Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel (55 page)

Berdichevsky tugged his watch out of his pocket. Half past seven. Sergei Sergeevich had set out for work rather early.

The public prosecutor’s somnolence had disappeared as if by magic, and he could feel the excitement of the chase bubbling up in his chest.

The closed carriage driving ahead of them was black, of the kind that usually transport officials with a general’s rank to their offices. It turned onto Zabalkansky Prospect and drove along the embankment for a while, but went past the turn onto Izmailovsky Prospect.

Aha, he’s not going to work! The ministry’s offices are on Morskaya Street!

“What happened during the night?” Berdichevsky asked abruptly.

“Nothing, Your Honor. I didn’t sleep a single minute, don’t you worry about that.”

“Here.” The public prosecutor handed him, not two and a half rubles, or even three, but four, for his diligence. But the cabby didn’t even look at how much he was being given—he just put the money in his pocket.
You ought to join the detective department, brother
, Matvei Bentsionovich thought.
You’d make an excellent agent
.

The carriage drove along the Fontanka embankment, across the bridge onto Ekaterinhof Prospect, and stopped soon afterward in front of a building with large windows.

“What’s that?”

“A grammar school, Your Honor.”

But Matvei Bentsionovich had already recognized it himself. Yes, a grammar school. Boys’ school number 5, wasn’t it? What could Dolinin want here?

Sergei Sergeevich did not get out of his carriage, and he even drew the curtains together.

Curious.

Nothing of any note took place in front of the grammar school. The tall door opened every now and then to admit pupils and teachers. The attendant doffed his cap and bowed deeply in greeting to some pompous gentleman—possibly the headmaster or an inspector.

Just once Berdichevsky thought he saw the curtain twitch slightly but thirty seconds later it was drawn closed again, and a second after that the carriage set off.

What was all that about? Why did Dolinin come to this place at such an early hour? Not to look at the children, surely?

Ah, yes, precisely to look at the children, Matvei Bentsionovich suddenly realized. Or rather, at one of them. Pelagia said that when they separated, Sergei Sergeevichs wife took their son.

Absolutely nothing mysterious at all. A father who has been away and has missed his child. He didn’t show himself to his son—either he had promised not to, or he was too proud, or perhaps he did not want to torment the boy, who had grown accustomed to a new father.

It seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, a perfectly normal human thing to do, but Berdichevsky was perplexed. Somehow one did not expect perfectly normal human actions from a fiend who hired murderers and spilled innocent blood.

Or was Dolinin not really a fiend?

The public prosecutor was no longer a boy of eighteen, after all, and his life and work should surely have taught him that not all fiends are as black as Count Charnokutsky but even so, Matvei Bentsionovich felt confused—he had never imagined that there might be anything human about the monster who planned to have Pelagia killed.

“Well, I suppose even a viper loves its baby vipers,” the state counselor muttered to himself, driving away his inappropriate and incongruous doubts.

THE CITY HAD completely woken up now. The street filled up with carriages and an industrious morning crowd strode briskly along the sidewalks. The distance from the object of pursuit had to be reduced, otherwise they might lose him.

And just before the Marynsky Palace they did lose him. The policeman on duty held up one hand to halt the traffic and the black carriage went rolling on in the direction of the equestrian statue of Nicholas the First, leaving Berdichevsky stuck on the bridge. He very nearly went running after it on foot, but that would have attracted attention: a respectable middle-aged gentleman racing along the embankment, holding his hat down on his head.

The cabby stood up on his box, then climbed right up onto the seat.

“Well, did he turn onto Morskaya Street?”

“No, he went straight on, toward St. Isaacs!”

Not going to work in the ministry this time, either!

Eventually the traffic started moving again. Number 48-36 lashed the horse, deftly overtook a fiacre, cut right in front of a four-horse omnibus, and a minute later was already rumbling across Senate Square. Suddenly he pulled hard on the reins and shouted “Whoa!”

“What are you doing?”

The lad jerked his head to one side. There was the familiar black carriage, driving toward them. The curtains at the window were open. There was no one inside.

He had got out. But where?

On the right was the square with the statue of Peter the Great. Straight ahead was the Neva. There wouldn’t have been enough time for the carriage to set down its passenger on the Angliiskoe embankment and drive back.

So Dolinin must have gone into one of the massive public buildings located on the left, between the boulevard and the embankment: either the Ruling Senate or the Holy Synod. Most likely the Senate, the country’s supreme court of law. What business would an investigator have in the Synod?

“Where to now, Your Honor?” the cabby asked.

“Wait over there,” said Berdichevsky, pointing to the railings of the square’s small park.

Whom had Dolinin gone to see in the Senate when he was only just back from his official tour of inspection? A man he visited before his own superiors must surely be a key figure in all this sinister conspiracy.

What he ought to do was this: go up to the duty clerk keeping the record of visitors and say, “Full State Counselor Dolinin of the Ministry of the Interior is due to arrive here any moment. He has forgotten some important documents—I’ll wait here to give them to him.” The clerk would say: “His Excellency has already arrived, he is with so-and-so.” And if he didn’t say who Dolinin had gone to see, Berdichevsky could ask. It was impudent, of course, but it would clear everything up straightaway.

Or would it be better to wait and continue the surveillance?

The public prosecutor was roused from his torment of indecision by the sound of someone delicately clearing his throat. Matvei Bentsionovich started and looked around. Standing beside him was a doorman wearing a three-pointed hat, a uniform with braid trimming, and white stockings. Not just a doorman—a veritable field marshal. While Berdichevsky was examining the Senate building, he had completely failed to notice this stuffed dummy approaching.

“Your Honor, you are kindly requested to step this way,” the field-marshal-doorman said respectfully, but at the same time firmly, speaking in the way that only servants who are employed at the highest peaks of power can do.

