Prologue

"Am I being p-punished?  Have I displeased you?"

"My dear fellow, you are not being punished."

"Radespeller is out there.  You c-can't expect me to lie here and do nothing!"

"Erast Petrovich," Prince Dolgorukoi scolded tenderly.  "Calm yourself.  If the doctor hears you shouting, he will make me leave.  Even me."

"Is there no way I can redeem m-myself to you?"

Fandorin was in no mood to be shushed.   He would rather do anything than lie still and be quiet.  His usually-pale and implacably-serene face was pink with internal warmth and scrunched up in frustration.   Known as a young man who took such pride in his personal appearance, he was at present half-wet, ruffled, uncombed, and—it must be said—lacking the usual appropriate coverings.  The prince didn't take offense, considering the rocky night that Fandorin had had.    Because Erast Petrovich had time and time again proven himself useful and loyal to his master, Dolgorukoi  wanted to mollify his favorite, and he was willing to forgive if Mr. Fandorin was not himself at the moment.  

As the prince had predicted, the bedroom door swung open, and a menacing form in gray approached the bed.   Another form in black paced in the round hallway, peering long and hard into the room in undisguised curiosity and concern.  

"Your Excellency," the doctor huffed.  "I must protest.  A fevered mind needs calm and quiet.   You must not excite him.  You could provoke more seizures."

"You c-cannot k-keep me here against my will," Fandorin stated, attempting to rise from the rumpled bed with as much dignity as he could manage with his brain swimming.   The maid Lyubov, who had been beside him since he awakened minutes ago, took his hand and reasoned with him, coaxing him to remain where he was.   Fandorin heeded the maid's quiet words, and gratitude showed on his face.   It had also probably occurred to Erast that he was still entirely naked, and getting out of bed would mean perhaps more freedom than he actually wanted right this second. 

If Lyubov had not convinced him,  the doctor's two assistants, who appeared as if by means of witchcraft, would have been all too happy to have wrestled him back down to the mattress.   Even though he'd only been awake a few minutes at best, Erast was certain he didn't want to tangle with those two again.  Flashes went through his feverish mind of struggling with these evil spirits in the night, fighting for his life against them before a sweet draught was poured down his throat. 

He assumed the concoction he had been forced to drink had been laudanum.  He spotted the engraved silver cup that sat on the side table to his left, with its delicate 'E-K' scrolled on the sides.  So the Baroness had been here, he decided glumly.  The laudanum must have quieted Fandorin to a manageable discontent, but it had left him victim to his horrid, painful dreams.  Erast had no wish to return to that realm.   The maid spoke into his ear while he watched the medical personnel warily.   No one could hear what she said, but Erast obeyed her meekly. 

"Mr. Fandorin, I will keep you in that bed as long as is necessary to save your life," the doctor was threatening, opening his bag and searching around.  A cold chill prickled Erast's skin when he spotted the syringes and ampoules.   He didn't want whatever was in those tiny glass vessels creeping through his veins. 

"That's enough," the prince interceded, pointing the doctor and his minions away from Fandorin's bed.   The doctor retreated, and the orderlies left by means of the open door, because flying back out the window would have been far too suspicious.   The maid remained where she was, and Dolgorukoi was obliged to speak over her to address Fandorin. 

"Lie back, dear boy," Dolgorukoi intoned.  "Other agents are on the case.  Radespeller will not slip out of Moscow.   You have nothing to worry about," the old man soothed. 

Utterly defeated, Fandorin began to shrink slightly.  He glanced up nervously when Frol Grigorievich Vedishchev, Prince Dolgorukoi's most trusted valet, entered the bedroom, coming from the bathroom.  The stern valet brought a fresh bowl of ice and water, and a delicately-embroidered handkerchief.  He handed the implements to the maid, who wet the handkerchief and dabbed Fandorin's pink features.    

"Are you're putting K-Kirnov in charge?" Fandorin questioned, his blue eyes narrowing jealously at the doorway where the figure in black was hovering.   That could be the only explanation for Kirnov's presence in the hallway.  The idea that someone else had taken over his case really deflated Fandorin.   He faded back to his pillows, closing his eyes to hide his dismay as well as he could.   Lyubov washed his face and neck, then folded the cloth on his forehead.  He clumsily put a hand on the cloth, enjoying the trickle of cold water down over his scalp and face. 

"I must ask you to leave, Your Excellency.  I do apologize," the doctor entreated Dolgorukoi with a low and  sufficiently-submissive bow.  "I'm terribly concerned you're going to stress him and cause his seizures to return.  The patient must rest."

"Yes.  You're right, of course," the prince agreed.  He caught Fandorin's miserable eyes in his paternal gaze.  "Erast Petrovich, will you listen to me?" 

Fandorin nodded, unable to make any other sound yet.   He could have willingly sobbed his heart out if he had been alone, but he would not make such a display of himself in front of so many people.  God only knew what a spectacle he had been last night. 

"I do implore you," the prince continued.  "If not for yourself, think of me.  What would I do without you?"

Fandorin sighed woefully.  He was giving in, but he didn't have to be happy about it.  In fact, he was doing all he could to silently convey his extreme displeasure. 

"Do not despair.  I will see if I can devise some amusements for you," the Governor-General promised. 

Fandorin made a scornful face, which only brought a chuckle out of Dolgorukoi.    To distract him, the maid lifted his other hand and held it in the bowl of cold water.   Fandorin's features softened very dramatically— his brow smoothed and his mouth unclenched.  Lyubov fished a sliver of ice from the bowl and tenderly lifted it to his lips.    

"We should put you back in the bath, Mr. Erast.  You are too warm yet," the maid whispered to him as he crunched and swallowed the ice crystals.  The prince and his valet exchanged a knowing smirk.  Dolgorukoi held onto the maid's shoulders to keep his balance as he loomed over his beloved favorite and addressed both maid and man at once.

"Splendid idea, Lyubov.  We will leave him in your capable hands.   Don't worry, Erast Petrovich.  I won't let you languish too long.  Only until you are yourself again."

Chapter One– In Which Luck Is Anything But A Lady

Sunday afternoon, one day previous

"Stop!"

That Radespeller had heard Erast Fandorin's frantic shouting in the crowded park was one thing.  That the notorious criminal pulled himself to a halt, and turned to face the Deputy of Special Assignments was quite another.  It was remarkable.  It was terrifying.  It was thrilling.  Erast couldn't help the relief that flooded his features as he slowed his own pace.  He was panting, holding his weapon out at arm's length as he crept up to his equally-winded prey.  The last thing he wanted was to have to run through innocent bystanders waving a gun and causing panic and mayhem.  It appeared his mark was of like mind. 

"Put your hands in the air, if you please, sir."

Nine fingers rode the slick sides of Radespeller's sweaty, ruddy face and laced through his short, dirty blond locks.   Exactly as Erast had heard- part of the index finger was missing from the bomb-maker's left hand.   So, that bullet in Warsaw had hit home after all?  He glared at Fandorin, but he obeyed.   Sixteen dead and thirty-seven wounded in blasts from Krakow to Moscow.   Radespeller had left death and destruction all along his wake.  Months spent tracking this fugitive radical were coming to a head, right here in Moscow where it had all begun.  Fandorin couldn't let Radespeller get away this time.   Their eyes locked—blue into blue, hunter and hunted.  Fandorin kept his weapon leveled as he approached more slowly for the last two feet.  Ever cautious, the hunter. 

"Martin Radespeller, you are- - -"

Erast Petrovich never got to finish his sentence.   His words were swallowed by a woman shouting off to his right.  He wouldn't have glanced that direction, but she was expelling the most shocking English words he had ever heard from a lady's mouth in any language, and he was familiar with several.

"OH FUCK!  GODDAMN IT!  LOOK OUT!!"

Fandorin heard horse hooves thundering towards him.  For a split second, there was a whistling noise.  It was not exactly the sound of a bullet coming through the air, but something rather like it.    He experienced a sudden, nasty stab in the upper part of his right arm.  Both clothing and skin were pierced. 

"Oh, God!  Oh, God!" the horrified woman kept repeating. 

There was a thing hanging out of Erast's shoulder.   He could not tear his eyes off of the inch long dart.  Blood was beginning to trickle down his sleeve inside his clothes.    Was it an angry bee?  A gigantic bug?  It had wild, luminous appendages like a bird, but the feathers were twisted with wire or string.   No bird could have flown of its own accord with its wings tied so tightly to its body.  All Erast could do is stare at the unnatural creature hanging out of him.  His arm went limp, his gun dropped.  It misfired into the crowd.  People were screaming and running.  Erast was holding his tingling arm, turning dizzily to the right and forward again.  He could not believe this was happening! 

A black horse in ceremonial parade regalia came pounding across the grassy greens.  With incredible ease, the beautiful mare leapt a three foot wall separating the parklands from the sidewalk.  The rider leapt with the horse but came unseated in flight and landed in unison with the beast on the cobblestones.   Together they were like a fearsome six-legged creature to Fandorin's blurry, hazy mind. 

The horse's golden face plate caught the sunlight and her feathered plumage danced in the stiff breeze.  Beyond those wild red feathers, Radespeller was vanishing into the fleeing crowd.  The horse's rider, a frightening Valkyrie in a midnight dark cloak and men's trousers, whirled around Fandorin in helpless horror for a second before deciding what to do.  With her left hand, she grabbed for his right shoulder as he was going down.   Unfortunately, it was the last place she should have gripped, as doing so rammed the loose dart back into his flesh.  Erast struck his knees against the cobblestones and shouted agony to the four winds.

"Oh, God!"  the woman kept exclaiming over and over in English.   She dropped a carved wooden pipe from her right hand (bamboo?  cane?  hollow reed of some sort?) and it clattered to the stones with a melodic sound.  A pair of arms caught Fandorin around the waist as he swayed forward.     

"I'm so sorry," the Valkyrie insisted, her hot breath suddenly against his cheek.  

The strange woman's fingers clutched through Erast's hair and eased his head back against the sidewalk.   She wrenched the dart from his arm, and it tore but a pin-prick of flesh as it gave way.   That had been deceptively easy.   Just a moment of pain and all was over?  Oh, no.  Erast was sure that had been too simple, and he was right.  Once the projectile was removed, air hit the tiny wound, and the pain that bloomed struck him motionless.   His ears were ringing in waves and echoes.  He was surprised to find he had a very strange, sweet taste in his mouth. 

Mounds of dark hair suddenly fell into Erast's face unannounced, washing him with the scent of lavender.  The Valkyrie was kneeling over his thighs, with her trousers tight as skin.  She was pressing their bodies together in a most forward fashion, trying to hold him down and at the same time keep him partially-upright.  Her nimble fingers were undoing his frock coat and his shirt with alarming speed.  He moved his mouth and searched for words that might stop her.  This was really quite indecent of her!  She savagely yanked his jacket and shirt away from his shoulder and arm and part of his chest, and then with one hand around his arm and the other holding him firmly by the back of the neck, she put her mouth over his wound and sucked prodigiously.  Turning to one side, she expelled blood and spit on the cobblestones, and repeated the process twice again before wiping her bloody mouth with a nauseous grimace.   He managed to get his left hand tangled in her mane of hair.

"S-s-stop," he gasped, tugging hard at her hair. 

"I'm so sorry," she whispered in his ear, untangling his fingers from her ebony locks and tenderly kissing his hand before putting it aside.  Erast could speak no words in reply.  His chest wouldn't rise.  He was impaled with pins and needles when he tried to fill his lungs.   Had she broken one of his ribs with this excessive roughness?  He had never been so manhandled in all his life.  Not even the Turks had been so harsh with him! 

Kirnov had warned Fandorin only last night that Radespeller was in league with the Dark One himself, and at the time,  the younger man had dismissed these ravings as too much hard work and not enough sleep.  The next time Maximillian Pavlovich warned him about supernatural forces at work, Erast would heed his words.  For here was proof!  The she-devil, her mouth stained with his blood, was pressing her lips over Fandorin's, expelling her breath into his mouth.  He tasted his own blood on her lips, and blacked out from the shock of it all!

Seconds later, he awoke again with a full gasp.   This was just too much.  She was pressing their mouths together again.   Did she mean to mount and take him right here in the park?  How appalling!  Her horse whinnied and trampled and stamped around next to them.   It was indeed a ceremonial beast only, it would seem, and one not accustomed to chaos and mayhem.  And who could blame the animal?  People were behaving strangely, shouting and screaming and running and shooting.    Stars and blackness warred in Fandorin's head as the woman's face reappeared briefly.

"That's it!  Deep breaths!  That's it!" 

She hugged him against herself, patting him hard on the back.  Lavender overwhelmed him again.  His skull exploded with pain as she screamed towards the parklands.

"Cecilia!  Cecilia!  Get Uncle!!" She ran the back of her glove over her tongue and spit onto the ground again.   Fandorin groaned in pain as the cobblestones pummeled him in the back.   He was lying down again, was he??   Another pair of feet appeared at his head.

"Oh, look!  Heddy's winged one.  First prey of the day, old girl!"

"Do shut up, Ivy."

"Shall I fetch the doctor?"

"Yes, why don't you make yourself useful?"

"Maybe I won't then, if you're going to talk to me like that."

"Spiteful little beast!"

The night-cloaked Valkyrie rose up off of Fandorin and whirled away.  Her cloak created a temporary penumbra as she turned, presumably to take the reigns of her terrified horse before the animal could land her dangerous hooves on Erast and finish him entirely.   Sunlight and air were flooding over Fandorin.  As the woman struggled with the horse, Erast Petrovich was losing his battle with disorientation. 

Where had the woman in black gone?   He heard the small boots clicking on the cobblestones above his head.   A blonde girl in her early teens peered down over him, smiling most unkindly.  Fandorin was concerned she might want to kick him in the skull with her pointed footwear.   She actually was standing on part of his hair.   He had long enough to register annoyance, and a second later, he was blessedly unconscious.

Erast had a flash of terrifying consciousness a short time later.  Someone had entirely removed his shirt and jacket.  He was lying bare-chested on a dining-room table.  An ornate candelabra lay within arm's reach.  A crowd of people were gathered in the nearby doorway—Russian faces watching him but holding back out of fear.    A figure in black with gray hair was screaming his lungs out at the policemen gathered a short distance away on the porch beyond the open front door.  This whole situation of being laid out on a table was rather too like being the corpse in the police medical examiner's office, and Fandorin started to shiver in spite of himself.    

"A terrific specimen, Harriett!  You are to be commended."

"Uncle, where is that doctor!?  What did you tell him?"

"He's five minutes away.  I told him you'd accidently winged a young man with your blow gun, and could he swing round and check the fellow over.  You did a fine job of taking most of the poison out of his wound already.  Quick thinking there, my dear!  Don't worry.  Any idea who the young man is?"

"Not a clue.  My tongue is tingling.  It's a little swollen too," she said fearfully.

"Those sensations should wear off soon, provided you don't have an allergic reaction to the venom.   Are your ears ringing?  Are you feverish?"

"No."

"Nothing to worry about.  Have another bolt of whiskey.  You'll be fine."

The woman who had 'winged' Fandorin exclaimed in surprise when she saw that Erast's eyes were open.  He was regarding her with a stare that managed to convey both malevolence and fright. 

"Don't go to sleep!" the woman pleaded, first in English and then she tried to repeat it in broken Russian.  It was too late though.  Erast had already surrendered himself back to the darkness.  He went under consumed by the terrible notion that he might be drooling.  One word fell from his lips.   Heddy pulled back from him, confused.

"He believe he called me impolite," she frowned. 

Chapter Two – In Which Fandorin Has a Rude Awakening

Monday morning

Light from an unusual source woke Erast Petrovich in the early morning.   Someone was tickling his nose, and this someone had a feathery tail.  A long-haired gray cat was peering down into his face while standing in the middle of his naked chest.  Her green eyes were illuminated by the first rays of the rising sun outside his window.

It occurred to Fandorin that he did not own cat.

He wondered why Masa had moved his bed under the windows this way.   He called softly for his valet, but the scoundrel did not answer. 

Where in Hell was Erast Petrovich?  He let his eyes focus on the door twenty feet away from the gigantic bed.  The open portal led out into a round (perhaps pentagonal) hallway.   A man in gray with a grave, pinched face was pacing around the space, discussing matters with a priest in black, who shook his head in dismay. 

Who had sent for a priest?  Erast wondered what was going on as he tested his limbs and the malleable, smooth surface below himself.   A very expensive bed was growing damp and sticky from his sweat.  The gray cat walked across his chest and tried to settle beside his head on his pillow.  She was purring in his ear and licking his salty cheek.   

"Bad Koshka.  Leave him be."

A young woman's voice came to life from right beside Fandorin.   He nearly leapt out of his skin.   A pair of slender hands lifted the feline up and out of the way, putting her tenderly on the floor. 

"Mr. Erast is awake?  Praise be to God."

He knew that voice.  Her Russian was spoken with a hint of Romani flavor to it.      Whoever she was, Erast Petrovich wanted to disagree with her, because there was clearly no reason to be praising anyone at this early stage, not until he decided where he stood.  He felt soaked to the skin with sweat, and his body hurt from head to toe.  His joints.  His limbs.  Every inch of his body hurt. Especially his head.  His mouth felt as if he'd been wearing a horse's bit.  He recalled having a piece of metal crammed between his teeth several times in the night.  His mysterious angel relit a prayer candle beside the bed, and in doing so, pressed her body against him, pinning his right arm to the mattress.  Explosions of pain whipped through his brain and his arm both. 

