‘Then I left Méliès. The old man started losing his fleur, not keeping up with life. What’s the most important thing now for cinéma? Scale! Now Gaumont had got scale! Last year the two of us set up an electric theatre in Paris with three thousand, four hundred seats! But Gaumont wouldn’t make me a partner, so I left. And then things are crowded in France, everyone’s jostling for elbow space. You can only do real business here in your country, Russia. If you’re énergique.’
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel and waving the other around, he glanced at Fandorin, who had raised one eyebrow at the phrase ‘in your country’. But Senya misunderstood his surprise and started explaining.
‘Energique – that’s when you keep révolver all the time. It’s the most important quality for success. You can get by without all the other qualities, but not without the énergique, no way. You have plenty of clever types here, plenty of hard workers, there are even some honest ones. But they’re all dozy, feeble. A man thinks up something worthwhile, but he just sits there on his backside, like a bear. He turns a good deal – and he has to celebrate immediately. But you have to work quickly, quickly, sans arrêt. An énergique man, even if he’s not so very intelligent – brainy that is – will stumble and fall ten times, get up eleven times and still outrun a man who’s clever, but dozy. But here in your country, I see all the talk is about révolution, about liberté and égalité. But what Russia needs is not revolution, but a dose of turpentine, to make it run faster.’
Senya-Simon cleared his throat and took on a mournful air.
‘Andriusha Shustrov – now he was a génie. I mean, how do you say that?’
‘A genius.’
‘Yes, a genius. What incredible business we would have done here. If not for that snake-woman. Men like Andriusha, they only seem to be made of stone, but they’re really terribly passionés – intense. Heat a heart of stone up red hot and then pour icy water on it and – crack.’
‘An elegant metaphor,’ said Erast Petrovich, involuntarily rubbing the left side of his chest. ‘But don’t let me hear another word from you about the “snake-woman”. I will not allow anyone to insult Madam Lointaine. That is one. And secondly…’
He was about to add that Eliza probably had nothing to do with this case, but he paused. Now, after this new death, Fandorin was no longer certain of anything.
Simon understood the pause in his own way. Forgetting the sad circumstances again, he winked.
‘You should have said straight away. I see you’re still the same as you used to be. Involved with the femmes fatales. Only you’ve changed your surname for some reason. Andriusha kept going on to me about you: Fandorin, Fandorin, he’s going to write fabules for us, and I didn’t have a clue that it was you. By the way, it has quite a ring to it. Sounds like Phantomas. That’s someone a film should be made about! Have you read it? Real literature, none of your Emile Zola and Lev Tolstoy. Real power! We could try Mr Masa for the leading role. He’s the “real Japanese Swardilin”, isn’t he? I only realised that today. Mr Masa can climb up walls, and kick someone in the face, and all sorts of things. And it doesn’t matter that he has slant-eyes. Phantomas always wears a mask. Oh, a real génie of evildoing!’
And he started talking enthusiastically about some big wheel of the criminal world, a hero of modern novels. Erast Petrovich had known individuals of this type in real life, so he listened with a certain degree of interest, but the sports car was already flying into one of the side streets of Prechistenka. It pulled up with a squeal of brakes in front of a smart detached mansion house with policemen guarding the entrance.
The investigator was someone Fandorin didn’t know, a certain Captain Drissen, from the chancellery of the Chief of Police. The death of a millionaire was a serious case, not like some little cornet of the Guards. It had not been entrusted to a modest old hand like Subbotin.
Fandorin took a dislike to the police officer. There had always been plenty of his type in the police, sweet with their superiors and rude with their subordinates, and in recent years they had spread everywhere. Naturally, the captain had heard about Fandorin, so he spoke in sugared tones. He showed Erast Petrovich everything, explained everything and even reported his own conclusions, which he had not been asked to do.
These conclusions amounted, in brief, to the following.
The questioning of witnesses had established that the deceased had been certain that this would be the happiest day of his life. Early in the morning he had been planning to visit the Louvre hotel to see his fiancée, the well-known artiste Altairsky-Lointaine, in order to set an engagement ring on her finger.
‘By the way, where is it, Mr Simon?’ Drissen asked, interrupting his report and giving Senya a look that was not sugar-sweet, but menacing. ‘You grabbed it and ran off, and I’ll be asked about it.’
‘A mere trifle,’ the Parisian said morosely with a wave of his hand. In his dead comrade’s house he seemed to have shrunk and did nothing but sigh. ‘If need be – I’ll replace it. Pas de problème.’
The officer was delighted by the news that money wasn’t a problem for the partner. He smiled sweetly and carried on with his report.
The picture that emerged was clear. At the last moment the fiancée had changed her mind and informed the deceased about this by telephone. Shustrov had gone insane from grief and grabbed his razor. His hand was trembling, so at first he had inflicted several small cuts on himself and then he had finally overcome his weakness and severed his artery, together with the trachea, and the end had followed without delay.
Erast Petrovich listened to the facts attentively and to the conclusions casually. He squatted down beside the body for a long time, examining the mutilated neck through a magnifying glass.
Eventually he got up with a very preoccupied air and spoke to the expectant captain.
‘You know, there are policemen who for a certain f-fee let the gutter press have all sorts of piquant little details of events. So, if news that the investigation links Shustrov’s death with the name of the actress whom you have mentioned should leak out to the press, I shall consider you personally responsible.’
‘By your leave…’ Drissen flushed, but Erast Petrovich flashed his highly expressive blue eyes at the officer, and he fell silent.
‘And if such a mishap should occur, I shall employ all of my influence to ensure that you will serve the remainder of your career in Chukotka. I do not often burden the top level with requests, so they will not refuse me in such a trivial instance.’
The policeman cleared his throat.
‘However, sir, I cannot take responsibility for others. Rumours might leak out of the theatre… the case will attract huge public interest. They have already had suicides there.’
‘Rumours are one thing. An official theory is another. Do you understand me? Well, good.’
The suspicion that was so humiliating for Fandorin had been confirmed.
The Tsar and Mr Whistle probably had nothing to do with the deaths in the theatre. Because they could not have murdered the millionaire Shustrov, and he had been murdered. And to judge from the signature, by the same criminal who had murdered Emeraldov and Limbach.
The investigation would have to be started all over again from the beginning.