Not Less Than Gods (39 page)

“Stab him!” Bell-Fairfax hissed. Pengrove drew his knife and advanced on the bed. He lifted the knife but did not advance farther. He began to sweat.

“What do I—where do I . . .”

The distant tenor’s voice rose in tender reproach, musically tearful. In desperation, Bell-Fairfax raised his knee and drove it into the target’s
stomach. The target folded up, with just the same
whuff
sound the dog had made, and Bell-Fairfax threw the pillow to one side and seized him by the throat with both hands. He closed the man’s throat with his thumbs, crushed and wrenched. There was an audible
crack
. The target’s clawing hands dropped away. The left hand and arm flopped down over the edge of the bed.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” whispered Pengrove, aghast. The tenor began another verse, rising an octave. “I’m so awfully sorry!”

Bell-Fairfax merely shook his head. “Let’s get out.” He dove through the window and slid down the rope. Pengrove untied the rope, dropped it, and swung his legs over. Bell-Fairfax caught him when he jumped.

“All well?” murmured Ludbridge.

“I funked it,” said Pengrove.

“All well,” said Bell-Fairfax. “Target struck.”

Ludbridge raised his eyebrows, but said nothing as they hurried back around the side of the house. They exited through the gate. The tenor reached the end of his song at last, to general applause.

“Bell-Fairfax, I’m so awfully sorry,” Pengrove repeated, when they were back in the wagon.

“It’s all right.”

“What happened?” said Ludbridge.

“The fellow woke up and fought. I tried to knife him, but I got in the most beastly funk. I simply froze,” Pengrove babbled.

“But the kill was accomplished?”

“It was, sir.” Bell-Fairfax leaned back, flexing his shoulders and rolling his neck.

“Really, I don’t know what came over me—I may not have it in me to do this, Ludbridge, I’m so sorry—”

Ludbridge held up his hand. “Not all men do. Quite all right; I’d rather you realized it now and told the truth.”

“I think I might manage shooting someone. It’s just—stabbing—I really can’t—”

“So noted. We’ll all have a nice brandy when this is finished. Until then, let’s do our best, shall we?”

“Yes, sir,” said Pengrove sadly.

The wagon rolled only a few hundred yards this time, along the same service alley, and stopped in another patch of deeper night.

“Fourth target,” said Ludbridge. “Retired from public duties. During his bureaucratic career, oversaw the forced removal from their parents of hundreds of Jewish children for conscription into the Army. Fairly high mortality rates. Had a reputation for perverse cruelty. Seconded the suggestion that the Czarevich ought to be killed.”

They exited the wagon and, leaping the ditch, climbed over a wall into the garden beyond. They found themselves in a little courtyard where a fountain bubbled, water jetting from a statue of a naked youth holding up a conch shell.

“Bedroom,” whispered Ludbridge, pointing up at a window. Bell-Fairfax and Pengrove craned back their heads to study it. There was no balcony. Bell-Fairfax shrugged and, stooping again to make a stirrup of his hands for Pengrove, waited while Pengrove vaulted up. Pengrove had to stand at his full height on Bell-Fairfax’s shoulders to reach the window-latch. However, it opened fairly easily with the blade of his knife.

He climbed in and looked around. There was a bed, with a mound of blankets suggestive of an unconscious sleeper. Pengrove took a quick step close to confirm that there was, indeed, a man asleep in the bed. He turned back, opened the other side of the window and fastened the end of the rope around the window-mullion. A moment later Bell-Fairfax climbed through. They advanced on the bed.

Its occupant lay on his belly, both arms under the pillow. Pengrove, anxious to prove himself after the last incident, grabbed up the pillow from the other side of the bed and thrust it down on the sleeper’s side-turned face. Bell-Fairfax moved in with drawn knife and, after a moment’s
hesitation, stabbed once in either of the man’s kidneys, twisting the blade as he withdrew it. There was a muffled scream. The bed became a swamp of blood almost at once, black against the white sheets. When the man stopped moving—which he very shortly did—Pengrove removed the pillow.

“Oh, I say!” he muttered. “Wasn’t this one supposed to have a beard? A-and wasn’t he supposed to be an old chap?”

Bell-Fairfax, who had been cleaning his blade, came close and looked. He muttered a heartfelt oath.

