rbachevsky took Yura aside.  "Need any
help evenings?" he asked.
     Yura  stared at him. "How  do you know what we're doing  after  working
hours?"
     "I'm not deaf, am I?"
     "All right, drop in tomorrow at eight. Just keep whatever you see under
your hat. Don't mention it to Privalov. What we're doing at home is  our own
private concern."
     Valery nodded.
     "After all, Faraday was once a lab technician too."
     "Faraday? A lab technician?"
     "That's right. Not  here,  of course, but at  the Royal Institution  of
Great Britain. As you can see, a big future lies ahead of you."
     That evening Yura, a guitar slung  over  his  shoulder, strode  briskly
down Cooper Lane and turned into the courtyard of Nikolai's  house. A series
of what sounded like gunshots came from the other side of the archway, where
a tall, plump woman  was beating a carpet. At sight of Yura she gave a broad
smile. "Haven't seen you for a long time," she said.
     "Good evening, Claudia," said Yura.
     "Is Nikolai throwing a birthday  party?" she asked. "Guests keep coming
and coming. Young people, all of them." She smiled  again. "My Vova is doing
scientific research too nowadays."
     "Well,  give him my best regards."  Yura smiled politely and ran up the
steps two at a time. He flung  open a door from behind which came voices and
laughter. Everyone was there.  Nikolai and the three other  young  engineers
were tinkering with  the instruments. They had the  efficient assistance  of
Valery, who never suspected he was destined to be the hero of the day.
     "What held you up?" asked Nikolai.
     "Uncle  Vova's wife stopped  me  for a chat and asked me to pass on her
very best regards," Yura replied.
     "Why the guitar?"
     "I'll sing you some songs."
     "Stop twaddling. Come on, let's check the connections."
     "I'll tell you  why I brought the guitar." Yura's tone was now serious.
"Our tuning-fork generator is made to oscillate  by  an electromagnet, isn't
it? But the  electromagnet  means an extra magnetic  field, in  other words,
frequencies that we don't need at all. So I thought-"
     "That's right," swarthy  Hussein Amirov  put in. "A guitar  can  do the
work more simply than an electromagnet."
     The installation  stood  on  a  big  table  behind blue  draperies.  It
consisted  of  the  original  mercury heart  and  valve  oscillator  with  a
tuning-fork breaker, to which a twist  of copper tubing, an  enormous Mobius
band, had  been  added.  The output  circuit  of the  valve  oscillator  was
connected to coils  surrounding  the band. The scales containing the mercury
heart stood inside the band.
     The one-sided  Mobius  band was expected to produce a field which would
sharply increase the  surface tension of the  mercury and squeeze it so hard
that it  would  stop  pulsating.  Then, by  adding  mercury  until the heart
started  beating again  they would be able to calculate, from the additional
weight, the extent to which surface  tension had been stepped  up. Once they
hit  on the right combination of  frequencies they could start experimenting
with oil.
     Nikolai switched  on the  battery of  capacitors. To do this he had  to
crawl under the table and disturb Rex, who was sound asleep there.
     As  Yura checked  the  connections the neon  bulb in the  handle of his
screwdriver glowed with a twinkling pink light from time to time.
     "All systems functioning," Yura finally declared. "Breaker frequency is
440 hertz."
     "Ting, ting,  ting" went the tuning-fork gently  in the  silence of the
room.
     Yura hurriedly tuned  his guitar. Next  they  adjusted  the tuning-fork
breaker by moving the weights on its prongs.
     Now all they had to do was touch a guitar 'string,  and the contacts of
the tuning-fork breaker |would begin to break the  high-frequency circuit at
the rate of 440 times per second.
     The mercury  heart  beat quietly  inside  the  mysterious  field of the
Mobius band. Our  experimenters knew, of course, that a long, boring  search
lay ahead  of them. They knew that an experiment  rarely  yields the desired
result  the first  time. Still,  deep  down inside there  was the hope  that
perhaps today a miracle would take place.
     It didn't.
     "We'll  have to vary the  operating  factors,"  said Nikolai. "Will you
strike B on the tuning-fork, Valery?"
     Ting-ting-ting.
     Yura plucked a guitar string.'
     There was silence, broken suddenly by a sharp knock on the door.
     "Who  could that  be?" Nikolai  wondered.'  "Mother  said  she wouldn't
return home until late."
     The young  men moved away from the installation and drew  the draperies
to hide it from view. Only Valery, with  his tuning-fork,  :and Rex remained
behind the draperies.
     "Let's liven up the party!" shouted Yura. He plucked the strings of the
guitar, took a few dancing steps, and began to sing:

     Why do you wander in the moonlight,
     Oh black-eyed beauty of mine?
     Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
     A locomotive in your pocket to crush me with.

     Nikolai opened the door and Vova Bugrov, in a striped  blue pyjama top,
came in.
     "Hullo, everybody," he said politely,  letting his eyes roam  about the
room. His  glance  rested on the blue  draperies  and on the scraps  of wire
scattered  on the floor. Then he shook hands  with each of the  young men in
turn. "Having a party?" he asked.  "That's fine. I'll take  only a minute of
your  time, Nikolai." He  pulled a rusty spring out of his pocket. "Will you
calculate its strength, please?"
     "You said you'd switched to electric dynamometers," said Yura.
     "So I have," Bugrov replied with dignity. "This is just something-well,
to make a long story short, a couple of pals dropped in and asked me to help
them."
     Nikolai quickly measured  the diameter of the spring  and the  wire  to
which it was attached, and then took out his slide-rule.
     "Twenty-eight kilograms."
     "Thanks." Bugrov picked up the spring and moved towards the door.
     At that moment  there was a crash behind the draperies. The  young  men
exchanged glances. Vova swung round and stared at the draperies. Rex emerged
from beneath them, his paws tapping the floor. He stretched and then sniffed
at Bugrov's shoes.
     "Go away,  dog," said Bugrov, backing  towards the door. "I  don't like
being sniffed at."
     Nikolai  saw  Bugrov out and locked  the  door  behind him. Yura struck
another few chords to  be on the  safe  side. Strumming the bass strings, he
sang:

     Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
     A locomotive in your pocket to crush mo with.

     Nikolai pulled back the  draperies. The  scales with the  mercury heart
had crashed  to  the floor.  The tuning-fork  generator  lay  in  a pool  of
solution with sparkling drops of mercury in it. Valery sat on the table, his
face as white as a sheet. He was holding up his  right hand and was  staring
in horror at his extended little finger.


     That  evening  Boris  Privalov and  Pavel  Koltukhov  remained  at  the
Institute long after everyone else had left.
     "If you don't mind my  saying  so,  Boris, you're going round the  bend
about that idea of a pipeline without any pipes," said Koltukhov.
     "Has Professor Bagbanly gone round the bend too?"
     Koltukhov said nothing.
     Privalov looked at his  watch and stood up.  "By  the way, he should be
here soon. Would you like to see what we're doing?"
     They went down to the first floor and walked along  a seemingly endless
corridor. Privalov unlocked the doors of a room in which a stator from a big
dynamo  stood.  Inside  the  stator,  almost  touching  the  pole  shoes and
windings, was a coil of glass tubing filled with a pink liquid. The ends  of
the coil were connected with a tank and a centrifugal pump.
     "It looks like a high-frequency  still  for making  home-brew  liquor,"
Koltukhov said  with a laugh, touching the cold  glass with the  tips of his
fingers.
     "We're doing two experiments  with this apparatus," Privalov explained.
"The liquid in the tube is water  to  which we have  added acid to make it a
conductor and a colouring substance to make it easier to observe. Now watch.
This is the first experiment."
     At the push of a button a faint hum arose as the centrifugal pump began
to drive the pink liquid through the glass coil.
     "The winding  of the  stator  is not  connected with the  mains,"  said
Privalov. "It's only connected with the voltmeter. Watch this!"
     The voltmeter needle  trembled and crept towards the right-hand side of
the dial.
     "See that?"
     "Of course. The liquid is a conductor.  It  cuts the magnetic  lines of
force of the stator and induces electromotive force in the windings. There's
nothing new about that. A meter in which  a liquid passes  through a tube of
non-magnetic material is based on this principle."
     "That's true, there's nothing new about  it. But whereas the voltage in
those meters is insignificant, here-"
     "Oho!" exclaimed Koltukhov,  his eyes  on the voltmeter. "How  did  you
manage that?"
     "Professor  Bagbanly,"  Privalov  said  shortly.  "Now   we'll  do  the
experiment the other way round."
     He switched off the pump. The  liquid stopped moving  and the voltmeter
needle returned to "zero".
     "Now I'll simply send some current into the stator winding."
     He pushed another  button. Although not driven  by  the pump, the  pink
liquid again ran up into the spiral.
     "Let's make it harder." Privalov turned the knob of a valve. "Keep your
eye on  the pressure-gauge.  I could increase  the resistance still more and
get a higher pressure. But the fragility of the glass tubes prevents me from
doing so. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
     Koltukhov looked puzzled. His eyes stared fixedly from beneath his grey
eyebrows.
     "Wait  a   minute,"  he  said.  "In  other  words,  a   liquid   in  an
electromagnetic  field starts  moving all by itself.  Is this a model of the
movement of a liquid through a pipeless pipeline?"
     "Right. The  only  difference is that the surface tension of the liquid
will  take  the place of pipes,  while  a  directed field will  replace  the
windings and magnets."
     "  'The  only  difference' is  a  mild  way of  putting  it," Koltukhov
muttered.
     They  heard  quick  footsteps  in  the  corridor. The  door  opened and
Professor Bakhtiar Bagbanly entered.
     "Ah,  our  main  opponent!" he  said  as  he  shook  hands  with  Pavel
Koltukhov. "Have you come to see for yourself?"
     "He's sceptical," said Privalov.
     "Well, that's part of the scientific approach."  Professor Bagbanly ran
his eyes  over  the apparatus,  then asked Privalov some technical questions
about  the  experiment.  He  began  to  pace  the  room,  a  short,  stocky,
large-headed man with thick grey hair.
     "What examples do we have of mutual penetrability?" he asked suddenly.
     "Diffusion," said Privalov. "The diffusion of solids."
     "Yes, but diffusion calls  for specific conditions.  Even if  you press
perfectly polished surfaces of lead and tin together very hard, it will take
years  before  even the  slightest penetration takes place. However, if  you
heat a  compressed  bundle  of lead and  tin  to  100  degrees  a  layer  of
intermingled molecules will appear in their border area within twelve hours.
What is it  that puts up resistance to transition through the contact zone?"
The  Professor stopped  his pacing  and gave  the two engineers a thoughtful
look. "The surface! That mysterious world of two-dimensional phenomena."
     He  resumed his  pacing, meanwhile  smoothing; with his fingertips, the
grey moustaches beneath his hooked nose.
     "There's another diffusional phenomenon,"  he  went  on, "and  that  is
pressure  contact welding. It produces mutual penetration, but you need high
temperatures and pressures to do it."
     "What  about welding inside  a vacuum?" Privalov asked. "It can be done
at a very low pressure  and without much heating. What is more, you can join
the most diverse materials-steel and glass, for instance. Actually, it isn't
so much welding as intensified diffusion."
     Professor Bagbanly  nodded  in  agreement.  "Yes,  but  why?  Possibly,
because in a  vacuum  a surface is  free  and opens up, as it were, since it
borders on empty space. The forces protecting the surface weaken and open up
the substance. However, our goal is to intensify diffusion until we attain a
state  of  unhindered mutual penetration.  Forcing matter to open its gates,
isn't that so?"  He traced a question mark in  the air with  his forefinger.
"Is there a lot of matter  in solids? The answer is no, there's very little.
Actually, an  atom has  a very insignificant  volume. But  what is  the atom
filled with? After all, matter is concentrated  in the nucleus  of the atom.
From the  standpoint of density, everything  under the sun is as sparse as-"
he searched  for  a comparison-" as  sparse as the hair on the  head  of our
friend Pavel Koltukhov."
     Koltukhov gave a smirk and involuntarily ran a hand over his bald head.
     "Considered from the position of a  mechanical model, matter can easily
be penetrated,"  Professor  Bagbanly went on. "Actually,  though,  we cannot
regard matter as a mechanical conglomeration of small spheres situated at  a
great distance from one another. Powerful  internal forces connect  all  the
components and prevent penetration.  If those  forces  did not exist my hand
would  easily  pass  through metal."  He laid the palm  of his  hand on  the
stator.  "The  probability of  physical particles meeting  is insignificant.
Less probable than peas  colliding  if two handfuls are  thrown towards each
other."
     The Professor wiped his hands on his handkerchief and looked at the two
men, his former pupils, as though expecting them to make some objections.
     "Now I'll formulate the problem," he said, in the same tone of voice he
had once used when lecturing to his students. "Hang your ears on the hook of
attention.  Without  changing the  mechanical structure  of matter  we  must
rearrange its bonds-the bonds  between atoms and between molecules-in such a
manner that they will be completely neutral when they come into contact with
ordinary  matter  during the  period of reciprocal penetration. The internal
bonds must be re-arranged! Then we'll achieve penetrability."
     Koltukhov opened his mouth to make a caustic remark, but just  then the
telephone rang.
     Privalov picked up the receiver. "Hullo. Yes, this is me. Is  that you,
Nikolai?  Now  take  it easy-" He listened for a  moment. "What?!" His  face
changed. "I'll be there in a jiffy." He put down the receiver and glanced at
Professor Bagbanly. "We must all rush off at once!"
     When the blue  draperies were pulled across that  section  of the  room
Valery  realized  that  an uninvited  guest had dropped in.  He put down the
tuning-fork and,  to keep himself busy, examined the  connections.  It was a
good thing he did, for he discovered that one of the weights which regulated
the frequency of the tuning-fork breaker was  loosely attached, and that the
scales on which the mercury heart stood had shifted slightly.
     "From the vibration, no doubt," Valery said to himself. Carefully, with
his little  finger,  he moved the  scales  inside  the Mobius band while  he
adjusted the  weight with his other hand.  At the same moment  guitar chords
sounded on the other side  of the blue draperies and Yura's voice burst into
song.
     "An  old-fashioned tune," Valery reflected  as he continued to move the
scales with his finger. All of a sudden he felt a faint quiver in the little
finger.
     "An electric shock?" he wondered. "No, I haven't touched any metal."
     To be on the safe side, he thrust his little finger into his mouth. How
curious! The  finger did not feel  his mouth, and his mouth did not feel the
finger. He  stared fearfully  at his  finger. It looked perfectly normal. He
put it into his mouth again. But again there was no sensation whatsoever. He
tried biting the tip of the finger. His  teeth came together as though there
was nothing between them.
     Remembering that  there  was a  visitor in the  house, Valery stifled a
scream. "It took an iron will to keep from shouting," he later said. But his
body  gave a jerk  that dislodged  the  mercury heart from  the  scales  and
overturned the tuning-fork breaker.


