Don’t take my life – I’m a family man, a good Orthodox Christian, eh?’
Senka answered, playing the big man: ‘Don’t you worry. You won’t twitch much – we’ll take pity on you.’
Then the man said to Senka. ‘Curious? Go on, then, have a gander. They’re taking their time over it.’
There was a collidor. Long it was, with doors in a row on both sides. Maybe was standing at the near end, and Surely at the far end (or the other way round, Senka still found it hard to tell the brothers apart). They had fiddles too.
‘I came to have a look,’ Senka said. ‘Just a quick peep.’
‘Be my guest,’ said Maybe (or it could have been Surely), flashing his white teeth in a smile.
Just then, one of the doors started to open. He slammed it shut with his foot and barked: ‘Come out here and you’re for it!’
Someone wailed behind the door: ‘What are you doing, you fooligan? I have to get to the lav.’
Maybe hooted with laughter: ‘Puddle in your pants. But you kick up a racket, and I’ll shoot through the door.’
‘Holy God,’ gasped the voice behind the door. ‘Is it a hold-up, then? I won’t bother you, lads, I’ll be quiet.’
And the bolt rasped shut.
Maybe started giggling again (it was probably Surely after all – he was always grinning from ear to ear). He pointed with his devolvert to a half-open door halfway down the collidor: That’s where it is.
Senka walked over and glanced inside.
He saw two men tied to chairs – they had swarthy skin and narrow eyes. One was really old, about fifty, with a little goatee beard, a pair of good plaid trousers, and a silk waistcoat with a gold chain dangling out of the pocket. He had to be the horse-trader. The other one was young, without any beard or moustache, with a calico shirt hanging over his trousers – he was definitely the right-hand man.
The Prince was striding to and fro between the two men, waving his flail through the air.
Senka opened the door a bit wider – so where was Deadeye, then?
He was doing something really strange: he’d taken that pen of his (a foil, it was called) out of the cane, and was shredding the feather mattress on the bed with it, scattering fluff and feathers in the air.
‘Can’t think where else,’ said Deadeye. ‘Where could our friends from the steppe have concealed their porte-monnaie ?’
The Prince sneezed – the fluff must have got up his nose.
‘All right, Deadeye, don’t get in a sweat.’ He stopped in front of the foreman and grabbed hold of his hair with one hand. ‘They’ll spill the beans. Right, Yellow-face, are you going to blab? Or would you like to chew on this iron apple here?’
And he swung the flail in front of the foreman’s face (which wasn’t yellow at all, it was as white as chalk, as if it had been dusted with the stuff).
Deadeye stopped lashing his blade about and sprinkled some powder on his fingernail (candy cane, Senka guessed). As he threw his head back, Senka winced – now he’d start sneezing even worse than the Prince! But Deadeye wasn’t bothered, he just squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, they’d turned all wet and shiny.
The Kalmyk foreman licked his lips – they were as white as his mug – and said: ‘I don’t know . . . Badmai Kekteevich doesn’t tell me.’
‘Right, then,’ said the Prince with a nod. He let go of the foreman’s hair and turned to the horse-trader. ‘Well, Goat-beard? Shall I chop you into little pieces, or are you going to talk?’
The horse-trader seemed like a tough old nut to crack. He spoke calmly and his voice didn’t shake: ‘I’m not so stupid as to keep my money here. I went to the market office today and put it in the safe. Take what there is and leave. This watch is gold. And there’s money in the wallet. Enough for you.’
The Prince looked round at Deadeye, who was standing there, smiling at something. He confirmed the story.
‘That’s right. There is a safe at the horse market and the traders put their money in it for safe-keeping, so it won’t get stolen and they can’t binge it all away.’
Senka saw the trader and his man glance at each other, and Badmai fixed his eyes on something on the floor. Ah-ha! One leg of the foreman’s chair was pressing down on a floorboard, and its