Ludbridge, waiting in the garden, caught the scent of a good cigar. He ducked against the wall just as a middle-aged gentleman, placidly smoking a cigar, came strolling around the side of the house in his dressing gown and slippers.

The target—for Ludbridge recognized him from the Kabinet’s photograph—sat down on the edge of the fountain. He took the cigar from his mouth, sighed, looked up and saw Ludbridge.

Ludbridge lunged forward, shoving the target backward into the basin of the fountain. The cigar went flying, scattering sparks on the footpath. Holding the target’s head under water with one hand, Ludbridge pulled his knife and stabbed quickly, twice, the blade going in up under the rib cage. The target stiffened and relaxed utterly. The red ash on the end of the cigar faded out.

Bell-Fairfax, having noticed the splashing, came to the window and looked down to see Ludbridge rinsing his blade in the water. He climbed down the rope, caught Pengrove when he jumped from the window, and all three ran to the wall and got over.

“Was that him?” said Bell-Fairfax, when they were back in the wagon.

“The chap in the fountain? Yes,” said Ludbridge, drying his blade on the side of his trouser-leg.

“Then we’ve killed an innocent man.”

“Somebody else in the bed?”

“He was lying face downward,” said Pengrove. “We didn’t realize—”

“We’ve killed an innocent man!”

“My dear chap, if he was consorting with the target I doubt very much whether he was innocent,” said Ludbridge. “And I don’t mean mere sodomy. Nasty dogs run with other nasty dogs. In any case, it can’t be helped. We got our man, which is what matters. Not likely to happen with the next target; he’s a married man. You’ll want the ether again, Pengrove.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s see, the next target . . . Another publicly retired fellow. Formerly an interrogator; favored torture. Owns extensive estates and on one occasion had three hundred serfs hanged over the theft of his favorite horse. They were executed in groups of ten, with the proclamation that the executions would continue until the thief confessed. When it was discovered that the horse had simply got loose and wandered away, the target was heard to observe that it was just as well, because the winter was likely to be a hard one and the serfs were likely to have starved if he hadn’t hanged them first. An enthusiastic supporter of the plot to murder the Czarevich.”

“This one will get what’s coming to him at any rate,” said Pengrove, with a sidelong glance at Bell-Fairfax.

The wagon rolled along for a great while, taking the western road out of the city. The fifth target had fled for a week’s rest in the district of wealthy homes in the suburbs, between St. Petersburg and the grand palace and gardens of Peterhof. It was a full two hours before they stepped down from the wagon and found themselves in a remote country lane, standing in drifts of yellow leaves. Bare branches, black as pen-strokes, were silhouetted against the stars.

Ludbridge looked around. “There.” He pointed at a house set back from the road. It was a single-story dacha, though of considerable size, heavily decorated with scrollwork under its eaves.

“No climbing,” said Pengrove in relief. He frowned. “No dogs?”

Bell-Fairfax lifted his head, inhaled the scents of the night. “No dogs. But it’s starting to smell like morning.”

“This oughtn’t take long,” said Ludbridge, glancing up at the westering stars. They walked toward the house through its disheveled garden, between pumpkins half-buried in a sea of gold, the fallen leaves of cherry and plum trees.

“Remember the wife,” said Ludbridge, as they stepped up on the porch. Pengrove nodded and patted the pocket containing his ether bottle. “And bedroom’s second doorway to the right.”

Bell-Fairfax nodded. He tried the door; it was unlocked. He opened it and went in, followed by Pengrove. Ludbridge walked to the end of the porch and leaned out, looking at the night. He had badly wanted a cigar ever since the previous target, and briefly considered smoking one on the way back to the city.

There was a sudden flare in the bushes a few yards away, a red point of brightness that Ludbridge took at first for the glowing end of a lit cigar. The illusion was momentary. He realized that it was a single red leaf in a thicket, illuminated by a square of light from . . .

Ludbridge leaned over the porch rail and saw the lit window at the rear of the dacha. Someone was awake, had lit a lamp.

Within the house, Bell-Fairfax and Pengrove walked through the open door of the bedroom. There, in the great bed with its striped counterpane, lay a fond couple in early middle age, plump wife and snoring husband.

Pengrove dug in his pocket for the sponge, uncorked the bottle of ether. He had started toward the bed when Bell-Fairfax grabbed his arm. Pengrove heard, too late, the heavy tread in the hall. A bulky form appeared in the doorway, and a voice said something in a hoarse but profoundly deferential whisper—perhaps the Russian for “Master, you wished to be awakened early.”

