The Winter Queen (16 page)

The journey around Europe had proved less pleasant than Fandorin had anticipated in his first access of elation. Beyond the border post of Verzhbolov he had been depressed by the quite striking dissimilarity of the locality to the unpretentious open spaces of his homeland. As he looked out the window of his train, Erast Fandorin had kept expecting that the neat little villages and toy towns would come to an end and a normal landscape would begin, but the farther the train traveled from the Russian border, the whiter the houses became and the more picturesque the towns. Fandorin’s mood became grimmer and grimmer, but he had refused to allow himself to be reduced to sniveling. In the final analysis, he told himself, all that glisters is not gold, but nonetheless at heart he still felt a little nauseated.

After a while he had grown used to it and it did not seem so bad. It even began to seem as though Moscow was not so very much dirtier than Berlin, and the Kremlin with its gold-domed churches was finer than anything that the Germans had ever dreamed of. It was something else that had really played on his nerves: the military agent at the Russian embassy, to whom Fandorin had transmitted a sealed package, had ordered him to travel no further and await the arrival of secret correspondence for delivery to Vienna. The waiting had stretched into a week, and Erast Fandorin had grown weary of sauntering along the shady Unter den Linden, and weary of admiring the plump swans in the Berlin parks.

The same story was repeated in Vienna, only this time he had been obliged to wait five days for a package destined for the military agent in Paris. Erast Fandorin had fretted nervously, imagining that ‘Miss Olsen,’ not having received any word from her Hippolyte, must have moved out of the hotel and now it would never be possible to find her again. To calm his nerves Fandorin had spent long periods sitting in the cafes, eating large numbers of sweet almond pastries and drinking cream soda by the liter.

When it came to Paris, he had taken matters into his own hands, calling into the Russian legation for just five minutes, handing the documents to the colonel from the embassy, and declaring that he was on a special assignment and could not delay even for an hour. To punish himself for the fruitless waste of so much time he had not even looked around Paris, beyond taking a drive in a fiacre along the boulevards that had been so recently extended by Baron Haussmann, and then going straight to the Gare du Nord. There would be time for all that afterward, on his return journey.

AT A QUARTER TO TEN Erast Fandorin was already seated in the foyer of the Winter Queen Hotel, having concealed himself behind a copy of
The Times
with a hole pierced in it for purposes of observation. Waiting outside was a cab prudently hired in advance. Following instructions received, the porter demonstratively avoided looking in the direction of the guest who was rather overdressed for summer, even striving to turn his back on him completely.

At three minutes past ten the bell jangled, the door swung open, and a giant of a man clad in gray livery entered. It was him, the butler, John Karlovich! Fandorin pressed his eye up against a page bearing a description of a ball given by the Prince of Wales.

The porter cast a furtive glance at Mr. van Dorn, who had become so engrossed in his reading, and the villain even began raising and lowering his shaggy eyebrows, but fortunately the object of study either failed to notice this or else he regarded it as beneath his dignity to look around.

The waiting cab proved most opportune, for it turned out that the butler had not arrived on foot but in an ‘egotist,’ a single-seater carriage, to which a sturdy little black horse was harnessed. No less opportune was the persistent drizzle, which obliged John Karlovich to raise the carriage’s leather hood, so that now, no matter how hard he might try, he would be unable to detect anyone shadowing him.

Evincing not the slightest sign of surprise at the order to follow the man in gray livery, the cabby cracked his long whip, and phase one of the plan was under way.

It grew dark. The streetlamps were lit, but not knowing London, Erast Fandorin very quickly lost his bearings among the tangle of identical stone buildings in this alien, menacingly silent city. After a certain time the houses became lower and more scattered, and he thought he could see the indistinct outlines of trees drifting through the gloom. After another fifteen minutes there were large detached houses surrounded by gardens. The ‘egotist’ halted at one of these and disgorged a giant silhouette, which opened the tall barred gates. Leaning out of the cab, Fandorin saw the small carriage drive inside, following which the gates were closed again.