     Professor Bagbanly,  Boris Privalov and Pavel Koltukhov hurried  up the
stairs and burst breathlessly into Nikolai's flat.
     "Where's Valery?" Privalov demanded.
     Valery, his face  pale  and  covered with sweat, came  into  the  room.
Nikolai excitedly told what had happened.
     Professor Bagbanly touched  Valery's  little  finger. The  tip and  the
joint next to it were penetrable.  The Professor's forefinger passed through
them easily and touched his thumb.
     "Feel anything?" he asked.
     "No," Valery whispered.
     It was easy to establish where the penetrability ended.
     "Light  a  match," said Professor  Bagbanly. "Calm down, young man," he
added when he saw Nikolai nervously break a couple of matches as he tried to
light them. He turned to Valery. "I want you to put  the tip of your  finger
into the flame of Nikolai's match."
     Everyone  held  his breath. Valery  looked as though he were walking in
his sleep. He slowly put his little  finger into  the flame.  It wavered but
its shape did not change. "Do you feel anything?"
     "Yes,"  said Valery  hoarsely,  holding the tip  of  his  finger in the
flame. "My fingertip feels warm."
     The engineers were dumbstruck. They stared in a daze at Valery's little
finger.
     "Thrust your finger into the table," the professor said.
     Valery obeyed. Half of his finger went into the wood.
     "Less goes in now," he  said.  "At first almost the whole  finger  went
in."
     Professor Bagbanly exchanged glances with Privalov.  Then  he set about
examining the apparatus.
     "A  Mobius  band?"  he said.  "Quite an idea.  What did the instruments
register when it happened?"
     "We weren't thinking about penetrability," Yura  explained.  "We wanted
to increase  surface tension, using this mercury heart. Valery must have put
his hands inside the Mobius band a dozen  times without anything  happening.
But when he moved the weight-and I plucked the  strings of  my guitar at the
same time-something clicked. Valery was so scared he  overturned everything,
and so we  don't  know  the exact  readings."  "Automation  experts, humph!"
Koltukhov remarked, looking the silent,  frightened young men  up  and down.
"What's the  idea of this clandestine laboratory? I shudder  to think of the
damage you might have done!"
     "Have you tuned your guitar since then?" Privalov asked.
     "No," said Yura.
     "Then play  exactly  what  you  played  then. We'll  record  it,"  said
Professor Bagbanly. "You have a tape recorder here, don't you?"
     Meanwhile, Valery's little finger was gradually returning to its normal
state. He kept testing it against the table. Finally  only  the very tip  of
the finger went into the wood.  Then, suddenly, he felt his  fingertip being
pinched,  and  with  a cry he pulled his hand away, leaving a bit of skin in
the wood. He immediately thrust his bleeding finger into his mouth. His face
broke into a broad smile. "It's ended!" he shouted.


     The courtyard in Cooper  Lane throbbed  with  music. Strains  of music,
much of it in  a plaintive Oriental  key, poured forth through  all the open
windows from radios, record players and tape recorders.
     Nikolai  had  never  contributed  much  to  the  musical  life  of  the
courtyard, but now he aroused the hostility  of all his  neighbours. Evening
after evening there came  from his windows the same tiresome  strumming of a
guitar, accompanied by the thumping of  a  foot keeping time, and his friend
Yura's voice singing:

     Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
     A locomotive in your pocket to crush me with.

     A detailed description of the installation had been sent to the Academy
of  Sciences in  Moscow, together  with a long memorandum and the tapes. The
young  engineers  had  been  ordered to keep their  mouths  shut and to stop
experimenting at home.
     "You've  done  enough mischief," said Koltukhov. "Probing the structure
of matter is not as simple as strumming a guitar."


