A Razor Wrapped in Silk

by R. N. Morris

  Mizinchikov stepped around Virginsky to stand on his right.

  ‘And so, you had your back to the door, which for the purposes of our reconstruction we shall imagine to be here.’ Porfiry described a rectangle in the air and stepped through it. ‘I am in the room now, with you. And I am pointing at you. Is this how it was?’

  ‘You were closer than that, I think. Your hand was almost touching me.’

  Porfiry moved a step closer to Mizinchikov.

  ‘Like this?’

  ‘Yes, except your hand was not raised at first. I turned and saw you, then your hand went up. I looked down at where you were pointing, and the blood was there.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I ran from the room in panic.’

  ‘Was not Aglaia Filippovna in your way?’

  ‘No. She was to one side of the door.’

  ‘Very well. You ran out.’

  ‘Yes, and on the way out I ran into Bakhmutov.’

  ‘There was no one else in the room?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure of that? Did you look behind the screen? Or behind the door? The door opens inwards, I seem to remember.’

  ‘I don’t know. I was not thinking about the door.’

  ‘What about the looking glass? Did you see any blood on the glass?’ Porfiry pointed to an imaginary mirror.

  ‘On the glass?’ Mizinchikov looked where Porfiry was pointing as if to study the non-existent mirror, which seemed to strike him as an infinitely strange object. ‘I cannot say. I did not look in the glass.’

  ‘Did you touch Yelena Filippovna’s body at any point?’

  ‘No … I … I panicked. You should have seen Aglaia’s face. Such hatred. She clearly believed that I had killed her sister. I didn’t know what to do. No one knows what he will do in such a situation until … I ran. I ran from the palace. Someone had killed my Yelena. Naryskin. It must have been Naryskin. I couldn’t think straight. I needed time to think.’ Captain Mizinchikov’s eyes flitted wildly, the panic still raw within them.

  ‘Please go on.’

  ‘Outside, I encountered a strange tramp. He accosted me. He seemed drunk. Very drunk. He was reciting lines from Boris Godunov. Or at least I think that’s what it was. He wanted to know if I had seen Prince Bykov. It was dark. The man couldn’t see the blood on my tunic, or he was too far gone to care. I gave him a rouble for his coat, such as it was, and swapped it for my tunic. I threw away my shako outside the palace and then ditched my sabre in the river. I don’t know where I spent that first night. On a barge, I think, lying in straw. Nothing made any sense. None of it made any sense.’

  ‘Were you aware of any blood on your tunic before you saw Aglaia Filippovna?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t believe so.’

  ‘Thank you. You may sit down again.’

  ‘What about me?’ said Virginsky.

  ‘And thank you, Pavel Pavlovich. You played your part with distinction.’ Porfiry walked round to take his seat again, as Virginsky stood up and brushed himself down. ‘Tell me, Captain Mizinchikov, have you seen any newspapers while you have been a fugitive from the law?’

  ‘Yes. I looked for news all the time.’

  ‘Were you aware that Yelena Filippovna was at one time suspected of the murders of three children?’

  ‘I saw that. It was a lie, of course. I knew it was a lie to trick me into giving myself up. I am not so simple-minded that I would fall for such a ruse.’

  ‘Oh, it was not a ruse. A mistake, perhaps. So, Yelena Filippovna did not confess these killings to you?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘You do not believe her capable of such crimes?’

  ‘You need not ask that question. She was not a murderer. And she would never have done anything to harm those children.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘They were pupils at Maria Petrovna’s school, were they not?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Lena … loved Maria Petrovna. It was a special kind of love, pure, absolute, unsullied. She preserved that love as something precious in her soul, the better part of her soul, although she had not seen Maria Petrovna since they were at school together. She would never do anything to hurt her. That was why she prevailed upon all her friends to support the school.’

  ‘The flowers,’ said Virginsky suddenly. The two other men turned towards him quizzically. ‘I will always love you, M. Maria was M. She was to have been the recipient of the flowers.’

  Porfiry’s face lit up with pleasure. He granted Virginsky a bow of acknowledgement. ‘It’s an interesting theory, Pavel Pavlovich.’ Porfiry turned to Captain Mizinchikov. ‘Or was the bouquet of white camellias a gift from you to Yelena Filippovna?’

