He Lover of Death (32 page)

Prokha shrugged and sniffed. His nose had stopped bleeding. That’s none of my business. Well, am I taking you or not?’

‘Yes,’ Senka decided. ‘And you watch out, or I’ll beat you to death with my bare fists. This magician I know taught me how.’

‘He must be quite some teacher, you can thrash anyone you want to now,’ said Prokha, the little brown nose. ‘Don’t you worry about me, Speedy, I’ll do whatever you say. I’m not tired of living yet.’

They walked to the Tatar Tavern, where the way into the Yerokha was. Senka thumped his prisoner in the side a couple of times to keep him frightened and said: ‘Just you try to bolt, and see what happens.’ To tell the truth, Senka was afraid himself – what if Prokha swung round and socked him in the breadbasket? But he needn’t have worried. His new Japanese tricks had made Prokha kowtow something rotten.

‘Nearly there, nearly there,’ Prokha said. ‘Now you’ll see for yourself what kind of man he is. I didn’t want to stooge for him, he puts the fear of God up me. If you could only help me get free of this butcher, Speedy, I’d be really grateful.’

In the basement they made one turn, then another. So now they were no distance at all from the hall with the entrance to the treasure chamber. And the corridor where Senka almost lost his life was pretty close too. Senka remembered that powerful hand tugging his hair and threatening to break his neck and he started trembling all over and stopped dead in his tracks. He’d set out in fine form to unravel the whole case, but his bravado was almost all gone now. Sorry, Erast Petrovich and Masa-san, everyone has his limits.

‘I’m not going any farther . . . You go and meet him . . . You can tell me all about it afterwards.’

‘Ah, come on,’ said Prokha, tugging at his sleeve. ‘We’re almost there. There’s this little cubbyhole, you can hide in there.’

But no way would Senka go any farther. ‘You go without me.’

He tried to turn back, but Prokha held him tight and wouldn’t let go.

Then he flung his arms round Senka’s shoulders and yelled:

‘Here he is, it’s Speedy! I’ve caught him! Run quick!’

The bastard had a tight grip. There was no way Senka could thump him or break free.

And then came the clatter of footsteps in the dark – heavy feet, moving fast.

The sensei had taught him: If a bad man grabs you round the shoulders, don’t try to be clever, just plant your knee in his privates, and if he’s standing so as you can’t swing your knee or reach him with it, then lean as far back as you can and smash your forehead into his nose.

He butted as hard as he could. Once, twice. Like a ram butting a wall.

Prokha yelled (his nose was already broken anyway) and covered his ugly mug with his hands. Senka took off like a shot. And he didn’t have a second to spare – someone managed to grab his collar from behind. The tattered old cloth gave, the rotten threads snapped, and Senka shot off into the darkness, leaving a piece of coarse shirt behind for Prokha’s friend.

He just dashed off without thinking, anything to get away. But when the sound of tramping boots fell behind a bit, it suddenly struck him: where was he running to? The hall with the brick columns was ahead of him now, and after that it was a dead end! Both ways out were cut off – the main one and the Tatar Tavern!

They’d catch him now, trap him in a corner, and that would be the end!

He had only one hope left.

When he reached the hall, Senka made a dash for that special spot. He dragged the two bottom stones out of the entrance to the passage, crept into the gap on his belly, then froze. And he opened his mouth as wide as he could, to keep his breathing quiet.

An echo came drifting under the low vaults as two men ran into the hall – one was heavy and loud, the other was a lot lighter.

‘He can’t go any farther!’ Prokha’s panting voice said. ‘He’s here, the louse. I’ll go along the right wall, you go along the left. We’ll catch him now for sure.’

Senka propped himself up on his elbows to wriggle farther in, but his first movement made the brick dust under his belly rustle. He had to stop, or he’d give himself away, and the treasure too. He had to lie there quietly and pray to God they wouldn’t notice the hole down by the floor. But if they had a lamp with them, then Speedy Senka’s number was up.

Only, to judge from that dry scraping sound he kept hearing, Senka’s pursuers didn’t have any kind of light but matches.

The steps kept getting closer and closer, until they were really close.

Prokha, that was the way he walked.

Suddenly there was a clatter and someone barked out a curse almost right above the spot where Senka was lying.

