The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense

by Otto Penzler

  Tchubikov coughed over his vodka and fastened his eyes on Dyukovsky.

  “Are you … not quite right? Is your head … not quite right? Does it ache?”

  “I am quite well. Very good, suppose I have gone out of my mind, but how do you explain her confusion on our arrival? How do you explain her refusal to give information? Admitting that that is trivial—very good! All right!—but think of the terms they were on! She detested her brother! She is an Old Believer, he was a profligate, a godless fellow … that is what has bred hatred between them! They say he succeeded in persuading her that he was an angel of Satan! He used to practise spiritualism in her presence!”

  “Well, what then?”

  “Don’t you understand? She’s an Old Believer, she murdered him through fanaticism! She has not merely slain a wicked man, a profligate, she has freed the world from Antichrist—and that she fancies is her merit, her religious achievement! Ah, you don’t know these old maids, these Old Believers! You should read Dostoevsky! And what does Lyeskov say … and Petchersky! It’s she, it’s she, I’ll stake my life on it. She smothered him! Oh, the fiendish woman! Wasn’t she, perhaps, standing before the ikons when we went in to put us off the scent? ‘I’ll stand up and say my prayers,’ she said to herself, ‘they will think I am calm and don’t expect them.’ That’s the method of all novices in crime. Dear Nikolay Yermolaitch! My dear man! Do hand this case over to me! Let me go through with it to the end! My dear fellow! I have begun it, and I will carry it through to the end.”

  Tchubikov shook his head and frowned.

  “I am equal to sifting difficult cases myself,” he said. “And it’s your place not to put yourself forward. Write what is dictated to you, that is your business!”

  Dyukovsky flushed crimson, walked out, and slammed the door.

  “A clever fellow, the rogue,” Tchubikov muttered, looking after him. “Ve-ery clever! Only inappropriately hasty. I shall have to buy him a cigar-case at the fair for a present.”

  Next morning a lad with a big head and a hare lip came from Klyauzovka. He gave his name as the shepherd Danilko, and furnished a very interesting piece of information.

  “I had had a drop,” said he. “I stayed on till midnight at my crony’s. As I was going home, being drunk, I got into the river for a bathe. I was bathing and what do I see! Two men coming along the dam carrying something black. ‘Tyoo!’ I shouted at them. They were scared, and cut along as fast as they could go into the Makarev kitchen-gardens. Strike me dead, if it wasn’t the master they were carrying!”

  Towards evening of the same day Psyekov and Nikolashka were arrested and taken under guard to the district town. In the town they were put in the prison tower.

  II

  Twelve days passed.

  It was morning. The examining magistrate, Nikolay Yermolaitch, was sitting at a green table at home, looking through the papers, relating to the “Klyauzov case”; Dyukovsky was pacing up and down the room restlessly, like a wolf in a cage.

  “You are convinced of the guilt of Nikolashka and Psyekov,” he said, nervously pulling at his youthful beard. “Why is it you refuse to be convinced of the guilt of Marya Ivanovna? Haven’t you evidence enough?”

  “I don’t say that I don’t believe in it. I am convinced of it, but somehow I can’t believe it.… There is no real evidence. It’s all theoretical, as it were.… Fanaticism and one thing and another.…”

  “And you must have an axe and bloodstained sheets! … You lawyers! Well, I will prove it to you then! Do give up your slip-shod attitude to the psychological aspect of the case. Your Marya Ivanovna ought to be in Siberia! I’ll prove it. If theoretical proof is not enough for you, I have something material.… It will show you how right my theory is! Only let me go about a little!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Swedish match! Have you forgotten? I haven’t forgotten it! I’ll find out who struck it in the murdered man’s room! It was not struck by Nikolashka, nor by Psyekov, neither of whom turned out to have matches when searched, but a third person, that is Marya Ivanovna. And I will prove it! … Only let me drive about the district, make some inquiries.…”

  “Oh, very well, sit down.… Let us proceed to the examination.”

  Dyukovsky sat down to the table, and thrust his long nose into the papers.

  “Bring in Nikolay Tetchov!” cried the examining magistrate.

  Nikolashka was brought in. He was pale and thin as a chip. He was trembling.

