‘She’s going to take mine, mine!’ the cornet repeated, seeming not to notice that in his excitement he was tugging on the other man’s sleeve.
‘Here, if you please. I can see that you are interested.’
Mr Tsarkov politely held out his mother-of-pearl lorgnette on a handle. Erast Petrovich grabbed the trinket, raised it to his eyes and was surprised to discover that the lenses were every bit as effective as those in the officer’s field glasses.
Once again the smiling face of Eliza Altairsky-Lointaine appeared close, very close, in front of his eyes. She was glancing downwards and off to one side, and the wings of her delicately chiselled nose were trembling slightly. What could have upset her? Surely not the fact that the final basket presented to Emeraldov (lemon-yellow orchids) was more sumptuous than her white roses? Hardly. This woman could not be infected with such petty vanity!
And then yet another basket, a genuine palace of flowers, was carried out onto the stage. Who was it intended for – the prima donna or the leading man?
For her! This miracle of the florist’s art was set down in front of Altairsky to the sound of ecstatic shouting from the entire hall. She curtsied, lowering her face to the buds and embracing the flowers in her slim, white arms.
‘Oh, damn it, damn it…’ Limbach groaned pitifully, seeing that his high card had been trumped.
Erast Petrovich shifted his lenses to Emeraldov for a second. The picturesquely handsome features of Karamzin’s Erast were distorted in spiteful malice. Well, well, such passions because of mere flowers!
He looked at Eliza again, expecting to see her triumphant. But the actress’s lovely face was a frozen mask of horror: the eyes were gaping wide and the lips were set in a soundless scream. What was wrong? What had frightened her?
Suddenly Fandorin saw that one of the flower buds, still dark and unopened, was swaying to and fro and seemed to be reaching upwards.
Good Lord! It wasn’t a bud! Fandorin distinctly made out the diamond form of a snake’s head framed in the double circle of his vision. It was a viper, and it was reaching directly towards the petrified leading lady’s bosom.
‘A snake! There’s a snake in the basket!’ Limbach howled, and he vaulted over the parapet, down into the gangway.
Everything happened in a few brief instants.
People in the front rows of the orchestra stalls were screaming and waving their arms about. The rest of the audience, not understanding what was happening, launched into a new storm of applause.
The swashbuckling hussar jumped to his feet, snatched his sword out of its scabbard and dashed towards the stage. But the white figure of Pan, made up to resemble marble, came to Altairsky’s rescue even sooner. Since he was standing behind the actress’s back, the horned god had spotted the fearsome denizen of the flower basket before anyone else. He ran up, fearlessly grabbed the reptile by the neck and snatched it out into the open.
Now the entire audience could see what was happening. The ladies started squealing. Madam Altairsky swayed on her feet and fell over onto her back. Then valiant Pan cried out – the reptile had bitten him on the hand. He swung it hard and smashed it against the floor, then started trampling it with his feet.
The theatre was filled with screams, the clattering of chairs and screeching.
‘A doctor! Call a doctor!’ voices shouted from the stage.
Someone fanned Eliza with a shawl and someone else led the bitten hero away.
And a tall, very thin man with his head completely shaved appeared right at the back of the stage.
He stood there with his arms folded, contemplating all this babel and smiling.
‘Who is that? Back there, behind all the others?’ Fandorin asked his omniscient companion.
‘One moment,’ said the companion, concluding a quiet conversation with his striped minion. ‘Find out who was responsible and punish them!’
‘It shall be done.’
The whistler walked rapidly out of the box and Mr Tsarkov turned towards Erast Petrovich with a polite smile, as if nothing untoward had occurred.
‘Where? Ah, that is Noah Noaevich Stern in person. He has taken off his Mask of Death. Just look how he’s glowing! And he has good reason to be delighted. What a stroke of luck! Now the Muscovites will go absolutely mad about the Ark.’
What a strange world, thought Fandorin. Incredibly strange!
INITIAL ACQUAINTANCE
The prime minister died at the very time when Erast Petrovich was in the theatre. The next day flags with black ribbons attached to them were hung everywhere and the newspapers appeared with huge headlines of mourning. In the liberal papers they wrote that, although the deceased was a proponent of reactionary views, the last chance for a renewal of the country without turmoil and revolution had died together with him. In the patriotic papers they cursed the Hebraic tribe to which the killer belonged and saw a special meaning in the fact that Stolypin had passed away on the anniversary of the ascension of the Most Orthodox Prince Gleb, thereby augmenting the host of the martyrs of the Russian land. Publications of the melodramatic, gutter-press disposition vehemently quoted Pyotr Arkadievich Stolypin’s will, in which he had apparently requested to be buried ‘where I am killed’.
This tragic news (they telephoned Erast Petrovich when he got back from the theatre) failed to make any special impression on him. The man who made the call, a high-ranking bureaucrat, also said that the council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had discussed whether Fandorin should be involved in the investigation, but the commander of the Corps of Gendarmes had categorically objected to this and the minister had made no comment.
It was remarkable that Erast Petrovich did not feel mortified in the least; on the contrary, he actually felt relieved, and if he did not sleep a wink the whole night long, it was not out of resentment, or even out of fearful concern for the fate of the state.
He paced to and fro in his study, looking down at the bright glimmers reflected from the parquet; he lay on the divan with a cigar, looking up at the white ceiling; he sat on the windowsill and gazed hard into the blackness – but all the while he saw the same thing: a slim arm, languid eyes, a snake’s head among flower buds.
Fandorin was accustomed to subjecting facts to analysis, but not his own emotions. And even now he did not stray from the path of rational inference, sensing that the slightest sideways step would send him tumbling into a quagmire, and he did not know how to scramble out of it.
Setting out a line of logic created the illusion that nothing special had happened. Just another investigation, the world had not been turned on its head.
Madam Altairsky’s fear had been justified. The danger really did exist. That was one, thought Erast Petrovich, bending down one finger – and he caught himself smiling. She isn’t a hysterical girl who imagines things, she isn’t a psychopath!
She obviously had some kind of ferocious enemy with a perverse imagination. Or enemies. That was two. How could anyone possibly hate her?
Judging from the theatricality of the attack on her life, the culprit or culprits should be sought first of all within the theatre company or on its immediate periphery. It was unlikely that someone who did not have backstage access could have placed the reptile in the basket. However, that would have to be checked. That was three. But what if the snake had bitten her? Oh, God!
He had to go to the theatre, take a close look at everything and, most important of all, try to get Madam Altairsky-Lointaine herself to speak frankly. That was four. I shall see her again! I shall talk to her!