The Diamond Chariot

The fourth syllable, in which a hired gun sets out on the hunt

The phone rang at half past one in the morning. Before he even lifted the receiver to answer, Erast Petrovich Fandorin gestured to his valet to hand him his clothes. A telephone call at this hour of the night could only be from the Department, and it had to be about some emergency or other.

As he listened to the voice rumbling agitatedly in the earpiece, Fandorin knitted his black eyebrows tighter and tighter together. He switched hands, so that Masa could slip his arm into the sleeve of a starched shirt. He shook his head at the shoes – the valet understood and brought his boots.

Erast Petrovich did not ask the person on the phone a single question, he simply said:

‘Very well, Leontii Karlovich, I’ll be there straight away.’

Once he was dressed, he stopped for a moment in front of the mirror. He combed his black hair threaded with grey (the kind they call ‘salt-and-pepper’), ran a special little brush over his entirely white temples and his neat moustache, in which there was still not a single silver hair. He frowned after running his hand across his cheek, but there was no time to shave.

He walked out of the apartment.

The Japanese was already sitting in the automobile, holding a travelling bag in his hand.

The most valuable quality of Fandorin’s valet was not that he did everything quickly and precisely, but that he knew how to manage without unnecessary talk. From the choice of footwear, Masa had guessed there was a long journey in prospect, so he had equipped himself accordingly.

With its mighty twenty-horsepower engine roaring, the twin-cylinder Oldsmobile surged down Sadovaya Street, where Fandorin was lodging, and a minute later it was already gliding across the Chernyshevsky Bridge. A feeble drizzle was trickling down from the grey, unconvincing night sky, and glinting on the road. The remarkable ‘Hercules’ brand non-splash tyres glided over the black asphalt.

Two minutes later the automobile braked to a halt at house number 7 on Kolomenskaya Street, where the offices of the St Petersburg Railway Gendarmerie and Police were located.

Fandorin set off up the steps at a run, with a nod to the sentry, who saluted him. But his valet remained sitting in the Oldsmobile, and even demonstratively turned his back.

From the very beginning of the armed conflict between the two empires, Masa – who was Japanese by birth, but a Russian citizen according to his passport – had declared that he would remain neutral, and he had stuck scrupulously to this rule. He had not delighted in the heroic feats of the defenders of Port Arthur, nor had he rejoiced at the victories of Japanese armies. But most importantly of all, as a matter of principle, he had not stepped across the threshold of any military institutions, which at times had caused both him and his master considerable inconvenience.

The valet’s moral sufferings were exacerbated still further by the fact that, following several arrests on suspicion of espionage, he had been obliged to disguise his nationality. Fandorin had procured a temporary passport for his servant in the name of a Chinese gentleman, so that now, whenever Masa left the house, he was obliged to put on a wig with a long pigtail. According to the document, he bore the impossible name of ‘Lianchan Shankhoevich Chaiunevin’. As a consequence of all these ordeals, the valet had lost his appetite and grown lean, and had even given up breaking the hearts of housemaids and seamstresses, with whom he had enjoyed vertiginous success during the pre-war period.

These were hard times, not only for the false Lianchan Shankhoevich, but also for his master.

When Japanese destroyers attacked the Port Arthur squadron without warning, Fandorin was on the other side of the world, in the Dutch West Indies, where he was conducting absolutely fascinating research in the area of underwater navigation.

At first Erast Fandorin had wanted nothing to do with a war between two countries that were both close to his heart, but as the advantage swung more and more towards Japan, Fandorin gradually lost interest in the durability of aluminium, and even in the search for the galleon San Felipe, which had gone down with its load of gold in the year ad 1708 seven miles south-south-east of the island of Aruba. On the very day when Fandorin’s submarine finally scraped its aluminium belly across the stump of the Spanish mainmast protruding from the sea bottom, news came of the loss of the battleship Petropavlosk, together with Commander-in-Chief Admiral Makarov and the entire crew.