"The doctor tried to give you morphine," the young woman whispered confidentially, smoothing one of his grayed temples and studying him from seriously-close range.  The question gnawed at him—where did he know her voice from?  He focused on her shadowy face, her Romani nose, her light-brown skin, her striking black eyes.   Russian, Gypsy, French.   He knew he could trust her implicitly, but he couldn't remember why.  The maid disappeared before he could place who she was.  Upon her return, she put a cold handkerchief on his forehead, and touched his lips with a piece of ice.  He pulled the sweet coldness into his mouth, softly whispering his thanks. 

"You're welcome.  It was horrible.  You were shaking, rolling your eyes, screaming.   I've never in my life heard such sounds from you.  The policemen were all standing around, crossing themselves, trying to decide what to do.  I swear to you, I was terrified for your mortal soul.  The doctor wanted to put you under with morphine.  But the Baron told him he'd have him executed if he harmed you," the young woman reported, washing his face and peering down into his eyes to see if he was following a word of what was coming out of her mouth.  "I promised myself if that sorcerer hurt you, I would curse him, make his soul wander in torment for the rest of eternity.   Then I begged God for forgiveness for my unchristian anger.   I prayed to Mary to watch over you, even lit a candle, do you see?  Then I remembered, you have Fortune on your side, don't you, pretty one?  Laudanum, I told them.  Give you small doses, I told them.  Just like the Mistress does when you are melancholy and cannot sleep."

Yes, yes, of course!  Fandorin put up a smile, so very proud of himself.  It was Lyubov, one of Baroness von Evert-Kolokolstev's maids.   As soon as it appeared, though, his smile fell away.  Lyubov did not drive a carriage and horses all the way from the estate on Malaya Nikitskaya Street by herself.   Because Lyubov was here (wherever here was) that meant that the Baron and possibly also the Baroness had been here as well, while Fandorin was screaming, shaking, rolling his eyes, and while the policemen were standing around crossing themselves and worrying what to do.    Or perhaps they had heard about the she-devil in the park that had laid hands upon Fandorin after shooting him in the arm with a fiendish dart.   Erast wondered what Lyubov would make of the Valkyrie who had prevented him from arresting Radespeller.

It hit Fandorin then.  As he lay there half naked and physically-fatigued, with no idea where he was, a nasty realization rose up in his mind like a terrible spectre.  How much time had passed?  Had Radespeller escaped yet again?  Was there any chance of finding a trail?  Had he lost three months' worth of effort?

Having heard the gypsy maid's voice, and having surmised that his patient had come around, the doctor from the hallway came into the room on hurried feet.   Irrationally, Fandorin felt afraid of the touch of the man.   The grim gray shadow tested Mr. Fandorin's pulse by lifting his wrist.  Without addressing Erast whatsoever, he spoke across the distance of the room towards the dismayed priest.  Erast knew that priest.  Why did he know that priest?

"Send word to the Prince that our patient is awake.  Send word to the Baron as well."

The priest raced down the stairs.  Fandorin blinked at the doctor and frowned, pulling his hand away.  Lyubov swallowed a chuckle, whispering a warning in French into his ear. 

"Stop giving him the evil eye, Mr. Erast, or he's going to bring out the morphine again."

Lyubov slid another sliver of ice between Erast's lips, caressing his cheek gently.   The steps creaked as the priest returned on fast feet.   The doctor crept closer, amplifying his creepiness by several degrees. 

"I'm Doctor Fedorov?  Do you remember me?"

Fandorin shook his head no, wondering why the medical man was speaking in such a loud voice.  The doctor continued, increasing his volume.

"You have had an allergic reaction to a venom that was introduced into your system.  Do you remember that?"

"Mother of God, Doctor.  He's not deaf," the priest said, coming round to the end of the bed and locking eyes with the patient.   "Neither is he stupid.  If you give him a few minutes to gather his senses, perhaps you will get further with your questioning."

If there was anyone who understood correct interrogation techniques, it was this priest.  Or rather, this man wearing a priest's vestments.    He was Maximillian Pavlovich Kirnov, another of Prince Dolgorukoi's favorites.   If Fandorin was the Prince's creature of the daylight, his bright and shining knight of excellent example, then Kirnov was the Prince's creature of the night-time, the master and ruler of all the shadows.    Where Fandorin did not stoop to get his hands dirty, Kirnov's were rarely clean.  Kirnov could extract the truth of a case out of any criminal without so much as raising his voice, and he was exceptionally keen when it came to tracking.  At the request of the prince himself, Fandorin had been working with Kirnov to bring an end to the Radespeller case.   Erast Petrovich wasn't sure he could like Kirnov, but he was sure he trusted the man.   When he was sober, Kirnov was careful.  He was thorough.  He was always obedient to Dolgorukoi.   Luckily, he was usually sober.  

But on those rare nights when Maximillian Pavlovich picked up a bottle and didn't put it down again, his talk would turn from criminals and nihilists to renegade demons, from mortal remains to immortal souls.   He was wracked with guilt, obsessed with God's displeasure, and steeped in a kind of fearful mysticism about the supernatural that was half fascination and half revulsion.  On more than one occasion, he had made Fandorin's very flesh crawl, particularly when they were alone together in the shadows, keeping watch on Radespeller, and trying to keep themselves awake and safe during the endless nights to which this case had subjected them. 

'I see their eyes in the darkness,' Kirnov had once confessed drunkenly, speaking of the demons he was certain followed him everywhere he went.   'I'm afraid of what I'll do if they ever catch up to me.' 

Having easily spotted a fellow wounded soul, Erast wondered what horrors lay unburied in the wake of Kirnov's life.  Fandorin had never had the temerity to ask him.  No one had been forthcoming with details, but more than one person had crossed themselves when Erast had asked, up to and including Prince Dolgorukoi himself.  It must be very bad indeed. 

From the beginning of their acquaintance, Kirnov had pushed Erast away and kept him there at a safe distance with his cold, sharp sense of humor.  About him, only the physical facts could be relayed with any certainty.  Kirnov was fifteen years old than Fandorin, but in good shape for forty-five.  He had a stocky, solid build, but he was nearly as tall as Fandorin was.  Depending on his emotional state of mind, his hair could be gray, blond, red, brown, or a mixture of all four.   He colored it when the mood suited him, and no doubt the varying shades were achieved by chance during the times when his melancholy, penitent moods would not allow such earthly vanity as the dying of the hair.  This morning, his hair was shaded entirely gray.  His sleep-deprived, bloodshot eyes were like broken pieces of green bottle glass tucked inside red bruises on his face.   Kirnov wasn't a handsome man to behold these days, but once upon a time, Fandorin could imagine he had been.   In the proper light, with that voice as deep and smooth as a lover's touch, Kirnov could make himself very desirable indeed.  

"Don't be alarmed, Erast Petrovich.  He is merely testing your memory to see if the venom affected your brain.  If I were a doctor, I'd be more worried about your body temperature remaining above normal for such a long period of time.  Perhaps a hot bath would help?"

"A cool bath would be better," Lyubov interjected.    Erast would have hugged her if he thought his limbs could move. 

Minutes later, Fandorin was immersed in a refreshingly-chilly claw-foot paradise, with clean, clear lovely water and random chunks of ice lapping all over his body.   He felt delicious, like a very large frozen cocktail.  Lyubov had helped him out of the bed and out of what remained of his clothes and into the tub (not his own tub—was no one going to tell him where he was?)  For modesty's sake, she draped a sheet over the creamy length of porcelain, leaving barely enough space at one end for him to prop his neck and head against the edge.   Once his ears stopped ringing and his body started cooling, and his brain wasn't spinning in too many circles, Erast tried to assess his own condition.  It wasn't as if anyone around him was altogether forthcoming with what the hell had occurred.

Fandorin's right arm was stiff and hard to bend.  The place where the dart (it had been a dart, hadn't it?) had pierced his skin was sensitive to any pressure.  The wound felt like a spider bite—hard and painful in the middle and tender around the mark as well.   It was surrounded with teeth marks.  He rested the wound against the cold porcelain and sighed with relief.  Much better.  The skin over much of the right side of his body and across his chest and down his torso, following the paths of circulation no doubt, was showing signs of an allergic reaction—redness and swelling and tenderness.   His knees were bruised, presumably where he had struck the cobblestones as he was falling.

Where was the woman in black, the Valkyrie, who had been speaking to him in English?  Fandorin puzzled over this as Doctor Fedorov came into the bathroom and tested his pulse again.  The doctor peered into Erast's face, made him hold out his tongue, and touched the underside of his chin with hands that smelled of formaldehyde. 

"His fever is down.  It's working.  Add more ice to the bath," the doctor barked at Lyubov, who made a terribly unchristian sign behind Fedorov's back.  The gypsy maid was like a mother bear with a small cub to protect.   Maid was a relative word.  She was not a simple little girl, that much was sure.  She was quick and clever and intelligent moreover.   Maid might her occupation, but it was certainly not her disposition.  How old was Lyubov?  She had been with the Baron and Baroness ever since Erast had returned from Japan.  Was she twenty?  Was she closer to thirty?  Could she be as old as Erast was?   There was no way to tell by searching her face.   When Fandorin was near her, she was always very attentive towards him.  Protective too.  Perhaps she was reflecting her mistress's predilection for smothering Erast with motherly attention, not that he minded. 

Lyubov was on friendly terms with the Baron as well.  Nights when Erast would visit with his father-in-law to discuss state matters they both might be involved in that they could not discuss with anyone else, owing to their sensitive confidentiality, Lyubov was never far from the study.  She had even been able to identify one of the suspects in one of the Baron's cases when she saw his picture on the desktop among the pages.  

Lyubov sat down next to the tub on a low, three-legged stool, and finished ladling ice chunks into the water as her eyes were poring over Erast's face.  She was whispering to him a tender way as she filled up a pitcher with water and ice cubes.   She slowly tipped the vessel of ice and water over his head, smiling to herself when he moaned in relief.  He was biting his swollen bottom lip, an expression of sheer ecstacy on his face.  The maid's fingers tugged at the locks of dark hair that were washing over his forehead.  Ice cubes were clunking back down into the water, tumbling over the creamy sheet which was becoming more soaked by the minute. 

When the doctor left the bedroom entirely, the willful helper lifted one of the small ice pieces, and rubbed it along Erast's half-parted lips.   He tilted his head to the side and locked his mouth around the dagger-like chunk, closing his eyes in concentration.   He lifted one hand unsteadily towards his mouth, but she whispered to him. 

"No.  I've got it.  Hush now, pretty one."

His hand went back under the water, and he scooted forward slightly in order to sink lower into the chilly water.   His knees emerged together, pressing upwards on the sheet, and then they disappeared again as he settled back.   The maid held the ice to his lips and watched him sucking.  She let her fingertips dip between his lips, her black eyes burning as the ice quickly disappeared.   When the ice was gone, he made a despairing sound.   

"I'm so glad you're awake, to say nothing of alive," Kirnov grinned from the doorway of the bathroom.   How long had he been watching the two of them?  Lyubov gave Kirnov a sharp glance, but she said nothing to him.   "Prince Dolgorukoi is on his way here.  There's no denying I would be in a devil of a fix if you expired before he arrived."  Kirnov permitted himself a sarcastic smile that somehow was softened with the appropriate amount of sympathy. 

"Where am I?" Erast wondered out loud.  He didn't bother to sit up.  Kirnov didn't seem to care about his lack of manners. 

"Ah!  Your mind is starting to come around! That's the first intelligent thing you've uttered in the last twelve hours."

"You d-didn't answer my question," Erast  said,  struggling with his tongue and his brain.   It was in Kirnov's face—he had watched Erast thrashing and screaming in torment, and he was unsure how to act with the young man after seeing him so vulnerable.  After working with someone for three months on such a challenging case, it wasn't impossible Max might be concerned about his colleague. 

"You are at the home of Charles and Kermit Tybault.  Brothers.  Eminent British anthropologists.  They have been here in Moscow for two months for scientific functions of one sort or another at the British Embassy.   Apparently one of British diplomats is also a Tybault.  A cousin or second cousin or some such.  Does it matter, really?   It was Charles' eldest daughter Harriett, also known as Heddy, who wounded you.  I have thoroughly questioned her while you were indisposed.  I have questioned her father, her uncle, her step-mother.  All very helpful and informative."

"And what c-conclusions did you reach?  Is she Crna Ruka?" Fandorin spoke slowly, mockingly, pausing between the words.  Kirnov was patient with the delay, because he was aching to report whatever he had learned. 

"Harriett Tybault is a heartless and dangerous villain."

"Is she?"  Erast said, puzzling to himself because if this was the Valkyrie in black, she had seemed genuinely dismayed that she had hurt him, even if she had mounted him in the middle of the street like a wild hussar in her tight trousers.  She had even held her mouth over his.   No, he realized,  she had been breathing into his mouth.  Had he stopped breathing on his own? Erast shuddered at the idea that he might very well owe his life to the self-same person who had almost taken it. 

"I spent several exhausting hours with her, and I'm thoroughly convinced she's a menace to society as a whole," Kirnov continued. 

"Wait!  I s-should like to question her on my own, if you don't mind."

"I'm sorry, but the doctor said you should be kept away from work for at the minimum an entire week."

"A week!!" Erast shouted, nearly collapsing under the surface of the water. 

"Besides, I'm not letting you anywhere near my prisoner.   I myself have been God's witness to the mysterious power you command over the weaker sex.  Even the fucking cat is in love with you."

"A week?" Erast moaned despairingly.   Said feline was lounging on the back of the commode, watching him with her green eyes as she washed her right paw, her left paw, and one ear. 

"Why should you wish to waste your time?   Harriett Tybault is one of the worst sorts of anarchist-radicals the world has ever produced."

"You b-believe she purposefully wounded me to prevent Radespeller from being captured?"

"Of course not," Kirnov said.  "But she is a danger all the same."

"Why, in p-particular?"

"A spinster of thirty seven.  Educated by her father and uncle.  She's travelled the world with them, studying animals in their natural habitats, helping make a catalogue of species and such."

"How is that dangerous?" Fandorin asked, blinking his eyes dizzily.   If she had spent the majority of her time in the company of men, that did go a long way to explaining her shocking language. 

"When I asked her why she had never settled down, married, had a family, she looked me right in the eye and asked why on God's green earth she would want to do that."

This brought a timid smile to Fandorin's pink face.  Kirnov put a hand on the edge of the tub to support himself, and tentatively patted the top of Fandorin's head once. 

"She's a very dangerous sort indeed, but not immune to you, it would seem.   I saw how she tackled you.  The language she was using!! I was racing across.  People kept getting in my way, blocking my path.  I couldn't shoot into the crowd.  It would have been murder, surely.  But I saw how she tore off half your clothes and bit you on the very spot she had struck you!  Good God, Erast Petrovich!  I was shocked!  A vampire that can stand the light of the sun?!"

"She was drawing out the poison?" Erast pondered. 

"Whatever you might wish to believe, I know what I saw.  If your powers are strong enough to seduce even a virago like that, there's no telling what might happen if I let you interrogate her.   Put you alone together in a room?  Never!   She'll have the rest of your clothes off faster than Lyuba here did."

"He's t-t-teasing you," Fandorin whispered when Lyubov glared up at Kirnov.    It was as if her dearest wish would be to sprout fangs, leap at Max, and rip his throat out.   After what he had seen yesterday, and knowing Max's own fears of the supernatural,  Erast didn't want to take the chance that it might even be remotely possible. 

"Apologies, my dear," Kirnov smirked at her before straightening back up. 

"Where is this dangerous criminal you're protecting me from?" Fandorin asked.   

"I have placed her under house arrest.  She is sleeping less than ten feet in that direction in the next suite."

"You're k-keeping her here?" Erast almost laughed.   

"It is her family's house.  Don’t worry though.  She's given her word that she will not try to escape, and we have seized her passport. There was really nothing else to do with her.  Nicholevni advised against transporting her to the station for the time being, and I had to agree with him.   Too many people wanted to wring her neck for harming you, and for jeopardizing a three-month investigation, not to mention interfering with the duties of a servant of the state.   Maybe I could hang her for that," Kirnov said cheerfully. 

"Why about Radespeller?" Fandorin questioned.   "Where is he?"

"I believe I hear carriage wheels in the drive.  We will continue our enlightening conversation shortly.  I will show the Prince upstairs.  You might want to get out of the tub, Erast Petrovich."

Chapter Three – In Which A Lady Examines A Dangerous Leopard

Monday afternoon

Cecelia the maid had brought Heddy a late breakfast and news in the morning.  The young man she had wounded was going to live.  The doctor did not want to move him to his own residence yet though.  After having heard him screaming in torment for much of the night, while she was being interrogated by the man who was either a priest or an undercover secret agent or maybe both, she couldn't help but agree with the medical man's assessment, even if Doctor Fedorov had seemed like an overbearing sadist.  All in all, the more the situation looked up for Mr. Fandorin, the more things were looking up for Heddy too.   After breakfast, knowing that the patient on the mend, Heddy felt she  could risk indulging in a cat nap in hopes of recovering the sleep she had lost last night to her interrogation. 

Men's voices woke Heddy in the late afternoon.  She had hoped it was Uncle Kermit, having returned with a good solicitor.  Instead it  was a Japanese valet and an assistant with large ears.   She added these two new arrivals to the peculiar number of people who had come to check up on the Tybault house guest.   In the night, a baron and baroness had arrived.  The Baron had threatened Heddy with execution, but the Baroness had merely sobbed by the young man's bedside.  They had left their maid to watch over him, and Cecelia didn't like the gypsy woman one little bit.   

