A Razor Wrapped in Silk

by R. N. Morris

  Virginsky closed the wardrobe and turned to Porfiry. His face was crestfallen.

  ‘Nothing? I must have been mistaken about the smell. Ah well … and so, Pavel Pavlovich, if the mirror was wiped clean, then we must presume that whatever was used to wipe it has been removed from the scene of the crime.’

  Virginsky nodded hesitantly; the gesture indicated doubt rather than agreement.

  ‘Did anything else strike you about the smears of what is, most likely, blood?’

  Virginsky was unable to call anything to mind. He watched in painful silence as Porfiry Petrovich wound the thread around his thumb. When the action was completed, Porfiry turned his gaze on Virginsky with a look of mild inquisition. ‘What shape do they make?’

  ‘They make the shape of the letter M,’ said Virginsky, quickly consulting the mirror.

  ‘The letter M, indeed.’

  ‘Rotated forty-five degrees on its axis.’

  ‘Thank you. Of course it could be a coincidence. If one were to wipe a looking glass, especially in haste, one’s hand would naturally describe a series of Ms.’ Porfiry mimed the action he was describing in the air. ‘Although one could just as easily wipe in a circular motion, in a series of Os.’ He changed the pattern of his mime. ‘Remind me, do we have any suspects whose names begin with O?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just one, whose name begins with M?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank God I have you with me, Pavel Pavlovich, to remind me of these essential details.’

  *

  Porfiry took hold of the dead woman’s right hand and turned it, repeatedly examining the palm and back. ‘She struck him, you said? The officer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Porfiry moved the hand slowly, as if in rehearsal of a slap. ‘It must have hurt.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘The ring on the middle finger is turned so that the stone protrudes inwardly – in the direction of the slap. It is a large and rather pointed cut ruby. There appears to be …’ Porfiry held the dead hand closer to his face, as if he were intending to lick the palm. ‘Something … it could be blood … on the tip.’ He now held and scrutinised each finger separately, paying particular attention to the fingernails. ‘There is not the usual sign of resistance. It seems death came quickly and stealthily to her, perhaps in the guise of a friend.’ He turned his attention to her left hand, which he held and turned as he had the other. ‘Three rings on the right hand, four rings on the left, including what looks like an engagement ring – a cluster of diamonds – on the third finger.’

  ‘Yelena Filippovna was recently engaged to Prince Sergei Nikolaevich Naryskin.’

  ‘I see. She also wears a thumb ring on this hand, a gold ring embossed with what appears to be a double-headed eagle.’

  ‘The imperial symbol,’ supplied Virginsky, his excitement barely contained.

  ‘The emblem of the house of Romanov, it is true,’ said Porfiry, with determined weariness. He laid the hand down and looked into the dead woman’s face. All the faces of the dead held the same fleeting secret, and the longing that he felt when he gazed upon them was to share in it. All the dead looked out from her eyes. This was their time, while death was still fresh, before corruption had taken hold: their opportunity to lay their claims upon the living. ‘Did I ever tell you about my father, Pavel Pavlovich?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was a mining engineer, you know.’

  ‘I did not know.’

  Porfiry Petrovich looked for his father in the dusk-tinged turquoise of her eye.

  ‘He was murdered.’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘Who found the body?’

  Virginsky was momentarily thrown. ‘This body?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘As far as we can tell, she was found by Aglaia Filippovna Polenova.’

  ‘The sister of the deceased?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘I am puzzled by your uncertainty. As far as we can tell?’

  ‘Yes. We are not able to take a statement from Aglaia Filippovna.’

  ‘She has disappeared too?’

  ‘Not exactly. She fell into a dead faint, from which it has been impossible to rouse her. We may surmise that she discovered the body because it was she who raised the alarm and because of the severity of her reaction to her sister’s death. The shock of discovery seems to have unhinged her.’

  ‘Are you really suggesting that some of the horror of such an event may be absorbed by a previous viewing? So that if she were not the first to see it, she would not have been so shocked?’

  ‘No, simply that if someone else had got to her sister first they might have prepared her. Besides, no one else has come forward.’

