Not Less Than Gods (35 page)

“Magnificent!” Nikitin rose from his chair. “And I would recommend you might wish to go all together to visit the cathedral today, and
by tunnel. The Third Section has men searching the city, going from house to house hunting for the American. It is perhaps better that you are not in the house until they give up the hunt.”

“Are they likely to break in?” Ludbridge gave Hobson a meaningful glare, but Hobson held up his hands.

“They won’t find a thing if they do! I shut up the transmitter and put it away last night, all according to procedure, on my honor.”

“We can send a man to wait there as caretaker until it’s safe,” Nikitin assured Ludbridge.

“And you can meet
my
associates,” said Hobson to Ludbridge, assuming an authoritarian air and taking hold of his lapels. “Besides, there’s a first-rate view of the city from the tower. You could do with a bit of fresh air and sunlight, in my considered opinion.”

“Oh, we could, could we?” said Ludbridge, squinting at him. “Perhaps you’re right. It would do me a world of good to see you working for once, anyway.”

“Then follow me,” said Hobson.

He led them along another brick tunnel under the city, which looked exactly like all the other tunnels through which they had tramped, and smelled of the same riparian dankness for much of its length. Near its far end, however, they began to catch a distinct fragrance of frankincense, which grew stronger when they climbed the stairs.

“Notice the odor of sanctity?” said Hobson, grinning. “I’m told we’re right under something called an iconostasis.
The
iconostasis, apparently. Here we are!” He opened the door to reveal a low chamber, quite long. Desks were against one wall, in a row, and on each sat an apparatus of tubes, dials and wires that resembled the inner workings of the Aetheric Transmitter. Clustered around a table at the far end of the room were a half-dozen young men, talking excitedly amongst themselves. They rose to their feet when Hobson entered with the others.

“Johnny Albertovich!” The foremost, whom they recognized as Semyon Denisovich, started forward. “We are receiving on Number
Three! We heard the staff in the telegraph tower taking down messages!”

“You’ll hear more than that presently,” said Hobson, rubbing his hands together. “Gentlemen, may I present my fellow Englishmen? Mr. Pengrove, Mr. Ludbridge, Mr. Bell-Fairfax—he’s the giant. I thought they needed an outing, don’t you know. Mikhail Ilych, perhaps you’d show them the sights, while we set to work here?”

“Jolly good, sir!” A gleeful youth stepped forward. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance! Acquaintanc
es
. Pardon me very much. Will you please to follow me through?” He opened a tiny door, revealing that its outward side was faced with brick veneer, and gestured out into a narrow staircase, clearly some sort of custodian’s crawlway.

“Thank you. I expect you’d better remove your hat, Bell-Fairfax,” said Ludbridge. Mikhail Ilych scrambled through, followed by Pengrove and, with a certain lack of dignity, Ludbridge, who had to be boosted from behind by Bell-Fairfax before he could proceed crabwise up the staircase. Bell-Fairfax was obliged to do the same, with the added discomfort of bending nearly double.

Mikhail Ilych led them on through the narrow slot in the masonry, up and around and up and around some three or four times before they emerged into the light of day, filtered as it was through the high windows above the iconostasis, which was a great structure gleaming with gold leaf below. They found themselves on a narrow iron catwalk that continued around and up, through the tower and toward the belfry. The air was close, stiflingly hot, and redolent of frankincense.

Quietly as they might, they followed Mikhail Ilych upward until at last they emerged into the belfry. They settled against the rail, gasping, grateful for the breeze; though Ludbridge noticed Mikhail Ilych glancing nervously at the carillon behind them, and checking his watch.

“Not going to be caught up here when the chimes sound, I hope?”

“No, sir, we have ten minutes,” said Mikhail Ilych. He leaned over and pointed to a thin line of copper wire that ran up the wall of the tower, nearly invisible even close to and certainly unseen from below. “Regard our signal amplification wire! Even before Johnny Albertovich’s
gracious assistance, we could receive signals from many parts of the world. This tower has attained a height of four hundred and four feet, in English measurement. Directly above us is the clock, which is of Dutch manufacture.”

“Very nice,” said Ludbridge, gazing out at the city.

“I say!” Pengrove took a few shots with his hat, in rapid succession.

