by Rebecca West
Chubinov rose clumsily, not with the clumsiness of Chubinov, but with the greater clumsiness of Baraton, who was not so wellborn, knocking over his chair. When he had touched Tania’s hand with his lips he said, “I would have known you anywhere. All the ladies of the Diakonov family look as if they were covered with diamonds, even when they are wearing none. This is no time for diamonds, but still you shine. You dispel the darkness of the spirit,” he added, as if to make it clear that this was not a worldly compliment. He was within a hairsbreadth of breaking down and telling the truth. But painfully he forced himself to lie. “I am Hippolyte Baraton.”
“Ah. And I’m Tania, the one who never had the good fortune to be taught by you. But so often when the family photographs are brought out, all those of the gardens at Nice, it always was, ‘Who is the boy who looks so shy, who’s trying to hide behind his neighbour?’ and the answer was, ‘Oh, that was our dear Hippolyte.’”
The man in plain clothes said, “I’m sorry we have to intrude on you in your time of grief, Madame. But there’s been a man killed on the street just below, and we thought that this gentleman, who was passing by at the time, might be able to tell us something about the incident. But first, just as a matter of routine, may I ask you some questions about yourself and your household?”
The unlucky policeman gave up his chair to her and stood leaning against the wall and staring at her under puckered brows, while she gave the answers. The man in plain clothes finally said, “That’s all, I think. To sum up, this is the apartment of Count Diakonov, formerly a Minister of the Tsar, and brother to a former Russian Ambassador to Paris. You’re his daughter, and the wife of an Englishman, a Member of the House of Commons. And this is your daughter of eighteen. And you remember Monsieur Baraton from seeing him in your family photographs.” He and his assistant looked over at the unlucky policeman with an air of malicious triumph. “And we didn’t really need to ask who the young lady is, for her hair makes that evident.”
At that the assistant nearly laughed aloud, and the unlucky policeman bit his lip. It was plain what he had been telling them. “There was something fishy about the couple. I think the man might have done the job, and the girl with him looked strange, and I believe her hair was dyed, as a decent girl’s hair wouldn’t be.”
“Now, Monsieur Baraton, you told the officer here that you didn’t know the man who was killed. When did you first see him this afternoon?”
“On my way here, at the corner where the Rue Belloy runs into the Avenue Kléber. I noticed him because he was carrying those white roses. Just afterwards I remembered I’d not packed any tooth-powder, so I went back to a chemist’s shop I’d just passed, and bought a tin of the stuff. It’s in the pocket of my overcoat, there on the door. Then I made my way up the avenue, but the Count being dead, I had my own preoccupations, and I didn’t think of this man again, until, suddenly, I saw him lying on the pavement.”
“And then our officer here questioned you, Monsieur Baraton. Since then he’s thought over your answers and we’d like them clarified.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I can. But I really didn’t see anything.”
“It isn’t quite a matter of what you saw or didn’t see. It’s a matter of what you said. Our officer thought the man had been stabbed. He was told so by a witness who had formed a false impression. He therefore asked you if you had seen a man stabbed. You replied that you hadn’t seen anybody stabbed, and each time, you laid a slight emphasis on the word ‘stabbed’ as if you were surprised by the notion that that was the way he had died.”
“That’s quite wrong. What surprised me was that someone should be murdered, by any means at all, in the Avenue Kléber. It doesn’t seem appropriate, someone being murdered in a Haussmann Boulevard. Down by the Marais, that would seem much more suitable, if you know what I mean. Not that I want to take issue with our friend here, for it can’t be an important point.”
“But it is. For the man who was lying on the pavement had been shot. The man who murdered him would, therefore, have been very much surprised, if he were asked whether he’d seen the victim stabbed. Wouldn’t he, Monsieur Baraton?”
The blood was racing in Laura’s ears. She did not hear Chubinov’s faint answer.
“The victim must have been shot just about the time when you and he were within some yards of each other on the corner of the Rue Belloy. Are you a revolver shot, Monsieur Baraton?”
