The Cleansing Flames (St Petersburg Mystery)

by R. N. Morris

  Dr Pervoyedov was equally surprised, and delighted, to find the magistrate at the door of his Gorokhovaya Street apartment. He called excitedly to his wife, ‘Anya! Anya! Come and see! It’s Porfiry Petrovich!’

  His wife came out from the kitchen to greet the magistrate with a shy smile, which was nonetheless illuminated by an ironic intelligence. She had never met Porfiry Petrovich before this day, a fact which seemed to have escaped her husband. But, in truth, he had talked so much about Porfiry over the years that she might have felt that she knew the magistrate as well as her husband seemed to assume she did. She smiled indulgently at Pervoyedov as he gabbled on; in her look, Porfiry detected a depth of love that for a moment exalted them all. The good doctor then insisted that Porfiry should be introduced to his son and demanded from his wife the boy’s whereabouts. She confessed that she hadn’t the least idea.

  A search of the apartment was made and young Gorya was at last found, much to the adults’ delight, under the table in the dining room, completely hidden by the long fringed cloth that trailed the floor. He was coaxed out with offers of bonbons, and introduced to the magistrate whose hand he shook with appropriate solemnity. The little boy seemed in awe of the strange plump man, even frightened of him.

  Porfiry dropped down onto his haunches with a grunt. ‘Close your eyes, Gorya.’

  The little boy obeyed. Porfiry ducked under the table, disappearing behind the hanging tablecloth, with a wink to Dr Pervoyedov’s wife.

  His parents’ laughter prompted Gorya to open his eyes. The stranger was nowhere to be seen. Of course, the first place he looked was under the table. Porfiry held a finger to his mouth, urging the boy to silence. Quick-witted Gorya played along, pretending that he had not seen the magistrate behind the tablecloth. The adults’ look of patronising amusement changed to confusion. They were forced to look for themselves, and seeing Porfiry with his hands over his face were only more bemused, until Gorya’s piping laughter told them that they had been taken in. Porfiry dropped his hands and leered triumphantly. After that, he and Gorya were firm friends.

  This time he accepted the invitation to stay for dinner; indeed, an invitation was barely offered and it was simply assumed that he would eat with them. And it was hard to refuse as the zakuski were laid out on the table, dish after dish, all manner of pickled vegetables and salads topped with sour cream or served with vinaigrette, together with little dishes of smoked sturgeon, tender chicken roulade and rollmops of herring. The colours of the different zakuski delighted his eye. The table became a palette of dining, the rich reds of the tomatoes, beetroot, cranberries and red caviar giving way to the pinker hues of the boiled pork, and the gold of the carrots, smoked salmon and aspic, all contrasting with the white of the sour cream and potatoes. Porfiry could not help himself. But all this was just by way of an appetiser. The feast of zakuski merged into a second feast, of pelmeni, the little parcels of noodle dough stuffed with various fillings. Porfiry tasted meat pelmeni, fish and mushroom pelmeni, cabbage pelmeni and mashed potato pelmeni; all perfectly cooked, the soft mouthfuls melting away in explosions of salivation. But Porfiry discovered the most surprising filling of all when his teeth clamped down on something unexpectedly hard and resistant to biting. He pulled out a button and showed it to the company, to the amusement of everyone, especially little Gorya.

  ‘Ah, you’ve found the button!’ said Dr Pervoyedov, with an appreciative smile to his wife. He did not know how she had arranged it, but it was appropriate that the prize should have fallen to their guest. ‘That means good luck.’

  ‘I accept it. I am very much in need of some good luck,’ said Porfiry, pocketing the button, with a wink to Gorya.

  Porfiry took his leave of Dr Pervoyedov at midnight, at the same time as he took his leave of the month. He held onto the doctor’s hand for an unusual length of time, as if he believed that in relinquishing it he would relinquish all hope of happiness. He pressed his friend, with a strange insistence, to call on him the following morning.

