by Otto Penzler
“In the bedchamber of the Countess. She is dead,” was the calm reply.
“My God! What are you saying?” cried the girl.
“Furthermore, I believe that I was the cause of her death.”
The words of Tomsky flashed through Lisa’s mind.
Herman sat down and told her all. She listened with a feeling of terror and disgust. So those passionate letters, that audacious pursuit were not the result of tenderness and love. It was money that he desired. The poor girl felt that she had in a sense been an accomplice in the death of her benefactress. She began to weep bitterly. Herman regarded her in silence.
“You are a monster!” exclaimed Lisa, drying her eyes.
“I didn’t intend to kill her; the pistol was not even loaded.”
“How are you going to get out of the house?” inquired Lisa. “It is nearly daylight. I intended to show you the way to a secret staircase, while the Countess was asleep, as we would have to cross her chamber. Now I am afraid to do so.”
“Direct me, and I will find the way alone,” replied Herman.
She gave him minute instructions and a key with which to open the street door. The young man pressed the cold, inert hand, then went out.
The death of the Countess had surprised no one, as it had long been expected. Her funeral was attended by every one of note in the vicinity. Herman mingled with the throng without attracting any especial attention. After all the friends had taken their last look at the dead face, the young man approached the bier. He prostrated himself on the cold floor, and remained motionless for a long time. He rose at last with a face almost as pale as that of the corpse itself, and went up the steps to look into the casket. As he looked down it seemed to him that the rigid face returned his glance mockingly, closing one eye. He turned abruptly away, made a false step, and fell to the floor. He was picked up, and, at the same moment, Lisaveta was carried out in a faint.
Herman did not recover his usual composure during the entire day. He dined alone at an out-of-the-way restaurant, and drank a great deal, in the hope of stifling his emotion. The wine only served to stimulate his imagination. He returned home and threw himself down on his bed without undressing.
During the night he awoke with a start; the moon shone into his chamber, making everything plainly visible. Some one looked in at the window, then quickly disappeared. He paid no attention to this, but soon he heard the vestibule door open. He thought it was his orderly, returning late, drunk as usual. The step was an unfamiliar one, and he heard the shuffling sound of loose slippers.
The door of his room opened, and a woman in white entered. She came close to the bed, and the terrified man recognized the Countess.
“I have come to you against my will,” she said abruptly; “but I was commanded to grant your request. The trey, seven, and ace in succession are the magic cards. Twenty-four hours must elapse between the use of each card, and after the three have been used you must never play again.”
The fantom then turned and walked away. Herman heard the outside door close, and again saw the form pass the window.
He rose and went out into the hall, where his orderly lay asleep on the floor. The door was closed. Finding no trace of a visitor, he returned to his room, lit his candle, and wrote down what he had just heard.
Two fixed ideas cannot exist in the brain at the same time any more than two bodies can occupy the same point in space. The trey, seven, and ace soon chased away the thoughts of the dead woman, and all other thoughts from the brain of the young officer. All his ideas merged into a single one: how to turn to advantage the secret paid for so dearly. He even thought of resigning his commission and going to Paris to force a fortune from conquered fate. Chance rescued him from his embarrassment.
Tchekalinsky, a man who had passed his whole life at cards, opened a club at St. Petersburg. His long experience secured for him the confidence of his companions, and his hospitality and genial humor conciliated society.
The gilded youth flocked around him, neglecting society, preferring the charms of faro to those of their sweethearts. Naroumov invited Herman to accompany him to the club, and the young man accepted the invitation only too willingly.
The two officers found the apartments full. Generals and statesmen played whist; young men lounged on sofas, eating ices or smoking. In the principal salon stood a long table, at which about twenty men sat playing faro, the host of the establishment being the banker.
He was a man of about sixty, gray-haired and respectable. His ruddy face shone with genial humor; his eyes sparkled and a constant smile hovered around his lips.
Naroumov presented Herman. The host gave him a cordial handshake, begged him not to stand upon ceremony, and returned, to his dealing. More than thirty cards were already on the table. Tchekalinsky paused after each coup, to allow the punters time to recognize their gains or losses, politely answering all questions and constantly smiling.
After the deal was over, the cards were shuffled and the game began again.
“Permit me to choose a card,” said Herman, stretching out his hand over the head of a portly gentleman, to reach a livret. The banker bowed without replying.
Herman chose a card, and wrote the amount of his stake upon it with a piece of chalk.
“How much is that?” asked the banker; “excuse me, sir, but I do not see well.”
“Forty thousand rubles,” said Herman coolly.
All eyes were instantly turned upon the speaker.
“He has lost his wits,” thought Naroumov.
“Allow me to observe,” said Tchekalinsky, with his eternal smile, “that your stake is excessive.”
“What of it?” replied Herman, nettled. “Do you accept it or not?”
The banker nodded in assent. “I have only to remind you that the cash will be necessary; of course your word is good, but in order to keep the confidence of my patrons, I prefer the ready money.”
Herman took a bank-check from his pocket and handed it to his host. The latter examined it attentively, then laid it on the card chosen.
