Free Murder on the Leviathan by Boris Akunin Page A

of the diplomat. His face darkened.
    'So that's where it is ... I was afraid of that.'
    Renate went over to this grandpa with a grey moustache, looked his massive figure over mistrustfully from head to toe and blurted out:
    'M. Gauche, are you really a policeman?'
    'The same C-Commissioner Gauche who was leading the investigation into the "Crime of the Century"?' asked Fandorin (yes, that was the Russian diplomat's name, Renate recalled). 'In that case how are we to account for your masquerade and in general for your p-presence here on board?'
    Gauche breathed hard for a few moments, raised his eyebrows, lowered them again and reached for his pipe. He was obviously racking his brains in an effort to decide what he should do.
    'Please sit down, ladies and gentlemen,' said Gauche in an unfamiliar, imposing bass and turned the key to lock the door behind him. 'Since this is the way things have turned out, I shall have to be frank with you. Be seated, be seated or else somebody's legs might just give way under them.'
    'What kind of joke is this, M. Gauche?' the lieutenant asked in annoyance. 'By what right do you presume to command here, and in the presence of the captain's first mate?'
    'That, my young man, is something the captain himself will explain to you,' Gauche replied with a hostile sideways glance at Renier. 'He knows what is going on here.'
    Renier dropped the matter and took his place at the table, following the others' example.
    The verbose, good-humoured grumbler for whom Renate had taken the Parisian rentier was behaving rather differently now. A certain dignity had appeared in the broad set of his shoulders, his gestures had become imperious, his eyes had acquired a new, harder gleam. The mere fact that he could maintain a prolonged pause with such calm confidence said a great deal. The strange rentier's piercing gaze paused in turn on each person present in the room and Renate saw some of them flinch under its weight. To be honest, even she was a little disturbed by it, but then she immediately felt ashamed of herself and tossed her head nonchalantly: he may be a police commissioner, but what of that? He was still an obese, short-winded old duffer and nothing more.
    'Please do not keep us guessing any longer, M. Gauche,' she said sarcastically. 'Excitement is dangerous for me.'
    'There is probably only one person here who has cause for excitement,' Gauche replied mysteriously. 'But I shall come back to that. First, allow me to introduce myself to the honourable company once again. Yes, my name is Gustave Gauche, but I am not a rentier, alas I have no investments from which to draw income. I am, ladies and gentlemen, a commissioner in the criminal police of the city of Paris and I work in the department which deals with particularly serious and complicated crimes. The post I hold is entitled Investigator for Especially Important Cases.' The commissioner pronounced the tide with distinct emphasis.
    The deadly silence in the saloon was broken only by the hasty whispering of Dr Truffo.
    'What a scandal!' squeaked the doctor's wife.
    'I was obliged to embark on this voyage, and to travel incognito because ..." Gauche began flapping his cheeks in and out energetically in an effort to revive his half-extinguished pipe. '. . . because the Paris police have serious grounds for believing that the person who committed the crime on the rue de Grenelle is on board the Leviathan.'
    'Ah!' The sigh rustled quietly round the saloon.
    'I presume that you have already discussed the case, which is a mysterious one in many respects.' The commissioner jerked his double chin in the direction of the newspaper clipping, which was still in Fandorin's hands. 'And that is not all, mesdames et messieurs. I know for a fact that the murderer is travelling first class ..." (another collective sigh)'. . . and, moreover, happens to be present in this saloon at this very moment,' Gauche concluded. Then he seated himself in a satin-upholstered