by Boris Akunin
“Judge for yourself, Matvei Bentsionovich,” said Lagrange, brushing a little feather off the assistant prosecutor’s sleeve. “The link between the murder in the night and the scandal of the previous evening is clear, is it not?”
“That would seem to be the case.”
“There were ten people at Olympiada Savelievna’s soirée, not counting the ladies. We shall omit the synodical inspector and the marshal of the nobility, because they are quality, and in any case there is no indication of any motive. In addition, those invited by the deceased included: the estate manager Shiryaev, Prince Telianov, and merchant of the first guild Krasnov. The hostess’s own guests included the headmaster of the grammar school, Sonin, the barrister Kleist, and the architect Brandt. And Vladimir Lvovich also brought his secretary, Spasyonny.”
“That would seem to be the case,” repeated Berdichevsky, scribbling away rapidly with his pencil. “And, of course, in the first instance you suspect Shiryaev and in the second Telianov?”
“Not so fast,” said Felix Stanislavovich with a rapturous smile. “At this stage of initial approximation I am not inclined to narrow the circle of suspects too far. Take the ladies, for instance. Princess Telianova was the main target of yesterday’s scandal. If she did not kill him herself, she could be the mastermind or an accomplice, and I shall have more to say about that. Now for Mrs. Lisitsyna.”
Pelagia froze, with the photograph of the nude on the sand still not completely assembled.
“A very unusual lady. It’s not clear what exactly she has been doing in Zavolzhsk for all this time. I made inquiries, and apparently she came to visit her sister, a nun. Then why is she making the rounds of all the balls and the salons? She gets everywhere; everybody knows her. She’s lively and flirtatious, and she turns men’s heads. All the signs suggest that she’s an adventuress.”
Berdichevsky squinted sideways at Pelagia in embarrassment, but she did not seem to be listening any longer; she was fiddling intently with her scraps of paper.
“Today I inquired by telegraph whether Polina Andreevna Lisitsyna had figured in any other cases. And what do you think? She had, in three of them! Three years ago in Perm, in the case of the murder of the ascetic monk Pafnutii. Last year in Kazan, in the case of the theft of a miraculous icon, and again in Samara, in the case of the sinking of the steamer Svyatogor. In all three cases she testified as a witness at the trials. How do you like that?”
Berdichevsky gave the nun another glance, not embarrassed this time, but quizzical.
“Yes, that is curious,” he admitted. “But we have already established that a woman could not have committed this murder.”
“Even so, this Lisitsyna is damned suspicious. But never mind her, we’ll sort that out later. And now let us move on to the prime suspects, meaning those who have known Poggio for a long time and had, or could have had, reasons for killing him.” Lagrange extended his index finger. “Number one, of course, is Shiryaev. He is insanely in love with Telianova and tried to kill Poggio right there at the opening. They barely managed to pull him off. Number two is the princess’s brother, Pyotr Telianov.” The chief of police extended his middle finger as well. “Here the matter of wounded vanity could also well play a part. Telianov was the last one there to realize that his sister had been insulted, and that made him look like either a fool or a coward. An unstable young man of unsavory character. He is under open surveillance, and I regard these nihilist types as capable of any kind of abomination. When someone has raised his hand against the foundations of the state, what can one man’s life mean to him? But in this case it is even excusable in a certain sense—he was standing up for his sister. But that is still not all.” His ring finger, still half-bent, was added to the other two. “Sytnikov. A secretive gentleman, but also not without his passions. According to my information, by no means indifferent to Telianova’s charms. So there’s your motive—envy of a more successful rival. Donat Abramovich would not go skulking around at night like a bandit himself, but he could well have sent one of his fine young fellows. All of his employees are Old Believers to a man. Morose types with long beards who regard the authorities with hostility.” Felix Stanislavovich seemed to find the idea that the murderers were Old Believers to his liking. “Why not, it would certainly be easy enough. I’d better inform Vladimir Lvovich…”
“And by the way, about Vladimir Lvovich,” Berdichevsky remarked with an innocent air. “Not everything is clear there, either. They say that Telianova didn’t simply drop Poggio, she dropped him for Bubentsov.”
