quite closely with one full state counselor, Feodor Trifonovich Sevriugin, the director of the provincial gymnasium he had attended for almost seven years. Could he possibly be a terrorist? Nonsense!

Then suddenly Erast Fandorin’s heart was wrung with pity. These were no terrorists; these were all decent and respectable individuals! These were the victims of terror! Nihilists from various countries, each of them concealed behind a coded number, were reporting to central revolutionary HQ about the terrorist acts they had committed!

And yet, he could not actually recall any ministers being killed in Portugal in June—all the newspapers would most certainly have reported it…Which meant that they must be prospective victims—that was it! The ‘numbers’ were requesting permission from HQ to commit acts of terror. And no names were given in order to maintain secrecy.

Now everything fell into place; now everything was clear. Ivan Brilling had said something about a thread connecting Akhtyrtsev to some dacha outside Moscow, but Fandorin, all fired up with his own fantastic ravings about spies, had not bothered to listen.

But stop. What did they want with a lieutenant of dragoons? He really was very small fry. Very simple, was Erast Fandorin’s immediate reply to his own question. The unknown Italian obviously must have got under their feet somehow. In the same way that a youthful collegiate regular istrar from the Moscow detective police had once got under the feet of a certain white-eyed killer.

What should he do? He was simply sitting things out here while the threat of death hung over so many honorable people! Fandorin felt especially sorry for the unknown general in St. Petersburg. No doubt he was a worthy man, already middle-aged and distinguished, with little children…And it appeared that these Carbonari* sent out their villainous communiqués every month. No wonder there was blood flowing right across Europe every day! And the threads led back nowhere else but to St. Petersburg. Erast Fandorin recalled the words once spoken by his chief: “The very fate of Russia is at stake.” Ah, Ivan Brilling, ah, Mr. State Counselor, not just the fate of Russia—the fate of the entire civilized world!

He could inform the clerk Pyzhov secretly, so that the traitor in the embassy would not sniff anything out. But how? The traitor could be anyone at all, and it was dangerous for Fandorin to show his face near the embassy, even in the guise of a redheaded Frenchman in an artist’s blouse…He would have to take a risk, send a letter by municipal post to provincial secretary Pyzhov and mark it ‘to be delivered personally.’ Nothing superfluous, just his address and greetings from Ivan Franzevich Brilling. He was a clever man; he would understand everything. And they said the municipal post here delivered a letter to its addressee in little more than two hours…

And that was what Fandorin had done, so that when evening came it found him waiting to see if there would be a cautious knock at the door.

There was no knock, however. Everything turned out quite differently.

LATER, WHEN IT WAS ALREADY AFTER MIDNIGHT, Erast Fandorin was sitting in the tattered armchair in which the attaché case was concealed. On the table the candle had almost burned itself out, in the corners of the room a hostile gloom had gathered and thickened, and outside the window an approaching storm occasionally rumbled alarmingly. The very air seemed oppressive and stifling, as if some invisible, corpulent individual had sat down on his chest and would not let him get his breath. Fandorin teetered uncertainly on the ill-defined boundary between wakefulness and sleep. Important thoughts of practical matters would suddenly become bogged down in irrelevant drivel, and then the young man would rouse himself and shake his head in order to avoid being sucked down into the whirlpool of sleep.

During one of these lucid intervals something very peculiar happened. First there was a strange, shrill squeak. Then Erast Fandorin could scarcely believe his own eyes as he saw the key protruding from the keyhole begin to turn of its own accord. The door creaked sickeningly as it swung open into the room, and a bizarre vision appeared in the doorway: a puny little gentleman of indeterminate age with a round, clean-shaven face and narrow eyes nestling in beds of fine, radiating wrinkles.

Fandorin shuddered and grabbed the revolver from the table, but the vision smiled sweetly, nodded contentedly, and cooed in extremely pleasant, honeyed tenor tones, “Well, here I am, my dear lad. Porfirii Pyzhov, son of Martin, servant of God, and provincial secretary, come flying to you the very moment you chose to beckon. Like the wind at the summons of Aeolus.”

