‘How did Fandorin come to know about this fellow?’ Kirill Alexandrovich asked thoughtfully.
Simeon Alexandrovich laughed spitefully: ‘Why, that’s easy to find out. We have to arrest Fandorin and interrogate him thoroughly. He’ll tell us everything. My Lasovsky knows how to loosen tongues. When he barks, even I get the shivers.’
And His Highness laughed, delighted with his joke, but no one else there shared his merriment.
‘Uncle Kir, Uncle Sam,’ His Majesty said in a quiet voice, ‘you pronounce the name of this Fandorin as if you knew him. Who is he?’
The head of the court police answered for the grand dukes. He took a sheet of paper out of his pocket and reported as follows.
‘Fandorin, Erast Petrovich. Forty years of age. Of the Orthodox confession. A hereditary noble. A knight of many orders, too many to mention. A retired state counsellor. For almost ten years he served as deputy for special assignments to the governor general of Moscow, Prince Dolgorukoi.’
‘Ah yes, Fandorin again,’ Kirill Alexandrovich said slowly, looking out through the window as if he were recalling some old story. ‘I wonder where he has been all these years.’
From these words I concluded that His Highness really was acquainted with the retired state counsellor.
Then it emerged that Simeon Alexandrovich knew this gentleman even better, and apparently not from his most flattering side.
‘Fandorin has not shown his face in Moscow for about five years,’ the governor general said, pulling a wry face. ‘The scoundrel knows there’s no place for him in my city. This man, Nicky, is an adventurer of the very worst kind. Sly and shifty, slippery and foul. The reports I have received say that after he left Moscow he prospered in all sorts of dirty business. He left his tracks behind him in Europe, in America and even in Asia. I must admit that I follow this gentleman’s movements because I have a score to settle with him . . . Well, anyway, reliable sources have informed me that Fandorin has fallen as low as it is possible to falclass="underline" he accepts commissions to carry out investigations for private individuals and is not squeamish about charging a fee – apparently a substantial one. The point is that his clients (Simeon Alexandrovich pronounced this word with emphatic disgust) include millionaires and even, unfortunately, some foreign monarchs. In five years of this infamous activity Fandorin has earned a certain reputation for himself. I have no doubt that he is privy to many dirty secrets, but we can manage our family business without his dubious services. My police are excellent at their job and my Lasovsky will run down this doctor in two shakes of a dog’s tail.’
‘I beg Your Highness’s pardon,’ Karnovich interjected with an imperturbable expression, ‘but the protection of the imperial family falls within the purview of my department and I assure you that we will deal with this mission perfectly well without the participation of the Moscow police, not to mention any amateur detectives.’ The colonel smiled gently and added in a quiet voice, as if he were talking to himself: ‘We don’t need any Sherlock Holmeses here.’
‘Oh, Colonel, Fandorin is very far from being an amateur,’ Kirill Alexandrovich objected. ‘He is a man of exceptional abilities. If anyone can help us in this difficult and delicate matter, he can. And, in addition, he knows something about this villain Lind. It is also of some importance that as a private individual Fandorin is not restricted in the methods he can employ. No, Nicky, we won’t be able to manage without this man. I am even inclined to think that he has been sent to us by God.’
‘Rubbish! Absolute rubbish!’ Simeon Alexandrovich cried, flinging his pencil into the corner. (I took another one out of my pocket.) ‘I categorically protest!’
Kirill Alexandrovich, who was not accustomed to being addressed in this manner and also, as far as I was aware, regarded his younger brother with unmitigated contempt, lowered his leonine head and fixed the governor general with his famous withering stare. In response, Simeon Alexandrovich stubbornly jutted out his chin, which made his well-groomed beard look like the bowsprit of a ship, and assumed an absolutely uncompromising air.
There was an oppressive silence.
‘But what are we going to do with this Fandorin?’ the emperor asked plaintively. ‘Call him in or not? Ask him to help or arrest him?’
Neither of Their Highnesses replied; they did not even change the direction of their gazes. This was an enmity of many years that had begun before the present sovereign was even born. Only, as the common folk put it, Simeon Alexandrovich was a bit ‘weedy’ in comparison with Kirill Alexandrovich. He had never been known to come off best against his elder brother.
By temperament Georgii Alexandrovich is much calmer and more easy-going than either of them, but if once he gets his temper up – then beware! And now he suddenly began flushing crimson, and seemed to swell up, making me afraid that the hooks on his collar would burst open, and it was clear that a storm was about to break.
His Majesty did not see this terrifying picture, since he was looking at Kirill Alexandrovich and Simeon Alexandrovich. If he had seen it, he would probably not have ventured to say anything, but as it was, he began in a conciliatory tone of voice: ‘Uncle Sam, Uncle Kir, listen to what I think—’
There was a thunderous crash as Georgii Alexandrovich swung his fist down and slammed it into the table so hard that two wineglasses fell over, a coffee cup cracked and an ashtray was overturned, and Simeon Alexandrovich bounced on his chair in surprise.
‘Shut up, Nicky!’ the head of the Green House roared. ‘And you two keep quiet as well! It’s my son who has been kidnapped; I’m the one who should decide. And don’t forget that it’s only thanks to this, what’s his name . . . damn it, beginning with F, that my daughter was saved! Let him tell us everything that he knows!’
And so the matter was decided.
I slipped out of the drawing room silently in order to call Fandorin. Immediately outside the door there was a plush curtain, and then the corridor where the ‘amateur detective’, as Karnovich had called him, had been ordered to wait.
‘Your lovely moustache – it’s absolutely charming. And you don’t shape it with tweezers? Or use fixative?’
On hearing these strange words, just to be on the safe side I peeped out from behind the curtain to see who could be speaking in such a manner.
Erast Fandorin was sitting where I had left him, with one leg crossed over the other, counting the jade beads on a rosary. The voice was not his, it belonged to the governor general’s adjutant Prince Glinsky, a dainty young man with a pretty face like a girl’s. The common folk have a saying about his kind: ‘’Tis a pity he’s not a wench, at least he could wed.’ The prince was standing in front of Fandorin, leaning down and carefully studying the retired official’s slim, tidy moustache. Glinsky’s own moustache was waxed – I could see that quite clearly now – and I think his lips were painted. But what was so surprising about that?
‘No, sir, I do not use f-fixative,’ Fandorin replied politely, looking up at the young man and not making the slightest attempt to move away.
‘My God, what eyelashes you have!’ the adjutant sighed. ‘I think I would give absolutely anything for long black eyelashes like that, curved at the end. Is that your natural colour?’
‘Absolutely natural,’ Erast Petrovich assured him no less amiably.
At this point I interrupted this outlandish conversation and invited the state counsellor to follow me.