The Winter Queen (19 page)

Then came the low but distinct whispering from behind the door: “Why, what for?”

And then again: “Why, what for?”

It’s my bad conscience
, Fandorin told himself.
My bad conscience is giving me hallucinations
. But this commonsensical, rational thought failed to dispel the hideous, viscous terror that was oozing in at every pore of his body.

Everything seemed quiet. A flash of lightning lit up the naked gray walls, and then it was dark again.

A minute later he heard a quiet knocking at the window.
Tap-tap
. Then again:
tap-tap-tap
.

Steady now! It’s nothing but the wind. A tree. A branch scraping the window. A perfectly ordinary occurrence.

Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

A tree? What tree? Fandorin suddenly jerked upright. There was no tree outside the window! There was nothing but an empty yard. My God, what was it?

The strip of yellow between the curtains faded and turned to gray—the moon must have gone behind a cloud—and an instant later something dark, mysterious, and terrifying loomed into sight.

He could endure anything but lying there, feeling the hairs rising on the nape of his neck. Anything but feeling himself losing his mind.

Erast Fandorin stood up and set off toward the window on legs that scarcely obeyed him, keeping his eyes fixed on that terrible patch of darkness. At the very moment when he jerked back the curtains, the sky was lit up by a flash of lightning and there outside the windowpane, right in front of him, Fandorin saw a deadly pale face with black pits for eyes. A hand glimmering with unearthly light slid slowly across the glass, its fingers extended in bright rays. Erast Fandorin acted stupidly, like a little child—he sobbed convulsively and staggered backward, then dashed back to the bed, collapsed on it facedown, and covered his head with his hands.

He had to wake up! Wake up as soon as possible!
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy
—

The tapping at the window stopped. He lifted his face out of the pillow and squinted cautiously in the direction of the window but saw nothing terrible—just the night and the rain and the rapid flashes of lightning. It was his imagination. Definitely his imagination.

Fortunately Erast Fandorin managed to recall the teachings of the Indian Brahmin Chandra Johnson, who taught the science of correct breathing and correct living. The book of wisdom read:

Correct breathing is the basis of correct living. It will support you in the difficult moments of life, and through it you will attain salvation, tranquillity, and enlightenment. Breathing in the vital force of prana, do not hasten to breathe it out again, but hold it a while in your lungs. The longer and more regular your breath is, the more vital force there is within you. That man has achieved enlightenment who, after breathing in prana in the evening, does not breathe it out again until the dawn light.

Well, Erast Fandorin still had a long way to go to reach enlightenment, but thanks to his regular morning exercises he had already learned to hold his breath for up to a hundred seconds, and to this sure remedy he resorted now. He filled his chest with air and became still. He was “transformed into wood, stone, grass.” It worked—the pounding of his heart steadied a little, the terror receded. At the count of a hundred Fandorin released his breath noisily, soothed and reassured by the victory of the enlightened spirit over superstition.

And then he heard a sound that set his teeth chattering loudly. Someone was scratching at the door.

“Let me in,” a voice whispered. “Look at me. I’m cold. Let me in…”

This is just too much
, thought Fandorin indignantly, summoning his final remnants of pride.
I’m going to open the door and wake up. Or…or I shall see that this is no dream
.

In two bounds he was at the door, pulled back the bolt, and heaved the door toward himself.

Amalia was standing in the doorway. She was wearing a white lace peignoir like the last time, but her hair was wet and tangled from the rain and a bloody patch had spread across her breast. The most terrifying thing of all was the unearthly glimmering of her face, with its motionless, lifeless eyes. A white hand trailing sparks of light reached out toward Erast Fandorin’s face and touched his cheek in exactly the same way as the day before, but this time the fingers radiated such an icy chill that the unfortunate Fandorin staggered backward, his mind reeling into madness.

“Where is the attaché case?” the specter asked in a hissing whisper. “Where is my attaché case? I sold my soul for it.”

“I won’t give it to you!” Erast Fandorin cried out through parched lips. He staggered backward to the armchair in the depths of which the purloined attaché case lay concealed, plumped down heavily on the seat, and put his arms around the chair for safety’s sake.

