by R. N. Morris
‘Never?’
‘He is without a single friend in St Petersburg, it seems,’ said Porfiry to Virginsky’s incredulous question. ‘That is dangerous.’
‘And he has no servant,’ Salytov informed them.
‘A man without friends, without even the company of a cook, will inevitably spend too much time with only himself for company. He will get to brooding. He will live in a world shaped only by his own dreams. A world in which he will perhaps see himself as all-powerful — with the power to correct the present and avenge the past.’ Porfiry pursed his lips conclusively.
‘But he is such a funny little man,’ protested Virginsky.
‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ said Porfiry. ‘I wonder, however, how it is possible for him to hold himself so completely aloof from all his neighbours. I can well enough imagine the kind of overcrowded dwelling he resides in. On Gorokhovaya Street, I have no doubt.’
‘Gorokhovaya, 97,’ confirmed Salytov.
‘I expect he has little more than a cupboard under the stairs, or perhaps just the corner of some kitchen. It is when you have such a general promiscuity of lives that the instinct for isolation becomes greatest. But the opportunity is lacking.’
‘He has a room to himself,’ said Salytov. ‘With a bed in it. There is not much space for anything else, I grant you. He keeps all his possessions in boxes under the bed. My God, you should see the number of quills we found. He is at the end of the corridor and the one room next to his is vacant. So I dare say he has all the solitude he desires.’
Porfiry looked at Salytov without speaking for several moments. ‘That is good work, Ilya Petrovich,’ he said at last, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Now, shall we see if our guests have arrived?’
Behind his wire-framed spectacles, Dr Martin Meyer’s eyes flickered and latched on to Porfiry with a tensioned eagerness that became immediately abashed. His face was fuller than Porfiry remembered it and there was a ruddiness to his complexion that had not been there before. He rose hesitantly from his chair in the waiting area outside Porfiry’s chambers.
‘Dr Meyer,’ said Porfiry, taking the proffered hand. ‘You look. . well.’ It seemed an inappropriate thing to say, as if there was something shameful in the man’s evident good health. But it was the truth.
‘I. . I have been to hell and back,’ said Meyer, glancing down, then straightaway meeting Porfiry’s gaze again. ‘But I have found a way through.’
‘Good.’
‘The Lord came to me in my darkest hour. I sank so low, I was ready to take my own life. I had nothing left to live for, or so I thought. I was poised on the edge of the precipice. And then I heard the words of the Psalm calling me back.’
Porfiry smiled but said nothing.
‘I know that Raisa and Grigory are in a better place.’ The eagerness that had been noticeable in his eyes now seemed closer to fervour. ‘Even the Lord Jesus did not eschew the company of prostitutes and sinners. Did he not allow His feet to be anointed by Mary Magdalene?’
‘You have forgiven her? In your heart?’
‘I had nothing to forgive her for.’
‘If only it hadn’t required such a terrible upheaval to bring you to this realisation.’
‘There is nothing that you can say that I haven’t already thought a thousand times over. It is I who needed her forgiveness. But it is too late for that now. Still, I console myself that we will meet again in that better place.’
‘You have become a true believer, I see. And I took you for a thoroughgoing man of science, an atheist.’
‘I was, and look at the good it did me.’
‘Porfiry Petrovich.’ Porfiry recognised the voice, clipped with the impatience of command, before he turned to face Prokuror Liputin. Next to him, hanging back a little, Ruslan Vladimirovich Vakhramev pulled at his lips contemplatively and avoided meeting anyone’s eye. A change had taken place in him too. His face was just as florid as before, but whereas once this had seemed to be the effect of bluster, there was now a raw quality to the skin, as if shame had worked upon it like a corrosive agent. His silver whiskers, formerly perfectly groomed, had been allowed to go to seed, as it were, and hung limp and lacklustre. His glance had grown more complex, and was meek as well as evasive. In the space of days, he had aged immeasurably.
‘Good day, Your Excellency,’ said Porfiry. ‘And Ruslan Vladimirovich, thank you for coming in.’
Vakhramev nodded minimally in acknowledgement. His eyes darted towards Porfiry, then away, scattering his gaze wildly about.
