'L-Let's swap clothes,' the crackpot said. 'Your sheepskin coat and mittens for my heavy coat. And take your cap off too.'
The gent pulled on the sheepskin coat and tugged the flaps of the sheepskin cap down over his ears. He tossed the cabby his cloth-covered beaver-fur coat and plonked the suede top hat down on his head. And then he yelled: 'That's it, now clear out!'
The cabby picked up the skirts of the heavy coat that was too long for him and set off across the boulevard, tramping heavily in his patched felt boots, with the chain of the gold watch dangling beside his ear.
Fandorin got into the sleigh, clicked his tongue to the horse to reassure it, and started waiting.
About five minutes later a closed sleigh drove up to the door of the head police-master's house. Pozharsky came out of the building carrying a bouquet of tea roses and ducked into the closed sleigh. It set off immediately. Another sleigh carrying two gentlemen who were already familiar to Erast Petrovich set off in pursuit.
After waiting for a little while, the State Counsellor gave a wild bandit whistle and whooped: 'Giddup, lazybones! Get moving!'
The sorrel mare shook its combed mane, jangled its sleigh bell and set off at a fast trot.
It turned out that they were going to the Nikolaevsky Station.
There Pozharsky jumped out of the carriage, tidied his bouquet and ran lightly up the station steps, two at a time. The 'guardian angels' followed him, keeping their customary distance.
Then the sham cabby got out of his own sleigh. As if he were simply strolling about aimlessly, he walked close to the covered carriage, dropped his mitten and bent down to pick it up, but didn't straighten up again immediately. He glanced around slyly and suddenly smashed the mounting of the suspension with an immensely powerful blow of his fist, delivered with such lightning speed that it was almost impossible to see. The sleigh shuddered and sagged slightly to one side. The alarmed driver hung down from his box to look, but saw nothing suspicious, because Fandorin had already straightened up and was looking the other way.
After that, while he sat in his sleigh, he refused several fares from the St Petersburg train, one of which was actually highly advantageous: to Sokolniki for a rouble and twenty-five kopecks.
Pozharsky returned with company: an extremely attractive young lady. She was burying her face in the roses and laughing happily. And the prince was not his usual self: his face was positively glowing with carefree merriment.
The lovely lady put her free hand round his shoulders and kissed him on the lips so passionately that Gleb Georgievich's pine-marten cap slipped over to one side of his head.
Fandorin could not help shaking his head in amazement at the surprises thrown up by human nature. Who would ever have thought that the ambitious predator from St Petersburg was capable of such romantic behaviour? But what had all this to do with the Combat Group?
As soon as the prince seated his companion in the carriage, it heeled over decisively to the right, making quite clear that there was no chance of travelling any further in it.
Erast Fandorin pulled his cap further down over his eyes, turned up his collar, cracked his whip smartly and drove straight up to the scene of the mishap.
'Here's a fine light Vladimir sleigh for you!' the State Counsellor yelled in a high falsetto that had nothing in common with his normal voice. 'Get in, Your Honour, I'll take you and the mamselle wherever you like, and I won't ask a lot: just a roople, and a half a roople, and a quarter roople for tea and sugar!'
Pozharsky glanced at this dashing fellow, then at the lopsided carriage and said: 'You can take the lady to Lubyanskaya Square. And I', he said, addressing the new arrival herself, 'will ride to Tverskoi Boulevard with my sworn protectors. I'll be waiting for news.'
As she got into the sleigh and covered her knees with the bearskin rug, the beautiful woman said in French: 'Only I beg you, darling, no police tricks, no shadowing. He's certain to sense it.'
'Don't insult me, Julie,' Pozharsky replied in the same language. 'I don't believe I have ever let you down.'
Erast Petrovich tugged on the reins and set the horse moving along Kalanchovka Street in the direction of Sadovo-Spasskaya Street.
To all appearances the young lady was in a very good mood: first she purred some song without any words, then she started singing in a low voice about a red sarafan. She had a wonderfully melodic voice.
'Lubyanka, lady' Fandorin announced. 'Where to now?'
She turned her head this way and that and muttered peevishly to herself: 'How unbearable he is, always playing the conspirator.
'I tell you what: drive me round in circles.'
The State Counsellor chorded and set off along the edge of the square, driving round the ice-covered fountain and the cab stand.
On the fourth circuit a man in a black coat bounded off the pavement and jumped lightly into the sleigh.
'I'll give you a jump, you bandit!' the 'cabby' roared, raising his whip to lash at the impertinent prankster.
But this proved to be no ordinary passenger; he was very speciaclass="underline" Mr Green in person. Only this time he'd glued on a light-coloured moustache and put on a pair of spectacles.
'He's a friend of mine,' the beautiful lady explained. 'The one I was expecting. Where are we going, Greeny?'
The new passenger gave the order: 'Drive across Theatre Lane. Then I'll tell you where next.'
'What's happened?' the songstress asked. 'What does "important business" mean? I dropped everything and here I am, just like magic. Perhaps you were simply missing me?' she asked, with a hint of cunning in her voice.
'I'll tell you when we get there,' the special passenger said, clearly not in the mood for conversation.
After that they drove in silence.
The passengers got out on Prechistenka Street, beside the estate of the counts Dobrinsky, but instead of going in through the gates, they walked up on to the porch of a wing of the main palace building.
Erast Petrovich, who had got down to tighten his horse's girth, saw a young woman open the door: a pale, severe face and smooth hair drawn back into a tight bun.
Following that, State Counsellor Fandorin acted rapidly and without hesitating for even a moment, as if he were not following instinct but carrying through a clear, carefully worked-out plan.
First he drove on for another five hundred paces, then tied the reins to a bollard beside the road, threw the sheepskin coat and cap into the sleigh, thrust his sword under the seat and walked back to the railings of the estate. There were hardly any people in the street, but he waited until it was completely empty before clambering nimbly up the railings and jumping down to the ground on the inside.
He ran quickly across the yard to the wing and found himself under a window with its small upper frame conveniently standing open. Erast Petrovich stood quite still for a moment, listening. Then without any obvious effort he clambered up on to the window sill, squeezed himself up tight and wriggled through the small aperture of the open window in a truly virtuoso feat of gutta-percha flexibility.
The hardest thing of all was to lower himself on to the floor without making any noise, but the State Counsellor managed even that. He found himself in a kitchen that was small but very tidy and wonderfully well heated. Here he had to listen carefully again, because he could hear voices from somewhere deeper inside the wing. Once he had determined which direction the sound was coming from, Erast Petrovich took his Herstahl-Baillard out of its holster and set off soundlessly along the corridor.
For the second time that day Erast Petrovich found himself spying and eavesdropping on someone through a half-open door, but this time he felt no embarrassment or pangs of conscience -only the excitement of the hunt and a thrill of joyful anticipation. His dear friend Gleb's luck could not last for ever, and he could learn more from Fandorin than how to guess the colour of cards.