The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense

by Otto Penzler

  Two hours later the examining magistrate drove up. Nikolay Yermolaitch Tchubikov (that was the magistrate’s name), a tall, thick-set old man of sixty, had been hard at work for a quarter of a century. He was known to the whole district as an honest, intelligent, energetic man, devoted to his work. His invariable companion, assistant, and secretary, a tall young man of six and twenty, called Dyukovsky, arrived on the scene of action with him.

  “Is it possible, gentlemen?” Tchubikov began, going into Psyekov’s room and rapidly shaking hands with everyone. “Is it possible? Mark Ivanitch? Murdered? No, it’s impossible! Imposs-i-ble!”

  “There it is,” sighed the superintendent

  “Merciful heavens! Why I saw him only last Friday. At the fair at Tarabankovo! Saving your presence, I drank a glass of vodka with him!”

  “There it is,” the superintendent sighed once more.

  They heaved sighs, expressed their horror, drank a glass of tea each, and went to the lodge.

  “Make way!” the police inspector shouted to the crowd.

  On going into the lodge the examining magistrate first of all set to work to inspect the door into the bedroom. The door turned out to be made of deal, painted yellow, and not to have been tampered with. No special traces that might have served as evidence could be found. They proceeded to break open the door.

  “I beg you, gentlemen, who are not concerned, to retire,” said the examining magistrate, when, after long banging and cracking, the door yielded to the axe and the chisel. “I ask this in the interests of the investigation.… Inspector, admit no one!”

  Tchubikov, his assistant, and the police superintendent opened the door and hesitatingly, one after the other, walked into the room. The following spectacle met their eyes. In the solitary window stood a big wooden bedstead with an immense feather bed on it. On the rumpled feather bed lay a creased and crumpled quilt. A pillow, in a cotton pillow case—also much creased, was on the floor. On a little table beside the bed lay a silver watch, and silver coins to the value of twenty kopecks. Some sulphur matches lay there too. Except the bed, the table, and a solitary chair, there was no furniture in the room. Looking under the bed, the superintendent saw two dozen empty bottles, an old straw hat, and a jar of vodka. Under the table lay one boot, covered with dust. Taking a look round the room, Tchubikov frowned and flushed crimson.

  “The blackguards!” he muttered, clenching his fists.

  “And where is Mark Ivanitch?” Dyukovsky asked quietly.

  “I beg you not to put your spoke in,” Tchubikov answered roughly. “Kindly examine the floor. This is the second case in my experience, Yevgraf Kuzmitch,” he added to the police superintendent, dropping his voice. “In 1870 I had a similar case. But no doubt you remember it.… The murder of the merchant Portretov. It was just the same. The blackguards murdered him, and dragged the dead body out of the window.”

  Tchubikov went to the window, drew the curtain aside, and cautiously pushed the window. The window opened.

  “It opens, so it was not fastened.… H’m there are traces on the window-sill. Do you see? Here is the trace of a knee.… Some one climbed out.… We shall have to inspect the window thoroughly.”

  “There is nothing special to be observed on the floor,” said Dyukovsky. “No stains, nor scratches. The only thing I have found is a used Swedish match. Here it is. As far as I remember, Mark Ivanitch didn’t smoke; in a general way he used sulphur ones, never Swedish matches. This match may serve as a clue.…”

  “Oh, hold your tongue, please!” cried Tchubikov, with a wave of his hand. “He keeps on about his match! I can’t stand these excitable people! Instead of looking for matches, you had better examine the bed!”

  On inspecting the bed, Dyukovsky reported:

  “There are no stains of blood or of anything else.… Nor are there any fresh rents. On the pillow there are traces of teeth. A liquid, having the smell of beer and also the taste of it, has been spilt on the quilt.… The general appearance of the bed gives grounds for supposing there has been a struggle.”

  “I know there was a struggle without your telling me! No one asked you whether there was a struggle. Instead of looking out for a struggle you had better be …”

  “One boot is here, the other one is not on the scene.”

  “Well, what of that?”

  “Why, they must have strangled him while he was taking off his boots. He hadn’t time to take the second boot off when .…”

  “He’s off again! … And how do you know that he was strangled?”