The next morning Fandorin set out for his homeland, leaving his associates to deal with raising the gold bars to the surface.

On arriving in St Petersburg, he contacted an old colleague from his time in the Third Section, who now occupied a highly responsible post, and offered his services: Erast Petrovich knew that Russia had catastrophically few specialists on Japan, and he had spent several years living in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The old acquaintance was quite delighted by Fandorin’s visit. He said, however, that he would like to make use of Erast Petrovich in a different capacity.

‘Of course, there aren’t enough experts on Japan, or on many other subjects,’ said the general, blinking rapidly with eyes red from lack of sleep, ‘but there is a far worse rent in our garments, which leaves us exposed, pardon me for saying so, at the most intimate spot. If you only knew, my dear fellow, what a calamitous state our counter-espionage system is in! Things have more or less come together in the army in the field, but in the rear, the confusion is appalling, monstrous. Japanese agents are everywhere, they act with brazen impudence and resourcefulness, and we don’t know how to catch them. We have no experience. We’re used to civilised spies, the European kind, who do their work under cover of an embassy or foreign companies. But the Orientals break all the rules. I’ll tell you what worries me most,’ said the important man, lowering his voice. ‘Our railways. When the war’s happening tens of thousands of versts away from the factories and the conscription centres, victory and defeat depend on the railways, the primary circulatory system of the organism of the state. The entire empire has just one artery from Peter to Arthur. Atrophied, with a feeble pulse, prone to thrombosis and – worst of all – almost completely unprotected. Erast Petrovich, dear fellow, there are two things that I dread in this situation: Japanese sabotage and Russian slovenliness. You have more than enough experience of intelligence work, thank God. And then, they told me that in America you qualified as an engineer. Why not get back in harness, eh? On any terms you like. If you want, we’ll reinstate you in government service; if you want, you can be a freelance, a hired gun. Help us out, will you, put your shoulder to the wheel.’

And so Fandorin found himself engaged at the capital’s Department of Railway Gendarmerie and Police in the capacity of a ‘hired gun’ – that is, a consultant receiving no salary, but endowed with extremely far-reaching powers. The goal set for the consultant was as follows: to develop a security system for the railways, test it in the zone under his jurisdiction and then pass it on to be used by all the Railway Gendarmerie departments of the empire.

It was hectic work, not very much like Erast Fandorin’s preceding activities, but fascinating in its own way. The Department’s jurisdiction extended to two thousand versts of railway lines, hundreds of stations and terminuses, bridges, railway line reservations, depots and workshops – and all this had to be protected against possible attack by the enemy. While the provincial department of gendarmes had several dozen employees, the railway department had more than a thousand. The scale and the responsibility were beyond all comparison. In addition, the duty regulations for the railways’ gendarmes exempted them from performing the functions of a political police, and for Fandorin that was very important: he was not fond of revolutionaries, but he regarded with even greater revulsion the methods by which the Okhrana and the Special Section of the Department of Police endeavoured to eradicate the nihilist contagion. In this sense, Erast Petrovich regarded working for the Railway Gendarmerie Department as ‘clean work’.

Fandorin did not know much about railways, but he could not be classed as a total dilettante. He was, after all, a qualified engineer in the area of self-propelled machines, and twenty years earlier, while investigating a rather complicated case, he had worked on a railway line for a while in the guise of a trainee.

During the year just past, the ‘hired gun’ had achieved a great deal. Gendarme sentries had been established on all trains, including passenger trains; a special regime had been introduced for guarding bridges, tunnels, crossings and points, flying brigades on handcars had been created, and so on and so forth. The innovations introduced in the St Petersburg department were quickly adapted in the other provinces and so far (fingers firmly crossed) there had not been a single major accident, not a single act of sabotage.

Although Fandorin’s official position was a strange one, they had grown accustomed to Erast Petrovich in the Department and regarded him with great respect, referring to him as ‘Mr Engineer’. His superior, Lieutenant General von Kassel, had grown used to relying on his consultant in all matters and never took any decisions without his advice.