‘As I understand from the officer you sent to arrest him, he had little if any choice in the matter,’ said Liputin.
‘It was not an arrest; it was a request. I have need of Ruslan Vladimirovich’s assistance. I do not intend to detain you any longer than is necessary. We are just waiting for — ah! And here she is!’
Lara Olsufevna held herself with her accustomed upright bearing as she swept into the bureau, leaving the young politseisky who had brought her trailing. She viewed the men around her with deep suspicion through the pince-nez that saddled her imperious nose.
Porfiry bowed deeply to her; her narrowed gaze made it clear that this cut no ice. ‘Greetings to you, Lara Olsufevna,’ he ventured. Her lips trembled and pursed, perhaps indicating the softening of her distrust. ‘It is my belief that the three people here,’ continued Porfiry, ‘Dr Meyer, Ruslan Vladimirovich, and Lara Olsufevna, have each met, at various times, the individual responsible for the deaths of Raisa and Grigory Meyer, Colonel Setochkin and Yemelyan Antonovich Ferfichkin. Dr Meyer bumped into him outside Ballet’s the confectioner’s. Ruslan Vladimirovich enjoyed the pleasure of this man’s company at a certain farewell celebration in an establishment on Sadovaya Street many years ago.’ Understanding the allusion, Meyer glared at Vakhramev, who looked down, his face flooding with colour. Meyer continued to look at the other man, his expression becoming agitated rather than fierce. A great emotional turmoil seemed to be raging within him. ‘And this lady, Lara Olsufevna, spoke to him at the funeral of a child. I am talking about the Uninvited One. We might also call him Nikolai Nobody. But who exactly is he?’
Porfiry looked up and nodded a signal to Virginsky, who was standing on the other side of the crowded police bureau. Virginsky opened a door and Lieutenant Salytov pushed in Rostanev, still plucking and tightening the points of his beard. Salytov propelled him roughly forward. Rostanev smirked and began to walk directly towards Porfiry.
Meyer, Vakhramev and Lara Olsufevna followed the investigator’s gaze.
‘If any of you now see the man in question, please do not hesitate to point him out to me.’
They watched Rostanev approach but no one said a word. A final push from Salytov sent the little civil servant buffeting into Dr Meyer. Meyer looked down at him in bemusement and then peered over his head, to continue his search for the suspect.
‘No no no! It was not him,’ said Lara Olsufevna scowling in disapproval at Rostanev. ‘The personage I spoke to was taller than this individual — and a gentleman, of course.’
‘Can you be sure it is not the same man?’ asked Porfiry.
‘I think I would have remembered meeting such an ill-favoured brute as this.’
‘Ruslan Vladimirovich?’ Profiry turned to Vakhramev.
‘It was a long time ago,’ said Vakhramev quietly. ‘But this face, once seen, would never be forgotten. And I have to confess that I have never seen it before in my life.’
‘He is not the one,’ confirmed Dr Meyer.
‘Thank you all so very much,’ said Porfiry calmly. ‘You have been a great help. You may go now.’
With an air of bewilderment, the group of three witnesses broke up. Vakhramev glanced at Liputin uncertainly, but reassured by the other man’s nod moved hesitantly away. Liputin encouraged him further with a dismissive sweep of his hand. The prokuror himself did not move. Lara Olsufevna drew herself up stiffly, conveying a sense of insulted dignity. This provoked an even de
eper bow from Porfiry.
‘Gorshkov,’ she said. ‘Gorshkov killed Ferfichkin.’
With that, she turned and swept from the bureau, as if summoning an invisible retinue behind her.
Meyer seemed reluctant to leave. His gaze latched on to Porfiry. ‘If I may help in any other way. .’
‘I will let you know.’
Meyer nodded as if he had expected this answer. After a moment, he began, ‘That other man. .’
‘Ruslan Vladimirovich?’
‘Yes.’ Meyer shot Porfiry an exposed and suffering look. ‘He knew Raisa before. In the days when. .’ Meyer broke off and rubbed the joint of a forefinger against his cheekbone.
Porfiry gave a wincing smile and nodded.
‘Did he sleep with her, do you know?’