  ‘I know nothing of any flowers.’

  ‘Then perhaps she meant them as a gift for you. Was she in the habit of giving you flowers?’

  Captain Mizinchikov shook his head, bemused.

  ‘You expressed the opinion a moment ago that Prince Naryskin may have murdered Yelena. I take it that you mean Prince Naryskin the younger?’

  ‘The elder or the younger, what does it matter?’

  ‘It matters rather a lot, actually. They are in fact distinct legal entities and it would be quite improper to charge one with a crime the other had committed.’

  ‘The younger then.’

  ‘Do you have any particular reason for accusing him?’

  ‘He is the one I hate the most.’

  ‘I see. I’m afraid that’s not really enough for us to build a case around. Let me put it another way. What motive did he have for killing her, in your view?’

  ‘She insulted him. Humiliated him.’

  ‘And he struck her. Should that not have been an end to it? In striking her, he paid her back for the insult.’

  ‘You don’t understand. Yes, she goaded him into hitting her, but that blow – struck against a woman in full view of public censure – that was the insult. That dishonoured him. It was that for which he could not forgive her.’

  ‘Did Yelena Filippovna ask you to kill her?’

  The grime on Captain Mizinchikov’s face darkened. ‘Why should she do that?’

  ‘Because she wished to end her life. And she naturally turned to a friend to help her achieve her desire.’

  ‘It’s true that she asked me. She was hysterical. She did not know what she was asking. One had to hope that it would pass.’

  ‘You refused?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Porfiry considered for a moment. ‘This matter of her requesting her own murder intrigues me. You would think – if that were the case – that she would have welcomed death when it came. And yet, as Pavel Pavlovich just now reminded me when he took her part in our little re-enactment, the disposition of her body clamoured protest. The expression of her face too, which he did not attempt to render, was not one of acquiescence. The question is, was she protesting her fate or the person who dispensed it? What would make a woman who actively sought her own death recoil so violently at the last moment?’

  ‘That’s understandable enough, surely,’ said Virginsky. ‘Only when it was too late did the full enormity of what she had desired strike home.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Porfiry turned abruptly on Mizinchikov. ‘We found a razor at your apartment. A razor wrapped in silk. Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘I have no need for a razor. I have my beard trimmed by my barber.’

  ‘Pavel Pavlovich, please ask Alexander Grigorevich to bring us the razor that was found in Captain Mizinchikov’s apartment.’

  Virginsky nodded and crossed to the door to pass on the request to Zamyotov.

  Porfiry smiled blandly to Captain Mizinchikov. ‘Perhaps it will help to jog your memory if you see the razor.’

  ‘It is not a question of jogging my memory. I have no razor, I tell you.’

  ‘And yet one was found in your study. Together with these letters.’ Porfiry unlocked his
desk drawer and opened it, or rather attempted to open it. However, something inside obstructed the action of the drawer. Porfiry pushed it back into its housing and tried again. When the second attempt proved no more successful, he rattled the drawer in its casing, and tried to ease the drawer out. But whatever was causing the obstruction had not been dislodged. Every time, the hidden object snagged on the lip of the drawer’s aperture and prevented the drawer from opening.

  Porfiry’s smile acquired a degree of tension. ‘Please,’ he said, though it was not clear whether he was pleading with the drawer or begging for Mizinchikov’s indulgence. He crouched down and peered into the narrow gap created by the partially open drawer.

  ‘Ah! I think I see what is causing it. The very letters we were talking about.’

  Porfiry took the letter knife from his desk and poked it into the gap, easing the recalcitrant letters down. He beamed a smile of satisfaction to Mizinchikov as the drawer at last eased open. ‘There! Nothing to it.’

  He held the bundle of letters aloft triumphantly. It was as if the ribbon was not simply binding together the sheets of paper, but also holding in the secrets written on them. Mizinchikov started at the appearance of the letters. His body tensed, suddenly alert. He watched closely, his face rippling with apprehension and even horror, as Porfiry slipped the bow.

  ‘You recognise the letters, of course?’

