The collection of short stories and short stories reveals to the reader where Erast Petrovich was and what he did in the intervals between the cases described in the previous books of the series, and also answers various questions.
— Sigumo (story) — 1881, Yokohama. The story refers to the time of Erast Fandorin’s service as the Russian vice-consul in Japan. Under strange circumstances, in a Buddhist monastery in Yokohama, the hermit monk Matan, a former Russian nobleman, diplomat, and Fandorin’s colleague, dies. It is rumored that the cause of Matan’s death was Shigumo — a giant werewolf, vampire spider. But Fandorin suspects that the hermit’s death has a completely earthly explanation, and starts his own investigation.
— Table talk of 1882 (story) — Moscow, 1882. The action of this short story takes place entirely in one of the Moscow salons shortly after the end of the case about the death of M. Sobolev. One of the visitors tells the mysterious story of the disappearance of one of the two twin sisters, which happened six years earlier, which neither the police, who conducted a thorough investigation, nor the father, a rich prince who spared no money for the search, managed to unravel. Fandorin unravels the riddle without leaving the room and even finds a way to document the correctness of his decision.
— From the life of wood chips (story) — Moscow, 1883. Leonard von Mack, the owner of a large railway company, was poisoned in his Moscow office. Arsenic was poured into his evening tea; The secretary, who was treated by the owner, and the night janitor who sipped the master’s tea from the abandoned teapot, also perished. The famous St. Petersburg detective Vanyukhin is sure that the owner of the company was poisoned by his eldest son Sergei in order to take his father’s place at the head of the business. Sergei himself is convinced that the killer was sent by Mosolov, the owner of a competing company, in order to intercept a giant contract in this way.
— Jade rosary (story) — Moscow, 1884. At one of the Governor’s receptions, Fandorin learns the story of a mysterious double robbery of the same jewelry store: first, the criminals rummaged through the entire store, but took only a couple of cheap trinkets, and a week later they came again, the owner was literally chopped up with an ax, they rummaged through everything, but again they took only some trifle.
— Scarpeya Baskakov (story) — 1888. The main character is Anisy Tyulpanov, assistant to Erast Fandorin. The plot of The Dogs of the Baskervilles by Conan Doyle, transferred to Russian soil. No wonder the initial letters «C» and «B» in the titles of the books coincide. In the remote Parikhinsky district near Moscow, the ancient family of the Baskakovs was suppressed. Local residents associate the incident with the family magic animal of the Baskakov family — the Scarapea snake. There are also those who allegedly saw a giant snake in the local swamps. There is panic in the county. The Zemsky leadership complains to Moscow about the churchmen who indulge in superstition, the churchmen, in turn, about the godless Zemstvo leadership. To clarify the circumstances of the case, by order of Fandorin, his assistant, provincial secretary Anisy Tyulpanov, is traveling to the village.
— One tenth of a percent (story) — Moscow, 1890. On a high society hunt near Moscow, Prince Borovskaya was killed by an accidental shot — his partner, young Afanasy Kulebyakin, drank too much before the hunt and took the wrong sight. Given the nobility of the culprit and the unintentional nature of the crime, the murderer is only threatened with a fine and church repentance. But an accidental witness, the huntsman Antip Sapryka, came to the police after an ill-fated hunt.
— Tea drinking in Bristol (story) — Bristol, 1891. After a sharp refusal of the august person («State Councilor») Fandorin was expelled from his native country and forced to live in poverty temporarily in Bristol. Renting a room from an elderly Englishwoman, Miss Palmer, he, together with an elderly lady, successfully investigates the loss of the family treasure of a noble English family. It is this case, or rather, the reward received for it, that makes Fandorin think that the investigation of crimes can be made a business.
— Valley of Dreams (novella) — Splitstone, Wyoming, 1894. Erast Fandorin, a volunteer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, becomes a private detective in the United States. The head of the Pinkerton agency asks a Russian celebrity to help one of the American millionaires, a native of Russia, in acquiring a large plot of land, where a gang of robbers is operating.
— Before the end of the world (story) — the village of Bogomilovo, Arkhangelsk province, 1897. A state census is announced in Russia. In the imperial outback, where the Old Believers flourish, against the background of preparations for this process, a series of mysterious suicidal rituals of self-burying takes place. Erast Petrovich Kuznetsov, a witness to what is happening (the pseudonym under which Fandorin illegally appears in his homeland), together with a group of useful assistants (including a former Old Believer, psychologist, police officer) is trying to prevent a catastrophe of an all-Russian scale.
— The Prisoner of the Tower, or The Short but Beautiful Path of the Three Wise (story) — Castle of Vaud Garni, Brittany, 1899/1900. An ironic detective story about how, on the last night of the 19th century, two great detectives and an equally great swindler clashed in rivalry … Holmes and Watson, as well as Fandorin and Masa confront the genius of the criminal world, Arsene Lupine. In the course of the plot, each of the participants draws the correct conclusions and makes mistakes, but in the end it turns out that none of the three wise ones got what they wanted.
Producer of the publication: Vladimir Vorobyov
© B. Akunin
© & ℗ SP Vorobiev V.A.
© & ℗ ID SOYUZ
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