The Winter Queen (2 page)

THE LATEST AMERICAN CORSET

LORD BYRON

constructed from the most durable of whalebone for a truly manly figure

AN INCH-THIN WAIST AND YARD-WIDE SHOULDERS!

“And yard-high letters to suit. And way down here in tiny little print we have:”

THE EMPEROR DEPARTS FOR EMS

“But of course, how could the person of the emperor possibly rival the importance of ‘Lord Byron’!”

Xavier Grushin’s entirely good-natured grousing produced a quite remarkable effect on the young clerk. He became inexplicably embarrassed; his cheeks flushed bright red, and his long, girlish eyelashes fluttered guiltily. While we are on the subject of eyelashes, it would seem appropriate at this point to describe Erast Fandorin’s appearance in somewhat greater detail, since he is destined to play a pivotal role in the astounding and terrible events that will shortly unfold. He was a most comely youth with black hair (in which he took a secret pride) and blue eyes (ah, if only they had also been black!), rather tall, with a pale complexion and a confounded, ineradicable ruddy bloom on his cheeks. We can also reveal the reason for the young collegiate registrar’s sudden discomfiture. Only two days previously he had expended a third of his first monthly salary on the very corset described in such vivid and glowing terms and was actually wearing his Lord Byron for the second day, enduring exquisite suffering in the name of beauty. Now he suspected—entirely without justification—that the perspicacious Xavier Grushin had divined the origin of his subordinate’s Herculean bearing and wished to make him an object of fun.

Grushin, however, was already continuing with his reading.

TURKISH BASHI-BAZOUK ATROCITIES IN BULGARIA

“Well, that’s not for reading just before lunch…”

EXPLOSION IN LIGOVKA

Our St.Petersburg correspondent informs us that yesterday at six-thirty in the morning a thunderous explosion occurred at the rental apartment house of Commercial Counselor Vartanov on Znamenskaya Street, completely devastating the apartment on the fourth floor. Upon arrival at the scene the police discovered the remains of a young man, mutilated beyond recognition. The apartment was rented by a certain Mr. P., a private lecturer at the university, and it was apparently his body that was discovered. To judge from the appearance of the lodgings, something in the nature of a secret chemical laboratory had been installed there. The officer in charge of the investigation, Counselor of State Brilling, conjectures that the apartment was being used to manufacture infernal devices for an organization of nihilist terrorists. The investigation is continuing.

“Well now, thanks be to God our Moscow’s not Peter!” Judging from the gleam in his eyes, the youthful Mr. Fandorin would have begged to differ on that score. Indeed, every aspect of his appearance was eloquently expressive of the idea that in the real capital people have serious work to do, tracking down terrorist bombers, not writing out ten times over papers which, if truth were told, contain nothing of the slightest interest in any case.

“Right, then,” said Xavier Grushin, rustling his newspaper. “Let’s see what we have on the city page.”

FIRST MOSCOW ASTAIR HOUSE

The well-known English philanthropist Baroness Astair, through whose zealous and unremitting efforts the model refuges for boy orphans known as Astair Houses have been established in various countries of the world, has notified our correspondent that the first institution of such a type has now opened its doors in our own golden-domed city. Lady Astair, having commenced her activities in Russia only last year, and having already opened an Astair House in St. Petersburg, has decided to extend her support and assistance to the orphans of Moscow…

“Mmmm…” The heartfelt gratitude of all Muscovites…“ Where are our own Russian Owens and Astairs?…All right, enough of that. God bless all the orphans…Now, what have we here?”

A CYNICAL ESCAPADE

“Hmm, this is curious:”

Yesterday the Alexander Gardens were the scene of a sad incident only too distinctly typical of the cynical outlook and manners of modern youth, when Mr. N., a handsome young fellow of twenty-three, a student at Moscow University, and the sole heir to a fortune of millions, shot himself dead in full view of the promenading public.