  “Tetchov!” began Tchubikov. “In 1879 you were convicted of theft and condemned to a term of imprisonment. In 1882 you were condemned for theft a second time, and a second time sent to prison … We know all about it.…”

  A look of surprise came up into Nikolashka’s face. The examining magistrate’s omniscience amazed him, but soon wonder was replaced by an expression of extreme distress. He broke into sobs, and asked leave to go to wash, and calm himself. He was led out.

  “Bring in Psyekov!” said the examining magistrate.

  Psyekov was led in. The young man’s face had greatly changed during those twelve days. He was thin, pale, and wasted. There was a look of apathy in his eyes.

  “Sit down, Psyekov,” said Tchubikov. “I hope that to-day you will be sensible and not persist in lying as on other occasions. All this time you have denied your participation in the murder of Klyauzov, in spite of the mass of evidence against you. It is senseless. Confession is some mitigation of guilt. To-day I am talking to you for the last time. If you don’t confess to-day, to-morrow it will be too late. Come, tell us.…”

  “I know nothing, and I don’t know your evidence,” whispered Psyekov.

  “That’s useless! Well then, allow me to tell you how it happened. On Saturday evening, you were sitting in Klyauzov’s bedroom drinking vodka and beer with him.” (Dyukovsky riveted his eyes on Psyekov’s face, and did not remove them during the whole monologue.) “Nikolay was waiting upon you. Between twelve and one Mark Ivanitch told you he wanted to go to bed. He always did go to bed at that time. While he was taking off his boots and giving you some instructions regarding the estate, Nikolay and you at a given signal seized your intoxicated master and flung him back upon the bed. One of you sat on his feet, the other on his head. At that moment the lady, you know who, in a black dress, who had arranged with you beforehand the part she would take in the crime, came in from the passage. She picked up the pillow, and proceeded to smother him with it. During the struggle, the light went out. The woman took a box of Swedish matches out of her pocket and lighted the candle. Isn’t that right? I see from your face that what I say is true. Well, to proceed.… Having smothered him, and being convinced that he had ceased to breathe, Nikolay and you dragged him out of window and put him down near the burdocks. Afraid that he might regain consciousness, you struck him with something sharp. Then you carried him, and laid him for some time under a lilac bush. After resting and considering a little, you carried him … lifted him over the hurdle.… Then went along the road … Then comes the dam; near the dam you were frightened by a peasant. But what is the matter with you?”

  Psyekov, white as a sheet, got up, staggering.

  “I am suffocating!” he said. “Very well.… So be it.… Only I must go.… Please.”

  Psyekov was led out.

  “At last he has admitted it!” said Tchubikov, stretching at his ease.” He has given himself away! How neatly I caught him there.”

  “And he didn’t deny the woman in black!” said Dyukovsky, laughing. “I am awfully worried over that Swedish match, though! I can’t endure it any longer. Good-bye! I am going!”

  Dyukovsky put on his cap and went off. Tchubikov began interrogating Akulka.

  Akulka declared that she knew nothing about it.…

  “I have lived with you and with nobody else!” she said.

  At six o’clock in the evening Dyukovsky returned. He was more excited than ever. His hands trembled so much that he could not unbutton his o
vercoat. His cheeks were burning. It was evident that he had not come back without news.

  “Veni, vidi, vici!” he cried, dashing into Tchubikov’s room and sinking into an arm-chair. “I vow on my honour, I begin to believe in my own genius. Listen, damnation take us! Listen and wonder, old friend! It’s comic and it’s sad. You have three in your grasp already … haven’t you? I have found a fourth murderer, or rather murderess, for it is a woman! And what a woman! I would have given ten years of my life merely to touch her shoulders. But … listen. I drove to Klyauzovka and proceeded to describe a spiral round it. On the way I visited all the shopkeepers and innkeepers, asking for Swedish matches. Everywhere I was told ‘No.’ I have been on my round up to now. Twenty times I lost hope, and as many times regained it. I have been on the go all day long, and only an hour ago came upon what I was looking for. A couple of miles from here they gave me a packet of a dozen boxes of matches. One box was missing … I asked at once: ‘Who bought that box?’ ‘So-and-so. She took a fancy to them … They crackle.’ My dear fellow! Nikolay Yermolaitch! What can sometimes be done by a man who has been expelled from a seminary and studied Gaboriau is beyond all conception! From to-day I shall began to respect myself! … Ough.… Well, let us go!”

