Aleksey Tolstoy, engineer Garin's hyperboloid, the main characters. “Only fools, and even those who do not know what struggle and victory are, see chance everywhere”

The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin is one of the most famous science fiction novels by the outstanding Russian writer of the 20th century, Count Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy.

Tolstoy stood at the origins of Russian science fiction. His touching Martian novel "Aelita", the adventurous adventure "Hyperboloid", the story "The Union of Five" (another name is "Seven days in which the world was robbed") made a significant contribution to the development of the fiction genre.

The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin was completed and published in 1927, four years after the release of the sensational Aelita. The work on the work turned out to be very laborious - the author repeatedly rewrote the plot moves of the novel, introduced new characters, killed some and revived others, simplified something (the original versions abounded with scientific terminology obscure to the average reader), placed new semantic accents.

To create the "Hyperboloid" Tolstoy had to work through a lot of special literature on physics. But the famous Shukhov Tower became the visual inspiration of the writer. It was an architectural know-how for Moscow in the 20s, since it was based on a rare hyperboloid structure.

Fiction or science

Speaking about scientific authenticity, Tolstoy's work is first of all a fiction, a vivid fantasy on the theme of science. Garin's hyperboloid, scientists argue, would in fact be inoperable. Yes, and should be called, rather, a paraboloid. But Tolstoy, purely for expressive reasons, liked the word "hyperboloid", with which he dubbed the dangerous invention of his protagonist.

Well, according to the "Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin" you should not study physics, but it is intended to introduce you to the classics of Russian science fiction and masterpieces of Russian literature. Let us recall the plot of this fascinating science fiction novel about the insidious genius engineer Garin and his hyperboloid.

A conversation at the Majestic Hotel and a murder at the Leningrad dacha

“Only fools, and even those who do not know what struggle and victory are, see chance everywhere”

Paris. Hotel "Majestic". In the exquisitely decorated hall, a brilliant audience gathers for breakfast - here you can meet representatives of all nations. The ladies were beautiful - the young seduced by the beauty of youth, the mature ones masked the flaws of the time with exquisite dresses. The men were disgusting—short, bald, swollen with fat. They drank from morning to morning, and most of them came from America, "the damned country where they walk knee-deep in gold, where they are going to buy up the whole good old world on the cheap."

In the midst of this motley morning show, the two men were talking in hushed tones. The first, by the name of Semyonov, informed the second, by the name of Rolling, that, they say, everything was arranged, that THEY were ready to cross the border and leave for Warsaw. His interlocutor strictly replied that he wanted to see THEM no later than at half past five, and that any attempt to fool him would be severely punished - he would give THEM to the police.

This strange conversation in the lobby of the Majestic Hotel in Paris took place in May 192....

At this time in Leningrad, an employee of the criminal investigation Vasily Vitalievich Shelga and Spartak Tarashkin discovered a corpse in an abandoned dacha near the Krestovka River. The deceased lay supine on an iron bed. The fact of a violent death is obvious - the hands and feet of the slain are tied, the jacket and shirt are torn - before depriving him of his life, the unfortunate was tortured.

After a short examination of the crime scene, it was possible to find out that the dead man was engineer Pyotr Petrovich Garin, who was engaged in pyrotechnics. What secret was Comrade Garin hiding? What made the killers bully the victim like that? Is it harmless pyrotechnics?

Vasily Shelga puzzles over these questions until he finds a hatch leading to the engineer's underground laboratory. It turns out that pyrotechnics was only a cover for the true activity of the scientist.

“Roman emperors deified themselves. They probably enjoyed it. Nowadays, this is also not a bad entertainment.”

Petr Petrovich Garin is a talented Russian engineer, a true genius. Taking as a basis the theoretical studies of his teacher, the outstanding geologist Nikolai Khristoforovich Mantsev, who died during the taiga expedition, Garin invented the hyperboloid. This is a device that emits a powerful heat beam. The converted energy of a thin hyperboloid beam is capable of melting and destroying any material.

The principle of operation of the device is extremely simple - it is based on two hyperbolic mirrors placed opposite each other. Pyramids of compressed coal are used as a portable energy source. The coal idea was sold to Garin by the Polish scientist Stas Tyklinski. The chemist Tyklinsky agreed to supply coal in exchange for a share of the profit that the hyperboloid would bring.

And the revenue promised to be considerable. With the help of his invention, Petr Petrovich Garin wanted to drill a well to the very mantle. There, under the earth's crust, is the Olivine Belt - an inexhaustible source of boiling gold. Having taken possession of untold riches, Garin planned only to become the ruler of the world and carry out a series of planet-wide reforms. Let several millions of the elect enjoy and live for their own pleasure, part of the population will be engaged in reproduction, another part - in labor, the rest - to be destroyed as unnecessary. At the head of all this dubious splendor is Comrade Ganin - the king, god, ruler of the world.

Hunt for Garin: multimillionaire Rolling and Russian beauty Zoya Monrose

“But I like to doo-oo-oo-um, I’m sitting here and respecting my brilliant brain ... I would like to pierce the universe with it ...”

Very quickly, the dangerous invention of a Russian engineer attracted the attention of influential people, namely the American multimillionaire Rolling. Together with his passion, the beautiful Zoya Monrose (a Russian white émigré, a former ballerina, and today an adventurer and courtesan), he decides to get rid of the engineer and appropriate the hyperboloid for himself.

Rolling's mercenaries coped with the task - they found Garin and killed him at their own dacha near the Krestovka River. However, Comrade Garin was not as simple as it seemed to his enemies. He created his own doppelgänger beforehand. There, on an iron bed in a torn jacket, the chemical engineer Ivan Alekseevich Savelyev stiffens, and the real Garin rushes to Paris.

New Coalition: Garin-Monrose-Rolling

“People cannot be left without leaders. They are drawn to get on all fours"

In the French capital, Rolling again begins the hunt for a cunning engineer. This time, the task to destroy the Russian scientist is given to the mafioso Gaston the Duck Knife, but the storm of the criminal world again kills the wrong one. In Paris, Garin managed to acquire a second double - the chemist Victor Lenoir.

Pyotr Petrovich manages not only to elude Rolling again, but also to take away his woman - Zoya Monroz suddenly turns from an enemy into Garin's mistress.

For a while, Rolling was angry, even organizing an attack on Garin (he bravely fired back from a small hyperboloid). But the American's anger subsided when the engineer destroyed the rival chemical plants in Germany with a heat beam, thereby making Rolling (the chemical magnate) a world monopoly. Garin did this not out of sentimental motives. Thus, the engineer tried to involve Rolling (or rather, his untold wealth) in the construction of a large hyperboloid necessary for drilling the earth's crust.

"Stupid, funny woman, understand - I only love you like that ... The only creature on earth ..."

Engineer Pyotr Petrovich Garin managed to bring his seemingly utopian idea to life: he reached the Olivine Belt, became a rich man, selling gold bars for next to nothing, almost led capitalist society to the collapse of the financial system. And finally, he captured the island, becoming its sole ruler.

The American government made unsuccessful attempts to stop Garin's activities by sending warships to storm the disgraced island. However, the people overthrew the self-proclaimed ruler. An uprising of workers broke out on the island, led by the Soviet agent Vasily Shelga, who tirelessly pursued the "dead" engineer.

The workers demand reprisals against the dictator, but Garin again comes out unscathed. He substitutes his third double - the white émigré Baron Korf - for the people's avengers, and he himself hides on a fast yacht with Zoya Monros.

The fugitives fall into a typhoon and, miraculously escaping, find themselves on a desert island. Garin and Monros will never leave him again. Such a quiet haven found two of the greatest adventurers of their time.

The novel by Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy "Hyperboloid engineer Garin": a summary

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Hyperboloid engineer Garin

This novel was written in 1926-1927.

Revised to include new chapters in 1937

1

This season, the business world of Paris gathered for breakfast at the Majestic Hotel. There you could meet samples of all nations except the French. There, between courses, business conversations were conducted and deals were made to the sounds of an orchestra, slamming corks and female chirping.

In the splendid hall of the hotel, covered with precious carpets, near the glass revolving doors, a tall man with a gray head and an energetic shaven face, reminiscent of the heroic past of France, was importantly pacing. He was dressed in a black wide tailcoat, silk stockings and patent leather shoes with buckles. On his chest was a silver chain. He was the supreme porter, the spiritual deputy of the joint-stock company operating the Majestic Hotel. His arthritic hands clasped behind his back, he would stop in front of a glass wall, where visitors dined among green-flowered trees and palm leaves. At that moment he looked like a professor studying the life of plants and insects behind the wall of an aquarium.

The women were good, to be sure. The young ones were seduced by their youthfulness, the brilliance of their eyes: blue - Anglo-Saxon, dark as night - South American, purple - French. Elderly women seasoned, like a hot sauce, the fading beauty with the unusual toilets.

Yes, as far as women are concerned, everything was going well. But the head porter could not say the same about the men sitting in the restaurant.

Where, from what thistles, after the war, did these fat little fellows crawl out, short in stature, with hairy fingers in rings, with inflamed cheeks, difficult to shave?

They fussily swallowed all kinds of drinks from morning to morning. Their hairy fingers weaved money out of thin air, money, money... They crawled from America mainly, from the accursed country where they walk knee-deep in gold, where they are going to buy up the whole good old world for cheap.

2

A Rolls-Royce, a long car with a mahogany body, silently rolled up to the entrance of the hotel. The porter, jangling his chain, hurried to the revolving doors.

The first to enter was a yellowish-pale man of small stature, with a black short-cropped beard, with flared nostrils of a fleshy nose. He was wearing a baggy long coat and a bowler hat pulled down over his eyebrows.

He stopped, obtusely waiting for a companion who was talking to a young man who jumped out to meet the car from behind the entrance column. Nodding her head at him, she passed through the revolving doors. It was the famous Zoe Montrose, one of the most chic women in Paris. She was in a white cloth suit trimmed on the sleeves, from wrist to elbow, with long black monkey fur. Her little felt hat was designed by the great Collo. Her movements were confident and casual. She was beautiful, thin, tall, with a long neck, with a slightly large mouth, with a slightly upturned nose. Her bluish-gray eyes seemed cold and passionate.

Shall we have lunch, Rolling? she asked the man in the bowler hat.

No. I will talk to him until dinner.

Zoe Monrose chuckled, as if condescendingly excused the harsh tone of the answer. At this time, a young man slipped through the door, talking to Zoe Monrose at the car. He was in an open old coat, with a cane and a soft hat in his hand. His excited face was covered with freckles. Sparse stiff tendrils are precisely glued. He apparently intended to shake hands, but Rolling, without taking his hands out of his coat pockets, said even more sharply:

You're a quarter of an hour late, Semyonov.

I was detained... On our own business... I'm terribly sorry... Everything is arranged... They agree... Tomorrow they can leave for Warsaw...

If you yell at the whole hotel, they will take you out,” Rolling said, staring at him with dull eyes that did not promise anything good.

Excuse me - I'm whispering ... Everything is already prepared in Warsaw: passports, clothes, weapons, and so on. In the first days of April they will cross the border...

Now Mademoiselle Monrose and I will dine, - said Rolling, - you will go to these gentlemen and tell them that I wish to see them today at the beginning of the fifth. Warn me that if they decide to lead me by the nose, I will hand them over to the police ...

This conversation took place at the beginning of May 192 ....

3

In Leningrad at dawn, near the booms of the rowing school, a two-oared boat stopped on the Krestovka River.

Two people came out of it, and at the very water they had a short conversation - only one spoke - sharply and commandingly, the other looked at the full-flowing, quiet, dark river. Behind the thickets of Krestovsky Island, in the blue of the night, a spring dawn spread.

Then the two leaned over the boat, the light of a match illuminating their faces. They took out bundles from the bottom of the boat, and the one who was silent took them and hid in the forest, and the one who spoke jumped into the boat, pushed off the shore and hastily creaked with oarlocks. The outline of a rowing man passed through the glowing strip of water and disappeared into the shadow of the opposite bank. A small wave splashed on booms.

Spartak's Tarashkin, "stroke" on a racing oar gig, was on duty at the club that night. Due to his youth and springtime, instead of recklessly spending the fleeting hours of his life on sleeping, Tarashkin sat on booms over the sleepy water, clasping his knees.

In the stillness of the night, there was something to think about. For two summers in a row, damned Muscovites, not even understanding the smell of real water, beat the rowing school on singles, fours and eights. It was embarrassing.

With his arthritic hands folded behind his back, he would stop in front of a glass wall where visitors dined among green-potted trees and palm leaves. At that moment he looked like a professor studying the life of plants and insects behind the wall of an aquarium.

The women were good, to be sure. Young people were seduced by their youthfulness, the sparkle of their eyes: blue - Anglo-Saxon, dark as night - South American, purple - French. Elderly women seasoned, like a hot sauce, the fading beauty with the unusual toilets.

Yes, as far as women are concerned, everything was going well. But the head porter could not say the same about the men sitting in the restaurant.

From where, from what thistles, after the war, did these fat little fellows crawl out, short in stature, with hairy fingers in rings, with inflamed cheeks, difficult to shave?

They fussily swallowed all kinds of drinks from morning to morning. Their hairy fingers weaved money out of thin air, money, money... They crawled from America mostly, from the accursed country where they walk knee-deep in gold, where they are going to buy up the whole good old world on the cheap.

A Rolls-Royce, a long car with a mahogany body, silently rolled up to the hotel entrance. The porter, jangling his chain, hurried to the revolving doors.

The first to enter was a yellowish-pale man of small stature, with a black, short-cropped beard, with distended nostrils and a fleshy nose. He was wearing a baggy long coat and a bowler hat pulled down over his eyebrows.

“Are we going to have lunch, Rolling?” she asked the man in the bowler hat.

- Not. I will talk to him until dinner.

Zoe Monrose chuckled, as if condescendingly excused the harsh tone of the answer. At this time, a young man slipped through the door, talking to Zoe Monrose at the car. He was in an open old coat, with a cane and a soft hat in his hand. His excited face was covered with freckles. Sparse stiff tendrils are accurately glued. He apparently intended to shake hands, but Rolling, without taking his hands out of his coat pockets, said even more sharply:

“You are a quarter of an hour late, Semyonov.

- I was detained ... In our own case ... I'm terribly sorry ... Everything is arranged ... They agree ... tomorrow they can leave for Warsaw ...

“If you yell at the whole hotel, they will take you out,” Rolling said, staring at him with dull eyes that did not promise anything good.

- Excuse me - I'm whispering ... Everything is already prepared in Warsaw: passports, clothes, weapons, and so on. In the first days of April they will cross the border...

“Now I and Mademoiselle Monrose will dine,” said Rolling, “you will go to these gentlemen and tell them that I wish to see them today at the beginning of five. Warn me that if they decide to lead me by the nose, I will hand them over to the police ...

This conversation took place at the beginning of May 192 ....

In Leningrad, at dawn, near the booms of the rowing school, on the Krestovka River, a two-rowed boat stopped.

Two people got out of it, and at the very water they had a short conversation - only one spoke - sharply and commandingly, the other looked at the full-flowing, quiet, dark river. Behind the thickets of Krestovsky Island, in the blue of the night, a spring dawn spread.