Berdichevsky was taken aback. “Requested by whom?”

“You are requested,” the doorman repeated, so forcefully that the public prosecutor asked no more questions.

“Shall I wait, mister?” number 48-36 shouted.

“Yes.”

Matvei Bentsionovich had made up his mind so firmly to go into the Senate, the building closest to the embankment, that he did not immediately understand what was wrong when his escort tactfully touched him on the sleeve.

“Step this way, please,” he said, pointing to the entrance of the Holy Synod.

Inside the doorway, the doorman remarked casually to the duty clerk who was sitting there, lazily driving away the flies: “To Konstantin Petrovich. He is expected.”

Ah … ah, you blockhead!
Matvei Bentsionovich stopped and slapped himself very painfully on the forehead, as a punishment for being so blind and dim-witted.

The doorman swung around at the sound.

“Swatted a fly? They’re a terrible nuisance. Multiplied like wildfire, they have.”

Fellow thinkers and soul mates

MATVEI BENTSIONOVICH’S GUIDE handed him over to an elderly clerk who was waiting on the bottom step of the stairs. The clerk bowed politely without introducing himself and gestured for Berdichevsky to follow him.

In the reception room of the great man who was regarded as the most powerful individual in the empire—not so much because of his official position as because of his spiritual influence on the emperor—there were about fifteen visitors; these included generals in full-dress uniform and two senior churchmen with medals, but there were also simpler people there, such as a lady with red, tearful eyes, an agitated student, a young junior officer.

The clerk approached the secretary and pronounced those magic words: “For Konstantin Petrovich. He is expected.”

The secretary looked closely at Berdichevsky, darted out from behind his desk, and disappeared through a tall white door. Thirty seconds later he reappeared.

“You are requested to step this way …”

Unable to think where to put his hat, Matvei Bentsionovich resolutely set it down on the secretary’s desk. If they were according him the honor of skipping the queue, they could respect his hat, too.

He bit his lower lip, and the fingers of his right hand involuntarily clenched into a fist.

He went in.

Two men sat beside the gigantic desk at the far end of the vast study. One was facing Berdichevsky, and although the public prosecutor had never seen the Chief Procurator in person before, he immediately recognized those ascetic features, sternly knitted eyebrows, and rather prominent ears from all the portraits.

The second man, dressed in a gold-embroidered civil uniform, was seated in an armchair, and he did not turn to look at the new arrival right away. When he did look around, it was for no more than an instant. Then he turned his face back to Pobedin.

Konstantin Petrovich, famous for his old-fashioned St. Petersburg courtesy, got to his feet. At close quarters the Chief Procurator proved to be tall and erect, with a wizened face and sunken eyes that glowed with intelligence and strength. Looking into those remarkable eyes, Berdichevsky remembered that the Chief Procurator’s ill-wishers called him the Grand Inquisitor. It was not surprising, he looked the part.

Dolinin (naturally, it was he sitting in the armchair) did not get up. On the contrary, he gazed pointedly off to one side, as if trying to show that what was going on had nothing to do with him.

Speaking in a gentle, resonant voice, Konstantin Petrovich asked: “Are you surprised, Matvei Bentsionovich? I see you are surprised. You should not be. Sergei Sergeevich is far too valuable to Russia for him to be left without protection and supervision. I know, I know everything. I have had reports. About the surveillance yesterday and the surveillance today. Yesterday no one bothered you—we had to find out just what kind of bird you were. But today, when we found out, we decided to have a word with you. Quite openly, heart to heart.” Pobedin shaped his thin, dry lips into a smile of goodwill, even sympathy. “Sergei Sergeevich and I understand the reason that has impelled you to undertake a spontaneous investigation. You are an intelligent, energetic, brave man—you would have got to the bottom of things anyway, if not today, then tomorrow. And so I decided to invite you in myself. For a meeting with the visors up, so to speak. It is unseemly for me to hide. I suppose you have imagined Mr. Dolinin to be some appalling evildoer or conspirator?”

Matvei Bentsionovich did not reply to that, he merely lowered his head; but he did not lower his gaze, so that the effect was that of a scowl.

“Please sit here, opposite Sergei Sergeevich,” the Chief Procurator invited him. “Do not be afraid, he is no evildoer, and I, who am his mentor and leader, do not wish anyone ill, no matter what the liberal gentlemen might say about me. Do you know who I am, Matvei Bentsionovich? I am the people’s servant and sympathizer. And as for the monstrous conspiracy that you no doubt believe you have uncovered, I confess quite honestly: yes, there is a conspiracy, but so far from being monstrous, it is sacred—its goal is the salvation of Russia, Faith, and the Throne. One of those conspiracies, you know, in which all good, honest men of faith should participate.”

Berdichevsky opened his mouth to say that most conspiracies, including the monstrous ones, pursued some sacred goal such as the salvation of the motherland, but Konstantin Petrovich raised an imperious palm.

“Wait, do not say anything yet and do not ask any questions. There are many things I must explain to you first. I require helpers in the great task that I have mentioned. I have been gathering them, year by year—one grain and one crumb at a time—for many years now. They are true men, my soul mates. And they also choose helpers for themselves, men who are useful. It has been reported to me that your investigation has followed the trail of precisely one such useful man. What was his name, now?”

“Ratsevich,” Sergei Sergeevich said, opening his mouth for the first time.

Although he was sitting directly opposite the man from Zavolzhsk, he contrived not to look at him. Dolinin’s face was sullen and blank.

“Yes, yes, thank you. Following this Ratsevich’s trail has led you, Mr. Berdichevsky, to Sergei Sergeevich, one of my helpers—only recently acquired, but already he has demonstrated quite excellent qualities. And do you know what I have to say to you?”