Boris Akunin - Special Assignments

And by the way, the pay for such wonderful work was also twice as much as he had received before, and he had been promoted in the state rankings too. Erast Petrovich had dashed off a couple of lines to the department and Tulipov had immediately been made a candidate for a formal title. When the first vacancy arose, he would sit a trifling examination and that would be it - the former courier would be an official, Mr Collegiate Registrar.

This was how it had all begun.

On that memorable day when the white dove appeared to Anisii, he and Court Counsellor Fandorin went straight from the Governor's house to the notary's office that had registered the bill of sale with the scoffing signature. Alas, behind the door with the bronze plaque that read Ivan Karlovich Mobius, they found nothing. The titular counsellor's wife Kapustina, whose house it was, had opened the locked door with her own key and testified that Mr Mobius had rented the ground floor two weeks earlier and paid for a month in advance. He was a thorough and reliable man and he had printed very prominent announcements about his office in all the newspapers. She had been surprised when he had not appeared at the office the previous day.

Fandorin listened, nodding his head and occasionally asking brief questions. He ordered Anisii to make a note of the description of the vanished notary's appearance. Average height,' Tulipov's pencil recorded with a studious squeak. 'Moustache, little goatee beard. Mousy hair. Pince-nez. Rubs his hands and laughs all the time. Polite. Large brown wart on right cheek. Looks at least forty. Leather galoshes. Grey coat with black roll collar.'

'Don't write about the g-galoshes and coat,' said the Court Counsellor, glancing briefly at Anisii's notes. 'Only the physical appearance.'

Behind the door there was a perfectly ordinary office: in the reception room there was a writing desk, a safe with its door half open and shelves with files. The files were all empty, mere cardboard shells, but in the safe on the metal shelf, in the most obvious spot, there was a playing card: the jack of spades. Erast Petrovich took the card, examined it through a magnifying glass and dropped it on the floor.

He explained to Anisii: 'It's just an ordinary card, the same as they sell everywhere. I can't stand cards, Tulipov, and especially the jack of spades (which they also call Momos). I have some extremely unpleasant memories associated with it.'

From the office they went to the English consulate to meet Lord Pitsbrook. On this occasion the son of Albion was accompanied by a diplomatic translator, and so Anisii was able to record the victim's testimony himself.

The British citizen informed the Court Counsellor that the 'Mobius' notary office had been recommended to him by Mr Speier as one of Russia's most respectable and oldest legal firms. In confirmation of this assertion, Mr Speier had shown him several newspapers, each of which carried a prominent advertisement for 'Mobius'. The lord did not know any Russian, but the year of the company's foundation - sixteen hundred and something - had made a most favourable impression on him.

Pitsbrook also showed them one of the newspapers, the Moscow Provincial Gazette which, in his English manner, he called the Moscow News. Anisii stretched his neck to peer over Mr Fandorin's shoulder and saw a huge advertisement covering a quarter of the page:

MOBIUS

Notary's Office

Ministry of Justice registration certificate No. 1672

Wills and bills of sale drawn up, powers of attorney witnessed, mortgages secured, representation for the recovery of debts, and other sundry services

They took the British citizen to the office of ill-fame, and he gave a detailed account of how, having received the paper signed by 'the old gentleman' (that is, His Excellency the Governor-General) he had set out to come here, to the 'office'. Mr Speier had not gone with him, because he was not feeling very well, but he had assured him that the head of the firm had been informed and was expecting his titled foreign client. The lord had indeed been received very courteously and offered tea with 'hard round biscuits' (spice cakes, perhaps?) and a good cigar. The documents had been witnessed very promptly and the notary had taken the money - a hundred thousand roubles - for safe keeping and put it in the safe.

'Yes indeed, safe keeping,' Erast Petrovich muttered, and asked something, pointing at the safe.

The Englishman nodded, opened the unlocked iron door and hissed an oath.

The lord was unable to add anything substantial to the portrait of Ivan Karlovich Mobius; he simply kept repeating that he had a wart. Anisii even remembered the English word for it.

A distinctive feature, Your Honour. A large brown wart on the right cheek. Perhaps we'll find the rogue after all?' said Tulipov, expressing his sound idea with timid reserve. He had taken the Governor-General's words about being ground into dust very much to heart. He wanted to prove useful.

But the Court Counsellor did not take Anisii's contribution seriously and said absent-mindedly: 'That's nothing, Tulipov. A psychological trick. It's not difficult to give yourself a wart or, say, a birthmark that covers half your cheek. Usually witnesses only remember a striking feature like that, and pay less attention to the others. Let us focus instead on the protector of juvenile harlots, "Mr Speier". Did you note down his portrait? Show it to me. Height uncertain, because in wheelchair. Dark blondish-brown hair, short at the temples. Soft, gentle expression. (Hmm ...) Eyes apparently light-coloured. (That is important, we shall have to question His Excellency's secretary again.) Open, pleasant face. So, there is nothing to give us a lead. We shall have to trouble His Highness the Duke of Saxen-Limburg. Let us hope he knows something about this "grandson", since he provided him with a special letter of recommendation to the "grandfather".'

Erast Petrovich went to the Loskutnaya Hotel on his own, dressed up in his uniform, to see the royal prince. He was gone for a long time and returned with a face darker than a thunder cloud. At the hotel he had been told that His Highness had left the previous day to take the Warsaw train, but the tall passenger had failed to show up at the Bryansk Station.

That evening the Court Counsellor held a consultation with Anisii, which he called an 'operational analysis', to sum up the results of the long day. This procedure was new to Tulipov. Later on, when he was already used to the idea that every day concluded with an 'analysis', he began to get a little bolder, but that first evening he said nothing for most of the time, afraid of blurting out something stupid.

'Right, let's be rational about this,' the Court Counsellor began. 'The notary Mobius, who is not a notary at all, has gone, evaporated. That is one.' A jade bead on the rosary clicked loudly. 'The invalided philanthropist Speier, who is not a philanthropist at all, and unlikely to be an invalid, has also gone, disappeared without trace. That is two. (And once again - click!) What is especially intriguing is that the duke has also mysteriously disappeared, and unlike the "notary" and the "invalid", he would appear to have been genuine. Of course, Germany is just full of little crowned princes, far too many to keep track of, but this one was received in Moscow with full honours, the n-newspapers wrote about his arrival. And that is three (click!). On the way back from the station I dropped into the offices of The Week and the Russian Herald and asked how they had heard about the forthcoming visit by His Highness the Duke of Saxen-Limburg. It turned out that the newspapers had received the information in the usual manner, by telegraph from their St Petersburg correspondents. What do you make of that, Tulipov?'