  27

  An act of singular daring

  On the morning of Monday, 1 May, Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky entered his superior Porfiry Petrovich’s chambers at nine thirty. He closed the door behind him. There was nothing unusual in this. Afterwards the head clerk, Alexander Grigorevich Zamyotov, would say that he had noticed Virginsky’s expression to be unusually strained that morning, his complexion noticeably pale.

  There were few people in main receiving room of the police bureau at the time, and so Zamyotov was able to steal a few moments to listen at the door. He had no great expectation of hearing anything of interest, and assumed the role of eavesdropper more out of habit than mischief. It was almost as if he believed it was expected of him.

  Nothing prepared him for what he heard.

  The explosive discharge of a gun threw him away from the door. A moment later, there was the clatter of something heavy and metallic falling to the floor and then Virginsky burst through, now flushed in the face. He stared into Zamyotov’s eyes, as though he were an acquaintance he had not seen for many years whose name he was struggling to remember. Gathering his wits, the junior magistrate bowed politely and began walking away from Porfiry Petrovich’s chambers. Looking back on the moment, it seemed strange to Zamyotov that Virginsky did not at any point break into a run, but merely walked calmly out of the bureau. But at the time, it was the junior magistrate’s calmness that went a long way to persuading Zamyotov that nothing untoward had happened at all, and that he must have been mistaken in thinking he had heard a gunshot.

  But as soon as Virginsky was out of sight, it was as if Zamyotov was released from a spell. He rushed into Porfiry Petrovich’s chambers, where he found the magistrate clutching a hand to his chest, high up, to the left, just below the shoulder. The clerk was horrified to see blood seeping through the magistrate’s fingers. He noticed that there was blood on the magistrate’s cheek too. It seemed strange to him that the blood coming from the chest appeared darker than the blood on his face.

  Porfiry Petrovich was breathing hard. ‘Get Dr Pervoyedov,’ he rasped into Zamyotov’s anxious face. ‘Only Dr Pervoyedov. No one else. Keep this. Quiet. No panic. Do you understand, Alexei? Go softly.’

  ‘What about Nikodim Fomich?’

  ‘Yes. Get him too. Quickly. But Pervoyedov is the only doctor I will allow to look at me.’ Porfiry Petrovich closed his eyes and slumped back in his seat. His face relaxed into something that for a moment resembled contentment, as if he welcomed the wound and held onto it jealously. But that impression was not long-lasting. The shift in his position seemed to take its toll on Porfiry, tightening his face into a wince of manifest pain.

  ‘Do not stir yourself, Porfiry Petrovich,’ said Zamyotov. ‘I shall return with a doctor forthwith.’

  ‘Pervoyedov,’ groaned Porfiry. ‘Only Pervoyedov.’

  Zamyotov shook his head as he ran out of the chambers. Clearly, the old man was delirious. God only knew why he had got it into his head to insist on that eccentric. Zamyotov hated to go against him but this was a matter of life or death. To send to the Obukhovsky Hospital for Dr Pervoyedov would waste valuable time. The crucial thing was to get a doctor to Porfiry Petrovich as quickly as possible. Any delay might prove fatal. And if there were an inquest, how could he justify sending for Pervoyedov when there were other doctors just as capable closer at hand?

  And yet Porfiry Petrovich had been strangely insistent. Perhaps, thought Zamyotov, I had better talk it over with Nikodim Fomich first.

  But, of course, there would be no time for that.

  It had been many years since Zamyotov had prayed in earnest, not since his boyhood, in fact. He and religion had gone their separate ways long ago. But now he closed his eyes tightly, fervently, and mustered all the sincerity of which his soul was capable. He opened himself up to an idea of God that, without his knowing, still resided within him. To that God he made all manner of rash promises, which perhaps he would not be able to keep. But at
the time he made them, he was sincere and that is all that counts in these matters. Just save Porfiry Petrovich, was the burden of his prayers. Just save Porfiry Petrovich and I will live a different life.

  It is a frightening thing, to open your eyes from prayer and see the answer to your prayers before you. It is not something you can ever be prepared for. And when you have made the answering of those prayers conditional upon nothing less than a wholesale upheaval of your being, you do not necessarily welcome such a sight. Indeed, it may inspire in you as much dread as joy.