Then the two leaned over the boat, the light of a match illuminating their faces. They took out bundles from the bottom of the boat, and the one who was silent took them and hid in the forest, and the one who spoke jumped into the boat, pushed himself off the shore and hastily creaked his oarlocks. The outline of a rowing man passed through the glowing strip of water and disappeared into the shadow of the opposite bank. A small wave splashed on booms.

But the athlete knows that defeat leads to victory. This alone, and, perhaps, the charm of the spring dawn, smelling of spicy grass and wet wood, kept Tarashkin in the presence of mind necessary for training before the big June races.

Sitting on the booms, Tarashkin saw how a two-oared boat moored and then left. Tarashkin was calm about life's phenomena. But here one circumstance seemed strange to him: the two who landed on the shore were similar to each other, like two oars. The same height, dressed in the same wide coats, both have soft hats pulled down over their foreheads, and the same pointed beard.

But in the end, in the republic it is not forbidden to roam at night, on land and on water, with your double. Tarashkin, probably, would have immediately forgotten about the personalities with sharp beards, if not for a strange event that happened that same morning near the rowing school in a birch forest in a dilapidated summer house with boarded up windows.

When the sun rose from the pink dawn over the thickets of the islands, Tarashkin cracked his muscles and went to the club yard to collect chips. The time was the sixth hour at the beginning. The gate banged, and Vasily Vitalievich Shelga walked up the damp path, cycling.

Shelga was a well-trained athlete, muscular and light, of medium height, with a strong neck, fast, calm and cautious. He served in the criminal investigation department and went in for sports for general training.

- Well, how are you, comrade Tarashkin? Everything is good? he asked as he parked his bike by the porch. - I came to tinker a little ... Look - garbage, ah, ah.

He took off his tunic, rolled up the sleeves on his thin, muscular arms, and set to work cleaning the club yard, which was still littered with materials left over from the repair of booms.

- Today the guys from the factory will come, - we will restore order in one night, - said Tarashkin. - So how, Vasily Vitalievich, are you signing up for the team for the six?

“I don’t know what to do,” said Shelga, rolling away the tar barrel, “muscovites, on the one hand, need to be beaten, on the other, I’m afraid I won’t be able to be accurate ... One ridiculous thing is happening here.

“Anything about bandits again?”

- No, raise it higher - criminality on an international scale.

“It’s a pity,” said Tarashkin, “otherwise they would have buried him.”

This novel was written in 1926-1927 Revised to include new chapters in 1937
This season, the business world of Paris gathered for breakfast at the Majestic Hotel. There you could meet samples of all nations, except
French. There, between courses, business conversations were conducted and deals were made to the sounds of an orchestra, slamming corks and female chirping.
In the splendid hall of the hotel, covered with precious carpets, near the revolving glass doors, a tall man walked importantly, with
with a gray head and a vigorous shaven face, reminiscent of the heroic past of France. He was dressed in a black wide tailcoat, silk stockings and
patent leather shoes with buckles. On his chest was a silver chain. It was the supreme porter, the spiritual deputy of the joint-stock company,
operating the hotel "Majestic".
With his arthritic hands folded behind his back, he would stop in front of a glass wall, where among the trees and palm trees blooming in green tubs
leaves dined visitors. At that moment he looked like a professor studying the life of plants and insects behind the wall of an aquarium.
The women were good, to be sure. The young ones were seduced by their youth, the brilliance of their eyes: blue - Anglo-Saxon, dark as night -
South American, purple - French. Elderly women seasoned, like a hot sauce, the fading beauty with the unusual toilets.
Yes, as far as women are concerned, everything was going well. But the head porter could not say the same about the men sitting in the restaurant.
Where, from what thistles, after the war, did these fat little fellows crawl out, short in stature, with hairy fingers in rings, with
sore cheeks, hard to shave?
They fussily swallowed all kinds of drinks from morning to morning. Their hairy fingers weaved money, money, money out of the air... They crawled out of the air.
America, for the most part, from a damned country where they walk knee-deep in gold, where they are going to buy up the whole good old world on the cheap.
A Rolls-Royce, a long car with a mahogany body, silently rolled up to the entrance of the hotel. The porter, jangling his chain, hurried to
revolving doors.
The first to enter was a yellowish-pale man of small stature, with a black, short-cropped beard, with flared nostrils of a fleshy nose. He
was in a baggy long coat and a bowler hat pulled down over his eyebrows.
He stopped, obtusely waiting for a companion who was talking to a young man who jumped out to meet the car from behind the entrance column.
Nodding her head at him, she passed through the revolving doors. It was the famous Zoe Montrose, one of the most chic women in Paris. She was in
white cloth suit, trimmed on the sleeves, from wrist to elbow, long black monkey fur. Her little felt hat was designed by a great
Kollo. Her movements were confident and casual. She was beautiful, thin, tall, with a long neck, with a slightly large mouth, with a slightly raised
nose. Her bluish-gray eyes seemed cold and passionate.
- Shall we have lunch, Rolling? she asked the man in the bowler hat.
- Not. I will talk to him until dinner.
Zoe Monrose chuckled, as if condescendingly excused the harsh tone of the answer. At this time, a young man jumped in the door, talking to. Zoey
Monrose by the car. He was in an open old coat, with a cane and a soft hat in his hand. His excited face was covered with freckles.
Sparse stiff tendrils are accurately glued.

"Hyperboloid engineer Garin - 01"

This novel was written in 1926-1927

Revised to include new chapters in 1937

This season, the business world of Paris gathered for breakfast at the Majestic Hotel. There you could meet samples of all nations except the French.

There, between courses, business conversations were conducted and deals were made to the sounds of an orchestra, slamming corks and female chirping.

He was dressed in a black wide tailcoat, silk stockings and patent leather shoes with buckles. On his chest was a silver chain. It was the supreme porter, the spiritual deputy of the joint-stock company operating the Majestic hotel.

The women were good, to be sure. The young ones were seduced by their youth, the brilliance of their eyes: blue - Anglo-Saxon, dark as night -

South American, purple - French. Elderly women seasoned, like a hot sauce, the fading beauty with the unusual toilets.

Yes, as far as women are concerned, everything was going well. But the head porter could not say the same about the men sitting in the restaurant.

From where, from what thistles, after the war, did these fat little fellows crawl out, short in stature, with hairy fingers in rings, with inflamed cheeks, difficult to shave?

A Rolls Royce, a long car with a mahogany body, silently rolled up to the hotel entrance. The porter, jangling his chain, hurried to the revolving doors.

The first to enter was a yellowish-pale man of small stature, with a black, short-cropped beard, with flared nostrils of a fleshy nose. He was wearing a baggy long coat and a bowler hat pulled down over his eyebrows.

Montrose, one of the most chic women in Paris. She was in a white cloth suit, trimmed on the sleeves, from the wrist to the elbow, with long black monkey fur. Her little felt hat was designed by the great Collo. Her movements were confident and casual. She was beautiful, thin, tall, with a long neck, with a slightly large mouth, with a slightly upturned nose.

Her bluish-gray eyes seemed cold and passionate.

Shall we have lunch, Rolling? she asked the man in the bowler hat.

No. I will talk to him until dinner.

Zoe Monrose chuckled, as if condescendingly excused the harsh tone of the answer. At this time, a young man jumped in the door, talking to. Zoey

Monrose by the car. He was in an open old coat, with a cane and a soft hat in his hand. His excited face was covered with freckles. Sparse stiff tendrils are accurately glued. He apparently intended to shake hands, but Rolling, without taking his hands out of his coat pockets, said even more sharply:

You are a quarter of an hour late, Semyonov.

They detained me... In our own case... Terribly sorry... Everything is arranged... They agree... Tomorrow they can leave for Warsaw...

If you yell at the whole hotel, they will take you out, - said

Rolling, staring at him with dull eyes that did not promise anything good.

Excuse me - I'm whispering... Everything is already prepared in Warsaw: passports, clothes, weapons and so on. In the first days of April they will cross the border...

Now Mademoiselle Montrose and I will dine, - said Rolling, -

you will go to these gentlemen and tell them that I wish to see them today at the beginning of the fifth. Warn me that if they decide to lead me by the nose, I will hand them over to the police...

This conversation took place at the beginning of May 192.... In Leningrad, at dawn, near the booms of the rowing school, on the Krestovka River, a two-rowed boat stopped.

Two people came out of it, and by the very water they had a short conversation, -

only one spoke - sharply and imperiously, the other looked at the full-flowing, quiet, dark river. Behind the thickets of Krestovsky Island, in the blue of the night, a spring dawn spread.

Then the two leaned over the boat, the light of a match illuminating their faces.

They took out bundles from the bottom of the boat, and the one who was silent took them and hid in the forest, and the one who spoke jumped into the boat, pushed himself off the shore and hastily creaked his oarlocks. The outline of a rowing man passed through the glowing strip of water and disappeared into the shadow of the opposite bank. A small wave splashed on booms.

But the athlete knows that defeat leads to victory. This alone, and perhaps the charm of the spring dawn, smelling of spicy grass and wet wood, kept Tarashkin in the presence of mind necessary for training before the big June races.

But, in the end, in the republic it is not forbidden to roam at night, on land and on water, with your double. Tarashkin, probably, would have immediately forgotten about the personalities with sharp beards, if not for a strange event that happened that same morning near the rowing school in a birch forest in a dilapidated summer house with boarded up windows.

Well, how are you, comrade Tarashkin? Everything is good? he asked as he parked his bicycle by the porch. - I came to tinker a bit ... Look - garbage, ah, ah.

He took off his tunic, rolled up the sleeves on his thin, muscular arms, and set to work cleaning the club yard, which was still littered with materials left over from the repair of booms.

Today the guys from the factory will come, - in one night we will put things in order, -

Tarashkin said. - So how, Vasily Vitalievich, are you signing up for the team for the six?

I don’t know how to be, - said Shelga, rolling the tar barrel,

Muscovites, on the one hand, need to be beaten, on the other, I’m afraid I won’t be able to be accurate ... One funny thing is coming up with us.

Anything about bandits again?

No, raise it higher - criminality on an international scale.

It's a pity, - said Tarashkin, - otherwise they would have buried.

Going out on booms and watching how sunbeams play all over the river,

Do you know well who lives nearby in dachas?

Zimogory live here and there.

And no one moved into one of these dachas in mid-March?

Tarashkin glanced sideways at the sunny river, scratched his other foot with his toenails.

There is a boarded-up dacha over there in that forest, - he said, - four weeks ago, I remember this, I look - there is smoke from the chimney. We thought so - either homeless people there, or bandits.

Did you see anyone from that cottage?

Wait, Vasily Vitalievich. I must have seen them today.

And Tarashkin told about two people who moored at dawn to the swampy shore.

Shelga assented: "so, so," his sharp eyes became like slits.

Let's go, show me the dacha, - he said and touched the revolver holster hanging on his belt from behind.

The cottage in the stunted birch forest seemed uninhabited - the porch was rotten, the windows were boarded up with boards over the shutters. The glass on the mezzanine was shattered, the corners of the house were overgrown with moss under the remains of drainpipes, and quinoa grew under the window sills.

You are right - they live there, - said Shelga, examining the dacha from behind the trees, then cautiously walked around it. - Today they were here ... But what the devil did they need to climb through the window for? Tarashkin, come here, something is wrong here.

They quickly approached the porch. There were footprints on it. To the left of the porch on the window hung sideways a shutter - freshly torn off. The window is open inward.

Under the window, on the wet sand - again footprints. The footprints are large, apparently, of a heavy person, and others are smaller, narrow - with toes inward.

There are traces of other shoes on the porch, - said Shelga.

He looked out the window, whistled softly, called: "Hey, uncle, your window is open, so that they don't take something away." No one answered. A sweetish unpleasant odor wafted from the dimly lit room.

Shelga called louder, climbed onto the windowsill, took out a revolver and gently jumped into the room. Tarashkin followed him.

The first room was empty, broken bricks, plaster, scraps of newspapers lay underfoot. A half-open door led into the kitchen. Here, on the stove under a rusty cap, on tables and stools, there were stoves, porcelain crucibles, glass and metal retorts, jars and zinc boxes. One of the primus stoves was still hissing, burning down.

Shelga called again: "Hey, uncle!" He shook his head and carefully closed the door to a semi-dark room, cut through by flat rays of the sun through the cracks in the shutters.

There he is! Shelga said.

In the back of the room, on an iron bed, lying on his back, was a dressed man.

His arms were thrown behind his head and fastened to the bars of the bed. The legs are wrapped in rope. The jacket and shirt are torn at the chest. The head was unnaturally thrown back, the beard stuck out sharply.

Yeah, here they are like him, - said Shelga, examining a Finnish knife driven to the handle under the nipple of the murdered man - They tortured ... Look ...

Vasily Vitalievich, this is the one who sailed on the boat. He was killed no more than an hour and a half ago.

Stay here, guard, do not touch anything, do not let anyone in, -

Do you hear, Tarashkin?

A few minutes later, Shelga spoke on the phone from the club:

Attendance at the stations... Check all passengers. Outfits for all hotels. Check everyone who returned between six and eight in the morning.

Agent and dog at my disposal.

Before the arrival of the sniffer dog, Shelga began a thorough inspection of the dacha, starting with the attic.

There was rubbish everywhere, broken glass, pieces of wallpaper, rusty cans. The windows are covered with cobwebs, in the corners - mold, mushrooms. The dacha has apparently been abandoned since 1918. Only the kitchen and the room with the iron bed were inhabited. No sign of comfort anywhere, no leftovers of food, except for a French bun found in the pocket of a murdered French bun and a piece of tea sausage.

They didn’t live here, they came here to do something that had to be hidden.

Such was the first conclusion made by Shelga as a result of the search. A survey of the kitchen showed that they were working on some kind of chemical preparations.

Examining the heaps of ash on the stove under the hood, where, obviously, chemical tests were made, leafing through several brochures with folded corners of the pages, he established the second: the murdered man was engaged in nothing more than ordinary pyrotechnics.

This conclusion baffled Shelga. He once again searched the dress of the murdered man - he found nothing new. Then he approached the issue from a different angle.

Footprints at the window showed that there were two murderers, that they had entered through the window, inevitably risking meeting resistance, since the man in the country house could not help but hear the crack of the shutter being torn down.

This meant that the killers needed at all costs either to get something extremely important, or to kill a person in the country.

Further: if we assume that they simply wanted to kill him, then, firstly, they could do it easier, say, by lying in wait for him somewhere on the way to the dacha, and, secondly, the position of the murdered man on the bed showed that he tortured, he was stabbed to death not immediately. The killers needed to learn something from this man that he did not want to say.

What could they ask him for? Money? It is difficult to imagine that a person, going to an abandoned dacha at night to engage in pyrotechnics, would take a lot of money with him. Or rather, the killers wanted to find out some secret related to the nightly activities of the murdered.

Thus, the train of thought led Shelga to a new study of the kitchen. He pushed the drawers away from the wall and found a square hatch into the basement, which is often arranged in summer cottages right under the kitchen floor. Tarashkin lit the stub and lay on his stomach, illuminating the damp underground, where Shelga carefully descended the rotten, slippery stairs.

Come here with a candle, - Shelga shouted from the darkness, - that's where he had a real laboratory.

The basement occupied the area under the whole dacha: near the brick walls there were several wooden tables on the goats, gas cylinders, a small motor and a dynamo, glass baths, in which electrolysis is usually carried out, metalworking tools and piles of ashes everywhere on the tables ...

