The Death of Achilles Read Online Free PDF Page A

Fandorin, but the collegiate assessor appeared entirely uninterested in this detail — he walked over to the bureau and for some reason ran his finger over the bronze candelabra.
    “There was no arguing with him,” said Gukmasov, with a bitter laugh. “I tried to object, but he gave me such a look, that… After all, Your Excellency, he was used to strolling around on his own in the Turkish mountains and the Tekin steppes, never mind the streets of Moscow.” The captain twirled one side of his long mustache gloomily. “Mikhail Dmitrievich got back to the hotel all right. He just didn’t live until the morning.”
    “How did you discover the body?” asked the chief of police.
    “He was sitting here,” said Gukmasov, pointing to the light armchair. “Leaning backward. And his pen was lying on the floor.”
    Karachentsev squatted down and touched the blotches of ink on the carpet. He sighed and said: “Yes indeed, the Lord moves…”
    The mournful pause that followed was interrupted unceremoniously by Fandorin. Half-turning toward the hotel manager and continuing to stroke that ill- starred candelabra, he asked in a loud whisper: “Why haven’t you electricity here? I was surprised about that yesterday. Such a modern hotel, and it doesn’t even have gas — you light the rooms with candles.”
    The Frenchman tried to explain that candles were in better taste than gas, that there was already electric lighting in the restaurant, and it would definitely appear on the other floors before autumn, but Karachentsev cleared his throat angrily to cut short this idle chatter that had nothing to do with the case.
    “And how did you spend the night, Captain?” he asked, continuing with his cross- examination.
    “I paid a call to an army comrade of mine, Colonel Dadashev. We sat and talked. I got back to the hotel at dawn and collapsed into bed immediately.”
    “Yes, yes,” Erast Petrovich interjected, “the night porter told me that it was already light when you got back. You also sent him to get a bottle of seltzer water.”
    “That’s correct. To be quite honest, I had drunk too much. My throat was parched. I always rise early, but this time, as luck would have it, I overslept. I was about to barge in with a report for the general, but Lu-kich told me that he had not risen yet. I thought Mikhail Dmitrievich must have worked late into the night. Then when it got to half past eight, I said, Come on Lukich, let’s wake him or he’ll be angry with us, and this isn’t like him anyway. We came in here, and he was stretched out like this” — Gukmasov flung his head back, screwed up his eyes, and half-opened his mouth — “and cold already. We called a doctor and sent a telegram to the corps. That was when you saw me, Erast Petrovich. I apologize for not greeting an old comrade but — you understand, I had other things to deal with.”
    Rather than acknowledge the apology, which in any case was absolutely unnecessary under the circumstances, Erast Petrovich inclined his head slightly to one side, put his hands behind his back, and said: “But you know they told me in the restaurant here that yesterday a certain lady sang for His Excellency the general and apparently even sat at your table. An individual well-known in Moscow, I believe? If I am not mistaken, her name is Wanda. And it appears that all of you, including the general, left with her?”
    “Yes, there was a chanteuse of some sort,” the captain replied coldly. “We gave her a lift and dropped her off somewhere. Then we carried on.”
    “Where did you drop her off, at the hotel Anglia on Stoleshnikov Lane?” the collegiate assessor asked, demonstrating just how well-informed he was. “I was told that is where Miss Wanda resides.”
    Gukmasov knitted his menacing brows and his voice turned so dry that it practically grated: “I don’t know Moscow very well. Not far from here. It only took us five minutes to get there.”
    Fandorin nodded,