  “Go where?”

  “To her, to the fourth.… We must make haste, or … I shall explode with impatience! Do you know who she is? You will never guess. The young wife of our old police superintendent, Yevgraf Kuzmitch, Olga Petrovna; that’s who it is! She bought that box of matches!”

  “You … you.… Are you out of your mind?”

  “It’s very natural! In the first place she smokes, and in the second she was head over ears in love with Klyauzov. He rejected her love for the sake of an Akulka. Revenge. I remember now, I once came upon them behind the screen in the kitchen. She was cursing him, while he was smoking her cigarette and puffing the smoke into her face. But do come along; make haste, for it is getting dark already.… Let us go!”

  “I have not gone so completely crazy yet as to disturb a respectable, honourable woman at night for the sake of a wretched boy!”

  “Honourable, respectable.… You are a rag then, not an examining magistrate! I have never ventured to abuse you, but now you force me to it! You rag! you old fogey! Come, dear Nikolay Yermolaitch, I entreat you!”

  The examining magistrate waved his hand in refusal and spat in disgust.

  “I beg you! I beg you, not for my own sake, but in the interests of justice! I beseech you, indeed! Do me a favour, if only for once in your life!”

  Dyukovsky fell on his knees.

  “Nikolay Yermolaitch, do be so good! Call me a scoundrel, a worthless wretch if I am in error about that woman! It is such a case, you know! It is a case! More like a novel than a case. The fame of it will be all over Russia. They will make you examining magistrate for particularly important cases! Do understand, you unreasonable old man!”

  The examining magistrate frowned and irresolutely put out his hand towards his hat.

  “Well, the devil take you!” he said, “let us go.”

  It was already dark when the examining magistrate’s waggonette rolled up to the police superintendent’s door.

  “What brutes we are!” said Tchubikov, as he reached for the bell. “We are disturbing people.”

  “Never mind, never mind, don’t be frightened. We will say that one of the springs has broken.”

  Tchubikov and Dyukovsky were met in the doorway by a tall, plump woman of three and twenty, with eyebrows as black as pitch and full red lips. It was Olga Petrovna herself.

  “Ah, how very nice,” she said, smiling all over her face. “You are just in time for supper. My Yevgraf Kuzmitch is not at home.… He is staying at the priest’s. But we can get on without him. Sit down. Have you come from an inquiry?”

  “Yes.… We have broken one of our springs, you know,” began Tchubikov, going into the drawing-room and sitting down in an easy-chair.

  “Take her by surprise at once and overwhelm her,” Dyukovsky whispered to him.

  “A spring … er … yes.… We just drove up.…”

  “Overwhelm her, I tell you! She will guess if you go drawing it out.”

  “Oh, do as you like, but spare me,” muttered Tchubikov, getting up and walking to the window. “I can’t! You cooked the mess, you eat it!”

  “Yes, the spring,” Dyukovsky began, going up to the superintendent’s wife and wrinkling his long nose. “We have not come in to … er-er-er … supper, nor to see Yevgraf Kuzmitch. We have come to ask you, madam, where is Mark Ivanovitch whom you have murdered?”

  “What? What Mark Ivanovitch?” faltered the superintendent’s wife, and her full face was suddenly in one instant suffused with crimson. “I … don’t understand.”

  “I ask you in the name of the law! Where is Klyauzov? We know all about it!”

  “Through whom?” the superintendent’s wife asked slowly, unable to face Dyukovsky’s eyes.

  “Kindly inform us where he is!”

  “But how did you find out? Who told you?”

  “We know all about it. I insist in the name of the law.”

  The examining magistrate, encouraged by the lady’s confusion, went up to her.

  “Tell us and we will go away. Otherwise we …”

  “What do you want with him?”

  “What is the object of such questions, madam? We ask you for information. You are trembling, confused.… Yes, he has been murdered, and if you will have it, murdered by you! Your accomplices have betrayed you!”