He began dealing: to the right, a nine; to the left, a trey.
“The trey wins,” said Herman, showing the card he held—a trey.
A murmur ran through the crowd. Tchekalinsky frowned for a second only, then his smile returned. He took a roll of bank-bills from his pocket and counted out the required sum. Herman received it and at once left the table.
The next evening saw him at the place again. Every one eyed him curiously, and Tchekalinsky greeted him cordially.
He selected his card and placed upon it his fresh stake. The banker began dealing: to the right, a nine; to the left, a seven.
Herman then showed his card—a seven spot. The onlookers exclaimed, and the host was visibly disturbed. He counted out ninety-four-thousand rubles and passed them to Herman, who accepted them without showing the least surprise, and at once withdrew.
The following evening he went again. His appearance was the signal for the cessation of all occupation, every one being eager to watch the developments of events. He selected his card—an ace.
The dealing began: to the right, a queen; to the left, an ace.
“The ace wins,” remarked Herman, turning up his card without glancing at it.
“Your queen is killed,” remarked Tchekalinsky quietly.
Herman trembled; looking down, he saw, not the ace he had selected, but the queen of spades. He could scarcely believe his eyes. It seemed impossible that he could have made such a mistake. As he stared at the card it seemed to him that the queen winked one eye at him mockingly.
“The old woman!” he exclaimed involuntarily.
The croupier raked in the money while he looked on in stupid terror. When he left the table, all made way for him to pass; the cards were shuffled, and the gambling went on.
Herman became a lunatic. He was confined at the hospital at Oboukov, where he spoke to no one, but kept constantly murmuring in a monotonous tone: “The trey, sev
en, ace! The trey, seven, queen!”
LEV SHEININ
THE HUNTING KNIFE
Writing was only a secondary career for Lev Romanovich Sheinin (1906–1967) who, at the age of seventeen, was appointed by the Communist Party to be a Regional Court Investigator. Later, he was trained in Criminal, Legal, Civil and Labor Codes, becoming a leading criminologist in the Soviet Union. In the 1930s, he was a prosecutor and aide to the notorious State Prosecutor Andrei Y. Vyshinsky, who conducted most of the purge trials for Josef Stalin in the 1930s. These infamous trials convicted hundreds of thousands of people on transparently trumped-up charges, facilitating the spread of the Great Terror.
Born in Belarus, Sheinin had been studying to be a writer when, with no legal education of any kind, he began his criminal career, which culminated, late in life, with a position as senior criminologist for the NKVD, the state public (and secret) police force which was the predecessor of the KGB. His experiences were later published as fictional accounts in Pravda, Izvestia and various Soviet magazines, then collected in Diary of a Criminologist, published in Moscow in 1956. He also wrote The People’s Court in the U.S.S.R., published in Moscow in 1957, a sympathetic view of the court system in the Soviet Union.
“The Hunting Knife” was first published in a Russian periodical, then collected in Diary of a Criminologist; it was first translated into English and published in the July 1965 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
The papers were finally signed and there it stood, black on white, that A. Burov, Professor of Zoology, and his assistant Voronov were being sent to Kolguyev Island in the Barents Sea to conduct scientific research for one year.
Their colleagues at the University read the notice and laughed. The teachers and students knew only too well that the Professor and his assistant could not bear the sight of each other. The news that these two were to be sent to a deserted island for a year, where they would be thrown together twenty-four hours a day, prompted shrugs and smiles. Some said it had been done on purpose—a scheme to cool their tempers with the harsh climate.
“They’ll come back friends,” they said. “Just you wait and see—they’ll be the best of pals.”
But the two most surprised by the news were the men involved. It became known at the University that the Professor had spent a sleepless night when he discovered the name of his companion for the winter. And Voronov was no less upset.
Still, orders were orders, and several weeks later the two men set out for an island in the far-off Barents Sea, where they were to spend a long Arctic year together.
Their first letters arrived a month later. They wrote of their first impressions, the details of their journey, and their plans for the future.
“Everything would be fine,” read the Professor’s letter, “if not for the constant presence of this character, who definitely qualifies as a subject for scientific study by any zoologist. This young man continues to get on my nerves. Being here and unfortunately having to see him constantly, I am once again convinced that my original dislike of him was well founded.”
Voronov, in turn, complained of “the absolute intolerance of the old grouch and the torture of being with him, day in and day out.”
At the University they read the letters, chuckled, and wondered at the stubbornness of these two men in their indefatigable dislike of each other.
The other Professors argued about how long the groundless feud would last. The optimists said both would finally make up and even come to like each other; the pessimists contended it would be just the opposite. Several bets were made, and two quarrels broke out.
A month later, however, a brief telegram from Kolguyev Island informed the University that Professor Burov had been murdered by Assistant Professor Voronov.
The special investigator assigned to the case began by looking for a means of reaching the island. Meteorological conditions, unfortunately, made the journey impossible at that time of the year.