“How did you open the door?” Erast Fandorin whispered in fright. “I distinctly remember turning the key twice.”

“With this—a magnetic picklock,” the long-awaited visitor readily explained, displaying some kind of elongated little bar, which, however, immediately disappeared back into his pocket. “An extremely handy little item. I borrowed it from a certain local thief. In my line of business I am obliged to maintain relations with the most dreadful types, denizens of the very darkest depths of society. The most absolute
miserables
, I assure you. Such types as Monsieur Hugo never even saw in his dreams. But they, too, are human souls and it is possible to find ways to approach them. In fact, I am very fond of the scum and I even collect them a little. As the poet put it: each amuses himself as he may, but all shall be brought low by death alone. Or as the Teut would have it
Jedes Tierchen hat sein Pläsierchen
—every little beastling has its own plaything.”

It was quite evident that this strange man possessed the ability to rattle off nonsense on any subject whatsoever without the slightest difficulty, but his keen eyes were wasting no time. They had already thoroughly ransacked both Erast Fandorin’s person and the furnishings of his squalid chamber.

“I am Erast Petrovich Fandorin. From Mr. Brilling. On extremely important business,” said the young man, although the first and second facts had been stated in his letter, and Pyzhov himself must undoubtedly have guessed the third. “Only he did not give me any password. Probably he forgot.”

Erast Fandorin looked anxiously at Pyzhov, on whom his salvation now depended, but the little man merely threw up his short-fingered hands.

“There is no need of any password. Sheer nonsense and games for children. Can a Russian fail to know another Russian? It is enough for me to gaze into your bright eyes”—Porfirii Pyzhov moved close up against Fandorin—“and I see everything as clearly as if it were laid out before me. A youth pure hearted and bold, filled with noble aspirations and patriotic devotion to his fatherland. Why, of course—in our department we have no other kind.”

Fandorin frowned. It seemed to him that Provincial Secretary Pyzhov was playing the fool, taking him for some idiot child. And therefore Erast Fandorin related his story briefly and dryly, without any emotions. It transpired that Porfirii Pyzhov was capable of more than mere tongue wagging. He could also be an extremely attentive listener—in fact he had a positive talent for it. Pyzhov sat down on the edge of the bed, folded his hands across his belly, squeezed the narrow slits of his eyes even tighter—and it was as if he had disappeared. That is, he was quite literally all attention. Not once did Pyzhov interrupt, not once did he even stir. However, at times, at the key moments of the narrative, a subtle spark glimmered beneath his hooded eyelids.

Erast Fandorin did not divulge his hypothesis concerning the letters—that he saved for Ivan Brilling—and in conclusion he said, “And so, Mr. Pyzhov, you see before you a fugitive and involuntary homicide. I urgently need to get across to the Continent. I need to get to Moscow, to see Mr. Brilling.”

Pyzhov chewed on his lips and waited to see whether anything else would be said, then he asked in quiet voice, “And what of the attache case? Why not forward it with the diplomatic post? That would be more reliable. One never knows…From what you have told me, these gentlemen are serious individuals. They will be searching for you in Europe as well. Of course I shall get you across the Channel, my sweet angel. That is no great business. Provided you disdain not the fisherman’s frail bark, you shall sail tomorrow, and God speed! Riding the howling gale beneath your billowing sails.”

All of his winds seem to be gales
, thought Erast Fandorin, who in all honesty desperately did not wish to part with the attache case which it had cost him so dear to obtain. Porfirii Pyzhov, however, continued as if he had not noticed the young man’s hesitation.

“I do not interfere in other people’s business, for I am an unassuming and incurious individual. However, I can see there are many things you are not telling me. And quite right, my peachy darling; the word is silver, but silence is golden. Ivan Franzevich Brilling is a high-flying bird, a haughty eagle, one might say, among starlings, who would not entrust important business to just anyone. Is that not so?”

“In what sense?”

