Boris Akunin - The Diamond Chariot

The engineer took out of his pocket a beautiful small, flat pistol, manufactured to order at the Browning factory in Belgium, and tugged on the breech. His valet demonstratively turned away.

Well then, come on, Erast Petrovich thought to himself, trying to hurry the Poles along, and sighed – there was not much hope that Danilov’s fine eagles would take anyone alive. But never mind, at least one of the villains had to stay with the horses. The lucky man would escape a gendarme’s bullet and fall into Fandorin’s hands.

The discussions ended. But instead of moving towards the doors of the administration building or straight to the gates, the saboteurs got back into their carriages, cracked their whips and all three carriages dashed away from the depot, picking up speed, in the direction of Dobraya Sloboda.

Had they noticed something? Had they changed their plan?

Erast Petrovich ran out of the gateway.

The carriages had already disappeared round the corner.

The engineer pulled his splendid coat off his shoulders and set off at a run in the same direction.

His servant picked up the abandoned coat and jogged after him, puffing and panting.

When Lieutenant Colonel Danilov and his gendarmes darted out on to the porch, Novo-Basmannaya Street was already empty. The sound of hoofbeats had faded into the distance, and the moon was shining placidly in the sky.

It turned out that Erast Petrovich Fandorin, a responsible member of a highly serious government agency, a man no longer in the prime of youth, could not only shin up telephone poles, but could also run at a quite fantastic speed, while making no sound and remaining virtually invisible – he ran close to the walls, where the shadows of night were thickest of all, skirting round the patches of moonlight or vaulting over them with a prodigious leap. More than anything else, the engineer resembled a phantom, careering along the dark street on some otherworldly business of his own. It was a good thing he didn’t run into anybody out walking late – the poor devil would have been in for a serious shock.

Fandorin caught up with the carriages quite soon. After that he started running more gently, in order to keep his distance.

The pursuit, however, did not continue for long.

The carriages halted behind the Von-Dervizov Grammar School for Girls. They were parked wheel to wheel, and one of the drivers gathered all the reins into a bundle, while the other seven men set off towards a two-storey building with a glass display window.

One of them fiddled with the door for a moment, then waved his hand, and the whole group disappeared inside.

Erast Petrovich stuck his head out from round the corner, trying to work out how to creep up on the driver, who was standing on his box, gazing around vigilantly in all directions. All the approaches were brightly lit by the moon.

At this point Masa came panting up. Realising from Fandorin’s expression that his master was about to take decisive action, he threw his false pigtail over his shoulder and whispered angrily in Japanese:

‘I shall only intervene if the supporters of His Majesty are going to kill you. But if you start killing the supporters of His Majesty the Mikado, then do not count on my help.’

‘Oh, drop it,’ Erast Petrovich replied in Russian. ‘Don’t get in my way.’

There was a muffled scream from the house. No further delay was possible.

The engineer ran soundlessly to the nearest lamp-post and hid behind it. He was now only ten paces away from the driver.

Taking a monogrammed cigar case out of his pocket, Fandorin tossed it away from him.

The driver started at the jingling sound and turned his back to the lamppost.

That was exactly what was required. Fandorin covered the distance between them in three bounds, jumped up on to the footboard and pressed the driver’s neck. The driver went limp, and the engineer carefully laid him out on the cobblestones, beside the inflated tyres.

From here he could make out the sign hanging above the door.

‘IOSIF BARANOV. DIAMOND, GOLD AND SILVER ITEMS,’ the engineer read, and muttered:

‘I don’t understand a thing.’

He ran up to the window and glanced in – he could make out the glow of several electric torches in the shop, but it was still dark inside, with only agile shadows darting about. Suddenly the interior was illuminated by an unbearably bright glow, a rain of fiery sparks scattered in all directions, and Fandorin could make out glass counters with men scurrying along them and the door of a safe, with a man leaning over it, holding a blowtorch – the very latest model. Erast Petrovich had seen one like it in a picture in a French magazine.

A man who looked like the nightwatchman had been tied up and was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall: his mouth was covered with sticking plaster, blood was flowing from a wound where he had been hit over the head, and his frantic eyes were glaring wildly at the satanic flame.

‘What has the Japanese secret service c-come to?’ exclaimed Fandorin, turning to his valet, who had just walked up. ‘Can Japan really be so short of money?’

‘The servants of His Majesty the Mikado do not stear,’ replied Masa, surveying the picturesque scene. ‘These are bandits. “Moscow Daredevirs” – I read about them in the newspaper; they make raids in automobiles or fast carriages – they very fond of progress.’ The Japanese servant’s face lit up in a smile. ‘That’s good! Master, I can herp you!’

Erast Petrovich himself had already realised that he was the victim of a misunderstanding – he had mistaken ordinary Warsaw bandits on tour in Moscow for saboteurs. All that time had been wasted for nothing!

But what about the dark-haired man, the passenger from compartment number six, who had fled the scene of the catastrophe in such a suspicious manner?

That’s very simple, the engineer replied to his own question. A daring robbery was committed two days ago in St Petersburg, all the newspapers wrote about it in purple prose. An unidentified individual in a mask stopped the carriage of Countess Vorontsova, robbed Her Excellency, quite literally, of her last thread of clothing and left her there in the road, naked apart from her hat. The spicy part was that the countess had quarrelled with her husband that very evening, and she was moving to her parents’ house, secretly taking all her jewels with her. No wonder Lisitsky said that the inhabitants of the dacha called the dark-haired man ‘a real daredevil’ – he had pulled off the job in St Petersburg and got back here in time for the Moscow operation.

If not for his bitter disappointment and annoyance with himself, Erast Petrovich would probably not have interfered in a mere criminal case, but his fury demanded an outlet – and he felt sorry for the nightwatchman – what if they slit his throat?

‘Take them when they start coming out,’ he whispered to his servant. ‘One for you, one for me.’

Masa nodded and licked his lips.

But fate decreed otherwise.

‘Nix it, gents!’ someone shouted desperately – he must have seen the two shadows outside the window.

In an instant the acetylene glow went out and instead of it a crimson-red gunshot came crashing out of the pitch darkness.

Fandorin and his Japanese valet jumped in opposite directions with perfect synchronisation. The shop window shattered with a deafening jangle.

They carried on firing from the shop, but it was already completely pointless.

‘Whoever jumps out is yours,’ the engineer jabbered rapidly.

He crouched down, rolled agilely over the windowsill covered with shards of glass and dissolved into the dark entrails of the shop.

From inside came the sounds of men yelling and cursing in Russian and Polish, and short, sharp blows. Every so often the room was lit up by the flashes of shots.