That's what he was doing here, - Shelga said with some bewilderment, examining thick wooden blocks and sheets of iron leaning against the basement wall. And the sheets and bars were drilled in many places, others were cut in half, the places of the cuts and holes seemed to be burned and melted.

In an oak board standing upright, these holes were a tenth of a millimeter in diameter, as if from a prick with a needle. In the middle of the board is written in large letters: "P. P. Garin." Shelga turned the board over, and on the reverse side were the same letters inside out: in some incomprehensible way, the three-inch board was burned through with this inscription.

Fu-you, damn it, - said Shelga, - no, P.P. Garin was not engaged in pyrotechnics here.

Vasily Vitalievich, what is this? - asked Tarashkin, showing a pyramid of an inch and a half high, about an inch at the base, pressed from some kind of gray matter.

Where did you find?

There's a whole box of them.

Turning, sniffing the pyramid, Shelga put it on the edge of the table, stuck a lit match into it from the side and went to the far corner of the basement. The match burned out, the pyramid flashed with a dazzling white-bluish light. Burned for five minutes with seconds without soot, almost odorless.

Shelga, - the pyramid could turn out to be a gas candle. Then we wouldn't have left the basement. Very well, what have we learned? Let's try to establish: firstly, the murder was not for the purpose of revenge or robbery. Secondly, let's establish the name of the murdered man - P.P. Garin. That's all for now. You want to object, Tarashkin, that perhaps P. P. Garin is the one who left on the boat. I don't think. The surname on the board was written by Garin himself. This is psychologically clear. If, say, I invented some such wonderful thing, then I would probably write my name out of delight, but certainly not yours. We know that the victim worked in the laboratory; so he is the inventor, that is, Garin.

Shelga and Tarashkin climbed out of the basement and, lighting a cigarette, sat down on the porch in the sun, waiting for the agent with the dog.

At the main post office, a fat reddish hand slipped through one of the windows for receiving foreign telegrams and hung there with a trembling telegraph form.

The telegraph operator looked at this hand for several seconds and finally understood: "Aha, there is no fifth finger - the little finger," and began to read the form.

"Warsaw, Marshalkovskaya, Semyonov. The order was half-fulfilled, the engineer left, the documents could not be obtained, I am waiting for orders. Stas."

The telegrapher underlined in red - Warsaw. He got up and, shielding the window with himself, began to look through the bars at the bearer of the telegram. He was a massive, middle-aged man, with an unhealthy, yellowish-gray skin of a pouty face, with a yellow mustache that covered his mouth. The eyes are hidden under the cracks of swollen eyelids. On his shaved head is a brown velvet cap.

What's the matter? he asked roughly. - Receive a telegram.

The telegram is encrypted, the telegraph operator said.

That is, how is it encrypted? What are you talking nonsense to me! This is a commercial telegram, you must accept it. I will show my ID, I am a member of the Polish consulate, you will answer for the slightest delay.

The four-fingered citizen got angry and shook his cheeks, did not speak, but barked,

But his hand on the counter of the little window continued to tremble uneasily.

You see, citizen, - the telegraph operator told him, - although you assure that your telegram is commercial, and I assure that -

political, encrypted.

The telegraph operator chuckled. The yellow gentleman, angry, raised his voice, and meanwhile the young lady imperceptibly took his telegram and carried it to the table, where Vasily

Vitalyevich Shelga looked through the whole telegram feed of that day.

Glancing at the form: "Warsaw, Marshalkovskaya," he went through the partition into the hall, stopped behind the angry sender and signaled to the telegraph operator.

He twisted his nose, went over the panorama politics and sat down to write a receipt. The Pole was breathing heavily with anger, shifting, creaking his patent leather shoes. Shelga looked attentively at his big feet. He went to the exit doors, nodded to the agent on duty at the Pole:

trace.

Yesterday's searches with a bloodhound led from a dacha in a birch forest to a river

Krestovka, where they broke off: here the killers, obviously, boarded the boat. Yesterday brought no new data. The criminals, apparently, were well hidden in Leningrad. Didn't give anything and viewing telegrams. Only this latter, perhaps - to Warsaw Semyonov - was of some interest.

The telegraph operator handed the Pole a receipt, who reached into his vest pocket for change. At that moment, a handsome dark-eyed man with a sharp beard quickly approached the window with a form in his hand, and, waiting for the place to become free, looked with calm hostility at the solid belly of the angry Pole.

Then Shelga saw how a man with a sharp beard suddenly drew himself up: he noticed a four-fingered hand and immediately looked the Pole in the face.

Their eyes met. The Pole's jaw dropped. The swollen eyelids opened wide. Horror flickered in his cloudy eyes. His face, like that of a monstrous chameleon, has changed - it has become lead.

And only then did Shelga understand, - he recognized the man with the beard standing in front of the Pole: it was the double of the one killed in the country in the birch forest on

Krestovsky...

The Pole gave a hoarse cry and rushed with incredible speed towards the exit.

The agent on duty, who was ordered only to watch him from a distance, let him through the street without hindrance and slipped after him.

The dead man's double remained standing at the window. Cold, with a dark rim, his eyes expressed nothing but amazement. He shrugged his shoulder and, when the Pole disappeared, handed the telegrapher a form:

"Paris, Boulevard Batignolles, poste restante, number 555. Start analysis immediately, improve quality by fifty percent, expect first shipment in mid-May. P.P."

The telegram concerns scientific work, my comrade, sent to Paris by the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, is currently busy with it, ”he told the telegraph operator. Then he slowly pulled a cigarette box out of his pocket, tapped the cigarette and carefully lit it. Shelga politely told him:

Allow me two words.

The man with the beard looked at him, lowered his eyelashes, and replied with the utmost courtesy:

You are welcome.

I am a criminal investigation agent, - said Shelga, slightly opening the card,

Maybe we can find a more comfortable place to talk.

Do you want to arrest me?

Not the slightest intention. I want to warn you that the Pole who ran out of here intends to kill you, just as yesterday at Krestovsky he killed engineer Garin.

The man with the beard thought for a moment. Neither politeness nor calmness left him.

Please,” he said, “let's go, I have a quarter of an hour to spare.

On the street near the post office, an agent on duty ran up to Shelga - all red, in spots:

Comrade Shelga, he's gone.

Why did you miss it?

His car was waiting, Comrade Shelga.

Where is your motorcycle?

There he is lying around, - said the agent, pointing to a motorcycle a hundred steps from the post office entrance, - he jumped up with a knife on the tire. I whistled. He - in the car - and go.

Did you notice the car number?

I'll file a report for you.

So how, when his number is purposely covered with mud?

Okay, go to the criminal investigation department, I'll be there in twenty minutes.

Shelga caught up with the man with the beard. For a while they walked in silence.

We turned to the Boulevard of Trade Unions.

You are strikingly similar to the murdered, - said Shelga.

I have heard this many times, my last name is

Pyankov-Pitkevich, - the man with the beard readily answered. “I read about Garin's murder last night. It's horrible. I knew this man well, a skilled worker, an excellent chemist. I often visited his laboratory on Krestovsky. He was preparing a major discovery in military chemistry. Do you have any idea about the so-called smoke candles?

Shelga squinted at him, did not answer, asked:

What do you think - the murder of Garin is connected with the interests of Poland?

I don't think. The reason for the murder is much deeper. Information about the work of Garin got into the American press. Poland could only be a relaying authority.

On the boulevard Shelga offered to sit down. It was deserted. Shelga took out clippings from Russian and foreign newspapers from his briefcase and laid them out on his knees.

You say that Garin worked in chemistry, information about him got into the foreign press. Here something coincides with your words, something is not entirely clear to me. Here read:

"... In America, they are interested in a message from Leningrad about the work of a Russian inventor. It is assumed that his device has the most powerful destructive force of all known so far."

Pitkevich read and - smiling:

Strange - I don't know... I haven't heard about it. No, this is not about Garin.

Shelga held out the second clipping:

"... In connection with the upcoming large-scale maneuvers of the American fleet in Pacific waters, an inquiry was made to the War Department - is it known about devices of colossal destructive power being built in Soviet Russia."

Pitkevich shrugged his shoulders: "Nonsense," and took the third clipping from Shelga:

"The chemical king, the billionaire Rolling, has departed for Europe. His departure is connected with the organization of a trust of factories processing coal tar and common salt products. Rolling gave an interview in Paris, expressing confidence that his monstrous chemical concern would bring calm to the countries of the Old World, shaken by revolutionary Rolling spoke particularly aggressively about Soviet Russia, where, according to rumors, mysterious work is being carried out on the transmission of thermal energy over a distance.

Pitkevich read it carefully. I thought. He said, furrowing his brows:

Yes. It is quite possible - the murder of Garin is connected somehow with this note.

Are you an athlete? - Shelga suddenly asked, took Pitkevich's hand and turned it palm up. - I am passionate about sports.

You see if I have calluses from oars, Comrade Shelga...

You see - two bubbles - this indicates that I am not rowing well and that two days ago I really rowed for about an hour and a half in a row, taking Garin in a boat to Krestovsky Island ... Are you satisfied with this information?

Shelga let go of his hand and laughed:

You are a good fellow, comrade Pitkevich, it would be interesting to seriously tinker with you.

I never turn down a serious fight.

Tell me, Pitkevich, did you know this Pole with four fingers before?

Do you want to know why I was surprised to see him have a four-fingered hand?

You are very observant, Comrade Shelga. Yes, I was amazed ... more - I was frightened.

Well, I won't tell you this.

Shelga bit the skin on his lip. I looked along the deserted boulevard.

Pitkevich continued:

Not only is his hand mutilated, he has a monstrous scar on his body diagonally across his chest. Mutilated Garin in 1919. This man's name is Stas Tyklinsky...

Well, - asked Shelga, - did the late Garin mutilate him in the same way that he cut three-inch boards?

Pitkevich quickly turned his head to his interlocutor, and for some time they looked into each other's eyes: one calmly and impenetrably, the other cheerfully and openly.

Do you intend to arrest me, Comrade Shelga?

No... We will always have time for this.

You're right. I know a lot. But, of course, by no coercive measures you will extort from me what I do not want to reveal. I'm not involved in the crime, you know. Do you want an open game? Fight conditions:

after a good hit, we meet and have a frank conversation. It will be like a game of chess. Forbidden tricks - kill each other to death.

By the way - while we are talking, you were in mortal danger, I assure you - I'm not kidding. If Stas Tyklinsky had been sitting in your place, then I would, say, look around - deserted - and go, slowly, to Senate Square, and they would have found him hopelessly dead on this bench, with disgusting spots on his body. But, I repeat, I will not apply these tricks to you. Do you want a party?

OK. I agree, - said Shelga, his eyes sparkling, - I will attack first, right?

Of course, if you hadn't caught me at the post office, I certainly wouldn't have suggested the game myself. And as for the four-fingered Pole, I promise to help in his search. Wherever I meet him, I will immediately inform you by telephone or telegraph.

OK. And now, Pitkevich, show me what kind of thing you are threatening with...

Pitkevich shook his head, grinned: "Be it your way - the game is open," and carefully took out a flat box from his side pocket. In it lay a metal tube, a finger thick.

That's all, just press from one end - there the glass crackles inside.

Approaching the criminal investigation department, Shelga immediately stopped, as if he had run into a telegraph pole: "Heh!" he breathed, "heh!"

Shelga really was fooled outright. He stood two steps away from the murderer (there was no doubt about that now) and did not take it. He talked to a man who apparently knows all the threads of the murder, and he managed not to tell him anything on the merits. This Pyankov-Pitkevich possessed some kind of secret... Shelga suddenly realized that this secret was of state, world significance...

He was already holding Pyankov-Pitkevich by the tail - he wriggled out, damn it, went around!

Shelga ran up to the third floor to his department. There was a paper bag on the table. In the deep niche of the window sat a modest plump man in oiled boots. Holding the cap to his stomach, he bowed to Shelga.

Babichev, house manager, - he said with a strongly moonshine spirit, - according to

Pushkarskaya street twenty-fourth house number, housing association.

Did you bring the package?

I brought. From apartment number thirteen... This is not in the main building, but in an extension. Our tenant disappeared for the second day. Today they called the police, they opened the door, they drew up an act in accordance with the law, - the house manager covered his mouth with his hand, his cheeks turned red, his eyes got out slightly, moistened, the spirit of moonshine filled the room, - so I found this package additionally in the stove.

What is the name of the missing tenant?

Saveliev, Ivan Alekseevich.

Shelga opened the package. They were there - photographic card

Pyankov-Pitkevich, comb, scissors and a bottle of dark liquid, hair dye.

What did Saveliev do?

On the academic side. When our fan pipe burst, the committee turned to him ... He - "he would be glad, he says, to help you, but I'm a chemist."

Did he often leave the apartment at night?

At night? No. I didn’t notice, - the house manager again covered his mouth, - a little light he is from the yard, that’s right. But so that at night - it was not noticed, they were not seen drunk.

Did friends visit him?

Didn't notice.

Shelga on the phone asked the police department of the Petrograd side.

It turned out that Savelyev Ivan Alekseevich, thirty-six years old, a chemical engineer, really lived in the annex of the house twenty-four on Pushkarskaya.

Settled on Pushkarskaya in February with an identity card issued by the Tambov police.

Shelga sent a telegraph request to Tambov and, together with the house manager, went by car to the Fontanka, where in the criminal investigation department, on the glacier, lay the corpse of a man killed on Krestovsky. The house manager immediately recognized him as a tenant from the thirteenth room.

At about the same time, the one who called himself

Pyankov-Pitkevich, drove up in a cab with the top up to one of the vacant lots on the Petrograd side, paid off and walked along the sidewalk along the vacant lot. He opened the gate in the wooden fence, passed the courtyard and climbed the narrow back staircase to the fifth floor. He opened the door with two keys, hung his coat and hat on a single nail in the empty hallway, entered the room where the four windows were half-smeared with chalk, sat down on the torn sofa and covered his face with his hands.

Only here, in a secluded room (lined with bookshelves and physical instruments), could he finally surrender to the terrible excitement, almost despair, that had shaken him since yesterday.

His hands, clutching his face, trembled. He knew that the mortal danger had not passed. He was surrounded. Only some small opportunities were in his favor, out of a hundred - ninety-nine were against. "How careless, oh, how careless," he whispered.

By an effort of will, he finally mastered his excitement, poked a dirty pillow with his fist, lay down on his back and closed his eyes.

His thoughts, overloaded with terrible tension, rested. A few minutes of dead stillness refreshed him. He got up, poured Madeira into a glass and drank it in one gulp. As a wave of heat went through his body, he began to pace the room, with methodical deliberation, looking for these small opportunities for salvation.

He carefully folded back the old loose wallpaper from under the plinth, pulled out sheets of drawings from under them and rolled them up into a tube. He took several books off the shelves and put them all, together with drawings and parts of physical instruments, into a suitcase.

Listening every minute, he took the suitcase downstairs and hid it in one of the dark wood-burning cellars under a pile of rubbish. He went up to his room again, took a revolver out of the desk, looked it over, put it in his back pocket.

It was a quarter to five. He lay down again and smoked one cigarette after another, throwing the cigarette butts into the corner. “Of course they didn’t find it!” he almost shouted, kicking his legs off the sofa, and again ran diagonally across the room.

At dusk, he pulled on his rough boots, put on a canvas coat, and left the house.

