‘You have only yourself to blame. You should not have pretended to be a murderer. So on the first point we are agreed. That leaves the second.’
Altairsky thrust out his chest.
‘I shall never give her a divorce. It is out of the question.’
‘I know,’ said Fandorin, screwing up his eyes thoughtfully, ‘that you told Eliza that the wife of a khan cannot have lovers and cannot marry anyone else. But the widow of a khan is a different matter.’
The other man was perhaps not really frightened enough. Erast Petrovich took him firmly by the scruff of the neck and set the silver fork against his throat.
‘I could kill you in a d-duel, but I won’t fight a scoundrel who frightens helpless women. I’ll simply kill you. Like this p-piglet here.’
The khan’s bloodshot eye squinted at the dish.
‘You won’t kill me,’ the stubborn man hissed in a choking voice. ‘That’s not your line of business, rather exactly the opposite. I told you. I’ve made enquiries about you. I make enquiries about everyone who hangs around Eliza… But then, kill me if you like. I still won’t give her a divorce.’
Such firmness aroused distinct respect. Evidently Erast Petrovich’s first impression of His High Dignity had not been entirely accurate. He took the fork away and moved back.
‘Do you love you wife so very much?’ he asked in surprise.
‘What the hell has love got to do with it!’ Altairsky slammed his fists down on the table and started choking on his hate. ‘Eliza, that bi…’
Fandorin’s face twitched furiously and the khan bit off the swear word.
‘…That lady destroyed my life! My father deprived me of the rights of the firstborn! And if I get divorced, he’ll leave me without any support! A hundred and twenty thousand a year! And what would I do then – go and get a job? Khan Altairsky will never blacken his hands with labour. It would be better if you killed me.’
This was a weighty argument. Erast Petrovich pondered it. Perhaps he really should kill this weak potentate and cunning, balding fop.
‘As far as I understand it, you wish to marry Eliza. And does a civil marriage not suit you?’ the husband asked ingratiatingly. He evidently also wanted very much to find a compromise. ‘It’s fashionable now. She would like it. And you would never hear anything about me again. I swear it! Do you want me to go away to Nice, for ever? Only don’t demand the impossible from me.’
Fandorin went back from Kuznetsky Most Street on foot. He had to gather his thoughts and prepare for the conversation with Eliza. The November evening attempted to tear the hat off his head and he had to hold it on.
Something trivial has happened to me, Erast Petrovich told himself. Probably every second man goes through it. Where did I get the idea that this cup would pass me by? Of course, in other men this sickness that is commonly referred to as ‘no fool like an old fool’ seems to occur for other reasons. I’ve read about it. Some suddenly get the feeling that they do not have much time left to be a man, and so they start panicking. Some suddenly realise that they didn’t sow enough wild oats in their young days. Neither the former nor the latter would appear to have anything to do with my case. What has happened to me is not a sickness, it is more like a trauma. It is well known that a bone breaks more easily at the site of a previous break. In the same way, owing to a chance confluence of circumstances, the old break in my heart snapped again.
But does it really matter what whim of fate is responsible when love overwhelms you? It comes and it swings the door wide open. Your usual dwelling place is suddenly illuminated with unbearably bright light. You see yourself and your life differently, and you don’t like what you see. You can pretend to be an experienced gallant and turn the whole thing into a courtly adventure; but at any moment the glow might fade. You can shove the uninvited guest back out of the door and turn the key; in a little while the dwelling will once again be immersed in its customary gloom. You can turn frantic, jump out of the window, go running off to the ends of the earth. I have actually tried to do both of those things. But now I have to try another method – simply take a step forward and not turn my eyes away. This requires courage.
Such was the rational monologue that Erast Petrovich rehearsed to himself, but the closer he approached to the hotel, the more agonisingly nervous he felt. In the foyer a cowardly thought even occurred to him: ‘Perhaps Eliza is not in her room?’
But the porter sad that Madam Lointaine was in and politely telephoned upstairs and enquired:
‘How shall I introduce you?’
‘Fandorin…’
His throat turned dry. Was this the puerility starting all over again?
‘She says to go up.’
In any case I am obliged to tell her that her husband offers her complete freedom! Erast Petrovich shouted at himself. And as for everything else… That is her business.
In this same angry mood he began the conversation.
He said that there was nothing more to be afraid of.
That Khan Altairsky was a villain and a petty wretch, but not a murderer. That in any case from henceforth he would disappear from her life. He would not give her a divorce, but he offered her complete freedom.
He told her that the matter of the two deaths in St Petersburg had been clarified. Following the death of the Kiev entrepreneur Boleslav Ignatievich Furshtatsky, as always in such cases, an autopsy had been carried out on the body. From the telegrams sent by the coroner’s office, it followed that the cause of death had been heart failure, and no traces of poison had been discovered. Khan Altairsky had only exploited the sad event for his own purposes.
The case of the tenor Astralov was different. In a telephone conversation with the investigator who had conducted the case, it had transpired that the marks of the razor were almost identical to the wounds that had broken off the life of Mr Shustrov. A sliding blow with a light inclination from left to right. A blow like that could be struck either by someone sitting in a chair, or by someone who was standing behind the victim. On 11 February, the day Astralov died, Eliza was already a member of the Noah’s Ark theatre company; she was acquainted with Nonarikin and, as was not in the least surprising (Fandorin felt it possible to put that in), he had immediately conceived a passionate love for her. Exactly how the murderer had managed to approach first Astralov and then Shustrov with a razor was not yet entirely clear, but the maniac himself could be asked about that. After everything that had happened, he had no reason to conceal anything; and in addition people of a certain kind adored boasting of their great feats. Nonarikin would be glad to tell them everything.
Eliza listened to his report without interrupting, with her hands folded on the table in front of her, like a diligent grammar school girl. She kept her eyes fixed on Erast Petrovich, but he preferred to look away. He was afraid of losing the thread.
‘I believe you,’ Eliza said in a quiet voice. ‘I believe you. But the fact remains that all these men were killed because of me! It’s appalling!’
‘Read Dostoyevsky, my lady. “Beauty is a terrible and appalling thing”.’ Fandorin deliberately started talking more drily. ‘It makes some strive for the heights and drives others down into the depths of hell. Megalomania led Nonarikin implacably along the path to self-destruction. However, if the madman had found his feelings for you to be requited, he would have stopped wishing to r-rule the world. He would have been willing to settle for your love. As I am…’
The final phrase slipped out involuntarily. Fandorin finally looked into Eliza’s eyes – and what he had been intending to come round to only after a thorough introduction simply spoke itself. It was too late to retreat. And in any case, it was actually better without any diplomacy and tactical preludes.