  Mizinchikov said nothing. The muscles around his infected left eye went into spasm.

  ‘They are letters from Yelena Filippovna. To you. Would you like to look at them?’

  The twitch of Mizinchikov’s head may have been an angry shake of negation, or an involuntary muscular contraction without significance. In any event, he made no move to take the letters Porfiry held out to him.

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Porfiry thoughtfully, almost seductively.

  Mizinchikov’s brows contracted in confusion.

  ‘What was the shameful act that sullied you and insulted her?’

  Mizinchikov’s eyes squeezed out a wince of remembrance. ‘I agreed to take Bakhmutov’s money. I … loved her. But I did not see what the harm could be … if Bakhmutov wanted to pay me to do the very thing I most wanted to do – to marry her.’ His voice became leaden. ‘She did not see it like that.’

  ‘She broke with you then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you did not get the money, after all.’

  ‘I didn’t care about the money. The money was for her. But she would have nothing to do with it.’

  ‘And so she rejected you in favour of Prince Naryskin. Some might say that would give you a motive to kill her. Jealousy.’

  ‘If I had killed her, I would not have run away. It was only because I did not kill her that I ran away.’

  ‘An interesting paradox. It suggests that you regret not killing her. That you saw that, somehow, as a failure.’

  Before Mizinchikov could answer, the door opened and Zamyotov entered. He held the red silk parcel out in front of him, and waved it tantalisingly at Porfiry.

  ‘Thank you, Alexander Grigorevich. Will you pass the item to this gentleman so that he may examine it?’

  ‘Gentleman?’ Zamyotov crimped his brows in a deliberate frown and looked over Mizinchikov’s head, as if he wasn’t there.

  ‘Captain Mizinchikov is a gentleman, despite appearances. Please hand him the razor.’

  Zamyotov made clear his scepticism, as well as his repugnance, as he handed it over. Turning to make his exit, he noticed Alexei Ivanovich asleep on the sofa. He shook his head and quickened his step, as if to escape from a madhouse. The door closed behind him with a clatter.

  Porfiry nodded reassuringly to Mizinchikov. The captain looked down at the object in his hands. He folded back the silk to reveal the sleek, self-contained implement, freighted with dire potential. Its appearance provoked no particular reaction in him, apart from a shrug of indifference. ‘It’s a razor.’

  ‘You do not recognise it?’

  ‘I have never seen it before in my life.’

  ‘Well then, we must presume that someone placed it in your drawer without your knowing. But who? Who would have an opportunity for doing such a thing, or a reason?’ Porfiry’s face lit up with realisation. ‘Of course! Who else?’

  The others bristled with impatience as he took out and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Don’t you see, Pavel Pavlovich? What possible reason could someone have for planting this razor in Captain Mizinchikov’s desk drawer?’

  ‘To incriminate him?’ Virginsky’s answer lacked conviction.

  ‘Ah, but it is a very crude attempt at incrimination, is it not? For we have already deduced that this razor could not possibly have been the murder weapon.’

  ‘Why then?’ said Virginsky irritably.

  ‘What if it was put there not to incriminate him, but to prompt him? To drive him to it.’ Porfiry turned to Mizinchikov. ‘When was the last time Yelena Filippovna visited you at the Officers’ House?’

  ‘It was the day before her death.’

  ‘You believe Yelena Filippovna planted the razor?’ put in Virginsky incredulously.

  Porfiry widened his eyes, as if disbelieving Virginsky’s disbelief. ‘Could it not be seen as part of her attempt to goad the captain into killing her? Its proximity to her letters, so taunting in tone, is unquestionably significant.’ He turned back to Mizinchikov. ‘What was her mood when she came to see you that day?’

  ‘She was in a state of terrible agitation.’

  ‘Did she seek to provoke you in any way?’

  Mizinchikov gave a bitter laugh. ‘When did she ever not?’

  ‘But more so than usual?’

  ‘There were some new provocations that day, it’s true. Of the kind that are particularly wounding to a man’s pride.’

