Masa tried to turn the conversation back to the theatre.
‘I shall call in there today. Later on,’ said Fandorin, and the Japanese fell silent, evidently trying to understand the change that had come over his master.
‘You don’t love her any more, master,’ he concluded after a moment’s thought, with his perennial perspicuity.
Erast Petrovich could not resist passing a spiteful comment.
‘No, I don’t. You can feel absolutely free.’
Masa didn’t reply to that. He sighed and started pondering.
Fandorin drove up to Theatre Square at two o’clock, counting on arriving exactly in time for the lunch break in the rehearsal. He was calm and collected.
Madam Lointaine is free to arrange her private life as she sees fit, that is her business. However, the investigation that has been interrupted by my psychological indisposition must be continued. The killer must be found.
Fandorin had barely emerged from his Isotta Fraschini before a nimble little man came scurrying up to him.
‘Sir,’ he whispered, ‘I have a ticket for the premiere of the new Noah’s Ark production. A superb play of oriental life. An original title – Two Comets in a Starless Sky. With quite incredible tumbling tricks and astoundingly frank scenes. The tickets have not reached the box office yet, but I have some. Fifteen roubles in the circle and thirty-five in the orchestra stalls. It will be more expensive later.’
So the title and the subject of the play were no longer a secret, and what was more, the day of the premiere had been set. Well, these matters did not concern Erast Petrovich now. To hell with the play.
As he walked to the entrance, hucksters pestered him again twice. They were doing a brisk trade. And some distance away, in the same spot as last time, the grand marshal of the touts was loitering with his perennial green briefcase under his arm. He kept glancing up at the autumn sky, stamping his shoe with its thick rubber sole on the ground and whistling absent-mindedly, but at the same time he seemed able to survey everything around him. Erast Petrovich caught the gaze of those little eyes boring into him with either curiosity or suspicion. God only knew why he had provoked such a lively reaction from this murky individual with a face of clay. Perhaps he had remembered about the pass for the box? What about it? But then, that was of no importance.
During the time since Fandorin had last been here, certain changes had taken place. A large photograph of the deceased Emeraldov was hanging to the left of the entrance – with a lighted icon lamp and a heap of flowers piled up directly on the pavement. There were two smaller photographs beside it, apparently of hysterical women who had taken their own lives in their inconsolable grief for their idol. An announcement in a flirtatious little mourning frame informed people that there would be an ‘Evening of Tears’ in the small auditorium ‘for a small circle of invited individuals’. Naturally, the prices had been raised.
Erast Petrovich felt a slight stabbing sensation in his heart when he saw the photograph on the other side of the entrance – the leading lady in a kimono, with a takashimada hairstyle. The curt caption read: ‘Mme ALTAIRSKY-LOINTAINE IN HER NEW ROLE AS A JAPANESE GEISHA’. There were flowers lying in front of the famous actress’s portrait too, although not as many.
I did feel a twinge nonetheless, Fandorin noted, and hesitated. Perhaps he should put off his visit until tomorrow? Apparently the wound had not yet healed over sufficiently.
A horse cab pulled up behind him and a ringing voice shouted out:
‘Wait!’
There was a jangle of spurs and a clatter of heels and a hand in a yellow glove set a basket of violets in front of the actress’s portrait.
At this point Erast Petrovich felt a more powerful stabbing sensation in his chest. He recognised the cornet whom he had once admitted to the box. Limbach recognised him too.
‘I put some here every day!’ The fresh, youthful face lit up in an ecstatic smile. ‘I consider it my duty. Have you brought flowers too? Don’t you recognise me? We were at Poor Liza together.’
Erast Petrovich turned away without speaking and walked off to one side, indignant at the furious pounding of his heart.
Sick, I’m still sick…
He had to wait a little and take himself in hand. Fortunately he was standing right in front of the announcement of the new production.
Just a theatre-lover, studying a poster. Nothing special.
The letters attempted to look like hieroglyphs. The artist had drawn some stupid little figures in a style that was more Chinese than Japanese. And for some incomprehensible reason the whole composition was crowned by a branch of sakura, although it was a blossoming apple tree that was mentioned in the play. But that didn’t matter. The most important thing was that the condition he set had not been broken: where the author’s name should have been, there were only the initials ‘E.F.’
I need to forget about this shameful episode as soon as possible, thought Fandorin. And in his own mind he prayed to the Russian and the Japanese gods and the muse Melpomene for the play to be a resounding failure, so that it would be excluded from the repertoire and expunged for ever from the annals of theatrical art.
Without even wishing to, every now and then Erast Petrovich squinted sideways at his fortunate rival. He felt furious and the humiliation of it tormented him, but the urge was too strong.
The boy still didn’t go away – the man with the briefcase moved closer to him and they started talking about something. The conversation gradually grew more animated. In fact, the leader of the ticket touts behaved calmly and didn’t raise his voice, and it was the cornet who did most of the shouting. Fragments of phrases reached Fandorin’s ears.
‘This is monstrous! You can’t dare to do that! I’m an officer of His Majesty’s guard!’
And then there was a phrase that sounded very strange, coming from ‘an officer of His Majesty’s guard’.
‘You and your Tsar can both go to hell!’
The man with the briefcase whistled again, not mockingly this time, but menacingly, and said something else in a quiet, insistent voice.
‘I’ll pay everything back! Soon!’ Limbach exclaimed. ‘On the word of a gentleman!’
‘You’ve given the word of a gentleman before!’ the other man finally exploded. ‘Either cough up the money, or…’
The tout-in-chief grabbed the cornet crudely by the shoulder, and his hand was clearly not a light one – the youth’s knees even buckled slightly.
What a pity that she cannot see her lover grovelling to his creditor, Fandorin thought in a malicious impulse that was unworthy of a noble man. In my time an officer of the hussars didn’t behave like a stray puppy dog. He would have challenged him to pistols at five paces, and that would have been the end of it.
However, Limbach found a different way out of the scandalous situation. He shoved his assailant in the chest, took a run up, jumped into the horse cab and yelled:
‘Drive! Drive!’
The shove sent the creditor’s hat flying off his head and the briefcase fell out from under his arm. The lock came open and papers slid out onto the pavement, including a yellow cardboard folder that seemed familiar to Fandorin.