‘I do not believe so.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Someone like him did. Many men like him, in all probability. Let him stand for them all. At any rate, he is a respectable gentleman now. No doubt he has put all that behind him.’
‘It would seem so.’
‘He has a wife and family?’
‘Yes. A daughter.’
‘A daughter?’ Meyer nodded as he considered this. ‘I hope he loves his daughter. I hope he loves her enough to forgive her whatever she may do or become. Let him not cast her out.’
The doctor bowed slightly. He gave Porfiry a final imploring look before walking with diffident step towards the door.
‘You too, Axenty Ivanovich,’ said Porfiry to Rostanev. ‘And let this be a lesson to you. No more letters.’
Rostanev’s chuckle warbled brassily in his throat.
‘Don’t forget to pick up your things from Alexander Grigorevich on the way out. Though I think we will hold on to the knife.’
Rostanev’s leer twitched into place. He dipped his head but did-n’t move, until a shove and an ‘Away!’ from Salytov sent him over to Zamyotov’s counter.
‘So, Porfiry Petrovich,’ said Prokuror Liputin. ‘Once again you have let everyone go and are left with nothing. Will you ever bring these cases to a conclusion, I wonder?’
‘I hope so,’ said Porfiry.
‘I would expect a more definite reply at this stage of the investigation, ’ answered Liputin.
‘I can’t believe you let that madman go,’ cut in Salytov. ‘Surely there was something we could have charged him with? The letters, for instance. He admitted to the letters.’
‘Of course, we could have put together a charge based on the malicious letters. However, in the meantime I have a murderer to catch.’ Porfiry lit a cigarette and blew out smoke as Virginsky came over to join them. ‘You know, I never really believed it was Rostanev.’
‘You arrested him, didn’t you?’ said Virginsky.
‘True, Pavel Pavlovich. But did it not strike you that there was something rather too convenient about the way we were led to him? All those coincidences? I mean to say, if Rostanev really did poison the chocolates, would he have been so foolish as to have his name entered in one of Ballet’s order books?’
‘I believe that is what I said at the time and you overruled my objection.’
‘Of course. I wanted you to look through the books. It was good training for you in the more routine aspects of an investigator’s job. Besides, you might have found something interesting.’
Virginsky was indignant. ‘I found what you were looking for.’
‘Exactly! And I am always suspicious when one finds what one is looking for.’
‘And that is it?’ said Salytov, equally as indignant as Virginsky.
‘No, Ilya Petrovich, that most definitely is not it. Rostanev may not be the murderer, but I have a strong suspicion that he will lead us to him.’ They watched Rostanev load his pockets with quills. ‘And, incidentally, that is why I preferred not to charge him in connection with the letters.’ Porfiry considered his cigarette. ‘I have already arranged to have him watched, of course.’
Porfiry nodded to two men who were loitering near the entrance to the bureau, one grubby-faced in a tattered coat and top hat, the other dandyishly turned out in a light-coloured suit and with a moustache so large it made him seem top-heavy. As Rostanev left the bureau, the ragged man sauntered after him. A minute or two later, the smarter one followed.
Prokuror Liputin looked down at Porfiry with a half-sceptical, half-admiring gaze. ‘Porfiry Petrovich, I am glad to hear that you have planned it out so thoroughly. If one did not know you so well, one could be forgiven for thinking that your approach was decidedly more haphazard — improvisational even. I can see that it will not be long before you have your man.’
Porfiry held his smile as Liputin took his leave.
9
The diminished man
The following day, a sticky heat returned to St Petersburg. The humidity of the air mingled with the dust to create a cloying atmosphere; it sapped the energy just to breathe it.
Porfiry and Virginsky were walking north on the sunny side of Gorokhovaya Street. Momentarily blinded by the sunlight in the countless windows, Porfiry had a sense of the sky as an oppressive weight above his head. The sun’s hostility seemed personal. The high, deep apartment buildings on both sides of the street seemed to lean over him, dark masses crowding in impatiently, each one containing a village-worth of souls and all their unknowable secrets.
They stopped outside a barber’s, level with number 97 on the other side of the street.