And now Leontii Karlovich Kassel was waiting for his assistant in the doorway of his office.

Catching sight of the engineer’s tall, dashing figure at the end of the corridor, he went rushing towards it.

‘Of all things, the Tezoimenitsky Bridge!’ the general shouted before he was even close. ‘We wrote to the minister and warned him the bridge was dilapidated and unsafe! And now he rebukes me and threatens me: says that if this turns out to be Japanese sabotage – I’ll stand trial for it. How in hell can it be sabotage? The Tezoimenitsky Bridge hasn’t been repaired since 1850! And here’s the result for you: it couldn’t bear the weight of a military transport carrying heavy artillery. The ordnance is ruined. There are large numbers of dead. And worst of all, the line to Moscow has been disrupted!’

‘A good thing it happened here, and not beyond Samara,’ said Erast Petrovich, following von Kassel into the office and closing the door. ‘Here we can send trains by an alternative route along the Novgorod line. But is it certain the bridge collapsed and this is not sabotage?’

Leontii Karlovich frowned.

‘Oh, come, now, how can it be sabotage? You ought to know, you developed the regulations yourself. Sentries on the bridge, the rails checked every half-hour, gendarmes on duty on the brake platforms of all trains – my territory is in perfect order. Tell me instead, if you can, what our unfortunate homeland has done to deserve such disasters. We’re straining ourselves to the very limit as it is. What about Tsushima, eh? Have you read the newspaper reports? A total debacle, and not a single enemy vessel sunk. Where did it come from, this Japan? When I entered the service, no one had even heard of such a country. And now it’s sprung up out of nowhere, in just a few years, like a mushroom overnight. Why, it’s totally unheard of.’

‘Why d-do you say it’s unheard of?’ Fandorin replied with his habitual light stammer. ‘Japan began modernising in 1868, thirty-seven years ago. Less time than that passed from the moment Peter the Great ascended the throne until the battle of Poltava. Before that, there was no such power as Russia, then it suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, also like a m-mushroom, overnight.’

‘Oh, come on, that’s history,’ the general said dismissively, crossing himself with broad sweeps of his hand. ‘I’ll tell you what it is. It’s God punishing us for our sins. Punishing us harshly, as he did the Egyptian pharaoh, with miraculous disasters. So help me …’ – Leontii Karlovich glanced round at the door and dropped his voice to a whisper – ‘… we’ve lost the war.’

‘I d-don’t agree,’ Erast Petrovich snapped. ‘Not on a single point. Nothing miraculous has occurred. That is one. What has happened is only what should have been expected. It’s hardly surprising that Russia has not won a single battle. It would have been an absolute miracle if she had. Our enlisted man is no match for the Japanese soldier – he has less stamina, less learning and less martial spirit. Let us assume that the Russian officer is not bad, but the Japanese officer is simply superb. And then, what can we say about the generals (please don’t take this personally, Your Excellency); ours are fat and lack initiative, the Japanese generals are lean and forceful. If we are still holding out somehow, the only reason is that it is easier to defend than attack. But don’t be alarmed, Leontii Karpovich. We may lose the battles, but we shall win the war. And that is t-two. We are immeasurably stronger than the Japanese in the most important thing of all: we have economic might, human and natural resources. Time is on our side. Commander-in-Chief Linevich is acting entirely correctly, unlike Kuropatkin; he is drawing out the campaign, building up his strength. The longer it goes on, the weaker the Japanese become. Their treasury is on the brink of bankruptcy, their lines of communication are being extended further and further, their reserves are being drained. All we have to do is avoid large-scale battles, and victory is in the b-bag. Nothing could have been more stupid than to drag the Baltic fleet halfway round the world to be devoured by Admiral Togo.’

As the general listened to his assistant, his face grew brighter but, having begun on a bright note, Fandorin concluded his optimistic discourse on a gloomy one.

