“Wait a moment, John,” Franz said when they halted at the edge of the pier and set their burden down on the rough boards. “This won’t do—throwing a living man into the water like some kitten. Would you like to be in his place?”
“No,” replied John.
“Well, then,” said Franz, delighted. “You see what I mean. Choking on that filthy rotten swill—brrrr! I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Let’s do right by him: slit his throat first so he won’t suffer. One quick swipe, and it’s all over, eh?”
Such philanthropic sentimentality made Erast Fandorin feel quite ill, but dear, wonderful Mr. Morbid muttered discontentedly, “Oh, no, I’ll get my knife all bloody. And splatter blood on my sleeve. This young puppy’s caused enough trouble already. Never mind—he’ll croak anyway. If you’re so kindhearted, you strangle him with a piece of string—that’s your speciality—and meanwhile I’ll go and look for a lump of iron or something of the sort.”
His heavy footsteps receded, leaving Fandorin alone with the humanitarian Franz.
“I shouldn’t have tied any string ‘round the outside of the sack,” the latter mused thoughtfully. “I used it all up.”
Erast Fandorin lowed in approval—never mind, don’t worry about it, I’ll manage somehow.
“Eh, poor soul,” sighed Franz. “Listen to him groan. It fair breaks your heart. Okay, my lad, don’t you be frightened. Uncle Franz won’t begrudge you his belt.”
There was the sound of approaching steps.
“There you are, a piece of rail, the very thing,” boomed the butler. “Stick it in under the string. He won’t surface for a month at least.”
“Wait a moment. I’ll just slip this noose ‘round his neck.”
“Ah, to hell with all your mollycoddling! Time’s wasting—it’ll be dawn soon!”
“I’m sorry, son,” Franz said sympathetically. “Obviously that’s the way it’s meant to be. Das host du dir selbst verdanken.*”
They picked Erast Fandorin up again and began swinging him backward and forward.
“Azazel!” Franz cried out in a solemn, formal voice, and a second later the swaddled body plunged with a splash into the putrid water.
Fandorin felt neither the cold nor the oily weight of the water pressing down on him as he hacked through the soaking string with the stiletto. The most awkward part was freeing his right hand, but once it was loose, the job went swimmingly: one stroke and his left hand began assisting his right; another, and the sack was slashed from top to bottom; a third, and the heavy length of rail went plunging into the soft silt.
Now he just had to make certain not to surface too soon. Erast Fandorin pushed off with his legs, thrust his hands out in front of him, and groped about with them in the turbid water. Somewhere here, very close, there ought to be the supports that held up the pier. There—his fingers had come into contact with slippery, weed-covered timber. Quietly now, without hurrying, up along the pillar so there would be no splash, not a sound.
Under the wooden decking of the pier it was pitch-dark. Suddenly a round white blob was thrust up from the black, watery depths. Within this white circle a smaller dark one immediately took shape as Titular Counselor Fandorin greedily gulped in the air above the river. It smelled of decay and kerosene. It had the magical smell of life.
Meanwhile, up above on the pier, a leisurely conversation was in progress. Concealed below, Erast Fandorin could hear every word. He had sometimes reduced himself to sentimental tears by imagining the words with which friends and enemies would remember him, the hero who met an untimely end, by rehearsing the speeches that would be pronounced over the gaping pit of his grave. One might say that his entire youth had been spent in dreams of this kind. Imagine, then, the young man’s indignation when he heard what trivia formed the subject of the prattle between those who believed themselves his murderers! Not a word about the man over whose head the somber waters had only just closed! A man with a mind and a heart, with a noble soul and exalted aspirations!
“Oh,” sighed Franz, “I’ll pay for this little stroll with an attack of rheumatism. Feel how damp the air is. Well, what are we standing here for? Let’s go, eh?”
“It’s too soon.”
“Listen, what with all this running about I didn’t get any supper. What do you think—will they give us something to eat or think up some other job for us to do?”
“That’s not for us to worry our heads about. We’ll do whatever they tell us.”
“If I could just grab a nice piece of cold veal on the way. My stomach’s rumbling…Are we really going to uproot ourselves from the old familiar homestead? I’ve just settled in, got used to the place. What for? Everything worked out all right in the end.”
“She knows what for. If she’s given the order, there’s a reason.”
“That’s true enough. She doesn’t make mistakes. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her—I’d even shop my own dear old dad. That is, if I had one, of course. No mother would ever have done as much for us as she has.”
“That goes without saying…Right, that’s it. Let’s go.”
Erast Fandorin waited until the footsteps died away in the distance, counted to three hundred just to make sure, and only then began moving toward the shoreline.
When, after falling back several times, he finally hauled himself out with a great struggle onto the low but almost vertical parapet of the waterfront, the darkness was already beginning to melt away before the advancing dawn. The man who had failed to drown shuddered and shivered, his teeth chattered, and then he was seized by the hiccups as well. He must clearly have swallowed a lot of the putrid river water. But it was still wonderful to be alive. Erast Fandorin cast a loving glance across the wide expanse of the river (on the far side there were lights shining sweetly); smiled affectionately at the sheer solidity of a low, squat warehouse; gave his approval to the regular swaying of the tugboats and harbor launches lined up along the quayside. A blissful smile lit up the wet face of this man risen from the dead with a smear of fuel oil on his forehead. He stretched sweetly, and then froze motionless in that absurd pose—a low, agile silhouette had detached itself nimbly from the corner of the warehouse and begun scurrying toward him.
“What vile brutes they are, what villainous knaves,” the silhouette lamented in a thin voice clearly audible from a distance as it came toward him. “They can never be trusted to do anything—you always have to keep an eye on them. Where would you all be without Pyzhov, tell me that! You’d be as helpless as blind little kittens—you’d be done for.”
Fandorin dashed forward, overwhelmed by righteous fury. The traitor appeared to imagine that his Satanic apostasy had remained undiscovered.
However, a glimpse of the malevolent gleam of metal in the provincial secretary’s hand made Erast Fandorin first halt and then begin backing away.
“That’s a wise decision, my sweet strawberry,” Pyzhov said approvingly, and Fandorin saw what a catlike spring there was in his step. “You’re a sensible lad—I saw that straightaway. Do you know what it is I have here?” He waved his weapon in the air, and Fandorin saw a twin-barreled pistol of unusually large caliber. “A terrible thing. In the local criminal argot it is known as a smasher. Here, if you would care to take a look, is where you load the two little explosive bullets—the very ones forbidden by the St. Petersburg Convention of 1868. But criminals are genuine villains, my little Erast. What do they care for some philanthropic convention? And the bullet is explosive. Once it strikes the flesh, it unfolds its petals like a flower. It reduces flesh and bone to a bloody mush. So just you take it easy, my little darling, don’t go getting twitchy. If I’m startled I might just fire, then afterward I wouldn’t be able to live with what I’d done, I’d feel so guilty. It really is excruciatingly painful if it hits you in the belly or anywhere else around that area.”