        CHAPTER FIVE

        IN WHICH BBNEDICTOV WALKS OUT OF THE HOUSE

     Rita  returned home from  school earlier  than usual that day.  She let
herself in with her key,  stepped into the entryway  and took  off her coat,
then paused to listen. Rustling and creaking  sounds  came from the bedroom.
The creaking was clearly the wardrobe door.
     She  knew that Anatole was never at home at  this hour. Could a burglar
have broken in?
     Rita  tiptoed to  the bedroom door. She held  her breath  and listened.
Yes, it was a burglar! What she had to do was lock the bedroom door and dash
to the phone.
     Just then she heard a familiar cough.
     "How you frightened me!" she exclaimed, flinging open the bedroom door.
     Anatole Benedictov, in his brown house jacket, was standing in front of
the open wardrobe. He did not turn when Rita entered. Instead, he closed the
wardrobe and limped to the window.
     "What's the matter?" she asked in alarm. "Why are you home so early?"
     "I feel a bit under the weather."
     "Why are you limping?"
     "Oh, it's  nothing," Benedictov said reluctantly. "I was  looking for a
handkerchief. Could you get me one, please?"
     Rita opened the wardrobe and took out a handkerchief.
     "You  don't look  well,  Anatole," she  said. "Could  you be running  a
fever?"
     He  waved aside the suggestion and  went  into his study. Rita  changed
into her house dress and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
     Two days ago she had noticed  that the articles in the  drawers of  her
dressing table  were disarranged. She had not attached any  importance to it
at the time,  but  now she realized that Anatole  was probably searching for
the knife. He  did not believe her when she said the knife was at the bottom
of the sea.
     She sliced the potatoes in  thick rings and  put them into the sizzling
frying pan. Anatole loved fried potatoes. He hardly talked to her at all any
more, she  thought sadly and anxiously. He  had grown terribly  excited when
she  told  him  about the two  young men who had dropped in. "No  one in his
right  mind  would  have  thrown out  that  box containing  Fedor Matveyev's
manuscript!"  he  had shouted. But how could  she have known  that the rusty
little bar propping up the old wardrobe would  contain an eighteenth-century
manuscript? Nor did she know anything about a third box the young men wanted
to lay hands on.
     After that  unpleasant conversation Anatole had grown more sullen  than
ever. He no longer talked to her at all about his work.
     Now Anatole was working on some project together with Opratin. Rita had
long since lost hope that Anatole  would achieve  some  measure of  success.
However, perhaps his collaboration with  Opratin  would prove  fruitful. But
what if they really couldn't get along without the knife?
     Another  source of doubt  and anxiety  was  the  young engineer who had
rescued her at sea.  Rita's thoughts kept returning to the two young men who
had called on her. What did they want those small iron boxes for?
     The name Nikolai Potapkin did  not mean anything to Rita, yet there was
something vaguely  familiar about  the young engineer's  face and his way of
carrying himself. She had been conscious of this when he and his friend came
to inquire about the boxes. Now she was almost certain. Without knowing why,
she refused to acknowledge it.
     When Rita called out to her  husband to say that  dinner  was  ready he
refused to come to the table. He lay  on the  couch in the  study,  his eyes
feverish and his face flushed and drenched in sweat.
     "You're ill!" Rita exclaimed. "I'll call the doctor."
     "No doctors. Just get me some penicillin from the medicine chest."
     Only late at night, when he was running a high fever, did he allow Rita
to apply a cold compress  to his leg. Then she accidentally discovered a big
abscess on his right hip.
     Nikolai Opratin dropped in the next evening. He sat beside Anatole  for
a while, discussing various matters. He was most polite to Rita.
     He told her  that the work  was going along well, and praised Anatole's
erudition.
     The next morning the burly, plump-cheeked man brought round a packet of
drugs for Anatole. "I was told to hand this over to him personally," he told
Rita in a hoarse bass voice.  But Anatole was asleep and she refused to wake
him.
     After  she closed  the  door on her unpleasant visitor  Rita opened the
packet.  It  contained ampoules  of  a  drug which  Rita recognized to  be a
narcotic.
     Suddenly  the whole  thing became  clear to  her.  She sat  beside  her
husband's sickbed for a long  time in a daze.  She did not cry.  She felt as
though she had shrivelled up inside.
     When  Anatole awoke she  silently showed him the packet. He frowned and
began to snuffle.
     An unpleasant conversation followed.
     "Yes, yes, I understand," said Rita, clasping her hands, which were now
two  lumps of ice.  "You wanted  to  increase your working capacity and then
gradually started taking bigger and bigger doses."
     "Oh, leave me alone," he said wearily.
     "Give it up, Anatole," Rita pleaded.  "Stop taking the  drug. That boil
of yours comes from a dirty hypodermic syringe. You won't give yourself  any
more  injections, will you? You'll drop the habit, and then  everything will
be fine again."
     "That's enough!" Anatole shouted.
     "I insist that  you stop," Rita said resolutely. "I'll take you in hand
if you lack the will-power to  do it yourself. As for that fat-faced fellow,
I'm going to have him arrested."
     Benedictov raised himself on his elbow and swung his feet out over  the
side of  the bed. Rita rushed to prevent him from getting up. He pushed  her
aside. Without uttering a single  word he put  on his  clothes and walked to
the  door, dishevelled, desperate-looking, and aloof. He slammed the door so
hard that a shower of plaster came down from the ceiling.
     Rita stood beside the  door  for  a long time, the palms of  her  hands
pressed to her cheeks. She did not cry. But something within her was broken.
     Anatole did not return. Twenty-four hours later Vova Bugrov came to the
door  bearing a note in which Anatole  asked for his things. Rita picked  up
the telephone.
     "Not thinking of calling the law, were you?" Vova asked with a grin. "I
wouldn't if  I were you. I didn't get those ampoules for myself but for him,
because  he begged me to. If you report it you'll make things very  hard for
him."
     Vova  was right, Rita  realized. She  silently packed a suitcase of her
husband's clothes. Vova went into the study and picked up several laboratory
instruments. As he  prepared to  leave he  mumbled that  Benedictov was  now
staying with Nikolai Opratin.
     When  Anatole  told Opratin that  he  had  walked out of the house  the
latter frowned. Fate had sent him a restless man for a partner.
     "Well, what's there to be said  now?" he remarked. "You may  stay at my
place for  the time being. There's  plenty of  room. For the sake of science
I'm willing to put up with a lodger as bad-tempered as you are."
     Anatole moved into  the spare room in Opratin's bachelor establishment.
There were Oriental rugs on the floor of the room and in two of the  corners
stood cabinets with porcelain figurines.
     "Are you a collector?" Anatole asked with a condescending smile.
     "Porcelain'is a weakness of  mine," Opratin said  shortly. "How is your
boil?"
     "It's healing."
     "Look  here,  Anatole,"  said  Opratin.  "We've  got  to  speed up  our
experiments  on the island. I've  been told that Privalov and his assistants
are  working  along the same  lines as  we are. They've set up some  sort of
installation and are getting promising results."
     "How do you know all this?"
     "It doesn't matter how I  found out.  From Vova Bugrov,  if you want to
know.  They've got  in touch with the Academy of Sciences through  Professor
Bagbanly. In other words, they are consulting with scientists in Moscow. How
do you like that?"
     Anatole did not like it at all. "I'm going out  to the  island tomorrow
morning," he said, slapping the table with the  palm of his hand.  "I'll get
things humming.  Don't  forget, though, that  if we don't lay  hands on that
knife by the time we get the installation assembled we'll be on the rocks."
     "You'll  have  the  knife,"  Opratin said calmly.  "And something else,
besides-something that  may be even more  important.  I'll make  a  trip  to
Moscow in January. With Bugrov."
     "Who'll take me out to the island in the motor-boat?"
     "I'll get  someone  at the Institute  to do that. Only  don't  let  him
anywhere near the laboratory. But  you  know that. We'll discuss the details
when the time comes."
     There she  was, alone  in  the flat, a deserted  wife.  She  looked  up
Opratin's number in the telephone directory. All she had to do was dial that
number and she would hear Anatole's voice. All she had to do was  say, "Come
home, Anatole. Forgive me. I can't go on alone."
     No,  she  couldn't say that. She hadn't  done anything that  called for
forgiveness. He should be the one to beg forgiveness.
     But  she was plagued  by the thought that she had failed him, not  kept
proper watch over him, not stopped him in time,  and that therefore  she was
to blame.
     A friend in Moscow wrote  inviting  her to come  for a visit during the
New Year school  vacation. "A change will do you  good. You can take in some
of the new plays," the friend said. Rita wondered whether perhaps that might
not be a good idea.
     The ringing  of the bell made her jump. She  ran  to open the door. Her
heart was beating furiously.
     Nikolai  Opratin stood at the  door.  He  greeted her  courteously  and
smiled at her. Rita was unable to say a word. Her lips trembled.
     Finally she pulled herself together and invited him to step in. She was
determined not to give Opratin the  slightest indication that she  wanted to
burst into tears.
     What was he saying? "Anatole and I may soon have an important discovery
to announce  to the world. We  would be able to do so even sooner if  we had
that knife of yours." He scrutinized her with cold, appraising eyes.
     Rita said nothing.
     "It is in your own interests too," he said. "Give us the knife".
     "How can I!" she said in a steady voice. "You know as well as I do that
the knife fell overboard."
     "It didn't fall overboard," Opratin said quietly.  "But if you find the
subject distasteful let's drop  it.  However, its a pity, a great pity."  He
rose. "What shall I tell Anatole?"
     "Give him my very best regards. Tell him I'm going to Moscow."
     "To Moscow?"
     "Yes, to visit a friend of mine during the winter school vacation."
     "When will that be?"
     "At the very beginning of January."
     "What  a remarkable coincidence," said  Opratin,  smiling with his lips
only. "I'll be going to  Moscow on business early in January. I hope to have
the pleasure of seeing you there."


        CHAPTER SIX

        IN WHICH BORIS PRIVALOV AND NIKOLAI  POTAPKIN VISIT  THE  INSTITUTE  OF
SURFACES AND NIKOLAI GETS A BRAINWAVE

     The blue  bus with the transparent roof rolled along  the  snow-covered
highway, past birch groves and white-mantled farm fields. It  went through a
small town,  rumbled over a bridge across a frozen stream and dived into the
dark tunnel of a fir forest.
     Nikolai kept his eyes  glued to the bus window, gazing with interest at
the unfamiliar landscape. He had come to Moscow with Boris Privalov two days
before on  matters  connected with the trans-caspian oil  pipeline  project.
They had  spent all  of  the previous  day at  the  Ministry,  talking  with
engineers  and officials.  Now they  were on  their way to  the Institute of
Surfaces, one of the newest research facilities of the Academy of Sciences.
     When they turned off  into a  driveway the pale winter sun splashed its
rays through the windows, and it immediately grew cosier inside the bus.
     Privalov folded his newspaper. "We've arrived," he said.
     They stepped out of the  bus into a frosty blue midday silence and  the
fragrance of a  fir  grove. The  frost  pinched  their  nostrils.  The  snow
crunched underfoot.
     They crossed a large cleared area on which the Institute housing estate
had been built, then walked through another grove and came to a broad avenue
of Institute laboratories and other buildings.
     A path in the deep snow brought them  to a two-storey building. Inside,
they walked  down a green-carpeted corridor, passing a  series of doors with
numbers  on them.  They stopped in front  of  a thickly padded  door  with a
lighted sign above it that said "Quiet,  please". From the other side of the
door  came  the  sound of a  man's voice singing to  the accompaniment  of a
guitar. This seemed  as incongruous in the businesslike Institute atmosphere
as the mooing of a cow in a symphony orchestra.
     To the  strumming  of the guitar, with a foot energetically beating out
the time, a youthful voice sang:

     Powder in your pocket to poison me with,
     A locomotive in your pocket to crush me with.

