Boris Akunin - Special Assignments

Anisii shuffled smartly along the corridor in his 'bedroom slippers'. On the upper landing of the staircase the moon peeped in through the corridor window, plucking out of the darkness a white figure running towards him. The mirror!

Tulipov froze for a moment, trying to make out his own face in the gloom. Was it true? Was this him - little Anisii, the deacon's son, the imbecile Sonya's brother? If the happy gleam in the eyes were anything to go by (and in any case, he couldn't see anything else), it wasn't him at all, but someone quite different, someone Anisii didn't know at all.

He opened the door into Ahmad-Khan's' bedroom and heard Erast Petrovich's voice.

'... You will pay in full for all your pranks, Mr Jester. For the banker Polyakov's trotters, and for the merchant Patrikeev's "river of gold", and for the English lord, and for the lottery. And also for your cynical escapade directed against me, and for obliging me to smear myself with tincture of Brazil nut and walk around in an idiotic turban for five days.'

Tulipov already knew that when the Court Counsellor stopped stammering, it was a bad sign - Mr Fandorin was either under extreme stress or damnably angry. It this case it was obviously the latter.

The stage in the bedroom was set as follows: the elderly Georgian woman was sitting on the floor beside the bed, with her monumental nose strangely skewed to one side. Towering up over her from behind, with his sparse eyebrows knitted in a furious frown and his hands thrust bellicosely against his sides, was Masa, dressed in a long white nightshirt. Erast Petrovich himself was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, tapping on the armrest with an unlit cigar. His face was expressionless, his voice was deceptively languid, but its suppressed rumblings of thunder made Anisii wince.

The Chief turned to his assistant and asked: 'Well, how is our little bird?'

'In the cage,' Tulipov reported, waving the key with the double bit.

The 'chaperone' looked at the agent's hand raised in triumph and shook his head sceptically.

A-ah, Mr Eunuch,' the crooked-nosed woman said in such a resonant, rolling baritone that Anisii started. A bald head suits you.' And the repulsive hag stuck out her broad, red tongue.

And women's clothes suit you,' retorted Tulipov, stung. He instinctively raised a hand to his naked scalp.

'B-Bravo,' said Fandorin, approving his assistant's quick wit. 'I would advise you, Mr Jack, to show less bravado. You are in real trouble this time; you have been caught red-handed.'

Two days earlier, Anisii had been confused at first when the 'Princess Chkhartishvili' had shown up for a stroll in the company of her chaperone. 'Chief, you said there were only two of them - the Jack of Spades and the girl, and now some old woman has turned up as well.'

'You're an old woman yourself, Tulipov,' the 'prince' had hissed through his teeth as he bowed graciously to a lady walking in the opposite direction. That's him: our friend Momos. A virtuoso of disguise - give him his due. Except that his feet are a little large for a woman, and his gaze is rather too stern. It's him all right, my dear fellow. Couldn't be anyone else.'

'Shall we take him in?' Anisii had whispered excitedly, pretending to be brushing the snow off his master's shoulder.

'What for? The girl, now - well she was at the lottery, and we have witnesses. But nobody even knows what he looks like. What can we arrest him for? For dressing up as an old woman? Oh no, I've been looking forward to this; we have to be able to throw the book at this one: caught red-handed at the scene of the crime.'

To be quite honest, at the time Tulipov had thought the Court Counsellor was being too clever by half. But, as always, things turned out as Fandorin had said they would. The grouse had gone for the decoy and they had him bang to rights. There was no way he could wriggle out of it now.

Erast Petrovich struck a match, lit his cigar and began talking in a harsh, dry voice: 'Your greatest mistake, my dear sir, was deciding to joke at the expense of those who do not take kindly to being mocked.'

Since the prisoner said nothing, concentrating on setting his nose back in place, Fandorin felt it necessary to explain: 'I mean, firstly, Prince Dolgorukoi and, secondly, myself. No one has ever had the insolence to scoff at my personal life so impudently. And with such unpleasant consequences for myself

The Chief wrinkled up his brow in an expression of suffering. Anisii nodded in sympathy, remembering how things had been for Erast Petrovich before they were able to move from Malaya Nikitskaya Street to the Sparrow Hills.

'Certainly it was pulled off very neatly, I won't deny it,' Fandorin continued, in control of himself once again. 'You will, of course, return the Countess's things, without delay, even before the trial begins. I will not charge you with that - in order not to drag Ariadna Arkadievna's name through the courts.'

At this point the Court Counsellor began pondering something, then nodded to himself as if he were taking a difficult decision and turned to Anisii. 'Tulipov, if you would be so kind, check the things against the list drawn up by Ariadna Arkadievna ... send them to St Petersburg. The address is the house of Count and Countess Opraksin on the Fontanka Embankment.'

Anisii merely sighed, not daring to express his feelings in any bolder manner. And Erast Petrovich, evidently angered by the decision that he himself had taken, turned back to his prisoner: 'Well then, you have had some good fun at my expense. But everyone knows that pleasures must be paid for. The next five years, which you will spend in penal servitude, will allow you plenty of time to learn some useful lessons about life. From now on you will know who can be joked with and who cannot.'

From the flatness of Fandorin's tone, Anisii realised that his chief was absolutely raging furious.

'If you will permit me, my dear Erast Petrovich,' the 'chaperone' drawled in a familiar fashion. 'Thank you for introducing yourself at the moment of my arrest, or I would still have believed you to be an Indian prince. But I am obliged to wonder how you have arrived at the figure of five years' penal servitude. Let us check our arithmetic. Some trotters or other, some river of gold, an English lord, a lottery - all sheer guesswork. What has all of that got to do with me? And then, you mention some things belonging to a countess? If they belong to Count Opraksin, then what where they doing in your home? Are you cohabiting with another man's wife? That's not good. Although, of course, it's none of my business. But if I am being accused of something, then I demand formal charges and proof. There absolutely has to be proof

Anisii gasped at this insolence and glanced round anxiously at his chief. Fandorin chuckled ominously. And perhaps you would be so good as to tell me what you are doing here? - in this strange costume, at such a late hour?'

'It was just a bit of foolishness,' the Jack replied with a sniff of regret, 'a foolish hankering after the emerald. But this, gentlemen, is what is known as "provocation". You even have gendarmes on guard downstairs. This is an entire police conspiracy'

'The gendarmes don't know who we are,' said Anisii, unable to resist a chance to boast. And they're not part of any conspiracy. As far as they're concerned, we're orientals.'

'It doesn't matter,' the rogue said dismissively. 'Just look how many of you there are - servants of the state, all lined up against one poor, unfortunate man whom you deliberately led into temptation. In court any decent lawyer will give you a whipping that will leave you itching for ages afterwards. And if I'm right, that stone of yours is worth no more than ten roubles at best. One month's detention at the most. And you talk to me about five years' penal servitude, Erast Petrovich. My arithmetic is more accurate.'