‘Quite right. You will have to t-take them off. And you are far too clean-shaven, that is not comme il faut around here. Come on . . .’
He stepped towards me and, before I could even protest, he had smeared dust from the crown of my head right across my face.
I gave up. I took off my white silk stockings and put them in my pocket.
‘All right, that will do in the dark,’ Fandorin said condescendingly, but his valet actually favoured me with praise: ‘Ver’ good. Ver’ beeutfuw.’
‘Now where? To this Stump?’ I asked, burning with desire to get down to business.
‘Not so f-fast, Ziukin. We have to wait for night. Meanwhile, let me tell you what is known about Stump. He has the reputation of a mysterious individual with a big future among the criminals of Moscow. Rather like Bonaparte during the Directoire period. Even the King himself is rather afraid of him, although no state of war has been declared between the two of them. The one-armed bandit’s gang is small but select – everyone pulls their weight. Nothing but toffs, all well tried and tested. My man in the criminal investigation department, a highly authoritative professional, believes that the future of the Russian criminal world belongs to leaders like Stump. There are no drinking binges or fights in his gang. They won’t touch any small-time business. They plan their raids and robberies thoroughly and execute them cleanly. The police do not have a single informer among Stump’s men. And this gang’s hideaway, as I have already had the honour of informing you, is guarded with great care, military fashion.’
This all sounded most discouraging.
‘But how are we going to reach him, if he is so cautious?’
‘Over the rooftops,’ said Fandorin, gesturing for me to follow him.
We made our way through dark, dismal, foul-smelling courtyards for a while, until eventually Fandorin stopped beside a blank windowless wall that was indistinguishable from the others beside it. He took hold of a drainpipe, shook it hard and listened to the rattling of the tin plate.
‘It will hold,’ he muttered as if he were talking to himself, and then suddenly, without the slightest apparent effort, he started climbing up the flimsy structure.
Masa thrust his bowler further down onto his head and climbed after him, looking like a fairground bear who has been taught to scramble up a pole to get a sugarloaf.
As the common people say, in for a kopeck, in for a rouble. I spat on my hands the way our kitchen servant Siavkin doeswhen he is chopping firewood, crossed myself and took hold of an iron bracket. Right, one foot on the step in the wall, now the other – hup! Reach up to that hoop, now get my other arm over that ledge . . .
In order not to feel afraid, I started adding up my financial losses over the last fewdays. The day before before I had lost fifty roubles on the bet with Masa, today I had spent two and a half roubles on a cab in the morning and five in the evening, making seven and a half in all, and then the Khitrovka ‘dogs’ had gone off with my porte-monnaie and forty-five roubles. Then add to that my ruined clothes – they might only be my official uniform, but even so it was upsetting.
At this point I accidentally looked down and immediately forgot all about my losses because the ground was a lot further away than I had thought. The wall had not seemed all that high from below, only three storeys, but looking down made my heart skip a beat.
Fandorin and Masa had clambered onto the roof a long time ago, but I was still creeping up the drainpipe, trying not to look down any more.
When I reached the overhang of the roof, I suddenly realised that there was absolutely no way I could climb over it – all my strength had gone into the climb. I hung there, with my arms round the drainpipe, for about five minutes, until a round head in a bowler hat appeared against the background of the purple sky. Masa took hold of my collar and dragged me up onto the roof in a jiffy.
‘Thank you,’ I said, gulping in the air.
‘No need gwatitude,’ he said, and bowed although he was on all fours.
We crawled over to the other side of the roof, where Fandorin was spreadeagled on his belly. I settled down beside him, impatient to find out what he was watching for.
The first thing I saw was the crimson stripe of the fading sunset, pierced by the numerous black needles of bell towers. Fandorin, however, was not admiring the sky, but examining a lopsided old building with boarded-up windows located on the opposite side of the street. I could see that once, a long, long time ago, it had been a fine strong building, but it had been neglected, fallen into disrepair and begun to sag – it would be easier to demolish than renovate.
‘Back at the beginning of the century this used to be a warehouse that belonged to the Mobius brothers, the wine merchants,’ Erast Petrovich began explaining in a whisper, and I noticed that when he whispered the stammer disappeared completely from his speech. ‘The basement consists of wine cellars that go very deep. They say that they used to hold up to a thousand barrels of wine. In 1812 the French poured away what they didn’t drink and supposedly a stream of wine ran down the Yauza. The building is burnt out from the inside and the roof has collapsed, but the cellars have survived. That is where Stump has his residence. Do you see that fine young fellow?’
On looking more closely, I observed a ramp sloping down from the road to a pair of gates set well below the level of the street. There was a young fellow wearing a peaked cap just like Fandorin’s, standing with his back to the gates and eating sunflower seeds, spitting out the husks.
‘A sentry?’ I guessed.
‘Yes. We’ll wait for a while.’
I do not know how long the wait lasted, because my chronometer was still in my livery (something else to add to the list of losses: a silver Breguet awarded for honourable service – I regretted that most of all) but it was not just one hour or two, but more – I was already dozing off.
Suddenly I sensed that Fandorin’s entire body had gone tense, and my sleepiness disappeared as if by magic.
I could hear muffled voices from below.
‘Awl,’ said one.
‘Husk,’ replied the other. ‘Come on through. Got a message?’
I did not hear the answer to this incomprehensible question. A door in the gates opened and then closed, and everythingwent quiet again. The sentry lit up a hand-rolled cigarette and the lacquer peak of his cap glinted dully in the moonlight.
‘Right, I’m off,’ Fandorin whispered. ‘Wait here. If I wave, come down.’
Ten minutes later a slim figure approached the building, walking in a loose, slovenly manner. With a glance back over its shoulder, it loped springily down to the sentry.
‘Wotcher, Moscow. Guarding the wall?’
It was Fandorin of course, but for some reason his speech had acquired a distinct Polish accent.
‘Shove off back to where you came from,’ the sentry replied hostilely. ‘Or shall I tickle your belly with a pen?’
‘Why use a pen?’ Fandorin laughed. ‘That’s what an awl’s for. An awl, get it?’
‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ the sentry growled, taking his hand out of his pocket. ‘Husk. So who would you be then, a Polack? One of thatWarsaw mob, are you?’
‘That’s right. I need to see Stump.’
‘He’s not here. And he said as he wouldn’t be back today. Expect him tomorrow, he said, by nightfall.’ The bandit lowered his voice, but in the silence I could still hear what he said, and asked curiously, ‘They say as the narks done for your top man?’
‘That’s right,’ Fandorin sighed. ‘Blizna, and three other guys. So where’s Stump, then? I’ve got some business to talk over with him.’