“Open up, Cunningham,” Fandorin’s chief said in a loud voice. “I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.”
“Is that you, Brilling?” the Englishman asked in surprise. “What’s the matter?”
“An emergency at the club. I must warn you about it.”
“Just a moment, I’ll come down. It’s my manservant’s day off.” And the head disappeared.
“Aha,” whispered Fandorin. “He got rid of his servant deliberately. He’s probably sitting there with the papers!”
Brilling nervously rapped on the door with his knuckles. Cunningham seemed to be taking his time.
“Will he not make a run for it?” Erast Fandorin asked in panic.
“Through the rear door, eh? Perhaps I should run ‘round the house and stand on that side?”
Just then, however, they heard the sound of steps from inside and the door opened.
Cunningham stood in the doorway in a long dressing gown. His piercing green eyes rested for a moment on Fandorin’s face, and his eyelids trembled almost imperceptibly. He had recognized him!
“What’s happening?” the Englishman asked guardedly in his own language.
“Let’s go into the study,” Brilling answered in Russian. “It’s very important.”
Cunningham hesitated for a second, then gestured for them to follow him.
After climbing an oak staircase, the host and his uninvited guests found themselves in a room that was furnished richly but clearly not for leisure. The walls were covered from end to end with shelves holding books and some kind of files. Over by the window, beside an immense writing desk of Karelian birch, there was a rack holding drawers, each of which was adorned with a gold label.
However, Erast Fandorin’s interest was not drawn to the drawers (Cunningham would not store secret documents in open view), but by the papers lying on the desk, where they had been hastily covered by a fresh copy of the Stock Exchange Gazette.
Ivan Brilling was evidently thinking along the same lines. He crossed the study and positioned himself beside the desk, standing with his back to the open window with the low sill. The evening breeze gently ruffled the lace curtain.
Grasping the significance of his chief’s maneuver, Fandorin remained standing by the door. Now there was nowhere for Cunningham to go.
The Englishman seemed to suspect that something was wrong.
“You are behaving rather oddly, Brilling,” he said in faultless Russian. “And why is this person here? I’ve seen him before—he’s a policeman.”
Ivan Franzevich Brilling glared sullenly at Cunningham, keeping his hands in the pockets of his wide frock coat.
“Yes, he is a policeman. And in a minute or two there will be a lot of policemen here, and so I have no time for explanations.”
The young detective saw his chief’s right hand come darting out of his pocket holding Fandorin’s Smith & Wesson, but he had no time to register surprise. He pulled out his own gun. Things were beginning to move now!
“Don’t!” the Englishman cried out, throwing his hands up in the air, and that very instant there was a thunderous shot.
Cunningham was thrown over backward. Erast Fandorin gazed in amazement at the green eyes staring as if they were still alive and the neat dark hole in the middle of the forehead.
“My God, chief, why?”
He turned toward the window. The black mouth of the barrel was staring straight at him.
“You killed him,” Brilling stated in a strange, unnatural voice. “You’re too good a detective. And, therefore, my young friend, I shall be obliged to kill you, which I sincerely regret.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
in which the narrative takes a sharp change of direction
TOTALLY BEMUSED, POOR ERAST FANDORIN took a few steps forward.
“Stop!” his chief barked out furiously. “And stop waving that gun around—it isn’t loaded. You might at least have taken the trouble to glance into the cylinder! Why must you be so trusting, damn you! You can never trust anyone but yourself!”
Brilling took an identical Herstal out of his left pocket and dropped the smoking Smith & Wesson on the floor at Fandorin’s feet.
“My gun here is fully loaded, as you will learn soon enough,” Ivan Brilling babbled feverishly, becoming more and more agitated with every word. “I shall place it in the hand of the unfortunate Cunningham here, and it will be obvious that you killed each other in an exchange of fire. You will be guaranteed an honorable funeral with heartfelt speeches of farewell. I know that means a lot to you. And stop looking at me like that, you damned greenhorn!”
Fandorin realized with horror that his chief was absolutely crazy, and in a desperate attempt to awaken Brilling’s suddenly clouded reason he shouted, “Chief, it’s me, Fandorin! Ivan Franzevich Brilling! State counselor!”
“Full state counselor,” said Brilling with a crooked smile. “You’re behind the times, Fandorin. The emperor’s decree was promulgated on the seventh of June. For a successful operation to disarm the terrorist organization Azazel. So you may address me as Your Excellency.”
Brilling’s dark silhouette against the window looked as if it had been cut out with scissors and pasted on gray paper. Dehind his back the dead branches of the dry elm radiated in all directions, forming a sinister spiderweb. A line from a childish jingle ran through Fandorin’s head: “ “Will you step into my parlor,” said the spider to the fly.”
Brilling’s face suddenly contorted agonizingly, and Fandorin realized that his chief had hardened his heart sufficiently and now he could fire at any moment. Out of nowhere a thought suddenly came to him, shattering instantly into a string of brief thought particles: the safety catch had to be off, otherwise you couldn’t fire it, that meant half a second or a quarter of a second, not enough time, not nearly enough…
Erast Fandorin squeezed his eyes tight shut and with a bloodcurdling howl he flung himself forward, aiming his head at his chief’s chin. They were no more than five paces apart. Fandorin did not hear the click of the safety catch, but the shot thundered past him into the ceiling, as Brilling and Fandorin went flying over the windowsill together and tumbled out the window.
Fandorin’s chest collided with the trunk of the dry elm and he went crashing downward, breaking off branches and scraping his face as he fell. The stunning impact when he struck the ground almost made him lose consciousness, but his keen instinct for survival would not allow it. Erast Fandorin raised himself up on all fours, glaring around like a madman.
His chief was nowhere to be seen, but his small black Herstal was lying beside the wall. Fandorin, still on all fours, pounced like a cat, grabbed the gun, and began turning his head in all directions.
But Brilling had disappeared.
Fandorin only thought to look up when he heard the strained, wheezing sound.
Ivan Franzevich Brilling was dangling in the air in an awkward and unnatural position. His polished gaiters were twitching a little above Fandorin’s head. Protruding from just below his Cross of St. Vladimir, where a crimson stain was creeping across his starched white shirt, was the sharp stump of a broken branch that had pierced the newly created general right through. The most terrible thing of all was that the lucid gaze of his eyes was fixed on Erast Fandorin.
“Horrible,” his chief pronounced distinctly, wincing either in pain or disgust. “Horrible…” And then in a hoarse, unrecognizable voice he gasped out: “A-za-zel.”
An icy tremor ran through Fandorin’s body, but Brilling continued gasping for about half a minute before finally falling silent.
As if this were some agreed-on signal, there was a clattering of hooves and clanging of wheels from around the corner. The gendarmes had arrived in their droshkies.