Astonishingly, he felt nothing at all.
The man was staring at him.
Only then did Pekkala notice that everything around him had come to a standstill. There were people everywhere—porters, shoppers with string bags, vendors behind their barricades of bright produce. And all of them were staring at him.
“Why?” he asked the man.
There was no reply. A look of terror spread across the man’s face. He set the gun against his own temple and pulled the trigger.
With the sound of that gunshot still ringing in Pekkala’s ears, the man fell in a heap into the sawdust.
Then, where there had been silence only seconds before, a wall of noise surrounded him. He heard the guttural cries of panicked men shouting useless commands. A woman grabbed him by the shoulders. “It’s Pekkala!” she shrieked. “They’ve killed the Emerald Eye!”
Carefully, Pekkala began to undo his coat. The act of unfastening the buttons felt suddenly unfamiliar, as if this was the first time he had ever done such a thing. He opened his coat, then his waistcoat, and finally his shirt. He prepared himself for the sight of the wound, the terrible whiteness of punctured flesh, the pulsing flow of blood from an arterial break. But the skin was smooth and unbroken. Not trusting his eyes, Pekkala ran his hands over his chest, certain that the wound must be there.
“He’s not hurt!” shouted a porter. “The bullet did not even touch him!”
“But I saw it!” shouted the woman who had grabbed Pekkala’s shoulders.
“There is no way he could have missed!” said the porter.
“Perhaps the gun wasn’t working!” said another man, a fishmonger in an apron splashed with guts and scales. He bent and picked up the weapon.
“Of course it works!” The porter gestured at the dead man. “There is the proof!”
Around the head of the corpse grew a halo of blood. The Homburg lay upturned beside him, like a bird’s nest knocked out of a tree. Pekkala’s eyes fixed on the tiny bow of silk used to join the two ends of the leather sweatband.
“Let me see that—” The porter tried to take the gun from the fishmonger.
“Be careful!” snapped the fishmonger.
As their fingers closed on the gun, it went off. The bullet smacked into a pyramid of potatoes.
The two men yelped and dropped the gun.
“Enough!” growled Pekkala.
They stared at him with bulging eyes, as if he were a statue come to life.
Pekkala picked up the gun and put it in his pocket. “Go find me the police,” he said quietly.
The two men, released from his freezing stare, scattered.
Later that night, having made his report to the Petrograd police, Pekkala found himself in the Tsar’s study.
The Tsar sat behind his desk. He had been going through papers all evening, reading by the light of a candle set into a bronze holder in the shape of a croaking frog. He insisted on reading all official documents himself and used a blue pencil to make notes in the margin. It slowed down the process by which any matters of state could be accomplished, but the Tsar preferred to handle these things personally. Now he had set aside his documents. He rested his elbows on the desk and settled his chin upon his folded hands. With his soft blue eyes, the Tsar regarded Pekkala. “Are you sure you are all right?”
“Yes, Majesty,” replied Pekkala.
“Well, I’m not, I don’t mind telling you,” replied the Tsar. “What the hell happened, Pekkala? I heard some madman shot you in the chest, but the bullet vanished in midair. The police checked out the gun. Their report indicates that it is functioning perfectly. All of Moscow is talking about this. You should hear the absurdities they’re uttering. They believe you’re supernatural. By tomorrow, it will be all over the country. Any idea who this man was? Or why he was trying to kill you?”
“No, Majesty. He was carrying no identification. His body had no distinctive marks, no tattoos, scars, or moles. All the labels had been removed from his clothes. Nor does he match the description of anyone currently wanted by the police. It is likely we will never know who he was, or why he attempted to kill me.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” said the Tsar. He sat back in his chair, letting his eyes wander across the gold-leafed titles of the books upon his shelves. “So we’ve got no answers at all.”
“We do have one,” replied Pekkala, placing something on the desk before the Tsar—a crumpled knot of gray the size of a robin’s egg.
The Tsar picked it up. “What’s this? Feels heavy.”
“Lead.” The candle flame trembled. A thread of molten wax poured into the frog’s open mouth.
“Is this the bullet?” He studied it with one eye closed, like a jeweler studying a diamond.
“Two bullets fused together,” replied Pekkala.
“Two? And where did you get them?”
“I removed them from the skull of the dead man.”
The Tsar dropped the bullets back onto the desk. “You could have told me that before.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped his fingers.
“While the police were examining the gun,” explained Pekkala, “I decided to examine the body. It was not the gun that malfunctioned, Majesty. It was the bullet.”
“I don’t understand.” The Tsar frowned. “How does a bullet malfunction?”
“The bullet he fired at me contained the wrong amount of gunpowder. The weapon was of poor quality, as was the ammunition that came with it. When the gun discharged, the cartridge ejected, but it only drove the bullet into the barrel, where it became stuck. Then next time he pulled the trigger, a second bullet smashed into the first …”
“And both bullets went into his head at the same time.”
“Precisely.”
“Meanwhile, the world thinks you’re some kind of sorcerer.” The Tsar brushed his fingers through his beard. “Have you informed the police about this discovery of yours?”
“It was late by the time I had finished my investigation. I will inform the Petrograd chief first thing in the morning. He can then make an announcement to the public.”
“Now, Pekkala.” The Tsar rested his fingertips on the desktop, like a man about to begin playing a piano. “I want you to do something for me.”
“And what is that, Majesty?”
“Nothing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
