Erast Petrovich began drawing on the table with his finger.
‘We made ready yesterday at dawn. This (he put down the breadbin) is the monastery. Here (he positioned the salt cellar beside it) we have the tomb. There is wasteland all around, and there is a pond here. (He splashed a little tea onto the oilcloth.) In short, there is noway to approach unnoticed. We have positioned men in disguise around the spot at a considerable distance but not made any attempt to go inside.’
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘The point is, Ziukin, that since the Time of Troubles all the ground around the Novodevichy Convent has been riddled with underground passages. It was besieged by the Poles and then the False Dmitry, and later the Streltsy dug under it to free theTsarina Sophia from captivity. I am sure that Lind, being the highly prudent and cautious individual that he is, chose this spot for a good reason. There must be a line of retreat – that is always his tactic. And so I decided to take a different approach.’
He knitted his brows and sighed.
‘The delivery of the stone was set for five o’clock yesterday, since the coronation was due to conclude at two. Immediately after the ceremony the Orlov was removed from the sceptre—’
‘Permission was given for the exchange?’ I exclaimed. ‘So she was wrong, and they decided to save Mikhail Georgievich after all!’
‘Who is she?’ Fandorin asked, but he could see from my face that therewould be no answer, and he continued: ‘Iwas entrusted with the Orlov on one condition. I gave a guarantee that Lind would not keep the stone under any circumstances. Not under any circumstances,’ he repeated significantly.
I nodded. ‘That is, if a choice has to be made between the life of His Highness and the diamond . . .’
‘Precisely so.’
‘But how can we be sure that the doctor will not manage to keep the Orlov? Howwill Mademoiselle Declique be able to stop him? And then, you said yourself that there are underground passages . . .’
‘I set one condition for Lind, which Emilie communicated to him the day before yesterday. Since we are not dealing with any ordinary jewel here but a holy relic, the d-diamond cannot be entrusted to a weak woman. The governess was to be accompanied by an escort. One man, unarmed, so that Lind need not fear an attack . . .’
‘And who was this escort?’
‘I was,’ Fandorin said ruefully. ‘It was good idea, don’t you think?’
‘And what happened?’
‘It didn’t work. I disguised myself as an old stooped footman but clearly not carefully enough. Emilie and I waited for more than an hour in the cathedral. No one approached us. And yet the day before yesterday, when she was alone, there were no difficulties: another note, a closed carriage in one of the side streets nearby and so on. Yesterday we waited until a quarter past six and came back with nothing for our pains.’
‘Surely Lind could not have abandoned the exchange?’ I asked in a dismal voice.
‘Indeed not. Therewas a letterwaiting for us at the Hermitage, delivered in the same manner as before, by the postman but without any stamp. Here, read it, especially since it concerns you directly.’
I cautiously took the sheet of paper, which gave off a faint aroma of scent.
‘The Earl of Essex?’ I asked.
‘In person. B-but read it, read it.’
‘I have decided to make the Romanov dynasty a generous gift on the occasion of the coronation . . .’ I read the first sentence in French and everything began swimming in front of my eyes. Could it really be?
But no, my joy was premature. I batted my eyelids to disperse the haze and read the note through to the end:
I have decided to make the Romanov dynasty a generous gift on the occasion of the coronation. A gift that is worth a million, for that is the sum agreed as one day’s payment for the Orlov, which I have kindly loaned to the Russian monarchy. And so you may keep the stone for one more day, entirely without charge. After all, it would be impolite of me, to say the least, to cast a shadow over your day of celebration.
We will complete our little transaction tomorrow. The governess must be in the cathedral at seven o’clock in the evening. I understand your reluctance to entrust such a valuable treasure to this woman, and I have no objections to a single escort. However, it must be someone I know, that is Monsieur Doggy Sideburns.
Yours sincerely,
Doctor Lind
My heart began beating faster and faster.
‘So this is why you are telling me all this?’
‘Yes,’ said Fandorin, looking into my eyes. ‘Afanasii Stepanovich, I need to ask you to take part in this dangerous business. You are not a police agent or a member of the armed services; you are not obliged to risk your life to p-protect the interests of the state, but circumstances have determined that without your help—’
‘I agree,’ I said, interrupting him.
At that moment I did not feel afraid at all. I was thinking of only one thing: Emilie and I would be together. I think it was the first time that I had thought of Mademoiselle by her first name.
There was a brief pause, and then Erast Petrovich got to his feet.
‘Then get some rest, you look tired. Be in the d-drawing room at ten o’clock. I’ll give you and Emilie a briefing.’
The late sun had warmed the velvet curtains, and there was a distinct smell of dust in the shaded drawing room. Velvet is always a problem – it is in the nature of the materiaclass="underline" if it is left hanging for years without being washed regularly, as it had been here in the Hermitage, you simply cannot completely get rid of the dust that has eaten into it. I made a mental note to have the curtains changed that very day. Provided, of course, that I came back from the operation alive.
The success of the proposed undertaking appeared highly doubtful to me. At this last meeting – I had to assume that it was indeed the very last – only those directly involved in the operation were present: Mademoiselle and I, Mr Fandorin and the two colonels, Karnovich and Lasovsky, who were as meek as lambs and as quiet as mice, and listened to Erast Petrovich with emphatic respect, which may have been genuine or false, I do not know.
The plan of the area between the Novodevichy Convent and the Novodevichy Embankment that was laid out on the table had been carefully drawn, not like that morning’s demonstration on the oilcloth. Cross-hatched circles marked the positions of the secret sentries who surrounded the wasteland on all sides: the senior agent (Fandorin gave his name – Kuzyakin) in a hollow in an old oak tree on the corner of Vselensky Square; six ‘attendants’ in the dormitory of the children’s clinic that had windows overlooking the pond; eleven ‘monks’ on the wall of the convent; seven ‘boatmen’ and ‘buoy keepers’ on the river; one man disguised as a female street trader on the turn-off from Pogodinskaya Street; three ‘beggars’ at the gates of the convent; two ‘fishermen’ by the pond, the closest of all. The total number of agents in the first ring of the cordon was thirty-one.
‘The exchangemust take place as follows,’ Fandorin explained after he had indicated the positions of the sentry posts. ‘The two of you will be led to the chapel and taken inside. You will demand that your blindfolds be removed. The doctor’s own jeweller is bound to be there. You will give him the Orlov to examine and then take it back. Then Mademoiselle Declique will go down into the vault and collect the boy. When the boy is brought out to you, you hand over the stone. At that point, Ziukin, your mission is over.’