‘The crash on the Tezoimenitsky Bridge frightens me more than the loss of our navy squadron. Without a fleet, at least we will just about win the war, but if tricks like this start happening on the main railway line supplying the front, Russia is done for. Have them couple the inspector’s carriage to a locomotive. Let’s go and take a look.’





The fifth syllable, which features an interesting passenger

By the time the inspector’s carriage reached the scene of the disaster on the rocky banks of the Lomzha river, night had grown weary of pretending to be dark at all, and the clear morning light was streaming down from the sky in all its glory.

A quite incredible amount of top brass had gathered at the stub end of the Tezoimenitsky Bridge – the Minister of War, and the most august Inspector General of Artillery, and the Minister of Railways, and the Chief of the Gendarmes Corps, and the Director of the Department of Police, and the Head of the Provincial Gendarmes Department. There were as many as half a dozen saloon carriages, each with its own locomotive, drawn up one after another in a queue.

There, above the precipice, gold braid glittered, spurs and adjutant’s aiguillettes jingled, imperious bass voices rumbled peremptorily, and down below, at the water’s edge, chaos and death prevailed. Rising up in the middle of the Lomzha was a shapeless heap of wood and iron, with the broken bones of the bridge drooping down over it; one of the mangled and twisted locomotives had buried its nose in the far bank and was still smoking, while the rectangular black tender of the other protruded from the water like a cliff. The wounded had already been taken away, but there was a long line of dead lying on the sand, covered with tarpaulins.

The latest heavy guns, intended for the Manchurian army, had tumbled off the flat wagons: some had sunk and some had been scattered across the shallows. On the opposite bank a mobile crane was jerking its jib absurdly as it tugged at the mounting of a monster with a twisted barrel, but it was obvious that it could not cope and would never pull it out.

Leontii Karlovich set off towards the topmost brass, but Fandorin skirted round the islet of gold epaulettes and walked up to the very edge of the cliff. He stood there for a while, looking, then suddenly started climbing down the inclined surface. Down by the water, he leapt agilely on to the roof of a submerged carriage, and from there clambered on to the next support of the bridge, from which the crooked rails were dangling. The engineer scrambled up the sleepers as if they were the rungs of a ladder, and was soon on the far side of the river.

There were fewer people here. Standing some distance away, about fifty paces, was an express train – the one that had managed to slip across the bridge just before the collapse. The passengers were gathered in little knots beside the carriages.

On the surviving section of the bridge and beside the water, men in civilian clothes, all dressed differently but all, nonetheless, as alike as brothers, were swarming about with a businesslike air. Among them Fandorin recognised Evstratii Pavlovich Mylnikov, with whom he had once worked in Moscow.

A gendarme corporal in a wet, torn uniform was standing rigidly to attention in front of Mylnikov – it looked as if his report was already in full spate. But the court counsellor was not looking at the corporal, he was looking at Fandorin.

‘Bah,’ he said, throwing his arms wide, as if he was about to embrace the engineer. ‘Fandorin! What are you doing here? Ah, yes, you’re in the RGD now, they told me. Sorry for invading your territory, but it’s an order from the very top: investigate as a matter of emergency, involve all the contiguous departments. Got us up out of our feather bed. Go get ’em, they said, pick up that trail, you old bloodhound. Well, the part about the feather bed’s not true.’ Mylnikov bared his yellow teeth in what should have been a smile, but his eyes remained cold and narrowed. ‘When would humble sleuths like us ever see our feather beds these days? I envy you railway sybarites. I spent the night on the chairs in the office, as I usually do. But then again, as you can see, I got here first. Look, I’m interrogating your lads, to see if it was a Japanese mine.’

‘Mr Engineer,’ the corporal said excitedly, turning to Fandorin, ‘tell His Honour, will you? Do you remember me? I’m Loskutov, I use to work in Farforovaya, on the crossing. You inspected us in winter and you were well pleased. You gave orders for me to be promoted. I did everything all right and proper, just like we’re supposed to! I climbed over the whole lot myself, ten minutes before the express. It was all clear! And how could the enemy have crept through on to the bridge? I’ve got sentries at both ends!’