The ghost went over to the table. She struck a match, lit the candle, and suddenly shouted loudly in English, “Your turn now! He’s all yours!”

Two men burst into the room: the tall Morbid with his head almost brushing the ceiling, and someone else small and sprightly.

His mind now totally befogged, Fandorin did not even stir a muscle when the butler set a knife to his throat and the other man frisked him, discovering the derringer in the top of his boot.

“Look for the revolver,” Morbid ordered in English, and the sprightly little fellow made no mistake, instantly discovering the Colt hidden under the pillow.

All this time Amalia was standing by the window, wiping her face and hands with a handkerchief.

“Is that all?” she asked impatiently. “What foul muck this phosphorous is. And the entire masquerade was a total waste of time. He lacked the brains even to hide the case properly. John, look in the armchair.”

She did not look at Fandorin, as if he had suddenly been transformed into an inanimate object.

Morbid easily tugged Fandorin out of the armchair, keeping the blade of the knife pressed to his throat the whole time, and the sprightly fellow thrust his hand into the seat and pulled out the blue attache case.

“Give it here.” Bezhetskaya went over to the table and checked the contents of the case. “It’s all there. He didn’t have time to send anything on. Thank God. Franz, bring my cape. I’m chilled through.”

“So it was all a show?” Fandorin asked in a quavering voice as his courage began to return. “Bravo. You are a magnificent actress. I am glad that my bullet missed you. Such a great talent would have been lost—”

“Don’t forget the gag,” Amalia said to the butler. Tossing the cape brought by Franz across her shoulders, she left the room without so much as a final glance at the disgraced Erast Fandorin.

The sprightly little fellow—so it was him who had been watching the hotel, not Zurov at all—took a ball of fine string out of his pocket and bound the captive’s arms tightly against his sides. Then he grabbed Fandorin’s nose between his forefinger and thumb, and when the young man opened his mouth, he thrust a rubber pear into it.

“All in order,” Franz declared with a slight German accent, pleased with the result of his handiwork. “I’ll bring the sack.”

He darted out into the corridor and quickly returned. The last thing that Erast Fandorin saw before the coarse sack was pulled over his shoulders and right down to his knees was the stony, totally impassive face of John Morbid. But though it was, of course, a pity that it was this face of all faces the world should choose to show Erast Fandorin in farewell, and not the visage that had enchanted him so, nonetheless the dusty darkness of the sack proved even worse.

“Let me tie a bit more string ‘round the outside,” Fandorin heard Franz say. “We don’t have far to go, but it’ll be safer that way.”

“Where’s he going to go?” Morbid’s bass replied. “The moment he twitches I’ll stab him in the belly.”

“We’ll tie him a bit tighter in any case,” Franz sang. He bound the string around the sack so tightly that it became hard for Erast Fandorin to breathe.

“Get moving!” said Morbid, prodding the captive. Fandorin set off like a blind man, not really understanding why they could not simply slit his throat there in the room.

He stumbled twice, and almost fell in the doorway of the guesthouse, but John’s massive ham of a hand caught him by the shoulder in time.

He could smell rain and hear horses snorting gently.

“You two, as soon as you’ve dealt with him, come back here and tidy everything up,” he heard Bezhetskaya say. “We are going back to the house.”

“Don’t you worry, ma’am,” the butler rumbled. “You’ve done your job—now we’ll do ours.”

Oh, how Erast Fandorin longed to say something remarkable to Amalia in parting, something really exceptional, so that she would not remember him as a stupid, frightened little boy but as a valiant warrior who fell in an unequal struggle with a whole army of nihilists. But the accursed rubber pear deprived him of even that final satisfaction.

And then, just when it seemed that fate could torment him no more after what he had already endured, the poor youth was struck yet another shattering blow.

“My darling Amalia Kazimirovna,” said a familiar light tenor voice in Russian. “Will you not permit an old man to take a spin in your carriage with you? We could chat about this and that, and I should be a bit drier. As you can see, I am absolutely drenched. Your servant can take the droshky and drive behind us. You don’t object, do you, my sweetheart?”