“There’s the man,” said Bell-Fairfax suddenly. Ludbridge turned his head and followed Bell-Fairfax’s gaze. A man was crossing the open square below the church, bareheaded in the morning sunlight, carrying a parcel under his arm. He was easily recognized as the Russian attaché they had followed in Constantinople. What had his name been? Dolgorukov.

“Vladislav Antonovich Dolgorukov,” murmured Bell-Fairfax, as though he had been reading Ludbridge’s mind.

“I wonder why they all have those vitchy middle names?” said Pengrove, and took a photograph of Dolgorukov.

“It is a form of patronymic,” explained Mikhail Ilych absently, staring hard at the man far below. “I think we should climb down now.”

“In case he should happen to glance up at us?” Ludbridge said.

“It would not be convenient if he recognized you,” Mikhail Ilych replied. “I wonder what he was doing at the prison?”

They descended the tower and went back down through the secret passage. Hobson was seated at one of the desks in the listening post, wearing a pair of earpieces and slowly twirling the knobs on the Aetheric Receiver; he looked for all the world like a burglar intent on persuading a safe to open. His trainees stood in a respectful half-circle around him, watching closely.

“Aaaand . . . here we are, we’ve got somebody,” said Hobson. Grabbing up a pencil and a slip of paper, he noted down the position on the dial. “Here!” Slipping off the earpieces, he stood up and waved Mikhail Ilych to take his place on the bench. Mikhail Ilych sat and slipped on the earpieces. His eyes widened.

“You hear him?”

“That’s Prince Orlov!”

“There you go, then, that one was . . .” Hobson consulted a list on the paper. “Transmitter Number Twenty-three. Mark its place. Now we’ll just move on to the next on the list—”

“You seem to have everything well in hand,” said Ludbridge. “We’ll just leave you to work, shall we?”

“Yes, yes, you’re dismissed,” said Hobson, with an impudent wave. “Now then, Piotr Fyodorovich, take a seat . . .”

Ludbridge set off back down the tunnel, flanked by Bell-Fairfax and Pengrove. “He seems to be doing rather a good job,” said Bell-Fairfax.

“Eh? Yes. Comforting to discover the boy’s competent, at least.”

“I should think we’ll be going home soon, shouldn’t we?” said Pengrove. “Once he’s got them trained? It would be ever so jolly to walk down the Strand again and not have to play the fool any more than was my customary habit.”

“Likely,” said Ludbridge, in a preoccupied sort of way. “Did I see you taking a photograph of that Russian, Pengrove? What’s his name?”

“Dolgorukov,” said Bell-Fairfax.

“To be sure.”

“I did, yes,” said Pengrove.

“Good man,” said Ludbridge. “Let’s go back and pay a call on friend Nikitin, shall we?”

They found him in one of the rooms allotted to the Kabinet’s fabrication department. He was standing, with some three or four others, around a table on which was Matthews’s prosthetic leg. All wore shield-visors over their eyes. The leg had been opened out, one side folded back like the lid of a box, and one of Nikitin’s colleagues had just removed a somewhat flattened and blackened bullet and was standing back, holding it up in a pair of surgeons’ clamps. He was saying something shocked sounding in Russian.

Nikitin, noticing that the Englishmen had entered, stepped back and lifted his visor. “We disconnected the bomb! It’s quite safe now. Really a remarkable piece of equipment. Would you like to see?”

“What, the bomb? No, thank you!”

“No, no, the limb!” Nikitin gestured for his colleagues to make room around the table. Ludbridge and the others stepped close. They beheld, within the opened space, a number of gears and pulleys, with a bewildering profusion of cables and wires. These filled the lower leg, but above the knee were also compartments, which when opened proved to reveal a flask of brandy, a lucifer safe, a set of lock picks, a pair of opera glasses, a magnifying glass, a tiny portable spirit-lamp, a roll of paper and a pencil, a map case, a compass, a sewing kit, a roll of bandage, fishhooks and twine, and—in two pieces, but meant to be fitted together for use—a hacksaw.

“Bloody ingenious,” said Ludbridge, after inspecting it briefly. “I’d have crammed a revolver in somehow, though.”

Nikitin shrugged. “The gentleman is a Quaker. I expect his creed does not permit such things. I am more intrigued by the degree of miniaturization of the servomotors here and here. Have your people anything like it?”

“No, we haven’t,” said Ludbridge. “Pengrove, just step close and get a few good pictures, would you? Fabrication at home will particularly want to see this. Much damage to repair?”

