Erast Fandorin 01 - The Winter Queen Read online

  And then Akhtyrtsev jumped to his feet, came running over to him, and whispered fervently, “Let me have it, I implore you. What is it to you…you’re here for the first time, but my fate depends on it…Sell it to me, at least. How much? Do you want five hundred? A thousand? More?”

  With a calm decisiveness that surprised even him, Erast Fandorin pushed the whispering student aside, walked over to their hostess, and asked with a bow, “Where shall we go?”

  She looked at Fandorin with amused curiosity. Her stare set his head spinning.

  “Over there will do—in the corner. I should be afraid to go somewhere alone with anyone as bold as you.”

  Disregarding the mocking laughter of the others, Erast Fandorin followed her to the far corner of the hall and lowered himself onto a divan with a carved wooden back. Amalia Kazimirovna set apakhitosa in a silver cigarette holder, lit it from a candle, and inhaled deliriously.

  “Well, and how much did Nikolai Stepanich offer you for me? I could tell what he was whispering to you.”

  “A thousand rubles,” Fandorin replied honestly, “and then he offered more.”

  Cleopatra’s agate eyes glinted maliciously. “Oho, how very impatient he is! So you must be a millionaire?”

  “No, I’m not rich,” Erast Fandorin said modestly. “But I consider it dishonorable to sell my luck.”

  The other guests grew weary of trying to eavesdrop on their conversation—they could not hear anything in any case—and they broke up into small groups and struck up conversations of their own, although from time to time every one of them kept glancing over at the far corner.

  Meanwhile, Cleopatra surveyed her temporary lord and sovereign with frank derision. “What do you wish to ask about?”

  Erast Fandorin hesitated. “Will the answer be honest?”

  “Honesty is for the honest, and in our games there is but little honesty.” Bezhetskaya laughed with a barely perceptible hint of bitterness. “I can promise candor, though. But please don’t disappoint me by asking anything stupid. I regard you as an interesting specimen.”

  Fandorin hurled himself recklessly into the attack. “What do you know about the death of Pyotr Alexandrovich Kokorin?”

  His hostess was not frightened—she did not flinch—but Erast Fandorin imagined that he saw her eyes narrow for an instant. “Why do you want to know that?”

  “I will explain afterward. First answer the question.”

  “All right, I will. Kokorin was killed by a certain very cruel lady.” Bezhetskaya lowered her thick black lashes for a moment and from beneath them darted a rapid, scorching glance at him, like a rapier thrust. “And that lady goes by the name of love.”

  “Love for you? Did he used to come here?”

  “He did. And apart from me I believe there is no one here with whom to fall in love. Except perhaps Orest Kirillovich.” She laughed.

  “And do you feel no pity at all for Kokorin?” asked Fandorin, amazed at such callousness.

  The queen of Egypt shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “Everyone is master of his own fate. But is that not enough questions for you?”

  “No,” Erast Fandorin said hurriedly. “How was Akhtyrtsev involved? And what is the significance of the bequest to Lady Astair?”

  The buzz of voices suddenly grew louder, and Fandorin glanced around in annoyance.

  “You don’t care for my tone?” Hippolyte asked in a thunderous voice, harassing the drunken Akhtyrtsev. “Then how do you care for this, my dear fellow?” And he shoved the student’s forehead with the palm of his hand, apparently without any great strength, but the miserable Akhtyrtsev went flying back against an armchair, plumped down into it, and stayed sitting there, blinking his eyes in bewilderment.

  “By your leave, Count, but this will not do!” said Erast Fandorin, dashing across. “You may be stronger, but that does not give you any right…”

  However, his faltering speech, at which the count had scarcely even glanced around, was drowned out by the resounding tones of the mistress of the house.

  “Hippolyte! Get out! And do not dare set foot in here again until you are sober!”

  The count swore and stomped off toward the door. The other guests gazed curiously at the wretchedly abject, limp form of Akhtyrtsev, who was not making the slightest effort to rise to his feet.

  “You are the only one here who is anything like a man,” Amalia Kazimirovna whispered to Fandorin, as she set off toward the corridor. “Take him away. And be sure to stay with him.”