‘So it was completely clear?’ Fandorin asked to make certain. ‘Did you look carefully?’

‘Why, I … Just look at that …’ The corporal choked and tugged his peaked cap off his head. ‘By Christ the Lord! Seven years … You ask anyone you like how Loskutov does his duty.’

The engineer turned to Mylnikov:

‘What have you managed to find out?’

‘The picture’s clear,’ Mylnikov said with a shrug. ‘The usual old Rooshian nonsense. The express train was travelling in front. It stopped at Kolpino and was supposed to let the special with the field guns go past. Then this telegraph clerk passes on a telegram: Carry on, the special’s delayed. Someone messed things up somewhere. As soon as the express has cleared the bridge, the army train catches up with it from behind. A heavy brute, as you can see for yourself. Should have shot across at full speed, as required, then nothing would have happened. But it must have started to brake, and the supports caved in. The railway top brass will be in for it now.’

‘Who sent the telegram about the special b-being delayed?’ asked Fandorin, leaning forward eagerly.

‘Well, that’s just it. No one sent any such telegram.’

‘And where’s the telegraph clerk who supposedly received it?’

‘We’re searching. Haven’t found him yet – his shift was already over.’

The corner of the engineer’s mouth twitched.

‘You’re not searching hard enough. Get a verbal portrait, a photo if you can, and put him on the all-Russian wanted list, urgently.’

‘The telegraph clerk? On the all-Russian list?’

Fandorin beckoned the court counsellor with his finger, took him aside and said in a quiet voice:

‘This is sabotage. The bridge was blown up.’

‘How do you make that out?’

Fandorin led the sleuths’ boss across to the break and started climbing down the dangling rails. Mylnikov clambered after him, gasping and crossing himself.

‘L-look.’

The hand in the grey glove pointed to a charred and splintered sleeper and a rail twisted like a paper streamer.

‘Our experts will arrive any minute now. They are certain to discover particles of explosive …’

Mylnikov whistled and pushed his bowler hat on to the back of his head.

The detectives hung there above the black water, swaying slightly on the improvised ladder.

‘So the gendarme’s lying when he says he inspected everything? Or even worse, he’s in on it? Shall we arrest him?’

‘Loskutov – a Japanese agent? Rubbish. Then he would have run for it, like the Kolpino t-telegraph clerk. No, no, there wasn’t any mine on the line.’

‘Then how’d it happen? There wasn’t any mine, but there was an explosion?’

‘That’s the way it is, though.’

The court counsellor frowned thoughtfully and set off up the sleepers.

‘Go and report this to the top brass … Now won’t there be a real song and dance.’

He waved to the agents and shouted:

‘Hey, get me a boat!’

However, he didn’t get into the boat, he changed his mind.

He watched Fandorin walking away towards the express train, scratched the back of his head and went dashing after him.

The engineer glanced round at the sound of tramping feet and nodded towards the motionless train.

‘Was there really such a small distance between the trains?’

‘No, the express halted farther along, on the emergency brake. Then the driver reversed. The conductors and some of the passengers helped to get the wounded out of the water. It’s not so far to a station this side as on the other. They drove a farm cart over and took them off to hospital …’

Fandorin summoned the conductor-in-chief with an imperious gesture and asked:

‘How many passengers on the train?’

‘All the seats were sold, Mr Engineer. That makes three hundred and twelve. I’m sorry, but when can we get moving again?’

Two of the passengers were standing quite close by: an army staff captain and an attractive-looking lady. Both covered from head to foot in mud and green slime. The officer was pouring water on to his companion’s handkerchief from a kettle, and she was energetically scrubbing her mud-smeared face. Both of them were listening to the conversation curiously.

A platoon of railway gendarmes approached at a trot from the bridge. The commanding officer ran up first and saluted.