According to the testimony of eyewitnesses, before committing this reckless act, N. swaggered and boasted to the onlookers, brandishing a revolver in the air. The eyewitnesses at first took his behavior for mere drunken bravado. N., however, was in earnest and he proceeded to shoot himself through the head, expiring on the spot. From a note of outrageously atheistic import which was discovered in the pocket of the suicide, it is apparent that N.’s action was not merely the outcome of some momentary impulse or a consequence of delirium tremens. It would appear that the fashionable epidemic of pointless suicides, which had thus far remained the scourge of Petropolis, has finally spread to the walls of Old Mother Moscow. ‘O tempora, o mores’ To what depths of unbelief and nihilism have our gilded youth descended if they would make a vulgar spectacle even of their own deaths? If our homegrown Brutuses adopt such an attitude to their own lives, then how can we be surprised if they care not a brass kopeck for the lives of other, incomparably more worthy individuals? How apropos in this connection are the words of that most venerable of authors, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, in his new book published in May, ‘A Writer’s Journal’:

“Dear, good, honest people (for all of this is within you!), what realm is this into which you are withdrawing? What has made the dark silence of the grave so dear to you? Look, the spring sun is bright in the sky, the trees have spread their leaves, but you are weary before your life has even begun.”

Xavier Grushin sniffed with feeling and cast a strict sideways glance at his young assistant in case he might have noticed, then continued speaking in a distinctly cooler voice.

“Well, and so on and so forth. But the times really don’t have anything at all to do with it. There’s nothing new to all of this. We’ve had a saying for these types in the land of Rus since ancient times: “Just don’t know when they’re well off.” A fortune of millions? Now who might that be? And see what scoundrels our precinct chiefs are—they put all sorts of rubbish in their reports, but they haven’t bothered to include this. So much for their summary of municipal incidents! But then I suppose it’s an open-and-shut case: he shot himself in front of witnesses…All the same, it’s a curious business. The Alexander Gardens. That’ll be the City Precinct, second station. I’ll tell you what, young Mr. Fandorin, as a personal favor to me, get yourself smartly across there to Mokhovaya Street. Tell them it’s for purposes of observation and what have you. Find out who this N. was. And most important of all, my dear young fellow, be sure to make a copy of that farewell note. I’ll show it to my Yevdokia Andreevna this evening—she has a fondness for such sentimental stuff. And don’t you keep me waiting either—get yourself back here as quick as you can.”

Xavier Grushin’s final words were already addressed to the back of the young collegiate registrar, who was in such great haste to forsake his dreary oilcloth-covered desk that he nearly forgot his peaked cap.

AT THE STATION the young functionary from the Criminal Investigation Division was shown through to the superintendent. However, on seeing what an insignificant and lowly individual had been dispatched on this errand, the superintendent decided not to waste any time on explanations and summoned his assistant.

“Be so kind as to follow Ivan Prokofievich here,” the superintendent said to the boy in a kindly voice (he might be only a small fry, but he was still from the Division). “He’ll show you everything and tell you all about it. And he was the one who went to the dead man’s apartment yesterday. My humble regards to Superintendent Grushin.”

They seated Erast Fandorin at a high desk and brought him the slim case file. He read the heading:

CASE of the suicide of hereditary honorary citizen Pyotr Alexandrov KOKORIN, 23 years, a student of the Faculty of Law at the Imperial University of Moscow. Commenced on the 13
th
day of the month of May in the year 1876. Concluded on the_____day of the month of____in the year 18___’ and unfastened the knotted tapes with fingers trembling in anticipation.

“Alexander Artamonovich Kokorin’s son,” explained Ivan Prokofievich, a scrawny, lanky veteran with a crumpled face that looked as if a cow had been chewing on it. “Immensely rich man he was. Factory owner. Passed away three years ago now—left the lot to his son. Now why couldn’t he just enjoy being a student and make the most of life? Just what is it these people want? I can’t make it out at all.”