  Almost immediately the lanky butler John appeared, having exchanged his livery for a black frock coat and starched shirtfront. He helped to get Akhtyrtsev as far as the door and then rammed his top hat onto his head. Bezhetskaya did not come out to take her leave, and a glance at the butler’s dour face told Erast Fandorin that he had best be on his way.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  in which serious unpleasantness lies in wait for our hero

  OUT IN THE STREET, ONCE HE HAD TAKEN A a breath of fresh air, Akhtyrtsev appeared to revive somewhat. He was standing firmly on his own two feet without swaying, and Erast Petrovich decided that it was no longer necessary to support him by the elbow.

  “Let’s take a stroll as far as Sretenka Street,” he said, “and I’ll put you in a cab there. Do you have a long journey home?”

  “Home?” In the flickering light of the kerosene streetlamp the student’s pale face appeared like a mask. “Oh, no, I’m not going home, not for the world! Let’s take a drive somewhere, shall we? I feel in the mood for a talk. You saw…the way they treat me. What’s your name? I remember—Fandorin, a funny name that. And I’m Akhtyrtsev, Nikolai Akhtyrtsev.”

  Erast Petrovich gave a gentle bow as he attempted to resolve a complex moral dilemma: would it offend against decency if he were to take advantage of Akhtyrtsev’s weakened condition in order to worm out of him the information he required, since the ‘sloucher’ himself seemed rather inclined to a little candid conversation?

  He decided that it would not. The investigative passion had indeed taken a tight grip on him.

  “The Crimea’s not far from here,” Akhtyrtsev recalled. “And there’s no need for a cab—we can walk. It’s a filthy dive, of course, but they do have decent wines. Let’s go, eh? I invite you.”

  Fandorin raised no objections, and they set off slowly (the student was just a little unsteady on his feet, after all) along the side street toward the lights of Sretenka Street shining in the distance.

  “Tell me, Fandorin, I suppose you think I’m a coward?” Akhtyrtsev asked, slurring his words slightly. “For not calling the count out, for enduring the insult and pretending to be drunk? I’m no coward, and perhaps I’ll tell you something that will convince you of that…He was deliberately trying to provoke me. I daresay she was the one who put him up to it, in order to be rid of me and not pay her debt…Oh, you’ve no idea what kind of a woman she is! And for Zurov killing a man means no more than swatting a fly. He practices shooting with a pistol every morning for an hour. They say he can put a bullet into a five-kopeck piece at twenty paces. Call that a duel? There’s absolutely no risk in it for him at all. It’s simply murder called by a fancy name. And the main thing is, he won’t pay for it—he’ll squirm his way out of it somehow. He already has done so more than once. Well, he might go traveling abroad for a while. But now I want to live—I’ve earned the right.”

  They turned off Sretenka Street into another side street, rather seedy looking, but even so it had not mere kerosene lamps but gas lamps. Now ahead of them there loomed up a three-story building with brightly lit windows. It had to be the Crimea, Erast Fandorin thought with a sinking heart—he had heard a great deal about this iniquitous establishment that was famous throughout Moscow.

  No one met them at the high porch with its bright lamps. Akhtyrtsev pushed against the tall, decoratively carved door with a habitual gesture, and it yielded easily, breathing out warmth and a smell compounded of cooking and alcohol. There was
a sudden din of voices and squeaking of violins.

  After leaving their top hats in the cloakroom, the young men fell into the clutches of an animated fellow in a scarlet shirt, who addressed Akhtyrtsev as ‘Your Excellency’ and promised him the very best table that had been specially kept for him. The table proved to be by the wall and, thank God, it was a long way from the stage, where the Gypsy choir was keening loudly and rattling its tambourines. Erast Fandorin, who found himself in a genuine den of debauchery for the first time, twisted his head first one way, then the other. The clientele here was extremely varied, but there did not appear to be a single sober person among them. The tone was set by young merchants and stockbrokers with pomaded partings in their hair—everybody knew who had the money nowadays—but there were also gentlemen of a decidedly aristocratic appearance, and somewhere he even caught the golden gleam of monogrammed initials on an aide-de-camp’s epaulet. The collegiate registrar’s interest was aroused most strongly, however, by the girls who came to sit at the tables as soon as they were beckoned. He blushed at the low-necked dresses they were wearing, and their skirts had slits through which round knees in net stockings protruded shamelessly.

  “What, girls caught your eye, have they?” Akhtyrtsev laughed, ordering wine and a main course from a waiter. “After Amalia I don’t even think of them as creatures of the female sex. How old are you, Fandorin?”