  ‘I see. Where is she now?’

  ‘She has been taken to a guest bedroom here in the palace.’

  ‘You will ensure that we are notified as soon as she recovers consciousness.’

  ‘I have already seen to it.’

  ‘What about this blood-spattered officer, Mizinchikov? Who saw him running away?’

  ‘A number of servants.’

  ‘Number?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘A small number.’

  ‘I have also taken a corroborating statement from one Ivan Iakovich Bakhmutov.’

  ‘I see. And did any of these witnesses remark on the presence of a bloody cloth about Captain Mizinchikov’s person?’

  ‘No. But we did not know to put the question when we interviewed them.’

  ‘Isn’t it something that we might reasonably expect them to remark upon, even without prompting?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And so, let us see where we may get to merely through an accumulation of suppositions. Let us suppose that the mirror was wiped clean of blood. That act must have produced a bloody cloth. However, we can find no bloody cloth in this room; therefore it must have been removed from the scene. Captain Mizinchikov was seen running away from the scene of the crime, but he was not seen to have about him any such article – or at least no one remarked upon it. What may we conclude, provided that the first of our suppositions is correct, of course?’

  ‘That someone else carried the bloody cloth from the room.’

  ‘That is one possible conclusion, Pavel Pavlovich. Another is that Captain Mizinchikov secreted the bloody cloth about his person somehow. Perhaps the marks that witnesses interpreted as spatters of blood, were in fact evidence of blood seeping through from the inside of his tunic. He hid the offending article inside his clothes, only to have it reveal its presence in this way.’

  ‘That is hardly the most effective method of disposing of it, as it only succeeds in drawing unwanted attention to him.’

  ‘True, but we have to accept that the murderer was under intense pressure at this time. He may not have been thinking rationally. Individuals in these situations often improvise from one panic-stricken moment to the next. This is fortunate for the investigator, for it is while they are acting in this way that criminals make mistakes. At any rate, I fear that we will not be able to draw any definite conclusions just now.’

  Porfiry was once again staring at the wound on Yelena Filippovna’s throat. It drew his face towards it, as if it exercised a peculiar magnetism.

  ‘Porfiry Petrovich!’

  Virginsky’s sharp warning brought him upright. ‘What is it?’ Porfiry’s voice was thickened with tiredness.

  ‘Are you all right? It seemed as though you were about to pass out.’

  ‘I was looking into the wound. You have to look into the wounds, you know.’ Porfiry Petrovich held an arm out towards Virginsky. The younger man pulled him to his feet. ‘You will kindly enquire of Prince Naryskin if there is a room that may be put at our disposal.’

  7

  The beautiful coffin

  They were shown into a cork-lined study with a highly polished parquet floor. A massive ornate mantelpiece carved from beech towered over them
; on either side of it shutters, also made of beech, inlaid in the same herringbone pattern as the floor, were spread like giant wings across two great windows. The furniture was all of a darker wood. A heavy circular table in the centre of the room had four empire chairs placed around it. There was a wooden easel bearing a Japanese sketch of a woman washing her feet.

  The door closed on them with a discreet clash of wood. They were left alone with the smell of beeswax.

  ‘It’s like being shut up inside a marquetry box,’ said Virginsky.

  ‘Or a beautiful coffin,’ said Porfiry. ‘I think it will serve our purposes adequately.’

  *

  Porfiry Petrovich looked up suddenly from Virginsky’s notebook. ‘Prince Bykov! The play they were performing was by Prince Bykov!’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘I have met Prince Bykov. He was involved in the case which first brought you and I together, Pavel Pavlovich. But you would not have met him.’

  ‘No, I would not. Being confined in a police cell, I met very few people, other than my guards and interrogator.’

  ‘The Vanished Lover. My goodness! How very bold of him.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘A very special friend of the prince’s vanished in real life.’

  ‘I see. The play is autobiographical.’

  ‘Only up to a point, I imagine. I see that the part of the vanished lover was to have been played by Yelena Filippovna. The prince’s vanished friend could not have been played by her, or any woman.’ Porfiry paused, then added with a heavy, almost comical wink: ‘Prince Bykov was educated at the Cadet Corps, you understand.’