A prince had arrived in the early morning hours.  Cecelia reported that this prince (apparently the Governor-General of Moscow) and his own servant had spent several minutes talking to the doctor and the priest, and finally were allowed in to talk with the patient briefly.  Afterwards, the prince and his servant had whispered together in the hallway, chuckling and clucking in a fatherly manner.   It was agreed that moving the patient would be too risky and that he should stay right where he was for at least a week to avoid a return of his seizures.   An extra guest at the house was not going to inconvenience the Tybaults.  Cousin Eric would welcome the company.  The rest of the Tybaults were scheduled to depart by train tomorrow night, on the way to Vienna, where Heddy's father and uncle were to appear at more scientific symposiums.  The house was going to be terribly quiet when they were gone. 

Although politeness dictated Heddy should not eavesdrop on their conversation, nothing could have been easier, because Cecelia had left Heddy's door open, and the guest's door was open, and they lay across from each other by way of the pentagonal hallway.   If Heddy were lying with her head at the end of her bed, she could look in the room itself.   Tempted though she was, she refrained.  What sort of impression was that going to make on Cecelia when she returned for the dishes?  However, as one who observed by not being observed herself, Heddy simply couldn't resist listening in.  What captured Heddy's attention was the third speaker that she heard.  She knew at once who the owner of the soft-spoken, hushed voice must be. 

"One p-paper or two.  That's all I ask," Fandorin cajoled in a honeyed tone.   The hoarseness in his throat only made his words more sensual to the ears.   His slight stammer made Heddy feel protective of him, somehow.   He had looked so angry and helpless yesterday.  She shuddered as she remembered the expression on his face. 

"Doctor say no.  Fever might come back.  You pink like sakura, like cherry blossoms," the Japanese valet's response was clipped into small blocks.  His voice reminded Heddy of the last time she had been in the Far East—when her mother had committed suicide in Hong Kong.   The valet's l's and r's came out as u's and w's, but otherwise his limited Russian was very well spoken, as far as she could tell as a non-native speaker still learning the language herself. She could mostly understand Russian, if people spoke slowly and distinctly.     

"Chief, you must listen to reason.  The doctor left very strict orders."

"T-tulipov, while I lie here useless, K-Kirnov has been given charge of my case."

"Maximillian Pavlovich is a very capable officer," the assistant timidly offered.

"Kirnov," Fandorin tried out the word as if the syllables composed a spell, or rather a curse.   "I know he is capable, but it's mine….mine…" 

"You mustn't work yourself up, Erast Petrovich," the assistant soothed. 

"You need sleep.  Need woman more."

"Doctor Fedorov would never approve of such strenuous behavior as that," the assistant spoke again.  He had a very kind manner about him.    Uncle Kermit would have called him a gentle soul.   The Japanese was more difficult to pin down.   He was handling the patient with delicate care, but he was not shy at all with his opinion. 

"I bring tea?  I bring soup?  When gypsy maid come back?"

"Masa, Lyubov is the Baroness's maid, not mine."

"Maid very helpful to have." 

Heddy swallowed a chuckle at this.  The Japanese's next comment was delivered with cheerful disregard for any propriety, and had to have been made to provoke a reaction in Fandorin. 

"Maybe you could sleep with Baroness instead?  When she come back?"

"Masa!" Fandorin shouted. 

"Baron probably no mind."

"MASA!!  He w-would indeed mind!"

"Chief, shhh." 

"No shouting!" the Japanese responded, chuckling.    

"Stop being vulgar!"

"Calm down, Erast-san,"  Masa answered.   "Do zazen.  It will help."

"Tulipov!"

"What?!" the assistant raised his voice and quickly changed tunes.  "Yes, sir??  Please.  Don't upset yourself.  You have to stay calm."

"Anisii Pitirimovich, are you waiting to hear me beg?"

"Any p-paper will do," Erast tried again.  "I'll settle for the headlines."

"No work.  Bad.  Bad."

"I want a paper," Fandorin said firmly and simply, sounding more like un enfante terrible that he probably intended.   

"Chief, you are not allowed to stress yourself."

"Tulipov!!  I will get out of this bed and walk down those stairs and go straight to the nearest paperboy and I will dash in his little blond skull unless he gives me a newspaper.  Do you want to see me do that?  Hm?  Do you want to see me spend the rest of my life in prison because of - - -"

He had gotten all the way through the phrase without one stammer.  Heddy could just imagine him sitting up in his bed, clutching both hands into tight fists as he spoke.   Under such pressure, the assistant Tulipov folded.  No surprise. 

"Stay there.  I'll bring you all the newspapers you want.   I couldn't live with myself if I let you throttle an innocent child out of frustration with Herr Radespeller."

"No read.  Stress brain.  Fever come back."

"I'm not going read the p-paper, Masa.  T-Tulipov-san will read it for me."

"No." 

"Please?" Fandorin asked meekly.    There was a short silence. 

"Very well.  But no scream.  And no leave bed.  Masa be back soon."

Heddy rose from her bed and stepped out into the hallway as the two others went past her without a second glance.   She knew how to make herself as unobtrusive as possible. 

"Will the Chief creep out of here while our backs are turned, do you think?" the assistant Tulipov whispered in concern to the valet.   

"Fandorin-san stay here."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Gypsy maid took pants," the Japanese smiled serenely. 

"Smart woman," the assistant chuckled.

Heddy decided it was time to reintroduce herself to the poor unfortunate, the prince's favorite, this Moscow darling.   She paused on the threshold and plucked up her courage before opening his bedroom door all the way.  He was indeed pink, rather like the cherry blossoms Heddy had seen in Washington DC one year when her father had taken her there as a child.   Her own mother had been alive then.   That had been before her mother's suicide, her step-mother's arrival.  Long before Ivy's arrival.   The sorrow that filled Heddy's heart at the remembrance made her expression that much more guilty and foreboding. 

A veritable leopard stared at her from his position on the bed.  If Erast Petrovich had had a tail, it would have been thrashing in annoyance.  Amplifying Fandorin's anger, the gray cat under the bed was also glaring at Heddy and studying her with feline disdain.   Had she interrupted the patient's prayers, she wondered, seeing the string of jade beads dangling from one of his slender hands.  His legs were folded underneath him.  She could see the outline of his long limbs under the sheets.   

"Ah!  Die Valkyrie," he exclaimed in German.  "Do come in," he then mused in English, tugging the covers closer around himself.  Heddy crossed the room and stuck a hand out stiffly at him.  She wasn't sure she liked being called a Valkyrie.  For one thing, she wasn't the least bit Germanic!  She had always been told she favored the Scottish side of the family. 

"Harriett Tybault.  Heddy.  Dreadfully, extremely sorry."

"Erast P-petrovich Fandorin," he sniffed, accepting her limb into his grasp.  She shook his hand quite firmly.  The jade beads swayed back and forth in their mutual grip.  He was warmer to the touch than he should have been.   She let go of his hand, and he unfolded his legs, watching her silently with his bright, curious eyes.   He twisted the corded beads in his grasp and clicked them through his fingers as if nervous of her being this close to him. 

"I came to apologize.  I'm…I'm….God, I'm an idiot.  How do you feel?" she asked simply. 

"As though Beelzebub himself is b-breathing over my flesh."

"Mr. Fandorin, I suggest you avoid Central America's rainforests if at all possible, in particular a small creature named the Golden Frog.  They could be the very death of you.  You've had an allergic reaction to their poison."

He raised a brow at her and bit back whatever caustic words were coming up his throat.   By the way in which his blue eyes were glittering, Heddy suspected those words would have been nearly as dangerous as any Central American Golden Frog poison.  Heddy examined his bruised mouth with great sympathy.   The doctor had been ramming a piece of metal between his teeth every time he started convulsing last night.  It was no wonder his face was bruised. 

"Tulipov, my assistant, said you shot me with a s-savage instrument which propels needles with puffs of air?"

"It's a blow gun.  It was a gift from Uncle Kermit."

"Could I perhaps have a ch-chance to study the offending object?"

"As long as you promise not to snap it in two in a fit of pique."

"You have my word," he nodded, touching one slender hand to the middle of his bare chest.   He has nicer hands than I have, Heddy thought.  Look at those nails!  Not a speck of dirt.  Of course not.  Cecelia had said that the gypsy maid had given the patient three baths today alone.    

"You aren't going to confiscate it, are you?  It's very dear to me.  Uncle gave it to me years ago.  If it makes any difference, I promise not to use it within range of people again."

"I am c-curious to see it, that is all.   From the window, I have studied the distance between the house, the trees, the brick wall down there, and the street.  You are to be commended for your t-targeting abilities," he commented wryly, rubbing his right shoulder.   "A direct shot at 50 yards, achieved from horseback, no less."

"I wasn't targeting you," she clipped off the words.  He twisted the jade beads in his fingers, rubbing them with one thumb. 

"Where is your horse?  A fine mare.  Black.  Ornamental.  A ceremonial parade animal?"

"Helen is in the stables behind the house.  She's not my horse, technically speaking.  Uncle Kermit won her off a soldier in a card game."

"Is that where you got those pants you were wearing?" Fandorin inquired.  He remembered the pressure and heat of her body on top of him, and he unconsciously darted his tongue over his lips.   Miss Tybault had not missed this.   She changed her voice—it became distinctly more masculine and jovial.  Humor entered her face for the first time, but it was a barrier, the same way Kirnov used it. 

"Have you ever tried riding a horse in a skirt?" she asked him. 

"Don't the English wear jodhpurs?"

"Coarse material.  It chaffs too much," Heddy dismissed with a shake of her head.   "I told Uncle it's a shame he didn't stick it out another round.   Why stop with the horse and trousers?  Another hand or two, and he might have won me my very own hussar."

"I do recommend that.  They can be very helpful, even endearing.  Tell me about the stables.  Are they far from the house itself?" Erast wondered, smiling at her in an enticing manner. 

"Are you planning your escape?"

He managed to keep a twitch of a smile, and he surrendered a small shrug.   

"Not without a stitch of clothes.  Please do forgive my state of undress.  Some d-devious creature has crept away with my things.  Not so much as a sock left.   I even got under the bed to search."

"A sock would have been useful at least," Heddy quipped. 

"Yes," Fandorin agreed, huddling under the many sheets and pulling them up to his bare shoulders.  

"You know, a creative man could have come up with at least four other possibilities for temporary clothing," Heddy tormented him in a brotherly tone.   No doubt about it—she was making herself as unfeminine as possible in response to him.   No well-bred lady would have remained this close to an unclothed man without averting her eyes.  No well-mannered one would have dared joked with him about his nakedness. 

"Four?" Fandorin laughed, narrowing his eyes and glancing around the room.  "The bed covers, obviously, if this were first century Rome.   The curtains, in a pinch, but they are exceptionally sheer, don't you find?  Three?  Three?"

"Mr. Fandorin, there is a wild animal under your bed.  You could have killed and skinned it.  She might yield enough pelt for minimal covering."

"But I like the cat, and I abhor violence.  Four!  The fig tree in the corner, no doubt."

"Ficus Carica.  Spacious leaves, and copious amounts of them." 

They shared a quiet laugh before Fandorin launched carefully into more questions.   Because Miss Tybault was clearly not one of those 'delicate flower' females, he decided he didn't have to be entirely too careful with her.   He surmised she might even be offended if he treated her with kid gloves.  She had held her own with Max Kirnov, anyway.  How fragile could she be? 

"You're from a family of British anthropologists who travels the globe cataloguing beasts of all shapes and sizes?  K-Kirnov, Maximillian Pavlovich, he told me.  He intimated that you wished to add me to your collection."

"The priest?  What a charmer he is.  Rather like an arctic wolf in many respects." 

"Do you hunt for pleasure or for science?"

"I'm an anthropologist, Mr. Fandorin, not a big game hunter.  I study animals in their natural habitat in order to better understand humans.  The only thing I shoot is pictures.  That's why Uncle started taking me along.  I  helped with his catalogue work, learned beside he and my father when they travelled together.   I showed an aptitude, and Uncle Kermit encouraged me."

He watched her quietly, his eyes crinkling with merriment at a thought he did not share.   What reasonably-intelligent human being would not prefer the open freedom of travelling the globe and touching new cultures and new environments to the domestic slavery of hearth and home, husband and children?  He didn't doubt that Miss Tybault  had made herself very useful indeed.   Being trapped at home would have been a slow, agonizing death for her. 

"You must forgive Mr. Kirnov his disagreeable methods of interrogation," he said. 

"Must I?"

"He's not always so unfriendly."

"I do understand him.  He has been hovering around, intensely concerned about your safety and welfare.  He was angry with me for hurting you, and therefore he treated me most unpleasantly.  No one would answer my questions.  Why should I answer his?  He wouldn't tell me if I'd shot the son of a baron, the darling of a prince, or Jesus Christ in the flesh.  He crossed himself when I said that.  It was quite funny."

"He's afraid you're are in league with R-radespeller," Fandorin was toasting up a half smile, lightly done on one side.   " 'How long have you been a member of the Crna Ruka?', hm?  Am I correct?  I can hear his voice in my head.  He sees enemies and demons wherever he goes." 

She stared down at her open hand in puzzlement.

"Chournaya," she sounded out the word before switching back to English.  "Rooka.  Rooka is hand.  Chournaya?  Or is it Journ-niya?"

"Ah.  The Black Hand," she laughed softly.  "Mr. Radespeller's group?  Why would a German expatriate belong to a Serbian terrorist organization?"

"There are several different groups who employ similar names, which can make tracking them such a twisted puzzle," Fandorin said.   

"Sorry to disappoint you, but at heart I'm the least radical individual you're going to find, and I have never heard of this Radespeller before last night when Mr. Kirnov told me his name."

"What amuses you?"

"The Russian flair for melodrama.  The Black Hand," Heddy chuckled again.  "Why do they give themselves these fairy-tale monster names?  The Black Hand.  The Purple Fist.  The Red Eye."

This elicited a faint smile from Erast, and that seemed enough to make Miss Tybault happy. 

"I'm not an anarchist.  I'm not a nihilist.  I'm not a spy," she whispered to him.  

"I knew already," Fandorin confided in her, softening his voice and giving a sigh.

"The very worst thing you could call me is a professional voyeur.  What else do you need to know?" Heddy offered.

"Nothing.  I do apologize for my unseemly curiosity," Erast said.  "For diplomacy's sake, we should try at least to be cordial to one another.  In spite of the impression Maximillian Pavlovich might have left you with. . ."

"If you work for the Governor-General, and Kirnov works with you, why is he cavorting around in a priest's robes?" she asked.   "Is he a priest?  Is he a secret agent of some sort?  Are you a secret policeman?  Is he a Pinkerton?  I've been to the States.  The Pinkertons followed us from the Capitol all along the Eastern seaboard."

"Did you encounter much wildlife there?"

"I particularly enjoyed their barrier islands, the Outer Banks," Heddy murmured.  "The Americans thought we were spies too, just like Kirnov thinks.  Do you know that Kirnov has ordered a nice young officer to catalogue every one of the pictures that I have in my possession?  There are over twenty thousand!  Poor Nicky.  The one with your coloring and green eyes."

"Nicholevni?  Yes, he is a nice young man, and very capable at his job.  He'll be bored stiff with that task.  He may hang himself in despair."

"I hope not, at least for the maid's sake.   The gypsy one.    They hit it off very well.  Talking like old friends.  She calls him Nicky Tree.  Why?"

"Nicolai Nikolayevich Nicholevni.  Nicky Three, not tree."

Fandorin found the perceived connection between his junior officer and Lyubov most peculiar, because to his knowledge, Lyubov and Nicholevni would have had little or no opportunity to cross one another's paths in the world outside.   Heddy continued on, not knowing the thoughts in Fandorin's head. 

"When she wasn't in here with you, she was keeping him company, helping him sort the pictures.  She and the priest are not fond of each other.   Your prince- - -"

"Dolgorukoi."

"Dole-gore-rue-kee?"

"More of a roll in the 'r'.  Say it with the front of your tongue, not the back."

"Your prince said not to take Mr. Kirnov to heart, but the maid wasn't so convinced.  She spoke Romani several times so the priest couldn't understand her, but your prince understands, because he replied to her in kind."

"Do you speak Romani?  How do you know that is the language they used?"

"I don't speak a word of it!  But one can appreciate and recognize the sound of Mozart's music and not be able to play a single instrument, can they not?" 

"True.   Each language has its own special music.  By the way, Mr. Kirnov is not a priest, at least, I assume he is not an actual priest.  It was my understanding that he was wearing the vestments for our assignment in order to blend in better.  Most people will speak comfortably with a member of the church.  After many months, I took for granted what he was wearing and it ceased to be unusual to me.  But I say too much," Erast shrugged painfully. 

"What terrific luck," Heddy whispered, tipping closer and lowering her voice.  "Of all the people I could wound, a state servant of rather some importance.  Mr. Fandorin, I am truly sorry for this entire bit of inconvenience.  The most we can do is make the best of it, I suppose.   We're in the same boat, actually.  You are confined to your bed until Doctor Fedorov is pleased with your health, and I am under house arrest until your friend Kirnov decides I am not a menace to society.   I suppose that depends on how long it takes Nicky to catalogue twenty thousand pictures and fight off despair.  What can I do to make this confinement better for you?"