The plump wife sat up, saw Bell-Fairfax and Pengrove standing there in the shadows, and opened her mouth to scream. Terrified, Pengrove launched himself at her with the ether bottle. He stumbled over a slipper on the floor and fell, dropping the open bottle beside the bed. The wife screamed. Behind him he heard a scuffle and impact, as Bell-Fairfax charged the servant and wrestled with him.

Pengrove held his breath and dabbled in the spilled ether with the sponge. He rose on his knees and groped for the woman’s face, as she screamed again and bit at his hand. There was a terrific struggle going on in the corner, with furniture smashing. He heard the bearlike servant give a mortal cry of agony, just at the moment that he gave vent to his own, for the woman had sunk her teeth into his hand. Fortunately she inhaled a good deal of ether in doing so and collapsed backward, only to reveal her husband sitting up in bed and aiming a pistol into Pengrove’s face.

Pengrove dropped to the floor with a gasp, straight into clouds of ether fumes. He heard the deafening report of a pistol shot.

When next he knew anything, Pengrove was dangling head-down over Bell-Fairfax’s shoulder. Yellow leaves, pretty yellow leaves like golden sovereigns, and black-currant bushes with a few berries still, close enough to reach out and pick if only Bell-Fairfax would stop marching along, though actually Pengrove didn’t feel much like eating anything . . . in fact . . .

He retched, clapping his hands over his mouth.

“Pengrove’s all right,” he heard Ludbridge say. Pengrove watched the earth and stars shift places and found himself on his feet beside the wagon. He promptly fell against it.

“Now, let that one be a lesson,” said Ludbridge. “Never let what might seem to be an easy kill fool you into complacency. If I hadn’t shot the beggar, you might both have died.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Bell-Fairfax, catching Pengrove before he fell over again and hoisting him into the wagon.

They rode back over the miles to the city, Bell-Fairfax and Pengrove lulled half-asleep by the rocking of the wagon. Ludbridge checked his watch frequently by the light of a lucifer, scowling.

“Here’s another lesson,” he said. “Always assume any job will take
longer than you thought. It’s half past four already. I do hope the fellow’s a late sleeper.”

“Dolgorukov?” Bell-Fairfax roused himself.

“Even he. This is the chap from Constantinople, remember? The one who puts weapons into the hands of others. He brought the Americans to Rus sia. He encouraged Arvanitis in the plot that made it necessary for us to take steps. He’s playing the same game with Kazbek now. You might call him a tempter; has an unerring eye for finding the one fellow in a crowd who’s gullible and angry enough to commit murder, and making certain he has funds and encouragement. An expert at obscuring his tracks, as well. There’s never any trail evident to lead from an Arvanitis or a Kazbek to the Third Section, none at all.

“Fortunately for you, Pengrove, I retrieved your ether bottle before the last dram or so left evaporated.” Ludbridge took it from his pocket and handed it off to Pengrove. “That’s for the common-law wife. There’s an old woman too, but she sleeps at the rear of the house and she’s half-deaf.”

“A housekeeper?” asked Bell-Fairfax.

“Yes, I believe so,” said Ludbridge.

The wagon stopped. They swung open the door and scrambled out, horrified at what seemed to be brilliant daylight; after a moment they realized that the sun had not in fact risen, with the world still sunk in predawn gloom, but night was indisputably fled. Ludbridge pulled out his watch and checked it.

“Half past five. Oh, well, one does one’s best. Let’s see . . .”

The wagon had pulled into an alley, the darkest place available. They walked out to the street and Bell-Fairfax stared around. “There,” he said, pointing. Ludbridge spotted the house: a two-story residence set back in its little garden, with a willow tree by the gate.

They approached and stood in the deeper gloom under the willow. “Oh, bugger,” said Ludbridge. The upper floor was dark, but directly before them was a terrace upon which a pair of French doors must open,
when the weather was fine. They were presently closed, but through them Ludbridge could clearly see Dolgorukov, sitting at a table and sipping from a glass of tea as he studied something—a letter? A map?

“Well, so the chap is an early riser,” said Ludbridge. “We’ve been lucky after all. One well-placed shot ought to do it.”

“I can manage it, I think,” said Pengrove.

“Do you feel well enough?”