The prisoner tried to give the court counsellor a vicious kick on the shin, but he missed. Then he started hissing and cursing in some foreign tongue.
‘No point in swearing,’ Evstratii Pavlovich rebuked him. ‘You’re caught now, so you can stop chirping. You must be an officer of the Japanese general staff, a nobleman? I’m a nobleman too. So let’s deal honestly with each other. What were you up to here? What’s all this shooting and running about? Give me a light here, Kasatkin.’
The yellow circle of electric light picked out a narrow-eyed face contorted in fury and a head of short-cropped, shiny black hair.
Mylnikov started babbling in confusion:
‘Why, it’s… How do you do, Mr Masa…’
‘Rong time, no see,’ hissed Fandorin’s valet.
The third syllable, in which Rybnikov gets into a jam
In recent months Vasilii Alexandrovich Rybnikov (now Sten) had lived a feverish, nervous life, dealing with hundreds of different matters every day and getting no more than two hours’ sleep a night (which, however, was quite enough for him – he always woke as fresh as a daisy). But the telegram of congratulations he had received the morning after the crash at the Tezoimenitsky Bridge had relieved the former staff captain of routine work, allowing him to concentrate completely on his two main missions or, as he thought of them, ‘projects’.
The brand-new Reuters correspondent did everything that needed to be done at the preliminary stage in the first two days.
In preparation for the main ‘project’ (this involved the onward delivery of a large consignment of certain goods), it was sufficient to send the consignee with the frivolous name of Thrush a letter by the municipal post, telling him to expect delivery in one or two weeks, everything else as formerly agreed.
The second ‘project’, which was of secondary importance, but even so very significant indeed, also required very little fuss or bother. In addition to the aforementioned telegrams to Samara and Krasnoyarsk, Vasilii Alexandrovich ordered from a glass-blowing workshop two slim spirals to match a drawing that he supplied, whispering confidentially to the receiving clerk that they were parts of an alcohol purification device for home use.
By inertia or as a pendant, so to speak, to his hectic life in Peter, Rybnikov spent another day or two running round the military institutions of Moscow, where a correspondent’s calling card ensured him access to all sorts of well-informed individuals – everyone knows how we love the foreign press. The self-styled reporter discovered a great deal of curious and even semi-confidential information, which, when properly assembled and analysed, became completely confidential. After that, however, Rybnikov thought better of it and put an end to all his interviewing. In comparison with the projects that he had been charged to carry out, this was petty business, and there was no point in taking any risks for it.
With an effort of will, Vasilii Alexandrovich suppressed the itch for action that had been developed by long habit and forced himself to spend more time at home. Patience and the need to remain in a state of quiescence are a severe trial for a man who is not used to sitting still for a single minute, but even here Rybnikov proved up to the challenge.
He transformed himself in an instant from an energetic, active individual into a sybarite who sat in his armchair at the window for hours at a stretch and strolled around his apartment in a dressing gown. The new rhythm of his life coincided perfectly with the regimen of the carefree inhabitants of ‘Saint-Saëns’, who woke up at about midday and strolled round the house in curlers and carpet slippers until seven in the evening.
Vasilii Alexandrovich established a wonderful relationship with the girls in no time at all. On the first day the young ladies were still uncertain of the new boarder, and so they made eyes at him, but very soon the rumour spread that he was Beatrice’s sweetheart, and the tentative romantic approaches ceased immediately. On the second day ‘Vasenka’ had already become a general favourite. He treated the girls to sweets and listened to their tittle-tattle with interest and, in addition to that, he tinkled on the piano, crooning sentimental romances in a pleasant, slightly mawkish tenor.
Rybnikov really was interested in spending time with the girls at the boarding house. He had discovered that their tittle-tattle, if correctly directed, could be every bit as useful as dashing from one fake interview to another. Countess Bovada’s boarding house was a substantial establishment, men of position visited it. Sometimes they discussed work matters with each other in the salon and later on, in a separate room, when they were in a tender and affectionate mood, they might let slip something absolutely intriguing. They must have assumed that the empty-headed young ladies would not understand anything anyway. And indeed, the girls were certainly no match for Sophia Kovalevskaya when it came to intellect, but they had retentive memories and they were terribly fond of gossiping.
And so, tea parties at the piano not only helped Vasilii Alexandrovich to kill the time, they also provided a mass of useful information.
Unfortunately, during the initial period of the staff captain’s voluntary life as a hermit, the young ladies’ imagination was totally engrossed by the sensation that had set the entire old capital buzzing. The police had finally caught the famous gang of ‘daredevils’. Everyone in Moscow was writing and talking more about this than about Tsushima. They knew that a special squad of the very finest sleuths had been sent from St Petersburg to capture the audacious bandits – and Muscovites found that flattering.
A redheaded Manon Lescaut who went by the nickname of ‘Wafer’ was known to have been frequented by one of the ‘daredevils’, a handsome Pole and genuine fancy morsel, so now Wafer was wearing black and acting mysteriously. The other girls envied her.
During these days Vasilii Alexandrovich several times caught himself thinking about his companion in the compartment in the train – possibly because Lidina was the total opposite of the sentimental but coarse-spirited inhabitants of the ‘Saint-Saëns’. Rybnikov recalled Glyceria as she made a dash for the emergency brake handle, or with her pale face and bitten lip, binding up a torn artery in a wounded man’s leg with a scrap of her dress.
Surprised at himself, the hermit drove these pictures away; they had nothing to do with his life and his present interests.
For his constitutional he went for a walk along the boulevards, as far as the Cathedral of the Saviour and back again. Vasilii Alexandrovich did not know Moscow very well, and therefore he was terribly surprised when he looked at a sign with the name of a street that led up and away at an angle from the Orthodox cathedral.
The street was called ‘Ostozhenka’.
‘The Bomze building on Ostozhenka Street,’ Vasilii Alexandrovich heard a soft voice say, clipping its consonants in the Petersburg style as clearly as if she were there.
He strolled for a while along the street with its asphalt roadway and lines of beautiful buildings, but soon came to his senses and turned back.
Nonetheless, after that time he got into the habit of making a loop to take in Ostozhenka Street when he reached the end of his horseshoe route on the boulevards. Rybnikov also walked past the Bomze apartment building – a smart four-storey structure. Vasilii Alexandrovich’s indolence had put him in a strange mood, and as he glanced at the narrow Viennese windows, he even allowed himself to daydream a little about what could never possibly happen in a million years.
And then his dreams caught him out.
On the fifth day of his walks, as the false reporter, tapping his cane, was walking down along Ostozhenka Street to Lesnoi Passage, someone called him from a carriage.
‘Vasilii Alexandrovich! Is that you?’