The Death of Achilles by Boris Akunin Read Free Book Online

to load dueling pistols? No? Then you load them, Eich-golz.”
    Once again the opponents took their pistols and stretched the handkerchief out between them. The captain was morose and determined, but if anything Fandorin seemed rather embarrassed. On the command (Baranov was counting this time), Gukmasov’s pistol misfired with a dry click, but Erast Petrovich did not fire at all. The captain, deadly pale now, hissed through his teeth: “Shoot, Fandorin, and be damned. And you, gentlemen, decide who is next. And barricade the door so that no one can get in! Don’t let him out of here alive.”
    “You refuse to listen to me, and that is a mistake,” said the collegiate assessor, waving his loaded pistol in the air. “I told you that you will achieve nothing by drawing lots. I possess a rare gift, gentlemen — I am uncannily lucky at games of chance. An inexplicable phenomenon. I resigned myself to it a long time ago. Evidently it is all due to the fact that my dear departed father was unlucky to an equally exceptional degree. I always win at every kind of game, which is why I cannot stand them.” He ran his clear-eyed gaze over the officers’ sullen faces. “You don’t believe me? Do you see this imperial?” Erast Petrovich took a gold coin out of his pocket and handed it to Eichgolz. “Toss it and I will guess, heads or tails.”
    After glancing around at Gukmasov and Baranov, the baron, a young officer with the first vague intimations of a mustache, shrugged and tossed the coin.
    It was still spinning in the air when Fandorin said: “I don’t know… Let’s say, heads.”
    “Heads,” Eichgolz confirmed, and tossed it again.
    “Heads again,” the collegiate assessor declared in a bored voice.
    “Heads!” exclaimed the baron. “Good Lord, gentlemen, just look at that!”
    “Right, Mitya, again,” Gukmasov told him.
    “Tails,” said Erast Petrovich, looking away.
    A deadly silence filled the room. Fandorin did not even glance at the baron’s outstretched palm.
    “I told you. Masa, ikoo. Owari da.* Good-bye, gentlemen.”
    The officers watched in superstitious terror as the functionary and his Japanese servant walked to the door.
    As they were leaving, the pale-faced Gukmasov appealed to Erast Petrovich: “Fandorin, promise me that you will not employ your talent as a detective to the detriment of the fatherland. The honor of Russia is hanging by a thread.”
    Erast Petrovich paused before answering.
    “I promise, Gukmasov, that I will do nothing against my own honor, and that, I think, is sufficient.”
    The collegiate assessor walked out of the suite, but before following him Masa turned in the doorway and bowed ceremonially, from the waist.
    “Let’s go, Masa. It’s over.”

----
FOUR
    In which the usefulness of architectural extravagance is demonstrated
     
    The suites in the hotel Anglia were a match for the respectable Dusseaux in the FOUR magnificence of their appointments, while in terms of architectural fantasy they actually surpassed it, although the presence of a somewhat dubious, or at least frivolous, quality might possibly be detected in the sumptuous gilded ceilings and marble volutes. On the other hand, however, the entrance was radiant with bright electric light; one could ride up to the top three floors in an elevator, and from time to time the foyer resounded with the shrill jangling of that fashionable marvel of technology, the telephone.
    After taking a stroll around the grand foyer with its mirrors and morocco-leather divans, Erast Petrovich halted in front of the board with the names of the guests. The people who stayed here were a more varied bunch than at the Dusseaux: foreign businessmen, stockbrokers, actors from fashionable theaters. However, there was no songstress named Wanda to be found on the list.
    Fandorin cast a keen eye over the hotel staff darting back and forth between the reception desk and the elevator and selected one particularly brisk and efficient