The nostrils of the unlucky policeman were distended, his profile looked noble and triumphant.
The answer came loudly and confidently: “Yes, I am an excellent revolver shot. The Count himself taught me. I am still quite fair. It would have been child’s play for me to shoot him just before I went into the chemist’s shop. I couldn’t have missed.” He took another drink of coffee and slopped it down his waistcoat, gaping about him in hurt astonishment, as Tania and Laura, the man in plain clothes and his assistant, burst into nervous laughter. “If you ask your brothers,” he told Tania, “they could confirm what I say.” Then his eyes fell on the unlucky policeman who was still leaning against the wall, still pouting in implacable suspicion. “I suppose what I have just said sounds foolish,” said Chubinov stiffly, “but I’d like to point out that I could hardly be accused of shooting this poor man, as I haven’t got a gun nearer than Nice. I’ll be only too pleased if you’ll search me.”
The man in plain clothes smiled down at his notebook, and there was a pause. Tania said, “There’s been a lot of coming and going in this apartment this afternoon. I see you might quite well want to be assured that nobody here, either of my household or among my visitors had anything to do with this horrible business. Please search the apartment. But I’d be obliged if you’d let the servants help you. If you’re going to turn out this room, for example, I’d like the servant who sees to the mending and the care of the linen to be with you, so that she can put things back.” She spoke placidly, as if in the interests of abstract order. But then her voice shook. “And of course, you won’t go into the room where my father is lying.”
“Of course not,” murmured the man in plain clothes, bowing.
“In any case it couldn’t interest you, for in our Church the Psalms have to be recited perpetually over our dead, and two people have been there all the time.”
“Actually we won’t search that room or this room or any other in the apartment,” he said. “At least not now. If this gentleman will come down to the police-station, I’m writing down the address, and make a statement later tonight, that’s all we need for the moment. If we need more help, we’ll call on you again. But I hope we’ll not need to intrude on you.” He spoke, as men often did in the presence of Tania, in the character of a man more elegant and fortunate than himself.
When Tania had thanked him she did not rise and leave. She asked gravely, “Who was the man who was killed?”
“We’ve no idea, beyond the fact that he was middle-aged, dark, short, and healthy. He was one of those men of mystery we sometimes find on our hands. He must have been quite wealthy, and had a secret to keep. All the labels on his clothes had been carefully unpicked, even the tailor’s marks which customers don’t usually know about had gone. But coat, suit, underclothes, they’re all of good quality. His shoes must have been quite expensive. Handmade, of the best. Handkerchief of fine lawn, but no monogram.
A silver cigarette-case, but no monogram. No papers of any sort, no letters. Only a considerable amount of money in francs and sovereigns. And these.” He held out a pair of spectacles, lying flat on his palm. “But you will be surprised. The lenses are clear glass.”
“What horrible sinister things,” sighed Tania. “Sinister because they’re useless.”
“Not wholly useless. If he wanted to change his appearance quickly when he was pulling off a fraud.”
“Well, fraud is uselessness,” said Tania. “I wonder who he was. You know, I thought I might know. My father, like all Tsarist Ministers, was persecuted by the terrorists. I was
afraid that one of the friends who came to mourn my father, a general, perhaps, or a high official, had been shot down by one of these misguided men. But none of our friends would have had the labels on their clothes unpicked, or carried such spectacles in their pockets. I also wondered whether the dead man might have been one of the terrorists. They’re always having feuds among themselves, my father used to say. But in that case his clothes wouldn’t have been good, and he wouldn’t have had all that money on him. These revolutionaries live very poorly. To do them justice, they’re idealists.”
“It wouldn’t be anybody of that sort. I would put him down as a criminal whose efforts had been crowned with considerable success. A jewel thief. Or a bank robber. Or a share swindler.”