"I'm more than willing to forgive.  You could let me try on those hussar pants of yours.    They might fit.  We're nearly the same height.  A similar build.   What sort of boots do you have around?  Jackets?  Might I borrow your horse?" he asked hopefully. 

"Oh, no, no, no.  While I am more than sympathetic to your plight, I hate to consider what a fit of pique I would inspire in Mr. Kirnov if I permitted you to escape, to say nothing of the godlike wrath I would incur by aiding in said escape."

Their conversation got no further.   The valet and the assistant, Masa and Tulipov, returned.   Tulipov watched her with big, frightened eyes.  His jacket was bristling with hidden newspapers.  Masa saw Heddy, looked at Fandorin, cocked a half smile, and bowed reverently to Heddy.  She nodded politely to both of them.   They waited until she was out in the hallway (having left the door open, to be sure) before they spoke again. 

"You'll never guess, Chief!  We encountered your in-laws while we were out!" Tulipov burst into happy words.   In-laws, Heddy worried on her way to her room.   So Mr. Fandorin was married? 

"Baroness say kiss on both cheeks," Masa was stacking small boxes on the side table.  Tybault cradled her head on the cushioned pillow at the end of her bed.  She felt terribly wicked, but the temptation was far too great to resist.  She lifted a book, pretending to be engrossed in her reading.   Delicious smells were filling the bedroom and hallway.   Heddy adjusted her book and watched the other room sneakily.   Masa put down the food, seized a startled Fandorin into his grip, and pecked roughly at his cheeks, smoothed his hair, and crushed his face to his chest several times, making loud, falsetto, sobbing noises.  Erast laughed unexpectedly.

"Will y-you unhand me?" Fandorin demanded, swatting at the mischievous valet until the rogue let go of his master.

"Baroness said!"  

"I'm sure Madame was speaking metaphorically.   Where d-did you meet them?"

"Vasilis Mens Shop," Tulipov said.   "The Baroness was ordering nightshirts."

"Why not…I….have more than….." Fandorin puzzled, his sentence unfinished. 

"She said she didn't feel right having anyone rummage through your things and bring clothes to you," Tulipov shrugged.   Masa frowned halfway through the sentence.

"Rummage?" he asked Fandorin.   Erast answered him in Japanese, and the valet nodded in understanding.

"You went to P-petrovsky," Fandorin noted, his greedy eyes on the small boxes.  Masa felt his stare, and gave him a small dumpling from one of the packages.  Erast popped the tiny morsel in his mouth and waited eagerly for more.  They exchanged a sentence in Japanese.  The words began with 'Mami-san' and ended with Fandorin's mouth hanging open as he was blushing dark crimson.  He avoided the valet's knowing smile, accepting a hard ceramic bowl from him. 

"Baroness very smitten with Erast-san," Masa said in Russian for Tulipov's benefit. 

Erast Petrovich was blushing and saying nothing.  Tulipov seated himself in the chair under the opposite windows, shuffling pages of newsprint and clearing his throat as he scanned the headlines, and pretended not to understand the gist of their exchange, though his timid smile betrayed otherwise. 

"What word?" Masa continued.   Fandorin sputtered at him testily in Japanese.  Masa touched Erast Petrovich over one bare breast.  "Chikubi?" he reiterated, taking his hand away. 

"Nipple," Erast murmured, taking a sip from the cup. 

"Say  again," Masa squinted. 

"Nipple.  Why on Earth do you want to know?"

"Erast-san like puppy.   Need warm neeple to be happy.   Why you stop?  Eat.  Eat."

"Masa, where are your m-manners?  Please ask Miss Tybault if she would care to join us."

"Teaboot?"

Erast Petrovich pointed across the room and towards the hallway.  It seemed Heddy wasn't the only one who could watch without watching and see without being seen.

"Ah.  Fine English lady!" Masa exclaimed.  "She is thin, but she will do," he decided, rubbing his hands together briskly and hurrying across the area rug.

"Masa," Fandorin threatened stormily.    

"Chief, be calm," Tulipov soothed. 

"Masa," Fandorin warned again.    "When I s-said ask her to join us, I meant for lunch."

Chapter Four – In Which the Wolf Returns

Monday evening

"Radespeller has been….spotted…..God above, Fandorin!  What is all this?"

"Put your hands here.  Put your fingers there.  Very important."

"C-cover the top of the hollow with index f-finger when putting dart in, so as not to inhale said dart," Erast nodded.    "Go on with your report, Mr. Kirnov.  I'm listening," Fandorin answered as his rival officer stopped on the threshold of the bedroom.   Masa was hanging a small pillow from a hook on the back of the bathroom door, leaving the portal open and stepping well away from the target area.  Heddy was standing beside Fandorin's bed, holding the blow gun in gloved hands.   Erast Petrovich was wearing gloves too, and he was wearing a long, thin, pale, ghostly nightshirt that covered him from shoulders to toes.   No doubt the article of clothing had come from Vasilis Men's Shop. 

"You're not resting," Kirnov accused. 

"I'm resting," Fandorin insisted.  Heddy loaded the dart into the end of the slender reed, and gave a whisper of a puff.  The pink feathered menace whistled across the space in less than a second.    It sunk into the pillow and remained hanging by the merest end of the barbed tip.   The young man's eyes were gleaming with anxious curiosity.    He reached out to pluck the weapon from Heddy, but she moved beyond arms' length, picking up a handkerchief and drying the top and bottom of the reed.

"You have to keep the length of it free of moisture, or the wood will warp, and thus the accuracy of the weapon will be compromised," she said to him.

"Like a flute, hm?"

"This is much too much excitement for you," Kirnov decided, charging across the room and snatched at the hanging dart.  Masa and Heddy both wailed in caution at him, and Maximillian thought better of touching the end of the poisonous pink creation.  He held it between his thumb and forefinger, by its feathered bum. 

"Monsieur L'Anarchist is hiding in the apartment of an associate, near to the Moscow Railway Station," Fandorin whispered in French and Russian both.   "You plan to keep him under surveillance for a day or two, take him alive if possible."

Kirnov puffed up with fury.  "How could you possibly know this??"

"I have my s-sources," Fandorin purred, holding out a gloved hand and waiting.   Heddy put the wooden object into his grasp, and she placed his hands in the proper formation.  

"Here, and here."

"Right along the tiny birds, I see."

"Hummingbirds.  Aztec god of war.  Dangerous little things.  The darts are adorned with their feathers, actually."

"You aren't supposed to be working," Kirnov scolded.

"How am I working?  I am n-not swimming in confidential papers.  I am not out of bed.  I am not covered with newsprint.  I am not chasing madmen with nine fingers.  No, I'm not, b-because you took my case."

"When Doctor Fedorov finds out what you're doing, he'll shoot you so full of morphine, you won't see straight for a week," Kirnov threatened.   "What's more, I'll help him."

"The good doctor will not be back until morning, by which time I p-plan to be asleep, docile, cooperative.  Tell me more about your plans for Radespeller," Fandorin cajoled, putting his mouth against the reed and keeping Kirnov in his keen gaze. 

"Remember," Heddy scolded.  "It's a flute, not an oboe."

"T-touch lightly with the m-mouth.  Yes, I remember," Erast repeated. 

"I'm not telling you a single thing more.  Where is Tulipov?" Kirnov wanted to know.  He stood at the end of Fandorin's bed, right in his path for the pillow on the door.  

"Anisii Pitirimovich left an hour ago.  I s-suspect he could be home," Erast murmured. 

"You have him watching Radespeller, don't you?" Kirnov demanded petulantly. 

"Do I?" Fandorin questioned, touching the top of the reed with a slender finger.

"Do you have him watching me?" Kirnov gasped.

"There is no one watching you, Kirnov," Fandorin toyed with him, gingerly loading a dart with green feathers into the end of the blow gun.  "You should p-probably stand aside for me, s'il vous plaît?"

"Are you threatening me, Erast Petrovich?" Kirnov puffed up, keeping an amused expression in spite of his exasperation.

"My dear Maximillian, I should hate to have to hurt you.   These tiny bees have a s-sinister s-sting."

"Fine.  Work yourself up.  I don't care if you have more seizures." Kirnov threw his long arms up in the air and strode out of the way of the dart in the nick of time.    Masa evaluated Fandorin's shot with a grimace and a shake of the head.

"Very bad.  Do again."

"Are you going back to the t-train station tonight?" Fandorin questioned.  "But have you eaten?  Here.  Masa will give you a meal to t-tide you over." 

"Erast Petrovich, do you know how seizures work?  The police pathologist explained them to me.  He said they are electrical charges running loose through the brain, killing cells along the way when they have no place to go.  Have more seizures.  Go on then.   A concussed brain like yours is already more delicate than you might expect.  Keep destroying your little gray cells with all this excitement.  All the better for me.  My God.  Are those chocolate éclairs from Fillipovs?"

"P-prince Dolgorukoi.  He came to see me again.   He escorted the Baroness and her maid safely home.  There is nearly a full dozen left.  I c-could never eat so many as all that.   Even if I could, Masa won't let me.   You are welcome to them."

Kirnov accepted the three boxes of food that Masa hastily packaged up for him from the veritable banquet that was laid out on a long table that had been brought into the room to hold all the treats and favors and bon-bons that Dolgorukoi had been sending in a steady stream.    

"I can't believe he managed to get these for you.  They are only made twice a week."

"Usually," Fandorin's eyes twinkled merrily. 

"I do so despise you, Erast Petrovich," Kirnov whispered, stuffing an éclair into his mouth and groaning with pleasure, gobbling with great delight.  Chewing his own pastry, Kirnov brought the box over to the bed.   "It would be unchristian of me to depart with all of these."

"May I have one more?" Erast asked Masa, who frowned. 

"One bite," the valet relented. 

"These are too decadent, Mr. Fandorin.  Far too decadent for a pious soul.  If I should die tonight, it will be because I have indulged, because I have sinned, and it will be all your fault," Kirnov said, lifting a beautiful pastry from the box and trying to decide where to set it.  Not on the spotless sheets, surely?  Not in those perfect, gloved hands either.    The side table was stacked with brushes and combs and cologne and jars of cream and piled with several thick books, anthologies of short stories, volumes of poetry.  "Open.  Open," Kirnov scowled. 

Fandorin frowned, but parted his lips.  Kirnov stuffed the éclair against that wonderful mouth, making sure he was a little off center and that a touch of cream made it onto Erast's perfect skin.  Erast bit down, dropping the blow gun on the pillow to his right.  He ever-so-carefully balanced the gooey, chocolate-drenched, cream-filled offering on his gloved fingertips to keep it from landing on his clean, white clothes.   Masa grabbed a nearby linen napkin and pulled the pastry out of Erast's hands, holding it well away from him.   He whipped open another napkin and presented it to Fandorin. 

"You were saying about Radespeller?" Fandorin asked, wiping his cream-drenched lips and eyeing Kirnov, who was through one pastry and picking up another. 

"Is that silk?" Kirnov asked, nodding to the nightshirt.   Erast Petrovich's cheeks pinked up unevenly as he stared down at himself.   

"The Baroness said she could not in good conscience visit with him unless he was more-chastely covered," Heddy reported.   She did not add, although she wanted to, that it was the Baroness herself who had slipped the willowy, almost translucent material out of its box and onto Erast's body with her very own hands, even though her capable and willing maid was standing at her elbow, eager to be of service.  It was clear from Heddy's tone that she shared Masa's opinion of the strange exchanges between Mr. Fandorin and his mother-in-law.   Masa's eyes were twinkling.   Kirnov snorted, put down the box of éclairs, and ran a mostly-clean finger over the hem of the sleeve of the nightshirt.

"Soft as a virgin's thighs," he pronounced happily, delighted at the ripple of shock this sent through Fandorin's fair features.   

"Monsieur Kirnov, there are ladies present," Erast Petrovich scolded softly in French, forgetting that Miss Tybault was fluent.   Heddy wasn't offended when she worked through what Kirnov had said.  She ran a finger over the same cuff, and directed her comment to Kirnov.

"Depends on the virgin, I suppose."

"Both of you mind your language, and, you, tell me more about your plans for Radespeller," Fandorin scolded in Russian. 

"No.  You know far too much as it is.   Erast Petrovich,  I would suspect you of sorcery if I didn't know you're at least partly a good Christian."

"Be careful.  Radespeller can be v-very dangerous, as you well know," Fandorin said, watching with regret as Masa took the éclair back to the table.    Kirnov retrieved the pastry box off the floor.

"You have fun playing with your blow gun.  Leave Radespeller to me," Kirnov grumbled, clutching the boxes of food to his chest.  "And thank you for the éclairs."

"You're w-welcome," Erast replied as Max went beyond the threshold and disappeared. 

The Japanese brought back a tall goblet of reddish liquid and small pieces of ice, and he held the edge of the vessel to his master's mouth. 

"Rinse.  Or you make pipe gun nasty with chocolate."

Chapter Five – In Which Heddy Learns to Say Please

Tuesday morning

Heddy returned to her room from the study, where she had been meeting with Uncle Kermit, Cousin Eric, and the solicitor he had hired for her.  It would not hurt to err on the side of caution, in case the Russians decided to press charges after all.   They seemed to be softening to her though.   They had allowed her father, step-mother, Ivy, and the servants to stay in a hotel with close access to the train station, in preparation for their departure tonight.   Heddy wasn't sure if she would be able to leave yet, but Uncle Kermit and Cousin Eric would stay with her until the authorities decided she wasn't a menace to society or a danger to Mr. Fandorin.  The Tybaults had designated the third floor of the house to be Mr. Fandorin's territory, and they tried to keep themselves to the first and second floors, except for Heddy, who wasn't going to give up her prime observation post if she could help it. 

In the meantime, speaking again of the curious house guest.  Across the hall, Mr. Fandorin had only recently risen from sleep, and his assistant Tulipov had arrived right on time, almost as if summoned by unseen forces.  Anisii had not appeared empty-handed either.  Papers from every corner of the city had been stuffed in his frock coat, and if Heddy hadn't already been briefed by the solicitor, she too would have been shocked by the news Tulipov had brought.   It was good thing Heddy had an air-tight alibi for her whereabouts last evening!

" 'An explosion last night at the Moscow Railway Station injured five and killed seven.  Dreadful, isn't it, Chief?"

"Yes, Anisii.  Pray continue, before Doctor F-Fedorov should arrive."

" 'Sources indicate that the devastation was the work of wanted fugitive and German expatriate Herr Martin Radespeller, and his notorious anarchist group.  While there have been no confirmations as we went to press, the bodies of the deceased are being examined in hopes that the anarchist is among them'." 

"That explains where Kirnov is," Fandorin grumbled.  He rolled his eyes, and doing so, locked gazes with Heddy.   He immediately smiled to her.  She waved at him, but picked up a book and settled down on her bed. 

"What word from your uncle?" Erast raised his voice and questioned her. 

"Well, in spite of the fact that Cousin Eric said the spineless spawn at the British embassy do not wish to intercede on my behalf, owing to the fact I'm really not that terribly important and it might cause some catastrophic political calamity between our two nations, Uncle Kermit and his solicitor feel certain I should be free to leave the borders of fair Moscow soon.  Nicky Three is almost through with the pictures. "

"How can they be so certain you'll be allowed to leave?" Tulipov asked. 

"I am still alive, that is one," Fandorin interjected.  "Come visit," he motioned to Heddy.  "Come." 

"You are not supposed to be exciting yourself," Tulipov scolded.   Heddy didn't have to be invited twice, and her eagerness did not go unnoticed by Tulipov or by Fandorin. 

"I'm so bored, Anisii.  Indulge me.  A week in bed with nothing to do!  They won't be happy until I die from indolence."

"If not for the untimely destruction of the outbound railway tracks, I might have even left this evening, if Mr. Kirnov would release me," Heddy said.  She stopped talking when she arrived and scanned the room. 

The bed was literally strewn with newspapers, spread out like so many picked-over gazelle corpses before the largest leopard.  Fandorin watched Tybault examine the evidence of his morning carnage, and he hid his newsprint-blackened fingertips under the sheets.  Tulipov gathered up the pages in haste, ducking and blushing and bowing to Tybault.   Heddy was staring at Erast's face.  What she had mistaken for strangely-placed morning shadow on his chin and tip of his nose turned out to be newsprint.    How did he….oh, yes, she mused…..he must hold the paper upright and touch the middle with his face to flip it outward and fold the pages. 

"You are not having a good t-time in Moscow?" Erast attempted to distract Heddy.   She pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and stood at the side of his bed, holding out one hand and waiting.  Erast reluctantly surrendered one set of fingers to her, and she dabbed at the blackened tips as he hung his head, bashfully raising his eyes to her once or twice.  She lifted his chin with a gentle hand and touched the tip of his nose and the end of his chin.   Tulipov watched them in undisguised amazement.  

"Any word from your dear Mr. Kirnov??" Heddy wondered, pretending as if nothing at all out of the ordinary was occurring.  It must be every day that Anisii Tulipov saw his beloved Chief treated like a three-year-old with a messy nose.  Small blessings—at least Miss Tybault hadn't licked the handkerchief first.  Anisii's mother would have.  Tulipov ventured a smile on this thought, and his Chief's cold eyes caught it at once. 

"No word yet from Mr. Kirnov.  If I don't hear f-from him within the hour, I'm going to knock Anisii out with your dart gun and take his pants."