     Nikolai and  Privalov exchanged  glances.  They had  recognized  Yura's
voice. This was their tape recording of the experiment.
     Members of the Institute staff were expecting Privalov and Nikolai. The
visitors were led into  a large, windowless room  whose walls  were  covered
with consoles and control  panels. Daylight streamed in through a broad oval
skylight.
     A lean man in  a  dark  suit, with  high cheekbones,  a hooked nose and
neatly  parted  hair  rose  from  his  desk to greet  the visiting  research
engineers. Nikolai cautiously pressed the hand that was held  out to him and
stuttered as he  gave his name.  He was awed  at meeting  Academician Georgi
Markov a world-famous scientist.
     "Please be seated,"  Academician Markov said, indicating armchairs with
a brief wave of  his hand. "I'm glad to see you. In  a few moments two of my
assistants will drop in and tell you what we are doing with your music."
     Nikolai felt like sinking through the floor. How tired he was of Yura's
pranks! There were  hundreds of pleasant songs,  yet Yura had chosen to sing
one of the silliest ditties in the world. But what did it matter to Yura? He
did  not  have  to sit here  and watch the polite smile on  the face  of the
country's most distinguished physicist.
     "I  can  tell  you  that  if  it  were  not  for  Professor  Bagbanly's
confirmation  that  he had seen it with  his  own  eyes we never would  have
believed it."  Academician Markov  looked  at Nikolai. "You're the  one  who
designed the installation, aren't you?"
     "Actually, all I did was think of how to make use of the Mobius band."
     "How did you get the idea?"
     "Fedor Matveyev's manuscript prompted it. If you remember, he described
some sort of a coil."
     "That's right. A half-twist spiral. It interested us too.  Allow  me to
congratulate you. It was an excellent idea."
     Nikolai felt flattered.  Before he was aware of it he was grinning from
ear  to ear. Wiping off the  grin, he said  hurriedly:  "Automation  experts
helped us to design  the installation  on the basis of ideas suggested by my
colleague  Yura Kostyukov. He's the man  whose  voice you hear singing  that
unpardonably silly  song which, of  course-"  "Think nothing  of  it,"  said
Academician  Markov with  a  friendly smile.  "At your age I liked that song
too."
     A stocky young  man,  not much  older than  Nikolai,  wearing  a sports
jacket, and a rosy-cheeked girl in a grey suit entered the room.
     The  Academician  asked Nikolai to describe the experiment he and  Yura
had  carried  out in  Cooper  Lane.  All listened to  Nikolai's  account  in
attentive silence.
     "We weren't interested in  penetrability  at  all," Nikolai remarked in
conclusion.  "All  we  wanted  to do  was build up  the  surface  tension of
mercury."
     "You've made the picture clearer," said  Academician Markov. "Now we'll
hear what Vassily Fedorovich has to say."
     The  stocky  young man  in  the sports jacket  began by  laying several
diagrams and photographs on the table. Then  he launched  into a description
of the installation he and his fellow-workers had built. Basically, it was a
duplicate of the one in Cooper Lane,  but with precise  recording  apparatus
and a more efficient mechanism in place of the tuning-fork breaker.
     Privalov  and Nikolai  were  then  invited to examine the installation.
Yes, this isn't Cooper Lane, Nikolai mused as he looked at the apparatus and
instruments. Actually, though, there wasn't any real difference. Here, as at
home, the Mobius band was the dominant element.
     Two rods  pressed together by powerful electromagnets had been  set  up
inside the band, and under the  right conditions they were to penetrate each
other. But the right conditions  had not yet been attained. The dials of the
instruments registered zero.
     A  tape  recorder inside  a soundproof  room was  playing  back  Yura's
rendition   of   that  ill-fated   song.   The   sound  was  converted  into
electromagnetic oscillations that  were  recorded on tape for feeding into a
computer.
     The Institute computer knew all the parameters of the set-up. All, that
is,  except  the  crucial one. If  Valery  had  not shifted  the tuning-fork
breaker the weights would have remained in  the same  accidental position in
which penetrability had taken place. Now the installation had to be operated
to the  accompaniment of all the  frequencies  that occurred in Yura's song.
The computer kept  formulating  and  solving  a  series  of  equations.  The
solutions were communicated to  the  installation in the  form of electrical
commands.
     "I wonder," said Boris Privalov, turning to Academician Markov, "if you
could tell us what you think of penetrability and its causes."
     "It is really too early to  say anything definite. However, it seems to
me  that our friend Professor  Bagbanly is fundamentally right. It is  all a
matter of  a  reorganization  of  the  internal bonds  of  matter. Something
special takes place in  the Mobius band, with its one-sided  surface.  At  a
definite frequency, of course."
     Then, with  the words "Let us proceed further," he led his visitors out
into  a  wide corridor.  "A  Mobius  band in  a  high-frequency  circuit  is
certainly  a  most  fortunate  conjecture.  It  holds  out great  prospects,
prospects which  perhaps  you do  not  even  suspect. But since  we  have  a
definite goal in front of us-an underwater  oil pipeline- we decided that in
the first  stage we would  apply  our  energies to this particular  problem.
Actually, we face two problems.  First, we  need greater surface tension  to
shape a  stream of oil as desired. Second, we need penetrability in order to
reduce  to  a  minimum,  or  else  eliminate altogether, resistance  to  the
movement of the stream. Do you agree?"
     "Yes, you're quite right," said Privalov.
     "The  second problem is  still  a  matter of the future, but the  first
one-well, take a look for yourselves."
     He flung open a door.
     A round concrete  pool three  and a half  metres in diameter filled the
middle  of the  room. A  large horizontal metal band attached to  corrugated
insulators encircled it.
     "A  Mobius  band?" Nikolai  asked  hesitantly,  examining  it.  "It's a
giant!"
     They followed their host up to a platform, from which they saw that the
pool was half full of a viscous black liquid having a greenish tinge.
     "That's  petroleum," said  Academician  Markov.  "Ten tons  of  it. Now
watch."
     He pressed a button on a panel.
     The surface  of  the  oil  welled up in the  middle  and  continued to^
expand. The  edges began to draw away from  the sides of the  pool, exposing
its bottom. The  process  went ahead faster  and faster. Some powerful force
was shaping the  black  liquid into an almost perfect sphere three metres in
diameter. Its surface grew shiny and iridescent. The figures standing on the
platform were reflected in it crookedly, as though in a distorting mirror.
     "Oho!" Privalov exclaimed.
     Nikolai gazed with glowing eyes at the black sphere lying in the  pool.
His mind went back to the pulsating drop of mercury in Cooper Lane. But only
for a moment. Everything was  swept  away by  the  enormous black sphere. So
this was surface tension!
     "The  f-frequency-W-what's the f-frequency?" Nikolai  asked, stuttering
in excitement.
     "We'll  give you all the details. But this force isn't strong enough to
take the place of the pipe wall made of steel."
     The  Academician switched  off the current  and the  sphere immediately
collapsed,  flowing back  to  fill the  pool  again. The oily  black surface
heaved deeply and then became motionless.
     "I  think  the  Mobius  band  can  give  us a much  greater  degree  of
intensification,"  said  the  scientist.  "An  interesting  feature  is  the
reversible  process,  a  law of physics.  Within  a  very  narrow  range  of
operational factors-which we still don't know completely-the set-up produced
a  weakening  of the bonds of matter.  Strictly speaking, that business with
the  finger   in  your   laboratory,  the  penetrability,   is  a  spin-off.
Incidentally, do you people realize what this amazing discovery means?"
     Nikolai said nothing.  He had  long  ago taken  a  pledge not  to build
castles in the air. He would keep strictly to the oil pipeline.
     "Not altogether, naturally," said Privalov.
     "But  we  think  there'll  be  a  revolution in  the  cold  working  of
metals-cutting without resistance and the like."
     Academician Markov nodded.
     "Furthermore,  penetrating  tools will  be used to  sink coal mines and
drill  oil  wells,"  Privalov  went on, his  voice eager. "I  even think-you
mustn't laugh,  though-there might be a way of protecting spaceships against
meteorites."
     "It's  within  the   realm  of   possibility,"  the  Academician   said
thoughtfully. "But it won't be at all easy to work out the specific approach
required  in  each practical application.  The  surface  of matter possesses
energy, and it looks as though we may lay our hands on it."
     Privalov  ran his  fingers  through  his  thick hair.  "A  new  type of
energy?"
     "No,  a  new  source  of  energy," Academician  Markov  said.  "A  more
available source than nuclear energy."
     All were silent for a moment.
     "If only we could actually  look at and feel a specimen of restructured
matter," the Academician went on. "Who can  tell when our  set-up yields the
first matter of this type?  What a pity the effect produced on the finger of
your  lab technician  was so  short-lived. Now if  we could by  some miracle
acquire Fedor Matveyev's knife-if such a knife actually exists, of course."
     "What if the knife is  just lying about somewhere at this very minute?"
The stocky young man in the sports jacket put in. "Fedor Matveyev did  bring
it to Russia, didn't he?"
     The words "lying  about somewhere"  conjured  up  in Nikolai's  mind  a
picture of a summer day flooded with hot sunshine, the boat races, Opratin's
zuotorboat and Vova  Bugrov  in the water beside it. When Nikolai swam up to
the  boat  he  heard Bugrov  say  "All I  want is the  knife." Vova  had  an
aqualung. There  was some kind of  a scanning device in  the motorboat. They
were searching the sea bottom at the spot where Rita had fallen overboard.
     Before  that, Opratin  had come to their  Institute and had  questioned
them to learn just where  she had fallen into the sea. Come  to think of it,
he had asked-yes, he had-whether the woman had had anything metallic  in her
hand. It was the knife, Fedor Matveyev's knife, that Opratin and Bugrov were
looking for.
     If  the little iron box containing Matveyev's manuscript had been taken
for a  piece  of ordinary  junk and had been thrown out of Rita's house- and
Nikolai did not  doubt that it had-it was possible  she could have possessed
Matveyev's knife. It could have been in another box.
     Nikolai recalled the sketches on the last page  of  the manuscript. The
box in which they had found the manuscript was named "The Source". There was
a  sketch of  another box, called "The Evidence".  Evidence!  What  could be
better evidence than that knife?
     Nikolai had finally woven all those scattered impressions into a single
picture.  Fedor Matveyev's knife  did exist. Rita knew about it. Opratin and
Bugrov were searching for it. Or perhaps had already found it.
     Although Nikolai  was  eager to  pour  out the  whole story he held his
tongue. This was neither the time nor the place. He brought his mind back to
what the others were saying.
     "If Fedor Matveyev held the knife by the handle it means the handle was
made of ordinary  material," the scientist stated. "There must  have been  a
transition zone in the blade.
     "Should I send a  wire to Yura?" Nikolai wondered.  "Maybe he could pry
some  information out of Bugrov or  Bugrov's wife. We must lay  hands on the
knife. We simply must."
     Again he brought his mind back to the conversation.
     "The bonds in matter are not stable. They are constantly changing-"
     "Why didn't Yura and I think of it before?" Nikolai asked  himself. "It
dawned on me  only  just now, when he  said the knife  might  be lying about
somewhere."
     "We   may   need  some  practical  assistance  from   your  Institute,"
Academician Markov was saying. "How would your director look upon that?"
     "I  don't know", Privalov confessed.  "The pipeline across  the Caspian
which  we  are designing is to  consist  of  ordinary  steel  pipes.  It's a
definite  project, with a definite deadline, and we  have to concentrate our
energies  on it. The idea  of a pipeline without pipes-well, that's merely a
vague conjecture so far."
     "We'll arrange for permission from the Ministry, or  rather, this  girl
here will do it. She's  a representative from the Ministry. She's so  pretty
you might take her for an empty-headed little creature, but I can assure you
that  she  knows every  nook, corner  and  path in the bureaucratic jungle."
"What a thing to say about me!" the girl protested, laughing.
     Soon after, the two visitors made their farewells. Privalov settled his
tall caracul hat firmly on  his head with a  sigh,  took Nikolai by the arm,
and they left the Institute of Surfaces.
     The moment the men returned to Moscow Nikolai sent off a wire to Yura.
     Am  certain  0.  and   B.   are   seeking  Fedor's  knife.  Investigate
immediately. Contact Bugrov's wife.