‘Mr Engineer, we’re here at your disposal. There are two platoons on the other bank. The experts have started work. What will our orders be?’

‘Cordon off both sides of the bridge and the banks. Let no one near the break, not even if they hold the rank of general. Otherwise we renounce all responsibility for the investigation – tell them that. Tell Sigismund Lvovich to look for traces of explosive … But no, don’t bother, he’ll see that for himself. Give me a clerk and four of your brightest soldiers. Yes, and one more thing: put a cordon round the express train as well. Let none of the passengers or train staff through without my permission.’

‘Mr Engineer,’ the captain of the train’s crew exclaimed plaintively, ‘we’ve been standing here for over four hours.’

‘And you’ll b-be standing here for a long time yet. I have to draw up a complete list of the passengers. We’ll question all of them and check their credentials. We’ll start from the final carriage. And you, Mylnikov, would do better to turn your attention to that telegraph clerk who disappeared. I can manage things here without you.’

‘Of course, right enough, it’s your move,’ said Mylnikov, and he even waved his arms, as if to say: I’m leaving, I’m not claiming any rights here. However, he didn’t leave.

‘Sir, madam,’ the conductor-in-chief said to the officer and lady in a dejected voice. ‘Please be so good as to return to your seats. Did you hear? They’re going to check your documents.’

‘Disaster, Glyceria Romanovna,’ Rybnikov whispered. ‘I’m done for.’

Lidina gasped as she examined a lace cuff stained with blood, but then jerked her head up sharply.

‘Why? What’s happened?’

In those slightly red and yet still beautiful eyes, Vasilii Alexandrovich read an immediate readiness for action and once again, after all the numerous occasions during the night, he marvelled at the unpredictability of this capital-city cutie.

The way Glyceria Romanovna had behaved during the efforts to save the drowning and wounded had been absolutely astounding: she didn’t sob and wail, or throw a fit of hysterics; in fact she didn’t cry at all, simply bit on her bottom lip at the most painful moments, so that by dawn it had swollen up quite badly. Rybnikov shook his head as he watched the frail little lady dragging a wounded soldier out of the water and binding up his bleeding wound with a narrow rag torn off her silk dress.

Once, overcome by the sight, the staff captain had murmured to himself: ‘It’s like Nekrasov, that poem “Russian Women”’. And he glanced around quickly, to see whether anyone had heard this comment that fitted so badly with the image of a grey little runt of an officer.

After Vasilii Alexandrovich had saved her from the dark-complexioned neurasthenic, and especially after several hours of working together, Lidina had started acting quite naturally with the staff captain, as if he were an old friend – she, too, had evidently changed her opinion of her travelling companion.

‘Why, what’s happened? Tell me!’ she exclaimed, gazing at Rybnikov with fright in her eyes.

‘I’m done for all round,’ Vasilii Alexandrovich whispered, taking her by the arm and leading her slowly towards the train. ‘I went to Peter without authorisation, my superiors didn’t know about it. My sister’s unwell. Now they’ll find out – it’s a catastrophe …’

‘The guardhouse, is it?’ Lidina asked, distressed.

‘Never mind the guardhouse, that’s no great disaster. The terrible part is something else altogether … Remember you asked about my tube? Just before the explosion? Well, I really did leave it in the toilet. I’m always so absentminded.’

Glyceria Romanovna put her hand over her lips and asked in a terrible whisper:

‘Secret drawings?’

‘Yes. Very important. Even when I went absent without leave, I didn’t let them out of my sight for a moment.’

‘And where are they? Haven’t you taken a look there, in the toilet?’

‘They’ve disappeared,’ Vasilii Alexandrovich said in a sepulchral voice, and hung his head. ‘Someone took them. That’s not just the guardhouse, it means a trial, under martial law.’

‘How appalling!’ said the lady, round-eyed with horror. ‘What can be done?’