Tulipov was scandalized by the mere suggestion, and his smile disappeared.   Heddy chuckled, and deftly traded hands with Erast, dabbing off the rest of the incriminating newsprint.  

"Harriett!  You should be packing!" Uncle Kermit called as he was climbing the stairs.  His heavy footfalls went past the open door, and returned again.

"Good morning, Mr. Tybault," Fandorin nodded to him politely.

"Mr. Fandorin," Uncle Kermit smiled and then spoke to Heddy.   "We have to hurry, dear.  Though our departure may be delayed, there's hope I can get us by carriage to the next station down the line.  I've sent Charles and Agnes on ahead."

"What did you do with Ivy?" Heddy questioned, putting away her handkerchief. 

"She put up a fuss, you know, having to leave the house, having to stay at the hotel, then having the train tracks destroyed and having to go back to the hotel.   Do you know she had the nerve to spend this morning pining because she didn't witness the actual explosion?! I'll be so glad to get her and her mother back home to England, so we can be off again with our adventures."

"Ivy?" Tulipov whispered to Fandorin.

"Younger sister," Fandorin explained back.

"Ivy went along with your parents, but only after I promised I would fetch the cat for her.  She's got her heart set on taking it back to London.  I'm to join them later today."

"If you have any sympathy for the cat, you'll tell Ivy you couldn't find it," Heddy counseled him.  Uncle Kermit was clearly in agreement with her. 

"I'll tell her the gypsy maid ate the cat.  That will cheer her up," Kermit grinned.  He bowed again to Fandorin and Tulipov before hurrying from the bedroom.    He popped his head back in seconds later.  "Oh, by the way, a package downstairs for Mr. Fandorin."

"Shall I fetch it, Chief?" Tulipov asked. 

"Please," Fandorin nodded.   Alone again, mostly.    The cat was lounging on the window sill, watching them intently, oblivious to the fate from which she had been saved.  Heddy mouthed a word, watching Erast's face.  He squinted at her in puzzlement. 

"Say it again," she pleaded in English.

"Please," he murmured tentatively in Russian.

"Pazjholista," she imitated him. 

"Please," he said again in Russian.

"Pazjholista.   It means 'you're welcome' as well?  That’s what's confusing me.  'Please' and 'you're welcome'?"

"I am the last person you should learn Russian from," Fandorin mused.

"Why is that?"

"You'll never know when the syllable is d-duplicated, or if I am stuttering," he explained dryly.     

"I have noticed that your accent is different than Tulipov's.  Are you from different parts of the city?"

"You must know many languages, having travelled the globe," Fandorin whispered enviously. 

"I used to try to learn, but as I grew older, I realized you only need to know four things in any tongue," Heddy dismissed. 

"What would that be?" Erast scolded, obviously not in agreement.   

"Yes, no, 'Good Morning' and 'Thank you'.  And I'm ahead of that in Russian.  I know enough to order salad and claret, and not cabbage soup.   I can find my way through a dress shop and a pastry shop and the library and the university with enough skill not to get lost, because I can usually fall back on French or Latin.    Good Heavens!   I lived in Athens for two years!  Knowing Greek is nearly the same as knowing Russian."

"The arrogance!" Fandorin howled. 

"It's the same alphabet!"

Erast opened his mouth to reply, a playful scowl on his features, but his assistant had returned.  Fandorin's features softened gently.   "Yes, Anisii?" Fandorin said anxiously as Tulipov lingered at the bedroom door.   "Who is it from?" Erast asked as Anisii hung back, eyes wide with trepidation as he held the enormous box in his grip.  It was wrapped in white paper with rippled watermarks and decked with blue ribbons the same color as Fandorin's eyes.

"The Countess Opraksina," the assistant whispered as if afraid she would pop out of thin air like a devil in a fairy tale.   Erast drew in a breath of surprise.  His smile and laughter fell away, and he sat up stiffly, looking forlorn and upset and angry.   "There's a letter.  Shall I open it?" Tulipov whispered. 

"No!  Yes.  P-please," Fandorin trembled. 

Anisii set down the large box and cracked open the envelope on top.    The ribbons came loose as well with the slightest touch, and the top of the box lifted of its own accord. 

" 'Precious Erastushka, I am on my way to see you at once.  I will be praying the entire trip.  Please be safe, my foolish boy—Addy'."

"Oh, dear," Fandorin breathed, eyes wide. 

"Damn woman no good for you," Tulipov tried to joke hesitantly.  It took Heddy a moment to realize he was imitating Masa's accent and words.  Anisii silently surrendered the letter to Erast, who held it numbly in his grip.   Heddy was mentally working her way through a translation of the message. 

"Erastushka.  She puts the affectionate-familiar ending on your given name?  A woman well known to you.  Your wife?" Heddy questioned finally.   

"Wife, yes, mine, no," Erast answered succinctly.   Miss Tybault raised a brow and gave a mildly-surprised but indulgent half-smile.   Tulipov pulled the top of the box away and stared down inside.  He blushed as he glanced back at Fandorin. 

"What did she send you?" Heddy asked, peering down into the box.   "Pants, socks, underclothes, a shirt, a frock coat, shoes.  The Countess is an intuitive woman, isn't she?"

"Unnaturally so," Anisii whispered, crossing himself.  Fandorin shook his head no.

"It's not supernatural.  She merely possesses exceptionally good instincts," he scowled.  

Chapter Six – In Which the Wolf and the Leopard Disagree

Tuesday afternoon

"That's not him, Kirnov," Fandorin snapped impatiently. 

"You're in a mood, aren't you?  Of course it's Radespeller.  When reassembled, what we have of the corpse, and we have most of it, is the correct height and the correct physical characteristics."

"It is not Radespeller."

"How can I prove beyond doubt it is Radespeller with more than half his face missing?

"How could you possibly believe it is him with evidence like this?!" Fandorin pointed at the crime scene photographs. 

"What more evidence do you want, you ghoul?  His heart on a plate?

"The hands, Kirnov."

"We can fingerprint them, if you wish to keep his prints for your collection."

"Look at his hands."

"I am looking at his hands!"

"Maximillian Pavlovich, your victim has more than the requisite number of fingers."

"What are you talking about?  He has ten fingers." 

"He has ten!  Precisely my point!  Mother of God, Max!" Fandorin scolded.    

"What?!"

"Herr Radespeller has but nine, well, nine and a half, after our near-miss in Warsaw."

"Christ's blood!  How could I forget?"

"This unfortunate soul is certainly not Herr Radespeller.  Martin must have spent hours in the train station, waiting for the right man to walk past.  Please take these horrid things away.  Have you any of the other deceased parties?"

"That won't help," Kirnov said glumly.    "All women—a group of Ursuline nuns.  He must have thrown his 'bread basket' under their train car."

"Jesus Christ," Fandorin whispered, crossing himself. 

"Goddamn it!" Kirnov shouted. 

"Take heart, Max.  There is still a chance we may yet capture Radespeller.  Like Miss Tybault, he must wait for repairs to the outbound train tracks, and he is therefore as trapped as she is within the confines of dearest Moscow." 

"He could hire a carriage."

"With his face printed in every publication?  I think not.  Is Nicholevni done with the Tybault photographs yet?" Erast asked.  Kirnov made a fearsome face, but Fandorin merely smiled. 

"Why would any sane man stay where every police gendarme and government agent wants a piece of his hide?"

"We are not dealing with a sane man—that is one.  He wanted to deceive you with the bomb at the station.  He waited all day for an approximate double to cross his path.  And his approximate double made the dubious choice to sit with a train car full of nuns.  Radespeller is trying to show you he knows you're watching him.  What sort of person blows up the very method of their own escape? Not a sane one, to be sure.  Or perhaps he is more clever than we credit him, to target a double whom the police could easily mistake for him in the heat of the moment."

"Agreed.  He is both clever and insane.  That doesn't explain why he would stay, Erast Petrovich.  He could steal a carriage if he cannot hire one.  He could steal a horse.  He could bloody well walk, given enough time."

"This is why he's staying," Tulipov interjected, putting the paper down on within reach of Fandorin, and pointing to one of the articles.  Fandorin read the first sentence out of the paper, and recited the rest from memory.

" 'The citizenry of Moscow is most relieved to hear of the continuing improvement in the health of state servant Erast Petrovich Fandorin, who is recovering at the home of Charles and Kermit Tybault near to the very scene where he was wounded in the attempted arrest of radical anarchist Martin Radespeller.  While currently housebound as a precaution, Mr. Fandorin is expected to be on his feet by the end of the week'."

"Chief, they've practically tied you to a stake in the front yard."

"Tulipov, you exaggerate," Erast denied.   Anisii suddenly jolted, as if someone had poured ice water down his back. 

"Chief, when you asked me to deliver that note to the Times yesterday?"

"Yes, Tulipov?"

"What was in that note?"

"Words and money, Tulipov," Fandorin chuckled. 

"These words?" Anisii persisted, pointing to the page. 

"Ones rather like those," Erast admitted. 

"You paid for them to run this?" Tulipov's voice raised slightly. 

"Erast Petrovich, why are you giving Herr Radespeller a trail of bread crumbs to follow to your door?" Kirnov demanded.

"Because if I don't, someone more clever than I might capture him first."

"It's not your case.  It's our case.  Our case.  You need to stop making this is a territorial pissing contest," Kirnov leaned in to menace Fandorin.   "This is your life we're talking about.  He's a dangerous man.  You mustn't play games with him."

"You could always move your surveillance of Herr Radespeller from the train station to the Tybault home, if you are concerned about my well-being."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Kirnov growled.   Fandorin smiled again.   "We're going to be around tonight as it is.  The Prince is planning a concert out there in the park, right under your window, and I will be here guarding the Governor-General."

"Is he?" Fandorin asked Tulipov, who turned the newspaper inside out and silently pointed to another article.  Anisii was pale and unhappy, disappointed to have been made an unwitting participant in his Chief's unwise games of self-endangerment.  "B-bless his heart.  So he is.  Don't worry, Anisii.  I will be fine." 

"Not if you can help it, you're not.  What were you thinking, giving a madman directions to your location?  Chief, you're going to need extra protection. 

"I will manage.  Nicky Three is downstairs." 

"Nicholevni is a civil clerk!  He's no more than a pup, and I've seen him on the firing range.  He couldn't hit the broad side of a bright red droshky! Besides, he's more than occupied with all those pictures.  I should stay here and guard you.  Don't send me back to the train station.  You have to agree there is nothing more we can learn."  

"I – I – I – " Fandorin sputtered, very touched.  Kirnov interceded.

"Don't worry, Tulipov.  Neither of us will be going back to the train station tonight.  We're both going to be guarding Prince Dolgorukoi and Mr. Fandorin, mostly from himself, and quite probably from the Countess Opraksina."

Fandorin snorted quietly, keeping his anger in check. 

"If you have any sympathy in your soul, Anisii, you'll forget about me and go help Nicholevni with those thousands of pictures.  Not only would you be rescuing him from his fate, you will be helping Miss Tybault, and you'll be helping Mr. Kirnov as well," Erast suggested. 

"How will he be helping me?" Kirnov asked.

"I'll bring them here.  You can help too, Chief," Tulipov said excitedly, and he raced off before either Kirnov or Fandorin could contradict his suggestion.   Kirnov watched Tulipov disappear down the staircase in a flurry of steps, and looked back to the bed to Fandorin. 

"You did that on purpose," Max accused.

"Did what?"

"He will never leave your side, knowing you are in danger, and you want very much to have a look at those photographs yourself."

"Only because I want to free Miss Tybault from the tyranny of your suspicions, and allow her to join her family in Vienna.  It is unnecessary of you to keep her here so long."

"I was keeping her here for your sake."

"My sake?" Erast questioned. 

"It has not escaped my attention that you are more inclined to behave yourself if someone of the female persuasion is looking after you.  I should very much like to interrogate you as to your relationship with your mother, but that will have to wait for another time."

"My mother is n-none of your damned business," Erast blushed.   Undaunted, maybe even encouraged, Max continued. 

"Lyubov is here when the Baroness sends her, but when she is not here, you ponder your escape more anxiously.  Lurk by the windows.   I saw you poking the drainpipes with your cane, don't think I didn’t!   I can't order Lyubov to stay here, but I can keep Miss Tybault here.   When she is here, you are occupied with language, with science, with anthropology.   By keeping someone of the fairer sex nearby to occupy your mind, I am able to keep you in bed and relaxed, which is where you are supposed to be until the good doctor decides otherwise."

"Your logic, though incorrect in its basic assumption, is otherwise sound.  With the Countess Opraksina on her way, could I persuade you to release Miss Tybault?"

"Not on your life."

"Why not?  I promise I will keep myself thoroughly occupied."

"I need Miss Tybault."

"Why?"

"You and she are well-suited for one another.  I am going to try my hand at match-making the two of you," Kirnov teased wickedly.  "You need a wife.  She needs a husband.  You're both arrogant intellectuals.  Your progeny could rule the world."

"You're a wicked man to torment her so," Fandorin said softly. 

"She's perfect for you, Erast Petrovich.  She'll be gone most of the time with the rest of the Tybaulti Ruka."

"I would never so endanger Miss Tybault as to make her my spouse."

"Think of it as a politically-advantageous union.   With a small bit of self sacrifice, you and she could seal the rift between two great nations.  Miss Tybault reminds me of your Countess, only harder and more cruel.  You must like them that way."

At a loss for words, Erast kept his mouth shut.    

"In the event I fail at match-making, I can fall back on Plan B," Kirnov joked, knowing full well he had offended when his last comment. 

"What is that?"

"I suspect that having Miss Tybault here will bring out the possessive streak in Opraksina, and she is sure not to leave your side so long as there is even so much as the slightest chance that another woman might fall into your bed in her absence.   I will have two of them to occupy you with.  Three, if the gypsy maid returns.  Four, if the Baroness returns, which surely she will, because she and Dolgorukoi are engineering this concert together for your amusement.  Hiring musicians, inviting friends and guests, having food and wine prepared—it's a circus downstairs, I'll tell you that much.  Four of them!  I'm so clever!"

"I'm amazed you can touch holy water when you entertain such sinful thoughts as that," Fandorin growled. 

"What would you know of my sinful thoughts?" Kirnov chuckled.  "If I play my cards right, I might be able to surround you with a harem of beautiful women, wonderful food, gorgeous music.  You're never going to try to escape me then, will you, Erast Petrovich?"

"After all the trouble the Baroness and the Prince are going to for my sake, it would be unforgivably rude and ungrateful for me to engineer my escape tonight."

"I hoped you'd say that."

A parade of people began bouncing up the staircase, each carrying a small trunk.  As they stomped and galloped into Fandorin's room, Max gave Erast a slug in one shoulder, and made his escape in the ensuing madness.   Fandorin didn't have time to be angry or upset.  His displeasure evaporated as he watched trunk after trunk appear.  The more trunks that appeared, the more he smiled.  Tulipov returned, putting a trunk beside the bed.   He grabbed pillows that had fallen to the floor.  He stacked them behind Fandorin's back, and opened the first trunk within reach. 

"We'll begin with the Serengeti."

"Oh, good!  I've never been, and I am most curious," Fandorin purred. 

Chapter Seven – In Which Secrets and Champagne Are Shared

Tuesday evening

"I have s-something for you," Fandorin murmured softly, putting his chin against Miss Tybault's shoulder.   Having drunk had one more bottle of champagne than was probably wise, Erast was feeling a tiny bit tipsy, which could be forgiven, because surely before the night was over, and after the champagne had worn off, he would be feeling nothing but pain. 

He and Heddy were sitting side by side on the cushioned bench which solely for his convenience had been pulled up to the windows of the bedroom that overlooked the park down below.  The bed had been moved, and the trunks of pictures had been neatly stacked against the far wall under the large table filled with gifts and food and books.   The more he drank, the closer together they were sitting, watching the concert below, enjoying the music, the food, the company.  Visitors came and went, tiptoeing away from the assembly below in order to say a quick greeting to Fandorin and discretely disappear again.   There had to be a hundred people downstairs and in the park area, not to mention those who had gathered to listen to the concert itself who were strictly speaking not invited guests. 

If Miss Tybault was at all upset that she had been forced to endure another night in Moscow, she was hiding it very well.   She was being nothing but kind to Fandorin.  Her Cousin Eric was outside conversing very seriously with Prince Dolgorukoi at the moment.   Erast thought Eric was a quick-tongued, sharp-witted young man better suited for the army than for the diplomatic core.   Perhaps he was working from his end trying to secure Heddy's release.   

Because of how close Fandorin was sitting next to her, Heddy was obliged to slip an arm around his waist, presuming he might need the help to keep upright.  Every indication was that he did need help, in the worst way.  His mood had bounced back and forth between cheerful and morose, anxious and angry, distracted and disturbed.  She had done what she could to keep his spirits up, knowing that before long, the woman he was dreading would arrive.

"You know, Mr. Fandorin, the last time I heard those words, they were delivered in Greek, and the night involved far too much ouzo and far too little sleep."

"Pictures.  Under my p-pillow," he whispered. 

"Pictures?"

"Ones I don't believe you wish to have seen, let alone catalogued by the dutiful Nicky Three."

"What sort of…..damn!" she exclaimed, abandoning the bench to race for his bed.  Erast listened to the concert below, his eyes following Miss Tybault through the near dark room.  She tossed pillows aside until she located two photographs that had not been packed down into the trunks.  Heddy clutched them in her hands, and folded them against her heart as she closed her eyes.