  “Twenty-one,” said Fandorin, adding a year to his age.

  “Well, I’m twenty-three, and I’ve already seen a lot. Don’t gawp at the whores—they’re a complete waste of time and money. And it leaves you feeling disgusted afterward. If you must love, then love a queen! But then, why am I telling you that? You didn’t end up at Amalia’s by sheer chance, after all. Has she bewitched you? She likes doing that—adding to her collection—and the exhibits have to be continually renewed. How does that song in the operetta go, ‘Elle nepense qu’à exciter les kommes’*? But everything has its price, and I’ve already paid mine. Would you like me to tell you a story? Somehow I like you. You’re remarkably good at keeping quiet. And it will be useful for you to know what kind of woman she is. Maybe you’ll come to your senses before you get swallowed up like me. Or have you already been swallowed up, eh, Fandorin? What were you whispering to her back there?”

  Erast Fandorin lowered his eyes.

  “Then listen,” said Akhtyrtsev, launching into his story. “Not long since you suspected me of cowardice, because I let Hippolyte off and didn’t call him out. But I’ve fought a duel the likes of which your Hippolyte has never even dreamed of. Did you hear the way she forbade us to talk about Kokorin? I should think so! His blood’s on her conscience—on hers. And on mine, too, of course. Only I’ve redeemed my mortal sin by fear. Kokorin and I were in the same year at the university—he used to go to Amalia’s place too. We used to be friends once, but because of her we became enemies. Kokorin was a bit more free and easy than me, with a cute kind of face, but entre nous,* once a merchant always a merchant, a plebeian, even if you have studied at the university. Amalia had her fill of amusement out of us—first she would favor one of us, then the other. Called me Nicolas, and spoke to me familiarly, as if I were one of her favorites, and then for some stupid trifle or other she’d consign me to disgrace. She’d forbid me to show my face for a week, and then she was back to formal terms—Mr. Akhtyrtsev, Nikolai Stepanich. Her policy is to never ever let anyone off the hook.”

  “And what is this Hippolyte to her?” Fandorin asked cautiously.

  “Count Zurov? I can’t say exactly, but there’s something special between them…Either he has some hold over her, or she has over him…but he’s not jealous—he’s not the problem. A woman like that would never allow anyone to be jealous of her. In a word, she’s a queen!”

  He fell silent, because at the next table a company of tipsy businessmen had begun kicking up a racket—as they were getting ready to leave an argument had broken out about who was going to pay. In a trice the waiters had carried off the dirty tablecloth and spread out a new one, and a minute later the free table was already occupied by an extremely drunken functionary with whitish, almost transparent, eyes (no doubt the result of hard drinking). Flitting across to him, a pudgy girl with brown hair put her arm around his shoulder and theatrically flung one of her legs over the other. Erast Fandorin gazed admiringly at a knee clad in tight red de Perse.

  Meanwhile, Akhtyrtsev drained a full glass of Rhine wine, prodded at a bloody beefsteak with his fork, and continued. “D’you think, Fandorin, that it was the misery of love that made him lay hands on himself? Not a bit of it! I was the one who killed him.”

  “What?” Fandorin could not believe his ears.

  “You heard me,” Akhtyrtsev said with a nod, looking proud. “I’ll tell you all about it. Just sit quietly and don’t go interrupting me with questions.”

  “Yes, I killed him, and I don’t regret it in the least. I killed him, fair and square in a duel. Yes, fair and square! Because no duel since time immemorial has ever been fairer than ours. When two men face up to each other, there’s almost always some deception in it—one is a better shot and the other a worse, or else one is fat and makes an easier target, or else one spent a sleepless night and his hands are shaking. But Pierre and I did everything without any deception. She said—it was in Sokolniki, on the round alley, the three of us were out for a drive in the carriage—she said: “I’m fed up with the pair of you rich, spoiled little brats. Why don’t you kill each other or something?” And Kokorin, the swine, said to her, “I will kill him, too, if only it will earn me a reward from you.” I said, “And for a reward I would kill. Such a reward as can’t be divided between two. So it’s a quick road to a damp grave for one of us if he doesn’t back down.” Things had already gone that far between Kokorin and me. “What, do you really love me so much, then?” she asked. “More than life itself,” he said. And I said the same. “Very well,” says she, “the only thing I value in people is courage—everything else can be counterfeited. Hear my will. If one of you really does kill the other he shall have a reward for his bravery, and you know what it shall be.” And she laughs. “Only you are idle boasters,” she says, “both of you. You won’t kill anybody. The only interesting thing about you is your fathers’ capital.” I flew into a rage. “I cannot speak,” I said, “for Kokorin, but for the sake of such a reward I will not begrudge either my own life or another man’s.” And she says, angry now, “I’ll tell you what. I’m sick and tired of all your crowing. It’s decided: you shall shoot at each other but not in a duel or else we shall never be rid of the scandal. And a duel is too uncertain. One of you will shoot a hole in the other’s hand and turn up at my house as the victor. No, let it be death for one and love for the other. Let fate decide. Cast lots. And the one the lot falls to—let him shoot himself. And let him write a note so that no one will think that it might be because of me. Have you turned coward now? If you have turned coward, then at least out of shame you will stop visiting me—at least then some good will come of it.” Pierre looked at me and said, “I don’t know about Akhtyrt-sev, but I won’t funk it.”…And so we decided…”