At midnight, at the sixteenth police station, the duty officer was called to the telephone. A hurried voice spoke in his ear:

To Krestovsky, to the dacha, where the day before yesterday there was a murder, immediately send a police squad ...

What do you need?

Did they call you now?

Who called?.. Did you see?

No, our electricity is out. They said that on behalf of Comrade Shelga.

Half an hour later, four policemen jumped out of the truck at the boarded-up dacha on Krestovsky. Behind the birches, the rest of the dawn shone dimly crimson.

Weak groans could be heard in the silence. A man in a sheepskin coat was lying face down near the black porch. They turned him over, - it turned out to be a watchman. Around him lay cotton wool soaked in chloroform.

The porch door was wide open. The castle has been broken. When the police entered the dacha, a muffled voice shouted from the underground:

Luke, roll off the hatch in the kitchen, comrades...

Tables, boxes, heavy bags were piled up against the wall in the kitchen. They scattered them, lifted the manhole cover.

Shelga jumped out of the underground - covered in cobwebs, covered in dust, with wild eyes.

Hurry over here! he shouted as he disappeared through the door. - Light, quickly!

In the room (with an iron bed), in the light of secret lanterns, they saw on the floor two shot revolvers, a brown velvet cap, and disgusting traces of vomit with a pungent odor.

Be careful! Shelga shouted. - Don't breathe, go away, it's death!

Stepping back, pushing the policemen to the door, he looked with horror, with disgust, at a metal tube the size of a human finger lying on the floor.

Like all large-scale business people, the chemical king Rolling took on business in a specially rented room, an office where his secretary filtered visitors, establishing their degree of importance, read their minds and answered all questions with monstrous politeness. The stenographer crystallized Rolling's ideas into human words, which (if you take their arithmetic average for a year and multiply by the monetary equivalent) cost about fifty thousand dollars for each one-second segment of the idea of the king of inorganic chemistry that flows. The almond-shaped nails of the four typists fluttered incessantly over the keys of the four underwoods. The errand boy immediately after the call grew before Rolling's eyes, like the condensed matter of his will.

Rolling's office on the boulevard Malserbe was a gloomy and serious place.

Dark damask walls, dark beavers on the floor, dark leather furniture. On dark tables covered with glass lay collections of advertisements, reference books in brown yuft, prospectuses of chemical plants. Several rusty gas shells and a bomb-launcher brought from the fields of war adorned the fireplace.

Behind the high, dark walnut doors, in an office among diagrams, cartograms and photographs, sat the chemical king Rolling. Filtered visitors silently walked into the waiting room, sat on leather chairs and looked anxiously at the walnut door. There, behind the door, the very air in the king's study was incredibly precious, as thoughts that cost fifty thousand dollars a second permeated it.

What human heart would remain calm when, amid the respectable silence in the waiting room, a massive walnut handle in the form of a paw holding a ball suddenly stirs and a small man appears in a dark gray jacket, with a beard known to the whole world, covering his cheeks, painfully unfriendly, almost a superman, with a yellowish unhealthy face, reminiscent of a world-famous brand of products: a yellow circle with four black stripes ... Opening the door, the king fixed his eyes on the visitor and spoke with a strong American accent - "please."

The secretary (with monstrous politeness) asked, holding a golden pencil with two fingers:

Excuse me, what's your last name?

General Subbotin, Russian ... emigrant.

The answerer threw up his shoulders angrily and ran a crumpled handkerchief over his gray mustache.

The secretary, smiling as if the conversation concerned the most pleasant, friendly things, flew over the notebook with a pencil and asked quite carefully:

What is the purpose, Monsieur Subbotin, of your proposed conversation with Mr.

Rolling?

Extraordinary, very important.

Perhaps I will try to summarize it for presentation to Mr. Rolling.

You see, the goal is, so to speak, simple, the plan... Mutual benefit...

The plan concerning the chemical struggle against the Bolsheviks, as I understand it? -

asked the secretary.

Quite right... I intend to propose to Mr. Rolling...

I'm afraid," the secretary interrupted him with charming politeness, and his pleasant face even showed suffering, "I'm afraid that Mr. Rolling is a little overwhelmed by such plans. Since last week, we have received one hundred and twenty-four proposals from the Russians alone for a chemical war against the Bolsheviks. We have in our portfolio an excellent disposition of an air-chemical attack simultaneously on Kharkov, Moscow and Petrograd.

The author of the disposition cleverly deploys forces on the bridgeheads of the buffer states - very, very interesting. The author even gives an exact estimate: six thousand eight hundred and fifty tons of mustard gas for the total extermination of the inhabitants in these capitals.

General Subbotin, turning purple from a terrible rush of blood, interrupted:

What's the matter, mister, how are you! My plan is no worse, but this one -

excellent plan. We must act! From words to deeds... Why stop?

Dear General, the only stop is that Mr. Rolling does not yet see the equivalent of his expenses.

What is the equivalent?

Dropping six thousand eight hundred and fifty tons of mustard gas from airplanes would not be difficult for Mr. Rolling, but it would require some expense. War costs money, doesn't it? In the plans presented, Mr. Rolling sees only expenses so far. But the equivalent, that is, the income from sabotage against the Bolsheviks, unfortunately, is not indicated.

It is clear as daylight... incomes... colossal incomes to anyone who returns Russia's lawful rulers, the lawful normal system - mountains of gold to such a person! - The general, like an eagle, from under his eyebrows rested his eyes on the secretary. - Yeah! So, also indicate the equivalent?

Precisely armed with numbers: left - passive, right - active, then

A dash and a difference with a plus sign that might interest Mr.

Rolling.

Aha! The general sniffled, pulled on his dusty hat, and walked resolutely towards the door.

Before the general had time to leave, a protesting voice of a boy for instructions was heard in the entrance, then another voice expressed a desire for the devil to take the boy, and Semyonov appeared in front of the secretary in an unbuttoned coat, in his hand a hat and a cane, in the corner of his mouth a chewed cigar.

Good morning, my friend, - he hastily said to the secretary and threw his hat and cane on the table, - let me through to the king out of turn.

The secretary's golden pencil hung in the air.

But Mr. Rolling is especially busy today.

Uh, nonsense, buddy... There's a man waiting in my car, fresh from Warsaw... Tell Rolling we're on Garin's case.

The secretary's eyebrows went up and he disappeared through the walnut door. A minute later he leaned out: "Monsieur Semyonov, you are asked," he whistled in a gentle whisper. And

he himself pressed the doorknob in the form of a paw holding a ball.

Semyonov stood before the eyes of the chemical king. Semyonov did not express much excitement at this, firstly, because he was a boor by nature, and secondly, because at that moment the king needed him more than he needed the king.

Rolling bored him with green eyes. Semyonov, not embarrassed by this, sat down opposite on the other side of the table. Rolling said:

It is done.

Blueprints?

You see, Mr. Rolling, there has been some misunderstanding...

I ask, where are the drawings? I don’t see them,” Rolling said fiercely and lightly hit the table with his palm.

Listen, Rolling, we agreed that I would deliver you not only the drawings, but also the instrument itself... I did an enormous amount... I found people...

Sent them to Petrograd. They infiltrated Garin's lab. They saw the operation of the device ... But then, the devil knows, something happened ... Firstly,

There were two Garins.

I assumed this at the very beginning,” Rolling said with disgust.

We managed to remove one.

Did you kill him?

If you want something like that. In any case, he died. This should not worry you: the liquidation took place in Petrograd, he himself is a Soviet citizen - nothing ... But then his double appeared ... Then we made a monstrous effort ...

In a word, - Rolling interrupted, - the double or Garin himself is alive, and you did not deliver any drawings or instruments to me, despite the money I spent.

If you want, I'll call you, - Stas Tyklinsky, a participant in this whole affair, is sitting in the car, - he will tell you in detail.

I don’t want to see any Tyklinsky, I need drawings and a device ...

I marvel at your courage to show up empty-handed...

Despite the coldness of these words, despite the fact that, having finished speaking,

Rolling looked murderously at Semyonov, confident that the lousy Russian emigrant would be incinerated and disappear without a trace. Semyonov, not embarrassed, put a chewed cigar into his mouth and said briskly:

If you don't want to see Tyklinsky, you don't have to - it's a small pleasure.

But here's the thing: I need money, Rolling, twenty thousand francs.

Will you give me a check or cash?

With all his vast experience and knowledge of people, Rolling saw such an impudent person for the first time in his life. Rolling even felt something like perspiration on his fleshy nose—he made such an effort not to drive the ink bottle into Semyonov's freckled face... (And how many precious seconds were lost during this wretched conversation!) reached for the call.

Semyonov, following his hand, said:

The fact is, dear Mr. Rolling, that engineer Garin is in

Rolling jumped up, his nostrils fluttered open, a vein bulged between his eyebrows. He ran to the door and locked it with a key, then went close to Semyonov, grabbed the back of the chair, and grabbed the edge of the table with his other hand. Leaned towards his face.

You're lying.

Well, here's another thing, I'm going to lie ... It happened like this: Stas Tyklinsky met this double in Petrograd at the post office when he handed over a telegram, and noticed the address: Paris, Boulevard Batignolles ... Yesterday Tyklinsky arrived from

Warsaw, and we immediately ran to the Boulevard Batignolles and - nose to nose ran into Garin in a cafe or his double, the devil will figure them out.

Rolling's eyes crawled over Semyonov's freckled face. Then he straightened up, a burnt breath escaped from his lungs:

You understand very well that we are not in Soviet Russia, but in Paris, -

if you commit a crime, I will not save you from the guillotine. But if you try to deceive me, I will trample you.

He returned to his seat and opened his checkbook in disgust.

“I won’t give you twenty thousand, five is enough for you ...” He wrote out a check, pushed it on Semenov’s table with his fingernail, and then - no more than for a second, -

He put his elbows on the table and clenched his face in his hands.

Of course, it was not by chance that the beautiful Zoya Monrose became the mistress of the chemical king. Only fools, and those who do not know what struggle and victory are, see everywhere the case "This is the lucky one," they say with envy and look at the successful one as if at a miracle. But if he breaks, thousands of fools will ecstatically trample him, rejected by divine chance.

No, not a drop of chance - only the mind and will led Zoya Monrose to Rolling's bed. Her will was tempered like steel by the adventures of the nineteenth year. Her mind was so niggardly that she consciously supported among those around her the faith and exceptional disposition towards herself of divine fortune, or Happiness...

In the quarter where she lived (left bank of the Seine, Seine street), in petty, colonial, wine, coal and gastronomic shops, they considered Zoya

Monrose is something of a saint.

Her daily car is a black limousine 24 HP, her pleasure car is a semi-divine Rolls Royce 80 HP, her evening electric carriage, - inside - quilted silk, - with flower vases and silver handles - and in particular winning in the casino in Deauville one and a half million francs , - caused religious admiration in the quarter.

Half win, carefully, with great knowledge of the matter, Zoe Monrose

"invested" in the press.

Since October (the beginning of the Paris season), the press has "raised the beauty

Monrose for feathers". First, a libel about the ruined lovers of Zoya Monrose appeared in a petty-bourgeois newspaper. "Beauty costs us too much! -

exclaimed the newspaper. Then an influential radical body, neither in the village nor in the city, over this libel, thundered about the petty bourgeois sending shopkeepers and wine merchants to parliament with an outlook no wider than their quarter.

“Let Zoe Monrose ruin a dozen foreigners,” the newspaper exclaimed, “their money revolves in Paris, they increase the energy of life. For us, Zoe Monrose is only a symbol of healthy life relationships, a symbol of perpetual motion, where one falls, the other rises”

Portraits and biographies of Zoe Monrose were reported in all newspapers:

"Her late father served in the Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg.

At the age of eight, the charming little Zoya was sent to a ballet school. Just before the war, she graduated from it and made her debut in ballet with a success that the Northern capital will not remember. But now - the war, and Zoya Monrose with a young heart overflowing with mercy, rushes to the front, dressed in a gray dress with a red cross on her chest. She is encountered in the most dangerous places, calmly leaning over a wounded soldier in the midst of a hurricane of enemy shells. She is wounded (which, however, did not harm her body of young grace), she is being taken to

Petersburg, and there she meets the captain of the French army. The revolution.

Russia betrays allies The soul of Zoe Monrose is shaken by the Brest Peace. Together with her friend, a French captain, she runs south and there on horseback, with a rifle in her hands, like an angry grace, she fights the Bolsheviks.

Her friend is dying of typhus. French sailors take her away on a destroyer to

Marseilles. And here she is in Paris. She throws herself at the feet of the president, asking to be given the opportunity to become a French citizen. She dances in favor of the unfortunate inhabitants of the ruined Champagne. She is at all charity events. She is

Like a dazzling star that fell on the sidewalks of Paris"

In general terms, the biography was true. In Paris, Zoya quickly looked around and followed the line: always forward, always fighting, always to the most difficult and valuable. She really ruined a dozen rich people, those very short thugs with hairy fingers in rings and with inflamed cheeks. Zoya was a dear woman, and they died.

Very soon she realized that the soon-to-rich thugs would not give her much glamor in Paris. Then she took a fashion journalist as her lover, cheated on him with a parliamentary figure from large industry and realized that the most chic thing in the twenties of the twentieth century was chemistry.

She got a secretary who made daily reports to her about the progress of the chemical industry and gave her the necessary information. In this way, she learned about the proposed trip to Europe by the king of chemistry Rolling.

She immediately left for New York. There, on the spot, she bought, with body and soul, a reporter for a large newspaper - and notes appeared in the press about her arrival in

New York of the smartest, most beautiful woman in Europe, who combines the profession of a ballerina with a passion for the most fashionable science - chemistry, and even, instead of banal diamonds, wears a necklace of crystal balls filled with luminous gas. These balloons have had an impact on the American imagination.

When Rolling boarded the steamer for France, on the upper deck, on the tennis court, between a broad-leaved palm tree rustling in the sea wind and a blossoming almond tree, Zoya was sitting in a wicker chair

Rolling knew that she was the most fashionable woman in Europe, and besides, he really liked her. He asked her to be his mistress. Zoya

Monrose made it a condition to sign a contract with a penalty of one million dollars.

Radio from the open ocean was given about Rolling's new connection and about an unusual contract. The Eiffel Tower accepted this sensation, and the next day

Paris started talking about Zoe Monrose and the chemical king.

Rolling was not mistaken in choosing a mistress. While on the ship, Zoya told him:

Dear friend, it would be foolish of me to stick my nose into your affairs. But you will soon see that I am even more comfortable as a secretary than as a mistress.

Women's rubbish does not interest me much. I am ambitious. You are a big man: I believe in you. You must win. Don't forget - I survived the revolution, I had typhus, I fought like a soldier, and rode a thousand kilometers on horseback. It's unforgettable. My soul is scorched with hate.

Rolling found her icy passion entertaining. He touched the tip of her nose with his finger and said:

Baby, for a secretary with a business person, you have too much temperament, you are crazy, in politics and business you will always remain an amateur.

In Paris, he began to negotiate for the trust of chemical plants.

America invested heavily in the industry of the Old World. Agents

Rolling carefully bought shares. In Paris, he was called the "American buffalo". Indeed, he seemed like a giant among European industrialists. He went through. His line of sight was narrow. He saw one goal in front of him: concentration in one (his) hands of the world chemical industry.

