Boris Akunin - The Coronation

‘Where was it found?’

‘On the porch, right outside the doors. The doorman went out to see if the rain had stopped, and it was lying there.’

That means it could have been left from the outside, I thought. They climbed over the fence and left it, very simple. That made me feel better, but only a little.

Of course, I did not open the envelope, although it was not sealed – I took it up to the first floor. If Somov had not been watching me, I would have run.

Before entering the small drawing room, I stopped and listened at the door. I always do this, but not in order to eavesdrop, only to avoid interrupting any important conversations or intimate moments by knocking.

I heard Kirill Alexandrovich’s thick, angry voice speaking in the room: ‘Nicky, howcan you be such a blockhead! Youmustn’t say anything about concessions during the audience with Li Hunchan! Under no circumstances! You’ll ruin everything!’

I could not help shaking my head and thinking that things could not go on like this for much longer. The sovereign was by no means as weak-willed as Their Highnesses imagined. And he had a vindictive streak.

I knocked loudly, handed over the message and immediately went back out into the corridor.

I had to wait no more than five minutes. Georgii Alexandrovich looked out and beckoned to me with his finger. His expression seemed rather strange to me.

The sovereign and the other grand dukes also looked at me in the same way – as if they were seeing me for the first time or, perhaps, as if they had only just noticed that there was a man by the name of Afanasii Stepanovich Ziukin living in the world. I did not like it at all.

‘You know French, don’t you?’ Kirill Alexandrovich asked. ‘Here, read this.’

I took the unfolded sheet of paper with a certain degree of trepidation and read:

Your terms are accepted, but the payment for each day of deferment is one million. Tomorrow at three in the afternoon your intermediary must drive along the Garden Ring Road alone, in an open carriage, from Kaluga Square in the direction of Zhitnaya Street. The money must be in a suitcase, in twenty-five-rouble treasury notes. I shall regard the slightest sign of foul play from your side as releasing me from all commitments and shall return the prince to you as promised – in pieces.

One final thing. The intermediary must be the servant who was in the park: with a wart on his cheek and the doggy sideburns.

Yours sincerely ,

Doctor Lind

The first response I felt was resentment. Favoris de chien ? 1How dare he call my well-groomed whiskers that?

It was only afterwards that the full, frightening meaning of the message struck me.

1 Doggy sideburns.

Following long telephone conversations between the Petrovsky Palace, the governor general’s residence and the Hermitage, control of the operation was entrusted to Colonel Karnovich. The high police master of Moscow was instructed to provide every possible assistance, while Fandorinwas assigned the rather indefinite role of adviser, and even then only at the stubborn insistence of Georgii Alexandrovich who, following the rescue of his daughter, believed fervently in the exceptional qualities of the retired deputy for special assignments.

Like everyone else, I knew very little aboutKarnovich, because this mysterious man had only made his appearance at the foot of the throne very recently. He was not obviously fitted for this responsible, indeed one might say crucially important, post either by age, or rank or social connection, especially since before this exalted appointment Karnovich had performed the modest duties of head of one of the provincial offices of gendarmes. However, following the sensational exposure of an anarchist terrorist organisation, people had begun speaking of the colonel as the rising star in the field of political detective work, and soon this quiet, unprepossessing gentleman, who always kept his eyes hidden behind blue-tinted spectacles, was the head of His Majesty’s bodyguard – a truly prodigious advancement which did not endear Karnovich to the members of the court. But then, when had the head of the court police, who, by the very nature of his job, is exceptionally well informed about the weaknesses and secrets of individuals who stand close to the throne, ever enjoyed the sympathy of the court? Such is the nature of the job.

In contrast, High Police Master Lasovsky was very well known, a figure of almost legendary status in both capital cities. The St Petersburg newspapers loved to describe the eccentric and despotic behaviour of this modern-day Ivan the Terrible (the Moscowpapers did not dare): his love of driving round the streets in the famous police master’s carriage with the finest horses in the entire city, his particular enthusiasm for the fire brigade, his exceptional strictness with yard keepers and his famous orders, printed every day in the Moscow Municipal Police Gazette. That very morning, on the front page of this remarkable newspaper, I myself had read the following order:

While driving out on 7 May I observed the following: on Voskresenskaya Square opposite the Bolshaya Moskva hotel I detected the foul odour of rotting herrings that had not been cleared away by the yard keepers; at 5.45 a.m. two nightwatchmen standing by the Triumphal Gateswere making idle conversation; at 1.20 in the afternoon the constable was not at his post on the corner of Bolshay tverskaya-yamskaya street and the Triumphal Gates Square: at 10 p.m. on the corner of Tverskaya Street and Voskresenskaya Square, the constable stepped up on to the pavement and began arguing with a cab driver.

I hereby order all the guilty con-stables, watchmen and yard keepers to be arrested and fined.

Acting High Police Master of

Moscow, Colonel Lasovsky

Of course, the head of police in a city of a million people ought not to concern himself with such petty matters, but in my view we could well introduce some of Moscow’s innovations in St Petersburg. For instance, we could station constables at crossroads in order to direct the movement of carriages – on Nevsky Prospect and the embankments the crush is so thick that you cannot pass either on foot or in a vehicle. And it would also be a good idea to followthe example of Moscowand forbid cab drivers to swear and drive unwashed carriages on pain of a fine.

But Colonel Lasovsky’s temperamentwas genuinely gruff and whimsical, as I had the opportunity to observe during the briefing meeting before the beginning of the operation.

Although my main supervisor was Karnovich, the high police master constantly interrupted with his own remarks, and his entire manner suggested that he, Lasovsky, and not the upstart from out of town was the true master in the old city. Arguments flared up repeatedly between the two colonels as to whether one ought to arrest the doctor’s messenger when he came for the money: the Moscow colonel was emphatically in favour of an immediate arrest and swore he would shake the son of a bitch’s very soul out of him, together with the rest of his innards, while the colonel from Tsarskoe Selo spoke no less emphatically in support of caution and emphasised the threat to Mikhail Georgievich’s life. Fandorin was present in the drawing room, but he did not get involved in the argument.

Karnovich took a number of measures that appeared very sensible to me. Three disguised carriages with police agents in civilian dress were to drive ahead of my carriage. The agents would all be from the court police – fine strapping young men. Their task would not be to seize Lind’s messenger, but to ‘sit on his tail’ (as the colonel put it) and ‘tail’ him to the kidnappers’ lair. In addition, since the previous evening a special group of treasury officials had been engaged in copying out the numbers of all the banknotes to be handed over to Lind, each of these would then leave its own trail to be followed.