Still she lingered. “How dreadful that we don’t know his name. I’ll have a prayer offered up for him by the priest at our evening service. And think, we’ll have to pray for him as a man, just a man, an unknown person. Imagine destroying one’s own identity as that poor creature did! Every day throwing away one’s past. Annihilating one’s self. What strange, strange things people do with their lives!”
Her soft gaze passed from face to face of the strangers, asking each if he could explain to her how this might be; and all gently shook their heads. The unlucky policeman, still leaning against the wall, impatiently shifted his position. His angry eyes said to Laura, “You and your buffoon of a friend know all about this job, and the poor lady’s in the dark.” Laura jerked her head high, enraged by the false accusation. But then she remembered that it was not false.
XVI
When Laura and Chubinov were alone, she said, “Now tell me what really happened.”
“First take a glass of vodka. You look so white.”
“We’re not allowed to drink in our family till we’re twenty-one. But hurry up. Tell me. I want to know exactly what it is we’ve done.”
“Well, it began, you know how it is, with all my sense of time going to pieces. I left my hotel near Les Halles, with my gun in my pocket, and the seam of my overcoat properly slit, at what seemed to me the right hour. ‘Now you must go,’ I said imperatively to myself, ‘you haven’t a moment to spare.’ But when I got off the bus at the Étoile I looked at my watch and it was an hour and a half too early. So I walked down the Avenue Victor-Hugo and across by the Avenue Malakoff and up to the Place d’Iéna, and I had three lemonades at different cafés, and the day was empty of everything but dust and warmth and glare, and what I had to do drained out of my mind, leaving nothing but the intention to do it. No more than my gun did I visualize the deed. Then I saw that the hour really had come, and at a quarter to four I went along the Rue Belloy towards the Avenue Kléber. I meant to go up to the avenue till I came to this house, and then take out my notebook and fumble in its leaves, as if I were verifying an address, and every now and then stare in a foolish way at the neighbouring houses, keeping my face turned away from the entrance, and looking at a little mirror held in the palm of my hand to see who was approaching it. But I didn’t really care if Gorin did catch sight of me. He could hardly prevent me from accompanying him into the courtyard and after that I could shoot him as he got into the elevator and sent it up to the top floor, so that I could get well away before anybody knew for sure there was a corpse in it.
“But almost as soon as I got into the Rue Belloy I found myself walking beside him. He was marching along as if he hadn’t a care in the world, carrying these white roses. I can’t remember ever having seen him look so happy. It’s wonderful to witness a really very intelligent man in a moment of real blissfulness. Always when I walked with him I had to shorten my stride, my legs being so much longer than his, and I followed this habit, though it was the last thing I should have done just then. I should have dropped back and followed him. But with an insane rashness, I kept up with him, because I was almost sure I had recognized the way the white roses were wrapped; and so I had. There’s a florist in the Rue du Faubourg St.-Honoré, whose wife comes from the Crimea, and she has a distinctive way of preparing bouquets for gentlemen to present to ladies. She puts them in a cone of thick white shiny paper, cutting holes in it with a pair of scissors to make a pretty pattern, and scalloping the edges. It’s a craft peculiar to her native town. I was right, that’s how those white roses were wrapped. It seemed so unlikely that he would be taking such a bouquet to a house of mourning, that I imagined he might not be coming to your house at all, and I feared I might have to alter my plan radically.”
“No,” said Laura. “Those roses were for me. He asked me at Grissaint what flowers he could bring me when we got back to Paris, and said they must be white. White flowers for the dead. He was being funny in a horrible way.”
“How incredibly cruel. Anyway I was so puzzled by this bouquet that we went on walking side by side, in step, just as if we were out on one of our friendly strolls, say at Clarens. Then suddenly he turned his head and exclaimed ‘Vassili’ quite loudly. Not at all in a conspiratorial way. Then he repeated my name very softly, and we continued at our easy, comradely pace. ‘You’re not in England. I thought you were in England. There must be an explanation.’”
“That means he’d grasped that I’d lied to him when I said I’d seen you get into the Calais train at Grissaint,” said Laura. “I’d have had no chance at all, if he’d ever got into this house.”