Zoya Monrose quickly studied his character, his wrestling techniques. She understood his strength and his weakness. He knew little about politics and sometimes spoke nonsense about the revolution and the Bolsheviks. She imperceptibly surrounded him with the necessary and useful people. She brought him into contact with the world of journalists and led the conversations. She bought little chroniclers, whom he paid no attention to, but they did him more services than solid journalists, because they penetrated like mosquitoes into all the cracks of life.

When she "arranged" in parliament a short speech by a right-wing deputy "about the need for close contact with American industry for the chemical defense of France," Rolling shook her hand for the first time in a masculine, friendly, shaking way:

Very well, I'm taking you on as a secretary at twenty-seven dollars a week.

Rolling believed in the usefulness of Zoe Monrose and became frank with her in a businesslike way, that is, to the end.

Zoya Monrose kept in touch with some of the Russian emigrants. One of them, Semyonov, was on her permanent salary. He was a wartime chemical engineer, then an ensign, then a white officer, and in exile he was engaged in small commissions, up to the resale of used dresses to street girls.

At Zoe Monrose, he was in charge of counterintelligence. He brought her Soviet magazines and newspapers, reported information, gossip, rumors. He was efficient, lively and not squeamish.

Once Zoya Monrose showed Rolling a clipping from a Revel newspaper, which reported on a device of enormous destructive power under construction in Petrograd.

Rolling laughed.

Nonsense, no one will be afraid ... You have too hot an imagination.

The Bolsheviks are not able to build anything.

Then Zoya invited Semyonov to breakfast, and he told a strange story about this article:

"... In the nineteenth year in Petrograd, shortly before my flight, I met a friend on the street, a Pole, graduated from a technological institute with him - Stas Tyklinsky. A bag behind his back, legs wrapped in pieces of carpet, on the coat there are numbers - chalk - traces queues. In a word, everything is as it should be. But the face is lively. Winks. What's the matter? - millions! What is it - hundreds of millions (gold, of course)! " Of course, I pestered - tell me, he only laughs. On that we parted. Two weeks after that I went through

Vasilyevsky Island, where Tyklinsky lived. I remembered about his golden business, -

I think let me ask the millionaire half a pound of sugar. I went. Tyklinsky is almost dying, his arm and chest are bandaged.

Who did you like that?

Wait, - he answers, - the holy maiden will help - I will get better - I will kill him.

And he told, however, inconsistently and vaguely, not wanting to reveal details, about how his old acquaintance, engineer Garin, suggested that he prepare coal candles for some device of extraordinary destructive power. To interest Tyklinsky, he promised him a percentage of the profits. At the end of the experiments, he intended to run away with the finished device to

Sweden, take a patent there and start operating the device yourself.

Tyklinsky enthusiastically began to work on the pyramids. The task was such that, with their possibly small volume, the greatest possible amount of heat was released. Garin kept the design of the device a secret - he said that its principle is unusually simple and therefore the slightest hint will reveal the secret.

Tyklinsky supplied him with pyramids, but he could never ask him to show him the apparatus.

Such distrust infuriated Tyklinsky. They often quarreled. One day

Tyklinsky traced Garin to the place where he made experiments - in a dilapidated house on one of the back streets of the Petersburg side.

Tyklinsky made his way there after Garin and walked for a long time up some stairs, deserted rooms with broken windows, and finally in the basement he heard a strong hiss, as if from a beating stream of steam, and the familiar smell of burning pyramids.

He cautiously descended into the basement, but stumbled over broken bricks, fell, made a noise, and, thirty paces away from him, behind the archway, saw Garin's contorted face illuminated by an oil lamp. "Who, who's here?" Garin shouted wildly, and at the same time a dazzling beam, no thicker than a knitting needle, jumped off the wall and cut Tyklinsky obliquely through the chest and arm.

Tyklinsky woke up at dawn, called for help for a long time and crawled out of the basement on all fours, covered in blood. Passers-by picked him up and took him home on a handcart. When he recovered, the war with Poland began - he had to take his feet out of Petrograd.

This story made an extraordinary impression on Zoya Monrose. Rolling smiled incredulously, he believed only in the power of asphyxiating gases. Ironclads, fortresses, cannons, bulky armies - all these, in his opinion, were remnants of barbarism. Airplanes and chemistry are the only powerful weapons of war. BUT

some instruments from Petrograd - nonsense and nonsense!

But Zoya Monrose did not calm down. She sent Semyonov to Finland to get accurate information about Garin from there. A white officer hired by Semyonov crossed the Russian border on skis, found Garin in Petrograd, talked to him, and even suggested that he work together. Garin was very cautious.

Apparently, he was aware that he was being followed from abroad. He spoke of his apparatus in the sense that fabulous power awaits the one who owns it. Experiments with the apparatus model gave excellent results. He was only waiting for the completion of work on pyramid candles.

On a rainy Sunday evening in the beginning of spring, the lights from the windows and the countless lights of the lanterns were reflected in the asphalt of the Parisian streets.

As if through black channels, over the abyss of lights, wet cars raced, ran, collided, wet umbrellas spun. The dampness of the boulevards, the smell of greengrocers, the burning of petrol and perfume filled the rainy haze.

The rain trickled down the graphite roofs, over the trellises of the balconies, over the huge striped awnings spread over the coffee houses. Cloudy in the fog, fiery advertisements of all kinds of amusements lit up, swirled, flickered.

Small people - clerks and clerks, officials and employees -

had fun, as best they could, on this day. Big, businesslike, respectable people sat at home by the fireplaces. Sunday was the day of the mob, given to her to be torn to pieces.

Zoe Monrose sat with her legs crossed on a wide sofa among many pillows. She smoked and looked into the fire of the fireplace. Rolling, in a tailcoat, was seated, with his feet on a stool, in a large armchair, and he also smoked and looked at the coals.

His face, illuminated by the fireplace, seemed red-hot - a fleshy nose, cheeks overgrown with a beard, half-closed eyelids, slightly inflamed eyes of the ruler of the universe. He indulged in the good boredom needed once a week to rest his brain and nerves.

Zoya Monrose stretched out her beautiful bare hands in front of her and said:

Rolling, it's been two hours since lunch.

Yes, - he answered, - I, like you, believe that digestion is over.

Her clear, almost dreamy eyes flickered over his face. Quietly, in a serious voice, she called him by name. He answered without moving in his heated chair:

Yes, I'm listening to you, my baby.

Permission to speak was given. Zoya Monrose sat on the edge of the sofa and hugged her knee.

Tell me, Rolling, are chemical plants a big explosion hazard?

Oh yeah. The fourth derivative of coal - TNT -

extremely powerful explosive. The eighth derivative of coal is

picric acid, armor-piercing shells of naval guns are stuffed with it. But there is an even more powerful thing, this is tetryl.

What is it, Rolling?

All the same coal. Benzene (C6H6) mixed at eighty degrees with nitric acid (HNO3) gives nitrobenzene. Formula of nitrobenzene

C6H5NO2. If we replace two parts of oxygen O2 in it with two parts of hydrogen H2, that is, if we slowly stir nitrobenzene at eighty degrees with iron filings, with a small amount of hydrochloric acid, then we will get aniline (C6H5NH2). Aniline mixed with wood alcohol at fifty atmospheres of pressure will give dimethylaniline. Then we will dig a huge hole, surround it with an earthen rampart, put a shed inside and there we will react dimethyl-aniline with nitric acid. During this reaction, we will observe thermometers from afar, through a telescope. The reaction of dimethylaniline with nitric acid will give us tetryl. This same tetryl -

a real devil: for unknown reasons, it sometimes explodes during the reaction and turns huge factories into dust. Unfortunately, we have to deal with it: treated with phosgene, it gives a blue dye -

crystal violet. I made good money on this thing. You asked me a funny question... Hm... I thought you were more knowledgeable in chemistry. Hm...

To prepare from coal tar, say, a pyramidon shell, which, say, will cure your headache, you need to go through a long series of steps ... On the way from coal to pyramidon, or to a bottle of perfume, or to an ordinary photographic preparation - such diabolical things like TNT and picric acid, wonderful things like bromine-benzyl-cyanide, chlor-picrin, di-phenyl-chloro-arsine, and so on and so forth, that is, war gases that make you sneeze, cry, tear off self-protective masks, suffocate, vomit blood, cover themselves with sores, rot alive ...

As Rolling was bored on this rainy Sunday evening, he willingly indulged in reflection on the great future of chemistry.

I think (he waved a half-smoked cigar near his nose), I think that the god Sabaoth created heaven and earth and all living things from coal tar and table salt. The Bible does not say this directly, but you can guess. He who owns coal and salt owns the world. The Germans got into the war of the fourteenth year only because nine-tenths of the chemical plants of the whole world belonged to Germany. The Germans understood the secret of coal and salt: they were the only cultured nation at that time. However, they did not calculate that we Americans would be able to build

Edgewood Arsenal. The Germans opened our eyes, we understood where to invest money, and now we will own the world, not they, because after the war we have money and we have chemistry. We will turn Germany first of all, and after it other countries that can work (those who cannot die out naturally, we will help them in this), we will turn them into one powerful factory ... The American flag will encircle the earth like a bonbonniere, along the equator and from the pole to poles...

Rolling,” Zoya interrupted, “you yourself are inciting trouble ... After all, then they will become communists ... The day will come when they will say that they no longer need you, that they want to work for themselves ... Oh, I have already experienced this horror...

They will refuse to give you back your billions...

Then, my baby, I'll flood Europe with mustard gas.

Rolling, it'll be late! Zoya clenched her hands on her knee and leaned forward. - Rolling, believe me, I never gave you bad advice...

I asked you: do chemical plants pose an explosion hazard? ..

in the hands of workers, revolutionaries, communists, in the hands of our enemies - I know this - there will be a weapon of monstrous power ... They will be able to blow up chemical plants, powder magazines at a distance, burn squadrons of airplanes, destroy gas reserves - everything that can explode and burn.

Rolling took his feet off the stool, his reddish eyelids blinked, and for some time he gazed attentively at the young woman.

As far as I understand, you are referring again to...

Yes, Rolling, yes, on the apparatus of engineer Garin... Everything that was reported about him slipped past your attention... But I know how serious it is... Semyonov brought me a strange thing. He got it from Russia...

Zoya called. The footman entered. She ordered, and he brought a small pine box, in which lay a piece of steel strip half an inch thick. Zoya took out a piece of steel and held it up to the firelight. In the thickness of the steel, strips, curls and obliquely were cut through by some thin tool, as if with a feather

In cursive, it was written: "A test of strength ... a test ... Garin." Pieces of metal inside some of the letters fell out. Rolling looked at the strip for a long time.

It's like "testing the pen," he said softly, "as if writing with a needle in soft dough."

This was done during tests of Garin's apparatus model at a distance of thirty paces, Zoya said. - Semyonov claims that Garin hopes to build an apparatus that can easily, like butter, cut a dreadnought at a distance of twenty cable lengths ... Forgive me, Rolling, but I insist - you must master this terrible apparatus.

It was not for nothing that Rolling went through the school of life in America. To the last cell, he was trained to fight.

Training, as you know, accurately distributes the forces between the muscles and causes the greatest possible tension in them. So in Rolling, when he entered the struggle, fantasy first began to work - she threw herself into the virgin jungle of enterprises and there discovered something worthy of attention.

Stop. The work of fantasy is over. Common sense came in - evaluated, compared, weighed, made a report: useful. Stop. The practical mind entered, counted, took into account, summed up the balance: an asset. Stop. The will entered, the fortresses of molybdenum steel, the terrible will of Rolling, and he, like a buffalo with full eyes, rushed to the goal and achieved it, no matter what it cost him and others.

Approximately the same process took place today. Rolling looked at the wilds of the unknown, common sense said: "Zoya is right."

The practical mind summed up the balance: the most profitable thing is to steal the drawings and the apparatus,

Eliminate Garin. Dot. The fate of Garin was decided, the credit was opened, the will entered into the matter. Rolling got up from his chair, stood with his back to the fire of the fireplace and said, protruding his jaw:

Tomorrow I am waiting for Semyonov on the boulevard Malserbe.

Seven weeks have passed since that evening. Garin's double was killed on

Krestovsky island. Semyonov appeared on Malserbe Boulevard without drawings and apparatus. Rolling almost crushed his head with an ink bottle. Garin, or his double, was seen yesterday in Paris.

The next day, as usual, by one in the afternoon, Zoya drove to the boulevard

Maltherb. Rolling sat next to her in the closed limousine, rested his chin on his cane, and said through his teeth:

Garin in Paris.

Zoya leaned back against the pillows. Rolling looked at her unhappily.

Semyonov should have been cut off his head on the guillotine long ago, he is a slob, a cheap killer, an insolent and a fool,” said Rolling. - I trusted him and found myself in a ridiculous position. It must be assumed that here he will drag me into a bad story ...

Rolling relayed to Zoya the entire conversation with Semyonov. It was not possible to steal the drawings and the apparatus, because the loafers hired by Semyonov did not kill

Garin, but his double. The appearance of the double was especially embarrassing for Rolling.

He realized that the enemy is dexterous. Garin either knew about the impending assassination attempt, or foresaw that the assassination attempt could not be avoided anyway, and confused the tracks by slipping a person who looked like himself. All this was very unclear. But the most incomprehensible thing was - why the hell did he need to be in Paris?

The limousine moved among the many cars along the Champs Elysees. The day was warm, steamy, in a light pale blue haze loomed winged horses and the glass dome of the Grand Salon, the semicircular roofs of tall houses, awnings over the windows, lush chestnut bushes.

In the cars sat - some lounging, some with their legs up on their knees, some sucking on the knob - mostly rich, short thugs in spring hats, in cheerful ties. They took to breakfast in the Bois de Boulogne pretty girls, whom Paris cordially provided for the entertainment of foreigners.

On the Place de l'Etoile, Zoe Monrose's limousine overtook a hired car, in which sat Semyonov and a man with a yellow, greasy face and a dusty mustache. Both of them, leaning forward, followed with a kind of frenzy the small green car, which was bending across the square to the stop of the underground road.

Semyonov pointed it out to his driver, but it was difficult to get through the stream of cars. Finally they made their way, and at full speed they moved across the green little car. But he had already stopped at the subway. A man of average height jumped out of it, in a wide carpet coat and disappeared underground.

All this happened in two or three minutes in front of Rolling and Zoya. She shouted to the driver to turn to the subway. They stopped almost simultaneously with Semyonov's car. Gesticulating with his cane, he ran up to the limousine, opened the crystal door, and said in terrible excitement:

It was Garin. Gone. Doesn't matter. Today I will go to him to Batignolles, I will offer peace. Rolling, we need to come to an agreement: how much do you allocate for the purchase of the apparatus? You can be calm - I will act within the law. By the way, let me introduce Stas Tyklinsky. This is quite a decent person.

Without waiting for permission, he called Tyklinsky

He jumped up to the rich limousine, tore off his hat, bowed and kissed the hand of Pani Monrose.

Rolling, without giving a hand to either one or the other, his eyes glittered from the depths of the limousine, like a cougar from a cage. Staying in front of everyone in the square was unwise. Zoya suggested that we go for breakfast on the left bank to the La Perouse restaurant, which is little visited at this time of the year.