The quick-witted cabby stopped his horse, then looked around and asked, “Should I report this journey to the police, sir?”

“Here’s a crown for you, and decide that question for yourself,” replied Erast Fandorin, deciding that he would not ask the driver to wait—he was too smart by half. And Fandorin had no idea when he would be going back. Ahead lay total uncertainty.

Slipping over the fence proved to be quite simple—in his schooldays at the gymnasium he had overcome higher obstacles.

The garden menaced him with its shadows and poked him inhospitably in the face with its branches. Ahead through the trees he could make out the vague white form of a two-story house surmounted by a hipped roof. Attempting to crunch as quietly as possible, Fandorin stole as far as the final bushes (they smelled like lilac—probably it was some English kind of lilac) and surveyed the lay of the land. It was not just a house, rather more like a villa. There was a lantern over the door. The windows on the first floor were brightly lit, but it looked as though the domestic offices were located there. Far more interesting was a lighted window on the second floor (at this point he recalled that for some reason the English referred to it as the ‘first floor’), but how could he get up to it? Fortunately there was a drainpipe running close beside it, and the wall was overgrown with some kind of climbing vegetation that appeared to have taken a solid grip. The skills of his recent childhood might prove useful once again.

Like a black shadow Erast Fandorin dashed across to the wall and gave the drainpipe a shake. It seemed secure and it didn’t rattle. Since it was vitally important not to make any noise, the ascent proceeded more slowly than Erast Fandorin would have wished. Eventually his foot found the projecting ledge that encircled the second floor of the house most conveniently, and taking a cautious grip on the ivy—wild vine, liana, whatever the hell these serpentine stems were called—Fandorin began edging his way in tiny steps toward the cherished goal of the window.

For one instant he was overwhelmed by bitter disappointment—there was no one in the room. A lamp with a pink shade illuminated an elegant writing desk with some papers, and in the corner he thought he could see the white form of a bed. Erast Fandorin waited for about five minutes, but nothing happened except that a fat moth settled on the lamp, its shaggy wings fluttering. Would he really have to climb back down again? Or should he take a risk and clamber inside? He gave the window frame a gentle push and it swung open slightly. Fandorin hesitated, berating himself for his indecision and procrastination, but he had been right to delay, for just then the door opened and a man and a woman entered the room. At the sight of the woman Erast Fandorin very nearly gave a whoop of triumph—it was Bezhetskaya! With her smoothly combed black hair tied back with a red ribbon, in a lacy peignoir over which she had thrown a brightly colored Gypsy shawl, to his eyes she appeared blindingly beautiful. Oh, such a woman could be forgiven any transgressions!

Turning toward the man—his face remained in shadow, but to judge from his stature it was Morbid—Amalia Bezhetskaya spoke in impeccable English (a spy, most indubitably a spy!). “So it was definitely him?”

“Yes, ma’am. Absolutely no doubt about it.”

“How can you be so certain? Did you actually see him?”

“No, ma’am. Franz was keeping watch there today. He informed me that the boy arrived at seven o’clock. The description matched perfectly; even your guess about the mustache was correct.”

Bezhetskaya laughed her clear, musical laugh. “Nevertheless, we must not underestimate him, John. This boy is one of the lucky breed, and I know that kind of person very well—they are unpredictable and very dangerous.”

Erast Fandorin’s heart sank. Surely they could not be talking about him? No, it was impossible.

“Nothing simpler, ma’am. You only have to say the word…Franz and I will go over there and finish him off. Room fifteen, on the second floor.”

They
were
talking about him! Erast Fandorin was staying in room number fifteen on the third floor (the second floor English style). But how had they found out? From where? Fandorin tore off his ignominious, useless mustache, ignoring the pain.

Amalia Bezhetskaya, or whatever her real name might be, frowned, and a harsh metallic note sounded in her voice. “Don’t you dare! It’s my fault, and I shall correct my own mistake. For once in my life I trusted a man…but I am surprised that we did not get word of his arrival from the embassy.”