"They were among the c-cathedrals of Athens.  Perhaps I should have left them.  A nun holding a baby.  Harmless pictures.  No one else w-would have guessed."

"No.  No.  Thank you.  I should have been more cautious."

"Why the cathedrals, I asked myself.  The answer was obvious, of course, once I realized the ch-child has your eyes.  Two years in Athens is more than enough time to fall in love.  You were in all the pictures except those from the Serengeti.   Each trunk contained two years' worth of pictures.  I saw you, or at least your shadow, in every other destination.  By my estimation, when your uncle and your father were in Africa, you would have been sixteen?  Seventeen?  Even the m-most open-minded guardian does not take a budding young woman through the jungles of Africa if he can help it.  Your father and uncle left you in Athens where they wanted you to be safe, left you with friends, I must assume, and so they put you in romantic danger while they tried to spare you physical danger."

"Mr. Kirnov is wrong.  You are a sorcerer," Heddy whispered, drying her face. 

"No.  Merely observant.  Two years is long enough to start and end an unfortunate affair, discover yourself in unexpected circumstances, leave the home of the friends you were staying with, live with the nuns because they would have taken you in without question.  You wrote to your uncle and to ask his advice.  You would not write your father, of course, because he was busy courting a replacement for your mother, and therefore your uncle is the obvious choice.  He recommended finding your child a good family, an English family to take him back to England with them as their own child.   No one would be the wiser unless you told them.  You could never abandon him there in Athens, I know.  You would never have taken a baby there—you are far too pragmatic for that sort of sentimentality.   The only option is that you created him there.  I apologize.  Forgive me.  Should I not have intruded?  I never meant to make you cry.  Forgive me."

"No.  Foolish of me to have kept the pictures at all.  I could not bear to part with them though.  How did you guess?"

"I did not guess," Erast whispered back.  "Deduction.  One, t-two, three, four."

"How did you deduct?"

"All I needed to know, you gave me.  I did not mean to hurt you.  I'm s-sorry.   My mind has been so hungry, and mysteries do nourish me, even small ones."

Heddy returned to the bench and thumped back down.  Her despair was contagious.    Erast tried to sit up straight, allow her her space in case she was angry with him, but Heddy forced a smile sideways at him, tucking the pictures into the book beside her.  She invited him back to her shoulder, hugging him gently in forgiveness. 

"What was one?" she demanded, drying her face again. 

"You are far too mature to have crossed through this world without having been a victim to Cupid's arrow at least once.  You have a s-serious, penitent demeanor, but neither your father nor your uncle is overly religious.   You hide a cross beneath your clothing, but a very simple one.  The nuns gave it to you?"

Heddy nodded as she parted the top button of her blouse long enough to show him the carved, wooden object about one inch and a half in length, hanging on a plain brown cord.

"The way you see through people—it's unsettling," she whispered, giving a quick laugh. 

"Your work means distraction to you from your unhappiness in your personal life.  You are unmarried, and steadfastly so, but you are not the c-cold creature that Kirnov believes.  I have seen the truth even if Max can't.   You were wounded once by Cupid's arrow, and do not wish to risk being hurt by another unfeeling prick." 

Heddy laughed discretely, and Erast bowed his head to her shoulder.

"Forgive me.  I'm sorry.  Unfortunate choice of words."

"What was two?" she persisted.

"You were far, far too forgiving when I admitted my s-shameful affair with the Countess Opraksina, another man's wife."

"Which led you to deduce I had been snared in such an entanglement as you had."

"You were."

"Yes.  A diplomat tied to the British Consulate in Athens, the very friend who was supposed to protect me."

"Say no more.  I don't need to know.  It's n-none of my business."

"What was three?"

"Your intense dislike of your younger half-sister.  N-not being able to raise your own child has given you a dim view of children in general.  Denying your motherly longings, you conceal your pain beneath disdain."

"Disdain?  I suppose that's fair.  What was four?"

"Your uncle is your protector.  Your father is nervous, embarrassed in your company.  Your step-mother was nice to you, but you do not like her.  Ivy…..intensely dislikable, but she must….if she is as intelligent as you, think of the agony she suffers being trapped at home in England with nothing nourishing to occupy her mind.  Could you be satisfied with boarding school and French classes and embroidery classes and learning how to serve a proper tea?"

"No.  I would hang myself first."

"You should advocate for Ivy to be given a challenge, a substantial occupation, an education like to your own.  You could make her your greatest ally!"

"You learned all of that, sitting up here listening to us??"

"You Tybaults are a very loud group.  You shouted at each other quite a bit." 

"You must have ears like a bat," Heddy laughed. 

"Your uncle treats you as a peer, an equal, a kindred spirit.   He sees you as an adult.   He usually calls you Harriett, not Heddy.  He was hurt by love too, and he's protecting your secret in order to right a wrong?  Does he have bad behavior in his own past?  Is he performing moral restitution?"

"Cousin Eric is Uncle Kermit's son from an extra-marital affair.  How did you guess?"

"I did wonder why he called both of the Tybault brothers 'Uncle' when there is apparently not a third brother, and none of you has mentioned an aunt.  I don't need to know all the details to know that you and your uncle are close because you share a similar pain.  Your father is kept at a distance from you both because he has never shared in this pain."

"I am beginning to understand why your prince keeps you around and keeps you happy," Heddy nodded, laughing just a little.  

"There m-might be an ounce of truth to that, but I am quite fond of the Governor-General.   Prince Dolgorukoi has no need to fear from me.   He's a very good man, with a k-keen mind, and he has been patient with my idiosyncrasies.  Indulgent.  Kind." 

"It's my turn to ask you."

"Ask me what?"

"How is it that you got involved with this countess, another man's wife?  You seem exemplary in most other behaviors, if a trifle impatient at times.   Why did she know to send you clothes?  Everyone else has sent food and books and wine, except the Baroness, but she was wise enough to bring you clothes you could not wear in public under any circumstances."

"For your ears only?" Erast whispered. 

"Absolutely."

"I was assigned to d-deliver important papers to Count Opraksin, who shares my field of employment but is stationed in St. Petersburg.   While en route, I was drenched in torrential rains.  I arrived looking like a d-drowned cat, only to find the Count was not home.  I was d-devastated to have missed him, and especially so after having risked pneumonia to make it from Moscow to St. Petersburg as quickly as I could possibly cross the distance.  His wife, Opraksina, took one look at me in the foyer, had me stripped of every stitch of clothing, and t-tossed me into a guest room until my things could dry.  She did not care that my documents were worth far more than my miserable life.  They remained in my courier bag, dripping wet and soggy, and as a result they were nearly impossible to decipher."

"She took your clothes?"

"She d-did, knowing I could never leave without them.  It took me forever to get them back from her, and I won't relay to you the manner in which I had to earn them back either. I s-suspect you can guess."

"Shirt, shoes, socks, trousers, jacket, overcoat, underclothes," Heddy counted on her fingers.  "My God!  All in one night?  You must have been exhausted!"  

"It took a w-week, and I could hardly move when she had finished with me!  S-shirt, s-shoe, s-shoe, sock, sock, trousers, jacket, overcoat, underclothes."  

"Where in the world was the count and why was he so delayed in returning home?"

"He had, in actuality, h-headed along the same road towards Moscow as I was coming to m-meet him in St. Petersburg.  He had spent a week in comfort with Prince Dolgorukoi, both worried about where I had vanished."

"What rotten luck!" 

"If not for Prince Dolgorukoi sending agents to find me, I might have never made my escape from the C-countess.  Then, not a month after my return to Moscow, she arrived there herself.   She had had a terrible fight with her husband, who didn't need to be a deductive genius to figure out what his wife had been up to with the Dolgorukoi's Deputy of Special Assignments.   I offered to find her a place to stay, and she moved in with me.  I'm not…not quite sure how that happened, to be honest.  Eventually, however, s-she began to miss her husband, and we had s-several t-terrible fights because of a case I was involved in, and Ad-d-dy returned to her husband in St. Petersburg."  

In response, Heddy conjured a sympathetic smile.   She tapped a kiss to Erast's cheek and whispered to him.

"Poor boy.  Mr. Kirnov keeps telling me you are Fortune's favorite.  I couldn't disagree more.  I think Fortune has been quite miserable and mean to you.  What did you ever do to make her mad at you?"

"God alone knows," Erast whispered. 

He suddenly sat up and clutched tight to Heddy's hand.  She followed his gaze out the window.  A black carriage pulled slowly in front of the residence, and the coach disgorged a beautiful vision in blue satin and silk and sapphires and diamonds.   By the light of the hanging lanterns which lit the walkway, Countess Opraksina's clothes and hair shimmered dark blue as deep ocean water.   The entire assembly down below took a collective breath, including the musicians, which gave pause to the sweet refrains everyone had thus far been enjoying.   

"Oh!  Your Countess is lovely," Heddy smiled.   The music resumed.   "I can understand why any man would be tempted.  And there's Kirnov, making nice.  The Prince, making nice.  I suspect they're delaying her, somehow."

"You suspect correctly," Erast agreed.   "Could you…. pazjholista ……could you walk me downstairs?"

"Oh, oh, oh.  Your Baroness does not like your Countess whatsoever," Heddy chuckled, transfixed by the scenes outside the window.  "Why downstairs?"

"Because I'm afraid me, this close to a bed, wearing nothing but a nightshirt, is going to send the wrong message to Addy."

"You could have put on the clothes she sent you."

"I could have," Erast replied, rising slowly to his feet.   He was wearing a sour frown. 

"I can't help but notice she's wearing a matching outfit.  Coincidence?  No?" Heddy asked, watching as Fandorin slipped his dressing gown from home over his nightshirt.   Masa had brought the gown to him earlier in the day when Erast had refused to let himself be dressed in the outfit from Opraksina.  Fandorin wavered unsteadily on his feet, enough that Heddy felt obligated to come away from the window and let him lean on her.   She did feel he might have played that up a little. 

"She's going to be jealous if I'm this close to you," Heddy warned. 

"Do you want me to tumble down the steps and break my neck?"

"Are you afraid of her?" Heddy whispered to him.

"T-terrified," Erast confirmed. 

"Wise of you.  The female of the species is always more deadly than the male."

"They have to be," Erast concurred. 

Fandorin's caution was not unfounded.  They had barely reached the first landing on the stairs when Countess Opraksina burst in through the front door and stopped for a half second.  Her catlike eyes narrowed at Miss Tybault, and her face contorted with strong emotions like love and jealousy and concern.   In three leaps the Countess was up on the landing, arms around Erast, mouthing kisses everywhere she could reach, especially along his throat, tugging him physically away from her perceived rival. 

"Erast!  How thin you are!" she exclaimed.  "Aren't they feeding you?"

"Ad-d-dy.  You mustn't. . ."

"None of that.  I know the doctor's orders.  You are not to be out of bed."

"First door across the hall," Heddy whispered, dodging Erast's needle-like glance. 

"First things first.  Have you eaten?  Aren't they taking care of you?  Is that the monster who shot you?"

"She's not a monster, Addy," Fandorin scolded.  Heddy was chuckling as she danced away from Fandorin's clutching hand, down the stairs and towards the open front door. 

*  *  *

The repetition of 'Daddy' brought Heddy awake in the dark of night, except it wasn't entirely dark.  Tybault had crept up to her room a few hours ago in a lull between the storms of noise and voices across the hallway behind Erast's closed door.   It had been after the musicians had departed, and the food had been devoured, and the guests had finally left.  The park was now deserted except for the gendarme guard who had remained to watch over Mr. Fandorin and ostensibly to guard Tybault as well.  The English words mixed into the Russian had confused Heddy's sleeping mind, and it had prodded her awake.   Was someone calling for their father or were they saying her name?  Or were they saying someone else's name?  Who had left a candle burning in the hallway, she wondered. 

"Addy.  Oh. God.  Ad-daddy.  Oh. Oh.  Ad-daddy."

Carefully moving around in her bed, Heddy stared across the hallway.  The closed door had been opened at least part ways.  But why?   And by whom?  Only a single candle flickered from the table, but it was more than enough to see by.  The Countess Opraksina was on top of Erast, sucking his neck and clawing at his skin as she rocked their hips together.   Erast's eyes were closed in concentration, his face awash with conflicting love and pleasure and shame and need.  All the while the countess was watching his face with her greedy eyes.   Her expensive dress was pooled at the end of the bed, half on the floor, half over the covers.   Their naked forms glittered with sweat.   The jewels on her high, thin neck were picking up the illuminating rays from the candle, making prisms of blue light dance around the dark walls.  Her hair, once piled neatly on her head, was falling tress by tress because of this excessive activity. 

Fandorin's stammer made senseless syllables of his words.  By the end, the Countess was pounding him mercilessly into the mattress.  Heddy wanted to shout at her to be careful with the man—he had nearly been dead two days ago.   If anything could make his seizures return, this was definitely it!  Erast was moaning non-stop.  His hands slipped off her breasts.  He writhed and thrashed, snaking his fingers into the sheets and arching involuntarily with each thrust. 

"Ad-daddy.  Ad-day."

The countess was smiling unpleasantly as she watched his face.  When he screamed out a final time, she seized his hands, holding them above his head.  She silenced his panting by slipping her tongue in his mouth and nearly suffocating him with a long, painful kiss.   She followed the less-than-loving lip-lock with nips and bites around his mouth and chin, along his jaw, against his throat.  Erast was shivering as the Countess removed herself from him and stood off the bed.  Had she been wearing her boots the whole time, Heddy wondered deliriously.  The Countess pulled her clothes on, straightened her hair nonchalantly, and pulled her long gloves on once she had retrieved them from the over the top of the bedposts. 

"Forget Moscow for a while.  You should come with me and let me take care of you," she said, standing next to the bed and staring up and down Fandorin's body as she ran gloved fingers over the middle of his chest.

"N-not possible," Erast whispered tiredly, his eyes half-closed. 

"Erast Petrovich, I've missed you in my bed," the Countess mourned.

"My d-duties…."

"There is so much more to life than duty, Erastushka."    

With the words spoken, she whirled away from him.  Heddy cringed as Opraksina blew out the candle and headed for the door which the Countess herself had undoubtedly opened on purpose.  Their eyes locked.   Because of the now-visible moonlight, Heddy was sure Addy could see her.  Tybault burned brightly with shame (and not a small bit of jealousy).  The Countess smiled capriciously at Heddy, and left Erast's room without a backwards glance.   Her sharp boots tapped her path down the stairs and out of the house.   A carriage rolled away.  

Back upstairs, Heddy was watching Erast's miserable face by the moonlight that filtered through his curtains.  Eyes closed, he was frowning unhappily, curled up in the sheets like a broken doll.   He brushed impatiently at his wet face once or twice before falling back down into sleep.   Heddy wished she herself could find a way back to her dreams as well.  Sleep did not return for her until nearly dawn when the rain began. 

Chapter Eight – Expelling Evil Spirits

Wednesday morning

Rains that began before dawn left a pallid gloom on everyone and everything.  Mr. Kirnov had tiptoed in very early, wanting to annoy and pester Fandorin.   He found him moody and incommunicative.

"Did my match-making work?" Kirnov murmured.  "You and Miss Tybault were sitting quite close before the Countess arrived."

"Not this morning, please," Fandorin whispered.  "No paper?"

"No paper for you."

"Hm.  Have you any papyrosas?  Or cigars?"

"I'm not so sure you should be smoking either.  Look at you.  You haven't rested yourself this week, have you?  Not at all.  You've got circles under your eyes a trained bear could leap through."

"Much more of this damned rest and I will be useless."

"Don't think I didn’t see the countess leaving in the middle of the night," Kirnov mused. 

"Did you?  How unfortunate."

"You are putting a dreadful fear of marriage into young Tulipov.  You should be more mindful of how your actions influence your subordinates."

"I did notice you're wearing the vestment again.  Hoping to make me feel guilty?"

"Am I that obvious?  Is it working?"

Fandorin didn't give a complete reply, just a mournful shrug.

"Perhaps you are not entirely to blame.   Human nature at work.  You, this close to a large bed, was far too much temptation for Opraksina to resist," Kirnov joked.   Max was fluffing Erast's pillows, helping him sit up straighter in bed.  "Prince Dolgorukoi should have never sent you to St. Petersburg with those papers.  He should have sent me.  The Countess would never have dragged me to her bed.  I'd've fought her off.  I'd've bitten her, given her tetanus, or at least a good slap in the face.  But no, no.  Dolgorukoi had to send you.  He went and dangled a sweet mouse in front of a wicked cat like that.  She snatched you up too, ate you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, didn't she?  Poor sweet mouse." 

For an instant, a kind of protective tenderness went through Max's face.  He tied the tie at the top of Fandorin's sleeping shirt, which had been gaping open indecently. 

"You are twice as fortunate as the rest of us," Max tormented, back to his usual self. 

"How is that?"

"We only get to see the countess going.  You get to see her coming and going."

Kirnov's face parted with a teasing smile.  Fandorin frowned desolately in return.   Kirnov didn't know what to say.  Erast's sad eyes troubled him. 

'I'm a pretty toy for her and nothing more," Fandorin admitted. 

"With a face like that, you're bound to break a few hearts, even your own."

Erast nodded, staring down into his covers and his folded knees.  He sighed sadly, and Kirnov's features rearranged to an even-more sympathetic pose.   Pity was oozing from Max's every gesture.   There was a different timbre in his voice when he spoke.

"Do you like kirsch?  It's a home-made cherry brandy."