Tyklinsky bowed every minute, smoothed out his drooping mustache, glanced moistly at Zoya Monrose, and ate with restrained greed. Rolling sat sullenly with his back to the window. Semyonov chatted freely. Zoya seemed calm, smiled charmingly, and with her eyes indicated to the head waiter that he pour more glasses into the guests' glasses. When champagne was served, she asked Tyklinsky to start the story.

He tore the napkin off his neck.

For Mr. Rolling, we did not spare our lives. We crossed the Soviet border near Sestroretsk.

Who are we? Rolling asked.

Me and, if the sir pleases, my henchman, a Russian from Warsaw, an officer in Balakhovich's army... A very cruel man... Damn him, like all Russians, he hurt me more than he helped me. My task was to trace where Garin was doing the experiments. I visited the ruined house, -

ladies and gentlemen know, of course, that in this house the accursed bastard almost cut me in half with his apparatus. There, in the basement, I found a steel strip - Pani Zoya received it from me and could be convinced of my diligence.

Garin changed the place of experiments. I did not sleep for days and nights, wishing to justify the confidence of Mrs. Zoya and Mr. Rolling. I caught a cold in my lungs in the swamps on Krestovsky Island, and I reached my goal. I followed Garin. On the night of April 27, at night, my assistant and I entered his dacha, tied Garin to an iron bed, and carried out the most thorough search ... Nothing ... I must go crazy - no sign of the apparatus ... But I knew what he was hiding him at the dacha ... Then my assistant treated Garin a little harshly ... Pani and sir will understand our excitement ... I do not say that we acted on the instructions of Pan Rolling ...

No, my assistant got too excited...

Rolling looked at his plate. Zoe Monrose's long hand, lying on the tablecloth, quickly fingered, sparkled with polished nails, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires of rings. Tyklinsky was inspired by looking at this priceless hand.

Pani and sir already know how I met Garin at the post office a day later. Mother of God, who is not afraid, facing nose to nose with a living dead. And then the damned police rushed after me in pursuit. We became a victim of deception, the damned Garin slipped someone else in his place.

I decided to search the dacha again: there must have been a dungeon there. That very night I went there alone, put the watchman to sleep. I climbed in through the window... Don't let Pan Rolling misunderstand me in any way... When Tyklinsky sacrifices his life, he sacrifices it for an idea... It cost me nothing to jump back out the window when I heard such a knock and crackle in the dacha that anyone's hair would stand on end ... Yes, sir

Rolling, at that moment I realized that the Lord was leading you when you sent me to wrest from the Russians a terrible weapon that they can use against the entire civilized world. This was a historic moment, Pani Zoya, I swear to you by the honor of the gentry. I rushed like a beast into the kitchen, where the noise was coming from. I saw Garin - he was heaping tables, bags and boxes into one heap against the wall. Seeing me, he grabbed a leather suitcase, long familiar to me, where he usually kept a model of the apparatus, and jumped out into the next room. I grabbed my revolver and ran after him. He was already opening the window, intending to jump out into the street. I fired, he, with a suitcase in one hand, with a revolver in the other, ran to the end of the room, blocked the bed and began to shoot. It was a real duel, Pani Zoya. The bullet pierced my cap. Suddenly he covered his mouth and nose with some kind of rag, held out a metal tube to me, - a shot rang out, no louder than the sound of a champagne cork, and at the same second, thousands of small claws got into my nose, throat, chest, began to tear me apart, my eyes filled with tears from unbearable pain, I began to sneeze, cough, my insides turned out, and, excuse me, Pani Zoya, such vomiting arose that I fell to the floor.

Di-phenyl-chloro-arsine mixed with phosgene, fifty percent of each - a cheap thing, we are now arming the police with these grenades -

Rolling said.

So... Pan speaks the truth, it was a gas grenade... Fortunately, the draft quickly carried the gas away. I regained consciousness and, half-dead, reached the house. I was poisoned, defeated, agents were looking for me around the city, all that remained was to escape from Leningrad, which we did with great dangers and labors.

Tyklinsky spread his hands and drooped, surrendering to mercy. Zoya asked:

Are you sure that Garin also fled Russia?

He had to hide. After this story, he would still have to give explanations to the criminal investigation department.

But why did he choose Paris?

He needs coal pyramids. His apparatus without them is like an unloaded gun. Garin is a physicist. He knows nothing about chemistry. By his order, I worked on these pyramids, later the one who paid for it with his life on Krestovsky Island. But Garin has another companion here in Paris, and he sent a telegram to him on the Boulevard Batignolles. Garin came here to follow the experiments on the pyramids.

What information did you gather about engineer Garin's accomplice? - asked

He lives in a poor hotel on the Boulevard Batignolles - we were there yesterday, the porter told us something, - Semyonov answered. - This person is home only to spend the night. He doesn't have any things. He comes out of the house in a canvas robe, which is worn in Paris by doctors, laboratory assistants and chemistry students. Apparently, he works somewhere in the same place, nearby.

Appearance? Damn it, what do I care about his canvas hoodie! Did the porter describe his appearance to you? Rolling shouted.

Semyonov and Tyklinsky looked at each other. The Pole pressed his hand to his heart.

If the lord pleases, we will deliver information about the appearance of this gentleman today.

Rolling was silent for a long time, his brows furrowed.

What grounds do you have to assert that the one you saw yesterday in the cafe on the Batignolles and the man who fled underground on the Place de l'Etoile are one and the same person, namely the engineer Garin? You already made a mistake once in Leningrad. What?

The Pole and Semyonov looked at each other again. Tyklinsky smiled with supreme delicacy:

Pan Rolling will not say that Garin has doubles in every city ...

Rolling shook his head stubbornly. Zoya Monrose sat with her hands wrapped in ermine fur, looking indifferently out of the window.

Semenov said:

Tyklinsky knows Garin too well, there can be no mistake. Now it's important to find out something else, Rolling. Do you leave us alone to handle this matter - one fine morning to drag the apparatus and drawings to the Boulevard Malserbe - or will you work together with us?

In no case! Zoya said unexpectedly, continuing to look out the window. - Mr. Rolling is very interested in the experiments of engineer Garin, Mr.

It is highly desirable for Rolling to acquire ownership of this invention, Mr. Rolling always works within the strictest legality;

if Mr. Rolling had believed even one word of what Tyklinsky was telling here, then, of course, he would not have hesitated to call the police commissioner in order to deliver such a scoundrel and criminal into the hands of the authorities. But since Mr. Rolling is well aware that Tyklinsky invented this whole story in order to lure out as much money as possible, he good-naturedly allows him to continue to provide him with insignificant services.

For the first time in the whole breakfast, Rolling smiled, took a golden toothpick from his waistcoat pocket and stuck it between his teeth. Sweat beaded on the large fairings of Tyklinsky's reddened forehead, his cheeks sagged. Rolling said:

Your task: to give me precise and detailed information on the points that will be communicated to you today at three o'clock on the boulevard Malserbe. You are required to work as decent detectives - and nothing more. Not a single step, not a single word without my orders.

White, crystal, shining train of the NordZuyd line - the underground road -

rushed with a quiet roar through the dark dungeons near Paris. In winding tunnels, a web of electric wires streaked past, niches in the thickness of the cement, where a worker lit up by flying fires pressed, yellow on black letters: "Dubonnet", "Dubonnet", "Dubonnet" - the disgusting drink that is driven by advertising into the minds of Parisians.

Instant stop. Train station flooded with underground light. Colored advertising rectangles: "Wonderful Soap", "Mighty Suspenders", "Lion Head Wax", "Car Tires", "Red Devil", rubber heel pads, giveaway at Louvre Universal Houses, "Beautiful Flower Girl", "Galeries Lafayette".

A noisy, laughing crowd of pretty women, midiettes, messenger boys, foreigners, young people in tight jackets, workers in sweaty shirts tucked under a red sash, are crowding closer to the train. The glass doors open instantly... "Oh-oh-oh-oh" -

a sigh passes, and a whirlpool of hats, bulging eyes, gaping mouths, red, cheerful, angry faces rush inward. Conductors in brick jackets, grabbing the handrails, press the audience into the cars with their stomachs. The doors slam shut with a bang; short whistle. The train dives like a ribbon of fire under the black vault of the dungeon.

Semyonov and Tyklinsky were sitting on the side bench of the Nord-Zuid carriage, with their backs to the door. The Pole got excited:

I ask the sir to notice - only decency kept me from scandal ...

A hundred times I could flare up ... I did not eat breakfast with billionaires! I sneezed at these breakfasts... I can order just as well from La Perouse myself, and I won't listen to the insults of a street girl... Offer Tyklinsky the role of a detective!... A whore's daughter of a bitch!

Oh, come on, pan Stas, you don't know Zoya - she's a nice woman, a good friend. Well, got hot...

Apparently, Pani Zoya is used to dealing with the bastard, your emigrants ... But I am a Pole, I ask the sir to notice, - Tyklinsky stuck out his mustache terribly, - I will not allow you to talk to me like that ...

Well, all right, he shook his mustache, he eased his soul, - after a certain silence, Semyonov told him, - now listen, Stas, carefully: they give us good money, after all, they don’t demand a damn thing from us. The work is safe, even pleasant: wander around the taverns and coffee shops... For example, I am very satisfied with today's conversation... You say detectives...

Nonsense! And I say - we have been offered the noblest role of counterintelligence officers.

At the door, behind the bench where Tyklinsky and Semyonov were talking, stood, leaning with his elbow on a copper bar, the one who once on Profsoyuz Boulevard in a conversation with Shelga called himself Pyankov Pitkevich. The collar of his coat was turned up to hide the lower part of his face, his hat pulled down over his eyes. Standing casually and lazily, touching his mouth with the bone head of his cane, he attentively listened to the whole conversation between Semyonov and Tyklinsky, politely stepped aside when they took off, and got out of the car two stops later - on

Montmartre. At the nearest post office, he sent a telegram:

"Leningrad. Criminal investigation. Shelge. Four-fingered here. Threatening events."

From the post office he went up the Boulevard Clichy and walked along the shady side.

Here, from every door, from the basement windows, from under the striped awnings that covered the marble tables and straw chairs on the wide sidewalks, the sour smell of night taverns was drawn. Garcons in short tuxedos and white aprons, puffy and parted with diamonds, sprinkled damp sawdust on the tiled floors and sidewalks between the tables, placed fresh bunches of flowers, twisted bronze handles, lifting the awnings.

During the day, the Boulevard Clichy seemed faded, like a scenery after a carnival.

Tall, ugly, old houses are completely occupied by restaurants, taverns, coffee shops, shops with rubbish for street girls, night hotels.

"Moulin Rouge", movie posters on the sidewalks, two rows of stunted trees in the middle of the boulevard, urinals covered with indecent words, a stone pavement on which centuries roared, rolled, rows of booths and carousels covered with tarpaulins - all this awaited the night when onlookers and revelers will be drawn from below, from the bourgeois quarters of Paris.

Then the fires will flare up, the garcons will bustle, the steam sips will whistle, the merry-go-rounds will spin; on golden pigs, on bulls with golden horns, in boats, pans, pots - around, around, around - reflected in a thousand mirrors, girls in knee-length skirts, surprised bourgeois, thieves with magnificent mustaches, Japanese, rush to the sounds of steam orchestras, smiling like masks, students, boys, homosexuals, gloomy Russian emigrants, waiting for the fall of the Bolsheviks.

The fiery wings of the Moulin Rouge will spin. Broken burning arrows run along the facades of houses. The inscriptions of the world-famous taverns will flare up, wild chirping, drumming and jazz bands will rush out of their open windows onto the hot boulevard.

Cardboard pipes will squeal in the crowd, rattles will crackle. New crowds, thrown out by the subway and the Nord-Zuid, will begin to fall out of the ground. This is

Montmartre. These are the mountains of Martre, shining all night with cheerful lights over Paris, -

the most carefree place in the world. There is where to leave money, where to spend a carefree night with laughing girls.

Cheerful Montmartre is Boulevard Clichy between two round, already completely cheerful squares - Pigalle and Blanche. To the left of Place Pigalle stretches the wide and quiet Boulevard Batignolles. Faubourg Saint-Antoine begins to the right behind Place Blanche. These are the places where the workers and the Parisian poor live. From here - from Batignolles, from the heights of Montmartre and Saint-Antoine

More than once armed workers descended to take possession of Paris. Four times they were driven back to the heights with cannons. And the lower city, which spread banks, offices, opulent shops, hotels for millionaires and barracks for thirty thousand policemen along the banks of the Seine, went on the offensive four times, and in the heart of the workers' city, on the heights, confirmed the sexual stamp of the lower city with the blazing fires of world brothels - Place Pigalle - boulevard

Clichy - Place Blanche.

Having reached the middle of the boulevard, the man in the carpet coat turned into a narrow side street leading to the top of Montmartre by well-worn steps, carefully looked around and went into a dark tavern, where prostitutes, chauffeurs, half-starved verse-writers and losers still wearing old-fashioned I wear wide trousers and a wide-brimmed hat.

He asked for a newspaper, a glass of port, and began to read. Behind the zinc counter, the owner of the tavern is a mustachioed, crimson Frenchman, weighing one hundred and ten kilos,

Rolling up his hairy arms to the elbow, he washed dishes under the tap and talked,

If you want - listen, if you want - no.

Whatever you say, Russia has done us a lot of trouble (he knew that the visitor was Russian, his name was Monsieur Pierre). Russian emigrants do not bring more income. Exhausted, oh-la-la ... But we are still rich enough, we can afford the luxury of giving shelter to several thousand unfortunate people. (He was sure that his visitor hunted in Montmartre on trifles.) But, of course, everything has its end. Emigrants will have to return home. Alas! We will reconcile you with your vast fatherland, we will recognize your Soviets, and Paris will again become good old Paris. I'm tired of the war, I must tell you.

This indigestion has been going on for ten years. The Soviets express their desire to pay petty holders of Russian valuables. Smart, very smart of them.

Long live the Soviets! They are good at politics. They Bolshevize

Germany. Perfectly! I applaud. Germany will become Soviet and will disarm itself. We won't get stomach ache at the thought of their chemical industry. Fools in our neighborhood think I'm a Bolshevik. Oh la la!

I have the correct calculation. Bolshevization is not terrible for us. Count -

how many good bourgeois and how many workers are in Paris. Wow! We bourgeoisie will be able to protect our savings ... I calmly watch when our workers shout:

"Long live Lenin!" and wave red flags. The worker is a keg of fermented wine, it cannot be kept corked. Let him shout: "Long live the Soviets!" I screamed myself last week. I have eight thousand francs worth of Russian interest-bearing papers. No, you have to put up with your government. Pretty stupid. Frank falls. Those damned speculators, those lice that stick to every nation where the currency begins to fall, this tribe of inflants again migrated from Germany to Paris.

A thin man in a canvas robe, with a fair-haired head uncovered, quickly entered the tavern.

Hello, Garin, - he said to the one who read the newspaper, - you can congratulate me ... Good luck ...

Garin quickly got up and clasped his hands.

Victor...

Yes Yes. I am terribly pleased ... I will insist that we take out a patent.

No way... Let's go.

They left the tavern, went up the stepped street, turned right, and walked for a long time past the dirty houses of the suburbs, past wastelands fenced with barbed wire, where miserable linen was ruffled on the ropes, past handicraft factories and workshops.