        CHAPTER SEVEN

     IN WHICH "THE KEY TO THE MYSTERY" DISAPPEARS AND FEDOR MATVEYEV'S KNIFE
REAPPEARS

     Nikolai  was flabbergasted  by  what he  had  seen  and  heard  at  the
Institute of  Surfaces. The  magnificent prospects which  Academician Markov
had hinted at in passing  were  hard to take in all at once. They had  to be
assimilated gradually.
     He  and  Privalov spent several  evenings in their hotel  room  talking
about those prospects.
     As they were drinking tea  in their room  one morning there was a knock
on the door.
     "Some letters  for you," said the floor clerk. There  were two letters,
one from Privalov's wife, the other for Nikolai from Yura. Nikolai slit open
the envelope and ran his eyes over the  first few lines of Yura's letter. He
could not help laughing aloud. Yura was his usual self.
     The letter began as follows:
     "The Right Honourable Nicholas S. Potapkin, Esq.
     "Dear Sir,
     "First of  all, allow me to inform you that when the mail coach at last
drew up to our gates, instead  of  the long awaited  detailed  letter  all I
found in the pouch was a short  and meagre message. Damn it all, sir. I am a
plain  man, sir, arid I want to state in  plain language that  I looked upon
you as a gentleman. Nevertheless,  I am writing  to you,  although  I  would
perhaps do  better to exchange my pen for  a pistol, which is the best thing
to use against  damned coyotes like yourself.  After reading your dispatch I
jumped into the saddle and galloped off like the wind.  I hitched my mustang
to a chaparral bush, then strode through the gateway of your ranch-"
     At  this juncture Yura's patience with Wild West lingo ran  out and  he
continued more simply.
     "I waited a long time  under the archway  before Bugrov's wife came out
of the house and into the yard. Then I humped  into her, quite by chance, of
course, and gallantly  bowed and scraped before  her. I gave free rein to my
tongue as I brought  her around to answering my main question: was  it  true
that Uncle Vova, using  our scuba diving gear, had found an object which had
fallen into the  sea  from the deck of the Uzbekistan?  'How  come  you know
about that?' she asked, looking at me with suspicion. 'Were you on board the
ship too?' 'No,' I answered, 'but I was on board the sailboat that picked up
the lady in red.' At this she took me aside and told me the whole story."
     Here Yura described in detail  what had taken place on the  deck of the
Uzbekistan.
     When he finished reading this part  of the letter Nikolai sprang to his
feet.
     Privalov raised his head. "What's the matter?"
     "Read this, Boris. Starting from here."
     Privalov quickly scanned the page.
     "Oho!"  he  exclaimed. "So  Matveyev's knife  really does  exist!  What
happened next?"
     Next, Yura  reported that  Bugrov  had  left for Moscow  together  with
Opratin. Yura related how, after his talk with Claudia, he had gone upstairs
to  see Nikolai's mother. Nikolai  had  authorized  him  to collect his  pay
envelope and pass it on to her. While he and  Nikolai's mother were chatting
about  the cold weather in  Moscow and  wondering whether Nikolai wasn't too
lightly dressed for those severe frosts, there was a knock on the door. Yura
went to open it. A thick-set, unshaven, shaggy-haired, middle-aged man stood
there.
     "I would like to see Nikolai Potapkin," he said.
     "That's  me,"  Yura said, making a  sign  behind his back  to Nikolai's
mother.
     "I'm Anatole Benedictov," the visitor said.
     "Pleased to meet you. Won't you take off your coat and sit down?"
     Benedictov  refused to take off his coat,  but he sat down at the table
and put his hat and gloves in his lap.
     "This is  a return visit," he said. "I'll get right down to the  point.
My wife told me you were interested in some small iron boxes. Could you tell
me what it's all about?"
     "You know the  answer to that question better than I do," Yura replied.
"A little iron box that was thrown out of your house as a  piece of junk was
found  to contain a manuscript. We became interested in  the  manuscript and
began to search  for the two  other little boxes mentioned in it. One of the
boxes  evidently  contained  Fedor Matveyev's knife.  It's a  great pity the
knife is lying at the bottom of the sea. Or have you found it by now?"
     Benedictov's hands twitched nervously.
     "Very well," he said, coughing to clear  his  throat. "Since you are so
thoroughly informed, could you tell me what's inside the third box?"
     "I wish I knew."
     Both were silent for  a while. Then Benedictov said: "As far as I know,
you are working on the problem of penetrability. We're doing something along
those lines too.  I've heard that you put together an original apparatus and
obtained interesting  results. If it isn't  a secret, could you-" He  paused
and looked expectantly at Yura.
     "It isn't a secret,  of course," Yura  said slowly, choosing his words.
We're designing an oil pipeline and while we were at it we became interested
in the  diffusion  of liquids.  As for our experiments,  I'm afraid I cannot
give you  any details. I'm not authorized  to do so. Why  don't you approach
the director of our Institute through the regular channels?"
     "Through the  regular  channels, you say?" Benedictov gave a  wry grin.
"Thanks for the advice. It was a pleasure to meet you."
     With those words Benedictov clapped his hat on his shaggy head.
     "The  feeling  is mutual,"  Yura  replied  courteously.  He  picked  up
Benedictov's gloves, which had fallen to the floor, and  handed them to him.
"These are yours, I  think. Did you get my address from the telephone book?"
he asked casually.
     "No, from a member of our staff who lives in this house."
     "Ah, yes, of course. By the way, it would be very interesting to have a
look at Fedor Matveyev's knife. If it isn't a secret."
     "You yourself said it's at the bottom of (he sea," Benedictov muttered.
     On his way to the door, accompanied by  Yura, Benedictov  paused  for a
second to look at the blue draperies.
     "Yes, you're  right,"  Yura  said  in  reply to  Benedictov's  unspoken
question. "This is where the experiment took place."
     He  pulled  aside  the  draperies  with  a  broad  gesture.  Benedictov
involuntarily stepped forward, but all he saw was a tape recorder of unusual
design  and,  under  the  table,  several  black  boxes  containing  storage
batteries.
     "We dismantled  our set-up," Yura explained.  "But  you  know  what? If
you're  doing  work along the same lines, then why don't we  co-operate? Why
not drop in at our Institute?"
     Benedictov looked at Yura from under his heavy, swollen eyelids but did
not  reply. He  simply said goodbye  and went out in a slow, shuffling gait.
Yura stood at the window watching him depart.
     "Very curious news," Privalov  remarked, pouring himself another cup of
tea.
     "I  had  a feeling from  the beginning that  she hadn't  simply  fallen
overboard." Nikolai crumpled Yura's letter in his fist and began to pace the
floor.  "She went over the rail because she was diving for the knife. That's
obvious. If she had found it  she would have  given it  to  her  husband, of
course.  But her husband is collaborating with Opratin, and he-Opratin, that
is-was searching for the knife at the spot  where it fell  into  the sea. We
can assume  that Rita  didn't find  the knife, and it is still lying at  the
bottom of the sea, or else-"
     "Or else what?" Privalov asked.
     "Or else Opratin has found it."
     "In that case we must speak to Opratin and ask him to lend us the knife
for a time so that we  can study  it," Privalov said quietly. "It would help
us  enormously."  He sipped  his  tea. "If Opratin is in Moscow we'll get in
touch with him. Sit down at the telephone and ring up the hotels. Start with
the Golden Wheat and the Yaroslavl."
     With so many  hotels  the job of locating Opratin  by telephone  seemed
hopeless.  Time and again  Nikolai heard  the words:  "No one  of that  name
registered here", or else the clerk did not bother to listen to the question
but merely said, "Sorry, but we're full up." Finally, however, a voice said,
"Opratin?  Just a  moment.  What's his first name? Yes,  he's  staying here.
Opratin and Bugrov. Room 130."
     Nikolai laughed. "This  is  really  one for the book.  He's in a  hotel
across the street from us." Nikolai dialled the number of Opratin's room but
no one answered.
     "We'll try again  in the  evening," said Privalov.  "I have to attend a
conference  of oil  industry  construction experts. Meanwhile I want  you to
straighten out a few questions at the Ministry."
     Nikolai  sighed.  He did not like  the Ministry. The endless  corridors
there always had a depressing effect on him.
     "Oh, yes, I almost forgot,"  said Privalov.  "Get yourself a ticket for
Wednesday. I'll stay on a while longer."
     When Boris Privalov entered  the lobby of the  underground his  glasses
became clouded over from the warm air inside. He took them off to wipe them,
and when he put  them on again the first person  he saw was Nikolai Opratin,
who had just stepped off the escalator.
     Opratin wore  an  elegant coat with a  fur  collar and a  hat of  young
reindeer skin. He hurried up and greeted  Privalov with  what struck him  as
exaggerated affability.
     "How pleasant to run into someone from home in the hustle and bustle of
Moscow!" he exclaimed, pumping Privalov's hand. "I'm really very glad to see
you."
     "Why  all   this  effusion?"  Privalov  wondered.   "He's   usually  so
restrained. But, after all, it is indeed nice to meet someone from home."
     After the exchange of small talk customary on such an occasion, Opratin
asked,  in a casual tone,  "What  are they saying in the Academy about Fedor
Matveyev's manuscript?"
     "They're still  studying it. Incidentally,  there is a supposition that
something else besides the manuscript has come down to our day."
     "Really?" Opratin said, his voice now wary. "What's that?"
     "Fedor Matveyev's knife."
     "You don't put any stock in those Indian fairy tales, do you?"
     Privalov did not like this. Why  the subterfuge? He decided to take the
bull by the horns.
     "But we  know that one of  the  members  of your staff, Benedictov, had
Fedor Matveyev's knife. We  also know  that you searched  for it  on the sea
floor at the spot where the woman fell overboard from the Uzbekistan. If you
found the knife, the Academy people would be interested  in hearing a report
on  it. You  realize how important  it  would  be  for  the  advancement  of
science-"
     "You were misinformed," Opratin said in  an  icy tone. "I know  nothing
whatsoever about the knife."
     "But you were searching-"
     "My  'searching',  as  you put it, was  connected exclusively  with the
problem  of raising the level of the Caspian. As  regards Benedictov, he  is
working on a research project  at  our Institute, and I haven't the faintest
idea of what he does in his spare time."
     This was a polite but firm rebuke.  Privalov felt awkward. Indeed, what
grounds did he have for broaching this subject? Yura's letter? A remark made
by the talkative wife of a man called 'Uncle Vova'?
     "I beg your pardon," he said. "It seems I was indeed misinformed."
     "Yes, you were." Opratin glanced at his watch. "I must leave you now. I
have an appointment." He gave a thin smile and set off briskly  towards  the
exit.
     Privalov followed him  with a puzzled glance. If he only  knew that  at
this very moment  Opratin, his hand  in his pocket, was fingering the handle
of Fedor Matveyev's knife!


     After  several wearisome hours at the Ministry Nikolai  went  to  Kursk
Station for a ticket.
     There were queues at the booking office. Nikolai shook the snow off his
cap and took his place at the end of one of them.
     "Who's last in the queue?" he asked.
     A  thickset  man  in a brown  leather coat  lifted his  eyes  from  his
newspaper to glance at Nikolai disapprovingly.
     "I'm next to the last," he said.  "There's a lady behind me." He looked
round. "There she is, over there. You'll be after her."
     Nikolai glanced fleetingly at the young woman in a black  fur  coat and
white fur hat. She was at a newsstand with her back to him.
     The leather coat sniffed to clear his clogged nose and absorbed himself
in his newspaper. Bored,  Nikolai took  advantage  of his superior height to
read  the headlines over  the man's shoulder. His eye  was caught by a  news
item about an exhibition of captured equipment used by spies and  subversive
agents.  The item described  some of the displays: the wreckage of a foreign
reconnaissance  plane  brought  down  by Soviet airmen; pistols  fitted with
silencers;  walkie-talkies.  There  was  also the equipment  carried  by  an
Italian subversive agent who died in a Caspian port in 1942. His remains had
been accidentally  discovered in  an underground  passage not long ago.  The
agent  had apparently belonged to the Society  of Jesus, for around his neck
he wore a small flat box on which was engraved A M D G.
     What was this? Nikolai leaned forward and fixed his eyes on the printed
lines.
     AMDG. The initial letters of the Jesuit motto.
     The  leather  coat said irritably: "I intensely dislike having  someone
breathing down my neck, young man."
     "I beg your pardon," Nikolai muttered in confusion. He hurried  over to
the newsstand and bought a paper, which he began to read at once.
     All of a sudden he felt someone staring  fixedly at him. He  glanced in
annoyance at the lady in  black standing beside him, and then flung his head
back as though he had been hit on the jaw. The lady was Rita.
     "Are-are you in Moscow?" he stammered.
     "It's obvious I am, isn't it?"
     "Yes.  So am I. I'm on  a  business trip." Nikolai  coughed and started
folding his paper.
     "Are you returning home soon?"
     "Yes, I'm getting a ticket for Wednesday. What about you?"
     "I'm leaving tomorrow."
     Nikolai thrust  his  paper into his pocket. Rita turned  to  the  woman
behind  the counter of the newsstand. "I'll take  these picture  postcards,"
she said.
     She chose half a dozen cards with colour reproductions on them. Nikolai
glanced absently at them. One  was  a winter  landscape,  another Levi-tan's
"March",  then  a picture in the  Bilibin  style, of  a  ship with  a  taut,
wind-filled sail, bearing a drawing of  the sun, approaching a landing stage
where bearded men  in long  robes stood beside cannon wreathed  in clouds of
smoke.
     Nikolai said the  first thing  that  came into his  head. "'Guns firing
from the  wharf, ordering the  ship to  tie up.' I used to copy that picture
when I was a child."
     Rita swung  round  to face him.  "Did  you ever  give  that  drawing to
anyone?"
     Nikolai  caught  his  breath. He  stared intently  into that  pleasant,
mobile, questioning face  and  suddenly saw  long familiar  features-a perky
freckled nose, a mischievous smile, and glossy  yellow braids jutting out at
a belligerent angle
     "Yellow Lynx?" he whispered.