“Rubbish,” said the police chief, waving the hand with the extended fingers dismissively. “Women’s tittle-tattle. Telianova, of course, might well be pining for Vladimir Lvovich. Nothing surprising in that—he’s a most exceptional man. But Vladimir Lvovich is absolutely indifferent to her. And even if there had been something between them before, where’s the motive? Jealousy for a lover you don’t care for and don’t know how to get rid of? Murder somebody because of that? That sort of thing doesn’t happen, Matvei Bentsionovich.”
He had to admit that Lagrange was right.
“Then what are we going to do?” asked Berdichevsky.
“I think that for a start it would be a good idea to question all three of them….”
The chief of police did not finish what he was saying—he had noticed the nun standing to one side not far away. Scraps of photographs, neatly assembled into rectangles, lay on the floor along the walls.
“Why are you still nosing around?” Felix Stanislavovich exclaimed irritably. “Finish tidying up and get out. Or even better, sweep all this litter out of here.”
Pelagia bowed without speaking and walked upstairs to the second floor.
The police officers who had carried out the search were sitting in the laboratory, smoking cigarettes.
“What do you want, little sister?” the one she already knew, with the crumpled face, asked in a jolly voice. “Forget something?”
The nun saw that there were no more fragments of glass lying on the floor—they had all been collected and laid out, just like the photographs in the salon. Following the direction of her gaze, the jolly fellow said: “There’s some there as wouldn’t be recommended for your eyes. He was quite an interesting gentleman, was our Poggio. A shame; no way to restore anything now.”
Pelagia asked: “Tell me, sir, is there a plate here with the title ‘Rainy Morning’?”
The detective stopped smiling and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Strange you should ask that, sister. There’s a ‘Rainy Morning’ here in the list, but we didn’t find any plate. Not a scrap. He must have been unhappy with it and decided to throw it out. And what do you know about it?”
Pelagia said nothing, knitting her ginger brows in a frown. She was thinking.
“So what about this ‘Rainy Morning’ then?” the detective with the crumbled face persisted.
“Do not distract me, my son, I am praying,” the nun replied absentmindedly, and then she turned and went back downstairs.
The whole point was that the photograph with that title was also missing from the salon. All the pictures assembled from fragments corresponded to the titles remaining on the walls—even the three of the unknown nude that had provoked the scandal. But she had not discovered a single fragment, even the tiniest, of “Rainy Morning.”
“…But still, Bubentsov should also be questioned!” she heard as she entered the salon.
Matvei Bentsionovich and Felix Stanislavovich were apparently unable to agree on the list of suspects.
“You can’t insult a man like that by suspecting him! Think again, Mr. Berdichevsky! Of course, I am entirely in your power, but…Well, now what do you want?” the chief of police barked at Pelagia.
“We should gather everyone who was here yesterday and all pray together for the soul of the recently departed servant of God,” she said, glancing meekly at him with her radiant brown eyes. “Who knows; perhaps the monster might repent
?”
“Get out, at the double!” barked Lagrange. “Why on earth did you have to bring her with you?”
Matvei Bentsionovich nodded imperceptibly to Pelagia and took the chief of police by the elbow.
“I’ll tell you what we need to do. Praying, of course, is a waste of time, but it would not be a bad idea to arrange a confrontation, as a kind of investigative experiment. We’ll gather together everyone who was here yesterday, on the pretext of establishing who was where at any given moment, and who said—”
“Excellent!” exclaimed Felix Stanislavovich, catching on to the idea. “You have a genuine talent for criminology! And we must bring in Telianova. The mere sight of her will send all these gamecocks into a frenzy, and the killer is bound to give himself away. After all, it’s perfectly obvious that this is no cold-blooded killing, it’s a crime of passion. How will a man in the grip of passion be able to restrain himself? We’ll gather them together this very evening. And in the meantime I’ll check the alibis of everyone involved.”