The day ended. Crowds of tired workers came across to meet them. Here, on the mountains, it seemed that a different tribe of people lived, their faces were different - hard, thin, strong. It seemed that the French nation, fleeing from obesity, syphilis and degeneration, had risen to the heights above Paris and here calmly and sternly awaits the hour when it will be possible to cleanse the lower city from filth and turn Lutetia's boat back into the sunny ocean.

This way,” said Victor, opening the door of a low stone shed with an American key.

Garin and Victor Lenoir went up to a small brick furnace under a hood. Pyramids lay in rows on the table nearby. On the forge stood a thick bronze ring on its edge with twelve porcelain cups arranged around its circumference. Lenoir lit a candle and with a strange smile looked at

Pyotr Petrovich, we've known you for fifteen years, right? They ate more than one pood of salt. You could see that I am an honest person. When I got away from

Soviet Russia - you helped me ... From this I conclude that you treat me well. Tell me - why the hell are you hiding the device from me? I know that without me, without these pyramids, you are helpless. Let's be friendly...

Carefully examining a bronze ring with porcelain cups,

Garin asked:

Do you want me to reveal the secret?

Do you want to be a part of the cause?

If it is necessary, and I suppose it will be necessary in the future, you will have to do everything for the success of the case ...

Without taking his eyes off him, Lenoir sat down on the edge of the forge, the corners of his mouth trembling.

Yes, he said firmly, I agree.

He pulled a rag from his robe pocket and wiped his forehead.

I'm not forcing you, Pyotr Petrovich. I started this conversation because you are the closest person to me, oddly enough ... I was in my first year, you were in your second. Ever since then, well, how can I put it, I bowed, or something, before you ... You are terribly talented ... brilliant ... You are terribly brave. your mind

Analytical, daring, scary. You are a terrible person. You are tough Peter

Petrovich, like any great talent, you are slow-witted towards people. You asked -

am I ready for anything to work with you... Of course, well, of course... What kind of conversation can there be? I have nothing to lose. Without you - everyday work, weekdays until the end of life. With you - a holiday or death ... Do I agree to everything? ..

It's funny ... What is "everything"? Steal, kill?

He stopped. Garin said yes with his eyes. Lenoir chuckled.

I know the French penal laws... Am I willing to expose myself to the danger of their application? - I agree ... By the way, I saw the famous German gas attack on April 22, 1915. A thick cloud rose from the ground and crawled towards us in yellow-green waves, like a mirage - you won’t see this in a dream. Thousands of people fled across the fields, in unbearable horror, throwing down their weapons. The cloud overtook them. Those who managed to jump out had dark, purple faces, protruding tongues, burnt eyes ... What a shame "moral concepts". Wow, we are not children after the war.

In a word, - Garin said mockingly, - you finally understood that bourgeois morality is one of the most clever Arap tricks, and those who swallow green gas because of it are fools. To tell the truth, I have given little thought to these problems... So... I voluntarily accept you as a comrade in the cause. You will obey my orders implicitly. But there is one condition...

Okay, I agree to every condition.

You know, Victor, that I got to Paris with a false passport, every night I change hotels. Sometimes I have to take a street girl in order not to arouse suspicion. Yesterday I found out that I was being followed. This surveillance is entrusted to the Russians. Apparently, they take me for a Bolshevik agent. I need to lead the detectives on the wrong track.

What should I do?

Make up for me. If you are caught, you will show your documents. I want to double up. We are the same height. You dye your hair, put on a fake beard, we'll buy matching dresses. Then this very evening you will move from your hotel to another part of the city where you are not known - let's say - to the Latin Quarter. Deal?

Lenoir jumped off the forge and shook Garin's hand warmly. Then he began to explain how he had succeeded in making pyramids from a mixture of aluminum and iron oxide (thermite) with hard oil and yellow phosphorus.

Having placed twelve pyramids on the porcelain cups of the ring, he lit them with a cord. A pillar of dazzling flame rose above the forge.

I had to retreat into the depths of the barn - the light and heat were so unbearable.

Excellent, - said Garin, - I hope - no soot?

Combustion is complete, at this terrible temperature. Materials are chemically cleaned.

Good. These days you will see miracles, - said Garin, - let's go to dinner. We will send a messenger to the hotel for things. We will spend the night on the left bank. And tomorrow there will be two Garins in Paris... Do you have a second key to the barn?

There was no glistening stream of cars, no idle people wringing their necks at shop windows, no giddy women, no industrial kings.

Stacks of fresh boards, mountains of cobblestone, dumps of blue clay in the middle of the street, and links of sewer pipes laid out on the sidewalk like a cut giant worm.

Spartakist Tarashkin walked slowly to the islands, to the club. He was in the most pleasant mood. To an external observer, he would even seem gloomy at first glance, but this was due to the fact that Tarashkin was a solid, balanced person and his cheerful mood was not expressed by any external sign, except for a light whistle and a calm gait.

Not reaching a hundred paces from the tram, he heard a fuss and a squeak between the stacks of ends. Everything that happened in the city, of course, directly concerned

Tarashkin.

He looked behind the piles and saw three boys, in flared trousers and thick jackets: they, sniffing angrily, beat the fourth boy, smaller than they were, barefoot, without a hat, dressed in a quilted jacket, so torn that one could be surprised. He defended himself silently. His thin face was scratched, his small mouth was tightly compressed, his brown eyes were like those of a wolf cub.

Tarashkin immediately grabbed two boys and lifted them up into the air by the scruff of the neck, gave the third a bream with his foot - the boy howled and disappeared behind the ends.

The other two, dangling in the air, began threatening terrible words. But

Tarashkin shook them harder, and they calmed down.

I see this more than once on the street, - said Tarashkin, looking into their snuffling stigmas, - to offend the little ones, skets? That I don't have it anymore. Got it?

Forced to answer in a positive way, the boys said sullenly.

Then he let them go, and they, grumbling that, they say, get caught by us now, retired, hands in their pockets.

The beaten little boy also tried to hide, but only turned in one place, groaned weakly and sat up, burying his head in a torn jacket.

Tarashkin bent over him. The boy was crying.

Eh, you, - said Tarashkin, - where do you live?

Nowhere, - the boy answered from under the jacket.

That is, how is it - nowhere? Do you have a mom?

And no father? So. Homeless child. Very well.

Tarashkin stood for some time, the wrinkles on his nose spreading out. The boy, like a fly, buzzed under the jacket.

Do you want to eat? Tarashkin asked angrily.

Okay, come with me to the club.

The boy tried to get up, but his legs could not hold. Tarashkin took him in his arms - the boy was not even a pood of weight - and carried him to the tram. We drove for a long time.

During the transplant, Tarashkin bought a bun, the boy with a spasm sunk his teeth into it. We walked to the rowing school. Letting the boy in through the gate, Tarashkin said:

Just be careful not to steal.

No, I only steal bread.

The boy gazed drowsily at the water sparkling with sunbeams on the varnished boats, at the silver-green willow that had overturned its beauty in the river, at the two-oared, four-oared gigs with muscular and tanned rowers. His thin face was indifferent and tired. When Tarashkin turned away, he crawled under the wooden platform connecting the wide gates of the club with the booms, and must have fallen asleep at once, curled up.

In the evening, Tarashkin pulled him out from under the footbridge, ordered him to wash his face and hands in the river, and took him to supper. The boy was seated at the table with the rowers. Tarashkin said to his comrades:

This child can even be left at the club, he won’t overeat, we’ll teach him to water, we need an efficient little boy.

The comrades agreed: let him live. The boy calmly listened to all this, sedately ate. After dinner, silently climbed from the bench. Nothing surprised him - he saw not such views.

Tarashkin led him to the booms, ordered him to sit down and began a conversation.

What is your name?

Where are you from?

From Siberia. From Cupid, from above.

How long have you been there?

Arrived yesterday.

How did you come?

Where he trudged on foot, where under the wagon in boxes.

Why were you brought to Leningrad?

Well, it's my business, - the boy answered and turned away, - it means that it is necessary if you come.

Tell me, I won't do anything to you.

The boy did not answer and again gradually began to sink his head into the jacket. AT

that evening Tarashkin got nothing from him.

The deuce, a two-oar swinging gig made of mahogany, graceful as a violin, barely moved along the mirror river in a narrow strip. Both pairs of oars glided flat on the water. Shelga and Tarashkin, in white shorts, naked to the waist, their backs and shoulders rough from the sun, sat motionless, knees raised.

The helmsman, a serious fellow in a sea cap and a scarf wrapped around his neck, was looking at the stopwatch.

There will be a thunderstorm, - said Shelga.

It was hot on the river, not a single leaf moved on the lushly wooded bank.

The trees looked exaggerated. The sky is so saturated with the sun that its bluish-crystal light seemed to fall in piles of crystals.

My eyes hurt, my temples squeezed.

Paddles on the water! - commanded the helmsman.

The rowers at once bent down to their parted knees and, having thrown, having loaded the oars, leaned back, almost lay down, stretching their legs, rolling away on their seats.

At-two! ..

The oars arched, the gig, like a blade, slid along the river.

At-two, at-two, at-two! - commanded the helmsman.

Measured and fast, in time with heartbeats - inhalation and exhalation -

the bodies of the rowers were compressed, hanging over their knees, straightened out like springs.

Muscles worked at a measured pace, in rhythm with the flow of blood, in hot tension.

The gig flew past pleasure boats, where men in braces were paddling helplessly at the oars. Rowing, Shelga and Tarashkin looked straight ahead - at the bridge of the helmsman, keeping their eyes on the line of balance. From pleasure boats they only had time to shout after them:

Look, the devil!.. Here they blew!..

Went out to the seaside. Again for one minute they lay motionless on the water.

They wiped the sweat off their faces. "At-two!" We turned back past the yacht club, where the huge sails of the racing yachts of the Leningrad trade unions hung like dead panels in the crystal heat. Music played on the veranda of the yacht club. Light motley badges and flags stretched along the shore did not waver. From the boats into the middle of the river, brown people rushed, throwing up spray.

Slipping between the bathers, the gig went along the Nevka, flew under the bridge, hung for several seconds on the steering wheel of a four-oared outrigger from the Strela club, overtook him (the helmsman asked over his shoulder: “Maybe you want to be towed?”), entered a narrow, with lush shores, Krestovka, where in the green shade of silvery willows glided red scarves and bare knees of the women's training team, and stood at the booms of the rowing school.

Shelga and Tarashkin jumped out onto the booms, carefully placed long oars on the sloping platform, bent over the gig and, at the command of the helmsman, pulled it out of the water, lifted it in their arms and carried it through the wide gate, into the barn. Then we went to shower. They rubbed themselves red and, as expected, drank a glass of tea with lemon. After that, they felt like they had just been born in this beautiful world, which is worth it to finally set about its improvement.

On the open veranda, at the height of the floor (where they drank tea), Tarashkin told about yesterday's boy.

Quick, clever, well, lovely. - He leaned over the railing and shouted: - Ivan, come here.

Now bare feet stomped up the stairs. Ivan appeared on the veranda.

He took off his torn jacket (For sanitary reasons it was burned in the kitchen.) He was wearing rowing panties and, on his naked body, a cloth vest, incredibly shabby, all tied up with ropes.

Here, - said Tarashkin, pointing his finger at the boy, - no matter how much I persuade him to take off his vest, he doesn’t want to at all. How will you swim, I ask you? And the vest would be good, otherwise it would be dirt.

I can’t swim, - said Ivan.

You need to be washed in the bath, you are all black, grimy.

I can't take a bath. In, to this day - I can, - Ivan pointed to the navel, hesitated and moved closer to the door.

Tarashkin, tearing his calves with his nails, on which white traces of tan remained, grunted in annoyance:

Whatever you want with it, then do it.

What are you, - asked Shelga, - are you afraid of water?

The boy looked at him without a smile.

No, I am not afraid.

Why don't you want to swim?

The boy lowered his head, pursing his lips stubbornly.

Are you afraid to take off your vest, afraid of being stolen? - asked Shelga.

The boy shrugged his shoulders and chuckled.

Well, that's what, Ivan, if you don't want to swim, it's up to you. But we cannot allow a vest. Take my vest, undress.

Shelga began to unbutton his vest. Ivan stepped back. His pupils fluttered restlessly. Once, imploringly, he glanced at Tarashkin and kept moving sideways to the glass door that opened onto the inner dark staircase.

Eh, so we did not persuade to play. - Shelga got up, locked the door, took out the key and sat down directly opposite the door. - Well, take it off.

The boy looked around like an animal. He was now standing at the very door -

back to glass. His eyebrows moved. Suddenly, resolutely, he threw off his rags and handed it to Shelga:

Come on, give me yours.

But Shelga, with the greatest surprise, was no longer looking at the boy, but at him, propping up the door panes with his shoulders.

Come on, - Ivan repeated angrily, - why are you laughing? - not small.

Well, weirdo! Shelga laughed out loud. - Turn your back.

(The boy, as if from a push, hit the back of his head against the glass.) Turn around, I still see what is written on your back.

Tarashkin jumped up. The boy flew over the veranda in a light lump, rolled over the railing. Tarashkin on the fly barely managed to grab him. With sharp teeth, Ivan dug into his hand.

Here's the stupid one. Stop biting!

Tarashkin pressed him tightly to himself. He stroked his bluish shaved head.

A wild little boy. Like a mouse, it trembles. It will be for you, we will not offend.

The boy fell silent in his arms, only his heart was beating. Suddenly he whispered in his ear:

They will kill me for it.

Let’s not read, we’re not interested, ”Tarashkin repeated, crying with laughter. Shelga had been standing at the other end of the terrace all this time, biting his nails, squinting like a man guessing a riddle. Suddenly he jumped up and, despite Tarashkin's resistance, turned the boy's back to him. Surprise, almost horror, appeared on his face. With an ink pencil below the shoulder blades on the boy's thin back was written in half-erased letters blurry from sweat:

"... Petru Gar... The results... are the most comforting... I guess the depth of olivine is at five kilometers. - ah, continue... research, need... help...

Hunger ... - hurry expeditioners ... "

Garin, this is Garin! Shelga screamed.

At this time, a motorcycle of the criminal investigation department flew into the club yard, crackling and shooting, and the voice of the agent shouted from below:

Comrade Shelga, you have an urgent...

It was Garin's telegram from Paris. The golden pencil touched the notebook:

What is your surname, sir?

Pyankov-Pitkevich.

Purpose of your visit?

Tell Mr. Rolling, - said Garin, - that I was instructed to negotiate about the apparatus of engineer Garin known to him.

The secretary disappeared instantly. A minute later, Garin entered through the walnut door into the office of the chemical king. Rolling wrote. Without looking up, he offered to sit down. Then, without looking up:

Small cash transactions go through my secretary, - with a weak hand he grabbed a paperweight and tapped on what was written, - nevertheless, I am ready to listen to you. I'll give you two minutes. What's new about engineer Garin?

Putting his foot on his foot, his strongly outstretched hands on his knee, Garin said:

Engineer Garin wants to know if you know the exact purpose of his apparatus?

Yes, - answered Rolling, - for industrial purposes, as far as I know, the apparatus is of some interest. I spoke with some of the members of the board of our concern - they agree to purchase a patent.

The device is not intended for industrial purposes, - sharply answered

Garin is an apparatus for destruction. True, it can successfully serve for the metallurgical and mining industries. But at present, engineer Garin has plans of a different order.

Political?

Uh... Engineer Garin is of little interest in politics. He hopes to establish the very social order that he most likes. Politics is a trifle, a function.