“The bullet hole itself will be simple to patch; but we will have to specially manufacture the wire to replace this section, and devise a better insulating substance.” Nikitin poked at the ruined section with a retractor. “We shall no doubt learn a great deal.”

“Saw your Dolgorukov fellow at the prison, by the way,” said Ludbridge.

Nikitin dropped the retractor. His colleagues looked up.

Secure in his lower office, Nikitin went to a shelf and brought down a file box. “May I ask
precisely
where you saw him?”

Bell-Fairfax looked at Ludbridge before replying. “We were in the bell tower of the cathedral, sir, above the listening post. He appeared to be coming from the prison, we were told.”

“By whom?”

“The young man who was our guide. Mikhail Ilych, I believe was the name.”

“Ah.” Nikitin fixed his gaze on a sealed message in a tray that was marked with what was presumably the Russian word for
Incoming
. “And this would be his report, I expect, since it is dated five minutes ago.” He opened the message and glanced at it. “Yes; a diligent boy. He confirms it. But, just to be certain . . .” Nikitin opened the file box and took out a photograph. He passed it to Bell-Fairfax. “You’re quite sure this is the man you saw?”

Ludbridge stepped close to Bell-Fairfax and peered at it. The subject in question was a man of perhaps forty years of age, solidly built. His features were regular and unremarkable, other than in that the whole set of them, eyes, nose and mouth taken all together, seemed too small for the breadth of his face, as though they had been squeezed together in the middle. It was enough to strike someone trained to remember faces, though not enough to make him in any way distinguishable by anyone else.

“Yes, sir, quite sure,” said Bell-Fairfax, handing the photograph back to Nikitin.

“And you can trust Bell-Fairfax’s eyes,” said Ludbridge. Nikitin grimaced and shook his head.

“So he was visiting the Trubetskoy battery,” he said. “I shall be interested to hear whether one of the prisoners is found today dead in his cell. It will look exactly like a suicide, I’m sure. I devoutly hope that is the case.”

Aware that his guests were staring at him, Nikitin explained: “If someone dies in the Trubetskoy prison, then I will know why Vladislav Antonovich is in St. Petersburg, and I will not have to worry about what else might be in the wind. Perhaps it will be enough to tell you that the Third Section has a group within itself? A shadow organization. They employ certain specialists to perform tasks of which the Czar must remain quite unaware, but which are logically necessary for carrying out his orders. You know, I think, the sort of thing I mean.”

Bell-Fairfax went a little red but Ludbridge nodded, without comment.

“Vladislav Antonovich is a skilled and eminently discreet member of this group, perhaps the best at what he does. He never murders; he simply arranges deaths and they happen. We had intelligence from the Magi that he was in Constantinople, and that one of his
arrangements
had gone badly wrong. To speak frankly, they praised your efficiency in the matter.”

“Very kind of them,” said Ludbridge, in a neutral voice.

“You didn’t encounter himself directly, of course.”

“No.”

“Fortunate.” Nikitin looked down at the file case. He slipped the photograph of Dolgorukov back in place. “Indeed. Should we happen to discover anything more about his purpose now that he has returned—such as his reasons for escorting the filibusters here—and should we wish to interfere for any reason . . . I wonder whether we might impose on your amiability so far as to ask for a similar favor from you?”

“We should be delighted to oblige, sir,” said Ludbridge. “Though of course we must inform London.”

“Of course,” said Nikitin. He closed the file case and looked up at them. “We have very little of our own to offer other than astronomical observations, but we can give you a full schematic of the American’s prosthesis.”

“I am certain that would be kindly received,” said Ludbridge.

They resided for the next two days in the Kabinet’s underground guest quarters, which were comparatively Spartan but had the advantage of a billiards table for amusement. They saw little of Hobson, sequestered as he was with the team at the listening post, but from the little he was able to tell them when he returned at night the work was going very well indeed, and he had made firm friends among his team.

The Kabinet’s man posted in the house on Anglisky Avenue duly answered the door when the Third Section came inquiring, and stood
by mildly while they searched the house and found no American. It was then deemed safe for Ludbridge and crew to return.

A week of stupefying boredom followed.

Rather than spend his hours watching the rain beat the leaves from the trees in the garden, Pengrove invented a game of carpet-billiards using Black Bullet boiled sweets and a poker. He became very skilled at it, by his own account.