‘It’s all right, I hit my foot against a stone. It’s fallen out of the wall.’

Any moment now, right now, Prokha was going to bend down and see the hole and the bottoms of two shoes sticking out. Senka got ready to jump up on all fours and dart off along the passage. He couldn’t run very far, but it would put the end off for a while.

But the danger passed. Prokha didn’t spot his hiding place. The darkness had saved Senka, or maybe the Lord God had taken pity on the poor orphan: Ah, sod it, He’d thought, you can live a bit longer, I’ve got plenty of time to collect you.

He heard Prokha’s voice from the far end of the hall: ‘He must have squeezed up against the wall in the corridor, and we ran past him. He’s crafty, that Speedy. Never mind, I’ll find him anyway, don’t you ha ...’

Prokha gagged and didn’t finish what he was saying. And the person he was talking to didn’t say anything either. There was a clatter of footsteps moving away. Then it went quiet.

Senka was so frightened he just lay there for a while without moving a muscle. He wondered whether he ought to crawl farther into the passage – he could pay a visit to the treasure chamber and pick up a couple of rods.

But he didn’t.

For starters, he didn’t have any light. And apart from that, the thought of staying there any longer made him feel nervous. Maybe he ought to just leg it while the going was good? What if they’d gone to get lanterns? They’d spot the passage straight off then. And his own stupidity would be the end of him.

He scrabbled out backwards, moving like a crayfish. Everything seemed quiet.

Then he got to his feet, took off his battered old boots and set off towards the corridor on tiptoe, not making a sound. Every now and then he stopped and strained his ears to pick up any rustling or breathing from behind the columns.

Suddenly something crunched under his foot. Senka squatted down in fright. What was it?

He fumbled about and found a box of matches. Had those two dropped them, or was it someone else? No matter, they’d come in handy.

He took another two steps and spotted some kind of low heap on his right. Either a pile of rags, or someone lying there.

He struck a match and bent down.

And he saw Prokha. Lying on his back with his mug pointing up. But then he took a closer look and gasped. Prokha’s mug was staring up, but he was lying on his belly, not his back. A man’s neck couldn’t twist round back to front like that – not if he was alive, it couldn’t!

So they were Prokha’s matches – and only then did Senka cross himself like you were supposed to and start backing away. And the damn match burned his fingers too. So that was why Prokha gagged like that. Someone had wrung his neck – literally – and double quick. And that was just too much for Prokha, he’d kicked the bucket.

Senka wasn’t really sorry for him, he could go to hell. But what kind of monster was it that could do things like that to people?

And then Senka had another idea. Without Prokha there was no way to find this killer now. A beard right down to the belly was the kind of thing you couldn’t miss, of course, only Prokha was lying through his teeth (wasn’t he?), God rest his rotten soul. He was lying, sure as eggs is eggs.

After all his deduction and projection Senka had been left with nothing but a broken tub, like the greedy old woman in the fairy tale (Senka had read it, but he didn’t like it, the one about Tsar Nikita was better). He could have just told Erast Petrovich about seeing Prokha, couldn’t he? But he’d wanted to shine, and look how bright he was shining now. This time he was the one who’d snapped off the guiding thread.

*

Senka was so upset, he almost forgot to read Death’s letter. But he remembered by the time he got to Spasskaya Street.

‘Hello, Erast Petrovich. Yesterday evening the superintendent was here. He asked about the silver coin himself. Anew rival is it, he said. I won’t stand for it. Who is he? I did as you told me and said it was a rich man with pockets full of silver. Very handsome but not young with greying temples. Is aid he had as light stammer too. After that the superintendent forgot all about the gold and just kept asking about you. He asked if your eyes were blue. I said yes. He asked if you were tall. I said yes. He asked if you had a little scar on your temple. I said I thought you did. Then he started shaking he was so furious. He asked where you lived and all sorts of other things. I promised to find out and tell him everything. So now the two of us have tied a tight knot and I don’t know how to untie it. It’s time we met and talked things over. You can’t put everything in a letter. Come tonight and bring Senka with you. He knows all the back alleys in Khitrovka. He’ll get you away if anything happens. And I wanted to tell you I don’t let any of them near me, even though the super intendent made threats and swore at me yesterday. But now he wants you more than he wants me. I threatened not to ask you about anything and he left me alone. And I want to tell you I won’t let any of these bloodsuckers near me again because I can’t bear it any longer. Theres only so much anyone can take. Come tonight. I’m waiting.

