Free The Coronation by Boris Akunin

interjected with an imperturbable expression, ‘but the protection of the imperial family falls within the purview of my department and I assure you that we will deal with this mission perfectly well without the participation of the Moscow police, not to mention any amateur detectives.’ The colonel smiled gently and added in a quiet voice, as if he were talking to himself: ‘We don’t need any Sherlock Holmeses here.’
    ‘Oh, Colonel, Fandorin is very far from being an amateur,’ Kirill Alexandrovich objected. ‘He is a man of exceptional abilities. If anyone can help us in this difficult and delicate matter, he can. And, in addition, he knows something about this villain Lind. It is also of some importance that as a private individual Fandorin is not restricted in the methods he can employ. No, Nicky, we won’t be able to manage without this man. I am even inclined to think that he has been sent to us by God.’
    ‘Rubbish! Absolute rubbish!’ Simeon Alexandrovich cried, flinging his pencil into the corner. (I took another one out of my pocket.) ‘I categorically protest!’
    Kirill Alexandrovich, who was not accustomed to being addressed in this manner and also, as far as I was aware, regarded his younger brother with unmitigated contempt, lowered his leonine head and fixed the governor general with his famous withering stare. In response, Simeon Alexandrovich stubbornly jutted out his chin, which made his well-groomed beard look like the bowsprit of a ship, and assumed an absolutely uncompromising air.
    There was an oppressive silence.
    ‘But what are we going to do with this Fandorin?’ the emperor asked plaintively. ‘Call him in or not? Ask him to help or arrest him?’
    Neither of Their Highnesses replied; they did not even change the direction of their gazes. This was an enmity of many years that had begun before the present sovereign was even born. Only, as the common folk put it, Simeon Alexandrovich was a bit ‘weedy’ in comparison with Kirill Alexandrovich. He had never been known to come off best against his elder brother.
    By temperament Georgii Alexandrovich is much calmer and more easy-going than either of them, but if once he gets his temper up – then beware! And now he suddenly began flushing crimson, and seemed to swell up, making me afraid that the hooks on his collar would burst open, and it was clear that a storm was about to break.
    His Majesty did not see this terrifying picture, since he was looking at Kirill Alexandrovich and Simeon Alexandrovich. If he had seen it, he would probably not have ventured to say anything, but as it was, he began in a conciliatory tone of voice: ‘Uncle Sam, Uncle Kir, listen to what I think—’
    There was a thunderous crash as Georgii Alexandrovich swung his fist down and slammed it into the table so hard that two wineglasses fell over, a coffee cup cracked and an ashtray was overturned, and Simeon Alexandrovich bounced on his chair in surprise.
    ‘Shut up, Nicky!’ the head of the Green House roared. ‘And you two keep quiet as well! It’s my son who has been kidnapped; I’m the one who should decide. And don’t forget that it’s only thanks to this, what’s his name . . . damn it, beginning with F, that my daughter was saved! Let him tell us everything that he knows!’
    And so the matter was decided.
    I slipped out of the drawing room silently in order to call Fandorin. Immediately outside the door there was a plush curtain, and then the corridor where the ‘amateur detective’, as Karnovich had called him, had been ordered to wait.
    ‘Your lovely moustache – it’s absolutely charming. And you don’t shape it with tweezers? Or use fixative?’
    On hearing these strange words, just to be on the safe side I peeped out from behind the curtain to see who could be speaking in such a manner.
    Erast Fandorin was sitting where I had left him, with one leg crossed over the other, counting the jade beads on a rosary. The voice was not his,