     What had Rita been doing in Moscow?
     Her friend met her at the railway station on arrival and took her home.
That same day  Rita  went to  a  hospital  in  Pirogov  Street  and  made an
appointment to see a famous neuropathologist. He listened attentively to her
story.
     "Only  a special course  of treatment  can help your husband,"  he told
her. "The cure  takes time  and  patience-but it is  the  only way. You must
persuade your husband to undergo this course of treatment. I can arrange for
him to enter the hospital where a pupil of mine, Dr. Khalilov, is doing very
good work in this field. The sooner he does this,  the better it will be for
him. I'll give you a letter to Dr. Khalilov."
     Now Rita was more upset than ever. She was determined to leave for home
at once,  before the end of the  winter school vacation. However, her friend
persuaded her to spend at least a week in Moscow.
     During that week Opratin came to see her three times.
     It so  happened that  Rita  and Opratin had travelled to Moscow on  the
same train. They had discovered this when  the train  halted  at Mineralniye
Vody and both had stepped out onto the platform  for a breath  of fresh air.
At  Kharkov, Opratin had again  approached  her on the platform and  chatted
with  her  for a few minutes. Rita had  given  him  her  friend's  telephone
number, at which she could be reached in Moscow.
     There was something  threatening and alarming about Opratin's visits to
Rita  in Moscow. His presence made her uncomfortable; she felt as though the
shadow of her husband were standing behind him.
     Opratin talked to her in a gentle,  friendly  tone. He agreed with  the
doctor,  he  said, that  Anatole should undergo  treatment. He himself would
help  to arrange a leave of any duration for Anatole. Rita was not to worry;
there were no particularly alarming  symptoms  as yet. Anatole was  cheerful
and enthusiastic about his work.
     "That backbreaking, endless, senseless  work of  Anatole's is what  has
estranged him from me," Rita thought.
     "We're on the  right track now," said  Opratin. "But I want you to bear
in  mind that it depends to a great extent  on you how much  longer the  job
will take."
     Opratin came to see her for the third time on a cold, snowy morning. It
was warm inside the flat, but tense, disturbing music poured from the radio.
     "That's  a waltz  from Masquerade" Rita  remarked  in a  low  voice  to
Opratin, who  was seated on the sofa, his legs crossed, tapping  one foot in
time to the music.
     "Look here, Rita," he  said as the violins soared and then fell silent.
"I know I'm making a nuisance of myself but I really must speak to you again
about Fedor Matveyev's knife."
     "This is becoming intolerable," Rita said coldly. "I've told you twenty
times that the knife fell into the sea and was lost."
     "No,  the  knife  is  in  your  possession," Opratin declared. "I can't
understand why you are  being so stubborn. Now follow me carefully.  Anatole
and  I have invented  a  remarkable machine. If we  exclude  that accidental
phenomenon which your ancestor Fedor Matveyev witnessed in India, no one has
ever  come  so close  to solving  the problem of the mutual penetrability of
matter  as we have. This will be  a major breakthrough. Your husband's  name
will stand side  by side with those of  the most brilliant scientists of our
age."
     "But I don't want that!" Rita burst out.
     She turned away, biting  her lip to keep from crying, and walked to the
farther end of the room.
     "He doesn't need fame," she continued in a calmer  voice. "He needs  to
forget about  that damned  knife, cure himself and return home. That's all I
want. That and nothing more. Please leave me alone."
     Opratin rose. "Very well. I'll leave  you alone. But Anatole will never
return to you. Well, goodbye."
     He moved to the door.
     "Wait!" Rita shrieked. "Why-why won't he return?"
     Opratin turned round abruptly. "Because he is slowly but surely killing
himself. Because the doses  he is now taking would kill an elephant. Because
he will not be able  to  endure it if we  don't succeed. And success depends
only on the knife. The knife guarantees solution of the  problem and, at the
same time, your husband's recovery."
     Rita pressed the palms of her hands to her temples. Her eyes were those
of a sick, hunted animal.
     Opratin waited. The wind  whipped flurries of snow against the windows,
making the panes tremble.
     Rita walked with  wooden steps  into the next room.  Opratin heard  the
click of a lock.
     She returned and flung a knife on the table.
     It fell with a strangely light tap.
     Opratin walked unhurriedly over to the table. He picked up the knife by
the handle  and fixed his eyes on  the narrow blade  with  the wavy  design.
Suddenly he plunged it into the table. The blade entered the thick, polished
wood almost up to the hill. Opratin's eyes blazed with triumph.
     "Rita, allow me to-"
     "Don't. Just go."
     She stood by the window for  a long lime,  looking  out  from the ninth
floor at a Moscow wrapped in clouds of snow.
     Then she threw on her coat, dashed out of the  flat, and took a taxi to
the railway station.


     "Yes, Yellow Lynx. That was what they called me when we were kids." She
took Nikolai by the arm. Her eyes shone as though a  film had  been stripped
from them. "I still have that drawing you made."
     "I kept thinking there  was something  familiar about your  face," said
Nikolai in a constrained whisper.
     "I kept wondering too. When you and your friend came  to my house I was
on the verge of recognizing you."
     "You know who  my friend was? It was Yura." "Yura?" Rita laughed. "Dear
me, he used lo be such a little boy. But so brave, with those feathers stuck
in his hair."
     "But  we told you  our names. Didn't you-" "Do you  know my last name?"
"No."
     "Well,  I didn't know  yours  either. Children  are never interested in
last names. If we'd attended the same school it would  have been a different
matter."
     Nikolai studied Rita's face. "Can it really be Yellow Lynx?" he thought
in amazement. "You've changed a lot," he said.
     Rita's face grew sober. She gave  him a long, inquiring glance. Nikolai
had the feeling that she was about to tell him  something important. But she
only said, "Do you still live in the same place?"
     "Yes, in Cooper Lane."
     "Cooper Lane," Rita mused. "It seems like a hundred years ago."
     "Why not  take a ticket for Wednesday?" Nikolai suggested hesitatingly.
"Then we could travel together."
     Rita was silent. Did she want to spend another whole day in Moscow? No,
definitely not. She wanted lo leave tomorrow. There was nothing more for her
to do  in Moscow. But she  suddenly  heard herself  saying, "Yes,  Wednesday
would suit me fine."
     Afterwards they  walked along the Sadovoye Ring. Rita,  her gloved hand
raised to protect  her face from the snow, told  Nikolai how her  family had
moved  lo Leningrad and then the war had come and her father had been killed
when Tallinn was evacuated. He had been in command of a big Troop Transport.
She and  her mother had survived the siege of Leningrad.  After the war they
had moved back  to the town  on the Caspian Sea because her mother was  very
ill and the doctors had ordered a warmer climate for her.
     Rita said nothing about her marriage.
     "Why didn't you ever pay a visit to Cooper Lane?"
     "I did, soon after we came back. I stopped in to look at the flat where
we  used to live. I saw a  fat woman sitting on  the balcony, knitting.  The
place called  up painful memories. Everything reminded me of Father. If only
Father   had  lived-"  Rita  stopped.  "Everything  would  have  turned  out
differently."
     She shivered. Nikolai screwed up his courage and took her by the arm.
     "I remember now," he  said.  "There used to be  two small bars of iron,
with some  kind  of mysterious letters engraved on  them, on  your  father's
desk. Lately I've been wondering where  I  saw them before. Do you remember?
We pledged to do everything we could to discover their secret." "Do you know
that my maiden name was Matveyev?" Rita suddenly asked.
     "Matveyev?" Nikolai repeated in confusion. "That means you're-"
     "That's right,  I'm-" Rita's face grew longer. "Rut we won't talk about
that now. Please don't. There's been too much for one day."
     She  gave  Nikolai  a  searching  look,  studying  his  frank face  and
attentive grey eyes. His ears were a bright red. Imagine going about in such
a frost with just a spring hat on one's head!
     "I'm so glad I met you." she said in a low voice. "I have such a lot to
tell you. No, not now. On the train."


     It was nearly five o'clock by the time Nikolai returned to the hotel.
     "Boris, you simply won't believe  your eyes!" he called out exuberantly
from the doorway. "Read this." He drew the newspaper from his pocket.
     Privalov pushed his  spectacles up  to his forehead and skimmed through
the item about the displays at the exhibition.
     "A small  metal box with the inscription A M D G." Privalov leaned back
in his chair and his glasses dropped onto his nose of themselves. "You think
this has some relation to-"
     "Yes, definitely.  It's  the same engraving as on our box. What if this
is 'The Key to the Mystery'?"
     "In the hands of an Italian subversive  agent? Hm-m. Sounds doubtful to
me."
     "De  Maistre  came from Italy too,"  Nikolai protested. "And  there are
Jesuits  there to this day, of course. We ought to go to the museum and take
a look, Boris. If the size of the box coincides with the measurements in the
drawing-"
     There were not too  many visitors at the exhibition. Several youngsters
were arguing heatedly in front of the walkie-talkie display. Two airmen were
examining the wreckage of a foreign plane brought down on Soviet territory.
     It did not take Privalov and Nikolai long to find, in the  next room, a
tall glass showcase in which  stood a life-size  dummy dressed in a tattered
outfit, with a parachute on its back. A small golden crucifix gleamed at the
throat,  visible through  the  open collar.  Bars of  blasting  charges,  an
aqualung,  a frogman's suit,  a pistol,  a radio transmitter and receiver, a
ball of nylon cord and other articles were laid out at the dummy's feet.
     Rut there was no sign of a small metal box with the inscription A  M  D
G.
     "How odd!" Nikolai slowly ran  his eyes again  over  the things in  the
showcase. "Very odd indeed. The paper clearly slated-"
     "Let's speak to the person in charge," said Privalov.
     The  director  of the  exhibition,  a  short,  balding man,  raised his
eyebrows in surprise when  Privalov told him  there was no  metal box in the
showcase.
     "That can't be," he said. "You simply failed to notice it."
     But the  director himself was unable to find the  box with the initials
of the Jesuit motto. It had vanished.
     "It was here last night," he said, looking worried. "I remember showing
it to  a group of visitors." At  this point he noticed that the tiny lock on
the showcase had been forced open.
     The director gave Privalov a questioning look and asked him to  explain
his interest in the little box.
     Privalov  briefly recounted the  history of the iron  boxes. He did not
say anything  about their contents but merely mentioned that  the Academy of
Sciences was interested in them.
     "No  doubt you have  an  inventory  of  the  Italian  agent's  things,"
Privalov said when he had finished.  "We  should like to see the description
of the stolen box."
     The director showed them the inventory. They could hardly believe their
eyes when they read that the body of the Italian agent and his equipment had
been  found  by a  person named Nikolai  Opratin, a  Candidate  of Technical
Sciences, in the environs of Derbent the previous August.
     "At  every  turn  we come up against Opratin,"  Nikolai  said in a  low
voice.
     "I now  recall having heard about  some  sort  of adventure  he had  at
Derbent,"  said Privalov.  "Let's read further." A flat  metal box  with the
letters A M  D G, and below them the letters J d M engraved on it was listed
as No. 14 in the inventory. It weighed 430 grammes. Its size was-
     "The very same measurements!" Nikolai exclaimed. "I remember them well.
This is 'The Key to the Mystery'. There's no doubt about it."
     An hour  or  so later they had to repeat the story of  the boxes  to  a
black-eyed young investigator, who wrote it all down in a notebook.
     It  was fairly late by the time Privalov and  Nikolai  emerged into the
street. A raw  wind  whirled the  snow  into their faces. The  frost pinched
their ears.
     "'The Key to the Mystery'," Privalov mused. "What could it be? Probably
some very important paper."
     "Perhaps it's a description of the machine."
     They walked along  a  narrow  path  in the snow leading  to the  hotel.
Fences stretched on one side  of them and  stalls  and booths  on the other.
Somewhere in  the distance a dog howled.  The  lighted windows of the  hotel
sparkled in front of them.
     "What a day!" Nikolai thought. He recalled he had not had any dinner.
     "I'll drop into the cafeteria, Boris," he said.
     As  he walked past the  hotel  across  the street from his own, Nikolai
stopped at the entrance.
     "Why not?" he thought. "I'll draw  Uncle Vova  out  of the room-without
Opratin knowing about it,  of  course-and put the question to  him straight.
Drive him into a corner. Something tells me he's the one who stole it."
     Nikolai entered the  lobby and  asked the  desk  clerk to summon a  man
named Bugrov from room 130.
     "Bugrov?"  The clerk  looked into the  register.  "He  checked out this
afternoon.  Opratin and Bugrov.  They called  a taxi and  drove off  to  the
airport."