“Get in,” Bezhetskaya replied dryly. “But remember, Pyzhov, I am no darling of yours, let alone your sweetheart.”

Erast Fandorin lowed mutely, for with the rubber pear in his mouth it was quite impossible to burst out sobbing. The entire world had taken up arms against the poor youth. Where could he draw the strength required to overcome the odds in this battle with an entire host of villains? He was surrounded by noxious traitors, venomous vipers (pah, now he had been infected by Porfirii Pyzhov’s odious verbiage!). Bezhetskaya and her cutthroats, and Zurov, and even Pyzhov, that fickle fair-weather friend—they were all his enemies. At that moment Erast Fandorin did not even wish to go on living, so overwhelmed was he by disgust and weariness.

But as things stood, no one seemed very keen to persuade him to go on living. In fact, his escorts appeared to have something quite different in mind. Strong hands hoisted the captive up and set him down on a seat. The heavyweight Morbid clambered up and sat on his left, the lightweight Franz sat on his right and cracked his whip, and Erast Fandorin was thrown backward.

“Where to?” asked the butler.

“We were told to go to pier six. It’s deeper there and the current’s stronger, too. What do you think?”

“It makes no difference to me. Number six will do as well as any.”

And so Erast Fandorin’s imminent fate was spelled out for him quite clearly. They would take him to some solitary quayside, tie a rock to him, and dispatch him to the bottom of the Thames, to rot among the rusty anchor chains and bottle shards. Titular Counselor Fandorin would disappear without trace, for it would transpire that after the military agent in Paris, he had not been seen by a single living soul. Ivan Brilling would realize that his protege must have missed his footing somewhere, but he would never learn the truth. And in Moscow and Peter they would still be unaware of the viper that lurked in the bosom of their secret service. If only he could be unmasked.

Well, and perhaps he still could.

Even bound and stuffed into a long, dusty sack, Erast Fandorin was feeling incomparably better than twenty minutes earlier, when the phosphorescent specter was glaring in at his window and his reason was paralyzed by fear.

For in matter of fact there was indeed a chance of salvation for him. Franz was adroit, but he had not guessed to feel Fandorin’s right sleeve. In that sleeve lay the stiletto, and in the stiletto lay hope. If only he could contrive somehow to reach the handle with his fingers…Oh, that’s not so simple when your hand is tied to your hip. How long would it take them to reach this pier six? Would he have time?

“Sit still,” said Morbid, poking his elbow into the side of the captive, who was wriggling about (no doubt from fear).

“Indeed, my friend, twist and turn as you may, it changes nothing,” Franz remarked philosophically.

The man in the sack carried on twitching for about a minute before eventually emitting a brief, muffled hoot and falling quiet, evidently finally reconciled to his fate (before it yielded and slid out, the accursed stiletto had dealt him a painful cut on the wrist).

“Here we are,” John announced and got to his feet, peering about in all directions. “Nobody here.”

“And who would there be, out in the rain, in the middle of the night?” asked Franz with a shrug of his shoulders. “Come on, will you—get a move on. We’ve still got to get back.”

“Take his legs.”

They picked up the bundle bound around with string and carried it to a rough wooden pier for rowboats that thrust over the black water like an arrow.

Erast Fandorin heard the squeak of planks underfoot and the splashing of the river. Deliverance was near. The moment the waters of the Thames closed over his head he would slash the blade across his bonds, slice open the sack, and rise quietly to the surface under the pier. There he would bide his time until these two were gone, and then his nightmare would be over—salvation, life, freedom! It all seemed so plain and easy that an inner voice suddenly whispered to Fandorin:
Erast, things never happen like that in real life. Fate is sure to play some dirty trick and upset your entire marvelous plan
.

Alas, the inner voice was an omen of the disaster it predicted, for the dirty trick put in an appearance without further delay—and it came not from the direction of the nightmarish Mr. Morbid, but on the initiative of the genial Franz.

“Wait a moment, John,” Franz said when they halted at the edge of the pier and set their burden down on the rough boards. “This won’t do—throwing a living man into the water like some kitten. Would you like to be in his place?”

“No,” replied John.