  Zamyotov opened his eyes to see the miracle of Dr Pervoyedov himself, walking towards Porfiry Petrovich’s chambers, as calmly as Virginsky had walked away from them.

  ‘Doctor! Thank God you’re here! Something terrible has happened.’ Zamyotov’s startling cry, equally laden with panic and relief, changed the tenor of the day for good: ‘He has been shot! Porfiry Petrovich has been shot!’

  *

  Virginsky rapped urgently on the door. As soon as he had done so, he regretted not using the coded sequence of knocks that he had witnessed the last time he had visited the apartment.

  Despite that oversight, the door was opened. The woman who had served tea to the guests, Varvara Alexeevna, appeared to be on her way out, with a shawl pulled up over her head and a large cloth bag in one hand. She clearly recognised Virginsky, but made no move to admit him. ‘Kirill Kirillovich is not here.’

  ‘I will wait for him.’

  ‘He will not return until this evening. And I must go out. I have been called away. I am a midwife, you know.’ Varvara Alexeevna volunteered this information with a self-important tilt of the head. ‘I was just about to leave when you knocked.’

  ‘You must let me in. I have nowhere else to go. And . . .’

  Varvara Alexeevna cocked an eyebrow questioningly.

  Virginsky scanned the landing nervously. ‘I think I have just killed a man.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I did not stay to find out for certain.’

  ‘And you believe this will incline me to let you in?’

  ‘I did it for the cause. For them. I have put myself in a position of extreme . . .’ Virginsky broke off, as if unable to define the position in which he had in fact put himself. ‘I have nowhere else to go,’ he said simply.

  Varvara Alexeevna nodded and stepped to one side.

  ‘Do you know how to contact Alyosha Afanasevich?’ asked Virginsky. ‘Or Tatyana Ruslanovna?’

  ‘There will be time for that later. Stay in the apartment and do not answer the door to anyone. Kirill Kirillovich will know what to do.’

  With that, she was gone. And if Virginsky had ever felt lonely in his life before, it was nothing compared to this.

  *

  When Kirill Kirillovich appeared at around four that afternoon, his face had already assumed the look of sour disappointment that seemed to come most naturally to it. ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘Where else was I to go? The police will be watching my apartment.’

  ‘You acted without authorisation.’

  ‘It was what we talked about at the meeting. Alyosha Afanasevich called for action. You agreed. You all agreed.’

  ‘We were talking about general principles. No order was given. How could it have been? We do not generate our own orders. We must wait for them to come from the central committee. It had not even been definitely decided that you were to be accepted into the group.’

  ‘I trust there will be no doubt about that now?’

  ‘I would not be so certain. You have revealed yourself to be a highly unreliable and dangerous individual. A volatile character. You place us all at risk.’

  ‘As soon as you become involved in political activity, you place yourself at risk. You must have the courage of your convictions. You cannot call for the overthrow of the Tsar and then baulk at the assassination of a magistrate.’

  ‘You took matters into your own hands. That is ill disciplined.’

  ‘To me, it was clear what was called for at the meeting on Friday. I was called upon to use my position within a government department to carry out an act of singular daring. Those were the very words Tatyana Ruslanovna used.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that was what was discussed. But it goes without saying that we would have to wait for confirmation from the central committee before any action was taken. That is the way things are done.’

  ‘I believe there was one there who was authorised to speak for the central committee. And yet no voice was raised calling for delay.’

  ‘Nonsense. No one speaks for the central committee.’ Kirill Kirillovich’s expression became even sourer as he assessed and somehow dismissed Virginsky. ‘At any rate, you cannot stay here.’

  Virginsky looked around. The apartment seemed large without the presence of the name-day guests. He also saw that it was more comfortably furnished than he remembered, even luxuriously so, as if some objects of value had been removed for that last occasion. This was either as a precaution against damage, or because Kirill Kirillovich and his wife had not wanted their guests to see that they possessed such items. One article in particular caught Virginsky’s eye. ‘I see that you have an icon in the corner.’

  ‘Why not? It is for form’s sake. Our neighbours expect us to be devout Russians. It does no harm.’