Where to install?

Everywhere, of course, on all five continents.

Wow! Rolling said.

Engineer Garin is not a communist, calm down. But he's not really yours.

I repeat, he has big ideas. The apparatus of engineer Garin gives him the opportunity to realize in practice the most feverish fantasy. The device has already been built, it can be demonstrated at least today.

Hm! Rolling said.

Garin has been following your activities, Mr. Rolling, and finds that you have a good scope, but you lack a big idea. Well, it's a chemical company. Well, air-chemical warfare. Well - the transformation of Europe into the American market... All this is small, there is no central idea. Engineer Garin offers you cooperation.

Are you or is he crazy? Rolling asked.

Garin laughed and rubbed the side of his nose hard with his finger.

You see, it's good that you listen to me not for two, but for nine and a half minutes.

I am ready to offer the engineer Garin fifty thousand francs for the patent of his invention,” Rolling said, starting to write again.

The proposal should be understood as follows: by force or cunning, you intend to take possession of the apparatus, and deal with Garin in the same way as with his assistant on

Krestovsky island?

Rolling quickly put down his pen, only two red spots on his cheekbones betrayed excitement. He took a smoking cigar from the ashtray, leaned back in his armchair and looked at Garin with expressionless, cloudy eyes.

Assuming this is exactly what I intend to do with the engineer

Garin, what follows from this?

It follows that Garin, apparently, was mistaken.

Assuming that you are a scoundrel of a larger scale, - Garin said this separately, syllable by syllable, looking cheerfully and defiantly at Rolling. He only puffed out a blue smoke and waved the cigar gently against his nose.

It's stupid to share profits with engineer Garin when I can take all one hundred percent, - he said. - So, to finish, I offer a hundred thousand francs, and not a centime more.

Really, Mr. Rolling, you somehow all go astray. You don't risk anything. Your agents Semyonov and Tyklinsky traced where Garin lives.

Tell the police and they'll arrest him as a Bolshevik spy. The apparatus and drawings will be stolen by the same Tyklinsky and Semyonov. All this will cost you no more than five thousand. And Garin, so that he does not try to restore the drawings in the future, can always be sent by stage to Russia through Poland, where he will be slammed at the border. Simple and cheap. Why a hundred thousand francs?

Rolling got up, squinted at Garin, and began to walk, burying his patent-leather shoes in the silvery carpet. Suddenly he pulled his hand out of his pocket and snapped his fingers.

Cheap game, he said, you're lying. I thought all possible combinations five moves ahead. No danger. You are just a cheap charlatan. Garin's game - mat. He knows this and sent you to bargain. I won't give you two louis for his patent. Garin is tracked down and caught. (He glanced briskly at his watch, briskly stuffed it into his waistcoat pocket.) Get the hell out of here!

At that moment Garin also got up and stood at the table with his head bowed. When

Rolling told him to go to hell, he ran his hand through his hair and spoke in a fallen voice, like a man who has suddenly fallen into a trap:

Okay, Mr. Rolling, I agree to all your terms. You're talking about a hundred thousand...

Not a centime! Rolling shouted. - Get out or you'll be kicked out!

Garin put his fingers behind his collar, his eyes began to roll. He staggered. Rolling roared:

No tricks! Out!

Garin grunted and fell sideways on the table. His right hand hit the scribbled sheets of paper and convulsively squeezed them. Rolling jumped to the electric bell. The secretary showed up...

Throw this guy out...

The secretary squatted down like a leopard, his graceful mustaches bristled, steely muscles swelled under his thin jacket... But Garin was already moving away from the table -

sideways, sideways, bowing to Rolling. He ran down the marble stairs to the boulevard Malserbe, jumped into a hired car with the top up, shouted the address, raised both windows, lowered the green curtains and gave a short, sharp laugh.

From the pocket of his jacket he took a crumpled piece of paper and carefully spread it across his lap. On a crisp sheet (torn from a large notepad), in Rolling's large handwriting, business notes for the day were scribbled.

Apparently, at the moment when Garin entered the office, the hand of a wary

Rollinga began to write mechanically, betraying secret thoughts. Three times, one under the other, was written: "Street of the Gobelins, sixty-three, engineer Garin." (This was the new address of Victor Lenoir, just given by telephone

Semenov.) Then: "Five thousand francs to Semenov ..."

Luck! Heck! Here's luck! whispered Garin, carefully smoothing the leaves on his knees.

Ten minutes later, Garin jumped out of the car on the Boulevard Saint-Michel.

The mirrored windows in the Pantheon Café were raised. Sitting at a table in the background

Victor Lenoir. Seeing Garin, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Garin hurriedly sat down at his table, with his back to the light. It seemed that he sat down in front of the mirror: Victor Lenoir had the same oblong beard, soft hat, bow tie, striped jacket.

Congrats - good luck! Extraordinary! said Garin, laughing with his eyes. -

Rolling went all out. The preliminary expenses are solely borne. When the operation begins, fifty percent of the shaft - to him, fifty - to us.

Have you signed a contract?

We sign in two or three days. The demonstration of the device will have to be postponed. Rolling set a condition - to sign only after he saw with his own eyes the operation of the apparatus.

Are you putting down a bottle of champagne?

Two, three, a dozen.

But still - it's a pity that this shark will swallow half of our income,

Lenoir said, calling the footman. - A bottle of Irrua, the driest...

Without capital, we will not develop anyway. Here, Victor, if my Kamchatka enterprise succeeded, ten Rollings would be sent to hell.

What Kamchatka enterprise?

The footman brought wine and glasses, Garin lit a cigar, leaned back in a straw chair and, swaying, screwing up his eyes, began to tell:

Do you remember Mantsev Nikolai Khristoforovich, a geologist? In the fifteenth year he sought me out in Petrograd. He has just returned from Far

East, frightened of mobilization, and asked for my help so as not to get to the front.

Mantsev served in the English gold company?

He made reconnaissance on the Lena, on the Aldan, then in the Kolyma. He told miracles. They found fifteen kilogram nuggets right under their feet...

It was then that I had an idea, the general idea of my life ... It's very bold, even crazy, but I believe in it. And since I believe, Satan himself will not stop me. You see, my dear, the only thing in the world that I want with all my liver is power ... Not some kind of royal, imperial - petty, vulgar, boring. No, the power is absolute...

Someday I'll tell you in detail about my plans. To rule -

need gold. To rule as I want, you need more gold than all the industrial, stock exchange and other kings combined...

Indeed, you have bold plans, - laughing merrily, he said

But I'm on the right track. The whole world will be mine - that's it! Garin clenched his small hand into a fist. - Milestones on my way are the brilliant Nikolay Mantsev

Khristoforovich, then Rolling, or rather, his billions, and thirdly, my hyperboloid ...

So what about Mantsev?

Then, in the fifteenth year, I mobilized all my money, more impudently than bribery, freed Mantsev from military service and sent him on a small expedition to Kamchatka, into the damn wilderness ... Until the seventeenth year, he still wrote to me: his work was difficult, most difficult, dog conditions ... From the eighteenth year - you yourself understand - his trace was lost ... Everything depends on his research ...

What is he looking for there?

He is not looking for anything ... Mantsev should only confirm my theoretical assumptions. The coast of the Pacific Ocean - Asian and American - Represents the edges of the ancient mainland, which sank to the bottom of the ocean. Such a gigantic heaviness should have affected the distribution of deep rocks that are in a molten state. The chains of active volcanoes in South America - in the Andes and the Cordillera, the volcanoes of Japan and, finally, Kamchatka confirm that molten rocks

The olivine belt - gold, mercury, olivine, and so on - along the edges of the Pacific Ocean is much closer to the surface of the earth than in other places on the globe ... Do you understand?

I don't understand, why do you need this Olivine Belt?

To own the world, my dear... Well, let's drink. For success...

In a black silk blouse, like midi-skirts wear, powdered, with her eyelashes drawn, Zoe Monrose jumped off the bus at the gates of Saint-Denis, crossed the noisy street and entered the huge Globe cafe overlooking two streets - a haven for all kinds of singers and singers from Montmartre, actors and actresses of the middle class, thieves, prostitutes and anarchistic young people from those who run along the boulevards with ten sous, licking lips parched with fever, lusting after women, shoes, silk underwear and everything in the world ...

Zoe Monrose found a free table. She lit a cigarette and crossed her legs. Now a man with venereal knees walked close, -

muttered hoarsely: "Why so angry, baby?" She turned away.

Another, at the table, narrowed his eyes, showed his tongue. Another one exploded, as if by mistake: "Ki-ki, finally ..." Zoya briefly sent him to hell.

Apparently, she was strongly pecked at here, although she tried to look like a street girl. There was a scent for women in the Globe Cafe. She ordered the garcon to serve a liter of red and sat down in front of the poured glass, propping up her cheeks.

"It's not good, little one, you're starting to drink too much," said the old actor, passing by, patting her on the back.

She had already smoked three cigarettes. Finally, slowly, the one she was waiting for came up - a gloomy, thick man, with a narrow, overgrown forehead and cold eyes. His mustache was raised, the colored collar cut into a strong neck.

He was well dressed - without too much chic. Sat. I briefly greeted Zoya.

He looked around, and some lowered their eyes. It was Gaston Duck Nose, in the past - a thief, then a bandit from the gang of the famous Bono. In the war, he curried to the rank of non-commissioned officer and after demobilization switched to the quiet work of a large-scale cat.

Now he was with the notorious Suzanne Bourges. But she blossomed.

She was descending to the step that Zoya Monrose had long since crossed.

Gaston Duck Nose said:

Suzanne has good material, but she will never be able to use it. Susanna does not feel modern. What a marvel - lace pantaloons and a morning milk bath. Old, - for the provincial firefighters. No, I swear by the mustard gas that burned my back outside the ferryman's house on the Ysera,

The modern prostitute, if she wants to be chic, must put a radio in her bedroom, learn boxing, become barbed like military wire, trained like an eighteen-year-old boy, be able to walk on her hands and jump twenty meters into the water. She must attend Nazi meetings, talk about poison gases, and change lovers every week so as not to accustom them to stinking. And mine, you see, lies in a milk bath like a Norwegian salmon, and dreams of an agricultural farm of four hectares. A vulgar fool - she has a brothel behind her.

He treated Zoe Monrose with the greatest respect. Meeting in night restaurants, he respectfully invited her to dance and kissed her hand, which he did to the only woman in Paris. Zoya barely bowed to the notorious Suzanne

Bourges, but with Gaston maintained a friendship, and he from time to time carried out the most sensitive of her assignments.

Today she hastily summoned Gaston to the Globe Cafe and appeared in a seductive form of street midi. Gaston only clenched his jaw, but behaved as it was necessary.

Sipping the sour wine, squinting from the smoke of his pipe, he listened gloomily to what Zoya was saying to him. When she finished, she cracked her fingers. He said:

But this is dangerous.

Gaston, if this succeeds, you will be a wealthy man forever.

I will not undertake any money now, madam, either wet or dry: not those times. Today, Apaches prefer to serve in the police, and professional thieves - to publish newspapers and engage in politics.

Only beginners, provincials and boys who have received a venereal disease kill and rob. And they report it to the police immediately. What can you do -

mature people have to stay in calm harbors. If you want to hire me for money, I will refuse. Another is to do it for you. Here I could risk breaking my neck.

Zoya blew smoke from the corner of her crimson lips, smiled tenderly, and placed her beautiful hand on Duck Nose's sleeve.

It seems to me that we will agree.

Gaston's nostrils twitched, his mustache quivered. He covered the unbearable glare of his bulging eyes with bluish eyelids.

Are you saying that I could release Susanna from my services now?

Yes, Gaston.

He leaned across the table, clutching the glass in his fist.

Will my mustache smell like your skin?

I think it's unavoidable, Gaston.

Okay - He leaned back. - Okay. Everything will be as you want.

Lunch is over. Coffee with centennial cognac drunk. two dollar cigar

- "Crown Coronas" - smoked to half, and its ashes did not fall off.

Rolling demanded a poster of all Parisian entertainment.

Do you want to dance?

No, Zoya answered, covering half her face with fur.

Theatre, theatre, theatre, Rolling read. All this was boring.

a three-act conversational comedy, where the actors, out of boredom and disgust, do not even put on make-up, the actresses in famous tailor's clothes stare into the auditorium with empty eyes.

Review. Review. Here: "Olympia" - one hundred and fifty naked women in the same shoes and a miracle of technology: a wooden curtain, broken into chess cages, in which, when raised and lowered, completely naked women stand.

Do you want to go?

Dear friend, they are all bow-legged - girls from the boulevards.

- Apollo. We were not here. Two hundred naked women in just one...

We will skip this. "Rock". Again women. So-so. In addition, "The World Famous Musical Clowns Pym and Jack".

They are talking about them, - said Zoya, - let's go.

They occupied a literary box near the stage. There was a review. A constantly moving young man in an excellent tailcoat and a mature woman in red, in a wide-brimmed hat and with a staff, spoke good-natured taunts to the government, innocent taunts to the police chief, charmingly laughed at high-value foreigners, however, so that they would not leave immediately after this review completely from Paris and would not advise their friends and relatives to visit gay Paris.

After chatting about politics, the constantly moving young man and the lady with the staff exclaimed: "Hop, la-la." And naked, as in a bath, very white, powdered girls ran out onto the stage. They lined up in a living picture depicting the advancing army. Fanfares and signal horns sounded courageously in the orchestra.

Alexei Tolstoy - Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid - 01, read text

Portal for the student. Self-training

Aleksey Tolstoy, engineer Garin's hyperboloid, the main characters. “Only fools, and even those who do not know what struggle and victory are, see chance everywhere”

A conversation at the Majestic Hotel and a murder at the Leningrad dacha

“Only fools, and even those who do not know what struggle and victory are, see chance everywhere”

“Roman emperors deified themselves. They probably enjoyed it. Nowadays, this is also not a bad entertainment.”

Hunt for Garin: multimillionaire Rolling and Russian beauty Zoya Monrose

“But I like to doo-oo-oo-um, I’m sitting here and respecting my brilliant brain ... I would like to pierce the universe with it ...”

New Coalition: Garin-Monrose-Rolling

“People cannot be left without leaders. They are drawn to get on all fours"

"Stupid, funny woman, understand - I only love you like that ... The only creature on earth ..."

Hyperboloid engineer Garin

1

2

3

"Hyperboloid engineer Garin - 01"

See also Tolstoy Alexey - Prose (stories, poems, novels ...):

Portal for the student. Self-training

A conversation at the Majestic Hotel and a murder at the Leningrad dacha

“Only fools, and even those who do not know what struggle and victory are, see chance everywhere”

“Roman emperors deified themselves. They probably enjoyed it. Nowadays, this is also not a bad entertainment.”

Hunt for Garin: multimillionaire Rolling and Russian beauty Zoya Monrose

“But I like to doo-oo-oo-um, I’m sitting here and respecting my brilliant brain ... I would like to pierce the universe with it ...”

New Coalition: Garin-Monrose-Rolling

“People cannot be left without leaders. They are drawn to get on all fours"

"Stupid, funny woman, understand - I only love you like that ... The only creature on earth ..."

Hyperboloid engineer Garin

1

2

3

"Hyperboloid engineer Garin - 01"

See also Tolstoy Alexey - Prose (stories, poems, novels ...):

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