Black Knight in Red Square Read Online Free Page B

the hotel in glowing terms in his novel The Life of Klim Samgin.
    That is the tourist-book description of the Metropole. In fact, the hotel is dark, dusty, and decaying. The food in the restaurant is poor, the service ridiculous even by Moscow’s standards, and the orchestra laughable. In spite of this, many foreigners prefer the Metropole because it behaves like old Moscow and there is so little of old Moscow left. In addition, the Bolshoi is across the square, and the hotel is well located for city-wide events such as the Moscow Film Festival. Another attraction for festival participants is the Stero Cinema on Sverdlov Square, which specializes in 3-D movies.
    By 11:40 that morning every room in the Metropole had been searched. Police were guarding the exits of the hotel, and a trio of pathologists from the Kremlin Hospital were examining the four bodies, which were assembled on tables in the ornate but now unused Victorian bar. The bar was decadently ornate with massive mirrors, beautiful chandeliers, and even a gilded foot rail. The door to the dining room was guarded by two uniformed policemen.
    Rostnikov looked around the room, ignoring the white-haired man who stood next to the four tables where the corpses lay. Rostnikov was absorbing the place through his pores, beyond his senses. It might be thought that this was part of his method, his secret means of detection that went beyond words, but it had nothing at all to do with the case. Being a policeman, Rostnikov occasionally entered one of the big hotels in pursuit of a criminal. Being a policeman, however, he could not afford to eat in the restaurants of any of these hotels. And being a Muscovite, he could not stay in any hotel in Moscow. It was the law. So he stood and imagined the past.
    Karpo, while he did not approve of his superior’s lapses into romanticism, did not interfere. In spite of his less than zealous interest in building the Soviet state, Rostnikov was a good policeman who, in his way, probably did far more for the state than so many of the self-interested Party members.
    â€œYou are the police?” asked the white-haired man impatiently. His voice echoed through the large room. Rostnikov enjoyed the sensation.
    â€œWe are,” replied Rostnikov, moving toward the tables and giving up that instant of relaxation he always enjoyed before plunging into a case.
    â€œI am Dr. Gregori Konstantinov of the Kremlin Hospital,” said the man.
    The import of that statement was not lost on Rostnikov. The Kremlin Hospital was known as the treatment center for the Soviet Union’s political and military leaders. Dr. Gregori Konstantinov might well be an important man.
    As he came closer to the doctor, Rostnikov could see that he was about seventy, stoop-shouldered, and very irritable.
    â€œThey all died of the same thing?” Rostnikov asked, glancing at the four naked bodies on the tables. Karpo had begun examining each one.
    â€œIt looks that way,” said Dr. Konstantinov, pursing his lips. “If not, we have a coincidence worthy of publication in medical journals. Four men, all dead in the same night. All apparently poisoned. All with blood on their mouths, all pale. All in the same hotel.”
    â€œHmm,” grunted Rostnikov standing reflectively as Karpo went from one body to another.
    â€œWhat’s he doing?” asked the doctor irritably. “We’ll do a proper medical examination at the hospital. I’ve already looked at the bodies.”
    â€œMagic,” whispered Rostnikov.
    â€œPolicemen,” grunted the doctor.
    It was obvious which of the four bodies was the Japanese, and had the other three been dressed Rostnikov could probably have told instantly which were the Russians and which the American. Even so, that determination took little thought; the American was the bald man. His face had none of the squinting hardness of the Soviet male.
    â€œWell, can I take the bodies?” sighed the