The Winter Queen (13 page)

“Very well, three hundred.” And Erast Fandorin placed all his money on the table, including the hundred he had won earlier.

“
Lejeu ne vautpas la chandelle
,”* said the count with a shrug, “but I suppose it will do for a start.”

He drew a card from his deck and carelessly tossed three hundred-ruble notes onto it.

“I’ll go for the lot.”

The ‘forehead’ was to the right, Erast Fandorin remembered, and he carefully set down a lady with little red hearts to the right and to the left the seven of spades.

Hippolyte Alexandrovich Zurov turned his card over with two fingers and gave a slight frown. It was the queen of diamonds.

“Well done, the novice,” someone said with a whistle. “He set up that queen very handily.”

Fandorin clumsily shuffled his deck.

“For the whole pot,” the count said derisively, tossing six notes onto the table. “Dammit, if you don’t place it, you’ll never ace it.”

What was the card on the left called? Erast Fandorin could not remember. This one was the ‘forehead,’ but the second one…damnation. It was embarrassing. What if Zurov asked something? It would look bad if he had to check his crib.

“Bravo!” called out the audience. “Count,
c’est un jeu intéressant
* do you not think so?”

Erast Fandorin saw that he had won again.

“Be so kind as not to Frenchify. It really is a stupid habit to stick half of a French phrase into Russian speech,” Zurov said irritably, glancing around at the speaker, although he himself interpolated French expressions now and again. “Deal, Fandorin, deal. A card’s not a horse, waiting to take you home in the morning. For the lot.”

To the right, a jack—that’s the ‘forehead’—to the left, an eight, that’s—

Count Hippolyte Zurov turned over a ten. Fandorin killed it at the fourth twist.

People were now pressing around the table on all sides, and Erast Fandorin’s success was worthily acclaimed.

“Fandorin, Fandorin,” Zurov muttered absentmindedly, drumming on the deck of cards with his fingers. Eventually he drew out a card and counted out 2,400 rubles.

The six of spades went straight to the ‘forehead’ from the very first twist.

“What kind of name is that?” exclaimed the count, growing furious. “Fandorin! From the Greek, is it? Fandorakis, Fandoropoulos!”

“Why Greek?” Erast Fandorin asked, taking offense. The memory of how his good-for-nothing classmates had mocked his ancient surname was still fresh in his mind—at the gymnasium Erast Fandorin’s nickname had been Fanny. “Our line, Count, is as Russian as your own. The Fandorins served Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.”

“Yes, indeed, sir,” said the same recent red-nosed old gentleman, Erast Fandorin’s well-wisher, suddenly coming to life. “There was a Fandorin at the time of Catherine the Great who left the most fascinating memoirs.”

“Fascinating, fascinating, today is most exasperating,” Zurov rhymed gloomily, heaping up an entire mound of banknotes. “For the entire bank! Deal a card, devil take you!”

“
Le dernier coup, messieurs
!”* came a voice from the crowd.

Everyone stared greedily at the two equally huge piles of crumpled notes, one lying in front of the banker, the other in front of the punter.

In absolute silence Fandorin opened up two fresh decks of cards, still thinking about the same thing. Pocketbook? Handbook?

An ace to the right, another ace to the left. Zurov has a king. A queen to the right, a ten to the left. A jack to the right, a queen to the left.
Which one was the higher card, after all, jack or queen
? A seven to the right, a six to the left.

“Don’t snort down my neck!” the count roared furiously, and the crowd recoiled from him.

An eight to the right, a nine to the left. A king to the right, a ten to the left. A king!

The men standing around were howling with laughter. Count Hip-polyte Zurov sat there as though turned to stone.

Dreambook
! Erast Fandorin remembered and smiled in delight. The card to the left was the dreambook. What a strange name it was.

Zurov suddenly bent forward across the table and pinched Fandorin’s lips into a tube with ringers of steel.

“Don’t you dare smirk! If you happen to have won a bundle, then have the decency to behave in a civil manner!” the count hissed furiously, moving very close. His bloodshot eyes were terrible. The next moment he pushed Fandorin’s chin away, leaned back against his chair, and folded his arms on his chest.

“Count, that really is going too far!” exclaimed one of the officers.

“I don’t believe I am running away,” Zurov hissed, without taking his eyes off Fandorin. “If anyone’s feelings are offended, I am prepared to reciprocate.”

A genuinely deadly silence filled the room.