  “There are marks of teeth on the pillow. The pillow itself is very much crumpled, and has been flung to a distance of six feet from the bed.”

  “He argues, the chatterbox! We had better go into the garden. You had better look in the garden instead of rummaging about here.… I can do that without your help.”

  When they went out into the garden their first task was the inspection of the grass. The grass had been trampled down under the windows. The clump of burdock against the wall under the window turned out to have been trodden on too. Dyukovsky succeeded in finding on it some broken shoots, and a little bit of wadding. On the topmost burrs, some fine threads of dark blue wool were found.

  “What was the colour of his last suit?” Dyukovsky asked Psyekov.

  “It was yellow, made of canvas.”

  “Capital! Then it was they who were in dark blue.…”

  Some of the burrs were cut off and carefully wrapped up in paper. At that moment Artsybashev-Svistakovsky, the police captain, and Tyutyuev, the doctor, arrived. The police captain greeted the others, and at once proceeded to satisfy his curiosity; the doctor, a tall and extremely lean man with sunken eyes, a long nose, and a sharp chin, greeting no one and asking no questions, sat down on a stump, heaved a sigh and said:

  “The Serbians are in a turmoil again! I can’t make out what they want! Ah, Austria, Austria! It’s your doing!”

  The inspection of the window from outside yielded absolutely no result; the inspection of the grass and surrounding bushes furnished many valuable clues. Dyukovsky succeeded, for instance, in detecting a long, dark streak in the grass, consisting of stains, and stretching from the window for a good many yards into the garden. The streak ended under one of the lilac bushes in a big, brownish stain. Under the same bush was found a boot, which turned out to be the fellow to the one found in the bedroom.

  “This is an old stain of blood,” said Dyukovsky, examining the stain.

  At the word “blood,” the doctor got up and lazily took a cursory glance at the stain.

  “Yes, it’s blood,” he muttered.

  “Then he wasn’t strangled since there’s blood,” said Tchubikov, looking malignantly at Dyukovsky.

  “He was strangled in the bedroom, and here, afraid he would come to, they stabbed him with something sharp. The stain under the bush shows that he lay there for a comparatively long time, while they were trying to find some way of carrying him, or something to carry him on out of the garden.”

  “Well, and the boot?”

  “That boot bears out my contention that he was murdered while he was taking off his boots before going to bed. He had taken off one boot, the other, that is, this boot he had only managed to get half off. While he was being dragged and shaken the boot that was only half on came off of itself.…”

  “What powers of deduction! Just look at him!” Tchubikov jeered. “He brings it all out so pat! And when will you learn not to put your theories forward? You had better take a little of the grass for analysis instead of arguing!”

  After making the inspection and taking a plan of the locality they went off to the steward’s to write a report and have lunch. At lunch they talked.

  “Watch, money, and everything else … are untouched,” Tchubikov began the conversation. “It is as clear as twice two makes four that the murder was committed not for mercenary motives.”

  “It was committed by a man of the educated class,” Dyukovsky put i
n.

  “From what do you draw that conclusion?”

  “I base it on the Swedish match which the peasants about here have not learned to use yet. Such matches are only used by landowners and not by all of them. He was murdered, by the way, not by one but by three, at least: two held him while the third strangled him. Klyauzov was strong and the murderers must have known that.”

  “What use would his strength be to him, supposing he were asleep?”

  “The murderers came upon him as he was taking off his boots. He was taking off his boots, so he was not asleep.”

  “It’s no good making things up! You had better eat your lunch!”

  “To my thinking, your honour,” said Yefrem, the gardener, as he set the samovar on the table, “this vile deed was the work of no other than Nikolashka.”

  “Quite possible,” said Psyekov.

  “Who’s this Nikolashka?”

