“Now, where should I take you?” Lady Astair pondered. “I think at least to the physics laboratory. My splendid Dr. Blank, an alumnus of the Zurich Astair House and a physicist of genius, is giving a demonstration lesson there at the moment. I lured him here to Moscow by setting up a laboratory for his experiments with electricity. And while he is here he has to show the children all sorts of clever physics tricks in order to stimulate their interest in that science.”
The baroness knocked on one of the doors, and they stepped into the classroom. Sitting at the desks were about fifteen boys aged eleven and twelve wearing blue uniforms with a golden letter A on the jacket collar. All of them were watching with bated breath as a sullen young gentleman with immense side-whiskers, dressed in a rather untidy frock coat and a shirt that was none too fresh, spun some kind of glass wheel that was sputtering out bright blue sparks.
’Ich bin sehr beschдftigt, milady!”. Blank shouted angrily. “Spдter, spдter!’* Then he began speaking in broken Russian, addressing the children. “Und now, zhentlemen, you vill zee a zhenuine little rainbow! It’s name is Blank Regenbogen, “Blank’s rainbow.” I invent it ven I vas young as you are now.”
Suddenly a small, unusually bright rainbow arced across from the strange wheel to the table that was crammed with all sorts of physics apparatus, and the boys began buzzing with delight.
“Just a little bit crazy, but a genuine genius,” Lady Astair whispered to Fandorin.
At that moment a child screamed loudly in the next classroom.
“Good Lord!” said her ladyship, clutching at her heart. “That’s from the gymnastics room! Let’s go, quickly!”
She ran out into the corridor with Fandorin following her. Together they burst into an empty, bright auditorium in which the floor was laid with leather mats and the most varied pieces of equipment were set along the walls, including wall bars, rings, thick ropes, and trampolines. Rapiers and fencing masks lay cheek by jowl with boxing gloves and dumbbells. A small group of seven- and eight-year-old boys was clustered around one of the mats. Pushing his way through the children, Erast Fandorin saw a boy writhing in pain and, bending over him, a young man about thirty years of age dressed in gymnast’s tights. The man had fiery ginger curls, green eyes, and a determined-looking face covered with freckles.
“All right, my dear chap,” he said in Russian with a slight accent. “Show me your leg—don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. Be a man and bear it. Fell from the rings, m’lady,” he explained to the baroness in English. “Weak hands. I am afraid the ankle is broken. Would you please tell Mr. Izyumoff?”
Her ladyship nodded without speaking and, gesturing to Erast Fandorin to follow her, walked quickly out of the hall.
“I’ll go for the doctor, Mr. Izyumov,” she told him, speaking rapidly. “This kind of thing happens frequently. Boys will always be boys…That was Gerald Cunningham, my right-hand man. An alumnus of the London Astair House. A brilliant teacher. He is in charge of the entire Russian branch. In six months he has mastered your difficult language, which is quite beyond me. Last autumn Gerald opened the Astair House in St. Petersburg and now he is here temporarily, helping to get things going. Without him I am like a woman with no hands.”
She stopped in front of a door bearing the inscription DOCTOR.
“I do beg your pardon, sir, but I shall have to cut short our conversation. Some other time, perhaps? Come tomorrow and we’ll talk. You have some business to discuss with me?”
“Nothing of any importance, my lady,” said Fandorin, blushing. “Indeed I really…some other time. I wish you success in your noble profession.”
Erast Fandorin bowed awkwardly and walked quickly away. He felt very ashamed.
“WELL, DID YOU CATCH the villainess red-handed?” Fandorin’s chief greeted his shamefaced subordinate merrily, raising his head from some complicated diagrams. The curtains in the office were closed and the lamp on the desk was lit, for it had already begun to grow dark outside. “Let me guess. Her ladyship had never even heard of Mr. Kokorin, let alone Miss Bezhetskaya, and the news of the suicide’s bequest upset her terribly. Is that right?”
Erast Fandorin merely sighed.
“I met the lady in St. Petersburg. In the Third Section we considered her request to be allowed to conduct teaching activities in Russia. Did she tell you about the morons who are geniuses? Right, then, let’s get to work. Take a seat at the desk,” said Fandorin’s chief with a wave of his hand. “You have a fascinating night ahead.”
Erast Fandorin felt a pleasant tingling sensation of anxious anticipation in his breast—such was the effect produced on him by his dealings with State Counselor Brilling.
“Your target is Zurov. You have already seen him, so you have a certain notion of the man. Getting into the count’s house is easy enough—no recommendations are required. He runs something in the nature of a gambling den in his home, none too well disguised. The accepted style is all hussars and guards, but all sorts of good-for-nothing riffraff turn up as well. Zurov maintained a house of a precisely similar kind in St. Petersburg, but after a visit from our police he moved to Moscow. He is entirely his own master, listed at his regiment as being on indefinite leave for more than two years now. Let me state your task: try to get as close to him as possible and get a good look at his entourage. Perhaps you might come across your white-eyed acquaintance there? But no amateur heroics—you can’t possibly deal with a type like that on your own. Anyway, he is hardly likely to be there. I do not exclude the possibility that the count may himself take an interest in you. After all, you did meet at Bezhetskaya’s house, and he is evidently not indifferent to her. Act in accordance with the situation. But don’t get carried away. This gentleman is not to be trifled with. He cheats at cards, or as they say in that company, he ‘fixes the odds,’ and if he is caught in the act he deliberately provokes a scandal. He has a dozen or so duels to his account, and there are others we know nothing about. And he can crack your skull open without the excuse of a duel. For instance, in seventy-two at the Nizhni Novgorod Fair Zurov got into an argument over cards with a merchant, Svyshchov, and threw that bearded gentleman out of a window. From the second floor. The merchant was badly smashed up and couldn’t speak for a month—he could only mumble. But nothing happened to the count. He squirmed his way out of it. He has influential relatives in high places. What are these?” asked Ivan Brilling, as usual without any transition as he placed a deck of playing cards on the desk.
“Cards,” Fandorin answered in surprise.
“Do you play?”
“I don’t play at all. Papa forbade me even to touch cards. He said he’d already played enough for himself and me, and for the next three generations of Fandorins.”
“A pity,” said Brilling, concerned. “Without that you’ll get nowhere at Zurov’s. All right, take a piece of paper and make notes.”
A quarter of an hour later Erast Fandorin could already distinguish the suits without hesitation and he knew which card was higher and which was lower, except that he still confused the picture cards a little. He kept forgetting which was higher, the queen or the jack.
“You’re hopeless,” his chief summed up. “But that’s nothing to worry about. At the count’s house they don’t play preference and other such intellectual games. The more primitive the better for them—they want as much money as possible as quickly as possible. Our agents report that Zurov prefers stoss, and the simplified version at that. I’ll explain the rules. The one who deals the cards is called the banker. The other player is the punter. Each has his own deck of cards. The punter selects a card from his deck, let’s say a nine. He puts it facedown in front of him.”