  The police superintendent’s wife turned pale.

  “Come along,” she said quietly, wringing her hands. “He is hidden in the bath-house. Only for God’s sake, don’t tell my husband! I implore you! It would be too much for him.”

  The superintendent’s wife took a big key from the wall, and led her visitors through the kitchen and the passage into the yard. It was dark in the yard. There was a drizzle of fine rain. The superintendent’s wife went on ahead. Tchubikov and Dyukovsky strode after her through the long grass, breathing in the smell of wild hemp and slops, which made a squelching sound under their feet. It was a big yard. Soon there were no more pools of slops, and their feet felt ploughed land. In the darkness they saw the silhouette of trees, and among the trees a little house with a crooked chimney.

  “This is the bath-house,” said the superintendent’s wife, “but, I implore you, do not tell anyone.”

  Going up to the bath-house, Tchubikov and Dyukovsky saw a large padlock on the door.

  “Get ready your candle-end and matches,” Tchubikov whispered to his assistant.

  The superintendent’s wife unlocked the padlock and let the visitors into the bath-house. Dyukovsky struck a match and lighted up the entry. In the middle of it stood a table. On the table, beside a podgy little samovar, was a soup tureen with some cold cabbage-soup in it, and a dish with traces of some sauce on it.

  “Go on!”

  They went into the next room, the bathroom. There, too, was a table. On the table there stood a big dish of ham, a bottle of vodka, plates, knives and forks.

  “But where is he … where’s the murdered man?”

  “He is on the top shelf,” whispered the superintendent’s wife, turning paler than ever and trembling.

  Dyukovsky took the candle-end in his hand and climbed up to the upper shelf. There he saw a long, human body, lying motionless on a big feather bed. The body emitted a faint snore.…

  “They have made fools of us, damn it all!” Dyukovsky cried. “This is not he! It is some living blockhead lying here. Hi! who are you, damnation take you!”

  The body drew in its breath with a whistling sound and moved. Dyukovsky prodded it with his elbow. It lifted up its arms, stretched, and raised its head.

  “Who is that poking?” a hoarse, ponderous bass voice inquired. “What do you want?”

  Dyukovsky held the candle-end to the face of the unknown and uttered a shriek. In the crimso
n nose, in the ruffled, uncombed hair, in the pitch-black moustaches of which one was jauntily twisted and pointed insolently towards the ceiling, he recognised Cornet Klyauzov.

  “You.… Mark … Ivanitch! Impossible!”

  The examining magistrate looked up and was dumbfoundered.

  “It is I, yes.… And it’s you, Dyukovsky! What the devil do you want here? And whose ugly mug is that down there? Holy Saints, it’s the examining magistrate! How in the world did you come here?”

  Klyauzov hurriedly got down and embraced Tchubikov. Olga Petrovna whisked out of the door.

  “However did you come? Let’s have a drink!—dash it all! Tra-ta-ti-to-tom.… Let’s have a drink! Who brought you here, though? How did you get to know I was here? It doesn’t matter, though! Have a drink!”

  Klyauzov lighted the lamp and poured out three glasses of vodka.

  “The fact is, I don’t understand you,” said the examining magistrate, throwing out his hands. “Is it you, or not you?”

  “Stop that.… Do you want to give me a sermon? Don’t trouble yourself! Dyukovsky boy, drink up your vodka! Friends, let us pass the … What are you staring at …? Drink!”

  “All the same, I can’t understand,” said the examining magistrate, mechanically drinking his vodka. “Why are you here?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be here, if I am comfortable here?”

  Klyauzov sipped his vodka and ate some ham.

  “I am staying with the superintendent’s wife, as you see. In the wilds among the ruins, like some house goblin. Drink! I felt sorry for her, you know, old man! I took pity on her, and, well, I am living here in the deserted bath-house, like a hermit.… I am well fed. Next week I am thinking of moving on.… I’ve had enough of it.…”

  “Inconceivable!” said Dyukovsky.

  “What is there inconceivable in it?”

  “Inconceivable! For God’s sake, how did your boot get into the garden?”

  “What boot?”

  “We found one of your boots in the bedroom and the other in the garden.”