        CHAPTER EIGHT

        IN WHICH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE MATVEYEV FAMILY IS BROUGHT TO
THE READER'S ATTENTION

     "Get in quick!" the plump conductress said to Nikolai.
     Nikolai waved to Privalov for the last time and hurriedly followed Rita
up the steps and into the carriage.
     The early winter twilight thickened fast.  The houses  of a small  town
appeared in sight and vanished, to be followed  by a frozen stream and three
motionless figures standing with fishing lines beside holes in the ice.
     Nikolai  was  the first to speak. "There's something you wanted to tell
me, Rita, isn't there?"
     "Yes, there is."
     The wheels clicked rhythmically on the rail joints.
     Nikolai  stared out into  the darkness with unseeing  eyes as he waited
for Rita to begin.
     "I  don't  know  how  to  start,"  Rita  finally  said.  "It's  all  so
complicated-and I've never told anyone about it before." She sighed  softly.
"All  right,  listen. You remember those two small bars of iron that used to
lie  on  Father's  desk  when  we were children,  don't  you? I'll  tell you
everything I know about them."
     The authors  will now  take the liberty of relating  the  story  of the
boxes since  they have every reason to believe that they now know it  better
than Rita did.


     The Story of the Three Boxes


     Stories about strange  doings  in  the Matveyev family  had  long  been
circulating in St. Petersburg. To begin with,  way back during the reign  of
Peter the Great a Matveyev, a naval lieutenant, had returned from India with
a bewitchingly beautiful dark-eyed  girl. The "taint" in the Matveyev family
had  probably started  with her. Her sons and grandsons did not rise high in
the  government service.  They cut  short  their  careers  by resigning  and
burying themselves on their estate in the Tver Province. There they lived in
seclusion, rarely entertaining any visitors.
     From  the  few outsiders  who did  enter the  house it was learned that
rustling, grinding  and crackling sounds would come from a forbidden chamber
long past midnight.  These sounds were  accompanied by infernal  sparks; the
kind  of freshness  in  the  air that  follows a  thunderstorm would  spread
through the house.
     Moreover, it was whispered that  the Matveyevs  had a  magic knife, the
Indian  girl's dowry.  No one really knew what kind of a magic  knife it was
until it came the turn of Arseny Matveyev, great-grandson of  Fedor Matveyev
and  his Indian wife,  to graduate from the naval school in St.  Petersburg.
The young  warrant  officers hired a  room in  a tavern  on the Moika  for a
bachelor supper party to celebrate their graduation. They  made a great many
fiery  speeches over the wine. They recalled adventures from  their cruises,
for all of them had sailed in seas near and far as naval cadets.
     At the height of the  party Arseny  Matveyev placed his swarthy hand on
the table, palm  downwards,  snatched  a knife  from a  scabbard inside  his
shirt, and plunged it into his hand right up to  the  hilt. Then  he quickly
returned the knife  to  its  hiding place and held up his hand.  It bore  no
trace of a scratch, no sign  of  blood. Afterwards, the young revelry-makers
could not say for sure whether they had actually seen this or whether it was
a product of their wine-heated imaginations.
     However that may be, Arseny Matveyev and his knife were soon forgotten.
Napoleon's army invaded Russia. The years that followed were wreathed in the
gunpowder smoke of danger and martial glory.
     But there  was one person in St. Petersburg, a man  always dressed only
in black, who thought constantly about the  miraculous knife.  From  trusted
men he received periodic reports about  Arseny Matveyev, wherever the latter
happened to be.
     The  man in black was Count Joseph Marie de Maistre, Ambassador  of the
King of  Sardinia  (a  king  who  had been deprived  of  his  realm)  and an
important personage in the Society of Jesus.
     Before the War of 1812 there had been a Jesuit school in St. Petersburg
where,  for a  high fee,  quite a  number  of young  men  from distinguished
families  learned  Latin prayers  and  Bible  history,  plus  obedience  and
humility.  When graduates of the school entered the  government service they
did not forgot their spiritual fathers.
     Young Prince Kurasov visited Count de Maistre perhaps more  often  than
others.  He  was  the  one  who  told  the  Sardinian  Ambassador about  the
miraculous knife. The prince had been one of the few  non-naval  men invited
to the supper party and had seen Arseny Matveyev  plunge the knife into  his
hand.
     The prince's story gave Count de Maistre much food for thought. A knife
that passed harmlessly through a hand? The elderly Jesuit believed as firmly
in divine  signs as he did in the glorious predestination of the Society  of
Jesus, vigilant guardian of the faith and thrones. This was certainly a sign
from on high.  Just  as the knife  had passed through  human flesh,  Jesuits
would  pass without  hindrance  into the  palaces  of monarchs and  into the
chambers of high officials to persuade  them to stamp out free thinking. The
time had  come to put  a stop to  the  anti-religious  sciences that  had so
multiplied.  These  Devil's  instruments  advocated   the   Jacobinism  that
destroyed thrones.  The  time had  come  to make  men's hearts humble before
divine  Providence.  The time had come to  elevate the Society, despite  the
persecution to which it was subjected, despite the blindness of some rulers.
The  great honour of  bringing this sign to the attention of the Society had
fallen on him, Count Joseph Marie de Maistre.
     The Count resolved  not  to let Arseny  Matveyev  disappear  from view.
Through scraps of information brought  him by other  graduates of the school
he followed the  young man's  fortunes in the war.  He knew that Arseny  had
been wounded,  had convalesced  at his  estate at Tver, had been recalled to
the Baltic  Fleet, promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and was now stationed
at Kronstadt, near St. Petersburg.
     One day in  March 1815 a carriage drew up to the Sardinian Ambassador's
residence,  and  a  tall, thin-faced  man  stepped out  of  it. Fastidiously
skirting a large puddle of melting snow, he mounted the steps leading to the
front  entrance. The Count received him  at once. The  thin-faced  man bowed
respectfully as he entered the Count's study.
     The  Count was  sitting in a deep  armchair before  the  fireplace.  He
turned  his lined,  parchment-yellow face to  the newcomer  and  indicated a
chair with a wave of his hand.
     "What is the news, mon prince?" he asked in a weary voice.
     Young Prince Kurasov seated himself on the edge of a chair.
     "The news  is  fairly good, Your Excellency,"  he said  wanly.  "I have
learned that Arseny Matveyev does not carry the knife about with him but has
left  it  at Zakharino,  the  family estate.  He  has been appointed  senior
officer on the brig Askold, now being outfitted at Kronstadt preparatory  to
cruising in the Pacific Ocean in search of new lands."
     The Count lowered his eyelids. "Is that all?"
     "No.  Now comes the most important news. Three days ago, in the company
of philosophers and atheists  like himself, Arseny  Matveyev made  seditious
speeches. He  spoke in favour of the  convocation  of a general assembly  in
Russia."
     Count de  Maistre sat up straight and  struck the arm of his chair with
his  frail  fist. The  eyes  in the  yellow  face glowed with  an  evil  and
unexpectedly youthful sparkle.
     "It  seems  to  me,  Your Excellency," Prince Kurasov  said cautiously,
"that it would be well to set things in motion-"
     The Count stopped him with a gesture and became lost in thought.
     "No,  mon  prince,'" he  said  after  a  long interval, "we'll  take  a
different course. When does the lieutenant depart on the brig?"
     "In June."
     "Splendid!  We've waited a long time, and  we can wait a little longer,
until June.  The matter  must be arranged without undue fuss. Do not disturb
Arseny Matveyev."


     A little over two and a half years later, on a hot day in February, the
brig Askold,  badly  battered  by severe storms, dropped anchor  at  Rio  de
Janeiro. There the Russian  Consul  handed Arseny a  letter from  his father
that had arrived nearly two years before.
     "I  shall  briefly set  forth the  misfortunes which have  befallen our
house, not through God's will  but  because of the  evil designs of wretched
creatures," his father  wrote. "You  of course remember Prince  Kurasov.  He
used  to be a friend of  yours. Fawning  and deference have enabled this man
Kurasov to rise  to the higher ranks and, some say,  to involvement with the
secret police. Out of spite, or for some other reason,  Kurasov has informed
against you, repeating everything that you said  in your youthful  hastiness
and  naming  the books you  read. This  denunciation  brought  officials  to
Zakharino. They searched the  house from top to  bottom,  turning everything
upside down, under the pretence of looking for seditious papers.
     "But it seems to me that  they  were looking for something else.  Since
they did not find any papers of that kind some of those hounds ransacked our
special chamber  most painstakingly.  They examined the electricity machines
from all sides. Furthermore, they confiscated the manuscript  in which Fedor
Matveyev,  my  grandfather  and your great-grandfather, described his Indian
travels. They also confiscated that wonderful knife of his."
     At the beginning of June 1818, after an  absence of nearly three years,
the Askold sailed into the roadstead near St. Petersburg.
     Early  next  morning Prince Kurasov's valet announced  that  Lieutenant
Matveyev  wished  to see  him. The  Prince, in his  dressing-gown, was being
shaved by his barber.
     "Tell him I'm not at home," he ordered.
     A  few minutes  later there was a commotion downstairs, and the valet's
raised voice could be heard. Then the door was flung  open. Arseny Matveyev,
his cheeks tanned  a  deep brown, stood on the threshold. He was in uniform,
with a sword at his side. Prince Kurasov pushed aside the barber's hand  and
slowly rose  to his feet, wiping the lather from his cheek. Arseny looked at
him with burning eyes.
     "Is this how you welcome old friends, Prince?"
     "Please leave the room, sir," the Prince said coldly. "You should thank
the Almighty you got off so easily."
     Arseny put his  hand on  his sword-hilt. "I give you exactly one minute
to hand back the souvenirs you  took from my father's estate," he  said with
restrained fury.
     The Prince's narrow face turned whiter  than  his lace  cuffs. He  took
several slow steps  backwards,  towards his canopied bed, and  stretched out
his hand to tug at the bell-rope. In two bounds Arseny, his sword drawn, was
at the Prince's side.
     Meanwhile the barber had fled, whimpering, from the room.
     The  Prince,  frightened out  of  his wits, stammered  that  the things
confiscated during  the  search  had  been turned  over  to Count Joseph  de
Maistre, the former Sardinian Ambassador.
     "Where does that Jesuit reside now? Tell me, quick!"
     "The Count left Russia last year," Prince Kurasov replied sullenly.  "I
do not know where he is now."
     Arseny  spent  only  a short  time in St. Petersburg.  He tendered  his
resignation arid left for Zakharino.
     The warm September day was drawing to a close. Candles had been lighted
in the small  snow-white Villa standing in a garden on the edge of a town in
northern Italy. Their  flickering glow  was reflected in the mahogany panels
that lined the walls of the study. A spare old man in  black  stood  leaning
against an elegant table, examining a sheet of parchment which he held close
to his  eyes. Another man, portly  and somewhat  younger, stood to one side,
waiting.
     "My friends were not mistaken in recommending you and your erudition to
me," the old man said, laying the sheet of parchment on the table.
     The scholar bowed.
     "You have done the Society of Jesus a great service," said the old man,
taking a purse out of a drawer in the table.
     "Ad majorem Dei gloriam" the scholar said, accepting the purse. "I wish
Your Excellency a good night."
     After seeing his visitor out of the room the old man summoned a servant
and told him to close all the shutters in the house and kindle a fire in the
fireplace. In his old age Count de Maistre suffered greatly from the cold.
     He sat  down at  the  table  and again examined  the parchment.  He was
pleased.  The old riddle brought  back  from cold Russia  had been given  an
excellent interpretation. He could already foresee the  great  day when  the
glory of the Society of Jesus would shine as never before. He,  Count Joseph
de Maistre, had not toiled in vain these many years.
     The clatter of horses'  hooves  on the stony road not far away came  to
his ears for a minute or so.
     Opening a  carved  casket,  the  Count  removed  from  it  a  rolled-up
manuscript tied with a ribbon, and a knife with  an ivory  handle. Then, one
after  another,  he took out  three small iron boxes and gazed admiringly at
their  gleaming  sides.  A  master  craftsman  in  Turin had fashioned  them
according to his design, and on each box had engraved the initial letters of
the great motto: A M D G
     Below  it he  had  engraved Count  Joseph  de  Maistre's crown and  his
initials:

