Fandorin was staying on in San Stefano - the diplomatic hustle and bustle was by no means all over simply because the peace had been signed. He had come straight to the station from some reception, in a tailcoat, top hat and white silk tie. He gave Varya a bunch of Parma violets, sighed a little and shifted from one foot to the other, but his sparkling eloquence had deserted him today.
'The peace is f-far too good,' he replied. 'Europe will not recognise it. Anwar executed his gambit p-per-fectly, and I lost the game. They have given me a medal, but they ought to have put me on trial.'
'How unfair you are to yourself. Terribly unfair!' Varya exclaimed passionately, afraid that her tears would start to flow. 'Why are you always so hard on yourself? If not for you, I don't know what would have become of us all . . .'
'Lavrenty Arkadievich told me much the same thing’ said Fandorin with a smile. 'And he p-promised me any reward in his power.'
Varya was delighted. 'Really? Well, that is wonderful! And what did you wish for?'
'For a posting somewhere on the far side of the world, as far away as possible from all this.' He waved his hand vaguely through the air.
'What nonsense! What did Mizinov say?'
'He was furious. But a promise is a promise. When the negotiations are c-completed I shall travel from Constantinople to Port Said, and from there by steamship to Japan. I have been appointed second secretary at the embassy in Tokyo. There is nowhere further away than that.'
'To Japan . . .' The tears broke through after all, and Varya furiously wiped them away with her glove.
The bell rang and the locomotive sounded its whistle. Petya stuck his head out of the window of the carriage.
'Varya, it's time. We're leaving.'
Erast Petrovich hesitated and lowered his eyes. 'G-goodbye, Varvara Andreevna. I was very glad . . .' He did not finish the phrase.
Varya clutched hold of his hand impetuously and began blinking rapidly, shaking the teardrops off her eyelashes.
'Erast . . .' she began in sudden haste, but the words stuck in her throat and would not come out.
Fandorin jerked his chin and said nothing.
The wheels clanked and the carriage swayed.
'Varya, they'll take me away without you!' Petya shouted despairingly. 'Quick!'
She glanced round, hesitated for just one more second and leapt on to the step as it glided along the edge of the platform.
'. . . first of all a hot bath. Then Filippov's bakery and some of that apricot pastille you're so fond of. And then the bookshop for all the new publications, and then the university. Can you imagine all the questions everyone will ask, all the . . .'
Varya stood at the window, nodding in time to Petya's contented babbling. She wanted to keep the black figure left behind on the platform in sight for as long as possible, but the figure was acting strangely, blurring like that ... Or could there perhaps be something wrong with her eyes?
The Times (London) 10 March (26 February) 1878
Her Majesty's Government Says 'No'
Today Lord Derby announced that the British government, supported by the governments of the majority of European states, categorically refuses to recognise the exorbitant peace terms imposed on Turkey by the rapacious appetites of Tsar Alexander. The Treaty of San Stefano is contrary to the interests of European security and must be reviewed at a special congress in which all the great powers will take part.
MURDER ON THE LEVIATHAN
by
BORIS AKUNIN
Translated by Andrew Bromfield
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
From Commissioner Gauche’s black file
Record of an examination of the scene of the crime carried out on the evening of 15 March 1898 in the mansion of Lord Littleby on the rue de Crenelle (7th arrondissement of the city of Paris) [A brief extract]
… For reasons unknown all the household staff were gathered in the pantry, which is located on the ground floor of the mansion to the left of the entrance hall (room 3 on diagram 1). The precise locations of the bodies are indicated on diagram 4, in which:
No. 1 is the body of the butler, Etienne Delarue, age 48 years
No. 2 is the body of the housekeeper, Laura Bernard, age 54 years
No. 3 is the body of the master’s manservant, Marcel Prout, age 28 years
No. 4 is the body of the butler’s son, Luc Delarue, age 11 years
No. 5 is the body of the maid, Arlette Foche, age 19 years
No. 6 is the body of the housekeeper’s granddaughter, Anne Marie Bernard, age 6 years
No. 7 is the position of the security guard Jean Lesage, age 42 years, who died in the St-Lazare hospital on the morning of 16 March without regaining consciousness
No. 8 is the body of the security guard Patrick Trois-Bras, age 29 years
No. 9 is the body of the porter, Jean Carpentier, age 40 years.
The bodies shown as Nos. 1-6 are in sitting positions around the large kitchen table. Nos. 1-3 are frozen with their heads lowered onto their crossed arms, No. 4 is resting his cheek on his hands, No. 5 is reclining against the back of the chair and No. 6 is in a kneeling position beside No. 2. The faces of Nos. 1-6 are calm, without any indication whatever of fear or suffering. On the other hand, Nos. 7-9, as the diagram shows, are lying at a distance from the table and No. 7 is holding a whistle in his hand. However, none of the neighbours heard the sound of a whistle yesterday evening. The faces of No. 8 and No. 9 are set in expressions of horror, or at the very least of extreme consternation (photographs will be provided tomorrow morning).
There are no signs of a struggle. A rapid examination also failed to reveal any sign of injury to the bodies. The cause of death cannot be determined without a post-mortem. From the degree of rigor mortis the forensic medical specialist Maitre Bernhem determined that death occurred at various times between ten o’clock in the evening (No. 6) and six o’clock in the morning, while No. 7, as stated above, died later in hospital.
Anticipating the results of the medical examination, I venture to surmise that all of the victims were exposed to a potent and fast acting poison inducing a narcotic effect, and the time at which their hearts stopped beating depended either on the dose of poison received or the physical strength of each of the victims.
The front door of the mansion was closed but not locked.
However, the window of the conservatory (item 8 on diagram 1) bears clear indications of a forced entry: the glass is broken and on the narrow strip of loose cultivated soil below it there is the indistinct imprint of a man’s shoe with a sole 26 centimetres in length, a pointed toe and a steel-shod heel (photographs will be provided). The felon probably gained entry to the house via the garden only after the servants had been poisoned and sank into slumber, otherwise they would certainly have heard the sound of breaking glass. It remains unclear, however, why, after the servants had been rendered harmless, the perpetrator found it necessary to enter the house through the garden, when he could quite easily have walked through into the house from the pantry. In any event, the perpetrator made his way from the conservatory up to the second floor, where Lord Littleby’s personal apartments are located (see diagram 2). As the diagram shows, the left-hand section of the second floor consists of only two rooms: a hall, which houses a collection of Indian curios, and the master’s bedroom, which communicates directly with the hall. Lord Littleby’s body is indicated on diagram 2 as No. 10 (see also the outline drawing). His Lordship was dressed in a smoking jacket and woollen pantaloons and his right foot was heavily bandaged. An initial examination of the body indicates that death occurred as a result of an extraordinarily powerful blow to the parietal region of the skull with a heavy, oblong shaped object. The blow was inflicted from the front. The carpet is spattered with blood and brain tissue to a distance of several metres from the body. Likewise spattered with blood is a broken glass display case which, according to its nameplate, previously contained a statuette of the Indian god Shiva (the inscription on the nameplate reads: ‘Bangalore, 2nd half XVIII century, gold’).