Boris Akunin - The Coronation

Erast Petrovich pressed his lips together again, so hard that they turned white. Everybody waited patiently for him to recover his self-control – the members of the royal family are indulgent with those poor mortals who do not possess their supernatural self-control.

‘I did not immediately understand why the boy was sitting so still and I leaned my head down low to look. It was only when I got very close that I saw there was a slim stiletto stuck straight into his heart! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The day before, in anticipation of a trick, I had searched the room as thoroughly as possible, looking for a disguised hatch or a secret door, and I had not found anything suspicious. But later I recalled that as Lind let me pass him on the way out, he had lingered beside the chair – for a second, no more than that. But that second had been enough for him. What a precise blow, what cold-blooded calculation!’

It seemed to me that in addition to a bitterness and fury that time had not dulled, Fandorin’s tone of voice expressed an involuntary admiration for the deftness of this satanic doctor.

‘Ever since then I have set aside all other business until I settle scores with the doctor. I admit that a significant part in this decision was played by wounded vanity and the stain that the whole business left on my reputation. But there is more to it than mere vanity . . .’ Fandorin wrinkled his high forehead. ‘This man has to be stopped, because he is a true genius of evil, endowed with an incredibly fertile imagination and boundless ambition. Sometimes it seems to me that the goal he has set himself is to become famous as the greatest criminal in the whole of human history, and Lind certainly has more than enough rivals in that area. I had realised that sooner or later he would arrange some kind of catastrophe on a national or even international scale. And that is what has now happened . . .’

He paused again.

‘Sit down, Erast Petrovich,’ Kirill Alexandrovich said to him, and I realised that Fandorin’s speech had obviously made a good impression on His Highness – the retired state counsellor was no longer being questioned, they were talking to him. ‘Tell us how you hunted Doctor Lind.’

‘First of all I turned the whole of New York upside down, but only succeeded in forcing the doctor to move his headquarters from the New World to the Old. I will not weary Your Majesty and Your Highnesses with a description of my searches, but six months later I managed to locate Lind’s lair in London. And I saw the doctor for the second time – or rather I saw his shadow as he fled from his pursuers along one of the tunnels of the London Underground, shooting back with incredible accuracy. With two shots the doctor killed two constables from Scotland Yard outright, and he almost dispatched me to the next world.’ Fandorin raised a lock of black hair off his forehead and we saw a scar running in a narrow white line across his temple. ‘It’s nothing, merely a glancing blow, but I lost consciousness for a moment, and in that time Lind was able to escape pursuit . . . I followed close on his heels from one country to another, and every time I was just a little too late. And then in Rome, about six months ago, the doctor simply vanished into thin air. It was only two weeks ago that I learned from a reliable source that the famous Warsaw bandit known as Blizna had boasted in intimate company that the doctor himself had invited him to Moscow for some very big job. As a Russian subject, Penderetski was well acquainted with the criminal world of Moscow – the gangs in both Khitrovka and the Sukharevka. That must be what Lind, who had n-never operated in Russia before, needed him for. I had been racking my brains to understand what could have attracted the doctor’s interest in patriarchal Moscow. Now it is clear . . .’

‘Impossible, absolutely impossible!’ Simeon Alexandrovich exclaimed angrily, addressing His Majesty, not Fandorin. ‘My boys in Khitrovka and the Sukharevka would never take part in a fiendish plot directed against the royal family! They will steal and cut throats as much as you like. But loyalty to the throne is in these Apaches’ blood! On several occasions my Lasovsky has successfully used criminals to catch terrorists. Let me give you an example: for the duration of the coronation celebrations he has concluded a kind of gentlemen’s agreement with the leader of all the Khitrovka thieves, a certain King, that the police will not detain pickpockets, but in exchange they must immediately report any weapons and other suspicious items that they discover in the pockets of the public. The King was quite happy to agree to this condition – he declared that in a certain sense he himself is an absolute sovereign, and monarchs must support each other. I can’t vouch for the exact words that he used, but that was his meaning.’

This announcement lightened the gloomy mood of the company somewhat and Simeon Alexandrovich, encouraged by the smiles, added the following with a wily air: ‘His Khitrovkan Majesty validated his promise with the formula: “I’m a mongrel if I don’t!” Lasovsky tells me that this is the most cogent bandit oath of all.’

‘How’s that?’ asked the sovereign, intrigued. ‘A mongrel, as in a dog with no pedigree, eh? I’ll tell Alice; she’ll like that.’

‘Nicky, Sam,’ Kirill Alexandrovich said sternly. ‘Let’s listen to the rest of what Mr Fandorin has to say.’

‘The King is not the only leader in Khitrovka and in any case he is certainly not an autocratic s-sovereign.’ Although Erast Petrovich was replying to the governor general’s statement, he did not look at him, but at the emperor. ‘They are even saying that the King’s days are numbered, that any day now he will be written off, that is killed by the so-called breakaways – pushy young bandits who are beginning to set the style in Khitrovka and Sukharevka. There is Rennet’s gang, which operates in a new trade, dealing in opium, there is a certain Gristle – his speciality is “wet jobs”, or killings, and extortion. Acertain Stump has also appeared, with a gang in which the secrecy and discipline are tighter than in the Neapolitan Camorra.’

‘Stump?’ the emperor repeated in amazement. ‘What a strange name.’

‘Yes. A colourful character. His right hand was amputated and the stump ends in a plate ontowhich, according to requirements, he screws either a spoon or a hook or a knife or a chain with an iron apple on the end. They say it’s a terrible weapon and its blow is deadly. The breakaways, Your Majesty, have no fear of spilling blood, do not acknowledge the thieves’ laws, and the King is no authority for them. I suspect that Penderetski had connections with one of them. I followed the Marked One and his man from Warsaw, but very cautiously, in order not to frighten them off. He visited the Zerentui inn in Khitrovka twice, a place that is well known for not paying any tribute to the King. I was hoping that Blizna would lead me to the doctor, but nothing came of that. The Poles were in Moscow for ten days, and Penderetski went to the poste restante at the Central Post Office every day and spent a lot of time loitering near the Alexandriisky Palace and the Neskuchny Park. At least four times he climbed over thewall and strolled about in the park round the Hermitage. I realise now that he was looking for a convenient spot for an ambush. From noon yesterday he and his boys were hanging about in front of the exit from the park onto the Kaluga Highway, and there was a carriage waiting nearby. Some time after six a carriage with the grand duke’s crest drove out of the gates and theWarsaw gang set out to follow it. I realised that the business was coming to a head. My assistant and I followed on behind in two cabs. Then two ladies, a boy and a man in a green tunic (Fandorin glanced towards me) got out of the grand duke’s carriage. Penderetski, now wearing a false beard so that I did not recognise him immediately, walked after them. The carriage carrying the other bandits drove slowly behind him. Then my assistant and I entered the park from the other side, and I walked towards the strollers, watching out all the time in case Lind appeared . . .’