Erast Fandorin simply nodded, not quite knowing what reply to make to that, and became absorbed in reading the statements of the witnesses. The number of reports was rather large, about a dozen in all, the most detailed of them drawn up from the testimony of the daughter of a full privy counselor, Elizaveta von Evert-Kolokoltseva, aged seventeen, and her governess, the spinster Emma Pfühl, aged forty-eight, with whom the suicide had been in conversation immediately prior to the shooting. However, Erast Fandorin failed to extract from the reports any information beyond that which is already known to the reader, for all the witnesses repeated more or less the same thing, differing only in their degree of perspicacity. Some affirmed that the young man’s appearance had instantly filled them with alarm and foreboding (“The moment I looked into his crazy eyes, I went cold all over,” stated Titular Counselor’s wife Khokhryakova, who went on, however, to testify that she had seen the young man only from the back). Other witnesses spoke, on the contrary, of lightning from out of a clear blue sky.

The final item lying in the file was a crumpled note written on light blue monogrammed paper. Erast Fandorin fastened his eyes greedily on the irregular lines (due, no doubt, to emotional distress).

Gentlemen living after me!

Since you are reading this little letter of mine, I have already departed from you and gone on to learn the secret of death, which remains concealed from your eyes behind seven seals. I am free, while you must carry on living in torment and fear. However, I wager that in the place where I now am and from where, as the Prince of Denmark expressed it, no traveler has yet returned, there is absolutely nothing at all. If anyone should not be in agreement, I respectfully suggest that he investigate for himself. In any case, I care nothing at all for any of you, and I am writing this note so that you should not take it into your heads that I laid hands on myself out of some sentimental nonsense or other. Your world nauseates me, and that, truly, is quite reason enough. That I am not an absolute swine may be seen from the leather blotter.

Pyotr Kokorin

The first thought to strike Erast Fandorin was that the letter did not appear to have been written in a state of emotional distress.

“What does this mean about the blotter?” he asked.

Ivan Prokofievich shrugged. “He didn’t have any blotter on him. But what could you expect, the state he was in? Maybe he was meaning to do something or other, but he forgot. It seems clear enough he was a pretty unstable sort of gentleman. Did you read how he twirled the cylinder on that revolver? And, by the way, only one of the chambers had a bullet in it. It’s my opinion, for instance, that he didn’t really mean to shoot himself at all—just wanted to give his nerves a bit of a thrill, put a keener edge on his feeling for life, so to speak, so afterward his food would have more savor and his sprees would seem sweeter.”

“Only one bullet out of six? That really was bad luck,” said Erast Fandorin, aggrieved for the dead man. But the idea of the leather blotter was still nagging at him.

“Where does he live? That is, where did he…”

“An eight-room apartment in a new building on Ostozhenka Street, and very posh too.” Ivan Prokofievich was keen to share his impressions. “Inherited his own house in the Zamoskvorechie district from his father, an entire estate, outbuildings and all, but he didn’t want to live there, moved as far away from the merchantry as he could.”

“Well then, was no leather blotter found there?”

The superintendent’s assistant was astonished at the idea. “Why, do you think we should have searched the place? I tell you, I’d be afraid to let the agents loose around the rooms of an apartment like that—they might get tempted off the straight and narrow. What’s the point, anyway? Egor Nikiforich, the investigator from the district public prosecutor’s office, gave the dead man’s valet a quarter of an hour to pack up his things and had the local officer keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t filch any of his master’s belongings, and then he ordered me to seal the door. Until the heirs come forward.”

“And who are the heirs?” Erast Fandorin asked inquisitively.

“Now, there’s the catch. The valet says Kokorin has no brothers or sisters. There are some kind of second cousins, but he wouldn’t let them inside the door. So who’s going to end up with all that loot?” Ivan Prokofievich sighed enviously. “Frightening just to think of it…Ah, but it’s no concern of ours. The lawyer or the executors will turn up tomorrow or the next day. Not even a day’s gone by yet—we’ve still got the body lying in the icehouse. But Egor Nikiforich could close the case tomorrow, then things will start moving all right.”

“But even so it is odd,” Fandorin observed, wrinkling his brow. “If someone makes special mention of some blotter or other in the last letter he ever writes, there must be something to it. And that bit about ‘an absolute swine’ is none too clear either. What if there is something important in that blotter? It’s up to you, of course, but I would definitely search the apartment for it. It seems to me that blotter is the very reason the note was written. There’s some mystery here, mark my words.”