The investigator then radioed instructions to the Captain of an icebreaker cruising near the island. The Captain was to deliver the frozen corpse to Moscow, to interrogate the witnesses—if there were any—and to search the scene of the crime thoroughly. Voronov was to be brought to Moscow with all due precautions.
Three weeks later, the Captain delivered to the special investigator’s office a man in his thirties with a lost and frightened expression—the chief, and only suspect, Assistant Professor Voronov.
“Please be seated,” the detective said, looking Voronov over with cold curiosity.
“Thank you,” Voronov answered quietly.
The detective had carefully studied the records of Voronov’s past. In his thirty-two years, Voronov had lived honestly until the day he killed Burov. Voronov was undoubtedly a talented scientist. He had written several scientific papers and was firmly on the road to professional acclaim.
The questioning began.
“What in God’s name made you murder the Professor?” the detective, usually a calm and self-controlled man, exclaimed.
Voronov shrugged helplessly.
“You see,” he said in an apologetic, hesitant voice, “you see—well, the thing is, I didn’t murder him.”
“But he was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Was there anyone at the scene of the crime except the two of you?”
“No, only the two of us. No one else was there—no one else could possibly have been there.”
“In that case I can’t see why you don’t confess. You’ll have to agree that if only two people are together and one of them is murdered, the murderer—”
“—must be the other,” Voronov finished the sentence. “It’s undoubtedly so. But I did not kill him. The terrible thing is that I realize the utter hopelessness of my situation. I have no chance in the world to defend myself. Of course, I’ve been—what is it you call it?—caught red-handed. If I were in your shoes, I’d never have a moment’s doubt. I understand. I’m prepared for the worst—for the very worst. But I did not kill him.”
And Voronov began to weep. He sobbed as strangely as he had spoken. This tall calm, cultured man wept like a child, helplessly, without anger, and touchingly. He did not at all intend his tears to move his interrogator. On the other hand, he made no attempt to hide them. He wept as simply as he had spoken, and just as unaffectedly.
“Pull yourself together,” the detective said gruffly. “If you murdered him—and everything points to that—it’s best to confess. If you did not, then defend yourself. Refute my arguments, explain your actions, present your side of the story.”
Voronov’s guilt seemed too obvious, too incontrovertible. All the evidence pointed to the fact that Burov had been murdered by Voronov and no one else. But to the investigator’s amazement, Voronov, far from trying to defend himself, provided additional and extremely incriminating information without the slightest prompting. While continuing to deny his guilt, he went on hurriedly to disclose new circumstances, new facts, all piling up further evidence against him.
“When we came to the island,” he said, “our animosity grew sharper. We tried to keep our emotions in check, but our hatred of each other entered every word, look, and gesture. It was very difficult to keep oneself always in control, and that, unfortunately, did nothing to help the situation. Professor Burov couldn’t stand the sight of me, and I felt the same way about him. To tell you the truth, there were moments when I had half a mind to strike him, even to kill him. These thoughts began to torment me. They even found their way into my diary. I’ve brought it along. Here, read it.”
With these words Voronov handed the detective a large notebook. True enough, among other entries were those which showed that more and more often Voronov had kept playing with the thought of killing Professor Burov.
“I really don’t know,” he continued, “but perhaps in the end I might actually have killed the Professor. Perhaps! But I did not kill him. This is what happened.
“That morning we decid
ed to go duck hunting on a small lake in the center of the island. We went there by dogsled. Our driver was a Nenets named Vasya. Halfway there the sled broke down. We had about two miles to go, so we decided to continue on foot, while Vasya stayed behind to fix the sled.
“We arrived at the lake and began shooting. Then the ducks swam off to the far shore. I suggested that the Professor remain where he was while I went round to the other side to shoot from there. He agreed, and I set off for the opposite shore.
“I had a clear view of the Professor as he stood all alone on the other side of the lake, not far away. There was no one near him, and no one could have been. Of this I was sure. Then a shot rang out from the area where he was standing. I saw him jerk strangely and fall, and I ran back to him, wondering what had happened.
“When I reached him, the Professor was still alive, but unconscious. A hunting knife was plunged into his left eye to the very hilt. His rifle lay beside him.
“I lost my head, not knowing what to do for the unfortunate man. I tried to pull the knife from his eye, but could not—it had been driven in with great force. Then I ran back to where we had left the sled. Vasya was just finishing his repairs. I told him there had been a terrible accident. By the time we reached the lake, the Professor was dead. We took his body to camp, where we finally managed to get the knife out of the eye with great difficulty. That’s all.”
Voronov lit a cigarette, inhaling hungrily. After a brief pause he spoke again.
“So you see, it’s hard for me to defend myself. I’m intelligent enough to see that everything in this case points to my guilt. In fact, I may even stand a better chance in court—for clemency—by confessing, by making a clean breast of it and sincerely repenting my crime. Yet I cannot do that. I did not kill him. I did not commit murder, although I can’t prove my innocence. I have only one request before you arrest me. These letters are from my fiancee, and this is a letter I’ve written to her. Will you please send them to her?”