Anton snorted. “We don’t have money for buying information.”

“You could trade,” said Mayakovsky, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Trade what?” asked Kirov.

The old man licked his lips. “That’s a nice pipe you’re smoking.”

“Forget it!” Kirov ’s back straightened. “You’re not getting this!”

“Give him the pipe,” said Pekkala.

“What?”

“Yes, I would like that pipe,” said Mayakovsky.

“Well, you can’t have it!” shouted Kirov. “I’m already sleeping on the floor. You can’t expect me to-”

“Give him the pipe,” repeated Pekkala, “and let’s hear what this man has to say.”

Kirov appealed to Anton. “He can’t make me do that!”

“He just did,” said Anton.

“Nobody knows what I know,” Mayakovsky said.

Kirov glared at Anton and Pekkala. “You bastards!”

Both men eyed him patiently.

“Well, this is just outrageous!” said Kirov.

Mayakovsky held out his hand for the pipe.

Anton folded his arms and laughed.

“And give him your tobacco.” Pekkala nodded at the leather pouch which lay upon the table.

The laughter died in Anton’s throat. “My tobacco?”

“Yes.” Kirov thumped the table with his fist. “Give him your tobacco.”

The old man held out his hand and wiggled his fingers at Anton.

“You’d better have something good.” Anton tossed the pouch at the old man. “Or I’m going to adjust your face again.”

While the three men watched, Mayakovsky loaded the pipe and set it burning with a fluff-covered match that he pulled from his waistcoat pocket and lit on the sole of his shoe. He puffed contentedly for a minute. And then he began to talk. “I read in the papers that the Romanovs are dead.”

“Everybody read that!” Kirov sneered. “The whole world read about it.”

“They did,” nodded Mayakovsky. “But it isn’t true.”

Anton opened his mouth to shout the old man down.

Sharply, Pekkala raised a hand to silence him.

With a grumble, Anton settled back in his chair.

“Mayakovsky,” said Pekkala, “what makes you think they aren’t dead?”

“Because I saw the whole thing!” answered the old man. “I live across the road.”

“All right, Mayakovsky,” said Pekkala, “you tell us what happened.”

“That night the Romanovs were rescued,” Mayakovsky continued, “a load of Cheka guards suddenly came running out into the courtyard of the Ipatiev house. They kept two trucks in the courtyard. The guards piled into one of them and drove away.”

“A call had just come in,” said Anton. “We were ordered to set up a roadblock. The Whites were getting ready to attack. At least that’s what we were told.”

“Well, only a few minutes after that truck left, that damned fool Katamidze came to the front door of this house! He’s the photographer they’ve got locked up in Vodovenko. I’m not surprised the bastard ended up in there. Calling himself an artist. Well, I saw some of that art. Naked ladies. There’s another name for that. And those pictures were expensive-”

“Mayakovsky!” Pekkala cut him off. “What happened when the photographer arrived at the house?”

“The guards let him in. And a few minutes after that, a Cheka officer came to the door. He knocked and the guards let him in. Then the shooting started.”

“Then what did you see?” asked Pekkala.

“A regular gun battle,” answered Mayakovsky, grimly.

“Wait a minute,” Anton interrupted. “There was a tall fence around the whole building. Except for the front door and the entrance to the courtyard, the whole place was surrounded. How did you see anything?”

“I told you. I live across the road,” said Mayakovsky. “There’s a little window in my attic. If I went up there, I could see over the top of the fence.”

“But the windows had been painted over,” said Anton. “They’d even been glued shut.”

“I could see the flash of guns going from room to room. When the shooting stopped, the front door flew open and I saw Katamidze come tearing out of the house. He went running off into the dark.”

“Do you think Katamidze was involved in the gunfight?” asked Pekkala.

Mayakovsky laughed. “If you gave Katamidze a gun, he wouldn’t know which end the bullets came out of. If you’re thinking he was brave enough to attack the Ipatiev house and rescue the Tsar, you don’t know Katamidze.”

“What happened after Katamidze left?” Pekkala asked.

“About twenty minutes later, the second Cheka truck pulled out of the courtyard and headed off in the opposite direction from the first truck. That was the Romanovs. They were getting away, along with the man who rescued them. It wasn’t long afterwards that the first truck returned. The Cheka realized they’d been tricked. That’s when all hell broke loose. The guards had been killed. I heard one of the Cheka yell that the Romanovs had escaped.”

“How do you know the guards were killed?”

“Because I saw their bodies being carried out into the courtyard the next day. I didn’t see the bodies of the Romanovs. That’s how I knew they’d escaped. It’s the truth, no matter what the papers had to say about it.”

For a moment, there was silence in the room, except for the faint wheeze of Mayakovsky smoking his pipe.

“That man who came to the door,” said Kirov. “Did you see his face?”

Pekkala glanced at Kirov.

Kirov ’s face reddened. “What I meant was-”

Anton interrupted him. “Yes, what did you mean exactly, Junior Man? I did not realize you had taken over this investigation.”

Mayakovsky watched this, like a man following the ball at a tennis match.

“That’s all right.” Pekkala nodded at Kirov. “Continue.”

Anton threw his hands up in the air. “Now we’re really making progress.”

Kirov cleared his throat. “Can you describe the man you saw that day, Mayakovsky?”

“He had his back to me. It was dark.” Mayakovsky picked at something stuck between his front teeth. “I don’t know who he was, but I’ll tell you who they say rescued the Tsar.”

“Who’s they?” Pekkala interposed.

“They!” Mayakovsky shrugged. “They do not have a name. They are voices. All different voices. They come together and that’s how you know what they say.”

“All right,” said Kirov. “Who do they say it was?”

“A famous man. A man I wish I’d met.”

“And who is that?”

“Inspector Pekkala,” said Mayakovsky. “The Emerald Eye himself. That’s who rescued the Tsar.”

The three men had been leaning forward, but now they slumped back in their seats. All three of them let out a sigh.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Mayakovsky.

“The matter,” replied Kirov, “is that the Emerald Eye is sitting right in front of you.” He gestured vaguely at Pekkala.

The old man took the pipe from his mouth and aimed the stem at Pekkala. “Well, you do get around, don’t you?”

Less than twenty-four hours after he had said good-bye to the Tsar, Pekkala was arrested by a detachment of Red Guard Railway Police at a tiny station called Vainikkala. The situation along the border was still chaotic. Some stations were manned by Finnish personnel, while other stations even farther west were under Russian control. One of these was Vainikkala.

It was late at night when the Guards boarded the train. Their uniforms were made of coarse black wool with collars piped in cherry red, and on their right sleeves they wore homemade red armbands on which someone had drawn the sign of a hammer and a plow, soon to be replaced by a hammer and sickle as the symbol of the Soviet Union. They wore black, short-brimmed hats to match their uniforms, with a large red star sewn on the front.

Pekkala’s forged papers listed him as a doctor of obstetrics. The papers had been made for him some time ago by the Okhrana’s printing service on the orders of the Tsar. Until the Tsar handed him these documents, Pekkala had not even known the Okhrana ran a printing service. The papers were perfect, complete with photograph, all relevant stamps, and handwritten signatures on multiple travel permits. His papers were not why he was stopped.