  Akhtyrtsev fell silent and hung his head. Then he shook himself, filled his glass up to the brim, and gulped it down. At the next table the girl in the red stockings broke into peals of laughter. The white-eyed fellow was whispering something in her ear.

  “But what about the will?” Erast Fandorin asked, then bit his tongue, since he was not, after all, supposed to know anything about it. However, Akhtyrtsev, absorbed in his reminiscences, merely nodded listlessly.

  “Ah, the will…” She thought of that. “Didn’t you want to buy me with money?” she said. “Very well, then, let there be money, only not the hundred thousand that Nikolai Stepanich promised” (it’s true, I did make her an offer once—she almost threw me out). “And not two hundred thousand. Let it be everything you have. Whichever one of you must die, let him go to the next world naked. Only I,” she
says, “have no need of your money. I can endow anyone you like myself. Let the money go to some good cause—a holy monastery or something of the sort. For prayers for forgiveness of the mortal sin. Well, Petrusha,” she said, “your million should make a good thick candle, don’t you think?” But Kokorin was an atheist, a militant. He was outraged. “Anybody but the priests,” he said. “I’d rather leave it to all the fallen women—let each of them buy herself a sewing machine and change her trade. If there’s not a single woman of the street left in all Moscow, that’ll be something to remember Pyotr Kokorin by.” But then Amalia objected, “Once a woman’s become debauched, you can never reform her. It should have been done earlier, when she was young and innocent.” So Kokorin gave up on that and said, “Then let it go to children, to some orphans or other, to the Foundling Hospital.” She lit up immediately at that. “For that, Petrusha, you would be forgiven a great deal. Come here and let me kiss you.” I was furious. “They’ll embezzle all your millions in the Foundling Hospital,” I said. “Haven’t you read what they write about the state orphanages in the newspapers? And, anyway, it’s way too much for them to have. Better give it all to the Englishwoman Baroness Astair—she won’t steal it.” Amalia kissed me as well then. “Let’s show our Russian patriots a thing or two,” she said. That was on the eleventh, on Saturday. On Sunday Kokorin and I met and talked everything over. It was an odd kind of conversation. He kept blustering and swaggering, and I mostly just kept quiet, and we didn’t look into each other’s eyes. I felt as though I were in some kind of daze…We called out an attorney and drew up our wills in due form, Pierre as my witness and executor and I as his. We each gave the attorney five thousand to make him keep his mouth shut. It wouldn’t have been worth his while to blab about it, anyway. And Pierre and I agreed on our arrangement—he was the one who suggested it. We meet at ten o’clock at my place in the Taganka district (I live on Goncharnaya Street). Each of us has a six-chamber revolver in his pocket with one round in the cylinder. We walk separately, but so that we can see each other. Whoever the dice choose goes first. Kokorin had read somewhere about American roulette and he liked the idea. He said, “Because of you and me, Kolya, they’ll rename it Russian roulette—just you wait and see.” And he said, “It’s a bore to shoot yourself at home—let’s wind things up with a stroll and a few amusements.” I agreed—it was all the same to me. I confess I’d lost heart, I thought I would lose. And it was hammering away in my brain—Monday the thirteenth, Monday the thirteenth. That night I didn’t sleep at all. I felt like leaving the country, but when I thought of him left behind with her and laughing at me…Anyway, I stayed.