  “The master’s valet, your honour,” answered Yefrem. “Who else should it be if not he? He’s a ruffian, your honour! A drunkard, and such a dissipated fellow! May the Queen of Heaven never bring the like again! He always used to fetch vodka for the master, he always used to put the master to bed.… Who should it be if not he? And what’s more, I venture to bring to your notice, your honour, he boasted once in a tavern, the rascal, that he would murder his master. It’s all on account of Akulka, on account of a woman.… He had a soldier’s wife.… The master took a fancy to her and got intimate with her, and he … was angered by it, to be sure. He’s lolling about in the kitchen now, drunk. He’s crying … making out he is grieving over the master.…”

  “And anyone might be angry over Akulka, certainly,” said Psyekov. “She is a soldier’s wife, a peasant woman, but … Mark Ivanitch might well call her Nana. There is something in her that does suggest Nana … fascinating …”

  “I have seen her … I know …” said the examining magistrate, blowing his nose in a red handkerchief.

  Dyukovsky blushed and dropped his eyes. The police superintendent drummed on his saucer with his fingers. The police captain coughed and rummaged in his portfolio for something. On the doctor alone the mention of Akulka and Nana appeared to produce no impression. Tchubikov ordered Nikolashka to be fetched. Nikolashka, a lanky young man with a long pock-marked nose and a hollow chest, wearing a reefer jacket that had been his master’s, came into Psyekov’s room and bowed down to the ground before Tchubikov. His face looked sleepy and showed traces of tears. He was drunk and could hardly stand up.

  “Where is your master?” Tchubikov asked him.

  “He’s murdered, your honour.”

  As he said this Nikolashka blinked and began to cry.

  “We know that he is murdered. But where is he now? Where is his body?”

  “They say it was dragged out of window and buried in the garden.”

  “H’m … the results of the investigation are already known in the kitchen then.… That’s bad. My good fellow, where were you on the night when your master was killed? On Saturday, that is?”

  Nikolashka raised his head, craned his neck, and pondered.

  “I can’t say, your honour,” he said. “I was drunk and I don’t remember.”

  “An alibi!” whispered Dyukovsky, grinning and rubbing his hands.

  “Ah! And why is it there’s blood under your master’s window!”

  Nikolashka flung up his head and pondered.

  “Think a little quicker,” said the police captain.

  “In a minute. That blood’s from a trifling matter, your honour. I killed a hen; I cut her throat very simply in the usual way, and she fluttered out of my hands and took and ran off.… That’s what the blood’s from.”

  Yefrem testified that Nikolashka really did kill a hen every evening and killed it in all sorts of places, and no one had seen the half-killed hen running about the garden, though of course it could not be positively denied that it had done so.

  “An alibi,” laughed Dyukovsky, “and what an idiotic alibi.”

  “Have you had relations with Akulka?”

  “Yes, I have sinned.”

  “And your master carried her off from you?”

  “No, not at all. It was this gentleman here, Mr. Psyekov, Ivan Mihalitch, who enticed her from me, and the master took her from Ivan Mihalitch. That’s how it was.”

  Psyekov looked confused and began rubbing his left eye. Dyukovsky fastened his eyes upon him, detected his confusion, and started. He saw on the steward’s legs dark blue trousers which he had not previously noticed. The trousers reminded him of the blue threads found on the burdock. Tchubikov in his turn glanced suspiciously at Psyekov.

  “You can go!” he said to Nikolashka.“And now allow me to put one question to you, Mr. Psyekov. You were here, of course, on the Saturday of last week?”

  “Yes, at ten o’clock I had supper with Mark Ivanitch.”

  “And afterwards?”

  Psyekov was confused, and got up from the table.

  “Afterwards … afterwards … I really don’t remember,” he muttered. “I had drunk a good deal on that occasion.… I can’t remember where and when I went to bed.… Why do you all look at me like that? As though I had murdered him!”

  “Where did you wake up?”

  “I woke up in the servants’ kitchen on the stove.… They can all confirm that. How I got on to the stove I can’t say.…”

  “Don’t disturb yourself … Do you know Akulina?”

  “Oh well, not particularly.”

  “Did she leave you for Klyauzov?”

  “Yes.… Yefrem, bring some more mushrooms! Will you have some tea, Yevgraf Kuzmitch?”