“None. For listen to my story. I said to him, ‘Gorin, I know everything. You’ve handed over many, many of our people to the Secret Police.’ I didn’t speak of your grandfather. I didn’t want to defile him. Gorin didn’t reply. We just walked on, by now maniacally careful to keep step, you’d have thought it was a trick for avoiding arrest. Presently Gorin said, ‘You’ve been meddling, Vassili. Tchk, tchk. You’ve been meddling.’ And, do you know, I felt guilty. But I said, ‘It’s as well that I have.’ He made another chiding noise, and told me, patiently, ‘Vassili, it’s true that I’ve been obliged from time to time to do some very strange things. But what I’ve done for the revolutionary cause outweighs by far what I’ve done for the Secret Police.’ I simply replied, ‘Korolenko, Primar, Damatov.’ I was shaking. I remembered that on occasions I had used the same cake of soap as Gorin.”
“Yes, and he used the knives and forks and spoons, drank out of the same cups and glasses as we did, here.”
“When I had got over my nausea I said, ‘Judas.’ Then he stopped and faced me. Not only was I looking directly at him, we were in front of a pharmacy which behind the wares in its windows had panels of mirror-glass, and in these I saw reflections of him from various angles. All of them showed a man of integrity, perhaps a little too stolid, a little too obviously moral. Fondly, as if speaking to a stupid but beloved son, he said, ‘But you can’t compare what I’ve done for the Secret Police with what I’ve done for our revolutionary cause. Work it out for yourself, my poor Vassili.’ He spread out his arms. ‘I organized the assassination of many great men, such as Sipyagin, the Governor of Ufa, Plehve, and the Grand Duke Serge. And whom did I hand over to the Secret Police, I ask you? Korolenko, Primar, Damatov.’ I found it hard to interpret the gesture he was making, for he was still holding the white roses in one hand. But he repeated it, and the second time I couldn’t mistake his meaning. When he spoke of Sipyagin, the Governor of Ufa, Plehve, the Grand Duke Serge, his hand went down and down. When he named Korolenko, Primar, and Damatov, his left hand and the roses went up and up, and wavered. His hands were scales in which he was weighing the one set of his victims against the other; and for him the weight of his martyred comrades was so insignificant that the scale that held them would fly up. My mind was numbed but my skin thought for me. My disgust was said in sweat. My pores opened all over my body. Now you will not believe what he said. Surely with real kindness, with unaffected concern, he said, ‘You look quite ill, Vassili.’ I answered, ‘I am perfectly well,’ as if it were a curse. The hatred in my voice must have reached him. He said uneasily, ‘Also, I was working out a new principle.’ Think of that. A new pri
nciple!”
“He told me about that,” said Laura. “It was something he got out of a book.”
“What book, I wonder?”
“Hegel.”
“Oh, no, it can’t have been that. You must have been mistaken. Not Hegel.”
“It’s what he said.” “And that was natural,” she thought, “Hegel’s your lot’s Old Moore’s Almanac.”
“Strange. Well, there we stood, and suddenly he looked over his shoulder towards the avenue, and said, ‘But I can’t wait. I have an appointment to keep.’ He ran his eyes over me, and I think it passed through his mind that I might be armed and could shoot him through my overcoat. But an expression of contemptuous trust came over him, he might have been a clever thief and I a toothless old watch-dog. ‘Good dog,’ he might have said. But then again, he frowned and shook his head, as if he didn’t want to part from me like this, leaving me with a poor opinion of him. Reproachfully he said, ‘Oh, Vassili, Vassili, you have prevented me from offering the movement a farewell gift which would have been my greatest contribution to the cause. I was about to arrange for the disposal of him.’ Solemnly he repeated the word ‘him.’ Miss Laura, you’ve been speaking as if the responsibility for his death was partly yours. You needn’t feel a shadow of guilt. For the reason which made me shoot him when I did had nothing to do with you. It depended on what he did after he said the word ‘him.’”