“And make sure Bubentsov comes; he has to be here.”
“You are destroying me, Matvei Bentsionovich; do you wish to ruin your most devoted servant?” Lagrange complained bitterly. “What if Vladimir Lvovich gets angry at me?”
“Better take care that I don’t get angry at you,” was Berdichevsky’s quiet reply.
EVERYTHING WAS ARRANGED precisely as it had been during the ill-starred soirée, even with hors d’oeuvres and wine (although not, of course, champagne, because that would have been excessive). The hostess, Olympiada Savelievna, had conceived the happy thought of transforming the humiliating police procedure into a memorial evening for Arkadii Sergeevich, and now she felt even more like the hostess at her own name-day party than she had the previous day. That is to say, in the morning, when she heard about the murder, she had been frightened at first, and her woman’s heart had even ached with pity for poor Poggio. She had cried a little, but sometime later, when it emerged that the scandalous fame of the soirée had exceeded her very wildest hopes and that even more sensational events might still be to come, the postmaster’s wife had completely shaken off her dejection and spent the entire second half of the day refurbishing a black shot-silk dress that had been lying in mothballs in the cupboard since the last funeral.
For this new soirée the list of participants—on this occasion summoned rather than invited—was almost identical with that for the first. For obvious reasons, Arkadii Sergeevich was absent, but his vengeful spirit was represented by the assistant prosecutor and the chief of police. In addition, in contrast with the previous day, Naina Georgievna was present from the very beginning, for, having been officially notified of the investigative experiment, she arrived promptly at the appointed time of nine o’clock, although Felix Stanislavovich had expected that she would have to be brought under armed escort.
Once she arrived, the party responsible for this calamity (for that was how the majority of those present regarded her) instantly eclipsed their hostess, relegating her to the background. Today Naina Georgievna was more beautiful than ever. She looked quite exceptionally good in the lilac mourning dress and long black gloves that emphasized the elegant lines of her arms, and her black velvet eyes glowed with a special, mysterious light. There was not a trace of embarrassment in her manner; quite the contrary, she carried herself like a genuine queen, the guest of honor for whom this entire funeral feast had been convened.
The prime suspect was quiet, taciturn, and quite different from the way he had been the previous day. Polina Andreevna was surprised to note that, in total contrast with yesterday, his face bore an expression of appeasement, even contentment.
Pyotr Georgievich, however, was as prickly as a hedgehog, repeatedly making impertinent remarks to the representatives of authority, proclaiming in stentorian tones that it was disgraceful to arrange such a show, and demonstratively turning his back on his sister to indicate that he did not wish to have anything to do her.
Among the other participants, Krasnov attracted attention to himself by sobbing interminably and blowing his nose into a truly immense handkerchief. At the beginning of the evening he expressed a desire to recite an ode dedicated to the dead man’s memory, and had read the first two verses before Berdichevksy called a halt to the recital as inappropriate. The two verses were as follows:
He perished in his very prime,
This sorcerer of lens and light.
Fate’s bloody sword cut short his time,
A murderous blow struck in the night.
His flame of heavenly inspiration
No longer now lights up the room.
In disarray and consternation
The world is plunged in deepest gloom.
Vladimir Lvovich again arrived later than everyone else and again dispensed with all apologies—why indeed should he bother when Lagrange was showering him with verbose justifications and begging forgiveness for distracting a busy man from state business?
“No matter, you are doing your duty,” Bubentsov commented drily, taking a file of documents from his secretary and settling himself in an armchair. “I only hope that this will not last long.”
“For that yesterday I did speak unto you and suddenly the terrible hour of death came upon me, for all of us do disappear, all of us do die, both kings and princes, both rich and poor and the whole of humankind,” Tikhon Ieremeevich declaimed with feeling, and following these doleful words the experiment began in earnest.