“Why, regarding the attaché case. I would daub it with sealing wax on every side, give it to one of the more keen-witted couriers—and it would be wafted across to Moscow in an instant, as on a three-horse sleigh with bells a-jingling. And for my part I would dispatch a coded telegram: accept, O ruler of the heavenly realms, this priceless gift.”

God knows, Erast Fandorin did not crave honors. He did not desire decorations or even fame. He would have surrendered the attaché case to Pyzhov for the good of the cause, for, after all, a courier really would be more reliable. But in his imagination he had already rehearsed so many times the triumphant return to his chief, with the spectacular presentation of the precious attaché case and the thrilling account of all the adventures that had befallen him…and now was none of this to be?

Cravenly putting his own interest first, Fandorin said austerely, “The attaché case is concealed in a secure hiding place. And I shall deliver it myself. I answer for it with my life. Please do not take offense, Mr. Pyzhov.”

“Why, of course not, of course not.” Pyzhov made no attempt to insist. “Just as you wish. It will be less trouble for me. The devil take other people’s secrets—I have quite enough of my own. If it is in a secure place, so be it.” He got to his feet and ran his gaze over the bare walls of the tiny room. “You take a rest for the time being, my young friend. Youth needs sleep. I am an old man, and I have insomnia in any case, so in the meanwhile I shall issue instructions concerning the boat. Tomorrow—actually it is already today—I shall be here at very first light. I shall deliver you to the shore of the sea, embrace and kiss you in farewell and make the sign of the cross over you. And I shall remain here, an orphan abandoned in an alien land. Oh, it frets poor Ivan’s heart to be stuck in foreign parts.”

At this point even Porfirii Pyzhov clearly realized that he had poured on the syrup a little too thickly, and he spread his arms in acknowledgment of his guilt.

“I repent—my tongue has run away with me. But, you know, I have missed living Russian speech so badly. I do so yearn for elegant turns of phrase. Our embassy know-it-alls express themselves most of the time in French, and I have no one with whom I can share the inmost stirrings of my soul.”

The thunder rumbled again, this time more seriously, and it appeared to have started raining. Pyzhov was suddenly all business, and he began preparing to depart.

“I must be going. Ai-ai-ai, how passionately the inclement elements do rage.”

In the doorway he turned around to caress Fandorin with a farewell glance and then with a low bow he melted away into the gloom of the corridor.

Erast Fandorin locked and bolted the door and hunched his shoulders in a chill shiver as a peal of thunder reverberated above the very roof.

IT WAS DARK AND EERIE in the wretched little room, with its solitary window that overlooked the naked stone yard without a single blade of grass. Outside, the weather was foul, windy and rainy, but the moon was slewing through the tattered clouds strewn across the black and gray sky. A ray of yellow light falling through the crack between the curtains cut the squalid lodging in half, slashing through it as far as the bed, where Fandorin, beset by nightmares, tossed in a cold sweat. He was fully dressed, including his boots, and he was still armed, except that the revolver was once again under his pillow.

Overburdened by the guilt of the murder, poor Erast Fandorin’s conscience visited upon him a strange vision. Dead Amalia was leaning over his bed. Her eyes were half closed, a drop of blood trickled from beneath her eyelid, and in her bare hand she held a black rose.

“What did I do to you?” The dead woman groaned piteously. “I was young and beautiful. I was unhappy and lonely. They snared me in their web—they deceived and depraved me. The only man I loved betrayed me. You have committed a terrible sin, Erast. You have killed beauty, and beauty is a miracle from God. You have trampled underfoot a miracle from God. And why, what for?”

The drop of blood fell from her cheek straight onto Erast Fandorin’s forehead. He started at the cold sensation and opened his eyes. He saw that Amalia was not there, thank God. It was all a dream, nothing but a dream. But then another icy drop fell on his forehead.

What was it? Erast Fandorin wondered, shuddering in horror and finally waking up completely. He heard the howling of the wind, the drumming of the rain, the hollow rumbling of the thunder. But what were these drops? It was nothing supernatural, however—the ceiling was leaking. Be still, foolish heart, be calm.