     J d M

     The Count placed the rolled manuscript in  one of the boxes, muttering:
"The Source".
     Then  he cautiously took the knife by  its handle and  laid  it in  the
second box: "The Evidence," he said.
     "And  this-"  he  neatly  folded the  parchment which  the  scholar had
brought- and this will be 'The Key to the Mystery'."
     All of a sudden he glanced with a  start at the dark window. He thought
he had heard the crunching of pebbles. But no, all was quiet.
     The Count placed "The Key to the  Mystery" in the third box. Now he had
only to close the covers and have them sealed.
     He  heard  a  rustle  outside the window. Was it the porter  making his
rounds?
     The Count  went  up to  the  window  and flung it open,  but  instantly
started back with a cry. A man in a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat was staring
at him from the shadow of an old hornbeam. He was young and swarthy, and his
dark eyes gleamed fiercely at the Count.
     "You have vigilant guards, Count," he said in French. "I was forced  to
climb over the wall. Do not be afraid. I am not a robber."
     The Count had recovered somewhat from  his fright.  "Who are you,  sir?
What do you want in my house?"
     "My name is Arseny Matveyev. Now you know what I want."
     Fear  distorted  the  Count's yellow  face.  Suddenly,  with  an energy
unexpected in such an old body, he dashed  to the table, on which his pistol
case lay.
     By this time Arseny was in the room.
     "Stop where you are, Count!"
     The unbidden guest whipped  out a pistol from under his cloak and aimed
it at  the Count, who took a step backwards. Realizing that the game was up,
the old Jesuit said in a gentle voice:
     "It  is  not becoming, my son,  to  threaten an  old man with a pistol.
Someone has evidently misled you."
     "Silence!" Arseny Matveyev barked.  "I  didn't  travel the  length  and
breadth of France  and Italy  searching for  you  just  to  listen  to  your
miserable evasions. Put  the knife and  the manuscript  on  that table. I'll
count to three."
     "There is no need," the Count said dispiritedly. "They are lying on the
table."
     Arseny strode over to the table. His eyes sparkled with joy at sight of
the knife.
     "The  manuscript is in that little  box," said Count de Maistre. "Don't
touch the third box. It is mine."
     "I  am  not a Jesuit. I do  not covet what  belongs to  others," Arseny
snapped, this time in Russian. "Take this for your iron boxes."
     He  tossed a  gold coin on  the table. Then he closed the covers of the
two boxes, one containing the knife and the other the manuscript, and thrust
them into his pockets.
     "Don't you dare to raise the alarm, you old  fox," he said as he turned
to leave. "If you do, you'll get a dose of lead."
     With  those  words  Arseny Matveyev  jumped down from the window.  Soon
after,  the  sound  of horse's hooves  on the  stony  road  faded  into  the
distance.
     On  returning to Russia, Arseny  Matveyev  was  unable to get down to a
thorough  study of the secret which  his great-grandfather had  brought from
India. Other affairs absorbed him. After his father's death he freed the few
serfs the family owned and turned over the estate to his younger brother. He
had  the two  small iron  boxes  reliably  sealed.  Then  he  moved  to  St.
Petersburg, where he joined a secret society of revolutionaries.
     On December 14, 1825, after the failure of the December uprising in St.
Petersburg, Arseny  came  galloping into  Zakharino in the  night. The  next
morning gendarmes broke into the house. As they led Arseny out of the house,
under arrest,  he only had time to whisper to his brother: "Guard those  two
little iron boxes like the apple of your eye. Farewell."
     Arseny Matveyev  was exiled to salt mines in Siberia. He never returned
from there.


     "All  I know," said Rita,  "is that Arseny brought  home two small iron
boxes from abroad, and they were in  the  possession of the Matveyev  family
ever since. No one knew that anything was inside them. When my husband and I
started  packing our  things before moving to  our present flat,  the  knife
suddenly  dropped out of one of the  boxes. Mother  threw the other box away
along with a  lot of old junk. It  was dirty  and rusty and had been used to
prop up an  old wardrobe  with a broken leg.  Who could have  guessed  there
would be a manuscript inside?"
     "Did you ever hear anything about a third box?" Nikolai asked.
     "No. That's why  I  was so surprised when you and Yura came  to ask  me
about it. What do you know?"
     "Only that it exists."
     Nikolai then told Rita about the Italian subversive agent and the theft
in the museum.
     "There was  something very important in that third little box," he said
in conclusion. "De Maistre called it 'The Key to the Mystery'."
     The  other  passengers in the  carriage  had  gone to  bed.  The  plump
conductress  was  sweeping  the corridor.  They  continued  to stand by  the
window, watching  the snowbound night  fly  past,  marked  off by  telegraph
poles.
     Nikolai reflected in amazement that here was Rita standing by his side,
elbow to elbow, no longer an infinitely distant stranger but Yellow Lynx, an
old friend from his childhood. Yet still in all a stranger.
     "Look here, Nikolai," Rita  said suddenly, pressing her forehead to the
glass and closing her eyes. "Can I trust you?"
     He wanted to  say that he  was  ready  to jump off  the  train into the
darkness then and there if she asked him to.
     "Yes," he said.
     Rita was silent for  a while. Then she threw back her  head. "I feel as
though I'll burst into tears in a moment if I don't tell someone-"
     She then proceeded to tell him,  without holding  anything  back, about
the misfortune that had befallen her. She told him how  Anatole had  started
to study the knife and how she had encouraged his ambition. How, desiring to
increase his  working capacity, he  had  become a  drug  addict. How she had
jumped  overboard after  the knife, caught it in  the clear water, hidden it
under  her  dress and  told  her  husband  it was lost  because-so  she  had
thought-without   the  knife  he  would   not  be  able  to   continue   his
investigations.  How  she  had urged  Anatole  to  give  up  those  accursed
experiments,  but  instead he  had joined up with Opratin  and  was  wearing
himself  out  with work and with drugs. How he had walked out of  the house.
And  finally, she told  Nikolai  how she  had given  Opratin the  knife  the
previous day in the hope that this  would help them to complete  the project
sooner, after which Anatole would return to her.
     "You gave the knife to Opratin!" Nikolai exclaimed.
     Rita measured him with a long look.
     "Promise me you won't tell a soul about any of this. Not a single soul.
Not even Yura."
     "But  why, Rita?  Why keep silent? On the contrary, something has to be
done.  We  must convince your husband  that  such  single-handed experiments
aren't fruitful. We must persuade him to switch to our Institute."
     "No," she said. "He wouldn't pay any attention to that kind of talk. It
would only make him still angrier."
     "He wouldn't  listen  to  me, of course.  But he  would to Privalov and
Professor Bagbanly."
     "No, you don't know him," Rita repeated insistently. "You must  promise
to say nothing. I demand it."
     "Very well," said Nikolai in a downcast voice, "I promise."



        4

        IPATY ISLAND

     "They unfurled their canvas sails
     And sped across the Caspian Sea."
     -From the Russian epic poem
     Vassily Buslayevich





        CHAPTER ONE

     IN WHICH PRIVALOV'S LABORATORY IS BLOWN UP

     Valery  Gorbachevsky  felt, on  that  lovely  day  in  June,  that  his
bottle-green  sun-glasses were rose-coloured.  His leave of absence  to take
his correspondence college exams was over, and everything had gone well,  if
you closed your eyes to a mediocre mark in English.
     He was now on his way to work after an interval of twenty days. He  was
walking  fast because he  had had  to  stop at the library, which  opened at
eight  o'clock,  to return  some textbooks, and  he was  afraid he would  be
reprimanded by Nikolai Potapkin for being late.
     Valery skirted the bed of gladioli near the entrance and  flew into the
lobby. He  dashed past  the cloakroom, with  its  thickets of  nickel-plated
racks, and past the time-board,  now closed, hoping that speed  would enable
him to avoid the timekeeper.
     It did not work out that way. The timekeeper, pleasant-faced Ella,  was
at  her  place.  Strangely  enough, Yura Kostyukov,  incredibly handsome  in
cream-coloured  flannels  and  a  new  green-and-yellow  checked shirt,  was
sitting  beside  her.  Still  under   the  influence  of   Fedor  Matveyev's
manuscript, Yura was amusing himself by paying the girl  courtly compliments
in  eighteenth  century  fashion. Ella did  not understand half of what Yura
said but she was flattered and could not stop giggling.
     When Yura caught sight of Valery he turned with great dignity to glance
at the clock.  "Please  note, Ella," he drawled, "that  this man,  returning
from a  leave of absence, has arrived eleven minutes late but  does not look
the least repentant."
     "What  the hell are you doing  here?" Valery  wondered disrespectfully.
Out loud he said the first thing that came into his head. "The trolleybus-"
     "Ah,  to be sure,  to be sure."  Yura nodded understandingly. "I hadn't
thought of  that. But fate is always  merciful to the lazy  ones." He drew a
folded sheet of paper from his  breast pocket.  "Here you  are. This is  for
you."
     "My annual vacation?" Valery said, reading the paper. "But I don't want
it just now."
     "There  are times when  the management has the right to insist that the
personnel go on vacation even if they don't want to," Yura said in a tone of
mock authority. "I didn't ask for my vacation either. Neither did any of the
others".
     "All of us? The whole laboratory?"
     "At nine  o'clock  you'll be able to draw  your vacation pay. And don't
ask idle questions."
     "I'll step into the laboratory meanwhile."
     "Follow my example, young man, and restrain your zeal."


     Yura was right. Managements do have the right, when circumstances arise
that prevent the normal functioning of a  factory shop, office or the  like,
to insist that members of the staff take their annual vacation regardless of
any schedules that may have been drawn up previously.
     In this case the circumstances had been the following:
     After Privalov  and Nikolai returned from Moscow  the development  of a
pipeless  oil  pipeline  had  been included  in their  Institute's  research
programme.  Since  the  main research  was  being done at  the  Institute of
Surfaces  in  Moscow, cautious Pavel Koltukhov forbade  experiments in  this
field.
     "The devil take  the  lot of you!" he exclaimed in  reply to Privalov's
arguments. "I'm fed up with your delightful habit of sticking your finger in
other people's pies.  First thing I know your lab technician will be putting
his head in an inductor, and I'll have to answer for it."
     When a thick envelope arrived from Moscow towards the end of  April the
Institute  director summoned  Koltukhov and Privalov to a  conference.  When
Professor Bagbanly arrived shortly afterwards he was also  shown through the
massive leather-covered door of the director's office. The conference lasted
for hours. First  glasses of tea were  carried in,  then bottles of  mineral
water.
     Yura appeared in the reception room after lunch. "Smells like something
burning," he remarked  with a  glance  at the closed door, wrinkling up  his
nose.
     The secretary did  not pause in her typing. "Run along now,  Yura," she
said. "They'll manage without you."
     Yura went back to the laboratory.
     "Something's cooking  in the director's office,  Nikolai," he whispered
to his friend. "They've been at it since morning. Boris forgot all about his
yoghur