Boris Akunin - The State Counsellor

The State Counsellor gave no reply, and Pozharsky continued, smiling disarmingly: 'Very well, let us take our time. For the time being let us simply get to know each better. I'll teach you how to be flexible, and you'll teach me to guess the colour of cards. Is it a deal?'

Fandorin thought for a moment and nodded.

'Excellent. Then I propose that from now on we should address each other informally and this evening we can seal the concordance by drinking to Bruderschaft,' the prince said, beaming. 'How about it? "Gleb and Erast"?'

'"Erast and Gleb",' Erast Petrovich agreed.

'My friends actually call me Glebchik,' the new head police-master said with a smile, holding out his hand. 'Well then, Erast, until this evening. I have to go out shortly on important business.'

Fandorin stood up and shook the outstretched hand, but seemed in no hurry to leave.

'But what about the search for Green? Are we not going to d-do anything about it? As I recall, Gleb,' said the State Counsellor, uttering the unaccustomed form of address with some effort, 'you said that we were going to "start scheming again".'

'Don't you worry about that,' Pozharsky replied, smiling like Vasilisa the Wise telling the young Tsarevich Ivan that tomorrow is a new day. 'The meeting for which I am departing in such haste will help me close the case of the Combat Group once and for all.'

Crushed by this final blow, Fandorin said no more, but merely nodded dejectedly in farewell and walked out of the office.

He walked down the stairs with the same crestfallen stride, crossed the vestibule slowly, threw his fur coat across his shoulders and went out on to the boulevard, swinging his top hat melancholically.

However, no sooner had Erast Fandorin moved a little distance away from the yellow building with the white columns than his bearing underwent a quite dramatic change. He suddenly ran out into the roadway and waved his hand to stop the first cab that came along.

'Where to, Your Excellency?' the grey-bearded cabby cried smardy in a Vladimir accent when he spotted the glittering cross of a medal under the open fur coat. 'We'll get you there quick as a flash!'

But the important gent didn't get in; instead he took a look at the sturdy, shaggy-haired horse and kicked the sleigh's runner with the toe of his boot.

'So how much is a rig like this nowadays?'

The cabby wasn't surprised, because this wasn't his first year driving a cab in Moscow and he'd seen all sorts of cranks in his time. In fact those cranks were the best tippers.

'Oh, nigh on five hundred,' he boasted, naturally stretching the truth a bit to make the figure sound respectable.

And then the gent did something really queer. He took a gold watch on a gold chain out of his pocket and said: 'This diamond Breguette is worth at least a thousand roubles. Take it, and give me the sleigh and the horse.'

The cabby's jaw dropped and his eyes went blank. He gazed spellbound at the bright specks of sunlight dancing on the gold.

'Make your mind up quickly' the crazy general shouted, 'or I'll st-stop someone else.'

The cabby snatched the watch and stuffed it into his cheek, but the chain wouldn't fit, so it was left dangling down across his beard. He got out of the sleigh, dropped his whip, slapped the sorrel mare on the rump in farewell and legged it.

'Stop!' the weird gent shouted after him - he must have changed his mind. 'Come back!'

The cabby plodded miserably back towards the sleigh, but he didn't take the booty out of his cheek yet; he was still hoping.

'M-m-ma-m, mimim, mamimi mummi mumi mamokumi,' he mooed reproachfully, which meant: 'Shame on a gent like you for playing tricks like that, you should have given me a tip for vodka too.'

'L-Let's swap clothes,' the crackpot said. 'Your sheepskin coat and mittens for my heavy coat. And take your cap off too.'

The gent pulled on the sheepskin coat and tugged the flaps of the sheepskin cap down over his ears. He tossed the cabby his cloth-covered beaver-fur coat and plonked the suede top hat down on his head. And then he yelled: 'That's it, now clear out!'

The cabby picked up the skirts of the heavy coat that was too long for him and set off across the boulevard, tramping heavily in his patched felt boots, with the chain of the gold watch dangling beside his ear.

Fandorin got into the sleigh, clicked his tongue to the horse to reassure it, and started waiting.

About five minutes later a closed sleigh drove up to the door of the head police-master's house. Pozharsky came out of the building carrying a bouquet of tea roses and ducked into the closed sleigh. It set off immediately. Another sleigh carrying two gentlemen who were already familiar to Erast Petrovich set off in pursuit.

After waiting for a little while, the State Counsellor gave a wild bandit whistle and whooped: 'Giddup, lazybones! Get moving!'

The sorrel mare shook its combed mane, jangled its sleigh bell and set off at a fast trot.

It turned out that they were going to the Nikolaevsky Station.

There Pozharsky jumped out of the carriage, tidied his bouquet and ran lightly up the station steps, two at a time. The 'guardian angels' followed him, keeping their customary distance.

Then the sham cabby got out of his own sleigh. As if he were simply strolling about aimlessly, he walked close to the covered carriage, dropped his mitten and bent down to pick it up, but didn't straighten up again immediately. He glanced around slyly and suddenly smashed the mounting of the suspension with an immensely powerful blow of his fist, delivered with such lightning speed that it was almost impossible to see. The sleigh shuddered and sagged slightly to one side. The alarmed driver hung down from his box to look, but saw nothing suspicious, because Fandorin had already straightened up and was looking the other way.

After that, while he sat in his sleigh, he refused several fares from the St Petersburg train, one of which was actually highly advantageous: to Sokolniki for a rouble and twenty-five kopecks.

Pozharsky returned with company: an extremely attractive young lady. She was burying her face in the roses and laughing happily. And the prince was not his usual self: his face was positively glowing with carefree merriment.

The lovely lady put her free hand round his shoulders and kissed him on the lips so passionately that Gleb Georgievich's pine-marten cap slipped over to one side of his head.

Fandorin could not help shaking his head in amazement at the surprises thrown up by human nature. Who would ever have thought that the ambitious predator from St Petersburg was capable of such romantic behaviour? But what had all this to do with the Combat Group?

As soon as the prince seated his companion in the carriage, it heeled over decisively to the right, making quite clear that there was no chance of travelling any further in it.

Erast Fandorin pulled his cap further down over his eyes, turned up his collar, cracked his whip smartly and drove straight up to the scene of the mishap.

'Here's a fine light Vladimir sleigh for you!' the State Counsellor yelled in a high falsetto that had nothing in common with his normal voice. 'Get in, Your Honour, I'll take you and the mamselle wherever you like, and I won't ask a lot: just a roople, and a half a roople, and a quarter roople for tea and sugar!'

Pozharsky glanced at this dashing fellow, then at the lopsided carriage and said: 'You can take the lady to Lubyanskaya Square. And I', he said, addressing the new arrival herself, 'will ride to Tverskoi Boulevard with my sworn protectors. I'll be waiting for news.'

As she got into the sleigh and covered her knees with the bearskin rug, the beautiful woman said in French: 'Only I beg you, darling, no police tricks, no shadowing. He's certain to sense it.'