Fandorin was all ears now. They had their own people in the Russian embassy! Well, well, well! And Ivan Brilling had been doubtful. Say who, say it!

But Bezhetskaya began talking of other matters. “Are there any letters?”

“Three today, ma’am.” The butler handed over the envelopes with a bow.

“Good. You may go to bed, John. I shall not require you any further today.” She stifled a yawn.

When the door closed behind Mr. Morbid, Amalia Bezhetskaya tossed the letters carelessly on the bureau and walked over to the window. Fandorin shrank back behind the projecting masonry, his heart pounding furiously. Gazing out blankly into the murky drizzle with her huge black eyes, Bezhetskaya (if not for the glass, he could have reached out and touched her) muttered pensively in Russian, “How deadly boring, God help me. Stuck in this miserable place…”

Then she began behaving very strangely. She went up to a frivolous wall lamp in the form of a Cupid and pressed the god of love’s bronze navel. The engraving hanging beside it (it appeared to be a hunting scene of some kind) slid soundlessly to one side, revealing a small copper door with a round handle. Bezhetskaya freed a slim, naked hand from its gauzy sleeve, turned the handle this way and that, and the door opened with a melodic thrumming sound. Erast Fandorin pressed his nose against the windowpane, afraid of missing the most important part of the action.

Amalia Bezhetskaya, looking more than ever like an Egyptian queen, reached gracefully into the safe, took something out of it, and turned around. She was holding a light blue velvet attaché case.

She sat down at the bureau, extracted a large yellow envelope from the attaché case, and from the envelope she extracted a sheet of paper covered in fine writing. She slit open the newly received letters with a knife and copied something from them onto the paper. It all took no longer than two minutes. Then, having replaced the letters and the sheet of paper in the attaché case, Bezhetskaya lit a
pakhitoska
and inhaled deeply several times, gazing pensively into space.

The hand with which Erast Fandorin was gripping the vegetation had gone numb, the handle of his Colt was sticking painfully into his side, and his feet had begun to ache from being so unnaturally splayed. He could not continue standing in that position for long.

Eventually Cleopatra extinguished her
pakhitoska
, stood up, and withdrew into the dimly lit far corner of the room, where a low door opened then closed again, and then there was the sound of running water. Evidently that was where the bathroom was located.

The blue attaché case remained lying enticingly on the writing desk, and women, as everyone knows, spend a long time over their evening toilette…Fandorin pushed against the window frame, set his knee on the windowsill, and in an instant was inside the room. Glancing now and again in the direction of the bathroom, from where he could still hear the sound of running water, he set about relieving the attaché case of its contents.

It proved to contain a large bundle of letters and the envelope he had already seen. Written on the envelope was an address:

MR. NICHOLAS M. CROOG, POSTS RESTANTE

L’HOTEL DES POSTES, S.-PETERSBOURG, RUSSIE

This was already progress. Inside the envelope there were sheets of paper divided into columns and squares containing English writing in the slanting hand now so familiar to Erast Fandorin. The first column contained some kind of number, the second the name of a country, the third a rank or title, the fourth a date, and the fifth another date—different dates in June in ascending numerical order. For instance, the last three entries, which to judge from the ink had only just been made, appeared as follows:

Wait! The letters that had arrived at the hotel for Miss Olsen today had been from Rio de Janeiro, Washington, and Stuttgart. Erast Fan-dorin rummaged through the bundle of letters and found the one from Brazil. It contained a sheet of paper with no salutation or signature, nothing but a single line of writing:

30 May, head of the emperor’s personal bodyguard, N°1053F.

So for some reason Bezhetskaya was copying the contents of the letters she received onto sheets of paper that she then sent to a certain Nikolai Croog in St. Petersburg, or rather Mr. Nicholas Croog. To what end? And why to St. Petersburg? What could it all mean?

The questions came thick and fast, jostling each other for space in his mind, but he had no time to deal with them—the water had stopped running in the bathroom. Fandorin hastily stuffed the papers back into the attaché case, but it was too late to retreat to the window. A slim white figure was already standing motionless in the doorway.