"Is it strong?"

"Strong?  It's like getting kicked in the face.   It will cure whatever ails you."

"Even hearts?" Erast thought out loud.

"It is especially effective on broken hearts.  I've tried it myself a time or two when I was feeling low.  Not even you could resist kirsch.  You'll be so drunk you'll sleep with any woman between here and St. Petersburg," Max soothed.  He waited a beat before adding, "At least those few you haven't already had your way with.  Do you need another pillow, your eminence?"

"Why are you pestering me when you're supposed to be tracking Radespeller?"

"I was tempted to come and tell you all about last night's exciting developments.  I wanted to see you green with envy because I learned first.  You are a bit green, but that isn't envy, is it?  Did you have too much champagne yesterday?  No, I'm actually  here because I wanted to assure you you are perfectly safe."

"What makes you think I want to be safe?  Maybe I should go stake myself in the yard and invite Radespeller to kill me, like Tulipov said." 

"Give me those pillows.  You need more sleep.  I will come back later and torment you when you are better rested."

Kirnov took away enough pillows that Fandorin was lying flat again.  Fandorin balled up on one side and waved dismissively to make Kirnov leave him alone.    Max patted Erast once on the shoulder and quietly left the room.   Fandorin had about an hour before Doctor Fedorov was due to arrive, and he would need every minute of sleep he might be able to glean in that time. 

*  *  *

"Damn woman no good for you." 

Erast Petrovich wasn't any more rested than he had been earlier.   Doctor Fedorov had come and gone, ordering another day of bed-rest and boredom.  The medical man had not even made it down the stairs and out of the house before Masa had pounced into Fandorin's room, pulled him from his bed, taken away his bedclothes, and stretched him out naked on the area rug on several large blankets and towels. 

Because of the position in which Fandorin was lying, prostrate on the pallet of blankets on the hard floor, head turned to the left side, he could not face Masa to give this topic its proper attention.   Heddy decided it was probably not the first time they had had this discussion.   Adding to Erast's emotional mood was his lack of will to move.  Bed-rest and relaxation clearly did not agree with him.  Fandorin settled for a tired groan instead of launching into a full-blown disagreement.  He sought to put one hand on Masa's nearby arm.

"No lectures this morning," Erast pleaded.   Heddy could hear their conversation and see part of what was going on.  She concentrated on her book, but couldn't help but glance up now and again. 

Masa's knees appeared near to Erast's shoulders.  The Japanese spoke, not to his master spread out on the solid floor,  but to Lyubov, the Baroness's maid.  The valet had brought her back, and not without purpose.  The attentive young woman was kneeling to Fandorin's right side.   She was resting one hand on the small of his back, admiring him from this new angle.  Her fingertips were tracing a circle on his skin above the towel that was folded across his naked backside.   Masa pushed his powerful hands and strong fingers down the length of Fandorin's back, following his spine.  Erast groaned involuntarily. 

"See.  Like so.   Come.  You do like me," Masa said to the gypsy maid. 

"Should we trade places?" Lyubov asked.

"No.  Better you sit here."

Masa stopped rubbing Fandorin's spine and quickly patted the back of Erast's thighs. 

"Wait," Fandorin protested faintly, but Lyubov was already pulling up her long skirt in order to straddle him.   Once she had seated herself as demurely and comfortably as possible, she set to work with diligence that had to be commended. 

"Good, good," Masa said, rubbing Erast's back again.  The maid imitated from her end, and smiled when Fandorin lowed softly. 

"Look at your back.  Why did that woman scrape you up like this?" Lyubov wondered aloud disapprovingly. 

"Hm," Masa snorted his displeasure, backing up and kneeling down to the floor in order to talk to Fandorin.   "Damn woman use you like scratching post."

Marking her territory, Heddy immediately thought to herself. 

"Shh," Erast whispered.

"She bad like tora fugu." 

"Masa, you mustn't compare the C-Countess Opraksina to a puffer fish.  It's bad manners."

"Little tora fugu- very tasty.  Make you tingle all over." 

Fandorin closed his eyes, a sad smile on his face.    Masa scolded him with a tender thump on the bridge of his nose.

"Too much tora fugu kill you, Erast-san."

Erast's depression did not go unnoticed by his valet.  Masa's hands worked up and down Erast's back in opposite tandem with Lyubov's.  The lack of conversation was filled by the sound of Fandorin's soft moans of contentment.   Masa paused now and then to whisper into Fandorin's ear, his mouth close enough to touch his skin.   Maybe that was purposefully, and maybe not.  Erast replied one or two words, his face becoming more and more despondent.    As Lyubov worked on Fandorin's back, Masa smoothed his master's hair, kneaded his neck and his skull side to side, and smoothed his hair again.  The valet took one of Fandorin's hands and kissed it, then placed it gently back down at his side.   Lyubov raised a brow at this, smiling quizzically.

"Very important.  Rub here, make purr like kitty.  I show.  You practice," Masa murmured.

Lyubov and Masa both concentrated on the small of Erast's back for several minutes.  Anything that Masa did, Lyubov imitated perfectly.  Fandorin chanted soft, unintelligible syllables before dissolving into groans. 

"See?  Master stretches out toes.  Like very much.  You natural at this.  We practice more," Masa praised. 

Minutes ticked away, but were not wasted.   Heddy had put her book down and sat up, utterly transfixed by what she saw.    Masa had the key to curing whatever was hurting Fandorin, that much was certain.   He had known exactly what to do.  Erast was languidly relaxed on the floor, almost asleep.   His sadness had faded to a serene calm. Fandorin must have trusted Masa implicitly to surrender such control to him.   Heddy wondered if that was wise of him, knowing what a prankster Masa could be.   

"Move down," Masa said to Lyubov. 

"Masa," Erast whispered the syllables almost inaudibly.  The valet shushed him with a lingering touch on the scar on his left shoulder and a gentle whisper in his ear.

"Hush.  You like."

"Is something wrong?" Lyubov asked. 

"No.  All good.  Now I show how to expel bad spirits."

"Um- no," Fandorin interjected without opening his eyes.    "Hands off, arigato."

Lyubov was laughing softly, digging the heels of her palms into the small of Erast's back.   Masa was tracing his fingertips and a thumb in a secret pattern in the nape of his master's neck and the top of his spine.    The valet motioned for Lyubov to try as well.  She and her skirt moved up over Erast's bare form so she could reach his neck, and the tickle of the material was making Erast blush.  Lyubov and Masa rubbed both sides of Fandorin's neck at once. 

"Masa, you should stop," Erast warned timidly.

"Shh.  You like."

"Masa."

"No listen," Masa murmured to Lyubov.  "We touch right spot, him open like beautiful flower."

Fandorin pleaded this time,  "Masa."

"Make you feel good.  You see.  Practice.  Like so."

"Masahiro."

Starting at Fandorin's neck, Masa kissed his way down Erast's spine, and Lyubov gamely pursued this tactic as well, moving her skirt out of their way.  They were making Erast moan again, but not in contentment.  The sound was somewhere between agony and bliss, and Heddy surmised that was probably where Erast's pleasure center was.  Fandorin softly, hesitantly started into a string of Japanese words broken by his stammer.  Masa rose up, and blinked in surprise, but he quickly recovered his veneer.  He squinted his eyes before he grinned broadly.

"Ha ha ha," the valet replied, undaunted.  "Master keep talking that way, frogs pop out of his mouth."

Masa ambled to his feet, and Fandorin's bedroom door closed shut, but the exchange could be heard yet.  Heddy smiled to herself and fanned her warm face with her book.  Footsteps on the stairs made her leap suddenly to her feet.  She barely made it in time to intercept Mr. Kirnov and Prince Dolgorukoi. 

"What in the world is going on in there?" the prince asked, clearly concerned. 

"Something about expelling evil spirits," Heddy said.  "Perhaps we should wait downstairs.  Can I interest you in a cup of tea?"

"Evil spirits?" Kirnov questioned, horrified.   "Is Erast possessed then?"

"I don't know if I'd say he's possessed."

For a second or so, an extended cry echoed across the guest's bedroom and into the hallway.    Kirnov, Dolgorukoi, and Tybault all instantly recognized it was Fandorin who was being made to call out so.   This prolonged vowel was quickly muffled by either a hand or a kiss or a pillow.    Masa was saying something in Japanese, and Lyubov was whispering as well, but not in Japanese.   The bed clothes were rustling.  It was a good thing that two of the three people in the near vicinity had no idea what either of them was saying.   Dolgorukoi's blue eyes got extremely wide for a second though.  He had understood Lyubov's part of the conversation at least.  Another series of quiet moans from Fandorin made Heddy blush in spite of her British reserve.   Dolgorukoi began chuckling, twisting one of his whisker edges with two fingers, and smiling at the door in a patient, loving manner. 

"Thank you, Miss Tybault.  I would love a cup of tea," the prince whispered, giving her a quick wink of conspiracy.  He turned away from the door and prevented Kirnov from reaching the knob. 

"That doesn't sound like any exorcism to me, Erast Petrovich!" Kirnov called.  He bristled with annoyance, but allowed Dolgorukoi and Heddy to escort him down the steps. 

Chapter Nine –  Spy-scope

Wednesday afternoon

"Which of your accomplices brought you that?"

Fandorin turned around from the open window, lowering the collapsible spy-scope in his grip.   Before Erast could muster a reply,  Max Kirnov fired another curt salvo of words.   

"Where did you get those clothes?!  Why are you dressed?!"

Erast opened his mouth in hopes of wedging a few words in, but Kirnov came over and tugged him physically away from the window.

"You are not supposed to be working, Erast Petrovich!"  

"Radespeller is r-right over there," Fandorin pointed out the window towards the apartment complex on the opposite side of the street and the parklands.  "When I woke from my mm-morning n-nap, I could feel his eyes on me.  He left for about thirty minutes, and he's back again.   All under your very n-nose."

"I'm very well aware that Herr Radespeller is there.  I was going to tell you this morning, but you were in such a bad mood I decided against it.  Him being there is all the more reason you should not be standing in front of the open windows, curtains drawn apart, making yourself a target that Monsieur L'Anarchist could hit from any distance with a long-barreled hunting rifle and reasonable skill!" 

"Why aren't you arresting Radespeller?"

"I'm having him watched.  Give me the scope."

"No," Fandorin declared petulantly. 

"You are not supposed to be out of bed."

Nose to nose, they stared each other up and down while Fandorin held the scope behind his back and out of Kirnov's reach. 

"I'd order you to take off your clothes and get back in bed, but I'm quite worried you'd misinterpret my intentions," Kirnov said, finally deciding that battling physically with Erast for the scope or for his clothes was not going to make the best impression on the police gendarmes who were all watching this very window at this very second.  Fandorin smiled wickedly at Kirnov's words.  There was a choice reply lingering behind Erast's lips but it went unspoken.  Max continued on to fill the awkward silence, stepping back from the obdurate Fandorin.  

"You'll be happy to learn I have released Miss Tybault from house arrest.  Curiously enough, however, she remains downstairs in the study, even though I know full well that she has a ticket for the evening's last train departing from Moscow."

"Thank you for releasing her," Fandorin bowed slightly. 

"You're welcome.  Where are the rest of your little minions, now that they've finished bringing you clothes to wear, against the doctor's orders?"  

Fandorin raised a dark brow and swallowed quietly. 

"Masa took m-my things home, in preparation for my planned escape tonight.  Lyuba kindly went to deliver a message to Prince Dolgorukoi for me, informing him that I mean to break out, whether Doctor Fedorov approves or not."

"Very well.  I shall consider myself duly warned.  Where is Tulipov?"

"I ordered him to go home and c-catch up on his sleep."

"Any sign of Opraksina?"

"Ad-d-dy is at L'Hotel Cerulean, which is near to the Metropolitan.   She phoned earlier to let me know she would s-stop by this evening for dinner.  She is on her way to France to visit her sister.  But I rather thought you'd be the one to ask about that, or haven't you been watching me night and day, Mr. Kirnov?  Confirming your own theories about what I've been up to?  Thinking of taking up anthropology as a study?"

"Actually, I have learned quite a bit more about you in these last few days.  You're a fascinating subject for surveillance."

"So g-glad I could amuse you," Erast frowned dangerously.

"One thing is for certain.  If Fandorins should ever become an endangered species, we'll have no trouble getting you to breed in captivity."

Kirnov had a second or two to enjoy the wonderful blush that blossomed in Erast's cheeks before Lyubov came trailing back up the stairs and entered the room on light feet.  She smiled warmly at Fandorin and pressed a parcel of folders to his hands.  The glance she cast at Erast would have thawed Siberia, and the one she sent to Kirnov could have refrozen it!   Erast kissed her hand in thanks, chuckled to happily to himself, and retreated to the end of the bed.   Lyubov took the scope away from Erast, and quickly took up a position by the window. 

"Dolgorukoi is sending you files again?" Kirnov gasped. 

"Only the ones for this case that I haven't seen," Erast whispered.   "No cigars?" he tilted his head at the gypsy maid, who was gazing out the window.

"I see the nine-fingered man is back.  No, no cigars.  They are bad for you," she said without lowering the scope.    "Better that you should smoke Turkish hashish than those nasty cigars."

"Those are my reports, aren't they?" Max murmured, sitting down on the end of the bed on the opposite side from Erast. 

"Maximillian Pavlovich, you have the most primitive penmanship.  I would have expected that someone raised in the church would have had a much-more legible hand.  What is this word?" Fandorin demanded, pointing to the nearest page.   Kirnov slapped at Fandorin's fingers, gathered the reports away from him, and tucked them back into their folders. 

"It says, in essence, that while I feel you have endangered yourself unnecessarily, your ruse to draw Radespeller closer to your own location is beneficial to the case because it gives us a smaller area to have to protect."

"Mm.  What is this?  Praise from Max Kirnov?  I may die from shock.  Give me those reports at once."

"No.  They are not for you." 

"Nine-fingers is building a bomb," Lyubov said from the window.  "Don't worry though.  It's a teeny bomb."

"What makes you think he's building a bomb?" Fandorin asked.  The maid shrugged one shoulder. 

When Lyubov glanced back over her shoulder, she found both Kirnov and Fandorin were blinking at her in amazement.   In reply, she smiled, and faced the window again.

"Did I say something incorrect?" she asked.

"No.  Quite c-correct.  Please do continue your surveillance," Fandorin murmured.   

"You don't have anything to worry about.  You're very well protected here," Kirnov said in a warm, soothing tone. 

"Better than either of us surmised, it seems," Erast added softly, cocking one brow at Lyubov's back.

"There are fifteen officers and gendarme stationed around the vicinity, all of them watching the comings and goings of Herr Radespeller," Max continued. 

"Kirnov, if Radespeller g-gets even a whiff of your surveillance, he'll vanish again.   Look what happened at the train station.  Look what happened in Warsaw.  He spotted your people in Warsaw.   All we got was one finger!  A part of one finger at that."

"I'll take him in one digit at a time if I have to," Kirnov vowed. 

"Send them further away."

"Who?"

"Your men."

"You are in no position to tell me what to do, Mr. Fandorin," Kirnov said, putting up an amused front.

"Monsieur L'Anarchist has blown up innocent people from here to Krakow.  He slaughtered a train car full of nuns!  He will have no qualms about killing police.  You must not endanger more officers than necessary."

"It is their job to risk their lives."

"Not unnecessarily."

"I'm not moving them."

"Very well.  You leave me no choice."

Erast walked to the hallway and halted on the threshold as if held by an invisible force.

"Miss Tybault?" he called out.  Heddy's voice called back up the stairs at him.

"Yes, Mr. Fandorin?"

"Might I b-borrow your amusing little toy?"

"Certainly.  It's on the bed in my room."

Fandorin collected the blow pipe from Heddy's bedroom.  Striding purposefully back into the guest room, he swung open the entrance to the bathroom.  The cushion hanging on the back of the door looked like a porcupine with green and pink and red and black feathered darts hanging out of it.   He had clearly been practicing. 

"You wouldn't dare," Kirnov challenged.  Fandorin held the blow gun under one arm long enough to slip on a pair of gloves, and he theatrically selected a green feathered dart from the cushion on the doorway. 

"I have thirty seven darts here.  You go tell your men that I will pick them off one by one until they are in distant-enough positions that neither I nor Radespeller can detect them.  You have five minutes."

"You're a bloody madman," Kirnov laughed, crossing his arms and glaring at Fandorin.  With a tiny puff of air, Erast whistled the green dart right past Max's elbow.  Kirnov gaped at him with an open mouth before running swiftly from the room. 

"Keep watching, Lyuba," Erast whispered to her, sitting down on the bench at her side, blow gun in hand.  Lyubov trained the scope downward.  Kirnov emerged from the house into the parkland below. 

"You wouldn't really shoot your own men, would you?" she whispered. 

"No," Erast quickly breathed, appalled she had believed his ruse.  Heddy's footsteps could be heard climbing the stairs.   "Truth is, my dear, I don't have a prayer of hitting anyone at this distance."

"Is Mr. Kirnov making a pest of himself?" Heddy asked from behind Erast. 

"Could you wing him at this distance?" Fandorin asked, giving a devilish half smile and surrendering the blow gun to her.

"Alas, not that I wouldn't enjoy myself, but there are too many tree limbs in the way," Heddy replied.  Lyubov chuckled quietly too.

"Damn.  He took his files too," Fandorin whispered, glancing back at the bed.  "Why doesn't he want me to read them?"