There was a terrible ringing in Erast Fandorin’s ears, and there was only one thing he was afraid of now—he must not turn coward. But then, he was also afraid that his voice would betray him by trembling.

“You are a dishonorable scoundrel. You simply do not wish to pay,” said Fandorin, and his voice did tremble, but that no longer mattered. “I challenge you.”

“Playing the hero for the audience?” sneered Zurov. “We’ll see how you sing looking down the barrel of a gun. Tomorrow. At twenty paces, with barriers. Either party can fire when he wishes, but afterward you must stand at the barrier. Are you not afraid?”

I am afraid
, thought Erast Fandorin.
Akhtyrtsev said he can hit a five-kopeck coin at twenty paces, let alone a forehead. Or even worse, a stomach
. Fandorin shuddered. He had never even held a dueling pistol in his hand. Xavier Grushin had once taken him to the police shooting range to fire a Colt, but that was entirely different. Zurov would kill him, he would kill him over a worthless trifle. And he would get clean away with it. There would be no way to catch him out. There were plenty of witnesses. It was a quarrel over cards, a common enough business. The count would spend a month in the guardhouse and then be released; he had influential relatives, and Erast Fandorin had no one. They would lay the collegiate registrar in a rough plank coffin and bury him in the ground and no one would come to the funeral. Except perhaps Grushin and Agrafena Kondratievna. And Lizanka would read about it in the newspaper and think in passing: what a shame, he was such a well-mannered policeman, and so very young. But, no, she would not read it—Emma probably did not give her the newspapers. And, of course, his chief would say: I believed in him, the fool, and he got himself killed like some idiotic greenhorn. Decided to fight a duel, dabble in idiotic gentry sentiment. And then he would spit.

“Why don’t you say something?” Zurov asked with a cruel smile. “Or have you changed your mind about going shooting?”

But just then Erast Fandorin had a positively lifesaving idea. He would not have to fight the duel straightaway—at the very earliest it would be the following morning. Of course, to go running to his chief to complain would be mean and despicable, but Ivan Brilling had said there were other agents working on Zurov. It was entirely possible that one of the chief’s people was here in the hall right now. He could accept the challenge and maintain his honor, but if, for example, tomorrow at dawn the police were suddenly to raid the house and arrest Count Zurov for running a gambling den, then Fandorin would not be to blame for it. In fact, he would not know a thing about it. Ivan Brilling would know perfectly well how to act without consulting him.

His salvation, one might say, was as good as in the bag, but Erast Fandorin’s voice suddenly acquired a life of its own, independent of its owner’s will, and began uttering the most incredible nonsense and, amazingly enough, it was no longer trembling.

“No, I haven’t changed my mind. But why wait until tomorrow? Let’s do it right now. They tell me, Count, that you practice from morning to night with five-kopeck pieces, and at precisely twenty paces?” Zurov turned crimson. “I think we ought to go about things differently, as long as you don’t funk it.” Now hadn’t Akhtyrtsev’s story come in very handy! There was no need to invent a thing. It had all been invented already. “Let us draw lots and the one who loses will go out in the yard and shoot himself, without any barriers. And afterward there will be the very minimum of unpleasantness. A man lost and he put a bullet through his forehead—it’s a common story. And the gentlemen will give their word of honor that everything will remain a secret. Will you not, gentlemen?”

The gentlemen began talking and their opinion proved to be divided: some expressed immediate willingness to give their word of honor, but others suggested forgetting the quarrel altogether and drinking the cup of peace. Then one major with luxuriant mustaches exclaimed, “But the boy is putting up a good show,” and that increased Erast Fandorin’s fervor.

“Well then, Count?” he exclaimed with desperate insolence, finally slipping his reins. “Can it really be easier to hit a five-kopeck piece than your own forehead? Or are you afraid of missing?”

Zurov said nothing, staring curiously at the plucky youngster, and his expression suggested that he was figuring something out. “Very well,” he said at last with exceptional coolness. “The terms are accepted. Jean.”

A lackey promptly flew over to Zurov. The count said to him, “A revolver, a fresh deck, and a bottle of champagne.” And he whispered something else in his ear.

Two minutes later Jean returned with a tray. He had to squeeze his way through the crowd, for now every last one of the visitors had gathered around the table.

With a deft, lightning-swift movement Zurov swung out the cylinder of the revolver to show that all the bullets were in place.

“Here’s the deck.” His fingers split open the taut wrapper with a crisp crackling sound. “Now it’s my turn to deal.” He laughed, seeming to be in an excellent frame of mind. “The rules are simple: the first to draw a card from a black suit is the one to put a bullet through his forehead. Agreed?”

