The building was absolutely quiet now. Probably it was time.
THE JUDGEMENT OF FATE
He went out onto the stairs and walked down to the service floor. The dead-end corridor, onto which the doors of storerooms and workshops opened, was dark.
Fandorin stopped in front of the properties room and jerked on the door handle. It was locked – from the inside, he presumed.
He opened the door with the picklock. Inside it the darkness was pitch black. Erast Petrovich could have switched on the electric light, but he wanted to make the criminal’s task easier for him. The strip of pale light seeping in from the corridor was entirely adequate for him to walk over to the shelf and pick up the watch that he had left there.
As he walked through the darkness, expecting an attack at any moment, Fandorin felt a slight prick of shame at the extreme pleasure of his excitement: his pulse was beating out a drum tattoo, his skin was covered with goosebumps. This was the real reason why he hadn’t backed this home-grown Borgia up against the wall, why he hadn’t tangled him up in the chain of evidence. Erast Petrovich wanted to shake himself up, refresh himself, set the blood coursing through his veins. Love, danger, the anticipation of victory – this was genuine life, and old age could wait.
He wasn’t taking much of a risk. Not unless the criminal decided to shoot, but that was not very likely. Firstly, the watchman would hear and call the police. Secondly, judging from the impression that Fandorin had formed of the director’s assistant, this ‘poor man’s Lermontov’, as Stern had called him so accurately and pitilessly, Nonarikin would choose some more theatrical method.
Nonetheless, Erast Petrovich’s hearing was stretched to the limit, prepared to catch the quiet click of a firing hammer being raised. It wasn’t so very easy to hit a fast-moving black cat in a dark room (Fandorin was wearing a black suit today).
He had already determined the killer’s location from a very faint rustling that he heard coming from the right-hand corner. No one but Fandorin, who in his time had made a special study of listening to silence, would have attached any importance to that sound, but Erast Petrovich immediately recognised it as the rustle of fabric against fabric. The man waiting in ambush had raised his hand. What was in it? A cold weapon? Something blunt and heavy? Or was it a revolver after all, and the hammer had been raised in advance?
Just to be on the safe side, Fandorin took a rapid step to one side, out of the greyish strip of light and into the darkness. He started whistling Alyabiev’s romance ‘Nightingale, My Nightingale’ in a special way, shifting his lips to one side and pursing them up. If the criminal was taking aim, he would have the illusion that his target was standing one step farther to the left.
Come on now, Monsieur Nonarikin. Be bold! Your victim suspects nothing. Attack!
However, there was a surprise in store for Erast Petrovich. A switch clicked and the properties room was flooded with light that was very bright by contrast with the darkness. There now, so that was why the assistant director had raised his hand.
It was him, naturally – with his forelock tousled and his eyes glinting feverishly. Fandorin’s powers of deduction had not let him down. But even so, there was yet another surprise, apart from the light. Nonarikin was holding in his hand not a knife, not an axe, not some vulgar kind of hammer, but two rapiers with cup-shaped hilts. They had previously been lying one shelf below the goblet – stage props from the same show.
‘Very impressive,’ said Erast Petrovich, clapping his hands silently. ‘It’s a pity that there’s no audience.’
There was one spectator, however: Fandorin’s acquaintance, the rat, was sitting in its former position with its little eyes glittering in fury. No doubt from the rat’s point of view they were both ignorant louts who had impudently invaded its private domain.
The assistant director blocked off the way out of the room. For some reason he was holding out the rapiers with the handles forward.
‘Why d-did you switch on the light? It would have been easier in the dark.’
‘It’s against my principles to attack from behind. I’m offering you up to the judgement of Fate, you false playwright. Choose your weapon and defend yourself!’
Nonarikin was strange. Calm, one could even say solemn. Exposed murderers didn’t behave like that. And what was this fairground burlesque with stage weapons? What was the point of it?
Even so, Fandorin took a rapier, the one that was closer to hand, without examining them. He glanced briefly at the point. You couldn’t stick that through a man, but you might just scratch him with it. Or raise a lump on his head if you took a good swing.
Erast Petrovich had not yet assumed a defensive posture (that is, he had not even decided yet whether to participate in this charade) when his opponent launched into the attack with a cry of ‘Gardez-vous!’, making a rapid lunge. If Fandorin had not possessed outstandingly fast reactions, the rapier would have pricked him straight in the chest, but Erast Petrovich swayed to one side. Even so the rapier tip tore through his sleeve and scratched his skin.
‘Touché!’ Nonarikin exclaimed, shaking the drop of blood off the blade. ‘You’re a dead man!’
An excellent frock coat had been completely ruined, and the shirt together with it. Erast Petrovich ordered his clothes from London and he was dreadfully angry.
It should be said that he fenced rather well. Once in his youth he had almost lost his life in a sabre duel and after that incident he had taken care to fill this dangerous gap in his education. Fandorin moved onto the attack, cascading blows on his opponent. So you want some fun? Then take that!
Incidentally, from the psychological point of view, one sure way to crush your opponent’s will is to defeat him in some kind of competition.
Nonarikin was under serious pressure, but he defended himself skilfully. Only once did Erast Petrovich succeed in striking the assistant director a serious blow to the forehead with the length of the blade, and once he caught him on the neck with a slashing blow. Backing away under the onslaught, the assistant director gaped in ever greater amazement at Fandorin, who was pale with fury. Nonarikin evidently hadn’t expected this kind of sprightliness from the playwright.
Right, that’s enough playing the fool, Erast Petrovich told himself. Finiamo la commedia.
With a double thrust he hooked up his opponent’s weapon, performed a twist – and the rapier went flying into the farthest corner. Forcing Nonarikin back against the wall with his blade, Fandorin said scathingly:
‘Enough theatre. I suggest a return to the confines of real life. And real death.’
His defeated enemy stood there quite still, squinting downwards at the rapier point pressed against his chest. Beads of sweat glinted on his pale forehead, where the lump was flooding with crimson.
‘Only don’t stab me,’ he gasped hoarsely. ‘Kill me some other way.’
‘Why would I kill you?” Fandorin asked in surprise. ‘And in any case, that is rather hard to do with a blunt piece of metal. No, my good fellow, you will serve hard labour. For cold-blooded, villainous murder.’
‘What are you talking about? I don’t understand.’
Erast Petrovich frowned.
‘My dear sir, don’t try to deny the obvious facts. From a theatrical point of view it will turn out very b-boring. If you did not poison Emeraldov, then why on earth would you arrange an ambush for me?’