‘We’ll start with a strike on the railways. Then a general strike. And when the authorities start getting the jitters, let the Cossacks loose or do a bit of shooting – the combat squads will be out in a flash. Only this time we’ll manage without cobblestones, the weapon of the proletariat.’
‘When are you going to start?’ Rybnikov asked casually. ‘I need it to be within a month.’
The revolutionary’s stony face twisted into an ironic grin.
‘Running out of steam, are you, sons of the Mikado? On your last legs?’
A snigger ran round the room and Vasilii Alexandrovich started in surprise – surely they couldn’t have heard?
He jerked round, and then immediately relaxed.
Two grey-bearded cab drivers had just staggered into the inn, both well oiled. One had missed his footing and fallen, and the other was trying to help him up, muttering:
‘Never mind, Mityukha, a horse has got four legs, and it still stumbles…’
Someone shouted from one of the tables:
‘A horse like that’s ready for the knacker’s yard!’
People cackled with laughter.
Mityukha was about to curse his mockers roundly, but the waiters swooped on him and in half a jiffy they had shoved the two drunken cabbies out: There, don’t you go bringing shame on our establishment.
‘Ah, old Mother Russia,’ Thrush chuckled with another crooked grin. ‘Never mind, soon we’ll give her such a jolt, she’ll jump right out of her pants.’
‘And set off at a run with a bare backside, into the bright future?’
The revolutionary looked intently into the cold eyes of the other man.
I shouldn’t have mocked him, Rybnikov realised immediately. That was going too far.
He held that glance for a few seconds, then pretended that he couldn’t hold out and lowered his eyes.
‘You and we have only one thing in common,’ the SR said contemptuously. ‘A lack of bourgeois sentiment. Only we revolutionaries no longer have any, while you young predators don’t yet have any – you haven’t reached that age yet. You use us, we use you, but you, Mr Samurai, are not my equal. You’re no more than a cog in a machine, and I’m the architect of tomorrow, savvy?’
He is like a cat, Vasilii Alexandrovich decided. Lets you feed him, but he won’t lick your hand – the most he’ll do is purr, and even that’s not very likely.
He had to reply in the same style, but without aggravating the confrontation.
‘All right, Mr Architect, to hell with the fancy words. Let’s discuss the details.’
Thrush even left like a cat, without saying goodbye.
When he had clarified everything he needed to know, he simply got up and darted out through the door behind the counter, leaving Vasilii Alexandrovich to exit via the street.
In front of the inn cabbies were dozing on their coach boxes, waiting for passengers. The first two were the drunks who had been ejected from the inn. The first one was completely out of it, snoring away with his nose down against his knees. The second was more or less holding up, though – he even shook his reins when he caught sight of Rybnikov.
But Vasilii Alexandrovich didn’t take a cab at the inn – that would contravene the rules of conspiracy. He walked quite a long way before he stopped one that happened to be driving past.
At the corner of Krivokolenny Street, at a poorly lit and deserted spot, Rybnikov put a rouble note on the seat, jumped down on to the road – gently, without even making the carriage sway – and ducked into a gateway.
As they say, God takes care of those who take care of themselves.
The sixth syllable, in which a tail and ears play an important part
Special No. 369-B was expected at precisely midnight, and there was no reason to doubt that the train would arrive on the dot – Fandorin was being kept informed of its progress by telegraph from every station. The train was travelling ‘on a green light’, with priority over all others. Freight trains, passenger trains and even expresses had to give way to it. When the locomotive with only a single compartment carriage went hurtling past an ordinary train that had inexplicably come to a halt at the station in Bologoe or Tver, the worldly-wise passengers said to each other: ‘Higher-ups in a hurry. Must be some kind of hitch in Moscow’.
The windows of the mysterious train were not only closed, but completely curtained over. During the entire journey from the present capital to the old one, 369-B stopped only once, to take on coal, and then for no more than fifteen minutes.
They were waiting to meet the mysterious train outside Moscow, at a small way station surrounded by a double cordon of railway gendarmes. A fine, repulsive drizzle was falling, and the lamps were swaying in a gusting wind, sending sinister shadows scuttling furtively across the platform.
Erast Petrovich arrived ten minutes before the appointed time, listened to Lieutenant Colonel Danilov’s report on the precautions that had been taken and nodded.
Court Counsellor Mylnikov, who had been informed of the imminent event only an hour earlier (the engineer had called for him without any forewarning), couldn’t keep stilclass="underline" he ran round the platform several times, always coming back to Fandorin and asking: ‘Who is it we’re waiting for?’
‘You’ll see,’ Fandorin replied briefly, glancing every now and then at his gold Breguet.
At one minute to twelve they heard a long hoot, then the bright lights of the locomotive emerged from the darkness.
The rain started coming down harder, and the valet opened an umbrella over the engineer’s head, deliberately standing so that the drops ran off on to Mylnikov’s hat. However, Mylnikov was so worked up that he didn’t notice – he merely shuddered when a cold rivulet ran in under his collar.
‘The head of your division, is it?’ he asked when he made out the compartment carriage. ‘The chief of the Corps?’ And finally, lowering his voice to a whisper: ‘Not the minister himself, surely?’
‘Exclude all unauthorised individuals!’ Fandorin shouted when he spotted a linesman at the end of the platform.
Gendarmes went dashing off with a loud tramping of boots, to carry out the order.
The 369-B came to a halt. Evstratii Pavlovich Mylnikov thrust out his chest and whipped off his bowler, but when the clanging of iron and screeching of brakes stopped, his ears were assaulted by a strange sound very similar to the diabolical ululations that tormented his ailing nerves at night. Mylnikov gave his head a shake to drive away the dark spell, but the howling only grew louder, and then he quite clearly heard barking.
An officer in a leather pea jacket skipped smartly down the steps, saluted Fandorin and handed him a package bearing a mysterious inscription in black: RSEUDPWUHPHHDAPO.
‘What’s that?’ Mylnikov asked in a faltering voice, suspecting that he was dreaming all this – the engineer’s appearance in the middle of the night, the drive through the rain, the dogs’ barking and the unpronounceable word on the envelope,
Fandorin decoded the abbreviation:
‘The Russian Society for the Encouragement of the Use of Dogs in Police Work under the Honorary Presidency of His Highness Duke Alexander Petrovich of Oldenburg. Very well, L-Lieutenant, you can bring them out. The horseboxes are waiting.’
Police officers started emerging from the carriage one after another, each leading a dog on a leash. There were German shepherds and giant schnauzers and spaniels, and even mongrels.
‘What is all this?’ Mylnikov repeated perplexedly. ‘What’s it for?’
‘This is Operation Fifth Sense.’
‘Fifth? Which one’s the fifth?’
‘Smell.’
Operation Fifth Sense had been planned and prepared with the utmost dispatch in a little over two days.
In the urgent telegram of 18 May that had so greatly astonished the experienced police telegraph clerk, Fandorin had written to his chief: ‘REQUEST URGENTLY GATHER DUKE’S DOGS DETAILS FOLLOW’.