daughters of the nobility in ten minutes.
After exactly ten minutes (Rybnikov was watching from behind the curtains) Glyceria Romanovna paid her cabby and got out of the carriage with a determined air.
The door was opened for her by the respectable-looking porter, who bowed and led her along the corridor towards the sound of a pianoforte.
Lidina was pleasantly surprised by the rich decor of the boarding house. She thought it rather strange that there were nails protruding from the walls in places – as if pictures had been hanging there, but they had been taken down. They must have been taken away to be dusted, she thought absentmindedly, feeling rather flustered before her important conversation.
In the cosy salon two pretty girls in grammar school uniform were playing the ‘Dog’s Waltz’ for four hands.
They got up, performed a clumsy curtsy and chorused: ‘ Bonjour, madame .’
Glyceria Romanovna smiled affectionately at their embarrassment. She had once been a shy young thing just like them, she had grown up in the artificial world of the Smolny Institute: childish young dreams, reading Flaubert in secret, virginal confessions in the quiet of the dormitory …
Vasya was standing there, by the piano – with a bashful look on his plain but sweet face.
‘My auntie’s waiting for you. I’ll show you the way,’ he muttered, letting Lidina go on ahead.
Fira Ryabchik (specialisation ‘grammar school girl’) held Rybnikov back for a moment by the hem of his jacket.
‘Vas, is that your ever-loving? An interesting little lady. Don’t get in a funk. It’ll go all right. We’ve locked the others in their rooms.’
Thank God that she and Lionelka didn’t have any make-up on yet because it was still daytime.
And there was Beatrice, already floating out of the doors to meet them like the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna.
‘Countess Bovada,’ she said, introducing herself with a polite smile. ‘Vasya has told me so much about you!’
‘Countess?’ Lidina gasped.
‘Yes, my late husband was a Spanish grandee,’ Beatrice explained modestly. ‘Please do come into the study.’
Before she followed her hostess, Glyceria Romanovna whispered:
‘So you have Spanish grandees among your kin? Anyone else would certainly have boasted about that. You are definitely unusual.’
In the study things were easier. The countess maintained a confident bearing and held the initiative firmly in her own grip.
She warmly approved of the idea of an escape abroad. She said she would obtain documents for her nephew, entirely reliable ones. Then the two ladies’ conversation took a geographical turn as they considered where to evacuate their adored ‘Vasya’. In the process it emerged that the Spanish grandee’s widow had travelled almost all over the world. She spoke with special affection of Port Said and San Francisco.
Rybnikov took no part in the conversation, merely cracked his knuckles nervously.
Never mind, he thought to himself. It’s the twenty-fifth tomorrow, and after that it won’t matter.
The fourth syllable, in which Fandorin feels afraid
Sombre fury would be the best name to give the mood in which Erast Petrovich found himself. In his long life he had known both the sweetness of victory and the bitterness of defeat, but he could not remember ever feeling so stupid before. This must be the way a whaler felt when, instead of impaling a sperm whale, his harpoon merely scattered a shoal of little fish.
But how could he possibly have doubted that the thrice-cursed dark-haired man was the Japanese agent responsible for the sabotage? The absurd concatenation of circumstances was to blame, but that was poor comfort to the engineer.
Precious time had been wasted, the trail was irredeemably lost.
The mayor of Moscow and the detective police wished to express their heartfelt gratitude to Fandorin for catching the brazen band of crooks, but Erast Petrovich withdrew into the shadows, and all the glory went
After exactly ten minutes (Rybnikov was watching from behind the curtains) Glyceria Romanovna paid her cabby and got out of the carriage with a determined air.
The door was opened for her by the respectable-looking porter, who bowed and led her along the corridor towards the sound of a pianoforte.
Lidina was pleasantly surprised by the rich decor of the boarding house. She thought it rather strange that there were nails protruding from the walls in places – as if pictures had been hanging there, but they had been taken down. They must have been taken away to be dusted, she thought absentmindedly, feeling rather flustered before her important conversation.
In the cosy salon two pretty girls in grammar school uniform were playing the ‘Dog’s Waltz’ for four hands.
They got up, performed a clumsy curtsy and chorused: ‘ Bonjour, madame .’
Glyceria Romanovna smiled affectionately at their embarrassment. She had once been a shy young thing just like them, she had grown up in the artificial world of the Smolny Institute: childish young dreams, reading Flaubert in secret, virginal confessions in the quiet of the dormitory …
Vasya was standing there, by the piano – with a bashful look on his plain but sweet face.
‘My auntie’s waiting for you. I’ll show you the way,’ he muttered, letting Lidina go on ahead.
Fira Ryabchik (specialisation ‘grammar school girl’) held Rybnikov back for a moment by the hem of his jacket.
‘Vas, is that your ever-loving? An interesting little lady. Don’t get in a funk. It’ll go all right. We’ve locked the others in their rooms.’
Thank God that she and Lionelka didn’t have any make-up on yet because it was still daytime.
And there was Beatrice, already floating out of the doors to meet them like the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna.
‘Countess Bovada,’ she said, introducing herself with a polite smile. ‘Vasya has told me so much about you!’
‘Countess?’ Lidina gasped.
‘Yes, my late husband was a Spanish grandee,’ Beatrice explained modestly. ‘Please do come into the study.’
Before she followed her hostess, Glyceria Romanovna whispered:
‘So you have Spanish grandees among your kin? Anyone else would certainly have boasted about that. You are definitely unusual.’
In the study things were easier. The countess maintained a confident bearing and held the initiative firmly in her own grip.
She warmly approved of the idea of an escape abroad. She said she would obtain documents for her nephew, entirely reliable ones. Then the two ladies’ conversation took a geographical turn as they considered where to evacuate their adored ‘Vasya’. In the process it emerged that the Spanish grandee’s widow had travelled almost all over the world. She spoke with special affection of Port Said and San Francisco.
Rybnikov took no part in the conversation, merely cracked his knuckles nervously.
Never mind, he thought to himself. It’s the twenty-fifth tomorrow, and after that it won’t matter.
The fourth syllable, in which Fandorin feels afraid
Sombre fury would be the best name to give the mood in which Erast Petrovich found himself. In his long life he had known both the sweetness of victory and the bitterness of defeat, but he could not remember ever feeling so stupid before. This must be the way a whaler felt when, instead of impaling a sperm whale, his harpoon merely scattered a shoal of little fish.
But how could he possibly have doubted that the thrice-cursed dark-haired man was the Japanese agent responsible for the sabotage? The absurd concatenation of circumstances was to blame, but that was poor comfort to the engineer.
Precious time had been wasted, the trail was irredeemably lost.
The mayor of Moscow and the detective police wished to express their heartfelt gratitude to Fandorin for catching the brazen band of crooks, but Erast Petrovich withdrew into the shadows, and all the glory went
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