‘Ah,’ said Porfiry. ‘This would be a good place from which. .’ He squinted into the shop. ‘I thought so!’ The dandyish man from the bureau was sitting in the seat nearest the window. The barber bobbed and floated around him, his hands flicking out to snip at and comb reverently the seated man’s plump moustache. It seemed that the barber’s deference was directed wholly towards this magisterial and self-possessed specimen of facial hair, rather than its wearer. The man in the seat gave no indication of recognising Porfiry, except that his eye enlarged forbiddingly, as if this was an important business in which he could not be disturbed.
Porfiry turned away to watch the entrance to number 97. Every now and then, individuals, or groups of men, in civil service uniforms came out and headed off briskly in one direction or another, some with their lunches parcelled in brown paper under their arms.
A few minutes later, Porfiry and Virginsky were joined by the freshly groomed police spy. He stroked his prized moustache jealously, completely in its thrall. Without looking at Porfiry, he gave his report: ‘We followed him directly here yesterday. Akaky Akakevich took the first watch. I relieved him at midnight. I am expecting Akaky Akakevich at any moment to relieve me. The subject went straight inside yesterday and has not come out. The yardkeeper is watching the rear of the building for us. He has reported nothing.’
‘I see.’ Porfiry continued to watch the entrance opposite. The exodus of civil servants seemed to have tailed off. ‘You have not seen him leave for his department then? He would come out by the front door for that, I think.’
‘I have not seen him.’ The man swayed unsteadily.
‘Are you drunk?’
‘No sir. I’ve been on my feet half the night. My legs have turned to jelly. I just went into the barber’s for a bit of a sit-down.’
‘Very well. As soon as Akaky Akakevich arrives you may go home.’
The man’s head tipped forwards, under the weight of his gratitude.
According to their briefing from Salytov, Rostanev’s room was on the fifth floor; that is to say, in the attic of the house.
‘You will find, Pavel Pavlovich,’ said Porfiry as they tramped the stairs, ‘that as an investigating magistrate in St Petersburg one is always climbing one flight of stairs or another.’ He paused, breathing heavily, to rest one hand on his knee as he stooped to look out of a low window. ‘I wonder if Ilya Petrovich has this right. One would expect such a man to live underground.’
‘Such a man?’ said Virginsky.
‘The solitary, brooding type. The moder
n kind of madman.’
‘Perhaps he likes to look down on the city and its denizens?’
‘You may have something there, Pavel Pavlovich.’ Porfiry took out and lit a cigarette.
‘You think that the murderer will have contacted Rostanev?’ asked Virginsky.
‘Certainly, it will be interesting to find out from Axenty Ivanovich if he has had any visitors overnight. That’s my chief purpose in visiting him. It is not a social call. Of course, it is likely that Rostanev himself is unaware that the person in question is a murderer. ’ Porfiry drew deeply on his cigarette. His expression darkened. ‘You know, Pavel Pavlovich, I am surprised and — I confess — more than a little concerned that he has not gone into the department this morning. I would have expected it. The department is his life.’ Porfiry dropped the cigarette and ground it with his heel. He gave Virginsky an urgent look. ‘We may be too late already.’
Porfiry took the steps two and three at a time. Virginsky was momentarily surprised by the older man’s speed. He quickly recovered and gave chase.
As they reached the fifth-floor landing, Porfiry almost collided with a young man in a civil service coat who was hurrying out, his bleary eyes fixed on the cap in his hands.
‘Rostanev?’ barked Porfiry, as he dodged the human obstacle.
The young civil servant gaped after him.
‘Funny little man with a pronged beard? Last door on the left or right?’
‘Right,’ said the bewildered-looking young man.
They reached the end of the corridor. Porfiry gave Virginsky a significant look before pounding the door with the side of his fist. There was no answer. Porfiry knocked again and put his ear to the door.
‘There’s someone in there. I heard a sound.’
‘What sound?’
‘Not a good sound.’
Porfiry turned the handle of the door and found it locked.
‘Axenty Ivanovich! Can you hear me? Open up now. It’s Porfiry Petrovich. I wish to speak to you.’
He was answered by a long, croaking groan. There was a pause, then a second groan sounded, higher and more urgent than the first, like a compressed force escaping. Finally, a low rumble faded gradually to nothing.