  ‘It was not in place last Friday.’

  ‘Naturally. There was no one present who needed to be deceived as to our true convictions.’

  Virginsky frowned distractedly as he considered Kirill Kirillovich’s explanation. ‘You can’t kick me out. Not until the central committee have decided what to do with me.’

  There was a knock at the door, the coded knock that signalled one of ‘our people.’ It was Alyosha Afanasevich Botkin, his face illuminated by a wild excitement. He held a newspaper in front of him. ‘You fiend! You are a veritable fiend! That’s what we will have to call you from now on!’

  ‘Just as they call you Hunger?’ remarked Virginsky, raising one sardonic eyebrow. ‘May I see that?’

  It was a late edition of the Police Gazette. Virginsky read on the front page:

  Magistrate in Critical Condition after Shooting

  A senior investigating magistrate employed by the Department for the Investigation of Criminal Causes, a subdivision of the Ministry of Justice based at the Haymarket District Police Bureau in Stolyarny Lane, has been taken to the Obukhovsky Hospital following an apparent assassination attempt. He is said to be suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest. Dr Pervoyedov of the Obukhovsky, who attended the victim, described the wound as ‘grave’. The victim’s name has been given only as Porfiry Petrovich; he is thought to be the magistrate who achieved prominence through his prosecution of the former student R. R. Raskolnikov some years ago. The authorities are anxious to speak to one Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky, also a magistrate, in connection with the incident. Witnesses saw Mr Virginsky flee the victim’s chambers shortly after a gun was fired there. No motive for the dreadful crime has been given.

  Kirill Kirillovich snatched the paper and shook his head over the account. ‘A wasted opportunity,’ he declared.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Virginsky.

  ‘No motive for the dreadful crime has been given,’ read Kirill Kirillovich. ‘What is the point of committing such an act if you do not make it clear that it is political? The least you could have done was to shout some slogans.’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘And why did you run away? You should have waited there for them to arrest you.’

  ‘That’s insane!’ objected Virginsky.

  ‘No,’ said Botkin. ‘He’s right. It is better for the cause when the assassin is arrested. For one thing, it shows that we are not ashamed of our acts. For another, it allows the possibility of a trial. A trial is essential; indeed, it is the main point of a political crime. It affords us, in defending our actions, to speak directly to the Russian people. By avoiding arrest, you have held back the cause of the re
volution.’

  ‘But am I not of more use to the cause free? Can I not be used to lead and inspire further unrest? Besides, the timing of my attack was everything. The timing proves its political aspect. I struck the very day after the Tsar’s mistress gave birth! While he was busy fawning over his illegitimate son – abandoning not only his own family, but the whole of Russia. When people see that his decadence allows us to strike at the heart of the administration with impunity, they will cease to believe in the regime’s ability to protect them. You must at least admit that my action will be successful in destabilising the government?’

  ‘But we must let it be known beyond doubt that it is a political act. We must put out a manifesto to that effect, claiming responsibility. It is a pity that . . .’ Botkin broke off.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I have notified the central committee of these developments. We may expect a visit from one of their number, imminently.’

  ‘A member of the central committee is to come here? Openly? A member of the central committee is to reveal himself to us?’ Kirill Kirillovich was beside himself at the prospect.

  ‘Such an extraordinary development calls for extraordinary measures,’ said Botkin.

  Virginsky gave a tense grimace.

  They heard the apartment door. Varvara Alexeevna came into the room, stooped and worn out, her eyes ringed with exhaustion.

  ‘In the meantime, let us have some tea.’ Kirill Kirillovich gave his wife a commanding nod.

  Varvara Alexeevna turned on her heel with a sudden burst of alacrity.

  ‘Of course, tea! I shall bring in the samovar. What an excellent suggestion, Alyosha Afanasevich. It is no wonder you are held in such esteem by your friends.’

  Botkin frowned at her back as he tried to unravel the nuances of her sarcasm.

  *

  They drank tea steadily for the next five hours, while they waited for the visit from the representative of the central committee. At one point, Varvara Alexeevna provided buterbrody of ham and cheese, with a selection of pickles.