"Probably because he's worried you'll find out he called you an arrogant prick," Lyubov answered.  "It was a long ride from the palace, and I didn't have anything else to do.  I flipped through the files."

"Yes?" Fandorin pressed. 

"Nothing more to learn than what is already known to you," she shrugged. 

"Did he really call me arrogant?"

"Worse than that.  He refers to you several times as an officious tit."

Heddy backed away laughing as Erast turned pink and red and mottled by turns. 

"I do believe I irritate him," Fandorin decided.  Lyubov popped the scope out for another glance towards the apartment across the parklands and the street.

"I have to leave—return home.  The Baroness is having dinner guests and needs her hair done.  I'm supposed to be buying ribbons.  You'll manage him?" the maid asked Heddy.  Tybault nodded in reply, dodging a dark look from Fandorin. 

"Because it is my job to dress hair and buy ribbons.  As for the knowledge of explosives, you should try to push that from your mind, for both our sakes, Mr. Erast."

"You may as well tell him," Heddy whispered in warning.  "He'll figure out all your secrets sooner or later."

"It's taken him five years to get this far.  I think I have time," the maid mused.  She handed Fandorin his spy-scope, and pecked him on the cheek before leaving.  She smiled warmly to Heddy on her way out.   Tybault waited until the maid appeared on the walkway downstairs before facing Fandorin.

"Mm, another mystery for you to devour.   Are you still hungry?" Heddy asked Erast.

"Famished."  His face was aglow with a mischievous smile. 

"I believe I already know the answer to this one, but I will leave you to decipher for yourself," Heddy said, patting him on the shoulder before she tiptoed away. 

Chapter Ten –  Allouette

Wednesday night-Thursday morning

Unanticipated movement in Fandorin's bed woke him instantly.   Someone was kneeling over him on all fours, whispering his name urgently.   Not an unusual occurrence lately. 

Not Koshka.  The cat was outside the open window, watching the yard by the light of the moon.   She got up on her haunches and danced off the roof and up into the tree next to the window. 

Not Opraksina.  The Countess had left after dinner, on her way to France to visit her sister there.   She had spent the entire meal making pleasant talk with both Cousin Eric and Heddy, all the while feeding small morsels of food to Erast as a further demonstration of her ownership of him.   Erast couldn't help but feel there was unspoken tension between Addy and Heddy, but neither woman made a direct verbal comment which could have been interpreted as unpleasant or cutting.   They were nothing but kind to each other, but kind in that way which made his nerves twinge.   

Dinner had been informative, anyway.  Cousin Eric had been given an emergency transfer from the British consulate in Moscow to the one in Athens.  Heddy had nearly choked on her pomme-frites when Eric asked her to change her travel plans for Vienna and instead to journey to Greece with him.  After all, she knew the language, and she would be invaluable to him in learning his way around.   It would only be for a few months, a year perhaps, and he'd be ever-so-grateful.   There really was no polite way to refuse him, and she did like Eric very much.  While switching from white wine to potent Scotch whisky and giving the smiling Fandorin a meaningful glance, Heddy had graciously agreed with Cousin Eric's request.

Meanwhile, on Fandorin's bed, Erast encountered a most-unexpected pair of green eyes staring down at him in distress.   Maximillian Pavlovich was undeniably intimidating from this particular angle, especially when Max was holding him by both shoulders and crushing his hips.  He was rather heavier than he appeared. 

"Kirnov?" Fandorin whispered unsurely. 

Without explanation, Kirnov grabbed Fandorin, rolled him off the mattress onto the floor, and dragged him bodily under the bed.  All this was performed with a minimum of sound not only because Kirnov was quiet as death, but because he was holding his hand over Erast's mouth. 

Heavy footsteps went around the hallway outside the opened bedroom door.   Kirnov put an arm of iron around Fandorin and struggled to hold him motionless as a gunshot echoed out from the doorway.    They cringed as they heard it strike the headboard of Fandorin's bed.  Another followed quickly, making one of the pillows fall on the floor in the wake of hundreds of small feathers. 

A flurry of movement in Heddy's bedroom made the figure in the hallway turn around her direction.  Her door opened, and the gun went off again, and her door slammed closed.

A commotion of noise erupted on the second floor of the house.  Cousin Eric, no doubt awakened by the sound of gunfire, was pulling on clothes and searching his room for his own firearm.   He kept shouting Heddy's name fearfully.

Under the bed, Kirnov let go of Fandorin long enough to aim his own gun at the heavy boots at the doorway.  Fandorin flew out from under the bed and charged at the figure while pulling on his dressing gown.  He was risking a bullet in the ankle and one in the head, because both Kirnov and Radespeller (who else would it have been?) fired at the same time.  Miraculously, Fandorin escaped ballistic injury of any kind.    The fig tree was not so lucky.   And why did he need his dressing gown, Kirnov wondered in a split-second of unfocused annoyance!

Confronting armed, stocky men in dark, undersized spaces can be tricky.   Even if the pentagonal area could be considered large for a hallway, it was small for a tackling zone.  Radespeller slammed into a far wall, and Fandorin cracked his skull on the decorative side table, which immediately deposited one large precious vase less than an inch from Erast's throbbing head.   Insult to injury, Radespeller fired again.  Fandorin got a shower of wood splinters in his hair, but there was no time to be alarmed at how close that bullet had actually come to splitting Fandorin's skull. 

Erast wrapped one foot around Radespeller's nearest leg and tripped the stealthy anarchist off balance.  This might have been a good thing but for two unlikely events occurring in the next instant.  Heddy's door opened again, and an astonishing sequence of darts whistled past in the dark.   Two, maybe three?  Her door slammed once more.  Fandorin recognized the sound and tried to ball up in the smallest possible space as far away from that deadly whistling as he could manage.   In the guest room, Kirnov gave muffled exclamations of  "Ouch! Fuck!  Watch out!" 

At that exact moment, of course, taken off his footing by the intrepid and limber Fandorin, Radespeller landed right on top of said civil servant and nearly punctured his lung with the sheer force of weight and gravity.   That's what a lifetime of heavy lager and breaded schnitzels will do to you, Erast thought spitefully, grabbing his wounded ribs with an angry growl and silently cursing the solid block of German lard with all his might. 

Cousin Eric was pounding up the stairs, announcing his eminent arrival with loud creaking and the thunk-clank-cock of whatever firearm he was holding up in two arms as he leapt around onto the landing.  Max must have had some idea of the weapon.  Maybe he had even had time to see it.  Kirnov snatched Fandorin's arms and he dragged him hastily, physically, frantically across the floor, back into his room.  The side table went flying as Erast's lower half scuttled to keep up with his upper half.   Fandorin's bedroom door slammed shut in the nick of time. 

There was a god-awful demonstration of firepower in the hallway, followed by the  terrifying, echoing blast of explosives being ignited.  A heavy scattering of timber planking slammed like an ocean wave into the bedroom door, causing it to tilt haphazardly off its hinges before clattering to the ground.  Fire rolled around in the hallway and into the guest room, licking up the walls and jumping to the ceiling.  Plaster dust and splinters and smoke enveloped Kirnov and Fandorin where Max was shielding Erast with his entire body.   Glass sprinkled to the ground, playing a macabre melody. 

Dazed, Fandorin was lost for several seconds to the cataclysmic forces of déjà-vu, premonition, and sheer terror.   Dodging flames and smoke, Kirnov walked-dragged Fandorin down the mangled staircase, keeping Erast's eyes shielded from the reddish-bluish smears and gleaming white fragments that were scattered all around the ravaged hallway.  Luckily most of Radespeller's remains had been blown through the destroyed wall into the bathroom.  Heddy was very close behind Max and Erast on what was left of the stairs, holding her left arm at a strange angle.  There was a blood trail down her forearm. 

"All right, old girl?" Cousin Eric asked.

"He nicked me.  Nothing serious.   You grabbed the elephant-gun?" she shouted to Cousin Eric, who was wincing and shaking his head. 

"What?!" Eric shouted, helping her down the steps. 

"Never mind," Heddy shook her head.  

Down on the first floor, the front door burst open, and gendarme poured in by the dozens, weapons drawn, shouting names into the darkness lit by the glowing fire raging on the upper floors.   Relief flooded the junior officers' faces when they recognized Kirnov and Fandorin were conveniently already making an exit from the engulfed residence. 

"The trunks.  In the study.  Get the trunks in the study!" Kirnov ordered the other police as a second explosion rocked the house. 

Fandorin was placed down on the grassy ground in the park.  He watched in numb, mute silence as the police streamed in and out of the burning Tybault home.  Heddy sat beside him, numb as well.  She was holding her wounded left arm.   Fandorin took her forearm into his grip and held his hands over her nick.  The bleeding stopped very quickly.  Once the excitement wore off, she was going to start feeling the fracture, but for now, Erast took the belt off of his dressing gown and wound it tenderly around Heddy's arm. 

Miss Tybault's blow gun sat faithfully in her lap.  She watched anxiously as her luggage and her precious photographs were brought to her, stacked trunk after trunk a safe distance from the flames. 

"Good thing I packed already, eh?  Sorry the same can't be said of Eric though," Tybault whispered to Fandorin.   "It'll be all right.  I can get him a new wardrobe.   Are you all right?  Are your ears ringing?" 

Erast blinked at her, not saying a word.    Several of the gendarme came and went, bringing more trunks, until Cousin Eric assured them there were no more.  And then there was nothing to do but stand and watch as the flames consumed the house.  At least the fire department arrived in time to keep the blaze away from the stables where Helen the hussar's ceremonial horse was bedded down.  Cousin Eric coughed up wry comments that were making the gendarme chuckle nervously.  Kirnov came over to where Fandorin was seated.  He knelt down and lifted one of Fandorin's hands. 

"I'm going to take Miss Tybault to the hospital.  Do I need to take you there as well?  Or should I bring Doctor Fedorov here?  Erast Petrovich, are you all right?  Say something!"

"I don't need to go to the hospital.  It's only a nick.  I'll be fine," Heddy promised Kirnov.   He glanced at her skeptically.   Fandorin tilted his head and watched Max, reaching upwards to his shoulder and drawing one of Heddy's darts out of Kirnov's heavy vestments. 

"Don't worry.  If I haven't had an allergic reaction yet, I probably won't have one," Max said.  Erast gave the dart carefully back to Heddy. 

Purring sounded from above them in the trees, along with a tentative 'mrowr?'  Kirnov stood up, walked to the trunk of the tree, and reached upwards.  He brought the gray cat over and deposited her tenderly into Fandorin's grip.  

"She must have leapt down from the trees on the other side by your room," Heddy said loudly.  Erast put a finger in one ear and shook around violently.  He was quivering, holding his throbbing head with one hand. 

"No use s-shouting at m-me," Fandorin answered finally, sounding strange and shaky.  "I c-can't hear either of you!"

"Not like you listen as it is," Kirnov joked.  "I hope you don't think this means you're not going to spend the next two days in bed, Fandorin, because believe you me, you're going to be in some bed, somewhere, relaxing, or ELSE!"

"What happened?" Heddy asked. 

"Your cousin shot Radespeller and ignited the bomb he was carrying," Kirnov surmised.  Fandorin watched their words and nodded quietly.   "Oh.  He agrees with me.  I might die of shock," Max laughed, standing up and going back over to discuss matters with Cousin Eric and the gendarme. 

"It might be a g-good thing you Tybaults are leaving," Fandorin directed at Heddy while stroking the happy feline settled in his lap. 

"Why is that?" Heddy wanted to know. 

"Tybaulti Ruka.  C-clearly no one in Moscow is safe with the Tybaults around."

Heddy's infectious laughter rose into the night sky. 

Epilogue

several weeks later

"Look, Chief!  You got a box from Miss Tybault.  You remember?  The anthropologist." 

"Yes, T-tulipov.  I remember her," Fandorin said, shifting around at his desk and tossing the files he was working on back together.  He squinted in the bright morning sun pouring in through the opened curtains as Masa fiddled with the way the material was hanging on the rods.  Neither of them was satisfied with the results.  The valet stood unevenly on the ladder, shifting his weight around and frowning.  

"Straight?" Masa demanded.

"No," Fandorin growled.   The material shifted left, right, left. 

"Straight?" Masa repeated. 

"No!  Masa, get down from there before you fall and b-break your neck.   They have to go.  I hate those curtains.  I have always hated those curtains.  I will not stand for those curtains one m-minute longer.  Take them down."

"Curtains stay up for now, or study become sauna."

Tulipov exchanged a glance with Masa, and they both smiled in unison.  Erast turned and snatched the brown-wrapped box from Anisii, pretending he did not see them chuckling at his expense.   His current case was driving him slowly mad, and he was taking it out on everyone and everything. 

"I remember now," Masa said as he climbed down from the ladder and stared at the curtains, pulling and tugging the fabric to make it lay more evenly.  "Nice English lady.  I leave you alone for only one night, and you burn down her house to break free from bed-rest and relaxation." 

"I d-did not burn down her house," Fandorin retorted, opening a small pen-knife and cutting through the cords that held the box secure. 

"Danna did so burn down house," Masa scolded. 

"I was there.  The house did burn down.  There is no correlation between these two unrelated events."

"She was going to Greece, wasn't she?" Tulipov asked.  

Masa waited in front of the window, arms crossed over his chest as he stared outside.    Fandorin could see beyond Masa's shoulder that a dark carriage had pulled up on the opposite side of the street, and it was disgorging a pair of serious-looking men.  Early morning visitors for the Baron, perhaps?

"Miss Tybault made it to Athens safely, it would seem," Fandorin commented, lifting the top of the box away and peering down inside.  

"Has she given up adventure and settled for retirement in Greece?" Anisii asked. 

Erast dipped down into the box, lifting out a strange, oblong carved wooden mask with dark black beads and feathers along the fringe and a horrific, painful expression on the front.  Fandorin's face lit up with undisguised curiosity and gleeful excitement.  He slipped the leather strap on the back of the mask behind his head and pulled the heavy object over his own features.   Calmly wearing this monstrous creation, he pulled the large envelope from the box to read the letter enclosed. 

When he opened the envelope, several pictures dropped out.   Anisii carefully retrieved them where they scattered, getting down on his hands and knees to find the ones that had scuttled under the large desk. 

" 'Dear Mr. Fandorin, I do hope this letter finds you well. . .' "

Masa flew without warning over the front of the desk, colliding with Fandorin and knocking his master to the ground.  The windows began to shatter the next second, not all at once and not evenly.  A barrage of bullets slammed through the study, tearing through the walls of the drawing room as if they were made of paper.   Bullets ricocheted around, striking objets d'art and Japanese prints hanging on the walls.  Panes of glass fell in bits and pieces, crashing to the floor.  The much-maligned, uneven curtains began to twitch and spasm and flail around as chunks of wood flew out of the window frame.  Scattered papers and files and bits of stuffing flew wildly around the room. 

Masa pushed Fandorin down in a safe location in the hallway and went back into the study.  He emerged the next second with Anisii in tow.  The terrified assistant cringed down next to his Chief.  Masa sat down across from Fandorin, panting loudly, wiping horror and sweat from his brow.  Erast seemed to be taking this peculiar occurrence very much in stride.   He was calmly reading the letter from Miss Tybault when he exclaimed in surprise, and yanked the mask back off of his face.

The gunfire stopped.  Bullets came to rest here and there.  One last priceless object dropped to the ground with a shower of porcelain fragments which skittered into the hallway in a cascade like a bridal veil.  Fandorin must have recognized the piece—he gave a small whimper of dismay. 

"I assume you got a good look at them?" Erast said, folding up letter for the time being.

Masa nodded, gulping, listening to his heart pound. 

"Le Viper?" Fandorin purred hopefully.  Masa gave another nod. 

"So he's changed from p-poisonous snakes in the toilet to bullets through the windows?  This is good news!  It means we're making p-progress."

"Can use commode without fear of snake bite," Masa whispered. 

"I need to contact Dolgorukoi and tell him at once.  By the way, Miss Tybault sends her regards to you both.  She is having a terrific time in Greece.   Out of sheer boredom, she secured a position at the zoological museum.  She sent me the m-mask for study, but warns to resist the temptation to wear the visage, as it appears to be under an evil curse," Erast relayed with a pert, ironic smile.  

For a long moment, Masa looked as if he might reach across the small space and choke the very life out of his beloved master. 

"What sort of evil curse?" Tulipov whispered, shying away when Fandorin brought the mask back around, holding it between his knees to look at it more closely.  A few of the feathers were missing from the crown, and there was a chip of wood missing from the  very top of the face. 

"A rather tenacious one," Erast whispered back, smiling even wider.    He put the mask down, and watched in amusement as both Masa and Tulipov drew as far away from it as possible.  Fandorin got up on his knees and ventured to the doorway then into the bullet-riddled study.  He returned on crunching footsteps, frowning petulantly.   "The phone is dead," he reported, no longer whispering. 

"YOU'RE LUCKY YOU'RE NOT DEAD!" Tulipov shouted.  "HOW CAN YOU BE WORRIED ABOUT THE PHONE?!"

"Calm down, Anisii.  You b-both stay here.  I'm going to see if the Baron is awake."

"Chances are, yes," Masa nodded. 

As if in response, a frantic pounding began at the front door of the small house on Malaya Nikitskaya.  

"Coming!" Fandorin shouted, hurrying in the direction of the hellish pounding.    The Baron's voice could be heard before the door was even open.

"Are you all right, dear boy?! ERAST!  ERAST!"

Le Fin