‘I want to ask you something,’ said Rybnikov, stopping as they reached the final carriage. ‘Before anyone’s looking, I’ll duck in under the wheels and afterwards I’ll choose my moment to slip down the embankment and into the bushes. I can’t afford to be checked. Don’t give me away, will you? Tell them you’ve got no idea where I went to. We didn’t talk during the journey. What would you want with a rough type like me? And take my little suitcase that’s on the rack with you, I’ll call round to collect it in Moscow. Ostozhenka Street, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, the Bomze building.’

Lidina glanced round at the big boss from St Petersburg and the gendarmes, who were also moving towards the train.

‘Will you help me out, save me?’ asked Rybnikov, stepping into the shadow of the carriage.

‘Of course!’ A determined, even reckless expression appeared on Glyceria Romanovna’s little face – just like earlier, when she had made a dash for the emergency brake. ‘I know who stole your drawings! That repulsive specimen who attacked me! That’s why he was in such a great hurry! And I wouldn’t be surprised if he blew up the bridge too!’

‘Blew it up?’ Rybnikov gasped in amazement, struggling to keep up with what she was saying. ‘How do you make that out? How could he blow it up?’

‘How should I know, I’m not a soldier! Perhaps he threw some kind of bomb out of the window! I’ll save you all right! And there’s no need to go crawling under the carriage!’ she shouted, darting off towards the gendarmes so impulsively that the staff captain was too late to hold her back, even though he tried.

‘Who’s in charge here? You?’ Lidina asked, running up to the elegant gentleman with the grey temples. ‘I have important news!’

Screwing his eyes up in alarm, Rybnikov glanced under the carriage, but it was too late to duck in under there now – many eyes were already gazing in his direction. The staff captain gritted his teeth and set off after Lidina.

She was holding the man with grey hair by the sleeve of his summer coat and jabbering away at incredible speed:

‘I know who you want! There was a man here, an obnoxious type with dark hair, vulgarly dressed, with a diamond ring – a huge stone, but not pure water. Terribly suspicious! In a terrible hurry to get to Moscow. Absolutely everybody stayed, and lots of them helped get the men out of the river, but he grabbed his travelling bag and left. When the first wagon arrived from the station for the wounded, he bribed the driver. He gave him money, a lot of money, and drove away. And he didn’t take a wounded man with him!’

‘Why, that’s true,’ the captain of the train put in. ‘A passenger from the second carriage, compartment number six. I saw him give the peasant a hundred-rouble note – for a wagon! And he rode off to the station.’

‘Oh, be quiet, will you, I haven’t finished yet!’ Lidina said, gesturing at him angrily. ‘I heard him ask that peasant: “Is there a shunting engine at the station?” He wanted to hire the engine, to get away as quickly as possible! I tell you, he was terribly suspicious!’

Rybnikov listened anxiously, expecting that now she would tell them about the stolen tube, but clever Glyceria Romanovna kept quiet about that highly suspicious circumstance, astounding the staff captain yet again.

‘A m-most interesting passenger,’ the gentleman with the grey temples said thoughtfully, and gestured briskly to a gendarmes officer. ‘Lieutenant! Send to the other side. My Chinese servant is across there in the inspector’s carriage, you know him. Tell him to come at the d-double. I’ll be at the station.’

And he strode off rapidly along the train.

‘But what about the express, Mr Fandorin?’ the lieutenant shouted after him.

‘Send it on its way!’ the man with the stammer shouted back without stopping.

A dull fellow with a simple sort of face and a dangling moustache who was hanging about nearby snapped his fingers – two nondescript little men came running up to him, and the three of them started whispering to each other.

Glyceria Romanovna returned to Rybnikov victorious.

‘There now, you see, it’s all settled. No need for you to go chasing through the bushes like a hare. And your drawings will turn up.’

But the staff captain wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the back of the man whom the lieutenant had called ‘Fandorin’. Vasilii Alexandrovich’s yellowish face was like a frozen mask, and there were strange glimmers of light flickering in his eyes.