  ‘He is a homosexual? The friend was another man? Is that what you are saying?’

  ‘Good grief, Pavel Pavlovich, since when did you develop such a lamentable taste for the explicit? Is it not enough to say that he was educated at the Cadet Corps and leave it at that?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that everyone who comes out of the Cadet Corps engages in the kind of degenerate practices you refer to?’

  ‘Not at all. But if I say educated at the Cadet Corps with an unusual emphasis, whilst winking significantly, surely it is enough for you to pick up the hint?’

  ‘But you wink so often that it is hard to say when it is done significantly and when it simply occurs as the result of some neurological spasm.’

  ‘Neurological spasm? I do not suffer from spasms, neurological or otherwise. However, I cannot help it if I am beset by an excess of significance in my professional life, which necessitates a higher than average rate of winking.’

  ‘And blinking.’

  ‘Ah now, the blinking is something different. The blinking is an involuntary physiological function. We all do it, even you, Pavel Pavlovich. I have no control over that.’

  ‘You have control over everything you do, Porfiry Petrovich.’

  ‘My, how you do exaggerate my abilities, Pavel Pavlovich.’

  ‘Do you wish to interview this Prince Bykov?’

  ‘Not formally. I may have a friendly word with him if the occasion arises. I am interested to know how he has fared in the years since last I saw him.’

  Virginsky fixed Porfiry with a stare that bristled with astonishment.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Do you think it wise to be seen on friendly terms with such a man?’

  ‘Why would it not be?’

  ‘You have admitted that you know him to be a homosexual.’

  ‘What are you suggesting? That I am in some way imperilling myself? I am sure that Prince Bykov will be able to control himself in my presence.’

  ‘Do not make jokes about this, Porfiry Petrovich. Consider your position as a magistrate. Homosexuality is against the law, as you well know. By consorting with a known homosexual, you are in effect consorting with a criminal.’

  ‘I won’t be consorting with anyone!’

  Virginsky’s head rocked backwards, as if buffeted by a wave of incredulity.

  ‘I am surprised at you, Pavel Pavlovich,’ continued Porfiry. ‘As one of the new men, as a man of the future. Does the golden future you envisage hold no place for men such as Prince Bykov?’

  Virginsky did not answer. Porfiry went back to studying the statements. ‘I will talk to this Bakhmutov first. Will you kindly arrange it, Pavel Pavlovich?’

  ‘I will send a politseisky to fetch him.’

  *

  ‘Ivan Iakovich Bakhmutov?’ said Porfiry dubiously. The young man with ruddy cheeks and blond hair whom Virginsky had just admitted was not at all what Porfiry had expected from the notes.

  ‘Ah – no. I am his private secretary, Ardalion Gavrilovich Velchaninov.’

  Porfiry glared at Virginsky in bemusement.

  Virginsky addressed Velchaninov sharply: ‘My orders were for Ivan Iakovich to come here himself. The magistrate needs to talk to him in person.’

  ‘Yes, yes indeed. But he sent me to find out what you need to know. If I could take a list of your questions to him, Ivan Iakovich would be very happy to supply you with all the answers at his soonest convenience. By tomorrow lunchtime at the latest. Ivan Iakovich feels it would be a better way to proceed. He really is ready to go home now, and does not feel that any purpose would be served by your interviewing him tonight. He really is most, most tired.’ Velchaninov shook his head to emphasise his point. ‘It has been a shattering experience.’

  ‘No no no!’ cried Porfiry, slapping both hands down on the table. ‘That is not how things are done. You may be at his beck and call, but we are not. Bring him here.’

  ‘I fear he may already have left.’

  ‘Im-possible! I gave orders that no one was to leave.’

  ‘Yes, but, as I’m sure you understand, Ivan Iakovich is a very important person. Your orders, I’m sure, were not intended to include everyone.’

  Porfiry’s mouth gaped in disbelief. He turned to Virginsky. ‘Pavel Pavlovich, what are we to make of this?’