Death’

Senka was in a real tizzy. Tonight, he was going to see her again tonight!

HOW SENKA GLOATED

The engineer and Masa listened to his story without saying a word. They didn’t curse him, they didn’t call him a fool, but Senka wasn’t shown any sympathy either. He didn’t hear anything like ‘Oh, you poor lad, how awful for you!’ or even ‘Ah, that’s really terrible’, not from the likes of them. Even though he tried real hard to impress them.

But then, he only had himself to blame, didn’t he?

‘I’m sorry, Erast Petrovich, forgive me, and you too, Mr Masa,’ Senka said honestly at the end. ‘It was a real stroke of luck, and I bungled the whole thing. We’ll never find that villain now.’

He hung his head repentantly, but he peeped out from under his eyebrows to see whether they were really angry or not.

‘Your opinion, Masa?’ Erast Petrovich asked after listening to the story.

The sensei closed his narrow slits of eyes, kind of buried them in folds of skin, and just sat there for two or three minutes. Mr Nameless didn’t say anything either, he waited for an answer.

At last the Japanese spoke: ‘Senka-kun did werr. Orr crear now.’

The engineer nodded in satisfaction. ‘That is what I think t-too. You have nothing to apologise for, Senya. Thanks to your actions we n-now know who the killer is.’

‘How’s that?’ asked Senka, bouncing up and down on his chair. ‘Who is it?’

But Mr Nameless didn’t answer the question, he changed tack.

‘In fact, as far as d-deduction is concerned, the task was not really very c-complicated from the outset. Any investigator with even the s-slightest experience would solve it easily if he p-possessed your evidence. However, an investigator is only interested in the l-law, while my interest in this case extends beyond that.’

‘Yes,’ Masa agreed. ‘Raw ress than justice.’

‘Justice and mercy,’ Erast Petrovich corrected him.

The two of them seemed to understand each other very well, but Senka didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.

‘But who’s the killer?’ he asked eagerly. ‘And what put you on to him?’

‘Something you t-told us,’ the engineer said absent-mindedly, obviously thinking about something else. ‘Try exercising your b-brains, it helps develop the personality ...’ And then he muttered some kind of gibberish. ‘Yes, undoubtedly justice and m-mercy are more important. Thank God I am now a private individual and d-do not have to act according to the letter of the law. But time, I have so little t-time . . . and there is his maniacal c-caution, we must not frighten him off . . . One single b-blow to finish it. At a single stroke laying s-seven low, like in the folk tales . . . Eureka!’ Erast Petrovich exclaimed and slapped his hand down on the table so loudly that Senka shuddered on his chair. ‘We have a plan of operations! It’s d-decided: justice and mercy.’

‘Operation wirr be corred that?’ the sensei asked. ‘Justice and mercy? A fine name.’

‘No,’ Mr Nameless said cheerfully as he got up. ‘I’ll think of a m-more interesting name.’

‘What operation’s that?’ Senka asked plaintively, pulling a sour face. ‘You said it was thanks to me you solved the whole thing, but you don’t explain anything.’

‘When we g-go to the Yauza Boulevard tonight, you’ll l-learn all about it there.’

They set off.

Death opened the door as soon as they knocked – had she been waiting in the hallway? She said nothing, just looked at Mr Nameless hungrily, without even blinking, as if her eyes had been blindfolded just a moment earlier, or she’d been sitting in the dark for a long time, or maybe she’d just recovered her sight after being blind. That was the way she looked at him. She didn’t even glance at Senka, never mind saying ‘Hello, Senya’ or ‘How are you?’ Then again, she didn’t answer Erast Petrovich when he said, ‘Good evening, madam,’ either. She even frowned slightly, as if those weren’t the words she’d been expecting.

They went into the room and sat down. They were supposed to be there to talk business, but something wasn’t right, it was like they were talking about the wrong thing. Death didn’t say much anyway, she looked at Erast Petrovich all the time, and he mostly looked down at the tablecloth. Sometimes he looked up at Death and then lowered his eyes again quickly. He stammered more than usual, as if he was embarrassed, or maybe he wasn’t, you could never tell with him.