Fandorin nodded without speaking, already beginning to realize that he had been cheated, monstrously duped by his adversary, killed even more surely than at twenty paces. The cunning Hippolyte had outplayed him, outsmarted him finally and absolutely! A card master like him would never fail to draw the card he needed—certainly not from his own deck! No doubt he had an entire stack of marked cards.

Meanwhile Zurov, after demonstratively crossing himself, dealt the top card. It was the queen of diamonds.

“That’s Venus,” the count said with a insolent smile. “She always comes to my rescue. Your turn, Fandorin.”

To protest or haggle would be humiliating. It was too late now to demand another deck. And it was shameful to delay.

Erast Fandorin reached out his hand and turned over the jack of spades.

which Fandorin’s career prospects appear to improve

“AND THAT’S MOMUS, THE FOOL,” HIPPOLYTE explained, stretching luxuriously. “But it’s getting rather late. Will you take some champagne for courage or go straight outside?”

Erast Fandorin sat there, bright red. He was choking with fury not at the count but at himself for being such a total idiot. There was no point in such an idiot staying alive.

“I’ll do it right here,” he growled in his anger, deciding that he could at least play one last dirty trick on his host. “Your flunky can wash the floor. And spare me the champagne—it gives me a headache.”

In the same angry fashion, trying not to think about anything, Fandorin grabbed the heavy revolver and cocked the hammer. Then, after hesitating for a moment over where to shoot himself and deciding that it made no difference, he set the barrel in his mouth, started counting in his mind—
three, two, one
—and pressed the trigger so hard that he pinched his tongue painfully with the barrel. However, no shot ensued. There was nothing but a dry click. Totally bemused, Erast Fandorin squeezed the trigger again. There was another click, but this time the metal merely rasped repulsively against a tooth.

“That’ll do, that’ll do!” Zurov took the gun away from him and slapped him on the shoulder. “Good fellow! Even tried to shoot yourself without taking Dutch courage, without any hysterics. A fine younger generation we have growing up, eh, gentlemen? Jean, pour the champagne. Mr. Fandorin and I will drink to
bruderschaft
.”

Erast Fandorin, overcome by a strange apathy, did as he was bid. He listlessly drained his glass of the bubbly beverage and listlessly exchanged kisses with the count, who ordered him henceforth to address him simply as Hippolyte. Everyone around was laughing loudly and making a racket, but when the sound of their voices reached Fandorin’s ears it was strangely muffled. The champagne prickled his nose, and tears welled up in his eyes.

“How do you like that Jean.” The count laughed. “It only took him a minute to remove all the pins. Very adroit, Fandorin, you must admit!”

“Yes, adroit,” Erast Fandorin agreed indifferently.

“I’d say so. What’s your first name?”

“Erast.”

“Come on then, Erastus of Rotterdam. Let’s go and sit in my study and drink a little brandy. I’m fed up with all these ugly mugs.”

“Erasmus,” Fandorin automatically corrected him.

“What?”

“Not Erastus but Erasmus.”

“I beg your pardon. I misheard. Let’s go, Erasmus.”

Fandorin obediently stood up and followed his host. They walked through a dark enfilade of rooms and found themselves in a round chamber where a quite remarkable disorder prevailed—pipes and empty bottles were scattered around, a pair of silver spurs were flaunting themselves on the table, and for some reason a stylish English saddle was lying in the corner. Why this chamber should be called a study, Erast Fandorin could not understand, since there were neither books nor writing instruments anywhere in sight.

“Splendid little saddle, isn’t it?” Zurov boasted. “Won it yesterday in a wager.”

He poured some brown-colored beverage into glasses from a round-bellied bottle, seated himself beside Erast Fandorin, and said very seriously, even soulfully, “Forgive me for my joke, brute that I am. I am bored, Erasmus. Plenty of folk around, but no real people. I’m twenty-eight, Fandorin, but I feel sixty, especially in the morning when I wake up. In the evening or at night it’s not too bad. I kick up a rumpus, play the fool. Only it’s disgusting. It used to be all right before, but nowadays somehow it gets more and more disgusting. Would you believe that just now when we were drawing lots, I suddenly thought: why not really shoot myself? And, you know, I felt tempted…Why don’t you say anything? Come on now, Fandorin. Don’t be angry. I very much want you not to bear a grudge. Tell me, what can I do to make you forgive me, eh, Erasmus?”