  Virginsky shrugged.

  ‘How could he have left?’ Porfiry’s incredulous rage closed down suddenly into a look of vicarious cunning. ‘Unless … he bribed someone?’

  ‘I …’ Velchaninov thought for a moment before replying: ‘I cannot comment on that accusation, except to say that I am sure Ivan Iakovich will deny it in the strongest possible terms. Furthermore, unless you have evidence to back it up, sir, whoever you are, I suggest you retract it.’ Velchaninov spoke without looking at Porfiry, almost swallowing back his words as he uttered them, so little conviction did he have in them.

  ‘I am Porfiry Petrovich, the investigating magistrate in this murder enquiry. If I find that your master has bribed one of my policemen, be assured that I will not hesitate to bring the full force of the law down on him. That is how things are done now.’

  ‘There is a possibility that he may not have left, after all,’ said Velchaninov. ‘I will see if I can find him.’ He ran from the room.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ Porfiry demanded of Virginsky.

  Virginsky pursed his lips. ‘The rich and powerful have long considered themselves above the law in this country. It is a difficult habit to break. It will take more than a few judicial reforms. And, of course, they always have their lackeys.’

  ‘Would he do whatever his master asked of him, do you think?’

  Virginsky raised his eyebrows, acknowledging the peculiar significance of the question. ‘I do not believe that Bakhmutov has left already. He was testing the waters, I think. If you had gone along with his little proposal he would have taken himself off. Young Velchaninov will be able to produce him in surprisingly quick time, I dare say.’

  A second knock at the door proved the perspicacity of Virginsky’s words. Porfiry treated him to a wryly appreciative smirk. ‘Come in.’ He winked at Virginsky as he snapped out the command.

  Porfiry turned his attention on the man who had entered. He gave no sign of being at all contrite, but strode in with his head hig
h and his lavish white mane falling back on his shoulders. Though his hair was long, his beard was precisely groomed in the style of Napoleon III. It was the decisive finishing point on a compelling face: its sharpness complemented that of his aquiline nose and somewhat disguised the unusual fleshiness of his lips. He met Porfiry’s gaze with an unflinching directness.

  ‘So you are Ivan Iakovich Bakhmutov? How good of you to condescend to see us.’

  ‘It is my pleasure, I’m sure.’ His voice was a resonant bass. ‘One’s duty is always a pleasure when one is a loyal subject.’

  ‘Please be so good as to sit down. This need take no longer than it will,’ said Porfiry.

  ‘I beg your pardon? I didn’t quite follow what you just said.’ Bakhmutov’s mask of absolute confidence slipped momentarily. He regarded Porfiry with a look that suggested he did not know whether to make of him a fool or a rogue.

  ‘It was really quite simple. Sit down. There is a seat. Sit on it. Unless … you have a problem with haemorrhoids? I have suffered from them myself in the past, so I do sympathise.’

  ‘No, I do not have that problem, I am happy to say.’ Bakhmutov pulled out a chair hesitantly.

  ‘Then you are very lucky. A man of your age must be prone to any number of inconvenient ailments. There is your legendary tiredness, for example.’

  Bakhmutov was still standing, his hands on the back of his seat. ‘Did you call me here solely to make a fool of me?’

  ‘Please don’t ask such tempting questions. I called you here because I am conducting a murder enquiry. I urge you to sit down. I have some questions to ask you.’

  ‘I have already given a statement to him.’ Bakhmutov nodded slowly towards Virginsky as he took his seat.

  ‘Yes, I have read that statement, and still find I have some questions to ask you. This is not unusual. It happens from time to time. One might even say frequently.’

  ‘It is very tiresome for those concerned.’

  ‘One becomes accustomed to it.’

  ‘I was thinking of myself.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. That is only natural.’ Porifiry Petrovich lit a cigarette and considered Bakhmutov’s face. There was something sealed-off, almost steely, to his bearing. A contained power lurked behind the slackening skin, still blotched with summer colour; and yet, at the same time, there was no doubt that the source of that power was shaken.