Special Assignments Read Free

courier could not be admitted. She was wearing a red dressing gown that reached right down to the floor. The beauty's thick, dark hair was arranged in a complicated style, leaving her slim neck exposed; her hands were crossed over her full breasts and her fingers were covered with rings.
    The lady gave Anisii a disappointed look from her huge black eyes, wrinkled up her classic nose slightly and called out: 'Erast, it's for you. From the office.'
    For some reason Anisii felt surprised that the Court Counsellor was married, although in principle there was nothing surprising in such a man having a lovely spouse, with a regal bearing and haughty gaze.
    Madame Fandorin yawned aristocratically, without parting her lips, and disappeared back through the door, and a moment later Mr Fandorin himself came out into the hallway.
    He was also wearing a dressing gown, not red, but black, with tassels and a silk belt.
    'Hello, T-Tulipov,' said the Court Counsellor, fingering a string of green jade beads, and Anisii was simply overwhelmed with delight; he had never have expected Erast Petrovich to remember him, especially by name - there must be plenty of petty minions who delivered packages to him - but there it was.
    'What's that you have there? Give it to me. And go through into the drawing room, sit down for a while. Masa, take M-Mr Tulipov's coat.'
    Anisii walked timidly into the drawing room, not daring to gape all around, and sat down modestly on the edge of a chair upholstered with blue velvet. It was only a little while later that he started gazing stealthily around him.
    It was an interesting room: all the walls were hung with coloured Japanese prints, which Anisii knew were very fashionable nowadays. He also spotted some scrolls with hieroglyphs and two curved sabres, one longer and one shorter, on a lacquered wooden stand.
    The Court Counsellor rustled the documents, occasionally marking something in them with a little gold pencil. His wife paid no attention to the men and stood at the window, looking out into the garden with a bored air.
    'My dear,' she said in French, 'why don't we ever go anywhere? It really is quite intolerable. I want society, I want to go to the theatre, I want to go to a ball.'
    'Addy you yourself s-said that it's inappropriate,' replied Fandorin, looking up from his documents. "We might meet acquaintances of yours from Petersburg. It would be awkward. For me, personally it's all the same.'
    He glanced at Tulipov, and the courier blushed. Well, he wasn't to blame - was he? - if he understood French, even with some difficulty.
    So it turned out that the beautiful lady was not Madame Fandorin at all.
    'Ah, forgive me, Addy' Erast Petrovich said in Russian. 'I haven't introduced Mr Tulipov to you; he works in the Department of Gendarmes. And this is Countess Ariadna Arkadievna Opraksina, my g-good friend.'
    Anisii had the impression that the Court Counsellor hesitated slightly, as if he weren't quite sure how to describe the beautiful woman. Or perhaps it was simply the stammer that made it seem that way.
    'Oh, God,' Countess Addy sighed in a long-suffering voice, and walked rapidly out of the room.
    Almost immediately her voice rang out again: 'Masa, get away from my Natalya immediately! Off to your room with you right now, you vile girl! No, this is simply unbearable!'
    Erast Petrovich also sighed and went back to reading the documents.
    At that point Tulipov heard the tinkling of the doorbell, muffled by the noise of voices from the hallway, and the oriental he had seen earlier came tumbling into the drawing room like a rubber ball. He started jabbering away in some foreign mumbo-jumbo, but Fandorin gestured for him to be quiet.
    'Masa, I've told you: when we have visitors, speak to me in Russian, not Japanese.'
    Promoted to the rank of visitor, Anisii assumed a dignified air and peered curiously at the servant.
'From Vedisev-san,' Masa declared curtly.
'From Vedishchev? From Frol Grigorievich? Show him