  Both Porfiry and Virginsky bowed their heads in unspoken and specifically male sympathy. There was a knock at the door, to which they all turned, as if in relief. The door flew open and Nikodim Fomich burst in, followed by the severely well-groomed and upright presence of the prokuror, Yaroslav Nikolaevich Liputin, Porfiry’s superior. The latter’s step was measured: he came into the room almost reluctantly, as though he was unwilling to be drawn into whatever was taking place within. He took in the sleeping man on the sofa with a sneer of distaste, which deepened when he saw the disreputable-looking individual sitting opposite Porfiry Petrovich.

  ‘Is this him?’ said Nikodim Fomich breathlessly. ‘The missing Guards officer?’

  ‘Yes, this is Captain Mizinchikov.’

  ‘So … you have his confession?’

  Porfiry’s expression froze into a complicated smile, fraught with irony and unease. ‘He has confessed … to something. But not to the crime you have in mind. And he did not commit the crime to which he has confessed.’

  ‘This is hardly satisfactory,’ declared Liputin impatiently. He scowled down at Mizinchikov. ‘Porfiry Petrovich, you will step outside with us for a moment.’

  Porfiry bowed deferentially and rose to his feet to follow the police chief and the prokuror out of his chambers.

  ‘You must get a confession out of him, Porfiry Petrovich,’ commanded Liputin as soon as the door was closed behind them. ‘By whatever means.’ The force with which he insisted on this caused Zamyotov to look up from his desk.

  ‘But with respect, Yaroslav Nikolaevich, what if he is telling the truth?’ protested Porfiry.

  ‘He had her blood all over him. How does he explain that?’

  ‘He does not need to. The blood on his tunic was venous, not arterial. Therefore it did not come from her lacerated neck.’

  ‘We need not go into these distinctions. They are too subtle for a jury to understand. Blood is blood, after all. He was seen fleeing the crime scene. All this speaks against him.’

  ‘But a defence lawyer would tear the case apart.’

  ‘That is why you must get a confession from him,’ insisted Liputin. ‘I hear that Lieutenant Salytov is
particularly skilled at extracting confessions.’

  ‘That’s true,’ chimed in Nikodim Fomich. Porfiry glared at him with the fury of a betrayed man.

  ‘Presumably this Guards officer came here to confess, just like that student. What was his name?’

  ‘Raskolnikov,’ supplied Nikodim Fomich.

  ‘That’s it. It was to Salytov he confessed, was it not?’

  ‘Yes, but—’ began Porfiry.

  ‘I don’t understand you, Porfiry Petrovich. At last you have a breakthrough, and you will not push home your advantage. Imagine what the newspapers would make of this.’

  ‘It is not so simple.’

  ‘Make it simple. The fugitive has served himself up to you on a plate. I consider it perverse of you not to sharpen your knives. And tell me, who is that fellow asleep on your sofa?’

  ‘That is Captain Mizinchikov’s cousin.’

  ‘Are you in the habit of allowing suspect’s relatives to doss down in your chambers?’

  ‘No, no. Of course not. But he has just been through something of an ordeal. He may have pushed his uncle down stairs.’

  ‘I dare say that was more of an ordeal for the uncle than for him.’

  ‘We must not underestimate the toll such crimes take on the perpetrators.’

  ‘So, there are two murderers in the family?’

  ‘No. That is to say, I do not believe Captain Mizinchikov is a murderer.’

  ‘You know what they say, Porfiry Petrovich. A titmouse in the hand is better than a crane in the sky.’ Liputin nodded authoritatively to Nikodim Fomich, who mirrored the gesture with approval. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘To be absolutely honest, Yaroslav Nikolaevich, you do not.’

  ‘There is a case that can be made against this Mizinchikov. I expect you to make it.’

  ‘With your permission, I would like to explore one other possibility first.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘The possibility of bringing to justice the actual murderer.’

  The screw of distaste that gripped the prokuror’s face was tightened by another turn. ‘Do what you must. But do it quickly.’

  38

  A bloody discovery

  The buoyant sway of the carriage and jaunty clip of hooves indicated that they were moving, but Virginsky could see little to confirm it. The pane of glass was a milky grey square. He had the impression that the frigid, fogged air was moving with them. He was held by the blankness of the prospect.