‘A good specialist always keeps out of sight,’ Evstratii Pavlovich purred, and he left.
And only then, bitterly repenting that he had wasted several precious minutes on pointless wrangling, did Fandorin set to work.
The first thing he did was question the receiving clerk in detail about the men who had presented the receipts for the baggage.
It turned out that the man who took the eight paper packages was dressed like a workman (grey collarless shirt, long coat, boots), but his face didn’t match his clothes – the clerk said he ‘wasn’t that simple’.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘He was educated. Glasses, hair down to his shoulders, a big, bushy beard like a church sexton. Since when does a worker or a craftsman look like that? And he’s ill. His face is all white and he kept clearing his throat and wiping his lips with a handkerchief.’
The second recipient, who had shown up a few minutes after the one in glasses, sounded even more interesting to the engineer – he spotted an obvious lead here.
The man who took away the three wooden crates had been dressed in the uniform of a railway postal worker! The clerk could not possibly be mistaken about this – he had been working in the Department of Railways for a good few years.
Moustache, broad cheekbones, middle-aged. The recipient had a holster hanging at his side, which meant that he accompanied the mail carriage, in which, as everybody knew, sums of money and precious packages were transported.
Fandorin could already feel a presentiment of success, but he suppressed that dangerous mood and turned to Lieutenant Colonel Danilov, who had just arrived.
‘In the last twenty minutes, since half past five, have any trains set off?’
‘Yes indeed, the Harbin train. It left ten minutes ago.’
‘Then that’s where they are, our boyos. Both of them,’ the engineer declared confidently.
The lieutenant colonel was doubtful.
‘But maybe they went back into the city? Or they’re waiting for the next train, to Paveletsk? It’s at six twenty-five.’
‘No. It is no accident that they showed up at the same time, with just a few minutes between them. That is one. And note what time that was – dawn. What else of any importance happens at this station between five and six, apart from the departure of the Harbin train? And then, of course, the third point.’ The engineer’s voice hardened. ‘What would saboteurs want with the P-Paveletsk train? What would they blow up on the Paveletsk line? Hay and straw, radishes and carrots? No, our subjects have gone off on the Harbin train.’
‘Shall I send a telegram to stop the train?’
‘Under no circumstances. There is melinite on board. Who knows what these people are like? If they suspect something is wrong, they might blow it up. No delays, no unscheduled stops. The bombers are already on their guard, they’re nervous. No, tell me instead where the first stop is according to the timetable.’
‘It’s an express. So it will only stop in Vladimir – let me just take a look… At nine thirty.’
The powerful locomotive commandeered by Danilov overhauled the Harbin express at the border of the province of Moscow and thereafter maintained a distance of one verst, which it only reduced just before Vladimir.
It came flying on to the next line only a minute after the express. Fandorin jumped down on to the platform without waiting for the locomotive to stop. The scheduled train halted at the station for only ten minutes, so every minute was precious.
The engineer was met by Captain Lenz, the head of the Vladimir Railway Gendarmes Division, who had been briefed about everything in detail by telephone. He goggled wildly at Fandorin’s fancy dress (greasy coat, grey moustache and eyebrows, with temples that were also grey, only there had been no need to dye them) and wiped his sweaty bald patch with a handkerchief, but did not ask any questions.
‘Everything’s ready. This way, please.’
He reported about everything else on the run, as he tried to keep up with Erast Petrovich.
‘The trolley’s waiting. The team has been assembled. They’re keeping their heads down, as ordered…’
The station postal worker, who had been informed of the basic situation, was loitering beside a trolley piled high with correspondence. To judge from the chalky hue of his features, he was in a dead funk. The room was packed with light-blue uniforms – all the gendarmes were squatting down, and their heads were bent down low too. That was so that no one would see them from the platform, through the window, Fandorin realised.
He smiled at the postal worker.
‘Calm down, calm down, nothing unusual is going to happen.’
He took hold of the handles and pushed the trolley out on to the platform.
‘Seven minutes,’ the gendarmes captain whispered after him.
A man in a blue jacket stuck his head out of the mail carriage, which was coupled immediately behind the locomotive.
‘Asleep, are you, Vladimir?’ he shouted angrily. ‘What’s taking you so long?’
Long moustache, middle-aged. Broad cheekbones? I suppose so, Erast Petrovich thought to himself, and whispered to his partner again:
‘Stop shaking, will you? And yawn, you almost overslept.’
‘There you go… Couldn’t keep my eyes open. My second straight day on duty,’ the Vladimir man babbled, yawning and stretching.
Meanwhile the disguised engineer was quickly tossing the mail in through the open door and weighing things up, wondering whether he should grab the man with the long moustache round the waist and fling him on to the platform. Nothing could be easier.
He decided to wait first and check whether there were three wooden crates measuring 15 × 10 × 15 inches in there.
He was right to wait.
He climbed up into the carriage and began dividing the Vladimir post into three piles: letters, parcels and packages.
The inside of the carriage was a veritable labyrinth of heaps of sacks, boxes and crates.
Erast walked along one row, then along another, but he didn’t see the familiar items.
‘What are you doing wandering about?’ someone barked at him out of a dark passage. ‘Get a move on, look lively! Sacks over this way, square items over there. Are you new, or something?’
This was a surprise: another postman, also about forty years old, with broad cheekbones and a moustache. Which one was it? A pity he didn’t have the clerk from the left luggage office with him.
‘Yes, I’m new,’ Fandorin droned in a deep voice, as if he had a cold.
‘And old too, from the look of you.’
The second postal worker came over to the first one and stood beside him. They both had holsters with Nagant revolvers hanging on their belts.
‘Why are your hands shaking -on a spree yesterday, were you?’ the second one asked the Vladimir man.
‘Just a bit…’
‘But didn’t you say this was your second day on duty?’ the first one, with the long moustache, asked in surprise.
The second one stuck his head out of the door and looked at the station building.
Which one of them? Fandorin tried to guess, slipping rapidly along the stacks. Or is it neither? Where are the crates of melinite?
Suddenly there was a deafening clang as the second postman slammed the door shut and pushed home the bolt.
‘What’s up with you, Matvei?’ the one with the long moustache asked, surprised again.
Matvei bared his yellow teeth and cocked the hammer of his revolver with a click.
‘I know what I’m doing! Three blue caps in the window, and all of them staring this way! I’ve got a nose for these things!’
Incredible relief was what Erast Petrovich felt at that moment – so he hadn’t wasted his time smearing lead white on his eyebrows and moustache and it had been worthwhile breathing locomotive soot for three hours.
‘Matvei, have you gone crazy?’ the one with the long moustache asked in bewilderment, gazing into the glittering gun barrel.
The Vladimir postal worker got the idea straight away and pressed himself back against the wall.