Felix Stanislavovich immediately took center stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please come into the salon,” he said, pushing open the double doors that led into the adjoining room.
Just as on the previous day, the guests left the drawing room and moved into the exhibition hall. Of course, there were no pictures this time; all that was left were the lonely little strips of paper with the titles of the works that had been irretrievably lost.
The chief of police halted beside the title “On the Curving Shore.”
“I hope that everyone remembers the three pictures showing a certain lady in the nude that were hanging here, here, and here,” he began, jabbing his finger three times at the empty wallpaper.
The only response was silence.
“I know that the model’s face was not fully visible in any of the photographs, but I would like us to make a concerted effort to restore certain features. It is extremely important for the investigation to establish the identity of this woman. Or perhaps someone here present already knows it?”
The chief of police glared hard at Princess Telianova, but she failed to notice his piercing glance because she was not even looking at the speaker, but at Bubentsov. He was standing slightly apart from everyone else, closely studying a sheet of paper.
“Very well, ladies and gentlemen,” Lagrange drawled ominously. “Then we shall follow a slow and indelicate route. We shall establish the identity of the model one part at a time and, moreover, by those parts that are usually concealed under clothing, for we are hardly going to learn much about the face. But we shall in any case start with the head. What color was the hair of the lady in question?
“Light, with a golden shimmer to it,” said the marshal’s wife. “Very thick and slightly wavy.”
“Excellent,” said the chief of police with a nod. “Thank you, Evgenia Anatolievna. More or less like this?” He pointed to the coils of hair dangling from under Naina Georgievna’s hat.
“Very possibly,” the countess stammered, blushing.
“And the neck? What can you tell me about the neck?” Felix Stanislavovich asked, sighing with the air of a man whose patience is almost exhausted. “And then we shall discuss in the greatest possible detail the shoulders, the back, the bust, the stomach, the legs. And other parts of the body, including the thighs and the buttocks—we shall certainly have to do that.”
Lagrange’s tone of voice had become threatening, and he pronounced the awkward word “buttocks” with especial emphasis, almost cha
nting it.
“Or perhaps we might just be able to manage without that?” he asked, this time addressing Naina Georgievna directly.
She smiled calmly, evidently enjoying all the glances directed at her and the general embarrassment. She did not betray the slightest sign of the offended modesty that had almost reduced her to tears the day before.
“Well, let us suppose that you can define the breasts and the buttocks,” she said with a shrug. “What then? Are you going to strip all the female inhabitants of the province naked and hold a parade?”
“Why all of them?” Felix Stanislavovich hissed through his teeth. “Only those who are under suspicion. And no parade will be required; what would we want with a scandal like that? It will be quite sufficient to verify certain specific features. I am actually conducting this interrogation to maintain formal procedure and for the sake of later record-keeping, but in actual fact I have already spoken with some of those now present. I know, specifically, that the lady in whom we are interested has two noticeable moles on her right buttock and that just below her breasts she has a light-colored birthmark the size of a fifty-kopek piece. You have no idea, princess, how attentive the male eye is to small details of that kind.”
Even the indomitable Naina Georgievna was stung by that—she blushed and was at a loss for words.
Lisitsyna came to her aid.
“Ah, gentlemen, why do we keep talking about the same photographs all the time?” she twittered, trying to divert the conversation away from this indecorous theme. “There were so many wonderful landscapes here! Over there, for instance, there was an absolutely marvelous work—it impressed me so much that I simply can’t forget it. Don’t you remember? It was called ‘Rainy Morning.’ Such expression, such subtle play of light and shade!”
Matvei Bentsionovich gave this lady who had spoken out of turn a look of clear dissatisfaction and Lagrange even knitted his brows and frowned menacingly, intending to call the idle prattler to order, but Naina Georgievna was clearly delighted by the turn of conversation.