My dear Sandro, Dmitri had written, I shall be at the yacht club at luncheon and hope you will join me there. I shall make the assumption that your answer is affirmative, unless you get a message to me by noon.

Ruzsky sat down and removed from the drawer the roll of ruble notes they’d found on the dead man. He realized that there was more money there than he’d first thought-the outer notes were a low denomination, but there were higher ones within. He leaned forward to count them.

Ruzsky narrowed his eyes. He took out one note and held it up to the desk lamp. He did the same with another and then with the rest. “Come and have a look at this,” he said.

The big detective heaved himself from his chair and came around to look at the notes.

“See?” Ruzsky asked, holding two up to the light.

“See what?”

“Here.” Ruzsky pointed. It had a series of tiny marks, in black ink, underneath the serial numbers.

Ruzsky looked closer, then at the other notes once more. “Look. They’re all in some kind of order. Each note is marked with a minuscule figure in black ink inside the double-headed eagle. By the left-hand beak. You see, one, two, three, and so on. Then each note also has some of the serial numbers underlined with tiny dots.”

“That could mean anything. Some teller in a bank fiddling around on a cold afternoon.”

Ruzsky spread all the notes out in front of him. He rearranged them in order of the numbers inscribed by the left-hand beak of the eagle. He could see that he was right. “We’ve got numbers one to fourteen here. So it’s a code, and the message has fourteen letters, which are to be assembled in this order. The digits underlined in the serial number must be page references from the code book. If we had that, we could see the message.”

13

T hey found themselves faced with a long wait at the United States embassy over on Furshtatskaya. A fat, middle-aged Russian woman sat behind the reception desk and got more irritated every time Ruzsky went to inquire how much longer the official they sought might be.

He strolled around the entrance hall, glancing as he went at the pictures crowding the walls. The subject of each was inscribed on a brass plaque at the bottom of the frame. There was a watercolor of beach life in California, and another of a town house in Boston. Some government buildings in Washington were depicted in oil, along with a grand plantation house in Georgia and a panoramic view of New York.

He sat down again. The remnants of Pavel’s breakfast were still visible in his mustache and on the corners of his chin.

“You smell of herring,” Ruzsky said.

“I forgot to tell you. I received a call from Anton when I got home last night. We have to chair a briefing later today.”

“For whom?”

“Vasilyev and an official from the Ministry of the Interior.”

“Where?”

“Alexandrovsky Prospekt.”

Ruzsky’s heart sank at the mention of the Okhrana’s gloomy headquarters. “You can do it. I don’t need to go.”

“Oh no.” Pavel shook his head. “You want to be back in charge, you do it.”

“Do you think,” Ruzsky said, “that our corpse was an American intelligence agent?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Think of the banknotes. If they do contain a cipher, an encoded message…”

“I still think that’s quite a leap.”

Ruzsky did not respond. He could see Pavel knew he was right.

“You’re seeing conspiracies where none exist,” Pavel said. His manner had become defensive again.

“True, but it makes you wonder, that’s all. Perhaps it explains why the Okhrana were so quick off the mark. Did you check his room at the Astoria?”

“Inch by inch. There’s nothing there.”

They sat in silence.

“Nothing at all.”

“Come on,” Ruzsky said, glancing up at the clock on the wall again.

“I would have thought Tobolsk might have cured you of your chronic impatience.”

“I saw Vasilyev last night outside that club.”

“And?”

“He was in a car and opened the door to pick up two young girls from the street.”

A tall man with small glasses, short hair, and a long, bony nose came through the door opposite them. He had an ungainly walk. “Good morning,” he said, speaking Russian with a perfect Petersburg accent. “Abraham Morris. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

They introduced themselves.

“Come through,” the man said, smiling. His voice was soft and cultured.

Morris led them up several flights of stone steps. His office was on the top floor and it enjoyed a spectacular view of the Neva. His desk was uncluttered. The filing cabinet next to it was covered in what looked like sporting trophies. On the wall, the only painting depicted a white clapboard house overlooking a long, sandy beach.

Morris invited them to sit, then went around to the other side of his desk and pulled over a chair, tugging up his trousers a fraction, just above the knee, as he lowered himself into it. Ruzsky was still staring at the picture on the wall. It had perfectly captured the extraordinary quality of the light. He’d forgotten how much he missed being surrounded by fine paintings.

“Have you been to America, Chief Investigator?”

“No,” Ruzsky said, “but I’d like to go. That’s a fine painting.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is one of your own?”

The man smiled modestly. He leaned forward. “I telephoned the Astoria a short time ago. You have already been to see them.”

“Yes,” Pavel said.

Morris took a sheet of paper from a desk drawer. He glanced at it for a few moments, to refresh his memory, then replaced it. He raised his right hand, palm up. “How can I help you gentlemen?”

Ruzsky reached into his pocket for a picture of the dead man.

“Do you recognize him?”

Morris took the photograph and looked at it, pushing his glasses onto the bridge of his nose. “No.”

“You have been made aware,” Ruzsky asked, “that we are conducting a murder investigation?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t recognize the man?”

“No.”

Ruzsky looked at Morris, whose gaze remained steady.

“This isn’t the man you warned the Okhrana about?”

“I don’t know.”

“My colleague here was informed that you warned the Okhrana to be on the lookout for a man called Robert White, an armed robber from Chicago.”

“Correct.”

“Is that the same man as the Robert Whitewater who has not paid his bill at the Astoria?”

“It is likely. But I cannot say for certain.” Morris handed back the photograph.

“But you don’t know if this is him?”

“No, as I’ve said.”

“The man at the Astoria gave his address as care of the American embassy.”

Morris shrugged.

“He’s nothing to do with you?”

“No.”

“His real name, then, is Robert White?”

“He travels under many names. He prefers to amend genuine passports, of which he appears to have an unlimited number.” Morris tugged at his trousers and adjusted his eyeglasses once more. “His real name is White.”

Ruzsky waited for Morris to go on, but the American just continued to regard him with the same level gaze. “Well, who is he, and what is he doing in St. Petersburg?”

“A warning was handed to your colleagues in the Okhrana, as you may know.”

“What was the warning?”

Morris studied his feet. “It concerned his presence.”

“White was an agent of yours?”

Morris looked up, but didn’t blink. “Quite the reverse. He is a criminal and labor agitator of the worst kind.”

“A labor agitator?”

“In the steel mills.”

“Does your State Department have time to treat all American criminals in this way?”

“Robert White has incurred the wrath of some extremely important and wealthy people.”

“What has he done?”

Morris shook his head slowly.

“So you were looking for him?”