  There followed an oppressive, painful silence that lasted for some five minutes. Dyukovsky held his tongue, and kept his piercing eyes on Psyekov’s face, which gradually turned pale. The silence was broken by Tchubikov.

  “We must go to the big house,” he said, “and speak to the deceased’s sister, Marya Ivanovna. She may give us some evidence.”

  Tchubikov and his assistant thanked Psyekov for the lunch, then went off to the big house. They found Klyauzov’s sister, a maiden lady of five and forty, on her knees before a high family shrine of ikons. When she saw portfolios and caps adorned with cockades in her visitors’ hands, she turned pale.

  “First of all, I must offer an apology for disturbing your devotions, so to say,” the gallant Tchubikov began with a scrape. “We have come to you with a request. You have heard, of course, already.… There is a suspicion that your brother has somehow been murdered. God’s will, you know.… Death no one can escape, neither Tsar nor ploughman. Can you not assist us with some fact, something that will throw light?”

  “Oh, do not ask me!” said Marya Ivanovna, turning whiter still, and hiding her face in her hands. “I can tell you nothing! Nothing! I implore you! I can say nothing … What can I do? Oh, no, no … not a word … of my brother! I would rather die than speak!”

  Marya Ivanovna burst into tears and went away into another room. The officials looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and beat a retreat.

  “A devil of a woman!” said Dyukovsky, swearing as they went out of the big house. “Apparently she knows something and is concealing it. And there is something peculiar in the maid-servant’s expression too.… You wait a bit, you devils! We will get to the bottom of it all!”

  In the evening, Tchubikov and his assistant were driving home by the light of a pale-faced moon; they sat in their waggonette, summing up in their minds the incidents of the day. Both were exhausted and sat silent. Tchubikov never liked talking on the road. In spite of his talkativeness, Dyukovsky held his tongue in deference to the old man. Towards the end of the journey, however, the young man could endure the silence no longer, and began:

  “That Nikolashka has had a hand in the business,” he said, “non dubitandum est. One can see from his mug too what sort of a chap he is.… His alibi gives him away hand and foot. There is no doubt either that he was not the ins
tigator of the crime. He was only the stupid hired tool. Do you agree? The discreet Psyekov plays a not unimportant part in the affair too. His blue trousers, his embarrassment, his lying on the stove from fright after the murder, his alibi, and Akulka.”

  “Keep it up, you’re in your glory! According to you, if a man knows Akulka he is the murderer. Ah, you hot-head! You ought to be sucking your bottle instead of investigating cases! You used to be running after Akulka too, does that mean that you had a hand in this business?”

  “Akulka was a cook in your house for a month, too, but … I don’t say anything. On that Saturday night I was playing cards with you, I saw you, or I should be after you too. The woman is not the point, my good sir. The point is the nasty, disgusting, mean feeling.… The discreet young man did not like to be cut out, do you see. Vanity, do you see.… He longed to be revenged. Then … His thick lips are a strong indication of sensuality. Do you remember how he smacked his lips when he compared Akulka to Nana? That he is burning with passion, the scoundrel, is beyond doubt! And so you have wounded vanity and unsatisfied passion. That’s enough to lead to murder. Two of them are in our hands, but who is the third? Nikolashka and Psyekov held him. Who was it smothered him? Psyekov is timid, easily embarrassed, altogether a coward. People like Nikolashka are not equal to smothering with a pillow, they set to work with an axe or a mallet.… Some third person must have smothered him, but who?”

  Dyukovsky pulled his cap over his eyes, and pondered. He was silent till the waggonette had driven up to the examining magistrate’s house.

  “Eureka!” he said, as he went into the house, and took off his overcoat. “Eureka, NikolayYermolaitch! I can’t understand how it is it didn’t occur to me before. Do you know who the third is?”

  “Do leave off, please! There’s supper ready. Sit down to supper!”

  Tchubikov and Dyukovsky sat down to supper. Dyukovsky poured himself out a wine-glassful of vodka, got up, stretched, and with sparkling eyes, said:

  “Let me tell you then that the third person who collaborated with the scoundrel Psyekov and smothered him was a woman! Yes! I am speaking of the murdered man’s sister, Marya Ivanovna!”